December Music Festival 2008 - Chennai

Come December and there is a great amount of buzz in Chennai Shabas. It is that time of the year when music flows non-stop in the city. The December Festival is truly a piece of tradition that still has strong roots in the city. Started by The Music Academy in chennai way back in 1929, it has indeed come a long way. For the informed, there are carnatic concerts all through the month till early January.

If you are into carnatic music (or even Bharatnatyam for that matter) then this is one festival that you cannot afford to miss. This is simply the best time to catch the who-is-who of the carnatic music in the city. People from all over the world travel to Chennai at this time of the year to get their share of carnatic music. The festival has a following and people even plan their personal trips to the city to coincide with the music festival.

If you need more information about the festival and the schedules, you can find them here. The following sites have a good compilation of all the concerts in the various sabhas.

KutcheriBuzz provides Sabha wise and artist wise categorization along with search.
This blog provides date wise information.

Information about the sabhas can be found here.

With lot of sabhas getting converted to marriage halls and cinema halls due to lack of patronage and with the rapid westernization that is going on, it is heartening to see that this music festival is still going on. I only hope that this festival and the tradition associated with it grows stronger in the years to come.

Let the "Kutcheri's" begin.

Ultimate Olympics!

Discovery channel is running a series called "Ultimate Olympics" every Monday at 9 PM IST. The program tells about the Beijing 2008 olympics and the preparations that are being done in Beijing for the games. Dubbed as the greatest sporting event in the planet, China has literally over-hauled Beijing for the games and its leaving no stones unturned to make the games a grand success. For the games, Beijing has got a new state of the art airport, an underground railway system that is one of the fastest in the world, art-inspired stadiums, sophisticated face-recognition systems for security and the much required greenery. The full city is under CCTV surveillance and lakhs of plants/trees are grown to control pollution in the city. There are tourist guide volunteers almost every where in the city and the Chinese govt has even arranged special English classes for them. The tourist guides say they chose to be volunteers as they are proud to be part of the games. With almost everything ready, China is now facing the last major obstacle in the form of pollution. The pollution in Beijing has come under severe criticism and the authorities are doing all they can to bring down the pollution level. All the industries in and around Beijing have scaled down their operations and there is also a temporary closure for 2 months for many of the industries. The vehicular pollution in Beijing is being drastically reduced for the games. China has reported, 'blue-sky' days of late, but we will have to wait and see if the pollution has actually come down to acceptable limits as the games begin.

The program also takes us into the training-centers in China, US, Australia etc. For the first time, we get to see how the athletes are preparing and getting ready for what is undoubtedly the-event-of-their-life. The preparation done by these athletes for the games is simply stunning. They have given their life for the games and use latest medical and computer technologies to improvise. Their preparation for the games is actually being called a "Science". Seeing the way they prepare for the games, it feels like our sportsmen are decades behind.

China as a country has been making rapid progress in all fields, and hosting the games seems like their way of saying to the world that "they have arrived".

Taare Zameen Par!!

No! I am not going to write another review on "Taare Zameen Par". There are enough written already and it has become a well established fact that Aamir has come out with of an excellent movie. Watched the movie in the cinemas and I have now become one among the 'many' who had moist eyes after the climax. I was literally crying when the boy got the prize. There are very few movies which have evoked such an emotional response from me and this one has a very special place among them.

Stories of men/women rising to their peak have always been inspirational. But what moved me most about the movie was not just how the boy rose from shambles, it was 'what an understanding teacher/parent could do to a child'. They can literally turn around the life of a child. In the current days where schooling has become very commercial, and the pressure on students to perform is very high, a film like this should definitely send a valuable point. Hope the parents and teachers take a lesson out of this movie and turn around the life of many children for the better! Let us not lose many such genius's due to lack of understanding.

Take the 25!

Take the 25! - Chances are you have come across this phrase already!! This is a pretty popular phrase that was used by the Comedian "Goundamani" in a tamil movie. Goundamani plays the role of a "strict" traffic constable in the movie. He is SO strict that he always gets "only" Rs 25/- as bribe..nothing more..nothing less! just Rs 25.

Not sure what he did with all the money he collected! but a group of us in my office think that we ve put Rs 25 to better use. Ya, we are trying in our own little way to make the world a better place to live. Now, that sounds like boasting too much about ourselves, but come on, we need some motivation to go on..right.

So what do we exactly do?! We got ceramic cups for Rs 25 and we use those cups to drink coffee in our office!! Whats the big deal you ask..Imagine an office of 1000 employees with a coffee vending machine available. That amounts to approx 2000 paper/disposable cups (assuming people drink coffee two times a day) a day. If ceramic cups are used instead of all these paper/disposable cups, just imagine the amount of cups that will be saved every month in an office. Now that makes a good amount of paper saving which goes on to save trees.

So the next time, you use paper cup in your office, just remember to "Take the 25, save trees and go green". Make the world a better place to live.

Celebrating First Anniv!!

Suddenly realized that its more than an year (386 days to be more precise!) since I made my first ever external blog post. I still can't believe its been "that" long! An year has just zipped past. I very clearly remember the night on which I woke up my cousin at midnight(!) just to inform him about my first blog post (he had to get this, afterall he pushed me into creating one!). There has not been much activity on my blogs so far. Infact, I have made just 5 posts, averaging about 1 post in 21/2 months (now who cares!!). Some of my friends who were enthusiastic and were checking my blog regularly (initially ofcourse!) wont even remember the name of my blog now. But, I hope to revive(!! as if it was glorious and active earlier) my blogging...and make at least "6" posts in the coming year ;-)
So again,
IF for some wierd reason, u plan to chk this blog regularly, do keep up ur plan!!

Turn it off !

Not sure how many of you have watched the latest "Turn it off" campaign in the media. It says to turn off everything that will save energy when not in use. TV, light, fan, vehicles in signals etc., A good add on will be the computer monitor. Its the one that takes the major portion of the power when the computer is on and its a very very common practice to leave the monitors on! If you are a software professional or in your college computer lab, just look around you and the chances are you will definitely see atleast one unused computer monitor ON. When u r not using it, PLEASE switch off the monitor. Very little effort, huge savings. The next time you take a break, do switch off your monitor.

Save energy for a bright future. Black-outs are fun/romantic at times, not always !!

Block it !

Good to see the blogspot site accessible again! The block on some of the very widely used blog sites had caused quite a flurry in the indian blogosphere. With protests in the papers and wiki's, blogs have certainly become a source of expression nowadays. A restriction is being seen as a denial of basic freedom. How things have changed!!

But with all the hype and hoopla around, I was relatively immune to the complete episode. Blogs have not yet become a very integral part of me. I hope I can get a bit more involved in the blogosphere in future. A ban of this proposition will hopefully have an effect on me too!!

Its fever everywhere !

Any fever of such far reaching propositions would have been declared an "international epidemic with RED alert" in every known country. But then, this fever is not about life threatening viruses, its about friendship, its about every countries dream, its about the oneness of the world, its about....."The World CUP". Nothing would have been more aptly named. Its not just the teams competing to get the hold of the most famous cup in the world, everyone from adidas to DHL to energy drinks to airlines to corporates to billions of ppl across the world, everyone seems to want this fever to catch them. Undoubtfully the most famous game in the world, the WC is in reality an amazing learning experience. The joy of the winning team, the cries of the losing team, the miracle that support can provide, the fruits that only hard work and dedication can give, the wonders of teamwork, its all there to see in the cup. If you had missed all this, dont wait, come join in, the world is celebrating!!

What's like without...

..and you thought I would say "What's life without - " Royal Challenge?! well, it might be true for the promos(and many of us too ), but I am not going to write about that. Here it goes.."What's life without - "...err...Cockroaches!!. Yes, the tiny irritating nocturnal creatures that are omnipresent! I recently heard from my Uncle who lives in US, that there are NO cockroaches there!! For someone who thought there is no place on earth without cockroaches, it came as a thunderbolt! The health officials would have taken painstaking efforts to keep them off! I am sure Cockroaches have given terrifying moments to almost all of us. But then, its not that bad too. They are also useful to mankind atleast in some places. In Chennai, workers who get down the underground drainages to clean them up, actually open the lid and check if there are any cockroaches inside before getting in. Presence of cockroaches ensures that there are no poisonous gases inside and hence they get in assured that they will come out again! Last week, a travel programme pointed out that Cockroaches are really very tasty (what a delicacy!) and a favorite dish in China. Not to mention cockroaches playing "Cupid" in numerous films, where a cockroach comes flying out of thin air and lands on the heroine. The panic stricken heroine runs towards the hero only to get a hug and be carried away for a duet to an exotic location to live happily ever after(poor producer!). To end up with a positive note, all the lone-hearted souls, don't worry, love is never too far with so many cockroaches around!!

My first at last !!

Hello Blogosphere!! at last im in too. I actually did not see any reason at all to start blogging, but my cousin (Ganesh, who has bcome a very prolific blogger of late) somehow convinced me and pulled me in. To salute his convincing capabilities, my first ever xternal blog post is "dedicated to him".

Thanks for visiting, and IF for some wierd reason, u plan to chk this blog regularly, do keep up ur plan!!

Have Fun!