A. R. Rehman talks about music and music artists

Some days before, one of my friends went to a meeting. The meeting was arranged for all fans of A.R. Rehman. He sent me a message having Rehman's quote which goes like this:

" If a music artist wants to blossom into a full-pleaded person, its not enough if he knows only classical music; nor it is enough if he is well versed only in ragas and techniques.
Instead, he should be a knowledgeable person interested in life and philosophy.
In his personal life there should be at least in some corner of his heart, a tinge of lingering sorrow."

I think this is the best message which a music icon can give to all of his followers or music- aspirants. This is so true. I am a poor fellow when it comes to talk about music and its related fields. But when a legend says, it definitely makes a difference. Probably the days from which Rehman rose, must have made a deep impact on him and their might be some "tinge of sorrow" in his life which made him what he today is.

Being a poor fellow, I can only think is before human learned how to talk, he must have learned the music. He must have listened to the wind, to the sea, to the nature and His creations. And that might be the reason why even today, we get a lot of stimuli's when we listen to some great music.

I think music is the essence of life.

An experience worth living...Lonavala

It was not preplanned. We had almost finished our mini-project, and were in a party-mood. So, we went to Lonavala yesterday...

As usual, we started the journey late. We were waiting for one of our friends and he didn't turn up. So, we lost our one hour. But then at about 3:15 PM we were heading towards Lonavala. As the time passed, we drove our bikes through heavy rains.The roads were smoky and clouded turning upside down through the green lands.

We reached there at about 5:15 and had snacks. When we were moving towards Bhushi Dam, traffic police caught us. We do have our bike licenses but Aniket (friend of mine) screwed up with his bikes' PUC. The result was a fine of Rs.100/-

But as we moved to see Amby Valley, there were no ends to our joy. We were almost walking through fog.... There were clouds everywhere ....one of those glimpses of the great artist of all times.....NATURE !!!!

We returned home cherishing those memories....
I think, we must have a trip to some hill station once in two months.... :)

An evening in a MEHFIL

It has been a long time since I attended a Ghazal Mehfil. But in the last week, I had an opportunity to attend a program of Jagjit Singh's Ghazals. Evant Surana was the main performer along with Kafila. The program was jointly arranged by Musicurry and PAC- Persistent Art Circle.

I was pretty impressed with his voice. Even though, I never have been in Jagjit's concert, I see no difference between his and Evant's ADAKARI. The way he sung was really mesmerizing. And I was even more surprised when I heard that Evant had did not learn any type of Classical Music. His Kafila was equally impressive. The violinist was just perfect when Evant sung 'KOI FARIYAAD' .

Now, I am hunting for more live concerts like this one....
Good job PAC, keep it up, thanks a lot!!!!

Stay hungry.Stay foolish

Today I read an email from my friend. The mail was having an attachment of Steve Job's speech at Stanford University in 2005. It was saying, You've Got To Find What You Love....He tells us three stories from his life.

Steve was a college-dropout and he tells us how being a dropout made him follow his dream. He took a course of calligraphy and that helped him building the first ever fonts for MAC.

He talks about the way he was fired from Apple, the company which was his own baby. This devastating incident helped him to come up with two brilliant creations, NeXT and Pixar Studio,the companies Steve founded.

Steve was diagnosed a cancer which was cured later. But that gave him a new insight to look at life.
As a piece of advice, he suggest us to do those things which we love to do.
I personally liked that article very much. He says, "Start searching for the things which makes you feel good. If you don't find them, try again".

When he was young, there was a publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue,sort of Google in paperwork form. On the backside of the its final issue there was a photograph of an early morning road. Beneath it were the words,
" Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish"
It was their farewell message as they signed off.

I think, that is one of the most beautiful one-liners I have ever seen....
And indeed, this gives me an inspiration,an enlightment, a new way to live life...

Shocking Survey

Today I read about a survey made by Times of India and was published in Pune Times.

Generally Pune Times surveys are useless. Usually the include who is world's most sexiest woman/man?
or Can some "bahu" ( sister in law) in a typical Saans-Bahu serials will survive against her household tension or not?
or will the relationship between Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes last long or not? kind of polls....
But this time it was something worth discussing and equally stunning.
Around 50 college students were asked a question.... Do you know who is the writer of Our National Song?
And the answers were:
1. I think, A.R. Rehman recently composed it. And let me tell you I am very patriotic person.
2. Vande Mataram is our national song and was composed by Rabindranath Tagore.
3. Jana-Gana-Mana is our national song.

The actual answer was Vande Mataram by Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay.

Out of 50 students, only 4 came up with the right answer and hardly one of them could sing Vande Mataram correctly.
What a pity. We keep on saying effortlessly that India will become a superpower in 2020 and here we are. I can bet , that if this survey would have been taken all over India, the result would have hardly differed.
Are we forgetting those people who fought for this land to achieve the independence?

I know that political parties in India do create an issue of this. But to be very frank, I think we don't value our independence. Otherwise, we could not have created this mess over Vande Mataram.

As an exaggeration,I remember one of those famous quotes of Hitler,
France was not defeated on the battlefield but was defeated in the night-clubs of Paris.

I think, that itself is worth quoted!!!

Movie week

This is been a movie week for me. My new roomies are having about 35-40 movies on their computer's hard drives. So, from two days I am enjoying a home theater. The movies I saw in two days are The Cinderella Man and The Pink Panther.

I was planning to watch The Cinderella Man right on its release day. But my plans didn't work as exams came in between. So, I missed that chance. But this time I was lucky enough.
As per my expectations, James Braddock (Russel Crow ) was outstanding. It is his one of those power-packed performances. The movie is inspired from a true story and goes into those recession days or days of great depression. It shows us the story of James, a supposedly washed out boxer, who comes back and becomes an inspiration of billions of Americans.

The other one, Pink Panther is a lighter story of a man who thinks himself as world's most admired detective. The story revolves around a pink panther, a priceless diamond. This diamond is somehow stolen and then followed by a murder of the owner of Pink Panther. Steve Martin ( Mr. Closore') is appointed as an inspector to investigate this matter. The way Steve Martin finds out the culprit is amazing. The movie shows some fantastic incidents created out of mismatches between French-English accents. e.g when Martin was asked to show up his pocket on the airport. The way he pronounces "hamburger" is awesome. One thing to watch in this movie is the brilliant use of French accents. Steve Martin really creates a typical Frenchman on screen. And Beyonce Knowles as always looks stunning.

These are my two shows in two days...
Right now I am tempted to watch the remaining collection of my room-mate.
I have already scribbled my calender and wrote this week as The Movie Week!!!!

I am one of the most luckiest persons on this Earth!!!

I was going to my hometown on Friday. When the bus was about to leave the station, a person along with his family came in. He was wearing a dusty shirt and a worn-out trouser. His wife and kids were no different. They came in , all barefooted. They were belonging to those labours who build the buildings and who work for building constructors. I could hardly guess from their language, what they were talking about.

The journey started. It was about half an hour or so, the smallest of those kids started feeling uneasy. And he started vomitting. That child was too young to speak a word. His mother literally dragged his mouth outside the window, giving him a space to vomit. Instead of asking him if he was feeling ok or not, she started beating him. I wondered how could a mother do this to her child.

The next stop came. They bought "vada-paav" to eat. I saw that man bargaining for "vada-paav". It generally costs 4-5 bucks. They ate hurriedly and went to sleep.

I started thinking. I felt myself lucky. I have very loving and caring parents. I can afford not all but almost all luxuries which an ordinary person would like to. At least I never went to sleep without eating anything!!!
What was happening to that child would also had happened with me if I were at his place. It is just the matter of luck. sheer luck...

Still I get angry on my parents. Still I don't care about their emotions. Still I am not happy with whatever food I get for lunch, for dinner.
I remembered an e- mail having a picture of a very small african kid, almost dying, because he don't have food to eat.

I think, I am one of the most luckiest persons on this Earth!!!

वन्दे मातरम्

सुजलां सुफलां मलयजशीतलाम्

सस्य श्यामलां मातरंम् .

शुभ्र ज्योत्सनाम् पुलकित यामिनीम्

फुल्ल कुसुमित द्रुमदलशोभिनीम्,

सुहासिनीं सुमधुर भाषिणीम् .

सुखदां वरदां मातरम् ॥

सप्त कोटि कन्ठ कलकल निनाद कराले

द्विसप्त कोटि भुजैर्ध्रत खरकरवाले

के बोले मा तुमी अबले

बहुबल धारिणीम् नमामि तारिणीम्

रिपुदलवारिणीम् मातरम् ॥

तुमि विद्या तुमि धर्म, तुमि ह्रदि तुमि मर्म

त्वं हि प्राणाः शरीरे

बाहुते तुमि मा शक्ति,

हृदये तुमि मा भक्ति,

तोमारै प्रतिमा गडि मन्दिरे-मन्दिरे ॥

त्वं हि दुर्गा दशप्रहरणधारिणी

कमला कमलदल विहारिणी

वाणी विद्यादायिनी, नमामि त्वाम्

नमामि कमलां अमलां अतुलाम्

सुजलां सुफलां मातरम् ॥

श्यामलां सरलां सुस्मितां भूषिताम्

धरणीं भरणीं मातरम् ॥

Soft drinks are really soft?

I don't understand why people drink Coke,Pepsi or whatever. It has been proved a number of times that coke contains pesticides. Still our governement is backing them up, giving them the clean cheat...

What is in coke that makes it so cool? ( or thanda probably!!!) Is it the hype created by so called celebrities or is it a symbol of high-class socialization?
When I ask people for this reason, they say that they drink it for the sake of their favourite actors/actresses .Those stars( this is another word I hate to use with respect to Film actors- actresses ) can do anything for money...Then why the hell we are following them?

Are we confident enough that pesticides will not harm us at all? Or are we practising ourselves to sustain against anything?

This is the time to think, to act.
Don't drink any kinda soft drink .They are not at all soft!!!!