The tv channels are so bad these days that the reality show participants are rebuked when the participants don’t perform and go so low to create controversies like making judges cry or participants breakdown. Controversy always sells - as much as sex and skin. Another good example would be the high profile Big Brother show, which was going down in rating and then Shilpa Shetty - the alien participant among the English earned racial disrespect and then millions.

Its so blaring and hard to ignore in Indian media these days. How about the Aarushi murder mystery case that still hogs the news channels. It has taken more than 40 percent of the prime time, a study says. One channel has gone to such an extent that they recreated an apartment with the same setting as Dr. Talwar’s home to solve the puzzle. Does it mean that the channel stood upright morally and was socially responsible? I am skeptical.

I wonder when it will all come to an end! Its a chicken and egg problem - the media would claim that its because people watch that they show all this and people kvetch its forced on them. Either way, I guess the best channel now is the World Movies. More about it in next post.

I realize the song was written by Kalki Krishnamurti, the famous author of Ponniyin Selvan and other novels. The song has simple lyrics, but I guess the very simplicity makes it adorable.

Here is the lyric for the song:

Kaatriniley varum geetham
Kangal panithida pongum geetham
Kallum kaniyum geetham

Pattamarangal thalirkkum geetham
Pannoli pongum geetham
Kaattu vilangum kette mayangum madhuramohana geetham
Nenjiniley — Nenjinil inba kanalai ezhuppi
ninaivazhikkum geetham

Sunai vandudan solaikkuyilum
manam kuvindhidavum
Vaanavelidhanil thaara kanangal
thayangi nindridavum
Aah, en solven maayappillai
venkuzhal pozhi geetham

Nila malarndha iravinil thendral ulaavidum nadhiyil
Neela niarathu baalagan oruvan kuzhal oodhi nindraan
Kaalemellaam
Kaalamellaam avan kaadhalai enni urugumo en ullam

I could make it to Sudha Ragunathan’s concert in Brahma Gana Sabha / Vani Mahal last week. Sudha, who is becoming one of my favorite these days, I guess is different from many other singers, in that she experiments quite a bit in the concerts making it interesting. These days she is considered to be a high class singer and she seems to understand that the bar is raised for her.

It was the typical upper middle class crowd, where mamis wear silk sarees, come in mid segment cars. Jayashree had got the most expensive of tickets for me and my dad and myself got seats pretty close to the dias.

Finally, let me talk about the concert. We, being a little late, entered the hall when she was singing Maha Ganapathim in Nattai and I was relieved that it must have been the first keerthanai. After a couple of thukadas, the concert gained momentum when she started the aalapana in Sahana. Mellifluous is probably the best word to describe the rendition. I was even more pleased when the keertana happened to be Vandanamu Ragu Nandhana.

The next best one was the Simhendra Madyamam. The elaborate aalapana included a shruti bedham to Raga Bowli, as she explained. The violinist Raghavendra Rao was no less in talent and he deserves to be mentioned.

Next biggie was the Ragam Thanam Pallavi in Hindolam where Sudha drove to other ragas while rendering the kalpana swaras.

The usual Brahmamukate followed it and the Katrinile Varum Geetham was up to the mark of the great M.S.s’ rendition, one would agree. By the way, does anyone know if there is any other song in Savithri raga?

In all, it was a memorable evening and my dad was so enthralled that he kept talking about it even after we reached home, an hour later.

It turns out that I have missed quite a few interesting things so long. I had missed those small shops with aluminum tins filled with kara baths in the corner of the streets; Those young guys wearing blue ties eating them hurriedly; That attractive girl wearing an odd black suit on a sunny day and reading Doomsday Conspiracy sitting in the park bench; Those small pan shops that went unnoticed although I used to pass by everyday. And I had also missed the pleasure in walking.

Going around by foot and in the bus gave quite a few surprisals to me. I realised that very many software people actually commute in bus; That I could walk five kilometres without much difficulty; That Hercules bicycles actually cost more than Rs. 4000 (when I seriously thought of buying a cycle to commute); That I have to ask for Doopanahalli to get down in my bus stop; That pedestrians are actually treated meanly by car drivers; That the securities in glass building shops like Levi’s and Reebok give a funny look to you if you walk to their shops; That the conductors have the right not to give change to you in buses; That people flock to parks in the city to read books; That four out of five young people use either mobile phone or ipod while walking; That the BPO vehicles are officially used by those drivers like bus and charge the same as bus!

The other change in life that Cauvery row brought about was that the Tamil television channels are blocked and I was getting bored of the repeat movies of Zee Cafe and HBO and I could not watch Sonali Mithali and Udayan talking in CNBC forever about Tata acquiring Corus, although I love watching them dissect Bharti’s quarterly results and find the reason for the poor performance of Sugar stocks for half an hour a day.

Television gave its share of surprisals for me. It was interesting to note that there are 72 channels coming in Cable Television; that MTV has become crappy with pseudo reality shows instead of playing music; that all the new born news channels in English news channels seem to fear that they will be out of business if they dont continuously come up with some Flash News or with crappy Cricket news; that VH1 and Music India are actually playing music unlike other music channels; that CNN International has actually become an Iraq-only television; that Dr.Rajkumar has acted with ‘Pudupudhu Arthangal’ actress Geeta.

Change is good. It could take you to a different world or it could give you a different perspective to something you are so used to!

I tried to make the plan for making it to the concerts by creating an excel sheet of concerts. You can download the sheet here. The information is collected from KutcheriBuzz.com. The sheet will be updated as more sabhas come up with the schedule. Hope you find it useful.

Songs like this are unique and I guess for an artist, it comes once in a rare while. Like Santorini for Yanni, Porale ponnuthayi for A.R. Rehman and Yesudas’s rendering of Harivarasanam. And I guess the artists would be very comfortable singing these as these seem to come naturally for them.

I happen to watch the stand-up comedy of Russell Peters. (search for some videos in google) Man., he is just awesome. He is from Indian origin and you cant stop laughing at his making fun of virtually all kinds of people.

Hopefully the trend of standups catch up in India soon and people become less irritable about being made fun of…

Actually a regional channel has successfully come up with a show encouraging standups, but most of them end up mimicking others or tell one line jokes, which is just okay, but not great…

Wikipedia is stopping its policy of allowing anyone to edit its web pages, enforcing this handicap only on the pages of some of the controversial topics and people. Its interesting to note the topics that are going to have this restriction imposed. While the ones like Islamophobia, Ku Klux Klan and Hamas may make some sense, its funny to note Sony, Sex and Mail-order brides listed there!

Wikipedia is not a place for expressing the opinions and the need of the hour for the site is to have a select group of voluntary editors who could verify the verity of the content posted.

Well, its true that its extremely difficult to maintain the value of the content with the anyone-can-edit policy, but it very important to note that this is the policy with which the Wikipedia has grown so much!

I like his writings and incidentally after reading many of his articles in The Hindu, I came to know about his background and his International repute.

While I do not really agree with all his view’s I certainly think that he is a thinker and especially his clarity and acute observations are noteworthy.

Lets wait and see if he gets selected for the UN Chief post. Looks slightly difficult given the clout of China in UN and the vengence and cunning political moves of Pakistan .