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The virgin goddess of Mylapore

2011-07-19T21:29:00.003+05:30

I couldn't stop thinking why people should study their mother tongue well.
Do we take it for granted that we all are pundits of our own language?
When the name of the school is flawlessly translated into Tamil, why can't the street name be?

Mundaka kanni amman (the goddess with eyes like lotus petals) becomes one that sounds like virgin Mary in this name board!

Cyclone Laila and after

2010-05-27T21:51:00.001+05:30

The recent cyclone across the eastern coast of the Indian continent has brought some rains to Tamil Nadu. There was damage to some extent in Andhra Pradesh though.

But, this Cyclone Laila meant different things to different people.For some it was the name. (Read the article on The New Indian Express - Indulge below)

For the Tamil Nadu Govt., it was the wind that produced more energy so that they could announce less power cuts.
For the ordinary residents of Chennai it was just a day of respite but raising mercury to 41 degree celcius.

But for this group - Reclaim Our Beaches (ROB), it was a lot of garbage they found near the broken bridge, Adyar, washed in from the Adyar river estuary after the cyclone Laila hit the coast.
They say that, with a lot of plastic, thermocol, glass etc. it needs a huge cleanup with more volunteers for at least 2 hours.
They have roped in the Students Sea Turtle Conservation Network (SSTCN) to be part of the cleaning up as part of the Network's International Turtle Day campaign.
Still they need more hands.
If you are free join them at Broken Bridge, Besant Nagar beach (walk towards the Urur kuppam side and walk towards the broken bridge)
On May 30, 2010 between 4 pm and 6 pm.
Walk with free hands, the group will provide gloves, trashcans and water.

If you want to join the group in all its future projects sign up with their Google Group.

Chennai Kids Directory on Expresso

2010-04-07T08:35:00.002+05:30

It was one of the nicest moments when YOCee released the first Chennai Kids Directory.
Planned in a short time, the official launch of the directory was another chance for me to meet the kid reporters of YOCee informally.

When I sent out invites to YOCee's young reporters, I had mentioned, "Please be with us on this important occasion, as you are our proud reporter who keeps the website busy and buzzing!"

Expresso captured it right. This is the piece that appeared in today's Chennai supplement.
Click on the image to view and read in the actual size text.

Adhikara Nandi at Sri kapaleeswarar Temple

2010-03-26T19:51:00.000+05:30

A few pictures of Adhikara Nandi in slideshow

Kapaleeswarar and the English note

2010-03-25T18:06:00.001+05:30

It was a wee bit early in the morning. 4.30 am is not a time I dare to take my bike out.

And when I had decided the previous night that I would go to see the gods the next morning, I had to do a little bit of preparation. To leave home at 4.30 am I had set alarm to get up at 4, take bath and of course have the earning morning filter coffee!

All for capturing a glimpse of the Rishabha vahanam procession of Sri Kapaleeswara. Rishabha Vahanam starts off at late night around 11.30 pm and after going around the Mada street, the procession reaches the temple the next day morning.

Then why go at 4.30 am, why not the previous night? That was for the special part of the procession when Kapali dances to the tunes of the English Note (Harikesanallur Muthiah Bhagavathar's) followed by 'For he is a jolly good fellow' both played on the band and not on the nadaswaram!

Yes, it is a special occasion. You need to wait once the Gods reach the 16 pillar mandapam in front of the eastern gopuram of Kapali temple. The five 'Sivan Kovil Samis' - pillaiyar, swami, ambal, subramanyar and chandikeswarar - assemble at the mandapam. Siva (Kapali) at the centre, the other gods do a pradakshinam (clockwise around the deity) and get back to the temple after special arti and upacharam - welcome rituals.

Kapaleeswara stays back. The muscled men who carry the god on their shoulders arrive after a tea break. The band troupe is signalled to take position in front of the God.
The music begins. The English note floats. The men sway to the tunes. Kapali enjoys the dance.
Then He is carried inside the temple in a fast pace, as though a child runs back home after a long tour!
Here is the short video clip.
Perhaps the men were too tired, as it was already hot in March. This year the song and dance did not have the vigour of merriment but were carried out as a ritual.
Still it was special and now enjoy the clip!

Tribute to S. Rajam

2010-01-31T21:58:00.006+05:30

On Jan. 29, S. Rajam, musican, musicologist, guru and artist passed away after 91 years of graceful living and serving arts in various forms.

I have been to S.Rajam's place on the Nadu Street, Mylapore on three occasions, on various assignments. I have seen him giving a touch to one of his old paintings, of which we wanted a picture for the Kutcheribuzz dance guide book. I had been to his talks on a few occasions. I have listened to his Naganandini raga kriti 'Sathaleni dinamulu' at a lec-dem session.
All this after a piece I wrote for Mylapore Times in 2005. Those were times I enjoyed writing occasionally for the weekly tabloid on my own and of no assignments.

Earlier, I had known him as a good musician and a good painter, through my mother who looked for classy music legends and listened to them in her times of learning and singing music. She passed on the 'sangeetha gnanam' (which is beyond singing and practising) to us.
Later living in Madras, I had the opportunities to listen to many finer artistes including S. Rajam. At the Painting Exhibition organised by The Prakriti Foundation (2005), I saw much more than his usual paintings and listened to him with my mouth wide open, the stories behind each of his paintings.

His life in his own words, as captured by Lalitha Ram is here.

The scanned copy of my article in Mylapore Times is below. The issue carried a cover picture and a big story inside. It was one of the happy moments in my life.
I dedicate those moments to the grand man of music and arts as a tribute.

Season's special

2010-01-07T15:05:00.001+05:30

If you refer to 'season' in Madras (Chennai), it is the December Music Season.

After a decade of only music concerts during the December season, classical dance was added to the calendar and now it is a huge 'season' of everything related to arts!

I look forward to December every year in Madras. Even when I was living outside Madras due to the career I was in, I missed a very few December seasons. The process of planning 'leave application' and travel used to begin in October and after a rejuvenating season, I went back to work towards the financial year end.

This year the season was more special to me.
Apart from listening to concerts, I filed reviews and reports for The Hindu, the newspaper which covers the season extensively.

Here are a few links to my reviews published in The Hindu:

http://www.hindu.com/ms/2009/12/15/stories/2009121550070500.htm

http://www.hindu.com/ms/2009/12/16/stories/2009121650020200.htm

http://www.hindu.com/ms/2009/12/16/stories/2009121650090500.htm

http://www.hindu.com/ms/2009/12/22/stories/2009122250090600.htm

http://www.hindu.com/ms/2009/12/23/stories/2009122350150800.htm

http://www.hindu.com/ms/2009/12/25/stories/2009122550110600.htm

http://www.hindu.com/ms/2009/12/30/stories/2009123050190800.htm

http://www.thehindu.com/fr/2009/12/25/stories/2009122551140200.htm

http://www.hindu.com/fr/2010/01/22/stories/2010012250990900.htm

http://beta.thehindu.com/arts/music/article75801.ece

A set of photographs of concerts I attended during the concert are uploaded here

Additionally, I enjoyed contributing to a website dedicated to Chennai's December season - www.chennaidecemberseason.com .

Read my posts for this website here - http://www.chennaidecemberseason.com/search/label/R.%20Revathi

Kolam on the new Tamil Nadu State Assembly building

2009-10-29T19:06:00.011+05:30

The team of architects from Germany are inspired by the kolam designs drawn by the rural women in Tamil Nadu and that made them come up with a motif for the new building to be constructed for the Tamil Nadu State Assembly.

TOI Report - In the Public Plaza, a kolam engraved on natural sandstone will cover 14,000 sq m of the floor space. In the eight 3.75 m high and 1.75 m wide columns, a kolam will be spread over an area 2,300 sq m. And in the metal screen that will adorn the entrance of the complex, a kolam will cover 10,000 sq m.

The GMP International's Indian arm Archivista Engineering has selected the motif pattern too. The picture on Times of India - Chennai edition (Oct. 29, 2009) shows a simple 5 dots - 5 rows kolam

Kolams are not just dot and chain patterns. They have an in-built pattern of calculation in them.
If you know about the Fibonacci numbers, this article will interest you.

While the free hand patterns were popular in the agraharams of villages in Tamil Nadu, the chain pattern like the one chosen for the Assembly building were drawn by mostly the illiterate women.

A pattern drawn on of the four sides is repeated and joined with each other to form an even pattern. The calculation facilitates multiplication of the number of dots and enlarging the design with more number of similar patterns in a single kolam.

Colours were not used in kolams. The urban folk introduced the concept of colours in kolams that join the dots through straight lines and these are done on festival days like Pongal. Colours are still not used in the chain kolam patterns. These patterns look bright and beautiful on the plain ground.

View a carpet of kolams here - http://mylaporefestival.com/day3/album/slides/DSC_2002.html

I find the basic single pattern of these kolams to be a pleasant welcome symbol at the entrance of a home even it is an apartment. I wake up to draw very simple ones at my doorstep everyday and I find one of my neighbours come with a paper and pencil to draw the pattern and take it home! She is disappointed when I repeat the kolam patterns!

Here are a few 5 dots 5 rows kolams that I make in front of my home.

Expecting IT refund? Beware of hoax mails!

2009-10-19T13:06:00.005+05:30

If you were one among those 'trusted' friends, who online hackers send mails from your friends' email ids when they are 'in distress', you could expect one more mail. This time from the Income Tax Department.

This hoax mail appears as though it is from a genuine website requesting you to give your Bank account number for crediting the Income tax refund. But what the new 'online Bank customers' do not know is that their password is not required to credit or deposit any money to their Bank account. So fall prey to such mails.

Today's Deccan Chronicle (Chennai edition) carries a big advertisement issued by the Income Tax department.

Strangely, I did not find any advert or alert in any of the other papers.
Here is a link to The Independent Media Centre's article on this issue.

Alert your friends too.

Mridangam falls silent with Palghat Raghu

2009-06-02T21:09:00.007+05:30

When my friend Devaki called me to say that Palghat Raghu is no more, the mridangam had already fallen silent. She spoke emotionally about the mridangam vidvan, not just as a rasika. But as one who had been in touch with him often during the last three years.

She expressed all her awe about the values he lived with and handed over to the next generation. The way he welcomed the guests who entered his home, his casual 'storytelling' about the days he spent with the Hindustani musician in his sister's family in Mumbai and much more. She shared a lot of her experience with this Sangita Kalanidhi, Padma Sri artiste.
I haven't heard this good about him so far. Nor did I have any personal association with him. His daughter in law Usha and I used to be colleagues in Bank though.
On one occasion I happened to meet him. He had his deposit account in the branch where I was working then. The branch catered to business clients mostly and was not in his residential area too. Still his account with the bank could have been due to his daughter in law who was working in the branch. She was already transferred to another branch, but his deposit remained with this branch. It was overdue to be renewed and we were in a situation of partly computerised and partly manual operations. It took unduly long time to renew the deposit and Raghu had to visit the branch to get this done. He sat down patiently till we went through complex procedures and handed him over a new receipt. He smiled and said thank you after waiting for more than an hour! A gentleman was he.
Today I chanced upon the website the family put together for the artiste, personality Palghat Raghu on his 80th birthday. www.palghatraghu.org
Great website, great pictures that brought the great personality before us. I am told a girl from Kerala specially took this job last year and did wonderfully well.
Different people, different perspectives, different personalities!
May his soul rest in peace!

Pic courtesy - www.palghatraghu.org

Hand crafted paper jewellery

2009-05-22T12:19:00.005+05:30

Yes, these are made of papers. And each one is unique as the making of the pieces involves 10 fingers. Fully handcrafted, trendy, eco-friendly and light weight jewellery.
There are gorgeous roses, colourful danglers, traditional yet modern jhumkas to go with your modern and ethnic outfits.

In June last my friend Deepa mailed me a link to Flickr with loads of paper jewellery made by her. She moved on from there to have a shelf for her jewellery in a few places including DakshinaChitra. Then came her blog updating what's she bringing out periodically.

She is not yet another 'craft aunty' or 'jewellery maami'. She calls her brand '10 fingers!'. She does her business online. The packing and despatching the hand crafted jewellery is thoroughly professional.

Now if you want to see a few samples of her work, below are a couple of them.

For orders and more details, go to her blog - http://paperjewellery.wordpress.com/

Senior citizens opt to forego their rights to vote?!

2009-05-17T21:45:00.008+05:30

I just had to change the direction of my walk on the day of the Lok Sabha elections in Chennai. Instead of walking towards the right from our road-end, I took a left turn and walked down to Gandhi Nagar.

But it was not that simple for many of the senior citizens here.

For it is more than a walking stretch for them. And crossing the road at the Aavin Park is another they wanted to avoid. My next door 'maami' declared that her single vote does not decide the fate of the country! My another neighbour was waiting to see if any of her friends went by car so that she and her husband could join. But by evening the couple said they didn't vote!

Avvai Home on the Besant Avenue Road was the closest polling booth. But that was not meant for the residents of Karpagam Garden or Padmanabha Nagar. The school is situated in a fairly big campus and could have accommodated the residents of these two areas also.

Adyar Times did mention this in this week's edition (May 17 - 23). But how many votes were not polled due to this reason? Any audit possible so that this can be rectified in the next election at least?

YOCee's reporter programme

2009-05-14T11:37:00.004+05:30

When I was doing my graduation, the popular Tamil magazine Ananda Vikatan came up with the Student Reporter Programme. Though I was very much interested in writing I wasn't enthusiastic about being a 'reporter' as I thought it would affect my academic course!

But after 12 years my own child studying in class 3 was writing single page reports whenever he came across something interesting. He was writing in bits of papers with his pencil and was throwing them all over the living room. I accidentally saw his 'report' on an imaginary cricket match, after he saw a lively match on the television. This really opened my eyes, I should say.

Then we moved to Bombay on transfer; but the writing of young children was popping in my mind now and then. It was a dream come true when the kids in our building were introduced to the scribble magazine. The magazine saw eleven monthly issues and then came our transfer back to Madras.

When www.yocee.in was up, the first idea sparked in my mind was the 'student reporter programme'. I had to give a year to set right a few technical issues as to how the bylines would appear on the website, how do we assign jobs to the reporters, how do the reports and photos could be collected and how do the reporters meet periodically to train and get better. . .

There are still a few issues, which we still face - like - meeting the kid reporters at regular intervals is next to impossible as any six kids in the group would invariably have one or the other exam. We are still scratching our minds to find ways to overcome this and have meetings.
Simple, we could meet in small groups, you may think. But hiring a hall for such small meetings is costly and remember YOCee is yet to break even.

Still when the programme that started as passion to see kids writing is being recognised, it makes me feel happy and proud.

This is what appeared in yesterday's Times of India.

Creative writing for the young

2009-05-03T22:17:00.004+05:30

I was not sure what the six year and eight year olds would do in a writing camp, when I accepted to do a summer camp for one of my friends.
Originally targetted at 12 year olds, the camp ended up with kids in a much younger group. But looking at the kids on day one, I couldn't resist continuing the camp.

It was partly fun, partly learning - both for the kids and me!

They learnt making their personal profile, made poetry calendar sheet, cracking a logic and making a story, news story ideas, components of a newspaper and how to write a short report!
This is the finale when they made up their daily working sheets together and took home their precious writings!

Stop, Yocee, Proceed!

2009-04-17T17:03:00.013+05:30

Indulge, the Friday supplement of the New Indian Express has featured YOCee in the Webscout column today. That took me back by at least 5 years and to Bombay.
I still remember the day on which the first issue of the scribble magazine, Kids Magic was launched at the CanHeritage building in Bombay.
I still remember every moment of each page of the magazine getting ready at the hands of the kids on our dining table. Many of these kids are now in colleges doing engineering, medicine . . .
And I still remember the day I took the sheets of the first issue for binding, to a bookshop opposite IIT Powai.
Of course I cannot forget the day when the kids first saw their effort as a magazine.
It happened in 2003.
After I moved out of Bombay and landed in Madras in the year 2004, it was just 'evening gatherings' with a few kids in the street where we lived then.
We didn't have a big community like the one in Bombay, where 72 families lived in an apartment complex. I still don't live in such a colony. But getting the kids across to have their own space for news, events, happenings in Chennai that interest them is all fun I would say, after I launched www.yocee.in
A simple blog on what the kids in Chennai can do in their leisure was the basis of YOCee.

But I wanted that kids should share news and info on a common platform. So a website, I thought, could be the best place for it. I didn't feel like leaving the effort I took to host the blog and the thought process that went into the making of the website. I went on to create that space for kids - online!

It took three months to get a shape for the website and the D-Day came on Nov. 14, 2006.
There were hiccups, time constraint, revenue issues, personal reasons that could have stopped me from continuing to host YOCee.
But today when I look back and the work of the small team of two hands directing. gathering and keeping the website update, I feel happy.

Narayana Tirtha Aradhana at Tirupoonthuruthi

2009-04-07T11:40:00.005+05:30

Poonthuruthi - the place where Lord Siva is worshiped as Pushpavaneswarar, has been on the cultural map of Tamil Nadu since the time of nayanmaars. Tirugnanasambandar, one of the Saiva Naalvar, had visited the temple and written verses on the Lord here.
A little bit about the place - 'thuruthi' in Tamil is referred to a place situated between two rivers. Legend goes like Indra created a garden between the river Cauvery and its tributory Kudamurutti and worshipped Siva at this place.
Apart from the God, a sage who attained 'jeeva samadhi' at this place is also being worshiped by the locals. The Carnatic music fretenity pays homage to this saint Narayana Tirtha, who composed the beatiful verses of Sri Krishna Leela Tarangini. The saint's aradhana and a full day homageon Sri Krishna Janmashtami is held at the brindavanam.

Read my report on this year's aradhana for Kutcheribuzz.

This year the aradhana was celebrated from March 2 to 4. On the last day, my son Prasanna played a few tarangams on chitravina accompanied by Manikudi Chandrasekahar on the mridangam and Hidenori (Japan) on the kanjira. Prasanna is the disciple of 'Chitravina' Narasimhan and 'Chitravina' Ganesh.
Here is a video clip of one song from Prasanna's concert.

Remains of a bus shelter in Besant Nagar

2009-04-02T11:50:00.005+05:30

The bus shelter close to the Varasiddhi Vinayakar temple and the Canara Bank, Besant Nagar branch does not exist anymore.

Of course, the Besant Nagar bus terminus is just 50 metres away. The buses need not stop here.

But while removing the shelter, the MTC or Corporation left the remains of iron rods, abruptly cut, at leasr 5 inches above the ground.

The remains three pillars of the bus shelter pose danger to the pedestrians, espcially during night. This particular stretch is not well lit too.

There is a bank branch and a ATM outlet closeby. People walk to the temple in the evenings.

I told a traffic police personnel who passed by and showed this to him.
And posting on this blog. Hope these are removed soon.

Post Office at Rasipuram

2009-03-02T14:35:00.003+05:30

When most of the city post offices wear a dull look, it was a pleasant surprise to see a beautifully painted and well maintained post office at Rasipuram, a semi urban place near Salem!

Numerology!

2009-02-27T15:21:00.001+05:30

The proprietor of this fruit shop R. R. Kesavan should be a strong believer of Numerology!
But I liked his innovative name for his fruit shop inRasipuram!

Chennai's oldest neighbourhood's own festival

2008-12-15T23:05:00.001+05:30

It was in Oct 2004, just back from Mumbai, I went on to be a part of the festival of a neighbourhood in Chennai.
Mumbai's 'local' spirit was still high on my mind. Not just the trains, but the local and neighbourhood sentiments each area in Mumbai has for the people who live there.
Though we were in and out of Chennai due to official postings, we lived in Mylapore whenever we were posted in Chennai.
My family has a close connection with Arisikara Street in Mylapore, Raja Muthiah School in R.A. Puram, Venkatesa Perumal - Vedantha Desikar temple alongside Chitrakulam and the 'Andhra hospital' (Now Durgabai Deshmush Medical centre) too!
But I distinctly remember the Luz Church Road and Norton Road where I spent most of my memorable days.
After living in Mumbai for 6 years we were back to live in Abhiramapuram and that took me to the Mylapore Festival that the meighbourhood newspaper, Mylapore Times has been hosting.
Frankly, I had never done so much of talking in my life and career till then.
I had taken part in conferences, presented papers and spoke banking business at business meetings. My exposure to clients across the counters in the bank was very limited as I had spent most of my career in administrative offices. That too in large credit appraisal departments where speaking more was a bit dangerous and not warranted!
The experience of putting people and things together (the director of the festival calls it 'marrying the two'!) was new and challenging to me. But the end product was nice.

And all that started in 2004 continues for me and I am into co-ordinating the Mylapore Festival for the fifth year.
Every year the experience is different.
The entry of younger Orkut group two years ago, as volunteers added colours to the preparations and hosting.
The young keep up the spirits and I live in my 20s and 30s all over again!
A new set of 25 youngsters volunteer this year too.
The oldest neighbourhood of Chennai is getting younger day by day with the participation of young people in the festival!
Welcome to the 2009 edition on Sundaram Finance Mylapore Festival!

Electricity bill online in Chennai and suburbs!

2008-09-18T12:56:00.005+05:30

When the Tamil Nadu Government declared a holiday on Sep. 15, I thought I would take a chance and see if the TNEB office is open to collect the bills as it was the last day for payment. (By the way, why do we keep it till the last date? I resolve to pay it early next month, but somehow it gets dragged till the last date every time!)

I had to make a trip to the EB office on Sep. 16. The counter at Besant Nagar opens at 8 am. So most office-goers stop by at 9 O' clock and make the payment. If you can be there around 8.30, you can be the first or second in the queue.

But on Sep. 16 at 8.15 am the counters were overflowing. Apartment watchmen and maids were seen holding bunch of electricity cards and each one took more than 15 minutes at the counter. I was getting late for a consultancy session and wished if there was an alternative mode!
But I could reach the counter at 9 am and paid my bill. On way back I saw a board getting ready - Payment will be accepted on Sep. 17 till 2.30 pm!

I do spend most of the time online. I had earlier checked out online bill payment facility - Bill Junction - when we were residing in Bombay till 2004.
I was wondering if TNEB itself would come out with an online payment facility!

Yes, my wishes came true. This facility was inaugurated by the Electricity Minister Arcot N. Veeraswami yesterdaty. Read here-

I am now waiting for the next month's electricity bill to pay it through www.tneb.in!

Holiday for Anna Centenary in Tamil Nadu

2008-09-15T10:50:00.000+05:30

Yes, it is a holiday today. A bonus holiday for the government employees.
Bankers too have a day off as it is a holiday under Negotiable Instruments Act.
Private institutions were also asked to declare a holiday considering "the importance of the day".

It was declared last evening and The Hindu's news update service put up the information at 7 pm yesterday.
The school kids whose exams are going on spent an hour's time (or more?) calling up their classmates and teachers to find out if it was really a holiday and how the day's exam was going to be rescheduled. When I saw the neighbour's kid walking around with the telephone handset calling up friends I told him to check up his school's website - he studies is a school which uses LCD panels instead of blackboards!
He did go to check up the website but could find nothing up there! He began his round of calling his friends from where he left 10 minutes ago!
I tried googling to help this boy out so that he could leave the phone out and get back to his books. I did not find even a single school in the city updating information on its website. Leave alone the day's announcement, the info on the websites were at least a month old in many cases.
But I came across a surprise.
A school in Salem had updated their website with all the information a student needs to know of the surprise holiday declared on a Sunday. Clear information of what happens to the day's Computer Science exams and what is up on Tuesday, after the holiday.
All this at the same time The Hindu published online - at 7.02pm!
The city schools do have an edge over the others in infrastructure, the technology, the resources and geeky teachers and students! But not the dedication and the dutifulness of a school outside the city. That's what I could think of!

Young people and Chennai's heritage

2008-09-07T21:09:00.004+05:30

I believe in passing on the rich culture, heritage and values of one generation to the next so that they are perpetually preserved. In any community or any country!
I felt glad that the Madras Day movement too believed in it , when I became part of it in early 2005.
Vincent D' Souza and I chalked out contests that would make the young people participate and worked on simple rules for the contests. Among the contests, one was on Chennai's heritage for the school kids which required them to make models of landmarks and they kids told the story on the spot to the visitors. This contest was part of the Madras Day events of the previous year, when the celebrations were first initiated by the trio - S. Muthiah, Vincent D' Souza and Sasi Nair and was supported by INTACH. (The quiz was another and is being continued from 2004.)

I observed that kids from far away schools were bringing the models, charts and other materials to assemble at the spot, by autorickshaws, cars and school vans. I thought the monitors and mouse would fascinate the kids as they fascinate even people like me and thought of making it a presentation on the computer by the next year.
But, we weren't very sure of the gizmos in 2006 and wanted to test it before we make the kids do the presentations. So we took another year to make it happen.
It was a pleasure to view the presentations on the LCD screen in 2007. Now the documents on CDs would live on forever, we thought!
For the second year, the multimedia presentation contest on Chennai heritage was held this year at Sastri Hall in Mylapore on Aug. 19.
Twenty teams from schools across the city - from Tiruvottiyur to Tiruvanmiyur participated in the contest. The school teams presented their work one after the other. All the other teams watched them with interest and curiosity. This is the power of visual medium!
By the end of the week, we received a report at YOCee's small office on the presentation contest from one of the participants. Read the report, straight from the horses mouth!

Another event was not a contest but an experience!
Two schools - P. S. Senior Secondary and Sri Sankara Vidyashramam from south Chennai travelled to the northern part of the city. On the Fun Bus (courtesy : Ashok Leyland) guided by Swahilya.
A young boy took down notes of all that they saw during their trip and mailed a report. Wonderfully neat and nice! Here's his report!

I am happy for two reasons - one is for being part of a movement which gives me hope that all is well at the hands of the youth and the other is that I could provide a platform for the reports by the kids on such events that would be documents forever.
I could be present and be part of the events in a very limited way this year though, due to personal reasons.

Four months and counting . . .

2008-09-05T15:01:00.002+05:30

When I mentioned 'three months' to a friend last month, he smiled at me through the edge of his eyes! I smiled too sheepishly. But the truth is I am counting and will do so, not till the ninth month, but all through my life!
The first month after I took a break from my routine was really tough. I spent most of the time convincing myself of the rest I needed the most at that time. Over three months I am almost back to the routine. Yet, I hesitate to decide on resuming the old time table.
Many things kept me busy all these four months.
I could get the kids' website YOCee a database driven site and could link the bylines of the young authors to their brief profiles.
I could host the student reporter programme for the website just by sitting in front of my computer.
I could get another website up and running for a friend (two?)
But what really brought me back to near normalcy was the Madras Quizzes - the Tamil and the English quiz. Making the presentations / slides and organising the questions, rounds, scoring and playing the stills and videos brought my energy levels back to the original point.
Now, what next, ask my energies!
And am back to blogging!

Walks around cities

2008-07-22T09:32:00.007+05:30

When you are new in a city, town or a small village, the best way to explore the place is to take a walk.
In a village, you can just take the host down for a walk and have tender coconuts, and peanuts on way and when you leave the place, get a nice gift for the host! You have had lots of fun!
In cities it is different route.
Thanks to the transferable job I was in and my husband is still in, we could get to stay in different types of places in India - rural, semi-urban, urban and metropolitan. And we never missed to visit the neighbouring towns and cities on many weekends.
But ten years ago, all that we depended on to go around the new place was the govt.tourism dept. Like the Mumbai Darshan and the Delhi Darshan. One day conducted tours by the dept was just enough to come back after the tour to say that we saw the Gateway of India and the Marine Drive sitting inside the bus.
If you want to get a flavour of the place into yourself and soak in the lifestyle of the city, the best way is to join the passionate groups that conduct 'walks' across the city

On one such visit to Mumbai, my friend and I were part of a group that explored the Fort area of the city. Two young women architects take the effort to show the visitors to their city, a different ' Bombay'. Check their website here - http://www.bombayheritagewalks.com/

And if you go to Bangalore, do try out the Bangalore Walks which is different from the city tours that show you the Vidhana Soudha and the Lalbagh always. Take a look at - http://bangalorewalks.com/

However the oldest is the London walks - They have a weekly timetable . There are private walks, special walks for special occasion and exclusive walks for kids. Here is where they host their detailed website - http://www.walks.com/

For a few years now, a set of passionate people in Chennai are hosting walks at different places. A walk inside the Fort St. George, George Town walk, north Madras walk, Tree walk, turtle walk and a few more being explored. You can mail a query to madraswalks@gmail.com

A group of photo enthusiasts in Chennai is on regular photo walks every month! Check the project on Flickr here.

I personally have a plan for a Map Walk for kids. They will map their neighbourhood, mark the landmarks and have fun on the lanes and by-lanes of their own area!
Your ideas and suggestions are welcome!

Advertise your services, dear CA friends!

2008-05-21T18:12:00.004+05:30

When it comes to choosing a career, doctors and lawyer may rank better than a CA.
But, ICAI, has been constantly working on better recognition for the Chartered Accountants and so is the ICWAI for the Cost Accountants.
In a recent development, CAs are allowed to advertise their services. This is ahead of of their doctors and lawyer counterparts!

So now, here is a sample advertisement:

Escape from all taxes!
Call XYZ and Company
Experts in arriving at NIL Income Tax

This is going to be ahhh!
But I feel, more than advertising their services, the CAs need to advertise why Chartered Accountancy is a good career to choose, for the benefit of the IT crazy younger generation.
Perhaps the younger generation needs to know that at the end of any business or career, the money earned is to be managed well, the financial plans need to be drawn for the progress of the company and a good management information system (MIS) should be in place to monitor growth and ring the bells when needed!
ICAI gives an overview here.

M. J. Akbar's Covert is out!

2008-05-16T17:36:00.001+05:30

Politics has never been my favourite subject for discussion, neither in college, nor now.
But I keenly follow current affairs that affect our daily life and in general, the public.
And when the news is about writings and authors, I follow with more interest.
The recent news which caught up my attention is the launch of veteran journalist M. J. Akbar's new political magazine - Covert.

What's more interesting is that the online edition of the magazine is also up!
Akbar knows the media as well as the medium to launch his new effort, though his blog is written by a 'Power of Attorney holder'!

By the way, Mr. Akbar, the 'About us' page link of Covert is blank!

Roadside cement factory!

2008-05-14T15:59:00.000+05:30

Suddenly, our colony footpaths, which are reasonably well maintained, started looking bad in the eyes of the city fathers!
The bordering slabs were dug out and laid again. For reasons best known to the Corporation!
In the process a few slabs were broken and new slabs needed to be put up in their place.
On a quiet night, a truckload of stones and sand arrived in front of our home. A week later a few workers came early morning and started 'producing' the slabs on the spot.
The frontage and side spaces of a huge vacant house, located in a corner of the main road and a cross road became the production area.
A scene of the work spot!
Our colony gets a face lift!

Madras - Calcutta : Memory link - trams

2008-04-12T12:13:00.002+05:30

This day that year is one of my favourite columns in The Hindu. It tells you about an interesting event that happened fifty years back.
Here's one that happened 55 years ago in Chennai - 1953 April 12: Madras trams stop operating.
I came across this accidentally when I was searching for a science related info on NCSTC.
I have heard about tramways in Chennai. My dad used to narrate the experience of travelling on it, just to spend the day when he was in Madras on job search. The very thought of a 'train' on rails in the middle of a road was beyond my imagination till I happened to see one in Calcutta. (We saw it on the day we stooped over while travelling to Madras from Patna in 1992!)
The bell, the overhead wires, the slow movement that any fit person could easily jump into it while it was on the move were part of dad's stories.The side story was that the buses ran on charcoal power, at that time and a very few preferred to travel by buses! Trams ran on electric power!
When I googled for more info on Madras trams, I stumbled upon this article of nice memories by R. Ganapathy. You will also surely enjoy it.

My first video post!

2008-03-31T19:34:00.002+05:30

I love to explore any new gadget or a widget online. But, the videos on YouTube or GoogleVidoes took a lot of time to penetrate through my interests for reasons unknown.

But when I was part of a team to explore possibilities and ways to host videos online, I tried out one, to make sure that the video works online. The first and simple one was YouTube, then the Flash movie and then Google videos.
The test video is posted below.
I liked it. The chitraveena player loved it!

The Hindu - Then and now!

2008-02-11T17:08:00.000+05:30

A year ago, The Hindu introduced the epaper edition.Registered users could access the paper for a month for free.
During Feb. 2007, the epaper announced subscription rates.

After a year, from Feb. 1, 2008 the subscription rates are revised.
Reduced from Rs. 400 a month to Rs. 150 a month! No explanations, no assigning reasons!

The reasons can be many - increased online advertisements takes care of the cost or the newspaper is aiming at more readers / subscribers or could have realised that the rates are on the higher side . . .

Indian broadsheets are on the spree of driving their subscriptions. On their print editions.
Deccan Chronicle came at Re.1 a day. Now monthly subscriptions at Rs. 50
Business Standard launched a campaign in Chennai.
Now Times of India at Rs. 350 half a year with freebies.
Should The Hindu too send out its marketing team out now?

But world over the newspapers have broken down the subscription module. The Washington Post came out for free. Why did they 'tear down that wall?'

In my personal opinion reading a newspaper online that too the e-replica is a pain. Reading the content in plain html format serves the purpose and less strain to the eyes. I get to see a few newspapers and magazines offer web extras online.
Even the Business Line from the The Hindu Group of Publications!
So, decide now to be or not to be in the subscribers' list!

Thyagaraja Aradhana - Adyar, Chennai

2008-02-09T17:45:00.000+05:30

I am personally amused by the idea of paying tribute to Thyagaraja, one of the great composers of Carnatic music on every Sunday after the aradhana at his Samadhi in Tiruvaiyaru is over.
(Leave alone the aradhana or the tribute at Tiruvaiyaru that has become a show off these days and displays no sanctity.)

This continues till April and travels to the USA and Australia.

I see the musicians hopping across to all the sabhas hosting the aradhana week after week. Some even sit for one Pancharatna kriti in one sabha and move on to the other if there are more than one aradhana on the same day.
After all they have to show their faces and offer their namaskarams to the organisers more than paying tribute to the composer!

You are a lucky one if you had been to this place on a day other than the aradhana!

Sit on the cemented slabs on the banks of the river Cauvery, sit inside the mandapa where the composer's samadhi is situated, if you can, sing a song and pay your tribute, walk down the quiet streets of the village, have a look at the cement and mortar building that is coming up at the site where house of Thyagaraja once stood!

Tell me, if you make a trip after reading this post!

Picture caption: Aradhana held at the Karpaga Vinayakar temple in Karpagam Garden, Adyar on Fen. 3, 2008

Nature and kids

2008-02-04T17:26:00.000+05:30

One of the treasures of this city is its beaches.
The Marina and the Elliots have different features and the visitors to these beaches are also different.
What kids and adults do at the Marina is different from what happens at the Elliots.

But our beaches do not have those trees we find on the beaches of Kerala.
So what?
Prakriti Foundation recently held the The Tree of Life festival in Chennai and kids were also part of it.

They created the trees on the Elliots beach. For the contest titled 'Nature and I'.
Many created the Fort. And a few created all the elements of nature - Sun, plants, volcanoes, rivers.
On the plots allotted to them for the evening.
I could see all-kids teams, family teams, school teams and a band of friends, a few of them were college students.
But they all were concerned about the nature.
A kid was telling me about the climate change in the North. Cold waves and avalanches unusual to our country bothered him .
A good sign of awareness.

PonGala!

2008-01-25T16:30:00.000+05:30

What can a few brown papers, paints, craft papers, poles and strings create?
A lot. With sparkling ideas and a lot of enthusiasm these could create a Kids Community festival.
I received an invite from two bubbly kids to PonGala - a festival for kids and by kids!
Wow, the idea coincided with what I have been trying to do with kids.

The invite said - sacrifice your TV time and join the fun. The giveaways are certificates. Assured prize - lots of fun!

On a quiet morning after the grand Pongal Day, a small colony in Kilpauk came alive with kids in traditional dresses, rangolis, kummi, pot painting, festoon making contest and many more.
Mascots Bhooma and Suri depicting the Mother Earth and Sun god made out of chart papers and bunch of straw, the festival banners made of brown papers decorated the place!

A day of real fun and frolic!

Almanac - update

2008-01-23T19:01:00.000+05:30

Long ago I had blogged about the No. 28 Asal Pambu Panchangam.

Recently Raja Krishnaswamy mailed a comment on this:

"I was browsing the internet when I came upon your blog posting on the Pambu Panchangam. Not sure if you are aware, but even the western world uses a Panchangam and there is a popular Almanac sold in the US called the "Farmer's Almanac" published since 1792 which identifies appropriate times to seed, etc.

So there is a very scientific basis to picking the times in the Pambu Panchangam. Check out http://www.almanac.com/ "

Yes, Raja. I am aware of this. My post was an observation of the age-old almanac trusted by the Tamil population in our country. On a lighter side.
And yes, every system has scientific approach to time, stars, planets and their effects on human life.
Just the humans have to believe!

PS: Sorry for the delayed post. We have been busy with another festival here, which has nothing to do with the traditional festivals that make to the almanac, but we mark it in our calendar!

A day of the season

2007-10-30T17:11:00.000+05:30

The idea of Navarathri golu (Kolu?) is one I like among the Hindu festival.
This allows the creativity of the family to come out with ideas right from decorating the home, arranging the dolls to receiving and seeing them off!
This is the picture golu in our home.

A mission is set!

2007-08-31T16:58:00.000+05:30

Can you guess what these kids are eagerly watching?
A movie?
A TV show?

No, it is a session in which all about writing from their campuses and localities were briefed.

In my opinion, if kids are let to do what they like most they come up with wonderful ideas. Different perceptions about issues. Just that the parents and teachers should just allow them to do and watch the results!

YOCee (Youth Of Chennai - energetic and enthusiastic) is the new place for the kids to freak out.
At a recent get together of student reporters for the website, kids got their reporters' notebook, reporter's ID card and a few tips on writing and reporting.
It is now over to them!

In search of wisdom!

2007-08-12T09:42:00.000+05:30

Just self-explanatory! (Click on the photo for an enlarged view)
My son quotes this, when he goes on 'night out' for studying during exams!

Found it at the beautiful Kalakshetra campus!

Take divertion, please!

2007-08-06T21:29:00.000+05:30

Madras ahoy!
Call it Madras or Chennai or Pattanam or...
It's 'namma' Chennai!
Join the celebrations this month!
A lot of ideas, plans, events. . . For kids, adults, senior citizens. . .

Go to http://www.themadrasday.in

Do we really need a telephone directory in print?

2007-07-07T21:17:00.001+05:30

BSNL has announced release of new telephone directory!

Having used to the very old (updated 2002?!) directory and now most of the population on the mobile phones and most importantly when all the numbers are available on a call to 197 - very efficient now - do we really need a new, bulky directory?

But we check the numbers online www.chennai.bsnl.co.in

By the way, today is a special day - 07/07/07!

Magnificent Ther of Tiruvarur

2007-06-17T20:34:00.000+05:30

Everything about the temple of Tiruvarur is huge!

The temple itself has three praakarams and houses a number of smaller sannidhis.

The Kamalalayam, the temple tanks is another huge one, where boating for the public is also allowed!
The ther is really huge. It is called the Azhi Ther. Once you see this ther, all other temple thers will look like toys!

It was for the birth anniversary celebrations of Carnatic music trinity, I made trips to this town.
Yes, two trips. One for the Dikshitar Jayanthi in April.
It was then, just this festival and the walk inside the Thyagaraja temple was in a nice and calm atmosphere.
We could just float around the long maada veedhis, Enjoyed tender coconut sessions on the road. The summer was on, but it was not sweaty!

The next trip was in June for the other two composers' birth anniversary celebrations.

The Brahmotsavam at the temple was coincidence. The day we arrived was the most important day of the utsavam - ther.
The weather was sultry. Huge crowd thronged the temple as well as the maada veedhis, where the procession of the ther was on.
But, the sight of the ther at a corner of the maada veedhi from the other side through the temple tank is unforgettable. The huge there which once took a week's time to get back to its shed, now comes back to the temple by the evening. Thanks to BHEL, who have provided hydraulic brakes and a generator push from behind.

The devotees still pull the ther and apply the muttukattai - the manual brakes.

The evening concert by Sikkil Gurucharan, now a popular artiste is well-known in the musical ly starving Tiruvarur too. At a prominent place in the hall were the bronze idols of the trinity decorated with the traditional Tiruvarur garland.

The catch of the day for my camera!

Puppet show at the Elliots

2007-05-28T16:49:00.000+05:30

Out guests this summer vacation wanted to go to Elliots Beach.

But it was a surprise when we could watch a puppet show in front of the Schmidts Memorial at the beach. The evening visitors sat down to enjoy the show.
A really free-for-all-show.
And I felt many more events can be held at our beaches, without spoiling their natural beauty. Street theatres, sand castle building contests for kids, tug of war game shows or just painting the sky!

Kuppamma - Suppamma show!

2007-04-28T20:08:00.000+05:30

The story of two sea turtles - Kuppamma and Suppamma - was a unique show.

A puppetry show, in which they told everyting about their survival from hatchlings to young adults who have now returned to the beach of their birth, to lay their own eggs and what the humans do to them.... All in conversation in Tamil.

This event was organised by Naturequest, will be held at the Book Point Auditorium, (Opp. Spencer Plaza) in Chennai.

Dr. Bhanumathi, who runs Pavai Centre for Puppetry gave the intro and demonstrated another nature and environment related story through glove puppets.

The evening was wonderful. The audience looked relaxed and enjoyed the conversation like kids would do!

Yes, where were all the kids of Chennai?

Too busy reading? No. The exams are over!

Busy holidaying? Should be!

Parade of 63 devotees!

2007-04-05T19:13:00.000+05:30

The next day after the ther was the Arupathumoovar (festival of 63 nayanmars or Saiva saints).
A glimpse from the terrace of a friend's house!

Kolavizhi Amman, who joins the tribute to the saivaite saints!

Do you recognise this deity? (!!!)
Tiruvalluvar with consort Vasuki!
It is customary for the neighbourhood temples to join the procession during the Arupathumoovar festival.
And yes, Tiruvalluvar has a temple and is worshiped in Mylapore. It is but natural for him to join the festivities!

Colourful farewell to the chariot!

2007-04-04T18:28:00.000+05:30

The Car Festival at the Kapaleeswarar Temple is one which we don't miss to visit.
There is less crowd in the mornings, when the ther starts its procession. The preliminary pooja and the swamy's ascent to the ther are events one should not miss!
What interested me this was a novel idea to introduce the festivities to the younger generation. Kids who enjoy an outing with the parents during the temple festivals, sat down to paint their own ther!
The contest, which Mylapore Times, the neighbourhood newspaper organised for kids attracted the kids on the next day morning, when the ther was still standing tall at its shed, with all decor.
Once the contest was over, the pictures were hung on a clothesline on Sannadhi Street.
Wow! Twenty more thers. All perceptions of young kids!

Solar Eclipse in Chennai

2007-03-20T19:15:00.000+05:30

A partial solar eclipse occurred on March 19 and was visible in Chennai.
A day before the eclipse, the newspapers said that it would occur between 6.45 am and 7.23 am.
Also a caution was thrown not to view the Sun or the eclipse with naked eye or through binoculars.The newspapers also carried info that arrangements were made at the Birla Planetarium to project the images on a plain surface for public.On the day of eclipse, as nothing could be done at home, owing to the age-old 'beliefs' I biked to the planetarium.
Surprisingly, at 6.30 in the morning, there were about 100 people at the planetarium. More surprisingly, light refreshments were provided to enlighten the public that there is no harm in consuming food during the eclipse!
But we stayed away from the refreshments. Not for the superstitions, but we were in a hurry to stand in the queue to view the projection through the telescope!

Many kids landed at the early hours with their parents. A few press persons!After Mr. Iyam Perumal took charge as executive director of Birla Planetarium, we see many such activities happening inside the campus.
Two information notice boards on triangular boxes provided information about the eclipse.

The volunteers and staff of the planetarium were willingly assisting all those who landed at the centre on that day.
We watched the celestial event through the welder's glass and also the telescopically projected image. But I was watching the curious kids posing questions to the scientists and the staff of the centre.
One kid kept 'bothering' more people. I asked him what more information he could gather at the event.
He wrote about the experience and it is on the website for kids - YOCee!

Where were the kids?

2007-03-09T18:44:00.000+05:30

It was the release of the book Aditi and her friends take on the Vesuvian Giant by Siniti Namjoshi. The book for kids in the Aditi series.
And the place was Landmark bookstore.
The author explained how she could write for kids, though she is a feminist writer. (Her first book Feminist Fables was published in 1981). She said when she wrote for adults she could be quite savage. But while writing for kids she had to be sober and stay mild.
Though she shared the dais with young Nayantara, who was introduced as an avid reader, one could count the number of kids attended the book release function. A few visitors to the store stayed back for the event. Many were from the media - newspapers and TVs. Some from the publishing house - Tulika Books
But where were the kids?

Perhaps busy preparing for the annual exams!

If extra curricular reading is encouraged in schools, such events should be announced in schools. Such events are to be on the notice board as events for kids.
At least such books should find a place in the school libraries. Reading is fun, if intrioduced the fun way.
Writing is much more fun. Wish a kid could write a review of this book!

Vintage car show at Anna University

2007-03-03T15:58:00.000+05:30

The City Express - supplement to the New Indian Express, had something interesting for me - a vintage car rally from the Anna University to MIT Chromepet on Feb. 27

I had also read about the Auto Meet 2007 in the papers. So early in the morning, I biked to the Anna university.
It was nice to see the mechanical engineering students in uniforms. The student organisers were ooking at the few cars parked at the university campus.

The student co-ordinators were seen in a hurry. I thought, perhaps it was already time to ferry the cars to Guindy. But there were only four vintage cars. I was watching the university faculty advising the co-ordinators to call up someone for the cars to arrive at the plac early.

I asked one of the faculty members whether they were waiting for more vintage cars. He said they were on way to Anna University.

I was waiting patiently. After 15 minutes, all the students boarded the college bus. Two students took the bikes that were parked along with the vintage cars. The bikes appeared to have been remodelled ones. In a few minutes all of them left the place. And the four vintage cars followed them.

There were a few newspaper reporters covering the event. But not many public were seen around. I was disappointed. I could only capture these cars at the 'rally'!

This is what our colleges and universities fail to teach the students. The students of the university who organise the techfest Kurukshetra and claimed it to be bigger than IIT - Madras' Shaastra, could have very well organised a simple rally.
The amount of work that goes into publicity and media releases should reflect in a well-organised show. Instead it was taken very casually. There are always people like me who snatch the newspaper in the morning from the paper boy and rush to interesting events.

But, who cares?

The art of silence!

2007-02-28T08:58:00.000+05:30

Have you come across silence for a whole day in your life?
But, if you feel the 'deafening silence' throughout your life, how would you feel? I mean, if you can't speak or hear anything...
May be we will be fortunate enough to follow Mahatma Gandhi's rules - Hear no evil and speak no evil. But the basic communication we need to do with others will definitely be a little difficult.
Not for Suvedha Ganesh. A class 10 student, Suvedha has turned the time of gossips to productive one.Here is a sample painting she has done.
The colony where she lives (in Perungudi, Chennai), helped her put up a small exhibition of her paintings recently. It's no aristocratic colony, but a lower middle class residential colony. The community hall of the colony was the venue.
A few students caught up with Suvedha after the exhibition and have made a presentation here.

Double bill at the temple!

2007-02-21T11:30:00.000+05:30

Following Shivaratri, I happened to visit a dance programme at the Kapaleeswarar temple, Mylapore.
Actually it is not just one dance programme, but a series of dances on the day (night) of Shivaratri and the following two days.
Dancers from many places participated in the homage at this temple, on their way to Chidambaram and Thanjavur or on the way back. Dance festivals are held in many Shiva temples in Tamil Nadu during Shivaratri. A day to celebrate the Cosmic Dancer!
When the dance programme was going on at the Navaratri Mandapam, the Goddess also set out for a procession in the Gold 'ther' (Ratham - chariot). As I was watching the dance, I turned to my right and just captured this wonderful sight. My photography skills are just enough to use a camera in its auto mode. Here is the picture!

Inspired by another photographer, I was aiming to capture a very good view of the dance programme too.
The Madapam has a nice front yard with glacier tiles. The dancers enjoy performing at this floor. The reflection of the dancers on the floor creates a wonderful sight.
In all the evening was a beautiful one. What I am giving you here is just a sample.

Dream drive, cool sight!

2007-02-09T22:01:00.000+05:30

Can you believe that the photo on your right is taken in Chennai city? Not at the outskirt, but at the heart of the city.
I had to reach the Taramani Gate of IIT-Madras from Adyar.
Usually I take the route through L. B Road and at Tiruvanmiyur signal, turn to the right and travel straight and take a left turn and then right. I always felt sad about the condition of the road, where the prestigious Ascendas - the new IT park stands tall. But that is the only route you can reach the other gate of IIT Madras.
This time, my son said he would show me a better road. We set off on the bike.
At the Madhya Kailash signal, my son signalled me to turn to the left and lo! what a beautiful ride it was. The lights on the median were artistic. Some arts on the walls of big compounds. Some green patches and a few small installations!
I decided to stop by on the way back as we were to reach IIT early. And I did. In fact I stopped at three places and started clicking my camera. This is one picture of the few I took.
If you travel through this road look out of the window of your car to your left near Indira Nagar station. You will find this beautiful sight!

Veena concert in Pondy Jam

2007-02-02T22:24:00.000+05:30

Jamming up in music need not necessarily mean fusion music.
It can be any form of music And still can be jammed up with the moods of the audience!
Freedom Jam is one such concept of taking music to the audience by the artistes - for free. It is the voluntary act of musicians to come together to perform one after the other on the same stage. Thats is, the audience get to listen to different types of music on the same platform, same day.
Born in Bangalore, Freedom Jam has a monthly 'avtar' by name Sec-sat Pondy at the erstwhile French colony Pondicherry, now Puducherry.
For the Pondy music festival, which took place during late January this year, the steps to Gandhi statue on the beach was a venue! Musicians sat on the steps and performed to the 'sruti' set by the waves in the sea!
Another venue was the park!
But my post is about the veena concert held at the Alliance Francaise auditorium. Following a vocal music concert, which set the mood for a lighter concert - the vocalist sang Sri Satyanayaranam, in the raga Shubha pantuvarali - the three young artistes from Chennai took their traditional instrument to the stage.
Unusual accompaniment of Tabla for the veena concert. That's a kind of jamming up!
Some brisk, some slow, one popular song, one not-so, though short, the concert was complete. Nithyashree, Ajitha, Lakshmi played the veena and Vageasan played the Tabla.
All the college kids thoroughly enjoyed the trip to Pondy, the concert, the eating out and the night travel on the East Coast Road, back to Chennai.
And I accompanied the kids, as they are all students of my Guru - Kalyani Ganesan!

Colourful kolams

2007-01-30T23:01:00.000+05:30

Call it kolam or rangoli, the patterns drawn through the slits of the fingers are wonderful and exclusive to our country.
Rangoli is known by different names - Alpana, Aripana, rangavali, chowkapurana.
But what I know well is 'Kolam' - the traditional Tamil Nadu kolam.
I distinctly remember my childhood days when we used to get up early in the morning (at 5am?) during Margazhi, after Dec. 15, especially during Christmas holidays. Our mom used to wake up before us and get the front yard cleaned and keep ready for us. Us? - My sister and I!
Our dad also used to get up and be with us at the entrance, keeping an eye on the passers by at the wee hours.
We always put up a traditional kolam with white powder. Sometimes two coats of lines and patterns to make the kolam look brighter!
I could rewind my memories of drawing big kolams during the Mylapore festival, where we see only the traditional while powder kolam.

But the announcement in the paper about the longest, record breaking rangoli at the Marina beach, made me curious. The competition was to be held on Jan. 28 between 8 and 11am.

At 8am in January, when one would expect a chill in the air, the Sun was up and the women who participated in the contest were sweating!
Yet, the long trail of rangolis was nice to watch. The colour powders made a few rangolis clumsy though.
At 11am, the jeep carrying the judges, S. Ve. Shekhar (the Mylapore MLA), dancer Chitra Visweswaran and TV anchor Uma Padmanabhan started moving from rangoli no 1. The trail started from the lighthouse and went up to the swimming pool in the north.
A few rangolis I loved are here. But none of these won a prize!

Amazing kids!

2007-01-29T22:42:00.000+05:30

The title would remind us of Pogo Amazing kids!
I happened to see a giant advertisement board near Besant Nagar beach, during the December music season in Chennai. That was about the Amazing kids award by Channel Pogo - the kids' favourite channel!
That was 'Keyboard' Satyanarayanan - the child who is globe-trotting with his western instrument playing Carnatic music!
But, in my opinion, all kids are amazing. In their talents, enthusiasm, curiosity to learn things on their own and even in observing the elders like parents and teachers.
It is the amount of exposure they get or the parents introduce them to.
Yes, for example, introduce a kid to various kinds of music - Carnatic, Western, folk and Hindustani. Take the kid to performances in all the types of music. If possible, introduce them casually to learn the basics of different kinds of music. Watch the kid for a few months.
You would be amazed at the open mindedness of the kid to all types of music. He will listen to melodic Hindustani as well as enjoy a rock concert.
Later he would choose his kind of music to pursue. But will never, never look down on the other types of music!
It's my personal experience!
But, watching the kids a s a group, to do anything - music, dance, drama or just evening time playing in the apartment complex - is just fun.
I happened to be at the anniversary celebrations of a music school, Hamsanadam, run by singer Subha Ganesan. I have seen this school with a board drawn on a hard board with the name written by her students (they were a handful at that time). It was around 1996 - 97.
I could not believe that the school has now about 250 children in various age groups. The senior children presented a set of kirtanas with rich sangatis - typical of Subha Ganesan's school.
The 'kutties' presented beautiful small pieces.
Look at one such group! Aren't they amazing?

The Carnatic spirit lives here!

2007-01-17T09:14:00.000+05:30

If you have not got it, here is what it is.
The town is Tiruvaiyaru.
You are right, the famous Thyagaraja Aradhana takes place here every year.
The building seen in this picture is the samadhi of Bangalore Nagarathnam Ammal, who was instrumental in making this festival happen.
The small raised structures in front of the building are the two stages on which musicians pay homage to Saint Thyagaraja during the aradhana.
These platforms are decorated with a backdrop and temporary green room for the musicians to assemble before the concert and align their instruments to sruti.

I am not going to talk much about what happens beyond all these things, at this place, during the aradhana. One has to experience. Some pluses and some minuses. A few people who visit this place during aradhana, share their experience with the world.

The sandy banks of river Cauvery is a beautiful place to just unwind, have a darshan of Thyagaraja and if you can sing or play an instrument, bring it to the place and pay your homage to this saint peacefully!
You will feel good

Happy New Year!

2007-01-11T20:32:00.000+05:30

A belated wish to the readers of my blog!
I know I should not be boring with what is over now. Yet the videos, photographs are just tempting. If you have missed it, you have to wait for another year!

January is the season of many more things! Apart from Pongal, some important events people look forward to in the new year are already up.

Here is a quiz!
Identify this place.
Clue: A major event, Doordarshan telecasts every year takes place here!
If you got the answer - Congrats!
If no, do wait for my next post!

Take diversion!

2006-12-28T08:27:00.000+05:30

Dear visitors to my blog!

Pardon me for diverting you to this blog - http://mylaporefestival.blogspot.com/
This is a temporary diversion. But, I bet you would love this blog. More than the blog, you would love the event.
Make sure you reserve your weekend for this festival.

Lalu Prasad Toy - No kidding!

2006-12-09T19:51:00.000+05:30

Though I have declared that I am taking a break, the blog always brings me back to the world.
It is the curiosity to share what I have seen recently broke the break.
The busy schedule of co-ordinating a festival, covering December music season in Chennai and the exams keeps me away from the world of blogs and blah.. blahs!

Here is one I recently came across. I could not resist putting this up for you all.
A toy Lalu Prasad. I tried explaining a young girl in class 5, why Lalu Prasad toy. At last I ended up saying that he is the Railway minister of India. But she still wonders why there are no Manmohan Singh toys and Adbul Kalam toys!
Any answers?

Taking a break!

2006-12-04T10:06:00.000+05:30

Break is necessary not only when it is boring, but also when too many things keep you busy!
And too many blogs to update, too many programmes to attend, to many commitments to fulfill also force you to take a break.
Not to forget the exams in between!
When you click on my profile, you may get to see what I am up to these days. Just going crazy!
But I 'm happy.
I will come back to write about a nice break we are all planning during the second week of this month. We are off to the neighbouring state!

Retirement

2006-12-01T09:30:00.000+05:30

Retirement. . .
I remember my dad, though kept preparing himself for a retired life felt, he was too energetic to retire, on the day of his retirement. At the age of 58!
Yes, people are healthy, energetic and also matured and well experienced in their respective field.
But the mandatory rest, the labour laws enforce on the working class becomes necessary, at least in a country like India, where another set of young and energetic class is waiting for opportunities.
But how does it feel like retiring from the services at the age of 38?Does not sound great, if you think that this is the end of life.
If you think that this is an opportunity to reinvent yourself and bring back the real you in what you do, then retirement at 38 is pretty interesting!
That's what happened to me five years ago. That was a conscious decision to retire. Rather than going into reasons for such an early retirement, it will definitely be interesting, if I share what I did after that!
A single blog post is a very small space though.
On the first day, I listed all my interests.Reviewed what I was doing with them so for. Looked for avenues to pursue a few.
But there was an indirect pressure to keep up the last drawn pay even after retirement.
My first option was investment avenues. After allocating the major portion of the retirement benefits into safe investment schemes, I turned towards the capital market.
The accounting background gave me a fair idea about the markets. I played safe and more than making money, the way the markets behaved everyday really interest you. I was very cautious not to spend more than two hours a day. And the weekends were for learning.
I did a course in designing on the computers. The creative side in me also also fetched me name and rewards. During the spare time I made online cards and sent to all my friends and relatives. (To my ex-colleagues, especially to show them how I spend my time!)
The surfing of the Net, making question papers for the kids who appeared for the Board exams, helping out in their projects ( I bet, it is an enriching experience) - I mean for about 20 kids - not only makes you popular among the kids but also makes the parents look at you with a lot of respect (After all, you lessen their head ache to some extent)
The fourth is to play around with paper and pen! when you start writing, you really find a 'Gnanpeeth' awardee in you waiting to come out.
The fifth is really to give a shape to your thoughts and channelise them, you will find all your dreams come true.
There are a few more ways to keep yourself busy. Just get associated with a like-minded person. I mean with the one who just has the same fire in him / her exactly like you - You will forget that you have a career of 20 years ahead!
The list is longer than what you think it to be. And will interest you if only you also retire at 38!

Blessings on my birthday!

2006-11-17T20:49:00.000+05:30

The elephant God comes to our home in various forms.
Yes, Ganeshji gets into our home in different shapes, sizes, forms and patterns. And, we have never shopped for an idol or a photo of Ganesha. All are gifted to us!
Even the 'clay Ganesha' which comes to our home on Vinayaka Chaturthi day never leaves our home. I would like to decorate them and place them in the Navaratri steps from next year!
Of all the idols, I love the one in the relaxing pose with a 'hand fan' and a book!
But this time, Ganesha came in on my birthday. In a totally different form.
Simple, yet beautiful form!
He landed up on my mobile phone! A friend of mine remembered my birthday and sent a greeting. No words, just a Ganesha. It brightened up my day!

Rasam - the essen(ce)tial south Indian dish

2006-11-11T20:08:00.000+05:30

Rasam - this is one which is never omitted in the brunch menu of our family.
And through the week, we have different varieties of rasam. Sometimes, the same variety does not repeat even for a fortnight!
Rasam changes its 'avtar' to suit the accompanying vegetable of the day. If the cereals are used in the vegetable, the rasam goes without it. If it is a 'koottu', the rasam has the extra tangy taste. If the sambhar has a lot of cereals, the rasam becomes 'Mor rasam'
Only one type of rasam not made in our home is 'garlic rasam'. Somehow no one likes it and I have not prepared it in my life so for!
Just last week, I prepared a surprise 'mint rasam'. It got added to the existing varieties now!
I fried a small bunch of mint leaves with two green chillies and two tomatoes. And added the ground mixture of these to the boiling tamarind water with turmeric powder and salt. Added the cooked cereals. Completed it with the usual garnishing of mustard and asafoetida. Just add a few fresh mint leaves and it does wonders!
If anyone has a different variety of rasam, I would like to add to my cook-book!

Dream thinkpad!

2006-10-24T21:47:00.000+05:30

This should be a dream come true for me!
For a simple call to work on a web project, the kids swamped! The strange part of it was that the call did not mention anything about the project in which the kids would be working! And the mail id did not have any name to address the mails to.
This made me think that the kids are just looking for something exciting to work on.
And yes, they all turned up for the meeting, in a small hall. The technical info kids had just amazed the professional designers. Their needs were very clear. The kids knew what they had to do at the end of the two hour meeting. Ideas started pouring in.
Next day, we got mails in the inbox, with new designs for web page, some content, some write ups, poems and of course some queries.
The logo - busy bee - had a brush in the hand first, then a pen and at the end of the discussions, it threw up all the instruments and started 'thinking'. The busy bee became a thinking bee!
Apt for the name - Log on to www.yocee.in and see for yourself what I am talking about!

Parade of dolls!

2006-10-16T21:30:00.000+05:30

Navarathri has been my favourite festivals ever since my childhood days.
It was fun arranging the steps with tin boxes, cartons, newspapers, bricks and all things under the Sun. Those were the days we did not have ready made steps in slotted angles. We had seen the wooden steps with screws and padlocks, but.
The 'making' of the steps used to take a full day and we used to end up with placing a single 'Ganesha' idol in one of the steps just to carry over the rest of the steps to the next day.
Arranging the 'Dasavatharam' dolls always caused arguments. And the 'panchangam' was used to settle the issues - I mean the order in which they were to be placed. The 'marapachis' had the finest of the costumes made by me and my sister.
The happiest moments were dressing up in the evenings. I used to be a doll in the hands of my sister. She dressed me up with different accessories on all the nine days. Have you heard of 'tights' sari? It had an extra wrap after the pleats. With a short sling hand bag, I used to look like a foreigner in sari.
On some other day, the long plait was decorated with a pad of flower arrangements!
When I see young girls in traditional long skirts these days on such occasions, I say to myself - 'Hey, girls! There is much more than this simple pavadai during Navrathri!

Marvaellous musical in Museum Theatre

2006-09-22T23:19:00.000+05:30

For over a month I was blogging elsewhere.
It was not just blogging. But an experience, a lot of learning, many nice moments and above all a whole lot of trivia about the city we live in!
My posts here will relate to events and experiences more than a month old, for sometime. I could have very much skipped the old stories. But many of the incidents I came across are really worth sharing.

One such is a Children's musical show at the Museum Theatre, Egmore.
For those who have not been to a show in this marvellous auditorium, any amount of words explaining the experience will not be as real as watching a show live there.
The circular hall echoes from all sides and the audio effect of a music or the dialogues of a drama are different from any other modern halls or auditoriums.

Now, let me tell you about the show.

This is a musical show by C.S.I. St. Thomas English Church Children's Choir of Santhome. The story of Samson. A biblical story which portrays Samson as one of the miraculous children with enormous strength. Unfortunately, his enemies discover the secrets of his strength that it lied in his long hair! He undergoes a lot of humiliation and at last regains his strength and brings down the castle of his enemies with his strength.

Like any other mythological story this one also has many versions and interpretations. I am not going to talk about them. But the Children's choir presented it in a different way. It was really amazing!

The singing lot of about 15 children were arranged on a five step choir platform on one side of the stage. The main portion of the stage was used for a theatre performance. As the kids sang the choir, the story moves on with actions by another set of kids. The set was beautiful. The children sang to the pre recorded music, but with perfection. There was a special child in the front row, fully involved in the show. She sang and keenly watched the acting on the other side.

Choir is one among my favourites. When I called up the contact number, I found it was the Church office number. The manager wanted to know to which prayer group I belonged to. When I said I pray at 'temples', he was surprised. So was I at the auditorium. No one other than my son and I was not a Christian!

It is a story. Musical. And by kids! Any one who likes music, story and kids would love to be present there, especially when the show was in a hall like Museum Theatre. Sadly, we did not find many others.
On our way back, we were discussing how any mythological or historical story, irrespective of religion can be told in different ways that will be liked by kids.
The conductor Anila Manoharan worked closely with the kids, I guess. When she was asked to come on stage, the kids expressed their joy - "Anila Auntiee..."
Congrats kids and Anila!

Walk your way to health

2006-07-03T17:41:00.000+05:30

'Quitting a bad habit is hard. Starting a good habit is harder'

I am introduced to morning walk just a few days ago. My neighbour drives to the beach to walk.

A view from my tiny balcony in the morning shows me people of various ages who are regular walkers.

I decided to go for a walk, but from tomorrow - on everyday morning I renewed my oath.

My painted shoes were lying idle for over a month now. A great doctor friend sent me a link to a website on walking!

The link took me to the page where it said -
'An early morning walk is blessing for the whole day' - Henry David Thoreau.

I do not know who this Thoreau is. But I was inspired by the website dedicated to morning walks!

On a 'next' day morning I woke up to walk. Walking along the Besant Avenue Road was a pleasant experience.

The road which becomes a racing track for the bikers on the weekend evenings, is very quiet in the morings. Of course, a few driving school cars are usually seen at this time on this road.

The green curved road leads to Rajaji Bhavan. On the first day of my morning walk, I could not walk too long a distance but was tempted to have a look at the rising sun.

I took a turn before Rajaji Bhavan and walked towards the beach through the kuppam. The row of small houses immediately after the posh Bungalows bear a different characteristic.

The frontyards are watered. Small but beautiful kolam are drwan in front of all the houses. The morning routine of fetching water goes on.

I reached the dirty part of the Besant Nagar beach. But the sun rise is beautiful even from that part.

I walked back through the Damodarapuram Road ending at The School (KFI) at the Besant Avenue end!

I was tired after walking for more than half an hour. The summer is still on and it is steaming even in the morning.

Yet, the morning walk is wonderful, gives my day a good start. This statement of mine is after walking for about a month now!

Science and students

2006-06-15T15:01:00.000+05:30

On last Sunday when there was no work, we as a family decided to go to Chennai Trade Centre.
What was up? Not a regular consumer exhibition. But a different one.
ACMEE - 2006 Industrial Exhibition.
The event overview said that the "focus is on the products, solutions and services in the areas of CNC machine tools, automobiles, mechanical and plant engineering, electrical engineering, electronics, information technology (IT) and software."
The words included all the branches of engineering. What else can create curiosity among parents with a son just completed 12th class and waiting to join engineering courses!
We took a bus to the centre as we were scared of a weekend traffic on the road to and beyond Kathipara.
Well designed campus with ample parking area, not seen in many of the shopping complexes in Chennai nowadays. There was an entry fee and we were allowed inside with an identity card, with our names printed on it.
For us the machines looked as though they were from Mars! But we decided to walk through the exhibition.
Simple wired mesh patterens, poultry nettings on a metal craft stall were familiar. The huge forging machines were not. The people manning the stalls with neat 'corporate uniforms' were waiting for business enquiries.
We weren't the people they were looking for. But we would have liked if someone said what those machines are used for. Just an intro to a layman.
A house hold remote control was interesting. You can switch on / off your fans and lights with a remote control which does not interfere with your TV's and AC's remote.
The battery operated stackers were displayed on the floor. Do they help in industrial stacking or stacking of goods in shopping mall or heavy books in book stalls and libraries?
Regent Biochem India P. Ltd were seen circulating a green brochure. It said they provide environmental friendlty solutions to industries in disposing of their wastes, innovative concept in industrial cleaning. A must for the changing world and what every child should learn to preserve the nature.
Electroninc weighing machines, holograms, electrical switches and plugs, we walked ahead of these displays.
The king of the exhibits was a metal cutting machine by Neotech. It operates with plasma power source. Attached to a Auto CAD machine, you can draw your designs and cut it with high precision. Not you - it is used in vessel manufacturing industries, mining & automobile manufacturing units. Everytime a visitor wondered what the machine is doing, the exhibitor, demonstrated a cut! A patient and industrious exhibitor.
At the end all that one could see was representatives from various companies grabbing brochures for their bosses to sit and read leisurely. Not many students from schools or even colleges.
But a father of two kids was trying to expalin all that he could to those curious ones.
They are strange visitors for the business people.
But they are the future science and engineering students. They are the future manufacturers and consumers of these exhibits. May be these industrial components light up an idea in their minds and they become grassroot innovators.
When so much is talked about the innovations and L-Ramp awards are being announced every year and when there is a forum for India Innovators, why not the kids be taken to such exhibitions and explained about the present facilities and future scope?
Can our city schools take their eyes away from text books and 100% results for a while and initiate such steps?
This will surely go a long way in real education of this generation.

Teamwork works - Part 2

2006-06-08T09:17:00.000+05:30

Day 2 at the training.

Yes, the water was ice-cold. The institute follows the system of solar heaters. The weather was chill and so the water.

Today we were on time for breakfast. Many known faces - teachers who were part of the programme we met the previous day.

Both Kathik and I were looking forward to the other 'unknown' group. We swaped our groups and went to the hall.

Fresh morning, fresh team and all were ready for the games.
Interesting moments - when a team had to agree on some issues, because of a team member being a Physics teacher; a team in which it did not strike for one that there is no oxygen in the moon, two teachers, who could not solve a mathematics puzzle, interestingly both from English department and all of the group laughing at a person lablelled to do so. . .

The open minded teachers were rocking.
The management was supportive.
The senior teachers were seen mingling with the new comers.
All good signs of a group of new generation teachers ready to give education a different dimension.
The student community is in safe hands as of now.

But with the rush for technical degrees all to end up in a typical BPO / IT job, I really wonder where one could find good, dedicated teachers for the future generation kids!

We had to quickly pack up after the lunch to catch the train back to the ever hot city Chennai at 2.40pm.

I spent two useful days, this summer. A nice break for me from the exam-result-exam game at home with my son!

Teamwork works - Part 1

2006-06-07T20:40:00.000+05:30

I had been thinking about a professional assignment from EZvidya, till I landed at a heavenly pleasant place called Mangarai, near Coimbatore.

For people from Chennai, 23 degrees at Coimbatore and even chiller weather in Mangarai Village, situated within the reserve forest area is like being in Ladak during summer!

This was not a holiday trip. But a holiday camp for teachers of a school from Tiruppur. This is one of the prestigous schools in the T-shirt town, Tiruppur, we are told.

The place of the camp was a perfect one - The Karl Kubel Institute for Development Education. The well developed institute with library, Internet and canteen facilities apart from the greenery and colourful flowers in the well maintained campus.

We landed at the place early in the morning - I mean myself and Karthik, another trainer from Chennai.

After a night long journey, both of us checked in to our rooms and had a nap till 9.

After freshening up, we went to the canteen for a breakfast. They have strict time table - good for people on diet - and the staff provided three idlis to each of us from the left overs and a cupful of tea.

That made us rush for the lunch on time!

We just spent time shooting pics. The clouds over the hills, the green plants, the building where we stayed and so on...

The workshop was to start at 2, but the team arrived after 3pm.
Probably they enjoyed their trip from Tiruppur to this place, that made their journey a little longer than it usually is.

The team consisted of senior teachers, principal, correspondent, academic supervisor, montessori teachers and the new recruits of the present academic year.

Karthik and I divided the team into two groups and handled sessions individually.

Karthik, being a theatre person, made the session more physical with inputs on body language, voice modulation and the like.

My session was more of games, involving psychological aspects.

The grouping game, an icebreaker, did break the ice. The mathematics teacher could not instantly make out the difference between 3 pairs and 6 legs! The group broke into laughter.

At the end of the session one teacher came out plainly saying that she felt lost when she could not fit into one particular team. But, I should mention that the same teacher said at the end of the session, "I realise that I have to take the initiative to be a part of any group and not wait for invitation to join them." The first step towards success!

After a coffee break, the session went on till 8pm. I could not see a single tiresome face in the team. I should appreciate the team for enthusiastic participation, including the principal and the correspondent. Or should I take some credit for myself for keeping the session lively?

After dinner, we retired to our rooms. It was chill outside. The sound of the wing blowing filled the room though I carefully closed every opening.

I browsed over the feedback from the participants of the day and felt happy. I guess this gave me encouragement to wake up only to bathe in cold water of temperature - 3degree Celsius!

Bloggers are very much in business...

2006-06-03T18:03:00.000+05:30

Yes, bloggers are! But how long? As long as "the mainstream media is dumbing down with a vengeance and looking to their bottom line rather than people who live at the bottom" they are in business.

"The mass media has historically had one yardstick in deciding what to publish or broadcast - if the issue in question is in the public interest"

"I firmly believe that blogging is not just about having your own online diary or journal. It is much more than that. Many bloggers will tell you of their addiction to blogging that goes well beyond just writing a piece. How many active bloggers can really say they do not start their day looking for reactions to something they wrote the previous day? Or checking if someone has linked to something they've written? "

How true!

But all these 'good words' were spoken in October 2005. After six months, the views are same and still going stronger!

Are you curious to know, from I have read all this??
Read this interesting piece. If possible, you can support them too!

Kuch kuch Quota hai!

2006-05-16T18:07:00.000+05:30

This is what Amul had come up with on the proposal seeking increase of reservation quotas for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in Central Universities and premium institutions like IIMs & IITs in April '06

Simply superb!

I got my sole painted!

2006-05-13T11:45:00.000+05:30

A follow up of last post.

I said that is was not yet another workshop. It was a different experience.

Vasundhara (see pic- the girl in the green outfit) had organised it well.
The atmosphere was cool (yes, air-cinditioned!), the music inside the room was pleasant, the display of shoes painted by Vasundhara, her cousins and friends was inspiring!

She talked about the philosophy of 'Soul Print'. Spiritual. Yet, this young lady had put her heart and soul into what she was doing.
Her scrap book told us about the extensive research she had done on the designs for shoes. She insisted that we did not copy those designs but drew our own designs.

Well, it was fun all through the three hours.

I only wished there were more kids and young people to encourage her.

I have dispalyed the shoes I painted.

Vasundhara is coming back to conduct another workshop in October. After all the need for educating the under previliged requires perseverance.

If you think that you want to do something for this cause and encourage the younger generation to address such issues, just spread words.

That's all.

Not just another summer workshop. . .

2006-05-07T20:28:00.000+05:30

Ever since I started listing the activities for kids, I scan the newspapers from a different angle.
I go through the listings, read articles on special workshops and summer camps. I don't even skip the ads.
One such ad in today's Adyar Times, a neighbourhood newspaper sounded different.
'Paint your sole and touch a soul' - a creative workshop. . . contribute towards education for the under previleged' said the ad.
I have heard that Summer Camps and workshops mint money these days. Some good souls host free camps at the most. But this one made me curious.
And this was enough for me to call the organisers.
I called up the mobile phone number. No answer! I had almost given up gathering more details. But then came the return call. A girl started explaining about what is that 'sole printing' all about with a lot of enthusiasm.
"It's painting on a canvass shoe, the theme matching your personality. If you wear them, it will reveal your personality. This shoe will be a designer one and so will be your exclusive possession"
When I wanted to know more if we have to bring the materials and how much is the charge, she introduced herself as Vasundhara and wanted my introduction.
She has the very pleasing manners, I should say.
Vasundhara is a school student, now in Class 12, living in Adyar but studying in Bangalore staying in hostel. This project is for helping a school in the slum close to Kotturpuram.
She says that her friend's mom is involved in a NGO helping this school. On hearing that they are in need of funds, all Vasundhara could do was to think of something useful with her love for arts. Thus born was the workshop.
Here is a teenager, who thinks about the society, the under previleged children and the ways to extend a helping hand.
I appreciate her spirit. Vasundhara is a student, who has taken up arts. Not in the rat race of so called 'professional' streams. But she has the heart. The mind to think of ways.
I would also like to congratulate her parents. Nurturing is more important than seeding.

The workshop is for two days on May 10 and 11 and is open to all. The fee charged is Rs. 600 inclusive of cost of materials. (And she must have foregone one participant's fee for the ad in the newspaper!)

I will be a part of this little girl's mission. Anyone wanting to join me can call Vasundhara at 24490225. And see you at the workshop!

Why Kaavya Viswanathan should go ahead, get corrected and make a career

2006-05-04T20:17:00.000+05:30

I did not want to be the nth person to talk about Kaavya Viswanathan and this is not a criticism about Kaavya, the young author's writings - I would still prefer to call her an author! - But a little research into how this all happened made me think that I should blog about this.

(Photo courtesy - http://www.bookpage.com/

The Harward Independent, the student online weekly poses the question - Did Opal Author Plagiarize or Was It Her Handlers?

"I was surrounded by the stereotype of high-pressure Asian and Indian families trying to get their children into Ivy League schools," she told the New York Times on April 6. caught unawares, the Viswanathans sought the help of a professional college-counselling firm, IvyWise, which costed "$10,000 to $20,000 spread over two years."
They hired Katherine Cohen, founder of IvyWise and author of "Rock Hard Apps: How to Write the Killer College Application."

So one needs an agent to write the college applications in the days of companies like monster.com writing your CVs for jobs!

Kaavya started cello lessons at the age of five, studied four foreign languages beginning at the age of six, had near-perfect SAT scores and was president of three honours societies in high school. She has been writing as a passion, even from her school days. No doubt, she is talented. And some of her former professors agreed that she "had enough talent to become a teenage author"

Then why plagiarise?

After the charges of plagiarism were all out, Kaavya said she had read McCafferty but called herself "the victim of a photographic memory"

I would call her - the victim of faulty education system, the victim of parental pressure, the victim of engaging paid agents for admission to top-notch colleges and a typical misguided youth.
Mr. Chip Scanlan, please pardon this kid!
And the latest news is that 'The Record' is all set to investigate the two dozen articles she wrote as a summer intern at the newspaper in 2003 and 2004! And they have plans to vet her articles through LexisNexis, a public records database!
I would like to go back to my earlier posting.

If it is not Ivy League, it is not the end of life. I believe each bird has its worm in this huge world and each one of us is created for a specific purpose.
And in the language of any religion in this world, we have the right to do the duty and not to expect the benefit.
Let us teach the younger generation that they all have talents of their own and never they require to do anything which is not their cup of tea!

Come on Kaavya, you have your own space in this universe and there is always success after failure!

Typically IITians!

2006-05-01T13:48:00.000+05:30

An open confession : This is a post unduly delayed!

'May you be tough as a rock' - a quote from Rig Veda introduces the new political party of the 'educated' India to you. You guessed it right - I am talking about Lok Paritran.
The party is busy as the assembly elections in Tamil Nadu are almost a fortnight away. Every college kid talks about the party and takes part in the rallies and campaigns organised by the party. The 'bike rally' on May 1, attracted many such kids!
It is really a good sign that people of Tamil Nadu have felt the necessity of change in the system. And to see the 'learned lots' don't mind standing in the queue to get their names to the voters list, is heart warming.
When I was reading the interview with a few members of the party in The Hindu, I just could not stop relating their words with their educational background.
1. Their website is another page of 'online learning'. Have a look at the diagram and explanations about each line of their slogan in their 'philosophy' page!
2. To a question about their chances to win - Santhanagopal Vasudev says, "... But all I can say is there is a chance of winning." Tanmay Rajpurohit seconds it in the IITians' language - "There is a non-zero probability" Now it is time every voter knew about the 'probability axioms'!
3. To a question on the decision about the constituencies they fight, Tanmay again puts forth all the statistics -
"There's been an 18 per cent to 20 per cent drop. In Mylapore, last election the voter turnout fell from 59.4 (in 1996) to 41.6 and in Chepauk, the voter turnout fell from 58 per cent to 42 per cent." - Just short of explaining statistical variabiliy!
4. They promise good governance, tranparency, accessibility and freedom from coruption. But commented "we don'r have a clean delivery system." Hope they were not talking about Nuclear weapon delivery systems!
5. They have confessed that their technical knowledge is not going to be of much use. But I suggest that they update their website at least once a week with the help of volunteers. After all they have a host of youngsters working for them. A few of the 'mentally strong - physically weak' can be deployed in a air-conditioned computer rooms instead of biking for the party in the hot summer, which is always worse than the previous year. Their 'Upcoming events' page is last updated on Feb. 5!
6. About the resources they have, here is what they say -" Tanmay: We have about 2,000 volunteers and 750 members. There are 1,116 streets in Mylapore. If we allot 10 streets for groups of two, we can easily cover it pretty soon." Worth taking a tutorial on Permutations and combinations!
Am sure, Sudhish Kamath would have smiled all through the interview with these 'Davids'. (though he had tough time managing - mark isuak, who kept commenting to his post of April 15!!!)
But I would definitely agree with these youths that RDB (I have not seen Yuva.) is badly conceived and one can't see a movie and go out to float a party - Typical IITians' roar of laughter at the end of the interview!

About the first line - I am an ardent lover of Marie Corelli's works and it is borrowed from the title of her book - An open confession to a man from a woman - published posthumously in 1925!

Season of many things in Chennai

2006-04-20T15:31:00.000+05:30

It is now the season of many things in Chennai, that is Madras.
First of all, it is summer and the 'Madras heat' is known all over. Everyone here wants to escape to a cooler place. But, for many who have been out of their hometown, this is the season to visit their moms, dads, sisters and brothers!
Secondly, it is the season of 'summer camps' for kids in the city. This is an 'industry' of recent origin!
Every playschool has a 'summer camp'. Every playground has a summer sports camp. Every music school has a 'thematic summer camp'.
The cyber cafe's have also joined the race. Sify along with a NGO conducts 'infotainment' camps across the city - arts & craft classes combined with hands on training on computers.
Many women, otherwise home-makers have one to offer. These include table manners and etiquette classes. Perhaps, they are trained by their own experiences with their kids at home.
Some camps include teaching kolam, help yourself sessions (like folding clothes, sandwich making, etc) and look at the variety of activities for kids!
Are the kids really interested in attending these camps? Do they like to learn something even during holidays?
The kids are hesitant to talk about this, for fear of 'reflections' from their moms!
But a mother tells me - otherwise they watch TV all the time, with a cupful of snacks! These camps keep them active for three hours and they come back home to have lunch and rest and the evenings are for outing with parents!
Good idea indeed!
I started blogging on what the kids of Chennai 'can do, dine, play and participate'. But the popular summer camps have become an important part in the life of a school-goer during the vacation and I started listing them, unconsciously. . .
But, it is demanding, I tell you! When I look at the number of google searches through the blog, it is unbelievable that so many parents are looking for one camp or the other for the kids!
And the number of summer camps listed in local editions of newspapers and the mails I receive from people hosting the camps are too many to fit in one post.
I am thinking of reorganising the post! After all summer camps are on till first week of June!
An unusual one - Summer camp for the senior citizens!
Chinmaya Mission is organising one - 'The art of graceful ageing'. Some financial planning is also taught with spiritual text reading. Good work there!
Interested senior citizens or sons and daughters of senior citizens can call 044-28360546 for details.
When you are looking for something useful for your kid, why not for your parents?

Self assessment for career planning

2006-04-07T16:11:00.000+05:30

The word 'career' plays an important role in everyone's day to day life.
The first question one faces after having a hand-shake with exchange of names - What are you? No matter at whatever level you are in - a fresher or in mid-career or an established business person. If you are able to say what you are with a smile and without hesitation, you are on the right track.
For the firm hand-shake and the confidence reflecting on your eyes, the career you are in, should give you pride and satisfaction. And you will have pride and satisfaction only if you have a passion for what you are doing!
Sounds boring? Yet, read on...
Do you have that passion?
Have you done any self assessment of what you can do?
Have you ever reviewed what you have been doing so far?

Just sit back and relax.. Think of a few things in the order I narrate. And tell me if I was correct!
Take a few inventories:
First is Interest inventory. Just list down what all you like doing. How much ever silly it may be. Let it be just jogging or a challenging computer programming. And end it with what you will never like to do. Look at the list and read aloud. Wow... are you interested in so many things? You never knew it!

Second is the skill inventory. Think of all that you are very good at. Write down even what you are average at. Drawing, teaching, writing even googling! At the end of the list go back to item number 1. Run your eyes down. Oh.. are you capable of doing all these things? You never realised it.

Your personality comes next. You can close your eyes and think. Are you an introvert? A bit sensitive? Like to be out going, but still wondering how to be? How do you approach issues? Think of various events that took place in your life and how you managed them. You might recollect having solved a difficult situation in school or at home, in a very innovative way!

The last one is really important. It is value inventory. Perhaps the list you have so far made, will get cut down considerably. Ask questions like, why do you want to be this? Can you be true to your conscience by doing this? What is the value of wealth in your life? Is your career worth your values - I mean does your organisation have those values which you respect?

Now strike off, one by one, which does not have an affirmative reply to your questions. Probably you are now left with two or three options. Now repeat the steps quickly.
You have the answer!
Sometimes you may have passions for many things - music, kids, languages, finance, writing, art & crafts, travel, books, culture & heritage. . .(like me!) Just choose one as career, a few as freelancing, a few more as honorary contributions and the rest as hobbies!
You should have the strength in you to do many things at a time!
Remember the Tamil poet Subramanya Bharati's definition of Shakthi - strength in one of his long poems. Among many lines this one will wake you up - Ennathirukkumeriye shakthi - The fire in your thought is what is called shakthi!!

Gravitate towards Physics

2006-04-03T13:06:00.000+05:30

For the students in Class 11 and 12, the spate of tests, examinations does not make life miserable. But they are part of their life. Especially, the scene in Chennai is an accepted one among the parents, teachers and the children.
No one complains.
The results of these examination are a few certificates, sometimes prizes.
But the examination conducted by The Physics Society, Chennai was a different one. The kids wrote the test and later called for an 'interview'. The exchange of phone calls between friends who have been selected for the interview brought surprises to the kids.
They were called in groups and three questions were posed to the group. The kids were asked to discuss among themselves and come back to the interviewers and discuss. The discussion was the test.
There was nothing right or wrong. The course of thinking was evaluated!
On the prize distribution day, April 2, the Society asked the kids to come with their parents, teachers. And some came with grandparents. After all, grand parents bear more responsibility at home in these days of both parents working!
Much was talked about present day education system, the need to change, the craze for professional degrees and overseas education.
The 'old students' of Prof. Ananthan, President of The Physics Society spoke about his method of teaching at D.G. Vaishnav College. (The society runs with huge contributions from these old students).
Ravishankar, a young teacher with American International School and the Secretary of The Physics Society was beaming with a lot of quotes, ideas and advices to the kids and schools
Well, for those who thought the function to be yet another prize distribution ceremony, the discussions were enlightening.
Everyone agreed that there is no need to feel that pure science is in no way inferior to technical degrees, that the knowledge of the kid should not be determined by the marks he gets in any exams and entry into IITs and other reputed engg.colleges should not be construed as the ultimate capability of the kids.
But it is all till they had their 'high tea' and left the place!
No one to blame. It is the order of the way. The kids and parents flock together towards an aimless goal!
But I have another point to make. Not about the system of present day education.
But about the values towards their education, friends and the knowledge-sharing.
I remember exchanging books and notes with my classmates; going together to all the classes including Hindi and drawing classes.
But today's kids do not like to share the information with their classmates. They do not want to tell their friend, which book will be useful and from where they are learning. It is like revealing a secret to an enemy!
I used the word - enemy. Yes, because, it is not a competition anymore, but it is a war.
But the war is mainly mooted by the parents.
It is painful.

P.S: For those who want to be a part of the weekly discussions at the Physics Soceity and make their kids gravitate towards Physics - The soceity is at 2A, Golden Kingsmead, 3, TAS Enclave, Anna Nagar, Chennai - 40

Google : Search raised to the power of Googol

2006-03-26T13:17:00.000+05:30

When my son showed me a new service from Google, I just could not believe, how Google comes out with surprises frequently.
I have been using computers from IBM Pcs and then the Intel 486, from 1989 and still seeing the growth of this 'not- so' idiot box.
'What is a Googol'is still a favourite question in all school quizzes. But what is the power raised to is Google? It is an interesting history.
Basically we know that Google is a search engine that enables users to search the Web, Usenet, and images. Its features include PageRank, caching and translation of results, and an option to find similar pages.
Googling for 'Google' gave me so much of insight to the crawling beast on the net!

If you know about all these things about Google... you can log out and wait for my next post!

*Google Desktop - If you download this feature, you canView personalized news, photos, and many more on your desktop. You can search for files across all your computers. You can share information with your friends right from the Sidebar.and find your emails, files, web history, and more.
* This Web Word Processor which will help share documents instantly & collaborate real-time, pick exactly who can access your documents and edit your documents from anywhere. You can sttore your documents securely online. But right now you are placed on wait-list!
*If you are an avid reader on the Net, check Google Reader.
Reader automatically gets the latest news and updates for your favorite sites and can find the blogs and news sites you've been missing out on.
Sure, you won't miss my postings anymore!
*Want to see research papers in your subject of interest? Google Scholar will help you.
*If your site has dynamic content or pages that aren't easily discovered by following links, you can use a Sitemap file to provide information about the pages on your site.
*On Google Books, you can search the full text of books to find ones that interest you and learn where to buy or borrow them also. You can promote your books on Google for free here.
*All the recently acquired features in Google are available for a download at one click in Google Pack - A free collection of essential software

Though many around the world talk about the flipside of Google and keep a watch of their algorithms and privacy policies, it is growing, growing and growing to googolplex.
Do you wonder, which new feature / service I was talking about in the beginning?
It is Google pages. Online web page creator similar to Geocities of Yahoo!, not with 15 MB space, but 100 MB.
If you don't want to miss out on any new feature, keep a tab on Googles official Blog.
Happy Googling!

Search within!

2006-03-23T19:34:00.000+05:30

The title of this post will be misleading if I don't make an intro of what is this about!

Of late, I see quite a few people have learnt to be proud of their area, community and neighbourhood. People who are from Saidapet in Chennai and now moved to San Diego are thrilled to meet others from their neighbourhood - not personally, but online.

And number of blogs and web site with 'namma' and 'my' prefixes are on the increase.
A few on history and some others on personal experiences!

When people are away, they start thinking about the goodness of the area they lived in during their school and college days!

The blogs range from Mysore to Pune to Madurai. The one on Madurai is really cool
And on the latest addiction - the orkut community groups, you can find all the suburbs in any city!

I was searching for all corners of Chennai. Mylapore, Triplicane, Nanganallur, Mambalam, Velachery. But what happened to George town, Tiruvottiyur, Washermanpet... As usual the north Madras is lagging behind!

There are also groups at Trivandrum, Patna, Pondicherry and so on. Its good to see people getting together. And think of their old times in their native place.

I wish they shared information about unknown book shops, chat corners, the woman who sells wire baskets and who can help you in packing appalams, podis and all other ready to eat snacks, when you catch a flight to the other side of the globe.

And if the group can do something useful to the community or help their neighbourhood and the younger generation now living there with lots of hopes on the society, nothing like that.

E-school bag!

2006-03-14T20:05:00.000+05:30

It was not for watching colourful school bags carried by kids, I stopped over at a school.
I had to wait for getting a document attested by the Principal and I happened to watch school bags of different shapes, sizes, colours, patterns . . .
Many were back-bags and back-breaking bags too! A set of kids were moving in a line led by the class teacher to the ground, where parents were waiting to pick them up. Perhaps Class 6 students!
One among them spotted me and smiled. She was waiting for her mom to arrive. The bag looked very cute. "Nice bag, you have," I said. "Thank you, aunty, but you know, the books become shapeless at the end of the term, with this longish bag. It is hanging out of the back so much that it pulls my shoulders down. A horizontal bag like that is better," she pointed to her classmate's bag.
Now, the other girl became curious and came to us. I said, "she says that your bag is nice and comfortable."
"May be the books are neat and clean, but the breadth of the bag is always bigger than that of our shoulders. I always get hurt while getting in to the school bus." She pointed her fingers to another boy's bag. "The longish one with the straps apart and not from the centre of the bag is good."
The boy disagreed. "Even though I carry only 5 books and 7 notebooks, ("Mom counts the books and notebooks in the morning!") it looks like an astronaut's bag. When I sit in the pillion of my mom's bike, it looks as if three are travelling on the bike."
Observing the conversation, a little girl spoke her heart. "Auntie, bags are all bad. We should bring only one notebook to the school. All the books should be on the satellite!"
"Satellite?"
"Yes, auntie. They should be put on the satellite. Like TV channels, we should skip to the next channel in the next period. A 'remote' should also be there." She smiled at her own idea.
Hey, there she goes! She talked about an electronic revolution innocently.
When we look up to e-mails, do e-shopping, read e-newspapers, why not e-schoolbags?
The idea is wonderful!
Any takers in the blogosphere?

Doubly focussed!

2006-03-07T16:51:00.000+05:30

There is no change in the way of my holding the book. And the lighting in the room is good enough to read a book.
Yet, there is change in the way I hold a book! My arms stretch a bit further and I try changing the angle of my holding the book! Now, it's OK. I go ahead.
But it was on a bright morning, the distance between the knife and the vegetable was inassessible. Then, on the sewing machine, the position of the needle looked different.
But it really struck me when I was reading the proof of a work. Another collegue of mine put on her reading glasses hanging around her neck. Oh, I have gotten'Presbyopia'! (Wonder, why my grandma called it 'Saaleshwaram' - which God she was talking about?)
For the optician, it was a routine prescription for a reading glass. The options were many:
- You can wear a thin pair of reading glasses - however you have to look over or under it! Buy for a hundred rupees. And hang them around your neck!
- You can wear a bifocal glass. Permanently. No looking over and under the glass. But there is an annoying line separating the near and distant vision. You can not 'read between' these lines!
I happily chose the frame and ordered for a bifocal glasses for around five hundred rupees.
It was not easy to wear the glasses all through the day. Not because, I was not used to. But the glasses with separating lines were frustrating to wear. I started getting head aches, dizziness and nausea.
My cousin suggested PAL - Progressive addition lenses. There are no lines and they offer a more gradual visual transition between the two prescriptions. No visible lines? The idea sounded good. The cost went beyond three thousand rupees - a normal quality pair of glasses.
After wearing them, I felt I missed the perception at every staircase. People who saw me for the first time or even old friends were made to think that I suffer from a severe health problem that I was not able to take a step without any help. Above all, I experienced distracting double images from headlights of vehicles and streetlights.
The doc suggested Crizal lenses, that promise a clear vision. But the price (around ten thousand rupees!) discouraged me from experimenting.
I started observing people with glasses closely. The first thing I looked for was the lines in their glasses! And yes, almost 90% of my age group and above were wearing them with lines!
I told myself,"Be doubly focussed on the work. You will forget the lines." I started reading through bifocal glasses.
Yes, it works. There is nothing like self motivation. . .

There is real money in blogs! Read on . . .

2006-03-06T13:02:00.000+05:30

There are zillions of blogs up in the sky! May be more the number of stars!

While each one is trying to earn a buck or two in their own way, Xu Jinglie, the Chinese actor has a problem sharing the money earned through her blog with her host. Thats what happens when an actor starts doing something, even blogging. I wonder why our Kamal Hassans, Madhavans, Revathis and Suhasinis are not doing this!

By the way, there are again zilions of websites cropped up to tell you how to make money through blogs and make their money online!

The Chinese actor Xu Jinglei has started blogging. Just after a hundred days of launching her blog(Chinese), she gets 10 million page views each day. Dear me, thats really huge! The weblog is hosted by sina.com. The company argues that the entire earnings should belong to them for having hosted it free of cost. But obviously Xu likes to take home her share.

The web reviewers are actively following the dispute. Worldwide, bloggers are supporting Xu. They should, after all their blog will also earn that much money one day! The Senior VP of Sina has supposedly said once about blogs that blog "has nothing new, it is just personal homepage plus BBS."

Yet this 'personal page with BBS' is amazing space for the writers, rather thinkers. What do you think?

Call it Chennai or Madras!

2006-03-04T17:09:00.000+05:30

Are you a Madrasi?

A question I was asked in all the places outside Tamil Nadu. Even after six years of renaming the city as Chennai. I personally prefer to call it Madras. But I find many others too!

The clubs still call it Madras - The Madras Club, Madras Boat Club, Madras Gymkhana, Madras Football Association, Madras Cricket Club, Madras Flying Club, . . .

There are a few colleges - Madras Christian College, Madras Medical Mission and the 'Big Brother' - IIT is IIT-Madras!

It is still Madras Bar Association and it is Madras Port Trust.

I am collecting a bunch of these names and I need help. Even if it is Madras Cycle stores and Madras Magazine shop, I would like to have them. But with complete address please!!!

Here is a bonus. If you love to see stamps and post cards on Chennai, click here! (Thanks Balaji)

Thanks friends!

Chennai and Arts& Handicrafts

2006-03-03T15:08:00.000+05:30

Chennai has been the cultural hub of South India. Agree. And why is this sudden inflow of arts and handicrafts items on sale at every available hall?

All the states in India have started looking at Chennai from the angle of marketing destination.
The famous 'Pongal Fair' at the Island grounds was the only exhibition we all used enjoy in our childhood days. The 'Giant wheel' used to be the main attraction.

But nowadays, every other hall, small or big, in the city is hosting a handloom and handicraft exhibition all through the year.

The Gujarat Handloom & Handicrafts-Exhibition-cum-sale was at Sankara Hall, Alwarpet, from Feb.15 and on vacation of the hall, we now have UP Handloom & handicrafts exhibition.

North East Handicrafts fair has just got over at the Corporation Community Hall on C.P. Ramaswamy Road. The Orissa Handloom Exhibition is on at C.P. Arts centre from March 3.

Lalit Kala Akademy hosts the Paramparik Karigar every year. And this is also on now.

And many more. . .

Shankar Lee's work at Vinyasa Art Gallery, Art exhibition by Progressive painters' Association at Lakshana Museum of Aarts, Paintings by college students from Gulburga at Sri Parvati.

And the Goodshephered Hall, Valluvar Kottam, Vimonisha Art Gallery, Apparao Galleries have regular shows and exhibitions.

Just curious to know. . . How many men shop at these places?

Oh boy! What a toy!!

2006-02-28T22:45:00.000+05:30

Toys are fun, educative, sometimes they are companions to the child. Especially, a single child. I used to look for a new arrival in the market, when we wanted to gift one on birthdays. kids in the family wait for their birthdays, just to get the newsest toy from me!

Year before last, it was the Beyblade. Of course, it wasn't all that new in 2004, as it was one of the hottest toys of 2002 in the U. S. They are Hasbro's battling tops. (Yes, the age old tops we all played with a thin rope). More than 2 million beyblades were sold in the U.S. alone in 2002. But the accessories and the creativity with which the toy was built over was amazing. We used to play with tops on the roadsides near our home with circles drawn with the nail in the top. And we used 'technical' terms like 'Apeeet', 'kuthu'. . . and many more.

And Beyblades too have set rules. Look at the official rules:

- All Beyblade battles must occur in Beystadium!- Beystadium cannot be on table or other elevated surfaces. - To begin official Beyblade battles, Beyblade tops must be launched after the signal of 3,2,1 Let it rip!
- Only one launch per battle - battle ends when one top stops spinning.
- If player touches opponent during opponent's launch of top, player loses 1 point. Player scores 1 point if opponent does not launch top into the Beystadium.
- If player's top enters one of the three penalty pockets anytime during battle, opponent scores 2 points (max score of 2 points er battle)
- Player scores 1 point if his/her top spins longer than opponent's top.
- If player touches Beystadium during battle, opponent scores 3 points-battle immediately over .
- Compete in multiple battles-the player with 7 or more points at the completion of a battle wins!

There are other types of launches:
DRAGOON STORM (Dragon Spirit) Reverse Launch - Opponent must launch his/her top with his/her opposite (non-writing) hand.
DRACIEL (Turtle Spirit) Delay Launch - Launch your Beyblade top 5 seconds after opponent launches his/her top.
DRANZER (Phoenix Spirit) Power Launch - Player can use a Deluxe Beyblade launcher while opponent can only use the standard Beyblade launcher.
DRIGER (White Tiger Spirit) Customization Launch - Opponent cannot use a customized top. His/her top must come straight out of the box.

Really cool!

But whats up this year? In the American International Toy Fair 2006 held in New York City between February 12 and 15 2006, nine games were selected as the best games of the year. And the best property of the Year - Dora The Explorer. It has won this award for the second time in a row.

Boy - Toy of the year award goes to Shell shocker from Mattel.It is a radio-controlled toy. By remote control you can have the shell shocker roll up into a ball or open it up into a "cyberbeast". This vehicle is also designed to stand up to play action in the dirt. As the toy opens up, a cyber extention flaps down hard and helps propel the shell shocker. It has an alien feel to it that might appeal to older boys, the tweens and the teens, as they call them!

I haven't seen the Shell shocker yet. But the mad-mad Beyblade will remain popular with our kids for another two years atleast! After all Beyblade found a place even in the annual Odyssey quiz (2006) in Chennai, which happens on every Republic Day! Sure, all the school teams would have made an additional point on that question over the others!

In and around Chidambaram

2006-02-27T00:05:00.001+05:30

Shivaratri is a night to be awake all through.

But if you are inside the Nataraja temple, you can do a lot of things. Foremost is of course, watch the dance performances of dancers from all over the world. (And this time, people away at home can also watch the performances)

You can go on to Nritta Sabha, one of the halls inside the temple where the story of Shiva-Parvati dance is portrayed.

You can have the darshan of Govindaraja Perumal with his consort Pundareekavalli. Remember, he was the judge for the divine dance competition. Vaishnavaites call this place as Tiru Chitrakootam and it is one of the 108 Divya Kshetrams.

You can go on to the beautiful 1000 pillar mantapam and enjoy the sculptured pillars.

You can watch the fish come on to the steps to receive the rice flakes from the pilgrims, in the Sivaganga tank.

The next day morning, you can go to Tillai Kali temple, on the northern end of the town. The temple was built by King Kopperum Singan in the 13th century.

The historical 150 year old High school run by Pachaiyappa Mudaliar Trust and Yazhpanam Arumuga Navalar school are of places of interest.

On the way, you can visit the temple of Pasupeswarar at Tiruvetkalam, in the vicinity of Annamalai University. This is believed to be the place where Arjuna of Mahabharata killed a demon using Pusupatha astram given by Lord Shiva.

Visit Annamalai University, the brain child of Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar. It had illustrious persons as Vice Chancellors. Dr. Radhakrishnan, C. P. Ramaswamy Iyer and R. K. Shanmugham Chetty, the former Finance Minister. A very big building on the model of Oxford University houses the University's library.

The music department of the university, where the Carnatic music stalwarts like Tiger Varadachariar, Dr. S. Ramanathan, M. M. Dandapani Desikar and many more (the list is very long...) served as faculty. All precious and unique musical instruments are on display at this college.

Visit Ilamaiyakkinar temple in Chidambaram. Shiva is believed to have granted youthfulness to Tiruneelakantar, one of the 63 nayanmars.

If time permits, hop across to Tiruvenkadu (means the white forest in Tamil) where the linga is white in colour! This temple also houses the Adichitsabhai, one of the halls permeated by the atmosphere of wisdom.

Then, trip down to Pichavaram mangrove forest. Mangroves separated by a sand bar, from the sea. Backwaters of the sea have formed a channel knitted together in such a fashion that only the boatmen find the ingress and egress. Boat riding here is pleasurable.

The village Killai, which is a symbol of religious harmony. Muslim offerings to Lord Bhuvaraha of Srimushnam (40kms away) are still in vogue, when the god passes through the area. This is a thanks giving show for the cure effected on a Nawab by Bhuvarahaswamy - the lord in the form of a boar. Nawab has made an endowment for this.

Then, drive down 20kms. The town Sirkazhi houses the Sattanathar, Brahmapureeswara and Thoniappar (Shiva on thoni - boat) temples. There is also a sannidhi for the God-child Gnanasambandar, who is believed to have been fed milk by goddess Parvati.

In another 15 minutes, you can reach Karaikkal. There is a small but beautiful temple in the heart of the town for Karaikkal Ammaiyar, the only woman out of the 63 nayanmars.(She is one of the three women nayanmars... see comment below. Thanks Narada!)

Very close by is Karaikkal, you can visit the Dharbaranyeshwarar temple, which houses the Saneeswara (Planet Saturn) temple at Tirunallar.

Can you resist Tarangambadi (Tranquebar)? The remains of a fort constructed in 1620 will kindle an interest in history within you.

40kms from here is Poompuhar. The earlier name of the place is Kaviri poom pattinam (the shore where River Cauvery enters the sea) The great Tamil epics Silappadikaram and Manimekalai were created around this town. The Zion Church built in 1701 is a place of interest.

On the way back, Park your vehicle at Porto Novo, the place once occupied by the Danish. It houses a Marine biological station, which is second such station in Asia.

From Porto Novo to Chidambaram, near Cuddalore Railway station is Tiruppapuliyur. The famous Pataleeswarar temple and the story of Appar, one of the 63 nayanmars thrown into the sea by the Jain community, saved by Shiva is in this place. Karai Era Vitta Kuppam is where Appar came back from the sea.

Cuddalore now has a beautiful beach, despite the Tsunami 2004. Lord Clive lived here with his horses and barracks. The building now houses the District Collectorate. There is a stone inscription to this effect here.

Back at Chidambaram, visit Nataraja temple through the southern entrance, through which Nandanar, the great devotee the darshan of Lord Shiva.

Was this not a complete Shivaratri tour of worship and fun?

I have to make a disclosure here. The inputs are from my dad, who always told stories and stories about places and created an interest in all of us, about the history, culture and heritage of the places where we lived in our childhood days.

Chidambaram - the sky of consciousness. . .

2006-02-26T23:38:00.000+05:30

Today is Maha Sivaratri. The great night of Shiva, the god of destruction. Mythology says, during the great mythical churning of the ocean called Samudra Manthan, poison emerged from the ocean first. The gods and the demons who were churning the ocean, ran to Shiva for help, to protect the world. Shiva drank the deadly poison. Goddess Parvati held it in his throat by placing her hand on his throat. This turned his throat blue, and since then he came to be known as Neelakantha, the 'blue-throated.' Shivratri celebrates this event.

There are also other versions - that Shiva married Parvati on this day - that a hunter roaming in a forest was chased by a tiger and to escape from it, he climbed a Bilva tree. He spent a sleepless night sitting on the tree, but plucked the leaves and threw them in tensed mood, which fell on a shivalinga below the tree. Pleased by the vrata (hunger) and pooja (with bilva leaves), Shiva granted him moksha on this day!

One more version is that Shiva performed the Ananda Thandava (dance of joy) on this night. That is what the idol of Nataraja at Chidambaram depicts!

The lingas of Shiva are worshipped as forms of five elements. As earth in Kanchipuram, as water in Tiruvanaikkaval, as fire in Tiruvannamalai, as air in Srikalahasti and as sky in Chidambaram.(In Sanskrit, Chit=consciousness, ambaram=sky). The prolific composer Muthuswamy Dikshitar, whose travelogue kritis describe the history of the temples, had composed kritis on all these kshetras(holy places).

The sky is the symbol of emptiness and hence, Shiva at Chidambaram is worshipped in a 'formless' form, which is called 'Chidambara Rahasyam' (The secret of Chidambaram). The sanctum santoram does not have any idol, but a blank space and a bilva mala (a garland of Bilva leaves) is hung. This place is believed to be the centre of the universe and Nataraja is dancing to facilitate the rotation of the earth. It is 'cosmic dance'.

Brahmanda puranam speaks about the dance competition between Shiva and his wife Parvati, in which Shiva emerges as winner by performing Urdhva Thandava, a male gesture in dance. Parvati leaves the location and goes to the outskirts of the town, where today we find the temple of Tillai kali.

This legend is portrayed in one of the halls inside the temple - Nritta sabha. Vishnu, the brother of Parvati played the judge for the competition. In fact, some believe that he did not pronounce his judgment at all as he did not like his sister, Parvati to lose in the competition. So he said, he slept mid-way... The Vishnu idol here is in sayana(sleeping) posture.

Ironically, Chidambaram, the famous Shiva temple is also one of the 108 Tirupatis(sacred places) of Vishnu! The sannidhi of Govindaraja Perumal inside this Shiva temple is that Tirupati!

But, if you had planned to be in Chidambaram this Shivaratri, the trip will not be a complete one, just by worshipping Nataraja. You can make this trip a perfect pilgrimage or a pilgrimage coupled with visits of interest!
Read on the next post. . .

A mouse is a mouse is a mouse!

2006-02-20T16:03:00.000+05:30

Hickory dickory dock!
The mouse ran up the clock. . .
The clock struck one
The mouse ran down
Hickory dickory dock!

At one in the afternoon, my mouse which has been giving trouble for sometime now and reached the stage of 'run down' condition gave up! I am talking about the computer mouse invented by Douglas Engelbart!

I recollected my earlier days with the computer. The 486 computer I was using, was just similar to a typewrtite in use. I did not bother much about the mouse. The necessity to use the mouse made me play a computer game. A mathematics game. The quick addition, subtraction, multiplication and division by moving your mouse as fast as you can will give you titles - Math pro, Math Genius and so on and if you are really fast and all correct will get the title - Einstein!
I suggested this game to all the new users of mouse. . .
(If anyone wants to know about this game, write to me through - your reflections. Will try to send it by mail!)

But this addiction to mouse made my working with the keyboard difficult. Switching of the Num lock and moving the mouse through the arrow keys was really boring. As usual I looked up to the internet for solution. After going the entire page I found that my mouse is still not working. I scrolled down the page. It said,

"If you've tried all of our troubleshooting tips to no avail and are now out of options, it's time to go shopping. Here are a few shopping tips to keep in mind as you browse the aisles of your local computer store."

Thats the end of the story. . . I bought a new basic optical mouse, but keeping the tips given by the websites in mind!

Why do I blog?

2006-02-18T22:21:00.000+05:30

First of all, I believe that we all have a writer in us. Just lazy to put our thoughts down on a paper.

My paper boy, maid, driver and other helpers are good reporters; story tellers too! Sometimes, there are quotes and references in their conversation. The conversation with my maid usually ends up with her marketing a service. If she is in need of money, she comes out with all creativity. Heard of Alex Tew's million dollar home page?

And each one is different from the other. The same way each write - up displays the talent and creativity of the author. Of late I had started to write for newspapers, websites, but all of them are on specific assignments. Why not write about those things, about which I am fascinated?

It is the itch you get on your palms once you touch your pen and paper to write, rather your keyboard and monitor these days! I am a regular reader of Chip Scanlan's column on Poynter. And here's why he blogs!

It is not really journalism or mass communication that brings one to write. It is the curiosity to share thoughts and get the reflections of the others on what you think. If your forum is restricted to your classmates or your collegues you tend to discuss the same issues again and again on the blogs also. If that's the case, better not to blog!

No. 28 Snake Almanac

2006-02-10T07:26:00.000+05:30

This is not a review of the book by Edward. R. As!

This is about the traditional vernacular almanac in Tamil, popular worldwide. The 'Asal No.28. Pambu Panchangam'. Can anyone believe that over 2 lakhs copies of this almanac is sold every year?

I saw a copy hanging in a book shop where I went to buy a few stationery items. Even though it is two months to go for the Tamil New Year, I picked up a copy of the panchangam for the next year. No special reason. . . I thought anyway I am going to buy one, why not now?

As kids, we have watched our dad buy an almanac, carefully stitch it on to a cover and tie a string so that it can conveniently hang on the wall. We had interest only in reading about the 'Makara Sankaranti Devatha' of that year, which normally appears on the 10th page of the almanac. The description is strange. . . The devatha appears with two faces, three eyes, four mouths and with red tusks! She is described as trvelling on any animal, be it a lion or a donkey. Her dress, fragrance, the vessel she carries, all are related to the predictions for the year.

But what is interesting is the number attached to the panchangam! The door number of the house where the original publisher Konnur Manicka Mudaliar lived bore the number 28. The almanac always has 28 pages, in all the years! (How do they maintain it?!)

The snake on the front cover has 27 circles (The almanac calls the snake as 'Rahu Phani Chakram') These 27 circles denote 27 stars as per Indian astrology. This chakram is used to decide the day for sowing seeds in that year.

The irony is the origin that from Kanjanur Appanaiyengar and his son Annavaiyengar. But now who is doing it? There is no mention about it in the Panchangam. But M. S. Pachaiyappa Mudaliar is the present publisher.

The legend also says that Konnur Manicka Mudaliar had an adopted son, Lokanatha Mudaliar. His wife was Selvarangammal. Their grandson M . S. Pachaiyappa Mudaliar is the present publisher!

Another interesting feature is that the panchangam lists the Mohammadian festivals also. It is said that many Muslims also buy this almanac!

Ready to get virally infected?

2006-02-09T18:43:00.000+05:30

Preeti Chaturvedi writes in the web exclusive section of Businessworld India, about the viral marketing campaign for the movie Bluffmaster, through India FM. Yes, Viral marketing!
If you are a business management graduate, you could be already familiar with this. If not, read ahead.
Known by different names - undercover marketing, buzz marketing, stealth marketing, guerrilla marketing, this is a kind of marketing technique where the consumer doesn't realise that he is being marketed to.
So, got it? Do you receive unsolicited mails in your inbox? Are you being asked to refer the product or website to your friends? Are you being asked to play flash games online and provide e-mail id at the end? Nothing to worry! You are being marketed to. That's all.
Simple examples are Tupperware parties. But do you know that gmail follows the same technique? Instant messages through MSN, Yahoo! and Google also fall under the same category.
Before you could realise, you are already into it! That's the effect of viral marketing!

SENSitive indEX scales 10000

2006-02-07T17:48:00.000+05:30

Just at noon yesterday, Rueters posted online that SENSEX reached 10000 mark.
India's news channels got excited; traders fired crackers in Bombay.
Also known as BSE 30, the SENSEX is exclusive to Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which is more than 130 years old. The first trade dates back to 1875. The hisory of this Stock Exchange is really interesting!
The abbreviated term SENSEX was first used by Deepak Mohoni, a Stock market analyst from IIT Kanpur and IIM Calcutta, who now runs a company TrendwatchIndia. The term came to stay and Mohani came to stay in CNBC TV's Awaaz!
The 1979 base index of 100 crossed 1000 in 1990 and after 15 years it has crossed 10000 (Read the post dated Feb. 7, of Jigar Chandrakant Vikamsey's blog) . If you are keen to be a part of this money game, you can learn basics at the official website of BSE.
If you are lucky, you may gain a lot as the market is marching towards 12000 mark.
Beware of bulls and bears!
All the best!

Golden jubilee of the 'Black Gold'

2006-02-04T14:36:00.000+05:30

I do not normally look for PM's itinerary, when I open the newspapers in the morning. But today the news about the change in the itinerary of our PM, took my memories back by 25 years. PM Mr. Singh arrives at Neyveli to take part in the golden jubilee celebrations of the Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC)
Neyveli used to be in our minds, as school students. Not necessarily for its lignite deposits or the artesian wells. But for the school Jawahar Vidyalaya, the only CBSE school of those days in and around Cuddalore. The students of Jawahar Vidyalaya were looked at, with a bit of green in the eyes, by the other school children of the then South Arcot district (now Cuddalore district). Jawaharians used to be associated with cerebral stuff. . . We, students from Cuddalore, competed with them in all quiz, essay and oratorical competitions. (After one such competitions, a student of the school described about the autocrat principal, who whipped the boys and scolded the girls in public, snatched the ice cream from the hands of the kids, when the 12th class students were seen with one, after school hours, we started looking at our school teachers with more respect!)

The school got its name from Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Neyveli Lignite Corporation shares its birthday with that of Panditji (Nov.14)

The district level competitions used to have questions on the places within the district. This only industrial town in the district has a few trivial info. It is the first lignite-fired Thermal Power Station in South East Asia. It houses the first boiler to be cleaned by hydrofluoric acid and many more.
It is said(!) that NLC also supplies a large quantity of sweet water to Chennai, from the artesian wells in the lignite mines. Of course, Chennai must be getting drinking water from all possible sources, to cope up with its legendary water scarcity.

Even if it is not sweet water, Neyveli's neighbourhood town Panruti supplies the sweetest jackfruits. My dad used to say that he was leaving for Neyveli on an official trip, if he went for buying a jackfruit on a holiday in summer. Once the jackfruit is in, even the neighbours can't resist asking my mom, "Oh you got the season's jackfruit?" The spread of smell (fragrance?) used to keep me away from home for a long time. But on returning for dinner, I could not resist having a cupful of jackfruit pieces!

It is really sweet of the Govt to approve the modification in the NH67 in Dec.2005. It will now connect Kumbakonam and Sethiathope - Neyveli Township, Vadalur, Panruti and terminate near Vikravandi on NH-45. Such industrial towns with cultural places closeby should be well connected so that tourists can make a round trip experiencing different characters of the cluster of towns. Neyveli, for instance has a few places like Vadalur( famous for 'Thai poosam' festival and Ramalinga Vallalar, who wrote the sacred hyms 'Thiru Arutpa' and Srimushnam (famous for Bhuvarahaswamy temple) and a little away, Cuddalore, Chidambaram, Pitchavaram (mangroves) to club with, for a sight-seeing package tour.
Let's us have a tourism itenerary for this place.
This is exactly what came to my mind on seeing PM's itenerary!

"Hottest" blackworm!

2006-02-03T22:22:00.000+05:30

The morning newspaper says - the new virus will attack the computers all over the world today! How many of us did not boot the computer on? I had always wondered if booting a system or connecting to internet will open the doors for viruses?
Or should we not open emails with strange extensions? Or no e-mails at all?
In any case, how do the 'intelligent' programmers write these virus programmes and announce the world that it will attack your computer on this day?

And what a name! Kamasutra a.k.a Blackworm! Techtree says that this virus is designed to overwrite all .doc, .xls, .mdb, .mde, .ppt, .pps, .zip, .rar, .pdf, .psd, and .dmp files. Is there any other extension left out? (By the way, Techtree is a good technology e-daily of India. Worth a click)

Though this virus is considered highly dangerous, Symantec says that this is a slow spreading, 'Troy horse' type. (Hey, have you installed Symantec anti virus solutions on to your computer? Have you renewed your subscriptions promptly?)

Anyways, if you are on your computer and is at work, do read this!

Its time to say good night!

Rang de Basanti - Laal rang?

2006-02-02T22:49:00.000+05:30

Why is this movie being talked about much?
Who are the youths of India, the film talks about?
What is the message passed on to the present generation about patriotism?

This film encountered a controversy, but on MIG 21 airplanes. Did the jury think that the violence and blood in the movie can be tolerated, just because it linked patriotic leaders of the past with the youths of today? Can justice taken on their own hand by the students be justified?

Unfortunately, the senior citizens of our country, who experienced the freedom struggle are not seen in the cinema halls to watch such movies! Today's youth can easily be misguided about patriotism depicted in this film. They can be made to think that justice can never be achieved in this country. What did this group of angry young men achieve, by killing the corrupt Defence minister and in the process the whole group embracing death! A dangerous message is getting on to the student community!

A truck-load of talents, Aamir Khan, Siddharth, Madhavan, Soha Ali Khan, Anupam Kher, Kiron Kher, the vintage classic actors Waheeda Rehman, Om Puri.... A big sigh... the film could have been made a great feel movie, with the beautiful and timely theme. A fine fabric is got when carefully chosen threads are woven by master weaver.

Where were these people who speaks volumes of Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, the director of the film, when 'Iqbal' directed by Nagesh Kukkunoor was released?
The great spirit of a deaf and mute youth, dreaming big and achieving the goal, by sheer hard work and with the support of a cute sibbling... The family and moral values are expressed with subtle comedy. A film to be shown in the history / PT / Moral Instruction periods of any school.

If Rang de Basanti is recommended for a History period - O! my dear 'futures of India'! Bunk the history class! (Read the post of Jan.31, 2006)

The Mumbai formula

2006-02-01T11:17:00.000+05:30

Deepak Ramachandra, Narayan Ellappa and Vinay Sharma. Heard about them? They are proud of themselves as Schumacher, Alonso and Montoya do after Formula One racing!

These three emerged as winners at the 'Dhoom Mache De' Autorickshaw race which was a part of the Mumbai festival concluded recently. The Go Karting track at Hiranandani Gardens, Powai is where the auto drivers took part in the race in a fun, yet professional way.

Each semi-final had four pitstops, very creative ones, like tying lemon and green chillies, eating samosa and water. . .

One of the semi-finals was flagged off by the Regional Transport Officer K. T. Gilani. My friend from Mumbai says, the RTO told the drivers, "We are the ones who gave you a license, justify our faith in you." There was a perfect tie among the three sections, the auto-drivers, RTO and the cops!

There are big banners behind the festival, huge prize money for this race and insurance in tact for the drivers! But what kept this race and other events of Mumbai festival is the involvement by the 'mumbaikars' for the city - 'Amchi Mumbai'(Did this term come into vogue, because of the popular surnames of Maharashtra - Gavas'kar', Tendul'kar', Ambed'kar'. . .??!!)

Wonder if this Mumbai formula could be applied to 'Enga Chennai' and 'Namma Bengaluru'! But the initiative is already on in Chennai - they are celebrating the Madras Day for the past two years