Hai! Start Meesic!

Sun Music has GOT to be the funniest Tamil channel around, with all due respect to the dedicated comedy channels that should stake their claim to that award.

Here's just 2 of the MANY reasons why -

1. The SMS stream: This could have been a standalone program in itself. Just way too hilarious. If you were watching any random show on Sun Music for 2 minutes, here's a sample of what the line of SMSes would look like (there's a message which says you should type your name message and send it to 57676 (or whatever is the number)):

Senthil: Hai dear

Uma: Miss u da chellam ilango

Sethu: This song for thala ajit fans

57676: suvetha

Saravana: Good night sun music

Guna: I love Suvetha. Hai.

Murugesan: Hai to all doctor vijay fans.

2. The Conversation: The host looks like he's been picked right off the streets, and then dumped into a pair of torn jeans, had his hair colored pink on one side, with a "layer cut" on the other side, and then given a crash course of how to exchange completely useless pleasantries irrespective of what the person at the other end of the line is saying. The girl looks like she was born with a smile, and has a minor disorder which involves moving her head to one or the other side after every 5 seconds, not knowing where to keep her hands, so keeping them everywhere at the same time. These conversations when people call in are downright hilarious. Sample this:

Host - Hello, Kaall pannadhuku romba nandri, unga per sollunga?

Caller - Madam, naa kaaraikudilirundhu Muthuraj pesarenunga.

Host - (with a 100W smile on her lips looking at the camera) vaNakkam Muthuraj, sollunga, enna pannikitu irukeenga?

Caller - Perisaa onnum pannaleenga. Summa dhaan kakkoos poyitrukenunga.

Host - (completely not having heard what he said) Oh apdeengalaa. Okay, epdi poyikitruku-nga?

Caller - Inaiku konjam koLa koLa-nu dhaanga poyitruku. Nethu raathiri sothula konjam ennai jaasthi pottaainga. Adhula konjam upset aairuchu-nga.

Host - (again, in a world of her own) Oho. Haha. Okay-nga. Sun Music neyargaluku vera edhaachum solla virumbureengalaa?

Caller - Neenga romba nallaa pesareenga-nga. Unga purokraamu eppo vanthaalum naanga enga veetla vidaama paathuruvonga. Enaku thala paatu edhaachum podunga.

Host - (going back to her script) - Saringa, kaall pannadhukku romba nandri, ungalukaaga oru super saang vanthukitruku, paathu enCHAAI pannunga.

And then, promtply a completely random song featuring the talents of Barath and Tamanna starts off. Thus ending the comedy, and taking entertainment to a new level altogether.

An Unreal News Report

(heavily inspired by Faking News founded by my IIMA batchmate Softy)

Chennai, Apr 1 -

Chennai witnessed a grand spectacle yesterday, as the final match of the first-of-its-kind World Wrestling Federation championship of the Carnatic classical music world was hosted at the Congress grounds in the late hours of the night.

The cheer-maamis in their madisaars went wild to the "Aigiri Nandhini" remix, kicking off the pre-event show that was aptly titled Punch-a-Ratna, hosted by the heavily devoted Shri. Neyveli Santhanagopalan, who was incomprehensible to the listeners for the most part, with frequent references to the lord's various names, often lapsing into a dream of "Thathom Thalaangu Thathom" as he tried to enthuse the Mridangam artistes who formed "the band".

The match itself was all set to start, and the defending champion walked in, even as the lights dimmed, and his theme song started off. Thengaai Srinivasan would have aptly summarized his theme song as "Aarokanathula Shanmukapriyava pudichi, Arakkonathula Kharaharapriya-va midhichi, valadhu kaadhula Haripriya-va kadichi yedadhu kaadhula Sripriya-va idichi, thodaiyila roopaga thaaLatha potaa anga vara theme music yaarodadhu...?" - the answer was of course obviously Madurai TN Seshagopalan, as the defending champion strode onto the arena, to shrieks of ecstasy from his vast legion of fans, all of whom were smearing vibhooti on their faces and bodies to get into the groove as their punch hitter walked in majestically.

Even while the arena was getting used to the presence of Shri. TNS, the loudspeaker suddenly shook as the piercing theme song of the challenger rang out, with a deafening "Brahmam Okateeeee.....", which sent even the most sober of Mylapore maamaas into rapturous dancing, complete with tamarind leaves held by the tongue to make the "lululululululu" sound, which seemed to intimidate the great TNS ever so slightly. As the superfit and superhit Sudha Stunt Raghunathan ran into the arena, all lights were on her, as TNS looked on, reduced to a mere bystander inspite of the Thisra jaathi araMatya thaaLa alankaaram that he had just demonstrated in the boxing ring...

(This will not be continued, as the author suddenly realized he needs to wake up before sunrise tomorrow to go to work, and also partly because he did not want to get into the gory details of the fight that ensued. As Ravi Shastri would say, let us just say Music was the big winner).

The "Sakhiye... Snehidhiye" Moment.

Disclaimers: As usual, I have not allowed the truth to come in the way of a hopefully entertaining blog post. Like Vidya Balan says in the Dirty Picture, Entertainment is what matters. Not the Truth.

After a long awaited game of cricket today morning, I was on the way back, dead tired, on the Mumbai local back to upstate Kandivali, from downtown Parel, engaged in animated discussions with young Himanshu on how we had grown old and out of touch (conveniently forgetting men who are on an average a decade older than us, and still playing on for a 100th 100). After Himanshu alighted at Mahim, I was on my own, and almost drifting off to sleep.

There definitely is a relationship between me and trains. Its quite a hide-and-seek though, for trains only seem to play host to a lot of my unromance - meaning the romance that almost was.Today was no different, when I got bored of sitting as we neared Malad (a station just before Kandivali), and ventured out to the door of the compartment. Just to be precise, there is no door. It is a simple doorway with a steel pole in the middle, which hurts significantly more than it helps, as millions of people jump in and out the train every day during rush hour.

So there I was, in my dirty cricket tee and tracks, standing by the pole in the middle of the door, the wind and sun on my face. Which is when I realised I had my sportsman sunglasses in my bag, and promptly put them on as well! Now you get the full picture. Basically, no less than Alaipayuthey Madhavan, with a bag slung over my right shoulder.

Enter the speeding local that was almost overtaking us on the parallel track. If i had known what was waiting, the sound of the local would have sounded like a fast Veena in romantic Nalinakaanthi. But since I did not, it sounded like a speeding local. As the compartments went past us one after the other, the ladies compartment came up exactly opposite where I was standing.

And there she was. Heavvy! Completely standing out from the rest of the sisterhood. Literally too, she was almost falling out of the train in the rush. When our eyes met, my first instinct was of course to pull in my paunch. First things first. Those 4 seconds when she was gazing in my direction, and I was looking squarely at her - albeit through my tinted glasses - were when i heard the "Sakhiye.. Snehidhiye" refrain in full volume in my head.

Those 4 seconds... Super mama. Ready? 1... 2... 3... 4!

Inexplicably, there seemed to be a "what a changeover mama" moment, as that gaze seemed to create some sort of distance between us, and she seemed to be withdrawing from me ever so quickly after a brilliant 4 seconds. Which is when I realized my slow local was slowing to stop at my station, while her fast local was just changing tracks to move on the other side of the platform and speed past menial Kandivali to go to happening Borivali.

The humming stayed with me the entire time I walked from the station back to my house, until the moment Divya opened the door for me, with a word about my looks that made me slightly uncomfortable - "Panja Paradesi".

Cha.

But, as Airtel famously says "Ovvoru Figure-um theva machaan".

Nee Naan Sivam...

Over the last 5 days, I had two experiences both of which made me feel hugely good about life.

Sunday, November 27, 2011:

After my Sunday morning session with my Tabla guru (what a genius that man is, he deserves a special post someday!), I was on my way out driving down that slope, when I passed a little boy clutching his eyebrows, with a couple of boys gathering around him. As i continued gingerly down the slope, a lady ran past my car up the slope, with a cry that overtly showed anger, but actually was loaded with love. I tried to look through my rear-view mirror, at what the fuss was all about. The boy had his entire right half of his face soaked in blood that was oozing out of a deep cut just above his eyebrows. The disappointing part of this was that I actually gave it a thought, before I acted on it. But after a quick 2 seconds, I put my car on reverse gear and went up all the way on the slope. "Hospital jaana hai kya?", I said. Within a minute, I had the bleeding, crying son and the wailing worried mom on my backseat, guiding me to the nearest clinic. That minute after dropping them off at the doctor's clinic, where I took leave, and the mother was visibly thankful, but too worried to leave her son's side, felt meaningful. Like Phoebe says, I guess there is no unselfish good deed. Getting back into my car, I quickly flipped radio channels, looking for "Rangrezaa... Rangrezaa", but had to settle for

"Kyu sach ka sabak sikhaaye

Jab sach sunn bhi naa paaye

Sach koi bole tto niyam kanoon bataye

Tera darr, Tera pyaar, teri wah

Tu hi rakh .. rakh saala".

Dont know what the words mean, but they felt bloody damn good.

Thursday, December 1, 2011:

I had a chance to visit a school in a place called Mandideep in Madhya Pradesh, where P&G has one of its manufacturing facilities. This school is completely sponsored by my company, which has helped build the rooms, get the books, pay the teachers, get mid-day meals and what not. Me along with other folks from the Mumbai and Singapore offices were received with a round of ROUSING applause, and as we walked to the stage through the crowd of students, we felt like we had just won the oscars, with the number of kids who wanted to shake our hands! When it started about 10 years ago, there were 7 students and 1 teacher, and today this school has 26 teachers and 962 students, of which more than 500 are girls. We sat on stage, even as the kids performed the local dances on stage, followed by another dance swaying to "Maa Tujhe Salaam". Awesome, awesome experience. I've done NOTHING at all to deserve that affection from those kids, but am terribly happy to be working for a company that cared to do its bit.

Feeling very, very good about life.

I cannot not say it.

Nee.... Naan.... Sivam.

Ghazia-BAD!

The creation of this note has been caused by the fusion of 2 things, like most other creations in this world, only that in this case, it is the fact that an extremely tired me has no energy to talk on the phone for the next 2 hours that I will be on this cab from Ghaziabad to Delhi Airport, and the non-availability of either Facebook or any normal book for that matter, on this god forsaken road. The music selection of my cab driver is very much on expected lines, with yesteryear absolute classics like Pardesi Pardesi jaana nahi, Poocho zaraa poocho, Tum to teher pardesi, Choora ke dhil mera and the like, Kumar Sanu’s jewels that adorned the glorious period of Hindi film music through the 90s before ARR ruined it for them.

Anyway, the objective of this blog is to immortalize my current feelings on the reasonably unique official work that I was paid to do, earlier today. Statistically speaking, I am almost certain I would truly be 1 in a million when it comes to this particular feat of mine. But before we get to that, let’s also immortalize the place where I stayed over the past 2 days – a completely “not recommended” hotel called City Garden, in Ghaziabad. Of course, I wasn’t expecting it to be the Leela Palace, but you would typically expect that the AC would work in a room called the Executive AC room. Or that the tap in the bathroom would spew out some water and not clean air. Or that they would have what their menu called the “City Garden Breakfast”, which was quite the rare combination of corn flakes, coffee and a boiled egg. Of course, I wasn’t even asking for luxuries like a bottle of water in the room or 24 hr power supply et al. Never mind, 1.5K room, so easy goes.

Am fighting all my elaborate blogging instincts to keep this to only as long as the Facebook generation can digest, but what the heck, I have some time on me now, so let me be.

Post my elaborate substitute for the out-of-stock City Garden breakfast, I walked down to the training room. It is not often that you walk into a room, and all the 100 odd folks in that room stand up. When that happened today morning, I nonchalantly and humbly waved them down, with that look of shock and surprise that is supposed to say “You guys are all elder to me, why do you feel a need to stand up when I walk in? Please sit down, O respected comrades”, while I could hear a mix of Yejamaan kaaladi Manneduthu and Hey, Vaaraan da.. Ivan veeran dheeran sooran dhaan da playing secretly in my mind.

Starting my training session, I started off mustering up all my Hindi, with “Aaj hum kiske baare mein baat karne wale hain, pata hai?”, to which I got looks that conveyed the highest levels of interest I have had a group of 100 women ever show in me. Not wanting to hold the suspense any longer, I had to let it out: Whisper Ultra ke baare mein!

80 out of the 100 heads dropped, staring with keen intent at the floor. The other 20 heads turned to look at each other and giggle. My head – in that brief moment – looked up at the heavens to utter a silent prayer. 6 hours to go.

As I started off educating reasonably well-informed women in their twenties with “Whisper kab use karti hai log?”, to which I got one sincere response from what appeared to be an old hand who was surprised that a grown up lad like me did not seem to know this basic life truth, a bubble above my head took me into a brief flashback:

July 2004. National University of Singapore. Girish Kalyanaraman, M.S Computer Science. Somewhere, I could see a godly figure looking down, with a hint of a wry laugh.

Cut back to real life, and the 100 clamoring women who were not very keen to listen to the knowledge about menstruation that this 28-yr old boy was about to impart to them. How I did manage to, and escape from that room unhurt, will remain a memory I would keep to myself I guess.

Life does take one down strange roads, eh?

Till next time, Have a happy period!

Sripathi Panditaradhyula Balasubramaniyam

It is quite unbelievable that the man has been singing in films for 44 years now.
44 years!
We heard him live at Shanmukhananda hall yesterday, and sure enough, every thing is still intact. The typical butter-coated mushiness, the sudden upsurge of manly energy, the inevitable laugh in the middle of a line, the Telugu-sounding English, the immeasurable love for Ilayaraja, the humility to confess to his mistakes on stage, et al. Overall, delightfully pleasant!
After a 5-minute long monologue on stage which started off with "Music is an ocean.. (yeah, you get the drift)" and ended with "... and so I will make mistakes, it is my right, and you guys have every right to excuse me...", he jumped straight into Ulaa pOgum neram.. kanaa kaaNume.., the first in a long list of nostalgic numbers, mostly Ilayaraja's, much to my delight! A lot of old classics followed with the occasional smattering of Telugu (Sankaraaaa!) and Malayalam numbers.
It was quite mind-boggling to hear him say things like "When I recorded this song in 1969..." and the likes. Insane achievement, I must confess, still drawing the crowd he drew yesterday - in a city that has not even heard 40,000 of the 45,000 songs he has sung till date - and still sounding exactly how he sounded at least 10 years ago. Hats off.
Putting together Sundari Kannaal oru sedhi on stage was goosebumpy. Credit to the 9-man orchestra for pulling off the wild number. SPB kicked off the song with the typical words of a south indian music lover in bombay, "Listen to this song, and you might understand why Ilayaraja is a genuis of the rarest kind". Words that I have felt and said to the infinite number of unfortunates who have not lived out their 20s listening to Raja's insanities.
Other notable singers joining SPB were Goutam, Nikhil Mathew, Mrs & Mr. Anoop Sankar and Ananthu. Special mention to Ananthu, who I think is as talented a singer as anyone I have heard. His Pramadhavanam was remarkably perfect, and his Ponnondru Kanden with Goutam was a delight. I dearly wished Viji would sing a duet with SPB, but time constraints dictated otherwise. That Anoop managed to wrap up with his own medley of Raja songs even in an SPB show was outstanding and a simple reminder of his well-deserved growth in this industry, and very reminiscent of the days when his medley at the end of our shows were his signature!
Thanks to Anoop and Viji for the complimentary tickets! Awesome evening guys!

How I met Simran...

As has almost become the norm, here is something that happened to me during another of my rushed official trips to Chennai.
Surprisingly early to check in for a change, I handed my ticket printout and photo ID to the girl on the other side of the Kingfisher counter at Chennai airport. As the girl wished me a good evening, the girl standing in the adjacent queue - also holding a Kingfisher ticket - turned.
WOW.
She was carrying a hardbound copy of a book I had not heard of. Respect.
"Aisle or window, sir?", the girl behind the counter interrupted.
"Can you put me on the seat next to her?", I was almost tempted to say. I didn't. Instead, I shrugged, subtly trying to look indifferent, and hence cool. I noted though, that the girl - lets randomly call her Simran or Simi for want of overusing the word girl - turned to see what my preference was. She chose a window herself, loud enough for me to hear.
Simi finished her formalities and headed for security. Now, when I caught up, there were some 9 people between the two of us in the line, and she branched off to the female line leaving me wondering why there was a special line for women.
I looked around to engage myself in something remotely not her, but some commotion on her side made me look in her direction again. And she looked at me. Again. Interesting.
Some guy had raised a stink about something he had in his checkin baggage, and she seemed a trifle pained. She looked at me -AGAIN! - and her expression said it all. I almost reached out and comforted her with a "Oh never mind.. Some people never obey the rules" level comforting pat on the back. But did not. Instead, I simply gave her a blank stare in return. Cool, still.
Simi went behind the screen that they had for frisking the women, and the officer seemed to have taken a liking to her. Simi did not seem to enjoy that and turned again in my direction with a longing expression that yet again yearned for liberation from this physical trauma (her face was above the screen, and I could see. Or she could, vice versa...). Blank Stare from me. With a hint of withdrawal. Cool max!
She got done in a minute, and chose a seat near the front of the departure lounge. The seat next to her was empty. Gotcha!
I strolled into the departure lounge and casually looked up at the screen showing the departure schedules and gates, carefully appearing not too eager to go find the seat next to her.
The screen said our flight was on time - damn! - only hope now being our seats were together on the flight too. My eye moved to the right of the screen. An arrow pointed upwards, telling me that I had to move to the lounge on the first floor. WHAT!?!?
I turned and looked straight at her, without even considering the possibility that she might be looking in my direction. She was. Embarrassed and exhilarated at the same time, I dropped my gaze, and reluctantly made for the escalator, walking slower than Inzamam's walk back to the pavilion.
The escalator seemed to be in a hurry, and whisked me upwards, while I turned back - for one last time - to see what Simi was upto. That she held my gaze all the way to the top of the escalator was one of the defining moments and possibly the crowning glory of my late twenties life.
Life on the first floor seemed slow and pointless. I called Divya to tell her how my blossoming romance had been rudely cut short by the powers that be. She wished me luck, and asked me to not lose hope yet. Encouraged, I kept turning back to see if the escalator would bring the only good thing about that day back into my life. It did not.
"Kingfisher airlines announces the departure of its flight IT 3184 to Mumbai...". Damn!
Finding my seat next to a balding, obese uncle - not unusual at all - was the last straw.
The surprisingly disheveled air hostess offered me water, which i rather despondently drank down before i dozed off, obviously not noticing her name tag, that said "Simran".
And we soared skyward, and back to Bombay.

Life though, is back to being good, at home with wife.
Thanks for all your wishes and prayers, if any.