In-deep-dents

Cheers and regards to all the leaders and visionaries who got us freedom from foreign slavery. The truth is my country is "in-deep-dent" of corruption, political scams, poverty and hunger etc. We are slaves to our helplessness. People are 'dependent' on National Holidays like Independence day for a variety of reasons - some might feel that 15th August is on a Sunday - would have been better if it was Friday/Saturday or Monday. (Saturday, for those who working 6 days a week).

Debonair at Thane west

Debonair at Thane west
Originally uploaded by spacejunk

What is the difference

between BHEL and BHEL PURI ?
Also, the rates increase like DHAI (2.5) bhel times

Relationships end with text messages

Yes! That is the trend these days, and the easiest way to break up without giving explanations. I've seen many do it and some suffer through it too. Watch Vinnaithaandi Varuvaya by Gautam Menon - its the usual boy-girl plot and he has filmed this trend in the movie. Many friends had told the second half was dragging, but they could have missed Simbu's impressive body language and tone variations while he talks with Trisha at some park in NY, especially when he begins to describe his lover.

Its the inevitable nature of relationships these days. Lets be friends, talk a lot, share special moments, feel its love and chemistry, have apprehensions and misunderstanding, being crazy, worry about family-reactions. Break-up and cope-up again, only you-n-me talks, find it difficult to give time while at work or touring mode, feel left-out, say one wouldn't want the other to suffer because of their lifestyle, break up saying its all over and ask to 'move on', leaving the other person clueless.

Life drags and floats clueless in relationships. Religion-divide is present for the lead characters, but this happens to any two people. The music and lyrics go well together, dialogues are well-scripted. Simbu does justice to the role of Karthik, and Trisha does her part well as Jessie to send the 'its over' SMS and marry someone else. Trisha tells to Simbu in the end that his (incomplete) love-story completed in his first film was feel-good types, and that she was not actually good to him when it happened. Its true, love cannot make one feel good always - the pains are much more, they teach to live, if not to love again!

Marathi Abhimaan Geet

Written by legendary poet Suresh Bhat, conceived and composed by Kaushal Inamdar!
Marathi Abhimaan Geet released on 'Marathi Bhasha Divas' - 27th Feb at Dadoji Konddeo Stadium , Thane.
27th Feb is the birth date of Marathi poet Kusumagraj (remember the class 8 and 9 poems of Maharashtra Board???)
Watch the video - the making, the variety of singers and instrumentalists, representing the spirit of the language Marathi.
I could not attend the release of the song, but my cousins in Thane did, and one of them is part of the song too.
Video credits below are in Devnagiri script. I have translated it to English, should be easy for those who can't read to know it.



The video has used the photos which have been part of regular updates on Kaushal's FB page for more than a year now.
Like birth of a child and seeing it grow - I have seen this song from its initial stages (thought process) in late 2008, heard the raw track in May 2009 at his residence in Goregaon, 68 main singers were recorded by then. The beauty and simplicity is seen.
Kaushal, your passion paid bro - you are an inspiration to many now! Having the identity of a Non-Resident Tamilian brought up in Maharashtra, I always had mixed feelings about my mother-tongue. The respect I have for Tamil today, had enhanced after I met you in 2006, and saw your passion for Marathi. And yes, I look forward to work with you someday 'professionally'.

Edit:
Tit-bits from a friend : Kusumagraj's real name was V V Shirwadkar. Kusum was the name of his younger sister, hence Kusum-agraj (one who came before Kusum)
Comment from Kedar : Kusamagraj's name Gajanan Ranganath Shirwadkar (गजानन रंगनाथ शिरवाडकर)
Friend says : Mr V V Shirwadkar’s original name was Gajanan Ranganath Shirwadkar. After he was adopted, his name changed to Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar

Harsh Narayan - sarangi player

Harsh Narayan live at Baaja Gaaja 2010, in the Aangan venue of Ishanya Mall, Pune.
He is one of the most promising and upcoming talents and got some award on these lines in 2009.

originally uploaded by spacejunk

In the first pic, with audio monitor in between, with his posing towards the lens... difficult to decide to listen or watch :P

Baraka - essence of life

I was searching for some song of Dr. L. Subramaniam and came across the soundtrack of Baraka which features him on one of the tracks, others are by Michael Stearn. I got hold of the movie after that.

Baraka - the movie has the most spectacular images ever. Moving music. No dialogues. This movie made me think for long even after it was over. Even the most bitter of cynics (like me) cannot deny it's beauty. It made me rethink about the human life. The contrast between the worlds and the cultures punches one very hard. For example, there is a 'match cut transition' of human tribal hands raised to sky-scrapers in urban NY in the trailer. Find the trailer at YouTube.

Adjectives I think of describing human life these days -

Jealousy. Envy. Greed. Anger. Darkness. Lack of wisdom. Imperial madness. Make money by warring. Wars are good money for pharmaceutical companies, since if you're not in physical need, you may still be in psychological need of them. Of course there are other industries that benefit from fear and killing and tearing things up. In the midst of all this, anger is generated. The darkening has reached a critical mass. No light of wisdom seems to shine. And yet it is there. Beyond the darkness. And as urbanized humans, we've faced the wrath of nature and people too in the recent years, and there is more to come. We have to learn to respect nature, and ecology. Creation is divine, but destruction is inevitable. Good and evil exist together.

Baraka: is an ancient Sufi word, translated as a blessing or as the essence of life from which the evolutionary process unfolds.

Over the years

Out of blue I ended up visiting the temple in the last evening. Outside the temple I met an old man, a very good family friend (LIC Ganesan mama) after some 6-8 months. His temple visit was complete and he was on way back. I went and greeted him, and the usual blah-blah for few minutes happened as he asked my and my elder brother's whereabouts in the past year. Then we went our ways, and he called me back. To my notice, he opened his bag - and broke a complete new pack of Eclairs chocolate toffees with his ball point pen. I knew it was coming. It has always been a gesture of this uncle to carry 'toffees' with him (have seen it since my childhood). He gave 3 of them, for me and my parents, bro is not in India - so out of question! As a kid maybe (flashback 15 years back), I or anyone would be happy with whatever given to us.

Sita Paati (my late grandmother's elder sis) still has that habit - if you visit her, you will get some candy or choc without fail. Anyone who visits her takes candies or chocs along with, and she will not have it and instead give to other kids who visit her.

Soni Thatha (my late grandfather's late younger bro) had a similar habit, he used to keep the 'golis or mittai goli' and give me and my cousins one or two everyday. However, my eldest cousin bro's son broke that trend a decade ago - cos he questioned Thatha, "unga kitta pastry illa ta cake illaya" (Don't you have pastry or a cake?) To this question of his, Thatha went out to the market and found out what is a pastry (he was unaware of it) and bought it. Of course in the end, both grandpa and grandchild were happy.

Phone and missed calls

In the last two months, my phone is not on silent mode - but in the Normal profile of it, I keep volume Zero and check the phone once in 2-3 hours to see the call log, and if I missed any call will usually call back only if required or call and ask! My cousins and some friends have already started abusing me for this habit. I got up early this morning at 6.30 as I had to go to the railway station to receive my Dad's cousin coming from Delhi. Coincidentally one of my classmate from FTII was also in the same train with loads of luggage for relocation! He informed me through text that the train is before time, so I rushed soon and entered the station without a platform ticket (as there was a huge line for other reservation tickets, hence skipped it)!!
Much later, back home at around 9.00am, I checked the phone to see a missed call from unknown number, after calling and trying to find out who it is trying to understand the gaavTee Marathi accent... that manoos replies "Missed call aala hota ka, chukun aala asel"!! I felt like giving him 'kaana khaali' for such an answer...

Kurbaan... waste of time!

Kurbaan was like watching New York again. What a waste of my vetti time last night at Inox!
Wondering what will that SRK fellow do in 'My Name is Khan' to make it different.
Got to catch up with two more movies this week... Sukhaanth (Marathi) and the hyped 2012 for VFX only!

Watched 'Whats your Rashee' - liked it for the marriage/astrology related jokes/aspects (true to some extent)!!
I have to watch 'Kaminey' as well this week (managed to get DivX of both these movies from cousin K).
Apart from this am tired of burning DVDs, I have already burned about 200 gig of English movies in the past 6 months... and have 100 something more to be burnt... and my Dad is behaving like a kid, today morning his dialogue was - "Why are the movies lying just like that in your hard-disk? Give them to me in DVDs." I told him that the DVD-Writer is not functioning (some reason), and he was ready to fund to buy a new writer the next moment. He never gave such an instant-reaction (How I wish he had !!) when I asked him to buy me that Camlin 0.5 lead pencil instead of the regular Apsara-black some 15 yrs back.