Nenjukulle...

With Shreya Ghosal and Chinmayee dominating most Tamizh songs, Shaktisree Gopalan sounds fresh. What a great find!

'Nenjukulle' reminds me of 'Raasave Unna Nambi' from Mudhal Mariyadai (Bharathi, my sister, agrees with me. Kaviperarasu's lyrics reeks of village flavor. I dearly miss our S.Janaki amma.) On the contrary, I am also reminded of 'Aval Ulaga Azhagiye' from Leysa Leysa due to the flowy tune and artist's rendition. I am sure ARR intended to do that.

Break free from cliches. Same goes to the director. I still can't come to senses about Maniratnam directing a religious story....

Guru

I hardly fill my diary these days. It is literally empty. Good or bad? I don't know. Sometimes I am overwhelmed inside and I am on the venting mode. Months together I was so diligent in writing everything I felt. Now things have changed. Or have I changed? Life has so much to throw at you that you don’t try to question or ponder over anything! So here I am. 

I thought that I’d do some justice in at least maintaining a travel log here. Nowadays I have to dig my photo album and work through the notes to remember the names of places I visited in the past decade. I am getting organized, you know. I print photographs, tag places and dates in a journal. Although I like the e-albums, I love the hard copies. Don’t you prefer letters to emails? God knows how many letters I must have written during school and college times! I’ve still got tons that I received, my treasures :)

Back to travel journal. I visited some nice fall places this year. It was my long time wish to visit a friend in Lexington, KY (the birth place of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Abraham Lincoln, seriously I saw boards of former than latter!) and also the Great Smoky Mountains. Smokies has been on radar since my time in Charlotte, NC - during those really weird 8 months in ’05-‘06. I did catch some fall colors in Charlotte during Nov’05. It was brief but sooo beautiful. V wanted to visit Chicago, he’s been there before. But he wanted to stay in downtown, walk the magnificent mile, and more importantly meet his longtime friend too. So I came up with this brilliant plan of combining everything into one. My planning was so-so this time. To be honest, I should say it was awful. This is what happens when you intend to kill all the hard earned (m’eh) miles to buy flight tickets. The plan was to fly to Chicago, drive to Lexington, halt, drive to Smokies, halt, drive back to Lexington, halt, drive to Chicago, halt and fly back home. How’s that for planning? 

Glaciers to Blessing

June 30 2011 - It was the day when V and I were returning from Alaska to homeland. The day by itself was very eventful. We started driving from Seward, a seaside town closer to Kenai Fjords preserve, towards Anchorage. En-route we decided to stop at the Wildlife center. Although it is terrifying, we were on the lookout for a grizzly bear throughout the trip. I mean you gotta sight one if you are in Alaska. That was a fun hour or two watching black and grizzly bears, owls, musk ox, arctic bison and caribous at close range in the open wild life center.


We headed out to Anchorage and from there the plan was to drive to Talkeetna for the glacier landing tour. By the time we were in Anchorage, we both had taken couple of pills for the usual headache. We were hell bent about having Indian food, seems Chinese/Thai/Mexican food that we relished in the past days was not enough. So I called this Yek/Yeti or some such Himalayan restaurant and ordered food for carryout. You should have seen our faces. How it lit up seeing simple daal chaawal. We called the airline to learn that the tour was cancelled. Yet again, for the fourth time since we landed in AK. But as usual, they were not sure about the cancellation either, asking us to call in an hour or visit directly. Talkeetna was about 3 hours by road from Anc. It is surprising that V did not get a traffic ticket during our days there! Finally on arriving at Talkeetna, weather had improved and the cancellation notice was long gone! Gearing up, it was infact a unique experience. Watching miles and miles of glacier from a touchable distance & sighting Mt McKinley was awesome. I can tell the difference between Mt Matterhorn in Swiss and the topography here – it is not simply a snow capped mountain.

at peace

It has been a satisfying week. Varalakshmi Vratham followed by Avani Avittam and Jabam. Although the latter two have least significance to me, there is a sense of content with festive events. Specially Varalakshmi Vratham or Kaaradayar Nombu... feels like very humbling occasions. To me, it helps realize the ability to unconditionally submit and there is no greater feeling than that. On the day of Jabam we went to this Shiva Vishnu temple close by. V chanted 1008 sitting there while I finished my pradakshanams. It was surprising that the temple invited so much crowd and there was a Raghavendrar porapaadu (procession around the temple). I sure did enjoy their bhajans. What a serene feeling to sit in a temple and pray.  I still cannot shut off my thoughts and pray in total silence. The inner silence, I mean. Even during prayer life's everyday clutter keeps popping in my head...!.

Aaja Piyaa...

Song: Aaja Piya Tohe Pyaar Doon
Movie: Bahaaron Ke Sapne
Originally sung by: Lata Mangeshkar
Cover by: Revathi




It was the period when Amma used to get super irritated about remix versions of every other Hindi oldie.

Pon Maalai Pozhuthu

Song: Oru Pon Maalai Pozhuthu
Movie: Nizhalgal
Originally sung by: SP Balasubramanyam
Cover: Vasanth aka Subbu

My all time favorite of Balu-Raja combo. Sadly I cannot appreciate the lyrics it carries. Its the sin of studying in Kendriya Vidyalaya (ek gaon mein group) and the bundled minimal interest in Tamil.

Apart from the mesmerizing tune, there is a sense of nostalgia attached to the song. Set in old Chennai, the beach and all of that reminds of my childhood times, when I had absolutely nothing else to do than roam the Chennai streets looking to play cricket with some group.