Electrifying Jazz Concert

It was Saturday morning 8:30 am. I got an SMS when I was still in bed. It was like a wakeup call in the end. That SMS was from my friend who had sent about Prasanna's Jazz concert in the evening. Next moment, I called him for more info.

Plan was confirmed by the time I was up. The concert was held at B Flat, a Jazz place in Bangalore's Indiranagar area. As I had mentioned about Prasanna to many of my friends around before, they always wished to listen to him live. To help them do that, I made a few phone calls to my friends and they were all geared up for evening program.

The Concert started off with typical Prasanna style - A lightening and thunderous start! He played his compositions from his albums, Peaceful, Be The Change and Electric Ganeshaland. In the 2nd half of the concert, he jazzed with Thermal and a Quarter (TAAQ) and many other local artists. The whole place was doubly overcrowded!!! There was hardly any place to stand, I believe. The concert was truely amazing with great energy.

This concert took me back to those days when I was in Boston. I had listened to lot of Jazz in places like Ryles Jazz Club. In the audience this evening, there were many non-Indian faces (may be 25% or so). May be, these are people who are visiting Bangalore on work. In the middle of the concert, I felt as if I was not in Bangalore, but, in Boston!

Mobile marts

When I wait for my cab every morning, I see many street vendors pass by. First, it is florist. He exactly knows his customers and does a quick halt in front of their house. Next comes Onion-Tomato vendor. This guy doesn't see any other thing! Once, he was shouting "X" rupees for Tomato. A lady from inside was asking for "X-1" rupees. He got pissed off and demanded her to come and check before quoting. He said, "don't quote from within, come here and check."

From other direction comes a vendor on a bicycle selling green leaves. Only problem with this guy is, he walks really fast. By the time customer reaches the gate, this seller is 50 meters away. This makes many to revert back from buying.

60-feet from our gate sits an old lady supplying milk for our neighborhood. By the time I board the cab at 7:30 am, I see her almost done with her sales. Her day starts as early as 4:30 am.

I sometimes think, "what if we popularize this mode of shopping?" This type of shopping is a very popular one in India which is not seen in other parts of the world.

Tour of Hoysala Kingdom

It was a memorable tour of visiting the historical places of Hoysala Kingdom. This tour was organized by Arun and Lakshmi. We started from Bangalore on Saturday morning at 6:30 am and reached Srilakshmi Temple at Doddagadavalli (near Belur) by noon. This temple is a unique one with Kali as one of the deities. Near the garbhagudi of Kali, we see 2 guards with skeleton structure as shown here. This resembles the statues in Egypt!

Sri Lakshmi Temple, Doddagaddavalli

After checking in at the resort and finishing our lunch, we headed to Belur's Chennakeshava Temple.

Chennakeshava Temple, Belur

Day-2 of our trip started with a visit to Coffee estate in Biccodi (Pictures here). With idli-vada breakfast, we continued our heritage tour by visiting Belavadi.

Veera Narayana Temple, Belavadi

Hulikere tank is a very nice place to stop by near Halebidu. This tank is said to be the bathing tank for the then queen, Shanthala Devi.

Hulikere near Halebidu

Hoysaleshwara Temple, Halebidu

It has been said that, Belur's Channakeshava temple has to be seen from inside and Halebidu's Hoysaleshwara temple from outside. This explains the design and beauty of each temple.

Malenad Rains...
This picture was shot through the glass of our vehicle. We were welcomed in Malenad by and rain. The weather was good on both the days of our tour. It was a perfect setup to sip coffee and enjoy the sound of rain!

New website of our Music Instituttion

Few days ago, we inaugurated a website for our music institution. It is http://www.balajisangeethavidyalaya.org/ .

Also, for music students and music enthusiasts, we have created a blog where we discuss about music and its experiences. Blog is available here. Please visit that blog often.

I don't know Japanese!

Today, I had to contact one of our colleagues in Japan for the first time. I pinged him and said, "Konnichiwa". His first reply was, "wow, you know Japanese..". We chatted a bit about our work and also about some Japanese movies I had seen.

Finally, I really wanted to tell, "thank you" in Japanese. Searched for that online and got it too. Sent him that in Japanese ( Dōmo arigatō). He replied back completely in bits and pieces! i.e., どうもありがとう。

Later, I told him I was looking to buy Oshin DVD. He vanished for few minutes and gave me one amazon link. I opened it. I was not understanding a bit on that page. That was because, the whole page was in Japanese :D.

It was nice to chatting with him :).

London bridge is falling down...

My wife keeps singing this to our son. She had her own version!
She says...
"Build it up with needle and thread,
Needle and thread, needle and thread,
Build it up with needle and thread,
My fair lady."

I searched for the origin of this song on the web. It is fascinating to say that this song was first written in 1st century A.D.

Complete song and its origin can be found here.

Photo shoot day

We had a photo shoot session today with family. We were 6 of us and had our 6-month old son too. The rule was simple - ladies had to dress in silk sarees and 3 men will dress in formals (Suitu-bootu). The reason for this session was simple - We had not taken good group photos after our wedding.

We were late by 2 hours to the studio. Our son's smile was the most precious one for the session. We tried to save it since morning. When we reached the studio, we thought we still had his smile in stock. But, the place made him nervous! It was very hard to make him see the camera or smile. Out of dozens of pictures shot, only a few captured his smile.

How did we make him smile is a long story. Mom, grandma and great-grandma sang and danced only one song all through the session - "ನಮ್ಮ ಮನೆಯಲ್-ಒಂದು ಗುಬ್ಬಿ ಗೂಡು ಕಟ್ಟಿತು, ಗೂಡಿನೊಳಗೆ ಹುಲ್ಲು ಹಾಸಿ ಮೊಟ್ಟೆ ಇಟ್ಟಿತು..." Photographer's assistant too tried to make him smile by doing more tricks. Most of these went in vain. That assistant would have got that song memorized by end of session!

Overall, it was a grand photo session. Photos are expected in a couple of days. Waiting for that...

(Next photoshoot will be after few months when dad returns home from US :). Then, his rule will be simpler.
Rule #1 - Be on time to the studio.
If rule #1 is broken, it will be hard to make grandpa smile eventhough grandson might smile and play around.
That is the one and only rule of my son's grandpa.)

Kalasmelogra

Kalasmelogra - noun and adjective - A word our dad often uses when everything in the plate is mixed up before eating!
Usage -
1) "What have you done there? Full of kalasmelogra." (adjective form)
2) "Don't mix things up like a kalasmelogra." (noun form)

This blog is a kalamelogra of topics. So, expect this to filled with mixture.

1) Couple of weeks ago, my cell phone stopped working. Reason - no reason! Took it to someone nearby and got to know that it was 'software crash'. I don't know what he really meant. Couple of days ago, I wanted the phone repaired. Started walking from home and reached one marketplace. Rightly found one "Computerised Cellphone Service Center". Went in and for Rs. 250, got the phone repaired. Downside - All my stored contacts got wiped off :(

2) My wife is happy to see the hardcopy of photos of our son. She was asking for it for the past couple of months. She did a big project of selecting a few from around 1000 photos. She finally gave me 120 pictures for printing. We have them ready now. Next project of my wife - to put all of them in the "Big Album". This album is a sticky-kind where we just place the photos and it sticks to the sheet. Advantage of this type of album - we can place photos of various sizes and arrange them with more creativity.

3) Tricks to make a baby sleep - Our son (6 months old) gives us hard time when we try to put him to sleep. I think we have tried many tricks now, right from, walking around with him on the shoulder, to swinging him in a big blanket with 2 persons holding it. Few weeks ago, he used to listen to one specific song from his grandma and sleep off. Now, that trick doesn't work :(. He needs us to swing him for 15 minutes. This is equivalent to going to gym ;).