Shyam's Blog

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 .

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 wo...

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 pho...

This baby squirrel visited our house today.

Last night, I got a chance to meet one of the popular Hindustani vocalists - Arati Ankalikar . My colleague was hosting her in Bangalore during her visit and he invited me for an informal session with this artist. Around 25 had gathered at his house and we had very good time discussing the nuances of music. Some of the points which came to my mind: 1) People gathered there were all young musicians and were talking a lot about music. One thing to understand is - As performers, one should make sure their music is kept simple which can really touch the common audience (who might not understand music). 2) Classical music is something which needs some basic influence to like it. My brother compares it to Coffee - the more you taste it, the better is your experience. Initially though, both are hard to taste. 3) For being a musician, it is just passion - no money can drive a musician. Nobody will say as a kid of 10 year old, "I will become a musician and earn my living". Even a mu...

I was realizing that I have never blogged about the song I learnt in my music classes! Today is my first chance to do that. The song I am learning right now is srikantha neeyada . Last class, my guru taught me the above song in the raaga, bhavapriya . The raaga is a unique one - the first half of the ascend is like shubhapantuvarAli while the second half is like shanmukhapriya . I was very much caught in the loop during the lesson. Just after coming out of the class, I was completely confused with the question, "how to sing this?". I went home and slowly started singing this raaga. I soon realised that I had sung this raaga in a concert in front of 600 people! That too in a Jazz concert, 5 years ago. Coming to the most trickiest part - Listening to Dr. S Ramanathan's rendition of this raaga in the song - ' bhavapriya ', we get an impression that it has resemblance to todi . If we check the 7 notes of bhavapriya , shanmukhapriya , shubhapantuvarALi and todi ,...

ಮಗನು ಆಟವಾಡುವ ಸಾಮಾನುಗಳು ಹಲವು. ಆದರೆ, ಅವನಿಗೆ Computer ಹಾಗು Cell phone ಬಲೂ ಇಷ್ಟ. Laptop-ನ ಮೇಲೆ ಇರುವ Windows logo ಅವನ ಕಣ್ಣುಗಳಿಗೆ ಮೊದಲು ಕಾನಿಸಿಕೊಲ್ಲುತದೆ. ನಾವು ಪುಟ್ಟ ಮಕ್ಕಳಿದ್ದಾಗ ಈ ವಸ್ತುಗಳು ಇರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ನಮಗೆ ಚನ್ನಪಟ್ಟಣದ ಗೊಂಬೆಗಳೇ ಆಟದ ಸಾಮಾನುಗಳು.

Visited Mysore today to attend our colleague's wedding. My friend and I decided to see the Mysore Palace. We took some pictures from outside and when we wanted to enter the actual palace, we had to leave our footwear at the counter. The counter guy took 15 minutes to collect our footwear as there were too many people around the place. We decided to wear our shoes back and catch the bus back to Bangalore.

ಇದು ನನ್ನ ಮೊದಲನೆಯ ಕನ್ನಡ ಬ್ಲಾಗ್. ಇನ್ನುಮುಂದೆ ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೆಯುವ ಕುತೂಹಲ! Maybe, ಮತ್ತೊಂದು ಬ್ಲಾಗ್ Open ಮಾಡ್ತೀನಿ ಕನ್ನಡಕ್ಕಾಗಿ.