Dec 28, 2006
Dec 11, 2006
Mammad kaka's coat
Driving down the I 15, I was starting to nod off a bit when I was surprised by MS Baburaj’s Kandam bechoru Kottane, mammadu kakkade kottane from the old hits CD playing in the car.After so many years, I was hearing that song all over again. On a dull winter day with teeming traffic crisscrossing th…
Dec 5, 2006
Californian musings
In the middle of settling down at our new house in Socal (South California), thanksgiving, black Friday, forest fires and the such…we did meander around South California…An insight Temecula, the place where we live , is beyond the white specked cliffs as you drive north from San Diego to LA on the I …
Nov 29, 2006
VK Krishna Menon (1896-1974) – An undiplomatic diplomat
It is not often that you come across people who create an impact on you, especially so if they are long gone and belonged to an era before your teens. I discovered one such person a week back. While his name is familiar to all, most today won’t know of his tremendous influence in geopolitics. I stu…
Nov 21, 2006
What's in a name? TURKEY
I am musing over this a couple of days before thanksgiving in USA, a day when thousands of Turkeys will be killed, roasted, stuffed and eaten with gusto… When I was working in the Middle east, I realized that Arabs called Indians ‘Hindi’, since we are people from Hindustan (India is Hindi to Arabs …
Nov 8, 2006
Burma Bazar - In the early 80's
Oct 24, 2006
Forgotten or less known singers - part 2
Bhupinder Singh Starting as Panchamda’s (RDB) guitarist, Bhupinder ended up as a reputed Ghazal singer after a foray into movie music. And the few songs he sang with his deep sonorous voice are still remembered by all. But like they mutter, his voice was never meant for the chocolate-faced teen hero…
Oct 11, 2006
The girl and the BART
SanFrancisco is a big and vibrant city. Like most cities the airport is a far way from the city center and one uses the BART to commute . The BART, well what an acronym- bay area rapid transit system , it has always been rapid whenever I went by it. So here I was standing in front of the BART ticket …
Sep 11, 2006
The wandering Bullock cart
The story of a bullock cart and its incredible travel across continents Amazing, that was what I felt when I came across this offer, I was chuckling away after going through it, and I have to pat Suresh on the back for the idea. Well why not, we used to go ‘cart riding’ in places like Turkey (not go-…
Sep 5, 2006
Usha Uthup
On Kerala - Sometimes after a great show you are so excited and want to know how the programme was. They will just say, `kozhapam illa.' For every shilpi the most important thing is the applause. We live to listen to it. Actually if you can make it in Kerala, you can make it anywhere in the wor…
Sep 4, 2006
Less talked about singers - Part 1
Manhar Udhas The first time I heard Manhar was way back in College. Somebody had a record Mukesh ki Yadein and I saw that the collection in that record was superb. It had all the popular hits. After a few spins, I could make out that it was not Mukesh. Checked the cover carefully, somewhere in the c…
Aug 31, 2006
A minute with the president
There we were (year 1998), all suited and booted, the ‘few’ Indian families in Istanbul, fidgeting amongst other dignitaries waiting at the Hilton for the grand arrival of Indian president KR Narayanan. The occasion, ‘a breakfast with KRN’, arranged by the Indian consulate in Istamboul (as the cons…
Aug 23, 2006
Those were the days
First of all, I must admit that the impetus for this blog came from the programme ‘Witness’ on NDTV. Regrettably I saw only the last part of it. Curiously, it covered a lot of things that were close to my heart…of times that had gone by… I remembered the Vijay Scooter. My friend got an opportunity t…
Aug 22, 2006
Mom and the PC
Mom was here with us the last two months. It had been her long cherished desire to visit Britain, and she was brave enough at age 78 to take the flight all alone from Bangalore to Heathrow. What I admired most was her tenacity, coming all the way from Pallavur, struggling with her gait and with a Q…
Aug 15, 2006
Filter coffee
RK Narayan said in ‘My Day’s - Whenever I could afford it, I gave them a cup of coffee at a restaurant on Hundred Feet Road. The cup of coffee blunted the listeners' critical faculties and made them declare my work a masterpiece. So guys, would you please drink a cup of filter coffee before readi…
