the sutta song ..plz listen to it

Its goes like this ...behanc%^* sutta mujhe sutta na milaa.
After all that rambling, cribbing and criticising I quit headlines today and became a part of another race with another set of people. But here's a small difference. This channel that hasn't launched and I have stopped asking when. Frankly am just soaking this place because there is so much to get used to. I guess this is what the real world is all about. HT shelters you and spoils you and makes you believe that as long as AT exists its okay! Nothing can drastically go wrong.... absolutely nothing.
But this is a place full of interesting people. From sophisticated and suave to downright rude. And by rude i mean "teri maa ki c@#$%.... BC MC and other expletives that pretty much touch upon every part of your anatomy. The first week I just sat absolutely shocked. Even went with an extremely co-operative colleague to a couple of not so friendly places like the special cell of the delhi police.
Saw a couple of ministers for the first time in flesh and blood. And if you haven't you are not missing out on much. But if you really think about it its sad. These are people who represent us in the parliament and these are people who buy sexy SUV's out of taxpayers money. Have disproportionate assets, go in and out of jail, have a coterie there also ..obviously birds of a feather flock together. But i'm not complaining about sadela politicians . Am here to say that my new job rocks. I'm loving it!

Poems

Am not some great fan of Vikram Seth. But here are three of his poems,

Sit, drink your coffee here your work can wait awhile.
You're twenty-six, and still have some of life ahead.
No need for wit; just talk vacuities,
and I'll Reciprocate in kind, or laugh at you instead.
The world is too opaque, distressing and profound.
This twenty minutes' rendezvous will make my day:
To sit here in the sun, with grackles all around,
Staring with beady eyes, and you two feet away.

Here's another one...

Unclaimed

To make love with a stranger is the best.
There is no riddle and there is no test. --To lie and love, not aching to make sense
Of this night in the mesh of reference.
To touch, unclaimed by fear of imminent day,
And understand, as only strangers may.
To feel the beat of foreign heart to heart
Preferring neither to prolong nor part.
To rest within the unknown arms and know
That this is all there is; that this is so.

And this is the last....

Somewhere within your loving look I sense,
Without the least intention to deceive,
Without suspicion, without evidence,
Somewhere within your heart the heart to leave.

Pessimist Vs Optimist

I think... or wait I don't think anymore. I had these strange notions of television when I was studying. Faster, more communicative, easiar on the language and so on. But that really doesn't seem to be the case. In all honesty the only thing that I do sincerely everyday is read the papers. But does that translate into any value addition ? No.... I picked up technology real fast when I came here. Does it help me? No.... My scripts are straight and boring .. thats what am told but I try reading some of the other scripts... you will wonder when one sentence got over and the other began. Basic journalism please. Write simple sentences that make sense.

So do I take pride in my work? No so much anymore.

I think I got an education sitting with saikat baba and Ch Nandal every evening sharing smokes thoughts etc. Of course I never had much to add but lots to learn. We joked, we laughed, ridiculed people. But there was an education there. I know this seems like someone who has given up on life. But am not that someone. But am afraid I will become one.

There are some of us in this world who make better followers than leaders. I don't know if anyone here is a leader.

And its affecting everything. Obviously because I don't go home and become a new person. I carry this burden of having been a part of something shoddy.

I really have to get up, stretch and yawn and shrug this terrible feeling off me. Before everyone here kills me with their attitude.

I mean EVERYONE .....

The point is that I have always been alone in fighting this feeling. I will be in some ways a loner all my life weather I like it or not.

Thats enough ! The eternal optimist has to take over.

Look who's back

I haven't blogged in 50,000 years or atleast thats what it feels like. Anyway don't want to make a dramatic entry and say " so much time has gone by, I got married, had two kids, time to send them to school ......"

But yes somethings happened, I started anchoring on my channel.... ahem ahem...felt very pleased and sometimes highly embarassed of myself. Like there was this time when I had to say " and if you have just joined us , here is a quick look at the headlines we've been following"
Yours truly has a " stuck-on-a-word problem..... so first I said " and for those of you shooshoobhsoo....hahaha got stuck there thrice...and then when i finally got over that I went ahead and said " and for those of you who have just joined us lets look at the recap"... uhh ummm recap of what dahling..? my panel producer, rundown producer, TD etc were all very sweet but this one was too funny.... so we all cracked up.

Then there was this time when the mop on my head decided to have a life of its own. So no matter how much time I spent straightening and styling and gelling and blowdrying my hair they'd some how manage to look messy on air.

Cousin swati is here on a medical visit. some laproscopy thing to be done. By a very punjoo stylish doc who if was not a doc would make such a la di da socialite.....
But swati was here on saturday with an agenda .... not to meet her doc, not to feel nervous (first surgery after all) not anything... but to shop.... and she managed to wander in the streets of Delhi even with that dendroid in her ab. Some of us are like that only.
Saw some really old pictures at SS of the whole family and boy do they look different or what.... felt sad as I flipped through each one. Felt like time just passed by so soon, in so many ways I still rack my brains for one odd memory or the other in each of those pictures.... but what struck me like a darned rod was the fact that our parents dressed us up most hideously...of course they are nice people, mean well, got the best for us... but dirty brown and tight shorts and tee shirt also of the same colour ..... never mind!
Will try to be more regular with this blogging business now...

Some more ramblings

"Node of all orbits"...... how cool is that.... why can't I come up with something as cool as this?
Anyway it's VR's blog name. And whats mine? purple child.. why? I have no clue although purple is my favourite colour.
speaking of colours I think the best photographs taken are black and white one's . They are timeless and classy. Some of the most elegant pictures taken are b/w. At ACJ we were shown wedding pictures of this model.... a very pretty one with a pretty husband. I have never seen such wonderful b/w wedding pictures.
Speaking of weddings and pictures yours truly has a record of featuring in pictures when dinner is served. Mouthful sometimes handful. Thank god not anymore, although cameramen invariably have a knack of spotting me just when I start eating. And I tell you am not a big eater. I just like the look of a nicely laid table.
Anyway its not just weddings even b'day parties when we were kids. In most of the pictures Nidhi (www.nidhira.blogspot.com) and I would be standing then "click"... the cameraman would decide to take a picture just when the both of us spared a glance at the cake. Now if you look at those pictures you'd think we were salivating. I have a sweet tooth so does Mrs Variava.
But puhleeeez this was a conspiracy of which I have evidence...sadly.

Then there is this collection of badly taken pictures where everything is incoherant. No concept of a subject, ambience etc. Just randomly taken , making someof my relatives look like famished somalians. Really no kidding. Today's feature.... a picture of a young boy, fat young boy let me add, standing next to his very natty looking brother and a very attractive mother. Under a banana tree. Somewhat disciplined. You know the happy to go to school kinds, cause there was this other picture with the same kid, gleeful, smiling from one end of the world to the other. With a satchel and a water bottle. Happy to be a part of some school.
I know I never looked like that when I was heading for school. Jesus ! there are us and then there are these school loving types. We co exist and quite happily so. Don't ask me how.

26th December 2004

There is life and then there is death. And am ok with both because thats life. But sunday the 26th of December was bad. Sunday after christmas. After a nice party where I got drunk.
unday's are usually dull and boring, not to mention slow and very sleepy. Even in a tv newsroom.
But last sunday was a disaster. The day tsunami came knocking on India's coast and swept away 12,000 people. The earthquake in Indonesia that unleashed the fury of the ocean.


When I left office that day I was exhausted. Because I had never seen so many dead bodies. raw footage. cut vo's . Translating tears into words. When I left office that day the total number of people dead in South Asia was 8000, today the total figure has crossed 1.5 million and whats worse it just doesn't seem to stop.

All in a week. Dead, devastated and destroyed. In Sri Lanka alone more than 40,000 people have died.
Imagine waking up one morning and losing your whole life and everything in it.

I have never heard of an earthquake measuring 8.9 on the richter scale. Perhaps the earthquake in Pompeii? Must cross check on that one.

So new year was very sombre. I did not even touch alcohol, just sat at home and watched TV.
I have very rarely partied during new years. The year gone by ended with atleast 2.5 million people dead or homeless or grief stricken.

Its sunday again and as usual (thank God ) nothing has happened so far.
Its dull and boring and no one's complaining.....

Sunday notes

A lot happened on Sunday and I have been aching to write about it ever since.
I woke up with two SMSes. Both from Sanjaya informing me about the bomb blast on Saturday in Colombo where ShahRukh Khan was performing. A hand grenade was apparently flung towards the stage and it landed on the VIP area. Two people died and several injured.

I was happy to know that I was one of the first few people to know about all this thanks to sanjaya. Wonder what kind of SMSes await when he goes to Afghanistan. Wonder if he's left already. Lost boy sanj.

The other big news was the death of MS. Felt like my grandmother died all over again. Its amazing how both these women played such a role in bringing music into my life. In most south indian families children are expected to learn any form of fine art, be it music or dance. I started with Bharatanatyam but discontinued when my grandmother discovered that I could sing. Not that I was planning to become the next Rukmini Devi Arundale...but still dance is always more glamorous. So I basically started singing at somewhere around 5 with Vande Vasudevam and Srimannarayana not knowing that I had picked half of the songs from my grandmother and the other half from MS's tapes and record player discs.
There are musicians and then there is MS. I can feel goosebumps even before the tape starts when she strums the tanpura. The alapanais, the kalpanai swaram, Namaramayanam and my favourie Annamacharya kritis especially Entamatramuna. Fair, stocky, diamond studs, diamond nose studs, jasmine flowers around her little bun. Radha Vishwanathan on the side.
I have the entire Hanuman chalisa by heart thanks to hearing that tape everyday of my life. No exaggeration. Even if I didn't pay attention to it some part of it would filter through my head and stay. So one day I just sat with a copy of the chalisa and to my surprise I could just sing without looking at the book.
Then there is her rendition of the Viriboni varnam. Everything about it is a little difficult. Its an Ata talam varnam. And to sing it with so much perfection needs something more than just plain interest in carnatic music. When I used to practice and sing people told me that I have a beautiful voice and that I should never discontinue. I felt like music was shoved down my throat. But it wasn't. I sang because it made me happy.
There won't be an MS ever again. Infact I don't think anyone will be able to sing like her ever.
Bhakti-years of practice-divinity all in one ....super woman. God of music.

School .... yuck.... hell revisited

Was seeing some school photographs ...actually stumbled upon them by chance. It was such a strange feeling because you might think that there is a part of life that you don't want to recollect and that you will forget it eventually. But those pictures changed my perception. I remember everything including the smell in those class rooms. The sound of the first bell and the sweet sound of the final bell. They were the same but the latter sounded so much more melodious.
I hated school. I hated everything about it including waking up in the morning, shoving a glass ful of milk down my throat and then running to the bus stop which was a good 10 minute walk. I loved vacations. Infact I loved school just a day or two before vacations. It was all so nice. The whole wrapping up and going for a while feeling. Holiday homeworks were assigned but who cared? I still don't regret not being the teacher's pet or the debate competition that I missed because I wasn't confident enough. I was never confident of anything. Infact I was a compulsive backbencher with just one ambition - get back home and go out and play. And thats exactly what am going to make my kids do. If I have the good fortune of making them with my dear boyfriend, it will be a little difficult. You see the love of my life loves talking about his wonderful and celebrated school life. Not only did he stand first in each class ... the bugger had all the time in the world to go for hajjaar debates and guess what ....win all of them ...Damn! and then he meets me.
Howzzat???? His kids I know will be Karimeen eating little bespeckled rats... mine will be sher da patthas (little tigers) ....
oh well.... hmmmm on second thoughts bespeckled (with grey locks) mice will be a better long term investment... no?