I was browsing the internet as usual. But unusually, I was searching for A R Rahman videos on YouTube. That is when I spotted this video.

A R Rahman in Surabhi

Surabhi, if anyone of you would remember used to be aired in Doodarshan (DD1). I still remember that period, when cable TV was not known commonly in India. My full family used to watch them. We never understood or knew Hindi. But we just watched them.

Krishna, Chandrakantha.. I am remembering these serials as I type it in. Wonderful days. We used to discuss in school, about it. We used to be discussing about Kurur Singh and his “Yakkooo..”

In this video, that should have been taken by 1992, after Roja release, I am wondering about what he says. Hear Sridhar say, about his sound technique, “Theatrical”.. he says. Rahman wanted not the base sound of the flute but the air from it… And then the song plays… Wow, really A R Rahman… is a genius.

I had my first haircut in America yesterday. @Virginia Hair.

One hair cut costs $35.00 equivalent to roughly Rs. 1750. That is a huge sum of money. In India, I used to have haircut for Rs. 20.00. The maximum that I used to spend was Rs. 500 equivalent to $10.00.

So the lesson is, earn your money in America, spend it in India.

United States, Here I come. With lots of dreams, awe, fear, feelings. I am now an amalgamation of various feelings. I am about to get into a country, that had transformed dreams into reality for many, changed lifes completely from riches to rags and rags to riches. People chasing dreams, money and pleasure. A land that I have always wondered about all these years, Here I Come!

Dreams of what is in store… Computers, People, Music and Stuff.
Awe of the single name… United States.
Fear of what is yet to come… How is America going to treat me, A lone traveller in a stranger land.
Feelings of leaving home land, leaving home food, leaving my beloved here for a while..
Questions about life….

America! Here I come!

Two days back, when I was on my way to the office, at the Park Town station, this incident happened.

It is not unusual to see people at the Park Town station, crossing the railway paths and not using the sub-way. It has to be partly blamed on the authorities too for such a poor maintenance of the sub way. During the rainy season, it is flooded that people are forced to cross over to the other platform by crossing the railway lines.

But that day was sunny. As usual, I was there at 7.30 am to catch the morning train to Tiruvanmiyur. When I emerged out of the subway, I could see two Railway Police Force (RPF) Officials hiding on the entrance to the subway. There were talking to the people nearby. As I entered the platform, there were people who were signalling to the men crossing the railway lines not to cross. That is when I realized what had been happening.

The RPF men could not be seen from the other platform, when someone crosses the railway lines and reaching the other end, they would be caught by these two men and complaint filed. It reminded me of one of our childhood play called ‘Police-Thief’ (‘Thirudan – Police’ in Tamil) where one would play police and others would play thief hiding from the police. The game play was the police to figure out all the thieves from the hiding spot.

It was happening the other way round here, the police were hiding and the people had to figure that there were police hiding and use the subway instead of crossing the railway lines.

After all, Life is interesting!

The big gala event of Cricket started yesterday in Bangalore. Lalit Modi (Chairman IPL) and Vijay Mallya (RCB Owner, UB group) must have been happy with how the crowd responded. There was a grand cultural extravaganza before the actual ‘Karmayudh’ started.

Surely, there was glamour, high decibel scream brought in by the dancing girls, acrobatics, Shankar Mahadevan, bollywood stars and King Khan himself. The crowd should have enjoyed a lot.

IPL had a theme for each team. Bangalore was all Red (Why doubt, KingFisher man), and my favourite team for this IPL, Kolkatta were truely attired as Kinght Riders in Black and Gold. Even the helmet was Golden colour. After all the cultural openings faded, the match started.

Ganguly collapsed for 10 and Ponting for 20. Then came McCollum. He made a massive 158* runs consuming just 78 balls. An innings expected out of Twenty20. There was great cheering for each six he sent out to the gathering. What more could Sharukh ask for.

Then came the RCB innings, though the local crowd expected a lot, the first blow itself showed what was in store. Ishant Sharma took the first wicket of Dravid in his very first ball. Deadly! and the story continued. Nice game play by KKR and the match was theirs.

Every news channel, screams the head lines. IPL, IPL, IPL. Just tune in now, you could read something on any news channel about IPL, exclusive interviews …. Indeed Cricket is India’s National Game. We have it in our mind and in our blood.

India – though not the land where Cricket was born; has unofficially become the capital of Cricket. This is the land where cricket is closely debated to religion. Cricket is one thing that brings all the people in India together. People here criticize, celebrate, worship cricket and cricketers. We have a lot of cricketing icons in India. I feel proud when my team wins; and I get upset when Team India loses. This is one feeling common to many people here in India, though we have some few people who love the game over the team.

A cricketer in India earns more money than any other in the world. ‘If Cricket is religion, then Sachin is God’, ‘Dada is the best’ are some slogans that keep reverberating in every nook and corner of India. Such is the status of a cricketer. They also suffer a lot in the hands of the public when they fail to deliver. Why not! when there is such a huge following, it is the duty of the leaders to deliver. And if the game is against India, then it is not a game; IT IS WAR.

Each cricketer endorses a brand and earn a lot. Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is one of the largest money making boards in the World. To add to this craze, Indian Premiere League has been started. A move to have large corporations to run business with cricket.

It is more like the English county, but a lot bigger in terms of money. I like the idea of having county like cricket in India, and corporations involved in promoting the game further, but should it mean the players need to be auctioned? A price for the head and skill, won’t that spoil the spirit of the game? What would Gilchirst think about his talent? Is he not a better player than Dhoni or Symonds. Is it not creating inequality between members of the same team.

Why not pay everyone the same amount of money within the teams. Why not distinguish with  the prize money for the winning teams? Won’t that be a better solution to create better cricketers?  Just a thought!

26th January 2007 – India celebrated its 59th year of Republic. I was not in the city but in my town neyveli.

It is traditional in neyveli that during the independence day and republic days, the Chairman cum Managing Director (CMD) hoists the national flag at our stadium. Following this is accepts the parade honor. This is followed by felicitating people who made significant contributions to the growth of Neyveli Lignite Corporation. After this there are cultural events (drills – as we call it there) performed by school kids. With the announcement of the winner of the cultural events and the singing of the Tamil Thai Vazhthu, the programme is complete.

I went this year to the stadium after 5 years (all these 5 years i was in my college and last year i was in chennai) to attend the Republic day parade. It brought back old memories of my school days when i used to go with my friends. None of my friends turned up this year for that and i was all alone completely lost in thoughts. It was not quite interesting to watch the events as it used to be in my childhood. We used to fight over whose school will win the first prize and we boo and encourage each others school. That was missing. I have lost that childhood innocence.

When I came back home at 9 a.m., the republic day celebrations were being telecast on NDTV. I just spent the rest of the day  sitting before the TV and watching all the programmes being telecast.

NDTV Indian of the Year program was worth a watch.

Long live Indian Republic! Long live our Heros who got us it!