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Showing posts from June, 2009

Madan Mohan - the musical legend

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June 25th was Madan Mohan ji's 85th anniversary and his family has launched a website. It's fascinating to go through his life, compositions and tributes by his colleagues. Very well designed website. What's equally enthralling is an article written by Gulzar on Madan Mohan. Here is what Gulzar says about Madan Mohan: When I entered the music industry, Madan Mohan was already an established name – a man of great repute and a music director respected by all. We could start working together only in the early 1980s. Nonetheless, we had known each other earlier for several years. In fact, I first met him at N.C. Sippysaab’s place. He was on one of his regular evening visits to Sippysaab’s household along with his sister, Shanti Mahendroo and niece Anju Mahendroo. For them, it was almost like a family reunion and for me those moments were golden opportunities to meet Madanji. On several occasions, I interacted with him in Sippysaab’s house and only twice had I met him at Sippy

Badlate Rishte

It is fascinating for me how relationships get evolved from no where. Some of these are formed by a chance meeting or mere acquaintance and they stay forever. I think success of their longevity is the mutual awareness and acceptance of the boundaries that such relationship possess. On the contrary, most structured and formal relationships wither or break away after much of a fan fare. The reason perhaps lie in refusal to accept that there could exist boundaries in such a relationship. Robert Frost poem on 'Looking up by chance' , Deepak Chopra's theory of ' connection at cellular level' and song written by Anand Bakshi ‘ Yeh Duniya ke Badalte Rishte’ make me realize the complex maze of human relationships that can be as fickle as a 'bubble' and as durable as steel threads. I liked the corollary of celestial objects in the poem of Frost to meeting people from nowhere. You'll wait a long, long time for anything much To happen in heaven beyond the f

T 20 world cup final

If any country needed the T20 cricket world cup the most, it is Pakistan. Sri Lanka winning a war over LTTE is on a high adrenalin of national spirit. Pakistan on the tenterhook of 'national collapse' needs this world cup to bring together a nation of chaos tattered by war with the Taliban. The world cup win would also be great palliative soothing for the wounded and bruised Pakistan cricket aficionados, shunned and shunted by ICC and other cricketing nations. I do want to see the self effacing and modest Yunus Khan lift the trophy after blistering stroke play of Shahid Afridi but not without seeing wily Arjuna Mendis and Muralidharan choking the flow of runs for Pakistan. A match decided anything before a ball to spare or a scampering run on the last ball, will not be a fitting tribute to this pulsating game of cricket that is vying to emulate popularity of soccer. I am yet to pen my experience of my visit to Karachi and perhaps this win of Pakistan could trigger me t

akshta's first public dance

Akshta at National Museum, Singapore during singapore arts festival .

Tehran - another experience

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4am - plane touched ATKH airport. I wonder why emirates do not announce it as Ayatollah Khomeini airport but just as a Tehran airport. Well before a visitor gets a glimpse of Iran, all passengers are made to walk through a long corridor whose width is barely enough for one's girth and hand luggage. Either side of the corridor has a wall that stretches up to the ceiling. Only couple of emergency glass doors on the left side alleviates the fear of any stampede if some untoward incident were to happen. On either side of the walls lie protruding camera lenses. Rhythmic stamping of 400 odd feet in combination of click-clack of luggage caster wheels made me wonder if I was a part of some rebel group who was being taken for an execution at wee hours. In my previous visits to Iran, I did not encounter any problem with my visa but this time their computer did not have our names. That meant spending another hour at the window that would open and close by the whims of a visa issuer a