Beyond the land of Hattamala!

Got to watch this at the Jagriti theatre in Whitefield last night and I must say it was worth a watch. It's one of my friend's debut Play and I just couldn't miss being there. Its was very hectic ride at the peak evening hours of B'lore traffic through the outer ring road, total distance of about 35kms, as it was a sudden plan. The show was at 8PM and I had called a friend of mine to check out for the route in Google maps and as per what I heard from him, it sounded the theatre was not on the main road, and then a big sigh of relief to just bump on it on the Whitefield road itself came up totally to our surprise.

Coming to the actual play, it was quite an experience.

The initial 15 minutes, before the actual start of the show, they did some formations which was a slow motion thingie. Good try and should have been a good warm up to the casts. Once the play started, it was a mix of Kannada, Hindi and English. Kenappa, the main male cast's whole script was in Kannada, and a ton round of applauds to him to deliver it just real. A lot of times the audience caught up with giggles for all the funny dialogues he had. The experience showed up. I have got to see a small piece of his monoacting once before in my company, and if I remember correctly, it was in English. A very good one. Becha was no less, I still remember the way she was throwing up some stares. So funny. Hers was complete English script. She did greater than what's justice to the role. Both the main cast were great actors, and all their efforts seemed to have paid. The other characters that come as a part of the play too did the best of theirs. Each of them had to play multiple roles for different scenes. I just keep wondering how could they manage remembering the sequence and all the dialogues in addition. A job too greatly done. And then there was this guitarist, an old man. He had the excellent skills of singing and that promptly made up for what a lil that was missing here and there.

So now coming to what dragged me to the show. This guy, I almost went on the verge of calling him a pester for all the marketing he was doing all over. He was living with the play, I guess for more than 2 months, whenever we got to speak wherever it is, all I could hear from his was Beyond, BTLH etc etc. He was on this instrument side. Playing some 3 different kinds of instruments namely Bongo, Rainstick and Agogo. A great opportunity to show up his skills and according to me he had used it really well. His debut show and it just did not look like that at all! Kudos.

On the whole the play had quite a good impact on the audience. We went on to remember the dialogues and started relating to them at certain instances. There were no real flaws found except for one or two here and there, which might definitely not a big deal when you come out with this whole sense of gratification for a time well spent.

And beyond that hattamala, moneyless world is quite a fantasy. How I wish we all get to experience that in the real world.

I would upload the poster that I made for this soon, as I dont have the originals with me right now. After all, even I had put in some of my 2 cents for this, you see ;)

- *Poster uploaded on Mar 08*

Godspeed to you good people!

Saraswathi Pooja - 2010!

Been through a very very hectic schedule over the past few weeks. starting pooja holidays till date. Cant imagine how time ran by! This year Saraswathi pooja was a whole different celebration for me. Gollu (as we call it in tamil) had always been a hidden fascination for me. When I was a kid, I used to see it in some of the relatives house and a fewer times have helped them setting it up too. And in the famous Chidambaram temple, this has been followed religiously ever since I was a kid. Visiting the temple every year around this time just to see the gollu is like an important outing that every family does to actually feel complete of that year's pooja celebrations. I have personally seen a lot of aunts and grand mothers who have missed seeing gollu talking about missing it and feeling bad till the next gollu.
This year, my mother-in-law had set it up at our home in Hyderabad and she asked me to goto the neighboring houses and invite everybody home to see the Gollu. This was the phrase I had to memorize for that 'Maa inti-lo bommalu pettamu; perantaniki randi' ;) And my husband's cousins, 2 of them (Sindhu n Vandhu :D) helped me memorizing that. 3 of us went around the streets talking stories about the 'Vangipuram' family and of course, a lot about my husband :) When friends and relatives visited, gave them thamboolam and took blessings from everybody. The gollu that I had always wanted to celebrate at my own house and God had blessed me with that this year. Feels so glad and a lot of excitement still. Planning to do this at my Bangalore house next year, let's see how things go!
We visited few of the relatives for lunch, dinner etc ;) Lot of relatives, neighbors, cousins and friends I got to know in person, now my world is a little more bigger that consists of those people whom my husband had known from his childhood, a complete different feeling that can just not be described, learnt how important it is to be in touch with relatives and how actually the relationships of those kinds work in real time. At my husband's mama's house they had kept gollu too and that weekend being my mother-in-law's mother's thidhi, we were called there for lunch after the pooja. After lunch, I was asked to sing song. I sang ennavale, alaipayuthey kanna and kurai ondrum illai - all tamil numbers, but the 2 krishna genres actually has a series of his names and so not considered completely tamil tho'. And found out that the best moment of applause for a girl is when her husband tells her, "after a few years of knowing each other" (why this - is because applauds happen very often during the beginning years, but the same thing after a few years down the line is of a total different level of maturity that exists in the spouse and that was unfound all these years - something that strengthens the marital bond!) that she has done quite a good job and that it was more than what he actually expected. Yes, experienced that! that too for him, it was a bigger surprise that I could sing some devotional numbers, all by myself ;)) Thanks to the Veena classes and the early morning prayers my mom used to involve me in!
Had done my part to satisfy everybody. It was a great vacation and thanks to my husband for helping me be the way everyone there wanted me to be. After coming back, seems like my mother-in-law had got feedback from people around that she had got a good daughter-in-law that she went on to tell my mom that everybody there liked me and all the praises that they seemed to have poured. Mom was yet again a proud mother of this daughter and for me nothing in the world is worthier than that!

My husband and our marriage.

Firstly, I wasn't sure of starting to write on this title today. But then I did not want to wait anymore. So, the twenty second of August, two thousand and ten.. the day that was yet another beautiful entry to a whole new entity of life. the day I/we got married! I must say it was a very long preparation that went on for four years right from opening it to parents to getting them say a 'yes' till here. The wedding talks started on the third of April, two thousand ten between both the sides and since then it was all like what happens in any other arranged marriages. A lot of talks, lot of doubts, so much of confusion, anxiety, misunderstandings but what ruled out all of these is that both the side parents were concerned most about the happiness that him and I would share after all these things that are getting messed up.
So, further about the wedding as such - it was a bilingual communion - tamil and telugu. The customs and traditions that were followed in the wedding was completely Telugu Iyengar ways of wedding. Starting from the pre-wedding rituals that they do for the groom, then the edhirkolal and then the oonjal sevai, jilakara bellam till tieing the knot.
What impressed me the most was the oonjal sevai. I have got to experience this before in some of my friend's relatives' weddings and have always admired it. They made us sit in the oonjal (swing) and swing it slowly, do some aarathi, sing songs - seetha kalyana vaibohame, the traditional one. Once all that usual ritual was over, they asked a few of them in the crowd who are known for singing to sing. Then came up the 'kurai ondrum illa' and then the alaipayuthey kanna and a few more of krishna genres like 'krishna nee begane' etc :) As such I love music and listening to songs, devotional ones generally elevate my energy and that moment of the whole occasion was like "THE" moment for me! Thanks to my sister's friend Priya who had nominated my side singing 'kurai ondrum illai' which was such a memorable and intelligent pick. Needless to mention his sister and brother-in-law who are a family of singers to add up to the colors and happiness.
Finally for them keeping the jilakara bellam on each others heads is the most important part of the wedding, though that did not give me much of a wedded feel ;) and then when he tied the knot, I will definitely run short of words to explain what/how it was, I can only feel it, the feeling that's most special to me, the feeling that only both of us can understand.. I couldn't control the gush of tears and emotions, mom next to me and periyamma opposite to me, I saw them crying too! All of us finally left a sigh of relief and the whistle was removed to let out the 3 hrs of pressure that was built up inside my head! I don't think I had ever gone through such a tension filled situation in life before!
The moment my boyfriend became my fiance and went on to become my husband. We went on to live together, in the same house, together day-in and day-out. Its quite different! The amount of patience we had to hold on to. the kind of rights we exert on each other. Yet at the end of the day, we realize, all only because of the kind of love that lives up amongst the two of us. My husband, definitely is the greatest, The smartest! There are only a very few people in the world who are lucky to get a balance between in-laws' and parents. And he definitely is one among them, intelligent fella! ;) The Mauritius trip - worth a mention. That's an amazing wedding gift, likewise there are only a very few ladies out there who are lucky enough to find a husband like mine. My convenience before his needs. I can go on to sing a My-Husband-greatest purana. But for now, I'm just leaving it here.
Thank God for such a wonderful gift for life.
And for the readers, may you have someone who loves you crazily enough and several years down the line, may you look back to realize that the love this person showers on you, is multi-zillion times more than what you feel today!
God bless!

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

A little bothered me since two days, not sure why, about my recent past, I mean my past 1yr or so life at Hyd with these 2 Ss! Friends I have ever met in this very very mean and competitive corporate world. The best of their kinds!
That 1 year was just a total bliss in this life. Enjoyment more and more day by day. There is no one place that I can list in Hyd that we have not visited and each place has its own special memories. This kind, probably everyone out there would want to go through, atleast for a fraction of months in their lifetime. Our day begins so late in the morning and goes on really late in the nights. Frankly, a lot of people were so envious of us and the kind of friends we are, through the thick and thin. There is no difference that we saw amongst us. There is no one thing that bothered any of us during those times. Laughter, laughter and laughter - that filled our life and it was so blissful! I don't remember there was one time when we let one of the three cry, rather cry alone. The amazing plans that we used to make every evening, restaurants, pubs, coffee shops, icecreams. the colorful weekends, and the times we used to simply wait for those lazy Saturdays and then we sit for a late evening lunch with the biriyani from Hyderabad house. And then there is this one warm bear hug from the big S ;) that encloses the other 2 of us and the indescribable happiness that encloses the 3 of us. That crazy thing when we used to put on music in S's 10x10 room doing some electrical work to connect those old speakers ;) and then it was all heaven. Do not know what got us so close. Not sure why we did not have a second thought to fill our life with just the 3 of us. No selfishness, no variations. Movies list was endless! The times we used to run at 2.20 for a 2.25 show; the night shows after which I used to get dropped in my PG, the locked gate and my shrill voice 'watchman watchman', the phone call I make after I enter the house and that's their go-ahead to leave from there. Conference chats in the office communicator where we tease and rip the whole lot of those nutty heads at office amidst the hectic work. The way they used to be behind me to make friends with some new girl in the team. Those long drives in the night, we talk about the most useless issues in the world and then end up drawing stupid conclusions. The way I was teased for being girlie at times and how they used to fulfill those girlie wishes like visiting Shilparamam for a mehendi with no other go. The times we used to sit in the pantry, talk and laugh like nuts that the whole office could hear us. 'Never-mind-everything-is-ours' attitude. And then the way we planned the birthday surprises. How I loved to see Sud saying that it was the first time he had put cake on his face in life on his birthday! And how I wish I can be lucky time and ever to give you that. Anything that we did was right, there were no restrictions. One of us do something, there are these 2 other heads to nod. No one time you are allowed to feel low. When we are away during vacations, that was only a break we used to take and we just used to get back and be the 3 of us. I'm realizing all these simple things now, when they have actually become memories. Times that went by was so light, mind used to think so serious of anything. The number of times we had visited the airport must be countless, regardless of the local/international trips that any of us made! And the tough time we used to have with KL-11 still admire it for living through the tortures I used to give it. I was pampered, loved, admired, scolded, irritated, all at once like never before/after! I do not know how was I ready to miss that side of life. I'm sure there is nothing like it again anytime. I need them all back. I need my Friends back. I yearn to live with and feel the selflessness yet again. Probably, the first time I'm missing a friendship this worse. I dont remember a time before in life when I have missed friends so much. Gone by times and all that I'm left with now - memories! We will live that way all through our lives, I'm sure.
And here, for you the reader, from the 3 of us, I'm wishing you that you feel such a friendship atleast once in your lifetime. And may the mix of emotions that leaves my throat constricted now fills you someday that you realize what real happiness is!

Not sure what to put up in the Title space. Wanted to pen this incident down here that happened when I was in Chennai over the weekend that went by.

Dad and myself were walking towards Panagal park, T.Nagar from Pondy bazaar while someone came from the other direction smiled at him and took him by hand. Dad gave a confused look. The man was quite old, as old as my dad and was asking him if he remembers him. Dad said that he was not really sure, yengeyo kadai vecchurndhapo paatha nyabahama irku (that he remembers vaguely that he had visited dad's shop years back). This man took him away from me and was telling him a story and I could make out that he was wanting some money and he is simply putting up a weird reason to extract whatever cash possible. We were just done with our shopping and was rushing to mom who was waiting in Nalli for us. Dad was telling him that he was left with only a few notes as we were just done with some shopping. I was watching all this from a lil distance from him and being a person who does not believe in people that so quick particularly when it comes to some cases like this, I jumped into the scene and pulled dad by hand, common lets go, mom would be waiting. This man was then telling me to give him sometime. We were in a different tension meanwhile and hurriedly I told him that we had to leave immediately as my mom was alone there. Dad told him, I'm not sure what's with this, but I'm sorry and we walked away.
I was a little bothered if I was heartless to do that and I'm sure dad, being a person who cannot stop himself from helping people for whatsoever reason, irrespective of he has or he doesn't have the source to help, was quite bothered.
Later, I was checking with dad what was he upto and dad told me, he said he was working in Annamalai University as a professor and currently settled in Chennai. His family had gone for a death and left the house locked and that he is left with no money to travel to Chidambaram and so was asking for help. Dad is not sure if he should believe that or not. He had no clue where in Chennai he lives etc. I could make a clear stand that he was creating a complete story there, a simple thought how a professor who had been out of touch for years with a person can ask for help and the way he had put it up with not even a little bit of hesitation.
What bothered me most was how people take advantage of others' who still are ethical and have the morality to help someone regardless of reason and the relationship. Several times I wonder at mom for being in touch with a lot of relatives who do not wish good for us. She says that is how relationships work. You cannot expect everybody to help when in trouble, nor expect everyone to feel good when we grow. You have to be selfless and that is when you truly live united! (they say in Tamizh 'Oorodhu othu vaazh')