Poetry@ In Her Shoes - 1

Last month I watched another chick-flick, In Her Shoes. It was a nice and entertaining one..  Loved Cameron Diaz's acting. Her's was the main character (Maggie) and she did justice to it. Despite of Maggie's nasty deeds, you end up liking her character.. and you will definitely  love it when the plot moves to community center for old people and she starts helping them. 

So what I liked the most in the movie was the poem she reads in her sister's wedding.  The poem is beautiful and the way she read it made it more touching. I had searched the wording on internet, and it was lying on my desktop forever. Today I was reading again, and I again loved them, so thought why not share with you.. 

I carry your heart with me, I carry it in my heart,

I am never without it, anywhere I go you go, my dear; 

and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling.

I fear no fate, for you are my fate, my sweet

I want no world, for beautiful you are my world, my true

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant,

and whatever a sun will always sing is you.

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows,

here is, the root of the root and 

the bud of the bud and 

the sky of the sky, of a tree called life;

which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide,

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart.

I carry your heart, I carry it in my heart.

-E. E. Cummings

PS-1: I do not know why every version (available on internet) of this poem had lots of stuff in brackets. If anyone of you has some idea, why it is that way, then please share. 

PS-2: I apologize for playing with the punctuation of the original poem.

Amazon Story (contd.)

So the Amazon Story doesn't end here and here.

I do not know about Amazon.com but Amazon.in is really a good for nothing shopping portal. Last time they screwed our order and people told me that it is a rare case, and that they are new in India so they are growing and improving. I thought okay, may be!!! We trusted and placed another fresh order only to realize after 3 weeks (order was placed of 29th August) that something or the other went wrong with all the 3 items in that order. Here is a summary of what happened

1. Item No.1 was delivered in a week's time. It was a charger cable, for which not just the specifications but the title itself said that it is black in color. But what we received was white in color. We wrote to them. We got a call in a day or two, saying that please don't use it, we will collect it from you and your money will be refunded. I think replacing it with a black one would have been a better policy, instead of asking the customer (indirectly) to order from somewhere else after a delay of 10 days. Then why shouldn't we place the order somewhere else..

2. Item No. 2 was headphone. Its expected delivery date in order list was 2 - 6 September. But the item status never changed to anything else from Shipping Soon, till they removed it from the order list (will it come to it later). We wrote to them, since we were not allowed to file claim (even after the delivery date was gone). We were informed that we will soon be contacted by the seller, who never did so and finally we filed the claim. Now that headphone was quite urgently required. If the Amazon/seller couldn't provide us (forget about in time), shouldn't have we been informed a bit early. Why did they stay numb over it and waited for us to poke them.. 

3. Item No. 3 was a book. The expected dispatch date was 23rd September (which is today). And the email I received says that my order is cancelled due to insufficient inventory. Can someone tell me why does it take them so long (more than 3 weeks) to inform me that they don't have something for which they already taken the order. I don't know what system/technology they are using to communicate. If I was told earlier, by now, I could have bought it from somewhere else. After the things went wrong with first 2 orders, I was already uncertain about the third one. I really tried hard to maintain my confidence and waited patiently. After all they say Shop with confidence. But they proved themselves.

And that is not the end. Their system smoothly manages to delete all such orders from your account. So that you can never go back and check, when you ordered and what you ordered. No where in my order history I can locate these items.

The way our case was dealt last time, was in itself very frustrating.. and still we got back. Why in the world I should order with them again. They might improve but I think I will never come back to them. I am really irritated with the way things are dealt. And when such things happen twice in a period 3 months, its too much to digest. I think I am better off with flipkart.

PS (for regular readers) - This is not the way I wanted to come back after so long :-( But amazon has infuriated me to the core.

Joy of turning old

Few months back I had watched the movie Awakenings (starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro). The movie was, no doubt, amazing. I was stunned by firstly Robert De Niro's acting, secondly the story.. the way dilemmas of patients and their families was pictured, and also the courage and innocence of Dr. Sayer's character. Anyways, this post is not for the review of movie. You may read AK's post for an interesting review.

As usual after watching the movie I googled and came to know that it is based on Oliver Sacks' book of the same name. I read more about him, went through his works and list of books. I was curious about his work, and felt that I should read atleast one of  his books. Actually he had occupied some quiet-small corner in my brain. And finally, last month in the discount frenzy, even after all that Amazon mess, I have managed to get hold of his book The Mind's Eye.

So I think I should now finally come to the reason which made me write this post. Actually yesterday morning I read an article by Oliver sacks in New York Times. I don't know why, but I really enjoyed reading this article.. there was that feeling, when you want to re-read something. The article is totally about his feelings on turning 80.. about what his life has been.  It was something like, how happy and satisfied a person is on turning old.. but at the same time, just like most of us, even he has that feeling, that he could have wasted less time and could have done many more things. Its about a person, who is not looking at the gloominess of old age, but at the positive side, that there are few things, which you cannot feel unless you are old. I am quite awed by the following lines..

"At 80, one can take a long view and have a vivid, lived sense of history not possible at an earlier age. I can imagine, feel in my bones, what a century is like, which I could not do when I was 40 or 60."

Just wanted to share the article. I hope I have motivated you enough to read it :)


PS: Sometimes background turns out to be longer than the main content :P

I've got a thing for music

The music. I can hear it everywhere. In the wind... in the air... in the light. It's all around us. All you have to do is open yourself up. All you have to do... is listen.                                       

     -August Rush

Happy World Music Day!!!

I had been planning to write about my adventures with music since, like, ever. I remember that I had even thought of a very fancy title as well, which I can no more recall :'( and that is the loss of publishing posts in mind, they could get deleted without warning. So better late than never.. And anyways there was one benefit of the delay.. I am more and more into it, the thoughts, likings, inclinations have become more concrete. Just came to know that today is special, so there could not have been a better moment to share my quest into the world of music.

Since my childhood I was quite keen on listening to music. It was never very specific type or genre, but while studying, specially Maths, I always preferred having something in my ears. Ones I remember from school time are Bhai Surinder Singh Jodhpuri's kirtan tracks (used to be my favorite), Bally Sagoo's cassette (don't remember its name) which had that celebrated (atleast for me) Ragamuffin mix (mind you I ain't saying the famous Gur naalo ishq mitha). Anyways as I moved on to Banasthali, I used to get cassettes recorded with favorite tracks. My choice used to vary like anything. Sometimes I wanted soft romantics, sometimes kirtans, sometimes dhol dhamaka bhangra kind, sometimes some BSB or Enrique, or may be Saturday night and Brazil too. With time, things became more and more convenient.. in 3rd year we had PC in hostel room ..in M.Sc. Papa gifted me a MP3 player. But the choice was always a mix of the above list. 

Somewhere around last year (unable to recall the exact time of transition) I got some inclination towards classical musical. Not that exactly the Classical Music. But I started enjoying the classical beats (i don't know what one calls them) which appear in songs once in a while, like dha dhin dha, actually its hard to enlist like this. But off course I can give some examples. Like first 2:30 mins of Jab pyar kiya to darna kya (Mughal-e-azam), Thumak-thumak pad (Ankahee), Kali ghodi dwar khadi (Chashme baduur). There were (are) many such songs for which I developed eventual appreciation. Like the starting part of Piya Bawri (Khoobsurat). I think I had mentioned earlier as well, about the pleasure I am getting in listening to these songs..

Then one fine day at sikhnet.com I stumbled across Bhai Inderjeet Singh's collection which had lot classical kirtan (in gurbani kirtan we call pakke raag). And to add to it, he has also mentioned the raag in which the shabad is sung.The complete Guru Granth Saheb is in Raags, that was my only awareness about raags. I had never before known the musical end of raags (might sound funny). So that was the first time when I felt the music of raags.. things became more technical and at the same time more enjoyable. I started listening more and more to those shabads. Then I started eating AK's head, that whether there is a way to identify underlying raag of the song.. or can she identify the raag from that dha dhin dhin beats.. I was (and I am still) totally unaware of the technicalities playing around. But one thing was sure, they were quite intriguing. I started searching on internet. I stumbled across an interesting research article, on use of Hidden Markov Model to identify Raags. But somehow (unfortunately), that was not something I was looking for. I wanted to feel those small differences in rhythm. I wanted to see how things work. I was happy to see that there were others who shared a common anxiety. But everyone suggested that one should listen more and more and enjoy.. technicalities follow.

Then in the month of February, we heard that Prof.K.B.Athreya (Godfather for Statistical theory of Branching processes) is visiting IISER Pune for a week, will be giving a series of talks on not so technical topics of Mathematics and one talk in our Dept. And we also got the news that one evening he will also talk about music. We decided attended his talks, and as expected he was amazing. As AK is already in to music and I was falling in so we decided to attend the lecture on music as well. Then we came to know that actually SPIMACAY has organised the lecture. That was the first time that I came to know that such a society exists. Not just that, there were many terms that I heard for the first time. Taanpura, the names of raags in Carnatic and Hindustani music, Shrutis, notes, relation to Mathematics, Melakartas, and lot more. What resulted was less of information storage but more of curiosity. Because an hour's time was too less to understand so much. It was like throwing words of the tone verb, adjectives, prepositions to a kid in Kindergarten.

I started googling more and more. One raag which clicked me most (for reasons unknown to me) was Raag Malkauns. Search led me to many videos/tracks on internet. And then eventually I realised that the kind of music I enjoy the most in classical base is Gurbani kirtan. And then Google is always a saviour. I got lots of resources, which gave the shabad tracks along with raag details, like Gurmat Sangeet Project and Gurmat Sangeet Darbar. I think we are really lucky to get access to infinite amount of resources on one flat looking box. So nowadays I am listening to Bhai Avtar Singh, Bhai Gurmeet Singh Shant and so on.. Though the inclinations have made a substantial shift, the tendency of getting addicted to a music piece still remains same. I have found some of the kirtan tracks quite addictive. Back in school days when papa used to play these guys then I used to get uncomfortable.. like frankly speaking irritated. I think I have evolved over time :P

Last month I visited Manali for 4 days. We (me & my better half) stayed in a hotel which was a little inside a lane. We used to walk down that lane everyday in the morning. On the way there was a Music Learning Centre. Everyday morning I used to hear same tune (probably students must be practising) which I was almost certain that it has to be Malkauns. I enjoyed listening to it. There used to be strong desire to stand there for a while and enjoy. At times I felt an urge for entering the building and discussing with the teacher (whosoever he/she is) more about the music being played. That music brought me nostalgia.

After coming back to Pune, we (me & AK) came to know that there is a possibility that an online course could be conducted to teach the Magic and Logic of Music for people like me. The syllabus also redirected me towards TaalPulse, a software which serves as Lehra, Theka and Tanpura machine. In the meanwhile AK always tried her best to answer my questions, which at times used to be little dumb.. She explained me the working of Tanpura and Theka, how the taals works, how the tanpura is simplest and most basic (and still pleasant to listen), and why harmonium isn't considered to be perfect.

We together prayed for the course, but it didn't work out. The day I got to know that it hasn't I was very disappointed.. frustated actually. I was actually looking forward to it. What next.. Google!!! And now I got hold of the following two books: Nad: Understanding Raga Music and Nuances Of Hindustani Classical Music. Both the books are intended for people who like music but are not exposed to the science behind, who will be happy to know more, who think that some basic knowledge will allow them to enjoy more.. I was happy again, excited!! I am really looking forward to read them and dive into this beautiful world of rhythms.

I really think that I have got a thing for Music :)

PS: 0. As always the post has turned up as SUPER long.. Really should look into the ways for summarizing my feelings :-|

PS: 1. Amidst of planning an article with AK, MBR expecting some research article, I am writing this. I wish technical writings were as easy and free flowing as blog posts..

PS: 2. Why is that I always need some special occasion or Muhrat to express my feelings.. be that sparrows or music .

Ode to Hindi Cinema

I have always compared Bollywood with Hollywood and hated the fact that we can never come up with movies as good as the ones made in West. I don't know why, but I have felt that I do not feel like watching even 5 minutes of almost any bollywood movie. I know there are exceptions. There is Wednesday, there is Taare Zameen Par, there is Lagaan, Iqbaal, Dor, Dharm, YMI, which I have loved and praised. But such a list is definitely small.

But there was a time in Indian movies, which was different. Calling that era Hindi Cinema rather than Bollywood, makes me feel better. I know I have earlier also praised some classics of that era, but that doesn't stop me from repeating the same.. that I can watch Chupke-chupke and Golmaal any number of times.. that I went literally Wow for Khoobsurat when I watched it recently and realised how I had missed the way this movie entertains you.. how Ankahee and Ek Doctor ki Maut made me realise what great actors we had.. the sweetness and innocence of Balika Badhu.. the way Masoom makes me cry every time I watch it. I think it was all real CINEMA.

Today I have another addition to that list. Purab aur Pashchim. Yesterday, while browsing channels on TV, I suddenly saw and then stopped, and then I did not turn the channel even for a minute, for more than an hour (+there were no adverisements to disturb). I was totally spell bound and awestruck. Totally surprised that although  i had watched it earlier a few times,  I had once again failed to realise what a classic piece of art it is. So many scenes gave me goose bumps and so many scenes left my eyes wateryy. Somehow, I am feeling so great about everything in the movie.. Every actor and character left a mark..  Ashok Kumar with his calmness and strength, Om Prakash with his helplessnes, Pran in the denial and then the regret, Madan Puri with his expressions in all those situations when he feels sorry for his daughter and ashamed of the way she is brought up.. and offcourse Manoj Kumar.

Music was simply adding to the serenity of the movie. Those moments when Hare Rama, Hare Krishna starts it feels so divine and true.. and the peace you get with that tune and those 4 words. Hai preet jahan ki reet sada, I anyways have always been a fan off.. specially the starting lines. First time I liked Om Jai Jagdish Hare so much that I could feel it (specially in the climax, when Saira Bano is back and it starts with Vishay Vikar Mitayo)..so much that it made me think of composer and realise that I don't even know who wrote this famous aarti.  FYI it was composed by Pandit Shardha Ram Phillauri. 

I couldn't help it putting it for download immediately. And first time it is happening that even after download  is complete, I haven't removed it and allowed it to seed for others. Just because I want more and more people to watch it. For people sitting in far away lands, to know what India is.. and to remind people within, what our country was (I know thats not one of  the best and most ethical ways to share and circulate).

PS:1. This is a post which came with impulse. Thanks for bearing with the length and all the jhol-jhal vali Engreji.

PS:2. Sorry again for being so iregular. I am still writing posts in mind, along with the most appropriate titles. I wish I could share with you someday :-|