Monthly Archives: October 2013

Sunny Day

I love the first sunny day post rainy days. The birds come out of hiding chirping loudly, the wet/cold clothes finally get back to being fully dry, the roads start drying up, the body comes out of the lazy feeling which the rains bring with it, the song playing changes from the cozy ‘Moongil Thottam’ to the peppy ‘Hello Mister Edhir Katchi’. Did you notice how Harini carries off the two contrasting songs with ease? She is one favourite singer of mine. What is the song that you’re listening to on this sunny Wednesday?

Bitter words

I have changed. When I know things are not going to go my way, even though I know that what I am asking for is reasonable, I don’t argue anymore, for I am least interested in hearing bitter words being exchanged. I wonder how I could change like that.

Maybe things have changed and there won’t be bitter words anymore. But some memories refuse to fade away.

How true the classic ThirukkuraL ‘theeyinal suTTa puN uLLaarum, aaradhe naavinaal suTTa vaDu’ is!

Poovukkenna Poottu

From just a single female voice singing ‘poovukenna pooTTu kaaRRukkenna’ with a very soft background music, the percussion slowly starts joining in and the song slows starts picking its pace.

Even as you sit back and enjoy the song and join in singing ‘gulla gulla halla gulla’, you never expect it to change track and launch into those inspiring words sung with an equally inspiring musical arrangements

kaaNat thane kaNgaL kaNNeer sindha illai
maegangaL maNvizhundhu kaayangaL aanadhillai
vaazhatthaane vaazhkkai veezhvadharkku illa

The beautiful flute making an appearance now and then with lovely interludes too, Rahman’s power-packed singing, the unexpected baby’s crying, the climatic finish starting off with the singing by a whole lot of singers, continuing with flute and ending on a high with just an awesome percussion makes every moment of this song have happiness, celebration and vibrancy written all over it.

paaDa thaane nenjam mounam enna enna
aasaikku rakkai kaTTi paTTam viTTu aaDa viDu
vellat thane veeram kolvadharkku illai
kaiyODu kai sertthu vaanatthai thoTTu viDu

The colorful picturization of the ending of the song captures the mood of the song so perfectly!

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This is THE song to turn to for celebrating life for sure!

The Guilt

There are several moments when I wish I don’t have to be away from my daughter for the whole day on a daily basis. I spend just about 5-6 hours in the evenings with her on week days before she falls asleep. I really wish I could spend more time with her. How I wish I could find some other part-time work option or something else to do. The dilemma about whether to quit work or to continue is an ongoing one in my mind. I know that this is something which every working mother will go through. Just thought of writing it here…

Sanjay’s Concert tomorrow!

Yippee! I am so happy! 🙂 It has been a long, long time. The last one I went to was his Warren Road Pillayar Kovil kutcheri. I missed the one for Devan’s Centenary celebration simply because I was not aware that the kutcheri was going to be in the morning and I checked the day’s newspapers only after the concert was almost over! How I wish Sanjay regularly updates his blog with his schedule!

Anandabhairavi Varnam by TMK

The varnam sung by TMK in Charsur’s Anandabhairavi album is among my top favourite renditions by him. A lesser traffic on the roads at 6 am and this varnam playing on the loop in the car simply induced and doubled my joy/anandam-quotient. A great start to the morning!

VIP visits and traffic woes

Looks like I will soon lose track of the number of times I have had to leave early from work to beat the traffic jams/blocks caused because of VIP visits. Being idle in the same place for hours together waiting for a VIP to pass by is no fun. Yet another VIP is visiting the city today and there will be an added traffic jam to the already heavy Friday traffic and once again, I am forced to rush off with all the tasks at work so that I can leave early.

Hitting the Panic Mode

The deadline for the completion of my Masters’ assignments is less than 10 days away and I have a LOOOOOT of things pending! If things go as per my plans, I will put two night-outs this weekend and hopefully complete a major chunk of it. I am always at my most efficient only when the deadline is veryyy near. Wish me luck, folks!

The Vacation in August

After continuously working for more than 3 months, I took a much-needed vacation in August and went to Singapore with my daughter for ten days. The daughter had totally forgotten all about the time she had spent in Singapore and was seeing her father in person after 3 months and it took her quite a while to warm up to him.

After falling asleep on the overnight flight and suddenly waking up in what was ‘new’ surroundings to her in our Singapore apartment, the vacation started with me having to calm her. The next ten days simply whizzed past us in a blur with me absolutely enjoying spending every moment of the day with my baby after what seemed like ages.

To me, this was a real vacation since the major part of it was just eat-sleep-talk-play routine. My husband had also taken some days off from work and we spent a major part of the time just relaxing at home. I cooked after a long time and on some days, the dishes came out really well and I was happy that my cooking hadn’t become worse.

The best part about Singapore are the play areas having all types of slides and rocking horses which are present in every series of HDB (Housing Development Board) apartments. You can just walk into one in any area and let your child happily play. Sahana used to love it even when she was just 9-10 months old. Back then, it was rocking horses and later it was the slides that she enjoyed. This time, she was rediscovering the play areas as well, having forgotten everything and she loved playing there and what’s more, now that she could talk, though not in full sentences, she kept asking for ‘payyea’ (play area) all the time!

We had already visited most of the places in Singapore and there were only a few left. We covered one more place this time – The Underwater World Aquarium in Sentosa Island. While I did find some of the spectacular colours of the aquatic life stunning, with both my husband and I not being fans of seeing aquatic creatures, we got bored after a while. Sahana too didn’t seem all that interested and fell asleep within minutes after entering it. But all of us did enjoy the Maritime Experiential Museum tracing the early maritime routes and trade. The daughter, however, got scared during the short movie screening in the 360 degree theatre and they refused to open the door and let us out in between. All the effects including the simulation of the ship movement and the artificial rain created in the 360 degree theatre was nice.

More than all these, what my daughter really enjoyed was the fountains in Sentosa Island – those fountains that you find everywhere in Singapore where the children play and get drenched! Fountains with a whole lot of holes and you never know from which hole water is going to come from next and it was this surprise and the joy of running around from one hole to another that had Sahana going crazy over it and me launching on a panic alert on seeing her drenched from top to toe! She loved the shallow waters in Harbour Front/ Vivo City Shopping Mall as well and I had to keep changing dress after dress for her that day!

Apart from Sentosa to which we always prefer and enjoy walking from Harbour Front centre, we just walked around some shopping malls in Marina Bay, went to Sri Thandayuthapani Temple and visited Sri Srinivasa Perumal temple in Little India and the Central Library near Bugis – the last two being places we used to frequently visit.

The kids section in the Central library has been given a makeover and it now houses the World’s 1st eco-friendly children’s library. I just loved it and so did my daughter. That deserves a separate blog post.

I also visited a few day cares to get an idea of how they are in Singapore.

The surprise part of the trip was bumping into blogger Vinitha aka Vini The Pooh. It was nice meeting you, Vinitha 🙂

At the end of the day, no amount of time will prove to be enough when you are with your family and it felt good to be together as a family after a long time. I don’t know when my next trip to Singapore will be, but what I do know is, the next time I go there, it will be going there for good. And the Madras-lover in me sighs thinking about it!