Happy Diwali 2010

Presenting a DIWALI Greetings with Enthiran and DIWALI short film mocking film DEEWAR.

Diwali Message from American President

U.S. President Barack Obama wished all who are celebrating a happy Diwali! In a video message recorded at the White House and posted on its Web site. This version is last year message from the whitehouse. At that time no one knew that the next year president will land in India with his family on a Diwali Day (Nov 5th). Ofcourse with Forty aircraft - including the Air Force One military plane - and six heavily armoured cars will follow the president around the country.This will be the biggest ever visit to india by an american president as US will be spending around $200mn a day.

Doha Tribecca Film Festival - Filmy Weekend

Enjoyed a lot to the visit to DTFF 2010 at Doha Cultural Village. It's a different world altogether. Felt like visiting hollywood. Hollywood actor Robert DNero was the chief guest at the Red carpet function. Other famous personalities included Mira Nair, Ramgopal verma from bollywood, famous writer director Randall Wallace. One of the highlights was the premeiere of 'Raktha charithra'. Couldn't watch that movie as we had to cover a lot of activites area. Thoroughly enjoyed the spots and the gigantic open air theatre built specially for the festival.

Navarathri Bommagolu 2010

By God's grace Navarathri Bommagolu 2010 was celebrated with blessings of almighty. As usual, it's a grand gala setting and this time variety was Harrypotter theme and magic pipe; goblet of fire. Vishnulokam projection using my pocket projector.

Highlights from our golu with background music by me and my students in chorus.

CNA-Q Convocation

A Great day of achievement ! Graduation ceremony at College of North Atlantic. It's a canadian college campus in Qatar. I did my postgraduation in Human resources and it's a professional certificate. It's a part time course in the evening hours from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. for almost one year. It's a return to the college life. Enjoyed a lot studying again.....





On Oct 13th Wed 2010, was the Graduation Ceremony. The president and dean of College of North Atlantic Qatar presided and I was the guest speaker representing the graduates to explain about the experience of learning in CNA-Q. Thanks to the almighty for giving me a chance again to become a student and enjoy college life in the busy office life !

SPB CHITRA Concert at Doha Cinema

SPB-Chitra Concert during navarathri time was a gift for Doha indians. On thursday we rushed to Doha cinema in great joy and excitement to listen to SPB after around 10 years. (last 2001 SPB came with SJanaki to Doha). SPB voice has not changed a bit and in the higher octaves it was more powerful. Started with Muthu Song, chitra followed by ovvoru pookkalume. for malayalam numbers kerala singer biju narayanan was providing melodious tunes. All in all, it's a great programme and highlights of the songs were 'anjali', Enthiran, Kehna hi kyaa, sankaraa, Eekadalum (first mal song by SPB), pular kaala sundara and final climax ninaithaale inikkum song. SPB anna vaazhga. Chitra chechi vaazhga.

ENDHIRAN - a Trend Setter for Indian Film World

Enjoyed the movie on very first day of release in Doha cinema. A great leap for indian film world for special effects and technical perfection. Really the full team of ENDHIRAN has done tremendous work. All the shots are 100 percent perfect although some of the shots in the climax is not on par with hollywood. But considering the attempt it's a great achievement. Rajni no doubt, is at his best; his style or mannerisms are missing. but 'meaaah..' will be a hit with masses, llike 'laka laka laka'. liked the villain rajni rather than hero.

Music is Life

That is the name I gave to my wireless network. Infact, given by my friend prakash when he set up the router. But last week has got a 'notice' for the musicclass I have been practising for more than 6 years. Yes, 6 years of teaching carnatic music in qatar has come to an end. Now I realise, for every start there's an end. I am totally touched and moved by reaction and response my students and parents gave me. Most of them don't know the real reason as I am not in a situation to reveal. We all know that in this hard world, only music can give solace. Even a desperate terrorist would soften up (at least temporarily) when he listen to some kind of music.
However, thanks to technology, no one can stop singing in the net.........

Raavan A Big Dissappointment

Much awaited film is a big disappointment. Watched both the versions just to compare the performance of actors. Vikram has done more justice than abhishek in hindi. The real hero of the movie is kerala's prestigious Athirappilly vaazhachaal location and santosh sivan's cinematography. ARR is another wasted talent in this movie and couldn't pick any one of the songs as memorable.

Sooryanaaytazhugi-Father'sDay Gift | Upload Music

It’s very rare to find songs dedicated to father rather than mother. There are plenty of songs praising mother ! This gem is from malayalam film ‘Sathyam Sivam Sundaram’ composed by Vidyasagar , lyrics by kaithapram and rendered with full emotion and touching our soul by Chitra is the best dedication to a father.

My best friend Balamurali has programmed the entire orchestration in his KORG and this is one of my old recordings. Bear with the jarring vocals because of some problem in mixing.

Film : Sathyam Sivam Sundaram (Malayalam-year 2000)
Original Singer : K S Chitra
Track by : MohanKumarIyyer
Music : Vidya Sagar
Lyrics : Kaithapram Damodaran Namboodiri

Orchestration and keyboard programming by Balamurali

Karhtika Vilakku celebrations at our Thrissur House

Celebrated Kaarthika vilakku pandigai with Appa Amma in our Thrissur House. Deepa sruti helped lighting and preparing the lamps for kaarthikai pandikai

Happy Karthikai greetings to all.

Starting to Sabarimalai tomorrow by the blessings of lord Ayyappa with Sruti.

Sixth Sense

SixthSense is a wearable gestural interface device that augments the physical world with digital information and lets people use natural hand gestures to interact with that information. It was developed by Pranav Mistry, a PhD student in the Fluid Interfaces Group at the MIT Media Lab.
The SixthSense prototype is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The hardware components are coupled in a pendant-like mobile wearable device. Both the projector and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user’s pocket. The device projects visual information, enabling surfaces, walls and physical objects around the wearer to be used as interfaces; while the camera recognizes and tracks the user's hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques. The software program processes the video stream data captured by the camera and tracks the locations of the colored markers (visual tracking fiducials) at the tip of the user’s fingers using simple computer-vision techniques. The movements and arrangements of these fiducials are interpreted into gestures that act as interaction instructions for the projected application interfaces. The maximum number of tracked fingers is only constrained by the number of unique fiducials, thus SixthSense also supports multi-touch and multi-user interaction.

LataMangeshkar turns 80 - A Great Legend

On September 28, 2009 India's Great Legend Lata Mangeshkar turned 80. A wonderful singer, Lataji is the second vocalist ever to have received the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour.

I am posting a wonderful moment of lataji sharing with Javed Akhtar on CNN-IBN for a special interview telecast on her birthday. Lataji was referring to the old system of recording and how difficult was in those days to record one song. Her first hit was perhaps the song sang for Madhubala in 1949 in the film Mahal called Ayega Aanewala. At the time of recording lataji was told that the first part should sound as though the voice was coming from far away. At that time, recording techniques were not as advanced as they are now. lataji was made to stand a good distance away from the microphone and while singing she came closer and closer to it. Finally when the Ayega bit came she was supposed to stand next to the microphone to get the right effect. She had to do the entire process some 25 times to get it right.

Saraswati stotram

This is a beautiful musical prayer for Goddess Saraswathi, the goddess of Knowledge Science and Arts. The reference of Saraswati is as old as RIG VEDA.
According to Vedas, Maha Saraswati is the presiding "Goddess of the Final episode of Devi Mahatmya". Here she is believed to be a part of the trinity of Maha Kali, Maha Lakshmi and Maha Saraswati.

Golu2009EventonSept20th2009

On Sept 20th Golu invitation was given to all our freinds. My sishyas rendered keertanams on diff dieites. Highlight was keerthanam on Guru by Rangasree and SreeRangaPrasad.

Navarathri 2009 BommaGolu

Navarathri 2009 Bommagolu was prepared by Sept 17th Thu and Sept 18th Fri being Amavasi day. Srutimma was the designer for the golu stand and she prepared the banner in her computer.

dorakalyanam

Presenting the highlights of DORAI's Kalyanam held at Madurai on Sept 2nd (THIRUONAM NAAL) 2009. Event covered by Deepa thru Apple IPHONE 3GS.

Onam Ponnonam 2009

Wishing all of you Happy Onam !

PaadasmaranaSukham in Lathaangi ragam

Recorded this song as I got lot of spare time. First of all it's ramadan and moreover, deepa and sruti left for a short vacation to attend marriage in Madurai. Lathaangi is a rare ragam used in films.

A Great Classic song composed in rare ragam (in filmworld) lathaangi. Please excuse the quality of the track I got in analog is not at all clear but still wanted to do this as this is one of my favourite songs.

In my limited knowledge, in mal film only dakshinamoorthyswami has composed in lathangi for an unreleased movie sung by (who else) ganagandharvan yesudas staring ‘swarangale sapthaswarangale’ not so popular as the film was not released.

Other than this, in Tamil Maestro ilayaraj composed a super hit song ‘chinna raasave chitterumbu…’ in lathangi. He has presented an incredibly pure Lathangi in a “tappaanguthu kind of format” in this song. It was a mega-hit song reverbrating throughout the Thamizhnadu, from the slums to the elite! Prabhu Deva (became famous thru this song) and Sukhanya danced for this song in the film ‘Walter Vetrivel’. Classic example of maestro’s intelligent use of a hardcore classical raagam and becomes wonder-struck! Ilayaraja has tuned another Lathangi in eeramaana rojavE (adhO mEga oorvalam).

Film : Sallapam
Lyrics : Kaithapram
Music : Johnson
Singer : K J Yesudas
Karoake track by: MohanKumarIyyer (as offering to great ganagandharvan who's done a marvellousjob (as usual)).

Apple iPhone 3GS

Getting Apple iPhone 3GS is like dream come true. Apple released this only in Hongkong as SIM FREE and thanks to Apple, finally got a SIM Free official Apple iPhone on Aug 16th. The phone is real SMART Phone. The interface is stylish and very easy. Attractive features are Voice command, Video , and video editing and sending to Youtube or facebook directly.

Now using Apple iPhone 3GS as Mobile Broadband device with Nokia E90 Communicator.