Vah Reh Vah !!

We Indians of today cannot thank Sanjeev Kapoor enough for Khana Khazana, his cookery show on Zee TV; he proved that cooking good food in our own homes is possible.

Though we had amazing and celebrated chefs like Tarla Dalal from a long time, Mr. Kapoor brought out well kept secrets from the chef's kitchen's and presented it to us for our own good. I guess the show enjoyed patronage rivaling that of our legendary TV shows, Ramayan and Mahabharat.

"Kadhai mein tel garam kijiye, ussmein zeera daalkar thoda saute kar lijiye..." I need not write more, as I am sure you will be able to continue the recipe description and finish almost any vegetarian or non vegetarian dish that you would like to make and eat. Mr. Kapoor helped us cook better by teaching a lot of amazing recipes, and also the terms and phrases like saute, swaad anusaar, garma garam parosiye. He presented the chef's vocab to the aam janta, and we were able to note down recipes, share them verbally with our friends and family. Such a wonderful revolution...:)

I fondly remember the days when we learnt new recipes every sunday. My dad used to lovingly note down the recipes in his book and we used to look forward to preparing and relishing them soon. A non-veg recipe was always a treat, and vegetarian dishes were treated with equal gusto. I remember how much the atmosphere was charged when we had decided to prepare Dum Aloo one sunday, and Chicken Biryani the other. My siblings and I hadn't tasted these two delicacies ever, hence were super excited. Each recipe demanded a lot of family effort, but the resulting aromas and tastes were heavenly!

Chicken Biryani

Dum Aloo

Mr. Kapoor's advent marked the beginning of some other amazing cookery shows on every channel on Cable Television. Today, it is mandatory for each new channel to have its signature cooking show to be in place.

I am a foodie and I wont say anything more. And thanks to chefs like Mr. Kapoor whose shows were regularly enjoyed at my place, I started becoming a lover of tasty food. But alas! My mom, sensible as she is, prepared the healthy (read not so exciting) fare each day. I used to crave good food and this is what prompted me to learn the art of cooking.

Starting from cutting vegetables, doing dishes, cleaning chicken, shelling prawns, making poori's, sauteeing (most favorite activity), I moved on to become a specialist for various cooking styles like Chinese, Mughlai, South Indian, Goan etc. , obviously in a limited but a very good way. Then with a lot of iterations came a revelation that cooking in itself is an amalgamation of science, arts and most importantly love...:) Today, thanks to me staying away from family, and having met a real awesome room mate who taught me how to cook home food, I can prepare a tasty meal for a good group of 5 people (that's an achievement!)

With me improving as a chef, unfortunately the same cannot be said about Mr. Kapoor's shows. Though he has a full fledged channel today, his shows are no longer amazing and innovative as they used to be. Nowadays we enjoy shows like Highway on my plate, where the show anchors roam India and show us delicacies from everywhere. 

Rocky and Mayur, you guys simply rock!!

It does make us realise that there are so many tastes and smells to explore and experience in our own Motherland!

I believe that while having a meal, if one watches an amazing dish being prepared or relished on TV, the quality of the whole experience of eating gets automatically enhanced. With this in mind, I used to search videos online and one fine day, I luckily stumbled upon the youtube channel of this amazingly talented south Indian chef - Sanjay Thumma.

Sanjay Thumma - The VahChef

His Facebook page says: "Chef at Vahrehvah.com. Won the prestigious Gold Medal All-India chef's competition for culinary arts for his Recipes. Smile is his weapon." 

His smile surely is a weapon, but this gentleman has many more weapons under his sleeve...:P

On his Youtube Channel, you will find some real amazing recipes, which will definitely make your mouth water. 

What stands out is this guy's innovative approach to the whole idea of having a show. He says "Vah Reh Vah is all about inspiring others to cook fresh food." Such an amazing thought! Though we all are doing things to earn a name and some good money, a well meaning job statement like this one sounds really good and warms the heart. I presume his intentions are to make the average westerner, or the working class Indian to understand how easy and simple it is to cook good Indian food and enjoy it. 

Better see his antics in live action, you will come back for more!

And how amazingly does this chef enjoy his creations! Some of his expressions while enjoying food almost sound orgasmic; kind of embarrassing at times, but at the end, you see that this man has a heart. He cracks his own silly jokes and laughs at them like a child. Writes outrageous disclaimers like "This is a show for adults who can appreciate a stupid sense of humor!". Plays tunes from movies like Don etc. at the opening of his shows. Has a very heavy south Indian accent. And is a damn confident fellow who loves what he does.

A man with a heart warming smile, funny antics and an amazingly human approach to the art of cooking, presenting a show with no hint of any staged drama and most importantly, superb recipes presented in a superb way! That is the VahChef for you...:)

Official site: http://www.vahrevah.com

Note: You should see the comments on his recipes on Youtube. People really love him...:)

The rant of a frustrated Airtel customer...

 Its been 10 complete days. 

My SIM card, stone dead it lays.

Couple of mails to the Airtel customer care. 

Loads of things done but still not there.

Frustrated, applied for a new SIM finally

Vodafone it is, a firang company.

Being a true Bharatiya is all i tried

Responses from Bharti Airtel have left my brain fried.

Its a pain. A PITA to be precise. A customer purchases a SIM card, recharges it regularly. Doesn't complain when at times a few rupees go here and there, all thanks to those ill written programs which automatically enable value added services on your account. Displays 3 full years of loyalty. And one fine day the SIM expires, and he is simply a fool; a fool as he doesn't pay attention on the penultimate day and recharges his number with the princely sum of Rs. 333. He has faith that the company will help him extend the validity. But all that he gets is a couple of useless replies and an understanding that the number will no longer be usable...

Itnaa saara haath paair maara, 

par itne saare din company ne mera maara, 

mails par toh aise replies mile, 

lage aisa ke Aam ke ped par Karele khile.

To ease this bitter after taste, I feel like going back in time....

Life was great without cell phones. Today's folks find it unbelievable that someone can survive without one. I did; my 4 years of engineering. I was never part of major initiatives back then, since, as you know, you need to be connected to get things done, which i never was.

I missed out on maintaining a lot of relationships, thanks to my lack of connectivity. Friends were just a matter of time; we stayed in touch as long as we were seeing each other; by virtue of going to the same school or whatever.(Today, all thanks to Face Book, people are so disconnected even if they are seemingly well connected)

The times when I seriously used to think that yeah, its getting hard living a life without a cell phone, i used to think of the old days; how did people meet in those days, in places which both parties were not really sure of? Today, thanks to the phones which have moved from our desks to our pockets, we can randomly call anyone and set a meeting at any point, and still be confident of having it successfully. Alas, back then I had to plan as per the old style and yet, all was well.

Funnily the girl from my engineering days, who liked me, really appreciated the fact that I never carried a cell fone. In this regard, I was very proud to have a sort of identification with the character of Jai Singh Rathore, played by Imran Khan in Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na.

Whenever his mom used to ask him to get a cell fone, he said "Jab jaroorat padegi tab le loonga" (will get it when i need one)

And jald jaroorat padi. I reached Mysore for my Infosys training and got a SIM card the first day itself. And it was Airtel I chose then, although Vodafone folks came up with a better plan the very next day. I simply had no SIM and no choice whatsoever - first time away from home and utterly disconnected.

And in all these years, I have learnt to send short messages, handle long calls; realised how good mobile internet actually is, specially today when an Android opens unknown possibilities like navigation on your phone. And WhatsApp! Really, what an app! We save so much on messaging thanks to it...:)

I also do realise that why we need to be so connected today. That is since we have built a society and a life style which simply is averse to socialising, the old way.

If you live a modern life, you need to adopt modern ways completely; half measures will never help. And phones are the connecting mediums which we all have to be addicted to - its a necessity, not a vice!

All this experience came at a good cost. This translates to the contribution from one individual in supporting a telecom company with his hard earned money. There are millions like this individual. And after this long journey, it pains when the individual is meted out treatment so bad.

The individual knows he is not alone. But then, he needs to act, and the best action in this case is to move on...

I guess its time to say bye

And i am sad its not a good bye

Theres a bitter after taste on my tongue

And you know the reason why

Kyunki Airtel ne aisa phasaaya

Humne Aam samajh kar Karela khaaya

Here is my reply to a long series of unfruitful mail exchanges between me and the AIRTEL PRESENCE team. Straight from the heart after a long time and pretty eloquent...

The response i received for my mails to Airtel presence team


Namaste,

You wrote in on 7th April 2013, regarding disconnection of services against your airtel mobile number 9975440165.

We tried contacting you on 9975440165, but we were unable to establish contact with you. Please provide an alternate number on which we can contact you and resolve your concern. 

For any further queries, you may get in touch with us at airtelpresence@in.airtel.com. 

airtel appreciates your business and always welcomes your suggestions/feedback. 


My Reply to the same

Namaste,

I am receiving this reply for the 2nd time now. Its been 10 days, and my fone is dead. None of the things i tried works.

Tell me sir, what exactly is that is that needs to be spoken on the fone which cannot be said on mail? Afterall, this is also a mode of communication.

U tried to call on my fone, this means u did not read my mail carefully. My SIM has EXPIRED, so how can you exactly even think of speaking to me on the same number?

As for the alternate number that you are asking for the second time, try to understand the plight of a single, working male, who has no other contact number other than the one which has expired. Then ask for the same.

But don't worry, this bachelor working male has already arranged for a SIM with Vodafone. Airtel will be losing a few customers owing to this episode through my word of mouth.

Your reply will determine what you feel about your company, about your job and about the 'esteemed' customers you are here to serve.

Have an amazing time doing an amazing job that you have been doing all this while

Frustrated,
Shrinath Shenoy

A note on World Betterment...

7th July 2012

No action or a resolve for the same 

Must be kindled by a feeling of hatred or helplessness. 

One should sit calmly, 

with smile on his face and faith in his heart; 

Faith in the power of God and Goodness of things; 

the Hope of seeing a better World ,

bettered in a small way by the act that he intends to perform. 

He should visualise the assistance 
the Kind Lord will provide him along the path, 

and be aware that it will come 

in unexpected forms 

and will reside

 in unexpected corners of the road to be taken. 

This positive feeling 

is the most important starting ingredient one needs 

before undertaking a beautiful journey 

to self improvement and World betterment.

I just saw the promo of the movie Barfi, and was so enamoured and delighted to see something so beautiful being made in our country. We all know the present state of affairs and it boils our blood most of the times, making us make numerous resolves to take our Nation out of this muck. But we forget that till the time we take the battle axes and move to the front, we are still doing things that matter to our Nation. One mans action will always be small, but it can be made large only through motivation. And it should start from where we already are, and should not be reserved for the times and places where we shall be when we start the revolution.

For the revolution is now, and the preparation has been all through these years that you have lived.

Note: This was a daily note i had written quite long back. Barfi turned out to be a very nice movie on the technical and story front. Brilliant acting by every artiste...and I loved Illeana so much!! The director was bashed for using scenes from Charlie Chaplin classics and other movies. For me, the scenes lifted from "The Notebook" were too much to bear. But the director insists, that its his tribute to those classics. Ok fine, but i am happy that we are finally growing as a cinema loving population.

The songs in this movie are just out of the World. In today's times when Rahman is God and Vishal-Shekhar and Amit Trivedi come just close to the second spot, Pritam shows his latent talent in the soundtrack. Melodius songs, and of so many genres! I wonder no one has been able to tell which songs Pritam has lifted to compose the songs; I would prefer to know they are original. Take a bow Pritam Da...:)

Heres one song which always make me say...now that is how a song should be...:)

The Diwali of my childhood...:)

Diwali was always a time of the year that all of us used to wait eagerly, for it meant a long vacation and respite from the routine of school and homework. The business in the kitchen, with mom and my aunty from the neighbourhood preparing all sort of tasty treats like chakkuli (chakli), tukdi (shankar-pali), masala shengdano, churm-undo (ladoo), besana-undo, shevo (shev) etc. proclaimed that the great days of the year were finally here.  And what happy days were they!!

Diwali also meant that we would get to eat a lot of fish, finally after Shravan, Ganeshotsav and Navratri when eating these was a sin (which I lovingly commit in these so called independent(read unruly) days of mine). There was a peculiar observation I had, that my hair used to grow a lot more denser and quickly during this time of the year than any other time, and I attributed it to the quantity of fish that we used to consume in these days.

For us Konkani’s, Diwali always starts with Naraka Chaturdashi, on which day it is said that Lord Krishna, after defeating Narakasura, had a hearty and satisfying oil bath. 

To commemorate that achievement of the beloved Lord of many, we all have this bath, maybe on the morning of that day (preferably) or the evening of the previous day (as I usually like to have). My mother used to (and still does) prepare a medicated oil that is applied unsparingly all over the body, the head and the face; even put inside the ears (a means of cleaning them) and when we kids used to make a funny face saying that it sucks when oil is put in our aural cavities, our mommy used to say that if I don’t put it in, you guys will turn into monkeys (I guess putting oil never worked, I was and still am one...:P).  After allowing the oil to stand on the body, with repeated massage, our mom bathed us with tremendously hot water, which was a little bearable thanks to the layer of oil.

After the bath, the whole body sank into a great fatigue, which eventually becomes invigorating. To supplement this great exercise of physical cleansing, our mom prepared a ‘kashaayoo’ (medicinal tea)of coriander seeds, pepper, elaichi , turmeric, jaggery and ginger, which was ground well and then cooked in water till the water reduced, and served with a little milk. Such a tasty drink! And for dinner, we had fried fish (usually Raj/Bangda  or mackerel as they call it in English, my all time favorite…J)

{ I am proud to say that I have never broken this tradition of oil bath, even during my training days in Mysore last year, when I got a bottle of parachute coconut oil and had an oil bath in my room Fortunately there was hot water that evening…:). Just that no mackerel and no kashaayoo last year…:(}

After having done all that, one truly could feel happy to be alive, to enjoy such simple treats of life, see the happy faces of people wishing each other well, the diyas dancing gaily in the light winds that flowed; the bursting crackers and the rockets and sky-fireworks, which are my all time favorites.

Diwali will always be incomplete without fire, may it be in the form of the mild, beautiful and unpolluting diyas or the noisy, exciting, polluting fireworks which definitely were loved by all of us when we were kids. Our dad used to provide these in limited quantities, since we never had the kind of money to burn on such endeavours. But I guess the frugality that he observed in buying crackers has led to us having had the best memories of these festive days.

He used to get us a good amount of sparklers, one or two packs of flower pots, zameen chakkars, one pack of small bombs (teta) for me and my bro. When we had grown up, he had got us a pack of sutli/atom bombs each. Every night, myself and bro used to burst one garland of the teta’s each, then two flower  pots, two chakkars and 2 packs of sparklers. We used to get very creative with the small bombs, turning them into chakkars, bursting them in holes in the wall so that small circles of smoke used to come out at times, which was considered as a great achievement. The biggest treat was when we used to collect the powder inside these bombs on paper to create a heap, place a wick on the heap and create a mini conflagration!

{These frugal diwali’s lasted only till I reached 6th std, beyond which due to our awareness of both air and sound pollution, we stopped bursting the crackers completely.}

I grew up in a Gujarati locality, and towards the end of Diwali, came the Gujarati New year.  ‘Saal Mubarak’ (Happy new year) was what we used to call it. It was a day when we had to get up a little early, since hordes of kids would come to our place, to wish us new year, and take away sweets. When we were small, even we were allowed such pleasures but my strict dad never liked that practice. You could see those happy little faces, dressed to glory, with gals having cute little purses, held only with the sole intention of collecting as many toffees and sweets as they could…cute!

Thus were spent the few uproariously happy days of the year…the festival of lights, sounds, smells, tastes and smiling faces….Diwali. Wish you all a great one this year...:)

Note: This one was written a year back...:)

Twinkle twinkle little star...

Twinkle twinkle little star

Among my best friends, yes you are

Have been shining before i was born

Will shine lovingly, on the day I am gone

They have been around for millions of years; witnessed so many mini creations; shared time space with great personalities who have walked the face of the Earth. Scientifically they are burning furiously, but from the terra firma, in a lovely cloudless night, they offer the most comforting sight ever known to human beings.

Some places are full of water; other are forever green; some are deserts craving for a drop of water. And all such places are inhabited by humankind. Whatever the conditions on earth, whatever the status of life, at night, when the World sleeps, these tiny angels come out and arrange themselves into countless arrays for us to look up and forget our worries and care.

True beauty lies in randomness; where do you find such beauty in the order, human beings continously are bringing into the World? A megastore with huge pictures of beautiful faces, brilliantly lit, air conditioned are no doubt a treat for the eyes, but they fail to touch our innermost core. And this is where beauty of  randomness scores. We can make out so many things when we look at a landscape. We even have played games as children, imagining a lot of things by looking at cloud patterns.

In a similar manner, the stars offer a slate full of random dots for us to let our creativity run wild and paint all the pictures that we can ever imagine.

As a child, i had been curious to know how a star looks like. What cute imagination and questions children have - Stars are pins of light floating in the air. The drawing teacher says the stars look like 5 pointed object, but i cannot see those points. How are these things floating out there?

Time passes and science starts revealing the true and not so beautiful face of creation.  - Ohh, so its a big ball of fire like our sun. So interesting it looks like this and actually feels so cooling:); Oh stars have lifetimes, and burst apart...what will happen when our sun bursts apart. Gosh what a terrible moment that would be!!

Ideas came in, facts poured, scientific theories keep me engrossed. But at the end of the day, all that i loved was looking into the skies, thinking about the constellations and their stories.

We knew this pauranic story of how Prince Dhruva, son of King Uttanapada, was not given his rightful place, simply because his mother was not the king's favorite. This strong willed child undertook arduous penance and obtained the highest position ever obtainable - the position of the Pole Star.

The story says that pole star is the brightest star in the sky, maybe to make the story sound more impressive. I used to see the brightest star in the sky but what puzzled me is that it wasn't in the North, and by theory, the Pole star is in the north. Eventually i realised that the star i was looking at was called Sirius (Reminded of Sirius Black? An amazing character from Harry Potter he was...:))

I had this small booklet which illustrated the constellations of the night sky. It spoke of the various stories each of the constellation was associated with. From there i was able to identify Orion and the Great Bear, and they remain, till date, my most favorite constellations.

Orion, the Hunter

The Great Bear(Sapta rishi)

As per chinese atronomy, the night sky has 28 main constellations - 7 in each direction.

Each direction has a God associated. Suzaku for the east, Genbu for the north, Byyaku for the west  and Sairo for the south. 

A time comes when each of these Gods has to be offered a virgin maiden. It is then that by the medium of  The Book of the Four Gods, that a virgin maiden from Earth is sucked into an imaginary World. She is assisted by Seven Star Warriors, each of them representing a constellation in the direction of the God who has to be appeased. The virgin, with the assistance of the warriors has to pass a number of tests, and eventually be offered to the God. Then alone shall peace and order prevail...

This, in brief, is the concept on which an anime series titled Fushiigi Yugi (The Mysterious Play) is based. I had seen it in the year 2000. A very romantic series, it had some amazing music and melodrama. But what it revived in me more strongly was my old love for the stars. I would try to find the constellations in the sky, but in vain.

The theme song of Miaca (the maiden of Suzaku) would run in my mind; i would imagine myself to be Tamahome, Miaca's love interest and one of the Suzaku seven star warriors. What a macho character he was! He had the symbol of the constellation on his forehead. Aah, so many fantasies i had whenever i used to sit outside my house and look at those stars. The memory itself makes me feel happy:)

Twinkle twinkle little star

Among my best friends, yes you are

In all this life that i have known

A lot of care, that you have shown

The next opportunity of stargazing was when i went to Raigad for the NSS camp. It was the night of the Christmas eve. One of our senior council members, an avid star gazer, was giving a brief presentation on constellations to my fellow folks. I saw them, looked above and God! what an awesome view it was! It was one of those rare moments when the heart is filled with an unknown, boundless happiness, and one feels happy to have lived his life, since the present moment has come to pass by.

So many stars, these city eyes had never seen

The last time they had seen them, they had grown scared

A childish fear inside the silly heart

Of the whole sky falling on the little ones head...:)

I joined in, and spoke of all that i knew around the subject. And then an amazing discussion ensued - went on to philosophy, history and all that i had known from my studies of books. The night was a rewarding one - for i won a lot of admirers and also won a real special friend, who has been an inseparable part of my life ever since.

Towards the end of engineering, I felt i had finally found my twin star; those were star studded days of my life! And then it ended even before its first anniversary. The timing was so bad - I had to leave for Mysore for my Infosys training, and i was shattered. The confidence, the calm poise, the faith in Goodness - all up in smoke. My twin star had chosen to fly past the beautiful night sky..

.

The training days were good, despite my bad moods. I was scared of a lot of things - at time of not performing well. My friend from the NSS camp episode was the only one comforting me in those days. Did i have any more friends who were around? To know the answer, all i had to do was raise my head a little more than an average infoscion in Mysore does and look at the night sky.

There have been times, fate has been mean

And in such nights, what a friend have you been!

Ever un-changing, pleasant to behold

Forever young, no one can say you're old

As they say, heartbreak does make you realise that the ones who love you are always around you. Its just that you were blind to their affection all this while. Life stays worth living in the face of adversities.

My good old friends made me strong, silently watching me from up above when i used to go on friday nights to do my laundry. While i was walking from the training centre to my room, i used to think - you guys just don't change. I can afford to smile each time i see you. No ego issues, no insecurities. And boundless love we can have for each other.

In a way, these friends have taught me a lot about life in general. 

One man cannot do much, the beauty lies in being together. 

Clouds may come and go, and we may lose sight of each other at times, but we should remember that our loved ones are just 'round the corner, silently praying for us. 

True love is eternal - not bound by factors of gender, numbers or any barrier. It is not simply what a man feels for a woman - there is always a hint of lust in there. It is rather based on friendship, and one should never feel sorry when one loves another. For we all are meant to live and love like friends, just like the twinkling stars in the sky....

This life of mine, is forever blessed

For it has the nights, my soul has been caressed

By your twinkles so pleasant and mild

Making me wonder, like a child...:)

The Alchemy to transmute Matter into Spirit

We Indians talk a lot about Samskaaras, and believe that they signify the goodness that we hold as people of this Sacred Land. The fact is that Samkaaras are beyond just goodness; they can be roughly translated as "impressions". The various rituals we have, be it for festivals, occasions or even the day to day activities we do as Hindus, are designed to leave a particular impression on our mind, body and soul complex. Hence, the rituals are no ordinary set of actions. When performed in the right way, they are supposed to change the very essence of the matter we are made of, to the extent of getting programmed in our DNAs. Its a very interesting topic to delve on, and I am already getting flooded with number of interrelated points which need analysis and reconciliation.

As per the Vedic Sciences, matter is Trigunatmak - Rajasic (Action oriented), Tamasic (Inaction Oriented) and Sattvic (Pure and Divine). Its not just our natures but the natures of the inanimate matter which hold these qualities. The whole idea of the practices and the rituals we have is to achieve manifestation of the Spirit; for the Spirit is ever-Perfect and will manifest its beauty only when matter is perfected. This is the matter which makes up our minds, the trees, the stones and everything in this Material World. Each object has its own vibrations, and the greatness of our ancestors lies in the methods they found to transmute matter into its Perfect State - like the alchemy of transforming lead to Gold. For Life and Creation is a never-ending process of material alchemy, which gets garbled due to the 3 gunas around. So intervention is needed to ensure that things go perfectly.

While meditating in the Datta Mandir today, i happened to think about the concept of  Pratisthapan of an idol. Though today for people, an idol is a symbol of the Divine, the fact remains that Divinity is everywhere; rather latent everywhere. A significant question here - Is it true that any idol acquires the qualities essential to be both worshipful, and capable of delivering the positive powers to the devotees? The funny fact is that we usually don't know why we pray in a temple, mosque or a church. In my opinion, we do so for acquiring Energy from the purest sources of it, so that we have the courage and the tenacity to face life and live it righteously.

Now some places of worship are perennial sources of power, and such points help maintain the energy states of cities and regions, making them prosperous and worth living. The ancients had identified them as sacred places and marked them for religious activities.

But today, we tend to open temples and install idols of deities in them, as the population needs convenient spots to offer its prayers to the Divine. At the point of installing the idol, lets remember that the idol is made up of the same matter which is trigunatmak, and is just a symbol as of now - it does not have the qualities for it to be worshipful. To make it worshipful, there is a process of installing it in the right way, on the right day and this process is called Pratisthapan. This paves the way for the idol of the deity to manifest the Divine Element latent inside of it.

Now how does one ensure that the alchemy of the Gunas takes place? Regular abhishekam, pooja, archana, bhajan, dhoopa, deepa, naivedya arpan help set the wheel in motion. We Hindus have so many practices - bathing before going to the temple, the choice of clothes, the foods to be taken, the mental states to maintain, the topics to avoid, the kind of people who should be barred from entering the temple etc. These were created not because our ancients were a bunch of hyperidiotic, over-reacting, paranoid fools but because they were scientific geniuses who knew about maintaining the vibrations of a place to ensure that this process is carried out properly, for the subsequent progress of one and all.

Over time, the idol of the deity acquires an energy so great that some places of worship acquire adoration overnight, and thousands flock to them to find deliverance from the unending problems plaguing their lives. No wonder, some places like Tirupati, and Shirdi are very popular with people, since they channelise so much energy that the results of ones prayers are 'answered' quickly.

You will notice that i have placed 'answered' in quotes. That is because, our prayers are not entirely answered by the Divine Element, but by the change It begets within us to approach our problems with better zeal and stronger faith. And we are usually not aware of it.

This is how, installing a deity and augmenting its Divine energies, helps bring about an alchemical transformation in our thoughts and lives, to make this World a better place.

So, all actions are eventually about bringing human transformation - by regulating what we do, what we eat, how we pray and how we approach our fellow human beings and animal friends on this planet. Sadly for us, due to the degenerating effect of time and the invasions we had, the originally perfect process exists today in bits and pieces; such that it does not make sense to most of us to follow whatever little of it has remained. We may do the pooja, but will not do it in the correct spirit; we may be compassionate towards our fellow human beings but will think little of the trauma of the bird which was killed, spiced and cooked to decorate our dinner table. We may help our fellows with our money and time, but the idea of having helped someone and the expectation of being helped in return will be there in some corner of our mind. We will never think that we are entitled to pay a price for whatever time we are spending on this Planet so whatever we may do towards our fellows is not an investment but a payment procedure. And so goes on the list of our follies....

Melody, Majaa, Mayhem and Madness - Mehfil - E - Unplugged

When i had met him for the first time after getting kicked out of Infy SuperSinger, he suggested we should jam in Infy Pune, phase 2. In a matter of a few months, this brainchild of our very own Nishant "Nana" Trisal, was flagged off in a most memorable session. Yes, Mehfil-E-Unplugged made its entry into the lives of work-worn Infoscions, to bring back a little zing into our lives.

The idea was to provide a setting for Punfoscions to relax and have a nice time before winding up for the weekend. With Mr. Trisal on the guitar and a few of us talented singers from Abhivyakti and the audience, we managed to pull off some really memorable renditions of songs - old and new, serious, funny and inspiring. We also ended up learning from our very own Sunder Balakrishnan that a bollywood/pop based jamming can be made better when a talented violinist like him is in company...:)

At times, the same old songs and the same patterns repeated, and to break them, Mitesh "Jhabar" Sharma and Rohit "Jageera" Dube brought in precious examples of their peculiar sense of humour, which left all present there in splits. Rahul "Amritas" Jha would usher in the winds of change, by playing some english numbers in his peculiar style. He, with one of his band mates gave us some wonderful guitar accompaniment.

Our colleagues like Ashutosh "Sonu Nigaam" Shukla, Shirish Sir, Farooq "Dancer" Hashmi, Anubhav "Dancing Flautist" Mujumdar, Bhageshri "Bacchi" Gulvady, Akshaya "All Rounder" Subramanian, Nishu "Chabeeli Alka" Dikshit, Mukesh "Mentor" Jadhav, Mitesh "Salsa Champ" Dalvi...our senior folks at Abhivyakti like Ravi Sir, Amit and Girish, were present there whenever possible and contributed in their own unique ways. Some of the Mehfil regulars like Pai Sir, Kumarpal, Nikunj and Nishtha were always a pleasure to jam with. Wow,already a long list, and so many others whom i dont know by name who should be thanked for being there and making those days really worthwhile!!:)

Enough of talks and thanks. Here are a few pics of the journey so far;

Nishant and Rahul

The first Mehfil

(L-R)Aniket, Sunder, Nishu, Mitesh Sharma, Sachin, Rohit 

Rohit, Rinky and others

Our champs, once more...:)

I had recorded a few of our performances. The qualiity is fine, though the final product is raw. But that is where all the appeal lies. When many creative minds come together on a lovely evening, what follows is something, i will leave for you to decide. I am sure the recordings will help you get an answer...:)

First up is a rendition of Sajni (Jal) by all of us. Jus listen to all that's going on in the background. Pure unadulterated joy!!

Recordings - Sajni | Online Karaoke

Now comes  Dil Haare (Jal again). This one rocks big time...:)

Recordings - Dil Haare | Upload Music

Missing the mayhem and madness and pure fun of our beloved Mehfil. Waiting for the good times to be back. I am sure they will be soon...:)

Arigatou Gozaimasu. Sayonara.