When Violin meets Keyboard

Although this comes 3 days late, this review is worth every word that I write. It was on Friday evening that 2 fabulously talented musicians in their early 20s were at a popular shopping mall in Chennai to do what they’re best at…. Play music…and what else…it was a concert that didn’t cost your money…they charged you with your time and they sure had every piece of my time whilst I was there from the very beginning till the total end of the concert!

Shyam Ravishankar and K.P. Prateesh were the performers for the marvellous musical night. Shyam, a violinist and Prateesh, a Key board artist said to have teamed up together for the first time in public, but their bonding on the floor defied this reality. Starting from Vatapi Ganapatim Bhaje and progressing with master pieces by Sir Elton John, Martin Garrix (Animals), the great Mozart’s symphony, Forsaken (by Dream Theatre), Set the world on Fire (Pirates of Carribean song track), Titanic theme music and descending to more Indian stuff like Anjali Anjali (from Duet), Uyire (from Bombay)… these two were charmers for the gathering. At any given moment during the concert, the audience was no less than 30 people. To not bind audience by the “value for money” factor… to get them magnetised by some true soulful and refreshing music, both of them were splendid I must say.

Personally, Shyam… you made me realise that the pieces of music that are played on guitar, when played on violin have a total different effect on mind, while a rock music on guitar can jolt you and make you think rebellion, the same piece on a violin won't shake you to wake up, it rather makes you pensive, more thoughtful…the end result may be the same, but the channel and the flow has a huge diversity and its amazing to have felt something like that through your work and Prateesh the key board work that you did is something that I saw live for the first time, so your performance will forever be special, I know not what those 8 green buttons are called on your instrument, but I thoroughly enjoyed your expressions while playing on them and doling out some superb stuff…thank you for introducing Martin Garrix to me and to some others in the audience too.

Thank you both for such a levitating yet soothing experience! You both must continue to perform together!

And as the prime part of a review goes....you get 5 on 5 from me!

Lots of good wishes!

Sincererly your fan!

Nirupama

Respect for men of all these shades!

Adam Sandler in '50 first Dates'
Dev Anand in 'Guide'
Ashton Kutcher in 'A lot like love'
Girish Karnad in 'Manthan'
Mark Ruffalo in 'Just Like Heaven'
Rahul Bose in 'The Japanese Wife'
Tom Hanks in 'Sleepless in Seattle'
Ranbir Kapoor in 'Barfi'
Gerard Butler in 'P.S. I love You'


All these men with their roles in the mentioned feature films reinstate my faith in the being of 'Man' as a sensitive, intellectual, graceful, subtle, loving, giving and seamlessly tireless human being. Respect for men of all these shades!

Gaining wisdom through my wisdom teeth

I am 30 now, however all my wisdom teeth were up and functional (read vestigial, because that’s what they are) at the age of 26. And out of my personal experience, I can conveniently say that wisdom teeth have a mind of their own, they know when to be born and when to die and just as a part of the practice they began to decay and cause enormous pain. 

I have heard from different people that the pain caused by a decayed tooth is the second most difficult natural pain that humans can endure after the one caused because of labour. So, with such a severity I one day decided to go to a random dentist near the place that I live, to get some insight as to what I must do with my pain and the teeth. The doctor with very little probe decided to get my mouth open and start drilling into it suddenly putting me through to a feeling like an unexplored cave with tools that resembled a spanner, a screw-driver and a driller; after a while I could also hear crackling sounds from inside my mouth like that of stones being broken with a hammer, this was his attempt to extract my first wisdom tooth and at the end of this one and a half hour of ordeal I was left with a feeling of mental and physical trauma. I was wondering as to how will I get my remaining three teeth extracted if this is the pain and ridicule I have to bear with and then suddenly I remembered a long time dentist that I had been to as a child who repaired my broken tooth with gentleness once when I had met with an accident. I now decided to go to this dentist whose clinic is called Abhinav Dental Care. I discussed with them about my problem and they advised me to come on later date and that they would make the extractions as per my convenience and ability to cope-up with the first one! 

When I went for the first extraction the dentist began to speak with me about what I do and such stuff, moving further when he had to clog my oral space with some of his tools he knew to ask the right questions to keep me busy in my mind and yet not give verbal answers but where verbal nods were enough of a response. At the end of 30 minutes, he said "rinse your mouth", I asked him what for? (Because I didn’t feel the need to)…and he said, “you got to rinse your mouth after the extraction is over!” I was amazed at the scope that the same surgery that looked like a landslide and earthquake put together a month ago, now was more like cutting a cake! I was totally taken aback and my faith was restored!

Like most other professions, the medical fraternity also has professionals who are not in sync with their work and then there are the best of best ones on the same platform, but what makes these doctors different is the way they deal with lives and their capacity to see blood, filth created by accidents, gore and much more. At a time when everyone is panicked these are the guys that choose to stay calm and not show their fears on their faces. 

On one hand I feel extremely grateful of the fact that I have a few friends who are fine doctors as their profession needs them to be while reflecting their personal human ideologies and learning in making their work look more meaningful, but on the other hand I see doctors who are not well equipped either in knowledge, capacity or in their technical ability to deliver their profession well and it’s ironic that we can do very less about it. 

But there is a good news, all the doctors that are going to be made after today are in our control, it comprises of those who are still doing their matriculation, those who are in their 10+2 and it also includes all the young ones below that age group, all we have to do is to constantly help them understand the value of every human life in each action that we do, we got to help them trust, we got to tell them that money is not the key of all things, we got to help them realize that they are strong enough to take up a responsibility that deals with lives directly, we got to explain to them about self-respect at each step, while we teach them the finer details of the ‘dignity of labour’ and when we are successfully able to tell them all of these, we got to tell them each day that we love them for their presence in our lives! And this will ensure a great of deal of game-changing doctors!

May there be healing in every touch of the doctors!

May there be love and willingness to cure

Happy Doctors' Day!

My very own Goodwill Stores

Little did I know about the Goodwill Stores and the way it worked until a good friend told me that he picked up a TV and a couch from one such store on his short term visit to USA at a collective price of $11. It was surprising to me how social work could shape up in such a fine business model. It was heartening for me to see that, at a time when most of the world is busy trying to find ways out to make money, there's a concept that liberally disposes money to all the classes of people. Goodwill has ever since kept me thinking.

My father was a businessman and he had to make day-to-day dealings with various merchants like stationers, cloth sellers, food raw material suppliers and much more and since I was a very little girl that time, I would go to most of these vendors along with him as a part of my scooter rides. His dealings with all the merchants were ever so crisp and friendly and so well stuffed with honesty and humanity that it made him stand out as a customer. His goodwill was building without he knowing it much and then over the years, when his business grew his goodwill was reflective, as the transactions were made in large sums of money and large consignments of goods sheerly on trust and name basis.

The years went by...the goodwill multiplied, what stopped was his breath. This day eleven years ago, he moved on with his journey to another world and what he left for us more than memories was goodwill. His last journey was carried out in an army vehicle instead of an ambulance much out of goodwill for a civilian businessman. Whichever old places we go to or his old friends that we happen to meet never cease to rave about his genuinity; no money loans ever taken by him were pending (which could have made us suffer if not dealt well with). Even today when I go to some of those stores where I can get my school stationery supplies or to the cloth merchant, they behave more as my uncles than mere businessmen; I happen to receive goods from them on sixty percent or more discounted prices...simply because I am the daughter of Ramnath Shah. This way all the places where my father touched his soul, he created a much personalized goodwill store for us, his children!

With this, I would like to ask a simple question to all of you reading this note...what is it that you want to leave for this world, for your children, for those who cherished your existence?
I received Goodwill as inheritance from my father and I would like to create that for my generations to come and for everyone who thought my existence was worthwhile.

Think.Love.Live!
Nirupama

Krishna and Yashoda in conversation

As a daily morning ritual, my family and I listen to some of our favourite devotional songs, as we sip our tea. One in the list is a beautiful conversation between Krishna and Yashoda. There are several such conversational songs, but this one in particular is special as it shows little Krishna in a 'grown-up' light. The flow of conversation is subtle, yet intense as Krishna discloses his inner thoughts about love for mother. The more interesting factor is the language of the song. One ought to know Hindi to be able to comprehend the true colour of this song. And therefore, I leave the rest to you the reader, to read, understand and relish this beautiful conversation!

माखन में 'माँ' शब्द समाहित इसीलिए मोहे भावे
जब जब लगे मेरे होंठों से माँ तेरी याद दिलावे

माँ जब तू ले हाथ में मथनी दही मथने को बैठे
तू जाने है तेरा कान्हा छुप छुप तुझको देखे
जाने है तो हाथ से अपने क्यों नहीं खिलावे
मैया.... चोरी करन उकसावे

माँ तुझसे ये नाता ही तो माखन सा है मीठा
इस बंधन का मतलब मैंने है तुझसे ही सीखा
तेरे नैना हर पल ही तो नेह बरखा बरसावे
मैया.... हरदम प्यार जतावे

:)

A sea, Two boats and a heart of gold!

In every realm, in every kingdom… new or old!
There lives a sea, two boats and a heart of gold.

The fate of boat is set by the act of the sea.
The Heart of gold, however stands watching the journey.

With the ebbs and the flow
The heart forgets to know
That without even touching the sea
It has become a part of their destiny.

Now the sea looked at the heart of gold with a smile.
It said, just like the way you get moved by me and the boat, for a while
There are very many hearts that get moved by what you do
Without any talk, meet and sometimes just without even knowing you!

So now as you know this, make your heart always shine
Make all the journeys easier be it theirs, be it mine!

To love or not to love

So, this morning I feel an urging need to write down something here that’s about love relationships. For the past sometime, I have been seeing some of my really loving, confident and honest friends publish posts that talk depressingly about love relationships, which portray a bitter picture of being in love. To this I have a few things to say…

*Love is a mysterious thing, you will not understand the how, what and why of it most of the times!

*However mysterious it is, it is one of the simplest and subtlest of all emotions that any living being can comprehend. Therefore you will surely end up falling in love with someone, because it comes naturally to you and everyone else!

*What we forget (when in love) is that if you love someone, it never is a rule to have it reciprocated. But when we are in love, we mostly, make an effort to make the person who we are in love with fall for us!

*When in a relationship someone says an ‘I love you’…it mostly means an ‘I love you’ ONLY. Understanding hidden meanings behind the 3 golden words complicates stuff…. An ‘I Love You’ rarely depicts a commitment for marriage…but we assume!

*I have also seen quite a lot of people say… “I have wasted so many years with him/her, just to get dumped”. Guys can you please explain what happened to your head in those years that you were ‘wasting’ with them, those exact years that you now feel wasted were once termed as ‘Golden’? Please explain…not to me…to yourself!

*Wanting to get married to the person you love is very natural to most people, but when it does not materialize please understand that there are hundreds of reasons that come into picture. When you love a certain person, all his/her cute and sweet habits are for you to see only for a few hours. Marriage is about seeing each other and their behaviour almost all the wake hours of your life and that is a big game changer for the decision making! Those who cannot agree for marriage are not cowards or cheats all the time.

*It is only marriage and love relationships in which there is a scope of breach, because we as a society have created the scope. Meaning, when you are angry or not in good terms with your mother, father, sister, brother…you don’t divorce them or dump them for the fact that there is no such provision. But it’s only for marriage and similar relationships that we make brave moves like dump, ditch and divorce…Wow! the 3-Ds! Why can’t we just expand our perspective?

*I agree that many of us put in a lot of effort in their relationships to make it happier and with due respect to every such person I would like to say that we must all agree to accept that there sometimes are some higher things in life that govern our relationships (that we may not understand, due to our limited knowledge of the universe) and we ought to leave them that way!

* Making a slur of our past relationships only worries us more. We must stop feeling victimized and understand that sadness, guilt, betrayal and all such negative emotions are essential for our lives to function. For, without them, we would never be able to figure out joy, happiness and mania. Remember, for every yin there is a yang! But like we can’t party every day, we can’t sulk every day too!

**NOT-SO-DISCLAIMER: Just in case you thought I was doling out all this gyaan without any personal experience, I would like to let you know that I have had enough of what it takes to write all of this and I am still waiting to live more, learn more!

Closing with a Rumi quote: “Whatever you know or you don't...Only love is real!”

Love will stay supreme!

Nirupama