Thinking out loud...

I know it's been a while. I can't believe 2013 is already drawing to a close. It's been quite a year, particularly so for self-introspection. I would like to believe it is part of maturing older and hopefully wiser. I have taken to observing and experiencing Carnatic music in depth, with three of my very talented friends. So I paid extra attention to Margazhi Maha Utsavam this year. Musically I feel I am much more aware - I am able to distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' in music better than before.

The real joke came when Sanjay Subramanyan sang on the theme of naalayira divya prabandham - started with a brisk pallandu pallandu. He followed it by kondal vannanai and I chuckled thinking how I knew it by heart, thanks to Chennai Express Titli song! :P Talking of maturing, I find that I am able to absorb much more through just reading lyrics and listening to the music after I've imbibed the meaning!

And then this - brace yourself - I am going in to spirituality. Priya sisters sang on atma gyanam-brahma gyanam. And I heard this atma shatakam by Adi Shankara and there! It just struck me, I was completely overwhelmed - the last time I remember something like this happened was when I listened to ananda natana prakasham by TMK. But this was just too remarkable - I sat down to read about it and I was taken into it even more. I read a little bit about Adi Shankara and now I think I wanna do two things - understand, memorize, learn to sing and think about atma shatakam; I want to read more on this - advaita and whatnot. I don't even know the alphabets of these, maybe it would enrich my life - reading/knowing these. Or maybe it would leave me confused. I will have to try it to find out. Also, I started learning sanskrit. Lets see where this takes me....

Fooooood!

So today started with a Nutella hot dog with strawberries, had capsicum rice and a thick boondi raita for lunch and an elaborate three course dinner at Tamarind... Doesn't get better than that! And of course I ended with watching ekk Mai aur ekk tu!! Yaaaay :) small pleasures in life!!

The world we live in!

Hello there, long time no see!
However for a change this time, I won't write a long huge post about why I didn't blog so long pretending as if I know why.

 I go into this weird state of mind sometimes, living at CMU in this era technology and innovation changing my life everyday. I wonder how far we've come, how much we've grown and outgrown. To be able to show that my dosa was a perfect circle paper roast on skype to people thousands of miles away instantly in real time - I definitely didn't think of that when I first created an email ID and that wasn't too long ago: it was less than a decade ago!
And now at CMU we have the butler robot HERB separating the cookie and the cream from the Oreo cookie. Who would have thought?!
Google glass, robotic DNA extraction, Soundhound, Personal robotic butlers... Where are we headed?!

Anyway, what prompted this post was - I was listening to a rather long song on the YouTube app on my iPhone. And then, I started texting a friend, so I had to stop listening to the song. The bad thing about tech wars is: iOS6 as of now doesn't support background playing of Youtube. I downloaded a youtube client app called Jasmine that would do it very well until recently but some update screwed it up!

Well, the point is, I wouldn't have expected even my history to be updated immediately on my youtube account when I opened my laptop. But hey, boom - not only was the history up-to-date (or up-to-second, maybe?), it started playing exactly from the point I had stopped listening! Oh wow, what a world we live in! I feel like my grandmom who calls all this magic, but sometimes the line is very blurry, thinking of it.... 

The fall is here...

Yes, my most favorite season is here! And with it came a lot of positivity, despite everything that went wrong! And that's why I like the fall. Despite being rather infamous for being depressing, I find it invigorating... Maybe it's just me.
Honestly, I think I like the change of seasons more than the seasons themselves, just because I like to look forward to change. Also, I like the fact that it reiterates that time is indeed fleeting, that things aren't gonna be the same for long. I know, the fall brings out the whimsical part of me and I love it!

Happy fall colors! :) Goodbye, summer!

Random lament!

Am I the only one who plays music so loud - that it is louder than my thoughts?! Well, it works - even after a 14 hour intense work day, extreme hunger pangs, sleeplessness and weird homesickness/missing-people state of mind. All I have to make sure is that the playlist is long and uninterrupted - Cocktail songs playing now. Give it a shot! The only problem is when something like 'Yaariyan' comes on, resonates with whatever thoughts you were trying to avoid and brings them up in full force! Sigh!