Agam The Band

Yeah, I got a wonderful chance to listen to this band. In my company they arrange such events for free…entertaining the employees. So as far as I know..the band is a group of 6-8 boys..regular IT guys..with the knowledge of traditional classical Carnatic music. Carnatic music is the traditional music from South India…very old…and very complicated with ragas! 

These guys are mixing the traditional music with new age rock music! They are a Carnatic Rock band…with the record of being chosen as the best band in South India by none other than Oscar winning Mozart from Madras…. A.R Rehman.

I missed the first two songs, but after that I got to hear the remaining 7-8 songs. The singer Harish is really really good at Carnatic singing! The next best guy is the drummer Ganesh….wow! He is just so so good! Their songs were more about rock music with mix of folk carnatic singing….but really a great band.

I have downloaded their logo…it’s quite an interesting logo. It looks quite scary at first look..but they are a band that will go onto succeed.

I went and enquired about any CD release…and they are on their way to launch their CDs. J Some of their songs were Malhar Jam, Rudra. They also played couple of Rehman’s song…in their rock style…Dilse and Hamma Hamma.

Sharing one of their videos I found.

Kareena’s Mujra

Every morning while I get ready to work, I have my TV on with MTV channel playing…listening to songs…rather latest songs…it’s better than the quiet atmosphere. Since couple of days the songs of movie Agent Vinod are doing rounds on the channel. With Kareena doing her own “Mujra style”. We belong to the generation that grew up watching brilliant and beautiful actress like Rekha doing Mujra…more recent may be Madhuri…who have so much grace in their dance and moves…who perform so effortlessly to the old royal dance style.

Today watching Kareena doing Mujra…is so very painful to the eyes! Some things should just not change..Mujra should be done in the same old delicate feminine style! Displaying a 2 inch of cleavage and doing your regular bollywood steps is NOT MUJRA! She is good at her chammak challo style and should just stick to that! All in all, the song she is dancing to and her new-found style of Mujra both suck big time! Blame the choreographer, I guess!

Eager to make 2012 happen...

What the hell is wrong with all the countries? I feel like the politicians of the world have taken the “2012 end of world” too seriously so they are making every effort to kill everyone…be it their people or the neighbors! “If we are dying anyway, we might as well kill all and go !!!!”

Reading Syrian news is very depressing. There is another new Hitler massacring his people in Syria and really, none of the countries can interfere, so the innocent, unarmed people are left to die with no food, medicine, water! What times are we living in? What have we achieved with the science and development and technology? There is no sign of HUMANITY anywhere! Arab countries are going through their fight against age old rulers, Europe is dying of debt, European countries are having their financial crisis, China is becoming arrogant, cunning, powerful country and Koreans are waiting to bomb each other.

Everyone country is going through a deadly crisis! I read only protests, rebels, bombs, nuclear power expansion, nuclear tests blah blah…with all this Indian politicians cashing in their pockets to make 10 generations happy! Are there really going to be TEN generations within 2012???Where is the human race heading to? It feels like a very very long run from the times human race came on this planet, grew, flourished, made discoveries .. discoveries that are killing us!

In my opinion the earth is just too heavily crowded and it’s really time we are erased now! We have taken the planet for granted for very long now and looking at the current situation we only intent to blow it up! The plant is just going to end up laughing at the stupid human race! Is there any point in dreaming of a future …coming years..if we are not gonna survive!

My very own.... Taj Mahal

In my schooling days, we had a common drawing teacher..specifically sir from 5^th grade till 10^th grade! He was pretty good an artist; there were some master pieces hung up in the school. Lele Sir…if I have any of my school buddies reading my blog would remember. I had many assignments with A+ grade. There is this particular drawing style I remember all through these years that I chose to re-do even today after so many years.  It was as simple as drawing slant lines across the sheet and coloring them with different crayon colors…looking somewhat like a rainbow. Then you paint it with black POSTER color. When it dries off, all you do is scrap of with a blade to draw your idea/scenery/ object.

Back then I think I drew a village, which still looked great! I had this idea in my head for a while and didn’t know exactly what should be the art! So I got the idea of the sand animation videos that we’ve seen before…I got numerous ideas such as the two flamingoes, butterflies, tiger face etc….but this Taj Mahal idea seemed magnificent. Looking through how to draw Taj Mahal, I realized drawing Taj Mahal is so easy! Never thought of drawing a Taj Mahal before!

Here is a snapshot of the final piece! My husband is in total awe at this style of art, so Thank You Lele Sir J

Time travelling via Google maps

How cool is Google….I have a new found love for Google maps today. I always liked it even before, when I lived in the US where it’s so easy to travel from one place to another thanks to Google. There you don’t stop on the road to ask a paanwala or a random person to ask directions – no paanwala’s or frankly it’s not as crowded as India J But seriously, travelling is so easy there with efficient devices like GPS or new mobiles that have Google maps. In our first few months we’d just get directions on Google maps..note down the lefts and rights and drive down to new places. Travelling used to be sooo much FUN!

Then we bought the GPS device in a sale and had a full refund of the money we spent on it by going to tens of places!

At work yesterday, I was reading news about Syria and the events happening there. I went to Google maps to confirm my knowledge of how Syria is a small country caught up in age old border and religion conflicts. I had seen a foreign movie once from the Redmond public library, showing how common people across the borders are caught up in conflicts due political games! It is very miserable and unfortunate for innocent people to be caught in such environments! L

Anyways, read enough about the ongoing Syrian crisis and then for some reason I dragged the maps to see USA. And soon I was browsing the streets on which we lived…turned on the satellite view and a whole different experience. I took a snapshot of the apartments where we lived in Spokane. The satellite view is so clear and feels real. The yellow colored children nursery in front our apartment is visible so clearly! The community we lived in, neighboring church parking, opposite street and apartments, the super market down the street, Manito park etc….all visible clearly on GMAPS! I had a great refreshing experience of walking down the same old streets of Spokane, Bellevue.

Our home in Spokane, WA

GMAPS is like a time machine, where I can go back in time to places I lived in. And really, times FLIES! Looking through these satellite images made me feel like I was there YESTERDAY! Google your rock!

Elephants at sunset

I have drawn similar sunset drawings earlier....last time I had drawn camels in the sand dunes with sunset in the background...its one of the lost pictures now!  L
Lately, it seems my blog is turning into an art blog....but this is what I am doing on weekends now.

Before - The sketch

After - Final paint



Fav sketch

This is my sketch I drew when I lived in Spokane, 2008 . I drew it on a drawing book that was presented by my American neighbor Tracy. She gave it to me seeing my art hobby. I made a colored pencil sketch of it and gave her as a gift. I still preciously use this Christmas gift - drawing book for special drawings.

I drew the sketch just once, but I copied and painted them to gift a few friends..It’s one of my finest pieces. As you see I am not perfect in drawing human figures, what should have been a Japanese woman looks like Aishwarya Rai to my mom J I just love to color her and gift her to as many friends as I can. And now after all these years, this time she is freshly painted to be framed to go in my house!!!