Ban on Texting

Sharing my experiences here in cartoons.. I've been following someone on my blog who draws real good cartoons, very creative ones. I'm not that creative, but I can kind of draw. And I'm only an amateur in cartooning. So don't expect them to be perfect ;-) I have some funny ones in mind.. Hope I get to do them sooner.. 

The use of mobiles inside the classroom is very offensive and strictly prohibited here. Texting (Sending SMS on phones) while driving is also an offense. Fines could be as high as $500 for using phones while driving. It is true that students have much lesser restrictions here in terms of dressing or carrying oneself. They need not sit erect, respect a professor or keep staring at his lecture all the time, they can eat a snack or drink coke inside the class etc. but arriving to class late, absenteeism, distracting the lecture, usage of phones are absolutely discouraged. I've tried drawing what happened one day in my class, of course adding some masala to it ;-)

Maddy's magic..

Long time.. and I'm back with another mesmerizing number and a cool new template. When I was in the 2nd year of my college, Maddy's "Alaipaayuthe" (Saathiya) hit the theatres like a big bang. I watched it with my friends in the local Vidhya theatre in Tambaram. I used to watch movies in theatre during my school days much more! But this was the only movie that I watched during my college days. I was also then one of those fans in the young girls' club for Maddy! There are a lot of songs where he is so adorable. This song from the movie Run is one among his kind of songs. He can't get more romantic! Beautiful music and a splendid combo of Hariharan singing for Maddy in Vidyasagar's music!

Enjoy watching it here.. and my version is on my jukebox.

Whats goin on??

The frequency of my blogging is coming down drastically and I've been thinking what to do to boost it up. And there's nothing new happening either. It is the change in my class hours which has changed the lifestyle a bit. I (kind of) get up early, bathe, cook food, pack lunch for him, leave by 8.30 or 9 in the morning and get back home around 2-ish right in time for lunch. Assignments have multiplied numerously as we are already into the past imperfect kind of boring stuff in grammar. But there is variety of homework to be done. For each class hour, it looks like we have to practice an hour outside of the class! So I have 3 + 3 = 6 hours occupied thinking and talking español all the time! And then we go for a jog in the evening and come back home for dinner. Cut vegetables for next day, wash vessels.. But I did manage to do some interesting things in between my last post and this one. I watched two Tamil movies, Ravana and Kalavani. 

Ravana - more a commercial movie, typical Maniratnam set-up. I couldn't take the same ol' monotony in the first half, people with guns, heroine kidnapped by an anti-hero guy! One movie where he made viewers asking, "Ok, so?". I somehow felt I can't see Ash anymore on screen.. her actions and emotions are stereotypical! And I hate women crying even on screen! I liked the second half though. Kalavani was a great entertainer in a village backdrop with new "not yet uninteresting" faces, I'm yet to watch the last half hour. I was bored of washing vessels, so I'm writing this now! How I wish the dishwashers here can wash the vessels well by themselves.. Poor invention!!

Fireworks - 4th of July

4th of July - Independence Day here! It was as crowded as when I saw it last year.. The last same I remember playing with crackers is.. mm.. hard to recollect! Good ol' days.. And this is a different kind of fun. After quite a long time, my hubby himself took his tripod out for shooting the event. Colors and flames, Boom! came out the flowers and designs with symmetrical perfection! They all looked like a painting on the sky. On which platform do the makers design these crackers? Sunflowers, Angels, Birds, Elliptical orbits, Circular wheels, Phantoms, Concentric shapes, Stars and Sparklers.. let your imagination flow..

Karaoke kicks in!

Karaoke is a portmanteau of the Japanese kara 空 meaning "empty," and ōkesutora オーケストラ "orchestra" - It is a form of entertainment where amateur singers can sing along with recorded music (audio/video). It offers only the music track of a song minus the lead vocal. It is quite a popular thing today among kids, youngsters and other amateur singers. This is what I've tried this time for a couple of songs. Both are my very favorite numbers: The Aamir khan fame Pehla nasha sung by Udit Narayanam and Sadhna Sargam - I've done the lead for this, so it is an instrumental version. And the evergreen hit of Ilayaraja, Vaan megam sung by Chithra - I've strummed along with it on my Guitar and have sung it too. 

These kind of Karaokes aren't available for all the songs but we can find most of them on youtube. You can listen to them on my jukebox.

Rain-coaster rides!

I had been drafting this post about the bus rides here for so long that a really crazy rain had to push me towards completing this today. As a kid, it has always been pleasant and joyful to be hanging out when it rains. Not until I started working that I realized how inconvenient rains could be. And commuting in the trains and buses, getting stuck in traffic and wavering around in pools of muddy water on the roads used to be so painful that the whole day would be annoying at work for everyone. Be it any place, anywhere in any part of the world, rain is but a necessary pain.

My day was full of surprises. I checked my results online for the weekly test in my course and it showed a 101 on 100 this time! And I had to give a presentation in my class in Spanish. A very basic simple one, but first time ever speaking "only" Spanish. I came out after my class today to see it raining cats and dogs outside and I was totally unprepared for it. As I'm even writing this now, it is so freaking sunny outside!! It was supposed to rain last week and I was carrying my umbrella every other day. I just threw it off my bag yesterday and it rains today! I was stuck in the college campus after my class unable to cross over to the bus stop and it was crowded there too. In spite of the fact that people were standing in the shelter they were still getting drenched because it was very windy too. I took this bus that stops just outside my campus instead of my usual bus, as I don't have to walk any distance for it, and then made a transfer to my regular bus in between. The bus drivers were happy but the passengers were all annoyed as most of them were not prepared for a rainy day and were boarding the bus soaked wet. The bus hovered around the roads like a ship sailing on a sea. It was a 3" to 4" heavy rain due to some hurricane which is about occur somewhere in the northern Mexico. The bus was still sailing across like a queenship yacht ignorant of what its passengers were experiencing! But while I was waiting for the transfer a guy next to me was thanking God how good he felt after the burning sun the whole last week while he was working day long on roof-tops. He must be a laborer, couldn't make out though, as everyone looks alike in this country unless one is homeless! 


Even on such a rainy day, I found the bus overcrowded and people were standing inside the bus and the bus operator (there's no driver/conductor, there's only one operator who drives the bus) here does his duty so genuinely, helping a handicapped person to be seated properly. Every individual who is handicapped has a special seat in the bus, which simply offers seat-belts that can be tied to the wheelchair or the powerchair of the passenger. This has to be done by the bus operator. And the passenger enters the bus while the operator slides down a plane for him through a remote button to wheel himself inside. It is during the bus rides that we can meet reality here. Could we call it the other side of this country? On one hand this place may be technically so sound and offers every possible comfort for everyone here, but on the other hand holds every individual responsible for his or her own choice of actions, which is logically and judicially unquestionable. Life may seem to be very comfortable on one end but it would be pulling you from the other end. But yes that's reality, someone who was locked up in a jail for a while and could not manage to get a job for his whole life, someone who had to undergo a knee-repair for a broken cartilage, but didn't get it done as he couldn't meet the medical expenses for it.. people living in homeless shelters.. such people also exist here in this very place that others consider as heaven.


Finally when the rains were still lashing at my feet I got down from my bus, rushed to my car and continued my journey back home praying all the Gods for the safety of my co-drivers on the roads! Only to see an obstacle on the way.. This is the third or fourth time that I was driving while it was raining. But this rain was horrible. I could barely see anything even after turning on my headlights. While I just ramped up onto the freeway where I could hardly see my lane on the road, I had to jump immediately to the next lane on seeing a car parked happily right on the middle of the road for some reason.. My day was full of surprises! And rains ain't always cool.. But I managed to get back home escaping the fiery of rain-God. Smart moves everywhere!

Kishore's best..

Up with one more old hindi number. This is one of my fav romantic melody.. One of Kishore kumar's best hits too. It is from the movie "Blackmail" - Dharmendra is the hero and heroine is Rakhee, the "Kabhi Kabhi mere dil mein" fame actress.. Old is gold! Chk out my version uploaded on my jukebox.

Raja's melody

Yet another beautiful score by Ilayaraja after his come-back was this one. The movie was a huge hit too! One more movie for Vikram for proving himself. And in this one he had to prove it without delivering even a single dialog all through the movie! He won the Silver Lotus Award as the Best Actor in the 2004 National Film Awards (India). I liked Surya's performance in it though ;-) My version is on the jukebox. Enjoy! Here's the original song too.

Guzarish..

If it is Hariharan in Tamil for me, then it is Sonu Nigam in Hindi.. There's none to beat him in romantic and sad melodies.. He is good at other genres as well. But there's so much life in his voice when it comes to very expressive songs. There are so many of his songs that I completely enjoy even today. Ones that I remember right now are Tanhayee, Khamoshiyan gungunane lagi, Rabba mere rabba, Saathiya, Main Agar kahoon.. the list goes on.. One of them in his latest hit-list is Guzarish from the movie Ghajini. Although he has sung this along with Javed Ali, it is obvious why they wanted Sonu had to sing some parts of this song in between! Coz there's no other voice which could it so well.. 


And I love this song for Aamir is my fav hero as well.

My Guzarish is on my jukebox. Sonu's Guzarish is here..

Whistling enthusiast!

Ok.. Finally my husband agrees to at least whistle for me ;-) I've been persuading him to sing a song for me since a long time.. He sings really well, but just doesn't do it when we want!! Grr.. he's quite moody about it. But somehow I pulled him in this time and he has whistled a full song for me while I strummed it along. Its a very beautiful song with good electric guitar effects and one of Ilayaraja's best compositions.. I've uploaded our instrumental version in my jukebox. Peep in!