RaGaMaLiKa

TAP (Tyagaraja Aradhana Programme?) - 2011

2011-09-09T21:47:00.001+05:30

Following the Chennai TAP on 2^nd Jan, the BITSian version of it conducted by Raag was on the cards. It is indeed intriguing to think of Saint Tyagaraja’s compositions gaining audience in this small North Indian village of Rajasthan. This year’s iteration of the event began with much promise as a very enthusiastic bunch of people turned up for registration. Having signed up for what would be close to two weeks of daily practice sessions with six lead vocalists, 3 guys and an equal number of girls, the sessions began with the first piece: Jagadanandakaraka in ragam Nattai. The group soon settled into their singing voices and disparities of pitch were sorted out. As January drew to a close the progress made was remarkable: people with no previous experience in Carnatic music were able to pull off decent renditions of Saint Tyagaraja’s master pieces. The practice sessions usually scheduled after dinner had good attendance with people staying enthused for the full one hour. ‘Guruji’ Deepak was also delighted to be part of many engaging discussions one of which was based on a most pertinent question: At what speed had Tyagaraja himself sung these kritis??? This and other such seemingly innocent discussions on music and other topics with a surprisingly fresh outlook defined the practice sessions.

The program held on the morning of Founder’s day (8^th February, 2011 this year) usually ends up having a certain magical quality to it. It was no different this year with a serene and soulful ambience being setup in the good old Room No. 2219. The songs rendered included Sri Ganapatini in praise of Lord Vigneshwara, The remover of obstacles, Guruleka etuvanti in praise of Guru, The Teacher, followed by the Five Pancharatna Kritis of Tyagaraja. Such Aradhanas are held in many places in India during this time of year in a tradition that dates back more than a century. It is a testament to the treasure trove of musical and lyrical beauty in each of Tyagaraja’s krithis that each such Aradhana succeeds without much effort in moving the performer and listeners to a different spiritual plane. As a tradition then, this celebration transcends a mere formality and we hope that TAP is a great example of the fact that with proper initiation Carnatic classical music too is very accessible to a lay audience and also to an amateur performer. Here is to the next iteration being even bigger and grander!!

SANGAMAM 2011

2011-09-09T01:05:00.002+05:30

The usual thought of depicting something different, something contemporary was in many people’s mind and mails started flourishing as usual from every corner. The idea of Meghdootam initially sparked off, but doing another Kalidasa story having a sort of similar plot as the Abhignanashakuntalam was not an idea worth taking forward. Then came the ideas for contemporary themes like the sister theme which was conceived a few years back, evolution of man and story of carbon atom (However carbon needed to lose some ‘electrons’ if the dancers decided to do it, so we decided not to mess with Dr. Mendeleev!). Once Deepak suggested the Ghanashyaam theme, a major decision had to be made between a whole theme-based show with this theme or following the NR-2k10 format and depicting Seasons for the contemporary part. The latter won.

For the auditions last sem, there were four to five people who turned up. Finally Bharat, the carnatic singer from Bangalore and ‘Yenna Panra’ (though his real surname is Yanamandra) Saicharan, a Mridangam player from Guntur entered the club. The trip to BGM and performance over there had warmed up (Though the weather was very bitterly cold) the musicians as well for the season, thanks to Pratik as part of the BGM cultural team. Though we were one short of the number of dance styles we had for NR, the excitement was no less compared to it.

We initially started out with an ambitious and loooooog list of pieces to be performed, but a couple of them had to be chucked later on due to time constraints for practice as well as for the show. January saw vigorous practice sessions for the songs for individual dance styles and towards the end of the month ‘Seasons’ started.

Four seasons were planned to be depicted. The scorching summer, the pleasant monsoon, the lazy winter and the joyful spring were aptly choreographed and composed with brilliant expressions and vibrant music. Though test series and other factors posed some hindrance, late night practice sessions till1am and morning sessions from 9am during holidays compensated for them. Sangamam show date was also changed quite a few number of times and was finally held on 6th March. Reminders, pep talks, publicity and other things added to the organizational dimensions of the event. In the end, we enjoyed the fruits of our hard work, which included some good choreography, music composition and, more than all that, sincerity and dedication.

The pieces performed in order:

Alarippu
Alarippu, meaning ‘flowering bud’, is traditionally the first piece that a Bharatanatyam dancer learns and performs. Based on the graceful movement of the hands, eyes, and the neck, it is entirely nritta-oriented, containing purely rhythm based steps. This dance ritual is usually accompanied by oral percussion and mridangam. The Bharatanatyam performance was a Chatusra Alarippu, which is set to a 4-beats cycle.

Dancers: Aishu, Manji, J, Sush
Musicians: Deepak, Ajay, Judee, Pras

Mata Saraswati
This piece invokes Goddess Saraswati (aptly with the raag Saraswati), who is the embodiment and epitome of knowledge, intellect and beauty. Interspersed with swara combinations with related dance steps, this piece was predominantly of a Nritya style. Interestingly this was a fresh new concept of Bharatanatyam danced for Hindustani music set to Char Taal

Dancers: Aishu, J, Sush
Musicians: Anubha, Ajay, Aayush, Sagar

Thaye Yashoda
Thaye Yashoda is a song wherein the gopikas describe to mother yashoda, the antics of her son Gopalakrishna. In the song, the gopikas narrate certain incidents that had occurred and complain to Yashoda. Thaye Yashodha in Todi ragam set to adi talam was presented in Kuchipudi style of dance.

Dancers: Manji, Ninja
Musicians: Preethi, Uthra, Ajay, Saicharan, Deepak

Pallavi
Pallavi is a pure dance piece in which a raga is elaborated through eye movements, body postures & intricate footwork. Both the dance and the music evolve in complexity as the dancer traces multiple patterns in space, interpreting the music dexterously in the multi-layered dimensions of taal (beat) and laya (rhythm). This pallavi set to raag Kalyan was performed in Odissi.

Dancers: Kuheli
Musicians: Yudhajeet, Deepak, Ajay, Isha, Aditya

Shiva Kama Sundari
This composition is in praise of goddess Parvati, who personifies beauty in its purest form. The poet addresses Devi as the pretty Consort of Lord Shiva and tells her that it is her burden to save him as he struggles through life, unable to see the end of this circle of births. Shiva Kama Sundari in ragam Jagan Mohini set to Roopaka Talam was performed in Bharatanatyam.

Dancers: Aishu, Manji
Musicians: Preethi, Neeraja, Ajay, Deepak, Pras

Thillana
Thillana is the concluding piece of a Bharatanatyam performance. It means “Joyful” dancing. Happiness, joy and ecstasy are the feelings that are given expression to, in a thillana. This is a nritta piece, in which the brilliance of a Raga is reflected in the complex and vibrant footwork and the captivating poses of the dancer.

The dancers performed a Thillana in a Ragamalika, meaning a garland of ragas. It includes eight ragas namely Hamsanandi, Brindavani, Madhuvanthi, Hindolam, Mohanam, Vasanta, Kaanada and Kalyani. Every thillana is usually sung in praise of a particular deity. This thillana was in praise of Lord Siva.

Dancers: Aishu, Manji, J, Sush
Musicians: Deepak, Ajay, Preethi, Ashwin, Saicharan, Pras

The Music Filler
The intention of the music filler was to give dancers some time to get ready for the next part, which was the seasons. There was a musical performance with veena and violin accompanied by mridangam. The first song that was performed was a varnam composed by violin maestro Lalgudi Jayaraman in Nalinakanthi ragam set to adi talam. The second song was a thillana, which is yet another composition by Lalgudi Jayaraman in ragam Dwijavanti set to adi talam.

Seasons
In the next part of our show was depicted, the myriad hues and multiple facets of the four seasons. This yearly cycle that we witness on earth, has left many an impact on our classical art forms. The dancers attempted to portray the brilliant colours and tempestuous forces which characterize the seasons as well as the evocative emotions which they spawn within each of us.

Summer
Our Sun, the immense source of energy is responsible for life on earth and is also the chief architect of seasonal change. Thus, we began with summer, the season which belongs to the sun.

Invoking the Sun God through a multitude of names, Surya, Ravi, Mitra, Bhanu, Aaditya and Bhaskara, we witness the everyday morning spectacle as the Sun rises to greet a brand new day. The rays, gentle at first, soon spread to all corners and light up the day.

As the sun rises, two people come outdoors to enjoy a bright sunny morning. The day wears on and by afternoon the Sun’s rays have reached their peak intensity. Soon the pleasure of sun-bathing changes to irritation at the unbearable heat. The discomfort causes tempers to rises as temperatures increase even further. Not much later, the life giving forces of the sun’s rays turn destructive as trees, animals and people fall victim to the intense heat and an inevitable drought sets in.

Dancers: Manji, Aishu, J, Ninja, Sush, Kuheli
Musicians: Ashwin, Ajay, Preethi, Deepak, Pras, Hemant, Isha

Monsoon
The scorching heat of the summer has left behind an aftermath of death and destruction. River beds are dry, plants withered, people are desperately in need of water. Two people pondering this sad scene, however notice the dark clouds gathering the distance and the sound of rolling thunder fills the air. The sky soon splits open and the first drops of rain fall to the ground, rejuvenating the whole world. The monsoon arrives, bringing with it the calmness and respite from the heat, which the trees enjoy silently. In the forest, all creatures , the majestic elephants, the beautiful peacocks, and the light-footed deers, celebrate the arrival of the rains. The dancers danced with joy, as nature itself responds to the revival of the beauty of the earth.

Dancers: Manji, Aishu, J, Ninja, Sush, Kuheli
Musicians: Ajay, Hemant, Isha, Aayush, Deepak, Sagar

Winter
The rainy season ends with the onset of the winter. As the days grow shorter and the nights longer, temperatures fall and cold breezes and fog set in. The sky turns dark and the sun has lost its penetrating power thus bringing with it a mood of gloom, sloth and desolation.

This mood does not last forever in the hearts of people as they soon realize the joys that winter brings with it. Be it gathering around a warm, crackling wood burning fire or indulging in a fun snow fight, people soon start enjoying this season of cold.

Dancers: Manji, Aishu, J, Ninja, Sush, Kuheli
Musicians: Ajay, Preethi, Isha, Deepak

Spring
Spring is the season when the earth blossoms back to life in a brilliant display of colours and hues. The sun shines pleasantly bright, green shoots peep from the ground, and the world begins to wake up after its winter slumbers.

The dancers depicted this season's effect on the glum spirits of a girl who along with her friends revels in the inviting outdoors with birds chirping and plentiful fruits on the trees. The depiction included the dancers dancing to a folkish tune signifying the joy and energy that spring creates within us.

Dancers: Manji, Aishu, J, Ninja, Sush, Kuheli
Musicians: Ajay, Preethi, Hemant, Isha, Judee, Deepak

Post written and edited by Ajay and Deepak.

NR 2010 - 4th October

2010-11-21T23:25:00.000+05:30

Let's do something different! That was the line that kept repeating in my head since the summer holidays. Bucketful of whacky ideas mailed (we even considered a classical nagin dance! :P), gigs of videos watched, hours of pondering and discussing and finally we decided on a contemporary main piece for NR. The theme for the piece was chosen as "Navarasa". A pretty tried and tested theme, we knew there was ample of scope for every artist. The challenge was to make it contemporary. And this challenge just got a tad tougher with the entry of 11 new members into the club skilled in arts as diverse as the organisms inhabiting this planet. We got two flautists, a sitarist, a tablist, a pot-ist, a mridangist, three vocalists (sorry five, one guy, one girl and second girl=3 guys :P), an odissi dancer and a bharatanatyam dancer. Enthusiasm and excitement in the club simply bloated up like a huge balloon (Shravan already had chosen his sem-partner!).

We embarked on the two month journey to NR - dancers started choreographing the dance and the musicians started composing music for the various emotions. Four different dance styles - the refined Bharata Natyam, the graceful Kathak, the elegant Odissi and the vibrant Kuchipudi... And to incorporate them all into one piece, maintaining the overall coordination and synchronization was an exhilarating challenge. Hark, we were excited about it! Focus was on simple uniform steps to achieve an overall rhythm, rather than putting in complicated steps and expression.

Hectic acads schedules began to take their toll on us. Psenti-semites worrying about jobs, and EEE-ites worrying about CDCs (rest all didn't give much of a damn tho ;P). Doubts arose on feasibility of such a massive piece. Musicians were already on their way to finishing music composition for the navarasa, it would not have been fair to guss their efforts like that. And there was no back up plan. We had to stick to Navarasa. Slowly but steadily we choreographed rasa after rasa. The enthu returned when it all began to take shape. New costumes were designed.

Last few days saw a flurry of mails sent of daily TODOs (reminded of Dipak's ASAPs), feverish practices, finalizing compering scripts, planning lights and teaching them to freshers. The run-throughs were a mix of work and fun, acads all forgotten. Wish, it was possible to forget them altogether and have every practice in audi only :P

Finally curtains were raised on 4th October to present NR 2k10 to a fairly decent size of audience. The margam for the evening was as follows:

1. Bho Shambho
Dancer: Aastha, Sushmitha
Musicians: Riddhi, Yudhajeet, Ajay, Hari
A dance depicting Lord Shiva's energetic Ananda Tandav as His devotee Nandi looks stunned and dances in His praise as well. The dance was full of picturesque poses, strong steps set to bold mridangam with a beautiful rendition by the singers.

2. Kuchipudi
Dancer: Manjeera
Musicians: Preethi, Neeraja, Shravan, Ajay, Hari
The piece started with graceful Kuchipudi steps praising Lord Krishna and culminated in a fantastic plate dance which had the audience clapping and cheering like mad. The rendition of the song reminded of typical temple mornings with chanting of prayers and ringing of bells.

3. Odissi
Dancer: Kuheli
Musicians: Yudhajeet, Anubha, Sagar, Ajay
The best thing about the piece was that the team composed of all first yearites except Ajay, the mentor. While Kuheli was the perfect epitome of Odissi grace and vigour, the musicians made the piece a perfect present to the audience with their varied swaras and beats.

4. Enna thavam
Dancer: Namrata Raman
Musicians: Preethi, Ajay, Shravan, Hari
Nammu was in her best mommy role and devotee role in the piece. The devotee asks Yashoda, what good deeds have you done so as to have the Lord Himself call you His mother. The sanchari on Krishna's makhan chori was the most lovable part of the piece.

5. Thillana
Dancer: Aishwarya, Aastha, Manjeera, Namrata Raman
Musicians: Preethi, Ajay, Shravan, Hari
As usual, the fast and fun piece of the concert is the thillana. This time's thillana just became too memorable as the audience got into the habit of treating us with applauses for every formations made on stage :P

6. Kathak
Dancer: Namrata Jain
Musicians: Riddhi, Yudhajeet, Anurup Mitra sir (yeah profs also want to play with us now!)
The graceful twists and turns, the subtle expressions, the deft movements of the hands and fingers, the feet never missing a beat and the 28 chakkars.. With the soft music and perfect tabla rendition by sir the piece ended successfully the portrayal of all dance styles individually.

7. Navarasa
Dancer: everyone
Musician: everyone
As mentioned before, the piece brought together all the dance styles and music styles together on the stage. The painful Karunya, the wondrous Adbuta, the beauty and love of Shringara, the fearsome Bhayanak, the disgusting Bibhatsa, the mirthful Hasya, the angerful Krodha, the valorous Veer and the peaceful Shanta. Use of different coloured lights and coloured dupattas for some of the rasas helped to emphasize their meanings. Bhayanak rasa and Adbhuta turned out to be audience favourites :)

All in all, the concert was a grand success. The contemporary style and the novel dresses were greatly welcomed by the audience. After the usual post concert crazy clicking mania, we went laughing and singing to sac. Pratik came down to attend the concert and it was great to have him that day. Kudos to Ajay for his innovative music compositions and musicians for rendering it all so well, and to dancers for their beautiful choreography. Kudos to juniors for their king-sized enthu, to the core batch for all their planning and organizing, to the psenti-semites for their last one performance, to the club.. for sticking together and making it happen... I was just smiling, for my psenti concert in Raag had just come to an end. My best one in the four years, and most memorable one too. Acknowledgments were being discussed, but those funds are for another time....

Aastha.

Farewell Again - 26th April 2010 !

2010-05-10T03:42:00.002+05:30

Pratik, Chandu, Shravan

Farewell... one of the dreadest stuff for a psentisemite and also one of the obvious after you enter your college.. so it be.. Welcome to the highlights coverage of Raag Farewell - Monday, 26th April 2010.

Earlier going to the flash back some 4 years back, we had 15-20 people taking farewells in 2 semesters and sadly the total strength of club is around 20 people now.. and these reducing numbers have also affected the number of people taking farewells each semester and this time it was 3 Ragamalikan's - Shravan S, Chandrasekar Srinivasan and Pratik Maheshwari.

Farewell started off with a mime in SAC Room No. 8 - Raag Room with juniors mimicing these three seniors using all the possible funds of 4 years which they had witnessed or heard. Be it Shravan's mridangam enthu, Chandu's Bhaiya crash or Pratik's Saroja. It was entertaining and fun. Hats off to all the juniors with special thanks to Ajay and Riddhi for their acting. :)

After this we were back to our trademark place of farewell, Vijay's @ C'not.

Proceedings started soon with writeups of 3 psentis.

First was the enthu boy - Shravan. People had lot to say about him. This guy has done almost all possible irrelevant and useless stuffs while here @ BITS besides being a cracker at acads and extra-curriculars (swimming, violin, boozing :D, etc). His writeup talked about his crushes, his enthu, his fooding habits, his acads, his violin and him ! Ajay read his writeup and surely Shravan hid his face at times in between claiming to have not done something worth mentioning (pun intended). People will surely miss his all time enthu for any damn thing and also his first year mischiefs and misdeeds :D. His secretariship has been well aclaimed by all who have seen him in his 3rd year and his helping hand even in his 4th year would be surely a point worth an applause. The ability to catch up with both light and classical music with such an ease has been one of his true strengths throughout and this we hope would continue even after this.

After all the masalas and papads and other stuffs he had his part of speaking up and Shravan mentioned all the points which he felt would be crucial to Raag in coming years. Although Shravan is coming back next sem, he took his farewell with his batchmates. Highlights of his speak up was bonding between the club members. He surely has worked a lot on this and we hope to see the same enthu and bonding to carry on in Raag.

Here's to Shravan - The Violinist ! :)

Second in the queue was - Pratik (Its diificult to blog about myself but i'll stick to the writeup for this without adding spices to it :D). Pratik along with Hardik was the first group in Raag to kick off the hindustani proceedings in Raag and he was commended for able to building the platform for the coming talent in Raag on hindustani side. Few points worth mentioning about his writeup was his innovation and stress on publicity. Writeup also talked about his love for Hindi and HPC related work. Blogging which has been his passion was also appreciated.

He also got his time to speak up and he stressed mostly on innovating even with lesser strength and try to increase the numbers both in the club and our audience.

Here's to Me - A Ragamalikan ! :)

And the grand finale ended at - Chandu. Chandu entered the club in his 2-1 and since then had been an integral part of the club and all its events and enthus. His imagination and poster & backdrop work for NR and Sangamam was a point not to be missed out for sure. One important point mentioned was about his rise from his 2-1 to 4-2 with his mridangam skills. His dedication to learning despite a very tight schedule (Chandu was involved in a hell lot of things at a time throughout his BITSian life..applause :) ) was really appreciable. Chandu was the 3rd person whom I saw was given the award of - "Time Management God" which he displayed wonderfully in his BITSian life. Not to forget, his different style of saying - "YES MAAAAN" is still tinkling on everyone's lips :D.

Chandu when spoke, spoke about the overall development of club through personal inputs of using skills to the max.

Here's to Chandu - The Maaaan ! :D

Apart from the club writeups we also had 2 other writeups. First one was from our beloved AP who wrote all wonderful stuffs about all the psentisemites and made them feel proud. A sincere thanks to AP for sparing his valuable time (but of what i've heard.. he's vella as of now :D ) and penning down few lines for each of the psentisemites. Your words will has always and will always be important to all of us as you have been a constant source of inspiration. Thanks :)

Then came a writeup from a yaar of all the psentis - Mr. Vamsi who has taken his farewell the previous sem. Of what I remember, after his farewell he told me that he would not spare any of us (batchmates) and take out the revenge in our writeup. But I am happy to say that nothing as such happened and the words which Vamsi's pen uttered were a bunch of delicate flowers for his lovely batchmates with whom he has spent 4 wonderful years. A huge applause for you too for writing for us and remembering. :)

After this it was the usual snap session which wasn't as long as it used to be with all those funds of A1, B1, A3, A7, etc, etc. But all the psentis really had a wonderful time and are really thankful to all you wonderful juniors who gave us a super farewell right from the invitations.

Now what we carry with us are sweet memories captured in those songs, those instruments, those dances, that raag room, that SAC, that 2219, that 2220, that Audi, that T-Lawns, that ANC, that Cnot, that Khetri, those trips, those endless pics, those funny videos, those useless funds, those innovative compositions, those group dances and those teary farewells.

One common thread which kept us bound was music and it'll ever be this. No matter where we are, will be. But we'll always be close - Thanks to Music, a gift conferred upon us by Him.

Just to say at last:

Here's to Raag - The Club !

(I guess that this is going to be my psenti-post on this blog. I hope you enjoyed my version of blogging and other will surely come down to keep us updated about Raag forever)

Kathak Workshop

2010-04-29T00:36:00.000+05:30

Ragamalika organised a 15-day Kathak workshop from 8-21 April, 2010.

It was a new initiative taken to let the classical genre reach out to one and all irrespective of their background or previous knowledge about the rich domain. The workshop got an overwhelming response of students from all years with a special mention to the higher degree students. About 30 participants enrolled for the workshop. It was a pleasurable and a learning exercise for both the sides, the learner and the teacher (Namrata Jain). Imparting the intricacies of the dance style with a responsibility to teach the right way was both a challenging and an enriching experience.

The workshop ended with benefiting all the involved who went out of the rag room with smiles on their faces and a contentment in their heart. Hoping to carry on this trend of innovation and new endeavors we wish all the success to our very own Ragamalika.

Strings Attached

2010-04-29T00:23:00.002+05:30

“Strings Attached” - Ragamalika’s instrumental concert was held on 17^th April at the LTC QT at BITS, Pilani. The concert featured three instruments which represent the soul of instrumental Carnatic music.

S Preethi was on the Veena, C Ajay Aditya on the Violin and Deepak Krishnamurthy on the Mridangam. Six beautiful and varied compositions were promised to the audience who had settled down comfortably on the lawns to enjoy a blissful evening of music. Kicking off with a traditional starting piece of a concert – A varnam in ragam Valaji, this soothing yet fast paced song set the mood for the evening. After a brisk interlude featuring on the spot improvisations by the artistes the concert switched gear and moved on to its’ main piece. A wonderful composition in ragam Shanmughapriya on Lord Rama, the audience was first treated to an Alaap in the same ragam which was finely balanced between violin and veena. The composition followed by ‘kalpanaswaras’ or on the spot swaras with percussion support from the mridangam kept the audiences riveted. After a fast paced composition on Lord Karthikeya, the concert reached its’ crescendo with a captivating rendering of a Thillana in ragam Sindhubhairavi. The intricate swara and beat patterns followed closely by the mridangam drew enthusiastic applause from the audience.

The concert was graced by Dr G Raghurama, Director BITS-Pilani Pilani campus and Dr B V Babu, Dean SWD and Professor-in-Charge Ragamalika who along with the rest of the audience made the evening a success.

The songs can be downloaded and listened through THIS link.

SHAAM-E-GHAZAL 2010

2010-04-23T12:21:00.004+05:30

Here comes a post which most of you would relate to as you have passed through that phase of psenti sem and your psenti concert.
SHAAM-E-GHAZAL was started 2 years back in 2008 to bring light classical music to light and it instantly attracted BITSians and profs alike. Ghazals have always been choice of many and tapping this interest of common junta Ragamalika gave it a shot and its good to see that the interest still remains intact in its 3.0 version.

SHAAM-E-GHAZAL 2010 was also the psenti concert for Pratik (and almost for Shravan :D) and it was organized on 20th April 2010 in LTC QT. We have changed the venue for our concerts and made them open theatre (I remember that we organized a freshers concert in Amphi @SAC). We also had an instrumental concert organized on 17th April 2010, details about which would be put up soon.

Ghazals and open theatre with calm weather made a perfect combo and we hope to keep this tradition as far as possible.
Proceedings started between 8-8:15PM and went on till about 9:45PM. Audience came in pouring and touched around 60-70 in number which was quite encouraging. Profs included NVM, AK Sarkar, Anil Rai, Srijata Dey, Sangeeta Sharma and others.
This time we also had a female singer included to extend the performers group to 4. I'll list all the songs in the order performed and also highlight the songs most appreciated by junta.

A good and bad point during the concert was power-cut during the concert and that too twice. Good thing after power-cut was that enthusiastic audience came forward and the atmosphere for both the performers and the audience was enhanced and it felt good to see audience's love for ghazals and darkness with moon and starlit sky was an awesome feeling. Bad thing that 2 songs couldn't be recorded properly and I'm afraid that they therefore can't be uploaded for you to listen.
Else wise concert had the audience glued till the end and thus ended this semester's psenti concert on a very high note with wishes coming from all the people in audience.

The list of songs in order of performance is:
1.) Tera Chehra Kitna Suhana Lagta Hai (Jagjit Singh)
2.) Teri Aankhon Ko (Mehdi Hassan)
3.) Deewaron Se Milkar Rona (Pankaj Udhas)
4.) Ye Dil Ye Pagal - Awaargi (Ghulam Ali)
5.) Ranjish Hi Sahi (Mehdi Hassan)
6.) Aur Aahista Kijiye Baatein (Pankaj Udhas)
7.) Zara Aahista Chal (Pankaj Udhas)
8.) Chupke Chupke Raat Din (Ghulam Ali)
9.) Kal Chaudhvin Ki Raat Thi (Jagjit Singh)
10.) Chitthi Na Koi Sandes (Jagjit Singh)
11.)* Dayar-e-Dil Ki Raat Mein (Asha Bhonsle, Ghulam Ali)
12.)** Tumko Dekha To Ye Khayal Aaya (Chitra, Jagjit Singh)
13.) Hungama Hai Kyon Barpa (Ghulam Ali)
14.)* Hosh Waalon Ko Khabar Kya (Jagjit Singh)
15.) Hothon Se Chhoo Lo Tum (Jagjit Singh)
16.) Tum Itna Jo Muskura Rahe Ho (Jagjit Singh)
17.) Rafta Rafta Wo Mere (Mehdi Hassan)

* = Duet
** = Female solo
No * = Male Solo

Performers:
Male Vocal & Harmonium = Pratik Maheshwari
Female Vocal = Uthra B
Violinist = Shravan S
Percussionist (Tabla) = Riddhidev Banerjee

Thats it from our side for a while. Will update with other happenings of Ragamalika this sem soon. Till then Adios !

p.s. - To listen to the songs, click on them.

Upcoming Concerts & Events - April 2010

2010-04-10T14:18:00.000+05:30

1.) Strings Attached (Instrumental) - 17th April 2010
2.) Shaam-e-Ghazal (Psenti Concert) - 20th April 2010
3.) Kathak Workshop - 9th-21st April 2010
4.) Performance for Conference - 22nd April 2010

SHAKUNTALAM - SANGAMAM 2010

2010-03-29T17:34:00.000+05:30

A fresh welcome to you all.. so many months since we interacted through this blog. Its time again to refresh and relive those days at BITS Pilani, at Raag, at Audi, at Sangamam !

Sangamam 2010 was based on the play Abhijñānashākuntala or Abhijñānaśākuntalam by Kalidasa which means Of Śakuntalā recognized by a token.

Its a story about Shakuntala and Dushyant which revolves around a ring and thus the name we gave to the concert was - THE LOST RING..
Venue was Audi on 23rd of February'2010.

I'll try to get to the whole story scenewise totalling to 12.

Scene 1:
Shakuntala is abandoned by her parents(Vishwamitra & Menaka) just after her birth and there in the forest she is found by Sage Kanva and he brings the child to his ashram. He names her Shakuntala meaning brought up by birds (Shakun).
Dancers: Aishwarya, Madhulika, Niranjana
Musicians: Ajay-Violin, Preethi-Veena, Hemant-Hawaiian Guitar
Composed By: Ajay, Preethi

Scene 2:
King Dushyant is the king of Hastinapur and he has come into the forest for hunting. While hunting he injures a deer but suddenly a girl comes and stops him saying that the deer is from hermitage and so shouldn't be harmed. King Dushyant listens and lets the deer go away. Then the girl invites him to the ashram to meet Kanva Rishi which he duly accepts.
Dancers: Aastha, Madhulika, Jayasharda
Musicians: Ajay,Shravan-Violin, Preethi-Veena, Hemant-Hawaiian Guitar, Aditya-Tabla, Chandrashekhar-Mridangam
Composed By: Last Kannada Part By Deepak

Scene 3:
Shakuntala has grown into a young beautiful girl and she and her friends enjoy the day amidst the natural beauty. When King Dushyant visits the hermitage, he sees them playing in the garden, He is awestruck by Shakuntala's beauty and instantly falls in love with her but doesn't disclose it. Then suddenly a bee starts disturbing the girls and they are unable to shoo it away. Seeing the troubled Shakuntala, King Dushyant steps out and flees the bee away and as soon as their eyes meet, they fall in love.

Dancers: Aastha, Namrata, Jayasharda, Manjeera (Namrata Raman didn't perform for this Sangamam so Namrata means Namrata Jain)
Musicians: Ajay,Shravan-Violin, Preethi-Veena, Hemant-Hawaiian Guitar, Abhineet-Tabla, Chandrashekhar-Mridangam, Riddhidev-Vocal
Composed By: Initial Folk By Deepak and Rest By Riddhidev

Scene 4:
Their love blossoms while at the hermitage and soon they turn this love into marriage. This is the love scene in which Dushyant gives Shakuntala, The Ring and they get married. Soon after, Dushyant leaves to his kingdom due to some pressing reason but promises to come back for Shakuntala soon.
Dancers: Aastha, Namrata, Manjeera, Jayasharda, Niranjana, Aishwarya, Madhulika
Musicians: Ajay,Shravan-Violin, Preethi-Veena, Hemant-Hawaiian Guitar, Aditya-Tabla, Deepak-Mridangam, Vocal-Preethi/Uthra
Composed By: NA

Scene 5:
This is the curse scene. This scene adds the masala to this whole play. Rishi Durvasa known for his short temper and is used to attention and care comes to the ashram thirsty and exhausted. He calls out to Shakuntala who is sitting near the gate day-dreaming about Dushyant. She is sad and in deep thought as in when will Dushyant come back for her. After calling out to Shakuntala and not getting a response, he is enraged at her and the next moment he curses her saying that whom she is obsessing about right now will completelt forget her. Shakuntala is completely unaware but her friend hears the commotion outside and comes out to see that Durvasa has cursed Shakuntala. She pleads infront of him and tries to convince him about Shakuntala's situation and begs apology.
Durvasa says that any curse can't be revoked, he can lessen it and says that is she shows him any token given to her by Dushyant, Dushyant's memory will return and then he leaves.
Dancers: Namrata, Manjeera, Jayasharda, Niranjana, Aishwarya, Madhulika
Musicians: Ajay,Shravan-Violin, Preethi-Veena, Hemant-Hawaiian Guitar, Aditya-Tabla, Deepak-Mridangam, Vocal-Riddhidev
Composed By: Pratik (First four verses) /Riddhidev (Last Verse) /Ajay(Interludes)
Lyrics By: Pratik

Scene 6:
This is the departure scene where Shakuntala, after waiting for Dushyant's return is all set to leave. Everyone at ashram is sad and feel low when she is leaving. Even the nature bids her goodbye. Her father, Rishi Kanva thanks her for being a good daughter and blesses her for the future life. This scene depicts the emotion of Karuna. She moves onto her journey thereafter.

Dancers: Aastha, Namrata, Manjeera, Jayasharda, Niranjana, Aishwarya, Madhulika
Musicians: Shravan-Violin, Vocal-Riddhidev
Composed By: Riddhidev

Scene 7:
After setting from the hermitage she travels through all the difficulties and in the mean time also loses her ring unknowingly.
This is the court scene where Shakuntala meets Dushyant in his court. She faces difficulty in going through the gates to meet Dushyant. Unaware of the curse, she goes on to say that she is his wife but Dushyant fails to recognize her. she feels dejected on being rejected and faints. Dushyant then orders that she should be taken to the kingdom hermitage and taken care over there.
Dancers: Manjeera, Jayasharda, Niranjana, Aishwarya, Aastha
Musicians: Ajay,Shravan-Violin, Preethi-Veena, Abhineet-Tabla, Deepak-Mridangam
Composed By: Ranjani Raagam-Preethi, Initial Ranjani Part-Ajay, Bowli Raagam-Ajay

Scene 8:
This is a folk scene of the play. Here fishermen are being portrayed showcasing their daily routine and how at the end of the day a fisherman gets the lost ring inside a fish.
Dancers: Manjeera, Madhulika Niranjana, Namrata
Musicians: Ajay,Shravan-Violin, Hemant-Hawaiin Guitar, Aditya-Tabla,Riddhidev-Vocal, Deepak-Ghatam
Composed By: A Bengali Folk Song

Scene 9:
This is a scene where that fisherman tries to sell the ring in the market place but in the due course is spotted by the king guards and they question him about the ring with king's seal on it. He is then dragged to the court where festive is on with dance performances(Kathak Jugalbandi).
Soon after the dance, guards tell that they caught this man with a precious ring. As soon as he sees the ring, a memory gushes through his mind and he is disturbed. He feels sorry for himself to have made such a huge mistake by disowning Shakuntala.
After this Indra comes to the meet him to ask for help in a war against the demons. Dushyant agrees to help him.
Dancers: Madhulika, Manjeera, Jayasharda, Niranjana, Aishwarya, Aastha, Namrata
Musicians: Ajay,Shravan-Violin, Abhineet-Tabla, Deepak-Ghatam/Mridangam, Uthra/Preethi/Riddhidev - Vocal
Composed By: Sindhubhairavi Raagam-Ajay, Percussion - Deepak

Scene 10:
This is the war scene where demons meet forces Indra and Dushyant. Nothing much to explain about war. Indra and Dushyant win after which Indra invites Dushyant to come and stay for few days in Indra Lok.
Dancers: Manjeera, Namrata, Niranjana, Aishwarya, Aastha, Madhulika
Musicians: Ajay-Violin, Abhineet-Tabla, Deepak-Mridangam
Composed By: Deepak

Scene 11:
While returning back he is passing by the ashram of Sage Kashyap. There he sees few ladies shouting on a baby boy who seems to be fearlessly playing with a lion cub. They try to coax him by showing him toys and berries but the child is not at all distracted by them. Then one of the lady plead to him to persuade the child and get him back.
He then inquires about the child and his father and gets to know that he is Bharat, his own child. Then he asks Shakuntala to come back with him upon which she refuses. But Sage Kashyap reveals the curse given by Durvasa and puts and end to all the drama. He blesses all the three of them for a happy life.

Dancers: Manjeera, Jayasharda, Niranjana, Aishwarya, Aastha, Namrata
Musicians: Ajay,Shravan-Violin, Preethi-Veena, Chandrashekhar-Mridangam
Composed By: Desh Raagam-Ajay, Kaapi Raagam-Preethi

Scene 12:
Our own traditional happy ending (Bollywood ishtyle :D).. The Thillana Scene.

Dancers: Manjeera, Jayasharda, Aishwarya, Aastha
Musicians: Shravan-Violin, Preethi-Veena, Chandrashekhar-Mridangam, Ajay/Deepak/Ashwath-Vocal

Compering - Namrata Raman
Lights - Pratik, Uthra

So we come to a happy ending of Shakuntalam which was highly appreciated by the BITSian junta.
You can listen to all the songs by clicking on the respective Scenes. Few Lyrics have also been uploaded.
So enjoy and do let us grace with your invaluable comments and suggestions.
We all hope that you thoroughly enjoyed this episode of Sangamam and are ready for few more concerts up this semester.
We will keep you updated with everything till then sit back and relax.
Cheers !

Thyagaraja Aaradhana - The Chennai Chapter

2008-12-30T20:47:00.000+05:30

"Let's meet one last time......only until the next time"

I never really was serious about the 'next' time - I have begun to believe that these are fancy things one talks about during their last times.
But someone actually turned that fancy thing around.

Casual threads on Google Groups - I can't even remember who ignited the idea (pardon me for that!) I have to go back a hundred mails to know that.
But Sankar has managed to give shape to that idea - amply supported by Srikanth!

"So lets have TAP in Chennai!"
"Sure! Why not!?!?"
“yeah! Let us! Its been so long since we all met…”

Bam!!
I thought mails would stop there ...until Sankar come up with

"So guys - I have spoken to the authorities in the temple near my place - they are okay with the idea!"

Ok so we are serious here or what!!

And to just bang that nail hard on my head, Sankar comes up with more stuff

1. Head count of people who are willing
2. Arrangements for the temple premises - include Shamiana , flowers,chairs, prasadam , a huge poster of thyagaraja, a flautist for the show
3. Srikanth pitches in with a huge part - Smt Padmavathy Anantagopalan ( a BIG veena artiste!) and her disciples land up for theshow
Our very own former Diro - Sri Venkateswaran and his wife kick us with their presence!
4. VSP promptly prepares invites - and there is a good chunk of alumni who warm us with their presence
(while we still were contemplating relaying the whole video live for apu nimmy and loki! - we just didn't have the logistics!)
5. Srividya makes copies of the songs and they are ready for distribution to the audience

On the day of the event ......
The place is beautifully decorated. Was like a mini marriage - all of us waving enthusiastically to the known ones whom we havent met for long!

The rendition starts with vibrancy as we speed our way through the Pancha ratna krithis.Audience is pouring in every moment.
There is so much energy that fills in the entire street.We glide through the songs with brigas (practised and spontaneous!) Krithis are followed with renditions by Orginal thadar to the Junior Thadar! It was a wonderful moment of pride.Those 2 hours were bliss - all of us were transported back to Pilani and the beautiful memories associated with it.

As the concert drew to an end, we were privileged to hear a few words from Smt Padmavathy who was highly appreciative of our efforts , who edso genuine with it , that’s probably when the
sense of success touched us gentle.

Thus ended Thyagarajan Aaradhana in Mambalam - high in energy and vibrance.
We missed all of you who weren't there. We spoke about you. We laughed about you. We wished we could see you. We missed you. And we only hope you are there the next time around.

"So...Let's meet one last time......only until the next time"

NR ' 08

2008-10-26T19:38:00.000+05:30

FAREWELL FOR 2004 BATCH!

2008-05-11T02:46:00.000+05:30

BEST INVITE EVER!

SESKIEST MEMENTO I HAVE EVER SEEN :)

(Find out the fund pls)

Oh ya!! That's "YO 2004!!" passing out.

(missing - vsp, srividya, pd, ro, jaggu)

RAAG!

Maan gaya Ustad...

2008-01-03T22:52:00.000+05:30

It's the fag end of the semester, almost obvious from the dull look that the campus bore. We, in raag, actually got some time to breathe free from the numerous concerts that we performed for until now. Sometime back, we had lots of discussions on whether to have a 'trinity' day, the usual event at this time of the year. However , padma mam had informed us that she would not be able to teach songs to us because of the supposedly busy schedule. Well, that would be a totally different story.Now, there comes this big question - whether we go ahead with the event, learning the songs ourselves or scrap the event for good. At times, it's often better to be pragmatic than to listen to your heart. We decided to call it off. We had already done way too much, whether for ourselves or for the insti - it does'nt matter.

The next thing would be the psenti concert, or so we thought. One fine afternoon, pratik came to me and told me that they would like to have a totally hindustani concert in a few weeks time. We had actually planned for something like this at the beginning of this semester, but that quite got out of our minds with the many many other things that we had to do. Now that the fire has been lighted, we started the usual round of practice sessions. Anil Rai sir trained them - pratik and aakash (second yearite - fresher to the club) on the vocals, Hardik, Ritesh and Aditya on the tabla. Well, it was a totally dedicated effort with extended practice sessions, which had started way back in October. Kudos to the Hindustani guyz.

It was again one of Raag's 5.30pm's in E.T. A familiar scene awaited all of us. The performers were ready to take on the stage, with confidence writ large on their faces. After the compering, done for the first time by a male (atleast until the point I can remember), pratik started with an alap in raag brindavanishrana. It was a brilliant exposition for a solid 25 minutes that concluded with the song 'Na Bolo Shyam Hami Sang' set to teen taal. Commendable effort at that. :) With 45 minutes of uninterrupted music, the first piece came to an end. Next to take on stage was Aakash - a second year entrant into the club. He started with raag Bahar. Starting at a slow pace, he elaborately brought into his rendition the grandeur of the raga, infusing it with brisk swarams towards the end. The concluding piece of the concert was a bhajan "prabhuji mere avagun chit na dharo..." rendered by pratik. A very famous bhajan, it made the audiences sway, ending the evening on a lighter and happier note.

Apart from the brilliant run up to this event and an even more cherishable concert, there was something else to note durin this concert. Audiences - never before seen faces in a Raag's concert came to sit in the front benches and happily revelling in the music. And quite a few professors too. :P

Well, that concludes the first Hindustani concert of Raag. Times change and we evolve too. And this time, beautifully. We have opened to doors to a whole new set of possibilities. This is just a start. A new dawn. A new feather to our cap. To take this tradition forward, we would only strive. The long road stretches far in front of us. It's for us to do the walking. The journey of a thousand miles. And it has just started here...

For formality's sake...

2008-01-03T22:40:00.000+05:30

It's that time of the year when everyone would be scurrying to the library - the days we dread the most are often the days that come very soon. Its COMPREE time - which translates to mean times where the light does'nt go off the whole night, times where books find a place in our daily schedule and the only times when raag activity doesn't happen.

I'm coming from the insti, the last few days of classes coming to a close, all weary and tensed. Upon entering my room, I find a slip saying that I had to meet our NVM (now the SWD dean) at 5 pm. I was just wondering why, that too during this time of the semester, silently eating away my fears. I slowly walked up to his office and waited outside. After sometime, he calls me IN in the most endearing manner and started off with one of his long puranas - How these big shots don't understand the students and all other blah blah! When I thought he was about to finish, he just smiles at me and says "There's a programme in CEERI and they want ragamalika's performance. I've told them that comprees are coming up but they don't seem to listen. Not much, just 30-40 minutes and you can repeat what you've done before." Aaaga! Aapu vechutaangale! It's so easy to say 30-40 minutes. Only we know what that 'few' minutes of performance entails. As I was walking back to my room, thinking on what to perform, I just realised...

This semester had been one hell of a cramming session and the credit should definitely go to our insti. 4 full fledged concerts within the span of one month. All because of a mere obligation and the 'goody goody' image of raag that we are supposed to maintain.

The first one came a few days after NR. We had to perform in the audi along with MC and DC for some biological conference. Not surprisingly enough, none of us were ready to sit for another round of practice sessions. So, we decided to perform some veena instrumental and give some of the pieces from NR itself. Nandy and Sreevidya gave solo performances. They were accompanied by Ganesh and Shravan respectively on the violin and Madhuji on the Mridangam. The audiences were treated to an extra dose of melody with kurai ondrum illai and the likes. It ended with the English note. That was part 1. Then we performed the kapi varnam 'taraka brahmame' and madhuvanti thillana for a dance recital. 30 minutes and we were done with it. Of course, there were minor hiccups (I'm actually down-playing the mistakes here :P ),but that didn't deter us from enjoying the presumptuous dinner afterwards. Well, that's one of the main motivation for having accepted to perform. :P

The next one was a double take. There were back to back schedule of performances. The first one at 5pm was in LTC. The stage was perfect and it was probably Raag's first open air concert. The accoustics (or the absence of them :P) well suited the carnatic mood and there were these delegates sitting on the lawns, swaying to the melodious tunes of vsp and Sreevidya. The content of the concert was quite varied - from the traditional semi-classical song and like tukdas to marathi abhang and bhajans. Reminded me of one of those lovely part concerts in chennai - a must attend for everyone. The second one that day was in CEERI at 6 30pm. A car picked us up from LTC and we were soon there in the auditorium. The crowd was very intimadating though - lots of Rajasthani folk and school children. We just hurried with our performance and went on to have dinner. There was a problem of choice though - dinner was arranged for us both in CEERI and in VFAST. And without doubt, we feasted at both places. :P

The penultimate one was also quite memorable. This was in VFAST lawns. Our beloved Venki had also come for this particular EMBRYO conference. Ro, radha, vsp, sreevidya, shravan and myself planned to take part in this one. Ro and radha started it with reethi gowlai varnam and followed it up with pulli kalaba mayil. Next came vsp and sreevidya with Kulukaka nadavaro and a meera Bhajan Aaj Shyam. The evening concluded with EntaroMahanubavulu - literally a comedy of errors. 8pm and it was definitely cold. Vocal cords began to shake and fingers crippled with numbness. All this culminated in us singing one particular swaram and an altogether different sahityam for it. :P Well, not much on that though coz the dinner that followed more than made up for our mistakes. And an icing to the cake : We got 10k as renumeration for performing that night. :)

The last one for the semester came just before the comprees - the one concert for which I started drafting this post. This again was in CEERI. However, the crowd this time was atleast not bad, if not good. It was just three songs and we were soon done with it.

Well, the next day was compree day and we were more than happy for that - not something usual. Yes! We are done with our share of concerts for obligations' sake. It's time to become the Jack, with all work and no play. Within minutes, I find myself buried under a huge pile of books. But the music still alive...

A perfect Symphony...

2008-01-03T22:23:00.000+05:30

Life often amazes us with simple yet profound things. Composing a post is just one of them. I had been wanting to do this for a long time now ( I mean really long..) and somehow it just escaped the schedule of the day. Here I am, with a passion and fervour to finish something that ideally should have been done long back. However, it also helps me to relive those very moments that bought joy into us like never before - the last minute swarams mugging up (:P), the last minute practices, and sooo many other things that just gets to happen in the last minute.
This was a concert that was supposedly planned during the summer vacations. Songs were decided and practice had also started. It was to be a duo concert by Vsp and Nandy. With practice starting this early (and that is reallly early considering the 'usual' duration for a 'typical' concert), we knew how it would turn out. Initially scheduled for the 10th of October, it was postponed to the 4th of November due to the test series and the trip hangover. With extra days at our disposal, we started planning for a purely veena-violin concert on the same day. Things soon fell into place and sreevidya, myself and shravan started with the process of song selection. The first list was prepared and predictably enough was soon revised. We all had to first learn the songs and so started practicing everyday with the regular breaks due to the test series.

It was 8pm and we were franctically moving about with all the regular stuffs - writing on the board, dharis, mike setting, fetching water bottles, the mridangams, and yeah the famous 'missed calls'. :) Vsp, was a testimony to the pea out of the pod - revising swarams and ragam, tension write large on her face. (no prizes for guessing). Nandy was her usual cool self. It was only now that we got to know that the theme of the concert was a collection of rare Thyagaraja Kritis. The duo started the concert with a brisk and effervescent pada varnam in ragam karaharapriya which set the right pace for the concert. Subsequently came "Seethalakshama Sahitam" in ragam Ataana. The slow pace of this kriti lent itself well to display the melody that this raga essentially stands for. This was followed up with a brilliant exposition in Pantuvarali - a heavy heavy ragam that is. Vsp's extended brighas and Nandy's well structured korvais blended very well - the fruit of the practice that had gone into it. Cheers to you guyz! :) This was Harihari Enukove. Swarams were really peppy and kept the audience well entertained, althought the 'periya swaram' met up to the standards of raag's list of 'periya swaram renditions'.:P The neraval too suited the song to a tee. With Kaushik on the mridangam doing the successive rounds of thani avardhanam, it was a definite treat to music buffs. Next came 'Undi Yemi' in ragam Yadukula Kamboji. The concluding piece of the concert was 'Lali Yuga' in KedaraGowlai. Well, most of these songs were first timers, and yeah, needless to say, the 'duo' really made quite an impression with it.

With the first half successfully coming to a close, it was time for an enthralling and captivating jugalbandhi. Sreevidya, myself, shravan and madhuji (mrigangist) took on the stage. Although the practice had gone quite well, the final day tensions can never be done away with. The concert started off with the eternal Kalyani varnam setting the mood for a pleasant evening. Next came "Sathapaalaya" in the mellifluous mohanam. It was supposed to be played at a slow pace, but with the kind of stress that we were under (:P), it seemed like we were on the racing track. Subsequent to this came the popular "vellai thaamarai" in Abheri. Well, some songs are made just for being played on an instrument and this definitely is one of them. The following piece was a folk tune - one of the long standing wishes of our beloved president Sirimatha (read Sreevidya). Thanks to Ganesh (pretty effortless for him though) we had a brilliant self composed folk tune in aanadhabhairavi. That done, with the audiences already in quite an awe, next came the effervescent classic "Karpaga valli" in Ragamalika. The concert concluded with the soothing Maitreem Bhajeta. Instrumental music definitely takes you to a different plane.

At last, we are done with one of the brilliant Raag performances. What comes next is pretty much obvious. Marathon snap sessions, appreciations from all quarters for the wonderful evening, and more importantly the smile in everyone's faces. At the end of it all, this is what we work for - to enjoy whatever we are doing. And without doubt, we can all say Mission Accomplished! :)

TAKE IT !!

2007-10-04T15:50:00.000+05:30

MALLARI -

VARNAM -

INSTRUMENTAL -

OMANA THINGAL -

SAAMI WAS WITH US :)

VFAST :D

T-Lawns - damaging ppl.. hehe!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (esp posting for public damage!! :P )

Sreevidya edhukku sac pora? The shikanji proposal ! Thathu and Gandhi statue – virichu combo! Ap lappings! Bipolar disorder! Kaushik “self-thuppals”, seeeeeeram ! seeeeevidhya! Seeee ! sriram escape ! Mummeeee, noooooo , I knowww (u do know !) yen yaaa – palli puyal point to point ( vsp )vetti sruthi potti a.k.a velu… displaced intertwining jadai … campus interview – yevan ya exam ezhutha ponan veetukku saman sekka ponen : OTMP! 4 lac job 4 rupees treat , myum-yum , rajini vs kamal – the fight continues … you hav got too good a cg for a job – u can go ! overqualified and unemployed , cow-shit , so how r u ? vanisar : sarivan : varisan : vansari : ******* ; holidays kottai day and nite out@kalpakkam alias kalappasu-paakam ; kaushik gaja gult fan – gory pants ; im very bored … so let me bore others too – radha swayamvaram ( hey choose me ! ) om om om om om ( vishaka hari ) ; jaggubai , job for 10k @ navy ; Vedanta ; sycho –‘ evan adicha … avan than thamizh , naan than’ porikki sorry pokiri fan , aan, Uh-Oh, Apee mock cat AIR- 21, ellarum sari la vantha it wud be fine J , adicchu , sriram to Ap : the Dey factor, sourie’s chellam, ‘luv u da’, cloud nine !, Nr escapism, RFC vetti enthu, qmech god ( ob ) , bits lernthu porathukkulla araloosu aayiduven, sriram vs thathu ,idly-ragging, teaching sessions, hols la swimming, shooolinii, sorrnakka, joint sec – ohh I see !, summing kalappas, tests topper, ommala crack, today summing guss, tulip J, book daughter, hardik – virichi kalappas, I am the PJ God, backdrop enthu, vamsi-kottai, shivakameshwari, cycle dubs , radha I smell something burn ;), vsp and vamsi gult combos, prateek hindi me boliye jee, keyboard comedies, mallari enthu, Deepak – silent kedi, thiruttu muzhi, I shall do, inikki test avlo nanna pannala – will get only 55!, aditya- give me the posters I shall put them, unanswerable qns, aakash-singapore settle, mia malhar, aastha- doll! Smile, gujju enthu, namratha – shravan tutor, VM better dan Ps : so what , runthru vs soru, AB scholar, 25 rupees/month scholarship! , madhu : god , fresher and senti semite ! , kumbakonam tales, Ranjani – Ganesh, gita perfection, folk music. Soumi.:Yo 2004, my own bodyguards shravan and hardhik, thathukutti - GRE CAT and JOB, other's vayitherichal, kaushik's water entry sequence janani janani janani...., 'ava mugathula oru tejas' ;) 'achuchoooo!! yezha podu', thadhar rocks anyday, 'I don't find the need to talk to girls', souppe semiconductors. Manojh: to sing, to learn, to have fun, to bond, Raag - the place to be, twice at BITS in twenty days - my second psenti sem, navarathri krithis - one of the best concerts and the preceding guys vs gals spat thala and thathule - best buddies, my 3-1 - Raag's transformation,CDCs ah electives ah - who cared.

NrithyaRanjani '07- yet another milestone!

2007-10-02T18:47:00.000+05:30

A purple skyline, the sound of falling rain and good music to soothe the nerves - the perfect October evening. We simply couldn't have had a better day to host NrithyaRanjani. The show went really well, but to cut it short here would be a gross injustice to the efforts that people put in and as we all know, beauty lies in savouring each and every moment, reliving the memories and revelling in the glorious time that we had.

The day started of with an air of frenzied activity. There were groups getting the dharis from Saini shop, groups buying rangoli and salt (instead of kolamav :P) from nuthan, some arranging cots and setting the stage, some working on brochures and acknowledgements and some being moral supporters. All this within a short span of 5 hours. One could find us in all places: back IC, front Audi, c'not, nuthan, Backstage, S9 and even Ganga stores. :D

6.00 pm, and along with it came the sparks of a tensed mind. Lots of things still had to be done - compering rehearsals, mike testing, setting the correct shruti for mridagam, dressing up and not to forget the lights people adding to the already burgeoning chaos on stage. Time flew in leaps and bounces. By the time, i could get my eyes on the watch again, it was 7 30. Another 15 minutes and our faces would be scorched by flood lights from all corners.

After the usual delays, the show started at 8 pm. This NR was a first to many things. One of them was a CCTV presentation. The fact that we did the whole movie work on our own makes it all the more exciting. Then came the backdrop opening. Solely sketched and painted by just three people (of course, art n dee had its share too), and that too two weeks ahead of the show is something of a feat. This NR was also the longest one, stretching for a whopping 2 hours from 8 to 10pm . Surely a test of endurance for the dancers, considering the fact that it was the first time on stage for 2 of them. Kudos to them!

The whole structure was divided into 2 parts with an instrumental ensemble filling the gap. We had pieces that bore the traditional Bharatnatyam style and ones that were exclusively Mohini Aatam styled. We also had a fusion piece that sought to bring these 2 dance forms into one.

The first piece was a traditional mallari, tuned in Gambheeranattai and set to Adi talam. With the guyz on the vocals, and all 4 dancers on stage, it set in the right mood for the upcoming pieces. Following this came Shivakameshwari in Ragam Kalyani set to Adi talam. Again done by the guyz group, this piece elucidated the splendour and magnificence of Shivakameshwari, the consort of Lord Shiva. Perfect coordination amongst the dancers. Pics would be uploaded soon.Then came the varnam, Taraka Brahmame, in Kapi ragam. This was essentially a sequential portrayal of significant events from the Ramayana - the Sita swayamvaram, redemption of Ahalya who was cursed to turn to a stone by her spouse Gautama, abduction of Sita and finally concluding with the battle between Rama and Ravana. Bp as Ravana did a wonderful job at that and Namratha perfectly suited the calm, composed role of Rama. Lights guys did a splendid job (substantial part of the credit goes to Hardik for the cues) and that had its effects on the audience too.

Next was something that we've never done before. It was time for the Geetha piece. Verses were taken from the geetha and each one set to a different raga in the style of a virutham ( you guyz need to hear them, it would be an insult to try to put into words the beauty of each composition). However, there was a lot of stage work before this could start. 4 guyz had to pull the cots apart on both the sides, one of us had to close the half screen (Gita happened only in the first half of the stage). The second half was being readied for the next piece, the instrumental ensemble. This done, the stage opened with bp (Lord krishna) and pd (Arjuna) riding into the battlefield. Vsp and Radha were the voices of Lord Krishna and Arjuna respectively accompanied by Ganesh on the violin.Suited the situation to a tee. Intially it portrayed the confused state of mind Arjuna was in ( With some great work on the mridangam, the dancers enacted the splitting of Arjuna;s mind into two - one that urges him to fight against his rivals and the other that refrains him because of the personal bondage). Throughout the piece, Krishna explains to Arjuna about the 4 yogas that leads to the attainment of salvation.This was depicted with the help of various stories from mythology - the story of AdiShankaracharya answering questions to Goddess Saraswati (Again some good work by the Lights guyz where they had to flicker the neons to depict the swapping of souls by shankaracharya in the story) , the story of Prahalada, etc. This piece concludes with Arjuna requesting Krishna to reveal his viswaroopam, which was again orchestrated by cleverly concieved shadow work. ( The stage lights from below were slowly titled at a constant rate so that bp's shadow grew to a huge size, signifying the grandiose and magnificence that the viswaroopam essentially is).

There concluded the first half of the concert and 1 hr was already gone. Then came the instrumental with fast paced phrases in brindavani, moving on to behag and then concluding with Kanada. The tabla and Mridangam only added glitter to the peppy number. However, the first few minutes of this was screwed by the sounds guyz with unfortunately feeble volume for the violin. Brilliant composition by Ganesh, and rendered equally well by nandy and ganesh himself.

The second half started with a solo Mohiniaatam piece by pd. Omanathingal set to Nilambari was a lullaby that brings out the unconditional love of a mother to her child. Pd's expressions were the main highlight. Then came the fusion dance piece that depicted the story of the demon basmasuran. This was also purely instrumental. It starts off with the demon asking a boon from Lord shiva that sought to turn anyone to ashes once he places his hand on their head. Shiva turns to lord Vishnu when the asura attempts to kill him. Then Vishnu incarnates as Mohini who entices the asura to place his hand on his own head. This was done by the clever interplay of the violin (folk music in bilahari for Mohini,) and the mridangam for the asura.

The finaly piece was an effervescent thillana in Madhuvanti and by the time it got over, the time was already 10 pm. Whoa! 2 hours of uninterrupted performance. You could see a thousand smiles on everyone's faces. Then the couple snaps, "yo '0x" snaps, funds like ps senior, B5 snaps, and what not. Of course, the V fast grub that followed. Then the temple lawns lacha until 1. A perfect ending to a perfect day.

The realization of a dream - a dream that we, on campus ppl, dreamt together- A testimony to the planning, the screw up sessions, the practices, the hard work, the expectation, the worry, the tension, the confidence - and more than everything, the learning. The gussed tests, sacrificed movies, missed c'not sessions- everything seemed insignificant. After all, it was but for this one day!

Marching ahead with the head held high, with the enormity of our success yet to sink in. Retiring into bed, with dreams sweet. NrithyaRanjani 2007 would be etched in our minds forever!

To the music, without which we would be dried souls.
To the enthu, without which there wud be no fun.
To Raag, for what it has given us!

Amen!

To everything thats gone by

2007-10-01T10:15:00.000+05:30

NR - 07. The backdrop. Kudos to all who worked on it. this is absolutely brilliant stuff. Guess we d still have those few ppl who would have preferred to not have the orange n yellow n black - but then; these colours do have their charm ! :D !

It feels terrible to be miles away knowing that all the activity is happening out there. The phone call yesterday - the one to guys on campus, followed by calls to soumi, n sessions online were jus too hard to take. Miss you guys.

am just posting some random pics here. These are definitely some of those things that i really really miss. Love you guys. Take care. Crack show.

dancers!!! - who is doing your eye make up??? :-S!!!!

That was Raag today! - Auditions :)

2007-08-11T10:21:00.000+05:30

2nd yearites - Sexy notice!

No. on roll : 15 and 4 more expected to re-audition
No. in : 7 IN :) as of now!

Come on guys

2007-05-07T16:41:00.000+05:30

As suggested by Roh, lets make the blog more discussion oriented (about music) than confining ourselves to reading only periodic posts. This is the first unconventional post on this blog. Well, I just came across the following page

http://allmyideas.blogspot.com/2005/07/cine-music-tag-contd.html

in which the author describes a number of carnatic ragas and tamil film songs based on each of them. Do check it out. It's actually a nice compilation though I find certain facts erroneous. Never the less, its just a good beginning to spark an interesting discussion. I know its compree time for you on-campus guys, but you too can join during your free hours and later on during the hols. People away from campus, you can very well contribute :)

Hope this spawns an interesting and informative discussion.

To my all....

2007-04-27T17:17:00.000+05:30

To auditions,to Parithaana-Bilahari,to Ambils and her alaap,to minks who gave me the result,to intro session, to Apu and his long hair,to the Original maestro Thadari,to Fresher's practice sesison,to Deepa and the thillana,to the pathetic first performance in ET, to an uneventful 1-1, to unknown seniors,to boredom,to the coming of the legends in 1-2,to Apu Loki Nimmy for the exuberence,to Jaggu and PTM,to TAP 'Practice', to Nimmy-the best teacher Raag has ever seen, to Nimmy and her boisterous voice,to Viswa's Sangamam,to the biggest dancer troupe Raag had, to Kalinganardhanam, to 32 times, to Thadar(junior) and NPK,to publicity rounds, to brainstorming, to Aala and her mind-blowing dance and the command,To O kuruvi Chittu Kuruvi,To Gomi and Ilayaraja Songs,to endless painting on charts,to ignorance,To Apu and jaundice,to Aala and her family,to Sangamam '04,to Midways,to Nimmy and Jaggu and the mime for 'chaaya chaaya' on the Bus, to nile nile ambar, to Apu and gen strumming on the Gat,to BITS Library Inaug,To Divs and KD,to the wonderful compositon, to Bharathi and the strings,to Katanakutoohalam,to enthu session in audi, to Loki and vellai pookaL,to Sankar and naatu sarakku,to Rajiv and Porna,to the first farewell,to Viswa and moon walk,to tears,to Rajiv and perfection,to Porna and meticulous mails,to Nivy Thadar and Manojh and the first-ever NR backddrop,to boring guys of my batch,to the collage,to Kutty for all the warmth,to discovering the dancer in Nivy, to nivy and alaipayuthey, to the coming of '04 batch,to Ramya and Ad Cal,to VSP and her innocence, to Kaushik and the silent-hitting,to Nithya and the flawless voice,to the farewell again,to the coming of Apu, Co-ord Sangamam '05,to chaos, to DW auditions, to Vaidehi's cake, to Enthu and Bujju, to occasional pop corns,to enthu session,to innovative backdrop, to thermocole instruments,to Ramana and dance poses,to Nivy painted Sitar,to Apu and KD and the instantaneous folk music, to Apu and rain effect,to Loki and his job at I think DSL, to sheer joy, to running down FD2, to Apu man-handling Loki, to Clutters and Clatters and Loki's wing,to Loki and desperate kadalai,Apu Nivy and F.R.I.E.N.D.S,to Chak and her bizarre ideas,to YB and the crazy enthu!,to Sangamam '05, to the marriage again, to Kaladhara- multilingual concert,to the farewell, to many tears, to many emotions, to the separation, to the wonderful batch of 2000, to the legends, to the names that cannot be forgotten, to two people Raag is indebted to,to Apu and Loki,to teh Psenti concert, to Naadaloludai,to Org Comm '06, to Manojh as joint-sec,to session at Jupup's house,to evolution of Ranjani,to auditions and disappointment, to worry and wrinles on the forehead,to BITSAT batch, to the very few freshers, to the kid AP,to the genius Ganesh, to the silent Swarna, to little known Barath,to a worried me and manojh,to the wonderful '04 batch, to their passion,to Rajiv for the support,the diary and endless maintenance of accounts,to the screw sessions,to Nivy and her strength,to Nrithya Ranjani,to !.!, to the instrumental composition,to Maathey, to Jaggu and the tongue-twsiters,to VSP and Orygamy,to Kutty and DW,to endless chats over gtalk about Raag,to birthday baked cakes, to gifts, to 'feeling wanted', to genuine love,to Kari and two jobs and unwanted scene,to Jaisalmer and camel rides,to sand dunes and tents,to Arjun and boring ghost stories, to Doss and spirit,to Rajiv and itenary mail,to Chak and her phone calls,to farewell,to more tears,to more seperation, to more praise for 2000 batch,to collage photo frame,to Psenti concert,to Rajiv and request-chits,to the coming of Sangamam '06, to meticulous planning by Org Comm '06, to TAP again,to Sahana ;),to a brillaint Inaug idea, to tiring composition sesison, to Sriram Ganesh VSP Ramya Ro, to Nivy and her brainwaves, to Ganesh- an absolute genius, to Chakravaaham,to Kaushik and the hunter-sequence,to all the pressure, to screwed up acads,to long nights,to Sangamam '06, to the awakening to this wonderful dream,to Ranjani - a beautiful dream,to Nandy and 'LONDON',to Radha and Sankarabharanam,to Roh and her wonderful voice, to 3 day TAP,to the 'Final Ranjani', to tears,to the end of '03 batch's togetherness, to the Psenti concert,to Manojh and Sankar,to Dehradoon and river rafting,to Sankar taking over Kari with the humor,to Org Comm'07,to Sankar and Nivy,to the farewell, more tears,to the ending of the year, to the easened shoulders,to feeling light, to feeling proud, to feeling satisfied, to Sriram and VSP,to the hols, to spons hunt, to meeting at Nivy's house, to Sankar and artiste booking,to Nivy and unbelievable planning,to Samisana and the eventful summer ;),to t shirts and kamal ji, to coming of 4-1,to Sriram and punctuality, to VSP and endurance, to Auditions, to more gloom, to sullen faces, to Hindustani music! , to Shravan Hardik Prateek Vamsi and Roopa!, to wonderful juniors,to brillaint t shirt sales,to NrithyaRanjani, to Tharangam,to Manojh and psentisem,to Khetri,to archana and trekking enthu,to psenti concert, to Shyamala and singing,to farewell, to sullen faces, to coming of 4-2, to the hope of Sangamam '07, to the fear, to the tension, to TAP, to G and TAP sessions, to brilliant turnout for TAP,to BP and Nivy for choreo, to Radha and Aaye Giridhar,to Sankar and the vritham,to Arjun and CG: 10,to Jupup and Juptronics, to Subha and erumai,to Sangamam '07,to Manojh and his mere presence,to Nive and the tickets, to Ramana and unmaterialised VT, yo Shyamu and phone calls ,to all the planning and chartwork, to colorful printed posters, to huge turn out,to see the dream come true,to gratitude, to happiness, to sentiments,to 'brown' saree,to enthu sessions, to Samisana and kozha adi,to Simla, to Rishi and pattikaadu, to endless hogging,to mega shopping,to Shravan and Sangeetha, to Hardik and the bike,to Manojh and the enthusiasm, to Sankar and his craziness, to Arjun and 'kalapaasu',to VSP and assignment,to all the humor fun wit love affection care sarcasm temper fights ,to SAC cafe meet ups,to temple lawns lachcha,to farwell, to not wnating to be there,to good food,to brilliant gifts, to bitching sessions,to orygamy and flowers,to beautiful juniors, to raag-the family,to AP and Swarna, to psenti speeches, to hardly any psenti,to the end of it all,to Manojh and the support, to Shyamu and the love, to Nive and the child in her, to Ramana and her sanity,to Doss and the silence, to Rao and the talent,to Subha and her innocence, to Samisena and her audacity,to Arjun and the humor, to thadar and the insanity,to to be kicked out with a farwell,to the feeling yet to sink in, to Raag that has seen me all, to Raag that has seen my fallacies, to Raag where I lived every moment, to all the love and affection,to Raag- the happy family,to Raag for Nivy and Jupup.

Signing Off
Soumithra Ramesh
My id no is 2003B3A6649
I play the Veena in the Club
I've been learning from blah blah ... :D

The Pink and white flower

2007-04-27T14:10:00.000+05:30

A flower of beauty it was
uncalled(for), t'was for your 'dieu;
beauty bestowed by its god
on'e who we call vespers
the nectar was in it too;
a cocktail of love of the pink
the spirits of Rag's treasures
so much so, for much essence
call it a new breed of rose not untrue.

Farewell..

2007-04-24T04:47:00.000+05:30

Raag's Treasure!

The PsentiSemites!

The cutest flowers ever!

Sec - Jt Sec!

;)

Thank You!

2007-04-23T01:25:00.000+05:30

This blog goes out on behalf of all of us psenti semites who've had the BEST times of our bitsian lives by literally livng in the club 24 * 7. I know all of us have been thru this sentence many million times today in a span of five hours neverthe less, I still feel like mentioning it one last time, amidst a larger group.... more so a group thats been thru this in the previous years around the same time of the semester.

Raag's been the place where we've grown into what we are today, and many of the lessons that we've learnt from the people we met and interacted with at raag, n raag itself thru its activities and discussions have been lessons that we will cheerish the most and will carry with us as distinct memories for many years to come.

As a batch, we feel proud, at this moment for 2 things.

One to have seen the transition from what it was in our first year to what it is now. Needless to say that the 2000 batch , 2001 batches got special mention like every other farewell this time too. Likewise, we know deep down inside that in many farewells to come there will be the open secret of 'soumi-manojh sec jt sec ship' in all representing 2003 batch that initiated a change.

Second, to leave behind raag with the best members the club has ever had. deserving n dedicated. Yo 2004! :)

It was an absolutely wonderful farewell. The write ups had a personal connection. All of em. We were smiling, rejoicing, and enjoying every happy moment. The fact that there was Hardly any psenti today was perhaps cos the farewell was to early in the season. But we bet, this has been the best we've seen in our four years here. The cutest of gifts. The happiest of memories. The latter in itself makes farewell a happy occasion :)

Thank you all so much.
We love you.
3 cheers to another great year of sec jt sec ship!
3 cheers to 2000, 2001 batches
3 cheers to "yo 2004"
3 cheers to the invite makers
3 cheers to my dear batchmates
3 cheers to AP n Swarna, n loads of luck too.
3 cheers to ORG COMM 08. we ll make sure we are off campus co ordinators ourselves!

Rag-!

2007-04-19T15:15:00.000+05:30

“Here’s to you guys”

“There are certain things that can be defined, but certain things needn’t be”. Well, don’t even try to extrapolate to find out as to what could be the possible ‘relevance’ to the post that follows. It’s just a flash of thought. :)

Read on…

I’ve always believed in the power of the pen coz it kinda brings out what exactly is running on my head. Well, I’ve had a quite a long, inevitably ‘sunny’ Sunday. A concert in the morning ( ‘Swaralaya’ – Raag’s ode to ‘varnams’), some ‘blah’ presentation that kept getting rescheduled and goddd finally its DONE.!!! Here I am sitting on my bed, penning down my thoughts…pretty obviously the ‘best’ part of the day. :)

I’m not quite going to delve into vivid technical details about the concert. A very typical ‘Raag’ show – studded with not many audiences (lets jus call them the ‘lucky few’! – includes the diro – Dr.LKM tho’), our ‘usual’ hiccups with ppl forgetting to get the Sruthi box, our ‘usual’ high points in the show with the choice of Raagams, the ‘usual’ bloopers too, the ‘usual’ SEC-talk, the ‘usual’ snap sessions and the ‘usual’ lunching a Cnot after that. Indeed, I might as well describe the concert quickly. We had a rich blend of all kinds of varnams – Adi thaalam, Ada thaaalam, Pada Varnams n all that – favorite would be ‘ Reethigowlai’ though (yeah yeah yeah…am ‘group-obsessed’ – pretty obviously my ‘group’ sang that song!). Yeah, let me add more to the list – Charukesi, Valachi and Sahana too. :) The concluding piece of the concert was a Hindustani Song sung by a ‘first-yearite’ (Prateek) in the club. To sum it up, ‘twas the only ‘good’ part of my day. :)

All said and done then there is this sudden realization that dawned on me and trust me it almost shook me. Ah! All those ‘usual’ things that I just wrote about aint going to be all the ‘usual’ and ‘same’ anymore. These are probably certain times when you desperately ‘wish’ for ‘change to NOT be the constant thing in life’!It suddenly occurred to me that ‘twas indeed the ‘last’ concert of this eventful semester. Such ‘final’ /’last’ things make me retrospect, analyze and think about the past and carries a lot of meaning to me. It brings with it memories of the past and promises of the years to come.

First things first, I’d like to raise a ‘toast’ (virtually-ob!) to the ‘SEC’ and ‘JOINT SEC’. This is not some ‘feel-good’ gesture, but I really mean it. Well, we’ve had our own share of ‘lean phases’ this year, but then the very fact that we’ve come out of it flourishing only goes to show their potential, dedication, sincerity and passion.

Sriram- he’s just been there be it what!! That would just about sum up everything. His wise-cracks, musical brilliance, impatience, temper, joy, anguish- we’ve just seen it all in ‘Rag’. The man has jus put in his ‘200%’ for the club. Rock on ‘SEC’!!!

ViSPP – Godd, she’s been quite a ‘pendulum’ with ‘n-degrees of freedom’, swindling between a million things to do. This ‘adorable’ being has been what she’s always been in the club – an embodiment of sincerity, amazingly level-headed and perfectly keeping up with the SEC. Nothing quite happens without an approving nod from her. :)

We love you guys (yeah, we MEAN IT!)!!

Here’s to you guys.

Secondly, the fact that the ’03 batch’ falls into the genre of ‘senti-semites’ aint any encouraging. Common, we’ve been pampered, nurtured and motivated by them. Atleast, the previous sem, we always had this sem to look up to a lot more of known faces who were getting back to campus. Damn!! All this makes me feel so bloody OLD!! We’ve always adored you guys, we still learn a lot of things from your batch. ROCK ON!!!

Here’s to your batch!!!

All said and done, it also strikes me that, almost half my batch isn’t going to be ON next sem and that’s what I’d call ‘unfair’!! We’re so used to being and doing things in the club having each other around that it is just about ‘hard’ to imagine things the next sem. I can’t claim to ‘know’ every one of them, but then, most certainly we’ve only had great times making music together.

Here’s to everyone in my batch!

Well, I do realize, I’ve been emotional, sentimental and retrospective, things that I’m usually not at least in an open forum, in this post, but then what the heck! But then again, we’ve got to pull our feet and keep moving and wait for the road to see people walking together, making music and rejoicing it. Yet, things wouldn’t be the same and that would have to be the hard truth!

Here’s to all you guys!

Here’s to music!

TRIP !!

2007-04-13T23:30:00.000+05:30

People, in the first place, sorry for a very late update. Here it goes:

14 of us, highly enthued about the trip to Shimla and Kulu-manali; out of which 8 of them formed the orgcom07! That was indeed nice to have manojh too :) We had too sumos - 7+7!

23rd night: Phew! It flew over with people cracking jokes throughout the entire journey and of course few "enthued" people shuttling between the 2 cars to keep everyone alive.

The 24th: We reached shimla around 10 in the morning and after refreshing ourselves, we went down the hill to reach the northern railways canteen and had a sumptuous breakfast. Once done, we got back to our cars and drove to this place called Kufri - Famous for mule rides to reach the snow. But yeah, as majority of us were slihgtly psyched by the maintanance, we had climb up the hill. Went into the Shimla National Park and had awsome fun. Few of us went to down a narrow streaky pathway and compassed the snowy places - where in this video called "pudhu vellai mazhai" from roja was shot, with screening artists Soumi and Sankar (Pattikadu and Rishi). And we found out this new technique of singing specific ragas to specific animals and hence bring them out of their cages, courtesy Sankar. The park fun got over with a small chat lunch in the nearby redi. We got back to our rooms and quickly left to "THE MALL ROAD". As the name says it is famous for shopping. It is on the top of a hill and we had to reach it with the help of elevators. Had funky "saravana bavan" oriented southindian food in "Nalini" restaurant ;) Did few shopping here and there and started walking (again) to the hotel as the elevators were closed half past 10. After taking a while's rest we ran million miles (an exaggeration thouhg) to reach manali the next morning.

The 25th: Booked rooms in the hotel and yay! yay! the snowy day! On our way to Solang valley we haulted to wear on our jackets, gloves and shoes. And now - THE snow! Traced the path to find that sexy place. We spent almost the entire day there. Almost enervated, we reached our cars by mules! Then yeah, the dinner time - Madras cafe :D after which ppl did shopping and everyone well settled in one room to play "customs"!!!

The 26th: After breakfast we left to this temple called "Hadimba". A cute temple; looked like it was submerged in snow. After some gaala time here and there, we went to a Budhist Monastry. Meanwhile, few of us went boating too.By then, the time was well set for lunch. Of course! Madras cafe again :D All packed up our bags and bid a big adieu to manali. One car had to leave Manojh and hence went to delhi. The other one, with atmost difficulty, numerous punctures, somehow reached pilani safe the next day. There ends this short sweet trip.

Memories will stay green forever.

SANGAMAM '07

2007-03-03T15:28:00.000+05:30

Well, a long time absence. N now incredibly vetti – so am back to what I used to do all the time in my third year.

SANGAMAM ’07 has come n gone now – but it defnly has been the most happening sangamam of all ages. Well to top the list – we had the change in prof incharge like 4 days before sangamam. Following that was a loan procedure that had the org comm waiting endlessly in front of prof cubes and getting blasted by all.

But in anycase, things were largely smooth. Sangamam inaug was the most perfect presentation in all that I ve seen thus far. Pracs sessions were terribly smooth. Tickets and t shirts sales rocked like last yeara and semester respectively.

N all the three concerts were super awesome!

TVS, Despite all the money issues with him – the concert was awesome.

Ravi Kiran n Pravin Godkhindi – were brilliant. It was the first time that we had seen such an interactive n appreciative audience staying till the end of the concert n thoroughly enjoying it. This was the biggest hit of the 3 concerts.

The ballet – had mixed reviews from the audience side – cos it was not a very conventional bharathanatyam ballet. This was typical of the anita ratnam types – with more of style n modern thought. But was brilliant – and 5 dancers on stage looked bful. N more than anything – this LARGE gumball – were the easiest to tackle. They were all real sweet – n had actually gotten RAAG sweets from Hyderabad!

Well, most imp mention – to manojh. Such a sey surprise it was. Friday moning – n some of us were jus recollecting happy images from a previous sangamam about surprise visits and entering audi – n we found manojh. Sexy surprise it was – and absolutely completed the festive feeling! A million thanks da!

Aprom enna, after sangamam got done with – we had one more day together. From morning till night. There was cleaning session, dhaba, proj presentations, mela and cnot and surprise at SAC and a bye bye.

It was Brilliant.

SANGAMAM '07

2007-02-28T14:19:00.000+05:30

DAY 1 :

DAY 2 :

DAY 3 :

DAY 4 :D

RUN THRU:

SAMARPANAM +TAP

2007-02-28T14:10:00.000+05:30

PSENTI CONCERT + RAG ROOM SNAPS

2006-12-05T18:55:00.000+05:30

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL !

2006-11-27T13:43:00.000+05:30

PROCESS 1 - YUMMY CHOCOLATE CAKE

PROCESS 2 ~ WRITE UP ~

PROCESS 3 - GIFTS !!!!

OFFICIAL MOMENTO (READ AND FIND THE FUNDA)

PERSONALIZED GIFTS

THE GATHERING

AN ODE TO OUR BELOVED SENIORS :)

SAC it - ROOM NO. 8 :)

2006-11-26T14:15:00.000+05:30

NAVARATHRI KRITHIS

2006-11-19T09:52:00.000+05:30

GROUP 1 :

THE 'MAAMAVA' GROUP:

THE 'PAAHI' GROUP:

WITH PADMA MAM :)

TRIP TO KHETRI :)

2006-11-19T09:45:00.000+05:30

KHETRI TRIP!!
Three –one without a raag trip ?!! ohh c’mon!! chanceless !
Long wanting to go to a nice ,smashing trip….we planned planned planned,I think since the beginning of the sem if iam not wrong…. ..with a preponderance of club activities in the and,this sem-say,fresher’s,NR,this-that association performance,vadhya vrindha,founder;s day performance n all tat where we cunt have possibly squeezed in a ‘raag-trip’ anywhere in the schedule……. finally realizing that 3-1 is almost gonna get over,the long inert plan of goin to a trip spotlit!!

A quick word on the retrospects of the trip plan:

Situation : ‘twas respected sec’s bday !
location : QT

After the bday celebrations n all tat …..the discussions tat followed,And then,wen to go(tests irukkakoodadhu !!),yaar yaarlam varel (if no is too less,then plan is highly likely to get gussed !!),psenti semites shud defntly come, coaxing n cajoling them into the trip plan saying psenti things like “hey itz ur psenti sem da ,see we r gonna miss u guys ,u shud defnty come” n all tat(if there is something that wud make the psenti semites maudlin and bathetic about,it can be only the ‘psenti’ sem issue), and the rest of ;em persuading the batchmates to come saying “hey hey neeyu vaaa plzzzzzz dono if I’ll be 3-1 on or 3-2 on” FINALLY !! after cerebrating too much on which day to go n all tat we fixed up everything and all set!!Ok ! ok ! I can see you guys getting impatient…….

Fine,letz not waste time and quickly get to the details of the trip !!

After filling our bellies in ptm grub,we reached ANC,n waited for ppl to get together….

Sweaters,shoes,socks,scarfs,Water bottles,lays,torches,most important of all---the logs,match box(bonfire matter !!) n we decided to get diesel on our way………all set,ready,GO!!!

Now we get into the bus of gajraaj travels,around 10.30 pm,10:11 guys-gals ratio,inspite of all the never go in gajraaj travels :he is worssshhht ! kinda gtalk status msgs by our honorable sec srirama !All the 21 erupted into an immdly enthused gang and started with the usual Anthaakshari game…..for the rest of the 2 hrs we were all full of rough and exuberant animal
spirits singing and dancing and jollification--> I leave it to your imagination,for there are other more interesting things which require special mentioning and detailing,so letz not spend much time on all of it……so finally we reached the foot of khetri :)

A nice moonlit night,we cud have rather not brought our torches ! it was soo bright !no spooky feeling ! no eeriness around ! worsht part, we soo badly wanted that spooky,ghostly feeling u see ! we then decided to walk in pairs,but it never happened,we jus proceeded in a Sloppy,disorderly way putting latcha here n there,exchanging groups and trying to click snaps
in vain,for it was dark ,we cunt possibly focus anything in the dark.we tried clicking the other ppl,but the flash was too burnishing,we almost closed our eyes in all the snaps L We were feeling slightly warm as we walked high on the hair-pin bends and the jalebi roads,singing songs like ‘hips don lie’ of shakira and walking away of craig david ……..we got tired as we reached the focal point of the king’s fort and a round-about route which led to the queens fort.we got slightly tired n hungry here……

King’s fort or queen’s fort ? big debate!

Well ... I (nandhitha) would like to take over the job of blogging :) Yaa, as radha said, we were actually contemplating as to which path to take. Ppl who had already visited this place were quite confident in heading us to the right track that King's fort was the right option. But reaching King's fort will just take an HR ! And we wanted to spend the whole nite lollygaging the entire empire. So we took the other path shooting the queen's fort. That was a beeline with the walls giving the most direct route to the fort, I must say. Hmmmm... Queen's fort was all ruined and desolated. Having got an abstract of the place, we got back to the same, familiar path. But.. on the way to King's fort, we were lost and we got divided into two groups which was left unnoticed. Ooops! we realised it say some five minutes later and then... sms, calls, shouts...errrrrr... there was no signal then.. But surprisingly, Kau's BSNL helped u see :P Then, few from grp2 (which was not on the right track) went to grp1 (who were waiting for grp2).. Having found out the route to get back to the safe hands(grp1 here) , grp2 started lapsing down and finally it became grp1+grp2 :)

Few more minutes to reach the King's fort and we were there. The fort paved us to the outdoor area or the terrace which was glooming with the moonlite..We started off with campfire, lacha, Doss's spirit game, 5 diff flavored Lays packets, songs.... and blah ! The fire meant for warmth is the BEST part. Actually, we dint know how to start about lighting it. We were generally pouring fuel over it and then threw the matches. But that worked only for few seconds as the wood was damp and that it was only the fuel that was literally burning and not the wood. However, we gave it a second thot and acted smart by blowing, shooing with newspapers, etc... such that the wood could reach its ignition temparature so as to start burning. Jaggu baai was jaunty enuf to take small twigs left aside to add on to the fire :) Well .. Thats all about it.

Moving on to the next scenario, the spirit game! hehehe.. few ppl started running out from the place and few were actualy interested in knowing abt it and few others dozzed off happily. Kau and Radhe were the first to go about it after Doss's instruction..then sriram..then shyamala... all saying "Spirit please come spirit please come" !!!! Well... nothing actually came.. but the ppl who did it says that they felt something out of their senses.

That night was brilliant :) We had nice fun. Around 5am few from the grp left to investigate more about Queen's fort. People had test the next day and we had to wind off soon. HAA .. we got down the hill in some 15minutes time...jogging, walking fast.. had kitkat, water... all set to leave to our rooms and take rest :) Body pains persisted for the next 2-3 days. Things were set right by catching hold of Moov and Axe oil... Phew !

KHETRI - SNAPS

2006-11-06T08:14:00.000+05:30

BUS - ANTHAKSHARI :)

ON THE WAY - 12:36 a.m.

DOSS - SPIRIT - BOOOO :P

CAMPFIRE - YAY!!!

OUR CHOUKI :P

' DOUBLE TREAT ' ...

2006-11-03T14:47:00.000+05:30

‘‘Ragamalika welcomes one and all to VAADHYA VRINDHA-2. We have Nanditha Santhosh and Srividhya Doss on the Veena and Kaushik Parasuram on the Mrindangam’’-Time is ticking…and pretty fast too. Not too long before did I jus mention about the ‘Vaadhya Vrindha-1’ . Whoa! Here goes yet another round of updates. Read on…

The typical ‘scene’ in ET with people running around for ‘bed-sheets’, water bottles and standing outside vehemently giving missed calls – yeah, we know its concert time! Grin! The concert ended up making my evening pleasant and peaceful apart from ‘musical’. Ah!! Systematic practice sessions and splendid song selection only added more charm to the performance.

To get into more vivid details, here goes…A peppy, brisk rendition of ‘Sriranjani varnam’ as a concert opener was just about perfect. Subsequent to come was ‘Mahaganapathim’ and then yeah, my favorite in the concert – ‘Raghunayaka’! ( beauty of Hamsadwani afterall..!!) – sounded really appealing and the ‘alternating’ (duo concert mind you!) swarams kinda sounded professional and peppy. Next on stage – the ‘main’ piece- ‘Kamakshi Kamakoti’ in ‘simmendhramadhyamam’. A heavy raagam that it is…the kind of efforts that the ‘duo’ should have put in…my godd! The ‘alapanai’ did definitely bring out the nuances and elegance of the raagam. Whoa!! Cheers buddies!!! The ‘kalpanaswaram’ kinda went on to supplement the song to a great extent. Yeah..the ‘alternating effect’ too. J And..yeah, ‘thani avardhanam’ just about an icing on the cake with Kaushik absolutely rejoicing whatever he was playing. (all of us too!). If I havn’t mentioned this yet, here it is – the ‘mrindangam’ was absolutely in harmony and perfectly synchronised with the veena, and the ‘special effects’ at times – lovely, lovely!
A thyagaraja krithi in ‘Brindavana saranga’ was the next to come which was followed by the ‘english note’ by ‘mani iyer’ ..think I was practically swaying to the tunes. Grin!
Concluding note – a bhajan in mohanam.

Marathon snap sessions, loud laughter in air, quick-analysis of the things tht didn’t go the way the performers wanted, ‘sec-talk’, missing ‘rag room’ key (ok its been found also now!)—well, you know what I am talking about – post-concert activities.

Wow! 45mins of soothing music, peace and pleasure for a good number of audience. Everything apart, such a delight to see cheerful, confidant faces thoroughly loving what they are doing. Beaming smile!!

Here’s to the attempt of ‘vaadhya vrindha’! Hoping there’s more of it next semester.
Here’s to music!!!

And, I’d sign off on that note.

TWOSOME AWESOME !!

2006-10-14T07:50:00.000+05:30

Okay guys!! Welcome aboard to the duo concert!!

Vividhya,a point-in-time excogitation by the duo,gotten inspired by the antecedently happened “veena ranjani” by the soumi-srividhya duette concert,inspirited the crowd at the end of a tiring day!!!

The duo head-started the concert with the kaanada varnam,embellished with the exceptionally edifying chittai swarams and mukthayi swarams,exploding brigaas and elucidating saahithyam!! Kinda perfect start….actuating and eliciting the audiences with a brilliant experience ( more to come,you see ……… !!)and then the mellisonent mohana kalyani piece-siddhi vinayagam,with two equally mellifluous voices delighted the audiences………
Soon the duo started drawing crowd……….wingies,friends,profs,some surprising crowd from boys bhawan……. Two cute gals singing you see !!(wink!!)vsp’s mom and dad had also graced us with their presence,hmm hmm…….an inordinately large crowd though !!

Here comes the ‘seethamma maayamma’ in the rigorous and cogent pace of the vasantha educing the resplendence and the glory of ‘seetha’.Appending more beaut to the song is the pattern of the swaram with the kinda jockeying effect wherein u have the hop-skips in the ascension and declension of the swaram,an awe-inspiring jugalbhandhi!……..orey vocal chord fight dhan machee!!!kudos ganesh !! I would be remiss in my duty if I don mention the intensifying effect of the mridhangam that enhanced tempi of the swaram……………orey sirippu vera thaangala rendu perukkum !!the two gals flashing a cute lil smile here and there exchanging glances,their nice brilliant rapport, adding gusto to the concert !!

Hehee,the next piece is one of the fav of padma ma’am’s pupils……………the uncanny flavour of the raagam-poornalalitha,a quite rare compositon of thyagaraaja,is on anjaneyar,ahem……this song specially goes out to all the anjaneyar fans ……!!!!!
For the kinda mukhari mixed gaanamoorthe blend tat it had ( as anuraagini calls it …….mubbula irukkara maadhiri ,hehe…….. ) imparting exotic effect in the ambience……..was a good hit too !

The main piece !!!!

Poorvikalyani……….ahem……..i would warn u guys to tighten the seat belts at this juncture….for the kinda ostensibly slow paced rendu kala choukka start-off of at the inception of the song and the kinda pace that instigates the audiences towards the denouement,with a resplendent pattern of swaram,and the unexpected splendid changes in the pattern of the jathi of the mridangam symphonically orchestrating to the rhythm of the song,authenticating the expertise of jaggu here,astounding motifs of jathi!kowtow jaggu !!! Escalating the already heightened spirits of the audiences sitting in ET,with a surprisingly large crowd(I told,u !!!)the duo,entertained us all with an enlightening experience of poorvikalyani, transcending the whole crowd to the mesmerizing world of music,leaving behind a dubiety and ambiguity as to if its really some kinda music gods exchanging talks in poorvikalyani medium,I would say the duette were in their full form!!!not to mention the cognitive skilfullness of jaggu!!!ohh my!! what detonating jathis with the kinda a one-lakh wala cracker exploding effect!! Deepavali vera varudhonno innu one week la ………adhe nyabagam polarku jaggu ku !leaving the crowd spell-bound to digest the brilliance of the impact created herewith.

Much awaited ‘arupadai veedu’ song of the day!! Duo,sriram,myself and most of the raagamalikans exchanging glances here n there ………a nice combo of raagamalika,not to mention again the brilliance of jaggu and ganesh here !

The penultimate piece of the concert ,govardhana giridhari with a soothing darbhari kaanada added refreshment to the already poorvikalyani-refreshed minds of the crowd.orey HEAVY refreshment dhan inniki ! adikkadi ipdi yaaravadhu paadindrundha ……..”I wanna break freeeeeeee from the tut and tests and reports and submissions and deadlines.” Makkal can take a break and come over to the raag concerts,rejuvenate and get back to work , u see !

The final resplendent revathi thillana is the kinda perfect utopian concluding piece I would say for any concert.Again, jaggu’s cracker effect of the jathi’s…….we were kinda having a mini diwali experience here……..heehee…i was tempted to doubt if Nandi god,on the spur of the moment has incarnated in jaggu and playing the mridangam or something!!!!ohh my ! astounding experience!!!asperity and the severity of the raagam,depicting the sternness and the crux of the song.

Finally !!!!!!! concert is over …..phew!! wat a brilliant concert man!!
Sriram imparting his SEC- advices to the club makkal….. “so we all understand that practice makes man perfect…….,adhanale next concert lendhu idhemaadhiri practice venum,dedication venum, !!”PPL……CAN U SMELL RAJIV NOSTALGIA IN THE AIR?hehee…I can !!
We then headed to c;’not ………orey MNB’s yellarum!! courtesy-jaggu !!we then took leave of jaggu and other boys.

The concert was an amazing hit because of the enormous dedication and the tremendous effort that the two put in,ganesh’s swaram’s ofcourse!and jaggu’s apropros presence on campus !!!
THE DAY!!! for the duo,of the duo,by the duo!!

NR Snaps upload

2006-10-08T10:45:00.000+05:30

VFAST - ECSTACY :

POSE 1 :

PLATE DANCE : THARANGAM

PD - CUTE:

NR POTER + BACKDROP:

MEERA BHAI:

THE ENSEMBLE:

POSE 2 :

GAALA TIMES:

NR - 2006

2006-10-08T00:56:00.000+05:30

Saraswathi pooja went on well. Vishnu sahasranaamam,
kandhasasthi kavasam and few more shlokas were recited after
which, many of us went to VK redi and had our psetisemite to
open an account and treat us all :D Gen trippings and leg
pullings were happening then. After lunching all of us were
there in audi on dot at 2 for the 1st run through :) Not
much effort actually, as everything did go in a smooth
track. Again after dinnering 2nd runthru at 8. Btw.. Nivy,
thanks for the one card u had sent us wishing good luck for
NR :)

okay..Guess wat? There was PRESIDENT CALL at 9! Heyy..
there was shyamala with 2 cakes, just blowing out of the
water!! Yummy it was..Thanks shyamu :) The run thru
apparently got over before 11 and the non-dancers
volunteered to 'dance', rather we were fictitiously trying
to show off our expertise.. hehehe.. Dance poses from NR
songs.. few of us were actually 'OB' adichifying ;)

The clock struck 11 and we were IN to the enthu session..
C'mon... we shldnt waste our late nite perms u see...
**WINK!!!**'
'Ayaarettu naatukattai' followed by 'thirunalveli alwada'
and some more of Dapaankuthus. We had total fun then.
Meanwhile, Rao entertained us with one kind-a kuchipudi . She had
2 vessels filled with water and danced, by having them over her
head. Perfect balance and silence indeed as we were watching the
dance with wide eyes and mouths openAnd then came the game of Mafias. Our moderator was Niveramesh and we were enjoying the game..
few had their eyes half closed - half open, which was against the rule of the game ;) Well.. that apart, whoever knows this game will appreciate the scene of killing the Oracle -Mr.Manojh.. and luckily the mafias won!
That is it ! It was time for the gals to wind up and so we did the same.

The next day morning was hajaar vetti, just that we learnt a
new song from Padma Mam in the afti. The evening was packed
again with run through(s), wherein sound check was also
done. This was the first time for few of us on stage to
check the sounds and it was really a nice experience. End of
the day everyone of us was tired and throats were also
slightly off scaled. So, the songs were taken down in pitch,
amplitude, frequency and wat not!

aaaaah... The Backdrop:
Lord Natraja's silhouette outshapened by Proff.A.K.Sarkar's
daughter was made from thermocol piece. And luckily
backstage had a blue cloth to fit in the background and the
entire thing came out well.

Moving on to the NR FRONT - CRACKING SHOW!
The programe started at 8:10pm with an instrumental
piece(2veenai+4violins+1mirdhangam). 'Sounds' people could
have actually set up a better scene then. But despite the
fact that Sounds tended towards negativity, 'we the people'
of rag did cast a good show, which is a very obvious one.
Shree Mahaganapathe and Naatakurinji varnam succeeded the
instrument piece. The varnam depicted the story of gajendra
moksham and Dhropathi, which were one among the hit ones of
the night's programe. Next was Ashtapathi, wherein PD's
expressions were well defined and they still stay serene in
our minds. Good work BP and PD :) YO 2004 uh? ;) The crux of the depiction here was Gopika decorates herself, waits for krishna and dreams. Well, I cannot miss out on the tharangam. Shyamu and Rao- kudos to u guys. First time in Rag a kuchipudi dance piece was recited. The jathi by ramana -> indeed tongue twisters and machaan urs was brilliant on stage da :) This piece was followed by shivaashtakam.

This time, Meera bajan was yet another attracting piece and
it gave chance to tabla players too. Story of Mahishaasura
mardhini was depicted in Shree kamalaambike song. The
programe came to and end with thillana in ragam Behag and
mangalam. Pretty good show and it does feel much better to
get a good audience response. All of us pushed to VFAST and
got a belly filling treat from dear psentisemites. Thank you
darlings. Huh! That was a long, extended and successful weekend.

Vaadhya Vrindha - Part1

2006-10-01T01:12:00.000+05:30

There is no projection, nothing deceitful or hypothetical here. The words are gonna come right away from the bottom of my heart. Volumes can be talked about the dedication with respect to learning and practicing. The gals really need a word of appreciation for the sincerity. The mail (on-campus one!) was sent on august 8th 2k6 listing all the songs along with the groups alloted. Practice for veenai ranjini, rechristend VAADHYA VRINDHA, started on 9th aug :)

Its right time ..6 veena players in the club...No individualism and hence comes the effect of 'Share knowledge Share music' one liner. Both soumi and srividya learnt as many songs possible. And thanks to Ganesh for his timely help on ragam-swaram for Brocheva in kamas. Hehehe..small effort from my side too, wherein i taught Raghuvamsa in Kadhanakudhoogalam . On the outset was vasantha varnam, gajavadhana, Paridhaana and a sai Bajan.

Here comes the Violin execution! - Sriram's solo performance. Indeed a talented hand, castling over the chota fret, was pleasant to the ears. Naadhopasana, marivere and the part1 was brought to an end with a thilaana in ragam sindhubairavi, composed by our fellow clubber - Ganesh. Great job man!

Choreo perfect and now, NR run through is at the scene of action. The initial practice sessions were good, despite test1 series,CDCs,on time... blah!!!Today the 1st run thru in 2214 was much better, one must say. Time and again the routine follows: cam clicks, timing the songs, songs correction, dance pose corrections, e.t.c. Well, special mention needed about the people forming the publicity team. VSP(the brainstormer),Radhe, Srividya,Hardhik, vamshi, prathik..rest of you guys involved, Seriously the notices rock! Their snaps will be up in the next post.And this time the invite was very cute. It was 3 folded with a dancer and the songs list on either side. Credit goes to the brainstormer again Grin! :)

Follow up: Saraswathi poojai, Vijayadasami[Padma Mam's house:)], Audi slots - 4 runthrus scheduled and finally the much awaited "Nrithya Ranjini" o

September 16th – ‘Aha!’

2006-09-22T14:21:00.000+05:30

Almost a usual lazy Saturday –sleeping real late the previous day, day opening with a first hour tut (that inevitably has to go bad!...oops the CDC syndrome!), the usual running around with classes throughout the day, yeah …blah, blah, blah! Okk, I guess am not doing the reporter’s task quite right…reads like one of my diary entries. Wink!

Basically, it bottles down to the fact that, the evening with ‘Rag’ on the 16th of September was more than a welcome relief.

The program being scheduled at half past 6, all of us were there ‘ages’ before that …doing the usual rounds of ‘soundzz checking’ and most obviously shrieking curses at those guys for being their usual best. Wink! Given the fact that we didn’t have too much of practice, owing to NR practices that have been happening in full swing, most of us were around with ‘paper bits’ humming tunes to ourselves. Well, I was vehemently trying to get the sequence in ‘Endaro’ right. Grin! Well, the prelude to the ‘event’ was quite dragging, thanks to an exceedingly long video that was screened. Bah!

Yeah…we had two songs for the dancers – ‘Thodayamangalam’ (done by the guys) and ‘Enadaro’ done by the girls. Preceding the dance, we had the all veena players (playing in pairs) ‘entertaining’ the audience. The songs that were played included ‘Vathapi’ for an opener, Nandy and niveramesh -'maamavathu' and 'anbenum mozhi',srividya and swarna- ‘Giriraja sudha’ and a ‘thirupugahzh’ in Bhageshree to end the vadhya vrindha. Yeah, btw…that’s the new ‘attraction’ for this semester. Yay! We’re going to have ‘instrumental concerts’ that are going to be called ‘that’. J. It’s going to take off on stage this Saturday! Yay!!

Wait, there’s more to chew about…not over yet! Well, the round of applauses had to come from all corners…prof’s, guests, old bald men (ah..sigh of anguish!...Soumi would agree!).. et all. We kinda made sure that we were entitled to have dinner in ‘VFAST’. Oops… Did I just spill the ‘driving motive’ of the performers??!!! Well, cmon…if there’s something that doesn’t change, doesn’t fade away with time – it defly wud be the ‘enthu’ to go have grub in VFAST!! But then ‘twas quite a long wait to get there..took a while for the dancers to get off their costumes. Without wasting time, the other folks were kept engaged by the juniors! Ah..the bundle of energy that they seem to possess…adorable! My god…we were LOUD, NOISY and what not! Dances for hindi songs (includes Choli ke peeche!), popeye show, close-up ad…all of it was in air. I’d say it again…keep up the spirits…you guys!!! We quickly made time for the ‘club snap’ after the dancers decided to grace us with their appearance. And then…’twas time for the tummy to work! Aha!! Then ‘twas the usual scene that saw all of us pouncing on the food and then settling for a hearty lacha session in the lawns.

On the whole, it was a very typical musical, colorful and vibrant performance from
‘Rag’. Yeah, personally, to take a critical stand…it stands no where to our usual performances…a lot of ‘goof-ups’, patching up, lack of co-ordination and all that, still defly would be rated as a lovely treat to the audience.

Ah! So well be life!!! Beaming smile

Well, we are working in full swing for NR and praying hard that turns out to be a success. The practice sessions are going in full swing and the dancers have been doing a wonderful job so far- cheers to you guys!

Up on the list are these events in the near future –

Ø Vadhya Vrindha – Part I – Soumi and Srividhya – Sat, 23rd September 2006
Ø Nrithya Ranjani – October 3rd

Well, its time to disable the write signal for now. The ‘blog girl’ shall fill up the space sometime soon. And yeah, you guys take care and keep us posted! J

Ragamalika – ‘where the music never dies’ – well, this has been inscribed on the walls in ‘bstage’, amidst some obscene crap written there – thanks to Archana’s brain wave!!

Shine on…

p.s
Readers (especially the ones not on campus) are strictly requested to read every line! That’s a threatening comment. I’d test you guys on it! Muhahaha

Nivy, I am unable to log into the blogging thing. Send me the invite again if you can.

Flip-Flopping -> The Semester has begun!

2006-09-15T09:10:00.000+05:30

PADMA MAM'S CONCERT :
The board in room-2219 was decorated by our usual artists. Sriram on the violin and Kaushik on Mirdhangam. They had vigorous practice sessions before and the one term they follwed till the break of the concert was - not to let out the songs list to anyone :) Well... Our favorite 'gamganapathe' was the starter, followed by a tribute to the Guru and then Naatai varanam. The main piece of the concert was 'Venkata Ramana' in ragam Lathangi. A pacifying piece in karna ranjini came after the main. Meanwhile, Rag's well wisher- LKM, handed over a small gift to Mam on behalf of Rag. Then the concert was drawn to a conclusion with a thillana in brindhavani and 'Mangalam'.

FRESHER'S CONCERT:
Here comes the most awaited and anticipated "Fresher's":
The following pic has 'em all:
Boys(left-->right): Vamshidar, Shravan, pratik, Hardik, Lohit
And the one left who adds light to the smiles is Roopa.

Their performance really rocked! They were able to manage properly and acted smart for even the slightest Thalam errs. Also, the practice sessions from 5-7pm went on well. Kudos to our Sec (Sriram) and obviously joint sec (VSP) cannot be missed! with respect to Hindustani, Anil Roy Sir helped his best and taught few songs. Hey, this time Srividya(a vainica in the club) gave vocal concert. So she is into the club as a vocalist too :)
Then came the surprise .. wonderful cake exclusively baked for freshers by soumi :) Had fun.. clicked snaps with Manojh's ..oops!...rag's digicam. I am taking liberty here :D
After all the tete-a-tete got over, there was a small chat with the freshers:

(Q refers to Questions)

Q: Wat do u feel after giving a CONCERT?

Freshers: We feel great, really great from within.

Q: Fine, any remarkable change in you??... specifically during the practise sessions?

Freshers: YES.

"I have learnt how to be punctual (Rajiv comes in the picture..hehe)

"I was Zuk wen i came in, but now a drastic change in me,Thanks :)"

Q: Hindustani-ites .. how do u think we can improvise on ur concerts ? As in.. wat kinda concerts cld we include?

Freshers: Hey.. gr8 .. There is a concert called "jugalbandhi" were all the instruments get chance invdividually. This will include vocalists too. And the one part is these concerts will be really crowd pulling ones :)

Okay.. thats nice, isnt it ? Thanks to one of the articles to give me this idea of posting a "chat convo" :D

Hooo Hooo.. guess wat? BOSM had started and our mech(divya) is on the run! Super shots and claps and songs and ... blah in the basky court sterday night, making it very much obvious that BITS headed away the game :) Well.. NR practices are also happening in full swing. Shall update once the next event gets over :)

farewell! :) yet again....

2006-05-10T04:01:00.001+05:30

jupup's bday cake - cherry cake! :)

thanksgiving - from all of the guys to the cake bakers!

ramana - i passed on ur plate dint i? :P

minky's write up

yb's write up

vaid's write up

sara's write up

porn's write up

chak's write up

4 Pages long!

2006-03-31T10:44:00.000+05:30

Well, the long awaited blog update on the trip is here! Is that too much of an introduction? Forgive me! Just way too excited about the fact that lots of us have just 45 more days of what is officially known as CDCs! In any case , no way did these ‘have to’s bog us down or make us shake our head vehemently from left to right when it came to the most exciting question “OYE! TRIP!!!! IN or OUT? “

It was finally decided, one very fine night at cnot during yet another birthday celeberation. It was Ro’s bday – n we had a sexy sexy eggless apple cake.. (it sure is becoming increasingly tough for me to not deviate from the main line to the innumerable nice moments through the semester.)

Well, after lots of contemplation – we finally settled for the plan as such. “2 days – 3 nights – rishikesh,dehradoon,mussourie” – 19 ppl – 2 qualis – 1 innova! 23rd night till 26th morning! The only highly surprising detail was that despite jus 5 guys and 14 GIRLS on the trip, not once did we run late on schedule! So all of u who usually complain about the girls n mirrors factor – stop now. ;)

We guys left campus at 11.30 P.M on 23rd in the 3 cars. The only mildly sad n inevitable incident was that apart from the 12 ppl who were he quails goers during the on going journey, who were blessed with music systems – the ones in innova had the troubled pleasure of listening to the SWAMINATHAN SISTERS sing all along!

Also, (no modesty) the SS (I shall refer t the swaminathan sisters as SS henceforth) widened their interest from singing to also catering services! Yup, while we stopped at some dhaba, enroute for the drivers to have the “elixir” that would save us our lives (am jus talking abt a cup of chaai to keep em awake) – the SS managed to use the available time to make delicious American breakfast ! :P

Apart from fellow ragamalikans who couldn’t wait for a second slice, there were also Mr.brown dog n Mr.black dog who had 3 slices of the same. =)) (this is when, subha ka helped us around with serving! )

In the meanwhile koushik, manojh, nandy, shanky and rammi ka purchased a funky version of a traditional percussion instrument and provided some entertainment for the passers by. Probably they didn’t hear, but some people like yb n soumi made plans of collecting sponsorship for sangamam from such unofficial concerts outside a dhaba in the middle of the road as early as 6 in the morning! ;)

Following this, we manages to reach rishikesh without much difficulty and also located the ashram were we had plans of staying – it was called the kovilnoor ashram. It indeed was impossible for us to stop from throwin wide grins at eachother lookin at the name being written in tamizh on the ashram gates. The grin only grew infinitely wider as we met one Mrs.Visaalakshmi who was the owner of the ashram. We took 3 rooms “37,38 n 39” on the second floor of the third block – really decent ones with lots of space.

Somehow, it was a very warm n cozy feeling from then on – the usual sense that surges into ones on trip with jus friends. The sense of responsibility, concern , care – all of that. I can probably never get the right word to explain the feeling that felt like family. :)

All of freshened up and before having lunch walked close to 3 Kms up n down to take a look at the suspension bridges – Ram Jula. It was a long, slightly tiring walk… n that is when some of decided to teach the guys the ‘hippidi hop’ . am sure koushik is tryin it out in his wing corridor as he is reading this! :P

After the bridge visit – with the civilites ramana n shyamala givin us some expert knowledge :P we walked to have a gen look at the temple there was,.. and then took the boat ride across the ganges to retrace the path we had walked on the bridge to the other end of the road.

Oh ! the boat was too much fun – with songs like ‘nilaa adhu vaanathu mela’ to suit the situation! ;) . When we got back to the ashram, it was jus the right time for lunch. There was an annadhaanam for small kids that was going on and it felt good to be there to serve them :) later, we were done with a sumptuous meal – some spinach after a long long time! N had close to an hr to spare before rafting. Once again, stickin to time schedules was never a problem – time n again – it surprised us I guess. Atleast I was!

Rafting:

This was one hell of a lifetime experience. Initially, however the thought of wearing helmets in yellow n blue and life jackets in colours that even telugu film industry would have rejected was a lil embarrassing. But it always happens dusnt it? when u are not the only one who is looking funny ?

We trekked down a slightly rugged path to witness something that heaven. (don ask me if I ve been to heaven – this is jus an expression!) but seriously, jus dark blue for as long as the eye can reach, and sand that glitters silver under the sun and pebbles in so many marvelous colours and a cliff interspersed with brown n green to border the waters on one side was just more than the eyes could yearn for. A sight that I will never forget. It was AWESOME!

After some traditional psentification like “2003 batch snap” n “yo 2004”’s we were finally split into 2 teams for rafting – the SANJAY team n the RAVI team. Through the rafting process which was a lil strenuous for some of us – and jus unbearable torture for a few others, we were thought some poems like “yo baby! YO baby! YO BABY! YO HO!” by our raft captain – which is jus a remix version of our very own “eh lelo ilasa! “ :P

We raced. We were thrown into water. We made circles under water. Some shivered. Many screamed. We clicked pictures. We jumped over the cliff, (initiation credit goes to SWETHA RAO! (yo baby! ) ) 25ft down into the water which was 64 ft deep. And later paddled on to race, only a lot more tired n feeling extremely cold but triumphant at the same time. The whole “dip” n “row” strategy did work through a very major lap of the travel I suppose! :) it was memorable! Truly memorable!

Dinner:

Got back to the rooms, changed n got down for dinner – which somehow was so much more worse than mess ka Sunday dinner. So some of us managed to walk out and grab some bakery biscuits, fruits, n other such food items – jus in case ppl were hungry.

Plan for the next day was to leave as early as 6 and reach sahastradhara. Get done with the usual foto business and proceed to robbers cave at doon n then lunch at pizza hut n then mussourie. Plan worked.. jus as perfect but due to the unexpected swapping of cars, the SS musical productions was taken over by a very very bad music system in one of the other cars. The journey was terribly interesting with dumb charades played from the rear of one quails with the ppl in the car that followed. Awesome fun! All of it!

On reaching sahastradhara, which wasn’t all too great for all that we expected, we still took a zillion pictures in a million combinations and danced a lil while we had ordered for bfast. Subha crack scene! Ever since the midways trip she s been giving us sweet shocks with her effortless excellent dancing skills! Yo subha!

Aprom, we guys moved t robbers cave. Now this is one place which all of us should go – only with friends. Of course there were some extremely testing moments with ppl like jupup n subha who jus refused to trust either themselves or the ones who were trying to help em with the rock climbing. Nevertheless – the chill water that constantly trickled beneath n the trickling sunlight thru the split in the caves, slippery rocks, vaguely defined paths, added to the excitement and adventure. It sure was risky and each of us thanked our lucky stars a million times once we were out of the caves, assuring ourselves we still were alive with head n toes in place!

After a mini voting session on whether or not to go to pizza hut, we finally did go. A really fulfilling lunch for Rs1861/- in all, samisena n jupup thought the rest of the gang the rules of holding the fork n knife n eating like a pro! However most of us decided to give a lot more respect to hunger that otherwise killed n used our hands instead. :P spicy Indian, veggie crunch, mustard sauce, garlic bread, pepsi, ivory n ebony and a cute looking waiter! – worth the money or what?

Well, a lot later after the “duties” that follow a HEAVY n SPICY meal, we proceeded to mussourie. The usual haults with screams saying “ulti – water – stop – chocolates – somebody help! “ were lesser in frequency. Having decided we would have no more of water or getting wet for that matter, the 19 of us split into 2 crowds. One completely girls gang that preferred to spend dad’s money on roadside items and the others who took the winch to climb the mountain, wore mussourian clothes n took pictures with swords, pots, turbans and a lot of other grand looking items!

With that, the trip was almost over. We were just left with a long journey back to the most dreaded place on earth. However, the lull suddenly was wiped by a slight comedy thanks to koushik n the driver of the innova. Mr. koushik apparently was also suffering from the sickness that troubles during downhill travel, n was comfortable with a plastic bag. However the poor driver had one look at it .. n the car breaks went screeching to a halt – cos he felt like puking! =)) was super hilarious!

Anyways, after safely reaching down hill.. we stopped at a very nice dhaba. Had superb dinner n crashed mostly until we reached pilani at 8 next morning. Within minutes, it seemed like all was over too soon. My batch especially – it felt very very psenti – and at this point when am gonna conclude this blog. It still feels gaja psenti for it was our last trip together. Arjun u were missed during the trip. A LOT. N take our word for that. The max most of us can manage is another trip which is gonna be “Seperately together” mebbe that’s a bful feeling too. We will know soon. Take care all of u. : ) ( I feel like saying amen! ) :P

Woah – am fmished! Really – its 4 page long. Somebody treat me for this!

SANGAMAM 06

2006-03-10T10:01:00.000+05:30

our very own backdrop. for the first time finished weeks ahead of the d day!

clicked during thilana - nalina kanthi
our costume colours were chosen based on the element we portrayed.

land - green
water - blue
fire - orange
space - grey
air - white

to APU, to VISWA n to KARI.

2006-03-02T11:04:00.000+05:30

It was that time of the year again, when music filled the air. The corridors of FD 2 were resonating with the sound of the shruthi. The violinists were competing with eachother. The echo of the mridhangam and the sound of the salangai fought to match each others pace. There were souls running around the building through the IC corridorrs and the ref-li passage. The Veena's were shuttled between raag room and the audi. Flats were being set to position. Cots were shifted from backstage. There were nails. There were pincers. laptops. extension cords. bhujia. cookies. cake. water. sam n anc account. and there were 3 very important people who made a whole huge world of difference to everyone on campus.

APU,VISWA N KARI.

Though it was one of the more infuriating parts, I have to congratulate the 3 of them for having maintained the news abt their trip to campus a secret for more than 3 months nearly. It sure is a tough task and i guess they did a really decent job until the very end or almost until then. Ofcourse there were a couple of room mates who let out the secrcet n a few obvious lies that hinted otherwise. That apart, the "mission surprise" was almost a success story.

As i had already said, the d day had arrived. and there was still shit loads of work left to do. It does happen naturally that despite all the careful planning and meticulous scheduling of work, tension takes over and bogs u down jus when u have to take charge. This time around the org comm had all the help that they needed from 2 ex co ords in addition to the club already on campus and their dearest batchmate. Experience spoke. It was overwhelming, really!

As chak herself mentioned - " no co-ord has had it so good with 2 ex - coords making it for sangamam and literally grabbing work from her hand and seating her down and makin sure things were run smoothly".

Be it last minute sounds check or even filling a bottle of water for the dancers backstage -- they were there in a split second doing all they could do. Lots of us were lost in memories and basking in happy times and it dint take more than a minute for these people to snap us back into reality and get us to work again. The perfect blend of authority,concern,help and suggestions. It couldnt have been better. I couldnt have asked for more. None of us could have been happier.

ONE thought struck us all unanimously.

this SANGAMAM could have been better. but... it was the BEST cos of your presence.

The pre planning process seemed too long.

Your visit seemed terribly short. we were happy to let u guys see raag as it is now. happy that your dreams are now a reality. no third person can possibly understand the feeling that we experienced those 3 days.

Hated the last couple of hours. we know u guys hated it as well.

As a club we jus cant seem to put in words how much it meant to us. We find ourselves searching for words when we want to thank you.

Thank you for giving us the joy of being a part of a memorable sangamam. We owe a major part of the success story and all the smiles to the 3 of you.

I know, there have been times when we ve frowned on hearing apu's PJ's or kari's 0.3 micro farad story or viswa's silence. but we miss em all now. please do come back to campus as often as possible. u ll always have 40 others waiting to have u with them.

and another..

2006-02-23T11:35:00.000+05:30

well, jus a day left for sangamam. work is goin good. lost pf last minute errands and running arnd and req forms and huffin n puffin left tobe done. but its so much fun anyways. teh tickets saes have been really good. the guys have done an AMAZING job by selling close 150 tckest in messes liek RB... can ya bleev it? well... mb did good as always... and so did the other guys messes. t shirt sales though have been a lil less than expected numbers inside mb. and we r all left wondering why ... prbly co of the customised dopy t shirts that had mess sittings a day before we got out ours.

anyways.. its doin good never the less. all of thsi is i think a surplus to our account in any case. :-) pracz sterday was gaja bomb. all items were done in teh same order -- ( i shud add for the first time) and everything came out really good. and we were done with teh min runthru well before 12. so we guys vettifyd the perm extension with some discussion abt who is to do what in the next cpl of days.... artistes are arrivng from today onwards... neyveli is infact sitting thru ur runthru with sounds n lights today...

we have soumi's parents , shyamalas mom n archana s mom coming in today to spend sangamam with us. also our dear dear kari -- and another surprise guest ;)

so well ... most of us in super dooper festive mood. the posters and publicity charts this time arnd are OUT OF TEH WORLD. everythings is shaping out well. fingers crossed. cant wait for 6.30 tomo! :-) alumini -- u guys are being missed the most! :(

SAC !

2006-02-20T03:03:00.000+05:30

This is the sac building thats comin up nest to mal behind mudh bhavan. this is the entrance in to the place. its got a gym,cafeterial, a mini auditorium,tennis courts, rooms for all clubs n depts,n loads n loads of other things! it looks amazing!

posters!

2006-02-17T09:48:00.000+05:30

the first round of publicity charts are already up on the notice boards. they look awesome. the entire club (almost) has worked on it.

and personally i think these have been the best so far. the t-shirts arrived yesterday. we ll be having mess sittings really soon. and the t-shirts this time look brilliant. sure we ll hit close to 900 t-shirts sales!

we have plans of a new publicity stunt for sangamam. some of us are gonna wear the t-shirts and scribble sangamam over it and roam arnd insti. guess the regular class go-ers can do that for us!!!! this was ramana's brainwave!

shall click pictures of the mess sittings and the t shirts as such .. soon and post details as and when i can.

today is the first audi slot. brings back old memories. :)

"guys guys guys -- p lz try n make it for sangamam inaug. plz!" - raag.

as of now shit loads of work left to do. the invites look awesome got t done at repro. they are in colour as well. all pics shall be uploaded real soon. watch this space. and those of u who havnt chkd out apu's creation click on the link.

delhi trip

2006-02-13T11:48:00.000+05:30

NOTe: I wrote half of this yesterday and the remaining tody -- so tense clashes are all over. adjust maadi

Jus got back after a long and tiring trip to delhi to meet a cpl of artistes regarding sangamam work. Have never been on a more unplanned trip al my life. N will never be on one again ;) was kinda scary - but was great experience nevertheless. standing outside saravana bhavan at janpath, when he was jus abt to close - trying desperately to use the tamizh senti to make him get us some food at close to 11.30 in the night..... this was awesome fun.
well, pat on our backs... we did manage to. the adi maavu dosai,14-idly basundhi, n coffee... (yeah we realised it was a bad combi of assorted dishes -- but who cares - it was good food after an incredibly long wait)
Mr.sundaram and Mr.vijaykumar -- 2 ppl whom i know very well now, managers/supervisors at saravana bhavan - really helpful ppl who resembled visu and my dad respectively. made us feel comfortable, wanted and cared for. helped us out in enquirin abt hotels where we could stay for the night... and well helped us thru the queue for lunch the next afternoon. yup fixed thaali - it was. i still feel full jus thinking abt it. the place and the food -- ROCK!
thanks :)

that apart - the auto hunt n money constraint n the "no credit" card at coffee day will forever be in our memories i guess. for once i had to accept my dad was right abt me and my money managing capabilities! :(( that explains the Rs. - 34/- on my hutch pre-paid. wonder how roaming could possibly be so expensive. freaking 10 bucks for a minute of incoming or what?

anyways, the money saving plans were more to get tickets at PVR for the ONE n only RANG DE BASANTHI/./. sadly --- we were there on a weekend n they were sold out. pretty much expected.. so the cribbin part there after got gusd!

we went around hunting all over KAROL bagh, cnot place, sadar bazaar,chandni chowk and finally came to prathap bagh -- which was after shit loads of contemplation.... cos until then we were dragging around the mridhangam that we got from mr.shreeganesh.

oh that reminds me.. the vist to mr.shreeganesh house was good fun. until then yb n ganesh were constantly giglling.. u guys can imagine how --- the sathal and the siripu combnation was almost successful in makin us go crazy ... and aprom thankfull we guys managed to reach ganesh's house. apparently he has his own band called dhwani. its like a percussion group. n he even played us a cpl of songs from their recent concert.. it sounded real good. so we gen put some more contis and lots of lacha and had a cup of coffee and left his place with the mridhangam - first thing in the morning.

then we tracelled almost across town to go to rama's house. the guys were puttin gaja buja enthu -- the rest of u know why :P well there we got a lot more to eat. that was great incentive... and we were doin gaja buja counselling for her daughter wrt acads n college admissions :)) i know... i know! but engalaiyum madhichu kekaraangale gara enthu la non stop for close to an hr all of us were lachaaing.

we managed to get 2 articles for our dhwani the same way. chak -- shall pass it on to u soon.

so yeah .. back to prathap bagh... we managed to fne a saraaswathi bommai like how we wanted out there on the roads. not jus that --- we also got another pullaiyaar vigraham and another pullaiyaar silai -- which is like a wall hanger. ganam aa gaathramaa iruku ... all three. those are 2 of the 3. shall take a pic at raag room soon n post that as well

later we took an auto straight to isbt... and walked in semicircles along the perimeter of isbt .. trying to find the entrance gate... with all the extra fittngs and the mridhangam. finally we did reach a whole 3 hrs before 10.. and managed to book our tickets. then after a cpl of calls back home and to ppl at pilani.. we went to McDonalds hoping we could eat EAT EAT. we did... but we were runnin a lil short on cash at hand -- so kinda decided we wud pay by card and then collect the money after getting back to campus. so the order list went on n on for like 5 minutes after loads of deciding n re-deciding.. and the damage for 341! we hand over teh card and the guy at the counter snaps back sayin..."we dont accept cards ma'am". gaja buja SHAAWKING. ;)

anyways... ntn we cud do. so we managed to pay it up... with perfect change.. and ate all of it. we were entertained by a waiter who claimed to be the greatest fan of A.R.Rahman... and he finally thuppified on us unintentionally. he sad he was a break dancer as part of some troupe and that he earned close to 35k per month. and he also added on sayin that was nothing.. and he cud make so muh more than jus 35k and thats why he was workin part time at McD's! anyways... konjam rombave gaanda kalapinaan..

anyways i guess end of trip -- shanky improved his hindi skills. and all of us gained close 4 kg weight! :P

the smell of rust and dust n the sound of the baby wailing n the stupid pink saree female pukin all thru the journey .. and vague screams of the word "ulti" disgust me.

everytime i say - no more ISBT. but well economical constraints don leave u with an option do they?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
dakshina dakshina dakshina :P (kari - yb's pisd with you)

Thyagaraja Araadhana

2006-02-04T00:56:00.000+05:30

Well, as most of us know.. TAP for the first time was extended into a 3 day fest. The first 2 days had individual concerts by the present third yearites -- they were under the banner SAMARPANAM. Frankly speaking i did notice that the ind of response that raag recieved this semester for concerts such as SAMARPANAM and RANJINI have been great. These 3 years i ve never seen 2219 this full. Most of u might remember how it was when we came up with KALADHARA. The crowd was that good. :)

Coming to the songs, on the first day we had Archna Ramana (ninne bajana and nadha thanumanisham) , Shankar (gaanamoorthe, padhavini, anuragamule,sarsa saama dhaana) and subha (o ranga sai and nannu kana thalli). The concert lasted for a lil more than an hour and we had a couple of profs making special mentions about how wonderful the concert was.

On the second day we had manojh (rama nannu brovara , raga rathna), NIVEDITA ( nivi -- thank me for the correct spelling ;) -- she sang bhavanuta and nee daya radha) Jupup (manavyaalakin, merusamaana and durmarga ) and samisana (inthamodhu , aada modi galadhey)

"TA" happened on the third day as an usual routine. With all the girls lookin nice in the sarees and teh guys in traditional costumes... we took close to 200 snaps in various combinations. To name a few of the vetti senti that we put -- we had a CBSE snap(that was taken twice - thanks to ganesh and his camera shy nature :P ) , neyveli snap -- (which was a manojh solo ), non chennai ites snap - A7 senti snap - ( jus realised there are jus 7 of us as well -- nice coincidence! )

AN-i do-ers snap (kari we missed u terribly! :-( ) , the usual all guys snap ---

chain snap (this was with all the people who borrowed some of my jewellery :P ) , silk saree snap (arjun's brilliant brainwave) ,

then there were 1st row snaps and 2nd row snaps and instrumentalists snap ( i clicked both these!!! :B)-

and a 2k3 batch snap thats shaken ( x( ) !!!!

Anyways all s well that ends well.

We guys went bck to our messes for lunch and resumed pracs for sangamam -- THE NEXT BIG thing at 1.30. The only room open for us was 2219 -- was good fun with great memories abt pracz session for our first sangamam -- better known as the AALAA sangamam :-) )

The room... actually whole of fd 2 was resonating with the voice of raag. Its been that way for teh past one month now. I should say that it feels on top of the world and really really wonderful when u walk thru the rearmost corridorr of FD2 between 5 and 11 in the night -- cos we have so many raag activities happening all at once. in 2212 -- the third yearites were having samarpanam pracs. 2214 - was dance pracs. 2217 -- veena players were picking up their songs. RAAG room - big time composition was happening. and in the corridorr right below there was backdrop work happening.

And never did it feel like WORK WORK WORk. Its been fun meeting up everyday -- and well we did hear this news... that when the dept and club heads were taken on a tour to the SAC building -- for those of u who do not know -- SAC is a new construction on campus -- STUDENTS ACTIVITY CENTRE. its got a mini auditorium .. somethng like an amphi theatre -- ppl say -- and around 7 wings with slightly huge rooms (Around 4 in each wing) to be alloted for clubs and depts.... coming back to what i started off wth -- it is bein said that there is one wing for music club and raag. I hear that the inauguration is by end of feb = cos the Birla's are comin or something and SAC will be ready for occupancy from next sem itself.

At the very thought now, i somehow prefer our own fd2 to the new room at SAC. anyways -- we never know. things change and people get used to it i guess. Apu Vishwa Loki and the rest of u. get to campus for sangamam plz plz plz plz plz.....!!! i shall try n add u as members of this blog .. soon. i guess its possible. mail me ur blog id's alone. would require them .. and the e-mails u ve mentioned at the time of creating ur blog accnt.

as far as sangamam is concerned... choreo and composition are almost over. major integratioon of the pieces work is to happen. We are aiming at a dead line of 10/2/06. lets c!

MiDwAyZ

2006-02-01T08:25:00.000+05:30

midways trip this time was awesome!

with one entire round of the usual - sight adipome dhum adipom - nokia - remo - uppu karuvaadu - um bak um bak - straw berry kannae -- etc etc.. and debut dances by sara n co -- it was super cool bus ride.

we planned to start at 9.30 -- some how the usual delay happened and we finally managed t cross the bits gate at 11 with a couple of lies to compensate for the doubts that excited the bits chowki , we boarded bus close to 11 n reached midways at arnd 12.15

we had decided a NO-NO for the pool already. s0 well after having set up the laptop and the woofers to play some "fun" music... that happened after a mini accident when manojh and me tried to shift a table .. and ended up removing the granite table top alone .. which kinda peeled off some skin from manojh's right hand

but that got better.. and then we had a game of co-co - and more dancing -- some dw training - some fash p by yb thadhar n sriram -- loads of video -- lots of laughs and bad food and oorga saadham!

its 8.32 a.m now.. and i got nalog lab in like 30 minutes. so i shall rush now... more on tap .. coming real soon!

cheers!

2006-02-01T00:25:00.000+05:30

more at midwayz

2006-01-31T02:32:00.000+05:30

2006-01-31T01:52:00.000+05:30

2006-01-31T01:10:00.000+05:30

2006-01-28T00:48:00.000+05:30

2006-01-27T18:47:00.000+05:30

2006-01-20T11:44:00.000+05:30

2006-01-20T11:28:00.000+05:30

shirt from raag!

2006-01-18T01:05:00.000+05:30

cookie bakers and shanky! :P

2006-01-17T14:07:00.000+05:30

ok snaps with ppl in it!!!

2006-01-02T10:30:00.000+05:30

2005-12-19T23:47:00.000+05:30

2005-12-12T16:05:00.000+05:30

taken in raag room right after psenti concert

rajiv n kari at sky

psenti semites

funky snap! ;) with the inevitable tilt!

after lots of effort - the heads straightened!

dude - sriram... chillax!

raag farewell!

2005-12-07T00:09:00.000+05:30

ok.. today was rag farewell. this is probably the first text blog on this blogspot.. and its amidst comprees.. and if am still doin it thats an indication of how much today has had an impact on me!
we (2003 batch at raag) wanted to say so much! SO MUCH is not even the slightest indication of how we've learnt from each of u guys.

am gonna try n make this short -- but its gonna be a tough task - am sure. havin been n the club for almost 3 years now -- we ourselves have seen such a huge transition in the way the club was and the way it is now. it probably would be self explanatory for ppl/alumini from the 2000 batch onwards... but to the rest -- i guess this would give a clear picture -- i would like to quote kari - he said " i possibly cant ask for a better time to leave campus - right now am too happy about the way things are around me. my psenti sem has been raag for me! "

and as everyone else said -- "the batch of 2000 -- definitely a class above the rest when it comes to talent -- they laid the foundation for raag -- they were the ones who dreamt of raag being the way it is right now! "

if only a few of u guys can atleast make it to campus soetime to see raag and all of us -- and the way we all are -- it wud make us jus too happy! :)

in short today was a great feeling. yes, ofcourse -- mixed emotions as always. i thnk we did it all today. met up at sy at arnd 4.45 -- and for the FIRST TIME -- took a batch snap! ;-) -- that will be uploaded real soon -- keep checkin the page! for updates!

yup --- it was super fun -- with loadsa unavoidable discussions abt cdc's and grades - thanks to certain ppl in my batch :P! in anycase -- we guys moved on to vijay's from there! many amongst us -- rushed to get the cakes and the laptop and the speakers and the hand made charts and etc etc... while the rest had a happy long walk in the cold all the way to cannought!!!

yup -- so we guys met up at vijay;s by arnd 6.30 P.M.

now yeah -- most of us might have dreamt of this but then it has become almost a routine at raag now. am talking abt kari's favourite -- baked chocolate cakes! today was the 12th such cake ... now reasons for such frequent cake baking sessions are many ---

1. b'days -- the new thing we've done this sem -- is get personalised gifts for every person and make personalised cards as well - whenever time permits!!!
2. 8 solo concerts -- RANJINI have happened at raag this semester
3. a wonderful batch of seniors
4. an even more adorable batch of juniors -- 2004 and 2005 u guys rock!

so yeah - it was the 12th cake today. and i ll take this as an opportunity to thank the guys who whole heartedly treated all the girls one night to dinner -- for all the cake baking and the love and affection.... :-) thanks a lot!

so yeah -after the cakes and a much awaited arrival of none other than mr.HARIJI -- are u guys wondering why? well -- then take a look at these : - )

yup -- these were the specially made gifts. we clicked random shots of raag room and made a collage on photoshop... we later got em printed as a photograph and got hand made photo frames (which some of the "seniors" thought -- were hand made by us -- mebbe we shd have left that as an unclarified assumption - what say soumi? wud have saved a few laughs or what? " )

it was too exciting and personally i was getting too impatient to know how they would react. there was so much of work and thought and more than anything -- love and emotion that had gone into making of this particular piece of memento.

well this was jus the smallest part of the farewell plan today. the bigger one , is my personal favourite. now what am i talking about? its this whole huge chart -- which had palm prints of all of us clubbers in different colours.... and on it were pasted small black n white pictures of each of us -- and on t was written a "one - liner" characteristic of us -- something that would help em associate us with -- something that would bring to life lots of fond memories. we had that done and laminated it. neatly rolled it into a cylinder -- tied it up with a small piece of red satin ribbon and gifted the 4 gifted ppl this as well!

now -- what was work session like? while we did this amazng piece of art???

for the first time -- there was no scheduling of work that was done! the ENTIRE CLUB met up. and a mention that it was like a week before the comprees is very very important! (hasnt raag changed chak? :P )

yeah -- so there was no allotment of work AT ALL. everybody contributed watever they could wihout even havng another to push and pull and throw the weight arnd to get work done ( like how it used to be ... i dont know how long ago -- but sure does seems like ages when i last complained about raag and the non-involvement of clubberz as such! - soumi manojh and shanky would definitely agree - I KNOW!!! ;) )

there was so much of work that was goin on simultaneously - write ups - chart work - farewell invites - photo cutting - ganesh on his violin providing some superb entertainment -- oh and we even recorded what all he played and manojh;s dappangs with a lil help from my mic and sound recorder!!! )

it was incredible fun! raag like most of u guys would have never seen before!

anyways -- coming back to what i started with --- farewell! well the write ups happened -- and then followed the most awaited food! oh before that psenti speeches. for the first time -- we dint have ppl fussing about having to give speeches... with semester wise accounts that each of them gave -- i got a clear clear view of how much of a change there has been in rag when it comes to bonding and attachment that grows within people in a club.

yes there have been times in the past when lots of us have wished -- why is raag more like a duty? why dusnt it feel like other clubs and depts! well if u still think that -- then i have something to say. and u guys better get that straight!!!! RAAG STILL DUSNT FEEL LIKE OTHER CLUBS AND DEPTS. ITS MORE LIKE HOME. one place where each of us find complete comfort and ease in speaking to the other. when there are events like NR and SANGAMAM -- is feels like a "Function" in family (like how rajiv said today! ) :-) it defnly does.

the freshers probably are the ones who do not know what a talkin about -- but though they are a real small batch -- they are amazingly talented. and have bonded so well with the club :-) u guys are the luckiest -- for raag is at its "golden period" (quoting words that made me happy from today's evening - words that were voiced from teh very bottom of their hearts)

yup - after dinner and after all of this -- we all huddled together around my laptop. if u are wondering -- where we were -- its still at cannaught -- at vijay's. we had manojh's woofers and my laptop and something very very dear to all our hearts yet to be witnessed...

infact -- we kinda managed to create a home theatre efect despite the cold! switched off the lights at vijay's and yeah we played what was named "raagfarewell_0001" . it was a chut movie that ran for five mins -- with really nice "kodak moment" pictures clickd thru the semester -- thanks to sriram and manojh's digi cams.. and running captions. i guess people liked it... but more than that -- it was when the realisation that "these are probably the last few memories" sinked into our heads.

ALL of us were in tears. words lost all meaning. it was mere glances that conveyed oceans of emotions... to put it all in a few words and conclude would be grave injustice. but i cant leave without saying this -- ORG COMM 2k6 -- u guys have been amazing! we've done it ALL cos of ur suport. and what we learnt from u people -- we shall always teach others... love ya loads and miss u guys even more! 3 years with all of u was too short a period..... come back for sangamam!

2005-11-15T18:56:00.000+05:30

epc issue!

2005-11-14T15:39:00.000+05:30

we were wondering -- what this song was - the one with mansooralikaan roja and nepolean! - its not from seevala peri paandi. some one help us out. been wondering for a week now.

2005-11-14T14:35:00.000+05:30

dav g!! :)) yippiee

2005-11-14T14:30:00.000+05:30

kari! crack scene

2005-11-14T14:22:00.000+05:30

ahem ahem!

2005-11-14T14:19:00.000+05:30

subha... roja poo.. agninatchathram

2005-11-14T14:18:00.000+05:30

rajiv! thala! kalakita!

2005-11-06T22:16:00.000+05:30

guys

2005-11-06T20:59:00.001+05:30

nandy -- pinni pedal inniku!

2005-11-06T20:59:00.000+05:30

during the concert

2005-11-06T20:56:00.000+05:30

i clicked this! i clicked this!!!

2005-11-06T20:54:00.000+05:30

fat fati

2005-11-06T20:51:00.001+05:30

med i - one

2005-11-06T20:51:00.000+05:30

guru! :)

2005-11-06T20:50:00.000+05:30

ganesh says -- "ayyayYO 2004"

2005-11-06T20:49:00.000+05:30

wogay da.. soumi! ;)

2005-11-06T20:48:00.000+05:30

gitl team one

2005-11-06T20:47:00.000+05:30

guys grp!

2005-10-24T21:43:00.000+05:30

thoongu moonji!

2005-10-24T21:42:00.001+05:30

:) :)

2005-10-24T21:42:00.000+05:30

kanaku! :P

2005-10-24T21:38:00.000+05:30

entrnce

2005-10-24T20:41:00.000+05:30

manojh and shanky

2005-10-24T20:37:00.000+05:30

fort

2005-10-24T20:29:00.000+05:30

2005-10-09T23:01:00.000+05:30

rangoli!

2005-10-09T02:09:00.000+05:30

click!!

2005-10-09T02:08:00.001+05:30

vanakkHAM

2005-10-09T02:08:00.000+05:30

nat 2

2005-10-09T02:07:00.002+05:30

nat1

2005-10-09T02:07:00.001+05:30

maathey yet again

2005-10-09T02:07:00.000+05:30

symmetry?

2005-10-09T02:06:00.002+05:30

ramar seetha kalyanam

2005-10-09T02:06:00.001+05:30

girls 1