Tears...

I feel overwhelmed with different emotions - with the feeling of joy, of happiness, of peace and at the same time of the pain, the agony, the distress and the emptiness.

This morning I was watching YouTube clippings of U.S. soldiers returning home to "surprise" their loved ones. Brothers reuniting with their sisters, sons reuniting with their mothers, daughters with fathers, fathers with their children, husbands with their wives, boyfriends with their girlfriends, people with their affectionate pets... My eyes welled up with tears of joy with every video clip that I watched. The feelings of shock, the shrieks of disblief, the tears of joy, the hugs of love, the longing kisses, the smiles... of seeing their loved ones come home, by the families of the 'deployed' have filled my heart and eyes with emotions. From the very young to the very old, the reactions are just the same. Scratch the surface and try to look a little deeper into their hearts and one would realize the heavy psychological burdens the families of the 'deployed' carry with them each day. When they bid adieu to their loved ones going thousands of miles away from home in the service of their motherland, to keep everyone back home safe, one thing that they all know is that that moment might be the last one to see their beloved ones alive. Each single day, every single moment they miss them in their lives. A life of uncertain hope. "There's so much love lost... so much sacrifice made... so much pain being endured in this world" is what I thought to myself. At the same time, I also thought of the less fortunate (or the unfortunate) who received their loved ones - but only in caskets - the Fallen Heros. To them, life seems so meaningless. A vaccuum which cannot be filled. The pain which no one else can fathom. A life long agony. One ended life is the beginning of another shattered. In the fight between the 'Good' and the 'Evil', so many innoncent lives suffer.

While natural disasters and calamities seem unavoidable, is there any way man-made suffering can be eradicated in this world? "God, can there ever be eternal peace and happiness and harmony in this world ?" I said to myself. Mulling over those scenes, I seem to discover newer dimensions and depths of the word 'LOVE'. A feeling which can only be 'felt' in its truest sense but which can never be adequately described through words or expressed by actions. Most people who do not face these hardships hardly realize the value of relationships. To most of us, many aspects of life are just taken for granted.

Here is a link to some of the clips that I mentioned above.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7W8Nfs5EtM&feature=related

(... to be continued)

Life's a song... Happy, Peppy or Grumpy! - 'Kolaveri Di'

For long, I have been wanting to write something on my blog - just to keep it 'alive' and reassure myself that I haven't completely forgotten to write! There were many interesting events that happened in the recent past - like travel, parties, fantasy-fests, special luncheons, movies, holidays, tournaments, door-buster sales etc., but its only now that I pulled myself to pen (or maybe 'type') a few words.

To start with, let me take on music! (One of my favorite past times). On a cold and lazy November winter morning of New Jersey, my Maharashtrian friend - Patil, invited me for some 'Saturday Chai'. Hoping to get a cup of nice garma-garam chai over some scrunchy and tangy 'bhakarwadis', I quickly hopped over to his block. As I was about to knock on his door, I thought I heard some Tamil words flowing from inside. For a moment I thought I landed up at Mr. Iyer's home, instead of Mr. Patil's, and my hopes of some piping hot tea on a cold winter morning went kaput. South Indians are more of coffee drinkers than tea. You probably would have heard of 'Madrasi Coffee', but never a 'Madrasi Tea'!! But after reconfirming the house number, I thought he must have called over some Tamil friends too! The door opened and there's Mr. Patil going 'ga-ga' over some 'Kolaveri... Kolaveri' song. Even before the 'Chai' was served, he quickly hooked up his ipad and started singing along with the Tamil number !!

What...??? A Marathi Mulga singing a Tamil song!! Why not?? Did you know that the 'God' of the Tamil silver screen is actually a Maharashtrian. Yes... I'm talking of none other than Mr. Rajanikanth - He is actually a Maharashtrian ! Original name - Shivaji Rao Gaikwad. (See, you didn't know that... Right??). So, an ordinary Marathi Mulga (MM) singing a Tamil song, shouldn't come as a shock! (It's a different matter that Mr. Patil may take objection to him being referred to as an "ordinary" MM. "Kaay Muntoe Patil Sahib??"). Whatever be the case, surely, music too, like Cricket, transcends all borders, languages, cultures, religions etc., etc. Coming back to the song.... this Tamil-English (or can I say Tinglish!!!) song sung by Dhanush (Venkatesh Prabhu Kasthuri Raja a.k.a. Rajanikanth's son-in-law and Aishwarya Rajanikanth's husband) and composed by Anirudh, from the Tamil film "3" (moonu), has become a roaring rage not only down South in India, but across the whole nation and with NRIs as well. Apparently this song is one for those love-shattered guys. One can only hope the youth of our country don't take to drinking and start acting all lovelorn, lost and dejected, swaying and swooning in the middle of the roads !!

Anyways, the song really turned out to be quite peppy with its 'Tinglish' lyrics. Apart from the foot-tapping music, what needs a special mention is the typical Madrasi way of pronouncing English - especially words like - "moonnnu" for moon, "coloru" for color, "whyttu" for white, "yempty" for empty... :-). For an educated and decently English speaking Dhanush, adapting to the local dialect may not have been a big problem. Nevertheless he did a fantastic job of resonating the typical south indian accent where the last syllable of every word has a '1-ton' emphasis or starts with a "y".

I hope all the staunch south indian supporters don't gang up against me for saying this... but the age-old and most popular joke about south indian pronounciation is... if you ask a south indian to spell the word "Minimum", he would go "yumm-eyye-yenn-eyye-yumm-yoo-yumm" !! :-). I being a south indian would just scoff off such 'fun' by people from other regions of the country as just a figment of their jealousy. (You see, most of India's intelligentia evolve from the southern states. So, obviously the less 'blessed' need something to heckle at!) But when I actually hear people talk like that, I think to myself - 'God... why do they have to speak English in such a funny way' ! Atleast I get some solace in telling myself that English spoken by people from other states is no less funny. Did you ever hear a typical Gujarati or Punjabi speak English? Well, to put it mildly, they have their own nuances! Let's just leave it at that... (I don't want to be sparking any regional debates and digress from the topic).

Check out the song here (lyrics of the song are included below) --




yo boys i am sing song
soup song
flop song
why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
rhythm correct
why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
maintain this
why this kolaveri..di
distance la moon-u moon-u
moon-u color-u white-u
white background night-u nigth-u
night-u color-u black-u
why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
white skin-u girl-u girl-u
girl-u heart-u black-u
eyes-u eyes-u meet-u meet-u
why future dark
why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
maama notes eduthuko
apdi ye kaila snax eduthuko
pa pa paan pa pa paan pa pa paa pa pa paan
sariya vaasi
super maama ready
ready 1 2 3 4
wah wat a change over maama
ok maama now tune change-u
kaila glass
only english..
hand la glass
glass la scotch
eyes-u full-aa tear-u
empty life-u
girl-u come-u
life reverse gear-u
lovvu lovvu
oh my lovvu
you showed me bouv-u
cow-u cow-u holi cow-u
i want u hear now-u
god i m dying now-u
she is happy how-u
this song for soup boys-u
we dont have choice-u
why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
flop song
---------------
Here are the meanings/references for few words/expressions used above:
Kolaveri - Killer Rage or Murderous Rage.
"Soup Song" - Love failure Song
"Soup Boys" - Boys who failed in love!