Watching You !

I stood here every moment to see you glow !

The Player...........

The magical pair of hands of Vijay Ghate, who accompanied Pandit Jasraj at concert.

Live With Legendary Pandit Jasraj !

Spellbound! Memorable! Time stopper! What else one can call such a performance? Even at the age of 80, Padmavibhushan Sangeet Martand Pandit Jasraj was in his best moods when he recited different ragas at Tagore Theater in Chandigarh on 14th April.

Pandit ji started with ‘Manglam Bhagwan Vishsu’ and enthralled the audience with Mahakali Stuti, Ganga Lahari and Shankra. I don’t think even a single person in that jam packed theatre would have realised how the time flew and sat hypnotised during the two & half hour long concert of Pandit Ji. People of every age and from every walk of life were present and occupied every seat, stair, passage and corner of the theatre. Jugalbandi of Vijay Ghate at Tabla and Sridhar Parthasarthi on Maridangam won huge applause from the audience.

For me, singing along Pandit Jasraj playing in my car is a routine but singing Ganga Lahiri (Luckly I remember it by heart) live with Pandit ji was too thrilling. This performance was no doubt a cool breather in the hot, humid and tiring summer days. This can be measured by this way that even Vande who usually keeps away from Classical Sangeet, enjoyed this concert and thanked me for bringing her along.

Eagerly waiting for another such breather and this time I would carry a much faster and much bigger zoom lens with me.

'The White Tiger' - Aravind Adiga

Just went through the another stinking version of 'Six Suspects". Only difference is that this time name of dirt hole is "The White Tiger" and prize winner is Aravind Adiga.

Avenger - Fredrick Frosyth

I don't know why but I have always loved 'Avenge'. Be it in stories or in real life. Now after years it brings a smile on my face when I think of one such 'Avenge' I took on successfully which was one of my life rocking incidents. Therefore 'Avenge' is sweet and so are its stories.

"Avenger' is one such story by Fredrick Forsyth. When an enthusiastic young volunteer American boy is brutally murdered while he was on mission to help victims of Bosnian war, his rich grandpa decides to turn every stone to drag the culprit, a cold blooded psychopath leader of Seb militia Zoran Zilic in the feet of justice. Using his relations in the power houses of America, for one time he made the wheel spins. But in the wake of diplomatic, political and international laws, it was not a cake walk. As if this was not sufficient, CIA was protecting Zoran, who was a vital source for CIA to track down world's most wanted USB (Osama Bin Laden). After losing hope from everywhere Ricky's grandpa came to know about "Avenger".

Calvin Dexter, 50 years of age, a lawyer who loved to keep himself in shape, earlier was a Viet veteran who fought the most dreaded war in the underground death tunnels of Vietnam. After gruesome war he became a lawyer and later lost his only daughter by the hands of gangsters involved in sex slave trade. When Dexter returns home after killing his daughter's killer he faces the death of his wife who dies of the pain of their daughter’s loss. This changes Calvin’s life and he becomes ‘Avenger’. For good cause and against good fees he starts bringing down criminals to justice. Now grandpa of Ricky hires Dexter to bring billionaire Zoran who has vanished with the help of CIA. The story keeps readers in their toes where Avenger is looking for Zoran and CIA is looking for Avenger.

Who made the final move and how? Read it how writer of ‘The Day of Jackal’ has webbed the mystery.

My New Companion

My maternal uncle was professional photographer. With his Rolleiflex he used to click at me every now & then when I was kid. He taught me few tips including how to hold a picture in hand. My enthusiasm for photography started at that stage. And then in 1990 my sister in law gave me cute present of Mamiya NC1000s. I spent a lot of time and money on that one. But learning photography on old film cameras was very expensive. I was too hasty when digital cameras were introduced in India in 2000 and bought a 2.1 MP without making much fuss about it's very limited specifications. After that purchase I was determined to buy a good digital SLR and to be do photography as a serious hobby.

Since then every time whenever I made my mind to buy one, a new urgency would appear from nowhere. Priorities change so fast for a person in business like me that most of the times personal temptations have to take place at back burner. And my urge for a nice digital SLR was on back burner for good long years. But the time has to arrive and it did arrive at the appropriate time. After long wait and lengthy R&D, finally Canon EOS Rebel T1i is now hanging on my Naneu Pro backpack along a series of accessories.

Visiting places is not a new affair but with this new companion now the memories are definitely going to have new dimensions. My first visit after that buy was a fair at Kumarsain and many more are in the queue. I hope these journeys are going to be regular and memorable.

Just keep looking for what I look at on Flickr.

Koteshwar Mahadev

The Deity was dancing with the beats of drums and tunes of other musical instruments. On the shoulders on his devotees his colourful palanquin was swinging to & fro, up & down and left & right. These palanquins are not very big or with covering, these are open one just like big stools with four horizontal wooden poles to be carried by devotees. But these are beautifully decorated with mostly blood red coloured clothes. On the top rested main idol of the face of Deity made of eight different metals. This one is profoundly decorated with garlands of scented flowers and of coins, various ornaments, golden crown and with a gold umbrella. Beneath this main idol, lined up are other various idol of same Koteshwar Mahadev. One can easily judge the peace, happiness and eternal satisfaction on the face of Devataa (Deity). It seems that people who are carrying the palanquin are themselves maneuvering it but it is said that it is Devataa himself who drives the palanquin. All the four palanquins were moving all around the fair ground which was already filled more than capacity with humble devotees of Koteshwar Mahadev. People of every caste, age and sex were present and glorifying the fair. Young and old residents of Kumarsain were coming before palanquins to carry them and were feeling lucky to get a chance even for few seconds.

I was watching the entire proceedings with devotion, excitement and curiosity. The festivity was enhanced by grey clouds and then by rain. Air was filled with devotion towards Koteshwar Mahadev who is believed to be scared soul blessed by Lord Shiva himself and one is considered King of the area of Kumarsain, a small town around seventy five kilometers up north from Shimla, capital of Himachal Pradesh. For the devotees, this Deity is not some "God" but just like their beloved family member for whom they have extreme love and respect and the one who have blessings of God to fulfill their big or small requirement or to erase their day to day problems. For them this Deity is in constant touch with its people either by dreams or through his 'Gur" the main priest. The occasion was the local festival which comes after every four years when Koteshwar Mahadev would meet his other loving deities, Marechh and Malendu Devtaa. I spent last two days at that festival and was lucky to witness the farewell of all other deities from Koteshwar. Just like young kids those departing Devtaa were so reluctant to leave that their palanquins would not let its bearers take the exit route even when Koteshwar Mahadev himself was waiting at the end of road to see them off. Only the interruption of oldest 'Gur' made them ready to leave for another four years. The festival ended with the 'Nati' (local dance) by the people of Kumarsain. The charm on the faces of idols of Devtaa seem faded a bit cause of this departing.

More pics are available at: