Variety is the spice of life

This year went in a quicker whizz than every previous year. As I turn back and see, last 9 months had been spent literally inside the confines of four walls. Guess that is how prisoners wade through their sentences. Especially those who serve life terms, I often wonder how come they manage their time. The answer is, the concept of time loses its relevance when the physical space for movement is restricted. Of course, mind can traverse across universes, but body definitely has its limitations. I couldn’t quite recollect anything significant that happened in this year but for the loss of so many well wishers and relatives and family friends. To be honest working from home doesn’t make much different for my lifestyle. Reading, watching movies, spending time at home are the only necessities for me. This year was good from the variety of books that were recommended. The most recent being “When Nietzsche wept”, “Rise and fall of third Reich”. Neither of which I’ve completed and would probabl...

The series finale is fast approaching, as fast as the end of the universe, as predicted and chased about from book 1 !! Mathew reilly’s  Jack West jr series, was introduced to me, about 11 years back, at Mumbai airport by boredom. I stumbled on book 2, “Six sacred stones”, as the first read of this series, without knowing anything about the context or how it would evolve into so many books. I thought it was a standalone one and the summary page on the back cover set my curiosity running. The theme involved two of my favorite genres – history and thriller. The story was super-fast racy and the book got over before I knew it. I wanted to check out other books by the same author and then landed on “7 ancient wonders”. Again, having no clue that this is going to create a craze, relished reading the book, which was even quicker paced than the second one. Having read the second part first, the cliffhanger (literally and figuratively) ending of first part was a spoiler even before I start...

One of my chithappa was working on AIR as a music director. It was at a time when Doordarshan was the only channel. Very rarely he would be called to conduct some music orchestra on that channel, especially during festival times, when the channel would invite individual performers/artists for some special day event. All he would do was to wave his hand in front of the troupe and in a space of 20 minutes, he might hardly be seen for a minute or two. But he used to say that, when he walked on the streets, people used to greet him like a celebrity. He was (and FELT) very famous during those times. With the popularity of satellite channels, this setup that Doordarshan popularized, waned and you no longer get to see such kind of shows. Orchestra definitely is mentioned on music reality shows. But I’ve rarely seen a conductor being involved. It was his view as well that, role of such people had become irrelevant in this new setup and with the new generation of folks, people like him, who onc...

Chai with Chitra on Touring talkies YouTube channel, has been my fast favorite this year. Have been watching most of the interviews on that channel mainly because of the interviewer’s style, for allowing people to talk. I have become a big fan of Chitra Lakshmanan for his humility and decentness with which he guides the conversation. For someone who has been very well acquainted with the industry almost having spent more than half a dozen decades, his style of querying the guest on borderline cases, with feather like prod on topics that may involve some personal points from their life and gently guiding them away if at the slightest hint of discomfort for them. His recent spate of guests have been all drama troupe pioneers from the 70’s. May be from previous birth or for whatever reason, dramas have always been a fascination for me. Especially the ones by Cho and viveka troupe. Being an alumni of that esteemed college is an added reason. I take immense pride in having studied at the sa...

From a conversation few years back with one fanatic movie star – “Do you know how much money they need to maintain their life style? It is not cheap being a superstar leave alone being his immediate relation. If you are normally dressed, media/people comment that you are way too simple and might even trigger controversies that you may be on bad times and debts. If you are lavish and stylish they would criticize you for not being modest and may question the legality of your source of income. If you remain under the radar, you cannot survive in the industry, where everyday at least 100 new people make their cut and could potentially lay claim to your throne shortly. If you are over exposed, that requires lot of patience and maturity, where even a single slip up could break your entire career and make you a laughing stock. You need to have an opinion for everything under the sun. You have to keep abreast of current affairs and any slip of tongue could ruin your carefully maintained image....

Recent fetish. Have been desisting from watching this series for a long while as there were many other investigative thrillers abound. Now that I started off with season 1, even before I could realize I am on to the next season. There is something catchy about those drama series that came in the early 2000’s. Be it sitcoms, crime thrillers, mystery series – after watching the recent ones on air, every one of them seems very down to earth and simple (for want of a better word). There is a very strong human element on each show, with the characters playing the role having a major say on the success. The backdrop for each characters are more defined, researched and at any point in time, are well fertile to have an offshoot series of their own. This human element being the single reason I could find across all of those famous and successful ones, which are equally rich on emotional connect with the audience. Be it FRIENDS, 24 (at least the first 4 seasons), Breaking Bad, Everybody loves Ra...