flavour of the month

Music is the one of those things in my life which I cannot live without and I constantly need something new to keep me going. That's been my task this past weekend. Trying to find some new music for the week/month/year/life . Typical life span of any new music ranges between a couple of days to a couple of weeks in my play-list. Although, I must admit some songs just stay fresh forever (like 'Marooned'....it surely must be Gilmour's 'Magnum Opus').
Being mostly a classic rock guy, I've lately been hooked on to lounge. Here's some of the songs that survived the many try-outs and made it into my 'flavour of the month' play-list.

Song: Sitar Gaze - Niladri Kumar
Album : Red Earth - India On My Mind
Short review: Most songs in this album are good, But 'Sitar Gaze' is clearly the best of them and deserves to be on everybody's play-lists. The mellow beginning and the sitar riffs certainly touches ones' emotions. Niladri Kumar is a very talented musician. Also worth mentioning is Nladri's rendition of Jana Gana Mana in A R Rahman's version of the national anthem.

Song: Drive
Artist : Karsh Kale
Album : Karsh Kale - Broken English
Short review: Karsh Kale is one highly talented artist. The sitar in this piece is played by Niladri and is very well mixed by Karsh. Very melodic and soothing , is a 'must listen' on a long drive!!

Song: All Bliss - John Wubbenhorst
Album : Incredible India
Short review: 'All Bliss' another one of those melodic pieces on sitar. Played by John Wubbenhorst, it proves, what a magnificent instrument, 'The Sitar' really is. The album has several good songs but only 'All Bliss' gets the special mention.

Song: L'amour
Album : Dubai Chill Lounge Vol 2
Short review: Just fell in love with the French in the song. Decent lounge music. Made it to the play-list because of the French :)

Song: Mumtaz
Album : Bombay Dub Orchestra - Vol 1
Short review: Beautiflul, melodic piece of lounge music. The flute just soothes your mind. Once again most songs in the album are good.

All songs are available on www.musicindiaonline.com for anybody's listening pleasure.

emissions

Woo Hoo!! I passed my emissions test today.
I have spent a lot of freakin money on fixing my car this week. After having been kicked around by the auto shops, I ended up visiting the dealership to find a fix for my car. Auto dealerships are the worst of the lot. As soon as you step inside you can be sure of parting away with atleast a week's worth of money.The service guy greets you with a certain 'what-a-poor-bastard' kind of smile and you greet him back with an "Oh-shit!!" kind of smile. Its a perfect place to discover how notorious the service industry in the US is. All my car needed was a new canister (part of the exhaust system which is made of a thin piece of sheet metal) and some cleaning of a blocked valve. And it cost me 685 friggin dollars!!!!
I could have actually done away without the new canister, but I had received a threatening notice several days ago from the DMV informing of my driver's license suspension if I did not get my emissions done in time. WTF!!!
Having already had many encounters with the cops (darn luck!!), didn't want to take any more chances. So today I have finally got my car fixed and the emissions done!!! I wanted to treat myself for this wonderful achievement but remembered I had a big crater in my bank account. Crap!!!

'HOME is where the heart is'

After 3 long years in the USA , I finally decided to take off for a month long vacation to 'namma Bengalooru' this December.It was a super relaxing trip and was indeed a well deserved break. There is nothing that can rejuvenate a spirit like visiting your home. After all 'HOME is where the heart is'!!

I had waited a long time to see my family and friends and my city and was super excited to meet them all. However this wait seemed to stretch longer and longer as I flew our 'warm and motherly' Air India (reminds me of a pun my sister once told me: warm because the A/Cs don't work and motherly because all the air hostesses remind you of your mother). I had heard horrid stories from friends about their flying experiences in Air India. But now I had the chance to experience it myself and I did! Firstly the flight from Chicago was delayed 'supposedly' due to the cold weather which didn't seem to affect any of the 100's of other air crafts taking off that night from O'Hare. It was just poor planning and irresponsibility by the AI management. Its amazing how the staff come up with such lame excuses knowing that not one soul on the aircraft would buy such an explanation. This joke seemed to have ended until we landed in Mumbai where there was further delay. This time it was because we were waiting for other transit passengers to arrive from other air crafts and board ours. And the joke was that the other air crafts hadn't even landed !! And we were made to wait inside the aircraft with no A/C and only an hour away from home which was so frustrating and resulted in my decision to not fly Air India ever again. Anyway, all this frustration flew right out of the window as soon as I landed in namma Bengalooru and saw my parents after 3 years.

Bangalore has changed tremendously and at an insanly rapid pace. Namma Bengalooru doesn't seem much like 'namdu', if you have missed all that's happened to the city in the past 3-4 years. What was once a relatively calm, green and peaceful Bangalore is now a bustling, polluted and loud metropolis. Apartments are springing up on every corner of the street like hair on a petrified cat, real estate prices have skyrocketed in only 3 years and traffic!....well, that's for another post on another day! And I can barely recognise Airport road...All this can be a little over-whelming if you have been away from Bangalore for three years as I found out!!
Well...no matter how much I bitch about the current state of Bangalore, its still namma Bengalooru and I'll always love it. Even with the aforementioned by-products of a booming economy, the people are still the same; warm, cheerful and with a 'swalpa adjust madi' attitude. You cannot help but feel the positive energy that is radiating form this place. I have made a promise to myself to visit Bangalore more often than I did before, for, the next time I see it, It may not be 'namdu' anymore !