Cuckoo

I was forced to write a haiku today.
This is what i could come up

Summer is here,
hot and sweaty.
but oohh ... a cuckoo !
melodious summer .

Yeah I know the number of syllables are all wrong. Technically it is not even a haiku. But who's judging? Moreover Haiku is already democratic enough to use free verse, so why the restriction on number of syllables..

Actually my preoccupation with singing cuckoos comes from the early morning surprise that i got from papa today. He is in Assam to attend some meeting. He called me in the morning to let me listen to the cuckoo. Wow. :) It was the first cuckoo song of the season for me. Ah.. I suddenly remembered what all I am missing. :|
Damn you Gurgaon.

The musical me :)

Went to Noida this weekend.
Perfect lazy weekend with nothing to do except reading books, playing "Not at Home", watching movies and visiting malls. And yes, I got hooked to "Shin-Chan" (not sure of the spelling). Wonderful kid.
I also happend to watch "Sa Re Ga Ma" by chance. The kids singing were ok enough, but I didnt like the funda of having semi-popular junior judges and one very popular legendary senior judge in the panel. The whole environment wasnt as healthy as it used to be earlier.
Good music, I believe, is too pure, and to judge it so casually is a crime !
Earlier, I used to think of myself as unlucky because i havent ever been a good singer(yeah I have tried lots of times.. Even managed to win first prize in a group song. yeah group is the catch here..hehe).
But with time I came to realize that I was exteamly lucky ! There are people who dont understand or enjoy music at all. They fail to recognise the beauty of a soulful melody. The magic of music doesnt impress them.. It is those people, who are not favored by luck, not me :) .

Ahh ....I just want to listen to Zucchero, Norah, Bach..
And thats what i am gonna do.

Nessun Dorma

I have started the Crossword again.. I mean solving it.
In college i used to get HT and slowly I got addicted to its daily crossword. Not tough like from the Times and not too easy either.... gave me my 1 hour of happiness :)
And now I have started it again.... If you have ever done one you will know the sheer pleasure of solving one. And its not that i dont get help. I have my Advanced learners and of course some very learned friends :)
Yesterday I was stuck on "An aria from Turandot by Puccini".. Now I had never heard Turandot nor read about it anywhere.... My limited GK was a handicap too. Googled today and found this beautiful liberetto called "Nessun Dorma". Apparently it was covered by some very notable tenors, one of them being Luciano Pavarotti himself ! And it was also on the official record of the 1990 Football world cup..
Well, I went through the piece and wow.. its wonderful. I am posting the original piece here..
Tried to translate it using Google Language.and my.. its so soulful.. I can only imagine what a Pavarotti rendition of this would sound like..

Nessun dorma!... Tu pure, o Principessa,
Nella tua fredda stanza
Guardi le stelle
Che tremano d'amore e di speranza.
Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me,
Il nome mio nessun saprà!
Solo quando la luce splenderà,
Sulla tua bocca lo dirò fremente!...
Ed il mio bacio scioglierà il silenzio
Che ti fa mia!...
Il nome suo nessun saprà...
E noi dovremo, ahimè, morir!...
Dilegua, o notte!... Tramontate, stelle!...
All'alba vincerò!...

My other love

Summer is here.... (Has been here for quite some time now :) )

I used to love summers because during childhood it meant freedom....yes, The Summer vacations . It used to be all play and no studies.... no homework :)

We would play sattolia and cricket as long as we wanted... and when we got home we were greeted by cool mango shakes and watermelons..

And how can i forget the beautiful flowers.. There were flaming red gulmohars, beautiful yellow amaltaas and soothing pink and white bouganvellia..


In college , we had lots of amaltaas tree around our canteen and the dispensary.. [ yeah ! MNIT can boast of that at least :) ] .

The memories are so strong that even after so many years I can feel the excitement on seeing a gulmohar in full bloom. The red sight can never fail to make me smile.. I remember promising myself that i will buy a house with gulmohan on the driveway. There is an amaltaas tree on the way to work.. Thats one saving grace that our neighbourhood has.. Thank God for that.

Run for Life

"It's a blur since they told me about it
How the darkness had taken its toll
And they cut into my skin
And they cut into my body
But they will never get a piece of my soul"

- From the song titled "I run for Life " by Melissa Etheridge

Melissa Lou Etheridge is a three time multi-Platinum and 2 time grammy award winning artist. Wow.... Now thats a difficult feat to achieve right? Not more that 0.0000001% of the women in the world may boast of a similar material achievement. But that is not why I quote her. I quote her for being strong, finding the strength to fight and speading the hope among the victims of Breast Cancer..
This song was performed by her on the Jay Leno show to celebrate her own victory and to instill hope among numerous other women..

A (mis??)adventure

I had an adventure :)
yeah....
This sunday Ksh and I decided to have a nice dinner one last time in Gurgaon (He shifted to Noida . Much better place than this :) ) . We went to this little place in DLF Phase I where they serve really yummy chicken. It was about 10 when we finished eating. When we came out we saw that the bike had a flat tire !!!! Considering the time and the place, we certainly had a crisis....
Ksh somehow managed to flag down a rickshaw and mounted the bike on it.. (Yeah... picture a bike + 2 ppl on a rickshaw). The rickshaw walah was really sweet.. We had to go about 5-6 kilometers before we got a decent mechanic.. And the ride was so funny.. What a sight it must have been. I tried not to notice ppl staring. One person actually stopped to look at us. Poor guy might have wanted to help. haha.. The ride was cute and we really had a nice time.

We had planned to make our last regular outing in Gurgaon a memorable one.. and ended up having more fun than we had planned for. :)