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Saarang 2005 which just went by had some cool moments that would be recorded in the official photographer’s camera. But here are some Saarang images that I clicked. I personally liked to click them because the pictures have an amateurish flavor as you can see. And these were clicked outside the OAT [Open Air Theatre] where the pro shows were conducted. They frisk chewing gums to cameras at the entrance of OAT and hence I didn’t want to take along my camera inside.

Have put in captions for each of the images. They were selling a photo CD of Saarang 2005 at the venue, which had images shot during all the professional shows and the crowd of Saarang. It had pics that were something like the Spirit of Saarang and was just costing 20 bucks. If I can get hold of that CD, will upload some professional show pictures taken from the terrace of the OAT, for those who missed Saarang 2005. Do let me know if you enjoyed the pics. Also will write about Prasanna’s Jazz show.

Thanks to the Google Picasa. As Google released Picasa 2, last week, I downloaded and to my suprise found it a lot better than what I had expected. So the picture page that you will be seeing is a Picasa generated page. All I did was to download the images from the camera and clicked on export to webpage. Vroooomm. It’s Done. Great software as it even digged my entire computer to bring out pictures that I was assuming to be mis-placed. Try Picasa for your PC.

Indian Newspaper celebrates its 225th birthday today. This same day on 1780, the Indian newspaper was born and a new jobs called paperboys emerged. Hopefully it will continue to swing for the next 20 years like this. 20 years is just too much of a guesstimate given the supersonic developments in the tech area. However, newspapers would live longer than that but may not be in the same paper form. Who knows ?

Atleast in this part of the world, newspapers have been the prime source of news for more than a century. Else Bharati wouldn’t have never attempted to edit a newspaper called Vijaya when he was undercover in Pondicherry. The televisions which glare the red colored flash news snippets are just about picking up and can never replace newspapers. The internet however can.

Imagine, after 10 years from now, all of us might carry a tabloid PC or smaller than that, where we would subscribe to online editions of The Hindu, Times of India, Deccan Herald and those paperboys might just loose their jobs. Though personally I wish that never happens because there are numerous people whom I know, jump-start their morning biological compulsions only after a cup of filtercoffee and a gulp of morning news from The Hindu. Am sure Hindu’s online edition would improve dramtically then, to adapt the bulging online junta.

Vikatan group which publishes the widely read popular weeklies, is making it’s their online editions as a paysite. I am sure their online readership would continue to drop in the coming months but I am positive it might pickup in a year or two. All these days Vikatan.com was a free site and it was serving Vikatan only as a way of marketing their magazines. Now they are continuing to do what they have been doing online but for a sum of money. Even a few thousand dollars for them through the online subscription is extra. They can atleast break-even with this to pay their online content managers.

Back in the US, as the newspaper van throws a plastic covered newspaper at the doorstep which most of them pickup only when they take their cars out to work. They get dose of news from the numerous news channels and online news sources delivered to their multi-tasked PDAs. Ofcourse, I’ve read newspapers like Chicago Tribune, NY Times, Sun, Wash Post that have provide amazingly opinonated views to the news. It’s only that the urgency of life that make newspaper being read online than offline. A similar case would also happen even in India. I ain’t under estimating the power of newspaper but it’s due to complex lifestlyes, newspapers might get shrinked as marketing media for the readers. There could even be a Hindu evening edition in the coming years just for the whole lot of population that only gets up in the evening after a tiring night shift at callcenters.

All the above were on the future of newspapers. Taking about the contemporary state, few newspapers have started to take political sides or caste-based sides. A commoner has to read atleast two newspapers, watch the biased channel news, read online just to decide what the actual story was. Here’s the positive note for all those who think I was a little negative through out the post. If only newspapers continue to report(this is dicey word) news as they are, they can give a run to the online news content and news channels.

For those who missed to read today’s newspapers(in the wood pulp form), here are some the fabulous ad caption that The Indian Newspaper Society published as multiple quater page ads in most of the newspapers.

- If this was just a paper, it wouldn’t have lasted 225 years. The Indian newspaper. Born 29th January 1780. Just as powerful today.

- Go back to reading the paper. On this day in 1780, the first Indian newspaper hit the stands. And so began a ritual millions indulge in everyday. Come to think of it, that’s what you were doing before we interupted.

- Just this once, the big news of the day isn’t in the papers. It is the papers. 29th January, 1780. The first Indian newspaper hits the stands. And ever since, the papers have become an essential part of daily life. Now there’s a truly newsworthy event.

Outlook loves to overhype it’s articles. Their recent coverstory on the cliched topic, sex / India / Indian women got criticised for overhyping it. This one on the celibates-by-choice isn’t one of those category. It makes real sense maybe because I am able to relate to it. The article details on the growing population of singles in the metros of India.

I’ve gone through this feeling of being a single throughout life, several times. Had even joked to friends that celibacy may not be a choice but the only option left. Fortunately, I wasn’t lucky like those singles. Have no qualms. Infact, its a lot lot better than being single. I have to admit marriage softens oneself. Forget the dreamy romance stuff. It’s not about it. It’s about the rebel in you getting toned down to accomodate two minds, rather than one. Many a time, softening down gives you a matured perspective. However, you slowly loose the rebel in you to become a middleclass ‘ambi’. Ambi or Rebel, you’ve got to choose.

I am sure that there might be varied thoughts as this is a larger area under discussion and I have chose to talk only about a few.

The ambience is electrifying. The lights are dazzling. The dudes and the dudettes are simply classy and make Britney spears and Orlando Bloom have re-look on their fashion sense. There is appropriate security. The crowd rocks and there are no in-decent events reported. Saarang is cool. Not great, though.

There is a thin air of null and void that makes this year’s Saarang look a little dull. It’s the audience who have added color to this year’s Saarang. I ain’t concluding because there is still a cool performance of Guitar Prasanna’s today in the Jazz show. I am not the complaining type but it’s just plainly visible for any Saarang frequenter. The organisers and the volunteers are the ones who have worked hard to make Saarang a success but then the selection of performers (inter college and pro-shows) should have been done with a little more care.

On the Bindaas Park, Hutch has a huge team of guys and girls who keep conducting the age old games. Last year, this Hutch team rocked. They didn’t do all the gimmicks like now. All they had was a small jam machine that was re-mixing songs with a DJ and the crowd loved to dance, dance and dance baby. Now, not only they bore the on-lookers but they also seem bored by doing this year-after-year. I am sure this is not Hutch’s marketing issue but they could have selected the ambassadors better. It was a common opinion and not just mine. How many times will we dance as a couple by folding the sheets of paper untill we step out? Change the game dudes and see the fun. This is not only true for the Hutch stall but also for the Nokia stall. Nokia, is the prime sponsor this year for the Saarang and has made sure all that they execute the promotion well.

Decibels 2005 –

The decibels show(inter-college western music contest) is one of the best things that happen at the Saarang. Not to forget Cluedo and the dramatics. I managed to watch the pre-lims and the finals. On the prelims conducted in the Bindaas Park, the teams either wasted time in setting up their musical instruments or talking about the music they loved to play. These days, most teams play own compositions which are sometimes better than the professionals. A band called Black Legions(I think!!), who had very little time to sing in the pre-lims because their lead guitar went out of shape, played good rock-and-roll of yester years. Their first song called Crash Course to Rock ‘N’ Roll which was an own composition was note-worthy.

On the finals, it was Guitar Prasanna and another guy(who arranged the Jesus Christ Super Star in Chennai) who were the judges. A female singer Nandita sang a Van Halen number which was clearly one of the best. Powder in Ash Tray, a band with amazing Vocals and great leads, walked away the with Decibels 2005 award.

Light Music 2005 –

Thiruda Thiruda might have failed in the box-office but it doesn’t mean the movie and it’s music would be forgotten. Thee Thee song from Thiruda Thiruda and Minsaara Poove from Padayappa were the popular ones. They were sung twice by two teams. Also Konjam Nilavu was attempted the MCC. That girl from MCC sang the movie so stlyishly that I was thinking she might win the best female vocalist prize.

Songs like Thee Thee and Konjam Nilavu are highly synthesized and it’s tough to reproduce them with just intruments and a keyboard. If only the college teams would agree with this, they might sing Illayaraja numbers and walk away with the awards. I am not tipping that AR Rahman music is tough to be re-produced. But with live audience and live sounds, for an amateur it might be a little tough to get that perfection.

Whereas Minsaara Poovey which has a cool combo of classical and synth music was welcomed by the audience. Also there is huge scope in the song to display voice modulations. I would anytime advice people to sing Megham Kottatum, Vannam Konda Vennilavey or even Illamai Itho Itho to walk away with the prize.

Rehana, AR Rahman’s sister and Saagar, Devi Shri Prasad’s brother alongwith Keith Peters were there to judge the music show. Rehana rightly said that the sound system was tuned for western music show and that’s probably why the teams had tough time tuning the instruments.

Will detail more on Saarang 2005 and KK light music show alongwith Prasanna’s Be the Change show, tomorrow. Also will upload pictures, sleeping the digi cam, by the weekend.

Whoa !! Thanks to everyone who took time to read and vote this blog as the Best Humanities(Arts) IndiBlog 2004, for the second time. It’s certainly an extra dose of inspiration served as an award. I am sure there are many other blogs on arts and media that are covering some amazing stuff who also need to appreciated now.

Thanks to Debashish(Indiblogger) who did a great job of showcasing the best of Indian blogs through the IndiBloggies Awards. Congrats to all other bloggers who won Indibloggies.

Am on a Saarang high, over the weekend. As usual they don’t allow photograhic equipment inside the Open Air Theatre. So the digital camera that I carry along would be frisked. Hence, will post some pictures taken outside. Picture postcards of current fashion.

My mom celebrated the silver jubliee year of Sumeet mixie in our house. It was bought somewhere in the early 1980 when I was still a crying mama in the kindergarten. It stills rotates faster(!) to make yummy Thenga Chutney and Pudhina Thugayal. May sound trivial. But I am just thinking, as engineering gets better, do the contemporary products have better life. To think back, our B/W Solidaire lived longer than our recent color Videocon television. I understand the usage has increased but still. I am not sure how long my philips ‘digital’ television will continue to show images un-distorted ? I hope it happens sooner than two years. A plasma television might just come barge into my drawing room, only then.

Channel [V] ropes in A R Rahman and Adnan Sami for the final-phase auditions of Super Singer contest. Handful of them would certainly get a chance to sing ARR’s compositions. Lucky them.

Marriage inisde the family. Dum Dum Dum to Hotmail and Outlook.

Will anybody stop loving Raymond even after they are done by May 16 2005? Its one of my fave show.

JavaScript : The World’s Most Misunderstood Programming Language. Interesting. [Via Kottke].

[Pic: Hindu]

Not just this post but also the doctorate itself was by a popular demand. This guy is certainly worth one. Dr. Kamal Hassan. Doesn’t that sound a little odd ?. I perfer to call him simply by his first name, Kamal.

Just noticed that the previous post was on Rajini. This has happened before. Can’t beat this combo.

[Pic: idlebrain.com]

Chandramukhi is on the sets. Rajinikanth looks much younger, just like the Arunaachalam make-over. IdleBrain and Behindwoods are up with galleries. Check out.

That title wasn’t a spell mistake. Intended. It’s a day when people usually are out on the sea bathing, eating pannju mittai, going gala rounds on the raatinams, teens driving supersonic bikes with their girlfriends in the pillions and hiding faces with dupatta on the east coast road, people throwing ‘rastali’ bananas at the orangutangs in Vandalur and what not. Many of them were missing in action, today.

Was driving by the Marina shore today and to my surprise saw there were hardly anyone for the pongal celebrations on the beach. There wasn’t even the a crowd that comes down on a weekend. And as I took a ‘U’ turn on the war memorial and came back through the Napier bridge, just can’t beat the thought of Aayitha Ezhuthu climax scenes. Stopped the bike on a corner of the bridge, looked back at it and took off again. Drove along the Kamarajar salai to reach Santhome and then the Elliots beach. Hardly any crowd there at 5 pm. Gosh, couldn’t believe my sight. Went near the shore after parking the bike. Desperately wanted to touch the water but it was restricted today. The bajji stalls are now moved far from the shores and it looked that they were the ones seriously hit by Tsunami attack.

There was even very low turn-out on the Chennai Book Fair. Was roaming around from 12:00 to 3:00 in the noon and it wasn’t too crowded as the other day. Only on such a day you can leisurely browse books and also get a good glimpse of the fair. Leaving my outfits, I gave off everything else in the book fair for buying books. Now, I have to find a place in my house to arrange them.

Some book thats I bought today - 6 out-of-print books of Sujatha from Thirumagal Nilayam(mostly compilations of columns that he wrote for Kanayaazhi), Gnani’s Kandathai Sollugiren (columns that he wrote for India Today) and Sundara Ramaswamy’s Oru Puliyamarathin Kathai. Need to buy - S.Ramakrishan’s Ulaga Cinema(World Cinema) and Upa Pandavam, Ashokamithran Katuraigal, Aathmanaam Poetry, Jeyamohan’s shortstory collection and thousands of such nice ones. The bookfair will wind-up by tomorrow.