[Pic:eer-music]

Chennai is yet to take a breather from the crowded book fair but then there’s no time. Saarang 2005, the cultural mishmash of IIT Madras is happening again. I shouldn’t be saying it’s happening. Because as the IITians says, it isn’t an event. Saarang is a state of mind. And this yearly festival starts from 21st Jan 2005 and goes on till the 26th. This is an inter-college show and so the youth is outta there. A gentle breeze after the rather dry december music festival and the book fair.

I’ve been a regular to this yearly event for close to a decade and it gets better every time. Be it the pro-shows or the arrangements or the fashion statement, Saarang simply rocks. It makes you feel young and yearn for those good-old college days. A true extravaganza. Last year, Saarang was devastating. Euphoria and Strings created a magic on the last day and I could still remember the whole stadium singing Maa Thuje Salaam. Also Decibels, intre-college western music show was the best of all the years. And I hope this year it will become even tougher. You also have this usual nice to watch Ad-Zap, Jam and creative writing competitions, not to forget the popular Mr and Ms Saarang.

This year’s schedule is out. For the pro-shows KK(the same Kakkha Kakkha KK) will be performing light music on 24th. Orange Street alongiwth Moksha will perform the rock show on 22nd Jan. There comes a suspense which I nearly guessed(rather wanted to happen). Guitar Prasanna will be performing again for the Jazz show named, Be the Change. Be the Change is actually the latest album released by Prasanna in the mid 2004. He along with Jeff Coffin on sax, Kai Eckhardt on bass guitar and Derico Watson on drums will perform the show. During Saarang 2000, he played along with Alphonso Johnson. I had been to that show and I must say it was exhilarating.

Guitar Prasanna is well known to Chennai music fans for his carnatic compositions with guitar. I did like his albums on Jazz than the carnatic ones. He was probably inspired by the Miles Davis school of jazz and took over jazz from blues. He owns more credit for spreading the reach of carnatic music in the American music circles. With Illayaraja his last work was for Vaanavilley in Ramana. He played those enchanting acoustics for Yej Jo Hai Tera of Swades for A R Rahman. I am definetly there for this show and also for the KK’s light music.

Catch up with the never ending State-of-Mind Saarang next week. If you are coming do let me know and we can plan along.

Indibloggies is the Indian version of Bloggies. These are awards given away for the best blogs during the year. This blog, lazygeek.net was the Best Media Indiblog, last year. This year the name has been changed to Best Humanities(arts) Indian Weblog. Am not sure why they had to change it ?

Anyway, this blog is nominated again. Unlike last year, there are more competitors this year. If you think it’s (still) worth it, do vote.

As usual there are books and bookworms in Chennai. However, the Chennai Bookfair 2005 isn’t only about them. Strangely, the book fair is getting very sociable. A typical social gathering than just a book buying crowd. But if they are able to translate the visitors into book buyers the goal is reached.

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Amitav Ghosh, the writer of The Calcutta Chromosome, writes to The Hindu about his experiences on The Tsunami disaster in Andaman as a three-part series.

Amrish ‘Mogambo’ Puri passes away. In pictures. His last film was Kamal’s yet-to-be-released Mumbai Express.

This year’s Bhogi went without fogging any flights and the traffic. It’s improving every year. Good going.

Why would Vishnu incarnate as Rama in the epic of Ramayana and be sent to exile? He needs to kill Ravana. That’s one perspective. Being a staunch bhaktha of Shiva, it’s the path that Ravana chose to attain Moksha. That’s another. Put both into a single glass and see through it. I am sure you get another perspective. Every perspective also has a moral. A moral that so glaringly and sometimes very subtly told. This probably is the reason Ramayana still exists as the numero-uno of moral story building forte.

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NDTV, one of the unbiased and no-nonsense(personal opinion!!) news channel is moving ahead to the business arena. Their new 24 hour Business News channel, Profit, will start operating from Jan 17.

Business News Channels aren’t new to India. We have had TV-18 operating for a long time since now before getting merged with CNBC to make Indian oriented business news. Looks like TV-18 is also moving ahead with a full-time hindi business news channel by the next month. Zee Business, a business news channel in hindi is already up and running from November 2004 end.

Vikram Chandra, CEO of NDTV will also head the NDTV profit and I hope they will be television news portal for Indian Business within less than a year.

I forgot to wish Elvis Presley, Happy Birthday, on his 70th Birthday. Not his fans. Having known Elvis only through his music and ofcourse through Forrest Gump, I think he is more of a philosophy than an idol.

Here’s more. What would it be if Elvis was alive ?

[Pic: Vikatan]

As kollywood gets ready to witness one of the finest summers with many blockbusters lined up, Shankar talks about Anniyan. In his quick inteview[needs user id/password] with Ananda Vikatan, Shankar seems to be happy about the shoot until now.

He describes that when an Indian travels to the foreign nations, more often, he behaves like a the green-eyed monster on their lifestyle, cleanliness and financial growth. Anniyan is an answer never-ending question of “When will India shine?”. He is also happy about Harris Jayaraj’s music. I was also expecting that he would talk about the cinematography of Mani Kandan. There wasn’t a question about that. Shankar also reacalls his experiences with Kathal as a producer.

With movies like Rajini’s Chandramukhi, Kamal Hassan’s Mumbai Express, Vijay’s Sachin and Surya’s Maayaavi all waiting to be released on April 14th, Shankar’s Anniyan will also be in this league of hugely expected movies. What more does kollywood want except a race to box-office like this ?

IBM strengthens it’s Business Intelligence capabilities by acquiring SRD, a company specialising in identity resoultion. SRD’s products can answer “Who is who?” questions in the area of analytics with accuracy. That’s a big leap for IBM in the BI arena.

It’s over. Oracle has purchased more than 97% of PeopleSoft’s stock, and the application vendor is now a wholly owned Oracle subsidiary.

Must read for the Google guys. This is a long read but a neat technology review of Google and suggestion for Google on the road ahead. What’s Next for Google by By Charles H. Ferguson.

Windows Media Center PC is making way into the living rooms.

Rahul Saxena wouldn’t have featured here if I wouldn’t have heard him sing. He wouldn’t even be known to a 1000 people throughout his life if only he didn’t participate in Sony’s Indian Idol competition. Today Rahul Saxena is a hero. A true spirited gentleman.

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