Space out Time out

What is it? There are various interpretations for it in many spiritual texts.. I have read about it over and over again and have sat with it through my meditations. It has never failed to amaze me, excite me and to a great deal transform me.. Its all in the NOW. We know this. Its again textbook knowledge to attain spiritual enlightenment. No, but literally, this presence is in the now. You can feel it, when you bring your attention to it. Its like this flame around your, that surrounds you. A cold flame that is tingly and vibrant. ANYONE can sense it ANYTIME. It is always there, you can not think about it, but you can feel it. When you sort of feel it, stay with it.. And it will grow bigger. And if you can let go of all the thoughts that possess you from one moment to the next, there will be a dropping; like dropping from a rope swing into the water, a splash and you will drop into an openness. An engulfing openness. But as soon as you try to hold on to it, its gone, it...

God or Gravity? Thank god for gravity!!! Its such a powerful force if we come to realize it. I was on walk with my dog one evening and after she got tired playing fetch, I decided to lay on the grass after having felt its softness in my feet while walking earlier. I was loving the weather and the wind and the blue sky with waves of clouds ebbing in the vast ocean of this atmosphere. I looked up and in an instant felt a discomfort stemming form the fear of what would happen if there weren’t any gravity holding me down right now on this little patch of grass and if I were to fly away. My mind started diving and deepening this fear… Fly away to where? Not in the sky because that would’ve flown out already. I guess in to the vast expanse of nothingness? But if there is nothing then how am I there? What is holding my form as is? Gravity.. After an expansion in the external view came the internal view of this whole force.. I am me because of gravity. The air we breathe hangs around us becaus...

P. Ramalingam - An Obituary My grandpa (thatha as we lovingly called him) was a kind, loving man of principles. He was the oldest Carnatic singer I have known in my family. He deeply loved and revered music. Ever since I was little he would always ask me to take time out to practice music. When I would visit him back home, he would lovingly sit next to me and and ask me to sing the new ragams that I learnt in the recent past and close his eyes and be lost in my music. In his later days, he lost his hearing abilities to a great extent, but he would still strain his ears to talk to me on the phone when I called him. You would always find him singing or humming a Carnatic tune, much as his voice allowed him to the very end of his time. I pay all my heartfelt respects to this man from whom I learnt so much, growing up and in every stage of my life. He lived by his rules and he ardently stuck to them till his last days. He was big on reading the newspaper. Not a day would pass when he would...

You can listen to my songs non-stop here

why hate? the

What do I seek? Is it a fleeting shadow or the lingering aftertaste of a nostalgia Is it some old played tunes in my head or the thrill of meeting a stranger Iv met before is it being consumed by the portraits of a landscape or the feeling of falling down the rabbit's hole is it the longing to see those eyes or to melt by the touch of some fingers Is it the depth of a voice? Or a thousand words in that glance Is it feeling alive in a moment or the sweet pain of anguish Is it the meaning of this existence or the thrill of a fantastic day Is it the happiness from that smile Or the buoyancy of those tears Is it I? Or am I an illusion?

The Vagabond effects When my friend asked me to go to this show I didnt even think twice to find out if it was an opera concert or a band or

This song makes my heart ache.. A beautiful rendition of raaga Madhuvanti. One of my favourites :) Album/Film : Dil Ki Raahen Release Year : 1975 Producer : Majeeda Movies Production : Majeeda Movies Director : B.R. Ishara Film Actors : Amrit Lakhan Pal, Dileep Datt, Jony Walker, Rakesh Pandey, Rehana Sultan, Sulochana Lyrics : Naksh Layalpuri Singer : Lata Mangeshkar OnScreen Actors : Rehana Sultan Music Director : Madan Mohan

One of my most favorite songs from Mughl-e-Azam. Madhubala at her gorgeous self.

Album/Film : Mausam Release Year : 1975 Producer : P. Mallikarjun Rao Production : Sunandini Pictures. Director : Gulzar Film Actors : Agha, Deena Pathak, Lili Chakrabvarti, Om Prakash, Pinchu Kapoor, Sanjeev Kumar, Satyen Kappu, Sharmila Taigore Lyrics : Gulzar Singer : Lata Mangeshkar OnScreen Actors : Sharmila Taigore Music Director : Madan Mohan

Ramblings.. Its been too long since I wrote. I have been preoccupied with the life's journey.. The ecstatic waves of possession and renunciations. I am on this journey to discover myself. And its been full of revelations. I am more than certain now that if we somehow tuned out the antennas in our head to the frequency of the universe, we will be able to make sense of all its vibrations. We will be able to surmount the barrier of mass and be able to understand every thing in terms of energy waves and perhaps communicate our thoughts telepathically to everything that is in tune with that frequency. Speaking of which my last book has shed light on so many dark caves inside my head that I never ventured into. What are we in our core? Is everything that exists a manifestation of the metaphysical energy third power that made this. We exist. But if we do, then something must have facilitated our coming into existence. What is that? Is it ether? How does one cross this barrier of manifesta...

I sung this drunk :) I guess I put in a lot of feel like that ;)

What Next? I have been having these unnerving thoughts about the impending future. What is it that I have been placed here for? What is the bigger picture? Where do I fit in. I can almost feel that I am not here to do what I am doing right now. Wake up, smile, go to work, be physically present and spiritually absent there for 8 some hours, get out, try and find ways to keep my mind occupied. It seems a very long life for me to be able to keep doing this everyday. I will soon go mad if it continues. I keep looking for signs. I try to identify them and then bring them to fruition. I have been meaning to go places. So many places. But I need a travel companion. Someone with whom I will be able to share my experiences, interpret them and learn form them. This unrest, I don't know if everyone possess it. I have met people who are perfectly happy with their current state of existence. Who can carry on doing what they are forever and not complain. I on the other hand find it hard to breat...

What are they thinking? When they go drop a bomb on a market street? Or put a burning tyre onto someone? Or to rape and mutilate someone? IS it the way to win your vengeance or a way to get closer to god or just a sheer lack of direction. Who is the enmity directed towards? A sect or mankind? OR is it just an implosion that manipulates itself in a much perceivable way? What were we before we were born? What will we be after we are gone? We get to choose how we live for at most 50 years of our lives. The rest, we are incapacitated in some form, either too young or too old, out of which we sleep for a third of the time.. Why do we then need to take that little spec of time from someone in this vast realm of the existence of things that we can't even come to fathom? Our lives are what we make of it. Why then take away the very right that we cant give anyone else but ourselves? To Live! Is it a high that transcends all other highs? Is it just a lack of having things to do? What is it?

Listening to Abida Parveen's rendition of Ghalib poems. Its beautiful.. Her music is soulful. It makes you feel content in your heart despite all the thoughts in your mind. It drops lyou right into your heart. It lets you be. It stills you. And even before I realize Im in a trance and I'm hoping it never stops playing. Its a sweet nostalgia of the times lived. I'm so grateful to have been brought up around a place where so much imbibed from a lot of people from different walks of life. It's nourishing to be associated with the festivities of so many, listening to varied genres of music, celebrating in so many styles together year after year.. It becomes your own.. All of it. GHALIB's genius.. Har ek baat pe kehte ho, tum ki tu kya hai? Tumhi kaho ke yeh andaaze guftagu kya hai? Jala hai jism jahan dil bhi jal gaya hoga Khuredto ho jo ab raakh justujoo kya hai? Hazaron khwahishen aisi ke har khwahish pe dum nikle Bohot nikle mere armaan lekin fir b...

Kasol Highs I am able to blog on this topic, courtesy Javesh Gaju, my friend from Mauritius who did his master's in Informatics with me in Delhi University. He opened the enchanting world of Kasol to me. Please do not confuse it with Kasuli or Kasuni or any other hill station. Speaking of hill stations, I have not yet mentioned that personally I think that Himachal Pradesh is the best state in India. It cradles the foothills of the Himalayas and stores so many pristine places in its nooks that it will take me a lifetime to unravel them. Kasol is this small village situated by the banks of river Parbati. The closest well known place near it is Manikaran with its famous warm sulphuric springs. For all the rest they go straight to Manali bypassing this village. now for Kasol. It is a Hippie heaven. There are numerous Israelis here during the summer months and they have these amazing matted hair which general cleanliness seeking public loathe. I am still trying to find out a way of hav...

Bain and Boon of being a Palakkad-i And for those who wonder who a Palakkad-i is, well we are people who hail from a village(Palakkad) in the south of the Indian peninsula that lies on the border of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. It was initially owned by the government of Tamil Nadu but now in the hands of Kerala. So my ancestors were Tamil but now we are successfully confused. My friends often ask me which state am I from, and I vacillate between the two. C'mon guys its hard on me. Cut me some slack, I am a Palakkad-i born and brought up in the North which makes it even more eclectic. I grew up speaking a language that perhaps no-one other than a fellow Palakkad-i would understand. I have trouble understanding a perfectly pure Tamil movie or a Malayalam movie, or news readers, or people or songs. I never felt that void up until now when my interaction levels with neighbors from the east and west has increased in magnitude and there is a pressing need to be able to speak one pure language...

Call of the Tribes I have been most mystified by this intangible relationship between Asian lounge music and the hills, vast open spaces. I am consumed by it right now as I listen to Karunesh and watch some of most amazing pics of Tibet, the monks, the prayer flags. It makes me forget my purpose, puts a void in the center of my stomach and makes me want to run looking for that place, that perfect place, with that perfect company of that I don't know of.. Its a Pandora's box for me, it opens many incidents that I may have not witnessed in my life but seem to have lived through them somehow. Its like having traveled through a pipe eons away and reached a perfect place. I cant navigate there myself, it can only be reached perhaps through the will of universe. It will never be as perfect if I try to venture it myself in my complete conscience. I can only be and be taken there as often as I am, vicariously, through music. It would be bliss, like having attained Nirvana. I could give...

~~MAYA~~ Who is she? I often wonder. She is many people in a single moment yet many people are her as well. She could just be a mere figment of my imagination that peeps through my eyes gazing at my world the way she finds fit and manipulates my brain, my heart, my soul. She is a loner yet seeks a presence of her choice. She’s unsettling, demanding, flitting, dreaming, hopeful, lovesick, needy, caring, possessive, giving, empathizing yet not all these and something else, seeking, something beyond her reach, racing her imagination and touching horizons and returning to make me restless and always wanting something more. Her actions are guided by her heart and her heart befuddles her brain, her senses. She desires a million things all at once. Like someone aptly put to describe her; her life is full of test tubes with a ratio of love from those she seeks and things she wants and some others are empty for the things she would fill in later as and when she discovers them to be an inevitabl...