Hum apne bhagwaan ko bhi kehte hain basuriwaala.......

Today morning, I woke up with a line from a song on my lips. It was a long forgotten song and I have no clue why it came to me today. It did not take me much time to remember which song it was. It was a line from the song " I love my India" from the 1997 hindi movie "Pardes". So after finishing my chores in the morning, I sat down to watch the song on Youtube......... The song made me so nostalgic and I wanted to watch the movie. I guess the movie was a commercial hit and it had beautiful, soulful songs. I used to love its songs during my college days and took pain in learning each of them by heart for the essence of poetry in the songs. The title of the post is a line from the "I love my India" song and for reasons unknown to me, I love that line. Also, while watching the movie, I realized Independence day is just 4 days later and felt sad that my daughter has no clue about it and cannot even sing "Jana-Gana-Mana".

The songs and the movie as a whole got me thinking, how far movies have come these days from the good old days!! It is claimed that the present audience expect such "contemporary" movies. It is obvious that most of the present movie songs(there may be exceptions) have no poetry essence and the meaning of the song itself is best left unsaid. There are not many movies made these days for audiences like me, for whom the movies of 1990s and 2000s still hold a charm. Instead such audiences are laughed at and ridiculed for their choice. I wonder if the current audience is really so "modern" and "advanced" so as to not like simple and pure movies which don't leave you disturbed at the end. But if the excessive violence, nudity and so called bold themes in the present day movies forces one to change the channel when an elderly or a young kid walks in to the room, I guess we really are not so modern and advanced after all.

I need to work on teaching "Jana-Gana-Mana" to my 5 year old at least before next Independence day!!

Tanabata(The Star Festival)

Tanabata (七夕) or The Star Festival is a Japanese festival which has its origins from China. It is celebrated on the 7th of July and the reading for the Kanji 七夕 itself means the evening of the 7th. There are more than one myths associated with this festival but the most popular story goes this way.

"Orihime(Weaving Princess) who is the star "VEGA" used to work very hard weaving beautiful clothes near the banks of the heavenly river Amanogawa which is the "MILKY WAY". She once met Hikoboshi(The Cow Herder) who is the star "ALTAIR" who lived on the other side of Amanogawa and they fell in love instantly and shortly after married. Once married, Orihime stopped weaving clothes and Hikoboshi let his cows stray. The Sky King, Orihime's father was angered by their neglect to each other's duties and separated them and forced them to live on either sides of Amanogawa. Orihime was heart broken and wished that she could meet her husband. Her father took pity on her and granted her a wish that she could meet Hikoboshi once in a year on the evening of 7th July. When they were to meet on the first year, they could not cross the river as there was no bridge. They sought help from some Magpies, who spread their wings and made a bridge for the lovers to meet. "

On Tanabata, people decorate bamboo branches with colourful decorations and also hang strips of paper with wishes written on them. It is believed that your wishes will come true if you pray to these two stars on 7th July. There's another catch to it though :) If 7th of July happens to be a rainy day, the magpies cannot come out and hence the lovers cannot meet and have to wait for another whole year to meet again. And for us mortals it would mean that, if it rains on 7th July, no wishes are going to be granted.

Me and my friends here (Sn,V and Su) had the wish of trying out the Japanese Kimono from a long time. There are lot of places which rent out Kimono, but the rates are in tens of thousands of YEN and we weren't ready to spend more than a thousand yen :) Though we were not aware of this "Wish granting festival", our wish was granted anyways. An all ladies group led by Y-san, have a service for foreigners on the 2nd Saturday of every month, where we can try out the Japanese Kimono for just 500 yen!!! So, on Saturday July 11th we went to the Atsuta Lifelong Learning Center in Nagoya and tried out the Kimono. The group intended to celebrate the Star Festival on that day so that they could impart knowledge to foreigners like us about this interesting piece of Japanese culture. So all of us made some decorative pieces with coloured paper(this form of art is known as Origami) and wrote down wishes on strips of paper to decorate our bamboo branches (Sasa). Then there was a small tea ceremony where we tasted the "bitter" green tea and some snacks!! It was an educative and interesting experience which we thoroughly enjoyed!!

Although I know that July is the rainiest month of all in Japan, I hope against hope that, every year July 7th remains a NON RAINY day in Japan !!

Lilies in Chikusa Park

Summer is finally here!! The lush green trees lit up by the bright sun, flowers in all hues and colours, pretty butterflies flitting among the flowers, arrival of the summer fruits, people dressed in short sleeved Tees, Capris and Skirts, the sweat, the tan........... oh I love summer !! I have never been this happy ever just for a change in the season. The reason - I was so tired and frustrated of worrying about dressing in layers and layers of clothing to fight the cold in autumn and winter. The winter to me, seemed so long that I even had a sinking feeling sometimes, that probaby spring and summer might never come!! But as they say, "What goes around, comes around" and so has summer :) My daughter too has been waiting for summer!! Ask her why, and she says " In summer I can drink juices and eat Ice cream" And for my hubby, Summer has always been his favorite season for more than one reason!!

This summer in Japan is even better because I have found some Indian friends. Until two months ago, I never thought I would even see an Indian around in Nagoya and today we are a group of 8 !! I never thought I will ever talk in Kannada and Tamil and Hindi on the streets of Japan :) "S" introduced me to all the others and I cant thank her enough. Couple of days ago, had a get together at my place and after an awesome lunch went to the nearby Chikusa Park to see the lilies in full bloom. None of us could stop clicking !! A picture speaks more than a thousand words, it is said............. and these pictures speak as to why I love summer !!

I hope this summer lasts long!!

Freedom!!

Read a line on someone's Tshirt yesterday :
"Freedom is not free.................. In fact you have to be really RICH "
Initially I thought ................ Oh how true !! Later wondered if riches can actually make someone free? I guess not !!

Happy Happy!!

Feeling very happy from yesterday afternoon. I cleared my JLPT Level 3 with 71%. Not a great score(the cut off to pass is 60%) , but with a preparation of only 20 days I am glad I could make it!! Thanks to my hubby dearest and A-san, now I can call myself a JLPT Level 3 ;-)

Its Birthday Time!!

Yes, my daughter turned 3 yesterday!! And the feeling hasn’t sunk in for me yet. It seems like just weeks ago we celebrated her 2nd birthday and just a few months ago she was born :). It seems as if time has just shrunk. We just had a small party at home with a few of my Japanese friends, her only friend K and her favorite dog, Non chan!! In fact we had two small parties………one along with friends and one after my hubby dearest returned from office with his colleague. Both low key affairs, but my daughter enjoyed it thoroughly, after all she got to cut two cakes. I enjoyed it too because my daughter was happy and also because I love cooking for occasions (please do not read as “I cook occasionally”). It was fun having my Japanese friends over. My hubby probably would have enjoyed it better if not for his cold and fever :( The menu for the snack party was Hot Indian Milk Tea, Vegetable Bajjis, a dish made out of sweet potato(because Japanese love sweet potato), gulab jamun, Homemade Mango Ice-cream and of course The Cake. And dinner was Vegetable Pulao with Raitha and the second cake. Cakes are expensive here and due to the global economy crisis which has led to reduced expenditure, I got two sponge cakes from the store and decorated it myself. My first attempt at decoration, without any equipment and no prior knowledge about it. Here are the pictures………. The one with the candle was the second cake and the one with Hello Kitty was the first cake ;-)

"Markazhi poove" - My Suprabhatham

During my working days as a software engineer, I used to listen to this song every morning like we Hindus listen to the Venkatesha Suprabhatham. Since I used to stay very far from office I used to take the 6:30am bus from my home and reach office by 7:45am. Our campus used to be at its best at that time of the day especially during the winter months. My walk from the bus bay to my building in the campus through the early morning mist, watching the dew drops on the lawn, the musical sound of the birds and the greenery all around me used to have an instant calming effect on me and make me feel fresh for the whole day. As soon as I reach my cubicle I used to play this song softly and listen to it repeatedly until my colleagues arrive at 8 am. I used to drown in the scintillating soft music and the lyrics of the song and feel rejuvenated and fresh to start my work for the day.

The song is from the Tamil movie May Maadham released in 1994 with Vineeth and Sonali Kulkarni playing the lead. I don't like the movie particularly, but I love this one song. It is picturised in a place like Ooty or Ooty itself, with Sonali Kulkarni walking through the early morning misty, green mountains. The girl is in her late teens and belongs to an upper class, high status society and is protected a lot by her rich father. This song is about her yearnings to lead a normal life. She desires to break free of all the restrictions imposed on her and see happiness in the simple things in life. She wants to sleep on the lap of the Markazhi flowers as sleep evades her in her luxurious bed ; She wants to smell the flowers, hop on the grass, walk alone in the dark and drink tea from the street side shop, walk on the banks of the river Kaveri, walk barefoot on the sands of the beach and on a rainy day she wants to feel the warmth of raindrops on her skin!! The song used to remind me in the start of every new day about the simple things I am blessed with, especially my independence, instead of complaining about the bigger things that I don't possess.

Somewhere down the years, the fast life got the better of me and I completely forgot not only about this song but also about music and poetry. There was a time, when I used to love to listen to the soft old Hindi songs, Malayalam and Tamil songs with wonderful lyrics and always be on the look out for songs with good lyrics. But its almost 4 years now that I stopped listening to this song or any other songs. It started off with the restrictions I used to have at the client's workplace. After I quit my job, there were no restrictions, but being a first time mother I had no time for music or rather I did not make time for it. I have been spending my time worrying about anything and everything and never found the time to sit back and relax. That's the reason why I stopped blogging too ;-) Yesterday, when my hubby dearest was humming this song, I suddenly realised how much I have missed it and from 8am today morning until now the song is playing in a loop on my laptop. Not that I can make up for the 4 years of my music less life in one day but its a start anyways..........

If you are interested (it would help if you can understand Tamil), listen to this song here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXUGZfzP0Ao