Amaanji's New Face

Feeling bored with same old templates.. Thats y venturing into a new template..

Amaanji's New Face

MS Gems

For the last couple of months, my interests in classical music is on the rise. I used to always believe that carnatic music is boring and my mom used to say that it is great.. I thot it was an elders syndrome and never even bothered to check out on the music collection that my mom had in her kitty.. Some time back I started to hear classical stuff and really enjoyed some great stuff from Maharajapuram Santhanam. Slowly I developed liking towards classical music and started identifying ragas.. Today I have an amazing collection of carnatic music, sung by legends like MLV, MS, DKP, DKJ, OST, Madurai Somu, Maharajapuram Santhanam & many more..

Yesterday I was glancing through some websites to download Kanda Shashti Kavasam, I had been trying for this for a long time, but many links did't seem to work.. But yesterday I got hold of a site which had some fantastic devotional and classical songs.. I had downloaded at least some 35 songs from this site and tried to listen to some gems by MS, I was astonished to hear the same songs which my mom had in her kitty.. NE ways, now I have started enjoying this stuff, and really cherish these songs..

I was excited to see some fantastic slokas sung by MS, especially the rare ones like Madurashtakam, Hanuman Chalisa etc..

I strongly recommend playing Kanda shashti kavasam and Kanda guru kavasam sung by sulamangalam sisters, especially early in the mornings.. It gives me a great sense of contentment.. Here's the site if you are interested..

<http://www.indianmelodyonline.com>

I think it is necessary to have a login for this site.. Check out they have some real good music..

Its not a disaster.. Its a Lesson..

I wonder why people feel so much embarassed by the Indian Cricket Fairy Tale World Cup 2007.. All said and done people who get frustrated and humiliated cannot contribute an iota of a change in the way things are perceived in this sport. Administrators dont change, Players dont change, Selectors dont change, Coaches dont change. Why feel heated up in this worthless battle?

In my opinion all politicians should be sacked & no single politician should be allowed to comment or for that matter talk about cricket.. The freedom of speech is not what we really want in cricket, and let the people who have some standing do the talking.. Whatever be the current situation, they should focus on raising the levels in the future and compete for getting the world beating status..

Also I feel barring a few men in the current setup, we have the finest breed of batsmen who are currently in the team and we should give them the coaching job.. Let them start a foundation like MRF pace foundation and coach any interested youngster.. They should forget playing cricket and trying to prove anything further.. They are too old for that & already they have played too much cricket! They should at least try to build the next generation of cricketers in that scale. (The only thing that is required for that kind of learning ground is access.. It should be accessible to any youngster within a given age spec and money should not have access to that.)

Every thing has pros and cons and if you carefully analyze how Aussies have built this kind of framework of cricketers, it is purely by genuine training and honest assessment at the domestic level. Today any team from the aussie circuit can beat any team in the world. They have all variety in abundance and thats how they have got on top of this game.

Request the general public to take these things in a lighter sense and not over react to anything like this in the future.. Its just a sport which is decided in a given day.. Every one accepts that in a day any team can beat any team and why not accept when you get beaten yourself! The absense of fight or whatever the public talks about is only because of them who applied the additional stress on these players..

Weekend @ London

The much awaited text is here!!!.. At the outset, would like to thank my old pal venkat & family for making this happen.. Had been discussing with him for a long time and as usual the prolonged inertia continued.. He had been in brighton, UK and had been there for a while..

I regret posting this blog after a long time, and by the time I had completed drafting this text I feel I have forgotten most of the things turned out at the weekend.. But thanks to my initial enthusiasm, I had drafted most of this text within a week after I traveled to London.. But one thing which I promised to publish in this blog was the super human statement by Ramya Venkat “The slip of the tongue is not the fault of the mind” which I can recollect very easily and I think I have only written it partially.. Though I cannot re-instate the context of the same, I can reproduce this much…

After so many hindrances, got my visa done with the British Consul and was ready to fly there for the first time.. Was checking out with some offers on the net to save some cost, got hold of this cost-effective airline RYANAIR and got hold of tickets for 28 Euros(Round Trip), at least that was what I saw on their site at that point.. Thought this was the deal I was looking for and immediately booked my tickets with my credit card.. But at the end of the trip I thought the regular fares would have been better..

Was the day of departure was all set to leave from the dusseldorf airport, when I ultimately destined to the airport, met a colleague who had traveled earlier with Ryan Air.. He mentioned that Ryan Air doesn’t normally take off from the Dusseldorf Airport and he showed me the directions to the right airport which was damn far from the city.. I thanked my luck that I met him on my way, because I had to take a different route to catch the flight, had to change two trains and ultimately catch a taxi to reach to the airport..

London welcomed me at the Stansted Airport which is also miles far from city, but somehow with the help of a few links sent by Venkat, I was able to catch up with some accommodation in Stansted.. It was called the Days Inn hotel and I was really misinformed by the name.. I thot it would be a 3 star and would have all facilities looking at the cost of it, but it was just another miserable place without a phone in the room.. I had called him from the airport and mentioned him that I would reach the Hotel in about half an hour, managed to reach in that time, but there was no phone in the room.. Had dumped my luggage and went to check out at the reception if I had got any calls, the female receiving ppl, was happily gossiping with her boy friend on the only phone.. Got really irritated and told her that I may receive a call there and then she gave a small break to her mouth and put the receiver down.. Next moment got his call and was discussing my fate with him, and had briefly planned the course of action for the next morning..

I cursed myself for such foolish planning, but luckily my nit-pickings ended there.. Then had a brief breakfast and then set out for Victoria Station.. Boarded a bus starting from Stansted Airport, reached Victoria to get a hostile reception from the Venkat & Ramya at the station.. After a short conversation we moved to the few happening places nearby for a couple of clicks.. Had a brief time at the Big Ben, The London Eye, The British Parliament.. Venkat was sharing his prowess with some conventions of statues out there and the significance of the leg of the horse which was in the air.. He had mentioned if the left leg of the horse was in the air, the person in the horse was murdered and some stuff which I didn’t seem to understand..

Then while walking back from there we decided to go to East Ham for lunch, for me the most anticipated thing from London. I have forgotten many localities which I saw in London but I cannot forget this place and had a unlimited meals at “Vasantha Bhavan”.. Of course not like India, in a sense that was really unlimited, had a taste of 90% south Indian out there.. Had offered my inquisition to employee of the hotel and advocated the need of such restaurants in Germany where many Indians and Slkans live, also gave my address and fone no to them in case they had some plans..

Then I had told him that I had been visiting lotta cities in Europe and I wanted to refrain myself from museums, churches this time and wanted to check out on a different theme this time.. Wanted to visit some legendary venues like Lords, Wimbledon etc. So, my friend conformingly took me to those venues..

I had a delusion that Wilbledon was a name of a tournament, and after being there, I realized that it was the name of the locality in London where ppl specialized in Lawn Tennis.. Though it took a considerable time to reach there I thot it was worth watching, but one more bulb.. There was no tour since after lunch we were pretty tired and reached there at 4 pm..As always, typical Venkat criticizing that I was not bothered to visit many places in London and all the way I had been trying to influence him that my trip was made once we entered Vasantha Bhavan..

And then we visited the Legendary Lords, had a brief tour over there. We had clicked a few snaps over there and then proceded to the Buckingham palace. Though we could not see the guard changing ceremony in action, that was my bad luck, there was no ceremony on that day I went there.. We also visited a few temples in and around London, the one which I remember is Swamy Narayana temple which was awesome.. Such a huge temple, It was great to visit there and spent a few hours at the temple.. I also remember visiting Saravana Bhavan (East Ham) and had a relishing time out there...

After the same returned to Stansted Airport for my early morning flight to Dusseldorf, which was again a mishap, reached office late and got chewed by my PM…

Roller Coaster..

Off late I have restrained myself from using the word roller coaster after I had got subjected to a ride in Vienna, My goodness.. That was an instance where I wanted to prove my heroics on a few startling rides, in a theme park. Two of my colleagues already tired of roaming around of Vienna, but I wanted to try at least a few of those by some means.. One of our folks who had been there to Vienna earlier and had told that there was a place where we can do the yo yo thing, Bunky Jump.. Destined for that, we held this place (PRATERSTERN) which was a descent theme park, but not really comparable to the size of Europa park or Disneyland (PARIS)..

First we had been on a giant wheel which was the major attraction at the park, does not rotate fast, but just to give a panoramic view of the entire city.. We had been through it and just got back and wanted to watch out on a few good rides.. Browsing through all the rides we found one ride which was interesting.. A huge pole with a circular frame around it with lot of wires on it with a small seat, which revolves in great speed and people sitting in those seats fly in the air, more than all that while revolving in that velocity, it moves up and down.. That looked a challenging ride, but we wanted to finish a few simple rides, and then we wanted to keep that as the final assault..

Then we were moving here and there to find out few normal rides, and got to see a free fall ride and a mini roller coaster which goes for about 4 minutes.. The first one which we fancied was the free fall ride.. When we sat on the chairs around the huge pole and we were protected well enough the ride actually started.. In tremendous momentum we moved up over the pole and we almost reached half height, and then we were dropped from there.. We felt like a bullet from a patent tank reaching heights and the pull we got the first time during the drop was damn scary.. We thought it was complete and unfortunately for us it repeated for 4 more times, and the last time it reached the tip of the pole.. God damn, I decided there that Im not going to try this any more.. It was the jolt of my life.. I had never experienced anything like this in the past..

Then it finally ended and I was not able to resume from the shock for twenty long minutes.. Then I had a coke and felt slightly better.. Then it was the mini roller coaster which was not as scary as the previous one, but was fun.. The beauty in those rides was I was protected very well and got the feeling that I was flying in the air at great speed..

After finishing these two rides, I thought it was enough for the day and the mega ride which we wanted to try was really deferred.. Thank god, "Bunky Jump" wasn't available that time.. Had it been available we would have tried and hurt ourselves..

A BIG GOOD BYE TO THESE THRILLS...

Vienna Trip

Vienna, the city of beauty.. That's what they say about this place.. I had a grand experience of being there. This time it was much better planned than my Swiss venture.. It was a package with Die Bahn (The Train) Germany. It was a great offer to have fancied my chances..

I started my tour with a special train (CNL - City Night Lines), was a semi sleeper and the travel was very relaxed. Once we reached Vienna we checked into a great place (Renaissance Penta Vienna). The room was fantastic and we had some brief rest and then started to roam around.. This occasion the difference being time was at our disposal and we had ample time to cover popular destinations in and around.

We had been to The Schonbrunn Palace which is as extraordinary as the Eifel tower of paris and had a Audio Guided tour and a ride around the palace in the much famed chariot. Then we went to the most beautiful cathedral in Europe "Stephanplatz Cathedral". On the way to the cathedral a gorgeous female canvassed to us to get a few tickets to a concert in typical Vianese style and she had explained the importance of music in that city.. Though not convinced on those arguments, we bought tickets for the same not because we were music enthusiasts, as she was beautiful enough.. After finishing sight seeing at the cathedral we allocated some time for a good meal at one of the Indian Restaurants out there.. It was a Hyderabadi Restaurant and we had the taste of some good Veg Biriyani.

Then we had spent some brief time at the shopping points looking for some souvenirs and since we were a little lethargic after a heavy meal we had decided to watch out for 1 more destination and hop off to bed.. We saw another beautiful construction out there and had a brief clicking session over there.

The next day started with a fabulous breakfast and the day started with a few museums.. Europeans construct churches and museums everywhere and wherever u reach u end up with a few of them.. These museums were of a different type the ones we visited were The Historic Museum & the Butterfly Museum (With hundreds of colorful butterflies).. Then we went to the parliament building... My goodness me!! Once again that was an example of great artwork.. We had clicked a lot of snaps out there and proceeded for lunch.. After lunch we went for a detailed River Cruise and they covered most of the places en route, after clicking many of the scenes we had to come back all the way in the same stretch.. It was just a waste of time to comeback in the same way since we had already viewed all the spots.. That return cost us around 2 hrs and it was already dark.. Then we started roaming here and there and kicked off for the concert that we had booked.. It was a nice one and they played some nice tunes of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, & Johannen Strauss.. I remembered some popular RD Burman stuff, realizing that they were mere copy+paste..

The last day was again a long day and we had covered lot of places starting with Sigmund Freud museum and then went to a 100 yr Giant Wheel to get a panoramic view of the city. Then we went to a Theme Park called the Praterstern.. Two of my colleagues were not interested in any of the rides, but I wanted to try some.. First was a free fall ride and then a roller coaster.. I will have to write a discrete blog on those.. So not mentioning too much on them.. Then we had been to the music square and visited the memorials of a few great souls who used to live here.. Mr Beethoven, Mr Mozart & Mr John Strauss.. After paying tribute to them we once again got back to the Indian Restaurant to have some north Indian stuff.. We were quite happy to have covered some good destinations at ease and were not in a hurry.. Got back to the train exactly a minute before start.. That was nothing new to us and had a nice journey back home..

I dont know what happened to this site.. Im not allowed to upload fotos.. Check this link...

Swiss Bliss

For the first time I stepped into the land of mountains & lakes.. Switzerland.. It was a delightful experience.. I got to see wonderful mountain ranges and lakes when I was traveling across swiss in beautiful trains.. I was awestruck by the way the tracks and rail lines which have been laid on the mountains.. Trains are running in almost 45 degrees on the uneven tracks.. The travel was damn smooth and comfortable.. This was a short trip on a weekend, so I could not cover all the major highlights of swiss.. I had visited a few cities and stunned to watch out on the natural aspects which attract the tourists round the globe.

I had covered two cities of historic importance and a city of beauty.. Luzern, Interlaken and Geneva were the places covered this time, but the next time, which is a certainty, I would like to spend more time.. I desparately needed some time there to watch out on the three famous mountain spots Mt Titlis, Mt Pilatus & Jungfrau..

I apparently enjoyed every moment last weekend, and if at all any of you are planning for a vacation this side, I strongly advocate a trip to swiss.. Only thing its not economical, had to shell out lot of money, but I guess its worth it..

Shall upload some fotos tomorrow for a sneak peek preview..