Sona Mohapatra has a degree in Engineering and an MBA in Marketing. That's not all. At 5'8", this MTV Style Icon 2006 trained as a classical singer for 10 years. Her debut video Bolo Na बोलो ना (Translation: Tell me...) made people sit up and take notice. The song was about drifting relationships. She still bristles when someone describes her music as 'unusual'. She would rather describe it as a "unique sound" and not unusual. Her debut album "SONA is a blend of contemporary and ethnic sounds with nuances of Romanian gypsy music, R&B, East Indian baul, Flamenco and North Indian folk rhythms." At a friend's I heard the album and liked her sound. The song that lingered on for a long time in its aftertaste was अभी नहीं आना Abhi Nahi Aana (translation: Don't visit me now). I must admit I had initially found the lyrics a bit masochistic. I mean here is the video of a woman pining for her lover and yet she is telling him to not visit her. Ummm ... why not? Just so that when they meet, it is just that much nicer. See what I mean?
Hindustani Classical music was traditionally passed down from the maestro to the disciple. This tradition known as the guru-shishya parampara helped nurture some of the greatest artistes. "Baba" Allauddin Khan (1862-1972) court musician of the princely state of Maihar, was the guru whose disciples themselves went on to become musical legends in their own right. "Baba" taught his disciples of the Maihar Band the nuances of Hindustani Classical music as well as Western music tunes. The Maihar Band lost yet another musician yesterday. Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, the sarod player who popularized the complex instrument among Western listeners died on 18 June 2009 at age 87 in California.
So the word of caution to employers and employees alike: Don't do anything that would make you squirm if it made the headlines of every newspaper and TV channel in the world and where the anchors or scribes are your sworn enemies. Till you know what is good for you stick to Tweet Nothings.
How many books does an author have to sell before it is classified as bestseller in India? Why are Indian authors suddenly in demand? Have readers started noticing them because there is a proliferation of these authors in the bookshops in India? I believe there are many factors that have tapped into the collective potential of Indian authors - especially those who write in English. The foremost is the willingness of international publishing houses to identify local talent. What has happened is that readers who snootily ignored books that were not literary have started reading what was labeled as "commercial fiction or masala fiction".As you read this article by Sandhya Iyer, notice the happy confluence of events that lead to Indian Writing In English (IWE) growing out of its elitist bearings in the last few years to appeal to a wider mass readership, offering a variety like never before, says Sandhya Iyer in this article.
How did you decide on what career to pursue? Did you think it through or was it just a happy accident, a matter of chance or a choice that you have now learnt to tolerate because it pays for your current lifestyle. Are you the person who now believes, that everyone doesn't HAVE to just absolutely jump up with joy at going to work on a Monday morning. Let us face it - most people don't. Not unless you are wildly in love with your work and can't stop thinking about the ten different things to do at work that will give you a high. Even if the honest answer to your career lifestyle is "serendipity", remember you are spending several years of your life pursuing what may have been a chance outcome. You hope like hell you will like it. As an HR person, ever so often I meet people who are stuck in a job that they hate with all they have. Imagine what it would do to pursue a career designed around what they are passionate about. Careers and lives need to be in synch with each other. Else you are wasting your life and your talent just to earn a living to fund your lifestyle.
Collective nouns are a fascinating quirk in the English language. As the Rinkworks site would put it in the ir fabulous collection of collective nouns, "One of the craziest oddities of the English language is that there are so many different collective nouns that all mean "group" but which are specific to what particular thing there is a group of: a herd of elephants, a crowd of people, a box of crayons, a pad of paper, etc. There is great diversity of collective nouns associated with animals, from a sleuth of bears to a murder of crows."
There is a quaint little bookstore in Gurgaon, India called Quills and Canvas run by Shobha Sengupta and her husband Vivek. It is what you would expect your own cosy attic to be. Cramped but cosy, full of books of all genres, paintings by contemporary artists all existing cheek by jowl. I remember going there for a panel discussion with Sankarshan Thakur of Tehelka (http://www.tehelka.com/) the magazine that is credited with some sensational exposes, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta (media person and economist) and Amit Baruah is the Foreign Editor of Hindustan Times.
Malgunji is a complex Raga of the Khamaj Thaat. John Campana describes Malgunji as having elements of Rageshri, Bageshri and a few subtle touches of Jaijaiwanti. It is popularly described as being a combination of Raga Rageshri (in the ascent) and Raga Bageshri ( in the descent). If traditionally Raga Bageshri evokes feelings of separation from the lover, and Raga Rageshri represents reunion, Raga Malgunji depicts the initial realization of the reunion.
We have all heard about being separated from each other by 6 degrees of separation. With some people you wish the degrees of separation would be 600 instead and less than six for the ones you are desperate to meet. The group that started the website at 6bridges.com (their byline says it is "An exclusive global community of Indian Professionals") did it to connect Indian professionals across the globe. The site focuses on 6 key areas (another six) : Career growth, entrepreneurship, Re-skilling, money management, leisure and professional networking. We got chatting about this and that. Let us cross the 6bridges.