Music Season 2010, Chennai (Shashank's home!)

I am finally here. I have always talked about doing this forever now. Arun insisted that I walk the talk. I'm in a state of bliss still. Its been three days and I'm still shocked.

Here are a few things that I am going through.

I am staying with the world's most renowned classical flautist, Shashank and his family.

I hear him and his sister practice all day. What's even better are his dad's advices to me.

I get to hear from him first hand about how to be sincere in pursuing one's passion. He is Shashank's guru and I see how sincere his children are and how dedicated he is, first hand. I eat with them, listen to them, their talk, play with his kid. His wife is a wonderful dancer and human. I met her in Sacramento and instantly saw how genuine she was. I asked her if she could sing too and she said she was a dancer. Little did I know about how good she is. She is training under Priyadarshini Govind and has renered several performances including Kalakshetra and the Academy. I have a few Uncles who warned me about how musicians treat people from the US with little respect, but that so far from the truth. The amount of freedom, love and happiness I have here is unparalleled. I can hear Shashank play Abogi as I type this. This is the reason the spell hasnt lifted. Shrisha (S's wife) has promised to take me to Kalakshetra soon to meet Leela Samson. I cannot wait.

Their house is in CIT colony which is walking distance from the Academy and Narada Gana Sabha. Will tell you about that in my next blog.

Going home, 2010

Yipee, Its India time again. We are headed home.

We havent started packing yet. Arun is still ordering stuff on amazon to take home.

We want to cover Bangalore, Thiruvannamalai, Palani, Pune, Mumbai and Chennai.

I hope things go well and D doesnt fall sick again. I am looking forward to learning music from Vasumathy Desikan in Chennai. If things go well that will be the highlight of my trip.

Alright India, here we come!

Folsom Zoo, Folsom, CA

I've heard a lot about the zoo at Folsom, but never gave it much thought until a friend of mine told me that most of the animals there were rescued animals! With Diego playing at home most of the time, we are all into animals and rescuing them! Every pretend game at home is about an animal getting lost in the wild and Dhruv and Aru rescuing them! We've saved blue morpho butterflies, baby jaguars, red eyed tree frogs and what not.

We decided to take Dhruv and his now favorite friends Swathi and Sneha to the zoo.

The zoo was better than what we expected too see for the following reasons.

1. We covered the zoo and its animals in two hours.

2. We saw a tiger in very very close quarters.

3. We saw grizzly bears! Thought it was a myth until then!

4. All animals were indeed rescued from either dangerous hide outs, or from unfortunate incidents.

Just being there made us feel Diegos!

The train ride was an added bonus.

The kids had a blast and so did we.

Bishop's Farm at Wheatland, CA

Okay! Halloween and pumpkin patches aren't my most favorite things! But this Wheatland pumpkin patch has been a thing on my to-do list for 8 years now. People have been raving about the actual corn maze and huge pumpkins forever now! We all know how equations change with kids being around. We tend to complete most of the things on our to-do lists to avoid the guilt game. So here we were, in the middle on nowhere, in a little town called Wheatland. The only reason the place in familiar to us, is Bill is from there. Bill is my family idol. We all worship him, my son included!

I was surprised by the whole thing. I looooved it! I was so excited to pet little goats, jump on corn trampolines, watch pigs racing, feeding donkeys and ofcouse rolling around big pumpkins! The weather was great! Dhruv, Arun and Bill enjoyed every moment of being there as much as I did.

Arun clicked some great pictures. This will be done next year too. The only regret was we were supposed to go with two other families, but the timings did not work out! See you next year too Bishop's farm!

City of West Sacramento, Fire Department

Mark, my friend's Brie's husband is a firefighter. I had casually mentioned to him over dinner once, that Dhruv is into Fire Fighters and their books. The very next weekend, we got a chance of a lifetime! Mark and Brie invited is to the inaugration of a fire station in West Sac.

We picked up Brie and Tilden and went there early morning.

We got to see an act, with fire fighters coming down the poles and loading stuff into the fire truck. They came back and put off a pretend fire at the station. We got to see retracting ladders and firefighters climbing on them. It was just like seeing Fireman James (D's favorite book!) come to life. D sat on Mark's lap and watched the whole thing. The other cool part was, we got to see behind the scenes. We went up to the rooms of the fighters and saw how they lived.

D and Tilden had such a blast. They got to put off a pretend fire with a hose!

I am really proud of our firefighters. Its such a noble job!

Barnum and Bailey circus at Arco Arena.

We decided to take Dhruv to the circus on Sunday last week. He was supposed to meet his friend Riya and eatch the circus with her. I love going to Arco Arena. The last we went was to see Lakers and Kings play. We got reasonably good seating. The show started with a big bang. All the characters and animals paraded around. The aerial acts were to see for sure. The act with 8 motorbikes in a little globe was stunning. The animal act was a little bit of a torture for all of us to see. I wouldnt go as far as calling myself a PETA rep, but to see tigers jumping on two feet and rolling around to "kitty, kitty", is not a fun site. D was crying a lot and kep asking what happened to the tigers. The elephant act was sad to watch too. Riya ended up crying and Dhruv ended up wanting to follow her. The highlight for Dhruv was the train ride outside. We ended up beating the crowds by leaving early.
Over all: **
Will I go again: May be.....if I get Amnesia before that!

bfn

Kanyakumari/Embar Kannan performance, Sac State.

Dhruv and I along with my students attended the concert. It was a "paisa vasool" concert. Dr. Kanyakumari, in one word is an "easy" artist. This is for many reasons, in one of the ragamalikas in the end, in within 3 minutes she transitioned across 10 ragams. She "easy"ly played Saramathi, NasikaBhushani and Shree. I loved her old white violin. The sound was perfect. I gave the introduction and vote of thanks! I feel really nervous everytime I have to do it.
Two more reasons I really loved the show were:
1) Dhruv sat for 2.5 hours next to me in the second row to listen to the concert. Did not bug me or ask to leave even once!
2) I looooooooooooove Srimushnam Raja Rao on the mridangam! I think he is the Zakir Hussain of the mridangam. In his thanniavartam, he played the notes of Saramathi on the mridangam. You could distinctly hear it.

I dont know how much my students enjoyed it as this was a practical exam for them. They were busy figuring out the ragams and answering a question paper I prepared for them.

I hope D continues to co-operate in the future too.

Kasbah Lounge

A and I have not seriously considered going out on dates. We hardly get to see Dhruv in the day and we think leaving him along in the evenings would be too much for him to handle. Also, we use the added advantage of us working together in the same place. Our dates are mostly lunch.
Sandhya invited us to a med cuisine in downtown Sac. This is Kasbah Lounge. We were a little early coz we wanted to find parking. We expected a bigger place coz we were intensely looking at their website to see if kids were allowed. The place turned out to be much smaller than what we expected. It was happy hour until 7pm.
What we ate:
B’stella Rolls: Crispy baked almond, chicken and egg filled phyllo cigars.
Impression: All of us loved it.
What we drank:
Mojito and pomegranate juice.
Impression: Yummy! Slurp! Slurp!
Ambiance:
The place was cozy. Its really romantic. Good for kids too.
Rating: 3 Stars.

Web Site: http://www.kasbahlounge.com/about.html

Cant wait for Kanyakumari's concert today. I will be giving the "vote of thanks" so I better be all alert!

Why the name?

I was wondering what to call the blog. The things I would be blogging are are food and places I have eaten in, my escapades with music and most important of all "love".
I really love Elizabeth Gilbert's book, Eat Pray and Love. And now that its becoming a movie, I am even more excited about it.
I've stollen the format from her book.
Happy Blogging to me!