A tribute to my beloved paattu maami

Baalaambaal maami (08-20-1931 to 12-12-12)

Baalaambaal maami  was not just  my music teacher but a role model, a family friend and almost like a grandma with her tales of rich experience as a mom, teacher, radio (aakaashavaani) artist and a devoted wife.  She was a wonderful instrumentalist too. She always played the violin or the harmonium when giving music lessons.

She was a conservative, extremely disciplined person yet a forward thinking personality, always full of modern thoughts - that is she could accept and appreciate the change and understand people. She was strict but flexible. She started her day with a bath in the cold water, visit to the temple  in the agraharam, never skipped her daily newspaper read, did all the household work herself and made sure she gave food and medicines to her husband on time. Both her wonderful daughters and grandchildren lived  close by and visited her almost everyday  yet, she preferred to live  in her own house with her husband and later on her own after he passed away.

My sister and I started taking lessons from her after she had retired as a Government school teacher from  SSLPS (Shankara Subbaiyer Lower Primary School) in Karamana. Incidentally, since the legendary singer K.S. Chithra studied in SSLPS, she happens to be our paatu maami's student too! And the humble, modest person that K.S.Chithra, paattu maami used to tell us that Chithra came to visit paattu maami and get her blessings quite often even after she became super famous.

She has taken music tuition to hundreds of children many of whom became kalathilakams and kalaprathibhaas in the Kerala State Youth Festivals. It goes without saying that I was not one of  her top students ...but was definitely one of her favorites - we had a special bond. She herself would ask me to concentrate on my studies especially because we had school on Saturdays unlike her other students.  She would say "nanna padichu jolikku poganam. Pinne paattu padichirintha kacheri nnu pannaattalum, aavishyam varumbo naalu kozhanthelkku tuition edukkalaame ". (You should study well and go to work ...If you learn music even if you do not do kacheris you can at least take music tuition to kids later if you need to stay home). Hope some day I can teach as she always insisted but have to learn and pursue more to gain the confidence and have to remember her cute advice  "odathaedi konthai" :) (Do not increase the tempo while singing) .  Actually my first music teacher had told I can never sing...so, whatever little music I have,  I totally owe it to Bala mami's music and more importantly her Blessings.

I have never failed to visit her whenever I went to Trivandrum - it is really disheartening when I realize that I cannot see her when I go next time...
Here is a song tribute to her - my humble attempt at 'Shreeman narayana' which she had taught me when I had been to TVM five years back - she herself had learned just by listening from an 'M.S.S.  amma program ' on Asianet TV.

New Year 2013 - Quick and Easy Payasam

Decided to make this paayaasam (or paayasam as I am used to calling it) for this new year as it is simple and my family likes it. And my daughter wanted to help me! So thought of making a video with her cooking.
Here is the my video on youtube - Quick and Easy Payasam .

Quick & Easy Payasam

While making I realized making it for home is so different from making it for writing a recipe. I have always cooked only by rough measurements ...so had a tough time guessing number of cups, spoons of the ingredients. And in the end sugar was more so had to increase the quantity of milk when writing the recipe. Hence the ingredients' photo taken at the beginning may show a little distorted picture of the quantities of milk and almonds! MAy be from next time I have to make it twice to get it right !!

Shreya Goshal's Munbe Vaa

Wow Wow Wow What a voice, What a diction and What a beautiful young lady Shreya Goshal is! She is really unbelievable - she sings Hindi like a North Indian, Tamil like a Tamilian and most important malayalam like  a malayalee - have to listen to her 'Kannin ima neele' from Anwar to believe it.
Shreya has a clear, very feminine voice  like K.S. Chithra that is plain 'sweet' and not distinct - so automatically becomes the voice of all sweet girls and choice for all sweet songs :). Matches Lata Mangeshkar in the open throat, effortless singing high pitch and has the language dynamics of Vani Jeyaram! And got the looks of a model, rocks on stage... Above all, appears very modest in her interviews.  Truly, a  consummate singer !!
What more proof do you need to say she is the Best we have now than, the fact that she has already sung more than 1000 bagging four  National Awards along the way at this young age when there is so much competition!
I first heard her in 'Munbe Vaa' her Tamil super hit from 'Sillinnu Oru Kaadhal'.
Actually, was a fan of 'bairi piya' for Aishwarya Rai but little did I know that Shreya was the singer and her voice had added some magic there. Same with Challamai chellam, ninaithu ninaithu .... !
She sounds so native in unnavida- virumaandi, uruguthey - veyil, the recent sollittaale - kumki and so on especially when Tamil songs sung with a non-Tamil accent have become a trend now :)!

Here is my humble attempt at Munbe vaa...

Happy Vinayak Chathurthi - Modhak recipe

Modhakam as we know is Lord Ganesha's favorite prasaadam. The modhakam that I knew was what my grandma made - a brown sphere of a homogenous mixture of broken rice, jaggery, dhal, coconut etc. And my mother also made an erukkalam kozhukkatai which has a white rice flour covering with jaggery/dhal/coconut filling inside.
Somehow never tried making either of them but last year, when I came across this 'modhak' which is a Maharashtrian special that looked very artistic, wanted to give it a try for Vinayak Chathurthi which was near approaching.
While I started to prepare on Chathurthi, to my pleasant surprise my neighbor/friend dropped in for  a casual visit...
So handed her the camera (Thanks madam, you are a wonderful camerawoman :) !) with the intention of making a food video some time - a dream for a long time...And it has been fulfilled today after one year at least in time for  Chathurthi this year....
Here is the video - how to make modhak

Hope you like it and find it useful!

The Tamil Alphabets

A language is best learned to speak if we grow up in that language or live around people who speak it. But to read and write, a good training material is enough for eg. the good old 'Balaji Publications'. I could vouch for that - I don't even remember the method that was used in it but surprised that I still remember the Telugu I learned through that. Thanks to my dad who had almost the whole series in his little library.

A couple of weeks back, during a casual conversation about languages, when a Telugu friend mentioned he knew Tamil but has forgotten now, I immediately offered to bring him my son's elementary Tamil books to refresh. But then on a serious thought, how could that help unless some body reads it or there is transliteration in a language more familiar to them?

Hence, decided to make this video of the Tamil alphabet with transliteration in Telugu and also English. Have also included a beautiful song by Mrs. Vani Jeyaram which is like an add-on pronunciation tutorial having the Tamil alphabet as its lyrics. The song is from the movie 'Kaanchi Kaamaachi'.

Hope you like it !

For those interested, below are the websites I have used for
typing in Tamil
typing in Telugu

Kannulaku Choopandham

Kannulaku choopandham from the Telugu Movie Padhmavyooham (actually the dubbed version of Puthiyamugham)  is one of the few songs where the dubbing has been done full justice.
The words fit perfectly in the rhythm in fact, sounds even better in Telugu and the words are very close to what it is in Tamil. Just the first line, 'Kannulaku choopandham' is a deviation from the theme - describing how something enhances the beauty of something else. While  'Kannukku Mai azhagu'   means the coal or kajal adds beauty to the eyes, kannulaku choopandham means eyesight adds beauty to the eyes when eyesight is what eye is for!

This song is unforgettable for many reasons one, this was one of the early hits of AR Rahman, Revathy and her husband Suresh Menon acted in this movie. This was the first audio cassette we had in the new white plastic packaging ( along with the lyrics sheet and having the names of the musicians also) instead of the two piece hinged one that always broke! And then there was a kumudha or anandha vikatan contest to write lines in the lines of Kannukku mai azhagu. I remember sending 'Sippikku Muthazhagu', of course did not hear back ;-) !

For a long time, wanted to give some Telugu song a try - this seemed easy - so here is a video with me singing along with the lyrics in English.

Balamuralikrishna's Shree rama neemamemi ruchira

This is a sequel to my earlier post Shree rama namam
because this is also a Bhadrachala Ramadasa song tuned by Shri Balamuralikrishna. Learnt it form his rendition and his favorite disciple Shri Rama Varma's lesson to the students of Veenvadhini School of Music in Perla.

Have created a video singing the same with lyrics and meaning.
Rama Varma sir, please pardon the musical flaws ! :)

This is another beautiful version by the Priya sisters but somehow I think in Dr. Balamuralakrishna's tunes and renditions, the  meaning is completely justified - the meaning is conveyed in the tune itself. It is as supportive as the body language to a  talk. Even a lay listener is automatically pulled in instead of dismissing that as a 'carnatic' song that only a few folks are able to appreciate fully.

Lyrics
Shree Rama nee naamamaemi ruchiraa
Oh Rama neenaamamentha ruchiraa

Kariraaja prahlaadha dharanija vibheekshanulu gaakhina neenamamaemi ruchiraa
Kariraaja prahlaadha dharanija vibheekshanulu gaakhina neenamamentha ruchiraa
kadhalee kharjooraadhi phalamoolakadhikammu |
pathitha paavana naamamaemi ruchiraa ||
pathitha paavana naamamentha ruchiraa ||

anjanaa thanaya hrithkanjadhalamunandhu ranjillu neenaamamaemi ruchiraa |
anjana thanaya hrithkanjadhalamunandhu ranjillu neenamamentha ruchiraa ||
sadhaashivudu ninnu sadhaa bhajinchedi
sadhaanandhanaamamaemi ruchiraa
sadhaanandha naamamentha ruchiraa

thumburu naaradhulu dambu meeraga gaanambu chaesedi naamamaemi  ruchira|
thumburu naaradhulu dambu meeraga gaanambu chaesedi naamamentha ruchira ||
araya bhadhraachala shreeramadhaasuni
aelina neenamamaemi ruchiraa
aelina neenamamentha ruchiraa

p.s. Thanks to my Telugu friend for clarifying the meaning.