Friday, November 2, 2012

Carnatic music - Vaageeswari

Music class - apologies for the highly culture-specific rambling:

I was teaching S a new krithi Ethavunara in Kalyani. The over zealous mother that I am, I tried to sneak in a  little bit of Telugu language skills while she learnt the krithi, so I wrote the lyrics for her in Telugu and encouraged her to read the lyrics. She gave it her best shot and in about 10 minutes or so, we were able to start anupallavi. She read " seee thaaaa.... gow.....ri seetha gowri vaa geee swaaa... riiii.. wait..."
I was expecting her to give up out of frustration and then
she says "Does she talk a lot?"
Puzzled, I ask her "What do you mean? Who talks a lot?"
S: The lady being referred to in the krithi!
Me: How come?
S: Her name is Vaageeshwari, which should mean that she talks a lot.

Now a little context around it: In our family, we have a habit of calling people names based on their actions:
Someone who is habitually late is called Late Latif and someone who sacrifices for others is called Tyagaraju (Tyagam means sacrifice in Telugu).

S's has earned a name of Kukkeswari because she tends to start her meals at snail's pace and then stuffs it all at once in her mouth when she runs out of time. (Stuffing is called "kukkadam" in Telugu and hence she earned the name Kukkeswari).
My uber smarty pants daughter extended the same logic to Goddess Saraswathi and concluded that, because her name is Vaageeshwari, she should talk a lot (vaagadam means talking continuously like a chatterbox).
So she concluded that Saraswathi was a chatter box. Interesting point of view.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Sugar - Oh my sweetness!

This is what I started writing in February. Obviously my write- to publish times need work.

2012 brought in some "crazy" for me. I've been exercising for the most part of 2011 and decided that I should give up my favorite - sweets (I have a sweet tooth and I love sweets and desserts so much that I reward myself with a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie every week for making healhty choices). I was clearly on too much sudafed or something when I made that decision.
So its been a month since I touched anything prepared with sugar (except coffee and tea with agave nectar). The toughest part of the challenge was to "remember" my resolution. Shalini offered to keep me on my track by imposing a penalty every time I cheat - she gets to sleep on my bed (and of course kick the crap out of me in due process).