Re - Take!

Sometimes when listening to songs, I have felt that it could have been a better composition, disliking some of the elements of the song. I believe everyone out there have felt the same sometimes. A song sometimes is so enchanting that some minor glitches in between strikes a jarring note. Below are few such songs in my opinion.

1] Pehla Nasha (Movie: Jo Jeetha Wohi Sikandar [Hindi])
Not exactly a jarring note, but it is my sincere opinion that this song would have been a lot better if it would have been a solo rather than a duet. Even otherwise it is not a normal duet; it is just the male and the female characters singing each stanza. After the first stanza and the first bridge there is an undeniable desire to hear more of Udit Narayan's voice as the same voice started the song, that still is one my favorites.

2] Sundari (Movie: Dalapathi [Tamil])
Ilayaraja is indeed a great composer. A true maestro. But it is not uncommon of him to compose a song has a superb start (pallavi) but loses out in the intermediate music bridges. I have been aware of this in many of his songs, most notable in this very melodious and romantic song from the Maniratnam film Dalapathi. It starts with the great voices of SPB and Janaki, but the music bridge (charanam) in between the stanzas just don’t seem to blend with the main melody. I do agree on screen it depicts a battle scene, but still the jarring bridge is not justified. In this regard I love the music bridges of A R Rahman (not that Ilayaraja has none to his credit, he has far too many).

3] Preethi yeke (Movie: Excuse me [Kannada])
This song is a good romantic melody. Everything is so perfect except for the male voice in the song. I have felt, whenever I listen to this song, this had to be sung by someone with more MALENESS in the voice. The voice in the song has a touch of feminism which does not blend with the mood of the song. I would have preferred a voice like SPB or Hariharan for this song.

I know it’s easy to post the comments/views than actually creating music. This post is just to convey that one cannot please everyone at all times. All the three tracks listed above are great ones, all three being my favorites, but still I felt something amiss and just noted it down.

'Music Can Knock ME Down' - Jayanthan R

Information is Wealth

Man realized very early that his memory was limited. But by then there arose a need in him to gather and store information. This invented the very first method of data storage, mainly in form of written records, both in cloth or papyrus and eventually in paper. This was the customary way of recording data during the days of the Kings and the Queens. This even continued at the start of the modern age, during the late 60s and early 70s.

And then the real problem surfaced. The problem was due to increase in the amount of information to be stored, due to various factors like increase in the human population to the diverse ways of making income in the society. And this meant huge amounts of data on a daily basis. The solution was a system to record data of such huge amounts. There was one more additional requirement, that of to store not only the incoming new data but also to store and maintain the data collected earlier and make them available when necessary. The system that was the solution was a DATABASE SYSTEM.

Data now, across the world, in huge monstrous amounts are being keyed into many databases around the globe and used for business purposes. This system also reduced the space for storing these data. No more rooms with stacks and stacks of dust layered files and cabinets of data.
A Database system has its own method of storing data. The data inside this system is organized, usually in the form of records and tables. A Record can be considered as a set of related information. A Table is a collection of many such records. Many such tables, classified based on the functionality can be maintained to store data. This makes the data storage organized and easily accessible.

There are numerous advantages of such a system like the classification of data which made the retrieval system easy. Data which can be stored easily was even accessible with little or no effort. The Database systems also allowed multiple systems to read and write data (with certain restrictions) to it, which made them as a single central repository of data and reducing the redundancy of data. The other uses of a Database system in the real world are for Business reporting purposes. This requires the reporting system to chew through the tonne's of data for reporting purposes.

One new and interesting concept related to the Database is that of Data Mining. Simply put in, data mining involves digging through and analyzing enormous amount of data and extracting the 'MEANING' of the data. They detect a pattern in the data and help in the business decisions and processes. This concept is a boon to the current business world to predict the current trend in the market and act accordingly.

With all the pros and certain cons, a Database system has become a necessity with almost any business application in the world. Storing, retrieving, managing and analyzing data is after all not an easy task.

As someone said, INFORMATION IS WEALTH.

Raindrops were falling on my head!

It rained crazy on Wednesday (2nd May 2007) in Bangalore. And I while returning from my office, took at most pleasure in soaking myself in the rain. After a long time, it felt good, and flooded my thoughts with memories of my childhood.

Those were the days, when I enjoyed rain the most. Especially on Wednesdays and Saturdays, when we had to be dressed in pure whites to the school. But, my mom never used to be impressed at the end of the day. I somehow used to manage soiling the white shirt, white half trousers and the white, newly creamed, boots and appear with a brown shade on my whole which ended up with a frown on my mom's face. After a class on cleanliness and related subjects, the next week would be a repeat of the same. Though the non-rainy season was not that interesting for me, I somehow used to manage a light brown shade thanks to the dust and the mud.

In schooldays, I and my friends had a lot of theories to explain rain. The most common one was the mythological character Arjuna furiously riding his chariot and creating havoc. But the most funniest and gross theory was given by one of my friends who claimed, rain was nothing but GODs above us relieving themselves!

One weird thing I have noticed about rain is that, my personal experience, in my childhood, whenever (as far as I remember) they used to play the movie GANDHI on DD-National, it used to rain. Till date I haven’t reasoned it out, but I do surely remember that it did rain when they played it a few times.

One other good experience, and the most cherish able one that I have is of my grandfather teaching me to make a KATHTHI BOAT (paper boat with a protruding sharp edge at its bottom). He taught me how to make it and sail it in the rainwater puddle that used to form in from of our house. Now though I have lost touch in making those KATHTHI BOATS, I do recall those days when it rains, and say a THANK YOU to my grandfather.

And with these memories flooding my thoughts, I reached home fully drenched in rain. One other change that I noticed was that, my mom did not frown. Instead asked me to freshen up and have my food as it was late. And maybe because, I was no longer the child and the rain puddle outside my house was empty without any KATHTHI BOATS.