Category: Musings

Goals, Mindset, Habits, Focus, Practice — and Self-Help Books

Early in my career, I believed the right book could fix almost anything. Experience taught me otherwise. This series is my attempt to document ideas, mental models, and practical lessons that worked for me while learning skills and building habits over the years. These lessons came from my parents, teachers, colleagues, friends, and from books and blogs on self-improvement. The path was anything but linear. It involved trial and error,

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Eldorado (எல்டொரடோ) – A Short story by Sujatha

Eldorado refers to a mystical city of gold in South America, sought by 16th century Spanish explorers. The term originates from the Spanish phrase el dorado, meaning the gilded one. Eldorado is a metaphor for any place that promises wealth or great opportunity. This is something about writer Sujatha I liked a lot. I started reading Sujatha’s short stories, novellas, novels from my high school days. He introduced scientific and

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Knife in the gut series – Paarvai (பார்வை) – Sujatha

Writer himself is on a journey from Bangalore to Chennai in Brindavan express. Travel in first class. In Sujatha’s style of description of the environment we get to visualize the Bangalore city railway station. College age students wearing round spectacles with Hadley Chase novels in their hand surveying where young girls are seated. Bored passengers waking up and down the platform. Train needs to cross Cantonment before the coffee/tea/snacks/fast food/

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Thirukkural on Diet

We live in a time where information is accessible and available in plenty. Information here means both real, mis-, and fake. Challenge is filtering the real or facts out of the rest. One area this is highly prevalent is the one which is dear to all of us – health and diet. Health and diet are areas where science is still in progress. When it comes to infectious diseases and

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Ilayaraja Treasure Hunt – Poo Potta Dhavani

I am a music listener. I don’t have much understanding of technicalities of music. For me, the composition has to connect, stir something inside, call it feeling, emotion or just pure joy. Poo Potta Dhavani Song from the movie Kakki Chattai – falls under club dance that was typical of 80s and 90s movies. Not sure whether this can be bucketed as item number in today’s parlance – since the

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Shankar Ganesh Treasure Hunt – Kanni Paruvathile

News of actor Rajesh’s sad demise took me down the memory lane. Reminiscing about his movies – Achamillai Achamillai, Kanni Paruvathile, Antha 7 natkal, Sathya, Veli, Mahanadhi – movies where I can recollect his character. One thing led to another, and I landed on Kanni Paruvathile. I don’t recollect the story much, but the songs are still fresh in my memory. It was a successful album when the movie came

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Bus Trains and Mobiles

There is a big difference between bus and train journeys now and a decade plus ago. It is the mobile phones (just mobile moving forward). No let me correct that….it is the people with mobiles. A decade ago, the big nuisance would be people talking loudly or worst-case loud snoring if the passenger next to you happen to sleep. I don’t include the crying of babies since these journeys are

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Ilayaraja Treasure Hunt – Nitham Nitham Nellu Soru

Focus of the series is to dig up not so often heard gems of IR compositions. Based on time I may start treasure hunt on other composers also (yes, this is a threat 😀). Disclaimer: I am a music listener. I don’t have much understanding of technicalities of music. For me, the composition has to connect, stir something inside, call it feeling or emotion or just pure joy. Nitham Nitham

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Ilayaraja Treasure Hunt – Manitha Manitha Ini Un Vizhigal

Focus of the series is to dig up not so often heard gems of IR compositions. Based on time I may start treasure hunt on other composers also (yes, this is a threat 😀). Disclaimer: I am a music listener. I don’t have much understanding of technicalities of music. For me, the composition has to connect, stir something inside, call it feeling or emotion or just pure joy. Manitha Manitha

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Ilayaraja Treasure Hunt – Naan Pesa Vanthen

Not everyone gets to live their dream. Few lucky ones do. I hit upon a 1979 radio interview between Abdul Hameed (the man with lovely golden voice 😍) and Ilayaraja (IR). When Abdul Hameed posed the question IR’s future goals, he touches upon his desire to compose a Western Symphony. In 1979!! That is the trigger for my first line. With Valiant, he has lived up to his dream. To

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