Come be a part of us, lets celebrate being here...

It’s the month of November, if you are from Karnataka you will definitely know the significance of this month and if you are not then let me tell you its Rajyotasava month and we have flag posts and auto Rickshaw reminding you the significance of this month.

November 1^st is celebrated as Kannada Rajyotsava, this day in 1956 formally had clubbed all the Kannada speaking regions of Southern India and so the “Birth of Karnataka State”. So the point here is the soul of any state is its language, the language which is binding us all. And so we kannadigas celebrate it all throughout the month

(image courtesy: Wiki)

The Josh, Festivity and celebrations which are lined up and planned this month in our office to mark the significance of kannada language and rich heritage of this state to all the dear friends and colleague who are non kannadigas, just pumped up so much more love to my language that I am here to tell you all more about Kannada and Karnataka.

“Nara janma Bandaga, Naligeyu iruvaga, Krishna yenabarade…”  When this was uttered flawlessly in perfect native kannada accent by a host on stage, I was stunned and surprised to the core. If you are wondering what so surprising in it let me tell you this little story…

(image courtesy: Farila mam)

Master chef, Michelin Starred, restaurateur, Based in New York city, famous for his restaurant Junoon, The VIKAS KHANNA (to know more hit here) Who is a non kannadiga was the host that evening and he shook the Bangalore audience by perfectly reciting this Keertane by Kanakdasaru and told us the story behind his passion to learn this.  He studied 4 yrs in Karnataka and fell so much in love with this place and language also he was especially impressed by Udipi temple. Despite the strict ritual in the temple which does not allow anyone other than the chosen singer by temple to perform there, Vikas Khanna was given the chance seeing his dedication. He Had learnt this language and learnt Carnatic singing to sing this keertane,  for 3 yrs continuously just to perform in that temple to sing in front of Krishna. Now what would you call this dedication or passion? Hats off Vikas, you not only stole our heart that day but also you sent a message loud and clear in the audience that we are blessed to be born in such a beautiful state with rich heritage and cultural value to celebrate every moment being here.

And now the same passion for celebrating Rajyotsava event is being viral in my office everybody is gearing up with beautiful song and dance, folk arts. I am completely thrilled to see so many non kannadigas participating in Quizzes, Essays and speech and they are so much part of this celebration. This really resounds that we have “Unity in diversity” deep in our heart. And trust me no matter what we value it a lot.

As I finished this post, a dear friend hesitatingly hands over a beautiful article about Karnataka. Beyond the broken sentences, little mistakes her love and enthusiasm to be one among us beamed strong and bright.

Come be a part of us, celebrate being here and we promise to make it the best memory of your life!

And the winner App of Nokia app tasting event is….

Around 300 bloggers, fantastic ambiance @ITC gardenia, fun filled events, Platform for spurting creative brains and 2 hot handsome anchors what more would you ask for a bombastic evening?

But not only these.. luck had lot more to offer me that evening!!! As I am still sailing in the sea of happiness ;) here is the glimpse of my first Blogger meet which I was badly waiting for…

I was about to miss this event if I had not received a call from a dear blogger friend Sahana who was kind enough to remember me and informed to register to the event immediately. From the moment I registered I was all excited and waiting to meet the fantastic bloggers of Beautiful Bangalore :D  

Oh what an evening, How much creative one can get was showcased in the event there !!! I cannot even imagine a person who’s mouth waters at the thought of tasty dish being at the App event or A complete Techie gadget freak at the Food event? Combination does not make sense right!!! All these thoughts were demolished when we saw Rajiv Makhni and Vikas Khanna take over the stage and cruise everyone into fantastic jolly ride of fun, quiz, and apps of Nokia

Nokia which is back with a Bang with its awesome lumia series just proved their creativity by planning such an event to introduce their phone and apps to the indiblogger community via which they will be definitely successful in spreading the news, not only this they used the fact that we bloggers are one amongst the creative brains. This was the right catch for Nokia to use these creative brains to collect most wacky and innovative ideas, so they made us write any number of ideas and drop it in the drop box which was getting evaluated by panel of judges for “Your wish is My app” as this evening was progressing…

And so there I was enjoying the awesome ambiance and appetizers, I was eagerly hoping to get on stage at least once, forget winning all we wanted to be was just be a midst two smart men :D sooooooon I got that chance Me and my sister Ranjana were picked to get on stage for one last event to win Nokia Lumia - one last chance…

and hoping for....

And there we were standing clueless of what the event could be and for our hearts to break they announced QUIZ that’s the least thing I do well and The GADGET guru throwing questions at it :D we realized we were totally in soup :D but then ;) somehow guessing the ingredients for DIVINE Soup by Vikas khanna saved us :D and we were the winners of :D the QUIZ contest and OMG :D Two phones ;) Nokia Lumia 510!!! ;) BTW they saved our home from world war between me and my sis :D for the phone :D by gifting one each :D

With immense happiness I thought I cant get more lucky until The GADGET GURU announced the top 5 App for the evening and how the crowd laughed when he said “Who is this who choose to write their gmail id on this app idea!!!” yes that wacky brain was mine I jumped high and screamed to have heard him spell it “ramyam139…” I ran up to the stage and again this was not easy there were 4 more with me with fantastic ideas so we had the final contest to present our idea :D and win audience vote and judges Vote, completely like TV show…

After all the drama, of some blogger friends hating my idea, some encouraging at the fun of it and some just cheering me J there the judges where announcing “And the winner App of Nokia app tasting event is….”  Yes yes yes it was mine :D “AccsApp” an app which would help women to spot their favorite accessories and save men ;) from making boring trips to shopping malls with their sister\wife\girlfriend

Innovation is best done when there are no boundaries… Nokia Lumia already has the best innovative and wacky apps like , Alcohol meter, Gangnam style Dance tutor ;), and wow the direction finder was just so amazing and by giving platform for more innovation I am sure they are going to find tons of wacky ideas…

For blogging for 6 yrs now, felt very rewarded to smile to fantastic bloggers like Rachana Parmar, Sujatha Sathya, Sudharshan, Farida, Suresh Chandrasekaran, Anup Karn, Sahana Rao, Sibi and many many more.

All in all, this was absolutely OMG evening for me! 

Thanks indiBloggers and Nokai for making this evening the best evening of my life!

PS: I have one more wacky App idea Nokia are you listening ;)? “ScareApp” Just put my video of shouting and jumping around the stage which you captured last evening, I am sure it will be one of the most scary app ever in the market :D

PS: Sudharshan thanks a lot for sharing snaps with me... 

Guns, Bombs and Rockets…

They crawled crossing the enemy lines belching fire from the guns, from the opposite direction the tanks thundered and cannons boomed, the tracer rockets lit up the dark sky…

I don’t know how I managed to escape from their eyes but somehow I had survived till now, I was hiding in the safe place well protected from the bombarding sound, fierce flames and flashing lights.. I had decided not to move an inch till this dies by itself but then I realized this was not happening as one of them came hunting for me, He found me hiding below the cot he dragged me out and forcefully pulled me to the battle field all I could do was shout and call out for help.

Luckily, Appa heard me shouting and he came down running to see what was happening with me. As soon as my cousin saw him, he let me there and escaped from thrashings he would get by my appa for dragging me to play with the crackers on that deepavali day!

Oh I was 7 when this happened but then this was the story over all those years of Deepavali. On this beautiful festival of lights, we all cousins gathered together to celebrate it, morning puja, Delicious feast in the afternoon, New dresses and gifts and the best part was in the evening when all the kids had an awesome time in the evening bursting crackers. Usually Boys used to enjoy Guns, Bombs, Rockets and Girls used to be happy with sparkling crackers.

Appa had a very important task of bifurcating crackers among all the kids, each one of us used to get a share of different crackers and with a strict instruction of burning crackers only when some elders are around. Hardly any kid obeyed this order. I was shit scared of crackers and so all the cousins were fond of me, as they would get my share if they were good to me. But then cousins who wanted to bully over me would use this opportunity well and always scared me and entertained themselves.

These festivals bring back lot of beautiful memories associated with them over the years. As we all gathered again, I giggled seeing my cousins who are today Engineers, PHD holders and in very prestigious jobs thinking how once they you used to boast over the Biggest bomb they burst and how they were not scared a bit, How their Rockets flew and hit the moon, How one of them burst a bomb holding in hand and 3 days was hospitalized! How they used to imagine a battle field inside our home and run around holding guns shouting loud.

And BTW did I tell you I was scared of crackers? oh I am sorry, actually :D I am still scared of crackers. But now for not bursting crackers I polish it by the reason of being environmental friendly. Cousins who know me from those days laugh out loud at this!!!

And now yet again the festival is back with lot more josh, fun and festivity. And hoping to gather again and celebrate it with all our love and happiness. And so wishing you all a very happy and prosperous Deepavali, May this festival of lights bring lot of happiness and prosperity to all of you… Happy Deepavali…

I am still drenched in it

It was 10 in the night when I and my hubs started from my mom’s place to head back to our home. We had to hide below an umbrella to reach our car. Bangalore this day was extraordinarily beautiful, it was drizzling and cloudy all day long. How weird the life is, this beautiful weather which we were blessed upon here was due to the Cyclone which silently crawled and which was now in dangerous form somewhere else.

Sometimes life suddenly turns beautiful, I had never imagined a 10 mins drive from my mom’s home to my home will turn out to be an hour’s ride and would be so memorable. Thanks to the string of things which made that night a blessing.

I should be really thanking my little chariot for all the best things that happened. As hubs started the car, stereo which wasn’t switched off earlier, randomly picked up the most favorite song of ours to set the stage on.  We started singing along the tunes of Savage garden

...I love you more with every breath truly madly deeply do..

Who cares for the notes and tones we could just not hold back from singing load. Inside this chariot of us, seeing the beautiful rain showering bright golden around the high street light seemed to be best thing I could have ever seen. 

As this song of 4 min ended, we were in no mood to change so the song played again and when we had reached our garage my hubs all of a sudden decided to pull back the car. Before my curious eyes popped out hubs told that he could just not call this a night and then there we were hitting the road again for a beautiful long drive on the streets of Bangalore.

As if writing on the windows of the car where the fog constantly formed, singing the melodious songs of love, enjoying the warmth inside the car, and a drive of an hour and half to the outskirts was just not enough we found a nice tea stall which catered to 24X7 workers and yes how can we resists the inviting fragrance of tea? There we were only two of us giggling and gulping the warm tea.

Trust me I can’t remember the various reasons we had that night to laugh, to hug and fly in our imaginations, ah! How I wish I could seize the sparkle of that adventure in our eyes and I pinched myself to make sure that all these were not just one of my fantasies.

As one corner of the world suffered due to the terrible act of Mother Nature, I was wondering at the irony that there may be many like us who were blessed by her love at the same time. How some would hate that night so much so that they just want it to be over and how I would want to seize it forever!

A long drive on a drizzling night was so much memorable that I am still drenched in it.