Wales National Dance Company Rocks- Great performance at Music Academy Chennai

Singing Light by the Wales Dance Company at Music Academy

National Dance Company, Wales- Performance at Music Academy, Chennai
Nostalgia. Expression. Speed. Emotions.

Attended a great performance by Wales Dance Company tonight.  We were completely spell-bound and entralled.  There were two major performances- B/olero & Black Milk by Ohad Naharin and Singing Light by Stephen Petronio.  The two sections were complete contrast.

The first was a slow and in darkness with simple lighting.  The costumes were elaborate.  Elaborate is relative to contemporary dance.  There were a smaller number of dancers and the moves were a cross between jazz and ballet.  The music was in the background, not heard, rather just guiding the musicians.  Some of the moves resembled middle-eastern styles, possibly emphasizing the Israeli background of the choreographer.  Even the costumes had a Lebanese connection. The faces were always in the shadows and they slowly kept come in and out of the shadows.  The music was very well synchronized with the faces moving in and out of the shadows.  The distribution of the white, green and purples offered a contrasting touch.  The choreographer has founded his own movement called "gaga".

The second was extremely fast paced.  There was a lot of action and with uncoordinated rhythmic poses distributed generously across the stage.  It was striking how these uncoordinated actions suddenly came together.  The music was composed to the word of Dylan Thomas,possibly the most famous Welsh poet.  The clothes were just wrapped cloth with interesting cuts that showed the body poses clearly in the bright light.  The red leotards was a class act.  The artists casually come in and out of the main stage.  It resembled a market with true cacophony but the food chain keeps chugging along.  In this case, it resembled a rocket.

I found videos of their performance on Youtube.  Feel free to view them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPmbtck35Ic->B/olero & Black Milk by Ohad Naharin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCZE-aeQfac->Singing Light by Stephen Petronio

Music Academy is a really nice hall.  It has been a long time since I have been there and the place has been done up quite well. The acoustic went without a hitch.

Best combination of cakes and savouries- Winner's Bakery in Alwarpet, Chennai

Cakes- Rs 25-40 ($0.50-.80); Bread- Rs 20 ($0.40); Savories- Rs 25-40 ($0.50-.80).  Two thumbs up!
Ever since my return to Chennai, I have been looking for the yummy cakes of my childhood.  Almost all the old and new places have disappointed me. They were too sweet, had too much icing, were soggy, and just did not taste right.  Most of them seem to have sudden urge to copy the American style of baking- more focused on the themes and shapes.  All I want is a tasty, goodness-to-earth cake. "Sugar, Butter, Flour" in Sunnyvale is always a point-of-reference.

Cake counter at Winner's Bakery.  Courtesy of chennaionline.com

Today, we stopped at the Winner's Bakery at the corner of C. P. Ramasami Road and C.V. Raman Road in Alwarpet.  The outside looks bright but very simply.  The car park could accommodate about 5 cars total.  It was in the corner of a corporation building.  I walk in and there is a dazzling array of colorful cakes, breads, cookies and savories.  The layout of the store was pleasing, extremely clean and the cakes looked really colorful and inviting.  You can also peak into an extremely hygienic kitchen.  The place was not crowded, considering it was a Sunday at 11 AM.  The puffs, sandwiches, doughnuts and pastries were in a separate counter.  The breads were stacked up really high behind the counter. 

The folks at the counter were extremely efficient and fast, unlike my recent visit to Reliance Fresh.  The cakes were not too sweet.  We ordered 8 different types of cakes- litchi, kiwi, chocolate, strawberry, Irish coffee, pyramid, black currants and black forest.  I first tried the litchi and the kiwi cakes. The icing was minimal and the cake was extremely tasty.  I could taste the tinge of the fruit in the cake, not sure whether it is artificial flavors.  The cake was soft but did not crumble.  They all had nice decorations.

The bread was another highlight.  We took home a sweet bread and a garlic bread.  The bread was baked with garlic bread.  We could see the pieces along the crust.  The bread was not over-powering with the smell.  Rather it had a nice tinge to it.  The bread was soft and tasty.  It definitely felt better than the mass-produced Costco bread that I have had in Sunnyvale!  We could eat it without any condiments or applications on top.  The savories were quite good.  We could taste the freshly cooked vegetables and the outer shell was firm.  It did not crumble and mess the whole eating area!!

Overall, a great experience and would highly recommend the place.

I researched the Bakery and found that it was built around a very noble cause.  A joint venture of Chennai Corporation, Rotary Club of Madras East and Chennai Culinary Institute, this Bakery provide free training to youngsters from economically backward families.  They also take orders for birthdays and special occasions.  Most 1 Kg cakes will be delivered within an hour of ordering.  Special shapes require overnight requests.

Bankcruptcy should be banned

A recent article and a interview with the most inept business adviser Henry Blodget, brought to force how America looks at spending and bankruptcy.  Debtors want to enforce age-old laws that provide prison terms for defaulters.  Henry is saying this is preposterous.  Is it really?

Americans are in such a bad situation because they live beyond the their means.  It is like a Ponzi scheme.  You get money form the Bank/credit card on one and you give it to a builder, yacht manufaturer or a car dealership, on the other end.  The Banks are stupid and accept you at face value.  But the biggest idiot is the one that lives beyond his means.  Or, does he think he is really smart?  All he does is simply "Keep up with the Joneses"?

This unfettered spending has helped the economy grow!!  This whole concept of putting debtors in jail is a great deterrent.  All the law-biding citizens will start being careful on how they manage their finances.  Of course, there are some free-thinkers that would prefer the free food in the jail.  This whole concept of bankruptcy gives people a false sense of security. It must be taken away. If the lady in the story owed $2K, she should be saving money on gas and walking around. This way she can save money. There is a concept of living within your means.

This stupid Henry and his stupider guest compares the  spending by a family to the investment made by a company.  Companies by nature are risky entities.  They take other people's money and try to build something.  Many will succeed but even more will fail.  For them the deterrent of jail will prevent investment and will not allow job creation.

What are your comments?

$8 Million for the Wedding banquet- How can spend so much?

Indian Weddings are the union of two families and it is considered for ever.  As it is conducted only once in each lifetime, the planning starts at the birth of the daughter. Typically the bride's side is responsible for all the wedding expenses and arrangements.  On this topic I had a very interesting discussion with the nephew of a very good friend of mine.

This nephew had recently attended the wedding of his sister and was explaining the arrangements.  The family runs a large catering company in their hometown.  The wedding arrangement including the banquet cost over Rs 2 crores ($400K).  By far, it is not the most expensive wedding.  In the recent past, there have been talks of wedding expense exceeding Rs 40 crores ($8 Million).

I wanted to understand how a parent could spend so much money.  Apparently it is quite easy.  Let us take the wedding that this nephew attended of his sister's.  There were 280 dishes, of which 30 were sweets.  210 of them were absolutely perfect and the reminder had some very minor, distinguishable flaws.  The banquet had a large number of themes- South Indian, Marwadi Jain, Chaat, Italian etc.  The new approach is to go with parlours as opposed to stalls.  The parlour gives the attendee a full and rich experience.  They are decorated in the styles and colors of the said theme (Gujurati, Rajastani, Tamil etc), the servers were dressed in traditional attire, and the cooks are imported from the respective regions.  The paanwallah guides you through the making process and then placed the paan directly in your mouth, so that you hands do not get dirty.

On to the decorations.  A net was laid out like a dome over the entire outdoor lawn area.  The net had candles and in the night only the candles were visible.  There were toy helicopters flying over that continuously sprayed perfumes over the lawn area.  There were parachutes with an arrangement of candles that floated over the reception for over 4 hours.  Of course there were the standard floral arrangement, large LCD screens with virtual banquet themes and big tasteful cutouts.  Along the way to the marriage hall, six large roadside billboards simply said "ABC Family Welcomes You".  As with IPL matches, there were a healthy load of cheerleaders dressed in Kingfisher costumes to welcome the guests.

The barat came on three elephants that were fully decorated.  The bridge came in a palanquin with a Rajasthani entourage and a leading announcers with traditional horns.  The wedding invitation was gold lined with a fine rosewood box containing exotic dry fruits from around the world. During the reception, an exclusive area reserved for VVIP and close family members had a full featured bar and private comfort area.

Lastly the sangeet was performed by Bollywood stars with dancers shipped from Bombay. Of course a wedding is never complete without a Bachelor/Bachelorette night.  In this case, it was called a Youngster night.

Blistering barnacles!- The Adventures of Tintin (Secret of the Unicorns)

Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles! and Ten thousand thundering typhoons!- An Absolute Must Watch.  The Unicorn really comes to life in this awesome movie by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson.

This is the first time in my life that I have see a movie on the first day- first show and is probably the best movie I have ever seen in my life.  The movie really brings the comic characters into a 3-dimension life form.  For Tamil movie lovers, this is "Michael Madan Kama Rajan" in English with finesse and Crazy Mohan replaced by Herge'. It feels like I am turning the pages of the book and can see it come to life.  The story line was kept along the same order and speed of the book.  The action packed scenes kept moving at a super-fast pace.  I could not bend to get my drink, lest I missed an important scene.  Spielberg had done a great job into weaving animation into the storyline, especially in places at sea.

The cinematographer has made full use of the 3-D by making it realistic, as opposed to scary.  This movie is not appropriate for kids below the age of 10, as the pace might frighten them.  The costumes and the makeup were really outstanding, especially for the Thom(p)son and Captain Haddock.  The 3-D made their nose standout and, of course, showed Tintin's hair in the natural flair.  The speeding away car, the innocent detective work by the Thom(p)sons and the bottle on the head with stars were nicely brought forth.  A melodious music of John Williams really produces the effect at major points at sea and in the final chase down to the sea coast.

Capt. Haddock does a great job in both the drunken state and in the motivating Tintin to go forward, especially where he explains that realism is a euphemism for defeat.  Snowy was probably the weakest link, though the scene where the huge dog became a puppy in front of him was a really nice touch.  The 3-D made Snowy look much bigger than he should actually be.  Also, Tintin takes less interest in him and displays less emotions relative to the book.  I am not sure whether this was a adaptation need for a movie.

All in all,  a fantastic movie and a must see.  For those with 3-D TV's make sure you get a original copy for your collection.  All those that have read the "Last of the Unicorn" in their childhood should look forward to it.  I am already waiting for the remaining two movies in the trilogy.

For those of you that have never heard of Tintin or the movie, here is a link to the trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW6TkX1YOK8.   For the adventurous one's, the link to the book on Amazon is http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Unicorn-Tintin-Herge/dp/1405206225/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321036549&sr=8-1-fkmr1.  To learn more about Tintin, go to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin. A video game on the same theme has been released.

I would like to thank my mother-in-law for getting prime tickets to a sold-out first day show! The crowd really enjoyed the movie. 

Sathyam Theatres Chennai takes movie watching to another level.  The whole auditorium shook with the ship and the pirate cannons could be felt with every Boom.  The theatre has done a fine job in making every aspect of the experience very pleasant, right from the concierge to the parking attendant.  A note to my friends in the Bay Area- tickets for 3-D movies in India are Rs. 120 + Rs. 20 (for glasses), a grand total of $2.75.

Did you know there is a Tibetan Monastry in Southern India?

Namdroling Nyingmapa Monastery (or Thekchog Namdrol Shedrub Dargye Ling) is the largest teaching center of Nyingmapa – a lineage of Tibetan Buddhism – in the world.

 My latest trip to Mysore and South Kodagu (Coorg) was an amazing trip for a number of reasons.  One of them was meeting my best friend's mother in Medikari (Mercara for the English-speaking World).  The second was the visit to a large Tibetan congregation in Bylakuppe.  The last was the meaning of exemplary and outstanding service.  More on this in a separate blog.

Before I start, below is the link to all the photos:
https://picasaweb.google.com/kaverideepak/111104TripToBylakuppe?authkey=Gv1sRgCJLMwcymlvy45gE

Bylakuppe is a land leased by the Karnataka Government for the Tibetian refugees that relocated to India in 1959.  The place has a great weather. As you turn of the Mysore-Medikari Road, the whole landscape and people's complexion change.  The green meadows are fittered with the Buddhist prayer flags.  As you go further, you will be greeted by shops selling Tibetan clothing and other paraphernalia. 

The Monastery is very inviting and has a very open layout.  The students are cordial and are ever willing to answer your questions.  There are 6000 students and about 110 Lamas.  The students come from different parts of the Himalayan land including Sikkim, Nepal, and Arunachal Pradesh.  We even saw a 7 year-old from Oregon among the students. 

A visit to this relaxing place is an absolute must.  Send me any questions about this and I will be happy to answer them.