SP Balasubramaniam

For folks in south spb is a major part of their growing days. Be it tamil, telugu, Kannada households. Spanning 4 generations. More so for us folks in Bangalore as addition is  Kannada songs. We can go on and on talking, there is no limit. Though Tamilians owned him,out of his 40k songs, 19k are Kannada. That is almost 50%. He has been the face of Anant Nag, Shankar Nag, Vishnu, Srinath, Shivrajkumar, Ramesh amongst so many others. We all know in Tamil. Kamal shared a spl relation with SPB. Seen him as kid when Idhe naadu Idhe baashe was shot at Kalakshetra. And many times more in other programs. Be it Shankara nada shareera para, Vidhaatha talapuna, Mounamana vela, o paapa lali, eliruve manava kaduva rupasiye, Ee bhoomi bannada buguri, Mamaravelo kogile gelo, Tarikere eri mele, Ilakanam marutho, Kamban yemanthan, Sangeetha megam, thogai ilamayil, en kaadhale,  vanam konda vennilave, tharapadham chethoharam, Ooty pattanam, tere mere beech mein, tathpranamami sada shiva lingam.......the list is ∞ A good human, very humble. Also carved careers for many other artistes.

Song of the day - Yaava shilpi

As it was pouring outside in Bangalore, was in two minds if I have make coffee for myself. For some reason the song yaava shilpi from the Kannada movie Januma janumadha anubandha caught my attention. It had been close to a year since I had last heard this song. 

Gaana link to the song. 

The YouTube version is passable

YouTube link

This lyrics of this song were composed by Chi. Udayashankar and the music was set by Maestro Illayaraja. The movie was released in 1980. It is 40 years old now. But this song is so fresh in its tune. It kind of electrifies your listening experience. For classical lovers it is set in the raga Gambhira Nattai which always has a grand opening. The liberal use of African folk, guitar, trumpet, flute and drums make it a perfect orchestra. Also the synchronization of the tune when SP Balasubramanyam recites Intha andhavanu and S Janaki follows up with hey hey hey is sheer brilliance. Similar sequences appear multiple times in the song like Nanagagi banthu thavare hennagi. As usual SPB & Janaki do a terrific job. The highlight of the song is between 1:10 and 1:48 for its orchestration way ahead of it's time for a 1980 song

Lastly have to mention Shankar Nag's association as a director and writer of this movie and how he shared a great working relationship with Illayaraja

Enjoy the song of the day!

Song of the day - Pichai pathiram

My thoughts wandered about the song Pitchai pathiram from the movie Naan Kadavul. The movie is synonymous with the iconic song Om Shivoham (Om Shivoham was being played in Kashi temple of Varanasi for 3 years). 

But this song keeps a special position for itself by way of it's lyrics. Maestro Illayaraja is the music composer of this movie has also penned the lyrics. I consider him as one of the finest composers in India and even in the world. Here is at writing too.

Pichai pathiram (meaning begging bowl) is a song that can take you on a spiritual journey. It can even bring down few tears. For those who haven't seen the movie, it is a zist of everyday life of  beggars. 

Madhu Balakrishnan has sung this song to perfection.

This is the link for the song in the movie

Some of the visuals can be disturbing

This is the link for the same sonng with visual explanations

This song was originally composed for one of Illayaraja's devotional albums - Rajavin Ramanamalai

Link to the song from the album

The director of the movie Bala requested Raja to include this song in the movie.

Musically it is a simple and pleasing composition (set to the raga Mayamalava gowla). The lyrics is what that drives this song . 

Though there are multiple sites offering the lyrical meaning, found these two as the best

Lyrical delights link

Second link

The lyrics of the song reminds so much of the Kannada song - Manava moole mamsadha thadike from the movie Bhakta Kumbara.

Bhakta Kumbara song link

A fine composition from GK Venkatesh under whom Illayaraja worked as an assistant for long.

WFH burnout

In the pre-Covid times in Bangalore, there was always talk of how stressful the commute to office is. "It took me 20 minutes to cross the Silkboard junction" or "I was stuck at Tin factory junction for 30 minutes" - these were everyday quotes from employees coming into work from various parts of Bangalore.
Post Covid, these utterances are non-existent as there is zero commute. As most of us continue to work from home we realize the benefits and at the same time seeing the other side of it. Most of us are feeling stressed out working from home. It sounds strange, but it is true. The never ending Skype calls, Zoom calls have been trying to replace social interactions to an extent. As humans social interactions are mandatory for our well being.
A new stress word we have been hearing these days is WFH stress or WFH burnout. It is real to an extent. Few sources that might be inducing this
- Lack of a planned structure. We tend to lose track of time completely on working days. Cleaning up your calendars is very important than it was before. Start the day by checkng it
- Distractions - There can be multiple distractions at home. You might have to take care of kids at home, do daily chores and balance office work. One could imagine themself to be that person in the street circus doing the tight pole walk. Also this could make us difficult to focus on the right task
- Schedule - Use your OneNotes / Trello / Evernote to the fullest and start marking priorities to your ToDo's. Most importantly set a time to log out
- Set aside sometime for yourself - like a 30 minute yoga / home workout / walk within the house etc..

Also don't miss opportunities to join office events like town-halls, webinars etc.. Attending these events help you in re-visualizing the office environment as you would get to hear others outside your team.

We have already crossed more than 100 days in the new normal. We are not certain how long this new way of working will stay. On a good note we have accepted it. Working from home can make the work life balance harder too. Stay safe.

Some recommended links for reading
https://hbr.org/2020/04/3-tips-to-avoid-wfh-burnout
https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurelfarrer/2020/05/29/the-dangerous-reality-of-wfh-burnout-and-how-to-treat-it/#213514b12487