The Maroon 5 Concert

Its concert season in Singapore; and we had spent most of our excitement over The Police & Santana concerts last month. But inspite of that, Maroon 5 was a lot of fun. Firstly, we had awesome seats (6th row from the stage; and I swear he was looking straight at us while singing!!); and secondly, the guys were great. Even H who had dismissed them earlier, was humming 'She will be loved' on our way back :)

Johnny Gaddar

This movie surprised me; its quite a thriller - - an interesting plot & made differently from the run-of-the-mill Bollywood thrillers.

Which makes me wonder... when was the last time they made a genuinely good Bollywood thriller? I can only think of lame ones like "Don" or really lame ones like "Humraz" at best.

An Old Song

I'm usually pretty bad at remembering songs & lyrics, but I feel quite thrilled when I think of an old favourite song & realise that I still remember it right till the last stanza :)

The summer breeze entered my window,
Like a free-spirited song whistled in my ears;
As it swirled & danced, it reminded me of a familiar tune,
Relegated, in a far corner of my memory,
but never completely removed from it,
It now ran forth to my lips; I hummed & it lingered,
The words I once knew so well, now re-surfaced;
one at a time; sometimes four or five;
As they rose, they dusted off the age on them,
And soon I remembered that old melody,
That familiar song from years ago.

Dying Arts

I read this article about how the artisans of Lucknow, famous for their traditional 'Lucknowi chikan' embroidery, are struggling on account of competition from the Chinese factories, where machines do faster & cheaper embroidery than the artisans.

Its sad to watch traditional arts die this silent death; maybe nobody will mourn their loss; maybe the next generation of these artisans will move on to better-paying jobs in some new BPO company in Lucknow or Delhi; maybe the knowledge will evaporate with this last generation of artisans; maybe *traditional* will soon mean something else; maybe *one-of-a-kind* would be a foolish thing to do.

My point in short: I own a lovely pink salwar-suit with chikan work on it; and I think I should preserve it better than I currently do.

Singapore's Food Courts

The food courts are such a big part of the Singaporean culture and there's always a food court around the corner, no matter what part of Singapore you're in.

The Newton Hawker Center is close to our home & its also our favourite. It's jovial, casual, weekend-ish ambience reminds me of the "chowpatty hawkers" of Mumbai. Of course, there's no chaat served here; but the pepper crab quite makes up for the lack :)

Some of the other food courts in Singapore, especially the ones in the busy business district, can make "no-frills" & "fast food" seem like silly under-statements.