With The Oscar-Winner

It has been ages since I had a sound sleep. I have been invariably living another life at nights….dreams....dreams...dreams….i feel like…i have been chased by dreams….the peculiar thing is..I remember everything that I dream.For every other person( correction: who sleeps well :) ).. a sleep is a refresh button ,a pause to all the hectic, hurly-burly living of the daytime. And for me…sadly…its another life and I have to be ‘alive’ there . No break for me...wait…you might be wondering why on earth kranthi is doing a soliloquy kind of thing. okay…let me stop this and tell u why…

I had a dream two nights ago…a dream which I cherish forever :) As it happens in every other dream..in this also..there was a transposition of locations…sometimes it was my office,My Home Hub and the next moment it was my engineering college hostel (godavari hostel …something like Ramesh’s room) and for a while it moved to road near Malaysian township ( hiteccity-jntu campus road) .

And the dream was….

I met AR Rahman….Not just meeting….you know what….i gave suggestions to him …fullu comedy kada…? ;-) but it happened. Let me narrate a bit…I was in that room with AR …another person was also there..I didn’t know who he was but I felt like I knew him.He was..like…a music album producer... He was asking AR to compose a song. AR instantly started composing and finished.There was a key board in the room. The song was good…believe me AR asked my opinion on that song.While I was with AR..i was so casual....and I replied him switching my glances over both of them “ song was good…but it caters to the category of patriotic songs…if that was what u were trying to do..then it was good” :O
Can u believe that….???? And AR clarified..”yes..we were doing that only…something like a patriotic song” ..and that face-I-know-person nodded his head in approval. Later I asked AR..” Could you help me learn keyboard…I think it would take lakhs to have you as my instructor....”

And it ended abruptly…..i woke up and thrilled . That conversation with AR ..That ingenuous smile of his……wow…..I’ll remember :-)

On Voting Day . . .

You might have heard about the boons promised by our Chandra babu naidu. If he wins : the poor will get a colour TV , the unemployed will get a monthly payment of Rs.1000 and the women will get Rs.2000 deposited in their accounts by the end of every month.

When I came to know about these promises for the first time…I was taken aback. I could not figure out what happened to our pragmatic babu. I could not digest the fact that even our techie babu could promise the moon to garner votes. I was very averse to all the election-gimmicks played to get that most coveted position.."The Chief Minister".

One of my friends,Santhosh who is hard cored ,ardent fan of TDP and ChandraBabu ,when asked by me, though he also didn’t like those money-transfer-schemes ,told me “ mari emi chestadu kranthi , edinaa haami ivvakapothey votes padavu..anni partylu edo okati cheptunnayi…..kabatti ayanaki kooda thappadam ledu ” ani. But ..that ratiocination could not give me a satisfied answer and my detestation of babu continued.

The Voting-day:

I went to srpt with hari to cast our votes. I voted first and we (hari,santhosh and me) hurried to the other polling station to have hari cast his vote. Finding Hari’s name in the list was not an easy task. In that hot sunny afternoon, we moved from one polling station to the other to trace his exact voting-station.

In that journey….i came across an old lady…a lady which made me think form her viewpoint… shifting my previous viewpoint centered at chandra babu naidu. We three went to one place and hari and santhosh were checking the lists .I was feeling uneasy with all this aimless-wandering in that sultry weather and started observing people over there who came to cast vote. An old woman was talking to some people..and I focused my gaze in that direction.

Those people( 3 men)were wearing TDP scarfs…and that gave me a clear picture that they were wooing people make cast in favour of chandrababu’s mahakootami.They might have told that old lady that casting vote to babu would help u get money(quoting babu’s money-transfer-scheme). This lady, was innocent , illiterate, ….and may be, she was poor like millions of other indians who still believe that miracles would happen in their devastating lives….Their discussion suggested that she voted Babu and came back to them.

And this was the discussion ensued...and it was very heart-touching … made me so sad….I can still hear her voice…the way she was speaking…. with a quiver in voice.. I cant verbalize …I can never forget …

She asked them ” eppudu vasthayayya dabbulu…”

“vote vesava” ,they asked.

“ haa”

“ippudu kaadu oka nalugu nelala tarvatha vastayi..”

“naalugu nelala..???? “. She was disappointed.

“ aaa….neeku renduvelu vastayi…banklo vestaru..inko veyyi kooda vastayi....”

She was all ears…. listening to them in awe …with full concentration…. and her eyelids forgot to blink…. She didn’t want to miss a single word they were saying…

“koncham vachetattu choodandayya….” uttered sadly, though with a pinch of hope.

“votesavu kada..nuvvu intikellu…dabbulu vastayile”

“sarenayya…koncham choodandi vachetattu”..

Forget about chandrababu…forget about YSR….forget about the tricks…. and forget about the intentions( guileful or guileless) of politicians….when I saw that woman….i could do nothing but hope…hope that she would get that money…I didn’t think about the practicality of that scheme…I just thought how horrible and painful and miserable life they are leading…and how badly they need money….very pathetic……

I hope they will not be cheated…..i hope …..i hope…..

They should be happy…. And That lady…that lady who was in normal simple green saree....that lady who had wrinkles on her face…that lady who walked away sadly… should be happy….. I hope.

My Name Is ???????

Nomenclature Story: Part I

Do u know what my mother wanted to name me as ??? …

Rajavardhan is the answer .

How does it sound… Rajavardhan… Raja..vardhan…Rajavardhan….

Is that okay….will that go with me ? Lets replace ‘ kranthi ’ with ‘ rajavardhan ’ and see the results…
A friend who is not that familiar will call me “ hi rajavardhan ” “ lunch ayindaa rajavardhan” “ rajavardhan…. okasari itu raa” “ bye rajavardhan” …uuuuuuuhh!!!! Koncham (koncham enti chaalaa!!! ) different gaa vundi kada….either that name is TOO BIG for me(kranthi) or ...am TOO SMALL to carry that name….
Vardhan…Rajavardhan a la Bond….James Bond… :P baaprey!!!!…chala kashtam...chala chaaaaaaaaaala kashtam.

Actually….my mother’s name is Rajeshwari and my father’s is Govardhan.. Now u can easily figure it out why I was supposed to be ‘Rajavardhan’. And here goes a small story connected to this issue….Once upon a time…over ayindikada…. ok…..coming back to normalcy…….so when I was born…my dearest mother thought of offsetting the second half of her name and first half of my father’s name…. .and combining the suffixes and prefixes formed…..thereby coining a name Rajavardhan.

Offset(Rajeshwari) ----> raj (= raja) *equation 1
Offset(govardhan) -----> vardhan *equation 2

Adding both equations :

Rajeshwari + Govardhan -----> RAJAVARDHAN

When I was narrated this story by my mother…I could not help laughing. Looking at me…even she started laughing. After the amusement subsided…I thought about the name . Rajavardhan…. Rajavardhan….Rajavardhan….. I started playing with the permutations of combinations. Excerpts from thought-process ;-) :
”if I were Rajavardhan……how would I be called….raj or raja or vardhan...Just Raj sounds too stylish which i am not . Just Raja is cool, gives an impression of a telugu boy….and I can be called….. rajagaadu.. arey raja.. orey raju. Or just Vardhan. Vardhan is fine …as it connotes…like…some strong personality…thinking personality…it goes with this generation …and a lot more….( I’m NOT saying that I have those qualities .I feel Vardhan has that weightiness.) “
Then I combined raja and vardhan to rajavardhan..it didnt sound that good as amalgam..

I thanked my mother for not labeling me so. And I thanked my peddha mamaiah(he’s no more) for giving “kranthi’ to me. Sagacity. Commendable.

Nomenclature Story : Part II

The flip side of the story :

I like it. Rajavardhan…. a name… not formed looking at raasi or nakshatras …. not formed out of fancy. …not formed by doing a serious-thought-process-of-naming-the-first-child… not the name of my parents’ grandfathers.

Its “A proper noun formed from the names of my dear parents”.

My mother just thought of naming me that way and it shows how much they love each other. And it would have been wonderful to have both of them in my name..

bye….
yours,
Rajavardhan…err….sorry…Kranthi ;-)