Chittannavasal Jain cave.

During this Christmas, we went to an interesting place called Chittannavasal near Pudukkottai in Tamilnadu.

Chittannavasal is known for its 9th century cave paintings on par with Ajanta and Ellora. The local Pandya (history books wrongly attribute to a Pallava king) king Srimara Srivallabha created an indenture on the hillside for the Jain monks. We saw a few Jain thirtankaras carved on the walls of the indenture. The ceiling has an exquisite painting describing probably a pond nearby. The colors would have been vivid when they were initially painted. Beyond all the vandalism, we could see beautiful wall and ceiling frescoes.On the ceiling was a vividly described lotus pond with monks, women, ducks, swans and animals going in for the waters and flowers.

There is a small room (probably a 12x12). Standing in the middle of that room, if I vocalise any sound in the audible range there is no echo. But if I hum inaudibly, the room starts echoing and soon the entire room reverberates in a loud drone! Not everyone who went in could do it though. The guide was trying to show that he did lot of practice and only people who do a lot of meditation can do it. But me, my wife and my B-i-L could do it with ease. A must see historic place.

PVR Cinemas - Bangalore.

Over the weekend we went to PVR to see a movie (Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu). I somehow left my phone in my seat when my son created a mess with his Nachos. We realized it almost an hour later! But here is what was the good experience during that time:

1. The PVR guys were friendly enough to let me into the theatre to search for the phone while the next show was going on!
2. The guy sitting in the same seat (where I was in the previous show) was friendly enough to give me his phone to dial my number and look for the phone in the darkness.
3. The PVR cleaning staff were honest enough to deposit the lost phone to their office.
4. The office staff were good enough to quickly verify my identity and my relationship with the phone and returned it to me.
5. My son was patient enough throughout the drama without wincing while we were both very hungry.

Whew! That's quite some learning for one afternoon!

Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu

This weekend we went to see "Vettaiyadu Vilaiyadu"(http://www.vettaiyaaduvilaiyaadu.com/). And I did the mistake of taking my 6 year old son along :-(

Oh boy! With 25+ murders (28?), half the time I had to cover the kid's eyes so he wouldn't get nightmares! But he did enjoy the rest of the movie though.

Having said that, it is a pretty ok murder mystery movie. Harris Jayaraj has done some good work (though loud). And the camera work was indeed good. The movie has Kamal all over it.

If I can steal an expression from Bhaskar Ghosh, "You should see it if you have the stomach for it." Yep! You need the stomach for 28 murders and blood and gore in most frames.

Old Ilaiyaraja Photos - 7.

And that's all I've got!!

Old Ilaiyaraja Photos - 6.

We are almost done...

Old Ilaiyaraja Photos - 5.

Now we are dealing with more recent times.

Old Ilaiyaraja Photos - 4.

Here is IR with some political bigwigs...
This is the fourth set of photos...
IR in a function with MGR!
IR getting an award from Karunanidhi.

Old Ilaiyaraja Photos - 3.

Here is the third installment...


IR with the other musical giant M.S.Viswanathan
IR with P. Susheela
IR with S. Janaki
"Stop! Stop! You are killing me!! I cannot stand that!" Old pals in a lighter mood.

Old Ilaiyaraja Photos - 2.

This is a great collection that I received. I hope there are more of such photos of IR.
IR explaining the song to Jensy.









Ain't these cool?

Old Ilaiyaraja Photos.

I got these rare Ilaiyaraja photos from my bro. They start from the earliest dates. I will put them in a series of blogs today so you can all see it and enjoy!




Two of them, sans Gangei Amaran.
An early photo of the trio. IR is at the harmonium.

That's the three brothers with IR on the harmonium.