Nadvedh - नादवेध

12 June..The day many maharashtrians would remember! The memorial day of the idol - Pu la Deshpande! Swaranjali Pratishthan, Pune organized a program in his tribute! I was fortunate enough to attend!

Nadvedh is more of a mehfil! It is anchored by Mr Achyut S Godbole(ASG). What this man can do is a different topic all together, but this is just one of the many facets of his personality! I will have a blog post separately dedicated to him, sometime later!

Coming back to the topic, till this program, I was never fascinated by Classical Music. Maybe my ignorance about this thing being the prime reason! But I never really understood why would a someone go on singing one raag for 2 hours, 3 hours ! I used to see the so called 'learned' listeners and would get really irritated when they would show that they have a lot of knowledge in what is going on on the stage. I have no problem with people enjoying, but there has to be some limit. Why show world? Keep it with you! And people who believe they understand a thing or two about music, do have a tendency to show off - This is my personal opinion. Many can argue on that! To each its own!

Nadvedh changed my whole attitude towards Music. ASG explained raags like Bhimpalasi, Malhar, Yaman and their various other derivatives, the various hindi, marathi movie songs, non-movie songs, gazals, bandishis, various memories associated with those songs, few things about the lives of the music maestros - Bhimsen Joshi, Kishori Amonkar, Mehdi Hassan etc ! It was all just majestic!! One would like to just go on listening to ASG as he unfolds. The peculiar thing about him is that, at the start ASG makes you believe that he himself doesnt know a great deal about music..Just being like any other guy like you. But as he goes on n on n on.. You realize that you are being fooled... n this guy is really a father of many in this category. Such is the charisma of this program! He is equally supported on stage by his sister, Sulabha Pishawikar who happens to be a trained classical singer and some other singers to accompany the mehfil !

The program has installed some interest in me to start understanding Music in order to enjoy it more! I dont think Music is a thing to analyze..But it is something that you should enjoy. One should be able to feel Music. In Kishoritai's words, "Music musically leads to silence"! What say folks?

The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch

Few days back, a good friend of mine - Aditya shared me a youtube link. I wasnt really excited about it... as the video was some 76 minutes long and So it would take few hours to buffer that. Rather I decided to download it so that i can see it afterwards. Well the video is about Randy Pausch, A 47 year old Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science Professor, and it was his last lecture. Randy was diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer in Sept 2006 and was told in August 2007 to expect a remaining three to six months of good health.

This lecture is titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". Before speaking, Pausch received a long standing ovation from a large crowd of over 400 colleagues and students. When he motioned them to sit down, saying, "Make me earn it," some in the audience shouted back, "You did!".

Few excerpts from the Wall Street Journal's article on Randy. I recommend all to read this article.

"Randy Pausch, a professor at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University, has become famous for the way in which he chose to say goodbye to his students and colleagues. His final lecture to them, delivered last September, turned into a phenomenon, viewed by millions on the Internet. Dying of pancreatic cancer, he showed a love of life and an approach to death that people have found inspiring. For many of us, his lecture has become a reminder that our own futures are similarly -- if not as drastically -- brief. His fate is ours, sped up."

I am embedding that video here for your reference - DON'T MISS IT !

Achievers 08 - A salute to the torch bearers

Today i got a chance to attend a program organised by PUMBA called Achievers 08. The program was to felicitate some of the industry leaders and the achievers in their respective domains. The achievers list included some eminent personalities like -

Mr Dilip Chhabria, CEO and Chief Designer, DC Designs Pvt Ltd
Mr Achyut Godbole, MD, Softexcel Consultancy Services
Mr Ravi Pandit, Founder Chairman, KPIT Cummins Infosystems Ltd and
Mr Subhash Kapre, CEO, Serum Institute of India

Today was one of the most memorable days in my life that i got to listen to all those eminent personalities. To learn from their experiences was a great experience. To know more about the event - Click here for the PUMBA site.

India loses Rs 55 Thousand Crores per anum

A recent study report by 'The Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry in India' better known as ASSOCHAM shows that over Rs.55,000 crore per annum is repatriated out of India on 4,50,000 Indian students that go abroad for professional career.

That is a huge number. If some part of this money remains in India itself, we could have many more IITs and IIMs ! On an average, an IIT student pays only US$ 120 per month as fees in IITs while youths opting to go abroad for career making sell out US$ 1500 to US$ 5000 fee per month in equivalent institutions in countries like USA, Canada, Australia, Singapore and UK, adds ASSOCHAM assessment.

The students are not to blame for this! What can they do? The exams that allow admission to IITs and IIMs , not more than 2% of the students that appear for the exam get qualified for such institutes. So around 40% of the remaining 98% students opt for the institutes in other countries and are ready to pay the staggering fees !

The picture of the higher education system has to change in India if one wants to stop this staggering flow of brain drain !

To view report - Click Here