Elangaathu veesudhey with Jo

Elangaathu veesudhey was a very different kind of melody- a haunting tune. One of my favourites in recent times.
I consider myself to be "lyrically challenged" - when I listen to a song the tune sits in my brain bang on, but the lyrics just refuse to! It takes some extra effort for me to absorb the meaning of songs. Blame it on my incompetence in Tamil/ Hindi (the two languages most familiar to me and in which I most frequently sing)or my subconscious resistance to take in the lyrics. I don't know. But somehow, one particular line in this song caught my attention and I found to be really beautiful- and it felt so good to be able to appreciate it:
"vaLaiyaadha moongilil rAgam vaLanchi Odudhae"
-translates to: (how is it that) music meanders through the flute that is rigid/ linear...
I remember when I said this to a friend, in response she said something like "logic is so far removed from poetry and it is precisely this that makes poetry beautiful!". Reminds me of "kavidhaikku poi azhagu" :)
Joseph Thomas needs no introduction in the audiobloggers' circuit here. Its been a long pending idea to do a duet with him and here it is, finally. Was a pleasure singing this with the very talented Jo. Hope you all enjoy this!
Again recorded this with a not-so-good mic. How I miss my Shure SM 57!! :( (Some software issues are preventing me from using it) But thanks to Jo for his efforts in mixing.

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

Song: elangaathu veesudhey
Film: Pithamagan
Music: Ilaiyaraja
Lyrics: Pazhani Bharati
Singers: Sriram Parthasarathy and Shreya Ghoshal

Meeting Murali at Melbourne

It was mid 2000- when me, the kid just out of high school was beginning to explore the internet more vigourously than before, especially for music related stuff. The most fortunate discovery was TFMpage.com - where, in addition to a lot of informative articles, there were discussion forums galore. The one that instantly caught my attention was "Raga of Songs" (fondly dubbed "ROS"). Little did I know then that that was going to be like home for me for the next few years. There I came across some really intellectually stimulating discussions on ragas in film music and it looked like it had a lot of interesting people. There were the bosses, there were amateurs. Overall it looked like a lot of fun! By early 2001 I started posting there too and getting involved in the discussions. And that proved to be the beginning of my association with some of the best musical friends I have today - "MS" or Murali Sankar Venkatraman being one of them.

Murali has been a great friend, inspiration and a mentor for me ever since. A keen critic of my singing, he has helped me fine tune my skills over the years. I finally got to see him in flesh and blood a few days back at Melbourne while I was there on a vacation with my parents :) Unfortunately, time was short and it could not be a musical rendezvous. Nevertheless, we had a good time.
Its such an irony that all these years, we could never meet- neither when I was in US some years back on a visit, nor when he was in India last year, and finally to meet in the Land Down Under!