service work in india

If you are of Indian Origin (aka 'brown') and have done any service work in India, then check out the call for submissions for fullcircle, an anthology of stories from people like you about their experiences.

page 3

Last night, we watched Page 3, a Hindi/English movie about a journalist who covers "Page 3" (the page with photographs and gossip about the glitterati of a city) for a Mumbai newspaper. The journalist is played by Konkana Sen. I've seen her before in Mr. and Mrs. Iyer and 15, Park Avenue and she has been outstanding in all three.

Page 3 left me a little depressed, but I highly recommend the movie.

mechturk

this is a hilarious use of mechanical turk.

classical music

Last night I went to hear Ashwini Bhide Deshpande in concert, accompanied by Seema (Harmonium) and Vishwanath (Tabla) Shirodkar.

It was a pretty good concert although

• Ashwiniji seemed to have a bit of a cold, though her singing was fantastic
  
• Her penultimate song (a jhula) seemed to finish prematurely/abruptly; I think this was due to the tabalji going into a long improv.
  
• To my very amateur ears/eyes, it seemed like she got off beat a few times. I feel stupid saying that because she's an extremely accomplished artiste, but I could swear that, a few times, she took the sam on the 13th maatra of a teentaal instead of on the 1st. I was relying both on my counting as well as on the tabalji's left hand playing the tin (with his palm instead of his fingers). Maybe someone can corroborate or shoot me down?
  

Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed the evening. I also ran into my old music teacher, as well as some fellow vocal students and some amazon collegues.

In other news, we moved out of temp. housing and into our own apartment. To my surprise, I have a partial view of Mt. Rainier along with the Seattle skyline. Since we didn't really get to use our new furniture before leaving Bangalore, we spent much of the weekend excitedly unpacking and setting up the place. Unfortunately, we imported some dust from Bangalore along with our boxes and also spent a lot of time sneezing. Played squash yesterday after a long time so now my rear end is in pain. Am starting a 6-day white-water-kayaking class today.