Radio Raja!

Every part of my life I associate it with some kind of music (more of it being Raja's music). When I listen to them in radio or in TV a sudden surge of memories would set in. For the past few days I have gotten addicted to Ilayaraja's songs more than I was before.Today I was flipping through channels while having dinner and I saw that a channel was putting an ilayaraja classic (en iniya pon nilavae!!) and I try switching over to another channel and then again there is another classic (punnagai mannan!!), I was totally confused..I tell my mom I want to listen to both simultaneously.
Few songs I have not even seen the video I don't know who the hero or heroine or anything at all, all I know and I believe is Ilayaraja was there in that music and he is the hero,director, producer and the god of that creation.
When I was really young my mom insisted on me and my brother to sleep by 9:30, growing up in days when TVs were meant only for movies or serials or new songs, radios did have their reach, me and my brother would put on the radio and again no private stations only AIR. At 9:30 I clearly remember there used to be this person Dr.Saiyom (not sure of how his name spells) who used to present a show called ninaithaley innikum, me and my brother would finish all our homework, studies and dinner only to run and listen to that show. We used to love his voice and we would be betting on what would be the song that would come next. Some songs till date I have not seen them , those were the songs I used to dread for them to put it everyday on radio, sometimes I would cry if the song didn't come for more than a week; like today there was no computer at home, so no googling  to find out the movie , forget about downloading them (I don't know if such things existed then).There was this beautiful title music for this show borrowed from Ilayaraja's music, me and my brother till today have not found the source but we like it being not found.
I don't know in how many people's lives radio has played a role post 1990s or 1995s but for me and my brother it always reminds of our school days, and the nights we used to fight for pillows and place under the fan to sleep and the stupid abusive languages against the person who won the fight.
Our mornings started with Akashavani, my mom would say even without seeing the clock, Akashavani has come go get ready to school, and if the second break has come in Akashavani and if we still haven't left she would get hysteric because it would mean the school bus left!!:P
The reason I started loving radio is because of Ilayaraja's music and till date I'm infected with his music. I'm more than glad that TV didn't have a huge impact those days otherwise I think I would never have listened to AIR, wonderful voice of Dr.Saiyom and his beautiful evergreen Raja collection. Even today if someone says radio the one quick thing that would strike me and my brother would be the title music that we have still not found out and all the memories along with it. There is one deep regret in me, I want to watch these songs in theatre and feel them along with the movie. I think blessed are the people who belonged to the generation where Raja's music was on theatres . But at least we have Rahman to wipe away all the regret, I pity the future who will have Harris Jayaraj and his likes!! :P:P

Mom and MasterChef

I'm spending my time home these days, when you are kind of struck between classes and studies and a fatigue sets in, you really want some kind of entertainment.And for me there is exactly 2 sources one is MasterChef ,which according to my family is prohibited show as they show non veg during dinner time :P and also because it clashes with the endless radhika serials that have been telecasted in TV ever since I was born, and the other source of entertainment is my mom.She has this theory behind everything that is not pleasing behind everything I like.
A few days back, in MasterChef she saw people cook, of which I am sure she didn't even know what the ingredients were, she said "idhu enna periya pramadhama, naanum ippidi 2 beans,2 apple,2 layer cabbage pottu honey mela pottu kudupaen, nee sapduviya?" and if the people who were cooking heard that they would have really cried, she thinks they are cooking unnecessarily. She has started hating those programs because I ask her to learn the way and the dish they cook. The other day, she said she is going to apply for MasterChef Australia, and I asked her why...she said "I'm going to make rasam,sambar, curd rice, roti, daal,kaai"..and those idiots will eat and say "Wow..its very delicious" . or May be I can do idly...starting from how to take the flour till how to eat...".All this so that I will at one point stop watching this show.The very next day, she brings in a plate pf paniyaram neatly arranged in a plate and decorated the plate with curry leaves and fruits and she says "I have cooked like Emma (the only girl she knows in that show)".I reply back saying "why are there unnecessary things on my plate?" she says, "that's exactly what I'm asking when they cook, why does she keep fruits when she cooks pastas???, see in reality, you can't eat them,those are camera tricks, that's why I tell you, appreciate amma's cooking of rasam and rice and pickles.." . But my grandfather has a totally different theory about this show..."He says no wonder these judges are fat,they eat up all the food and fill their stomachs and reject people, also look at them they don't give food to the people who make it....that too they yetchai pannifying the spoon and again keeping on the food, the other person also eats the same yetchai..chee, enna nalla iruku indha show...". Amidst all this I still watch this show
One day my mom, "vada kanna, food inga irukku", astonished by the sweetness in her tone I turn and look at her wondering if she really was talking to me, and not to my surprise it wasn't to me, it was a lizard, I ask her "amma, why you talking to that lizard", she says "adha edhuvum solladha, he belongs to my army...the army which fights against cockroaches!!!"...then I realised what has me and my brother being away from home done to my mom...my thatha and my mom together are raising the lizard much better than they way they take care of me and dad...And when my mom and thatha talk to lizards and watch serials, my dad sits in a room, writing some kind of accounts in Excel which he'll ultimately forget where he saved, or will keep browsing for poramboku land to invest, according to my mom he searches for lands where only wild animals exist and where there is not even a remote connection to civilisation, she says we will come in that areas' history book in early civilisation chapter..
So basically sitting at home has made me wonder if this is how my family was 5 years back when I left to hostel!!!