Anuradha Sridharan

Don't you need a break if you work continuously for 6 months? I definitely need one but I cannot afford the luxury of taking a week off since my accumulated leave is very less because of the 3 week off for my wedding in August 2004. Good Friday was definitely a "good friday" for me. We (My hubby Karthik , my appa and my brother, Sudha and ofcourse me !!!) planned to take a trip to Kerala over the three day weekend. Kerala has been one of my favourite holiday destinations from my childhood. I was pretty excited about the trip. Karthik and I boarded the Kanyakumari Express from Bangalore on March 24th. Appa and Sudha took a train from Chennai. We(Karthik and I) couldn't sleep well in the train as there were lot of disturbances around, people swarming the ticket collector to get a seat for their waitlisted tickets. Somehow we managed to get some sleep. We woke up around 7.45 am to find ourselves in God's own country. A coffee vendor greeted us with some kaapi. Si...

After glancing through one of my friend's article on his pastime, I came to know that we share our favourite interests - reading. Although our tastes in terms of authors and subjects are different, in the end , both of us enjoy reading. From my childhood, I always had a fascination for books. I preferred quiz books rather than Panchatantra stories, dictionaries rather than colouring books. During my college days, I heard the names of Hardy Boys and Enid Blyton. I regretted that I couldn't read their stories when I was a child. After I started working , my reading has become very aggressive. R.K.Narayan has been my favourite writer till date for the fact that his way of portraying down-to-earth characters and the depiction of a simple life of a person in a typical Indian village has touched me so much. Swami and Friends takes everyone back to the childhood days when we played pranks on our friends and found so many lame excuses to bunk school. An unputdownable book, indeed....

I've been a serious cricket, WWF and Formula - 1 fan from the age of 15. Thanks to my brother, who used to surf Star Sports, ESPN and Ten Sports as soon as he gets back home from school. I had to literally beg him to get the TV remote to watch my favourite music channels. After a while, I gave up and started watching sports channels with my brother. I still remember the day when I first watched a cricket match. It was the 1996 Wills World Cup, the qualifying match between India and West Indies. India was chasing an achievable score of around 220 (don't remember the exact score !!!). A short, smashing batsman scored 70 and won the match for India. None other than my favourite sportsperson of all time, Sachin Tendulkar. I got so addicted to cricket and Sachin's batting that I started to enjoy this sport very much. The next qualifying match for India was against Australia. Again, India chasing a big total of 250. Again, Sachin smashed all the bowlers round the stadium. When ...

That's Black. It is how the protogonist of the movie, Black expresses her views about the colour. I happened to see a different movie today. Story that has never been experimented before. Story that has never been so deep in feelings and emotions. It is the life of people whose world is totally dark. A life where they can't see, can't hear but can only feel. A truly different way of conveying one's emotions. Michelle, the main character is deaf and blind from her childhood. Her mother gives her so much of love and affection but her father wants to put her in an asylum. At the age of eight, she is a violent, arrogant and spoilt child. No one bothers to teach her even the basic manners of eating food. Enters the teacher in her life who becomes a life changer for her. He treats her like a human being who has physical disabilities and not like a mentally retarded child. Her life turns into a page of colours from a state of black. She dreams through her heart. In the end...

I read the previous two books written by Ms.Sudha Murthy - "Wise and Otherwise" and "How I taught my grandmother how to read Kannada". Both of them narrated her experiences in life. I got very much inspired by her philanthropic work. When I happened to see Mahashwetha, her latest novel in Landmark, I just bought it without giving a second thought. The story is about a woman who inspite of facing so many challenges becomes successful in life. The characterization of the lead character, Anupama is awesome. The story depicts the author's keen interest in drama and Kannada literature. I couldn't put down the book as the story was moving at an interesting pace. Anupama, a beautiful woman with so many talents hails from a poor family. With the help of scholarships, she manages to pass M.A. A rich doctor, Anand falls in love with her when he sees her in a play "Mahashwetha". They get married. One fine day, she comes to know of a big problem...

Is she that funny that I laughed out so much with my friends? The heroine of the movie Kisna. In almost all her scenes, she is found hanging from a rope. No doubt she is talented. I agree I cannot perform like her. But is her role really needed in the movie? Maybe, I guess her role might be added to provide some humour to the audience who otherwise might have felt bored to death, watching such a horrible movie. I read in a book that the dancer has mixed Yoga, bharatnatyam and etc etc to perform that rope dance (???). Why can't she just demonstrate her skills in separate ways? Why the hell she mixed everything and make her audience laugh? This might not be her idea but the showman director's brain would have clicked this sort of a unique one. He thinks that audience would definitely come and watch his crap after his stint of successful movies. If a heroine needs to show her expressions that she feels jealous or angry towards her man, Can't there be bet...

"Music was invented to confirm human loneliness" said someone. I realize how true it is. Real music brings in so many changes within your self. Your legs shake automatically when your ears hear good beats. Your mind jumps with joy and you feel relaxed. Music is the universal source of joy. It has it's own essence which can make you spread your wings through out the day. Hmm....A music system has brought out the philiosophical person in me, I suppose. A Sony Hi-Fi model, looking like a bird with two speakers as it's wings. It doesn't fly, but it makes the person who listens to it fly. It is a bulky system with two big speakers. The output is 2600 W PMPO (God knows what's PMPO !!!) , 120 * 120 W RMS (seems to be the real output). It doesn't play ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING as it's competitor but whatever it can, it plays best. Anyone would start to appreciate Rahman's music when it's heard in Sony. For an ardent fan of him like me, the sy...