Yesudas: The celestial singer
The “Gana Gandharvan” or celestial singer of Indian film music Dr KJ Yesudas ,as he is called, will turn 80 on 10th January this year. The iconic playback singer and Carnatic vocalist has rendered more than 80,000 songs ( that include filmi, light music, devotional etc) in various languages including Malayalam,Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Hindi and many Indian languages in a career that spans for six decades. He had to face a lot of odds in his early years before becoming one of the most sought-after playback singer in Indian film industry. He started his career with the song in “Kaalpadukal “composed by South Indian music Maestro MB Sreenivasan in 1961.Then onwards there was no looking back as the legendary singer teamed with prominent music directors like G Devarajan , M S Baburaj, Salil Chaudhari ,MS Viswanathan ,Ilaiyaraaja and Hindi music film directors like Khayyam, Bappi Lahiri, Ravindra Jain and others and came out with beautiful evergreen soul lilting numbers. Music is his life and soul and his commitment to carnatic classical music makes him a singer par excellence. He has sung in all the Indian languages except Punjabi, Assamese, Konkani and Kashmiri. He has sung even in English,Malay ,Russia, Arabic and Latin.
A recipient of the great Padma Vibhushan, Yesudas has won eight national awards 43 state awards and five film awards and many others including the 1999 UNESCO honorary music and peace award and the CNN IBN outstanding achievement award. Be it spiritual, filmi, carnatic, folk or western he renders any number with elan. His famous “Harivarasanam” ,a devotional prayer song , is played every night at the famous Sabarimala temple before the closure of the temple .
Whoever can forget his Immortal Hindi numbers –Gori Tera Gaon Bada Pyara, Dil Ke Tukde, Aaj se pehle, Jaaneman Jaaneman, Tu Jo Mere Sur Mein, Kahan Se Aaye Badra and the Tamil numbers – En Iniya Pon Nilave, Senthazham Poovil, Devam Thantha Veedu and Amma Endralaikatha and the innumerable Malayalam hits and songs in the other languages making him a phenomenon and this mellifluous singer is truly a glowing star in the star studded Indian music galaxy. Here’s wishing him a long and healthy life.
M Pradyu
Upgrade public transport
Parking fines being reduced to Rs. 4000 is a welcome move as the fines are not tools to generate revenue for any government but it is a move to impose discipline. Parking in a metropolitan city like Mumbai as well as the conditions of roads is a bigger challenge. Fines are a deterrent but facilities to are important if you expect citizens to follow rules and the law of the land.
Also, public transport too should be improved so that people do not have to use private cars. Metro would solve Mumbai’s traffic and parking problems in the years to come but one expects BMC to repair potholes and make roads fit for driving till that time.
S.N. Kabra
Integration of helpline numbers into single number a right step
The recent move by Indian Railways to integrate all of its helpline numbers into a single number i.e. 138 is welcome. Services related to catering, passenger safety, security, medical emergency, vigilance, clean my coach and catering is now available with a dedicated helpline number-138. The move comes at a time when the common man otherwise faced confusions to reach out through multiple helpline numbers often leading to delay in services requested.
Further it is suggested to establish a grievance handling mechanism through its dedicated common helpline number. An effort is now required to gather necessary inputs directly from the passengers through telephone. The grievance mechanism may be integrated with IVRS facility to collect the inputs from the passengers directly over the telephone. The suggested move will help the passengers to report grievances very quickly, apart from the existing facility of Rail Madad application available to lodge online grievances.
Varun Dambal
Deal is done chaos continue
Shiv Sena led Maha Vikas Aghadi is trying to settle down, but the portfolio allocation brought the displeasure of many from Sena and Congress leaving NCP a safe bet in the Home Ministry formation. NCP got both Home and Finance departments and that put them in driver’s seat. The two other coalition partner members fume in silence missing a golden chance to get a ministerial birth. Whereas first time MLA got a ministerial birth despite showing inexperience and there is smoke in Maha Vikas Aghadi and that may turn to fire sooner or later. People waiting to get plum portfolios were disappointed and there is already threat of resigning the MLA post. The Shiv Sena list include CM Uddhav Thackeray’s son and blue eyed boy got the place of his choice. The tainted Ajit Pawar got the planning and finance after getting elected as deputy CM for the second time in a very short period.
Calicut Krishnan Subbu
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
