Went home for Diwali.

Had lots of grub, ofcourse. Most notably baked sweet-potatoes and Pomfret fry. (By the way have I mentioned on this blog that I am a major, major fish eater? The other day I had this nightmare where this Mallu mess where I eat sometimes was charging a whooping 250 bucks for a Pomfret fry.)
Besides the food, had a musical orgy. I wrote sometime ago that my Philips tape-player has cupped. So when the crisp, precise notes of Tyagaraja's 'Jagadananda Karaka' as sung by Sri Balamuralikrishan emanated from the music system back home...If I said that I crushed the music system in a loving embrace and sobbed tears of joy, I would be exaggerating, but only so much. I listened to the same song n times till everyone at home complained. Then there was MS Subbalakshmi and Bhimsen Joshi and Bismilla Khan and some chap who sings Marathi Natya Sangeet whose name I forget. Some name ending in -kar if I remember right:-) Then there was this casette which my sister's friend recorded for my sister. It had all these wonderful ghazals coming one after another, in a string of pleasant surprises. The anthra recorded in the immediate previous post is from one of those ghazals.

So, a large part of the Diwali was spent in the immediate vicinity of the music system. Had a very nice, lazy Diwali. The actual 'Diwali' itself was pretty muted; we have stopped bursting crackers looong ago.

Saw some parts of 'Armaan' again. I realized it is a really sweet movie. Most of the sweetness coming from the very sweet Gracy Singh's gracious presence. I still can't figure why that movie wasn't a hit.