Chauffeur Training

We bought a new car last week. Today I received a letter from the company which sold it to us, signed by one Mr. Heavenly. I love that name! It's obviously a Christian name, since it's in English, but it's one I've never encountered before. Mr. Heavenly writes, in part:

... We are sure your car will give you years of trouble free motoring pleasure to you & your family.

As part of our endeavour to continuously provide value added service to our customers, we have initiated a chauffer training program specially designed for your chauffeur. This aim of this training program is to enrich the driving knowledge of your chauffeur in areas of vehicle knowledge, driving habits, safety feaures, maintenance schedules & self-help. Experienced staff will conduct the training of 04 hours duration...


I prefer to drive myself, though many people we know do have drivers. It's a nice idea. I could use assistance in several of these areas myself, especially self-help.

Interview

Today's New York Times Magazine has an interview with Meera Nair, in connection with the release of her new film, Vanity Fair. (Filmography) The interview seemed disjointed and perfunctory to me, a handful of sound-bites. It contains this, which should be obvious, but probably isn't:

As an Indian citizen living in New York, do you see the U.S. as a force for good?

No. Islamophobia has completely raged in the Western world since 9/11. Americans are only given one very biased point of view about the Islamic faith.

You seem to be suggesting that Americans view all Muslims as terrorists.

Living in New York, we never felt foreign. After 9/11, we felt foreign.

Have you been mistaken for a Muslim on the streets?

Last time I checked, Muslims looked like every other human being. My parents are Hindu, and I married into a Muslim family. I would be happy to be mistaken for a Muslim.

Vinayaka Chaturthi and a Song

I came downstairs to music blaring from a public loudspeaker – A. R. Rahman’s Vande Mataram. Today is Vinayaka Chaturthi, the festival of Ganesh.


(AFP photo)

Hearing Rahman’s music reminded me that I’ve been wanting to put up an MP3 of a song of his that I love: Porale Ponuthaye, from the Tamil film Karuthamma. It’s a song of sadness and longing, just a woman’s voice, with almost no instrumental accompaniment. (The file size is 7553 kb, the playing time is 6:23. I'll keep it up for a week.)

The tune of this song appears twice in the film, the second time in a faster, happy version. Rahman used the faster version again for the album Vande Mataram.

The woman who sang this song, Swarnalatha, won a National Film Award for it in 1994.

You can hear the fast version, and lots of other Tamil film songs on streaming audio, at Tamil Songs Page (the link is to the page containing songs by Swarnalatha, including Porale Ponuthaye). I prefer the slow version, but the fast one is catchy; it’s interesting to compare them.

If you do download this song, please tell me how you liked it.

(And here's the Tamil Songs Page for the Top 10 Songs -- listen to
what Tamil popular music sounds like these days.)