Lyrics of Commonwealth Games Theme Song Swagatham - Oh yaaron, yeh India bulaa liya

Here are the entire lyrics of the Commonwealth Games 2010 Theme Song Swagatham by A R Rahman:

You can listen to the Swagatham song at the official Commonwealth games website here.

TEMPTED TO SHARE THE LYRICS ON YOUR SITE? I'D KNOW WHEN YOU DO SO. DON'T FORGET TO LINK THEM TO THIS SITE... IT REALLY TOOK ME GREAT EFFORT TO UNDERSTAND AND TYPE OUT EVERY WORD OF THE SONG.

Clarification: I have tried to listen to the song on my audio system and type out the lyrics that I followed. Now I may not be the best person to do this. So please pardon me and correct me if there's any error / missing part here. Would really appreciate it. Don't want to type out erroneous lyrics of this lovely song. Mr Anonymous already has corrected me on this, would love more inputs.

Oh yaaron, yeh India bulaa liya

Diwaano yeh India bulaa liya... bulaa liya

Yeh toh khel hai

Bada mail hai

Milaa diya... milaa diya

Yeh toh khel hai

Bada mail hai

Milaa diya

Oh rukna rukna rukna rukna rukna nahi

Haarna haarna haarna haarna haarna nahi

Junoon se kanoon se maidaan maar lo

Let's go

Let's go

Play o jiyo heyo let's go

Play o jiyo heyo let's go

Oh yaaron, yeh India bulaa liya

Diwaano yeh India bulaa liya... bulaa liya

Parvat sa ucha uthoon toh yeh

Duniya salami de

Sard iraade na ho jayein kahin

Dil ko woh suraj de

Jiyo utho badho jeeto

Tera mera jahaan let's go

Kaisi saji hai saji hai dekho maati apni

Bani rashke jahaan yaara ho

Kai rang hai boli hai kai desh hai magar

yahi jag hai samaaya saara ho

Laagi re ab laagi re lagan

Jaagi re mann jeet ki agan

Uthi re ab iraadon mein tapan

Chali re toli chali ban than

...(still finding it tough to get this para in English, if you know it, please update me)

Play o jiyo heyo let’s go

Kadmon mein ek bhanwar ka hai din

Jashn ka aaj din hai

Seenon mein Toofaan ka hai din

Baazu aazmaa yeh din hai

Yeh din hai

Tera din hai

Tu zor laga, chal aankh milaa

Kal na aaye din yeh

Jiyo utho badho jeeto

Play o jiyo heyo let’s go

Jiyo utho badho jeeto

Tera mera jahaan let’s go

Jiyo utho badho jeeto

Tera mera jahaan let’s go

Rahman's Common Wealth Games Theme Song Oh Yaaron

A R Rahman has just launched the theme song for the Common Wealth Games 2010 to be held in New Delhi. The CWG theme song goes as, "Oh yaaron, yeh India bula liya..."

Just managed to get the video of the full theme song of the Common wealth Games, click here.

The Ironic Crores in India

All I could notice in today’s newspaper were the figures in crores. And it seemed very ironic. While there’s no money where the need is, money is distributed leniently among those who are just sitting idle. Picture this:

Rs 12 Crore – Spent annually on Ministers of State with no work.

Sometimes you don’t need to be born with a silver spoon, luck does the needful. 11 ministers with no work but excellent perks cost the state Rs 12 crore. This includes an annual phone allowance of Rs 1.8 lakhs! While most of the allowances don’t make sense to me, the phone one in particular is shocking. Corporates have excellent deals with telephone service providers (at my previous workplace, we had this Vodafone offer wherein all calls to Vodafone numbers are free, those to other service providers cost 30 paise per minute and 40 paise per minute for landlines. 1000 SMSes free every month). Why can’t the government crack a deal with a particular service provider and have all the ministers use the same service? Won’t this cost reduce drastically? Or if the government is already doing so, why such a huge telephone allowance that would feed many below-the-poverty-line families?

Rs 32 Crore – Donated by Asit Koticha to Mumbai University.
Rs 68 Crore – Still needed for the project.

Chairman and founder-promoter of ASK group and a Podar College graduate has been donating for noble causes time and again. When he learnt that Mumbai University is planning to set up a philosophy school, he decided to contribute Rs 2 crore. However, after meeting the vice chancellor and understanding the requirement to set up an international convention centre as well, he increased the amount 15 times! The mega project needs around Rs 100 crore and guess what - Koticha is even trying to convince his friends to contribute.

Rs 24.5 Crore – Carbon credits earned by BMC for reducing methane emission.

The BMC has impressively managed solid waste at Gorai dumping ground in Mumbai. It has been collecting the methane gas that is continuously released from the dump. The gas is burnt to prevent it from entering into the environment. In fact, the Solid Waste Management department is considering energy generation from the gas instead of burning it.

There needs to be a solid wealth management system to ensure that the hardworking taxpayers’ money is used for sensible projects instead of providing luxury to a lucky few non-working people. And we are talking crores here!
Stats referred from TOI 25th August 2010 edition.

Rakhi - Auspicious time / Muhurat on 24 August 2010

The festival of Raksha Bandhan will be celebrated across India on 24th August 2010. But before I get into the auspicious timing details, let me take a trip down the memory lane.

Nah, I'm not going into the significance of Raksha Bandhan, customs and all. That you'd already know / find all over the internet and you'd close this window right away. I'm gonna just scribble my memories.

As long as me and my younger brother Anup were in school, the rakhi plate would have already been set by mom by the time we'd get ready on the day of Raksha Bandhan. When I grew up, of course, I did the needful. There would be 2 plates. One would be the aarti thali and other would traditionally include our favourite sweets, Gits gulab jamun, cream biscuits (bourbon to be specific), Frooti at times, chocolates and wafers.

Now me and my brother have a different kind of understanding. Since the sweets would have been brought the previous day itself, we would convince mom to allow us to have some already, "Kya formality hai, whether we eat tomorrow / today, how does it matter?"

Similarly, Rakhi would never be a surprise. I would buy it well in advance after browsing all the shops possible and pestering the shopkeepers to show me more options and zeroing down on "the perfect one" for my brother. Yes, all these years, I've been proudly biased while selecting rakhis for my brother and other cousins. Anup's rakhi had to be the best (and the most expensive of all). Also, I would try to hide it until the day, but then would always end up showing it to him to ensure if he really likes it or should I get another one.

As long as he was studying, he'd present me with money taken from our parents. He would smartly take it from mom as I would look away just before the rakhi ceremony. Whenever mom gave him the same amount as previous year, he'd cutely ask for more saying, "Yeh kya hai, last year bhi itna hi diya tha!"

How proud and overjoyed I felt when he used his salary for the first time! He gave just too much and I told him there's no need to give so much hard-earned money and how he'd never listen! Those were the days when even I'd started earning and I would buy him a little gift as well.


I'm so glad this festival exists. It undoubtedly is one festival very close to my heart. Isn't it one-of-a-kind celebrating the brother-sister bond? 

By the way, the auspicious timing / Muhurat for raksha bandhan on 24th August 2010 is:
1:48 - 4.24 pm (IST) is the best duration
9.23 am onwards is also good

HAPPY RAKSHA BANDHAN!

4 din ka andhera, phir chandni raat hai!

Spondyloarthropathy is trying its best to pull me down. But the final combat begins tomorrow.

The doctor has been advising me to have a spinal traction since a month now. But considering the painful nature of the procedure and the commitments at hand, I've been delaying it. Now that I'm done with the assignments at hand, have attended the Indiblogger meet yesterday and have dined out with my hubby last night, I'm gonna rest in peace... I mean "take some rest" for 4 days or so.

The doc has ensured me that the 4 days of painful traction (read super duper painful) will make rest of my life almost painless. I'm counting on him and am all set to get admitted tomorrow. There are some good and bad things about this hospitalization though:

GOOD: Hopefully, I will recover from the daily excruciating pain and fever that has bothered me for 6 weeks now. Super hopefully, I might be in a position to work full time and have a better pay and buy a house.
BAD: My best friends and I have been discussing about getting admitted on a weekend. You know, so that they can easily drop in (after all I stay really very far from where they are) with fresh flowers and give me all the bhaav! I also suggested that instead of getting fruits, they can get me fruit salad with forks and tissue papers so that I need not wash them with the hospital's tap water... But alas, I'm left with no choice but to get admitted tomorrow. My hubby suggests he can try some "rent friends for a week" thing ;)
GOOD: The hospital doesn't smell like we know how it generally is.
BAD: For some weird reason, they'll be putting me on drip.
GOOD: The doc said I can play games on my Ipod touch. There's a cool TV and fridge in the room. I'm allowed to wear my colourful pajamas and shirts instead of boring hospital uniform. Plus, the hospital is painted in good green and orange colours.
BAD: I'll have to lie down on my back all though it. It's tough for me since I could never sleep on my back.

Anyways, won't be blogging for some time now. So catch you guys after a few days! Need to rush to the parlour to feel better though. 

Indibloggers Meet Mumbai - A refreshing experience!

I finally attended the Indibloggers Meet Mumbai 2010. Attending the meet was an exciting experience for me for various reasons:

1. THE JOURNEY - I reached Juhu all the way from Koparkhairane on a day of harbour line mega block (click on the link to know what a mega block is... alright, I meant 'to help me increase traffic to the Mumbai local blog'). The best part was that my train from Vashi directly reached Dadar and I ended up boarding just two trains instead of three!
2. NAYI-PURAANI YADEEIN - I met many interesting people. Most importantly, I met my cool ex-colleagues Vijeeth (vijeethshetty on twitter) and Netra after more than a year. And I met Neha Silam in person (I hop on to her blog whenever I donno what to write about).
3. SENIOR CITIZEN? - I sat on the side of people aged 27+ during the debate moderated by Gul Panag. I felt proud to be on that side and weird when someone referred to us as "senior citizens". Now I demand cheaper airfares, lesser tax, better interest rates at banks...
4. THE GUL PANAG AURA - Vijeeth suddenly told me to turn behind as he noticed Gul Panag. And then during the "write on my back" session, it was fun to see guys dying to get a pic clicked with the lovely lady. During the debate, you could see guys constantly clicking her pic (instead of those who were participating)! 
   The best part was this - I was seated next to this sweet girl from Vietnam (pls tell me her name, the one who has already travelled 11 countries). She asked me who the moderator is and she obviously found Gul Panag extremely beautiful. I felt so proud to tell her all I knew about Gul Panag. She wanted to know her age. When I googled it and told her, she was amazed to know that Gul looks so young (I was amazed to know I look younger than Gul)!
5. FREEBIES - So what I did not utter a single word at the debate / gave a cool introduction to end up winning a prize! And for the little quiz, I am always clueless when such questions are asked. But then, like everyone, I got a cool t-shirt (small size still bigger for me, damn my hubby gets this one), a post-it pen I don't know how to use and a free .in domain that I will definitely use! 
6. TRAIN PAL - I saw this gal when she introduced herself, then in the washroom, then at Santacruz station and then we eventually spoke. She gave me company until Vashi and we chatted nineteen to the dozen and how! Meet Rati, a talkative-like-me fashion communication student who told me that I don't look my age!

All in all, it was worth travelling all the way (oops, all the alls seem to be in this sentence). It was nice to meet new faces and faces that were just an online profile picture until yesterday. It was great to know that a few people did recognize me. It was nice to realize that I fall in the elder category now and that the youngsters are so cool and enterprising. It was amazing to see a mother-daughter blogger duo and so many bloggers much senior to me!

The only thing I disliked about the Indibloggers meet was the too much doodh-waali tea served. But then, almost all hotels serve that kinda tea!

Looking forward to the next Indibloggers Meet! And to bring about some change with my blog!

Friends - the best choice we ever make

Happy friendship day to all of you! And now that mauka bhi hai, mausam bhi, let me scribble a few things I like about having friends:

1. Unlike other relations, you love to do things for your friends because "you just love to" and not because "you must do".
2. You know they'll hear you out not because they "have to" but because they genuinely "want to".
3. It's not that they'll give you more / less bhaav because you have more / less money. When they call you an idiot, they don't mean it. When they call you a genius, they really mean it.
4. Just when you are about to be irreversibly lost in your dreams, they bring you back to reality and you realise this is where you should be.
5. Just when the reality gets harsh, they sway you in the world of hope and dreams. You return back to reality with all the strength and confidence.
6. There's no obligation whatsoever.
7. Arguments are minimalistic. And so are fights, if any. The best part is they never give your heart any scars for life.
8. If they don't call / mail you for days, you call them with a few swear words and time flies as you catch up for the lost time. If there's no contact for a few months, you do the same. If you're not in touch for a year or so, ditto. In case of other relations, you simply forget such relatives.
9. Friends are the best choice you ever made in life.