Zakir Hussain presents The Masters of Percussion

Wow! What a show put on by Ustad Zakir Hussain and his band of percussionists last night. Ramya and me went to see Zakir Hussain perform for the second time in about 6 months at the Lisner Auditorium. He is THE GOD of tabla. I was amazed at the sounds coming out of the tabla. And the Ustad is a showman! He made his performance very interactive telling the audience a story in tabla-speak and then performing it on the tabla. It was sheer magic. You would think someone would need more than 10 fingers to produce the sounds emanating from the tabla. And his fingers moved so fast that you would need a very high speed camera to capture it. In a nutshell, we were blown away.

Few months ago, we drove to Pittsburgh, PA on a whim to see the Ustad perform with Mickey Hart (ex Grateful Dead drummer) and his group Planet Drum. The Ustad and Mickey won a Grammy in 1992 for a World Music album. Enough said! That was a great show. But tonight's show kicked butt! Check out this video to see the magic of the tabla maestro.



More concerts this summer before the big move to Austin... Pearl Jam, Iron Maiden, Bryan Adams. Stay tuned.

First blog

I guess it's about time for me to get onto the blogoshphere. I have been doing a good job of putting this away for a long time. Now is as good as time as any since we are in the process of moving to Austin, TX from Fairfax, VA. The move is to happen in the first week of July 2008. We are shortlisting movers these days. We are having movers come in to our apartment to give us estimates. I have begun to realize what a stressful thing a move is. I hated moving locally. So, moving long-distance is a nightmarish scenario. I am more concerned and stressed because I have more stuff now that I am married and have more stuff to be concerned about.

Ramya is super busy with wrapping up her Masters in Human Resources Management from Trinity University in DC. She barely finds time to talk to me during the day. We do spend time together in the evening after I get back home by watching movies we receive from Netflix. We are so thankful that the TV Writers strike is over and we are back to watching our TV shows. We love comedy Mondays on CBS. Two and a Half Men, How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory (it's annoyingly funny) keeps us occupied on Monday nights. Tuesday and Wednesday nights are American Idol nights. We love our DVR from Cox. We don't watch any TV shows in the time that they are actually broadcast. Ramya has school on Monday nights so I record the CBS comedies and we watch it whenever we get some time.

I am glad that the NHL playoffs have started and the NBA playoffs start this weekend. It's good to have your city teams in the playoffs though I don't know how far the Caps and Wiz will go this year. The Wiz have a better shot of doing some damage than the Caps. The Caps absolutely got out-hustled and bet up last night in Philly. The Wizards get the Lebrons for the third straight year. I hope third time is the charm and they advance this year.

Wow! So much for the first post!