The picture asked "Why Me?"

Was looking at my friend's Facebook pictures. There is a lovely picture where her li'l daughter is taking a camel ride. I saw the picture and thought how cute.... And suddenly I saw... in the same picture, there is a li'l boy who is managing the camel. Then I felt the boy is looking at me and asking "why me?... Why should I leave my education and work at such a tender age? I started thinking.. Our kids get all the comfort and a lovely childhood, and these kids struggle to get their basic necessities. Our kids go to International schools where they have AC classrooms and a great environment to study, and these kids are not even allowed to complete their basic education.

I thought we should never encourage child labor. But are we really concerned? When I go to a restaurant, I often find kids working in the cleaning section. I give the child some tip and leave. This is just one instance. We find this everywhere. They have toys, in their hands.. not to play but to sell them. Have loads of books.. Not to read ..but to load and unload them in book stores as helpers...I still buy those toys and books. Am I not encouraging child labor?

Then I thought what am I doing to stop it?  Can I do something? I defend myself saying I am helpless, the govt is responsible. Who is actually responsible? the government, the parents of those kids or WE? 

I show a lot of pity towards them. But, does it solve their problem? Can we see 0% child labor in India? A dream that has to come true some day. A dream where every child gets his basic education. But When?

I hope I will find an answer to my questions someday and no picture will have to ask me ...Why Me?

What a day it is!!!!

Working on a tight deadline.. :), Listening to Mitwa Mane Nahin.. fusion version by a young clarinetist Shanker Tucker, and reading a friend's interesting blog.. All this inspired me to write again on this page!!! What a day it is :) !!!

Voleti Venkateswarulu Garu---The Music Maestro

సంగీత ప్రపంచం లో "ఎందఱో మహానుభావులు" . చాల మంది మహానుభావులు సంగీతాన్ని, సంగీతం కోసం ఎంతో కృషి చేసారు. ఆలాంటి మహానుభావుల్లో ఒకరు "శ్రీ వోలేటి వెంకటేశ్వర్లు".

http://annamacharya-lyrics.blogspot.com/search/label/Tuned%20by%20%3A%20Voleti%20venkateswarlu

I was browsing some music sites a few days back, and I came across this link. I got to listen to some very few but wonderful kritis sung by Sri Voleti Venkateswarlu. This Music Maestro is a wonderful singer and a wonderful person. Voleti Venkateswarulu garu was a musician of extraordinary caliber with much imagination. I tried to gather some information about his personal and his professional life. I hope you will like it.

He was born in 1928 in Rajamundry, Andra Pradesh. He had his formal training in music from Sri C. Achutaramaiah and Sri Munuganti Venkatarao Pantulu. He graduated with a degree in music from Andhra University. He polished his music with the veteran musician, Dr Sripada Pinakapani.

He worked in the All India Radio, Vijayawada as the Program Producer and he brought in some innovative programs. Bhakti Ranjani and Sangita sikshana were his creations and were very popular with listeners.

He was fond of Hindustani music specially those Jaru gamakas and hindustani swaras. He sang many Hindustani ragas at the end of his concerts - either as slokas or bhajans . In his concerts, he mostly sang kritis of Tyagaraja, one or two compositions of Muthuswami Dikshitar, Shyama Sastri, Patnam Subramania Iyer and Tanjavur Ponnaiah Pillai. He sang javalis also. Kshetrayya padams and Narayana teertha tarangams would find a place in his concert repertoire.

His raga alapanas, rendering kritis showed his style and creative imagination. Dr Sripada Pinakapani had remarked that he was impressed by Voleti’s musical knowledge and called him a genius. He said Sri Voleti was one of the best musicians Andhra Pradesh has produced. Among the senior musicians he liked Sri Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar and Mr. Ustad Bade Gulam Ali Khan. Their pictures adorned the living room of his home in Vijayawada.

He never practiced for his concert. Before his concert he would be in a contemplative mood and would not talk much at all. Before the Sangita Sikshana program on the AIR, he would be humming or doing alapana in Hindustani ragas at the studios. However, as soon as the program or the song was announced on the radio he would quickly switch to the typical Carnatic style of singing. Such was his flexibilty in changing from one style to another and such was his dedication towards his passion and profession.

In many of his concerts he was accompanied on the violin either by Sri Lalgudi Jayaraman or Sri M.S.Gopalakrishnan. More often Sri. Vellore Ramabhadran, Sri. Karaikudi Mani and Sri. Dandamudi Rama Mohan Rao were his accompanists on mrudangam. He was particularly happy with their accompaniment.

Voleti had only a few disciples like Sri. M.V.Ramanamurthy, Sri. N.C.V.Jagannatha Charyulu, Sri. Malladi Suri Babu, Sri. Srirangam Gopalaratnam. Sri. Malladi Suri Babu was associated with Voleti garu for a long time at the AIR, Vijayawada and has imbibed his style of singing.

His wife Smt. Vijayalaskshmi garu supported him morally in his career.He received the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1985. It is given by the Sangeet Natak Akademi - India's apex body for performing arts. It is the highest national recognition given to practicing artistes.

Voleti was a simple man and he was breathing music 24 hours of the day. He never cared for honour and accolades and neither did he seek them.

Hats off to all those wonderful people for giving such wonderful music and inspiring us in so many ways.

I am really proud to say that Voleti Venkateswarlu garu is my Chinna Tatayyagaru.

Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence

For an enterprise to grow, it is necessary to identify its:
1. Competitors
2. Potential customers
3. Customers’ needs

To identify the customers and competitors, it is very important to keep track of Market trends, company’s sales from time to time, and other data pertaining to that enterprise. A data warehouse helps do this. Let us understand what a Data warehouse is.

A Data Warehouse is a database (or a centralized repository) to store large data (generally operational data) of an enterprise that is used frequently by DSS (Decision Support Systems).

The difference between a normal database and a Data warehouse is that:

A normal database stores raw data of small sizes whereas a data warehouse can store data that is sizes of Gigabytes. Legacy and inconsistent data will not help an enterprise make strategic decisions. Data in an ordinary database is not always current, consistent and organized whereas a data warehouse has organized and consistent data.

Consider a Chain of department stores. The sales team tries to retrieve the sales information of a particular brand for a particular duration.

If a normal RDBMS or online transaction system is used by the developer, writing such complex queries would be very difficult and an end user ( here, the sales team) can never understand it since complex joins have to be used.

A Data warehouse is very useful in such case. One can extract data to the detailed level using simple query reports in a data warehouse where the data stored is denormalized, non-volatile, and consistent.

A data warehouse should be kept separately from the Operational data. Operational data is the data that is updated on a daily basis. But the data in a data warehouse is a consolidated data taken from various sources including operational data to have a complete repository of the data pertaining to the enterprise.

How do we analyze this data?

We understood that data warehouse is important to store large data so that the management identifies its competitors. Business of an enterprise grows when right decisions are taken. But how are right decisions made?

Right decisions are taken with the help of information available about the customers, products, sales and so on. So we need systems to present this data available in the data warehouse in a proper format so that right decisions are made.

Business Intelligence tools are used to analyze data. Often BI applications use data gathered from a data warehouse.

Hence, Business intelligence refers to extracting the right data in a proper format at the right time and deliver it to right people.