Here is how our news channels would put it:
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BREAKING NEWS: This comes to you straight from Mylaaaapppppooooorrrre, the place where all the action is happening (action? what action?). Rumor is abuzz among some key people here that veteran mrudangam maestro Sri Palghat Raghu is getting the next Sangeetha Kalanidhi award. For the uninitiated, this award given by the Music Academy, Chennai is considered by aspirants, awardees and rasikas as the highest honor a Carnatic musician can get (and probably vice versa by those who don’t get the award for a long time 😉 ). In this connection, do not forget to watch our special program at 8PM tonight: “Kaun banega Kalanidhi?” followed by an exclusive interview where the man in question gets interrogated by our special correspondent Haran Pauper …. and do not forget to SMS your choice for our question of the day:”Who do you think deserves to be the next Kalanidhi?”. Press 420 followed by your choice: A for don’t know, B for don’t care. C for all of the above & D for none of the above.
We will take a small break right now but when we come back, lots of action coming to you in the weather report (action in the weather report?)
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Back to the real world. Well the rumors are real (rumors are real?). What do people do in the 21st century when they hear such rumors? They google … yes … and what does Google do? It sends them to websites like mine that have the words Carnatic music or Palghat Raghu or Sangeetha Kalanidhi mentioned. What do I do? Rather …… what can I do? If only the Academy consulted with me in such important matters !! Sigh !!
Why did I make this post? So that the next time anyone googles about Sri Palghat Raghu getting the award (as some have been doing in the last few days), (s)he is not only led to some post which has details of how Sri Raghu played mrudangam in some concert or to some post which says that TNS is this year’s Sangeetha Kalanidhi, but also to more ‘relevant’ posts like this one which at least talk about the rumors …… just to give the person that tiny bit of happiness of at least finding one more person who has heard about the rumors … that too of finding such a person through the angel Google since it adds the much required feeling of having got (in)credible information 😉
Long live Google … long live the Kalanidhis ….. long live the Meccademy …. and long live Carnatic Music !!
Ramkumar R 
dei enna da solla vara? onnume puriyala. Hindu also had this news sometime this week. so is it true or not? also due to the recent controversy, i linked kalanidhi with maran 😦
My initial post started by saying it was not about the Maran family but I decided to remove that line so as to not give the post any political overtones. The Hindu has this news yesterday … not last week. So it looks confirmed now that he is getting the award. See my last post which I put early this morning. Has the Hindu link.