The event will be held at Ambedkar Stadium, Near KSRTC Bus stand on the 12^th of February 2012. The show will start at 7 p.m, and make sure that you get your seats well in advance. You can avail free passes from The Times of India office at Imperial Trade Centre at Padma Junction, M. G Road. And the evening will be added with more musical extravaganza when Kollywood singer Karthik sings his best songs for Kochhiites. Singer Karthik has awed us with his lovely songs and beautiful voice. On Sunday, he would ensure that Kochiites are entertained through a nice musical journey.

If you have been wondering how to spend your Sunday evening, here is the best option. Spend it ‘musically’ with Avial and Karthik. See you there Kochi!

Kochiites, over the years, have applauded and appreciated good musicians. Give us something different, and we will cheer out loud for you!! The triumph of Malayali bands like ‘Avial’ did not happen overnight. The avant-garde in their music paid off. Now ‘Avial’ has a huge fan following not just amongst Malayali audience, but music-lovers across the globe. Their mix of ‘naadan’ songs fetched a huge fan following, hence proving that our age-old traditional songs are here to remain forever.

Here is a young band that has already made it big in the music scene. Vidwan, started off by a group of youngsters is now one of the most sought after music bands in Kerala. When Vivek Thomas, Tao Issro, Yakzan Gary Pereira, Saju Srinivas, and Ben Sam Jones started jamming sessions at their homes, lest did they realize that they were setting the beginning for Vidwan. They were making music out of Tao’s room, and started with ‘Ellelo’ and ‘Toddy’. Their song ‘Kaithola’ is a huge hit!

Now Vidwan has much to boast about. Rex Vijayan, they key member of the band ‘Avial’ is also part of Vidwan. Neha Nair, who does vocals for ‘Avial’ does the vocals for Vidwan too. When the members of Vidwan made Rex Vijayan listen to their songs, he enjoyed it so much that he decided to join the line- up as well. They did their first show at NIFT, Bangalore, and never had to turn back ever since then.

Now the current line-up consists of Anoop Monahdas, Neha Nair, Rex Vijayan, Vivek Thomas, Ben Sam Jones, Yakzan Gary Pereira and Arpith Easo Samuel. Blending their unique musical backgrounds, their music is a fine blend of folk, electronica and experimental. Every one of them has musical backgrounds which facilitated in bringing out good music for the band Vidwan.

The band has movie ambitions too!! Vidwan is currently working on a number of movie projects which is slated to release in the coming months. The first of which is Director Shyam Mohan’s
’8:20′.

With many projects and laurels already at their doorstep, let us wish Vidwan the best of luck. And let the band name shine in international music platforms as well!

Check out their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/vidwanfolk.

To listen to some lovely Vidwan songs, check out http://www.reverbnation.com/vidwan.

The show is organized by the District Tourism Promotion Council, and there is no better way to say TATA to Malayali’s most loved celebration of the year- ONAM. So let’s not say bye-bye to celebrations till this 11^th. Make sure you are part of the real celebrations this weekend. With Rex Vijayan, Tony John, Mithun Puthanveettil, Binny Issac, Yakzan Pereira, and Neha Nair entertaining Kochi, who would want to miss this one??!!

“We were a group of jobless people who had learnt web designing. Wanted to do something worthwhile, and hence this whole ‘Papaya Media’ came into being”, says Abhilash, co-founder of ‘Papaya Media’. Designing posters for ‘Big B’ was their big leap, recollects Abhilash. “Big B helped us know more about working with film crew. We did ‘Ore Kadal’ after that. Honestly, we do not prefer working for films due to multitude reasons. It eats up a lot of your time, and the returns ain’t that great. Designing web and ads gives us more contentment. Aashiq Abu and Sameer Thahir are good friends. So we worked for their movies”, adds Saiju Sreedharan, a co-founder of Papaya Media.

The team recalls that too much of perfection in their works has ended up in disappointment. “Distributors complained that the posters are too classy, and wouldn’t reach the common man. These are just some of the hitches we face while designing for movies”, says Abhilash with a chuckle.

Papaya Media has more big projects in their kitty now. From ‘Celebrate Keralam’, ‘Avial’ and more, the list seems to be getting better. Working with bands like ‘Avial’ and being closely related to them has given immense scope to grow as an organization for these young men. Their next big endeavour ‘Malfunction’ has much in store for music-lovers. “We aim at providing a platform for youngsters to showcase their talents in music. Regional bands and artists across India will be encouraged through this. This is a group effort of Papaya and Avial”, says Ajay Menon, photographer and Managing Partner of Papaya Media. “The next pioneer highlight of Malfunction is to launch Avial’s second album”, adds Ajay.  The team is passionately working towards ‘Celebrate Keralam’ organized by ‘Esperanto Media’ (run by Rajasekhar. V. Das). With Ajay Menon’s photos adding more style to the project, the team has already put in their hearts and souls for this mission.

So why the name Papaya? “Our friend Bineesh Kuruvilla suggested the name Papaya. It was interesting”, says Abhilash. Well, with a super-stylish tagline ‘fruit for thought’ to make it look prettier, ‘Papaya’ team has come a long way from just graphic designers. With an outpour of creativity at its best, and ideas amazingly unique, let’s hope ‘Papaya Media’ brings out more ingenuity and skill in their works. GOOD LUCK!

We wish Avial all the luck with their upcoming album in 2010 and thank them for their courtesy for opening their doors to the Kochivibe team to interview them, Cheers!

Read the interview here.

Jose Thomas Performing Art Centre (JTPac) brought to the city of Kochi, an adaptation of the Marathi blockbuster comedy Ek Lagnachi Ghosht, shaadi@barbaadi.com on 23rd May, 2009 in association with the Muthoot Pappachan Foundation. Radio Mango being the radio partner.

After his outstanding appearance in the famous Bollywood flick Hera Pheri; nothing less could have been expected out of this talented comedian actor Paresh Rawal.2.5 hours of non stop entertainment is how we can best describe this play. Paresh Rawal and his team (small screen artists) had the entire audience rolling with laughter with their exceptional performance.

Written by Umesh Shukla and directed by Paresh Rawal, the plot is based on a Gujarati guy falling in for a babe at a bus stop and how the story proceed leading to their blissful wedding to an equally chaotic post marital life. How the wife doesn’t see eye to eye with the mother-in-law and how the Gujarati guy (Paresh Rawal) goes through the brunt. I was looking forward to seeing Ye Jo hai Zindagi fame actor and wife of Paresh Rawal, Swaroop Sampat on the stage; however she didn’t come and her part was played by some other artist. Anyways, the show was simply hilarious and we all enjoyed it to the hilt.

I think JTPac is one of the good things that has happened to Kochi offlate. Thanks to Jose Thomas (Choice Group) and our very own Mohanlal, who needs no introduction, for brining to us a world class performing art centre at Choice School, Tripunithara. The acoustics are amazing however I feel the stage could have been a little bigger so that in future they have their option open for bigger performing bands and artists. Anyways, the management would know better, afterall it’s their vision.

So far there have been four performances, and I have been lucky to be able to attend three of them  – Dr. Subramaniam on his violin, Kavitha Krishnamurthy on vocals along with their kids; Cotemporary Jazz concert by Usha Uthup and the ofcourse the most recent Hindi play by Paresh Rawal. The one that I missed was Shobhana’s dance recital.

The management has done some intelligent thinking by inviting as special guests international diplomats for each of its show. It will not only help promoting Indian art and culture but also throw open the stage for international artists and exposing people back home to the world art.

The upcoming show that you can look forward to at JTpac, is the Malayalam Rock band – AVIAL playing on 6th June at 7:00 pm; also brought in association with the Muthoot Pappachan Foundation. Online booking for tickets can be done at www.jtpac.org