What do u call this... a coincidence?

'Enakku Pidiththa Kaatchigal'

I saw quite a good number of Tamil movies in the last few weeks.. not that I had lot of free time.. after a couple of movies, i watched them just for the sake of watching some tamil movie. it was like drinking coffee in some random hotel in North India with a board saying ' South Indian Food' knowing fully well that the coffee would be bad.. then i stopped watching them and instead went back to some old 'classic' tamil movies.. When it comes to old classic tamil movies, it must be K.B's or Mani's. Truly classic works... This post intends to take you all back to those times when tamil cinema was at its peak.. Naayagan, Mouna Raagam, Unnal Mudiyum thambi, Thalapathi and the list goes on.. Of course this is not an exhaustive list.. and it is a biased one..
here we go!!

Film: Naayagan
Scene: Kamal trying to convince his daughter.. a very rational and logical scene..
"எனக்கு சரின்னு பட்டது உங்களுக்கு தப்புன்னு பட்டுசுள்ள..."


Mouna Raagam- Kartik entering Revathi's class.. and the coffee shop scene.. who can forget the famous ' Mr. Chandramouli!!!'..


Film: Thalapathi
Mamootty and Rajini meeting Arvind swamy in his office.. round trolley shot.. Gr8 camera work.. " நிறுத்தனும் எல்லாத்தையும் நிறுத்தனும் ..."


Film: Moondram pirai
Climax scene.. " சீனு விஜி..."


Film: Unnal Mudiyum Thambi
Kamal and Gemini Ganesan

Film: Thevar Magan
Sivaji Ganesan and Kamal at their best!!! try finding who is the better actor...

T.N. Seshan's "A Heart full of Burden"

Firstly, the title of the book is very apt. If there is a tamil version of the book, it can be titled "த.ந. சேஷனின் புலம்பல்கள்". This old book published in 1995 is a collection of speeches he delivered in diverse forums ranging from IIM Ahmedabad to a Lawyer's Forum in Lucknow. His famous one-liners are there all over the book, though some of them get repeated in different speeches. T.N. Seshan, if you remember, was a terror during his tenure as the Chief Election Commissioner. In his own words,he has an outstanding achievement of being universally hated by all the political parties.
the following are some of the "Punch lines" of T.N Seshan taken from the book. I enjoyed them and so would you.
"Do you know how elections are run in this country? Liquor for the father, cloth for the mother and food for the baby."
"In a booth in Bihar where the voting starts at 7 o'clock in the morning and at 7.15, 105 percent of the votes have been cast."
"If equality of hatred is a test of my partiality, I will pass with flying colours"
"Indian elections are the eighth wonder of the world. There are 55 Crores of votes. There are 800,000 polling booths and each polling booth has a minimum of five people. So there are 4 million people working for the elections."
"And there are rolls which are extremely defective. There are names which appear five times, there are names which don't appear at all, there are dead names which are still alive and there are live names which are dead."
About the power Mongering politicians:
" Have you ever heard of anybody relinquishing power after Shri Rama? Shri Rama is the only last known instance of somebody relinquishing power voluntarily."

And there are many more...If you happen to get the book somewhere, please read.

Vilayanur Ramachandran again on TED!!!

Awesome lecture by Dr.Vilayanur Ramachandran in TED India..

A.R.Rahman... Art of Living...

Vinnaithaandi varuvaaya songs are really good.. atleast one song is awesome ("Hosanna"). I enjoyed these songs much more than the older songs of A.R.R.. i dunno why, probably it could be because of the book i read some weeks back. the book was "A.R.Rahman: The Musical Storm" written by a chennai based journalist, Kamini Mathai. the experience of listening to his songs after reading the book was like enjoying the beauty of Toyota after reading "The Toyota Way". the book is unique b'cos it reveals so many things about the genius that not many people know.. do you know that A.R.R composes only in the nights?? it was always a mystery to me how he manages to use so many instruments ( i meant sounds)and singers in a single song unlike Maestro Ilayaraja who composes a full 6 minute song with a tabla, a violin and a SPB-Janaki combo. that mystery became unresolvable when i read that during the composing of a song, at any point of time, there would be just one singer/ musician in his studio. what that means is that he does a lot of cutting-joining-mixing to produce a complex masterpiece like "hosanna".. but the concept is simple if we look at it from a larger perspective. think of how a car is made. engine is made somewhere, screws, bolts etc are made somewhere else. similarly brakes, clutch, fuel pump etc are made at different places and all these are assembled at one place. and that assembler here is the master engineer A.R.R. he is the one who designs the song, gives out the specifications etc to the musicians and finally assembles it.
No wonder the songs of A.R.R are so complex and it takes quite sometime for the songs to sink in.
but the devotion and a spiritual component that he adds to his compositions differentiates his songs from others who compose A.R.R-like-songs.

spirituality reminds me of the Art of Living Course that I attended for the past 3 days. it was a nice and different experience. firstly, it was a welcome break from the assignments and submissions that had forced us to stay awake at Artha jaamam .. plus, we became aware of the fact that we breathe every second :). the teacher, another-iitian-engineer-spiritual guru, was a gr8 guy.. 3 days of sudharshana kriya, pranaayama, Bastrika.. (im putting all these here, so that i would be able to recall these names in the future).. though it was meant to be a life transfroming exercise, i saw him as a "consultant who was brought in by the Management to advice the line managers on how to transform a loss-making unit into a profit making one".

Super Star's Simple beginning...

Movie: Aboorva Raagangal
Director: K. Balachander

Katcheri after nearly 4 years

Venue: Jamshedpur Madras Sammelan
Violin concert by Lalgudi G. J. Radhakrishnan and Vijayalakshmi
After a gap of nearly 4 years, I attended a live katcheri yesterday.. Live katcheri is a luxury these days.. it provided me the much-needed break from my 'Youtube-d' existence. The concert was unique in several aspects... To start with there was no Varnam which was surprising ..
Varnam is like the 'morning coffee' in a concert. It imparts the necessary freshness in the beginning.
Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar wrote
"Like my guru, I have never begun a concert without singing a varnam at the commencement. It imparts mellowness to the voice and a flavour to the subsequent rendering of kritis or ragas."
(http://www.narada.org/ariyakudi/tradition.html)
but the varnam was substituted well by the 'brisk' Kriti in Nattai raagam.
for those of you who are interested in knowing about varnams, check out the link below.
http://arvindsdad.blogspot.com/2009/10/varnams.html
and the other interesting thing was the announcement of the song, raagam etc before starting the song by the artists themselves.. may be that was because the concert happened in Jamshedpur. maybe in Chennai, it wouldnt have been necessary.. though i believe it would destroy the thrill of guessing the raagam during the raaga alaapanaais.. for a learner, that would be the real test... but thankfully, the artist announced the raagam etc only at the end of the raaga aalapanai for some songs.. so the fun of guessing the raagams was still there.. the guessing exercise normally brings to light lots of doubts and questions that one has in his/her mind. One such doubt/ confusion that came up yesterday was between sudhdha dhanyasi, abheri and bhimblas. from the aalapanai, i could not figure out which one it was. Though the raagam happened to be aabheri, i got satisfied only after referring to my new Carnatic music bible - 'wikipedia'. How did I miss the 'R2' in the abheri..
the arohanam-avrohanam for the 3 raagams are:
Abheri: S G2 M1 P N2 S - S N2 D2 P M1 G2 R2 S
Sudha dhanyasi: S G2 M1 P N2 S - S N2 P M1 G2 S
Bhimblas: N2 S G2 M1 P N2 S - N2 S G2 M1 P N2 S
It is all about permutation and combinations- the nCr and nPr concept.
(sudhadhanyasi raagam reminds me of 'Unnal Mudiyum thambi' movie.. and who can forget the famous dialogue of Gemini Ganesan after listening to Kamal's Filmy- adaption of the raagam in 'Punjai Undu' song.. " Ithu sudha dhanyasi a? illla asutha dhanyasi!!!")
"carnatic music" for K. Balachander is like "darkness and rain" for Maniratnam.. All K.B's movies will definitely have a bit of carnatic music somewhere in a corner..

forgot to tell u about the thukkada section of the katcheri.. with 2 bharathiyar songs and 2 'Lalgudi special' Thillanas, it was the perfect finish to the wonderful concert...