It seems Deepa Mehta's Water may not release in India, thanks to the protests by the Hindu Fundamentalists :( So, the music too will not release in India. Water is the only album for which Rahman himself has given 10/10.

Are we going to miss this masterpiece totally?
The music actually leaked on the net - it is wonderful. However, the audio quality is poor. The original CDs have been shipped to those who have ordered it online - but not for India - It seems, there is a note on the CD label: "Not for sale in India and Pakistan" :( Heard that there is lots and lots of additional programming and strings backing in all songs which beautifies the song more and more.
The movie is creating waves in many film festivals the world over. It also features in the list of top-10 Canadian movies of 2005. The movie is critically well acclaimed too, and Deepa Mehta is receiving applause and appreciations for the movie all over. It's a pity that the dirty politics in India deprives us of such a beautiful movie and the masterpiece of the Asian Mozart.
By Aravind on Friday, December 30, 2005 at 7:01 PM Post Categories: , ,
Shoot-out in IISc campus in front of a conference hall!!! That too, within 12 hours of this news - about Bangalore as terrorist targets!!! Within an educational institution like IISc! No place is safe :(

Why IISc? Since security was beefed up in IT companies as they were considered as likely targets? So, they went to a different place? May be! Nothing is clear now... Hope the campus and Bangalore city returns to normal soon...

By Aravind on Wednesday, December 28, 2005 at 10:43 PM Post Categories:
Hmmm...Romba busy... No time to write a new post...So, copy adichifying a post from Vani's Blog. I really enjoyed this one!
I watched Ghajini sometime back...and the background score for the movie sent me into peals of laughter. Random noises getting characteristic of Harris Jeyaraj: Bozo Zulo...oh my god! =)
I really can't understand what's with all these guys who make wierd noises in the name of background music!

When A.R.Rahman started out, there were a number of people who were criticising and making fun of him for introducing such 'noises': but dammit, his sure make much more sense than these zulos and habibiyas!! (Yeah, like I'll ever give up on Rahman! :) )
The thing with Rahman's 'noises' are that nobody can make out that what they are supposed to be: have any of you been successful in deciphering what the background in Mudalvan that comes whenever Arjun does something revolutionary means?! I haven't!
HJ tried something of this sort in Anniyan. And the result, needless, was extremely funny. Praveen had done an awesome job in finding it out and posting it in his blog! :) Do check out his blog if you want to know what it is... ;)
Read the full article here.
By Aravind on Saturday, December 24, 2005 at 7:29 PM Post Categories:
Ahh... at last.... I found time to write the review. As usual, I have attempted to cover the finer aspects which are so beautiful but go unnoticed on cursory listenings.

Ik Onkar

Basically a Sikh Prayer song – This is actually adapted from what is known as the Mool Mantra. There is very minimal use of instruments – hardly any! This is beautifully rendered by Harshdeep Kaur. If u are wondering if u have heard her voice before – u are right! She has lent her voice to many commercials, including the Cadbury’s Perk ad.

Listen to this track early in the morning – when there is no disturbance to feel the magic of this one!

Rang De Basanti
Tired of all those punjabi songs with the same tune recycled again and again by the “Punjabi MC”…Want a bhangra song, which is as Bhangra as can be, and still fresh? Then , this is a track for you! ARR shows yet again, as to how you can retain the flavour, yet give something totally new. Huge relief that the lyrics are also fresh and do not have words like Kudi, Munda etc which find their way into any Punjabi song! Daler Mahendi and Chitra do a great job.

Notice the “aha aha” that comes throughout the song… It is not same throughout… Even that keeps changing in a set pattern!

Paathshala & Be a rebel
There are two versions of this song “Paathshala”. One is the rap version by Blaaze and the other without the rap. Naresh Iyer and Aslam lend their voice in both the songs. The continuous lead-guitar loop throughout the song keeps lingering in ur hears even after the song is over!
The rap by Blaaze rocks. Blaaze impresses with the rap lyrics as well, with innovative stuff like “Zinda-bad, Zinda good”!

The other version is again a typical Rahman youth song – yet different. A fast college song – so youthful in both the music and the lyrics – with words like “lose control”, “I am a rebel”, this track gets u in to the college mood. You think the song ends with someone shouting “Lose control”… But there is a surprise waiting after this, to close the song which impressed me a lot!

Tu Bin Bataye
A slow, melodious romantic duet. This is the second song for MadhuShree and Naresh Iyer together and they score yet again! ARR impresses with his awesome backing strings arrangements in this song. Very short hints of flute(a few seconds before the first interlude) tease us – but the flute stops right there after tempting us! The sax interlude is awesome. Rahman has given wonderful sax interludes in many songs like Azhagiya Cindrella (Kangalal Kaidhu Sei), Sabaq Aisa (Tehzeeb) and of course the songs in Duet. This song can be added to that list of songs with memorable sax interludes.

Khalbali
The song starts with awesome techno guitar stuff (which continues almost throughout the song). U expect a full-fledged techno/rock song…Then u get a huge surprise – ARR starts Khalbali Hai Khalbali in typical Arabian style… Wow… What a blend – techno + arabian… I doubt if anyone would even dare to try such a combination. Aslam and Aacim (who is the also the lyricist for this song) provide good support. The "Ziddi ziddi" part in the song is just too good!!!
Still wondering how Rahman perfected that Middle-east style of singing!!!

Khoon Chala
Basically an inspirational song. Mohit Chauhan of Silk Route gives a soothing touch. His voice at the starting of the songs reminds of ARR’s voice!

A very lovely melody which is beautified by the the piano accompaniments, wonderful orchestration and the haunting strings.The song which starts very melodiously ends with some fast beats.

Luka Chuppi
No electronic intruments… no synthesized voices… Plain acoustic guitar strumming, harmonium, Tabla and mellifluous voice of Lata Mangeshkar… and of course ARR’s voice. These are enough for ARR to create magic. It is a pure, unadulterated acoustic song. You can even hear those small screeching noises that are produced when you move your fingers along the strings of the guitar, to change chords. Those who claim that ARRs songs sound great only because of the electronic jazz he does, here is an awesome reply from the master!
Small hints of flute here and there in this song too… The swaras at the end, recited by ARR and Lata together provide an ideal closing for the wonderful song.

Lalkar
Nothing much to write about this one. Aamir Khan recites inspirational poetry, with some light instrumental and vocal chants in the background.

Roobaroo
A fun song – sung by ARR and Naresh Iyer. Opens beautifully with some great acoustic guitar strumming. Its been a long time since we have heard such prominent acoustic guitar strums from ARR (I think Vellai Pookal was the last song).
This song is a must in Karaoke mode… You thought you are hearing only one voice at a time (either ARR’s or Naresh’s)? Listen to this in Karaoke mode and you will know…Throughout the song there is ARR’s voice. Wherever Naresh is singing, there is one more layer -that of ARR’s voice - with the same lyrics, but ARR’s is at a lower pitch… Mannnnn…. This gave me goosebumps…It is two persons singing throughout and I did not even realise it!!!!

Listen to all songs in Karaoke mode (winamp has a plugin to remove voices) – u are in for some sweet surprises! These are what make any ARR album interesting – even after some 15-20 listenings, u are bound to find something new.. something that u missed… ARR continues with that trend with Rang De Basanti!

Long time since ARR composed for such a youthful movie in hindi and he comes back with a bang! A wonderful album with such a great variety - a bhangra, sikh devotional, arabic, rock, rap, love ballad...Wow... I dont think anyone can even come close to successfully providing such wide variety!

By Aravind on Saturday, December 17, 2005 at 7:42 PM Post Categories: , ,
Talking about Rajini, how can I leave out the 2 ads that were released just today! Yeah.. I am talking about the ads of Sivaji which appeared in newspapers today - to announce the starting of shooting for the movie. With a deadly team of Rajini, A.R.Rahman, Shankar, AVM, Vairamuthu and Thotta Tharani, the expectations of this film have touched the skies right from the day it was announced!
Here are the ads. (Courtesy: Rajinifans.com)
By Aravind on Wednesday, December 14, 2005 at 6:11 PM Post Categories:
11 December it was!
The eve of Rajinikanth's Birthday!
The celebrations for Superstar's Birthday started in the campus. Sambhar Mafia, the official thamizh junta of IIMB, celebrated this Thiruvizha (festival) with such grandeur! The mess was decorated with huge posters of Rajini. Charts with collage of loads and loads of Rajini photos adorned the walls! From 7:00 pm, all superhit songs of Rajini were played in the mess. Thus, the environment was all set for a huge celebration!The junta was also ready with drums and whistles (none of us knew how to whistle without the whistle!!!)

Posters and collage in mess

Life-size banner, posters, special sweets, birthday-cake, Crackers, poosani kaai, karpooram - all the stuff required for a full-fledged celebration - u name it, we had it! We screened the superhit movie Padayappa on big screen which ended at 11:55 pm on 11th Dec. Not only the Thamizhs, but lots of non-thamizh people also to join us to watch the movie and take part in the celebrations!


The 'enthu' crowd just before the movie... That's "yours truly" in the extreme right!

The movie ended at 11:55... Bursting of crackers started immediately - all over the hostel blocks! And at 12 Midnite, one of my friends, Manoj, who dressed up as SuperStar, did some typical Rajini styles! Then our own "superstar" Manoj cut the cake...

Manoj, the IIMB Superstar, performing the famous cooling-glass trick!

Then it was the time to "drishti suththi-fy" for Superstar! Our student-president, Sathya, did the honours by showing the camphor-lit poosani kaai in front of the life-size banner of superstar...When Sathya finally broke the "poosani kaai" the entire hostel was filled with chants of "thalaivar...vaazhga"!!! The next thing on our schedule was distribution of sweets to everyone in the hostel - door delivery - which was completed by 1:30 am!

President Sathya with the Poosani Kaai

It was a whole new experience as none of us have seen or been a part of anything like this before!
By Aravind on Post Categories:
The most expected album of this year - Rang De Basanti - was released last thursday at Planet M, Mumbai! Mannnnn... I am totally speechless.... Rahman shows his class and genius, yet again! Awesome variety in this one - fast peppy western numbers, Indian folk (Bhangra), Arabic, soothing and romantic, tender motherly touch, Inspirational, devotional - it is all there - and to a level of perfection we can't even dream about!
I am totally hooked on to this wonderful album...
I definitely want to write a review - but not at this stage -just after a few hearings... I would miss out on the fine rahmantic touches that are hidden in this great album! Will take me at least a week to digest this album!
By Aravind on Sunday, December 11, 2005 at 6:08 AM Post Categories: ,
Sachin created history, becoming the higest century maker in test cricket too! He scored 100* in 176 balls. Great way to silence those critics who questioned his form!!!
Congrats Sachin!
By Aravind on Post Categories:
The song "Mukkaala Mukabla" appears in the Limca book of records as the song that has been copied by most number of ppl. As many as 8 Hindi Music Directors copied this song and released their own version. (Ulagathila ore madhiri 7 peru -nnu solluvaanga... Adappaavigala... ore madhiri 8 paattaa??)

This is old news... There is stiff competition for this record now... And again, the source is A.R.Rahman. The Background music in almost every new tamil and Hindi movie trailer is directly lifted from the Chinese movie, Warriors of Heaven and Earth (WOHE), for which ARR composed the music. Here is the list:

1. Majaa (MD: Vidyasagar) - track used is Dacoit Duel from WOHE.
2. Cheran's Thavamaai Thavamirundhu - Track used: Golden Age
3. Kalaaba Kadhalan - Dacoit Duel and Golden Age
4. Ramakrishna - Dacoit Duel
5. ThagappanSamy - Dacoit Duel
6. Oru Kallooriyin Kadhai - Dacoit Duel, Warriors in Peace

This list is not complete... There are many more tamil movies.

Coming to hindi movie trailers:
1. James - Dacoit Duel
2. Ek Ajnabee - Dacoit Duel
3. Hul Chal - Dacoit Duel

This list is, again, not complete... And as is obvious, it is Dacoit Duel all the way!!! All the copycats seem to love this track!

Apart from movie trailers, the tracks of WOHE are being used for Hanniffa Textiles Ad., title songs of many game shows (including the one hosted by Ramya Krishnan), almost in all episodes of Paadhaigal serial (in Podhigai) and many other programs in Sun, Podhigai and all other Tamil Channels!

By lift, I do not mean inspiration - I mean direct rip-off - copy-paste job!!! Ivanga ellam thirundhave maattangalaaaa?

The music rights for WOHE are with SONY. I wonder how Sony is quiet for so long about this issue! This is no one-off incident... Every music director is lifting left, right and center from this ARR classic! Isn't this illegal? Aren't the copyright laws in India strong enough?
By Aravind on Saturday, December 03, 2005 at 4:09 PM Post Categories: , ,
Wowwwwwwwww.... So excited to read this news. However, the news item mentions that Rahman is "likely" to compose for this international film which means that it is not yet confirmed. Hope the confirmation comes soon!!!
Chennai's greatest gift to Indian film music, A.R. Rahman, is likely to compose a part of the track for an unusual international film project being planned to coincide with the 250th birth anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The brainchild of Salzburg-based Austrian music composer and violinmaker Winrich Sturies, the film has been in the works for over six months.

"It will roll very soon," says Sturies. "The release of the film is planned for mid 2006."

Mozart was born in Salzburg in January 1756.

The Indian partner in the film venture, Sanjay Kaushik of the Paramount group of companies, says the details are all in place.

"The script is ready, talks are on with Rahman and the process of casting will be completed before we set a firm date for the shoot to begin."

By Aravind on Thursday, December 01, 2005 at 9:00 PM Post Categories:

Many people who became die-hard Rahman fans in the 90s were also hardcore Sachin fans (including me!). I have seen this in many cases... My friend Radhakrishnan who is also a Rahmaniac also was of the same opinion! I think this phenomenon is not without a reason, the reason being similarities between the two. Got this interesting comparison by Maddy, from ForumHub:

A startling but very logical coincidences between 2 of the greatest men of 90's......they characterised the 90's and were icons of the youth at that time......just see the startling similarities between these 2:

Entry into their respective fields:

A.R.Rahman (ARR):
1992
Sachin Tendulkar (SRT): 1989


They were an instant hit because:
ARR:
Blasting music, classical songs at a very young age
SRT: Swashbuckling batting and a great cricketing sense at a very young age

How they stood out from others?
ARR:
First to bring digital touch to Indian music and compose fusion that no one else dares to think off.
SRT: First to explore the first 15-over restriction, score centuries at bouncy, tough tracks like Perth.

As time moved on:
ARR:
Stopped producing blasting music, instead delivered Classical melodies like Taal, Swades, Bose, Meenaxi and Tehzeeb out of maturity.
SRT: Stopped going over the top to bowlers, instead played exquisite drives and late cuts and produced innings with a lot of maturity.

Character similarity:
ARR:
Shy towards media and lets his keyboard answer his critics
SRT: Shy towards media and lets his bat answer his critics

Media point of view:
ARR:
Darling of Mumbai and London press
SRT: Darling of Mumbai and London press

International attention:
ARR:
Admired by Andrew Lloyd Webber , Micheal jackson (who wore a t-shirt having Rahman's photo on it) and many other international music reviewers who want him to compose for Hollywood films.
SRT: Adored by the man himself the "DON" Bradman and Mike Atherton(who compared Sachin to W.G.Grace) and a never ending list of Australian, English, Kiwi, WestIndian players.

Earnings:
ARR
: Draws 1 Crore/ film, ambassador of Bharti telecom, sizzled with the Airtel ad
SRT:
Unimaginable money on contracts with big commercial giants. Sizzles in Pepsi ads.

Records:
ARR:
4 national awards, 17 filmfare awards, his music sold 210 million copies around the world (more than Britney and Madonna put together!!) and success rate of 80%+ album sales in Indian movies.
SRT: Look at this for a record: 37 ODI centuries, 35 TEST centuries, 13,000+ runs in ODI's, 44+ average in ODI's and 58+ average in Tests. What else u can ask for?

Popularity:
ARR:
Has a huge fan following in India and in south he is a demi-god and captures the imagination of NRI's throughout the world
SRT: According to a survey, he is the most popular man in the Country edging out the Prime Minister and Shah-Rukh-Khan. He is popular even in places like U.S where the game is not that popular (featured in an exclusive article in an American sports magazine)

Career Graph & Present form:
ARR
: Had fabulous nineties with all his albums doing well in this time. Reached dizzying heights during this period. Have had flops with major banners
since 2001, which got the critics interested. Had a great 2003 within this lean patch with Boys creating sales records. His fans base however is intact, proved that with success of Ah Aah album.

SRT: The star of 90’s, his batting propelled him into a youth icon status in India and was concurred with many awards from the government. Being pressurized by the detractors for a imaginary loss of form and injury worries since 2001. Had a great world cup 2003 scoring runs at will. Recently has had a good innings in a one-day match to prove that he is still fit.
(Their career-graph is one of the most fascinating things I have ever noticed, they always seem to have good times together. Bad times also coincides for both of them)

Fans:
ARR:
Die-hard fans want him to go back to 90’s style of composing
SRT:Never say die fans want him to take up 90’s style of swashbuckling batting.

Successors:
ARR:
His successors like Yuvan Shankar Raja and Himesh Reshammiya are more successful than him right now but no way near to him in terms of class.
SRT: Yuvraj Singh, Mohammed Kaif are more popular with people than him right now but as the old west-Indian saying goes: "Form is temporary, but class is permanent".

Duplicates:
ARR:
Has a duplicate called Harris Jeyaraj who not only copies ARR's music and composing style but also his hairstyle and way of speaking in interviews.
SRT: Virendar Sehwag, a natural duplicate of sachin with looks and batting style similar to him. Called “Najafgarh ka Tendulkar”. (Najafgarh is Virendar Sehwag’s hometown.)

Where will they end up?:
ARR:
Probably will put India into the world map of music and create records which upcoming Indian M.D's can't even dream of.
SRT: It would probably take an android or a special species of human being to erase his record in Cricket. Will always be remembered as the greatest ever batsman of modern era.

By Aravind on Sunday, November 27, 2005 at 7:51 AM Post Categories: ,
Time and again, MNCs come up with wonderful ads which are targeted at specific segment of people - ads which appeal to a particular group - linguistic or regional or whatever... But, they do it such that the local flavour is not lost! And we wonder, why our own companies do not give such customised, localised content and instead wanna go "western".

Came across this Diwali-Wishes video by Oil major, Petronas. Nice one!
http://www.youtube.com/watch.php?v=JjvzQm4bJ8s&search=petronas

(might take quite some time to load)
By Aravind on Saturday, November 26, 2005 at 7:10 AM Post Categories:
Yeah! This is the new trend! People send out blog posts as mail forwards... I got one very interesting forward - "En per padum paadu" recently - and thanx to that, I discovered this good blog of Kalaivani!

By Aravind on Monday, November 21, 2005 at 9:35 PM Post Categories:

When I saw this Calvin strip, I was immediately reminded of the 2007 Cricket World Cup grouping list released recently! ICC brings in new teams every world cup - last time it was Namibia; Scotland, UAE and Canada in the past! These teams come out to bat, get bowled out in first 30 overs and the stronger team finishes the match in 20 overs. Or, if they field first, concede 300 odd runs and get bowled out for 150! These teams usually are out of world cricket after these severe thrashings from the biggies - barring very few teams like Kenya and Bangladesh, which have survived for a longer duration. And for the next tournament, ICC brings in new teams.

For the next edition of the world cup, it is going to be Bermuda! The main reason for bringing in new teams is to promote Cricket in these countries. After some heavy thrashing these teams recieve from biggies, how will anyone from their country be interested in Cricket? How will a strong team be formed? Won't this have a negative effect, rather than a positive one?

If ICC wants to promote Cricket in many countries, this is just not the way. ICC can organise training camps, inculcate interest by holding many series among non-test playing nations, help them form strong teams - then bring them into a huge tournament such as this.

Will ICC change its policy?
By Aravind on Sunday, November 20, 2005 at 7:31 AM Post Categories:
Wanted to create a site for quite some time now... finally, started working...
Here is the url: http://rahmanworld.cjb.net

Just 2-3 pages completed... will add on more when I find time :)

Someone just asked me, "there are so many fan sites for ARR... Why do u want to add one more to that list?". My answer was "I dont care how many sites are there... I wanted to do something for ARR and here it is". :)

Update: Site temporarily down... Will post when it is working again.
By Aravind on Friday, November 18, 2005 at 7:19 PM Post Categories: ,
CopyCats have alwas existed in Indian film music - right from SD Burman, RD Burman to the recent Vishal-Shekhar, Nadeem Shravan and of course Anu Malik. This phenomenon has been there in tamil movies too - right from the Un Aattamellaam song from Ali Baba-vum 40 thirudargalum (copied from Ya Habibi Taala By Asmahan) to the three blatant lifts in Kadhal Kondein (by Yuvan Shankar) . However, the originality seems to be lower in Hindi movies. This is what I could infer from the site www.itwofs.com, which is a great database of copied songs! Look at the sheer number of hindi songs that have been copied -way too high!

Sometimes, u feel so shocked to find that the song which was a big hit and the one that u liked was copied. I got such a shock, when I came across this on www.itwofs.com:

The song that made Hassan Jehangir a household name across the 2 countries - Hawa hawa. This chartbuster was first released in 1990 in Pakistan, but strangely enough, its Iranian original is as old as the 70s! Yes, the original is called 'Havar havar' and was by Persian singer Kourosh Yaghmai.

U can listen to the source song at the address mentioned above.

(In this site, ITWOFS, a convention is followed. A TC tag next to an entry means that the tune itself is lifted. The lack of creativity (or shall we say, absence of it?) of the music director can be gauged from this.)
By Aravind on Saturday, November 12, 2005 at 11:09 PM Post Categories: , ,
One of the best things I like about IIMB is that I am getting to know a lot of cultures, by interacting ppl from various places in India. And thus, am enjoying the true flavour of different festivals.
Come Diwali and it is time for Dandiya! Though we work on Diwali (yeah :(we have no holiday for any festival), we do have great celebrations during the evening and night. Here are some snapshots of Diwali this year


All of us in Ethnic Wear


Block Decoration competition, where in we decorate our hostel blocks


Dandiya


Beautifully decorated mess (and the food was special too!)
By Aravind on Saturday, November 05, 2005 at 7:13 PM Post Categories:
(Continued from part 2)

Rehersal Continued...

ARR started singing Aazadi from Bose. It was wonderful! During the first rehersal of this song, the chorus was not perfect... They lost their shruthi and gradually their pitch reduced!!!! ARR did not interrupt them... But, once the choir was over, ARR raised the volume of his keyboard, and played an abaswaram - indicating the dropping shruthi and making fun of the singers.... Everyone, including the harmony singers enjoyed ARR's sense of humour!

ARR also made Sukhwinder and Sadhna Sargam work really hard for Aayo Re, the song from the yet-unreleased movie Water. Some parts of this song were practiced quite a number of times. This was understandable as this must have been probably the first or second time, they were singing this song, after the recording!!!

All through the rehersal, we kept applauding each and every movement of ARR on stage. We were holding out a big banner showing ARRAHMANFANS.COM. ARR knew we were there and he was acknowledging our applause now and then, by waving at us.. This got us even more excited!!!!

Blaaze
There was a small break during the reharsal and we met Blaaze during this time... He was delighted to meet us when we told him that we are from ARRAHMANFANS.COM. He apparently is also a member of the group (with a anonymous id, of course) and has been following the discussions on the group. We were astonished when he identified us by our mail-ids and also talked about some of the discussions going on in the group! He spoke to ARR and arranged for a private meeting with ARR for us. This was when we took photos with ARR, about which I have already written in my earlier post.

The Montage
During the meeting, we presented ARR with a montage - it contained the images of CD/Cassette covers of each and every ablum that ARR had composed till now! Kudos to Gopal Srinivasan for scanning all those 93 CD covers and compiling them!

Sadhna Sargam
I met Sadhna ji during lunch on the day of the concert. Spoke to her for a few minutes, first congratulating her on her wonderful performance during the rehersals. I quizzed whether she had learnt Thamizh ('coz her pronunciation in Thee Thee was perfect - and she was singing without looking at the lyrics). Her reply - "no" - with a beautiful smile! She sadi that she just listens to what ARR says - just remembers them and works on it so that she got right! And of course, ARR would correct her if there is a mistake. She told me that she would be really careful not to make the mistake again!

Later that afternoon, I spent some time with bass guitarist Keith Peters and the male harmony singers (Mayiliragae fame Naresh Iyer was one of them). Then of course, the concert happened in the evening.

Thus, had a great experience on the two days. A big thanks to Gopal Srinivasan (moderator, ARRAHMANFANS), Arun KB Ganesh and all others who made all this possible. Also, thanx to Mugilan and RadhaKrishnan for the fotos - some of the fotos were from their cams as there were restrictions on the use of cams and we restricted to only 2-3 cams!

The End
By Aravind on Monday, October 31, 2005 at 7:25 PM Post Categories: , ,
(continued from Part 1)

On the day before the concert, we met many artistes, but could not interact for long...Met H.Sridhar and took his autograph, but he was way too busy that day and could not talk with him for long. They were doing a rigorous sound-test, to assure that everything was perfect on the final day.

An enthusiastic team from ARRAHMANFANS getting autograph from H.Sridhar.
The one on the left in yellowish t-shirt, is none other than your's truly!

Also met Alma, the Bosnian Singer. We were all waiting for ARR to come to the venue. I was at the food court, when someone came and informed that ARR was on stage... I ran from back-stage to front stage... ARR was there in full-black in front of his keyboards... The Rehersal was about to start!

The rehersal
The rehersal was great - it showed us ARR's way of working, his perfection etc. The way they practiced the harmony part for "Kannalane" was great. The female and male harmony had some problems and were not in sync. Then, separate practice sessions for the male harmony and the female harmony were done. When this was perfected, they were made to sing together... And it sounded awesome.

Sadhna Sargam sang Thee thee (from Thiruda Thiruda)... This was one of the very few songs in which there was no break in the middle and full song rehersal was done. Sadhna's tamil pronunciation was perfect! And, Naveen (flute) was at his best! It is a pity this song had to be dropped during the actual show due to lack of time.

(to be continued)
By Aravind on Wednesday, October 19, 2005 at 5:40 PM Post Categories: , ,
I and my friends from ARRahmanFans Yahoo! Group worked for this concert for more than 1 month, organising Road-shows and contests at malls etc. to promote the show.
This foto is from one such program at Planet M, Bangalore. These were so exciting - listening about ARR from so many people - what they think, how much they know etc...

And for the last 2 days (the day of the concert and the day before) we worked at the venue. That is when we got to meet ARR and other artistes.

Shivmani
Shivmani was the first artist I met for this concert. I had gone to the Air-port to recieve him - this was 2 days before the concert. Shivmani and two of his assistants (Sukumar and Biju) had landed in B'lore that day. Shivmani was very very friendly! I welcomed him, and spoke in thamizh. And he put his hand over my shoulder and said "Thamizh-aa... Sollu thalaiva" - as though we were long-time-friends!!! I then asked him for a foto, and he responded "onnu enna, nooru photo eduthukkalaam". ("why just one photo.. I am ready for 100 fotos!").
Me with Shivmani, at the Airport.
Damn that guy, who just put his head in front of the camera! grrrrrr

When he met me again the next day, at the food-court in the concert venue, he recognised me and asked me "thalaiva... eppdi irukkae?" ("how are u") much to the surprise of my friends with me at that time, who did not know that I had met him the previous day!

The Stage
On the day of the rehersals, we just went up the stage to have a peek of the equipments. Managed to get a photo of me with that sophisticated sound mixing equipments.


Also had a close look at ARR's keyboards.
(to be continued)
By Aravind on Friday, October 14, 2005 at 10:36 PM Post Categories: , ,
(Continued from part 2)

This concert coverage would be incomplete without the mention of Shivamani's unbilevable solo show... There was a 10 minute break - that was when Shivamani took over... wowwww.... It was incredible...
How does this man manage to move his hands so fast? Incredible... Earlier, Shivamani presented a trailor - one more solo show- before the concert started - this was wonderful too...

ARR started to sing Aazadi at around 12 Midnight. I felt that the beats were different - not the actual beats used in the song... 2 minutes later I realised why it was so... There was a beautiful transition from Aazadi to Vande Mataram...The beats were different to enable the transition... And when ARR started VM (the last song), the downpour started again - this time very very heavily....Thanks to Rain God for being kind enough to have postponed the next spell by 3-4 hours!!! We walked out of Palace grounds with utmost satisfaction of having watched the concert of a lifetime.

Ok.. I think I will conclude my concert coverage here..I am not mentioning about all songs here as I would go on and on if I write about everything that happened there! Also, the concert details are covered in many blogs. Since I was also at the backstage for two days and for the rehersals and interacted with the artistes, I would write about those in my future posts - this is something which you will not find in most blogs..

Working for the concert, I got the privilege of checking out the songs list well before the concert - Now, I know which songs were not performed due to the delayed start. Here is the list:

1. Warriors in Peace - Alma (from Bosnia)
2. Thee Thee - Sadhna Sargam / Raja
3. Jiya Jale - Chitra
4. Yeh Haseen Vadiyaan - Hariharan / Chitra
5. Yun Hi Chala Chal - Hariharan/Kailash Kher/Aslam
6. Varugirai - Hariharan/Chitra

Unplugged version:
1. O Re Chori - Alka Yagnik
2. Yeh Jo Zindagi - Sukhwinder Singh
3. Sabaq Aisa - Madhushree
4. Tu Hi Re - Hariharan/Chitra
5. Anjali - Chitra

(End of concert coverage. Will take you all through the interesting incidents from Backstage, over the next few days).
By Aravind on Thursday, October 13, 2005 at 3:36 PM Post Categories: , ,
contintued from part 1

Two unreleased songs were performed in the concert
  • one was Aayo Re from Water - Sukwinder Singh and Sadhna Sargam sang this beautiful song.. It was wonderful!
  • the other was The Poverty Anthem (Pray for me) - beautifully rendered by ARR and Blaaze.. The English pronunciation of ARR in this song was too good!
Shankar Mahadevan sang Ghanan Ghanan, with a slight change of lyrics...
"kaale megha, kaale megha.. paani mat barsao" instead of "paani to barsao"
- a change made to suit the situtaion on that day, asking the clouds to stop pouring!
At the end of the song, he made some beautiful improvisations - he showed us how ARR would have composed the song if the situation in the movie was different - that is, if there was rain in the movie after the song... It was brilliant... Hats off to Shankar for that!
Chithra mesmerised us with her ever sweet voice to sing Kannalane (Kehna hi kya) in Kannada - the Kannada lyrics were written specially for this concert by Mr. P.B. Shrinivas, the veteran playback singer. Kailash Kher was a energy packet!!! He sang Mangal Mangal from The Rising - he was dancing all through the song. Blaaze who performed BABA RAP was impressive. Ishq Bina/Love's Never Easy was a real treat. The english part was sung by Alma from Bosnia and the hindi part by MadhuShree. It was a beautiful mix of the Bombay Dreams version and the Taal version.... Wonderful!!!

ARR sang a total of 8 songs (not including his humming in Kabhi neem neem) - the songs being Fanaa, Chale Chalo, Poverty Anthem, Secret of Success, Mustafa, Humma Humma, Aazadi, Vande Mataram.

Apart from ARR, Sadhna Sargam and Sukwinder Singh performed the most number of songs.
Sadhna Sargam:
Aayo Re, Chupke se (Snegithane), Telephone Dhun, Roja Janeman, Chanda Re(Vennilave)

Sukhwinder:
Aayo Re (Water), Chaiyya Chaiyaa, Chinnamma Chilakkamma, and Pagdi Sambhal Jatta!
Sukwinder sometimes has this habit of improvising too much to the irritation of the listeners... But, that day, he was all perfect... All his on-stage improvisations were thoroughly enjoyable.

(to be continued)
By Aravind on Wednesday, October 12, 2005 at 11:02 PM Post Categories: , ,
I had mentioned in my previous post that no one will ever forget this concert. The reason: The audience waited for 2 hours in the heavy downpour. ARR himself came on stage at least thrice during this period and asked "Do you want the show on now?". And the response was positive each time. It is the magic of ARR, which made us all brave the heavy rain -- wanting to stay there in the rain not knowing when it will stop, is not a joke. ARR and his entire crew was moved by the spirit of the crowd.

The concert was supposed to start at 7:00 pm but started at around 8:45 pm. There was no 3D effects as the screens were damaged. The Pyro-effects which were planned for some songs could not be done, due to the rain. Rain took its toll on most of the decorations on stage too. What we got was pure ARR's Music. This was what kept the entire crowd stay there for more than 7 hours, despite being drenched completely. Nothing else was necessary!

41 songs were planned, but only 29 songs could be performed due to the delay. When ARR started the show with his awesome rendition of Fanaaaa, the crowd became so lively and this excitement stayed on for the entire concert. Madhushree (aka Sujata Bhattacharya) sang Kabhi Neem Neem (Sandai Kozhi) alternatively in Tamil and Hindi. Her Tamil pronunciation was wonderful - she must have put in lots of effort into this.

ARR and Shankar Mahadevan came front on the stage and Shankar announced "We are bored of singing all hit numbers. We are now going to perform a flop song." The audience started shouting and howling at this point. Shankar added "This flop song is from the movie Bombay. And, we are bored of singing this song in its same old tune, so we are trying something different". Then ARR andShankar started singing Humma Humma in a slow, new, carnatic- based tune... This left the audience in splits. We could not control our laughter. Then suddenly we heard a voice asking them to stop. It was Blaaze (the Rap-guy who has become a constant part in all ARR's tours). He was running on to the stage from the audience side (Donno when and how he got in there!). And he started doing a RAP version of the same song...this was awesommmme. This went on for about a minute, when suddenly the beats for the actual Humma started playing and ARR Started singing "andha arabic kadaloram". The entire crowd started dancing. Shankar sang a few parts of this song in Hindi... This was wonderful...

(to be continued)
By Aravind on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 at 10:52 PM Post Categories: , ,
Still to recover from the excitement!!!! I met ARR... Though I have already met him 2-3 years back, this meeting was more and more exciting - Because for 2 days I was seeing him!!!!!


Photo with GOD (me on the extreme right)

And of course, the concert rocked. This is one concert which neither ARR and his team, nor the audience will forget!

More concert related stuff:
Reports of the concert
Backstage

By Aravind on Monday, October 10, 2005 at 11:27 AM Post Categories: , ,
  • Ganguly announces in the press-meet that Chappell asked him to step down from captaincy!
  • Then, BCCI tries to patch it up.
  • Chappell says "that was to motivate Ganguly".
  • Ganguly and Chappell play pool together and pose for the media.
And now, Chappell writes to BCCI that "Ganguly is mentally and physically unfit to lead the team."
(http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/india/content/story/219986.html)

So much in just 1 week!!!

It is now very clear that the we-are-friends-now played by Chappell and Ganguly was not real! Chappell would have been forced by BCCI to do that!

It is pretty puzzling that the contents of a "confidential" e-mail leaked to the press! The mail was sent to the BCCI President! How on earth did the press know of the contents? No privacy even at such high levels?
By Aravind on Friday, September 23, 2005 at 10:26 PM Post Categories:
Surya's next flick Ghajini is all set to release next weekend... Going by the movie-stills and the story-line (Surya suffering from 15-minute-amnesia), it is sure that the movie is inspired from Guy Pierce starrer Memento. Some of the tatoos on Surya's body are ditto from Memento (Find him, Kill him is one). The placement of Tatoo's on Surya's body, the fonts used etc., are also similar to the that of the original movie!

The original movie had a wonderful screenplay - very very different but very difficult to understand! Hope Director Murugadoss has just taken the theme and proceeded with his own screenplay - else the movie will face the same fate as 12-B - the audience won't understand and the movie will have a tuff time at Box Office!
By Aravind on Thursday, September 22, 2005 at 10:18 PM Post Categories:
Cheese Pizza

Traditional and comforting.
You focus on living a quality life.
You're not easily impressed with novelty.
Yet, you easily impress others.
By Aravind on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 at 12:02 AM Post Categories:
Crossed the 1000-hit count! I know this is not a big number, but considering that I started bloggin not so long ago, and I dont update my blog frequently, I think this is significant :)
By Aravind on Tuesday, September 20, 2005 at 1:27 AM Post Categories:

The moon presented a wonderful sight yesterday - there was a huge halo around the full moon! I have seen halos like this before, but this one was really really huge. There was a great hue and cry about this all over the hostel blocks in the campus. And of course, just like any rare happening, rumours started spreading about this one too:
- this event occurs only once in 4500 years (!!!)
- this is going to be the end of the world (this of course, is a cliche)
- this is because of a big hole in ozone layer (still cant understand how a hole in the ozone layer will lead to this)
There was also one person on campus who thought that some UFO was about to land (this is the consequence of watching movies like Independence Day and Close Encounters!!)

By Aravind on Monday, September 19, 2005 at 6:44 AM Post Categories:
Let me clear one thing first - I am not anti-Ganguly (you might get such an impression seeing my back-2-back posts bashing him) .

Ganguly often quotes statistics to his defence - but how "true" are they? are they to be taken in the face value? Should we probe deeper in to those stats to find out the real truth?

Excerpts from a Cricinfo article, which analyses the Ganguly's stats:
A cursory look at the stats don't reveal the rot that has set in - in his last 14 Tests, starting with the second Test of that series in Australia, Ganguly stats read 681 runs at 35.84, with one century and five fifties. Not outstanding figures, but quite acceptable, you might think. The problem is that many of those runs have been against soft opposition and bowling attacks: Ganguly has had his share of the easy runs against the minnows, but he hasn't done much of note against the tougher teams.

Read the full article here.
By Aravind on Sunday, September 18, 2005 at 10:55 PM Post Categories:
I was so surprised that someone actually had the guts to say this to Dada... Dada has the full support of Dalmiya and many feel that Dada is still there in the team only because of Dalmiya.
Ganguly himself has told the press that he was asked to step down before the first test against Zimbabwe, which is on now... Though he has not mentioned who that "courageous" person was, articles quote that there were enough indications that it was coach Greg Chappel!

http://www.expressindia.com/cricket/
fulleistory.php?type=ei&content_id=54733


The interesting thing now, is that Ganguly has scored a century in this match (after he himself dismissed Laxman, by a stupid run-out). Now, he will stay on and on forever in the team basking in the glory of this century against a great(???) bowling attack of a top (???) team!!!!
By Aravind on Friday, September 16, 2005 at 9:04 AM Post Categories:
Sun Microsystems are following innovative advertising strategies to publicise their new x64 Server - most of these are attacking or kind of, warning their competitors - DELL...
Sun actually flew a plane above DELL headquarters (the kind of planes that carry ads with them - actually behind them pulled by ropes - flag like) saying "SUN's GOT AN X64 SERVER. WATCH OUT DELL", and it seems the plane was circling over the DELL HQ for well over an hour!!!
By Aravind on Thursday, September 15, 2005 at 11:15 PM Post Categories:

Came across this (slightly old) news.. any way it is interesting!!

Tata Indicom have launched Signature Series Phones - the handsets with autographs of Celebrities. And there are two versions as of now:
Sania Fone
Sourav Fone
What's interesting is that Sania Fone is priced at 4999, and Sourav Fone at 2499!!!

http://www.tataindicom.com/pressroom/press_articles/sania_mirza.asp

I have nothing more to say :)) !!!!
By Aravind on Wednesday, September 14, 2005 at 10:16 AM Post Categories:

Thanx to Kaps for the pic!!
By Aravind on Saturday, September 10, 2005 at 11:26 AM Post Categories:
An Indian-American group has stepped up efforts to get a Diwali stamp issued, on the lines of the ones commemorating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Eid.

The Indian American Citizen Council's Committee for Diwali Postage Stamp put out a petition inviting signatures for the cause.

The online petition addressed to Dr. Virginia Noelke, Chairperson, Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee, United States Postal Service, points out the festival's significance. 'Diwali symbolizes our incessant prayers and endeavor to be led from darkness (ignorance) to light (knowledge),' it says.

Visit the following link to sign the petition.
www.petitiononline.com/diwali03
By Aravind on Sunday, September 04, 2005 at 11:46 PM Post Categories:
Came across this blog named Many Minds by Kaushik. Unlike other bloggers, he plans to write each post as though written by a different character - So, each post will contain fictional instances told from different viewpoints. Seems to be a very innovative idea. There has been one post so far, and it is pretty good! Waiting for him to introduce more characters.
By Aravind on Monday, August 29, 2005 at 9:27 PM Post Categories:
Continuing from where I left off yesterday, here is one more copying case... This one is definitely more stupid.

The song Hima Kannangal from the Malayalam Movie Aye Taxi (2005, starring Mohan Lal, Music: Anu Malik) is lifted from .......guess what......... the Airtel Tune by ARR.

U can listen to the song at Music India Online.

First I thought, may be they would have bought the rights for the tune or some thing like that... But, given Anu Malik's track record, there is no benefit-of-doubt for him!!!
By Aravind on Sunday, August 28, 2005 at 10:53 PM Post Categories: , ,
Vishal-Shekhar - This music director duo were touted as very good after the release of Jhankar Beats and were referred to as "musical whiz-kids who are about to rock hindi film music". But now, with the movie Salaam Namaste they have proved that they are in no way different from copy cats like Anu Malik, Nadeem-Shravan, Ismail Durbar and Jatin-Lalit.

The song "My Dil goes hmmm..." is a total rip-off of a background music in Swades (the scene where Gayatri Joshi helps Shah Rukh in tying dhoti). It is a note-be-note copy of the above-said BGM. It is absulutely disgusting to see these people getting famous by doing nothing more than a copy-paste job.

Here are the two clips:

My Dil Goes mmm


Swades - Dhoti BGM

Audio Powered by Castpost
By Aravind on Saturday, August 27, 2005 at 10:38 PM Post Categories: , ,
Busy with preparation for exams tomorrow... So.. posting something which I got from another blog :-)

The Chicago river actully flows backwards now... read about how this engineering marvel was made possible more than 100 years ago, in BRags' Blog.
By Aravind on Friday, August 26, 2005 at 9:48 PM Post Categories:
After the huge hit Thenaali, Kamal Hassan, KS Ravikumar and ARR are joining hands in Dasaavathaaram. This move is one to watch out for due to many reasons, one of them being that Kamal is doing 10 different roles. Kamal is flying to US to learn the American Accent...


So, one more ARR Tamizh ablum can be expected next year. Already in the pipeline are Jillendru oru kaadhal, Rajni's Shivaji (not confirmed). Oh.. I am so excited......


Update: ARR opted out of Dasavathaaram
By Aravind on Thursday, August 25, 2005 at 10:08 PM Post Categories:
In one of my previous posts, I had written that the bias against southies in Bollywood still continues, especially in deciding awards. Here is one more instance. The nominations for Sahara One Sangeet Awards have been announced. And I was surprised on seeing the Best Film Albums list: Swades and Bose are not even in the nominations!!! Generally, most of the music awards are decided not based on the quality of the music, but based on whether the movie was a hit - This is really really stupid and illogical - but that's the way things have been working for quite some time now... But, in this case, even this criterion is not followed - movies like Aitraaz and Lucky the are in list. Can't even imagine how Aitraaz got in there - the music was pathetic and also the movie wasn't a hit. Swades and Bose: The Forgotten Hero were definitely better than all these craps. Bose is not just a good album... It is a classic..

The only explanation I can think of is the bias against southies - in this case, against ARR.
By Aravind on Wednesday, August 24, 2005 at 7:30 PM Post Categories: ,
Was reading about Spam Comments (Splogs) in blogs in Kaps' Blog. Did not know that my blog would also be attacked so soon by spam. Had to delete a few. As far as I have come across, only blogger users are affected by this. Blogger has this option of word verification for comments. So, all blogger users turn on this option in the Comments Settings!
By Aravind on Post Categories:
Confused by the odd unrelated words in the title?
Well... these are some of the wierd nick names of some of the students here at IIMB. We are so accustomed to calling people by nicknames that we forget their real names. For instance, I have to think for sometime to recollect that S*punky is S*hweta. Sometimes we don't remember the "real" names in critical situations that it becomes really funny!

Once in class, my colleague S*angeet (or San-guit as he prefers to be called) says "the next part of the presentation will be done by Rahmaniac". The entire class bursts out into laughter, and the prof asks me "What's ur name???"

The next incident was even more funny.... This was just 2 days back, at Ecstasy - the inter-college cultural competitions at IIMB. This is how S*uren S*ista, the grand-old-man of IIMB, introduced the music team on stage:
"G*anga, S*wati, N*itya, A*kshay and N*iteesh and myself, S*uren on vocals.... and on Keyboard we have ... (silence for about 15 seconds) .... On keyboards, it is Smiley...(Silence again.. then turning to me) Smiley, what is your name? "
The entire auditorium goes "ha ha ha".... If u still haven't figured out, Smiley is none other than yours truly! This name was given to me by my seniors, thanx to my sweet smile :-)
By Aravind on Tuesday, August 23, 2005 at 11:46 PM Post Categories: ,
Wow... what a combination!!!
Would be really great if ARR also joins in... There are conflicting reports about ARR working for this movie.

Shivaji is the name of the film and Rajni is gonna be back with his super style unlike Chandramukhi, where the importance was for the story...

But, what is interesting is that all the news about this movie is coming only from AVM Saravanan. Not a single word from Rajni or Shankar... Where are the huge ads that start appearing even before the pooja of the film?

Whatever..... Expectations have started building already. Of course, with both Rajni's Chandramukhi and Shankar's Anniyan both becoming mega-hits, the expectations are bound to be very high.... And I am sure, Shankar will make a great movie!
By Aravind on Monday, August 22, 2005 at 11:09 PM Post Categories: ,
Many a time, we come across situations when things are not in order, causing lots of trouble to us... And, definitely, each one of us would have thought "wish someone would change all this".. Now, after watching Anniyan, the thought now is "Won't an Anniyan come and set all this right??"

I had a similar thought on last Friday.
Went to Chennai for the weekend. (That is the reason for long absence from blog-o-sphere!)... Had booked my ticket in advance in KSRTC bus. Departure time was 9.25 pm and I left IIM Campus at 7:10 itself... You think that is pretty early?? Well... not really... Reached the bus-stop at 8.25 pm. There was enough time for a proper meal. Entered Hotel Swati in the Bus-Stand Premises itself. Looked like a very good restaurant.. The ambience was good... But, the service was the worst I have ever seen. I had to wait for 30 minues before a waiter came and took orders... and 15 more minutes for delivery of the food (Nothing much... just veg meals was all I ordered). Gobbled the really pathethic food and reached to the bus station at 8.15.... and then got the shock of my life... All the KSRTC ppl I came across at the bus stand said that there was no bus at 9.25... When I showed them the ticket, they became as puzzled as I was. And, finally one man said it must be the special bus and the boarding point for special buses is different. Nowhere in the ticket, was this mentioned. With just 5 minutes for the departure time, there was no time to think of all that... Ran to the new boarding point only to find that the bus was not even half full - Everyone had faced the same trouble as I had... And people were all panting as they entered the bus... All of them had to run :-) ... The bus (and all buses) were delayed by 20-30 minutes...
Can't they have informed us before that the boarding point would be different??

Oh Mr. Anniyan.... where art thou?????


By Aravind on Tuesday, August 16, 2005 at 7:10 AM Post Categories:
Saw this brilliant movie today!!!! I would definitely rate it as one of the 10 best movies I have seen!!

There are lots of reviews on the net for this movie - I am not writing one more review - Reviewing this movie is difficult :) ....... just expressing my immediate feelings after watching the movie.

I watch only English/Thamizh/Hindi movies and usually avoid movies in other languages (donno why!!!), even if they have sub-titles. But, two movies which I saw recently destroyed my reluctance completely!!!
One is My sassy girl - a korean movie.
and the other is the this Italian movie, Life is beautiful.
Wow.. this is a masterpiece... The director has used his little grey cells (hee hee.. the effect of reading too much of Poirot) a lot, and makes us also to think a lot... The movie has just the right mix of comedy and sentiments! Your stomach will start aching as u laugh your way through the first half. The comedy is damn brilliant.. The second half portrays some emotional stuff. What is impressive is that this part too has loads of comedy mixed in it - but the comedy itself makes you feel a lot!

A brilliant movie... a must watch!!!

By Aravind on Wednesday, August 10, 2005 at 11:30 PM Post Categories:
Sania Mirza
When Sania Mirza won the finals of the doubles event of Wimbledon Junior Championship, all eyes were turned to her (Though she was in the news for quite sometime before this, this is what made the entire country look towards her!)
But, then there were some failures -one can not be winning all the time! - But the media started doubting her talents... And there were doubts whether she was just another hype!

Then she stormed back with a Gold at Afro Asian Games - again she came back to spotlight. With the famous victory at WTA, she sent out strong signals that she is here to stay!

And now, she will become the first Indian to enter the top 50 in the International Rankings, after she beat 9th ranked Petrova in the Acura Classic WTA tournament! Though she fell to Morigami in the next round, she will still make it to the top 50!

Congrats to Sania and wishing her all the best to bring more laurels to India!!!
By Aravind on Saturday, August 06, 2005 at 11:28 PM Post Categories:
The songs of "Ah aah" have lots and lots of hidden treasures which are revealed on repeated hearings, giving more and more pleasure with each hearing!!

Here are some examples:
Thigu Thigu
The starting of the song is as if it is played from a old record player. During this part, the song is accompanied by Tabla. The real surprise is the transition from the Tabla to the heavy percussion. And then again, Tabla takes over. This pattern repeats continuously in the song.The transitions are sooooooo smoooth, u will never realise when the Tabla took over and vice versa.. Wowwww.....

Mayilirage
I have already written about the awesome innovation with the "nadhaswaram" like sound in my earlier post (the review)... There are more treasures. Listen to the end of the charanams... note the tinkle of bells going along with the song, matching it exactly... It is at a very low volume, but adds immensely to the beauty of that part.

Thazhuvudhu Nazhuvudhu
When Shreya sings "thazhuvhudhu nazhuvudhu nazhuvudhu thazhuvudhu" before the pallavi, a very very faint synth lead follows the singer beautifully!!! Wowwww..

Varugirai
This song makes a wonderful hearing in Karaoke mode. Lots of interesting sounds, which are otherwise shadowed by the voice, can be heard... The strings backing throughout the song is awesome, especially at the end of Charanams.

I was so thrilled listening to this track on Karaoke mode...

Only one thought comes to my mind - "What a perfectionist this man is!!!!"
By Aravind on Friday, August 05, 2005 at 10:54 PM Post Categories:
It is pretty well known fact that there is water on Mars. What is new is this picture taken by ESA's (European Space Association) Mars Express Spacecraft. This is the clearest ever picture of water ice on Mars. It seems the Ice will be there all round the year as the temperature/pressure in that part of the planet does not allow it to condense and evaporate.

Source: www.universetoday.com
By Aravind on Thursday, August 04, 2005 at 10:43 PM Post Categories:
Yeah... This is the longest break I have taken after I started Blogging. Was pretty busy with Finance Exam, then Advertising and skit contests (which our team eventually won) and finally Presentations today!!
Wil be busy with my mid terms again next week...

This week's happenings:

ARR's concert in London was a huge success... Lots of ARR fans are writing about this in their blogs...
'Yeh Jo Des Mera' supposedly had the best response and the crowd was delighted when ARR switched to thamizh in the middle of the song!!! Waiting for the Bangalore Concert - I know, it is more than 2 months away, but these reviews increase the expectations!!!
By Aravind on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 at 5:03 PM Post Categories:
The Legislative Assembly. Lots of people (MLAs) clad in white shirts and dhothis enter the hall. Their appearance suggests that most of them are probably illiterate or not much educated. Along with them, 4 youngsters in t-shirts and jeans enter the hall. A glaring difference between these 4 and the rest in the hall.
This is how Mani Ratnam's Yuva (Aayitha Ezhuthu in thamizh) ends. This is Mani's dream - that more and more of educated youngsters will enter politics - which will hopefully satisfy the ultimate goal - a developed India - in the near future!

But, how soon can we expect this to happen? I was shocked to hear some statistics quoted by my professor Mr. R*ajeev G*owda in class today. Mr. G*owda is a congress party member and is contesting for the Legislative Council elections to be held in 2 months time. He is contesting under the P*rofessors Q*uota (or something like that!!), for which the electorate will consist only of graduates. And, when he told of his decision to contest in this quota, all that he got was discouragement!!!

The reason? The number of graduates from Bangalore who voted in the last Lok Sabha election, was a mere 27,000. The electorate consisted of about 5 Lakh graduates. That is just 5.4% polling from the graduates!!!

Why is this so? How can people be so irresponsible?
If the educated people are so careless and and are so hesitant to spend just a few minutes of their time cast their vote, can we expect them to enter poiltics?

It is a small consolation that there are at least a few well-educated youngsters like Dhayanidhi Maran in the cabinet. I started this post saying that educated younsters in politics is Mani's dream... Well... it is my dream too... And, it must be the dream of every Indian.

"Dream, dream and dream; and convert these into thoughts and later into actions."
-President Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam
By Aravind on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 at 11:13 PM Post Categories:

Aaararai kodi paergalil oruvan,
Adiyen thamizhan, naan ungal nanban

Thus starts the title track of Ah Aah. Was it written to signal ARR's return to Thamizh movies after a year? well...I do not know...

Whatever!! ARR has come back in style with Ah Aah. Beautiful, colourful album!! You get to hear so many different sounds and lots of experimentations throughout the album, which leaves you spell bound. There are 6 songs in the album, each one so different.

Anbe Aaruyire
This is the title track of the movie. ARR sings this song, along with child-chorus. ARRs enchanting voice makes me play this song in Winamp in repeat mode! And the lyrics - It is as if ARR is saying, "I am a thamizhan and I am back in thamizh". Look at the lyrics - Vanna thamizh paattu aayiram solven and Ungal Magizhchiyai Paattil vaippen. The lyrics fit ARR! Still wondering how this is picturised in the movie!
One negative aspect is the heavy percussion, which shadows ARR's voice in some places.
However, this is a great song!

Thazhuvudhu Nazhuvudhu
Shreya Ghoshal and SPB rock! Is it really Shreya? Flawless thamizh pronunciation, and that too, considering the fact that the lyrics are nothing less than a tongue-twister!!! The constantly changing rhythm patterns keeps you interested in the finer aspects even after repeated hearings!

The way the voice is blended with instruments (is there a technical term for this?) is brilliant! This effect is quite pronounced in Maramkothiye song too. ARR had earlier used this technique in "oh humdum suniyo rey".

Mayilirage
The song starts with Thavil. Then an instument that sounds like nathaswaram joins in! There has been a debate going on, in ARR Fans Yahoo Groups regarding what this instrument is - people came up with different ideas - Tenor Sax, Oboe, Shenai Voice in KORG etc. etc... We still do not have an answer. Whatever... That piece is so catchy and keeps playing in your ear even after you switch off the player!

The vocalists are Madhu Shree and Naresh Iyer. Madhu Shree's voice is as sweet as ever! She sounds like Sadhna Sargam in many places. And for those who don't know about Naresh Iyer - he is the one who failed to win the Super Singer (ARR was the judge), but got a chance to make a great debut under ARR!
A Beautiful melody - the next "Snegithane"!

Thigu Thigu
Slow ghazal-type beats and Sadhna Sargam's melliflous voice provide a very different start. And that too, the first 45 seconds of the song sounds, as though we are hearing it on an old radio set, with lots of disturbance. Will have to watch the movie to know why it is so...

ARR has this knack of inserting a catchy bit in some songs, to which you will be addicted. In this song, it is the "thala thala thala... anai anai anai" bit. This rhythmic bit has been inserted into the soulful melody without losing the effect of both.

Strangely enough, neither the cassette/CD covers nor the websites mention the name of the male singer in this song!

Maramkothiye
Maramkothiye is a fast, disco number with lots of techno beats and sounds. The beginning rap "wanna wanna be a woodpecker" is good. Think it is by Blaaze. Shalini and Vasundhara Das are best suited for such songs and they do deliver. Shankar Mahadevan too does a good job.

The most interesting aspect of this song is that this song has the same basic tune as that of "Mayilirage". I figured this out only after 4-5 hearings. So well disguised. It is really amazing that the same tune fits a pleasing melody and a fast dance number!

Varugirai
A pathos song from ARR after a long time. And it breaks all the conventions and rules of pathos songs. Hariharan and Chitra are the singers. What more can one expect from the legends. Hariharan shines in the high pitched parts in the second stanza.


True to the line "Ungal Magizhchiyai Paattil vaippen" in the title song, ARR has made everyone happy with this album.

Overall, ah aah-some musical treat.


(ah... my first attempt writing a review for a music album... finally!!)

By Aravind on Sunday, July 24, 2005 at 11:03 PM Post Categories: , ,