On a lighter nerve...

Few stupid questions that are commonly asked!
Few are borrowed, few are original! Recline and Read!
1. At a funeral, when a teary eyed person asks:-
Q: “Why, why, him of all the people?”
A: “Why, you reckon it should have been you?”
2. When a friend announces she is getting married:-
Q: “Is the guy good?”
A: “Nope, he is a wife-beating paan-chewing Goorkha. It’s just the feeling of security you know.”
3. In a restaurant:-
Q: “Is the Panneer Butter Masala good here?”
A: “No, we adulterate it with cement and we occasionally hold group spitting competitions in it.”
4. When an aunt meets you after a long time:-
Q: “Oh Beta! How big you have grown!?”
A: “Well, you haven’t actually shrunk yourself!”
5. When a friend meets you for the first time after a hair-cut:-
Q: “Hey, you’ve had a haircut?”
A: “Nope, it’s autumn and I am shedding…”
6. When a fat lady with heavy make-up and pointed heals stamps you inside a crowded bus:-
Q: “Oh sorry, did it hurt?”
A: “Nope, I am currently on local anesthesia, you can do it again.”
7. When you meet a friend in a theatre:-
Q: “Hey, what are you doing here?!”
A: “Nothing much, just wanted to check if there was water in the theatre loos…”
8. When you go out, come back home, and call your mom from the land line to tell her you are back:-
Q: “Have you reached home?”
A: “Nope, half my body is still on the way, stuck in traffic…”
9. When you get a call in the middle of the night:-
Q: “Sorry, were you sleeping?”
A: “Nope, I was just researching the consequences when the Amazonian men slept with Central African pygmy women…”

Its all about being true blue

A sudden ear-block and a rude jerk woke me up from my snooze. Almost immediately I could hear at least a dozen mobiles being switched on around me. That signaled that the runway had arrived. I fished my phone from my pant pocket and punched it on the head. The familiar Nokia tune greeted me, and a message from Airtel, warmly welcomed me to Delhi, as though assuring themselves, a sadistic pleasure out of my roaming gullibility.
My sim-card had accumulated seven text messages over the flight. Three were missed call alerts from friends and family. The four others read as follows:-
“Three cheers to ARR!”
“Wow…! Rahman has won the Oscar! I am so excited!”
“Ela pugazhum iraivan oruvanukke, Rahman is THE BEST!”
“Amidst all those in our nation who claim they are fit for Oscar, only ARR has made the performance to win it and make India proud. Jai Ho!”

Call it instinctive; I raised my hands in tumult, and announced to a colleague sitting next to me that Rahman had made it! Call it instinctive again; the next moment I yanked my iPod from a tough corner of the hand baggage and tuned to the “Rakkamma Kaiya Thattu” song from Thalapathy. It was not the song, it was not the movie, it was not the actor, and it was not the singer. All I knew I wanted to do at that moment was listen to an Ilaiyaraaja composition. I followed it up with “Janani Janani”, then the Mouna Ragam tracks, then Bharathi, Alaigal Oyvathillai, Payanangal Mudivathillai and all the way up to Gurgaon, my thoughts lounged on one single man – he was clad in white, a mien of salt and pepper, with a pair of mystic eyes deeply studded in what I used to think, was the face, of the man who invented music.

En-route, I pulled up the taxi driver in a sudden conversation; sung him a phrase from “Ilaya Nila” and announced to him that it was composed by a genius called Ilaiyaraaja, who sat back in the South. I swear the driver thought I was an incurable jerk. Or at least, he eyed me like I was one. I looked back at him stoutly.

“Udhar…DLF Square, Jacaranda Marg, Phase II…Off the service lane.”

He veered off the service lane dangerously and that was when I figured out that these Bihari drivers driving cabs registered in Delhi did not fancy Ilaiyaraaja, or did not know him at all, and for all they knew, he could be a taxi driver back in Madras, or just another Pani Poori vendor in Chandi Chowk.

I knew I was behaving strangely. I was not averse to AR Rahman. My conscience hailed him as the musician of the minute, and the single uniting factor that our Nation long wanted. But why, why was I trying to be so indifferent to him and his achievement? I still don’t know if it was the bad Nescafe Coffee I had just then, or if it was the true spirit of realization dawning upon me, I understood it was not indifference towards Rahman, but it was a demonstration of my loyalty to Ilaiyaraaja.
I told myself, Rahman is definitely a genius, but Ilaiyaraaja is no less a genius. In this moment, when the world comes together to celebrate Rahman, I told myself, I want to remember Raaja.

Sensing your beauty through my blindness

Oh beautiful, beautiful lass!
Now is the dawn of a thousand poets' dreams.
Oh what Beauty! Beautiful lass!

I feel your hair's silk; am I caressing the cloud's soft?
I trace your ear, pause at your ear stud; And I realise,
Even question marks can entice.
This angel's face, I think, is a golden lotus;
Her enchanting eyes, the loveliest of flowers.
My imaginations hue my mind's canvas;
God, I can see the artist in Thou.
Oh what Beauty! Beautiful, beautiful lass!

An oyster's shell, your lustrous lips;
Please whisper to me the divinity in lust.
Decks of teeth; pearls of white;
Nibble me now, my craving heart.

Let me hold your shoulders; those slender bamboos,
And point to Heaven, with your honey-dipped fingers.
For Symmetry's best, my hands shall wait. My hands shall rest.
Oh what Beauty! Beautiful, beautiful lass!

Your hips are a fortune; or the climbers in the garden.
Roll the clock, and serve the fruit, the freshly peeled ripest fruit.
Your graceful feet; Oh! Two sculpted leaves.
Beauty!
You are the guide to God, the God of my dark.
Oh beautiful, beautiful lass!
My beautiful, beautiful lass!

Naan Kadavul : Review

A brave brave film

Main Cast & Crew:
Director: Bala
Music: Isaignani Ilaiyaraaja
Lead Roles: Arya (Rudran), Pooja (Hamsavalli)

"வாழ தகாதவர்களுக்கு நான் குடுகர தண்டனை மரணம்

வாழ இயலாதவர்களுக்கு நான் குடுகர மரணம் வரம்"

"The punishment that I give to those who are not fit for life, is death.

The death that I give to those who dont have the fitness for life, is blessing/boon."

Overview: Naan Kadavul is more of a theme-based film, and is not wired by a strictly story-based narration. The film meanders through three subjects - Euthanasia (Mercy killing), Organised Beggary, and the Aghoris of Kasi; the compulsive and naked treatment of all the three subjects leave our hearts wanting to beat faster and forget what it just witnessed, but at same time, stay, beat slower, and slower, and slowly stop. Before watching the film, tell yourself, that you are not going to watch the poor and the pained from behind a glass pane, but you are going to be among them, you are going to share their pain; and what they are put through could be disgusting, but true.

Watch out for:

1. Humour: Trust Bala to introduce humour when you think your heart just sufferred multiple explosions. And this is no wit-crack and slap stick humour that we are used to, mind you. Humour par brilliance.
2. Arya & Pooja: This is not exactly the time in Indian filmdom when actors are content enough with romancing on screen, and counting fan mails off it. With this film, both Arya and Pooja have emerged as torch-bearers of this new crop of actors. Arya's supernatural performance, soars with the raw grandeur of his appearance. Pooja captivates in the climax.
3. Re-recording: The Isaignani and no one but the Isaignani, could have scored music for this film. It has always been a challenge to directors to match the out of the world re-recordings of Ilaiyaraaja, and Bala is one of the very few of them who can do justice to the music.
4. Om Sivoham song - Arya's introduction
5. Fight Sequences

Close your eyes when:

1. Just when you think the cruetly that was just exhibited was the last, you land kicking and writhing in another one.
2. Initial scenes involving Rudran's mother and father. They fail to act realistically and irritate at times. An interesting point to note here is that it was Bala's own brother who played the role of Rudran's father!
3. A "Nayantara" dance-sequence in the police station. Can be electrifying humour to some, but can also be obscenity to the rest.

Pointers:

1. Screen play has taken the back-seat; drags at times.
2. Photography is enchanting.
3. Dialogues are very fitting and are worth your instinctive applause.

Special Performance Mentions:

1. Villian
2. Yeli (Rat), the beggar boy

Verdict: Must see for most. Heart patients, pregnant women, excessively sensitive/sentimental people stay back at home and trust this review is just about right.

My Bud's blog

Only as recently as today, I let out a "Blimey!-Here's-a-brilliant-bard!" exclamation on reading "what-he-calls-as-gibberish" of one of my best buds, Sid! For the guy who inspired me out of a low ebb, here is my share of advertising:
http://www.siddharthsv.blogspot.com/
Please find time to read his blog and post your comments.
P.S.>>> My Favourite Post: http://siddharthsv.blogspot.com/2009/02/discovering-myself-en-route-to-dunedin.html

'Slumdog Millionaire' is mediocre, trashy: Priyadarshan

Mumbai: Indian movie director Priyadarshan has joined the bandwagon in slamming Danny Boyle's underdog saga "Slumdog Millionaire" and has called the film a "cheap trashy mediocre version" of erstwhile Bollywood hits." 'Slumdog Millionaire' is nothing but a cheap trashy mediocre version of those commercial films about estranged brothers and childhood sweethearts that Salim-Javed used to write so brilliantly in the 1970s. And please quote me clearly on this. If the Golden Globe and Oscars committees have chosen to honour this trashy film it just shows their ignorance of world cinema," Priyadarshan told IANS.Priyadarshan, whose much-acclaimed film on the silk weavers of Kanjeevaram was shown alongside Boyle's film at the Toronto Film Festival last year, feels Indians are exercising prideful property rights over a film that denigrates Mumbai.

"I saw the film with a mixed audience at the Toronto Film Festival. The Westerners loved it. All the Indian hated it. The West loves to see us as a wasteland, filled with horror stories of exploitation and degradation. But is that all there's to our beautiful city of Mumbai?"He is surprised that Mumbai is celebrating a film that shows only the city's underbelly."Why are we taking this treatment? Just because a white man has made 'Slumdog Millionaire', we're so happy with it? I've read Vikas Swarup's novel 'Q&A'. It should have been made by Mani Ratnam. Then you'd have seen what he would have done with Mumbai."The angry director wonders why there isn't a single shot in 'Slumdog...' that shows the more aesthetic side of Mumbai?"Why has Danny Boyle not taken one shot of Marine Drive? Do his slumdwellers exist only within their slums? And look at the absurdities...A boy becomes a national hero on a game show. One cop takes him under arrest and interrogates him relentlessly. Where is everyone else? Is this kind of confinement possible in this day and age when television cameras enter your bedroom? If one of our filmmakers had made the same film we would have blasted him out of business.""Let them give as many Oscars as they like. We don't need to be impressed," ends Priydarshan angrily.