Simbu speaks

"யுவன் மியூசிக்-ல 'அம்மாடி ஆத்தாடி உன்ன எனக்கு தர்றி யாடி'ன்னு டைரக்டர் பேரரசு ஒரு பாட்டு எழுதியிருக்கிறார். அந்த்ப் பாட்டை அப்பாவே பாடுறார். குத்துன்னா குத்து. கொலைக்குத்து"

The above is from an interview that Simbu has given to Anandha Vikatan. Read the full interview here:

The last line of the para is what made me write this post and one which sent me into uncontrollable bouts of laughter, admiring the way he has said it. 'kuthu-nna kuthu kolai kuthu' is just too good an assembly of words. There is something about Simbu that has made me like him (of course, only as long as he stays away from uttering self-praising & boasting dialogues). He is clearly talented in almost all fields of film-making and I have been telling many of my friends that not far away is the day when he will even compose music for a film, like his father. The other fact that I like about this guy is that he comes across who is really very carefree and cool. The following incident would throw more light on what I am trying to say:

I was watching this Tollywood Vs Kollywood cricket match on TV when I was in India. Simbu was waiting to get in to bat and the camera folks were frequently focusing on Simbu bcos he was making all kinds of funny actions implying that he wanted to go in for batting. But he didn’t get to bat until the final over and he didn’t get to face a ball until the last ball of the innings. And guess what happened? He gets clean bowled. Even if it was me, I would have been embarrassed, after all the hoopla that was created before getting in to bat. But what Simbu did made me instantly like him. He started waving his bat to the spectators as though he had just scored a hundred, all this with a big smile on his face and the fans loved it too. And as he was making his way out, he promised to them that he will make it up for the flop show by his bowling. I was left smiling to myself and admiring him as I switched off the TV.

Anyway, I can't wait to hear the songs of Vallavan, especially the kolai kuthu song :) Looks like Simbu and Yuvan have been good friends from their childhood days and they share a very unique rapport, unlike other MD - Director combos. That is one reason why Yuvan churned out some great numbers in Manmathan. I am sure its only going to get better in Vallavan.

India trip movies reviews - Part I

Paramasivam - The first thing that stuck my mind after watching this movie was the mistake Thalaivar had committed by selecting this worthless director P.Vasu to make Chandramukhi. He should probably be the most out-dated director in the industry right now. Many of the so-called fight scenes were just big jokes. Easily the worst of the 9 films that I watched during my trip. Ajith needs to learn that there is something called middle path. He either bloats like a balloon or reduces weight to look like a drumstick. I fell asleep for the major part of the movie and even in the very few scenes I was awake, I thoroughly disliked the movie. One such scene which I was unfortunate to watch was the bike chase scene which was picturized in the most amateurish of ways. I just could not control my laughter on seeing that chase scene. But the bad news about the movie is that it has been termed a hit, mainly bcos Aadhi and Saravana did abjectly bad at the BO. I am sure Thirupathi is going to be even more worse than this. All we can do is place our hopes on Bala to revive Ajith's rapidly falling career.

Chithiram Pesudhadi - Went to watch the movie in hopes that this will turn out to be a silent hit, like say Kaadhal and Sethu. Reason I had to bring these 2 movies here is bcos there was absolutely no publicity for this movie. The posters of the movie had some class to them and the name itself was poetic, which all made me go & watch the movie. Unlike how Balaji here and many other reviewers have felt (that this is very good movie), I felt that this was just an above average movie. Personally, I can sum up my thoughts about the movie by saying this The movie would have been great if not for the lead pair. The heroine was actually good but whoever dubbed for her spoilt the whole show. Many of the dialogues by the heroine were delivered in such a high screeching pitch that I was not even able to comprehend what she was saying. Then comes the biggest negative point of the movie - the hero. Being non-expressive is not a sin, but then he needs to show atleast the bare minimum emotions. All through the movie, his actions reminded me of Vikram's body language in Pithamagan, only that Chithan was a well-defined character with a weird streak while this guy was a normal person. Many a time it has happened before that we find the movie as such pretty good but the performances of the lead pair douse any positive thoughts that we had about the movie.

That brings me to the movie by name Vaanam vasappadum, the P.C.Sriram directed movie based on some novel. It was a heroine centric movie but PC had committed the cardinal sin of selecting a complete misfit person for the role of heroine. She was so bad that I could not enjoy one bit of an otherwise OK movie.

I had the same problem with this movie. The one gaanaa song (Vaala meenukkum) featuring Malavika is being telecast like crazy in SUN Music (a good 10 times a day) is very enjoyable and with some interesting lyrics, dealing with different kinds of fishes. But Malavika was such a misfit for an item number, what with her famed mannerism of watching the camera all the time. Overall, this was the 4th best out of the movies that I watched during the trip, with RDB, Dishyum and Sandaikozhi occupying the first 3 slots.

Thambhi - Madhavan badly needs a movie under his mentor Mani Rathnam or needs to take a 'Acting for dummies' crash course. He looks completely out of sorts in this action oriented role. The way he slightly slants his head and gives that "deer in front of headlights" look with his eyes whenever he is angry, is just so ridiculous. But having said all that, I will have to say that he was not as bad as Aravind Swamy in Thaalattu :) As Balaji points out here, though the movie had some very noble intentions - like campaigning against viloence which we have seen in more famous movies like Kuruthipunal & Devar Magan & egging for a career in public service like that was suggested in RDB - the way they were implemented on-screen were downright childish and amatuerish. To me, the only highlight/ consolation of the movie was the presence of Poooja. Not that she had a meaty role, but having become a fan of her, just watching her gave me so much satisfaction. The biggest surprise - Vikatan has given a completely undeserving 43 marks for a trash of movie it was. The tagline for the movie says Thambhi - pEranbum perunkOvamum kondavan. I would beg to differ from that and instead I came up with this: Thambhi – Porumaiyai sodhippavan

A miracle tonight, anybody?

If you are a Sachin fan, these are some real difficult times, where the Master has been booed by his own home crowd and talks of him being dropped from the team. Times we thought we would never come to face, times which we can not still believe it is here, times we thought only ordinary mortals will have to experience & not immortals like Sachin.

As a die-hard Sachin fan, it has been a pain to see his struggles with the bat of late in tests. Something I still can not understand why it is happening bcos he looks to be in pretty good nick in the ODIs, which in my opinion, is more difficult to succeed amidst a form slump. That 95 against Pakistan in the 3rd ODI was top notch.

The following 2 articles deal with the booing that Sachin got - while the first looks for reasons behind the act by some stupid idiots (I can not make myself say them as fans), the latter tries to find out reasons behind the act. The first article sees Nirmal Shekar at his usual best - carefully worded and at the same time, hinting that while it is not a crime to think about dropping Sachin, but it is definitely one booing the little master. Do read them...

Trashing Tendulkar isn't cricket

Joining the ranks of the mortals

Tonight, there is a chance for him to regain some of the lost glory. But to be very frank, I am not sure if he will be able to do it, bcos on top of playing under extreme & unprecedented pressure (to perform) and a 5th day pitch chasing a never before chased total on Indian soil, he has his shoulder injury to take care of too. So, if Sachin does pull off an unbelievable innings tonight, it would be nothing short of a miracle.

As always signing off with a heavy & hopeful heart. After all, as as they say, Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

The India that was and that is

Throughout my India trip, I was left wondering at so many places Is this the same country that we lived, not more than 4 years ago?”. So, the immediate thought that came to mind was that I should blog about them and here it is. With majority of the readers of this blog being here in the US (who visit our country once in 2 years), I thought you will be interested in knowing about the same. The following were some of the most drastic changes that I noticed during my India trip...

- Traffic, obviously. Not only there is an unbelievable increase in the number of cars on the roads, there is also a big difference in the brand of cars that can be seen on Indian roads. Gone are those days when Maruti 800s and Omnis ruled the roads. We have actually even moved away from Santros & Zens to Corollas & Citys & the amazingly high number of SUVs. I was really taken by surprise to see such a large number of Corollas and Citys, not just on Chennai & Bangalore roads, but in the roads of every single city/ town that I visited during the trip.

- Dwelling on traffic again. Such a huge increase in the number of cars automatically means traffic jams and congestion. Driving on the Mount road is nothing short of a nightmare. Long queues are the order, no matter what time of the day you are riding your bike. If it’s a 4 wheeler, it gets all the more scarier. There were times when the traffic which starts from the Nandanam signal extends all the way to the Saidapet signal.

- Staying on traffic still, on national highways, we now have an increased presence of highway patrol vehicles. And the fear of fines (read bribes) does instill a sense of caution among our drivers who slow down when they see such vehicles from a distance. This is a very welcome addition to our highways.

- Trust me, this is the last one on traffic :) Parking has been given increased attention with more assigned parking spaces both on the roads and in big name malls like Spencer's. The sight of increased number of towing trucks bears testimony to the same.

- Talking of Spencer's, it looks like this one huge town by itself and can easily be called the Tidel Park of malls. But the one thing I noticed that many are just coming in there to hang out bcos of the air conditioning in there. Many of the stores are literally empty but the crowd is just too much, implying that people do come in just to hang out.

- Many of the cine actresses can now be seen in TV commercials. This is something, which was considered not a good sign of an actress's career graph during those days, is now apparently a good indication as to how well she is doing.

- And oh, the other thing - I saw a lot of couples (by couples, I mean guys & girls hanging out together) everywhere I went, be it in theaters, hotels and malls. This was probably the biggest shock for me, to see more guys and girls going out together. Gone are those days when a boy & a girl walk on the road, all the eyes would be on them. But now, it looks like commonplace stuff.

- On the highways, the mushrooming of rest areas & plazas similar to the ones we have here was a pleasant surprise. Many of them are owned by big name companies like Reliance & BP and boast of all the essential facilities.

- Sun music is probably the most popular channel in our TVs. Anywhere you go to a common place where a TV is switched on (say in the lobby of a hotel or in the waiting room of a hospital), Sun Music is invariably the channel that is being played.

- Yuvan's albums are the hottest selling albums in the audio market. Looks like the Rahman craze has rightly and surely died down, with Yuvan ruling the charts. The guy at the biggest audio store in Madurai (they only sell original CDs and cassettes, which is a very good thing) says without missing a beat that Pudhupettai & Pattiyal (this after Godfather and before VV were released) are currently the best selling albums and after Chandramukhi & Ghajni (mainly bcos the films were super-duper hits), it was Yuvan's albums all the way, in the best selling albums of last year.

- Now, we have cut-outs being placed even for the audio release for a movie. The local Ajith fans had placed a cut out of Ajith in Godfather with the name of the shop. I will have to add that I did not see the same for any other movie. So, I am not sure if this was bcos it was an Ajith movie bcos from what I have heard & read, Ajith fans are the most loyal of fans, next only to Thalaivar fans. I am sure there would have been cut-outs like these for Chandramukhi, as well.

- ATMs seemed to have spruced up in every nook and corner. I still remember those days when they were only a handful of ATMs in Madras city and we had to travel all the way from Velachery to Adyar to withdraw some cash. Do you know what the best thing about these ATMs is? They have finally taught our people the virtue of patience. Nowhere else (where standing in a line is required, say in the theater counter or in the railway station) would you see our folks act more disciplined than at the ATMs.

- Petrol now costs 50 Rs and we now have a premium version of petrol called Speed which is a couple of rupees more than the regular one. Again, something we see here.

But these are some things that have not changed a bit in all these years.

- Sun TV and Jaya TV going at each other. If only, they have actually become worse, throwing allegations at each other & singing praises of themselves a bit more than what I used to see during those days when I was in India

- I was going to write a similar post like what Preethi came up here about the attitude of our people back in India, about how they don't offer words of courtesy et al, like when they step on your toes and such similar situations. That has not changed a bit but when I was conversing with my American friend here, he gave a beautiful insight that could possibly explain the behavior of our people. He said that the main problem with Asians was that they do not enjoy the kind of private space that Americans over here enjoy. Dwelling further upon that, he said that the private space of a person from Asia extends only as far as his nose whereas the same for an American might be around couple of feet. And he also attributed the reason for this to the high population in Asian countries like India and China. So, that kind of explains it, right?!

- Our folks' craze for cricket has not changed a bit (again I should say that the mania has only increased). The following incident kind of proved it all. Picture this: I was watching the 3rd ODI between India and Pakistan at my friend's home in Namakkal and since it was around 7pm & I had to get back to Madurai, I had to leave midway. India had another 100 or so runs to chase with Dhoni just joining Yuvraj after Sachin's dismissal for 95. I board the bus to Madurai and immediately I realized that the one thing that all the folks around me wanted to know was the latest score. They ask me and I tell them the latest score that I know. Then after a while, the bus stops at a small village on the way and the guy sitting near me asks a guy on the road if he knows the score & unfortunately, the guy on the road did not know it. I was smiling at him, amazed at the undiminished fan following cricket has enjoyed in our country. Then, he looks at me and asks me if I can call someone on my cell phone and get to know the score. So, I call my friend and my friend after telling the score (India had to score 3 runs off 18 balls or something like that), was chatting with me about how Dhoni was providing the fireworks. But the guy got restless & kept asking me what the score, even while I was still talking to my friend on the phone. I told him the score and then continued. Then, the bus stopped immediately in the next stop, another really small & remote village. A group of guys who were walking across the bus then broke the good news to everyone in the bus (from the road) and there was such a rejoicing inside the bus. I was taken by complete surprise. I am still sure if this reaction was bcos the victory was against Pakistan or bcos it was just an Indian victory.

Now, over to you guys, for your valuable comments...

The Boss in the Power List

India today has come out with its annual list of 50 powerful people in India for the year 2006 and it has Thalaivar at No. 29 in the list. As a Thalaivar fan, felt it to be my duty and hence posting it here. And this is what they have to say about him:

Marquee Mogul

Because the Tamil superstar burned up the screens last year for 325 days, making Rs 60 crore with Chandramukhi. Because with a Rs 15-crore cheque for his forthcoming Sivaji, he has emerged as the country's highest paid actor. Because he opened an entire new world market for Tamil films with his 1995 hit, Muthu. Because he has resisted the temptation to monetise his celebrity status and promote any brand.

Little-known fact: After completing a film he goes on a 40-day pilgrimage to the Himalayas.
Big cool buddies: Telugu actor Mohan Babu and Kannada star Ambarish.
Prized possession: A white Fiat he bought from his first earnings in the 1970s.
Stress management tool: A dose of meditation and Black Dog whisky.
Relative values: Tamil star Dhanush is his son-in-law.

Except for the Dhanush part, it looked good (I mean, what value does Dhanush being son-in-law add to Thalaivar?). Other personalities from the sports & film industries were : Amitabh at number 4, SRK at the 22nd spot and Sachin at number 35.

Source: India Today (requires user ID though)

Vettaiyaadu Velaiyaadu audio - They have done it again!!

Before writing reviews of the movie I watched during the trip, I wondered "How can I not write about one of the most eagerly looked forward to albums of this year", after it finally got released couple of days back. And even after a first few hearings, one can sense that the combo has stuck gold again. Both the previous HJ-GM combo albums were chartbusters and when you throw Kamal in, you expect to hear some great music, which is what exactly the VV album delivers. All 5 songs are equally good and it also contains the right mix of all types of music, right from a slow beautiful melody in Uyirile to a rap number in Karka karka.

Vennilave.. velli velli nilaave is easily the pick of the album. The way the song starts after the Vennilave velli velli nilaave lines, is just beautiful. It is bound to make you an addict the very first time you listen to it. The sax piece in the first interlude is just amazing. The fact that the "endrendrum punnagai" rhythm is there right throughout the song should not take away any credit from Harris.

Bombay Jeyashree works wonders again in the number Paartha mudhal and she has Unni Menon for company. Being a big fan of Bombay Jeyashree's voice, no need to say how much I love this song. The next Suttrum vizhi chudare. Look out for the sweet mouth organ piece at the start & in the interludes. Just too good.

The Neruppae number is the Thoodhu varumaa of this album but is actually better than that. Foot tapping music and instantly likeable with interesting Arabic chants. The beats used in this one reminds of the May maadham song from Jay Jay, though. But I am not sure how Gautham would have fit in this Kamal starrer

The rap number, Karka Karka which we got to hear in the trailer, is actually my second favorite of the album. Very catchy and I am sure it would be the next craze for the youth folks. Looks like the rap portion of the song was recorded here in NY and it shows in the way they pronounce the name Raghavan, Kamal’s character’s name in the movie. I particularly liked the female voice used in the song.

Uyirile is kind of too slow, to start with and though the pace does not pick up in the charanams, the tune in the charanams makes you want to listen to them more. Though there is no heavy orchestration in this song, the interludes are great in this number.

We have to appreciate what Harris Jeyaraj has been doing. He does not do more than 4 movies a year and he makes sure that all the songs in an album are worth listening & thus makes it worth the buy. Though Yuvan had so many good albums last year, there were some of them (like Oru kallooriyin kadhai & Daas) where not all the songs were good but in HJ's case, even the mediocre numbers (say, X-Machi in Ghajni) in all his albums have been listenable. Even in an album like Thotti Jeya, I thought all the numbers were good. All his 4 albums last year - Anniyan, Ullam Kaettkume, Ghajini & Thotti Jeya - were big hits. So, kudos to Harris Jeyaraj for delivering it again.

In my opinion, definitely ‘three in a row’ for the Harris - Gautham combo. Harris has thrown a very good challenge in ARR's way. We will have to wait to see how he responds to that and comes up with Thalaivar's Shivaji.

Its time for some introspection...

Now that I am back form my eventful & thoroughly memorable India trip, it is time for some retrospection and see how things went. As you see 2 posts below, I had set myself some "targets" to be achieved during my India trip. Trying to figure out how successful I was in quest of these targets.

5 - number of cities I want to visit

As expected this was one of the easy targets to achieve, as I overshot the target by a good margin. Bangalore, Chennai, Sivakasi, Tuticorin, Coimbatore, Sivakasi, Ooty, Namakkal, Paramakkudi were some of the cities that I visited during the trip.

10 - number of DVDs that I want to buy. I was able to achieve this target too.

Thanks to suggestions form folks like Suresh, I checked out MusicWorld & Landmark in Chennai and bought most of the DVDs that I was looking for. I bought a total of 11 DVDs - 5 in Tamil (Kannathil Muthamittaal, Johnny, Mugavari, Sethu & Panchathanthiram) and 6 in Hindi (Black, Dil Chahta Hai, Swades, Company, DDLJ and Iqbal). The DVDs were not too cheap and were costing anything between 300-600 Rs, depending on the movie. But none of the shops I visited had a very comprehensive collection of Tamil DVDs.

15 - number of Tamil/ Hindi movies I want to watch on big screen.

Like Sesh had suspected in his comments to the post, I knew this was highly unlikely but I still gave it a shot. And pursuing this target brought about the wrath of my mom who was really mad that I was spending so much time watching movies and that too just bcos I had made a vow to do so. But none of that deterred me from going to the movies. The way I managed to watch all these movies was to go to the second shows wherein I was still able to do all the things as planned during the day and still manage to watch all these movies. Though I could not achieve the target of 15 movies, I did manage to watch 9 movies on the big screen - Dishyum, RDB, Thambhi, Paramasivam, Kalaaba kaadhalan, Kalvanin Kaadhali, Sandaikozhi, Chithiram pesuthadi, Idhaya thirudan). Watching so many movies means I get a very good reason to write some new posts - reviews. So I will be writing some short reviews of all the movies, may be in a 3 part blog post.

25 - different restaurants that I want to eat during the trip.

This was again was so easy to achieve, like I had predicted. During my trips to the cities mentioned above, I was having food on all 3 occasions of the day at some hotel or the other and I was out of Madurai a good 12 days during my trip. So, the number of restaurants I tried out during my trip would have been close to 40, thus helping me achieve that target too. And I found out that Ponnusaamy is still my favorite restaurant in Chennai.

30 - friends to visit during this trip.

Another easy target to achieve since like I had said in my post, this trip was all about attending weddings & arranging a get-together. So, I got to meet all of my friends that I had planned (and some of them completely unplanned & coincidental) and the number easily tops the 30 I had set for myself.

1000 - pictures that I intend to take in my digital camera.

Friends who saw me during the trip commented that I looked like Kamal from the movie Tic Tic Tic, with the camera always in my hand. That should give you an idea about if I was able to meet the target or not. Everywhere I went my camera went along with me and so meeting the target of 1000 pictures during the trip turned out to be a cakewalk. The final tally of pictures I shot was well over 1200

2000 - kilometers that I want to drive our car.

This was one target which I realized the moment I landed on Indian roads that this was going to be next to impossible. It should come as no surprise since traffic and the driving sense on our roads back there is probably the first thing that every desi complains about life over there. The experiences while driving on our roads were so much that I will have to post a separate entry about my driving experiences back in India. Anyway, I did drive our car on couple of my trips to Tuticorin and Paramakkudi. So, I probably drove close to 500-600 kilometers. But it is easily possible that I would have rode my two-wheeler to the tune of the same 500-600 kms.

I am back

I am no Arnold Schwarzenegger, but still wanted to say "I am back" :) Will start posting in a day or two.