Best Songs of the Year 2006

Its that time of the year when everyone around comes up with their best of the year list in various fields. Like I did last year, this is my best songs of the year 2006 post. As usual, I had couple of self-imposed restrictions when I arrived at this list:

1) All these songs should fit in a 80 min CD
2) No film can have more than 1 song in this list

The other problem that I faced was that some of the good albums that were released last year had their films released only this year. For example, Pudhupettai, Sandaikozhi, etc. These albums were released in 2005 but the respective movies were released only this year. Finally, I decided that I am going to arrive at this list based only on albums that were released this year.

So, here goes my Best of 2006 compilation CD

1) Oru maattram oru maattram from Naalai (4:13) - Karthik raja at his vintage best
2) Loosu penne from Vallavan (6:47)- Yuvan Simbhu combo rocks again
3) Manjal Veyil maalaiyile from Vettaiyaadu Velaiyaadu (5:47)- Harris Jeyaraj Gautham Menon combo completes a hat-trick
4) Munbe vaa from Jillendru Oru Kaadhal (5:52)- Easily ARR's best melody in a long time
5) Nenjaankoottil from Dishyum (4:33)- Instantly catchy melody from Vijay Antony
6) Unnai paartha from By2 (Iruvar Mattum) (3:00)- My vote for the best song of the year
7) Uruguthe maruguthe from Veyil (5:49)- GV Prakash impresses in his debut album, soul-stirring song
8) Aanum Pennum aadhiyile from Uyir (5:48)- Joshua Sridhar carries forward his awesome work from Kaadhal
9) Idhu kaadhal Kaadhal from Vattaaram (5:05)- the ever dependable Charan - Bharadwaj combo delivers a melody again
10) Attrai thingal vaanidam from Sivappathigaaram (4:26)- Seriously, can anyone beat this guy when it comes to composing melodies
11) Sudum nilavu from Thambi (4:11) - Another clinching proof of the above statement
12) Aiyyaiyyo from Paruthiveeran (4:34)- Soulful melody from Yuvan
13) Edhedho ennangal vandhu from Pattiyal (4:11)- like this in spite of botched up singing by Yuvan
14) Un Paarvaiyil from SSUE (5:56)- simple but foot-tapping melody from DSP
15) Unnai kandene Mudhal murai from Paarijaatham (4:53)- catchy song form the debutant MD Dharan
16) Unnaale Unnaale from Unnaale Unnaale (4:43) – Nobody beats Harris Jeyaraj when it comes to composing instantly catchy numbers.

The total running time of all these songs came to an awesome 79:59, just 1 second less than my self-imposed limit. Other Best of 2006 music awards IMO:

Best Music director: Vijay Antony (By2 and Dishyum)
Best album: By2
Best song: Unnai paartha from By2

As always, would love to hear your list and your comments on any good song I might have missed out.

Weekend movies - SSUE, Don and Dor

This weekend was a weekend for remade/ reworked movies. Though SSUE was not a movie that I wanted to watch badly, I was waiting to watch Don and Dor, since they both were movies directed by directors whom I think are among the best in the Hindi film industry. I missed watching them when they were released here in theaters and hence had to wait for their DVDs.

Something Something Unakkum Enakkum - Well, you have to give it to the Raja & Ravi brothers for selecting the right films to remake. How else would one explain the 100% hit rate the brothers possess, as far as remakes go. Though this movie has all the beaten-to-death clichés that you will find in the history of Tamil cinema, there are some scenes in the movie that does make the movie a decent watch. But the problem again when it comes to appreciating those scenes is that you get reminded of the fact that none of them is their own idea. Jeyam Ravi was just about OK but even without watching the original, it was easy for me to come to the conclusion that Sidharth would have been way better than Ravi in the lead actor role. There is some stiffness about Ravi (apart from his obvious drawback of a pathetic voice) that will never make him a great hit, say someone as Surya. I do not have any great liking for Trisha. Somehow I think she is overrated and thus don’t understand why our Tamil directors keep bringing her for movies here. We would be better off with her doing movies in Telugu. Santhanam's comedy was definitely a highlight but he could have done away with some double meaning dialogues. I am frustrated that why don’t these guys understand that you don’t need to be crass to make people laugh. Other than that, the songs tuned in by DSP were very much hummable, with the Un paarvaiyil song being my personal favorite. Overall, a movie worth watching once, for the novel idea of having the guy to come good in agriculture to win his girl.

Don - Why Why Why? This was the question I kept asking (to Farhan Akhtar) throughout the movie. It is not like I am against this trend of remaking old classics. I am actually for it. My only problem is that we do not need a Farhan Akhtar to do it. He is just too good a talent to be wasting his time doing remakes like this. I haven’t seen this original too. So, I do not have any comments on if Shah Rukh Khan was able to match Amitabh's performance in the original Don. But I do believe that if there is someone among the contemporary heroes in Bollywood who can pull off this role, it has to be SRK. Technically, the film is top notch. But then that is only to be expected from the man who gave us DCH and Lakshya. Lakshya had a never-before-seen-in-an-Indian-film kind of scene. It is the scene that comes towards the climax where Hrithik and his group are shown climbing the steep mountain. It was just fantastic and I was simply blown away, bcos I was seeing scenes that I had before then seen only in Hollywood movies like Cliffhanger. And a similar scene is here in the Don too where there is a fight mid-air. Though I am sure graphics was used in that scene, it was very believable and Farhan Akhtar once again proves why he is easily the best in the industry when it comes to incorporating technical brilliance in his movies. I really think that even Mani Rathnam comes only a close second to him. The final twist in the movie which comes right when it ends and something which makes it different from the original Don is not cool at all. The other problem with this movie was that the screenplay was really shaky. There were just too many parallel threads running at the same time which leaves one confused. Apart from the overall slick look of the movie, the other highlight was Shankar Ehsaan Loy’s amazing background score and songs. They were just perfect for a movie like this. All said and done, I guess, as a Farhan Akhtar fan, I will forget this remake attempt of his as a bad dream and will look forward to his next venture.

Dor - Nagesh Kukkunoor, after impressing us with Iqbal, comes back with an even more powerful Dor. I was simply blown away by the movie and I can easily say that this is THE best movie of the year, even better than Rang De Basanti in many ways. The film does not boast of a star-studded cast but everyone in the movie just about does their job to perfection. In fact, to me, only Girish Karnad and Nagesh Kukkunoor were the only known faces in the movies and it was actually them, being the established actors they were, whom I thought could have done a better job :) The movie's story is apparently based on a Malayalam movie and credit is duly given in the movie. The story is this - 2 husbands leave to Saudi for work, leaving their wives behind. They become roommates over there. In an accident that happens in Saudi, one of them falls from their 10th floor apartment and dies and the blame falls on his roommate. Since there is no other witness to testify that it was an accident, the only option that is available for the friend who is alleged to have committed the murder is for the deceased man's wife to sign a mercy petition filed by him. And the rest of the story is about the charged man's wife – Gul Panag- first finding the deceased man's wife – Ayesha Takia - & then convincing her to sign the petition. To me, this movie was storytelling at its best. The flow of the movie never sags at any point and also does not wander off from the crux of the story. For example, whatever happened in Saudi is never shown. All that is revealed to us is that it was an accident and the only way out of it is for the deceased man's wife to sign the petition. The toughest part of this story (and the part where Kukkunoor could have easily faltered) IMO was how Gul Panag is shown finding Ayesha Takia, from a mere photo which has both of their husbands. He scores brilliantly as chance or coincidence has no part to play in it. That to me was the most striking thing about the first half when she searches for Ayesha and finds her. Shreyas Talpade comes in as the guy who helps Gul Panag out as she searches for Ayesha . The beautiful relationship between Gul Panag and him is so brilliantly portrayed. The way each of the characters have been developed has been done beautifully, with Gul Panag’s characterization standing out in particular. Salim Sulaiman's background score was perfect. In short, I simply loved everything about the movie and I think it is time we place Nagesh Kukkunoor on the pedestal where we place the best directors in India. Awesome and a must-see movie.

Rumsfield's best

As Donald Rumsfield's tenure as the Defense Secretary officially came to a close today, here are the best of Rumsfield's quotes over the past 6 years.

I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started.

We do know of certain knowledge that he [Osama Bin Laden] is either in Afghanistan, or in some other country, or dead.

We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."– on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction

Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war.

It is unknowable how long that conflict [the war in Iraq] will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months. - in Feb. 2003

If I know the answer I'll tell you the answer, and if I don't, I'll just respond, cleverly.

For more such quotes, go here

2 weekends - 2 trips

The last 2 weeks have been pretty hectic with myself making 2 trips during those 2 weekends - Had one of my most memorable trips the first weekend to Crater Lake and to the Grand Canyon & the Universal studios in LA this past weekend.

The trip to Crater lake was simply amazing. I had gone there last summer and this was how it looked then:

And this is how it looks now.


When I had gone to Crater lake last summer, the stark blue color of the deepest fresh water lake in the US just took my breathe away, the first time I caught a glimpse of it. I was entirely convinced that I had seen the single most beautiful sight that nature can offer (of course, all this next only to my personal favorite - Mt. Rainier). But I was proven wrong bcos it was actually this time around that Crater lake looked even more amazing. The whole area was completely drenched in snow. The drive to the lake was even more awesome, since as we approached the lake, we could see gradually increasing snow levels with even the trees being completely covered with snow. The lake is actually closed from October through May bcos of the extensive snow fall that area receives during those months. The view to the lake can be had from throughout the drive around the rim of the lake. But at this time of the year, due to the snow, only couple of view points were open for visitors. If it was the lake which was the highlight during the last trip, it was the incredible levels of snow that was the highlight during this trip.

We had rented couple of cabins in an area called Diamond lake, some 30 miles away from Crater lake. The resort is in itself located on the banks of another beautiful lake - the diamond lake. On day one, tried our hand at snowmobiling - it again was an amazing experience. The roads around that area were full of snow that it was advisable to travel around in snowmobiles rather than in passenger cars. In fact, if you take your car out on those roads, all you could have driven was at 20 mph speed whereas on the snowmobile, we reached speeds of about 60mph. If you are in an area where you can try your hand at snowmobiling, then please go for it. It is something which is worth the money spent on it (comes around 100$ for 2 hours).


The somber part of the whole trip actually only a week later after we had returned to Seattle. Bcos it was only then that we came to know that it was during the time we were in that area, that James Kim, the father who lost his life in the wilderness in the Oregon snow, and his family too were in the vicinity of about 10 miles from where we joined I-5 on our drive back to Seattle. The incident which had already captured my attention had an even bigger impact on me, after this.

The Grand Canyon trip was OK. This was my 2nd trip to the Grand Canyon but the first time I saw it, was also just around the same time - winter. So, there was not much difference in the experience between then and now. The one thing I observed this time around was the saying how each and every vantage point that the park service recommends offers a completely different view of the Canyon. At each of the places we stopped our car to get a glimpse of the canyon, it gave us some unique views of the canyon. Other than that, it was biting cold and with the wind blowing straight onto our faces, we couldn't spend more than a few minutes at each view point. Though this was my 2nd time there, I still not have enough time to take the hike all the way down to the river. Hopefully should be able to do it the next time around, when I plan to spend a whole long weekend just for the Grand Canyon.


The other interesting incident during this trip came when I was driving back from LA to Phoenix. With about 250 miles left in my drive, I had stopped for gas and filled about 8 gallons, hoping that it would take me into Phoenix without any problem (30 mpg on the highways is a rather conservative estimate). So, once I was done with that, I had completely forgot to keep track of the fuel level in the tank. Some 50 miles from Phoenix, to my horror, I see that the fuel indicator is way below zero. A completely isolated desert is not the ideal place where you would want to get stranded, where sometimes we did not have an exit for as long as 20 miles. The nearest exit from where I noticed the gas level was a good 5 miles away. Needless to say, those 5 miles were the scariest and most tension filled part of our drive when we finally made it to the gas station. When I looked back at how come I had missed noticing something which I usually keep an eye all the time, it is the dashboard of the car I had rented (Nissan Altima) which actually turned out to be the culprit. In most of the cars, the low fuel indicator is orange in color. It is orange in color in Altima too but over here, everything in the entire dashboard was orange in color as well. Thus, I could not distinguish the low fuel indicator from the rest of the details on the dashboard. I was left wondering how such a simple common sense thing was not considered by the Nissan engineers during their design.

Happy Birthday, Thalaivaa!!!

(Click on the image for a bigger version)

From the Webster’s thesaurus,

Rajinikanth [rah-ji-ni-kaw-hnth] – noun - Thalaivar, captivating, magnetism, flair, appeal, charm, fascination, enchantment, attractiveness, et al

Birthday wishes to THE BOSS, the man who has redefined and given a whole new meaning to the word charisma.

What's in a name

This is something that is really hard to miss - names of Indian restaurants over here in the US. They follow this unwritten rule of using a very limited set of words. That has simply amazed me, since wherever I have been, the names of our Indian restaurants have been very strikingly similar. This is what they basically do - pick one or 2 words from this list below and then throw in a preposition (like of, in, etc) and bingo, you get a name for your restaurant.

Namasthe
Palace
India
Jewel
Local city name
Udupi
Mayuri
Taj
Cuisine
Kabab
Spice
Taste
Amber
Tandoor/ Tandoori
Kitchen
Hut
Priya (somehow if it is a South Indian restaurant, the name invariably ends up being Priya)

For example, I have seen Indian restaurants with the name Taj palace or Cuisine of India in more than 1 city. Thus going by the logic above, we can derive some very common & familiar Indian restaurant names like

Cuisine of India
India Palace
Udupi Palace
Jewel of India
Spice Kitchen
Taste of India

Is there any other commonplace Indian restaurant name that I am missing out?