Here are a few pics that Shalin clicked of Sandeep Narayan and myself. The whole thing was planned suddenly, which left us very little time to get everything ready(the lights, props, and the likes!). Thanks to some terrific post processing work by Shalin, these photos have come out well.
For more photos, click here
Carnatic Music followers or even others who live in Madras will know that December is the month of the year when there is a lot of musical activity in the city. Those guys and girls, who are not that musically inclined would have heard their parents or grandparents or neighbors talking about going to concerts to the Music Academy, Narada Gana Sabha etc.. So what exactly is this Music Season? Does it have somthing to do with the climate? (why the word season, then!!)
The December Music season started off as an activity in the year 1927. In that year, when the All India National Congress conference was held in Madras, efforts were made to arrange for musical concerts of leading musicians in the evenings, probably as a source of entertainment after day long debating and fighting! Who knows how politics and politicians were, back then. This series of concerts was organised at the Madras Music Academy and ever since, regular concerts have been arranged by more and more organisations every year, in the month of December.
Some amazing stats about the ‘Season’, as it is known. This is the only activity of its kind where there are over 3000 music concerts scheduled over a period of 30 days by 70-80 organisations. No where else in the world doesnt ay event of this magnitude take place. Top ranking musicians sing something between 20-30 concerts, each concert’s duration being 2 and half hours(average), in the same 30 days. And much more…
Personally, this past December, was my second Season. I have been a regular concert goer for many years, but this is the second year that I have performed during the Season and its been a great experience.
More on the Season and music, coming up…
I was tempted to hear the songs in this movie, more so after seeing that Ilayaraja was the music director. The movie, directed by Fazil, stars Srikanth and Sonia Agarwal, pairing up for the first time. The Fazil-Ilayaraja combination has been a very successful one in the past. Their last venture, Kadalukku Mariyadai had some memorable songs.
The songs in the movie are quite nice. The first thing that caught my attention was that Sonu Nigam has sung three (or so) songs in the movie. His solo ‘Enna paatu vendum unakku’ is a different song, and surprisingly his pronounciation of tamil words is good. The best song in the movie is ‘Katril varum geethame’. This song is featured 2-3 times in the movie. There is a version of this song sung by Ilayaraja, which begins as a conversation between Ilayaraja and Vaali(the lyricist). Ilayaraja sings the first two lines of the tune and then Vaali tries to fit in the lyrics. The mutual respect and admiration between these two stars is evident from the dialogue. On the whole, the mood of the song is wonderful and the song has been sung with a lot of feel by the maestro. In recent times, Ilayaraja’s singing seems to be wonderful. This song and the song ‘Adiye Kiliye’ from the movie Kudaikkul Mazhai are classic examples.
A must hear for all Ilayaraja fans. The songs are available here.
Though so much had been heard of and spoken about this movie, I somehow never managed to see it, till recently. Jan 14th was the chance, it was the Pongal special movie on Sun TV. An oppurtunity not to be missed. And Venus(my girlfriend) and I decided to watch it together at her place. It took me a painful 35 minutes to get from my workplace (Vepery) to her house (Indranagar), but it was worthwile cos i got to see this movie with her, something I’ve been wanting to do for a while.
Everyone has probably seen the movie by now, more than just once possibly, so i will not give a review of the movie. The highpoints of the movie for me was the acting of Dhanush, the screenplay, direction and the music score. The looks of Dhanush fitted his role well. The clothes, unshaven looks and those glasses make him look apt. His psychotic behavior is not explained well enough in the beginning. He burning down all the exam papers, bashing up that guy in the basketball court is all fine, but would have been better with some more explanation. He was really calm and at ease for this being his second film. Credit here must go to Selvaraghavan for handling these people(Both Dhanush and Sonia Agarwal, in her first film) really well. That guy Adi (Sonia Agarwal’s) guy was quite lame. His character descrption in the initial stages of the movie is very different from what is shown of him later, and Sonia Agarwal’s affinity towards him could have been better explained.
A big plus for the movie was its music. Apart from the songs which were a hit and are still heard ; the BGM was real good too. One song which i really liked was the theme music of the movie, the one that is played in the climax. Other than this one, the song “nenjodu kalandadu” touched many a heart. To me, the theme of the movie is told beautifully in one line of this song,
“Kaalangal odu idu kadai aagi pogum……
………kaadal illai, idu kaamam illai, inda uravukku ulagathil peyar illai”
The last line roughtly translates as
This is not love, not lust, there is no name for this relationship in the world. (actual effect, lost in translation)
Those who have sen the movie would agree if I said this was the theme of the movie, essentially because it revolves around Sonia Agarwal and Dhanush. Good movie on the whole.
Hope to see Selvaraghavan’s next movie 7/G sometime in the future. It was suppoesed to be good.
Well, blogging has never been one of my keenest passions or practices, but the first few months after I started blogging, I did enjoy it, though the comments section invariably remained empty! I cannot pin point one reason as to why i havent been blogging all the months, just one month now, and i am not going to try to also! Lots of things have happend in the past month as one might expect. Work is going on fine, and tight. Music has been coming up, the planetary (Venus’) chemistry has improved too! 
I’m excited about actually being a part of the December Music Festival this year, i actually am singing three concerts. Its on the 18th, 23rd and 24th(wow, even i can now boast of back-to-back concerts) at Narada Gana Sabha, Parthsarathy Swami Sabha (Vidya Bharathi Hall) and Karthik Fine Arts (Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan) respectively. Lets see how they go.
Diwali is round the corner, and so should be happiness and joy! Sadly though, we wont be celebrating diwali this year, due to the demise of my uncle earlier this year. It was a customary practise that all family members, uncles and aunts, athais, mamas, cousins nephews nieces, everyone would get-together at a common place and celebrate diwali. Its been the practise right from 94, as far as i can remember. By the way, we have got a video of the ‘94 diwali celebrations from Bangalore. It was at the same uncles place who passed away. Nostalgic memories. Our family has been a very close unit, sometimes we even go out of the way to attend the smallest family function, like may be a cousins friends kid’s naming ceremony!! It was great to see everyone around in that video, andmore interesting things like, dad offering mom a drink etc… But over the few years the excitement surrounding bursting crackers has reduced considerably. We just dont burst crackers anymore. So what will I be doing this diwali, hmm…nothing much, staying at home, watch the shows on TV and rest…
I recently acquired most of the songs from the new movie ‘Swades’, music by A R Rahman. They are all wonderful, simply superb. My favorite in the movie is ‘Yeh tara woh tara’ sung by Udit Narayan , G V Prakash(Rahman’s nephew) and Baby Pooja. Closely followed by the Rahman sung “yeh jo des hai”. This song obviously converys the “feel of the movie”. Its along the lines of vellai pookal from Kannathil Muthamittal. The other songs are also very good, especially ‘Aahista’. Its got a minimal use of instruments, with the Santoor being the main. The ragam that can be closely asscociated with the song is Charukesi and playing this ragam on the santoor creates a wonderful effect to the listener. The one misfit to an otherwise good album is the recycled ‘Dekhona’, with the original being ‘Baba kichu kichu’ from the Tamil movie Baba, starring Superstar Rajnikanth. Get your copy immediately!
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