What a day and What a night!

The Day

4.30 AM February 23rd 2009 – The alarm goes off. Waking up with the same excitement as if it was Deepavali, I got ready quickly and switched on Star Movies first, only to find some football movie going on. Soon, I flipped the channels and came to our very own 24*7 news channels and found that only NDTV was covering the Red Carpet live. The excitement started building up. It was a long wait before we actually caught a glimpse of ARR with his wife on the Red Carpet The Slumdog team walked in smiling, the whole team including the child stars, who just stole the show away. NDTV gave quite a good coverage of the Red Carpet except the ARR part It was a long wait till 6.30, before the show would start on Star Movies. In the meanwhile, the buzzwords Slumdog and ARR were echoing everywhere. At that moment, I don’t know what I was feeling about the prospect of ARR winning. Infact, I wasn’t thinking so much about it as I was about seeing ARR performing at the Oscars. The show started on Star Movies at 6.30 with the Red Carpet! So, again, it was back to flipping channels till 7 AM, when the show finally started! From the time Hugh Jackman started off with his antics, the excitement started growing more and more. Resul Pookutty started off the dream run of the Indians at the Oscars. It was a heart-warming moment seeing him give his acceptance speech. It was 9.15 or so. Without any warning, the nominations for Best Original Score were announced My heart was beating so fast and I was just elated hearing that ‘The Oscar goes to.. A R Rahman’ It was totally unbelievable. What a speech he gave! Speaking in English, Hindi and Tamizh, he was just amazing. Again, without giving us any time for it to sink in, ARR started performing O.. Saya and Jai Ho. He performed pretty well and I liked the way he and the other singer finished off together in the end. Yes, finally, the Americans were ready to see Indian film music in the same standing as theirs. Again, this time more unbelievable, ARR’s name was announced. ARR had made history! The words he chose to accept his award this time were even more touching. He chose love over hate all through his life and he was there! ARR would always remain such an inspiration – be it through his magical music or just from the kind of human being he is! In just 15 minutes, ARR had created history; something that is going to have an everlasting effect on the fate of Indian music, his career and his fans, of course. ARR always sees the hand of God in all of his creations. This feeling is translated to us too when we hear his music; yes, it’s God’s own. It leaves us with a feeling for which bliss is too small a word! It makes us wonder if it’s some divine music. It makes us lose ourselves. We become one with the music. I feel it’s something like resonance. The frequency of our soul matches that of his music and there’s resonance. We have found our natural frequency. We have found the ultimate state. And we see God.

The Night

Yes, I did see God last night. But this time, in a more gross form. It was Sivaraatri last night and what better way to celebrate it than going around Siva temples all around Chennai.
9 PM, 23rd February, 2009 – I started temple-hopping with my family. It was a non-stop journey. Chandramouleeswarar temple @ R A Puram. Sringeri Saaradambal Temple @ R A Puram. Tiruvottiyur Vadivudaiyamman temple. Komaleeswarar temple @ Pudupet. The Mylapore temples: Vaaleeswarar. Viroopaaksheeswarar. Malleeswarar. Kaaraneeswarar. Teerthapaaleeswarar. Apparswamy temple. Kapaaleeswarar. Velleeswarar. Mahaalingapuram temple. Siva-Vishnu temple @ T Nagar. Kasi Viswanathar temple @ West Mambalam. Sankara Mutt @ West Mambalam. Sringeri Saaradaambal Temple @ West Mambalam. Agasthiyar kovil @ T Nagar. Sringeri Saaradambal Temple @ T Nagar. Marundeeswarar temple @ Tiruvanmiyur. Jalakanteswarar @ IITM. Came back to IIT at 4.30 AM in the morning.

The 24 hrs turned out to be such a wonderful time. Whenever I was at home, it was ARR all around. Every channel wanted to show something or the other. For once, I was not irritated with the way news channels kept harping on the same thing Just didn’t want to miss a single thing about ARR that was being said or shown. The Sivaraatri experience was equally enjoyable. Though I started feeling sleepy by around 2 AM itself, it still was worth it. The only two places where we couldn’t see the main God because of unimaginable crowd was Marundeeswarar and Kapaaleeswarar. Other places were pretty peaceful. It was interesting to see how everybody had their own way of spending the night. Temple-hopping was one option, of course. You could see a lot of vans taking around people to various temples. The other option was to spend the night in one temple – either awake chanting slokas or even sleeping in the temple! This last option found so many takers that in many temples, we had to find a path with great difficulty to do a pradakshinam.
The non-stop 24 hours had made me tired I guess. I fell asleep at 4.30 and got up only after 5 hours, with phone calls and alarms failing to wake me up from my slumber. Hence, the punyam I had acquired by staying up for Sivaraatri is lost Nevertheless, what a day it was! and what a night!

Azhagiya Thamizh Magan

It’s been more than two weeks since the audio of this movie released and finally I got the time to sit down and listen to this, last weekend. The album is pretty good on the whole and no song is bad, as is always the case with all ARR albums

EllAppugazhum – ARR

Catchy song. Though not very impressive in the first listening, I am hooked to this song now. The feel of this song is like the ‘Ah Aah’ title song. From ‘Eh Thozha..’ to ‘Azhagiya Thamizh Magan nee dhAne’, the way the music builds up is awesome. It doesn’t make you lose interest in the song. The interludes are magnificent and when the line ‘Naalai Naalai..” starts, the way the music combines with ARR’s voice is too good. And again, from Eh Thozha, ARR’s voice and chorus dominate the background music. ARR has changed the pitch at 4.12. This is something we don’t see often in his songs nowadays but very common in the older days. Very good use of chorus in this song. The last one line could have been avoided. On the whole, I like this song a lot.

PonmagaL vandhaaL – Aslam

A very good remix, with the right mix of everything – the voices, the rap, the beats, retaining the voice for two lines from the original song. The CD says Krishna Chetan has remixed this song. He has also done additional programming for the album. I listened to the original song once The extra frills and nuances of the original song have been perfectly cut off to suit the mood of the remix. As in the cases of other remixes, the pace of the song has been stepped up in this too. I see people talking about the ‘remix’ of Thottaal poo malarum in some blogs. Thottaal poo malarum is in no way a remix. ONLY the lyrics was used. The tune is in no way related to the original song.

Nee Marilyn Monroe – Benny Dayal, Ujjayinee

Undoubtedly the best song of the album and the longest too. Though I find the kind of female voices used for the line ‘ Hey Saturday night partykku…’ irritating generally, especially since it is quite often heard in Hindi film songs being unnecessarily used, it perfectly suits this song and it has been used at the right dosage. The pace of the song is just right. The first time I heard it, I thought it could have been a bit faster but not anymore. The interlude at 2.48 and the line ‘ullAsamAi urchagamai..’ are very pleasing to the ears. The various kinds of sounds used in this song adds a great flavour to the song. This song is sure to be high on my list of songs I repeatedly listen to.

VaLayapatti – Naresh Iyer, Ujjayinee, Madhumita

This should have been the best song, had it been a little more structured. Maybe it would be better on seeing the picturisation, but I don’t think I would be seeing the videos of these songs, with Vijay in it Anyway, the highlights of this song – the swarams in different ragams, Naresh Iyer’s voice , the very first interlude in the song and almost all the interludes. Things that made me decide this wasn’t the best song in the album – the similarity of the tune ‘vaLayapatti thavile thavile’ to the line ‘Avalukkenna ambA samudhira Iyer hotel’ from the song ‘Kummi adi’ in the movie Sillunu Oru Kadhal, the abrupt change in the music after the first two lines. This song has a folk touch, for instance after ‘Un sirippo sindhubhairavi and those other lines sung by the male voice, and a classical touch to it in the lines immediately following in the female voice. But I feel that the blend of these two flavours could have been much better. The tune as such is not extraordinary. But, a very enjoyable song on the whole.

KelAmal – Saindhavi, Sriram Parthasarathy

A very soothing song. Saindhavi’s voice has been masked by the background music in many places, which could have been avoided. But the background music running throughout the song is what adds beauty to this song. The use of violin is excellent and builds up the pace of the song. Sriram’s voice is quite deep and suits the song very well. The tune of the charanams is quite ordinary again. A good song, which again could have been made to sound much better.

Maduraikku pOgAdhadi – Benny Dayal, Archith, Darshanaa

A typical folk song with all the elements in the right proportion. Though it’s not my kind of song, it’s a very good song of this genre. The beats, the lyrics, the use of so many voices and the catchy tune makes this a perfect folk song. Lyrics are quite funny, especially the lines quoting the specialities of the places in TN. Looks like this song would suit KaragAttam very well Good song.

ARR rocks yet again

Aayitha Ezhuthu

How do you think I cleared the JEE? The most often heard answers from IITians for this question maybe their coaching classes, parents, God, their supreme intelligence (yeah this is more likely), their friends and so on and so forth. Agreed that I attribute my ‘achievement’ to these things but there is another uncommon but important factor which I believe helped in my preparation for JEE. And that is Aayitha Ezhuthu music (you read that right). So here goes my story.

One fine day in the last week of March 2004, I came back home from school and found an audio CD of Aayitha Ezhuthu.With a lot of excitement, I opened the CD and listened to the whole album once. It sounded different and fresh. I knew I would like it but what happened later is something I never expected. From that day onwards, I kept listening to it again and again and again – the whole album. Whenever I was at home studying, I needed that in the background. I went crazy. It seemed odd to study without Aayitha Ezhuthu. It wasn’t restricted to listening at home. Whenever I went to my coaching classes in car, I used to listen to it. It was magical. It inspired me to study, cheered me up if I felt a little discouraged, made me feel relaxed and on the whole helped me concentrate and study well. That, I feel, is the magic of A R Rahman.

Coming to the songs of Aayitha Ezhuthu, I still am not able to pick one as my most favourite. The whole album running for nearly 30 minutes is a package in itself. It’s a separate class of music.

‘Hey Goodbye Nanba’, with some beautiful vocals by Sunitha Sarathy and those soft beats, makes you fall in love with it immediately. Lucky Ali, though sings for a little while only, makes a great impact.

Jana Gana Mana – ARR rocks in this song. Full of energy and some inspirational lyrics by Vairamuthu.

Sandai Kozhi – Madhushree does complete justice to this song. The cheesy lyrics go really well with her voice. Not to forget ARR’s bit. It comes for about a minute. Nobody else could have sung that the way he did.

Dol Dol – Blaaze rap. Those ‘ethnic vocals’ by Shahin Badar are simply out of the world. Perfect dance number.

Nenjam Ellam – Though I don’t like Adnan Sami’s voice that much, it sounds good in this song. But the best thing about this song is Sujatha’s voice. She perfectly creates the mood of the song.

Fanah – ARR rocks again. Wow what a song! Instantly likeable. Some cool lyrics by Vairamuthu. Only ARR can sing swarams in a disco song!

About the movie, it’s a Mani Ratnam classic. It deserves a separate post.

ARR rocks!!!