Down with Rahmania

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A lazy, relaxed day. Surrounded by murmurs. Earphones on. A whole lot of your favourite Rahman’s songs waiting to be listened to. You have been hooked big-time to Puthiya Manidha, Kadhal Anukkal, Kilimanjaro, Hosanna, Aaromale, Mannippaaya and Pudhu Vellai Mazhai for several weeks now that it feels like ages since you last listened to any of your other favourite songs. You press the ‘Play’ button and then you lose track of time, lose yourself in the music, in the melody, in the beats and in the nostalgic waves after fresh waves of memories and thoughts that flow in with each song. It’s amazing how many years worth of memories are compressed into just a few minutes of music! Amazing how Rahman’s music has become such an important part of your life that listening to any of your favourite Rahman’s songs itself gives you a feeling of having gotten into a comfort zone! Listening to each song is an experience in itself and I am so happy that this year we have got so many gems of songs from the man!

The month of Adi

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The sound of some music band out on the street wakes up all of us at home. We realize that it’s being played for the procession of some Amman. Seeing through the window, we wait to get a glimpse of the deity. It was taking quite a bit of time for the deity to reach our part of the street. We go out into the street and see the music band followed by a group of nadaswaram and tavil players. And then surrounded by a small group of devotees was the Amman embellished by jewels, huge, colourful garlands and lots of flowers – beauty and divinity personified. Seeing the festive atmosphere, you don’t realize that it’s 1:30 am in the night! Isn’t this what the month of Adi is all about? With Adi being synonymous with festivities in the ubiquitous Amman temples all over the city and with even some of the small temples in street corners having their own utsava vigraham (processional idol), you can often see some idol in procession.

P.S.: This happened yesterday night and for the first time in the last few weeks, I suddenly felt the need to pen this down and felt the words pouring out. Is my bloggers’ block finally gone?

Sanjay’s Concerts!!!

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On 23rd June at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha (Organized by Shri Maharajapuram Rasikas Trust)

Just like last year, this year too I missed 3 consecutive concerts of Sanjay and the last concert of Sanjay that I went for was in January! And what made attending this concert all the more exciting was that I came to know about this concert just a couple of hours before the concert was to start!!

Accompanists:
Nagai Muralidharan – Violin
Srimushnam Raja Rao – Mridangam

Concert Duration: 2 hrs 15 min
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Raavanan

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I liked Raavanan. Found it much better than Raavan. The first half too somehow seemed to move faster than Raavan. Was it because of the actors, or because I have already watched Raavan or because of the language? Am not sure about that. The climax – not the fight on the bridge, but the scene where Ragini gets back to Veeraiyya – was much better in Tamil than in Hindi. Prithviraj was too good in the role of Dev. Got mesmerized by the visuals, the lighting and the colours of the forest once again. Relished the awesome background score and songs of Rahman once again. I am happy that I watched both Raavan and Raavanan at Sathyam cinemas.

Raavan

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I don’t have a clear answer either for the ‘How was Raavan?’ question or for ‘Did you like Raavan?’ Of course, the answer for the second question is definitely not a ‘No’. But it isn’t a whole-hearted ‘Yes’ either. And that’s why I didn’t even attempt to write on the movie all this while.

Spoiler Alert (But I guess this won’t matter since most of you might have watched the movie by now.)
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Couples in Mani Ratnam’s movies

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In the show ‘Mani Matters’ on CNN-IBN, talking about Alaipayuthey, this is what Mani Ratnam said,

“To me, that’s where a love story starts. After hard facts of life of having to get up every morning, not just when you are trying to impress somebody, where you can be on your best behaviour, when you can charming, when you can be intelligent.

The relationship grows when it is faced with reality, when it is started…the milkman coming in, I mean, that’s where the real relationship starts.”

Hearing these lines, I started thinking about how not just in Alaipayuthey, but also in many of his movies, Mani Ratnam has portrayed the ups and downs in the relationship between a husband and a wife. His lead pair, in most of the films, has always been a married couple and not just lovers. His lead pair gets married in the course of the movie and he has always shown an equal share of romance as well as the complexities involved in the relationship.
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It’s Raavan everywhere!

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Newspapers, magazines, websites, Abhishek Bachchan’s tweets, mail forwards, posters on newspapers and on the walls, trailers on all the Hindi and Tamil channels! After more than a couple of years of rumours initially about Mani Ratnam’s next film Lajjo that were doing the rounds in all the newspapers and websites and then the endless news about what next Mani Ratnam’s movie was all about, the initial names for the Hindi and Tamil versions – Raavan and Ashokavanam, the cast & crew, the problem with forest officials, rumours about the climax, etc., etc., interviews with the cast & crew & the director himself and not to mention all those non-informative news items which seemed to have been published just for filling up the space, the day of the release of the movie is just a couple of days away!

Having watched the last two movies of Mani Ratnam on the day of the release itself, I hope that I get to watch this too on the first day. Can’t wait to see Mani Ratnam delve deep into the numerous minds of Beera! My plan, as of now, is to watch Raavan first and then Raavanan. What about you?