Moodiness quotient rises

I'm attending Mood Indigo 2005, so if you're interested, you can catch semi-frequent (subjective) updates here.

Differing strokes

I'm a little nonplussed with this Ganguly affair, mainly concerning the various reactions. For long, the wishlist of Indian fans has been for the Indian Board to be more Australian-like. The Aussies showed no compunctions in dropping the likes of Healy or Mark Waugh (please correct me if I am wrong) when they felt their time was over and even denying them fond farewells at home. I think Steve Waugh got away with it because he'd made it clear he was going to retire.

In SCG's case, he is not going to retire (frankly, he is just 32 or 33 and surely he would feel he has a couple of years left), so I don't think what Gaurav suggests Dravid should have done in his post was feasible or even required (more on this post later).

If you want a professional board, you need to be able to take and swallow such "harsh" decisions - atleast in this case, there is a sufficient cricketing case rather than the lows of Noel David in the past. Whether this is any indication of a more professional selection committee, I don't know, but Test players have been dropped after doing much better in the past and it wasn't as if Ganguly was on top of the world.If you want a kinder board based on what a player has achieved in the past, then you need to devise severance/VRS packages and have a broad and kind HR policy :-)

Coming to Gaurav's post, I'm not very sure about Dravid being likened to Brutus. Let's examine the comments made by Dravid and Chappell. Their response to each question about Ganguly would have been (and was) examined under a microscope, perhaps even run through a voice processor for subtle tonal inflections! You expect the Indian captain (known for his political correctness) to say anything less than what he said about Ganguly's contributions in the match? Upto you to decide whether he was speaking the truth or willfully misleading everyone - he never said something on the lines of "oh, what a genius and how we missed him and if he hadn't been there, we'd have never won", did he? Also if Chappell says SCG is a "mentor", that thought should still hold in a professional setup - after all even if India's most successful captain is no longer among the top 6 batsmen in the team, he has a lot to offer off the field. Does he have to be in the playing 11 to provide these inputs? (could he have been in the 14? it's a call on how he'd respond to being in the squad without being in the 11 - perhaps they had just needed to leave him in the 14 and add another opener). At the same time, consider a selection meeting where Dravid is asked: who would you prefer, Ganguly or Yuvraj at 6? If his reply was Yuvraj, does that make him a Brutus-like figure. I think not. If Dravid had said "oh Ganguly made no worthwhile contribution in the Test", he'd have been crucified too. I don't think anyone is saying Yuvraj is the next Bradman, but it's a question of available resources and investments, ain't it? Instead of focussing on sorting out the opening problems, off we go on a tangent.

Whether Jaffar is the best option or not, I don't know - I haven't been following domestic cricket to that extent. The vacancy was in the opening slot, especially if you want to take 3 openers on a tour. But do you also want the Yuvrajs & Kaifs to get a run - of course. IMO too, Kaif could be a better Test player than Yuvraj, but so far Yuvraj has been preferred and I'm glad they haven't made an abrupt change. I don't understand what Gaurav and others mean by Ganguly having been denied a dignified exit - how do you decide this and how exactly do you ease a player out (who is not yet contemplating retirement)? Do you want to take him down in degrees?

Secondly, Gaurav wants Dravid to take a saner stand. He feels Dravid should have spoken his mind. But if the captain had spoken aloud and said "I don't want Ganguly at the cost of so and so player", he's a Brutus-like figure. If he'd said "Let's give him an honourable exit", then people would have been happier, but I think that would have shamed Ganguly more - being treated like an old family retainer people are too polite to speak the truth to. Let's cast our mind back to that famous declaration at 196* (at Multan, was it?). Dravid has shown this ruthless streak before and similarly caused a split in opinions. I refuse to believe yet that Dravid is anything less than a professional and like many of us who work in a professional setup, we must accept that such decisions have to be accepted without too much mollycoddling, for it's always going to come down to a question of subjective degrees. What does a phrase like "forced out" mean? Unless if a Test player voluntarily steps down (like one of those English captains once did - was it Mike Denness) or retires (like SRW), any player has to be "forced out" or "dropped" or "rested" depending on what turn of phrase catches your fancy. Why would it be any other way? Decorated Generals hopefully also need to know when their time is up - this general still feels (and why shouldn't he?) that he still has it in him. It's not time to make him a Field Marshal yet, is it? We need something like what they do in Britain to the annoying politicans - bump them up to the House of Lords! :-)

I guess my point is this: like most other people, I continue to be a Dravid fan, but unlike some of them, I don't want to be cynical of his motives.

The JaDe Project - 7

Category: Awards

There are awards and there are self-thumping awards, but none like the Star Parivaar Awards. I mean, what the heck? Take a look at last year's award winners here, but more importantly, at the categories: A Best collection of Pati, Patni, Naya Sadasya, Khalnayak, Devar/ani, Jethani, Yogya Bahu, Saas/Sasur. All these are merrily laughable, but I draw the line at Best Saut - ROTFL-saying-WTF.

{Are there no Best Jeth, Best Chach[a | i] et al? Shows you what the pecking order is. And question: Does a Saut actress with a Bahu and Saas of herself qualify for all these categories? The possibilities are endless}

These awards are supposed to be for the entire Star Plus channels (if I am not mistaken), but by having Saut-ern categories, aren't they constraining the competition? It is a giant K-ego massage at best (no pun intended). We haven't even hit "Best JoDi" - I would have voted for Amitabh and Computer-ji if I could.

IMHO, the only time such paarivaarik awards could have been cool would have been if the Corleones or the Sopranos were involved. Imagine "Best Consigliere" or "Best Capo Regime" or "Best Two-timing family member".

I would watch the * Parivaars if they had awards like "Most Numerologically Powerful Title" or "Most Gruesome Makeup for Khalnaaikas". Everything else is just down of Saut.

A little bash-fulness

Sunday, 11th Dec, The front pages of The Times of India. The top banner reads: "On December 11, 2004, Sachin Tendulkar equalled Sunil Gavaskar’s world record of 34 Test hundreds.A year later, on December 10, 2005, at 4:44 pm at the Ferozeshah Kotla in Delhi, he — literally (my emphasis) and metaphorically — elbowed out the original Little Master to create history".

I know someone had a post recently pointing out these literal errors, but can't find it. Hopefully, Gavaskar (who was reported to have been holidaying in Nepal when Sachin overtook (not literally of course) him - so it was one heck of a long-distance elbowing) did not catch any of those infectious diseases that the younger Mumbaikar has been carrying in that part of the body. What else do you say?

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NDTV's news ticker had this under "Sports" yesterday: "Ronaldo wants to win a Nobel Prize". Sports news? Forget that. News?

Thoughts on the music of Rang De Basanti

A Sikh devotional hymn, a fast paced Punjabi number, a rap/pop "college" song, a very slow romantic duet, an Arabic style song, a contemplative melody , a recited version of "Sarfaroshi Ki Tamanna", a surprising mother-son duet and a rock-and-roll-ish carol to end - there is no shortage of variety in Rang De Basanti. Whatever credit accrues must go to the story/screenplay writer to provide a music director with such a range of situations, for it is that department (assuming no marketing interference) that holds the key to what a music director can make music for.

Now to the actual songs:

Ek OMkaar

From the minimal research I did, I found this hymn is known as the Sikh "muul mantra" and begins the Guru Granth Sahib [link]. Harshdeep Kaur sings this in a very crystal clear production. So now ARR has an album with a Sikh devotional presence, after Hindu, Islamic and Christian before. Interesting.

Ra.Ng De Basa.nti

Punjabi number? Don't be afraid of listening to it - there is a complete absence of exhausted clichés like soNi kuDiyaa.N and gali de muNDe et al. This marks one in the merits column of the lyricist (Prasoon Joshi : Interview on the album) who provides a bhangra touch without sacrificing freshness. Sample this:
"Dhiimi aa.Nch pe tu/Zaraa ishq chaDhaa/thoDi jharne laa/thoDi nadii milaa"
Quite minty to me.

Daler Mehndi and Chitra in the same song - I would never have bet on that combination being credited together. This is a rocking good song, though I'm not very sure about its shelf life yet. However, the minor electronic touches here and there, the delightful contrast between the male and female voices and the lyrics (Joshi points out "The song describes the method to prepare basanti ka rang") make this the song the album will lead into the marketplaces with. More lyrics appreciation: I learnt words like "dhau.Nkanaa".

PaaThashaalaa

Supposed to be a rebellious college number, the kind we've heard in Kadhal Desam. The yells of "Lose Control" and "I'm a Rebel" were unappealing to me (too old? nope, generally sceptical of these specious sentiments :-) ). Still, just a couple of notable crumbs and slight irritation at the singers (Naresh Iyer, Aslam) saying "tiita" instead of "thiita" (Greek "theta" if you're wondering). Let's skip along. I have a feeling this would probably work better in a film situation than as a standalone song.

PaaThashaalaa - Be A Rebel

While we are at it, let's get the second version of this song out of the way. Blaaze back rapping (usually causing a little trepidation to me) - but must say, interesting mix of lyrics. "Zi.ndaabaad/zi.ndaa-good"? Still figuring out if I like that. More electronic jhingbang with a recurrent beep and a sort of chorus scat. Again, not my line of affections.

Tuu Bin Bataaye

This is the kind of Rahman song that needs several warnings of "this will probably grow on you, so give it time". Very, very, very slow tempo and quite spare in orchestration. I have heard it several times now and must confess that I find it a little conventional in its progress, with the bell chimes and the sax - the standard signs of a romantic duet. Naresh Iyer (of whom we hear a lot in the ARR scene these days after he got "spotted" in the Super Singer of course) sings another leisurely duet with Madhushree (Ah Aah being the earlier one). They do sing well and there's a lot of scope for them to exhibit. On the whole, worth a few listens actually - I realise I have a slightly poor threshold of acceptance for our slower-tempo traffic.

Khalbali

Experimentation time - in many ARR albums, you'd find one song that sounds quite weird and has these esoteric arrangements. This song is the representative here. Composed in the Arabic style (or what is commonly felt to be the Arabic style at any rate), for me it was torn between the strangeness of the singing (the music director taking on the burden with Aslam, and Nacim providing the Arabic chants) with the vibrating pronouncements of the words and the compelling rhythms (credit: Hossam Ramzy). If you can get both past and used to the singing (I don't know how successful it is, but it is attention-grabbing to say the least), then you'll probably want to listen to this again. I found that hearing it under the influence of the headphones helped and the "hone hone de nashaa/khone khone ko hai kyaa" bit helped matters. Atleast we have a version in a Hindi film that has not been ripped off from some CD. According to the Joshi interview, they've used an instrument called the chenda which is an integral part of kathakali performances - you do notice a good percussion during the second part of the song, but I wouldn't have known it was this.

Khuun Chalaa

Listen to this one with your headphones and turn the volume up, for the song is so mellow that I didn't catch a lot at the first batch of hearings. Mohit Chauhan (more famous for being the lead singer of the band "Silk Route") is a fitting choice for this quietly intense song mixed with sonorous violins and piano which could have fitted into one of our better subcontinental rock albums. It's a pity this is a small song, for we could have done with more of the anthemic lyrics. According to me, it's a pity they chose to follow this up with the rap "PaaThashaalaa" on the CD quite upsetting the mood set up by this song.

Lukkaa Chuppii

Lata M, A R Rahman and lyrics starting with "Lukka chuppii" - frankly I was dreading this song :-) and expecting it to turn out to be some soppy sentimental song with less than perfect singing. And then came the guitars.

There is some cool strumming on acoustic guitars to begin with and a melody, followed by the seniormost Mangeshkar (singing for Waheeda Rehman, I read) singing some very pleasant lyrics without any trace of incongruousness. Guitars continue as Rahman joins in (with highly Tamil accented Hindi! - I guess that despite knowing his pronounciation is not really there, he pencils himself in for these songs because he thinks only he can communicate the feeling behind it).

Then come the tabalaas in the a.ntaraas and even better, soon to be followed by a very well-utilised harmonium interspersed with bits of the trademark flute. The real surprise arrives towards the end featuring an extensive alaap flourish by both singers. One will be compelled to overlook the less than perfect pronounciation and Lata's sibilant singing for the overall emotional content produced by putting all these elements together.

Now, according to the interview I cited earlier, this song is set at the funeral of a son with the mother reminiscing. In that light, the lyrics (another thumbs up for you Mr. Joshi) with the kite metaphors do acquire further depth and it's quite commendable the powers that be chose to take this approach for such a situation.

Lalkaar

This is a recital by Aamir Khan, very much in the mould of Iruvar's "Unnodu naan iru.ndha ovvur.u maNi thuLiyum", of verses in the sentiment of Sarfaroshi Ki Tamanna. Obviously for one of those "inspirational" and "rebellious" situations.

Ruubaruu

Wow! I love this song. More guitar strumming, this time chased around by cooing backing vocals. Naresh Iyer and A.R.Rahman croon this one to the accompaniment of what could easily be your college band. This 60s kind of rock and roll song could easily be performed by a four person band and that is hopefully the kind of frothy and upbeat mood they wanted to evoke. Nice lyrics once again which gel wonderfully into the song structure (assuming Rahman composed it first). Good support from the yodellers in the background.

In summary, Rang De Basanti gives A.R.Rahman the chance to get out of the ponderous "period" film scene and return to contemporary tunes. The variety means that one would probably like atleast one or two of the songs, but could also mean less acceptance of a majority of them. However, like always, when I get a proper ARR album, there are several points of interest to go and read up and follow to. Personally, the biggest positive was to hear so many newer voices rather than the usual syndicates, for only with newer combinations will the Hindi film music scene go ahead.

Local - a review

A small review of the novel 'Local' on the Lit Blog.

Faux News - 9

Faux News bulletin

(You know it's time if it's faux pas nine!)

Next moon landing to be shot in India
By our Science correspondent

In a further sign of the increasing cooperation between India and the US in areas of science and technology, the next moon landing will involve an Indian location in addition to carrying an Indian astronaut among the crew.

The first set of Apollo missions in the late 60s and early 70s were widely believed to have been staged in a studio lot set up in Alaska and Iceland given the very authentic moonscapes available. However, sources in NASA and in the Department of Science and Technology in the GoI told this website that advances in terrain engineering have now enabled several Indian cities to put forward their candidature for this prestigious project. This also stems from the personal interest taken by top officials in the United States administration who would like to encourage greater cooperation as envisaged in the joint declaration earlier this year.

Ms. Ada Mantine, chief of the Amsterdam based Sharon's Rock Monthly, told Faux News that in the last two years Indian roads have deteriorated to just the right consistency and texture to closely approximate the required geological conditions. D.A.Gadde of the Indian Geological Association also pointed out the strict quality checks introduced by the Indian Road Congress in retaining the composition of the shale and mud in the surrounding topographical regions, for the audiences would now expect a higher video quality as opposed to the days of Armstrong and co.

However, this decision to move the shooting of this latest gigantic technological step has already run into trouble in the US Senate. Senator Al Luvium has opposed the move saying that it was further indication that the current US administration did not have the interests of US labour and technicians in mind. Additionally, it has also been reported that the Pakistani lobby is behind the Senator. The Pakistani government is unhappy with this growing collaboration and claim that this honour had been promised to them over a decade ago, which is why they had left untar-nished all major roads in the country.

Despite these hiccups, both governments are determined to make this the most authentic moon mission till date. Bids have been sought for city municipal corporations and from the surface of it, cities like Pune and Bangalore could be the frontrunners.

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Click here for a free look at the earlier editions.

Woe kaun thi

Two events that have had a catastrophic influence on our collective Bollywood experience:

1. I know people loved Hera Pheri (I didn't to the same extent having seen the same plot in 2 other languages before, so kindly excuse), but if only that movie had not done well at all, we wouldn't as a society be subject to attempt after attempt by Priyan to assembly-line-remake all his Malayalam movies and the human equivalent Zyclon-B team of Akshay Kumar-Paresh Rawal-Sunie[0-n]l Shetty-/ would not have shown up as frequently as cyclones this year.

2. (this is even more dismal) I don't have any objections to Mallika S pursuing her own line of fashion, but did she have to do it in a film starring Emraan #mi? If only she'd picked another film and made that a success, we wouldn't have been seeing the eh? boy in every 2nd trailer these days (I counted today). This seems to be the final push from agnosticism to atheism, a secular sign if you wish. OTOH, my eyesight has improved from not watching much TV. Beethoven : Alex (post-treatment) :: #mi : moi. Would I be happier with Ashmit Patel in every other film? Yuss! Scream bloody murder.

And I'm not trying to be funny.

Sawai Gandharva

First time at Sawai Gandharva yesterday. I decided to finally sample the biggest music programme of the year in Pune as part of increasing my consciousness of Hindustani classical music. I don't have any formal knowledge and have been slowly dipping myself in the aural offerings.

When Nikhil and I got to the venue, we had missed Shrinivas Joshi (Bhimsen Joshi's son) but entered to Kala Ramnath's violin performance. This was followed by a disciple of Shobha Gurtu's, Rajshri Pathak. The big name for the night was Pandit Jasraj, accompanied by Appa Jalgaonkar on the harmonium and the seemingly ubiquitous Vijay Ghate on the tabla.

One thing I've always observed is that on most occasions, the big names do have that something extra that distinguishes them from the second rung of performers. Pt. Jasraj was no different and you didn't have to know too many technicalities to get involved. This was also true of Appa Jalgaonkar's harmonium playing - I can't tell if any musician is making mistakes or what is the purity of his performance, but I can tell you if this was different and special. There were some breathtaking moments even for a layperson.

Pt. Jasraj ended with an appeal to listeners to promote Indian classical and raised the bogey of the music channels and the pop scene - this always makes me uncomfortable. There are some issues involved here - is interest in such art forms flagging below a critical level, if these channels weren't there, would their patrons necessarily switch to classical music, what can musicians and patrons do more than simply lament the passage of time, etc. Such issues are true of many genres, and though people think preservation is important and can't be left to the ravages of commercial interests, the blanket blaming of commerce isn't the best option, methinks.

I was happily surprised at the proficient organisation at the venue - the additional screens and the TVs at appropriate distance intervals made it quite comfortable even for us in the "bhaaratiya baiThak"s.

Update: Harish's experiences

Loud and clear

Last Tuesday, I went to listen to Simon Singh talk about the subject of his latest book Big Bang. I had read part of his most famous book Fermat's Last Theorem, so I expected quite an informative talk. It was quite entertaining too. Singh put on a very interesting slideshow going over the key elements of the Big Bang theory in the last 50 years, though for anyone who has read the relevant sections in Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, it was not unfamiliar.

As had been promised in the publicity flyers, Led Zeppelin ("Stairway to Heaven" played in reverse and words sounding like a hymn to Satan, to illustrate the human mind's penchant for sometimes contriving patterns out of nothing and) why the Teletubbies are evil showed up. He also started the evening by acknowledging the existence of a book with the same title but dealing with the kinds of issues that Eccentrica Gallumbits was known to have written about according to "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe".

Slightly ironic about the evening was the fact that the venue for this event was at the IUCAA whose head Jayant Narlikar's guru, Fred Hoyle, was the foremost opponent of the "Big Bang" theory. It was quite a decent 101 to the theory. Coincidentally, I even found a copy of this book at the British Library today, so let's see how that turns out.

Armstrong tactics

It's not about the bike is simply the toughest book I've read in a long, long time - perhaps of all time. It really was not about the bike. If I didn't know it had such a well-chronicled happy ending, I would have found it hard to stomach all of it. I have read a lot of lives with worse things happening, but it was something about the Texan and the candidness with which he talks of things before and after. I don't know what. It's not very easy to make a gist in a paragraph, so I'm not going to even try.

Over the last 5 years, each of the biographies I have read add weight to that great quote I read somewhere (paraphrased): "What's the difference between fiction and reality? (sometimes) Fiction has to make sense".

European Film Festival - Hotel Rwanda and Enduring Love

Hotel Rwanda
So you've seen films about humans in conflicts, how some of them with rare courage end up saving the lives of many around them despite faltering along the way. These stories have been set among warring Bosnians and Serbs, Hindus and Muslims, Indians and Pakistanis, Jews and Nazis, Russians and Germans, etc. etc. - the appellations change but we've seen it all before. So why should we watch a film like most of these set in Rwanda?

One, because however jaded the theme can get, these stories need to be told. We need to learn about the Hutus and Tutsis as well, precisely because these are so easily transplanted elsewhere. They can plant a seedling of caution. It also helps that the film has been made well, with some good performances from the likes of Don Cheadle in the main role as the hotel manager whose conscience forces him to abandon his me-and-my-family-only stance to (reluctantly at first) care for as many as he could. These tales apart from being about uncommon bravery amidst all too common stories of woe are also a reminder of the fortuitousness, the random arbitrary hand of chance and the occasional inability of the powerful to be fully evil. This may have happened a decade ago, but that the world saw most of it and still couldn't or wouldn't do much is not something I knew.

If you have been watching movies for a while, there'd have been one film that shook you out of your naive belief that they all have happy endings. Mine was "Von Ryan's Express" where I found it extremely hard to believe that they'd kill Frank Sinatra after all the trouble he went to getting those soldiers out of the Nazi clutches - I became a little suspicious of stories from then on. The reason why I'm talking about it here is that the way the film has been narrated is not always the most predictable - they've left in the little snatches of humour and sadness that makes up life as we usually know it.

Enduring Love
This isn't the greatest psychological thriller you'll ever see, but I will remember this for a long time for I was brilliantly set up for this movie.

So you're in a lush green field in one of those made-for-cinematography bright English days with your girlfriend. An out of control hot air balloon punctures this picture of serenity. It has a small boy in it. You rush to help as do a few other passersby. A few spectacular shots later, one of them is dead - dead by plunging to his fall. You were among those who let go. It begins to haunt you. You're Joe.

Or you were one of the others. When you saw the body, you knelt to pray. And coerced Joe to do the same. And when he did, you felt a strange kinship spring between both of you. And you continued to see meaning in everything he did from then on. How harmless are you really? You're Jed.

You're Claire and you continue to be puzzled at what Joe's been thinking - why does he blame himself so? It's come to a point where one of you has to make a decision.

Enduring Love doesn't lift into a higher gear at any specific point, not even when it could have - but I found the meandering more menacing, more irritable, more intriguing. Throw in neo-Darwinian discussions on the ethics of love, the quest for meaning when none probably existed, on finding it complicated to keep it simple - the adaptation of a Ian McEwan novel had all this to offer. In the end analysis, it comes up a little short, but if you're in the right (or wrong) frame of mind, you might really like it.

That the film was directed by the man who made "Notting Hill" will explain the presence of actors like Rhys Ifans (Hugh Grant's Welsh roommate) and Bill Nighy (the wannabe banker). Samantha Morton, I've seen in similar scenes of psychological trauma in an episode of "Cracker", while this was my first glimpse of the new Bond, Daniel Craig.

KM
I sort of lost enthusiasm for the rest of the festival, but will be heading to watch Mani Ratnam's "Kannathil Muthamittal" on the big screen for the first time. There were a couple of minor factual errors in the brochure regarding the plot - wonder who ctrl-c/ctrl-v-ed that from where.

Ah Aah, The Rising, Water

{As usual, not a review - just a place to jot down thoughts - long overdue}

Ah Aah
Those Rahman fans who thought the bag of fast, pacy songs had dried out, should give the title track a listen - some fans have gone as far as to lament its presence in this film, for according to them, it was good enough to be a Rajnikanth intro song :-) - high praise indeed. I didn't fancy too much of the rest of the album, but there were snatches that I really liked. Shreya Ghoshal gets better each year and I have to follow her work more seriously. She's done a good job (and I haven't heard her sing such songs before) with "Nazhuvuthu" which also presented a few interesting bits. OTOH, I would really implore ARR to stop using Madhushree - her recent efforts have been huge dampeners. So I didn't like "Mazhilazhage" much. The faster version of the same song (different lyrics - interesting that) in "Maramkothiye" is a touch better, but no great shakes. "Thigu Thigu" for some reason reminds me of Ilayaraja in the early/mid 90s - not sure why. More non-Tamil female singing credits - this time Sadhana Sargam. Hugely annoying male voice - Blaaze? - aargh. "Varugirai" - didn't care much for this too, sadly - but atleast Hariharan and Chitra don't suck in the singing dept. Rewind then, back to "Anbe Aaruyire" and hear the music director croon soulfully.

(BTW, "Ah Aah" is really the name of the film - no joking.)

The Rising
This album was understandably not a hit - understandably, because in the ultimate analysis, it wasn't all that great, and plus it would have demanded some more patience from its listeners. Since I was anyway going to invest that kind of time, I did come away with some positives than the average listeners.

There are three variations of the title track. It took me some time to figure out that the first was actually not about Mangal Pandey, but a general evocation to the beginning of a day and let everything be good. I liked this one and the last one which digs out defiance from despair (I seem to be a sucker for these). If I can forget about the annoying nasal twangs of Madhushree again, the Holi song - especially, the spoken part towards the end - had me interested. "Mai.n vaari vaari" also caught my fancy as did the seductive, gypsy "Rasiyaa" tune, which I found quite fresh. I'm glad ARR has decided to stop doing these "period" films for it's taking its toll and I'm tired of the by now ubiquituous Muslim devotional ("Al-Madath Maulaa" in this one). "Takey Takey" is more of a situational song - I didn't think much of it. Trivia note is that Rahman's kids have now registered their voices on an official soundtrack with this song.

Water
I'm not going to write much about this unless I hear a full CD quality album, but reactions are that it's obviously quite spare in arrangements and I don't think it's going to be a crowd-pleaser by a mile. I think the reason Rahman rates it highly must be because of the challenge it must have posed personally - requires a completely different set of gears.

Ping

The brief interlude is over - I'm back to finding anonymous concealment in books, movies, music and writing, just like it used to be.

*** I have a long vacation and it has been repeatedly impressed that such days will not show up too often in the rest of my life. So feeling a little like being out on the Rockefeller laws or a final Shwaas-like parole before the guillotine drops, I'm trying to do many of those "things". It reminds me of actor Chris England in his book "From Balham to Bollywood" who writes about how he finds himself succumbing to the desperate fever of squeezing in that extra moment in the holiday. I'm a fan of sleep, but sometimes the pressure is such that even to me, 6+ hours of the zzzs seems to be wasteful.

Plans include catching on some lesser known films at a "European Film Festival" at NFAI, at least one session at Sawai Gandharva and more books than films this time.

*** TV is back and have been catching up on a favourite pastime - movie trailers. Mr. ya Miss is arguably the worst Factory trailer ever and is despairing considering the more creative efforts before. Antara Mali as director? So she cops blame both for screaming too much and making it the focus of the trailers. OTOH, smart work as usual from Sanjay Gupta who has been given credit only by George methinks. And this time, some brownie melting fudge points from me for opting to go for a quieter adjunct song by roping in Strings to do "Yeh Hai Meri Kahani" with a distinctive video featuring the Pakistani rockers along with Sanjay Dutt and John Abraham. Good work. Most of the rest remain good test cases to test the reflexes of the fingers in hitting the remote control buttons. But good visuals from another of the Gupta tribe - Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's Rang De Basanti showing up with title track racing through.

*** I seem to have become an emotionally driven consumer like many others - truth, despite my cringing at this admission. For a reaction to having made a fool of myself was to go and buy Lance Armstrong's It's not about the bike and others - books are so overpriced these days :-( - got a decent haul at BCL, so there's enough to read.

*** Looking forward to the music of Rang De Basanti - less than a week.