Slum Dog Bags 10 Oscar Nominations

Slumdog Millionaire bagged 10 Oscar nominations at the 81st annual Academy Awards... For Best Film, Best Adapted Screenplay (Simon Beaufoy), Best Director (Danny Boyle, Best Original Score (A R Rahman), Best Song (Jai Ho and O Saya), Best Sound Editing (Tom Sayers), Best Sound Mixing (Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke and Resul Pookutty), Best Cinematography (Anthony Dod Mantle) and Best Film Editing (Chris Dickens).

Best Picture nominees are - The curious case of Benjamin Button, Frost / Nixon, Milk, The Reader & Slum Dog Millionaire.

A R Rahman., most likely to bag the Oscars !

Song on Kosu-k-kadi, mosquito bite

After all, i live in India, mosquitoes every where... I got disturbed from my sleep when some mosquitoes trying to pin me down... i didnt get my sleep back immediately., so when i was playing my music player - i got masakali from delhi 6 ! Immediately, my creative brain went running !!! There you go....

Kosu-k-kadi kosu-k-kadi yappa sema kadi sema kadi
hey Kosu-k-kadi kosu-k-kadi yappa sema kadi sema kadi

night fulla parandhu parandhu
naan enna solla en ratham adhukku romba pidikkum
fan-u wast-u, agarbathi-wast-u
summa unnnnnnnngunu parandhu veratti adhu pudumgum
naan patt-nnu poda, adhu merandu oda
yen adi enakkey romba valikkum

hey Kosu-k-kadi kosu-k-kadi yappa sema kadi sema kadi
night fulla parandhu parandhu ennai kadikkum

Bangalorians... dont laugh at chennaites... pls substitute naai-k-kadi and sing the same song !!!

Music Review of Dev D

Album: Dev D
Music By: Amit Trivedi
Over all Rating: Must Listen

What do you expect one music CD? Good music, decent variety - right?

You get 18 songs which engages you for 61 minutes !!! All decent tunes, some are damn good, enchanting & engaging !

Director Anurag Kashyap deserves a pat for being different !
What else you want - Go for it !
My special kudos to Music Directors Amit Trivedi ! Great work indeed !

Dev D Music spans across various musical forms as listed below:-

Regular - yahi meri zindagi, ranjhana, saali khushi;
Western / fusion - aankh macholi, Duniya, ek hulchal si, pardesi;
Folk - dhol yaara dhol;
Punjabi - hiknaal, mahi ninnu, mahi ninnu (sad version);
Heavy metal, Band - emosonal attyachar & attyachar, nayan tarse;
Hindustani - paayaliya;
Instrumental - dev chanda themes 1 & 2;
Broadway'ish - Dil Mein Jaagi;

Music Review of Delhi-6

Album - Delhi-6; Dilli-6
Music By - A R Rahman
Over all Rating - Must Listen

1) Aarti (Tumre Bhavan Mein) By Rekha Bharadwaj, Kishori Gowariker, Shraddha Pandit, Sujata Majumdar - 4/5 - Brief Bhajan; humming ending enhances the spiritual mood of the song;

2) Arziyan (Maula) By Javed Ali, Kailash Kher - 4/5 - Lenghthiest song of Rahman - 8.42 min !!! Qawwali song for ghar aaya situation; Wonderful singing by Javed and Kailash; Basic instruments and simple orchestration of a typical Qawwali song. Wonder what the director could have reacted to the length of the song!

3) Bhor Bhaye By Shreya Ghosal, Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Gujri Todi 4/5 - Brief traditional hindustani variety song; shreya's show all the way;

4) Delhi 6 By Blaaze, Benny Dayal, Vivinenne Pocha, Tanvi, Claire - 4.5/5 - Hip hop variety song; husky singing by ladies; Catchy tune gets addictive when played multiple times.

5) Dil Gira Dafatan By Ash King, Backing Chinmayee - 4/5 - Soothing song, finely sung by Ash King; sweetly supported by chinmayee. Fine use of guitar with typical rahman way of music arrangements; Sudden burst of rhythm takes you by surprise between 2:24 to 3:00;

6) Genda Phool By Rekha Bharadwaj, Shraddha Pandit, Sujata Majumdar - 4.5/5 - Brief Folk song with techno beats in background; I could not resist imagining Madhu Bala on the screen ! 2.08 to end captures the natural background.

7) Hey Kaala Bandar By Karthik, Naresh, Srinivas, Bony Chakravarthy - 4/5 - Fast techno song with Rap interludes thrown in between, goes easy with a wonderful mediteranian interlude in between;

8) Masakali By Mohit Chouhan - 5/5 - catchy rustic tune; Amazingly good singing by Mohit; rhythemic lyrics, good use of alliteration by Prasoon Joshi; Different orchestration, different instruments used by Rahman - second stanza music is damn good especially;

9) Rehna Tu By A R Rahman, Benny Dayal, Tanvi - 5/5 - soft melody; as silky as satin; carnatic finish takes you to heaven; Song sung by Rahman never fails to impress - he manages to seduce us this time too.

After thoughts

Unbelievably good stuff by Rahman - a never before like album. Increased expectation on the movie considerably. Rahman breaks the tradition of pallavi-music-Charanam 1 -pallavi-music-Charanam 2 stuff in Rehna Tu and Dil Giri Dafatan and re-arranged it such a way to create further interest in listening.

I feel One thing for sure after listening to Jodhaa Akbar, Jaane Tu, Slum Dog & Delhi 6 - insha allah, Rahman will take the music to next level unlike many of the past greats failed to do;

Economics of Chennai Book Fair

I didn't like the book fair this year. No one have patience, energy to visit around 585 stalls. Even if some one wants to, it would take them 5-6 hours. So, it is a waste of time for consumers.

Here, I go in understanding the economics of Chennai book fair …

Stall Rent – last year, this year	60,000	77,000
No of Stalls – last year, this year	450	600
Total Rental collection (A * B)	Rs. 2.7 Cr	Rs. 4.62 Cr
Visitors per year	1m	1m
Avg sale per head	Rs. 250	Rs. 350
Total billing	Rs. 2.5 Cr	Rs. 3.5 Cr

 

The publishers must make atleast 3 times of rent to make his 10 days of stint worthwhile. So, every publisher must make around 2.3 Lacs of sale of books in 10 days amounting to average of 23k sale per day. How many publishers would have achieved this? May be 25 or so !!!

The organizers must bring down the number of stalls for sure. They should simply retain the top 25 publishers and should conduct lottery for others so as to restrict the stalls to 300 or so. The publishers also should have a section for new releases inside stalls. The visitors would be wondering to spot familiar, popular books always L

Looks like the organizers are making good profits than participants !!!

 

Performances at Chennai Sangamam

Karakattam demonstrates the balancing skills of a dancer. This group from Nagerkoil (?) performed for almost 30min without any issues for some lovely folk tunes. The dance movements look simple but the level of concentration for a longer period keeps us wondering !

Kovai Mohan is a Kalaimamani award winner for Kaavadi Aattam. He is almost 52 years old but his control, concentration, skill, balancing act is absolutely wonderful. His team mate has got 18 years of experience in this aattam and his skill is equally appreciable. They were remarkable and the crowd went berseck when Mr Mohan picked needles in his eyes through dance.

Imagine performing even little bit of dancing with 5 feet kaavadi on your head and look at the photo ! Nothing more to say J

The group from Vijayawada proved to be damn good to believe. They played good music, danced a bit but did some wonderful team act ! Most of the crowd enjoyed it very well with very little understanding or meaning of their song !

In and around of Natesan Park was fully lit and decorated for Chennai sangamam. The night out street festival on 13^th Jan, 2009 was a massive hit. Shops were set up on the platforms and dancers were performing on the road. Crowd mingled with them and took videos, photos etc and rediscovered their kiddish days !

Pudukottai Pugazhendi's program is called "Aagada Vikatam"; Kind of villu patty with talk show; they were amazingly humorous and took the control of the crowd in ease and made jokes on every topic. Damn good program !

Sanjay Subramaniam's performance at Nageswara Park, Mylapore was excellent as usual !

One could have enjoyed bravery arts at Lady Wellington school ground. The Silambattam, Judo fights were the best. Unfortunately, I could not take good pictures because of lighting issues.

I have not done justice to 4500 performances, so do participate next item.... You are sinning if you live in chennai and doesnt care about this !

Here is the weblink for photos / pictures. Download videos (real player compatible) of performances at Chennai Sangamam 2009 !

http://picasaweb.google.com/svijayganesh/ChennaiSangamam2009Performances#

Enjoy !

Rahman Wins Golden Globe for Slum Dog

Rahman wins best original score for Slum Dog at Golden Globe awards. This is generally perceived as a prelude to Oscars !

This is a great moment for Indian movie fans especially music fans as we soak ourselves in music based movies for decades.

Proud to note the Chennai living A R Rahman's career which is reaching new heights year after year... Hats of to his hard work, creativity and his humility.