Indiavision television channel in Malayalam has a different kind of reality music show. They conduct a musical reality show called “Street Light” for street singers/musicians. And the final price is to get them a house. Quite interesting. The show is telecasted in Indiavision on every Saturday and Sunday at 8:25 PM.
_____’s first short film “The Temptation Between Our Legs” (23 minutes, English) was denied Censor Board Certificate.
That is one of the profile credentials of a young and upcoming Malayali film maker who is now making a Tamil movie. The denial of a censor board certificate is projected as the sole recognition of the director’s first short film. I was surprised to read it in between the other credible recognitions he got, but we live in a world where we all try to market ourselves to the core. And we know that the best tool to use is sensationalism. Well, nobody needs to teaches you that; particularly if you come from journalism.
Here is a song after a short break. This song is one of my top favorites by the A R Rahman-Hariharan team. I also loved Harini’s version of the song. The sweetness in Harini’s voice and Hariharan’s versatility in doing manodharam make both their versions stand on its own.
This song was requested by Maneesha CM and her friend (from Ernakulam) after they heard one of my songs through Muziboo. They called me up and asked me to sing a couple of songs and this was one of them. I totally forgot about it and remembered it when I saw a YouTube link showing Hariharan singing this song.
So here is my try as an unplugged version.
Song: Nilaa Kaaigiradhu
Movie: Indira
Music: A R Rahman
Sung by: Hariharan/Harini
Download the mp3 of Nilaa Kaaigiradhu (cover)
192 kbps player:
128 kbps player:
I like Roman Polanski for his artistic talents. I think he is a great director. I loved his films like Chinatown, Bitter Moon, Death and the Maiden and The Pianist. They go straight in to the list of my all time favorite movies. I remember the first time when I went to see the movie “Bitter Moon” in Raagam theatre in Thrissur when I was in college. I didn’t know anything about Hugh Grant or Victor Bannerjee (who appeared in a guest role) but it is the Adult certificate that was displayed in the movie’s posters that caught my interest. But when I came out of the movie hall, it was not the nude scenes but the movie itself that haunted me for days. There is no doubt that Polanski is a great movie director. I would rate him to my top favorite directors at anytime.
But, he has been accused of abusing a 13 year old girl almost 31 years ago. He has reportedly drugged and had ‘unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor’. Would I not blame Polanski just because he is an artiste, a great artist at that? Would I not blame him just because he has contributed so much to the world cinema? The answer is NO. Polanski, the person is different from Polanski, the director. The person who has committed a heinous crime has to pay the price, no matter how much time has passed since. He was trying to escape after the incident, fleeing from country to country.
It is pitiful to see the directors like Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch etc have signed a petition calling for an “immediate release” of Polanski. The French cultural minister said “he is a wonderful man”. I don’t understand what these people are thinking about. Are celebrities above the law? If Polanski is innocent and if this case has been made to corner him, he has to prove it in the court, rather than feeling from country to country. The very fact that he was trying to escape from the case all these years make us suspicious about the man.
Many say that the girl (now a woman) has withdrawn the complaints against Polanski. Even if it is so, the law has to take it’s course. And what really prompted the woman to say that she wants this whole thing to end? “Decades of publicity as well as the prosecutor’s focus on lurid details continues to traumatize her and her family”. Now should the man be acquitted of the charges because of this? I had high regards for directors like Martin Scorsese, but now I have lost my respect for them. There is nothing really Holy about Hollywood.
Related reading: Unforgivable Roman Polanski
(Image courtesy: Guardian.co.uk)
I am not an expert in music and I don’t have even the basic ideas of the raaga/classical system. However, I love to compose songs occasionally. The first time I composed a song was many years back. It was a devotional song. It happened this way – our Church choir had an A grade in those days at All India Radio, Thrissur station. We were occasionally invited to the AIR studio to record songs for Easter or Christmas days. The songs had to be original works.
Once we had an invitation to record for the Easter week. Our main composer, George chettan, was kind of busy with working for albums and he could not do all the songs. There were about 5 to 6 songs scheduled for the recording session. So he asked if anybody had any songs composed and ready to orchestrate. My friend Lindsie knew that I had composed two devotional songs and she mentioned that to him [I owe you for that, Linu! :-)]. I presented the songs before him, both which I wrote and composed. He liked the songs and agreed to orchestrate it.
The recording on that day at All India Radio, Thrissur is an unforgettable moment of my life. It was my first studio experience ever. The AIR studio used (I don’t know if they still use it) old recording techniques, so there was no studio softwares or punch-in options. If you misspell even just one word or go out of tune in one place, you would have to sing the entire song from the beginning to end. I was totally nervous (as I always am when I sing) but somehow managed to sing the songs.
I was so happy that day that I could sing my own song at AIR. I was even more happy when I listened to the song at my neighbor’s house through their radio (we did not have a radio in our house then). My heart nearly burst out when I heard the announcer saying my name and the song’s name before the song was played. I wanted to scream to the world that this is my song that you are hearing through All India Radio. The song I wrote, composed and sang [ Listen to the song here – not the original version, re-recorded many years later]. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get hold of a recorded version of the original. After many years, when I went to learn Karnatik music, I made my teacher listen to the song and he said that the song was based on Hamsadhwani. I had no idea of what raaga it was.
Now that’s a long introduction. Coming to the topic, I composed a song recently for a short film being directed by a friend’s friend. Here is the situation of the song as I learned from my friend:
The girl hasn’t met the boy yet. She has only heard so much about him. He is a revolutionary kinda person and she develops a heroic crush towards him. He is in jail. Even though they haven’t met each other yet, she begins to love him after she learns a about him from his family etc, and waits for him to return from jail. So this is not a sad song. This song is about waiting, but involves the pain of love. So I kept all of these in mind when I composed.
The song is written by Retheesh from Malappuram. I met him first at my house when he came in with the lyrics and explained the song situation. His beautiful lines inspired me to come up with the tune in a short span of time. He made several changes to the lyrics on my request. Orchestration was done by Rajith, a keyboard player who also owns a small studio in Thrissur. He has done an awesome job and made this song to what I had imagined it to be. When I requested Divya S Menon (who needs no introduction to the music blogging world) to sing the song, she happily agreed and did a wonderful job on the vocals. My thanks to all of them.
I sent this song to two of my close friends in the field of music and both of them gave me positive reviews. One said that the song fits the description very well and the other said that I should quit my job and become a full time music director. My thanks to you guys for your kind feedback. 🙂
Now, I leave the song to you guys to listen. Let me know how you like it. When the music video gets ready, I will post it here.
Song: Iniyethra Naal (Malayalam)
Lyrics: Ratheesh
Composed by: Joseph Thomas (Jo)
Orchestrated by: Rajith
Singer: Divya S Menon
My friend Arun has done an awesome job again on Guitars and this time it is the cover of popular song Kangal Irandaal from Subramanyapuram. Arun has a special way of playing Guitar and I wish he spends more time on this. 🙂
I have been using iPod to listen to music and it has been a great experience so far. The one I had was an iPod Nano 4GB which was gifted by a friend. But as the music kept stacking up and 4GB was not being enough, I was planning to upgrade to a newer version of iPod. Then I researched a bit and talked to friends and Sijo, who uses a Zune suggested to use Zune instead of iPod. A couple of others who have used both was of the opinion that Zune gives a better audio experience. So when Sijo went to US related to work, he bought this piece of beauty for me. This is my new Zune 120GB. I am yet to begin experiencing it (MS asking for Windows updates now when I tried to install the software!) and am looking forward to it.
The 55th National Film Awards of 2007 have been announced and so many talented people have been recognized. First of all, I am glad that Prakash Raj won the Best Actor award. He has amazed me with his performance in Mani Ratnam’s “Iruvar“. His dialogue deliveries in Tamil made a non-Tamilian like me to appreciate the beauty of Tamil language (though I did not understand much of it). His performance as a villain in the movie “Aasai” was also wonderful. I haven’t seen the movie “Kanchivaram“, but I’m sure he must have done a wonderful job there too.
I have no words to say about Ouseppachan‘s achievement in this year’s national film awards. He has won the Best Music Director award for the songs of “Ore Kadal“. Like a Twitter friend mentioned, this award was long due. He has given us some musical gems right from the beginning of his career. I can forever listen to the songs like “Kaathodu Kaathoram“, or “Nee En Sarga Soundaryame” or “Unnikale Oru Katha Parayaam“. In the movie “Ore Kadal“, he chose to compose all 5 songs in one Raagam, that is Shubha Panthuvaraali. Even though all songs are based on the same raaga, each song stood out with its own features.
Do I even need to mention the maestro Adoor Gopalakrishnan? Though I am unsure of how well the other competitors have done with their movies, I have seen “Naalu Pennungal” and loved all the four segments of the movie which featured 4 women characters, each so powerful on their own right.
Pattanam Rasheed, whose name is so familiar to any one who watches the Malayalam movies, has rightly been awarded for the make-up of Paradesi. Shankar Mahadevan has bagged the Best Male Playback Singer award for his soul stirring rendition of Maa from Taare Zameen Par and Shreya Ghoshal has won the Best Female Playback Singer award.
To conclude, there are no controversy over the awards so far and that’s something we haven’t seen in the recent years.
Eenam, the Malayalam online album, has released an Onam special version. It has a very nice collection of original Malayalam songs and my most favorite song of the album is “aarO kaathil paaTi“, sung by Pradeep (male version) and Divya (female). Pradeep has done an excellent job on the vocals and Bahuvreehi’s composition is nothing short of professional work. Checkout their songs and let them know what you think.
What a great way to pay tribute to the King of Pop!
From the You Tube page:
These are two performances made at Segels Torg and the Central Station (a third installment is planned to happen at Stureplan at 23.00 tonight).
The dance collective Bounce came up with the idea and invited the public to a short choreographed session before hitting the streets.
(Thanks to Arun M for the link)
