November 2009 – Just Jo

The Maestro Cover-up

I have high regards for composer Ilaiyaraja. Of late, however, the maestro has begun to show some sort of musical sterility in his works. There is no variety or fresh approach in his music anymore. His music doesn’t move you or excite you much these days, even in his trademark melodious tunes. Perhaps this could be one reason why A R Rahman got more popular than Ilaiyaraja, because ARR kept improvising throughout his career. Also Ilaiyaraja has been recycling his old tunes for new movies. His Hindi music scores for the films like “Cheeni Kum” and “Paa” are good examples of this.

When I heard the songs from the movie Pazhassiraja, composed by Ilaiyaraja, it did not move me a bit. Ilaiyaraja’s music for this epic movie was disappointing and average. Usually the movies directed by Hariharan would have some great songs. But this one was a huge let down.

But now the composer is blaming the lyricist over one particular song from Pazhassiraja. Ilaiyaraja said that he is dissatisfied with poet ONV Kurup’s lyrics for the film and he spoke about it at the audio release of the Tamil version of the film at Chennai.

According to the music director, ONV was unable to write the lyrics for a tune that had been selected by Hariharan, from among several tunes that Ilaiyaraja had presented before him. A few months later, the director had approached Ilaiyaraja again with lyrics that had been written by the famous lyricist, and had asked him to compose a tune for the same.

Ilaiyaraja said that the lyrics had the manner of a march past anthem. It had none of the anguish experienced by the warrior. Probably the lyricist must have had a different picture of Pazhassi in his mind, he added. [via]

I think it is up to the director and script writer to decide what kind of lyrics they want for a situation in the film. In this case, it seems that both the director and script writer do not have any problem with the lyrics penned by ONV. Then why should the composer have any issues? Or is it his way of covering up his inability to come up with a good tune for the lines that ONV wrote?

PS: The song Gum Sum from the Hindi movie Paa is a tune composed by Ilaiyaraja for an old Malayalam song (Thumpee Vaa). The original Malayalam lyrics for that song was written by ONV and most of us Malayalees listen to that song equally for it’s poetic beauty.

Update: Here is another take on the songs from Pazhassiraja.

Dear Law Makers

I don’t know if it is because you guys are past your age of “getting jiggy with it” or worried about the rising number of young people in India and taking your old-vs-young revenge on them, but what the local news papers have been reporting about the thing you have done with the IT amendment act is quite horrible. I mean, how fair is it to arrest somebody even without a warrant for browsing porn online? Considering that Internet is the best possible medium available for youth to please themselves, this new rule is mostly going to affect the youngsters. If you curb the youth’s virtual sexual adventures like that, wouldn’t they get even more curious to sneak into the lives of the real people and seek real sex out of them? Or is it your way of telling the youth to “go out, have some real sex, time to stop the single tennis game“? But even then, you guys haven’t yet legalized prostitution here and the sexual abuse/crime rates are increasing in the country! I mean, the law enforcement is most of the times silent about those old politicians, top officials who are accused of raping minors using their flesh trade connections but you can arrest an ordinary person for just browsing porn online without causing anyone any harm?! WTF is that?

Thank You and Good Bye

Sainoj singer

Singer Sainoj, who has sung the song “Thaamara Pookkalum” from the movie “Orkkuka Vallappozhum” (one of my most favorite songs of the recent time) has passed away yesterday. He was a winner of the musical show “Gandharva Sangeetham” in Kairali TV and has sung in a couple of Malayalam movies including Orkkuka Vallappozhum and Ivar Vivaahitharaayaal. He had the symptoms of blood cancer. May his soul rest in peace…

(Image courtesy: Nowrunning.com)

Neelathaamara

Director Lal Jose has never disappointed the Malayalam movie lovers ever since his debut. Except for twice – with films like “Pattaalam” and “Mulla” – his movies are widely accepted by the Malayalee audience. His movies are mostly set to the backdrop of a typical Kerala village and both the story and camera capture the essence and beauty of the place. The song sequence in Lal Jose movies are a visual treat and he doesn’t go out to Singapore or Switzerland to shoot for a song, yet captures the breath-taking beauty of the ordinary places/villages. His latest (though I am yet to watch it) is one of the 10 short films in the movie “Kerala Cafe” which is already a hit with Mammootty and Srinivasan doing the lead roles.

“Neelathaamara” is one of the year’s much awaited Malayalam film. Lal Jose teams up with writer M T Vasudevan Nair to do a remake of an old Malayalam film. And Malayalees have huge expectation over the film as two magicians (MT and Lal Jose) join hands for this film. The movie is taken in a very low budget. I just saw/heard one song and it has such stunning visuals. I don’t have much to praise the song though. The tune somewhat reminds us of the old popular Malayalam hit songs composed by Vidyasagar himself (what is it with music directors these days recycling the old wine?). The song reminds me too much of Vidyasagar’s early (Lal Jose film) hit “Karimizhi kuruviye kandilla”. And though it is my sweetheart Shreya Ghoshal [;-)] singing the song, the pronunciation at places were bumpy in the song. “nirayum” for “niRayum” for example. Shreya is usually so keen on the pronunciation part and has sung even much more difficult Malayalam song lines with ease (“Vida Parayukayaano” and “Chaanthu Thottille” for example), so I would blame it on the people who were in the studio for this mistake. Another bumpy thing was the over stress at “ka” in the word “akale” by the male singer. But generally it is a good melodious tune, but nothing new.

So here is “Anuraaga Vilochananaayi” mostly for the visual treat it offers. And do check out Lal Jose’s blog.

Borders, re-drawn by Google

It is quite normal of businesses to have different strategies for different regions but there are some things which should not be hurt just because of the business interests. And I think it is a pity that somebody has to remind a company like Google about that.

Google Maps, in it’s English version, has marked India’s borders with China as disputed area. However, Google Ditu, the Chinese localized version of Google Maps, has portrayed Arunachal Pradesh and other parts of India as part of China. Google Ditu also shows Taiwan and the South China Sea Islands as part of China. This is quite a big insult to the Indian nation and it’s people and I think there has to be a wide spread protest against this.

Google Maps screenshot

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Google Ditu screenshot

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(Thanks to Aravind for the info)

Love Jehad?

Three of my good friends who are Christians married Hindu girls. All three of them were either studying or working together when they first met and fell in love. The girls got converted to Christianity. What do I call this? Love Crusade? I would like to know what Catholic Church has to say about this.

Two of my Hindu friends married Christian girls. The girls got converted to Hinduism at Arya Samaj offices. What do I call this? Love Karseva? I would like to know what Viswa Hindu Parishat has to say about this.

I have mentioned this over and again in many communications that at least in Kerala, those who have to compromise on their religion for a wedding happen to be Women. I have said that this is more of a gender issue because I have never heard of a boy converting to his girl’s religion to get married.

However, when the boy happens to be a Muslim and the girl happens to be a Christian or Hindu, why is it linked to the word Terrorism and an immediate interest in calling it Love Jihad? Why is it that our media even called it an organization without even investigating a little? Why are they remaining silent now that the DGP has submitted a report before the court that there is no such organization and no indication of anything like Love-Jehad? How could the Catholic church shamelessly join hands with VHP in keeping the numbers of the herd intact?

To conclude, an old online acquaintance of mine who happens to be a Muslim married a Christian boy some years back. Both of them have not changed their religions.

What do I call THAT?

M G Sreekumar on Tamil songs

I saw this when a friend of mine pointed me to this video of an episode from the Malayalam musical reality show – Idea Star Singer. One of the contestants sang the beautiful Yesudas-Salil Chowdhury song “Shyaama Meghame” and the judges began to comment. The pointers, as usual, were based on the adherence to the original. After the famous Sangathi Man‘s comments, the voice-of-Mohan Lal came in. And he started lecturing and here it is:

“You people are addicted to the Tamil songs. Agreed that there are songs with such level of “sangathis” in Tamil, but there are no songs with such variations like we have in Malayalam. So if you try to sing this song in Tamil style, such Sangathis won’t come out.”

There is absolutely no reason to bring in Tamil music there. And if I am to believe what M G Sreekumar had said, what were music directors like Ilaiyaraja doing all these years in music? According to M G Sreekumar, none of them have done any songs with variations in Tamil yet.

Though I am scratching my head to find out the difference between the words “sangathi” and “variations”, I can’t also help thinking whether this is an out-pour of a singer who could not make his mark outside Malayalam music industry. Considering that his success in the Malayalam music industry is mainly attributed to his friend, schoolmate Mohan Lal, because their voices sounds alike, and to his friend director Priyadarshan, we have reasons to believe that he was just pouring his anger on a poor boy who came to test his luck with singing.

PS: My friend also comments that Salil Chowdhury is a Bengali and not a Malayali. So if he had the “variations” composed in Malayalam, he would sure have done it in his own language!

Blogswara on Twitter

Blogswara is now officially on Twitter! You can follow us @Blogswara for the updates.

On another note, we have received 15 song submissions for our next album (which will be out in January, 2010). The song evaluation process is to begin soon, so keep watching this space for more updates!

Commonwealth and Common Good

Yesterday on TEDIndia, Hans Rosling predicted that the average Indian would match up to the average American on 27th July, 2048 (yes, he’s even got the date). The Twitter stream was overflowed with Tweets rejoicing in the prediction. I am not sure if this is because of the TED organizers believing that “Indians are feel-gooders anyway, so let us just give them such feel-good statistics“, but I think Mr. Rosling has got a point there. We are matching up with America of the early days on many fronts. We are fast discriminating and ignoring some sections of people in our society. We are almost on the tip of a civil war. The central Government (with support from other political parties and corporations) has declared war on Naxalism which is sure to take the lives of it’s own people, including the innocent tribal people. I do understand the need for a military action against militant forces that threats the existence of a country, but it is going to be a mere exercise as a solution because the Government is doing almost nothing to root out the root problem – Though the Prime Minister himself has identified that very root problem.

There has been a systemic failure in giving tribals a stake in the modern economic process that inexorably intrude into their living places. The alienation built over decades is now taking a dangerous turn. The systematic exploitation and social and economic abuse of our tribal communities can no longer be tolerated.

That is what our PM has said some weeks back. And what is being done to solve that issue?

As Himanshu Kumar, a Gandhian and the only human rights activist on ground zero in faraway Dantewada where Operation Green Hunt is to be launched, says, “We can all be agreed on the premise that Naxalism is a problem, but why are these poor people attracted to a politics that will end in death? Have we created such a heinous system that death is more attractive than the deprivations and humiliations this system doles out? If that is so, why should I defend this system? All that these people want is food, health care, school, clothes and their legitimate right over their land. Yet, instead of weaning them away by strengthening the democratic process, if we are going to run our democracy only on the strength of weapons, I fear we are entering a dangerous and irrepairable state. We are headed for civil war.” Men like Himanshu should know. For 17 years, he has functioned like an ICU on the edges of a wounded society, providing education and health care, painstakingly drawing tribals into the electoral and constitutional process. The government, loath to undertake the trouble, has been happy to outsource its functions to him. Yet now, it is deaf to his wisdoms. Worse, it hasn’t even consulted him. [via]

And yesterday the Headlines India tweeted that “The government today more than doubled the budget for the 2010 Commonwealth Games from Rs.767 crore to Rs.1,620 crore“. Commonwealth seems to be more important than Common Good in this country. Such is our time.