As proud as a feeling gets....

Imagine a feeling of (scoring a centum on the hardest exam + driving a new bike/car on an empty-just-wet-from-rain road + slapping your worst enemy right across his face + landing a full-time job in your dream company + watching Sachin middle a perfect straight drive + THE AWESOMENESS OF EVERY OTHER EXCITEMENT). Thats probably close to the feeling that ran across my mind/heart when the name "A.R.Rahman" was read out for the best original score in a motion picture !!

OK. Flash back time..... 

It was roughly 3 months back when I started listening to Slumdog Millionaire. The first listen to "O.. Saaya" was soooo captivating that I was mad at Rahman for keeping this a secret project. Then I couldn't wait for the movie and to my surprise, it released quite quickly and in fact without much publicity. Though the movie was quite normal, the background score was mind-blowing!! The credits read out "Music produced by Rahman". What a perfect choice of words to describe such a unique and original score! All 12 tracks were pure magic !!

After that, I expected world-wide acclaim for Rahman but didn't expect so many nominations/awards. The Golden Globe was an awesome addition to his resume not to mention quite a few other awards in the international stage culminating with the Oscars. Watching both the Golden Globes and the Oscars in full HD on a 40" TV made every cent I invested in it TOTALLY worth it !!

While watching the Golden Globes, when Rahman mentioned "I thank all my musicians in Chennai and Mumbai", I felt so elated that he mentioned my home-town !! Since then, the countdown to Oscars started and all I could do is pray for Rahman to win both Oscars even though one was a sure-shot win (2 nominations out of 3 in the same category.. can't get much easier than that for a man of his talent !!). But I believed the "Best Original Score" was a tough category to win considering that he was alongside some greats including Thomas Newman (10 oscars) and James Newton Howard (8 oscars) . If Hans Zimmer was also nominated, then Rahman could have had the chance to beat all of Hollywood's top music composers in his first nomination !! Imagine these guys' plight if Rahman was nominated every year !!!

But then, Rahman proved his mettle (once again !) by claiming both awards and also performing (extraordinarily) two of the best songs in the movie. I screamed so hard at Rahman's name being announced that I almost missed the start of the speech. There were 6-8 people at our place cheering like some India-Pak match! My excitement reached its peak when Rahman said "I would like to say something in Tamizh, which I usually say at all award ceremonies.. ELLAPUGHAZHUM IRAIVANUKKE... God is great !". In a situation where all people who start with their usual "peter" on accomplishing small things, this guy walks on perhaps the most watched award ceremony in the world and takes the most coveted award in the world movie industry and speaks God's praise in his mother tongue Tamizh.... wow ... thala's simplicity rocks !!

I have nothing more to say except... "My salutations to you, oh God of music. May you enthrall us with your exquisite compositions forever. I know you made a billion people proud of being an Indian but you also succeeded in making me a stronger, more fervent Rahman fanatic!!"

Movie songs in a jiffy !

Today, I choose to talk about a very popular music composer - Harris Jeyaraj. Many hail him as an extremely talented music director which I would have agreed to if this discussion was held a few years ago. Of late I don't know what happened to the good musician who gave us damn good songs like "Vaseegara" and "Moongil Kadugale". Maybe its a case of what my brother mentions - "talent drained out" (except he uses it to refer to Rahman to mock me.. different story.. lets not go there). I strongly feel we have seen the best of what could have been a good music director. Nowadays he just sits there and tries to think of what songs to copy next. If it was just some inspiration he took from a different song, I wouldn't sit and blog about it but listen to these BLATANT lifts our guy has done :

1.
Pachaikili Muthucharam - Karu Karu Vizhigalal - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMun7ymNmr8
Westlife - Hit you with the real thing - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS_2nvnA-Gw

2.
Unnale Unnale - June Pona - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDo_9_sEpd4
Blue - All Rise - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HhXcrJMZXY

3.
Anniyan - Stranger in Black - Sorry, no link available !
Passion of Christ - Resurrection - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6qdqqjv8gQ (0:55 onwards)

4.
Vaaranam Aayiram - Adiye Kolludhe - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNzOZdk5Z0A
AC/DC - Love Bomb - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Komfvllxgzc

5.
Vaaranam Aayiram - Mundhinam - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EQ_8xi6ZuU
George Micheal - Faith - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viPWb3ieH6o (0:45 onwards)

6.
Vaaranam Aayiram - Oh Shanti Shanti - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt_lIpnHrXk
Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Other side - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaeF00sqW34

There are quite a few more such blatant and direct lifts which our man has done. The fact that I have listed three songs from his latest movie show how bad it has become. Almost every music director will have such a list of accusations thrown on his face (including Rahman) but then most of them can be shrugged off as inspiration or a very distant link/coincidence. I haven't seen any music director who started off so promisingly come down to this level or copying directly. Sure, Deva and Hindi music director Pritam have copied loads too but then they have never started off as a promising talent source.

In cricket, when we see players (who were legends once) start playing badly, we demand their resignation. I feel music directors are no different. When they start composing utterly pathetic tunes or worse yet, copying blatantly from other sources, movie audience should demand their resignation. Such plagiarism in music shouldn't be tolerated. And when I recall the conversation I had in my St.Joseph's classroom with a bunch of enthusiastic Harris fans (back in 2003) who rained praise on him and declared him the ultimate challenge to Rahman, all I can do is laugh !! The immediate image that comes to mind is the Energizer battery ad where all other motorized bunnies fall flat on their face while the Energizer bunny drums and rolls on !

An experiment with music...

My entry in the blog today is about Rahman's music. Almost all of my friends know that I am a Rahman fan and so, many views in this post might be considered biased by a few people. All I know is that what I have expressed below is something I deeply believe in.

Tons and tons of praise have been showered on Rahman's talent as a music composer and will continue to happen till the end of time which is why I chose a different trait of his to talk about - experimentation. Talk to any fan of his music and eventually the conversation drifts to his evergreen hits like Roja, Alaipayuthey, Rangeela, Taal, Rang De Basanti, etc. But I have interacted with quite a few Rahman fans and not many of them bring up songs like "Ennuir Thozhi", "Varugirai", "Thazhuvudhu", "Ghoomparani", "I miss you da", "Spiderman" etc. I know that of the people who read this post, many won't recognize a few of the above songs despite being familiar with Tamil/Rahman's music. These songs are from movies which didn't make blockbuster status but even then people might recognize the following songs : "Mayilirage", "Azhagiya Cinderella", "Ah Aah" title song, "Taxi Taxi", "New" title song, etc even though surprisingly they are from the same movies as the previously mentioned list of songs!

The point I am coming to is - not many people appreciate Rahman's try at "experimental" songs. The reason why I chose the word is that most of these songs don't conform to the usual - intro stanza.. paragraph_1 .. paragraph_2 .. intro stanza repeat.. end of song format... In fact one such experiment became a run-away hit - "Style" from Sivaji.. That song in Rahman's own words "had no form". But his other attempts have not been so lucky maybe because they didn't have such good publicity as "Style". I feel his attempts along such lines are bold mainly because in such a time frame where people tend to choose genres such as rap (ala YSR) / kuthu beats (ala Vidyasagar) / rhyming lines and illegible utterings (ala Harris), Rahman boldly mixes unknown instruments and strange tunes into a musical treat for the senses. The first time I heard "Style" my reaction was "What the heck ??". But after repeated hearings, I found so many unfathomable depths to the song! But his other experiments are not so lucky...

Through this blog I hope to generate enough curiosity into the albums that such a quality composer gives so that eventually all the songs are listened to, rather than picking only the songs which are instantly catchy. Nobody stands to lose anything by giving the songs a chance or two but not listening to such songs (which I compare to "diamonds hidden in charred coal") is a crime! The reason why I chose to use such strong expressions is that when songs come from an immensely talented composer like Rahman, a one-listen dismissal is unjustified.

I read another blog where the author mentioned that a study shows that certain frequencies of sounds please the senses and he/she goes on to mention that Rahman is probably quite knowledgeable of these frequencies. I'm sure that if they are given a chance, all of Rahman's songs will resonate at the frequencies your senses are tuned to... all I know is that his songs resonate in my head day after day !!

Suresh Balasubramanian

September 24, 2008

Hands off - that's mine!

Everything was fine till last month when I came back from India to resume classes at Texas A&M for the Summer semester. I go to the bike rack and my bicycle was missing! Despite the fact that my bike was old and not in perfect condition, I couldn't get over the fact that it was stolen from my own apartment's bike rack where I had locked it tight. But beside worrying about that fact, I didn't take any action towards getting it back primarily because I thought it wasn't worth the effort. Life moved on...

......... a month later ...............

I walk out of Weisenbaker Engineering Building and see my stolen bike locked to the rack there. I was shocked to say the least!! It was now that it dawned to me that I have the University Police to help me out. I called them up and an officer dropped by the location immediately. He asked me about where and when the bike was stolen and after I gave all the necessary info including some unique things about the bike which I had put in, he asked me the all important question - "Did you file a report with us as soon as you noticed your bike was stolen?". I had to sheepishly say "No, I didn't think that would help". At that point he said "Since you don't have solid proof of ownership and also didn't report it stolen a month back, there is no way you can prove this is your bike but we do honor your claim on it". But then since he understood my situation, he gave me an idea. He asked me to lock the bike again to the rack using my own lock so that the person using it can't get away with it. I did that and also put a note on it asking that person to call me. Later that evening I get a call from a student ('X') asking me why I locked "his" bike. I went over there along with a police officer and we talked to him. It turns out 'X' had bought the bike from a person in the apartment next to mine 2 weeks back. So the police officer came to the obvious conclusion that it was stolen from me and then sold to 'X'. Right now, I was going to be given my bike back but the poor student was out of luck as he had bought stolen property without enquiring about the source.

The officer volunteered to visit the place where 'X' had bought my bike and after a few days they caught the thief and were able to get his money back at which point 'X' happily gave me my bike back. Finally, I got my bike back and 'X' didn't undergo any financial loss though his purchase of a bike at a really good price was gone now. So everything is back to normal but I learnt a few important things from this moderately stressful experience :

1. Never refrain from reporting stolen property. It might be your only claim to get it back later. Also engrave your ID number/phone number on it so that you can claim it later.
2. Do not buy stolen property i.e. when buying something make sure the person selling it to you owns it. Get a signed note from him stating that it is not disputed property if he doesn't have proof of ownership.
3. Never leave your property outside when going on vacation. Lock it up indoors so that nobody is tempted to steal it.
4. For all such things, note down the ID number so that you can trace it if its stolen. eg. VIN for cars, serial numbers for bikes, IMEI numbers for mobile phones, etc.

I wrote this hoping others can learn from my experience and be careful. Remember -
"Fool me once, shame on you... Fool me twice, shame on me." --Chinese Proverb

Suresh Balasubramanian

July 9, 2008

Azhagiya Tamizh Magan ????

Hello ppl,

Am back after a long time of no blogging. Wanted to do one on the many trips I had taken but somehow never got around to it. So here are my thoughts on something on a totally tangential path..

Every Vijay fan after Pokkiri is obviously waiting for his next movie.. After Sivaji, there must have been many guys and one girl I know... AK... ;-) obsessed with her so much that they are waiting for her movies too. But I had been waiting for Azhagiya Tamizh Magan for a long time for a more meritorious reason.. A.R.Rahman's music.. And it finally came out a week back..

Though this blog was not written for that purpose, a quick mention about my opinions on each song is warranted as I won't be satisfied if I skip that..

Ellapughazhum --> One for the "intro song" genre. Will satisfy all Vijay fans for its high energy and also satisfied me just cos Rahman sang it in his high-pitched magical voice.

Nee Marlyn Monroe --> Easily the best "first-impresser" of the album.. I have no idea where this singer "Ujjayinee" came from but she is a God-send ! The way she sings the words "Saturday night party ku pogalam variya ??" is so alluring !

Ponmagal Vandhal --> Many ardent fans know that ARR refuses to remix someone else's song and supposedly Ponmagal vandhal is done by his assistant Krishna Chetan and I love the male voice(Aslam) in the song and the remixed tune but the Brit-accented rapper kinda gets bugging sometimes..

Kelaamal Kayile --> One of the melodious numbers which I like listening to on my iPod at times when I'm alone.. Quite impressive though on first listen, I thought this song should have been banned! Thank God nobody listens to me...

Maduraikku pogadhe --> One typical folk song which I feel is FAR FAR better than any other similar song that other music directors have given along the same lines. The beat is so catchy that I listen to this one atleast 2-3 times a day !

Valayapathi --> Arguably one of the best songs of the movie and easily a top ranking ARR song.. His usage of carnatic interludes in between are vocal masterpieces. Hats off to the ladies who sang that.. The female singer (Ujjayinee/Madhumitha) got top marks when she sang "Naan thiruvayaaru kacheri..." and the subsequent carnatic verses... yemma.... what a voice !!!!!

OK.. I'm sure all of us can agree that by no means was that a "short mention" of my opinion but quite a "long elaboration" instead !!

Anyway moving on to the purpose of the blog post, I was happy to see a sensible and nice title for a movie... Azhagiya Tamizh Magan (the fact that it is so irrelevant to Vijay is a different story !!).. Personally I feel its nice to see pure Tamizh words in movie titles especially ones with "zh" in them. Its the pride of Tamizhnaadu and tamizh speaking people that no other language has that letter and it has to be spelt so crappily as "zh" in the universal language.. English !

But after hearing the lyrics of the songs I was disappointed at the state Tamizh movies have come to or rather been dragged down to. It is obvious that a hero of a Tamizh movie is looked upon as the saviour and demi-God no matter how he looks or what he does/is capable of doing. Vijay(mostly cos of his fans) has self-proclaimed himself the next superstar (if not as blatantly as Simbhu atleast) and going by his fan-following it can be justified a little.. Its true that his movies gather lots of revenue and that his fan clubs are soaring in number... I accept that his movies are entertaining in parts as in they have comedy, songs, dance, fights and sentiment to cater to everyone who comes to watch... But does that alone justify the tag "Superstar"??!!

In this movie, in the Ellapughazhum song there are a few lines which I felt were pushing this image too far.. His referral of "ilaya thalapathi" so far has now become "thalapathi" itself and he is also referred to as "anbu thalaivaa".. come on... What "anbu" has he shown or what "thalaimai" has he done??

Next is the maduraikku song where the girl is praised as being beautiful and angelic which is very poetic and common and even the hero is called "veera" and other masculine stuff which I whole-heartedly accept... But one line which says "tamizhnaatu manmadhanae vaarai... paen mayanga mayanga nadandhu vaarai"... thats when they stepped too far... Come on!!... he is not somebody girls swoon over.. Other lines are "nee thottadhellam jeyamaaga, nee sonnathellam naejamaaga vaarai".. PLEASE.. even MGR at the height of his political prowess wouldn't have got such lyrics in his songs... Hearing all this and imagining Vijay smiling in his usual plastic way and some 50 extra dancers bowing to him just makes my stomach do flips !! I hope its picturized sensibly...

My final grouch is with the Valayapathi song.. Rahman usually stresses on proper pronounciation and apart from some "sothappals" from Madhushree, generally all his songs have properly uttered words even though the music might drown the words at some places.. But with the title also conforming to proper tamiZH standards, why shd the first line of the song itself have "valayapathi tamile tamile" ?? Is it to match with "magale" and "mayile" in the following lines ?? Come on... is rhyme so important as to justify the butchering of a language.. and why did they pick the only letter unique to Tamizh to modify.... WHY ?? ... !

[EDIT : My mistake I guess.. My friend Karthik corrected me saying its "thavile" and not "tamile" and so I am happy with Rahman now ! But maybe the above comment can apply to the countless other songs with use words mispronouncing "zh"..]

I hope I didn't hurt any Vijay fan's feelings too much atleast... I have no personal vendetta against him.. He doesn't play versatile roles but that can be easily pardoned as not many people can do that.. but why so much buildup... Can't he act in ordinary roles but still impress us loads like he did in "Ghilli"? I hope he realizes this someday but I have a feeling that will never happen judging by the public adoration he has.. He is so popular and has "contributed" so much that he has a honorary doctorate and received it on the same stage and day as director Shankar did ! I would justify Shankar's award because he has given meaningful movies with great social messages and also entertain us in a grand manner at the same time. But at times when the film industry is such that, actors like Kamal assaying versatile acting in every movie and with 200+ movies under his belt had to wait close to 40 years in the industry to get one, Vijay with 44 movies on his resume of which the last 10-20 were so close to photocopies of each other getting one is just not fair... Nothing more to be said..

I know.. this blog was pointless but it just a way for me to vent my emotions and I am sure someone somewhere in the world just as frustrated as me will draw some consolation from this!

Thanks again for coming to my blog and hope I can come back with another one soon..

Have a nice day !!

Suresh Balasubramanian -- October 26, 2007

The BOSS !

It all started when I was in Chennai.. Early some weekend morning, I take "The Hindu" in my hand and as usual in my crazy way of reading the paper, I start from the last page! OK.. most of you would have guessed it by now but for the sake of the general audience, let me explain why I do so.. Its because this way I get to read the more interesting sports news first !!


But this day was no ordinary day... It was the day an advertisement at the very last page of the paper distracted me from actually looking at the sports world happenings.. There was a 2inch by 2inch advertisement which captured EVERY Tamil movie watcher who looked at that paper enough to make the publisher of the ad feel that every paisa he spent for that 4 sq. inch real estate was worth it !! It was this pic...

I was staring at this picture for a solid 5-10 minutes atleast because it had everything I could possibly ask for from a movie poster.. To start off there were three unique names listed there that everyone even remotely familiar with Tamil movies, heck, Indian movies will recognize.. "Super Star" Rajnikanth, Shankar and of course, A.R.Rahman !! The AVM banner didn't mean much to me but it is also a name to reckon with. The next most pressing reason was that I have never seen Rajni in this kinda radical look before in my life.. Of course we have all seen Rajni in all sorts of costumes but come on, a turtle neck with a sporty jacket and snazzy coolers to top it off.. wow !! And what a title to boot.. Sivaji.. the boss !! Awesome !! The most disappointing part of the entire poster were the words... "Shooting starts today".. Knowing Shankar and his shooting habits, I was sure that it will be a loooonggg time before this movie is perfected for release.... But any day I will pick the release of such a promising Shankar-Rajni combo movie over Shankar directing 5 unknown guys or Rajni acting in an atrocious movie like Chandramukhi.. The reasoning is even more obvious when the fact that Shankar wanted Rajni to act in Mudhalvan is considered... Just imagining 'thala' in the CM interview scene instead of Arjun gave me goose bumps that I was filled with wonder at what Shankar's magical script for Sivaji might be !


And frankly the most consoling fact for me was the name of "A.R.Rahman" listed in the banner. The last Shankar movie "Anniyan" had Harris Jayaraj instead and frankly even though the songs were decent, the BGM was one of the worst I have ever heard.... (Oh man.. for a scene like a young girl dying he comes up with "thaale laalo... thaalee laalo"... yuck !!).. I was so frustrated at this second rate choice for a music director that I felt that reinstating Rahman was the best thing Shankar could do to make up for his immensely unpardonable mistake.. (Half you might have argued that Rahman was busy but that is a matter under investigation.. so lets just blame Shankar for now !)..

So the next obvious step for me was to wait to hear other titbits of news about the movie to come out and they were constantly coming my way... But the mega step of the audio launch was what I was waiting for, being a Rahman fanatic.... And finally the day arrived April 2nd, 2007 when I immediately got hold of the songs and put them on my iPod.. And trust me when I say that those songs were playing on the iPod and our home speaker system day in and day out for a loooongggg time... Even now close to 3 months later my interest hasn't faded a bit... You can say that its because I am a Rahman fan that I am listening to it repeatedly without no other reason but frankly.. I don't care.. they still sound good to me !!

Then came the release date issue... First it was announced that the movie will hit screens worldwide on May 17th !! Oh my god, Sivaji releasing on my birthday...:-).. every Tamilian in the world will be looking forward to that date for every reason apart from the fact that it is my birth day.. :-( .. Bah... who cares... Sivaji is releasing on my birthday !! But my enjoyment (and of lakhs of other people too ) was short-lived when the date was postponed to May 31.... But its OK.. I can still see the movie as I will be in Houston till June 10th after which I had to go to Folsom, CA... So all plans of watching the movie first day and in 2 shows back to back were made by me and my roomies but alas, another announcement was made that Sivaji would see light only on June 15th... Now it was my bro's turn to celebrate as that was his birthday !! And this date was formally announced by AVM that people knew that it was THE DAY for Tamilians all over the world to celebrate the icon of STYLE !! But my dreams came to a screeching halt as I knew that when the release happened I would be in a city where I knew pretty much no one and with no clue as to where a movie theatre would be let alone one which screens Indian movies !! So I made some pre-meditated moves and contacted my friend Shwetha in Santa Clara, CA and asked her to enquire on Sivaji being screened in the Bay Area.. And after some feedback from her and my brother, we finally came across a theatre called Camera 3 in downtown San Jose, CA was screening the movie the weekend it released.... Hurray !!

So I land in Folsom resting assured that the movie was there for me to grab and I took the opportunity with open arms.... It was my first week of work (meaning - I had pretty easy work) and so I made good plans to rent a car, buy tickets and also plan a post-movie trip to Hotel Saravana Bhavan !! All set for the movie release ! And the expectations were high after initial feedback... My mom who usually after watching a movie says "The movie was good" or "the picturization of songs were nice" opted this time for a higher form of praise and said "It is an excellent movie... definitely worth a watch"... That was good enough for me!! This was from the preview show and another friend in Houston (Miru) gave a similar opinion after her viewing on the first day of release... And calls from Cincinnati (Balku) also confirmed that the movie was sensational... Such positive feedback from all quarters was my stimulus to gear up for a two-and-half hour drive from Folsom to San Jose which is the longest ever I have driven at a stretch... I know its a pretty short drive actually but for a comparitive beginner like me it was a challenge !

So that Saturday morning, June the 16th, 2007, me and my roomie (Pratik) started off on an epic journey (atleast for me !!).. We rented a car and left for San Jose quite early in the morning considering that the show was actually at 16:30hrs.. We drove till SJ and picked up Shwetha and drove off to Santa Clara to visit the Boardwalk but only then we realized that hundreds of others had the same idea ! Traffic was so bad that by the time we reached the Boardwalk, it was time to leave ! And I'm not kidding, we didn't even set foot outside the car and just did a U-turn back to San Jose for the movie.... My constant nagging of the two car-members to leave at 15:00hrs from Santa Clara helped a lot because while coming back to SJ, despite taking the right exit, I made a right turn instead of a left and ended up going on a one way street to god-knows-where !! Finally after some enquiring at an Indian store we were on the right track but having lost precious time.... (Seriously.. this country needs more tea kadais and dhabas for lost travellers to get directions...) It was almost 16:30 when we found the street (thanks to a brilliant lookout by Shwetha who spotted it) where the theatre was and to our luck, there was no parking there.. So I threw these two guys out of the car to make them exchange the booking confirmation we had for actual tickets and went to park it nearby for an exorbitant cost of $7 !! But I was concentrating more on not missing Rajni's intro that I had to suppress my frustrations of daylight-parking-robberies....

After entering the theatre we were told that there was a delay in the start of the movie as the previous show had ended a bit late.... That was such a relief !! So we were glancing around looking at the festive atmosphere in the complex because of all the Tamilians (and other South Indians and few Americans) lined up to watch the magic of "The Boss" !! And finally at around 17:00hrs the crowd was let in and the magical words of "Super Star" Rajni were shown... THE CROWD WENT BESERK !! It was AWESOME !! I had never seen such a great crowd after coming to this country... I was so happy because this theatre and its crowd gave me a feeling of watching Sivaji in Chennai with "namma makkal"....

The movie raced to the interval with Rajni's and Vivek's good comedy and of course 3-4 excellently picturized songs. I was so eager to get back into the theatre that I forgot to put sugar in the tea I ordered at the theatre cafe and during the second half I was sipping bitter masala chai !! But frankly that didn't register in my mind at all because after the interval, Shankar unleashed the Sivaji side of Rajni that I was mesmerized !! The movie just totally blew me away that as I walked away from the screen after the movie ended I realized that Rajni was so right in saying "Paera kaettone chumma adhirudhullae !!" Kudos to Shankar, Rajni and Rahman for churning out such a great movie which appeals to people of all ages and also carries a good social message...

Then we went to Saravana Bhavan and ate to our heart's content (and stomach's capacity).. For me it was a great experience as it reminded me of the days where I used to see a movie in Sathyam and then go to the Peters Road Saravana Bhavan all the while talking about the movie we just saw !

The drive back was a unique experience as after dropping Shwetha in Santa Clara, me and Pratik filled up fuel for the return journey and started on my first ever night drive and the CA roads were so pathetically lit that I missed Texas roads and their reflective lane markers so much ! But it was a nice challenge and fortunately the Ford Fusion 2007 we rented had an MP3 player to blast out songs from my collection and keep us wide awake.... We came back close to 01:30 am and I felt it was a day well spent as I got to see one of the most spectacular Tamil movies in all its grandeur and among a very appreciative crowd... Pratik was laughing quite a lot cos he finds Rajni's style quite comical but what does he know about our thalaivar's "ishtyle" !!

All in all, it was a grand and unforgettable experience in so many ways that it propelled a lazy guy like me to actually sit and type a blog with close to 2000 words !! And to sum it all up, I would like to describe the experience in one word that all the people who watched the movie will recognize and identify with...

COOL !!

Thanks again for visiting my blog... Have a nice day !

Suresh Balasubramanian

June 23, 2007