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