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