In simple words if I have to describe my relationship with Maestro Ilayaraja’s Music, I would say “I grew up with my mom and maestro’s music”. I was cursing myself when I could not attend the “andrum indrum endrum” – the first live show of Raaja a few years back but when this “Nothing But Wind” live orchestral concert was announced I was determined to go at any cost. Although he was not performing, it was organised by his daughter Bavatharini and I know she would not make a mockery of it.

At around 7.05 when I entered the auditorium, Maestro, Vaali and Uttam Singh were on stage to light the lamp and inaugurate the show. Bavatharini rendered the ever favourite Janani Janani to invoke the blessings of God. Originally, Nothing But Wind is an Indian – Western fusion album composed and orchestrated by Ilayaraja, the flute exclusively performed by Hari Prasad Chaurasia with an 100 piece orchestra. The album was released in 1988. There are 5 musical pieces in the album – Singing Self, Song of Soul, Composer’s Breath, Mozart I love you, and Nothing But Wind. Reproducing the genius of a music with a 30 piece orchestra and accompaniments is not a joke. I would say they gave a fitting tribute to the original.

Navin Iyer played what Hari Prasad Chaurasia took 7 days to record and reproducing the musical genius’ with with a few changes of flutes in a live performance – absolutely scintillating. He was overwhelmed when Raaja applauded and blessed him. Prabakar, who is conducting for Raaja for the past 30 years played the solo violin and managed the orchestra to perfection. It was amazing to hear that he wrote the whole set of notes by listening to the CD of the original as Bavatharini couldn’t find the original notes of Raaja. The 30 Piece orchestra played the perfect foil for Navin and Prabakar. After the completion of every piece there was a standing ovation from the crowd and when Nothing but wind ended, tears were waiting to break down from my eyes. I joined the 1000 odd fans in unison to applaud for the genius and the re-creators.

It was followed by a felicitation ceremony and the fans were treated with interesting anecdotes from Uttam Singh and Raaja. It seems initially Hari Prasad Chaurasia saw the musical notes and said it was simple. But when he met, Raaja explained the notes to him, he was reluctant to do it. Once he started playing for the recording, he fell in love with the notes and even said that he can’t play with a single flute. It took 7 days to record the 5 musical pieces for which Raaja took only half an hour per piece to write them. There was a sixth piece which didn’t make it to the original record and guess who got the opportunity to take it to his movie – Kamal Hassan and the song – wait till the end of the post.

Raaja felicitated each and every person who was responsible for the concert to happen. It was very heartening to see even sound engineers getting felicitated for the wonderful job. Then followed a few songs of Raaja rendered by young singers – Thenpandi Seemaiyile, Ennama Kannu, Gumm Summ Gumm, Oru Poongavanam but the lateral part of show was blown away by the rendering of Anjali Anjali by Yethishwar (Karthik Raja’s Son) and the mind blowing performance of Pop Shalini and Haricharan of Ithu oru Nila Kaalam from Tik Tik Tik.

The concert was soulful, perfect and magical in relative to innumerable crappy shows running all around. I just felt good sitting with a wonderful audience who were in pin-drop silence when the orchestra was performing except for a couple mobile ring-tones. As Baski said “Chennai proved that they intelligent audience of Cricket and Music alike”. And Baski along with Rohini played the perfect hosts. Baski with his own play of words and Rohini with her command in language looked perfect. It was Baski’s statement which drew the longest applause for him – ” if all the technologies and machines dies out today, there will be only Ilayaraja who can make music with only Harmonium” – Aye Baski ( if MSV can’t because of his health).

When everyone left the auditorium awed and vibrantly discussing about the concert, there was a voice “when is How to name it?” – ” Soon ” was the reply from Bavatharini – I said to myself – “the world is waiting”

P.S: The song that was taken by Kamal Hassan for his movie. Listen to it..Brilliance Personifed

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The one actor, film maker I adore is Kamal Hassan. I don’t think anybody can be compared or match his acting prowess for years to come. He is unique, a número uno and was born to act. He is celebrating his 50th year in Tamil cinema. He entered in to the hearts of Tamil movie goers as a small child singing “Ammavum Neeye” on August 12, 50 years back.

In his Golden jubilee year, I am revisiting his 10 best roles over these 50 years. The 10 best roles doesn’t mean that these are his 10 best movies but these roles brought out the different faces of this versatile actor.

10. Prasanna of Aboorva Ragangal

Prasanna was the personification of youth of the 70s. At the brink of political revolution in the country, Prasanna is the guy who can’t accept even small atrocities in the society, he even injures a guy who doesn’t respect the national anthem. The fiery youth gets tamed when he falls in love with a woman elder than him. The character is complex, confused and contradictory.K Balachander always has the best for Kamal and he was perfect. The confusion sticks on to you too when you watch him on the screen. The emotions of anger to his father, love towards Bhairavi, jealousy towards Bhairavi’s Husband are perfectly portrayed.

9. Senapathy aka Indian Thatha of Indian

Senapathy, 70 year an INA veteran is a nationalist and can’t stand corruption prevailing in the country. He loses his daughter for corruption and starts to weed out all the corrupted officials by murdering them through the help of an ancient martial act technique of Varmam. He finally ends up killing his own son because he was corrupt too.

Can a movie be taken with a 70 Year old man in the lead role? Shankar thought so, so did Kamal. Although make up helped him, it was Kamal’s show all the way. The drooping shoulders, a slight bend in the back to authenticate the age, the voice, actions and above all the style in the way he combs his strands of hair in the forehead- awesome

8. Ragu of Raja Paarvai

I dunno which actor would take risk of acting as a blind man in his 100th movie. Kamal was in his usual self of difference. Ragu is a blind man, talented violinist who brims with self-confidence and hates pity. A realist who falls in love with a Christian Girl. I don’t think some one can portray blind man’s romance better..this movie also had another facet of the man – he wrote the screenplay for the movie.

7. Balram Naidu and Fletcher of Dasavatharam

Dasavatharam was a movie where you can relish 10 different characterizations of the same man. Balram Naidu arguably will become one of funniest characters in the whole of Tamil Cinema in par with Tharumi of Thiruvilayadal. Fletcher was a surprise for me and I think only few villains you will really love – Fletcher will be one. The strength of both the characters is the dialogue delivery – be it the American accent of Fletcher (chi -dam-bram) and the Telegu accent of Balram naidu (neeru telega) – fantabulous. “Neeru terrific scientista illa scientific terrorista”

6. Guna of Guna

I certainly believe Guna is one of the underrated movies of Kamal. Whenever people speak about Kamal, it never features all though Kamal admitted a lot of times that it’s one of his favourites.

Guna is a confused character – you can’t categorize him in to mentally unstable person because he very well knows what he is doing. He is not a violent Psycho type character because he attacks only those people who attack his loved ones (even the small bird he pets) .. I would say he is a innocent schizophrenic…

The blind love he has on abirami is unmatchable… I dunno how Kamal would have understood such a complex character and he plays it with so much panache that you will fall in love with Guna, leave alone the heroine. I would rate this movie on par with any Takeshi Kitano’s or Kim Ki Duk’s

5. Avvai Shanmughi of Avvai Shanmughi

I admit it was an inspiration from Robin Williams but there is an unknown inspiration too – TK Shanmugam who does Avvaiyar roles in Tamil Dramas of yesteryear. Kamal started his acting life in this troupe and so he made a tribute by naming the movie on his guru.

Ok this character is an absolute master piece, the gait, the Brahmin accent, the mannerisms like adjusting the saree – perfect. You can’t just stop admiring Shanmughi Mami.

4. Seenu of Moondram Pirai

Seenu is a very normal next door guy who you would love to be with every other day. He saves a mentally unstable girl from a prostitution place, falls in love with her, cares for her and cures her… And she at the end doesn’t know who he is after getting cured and leaves him in distress.
From the start to the final scene, you will see Sri Devi scoring boundaries in each and every scene and in the final scene Kamal just scores a sixer every minute.. The depiction of emotions are so strong that you will end up feeling that Sri Devi could have been in the old state rather getting cured. This movie fetched the national award for both the leads.

3. Dileep of Sigappu Rojakkal

An anti-hero who is haunted by the child hood wounds created by a host of women, starts avenging on women by cheating and killing them. For once, he finds a good woman but ends up in a mental asylum with unrequited love. This movie came in 1978 and created a furor in the cinema world because of the plot and the making. Dileep another complex character was wonderfully portrayed by Kamal and a character you can neither sympathize nor get angry on his actions.

2. Appu of Aboorva Sagotharargal

Although I rate this as number 2, this was, is and will be my most favorite character of Kamal’s movies simply because of the heroism of the character even though he is short than normal. Normal people will never realize that differently able people also have normal emotions – the scene after his love breaks – Kamal shows why he is rated as one of the brilliant actors. The technical brilliance and dwarf like acting awes you every moment

1. Velu Nayakkar of Nayagan

This is the mother of all characters. Velu Nayakar is about a a true life do-gooder who smuggled to help people. Kind of an biographical of a person. Although inspired by God Father, there was one basic difference between them, God Father never shows his emotions whereas Velu Nayakkar does. Kamal lived as Velu Nayakkar. A national award and the one of the two Indian movies to be rated in 100 best movies of the Millennium by the Time Magazine. Should I say more?

There can be lot other roles which you may think the best of Kamal. This is my list and if you like to add more…Just put it in the comments section. One role which lost by whisker to my list was Nalla of Anbe Sivam.

– Post From My iPhone

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Everyone will have a list of favorite movies. Mine will start with Andha Naal, one of the earliest Rashoman like thriller. The second place goes to a movie called “Server Sundaram”. I saw it for the first time when I was a small kid in Shanthi Theatre in Pudukottai along with my cousins. I could only laugh at the lighter moments in the movie at that age. I started remembering the actor as the person who holds about 7 coffee cups in both the hands.

During my teens when I started serious movie watching, I saw it again in TV. That’s when I started understanding the character of that server sundaram, who falls in love with his friend’s fiancée and becomes a big actor, loses his mother and eventually lose his love of life too.

The movie is slightly based on Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights. I was startled to see the actor’s prowess and subtlety in emotions. Those were the days, where Tamil Cinema was full of over acting (over reacting) actors. This guy would have been the first actor, who can show natural emotions on screen.

His name is Nagesh.Born as Gundu Rao, started his career as a drama artist and slowly rose to stardom. Although known for his famous comedy portrayals like the Tharumi of Thiruvilayadal, his association with Balachander and Kamal provided him with some memorable roles. “Maadi Veetu Maadhu” in “ethir neechal”, Baama Vijayam,Major Chandrakanth, Neerkumizhi, Nawab Narkali, the stammering satiristic guy in Navagraham are some roles that can be named. If KB got one side of Nagesh on screen, Kamal excellently portrayed the other side. He got him to do the Villain in his master piece Aboorva Sagotharargal. Wow, Nagesh was so good that the role made so much impact. Another memorable villain role made by him in his early days was the Vaithi of Thillana Mohanambal, a sadisitic pimp role that he enacted with panache. Avinashi of Michael Madana Kamarajan, Joseph in Avvai Shanmughi, Professor in Nammavar were some of the roles given by Kamal gave him accolades.

A self-made actor went in to exile due to financial losses during the 80s. His revival of sorts came through Kamal. He left his mark in whatever role he did.

But somehow I remember him for his personal life more than anything else. After earning so much money, he bought a imported car and with lots of money, he went to see his mother. And the misery is he could see only her last rites being done and he never had the chance to rejoice his sucess with his loving mother.
I lost my mom when I was in 12th standard. She never had the chance to see even my small successes in life.

Whenever I finish a quiz and people congratulate me, I am always left with the lump in the throat when I think my mom is not there to be proud about me. Somehow I could relate to Nagesh, because he was a man who was not happy when he made us laugh..

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I was born in a small town called Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu. We usually don’t get the English movies get released there. Usually we get the popular old movies in Theatre. The main means of watching English movies were through hired video cassettes. Sometimes we used to get the prints even before the movie’s official release in India.

I saw a movie, I think it was during 1993 without the knowing the name where old man has a dinosaur park and how it gets ruined . It was Jurassic Park. I was not old enough to know who was Spielberg or dinosaurs or even the man who created the story..

I came to know about the movie after it’s official release in India, I think a year after the original release. It was also the first movie to get dubbed in Tamil. Even some of the schools in the town had a special show for the Children. That was the first time I got introduced to Crichton’s work.

My brother is a voracious reader of books like me. I believe that we got this trait from our mom, who used to read a lot of Tamil books and collect stories from magazines. But I got in to English novels because of my brother. As usual it started with Sidney Sheldon but I slowly moved on..

Usually we get money for the new year from the elders as a start to the year. Using one new year’s money I bought the first book of my life, which was “The Lost World” – the sequel to Jurassic Park. It was not as celebrated as the prequel but I liked the way it was written. The initial killing of the small girl by tiny T-Rexs was more chilling in the book than the movie…

I have never jumped up and wanted to buy Crichton’s books but I had strong affinity to the words of this guy. I read Congo and then Andromeda Strain.. But my favorite of his books is the most controversial one too..

I got this book during my Mumbai Training trip in 2005. It was one of my worst trips and I was heading back to Chennai in Train. I wanted a big bulky book which can salvage my 2 night travel. I bought this without hesitation because it was Crichton’s.. Believe me it was one of the unputdownable reads of my life.

The book is State of Fear which revolves around Eco Terrorism and Global Warming. The final scene is where the protagonist tries to stop the artificial tsunami attempt. It was shocking and hair rising experience for me because it was barely 3 months from the worst Indian Ocean Tsunami..

In State of Fear, he questions the intentions of scientists, environmentalists and governments who instigate fear on people’s minds based on global warming.

Then it was Prey and Next for me, one discussing Nano-Technology and the other on Genetic Engineering. He has always been like my high school science book. I get to know a lot of stuff about a particular topic from his book and I then search the internet, check his references to know more about the topic. He instills that interest in you when you read his book.

Whatever the critics say, he is one of those rare writers who can be a wonderful read for both the fiction mongers and educated..

It has been year of farewell for me.. First my favorite Tamil writer passed away and now my favorite English writer.. Sometimes I think why these people should die??

But one thing is for sure these writers will live as characters, places, plots and idols in the hearts of many people. Crichton will live as long as people remember dinosaurs, as long they debate global warming, as long Tsunami threats are there, when nano technology develops and when generic engineering produces a human mutation.. Above all every time when one reads a science fiction..

Hail Crichton..

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I never read books at my early age. I even had a great aversion to it. My literature intelligence was limited to Rani Comics and Siruvar Malar ( a Friday supplement of Dinamalar). My mom was a avid reader. Although her language capabilities restricted her to read only Tamil novels and short stories, she made wonderful use of it by acquiring works of good Tamil authors. She used to collect series every week from different magazines like Kalki, Ananda Vikatan and Kumudham (the quality has come down drastically in these magazines in the recent past)

When I was about 7 years old (I believe so), there was a science fiction series, which was aired in Doordarshan (Tamil), the only channel you could watch at that time. The name of the series is Yen Iniya Iyenthira. It was a story about a small Robot dog named Juno and a character named Nila, played by Sivaranjani in the future. Although it cannot be compared technically to the current TV series’, it was the Transformers of our times.

I was so engrossed in that series such that I never missed a single episode. It was the same with each and every one of my friends. I fell in love with Juno. When I asked my mom, she said it was a novel from a writer called Sujatha and it came long back before the TV series came. I was so surprised and I thought how a person could write so futuristic (I have not read Asimov at that time). I thought it was a woman who wrote that novel.

As years passed by, during my teenage times, there were two more series, which came in DD. Srirangathu Devathaigal and Kolaiyudir Kaalam, the first one is a college guy’s experience of different girls he met in his Grandma’s residence in Srirangam ( a small town near Trichy). When I was seeing that, I was thinking whether it was a woman who wrote it. Then my mom explained that it was not a woman, but a guy whose name is Rangarajan and he is writing in his wife’s name.

But Koliayudir Kaalam made me to think more about this writer, it was a murder thriller based on Holography. You can enjoy it only when you read it.  The brilliance of the man is commendable that Hologrpahy as a concept came in 1979 and he wrote a novel on it in Tamil in 1982 or 1984 (I dunno the year exactly). The other important aspects are the characters Ganesh and Vasanth

I started reading his novels. The ones, which my mom had collected, and the diverse topics he had written were very surprising to me. Nylon Kairu (Nylon Rope) is a revenge story of Brother for his Sister and a two part Pirivom Santhipom (Depart and Meet) is a heart-warming love story.

 Over 100 novels and 100 short stories, essays and screen plays for movies like Vikram and he worked with Shankar to make gems like Indian, Anniyan and Mudhalvan. The upcoming Rajinikanth starrer Robot is also a brainchild of this guy. He inspired me so much that I have his Screenplay Workbook, which I am using to make a screenplay.

 If not for this guy Tamilians would not have known Holography, Forensic Science, the working of brain (Thalmai Cheyalagam), intricacies of laws, aliens, Robots, Super computers, cloning, neural networks, religion. God (Kadavul is a wonderful book), Electronic Voting Machine ( He was the person who headed the committee of Engineers who mad the EVM’s ) Ganesh-Vasanth and my favorite Juno.

Sujatha Alias Rangarajan was born in 1935 and did his Pre-college in St. Joseph’s College, Trichy where he was a classmate of Abdul Kalam. He did his engineering from MIT, Madras. He worked as a engineer in ISRO and BEL, Bangalore. He passed away on Feb 27^th, 2008.

I have read Isaac Asimov but lot of Tamilians will not have the opportunity to read him. They had Sujatha, the Isaac Asimov of Indian Literature.  I always name my laptop as Juno and I would have been happy if I had been a Robot character in his novel. And if Juno was a girl, I would have married her.

Your physical presence will not be there in this world, my favorite writer but you will live as Juno, Ganesh and Vasanth in the hearts many readers. Sometimes I feel death is so painful. I am feeling the same pain which I had when Diana, Rajiv Gandhi, and Mother Teresa passed away…Just dunno why….

My friend about Sujatha

சுஜாதாவிடம் கற்றதும் பெற்றதும் !!

More about Sujatha

sujatha 

Note :

Check this link for St. Joseph’s College photo with Abdul Kalam

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