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January 31, 2006

Endaro ‘Mahanubhav’ulu

Even if Sri Thyaga Brahmam is upset about me, misusing his world reknown pancharatna kirti, I’m cool but I have to say this. Watching the broadcast of Jaya TV’s Thygaraja Ardhanai Vizha, which was performed in Chennai, was a MahaAnubhava. The true meaning of Endaro Mahanubhavulu Andariki Vandanamulu is, there are many great men and to all my salutations.

On an unassuming sunday morning, I clicked on the archives of Jaya TV[through NUM TV] to find a 2 hour program broadcasted few days back and it read Thyagaraja Aradhanai Vizha. All along I was thinking that the customary Thiruvaiyaaru program was only awarded to Doordarshan. As I expected it turned out to be a program sponsored by Jaya TV in Chennai. It looked like Narda Gana Sabha, where it was performed. For a distanced soul like me, this was by itself a mahanubhava though it didn’t evoke the emotion a yearly broadcast of Thiruvaiyaaru program would.

For starters, Thiruvaiyaaru Thyagaraja Aradhanai Vizha happens in Thiruvaiyaaru where Thyagaraja attained samadhi. Its the kind of function, you would expect to watch it live. Its all about the best carnatic artists of country, coming together and sing along that could give goosebumps.

Jaya TV’s Thyagaraja Aradhanai Vizha seems to be a big hit. The hall was surprisingly full with people sitting on walking spaces. It sure didn’t have all the best carnatic artists but the ensemble was very good. They sang nothing but pancharatna kirtis. Starting from the auspicious Sethulara, the five kirtis followed like gems. Though all of them are the best of keerthanais, my personal favorites are Jagadhananda and Endaro Mahanubhaulu.

Some noted artists who performed in the show were Thavil Maestro A K Palanivel, Umayalpuram Sivaraman, N Ramani, Bombay Sisters, Sowmya, Neyveli Santhanagopalan, Rajkumar Bharathi(as in Bharathiyaar) and Priya Sisters (with ‘kannai parichidum‘ fluorescent green saree). Umayalpuram Sivaraman is one of personal favorites in mridangam. Such a graceful player of the instrument that he makes you drool over an mridangam. Just like how Vikku Vinayakram make me yearn to be a gadam player.

If you wanted to read about what happened in Thiruvaiyaaru this year, Samanth Subramanian has a wonderful column on the festival named, The music man. A must read.
January 31, 2006

Kuzhanda Paiyya !!

I love Milk Bikis. Yeah, It sounds like a naive statement but I love eating Milk Bikis. Ask my family and they would sing my childhood adventures with Milk Bikis.

This post isn’t a Milk Bikis reminiscent. This is a much serious(!!) observation that I had over a period of time. Has anyone noted this or is it just me. I find South Indians going crazy over Brittania’s Milk Bikis while the northies love Parle-G. Donno if itâ€™s just due to the logistics issue of the goods or has it something got to do with the taste.

Not that I don’t like Parle-G. Its actually tastier than Milk Bikis when I don’t get to eat Milk Bikis. Sitting in Seattle, the only option is to eat the mini Parle-G [sold 4 packs/dollar].

And yeah I love biscuits. The critics of this blog [who term this as the Worst Popular Indian Blog] can now go and call this as the Blog of a Koyindey Payyan. Infact I should be thankful for that written word for after all namma ellam etcetera thaaney, maamu !!.
January 31, 2006

Rang De Basundhi

As everyone churns a review or two (!!) of Rang De Basanti, why should I be sitting idle. If not for Basanti, there is always a favorite dish, Basundhi. A quick search on Google for Basundhi, gets us to this page which lets out the recipe for Basundhi. And yeah, I love Saravana Bhavan’s Basundhi.

Jokes apart, the desi blogosphere seems to be bursting with action on writing reviews for Aamir/Rahman’s latest flick Rang De Basanti. Even folks who were in out-of-action, seem to have come out of the clout. I notice the blogosphere going ga-ga over RDB over the weekend and before I could put them in words, Anti wrote a neat piece on this recent love. This is what Anti had to say –

Rang De Basanti seems to have captured the attention of the desi blogosphere and the Indian media like nothing else before it. Oh wait, a small correction. Before RDB, there was IIPM. But as Jerry would quip, not that there is anything wrong with it. At last notice, a simple search on Blogger Search for “Rang De Basanti” turns up 2,234 posts while a similar search on Technorati returns 1,257 results. In fact, Rang De Basanti has been in the top 15 list of searches on Technorati for the last couple of days and is in the top 10 currently.

People are excessively using internet to get a feel of the movie before they go for it, I would assume. Even if 50% of these searches were by people who wanted to make a decision on RDB before they spend time and money on it, blogs have won hands down. Back in early 2002, when I started to know this thingy called blogs, I never imagined that blogs could be put to use in such a way. Except a handful of badly written sites, there wasn’t much of internet concentrating on this arena. Now with such facts, the Indian Film Industry should turn towards blogs for promoting or taking note of short comings.

This hasn’t happened yet to tamil movies. Sometimes, I have seen sharp spike on stats as people trying to reach this blog during a movie release. But there aren’t many who write about tamil movies on blogosphere. And even if they do, they write as bad as me or they are just trying to make a satirical post to showcase their ‘engpilish’. There is plenty of space for good tamil movie reviews in blogosphere. Just Plenty.
January 25, 2006

Last page first !!

The girl sitting opposite to me was reading a book. This was in the bus, during my morning commute to office. The book looked like a pulp fiction paperback. As the bus approached Downtown Seattle, she suddenly turned to last page of the book and continued reading from there. She was approximately in the middle of the book before took this wild jump to the last page.

She completed the last page, read the blurb in the back of the book and got down from the bus. Donno how much fun it was to do that ?
January 24, 2006

Aranmanai Siruvayalil – Seattle Pongal Special

[Click to enlarge]

Aranmanai Siruvayalil is a play sponsored by Seattle Tamil Sangam on the account of Pongal celebrations at Seattle. Though Pongal completed a week back, on Sunday Jan 29th, this play will be staged in Sammamish High School, where the Gujus play Dandia during Dussehra.

Incidentally there are two bloggers out here, who are playing a role in this play. A long time blogger Swami and his wife Lakshmi are the bloggers who are playing play roles in Aranmanai Siruvayalil. Both of them have prior experience in stage plays, given their experience in staging S. Ve. Shekar’s Thattupillai, and acting alongwith him. If you are around Seattle, do take a spin.

Endaro ‘Mahanubhav’ulu

Kuzhanda Paiyya !!

Rang De Basundhi

Last page first !!

Aranmanai Siruvayalil – Seattle Pongal Special