kirukkal.com

December 24, 2005

An Ad-free blog !!

I know it was me who jumped in at first to sign-up for Google Adsense, when it was introduced. Two reasons. To earn money from the blog and to also try out how Google Adsense works. Well, I haven’t earned more than what I spend on this blog. More than the hosting charges, its the time that I invest writing which is more precious. I do enjoy the experience of writing. Add to that joy the lots of typos and grammatically perfect sentences that would Wren and Martin, a run for life.

Just that I don’t want to earn money from the targetted ads. Hence I unplugged the Ad scripts from the templates. Adsene has been just outstanding as expected. Maybe I’ll plug back the Ad scripts after a few months. As of not this blog is Ad-Free. Talk about signing up for the Ads myself and taking it out with a dramatic post like this.

To keep the templates trim, the Go Seattle Photoblog is also not plugged out of the templates. I did notice that the flickr script has been running more than the expected time and sometime it’s frustating to see the blog getting loaded after a long time.
December 23, 2005

Mani Ratnam’s latest – A Romantic Comedy

With all the hulla-golla over Mani Ratnam directing Mahabharata coming to an end, there is some rumor on bollywood circles that Mani Ratnam is directing Aamir Khan, produced by Bobby Bedi. Well, its not Mahabharata but a romantic comedy. And I’m already thanking my stars that Mani Ratnam isn’t directing the three-series Mahabharata, atleast in the recent future. And I hope he never does it. I would love to see if he makes Mahabharata in Tamil. However, we know tamil cinema’s market isn’t as big as bollywood.

Anyways on the Mani Ratnam-Aamir Khan-Bobby Bedi project, Mid Day reports –

Aamir Khan will be again seen in a comic mould after a long time. Mani Sir is directing and scripting; it’s a special project, as it marks the coming together of Aamir and Mani Ratnam for the first time. Talking about the format, Bedi adds, “It’s completely different from whatever romantic comedies you have seen so far. A lot of changes and incorporations are being made, so I can’t really talk about the story.”

Mani Ratnam directing romantic comedy seems very exciting given Mani’s mood to make some serious cinema, these days. Above all that is Rahman joining the team, will be a question to be answered in the coming days.
December 23, 2005

Iruvar is what Iruvar does

Baradwaj Rangan’s posts an old column on Mani Ratnam’s Iruvar in his blog, Blogical Conlclusion. Given the lucid flow and his ‘too’ perfect references to the most appropriate trivia/persons of Tamil Industry, makes this column an eminent research material.

I aspire to pen one such article on both Iruvar and Hey Ram. But after reading this column, I probably wouldn’t do that with Iruvar. If you are tamil cinema geek or a Mani Ratnam fan, this is a must read. One hell of a read, this is.

From Two People, One Industry –

Iruvar has a breathtaking style that brings to mind Tamil cinema, both old and new. The film is a passage through time, and an early song sequence showing Anandan – this name is itself that of a small-time hero of the fifties and the sixties who starred in the likes of Vijayapuri Veeran and Veerathirumagan – romancing his lady is shot in black and white, with the elaborately ornamental wipes found in films of the Ambikapathi period. Vairamuthu’s lyrics here incorporate suitably chaste Tamil words, AR Rahman’s heavily Carnatic-style music appropriates the characteristics of early composers like G Ramanathan and SV Venkataraman, and this song is sung by Unnikrishnan and Bombay Jayashree.
December 22, 2005

Chinmayi’s Anbulla Snehithiye

Chinmayi’s rendering of Anbulla Snehithiye is one of the best megaserial songs on Tamil Television. While most of the mega serial songs are fast paced and get on your nerves after a couple of times, Anbulla Snehidhiye’s title song was one of the best, those days. Chinmayi recently had posted that song on her audio blog. Do listen to this melodious number.

Anbulla Snehithiye was a late-night megaserial on Sun TV directed by Priya, an assistant to Mani Ratnam[for Iruvar and Dilse] and also an assosiate to Suhasini[for Indra]. Priya recently shot to fame with her debut directorial venture, Kanda Naal Mudhal, which I’m looking forward to watch. Priya also was the scriptwriter for Revathi’s directorial venture, Mitr- My Friend.

Anbulla Snehidhiye was probably the only mega serial, I watched regularly. It was broadcasted at 10:00 pm on weekedays, the time I had my dinner. With several of my favorites like Suhasini, Anu Hassan and ‘Fanta Illamai Pudhumai’ Swarnamalya, the cast was nearly perfect and the story, top notch. If you are wondering what the story was, it was adapted from the novel, Sister of My Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.

This title song was a household number and felt elated to hear it after a long time. Thanks to Mukund for pointing me to the post.
December 22, 2005

IBN Live – The media goes to blogs

I had no clue until Dilip Radhakrishnan pointed out that IBN Live was linking here to the review of King Kong. I’ve been hearing about IBN Live only for the last two days.

IBN Live is apparently a news channel from TV18 and CNN. Rajdeep Sardesai, The Big Fight guy from NDTV is leading this effort. From their site, IBN seems to be a pro-blog channel as they are calling for Citizen Journalists and an exclusive blog microsite from the journalists. Nice to know, the TV media is going the blog way.

An Ad-free blog !!

Mani Ratnam’s latest – A Romantic Comedy

Iruvar is what Iruvar does

Chinmayi’s Anbulla Snehithiye

IBN Live – The media goes to blogs