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December 20, 2004

Tribute to MS Subbulakshmi

These well written tributes to MS Subbulakshmi talks about the person shw was and the music she lived with. These articles written after her demise are sure some worthy collectibles on MS.

Frontline’s cover story, Enduring Music, written by K.Jayanthi and Asha Krishnakumar.

Gowri Ramnarayan’s column in Hindu Magazine, An Elegant Simplicity, where she sketches her personal connection with her paatti MS. This one clearly talks not about MS’s family life but also how she leveraged it with her very busy professional life. Not for feminists, especially.

Yet another article on MS Subbulaksmi’s life by Gowri Ramnarayan in Frontline, The M.S. Phenomenon, chronicling the life of MS from her birth at madurai where she was born.

Hindu’s tribute in pictures, A Life For Music. Has some of the rarest pictures from the archives of Hindu.

Coming Sunday[26th Dec 2004], the carnatic aficionados will gather in Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan to pay tribute to MS Subbulakshmi. The program would start with Bhajans sung by Sudha Raghunathan, Sowmya and others. Hindu’s Editor-in-Chief N.Ram, Cho. Ramaswamy, Journalist Gowri Ramnarayan and others will pay tributes to MS.
December 18, 2004

Happy Birthday Dude !! – Steven Spielberg

[Pic: Intercom with spielberg’s signature ]

The passion for storytelling, the passion for being highly imaginative and the passion for delivering films with a sense of belonging can be attributed only to Steven Spielberg. As a kid, he was probably my first biggest inspiration for the wonderworld of films. If I could recall one instance of becoming an addict to cinema it has to be Spielberg’s E.T. For me, a kid on 3rd grade, watching a film’s story expand beyond boundaries of imagination and touch hearts despite dealing with a weird looking alien was sheer magic. And Extra Terrestrial still remains a magic till day, even after 22 years after its release.

From then, I have closely watched most of Steven Spielberg‘s movies with a sense of belonging. As though he was a friend teaching me the art of movie making. And never, never he has left me down with his movies. Even my favorite Indian Spielbergs have left me down in a couple of places failing to impress.

Having watched even the not-so-commercial movies like Schindler’s List and Amistad in the dark and hot cinema halls of Chennai, like crazy, I can rather write a full length analysis on Spielberg and his dimension of movie making. Thats certainly not the point. Having watched his movies so damn well, I still can’t guess what would be his next venture. Just like the how he made Catch Me If You Can after the techical wizardry in Minority Report.

Though we know Tom Cruise starring War of the Worlds[Trailer, must see], based on HG Wells sci-fiction, is set to release the summer of 2005, I can’t wait more to watch it.

Spielberg loves to quote, “The only time I’m totally happy is when I’m watching films or making them”. While he is turning 58 today, the movie lovers of the world would join together and wish him a filmy birthday. We don’t have to hope for better films from him. He loves the movies more than the movie lovers themselves.

Happy Birthday Spielberg!!
December 18, 2004

Movable Type ya Blogger

After a year of moving from Blogger to Movable Type, it’s boring to look at this dumbo static interface of Movable Type. I intend to switch to a different blogging interface but the satanic Blogger keeps tempting me to come back. To honestly accept, I love the Blogger tool and desperately want to go back and use it.

One reason for me to get boring could be due to MT tool that is installed on my same domain and gives me a isolated feeling compared to Blogger.com which is a hub for bloggers. So when I am using blogger it gives me the true sense of blogging among bloggers. This could even be a bad-mood-weekend-rambling. Whatsoever, I can’t go back to blogger for the simple reason, I cannot import all my movable type entries by date into blogger. Also we don’t have a good tool to repoint all the links appropriately. Suggestions accepted !!
December 17, 2004

Ravi K Chandran goes Black

[Pic : Rediff]

Ravi K Chandran’s interview to Rediff on Sanjay Leela Bhansali‘s Black is passionate. He talks and talks about Bhansali at length and why the film Black is so special to him. Ravi says that handling camera for Black as the most important event in his film career until now.

Black starring Amitabh and Rani Mukherjee[Yo!!] is Bhansali’s sentimental way of looking at a blind girl’s life. The promos on the television are very classy and a perfect example of how Bollywood films have elevated themselves to Hollywood standards in promotion[Just promotion, I said].

Ravi K Chandran also talks about the dilemma he had in choosing to handle camera for Aayitha Ezhuthu and Black. His next project with Shahrukh Khan is being directed by a favorite of mine. Amol Palekar.
December 16, 2004

Mani, SAS Blogs and Yahoo

Mani Ratnam back with full enthusiasm in Chennai . Sify reports that the next project would be with newcomers, starting April 2005. [Via Praveen].

The Unofficial SAS Weblog. Business intelligence provider SAS , the world’s largest private software company has an unofficial weblog. Its blogged by Ted Conway, SAS camper for the past 20 years. Lots of intresting stuff outa there especially for Business Intelligence entusiasts.

Jon Meacham’s cover column on News Week named, The Birth of Jesus creates controversy. Gets debunked heavily in the blogosphere. Read more on The Year of the Blog.

Chennai finally goes YAHOO!!

Tribute to MS Subbulakshmi

Happy Birthday Dude !! – Steven Spielberg

Movable Type ya Blogger

Ravi K Chandran goes Black

Mani, SAS Blogs and Yahoo