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As Superstar Rajini, opened the auction for the post of Superstar during the Saami function, many contenders including Ajith and Vijay geared up to achieve it. With Ajith’s Aanjaneya leaping out of the theatres so early and Vijay’s eye for commercial success becomes evident in Thirumalai, the superstar position is still vacant.

As Rajini remarked, whoever is supported by the masses will become the next superstar. Going by that definition, the whole tamilnadu is behind PULLIRAJAvukku AIDS Varumma ?? Advertisement. So here I crown Pulli Raja as the current superstar. Happy World AIDS Prevention Day !!

Disclaimer : I am a big Rajini fan myself. So please don’t flame me for this joke.

Wanted to check out on what’s going on in the FMs. So blasted FM this morning to listen to the husky Divya in Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM, who complained that she had a bad throat and even though she wasn’t sure if it will improve tomorrow, she wished her listeners a bright day ahead. However her choice of morning songs didn’t blend with the friday morning mood. Radio Mirchi is clearly following the typical American FM standards and it is the best for the travelers with weather and road conditions and their evening choice of songs which are good.

Then came Kanmani, the best compere till date on the FMs. Her programme Kaalai Thendral in Suryan FM 103.5 tops the best programmes in Chennai FM. With her jyothika like voice(though jyothika borows her voice from Savitha) and her intonations to match the morning mood, she really makes us jive. Especially today with the Chennai weather coming down to teens, she twined with the mood and played some realy cool numbers. All of them about rain. Some of them included Vaan Megam from Mouna Raagam, Gala Galavena from Rythym and Then Merkku from Karuthamma.

Though directly inspired from Dr.Alban’s song, Then Merkku is one of Rahman‘s all time hits. With the tune in the right tempo and the sound of rain drops heard so clearly, it beats the original Dr.Alban Song Om we rembwe ike.

There is an International Film Festival happening next week in Chennai. The last time it ever happened was 11 years back in 1991 and I was there in Abirami theatre to see some foreign film which I hardly understood and remember. Now it happens again in Film Chamber of Commerce and in Pilot Theatre starting from Dec 1st. 55 Films from more than 19 countries are screened. Take a spin. Worth it.

Chennai has already started getting the marghazhi coolness. And Sabha’s are preparing for the Carnatic Music Festival 2003 happening the whole of next month and goes on till pongal. Be there for some exciting carnatic music by the big names and the NRI’s who fly down just to perform in the Music Academy. Is it Nithyashree or Sanjay Subramanian, this time ?.

Thanksgiving to Illayaraja:

The guy who rocked last week with his comments on the Bala issue, strikes back again. This time in his email to me he had an humble request . The request is about publishing the small note on Thanks Giving TO Raja Day.

A couple of months back when I first read about Illayaraja’s project of Thiruvasakam in Symphony, I was very impressed and was expecting it to be on the racks very soon. Here was my small blogpost on it.

But it looks like the project is getting delayed a bit due to various issues and Illayaraja’s fans are pumping in the money needed to complete this noble venture. More on this is in the note thats being published all over on the drive to collect money which will be donated to this project.

I would appreciate if some co-bloggers can also publish the note below if they feel this to be a fair drive towards making a great dream come true.

Thanks Senty. Here’s the note :

Thiruvaasakam in symphony(TiS) – a historic moment about to happen in the next few months, composed and conducted by Maestro Ilaiyaraaja (with 200 symphony artists in Hungary). You can support TiS by donating minimum of US$5 on Thanks Giving TO Raja Day (TG2RD).

A special ‘Thanks Giving’ day on 27th Nov., to express our Thanks to Maestro by “ALukku aindhu dollar” scheme ($5/person) for his excellent contribution to us, Music lovers. So please donate $5 or more ,if possible on thanks giving day or later to make this project a big success.

How you can donate :

1. Contact any of the volunteers near your area.

2. You can take check favoring “Thiruvasakam in Symphony” and send it to any one of them

a) Sankar Kumar NC 919 460 9430/ommuruga41@yahoo.com
102 Copper Green St., Cary, NC 27513

b) Sridhar Seetharaman
NJ 732 321 9763/sridhar_ms@yahoo.com
701 Limelight Court,Edison,NJ 08820

c) Sridhar Balasubramanian
CA 408 937 6008/sridhar_b12@yahoo.com
1265 N Capitol Av., #69, San Jose, CA 95132

Also check out:

Official Site of Thiruvasakam in symphony
Photo Show of Thiruvasakam In Symphony
First Indian Symphony
Maestro Fan’s Site

Chennai – This is Chennai :

BACK IN CHENNAI !!! And to ride my bike in the dust and wind with my eyes wide open was thwe coolest that happened to me in the last three months. I really really missed it for a long time.

So what next ? Start counting the number of movies I haven’t watched since Boys. From Thiruda Thirudi to Kurumbu, there is a whole laundry list of movies. Prominent one being Pithamahan. Will watch it this weekend, I hope.

Saw Manmatha Rasa yesterday in KTV and its very feverish. You could hardly see any close-ups in it. All I could see was Dhanush and Chaaya kicking mud off their feet with their hips gyrating methodically. It was however fun to watch and I can now understand how the theatres would have rocked for this song. Uppu Karuvadu song in Mudhalvan was one of the first songs noticed to have the camera shaking to the beat of the song. Manmatha Rasa also added such shots to increase the tempo. This technique gives a feeling that even we dance with the actors.

Also saw the banner of Pulli Raja advertisement that was famous over the last couple of months in chennai. A imaginative character formed for AIDS prevention ads was Pulli Raja. As the name seemed so odd enough, it was an instant hit.

Tons of different experiences in my flight from Chicago to Chennai and each one is worth sharing. Very Soon.

It’s the most lovely day here in chicago in the last few months. The right temperature that gets you going and finish all the pending shopping ( I hate it). But as it becomes december, the cold clouds start to close around and it is killing cold.

Since the winter is just about to peak in, trees have worn a dirty brown color with no leaves but still alive and chasing the dawn to get some sun by march.

Just watched Orson Welles – The one man band, a documentary on this greatest forgotten film maker. As history proved more than once that he thought well ahead of time that most of his movies were box office miracles on their second releases. So here I learnt from this documentary, that this man is still undiscovered for even now many of his films haven’t been attempted to understand.

The first time I ever knew about him was when Kamalhassan once quoted in an interview about Citizen Kane’s masterpiece and the Orson Welles Phenomenon. Since then I was looking for it in chennai and lost hope. Last time when I was here, I somehow managed to get my hand on Citizen Kane DVD. And it was an amazing experience to watch Citizen Kane and the background of the movie. I am getting just a little more curious about him, now. This time I am gonna try for his 1973 flick F for Fake. Just saw the trailor of this movie and I am spell-bound by the flawless technical advancements which he made during that time of 70’s.

Neverthless, this documentary is a must-see if you are an Orson Welles fan. His discussions with film university guys were crisp, radical and bullseye.