Separation is such a sweet sorrow. brb !!

When I saw Shobhaa Dé, last week on the cable, she was extemporizing an interview. I thought it was yet-another-talk-show where they ask questions of national importance like this, So what’s your advice for teenagers or Why men hate feminists. It wasn’t. A little better.

Shobhaa Dé spoke in length about marriage, infidelity, love, sex and what not. Only today, when I saw this page on rediff that her latest book in five years, Spouse – The truth about marriage, has been released on the Valentines day and that cable interview was a marketing effort. Rediff report describes the book as, Spouse is a personal and insightful take on the institution of marriage and offers special love tips to make your marriage strong.

Even as a teenager and much later too, I liked Shobhaa Dé. I thought she was probably the most daring writer about sex in India. The hidden agenda is that you could rightfully read a Shobhaa Dé book at home without being mistaken for reading a porn magazine and yet manage to read all the vivid sex in it. As I found better writers, I mean in the real sense, I had given up reading Shobhaa Dé. She doesn’t even feature in my list of favorite authors. The last I read of her was a book called, Shooting from the hip. I stopped reading it after the first twenty pages and threw it from the balcony.

What makes Shobhaa Dé stay in limelight even after some not-so-indepth-writing ? Probably the arena she chose to write about. Her columns are mostly targetted for the urban lot and their issues of life. My only crib here is that those are shallow. If you are an urban man/woman living in the corner of some metro of India, this writing would appeal to you. You can write tons pages about love and sex life and generalise it. It may not be completely right but readers would still not crib as you are treading down an unmanned path. Easy job. Imagine, if you get a VIP ticket to those Page 3 people’s wild parties, you could just write about the true world inside dream factory and still be politically write. Easy job again.

I have this good/bad habit of watching a film even after the reviews say it is bad. This time the reviews for her latest book says, It’s good. I am not doubting the reviews but I am going to read it for myself to get some tips on, How to write a superfluous and successful book ?

P.S – Rediff did a ‘better’ marketing effort. Shobhaa Dé’s love tips -SMS SHO to 7333. Rediff guys, give me a break. Stop such SMS gimmicks.

While Chennai, around me, was buzzing around me with marathon activity, I was busy shouting at a Saravana Bhavan on charging 5 bucks extra for a masala dosa. Sure the masala dosa was tasty but I was so hungry to hog 2 dosas and get done with my hunger.

After a strong filter coffee, while crossing the road, I saw a gentle man with Temenos Chennai Marathon TShirt on his way back home. Excuse me, I burped. Thats being lazy, for you.

Sania Mirza is the latest matinee idol. I don’t say that. But having got more than 6 email forwards, just today alone, filled up with images of Sania Mirza, I accept. No pics of Sania in this post just to beat that.

Anyway, let’s not have another Anna Kournikova in making.

Chennai is getting ready for yet-another-hot-summer. Today was even worse. With the sun hitting hard, a chap was pushing his cylinder filled tri-cycle with barefoot, up the Doraiswamy subway. Life moves on.

Had to do some good amount of packing/unpacking stuff today, at home. A R Rahman gave a helping hand. You probably got that wrong. With a CD playing assorted Rahman songs, packing became a joyous occasion even for a lazy one like me. Music the life giver, reads a Rajinikanth t-shirt in the movie Johnny. How true.

Hanuman Chalisa[pdf] is probably MS Subbulakshmi‘s best devotional music rendering, I’ve heard. We know MS sings from her heart, this one comes deep down from the heart. Not a day passes by without listening to it and I unconsciously keep humming it throughout. Thanks to Tulasidas for the ever-faithful lyrics and also to Latha for recommending this one. Do listen if you get a chance.

These guys at Grab A Geek, just got spidered in Google News as a news source and they are out with an article, One Ring to Google them all, that’s partly informal and partly informational about Google’s Behind-the-scenes.

Athu Andha Kaalam, a book by S.V Ramakrishnan, that talks about ‘those days’, was on the Uyirmmai stall in the Chennai Book Fair and I just overlooked the author for S.Ramakrishnan. While talking with Desikan, he said it was S.V.R and no S.R. He also promised on Mettioli to publish an SVR essay on his blog. He has now posted an extract from this S.V. Ramakrishnan’s book.

The essay(extract) talks about 10 years of railway history, from 1945-1955. SVR recalls the times and conditions of a third class travel during ‘those days’ clearly communicating the lifestyle of people in the early 1940s. This short essay doesn’t have sensational stuff but still is a gripping read(atleast for me). The flow of words and usage of ancient words adds flavour the essay, thereby making SVR a writer of sheer quality.

Adding creme to coffee is Ashokamitran, who after reading this essay in Uyrimmai, was inspired to pen his thoughts on the Indian railway. And he gives due credit to SVR for bringing out his memoris of the railway. And he, for his part, details a bit of railway history from 1935. This Ashokamitran column was published on Uyirmmai as a follow-up column to SVR essay. It’s happy to see if such noble gestures happen in the contemporary literary world. These days, if one writes a comentary on an issue, the so-called-opposites, write the opposite of that or try to eclipse the better ideas. That’s the evil world of publishing for you. I only wish we have much more writers like SVR and Ashokamitran and ofcourse magazines like Uyirmmai which give time and space for such writings of ‘those days’. I loved it and earning to buy the book, ASAP.

BTW, Chenthil‘s account on Ashokamitran 50, was a nice read especially for the unfortunates like me, who missed the function. Do read. Thanks Chenthil.

Blogger‘s latest release includes updates to their commenting system, which I think is one of the most ought update from the bloggers.

Now you can have your Blogger powered blog with pop up comments and profile image on the comments. This narrows down the gap between Blogger and other Blog software providers like Movable Type and Word Press.

I am eagerly waiting for their next update and I expect it to be blogposts import/export option. If only they provide it in their next release, I will be the first one to move from Movable Type to Blogger. I promise.

[Click on the image for a bigger version]

That’s the Surya’s Gajini banner that I was referring to in the Gajini post. This one is put up opp. to Panagal Park, T.Nagar and did attract me on the first glimpse.

Same picture from a longshot on my Flickr Photoblog, here and here.

[Pic : vikatan]

S. Ramakrishnan’s Kathaavilaasam may not be as sensational as his previous series, Thunnaiezhuthu, that he wrote for Vikatan. But Kathaavilaasam is important. For Ramakrishnan tries to throw to throw light on the great but not-so-well-known tamil writers, every week after week. This effort is infact very noble than Thunnaiezhuthu or any of his previous works.

Ramakrishnan first starts off with a true-life experience(there is little fiction involved here) and then draws a parallel between his experience and a writer’s story. All this being fine, the information about the writer gets shortened to a caricature and a paragraph. A much aspiring column would be to detail the writer’s work and dissect them very closely. I do understand by writing too much about the writer and his stories, Ramakrishnan may not able to sustain an audience for this weekly column. The majority of the readers are philistines and are not very anxious to know about a writer as much as they aspire to know about Namitha’s love affairs. It’s a pity state-of-affairs here with the tamil magazines.

Last week, Aathavan featured in Kathaavilaasam. Aathavan known for his path breaking Enn Peyar Ramseshan, writes just about the urban youth’s mind. At times he provokes you, makes you laugh at yourself and also feel upset about the ‘real’ you. If Mani Ratnam made movies about the upper middle class, Aathavan, much before him[in 1970s] made stories for/on them. I recently read his Kaakitha Malargal offlate and fell in love with his writings. Aathavan died in a river floods when he went to Sriungeri alongwith his friend. If only he had lived longer to cross the millenium, I am sure he must have made stories that would reflect us like mirrors. He is probably one of the three tamil writers whom I wanted to bring back alive. The first two being Bharati and Kalki.

This week, the writer in Kathaavilaasam is Ashokamithran.

Nope, that’s not Van Damme. Surya. Our Kakkha Kakkha Surya. Looks classy right. One more example that tamil cinema has come off age. Gajini to be directed by Murugadas is being starred by Surya and Asin(Hasin). Surya, the latest household name of Tamilnadu and Asin, the offlate dreambaby of Kollywood, is just a lovely combination for Murugadas to capture in Gajini.

From thursday, the city has been decorated with huge poster’s of Surya in a black winter cap, shot in three angles. Near panagal park, the huge banner displays Surya smoking with his hardboots, just like a cowboy action movie. Will defintely click it tomorow on my digicam.

This is Murugadoss’s third venture. Infact fourth, including the dropped venture of Mirattal (*ing Ajit). I loved his first flick, Dheena. Though Ramana, his second flick was impressive, was a little over-rated. Still, Murugadas is one of my beliefs in Kollywood and I firmly believe this dude is one of future pillars of Kollywood. I just couldn’t believe that Dheena was his first flick. Though it had a little slips in screenplay, was mostly engrossing, especially the romance between Ajith and Laila was well told, on-screen. If only he could make Gajini with the same class of Dheena and also Ramana, it would take him to heights.

[Pic : Vikatan.com]

Vikatan reports, that Gajini is an action movie with Surya as Sanjay Ramaswamy, one of the top 5 rich people in the world. There is more story told in the report. I have no clue why would they reveal so much of a movie even when it is pre-production stage. But then, it does increase the curiosity levels in the kollywood. Before Gajini releases we will have few flicks where the protagonist is one of the top 5 businessmen in the world, 1 of the top 5 beggars in the world, 1 of top 5 nutcracks in the world and so on. Murugadas will be astonished to see such co-incidence with his contemporaries. All due to this story leak even before the movie is shot. Follow, the Mani Ratnam stlye dudes. Make people wait for storyline and see the hype during the movie release.

Anyway, here’s wishing all the very best for the Gajini team.

Bought lazygeek.com, finally, I mean finally, after a long long wait. Intially when I was looking for a domain two years back, lazygeek.com was booked by someone so I had to settle down with lazygeek.net. Then the domain got released but was locked by the registrar. I had to talk with the registrar and bought it for an inflated price. Thanks to enom for that.

If only IE never had a control+enter shortcut key for .com domains, .com would never be felt as the lovable single child of internet domains. Other domains are now made to look as orphans. I am prey to that shortcut key.

For time being, I’m planning to re-direct lazygeek.com to the current site [lazygeek.net] itself. You don’t have change bookmarks from your blog at all. To do a permanent switch, I am searching for tools that can change the links on this blog and repoint appropriately to lazygeek.com. Do let me know if you are aware of such tools.

With all the hungama swirling around, Mark Jen chose to talk yesterday about his termination from Google. Mark Jen’s termination came from his blog posts relating to Google’s financial information and future products. Though he took them out when he realised it was classified, it was all over.

From Mark’s entry on his blog, Ninenty Nine Zeros,

i was just too excited. i felt like i was joining a small start-up family; i thought i was going to start new initiatives and improve existing ones; i thought i could jump in the deep end and immerse myself in the revolutionary development environment; i thought i could make connections to real people in the outside world and get first hand feedback; i thought google would love it. i thought wrong.

Personally, I think Google should have given him a chance but then their recent IPO and their quarter offerings have made analysts sensitive to any information about them. And Google probably wanted to show their stand on blogging-about-work policy. It’s definetly shocking for this news came from a company that promotes the number one blogging software, Blogger.

After all, didn’t some one say, Google after the IPO isn’t the same venture capitalists funded company run by a couple of young dudes who love technology, as it was a couple of years back. Now, they are answerable to their share holders and those who have stakes in them. We are getting to see that coming right.

[Pic : SALRP]

Ashokamitran, the writer’s writer, has a simple elegant style of writing. Be it a social novel, a movie review or a commentary on various contemporary issues, he writes without any pretence or exaggerations. So if you are reading a Ashokamitran article you can be rest assured that there are no play of words.

Being with Kannayazhi magazine for a long time, Ashokamitran’s contributions to the tamil literary world is higher than what’s known. Now after 50 years, since he started his invaluable writing career, Kadavu Literary circle and Kizhakku Pathippagam are celebrating it as a gala festival, tomorrow [12th Feb 2005]. Kizhakku Pathippagam recent released compilations of Ashokamitran’s Shortstories and Columns during the recent Chennai Book Fair.

Ashokamitran 50 happens at Film Chamber hall, Anna Salai. Time – 6:30 pm on 12th February 2005.

Sundara Ramaswamy talks about the short stories of Ashokamitran, Gnana Koothan on Ashokamitran columns, I.Ra. Venkatachalapathy on the novels and Paal Sakkariya about the translations of Ashokamitran. There is also a screening of Amshan Kumar’s short film on Ashokamitran. Check out Badri‘s tamil weblog for more.

Being a big time fan of Ashokamitran‘s writings, I love to be there. It is for sure that I may not be able to make it. Blame my friend to have his marriage tomorrow at the same time. I am sure Chenthil and Ramnath, fellow bloggers and fans of Ashokamitran would be there to give me an update.

Tata Telefilms ties up with Sivaji Films on the Chandramukhi marketing. The similar effort by Pepsi for Rajini’s BABA which costed nearly 25 lakhs(?). 75,000 Sq Ft of hoarding space in Chennai alone. I never heard anything like this. the biggest effort until now was for Kamal Hassan‘s Aalavandan. Pity the Chennai traffic.

Did watch Lingusaamy-Ajith’s Ji trailer on the cable. Gripping and ofcourse there is Trisha. But we need to wait and see if Lingusaamy can strike hatrick. If he can it might prove to be a moral booster for Ajith. Pray Ajith Pray.

Kollywood’s summer releases are set to be out by April 14th. There is illayraja [Mumbai Xpress], Harris Jayaraj [Anniyan] and Vidyasagar [Chandramukhi]. None except Chandrmukhi have announced music release dates. End of February would be right time to release soundtrack and allow the music to sink in. Are they listening ?

Watch Anniyan while it’s still on the sets.

Mayaavi is set to release on 25th Feb. Produced by Bala’s B Studios and starred by Surya-Jothika, it could possibly keep theatres enagaged until the summer release films. If only proves to be a laugh riot, nothing like it.

Page 3 people on the premiere of Bhansali’s Black.

The screen dissolves into black. A little androglossian strained voice starts to speak-out, feebly. It narrates a story as a first-person account. A story that is nothing but a state-of-mind. A story that transforms the mind and vision of blackness into white. All this transformation accompanied with a lot of trouble, anguish, agony and zillion other words that you relate to the word PAIN. Cut.

Film Fare Awards 2005 – And the filmfare award for the best – film, screenplay, direction, camera, back ground music, actor, actress and child artist goes to the cast and crew of BLACK. Will sport a moustache if this doesn’t come true. Sometimes, even if you are stiff emotionsless critic, you fall shaken with emotions when a movie moves so deeply from the heart. Black is one such gem. A classic that can stand over gimmicks and modernities of film techniques. Cut.

A Hellenkellrish story that carves lives of two people, where both become teacher and student to the other, at various points of the thorn-filled garden of life. A story that could well be complained for being straightly copied / stollen or even inspired from the life of Hellen Keller, known to us from the english textbooks of 4th grade.

Take a vivid look into the black, non-imaged, non-pixelated, muted life of Michelle McNally [Rani Mukherjee], living in Shimla. Take a detailed view into the life of the humane, adorable and angry old Debraj Sahai [Amitabh Bachchan] who is losing his worthy life and it’s memories to Alzheimer’s diesease. Their lives gets inter-twined when Debraj comes to hand-hold the blind ‘n’ deaf Michele. And what would you teach to a child who has no idea about the world around her, except for the sense of smell, taste and touch. All Michelle knows is her maa who has a hand that is soft that touches her cheeks. Any other hand and Michelle reveals her ultra famous emotion, anger. It is this anger that when postively charged gets her moving in her life to the heights, she never had imagined even in the wildest of dreams.

The movie moves firmly for a two and half hours without a single boring frame. Not only it makes you cry, laugh and applaud but also it teaches you that a movie needn’t pronounce a message. A movie can just arouse plethora of emotions in you. The physically challenged have a zest for life. A thirst to know more and know it completely. Shallow knowledge gets them upset. Their anger is sharp and uncontrolled for they are the ones who react appropriately at situations than the normal mortals who are numb with emotions. Michelle gets angered when Sahai slaps her for not typing as fast as expected. She reacts immediately. From 10 words a minute, she types 30 a minute. She bursts out when her sister makes a miunderstands her on the engagement day. Proves that she has much more to offer than what’s known to the outisde world. Also she becomes a patient teacher to her ex-teacher only to create a miracle on him.

For the first time, one would understand the demon behind Alzheimers disease. You could forget to carry a pen, forget to meet someone at four o’ clock. But what if you forget yourself, your past and every single thing around you. Terrible.

As Debraj Sahai, Amitabh Bachchan carries the entire movie on him. With the intonation so accurate and expressions very classy he takes away the cake in the movie. I’ve never seen such a spell binding male performance in a bollywood flick before. With those wide-open eyes and that stupendous acting performance, I see Kamal Hassan. As a south Indian, I’ve known Amitabh as a bollywood hero compared to the Rajinikanth of south. Being a Rajinikanth admirer, I hated Amitabh for a reason because some of Rajinikanth’s earlier flicks were remakes of Amithabh’s bollywood hits. And I hated to believe this fact. As a carorepathi host, Amitabh was convicing but did not catch my fancy. Many bollywood films that featured after that used him as a brand ambassador for their films. This one is a killer effort. A perfect way for Amitabh to prove he is truly the the BIG B. As he catches the young Michelle with strands of her hair to control the blind kid’s anger, as he slaps her when she could never type more than 10 words a minute, as he walks effortlessly with his head shaking of aging and being suffered with Alzheimers, Amitabh creates magic. He adds color to this rather black movie. A true champion.

Rani Mukherjee. WOW. No exaggerations but this is far most one the best performances by any actress in recent times. As a grown Michelle McNally, she occupies the second half of the movie ans stays throughout in the heart. She has this amazing voice that brings in reality to the movie. It’s her voice that narrates the entire movie. A swaggering gait with a walking stick on her hand, she sometimes reminds the Chaplin walk. And not only that but also dances so rapturously. She listens to the college lecture by feeling the lip movement of her mentor. What everyone does in 3 years, she does it in a two decades withstanding all the pains of being blind and earing impaired. And yeah, even as a blind woman, she wants to know how it feels to be kissed by a man on her lips. She has just her teacher to help her with that. Afterall, isn’t he the one who teached her life, maa, papa, water, cry, snow and every other damned thing of life. She asks. He teaches. A classy scene that brings out gross realities of life as they are without exaggerations. Rani Mukerjee can be announced as the Indian actress of the decade, undoubtedly.

Ayesha Kapur, as the young Michelle grabs the first half with her lovely debut performance. With a movie full of scope for performance, it is the casting department which needs to be appreciated to have casted Ayesha Kapur as young Michelle. Hats off.

Ironically, for a movie that details the life of a blind and deaf girl, the images and the sound stand out first class. Ravi K Chandran, known for his stylish modern camerawork in Mani Ratnam‘s Kannathil Muthamittal and Aayitha Ezhuthu goes in for a conservative yet astonishing camera work. It is through his lens that we look into the life of Michelle and Sahai. The lighting is modern but the camera angles are truly old fashioned. And probably thats what Bhansali drove Ravi K Chandran to do. If only the movie was shot and edited as modern as Aayitha Ezhuthu, it would have failed to impress. This slow movie requires patient camera movements but yet needs to touch the audience. Pre-dominantly colored with black, wherever possible, the color tone itself is rich, lavish and conveys what the movie is upto. I could devote a paragraph for the music by Monty. It would be right to do that. The music and camera are inter-weaved in the movie. So is the review. If only we get to watch the movie with either one of this(visual and sound), it wouldn’t make any sense . The camera pitches the emotion while the music accompanies and heightens it ten fold. There are no songs however and hence the distractions are reduced largely.

The editing and the sets adds more value. The sets of the bungalow as situated in Shimla are realistic and to re-create them after a fire accident must have been a great effort for the entire team. From the title card, it looks like most of the movie was shot in Himachal Pradesh.

Bhansali did a great job in Khamoshi but it was just not reaching there. His efforts that followed in Hum Dil De Chukke Sanam and Devdas were lavish and were heavily commercialised. With Black, Bhansali proves that he is the bollywood master of melodrama and blacks out the better movies of Bollwood. Black is a picture postcard movie. Any single shot can be blown out into a poster and to this Bhansali has compromised to heavlily exaggerate at some places. By making the story revolve around an Anglo-Indian family situated in a a hill-station, Bhansali tries to show places, people and their costumes which a normal middle class Indian, couldn’t relate so easily. That gives you a feel that the movie happens far away from India. You can shirk these off for the kind of movie Black is. Am sure this effort of Bhansali wouldn’t go unnoticed. If only the reviews/reactions to Black turn-out the otherway it could be because of the prepossessed mind-set on Sanjay Leela Bhansali and his movies.

Black is an effort that needs to be showcased inside and also outside India. While outside India, people would definetly see Black, it needs to be taken to places deep inside India. The best way would be to dub them in many regional languages without affecting the moments of the movie. If you don’t want the rest-of-the-world to dub bollywood from looking at the colorful Monsoon Wedding and Bride and Prejudice, represent Black to the world as an ideal Bollywood flick and articulate the fact that we are one of the movie super stars. For it takes a huge effort to create a movie of this excellence. Whatever it takes, beg-borrow-steal, watch BLACK.