Minor Scale

Ever wondered what happened of Apache Indian, that blah-bleh-blook-spewing rapper-whatever? No? Me neither. Apparently, he is still around and I found him mentioned on a Screenhead post today. Armed with a spanner and a hairstyle borrowed from the lady who sold us fresh fish years ago, Apache mumbo-jumbos as only he can about Indian Spice and all that. The song is kinda catchy though. A remixed version of Desmond Dekker’s old hit, ‘The Israelites’. Ok, so I was just typing that info off of the original post. I have no clue who or what all that is.

Some online articles and blog posts from over the last couple of years talk about self-made “film distributor” Mohamad Salim and his 107-yr old projector that serve as a mobile movie hall for the kids of the Calcutta slums.
And then, there are these latest photos from the Yahoo Reuters photo stream, that show (in all probability) his kid, Mohamed Ashraf, hauling around the same projector. No mention of Mohamad Salim though. But I guess he was just taking the day off to dig up fresh movie reels for his next on-street production.

Maybe it’s the long lasting effects of a Cinema Paradiso hangover, but it brought out the sap in me, and made me want to post about this.

Sometime back, I had written about the re-emergence of Chennai-centric humor site, Bosey. Apparently, their new avatar is in form of a Blog. You’ll love it…if you like that kind of humor.

From their ARS to play Superman in new Hollywood movie post:

When asked for his comments, ARS said “Yais, Yais, you are correct.”, in a classic clipped South Indian accent, before removing his glasses and adding “Operation success!”

Hyuk…Hyuk!

Like any college hostel housing an assortment of characters, mine in Salem was also home to its fair mix of weirdos, bookworms, sleazeballs, casanovas etc. VB was probably an honorary member of atleast a few of these groups, save the bookworm club of course. And while he was not sleazing it out with the ladies and earning evil stares for his horrid stand-up routines, he was busy pumping iron in the huge empty room on the 2nd floor of our hostel block. For VB was also our Pocket Hercules. All of 5 feet and built like an over-sized G.I Joe. Mr. TIES two years in a row. Unchallenged.

(more…)

I’ve recently discovered a good site for the latest Bollywood music and find myself listening to more Hindi albums these days. Mp3 ishtyle. Not that it makes any difference to the overall likeability of the songs, but atleast it’s better to download 6 songs in under a minute, than having to wait for Firefox to get over its “browser rage” everytime I try to load up a Real Audio stream. Being obsessed with Shreya Goshal, I try to listen to most of her songs and got to listen to a song from the film Revati called Mil Gayee Khwaabon Ki Manzil. The music by Jatin-Lalit (remember them?) is reminiscent of the Khamoshi sound in parts, and is overall passable. As usual, the music is nothing to write about, but Shreya’s voice makes the song immensely listenable. Atleast a couple of times.

(more…)

For anyone who finds the genre of Indian horror as fascinating as it is bizarre, HotSpot Online is a good place to start. And their ‘Eye Candy‘ section is possibly the best repository of Indian Horror movie posters that I’ve come across online.

There were some easily identifiable faces on the hand-drawn posters, like this one for Red Rose - the hindi version of Sigappu Rojakkal, directed by Bharathi Raja. Rajesh Khanna with his Gurkha looks was easy enough to identify, but the sexy girl in blue happens to be Poonam Dhillon. But posters like this one of ghost-hunting(?) superhero, Shiva-man, complete with mask, cape and the Trishul insignia, took some googling to find out.

(more…)

While the Indian Blogosphere is lauding the appearance of 3 Indian movies on the TIME Top 100 list, excited desi readers have been flocking to the website to cast their own votes. And as of now, all 3 movies are in the Top 10 user-rated list. Not surprising really, if you consider the voting power of the Indian junta on the Internet. Two BBC polls in the recent past come to mind when Amitabh Bachchan was voted most popular actor of all time (they got that right, I’m sure), and Ilaiyaraja’s Raakamma Kaiyya Thattu was in the lead for World’s Top Ten songs for quite sometime until the Irish decided to set things right. I’ll be really surprised if BBC decided to run another such poll, especially if it figured an Indian personality (All-Time Worst Serial Killer - Charles Sobhraj beats Jack the Ripper by a million votes).

(more…)

This last week, I was witness to a friend tying the knot, tying the knot, tying the knot at the Hindu Temple in Baltimore. Visa restrictions had forced my friend to get married in the US and the bride’s parents were left in the lurch as massive appointment backlogs at the US Consulate in Madras found them watching a webcast of the event instead (We took turns manning the camera and the computer when the audience, and there were quite a few on them on Yahoo Messenger, would throw tantrums about the broadcast quality). In fact, the only elders present were the groom’s parents and the bride’s brother. The rest of the well-wishers comprised entirely of friends who had either driven hundreds of miles or like me, had made last minute flight reservations (thankfully, Baltimore was a Southwest Airlines hub). What resulted was a gathering of self-appointed photographers & videographers turning a solemn (& usually boring) event into the most fun & informal wedding I’ve ever been to.

(more…)

Available from TamilBeat.com

Yeah, yeah I’ve only listened to it a coupla times now and don’t intend to rush to conclusions like I did on ‘Mumbai Express’ (I can’t seem to get enough of the saranam of Yele Nee Etti Po and the cool interludes of Poo Poothathu these days). So, the following are first impressions that might undergo radical changes upon the 18th listening and have me acknowledge this as his best effort ever. Or not.

(more…)

The Mutineers’ subliminal tactics to hook me on M.I.A have worked, and now I’m officially pissed that her current tour will not cover any city south of the Tri-State Area. I wonder if my obsession will last until the next one.

Meanwhile, thanks to SambharMafia, I’ve discovered that Chinmayee can write as well as she can sing. If you think you’ve heard the name before, it’s only because she sang the best Tamil song of 2003. A lovely duet called Enna Idhu Enna Idhu, as well as the next best song that year - AR Rahman’s En Uyir Thozhiye. And it’s no wonder she aced the latter, cos’ she mentions that Suddha Saveri is one of her favorite raagams.

Imagine growing up on an audio collection where almost every cassette sleeve had tiny portraits of Mother Mary and/or JC woefully staring back at you, decked in costumes born out of some underpaid artist’s garish imagination. Well, thanks to my Dad’s single-minded taste in music, I didn’t have to. Aatmeeya Geethangal, Aatmeeya Naadhan, Swargiya Naadhan, Nammude Swargiya Aasrayam etc. were the chartbusters playing on repeat in my house. Don’t even bother trying to figure out what all that means. Just know it’s the business mantra of the ruthless Mallu Devotional Tape industry that translates to ‘Blessed are the musically challenged, for their misplaced faith shall line our coffers.’

So that’s why when I say, “Thank God for Vividh Bharathi“, I really REALLY mean it.

(more…)

Ever wondered how Raajavin Paarvai (Anbe Vaa) would sound if SPB & Chitra sang it with er… some tacky beats as accompaniment? Well, a Mallu director/composer Sonu Sisupal gave it a shot. The movie is ‘Vaamanapuram Bus Route’ and the song is in it cos’ the hero is a hardcore MGR fan (Mohanlal in a rather bored performance).

Raajavin Paarvai - SPB, Chitra

Via Chennai Online:

Ability Foundation invites entries from amateur film-makers for the following competition.

(more…)

If you’re not ready to dish out all that extra cash for TiVo yet, then you got two options. Either convert an old computer into a PVR (Personal Video Recorder)
OR,
plan to have a baby this weekend. Or atleast hope the Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas reopen their ‘free TiVo for a Baby’ offer next year. Amusingly enough, not all new mothers who got the TiVos, got what it was for…

But the women also were confused.
Maria Ramirez, a 26-year-old Mesquite woman, juggled her crying 2-day-old daughter as a Spanish translator explained that she was now a proud TiVo owner.

“Is it for babies?” Ms. Ramirez asked.

‘Rjay’, a TFMpage regular wrote this rather insightful analysis of a personal favorite of mine, Yedho Mogham from Kozhi Koovudhu. A delightful read!

I noticed that the mp3 links on the page did not work anymore (he wrote this a good 4-5 years back I think), so I cut up my copy of the song and uploaded it as an 8Mb zip file to Rapidshare(click on the Free button at the bottom and wait a few seconds for the download ticket to appear). I also happen to have the entire background score of the movie, so I’ve added two more mp3 files.
- The first file is called ‘Building up to Yedho Mogham’, which is a variation of the song played in the background when Suresh & Viji (for those familiar with the movie) have that interesting episode in the lake which sparks off their love. :)
- The second file is called ‘Climax version of Yedho Mogham’, which is of course a sadder version of the song played towards the end of the movie.
Update: I’ve also included the analysis by Rjay as part of the id3 tag, so you can read it as it plays. Works with Media Player.

(more…)