Los Angeles Earthquake

It was around 11:40 AM and I was stepping out of my office and driving for lunch. As I approached the signal I noticed the whole pole that had signal lights was shaking and swaying quite vigorously. Then I realized my car waiting in the signal started to sway left to right and back. Having lived in Southern California for over 6 years now, I immediately realized it's the earthquake that's shaking the whole place up. On previous occasions there was very little or nothing to react since the quake shake was either too short or too mild. But this time around it was well over 15-20 seconds and it was pretty heavily felt. Meanwhile the lights turned green and I started driving but could still feel the shake. For the whole time, I had no clue what I should be doing. It was one of the weird experience I have ever had and fortunately there is no major damage reported yet.

Sakkarakatti - Music Review

When I saw the promo pictures of the movie, it looked really fresh and youthful. My expectations on the music was very high since this is the first time after "Boys", Rahman is composing for a "much hyped" movie that has a lot of newcomers.

I Miss You is a very different number sung by Chinmayi. She had shown another variation in her voice and I guess ARR likes experimenting with her voice (Like Tere Bina in GURU and Sahana in SIVAJI). The song has some interesting lyrics by Na.Muthukumar that will create fever among youth.

Marudhaani is a very sofy melody that has shades of Sahana Saaral but you will definitely get awed the first time you hear the song. Madhushree has come a long way in terms of tamil pronunciation. Her accent is much better and ARR's interlude in the middle of the song is brilliant. Vaali continues to amaze everyone with his youthful poetry in this song.

Chinnamma is tamil version of ARR's similar song from MEENAXI. This song has a good mix of chorus blended with Benny Dayal's voice that touches some height. The flute notes is reminiscent of old songs, but overall the song has a very good feel.

Taxi Taxi is a typical fast youth number with lots of energy. This song has generous sprinkle of rap & thanglish from Blaaze and Benny once again shows his talent with some bold voice. This will surely be a popular hit in college circles.

Naan Eppodhu is another tamil version of hindi song from MEENAXI and this one is sung by Reena Bharadwaj who also sang the original hindi version. The song sounds very "north indian" due to the heavy use of dholak drum. The lyrics by Pa. Vijay is brilliant and the singer has beautiful voice but she perfectly fills the void that Madhushree has left in terms of awful Tamil accent.

Elay Neram by Krish and Naresh Iyer is very soothing and the highlight of the song is the wonderful orchestration. This song reminds a lot of Roobaroo from RANG DE BASANTI since it has the same youthful chorus and very serene flow. Na. Muthukumar is very impressive with lines like "காற்றின் மூஞ்சியில் கரி பூசவேண்டாம்" and "டௌரி மாப்பிள்ளைக்கு காதல் சொல்லி தருவோம்"

Overall, ARR did not disappoint by delivering a fresh breath of highly energetic youthful music.

Pasupathy

I am a die-hard Rajini fan eagerly awaiting the release of Kuselan, but I cannot stop wondering why Pasupathy, supposedly playing the title role, is not featuring in a big way in any of the major promo pictures that are circulating. I remember seeing initial movie stills of Virumandi, which was so impressive, and seeing Pasupathy along side Kamal made everyone curious. Pasupathy was not so popular back then and for him to get such marketing at that stage of the career was huge. Rumor has it, Rajini has only 20-30 minutes of screen time in the entire movie. If that's true, Pasupathy probably has a very big role in the movie and his nonexistence in the movie promo is clearly unfair.

சாமி மாமி - Pre-Marriage Talk

சாமி - Eligible "software engineer" bachelor who is living in America for the last four years.
மாமி - Eligible, beautiful, "movie & TV" loving "Tambram" waiting for an American மாபிள்ளை.

ஜாதகம் செம்மையா ஒத்து போக, photo exchange செய்து பிடித்து போக, சாமி-மாமி இருவருக்கும் இடையே மிகுந்த வெட்கத்துடனும் எதிர்ப்பார்புடனும் காதலுடனும் நடக்கும் phone chat.

சாமி - Howz it going?
மாமி - நன்னா இருக்கேன். இவ்ளோ சீக்கரம் எழுந்தாச்சா?
சாமி - I spend less time in sleep mode and I am usually up and running early in the morning. How about you?
மாமி - எனக்கு தூக்கமே வரல..இது ஒரு கனா காணும் காலம் இல்லையா? மனசு அலைபாயுதே, அது சரி, Breakfast-க்கு என்ன சாப்டேள்?
சாமி - My breakfast window is very small, I usually save some cookies and food in the office storage. BTW, I forgot to ask.. If this is the right time, Else I will call later.
மாமி - சேச்சே, நீங்க கால் பண்ணறதே Jackpot அடிச்சாமாதிரி. அது சரி உங்களுக்கு என்னை பிடிச்சிருக்கா? ஜோடி பொருத்தம் எப்படி? எப்படி என்னை select பண்ணேள்?
சாமி - I searched a lot initially and I was not sure about my requirements, but after I saw your picture and spoke with you, I developed love for you and felt you will be compatible with my family. Finally, I decided to commit myself. But that is history now, you tell me what do you think of me?
மாமி - என்ன சொல்லறது, உங்களோட அரசி மாதிரி வாழுவேன்னு நம்பிக்கை இருக்கு. நாம ரெண்டு பேரும் ஜோடி நம்பர் ஒன்னா இருக்கணும்கறதுதான் என் கனவே.
சாமி - Wow... You speak really good home tamil, it's hard for me to decrypt. But I love it, our conversations are cached in my memory forever. What else?
மாமி - நான் இங்க இருக்க, நீங்க அங்க இருக்க காதலிக்க நேரமில்லை.
சாமி - Don't bother, people tell me that there has to be proper settings for love, but I am telling you, this phone chat really recharge my battery ahead of my busy day at office. What do you think?
மாமி - உங்களோட பேசும்போது ஆனந்தமா இருக்கு, பின்னாலே யோசிச்சு பாத்தா எல்லாமே சிரிப்புதான், மொத்ததுல இது ஒரு லாஜிக் இல்லா மாஜிக்.
சாமி - Alright, I got to go, will ping you again tomorrow.

PAPA CJ

Who is PAPA CJ? He's one of the semi finalist in the NBC's most popular reality show "Last Comic Standing" (American version of கலக்க போவது யாரு). He bowed out of the competition yesterday after a tough semi final elimination. PAPA CJ is from New Delhi and he was performing stand up comedy. He was one of the very few "foreign" performers who qualified for semi finals for this show where a winner gets $250K .

I thought PAPA CJ was funny in the beginning but as he progressed from initial screening to next rounds, he became a little repetitive. Most of his jokes revolved around "IT outsourcing & Call centers", "Reincarnation" & "KS". But I thought he competed well. What he could have avoided is picking a person in audience and start making comedy using that guy. Also, I thought he lacked the very basic ingredients "body language" and "dramatization", which is very critical in the American reality TV shows. In American television, even a 5 year old kid behave differently by showing emotion or being funny when on camera and people here like it. In India it is opposite, when on camera most of the guys pretend they are very quite and composed and show lots of humility, even though they have different personalities. The most recent example is the behavior of some of the kids in the show SUPER SINGER JUNIOR.

Overall it was pretty interesting to watch PAPA CJ's journey in this show and guess what he said when he bowed out..something along the lines of .."I don't care if people don't remember me as PAPA CJ as long as they know that a guy from India came here and competed in semifinals..". I seriously love "Mera Bharath Mahaan" style statements from our Indian stars and performers.

BCCI Gods

Niranjan Shah, BCCI secretary, told Cricinfo that its contracted players - including VVS Laxman, Piyush Chawla and Ajit Agarkar - who have signed or are in the process of signing with English counties this season are being "advised" to pull out if the county has ICL players on its rolls.

What's BCCI thinking? They are God and can do anything? For some of the players it is hard to get county contracts and even if they manage to get it, with this new rule, they should get permission from BCCI. Ridiculous. If BCCI has problems with ECB and ICL they better take firm decisions at the management level and not kill players with annoying rules. The following subclause to the above rule from Niranjan Shah is classic:

Shah, however, clarified that "non-ICL" players from these county teams will be allowed to take part in the Indian Premier League (IPL) - Hampshire's Dimitri Mascarenhas had played for Rajasthan Royals in the tournament's first season.

What's next? Advice players not to talk and take some useful tips from Sandip Patil or Dean Jones or Micheal Bevan because they are associated with ICL. BCCI's act can only be associated with the dirty games that we see in politics.

Kuselan - Music Review

Another much anticipated music album of the year was released last week. For a young music director like G V Prakash, to get to compose Superstar's movie so early in his career, this is like a golden dream opportunity to take his career to next level. Was he successful?

The first thing I thought the music director got it right for the most part is the choice of singers for songs. Hariharan-Sujata were beautiful in Sollamma, Shreya Goshal is good in the solo number Chaaral, Shankar Mahadevan is bold in Cinema Cinema (though I would have prefered SPB considering the sentiment of the song), Daler sounded differently in Om Zaarare and Kailash Kher & Prasanna blended well as a pair in Perinba. I really feel happy for Prasanna who got a chance in such a big movie. He is one of the few young singers (like Vijay Yesudas) who has got terriffic depth in voice and still maintain melody.

Sollamma is a very nice melody number and probably the best song of the movie. Cinema Cinema is nice to hear with some interesting voice-sound mix. Om Zaarare sounds different but there's nothing great about the song. Chaaral looks like 2008 remix of 80's Ilayaraaja song. Perinba is "Veyilodu Vilayaadi" revisited. The instrumentals used in the songs sounds Rahmanish and some of them are direct lifts from old songs.

In terms of lyrics, looks like we are back to நீதான் இவனே, நீதான் அவனே mode again. Too much hero worship, hopefully it is in tune with the tone of the movie.

Now back to the question, did G V Prakash grab the opportunity? May be yes, may be not. The songs are peppy enough to keep the listeners interested, but not outstanding to tag G V as "big movie" music director yet.