Nostalgia

 

Am joining the bandwagon of people who reminisce forgotten passions and write about it. Today was the day to dispose the long unused audio cassettes from the closet as part of “get rid of things when you shift homes” ritual. Rewinding (this is a phrase used in playing cassettes too) years and reliving memories left  a rather heavy nostalgia.

Was lucky to be from the generation that experienced Audio Cassettes, CDs, MP3 disks, Walk Man before transitioning to pen drives, Ipod to phone. The pleasure of buying brand new cassettes if one could afford, the even bigger pleasure of cherry-picking songs from multiple albums for an optimized recorded compilation, the thrill of owning a player that can record cassettes (including the option to erase already recorded songs and overwrite with new ones), the pleasure of owning a player that can flip itself to play Side B, the pride of owning a player that could play cassettes with CDs etc., were the thoughts that flashed when the flood gates of memories opened up

These cassettes brought fond memories of people who gave away their collection including two dear cousins . Have ensured that some cassettes are not going to be parted with even if one room were removed from the house causing space constraints. Am sure these cassettes are going to give kicks 10/20 yrs down the line as well

At the end of the day’s experience, the only consolation in bidding goodbye to these cassettes was two facts-1. These cassettes have been beaten to death in terms of usage and there is no guilt that the money spent went down the drain and 2. These cassettes were not used for 10 yrs or so now and there is no option to say “am going to miss them badly” though that is the truth

Was SPB real?

 

People come and go. Death is indeed a part of life but still it is never easy to handle it when it comes to your dear ones. SPB is not family or friend but the loss seems more. One set of people are mourning his death, another set is celebrating his life. I am the greedy type who want to celebrate his glorious life (career) as well have him. Yes, want to have the cake and eat it too. Not often do you get a person like that who made such a difference to your life; who made you shed happy and sad tears with equal measure through the body of work. Many people are speechless, word-less at this moment but I feel like having so much to say.

When legends, great men depart at an old age, you feel bad, but move on. One of the reasons for that is the time elapsed since their prime would be 10-15 years before their death. Think of K Balachander and you know what I am referring here. With SPB, the grief is more profound as he was still doing stage shows and singing 15+ songs in one evening with near the same quality, giving a sense of disbelief

The frequency of his singing in films came down sharply from 2010s or bit before that with the advent of young male leads, composers and singers. While I always felt he would have done justice to these new-age songs (hear Koorakku Krellikere from Nenappirali or pudhiya manidha from Endhiran), I wasn’t complaining much for two reasons-1. He has had a lion’s share of songs from late 70s to 90s, you almost wanted him to give way to the next generation of singers and 2. He was so visible on the small screen (ennodu paatu padungal, vaanampadi, edhe thumbi haaduvenu, appearances in super singer-especially when he and Chithra are both around), in the internet (caught up with many a stage show here) and the plethora of interviews-my personal favs are Vijay TV Sangamam, Bosskey TV and Gaana Yanna. We got to know his personality, humility, nicety a lot from these shows and what many people say about him is just a validation. He never missed an opportunity to praise his peers, seniors, composers, lyricists etc. some people can’t praise others though they may hold them in high esteem. This is exemplified in Raja’s video messages since SPB’s hospitalisation. Watching the footage (from a recording session) of their reunion after the bitter events on copyrights (Raja-initiated of course), one felt that Raja had a sense of guilt of doing what he did to his old friend

On his accomplishments in Tamil, his songs with MSV, Ilayaraja, Rahman, Rajan-Nagendra, Deva (the stunning Rajni intro songs and the uber cool gaanas from Indhu), Vidyasagar (the stunning melodies), Hamsalekha to name a few are deservingly legendary but one should also experience his gems with others like Shanker-Ganesh (my favs are unnai naan paarthathu, samsaaram adhu minsaaram title song, pournami neram from palaivana cholai, amman kovil therazhagu etc.), T Rajendar (various), Chandrabose (medhuva medhuva oru kadhal paatu, songs from AVM+Rajni movies), SV Ramanan (Vaanil vaazhum devadhai), Manoj/Gyan (Andhi nera thendral kaatru) etc. For me there are so many unexplored songs and am already on the hunt. Thanks to folks like Baradwaj Rangan and Smule am exposed to a lot of his great songs from the old times (e.g. nitham nitham en kannoram, thamaraikkodi, venmegam mannil vandhu, oru kunguma chengamalam, nandhavanam poothirukkidhu). As Kamal pointed out in his tribute, there are enough songs for 100 years if we covered one SPB song a day

I have been fortunate to know his exploits in Kannada as well. In fact, he has revealed that the love he has got in Karnataka is unparalleled. As the story goes, Vishnuvardhan wouldn’t sign a movie contract without the point that SPB would croon his songs. Who can forget Neera bittu neladha mele, jeeva veene needu midithadha santhosha, noorondhu nenapu, ee bhoomi bannadha buguri to name a few? Agree that he had hits in Hindi as well but to me, he is always the king of TN, Andhra, Telangana and Karnataka. With the quantity of songs he did in these three languages, I was surprised when someone mentioned that KJ Yesudas has sung more songs than SPB. With due respect to KJY- he was the king in Kerala and singing niche numbers in other southern states and Hindi, SPB was ubiquitous on the audio cassettes during mid-70s to mid-90s in 4 of the 5 southern states. If you followed the songs of the top heroes of 70s through 90s-Rajni, Kamal, Vijayakanth, Mohan, Sathyaraj, Prabhu, Karthik, T Rajendar in Tamil, Vishnuvardhan, Anant Nag, Sreenath, Shankar Nag, Ravichandran in Kannada (yes, SPB missed out on Dr.Raj who was an accomplished singer himself covering most of his songs ever since he filled in for PB Sreenivas once), Chiranjeevi, Nagarjuna, Balakrishna et al in Telugu (my exposure to Telugu songs is not much beyond the Raja compositions in late 80s and early 90s+shankarabharanam), no way he would have sung less songs than anyone else. Of course, quantity is not what he will be known for vis-à-vis the peerless quality

Continuing the topic of his on-screen heroes, I can imagine Rajni’s struggle to match the energy pumped in by Balu in his intro songs. Sivakumar admitted that he requested the shoot of Uchi Vagundhethu (rosappu ravikkaikaari) to be pushed to the end of the schedule to mentally prepare to match the emotions delivered by SPB in the song recording. How hard it would have been for Mohan trying to match SPB’s expressions in the songs? One actor who relished the challenge was Kamal as they complemented each other so well, word for word, chuckle for chuckle, expression for expression (the tiny list of vaanam keezhe vandhal enna, unna nenachen paatu padichen, unakkenna mela nindrai, kamban emandhan is still a statistically significant sample). Would have loved to see how Kamal would have emoted the chuckle in the middle of “mugavarigaL thavariyadhal azhudhidimo (it comes here), adhu mazhayo” or “kaaman kovil siraivaasam, kaalai ezhundhaale (little laugh) parigaasam”. That he managed to squeeze his trademark expressions in water-tight Raja compositions, speaks to his talent

His collaborations with K Balachander are unforgettable. It didn’t matter if the composer was MSV (ninaithale inikkum, avargal, aval oru thodarkathai etc.) or Raja (Pudhu Pudhu Arthangal, Punnagai Mannan, Unnal Mudiyum Thambi etc.) or ARR (Duet) or Keeravani (vaaname ellai, jaadhi malli, azhagan) the songs are evergreen. Remains a puzzle to me, it took almost 4-5 movies for SPB to sing in Bharathiraja’s movies despite them being close pals even before Bharathiraja got his direction chance. They did make amends later (nizhalgal, kadhal oviyam, alaigal ovyadhillai etc.)

Another memorable combination is that with Vairamuthu (VM). There are so many memorable anecdotes that one can recall. VM mentioned that he wanted Balu to sing his first song (not sure if there is much truth to this as Raja would call the shots for his songs, more so with a debutant lyricist) as he was in love with SPB hearing songs like Thoduvadhenna thendralo (composed by GK Venkatesh who has done some amazing songs in Kannada and some great ones in Tamil like “then sindhudhe vaanam”)..VM recalls the interaction during the recording of Vannam Konda Vennilave where SPB looked at the lyrics first and told that such a song can’t be penned by someone who hasn’t loved at least once. After the recording, VM would go on to tell SPB that such a rendition is not possible from anyone who has not been in love multiple times. For someone who has been an ardent fan of both, it was quite uncomfortable to enjoy the footage of the show SPB did with only VM songs (in his presence) in 2019 after all that happened around Me Too. VM’s best tribute to SPB came in a Q&A in Kumudham where he was asked to compare KJ Jesudas and SPB. He replies that “kadhalithu konde saagachollum kural Jesu, saagum bodhum kaadhalikachollum kural Balu”. Even-steven !

For 80s/90s kids with a special liking to songs of 60s and 70s, SPB is demi-god. His exit will now force his admirers like myself to dig into the rich treasures of his less-known old songs to miss him even more.

My 4-year-old son has grown up on his Tamil and Kannada songs and can even imitate what SPB thatha would have done to a song sung by another singer. He adds the trademark chuckle, giggle to explain that. It will be a regret that I won’t be able to take him to a live SPB concert. Took it for granted that I would attend a concert when he turned 10 or so (SPB would have been 80 yet singing incredibly well). It is another regret that I didn’t attend enough of his live concerts from the time I started earning a salary (there aren’t many other things that are more valuable or money’s worth). Experiencing him sing live on 3 occasions only is certainly my fault only

 

 

 

Zuckerberg and Indian politics...

Four political trends are emerging strongly in Facebook which in my view is very limited in coverage to change fortunes of national politics…it may have a relatively/selectively better impact in regional politics..The trends-

·       Manmohan n Rahul G bashing…deservingly

·       NaMo glorifying—undeservingly

·       AAP glorifying—justifiably

·       AAP bashing (by NaMo supporters)—intriguingly

Its one thing to support NaMo but its amusing why his followers are critical of AAP and Arvind Kejriwal..Any sane person would know that all political parties hitherto (at an overall level with individual exceptions) are corrupt and self-centered…AAP is a welcome change and looks like walking the talk (by and large) under a relatively able leader…Its understandable that the seasoned politicians are critical of AAP coz here is a party that can potentially wipe their decades of party-building (reminiscent of the antagonist’s dialogue in the movie Mudalvan aka Nayak)..Wonder why Anna Hazare is not supporting AAP…If he thinks he can fast unto death and change current politicians without dirtying his hands himself, he must be dreaming..he is so worried about the law on a piece of paper but not the faulty execution of law by tainted political class in power..would have been sensible for him to back AAP as a political outfit carrying the collective ideologies forward…Afterall the peerless Mahatma played an active role in politics himself until a certain point…AAP may not be the best or ideal solution but it surely looks the better of the available ones !

NaMo supporters are criticizing Arvind for using 5 BHK house and yielding to covering himself with security etc..these are trivial and not the biggest of worries..he is well-learned and has served civil services and for the last several months has been working hard to understand problems faced by citizens…that’s good enough to raise him above most of our Netas..In fact, letting congress support to form government can also be overlooked by the Nayagan logic of “anything is fine if it does good for 4 people”..:P

The real problems facing AAP are scaling up at a national level in just 4 months before Lok Sabha elections (not that this is the last chance) and maintaining integrity when it does manage to scale up..Swaminomics expresses cautious optimism on AAP’s expansion nationwide by pinning hopes on urban India..Personally it may not be as easy for AAP to win in Urban India as well considering the sizeable not-so-well-off population that lives in slums and so on..it would be interesting to see what percentage of the urban voters are from the well-off (including middle class) section..The fear is, a significant portion of the well-offs don’t generally vote…and the slum dwellers for sure are not going to know AAP…the “AAP glorifiers” bunch in social media are ecstatic about Infy Bala, Capt.Gopinath, RBS Meera and the like joining the party..but that’s not going to help in getting votes..this reaction can be compared to the India Shining campaign that flopped as IT services growth helped only a small fraction of our population and India was definitely not shining then !

By now, AAP is well known to middle class and upper middle class..they can hope that most people other than NaMo fans may vote for AAP…it may not be a bad idea for AAP to focus completely on urban poor only for the upcoming lok sabha elections..its unimaginable to cover the Indian rural landscape between now and the elections and therefore, its important to do some targeting..almost tempted to say that AAP can resort to any means to achieve the right end..if liquor and biriyani works with urban poor, so be it..

Relive the experience !

There are a number of things unique to single-screen/old-time cinema halls..Not referring to the cliched identities like the toilet being unclean, smell of cigarette, hand written seat numbers, chairs in ruins, heavily skewed towards men viewers only etc...Got a chance to relive the experience recently..These halls are unfortunately restricted to lower middle class locales..:(..
**People taking recess break (mostly for smoking) when songs play..Doesn't matter if it was Ilayaraja or Rahman...The minimum # of people leaving the hall for break during songs is a good indication of how well the composer connects with the masses..The viewer should be prepared to see the frequent glare on screen from the door opening..:D
**People putting legs on the front seat..sometimes even when people are seated at front..:P..One couldn't restrict laughter when there was a card on screen prohibiting people to not put legs on the chair at front..Much like the "no smoking" card !!
**Air conditioner is used fully only during the title card time and right after the interval..Rest of the time, the cinema owner banks on the filmmaker to digress audience from focusing on AC
**One gets to understand the reason why some of the "sotta" movies (how my friend refers to lousy movies) run in the so called "B" and "C" centers (read as lower middle class audience)..they whistle for the sheer name of some of the not so big stars (not in the league of Rajnikanth who should ideally patent the slogan "whistle podu") as well and glorify even small creative pieces..I am not blaming them at all coz for them movie is a reason for joy and not some to examine critically for logic/message to the audience/social reformist or anything...:)..However, one does feel bad for the fact that undeserving film stars would start thinking they have made it big already and stop honing their skills. :(..I am sure the same psychology works for the politicians in luring voters from the masses
I am pretty sure a lot of multiplex audiences would love to practice some of the above if not for the peer pressure..;)..
Some of this may sound over simplified but then this is a blog and not a book that needs reasearch of a higher pedigree. :)
The gulf in audience behaviour would be bridged if you live in bangalore and go for a movie in chennai..as in, the ticket rates in the best of theatres in chennai are on par with the single-screen old halls in Bangalore...
 

Glass is half full with a hole at bottom...

At the beginning of 1st test at Lord’s

Optimistic Indian fan: “2000th test match, Sachin knocking at 100 tons, Sachin+dravid+laxman at 99 centuries together, India vs Eng-Almost like Ashes etc etc”
Event: Eng amass huge total. Zak gets injured (surprisingly the injury never surfaced in the long IPL circus)

2nd/3rd day

Optimistic Indian fan: “Shit ! Zak got injured. He would made a difference (As though the other 4 bowlers were just making the numbers). Our batsmen will give a fitting reply. Sachin will go past 100 at the home/mecca/bethelehem/thirupathi of cricket”

Event: Indian batsmen bundle out just after avoiding follow-on


End of 4th day

Optimistic Indian fan: “Wow ! amazing bowling by India. Eng biting dust at 62/6..No looking back. We shall win from here on. Sachin will hit a 100 on a winning note in the 2nd innings”

Event: England go past 250 and declare (yeah. Indian bowlers couldn’t run thru the last 4 batsmen) setting India a target over 400. India reach some 90 for two wickets
Beginning of the 5th day
Optimistic Indian fan: “Any of the three results possible !. Worst case, India will draw the test. After all, it’s only 90 odd overs and we are capable of playing the overs. Interesting to see if Sachin can hit his 100“
(how the hell is the result of an Indian win possible. That after the defensive tactics in the last test in the WI which India should have won for the modest target in 4th innings against a very weak attack. how can an Indian fan ever forget Sachin and his feat to be. Hehe)

Event: Indians lose all wickets and Sachin scores 11 from 50 odd deliveries (he scored 100 plus only on the thermometer). Often he forgets he is a much better batsmen dominating bowlers than trying to give them unnecessary respect. He should show scant respect to bowlers all the time like Don did

End of the 5th day

Optimistic Indian fan: “Indians always start bad in a test series. They will now bounce back. Let’s start hyping up Nottingham test”
Well..honestly, I am an Indian fan myself. Optimistic at that. But sometimes, people forget you need to take 20 wickets to win test matches and our bowlers are just not good enough. Wonder why on earth Bhajji is our first spinning option. He is past his prime in the ground and on the Ads. Whatever said and done, our fans wont give up on our team. After all, if I were a farmer, I would still prefer it not to rain if there is match on a given day !!

Hot is cool too...

There are many reasons why people don’t list Chennai as favourite place to live. At least vis-à-vis Bangalore. This I guess would be view of anybody (including people from TN) who is not biased of his/her own city/state. Among biggest negatives is the humid weather there. Even though it’s true that the weather is bad, it’s something over-hyped I feel. Anyway, the idea here is to project the plus’es of the city that Chennai is from an unbiased tamilian’s point of view. And I am not talking about beaches that Bangalore is so deprived off.


Firstly, anyone born in TN in the 70’s and early 80’s would be crazy of two things from film industry. One is Rajini/Kamal and other is Ilayaraja (IR). The better combination is Rajini and IR (here I won’t rule out any bias. :P). If you are in Chennai, you are lucky to hear great IR songs played in almost all FM channels late evening. There are 6 or 7 FM channels (here again RJs have bad language skills) that do this with great consistency. Compare this to the stereo-typed, similar sounding kannada songs sung by sonu nigam/kunal ganjawala/shreya ghoshal (taking 10 deep breathes in one song) in Bangalore FM channels. Old kannada songs are so great compared to the new ones

Secondly, the city is so active even middle of the night. I don’t know why Bangalore is hyped for it’s night-life when there is no life on the roads after 10 PM and before 7 AM at least. After all, night life is not all about pubs. In fact, it was so funny to see STD booths in Bangalore open at 10 AM years ago when people were going to STD booths to make calls (remember the less prices early mornings and late evenings?). The real active life is what you get to see in Chennai. There are buses plying through the night. Even if you land wee hours in Chennai, you would see tea shops open and activity on the roads. Frankly, in that sense, there is no night life in bangalore

Thirdly, talking of tea shops, nothing can beat having tea in the long glasses. In places like Bangalore, one gets tea in paper or plastic cup. This is no fun to what you get to experience in Chennai. Besides, you get great food in the hotels and road-side shops. And all this is at least 50% less to prices in Bangalore
Next is for movie buffs. Fame Lidos and Fun Cinemas would be put to shame by the quality of movie-watching in places like Sathyam. The best movie halls in Chennai charge only 120 per ticket. Even during weekends. It’s almost equal to Bangalore multiplexes running buy 1 get 1 offer. Not to forget, the popcorns are proportionately cheaper too. :D

Cold water bath (better for health compared to hot water), local trains, cheap bus and rail tickets (finding a place inside is your talent) are some other advantages
This is not an effort to convince one-self of relocating to Chennai as despite all the limitations as above, Bangalore rocks !!

Channel (and health) screening

Sitting in a hospital lounge that flaunted a big LCD screen, observed couple of funny things. One of the TVs at the reception played WWF (or WWE or WWI or whatever). I found it amusing to play wrestling in an hospital. May be they want patients to try the acts and come injured to spruce up revenues for the ortho department. I guess it may simply be coz they didn’t realize that cricket highlights was over and they should change channel. The second thing to observe was the warning message of the WWF (when I used to ignorantly like the sport, it was called WWF and I know it has changed a couple of times its name since then). It read…”Do not practice this at home, school or anywhere”. The funny part is, I have read the same tag line couple of years back and vividly remember it saying “Do not practice this at home”. Now they have added school or anywhere. :P…The parallel I could draw is for ITC to start with a warning messages “Cig smoking is injurious to lungs” and then adding “heart, throat, everything” to the message subsequently. :P…It’s quite true since doctors say smoking could be one of the causes for even things like hair fall. I would have never imagined a connection of that sort. It’s almost become a trump card tool at the hands of doctors to drub smoking. Anyway, it’s good if that results in people quitting the habit

Another department in the same hospital, another lounge, another big LCD screen (an idea flashed in mind to go to one of these hospital receptions whenever there is a cricket match..:P), another tv channel. This time M Tv. I don’t frequent M Tv or for that matter any similar hinglish channel coz they never would play the songs fully (except old tracks). Recalled days of watching shows like FDFS on V channel and some similar programmes on M Tv and any new movie/trailer/song, they show only for half a minute. This is very different to regional channels which play full songs even from new movies. The difference is almost that of 2 lines vs 2 stanzas in songs. However, watching M Tv now after ages changed that perception. They played some 6 songs back-to-back from all new movies including the most popular Sheila ki jawani…One of my close friends hyped up this song so much (she even went to the movie just for this song despite Farah makes absurd unintended comedy movies) and I ended up watching it on youtube. Couldn’t like it one bit. But that’s totally something to do with taste I guess. May be people who follow regional cinema more like kuthu paatu over these item numbers in hindi. Btw, though the songs of hindi movies take time to hit the small screen, the movies hit much faster than regional ones. Even in DVDs. That’s a study in contrast

I wonder who changes channels in hospital lounges and always try searching for the remote control in vain!