MS Subbulakshmi - Nagumomu ganaleni Naa jaali thelisi

have recently found quite a few MS all time great numbers on you tube...I don't watch the video, so can't say about them, but, the voice, the melody...Abheri, i can listen forever...

waiting to watch: 'I am Sam'

watched Milk some time back and thoroughly enjoyed the movie, thanks for Sashikanth who first mentioned about this movie. A very sensitive movie, wonderfully handled and leaves you with many questions and thoughts. Sean Penn of course is brilliant. So, got to hear from Rama about 'I am Sam' and hope we can watch it together sometime.

Angels & Demons

Watched the movie, didn't understand at all! 

Pink chaddi campaign, a review

I heard of the pink chaddi campaign a couple of days back and got an invitation on facebook to join the 'Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward women' which I rejected. I am happy to say that I am not pubgoing, I am not loose and I am not forward and I do not see the need to label myself any of the above to fight bully pseudo-moral tactics. I find the motive and the methods of this campaign completely disgusting and disrespectful to the spirit of  women. Where is the quality of fight and satyagraha? That such a cheap, disgraceful, petty act by a nobody in a corner of the world can cause a proportionately much much larger cheap, disgraceful and petty reaction by a large section of the urban-educated and internet surfing and online social networking woman population of the world just shows the quality of thought and response of us women. Wake up guys. We are making Muthalik! - Satish in a blog post, http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/dpsatish/237/53146/how-media-made-muthalik.html.   We are validating local goons and lending them voice and media space, http://indian-reflections.blogspot.com/2009/02/media-hurry-to-insert-taliban-into.html by our thoughtless reaction. In our hurry to react, we women have cheapened ourselves thoroughly and reduced it all to a media hungama and joke. 

We have reduced the problems and issues of "women in this country having enough curbs in their lives" to the selfish, individual, urban educated woman's problem and conflict of consuming alcohol, going to the pub and living the free life as a man can and would. Grow up! I live in an area of chennai which has mixed income groups, and do you know that women as much as men there get regularly drunk and then go about their work the next day. These are women who face back breaking work the entire day starting 3 -4 a.m., possible physical abuse from husbands and children alike, possibly have only tea for breakfast and lunch unless one of the houses where they work show them charity, slog on till 11 or so in the night and face grinding poverty themselves so that their children get educated and lead more comfortable lives. What does our bloody pink chaddi campaign mean to them? Excuse the horrible pun - I am furious and laughing at the same time. We are clueless about how the majority of women in this country are fighting their own satyagraha every day of their lives, notwithstanding all the development, all the NGOs, all the self help groups and the income generating schemes and all the media hype that they may have encountered. We are clueless about the real issues that are facing women in this country, whether it is the plight of single old women increasingly left homeless and family less in both urban and rural scenarios, or it is the pathetic situation of tens of thousands of widows in Vidharba because of the farmer suicides, or it is the sexual abuse of girl children or the issue of how India is the destination of foreigners who cannot bear children and so need proxy mothers who sell their wombs so to speak, and go away for 10 months lieing to the their families in order to bear the child in unmentionable conditions... or, oh! The issues are numerous if we want to respond, fight, take action. Or, if we wanted to discuss something more glamourous, we could even discuss the movie 'Fashion' and its sensitive and real portrayal of the conditions of women in the Fashion world. Instead, what do we do? We react, and decide to get down and dirtier than the 'enemy' and flaunt our soiled underwear to the world. (Exact words: "Look in your closet or buy them cheap"). Are we so curbed after all, having social networks to support us, having families to back us up when we decide to utter war cries, having access to technology, television and whatnot, indeed, having the luxury of choice of going to the pub or not?

I went into the Facebook group and looked at some of the discussions... and if anything I got even more furious. The selfishness, ignorance of issues and mediocrity of the conversation threads have to be read to be believed. Most of them do not stick to the issue at hand, leave alone raising it to have better understanding and give strong responses as the women community to pseudo moral elements in the country. 

What is our identity as women? What do we think are our strengths and weaknesses? What is our idea of feminism? What is our role as women in our own lives, in the lives of our near and dear ones and in society? Do not we as women have the freedom and strength to respond with dignity and imagination to bullying? And what methods do we use to do the same? These are all important questions to be answered at this time. There are so many issues and each has to be fought at different levels - individual, family, peer group, as the women of a community / society, as the better half of a nation and so on. There is no meaning in ballooning a small, petty local situation and make it a global issue and particularly in this manner. Should I blame the media? or Should I blame the internet technology? or should I blame us, the Foolish, Selfish, Individualistic, Educated, Internet surfing women of the world who have no sense of discrimination or no understanding of the tools of satyagraha, and have no understanding of our own power and freedom as women? 

We have not done ANYTHING to further our cause as women through such a 'campaign'. Campaign is not the word for it, it is an utterly ignominious, irresponsible and indiscriminate reaction on the part of one section of women (and supporting men) that is not at all representative of the women of this country and shows a completely disgusting and inaccurate picture to the world. 

I have the blessing of coming across many women who are true fighters, personally and at work all the time. Some of them have gone through intense personal struggles, ignoring the petty quarrels to win the war, and come out trumps. These are the real women, real heroes and real feminists in my opinion. One such is here - http://www.samanvaya.com/main/fl-3rd-2005.html

priya nagesh

December Carnatic Concert in Chennai: T.M. Krishna

Have heard of Krishna, never listened to him live though.  Listened to him at MFAC on 18th Dec 2008. This man is amazing, his technical superiority shows very well and he reminded me of some of the old masters one has only listened to in All India Radio during the pre-television days. 

However, the technial finness (on which I cannot comment due to my own ignorance) overshadows the bhava many times. The one slow melody on Chidambaram that he sang, he brought out a quality of emotion that seemed to be overshadowed otherwise. His ragamalika was great and the navigation beautiful.

I am getting to be a fan of Akkarai Subalakshmi. She literally played the second fiddle to T.M. Krishna while reproducing every minor nuance of his alapana. The mridangam by Subramaniam and Karthik on ghatam was fantastic too and their tani avarthanam was superb. Karthik looked uncomfortable in the early part of the concert though.

This is the first concert I am attending this season, hope to make it to a few more.

TAMAS available online

Remember watching this serial when it was first telecast on Doordarshan many many years back. It created a major impression and a big statement on the partition.  Some of the visuals are even today vivid in memory. 


This serial in two long parts telecast over two weekends was one of the most controversial and perhaps of the highest quality, the other long running serial those days being Shyam Benegal's 'Discovery of India' which came on Sunday mornings. It too had Govind Nihlani as cinematographer for few episodes I think. Both of them tapped on an enormous talent pool of actors of those days. 
Glad to know that TAMAS is available today online.


The links are:
Part 1 
Part 2 
Part 3 
Part 4 
Part 5 

Santosh Subramaniam: Good family stuff

Over indulgent dad can be a problem for a kid, is worse for a man and his self-respect is the simple story line.

I have not watched Ravi earlier, but, he carries the heavy load of the young man wanting to enjoy the freedom of youth and also going through the conflicts of being over shadowed by a meticulous dad. The heroine is given an easy role, just giggle and talk non-stop, though I kept wondering whether the konjal voice was a over do on her part, she seemed to be always talking between her teeth. Prakash Raj has given a very subtle performance, surprisingly. In recent times there have been movies which in the name of exploiting his acting skills over kill his role with needless emphasis. Others play their roles neat and simple.

Music is not intrusive, but, not great either. Dialogues could have carried more punch. Direction scores above everything else in this movie, the speed with which the story moves and the overall look and feel is fresh and the director deserves appreciation that he seems to be getting through commercial success. Of course, there was much restlessness among the front benchers more used to the dishum-dishum staple of the tamil movie, particularly during the two bouts of power-cuts that happened at Satyam cinema when I watched the movie.