Listings

Warning: This is a complete me-me post. If you’re not in the mood for it, sorry, come back later.

I make lists. Used to make lists obsessively. I still do, at work. Somehow, the intensity and the urge to make lists for my own things to do, has dipped, drastically!

Today’s been a horrible and boring day. First the Mumbai terror strike and then the buzz around it, next the rain. Its been pouring non stop. I got drenched in the morning and have been sitting in the agency’s office since, freezing my bones off. I basically don’t have any “work” here other than to get them to do what should’ve on their own. Something like a teacher. And i hate it. My mind’s not occupied and can think of n other things i need to do. So here’s my list.

- I need a manicure and a pedicure. My nails are beginning to look like claws.

- My books don’t fit in my bookshelf anymore. I need to find a place to put them without having to hunt the house down when my hands itch for a particular one.

- If I’m going to arrange my books, I should also make a list of books i haven’t read yet (from my collection, that is).
I always have 4 books to be read and I keep buying books in spite of that.

- I need to scout around for a learn-it-yourself CD or website that’ll offer course content to learn web designing through Photoshop.
Any suggestions?

- I have at least 200 pictures i need to look at and decide what goes up on my flickr account.

- I need to buy a pair of jeans. This has been on my list for over 2 months now. While i’m on the topic of jeans, I also need to get my old ones altered.
They’re insanely loose and refuse stay up even with a belt. Hint of pride, maybe?

- Then comes the entire bunch of wedding shopping to be done. There’s still time

- I need to start looking through my big huge collection of junk and discard stuff that I’ve had no use for in the past and will have none in the future.

- I tell myself every monday morning that i’m going to cut down on my intake of sweets and junk. And I promptly break it by monday early afternoon itself (that’s about a coupla hours). So i need to put a reminder to not do that the coming Monday.

I’m still at the agency and its still threatening to pour but i feel marginally better after having made my list! Phew! Thank God for small mercies.

The Harpist!

I think I first saw a harp when I was a kid in some MGR movie. Its a song sequence in which Jayalalitha dances around it and plucks a few strings.

I thought it was just one of those ancient instruments that didn’t exist in the modern day. When I googled for ‘Ayirathil Oruvan’ which is the movie from which I remember the instrument, this is what I found, apparently MGR also plays a smaller version of it. Saucy!

Strangely, that was my first thought when I saw the same beautiful instrument this weekend, albeit a humongous concert size harp. Gwyneth Wentink, a harpist from the Netherlands was at Landmark, Spencer plaza on Sunday. She already played at Landmark in Pune and Bangalore and this was her last stop at the store. I had heard a harpist live only once before and that was not in India. Also, it wasn’t a huge concert harp. It was a smaller celtic one. In all, I was really looking forward the recital.

The first thing that strikes you about Gwyneth is her height. She’s almost as tall as the majestic instrument that towers over you. I sure felt like a pygmy when I stood next to her. The giantness (if that’s a word and definitely not a rude one) notwithstanding, she had a very child-like approach to the entire thing and was beaming all through in spite of the horrible heat in the store due to a power cut. I can’t even attempt to write a review of the recital cos I definitely do not know enough about western classical music to review a concert. But to my untrained ears, it felt good and I didn’t once feel like leaving or getting up to go browse through some books. What was even better was that she took the time out to explain each piece before she started it. It didn’t leave the uninitiated totally clueless.

When she got on the stage, she almost seemed a little uncomfortable and awkward with the heat and the low-ceiling against which she bumped her head a few times. But when she started playing, her fingers just glided effortlessly over the strings, 47 of them at that! Never had I such seen such elegance and majesticity (if that’s a word) seem so right next to each other. She constantly kept turning the pages of her music but hardly saw her take more than a fleeting glance at it. My favorite was the last piece that she played which she called a ‘romantic harpy piece.’ It sure felt lilty and lovely and had everyone smiling and swaying.

Recognizing that the Harp is not one of those instruments the audience might be familiar with, she took some time out and explained the build and working of the instrument. There were quite a few enthusiastic questions from the audience about the instrument itself and playing techniques.

In spite of the heat and the noise and the disturbances at the store, I left feeling quite happy. An evening well spent.

This one person in the audience made a sketch of Gwyneth and got it autographed by her. Quite sweet I thought.

You can listen to her music here.

PS: All photos were clicked by me on my N82 except of course the MGR one!

Nerdy wedding

Ok, here comes the first official announcement on my blog. I’m getting married! The big day is about 3 and half months away. The typical bride is supposed to be busy and flustered with loads of things waiting to be done. Apparently there’s lots of things that i need to do too. But i somehow keep telling myself that there’s still time. Something similar happened with the engagement as well. I kept telling myself that 20 days is more than enough time to get 2 blouses stitched. When i finally realised it was time to head to the tailor, there was 5 days left for the engagement. So having been left with no other choice, i got my blouses stitched with Raju Urgent tailor next to Abhirami theater. Not to say he’s bad or anything cos he saved my day but it wasn’t my ideal ‘designer’ scenario.
Coming back to the matter at hand, i have my cousin driving me to at least get things started. Given my obsession with making lists, i decided to turn to my other obsession, the internet, for help.
Slightly digressing, since the wedding got fixed, we wanted to chronicle the days leading upto the wedding. Not just RC (the boy) and me, but also everyone who’s a part of it, like friends and tech savvy family. So my cousin, Chikku, started a blog for the wedding. Its called ‘My Whole Nine Yards.’ (No link here cos its an invite only blog). She puts up updates very once in a while on the status of events with guest posts from the two of us.
Coming back to the topic at hand, i now have 3 google docs that i share with the family. One has the guest list. The guests are divided into categories and sub divided into mode of invitation. Then there’s another doc with my list of things to do, stuff to buy, deadlines, follow ups and what not! The next one is my most favorite list. It has all the music that we want to play at various functions in the wedding, starting with the mehendi. These songs are sub divided according to language. Phew, these are all the excel sheets i have for now. Nerdy enough? Or have i left out something?

Dostana – Yabba!

Dostana, as the everyone now knows, is the story of two men, John Abraham (oh quite hot!!) and Abhishek (oh so fat!) who move in with a very hot Priyanka Chopra claiming to be gay. Eventually, they fall in love with her and to add to the on-going nonsense, she falls for her boss (Bobby Deol). Who she ends up with is the big question that’s answered predictably so at the end of the movie.
If you’re one of those prude people who has very strict notions of what or how much should be shown on screen or if you’re homophobic or a gay rights activist, please go do something else. This movie is not for you.
Abhishek has a superb dialog that he says to Priyanka towards the end. He says “how much of a fool are you” and turns away in full anger. The two men are constantly out doing each other to get her attention. She still doesn’t have the vaguest idea they might be interested in her. The bit with John doing the whole dinner and Kuch kuch hota hai thing is the saddest. I’m pretty sure that when they were aping the dancing in the rain sequence, Priyanka Chopra was wearing Kajol’s in-skirt (ul pavada) from the original. We really really need some fresh thinking when it comes to the wooing and romantic bit. Actually I didn’t quite understand the what the surprise was when Abhishek took her to that fair. Other than of course it was empty. Anyway!
She also goes out of her way to be extra weird around them and wears sheer lingerie and teddys in the house. I didn’t quite get this attire for watching a horror movie. The portions with the maasi and Kiron Kher just make me want to reach inside my throat and gag. Some of Abhishek’s clothes were so uncool and just plain ugly. John of course hardly wears any. Bobby’s shiny suits are not my idea of fashion but apparently they’re hip. Priyanka wears minimal but stylish clothes. Especially some of her dresses were very chick. The entire movie just moves along without any real point. It kinda ends the same way without too.
So did i not like anything? Not really. Some of the jokes are quite funny. Especially the scene where Priyanka Chopra thinks all 3 of them are in love with Bobby. Some parts with the kid is also quite funny. I was quite disgusted with Boman Irani. Not even sure why he was in the movie. The songs were dancy but will definitely be forgotten by the time the next movie with more skin comes. But 2 days after watching the movie I’m still humming Desi Girl much to everyone’s annoyance. Total timepass if you’re game for mindless entertainment.

Rating 2/5

Varanam Aayiram

Varanam Aayiram is Gautam Menon’s tribute to his hero. This is his Autograph albeit for a niche audience. Little details in the movie are so personal, like the father Surya calling his son Kiddo, or referring to himself as Dadda or just Simran and Krishna (the father) lying down next to Surya and holding him down. Its something we see everyday around us but so rarely on screen. However, I did get an overdose of the word Daddy by the end of the movie.

Even when people thought Gautam Menon’s track in Minnale was sappy, I found it very cute. So, needless to say, the romantic track between both Krishna and Malini (Simran) and Surya and Meghna (Sameera Reddy) had me going awww. Krishna says ‘Hi, I’m Krishna…’ in that ‘Mundhinam Parthene’ just the way I had imagined it in my head. When Surya fishes out his guitar and starts playing ‘en iniya pon nilave’ it reminded me of Madhavan going down on one knee and singing Happy Birthday in Minnale. Simran looks very cute in both her retro look and her Mummy attire. Super comeback Simran. Meghna doesn’t have too much do other than looking pretty which she does flawlessly. She looks much taller than Surya but they look amazing togther. Priya (Divya Spandana) has a small but very effective role to play. She effortlessly slips into the role and looks her part.

Surya looks gorgeous as both the father and son. He looks hot even in the disheveled junkie look. Like Priya says in the movie, he looks like a million bucks all through. The amount of effort that has gone into both his looks and acting is commendable. He’s re-emerged as the best guy to bet on when it comes to living a part. When he started dancing in Adiye Kolludhey and Anjala, it was hard to believe that its the same guy stood around looking pretty in ‘Aval varuvala.’ When he was showing off his oh-so-hot body, I was drooling all over. Actually the IMA look also worked for me, especially the one shot when he’s out with Priya wearing a formal blue shirt. Sigh!

Thamarai’s lyrics were definitely a highlight as was Rathnavelu’s cinematography. There was also a lot of attention on the props and the sets according to the time period. I was personally thrilled to see to quite a few scenes shot at the Anna Nagar tower. The scenes of his school days and the brawl was shot in a street behind the tower park. Cheap thrills.

The movie worked for me, overall. But there were parts that seemed to be thrown in. Like the whole Delhi kidnapping thing which didn’t work at all. Before you could make sense of the whole new element in the movie, its over and gone. The dialogs were very Gautamish. But at times, I felt there was more English than necessary in the dialogs. Like at places, Deepa Venkat’s dubbing for Simran in English felt a li’l off. It didn’t flow. I actually didn’t mind the length of the movie cos other than the Delhi bit, which was very over the top and unbelievable, everything else fit. Even the constant voice-over when Surya’s on his own without his Dad tries to piece together Krishna’s role in his life was not so bad.

On the whole, I came out of the movie hall feeling good. Waking up at 8 on a Sunday morning wasn’t a waste afterall.

Rating: 4/5

Cool song crappy video – 2

‘Kadhalan’ was a super duper hit. Don’t ask me how. It’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. Especially the scenes where Nagma claims to be a dancer. Like Joey says, I wanted to rip my hands off just so I have something to throw at her. I’m digressing. After the stupendous success of that movie, Prabhu Deva, Nagma and ARR came together for Love Birds which again has a retarded storyline and even more stunted screenplay. This is one of Rahman’s most beautiful compositions. I can’t imagine anyone doing justice to this song other than Hariharan. In fact, at places the Chitra bits are not half as soulful as Hariharan’s.

You would expect a slightly better picturisation for such a lowely composition. But no, we’re subjected to Prabhu Deva’s totally mismatched, high-speed, ridiculous movements and his multi-coloured colothing. Yuck!

PS: This is the video I was referring to, Nagma’s barathanatyam