bloggers blah

I have been finding myself thinking on and off about something.

Who are we bloggers?  What is our role in all the noise of stuff that you see all around you. I hope we need not argue on the fact that there really is all the noise of opinions, judgements, facts and portrayals and  frankly lack of truth or relevance is the last reason for someone to stop reading an article.

We stop reading for various myriad reasons, and in our busy lives with hardly any time to spare for actual reflection on someone's opinions to form one for ourselves, it has become so norm that only the better 'decorated' content stays in limelight and can impact opinion making.

Hence I personally like to keep the opinions to a crowd of limited eager readers that can actually reflect the content and make opinions for myself.

But off late I have been unable to produce written stuff, and I have been giving myself lots of reasons and excuses. While I know I don't have to give myself an excuse for what I started on my own choice, sometime the thought that the innocent and sometimes erudite pleasure of writing blogs would be forgotten by disuse.

But I saw some videos and Vlogs( Video blogging ) on many social issues and could only smile because most of them were just about stating the person's views, however poorly placed they might be or appropriately timed to ride the wave of popular events in social media. If such content can make its rounds deep into the social network, I said I should just go ahead with whatever I have in my mind. Though this new unseen kind of gnawing or rather sudden reordering of priorities make it imperative to find new strategies to keep afloat and cut down the sword arm itself in a grand swish once the veil is lifted :)

Mood quotient: Exam morning. Jaane kya hoga. Playing "Banjare" from Fugly. "Donno which way to go, aage hoga kya" mixed with clarity of Design Patterns images, clubbed with images of departing memories and curiosity of events ahead :)

reading between the notes

Music kept playing on and on and his ears were drunk in the rhythm of music.

She noticed him tapping his legs and staring into the distance, as if in a trance. He seems to tune into music, as if it was everything. It was the only time she could actually let herself examine her feelings for him. Having met him only a couple of months ago, they shared a light friendship.

He didn't talk much in the company of others and on general topics. But they shared a bond on weird topics and they could go on and on for hours without feeling bored. But once the topic got over, they went to back their respective corners. She never really understood the nature of their relationship.

She was comfortable with him in many levels, but feared getting any closer and sensed a similar reaction from him. A decision to overcome this impasse was difficult and there were no overwhelming impulses to act. His platitude didn't help either.

She sighed deeply and packed her bags. After all the night was young, and the sun wasn't gonna rise any time soon.

friday afternoon

back in seat after a sumptuous meal from the canteen( wouldn't have believed myself saying this a couple of months ago), the mind seeks music to douse the drowsiness and to set the rhythm for the post-lunch work.

My mind immediately puts forwards its suggestions and craves for particular tracks. The hands operate the keyboard and eyes scan the screen to find these tracks frantically as the mind puts all its weight on the eyelids. But on my office laptop, none are to be found. The mind won't take no for answer and continues to drift across.

On receiving the alarm signals from co-workers, the brain decides to push one time and comes out with an answer - Grooveshark. The free online music service is a messiah to people like me. They cover our a**** when we are in dire need for quality music in a places we don't find it. Though Grooveshark's policies on its mobile versions didn't quite entice me, I love it for filling the gap that the absence of my personal laptop and pocket hard disk causes during work hours.

I load up my favourite tracks and decide I have heard too much of them recently. Buffalo Soldier by Bob Marley is the track that wins the lot this time and under its cover, I am writing now.

As the playlist randomly plays through Sweet Child O Mine, Hoshwalon Ko Khabhar Kya and Elay Keechan, the mind is content and prepared to take on the loads that work offers. :-)

Happy Friday afternoon working hours :D

sounds good..

background scores, i feel were the most underestimated elements of  entertainment media. be it movies, games or tv shows. I mean there was lots of effort put into it, but the recognition and experimentation with it didn't begin until recently.

but even the old ones if you check, there is a certain old world charm to them. consider the Indian movies of a certain era like the 80s where a common theme existed over all regional movies copied and adapted from the English and American movie industry. But the bgm and music were quite original for many movies. We had a rich culture of bgms with good taste. Probably the work of many skilled people behind it. But in those days, people never used to recognize brilliance in that section.

Nowadays people comment on BGM if not about the movie when movies tend to suck and BGMs rock. The composers of BGMs get much popularity and support these days. Remakes, remixes, covers and so much more gets involved with BGMs. They have a unique way of marking out the movies, scenes or themes. Hollywood examples of Matrix, Mission Impossible,  and many more are successful examples of good BGM becoming a brand artifact for the movie.

Likewise for video games, those with intense and captivating background scores tend to keep the players engaged and leaves them with a satisfied feeling afterwards. Gaming for long hours is a physical and emotional tasks of gargantuan proportions. So BGM that suits the playing mood greatly helps the player attach to the game, its theme, the adrenaline rush and the time he/she had playing it. Even today I feel almost at ease listening to the complex themes of Age of Empires, Age of Mythology or Prince of Persia as while playing the game itself.

then there are these BGMs that become cult..  :)

not limiting myself to the small window of the movie, game or whatever media content for which the BGM was designed, BGMs also serve as reminders of many many things.. for example a well made oriental theme can take your mind to many a zen classes, many kendo classes, dojos, rice balls, japanese rains, battle scenes etc. Middle east does same. Sound has a way of triggering multiple nerve points in the brain and simulating lots of weird stuff that would have remained hidden in our memories. This quality I have observed doesn't exist for pictures, as they always give more detail and a concise picture. There is no scope for ambiguity or further interpretation in those cases. I have had many experiences with music wherein I would love a track a lot and listen to it in extensive loops, but the moment I see the video of it, I say WTF and soon the song drops out.

Sound is everywhere and for everyone, but still its personal and it can be enchanting to enraging depending upon the filter that you apply :)

Amen: a not-so-short review

i was asleep at 7.30pm when I roommate took my confirmation to watch the movie Amen, the show being at 9.45pm. I was hungry and tired, so I forcibly woke myself up at 8.15pm and went to find some food, which turned out to be not such an easy task owing to Holi.

Anyway I returned in half an hour, and then we had to rush as the theatre was 17kms away, and it would take a good half an hour in car to reach there. After lots of rushing and missing stuff, we had to return half way through and go in bikes. Not knowing the route and riding one bike alone, I checked up the route with another guy and managed to reach in time for the title song, in spite of the 50kmph constant speed.

It was at this point that I got to clearly know the name of the movie.

The title song itself was really colourful and full of interesting characters. Not like the usual special effects titles we see nowadays. This was more like a musical drama, with lots of animated characters moving across the screen, depicting the theme and the backdrop of the story itself.

The story is set in an island village, occupied by Christian families and the entire story surrounds these families, the Church, and the music band of this village(Gee Varghese Band). I don't fancy narrating the story in detail as part of the review, because it is quite boring to do so, and gives too many spoilers to people who just want to know whether the movie is good enough to spend their time and money.

So there is this band, which was quite famous and brought lots of laurels to the village. Even the village was known by the name of the band during those days But now, the band was past its glory days owing to a boat accident which killed many of its stalwarts. The son of one such clarinet player is Solomon(Fahad Fasil), the hero of the story. But he hasn't been able to bring out the skills in him into public view yet.

Then there is Sosanna(Swati Reddy) who looks absolutely charming and docile in her role. But looks can be deceiving and she displays the other sides of her character, and that too in quite unexpected fashions that make the audience gasp at the sheer audacity and creativity involved in depicting such scenes. Obviously, she is in love with our hero. Her role and expressions are quite hilarious in many scenes.

Then we have the band falling apart against stiff competition, church politics and local opposition. Everything is wagered against one final competition and then the usual stuff follows.

Another major character is father Vincent Vattoli(Indrajith). His role was really impressive and more colourful than any others, and quite comparable to Sosanna's. He dances, he preaches, he fights, he cracks jokes, and does some wonderful things. He drives the story actively, while all other characters play supporting roles for sometime. Then each character gets to drive the story for sometime. I was impressed by this round-robin fashion. There is no scope for hero worship here.

As with such stories there is the usual angry family, supportive family and local people involved in this story. They all serve no special purpose other than anchoring the story line to a very common one. In spite of that, these characters have been given lots of screen time and punch dialogues, making them more richer than usual supporting roles. It is like how real life usually is. How many of you can say that in your daily life there have been only a handful of characters involved deeply? Especially so with family stories set in rural backgrounds, where everything and anything is shared by a large number of people. I really relished that the supporting roles weren't too cliche.

That's not it, there are still more and more characters coming in , each holding out on there own with individual styles, performances and punch dialogues. The main priest with his villainous expressions, the kappiyar with his cunningness, Davis and Mariamma(with chatta-mundu-shades) from the other band who owns the arch-rival band, the toddy "chethukaaran" who delivers quite a lot of punch dialogues, Clara(Solomon's sister), the French girl Michelle who comes to Kerala to learn music and finds love instead,and so on.. Even Makarant Deshpande of "Yuh Hi Chala" fame pitches in with a very good character and performance.  Its a rain of punch dialogues, funny camera works, intelligent BGM and interesting roles. There is even a song sung for Michelle in broken Malayalam. I consider that to be the zenith of storytelling which departs from the traditional style where everyone gets their song sung by the best background singer, irrespective of how odd it sounds. After all each character has a life, a story and a song in their hearts, sung in their own imperfect ways.

Now that's what I found interesting. There is no better way to entertain and excite people other than deceiving their ability to guess each scene. Maybe the beginning and the end would still fall under the category of the easily guessable ones. But with all these rich characters putting in all this content, you would never be bored, unless of course you are preoccupied with trying to look beyond these. There were some forced jokes,but I felt it was acceptable, given the nature of characters and dialogues already going on in the movie. It is usually when characters move out of their roles and try to produce jokes, that they feel very artificial.

Conclusion-

Positive
a) Awesome camera work. Though some might get mild headaches with the swaying and twisting shots. Quick movements and funny slow motions add a lot of punch into the scenes.
b) Good title song and climax music
c) Lots of awesome lighting effects
d) Characters are the highlight. Each one is fully developed and has their own effect on the story. Inclusion of  Swati Reddy,Makarant Deshpande and Natasha Sahgal(who is really a NatGeo writer..omg!!) helps to not limit the characters to just the usual cast.
e) Good selection of location and script
f) Hilarious punch dialogues
g) BGM was enchanting at times, fast paced and sometimes quite devotional and rhythmic

Negative
a) The attempt to make it a 'musical' comedy. It didn't work out well. The songs were mostly out of place, lengthy and not so inviting.
b) Some roles were not very well developed, and were meant for some jokes.That is actually not so bad either.
c) The devotional tones were over the edge at some points, though very limited.
d) The climax was questionable. There wasn't enough reason for such a twist!

Overall it is a very good "Divine Comedy", as the title claims. Watch it for some good humour, lots of wacky scenes and meaningful sarcasm against the authoritarian nature of religious bodies these days. I rate it 4.2/5.

Voices that melts the heart

Music.
I am not a talented person or an authority in any manner related to music.
I just enjoy it, in variety and seek the beauty everywhere.

In spite of the exposure to so many singers and genre, and considering the majority portion I haven't exposed myself to yet, I believe only two singers have been capable of breaching my heart permanently.

K.J.Yesudas and Kishore Kumar.

And here I mean to give credit to only their voices. No other voice sounds so 'from within'. Of course there are lots of equally skilled, entertaining and gifted singers. But these two, for some reason top the list. Any time , peace guaranteed.

Feel like melting into their voice and becoming one with the song.

Loading up the tracks now.. good night!

Some interesting sites

Earth Album is an interesting mashup obtained by combining flickr and google maps. It allows you to click on any place in the map, and load photos from flickr based on that place. It doesn't allow selecting very detailed places,but allows keyword and category based photo search on a location as well. It is worth enjoying for sometime.

Breathing Earth, is an awesome flash site that shows in real time a lot of statistics about CO2 emissions and population in various parts of the world. It is an innovative idea and the site has been designed well.

Uber Super, is an awesome photography site. Its pictures are really breathtaking and creative. Never knew so much can be caught on camera in such ways..

Musicovery. This is from my StumbleUpon "Music" category. This site allows you to select a mood you want and they will play music of that category online. There are various options to play in a sequence. The only downside is that the songs are from Amazon,itunes etc that are paid and many of the features of this site are for premium members only(sensibly so as music needs to be paid for). But I really liked the idea.

Thats all for now.Please leave comments. I would love to hear from you readers

Two Movies

Yesterday I saw Taare Zameen Par.I knew the story as heard from friends and from various reviews on the net.I was almost prepared to see the plight of a dyslexic boy.
What awaited me was something different.I am no interested in giving another review over here...
Just my view...

The movie was almost a flashback(almost)....especially the boy's behaviour and subsequent admission to Boarding School...I was watching the movie with my parents..they couldn't stop remarking how similar to Ishaan I was...daily bringing grasshoppers and tadpoles home dirtying the uniform.I used to sit watching the crows and clouds from the class and get punished for almost everything...in all means a true 'duffer'.I was very weak in Maths also..I simply couldn't understand how numbers add to give another and the concept of positive and negative numbers simply was too much...the load all came to my mother who took great pains and improvised many techniques to teach me to learn maths...I could manage only language classes and arts..the famous incidents for all my family members being me drawing and painting animals of unimaginable colours...


I now know that my memory and thinking patterns are image based and caused by me using very different and 'advanced' neuro techniques...all created out of my own need to remain normal...The lines of the music "Bum Bum Bole" are quite nostalgic....the one to think,visualise and find knowledge...I had done so to radically widen my viewpoint and attitude...


My parents also recollect how many times a day they used to say that they will send me to a Boarding School hehe...but then I guess it might be common in most households...
But then I felt very sorry for the boy..because I could see myself there...same behaviour....

Thankful to God,I didn't have dyslexia.I don't mean to emphasize on the problems of a dyslexic kid here,but rather like you (the reader) to read and remember this one thing that the film's title speaks..."Every Child is Special"!!!!!
As a message the line in the song "Bum Bum Bole" says.the world is the way you see it....adios amigos...think deeply about it....let it sit tight into your hearts and spread the light to all....


The movie is simply a emotional super duper hit...coz I know it made ppl cry out loud in public...its a really strong movie!!!

Another movie of similar theme is Mozhi in Tamil of Prithviraj and Jyothika
...music is the power that carries the heavy messge these movies contain...straight to ur souls....

May true knowledge shine upon you and enlighten your soul!!!!