Posts

1978 - 2. SINDHU NADI POOVE

Image
  2)  SINDHU NADI POOVE (MOVIE: SHANKAR SALIM SIMON, RELEASE DATE: 10 Feb, MUSIC: MS Viswanathan, LYRICS: Kannadasan) Madras was a simple city back then, the smallest and the most unpretentious of the four Indian metros. It had a casual air about itself. It never wanted to be somebody else. People were laidback, traffic was sparse, shops opened and closed early,  mamas  and  mamis  wore  veshtis  and saris to get about. It was Calcutta without the roshgollah and the pretension. There was very limited scope for entertainment in the city back then. There were the movies, which Madras made plenty of; even more than Bombay. There were music concerts, often movie-related, and then the Carnatic variety which attracted well-heeled enthusiasts to the exclusive sabhas. There was theater that produced many a doyen, but were gradually being outstripped  by comic plays. But the crown jewel of the city, for leisure and “breeze-catching” (you needed torrents of it in hot and muggy Madras), was the M
Post a Comment
Read more

1978 - 1. NINAIVAALE SILAI SEIDHU UNAKKAAGA VAITHEN

Image
  1)    NINAIVAALE SILAI SEIDHU UNAKKAAGA VAITHEN (MOVIE: Andhaman Kaadhali (The Lover From Andaman), RELEASE DATE: 26 Jan, MUSIC: MS Viswanathan, LYRICS: Kannadasan) We used to live in this small but idyllic “portion” of a colony in Appar Swami Koil street in Mylapore, Madras. In fact, this was the last home that we lived in Mylapore proper. We would move out to the then-outskirts of Madras, Adyar, six months after the release of ‘Andhaman Kadhali’. For all my claims of being a Mylapore boy, I have hardly lived there. Always a wannabe... What is it about Mylapore, one may ask? I can't put a finger on it. But, I have to acknowledge that there was something to the place and its environs, even back then. The MEI School that I sprinted to after the first bell; the Chettiar shop where I bought my favorite “round mithai” and cone biscuits; Appar Swami temple right behind our home, to where I followed my mom like a shadow to listen to every  Katha Kalakshebam ; the pageant of street-side
1 comment
Read more

1978 - 1992 - Absolute Favorites - INTRO

What was it about music and movies? Why were they so inextricably linked with lives of people in India, especially from my generation? Was it because they were the only outlet for entertainment available to people of that era? Or was it because role models, thinkers, and movers and shakers, often emerged from those fields? Did the age-old song-and-dance tradition prevalent in our country,  since the age of our  paatan-muppattan have a role to play in it ? Or did the Darwinian (or whateverian) impulse to respond to aural and visual stimulations sway our eyes and ears? Just what is it? Music  - and movies as an extension (or was it the other way around?) -  has been an integral part of my mental maturation and expression, since the time I acquired a cognition about self and surroundings. (with so many 'tions' in one sentence, I came close to the legendary T Rajendar dialog in 'Oru Vasantha Geetham'.  Click here for a sneak peek of the epic court scene ).  Music has been t
Post a Comment
Read more