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As
Bruce Springsten sang 'The Rising' with his god-gifted
bronze voice, the Grammies went away rocking America.
Millions of people on the other side of the world woke
up early to watch 'The Grammy Awards', persevering despite
the delays for their important Monday morning meetings,
making breakfast for husbands in slow-motion, late to
catch the 8:30 electric train in Kodambakkam station,
late to meet their girl/boy friend at drive-in woodlands,
late to have coffees, late to brush teeth, in a world
of many such delays. In America, the huge highways looked
deserted, Cinema theatres were running empty, bowling
alleys had no one to bowl over and cafes were filled with
cheers and catcalls while people watched Norah Jones and
Eminem taking their Grammies home. People restrained to
stay at home to watch Grammy with family, munching everything
from a big box of popcorns, to pretzels and of course
Lemonades and Iced Tea.
Forget
all that. People rushed from their offices, schools and
colleges and homemakers forgot their soap operas to go
for one show. The show, which rocked Chennai to its roots.
The show, which was a masterpiece of shows. The show which
was the first show of the man in the last ten years. It
was the AR Rahman's show known as Unity of Light, which
was held in support of Mahesh Mahadevan Memorial Cancer
Trust. Expecting a crowd of 40,000 people the organizers
arranged the show, which turned out to be a whopping 60,000
people. Next day the newspapers titled it as The Rhapsody
of Rahman.
All
these things said above happened within the last two weeks.
They have a common point of interest. Music. It's the
music that gives everyone the colour in his or her life
(Sorry about the cliché). I've thought about it
for months together but still couldn't understand how
the ensemble of sounds can play magic with people. That's
why they say its magic.
Movies
are magic too. Imagine, in this fast paced world, when
people don't have time to listen to their own parents
or face their own pressing issues, thousands of such people
come to theatres to give money and watch a story told
by a single man called the director. For a movie buff
like me who grew up with movies, music is inseparable
from movies. When I was in my teens, I was thoroughly
fascinated by the Hollywood style of movies and thought
Indian cinema was highly fantasized by music in films.
Even now, I think the same except that for the lifestyle
of Indians/Asians, music is quintessential in films. Film
music is like high quality liquor. Not negatively, the
more you hear the more you are addicted to them.
From
Illayaraja to Rahman, from RD Burman to Sandeep Chowta,
everyone impacts us in some way or other. Since I am avid
film music listener and not a critic of film music, I
have always seen better horizons in film music than my
friends. Some of my friends are either too praiseful of
Rahman or they are the greatest fans of Illayaraja. This
combination has made me sustain the balance and hear the
best of both worlds.
I hope to share with you some of the interesting best
and worst of contemporary film music in the coming issues
of Dhwanii. I will use this as a platform to share my
ideas on film music from 'Sight Adipom Dum Adipom' to
'Sonnalum Ketpathillai'. Are u surprised? My second favourite
song of last year is this Sight Adipom Dum Adipom from
April Madhathil. Except for some bad lyrics it was the
song that appealed very much amongst some real boring
ghana songs. With the AR Rahman's romantic piano playing
on the background and super fast honey-like Valli's tamil
lyrics 'Vaan Nilla' from Kadhal Virus tops my last year's
favourite list.
More
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