Music
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I am, or at least used to be, an avid quizzer with a special interest in movie trivia. (To the point where my wife used to turn to me during a screening of, say, Jodhaa Akbar, to ask me if I knew the name of the second elephant from the right in the battle scene
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Okay, so here’s my excuse: I was so engrossed in what was happening on screen (Karthik making his first movie in Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya) that I didn’t even notice that Aaromaley was playing in the background. This weekend, I finally listened to this song. Really listened. To the gentle plucking of guitar strings right at
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There is a moment in Bandslam when the hero Will Burton (played with appropriate geekiness by Galean Connell) is being consoled by his mother (played with appropriate kookiness by Lisa Kudrow). She begins to explain why she got married to his dad, and we’re thinking, okay, we know how these conversations go. Until Will interrupts
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I spent a good bit of time trying to figure out how to write a coherent review Paa before I realized something. The entire publicity machine for Paa focuses on the fact that Amitabh Bachchan plays a twelve year-old with Progeria (a genetic disorder that makes him look like he’s pushing seventy) and Abhishek Bachchan
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I was discussing the beauty of old Hindi film lyrics with a couple of friends here and the following observation came up: Most of these songs use some Urdu word or the other. There seem to be two reasons for this. First, the “softer” sounds in Urdu are well suited to convey the sort of
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Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat has a brilliant section about the protagonists making a list of things to take with them on the boat trip. The first list they make turns out to have so many items that the boat would likely sink under the weight of it all. Then one of
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A man stands at a street corner with his guitar, singing. During the day, when people pass by and are likely to drop a coin or two into his box, he sings popular numbers that they may have heard. It is after dark that he starts singing his own stuff. Whether or not his music is to
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Long ago, in my wild and misspent youth, I used to be part of the band in my college. It took up a fair bit of my time when I was pretending to be a studious grad student, but it remains one of the happiest times of my life. It was called Baro-C, after one
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At the time of writing this, Slumdog has already won over audiences around the world, snagged a few Golden Globes (and other awards besides) and is widely expected to take home some statuettes on Oscar night. And I’m happy for the cast and crew who made it this far. I really am. But here’s what
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Thanks to his Golden Globe for Slumdog Millionaire (and the possibility of an Oscar), Rahman is now the flavour of the month. While I haven’t been too impressed with much of his recent work, it made me think about his career over the years. I heard Roja when I was in high school — to
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