Quick Gun Murugan..

Well, we revived our movie watching with QGM on tata showcase, have gone ahead and paid for 12 of them movies and whenever I get the smallest chance of a catching a good movie am latching on to it. This is movie number 2 in close to 7 months, that’s how pathetic the movie selections have been – well, I kinda missed Kaminey but the rest well, were avoidable. Anyways, QGM was on last weekend and the missus and I decided this would be a good time to (a) get one more movie of the damned showcase list and (b) possibly have some fun and joy with the vegetarian cowboy in action. Well, the decision proved to be a good one – the movie is certainly one of the better ones to come out in recent time. Shashanka Ghosh has had a lot of fun making that movie and I think, so did Dr Rajendra Prasad, Rambha and Nasser.

Kewl, much has been written about this movie, so going into the details would be unnecessary.. but a few points which I would love to highlight are:

1.      The earth is my bed, the sky is my ceiling, the whole world is my native place and my name is murugan, quick gun murugan. Well, what a line.. that is too cool.

2.      There are times when I wonder if Dr Rajendra Prasad wasn’t taking the whole thing a bit too seriously, like he actually believed that it was not a spoof. It does seem unlikely, but there are times when you get that feeling.

3.      The stunts were extra cool – especially the coconut grove fight and of course, the shootout on a Mumbai traffic jam.

4.      Rowdy MBA, Gunpowder Gang, Rice Plate Reddy, Mango Dolly – well, amazing names in a pretty decent movie.

5.      The Anni who seems to be a fantastic mix of Nirupa Roy, the whiny woman who plays Visu’s wife in Samasaram adhu Minsaram and Rakhee from Karan Arjun – the epitome of the cinematic crybaby mom/anni/bhabhi.

6.      Simple details like the bullet with the name.

7.      The whole yamaloga sequence right now to the dance sequences rehearsals for the apsaras and of course, vinay as C Gupta.. quite cool.

Hmm, in all the movie I think was the right length – 90 odd minutes of fun.. any longer and you would have started to feel that it was stale dosa..

Nasser, Dr Rajendra Prasad were too cool as was the guy who was Rowdy MBA.. Rambha was pretty neat as Mango Dolly.. and the tam-mallu accented English was fun enough. Enough campy bloodshed to satisfy the gore seekers. In all the movie seemed to be wholesome like A1 top class dosa from amma’s hands..

While on movies, I saw another one – an old Arnie movie – Collateral Damage, which released in 2002 (after delaying a 2001 release thanks to 9/11). Has Arnie as a firefighter who loses his wife and child to a Colombian terrorist bomber. A plot with so many holes that even Arnie cant fill them, no punch dialogues for Arnie – there is a scene where he burns up the villain and villainess and he doesn’t even say you are toast or something equivalent.. I did get the feeling that the film makers weren’t clear on whether to make the Colombians victims of American hegemony or make a twist of the a woman bomber, so results in confused character developments.. though there is a nice twist in the tale, it is too late and the story of a new York firefighter single handedly taking on a Colombian rebel army was well, not exactly believable.. but there was 90 odd minutes of blowups and mayhems and that wasn’t too bad as long you didn’t ask too many questions. So Collateral Damage – watch it if there isn’t anything else running on the TV.

Liam Neeson and others like him..

Kewl, been a while I guess. I missed me too. Have been neck deep in work and at home the brat and seal pup do their best to keep me occupied and I neglected the great god of self aggrandizement – the Blog. So to atone for my sins, I now will have to pray at this altar of the God – ie blogger – a wee bit longer I guess. In any case, the inspiration for this post comes from one of AV Club’s features – the Cult Canon series, which look at cult canons in great detail and the one article which attracted my attention was the one of Darkman. One of those tortured superhero movies or rather since it came out in 1990 and the closest to a tortured superhero you had till then was Christopher Reeve feeling deeply conflicted in his human avatar, the first of the tortured superhero movies. Made by Sam Raimi, who made the blockbusting, Toby Maguire- Kirsten Dunst making, Spidey 1 and 2 movies and the Evil Dead trilogy, it has a significantly tortured hero at its helm, both physically, figuratively and mentally. And that was played by this lanky, tall, weird looking and okay somewhat good looking bozo called Liam Neeson. Who I consider to be amongst the most underrated actors of all time – you see snippets of him and hanker for more – as the evil Ras Al Ghul in Batman Begins, as Godfrey of Ibelin in Kingdom of Heaven, as Rob Roy in Rob Roy, and so on and so forth. I have but seen a few of the man’s movies, but I consider him possibly the best to play roles which require strength without the muscles, or more importantly the world weary, but charismatic and well, capable guy. Few others I know of like that – Chow Yun Fat in his relaunched Crouching Tiger and Bulletproof Monk avatar, Jet Li in his Hero role, Ken Watanabe in Last Samurai and Batman Begins. Well, those are some of the names – it is rarely that you find such an actor in the Indian milieu – one who is capable of donning a commercial role, but making it his own – may Naseeruddin Shah, Anupam Kher and Om Puri will be there, but they are more the out and out character actors, who do commercial cinema for the roti, kapda and makaan reasons. Someone like a Jimmy Shergill  maybe in the younger actors is possibly capable of mixing the sublime with the action – watch him in A Wednesday and Yahaan – in both movies, the role he plays is a man of action, but in both he shows his ability to humanize the role in a way where you can relate to him. A Bobby Deol in Tango Charlie was supposed to do the same – ie humanize a man in uniform, but he ended up either being a big, grinning buffoon or a action man with the stoic and stock looks.

Hmm, that was what I found interesting. Anyways, I need to restart a few of my lists. Will think of something useful.

What drew me to F1

Ah on what drew me to F1 in the first place.. lets say it was  circa 1999, autumn in India or rather as you would have it, the monsoons – it was raining and we were well, at home channel surfing – we being moi and moi flatmate (ie the person sharing the flat with me). It was a Sunday evening – around 600 PM I would guess, we chanced upon this strange sport we had heard about but never had seen – F1- in one of the channels, ESPN or Star Sports, I think it was the latter, the merger with ESPN was much later. We saw a red fire engine being driven maniacally by a returned from injury Schumacher, involved in some intricate on track and pit battles with the man in the silver car, Mika Hakkinen and as they say, the thunderbolt happened, and we were hooked. We, in this case, being me and my flatmate (just to reconfirm).

Alas, as life (the bitch) would have it, we no longer chanced upon F1 that year, and the Y2K dawned upon us, fresh from the worries of having the electronic infrastructure, we so take for granted these days, crashing and with it bringing the world as we knew it then to a halt. With the dawn of the new year, we had a fresh F1 year to follow – and that year, well, was a good year to be following F1. Especially if you happened to have taken in and fallen in love with that esoteric red fire engine driven by that fellow from Germany, who well seemed to make the car sing. And well, that year, I followed F1 (note the flatmate did not drop out, just that I moved cities and hence, he was no longer my flatmate) and I became hooked. Along the way, I also chanced upon a site by the name of PlanetF1.com, which had a forum or as it was in those days, a message board. I read the message board, realized that there was more to this sport than the few articles on F1 I had read in Reader’s Digest and in what little I had learned in the few months of following the sport. Reading the writings on the message board was all I did initially, I felt my knowledge of the sport was miniscule compared to some that were on the board (including a few who are on this list now) and well, I kept mum for a while. Then I read up on the sport – realized the M Schumacher was well, capable of invoking either virulent hatred or undying love, but occasionally, as with me a recognition that here was a driver in the mould of the great senna, a competitor who will push the limits, except that MS was doing it in an era which demanded gentlemanly conduct from the drivers. Opposing him that year was the gentlemanly of all drivers, MH, well, if I remember 2000 and 2001 favourably in my memories, it was not only because those two years were the most golden in my work life till date, but also because of the memories associated with F1 and football (that is another mail).

MS and MH dominated those discussions on the board those days – as to who was the better driver (MS in my opinion), who was the more gentlemanly (MH obviously) and who could win in a dog of a car, and who couldn’t. Of course, their teammates – the square jawed DC and the whiny RB, were well mostly dismissed offhand. And that increased my love for this sport even more – the fact of the matter is that in the last 15 years -  I still believe that these two years threw up the most phenomenally F1 battle – between MS and MH and that is what finally drew me into following F1. The golden years of F1 were upon us then – we had two upstarts in Kimi R and Fernando A driving a sauber and a minardi respectively. Sauber was affectionately known as Papa Sauber in the media reports for his insistence on running a toddlers’ school in f1 with Kimi R and Nick H (wonder what they will have to say abt Toro Rosso’s Jamie A). those to me remain the golden years of F1. The sport was relatively clean – none of the cockups of today, none of the off track political battles – a cleaner and much more enjoyable sport.

And then it happened – F1 boomed in India and China – a dreary boring season in 2002 was followed by near disaster in 2003 and then 2004 happened and I was pretty much of F1 by then. 2004 and MS’ 5th title went by with little watching by me – the quality of racing seemed to have deteriorated as no one could compete with MS and the fire engines were like dominant. 2005 and 2006 offered the surprise of FA winning the WDC and Renault the WCC – the Ferrari faded, in 2007, even the entry of whizkid aka Lewis Hamilton did not do much to me in terms  of watching the sport and 2008, despite LH winning the WDC was a washout. I think I have averaged a race in each of the past 5 years – which is quite bad for a F1 fan.

So that takes me through the F1 tale.

Ice Age 3 and other things..

These guys at Blue Sky (as do Pixar - correction here you know) know a thing or two about making animated movies for the masses- well, I mean one which can be enjoyed by kids, semi kids, teens, adults et al. So it was that the lounger decided to visit the friendly neighbourhood multiplex after what seemed eons to see a movie – with the missus, brat and seal pup in attendance. The movie was Ice Age 3 – Dawn of the Dinosaurs and the reason was that brat had been a sweetheart and we decided to treat him to a movie over the weekend. So there we were at the multiplex, waiting for what seemed like ages to get into the auditorium – we went in armed with a large bag of popcorn, but nothing much else, but going by the general foodstuffs being carried by the other junta – it seemed quite normal to have atleast four large popcorns, two of those tortilla chippy thingies, a couple of large pepsis for, well, two people. So we stalked into the audi – the seal pup of course being carried by the lounger, the missus taking care of the brat – the work plan for the evening was for the brat to jump and down in his seat in excitement and scream delightedly and dementedly at everything, for the missus to cast an approving or disapproving eye and watch the brat’s antics, for the seal pup to squeal “Sccccaaared” in a high pitched seal wail every time a dino stalked the screen or every time he heard the dino sound and for the lounger to act as escape provider for the seal pup and do the weight training that he refuses to do otherwise. The lounger, in an moment of lucidness, had got the four of us seats which started from the aisle - which meant the lounger and seal pup were seated closest to the aisle, thereby enabling quick exits, while the brat and missus were in the inside two seats. From what I recall, the brat did not move an inch, other than to get some popcorn or French fries to shove into his mouth, the seal pup made up for all of it, squirming like a slippery eel for most of the time and making my as it is aching back, ache even more.

For those that were under the ocean and hence, didn’t have a chance to figure out what Ice Age is all about – it is about a herd consisting of two woolly mammoths (Manny and Ellie), one sabre toothed tiger (Diego), one sloth (Sid) and well, two chipmunky characters (Eddie and George). The first episode dealt with the core motley crew of Manny, Diego and Sid getting together to return a human baby to its herd in the midst of the onset of the Ice Age. Part II – Ice Age 2 – dealt with Manny finding himself a mate – Ellie and realizing that he wasn’t the last mammoth in the world. Part 3 starts with Manny and Ellie expecting their first baby – usual set up scenes of fancy baby play area, and soppy nervous new daddy moments happen. It also sets the background up for the movie – Manny in his urge to feel all new daddyish, lets loose on Sid and Diego. Sid slips down into some cave and comes across three huge eggs, which turn out to be eggs of a dinosaur – three aggro little dinos get out of these eggs and a few minutes are spent on the antics of these tiny, huge fellas. Of course, the fun cant last for long and there is a huge roar – which scared the living daylights out of all the characters in the movie and the seal pup and atleast three other kids in the movie hall. Lounger and seal pup did an extra fast exit – lounged suitably in the lounging area, bought some popcorn and French fries for the missus and the brat and when we entered back, a huge mama dino had whacked the three baby dinos and sid back into the netherworld where all the dinos had retreated to, post Ice Age and of course, our remaining friends enter the cave to get back Sid. The rest of the movie consists of the gang trying to avoid getting eaten by the vegetation or the resident baddie dino, Ruddy, with the help of one eyed weasel that they meet (I forget the name of the character, but it is a mix of the all the supporting hero commandos that have been around in the normal movies) – in any case, the weasel and the gang are more than a match for the baddie dino and bunch of critters who think that they can make a meal of a birthing Ellie. In any case, the movie takes the usual route making it a bit scenic with plenty of action and drama.

So now that the story is out of the way – what was good about the movie. Well, for starts, it works as a movie – I don’t like animated movies in general, and I liked it. The brat loved it, so did the missus and well, the seal pup loved all the non dino parts and even he stopped squirming in a chase sequence reminiscent of one of those fancy fighter chases from Star Wars or one of those numerous air happy movies. The story was not soppy – Ray Romano does a great job of voicing Manny, the central theme mammoth, around him the other actors (do we call them that in this) also do a pretty good job. And they do a good job of setting up each character – so you are not like lost wondering who the f is who. Animation is of course fantastic, these guys really know how to rock. Crisp editing, better than average storyline and screenplay make the movie complete. And you got to hand to these guys for making non soppy great sounding and great feeling animation movies. And as ever, casting does play a key role in these movies – the voice cast is quite fantastic.

That finishes the movie review bit of it – to update the happenings in the theatre – the seal pup and I made the dash to the exit only 3 times – the fellow walks these days, so I didn’t have to carry him for long, just enough to comfort him that the dino wasn’t out to eat him and then we were like fine. In any case, it was an evening show and by the time it ended, both the brat and the seal pup were like sleepy and missus and I were tired but happy. It was a good evening out.

Ah, been away a while..

Attending to that mistress known as work, to the missus and kids, plus the brain was quite, let me put it this way, not excited by anything happening around me. I mean the usual stuff was happening, Taliban was whipping women, an overhyped Indian cricket team was losing games like it was going out of fashion, Pakistan Chief Dummy..er.. President was as usual making statements about going after the terrorists that his regime was propping up, and so on and so forth. And thence, there came this link in csm-fanaa’s blog about the great institute which is run by the pony tailed wonder. Now, apparently career360, which hopefully is a bigger fish than jammag have gone and done the thing, which makes all legal wannabes in the great institute salivate, ie question the credentials of the wondrous institute which takes on the “great” IIMs. Well, anyways, we know how the circus goes, there will be all hell breaking loose with “judicially notarised” notices being issued left, right and pony tail centre.. Wonder who will get the flak this time around.

Anyways, moving on to something a wee bit more intellectual and well, interesting, I have been reading the book “Fermat’s Last Theorem” by Simon Singh again. Now Simon spins a good tale about science in general – have reach his other book on cryptography, which is equally entertaining and well, accessible. So the whole hoohah is quite interesting and set me thinking about how I fared in mathematics. Now number theory wasn’t certainly my strong point, trigonometry to a certain extent I could get, geometry (simple form) I got, calculus, kewl, that was a friggin’ nightmare and well, algebra, set theory, and all those left me breathless not knowing what to do. Thankfully, there was chemistry to fall back on. Numbers do interest me, I can spend hours before the computer trying to balance the books of my client’s balance sheet or in analyzing and correlating data from different sources. Anyways, the interesting thingy about Andrew Wiles’ proof is that utilised good ol’ 20^th century methods which Fermat couldn’t possibly have discovered. So is there something there which will attract an amateur mathematician to have a go at. Well, I don’t know. But you know what I am trying to read Andrew Wiles’ paper on this – apparently only 10% of the mathematicians in the room when Wiles presented got the concept and it involves stuff about elliptical equations and modular forms and whatever not, sounds like trying to beat mah head with a red hot poker, but hey, I am a wee bit of a masochist.

The other bit of news these days – mainly being touted by the Great Masthead aka Times of India – is that MS Dhoni has become too big for his boots. Well, there you go – firstly, the GM goes ahead and creates a rumour which pisses not just Dhoni but also the team, distracts them from the work at hand, ie playing cricket. Now this guy, is like 28, now give him a friggin’ break - I would like to ask the friggin’ journos what they were doing when they were 28 and if they would be able to take on 10% of the pressure that Dhoni is taking right now. Well, he is probably the best captain that india has had in the recent past and well, though his luck seems to have deserted him recently, he is still a good strategist and tactician, so let’s just give him the time and be done with it. Well, losing to West Indies and England does hurt, but hey atleast they didn’t go out in the round one like Australia did. And their excuse was they didn’t have Hayden and Gilchrist, probably two batsmen who would and could have taken the game away from anyone against them.

So there, am sitting in the auto and listening to “Gungadin” by Jim Croce – go hear it and catch a swig in hell from Gungadin.. Over and out.

IPL 2.0 - the final analysis..

Kewl, if one had said on April 18 that the finals would have been between Deccan Chargers and the Bangalore Royal Challengers – one would have been considered certifiably insane. In fact, though DC started the tournament as one of the most relaunched of teams, they then relapsed into the losing streak that so characterised IPL 1.0 for them. As for RCB, after the first match, they also seemed to have lapsed back into the same old test team ways. Delhi Daredevils were all conquering, Mumbai Indians seemed to be getting a bit confused, CSK and RR seemed to be the usual motley crew managed by great captains, KXIP were losing steam and KKR had completely lost the plot and it all seemed to indicate that yes, the semis will more or less be along the same lines as last year – ie DD vs RR and CSK vs KXIP. And then a great revival happened, RCB started winning matches and DC also managed to turn around and MI somewhere changed brains and support staff with KKR and they started losing from surefire winning positions and suddenly the semis looked a lot different. KKR staged a revival of sorts defeating CSK in the highest run chase of the tournament and then defeated RR and one started wondering what was happening. Then DD paid the price for keeping one of the most effective strike bowlers out of the attack on the grounds of lack of form and had to meet a marauding Adam Gilchrist, as Kumble showed in the finals, it takes the wiles of an ancient warrior to fell one of the most destructive opening bats ever and DD missed that plot point. Sometimes one wonders if Sehwag captains the same way he plays – with not much of an idea of what it takes. Anyways, for the second year in running, DD despite being a wonderfully balanced team crashed out in the semis. The other semis between CSK and RCB was expected to go the way of CSK and then that guy Manish Pandey and some resolute batting by the rest of RCB won the match for RCB. And voila, you had the surprise finals – the teams which finished rock bottom last year were the ones to clash for the honour of owning that monstrosity also known as the IPL trophy. Mallya uncle salivated and drooled at this – though his so called miracle man wasn’t the South African turned English willow wielder but a deadlier willowy steel framed character who looked as harmless as a rabbit but struck as vengefully and viciously as a rattler roused, one Anil Kumble. The final was nail biting – with RCB batsmen contriving to lose from a winning position. RP Singh looks like a deadly addition to the Indian new ball pair of Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma (though the two of them didn’t have the best of tournaments). If only Anil Kumble was in the striker’s position in the last over – Robin Uthappa for his purported opening batsman and rating as a destructive batsman was about as useful as my grandmom in that final over and one could sense the frustration in Kumble as he saw ball after ball wasted. If not anything as he showed in his bowling, he would have made an effort and that would have counted, but then that is more of an if situation than anything else. So DC won and I slept and based on news reports, I think that was a good decision to take – for the monstrosity of the closing ceremony was apparently as bad as the trophy. Anyways, in the propah blogger fashion, I have my review of all the eight teams and will start with the losers first..

Kolkata Knight Riders – the last games showed what could have been if not for the destructive influences within and without the dressing room. McCullum released from the burden of shouldering the debacle of the team performed to his usual capabilities, Brad Hodge stood up and got counted finally, the smaller Indian  players pulled their weight, especially in the win against RR and somehow, the jokers of IPL 2.0 left the shores of SA with their heads held a little higher than it was a fortnight back. The KKR debacle also showed the importance of the captain in the T20 game as much as the performance by Warne, Dhoni and later Gilchrist and Kumble showed. I do wish for the sake of the franchise that the deadwood and destructive influences are removed and the team can return a stronger unit in the next version of this tournament. Rate them a 2/10 on performance, a 8/10 on entertainment value (mostly off the ground) and a 6/10 for attitude (especially towards the end). McCullum as a captain was endearing but weak, except in the end where he broke free and played his normal game, so the captain gets a rating of 1/10.

Mumbai Indians – Had the strongest opening bowling pair in Zaheer Khan and Lasith Malinga. The latter’s horizontal slinging action is as disconcerting to watch as I am sure it is to play - reminds me of Abdul Qadir’s contortions. The former was injured and the bowling lost a bit of its teeth. But what was a disappointment was the performance of two of the eternal batting greats – Jayasuriya and Tendulkar. Tendulkar’s captaincy bore the same uncertainty that his captaincy of India bore and I think it is best that SRT play under another captain than try and do be both the leader and the best batsman of the team. Shaun Pollock last year captained far better than SRT this year did with a weaker team. The batting was the weakness with the fragile middle order never being able to completely pull its weight, except maybe in the match against CSK where Abhishek Nayyar exploded in that Freddie Flintoff over. Rate them a 4/10 on performance, a 3/10 on entertainment value (nothing happening even off the pitch), 4/10 for attitude (a slight loser attitude if you know what I mean). SRT as a captain was not much of a success especially in the latter half of the tournament and I wouldn’t rate him more than 3/10 for that.

King XI Punjab – Well, I don’t know if they finished above RR, but they were the 3^rd worst team in my book. Yuvraj is again not cut out to be a captain – he seems on the ground to be a bit too impetuous. The team badly missed Shaun Marsh at the top of the order and Brett Lee in the bowling department. The defining moment in run up to the semis was when Murali was running webs around Yuvraj with him scratching a 8 of 18 balls, which defined how much of a stranglehold the spinners had on the man. A pretty anonymous performance – slipping from leading the pack for the semis behind DD to end up 5^th or 6^th on the final list. Rate them a 4/10 on performance, 5/10 on entertainment (mostly for Appam Chutiya :D and Preity Zinta), 4/10 for attitude. Yuvraj as a captain was average, I mean he did have a decent team, which he couldn’t get into the semis, so that is where the problem was – a 3/10 in my book.

Rajasthan Royals – Well, again a very motley crew – a scratchy Graeme Smith meant that Yusuf Pathan had to bear the cross of belting the ball across the ground – did get some support from Naman Ojha when he came out to play. Bowling other than Warne was scratchy, though Munaf did try hard. But as usual a very average team punched well above its weight, wonder what Shane Warne does with his team. The Kamran Khan super over was defining – on the one side, the most explosive West Indian batsman in recent times, on the other side a new bowler bowling with the pressure on his and he comes out tops. Compare that with the world’s supposedly wiliest spin bowler, bowling to an average journeyman but very effective blaster and guess who won. Amazing, this guy Warne, am sure he would have made the RR team walk on water with his motivational talk. In the end missed the explosive power that Watson, Smith and Asnodkar  provided last year – Watson wasn’t there, Smith was a shadow of his normal self and SA pitches proved to be a bit difficult for Asnodkar. The bowling was disciplined, though it missed the wicket taking abilities of Sohail Tanvir. But Warne and team pretty much dragged themselves to a stage where they were challenging for the semis till atleast the last match. They did have the highest and lowest scores in the tournament and so were quite erratic. Would rate their performance a 5/10 (mainly due to the lack of consistency); a 7/10 on entertainment (Y Pathan in full flow is brutal) and 8/10 for attitude. As a captain Warne did everything expected of him (after IPL 1.0 especially) and that would rate a 8/10.

Chennai Super Kings – the team which had the orange cap holder, lost out because of its sloppy fielding and ineffective bowling. In the semis, I for the first time since I started tracking MS Dhoni (about a year and a half back) noticed tension and stress on his face. He looked a bit lost on how to contain the RCB batsmen who were running away with the match. But till then, the erraticness was mainly due to the bowling and fielding, which were never consistent. Hayden was in full form and so was Raina as they plundered runs at will. The others, Dhoni excluded, were a bit rusty, but it didn’t finally matter much. Murali’s bowling was divine, the way he ran circles around KXIP had to be seen to be believed and man was he something in a T20 match. Rate their performance as a 6/10 (mainly because they lifted their performance when it mattered, except of course in the semis), 7/10 on entertainment (Hayden in full flow is entertaining, as is a smiling assassin Murali in full form), a 6/10 on attitude (fielding left a lot to be desired). As a captain, Dhoni was great, but not as effective as he was last year, but amongst the best nevertheless and gets a 7/10 from me.

Delhi Daredevils – the most amazingly well balanced team, let go of Shikhar Dewan who went on to have an anonymous season in Mumbai Indians, but the top order misfired seriously with both Sehwag and Gambhir looking woefully out of form. Thankfully they have AB De Villiers, Dilshan Tilekaratne  as he does occasionally when he bats. Not much of imagination at work, not much of thought, a weaker team would have caved in a long time back but the team was filled with performers and that is what drove them to the semis, but then when they had to lift their game for that one match, they were rendered incapable as they did not have a captain who led from the front. The remaining three did. My rating of them was a 7/10 on performance (you couldn’t fault them much there), 6/10 on entertainment, 6/10 on attitude. On the captaincy front, Sehwag was a failure, and would rate only a 4/10 in my book, he had probably the best team in the tournament and couldn’t get them to the finals and well, leaving out McGrath and claiming that was on account of form, especially when you and your pal are still in the team while scratching around, doesn’t cut much ice.

Royal Challengers Bangalore – well, as the tournament started, they began well, taking apart RR in the first match for the lowest total in IPL 2.0. And the promptly lost the plot – the expensive buy of KP scratching around both as a batsman and as a captain for a while, RCB were well, anonymous. The performers then were the two test bats – Rahul Dravid and Jacques Kallis, the latter had a much better tournament this year than he did last year and well, Dravid showed that it is good to have a wall in the team especially on SA pitches. But the real turnaround happened after KP left and the reins of the team were given to the man – well, you can say a lot of things about Kumble but one thing you cant say about him is that he will not fight – the only one of the Indian bowlers in the nineties who had the whim and vigour to give it as good as he got (in action not words) and who hated to be hit for a six. The man brought in a quiet determination into the team and well, all of the sudden the test team and jokers of the year 2008 were touted as one of the stronger teams – leading the team to 5 straight wins to get them to semis and then bowling tightly around the CSK batsmen, not allowing them to get away with the match, and restricting them to a total which his team could chase. The finals was the revelation – as Kumble brought himself on in the first over and took the wicket of Adam Gilchrist and then Symonds, and kept DC in check especially when they threatened to run away with the match. The man was everywhere.. He deserved to win purely for this, though I don’t think the team did.. Manish Pandey proved to be the discovery of this season, lets hope he does as well in the next one. And the test team of 08 has morphed into the erratic but supremely confident team of 09. Rating on performance would be 7/10, entertainment was 6/10 and attitude was a 7/10. Kumble for his masterful leadership gets a 8/10 – I think only Warne would appreciate what Kumble achieved.

Deccan Chargers – the losers of 08, the team filled with superstars who misfired at every instance, led by a reticent and unsure VVS, morphed into a team which was disciplined, which knew its strengths, which no longer had to depend only on Rohit Sharma to deliver the goods. Gilchrist performed excellently in all his three roles – as captain he motivated his team as could be seen in the finals, as a wicketkeeper he was one of the more effective ones in the tournament, but it was as an opening batsman that he put his stamp on the tournament. The semis - the calculated assault on Nannes and later Sehwag meant that there was no way the team was going to be pressured into a loss. Gibbs was again a revelation – playing well against character – though he had most number of ducks, he also was one of the steadiest bats when DC found themselves in trouble as in the finals- ever watchful. The Symonds without the hair played like he had a point to prove, though with his stalking act on Manish Pandey, showed that old habits do die hard. I don’t know if this was the best team to win the tournament, but they were the most disciplined in playing to their strengths and to that extent deserved their victory. RP Singh was excellent with the ball as was Pragyan Ojha. My rating of the team would be a 7/10 on performance, 7/10 on entertainment and 8/10 on attitude, KKR doesn’t need to look further than DC on how to revive a dead duck team. Gilchrist led as a fine captain, would rate 7/10 in my book.

Overall, T20 did capture the imagination of the crowds – IPL 2.0 was a more balanced match up between the batting and the bowling, and to that extent was a bit less adrenaline driven than IPL 2.0 – may not have been too exciting for the ordinary crowd. But the stand out performances for me were by bowlers – Murali in the CSK-KXIP match, Kumble in the CSK-RCB semis and then in the finals, RP Singh pretty much through the tournament. The batsmen broke free and there were quite a few 25+ run overs but there was never the obscene subjugation of the bowler as in IPL 1.0. The bowlers had a fair chance and the good ones amongst them took them. And it also disproved the great Bhookha Naan’s theory of multiple captains – the teams that did well (except maybe DD), were led by very strong individuals who could carry the team with them and who had the cricketing nous to do the tactical changes on the ground which kept the pressure up on the other team. I expect that T20 will take a lot away from the ODI, but will find it difficult to take away from the Test – the T20 is a skirmish, the ODI a battle, but the test is a war, which tests not just the immediate performance of a team but how it lasts through 5 days, and how the forces are marshaled over that period – the T20 will find it difficult to compete with that. And the captain rules.

 

Songs I like..(3)

Well, swinging to other side of the vindhyas for this one – leaving behind hindi songs, I move over to tamil songs for now..Tamil songs have gone through phases – phases where they were crap to phases where they were divine to phases where they are so-so.. As a comparison to hindi songs, which had the golden period in the 50s, 60s and 70s, the Tamil film music has had patches.. the old songs were definitely good – TMS, PB Sreenivos, and before that with Thyagaraja Bhagavathar et al. But I think tamil music in general is defined by two phenomena – two music directors who have no parallel in bollywood – two of the most fantastic creators of pieces of music which are just divine – they have had their off days, but chances are if either of them is scoring the music for your movie, you will probably make your money just on the music album. Yup, we are taking about Illayaraja and A R Rahman, one a seasoned campaigner of many years, the other a young upstart who is now an international phenomenon (thanks to slumdoggie doo). Most of my favourites over the past 20 years have been scored by either one of them, and even the ones which are earlier are scored by Illayaraja more often than not. We have the occasional other songs which I like more for the lyrics than the music, but there, these two dominate my likes of tamil music. So there, we get on with the list – it will be a lot longer as I will try and cram as many songs as possible into this list.. Amongst singers, well, other than the eternal SPB, there are very few in the new singers that I can recognize, of course, the ghastly songs by udit Narayan are of course recognizable – ghastly because the man cannot get his pronunciation right and hence, kills the songs he sings, even the good ones.. like the ones in run, instead of Kaadhal pisaase, you will have kadal pisssase.. making it very funny for a tam listener.. anyways, on with the list now:

Where do I start, the oldest ones first or the new ones first – will talk of the new ones first because they are fresher in the mind – So we start with the newest first..

1. Amma un pillai; Pichaipathiram; Om Sivahom – From the critically acclaimed “Naan Kadavul” by Bala, music by Illayaraja. Very good songs, of course, that they have some lyrical focus helps. Haven’t seen the movie yet but looks like something I should catch when I get the chance.

2. Venmegam penn aga uruvaginal – Well, a song from the movie Yaaradi Nee Mohini, I liked it because after a long time there was a tamil song which had the Mukesh like pathos in it. Well, it piqued moi interest enough to get some googling done – it is picturised on Dhanush and Nayanthara (who is surprisingly fully clad – initial days I guess prior to her record breaking, in terms of sq cm of cloth used days of Billa et al). Well, I still don’t know who wrote the lyrics or who set music to the damned song, but it is a constant listen on my list.

3. Gnabagam Varude, Ovavaru Pookalume, et al – from the ground breaking Cheran movie – Autograph – most of these songs are based on strong situations. Gnabagam Varude especially tugs at the heart strings appropriately and well, Ovavaru Pookalume had the double advantage of being a great song and being picturised on Sneha (who is one of the few tam actresses who can carry of a heavy song and is a good actress to boot). Well written numbers, with good music, has a nice 60s feel to it, which of course, makes it even better.

4. Nadhiye Nadhiye from Rythmn – As a movie I think Rythmn failed quite miserably, but it had the most sparkling set of songs based on the powers – earth, fire, water, air – the water song is what I like the most – has a very good set of lyrics.

5. Kanmani Anbodu Kadhalan Naan from Guna – A weird movie, but with this song it reaches some major philosophical levels. Kamal as the mentally unstable Guna and ____ as his muse, Abhirami lead onto a very beautiful song. Ilayaraja is good, the lyrics are beautiful too.

6. Ninaithellam Nadanvittal from Nenjil Oor Alayam – Sung by PBS and well, a pathos filled number – Muthuraman is the heart patient husband of Devika (methinks) and Kalyan Kumar is the pathos stricken doctor who also happens to be ex flame of Devika. So we have all sorts of permutations and combinations and situations and dip dip dip on who will croak in the end (had it been me, it would have been Devika, with Muthuraman and Kalyan Kumar holding hands and walking into the sunset Brokeback style. Anyways, the song is picturised on Muthuraman with a morose and angst stricken Kalyan Kumar playing a stellar role in the song.

7. Ava Enna Enna from Varanam Aayiram - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xVnk2U2fZY – this song from Gautham Menon’s pathbreaking movie is quite great. Happened by it on the music channels and was hooked immediately – that a gaana paatu can be used to convey anguish beat me and of course, the song picturisation is great with Surya showing that he can dance when he wants to.. the thing I liked about this movie is that quite a bit of storytelling has been in the songs.. two other songs from the movie which I liked were Anal Mele Panithuli picturised on Surya and Divya Spandana and Mundinam Parthene picturised on Surya and Simran. Nice songs you should catch them.

8. Oh Butterfly from Meera – a song which is quite inane but lovely.. and ode from a lovestricken Vikram (voiced by SPB) to a Aiswarya (voiced by Asha Bhonsle, very clipped accent and yeah, the tamil can improve, not as bad as Udit Narayan but well, bad enough), the music is from the maestro and of course that makes up for a lot. I loved this song the first time I heard it and well, I have managed to hunt it down recently again.

9. Lesa Parukkuthu from Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu – the new age cinema of tamland has some very good practitioners of music which reminds one of the Maestro’s days – in this case, I again caught the song because it was running on a music channel and well, sounded sufficiently 80ish for me to catch it.. It is picturised on a rather pretty looking Saranya Mohan – also has a guy whose name I will have to dig out from wikipedia :D :P.. Nice lilt to the music and good lyrics too..

10. Kangal Irandal from Subramaniapuram – A wow song from this movie – heard great reviews of this movie, but the song is lovely as it shows the love blossoming between the hero and heroine (whose names have to be googled by me). A nice Illayarajaish feel to the music – though I am quite sure he didn’t do the music for this movie.

11. Thoza Thoza from Pandavar Bhoomi – don’t exactly remember the movie, though this song sticks more because of the lyrics which reminds me of the fraandship that you collect in orkut.. Anyways, the premise of the song is that a girl and boy can be friends without necessarily being in love, but of course, as the pom in Maine Pyaar Kiya will testify, ek jawaan ladki aur ek jawaan ladka kabhi dost nahin reh sakte hain..

12. Oh Maname Oh Maname from Ullam Ketukeme – I saw this movie on a bus from Tiruchi to Bangalore in 2005. And this song stuck with me as it plays out with the parting of friends after they passed out from college. That always strikes a chord with me.. the parting of friends is always a difficult subject and this song brings out that feeling.

So these are twelve tamil songs.. I do have a few more favourites – the list doesn’t feature any of the songs from Roja, Gentleman, Agni Natchathiram and a few other movies – will have to put out another post for that. Till then adios and muchos gracios.