Honestly , it was very easy for me

Sometime around Oct 2008 time frame, out of the blues Dheepa Ramanujam, a film maker from Bay area contacted me. Thanks to the kind words of my good old buddy Vijay Kumar popularly known as VK, VK is a talented keyboard artist and performs in most shows in and around the west coast. We go back a long way.

Dheepa Ramanujam has staged many successful full-length plays with her group of artists since 2001. She has worked under the guidance of director K. Balachander and many other stalwarts of Tamil cinema. The tremendous response for her played titled "Thanimai" [Tamil] provided the encouragement to her to form a dedicated group to Tamil theatrical arts. Dheepa founded a production company called Krea with her husband Ramanujam.

When Dheepa told me the story of her short film “Sunset”, I had no hesitation to jump into the bandwagon. Working with Dheepa and her talented team of folks was a pleasure. Dheepa’s passion and dedication towards art simply amazes me. “Sunset” has already won few awards in Film festivals. Following Sunset, I had the pleasure to work on her next film titled “Good Bye”. It is in the final stages of post production.

There are many folks in and around DC metro with tons of talents, some of them are unnoticed. I am now working with one such film maker. "Babu Venkatesh"

Around Dec 2008, my good friend Iyappan and I were working on track in my studio. Iyapppan mentioned about Babu who wanted to do a short film. Babu was moving to India to work in the movie industry and he wanted this short film to be in his portfolio. Babu visited my studio, and outlined his plans, and asked me for serious help in making this happen.

Honestly it was very easy for me; I just had to connect these 2 film makers.

Result, fantastic short film called "Appa Vanthar".


Movie was written and directed by Babu and produced by Dheepa. Dheepa came up with a talented team in no time. Icing on the cake, movie was short on the popular "RED" camera. One person I like to mention here is a young sound designer from LA, "Kunal Rajan". He has a lot of energy and vision on sound design. He would be working on sound follies for this short movie. I am very happy to be the Music Director/Original Music Composer in this elite team.

Honestly, when lot of money is being lost for average home dwellers in this economy, these short films have kept me smiling. Yesterday we had a lot fun during recording, and we almost nailed the back ground score in full. We will be recording the tracks for next few days with vocals and other live instruments.

My best wishes to Babu for a successful carrier in Chennai.

Donkey drops at will - India VS New Zealand T20.

I woke at 2.00am today to watch India VS New Zealand T20. I should have right royally completed the natural sleeping quota of 8 hours. Anyways,

New Zealand tour has always been a mystery to the Indians. In spite of the cricket grounds being smaller than my cubicle, the rock star Indian batting fire power resembled the popular Sivakasi produce dipped in water. The home team played their natural game and of course with some help from the umpire, won the game very easily. Indian Batting was quite hasty and it looked as though someone told them to play a T5 game.

But the credit goes to the Indian bowlers. Congratulations, the thoughtless Indian Bowling act signed today. Harbajan Singh looked as though he was upset about Sukwinder Singh being denied a visa to the Oscars. Harbajan took over what Anil Kumble was doing for years. Throwing large quantities of donkey drops at will, seeing the quantity thrown, the local New Zealand donkeys and mules “poked” Harbajan via face book. Bowlers were more or less without any idea or a plan, something similar to the current US congress;

Dhoni’s captaincy reminded Yuvan Shankar Raja’s modern music arrangement -"Harmonically" cut loose -> என்ன கொடுமை இது சரவணன்.

My pathetic performance award of day goes to Irfan pathan for his bowling. The ball was hit to locations where "no ball has gone before.". India sucked to its maximum, which in a way is good for the team, now team will think about bouncing back with some passion.

Reaching the top position is only one side of the effort, maintaining it is sheer "Horse Horns". [குதிரைக் கொம்பு]

Trouble shoot yourself

Economy is in doldrums and I see every other financial guys and gals churning money by writing books on Economic survival. Hence as a service to the society I decided to write a book to save the world, and here is the sneak peek of my new book

"Trouble shoot [yourself] the BLACK BERRY STROM".
The Basics
1. Screen Orientation - Unit test case: The virtual keyboard never changes to landscape mode.
a. First step would be to jingle the storm for a quick up and down for 10 seconds. Prior experience could come handy. Technique is very important here. If done properly it should change. But if it does not change, read further.
b. Leave the black berry storm on your table, drive to a nearby struggling star bucks and boost their sales, get the “Mojo” and drive back to your office. 6 to 7 minutes gone hence it is time to check our subject. It should have changed.
c. If no, on the positive side you would have gained a little technical skill, try giving another CPR oops jingle, this time 20 seconds, if nothing happens, wait for another 10mins to 13 minutes, you are very close to resolving it - the record time is about17 Minutes. It will change. If your name is not Bill Maher, throw in a prayer or 2 to the almighty. You could see the light in next 15 minutes.
d. On a side note, record your actions with a web cam add some music and post it on YouTube. You will be an instant hit.

2. Disgusted with phone number search. When the page orientation is in Portrait mode, an obnoxious keyboard with twin click appears, meaning the letter “Q” and “W” appear on the same key.
a. Q & W are not used often so no worries, RIM might have thought that’s fine, Q is not used anywhere other than UK and China.
b. What about the killer keys “A” and “S”. 60% of my contacts starts with an A or a S. It takes me about 3 minutes to find contacts.
c. My Solution: Change to landscape mode if you are successful you would get the keyboard known to average human beings aka non Kamal fans. [But you might have to go back to basic point 1].
d. RIM and Verizon is now offering a certification course on Black Berry Storm search.

3. When making a call on Strom I find some people just say “helo helo” and hang up on me”
a. Do not worry, no one hates you, it is a simple touch screen issue. The poor screen does not know to differentiate between your fingers and you [chubby] cheeks [the soft side area of the face between the nose and ear]. The big 10x10 mute button gets clicked by your cheek or if you are Jay Leno it should be the chin. The caller on other end does not know about this; they don’t hear anything hence they hang up blaming their cell phone provider.
b. Solution: Exercise or starve yourself to reduce the muscle density on your face or keep the phone 10cms away from your ears. Bluetooth could help. But more money for Verizon, RIM, and of course china.

People, welcome to the “Who wants to be the Guinea Pig” show brought to you by Verizon [assume Anil Kapoor is reading it]

Define Height of frustration ….
a) US Economy
b) Watching Tamil movie Villu [வில்லு]
c) Watching Villu [வில்லு] on SunTV

Answer is D -> Using the Black Berry Strom.

Kindly someone tell me what to do with this gadget. I have been with Verizon for longtime; however they wanted me to be their Guinea pig. I was very happy with my LG chocolate. Someone from Verizon calls and offers me the so called touch screen sensation. I fell for it and chained myself to contracts. I am writing this blog disgusted.In fact I did go out of my office/home to check for the Verizon guys shown on TV.

Question to Verizon, Is this product a joke? Are your customers’ mere guinea pigs with lot of their time dedicated to “unit” test a pathetic product? I am paying a hell lot of money for a lemon. I did call the support team, Verizon wants to clear all my contacts, reboot, which is about 15minutes and if it still fails, take it to a service center etc, WT* - they better come to my office and fix it. Never ever fall for these phone devices.

What next BlackBerry Havana, the same storm now comes with a cigar holder and a lighter?

எல்லாப்புகழும் ரஹ்மான்னுக்கே!

“My dream” came true today. “Jai Ho” is being played on various radio and TV shows this morning. Words cannot express my happiness when ARR’s name was announced. Oscar nomination is just the ticket to the base camp and not the summit. Winning is the summit and an Oscar double is mammoth accomplishment for an artist. The Indian music has been recognized by the most prestigious outfit in the West. Thanks to A.R. Rahman.

When I landed here in US, long time ago in mid 90s, no TV or Radio shows showed any Indian music stores in US did not carry any music from India. If at all I find one, it was an old classical music CDs. I often rue that “our” music has not been given the due respect by the west. I use to think one day we would have a song from India that would top charts around the world. After all the most popular song in US is “Hey Macarena” and it is not in English. When a Spanish song could carry energy, why not an Indian song? This is also one good reason for me to somehow find time to do music. I want to contribute to this cause as little as I can. Indian music is something remarkable. I cannot describe in words the amount of passion, energy it conveys across to the listener.

A.R.Rahman’s Music is all about the energy that he ports or conveys to my ears. For example the song “Janagana ma” from Yuva“ or “Newyork nagaram” coveys lot of energy, power and emotion. The melodic notes for the songs come from the heart.
Yesterday the Oscar show had many slow movements that kept people yawning. The movement the Dancers started “Oh saya” and “Jai ho”, the stage lit up with a lot of color. The music mixed in 5.1 Dolby Digital sound took us to a new zone filled with pumping energy. Whatever I am trying to explain here “has to be felt”.

Music is not mere entertainment; listening to music changes “behavioral chemicals” in our tensed human body. A.R.Rahman ‘s music in particular has rescued me from work pressures , tension, hate and other negativities that surrounds my life. Time and Time again, it has kept me in sync with reality. A.R.Rahman deserves all the accolades, let us celebrate it. He rightly put it in a nutshell

"you have a choice in life between Love and Hate, and choose love, it takes you to places"

. Congratulations Rahman.

On a lighter note, I sprained my ankle and calf (ok ok Cow) muscles, thanks to my impromptu dance when A.R.Rahman won the Oscar.

“Jai ho”

God bless Rahman.

Congratulations!...to A.R.Rahman.
Words cannot describe my happiness tonight. My idol A.R.Rahman has won 2 Oscars. A very proud moment for every Tamilian, and every Chennai natives.

God bless A.R. Rahman.

I was eagerly waiting all day for my man "A.R.Rahman" live on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Jay’s first guest was Dennis Miller. Mr Miller’s name says it all as he was more “Tighter” “Fuller” “higher” than Paula Abdul on American Idol. Some of Dennis Miller jokes were plain dry like California economy [btw: the golden state is now on EBAY China] in fact the former US vice president’s written speech had more humor in it. If not for cursing words and bad language, Mr. Miller would face a job crisis. I was waiting for the agony to end. Then this was followed by the “heroine” of SD Millionaire, she made her usual speech.

Finally, the ARR Show – The commercial break just before his live performance was really longer than the usual. Jay introduced him well and pronounced his name AJ Roman, and then corrected himself quickly.

Camera pans for a close up shot of the composer, there I see the little guy from my native city Chennai, India. ARR presented a crisp 5 minutes show; He did the Jai Ho Track from Slum Dog Millionaire.

I do not exhibit my sentimental emotions. However this time I have no words to describe the feeling I had when I saw ARR on the tonight show. I was so happy, I felt as though someone from my own family has achieved such a great deal of success in their carrier.

I have been following A.R. Rahman as a person, a musician right from his debut. I just adore this guy as I learn a lot from him, it not only music, his social skills, humility etc…. ARR long time ago mentioned once in an interview that the search is important than the destination. He has come a long way.

Looking back at his journey, he jumped into the Tamil movie arena from nowhere. Majority of the Tamil music fans during 90s just did not believe in his music. He was painted as "One Movie Wonder" "Sound Engineer", “Jingle kid” , “Repetitive “or “Electronics Musician” from a majority section of Tamil film music listeners. However ARR went on to prove what he is destined for - powerful and soulful music. It is his destiny to ensure that Indian musicians get recognized all around the world. He is here to do more.

Hey! He now has a new title “Academy nominated Composer A.R.Rahman”

God bless A.R. Rahman

Talk of the town - A.R. Rahman,

There is an article about AR on Today’s Washington Post.
I quote from the article

Rahman hopes all the attention will encourage other young Indians to choose music as a future. We really need that space for creativity in India right now,' he said. 'Most of all, I just want that to be recognized.”

It is high time that Indian popular music gets the deserved reorganization.
and it was a great day for all Indian musicians when AR was nominated for Oscar.
God bless him for all the inspiration he generated in me.

"Academy Nominated" music composer A.R. Rahman is also scheduled to appear on Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Watch out!

“buss buss”, meaning “push push”.

Last night, while channel surfing I bumped into a program called Cobra’s of East on some HD channel. It was the usual husky voice explaining the Cobra and its deadly venom etc. Had it enough, I moved on, the next channel in the surf was KTV.

A 7 foot cobra was busy carrying red Bangles and spits the Bangles to Banu Priya, it took me 10 seconds to guess. Banu Priya is carrying and the snake gave her a baby shower. Our beloved தலை’s மச்சினச்சி then Baby Shamili joins the Cobra, Mr. Cobra then gets a flower for Banu Priya, he then goes on to place it on her head. The movie was Thaipoosam [தைபூசம்].

The Cobra in this movie performs various tasks; he records conversations between bad [Nazer and gang] guys who were scheming to kill someone. The snake clicks the record buttons [remember red one and the regular play button], and after recording he searches for the eject symbol and ejects the tape from the recorder. He then takes it to his master baby Shamili. During recording Cobra seems have seen a message card and he rushes to the type writer and punches “L I O N”. Baby Shamili using her swift brilliance finds it to be No 17. Snake and the kid calls the police, wo then saves the person living at No 17. Nazar and co plans to kill the child, while Banu Priya goes into labor. I was excepting Cobra to do a C- Section; instead the king cobra says “buss buss”, meaning “push push”.

Ramanarayanan Rocks - What an amazing thought process. I still remember the huge crowd for this move in Krishanaveni theater, T.Nagar Chennai. This movie made a lot of money. Hey why not!, when 20 grams human structures [Danush, sorry man no offense] would could whack 200000 tons of human flesh in no time, a snake can type, record, sing and dance. The Cobra had good prospects to be a sound engineer, data entry operator, flower man, However last time we heard from the Cobra star he went bankrupt by making a 3D படம் [Padam]

வர்டா......

கிளம்பிட்டான்யா கிளம்பிட்டான்

Been taking it easy for few months, in reality I had very less time to contribute towards anything. Lots of wonderful things happened; A.R. Rahman made it happen for Indian music. I am looking forward for his live show during the Oscars.

How would you feel if a judge during a trail in a municipal court walks jumps out and starts arguing against the pubic prosecutor? I was watching SunTV “பயங்ங்ங்ங்-கரரர-கடி” singer show. Hope you did the obnoxious movements with your hand when you read பயங்ங்ங்ங்-கரரர-கடி Singer– if not before moving on to next paragraph, please do the needful.

One of the judges suddenly got up to show off her capacity to sing கொஞ்சும் நிலவு, poor contestants were made look ordinary. The scale was lowered by 2 keys at least from the original. Show host Erode [off late he is becoming E-Blade] Mahesh, I do respect him a lot for his language diction, he too went on and on with his hyped superlatives. The show is portrayed as a singing and dancing show, honestly neither is good. When all the other TV channels are providing quality music shows with all the money and power Sun TV shows are still in an identity crisis.

The rumor is that SunTV is saving lot money by just keeping their program telecast to around 5hrs. , rest has been dedicated to trailers from their own production company. My hearty Congratulations! To படிக்காதவன் the movie, it just over took திண்டுக்கல் சாரதி trailer (155,231) which had a trailer rating of 70 per hour, now we have seen படிக்காதவன் trailor about 155,232 times till date.

All said and done, படிக்காதவன் is yet to touch “காதலில் விழுந்தேன்” trailer record. KV has a trailer rating of 120 times per minute, that is 2 times per second . In spite of a vast promotion effort, movie was Pongal [I meant Pongal special], and during commercial breaks the trailer of the same movie was shown. What a freaking Media Giant!...way to go.

~கிளம்பிட்டான் யா கிளம்பிட்டான்