ARR , OSCAR, Lady Fortuna

Yes, A R Rahman is lucky enough, lady Fortuna really smiled at him, to get two Oscars , on first nomination itself, when several talented people had to settle with just nominations and nominations all their life time. There is no denying of it. But,
it was 1992 he made his first Tamil film music,
it was 2002 when he made his maiden stage productions "Bombay Dreams", in Broadway.

It has been 6 years since he entered global arena, with the backing as most famous music composer from a country of vast differences like India, in a period where global Indians are outnumbering and spreading across all geographies. Still he could manage only handful of global movies in all these years. He gave his best, he tried all these years to put his mark on global map.

Yes , instead of Latin America it happened to be India, to be used to show the dark alleys of developing (or is it third world ?) country. As it happened to be a film happening in India and among the people of Indians, an Indian music director is needed. Above that it happened to be a fairy tale that speaks about hope and the victory of honesty while living in a possible hell (Oliver twist of the current recession driven world). Lady Fortuna made all these to happen to handover the Oscar to A R Rahman(How the titular question and the answer of the film slum dog millionaire aptly fits here: "How did he do it? The ans: Its written"), but it was ARR -his talents and his perseverance, which made himself to stand in a place lady Fortuna smiles.

Guru Dutt-1

It had been some time since I wrote anything that can be qualified as an article. It’s almost 2 months. All I wrote is snippets. May be that’s what my life is turning into; from large planned constructed grandeur dreams to small tiny snippets which just shine a moment and before you capture its gone. All one left with afterwards just vast dark sky.

What I did? I read lot some books, the books I enjoyed, the books I felt average and luckily nothing I dropped in the middle. But if I try to recollect names I couldn't. May be I will start to tell the story and before I know I might jump to an incident from other story, it might be from a movie I saw. Because that’s what I am doing when I am not reading book, watching DVD's from netflix. That brings me to what I want to write about- Guru Dutt movies.

I happened to watch 3 Guru Dutt movies and 2 of them back to back. It’s interesting how some movies leave an impact in us; even they are half a century old and tells a story that most films tell. They still impact us in spite of the length, the songs which comes every now and then (like the bus in rural areas which stop at every wink or for every man standing close to the road), the cardboard sets, the lighting and static cameras. Thinking about the new technology in camera, music, graphics or story telling they can catch a momentary attraction but surely they can't make a work survive against time. The only thing that can make one survive the test of time is the heart of the movie, what it says and how it says. The first movie to use cinema scope, to be multicolor, to use some xyz camera, the one hero does 10 roles or 100 roles, nothing matters. The person who forces himself to remember it might win some quiz, but they are mostly like the impression you make in the sands of beach. You can press as much as you want but eventually some tide might wipe it out. But a perfect movie is something like first kiss. Its impression not lies on the cheek where you got it but inside your heart. It stays there till you lose your heart.

In Pyassa, Vijay is a poet who is running into publishers to make his work as book. No one is ready to do. His brothers, who sell his work as waste paper, ill treats him and throw him out of house. He accidentally meets a prostitute, Gulab, who sings his song not knowing he is the writer of those songs. When Vijay follows her as he hears the song, she mistakes him for a customer and knowing he has no money she throws him out. Then she learns he is the writer, falling in love for his works she tries to help her. She falls in love for him. But his pride stops him from taking much help from her and he runs away from her. Vijay meets his college day lover Meena who is now married to a rich man, whom she chose over Vijay for economic reasons. She still likes him but she wants to have wealth too. Her husband, Ghosh, smelling something wrong about her wife's past offers Vijay a job. He is a publisher. His whole intention is to know about his wife’s past and so he brings Vijay home and humiliates him. Meena wants vijay's love as a hobby. Vijay gets out of job. He gets to know her mother is dead. He no longer wants to live.

He decides to end his life. But before that he gives his coat to a beggar who dies and Vijay escapes with some injury. Everyone things Vijay is dead. Gulab, with all her savings publish Vijay work. It becomes big hit. Everyone takes pride in his work, including his brothers and Ghosh except Gulab. When Vijay comes back every own denounce him saying not Vijay and puts him in asylum. He escapes from there and comes for his memorial service. Now everyone takes his side. Being fed up with the world he says he is not that Vijay, and leaves the world and goes somewhere with Gulab.

When the movie starts Vijay is singing about the beauty of world the nature and about a bee that enjoys the world and suddenly someone walking crushes it and walks away even without noticing. That’s what Vijay's life. A human soul's cry for love, for honesty, for dignity, it being beaten up on every corner of the world, which loses its hope in the dark alleys of life: that’s what Pyassa is all about.

life and numbers

Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.
----from the curious incident of the dog in the night time by Mark Haddon

plagiarism

சொல் இன்றி -நீ
சொல் பவையின்,
பொருள் புரியாமல்
பொருளற்று போகுது-என்
பொழுதுகள்.