A. R. Rahman’s marvel of light and sound – but where’s the music? (part 1)

AR Rahman was supposed to be in the Bay Area in early summer and with great difficulty seats were procured.  Then there was an accident with some props and the tour was postponed.  We had a group made up of various visitors from all over and they went  their way.  Of course it would make sense that concert tickets should be fully refundable if the event was delayed.  So we went to Indian Store where they tickets were bought only to be told “Ji we know nothing about these tickets, please to contact the organizers!”. A phone call to the organizers and we were told “of course we can refund money if you show us the plane tickets of those in the party who have now left” !!!  I could imagine a phone call to India, and then a courier-ing of tickets, so it seemed like giving tickets away to friends might be a cheaper option.  But these tickets became surprisingly hard to give away.  Then I discovered that it is not easy to convince people to come for a FREE ARRahman concert if it is being held on Sunday night!  The 7:00 pm concert will begin at 8:00 pm and likely be a mismanaged affair that will go on forever with long breaks filled with random stuff.  Or it could go the way of the recent Sukhvinder concert where he arrived 2-3 hours late, sang 5 songs and hurriedly left while the crowd pelted the stage with whatever they had on hand!  The reluctance was understandable.

Is AR Rahman considering quitting Bollywood?????

A.R. Rahman has been considering whether he should quit Bollywood or not to give him more time to focus on his international career.
"The Indian assignments after Slumdog Millioniare have been very time-consuming, especially Raavan where Rahman not only had to do two versions of the music in Hindi and Tamil, but director Mani Ratnam also asked him to give three or four tunes for every lyric before one was selected, " a source revealed.
"The music of Raavan took more time than Rahman could afford, with the result that other Indian assignments primarily Abbas Tyrewala’s untitled John Abraham-Pakhi starrer got left behind.
"Rahman had to continuously keep breaking his international tours and other projects to be home for various reasons, like the music release of Raavan and other things. He has begun to feel that his international career would never take off if he has to keep returning home."

Raavan - My Review

In a religious country like India, where people have ended up fighting over Rama and Allah, it needs some courage to take up one of the two greatest epics written and show our worshipped Lord Rama having a grey side to him. It takes even more courage to start telling the story from the villain Raavan’s point of view and justify his actions. Mani Ratnam is his latest film does exactly that when he gives the mythological story a realistic setting in today’s world and twists the story a bit to make people sympathize for the villain of the epic.

Abhishek Bachchan plays an outlaw called Beera(Raavan) in the film. Though he goes against the law, the villagers believe in him, his actions, and his ideology which makes him a character like Don Vito Corleone or the Sarkar. The only difference is he is wilder than those. The wildness, ofcourse is to draw parallelism to Raavan’s character in Ramayana. He kidnaps Raagini(Sita) played by Aishwarya Rai Bachchan to kill her for reasons told later in the film. But instead of killing her, he starts falling for her beauty, her bravery. This is where we see the film getting similar to RGV’s Jungle where the lead bandit started falling for Urmilla Matondkar and starts taking wrong decisions.

Mani Ratnam goes back to what he is most known for and does the best, depicting violence and terrorism on screen. Though Raavan isn’t exactly a film about terrorism, its style is very similar to those. He might not have come back to his real best, but it seems like he is on his right way now after Guru where I thought he completely lost his way and like other directors got pulled and attracted by commercial brand of cinema. With Raavan, he seems to be coming back to his own.

The most pleasing thing in this film is the visuals, the cinematography. Santosh Sivan is really a master of camerawork. He has never disappointed me with his camera work. While Terrorist is his best piece of work for me, Raavan isn’t very far behind. Though shooting infront of the waterfalls, and naturally beautiful scenes makes it easier for him to make the picture look beautiful, he is equally good in indoor scenes and close-up shots. He and Manikandan make the film a visual treat and worth watching just for the visuals alone.

Read more from HERE

Raavan - My Review

In a religious country like India, where people have ended up fighting over Rama and Allah, it needs some courage to take up one of the two greatest epics written and show our worshipped Lord Rama having a grey side to him. It takes even more courage to start telling the story from the villain Raavan’s point of view and justify his actions. Mani Ratnam is his latest film does exactly that when he gives the mythological story a realistic setting in today’s world and twists the story a bit to make people sympathize for the villain of the epic.

Abhishek Bachchan plays an outlaw called Beera(Raavan) in the film. Though he goes against the law, the villagers believe in him, his actions, and his ideology which makes him a character like Don Vito Corleone or the Sarkar. The only difference is he is wilder than those. The wildness, ofcourse is to draw parallelism to Raavan’s character in Ramayana. He kidnaps Raagini(Sita) played by Aishwarya Rai Bachchan to kill her for reasons told later in the film. But instead of killing her, he starts falling for her beauty, her bravery. This is where we see the film getting similar to RGV’s Jungle where the lead bandit started falling for Urmilla Matondkar and starts taking wrong decisions.

Mani Ratnam goes back to what he is most known for and does the best, depicting violence and terrorism on screen. Though Raavan isn’t exactly a film about terrorism, its style is very similar to those. He might not have come back to his real best, but it seems like he is on his right way now after Guru where I thought he completely lost his way and like other directors got pulled and attracted by commercial brand of cinema. With Raavan, he seems to be coming back to his own.

The most pleasing thing in this film is the visuals, the cinematography. Santosh Sivan is really a master of camerawork. He has never disappointed me with his camera work. While Terrorist is his best piece of work for me, Raavan isn’t very far behind. Though shooting infront of the waterfalls, and naturally beautiful scenes makes it easier for him to make the picture look beautiful, he is equally good in indoor scenes and close-up shots. He and Manikandan make the film a visual treat and worth watching just for the visuals alone.

Read more from HERE

A. R. Rahman on Chetan Bhagat!

Many writers are successful at expressing what's in their hearts or articulating a particular point of view. Chetan Bhagat's books do both and more. A former investment banker, Chetan, 36, broke out as a writer with his novels One Night @ the Call Center and Five Point Someone, which inspired the film 3 Idiots, the biggest Indian hit in history. His latest book is about his marriage and the obstacles he and his wife faced coming from different regions of India. Many families go through this — I went through it — and Chetan conveys so well what happens when two worlds meet. The customs may be uniquely Indian, but the story is universal.
I've seen the effect Chetan has on his readers. He often writes about following your dreams and not bowing to others' expectations. That isn't easy in India, where family opinion matters and some professions are regarded as more serious than others. I run a music school, and people have quit their jobs to study music. It's great to see brave young people giving their dreams a chance. Chetan's writing inspires that kind of bravery.

by A R Rahman, a composer, who won two Academy Awards for Slumdog Millionaire

Artists: Chetan Bhagat

A. R. Rahman on Chetan Bhagat!

Many writers are successful at expressing what's in their hearts or articulating a particular point of view. Chetan Bhagat's books do both and more. A former investment banker, Chetan, 36, broke out as a writer with his novels One Night @ the Call Center and Five Point Someone, which inspired the film 3 Idiots, the biggest Indian hit in history. His latest book is about his marriage and the obstacles he and his wife faced coming from different regions of India. Many families go through this — I went through it — and Chetan conveys so well what happens when two worlds meet. The customs may be uniquely Indian, but the story is universal.
I've seen the effect Chetan has on his readers. He often writes about following your dreams and not bowing to others' expectations. That isn't easy in India, where family opinion matters and some professions are regarded as more serious than others. I run a music school, and people have quit their jobs to study music. It's great to see brave young people giving their dreams a chance. Chetan's writing inspires that kind of bravery.

by A R Rahman, a composer, who won two Academy Awards for Slumdog Millionaire

Artists: Chetan Bhagat