Which One is better ??

It has been good time pass watching the following programs "Indian Idol"in Sony"Sa Re Ga Ma" in Zee and "Voice of India" in Star over the last few months.

All these shows are based on "finding the Singer/Performer". Sony started this concept with the First Indian Idol few years back. The show was a big hit and the singers were stars in few months.

But today, with 3 shows in 3 different channels doing the same thing with different judges, makes it difficult to judge which singer is best.

Indian Idol is all about performing than singing . And the singers are really of not great quality. Nobody sings a complete song. But in terms of performance Indian Idol stands first. Few performers who definitely be seen in a TV serial soon rather than their name appearing behind a audio cassette/VCD. The Judges are not that impressive to me. Anu Malik is my favourite, but most people hate him as he criticizes too much. I think he is talented guy(Need talent to copy music too) . This version of Indian Idol has missed his shahayari. Alisha, just adds beauty to the show. Udit is just there as a singer, some how cannot see him in the class of Sonu Nigam. Javed Akthar, senior in the industry is there for his experience with music.

Voice Of India, they really don't know what they are doing!!!! They started of well , with good singing. Lost their track on the way with competition from Indian Idol on performance. Some singers are good. They have a mix of people who sing really well and few who really cant sing.
Judges behave like jokers in this show. Abhijeet ,Alka ,Jatin,Lalit,Aadesh , their views are dont match at all.Abhijeet tries to add some humour to the show. Over all , the show is really poor.

Sa Re Ga Ma Pa , This show has real good talent. In terms of singing , this show is way ahead than the other two. In terms of performance it is the last. Judges Himesh, Ismail Darbard, Vishal-Shekar,Bappi Lahiri are good and they seem to teach their students(the singers of the show) really well. The performance(in terms of singing) of each participant has increased drastically. One bad thing about this show , they are creating a love triangle between Aneek,Sumedha, Amanat, Which i think is not required. The judgement has always been like "Mind Blowing" "Superb" "True Play Back Singer" and so on. It would be nice to give a true feed back rather than just praising each participant every time.

Anchoring of all these shows , is very important and I think Hussian and Mini Mathur of Indian Idol do a real good job. Shaan in Star and Aditya Narayan(Udit Narayan son) in Zee do a good job but not marvelous.

In one sentence to summarizes these shows
Sony is good at presenting, Zee is true talent and Star is not twinkling.

what is important !!!

I follow all the news channel closely and have realised how all the channels give importance to news that are really not important. The one that I am particluarly talking about is the arrest of Sanjay Dutt in the Bombay(now mumbai) blast case.

Frequent news of the whereabouts of Sanjay really puts me off , what has he done to the country , other than frequently being in the news for all the wrong reasons . I agree that in the last few years he has done good movies and has acted well. Just because he entertained us does not mean that he is a nice guy. This is the problem with us, we tend to forgive people of their mistakes . When people debated on "was judgement right to sanjay dutt", nobody considered the loss of life in the mumbai blast. All were just talking about how good Sanju has been with the police and court. People can make mistakes but not at the cost of life. I still feel sanju deserves the punishment. And let us not make this as a headlines in our daily news. There are lot more things that can be said as a Head line.

Was Zaheer tired??

Indian cricket team after a long poor performance ,specially in World cup, have managed to win a series against england. It was a 1-0 series win. It could have been a convincing 2-0 win if our wall , I mean Dravid would have enforced the follow-on.

But Dravid's reasoning of him finding his bowlers tired at the end of first innings was reasonable. How many captain in today's cricket would have enforced follow -on ? I dont think any body including our punter . I totally agree that he should have not enforced follow -on, but what put me off is his batting , 11 runs of 96 balls. What was he doing ??? trying to draw the match( In fact that was the result).

His reason of him finding his bowlers tired have started another controversy , The media had interviewed the man of the series Zaheer Khan , and he said "he was fit and not tired at the end of second innings". How to make a news of this story, well we will have to ask our media on how to do it? . They were reporting this news as though there were misunderstandings in the team . Like the captain had not consulted his bowlers before enforcing the follow-on.I am sure Dravid being a senior would have taken a decision consulting the whole team.Zaheer is not the only bowler for team India. I agree he was the main force , but only his fitness could not have been considered before choosing to bat.Why does the media , have to spread rumours , is it just to be rated as the "Number One channel".

Lot of controversies in cricket over th last year has been because of media including the famous chappel - ganguly . Somes times media in the name of information , looks in to the minute details of interviews to spring controversies and surprises. It is sad , specially when the team is doing well to have such controversies. All cricketers have to be thought how to talk diplomatically to the media. Hope the cricketers learn from their mistakes every time they talk to media. I am sure zaheer would be tired answering to the question "Were you tired".

A R Rehman

We all know who A R R is ?? a well known music director.For me he is a better singer. All his songs , I mean the one he sings are really good .
I did not hear to Vande Mataram..till he sang it in his album. To me what I like most about him , is the ability to sing patriotic songs. It is diffcult to sing such songs, Unless you have a feel for the country.All his songs are so good that you tend to hear it many times. Some of my favourites are "Vande Mataram" "Lukka Chuppi" "Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera". Yeh Jo Des Hai from Swades is my favourite. He has the ability to sing in the high pitch, which is required in patriotic songs. In all his movies that he has given music , the patriotic songs are my favourite. The first time that I heard a patriotic song from his music is from the film Roja "Tamila Tamila" .
His music goes on well with movies that have patriotic themes, be it Bombay , Rang De Basanti, Roja, Swades or Lagaan. One more feature of ARR music is, He has introduced lot of new talented singers.Hariharan,Vasundhara, Naresh Iyer,Chinmayi,Sadhana Sargam,Mahalakshmi Iyer, Shankar Mahadevan,Srinivas.The list is really big. People criticize him ,as he takes too long to compose the songs.But how does that matter when the song is a hit.

Hats of to ARR for all the music he has given us :-)

Mouna Ragam

The movie Mouna Ragam (In Tamil ) is one of the best movies that I have seen. The movie was released in the year 1986.I have seen it quite a number of times. I saw it last week and it was really impressive.Everything about the movie was good, the casting, the story, acting ,music, dialogues.It is directed by Manirathnam, he has directed many hit tamil movies like Bombay,Guru,Alaipayuthey etc, but mouna ragam stands above all of them to me.Twenty years back to direct a movie in that style is truly amazing.What is more interesting is that it is a simple story directed in such a way, that makes u feel wow!!!.



Revathy is not some one whom I admire, but in this movie she has acted really well. Mohan , the on who was always seen with a mic in all his previous movies, is admirable for his calm and perfect portrayal of a madrasi manager working in Delhi.Karthik as Manohar brings youth and action in the movie.He is truly amazing.He looks to me like a Manirathanm's actor, because only in few movies (agni natchatiram) he is admirable. He comes in the movie only for few minutes, but those minutes are fast moving and brings some enthusiasm in to the movie. The role played by him in this film is included in Roll of Honour of the Film and Television Institute of India (Pune) as one of the best supporting roles in a film.

There are very few instances of comedy and they are good.Music is another big plus for the movie.It was during this time that SPB and Illayaraja were at their best.Nilave Va is one song that would be in everybody hit list even today. The dialogues is too good and some of them are really memorable like "Neenka thota kambli puchi thoda ra mari iruuku".

Overall , it is a definete watch and will not let you sleep.It doesnot provide great entertaiment in terms of action or comedy, but is a good film with real good music, direction, cineamatography and performance.So watch it if you haven't still. This is one of Manirathanm's best.