My Top 10 favorite A R Rahman songs

On the day A R Rahman received the Golden Globe Award, I decided that, if Rahman went on to win the Oscars, I would blog about My Top 10 Favorite A R Rahman tracks. So here they are.

The first comment I received from most of my friends, is that, Top 10 is too small a thing to contain the full Rahman. Even the Oscars had to catch up so late, so what can you say about an upstart blogger's ad-hoc listings ? So so true, I knew it before I listed them. When I pulled a piece of paper and went on to scribble 'top-of-mind-recall' tracks, the list came to 35, in the first two minutes. Yet, there are so many Top 10 lists, let me just add one more. Not that my list matters, particularly since my music sense is well-documented on this blog before. But after all, as Munnabhai put it, apun public hai public, kya ?

If you don't like Rahman, simple, I don't like you. :) :) . But, since the world is so vast and has unnecessary room for all of us, and I also want to pride about balanced perspectives even when they are irrelvant, I still have stuff for people who don't like his music: I'll make a mention of the few things that I don't like about ARR's music, towards the end. It so happens, some of my favorites in this list are from Tamil, because I also relate to the lyrics. But, I am sure, most of these are equally enjoyable in their Hindi and Telugu or even Swahili equivalents.

Most links point to : Wikipedia/Youtube/Dhingana

10. Kannum kannum kollai adithal... The Artham Song from Thiruda Thiruda....

I can only start from the time I started listening to A R Rahman's music. Unlike so many others who proudly mention today that they knew him from the good old days when he was known as Dileep, like this movie director I had dinner with. I arrived rather late into that world. Life had been busy, juggling between college, part-time/summer jobs, service activities and competitive exams. I hadn't watched movies for the previus 7 years. The comfort of touching a 4-digit salary for the first time (particularly when you started with 2-digits) allows you certain indulgences. Roja, in all its glory, had come and gone, taking the music world by storm while I was busy in chinna chinna velai. I would catch up with it later.

I was staying at my friend's place, who was preparing for PG Medical Entrance and I was surprised to see that, about once in two hours or so, he would, take a break, play a couple of songs, jump around and get back to serious study. One of them was, Kannum kannum kollai adithal. It's exam time, try it out, may be with companion track, Putham pudhu bhoomi vendum. When I last heard, my friend had made it big, both in medicine and in music. :) :) If you try it with some other song, I am not responsible. (As if otherwise I am).

9. Radha Kaise Na jaley.. from Lagaan...

There are some tunes which infect you and infect all others who come in contact with you all through the day. Because, you began your day singing it when you came out of the bathroom, having taken your cool time, insensitive to the subtle needs of the waiting roommates. It used to be Hariharan's 'Pachai Niramey' for one of my friends, and the hum for him and haunt for the others used to be so much that, others would cry out and plead for change of track or change of bathroom ... 'hey.. please da.....' . For me, it is Radha Kaise na Jaley.. Oh, how many times, I have looped and looped and listened to this....

8. Nilaa Kaaykiradhu... from Indira

If you are still under the myth that Rahman is all about Shivamani's drums and western-sounding music, you should hear this kiddu song from Indira, almost carnatic piece. So melodious, so soothing, so relaxing, you won't read the rest of this post because you will fall asleep. If you are the fast-track type, replace this rank with Kannodu Kaanbhathellam from Jeans.

7. Pachai Kiligal Tholodu... from Indian...
There was a time, for 10 months, when I was (literally) jobless, and if carrom board can be considered keeping busy, one of my hobbies (?!) was to re-write the lyrics of my favorite Rahman tracks to my favorite devotional themes and share it with friends. One from that time, is this, rendered by Yesudas, who, well, actually knew ARR from the time when he was Dileep. I would love to give this remix-friendly slot to Oruvan Oruvan Mudhalali, which even the Japanese liked, but, no, this is not about Kamal vs. Rajni or about SPB vs. Yesudas, its ARR vs. ARR.

6. Bharat humko jaan se bhee pyara hai.... from Roja

It's now well-known that Patriotism is Rahman's best and favorite forte. No cultural event or a programme on patriotism would be complete without this piece from Roja. For a change, I like the Hindi version much better, because it sounds much more unifying. I have heard it being used and re-used again and again in patriotic plays and everytime it sounds as inspiring as it did the first time.

5. Bombay - Theme Tune - Instrumental :

There are some tunes for which you don't need lyrics. It's as if the tune can convey the context and the sentiments of the moment. The theme tune instrumental of Bombay is one such. Less luck for Kadri Gopalnath's saxophone, because I had to push out Mettu Podu from Duet and make way for this popular choice for the instrumental slot.

4. Yeh Tara Woh Tara... from Swades...

If there can be a very simple-sounding tune, as if straight out of a school annual day programme, yet one that flows gentle and cool like a river into your ears and make you forget those 7 minutes and 53 seconds, and bring with it a message for change, you need a track like this.

3. Maa Tujhe Salaam from Vande Mataram :

If someone could re-ignite the interest of youth in patriotism through modern music, ARR would be sure on the list. The rendering of Vande Mataram, should make you join the crowd and hum or sing out aloud. If it doesn't, you could have been born anywhere, not necessarily in India. :) :) Even the halls in Los Angeles do it, when ARR performs it live, though he mostly does it as Maa Tujhe Salaam instead of Thai Manney Vanakkam which has equally inspiring lyrics.

2. Iswar Allah Tere Jahan mein.... from 1947 Earth...

This is one song that mesmerized me when I heard it the first time, introduced by a friend. It was much before I saw the movie, even before I knew it was composed by A R Rahman. It still has the same effect on me.

And the Nams-car award goes to... :)

1. Pray for me, Brother

The best track, gets the least number of words in tribute, because, when you listen to good music, you don't talk about it, you don't blog about it, you don't go gaga about it and jump about it. You just listen. If you have done all that, you come back and listen once again. And may be pray thereafter. Silence can bring out the music in you, and, such music, can bring about a silence in you. This is one such piece.

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Irony, no ? Jai Ho is not among the Top 10. I think, far greater music has been composed by A R Rahman, and the worldwide recognition was long due. It had to happen through Jai Ho, and it did, because of the movie's Englishwala visibility or whatever. I do like the track a lot, however. I agree once again with the many-faced blogger, who is attributed to have said, that if ARR gets the Oscar for Jai Ho, it would be like Einstien getting the Nobel Prize for explaining Photo-Electric effect.

Even for my own favorites, the list is grossly incomplete. There is no Sapnay, no Rhythm, no Taal, no Water, no Jeans, no Guru, no Yuva, not even Alai Payudhey? What kind of a funny list is this, without Chikku Bukku Railey, Muqabla and Masti-ki-Pathshala ?

Change the topic....

Jaane Tu is not there, because I was put off by the accidental, but obvious, resembling in the first few seconds of the song had with 'Appudo Eppudo' from Bommarillu. That the rest of the song follows a totally different tune should, of course, be mentioned in the same beat.

I don't like when the excellence of lyrics in one language gets diminished when it's re-written in another language. Vennilave Vennilave's is way better than Chanda Rey
, but no other language could match Rangeela Re in Hindi, with which Rahman made his Hindi debut. I also don't like it when Rahman, re-uses one of his earlier tunes in a different context, for the sake of adapting it to Hindi or English, particularly when the earlier version was so wonderful. 'Poraley Ponnu thaayi' in Karuthamma was so beautiful, demonstrating ARR's music for a rural setting. Gurus of Peace in Vande Mataram is good, but I think the Karuthamma song was better though it may not have had the same reach as Vande Mataram. Taal's famous Ishq Bina ,reworked for "Love isn't so easy" in Bombay Dreams, made it only worse...

I also like it better when old friend Shivamani is felt but contained, like in Roja jaaneman, though the roaring success of a lot of songs including Azeem-o-shan-shahenshah and Chaiyya chaiyya, is precisely because of the domination and flawless delivery of drums.

Put your agreements and disagreements, your choices that were left out, and my choices that look like eccentricities.... May be we should have a commenters' (or dissenters' ??) Top 10....

The Life Carnival

It's not often that you get to meet and greet someone on his 100th Birthday. So when the opportunity came by recently, I gladly did. We were going for a walk, when one of my friends said, "Hey, it is Sri.Gopal Rao garu's 100th birthday, shall we drop in to greet him ?". I hadn't interacted with the person before, though I roughly knew he had been the Chairman of Andhra Bank many decades ago and was now approaching 100. Nevertheless, I thought let's just drop in to have a quick word. Or, to put it formally, to seek his blessings and mention our prayers to the Lord for his good health and long(er) life.

Two things I liked about him: his liveliness and his sense of humour. He didn't know who I am, so he asked, "where do you work ?", and when I mentioned, he quickly recollected a couple of related incidents. "An old man like me lives by his memories, and fortunately in my case, they are all sweet memories", he said. He had a free-flowing chatty style and always had a quip, a remark or a slight touch of sarcasm that brought a giggle in you every once in a while. He had problems of the body but he wasn't sulking about them. "I sometimes recollect my memories aloud in the night", he said, "but then I realize that there is someone sleeping in the next room, then I become quiet. Poor fellow, his sleep must be getting disturbed". It seemed to me that he had learnt to live with the body's problems, put the mind in charge and also to divert his attention to other lively things like interacting with people, listening to the radio and so on. The experience and wisdom of 100 years is definitely something to celebrate. There was a felicitation function and he gave a talk the next day and his sharp wit created waves of laughter in the audience. Wow, what humour at this age man, was the talk of the town.

It set me thinking on aging. I think, after an age, lively old people become more like kids. Both like storytelling. Both feel good when someone talks to them and feel terribly bored if there is no one to talk to. Both don't want to stay in one place, if they are able enough to move around. Both are attached to their toys, albeit different ones. Both hum to themselves when they are alone. Both speak the truth, the kids until the world corrupts them and the elderly since they have seen it all, the futility of falsehood. Both remember the gifts they have received from others almost with date and time.

Ironically, the same instructions and caring advice that a parent gives to his kid, returns to him/her in his old age in a slightly different flavour. Some of these instructions, you can slightly flip and see that it can apply both in a father-young-kid conversation and in a son-old-father conversation.

1. Look at either side of the road before you cross. Be careful not to bump into old people / Be careful kids don't bump into you.
2. Don't move around too much and tire yourself.
3. Not too many chocolates, not too many ice creams. Eat healthy.
4. If you are not well, don't hesitate, let me know early so we could take early action.
5. Follow doctor's instructions verbatim.
6. Go for walks in the morning/evening (Don't miss your games).
7. Plan your travel well in advance.
8. Don't try to lift weights that are heavier than you can, you are going to hurt your back.
9. Don't read in poor light, it harms your eyes.
10. Wear your sweater and monkey cap when you go out in the winter.
11. Don't climb the stairs too fast, you might slip and fall.
12. And remember, I am telling all this for your own good.

The other day, someone asked me to frame a greeting message, for writing on a greeting card to give to his uncle and aunt on their 50th wedding anniversary. I knew nothing about how one might feel on such an occasion, but I tried to write up something in general about Life as a celebration. Because it takes a lot to hit a century or to partner for a 50 each together. These folks acquire a kind of learning from life that can be acquired only by living life. Having seen so many ups and downs, they acquire a certain balanced, yet positive, approach to life that is tinted with the equanimity that rests in the understanding of "even this will pass away". They raise above petty fights, jealousy and hatred that people engage in, in their middle years. Which is why, the ripening of the fruit should as much be a cause for celebration as is the blooming of a flower or the germination of the seed.

Defragmenting the Mind

Ever wondered what regular clean-up and maintenance activities are required to keep up this big, complex, mulithreaded, multitasking, operating system called the Mind ? If your mind is like a strong, stable and secure OS like Linux, then probably you would need to do very little to maintain it or you might already be doing it by design. But if yours is an old, average commonplace mind like Windows 2000 Professional, then, after a while of using your mind for all kinds of activities, you might actually find, things have become slower from that first day when you had this freshly installed OS. You have been installing and uninstalling all kinds of software left, right and center. You never knew that there are these hundreds of little files with extension .tmp. You have been browsing the Net, with cookies planted three years ago still crawling in some deep non-descript local settings folder, like cockroaches in your kitchen proliferating until the Annual Cleaning Mela. If you have been acting really irresponsible, not updating your antivirus software and clicking on any link anyone presents to you, opening attachments indiscriminately and enjoying a false pride of administrative access while doing these things, then even the Cleaning Mela might not be of much help. You might be better off with an overhaul of your operating system.

Our minds too have these issues. We interact with all kinds of people everyday and sometimes, invite good and bad events and sometimes are bombarded with them. Sometimes a situation presents itself from which we can actually walk if we act like a responsible administrator, but we still don't. We know the thought cookies which others plant in us can be both good and bad, sometimes they enhance our experience by being there, and sometimes they proliferate even after their due validity. We should be knowing that we should give temporary phases in life, like temporary files, their limited value and delete them regularly, if our minds should start nifty and fast. We know opening untrusted attachments in life can have malignant effects on our mind and even worse, when someone is going to exe-cute something on us without our conscious knowledge. We seem to be enjoying administrative access but we have actually given it to away to the other person who tries to use that very pride of ours to piggyback on us and crash our mind. Keeping your mind's health often involves updating your definitions of defence against evil, regularly, so that the bad ones are knocked off by a real time protection scan even as they try to enter us.. Some thoughts are like worms, they self-replicate themselves at a furious pace and consume all your bandwidth. Some thoughts are like trojans that mask their sinister motive, look like performing one action while performing right the contrary. Some thoughts are like viruses causing visible damage to your mind and might even require an exclusive removal tool session to restore order. Even then normalcy cannot be fully restored. We run around like cats and rats from pillar to post, that even by plain regular usage of all kinds of compartments, the average commonplace mind that it is, it gets fragmented with thought pieces not lying in contiguous stretches. You wonder often why your mind sometimes is just lazing out, sometimes is so busy doing "its own" work and not your work, then you know that some unhealthy background processes are taking all the energy. You have just been on auto-pilot for a while and dozed away in a state of suspended animation causing the much-dreaded blue screen.

To keep this complex operating system nimble, use a tool regularly like Meditation or Social Work or Music or whichever tool that suits your regular maintenance schedule. Just as you might use Ccleaner to clean your computer or Lizol to clean your kitchen tiles and Mortein to kill those domestic nocturnal pests. Defragment your mind. Remove temporary baggage that has been accumulated out of age-old bitterness. Attach yourself only to trustworthy friends. Give thought cookies which others plant in you their due validity only as long as they enhance your experience of interacting with them. And most important, remember, there is nothing greater than keeping yourself alert for a real-time protection scan of your thoughts, when they are just about to enter you. For this, connect online to God from time to time and download your defences against unhealthy entrants. Be a responsible administrator of your mind. If you can't do all this (or if you can be diligent enough to do all of this), overhaul your mind and develop a strong, secure, stable mind.

Welcome to Andhra Pradesh

You have just seen this milestone go by, welcoming you into the State of Andhra Pradesh. Suswagatam. There are a few interesting things that happen when you move from one language zone to another in India. If you know a bit of semi-common languages like English or Hindi, and if the locals also know it, life is plain. But it’s more interesting to watch people interact when it’s not the case. If you are the type not to be inhibited by language barriers, you would freely roll out in your mother tongue, implicitly believing in national integration and assuming that the party in conversation will perfectly understand, not just the essence, but even the minute details of what your are saying. And if the local is also a similarly enthusiastic conversationist, you lose track of time irrespective of the fact that you are in a different land. Except that you should take care not to use a few select word-warps, words that are found in both languages, but have A meaning in one and B meaning in another. Particularly, if you have moved in from Tamil Nadu to Andhra Pradesh. Here are a few pointers.

1. Let’s start with a simple one. Nalla means Good in Tamil and Black in Telugu. So you can praise the goodness in a person by calling him Nallavan, make sure there is no problem of discrimination by color.

2. Asuya is used in the context of ‘disgust’ in Tamil, and I think, in Telugu, it means jealousy. An unclean toilet, for example, is disgusting and definitely not the neighbour’s envy.

3. Two phrases you are bound to come across quite commonly : Avasaram Ledhu and Akkara Ledhu. Usually, Akkara Ledhu is pronounced shortly as Akkarla. Avasaram Ledhu in Telugu means Not Necessary, where as Avasaram in Tamil means you are in a real hurry. In telugu too, I think it can mean hurry, but more often used in the context of necessity or occasion.

Akkarai in Tamil means Care and Attention. You might courteously ask someone “Innum konjam sambar venuma ?” (Would you like one more helping of sambar ?) and if he says Akkarledhu, don’t get worried he is accusing you of carelessness in your hospitality. It just means, wonderful that the sambar was, he has had enough (of the sambar). And in case he indeed wants to have more and replies in the affirmative, saying “kavali”, wait a moment, he is not referring to you as a street rowdy.

4. I had an experience with this one in my early days. I was fixing the printer in a hurry, and an elderly colleague asked me, “Ippudu Adavadi yenthuku ?”. What arrogance did I display here, I wondered. In fact, he was the one being arrogant accusing me of arrogance when I was quickly and quietly doing my work. But I just looked up and saw that there was a harmless factual inquiry look on his face, so I knew there is a goofup somewhere. It turned out that while adavadi means arrogance in Tamil, it means hurry in Telugu. So if someone cautions you “Adavadi voddhu”, he is warning you about your pace not about your politeness.

5. This one is a tricky swap. In telugu, Adavaallu means Women and Mogavallu means Men. In Tamil, Aadavar means Men and Magalir means Women. In the beginning, when you hear the phrase referring to Men and Women, you would naively think it should somehow mean the same in both languages. So if you are organizing a distribution and wish to say “Women on the Left Side, Men on the right side”, make sure your audience understands it in the same orientation. Or change the direction of distribution. The colloquial usage in Tamil is actually Aambalai (Man) and Pombalai (Woman), Aadavar and Magalir is bit of a pure usage, found in Pallavan bus seating instructions. But when you suddenly hear the phrase Adavallu and Mogavallu you are bound to be confused for a moment about which is which. So better remember one of them clearly and “derive” the other . Like I did while writing this paragraph.

6. You might invite a mischievous giggle when you say where you hail from. Careful, it might even become your nick name for life. Kumbakonam, the Temple Town in Tamil Nadu, is famous for the Mahamaham festival celebrated every 12 years, but the word, in Telugu means, scam or corruption.

There are some words in Telugu, which have their origins in pure tamil, I mean, Tamil of real good olden days, so much so that they are not even in daily use in Tamil nowadays and found only in literature, but are of daily use in Telugu. Gnamali (or nemali), referring to peacock, is one. That’s another thread.

It will also be interesting to know what are the phrases to be careful about when someone is moving from Andhra Pradesh into Tamil Nadu. Btw, It turns out, word-warps between English and French can be even more funny.

Seeking the Source

I have a fascination for rivers. One reason is my early impressions of Cauvery in full flow at Srirangam in my childhood days. Nowadays, it's more often dry due to "known issues" but the images of the river in all its majesty have stayed. Okay, if you want, etched in my memory. It used to be mentioned in our textbooks that while in some places it can get as narrow as "aadu thaandum kaviri" (so narrow as a goat can cross it in a jump) , it also becomes "Akanda Kaveri" (so vast that you see water till where your eyes can reach). Krishna @ Kanakadurgam is very good, it's tough to be in flow all year round in the south and it's Andhra Pradesh's good fortune that it is blessed with two of them, Krishna and Godavari.

Best so far and almost matchless are Ganges and the other further north rivers that drive in to the Ganga. Mandakini @ Kedar, tops them all. Heard Brahmaputra is among the most ferocious rivers and makes it extremely tough for river-rafting. Our raft coach, whom i believe has rafted in 11 countries, rated Brahmaputra as the toughest and the most exciting raft destination. A friend who visited Beas @ Kulu, Himachal Pradesh was full of praise for it.

Two rivers I want to visit some day : Godavari and Narmada. Godavari for comparing it with Krishna, particularly, Godavari @ Bhadrachalam. Seems there is a two-day trip on boat that ends at Bhadrachalam. Narmada, for the fanciful images I have about its grandeur and also about its enormity as discussed by the NBA. Walking all the way from Kerala, Adi Shankara is said to have met his guru Gowdapada on the banks of the River Narmada. Why mention this here, well, he is one of my icons, so I have to bring in my icons and all their fascinations into my posts. Someday, I should post nice pictures from our Chardham trip, taking the blog to the next level, photo blogging. Even as I write, Ramnath has already beat me to it by posting pictures of the Bhagirathi Mountain, hopefully I will supplement that by posting pictures of the Bhagirathi River.

Chitravathi is rarely in good flow, but when it recently indeed was, we all made a beeline to the river especially to watch it flow. There was even some news/rumour that some bund/dam upstream was broken due to heavy rains and chitravathi would flood, that was not to be. Or as in local slang, antha scenu ledhu. But it was in pretty good flow. And that was good scenery. A friend of friend of somebody offered Chilli Bajjis, it aptly fitted the occasion, so we put a heheheh face and gladly accepted, munched and shot off and dedicated that day's group discussion entirely to the Chitravathi river, its origin, its problems, it's floods in the earlier years and to the responsible policemen who were warning the folks not to venture into the river. Now there is a also a nice road that runs parallel to the river, so makes it a very good stretch for walkers, thinkers, poets and meditators (as long as you are not on the road). And hey yes, more recently, for bloggers too. One of my friends mentioned it's particularly wonderful on cool early mornings. Hmm.. to confirm that personally, I will have to change my schedule and check out some day.

As kids, we were trained to chant a sloka when we are just about to finish our bath, invoking the sacred rivers. My sanskrit is poor and even worse when I put it in English, but here it is:

Gangecha Yamunechaiva Godavari Saraswathi
Narmadey Sindhu Kaveri Jalesmin Sannidhim Kuru

(The meaning is here. )

I think rivers have something ethereal about them. For one, they have a calming effect on your mind. After a brief calm, they can ignite your imagination. They make you reflect on your imaginations and prod you to seek their source, i mean the river's source, and when you reach their source, they inspire you to find the source of your imaginations. And once you are done, they make you blog about what they have done to you.