The air cools rapidly, and the light dims as boiling, heavy clouds boil over the landscape. The breeze builds rapidly into a wind, whipping up the summer dust, lashing the palm fronds into a frenzy. The first huge drops splash upon the parched ground ( Read more... )

The music, the instruments, the lyrics, the lovely voice of Sujatha Mohan, the beauty of Revathi and the scenes she is in...everything comes together in this song. I often think of the late 50's and 60's as the heyday of Tamil film music, but songs like this are jewels!

I wonder what happened to this talented singer? I googled for her name, and

( Read more... )

Movie stars...are often known for their beauty, and less often, for their histrionic talent.

Suchitra Sen had a combination of both...in the Bengali film world, she was called "mahAnAyikA" or "the great heroine" (a politically incorrect word today, but it's more precise.) Her foray into the Hindi film world was not as successful...but she acted ( Read more... )

A ghazal is, technically, Urdu poetry. But Hindi is very close to Urdu, and some of the most beautiful ghazals are from Hindi movies ( Read more... )

When I was about to go to my tent at JLR Bannerghatta, I looked up at the full moon, serenely riding the night skies.

And the next night, when I looked out of my balcony, the moon was rising, still looking full:


( Read more... )

Here's a video of a lovely song, from the movie

Server Sundaram

a melodramatic tear-jerker from 1964.

Click to view

It shows the prolific and prodigiously talented music director,

M S Viswanathan (click on the wiki link to see what kind of adversity he has battled in life...it's amazing ( Read more... )

I watched two almost identical retrospectives on

Asha Bhonsle one, Rangoli, that airs at 8am on Sundays, and the other, Flashback on NDTV ( Read more... )

When I listen to Indian singing, the thing that really grabs my attention is the importance given to the height of the pitch for women singers. Whether it is film music or classical, the higher the pitch, the better the woman's voice is supposed to be. I cannot understand this. In old movies, we even had MEN singers singing at 5 kattai (G) and ( Read more... )