Make for India

When was the last time an Indian product truly wowed you?
When a product was crafted so beautifully and was so uniquely Indian that it taught you something new about the heritage of the people who created it...
When you were so enamoured by the product that you didn't really care what the price tag was, and all you wanted to do was procure it...

It is not that such products do not exist. We have all seen these products. In temple streets lined with overstocked shops, along highways near level crossings, at airports, at railway stations, and at the gazillion bazaars that 90% of India shops in. We just do not know these products - there's no popular brand associated with them. There's no colorful packaging that differentiates the product from a million other less distinguished sellers of the same product. This causes a grave unintended consequence which will prevent the product from ever generating large scale economic value - a lack of sophistication! 

Sophistication in a product comes from several different means - but the ultimate goal is always the same: improving customer satisfaction. It may come from a choice of better materials, it may have longevity arising from a simpler process of production and fewer constituents, it may offer a myriad of customizations, it may come from better insight into customer preferences or it may feature the best consumer preference: low cost. All of these improve the product by a notch and give the producer a measure of protection against competition, and drive innovation. A lack of sophistication makes the product replaceable by a better version. And in a globalized world, the better version is normally a cheaper version, mass produced in a factory in China, and sold by a "brand" that has spent some time applying the above mentioned sophistications.

With the advent of GST in 2017, India has the World's largest open market, and the largest population of consumers under the age of 35 in the World. No other market has a larger sample set of consumer preferences available to analyze and tune products to. And even in an era where e-commerce rises to new heights every day, a vast majority of purchases happen offline. This gives entrepreneurs at every level of the value and supply chain to understand and analyze customer preferences, build a better brand and improve their reach to a wider market. A few iterations of this Measure-Analyze-Improve-Scale routine can succeed in creating a sophisticated, well recognized product with wide ranging economic impact that generates wealth and creates jobs. All it takes is focusing on the customer the product is being created for. 

It turns out, the best answer to the trillion dollar Make in India question, is Make for India.

Falling in Love with America's Best Idea!

The image of Yellowstone forever stuck in my head came from a Bing Wallpaper years ago. 

Years ago, logging on to Windows, Bing picked out a lock screen wallpaper that I have not forgotten. It showed a bright blue pool of water surrounded by the colors of the rainbow with fire blowing around the edges. It looked out of this World, and the image stuck in my head and carved out its own little corner in my hippocampus. Further investigation revealed this spectacular feature to be the Grand Prismatic Spring, arguably Yellowstone's most unique and celebrated feature, and that day about 8 years ago was when I subconsciously started planning America's favorite Summer Vacation. 

Our travels through the other jewels in the National Parks System had only elevated the sense of anticipation we felt for this trip that was yet destined for some time in the future. The opportunity arrived in 2019, when we finally decided that our Memorial Day would be spent in Wyoming. For years, I had dreamt of the Grand Prismatic Spring, wowed at the towering Teton peaks in photography exhibitions, and been amazed by the Serengeti of America in the Lamar Valley. This was our chance to be there and see for ourselves if these images in my mind were a product of the Great American Marketing machinery or if there was substance to it.

If you have only one shot at viewing the Tetons, and want the best picture out of the trip, head to Schwabacher Landing early in the Morning. 

P.S: Remember to go low when you get the picture. Very Low. Lower. 

Memorial Day is a great time of the year. It's late May and the fickle minded nature of the weather makes way for a more consistent Sunny experience, with the occasional rain shower keeping things fresh and interesting. Our previous Memorial Day sojourns had taken us to the Badlands & Custer in South Dakota, and we wanted to take our Wild West experience a notch higher with the trip to Wyoming. Up in the mountains, May always carries the risk of a late season blizzard, but it had the benefit of thin crowds that only start to pick up when Summer kicks in, and more importantly, increased observable wildlife activity from animals emerging from Hibernation, descending upon the Great Plains, foraging while the day temperatures are still relatively cool. 

While in Yellowstone-Grand Teton, chances are you will be in Bear Jams, and chances are that some of the bears you see will be young. Young bears are still fairly large like we found out when we encountered this family near the Pilgrim Creek region in Grand Teton.  It is fascinating to learn that a lot of the bear moms like hanging out near the roads because that keeps them safe from Eternally Hangry Grizzly Dads who like killing cubs that ain't theirs. Something to do with establishing genetic supremacy. Getting rid of the grizzly obsession is crucial to enjoying the Park. We got over ours after the 15th bear in the first four days of trip, and once we got that out of the way, the natural beauty of the park was even more stunning! Before the trip, we really would've liked to see bears. By the end of the trip, we had seen so many (both black, and grizzly) that our focus shifted towards their more elusive competitors at the top of the food chain: The Gray Wolves. We didn't see any wolves on our trip. Guess we need to head back soon.... 

For months, we pondered and debated every last detail of the trip - where we would stay, how many days we would spend at each part of the park. You see, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is huge - large enough to be a State by itself. And as experienced roadtrippers, we knew only too well not to get caught in the trap of having one home base throughout our trip and drive around to the destinations - that simply doesn't work. Instead, we decided to break our 10 day trip into 3 days at Jackson Hole near the Tetons, which was the far south portion of our itinerary, 3 days in Cooke City, the eastern most part of Yellowstone and the Gateway to the Lamar Valley wildlife experience, and 3 more days in the central"8" Loop of the park, so we could easily access the Thermal features, and make multiple trips to the Grand Prismatic Spring. At the time we planned it, we did not know the park and driving distances too well, but in hindsight, our stay locations gave us the best shot at taking in all of Yellowstone-Grand Teton on a slow and relaxed schedule. 

Hot water sculpting layer upon layer of limestone with its own acidic carbonic acid solution is a spectacle worth seeing at the Mammoth Hot Springs area - as a side bonus, you are guaranteed the observation of elk at close quarters, present in large numbers in the parking lots and around the village. Even when they don't really care about you, you are obliged to move 6 feet or further away from them. They are biig, and can do significant damage without much effort. 

Our typical day on the trip went something like this. We woke up for the Sunrise, every single day and stayed up for Sunset. The dawn and dusk are when a lot of excitement happened in the park. The Golden hours of Sunlight made for great pictures, and wildlife was up and about. Around the time of our trip in May, the Sun typically rose at about 6 AM and set at about 9.15 PM. So maximizing our daylight hours meant we went to bed a little after 10 and woke up at 5 every morning. We caught up with sleep in peak Sun hours - about midday, after we had scraped bits and pieces for lunch.

As it turned out, there were more things to learn about the Grand Prismatic Spring before we could cross it off our bucket lists. In early spring,when the air temperature is still fairly cool, and the surface temperature of the hot water spring is significantly higher, a steady stream of condensation blows over the spring, making it hard to visualize the colors in all their glory for more than a couple seconds now and then. Oh, and you realize you can never personally view the spring from right up above as seen in the Bing Wallpaper....duh! Not unless you are in a helicopter that stays low while you admire the beauty. 

Lunch and Dinner were arguably our most difficult planning assignment. Food for grass eaters such as ourselves is hard enough in any non-urban American setting. Add to that the vastness, and remoteness of traveling through Yellowstone, and the problem compounds. On our very first day in the park, we realized, we wouldn't necessarily be able to drive to a restaurant or concession stand precisely when we wanted food - we went hungry for lunch that day. We would have to plan our meals in advance, and stock up on food whenever we found some, even if we didn't really need it at the time. This change in strategy meant, each time we were able to find a restaurant and fresh food, we would buy two more of whatever we ate to-go, so that we wouldn't go hungry if we found a grizzly or a wolf pack on our drive back on Lamar Valley. And trust me, that happened several times. 

The Pros of traveling to Yellowstone in early-Spring - Exhibit A. Spring is shorthand for Baby Animal Season. This moose calf was likely days old when a traffic jam spotted it, and this was one among several young animals we encountered on the trip. Cons: Remember, baby elk and moose are staple diet for Grizzly families (who also tend to have really young babies this time of the year), and you cannot wish away everything you are about to see in the Wild. Not the kind of stuff you want to remember from vacations!

Weather is the other element you've to be watchful of. Days before the trip, the forecast looked really discouraging with every day in the week we were going to spend at the park showing either rain or snow. The Park Cams on the NPS website that relay real time park conditions and traffic was almost always showing dense fog or wet roads. I even went as far as buying rain protective covers for my telephoto lens preparing to always be shooting in rain. Fortunately, the reality of the situation was not as bad. There were a couple days passing through the mountains when the snow did give us some anxious moments (there's not much shoulder on the roads on the Mt.Washburn pass). We could never make it down the spectacular Beartooth Highway due to heavy snow and landslide in that area. But for the most part, we could stay informed on the weather and prepared accordingly, and managed our expectations. We did enjoy bright blue skies, and sunny days during most of our trips. Clouds during Sunrise and Sunset actually helped the landscape look more dramatic! 

 

Yellowstone is popular as America's first National Park. It's goal is to preserve the wilderness that once spanned the entire North American continent before the colonization and industrialization of the 19th & 20th centuries. Once away from the roads, on hikes at least a few miles away from the road, the feeling of isolation and having the whole World to yourself is real. It is not hard to find yourself the canopy of a large tree and a lush green meadow to lay upon for a little siesta, with scarcely other people to disturb you. Although, in that scenario, it would be wise to have your wife awake and on the lookout for any curious bears because they like the same exact thing.  

America is proud of Yellowstone - it is often called "America's Best Idea" - and the ideas of preservation started at Yellowstone have been emulated through the rest of America, and the rest of the World. And yet, the scale of Yellowstone - the area of land owned and developed with road networks and infrastructure - is virtually unparalled. But the cost of creating this park was significant too. It is easy to forget the decades of Armed conflicts in the Yellowstone region, and the forcible eviction of the Native American tribes who called the vicinities of the Park home, and tied spiritual significance to the thermal features of the parks. A visitor to Yellowstone today does not encounter relics from the grim past when millions of bison were slaughtered for a multitude of reasons ranging from creating more grazing lands for cattle, to beating boredom on long train journeys on the Pacific Railroad. There is no other way of looking at it - Yellowstone was built on blood and tears. 

The story of the park is captured in great detail in the book "Empire of Shadows" by George Black. Page after page, the book sums up the price nature and humanity paid so that two hundred years later, the people of the World could appreciate what nature was before the destructive forces of the Industrial Revolution. 

When you are done enjoying the treasures Yellowstone has to offer, try to read more about the price Native Americans and Nature had to pay so we could appreciate the Wilderness centuries later. 

When we were planning our trip to Yellowstone, the years of pent-up excitement and anticipation often made us wonder if we had maybe built it up too much in our heads - surely, there was no way it could be as good as we were expecting it to be, and that we would likely be underwhelmed when we finally got there. We were pretty sure we would come back with pictures and memories, but that we would move on to our next trip and forget everything about this place when something cooler came along, like every other State and National Park we had been to.  

It wasn't. 

We knew exactly what we were going to be seeing, and we were still awed at everything we experienced during our 10 days in the area. After our trip to Yellowstone is when we started questioning our goal of giving every US State a chance, and getting to all 50 of them before we started to pick favorites. Yellowstone spoiled us, and has made it an involuntary compulsion for us to keep returning there for every vacation for the rest of our lives.

 And I don't blame us. We are humans after all. When you can fall so much in love with something so familiar and accessible, and still gain a generous measure of excitement from it, why then would you ever go looking for anything new? 

When the Stars Align.

Kaansen Khronicles #5: Revisiting songs from years past, that have been lost in the chaos of the social media-era content explosion! 

In the fall of 2004, the collective attention of every music channel or TV show covering Bollywood was focused on a Shah Rukh Khan movie that was a huuuuge hit even before it was released. Veer-Zaara was the mother of all love stories, a story that brought India and Pakistan together, made by Bollywood's Royalty, Yash Chopra. To add another feather to its cap, music for the film came from old unused compositions by Madan Mohan, a storied music producer from the 1950's - 60's. Every music store you walked into had Veer Zara songs playing and the cassette's and CD's were flying off the shelves.

But even with all the uniqueness and speciality of Veer-Zaara notwithstanding, the most remarkable album of 2004 came with a completely different SRK movie, the buzz around which started out with an obscure music video featuring SRK and a disheveled fakir driving through the arid central-Indian countryside in a camper. It would've been hard to say at the time, but in a span of a few years Swades became one of A.R.Rahman's most iconic albums of all time, a full suite of musical genius unleashed all at once. 

Several songs from the movie are all time Rahman fan favorites, with the aforementioned Yun Hi Chala occupying a permanent place on all roadtrip playlists, and Yeh Jo Des assuming the role of spiritual successor to Vande Mataram. Between the two of them, the Swades experience is summed up as traveling through life and country, learning to accept and love your life and country for what it is. 

And yet, there is another song in the movie, one that is not as appreciated as the above two gems, that captures the essence of what Swades stood for in that moment in our history, and helped it become one of the greatest cult classics of my generation. Sung by Udit Narayan, and written by Javed Akhtar, the song talks about stars, and the place Indians can occupy among them. It is called Yeh Taara, Woh Taara.

The song came at a time when it was still acceptable to have songs with 3 Charanams. It came at a time when songs could be 7.30 minutes long and people still enjoyed listening to the song unfold at its own pace. It came at a time when there were Directors still crazy enough to take a 7.30 minute song and use it without cuts in the movie - granted, the audiences punished the Director, Ashutosh Gowariker dearly with the utter failure of this 3.5 hour long movie at the Box Office. 

Time and again, we've spoken about the importance of context to a great Indian movie song. We've talked about how much a song is elevated when it is subservient to the story it is trying to tell. When the role of the song is not to promote the movie, but to help the movie accentuate its premise. When the intent with releasing a song early in promotions is not to have a catchy tune with fast beats stuck in the minds of the listener, but instead portray a character that you are interested in learning more about. 

To that end, the premise of Yeh Taara jumps out in the first 30 seconds - the protagonist, who happens to be a NASA Scientist, is trying to demonstrate to a village the  joy of being together, all divisions removed. He shows people stars - this star, that star and every star - and tells them about how the stars put up a show when they light up the sky in constellations - all together. 

The music of this song, in keeping with the theme is plain, non-distracting and very simple. Udit Narayan's voice carries the song, other than the interludes when the symphony, and then the flute help maintain a somber mood.  In successive Charanams the metaphors extend to the colors of a rainbow, and drops of an ocean as well, before eventually landing on his point in the ultimate uptempo charanam - the fact that every member of the society has their role to play that they excel at, and the true victory for society is when they all work together! Rahman even brings in a couple of really young singers to lift the energy of the song, and succeeds in giving it an authentic feel by letting the kids sing like any normal kid would at a large gathering - with gusto and enthusiasm trumping the studio recording perfection. Small touches like this emphasise the meaning of the song, and its significance in the movie.

True to the character of the song, everything about this song lines up perfectly - the lyrics, the voice, the music and the visuals are all dedicated 100% to extending the story. In that regard, the song in itself is a metaphor for the message it delivers - each artist in the song, from SRK to Javed Akhtar, from Rahman to Gowariker, and the myriad of support artists, bring their speciality to elevate the effect of the song, like the stars he talks about.

A quick check on YouTube reveals that Yeh Jo Des is 3x, and Yun Hi Chala is a staggering 5x more popular than Yeh Taara, The lag can be explained with the usual reasons - Yeh Taara is slow, doesn't possess the universality of the other two songs, and is the longest of the three. Much the same could be said about Swades the movie - slow, not universally relatable, and fairly long. But Swades was a milestone in thought in our society - it presented a blueprint for a growing educated middle class that worked outside the country and showed them a path that may draw them back to their roots. And Yeh Taara is the only song that captures that essence of the movie - it captures the tension of a person who belongs, but is an outsider, the dilemma between letting things be and doing the right thing, the opposing forces of realism and idealism - and the result is a song, that while underappreciated, will be cherished as a representation of what was one of the most iconic films made in India! 

In (Premature) Defense of 2.0 & Every New Movie Ever Going to be Made

It is my humble opinion that great movies serve one purpose - they make it a memorable experience for viewers. And they make it memorable by wowing audiences visually, cognitively or emotionally or a combination thereof. Few movies transcend all three experiences in the exact right proportion. Movies that fall do this are defined as Awesome Movies.

As an example, Enthiran, released in 2010, was an awesome movie.It had a humanoid robot (cognitively appealing), built from scratch with sheet metal and PCBs (more cognitively appealing),with Aishwarya Rai (visually appealing), a robot that falls in love with her (emotionally appealing), and tons of Rajinikanth (cognitive, visual and emotional phenom).

But alas, there is such a thing as "too much" of any one of these experiences.If there is too much visual action, or emotional drama or cognitive masala, the Awesome movie fizzles out. And that has been known to happen before as well. A lot.

In the coming days, 2.0 hits the screens. There will be moments before, during, and after the movie, where you will question everything you know about your appreciation of a fine cinematic experience, and start to believe that the movie is bad.

You will hate Akshay Kumar as the Bird in the sky, and every time you look at his face you will be reminded of the insane amount of CGI and Artificiality and Non Realistic Fantasy the director has put in the movie.

If you are a Rajini fan, you will think the movie didn't have enough Rajini in it. It will descend into a debate about whether or not Rajini should enter politics.

If you are a Shankar fan, you will think the movie was too much about Rajini. It will descend into a debate about whether or not Rajini should enter politics.

If you are a Rahman fan, you will question if his days of good music are gone forever and if you should officially start a Santhosh Narayanan Thalaivaaaaaa (with 4 extra a's) Page on Facebook.

If you are an Amy Jackson fan..... well, dont bother, you are not real. Wake up. (Incidentally she's not real in the movie either, playing a role written specifically for her - a robot!)

You may be a progressive thinking liberal, and you will want to burn the theater down for a couple of the bad jokes Shankar tried to insert to please front benchers. It will descend into a debate about India's culture and Sabarimala.

You may be financially conscious and the vulgar $450 Cr number will boggle your mind into saying crazy stuff like "So much Poverty we could've removed if we spent money on buying clothes for poor". It will descend into a fight about whether BJP should be building statues.

There are possibly thousand different reasons you have been waiting for this movie to come out. And  as soon as the initial rush of being in the theater, watching this movie leaves you, you will find that the movie doesn't live up to the extraordinary expectations you had for it, because one aspect of the movie ruined it for you.

In the midst of all this, you will read a 100 reviews trashing the movie, 500 status updates and check-in's with movie ticket pictures, Youtube videos with poor imitations of the Superstar, a few crazy clips of the people involved in the movie getting angry, and at least 5 High Court cases for banning the movie for either "hurting sentiments" or "copyright infringement".

And all this will spoil the movie for you, and you will start to question "everything you know about your appreciation of a fine cinematic experience, and start to believe that the movie is bad."

It is important you resist that feeling.

You see, regardless of how good a movie 2.0 actually is, this is an extremely important movie for audiences in India to watch. Because this movie in some ways, will decide what movies we will watch for the next 10 years.

Few film-makers break out of the safety net (and only they can afford to) make movies that expand the boundaries of the cinemas we watch. And these pioneering filmmakers giving new technologies, new styles and new techniques a platform in their movies is what makes the Indian film industry gain new capabilities to tell new and bigger stories.

When Shankar used 65 cameras in one action scene in Anniyan, it was unheard of. Today it is common place enough that simple duet songs use it.

When Rajamouli made Magadheera, he really built the tools to be able to make Baahubali in the years down the road.

When Bollywood made 10 different boxing movies, it was slowly building the fanbase and interest, and the template to succeed at making one Dangal.

In an absolute disappointment of a movie called Kochadaiiyan, an established sequence of operations was established to produce a motion capture movie in India, and that's what is making 2.0 possible.

Bad Ambitious Movies always beget Great Ambitious Movies!!

The possibility that making 2.0 today may make an Amar Chitra Katha Superhero Movie possible, or a Mars mission movie a la Tik Tik or Martian possible.

But what about being objective, and critiquing the nuances of filmmaking as an appreciation of art and a reflection of our society and popular culture? I say - Valid point! But hear me out.... Now, I know very little about how the Universe operates, and my worldview is restricted to my Facebook and Twitter feed. But if the reviewers on my feed are anything to go by, nuance and subtle references are severely underrepresented features of their assessment of movies, and in all fairness, the First Law of Social Media Engagement states that the more nuanced view someone takes, the lesser likes/retweets/engagement it gets - which defeats the whole purpose of posting opinions onto social media in the first place. So reviewers, by natural laws of Social Media Survival of the Fittest gravitate towards populist 1-liners which reduces movies to caricatures of themselves. 

So regardless of why you hated 2.0 or any other movie that will be released in future, please remember to thank the people who stared at the task, knew and understood how impossible it was to make the movie they wanted, and went ahead did it anyway, because at the end of the day, this movie is not about this one movie alone, it is about the kind of movies we will see in decades to come in Indian Cinema!

Update: I watched 2.0 in Rochester Hills, MI (on the day of release, there were at least 20 shows in Tamil, in addition to about 10 more shows in Hindi/Telugu in the Detroit area - in total Maayajaal style - unheard of for an Indian movie, even Baahubali), and absolutely loved the movie! It was everything I hoped for, and more. 2.0 the Rajini character in the second half of the movie is Black Sheep Chitti on steroids, and I absolutely loved it! And what a great job tying everything back to the environment and how we are destroying it with cell phone towers - I get it, it was a little preachy, and felt like a kid's movie at times, but the lighthearted nature of the movie was a big part in why it was enjoyable! And as predicted, social media is full of disappointed moviegoers - there's just no pleasing some people I tell you.

An Ode to Divine Love.

Kaansen Khronicles #4: Revisiting songs from years past, that have been lost in the chaos of the social media-era content explosion! 

Every Rahman album has a hidden gem - a song that never gets its due when the album first comes out, lost in the glory of other more populist, more instant hits, but one that stands the test of time, shining years, sometimes decades after it comes out, long after the hype around the chartbusters dies down. No song captures this phenomenon better than Ay Hairathe from the 2007 Mani Ratnam classic, Guru. 

One cannot solely blame the listener for not catching on to this song soon enough. Three songs deservedly received the headlines coverage when the soundtrack of Guru was launched. A-side opened with Shreya Ghoshal breaking out of her melody-queen mold, to sing a fast paced village belle rain dance sequence in Barso Re, and Rahman himself took all the attention in a couple songs he sang - Tere Bina, with Chinmayee, and Jaage Hain, a slow, but lifting anthem with characteristic high tones that have become signature of his singing style in more recent times. Mani Ratnam played a role too - Ay Hairathe was hardly in the film (I believe it played in pieces in the background for less than 2 minutes), even as the abhorrent Ek Lo Ek Muft was featured in a full five-minute segment. Even Mayya Mayya, with its Hamma Hamma vibes garnered more attention. And yet, the song from this album that will ultimately make it to the ARR Hall of Fame has to be Ay Hairathe, for several reasons.

First, for years, Rahman had built his reputation around bringing a diverse assortment of music from cultures around the World together, and making them fit beautifully - with each other, and with the surrounding context of the movie. In this game of intricately assembling music with as many foreign elements as possible and yet not feeling out of place, there has been no better exhibit than Ay Hairathe. 

Take a second to think about it: the song starts off with a slow rhythm on the accordion, quickly complemented by the Tabla, and Rahman's sufi-esque crooning, before it breaks into a melodious Ghazal by Hariharan that would do the Ustads of yesteryears proud. The shocking part is all of this happens in the first minute of the song!! It doesn't end there. The ghazal soon gives way to a very different scene - an interlude that sounds like a 19th Century Scottish Wedding, then tied back to the Ghazal in impeccable fashion, before developing into a quintessential Hindi movie duet, with Alka Yagnik's perfection, and finally settling into its groove at cruising altitude. 

Second, this song marks what I can perceive as the start of a long-lasting partnership that defined Rahman's music for years to come - his discovery of the accordion. 

Rahman's albums typically have a signature tune, and traditionally, this tune had been reserved for the flute (think Pachai Nirame from Alaipaayuthey, or Ishq Bina from Taal), and occasionally other instruments (think Mouth Organ - Padayappa, Shehnai - Swades). The accordion made its journey to the top in this song, and stayed there playing a key role in future Rahman songs (what better example than Nenjukule, a decade after Guru!).  

Ultimately, with the benefit of hindsight, we know this song is extraordinary, for the reasons stated above, but more importantly, because this is one unique sounding song - the style or the feel has not been replicated in another song in the 14 years since this album first came out. Listening to it today, it still feels fresh - if it had only been produced last week, it would still be every bit as alien, unheard of and yet, perfectly fit in our lives, the same way it did 14 years ago. 

The words from Gulzar, Hairat-e-Aashiqui speak of love so pure, it transcends all reality. This song then, fittingly, is an otherwordly song celebrating the spirit of Gulzar's poem - a Hairat-e-Song, if you will! And chances are it will remain, every bit as Hairat in the library of Bollywood music for many many years to come.  

Soaring Through the Sky

Kaansen Khronicles #3: Revisiting songs from years past, that have been lost in the chaos of the social media-era content explosion! 

Composing music for a Rajini movie is a double edged sword - on the one hand, the songs are guaranteed unconditional love and a far reach, but equally the tight constraints of a commercial formula really narrow the room for experimentation.

For several decades, Rajini movies have had a predictable construct for songs - an opening SPB song praising the Super Star, a dance-around-the-trees duet, and a rise again from the ashes inspirational song. A.R.Rahman is the master of this formula as he demonstrated first with in the mid 1990's with Muthu, Padayappa, and much later in the late 2000's, with Sivaji, Enthiran. Nestled in between these two eras, his one attempt at experimentation, Baba, was panned by an irate fanbase because it deviated from the formula.

Needless to say, the tight window on composing music for a Rajini movie is a sufficiently difficult assignment in itself. When the goal is to experiment, though past history suggests it is a bad idea, it takes the challenge up a notch. But if above and beyond the usual drama, this is Rajini's long awaited come back movie after a significant health scare, the pressure is unbelievable.

Kochadaiyaan is not one of the Superstar's most memorable movies. Ambitious in its attempt to roll out half-baked motion capture technology to Indian cinema audiences, the movie was very quickly forgotten and is rarely shown on TV or talked about. But it did have Super Star flashing his sword (albeit only in animations), and his usual repertoire of songs, with some delightful music composed by A.R.Rahman. And the stand-out piece from the album - an entry song for Rajini called Engae Pogudho Vaanam.

The song begins with a long and elaborate prelude from a philharmonic orchestra producing remarkable dramatization for a War Hero leading the army back home after Victory - unstoppable and wanting to soar through the sky and conquer the universe. The dramatic prelude leads into powerful vocals from SPB and an energetic chorus. Who would've thought trumpets and a brass ensemble would fit with mythological Indian kings. And if that association intrigues you, there is more to look for in the song.

About halfway into the song, after the anu-pallavi, the song transcends to a whole different level when it marches into the interlude, with the unmistakably sounds like bagpipes!! While it is not outside the realm of possibilities that Rahman hired a skirl of bagpipers to record the song, it is far more likely  that a synthesizer was used to produce the sound of a bagpipe - still a sound not often heard in Indian movie songs. And as your brain comes to accept the bagpipe as a classical instrument celebrating a mythological Hindu Warrior, and seamlessly enters "I'm-loving-this" mode, another element is introduced to further blow your mind away. In a flash of creative genius, the bagpipe is accompanied by a rather mismatched choice of percussion - a mridangam!! Who else but Rahman would marry the Mridangam to a Bagpipe in an Indian mythological setting, while ensuring neither of these elements feels out of place!!

The peak of the song undoubtedly comes when Rajini thanks his fans for their prayers in bringing him back to life. The line, "Ungalil Vaazthugalal Uyir Kondu Ezhundhu Vitaen, Vazhthiya Manangalukku, En Vazhkayai Vazhangi Viten", appropriately features the highest notes of the song with the violins literally rising to the occasion.

Kochadaiyaan is one of A.R.Rahman's least celebrated albums. This album, and more specifically, this song deserves to be remembered as a specimen that represents the best of his musical abilities delivered tactly within the boundaries of the commercial cinema in India -  as an artful song packaged beautifully into a masala setting, and as a World Song with exotic instruments presented ingeniously in a mythological context. 

The Born Again Moment.

Kaansen Khronicles #2: Revisiting songs from years past, that have been lost in the chaos of the social media-era content explosion! 

"There are two big moments in every human's life - the first when he is born, and the second when he finds out why he was born", said A.R.Rahman talking about the meaning of Naan Yen Piranthen, a gem from his 2013 appearance on Coke Studio. A deeply poetic song celebrating the beauty of God's creation and the purposeful place of every soul and being in the cosmos, the lyrics, the mood it sets and the elements of Sufi existentialism are right up Rahman's alley of melodious solos, a la Vellai Pookal and the Gurus of Peace.

Starting with a rustic piece by Rayhanah, the song, its lyrics and the gentle strings by Keba all paint the calming imagery of a fishing hamlet during the rainy season, with a philosopher sitting under a tree expouding his discovery of the purpose of life as a second birth. The dramatization of this rebirth moment comes in the form of Prasanna's Electric Guitar that stays under the radar until the last charnam of the song, and the chorus plays the role of the surrounding society. The song has the makings of a great folk piece, complemented with the contemporary elements of Mohini Dey on the bass, and a string quartet. It is fair to say that the song shares a lot of its DNA with the music of Kadal, the Mani Ratnam movie that released the same year with some memorable pieces of music like Nenjukulle, and Elay Keechan (subjects of other posts in this collection).

As for the philosopher personified in the song, the lyricist Vaali would be a great fit. Having written thousands of songs over five decades, this celebration of  spiritual awakening was ironically, one of his last poems. Vaali passed in July 2013, a few weeks before the song premiered on Coke Studio.

The song serves as a great tribute to his legendary songwriting. It also serves as a great tribute to the work A.R.Rahman does in bringing the people of the World together.

A quick review of the comments on social media about this song reveals several stories of people loving the music and sensing the deep essence of the song - though they do not understand a single word of Tamil. It is one thing for people to understand the lyrics of a song and connect with it. It is a whole different experience for people to feel the emotions of a song, and then line it up with what it literally means. And transcending that boundary where you feel the emotions of words through his music, not knowing what the words mean, is what makes A.R.Rahman special.

The One Where Heer is Very Sad.

Kaansen Khronicles #1: Revisiting Songs from years past, that have been lost in the chaos of Social Media-era content explosion! 

Picture this. A girl returns from a bizarre trip to Corsica, where she meets a stranger, and she falls in love with him. She doesn't know his name, or anything about where he comes from or what he does. Anguished at her foolishness for letting her soul mate leave without the classic Bollywood "Kya Yahi Pyaar Hai" song in the Alps, she does her best to get on with life, getting big promotions at work and all, but barely hiding the fact that she is borderline clinically depressed, and desperately needs to find herself the love of her life. Picture all this, and then insert a quirky 4 man Bhangra Band that likes to punctuate every sentence they sing with a stereotypical "Haye Hoye". Misfit ? Nope. Just A.R.Rahman doing his genius thing.

Coming at a time where his obsession with the Punjabi/Bhangra genre was at its peak following Katiya Karoon and Patakha Gudhi in the years prior to Tamasha, Heer Toh Badi Sad Hai, is a classic Rahman number with symphonical layers woven together underneath the leading instrument - a Tumbi and the Sarangi in this instance - and crisp vocals from Mika Singh. The song generally has a peppy outlook, and the Bhangra Boys singing it on the screen dont look too upset while they're singing in celebration either - especially the older gentleman with his toothless grin.

The song itself beautifully captures the effects of Depression - a superficially content and satisfying life, but the deep issues beneath the surface waiting to drag a person down. Irshad Kamil's lyrics add another layer of simple language loaded with cliched analogies that help the listener connect with Tara.

Indian Film songs do not live in isolation - they are often pieces of a bigger puzzle - the story the director is trying to tell. This song is yet another showpiece of the crucial mental connection Rahman seems to make with some of his repeated collaborators like Imtiaz Ali that helps him set the mood with a song in the context of the larger story surrounding it.

Some day, I hope to read a story about how Imtiaz Ali and A.R.Rahman envisioned using this theme to highlight Heer, or Tara's despair, but in the meantime, this song needs to be celebrated as one of Rahman's best offerings in the past decade in Hindi cinema.