Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Rahatulla

Whoa, the past two days have been a real rush, barely had time to talk to my mother. It always happens when Monday comes, then the cycle of "lectures-assignments-meetings-headaches" starts.

I'm doing something some people might find interesting, it's called "ethnography". You choose a group of folks in society that you think are wierd or interesting, and you study them by observing them, talking to them and exploring their "culture", then you write a paper on them by weaving in all kinds of complicated-sounding sociological theories and then you get it published, and the next day, you're a star. But I'm doing this as part of a module, so it's on a much smaller scale. There are the two of us doing this project, and our interest is the role of the Indian stall in foodcourts as the seller of "exotic food" in a multicultural society like ours. (Of course, any food can be seen as exotic, it's a matter of perspective, but we're focusing on the Indian stall. Because I'm Indian. And I don't want to eat pork.)

So a part of doing ethnography is to sit down and observe your participant (the group you're studying) and write down everything and anything they're doing. Like "She grimaced, and wiped her forehead with a polka-dotted handkerchief before burping what seemed to be a smelly burp at 12.36pm". So I and my project buddy were doing this for 2 hours on Monday and the Monday before. I'll be sure to post up the transcripts of the observation real soon.

Listened to some good songs over the weekend: Yuvan Shankar Raja's Kanda Naal Mudhal has a very nice number, called erm, "Kanda Naal Mudhal" sung by a "Pooja" and a "Subhiksha". It's starts off as a classical number but very shortly into the song the drum loops start to appear, giving it a techno edge. Sounds inspired by the 80/90's hit "Love Supreme." Yuvan's getting better and better. But he can never be like ARR lah, sorry ah. He's one notch above everyone. His Ah Aah's really good. Nazhuvuthu thazhuvuthu.

I also had the chance to hear Harris Jayaraj's two new releases: Thotti Jaya starring a bearded T Raje-sorry, Simbhu, and Ghajini starring the main (short) man Surya. Our secondary main man Harris needs to seriously change his tunes. I mean, come on lah dei. I keep hearing the same chorus people, the same tune treatments and even the same loops for many of his movies. Basically, Harris has the "Andangkaaka" (of Anniyan) tune, with the village folk instrumentation; then he has the "Vellaikaara mutham" tune of "Chellame", which sounds like everything he does; following closely behind, he has the "Chellakiliyo" tune (also from Chellame) which he uses everywhere. So Chellame is his "fount of inspiration" lah. Hallo dei, how lah like that? Having said all this, let me say that a good remedy to stop the comparison of tunes is to ignore one soundtrack and just focus on the other. I've quit Thotti, because I can't live with a bearded Simbhu reappearing in my head all the time. Ghajini songs are good, and I'm particularly inspired by the track "Rahatulla", which sounds suspiciously like some Muslim zikr. I mean, Rahatulla? Come on, lyricist. Anyway, it's catchy lah, so there you go. You can check these out at Music India Online.

A few of my "media artifacts" are coming your way, so get ready. The problem is, they are absolutely huge. So I need to find a way to compress the buggers. But expect them real soon.

1 comment:

caleb said...

cool! found a link to you on jalsa's site...

adding you in!
keep posting!

P.S: personally i thought Ghajni's 'Oru Maalai' by Kaarthik is excellent even by HJ's standards.