CORE 07: Dilli 6 - At It Again...

No wonder I am still a great fan of Rahman. His sheer genius proved once more in Dilli 6 or Delhi 6, the new movie to be released soon, starring Abhishek Bachan. You cannot expect anything but praise, so here is a rundown on the songs.

Masakali
The first time I heard this song, it was on Youtube and to say that I was disappointed is quite an understatement. Listening to the high quality songs, this song does grow on you. The Accordion on this is by the Maestro. The "Thampattai" in the middle of the song would definitely surprise you. The Violin going at the back reminds me of the 80s.Singing a laid back song, actually should sound lame, instead it brings a coolness factor to it. One of my favorites.

Singers: Mohit Chauhan

Arziyan
This one has the feels of Sufism and Ghazal to it. A nice melodious song, might not stick to everyone right away, but has the potential to become one. No surprises on this track.

Singers: Javed Ali, Kailash Kher

Dilli-6
The title track is small in length, running for less than 4 minutes. This one is to become a sure-fire hit. AR's harmony is at it again. The surprise of this song is the Spanish lyrics by Tanvi who did it for Sivaji as well. A very slow song, but with the correct rhythm, this song has a huge electronic flavour to it.

Singers: Blaaze; Benny Dayal; Vivinenne Pocha; Tanvi; Claire

Rehna Tu
A slow song with a mild and silky flavour to it, sung by the Maestro. One of my favourites. This songs grows on you and trust me, if you listen to it a few times, you will fall in love with this song. No great arrangements, but yet it sounds great. This surprise of this song is the featuring a new instrument that Rahman introduced during his concerts - The Continuum. This is a synthesizer used with a MIDI source. The beauty of this fingerboard is the variations it can produce unlike a traditional keyboard. Perfect for Indian classical, AR learnt to play this difficult instrument and comes up with a piece in the end and plays it himself. It is a surprise to hear an electronic version :)

Singers: A. R. Rahman; Benny Dayal; Tanvi

Hey Kaala Bandhar
The weirdest lyrics one can get. Karthik proves why he is touted to be the next SPB. The song starts in a . The English lyrics, is by Yogi B of Azhagiya Thamizh Magan 's Ponmagal fame. This song changes so much that it will leave you confused where it is going but will come back, so you get to enjoy as well.

Singers: Karthik; Srinivas; Naresh; Bony Chakravarthy

Dil Gira Dafatan
Ash King's rendition of this song is divine. Though the song starts like any other average number, the better part starts after the initial humming. Another excellent melody. A soothing song. The surprise comes after two and a half minutes, where he infuses a Irish sounding piece. He is at it again.

Singers: Ash King; Chinmayee

Genda Phool
This song is an adapted North Indian folk. The rhythm makes it extremely likable. The surprises are all over the place on this song. Listen to enjoy. Another laid back song, but will make listen to it over and over again.

Singers: Rekha Bharadwaj; Shraddha Pandit; Sujata Majumdar

Bhor Bhaye
This one is recorded over Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan's voice as if Shreya Goshal is learning from his recorded songs. A pure Hindustani classical. No surprises on this one though. One of my friends listened to all the tracks and she picked this one as her most favourite.

Singers: Shreya Ghosal; Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan; Gujri Todi

Aarti (Tumre Bhavan Mein)
A typcal devotional song, or as they call it, an aarthi song. Rahman might make this devotional song a hit by rendering it in a movie and releasing it as a part of the album. The decision to include it in the album resides partially on the composer as well. This might become popular like "Ik Onkar"

Singers: Rekha Bharadwaj; Shraddha Pandit; Sujata Majumdar; Kishori Gowariker

Noor
This is a poem recital where Big B lends his voice. This reminded me of the work that AR did for Vairamuthu. I have to admit that I was not able to appreciate this one due to the lack of my As my Hindi skills.

Poem Recital: Amitabh Bachchan

Final Verdict: Rahman is at it again, so go get this one and add it to your collection.

CORE 06: Obama's Economics - The Depressing Hilarity

I read this in the comments section of a Obama's ex-speechwriter blog. This was extremely hilarious and sad but true. He goes on to quote, which by the way is my philosophy too.

'For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.'

And now here for the welfare, (oops, I mean the tax-cut) that Obama offers, here is a story that a Professor of Economics at University of Georgia (Dr. David R. Kamerschen) had to say. Trust me, this was exactly what I was thinking when I heard about the underlying details. That is why he is a professor and I am a blogger. Now to the story.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18..

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59..

So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

"Since you are all such good customers", he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20." Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes and so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.

But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share'?'

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).

The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).

The tenth now paid $50 instead of $59 (15% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before.

And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20" declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "But he got $9!"

"Yeah, that's right" exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got nine times more than I!"

"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $9 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!" 

"Wait a minute" yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor."

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction.

Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

CORE 04: Vijender - Making a statement

There is no need to mention the hype surrounding Vijender's assurance of a medal at the Olympics. I finished watching the match and the Cuban boxer, true to his titles won, had a run for Vijendar's money. The result has indeed crushed the hopes many millions when he lost, but hey, he was the one who pushed India to its best Olympics performance ever.

Kudos to Vijender on a well fought Olympics campaign. You are now one among the stars.

CORE 03: Sushil - You rock

All right. Just when I had given up hope. To be honest I wasn't pinning my hopes on Table Tennis and went to sleep. Of course I was surprised to see a new entry in the wikipedia page of India at 2008 Olympics.

It was Sushil Kumar, in the 66 kg freestyle wrestling. Congrats Sushil. Your achievement is as important as that of Abhinav. I think there are at least a few who are genuinely proud of you.

CORE 02: Abhinav - Thank You

Yes. The day we thought would never come, is finally here. An Olympic Gold Medal for an Indian in an Individual event. Congratulations Abhinav Bindra on your Olympics Gold Medal in the Air Rifle at Beijing. May I be the one of the first bloggers to congratulate you. May you reach new heights and further your achievements.

- A Fellow Indian


EDIT: Thanks again, for specifying the issue to the point. NDTV interview here.

CORE 01: Sakkarakatti - As sweet as it gets

Again, a long break. Rahman makes me come back. This time for the review of Sakkarakatti. I am not going to provide the professional review like everybody does, but rather the aspects that I like about the song.

Overall, this album has a huge electronic influence, but that is where the generalization stops. Read further for a track-by-track notes.

01 Taxi Taxi
This song has been on air for a while with all the promos. Highly repetitive. I don't want to use the term 'monotonous' as it is definitely catchy. A simple rhythm, three language lyrics... Tamil, English and French (In order of length used in the song). Of course, in Rahman style, there is a small Punjabi influence!!!@@##$$%% Crazy man.

Singers: Benny Dayal, Blaaze, Viviane Chiaxe, Javed Ali


02 Marudhaani
This is for the Rahman melody lovers. Madhushree does the soothing rendition with the not-so-soothing-but-blow-your-mind bass rhythm. Once again, Rahman hides a lot of sounds for you to discover everytime you listen to it. There is a simple piano piece with a mild wind of the flute. Though the credit says Rahman, don't think that this is a duet. Up until now, he had reserved it only for Lata. He and Hentry (I didn't spell it wrong) Kuruvilla does some humming.

Singers: Madhushree, A.R.Rahman, Hentry


03 I Miss You Da
Dominated by synthesizers. Not likely to be a hit song as Chinmayi whispers the song, but slowly. You be the judge.

Singers: Chinmayi, Indai Haza


04 Chinnamma
Yes. You guessed it right. The same Chinnamma from M.F.Hussain's Meenaxi. A few modifications in the effect, but yllables have been kept almost the same in the lyrics, preserving the originalty of the original version. Good job Pa Vijay! The best part is that this song doesn't require time to grow on you. It already did!

Singers: Benny Dayal, Chinmayi


05 Elay
Undoubtedly, the best track of the album. Sure to become a big hit. It might have already. Starts with a Guitar rhythm, exquisitively augmented by a solo violin. From the credits, I assume it is John Themis (He did some strings in Meenaxi too). Folks, don't come to me saying that this song sounds like Roobaroo from Rang De Basanti. It is not. A Guitar, a Violin and a Harmonica stand out among the instruments. A must-listen.

Singers: Krish, Naresh Iyer


06 Naan Eppodhu
This is Yeh Rishta from Meenaxi. No explanations required here I guess. Looks like the vocal supervisors would have had a tough time. Unlike Chinnamma, this song has been left unmodified.

Singers: Reena Bharadwaj


A few trivia about the songs.
1. Marudhaani and Naan Eppodhu were sung by Madhushree and Reena Bharadwaj respectively. None of them know Tamil. So what Rahman does is to get the service of Shreeni and Srinivasa Murthy (Yes, Rahman's arranger/conductor) for Vocal Supervision
2. The violin in 'Elay' can be found in Toss the feathers by Corrs. Of course, both Rahman and Corrs are one among the few who use Irish folk in their composition. So before you say Rahman copied, here is something for you.
3. Marudhaani has vocals by two technicians. One the great Rahman and his additional rhythm programmer Hentry Kuruvilla.