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WE MET IR

Topic started by cram (@ 206.103.12.102) on Thu Jul 20 06:52:03 EDT 2000.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Hello friends,
It's me again. And this time, I met IR alongwith another newtfmpage regular, CSG. Unlike the previous occasion, when there was no scope for a chat, today we sat and talked with IR for about...god knows, time stood still, guys. We have no clue.
There were so many things we wanted to ask him, but in his presence, both of us were tongu-tied. Finally CSG found his voice and complimented him on his latest album, Bharati.
He's so incredibly down-to-earth and accessible. And he doesn't spout profundities, but speaks just like you would expect any layman to. That's his greatness. I'm still on a tremendous high....

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: Viswa (@ wwwgate11.motorola.com) on: Thu Jul 27 19:56:45 EDT 2000
  
  I've been tempted to say "Well, all geniuses have always had an eccentric streak about them - this is just one more such example" and put the issue to rest in my mind every time I come across such kind of remarks from IR (be it casually or in interviews to reputed journals; well, maybe he does'nt rate them differently as we do !), but the awe-struck admirer of IR in me compels me to keep trying to make sense out of all that he says. Needless to say, I'm yet to succeed there !
  
  IR's "philosophical" rejoinders seem to indicate he is a tired and cynical old man at the end of a long career... so it always seems. And very often, his statements have had a dampening effect on my spirits, that not even some of his recent mediocre creations have been able to achieve !
  
  Some things have never made sense. Agreed he's had a long career of doing pretty much the same things all along, but what has he got to be depressed about ? He's had a successful career - he was at the top for a good 15 years at least, had the distinction of being responsible single-handedly for music being such a prominent feature in movies to the point of being the sole selling-point of several movies. He's been honoured and respected by some of the top music maestros of the country and the world - Hariprasad Chaurasia, D. K. Pattamal, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, John Scott, Paul Mauriat, etc., not to mention fellow film music composers like MSV, Naushad, R. D. Burman, etc. - thespians all ! He's had the rare honour of being the first Asian to compose a symphony for the RPO. All these seem to suggest that he's had his fair share of fame and fortune, and his gold medal at the Trinity School of Music did set off a long array of distinctions and achievements ! So, where does the cynicism come from ? So something is'nt complete here, right ?
  
  Ok, so I go looking for the missing pieces - the flip side to all this glitter above and try to argue thus. If he were to look back at the end of all these years and try to gauge how the history would view him, vis-a-vis each aspect of his work :
  
  * He was at the top for 15 odd years and got to score the music for 800 odd films.
  
  Well, before him were successful composers too who were at the top for a good many years. MSV, for one was around for close to 25 years (since the 1951 days of MSV-TKR to the 1978 days of Ninaithaale Inikkum and Varumayin NiRam Sivappu), KVM was around for almost 20 years. In HFM, S. D. Burman was there from the 40s till the mid 70s, so were Shankar-Jaikishen and Laxmikant-Pyarelal. So, he is just one more in that list of composers who has been around for a long time.
  
  Now, coming to the 800 odd films part - what kind of films ? Basically, mundane, stereo-typed, crappy commercial films thriving on cliches year after year. And over 800 of them ? I would'nt even think that for a person of his calibre, that would mean anything at all. After all, in terms of prolificity, tomorrow Deva might go past a 1000 films (at the rate at which he's churning out these days). Why, even Deva claims to produce as many as 7-8 tunes per song. So, no cause for celebration there either.
  
  * He was the selling point of many a movie, and was the only MD to be accorded a hero status.
  Well, ARR's repeating the same feat today ! In fact, he has been able to do that in HFM also - something IR could not just do. In fact, where IR had to rush by his stds to complete his assignments for the Deepavali releases, people are now willing to wait for ARR for a Pongal release instead or simply any release sometime ! ( Karandha puli paal types). And to add to it, his current albums are not exactly busting the charts or setting the cash registers ringing. Naan oru kazhudhaiya paada vechchaalum andha paattu kandippa hit aagum !. (Remember the quote in the LRE episode ?) That is just not happening anymore.
  
  * He was respected and honoured by a long host of musical celebrities.
  Again, he's not alone there. Andrew Lloyd Webber, Ustad Zakir Hussain, Lata Mangeshkar and the likes have said the same thing about ARR too.
  
  So, it all appears to fit in, right ? Not quite. If he was tired of the fact that films were all he worked on - that too, those silly uninspiring pot-boilers, then who ever did stop him from moving on to better things ? Agreed, you need money to sustain, and that films give you that. But for how long ?
  
  Not for 25 years. And even so, nothing prevented him from working on other forms of music for the creative satisfaction. Nothing prevented him from working with more Paul Mauriats of this world ! Nothing prevented him from coming out with more NBWs, HTNIs and I24Hs ! And why use a film (again !), Hey! Ram to work with the Hungarian orchestra; nothing prevented him from working with them even otherwise !
  
  How do I know that there was indeed nothing that prevented him from doing all that ? Well, I don't ! And so goes my confusion... As I said in the beginning, it does'nt make sense to me.
  
  Well, one thing definitely makes sense. Listen to IR's music, experience the gamut of emotions, and stop there. Let's not mix up IR the composer with IR the human. I tell you, the world will seem a lot better.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• From: SL (@ nat-198-95-226-224.netapp.com) on: Thu Jul 27 20:58:59 EDT 2000
  
  I agree with rjay. IR lets himself loose in the company of 'normal' people, that is, once he is convinced that there are no reporters/cinema people around. Cram and csg, you might not want to delve too much into IR's statements made during unguarded moments, could be a breach of trust:-))
  
  
• From: senthil (@ 202.9.176.134) on: Thu Jul 27 23:03:55 EDT 2000
  
  suresh
  
  as these days, as IT problems are more it is difficult reveal bank accounts.You do onething.Take the money,come to tirupur(inform the date,time and photo by mail).i will get the money in the busstand or railway station ok? :))
  
  
• From: cram (@ 206.103.12.102) on: Fri Jul 28 05:26:06 EDT 2000
  
  SL,
  u are right. i don't think IR knows that i am a newtfmpage regular. if he had had any idea that i would be posting all this, i don't think he would have spoken as freely as he did.
  
  
• From: prabhudas (@ nico.pediatrics.sunysb.edu) on: Fri Jul 28 06:47:12 EDT 2000
  
  Cram/CSG,
  Thanks for your nice narration about your chat with Maestro.We hope we will expect more such (inter)views of IR thro' different Raajangham admin. group.
  About IR's comments/views on inspiration/philosophical thoughts/answers, after all he is another HUMAN being but an extraordinarily talented/gifted one whom we label as Genious.Without any doubt he is one of the living geniouses in music, at the same time as any other normal human being I personally do not see thing wrong in him making such comments/statements (the philosophical answers in ur chat).I am sure Everyone of us have had occassions where we might have been arrogant with somebody or other at some point in our life, or had totally differing openions about certain issues at some point, so why not IR have the same NORMAL characters of a normal human being. Just because he is one of the greatest composers of our time, he doesn't have to be stripped of his normal human qualities. IR is definitely a different kind of personality (atleast based on many of his interviews), I never found anything abnormal about his comments in ur chat, in lot of his interviews it is his frustration about the recent ways of film making and other stuffs which are reflected thro' his statements. I do not how many of you agree that the quality of tamil films in the last 5 - 6 years has deteriorated (both in terms of making good movies with good story, screenplay, Direction with a great Photigraphy/Music) Ofcourse there are hits every year, including the Padyappa kind of mediocre movies, but has their been a single musical ,totally different kind of movies (not just the recycled/inspired stuff from old movies or just the hyped technological savvy movies of Shankar/MR) since Mudhal Mariyadhai, Sindhu Bhairavi or for that matter most of Mahendran's movies with very few exceptions. IR is right in saying what kind of extraordinary or radically differant situations would these newer crop of directors give him to have him get inspired from that. I still donot see everybody's point/argument when he says his flow of thoughts just begin within himself "denovo" , which clearly speaks about a genious, and as aptly said by Maestro himself, what on the earth might have inspired the Great Bharathi for him to write the great poetry, what might have inspired Albert Einstein to come up with his great discoveries. I do not know how exactly Eccentric nature as a quality in humans described , it may vary from one person to other, historically most of the geniouses are known to be eccentric in some ways, Our IR may be one among them. I remember my former room mate ( who himself is a musician, bigtime Ir fan, who also scored music for "Hyderabad Blues" movie) mentining once about what singer S janaki said about IR when he was casually chatting with SJ. SJ said"gettivaadu aithenoo koncham thikka okkokka saari" meaning "thiramaisaali aanalum konjam eccentric (kirukku) ovvoru murai".
  
  As long as he can (and only he can) give music which evokes every emotion, feeling and what not in my life , I donot care what he says about his views on inspirations etc.
  
  Long live maestro
  
  Prabhudas
  
  
• From: prabhudas (@ nico.pediatrics.sunysb.edu) on: Fri Jul 28 06:47:24 EDT 2000
  
  Cram/CSG,
  Thanks for your nice narration about your chat with Maestro.We hope we will expect more such (inter)views of IR thro' different Raajangham admin. group.
  About IR's comments/views on inspiration/philosophical thoughts/answers, after all he is another HUMAN being but an extraordinarily talented/gifted one whom we label as Genious.Without any doubt he is one of the living geniouses in music, at the same time as any other normal human being I personally do not see thing wrong in him making such comments/statements (the philosophical answers in ur chat).I am sure Everyone of us have had occassions where we might have been arrogant with somebody or other at some point in our life, or had totally differing openions about certain issues at some point, so why not IR have the same NORMAL characters of a normal human being. Just because he is one of the greatest composers of our time, he doesn't have to be stripped of his normal human qualities. IR is definitely a different kind of personality (atleast based on many of his interviews), I never found anything abnormal about his comments in ur chat, in lot of his interviews it is his frustration about the recent ways of film making and other stuffs which are reflected thro' his statements. I do not how many of you agree that the quality of tamil films in the last 5 - 6 years has deteriorated (both in terms of making good movies with good story, screenplay, Direction with a great Photigraphy/Music) Ofcourse there are hits every year, including the Padyappa kind of mediocre movies, but has their been a single musical ,totally different kind of movies (not just the recycled/inspired stuff from old movies or just the hyped technological savvy movies of Shankar/MR) since Mudhal Mariyadhai, Sindhu Bhairavi or for that matter most of Mahendran's movies with very few exceptions. IR is right in saying what kind of extraordinary or radically differant situations would these newer crop of directors give him to have him get inspired from that. I still donot see everybody's point/argument when he says his flow of thoughts just begin within himself "denovo" , which clearly speaks about a genious, and as aptly said by Maestro himself, what on the earth might have inspired the Great Bharathi for him to write the great poetry, what might have inspired Albert Einstein to come up with his great discoveries. I do not know how exactly Eccentric nature as a quality in humans described , it may vary from one person to other, historically most of the geniouses are known to be eccentric in some ways, Our IR may be one among them. I remember my former room mate ( who himself is a musician, bigtime Ir fan, who also scored music for "Hyderabad Blues" movie) mentining once about what singer S janaki said about IR when he was casually chatting with SJ. SJ said"gettivaadu aithenoo koncham thikka okkokka saari" meaning "thiramaisaali aanalum konjam eccentric (kirukku) ovvoru murai".
  
  As long as he can (and only he can) give music which evokes every emotion, feeling and what not in my life , I donot care what he says about his views on inspirations etc.
  
  Long live maestro
  
  Prabhudas
  
  
• From: anban (@ 139.85.161.162) on: Fri Jul 28 07:30:03 EDT 2000
  
  yenpa IR pugzhal padara vittut , vere edhuna urupadiya discuss pannalama , bore adikudhu endha df ponalum idhe topic dhan and sandai between IR AND ARR fans
  ada pongaappa
  
  

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