Maestro ilaiyaraaja news & titbits

[Chikatilomt]

Senthil and MumbaiRamki...Well said!

Senthil.... especially your last paragraph is a gem. Keeping your creativity and quality intact while the outcomes go up or not, is, to say the least, impossible for ordinary people (I am talking about, say in an office setting you work hard - don't get promotion, in business worked hard/honestly but you made loss in a deal, in school studied well - but did not score because of subjective paper correction etc., You will normally get demotivated and that will start affecting your work.). That too in a creative high pressure field, to do that is great.

Just wanted to point out from a different perspective. Ramana Maharshi uses this screen analogy in a different context many times to questions when devotees try to under stand on what the whole world is about. (See http://acfip.org/analogy.html). That is in a different context.

IR being Ramana's devotee, no wonder the "screen" terminology/ usage would have seeped in his mind and come out. So, need for "Salippu" here.

What he is trying to describe is the creative process (writing poetry, composing music, even Ramanujan's number theory, and so on so forth) to the normal audience. (Audience usually not familiar or experienced with the creative process themselves.) Here's where the disconnect happens. The problem has been, when he talks in a different plane with a different vocabulary, people might intentionally/ unintentionally misunderstand in a commercial context.

In this video, even if we discard all the spiritual/ philosophical angle, all he is saying is he is like a screen (which is inert) and I don't see what the fuss is all about.

When Raja says "Naan Screen", he doesn't mean film won't happen without him (I assume that's the interpretation taken here). He means, he doesn't know any music, and the film goes through him (Or projects into him) turning into music. If the film is not projected into the frame, there is no cinema but screen is just a tool. Raja also sees himself as tool, that when possessed by appropriate emotions, outputs music. Hence no emotion, there is no film, no music, no Raja. He is not being egotistical here but humble or self-depreciating. He has repeated this point in other forums with different analogies. He just happened to use "screen" analogy here.

When I see this video, I feel bad for him. I see him as a true artist, a talent wasted most of the time and caught in a industry, that 99% of time, bereft of artistic value, integrity and respect for craft. The fixation with making a film/music huge hit is nauseating. The bug is with the audience too. We are never satisfied with saying "Great film" or "Great music" or "Great acting". We follow it up with it comments like, it will be super hit, 100 days for sure, etc... How many of us here were interested to find out if NEPV broke the record in sales and sold for high price etc... As if, only that will justify the quality of the music. This notion of huge hit = great film/music is just plain absurd but we all inexplicably get caught up in that notion.

Nowadays I'm trying to harmonize this negative feeling with a counter view... that ppl just care for a filmmaker/producer/musician to succeed and want to help them! But to only work for a Hit or to work on a film or music with a sole notion of making it a hit is bit offensive to the craft you practice. Being a filmmaker and speaking from personal experience, I can say this, whenever I tried to write for market, it sucked or if it was good, it still missed something. Whenever I get angry at something, get bothered by something, or love something deeply, and then tried to expressed it in film, there was always this unexplainable "x" factor that moved ppl and me, more than I can explain.

It is worth repeating that for Raja, all things begin with story, characters, emotions and ideas. Rest is out of his hand and he cannot control it. He has worked long enough to know, he should not care about the rewards. He has gained this incredible ability to compartmentalize creation of songs and the success that it brings. He does not let lack of success affect his creativity and his process of creation. This is just so hard for any artist, at any level to do. If I'm allowed to go into superlatives, he is not just Isaignani but we could also call him Isaiyogi. Isai is his karma. Now, coming to market? What market???