Flaunting book-lists in our blogs doesn’t qualify us as scholars. Presenting a movie list doesn’t make us one either. Such lists perhaps convey only the narcissist identity crisis the list-maker unabashedly conceals in the stated sharing.

There, I have come clean of my motive. Allow me to present a list of movies I watched in part or full in the past three months. Not all of them are new movies and the listing is random in order with few comments wherever I could muster them.

Before the list, a note on my tastes. I am a sucker for comedy and gentle humor. Gentler the better. Next comes adventure and romance, including all sorts of action slam-bang but I stop short of glorifying violence and human depravity. Bitter-sweet is fine, but sweeter the finer. I watch movies (or attempt an art) to enjoy and feel inspired. Not to get depressed and pessimistic with life.

My recommendations carry a [*] next to it. Your judgment should still save you.

• Jacques Tati
  • Jour de Fete [*]
  • Mr. Hulot’s Holiday [*]
  • Mon Uncle [*]
  • Play Time [*]

Humor is at its best when made from life events, without being preachy or hurting anyone directly. It brings out a spontaneous laughter that ends in a reflecting smile than a sickly jeer or a helpless guffaw. Having watched the movies of Tati, I know I have watched some of the best humor.

The theme is always the same; the incongruity and conflicts between small town life with simple lifestyle and the forced industrialization and mass production that France was subjected to during the decades after the World Wars.

I stop here. A separate review is required for this director and his vision.

• Jim Jarmusch
  • Coffee and Cigarettes [*]
  • Down by the Law

Years back, couching with my Romanian friend with Italian wine and charred spiced okra as companions, I watched the video tape version of  Night on Earth from this director. It had five episodes of night life on various parts of Earth with some poignant and funny moments. I was scrounging for that movie but could locate only the above two. But Coffee and Cigarettes is better than Night on Earth. It is a collection of short episodes, nuggets I should say, of wry humor and poignancy conveying the reverberation of human thought in loosely repeating conversation between different people involved in different situations. Jim Jarmusch is one American director who can do something different every time and makes most of them enjoyable.

I am surprised Kamal Haasan’s recommendation list in screenwriting didn’t include a movie from this director (Kamal is now encouraging us to participate in a contest for script writing for short films on Chennai alias Madras).

• Alfred Hitchcock
  • Murder [*]
  • Psycho [*]

Murder is one of his earlier and lesser known low-budget movies. It has a plot resembling those in the mysteries of Ngaio Marsh. There are some trite cinematic scenes but there is enough polish and tautness of script. Present also is the obvious ability of Hitchcock to screenplay a story at breakneck speed without allowing the audience to pause and think of the plausibility to ridicule.

By the time his Psycho was released, Hitchcock was almost beyond comparison in his perfection of the genre.

• Federico Fellini
  • 8 1/2

The movie does stretch aspects of movie making and story telling but – in the eyes of the critics – perhaps not as much as his other movies (like La Strada) did. Critics will hail the movie with cryptic remarks like the genius of the movie is in its confusion, but I chose to watch it and like it because this is perhaps the least depressing of his movies.

• Akira Kurosawa
  • Seven Samurais [*]
  • Yojimbo
  • Rashomon

The first two movies in the list set precedents for action sub-genres that are discussed in detail in their respective Wikipedia pages (Magnificent Seven, Fist Full of Dollars). The Japanese villages and the milieu (like the agriculture dependent people and their attire, sentiments of the virgin girl and her father, the scenting of her wet hair with incense smoke, even the farmers song in the fields while they sow in The Seven Samurais) portrayed in these movies are not too different from what we have in South Indian villages. Even today, some of them are intact and alive, living in bygone times. Which perhaps suited Kamal Haasan when he made his successful Virumaandi as a diluted adaptation of Rashomon, another of Kurosawas’ better movies (It is present in Kamal’s screenwriting recommendation list mentioned above).

• Billy Wilder
  • The Seven Year Itch

Known more for the blown-up virtues of Marilyn, I liked the movie for what it is meant to be; a gentle comedy of a married man’s torrid time with his conscience and over-imagination, in the absence of his wife and child. All ends well and the faithful husband remains as one. Marilyn remains unconquered.

• Ingmar Bergman
  • Wild Strawberries

Should try out his other movies before commenting on his style.

• Mel Brooks
  • The Producers [*]
  • History of the World Part 1 [*]
  • Blazing Saddles [*]
  • Silent Movie [*]

Much has been said about Mel and his movies. Producers is from the young Mel, starring Zero Mostel (the burping Caesar in History of the World) and Gene Wilder both of whom are brilliant. I confess years back I have searched the country in vain for the Part 2 of the History of the World. Just as I did for the Vol. 2 of the Traveling Wilburys (Vol. 2 was never released by Bob Dylan, to honor the death of Roy Orbison after vol. 1; They went on to release a Vol. 3). Such is art. Many times rather than playing on you, it plays you. Makes you go Nuts, N V T S, Nuts.

• Blake Edwards
  • The Party [*]
  • Pink Panther series

If you have ever wondered where Kamal Haasan gets his acting subtleties and comic timing, watch The Party. The Pink Panther series is good, establishing Peter Sellers as a comic force. But The Party is where he is in his brilliant best. A humorous, touching movie (which does make the Kamal Haasan’s recommendation list in screenwriting).

• Around the World in Eighty Days [*] (produced by the greenhorn Michael Todd with Kevin McClory and directed mostly by Michael Anderson)

With the classic book in mind I watched this movie. A mistake. The adventure, is modified  at places from the original (including the initial balloon flight sequence and the bull fight to accommodate the real Latin hero Cantinflos donning Fogg’s sidekick character, Passepartout), but is enjoyable. David Niven has gone on record the lead character he played is his dearest. The movie has some jarring racial typecasts.

• Mira Nair
  • Monsoon Wedding [*]

Five love-stories told with enough mush, music, melodrama, murk, masaala and mast. The eagerness to portray the darker sides and the pretension of a Salaam Bombay is gone. Here is the party-hard Punjabi in well rounded human sides and shapes. As one of the dialogue in the movie goes, You Punjabis are so ostentatious; and you Bengalis are so pretentious… Not sure who is taking a pot shot on who, but it is definitely of Indian by Indian and (also) for Indians.

• Ramin Bahrani
  • Man Push Cart

A depressing movie portraying a slice of us who go nowhere with wasted opportunities weighed down by past guilt and responsibilities, seeking solace in the mundane with daily struggle as our safest achievement. This is how far positively I can write about the movie, which has a documentary feel with the protagonist looking more like a fool at the end depriving of my initial sympathy. To complete the cliche I am sure it should have won some artsy awards.

• Oxide and Danny Pang
  • The Eye

A commercial horror flick where the horror source is the borrowed eyes. I don’t know why this is touted. There were some sequels too. A Tamil bad-copy starring Sneha scared one guy because he was the only guy in the theater. Talking of commercial horror, I better enjoyed the recent Tamil movie Yavarum Nalam directed by Vikram K. Kumar starring his friend (and smart-alec co-producer) Madhavan, where all the horror happens in broad daylight.

• Few action adventures (sometimes with enough comedy to bungle it all)
  • Loose Cannons (Gene Hackman)
  • License to Kill (James Bond duh!)
  • Casino Royale (the spoof starring David Niven)
  • Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
  • National Treasure
  • National Treasure – Book of Secrets

All are time-pass, enjoyable and perhaps not worth watching again. Until you feel jobless – which is every weekend.

• Supposedly Kid Movies – all are much recommended
  • Ant Bully
  • Finding Nemo
  • Dinosaur
  • Bug’s Life
  • 101 Dalmatians (1961 version)
  • Jungle Book (1 and 2)
  • Toy Story

With such feel-good, positive, adventurous, humorous, snazzy and stylish animation classics made exclusive for them, I envy the kids in us. Why bother growing up and understand the interpretations of a La Strada?

Yes, I haven’t listed many Tamil movies. I gather new releases from Kamal Haasan or Mani Rathnam is not due this summer.

If your research interests doesn’t involve convection, fluid flow, porous media, bio-heat transport, this may not be of interest to you.

Part 2 of this month’s research paper read list.

• Marusic, I.V.A.N. (2009), “Unravelling turbulence near walls”, Journal of Fluid Mechanics. Vol. 630(-1), pp. 1-4. [DOI] [URL]

• Monchaux, R., Berhanu, M., Aumaître, S., Chiffaudel, A., Daviaud, F., Dubrulle, B., Ravelet, F., Fauve, S., Mordant, N., Pétrélis, F., Bourgoin, M., Odier, P., Pinton, J.F., Plihon, N. & Volk, R. (2009), “The von K[a-acute]rm[a-acute]n Sodium experiment: Turbulent dynamical dynamos”, Physics of Fluids. Vol. 21(3), pp. 035108+. AIP. [DOI] [URL]

• Moore, A.L., Cummings, A.T., Jensen, J.M., Shi, L. & Koo, J.H. (2009), “Thermal Conductivity Measurements of Nylon 11-Carbon Nanofiber Nanocomposites”, Journal of Heat Transfer. Vol. 131(9), pp. 091602+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

• Myers, T.G. & Charpin, J.P.F. (2009), “A mathematical model of the Leidenfrost effect on an axisymmetric droplet”, Physics of Fluids. Vol. 21(6), pp. 063101+. AIP. [DOI] [URL]

• Nazarinia, M., Lo Jacono, D., Thompson, M.C. & Sheridan, J. (2009), “The three-dimensional wake of a cylinder undergoing a combination of translational and rotational oscillation in a quiescent fluid”, Physics of Fluids. Vol. 21(6), pp. 064101+. AIP. [DOI] [URL]

• Nouar, C. & Frigaard, I. (2009), “Stability of plane Couette–Poiseuille flow of shear-thinning fluid”, Physics of Fluids. Vol. 21(6), pp. 064104+. AIP. [DOI] [URL]

• Ortan, A., Quenneville-Bélair, V., Tilley, B.S. & Townsend, J. (2009), “On Taylor dispersion effects for transient solutions in geothermal heating systems”, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer., June, 2009. [DOI] [URL]

• Perekattu, G.K. & Balaji, C. (2009), “On the onset of natural convection in differentially heated shallow fluid layers with internal heat generation”, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer., June, 2009. [DOI] [URL]

• Poncet, S., Serre, & Le Gal, P. (2009), “Revisiting the two first instabilities of the flow in an annular rotor-stator cavity”, Physics of Fluids. Vol. 21(6), pp. 064106+. AIP. [DOI] [URL]

• Ramis, M.K. & Jilani, G. (2009), “Numerical study of a nuclear fuel element dissipating fission heat into its surrounding fluid medium”, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer., June, 2009. [DOI] [URL]

• Raoof, A. & Hassanizadeh, S. (), “A New Method for Generating Pore-Network Models of Porous Media”, Transport in Porous Media. [DOI] [URL]

• Runchal, A.K. (2009), “Brian Spalding: CFD and reality – A personal recollection”, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer., May, 2009. [DOI] [URL]

• Salaymeh, A.A. & Bayoumi, O.A. (2009), “Investigations of Tripping Effect on the Friction Factor in Turbulent Pipe Flows”, Journal of Fluids Engineering. Vol. 131(7), pp. 071202+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

• Sbragaglia, M., Benzi, R., Biferale, L., Chen, H., Shan, X. & Succi, S. (2009), “Lattice Boltzmann method with self-consistent thermo-hydrodynamic equilibria”, Journal of Fluid Mechanics. Vol. 628(-1), pp. 299-309. [DOI] [URL]

• Shafiee, H., Garcia, P.A. & Davalos, R.V. (2009), “A Preliminary Study to Delineate Irreversible Electroporation From Thermal Damage Using the Arrhenius Equation”, Journal of Biomechanical Engineering. Vol. 131(7), pp. 074509+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

• Shavit, U. (), “Special Issue on Transport Phenomena at the Interface Between Fluid and Porous Domains, Transport in Porous Media. [DOI] [URL]

• Sheard, G.J., Fitzgerald, M.J. & Kris, R.Y.A.N. (2009), “Cylinders with square cross-section: wake instabilities with incidence angle variation”, Journal of Fluid Mechanics. Vol. 630(-1), pp. 43-69. [DOI] [URL]

• Sheikh, H.A. (2009), “Determination of Heat Transfer in Ducts With Axial Conduction by Variational Calculus”, Journal of Heat Transfer. Vol. 131(9), pp. 091702+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

• Shrivastava, D. & Vaughan, J.T. (2009), “A Generic Bioheat Transfer Thermal Model for a Perfused Tissue”, Journal of Biomechanical Engineering. Vol. 131(7), pp. 074506+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

• Singh, J. & Bajaj, R. (2009), “Temperature modulation in ferrofluid convection”, Physics of Fluids. Vol. 21(6), pp. 064105+. AIP. [DOI] [URL]

• Song, A.S. & Diller, K.R. (2009), “Modeling Heat Shock Protein Expression Produced by a Heat Wrap”, Journal of Biomechanical Engineering. Vol. 131(7), pp. 074510+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

• Tailleux, R. & Rouleau, L. (2009), “The effect of mechanical stirring on buoyancy-driven circulations”, Jun, 2009. [URL]

• Tan, C.K., Ward, J., Wilcox, S.J. & Payne, R. (2009), “Artificial Neural Network Modelling of the Thermal Performance of a Compact Heat Exchanger”, Applied Thermal Engineering., June, 2009. [DOI] [URL]

• Tan, W. & Masuoka, T. (2009), “Response to “Comment on `Stokes’ first problem for an Oldroyd-B fluid in a porous half space’ ” [Phys. Fluids [21], 069101 (2009)]”, Physics of Fluids. Vol. 21(6), pp. 069102+. AIP. [DOI] [URL]

• Teruel, F.E. & Rizwan-Uddin (2009), “A new turbulence model for porous media flows. Part I: Constitutive equations and model closure”, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer., June, 2009. [DOI] [URL]

• Teruel, F.E. & Rizwan-Uddin (2009), “A new turbulence model for porous media flows. Part II: Analysis and validation using microscopic simulations”, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer., June, 2009. [DOI] [URL]

• Trelea, I.C., Passot, S., Marin, M. & Fonseca, F. (2009), “Model for Heat and Mass Transfer in Freeze-Drying of Pellets”, Journal of Biomechanical Engineering. Vol. 131(7), pp. 074501+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

• Volkan & Uluer, O. (2009), “An Experimental Investigation of the Cold Mass Fraction, Nozzle Number, and Inlet Pressure Effects on Performance of Counter Flow Vortex Tube”, Journal of Heat Transfer. Vol. 131(8), pp. 081701+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

• Wang, K.M., Lorente, S. & Bejan, A. (2009), “The transient response of vascular composites cooled with grids and radial channels”, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer., June, 2009. [DOI] [URL]

• Weidman, P.D. (2009), “Modified shape of the Eiffel Tower determined for an atmospheric boundary-layer wind profile”, Physics of Fluids. Vol. 21(6), pp. 067102+. AIP. [DOI] [URL]

• Winters, K.B. & Young, W.R. (2009), “Available potential energy and buoyancy variance in horizontal convection”, Journal of Fluid Mechanics. Vol. 629(-1), pp. 221-230. [DOI] [URL]

• Xiaohua, W.U. & Parviz, M.O.I.N. (2009), “Direct numerical simulation of turbulence in a nominally zero-pressure-gradient flat-plate boundary layer”, Journal of Fluid Mechanics. Vol. 630(-1), pp. 5-41. [DOI] [URL]

• Xu, F., Lu, T.J. & Seffen, K.A. (2009), “Thermally-Induced Change in the Relaxation Behavior of Skin Tissue”, Journal of Biomechanical Engineering. Vol. 131(7), pp. 071001+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

• Yagov, V.V. (2009), “Generic features and puzzles of nucleate boiling”, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer., June, 2009. [DOI] [URL]

• Yang, C.S., Jeng, D.Z., Tang, U.H. & Gau, C. (2009), “Flow and Heat Transfer of Natural Convection in Horizontal Annulus With a Heating Element on Inner Cylinder”, Journal of Heat Transfer. Vol. 131(8), pp. 082502+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

If your research interests doesn’t involve convection, fluid flow, porous media, bio-heat transport, this may not be of interest to you.

Part 1 of this month’s research paper read list.

• Østergaard, P.A. (2009), “Reviewing optimisation criteria for energy systems analyses of renewable energy integration”, Energy., June, 2009. [DOI] [URL]

• Aminossadati, S.M. & Ghasemi, B. (2009), “Natural convection cooling of a localised heat source at the bottom of a nanofluid-filled enclosure”, European Journal of Mechanics – B/Fluids., June, 2009. [DOI] [URL]

• Artemov, V., Beale, S.B., de Vahl, Escudier, M.P., Fueyo, N., Launder, B.E., Leonardi, E., Malin, M.R., Minkowycz, W.J. & Patankar, S.V. (2009), “A tribute to D.B. Spalding and his contributions in science and engineering”, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer., May, 2009. [DOI] [URL]

• Arthur, J.K., Ruth, D.W. & Tachie, M.F. (2009), “PIV measurements of flow through a model porous medium with varying boundary conditions”, Journal of Fluid Mechanics. Vol. 629(-1), pp. 343-374. [DOI] [URL]

• Assi, G.R.S., Bearman, P.W. & Kitney, N. (2009), “Low drag solutions for suppressing vortex-induced vibration of circular cylinders”, Journal of Fluids and Structures., May, 2009. Vol. 25(4), pp. 666-675. [DOI] [URL]

• Bailey, S.C.C., Hultmark, M., Schumacher, J., Yakhot, V. & Smits, A.J. (2009), “Measurement of Local Dissipation Scales in Turbulent Pipe Flow”, Physical Review Letters. Vol. 103(1), pp. 014502+. APS. [DOI] [URL]

• Basak, T., Roy, S., Singh, A. & Pandey, B.D. (2009), “Natural convection flow simulation for various angles in a trapezoidal enclosure with linearly heated side wall(s)”, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer., June, 2009. [DOI] [URL]

• Basak, T., Roy, S., Singh, S.K. & Pop, I. (2009), “Finite element simulation of natural convection within porous trapezoidal enclosures for various inclination angles: Effect of various wall heating”, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer., June, 2009. [DOI] [URL]

• Chen, T.-M. (2009), “A hybrid Green’s function method for the hyperbolic heat conduction problems”, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer., June, 2009. [DOI] [URL]

• Christov, C.I. & Jordan, P.M. (2009), “Comment on “Stokes’ first problem for an Oldroyd-B fluid in a porous half space” [Phys. Fluids [bold 17], 023101 (2005)]”, Physics of Fluids. Vol. 21(6), pp. 069101+. AIP. [DOI] [URL]

• Cole, K.D. & Crittenden, P.E. (2009), “Steady-Periodic Heating of a Cylinder”, Journal of Heat Transfer. Vol. 131(9), pp. 091301+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

• Cortet, P.P., Diribarne, P., Monchaux, R., Chiffaudel, A., Daviaud, F. & Dubrulle, B. (2009), “Normalized kinetic energy as a hydrodynamical global quantity for inhomogeneous anisotropic turbulence”, Physics of Fluids. Vol. 21(2), pp. 025104+. AIP. [DOI] [URL]

• Diotallevi, F., Chibbaro, S., Costa, E., Dimitrov, D., Milchev, A., Palmieri, D., Pontrelli, G. & Succi, S. (2009), “Capillary filling with wall corrugations] Capillary filling in microchannels with wall corrugations: A comparative study of the Concus-Finn criterion by continuum, kinetic and atomistic approaches”, Jun, 2009. [URL]

• Dović, D., Palm, B. & Švaić, S. (2009), “Generalized correlations for predicting heat transfer and pressure drop in plate heat exchanger channels of arbitrary geometry”, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer., May, 2009. [DOI] [URL]

• Dukhan, N. (2009), “An Engineering Estimate for Plug-Flow Convection in Porous Media Discarding Fluid Conduction”, Journal of Electronic Packaging. Vol. 131(3), pp. 034501+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

• Egan, V., Walsh, P.A., Walsh, E. & Grimes, R. (2009), “Thermal Analysis of Miniature Low Profile Heat Sinks With and Without Fins”, Journal of Electronic Packaging. Vol. 131(3), pp. 031004+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

• Eggers, J. & du Pont, C.S. (2009), “Numerical analysis of tips in viscous flow”, Physical Review E (Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics). Vol. 79(6), pp. 066311+. APS. [DOI] [URL]

• Gommes, C.J., Bons, A.-J., Blacher, S., Dunsmuir, J.H. & Tsou, A.H. (2009), “Practical methods for measuring the tortuosity of porous materials from binary or gray-tone tomographic reconstructions”, AIChE Journal. [DOI] [URL]

• Hajeri, A.M.H., Aroussi, A. & Witry, A. (2009), “Numerical Simulation of Flow Past Multiple Porous Cylinders”, Journal of Fluids Engineering. Vol. 131(7), pp. 071101+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

• He, X., Bhowmick, S. & Bischof, J.C. (2009), “Thermal Therapy in Urologic Systems: A Comparison of Arrhenius and Thermal Isoeffective Dose Models in Predicting Hyperthermic Injury”, Journal of Biomechanical Engineering. Vol. 131(7), pp. 074507+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

• Inoue, T. & Monde, M. (2009), “Operating limit of heat transport in two-phase thermosyphon with connecting pipe (heated surface temperature fluctuation and flow pattern)”, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer., June, 2009. [DOI] [URL]

• Ismail, K.A.R. & Moraes, R.I.R. (2009), “A numerical and experimental investigation of different containers and PCM options for cold storage modular units for domestic applications”, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer., June, 2009. [DOI] [URL]

• Jellinek, A.M. & Lenardic, A. (2009), “Effects of spatially varying roof cooling on thermal convection at high Rayleigh number in a fluid with a strongly temperature-dependent viscosity”, Journal of Fluid Mechanics. Vol. 629(-1), pp. 109-137. [DOI] [URL]

• Jeong, D.W., Lee, C.Y. & Lee, S.Y. (2009), “Measurement of Fluid Temperature Across Microscale Gap Using Two-Color Ratiometric Laser-Induced Fluorescence Technique in Combination With Confocal Microscopy”, Journal of Heat Transfer. Vol. 131(9), pp. 091601+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

• Kathiravan, R., Kumar, R., Gupta, A. & Chandra, R. (2009), “Characterization and Pool Boiling Heat Transfer Studies of Nanofluids”, Journal of Heat Transfer. Vol. 131(8), pp. 081902+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

• Kharalkar, N.M., Bauserman, S.C. & Valvano, J.W. (2009), “Effect of Formalin Fixation on Thermal Conductivity of the Biological Tissue”, Journal of Biomechanical Engineering. Vol. 131(7), pp. 074508+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

• Kihm, K.D. (2009), “Heat Transfer Photogallery”, Journal of Heat Transfer. Vol. 131(8), pp. 080901+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

• Leweke, T., Thompson, M.C. & Hourigan, K. (2009), “Motion of a Möbius band in free fall”, Journal of Fluids and Structures., May, 2009. Vol. 25(4), pp. 687-696. [DOI] [URL]

• Lorenzini, G. & Moretti, S. (2009), “A Bejan’s Constructal Theory Approach to the Overall Optimization of Heat Exchanging Finned Modules With Air in Forced Convection and Laminar Flow Condition”, Journal of Heat Transfer. Vol. 131(8), pp. 081801+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

• Macphee, D. & Dincer, I. (2009), “Heat Transfer and Thermodynamic Analyses of Some Typical Encapsulated Ice Geometries During Discharging Process”, Journal of Heat Transfer. Vol. 131(8), pp. 082301+. ASME. [DOI] [URL]

After the Twittering, Science and Self, the deluge. Let me navel-gaze and collate only my useful tweets (didn’t I mention navel gazing) from the past month. Primarily for me and certainly as a minor exhibition to my non-twitter readers, of what I think is possible with Twitter like tools.

Be warned it is lengthy (should collate henceforth bimonthly) and an assortment of micro thoughts, mostly original with some opinions and links, links and more links to a slice of what I read on the web. I have loosely segregated them under three topics. If you decide to use twitter now, don’t forget to follow me (I already feel like a Budh-ha-ha).

Twit-muse

• Here’s one more on #twitlingo; Twit-englis, where practice maks u imperfct ;) Permatwit
• Knock knock; whosit; Your @oppurtunity; cant b; Why Because I knocked twice? no u r usin gd englis 2 Tweet, u r’nt my opprtunty Gby – Permatwit
• my just about 6 yr finally managed to ask me over dinner today how the first man came about on Earth – tonight her dreams r made of XX XY – View Tweet
• Men are for #TeX (#LaTeX) & Women are for #MSWord i.e. Men sweat the small stuff <– I even blog only with TeX http://bit.ly/tppPZ – QED? – View Tweet
• BING – Bill It Now 2 Gates :) RT @narain: BING – But Its’ Not Google anyway ;) #bing #google #microsoft – View Tweet
• #chennai panagal park flyover can be used as parking space for pothys and nalli with elevator entry – View Tweet
• Here is a ditty I made up while signing up for #GoogleWave http://bit.ly/7mTgY – I me and mine; In web we pine; Ogle and crave; Google Wave – View Tweet
  

Twit-Science

• 10 Fantastic Futuristic Materials that Actually Exist http://bit.ly/fEr0o << Where is my Flubber, eh? – Permatwit
• RT @nanowerk: Nonstick gold surfaces & laser-safe gold nanoposts aids trapping biomolecules: http://u.mavrev.com/bk6e << Gold (is a) Trap :) – Permatwit
• RT @gregladen: New Kind of Cloud Discovered? http://tinyurl.com/lj9try – Permatwit
• Neandertal dredged from North Sea | john hawks weblog http://bit.ly/3yjpdv – Permatwit
• Is our Sun expanding now? >> RT @dpodolsky: Betelgeuse is shrinking: http://bit.ly/k0Hpg (expand) #astronomy – View Tweet
• Must watch >> RT @NASA: Dramatic changes our world has gone through in just 10 years, as captured by NASA spacecraft: http://tr.im/oA6q [Permatwit]
• Birth control by sterilizing male mosquitoes b4 mating renders female (mates once in life) eggs dud http://bit.ly/DtbYk (via @worldscipod ) – Permatwit
• Sometimes I wonder whether my research is useful to anyone. But I do know that I’m in awe – frm Physics is beauty http://bit.ly/DPR1g – View Tweet
• @sciencebase Both K-H and Karman vortices are BL phenomena in viscous fluids; Both can be scaled from lab level to Nature for observation (related to the one below)
  
• Karman vortices in clouds may interest you http://bit.ly/zjpXU –> RT @sciencebase: Kelvin-Helmholtz wave cloud http://tinyurl.com/mnp3yo – View Tweet
• Falling maple seed wing generate leading edge vortex causing additional lift 2 fall even a mile away RT @nytimesscience: http://bit.ly/Kj50R – View Tweet
• sciencebase: @ommachi You might be interested to know the #scientwists list is now up to 500 members – http://bit.ly/scientwists (replying for my tweet below)
• @sciencebase Why do I think of u when we require a list of science FFers like the #scientwists http://bit.ly/gP2Vh
• Using stem cells cultured on a simple contact lens to restore sight http://bit.ly/L6s3a video <- promising; wonder how stable the lens is – View Tweet
  
• Tribute to D.B. Spalding and his contributions in science and engineering http://bit.ly/2UGux (expand) – article in recent tribute issue of IJHMT
• RT @TimesScience The Sound of Science – 10 songs for scientists http://bit.ly/11erkM
• Do they explode or implode? — RT @AIP_Publishing Are antimatter bombs for real? http://tinyurl.com/q76roe #AIP_PTNP – View Tweet
• Check also this http://bit.ly/Tq6ku — RT @NASA_EO: The Ozone Layer If CFCs Hadn’t Been Banned [image] http://tinyurl.com/qrldo9 – View Tweet
  
• Blogged abt this concept 2 yrs ago http://bit.ly/sJ2j0 — RT @techreview: Laptop Cooled with Ionic Wind http://bit.ly/ynuxr – View Tweet
  

Twit-Info

• Liked “Semantics Incorporated: The Definitive Definition of Web 3.0″ http://ff.im/-3Xoz7 – View Tweet
• Liked “English libel law adversely affects every publisher and website host that can be read in UK…” http://ff.im/-3QKFu
• RT @lakshmi: Writing in the age of distraction : http://bit.ly/y7yjh (expand) <– “Kill your word-processor”
• How Govt subsidy works in Ind Med. Profsn. (2nd link) RT @spinesurgeon http://tinyurl.com/qrd9kp Utter Rubbish See http://tinyurl.com/pqqh6k – View Tweet
  
• Got myself invited today to write a book chapter bcoz of my #ReseachBlogging — @davemunger wink wink :) – View Tweet
  
• A series of Academic Writing Tips Links – (6/6) Responding to Journal Decisions http://bit.ly/rdT2s
• A series of Academic Writing Tips Links – (5/6) Write Before You’re Ready: First Steps to Avoiding Writer’s Block http://bit.ly/sSGFd
• A series of Academic Writing Tips Links – (4/6) How to Write Anything http://bit.ly/AL0P
• A series of Academic Writing Tips Links – (3/6) Ten Ways of Thinking that Lead to Writing Procrastination http://bit.ly/jZnlw
• A series of Academic Writing Tips Links – (2/6) Reducing Over-Complexity in Your Scholarly Writing http://bit.ly/fcl4w
• A series of Academic Writing Tips Links – (1/6) Writing in the Academy http://bit.ly/1Z0NF

Twit-opinion

• Eye for an eye, eh? (yields a blind world – MKGandhi) >> RT @gregladen: “Empathetic fascism can only be stopped with a gun” http://is.gd/1447S – Permatwit
• Ryan Sager http://is.gd/1436C (1/3): Americans are projecting their hatred of Ahmadinejad onto the mass of the Iranian people. – Permatwit
• Joined SocialVibe n made my blog generate wealth for World Food Program – visit blog http://bit.ly/15kp7j chk sidebar badge & support :) – Permatwit
• Director of Bentham Pub. defense: “submission of fake manuscripts is a totally unethical activity” http://bit.ly/L2F4k << hilarious (2/2) – Permatwit
• Editor-in-chief of a Bentham Pub #openaccess journal will quit over acceptance of fake paper without his knowledge http://bit.ly/L2F4k (1/2) – Permatwit
• Joined SocialVibe n made my blog generate wealth for World Food Program – visit blog http://bit.ly/15kp7j (expand) chk sidebar badge & support :) – View Tweet
• For those with experience, do you finish n submit u’r peer review of papers the next day, or wait until reminded?… http://ff.im/-400D3 – View Tweet
• I think the Indian #engineering publication record for the last two decades is better than its #science; related to –> http://bit.ly/4qSkBU (continuation from the previous two, below)
  
• ‘Fun’…a word hard to associate with #science community obsessed with quantitative performance parameters – quote frm http://bit.ly/4qSkBU – View Tweet
• Is it bad that India has “limped” from just 2.5 in 1988–1993 to 2.6 % during 1999 – 2008 in #science publications -> http://bit.ly/4qSkBU
• The situation won’t improve unless scientific papers also are written/reported in a open, transient fashion -… re: http://ff.im/3PSbK (continuation from the one below)
  
• As in journalism vs. blogging, here also the tussle bet. processed info (other papers) & (perceived) transient… re: http://ff.im/3PSbK – View Tweet
• Compared to this original by Maurice Ravel, Beck’s Bolero attempt pales into insignificance ♫ http://blip.fm/~8529a
• RT @BoraZ: http://tr.im/odv9 Diff. bet. online and print journalism <– Crux: print journ. is packaged & not always in process, like online
• RT @sanjaysub: Scale and Rakthi http://tinyurl.com/ladr8j <– a definite read 4 “critics” of this kind http://bit.ly/12XEwY who won’t budge
• RT @thoughts: Knocked Vista off my machine and got back to XP – perceptible increase in speed <– and sense :) Vista is a sales gig for XP – View Tweet
• yrs ago @scobleizer coaxed us out of self-hosting now he lemmings us to do it http://tinyurl.com/qk9rp5 – Stop the webspin; I wanna get down – View Tweet
• I wonder how they come up with such stats – RT @Greenimentary Each year 100 million trees are cut down & turned into junk mail – View Tweet

This week, Twitter made CNN look a reluctant town-crier in the aftermath of the #iranelection (that is called a twitter hashtag; click to see tweets related to that topic). Elsewhere, a while ago, our quirkologist Richard Wiseman (remember the Q-writing?) conducted a live twitter science experiment investigating psychic power that had twitterers participate in scores. Read more at his interesting blog about the experiment and results. Not long ago a slice of FriendFeeders with interest in Science started writing a paper online, using Web 2.0 applications, to submit for the Call for JCOM papers on participative media (link goes to a FF discussion on how to write that paper). See also Walking the walk – The practical experience of Web2 in research for another related discussion and development of such interesting attempts. And Monica Rankin is able to use Twitter through TweetDeck for discussing History lessons in her UT Dallas classroom on a daily basis [see also YouTube Video].

I started using twitter earnestly about two months back. I am exploring the possibility of a micro web-stream for processing all the information I come into contact on the web. I chose Twitter as it restricts our verbal vomit on any topic to 140 characters. As a hopefully reliable friendly-filter , at the outset, such a web-streaming platform allows one to link to other sites, especially blogs and articles that one finds interesting and read-worthy, but don’t have much to comment upon.

However, like blogs, Scientists may not need Twitter. One can argue that no creative performance requires such web tools that, albeit capably, only process participative information quickly and directly in amazing ways. One’s creativity still remains untouched and unfettered. As I twittered:

Unless #scientists are at an obvious disadvantage if they don’t, their divide with web 2.0 will remain >> http://bit.ly/SrYeX (links to article on web 2.0 and scientists) – View Tweet

This is perhaps the reason two weeks back when using Twitlocal (suggests local Twitterers) I

Searched for #nearbytweets in Location: India, Keyword: science Search Radius: 3000 (miles) at http://nearbytweets.com/ Result: 0 – View Tweet

Also, I wonder if I ever could take my Twitter-totter discussions into my classroom setting, say for discussing heat transfer with undergrads. Let me remain optimistic for now. It at least makes me feel good.

In addition to such information filter-friend activity (see Friend in Feed is a Friend indeed), with Twitter I attempt micro-musing within 140 characters. Not yet on song in all of this, but like useful blogging, I try.

So does Twitter made me blog less?

No. But my blog content has more substance now RT @scanman: Has using Twitter/FF, made your blog posting less frequent?” http://ff.im/33bVL – View Tweet

In a subsequent note, let me navel-gaze and collate my useful tweets from the past two months. Primarily for me and certainly as a minor exhibition to my non-twitter readers, of what I think is possible with Twitter like tools. Before I close, sometime back Lakshmi was wondering (Twit Tweet, Bird Brain) what good is a Twitter that asks us to reply for the mundane question “What are you doing?”

The banality of the reply literally depends on what you are doing, while just Twittering.

those who don’t contribute original useful content to it, have no moral high ground to complain about trashiness of internet – View Tweet

The danger from computers is not that they will eventually get as smart as men, but we will meanwhile agree to meet them halfway.

– Bernard Avishai (not sure this is he)

There is a definite growth pattern the diligent can perceive in a creative musical career, be it classical or commercial. Imagine a frustum of an upright cone. At the start of the career, an otherwise talented musician (or artist) is somewhere close to the base of the cone, with the largest radius around representing the listeners. Importantly, wide base also necessarily implies a wide range of listeners – from those who are connoisseurs to theoreticians to musicians to laypersons, cutting across all slice of the population. In other words, the artist is popular.

Over the ensuing years, taking for granted the consistent creativity of the artist (eliminating one hit wonders), as his command and knowledge of music, his musicianship or his musicholarship grows, as an artist he climbs the axis of the cone towards the tip. His music becomes that much matured to reduce the radius of influence in the listeners around him. The listeners need some sophistication to appreciate what he is contributing with his music. Some of the skimmers who can’t put the additional effort to appreciate the music, fall out. The musician is perceived to be less popular (in populist judgment).

In a career spanning a few decades, with voice and creativity intact, a classical or commercial music composer climbs such a cone of musical maturity and corresponding influence. Consciously or inadvertently. Extrapolation of this climb obviously leads to a stage where the music is so intricate and complex or simple and straight, only a few can first understand to appreciate it. The end at the tip is tempting to perceive: the musician becomes his listener, an end in himself [**].

But as a fan who strives to hopefully understand and appreciate, I would like to keep the cone a frustum without that tip. For Ilaiyaraja.

Somewhere after 1995, Ilaiyaraja seem to have climbed the cone up from the stand alone tunes and blend his music with the movie being made. In this matured avatar of him, the songs he composed were extended interludes for the brilliant, topical, background score. They no longer were meant as crowd pleasing popular hits, but ably assist the movie to proceed. If competent directors choose to realize their potential.

Perceivable is the ever maturing music. In the process, often remains as the barest necessity of its melody, discarding much of the grandiose musical ornamentation he unassumingly orchestrated around his tune over the years. The more he realizes his music all around in nature, the more he keeps its capricious decorations out of his compositions. His melody bridges him with nature. His music, us.

Listen for example to this duet from the movie virumAndi (2006) directed by Kamal Haasan:

Or to this duet from the yet to be released movie azhagar malai:

Observe the complex rhythm, yet set in electronics (compare with any hand played percussion). And the interludes, still different and easy flowing as it ever has been but lacking the rich symphonic orchestration of songs discussed in Part 1 and Part 2.

Here is one more from the same movie with pre-set rhythm. The lyrics of the song seem to reflect his inner equilibrium.

I hear the director of the movie has Ilaiyaraja literally singing and enacting the song in the movie. The height of the discussed method of visualizing music by total surrender (see Part 3), I should say.

The effect of such maturity is for the music to discard some of its original followers and even unappealing to a new generation of endurers of Tamil movies with off-the-shelf rhythm driven, off-key singing, ring-tone friendly music compositions. Such is art. Resembling the growth of an upright cone from its initial wide base, as art matures, often its, perhaps needless, popularity wanes. But it enchants and educates more than a generation who were ready to climb the cone full length. As it happened in Ilaiyaraja’s operatic rendition of Thiruvasagam.

Pages can be written as tribute to the thiruvAsagam presentation of Ilaiyaraja. For those who need an introduction, Thiruvasagam is a collection of beautifully crafted hymns on Lord Shiva written (in Old Tamil) by Manickavachagar. It was translated to English in the 19th century by G. U. Pope. Suffice to say, thiruvAsagathhirkurugAr oruvAchagathirkum UrugAr – those not melting for (the verses of) thiruvAsagam, won’t melt for any other written Word. After several years of soaking within it, by 2006 Ilaiyaraja composed music for certain sections of thiruvAsagam. He sung thiruvAsagam as the first Indian oratorio, accompanied by orchestration composed by him and played by the 100 year old Budapest Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Laszlo Kovacs). A crowning feat of his long realized strength of fusing Western Classical with Indian Classical and semi-classical music.

Although Ilaiyaraja’s thiruvAsagam – as it came to be called – was received well (sold out – after getting the first one on the day of release, I went back and got six more to gift to friends), detractors criticized him for disrobing thiruvAsagam of its traditional garb of OdhuvAr style recitation thus diluting its spirituality. Any such artsy debate will never end due to its subjective premise, but I think such criticism often arise out of insecurity – an urge to slot into jaded familiarity or dismiss totally what is completely new and seemingly undefinable. If at all, Ilaiyaraja’s music decorated the verses with such proper context and emotion that one requires no accompanying visuals to visualize the purport of thiruvAsagam.

And here I cite an example from his thiruvAsagam: this is not the main operatic piece from the album. Not even perhaps the popular. But, contrary to the visuals-for-music movies we discussed so far, the piece shows emphatically, music can visualize. If it arises from competent and perceptive composers.

The verses in the above song is addressed to the King Bee (kO thumbI in Tamil). For instance the first stanza in Tamil reads

pUvERu kOnum pura ndharanum poRpamaindha
nAvERu selviyum nAraNanum nAnmaRaiyum
mAvERu sOdhiyum vAnavarum thAmaRiyAc
cEvERu sEvadikkE sendRUdhAy kOththumbI.

Let us not go into the full translation, which can be read from the web [***]. Just notice the sendRUdhAy kOthumbI at the end. It means Go, abuzz, King Bee. Now listen to the above musical score by Ilaiyaraja. Observe the background score starting from the time he sings sendRUdhAy kOthumbI until the beginning of singing the next stanza. Close your Tamil-unknown eyes and listen from anywhere in the Human World. You can vividly visualize in your mental eye, the random buzzing flight of the King Bee.

Such perception of thought that seamlessly translates into musical deliverance is spiritual. If this is dilution of thiruvAsagam, let me hereafter be ordained to stroke my spirituality with only such dilutions. For discussion, one is reminded of the Flight of the Bumble Bee (YouTube link) by Rimsky korsakov and Verdi’s opera. But for me, my lamentation about the curse of the bygone movie visuals for his music becomes even more damning.

The next step in the cone of excellence (with the associated inevitability of molting popularity) is to just realize without lyrics, without visuals, only the music within.

Carnatic music rAgAs (embellished scales) are usually conceived with seven (janaka – parent – rAgA), six or five notes (the janya – child – rAgA of a janaka rAgA). Breaking that tradition, Dr. Balamuralikrishna in his illustrious career has conceived several four-note rAgAs like sumukham, mahati, lavangi and has composed and delivered krithis in them with success. Taking inspiration perhaps from this – for, he has long been enamoured by the music of Dr. Balamuralikrishna – Ilaiyaraja has created a composition in a scale that uses just three notes.

Minds adept in the hoary tradition of South Indian Classical Carnatic music would indignantly wonder what creative combinations one could achieve with just three notes; for how long; can a gamakam be introduced therein and so on. Rightly so, because the fertility of imagination in a rAgA often spells its untimely popularity or timely demise.

This composition of Ilaiyaraja not only has the main melody (song) set in three notes, but the entire accompanying orchestration.

Here is his explanation to an audience in Italy not long ago on how he built that composition

The novice that I am, I forgot all about the sthAyis (octaves) and the range it provides to explore a scale. The joy we derive from music is in such unpredictability, from a familiar known when the music immerses you into a captivating unknown, teasingly familiar yet exhibiting stranger aspects that is comprehensible but not in the first listen, ever unpredictable.

Listen to the composition with the entire orchestration

Just three notes? For Ilaiyaraja it is two too many.

Ilaiyaraja chose his career of composing music in a predominantly visual medium that demands stand alone hits out of every composed song. Thriving in such unforgiving standards, he not only has belted hit after hit but has dared to experiment the length and breadth of music: jazz to rock, folk to classical, Carnatic to Hindustani, full bench orchestra to solo voice, symphonic structure for movie songs (read Ilaiyaraja and the Curse of the Visual – Part 1), exploration of mElakarthAs of Carnatic music (sample: movie kAdhal Oviyam starts with a song in kanakAngi and ends with another in rasikapriyA, the respective first and last of the 72 melakarthAs), songs for unusual situations (samples: songs for fight sequences, bus ride with first, second and third person dialogue in movie chitukuruvi, dialogue as songs, school parade singing vandE mAtharam in off key in movie mumbAi express), apt use of rAgAs (read Lakshminarayanan’s series given in [*]).

Ilaiyaraja has scored music for more than thousand such movies most of which never attempted a visual justice to his magnificent music. Irrespective of such consistent incompetence he has managed to keep his creativity and music ever on a higher plane, nevertheless mostly accessible to the common fan, a trait observed by critics in the music of Mozart.

Such a successful movie music composer career is sufficient for his deeds and fame to last forever. But as creators in any form of human expression are known to be, Ilaiyaraja continues to defy what we commoners consider as his best. Over the decades, Ilaiyaraja has metamorphosed successfully to shred the constraints of visuals (movies) with his music albums (from the early How to Name It to the recent Thiruvasagam) to realize his inner music and capably reach his fans with it. Ilaiyaraja’s music is its own visual flesh and pervading spirit.

Even if it be misinterpreted as a left handed compliment, let me end this series with a visual observation. If you agree the resemblance of universal genius in my visual is vivid than the accursed mismatch of the inept movie visuals indelible in our minds for the music of Ilaiyaraja, it is a minor redemption.

[Concluded]

*****

Earlier parts: Ilaiyaraja and the Curse of the Visual – Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4

Notes

[*] Ilaiyaraja has composed music for more than a thousand movies. It is impossible to write a single article that does justice to the entire musical phenomenon, introducing and saluting his music while also satisfying the expectations of his fans. Hopefully this essay series serves as an introduction to those who are yet to explore his music.

A much more elaborate attempt was already made by my Srirangam friend Lakshminarayanan a decade back in the internet. Titled Classical Ilaiyaraja, the fifteen part essay is also preserved at the unofficial Ilaiyaraja home-site.

[**] The frustum of a cone analogy has many assumptions that could go wrong. The creator is assumed consistent and productive in a long career, amidst a population with consistent musical taste. Any or all of which could go wrong.

[***] thiruvAsagam in Tamil and English – as pdf files.

[****] The songs and music used here are only for illustration purpose. There is no download link provided.

[*****] Thanks to all those who in the past one and half month, helped with the songs, their audio files and video links and the associated discussions.

Acknowledgement: Anantha @twitter; Balaji @twitter; Ganesh @twitter; Prakash @twitter; Vijay @twitter; Sudarshan, Lakshmi @twitter, Jagadeesh. Thanks also to karthi @http://twitter.com/subatomictwitter, trisanku @twitter, anonymous (for azhagarmalai review) for links and appreciation.

Tamil film industry has its share of movie directors who are one hit wonders. Irrevocably spoilt by such fleeting success, they realize the rest of their career as one long list of blunders. Such visual diarrhea piggy back on the best from the Maestro, often the only contribution of those movies to the Tamil art world. Our claim on his music has been our undeserved birthright.

That the Maestro had obliged a million times and more to such non-entities could be taken as a sign of confused values, or mark of his indefatigable creative baton. To paraphrase the Bard, the quality of Maestro’s mercy is not strained; it droppeth as a gentle rain from Heaven upon the place beneath – fertile or barren. Abandon hope, all ye enter the movie hell for watching such a movie. The music shall remain bound by the curse of the visuals.

Now there are other directors who are adept in conceiving an interesting movie. But they inadvertently underestimate the place for music in that visual medium. Also, they dare not upset the commercial juggernaut to release their Tamil movies without any songs. So often they give a free hand to Ilaiyaraja (or the music composer involved) and ask him to compose songs for vaguely generic situations with cliches like two duets, one sad song, one group song, one item number. And in return are gifted the nectar of Indra.

The stumped directors realize and express their inadequacy for translating into visual medium when confronted by the musical creativity of Ilaiyaraja. The standard ploy of commensurate effort is to transport the entire film unit, camera, creativity and all, to a foreign country to shoot the song. Otherwise, they do elaborate sets of one city near another, a ship on sands or paint villages in rainbow colors and so on in an attempt to match the brains of the music with such cocktail brawn.

Competent as they are, unlike the earlier category of one hit wonders, some directors do attempt visualization either by total surrender as discussed in part 3. Or occasionally by visualizing the lyrics of the pulsating Ilaiyaraja music, with some success.

As was attempted by director Mahendran in the following example. The famous song is from the movie Mullum Malarum, a favorite of actor Rajinikanth (the actor in the song sequence however is Sarath Babu):

Audio

Video

(YouTube Link – At the start has few Ilaiyaraja visuals unrelated to the song, but good video)

(YouTube Link – Only the song, but direct TV capture)

Those who can understand the Tamil lyrics would know the attempted match of visuals with lyrics in many instances along the song. At the very beginning there was even a synchronization of well edited shots with the music. As the song progressed, perhaps the interest of the director in visualizing appropriately also waned.

Appropriate visuals or not, a major irritant is the uncoordinated steering of the actor driving the jeep. A sub-major irritant is the repeated use of that sequence of bad jeep driving with identical road backgrounds on two instances separated by enough time. Thankfully, at least the lip sync of the actor is properly attended to. A general minor irritant is the ’slowness’ of the visuals – the shots – contrasting with the jumpy tune. For some Tamil purists, the diction of the singer of Malayalam origin is a sub-minor irritant. Notice for example at the end of the second charanam, that goes malayin kAtchi, iraivan Atchi, how the singer pronounces the word kAtchi as kaat-chee while in Tamil it should be pronounced closer to kaat-szhee. The end of the third charanam has the word arputham pronounced instead arbudham.

If one looks hard, one can find such passable examples of visualization attempts of the lyrics in Tamil movies, with a tacit surrender to the overwhelming accompanying music of the Maestro.

Now, there is another method to visualize songs of Ilaiyaraja. Forget the lyrics altogether and try to visualize the music.

Competent directors get successful with this method when surrounded by excellent technicians. In the example below, the same Rajinikanth abused for his (lack of) dance and sync skills in earlier examples discussed in these essays (in Part 1 Part 2 Part 3), is made to sync wonderfully and even dance reasonably by Manirathnam for Thalapathy. Here is the amazing music composition:

Audio

Video

YouTube Link

From the starting sixty-violins-presto-bash observe the choreography, sequences and editing, only attempts to visualize the music and not the lyrics. If you know Tamil, observe there is only a passing display of lip sync with lyrics and vague resemblance of poses to the lyrics. Even the clap-your-hands lyrics is overlooked and those instances are synced throughout with group-snapping-of-fingers as snapping is what one hear in the background music. Amazingly, even the trademark laugh of the singer SPB during the course of the song (hear it near the very end) is left un-synced with an attempted on screen laugh by the hero. The hero is not even in the frame when that laugh happens. Such is Manirathnam, remaining faithful to his method of music visualization attempt.

Music-wise, the magic of thEvAram in a different tempo seamlessly mixed with the main tempo of the song towards the end is an early bonus from the genius. This mixing of rhythms, tAlams, tempos, an extension of the western classical structure into rhythms, is another aspect that intrigues Ilaiyaraja and keeps us enthralled.

Going back, imagine what such a technique of visualizing only the music could have done to the earlier songs we discussed – AgAya gangai and santhana kAtrE (in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).

And sigh.

One more necessary digression for the above rAkkammA song: The North Indian Hindi copycats upon queried about their blatant copy of the above music without acknowledging the genius of Ilaiyaraja, replied unabashedly with a cock and bull story about their absent minded snapping fingers and how the tune came about. Baloney. When asked about such dearth of musical creativity and ownership injustice, Ilaiyaraja in a later interview answered with characteristic aplomb that comes out of supreme confidence in his talent and often misinterpreted by many as arrogance: Those who have, provide, those who don’t, take [**].

Manirathnam is not the pioneer of the technique of visualizing only the music. Attempts have been made for the compositions of other music directors in an era before Ilaiyaraja. But given his aversion to shooting songs for movies (which he admitted to in interviews) and his bad-habit for excellence of technique even while including such avoidable elements in his movies (another example is his technically excellent, ridiculous comedy tracks), Manirathnam was able to consciously hone and popularize in recent decades this method of choreographing songs for music rather the lyrics. Ilaiyaraja’s music got some justice.

The technique of literally dancing (only) to the tune is easier to attempt. But for its success, it requires the music to deliver more in rhythm than in melody. Deliver it did also in rhythm, the melody rich music of Ilaiyaraja until around 1995. In the recent decade it would seem the music of Ilaiyaraja has been reduced straight to the melody bereft of any standard, off the shelf, groovy rhythm (by melody it is meant the tune of the song and rhythm is the percussion beats in the background). But nuanced listeners would agree the music has only grown complex and subtle both in rhythm and melody, to the extent they are becoming inseparable. The result is, even while meant as an ordinary group song for a contrived situation, these movie-songs are becoming un-dance-able tunes. Un-dance-able, if excellence is striven in matching visuals for the music.

There is another important method to save the visuals. Allow the music composer to partake in the proceedings, i.e. in the creation of the song situation, scenes, sequences and the movie. Not just the background score, but also in the song sequences. For this to happen the director of the movie necessarily requires a completed script in hand with even songs used cleverly as choreographed sequences that move the story. No excess songs need be used, if it doesn’t help the movie proceed.

Some creators believe such planning is detrimental to their spontaneous creativity. And go on to make movies that are kites without any ruddering thread.

The fact is, such planning and execution is possible with only a few having some clarity of thought about the movie they are making. The resulting marriage between music and visuals in such instances is often satisfying, if not always mesmerizing.

Here is an example of this method from the movie Hey Ram:

Audio

Video

YouTube Link

Hey Ram is a period movie with a knot of what if an ordinary guy loses his wife to violence during partition, thinks Mahathma Gandhi is the reason for that. A classic from director Kamal Hassan, I hear it is included in the syllabus for teaching movie direction in some US schools (read a review by Prof. Philip A. Lutgendorf of the University of Iowa [****]) .

The particular sequences enacted for the song, again, doesn’t attempt to mouth the lyrics (expect for a brief instance of the heroine reciting Bengali poetry). But the story moves along with the song with excellent editing. The scenes begin, end and transform in appropriate punches of music with voice (speech) layovers without spoiling the music. Importantly, the sequence of events shown from past and present and their picturization never dilutes the yearn and loss brought out in the bhava (mood) of the song. Or vice versa. The song upholds the mood of the situation, the cherished memories and contrasting reality of a sad and torn individual.

Those who have watched the movie would realize the seamless blend of the visuals in the song that provides the transition from the events before and after it. Those who haven’t can immediately grasp the serene and content feeling with melancholic strains the song evokes. The universality of such feelings of love and loss is highlighted by the song shared by a couple, one from Tamil Nadu the other from Bengal, while the tune itself set literally in a grand piano. The amazing asynchronous parts the singers achieve near the end of the song is again a bonus literally handwritten on the staves by the genius.

Such music and its choreography requires enormous skill and intelligence of craft, experience in the medium, understanding of music and sympathy for excellence around you. That it was possible in Tamil movies in some instances, is a collective sigh of creativity relief both for the creator and the consumer.

The downside of this method is, the creator in the music composer is restrained by the actuality of the movie. The music director cannot create in un-reigned spree and then ask the rest (lyricist, singers, choreographers etc.) to work around his music. It is not the first innings where Sachin is asked to play his natural aggressive game and contribute to a grand total. It is the second innings where he is asked to play his part in saving or winning a test match. The music needs to be created dovetailing with the rest of the creators. Only team work uplifts the visual medium, the movie. Individual brilliance is consciously marginalized or re-channelized. Advantage is, the visuals (picturization) almost always match the music and lyrics. Disadvantage?

An AgAya gangai or santhana kAtrE may not be created by this method.

[Part 5 to follow] [ Ilaiyaraja and the Curse of the Visual - Part 1 - Ilaiyaraja and the Curse of the Visual - Part 2 - Ilaiyaraja and the Curse of the Visual - Part 3]

*****

Notes

[*] Ilaiyaraja has composed music for more than a thousand movies. It is impossible to write a single article that does justice to the entire musical phenomenon, introducing and saluting his music while also satisfying the expectations of his fans. Hopefully this essay series serves as an introduction to those who are yet to explore his music.

A much more elaborate attempt was already made by my Srirangam friend Lakshminarayanan a decade back in the internet. Titled Classical Ilaiyaraja, the fifteen part essay is also preserved at the unofficial Ilaiyaraja home-site.

[**] What Ilaiyaraja said is conveyed even more powerfully in Tamil: irukiravan kodukkirAn, illAthavan eduthukirAn

[***] The songs and music used here are only for illustration purpose. There is no download link provided.

[****] Thanks to @anantha via twitter for the link

Carnot Engines are efficient and ideal. And unreal. The rest including the now dead steam engines are real and inefficient. Likewise, ‘translation engines’ are observed to be non-Carnot with inevitable finite informational entropy generated during their operation.

We are aware of the near impossibility of exact translation from one language to another perhaps since the times we realized two distinct languages – like human speech and a bird’s song. It is only natural then to lament the futility of translating creative expression in one art form (music, song) into another (visuals), without an associated loss of information and joy. Nevertheless, in the hoary culture that Tamilians are familiar with, we have documented successful synergy between nAtiyam (dance) and isai (music) or even iyal (theatre) and isai (music).

When modern Tamil music has its composers and loadstones well connected to the roots and worthy of that hoary culture, it is a shame to prematurely pose our hands heavenwards with an abhinayam expressing exasperation and epitomizing the incapacity in Tamil movies (or theatre or simply visual arts) to translate music into meaningful visuals.

Several reasons can be cited for bad translation of Tamil movie music into visual form. The chief one is inherent in the configuration of a Tamil movie song. Lyricists, music composers, artists, singers, actors, dance masters, choreographers, characters singing the song, situation in the movie and so on – each of this salient note of a Tamil movie song is populated necessarily by different individual or group. That they combine to give something tangible to our senses is already a feat.

On many occasions (exceptions exist) the music composer proposes a tune for which the lyricist pens a song. With minor modifications in both tune and lyrics for a tolerance fit, the song is composed, sung and recorded. Often, as it had happened for Ilaiyaraja during early decades of his career, two things happen: The lyrics is more a poem than a song and the music is richer than the lyrics.

We shall leave the debate of what constitutes bad and good lyrics and when a lyrics is a poem to another series of essays. Let us take it for granted there is a song composed and recorded and ready to be visualized. While visualizing this song, the obvious temptation is to attempt visualizing the lyrics and not the music. And give a thought to the music only when our imagination fails suitable visuals for the lyrics. A subjective observation you may think and could even cite counter examples. I shall do this myself in later parts, but I am not off mark if you take the already cited examples in Part 1 and Part 2.

For instance, the pallavi of the thanikAttu rAjA song goes

santhana kAtrE, senthamizh UtrAE, santhOsha pAtAE vA vA
kAthOdu thAn nI pAdum Osai, ah, ah, nIngAtha Asai ah, ah

A straight-face, possible translation is:

Sandalwood Breeze, Clarified Tamil Spring, Oh Happy Song, Come on
Upon the ear, sound of your singing, ah, ah, indelible desire, ah, ah

The first line of praise-thy-girlfriend-thusly is possible only in poetic reality while the second is possible in mine – including the ah, ah. When trying to visualize the song, if you attempt to visualize the above lyrics, you are stumped. To the extent you forget the lilting accompanying music that originally made the lyricist (poet?) churn such catchy uncapturables.

The stumped you kick starts your translation engine to show sandalwood trees waving, then, possibly a spring gushing centrally from a meadow with the white saree clad heroine’s body behind it or preferably drenched under it, and then show the hero nearby, shaking all over in metronomic epilepsy to symbolize a happy song.

For the second line, you make the hero hold the drenched heroine’s hips from the back and sing in high pitch near the heroine’s ear, while in the jump-cut close-up shot that follows, her pleasant face with one deaf ear portrays erotic expressions and so on.

If your imagination is bereft of even such creative dregs, your translation engine sputters and stutters and coddles visualization traducing music. The white or yellow saree clad heroine prances about with intermittent jumping, all the while mouthing the above lyrics, the hero walks in garish three piece under the hot sun in a grove and then in a meadow. And suddenly you remember the lyrics in the second line to add the inspired visuals of heroine singing high pitch lyrics in the hero’s ears.

[YouTube link]

Such has been the function and capacity of modern Tamil movie music-to-visual translation engine.

The music of Ilaiyaraja, while often raising us to magnificence if we dare to remain alone with it, has also inadvertently served to reveal our creative paucity and mental depravity in the visual medium.

The situation is not completely defeatist and cynical. Ways have been invented with will, to improve the efficiency of such music-to-visual translation engines. Some have been adopted by sympathizing Tamil movie directors and actors. Particularly, in the later part of Ilaiyaraja’s career.

The most obvious way of translating music and lyrics to visuals is not to do it at all. Accept unconditional defeat, touch the LP record by the finger tips and re-touch the finger tips on onto our eyes, and leave it untainted as a background score in the movie. But shoot competent visuals with equally likable events and or artistic visuals, without (or consciously not) attempting to connect them to the lyrics. This technique is often attempted by maverick directors like Mahendran, Manirathnam and actor/directors like Kamal Hassan.

Here is one early attempt from panIr pushpangal for the song pUnthalir Ada.

And the video

YouTube Link

Right from the seeming two-note chord slide that starts the song (guitarists will love to do this slide), the modulated percussion, the bass support, and the build-up to a peak punctuated with a free-fall pause before the nonchalant rhythm sweeps you mid-air safely into a musical flight. Another of the innumerable instances where voice (chorus) is used as instrument to provide the counterpoint fillers, here between verses of the pallavi. The song has all the nuggets and nuances of trademark ilaiyarAjA of this era. The western classical structure discussed in Part 1 is also evident.

Contrastingly, the visuals don’t bother to translate the music or lyrics. Except for brief instances, early in the song. The stick traversing over the steel railings of the railway station could indeed provide the modulated percussion sound at the start, but the synchronization is off. But the passable visualization of events saves the music and lyrics from any blatant dishonor.

Here is another example from early 1990s: Song is valay Osai kala kala kala vena from the movie sathyA starring Kamal Hassan and Amala:

The video

YouTube Link

Listen to the song once, you can immediately recognize its grandeur. Listen again and you will observe the western classical structure we discussed in Part 1. Listen again and you will realize the singing is almost always in the middle or lower octave for the entire song. The reason – female singer, and her abused shrieker voice in the upper octave; effect of singing there for several decades elsewhere in the north – reveals another aspect of Ilaiyaraja’s musical mastery. SP Balasubramaniam, the male singer, revealed later that the song was one of his toughest musical assays.

With such nuances in place inside a catchy layered tune, visualizing the song can get treacherous. The director and Kamal accede defeat and safely proceed to keep the mood and situation of the song intact and picturize events that are enjoyable and realistic by themselves and sync them with the song and hope it clicks. It clicked for me.

But beware. This technique of unconditional surrender when taken to the extreme can lead to bizarre sequences of creation, as an otherwise competent director Mahendran showed us in this example from the movie Metti:

And the video

YouTube Link

The most obvious question that is with me then and now is: Why have a male (Ilaiyaraja, with his tender, till then untested voice) sing it, while visualize only with females? One also wonders what has a song with lyrics and mood alluding to the standard lovers pine got to do with the daily jabbing of three ladies – mother and daughters.

The only place the ladies in the sequence attempt to notice the music is when one tries to mimic the playing of the violin in the first interlude. Never mind she does similar out of sync hand movements for both the solo and the group movement. The rest of the sequences seems to be shot carefully to ignore the music and lyrics, rhythm and soul, in toto. The saving grace is the lyrics are cryptic enough to imagine mother’s love or sister’s love, but only in hindsight.

Now, what if you don’t accede unconditional defeat like the above examples, but use the translation engine with courage?

[Part 4]

Earlier parts [ Ilaiyaraja and the Curse of the Visual - Part 1 - Ilaiyaraja and the Curse of the Visual - Part 2]

*****

Notes

[*] Ilaiyaraja has composed music for more than a thousand movies. It is impossible to write a single article that does justice to the entire musical phenomenon, introducing and saluting his music while also satisfying the expectations of his fans. Hopefully this essay series serves as an introduction to those who are yet to explore his music.

A much more elaborate attempt was already made by my Srirangam friend Lakshminarayanan a decade back in the internet. Titled Classical Ilaiyaraja, the fifteen part essay among other places is also preserved at the unofficial Ilaiyaraja home-site.

[**] The songs and music used here are only for illustration purpose. There is no download link provided.

[***] Thanks to Vijay @scanman, Prakash @icarusprakash, Ganesh @goodganesh and Balaji @snapjudge (all via Twitter) for locating the songs and videos.

There lies more than one potential and potent sociology (or even neuroscience) research problem in the contrast of tastes supposedly exhibited by the Tamil speaking populace.

Regardless of their education and social stature, they display humongous tolerance short of apathy and even relishing proclivity short of crassness to gaudy and illogical visuals called movies. Coexisting on the other hand is their nuanced, connoisseurship  musical taste irrespective of, again, their education and social stature or even extent of musical knowledge.

Art is subjective and art-forms doesn’t perhaps require logic or method for its appreciation. But it beats my common sense to pulp the artsy subjectivity of the common Tamilian that righteously celebrates the Carnatic Music Trinities or their follow-up acts culminating in modern musical giants like G. Ramanathan, K. V. Mahadevan, M. S. Viswanathan, Ilaiyaraja, is the same subjective source that ‘appreciates’ the homogeneously simpleton Tamil movies. Exceptions exist in exceptional movies but their contribution to Tamil visual art-form is perhaps outrageously meager when compared to the contribution of the associated musical scores to modern Tamil music.

The musical genius of Ilaiyaraja is often mired by the associated movie visuals. Purist fan of his replace often with usually in the previous sentence, while ‘fanatics’ like me would replace often with always.

Scores of such bad examples exist but I pick two or three, as they are (un)fortunately available on the YouTube.

The first one is from the early period of Ilaiyaraja’s movie-music career. Let me first give the audio of the song alone. The PG certified Tamil lyrics doesn’t matter. Listening to the first few seconds until the pallavi would be enough.

For those of us who are already aware of this song, by now the associated visuals of it would work overtime to highlight the richness of the music. The rest of the fortunate who haven’t heard or seen this song can now listen to that song with associated visuals below.

First few seconds (until pallavi) of watching should be enough to agree on the existence of the sociology/neuroscience problem I mentioned earlier.

[YouTube link]

Here is another early example from his compositions, the structure of which we already discussed in part – 1.

[YouTube link]

Barring the sheer presence of the yesteryear Tamil movie beauty and present day super star as the sufficiency of visual art form expression in Tamil movies, there is an interesting reason for the possibly bland visuals in the above song. Sridevi had hurt her (right?) leg it seems, while shooting for another movie in the days that preceded the shooting of this song. Her call-sheet being a premium, the director of this movie (dharma yudham) had no option it seems but to come up with that catchy choreography with Sridevi doing all her dance steps with her face while Rajini as usual manages to do it with his ’style’ (observe in particular what he does at the beginning of the first interlude with his specs ‘in sync’ with the music).

That for a happy, throbbing, gushing, lilting, invigorating spree of a music score that sways every listening time, even my two left legs into a trot.

The reverse visual curse is also possible, which is displayed in my second example. Here, the intended dance and fantastic visual sequences for the interlude provide the necessary visual vomit to asphyxiate the lively music.

YouTube link

Do watch the visuals until the end – the song could help you do that. I think if I am to do such things that happen in the interludes of the above song, that too, in the name of love, my girlfriend would have me skinned alive. And that would be a mild punishment, as it is only for unleashing all that clothed depravity and sexploitation. For doing it with such a music in the background, I am reserved a seat in each of the tiers of Dante’s Inferno, to reap my comeuppance.

Suffice these two examples. Here I find the appropriate meaning for a phrase I heard twenty years back in chaste Tamil in a discourse by Embar Vijayaragavachariar on Tyagaraja and originally coined it seems by Kalidasa in one of his literary masterpieces: Casting pearls in front of swines.

When C. Rajagopalachari was given the Tamil print edition of his Mahabharatha called Vyasar Virundhu, it seems he took strong exception to the wrapper that contained painted images of Lord Krishna and Draupadi. Rajaji lamented why the imagination of one person (painter) on the looks and features  of such superhuman characters of an epic be thrust on the public, each of whom have a right to imagine the characters with distinction.

The mesmeric tunes of Ilaiyaraja resonating the ears of the common man often chastise him of his dichotomous senses if he listens sincerely, for the irony of the stupid visuals he bears to watch along with, befuddling the resplendent imagination possible in the music. The music is ample to imagine all the visuals; to each listener distinct yet every time different; a kaleidoscope shaken by her capacity for imagination. Why arrest it with a homogenized visual interpretation from the often unimaginative choreographer or the deaf-eared movie director.

There are exceptions in this, which we discuss in the next section. Meanwhile, one best way to enjoy the music of Ilaiyaraja (or any other movie music composer who preceded him) is to listen to the song without knowing anything about the associated movie. When we like the music from the audio release, we should resist all the urge to watch the movie. Else, walk out for a snack or smoke during the song sequences, hoping the director is not intelligent enough to move the story (if there was one) along with the song.

Relish the music of him we must, in our chosen confines; wallow in the helpless spree of our unbridled imagination, the associated intelligence and emotion of the music, the complexity of the musical layers that demands our uplift, the easy gait of it that assures such uplift is possible even for us, and the sheer joy that engulfs us every time, immersed in such musical realization.

And let us not try to convey it to others. Let it be.

That is one way to express our sincere thanks to the music composer who raised our layman body and soul to appreciate the magnificence in us.

[Ilaiyaraja and the Curse of the Visual - Part 3]

[ Ilaiyaraja and the Curse of the Visual - Part 1 ]

*****

Notes

[*] Ilaiyaraja has composed music for more than a thousand movies. It is impossible to write a single article that does justice to the entire musical phenomenon, introducing and saluting his music while also satisfying the expectations of his fans. Hopefully this essay series serves as an introduction to those who are yet to explore his music.

A much more elaborate attempt was already made by my Srirangam friend Lakshminarayanan a decade back in the internet. Titled Classical Ilaiyaraja, the fifteen part essay among other places is also preserved at the unofficial Ilaiyaraja home-site.

[**] Vyasar Virundhu image credit – http://online-tamil-books.blogspot.com

[***] The songs and music used here are only for illustration purpose. There is no downwload link provided.

[***] Thanks to Sudarshan for citing the kajurAhO song.