Reviews of books, music and movies
Picked up the much hyped Veer Zara audio CD for two reasons, I liked Madan Mohan’s compositions and I like Yash Chopra movies.
My first reaction was that of disappointment – the music does not have that classic feel which I was expecting, the lyrics are good, but I expected more out of Javed Akthar
However, the music grew on me and after listening to the entire CD twice, I want to hear more.
The second CD in the album is truly a collector item.
After searching for days I finally found a radio station on the net which plays the music I like. So, sitting here in central India I listen to music broadcasted by a US based Internet radio station – TaZa radio
What impressed me most is the support they offer – As usual I was about to give up muttering “bah yet another site for IE and Windows users” but decided to let the site owners know of existence of users like me who use Fedora Core1 , Mozilla and RealOne player. What I did not know was that I will end up being so impressed to make a complete entry on LJ about it. Ram Bapu the COO responded to my mail promptly and gave me a link that enabled me to listen to the Radio on RealOne player directly. What more, I discovered I can listen to radio using my XMMS too using this link – http://ba.tazaradio.com:3690/listen.pls by changing ‘ba’ to ‘east’ or ‘central’ or ‘mountain’ or ‘la’ I can listen to the other stations of TaZa Radio – and here I am *completely* addicted!!!
I am yet to find out as to why I cant get the link working through Mozilla.
Tahzeeb – Touching movie. Beautifully carved out characters, terse direction and good cuts. I always read reviews by Khalid Mohammad with a lot of interest, they always made wonder, how can this man be so critical – he had the knack of tearing a movie into bits. I now know how and why. The eye for details he has is rarely seen in directors. His choice of words, moments, people, songs, music -everything is just perfect. I love the man!!!
Munna Bhai MBBSis hilarious…. good clean comedy to be watched without thinking too much about fact and fiction – give the director some creative liberty yaar…
Weekend mood started yesterday by watching the above mentioned movie. Just returned from the national book fair. Picked up some interesting books – Umrao Jaan Ada by Mirza Mohd Haadi Ruswa (we already have Khushwant Sing’s translation of the book but I like reading originals if i can get them)
More books – poetry collection of Bahadur Shah Zafar, Sahir Ludianvi and a couple of books on learning urdu script. My evenings for the next few weeks are made 😀
Chandni se dhuli si raat mein
ek khushbu se hai har baat mein
hain sitare mere kadmo ke tale
haath hai aaj unke haath mein
paas aake bhee kyon hain doorian
koi pyasa hai kyon barsaat mein
dil ki naadanion se tang hoon
baat sunta nahi jazbaat mein
ishq aur ye zamane ki bandishe
dakhiye kya ho in haalat mein
The poetry is breathtaking, the voice enchanting I wish I could pen my thoughts down is similar manner I feel so inadequate in expressing myself when I read such pieces of poetry.
Bought “Shairana” an album with poetry of Javed Akhtar sung by various singer and Chandni si is the first song.
She was a wild one, and a survivor. The movie moved me immensely and I have been researching the net for whatever information there is on Frida Kahlo. She was a beautiful lady, with a mind that was not afraid of exposing her innermost fears and pain.
The movie is amazingly entertaing. Dina Pathak mouths best of the dialogues.
Existential angst – I liked it! Everyone goes thru it all the time…
Allergic Rhinitis – stuffed nose – I know how it feels like to be a plugged bathtub!!