Germany and football!

Germany winning the football world cup this week is the biggest source of joy for me personally. Reason being that I was in Germany during the first meeting of the same two teams, namely , Germany and Argentina , in the world cup final in 1986. I was a typical chennai girl at that time, with hardly any exposure to sports and least of all,  football. So during my stay when the world cup was underway, I could not understand the frenzy that surrounded the game there. It was funny for me to watch people glued to their tv sets whether it was in the office or at home. They spoke of nothing else than football at all times. With limited knowledge of the language then, I was not greatly influenced by their chats but then it was personally boring for me, since I neither understood the game, nor the football fever that grips the population there. I was totally ignorant of how great it is for a national team to qualify for the final until I had to step out on the day of the final and was on the road for about half an hour during the match time, and it was scary. There was not a single soul on the road for miles ahead and my friend who was driving the car was driving at top speed of 200km/hr to reach home to watch the match. I was petrified and for the first time, I realized how much this game meant to this European nation. Maybe all the European countries and even the south american countries are under the same intoxicating influence of this game.

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But I had first hand experience of seeing it, living with it, in Germany and it was sad that they lost the finals that time. Even a double championship in tennis (both Boris Becker and Steffi Graf won the singles titles that year) could not be a consolation for the citizens with that biggest loss in football.
After my stay in Germany, back home , I started watching football matches and especially during the world cups. Again 4 years later, these two teams were the finalists and this time , I understood the craze this game generates worldwide and was cheering wildly for my adopted country, Germany. They won and every world cup after that, I stopped watching the matches, once Germany lost and was never interested in any other country playing the game in the finals. I was becoming a crazy German fan while watching football and hence it was a sweet and memorable moment this time around where the country made me sit and watch them till the finals.
Kudoz Germany!

IPL, the circus or tamasha!

My interest in the gentleman's game over the years has been directly proportional to the matches in which my favourite players (read handsome players!) played. With the IPL fever at its peak during summer for the past 7 seasons, I watch the matches in patches (oh, my writing skills have improved, what with rhyming words.....watch, match and patch in the same sentence!) when my favorite team CSK (chennai Super kings....as the name suggests my hometown team) plays.
Despite hearing a lot of superlatives about watching a match live in the stadium, I have never had the opportunity or inclination to go watch one in the stadium. Five days long test matches and 50 over one day internationals were so boring and long that I was never tempted to waste my whole day watching the game live and commuting back from the stadium late night was another issue. But recently, my husband got tickets for an IPL match in which my favorite team CSK was playing against the local lions from Mumbai. After a long thought about how long we can watch the match and ideal time to return home , dinner arrangements etc, we both decided to go and watch the match live. What an experience it turned out to be!
The carnival called IPL could be experienced right from the time we alighted the train at the station that was close to the stadium. There were small time vendors who were selling the team flags, t-shirts and even team coloured wigs and they were doing brisk business. I could see lot of young girls and guys busy munching and drinking whatever they could before entering the stadium because carrying your own food or even water bottles were banned inside the stadium.
Once inside the stadium, I was behaving like a kid lost in a village mela. the stadium was jam packed, loud speakers were blaring the latest bollywood music, cheer girls were dancing with a pasted smile and media men were busy setting up their screens and cameras. There was too much going on at the same time to observe everything. In fact amidst all the noise I even failed to notice that the match had started and the deafening noise after each boundary or six that was hit or a wicket that fell made me feel dizzy. Sultry , sweaty atmosphere with no water to quench the summer thirst made me feel nauseated and even the fact that CSK was playing well didn't cheer me up. I just wanted to get back home away from the noisy and stuffy stadium.
Hubby dearest who was enjoying every bit of the match (in other words, the small jigs from the cheer girls!) had to grudgingly come out of the stadium half way through the match because of me. The breath of fresh air and the sea breeze outside was in stark contrast to what I experienced inside.

I am sure no amount of cajoling or temptation in the future is going to drive me to watch a match in the stadium. I would rather watch it in my comfortable cool living room with loads of goodies at hand and enjoy the TV commentaries than the loud bollywood music or artificially enthusiastic jigs of cheer girls!

Indian Idol season-5

I like to watch music programs on TV . The talent hunts and reality shows on music throw light on such great talents, that I don't want to miss some of the popular shows like Idea Star Singer on Asianet or Indian Idol on Sony. But the disturbing trend I notice in the talent shows in the north is that South Indians are completely left out. In fact, that Indian Idol should be renamed "North Indian Idol" is my strong opinion. They go to remote areas of UP and MP to hold auditions and yet, ignore even major cities like Cochin, Chennai or Hyderabad in the south. Why is there this biased view towards south? The only city they had auditions last year was Bangalore and the only South Indian singer who got selected for the final ten was eliminated in the first round itself. The fact is that this singer had already won the Asianet contest which has far superior talent than the national talent shows. Indian Idol persisted with some horrible singers till the last round due to the stupid SMS voting system. Even a person without any musical knowledge could point out that particular singers were really awful.
I am just waiting to see some South Indian talents at least this time. Sa Re Ga Ma Pa on Zee TV, at least, had one South Indian winner years back. That's the last I remember the South Indian talent being recognized on a national level. Otherwise, whether it is singing or dancing, it's North Indians all the way . I hope that the trend changes and south gets its due.
But until then, "Vadakku vazhgiradhu, therkku theigiradhu"

Subtitling Parashakthi

Working from home, I've always felt that those who work in the field of entertainment are blessed. I was fascinated, especially, with the back-screen workers like dubbing artistes, technicians for special effects and subtitling writers. I was under the impression that these people would be enjoying their work because they get to watch movies during their work.
So, a couple of weeks back, when I got the offer to do a subtitling job for a company, I was thrilled, to say the least. I jumped at the offer and I was on the job the next day. The first movie I got was Parashakthi. My dream of making a huge name in the field of subtitling, like Sivaji from his first movie, took wings . I began work very enthusiastically and was boasting to people at home that I am getting paid for watching movies. But what a nightmare it turned out to be!
I had to translate every 'ohh' and 'ahh' and I could tell anyone the number of 'Kalyani's uttered in the movie, even in my sleep. I never thought I would be cursing Karunanidhi (non-stop dialogues....only the crow and cuckoo didn't talk) for something other than his politics.
The worst part of subtitling the movie was translating the songs. I thinks it's utter foolishness to try and translate a song, which is generally a play of words that sounds good only in the original language. If saying "Kalyani ran to the edge of her life" was bad enough, imagine the difficulty I went through translating "Ananda Koothadinalum Thandavakone" song in the movie.
I've vowed never to comment about the bad subtitling in movies, ever again, now that I know the effort that goes into it. And next time you watch the movie Parashakthi with subtitles, you know who not to blame!

Paa

I watched the movie "Paa" with the kids last weekend. Amitabh is excellent as a kid affected with progeria (premature ageing). Dialogues and the support cast are great too. Listening to Bhavatharini singing the remixed version of "Sangathil Padatha Kavithai" (one of my Illayaraja favs) in Hindi was nice.

But what irks me about films of stars like Amitabh or Kamalhaasan is that , even after years of showcasing their talent and having bagged the best awards , these actors are only concentrating on their histrionics when they can actually contribute to the film industry by making much more meaningful cinema. Instead of focusing on the disease and its effects on the family, in this case , progeria, the film focuses on Amitabh's ability to do justice to the role. After years of experience, nobody expects him to actually make a mess of such a role. But being his own production , why couldn't he have dealt with the subject in a more serious way? Why is the focus only on making more money for his production house? When Aamir Khan, through Taare Zameen Par, was successful in bringing out the plight of dyslexic children so well, pushing himself to the background, why aren't stars like Amitabh and Kamalhaasan doing the same ? Why , even after years of making money, are they not involved in serious issues of the society; utilizing their fan following to make something more thought-provoking?