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MY TOP 50 SONGS OF 2014

So after an unpardonable delay, here I am with my list of favorite songs of 2014. Thank god I put it up on my blog before 2015 ended. If we look at entire albums, here are my favorite albums. These are albums whose all songs I love – 1.        Highway – This is vintage Rahman. Plus there is Imtiaz Ali to give you breathtaking Himachal along with the songs. 2.        Happy ending – Raj and Dk always manage to extract the best out of Sachin – Jigar. There is an unusual addictiveness in this album which makes it un-put-downable. Very versatile album. 3.        Queen – This is Amit Trivedi at his very best. Once again a very creative and lovely album. The best part of the album was it complemented the film very well. The songs fitted well in the film, never seeming forced or unnecessary. As far as individual songs are concerned, here are my top 50 songs. The songs from 50 to 11 are in no...

MUSIC REVIEW : HAPPY ENDING

Raj and DK are back again with their 4 th venture. After the success of “Go Goa Gone”, they team up once again with Saif Ali Khan and Illuminati films. Sachin Jigar have had a phenomenal record with the director duo. Saibo was their career – turning song, and then with “Go goa Gone”, they created one of the wackiest and craziest soundtracks ever! So naturally, expectations are sky high with the soundtrack of “Happy Ending”. The promos suggest this to be a fun film. And with Saif and Govinda, it is quite obvious. “MILEYA MILEYA” is a breezy and lovely track. With some beautiful arrangements, the song entices us right from the beginning. With a catchy beat and claps, Priya Andrews starts the song. She is soon joined by (Surprise surprise!) Rekha Bhardwaj in a never-heard-before avatar. Jigar provides the perfect icing to the cake by singing the lovely loop “Mileya mileya”. Instrumentation and background singing are very well done here. You hear saxophone at places, with ...

BOOK REVIEW : GOD IS A GAMER

If you think about it, for a doctor and surgeon like me, banking related novels are part of a way different genre. But there has always been something about Ravi Subramanian which has made me love all his novels. I started my association with Blogadda by reviewing Ravi’s novel. So this time when they offered a copy of “God is a Gamer” for review, I HAD to get it. And despite the heavy schedule, I easily finished the novel in 3 days. PLOT Like all his previous novels, this one too revolves around the NYIB New York International Bank. To describe the whole plot would be almost impossible. To tell you in short, there are multiple subplots, all well connected with each other. As always, this novel revolves in and around the New York international Bank (NYIB) and brings out the glaring reality of the banking world. There is the well known character Aditya who has been an old character in Ravi’s novels. There are also Sundeep, swami and Kalpana. This time we are introduced to ...

BOOK REVIEW : PRIVATE INDIA

James Patterson is a big name amongst the popular novelists of today. I hadn’t read any of his novels till now. But I have read Ashwini Sanghi’s two books – “Krishna key” and “Chanakya’s chant”. When I heard that these two authors were collaborating for a novel, I was indeed excited. Here’s what I thought of the book. PLOT The plot is totally Indian. Obviously. Even though James Patterson is involved, the two authors justify the title of the book, weaving an intriguing and lovely plot which is filled with Indian elements. It is a clever mix of Patterson and Sanghi’s imagination as they combine Indian religion with fiction and suspense to create a gripping novel. The plot is something like this – PRIVATE INDIA is an Indian investigative organization headed by Santosh. Along with few other members, they take upon the case of a serial killer who is in no mood to relent. One by one, the killings take place, the killer always leaving peculiar mementos at the murder site. ...

MOVIE REVIEW : BEY YAAR

The gujarati film industry has never been something about which we could talk proudly to the rest of Indian regional cinema. For an outsider and even for a gujarati, a gujarati movie inevitably meant a film with the actors in traditional costumes, with garbas and heavy dialogues. But things changed few years back when Abhishek Jain gifted us with “KEVI RITE JAISH”, a movie which revolutionarized the Gujarati film industry. It was the first gujarati movie which was “Normal” meaning that something with which we could identify. It featured normal gujarati urban people speaking normal gujarati, with no over the top melodrama. In short, it was a film which the entire gujarati clan loved. So it was no wonder that I had a lot of hopes from Jain’s next movie “BE YAAR”. And with the movie having released in only a single show in the entire big city of Rajkot (Which is a shame on part of the Rajkot cinema owners), I made it a point to go to the first show on the first day. PLOT...

MY THOUGHTS ON QUEEN

SPOILERS AHEAD Films based on women are of various types in our hindi film industry. There are few who spend the entire two and a half to three hours glorifying women, going overboard, exaggerating everything, desperately trying to prove that women are supreme. These films will have a climax laden and loaded with ultra heavy jingoistic dialogues, giving us the message that women are the best. And then there are few films which steer totally clear off all these shackles and simply focus on the story. Whatever message is supposed to be conveyed is automatically evident, without the need for any exaggerated dialogues and climax. “English Vinglish” belonged to this category; almost. “QUEEN” belong to this category too, but entirely! “Queen” is a movie which will linger in your mind for a long long time after you have finished watching it. There are innumerable scenes which you will recollect once you have stepped out of the theatre hall. Prior to watching this film, I was ske...

BEING WOMAN - AN ODE TO HER

Disclaimer - It might get a bit personal and boring at times. Please bear. There was this woman. I call her a “WOMAN” and not a girl, though she is still only 23 years old. This post is for her – that one single woman who I believe is someone who will be etched in my heart for years to come. For the world, she was a random person, a typical girl, loaded with the usual tantrums, habits, styles and fusses usually associated with a girl of 18 years freshly arrived in college. For me she was different. She wasn’t at all a random person. I loved her typicalities, experienced her tantrums, marveled at her styles, and got angry at times and smiled at times at her fusses. The first time I had met her, I had actually shook my head in disgust as she was unstoppingly and unhaltingly speaking – a thing which a woman totally loves to do. Let us leave the words “love”, “girlfriend”, “relationship”, etc aside. She was a friend. A friend who taught me how to actually trust, love, l...