Nostalgia Revisited - Transporting the time clock back to Y2K 2000!

I randomly stumbled upon the song "Pachchai Nirame" on my musical playlist and that ended up being the springboard to reminisce waves of memories from the bygone era relating to the year '2000'. It's unfathomable and flabbergasting to think that 25 years have passed since then. I just about bloomed into being a teenager and few of the moments from that year are vividly etched in the mind. Most of these are from the music, movie and sporting world.

I recall the Khans ruling the roost in Bollywood and in the very first month of January 2000 were 2 big releases lined up for Aamir Khan and Shahrukh Khan in the form of 'Mela' and 'Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani'. The title song of the latter was already airing as a full music video in the musical channels and appeared to be instantly catchy. But however there was a movie sandwiched in between these two viz Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai starring debutante Hrithik Roshan which took the nation by storm. The movie had a dream run and just rampaged the releases of 'AK' and 'SRK'. Hrithik was the new heartthrob in town and was splashed over everywhere from news bulletins to magazines to paper cuttings to what not. I remember magazines like Filmfare, Stardust and Cineblitz all had cover stories of him in dashing avatars and he was touted to be the new supremo in the Bollywood Industry with the Khans being pushed to the backside. His fanfare was equated to Rajesh Khanna's stardom plenty of years ago.

Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai was also a movie which I saw in the theatre for the maximum number of times and if my memory serves me right, I recall watching it 7 times with few of the shows viewed in the now erstwhile Melody theatre which used to solely host Bollywood movies. In Tamil tinsel town came the star studded Kamal Hassan directed 'Hey Ram'. The movie was promoted in a major way with SRK himself starring in a small guest role and appearing for all the screenings. The movie though highly critically acclaimed tanked at the Box office but the songs were cherished and especially the smooth piano run ins in the melody soaked 'Nee Partha Paarvai' remains a favourite to this day.

Around the period of 'Chithirai Maasam', roughly from mid April to mid May came 3 big Tamil movies in the form of 'Alai Payuthey', 'Kandukondein Kandukondein' and 'Khushi'. I recall lapping up the songs of all these 3 movies fervently. After a hardcore film in the form of Dil Se in 1998, Mani Ratnam went in for a saccharine sugary sweet love story in the form of 'Alai Payuthey' starring newcomer R Madhavan in the protagonist role. He was an instant hit with the masses and celebrated as the new chocolate boy in town. The movie redefined the boundaries of love and remains an evergreen tale of romance to this very day. Those dialogues featuring Karthik (Maddy) echoing his proposal to his lovey dovey Shakti (Shalini) amidst the background noise of the train is iconic even today. The entire album of Alai Payuthey was laced with spectacular compositions and we even decided to use one of the tracks 'Kadhal Sadugudu' for our light music event at school with the other being the dance number 'Ek Pal Ka Jeena' from Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai.

AR Rahman made another mammoth leap with the mind-blowing soundtrack of 'Kandukondein Kandukondein' which released just a fortnight later after Alai Payuthey. The audio launch was held in March and my parents were lucky to be given a pass to attend the event. Unfortunately I couldn't go because of running annual exams. It was an album which I adore even today and consider one of ARR's very best. This was Rajeev Menon's second release after 'Minsara Kanavu' which also had memorable songs. Seeing Aishwarya Rai in a green Kanchivaram saree dancing to 'Kannamoochi Ennada' made me to think that there was nobody more beautiful than her in the entire world. She was the sheer epitome of unparalleled beauty. That was the time I understood what the word 'Ethereal' meant. The summer holidays were spent at our home in Colombo, Sri Lanka and I recollect watching Khushi over there. The Vijay-Jyothika starrer stomped the box office with collections aplenty registering a second running back to back hit for director SJ Suryah who directed Vaali in 1999. The songs tuned by Deva were catchy and the stormy dialogues between Vijay & Jyothika set the pulse racing.

In June, Bollywood was gearing up for it's biggest release in the form of 'Refugee' starring Amitabh Bachchan's son Abhishek Bachchan and Raj Kapoor's grand daughter Kareena Kapoor. Virtually every celebrity in Bollywood stood in line attending the preview show and showering the couple with blessings. The event was covered vigorously in the TV channels back then. The movie however received a lukewarm response at the box office. I however loved the compositions from the movie and feel that it was perhaps the best album ever produced by Anu Malik.

Also around this time, there was the SRK release 'Josh' where incidentally he played the hero's role but was the brother of the heroine 'Aishwarya Rai'. There is an anamnesis of a bunch of us from Class IX A in P.S Sr Sec School barraging into an auto and watching the movie at Melody theatre which was quite an unreal experience. Also after Hrithik Roshan's runaway hit Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai, came his second release 'Fiza' where he incidentally like SRK in Josh played the brother's role to the heroine Karisma Kapoor. I recapture being the first to buy the musical cassette of Fiza at the now defunct 'TicTac' store in R A Puram. Those cassette days have a memory all by itself. Around the end of the year precisely during Diwali saw SRK and Hrithik going toe to toe with their respective third release of the year viz Mohabbatein and Mission Kashmir. I remember visiting Coimbatore that time with my parents. They had some work which I didn't need to go and decided to watch Mission Kashmir instead in the theatre which was placed just beside the hotel where we were staying. Incidentally it was the first movie that I watched all alone by myself. Have an evocative memory of a Kashmiri ethnic clad bubbly Preity Zinta going full throttle all out dancing and crooning to the song 'Bhumro Bhumro'.

On the Tamil front, there was one more brilliant album unleashed by AR Rahman in the form of Rhythm. It was based on the 5 elements of Earth, Water, Fire, Air & Ether and the compositions were quite extraordinary. There is a faint memory of us discussing this album in detail especially during our walk to the school annual day programme in 'Narada Gana Sabha'. And talking about NGS, one cannot but not forget the iconic ice cream parlour located diagonally opposite called 'Freez Zone' where we used to get swirls of flavours in various colours for as piddly a sum of 25 bucks. 

And when it came to entertainment, I recall being a frequent goer to Fun World at Luz, Mylapore where we used to play all sorts of arcade games and if we were to win something, then we used to receive tickets for us to redeem through a gift. On the food side of things, it was around this time that I took a fondness towards "Chaat" and there was this insanely good erstwhile place at the side of  'Vitan Supermarket' by the name of Sridevi Chaats run by a mother & son Malayali duo. Almost everything over there used to be priced in the range of Rs 10 to Rs 25 and was lip smacking awesome.

Other than on the movie, music and general life front, in the cricketing world Indian cricket hit rock bottom with charges of match fixing being rampant. India had also given away it's proud home record by succumbing to South Africa accounting for their first ever test series defeat on Indian soil since 1985. Azharuddin played his 99th test and recorded a century but could never play a test after that due to the match fixing saga. He remains a rare instance of a batsman scoring a hundred in both his first test and last test match. The match fixing took a turn for the revamp with an all new Indian side being appointed captained by Saurav Ganguly. A new era dawned in Indian cricket. The results were instantly seen with India winning the home ODI series vs South Africa. The Indian team were however plagued with losing finals and they were unfortunate to come second best to the Kiwis in the Champions Trophy final despite being the best team on display. It was a horror run of 9 consecutive final losses till it was finally arrested with victory in the Natwest final on their 10th attempt in 2002. In football, the French dominance was in full force with them winning the Euro 2000 capping off on the World Cup victory of 1998. World of Tennis saw Pete Sampras conquering Wimbledon for the 7th time watched by his parents in the audience. The year was also witness to the Summer Olympics hosted by Sydney, Australia with the opening ceremony being decorated as one of the best to have ever been witnessed in recent memory.

In the political arena, things got really heated up towards the race for the US Presidential elections. It was the longest ever running battle with results going back and forth with both candidates Al Gore and George Bush Jr being called out as winners. At the end, a recount of Florida resulted in Bush winning over incumbent Democrat Al Gore to garner a victory for the Republicans. This drama was abuzz in all the news channels with confusions aplenty and wild counting swings causing mayhem. The elections which started counting on 7th November was eventually declared won on the 26th November. It was a field time for news channels with the world hooked on with the news of the impending next US president.

As I ruminate, these are few of the remembrances that I reminisce as a young boy growing up in Chennai with respect to the year 2000. When I look back, it looks like Y2K has been quite a historic year with regard to a number of events. However my photographic memory is stuck to a few topics of interest such as music, movies and sport. The redux on politics is just because of the chaos unfolding on TV with respect to the US election results. The year 2000 is not going to come back anymore and is a closed chapter in history but in hindsight it was quite a mind embracing journey to ride the time machine backwards and recapture moments from the bygone past of 25 years back to the year 2000. As I time travelled on this surreal saudade, the memories are so densely imprinted that they will pleasantly and personally stay on forever.

Nostalgic Nila Kaigirathu - 25 years of ARR!

Nila Kaigirathu' from Indira is a song which resonates childhood imprints and evokes nostalgic memories from yore. The song has traversed across 20 years but there is still an impish charm and innocence about it that makes you want to revisit it time and again.

This is a composition which is very hard to pigeonhole on a particular raga pattern as ARR generously alternates between the Gandharam's and Madhyamam's with nonchalant ease which perhaps could also be classified as the beautifying factor in this work of art. There are subtle gamakkas and variations which I wanted to explore and hence tried it on a string instrument.

A number that bears testimony to the magic of ARR of the 1990's. Celebrating 25 musical years of A R Rahman!.
P. S : Headphones recommended

♪♫♬♯♭ 25 Musical Years of A R Rahman! ♪♫♬♯♭

During my growing up phase in the 90's, there were 2 fields which attracted me immensely. One being cricket and the other music. 2 gentleman in parallel world's, Sachin Tendulkar and A R Rahman (incidentally both No. 6's 😉) were going about their work in supreme fashion which incidentally criss crossed with my childhood and that had an immense impact on me. Looking back it's hard to believe that 25 years have elapsed since ARR's advent in the musical space.

Personally I have a sugary soft corner for the early and mid 90's compositions where the melodies were simple and sound was profound making him capture a whole generation to dance to his waves. The alternations in the tones creating an unexpected fulminant billowing out from nowhere causing ripples in the minds of the listeners was his true hallmark. His entry was revolutionary and he shook the nation by storm. On our 70th year of independence, we also celebrate 25 musical years of AR Rahman who started his journey with Roja.

I just tried a small sample of some of his vintage 90's compositions which hold a special place in my heart. I am an absolute abecedarian and play purely based on hear. Just did a random unplugged of some of his songs with few own gimmicks thrown here and there. It was a little difficult to play bits and pieces of around 15 songs at a stretch but just tried whatever possible based on my limited expertise. This is at best amateur but I hope it wasn't all that bad. Presenting a small tribute to the man and his music.

25 years of a Magnum Opus - Michael Madana Kama Rajan (MMKR) ★★★★★

There are only some movies which can claim to be downright rib-ticklingly funny on so many counts. Michael Madana Kama Rajan (MMKR) is one for the ages and can never be replicated.The kind of all round performance on virtually every front makes it firmly etched as one of Tamizh cinema's greatest creations. Seldom have films been so everlastingly entertaining and MMKR rightly falls into the place of all time great cinema.

It's been a quarter century since its release on Diwali day - 17th October 1990 but even to this day references are made with regard to the characterization's and dialogues. MMKR chestnuts are one of a kind and every now and then you would inevitably associate a fleeting presence of this movie in some form or the other sometimes even acting as an ice-breaker.

There are just too many things to marvel about MMKR ranging from the spectacular performances, timed to perfection dialogues, scintillating screenplay causing confusion aplenty, story with plethora of twists and turns, direction at pace with the events and the brilliant music and BGM. The subtlety and poise in each of the quadruplet roles portrayed by Kamal is breathtaking and each of the artists induce so much life to the characters and add to the fun quotient. The humorous dialogues and wordplay never ceases to invoke the funny bones, remember - Yaarukku kalyanam? Nekka? Nokka? Nekkum nokkumaa?, Indha Avinashi oru visuvaasi, Thripurasundari illai thiruttu sundari nee etc to just name a few. A pulse racing story line backed up a gripping screenplay and deftly handled direction causing nerve wracking excitement to go along with the pot boiling mixture of chaos, mayhem and hullabaloo over mistaken identity. And what fabulous array of songs in different dimensions making it such a memorable soundtrack and one cannot shy away from mentioning the precision of the re-recording which reigns supreme in elevating the scenes to a higher pedestal. It's seriously hard to pinpoint one flaw.

The synergy effect works perfectly in Michael Madana Kama Rajan where every individual in the movie is a hero but the movie ends up becoming the biggest hero of em all. A comic caper catering to the masses and the classes and to the young and old, this one's a cult classic in every way. Many of us grew up in the 90's with this film and for many of the movie buffs this laugh riot remains one of the most watched movies ever. One won't be surprised even if it has been seen over a triple digit times as it offers so much unlimited entertainment guaranteed.

25 years has passed since the saga of Michael Madana Kama Rajan and it's place as one of the undisputed comical giants of the silver screen will forever remain. Remembering everyone's favorite MMKR for completing a landmark silver jubilee. There are great movies and there is Michael Madana Kama Rajan - a riveting laughathon like never seen before and perhaps never ever after!.

Some tit-bits & trivia on MMKR:
● It was the second association of the Kamal Hassan and Crazy Mohan combo after the immensely successful Apoorva Sagotharargal (1989).
● MMKR was a Diwali release of 1990 and incidentally there were 5 other films releasing the same day with Ilaiyaraaja as the music director - Amman Kovil Thiruvizha, Mallu Vetti Minor, Puthu Paattu, Chatriyan and Sirayil Sila Raagangal
● Sundari Neeyum song was picturized by playing the song at twice the original speed in order for Kamal and Oorvasi to lip sync correctly.
● The song Sundari Neeyum was supposed to be sung by KJ Yesudas but dates played foil eventually leading to Kamal singing himself. Infact in an interesting tale, YG Mahendra actually congratulated Yesudas on the song and when KJY quipped that credit should go to Kamal, it left the former completely stumped.
● MMKR was perhaps the first Tamil or even Indian Film to feature a laptop as early as 1990.
● It was the first film to have 'Face Morphing Technology' in Tamil Film Industry.
● The Bheem boy character who is the body guard for Kamal Hassan is played by Praveen Kumar Sobti, an Indian athelete who was 6'7" and a Double gold medalist in discus throwing in the 1966 and 1970 Asian Games.
● There were 2 songs in the movie which were not shot but part of the audio records viz Aadi Pattam Thedi sung by Mano, Chitra & chorus and Maththa Poovu Oru Penna rendered by Chitra, both penned by Vaali.