Many people who became die-hard Rahman fans in the 90s were also hardcore Sachin fans (including me!). I have seen this in many cases... My friend Radhakrishnan who is also a Rahmaniac also was of the same opinion! I think this phenomenon is not without a reason, the reason being similarities between the two. Got this interesting comparison by Maddy, from ForumHub:

A startling but very logical coincidences between 2 of the greatest men of 90's......they characterised the 90's and were icons of the youth at that time......just see the startling similarities between these 2:

Entry into their respective fields:

A.R.Rahman (ARR):
1992
Sachin Tendulkar (SRT): 1989


They were an instant hit because:
ARR:
Blasting music, classical songs at a very young age
SRT: Swashbuckling batting and a great cricketing sense at a very young age

How they stood out from others?
ARR:
First to bring digital touch to Indian music and compose fusion that no one else dares to think off.
SRT: First to explore the first 15-over restriction, score centuries at bouncy, tough tracks like Perth.

As time moved on:
ARR:
Stopped producing blasting music, instead delivered Classical melodies like Taal, Swades, Bose, Meenaxi and Tehzeeb out of maturity.
SRT: Stopped going over the top to bowlers, instead played exquisite drives and late cuts and produced innings with a lot of maturity.

Character similarity:
ARR:
Shy towards media and lets his keyboard answer his critics
SRT: Shy towards media and lets his bat answer his critics

Media point of view:
ARR:
Darling of Mumbai and London press
SRT: Darling of Mumbai and London press

International attention:
ARR:
Admired by Andrew Lloyd Webber , Micheal jackson (who wore a t-shirt having Rahman's photo on it) and many other international music reviewers who want him to compose for Hollywood films.
SRT: Adored by the man himself the "DON" Bradman and Mike Atherton(who compared Sachin to W.G.Grace) and a never ending list of Australian, English, Kiwi, WestIndian players.

Earnings:
ARR
: Draws 1 Crore/ film, ambassador of Bharti telecom, sizzled with the Airtel ad
SRT:
Unimaginable money on contracts with big commercial giants. Sizzles in Pepsi ads.

Records:
ARR:
4 national awards, 17 filmfare awards, his music sold 210 million copies around the world (more than Britney and Madonna put together!!) and success rate of 80%+ album sales in Indian movies.
SRT: Look at this for a record: 37 ODI centuries, 35 TEST centuries, 13,000+ runs in ODI's, 44+ average in ODI's and 58+ average in Tests. What else u can ask for?

Popularity:
ARR:
Has a huge fan following in India and in south he is a demi-god and captures the imagination of NRI's throughout the world
SRT: According to a survey, he is the most popular man in the Country edging out the Prime Minister and Shah-Rukh-Khan. He is popular even in places like U.S where the game is not that popular (featured in an exclusive article in an American sports magazine)

Career Graph & Present form:
ARR
: Had fabulous nineties with all his albums doing well in this time. Reached dizzying heights during this period. Have had flops with major banners
since 2001, which got the critics interested. Had a great 2003 within this lean patch with Boys creating sales records. His fans base however is intact, proved that with success of Ah Aah album.

SRT: The star of 90’s, his batting propelled him into a youth icon status in India and was concurred with many awards from the government. Being pressurized by the detractors for a imaginary loss of form and injury worries since 2001. Had a great world cup 2003 scoring runs at will. Recently has had a good innings in a one-day match to prove that he is still fit.
(Their career-graph is one of the most fascinating things I have ever noticed, they always seem to have good times together. Bad times also coincides for both of them)

Fans:
ARR:
Die-hard fans want him to go back to 90’s style of composing
SRT:Never say die fans want him to take up 90’s style of swashbuckling batting.

Successors:
ARR:
His successors like Yuvan Shankar Raja and Himesh Reshammiya are more successful than him right now but no way near to him in terms of class.
SRT: Yuvraj Singh, Mohammed Kaif are more popular with people than him right now but as the old west-Indian saying goes: "Form is temporary, but class is permanent".

Duplicates:
ARR:
Has a duplicate called Harris Jeyaraj who not only copies ARR's music and composing style but also his hairstyle and way of speaking in interviews.
SRT: Virendar Sehwag, a natural duplicate of sachin with looks and batting style similar to him. Called “Najafgarh ka Tendulkar”. (Najafgarh is Virendar Sehwag’s hometown.)

Where will they end up?:
ARR:
Probably will put India into the world map of music and create records which upcoming Indian M.D's can't even dream of.
SRT: It would probably take an android or a special species of human being to erase his record in Cricket. Will always be remembered as the greatest ever batsman of modern era.

By Aravind on Sunday, November 27, 2005 at 7:51 AM Post Categories: ,
Time and again, MNCs come up with wonderful ads which are targeted at specific segment of people - ads which appeal to a particular group - linguistic or regional or whatever... But, they do it such that the local flavour is not lost! And we wonder, why our own companies do not give such customised, localised content and instead wanna go "western".

Came across this Diwali-Wishes video by Oil major, Petronas. Nice one!
http://www.youtube.com/watch.php?v=JjvzQm4bJ8s&search=petronas

(might take quite some time to load)
By Aravind on Saturday, November 26, 2005 at 7:10 AM Post Categories:
Yeah! This is the new trend! People send out blog posts as mail forwards... I got one very interesting forward - "En per padum paadu" recently - and thanx to that, I discovered this good blog of Kalaivani!

By Aravind on Monday, November 21, 2005 at 9:35 PM Post Categories:

When I saw this Calvin strip, I was immediately reminded of the 2007 Cricket World Cup grouping list released recently! ICC brings in new teams every world cup - last time it was Namibia; Scotland, UAE and Canada in the past! These teams come out to bat, get bowled out in first 30 overs and the stronger team finishes the match in 20 overs. Or, if they field first, concede 300 odd runs and get bowled out for 150! These teams usually are out of world cricket after these severe thrashings from the biggies - barring very few teams like Kenya and Bangladesh, which have survived for a longer duration. And for the next tournament, ICC brings in new teams.

For the next edition of the world cup, it is going to be Bermuda! The main reason for bringing in new teams is to promote Cricket in these countries. After some heavy thrashing these teams recieve from biggies, how will anyone from their country be interested in Cricket? How will a strong team be formed? Won't this have a negative effect, rather than a positive one?

If ICC wants to promote Cricket in many countries, this is just not the way. ICC can organise training camps, inculcate interest by holding many series among non-test playing nations, help them form strong teams - then bring them into a huge tournament such as this.

Will ICC change its policy?
By Aravind on Sunday, November 20, 2005 at 7:31 AM Post Categories:
Wanted to create a site for quite some time now... finally, started working...
Here is the url: http://rahmanworld.cjb.net

Just 2-3 pages completed... will add on more when I find time :)

Someone just asked me, "there are so many fan sites for ARR... Why do u want to add one more to that list?". My answer was "I dont care how many sites are there... I wanted to do something for ARR and here it is". :)

Update: Site temporarily down... Will post when it is working again.
By Aravind on Friday, November 18, 2005 at 7:19 PM Post Categories: ,
CopyCats have alwas existed in Indian film music - right from SD Burman, RD Burman to the recent Vishal-Shekhar, Nadeem Shravan and of course Anu Malik. This phenomenon has been there in tamil movies too - right from the Un Aattamellaam song from Ali Baba-vum 40 thirudargalum (copied from Ya Habibi Taala By Asmahan) to the three blatant lifts in Kadhal Kondein (by Yuvan Shankar) . However, the originality seems to be lower in Hindi movies. This is what I could infer from the site www.itwofs.com, which is a great database of copied songs! Look at the sheer number of hindi songs that have been copied -way too high!

Sometimes, u feel so shocked to find that the song which was a big hit and the one that u liked was copied. I got such a shock, when I came across this on www.itwofs.com:

The song that made Hassan Jehangir a household name across the 2 countries - Hawa hawa. This chartbuster was first released in 1990 in Pakistan, but strangely enough, its Iranian original is as old as the 70s! Yes, the original is called 'Havar havar' and was by Persian singer Kourosh Yaghmai.

U can listen to the source song at the address mentioned above.

(In this site, ITWOFS, a convention is followed. A TC tag next to an entry means that the tune itself is lifted. The lack of creativity (or shall we say, absence of it?) of the music director can be gauged from this.)
By Aravind on Saturday, November 12, 2005 at 11:09 PM Post Categories: , ,
One of the best things I like about IIMB is that I am getting to know a lot of cultures, by interacting ppl from various places in India. And thus, am enjoying the true flavour of different festivals.
Come Diwali and it is time for Dandiya! Though we work on Diwali (yeah :(we have no holiday for any festival), we do have great celebrations during the evening and night. Here are some snapshots of Diwali this year


All of us in Ethnic Wear


Block Decoration competition, where in we decorate our hostel blocks


Dandiya


Beautifully decorated mess (and the food was special too!)
By Aravind on Saturday, November 05, 2005 at 7:13 PM Post Categories: