Let's get into some imagination, shall we?

START! ACTION!
Imagine you are fast asleep, and you are woken up by a loud unusual noise. You rush to the terrace to check whats happening. You see a big UFO landing on your terrace (Terrace not big enough? ah, geez!! when you can imagine a UFO landing on your terrace, can't you imagine your terrace to be bigger! just imagine!! Back to the post, now!)
And then, the door of the UFO opens, and out comes a creature - an alien - a la the E.T., comes out. You look at it and are frightened. It looks somewhat familiar to you, with two arms and legs! But, yet it is an alien and looks a lot different too. You don't know what to expect because you haven't seen anything like this before! Initially, you don't get close to it as it is a very strange creature. But, then you get along with it and become friends with it. It demonstrates its special powers - though those powers are extraordinary, you get used to it and start loving it!

CUT! CUT! CUT!

Now, the focus shifts to "I miss you da" song (sung by Chinmayi and Indai Haza) from Sakkarakatti. Isn't it exactly like the alien that you encountered a few seconds back? At least for me, it was!!
The first time I heard the song, I was like "What is this?! What's going on?" It was unlike anything I had heard before. Rahman must have been at the height of his experiment-mood!! There are so many unheard sounds. The tune is so very unpredictable - keeps going smooth and suddenly there's a fall - like a roller coaster! And, so suddenly it goes up! And, I got one more surprise that Indai Hazaa is none other than Chinmayi herself!
Once I got to terms with all these surprises, I started absolutely loving and adoring the song!

I've said it before and I say it again - Only Rahman can create such magic!

Yes... it's more than 3 years now, since I started blogging! (Sorry bloggie, I missed ur birthday... Belated Happy Birthday! )

It seems it was just yesterday that I thought of the name for the blog! I remember it distinctly. Just as the Chennai-Bangalore KSRTC bus was nearing Bangalore at about 4:30 am, I was wide awake thinking about starting a blog (though it was in my mind for quite sometime, I wasnt serious before) and thought of the name just then! One of the first things that I did when I got to campus was to start this blog and make my first post!

3 years! The blog has had an impact on my life, and how!! That, my best friends and confidante now are people who I discovered through blog, is incredible! (The crazy gal in Pune hates to say we know each other through blog coz it takes the closeness out and makes it sound very superficial but getting close to someone whom u met through blogs is something interesting in itself, illai??)

I'm not much of a writer, but the blog has certainly helped me improve and kept me writing. The blog has brought out my creativity. It has been there for me to vent out my frustration! It has helped me boost my ego many a time. (It is really surprising and heartening when someone you don't know comes to you and says "You are 'Aravind' of Rahmaniac's Reflections?"... Trust me, it has happened. And, No.... I'm not talking about any bloggers meet!!)

3 years down, I'm so glad I started blogging! Haven't been able to be very regular, but will try to be regular!

Ask the organisers of the Sunfeast Tamil Music Awards, they will have all the answers to this question!

The event held at Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium on 5th July 2008, had no scarcity of stars. The luminaries who lit up the evening included legends Viswanathan-Ramamoorthy and Vikku Vinayak Ram, Maestro A.R.Rahman, KS Chithra, Harris Jayaraj, directors Shankar and Dharani, actors Vijay, Nayanthara, Kushboo and Simran.

The event which was supposed to start at 6 pm started at 7 pm. This delay is usually considered normal these days for shows of this scale. But, what followed for the next 3 hours should probably be the biggest mess up among events of this scale.

The hosts of the evening (Raghav and actress Aparna) had no clue of the proceedings of the evening. It was utter chaos right from the start, when they walked on to the podium and waited for a couple of minutes only to go back, after realising that they should have come only later!

Even the way the awards were announced was totally unprofessional. Many a time, the AV started while the hosts were announcing the winner's name, interrupting them. There was absolutely no coordination!!! Halfway through the show, the hosts decided to avoid this confusion - they just stopped with "and the award goes to". The winners name just came up on the AV! Sometimes, they played the AV for the next award, before the current award was presented, creating more confusion!

That was not all. After a long commercial break when the stage was set for Shruti Hassan to sing, the hosts were nowhere to be seen! Shruthi straight away started singing without anyone introducing her, and majority of the crowd was left wondering who it was on the stage!

Talking of commercial-breaks, they were far too many in number and the duration of each break was also pretty long, which left the audience restless! The frequent technical glitches gave more reasons for the audience to scream and boo!!

The celebs who presented the awards and those who got the awards were left totally clueless when they came on stage, because there were no thank you-s from the host once the awards were presented. The celebs were left wondering whether they should leave the stage, or they should wait or should they speak! When the hosts announced the next award, that was the cue for the celebs to step down! What a way to treat your celeb guests!

Surprisingly, none of the celebs were given the mic! All the talking was done by the hosts - till 9 pm, that is! It took them more than 2 hours to realise that the winners should be given some airtime on stage! But, why couldn't they have asked the girl who carried the award tropy, to carry the mic as well and pass it on to the celeb? Each time, either Raghav or Aparna had to run with the mic, from their podium at corner of the stage to the centre, just as the celeb was getting down from the stage! Have the organisers and the hosts never watched any of the award functions on TV?

The stage setup was the other irritating thing - the hosts' podium was in one corner, but the entry to the backstage was at the other corner. So, after inviting the performers to the stage, the hosts had to walk the full length of the stage each time, even as the dancers assembled for the performance!

The way the awards were conceptualised was, in itself, totally inane. Take this for example. The best melodious song award was presented to singer Balram for "Kaatrin Mozhi". Engaeyum Eppodhum was selected as the best remix song, and the award was presented not to the singer or the composer but to the director & producer. June Ponal was adjudjged the Best Youthful song, and this was presented to the composer, Harris Jayaraj! I fail to comprehend if there is even a faint logic in their decision of who gets the credit for each song - the singer or the director or the composer or even the producer!

I had to endure all this to catch a glimpse of A.R.Rahman receiving the best music director award, for, that was the last award of the day! It was quite obvious to everyone there at the venue that A.R.Rahman was gonna get the best Music Director award.

There were some remarkable performances during the show, including Bharatnayam by Shobhana, percussion ensemble by Vikku Vinayak Ram's family and some spirited singing by Shruti Hassan. But, all this was shadowed by too many glitches and unprofessional organising!

After all the hype that they generated for this event, it was a big big let down! A very amateurish and unprofessional show! Hope they learn from the innumerable mistakes they made this time!