Can Shreya Ghoshal be called a prodigy ? At the age of 26, she has won four national awards and seven filmfare awards. By no means a small achievement. Her last national award was for songs in Bengali and Marathi. The other three were for Hindi.
Her voice is malleable and can suit different occasions, be it pathos, romance or classical. But to me she is at her best in romantic and sensuous songs. You’ve to just listen to `Jaadu hai nasha’ from Jism. When I first heard the song, I was hooked without knowing who the singer was. Later I found out it was Shreya who had won a national award for Devdas in the previous year. I’ve been a fan of this Bengali singer ever since.
She has sung in several other languages including all the South Indian languages. And mind you she has sung quite well in regional languages. She won a filmfare award for `Munpe vaa’ song in Tamil. In Malayalam what surprised me was her diction. Unlike the other North Indian singers be it the greats Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Kishore Kumar, Talat Mehmood or Udit Narayanan, Shreya did not sound like non-Malayali.
That is a rare quality and probably her strength. To sound like a Tamilian or Malayalee or Kannadiga when singing the songs in these languages is quite difficult for a North Indian singer. But several South Indian singers have sung beautiful songs in Hindi or other languages.
I think we’ll hear a lot more about Shreya in the coming years. After all she is just 26. By the time she hits 50, she could be having even ten national awards, definitely a record. Here is wishing the very best to her.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
West Indian T-20 team
It is indeed a formidableT 20 team. Will the West Indian T-20 team highlighted in The Hindu be the world’s best team like the Carribean test team? From the look of it one has to say yes. The names inspire awe: Greenidge, Haynes, Lara, Richards, Lloyd, Dujon, Marshall, Holding, Garner, Ambrose, Roberts and Walsh.
The big question is who to leave out. It has to be a bowler. Even then it would be five fast bowlers. No team has come up with such a lineup. There are no genuine spinners or all rounders. Richards is a part time spin bowler; Lloyd bowls medium pace; Marshall can bat a bit. That is it
Another point to ponder is that will the bowlers be able to stick to the strict rules on wides and no-balls restricting the height of the bounce of the ball. Most of them, except perhaps Marshall, will be well over six feet. I remember once English batsman Alan Lamb said jokingly that when Garner jumps before the delivery of the ball, his hand goes above the sight screen and hence the batsman will not be able to see the ball. It will be difficult for them to contain the bounce unless it is quite a placid pitch. The bowlers also have long run-ups and hence take longer time to finish the overs.
So the opposition may have a chance if the pitch is grassy. The team can amass a good total from extras if the bowlers try to bowl fast. But if they stick to line and length then there is not respite from the great fast bowlers. The ball doesn’t get old in T-20 for the spinners or medium pacers to operate. So no luck for the batsman there either. The batsmen will have to play like Sehwag and hope that the luck will favour them
The big question is who to leave out. It has to be a bowler. Even then it would be five fast bowlers. No team has come up with such a lineup. There are no genuine spinners or all rounders. Richards is a part time spin bowler; Lloyd bowls medium pace; Marshall can bat a bit. That is it
Another point to ponder is that will the bowlers be able to stick to the strict rules on wides and no-balls restricting the height of the bounce of the ball. Most of them, except perhaps Marshall, will be well over six feet. I remember once English batsman Alan Lamb said jokingly that when Garner jumps before the delivery of the ball, his hand goes above the sight screen and hence the batsman will not be able to see the ball. It will be difficult for them to contain the bounce unless it is quite a placid pitch. The bowlers also have long run-ups and hence take longer time to finish the overs.
So the opposition may have a chance if the pitch is grassy. The team can amass a good total from extras if the bowlers try to bowl fast. But if they stick to line and length then there is not respite from the great fast bowlers. The ball doesn’t get old in T-20 for the spinners or medium pacers to operate. So no luck for the batsman there either. The batsmen will have to play like Sehwag and hope that the luck will favour them
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Marvellous Martin Scorsese
I happened to watch the movie `Alice doesn’t live here anymore’ and was moved by both the performance of Ellen Burstyn and direction of Martin Scorsese. It is one of the earlier films of Scorsese, but his talent is quite evident. I had seen and enjoyed his `Mean Streets’, also made in the seventies.
The point I’m trying to make is that though he hit the big league with the classic `Taxi Driver’, the seeds of great things to come were sown years before. I’ve enjoyed most of the movies of Scorsese and continue to enjoy them. He is certainly one of my favourite post-war directors.
Just look at the bewildering variety of movies he has made over the years and it is hard not to like his movies. I’ve missed some of them like New York New York, The Last Waltz, King of Comedy, After Hours, Kundun and Age of Innocence. I’m still searching for the DVDs of these movies.
Take your pick from the list: Raging Bull, The Colour of Money, The Last Temptation of Christ, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, Casino, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed and now the Shutter Island ( I’m waiting to see the last one). If Robert DeNiro was his favourite actor earlier, now it seems to be Leonardo DeCaprio.
My wish is that he should go on making films till his death for directors of his kind don’t come often.
The point I’m trying to make is that though he hit the big league with the classic `Taxi Driver’, the seeds of great things to come were sown years before. I’ve enjoyed most of the movies of Scorsese and continue to enjoy them. He is certainly one of my favourite post-war directors.
Just look at the bewildering variety of movies he has made over the years and it is hard not to like his movies. I’ve missed some of them like New York New York, The Last Waltz, King of Comedy, After Hours, Kundun and Age of Innocence. I’m still searching for the DVDs of these movies.
Take your pick from the list: Raging Bull, The Colour of Money, The Last Temptation of Christ, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, Casino, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed and now the Shutter Island ( I’m waiting to see the last one). If Robert DeNiro was his favourite actor earlier, now it seems to be Leonardo DeCaprio.
My wish is that he should go on making films till his death for directors of his kind don’t come often.
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