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1998
- Sandhosha Kanneere |
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1998 was one of the most memorable years of my life. And the year I realised I was a true-blue AR Rahman Fan. I was born in Singapore and lived there all my life till 1997. In Feb 98 I moved to Australia. I slowly started liking my new environment and was adapting really well, but something significant was missing. Having
been pampered with Oli 96.8 (as the radio station was known then) all
my life, close proximity to Indian audio shops & Indian cinema (all
of which I used to take for granted), I was unprepared for the way I
was going to miss Indian music when I came to Perth. As I wasnt hooked
to the internet by then (little did I know about the existence of TFMPage
or the mp3 sites), I had little idea on how to access Indian songs.
I was however fortunate enough to have thoughtful friends who deviced
for me every possible imaginable compilation of TFM songs and mailed
them to me from Singapore. When the winter break came (July 98), I left for Singapore. Imagine my surprise when I saw a gigantic cut-out wit Aishwarya Rai's pretty face and a mainstream masala Indian movie called "Jeans" showing at the Cathay/Picturehouse theatres. Before long, myself and another friend, who had jus returned from overseas as well, were watching Jeans. Having spent several minutes snearing at the posters outside (which read "0%Cotton, 100% Love"), we were even more contemptuous when we heard Columbus, Columbus & Vaarayo Thozhi. However as the movie progressed we fell in love with both the ridiculous storyline and the beautiful songs. Even while my friend decided Aish Rai looked like a famine victim in Anbe Anbe, that became one of my fave songs ever. Kannodu Kaanbathellam had many members of the audience falling off their seats (literally) from laughing too hard. I didnt get to appreciate this song till later. Ennake Ennaka & Athisayam were simply mesmerising. After the movie was over, I dug out my cassette and listened and listened to it non-stop. My friend did something she had never done before in her entire life. She bought an Indian audio cassette (another one of ARR's powers). Looking back, some of my memories makes me smile. In 98 December I went shopping and left behind my Jeans cassette on my car seat. It was sweltering 40 degree summer in Perth. By the time I came back a few hours later, the cassette had literally melted out of shape. I couldn't listen to the cassette any longer. From then till I came back to Singapore in January 99 and managed to buy the Jeans cd, I was left on a limbo. That's how addicted I was. Around
October 98, I received another gift from another one of my friends.
This time it was Uyire. I instantly fell in love wit En Uyire. I used
to listen to the Turkish radio station in Perth for songs with an Arabic
feel (long before Uyire was released). Listening to Tamil songs with
such a feel was just like a gift from Heaven. Sandhosha Kaneere is among
my top 10 fave Another
album released this year (1998) was 1947/Earth. By September 1999, I
was hooked to the net, had bumped into Karthik S' arrmp3 site and had
my own burner. I was doing what comes naturally when you have such things
handy. It Epilogue : Right
at the beginning, when I came to the point when I had to make a choice
on which mp3s to download, I decided that choosing ARR's songs always
kept me on the safe side. Now, I have decided that for the great amount
of Sometimes
when I listen to a song by AR Rahman, it takes me a while to like the
song and when I do become addicted to it, I feel like I have finally
"recognised" the music which my soul had heard in say, a previous
life or "There's
no teacher AR
Rahman's songs have never failed to bring me tears of joy from a Distant
Dream half-remembered. I remain eager to unravel yet more music from
my distant dreams, forgotten by the mind, but always remembered by the
soul. |
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2002
Constellation - A group of ARR fans from TFMPage.com
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