| Cinema | |
| Posted on 07 Feb 2006 # IANS |
Tamil : Chennai star night recreates scenes from golden oldies
By Chitra Prakash, Chennai: Bhanupriya dancing atop a drum like the T.R. Rajakumari in "Chandralekha". Kamal Haasan singing his ever-moving "Then pandi cheemaiyile" from "Nayakan". Prakash Raj doing a Sivaji Ganesan to the tune of "Enge Nimmadhi".A wildly cheering audience was treated to all this and more late Sunday evening at Jeppiar Engineering College ground on the outskirts of the city.
The dream merchants of the Tamil film industry got together to stage Netru Indru Naalai (Yesterday Today Tomorrow), a stunning song-and-dance fund-raiser for the NGO Banyan that takes care of mentally challenged women.
The show, directed by veteran director Mani Ratnam, had stars like Kamal, R. Madhavan, Prakash, Vineeth, Silambarasan, Revathy, Simran, Sada, Shriya and others singing and dancing to carefully choreographed numbers from the pre-Independence era of Tamil cinema to the 1990s.
As the 10,000-strong young college crowd tapped and swayed to the golden oldies, it was the lighting by Rajiv Menon and stunning sets by Sabu Cyril that held the attention.
Banyan, set up 13 years ago by two city college graduates, Vaishnavi and Vanda, has so far provided shelter and medicare to 1,500 women. As many as 800 of them have been fully or partially cured and sent to their families across the country.
Actors like Revathy have for long been associated with Banyan's welfare measures. Star Vijay and Madras Roundtable sponsored the show along with a dozen corporate houses.
Netru Indru Naalai had been planned for August 2005 but had to be postponed due to rain and flooding of the venue at that time.
The stars of the show, however, did not give up the project despite their busy schedule and A.R. Rahman composed a theme tune and song for the NGO, set to heart-warming video images of Banyan inmates.
The dances, by dance master Kalyan and his troupe, were set to about 20 different songs that identified with popular Tamil cinema through over seven decades.
Award-winning set creator Sabu excelled himself in creating a different set for each song, and the changes took place in about a minute each.
The pillars and screens and drums and trains were all on wheels, rolled away at the wink of an eye as an item number came to an end and the next came in under muted lights.
Prakash enacted the Sivaji role for "Enge Nimmadhi" with bats, witches and fairies swooping down on him.
The AIADMK theme song, played at every election rally now and hugely popularised by MGR, "Naan aanaiyittal", also saw a spirited performance by Prakash and his team.
A ship set drew attention for the song "Atho antha paravai pola".
Simran was seen in one of her rare appearances - after becoming a mother - with Simbu for "Rakkamma kaiyai thattu".
Kamal was the one to receive the loudest cheer for his "Nayakan" number.
The most prolonged clap, however, was reserved for Shilpa Shetty who did Malaika Arora's dance in "Chaiyya chaiyya", shot on Tamil Nadu's Blue Mountain rail tracks.
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Regards,
.......Sajna.
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