On K Vishwanath

K Vishwanath is the best Telugu cine director ever. Period.

All of his movies are gems. Brilliant music, screenplay and sahityam. I have lost count of the number of times I have seen Sankarabharanam, Swathimuthyam & Swarna Kamalam.

The beautiful use of language, the finely tuned nuances, the emphasis on classical arts and the ethos......brilliant !

The legendary K V Mahadevan (fondly known as Mama) arguably gave his best music for KV's films. Balu, Suseela, Vani Jayaram and my favorite - S Janaki: all gave their best for KV's films. No wonder, the songs are all animuthyalu !

Vishwanath has introduced and given big breaks to the best artistes in the industry, be it Sitarama Sastry in Sirivennela or S P Balasubrahmanyam in his first ever carnatic foray in Sankarabharam.

No other director in telugu has brought about the best in his actors like KV did with Kamal Hasan in Swathimuthyam, Chiranjeevi is Swayamkrushi or Venkatesh in Swarnakamalam.

My favorite song from his films is "Raama Kanavemira" from Swathimuthyam. It recounts the seetha swayamvaram from The Ramayana. The song is a rare blend of a Harikatha, Kolatam and a Chekka bhajana and is beautifully rendered by Balu.

I have been fortunate enough to interact with him. As an interesting anecdote, he told me that K V Mahadevan made Balu practice for seven hours a day for a week for Sankarabharanam ! No wonder the movie fetched Balu a National Award for "Omkara Nadhalu" !

What many also do not know was that Dr M Balamuralikrishna was originally considered for singing the songs of Sankarabharanam. But he was adamant that he also be cast as Shankar Sastry. Vishwanath demurred and brought in Balu.

The rest as they say, is history...

My photos and memories with him are among my most treasured possessions.

On Filter Coffee

What better topic can I chose to start my maiden post ? I swear by my filter coffee and cannot think of starting my day without it.

To illustrate how fanatical South Indians are about their coffee, let me cite an incident. R K Narayan once went for a book launch to New York. He went to a hotel there and asked for coffee. The waiter came up to him and asked "Sir, black coffee or white coffee ?".To this Narayan memorably replied back "Brown coffee, as all authentic coffee should be !"

I get my coffee beans (strictly Tanjore Arabica beans only) from Mysore Coffee works, Matunga. Matunga, incidentally, is a as close to South India as I can get staying in Mumbai. Aaah ! the smell of roasted beans....

The rhythmic sound of the coffee being poured from the tumbler to the dubarah and back....no sweeter sound...heaven !

I have always looked down in disdain attempts to call Bru, Nescafe or Cappuchino as coffee. Milk and instant coffee powder does not a coffee make !

For the really fanatical filter coffee addicts like me, even a steel tumbler will not do. I sip my cuppa from a brass dubarah (yes brass !) my mother's remarks about the difficulties in cleaning brass not withstanding !

Heaven..Sweet Heaven !