boom boom roboduh

I still hadn't quite recovered from the lyrico-electronic assault of the soundtrack of Enthiran, when the soundtrack for the Hindi version Robot hit the airwaves. Swanand Kirkire takes up the rather thankless job of fitting words to tunes that had emerged as a blend with Tamil lyrics. To his credit he manages to toss in some interesting words to enliven the experience (but how does one explain the retention of the old Tamil word arima?), but he still cannot save this from being one really silly enterprise. I had hoped that they would use the correct pronunciation of robot, but alas, they chose the incorrect Indian one that rhymes with Bobo.

We choose, for the purposes of this post, to start from the beginning: the CD case. Vidcaps offer irrefutable evidence that Shankar has set new records in wasteful expenditure on lavish eyecandy. Despite the presence of A. R. Rahman at the helm of the proceedings, one of the sleeves bears the proud claim "Music made by humans." The gem that this post wishes to cast a floodlight upon the inlay card dedicated to providing some more information about the andro-humanoid (their term, not mine) Chiti (or Chitti, if you want to use the track Chitti Dance Sequence as a guide) and his creator Dr. Vasi (Tamil for Frankenstein Victor).

The section devoted to Chiti's anatomy/configuration (their label, not mine) is the produce of a local buzzword blender: speed one terra hz, memory one zeta byte, processor Pentium ultra core millenia V2, FHP 450 motor from Hirata, Japan. Hirata is presumably the place that produced the most fans of Muthu. A Terra[sic] (their spelling, not mine) Hertz is presumably a more down-to-earth measure of frequency than the Megas or Gigas. Zeta is presumably a typographical error (there are two Ts and it's one word -- zettabyte) or it's a tribute to Mrs. Michael Douglas. Thanks to the sloopy use of case, it's hard to determine which part of "ultra core millenia V2" is the code name for this strange stepchild of the Pentium. FHP might stand for Fractional Horsepower (after all, they can't make everything up). All in all, it's hard to believe that this is all that's needed to create a cybernetic clone of Super Star Rajinikanth (why clone? Well, the description says that Chiti can dance, sing and fight while being resistant to water and fire and boasting an appetite for electricity).

Chiti cannot lie they say. Expect to never see a scene where this creation is supine.

And to think it took only 10 years to make one.