>Saarang 2006 was different in many regards compared to the previous saarangs i attended. here is the chaos buddha's official review of saarang..

CHOREO NITE
i have attended 3 previous choreo nites and i found the greatest difference this year. The always entusiastic saarang crowd was unusually silent there was no hooting, no 'pattuku oru ooh podu' and no back stage dappan kuthu. And the best part was when the IIT-M home dance team was announced , people actually started applauding. From my past experiences in saarang this has never happened, in 2003 when the compere announced IIT-M the headbanging crowd suddenly got straight and sat down, and in 2004 when the compere asked 'ain't the IITnz rock?' the only answer from the crowd was 'sucks'. now aint this year's saarang a big paradox to tradition? but one thing that has to be appreciated is the results. the judgement was perfect, now the judges for the first time took in all aspects of the dance and they did not base their results on cheeky steps and the audience response....of course the audiance had their own three, the audiance poll hosted by airtel did not at all match with the results of the judges. and of course predictably the audiences selected anna univ's team the best. and ya of course predictably three fourth of the mobile carrying audiance were students of anna university.
Shankar Ehsaan Loy Show
Shankar was at his phenomenal best, but the thing that really pissed me of was the fact that there were no tamil gigs. Now has shankar mahadevan forgotten his mother tongue. and to top things up the audiance actually started to sing along. now i only wish mr.ramdoss from the P.M.K was there to witness this, then probably he will stop his tamil kalacharum stuff. At a stage i really started wondering whether it was the Chennai 'makkal' or the IIT 'junta' that thronged the place. but what ever said and don S E and L were excelent mahalakshmi ( read the name in the mahabaratha serial add style .......it goes mahaaaaaaa bhaaaaaratha with gamakas and stuff in between) was best and even rahman who initially was expected to be the faux pas of the session, got his share of attention singing 'dilse re' from within his dil se.and as far as b-l -double a-z-e goes ( read blaaze or if u r a numba makkal read naresh iyer) he sang bunty aur bubly very well but not manmathan.oh, yeah, i forgot the IIT song 's double a-r-a-n-g saarang that's the place to be'.
ROCK SHOW
i personally do not feel a rock show is complete without an iron maiden or metallica or judas priest number.....so as far as i am concerned there was no rock show at all. A few of the so called 'mature' guys may think otherwise. if you are a guy of the 'two sips of vodka and pink floyd music ( oh yeah the 5.someone style)' type then it must have been your perfect night. i did have time to unwind, but then, i was caught on camera and i am afraid tommorow's paper is gona show a guy on the shoulders of two others waving his denim overcoat....
Led zepplica sang led zep coves as expected, the chennai crowd which at least recognized the songs of parikrama had no clue what led zepplica was singing. two songs down i left the 'head banging' pit and went to sit. a couple of songs later i was out.