I love Indian films and music and that's why Mayajaal came about ! My favourite actor is Kamal Haasan. Other actors admired are Amitabh, Naseeruddin, Nana Patekar, Om Puri, Nasser, Aamir Khan, Mohanlal, Mamooty etc. I cant tolerate Shahrukh, and can tolerate Rajnikanth only if its a comedy role. Although I generally favour comedians and comediennes of yesteryears like Johnny Walker, Nagesh, Manorama, Cho Ramasami etc., of late I think Goundamani and Senthil are GREAT. I also like Vivek, SV Sekhar, Manivannan etc.

So basically I'm a kinda arty fella ... I like Art and serious movies though I do see my share of Masala movies too ! My favourite actress is Revathi. Others are Jaya Bachchan, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Manisha, Suhasini, Madhuri Dixit, Juhi Chawla etc. I also obviously luv Aish Rai and Sush Sen ! and I seriously think Tabu looks great ! (Any NAYs ?!!). My newest like is Preity Zinta (will give a homepage link soon).

As for directors, I like Mani Ratnam, Shekhar Kapoor, Sai Paranjpe, Balu Mahendra, K Balachander and most of the non-mainstream Hindi film directors like Basu Chatterjee, Govind Nihalani, Hrishikesh Mukherjee (in particular !), Mrinal Sen etc.

Now coming onto music, I like Indian film music in general, though I really do prefer the Hindi film music of the 50s-early 80s period when SD Burman, RD Burman, Salilda, Shankar-Jaikishan, Hemant Kumar etc. composed music for such greats like Kish ore Kumar (who is my favourite singer !), Rafi, Manna Dey, Lata, Asha etc.

If you ask me, Hindi film music ended with the early 80s ... to be more precise, with the passing away of Rafi, Kishore and now RD Burman. Old fashioned ? Huh ! I dont care ! :P All these Kumar Sanus, Alka Yagniks etc. as well as Sameer, Nadeem Shravan, Anand Milind and of course honourable Anu Malik piss me off ! If I had my way, I'd shoot all of em ... No dont look at me like that ! I DIDNT SHOOT Gulshan Kumar ! :)

As far as Tamil music is concerned, I prefer Ilayaraja (esp the late 70s-early 90s) ANY day to Rahman. Though to be fair to Rahman, I do feel that he is doing a good job, knowing the needs of the present generation and composing the music. In fact, come to think of it, he's given us many a good number too in the 5 years that he's been ard !

Amongst Tamil film singers, I like Yesu das best (In fact after Kishore, I think he's the best !) and then its SPB, Unnikrishnan etc. Amongst female singers, Chitra, S Janaki and Sujatha are my favourites. I also like Carnatic music, both vocal and instrumental and learnt vocal music for 4 or 5 years. I learnt to play the keyboard by myself ... as a result of which I'm pathetic at playing chords and can play with one hand only (guess some piano lessons will set it right !)

Then onto other interests ... I like cricket. I even play cricket and am a medium pacer who can bat a wee bit :) My favourite cricketeers are (in order) Richards, Gavaskar, Rahul Dravid, Tendulkar, Kapil, Azhar, Ambrose, Wasim Akram (even if he's Paki ! :), De Silva, Allan Donald, Srikkanth, Lloyd, Walsh, Martin Crowe, Mark Waugh, Rhodes and lots more !! And which are the most important moments of Indian cricket history ? Well here's my list in chronological order !