Ghajini Review

I was expecting a lot out of Ghajini. In the end, I was dissappointed. Wonder how is it getting such great reviews.

Kavidhai

Sooryanai kootukkul adaithal,
Un Kankkal.

Karpanayai Varthakkalaal Varaithal,
Athu Kavidhai.

Yaaro ?

Pessum oviyyame,
un kanangal poovithazhal varaithavan yaaro ?

Tayangatha kankalle,
un manathil tannambikkai nattavan yaaro?

Puthithaana yennangale,
nal karuthukkale manathil choottavan yaaro ?

Azhagaana uthadhukkale,
ungal mounathil arthangalai maraithavan yaaro ?

Feb 5, 2005

Engirrindho vandaal,
Andru aval en arugil vandu nindral.

Kelvikalaal en manathai thuvaithaal,
bathilai kettu aval tan uyiraye koduthaal.

Maatrangal

Kaalangal tandha maatrangal,
Vazhkayyil puthu arthangal.

Kannathil puthu kayangal,
Idhayathil palla asaigal.

Kankalil puthu vanangal,
Mounangal sollum kavithaigal.

Nee

Ninaivukkal un sirripaal niraithen,
Kannavinnil un mughathai varaithen.

Kannkalil unnai naan maraithen,
Idhayathil kaadhalai valarthen.

Mea Culpa

“The two young ladies came from well to do upper income stock and were raised in a modern, integrating India. Vandana's father had served in the armed forces and she was raised all over the country. Vaishnavi's father worked for a transnational company and she was raised in Kolkatta. The first is a Malayali and the second, a Tamil. How often in the world at large do you get such diverse streams coming together to demonstrate such radical humanism? Isn't there enough evidence at hand to conclude this?: between this rising sensitive young generation and a responsive society all our ills have the prospect of becoming manageable in a finite time scale.”

Read more.

Off late, I have been focussing on what is wrong with our country and kerala in particular. Too much of negativity, perhaps.

Frankly, I can't think of a better place or better people to live with.

Easy to point out the faults. Difficult to appreciate the good. Even more difficult is to work for change and make everyone's life a little bit better.

There are a few who actually do that. The above excerpted is one such story. The site itself is like a breath of fresh air. Never fails to fill me with hope of a better tomorrow.

I should be talking less about the bad and more about the good. Better would be to stop talking and go out and do some good.

My Pithamagan review

I saw Pithamagan, Bala's much hyped film, yesterday.

Before I talk of this film, it is important to take a look at the kind of films that Bala has done in the past : Sethu and Nanda.

The best description for Sethu would be “morbid”, The film disturbs you at a fundamental level.

God knows enough films with “everything is fine and everyone are happy” endings are dished out every year by our directors. Rarely do characters which are out of the common, stories which haven't been explored and situations out of the ordinary get tackled on the screen. To tell such a story and to tell it in such a way that it is a commercial success and not just appreciated by a few “intellectual” critics shows the director's calibre. Afterall, film making is just the new age revision of the age hold art of storytelling in an engaging manner. To succeed in holding the audience's attention with such a morbid story speaks eons about the director's capabilities.

If you are the kind who looks for a hidden deeper meaning in everything, you will appreciate the way Bala deals, albeit in an exagerrated manner, with madness inherent in every love story, in Sethu.

Nanda's uplifting moment is Raj Kiran's scene where he proclaims “every human who fights evil is God” with a tinge of Bhagavat Gita thrown in for good measure. The exact opposite ideology of Kamal's “Love is God” Anbe Sivam. It was saved from the mediocrity of a thousand similar movies by the out of this world cinematography, Surya's arrival as an exceptional actor, Bala's deft direction and this particular scene.

Now comes Pithamagan. Bala doesn't deviate from his favourite theme : Tragedy coupled with unusual characters.

Porraying a character with well defined mannerisms is an easy job for any actor. More difficult is to portray a “normal” human being which calls for a subtler treatment. Kamal excels in the former while Mohanlal excels in the later. Audiences around the world tend to lap up and appreciate the former a lot more than the latter which is indeed a shame.

Anyways, coming back to the film on hand, Vikram does a good job at living the character of chittan with all the exagerrated mannerisms you would expect in such a character but let us not forget the excellent job done by the others like surya, laila and sangeetha.

A lot of questions remain unanswered, the most important of which is why does Vikram end up behaving as if being caught up in a time warp. Surely, anyone who ekes out a living as a cremator would have had semi-regular human contact ( the relatives of the dead ). To show him as a “normal” person with a dead heart would have lifted the film to a different level. Maybe the down to earth sensibility of a malayalam director would have conjured up such a story. Jayaram in a movie remarks with characteristic humour that everything is a bit exagerrated when it comes to the people of tamil nadu. In doing so, he makes a telling remark on the inherent differences between the two states to be found in everything from day to day behavior to the acting styles of a kamal and mohanlal.

All I know is this. Bala is a brilliant director with I suspect a tinge of madness. Eventually, he will come around and let his hero to be a normal human being. I will wait for that day. Patiently.

Meanwhile, go watch Pithamagan. There is indeed a method in Bala's madness.

PS : I am a big admirer of both Kamal and Mohanlal. My remark about their differences is not intended to be a flamebait for either side.

India bridges digital divide

“THEN THE Information Age arrived on her doorstep. Life hasn't been the same for Sakkarai, or her village, since.

Scouts from a communications company approached the teenager last year, when she was working one day a month as an accountant for a village credit cooperative, and asked if she was interested in opening a computer-equipped information kiosk in the village, which at that point didn't even have a telephone.

Sakkarai was apprehensive. I told them, I really don't know if I can do this, she recalled. So they turned around and asked, Do you have faith in yourself? I said yes. They said, Okay, then the rest we can do for you.

Today the 19-year-old runs a thriving small business, charging modest fees for services that range from Internet browsing and e-mail to daily computer classes to weekend screenings of Tamil-language films by means of her computer%u2019s CD-ROM drive. Perhaps most important, she acts as a kind of village ombudsman, brokering e-mail exchanges and even videoconferences %u2014 again, for a fee %u2014 between semiliterate villagers and the government bureaucrats who still control many aspects of their lives.”

Read more.

Impressed.

Onamashamsakkal !

Happy onam everyone.

I found this excellent article which I think is worth reproducing here.

Onam - The Festival of Exuberance

Kerala is celebrating another New Year- Year 1179, according to the Malayalam calendar, also known as “Kollavarsham”.

Chingam or Bhadrapada, the first month of the calendar ushers in ONAM, the national fiesta of Kerala. After the rain drenched Karkidakam with its privations, Chingam is a welcome month of plenty. The sky becomes blue, the deep forest becomes greener and it is time to reap the harvest, time to celebrate and to rejoice along with the Nature. And Onam epitomizes the newfound vigour and enthusiasm about everything around. It is celebrated with traditional Malayalee fervour with visit to temples, family get-togethers, gifting each other clothes called Ona-kkodi and lots of merry making.

This picturesque ten-day harvest festival has been part of Malayalee psyche for centuries now. There are records of Onam being celebrated during the Sangam Age. Onam festivities have been recorded during the time of Kulasekhara Perumals around A.D 800. It is believed that during those days the whole of Chingam was celebrated as Onam season.

Gayathri

I swear that my 6 month old niece is the cutest kid in the whole world :-)

Merry christmas folks. I remember Harris telling me during the bangalore blogger's meet that today is his birthday as well. So a happy birthday wish goes out to him as well.

Tata Indigo update : We have booked an artic silver one. It is supposed to take close to 20 days for the car to come. Here is one strange little fact for you. I dont how to drive a car :P The first thing to be done when I return to bangalore is to enroll myself in a good driving school. Any idea how long it will take for me to learn driving and get a license ?

Planning to wake up early tomorrow to catch the first one dayer. The absence of sachin is a dampener though :(

Anyone seen kante ? Is it good enough ? How about sathiya ? Since I have seen the tamil original, I dont think i will be seeing it.

I thought 24 is quite young. But my mother and sisters think otherwise. They have already started the bride hunt! But then I am not going to give up my bachelor status that easily ;-)

DUM

The title song of the Vivek Oberoi starrer, DUM is looking quite good. I dont remember seeing such a well picturised song outside a mani ratnam film. Sathiya, the Alai Payuthey remake, is looking quite good as well. Must say Vivek is on a roll these days. For some reason I am unable to pin point, I seem to prefer him over Hrithik.

On the English front, watched the latest Bond flick and the second Harry Potter film. The Bond film had a lot more action than it usually has and was suprisingly done quite well. The second Harry Potter film felt a bit weak though. Not much of a storyline there.

On the tamil side, been trying hard to see the latest sneha - srikanth film, april mathathil for some time now. Hopefully will watch it over the weekend.

What about you guys ? Seen any good films lately ?

A request.

I talked about it a long time back. We even had a discussion a while back. Only now I got around to doing something about it.

At this point, I would like to make a request.

Post a few lines in your mother tongue on your blog. Atleast make an attempt. You may be suprised to see how much you enjoy doing so.

Poetry

People close to me will know that I am passionate about poetry. It is interesting to note, poetry differs from language to language. To take an example, the tamil language is one of the simplest of languages. The number of letters(symbols/syllables) is among the lowest and so are the choice of words. Instead of proving detrimonal to poetry, This has resulted in just the opposite. You will see most tamilians quote from the tirukurral with pride and it is rare to hear a tamil poem and not understand it. I will quote a couple of lines from a tamil song that i like a lot,

nee kaatru, naan marram,
enna sonaallum talayaattuven.

Look at the simplicity of the poem and yet look at the powerfull imagination of the poet. Amazing.

Malayalam : Here the situation is the opposite. An abundance of words have resulted in complex poems which take some time to understand. But there is a lyrical beauty in malayalam poems which is hard to find elsewhere. You need to make an attempt to understand every poem and when you do understand it, it is well worth the effort. Lines like

nastha swargangale, ningal ennikku orru dukha simhaasannam nalki

take a while to sink in but remain in your heart for a long time.

Now coming to the romance and the mystique of the hindi poetry. Simply put, hindi poems are the most romantic of the lot what with the abundant use of urdu words. Who can forget the classic Kabhi Kabhi mere dil mein khayal or the Javed Akthar classic, Ek ladki ko dekha or Gulzar's Chod aayye hum woh.

I am no expert in poetry. But I love reading them and language is no bar.

PS : Film song lyrics have been used in this song in the place of poetry because that is the form of poetry I am most familiar with :-)

chit chat

Been blogging for over eight months now. A pre-occupation with design and frequent changes in the backend/host has meant that writing has taken a back seat.

Note to myself : write more.

Sreekanth, Please get back to blogging.

Bill Gates will be giving a speech at the wipro amphitheatre in ecity day after tommorrow. The thought of kidnapping him and asking a BIG ransom appeals to my criminal mind :-)

The one day series without sachin holds no interest for me, more so since the Indian bowlers seem to be in a genorous mood.

The ban on tamil movies in karnataka has meant that I am yet to see even a single tamil movie released on Deepavalli. Gotto to get my hands on a VCD soon.

The new ThumsUp ad with Akshay is cool. Finally brawn takes a backseat in a ThumsUp ad.

The Vaa Nila song in the latest rahman album, Kaadhal Virus, is groovy.

Time to get a snack.