The Changing Face of Tamil film Industry

The not-so-macho-looking macho heroes, thugs with unruly hair who roam in packs but disciplined enough to come at the hero one-at-a-time, heavy looking thugs getting beaten up by beaten-rice sized heroes – ah! those fancy days of Tamil cinemas. Those days when the dialogues were as innovative as the idea of a circular wheel today, and the sequences of scenes followed the diktats of the days of Sivaji and MGR, when watching movies was an effort of sitting through and appreciating the talent of the teams involved in repeating the age old chants just like the school kids – the days of Tamil cinema from the time I began to watch movies. Thankfully, I think those days are coming to an end. Why? Some of the movies coming out now are highly refreshing; they give me the audacity to hope. The songs are still there, the fights are still there, the villains are still getting beaten up. But there is an element of believability. Some of the recent movies like 1. Unnale Unnale, 2. Anjathey, 3. Saadhu Mirandaal, 4. Polladhavan, 5. Vennila Kabaddi Kuzhu, 6. Subramaniapuram have been so good to watch.

What is so special about these movies? Well, they start with a story - stories with a bit of realism here and there. The crew have started with a story, worked on it, and then went to cast the actors. This is a path-breaking effort in Kollywood! Making a movie had become a mechanical work. Get dates from a huge hero, put in 4 songs and an item number, arrange 4 fights in the middle, and then add mother or father or both, let us see who is supposed to be killed by the villain and how the hero fights the injustice. How much difference it makes when you start with a story rather than a hero! Albeit some of the movies listed above have some negatives, there are still some refreshing things in the movie that even out, if not outweighing the negatives. It just shows that a bit of realism here and there would go a long distance in outweighing the unwanted aspects and repetitions.

I have heard of some more movies which are good, but then it has been long since I have taken anyone's word for Tamil movies. When I land on some such movies, maybe I will like them. But please, someone should say no more formula movies. For example, Villu was an absolute disgrace. Prabhu Deva should be stopped from movie making.
Out-of-place songs go a long way in irritating a viewer. Making a movie is similar to writing a paper to publish in an academic journal. Any piece that is out of place, or is not substantiated or is unnecessary would only irritate the reviewer and increase the chances of rejection. Repetition of an earlier work, without acknowledgement, would surely be kicked out. The same applies here too. Did the piece of prose in italics irritate you because it was out of place and without any connection? The same happens in movies too.

One could argue that it is just for entertainment and no need for strict rules in making movies. I say, making movies is their profession. And any professional cannot be allowed to get away with mediocrity, be it in any field. Cricket is for entertainment, would the fans keep quiet if the team does not perform well? Why doesn't the same apply here?

How did it come to this!

The Munna Bhai wants to contest in the coming Lok Sabha election. Our favorite Munna wants to be a member of the parliament. He wants to represent the lucky people of some constituency. He wants to make decisions for them, take responsibility for their lives. He wants to do a lot of good for the people in that constituency. A very nice and appreciatable intention. His father, late union minister, would be very proud of him.

Let us see what his qualifications are:
1. Popular bollywood star,
2. Son of a late union minister.
Are these enough? Let us look a bit more:

3. A well known ex-drug addict,
4. Convicted for having a machine gun,
5. Convicted for having no license for it,
6. Convicted for procuring it illegally,
7. Accused in the mumbai terror blasts,
8. Accused of having ties with Dawood Ibrahim.

Does this look like a winning resume for any job? Are these the qualities we look for in our representative to anywhere, let alone the Lok Sabha? Should the Election Commision allow him to contest this election, this would be a new and ground breaking low in the history of Indian Politics. This would be a shameful event, and an insult to the great statesmen of the past. It would be an insult on the parliament and the countless MPs and the few statesmen who have walked that ground, sat there, spoken there, made decisions there, represented the people there.

I do not hate Sanjay Dutt, he is a gifted entertainer. I am among the countless fans of the Munna bhai movies. But movies are not real life. If he was Munna, then he was also the Don in many movies. Are the Indian people so blind, or so forgiving? This is not just against Sanjay. This is also against the countless convicts and accused who are contesting the elections. This is also against the countless fakers and frequent visitors to the jails who are contesting the elections. I just wish that EC would have a backbone and deny these gentlemen tickets.

Of these, Varun Gandhi deserves a special mention. He has maligned the name of Gandhi. He has maligned the bloodline of Nehru. He has maligned the two greatest statesmen this country has produced. Stopping him from contesting the elections is the most lenient punishment that I can think of.

Idiots in this beautiful world!!

Number One Idiot of 2006
I am a medical student currently doing a rotation in toxicology at
the poison control center.
Today, this woman called in very upset because she caught her little
daughter eating ants.
I quickly reassured her that the ants are not harmful and there
would be no need to bring her daughter into the hospital. She calmed
down and at the end of the conversation happened to mention that she
gave her daughter some ant poison to eat in order to kill the ants.
I told her that she better bring her daughter into the emergency room right away.

Number Two Idiot o f 2006:
Early this year, some Boeing employees on the airfield decided to
steal a life raft from one of the 747s. They were successful in
getting it out of the plane and home.
Shortly after they took it for a float on the river, they noticed a
Coast Guard helicopter coming towards them.
It turned out that the chopper was homing in on the emergency
locator beacon that activated when the raft was inflated.
They are no longer employed at Boeing.


Number Three Idiot of 2006:
A man, wanting to rob a downtown Bank of America, walked into the
Branch and wrote this: "Put all your muny in this bag."

While standing in line, waiting to give his note to the teller, he
began to worry that someone had seen him write the note and might
call the police before he reached the teller's window.

So he left the Bank of America and crossed the street to the Wells
Fargo Bank. After waiting a few minutes in line, he handed his note
to the Wells Fargo teller. She read it and, surmising from his
spelling errors that he wasn't the brightest light in the harbor,
told him that she could not accept his stickup note because it was
written on a Bank of America deposit slip, and that he would either
have to fill out a Wells Fargo deposit slip or go back to Bank of
America.
Looking somewhat defeated, the man said, "OK" and left.
He was arrested a few minutes later, as he was waiting in line back
at Bank of America.

Number Four Idiot of 2006:
A motorist was unknowingly caught in an automated speed trap that
measured his speed using radar and photographed his car.
He later received in the mail a ticket for $40 and a photo of his car.
Instead of payment, he sent the police department a photograph of $40.
Several days later, he received a letter from the police that
contained another picture, this time of handcuffs.
He immediately mailed in his $40. Wise guy.

Number Five Idiot of 2006:

A guy walked into a little corner store with a shotgun and demanded
all of the cash from the cash drawer.
After the cashier put the cash in a bag, the robber saw a bottle of
Scotch that he wanted behind the counter on the shelf.
He told the cashier to put it in the bag as well, but the cashier
refused and said, "Because I don't believe you are over 21."
The robber said he was, but the clerk still refused to give it to
him because he didn't believe him.
At this point, the robber took his driver's license out of his
wallet and gave it to the clerk.
The clerk looked it over and agreed that the man was in fact over 21
and she put the Scotch in the bag.
The robber then ran from the store with his loot.
The cashier promptly called the police and gave the name and address
of the robber that he got off the license.
They arrested the robber two hours later.
Idiot Number Six of 2006:

A pair of Michigan robbers entered a record shop nervously waving
revolvers.
The first one shouted, "Nobody move!" When his partner moved, the
startled first bandit shot him.

Idiot Number Seven of 2006:

Arkansas: Seems this guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He
decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store
window, grab some booze, and run.
So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the
window. The cinder block bounced back knocking him unconscious.
It seems the liquor store window was made of Plexi-Glass.

The whole event was caught on videotape.
IDIOTS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD:
I live in a semi-rural area. We recently had a new neighbor call the
local township administrative office to request the removal of the
Deer Crossing sign on our road.
The reason:
"Too many deer are being hit by cars out here!
I don't think this is a good place for them to be crossing anymore."

IDIOT SIGHTING:

I was at the airport, checking in at the gate when an airport
employee asked,
"Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge?
To which I replied, "If it was without my knowledge, how would I
know?" He smiled knowingly and nodded, "That's why we ask."

IDIOT SIGHTING:

The stoplight on the corner buzzes when its safe to cross the street.
I was crossing with an intellectually challenged coworker of mine.
She asked if I knew what the buzzer was for.
I explained that it signals blind people when the light is red.
Appalled, she responded, "What on earth are blind people doing driving?!"


IDIOT SIGHTING:

When my husband and I arrived at an automobile dealership to pick up
our car, we were told the keys had been locked in it. We went to the
service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock
the drivers side door. As I watched from the passenger side, I
instinctively tried the door handle and discovered that it was unlocked.
"Hey," I announced to the technician, "its open!"
His reply, "I know. I already got that side."


STAY ALERT! They walk among us ,and they REPRODUCE

Sudesi 2006, Movie review

The following blog entry is a word for word quote from one Praveen K in Chennai.

Finally!! I watched THE man on big screen and fortunately, being really strong hearted, I am living to tell you about it. I found it an amazingly entertaining movie and would recommend it to all you guys and gals out there for two main reasons. One, its super fun. Two, its totally economical - you can buy a ten rupees ticket and still manage to sit in A row, for all you need to do is turn back and understand that you are alone. So lets get to the review of Sudhesi, the film of the year 2006.

I watched the film on Saturday with a huge bunch of friends. The theater was jam packed with around 12 people and over 948 seats. The whistles began right away. It was a pleasant shock that the film was produced by Sudhish, an ultimate fan of Captain. I guess he chipped in with this movie before "That Four Letter Word" so that he could possibly invest the huge profits obtained from Sudesi. He told me that he did not sponsor Captain's clothing alone, which is understandable since buying off Aravind Mills is not an easy joke.

The film starts off on a political note : the death of the Chief Minister, which completely puzzled the viewers since Captain hadn shown his face yet. Riots break out everywhere after the new Chief Minister is decided and that is when Captain comes into the picture. Such an awesome intro he gets. A group of rowdies try to kill a poor man during the riot and suddenly the theater erupted as the camera joomed to show us a man wearing a sports soo and running on the road like Gilli Vijay. [Trivia
: This road later came to be known as Bannerghatta Road] When the camera joomed out, there was an amazingly youthful Captain in a red tracksuit. He was drop-dead gorgeous : five people dropped dead. Captain came walking towards the rowdies with camera trying to focus his face from beneath his shoes like in Chandramukhi, but unfortunately his stomach stood in between and they ended up focussing something private. This was followed by terrific fight sequences, at the end of which there was so much destruction that all the shop owners felt that it was more economical to allow the riot to continue next time.

Sudhesi is basically a do-gooder. He helps people round the clock. Velai vetti illa-nu vidhyasama solli irukkar director. He solves a mystery involving the death of a young boy and gives a half an hour lecture in the court which impresses the judge so much that he appoints him as a Public Prosecutor in his court. However, Sudhesi's extraordinary language skills played spoilsport since a Bublic Brasecootar made him appear like a Naidu Hall salesman he loses his job. He has statistics about each and every thing in the universe in his finger tips and often lectures people with such intensity that it would make even Ramanujam hate numbers. The only other thing possible was mentioning his vital statistics, which was left out since it hasn't been measured accurately due to inadequate technology.

As always, Captain proves that he is highly romantic. He is constantly nagged by his mora ponnu who, for some reason, finds him to be the hottest person on earth and troubles him to marry her. I did not find any compelling reason why a girl would love Captain, considering the death rate of his heroines, unless ofcourse she'd been paid all the extra money like Isha Kopikar in Narasimha. So, the director had to be really smart and he was. All scenes were shot in the evening coz the heroine had maalai kannu noi.

Karunas has been included for comedy, but he pales in comparison to our MAN. I pity Sudish who ended up spending extra money for a redundant character. There is a scene in which Karunas and Sudhesi travel by bus. They were both supposed to travel on the footboard. However simple equations of physics showed that if that scene was shot, the bus would topple for obvious reasons. So Sudhesi alone got a nice place inside the bus, as a result of which it was completely crowded and Karunas had to hang on for dear life hoping that Captain doesn't sneeze or cough. In certain scenes, the direction was completely flawed - Captain says to Karunas, "Dei nee powder poosina panni maadhiri irukka" - it is always better to rehearse the scenes so that you don't end up saying the other person's dialogues.

Captain's costume in the movie were revolutionary. His wardrobe was provided by M.A. Jacob, the carpet people. The colourful flowers on his shirts are only found in two other places - bedspreads and ooty flower show. It is said Sudhish refused to buy faded jeans and so Captain bought normal 52inch jeans, forced himself into it and made faded designs with chalkpiece. Such wonderful costumes made Sudhesi appear so youthful that it gave us a glimpse of how Captain might have looked during his adolescent ages. He was equally scary then. He infact rides an Enticer with such ease that it looked like he was riding a tricycle. Such was his class. In one scene, the heroine jumps into the bathroom where she thinks Sudhesi is taking bath and with her looks matching that of her man's, the guy inside comes out shouting "Ayyoo Peyiiiii". Thank god Captain was not inside the bathroom, or else the heroine would have come out running. There is a duet song in the movie which has extremely relevant lyrics about Pongal festival. Captain has danced very lightly for this song and thus the heroine was reported to be safe.

Kadhai-la ippo dhaan taRning point. The Chief Minister and his right hand are totally greedy and selfish in this awesomely innovative script. They do lotsa kedi thanams including killing the ex-CM, which the right hand secretly tapes using a micro camera. This video falls on the hands of Sudhesi. After having watched Ramana, the right hand knew that this was highly dangerous since Captain was the only person capable of dragging and dropping new pieces of information into videos using Windows Media Player. The right hand comes looking for the CD and holds Sudhesi's mom a hostage with a knife and a gun simultaneously. But he had already seen Narasimha, he knew that Sudhesi would dodge all the bullets and decided to use a time bomb instead. He locks Sudhesi and his mom inside a room and fixes a time bomb. The bomb explodes. Mom dies. But amidst the flames thalaivar comes out flying. Sudhesi escapes. The bomb had actually thrown Sudhesi out of the house into a safe area. Friendly bomb.

In the second half of the movie, Sudhesi decides to use the CD and blackmail the CM to do good stuff for the people. The CM decides to kill Sudhesi and there is a super fight in a shopping complex with Captain wearing the kalyana band master dress seen in the posters. He freezes after every punch he delivers and the camera jooms to show his eyes in close-up which had as much sex appeal as a garbage truck. Even his coolers refused to stay in its place and flew away, but Captain pulls it back with a romantic stare and a there-is-nothing-like-early-morning-shitting smile.

Sitting on the stairs of a half-constructed building, Sudhesi proposes reforms in the medical field to the CM. This caused unnecessary expenditure for Sudhish, who had to pay compensation for damaging the foundation of the building. So next time onwards they decided to use fax mizeens. Sudhesi, who failed four times in fourth standard, now proposes educational reforms that take the entire state by storm. All this increase the popularity for the CM and he wins the elections easily, while it was the mastermind of Captain in the background!

So the CM calls Sudhesi to a place that is supposedly a factory but has a double cot in the manufacturing section. What sort of a factory would have a bed in such a place? Sudhesi senses that there is something fundamentally wrong and just as he expected the bad guys appear out of the blues. Plenty of wired stunts in this scene with Captain being wired with Amman TRY Murukku Kambis and lifted by cranes. One senseless guy tried hitting Captain with a steel rod, which just bends around Captain's wrist like a watch. What a man. Suddenly one bad guy says, "Dei ivan romba nallavan da, evalo adichaalum chamatha freeze panni nikkaraan" and the fight stops. The CM apologises to Sudhesi and urges him to become the CM. That triggered a half hour Sudhesi sbeech which makes you desperate to take a dip in the evergreen cooum and close your ears with cork. After the speech, the CM commits suicide for making the deadly mistake of holding "talks" with Captain.

Captain is back in form after a really dry period last year. Punch dialogues like, "MGR-kum enakkum orey oru vidhyasam dhaan. Avar kai-aala adipparu, naan kaal-aala adippaen" made us have a hearty laugh in the theater after we made all crooked sentences out of it! (Purinjavanga sirichukkonga pa, inga me no tell that, naan good boy!) The heroine disappears after the first half since Sudheshi did not want to distracted by silly matters. Everybody wondered what happened to her, but I am sure she must have cancelled her dates on the pretext of going on a sight seeing to Dumil Kuppam, after the duet song with Captain.

I thank Sudhish from the bottom of my heart for giving us such a wonderful film, and hereby confer upon him the title, "Sudheeshi".

Dashrath – selfless hero!!

Dashrath is a daily wage labourer by profession who took pride in what he did for a living. He hails from a village called Gahlar nestled in the state of Bihar. The nearest town that had a reliable hospital was 80 kilometres away. Water and sanitation, let alone a decent school, was a huge problem in this village. In other words, a child in that village had hard time surviving.

People with health problems found it burdensome to walk on a muddy road for 80 kilometres to get their first ray of hope in the form of a pill or the doctor's advice. Some people even died on the way to the nearest hospital. Now, there was a short cut (relatively) across a hill to the nearest town. Well, the short cut wasn't exactly an easy path to take, which meant that it didn't really serve the purpose at all. Dashrath's family was no exception to the inconvenience. The rough road caused many an injury to people traversing that distance through the hill.

One day Dashrath's wife fell down on that very path when she was on the way to meet Dashrath with his midday meal. It was at this point when Dashrath decided to build a tunnel through the hill to make life easier for his village folk. Obviously the whole village thought Dashrath had gone insane. How could he think that he could dig a tunnel through a huge hill? Some dream it was! We all claim to welcome new ideas, but this didn't seem to go down too well with his people in the village. People laughed and dismissed it even before they heard him out.

Dashrath remained unfazed and began his task of cutting through rocks in his attempt to build a tunnel. His children abandoned him calling him a madman. The new name caught on and the rest of the village called him the same. He earned his daily wages as a coolie, and then devoted a few hours everyday to this new challenge. It was in 1984 when he spelt out his dream and began to make it happen.

22 long years passed him by, but not without the realization of his dream – the tunnel that he had visualized in his mind 25 feet in diameter and 1 kilometre long. Trucks could pass through the tunnel from the nearest town to Dashrath's village and back. The village was blessed with a new lifeline. People from the village could reach the nearest hospital in 10 minutes.

The road lay in front of him, his eyes shone with pride. It is another story that his wife wasn't there, the reason for this noble gesture. But he felt peace in his heart as he knew an entire village benefited from this work of art. The then President Abdul Kalam honoured him with the Padmashree Award for this very selfless act. The government offered to give him a piece of land and a house. It was more of an embarrassment than honour for Dashrath Manjhi. He requested the government to build a hospital in the land given to him. What selflessness before our eyes.

PS: written by Mr. Sandip Pradhan (Software Engineer in Dun & BradStreet TUADC, Chennai) for Radiosai.org

Cricket and terror!

Thousands and thousands of blog and news entries have been written about Lankan cricketers coming under fire in Lahore. It is a very sad event, very sad for the brave Lankan cricketers and their families; very sad for the security personnel who died to save the Lankan cricketers; very sad for Pakistani cricketers and Pakistani cricket and last but not the least Pakistani public.

When no other cricket playing nation was ready to tour Pakistan, the Lankan board did. It was a brave decision. It is important to remember that the Lankan board was under lot of financial stress. They needed the money and the Pakistan board need home series. And voila! they both found an understanding and the Lankan players were flown off to Pakistan. The Lankan players, I am not sure, had much say in that. They might have sympathised with the financial position of their board or maybe it was a part of a deal in letting the players attend the IPL. Anyways, off the brave Lankan Lions flew!

The last time Pakistan played a test match at home was in early2008 or late 2007. The Pakistani cricket team has always been one with loads and loads of raw talent. Every other year, they unearth a teenager who plays in the international level with no difficulty. They have established batters and their fast bowling talent pool needs introduction only in non-cricketing nations. These players have little or no cricket in the last two years. Just in his first test match in a long time Younus went on to make a majestic 300+.

The Pakistan Cricket Board has been in a pickle ever since its inception. Team politics, drug abuse, match fixing, terrorism, mysterious death, battle with rebel league. You name it and they have faced it. Their board is the single most experienced body in the world in tackling the media. I am not sure they are proud of it. But they don't seem to have a way out of it. In the last two years, they have been bending over their back in trying to get the other teams to tour Pakistan. They have been fighting off the inhibitions of all other boards and also of ICC. They are supposed to host 2011 world cup. This would be a huge financial bust for the board and tourism of the country.

The Pakistani public have been forced to watch quality test cricket on TV or watch first-class matches. They love their cricket as much as any sub-continental country. They would have missed cheering for their favourite team on the grounds. They would surely have missed the Rawalpindi express steaming in and delivering balls at screaming pace; they would have missed Younus and Younis send the ball crashing to the boundaries. After more than a year, they got their wish, but cruel fate would take that away from them quickly. They cannot expect to see a home test in another two years.

In all this the security personnel are easily forgotten. They are the faceless people who have sacrificed their lives to save the Lankan lives. Not just the Lankan lives, they have also saved whatever pride is left in the Pakistani government. Had any Lankan player been injured gravely, the whole world would found satisfaction in calling Pakistan a 'failed state'. This is not time to blame Pakistan, it is time to help Pakistan come to terms and fight the terror inside. And Pakistan still has time to save its face and come out good, is thanks to these security personnel. I hope they rest in peace. I also hope the government looks after the families of its fallen heroes. The Lankans owe their lives to these heroes.

Terrorists won't hurt cricketers? Time to think again.

Bush-fire, cricket

Australia's cricketers will head to Victoria today to visit survivors of the deadly bushfires that have wreaked havoc across the state. Michael Clarke raised the idea with his team-mates in Adelaide and Cricket Australia (CA) gave its approval.

Australian captain Ricky Ponting says the players are keen to meet people in bushfire-affected areas and offer their support. "We're going to fly down to Melbourne and get on a team coach and go out to Whittlesea and spend a few hours there to try and make things a fraction easier if we can. We want to get in and help wherever we can," he said. Ponting says Clarke's idea was well received by players and officials alike. "So we'll go and lend our support and pay our respects."

Good onya mates... Well done!

The match between Australia and New Zealand doubled up as a fund-raiser and garnered around 6 million dollars. This money is inclusive of the match fees of all the Aussie players and a percentage of NZ players too. And generous donations from the crowd and the ticket proceeds. Some of the Aussie cricketers went with donation boxes amongst the crowd during the match.

PS: This is an older blog, which got accidently deleted.

Squash’ed

My hunt for good and better hobbies, led me to Squash this Sunday. And it was very tiring to my body and very relaxing to my brain. I stress the importance of physical activity for the better state of your head. Too much of unspent energy attacks your brain like anything. Many of you might have realised this. Unfortunately I don't have any picture of me in the squash court right now, but who knows may be next week!

Let me come to the story of me playing squash. This was my first time playing the game, and being used to other racket games like tennis, badminton, I felt squash cannot possibly be any difficult. But I was SOOOO wrong. In other racket games, the ball comes straight at you, the minute the opponent hits the ball you know where the ball is going to be. But in squash, you never know how many deflections it is going to take and where you have to meet the ball. And this makes it really difficult game. I played with three different people and lost ( obviously) to all of them, but I guess I will get the hang of the game by the third outing.

Fingers crossed.

PS : My blog has got 80 hits from 8 different countries in the last month, thanks to all who have visited my blog.