Vishwaroopam Review

             And finally after much hiatus Vishwaroopam opened in Tamil Nadu on 7th of Feb, 2013 and thanks to my buddies, I got a chance to see this on the same day. So as I headed to the movie I had this mental checklist of what to expect out of a Kamal movie and sort of put a tick against each of those as and when I experienced it.

• Kamal the protogonist - Checked (obvious)
• Kamal singing songs - Checked
• Kamal the lyricist - Checked
• Kamal and new heroine - Checked
• Lots of characters, though many may less screen presence - Checked
• A typical Kamal praising song - Checked
• A punchline from a past Kamal movie - Checked
• A share of  'let the audience figure out how' content - Checked
• A role Kamal hasn't donned before - Checked
• Experiment or bring on something new to local cinema- Checked 
• Controversy involved - Checked (becoming obvious too)
• Costing a fortune to the producer - Checked (Home production in this case)
• Attention to detail (in all aspects) - Checked

    Now some things that did not feature in the checklist but impressed me.

• The idea of choosing a story that would appeal to global audience than just the local or national ones.
• No fancy & disconnected between-the-scenes dream songs.
• In the world ample with showcasing the terror humans, this has something to offer about humane terrorists for a change.

   And those that failed to impress me

• Probably my expectation of a performance on par or bettering சலங்கை ஒளி made me feel disappointed in this Kathak piece.
• Flash back and forth placements.
• The extent of 'let the audience figure out how' quotient.
• Is that all needed to, not just get inducted into Al-Qaeda team but be looked upon as trustworthy as well, or did Kamal leave it to the audience to fathom themselves on how that could be possible?
• I would have taken lesser notice of the logical flaws in first fight sequence had it not been played again in slow motion, well sorry Kamal my bar is certainly very high for a perfectionist.
• Understandably a high budget one for an Indian movie, however still the movie couldn't seamlessly superimpose the different layers of real footage and surreal CG, imperfect still.
• Most fans as well as fanatics play the "I've never seen an Indian movie so good before, only Kamal can do" card. Well it implies that the fan is either an English movie frequent and hence is able to compare the finesse or a normal guy unexposed to worldly cinema and is all awe by this never seen before visuals. Come on guys stop the apples and oranges comparison.

   Lastly, on the controversial protests and cuts

• If muting / cutting those little scenes has upheld the sanctity of the religion then looks like we're heading to old-age future (in terms of freedom of speech and expression)
• The instances of jabbing at Hinduism or a specific caste and no protests or censor cuts has raised interesting questions.
• Are those belonging to it understood that it does not affect what they are or where they belong to?
• As it has been proved time and again across various movies 'these' people could be taken for a ride, for whatever reasons?

Bottomline: 

               Vishwaroopam is a high budget Kamal roopam and may NOT go into the book of movie classics for Indian Cinema, to those with the love for cinema its watchable once, to the cheque and MO sending ones nothing needs to be said & the maddening history repeats itself.

Top 5 Qualities that Defines Most Indians

      Sparing an opening note for the first timers and for the record, India is a land of diverse elements, be it the climatic variances across the lengths and breadths of the sub-continent to the language localization within the country. In-spite of this plethora of diversities there still exists certain characteristics that uniquely identifies a true Indian be it (sampled) from any part of the globe. There were quite a lot of inputs (though mostly derogatory), the following are my compilation of the top 5 qualities that defines most Indians, in no specific order.

• Judgmental & Blamer

              For non-Indians these might be two totally different characteristics a person might possess but for an Indian these go hand in hand just like politics and corruption. When you find a person who talks to you, say for a few minutes and if you're sure he's an Indian then most likely that he has already judged you. Few instances to give a hang of the lovely judgmental qualities we Indians possess and use in conversations....

• A bearded guy has failed in love (excluding the ones who have it for religious reasons).
• All flashy dressed women are allegedly hookers.
• Those who 'obey' parents are the best kids on earth.
• All those who study abroad are exceptionally brilliant.

Coming to the blamer quality, its deeply embossed in the DNA of all of us. The last thing on earth we can do is to accept our fault without throwing the blame on others. The fact that the present day reality shows having taken the western world concept to the next level is one stamping proof. Here again a few instances to show case the typical blame-games...

• At road accidents be it small or big, we are always right and the others involved are always wrong.
• When it comes to punctuality be it at work or even for meet up with friends or family, the whole world is at mistake for our miss and mess up of the timeline.
• Even our clothes & shoes take the blame for getting 'smaller' rather attributing to the fact of us becoming 'bigger'.

• Spice Foodie

            This part of the world has people whose spice levels in their food could touch alarming levels (according to a non-Indian) and still remain fit and healthy. As the saying goes 'Variety is the spice of life' we Indians have a variety of spices to heat up our lively taste buds and its diversity can only be experienced by travelling across to different parts of our '!ncredible !ndia'

• God Fearing

               If there is something that defies the law (Indian Penal Code, Constitution etc...) and procreates a belief that is widely accepted and nurtured as the law of the land then it is the belief in God or the Almighty or in whichever term the wide-spread religious establishments across the country call it. As much to the delight of countless Indians on earth, there exists equally countless ways, situations, opportunities etc for the implementation of these God-Fearing beliefs cutting across regions, religions & languages. Also comes truck loads of superstitions as a freebie with this trait. 

• Coitus as sex               

               Being a country that is one of the top on the table in terms of population or in terms of the number affected by STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease) & for historical reasons too (Kamasutra), our country is ample with theory of Coitus in its artistic illustrations which are looked up and held in high esteem by the outsiders as an art. However ironically most in this country don't even know the term by its former name and refer it as the latter and mold it to the extent that compels kids to believe that any form of even knowledge-based exposure or discussion based on it elevates one to a 'bad' societal status. Hence it results in the obvious inquisitive trait (in secrecy) and the internet boom, crimes, fetishes and what not, the rest is history. Due to this genetic degeneration of coitus what is left is just the physical eroticism, population explosion and growth of porn industry as a grey shade.

• Nomadic or Adjustable 

                It's a grounding fact that a major chuck of earning Indians are salaried, which in simple layman terms translates to "I shall be ready to do anything that my boss orders me to, and remain grumbling behind their backs forever". We're probably the largest class of people in the world to be proud to trade our families for lucrative donkey jobs anywhere on the globe. We learn the global business language (English), foreign languages and most importantly unlearn our local language to not become literary experts or for the love of the language but just to earn money. If the 'brain-drainers' are so, the locals aren't amateurs either. Its just the economics of it, the locals do the same adjustments in their lives for up to 5 digit salaries while the NRIs do for a 7 digit onward perk.

Some of the qualities that almost made it

Gossiping

Casteism 

Timelessness

Who Am I? #11

Series Synopsis - Blog Link / FB Link

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I'm known to be responsible for conditions

 unknown to the medical world.

Successes or failures fetch me my due credits.

Being apple of their eyes

some call me blessed

while to some others I am the oppressed.

Neither I care for the lewd tag.

Nor do I take credits for being the spine.

--------------------------------------

Series Synopsis - Blog Link / FB Link

Top 5 Reasons Why Vishwaroopam Should be Banned in Tamil Nadu

              Just heard here and here too last night that the Vishwaroopam screening was (allegedly) banned in Tamil Nadu on request from the Muslim minority representatives and I sort of got the hang of the plausible underlying reasons. Without further ado here are the top five reasons for it.

• #5 - The movie did not really represent the minority of Muslims in Tamil Nadu but rather showed certain elements that exist at large on a global level, which is really an insult to the locals. Of all people, Kamal Hassan being a Tamil movie maker should have given priority to the practices and lives of the Tamil speaking ones rather than what he had shown. 
• #4 - National Muslim groups had their share of limelight with issues like Kashmir, Gujarat and what not, every now and then leading to media attention on them. "The most recent development in Andhra Pradesh on Muslim leaders was the spark to  awaken us and we the Tamil Muslims think tanks decided unanimously to make us 'visible' to gain media attention" said a Tamil Muslim primary school graduate on grounds of anonymity.
• #3 -  Kamal Hassan said in an interview that Muslims are a minority only in this part of the world however they are a major section of people in the world at large. Hence this triggered fears in Tamil Muslims that they might lose all the government ordered perks that they enjoy as minorities if the government sided with the actor in those views.
• #2 - Some Muslims who had worked in this movie had said Kamal Hassan had portrayed a Muslim character with so much deft and authenticity that he could easily  be seen as an age old Muslim. This further triggered fears amongst the Tamil Muslim minorities that if by chance Kamal converts to Islam, he might take over the coveted leadership roles of the current Tamil Muslim leaders across the state of Tamil Nadu.
• #1 - This is the most important reason I believe, which is a two part reasoning when Kamal decided to showcase a special screening of Vishwaroopam to the Tamil Muslim group leaders. One part being, the Muslim leaders had asked for a few hundred more extra tickets for the show so that their extended families could be accommodated for that special screening, which apparently was denied wholly by Kamal. Other part being, after the end of the screening, most of the 'viewers' could not grasp the actual story or portrayal or even the character names for that matter, as they were busy looking for number of Muslims shown and hence they requested Kamal for another show for which he asked them to watch it on DTH, a week later.

PS: This is a pure work of fiction on a satirical front.

PPS: Any resemblance to reality is purely a coincidence, unintentional and unwarranted.

Top Ten Women Raped In India

           Its not a surprise if this title caught your attention more than anything else on the social space cos that's what most people are 'interested' these days. If the raped ones can have so many 'voices', why not lend one for the rapists too as a fair deal and to put things clear to the rest of the world after all this is the land that produced Abbas Kazmi

There are scores of women being raped all around the country and this 16th of Dec episode has made quite a remarkable mark on the country's chatterboxes. This is truly an uprising of a class (the raped ones), who in the name of being brought to justice has just been brought to limelight with justice in the last seat of a broken bus called the judiciary system. The reasons behind rapes has by-far been countless but still there are quite a handful that make it to the best of reasons. Without much ado here are the top ten women who are vulnerable / being raped / were raped in the world's largest 'democracy' as we speak.

• #10 - Women apparently in love or possibly seen conversing on mobiles for a long time.
• #9 - Sister / Daughter / Friend / Relative / Neighbor of an already raped girl.
• #8 - Daughter / Sister of a prostitute a.k.a dented and painted ones.
• #7 - Women seen travelling with more than one guy.
• #6 - 'White' foreign women.
• #5 - Women seen in pubs and parties.
• #4 - Naive women / babies / girl kids.
• #3 -  Girls wearing Western or Indian 'provocative' clothes.
• #2 - Wheatish skin-toned Indian women due to scarcity of #6.
• #1 - Being desperate and (mostly) inebriated,  any women found at sight who may /may not fall under any of the previous nine categories.

Neither castration or death penalties (reactive) nor strengthening laws (proactive) would wipe this out because such laws exists for ages against murderers and those who rage war against our nation too. But how many convicts get to experience the pain behind the suffering of the victims? 

There are two ecosystems 

1. On-lookers --> Protesters --> Victims --> Deceased --> (Fresh) On-lookers and so on...
2. Criminals --> Accused --> Convicts --> Pardoned --> Politicians --> RIP --> (Next Gen) Criminals and so on...

Bottomline:  As long as these two systems exists running in parallel , all will be the same forever!!!

Thus Spake Chennai

This post is part of the blog tag titled, The CBC Tablog where CBC stands for Chennai Bloggers club. About 35 bloggers from Chennai are participating  in this blog tag where everyone will write about their favorite city Chennai and what it means to them.  Well I've differed it a bit and tried to put myself in her shoes and spoken from Chennai in my typical 55 words or less. So here's my post for the CBC tablog. 

---

I started with kids afew

Adopting millions over years together

Having grown richer and bigger with age.

My kids have loved me, hated me

And kept molding me to accustom to their lifestyles,

Some I’ve been proud of

While despised some others

But complained to none

Neither as erstwhile Madras nor being Chennai.

---

I'd like to pass this marathon baton further and here's someone who states and I quote "I came I saw I blog, I think I blog, I blog, @vadapoche on twitter" 

Neethaane En Ponvasantham - A Review

Prologue 

    Here I am up for a movie review dissection, after a long time. I would generally go about doing this when I feel cheated for the money I paid to watch the movie and not to sugar coat about every movie that I watch. There would be lots of reasons each time for watching a movie, well for Neethaane En Ponvasantham there were just two reasons that drew me to watch it. One, umpteen people calling this movie a good for nothing and waste of time on release day, by all possible expletives all over the social media and two, being witness to quite a lot  of tearing down of Ilayaraja music too.

Gold Vasantham

• As I write this, 24 hours since the end credits and I still could relate a lot to the yearn  expressed by Varun & Nithya for each other.
• Excellent makeover of Jiiva to be cast across aging periods which I think Gautham has already mastered this through his Vaaranam Aayiram. Samantha casting was pretty good too, just that I felt I couldn't see that age shift in persona in the other friends casting though.
• The Maestro is truly the Maestro PERIOD

Gold Covering Vasantham

• Well Gautham has tried to explain relationship issues (what's new in it? Well it is realistic and more importantly leaves a "I've been at that situation sometime" image  in minds of many in relationships, on date) to a folklore who either can't understand the subtleties of relationship realities or ardent fans of pure cinematic fictional love.
• At many places the scenes are sort of abstract and the connect would have to be perceived and rather not obviously spoon-fed. Well in this age of 'Smart' Phones & its (dumb) Users, movies that needs to perceived are scored down especially if its a tamil movie.
• Movies with blending songs that touch base and fly off, no dream sequence songs and what the fcuk? not even a shred of heroic fights, hey listen director off you go elsewhere if you want to succeed with such movies cos this is a land where one cannot live without most of it, NO MATTER WHAT.
• Ahh another sticking point: The pace of the movie. Come on Gautham go run, you are lagging way behind the likes of Sprinters Dharani, Hari, Perarasu et al. Well the crowd is always tuned for a 100m sprint while you present a marathon.
• Posters with tagline "This could be your love story" invites the "Oh ho, let me see if it is" people flocking into theaters only to be bewildered that it truly is, while the movie gets to be looked upon as a stark & shocking material thereafter leading to furore & scathing  on social forums, at large.

Bottomline

     In the name of Neethaane En Ponvasantham, Gautam Vasudev Menon has attempted being a Director Shankar on relationships (where the message is shouted, pleaded and tried to be passed on to all the viewers but ends up in vain). However sadly most of the audience expected a full course Dessert all along but they were served with bitter (truths) main courses which made them either puke or lose the interest for the (perceived) Dessert.