KannE KalaimAne - Song of the Month

Last year, some blogger had requested for a translation of 'Kanne kalaimAne' from 'Moondram Pirai' after reading my analysis of the title of the movie. Superband soulful rendition by KJY, very melodious music of IR and great but simple lyrics by Kannadasan make it one of the best melodies ever in Tamil film music. That made me twitter 14 months ago about the concept of the 'Song of the Month'. I had planned to include the songs which I never discussed in my blog. Only now, in the death anniversary month of the great lyricist Kannadasan, I got a chance to write about his last song, which has been in three of my lists so far. Better late than never, so here we go:

Pallavi:

கண்ணே கலைமானே கன்னி மயிலெனக் கண்டேன் உனை நானே 0.1

அந்தி பகல் உனை நான் பார்க்கிறேன் ஆண்டவனை இதைத்தான் கேட்கிறேன் 0.2

ஆரிராரோ ...

(கண்ணே)

kannae kalaimaanae kanni mayilena-k-kandaen unai naanae

andhi pagal unai naan paarkkiraena andavanai idhaiththaan kaetkiraen

aariraaro ...

Most of you know the context in which this song appears in the movie. The hero has fallen love with the mentally retarded heroine whom he is sheltering, without knowing anything about her history.

0.1: Kannae and kalaimaane are the common ways of chweetly calling one's love.. Kan is eye and kalaimaan is one kind of deer, and mayil is peacock. He pretty much praises her.

0.2: I see you in dawn (andhi) and noon (pagal); I wish/ask for just this from the God (andavan).

Charanam 1:

ஊமை என்றால் ஒரு வகை அமைதி 1.1

ஏழை என்றால் ஆதிலொரு அமைதி 1.2

நீயோ கிளிப்பேடு பண் பாடும் ஆனந்தக் குயில் பேடு 1.3

ஏனோ தெய்வம் சதி செய்தது பேதை போல விதி செய்தது 1.4

oomai enraal oru vagai amaidhi

aezhai enraal adhil oru amaidhi

neeyo kilippaedu pan paadum aanandak kuyil paedu

aeno dheyvam sadhi seydhadhu paedhai poala vidhi seydhadhu

1.1: It is becalming if you are dumb (oomai)

1.2: It is becalming if you are poor (ezhai)

1.3: (But) you are a female parrot (kilippaedu), a happy female Nightingale (kuyil paedu) who sings songs (pan paadum)

1.4: Don't know why but the God created a conspiracy (sadhi); fate (vidhi) made you mentally unstable (paedhai).

Charanam 2:

காதல் கொண்டேன் கனவினை வளர்த்தேன் 2.1

கண்மணி உனை நான் கருத்தினில் நிறைத்தேன் 2.2

உனக்கே உயிரானேன் எந்நாளும் எனை நீ மறவாதே 2.3

நீ இல்லாமல் எது நிம்மதி நீதான் என்றும் என் சந்நிதி 2.4

kaadhal kondaen kanavinai valarththaen

kanmani unai naan karuththinnil niraiththaen

unakkae uyiraanaen ennaalum enai nee maravaadhae

neeyillaamal edhu nimmadhi needhaanae en sannidhi

2.1: I am in love with you; I planted (valarthaen) dreams (kanavinai).

2.2: (Kanmani: Pupil of the eye) Oh dear, I have filled (niraithaen) you in my thoughts (karuthinil).

2.3: I have become your soul (uyiraanen); Never ever forget me (maravaadhae)

2.4: What is peace (nimmadhi) without you (neeyillaamal)? You are forever (endrum) like my (holy) sanctum sanctorum (sannidhi).

I know that the sweetness of the song is lost in translation. And also my translation can be improved.. consider it as a maiden n crude effort.

Happy B'day, Kamal !!

Very many happy returns of the day to one-and-only Kamal Hassan!!

As an actor, singer, dancer, script-writer, director, producer and role-model, his contribution to the Tamil cinema is unparalleled.. The journey he started at the age of 6 is going strong, 8 short of 60 now.. He is one artist who has adapted quite well to his age and played such characters which suit him reasonably well. On this day, my top 6-fav movies of his.. a tough list to make, but nevertheless, chronologically..

1) Moondram pirai - 'THE' movie that made me his die-hard fan forever. No one had such an impact on me as he did in this climax.. For the first time, I started thinking a lot about a movie after coming out of the theater and tried to imagine how the climax could have been if....

2) Nayakan - Need I say more? Those minute details such as the cut he had on his eyebrow, that crying scene, pan-chewing oldman get-up, change in body language as the story passes through different phases of his life.. all these made me sit and take gud notice of him. The first movie I saw 5 times.. each time, I had something new to rave about Kamal.

3) Aboorva sahodharargal - I think it was the first movie which was advertised on TV.. I vaguely remember watching the promos and counting days to watch the movie. It was worth the wait. How he pulled off 'Appu' is still mysterious.. so much debate on how he managed to do it so easily.

4) Thevar Magan - It created a huge rage bcos of the 'first ever Kamal-Sivaji' movie and it lived upto its expectation frame-by-frame.. The father-son interaction scene was the best of all.. very simple dialogues but the expressions were out-of-the-world..

5) Mahanadhi - I would rate this as his BEST performance so far.. more than his national-award winning ones. No weird make-ups, not anything unusual, pretty much a man-next-door Kamal, but mind-blowing performance. Many critics said he deliberately targetted the audience's eye glands, but I wouldnt say so.

6) Indian - Another big combo of Kamal-Shankar. This one didnt disappoint one bit either. It was quite difficult to show emotions behind such a heavy make-up, but his eyes spoke it all. I was proud to be a Kamal fan when my mom, after watching the movie said "what an act by Kamal".. bcos she is usually indifferent to actors' performances.

A special note: MMKR - Out-'n-Out laugh riot. Can watch it any number of times, and still LOL each time.. Look at 'Raju-Kamal's expression when Madan tells him "Catch my point" and he says "adhu ellam thaana varum, ille?".. sooo cute..

So, I wish, on this day, that Kamal continues to enthrall millions of his fans in the years to come.

Modifiable endings

Rediff has asked its readers to write on "Which film's ending they would change". I thought it would rightly serve as a sequel to my earlier post. When I wrote that, I was thinking 'why only on heroines.. why not heroes too?'. Rediff's question is in a broader sense, so here I go..

Even as a child, after watching a movie, I would think about it for a while. How much time I think would depend on whether it is a good movie or a bad one and how it affected me. Like in my post on the best titles, I realize that, Rajini's movies would not qualify for this list since their climax is always predictable and always ending on a happy note. When was the last time he died, '85-Raghavendra? (Balaji and others, can i expect some brickbats? :D )

IMHO, a movie's climax IS important, but not to such an extent that a tragic climax would leave a much greater impact on the audience. If the rest of the movie is crap, who cares about the climax? So, in addition to the previous post where certain deaths could have been avoided (by me.. :-) ) in movies, here are a few more:


* Moondram pirai - My modified climax would be: Kamal, after all his crying, rolling on the road crying, monkey-acting, etc., sits on a bench and thinks.. He realizes that she is going to Chennai, since he brought her from there (pl. correct me if I am wrong). He calls for a friend's car (hehehehe.. what for Silk Smitha was there?) or a taxi and goes to Chennai Egmore station and waits for her. She comes out, and goes with her mom to their home. Now, Kamal knows her address and he does all he can (bring evidences from Ooty, talking 'normally' to Sridevi and her parents, etc.) and makes her realize all that he had done.


* Uyire - mm.. she was a terrorist; involved in a huge conspiracy; ok.. but she didnt do anything, right? Poor Shahrukh was already molested by the Police. Could he not have changed her mind, thus avoiding an assassination? She could have even become an approver and brought all her aides into justice. Instead of terrorism triumphing over love, why not the other way around?


* Sethu - A good movie, already in somber mood thanks to Bala's morbid touch. My climax would be in the asylum: Sethu sees her walking out of the asylum after seeing him lying on the floor. With the mayhem around him and too much noise, she cant hear him calling her. Then, all of a sudden, the shouting of the people stops (c'd be the effect of some saamiyar coming, or a similar miracle by which he got cure). He calls her with all his love and she sees him. The saamiyar realizes that Sethu is cured and sends him with her.

* Kurudhi Punal: Another Kamal movie.. Irresistible. One of the unforgettable climaxes ever; but, if Kamal dies, all 'Dhanush' can do is to become the leader of the terrorist group and know about their activities. Whom would he report to? Would he make just anonymous calls to the police departments about the immediate future activities of the terrorists? My climax: Kamal shouts to Dhanush "shoot me, Boy.. shoot me". Dhanush says "Sir, I now know pretty much about the terrorist movements, and their functioning. I dont want to lose you and thus my only contact and true identity. Pick up the gun, let us shoot the guys here and I will join the police dept. to work under you. By killing the guys over here, it would be send a rude shock to the terrorist network and dilute the activities for quite a while here.. We can arrest the terrorist leaders who would be meeting next week in North India, since I know everything about the place and time. Let us train 2 or 3 new 'informers' and send as spies into the gang, similar to the way you sent us; now, having stayed in, I can train them better". Thus, they kill all the terrorists in that location and take away 2 or 3 bodies, so the terrorists would have no clue who the actual 'Dhanush' was.

Best Titles

For quite a while, I was thinking about the titles in tamil movies. Ram had posted on naming them after some previous famous songs or straight on old movies. In this post, the titles that I have considered the best are given. IMO, a good title is defined as something coming from deep inside the heart of the director and not inspired by any old hit song or the song from the same movie. Rajini fans may not like agree, but I would say that the worst way of christening is using the name of the lead character itself. (His movies are the major culprit in that sense, followed by the other heroes)

The following are the titles, which someone as a kid would have lot of difficulty to understand but as he/she grows up, with experience, the meaning of the title in the context of the movie dawns on oneself. And it is no surprise that the best titles have been chosen by some of the most distinguished directors that we have been fortunate to have had.

Sila samayathule, oru title or paattu pathi yosikkumbodhu mana-k-kuthirai ella dhisaiyileyum tharikettu odum.. ennennavo ninaippugal ellam varum.. Andha director or lyricist avvalavu deep-a yosichiruppara-nnu doubt varum.. Ennoda maramandaikkey ivvalavu yosanai varumbodhu andha arivujeevukku, andha padaippoda karthaavukku innum ennavellamo thonum-nu ninaichuppenn.

A lot of my reasoning make good sense with the character and proceedings of the movie, so I would not detail them exactly.

1) Moondram pirai: (MP)

When I saw the movie as a very young kid, I just couldn’t understand what the title meant. Now, when I think about it, “MP” tells me something about incomplete growth. The moon is always FULL scientifically but MP means despite being full, it shows itself us as a young moon. Also, one cant say, just by looking at MP, whether it is going to grow or fade the next day. It appears more interesting than a full moon. It is called a ‘pirai’ though it is always a part of the moon. Despite being small, it can still give light in the night.

2) Ayutha Ezhuthu (AE):

Ayutha ezhuthu has three dots forming the three corners of an equilateral triangle. All the three parts are important to form the complete structure (triangle). Remove one, and you would get a one-dimensional line. If you look at the AE, you wouldn’t know whether the three points are running away from each other and gonna collapse into a single point at the center of the triangle. Whatever it be, each has its own path, which is pretty different in direction from the others. AE is the only alphabet in tamil which has the symbol of an ayutham. “Aayiram ilaignargal thunindhu vital ayutham ethuvum thevai illai”.

3) Mullum mararum (MM):


Can be taken as ‘mul’ and ‘malar’, or as ‘mul kooda malarum’. ‘Mul’ and ‘malar’ both belong to the same plant but how different are they!! They are liked totally differently by people. ‘Mul’ serves to protect the ‘malar’ and that’s the reason the plant has it.

4) Gentleman:
In the list, I would have also included “Strictly no English titles plz..” but for this movie. A gentleman, according to Wordweb, is “A man of refinement” among other things. According to what the protagonist in the movie does, it could easily be defined as an oxymoron but his deeds justify the way and make him a perfect gentleman.

5) Mudhal mariyathai (MM):
Though a common phrase in villages, I thought it had several meanings in the movie. Sivaji was the person who would receive ‘MM’ in whatever happens in the village, but it appeared that some people were happy to make him fall at his “mudhal pizhai”. MM is what he would have given to Radha for what she did. Mariyathai is what he got from everyone in the village except from his own wife. Radha, at ‘first’ has ‘mariyathai’ on Sivaji which later turns into love.

6) Aval oru thodarkathai:
Thodarkathai is surely interesting to read, it has its own twists and turns, keeps its audience guessing at crucial moments but, even a thodarkathai has to have an ending, right? ‘Aval’s story wasn’t.. when everyone thought that it was leading to a happy ending, it starts all over again. It is painful for any ‘aval’ to be a thodarkathai but how that ‘aval’ keeps tough as always and goes on with her life..

7) Kuruthipunal (KP):

Even ‘Ratha Aaru’ is a good and new title but to choose such a tough title takes some real guts. And this movie was all about kuruthi, esp. the climax. From the titles, when kuruthi makes the screen red and slowly the redness being used for something else, till ‘KP’ runs from the sieved body of Aadhi, it was a masterpiece.

8) Azhagi:

Whereas external beauty is skin-deep, internal one is heart-deep. The ‘Azhagi’ in that movie was actually a dusky woman who is beautiful in her heart. This is one rare movie where infatuation due to age and beauty gets transformed to love due to thoughts and care. One would have thought an Aishwarya Rai would have been more apt for such a title, but Nandita Das was much more than azhagi.

9) Kaakha kaakha (KK):


Inspired from the famous “Kandha shashti kavasam”, where we pray lord Subramanya to save us from all evils. We just want ourselves to be saved, no matter how he does it. The police officer, who has the responsibility of keeping the evils away does it in his own way.. his only motto is to save people. Though he gets criticized and severely tested, he continues his march on the path he knows the best and believes the best to save the people he serves.

10) Marupadiyum:
It is more of a conjuctive word but it has its own meaning. How much can a woman bear injustice? Not again and again. How much she can trust someone who betrayed her? How can she accept someone else in her stormy life? Marupadiyum is similar to the ‘thodarkathai’ but it ends with a comma.

Other unique titles that I liked were ‘Munthanai mudichu’, ‘Gokulathil Seethai’, ‘Sivappu Rojakkal’, 'Varumaiyin niram sivappu' and ‘Engeyo Ketta Kural’. I am not a big fan of too long titles like 'Oru pullankuzhal aduppu oodhugirathu'.