Sathi Leelavathan

I was talking to a friend .. he said he has promised his wife that he would buy for her - hold ur breath - $2000 worth of dresses if one thing happens..

And I heard from another friend that her hubby has promised to buy her a diamond ring if the same thing happens to her.

Any guess what it is? Clue is in the title. Paavam... some guys are driven to desparation.. :)

PS: Sorry guys.. I couldnt blog for the past few weeks since xtremely busy.. I am leaving to India next week so had so many things to do.

PS2: Why did I choose this title?

It reminds one of 'Sathi Leelavathi', doesn't it? The husband-wife relationship in that movie is affected, as per the husband's remarks, by the wife's putting-on-weight after marriage. No justification for his flirts, but he cites that as the reason. So, a fat wife is not the same as a slim one.

Secondly, I think Kamal chose that title for the movie not bcos 'Sathi' means wife. In fact, most of the audience wouldnt have known that it was the meaning. 'Sathi', as per the modern slang, would remind one of 'conspiracy'. Actually, the wife does some good 'sathi' in the latter part of the movie to get her hubby back. So, it was a good double entendre.

When I thought of this title, I had to change it to Leelavathan, though that word doesnt seem to exist, atleast on the web. But, it didnt sound too awkward to me, so I chose it. And, since this kinda promises/rewards were like cute sathi, I felt it was double OK.

Enna, naan romba yosikkireno??

Tamil vs Hindi Cinema: 5. Comedians

Comedy is an important ingredient to an entertaining movie. I can think of very few movies which didnt have a comedy track but still engrossing.. needless to say that they are action-oriented.. like Kaakha Kaakha, Kadamai Kanniyam Kattupadu, Kurudhipunal, Pulan Visaranai and Captain Prabhakaran. With the advent of mega serials, it is easy to confirm the statement that 'It is easy to make one cry but difficult to make one laugh'. Most of the heroes have tried their luck in humorous role and have had varied success. And then, there is another unique sect of stars- comedians, who, either on a separate comedy track or running along with the main story, evoke laughter and help pull crowd to the theaters.

Since the present discussion deals with current cinema (the last 6 years or so), I wouldnt touch upon greats like NSK, Nagesh, Chandrababu et al. in Tamil and Mehmood, Johnie Walker, et al. in Hindi.

Tamil comedians:

Tamil cinema had a rich tradition of comedians.. but in the recent past, it has largely been either Vivek or Vadivelu. Both are my favorites now, but their modus operandi is pretty different. Vivek has an 'urban touch' to him, so I find that urban audience tend to like him more, whereas Vadivelu has the 'rural touch' or 'Madurai masala', so people from B and C centers correlate him more. By and large, they are 'decent' comedians but at times, they get sucked into 'double entendre' jokes, which is not a great humor.

Vivek: He made his debut in the 1989-release 'Pudhupudhu Arthangal' of KB and made an immediate impact as Rahman's assistant. For almost another decade, he was rather quiet, without any memorable role. Coincidentally, that was the period totally dominated by the Koundamani-Senthil duo, sometimes supported by Vadivelu. The turn of the century has been lucky for him, and his unique style of 'funda humor' was very well received by the audience. He has never looked back since. His most memorable movies are Vaali, Minnale, Run, Dhool, Parthiban Kanavu and Anniyan.

Vadivelu: His first movie was 'En rasavin manasile' (1991). He was lucky to picked up early by Kamalhaasan and got a memorable role in 'Thevar magan'. His methods to evoke laughter are his mannerisms, facial expressions, situations in which he is in the 'receiving end', and dialogue delivery. I am glad that his recent release 'Imsai Arasan' is a huge hit.. My favorite movies of his are Thevar magan, Singaravelan, Winner, Giri, Engal Anna and Chandramukhi.

Hindi comedians:

There is only one actor who is truly qualified as a full-time comedian, and, that, is Johnny Lever. He is more of an one-dimensional artist, unfortunately, and lacks the versatility of the tamil comedians discussed above. He, like Vadivelu, doesnt look so pleasing, but has got a few roles to evoke laughter. He has changed his name to sound like the legendary Johnny Walker but there is a huge difference in quality between them. Some movies in which I have liked his comedy are 'Kuch kuch hota hai', 'Kareeb', 'Yes Boss' 'Dulhan hum le jayenge', 'Baadshah', and 'Awara Paagal Deewana'.

Paresh Rawal has changed his career profile from a villain to a nice comedian. I rate him higher than Johnny, becos Paresh is more spontaneous. He has stuck a great chemistry with Priyadarshan to deliver movies like Hera Pheri, Hungama, Hulchul, etc. Unlike the tamil comedians, who can stand their own even in a serious/action movie, Paresh, albeit superbly, acts only in comedy movies. His quality is pretty good, but if you consider him , one also has to consider Kamalhaasan in MMKR to Mumbai Xpress.

So, Tamil comedians score over their Hindi counterparts. The score is, tamil leading Hindi 2-1.

Earlier posts of this series:

1. Handsome heroes

2. Great actors

3. Beautiful actresses

4. Good actresses

MPS:

I recently watched

a) Wimbledon: A feel-good movie. Though predictable to most part, it has some surprises towards the end. I believe that sports-based movies are trickier to make, bcos people have seen a good action of the sport in TV before.. so they have to be convinced that what they are watching in a movie is in par with what they have seen. When you have 'Wimbledon' as the event, for example, the actors have to play tennis as good as, say, a Sharapova or Federer, to win the title. And, tennis is a 'fast' game. While watching it, the games looked real to me and I felt as if I am watching a LIVE match on TV. Good effort.

b) Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind: An amazing movie with a real tough screenplay.. sort of a sci-fi movie.. Totally non-linear screenplay and only in the end, things fall into place. Good performances from Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. One of the unforgettable movies.

c) Good night and good luck: Somehow I didnt like the movie that much. The actors appeared to be stone-faced and the entertaining parts were hardly any. The 'black-and-white' didnt help either. The event around which the entire movie is based might be of significance to the Americans but I found it hardly strong enough to carry the whole script.

d) Memoirs of a Geisha: This is not one of the typical Japanese/Chinese movies that one expects.. Since I hadn't googled for 'Geisha', I had to patiently wait till the halfway of the movie to know what that means.. The visuals were stunning and the performances were top-notch too. I guess you have to either fall in love with it or dislike it to the core.

e) The Chronicles of Narnia: Pretty much a children's movie.. but, as usual, I enjoyed it. The technical aspects/ visual effects were great. Good story-telling.

f) Mississippi masala: Yeah, old movie but got a chance to watch is just now. It was an interesting movie.. the life and love of a girl of Indian origin who has never been to India. Denzel Washington, Sarita Choudhary, Roshan Seth and Sharmila Tagore all deliver powerful performances in this movie with a tricky story.

Eeking result out of rain-affected matches

First, hearty congratulations to our Indian team for the series win in WIndies !! Though WIndies are not a major force any longer, that we could win despite the absence of Sachin, augers well for the team. A sore point, though, was that it could have easily been 3-0, or atleast, 2-0 for sure in our favor. The second test was so badly affected, but still we came just 3 wickets short of a win. If I get a powerful role in ICC, I would implement the rule that, if and when in a test match atleast 30 overs are lost due to rain/bad light, the teams' performance would be computed in terms of % and, if the difference is more than 50%, then the team with higher % wins; otherwise it would be a draw.

Let us take the second test at St. Lucia as a case study. Everyone would agree that, had India got just another session (or 30 overs), we could have taken the remaining 3 WI wickets and won by an innings.. My logistic is based on the following:

a) A team requires 20 wickets to win a match. And, it requires atleast one run more than what the other team got. So, the % of wickets and the % of runs have to be given equal weightage. In a scale of 100 (%), wickets and run share 50% each.
b) The lowest completed innings of a team is that team's 100% effort. Using that, its other innings score and the score(s) of the other team, the batting percentile out of 50 would be calculated.

c) The number of wickets would be divided by 20 and the percentage be taken. If a team declares, that is its problem. It would still be considered to have lost 10 wickets, since that innings is 'complete'.

The scores of the second test were as follows: India 588/8 d; WI 215 and 294/7.

WIndies' completed score of 215 is their 100% effort, though they bettered it in the second innings. Thus, their batting score is (215+245)/215 x 1/2 x 50, which is 59.2 %. They got 10 Indian wickets, which is 50% of wickets, so, wickets' contribution is 50/2 = 25%. Total percentage is 59.2 + 25 = 84.2 %.

India's mammoth score ensured that their batting percentile would be very high.. that is 518/215 x 50, which is 120.5. They got 17 of WIndies wickets, which is 85%, so wickets' contribution is 42.5%. Total is 163 %.

Now, the difference in the performanes between the teams is 79% - higher than the stipulated 50% and so India wins..

The introduction of this new rule doesnt rule out the possibility of draws.. so, a draw is still inevitable if a) less than 30 overs are lost in a match or b) both teams score huge in the first innings, or c) the two teams run close.. like what happened in the first match.. The difference was only 3.5%; and only some 15 odd overs could not be bowled..

MPS (Movie Post-Script):
The movies I saw recently -
1) Mitr, My friend : Thorougly enjoyed watching it. For some reason, I thought this movie was about the male protagonist having a second affair so I didnt wanna watch it. When I eventually did, I was amazed at how close it was to my fiction story. May be Revathy and me think alike.. :-)

2) Troy: A visual treat. Homer's Iliad picturized in such a grand, spectacular manner..

3) Schindler's List: Managed to watch it at last, after over 10 years of wish.. Living in an area rich of Jewish population, the movie touched me more than it would have, had I seen it last year.

4) Hotel Rwanda: Truly an African version of Schindler's list.. How easily racism can convert man into an animal..

5) Thamizhan: Surprised to see that the seeds of 'Anniyan' were long ago sowed in this one.. and add to it the presently publicized 'Right to Information' (RTI) act.. the director deserved kudos.. except for the romantic aspect and the villain of the movie.

6) Fanaa: Could have been a nice romantic flick but the director messed up with the terrorist angle and the cinematic cliches of the second half.. Beautiful locales and nice songs..

Krrish

Papa Roshan always has something special for his son. Like their previous two movies, Krrish too is an out-and-out entertainer, which has something in it for everyone.

As many of you are aware, Krrish is a sequel to ‘Koi mil gaya’ and Hrithik plays the first official Indian super-hero. His role and actions remind us of Superman, Spiderman and Batman (even Neo of Matrix and our own 'Anniyan')..The ‘conflict’ of the movie has been inspired from the brilliant and intelligent ideas of ‘Paycheck’ and ‘Minority Report’. Enough for the story…

The screenplay is very tight, racy and nicely woven.. There are some loopholes in the story but then which Indian movie doesn’t? There is humour, love, sentiments, action and heroism blended very well to make it a feel-good masala movie. It isn’t as moving as its original but fares better than what most sequels have managed to do. The story has few twists and they appear quite late in the movie, making the climax a very hurried affair.

Hrithik is back again with a powerful performance.. He looks very handsome with long hair in the three different costumes he uses. That he is maturing well as an actor is exemplified here as well. He carries the movie well on his strong shoulders. Priyanka Chopra does her role of dancing and romancing OK. Naseerudin Shah is as usual reliable. I wish he got more screen time.

Technically very sleak too.. Santosh Thundiyil’s cinematography is excellent.. whether on the beautiful natural locales of Leh or in the amazing Singapore, his camera matches the energy of Hrithik. Rajesh Roshan delivers some nice hummable tunes as usual; and this time he has added some South Indian flavor in a couple of the songs, probably to target the audience in Southern states. Stunts are in grandeur scale too, some of them reminding us of Anniyan.

A great movie-watching experience, that is if you are willing to forgive the crew for their various inspirations.

Laugh or cry?

Recently, our group's graduate student from Pakistan asked me a qn...

He: So, which part of India are you from?
Me: I am from South India...
He: Really? but u dont look like a South Indian...
Me: Bcos I dont have a mush?
He: No... bcos u dont have a tummy.. I have seen all south indian heroes with big tummies...
Me: ?!?!??!

What a match !!

Who said that test matches are boring .. Like the third test of last year's Ashes, the just-concluded Ind-WI test was a humdinger.. the fortunes swung wildly from one side to the other.. and in the end, 1 ball out of some 2600+ could have changed the result.. All hopes of a result were lost during tea time, when we could get only 3 of WI wickets.. and when I checked the scorecard a little later, we only needed 3 more!! We almost got them, but the history would tell that the test ended in a draw.. it wont tell how it would have been different if Mohd. Kaif, again and again infamously plaecd at the crucial short-leg position, was jumping in the air when an edge flew towards him. Damn.. too much of 'human element'..

Anyway, another of those painfully close victory slipped out.. Some stats, which you would find elsewhere:

* In the first innings, all the proper 'batsmen' of India scored below their career average.. And, all the 'bowlers' (except Patel) scored above their average.. what does it mean? A below-par first innings total..

* In the second innings, all the Indian batsmen scored more than their first innings numbers.

I thought that instead of Kaif, Dhoni should have been sent to open up the match with his lusty hits.. The match situation was safely in our control.. even if he had failed, we still would have had no pressure, since Kaif et al. can do the damage control.. Nevertheless.. a great test match.

Pudhupettai

Pudhupettai was one of the most eagerly-awaited movies of this year for a) its soundtrack, which was a hit as soon as it was released late last year; b) the Yuvan-Selva-Dhanush combo which happened after a hugely successful and critically acclaimed ‘Kaadhal konden’; c) high expectations that Selva would have something special for his struggling bro Dhanush.

Story: ‘Kokki’ Kumar’s (Dhanush) late-teen period is a recipe for disaster.. no interest in studies, fighting parents, rowdy dad and, in addition, his mother gets killed. He has to run for his life and resort to begging for his food. He is wrongly framed by police in a ‘Ganja’ case and there begins his journey in the underworld of Chennai. In the topsy-turvy ride, he faces lust, treachery, politics and, love.

Screenplay: The first half is very engaging.. the journey of a nobody towards becoming a dreaded rowdy is well-portrayed.. Once Sonia Agarwal enters, the director loses his plot and the events turn jerky.. The biggest let-down was the climax.. Though it was acceptable and believable in today’s politics, the events leading to it are quite jarring. The movie seemed to be ending atleast twice before the actual climax arrived. Viewers’ patience is tested and one gets relieved that the movie ended at last. On the plus side, Dhanush’s ‘training period’ has some interesting moments.

Performances: Dhanush is there on the screen 99% of the time.. So, even though he delivers a strong performance, I got tired of seeing him. He overacts in a few scenes, and some other scenes remind of his previous movies like Kaadhal kondEn, SullAn and Adhu oru kanAkAlam. Sneha does well in a few scenes. Sonia sleepwalks through her role.. Most of the male actors keep shouting all the time.. it gets irritatingly too loud.

Direction: IMHO, ‘Sathya’ (Hindi) was the best Indian movie on Metro-gangsters.. Even Ramgopal Varma couldn’t get away from its hangover in his subsequent films ‘Company’ and ‘Sarkar’. In ‘Pudhupettai’, Dhanush looks too skinny to be such a fiery gangster.. so, many of the fight scenes turn out to be unbelievable and over-the-top. As I said earlier, the second half had too many unnecessary scenes. On these accounts, Pudhupettai was inferior to ‘Kadhal Konden; and ‘7G..’ The songs seem very forced and one song ‘Oru naaLil’ is not even there.. as though the director didn’t know how to fit it into the movie.

Music and cinematography: Yuvan and Aravind Krishna (camera) are two strong pillars to the movie. Yuvan’s theme songs and background music fit well into the movie. Aravind has some interesting angles and his fast and less-intrusive camera capture the events quite well.

Overall, it is too gory and violent with lots of blood. It starts of well, promising a lot, only to deceive. Could have been better..

State Management

OK.. I am late by 2 weeks but it hardly matters.. the new Govt. has been elected for power in Tamilnadu.. Looking at the vote distribution and the glitch in our democratic system, it is unique that even if 75% of the population hates one party, it can still, in theory, come to power.. All it requires is, at half the constituencies, it has to get atleast 1 vote more than the next large party.. That apart, if the DMK government asks me (!) how to rule the state, my advice would be as follows:

The public problems of the people have two types of solutions: global and local.. The former includes projects such as power plants, river-management, industrial policies, etc., which the 'ministry' has to implement and these are usually long-time projects as well.. The 'local' problems involve those pertaining that particular constituency/district, which include drinking water, schools, infrastructure, etc. These vary from district to district.. and that is one reason why every small region elects one representative (MLA) to take care of their needs by acting as a bridge to the government... Obviously, most of them dont do their jobs and badly fail.. Inter-party and intra-party politics apart, the MLAs need some kinda watchdog to make them take care of their constituencies..

The new government has got 5 years.. and we have 234 constituencies.. that is ~ 47 constituencies per year, or, ~ 1 constituency per week.. back calculating, with 260 weeks of service, the government CAN afford to focus on 1 constituency a week and still manage 26 weeks off. Addressing the local problems is a very very good way to gain votes as well, isnt it? The involvement should be at the CM-level..On every week, the CM and the corresponding ministers must spend Monday, W'day and Friday on one particular constituency, taking care of its core problems.. The MLA has to be in the constituency the full week, with 1 or 2 local ministers and the Collector/Tahsildar, and make a list of 'to-do' things.. I am sure most of the common problems would be road, water, electricity, sanitation and schools..

Road: Doesnt matter even if the contract for making it goes to a party person, the roads HAVE TO BE laid.. every village which has a PIN code should have a 2-lane tar road.. every street that has address must be attached to the main road by a decent road.

Water: Desilt all the lakes/ponds in every area; if some are illegally occupied and if they have 'political connections', doesnt matter.. no need to disturb them.. we would still have enough bare land to make new ponds. Every road has to have atleast one water pump which supplies water atleast once a day.Again, desilting contract .. give it to whoever does it..

Electricity: Every residential road must have electric lamp-posts, at such a distance that no region in the road is 'dark/unseeable'.

Sanitation: Construct a public toilet in every poor residential area.. employ the cleaners and make them permanant government workers.. doesnt matter if govt. money is spent in paying them.. they are not going to smuggle their salary to other countries/states.. they would spend it to run their family..

Schools: New schools should be built and made to function every nook and corner of the state, such that, from any particular residential road, a nearest school must not be over 2 kms.. Similarly, later, government arts/science colleges have to be built for taking care of every 50 square kilometer area. If Kamaraj could do it in '60s, surely the 21st century govt. can, too..

Well.. I dont want to sound like Shankar.. the above are my wishes.. the catch is, if the govt. can do these things constituency-wise, they dont have to worry about what coalition of parties it is fighting against in the next election, who is starting new party, or how to bring the public-dividing policies such as 'reservation quotas', etc. If it utilizes its tax money intelligently to all the above sectors, the money would come back to it, in the form of the various taxes. There are certain districts which are in 'Immediate attention required' category.. such as, Dharmapuri, Theni, and Ramanathapuram.. they have to be taken care at first.. IMHO, the simplest way to gaining votes is by serving the people right.. the communists have gained power for the 7th consecutive time in Bengal, despite that state having poorer infrastructure in almost all the departments than Tamilnadu.. the reason? The first time around, they just abolished the 'Zamindari' system of land-owning and distributed to people.. simple communism.. sufficient enough to convert an entire state as its 'KOttai'..

Hit or flop?

The summer of big releases begins with this week's Pudhupettai.. here are my two cents on the recent trend in the tamil movie box office results..

I was truly amazed to hear that the movie's "Hit or flop" status is decided by the opening 3 days' collection.. With the theater owners openly selling the Fri-Sun tickets at exorbitant prices, those three days are apparently enough to collect a major chunk of the distributor's money.. Crazy, isnt it? Firstly, the government should have banned such illegal high prices.. When it was expected of the theaters and government to go hard at the black-ticket sellers, things have taken such a wrong turn..

What this has done is to create the 'star-value' for pretty much all the actors.. The fans of a star are ready to spend all their hard-earned money to make sure that their thalaivar's movie is a big hit.. I dont understand how we got such huge crowd of crazy fans.. There are three types of movie-goers, according to me: 1) The hardcore fans of a particular star; 2) those who are fans of the heroine/director/music director; 3) those who want to watch 'some good movie' with their friends or family. I have also watched so many movies on the first day.. may be little bit of planning is done but I havent paid over Rs. 50 for a ticket any time..

A movie takes about 6-12 months to get completed.. when one can wait that long, why not another week or two until the tickets are sold at 'normal price'? "Aakka poRuthavanga aara poRukka koodatha?" Someone told me that, with so many youngsters getting into well-paid jobs early in their careers, that they dont know how to spend their money.. and they dont understand the value of the money.. may be such crowd doesnt mind double prized-tickets for the fun of watching a new movie.. Unless the public shows thumbs-down or a flipped finger to such tactics of the theaters, this bad trend would continue.

Congrats Dravid !!

Dravid... a true enigma he is.. Ask any aspiring batsman what his dream is and invariably he would say "To win Man-of-the-match award for scoring match-winning hundred against test-playing nations." But, can you believe that Dravid could realize this dream only today, 10 years after he made his one-day debut? Nevertheless, his innings was a superb one.. one of the best by Indians recently.. Contradictory to his awards in the test arena, he was always a perfect bridesmaid in onedayers until recently.. Among the four different colored criteria, remove one and you can find enough instances of his reaching three of them, before today's match.

1) Remove red:
He has scored 5 match-winning hundreds against test-playing nations. But, in those matches, either his teammate or someone from the opposition played a blinding three-figure knock to get the man-of-the-match award, the latest one being Sehwag. Saurav did so twice and Sachin, Gayle and Sehwag have done it once each.

2) Remove blue:
He was awarded man-of-the-match award once for scoring hundred in a losing cause - against New Zealand in Taupo (1999). That match was a classic example of how stupid the trans-tasman cricket administrators think when they used to define their own rules for rain-affected matches. The match was evenly poised when NZ, chasing 258 under lights, were 168/3 in the 31st over. They had just lost a wicket and they required 90 off 116 balls. Then, boom... the lights went off.. it took a good 50 minutes for them to come back, by which 11 overs were "lost". Surely Duckworth-Lewis would have set a stiff target, but the NZ cricket board had their own rule, which is just based on simple run-rate.. which meant the revised target was 200 in 39 overs - another 32 off the 50 remaining balls. How ridiculous!! NZ lost Chris Cairns the next over after the play resumed and before victory, they lost Harris also. Who knows what would have happened with more sensible rule.. After the match, Sunny Gavaskar commented that the rule was ridiculous.. the home team can "turn-off" the light for convenient-enough time to menacingly reduce the target.. and then he said he just joked..

3) Remove green:
He has won man-of-the-match award on many occasions for his match-winning two-figure knocks against test-playing nations. Interestingly, most of them have come away from home.

4) Remove purple:
In 2004, he scored a good match-winning hundred against minnows UAE and was awarded the man-of-the match award.