Spoilers ahead…
Gitanjali Selvaraghavan’s Maalai Nerathu Mayakkam begins with a note that it’s difficult to describe some love stories… “But we’ve tried.” (I liked the word used: muyarchithirukkirom. I also like the title, reminiscent of the slow-burn LR Easwari song from Dharisanam.) But is it really so hard to describe this love story? Just call it Mouna Raagam, Selvaraghavan style. (Selvaraghavan wrote the film.) Remember the scene in the Mani Ratnam movie in which the Revathy character’s mother visits her in her new home and wonders what’s wrong between the couple? Now, suppose the mother asked this question, “Vera maadhiri edhaavadhu sex venum-nu kaettaana?” Or think of this scenario: Mohan helps an injured Revathy to the bathroom and stands outside as she takes a dump and comments on how stinky it is. Now, imagine all this in the story of an arranged marriage (which comes about due to the implicit emotional blackmail arising from a parent’s illness), with the girl merely going through the motions as she recalls how much better her ex was… As I said, it’s Mouna Raagam, Selvaraghavan style.
So we have another patented loser (Prabhu, played by Balakrishna Kola) in some stage of arrested development. The classic Selvaraghavan hero is a man-child, forever trying to bridge the gap between his manly loins and his childish mind – Prabhu seems more man-child than most. In one scene, he talks to a rose, because… “Poo maadhiri oru ponnu venum.” Instead, he ends up with a thorn (Manoja, played by Wamiqa Gabbi, whose sour expression suggests that someone in the vicinity is always passing gas). It’s hard to believe that these two got together. It’s hard to believe that Manoja’s mother didn’t mind this match. It’s not the looks – that he’s dark and she’s fair. But there’s something about people that says… this might work. That something isn’t here at all. In the scene where Prabhu’s folks come to meet Manoja, the mothers end up chatting, the fathers end up chatting, and no one seems to notice or care that the boy and girl are silent. The reason we’re given is that Manoja’s mother suffers from cancer, and she’s desperate to see her daughter married. Maybe the cancer ate up her brain cells.
And slowly we enter married life, in a new flat on OMR. There’s one nice touch. At first, everything remains in boxes. After a very long time, the things in those boxes, the things that make a house a home, come out. In between, we are treated to scenes that show why those things remained in those boxes for so long. At one point, Prabhu uses the bathroom and when Manoja goes in later, she finds the place festooned with wet toilet paper. At another point, he orders sambar saadham at an Italian restaurant. The scenario itself isn’t entirely implausible, but the scenes are presented in such an exaggerated fashion that we’re not sure whether to take it all as comedy or drama. Did I mention Prabhu’s snoring? He sounds like a volcano in the throes of a bone-shattering orgasm. If anyone’s still in doubt about their incompatibility, we get the scene where Prabhu listens to Manmadha raasa on the car radio, and Manoja, making that who-farted? face again, switches channels and settles on Like a virgin.
I didn’t believe a minute of this movie. I didn’t believe the ex-boyfriend who serenades Manoja on her birthday and gifts her a pink teddy bear. I didn’t believe that she’d go back to this guy, the one who refused to be with her earlier because she wouldn’t put out. I didn’t believe that Prabhu would be so clueless, some kind of lovesick Tarzan seeing the sights of the city for the first time. I didn’t believe the silly song sequence where Prabhu asks Manoja to teach him to dance. I didn’t believe that, while looking for a new house, he’d end up, so randomly, in his mother-in-law’s flat. (And she takes a while to recognise him? Seriously.) I didn’t believe our censors didn’t beep out this line: “At least I’ll jerk off and sleep.” Maybe they thought the line was about killing a really obnoxious person? There are faint stabs at character development. Prabhu says he’s from a boys-only school and that he doesn’t know what to do around women. I wish they’d done something with this. How fascinating it might be to have a hero who feels insecure about the heroine’s vast experience with the opposite sex. But the cartoonish nature of the scenes kills any chances we have of empathising with Prabhu. In other words, when Prabhu rushes in with a knife, thinking Manoja is in bed with a friend of hers, we feel for her, not him.
And what is this ridiculous exoticisation of the upper middle class we see in these films? With people always air-kissing each other. With a married woman thinking nothing of spending a night at a male friend’s place. Wouldn’t Prabhu and Manoja decide on a restaurant before they set out? Why not give us that scene, where Manoja says, “You feel like Italian?” and Prabhu says yes (because he’s too afraid to say no) and then rebels with his sambar saadham order? Why not give us more time with Prabhu’s father (Azhagam Perumal), whose overbearing behaviour has supposedly arrested some (or all) of Prabhu’s development? You can’t just outline characters. You have to shade them too. The most disturbing aspect of this film directed by a woman is how casually it treats marital rape, as though it’s something you can get over with a bit of time and fond memories of the things the man did when not raping you. I had just two takeaways from this movie. One, Wamiqa Gabbi. I’d like to see her play a part that actually gives her something to do. And two, the beyond-lovely Kaadhal thensuvai song (music by Amrit). Only in these five-odd minutes does the movie summon up the delicacy, the mood, the ache in the swooning title.
KEY:
- Maalai Nerathu Mayakkam = an enchanted evening
Copyright ©2016 Baradwaj Rangan. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
vijay
January 13, 2016
Looks like as if Githanjali wanted to cast her husband in the hero’s role and instead had to settle for a double
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tonks
January 14, 2016
In the scene where Prabhu’s folks come to meet Manoja, the mothers end up chatting, the fathers end up chatting, and no one seems to notice or care that the boy and girl are silent. The reason we’re given is that Manoja’s mother suffers from cancer, and she’s desperate to see her daughter married. Maybe the cancer ate up her brain cells
I think this sort of thing (forced marriages with emotional blackmailing of girls by parents) still happens a lot, especially in traditional societies. It does not come totally from a place of pure selfishness of the parents. They believe I think, that things like a job, financial/ caste compatibility and absence of vice are much more important than emotional compatibility or common interests. “These things were good enough for us, so they should be good enough for you” is a common refrain. They also probably feel that getting the girl married off is a financial and emotional burden and want to tick it off the list before they (and she) get too old. I’m not justifying it , but this happens a lot, even now. Most girls are too young to withstand the pressure from parents so agree to the marriage, later “adjust” because the stigma of divorce is still strong and many actually do learn to love their husbands.
But on the other hand, more and more girls are showing the courage to either not cave in to pressure tactics before marriage, to break engagements when they realise they are not suited to their fiance or to even walk out of unhappy marriages. Ive heard this being lamented : “Girls these days are not as adjustable as they used to be”.
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brangan
January 14, 2016
tonks: Of course such a thing exists, but a film should make you believe that this is possible WITH THIS PARTICULAR CHARACTER. It may happen in the society at large, but a story is about the particulars — the particular place, the particular person. And if that’s not convincing, then we cannot assure ourselves saying “yes, these things do happen.”
I’ve talked about this before: possibility vs plausibility.
Is something possible? Maybe. But a story has to convince us that — in this instance — it’s plausible.
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Rakesh
January 14, 2016
“Manoja, played by Wamiqa Gabbi, whose sour expression suggests that someone in the vicinity is always passing gas.”
From your Unnale Unnale review.
“Sada walks through the entire film with a single expression, a wrinkled-up nose and perpetually pursed lips that make it appear that sheâs just walked into a particularly nasty cloud of flatulence.”
An angry looking hero is glossed over as channelizing his inner Amitabh Bachchan, but global warming notwithstanding, poor methane being blamed for angry looking heroines ? Not fair !! 🙂
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tonks
January 14, 2016
Oh ok. Thanks for clarifying. I have not seen the movie so cannot speak on that.
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Ramsu
January 14, 2016
Did I mention Prabhu’s snoring? He sounds like a volcano in the throes of a bone-shattering orgasm.
I can never look at lava the same way again.
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venkatesh
January 14, 2016
“Is something possible? Maybe. But a story has to convince us that — in this instance — it’s plausible.”
I read in a book about Charlie Chaplin’s movie – A Countess from Hong Kong. There was a scene where Sophia Loren suddenly finds a truck going in the same direction, this is possible however there was a towel laid out for her, now that’s not plausible ,
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venkatesh
January 14, 2016
Now, suppose the mother asked this question, “Vera maadhiri edhaavadhu sex venum-nu kaettaana?”
Actually that would be a great film to watch,
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Rahini David
January 14, 2016
This is one top-notch article, BR. The article is an interesting read about a weird movie with bewildering characters. I could not believe the story when I read it in Anu Srini’s blog. I was later given a small narration of the story by a 23 year old guy. At the end of which I remarked that it sounds very much a “mokka padam”. And he said no, it actually had a interesting message, that arranged marriages do work better. You could have knocked me down with a feather.
MRagam is special movie to me as it was the first non-kids movie I saw from start to finish without asking my parents when the movie would be over. I was probably 6 or 7 and holding my attention for a long time in a serious and mature movie was something of an achievment. But for all it’s cool Karthik-Revathy romance and the gradual thawing of Revathy towards Mohan, it is a flawed premise. A man marries a girl who expressly disagrees to marry him. But MRatnam seems aware that he had picked a flawed premise and made effort to make it palaptable. The way MNM and Raja Rani have been written is just lame.
The first thought that struck me when the 23-year-old told about this movie’s interesting “message” is, “OMG, does he mean that? Is this for real?” Unfortunately, this is for real. I remember the movies of 80s and 90s used to be Pro-Love marriage. Take Alaigal Oivathilai or Kadalora Kavithaigal or Pookalai Pareekatheergal or most love stories of that era. Slowly after Kadhalukku Mariyathai’s “message”, Pro-Arrange Marriage have become the norm. Thanga Magan is one recent entry. Its message seemed to be “Don’t marry the pretty woman who you stalked and thawed, dump her, mommy will find a docile one for you.” I find this reflected in lyrics of many songs too. One of which suggests that the guy permit his mom choose a girl or else “dowser avurum” or something to that effect. Why is the society moving in the other direction?
I find two things or note in this whole similarity with MRaagam.
One is the “It’s hard to believe that Manoja’s mother didn’t mind this match point. He sounds like the type of guy the mother would warn her daughter against. Typically in all these movies, be it MRaagam or That7Daysor RabNeBanaDiJodi, it is clear that the parents liked the groom because of his suitability in the marriage market and the girl herself saw him as a bit of a bore. Maybe a steady income in a respectable job. Maybe the groom did not want dowry and that sounded impressive. But in this movie that aspect seems to have been left out. Perhaps these points that bring in the plausibility is now sissy stuff and would not be sweated by these filmmakers anymore?
Next is the point given by Anu Srini as “Since when does she love him? This was the most unsatisfactory part of the movie for me” and BR as The most disturbing aspect of this film directed by a woman is how casually it treats marital rape, as though it’s something you can get over with a bit of time and fond memories of the things the man did when not raping you.
Perhaps the best way is to show a real scenario, that makes the person thaw? The whole thing about one person being sick has been done to death. MRaagam had it, That7Days had an attempted suicide on the first night, in Raja Rani 9tara had fits and now this girl falls sick.
Ah, does the whole “If you remain married to any person long enough, they would get you Crocin one of these days and Voila, true love” premise bug me or what?
https://anusrini20.wordpress.com/2016/01/09/a-selvaraghavan-movie-not-directed-by-selvaraghavan/
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Venkatesh
January 14, 2016
Two things (of the 21st century) that puzzle me:
Bangaloreans’ obsession for Volvo buses.
Selvaraghavan’s obsession for shower scenes in his movies.
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Srinivas R
January 14, 2016
Rahini:”Why is the society moving in the other direction?”
I have a theory about that, somehow over the last decade we are becoming more radicalized and polarized and our identity markers (religion, caste, “Kalacharam”) have become a big deal. So, to uphold our traditional value, marriage, specifically arranged marriage is seen as bloody important. I am a little confused to see young, bright women in my office being very keen to get married soon. I am not faulting their choice, but they look genuinely under pressure, as if their whole life is defined by it.
It is difficult to show thawing of a relationship in an intersting way on screen. Mragam was believable (may be i am seeing through nostalgia tinted glasses), Raja Rani was kiddish. I haven’t watched this and based on reviews, doesn’t seem worth the time.
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Rm
January 14, 2016
@Rahini David
And not to forget the way Madhu Bala thawed towards Arvind Swamy in Roja. Mani Ratnam nails this.
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Rahini David
January 14, 2016
Rm: Well I am not a fan of Roja’s Romance to be truthful. In fact, I was going to cite Roja as the prime offender. I missed it accidentally. He wants to talk to the bride-to-be, she says no, he says “well, I’d rather have the sister instead”. My Oh My. That is treating women like cattle. “Intha pasu murandu pidikuthu …”
In fact, BR asked MR if he didn’t think that there would be some feminists taking offence at Nayakan that Kamal does not ask Saranya’s permission. I think he responded saying that it like taking a slave out of slavery and that the point did not arise. It did not bother me in Nayakan. He does confirm that she likes him. I don’t think the same point was discussed about Roja. And in Roja, I really could not understand why he thought of that route as cute. Marrying a girl from a rural background as you think of her as some exotic dish and you have a fetish for the rural surroundings? Not cool.
And the Dhalapathi marriage of Rajini and Banupriya was a forced arranged marriage. Yeah, she is a poor widow with a baby, but you can’t force her to marry the guy who beat her own husband to death.
Srinivas: That is true.
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Iswarya
January 14, 2016
Rahini: One of my professors (guess I’ve said this here already) had a pet theory about the post-90s trend of young people somehow valuing family norms above the idea of individual freedom to fall in love and marry. The appeasement of the family, especially the reigning patriarch, began with DDLJ, he says. Then steadily, the move has been towards the family unit consolidating its power to the extent that love marriages are often viewed with serious suspicion, or on the whole, movies that completely foreground the passionate love story of the lead couple (as opposed to action hero movies with a love interest) have been largely absent. Even when a rare “Kaadhal” comes up, the parents have their way in the end and the lovers come to grief.
This trend he accounted for by bringing up a parallel to history where separatist tendencies were very pronounced in India in the pre-liberalisation era when the family (standing in for the nation) was successfully rebelled against. With the coming of globalisation and liberal economics, national integration (and by extension, family values) have gained importance.
I have a simpler theory. With many young rebels who went through ‘love’ marriages (in quotes because I’m unsure how many of these were serious and mature relationships and how many just an unthinking indulgence of their newfound freedom from parental control) during the 80s, life hasn’t been the kind of happy ending promised in those movies of the 80s (like “Alaigal Oyvadhillai”). In fact, either because of the bad choices of the couples themselves or the social ostracism and hostility they faced, the impulsive ‘love’ marriages have left a pretty bitter aftertaste in many, many cases. The children of these couples have grown up carrying the stigma (of being kept out of the larger family circles etc.) and are anxious to join the ‘mainstream’ again, or these parents now expect their children to be wiser than they were and so on. As for those from more conventional families, the young people are too used to the overall economic/familial support factors to put all this at stake for the sake of long-term commitments to anyone they ‘love.’ After all, the easy way out is to sow the premarital wild oats and then settle for the comfort of a parent-approved match!
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Karthik
January 14, 2016
Rahini: I wonder why you would consider the cinematic premise of Mouna Raagam flawed. Wasnt it merely reflective of the prevailing culture at the time? The movie itself, as I saw it, was an attempt to understand how a modern perspective reconciled to the traditional one (which did happen a lot) without actually judging either.
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Karthik
January 14, 2016
The difference between mounaraagam and mnm is that the former is about past emotional issues and latter about carnal issues. The lady in mnm believes that the magic would happen in due course and her botheration on chastity may be blown out but thats what the point is. Just with that simple thread the movie has been made maybe the narrative could have been better.
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venkatesh
January 14, 2016
Rahini: Great points.
You know the best representation i have seen on this man-woman subject.
Pizza.
The girl lives with him, is not married and is a genuine partner in his swindling efforts.
There is nothing forced about that relationship. It just is and is closest to the real thing i have seen.
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Ram Murali
January 14, 2016
Cattle, Volcano, Lava, Global Warming, Methane gas …so, this is all of what Selvaraghavan makes us discuss! Oru pakkam pasu… innooru pakkam….!
Jokes apart, Rahini David – I really enjoyed your comment even though this review, your comment and others make me think of a bigger question – to what extent do movies have to be “responsible?”
We have people like Selvaraghavan that seem to say that these kids are like this in real life. I remember being stunned when I heard Ravikrishna say, “Adichuttaan da…b__du” referring to his father who slapped him for failing in his exams. Have I seen anyone refer to their Dads that way? Nope. Is it the right thing to do? Of course not. But are there kids in that kind of a setting who talk that way? Maybe that’s what Selva was interested in. But I just ask myself, “do we need to show this on screen just because it happens in real life?” To me, the staging (to use a favorite BR term) and the script must do justice to the story that’s chosen. They don’t have to necessarily have a ‘nalla karuthu’ per se and characters don’t have to always do what seems right but by the time a movie ends, I personally don’t want to feel like something inherently bad or nasty is being touted as okay to do. I don’t mean to have a holier-than-thou attitude towards this. I am just saying that movies are a powerful medium and the more we showcase things like TASMAC and saying things like “indha ponnungale ippadi than” just because they appear to be fun (under the ruse that this reflects current society) the more we run the risk of moving away from telling the story at hand in an honest manner and solely focus on what shocks and what sells. There have been movies like “Soodhu Kavvum” that have not focused on the ‘right thing to do’ but come across as sincere, concerted attempts to make good cinema, using a good script and cinematic tropes to simply tell a wildly entertaining tale…
PS: En route to work, I listened to Hip Hop Adhi’s “Clubbula Mubbula Thiriyira Ponnunga” and “Mouname Paarvaiyal Oru Paatu Paada Vendum” back to back…so, in 50 years from the time “Kodi Malar” released, we have gone from lyrics like “Naaname Jaadaiyal Oru Vaarthai Pesa Vendum” to “Azhagaana Ponnu thaan…adhuketha kannu than…ava kaila irukkudhu oru bottle rum than”
…karpanai epdi elaam maari iruku!
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Rm
January 14, 2016
@Rahini David
Well, I have never given this much thought to it :)..
You may call Arvind Swamy’s character in Roja as insensitive or narcissistic.. but I don’t think it was sexist.. I mean in the film, he forces a smoke on her when she barely knew him, when they had not opened up their relationship yet (what was he thinking?). And in the ‘groom meets the prospective bride’ scene, the situation indeed was built up considerably to show that the groom feels all the heat with everybody expecting him to say something positive. This gets established even in the earlier scene when AS chats up with the old lady folks prior to talking to the prospective bride. Had he been completely insensitive or sexist, he could have simply thrown his hands up in the air saying ‘hey, she rejected me’, instead he chose to honor the plea that the prospective bride had for him.
Regarding why MR chose a rural background here, perhaps he wanted to especially show a lady from a rural background with a lot of guts and character who would go to any lengths to rescue her husband.
IMO insensitivity is something you can usually spot in MR’s lead characters and I feel he intends it as well. You can see it in Alaipayuthey, you can see it in AS again in Bombay. Nasser tells him he can marry that Muslim girl only over his death, AS tells him bluntly he can’t wait till then and leaves home anyway. Height of insensitivity, but superb characterization IMO.
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Rahini David
January 14, 2016
Iswarya: Your professors theory went a little over my head. Yours didn’t. I have often thought about both answers.
The theory that these are second generation of the idealistic elopement gang sounds great but I am seeing that most people in real life have parents who had arranged marriage themselves. The number of people who actually eloped after being smitten with barathiraja movies is pretty small in my estimation.
So the wild oats theory is my actual pet theory. That people want their inheritance more than the oppurtunity to choose a soulmate. But why is this so strongly reflected in movies? Movies are wish fulfilment factories. Why not have parents accept the match more readily? I mean something like kadhalan’s spb. The father who accepts son’s romance and will help too? V1000 had a father like that too.
Prabhu deva doesn’t need to defy spb to make stuff happen. Surya didn’t either. I feel that such movies are on the decline for some reason. We get more cases where arranged marriages are celebrated than cases where cool parents are celebrated.
Maybe I am theorizing with very little data. Do tell me if you detect the trend too.
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anusrini20
January 14, 2016
@Rahini: I’ve been feeling this way too!! When I read your comment, I immediately thought of Kaadhal and Mynaa. Like you said, Thanga Magan glorified the arranged marriage set up, and now it seems like pretty much every 20-something male I know wants a wife like Yamuna. I’m also reminded of Thuppaki, where love happens between a couple whose marriage has already been sanctioned. Many young people seem to prefer an arranged marriage these days. Of course, they are far too ‘modern’ to say caste matters to them. Instead they use words like upbringing, familiarity. I didn’t get the feeling that this was the specific message MNM was trying to put forth… But this appears to be an alarming trend of late.
Also the lyrics: Mummy sonna ponna kattina torture illada/ neeyum daavadikkum ponna kattina douser avurum da. Don’t know what remembering those lines off the top of my head says about me 😀
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Venkatesh
January 14, 2016
@Rm: We’re on the same side. 🙂
Actually, nobody in her family is aware of her sister’s condition (not even Madhubala). After being politely rejected, AS doesn’t let anyone know this, but asks in a straight-forward manner: Enakku indha ponnu pudichurkku (while pointing towards MB). The same oldies who were shown as having a good time with him prior to the engagement scene, curse him now for this act. Even after marriage, he doesn’t let her know when she questions him; it takes quite sometime for him to reveal the truth. Only at this juncture, Madhubala ‘thaws’ towards AS. This is no way sexist!
Off-topic (slightly): Don’t know if we should feel thankful to KB for his timely intervention or Aishwarya for unavailability of her dates!
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Karthik
January 14, 2016
Actually, looking through the prism of urban romances by Mani Ratnam, there has been a steady progression in characters towards….progressive values of individual freedom and choice: If the protagonist of Mouna Raagam tried to rebel against tradition but eventually ended up reconciling with the outcome, the characters of Alaipayuthey merely tried to get parental consent, and when they couldnt, went ahead with their choices anyway. The couple in OK Kanmani didnt even include their family in their decision. Of course, this is theorizing with (very) limited data points……
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Rahini David
January 15, 2016
Karthik: If you thought I meant that the basic premise of a man who marries a woman with no idea about her lack of consent then yeah, it is a real story. I am disagreeing with a certain detail here.
I will narrate a true anecdote. A friend of mine was supposed to take a girl out on family approved date. He was happy about it. We saw her fb profile together. She was pretty and obviously extroverted as you could see based on her profile pics.
On Monday he confirmed that he refused. Here is his reply, “We both saw she is a tasteful girl. No woman would wear an unflattering dress as she wore yesterday. She looked as if she had not bothered to bathe. She wants me to say no. I could see that she wanted me to refuse and I did it like a gentleman. That is all”
I hate it that she made my friend do the dirty work. Refusing was her business. She should have refused to let her parents herself. But she made him take a pointless long train journey.
Coming back to revathi, she has no idea about the bride seeing party and couldn’t stop it before he came. She gives the first hint by not arriving on time and coming home wet. She then admits that she is not a good bride material.
Mohan had the option to refuse. He disregards her opinion at that point. This is what I am saying.
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Rahini David
January 15, 2016
So many typos. Sorry. I hope you can make sense of what I am saying.
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Rahini David
January 15, 2016
Ram Murali: Trust me, the point I am making is not about political correctness.
As for dhalapathy, I can buy that mammoty is the type of guy who would try to get banupriya married to rajini. And for that matter, I can believe he would pull shaman’s dad’s shirt collar and later regret it. His dialogue “ava thaan pudichurukku nu solluraa illa, aparam kalyanam panni vaiyeanda ” rings true.
It is the same with thevar magan. Kamal and revathi just get caught. I can totally believe revathi saying “ayo naan thaan sorry, ella sorry um enala thaan vanthuchu”. I don’t agree with revathi. Ella sorryum avalala varala. Still I can see she will feel that way. I can see that revathi herself likes the kamal /gautami pair better. That movie was pitch perfect.
I already have replied why I feel mohan marrying revathi a flawed premise. Considering he respects all her decisions including the decision of getting a divorce, it seems very out of character to me.
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Karthik
January 15, 2016
Rahini: I understand your point of view (and thanks for the anecdote). Actually, I had previously thought about that detail in Mouna Raagam. If I remember right, Mohan also wanted to refuse the marriage, but found himself strangely attracted towards her rebellious nature, in a sense she had displayed externally what he internalized and he found an unexpected concordant note; this led to him changing his mind. As to why he seemingly disregarded her opinion, here’s my thought: in his view she seemed less interested in the idea of marriage than actively disliking him; a phase he (being a student of psychology) might have thought would pass soon enough; but when it eventually didnt, he was ready for a divorce. Now that I think back, Mohan is easily one of the whitest characters in the Mani Ratnam universe.
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Karthik
January 15, 2016
Sorry, bad sentence formation. In Mohan’s view, rather than actively disliking him, Revathi seemed resistant to the idea of marriage, a phase that he, a student of psychology, thought would pass soon enough.
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Ram Murali
January 15, 2016
Rahini David – yes, I did get that you weren’t making a point about political correctness necessarily. As I wrote earlier, it was just that your earlier comment, BR’s review of MNM and other comments on this post just made me ask myself whether I really want movies to be ‘responsible.’ And, my answer to that would be a qualified yes!
Great points though about how the Mammooty-Charu scene and the “naan thaan sorry” scene were convincing.
On a related note, what I absolutely love in the movies is when characters commit mistakes and seek redemption, even if later. Again, I am not making a point about political correctness here. I am just saying that the characters seem human when they do that.
My favorite example of this is from Abhiyum Naanum where Prakashraj tells his wife Aishwarya that only during the wedding of their daughter is he thinking about how they may have hurt Aishwarya’s parents when they (Prakashraj and Aishwarya) got married without their consent. I thought that the dialogues were exquisite in that sequence.
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Tina
January 15, 2016
Got very shocked to see so many comments for this movie. Thankfully the discussion is something else really.
One word for this movie. Kandravi!
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sachita
January 15, 2016
My two bits, more people choose their life partner these days compared to the 80s/90s for sure. More parents approve of these matches. Ofcourse predominantly it is still an arranged marriage scenario, where people choose their partners based on a 30 min interaction( boggles my mind). but I am sure relatively, there are lot more ‘love’ marriages.
I can only venture out a guess as to why Parent’s approval became important. Parents lives are pretty much centered around the couple of kids that they have compared to earlier generations, bringing the relationship much closer. These Parents were/are themselves caught between tradition and their kid’s wish.
This was definitely not the case in my grand parents time. Infact, with our parents we can atleast have a conversation about this, i am pretty sure they wouldnt have been able to do the same in their times. Probably the only option was to run away. Most of my friends/cousins were able to get their parents to come around after a bit of struggle.
That would be my guess.
But why such a scorn on attempts to get parental approval of marriage by you and some of the commentators of this blog? Atleast at that point in a person’s life, parents are still huge part of their life, isnt it?
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Rahini David
January 15, 2016
Rm, venkatesh, sachita: I hear you. I may have to get to an actual keyboard to do justice to my replies. All this smart phone typing is just not working. Sometime very soon.
Sachita: meanwhile here is a very similar thread. It may interest new readers.
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tonks
January 15, 2016
But why such a scorn on attempts to get parental approval of marriage by you and some of the commentators of this blog? Atleast at that point in a person’s life, parents are still huge part of their life, isnt it?
My thoughts exactly, Sachita.
Thank you for the link to the interesting 2 States thread, Rahini.
There was a huge Malayalam hit called Aniyathipravu with the same “winning over the parents” trope. The movie was so popular probably because it struck a sympathetic chord with the older generation too : that the lovers were bending over backwards to win parental approval.
Some years back, someone I am very close to did the same, despite being westernised in her tastes and raised in Dubai. She is a Christian and fell in love with a Hindu. Both families are rich, orthodox and religious and tried their best to persuade them to give each other up. They were both determined they would never do that, but were also certain they would only marry after parental consent. After many trials and attempts at persuasion (when I was her confidante through many tears), nearly two years later, the families finally came around (mainly because I think both sets of parents finally realised that this was no puppy love and ultimately they wanted their children to be happy). When I wondered aloud to her at the difficult route they had chosen to take (they were both earning professionals : one a doctor and the other an engineer and could easily have married without parental consent), she said that she deeply loved her parents too and did not want to hurt them with a rebellious act.
They have been happily married now for three years now. Surely doing something like that comes from a place of deep love and good intention and requires as much or more courage than just eloping.
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tonks
January 15, 2016
I do not think it is an influence of regressive Indian movies in their case. They both see more Hollywood movies than Indian and even primarily bonded over Grey’s Anatomy and Friends. But there is a back story to her decision. Her older brother had married a foreigner without informing his parents a few years back. She’d seen then their intense anguish and sense of betrayal at his decision. This was mainly why she had become so sensitised to how her decision would affect them. She couldnt help it that she fell for someone from another religion but she wanted to try to minimise their pain and give them time to accept her choice. To be honest, she rose hugely in my esteem after all this.
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Ram Murali
January 15, 2016
tonks – Aniyathipiravu was what was remade in Thamizh as Kadhaluku Mariyadhai. It gave a tremendous boost to Vijay’s career in year (1997) when Ajith had 5 consecutive flops… I didn’t think much of KM at the time but over the years, I’ve developed a lot of affection for the movie mostly thanks to Srividya’s astonishing performance in the climactic sequence. It led to a series of movies like Poovelaam Kaettupaar and Jodi all centered on the theme of parental approval. Being the ardent Vasanth fan that I am, I must also mention a lovely scene in “Aasai” where Suvalakshmi maturely explains to Ajith (at the registrar office no less!) that she will not get married without her Dad’s approval.
Ajith: Eniko kalyanam pannika porom… inniki pannitaa ena?
Suvalakshmi: Eniko saaga porom… iniki saagalama?!
I also like the way Suvalakshmi assures him while refusing to give in – “Jeeva, naan ungala romba love panren… ungala thaan kalyanam pannipen… aana, appa-ku theriyaama… enaala mudiyaadhu.”
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Anu Warrier
January 16, 2016
sachita, tonks, push over and let me sit with you. 🙂 Why is it so wrong to get your parents’ consent? They are still your parents, no? Your marriage is a new relationship in your life; it doesn’t mean that all other prior relationships stop existing. Why is it regressive to try and minimise the hurt to your parents (if the are hurt)? Why is it ‘modern’ to slough off all connections to your family of origin?
(Obviously, I refer to parents who are otherwise loving, reasonable people. Not those who would kill the couple for besmirching their honour, or even those who would forcibly separate the couple and get the girl married off elsewhere.)
I’m not saying you have to bow down to your parents’ pressure and give up the man/woman you love. I’m saying that making a good faith attempt to give them time to accept your choice reflects a maturity that will stand you in good stead later. Just my opinion, of course.
(FWIW, I had a love marriage – with the ‘conditional’ approval of my parents and his. No, we didn’t ‘need’ their consent to marry; we were both employed, I didn’t even live with my parents then, he was abroad – but we wanted it.)
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Ram Murali
January 16, 2016
Anu Warrier – that was one of the most eloquent comments that I have read on this blog. Salute.
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Rahini David
January 17, 2016
Karthik: The difference between mounaraagam and mnm is that the former is about past emotional issues and latter about carnal issues.
I basically see MRagam after removing Karthik’s character in my mind. As mentioned in my Raja Rani vs M Raagam thread, I was pretty glad to know that MR meant to write that story and then changed his mind. MRaagam plays out more cohesively if seen like that. M Raagam is pretty much a story about Revathy being offended that her choice is not respected and also her reluctance to have sex to someone the world says is her husband but she herself sees as a stranger. I think Ratnam has mentioned that he could not keep thay story line as a woman sulking for 2.5 hours about this would have alienated most people in the 80s and so he introduced Karthik. I agree with him there.
venkatesh: That certainly interested me in Pizza. It looked like they took that path as the couple later pretend that the girl never existed and is just a figment of the protogonist’s imagination. A formal wedding means that you cannot pretend you never existed.
There is another movie from early 90s no less that had something similar. The movie is Inanitha Kaigal. Arun Pandian and Nirosha are not married. She is his pregnant GF. They plan to get married after he is back from a mission. They both die together and the new born is adopted by Ramki. In this movie nobody throws any blame on the couple. It just is. However, it is not a famous movie. Of course I watched in 25 years back but this remained vividly in my memory as I wondered why this movie is made this way. Have you seen it?
Ram Murali: I don’t mean to have a holier-than-thou attitude towards this. I am just saying that movies are a powerful medium and the more we showcase things like TASMAC and saying things like “indha ponnungale ippadi than” just because they appear to be fun (under the ruse that this reflects current society) the more we run the risk of moving away from telling the story at hand in an honest manner and solely focus on what shocks and what sells.
Well they go by the whistles and trust me there are plenty of whistles. What’s with the very strong belief that men are the poor victims and women are horrible monsters? I don’t see strong misogynist feel in older movie songs. I don’t worry about the ruse that this reflects current society. But there is growing misogyny at least in my eyes. Maybe there has always been misogyny but I am more alive to it now. IDK.
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venkatesh
January 17, 2016
@Rahini: Of course the “Train song” movie from Aabavanan. Whatever happened to the director?
In general, I find the whole marital fuss to be very annoying.
Why is this even an issue is beyond me?
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Venkatesh
January 18, 2016
Rahini David: I guess you’re taking Mouna Ragam a bit too seriously. 🙂 I don’t consider it to be among the greatest Indian films that talk about man-woman relationships. The script isn’t an original one as the title cards claim. It’s the equivalent of Kamal saying ‘Thevar Magan is an original script (not adaption), and I don’t even know such a film (Godfather) exists’. Interestingly, Kamal too had credited himself for the story of TM. Nayagan, too, suffered from the same fate. We should understand that MR was still a newcomer during his Mouna Ragam days. All of his earlier films were adapted (I’d say re-worked) from other sources:
Pallavi Anu Pallavi – Although not a copy, it was possibly influenced from from Balachander’s Apoorva Raagangal)
Unaru – He was not the screenwriter. Apparently, he had problems with the writer and the producer
Pagal Nilavu – His unsuccessful tryst with Godfather
Idhaya Kovil – The story was provided by the production team; he admits in CWMR that he wrote the screenplay based on the lines of Chaplin’s Limelight.
Like others, I believe Mouna Ragam was a reworking of Mahendran’s Nenjathai Killadhey. I was surprised when he responded as if he was not at all inspired by NK in CWMR (we should really applaud BR for posing the question in a careful manner). NK was a film about a woman who is caught between her former lover and her husband. It’s more like a case of self-realisation. Given he initially approached Suhashini (who was NK’s lead) and the casting of Mohan (who was NK’s Karthik), it’s very much possible that he was inspired by NK. As you say, Revathi’s character was flawed in MR (in the first-half). I think MR gave Karthik a different characterisation (which was in complete contrast to NK’s Mohan) because he wanted to ‘attack it from a different direction’. He eventually killed that character (which I think led to all these criticisms). With the absence of Karthik’s character, there is no point in focusing on the ‘woman torn between two men’ thing, and the aspect of self-realisation is somehow lost. The question of ‘love marriage vs arranged marriage’ (which Raja Rani explored) doesn’t even come into picture.
And the Dhalapathi marriage of Rajini and Banupriya was a forced arranged marriage. Yeah, she is a poor widow with a baby, but you can’t force her to marry the guy who beat her own husband to death.
After targeting Rajini in one of the threads, now you’ve shifted towards Mani? 🙂 Ok, how many Tamil movies have encouraged widow-remarriages? – offhand, I can think of Thalapathy, Chinnathambi Periyathambi, Oorkavaan (yes, it’s a Rajini film), Dharmathin Thalaivan (technically she was not a widow though). With the exception of Thalapathy (where Bhanupriya has a daughter), in every movie the woman is actually a virgin; the groom gets killed on the same day of marriage. I think this is the point where Thalapathy stands out from the rest! Agree, one cannot force somebody to marry the guy who beat her husband to death, but she had every right to say ‘no’. I’m not saying she was drawn towards Rajini, but MR somehow tries to connect the story with Mahabharata. In the film, neither Rajini nor Mammooty were projected as evil characters. In MB, Karna was highly instrumental in helping Duryodhana marry Bhanumathi; however, in the film Mammooty was shown as already being married before he meets Rajini. His efforts to make Rajini marry Shobana go in vain. So he feels it’s a moral obligation for him to find a partner for his friend. MR wisely left out the “Puthamputhu” song sequence, which was meant to be a romantic number between Rajini and Bhanupriya, in the film. Another underlying beauty of Rajini’s marriage with Bhanupriya is to give the viewers a hint about the sense of guilt of the lead character. Karna, despite all his evil intentions, somehow feels guilty every now and then for his past actions. This is beautifully depicted in the scene where Mammooty handovers the child of Bhanupriya to Rajini!
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Rahini David
January 18, 2016
Anu, Tonks, Ram Murali and few others: The point I am making here ( and that is probably what the others are too) is not that parents should dispensible to a person. In fact, when KMariyathai was released I was in favour of the “message” of the movie. But it was not a pro-arranged marriage movie. The movies message, if anything, was that if you put aside the “hurt” that arises from the thought your son/daughter decided their own life partner and actually meet the prospective SIL or DIL, you will see that they are a good choice.. As Srividya says, even she cannot find a better girl for the son (If you get past the idea that she is a christian and you are not). If was a unique movie for its time as most movies concentrated in vilifying the parents for not letting them choose the partner.
The main point I am making is that the choice of the Bride and the Groom should be the non-negotiable constant part. But in Indian societies, the choice of the Bride and the Groom is a welcome positive, whereas the approval of the elders is the non-negotiable constant. This can be seen in our rituals.
What is an engagement?
Western Response: It is when a man decides that he wants a particular woman for a wife, he asks her. He takes her out to a romantic date and then pops the question. It is considered doubly romantic if he is on his knees when doing so. It is considered triplely romantic if he bought her an engagement ring.
Indian Response: A man decides that he wants a particular man’s daughter for a daughter-in-law. He goes to the intended party’s house and offers a plate of goodies. The other man agrees by getting this goodie plate. The Bride and Groom may nor may not be present.
See the difference? See the focus? This is what I am talking about.
You say that there is nothing regressive in counting your parents’ approval as extremely important. You say that nothing wrong in appeasing them if they are hurt. I am talking about the regressiveness in assuming that it is the parents’ prerogative to take offence in the first place.
What is Molly Weasly’s boggart? The dead bodies of her loved ones. (Her worst fear takes human form in order to frightened her). Imagine Molly’s boggart is Fleur Delacour in her wedding dress about to kiss Bill Weasly. Of course, Bill&Fleur want Molly’s blessing. And of course, we can see that traditionally inclined wizards and witches do not like half human’s and Fleur has Veela blood in her. So what? Bill decided that Fleur will be his wife and everyone has to accept. She is instantly given access to the family kitchen and no questions asked.
Closer Home
Madhu: Sir, naanga Hindu, ithula ungalukku ethuvum aatchebanai illayea? (Sir, do you mind it that I am a Hindu?)
Janaki’s Dad: Itha paarappa, Nee Hindu, Mail, Dina Thanthi ethuva irunthalum enakku aatchebanai illa. En daughter ku ok na, enakkum ok thaan (You can be ‘The Times’ or ‘Indian Express’, I wouldn’t mind. My daughter’s choice is my choice)
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Rahini David
January 18, 2016
Venkatesh: Nah, I am not taking Mouna Raagam or Roja too seriously. If you notice, I mention the basic premise as having an inherent fault, not that it a evil sexist movie. It is a fault that does not appear to be detected by other people’s radar, but pretty apparent in my own eyes. The ponnu paakura scene and Mohan overriding Revathy’s decision does not bother most people. In fact, I am yet to meet even a single person who sees it that way. It is seen as wonderfully romantic. As her sister says is the next scene “Unna pudichurukkunu sonnar ila?”.
And I have heard about MRagam being a reworking of NK several times. NK is probably the reworking of some other work unknown to you or me. That does not matter. What matters (to me) is if the characters act true to the given character and if so, whether or not an action exhalted by the movie is a exhalted action in my personal opinion. And if not, why not? I am not saying I cannot get over it at all. I am saying that it is not a respectful thing for one adult to override another adult’s decision like that for he did not think of it as important. It is not a Ramu-Somu story. People do interpret it in ways different from others.
Regarding Dhalapathy, I think you have missed my response to Ram Murali about how, given his character and personality, what Mamooty does is believable. He jeopardises any possiblity of the Rajini-Shobana union by being too rough with Charuhasan. He does what he thinks is redemption. He does what does he thinks of as a neat solution. What he thinks of as a neat solution has no space for a woman’s consent. But then again he is not an educated person and that it really how he would see it. What I find surprising is that even educated people do not see consent to marriage as super essential. In fact the other point about parent’s consent. It is the bride and groom who should decide.
What I am not saying here is that all characters should be perfect all the time. In fact, Dhalapahy is amoung my top 5 fave movies. It is this bunch of complicated emotions and conflicts that makes it the classic it is. I can go on about how Banupriya without a word to Rajini or Srividya reveals about Rajini’s parentage and how nuanced it is. Bechdel test be damned, Banupriya and Srividya don’t speak a single sentence to each other, but convey a world of information and emotion. About Rajinikanth. It is not as if to like a movie you should agree with every scene in it. Most Tamil movies have no nuance to speak of. ManiRathnam’s movies do. So we discuss them in greater detail. That is all.
Regarding Roja. Yes I know that A.Swamy is painted as a sweet wonderful person and we should smile at how Madhu lands herself the prize catch of the century but keeps scowling for a week after that.
But how does it make A.Swamy’s desicion “not sexist”? Sexism is not a monolithic thought that people be put into 2 baskets titles “Sexist” and “Not Sexist”. I maybe the most misogynist person according to some people.
AS doesn’t let anyone know this, but asks in a straight-forward manner: Enakku indha ponnu pudichurkku (while pointing towards MB). My point is that he never makes it a point to know whether or not she wants to talk or refuse, though surely by her sister’s behaviour he could see that women of that family are not allowed to have their say in these things.
Rm: Giving someone a cigarete maybe amusing that does not automatically push him to the non-sexist side. right? “Regarding why MR chose a rural background here, perhaps he wanted to especially show a lady from a rural background with a lot of guts and character who would go to any lengths to rescue her husband.” Yes, I see that. But I am going by the individual scenes. And thinking WTF was he thinking when he married a girl on a whim. Seeing the whole movie, we know what direction MR took and why. I am making ASwamy a real person and asking if what he did is right. If your team mate married a a girl like this and she seems unhappy, who would you blame? Him? or Her?
Karthik: As to why he seemingly disregarded her opinion, here’s my thought: in his view she seemed less interested in the idea of marriage than actively disliking him Yes that is correct. I felt that too. And I agree about the progression in his movies w.r.t romance.
Dharmathin Thalaivan: Discussed in below threads.
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Anu Warrier
January 18, 2016
I am talking about the regressiveness in assuming that it is the parents’ prerogative to take offence in the first place.
Nowhere did I say that it was the parents’ ‘prerogative’ to take offence. I’m not even talking about ‘offence’.
My marriage, for instance, was to a man whom my parents knew, and loved. His parents knew me very well too. Yet, neither set were happy with the marriage. They had their reasons, some of it valid, some of it, not. None of it meant that we weren’t going to get married to each other. But they had the space to tell us their objections and their reasons behind them.
Of course, we could have ‘grown spines’ and told them off and got married in a civil marriage. We didn’t. Not for lack of the aforementioned body part, but because our parents are important to us. Our families are important to us. We took the time to talk to them about it, all the while being clear that we were going to marry each other. We were not looking for their ‘permission’, as much as requesting their blessings. I firmly believe that that time we took was one of the best investments we made.
On the other hand, I have helped a friend elope. Not because I couldn’t understand her parents’ reasons for disapproval – some of them were valid, but because I knew they would have locked her up in a bid to force her to do their will, even beaten her. I didn’t think that was right. (And I’m thankful to report that the subsequent marriage is still a happy one.)
As for the ‘western’ engagement, and its superiority over the Indian one, I will cease from commenting on that.
p.s. The best comment on our marriage came from my husband’s grandmother, when his mother wanted to match our horoscopes: My grandson has brought home a girl he loves. If you try to match the horoscopes and find that there is a problem, it will gnaw at my heart. There is no greater match than ‘mana porutham’ (meeting of minds). So, there is no need for horoscopes.
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tonks
January 18, 2016
Rahini : Agreed that it is regressive to be entrenched in caste and religion. But most of India still is and some hurt when children choose life partners who are not of the same religion or caste is par for the course. So I guess many Indian parents’ boggart would be precisely that : their child choosing a non pure-blood life partner. (Ok, maybe not quite : death or a serious illness would probably still be a worse thing but the worst thing after that, yes). They cannot help it, its the way they are. (I absolutely loved your Molly-Fleur example)
The main point I am making is that the choice of the Bride and the Groom should be the non-negotiable constant part
Agreed too that arranged marriages as opposed to choosing a mate you are genuinely attracted to, are regressive and against the order of nature : though over time and with modern technology, even this too is evolving into something more like a controlled dating. The dads- in- law meeting and deciding scenarios are probably thankfully slowly reducing.
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Venkatesh
January 18, 2016
Rahini: The reason why I brought NK into the discussion was Mouna Ragam was closely based on it. Whether NK being based on some other work or not doesn’t matter. I’m neither defending nor criticising MR. All that I wanted to say was, Mani Ratnam probably wanted to make a film based on the lines of NK (with some tweaks). The idea really worked out. Considering the success of his previous films, MR was a valiant effort (despite a few shortcomings) and gave a much needed breakthrough for him.
Re Roja: I disagreed with you because you initially said ‘That is treating women like cattle. “Intha pasu murandu pidikuthu …’.
AS could’ve very well said: ‘Unga ponnu (the bride-to-be) enna pudikkalanu solliruchu, adhanala unga rendavathu ponna kalyanam pannikiren’. That makes his character equivalent to Vijayakanth’s in ‘Naane Raja Naane Manthiri’. Instead, look at the character from a different angle – he never discloses what Vaishnavi had said unto him. But I can see your point!
I can see that revathi herself likes the kamal /gautami pair better. That movie was pitch perfect.
I see you’ve defended Thevar Magan. Going by your Roja logic, isn’t the act of Kamal marrying Revathi ‘sexist’? Even in Roja, MB screams after marriage: Enga akka maari oru nallavala poi eppadi venaanu solla ungalukku manasu vandhachu? In both the films, Vaishnavi and Gautami don’t come into picture at the later stages; the former comes for one sequence, where as Gautami is totally forgotten in the second-half of TM. Don’t you think Kamal’s character was a bit flawed (than AS) as he sacrifices his love for the sake of giving life to a poor girl? This idea (of Kamal marrying Revathi) was not uncommon in Tamil cinema.
As for Dharmathin Thalaivan, I too had pointed out the ‘virgin’ thing. So are Chinnathambi Periyathambi, Oorkaavalan, and the likes. Even with the case of Nayagan, consider the following:
Saranya: Oru 1 manikku vitta podhum.
Kamal: Yen innum veliya poi nerya sambathikkanuma?
Saranya: Illa naalaikku kanakku pareetchai.
It would’ve been very convincing had she kept mum when Kamal uttered those words. Except for this scene with Kamal, there is no clue to her being a prostitute. Take the case of pro-women filmmakers like Vasanth: In Rhythm, Meena is a virgin while Jyothika isn’t. In Saththam Podaathey, Padmapriya is supposedly a virgin (because her husband is impotent). When Padmapriya and Nithin Sathya (her husband) go to the doctor, Suhasini (doc) asks Neenga ellam enna dhairiyathula sir oru ponna kalyanam panreenga? Imagine, if she were to ask the same thing to Padmapriya (if her character being impotent). My point is a majority of our films fail to give a better treatment. One film that answers our question is Thappu Thalangal (interestingly Rajini was the hero). I read your comment about Aval Varuvala. You have a great sense of observation. 🙂
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Iswarya
January 19, 2016
Tonks: Agreed that things are slowly changing, the whole marriage question remains still a kind of parental prerogative, obsession and responsibility. The default assumption is that when a ‘girl’ or ‘boy’ (note: they aren’t treated as adults until they’re married) is of a ‘marriageable’ age (again arbitrary, based on how fretful the extended family is and how much money has already been set aside for marriage and dowry expenses), every person over the age of 50 is allowed to pester the parents of the said boy/girl about when they are going to get their child married! In case this boy/girl has pretty independent plans for the future, and is known to react rather sharply when these people dispense their time-honoured wisdom, they tactfully avoid the would-be groom or bride and turn once again to the parents because marriage is considered their business anyway.
I do know of a lot of unwise matches that have happened both in the family-arranged and personally-arranged marriages (I don’t want to bring in ‘love’ here) and so it’s not so much an apology for either kind. The overall deplorable fact is that private space is so non-existent in our society even for such intimate and long-term decisions like getting married. Anu has spoken here about the time and effort invested into convincing the parents about the choice of a partner. Just to illustrate my point here, will it be equally possible to convince Indian parents (and pretty much everyone around) that one would not to marry at all if one decides that way? Isn’t this still seen as a subject for public debate and pillorying?
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Rahini David
January 19, 2016
Anu: If it is my choice of adjectives that gave offense, then my sincere apologies. Peace.
Tonks: It was first intended as a type of fan fiction featuring Tonks. :p
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Rahini David
January 19, 2016
Venkatesh: I had to scratch my head for awhile before I “got” what you were saying. 😀
Basically, what you are saying is that MRatnam is more Pro-women than most other (and possibly all other) Tamil Filmmakers. Please note one thing. I am not denying it. Not everything I am saying here is to combat your points 😀 . Virgin widow themes have existed in Tamil cinema from “Vaithegi Kathirunthal” times. But it does not seem to have bothered MRatnam even in mid-80s. But he never went out of his way to show his Pro-Woman status or Pro-Widow-Remarriage status as some other people might have. He integrated these themes in otherwise “normal” movies. (By “normal” movies, I mean movies that are not particularly woman-centric as a 36V or E-Vinglish)
In fact, I prefer MR movies to some of these W-Centric movies. The “Intha pasu murandu pidikuthu” stance still stands. But just because a film maker is usually sentitive, it does not mean we should stand in respectful awed silence and not question him at all. As a very wise man once said, “ஏன் என்ற கேள்வி. இங்கு கேட்காமல் வாழ்க்கை இல்லை.”
🙂
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Rahini David
January 19, 2016
I watched TMagan once, and 20+ years back, and that too avoiding the violence. So I know very little about it. But IIRC, it was not a situation that could be avoided at all. The villagers are extremely violent and Revathy’s wedding is stopped because of a decision Kamal took w.r.t some land dispute and if he did not step in and offer to marry her right away, bloody mayhem will inevitably ensue.
But the village A.Swamy visits is not the same. At least it is not portrayed in the same way. If A.Swamy reacted with “Well, Your daughter seems to have a BF, then why did you invite me all the way here to see her” then she would be in deep shit. But if he said, “I am sorry to disppoint you, but I changed my mind with the whole village belle marriage business, let me just go back to my comfortable city”, he and his mother would have been subjected to some “nee naasama poga” but they would not have been roadkill. If so, I would agree that Aswamy making an imprombtu decision to marry MB makes good sense. But I did not “feel” that way.
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tonks
January 19, 2016
The overall deplorable fact is that private space is so non-existent in our society even for such intimate and long-term decisions like getting married
Iswarya : No arguing with what you say. It would take a great deal of courage to withstand the pressures of strong family objection. I have seen couples break up over it. And yes, I’m sure it takes a great deal of courage to convince one’s parents that one has decided to not marry. We still have so little personal choice in India. It needs great courage to make such simple private decisions as whom to marry and when or whether to marry.
On the other hand, the system of arranged marriage is probably a welcome relief to the shy ones or the ones with less personal attractions who would otherwise find courtship and procuring a life partner difficult.
Will it be equally possible to convince Indian parents (and pretty much everyone around) that one would not to marry at all if one decides that way? Isn’t this still seen as a subject for public debate and pillorying?
Needs courage but its possible. I belong to a very conservative community, but my nephew has just convinced his parents that he is not getting married at all and my beautiful, talented niece (after a few disastrous fiascos at trying for an arranged match) has just convinced her parents that they need not bother to look for a match any more because she has decided to wait for “the one”. So perhaps, hopefully, the times they are a changing. But yes, like you said, very slowly.
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tonks
January 19, 2016
It was first intended as a type of fan fiction featuring Tonks. :p
Thank you 😀 Blush 😉
You just made a werewolf-marrying, pig- snouted metamorphmagus very happy
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Rm
January 19, 2016
@Rahini David
Thank you for responding 🙂
I originally did not intend to justify whether AS character was a non-sexist or not. I just wanted to point out the characterization, given how these quirky reactions paved way later for interesting situations in the movie itself (and it could be argued both sides).
MB pours out her spite on him, they get into an argument and yell at each other. AS does have the final word but it’s clear he gets frustrated here (“Nambina nambu, illa vidu”). A little later, it now becomes her turn to make him thaw towards her and quite aptly it doesn’t take her much time to achieve this.
Same with MR. Mohan goes ahead with his consent even after Revathy makes it clear she is not interested in marriage. He even goes all assuming and makes the first move on first night. But draws back gently when he sees her ending up in tears and tells him she feels sleepy. He does not attempt to get intimate after that and even receives an uncalled for and a severe censure later, “Neenga thotta kambali poochi oorara madiri iruku”. I say this as ‘uncalled for’ but even this dialogue fits in so nicely given the situation (‘her situation’ to be more specific).
IMO, these situations worked well to show that both the gents here were not such cold headed jerks and the ladies not all obeisant dames here after all.
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Rahini David
January 19, 2016
Rm: Thank you. What you are saying now is closest to what I think.
I think the reason this trope has reoccured so often is because we are inherently intrigued about a situation where the consent is received step-by-step. Movies like Guna made him the mad kidnapper and western romance sometimes employs the “marooned in an island” trope. Indian writers can in general play this with trope often enough as we have our own “marooned in an island” trope. 😀
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Anu Warrier
January 19, 2016
Iswarya, I agree with Tonks. (Not being able to ‘Like’ any particular view, I’ve to resort to writing it out. 🙂 ) Things are a-changing. Slowly, but surely. I have cousins who have remained unmarried, who are very happy the way they are. Apart from the initial concern, I didn’t see much hectoring or emotional blackmail to get them to agree.
With us, we would have got married, that was never in doubt. We had a year before we could think of getting married anyway, so that year was spent talking to parents about various things. Now, if they were the unreasonable kind, I doubt either of us would have bothered for so long.
What I’m trying to get at is that things are not as black and white as they seem. I see many ‘love’ marriages breaking up around me, young kids who get together and then seem to have no clue that ‘happily ever after’ comes with its own trials and tribulations. Not saying anyone should remain married because divorce carries its own stigma (still), and definitely not making a plea for arranged marriages to continue. 🙂 Just saying that ensuring your parents’ comfort while still living your own truth is not such a bad thing.
Rahini, no offense taken. I thought we were debating? 🙂
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Anu Warrier
January 19, 2016
p.s. It is not as if in the west, ‘the man and woman make up their minds to marry and the parents have no say in the matter’ means there’s no problems at all and the parents are all-accepting. If it were, there wouldn’t be so many mother-in-law jokes out there. Or so many blogs devoted to laments about how mean the in-laws are. It’s only that they don’t ‘arrange’ a marriage for their kids. Otherwise, I honestly don’t find much difference between ‘here’ and ‘there’.
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Venkatesh
January 19, 2016
//The villagers are extremely violent and Revathy’s wedding is stopped because of a decision Kamal took w.r.t some land dispute and if he did not step in and offer to marry her right away, bloody mayhem will inevitably ensue.//
So, this subplot was meant to be an excuse for Kamal to marry Revathy? 🙂
//Virgin widow themes have existed in Tamil cinema from “Vaithegi Kathirunthal” times.//
Ah, I missed this one, but does it talk about remarriage? Just found that the earliest inscriptions of widow-remarriage in Tamil cinema dates back to 1947 – in the N.S. Krishnan-starrer Paithiyakkaran!
About Mani Ratnam: IMO, he is not a pro-women filmmaker. I’ve never seen him claim that way (unlike a KB). As Rm pointed out, I’d settle with his characters being ‘insensitive’ (regardless of being men or women). Except for MR’s Mohan and Anjali’s Raghuvaran, you hardly see a Mr. White/Ms. White character in his films (I’m talking about the pre-Roja period) – Velu Nayakkar is not a pure man in the sense he believes Naalu per nalla irukkanumna edhuvume thappu illa. And, we know what kinda guys Gautham/Ashok (of Agni Natchthiram) are. But then, MR is far better than his contemporaries (and most of his seniors) when it comes to characterisation. But then, that wasn’t his only focus. As far as I can see, he is one director who strives hard to make sure all technical aspects of his films are good. I don’t think any other Tamil filmmaker considered the importance of art-direction in their films (I cannot think of any other director than Satyajit Ray and MR who gave utmost importance to this area in all their films). To sum up, he is a complete director!
While we are discussing widow-remarriage and stuff in Tamil films, I forgot to mention about rape. Sakalakalaa Vallavan strikes my mind like a chord. I saw a lot of people thrashing Kamal here in the misogyny thread and elsewhere, solely based on this film. When I first saw the film (I was probably around eight), I hated his sister character more than others. As with the case of most Tamil films, she attempts suicide after being raped. But is saved by Kamal (in a timely intervention). She vents out: Anna, naan uyir vaazhanumna adhukku ore vazhi – andha Pazhaniye enakku purushana varanaum. After the drama, when she reveals her identity to her husband, he slaps her and vows to mistreat her; he keeps behaving in such a way till the climax. But meanwhile, she worships him as her dheivam. Surprisingly, it was the same SPM who made Bhuvana Oru Kelvikkuri (this one might have inherent flaws though) earlier on. To cite good (need not necessarily be great) examples (of films involving rape victims): Kai Kodukkum Kai (this was given the top priority in your misogyny list), where Rajini and Revathi (who is raped by the villain) continue to live together; Chatriyan (although MR wasn’t the director, I still consider this a MR film), where Vijayakanth marries Revathi (who is the victim). Apart from these two, I cannot think of any other film.
If I have to pick one director in Tamil (purely on the basis of characterisation in their films), it would be Mahendran. MR would be the next (so was the inclination towards him in my earlier responses).
As an aside, I had a conversation with a Telugu friend of mine about their films. He was accusing directors like Raghavendra Rao (for misogyny, OTT histrionics, meaningless stunts, lack of realism, etc.,). Many years ago, I happened to watch his Jagadeka Veerudu Athiloka Sundari. The story is something like a Gandharva princess falling in love with a goodhearted tourist guide. As a child, I totally loved the movie. Now while looking back, I realise the moment when the lead actors fall in love with each other: Chiranjeevi slaps Sridevi for some reason, after which a song comes into picture. Mind you, Sridevi was no ordinary human being, but a Gandharva! But Tamil filmmakers were comparatively better. Take P. Vasu for instance: it’s worth noting that Rajini’s mother is an unwed woman in Panakkaaran. His Mannan was heavily criticised in your thread. Almost everyone said they found it hard to digest the change in Vijayashanti’s character towards the climax. But they forgot ‘Khusbhoo’s up-gradation to Shanti Devi 2.0’.
P.S. Sorry for lengthy response. I do realise that some points are not very relevant to our discussion. All that I wanted to convey is: An average Tamil (commercial) filmmaker is definitely better than his Telugu and Hindi counterparts. And, Mani Ratnam is surely a notch above the average filmmakers that we’re talking about. 🙂
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Ram Murali
January 19, 2016
But if he said, “I am sorry to disppoint you, but I changed my mind with the whole village belle marriage business, let me just go back to my comfortable city”, he and his mother would have been subjected to some “nee naasama poga” but they would not have been roadkill. If so, I would agree that Aswamy making an imprombtu decision to marry MB makes good sense. But I did not “feel” that way.
–> Rahini David – actually, your comments have made me think of two different types of scenes/characterizations in MR movies –
(1) where the characters’ decisions didn’t make complete sense to me. E.g., Shalini (in Alai payuthey) not sharing the news of her marriage in private with Jayasudha, That did not work for me at all (despite MR’s argument in CWMR). That’s an instance of a dramatic moment not working well for me though MR kinda sorta pulled off the subsequent scenes quite well and used this contrivance to move the story forward.
(2) where the characters’ decisions didn’t feel right. E.g., Aaytha Ezhuthu where Trisha and Sidharth fool around in a beach despite the former being engaged to someone else. These are the kinds of characterizations that make me think, “Is it MR trying to portray modern day reality (since that’s what he claimed in CWMR) or is he showcasing all this because this is the kind of irreverence that the youth audience seems to love?” Maybe it’s a bit of both and you can’t really blame him, I don’t think…I once again go back to my earlier question whether it behooves filmmakers to be a bit responsible. My answer is a qualified yes and I wonder if that maybe because I am 34, not 24!
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brangan
January 19, 2016
This is such a fascinating discussion, and Venkatesh, thank you for being someone who understands that a director isn’t just a “storyteller.” I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve tried to say “A film can be well-directed but that doesn’t necessarily mean it moves you or accomplishes all it sets out to do.” To most people, direction = “whether it’s a good movie or not” 🙂
Coming back to the topic, what does everyone think of the rape situations in Sirai and Sila Nerangalil Sila Manidhargal?
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Ram Murali
January 19, 2016
BR – I don’t have strong memories of SNSM except the wonderful, touching scene where Lakshmi falls at the feet of YGP.
I really admired the second half of Sirai (though I chose to block Pandian and Ilavarasi out of my mind!) of course for Lakshmi’s characterization. I thought that Sirai had a very interesting take on men’s responsibilities towards women. Prasanna (the actor that played Lakshmi’s husband) is a seemingly good guy but abandons Lakshmi when she absolutely needs his support and understanding, esp. since it was rape and not a consensual extra-marital affair. Whereas Rajesh is the more obvious villain of this piece yet he’s the one that genuinely turns over a new leaf. That contrast made this movie a lot deeper than just a tale of hardships of victims of rape. I lovvved the fact that Lakshmi could forgive Rajesh but not Prasanna…
BR, Q for you – what do you think of “Pudhiya Paadhai” – both the plot as well as the way it was made?
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Venkatesh
January 19, 2016
BR: Whoa! That’s quite a compliment! 🙂
//To most people, direction = “whether it’s a good movie or not”//
I guess those people have a point if they are discussing about Tamil films as most of our directors assume responsibility for everything – Kathai, thiraikathi, and vasanam apart from Iyakkam. Even Mani Ratnam did all these in most of his films. T. Rajendar composed music. Balu Mahendra edited quite a number of his films. Apart from Shankar (who wrote all his films), one director whose films were largely targeted in your blog was SP. Muthuraman. People fail to understand that unlike Shankar/Mani Ratnam, he hardly wrote. 🙂
Sirai is the film where Lakshmi plays the victim (wife of a priest)? I was about to bring that up, but couldn’t recall the name!
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KayKay
January 20, 2016
(applause!) Fascinating discussion. Great points raised by all (Iswaryam, Anu The Warrior, Hammer and Tonks, Lord Venkateshwara and Rahini Goliath) although my own 2 cents is that Indian films mostly give parents a free pass for “asshole-ish” behavior.
“what does everyone think of the rape situations in Sirai and Sila Nerangalil Sila Manidhargal?”
Sila Nerangalil is the more fascinating not to mention daring in it’s script which suggests the Lakshmi character may have “assumed” she was raped, that the act may have been consensual. It’s intriguing and also deeply disturbing at the same time, for all the questions it raises. Like the rape scene in Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs.
Sirai I lump under my own personal category of “Can’t Believe This Shit”, like “Pudhiya Padhai”, “Sakala Kala Vallavan” (mentioned elsewhere here) and countless other movies that have the woman falling for/ accepting/ marrying/ reforming her rapist. But I concede that may be looking at it from the narrow prism of my male world-view. Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Zack Snyder’s film version had a similar situation where I echo the sentiments of the incredulous husband of the victim (who wasn’t the rapist by the way) “He attempts to rape you, and years later you let him come back and finish the job?”
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Rahini David
January 20, 2016
Ram Murali:
(1) Shalini mentioning that she is married, instead of saying something like, “Oh, this is sudden. Please let me think about it” did not work for me at all either. She could have easily bought time and then explained to her parents without an audience. Maybe we should write it off as impulsive behaviour. But it seemed like MR decided, “Well this is one dramatic scene this movie just can’t do without, so let us go ahead with it even if a certain percentage of people are not able to suspend disbelief”. But on the other hand, this was discussed in Roja where MR mentions (in CWMR) that he knows that they would not have taken a civilian to that place when the army was trying to rescue A.Swamy. And so MBala shouldn’t have been there but it is an important scene that they meet there. So he overrided that part of logic. The army men allow her to accompany them. I was not bothered about it as I saw it. Looking back, a ponnu pakura scene is something we may have seen in real life so we are bothered by even a small contrivance, whereas the Roja contrivance probably bothers Army men, but not me.
(2) a. One thing is, I know people who sow their wild oats in this manner. So it is actually true to life, if not acceptable.
b. Somehow as directors grow older, their depiction of “Youth” becomes less believable. The “youthful romance” of Jathi Malli and the whole “Parthalea Paravasam” contrivance did not work all in KB’s later movies. In fact, that is so Meta. In Jathi Malli, Yuvarani and Vineet mention to a film director that he should quit writing long poetic lines to describe lovers meeting after a long time and actually see the youth interact with each other for real. And somehow this particular romance is one of my least fave in KB’s oeuvre. May be this is similar. B.Raja with his TajMahal and Bakyaraj’s Parijatham did not either. But that is probably because of their respective brats.
Though OKK did not work as a whole for me, the youthfulness worked alright. So this may be a false parallel.Or may one of the real youth should stand up and speak if they see it too.
(3) I wonder if that maybe because I am 34, not 24 I wonder that too. I mean about me, not you.
(4) Somehow we never discussed CWMR in the CWMR thread. 😀
Anu Srini: This time when I said Youth, I meant both “Youthu” and “Figuru” put together, so you can feel free to answer. 😉
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venkatesh
January 20, 2016
@KayKay: Lord Venkateshwara , heh heh… remember the Venkatesh with the capital V is the Lord Venkateshwara, the venkatesh with v is just me 🙂
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Sifter
January 20, 2016
Even though the movie is an utter waste going by the review, the ongoing discussion is anything but. Self confessed non-watcher of movies (complete cynic perhaps), and so feel so inadequate to offer any value to the discussions, but absolutely love the interesting ways the discussions about and around them happen in this blog.
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venkatesh
January 20, 2016
@Rahini: You madam, have excelled yourself in this thread. I read all your comments twice. (And cursed WordPress for not having nested comments). Kudos. Really observant, incisive and detailed. You are now my favourite commenter on BR’s blog.
@tonks, @Anu Warrier and others: I read some comments like:
“We still have so little personal choice in India.”
“Not saying anyone should remain married because divorce carries its own stigma (still)”
Is this really true?
Granted, I left India 15 or so years ago so might be out of touch however even then I never felt that this was an issue. I have never understood the “getting parents permission, dependent on man/woman, ponnu parkaruthu, religious differences, must get married” theme in reel or real life. The whole thing leaves me flummoxed.
I watch a lot of these movies with a detachment akin to watching the National Geographic. Yes i can see what you are doing, however i don’t understand it, can’t empathise and there is no kinship here at all.
What does anyone care?
My take on the entire “Indian” mentality is simple, money talks, everything else walks.
Are you self-sufficient to manage feed, clothe, house yourself ? Are you an adult? Well then do whatever the hell you want to do. What do you care what anyone else thinks about?
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brangan
January 20, 2016
How many venkatesh-s are there commenting here? There used to be one. Now it’s confusing 🙂
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tonks
January 20, 2016
There’s a blue one and a black one. And there’s a ‘Venky’.
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venkatesh
January 20, 2016
@tonks: heh
@BR: Here is the lowdown on the Venkatesh’s.
There is a Venkatesh (with capital V), aka Lord Venkateshwara named so by the esteemed KayKay. He is the “newbie” and has been here for almost 6 months, at least from my count.
Then there is… The ever-impressive, the long-contained, the often imitated, but never duplicated… original venkatesh (the one with the small v).
So there, as simple as pie.
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Ram Murali
January 20, 2016
And, lest there maybe any confusion, I have always commented here as Ram Murali. Rm is a different person 🙂
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Iswarya
January 20, 2016
venkatesh:
Are you self-sufficient to manage feed, clothe, house yourself ? Are you an adult? Well then do whatever the hell you want to do. What do you care what anyone else thinks about?
If only it were that simple! The feeding and clothing part is fair enough, but the problem begins right when you want a roof over your head. Sanctimonious landladies, meddlesome neighbours, ‘well-meaning’ acquaintances, everyone raises an eyebrow when an employed, self-sufficient single woman wants to hire a flat, even now in Chennai. Your visitors will be watched, your in-time/out-time monitored, even your electricity bill scrutinised (why does she have the light on all night?) and an unholy glee would break out on days when you’re slightly indisposed (supporting that PKS theory about “thalavaliya, juramaanu kekka oru ponnu” or here, spouse).
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venkatesh
January 20, 2016
@Iswarya: “If only it were that simple! “
But…. it is that simple.
I lived in Chennai as a single person who had friends of both genders visiting me at all hours. There were the usual meddling Uncles and Aunties who eventually complained to the landlord, I simply proposed that I will pay more rent. At some point, when things got untenable i moved to Blore then to Pune and finally to Delhi.
Yes, I understand that I was tremendously lucky but I am most definitely not a trail blazing, unique specimen. It was not even particularly note-worthy. The only thing it required was willingness to take on all comers. But then freedom has a price.
In all the stories I read, movies I see, I am yet to see that aspect brought out. To me and my then girlfriend (bless her), what we did was just normal.
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Iswarya
January 20, 2016
Very silly technical curiosity (addressed to the tech whiz group, probably Rahini):
Why is the “Liked by…” line in KayKay’s comment italicised? Is it because of a probable open italics tag in the HTML code within the comment? I’d have never imagined that line could affected by coding in the comment text!
By extension, is it possible to add style to that line in other comments too? 😉
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
January 20, 2016
venkatesh: “Newbie” Venkatesh here. I was aware of your existence even before I started commenting here (been following this blog for close to 2 years). I thought the ‘V’ would serve as the distinguishing factor. 🙂
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praneshp
January 20, 2016
@Iswarya: it shouldn’t happen, definitely a bug.
lets check
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praneshp
January 20, 2016
Ha, there you go. Looks like the “Like” portion gets merged with the comment text or something.
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venkatesh
January 20, 2016
@Iswarya: I think its a bug more than anything else.
@Honest Raj(formerly ‘V’enkatesh): Oh I absolutely knew. BR in his old-age is having problems 🙂
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Rm
January 21, 2016
@Ram Muralio
Thanks for that disclaimer 🙂
The name is Ramkumar and I have used this alias in other forums as well. This weird and unusually short alias has somehow remained stuck with me..
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anusrini20
January 21, 2016
@Rahini: Youthu and Figaru, haha. Your comment made me think about Boys. I first watched it when I was roughly the same age as the protagonists, and I could not stop wondering just what was wrong with these people, and why it was so hard to relate to them. I have often found myself wondering whether the young men and women seen in movies only exist in the imaginations of 45 year old male directors.. For lack of a better example, I’d like to consider Santosh Subramaniam, which was celebrated as a youthful love story by many Youths (male). [Not sure what female Youth thought of this movie, I tend to feel this demographic is largely ignored by Youth movies.] I’m thinking of this movie now because I happened to listen to several scenes on the radio a couple of days ago. While watching Hasini’s cutesy antics on screen might give one a migraine, I realized that listening to it isn’t much better either. According to this movie, young desirable woman = hyperactive 5 year old. I can’t imagine why she would be depicted that way…but this probably touches on something else – the incessant infantilization of women in Tamil cinema.
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tonks
January 21, 2016
I had watched ‘Agni Natchathiram’ a long time back. After I read some comments here praising it, I re-watched it a few months back. While admittedly there is a lot in the movie that moved me, I couldn’t tolerate Amala’s silly infantile behaviour and just couldnt understand how men would find that sort of a “loose ponnu” behaviour attractive. A hyper active five year old would be the exact description. She was looking absolutely gorgeous though. Perhaps its the dumb blonde being non-threateningly attractive psychology. Perhaps it helps boost the male ego. The same way the southern belles of “Gone with the wind” were told to pretend to be dumb and hide their intelligence to snare husbands.
But what a change from that heroine to the ultra smart female lead character of OK Kanmani.
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brangan
January 21, 2016
It has come to our attention that there have been some, um, “intolerant” views about Amala in Agni Natchatiram on this blog. This simply cannot be, um, tolerated. If these views persist, we may ask the commenter to move to another country, one populated by the likes of Harini, Tammannaa and Taapsee.
SIGNED
BR, KayKay, and every 70s-born male from Chennai (even if only in spirit).
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tonks
January 21, 2016
Typo : Um, that should be Madras. 🙂
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brangan
January 21, 2016
Yes, it should. But I used the name you kids are more likely to recognise 😛
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tonks
January 21, 2016
Sigh. I guess Mammy knew what she was about when she gave Scarlett that advise.
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brangan
January 21, 2016
About that advice… frankly, my dear, we don’t give a dammidi.
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tonks
January 21, 2016
oh Im no kid 🙂 No more than you are 🙂
Perhaps closer to Minerva McGonagall than Tonks actually 🙂
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venkatesh
January 21, 2016
Hmmm……
“I couldn’t tolerate Amala’s silly infantile behaviour ”
Me : Terrain seems a bit unstable. No readout yet if the air is breathable. And there seems to be no sign of intelligent life anywhere.
BR: It has come to our attention that there have been some, um, “intolerant” views about Amala in Agni Natchatiram on this blog. This simply cannot be, um, tolerated.
Me: Local law enforcement! It’s about time you got here…….
Signed: Buzz LightYear, Space Ranger, Amala FanClub Protection Unit.
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Anu Warrier
January 21, 2016
tonks, I think it is the male vs. female divide – I found Amala intolerable too. (And yes, she is gorgeous!) The chulbuli factor that male writers/directors seem to think signifies ‘girlish, innocent high spirits’ makes me want to hurl.
Reminds me of Wodehouse’s description of Madeline Bassett: the one who talks of stars being ‘God’s daisy chain’.
(Sorry, BR, KayKay, and every 70s-born male from Chennai…)
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Bayta
January 22, 2016
I’ve been following this very interesting discussion and wishing I could jump in but haven’t been able to do so due to lack of a proper keyboard when I had time and vice versa. Plus Rahini covered just about everything I wanted to say ten times more eloquently than I ever could anyway.
But now I simply have to add my support to the female contigent and express my annoyance with the loosu ponnu types.
Santhosh Subramaniam was the first movie where I remember being so frustrated with a character as to make the entire movie unwatchable for me. I rolled my eyes so many times that I’m surprised they didn’t roll right out of their sockets. Like seriously, are there actually men out there who find that kind of person endearing?
Agni Natchathiram Amala wasn’t as bad the first go around (I’m an 80s child and was too little when I first saw it to really form an opinion) but I, too, found her character more than a little jarring when I recently re-watched the movie. And yes, she is drop dead gorgeous but if I were a guy, the minute she opened her mouth, the spell would be broken. Nirosha’s character was much more attractive imo even though she does her share of immature things as well. Actually, come to think of it I find her more sexy as well from a purely physical perspective.
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Ram Murali
January 22, 2016
(Apologies for those that don’t know Thamizh but I just couldn’t type this in English)
BR – innaa thalaivare, nalla kathai-ya irukkudhe… enga kitte elaam Sirai, Sila Nerangalil-nu lechumi (Lakshmi!) nadicha kalai padatha pathi kaettutu… naanga alaarum longu longu-nu type adichikitu, elavu ekkachakka dislike-a vera vaangikinu… apaala indha comment space-ku vandhu paatha namma amala ponnuku vakkalathu vaangitrukiye neeyu… nee bittu pilani pogo sollo una rag panna pasangala sollanum… alaarum unna kedthu vechurukuraango! (I remember your comment about how you were ragged there with a risque question about Amala!)
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Apu
January 22, 2016
Great discussion here about parental consent, marital rape, etc. Wish I could add my 2 cents without it starting to sound repetitive.
So, I will just add to the last part about “heroines behaving like 5 year olds”. In Bollywood movies, the other kind of heroines that heroes seem to like are those that are badly behaved – who screech and scream at other people, is snooty, is really mean (Poo in K3G, Madhu in Dil, etc) and are generally rich. In the last few years, that has slightly changed to showing heroes falling in love with nerdy heroines when they get drunk and act wild. I am guessing that the directors think that they are depicting the new “liberated” Indian woman.
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tonks
January 22, 2016
Ooh Anu, thanks a bunch for the support ❤ 🙂 . I sure need it when the Chennai 70s born male band wagon is ganging up on me 😉
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brangan
January 22, 2016
Okay, so getting serious and donning my film prof hat…
I guess the point is also that loosu ponnu-s are less grating when the rest of the film works for you.
Like in Amala’s case, I could put up with her loosu ponnu character simply because it had a “core trait” — if you want to call it that. Her character was a loosu ponnu all right but she wasn’t just doing it for cuteness’s sake.
The “trait” was that she was impulsive and she said whatever came to her mind, so it added to the film when she said things like the following:
“Oh, andha amma ponnaa?”
“Aamaa, unga appa-kku rendu pondaati aame?”
You can see Prabhu getting insanely irritated with her and this added to the romance, this grumpy guy-silly girl dynamic.
She could have just been another arm candy, just singing songs, but she was written to bring out this aspect of Prabhu.
So I didn’t mind her terribly. Beside her arm-candy function, she did something else in the film.
Ditto with Nirosha. Despite her loosu ponnu things (“I love you” etc.), she has baggage like Karthik. She too comes from a broken family. That basketball court scene before Vaa vaa anbe I really like. Just enough drama to be drama, but not too much so it takes away from the film’s “entertainment” mandate.
I’m not saying this is all developed a great deal, but it’s enough, again, to add some texture to this romance as well.
In Agni, even the romantic portions are FULLY in sync with the film’s core issue, that of a bigamist and the effect he has on his sons.
What bugs me about today’s loosu ponnu-s is that their only contribution to the film is being loosu. They do little to further (or add texture) to things with their loosu-ness.
And that’s annoying.
Class dismissed.
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Rahini David
January 22, 2016
And while we are at it, you could say that about the gitanjali girl who had a fatal disease. When nagarjuna was combating his depression, she shows him that she mastered hers with flying colors.
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tonks
January 22, 2016
Nirosha’s character was much more attractive imo even though she does her share of immature things as well. Actually, come to think of it I find her more sexy as well from a purely physical perspective
Bayta : I agree. Nirosha was my senior in mid school. She was a beautiful child, looked exactly the same then as she does in the movie (which is why I remember her) and she was in all the school cultural programmes. I have not seen many of her other movies.
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hari
January 22, 2016
So far no word about that kajal agarwal character in thuppakki slapping her father, is it the “in” thing among the current generation
Signed by:-
A very worried father (born in the 70’s) of a five year old girl.
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Bayta
January 22, 2016
Oh, but Gitanjali isn’t really a loosu ponnu though. She’s just an impulsive teenager who is also quite mischievous. I agree that being that way helps her cope with her situation, but I don’t think she really belongs in this discussion. Unless it is to illustrate how what can be seen as a frustrating character trait is used by Manirathnam to serve the movie. Personally though, I find her character quite relatable and not caricaturish at all. Especially, the way she goes quickly from playful to serious as soon as she finds out he has a fatal illness too is very true to life imo.
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Bayta
January 22, 2016
Tonks: Yeah, she’s quite beautiful even in other movies I’ve seen her in (though Agni Natchathiram showcased her at her hottest imo). But, as is usual in our country, she won’t ever be universally acknowledged as such because she lacks the most important quality to be considered good looking – being fair. Ugh. Don’t even get me started on that stupid hang up people have!
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Punee
January 22, 2016
I have been looking at these highly interesting comments for a while, I saw the trailer of the original movie, but the conversation seems to have veered to a completely different zone. As a silly, child-like, fun-loving woman, I must add my support to the Amala Fan Club. She is absolutely adorbs.
Also to deconstruct, I think men go into full-protective soldier/caveman mode when they see a woman who is innocent or “paavam” as they say. Now, some people may agree or not, but that is kinda the essence of man, and they like feeling that way, so they like the woman who makes them feel that way.
And I am not saying that this works only in romantic contexts, it works in all contexts. And for those who referenced Wodehouse, Roberta “Bobbie” Wickham or Zenobia “Nobby” Hopwood and their lesser sisters in Tamil/Hindi films are more of this kind than Madeline Basset who is soupy and treacly- and just no fun.
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
January 22, 2016
I was about to bring Agni and Geetanjali in my earlier responses. No wonder why BR has defended Amala’s character in the film (something to do with his Madras Memoirs?).
I, too, believe that character wasn’t shown that way just for the sake of depicting ‘cuteness’. And we cannot safely assume that Prabhu falls for her only because of that.
Another fav scene of mine involving these two in the film (apart from the train scene) is the subway scene, where Karthik & co. confront them. One his friends asks: Enna Assistant Commissioner ponna thallittu vandhutiya. We should see how Prabhu reacts when Amala repeats the same to him. Although predictable, what happens in the next scene is just amazing!
I find Karthik-Nirosha sequences more mature than Prabhu-Amala’s. Actually, the i>real love between Karthik and Nirosha begins from the hotel scene (where she dines with her stepfather). He enters the hotel with an intention to take a sweet revenge on her, only to find out the truth about her parentage. He gets slightly emotional albeit not overtly sentimental, bids a ‘ciao’ to both! To me, this is the best scene in the film.
Although one might find many apparent flaws in the film, fact remains that it’s a well-directed film; MR’s attention to detail is truly amazing! We may want to have a CAMR thread.
Not meaning to initiate another discussion, but what does everybody think of Revathi’s character in Magalir Mattum?
P.S. Looks like I’m the only kid of the tailend 80s out here!
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hari
January 22, 2016
Bayta agree with you – I liked Nirosha more than Amala in Agni and she was hot-damn in Surasamharam as well.
Pune are you the expert on Men or what 🙂
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Bayta
January 22, 2016
Punee – There’s innocent/”paavam” and then there’s Moondram Pirai Sridevi level of behavior. Most of these tamil film heroines seem to fall closer to the latter in their childishness. I can’t comprehend anyone actually finding that attractive. It’s downright annoying.
I can buy BR’s explanation for Amala’s character in Agni and do agree that it does work in the context of the movie. Still wish she hadn’t been portrayed as quite such a ditz. I think the fact that she dubbed for herself may have something to do with it also.
Honest Raj aka Venkatesh – Yes to everything you said about the Karthik – Nirosha arc. I think it’s up there in my list of best movie romances especially the way it’s slowly built up. Two flawed people who slowly thaw towards each other in the most believable fashion. The exaggerated pranks they play on each other takes a little suspension of disbelief, but after that initial phase, the restaurant scene you mention and the basketball scene that BR referenced are both so good!
hari – Word
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tonks
January 22, 2016
naanga alaarum longu longu-nu type adichikitu, elavu ekkachakka dislike-a vera vaangikinu… apaala indha comment space-ku vandhu paatha namma amala ponnuku vakkalathu vaangitrukiye neeyu
Ram Murali : Hilarious. Ennaley konjam nerathukku siri niruthavey mudiyalai.
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Ram Murali
January 22, 2016
All those fans of Amala, if you haven’t seen this, it is a must-see. She turns in an extraordinary performance as a compassionate doctor. Lookswise…naan ena solradhu…adhaan ennode annanga elaarum irukaangaley!
Honest Raj – I thought that Revathi was fine in Magalir Mattum. She had a great first scene (where she says that she’s willing to pay dowry as long as she can tie the thaali!) but afterwards the movie was completely owned by Urvashi, Rohini and Nasser in that order…man, Urvashi and Rohini stole the show…
Urvashi: “Neenga thaan piles-aa?”
RS Shivaji: “Doctor, naan piles illa…enaku thaan piles…ethana neram aagum piles operation-ku?”
Rohini: Adhu, pile enge keedho…namma madhavi maari yaarachu file-a olchi vechutaanga na!
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Anu Warrier
January 22, 2016
Punee, I don’t know about ‘men’, but if my husband had met anyone who was ‘innocent/paavam‘ – as depicted in Tamil/Hindi films? Well, you’re right that his caveman instincts would have come to the fore – only, that would be not be the caveman you are thinking of! (Think ‘Cudgel, meet head.’) 🙂 So, yup, there are men who are definitely not attracted to that type.
tonks, you’re welcome. We need to stand strong against the tidal wave that will be unleashed on us. 🙂
Now I’d better take my leave before BR banishes me from his blog.
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Rm
January 22, 2016
“.. and their lesser sisters in Tamil/Hindi films are more of this kind than Madeline Basset who is soupy and treacly- and just no fun.”
@Punee
Beg to disagree. There was another contemporary film maker that time in Tamil, who is especially known for characterizing women with a resounding sense of individuality, and who has been surprisingly left out of this thread, (especially since we are discussing on woman characters in Tamil Cinema). K. Balachander.
Madhubala(again) in Azhagan, Suhasini in Sindhu Bhairavi, Revathy In Punnagai Mannan, all smitten with love, not exactly the ‘loosu ponnu’ type and quite a character of their own..
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Ram Murali
January 22, 2016
tonks – Thanks! Sometimes, my thoughts in Tamizh just don’t seem to merit translation! Glad you found it funny.
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Punee
January 23, 2016
I don’t know much about tamil films outside of what my grandma took me to watch back in the 90s and early 2000s, while I do agree that a lot of heroines are portrayed as foolishly child-like, that doesn’t mean being child-like is in itself wrong. It indicates an innocence of the soul, heart and mind- and I think that is a good thing.
I find Amala to be child-like, yet spunky, like she has a spine to her. Rebellion for rebellion’s sake is good too- sometimes 🙂
@Anu: Well, I am glad to not encounter your husband then 🙂 I fancy a gash on my head wouldn’t be a good look on me…
Thanks Rm for the references, I found Punnagai Mannan on youtube and shall proceed to watch it this weekend. I adore Revathy! ❤
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tonks
January 23, 2016
So, yup, there are men who are definitely not attracted to that type
And then, at the other end of the spectrum, there are us “sapiosexuals” : the ones (both male and female) for whom intelligence (tempered by a sense of humour, perhaps) is THE biggest turn on.
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Anu Warrier
January 23, 2016
tonks, definitely ‘intelligence tempered by good humour’, or should that be ‘good humour heightened by intelligence’? Whichever way you read it, for me, that combination has always been the biggest attraction.
@Punee: ‘…being child-like is in itself wrong. It indicates an innocence of the soul, heart and mind- and I think that is a good thing.’
Mwahahahaha…. you don’t have kids, do you? 🙂 🙂
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Punee
January 23, 2016
@Anu Warrier: Haven’t had the pleasure of kids yet 🙂
But how is that connected to being child-like? An actual infant/kid and the quality of child-like behavior are quite different, non?
tonks: Doesn’t everyone call themselves a sapiosexual these days? Or am I on dating apps and twitter way too much? 😉
Personally for me, intelligence is a given, but how you use it, what you make of it, whether you are mean, or whether you are nice and good matter more.
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Iswarya
January 23, 2016
Surprisingly, there has been no serious trend of a “sapiosexual” strain of young men or women in Tamil cinema, no? (I vaguely recall a nerd played by Nakul in some movie last year and the girl falling for him after seeing his science project!)
That despite the description being a ubiquitous quality on dating sites, if Punee is right! (I speak out as an angsty, under-represented minority! Where are the effigies to burn when you need ’em?)
Anu: Add to intelligence and a sense of humour a dash of politeness and what used to be called good-breeding (in those good ol’ days), you have an instant recipe for a killer guy!
(Lament the fact that chivalry has become a kind of politicised/offensive trait. Loved the times when it was only a slightly more romantic part of good manners in general!)
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venkatesh
January 23, 2016
Me : Reading comments and furiously taking notes.
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Punee
January 23, 2016
@Iswarya: You don’t know the half of it. Everyone even starts off conversations with “You know I am a sapiosexual”, what is one supposed to say to that, “yes, I am intelligent” (?!!)
I think Rajni’s character in both Sivaji and Robot could be considered as nerdy- that is if you don’t mind mass-ey characters being on the list 🙂 I also think Tamil films in general are more ok with nerdy characters, Arvind Swamy in Roja is some sort of hacker, isn’t he?
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apex
January 23, 2016
Thanx to B.Ran: I’ve got sooooo much to learn (& will take time 2 assimilate) tho know nothin bout this film —
“the incessant infantilization of women in Tamil cinema.” — oh, what’s that anusrini hmmm
@ ishwarya –guess the word ‘aishwarya’ means ‘prosperity’ and ‘ishwarya’ means ‘god’?
Wot a different an ‘a’ mean — Am I right ?
@ Punee– haha good one on ‘sapiosexual’ … 🙂
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Anu Warrier
January 23, 2016
@Punee – ‘Child-like behaviour’ : Same difference. It’s fine when it’s a child who’s behaving that way. Not so much an adult. (No matter what romance novels might tell you.)
Iswarya: Agree whole-heartedly! ‘Good breeding’ has also become a pejorative. No? Because it is seen as ‘classist’. Good old-fashioned chivalry – the good manners kind that you talk about, not the patriarchal ‘little woman’ thing – is also a lost trait, alas.
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Punee
January 23, 2016
@Anu Warrier:
Got this definition off of the web.
childlike
adjective: child-like
(of an adult) having the good qualities, such as innocence, associated with a child.
“she speaks with a childlike directness”
synonyms: innocent, artless, guileless, simple, ingenuous, trusting, trustful, unsuspicious, unwary, unguarded, credulous, gullible,….
I think these are good qualities, rare qualities that adults have. And I am very proud to have them 🙂 You may think differently of course… or maybe you confused “childish” with “child-like”?
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Shalini
January 24, 2016
@AnuW: Word, sister!
The essence of a child isn’t innocence but rather complete and utter self-absorption. I say this as a Mom whose sweet, 10-year old has been asking me for the past hour to go out – in the middle of a blizzard- and get him some hot chocolate from Starbucks!
No, I’m afraid child-like behavior is not endearing. 😀
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newbie
January 24, 2016
Wow BR! You surely deserve an award for running one of the most active movie review blogs ever!
I think I am just going to use your favourite? bullet-point format to make a few comments.
What I came to say initially after reading this post was that this review illustrates quite clearly why movie reviews cannot really be objective (as was the discussion point in the top 20 2015 movies blog – a list which I am not proud to say I am only slowly going through now). I cannot even comprehend what an objective movie review would be like – a lab observation report maybe?
About Roja – I was quite young when I had first watched the movie so the thought of the hero being sexist never even crossed my mind. Having re-watched a few scenes now, I am still not that convinced. Yes – he was arrogant (but without malice) and was quite impulsive stating he liked the younger sister, without thinking about consequences for her. If one can consider him sexist because he didn’t care for her wishes, then what should we call her family who didn’t bother one iota too? (Why give the guy so much power to decide the lives of people he has just met?) Starting with the sister, who could have confided to Roja why the groom didn’t choose her and thus at least give Roja a chance of making an informed decision from her side; then the dad who immediately blames Roja for ‘simitifying’ in front of the groom and becoming her sister’s sakkalathi. I liked it that the mom and the grandma were quite supportive of both sisters – in their own ways. Even if the hero had graciously left the place, what choice would the sisters have had? For some other guy to have come and made the same or even worse decisions? I think even if the hero hadn’t turned out to be the self-proclaimed ‘ konjam konjam nallavan’, Roja by becoming his wife probably had the best opportunity to have a say in his life (revenge mainly) just like he had in hers. For me probably the one thing that stood out was how Roja kept saying she wants to do ‘periya padippu’ and then no one has bothered about it again after the marriage including herself.
Ram Murali – thank you so much for providing the links to ‘Penn’ youtube videos. Have watched a few now and I really like them.They don’t make serials like these anymore do they…
About Amala’s infantilisation and the question ‘But how is that connected to being child-like? An actual infant/kid and the quality of child-like behavior are quite different, non?’
Again, I was a small girl when the movie had come out so had to re-watch a few Amala scenes now. Surprisingly, I remembered that my younger version had quite liked the line using which Amala provided her name ’ Anjali – our eli rendu eli moonu eli, naalu eli anjali’. As a child, I had believed it was a super funny smart way of telling people their name and I had probably wished my name was Anjali too. I didn’t remember the scene or the movie much but this line had gotten stuck somewhere in memory. I guess you could say this kind of proves Amala’s character was indeed a bit childish because it definitely must have appealed to children – and arguably men too judging by the comments from Amala fan club members here.
But I do agree with BR in that I find her performance somewhat more tolerable than the loosu-ponnu characterisations we have these days.
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
January 24, 2016
Ram Murali: Don’t you think her character gets diluted very much in the second half? In the climax, she literally falls for [on] her boss!
Btw, were you listening to ‘Danga Maari’ while writing these lines: elavu ekkachakka dislike-a vera vaangikinu…? – sounds much like “Ganja kinja adichikinnu” 😛
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Karthik
January 24, 2016
The comments have hit a century !!!! Wannabe film makers may read comments of BR reviews to understand the pulse of the market.
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Punee
January 24, 2016
Shalini: I think you like Anu are confusing child-like and childish 🙂 The former does not refer to the “Essence” of a child and nowhere did I indicate as such.
childlike
ˈtʃʌɪl(d)lʌɪk/Submit
adjective
adjective: child-like
(of an adult) having the good qualities, such as innocence, associated with a child.
childish
ˈtʃʌɪldɪʃ/Submit
adjective
of, like, or appropriate to a child.
There is a subtle and clear difference between the two. And that is the beauty of language and concepts. Like he says in Jab We Met- do inch ka bend, aur meelon ki doori 🙂 I rest my case.
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brangan
January 24, 2016
Karthik: Thank you, but… Really?
I don’t think the pulse-of-the-market type people comment on (or even read) these reviews 🙂
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Rahini David
January 24, 2016
Punee: Please translate “do inch ka bend, aur meelon ki doori”.
I have to say that your stance is pretty interesting. I should say that it takes a certain amount of guts to say what you are saying.
I don’t think the ladies are confused about the two words. Dictionary meanings are all very well. It is the adorability or the lack of it that we are discussing here. Will get back with a lengthier reply after sometime. 😀
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ThouShaltNot
January 24, 2016
@Rahini:
“Punee: Please translate “do inch ka bend, aur meelon ki doori”.
Transl: A bend of 2 inches but (conveys) a distance of miles
Essentially: It’s a big deal
I’ve returned the favor 🙂
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Rahini David
January 24, 2016
Like this?
http://mobile.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/marktwain389874.html
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ThouShaltNot
January 24, 2016
I have no comment on the underlying discussion, but would like to add my bit about usage of the words in question and a general comment on usage. Not picking sides here, except it should be apparent which side I am on (descriptivism !) when it comes to usage wars from below.
It is correct that “childish” is generally the word of choice when used to convey not-so-positive traits associated with children. Child-like, however, while predominantly used to convey wonder, innocence etc. (all positivie traits) may also have negative connotations (context based) and can convey traits such as immaturity and self-indulgence.
Below are 2 instances of recent usage of “childlike” which uses the negative connotation associated with the word.
The Guardian (Aug 8, 2015) speaking about Vittorio De Sica’s films
“Yet he also shows the endearing selfishness in simplicity, too, the childlike egoism, the guiltless need for small indulgences”
“Salon” (Jul 11, 2015) speaking about the GOP candidates
“Indeed, to rely on rudeness to convey one’s mind is, sadly, childlike. Trump and Christie resemble high school punks more than prospective statesmen.”
English usage is not that air-tight (hey, we are not the French). Were it so, we would be arguing that “silly” should mean “holy” as it did in its original sense rather than what it does today or “decimate” should mean devastation that reduces by a tenth rather than simply devastation as it does today. Distinctions without a difference should not be treated as unbridgeable gaps. But for this usage kerfuffle, the rest of the discussion has been interesting and it is best to disagree on this and move on with the rest of the discussion, right?
Oh yes, Amala is cute, but not the most beautiful (I’ll wear my asbestos suit now lest I incur the wrath of the Amalaphiles ;-))
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Punee
January 24, 2016
@ThouShaltNot:
Salon is the pits 🙂
I wouldn’t have brought in the official definitions of the words if I wasn’t sure the intent of what I meant was being diluted in their understanding 🙂
Hope that clears it up. I work as an editor and to me English (because or despite its liberal borrowing of words from other languages) is the most precise language I could use to convey exactly what I mean. When I say child-like thus, I mean nothing except what I mean 🙂 Since that was getting muddied up, I decided to clear the air…
Rahini: Thanks for commending me! I don’t really think of what I say as gutsy or not. What I think is what I say. Maybe that’s me being child-like 😉
Do inch ka bend aur meelon ki doori- ThouShaltNot has translated it but…in the precise context of the film, the Station Master is telling Geet about her life keeping the railway tracks as a metaphor. A bend is a part of the railway track- which transfers a train from one track to another- and then the distance between the erstwhile path and the new one runs to miles. I was using the same metaphor for the two words, which start out the same “Child” but one small change post that and the meaning changes vastly 🙂
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ThouShaltNot
January 24, 2016
@Punee:
Ok, I’ll make up for the Salon reference 🙂
New Yorker, June 1 2015:
“And, being deaf, Eve never had to hear how weakly narcissistic Adam was, how selectively impervious to reason and unwonderfully childlike”
Let me know if the New Yorker ain’t good either 🙂
Seriously though, I realize that you prize fastidiousness with the English language (as an Editor), but you can’t expect the same of the multitudes who use the language. For lay users (and even many editors) language is about whether what is conveyed can be understood and not about pedantic insistence.
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Anu Warrier
January 24, 2016
@Punee, There is a subtle and clear difference between the two.
Thank you! We wouldn’t have known.
Neither Shalini or I are confused about the words or their definitions. (Sorry for speaking for you, Shalini.) I am an editor myself, and yes, language and its usage is important to me as well. (And to a great many others too, I will wager, whether they are editors or writers or not!)
And while you may have been using language to ‘say precisely what you mean’, you must (or will, when you grow up a little [see how patronising that sounds?]) that words also have contexts in which they may mean something completely different from what you wanted them to mean. Neither do you have any control over how those words – with different meanings – are interpreted by your listener. That is the beauty of the language. Any language.
Since I was referring to how ‘child-like’ heroines are made to behave (where no one seems to know the difference between childish or child-like and downright imbecilic) even when I was talking about your ‘innocent/paavam description, I can vouch for the fact that not one of those heroines (that I have watched) are ‘child-like’ as per the dictionary definition.
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Punee
January 25, 2016
@Anu Warrier: Your comment : ” ‘Child-like behaviour’ : Same difference. It’s fine when it’s a child who’s behaving that way. Not so much an adult. (No matter what romance novels might tell you.)” – was what made me think that we were not speaking of the same word or that my use of the word had obfuscated its meaning, I presumed we were speaking in the general context and not in the context of movie. There was no condescension intended- not from me at least 🙂 And I truly apologize to the both of you ladies if it came across that way.
And of course, I have a lot of growing up to do- that goes without saying… I don’t intend to lose my child-like nature in the process though 🙂
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Punee
January 25, 2016
@ThouShaltNot: “unwonderfully childlike” is the key I think to understanding why The New Yorker used it correctly, if snarkily 🙂
I was being steadfast not because of pedantry but because I wanted to convey a certain meaning in my words- so there is no confusion in what I say- certainly didn’t intent to tell others how they should write.
But I see how that could come across as pedantry or worse, condescension, an ugliness that I didn’t mean 🙂
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ThouShaltNot
January 25, 2016
@Punee:
Lets see how far you drag this out 🙂
New York Times, Feb 8 2015
“Another was a Shirley Temple medley in which the cast members resorted to ungainly childlike contortions and mannerisms.”
Washington Post, Jan 9, 2015
“That charming enthusiasm can turn into childlike rage.”
For someone who otherwise sounds extremely smart, your creative misinterpretations and dismissive put-downs when confronted with evidence convey a positively childlike intransigence (Case on usage dismissed, Jan 25, 2016 🙂 )
It is great to strive for precision and perfection in language. But, when the battle has already been lost and you still insist on rightness of something, it only becomes your preference, a peeve and just that. I have my peeves too. Hated “Irregardless”. The world of English has moved on. I occasionally use it now.
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Rahini David
January 25, 2016
newbie: I really enjoyed your comment. The specific part where you point out that without Aravind Swamy’s intervention, Vaisnavi’s life would not have been much better. What was she thinking? Personally, I find such passive-aggressive behaviour detestable and I mentioned it in a real-life anecdote.
“I hate it that she made my friend do the dirty work. Refusing was her business. …. But she made him take a pointless long train journey.”
If one can consider him sexist because he didn’t care for her wishes, then what should we call her family who didn’t bother one iota too?. Well as KayKay says, “Although my own 2 cents is that Indian films mostly give parents a free pass for “asshole-ish” behavior.” That would be my stance too.
Starting with the sister, who could have confided to Roja why the groom didn’t choose her and thus at least give Roja a chance of making an informed decision from her side. I agree. But I would have gone with “At least give Roja a chance of facing her future with better equanimity.”
Rm: Madhubala(again) in Azhagan, Suhasini in Sindhu Bhairavi, Revathy In Punnagai Mannan, all smitten with love, not exactly the ‘loosu ponnu’ type and quite a character of their own..
True. Loosu Ponnu is not about a young girl having high energy. They can have a good personality. I don’t know if Suhasini in Sindhu Bhairavi qualifies. I should say Revathy in Mann Vasanai surely qualifies. She is a naive girl in the beginning of the movie. But she has a great personality too.
Bayta: Oh, but Gitanjali isn’t really a loosu ponnu though. … Unless it is to illustrate how what can be seen as a frustrating character trait is used by Manirathnam to serve the movie. Yes, that is what I was going for.
“Nirosha’s character was much more attractive imo even though she does her share of immature things as well. “ She is a daredevil. A prankster. So I don’t think she qualifies as a loosu ponnu.
Apu: In Bollywood movies, the other kind of heroines that heroes seem to like are those that are badly behaved – who screech and scream at other people. I should nominate the “Dasavatharam” heroine for the “Heroine is a True Bitch (HIATB) ” award. She is, apart from being a screeching, screaming mess, also a very bad person at heart.
Hari: So far no word about that kajal agarwal character in thuppakki slapping her father, is it the “in” thing among the current generation. Let us nominate her for the HIATB award too.
Punee: Well, The things I want to tell about your pro-childlike stance could fill a book. I would do that after I meet a couple of deadlines over here. 😀
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Bayta
January 25, 2016
This is about the time in the discussion that I generally like to link this video, so here –
Now, can we please go back to talking about movies and feminism? 🙂
Oh, and on that note, I forgot to give a big thumbs up to Ram Murali for the Penn video. Loved that serial back in the day (a TV serial created by women, about women? Yes please!) and rewatched it a year or so ago and found that it still holds its own quite well. Such wonderfully sensitive portrayals of women on screen I haven’t seen before or since.
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Bayta
January 25, 2016
Rahini: I wasn’t implying that Nirosha is a loosu ponnu. What I was getting at was that of the two women characters in that movie, Nirosha’s insensitive prankster is one I find more interesting and attractive than Amala’s loosu ponnu. Her immature behaviour is actually quite close to Gitanjali’s now that I think of it. Maniratham seems to have a fondness for that template. Now I’m wondering if there are other instances of female characters in his movie that are similar.
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
January 25, 2016
Actually, Madhubala (in Azhagan) is quite a ‘loosu ponnu’, though not like the conventional Divyas, Haasinis, et al. Had KB made the film during his Varumayin Niram Sivappu days, she would’ve qualified as the poster girl of such characters in Tamil cinema.
Rahini: Now that you brought up Mann Vaasanai, what do you think about the film?
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apex
January 25, 2016
“I am an editor myself..”
Gawd, is there anybody else here (other than poor me) who is NOT an editor 🙂
In my limited understanding, guess ‘words’ have quite an impact but can’t override the associated (right or wrong) attitudinal perception ..wid due respects to Salon or NYT …? Maybe ..perhaps ….
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brangan
January 25, 2016
Honest Raj (formerly ‘V’enkatesh): Mann Vaasanai is my favourite Bharathiraja film. Strong, honest work — and even the lapses into “the poetic” didn’t stick out as much as in, say, Mudhal Mariyadhai, because the Nizhalgal Ravi character is a Tamil vaathi, and he could behave that way.
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Rahini David
January 25, 2016
Bayta: BR said “Ditto with Nirosha. Despite her loosu ponnu things (“I love you” etc.), she has baggage like Karthik.” I guess I conflated your thoughts. 😀
Honest Raj: I can not BELIEVE you chose one of Gabtun’s names for a moniker. But it becomes you. 😀
Regarding Mann Vasanai, I saw the movie in its entirety somewhere around 1988 or so and don’t remember it much. However, one of my VHS cassettes had an interview with Revathy in which she talks about a few of her first films and it had pieces of the movie along with her comments. I thought that it was a great performance for a first timer. And looking back, her first scenes was her being naive and she is a mature woman towards the end. Come to think of it 16V Sridevi had that transision too. Naive but not loosu.
By now you might have noticed that though obssessed with BR’s blog, I am not a movie person in general and have only watched 1/10th of the number of movies that BR or the other commenters have seen.
Did anyone else have a VHS recording obsession? I started doing it around 1990 and it went on till 1994 or so after which the 24 hour channels made it a pointless hobby. I had some precious stuff, especially with Crazy Mohan’s Diwali special episodes etc.
Apex: You can count poor Language-challenged Left-Brained Rahini in. Definitely not an editor.
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MANK
January 25, 2016
shocked to hear about the untimely demise of actress Kalpana. A truly versatile performer and the queen of comedy. RIP . You will be missed
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Rahini David
January 25, 2016
Tonks: On the other hand, the system of arranged marriage is probably a welcome relief to the shy ones or the ones with less personal attractions who would otherwise find courtship and procuring a life partner difficult.
You can count me in. I had what is called an Arranged Marriage. My parents asked me when I was 23 if they can start looking for a groom now that I have finished my PG and started to earn. I said OK. There was no particular reason why I should ask them not to. They asked if there is any particular person whose parents they should approach, and I said No. I was asked about Criteria, if any. I gave a few vauge ones. As the prospective profiles came in, I revised my criteria. And eventually a match was made.
My husband himself was doing the “Why don’t you give it a break” routine and my MIL apparently put a Pic of mine on his desk hoping he would change his mind and he did. After a brief getting-to-know period we got married. Neither my parents nor his would have gone through with this process if we had some specific person in our minds. We have plenty of choice marriages in relatives who did want to go that way and caste and religion is not a huge stopper in our families. One person overriding another persons will is what I am against. Not arranged marriage itself.
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Anu Warrier
January 25, 2016
@Punee, apology accepted. Thank you. We’ll agree to disagree, because I’ve seen (from the Bajirao Mastani thread) enough to understand what a nail feels like when it meets the hammer. 🙂
@apex – I don’t know why my being an editor has you hyper-ventilating. I post under my own name, and that is my profession now. (I was a journalist before that.) The only reason I even mentioned that was because Punee stressed on her being an editor, as if that gave her a unique perspective on the meaning and usage of words. I laud your support for Punee. You can do that, surely, without having to pass snarky remarks?
Besides, as I noted, one doesn’t have to be an editor (TM) to be particular about language and its usage. In fact, wasn’t BR an engineer himself, before he switched professions? I would wager that many, if not most, of BR’s readers here are not associated with editing/journalistic professions.
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tonks
January 25, 2016
Rahini : You’ve been very candid. Yes, of course, I absolutely agree about the over- riding part. Arranged or not, in my opinion, what sustains marriage (or for that matter, any relationship) and keeps it happy is mutual respect, willingness to compromise, letting go of your ego, ‘walking the line’ and most importantly the wish to make it work. All of which have nothing to do with that ‘crazy little thing called love’ : the dopamine-endorphin surge of which lasts probably for a year, max. After that, we’re left with the same things in either type of marriage. Which is probably one reason, why the statistics are not different for either type of marriage.
Having said that, Ive often wished especially when I was younger (and the pressures to get married started when I hit my early twenties), that I did not live in such a restrictive society, that I had more choices, more time to do a lot of things that I wanted to do. I’m glad it’s becoming less restrictive, with time.
Actually marriage itself is artificial, isnt it. Humans, I think, are a polygamous species :).
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Punee
January 25, 2016
@Rahini: That is such a beautiful story! I truly wish all arranged marriages were so. Thanks for sharing!
haha- my pro-child-like stance comes from being child-like myself and working to preserve my guilelessness and attempting to stave off cynicism, its something that a lot of people have teased me about so maybe I am touchy about it. I actually see people waiting to see how I “change” after negative things have happened to me, like they are thinking “yes, now she is going to go all cynical”. In fact I think people want bad things to happen to me so they can then see me become “normal” and “practical” and stop being “sooo filmy” 🙂
I do look forward to hearing your thoughts- in book form or comment form- on the same though 🙂
@apex: haha! 99% of the people I know and work with are non-creative people, mostly IIT engineers, so maybe I have gotten used to the argument by intimidation to “get my way” so to speak 😛 Apologies!
@Anu: Yes, agreeing to disagree seems most civil… especially since I seem to have gotten the enfant terrible reputation due to the Bajirao Mastani thread 🙂
ThouShaltNot: This is turning out to be a fun game. I am simply amazed at how you are digging up these sentences. All I will say now is the modern journalist has no time or respect for precision or maybe childish as a word does not carry as much heft as childlike and they treat them as interchangeable 🙂 You wouldn’t find Wodehouse or Doyle making these sort of mise en scenes with grammar- that is for sure 😛 And yes, thanks for thinking me smart! 🙂
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Ram Murali
January 25, 2016
@brangan – Sirai, SNSM, Pudhiya Paadhai elaam pathi oru one-line review thareengala? I am curious 🙂
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SUNDAR
January 25, 2016
“Actually marriage itself is artificial, isn’t it. Humans, I think, are a polygamous species”
Just when the thread is meandering towards its natural death, after 143 comments, this..!!!!
Oh boy haven”t you opened a can of worms???
@tonks: you must surely love this discussion (like me (insert smiley)) !!!!.. BTW agree with you on the polygamous part.
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Punee
January 25, 2016
@tonks: You said “marriage itself is artificial” but then everything we know of the human condition as it is in the current time is artificial. Naturally we should be dying in our thirties due to childbirth- women or due to hunting accidents- men, and of course not to speak of most children dying due to one or the other disease (most of which have been artificially “eradicated”). We should also be “naturally” living in caves and having no art, no higher beauty, nothing except maybe drawings on a cave wall.
Everything that we have has been built upon over centuries, nay millenia of beautiful, beautiful self-chosen artifice. And marriage, love and monogamy are the most beautiful of them all 🙂 A close second are dogs, which are of course artificially bred mutant wolves- the result of many a man “domesticating” the beast with kindness and love 🙂
Note that no other animal in “nature” has mutated or changed since the Ice Ages. They are all more or less at the same place that they began. It is man’s “artifice” that has made him plod ahead, changing, mutating himself and the world around him to reflect a higher beauty and ideal.
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tonks
January 25, 2016
Oh prolonging the discussion was not a motive 🙂
I am glad that this is now the most commented thread on Brangan’s blog and am happy to have contributed towards this.. This is a movie review that deserves it. Most importantly, the commenters pretty much stuck to the subject with minimal diversions
MANK ^^ on the Bajirao Mastani thread.
And this one has the dubious distinction of being a ‘most commented thread that is totally off topic’ : with hardly any comment being about the movie reviewed 😒
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Enna_koduka_sir_pera
January 25, 2016
I am aware that I am quite late to the discussion, but I just watched Agni Natchathiram after reading all the comments here and adding my thoughts on that. I thought Amala’s character was not as grating as say, Samantha’s in 10 Endrathukulla, although I will admit to being happy when Prabhu punches her with the boxing bag when she so insensitively asks if his father has two wives. Her character is insensitive, but not the typical “loose ponnu”, and I did like her wild ways, although I felt she was over-acting. Nirosha’s initial scenes were way too random and unbelievable for me to make an impression. What I liked the most about the movie was the final fight sequence amidst the flickering bulbs. What a director!
@Ram Murali – Thanks for sharing the Penn video. Amala was great in that episode and how I wish to be always surrounded by such sweet people. I thought the whole series had some Mani Ratnam touches, only to realize they were all directed by Suhasini 🙂 I liked the way she had taken day to day occurrences and portrayed the characters so beautifully and naturally. I haven’t watched the complete series, but the Revathy episode is also my favorite.
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sai16vicky
January 25, 2016
@BR – Regarding SNSM, I think it is probably the first tamil movie to toy with the idea of a “one-night stand”. The way Lakshmi’s character goes through it was beautifully written and performed, but lacked good direction. (Of course it was Bhimsingh donning the director’s hat and treated this story like his usual melodramas.) I think Gautham Menon does a fantastic job of directing a similar scenario in “Nadunisi Naigal” – the woman goes through something similar with a guy she brought up like a “son”. Kudos to Gautham! 🙂
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Ram Murali
January 25, 2016
@newbie / @Bayta – thanks for your comment. I am glad you enjoyed the “Penn” videos. My favorites are the Revathy-Srividya, Radhika and Saranya stories. Raghuvaran was fabulous in the Saranya episode. Shobana and Suhasini (she acted with Parthiban) had the least engaging episodes I thought.
@Honest Raj –
Ram Murali: Don’t you think her character gets diluted very much in the second half? In the climax, she literally falls for [on] her boss!
–> If you are referring to the “kalavu maadu” song, yes, I agree, that did dilute her character. If you are referring to the last scene with Kamal, then I would just say that Kamal asks her, “ena kalyanam panikreengala” and she agrees, that’s all…she doesn’t fall on him…Rohini and Urvashi push her! Comedy film with Kamal’s cameo vera epdi mudipaange!!
Btw, were you listening to ‘Danga Maari’ while writing these lines: elavu ekkachakka dislike-a vera vaangikinu…? – sounds much like “Ganja kinja adichikinnu” 😛
–> Oh no…my love for Chennai thamizh began long ago when I was in the 10th grade when our driver Solaiappan affectionately asked me, “Ina ram-meh, iskool la paritchai-nu amma sonange? pass aayruviya?!” :))
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Anu Warrier
January 25, 2016
Everything that we have has been built upon over centuries, nay millenia of beautiful, beautiful self-chosen artifice. And marriage, love and monogamy are the most beautiful of them all
I wasn’t going to comment again, but tonks is right – man is not, by nature, monogamous. That is very much a social concept. And a very modern one, at that. And while monogamy might be the primary socially sanctioned version of a man-woman relationship, it is still not the only ‘acceptable’ one. Even in societies which imposed marital monogamy (like the Greeks and Romans), de facto polygamy (concubinage, sexual slaves, etc.,) was not only tolerated, it was looked upon as conferring a certain social status upon the man.
Today’s man-woman relationships may be primarily monogamous, but that does not preclude polyamory as a valid choice. And if you ask them, they will tell you that monogamy is not necessarily the ‘most beautiful of them all’. Similarly, with regards to marriage: With more and more couple eschewing marriage as a social construct, and opting to live in committed relationships without that social seal of approval on their relationship, we will see the definition of ‘marriage’ change as well. I doubt my friends who have been deeply committed to each other (monogamously, you will be pleased to know) will endorse your ‘marriage is the most beautiful of them all’ concept.
and stop being “sooo filmy”
Ah, now I begin to understand.
@ tonks: And this one has the dubious distinction of being a ‘most commented thread that is totally off topic’
🙂
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Ram Murali
January 25, 2016
Enna_koduka_sir_pera – I am glad you enjoyed the videos. Yes, Revathy-Srividya’s was the BEST episode. Right from the title, “Hemavukku kalyanam” everything was JUST perfect. I wrote about it recently in my tribute to Srividya. I am sure Mani Ratnam had a lot of inputs into the episodes even though he didn’t get credit…Parthiban mentioned once that Mani had directed the Suhasini episode (in which Parthiban had a role).
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tonks
January 25, 2016
Punee : Oh I was not exactly criticizing the institution of marriage. I was just saying that its an artificial way of providing security, reducing chaos. Like for example, the judiciary and law enforcement suppress our natural tendency towards violence.
This ‘socially imposed monogamy’, that Anu was talking about, does serve a purpose. Unlike most animals, human children are vulnerable, require a great deal of nurturing, for a very long time : so its mighty handy for the mother, if the father is made (by marriage) to stick around, instead of following his polygamous instincts 😉
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Punee
January 25, 2016
@Anu Warrier: You are twisting my words. I said marriage, love, monogamy ARE the most beautiful of all. I had no intention of singling out marriage on its lonesome. They are one and the same in my dictionary. Marriage is love is monogamy.
I detest and abhor those who are/stay married for the sake of it, where they just tolerate each other- ruining their children and their own lives in the process.
As for polyamory, do remember my spirited defense of Mastani in the Bajirao Mastani thread- wherein the marriage is devoid of LOVE in capital letters, then given the situation and society that they lived in Bajirao and anyone else is absolutely right in being polyamorous 🙂
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Punee
January 25, 2016
@tonks: I disagree that a man alone has polygamous “instincts”. I find fathers to be incredibly wonderful (though neglected in the Indian romantic ideal) aspect of the two-body parental unit.
I also disagree that in this day and age it is possible for society to “impose” anything on a good man (or woman)- I don’t care to speculate on the motives of the rest. If a man/woman stays in a marriage (or a monogamous relationship) it is his will to do so. It is his love for his wife/her husband, for the child, for the family unit as a whole.
As for “natural tendency to violence” that is being supressed by judiciary- I doubt that is true- and it seems a very Grindelwald-ian perspective to take (if you know what I mean 😉 )
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Punee
January 25, 2016
@tonks: Also you said:
” Unlike most animals, human children are vulnerable, require a great deal of nurturing, for a very long time: so its mighty handy for the mother, if the father is made (by marriage) to stick around, instead of following his polygamous instincts”
I think this is quite an exaggerated view of the importance of children to a family unit, and a somewhat unkind view of men/fathers. Yes, fathers love the children, but they first loved the mother of those children 🙂
What of those children whose father died due to being in dangerous professions? Are they not nurtured? Are they not as vulnerable? Do they not grow up to be strong, self-sufficient, moral, good? I speak from my own experience- I lost my father very young, but there are other famous examples, like Nimrat Kaur etc.
Meaning a mother can be a just as good parent without a father, so there is no such need for a father that yokes him so to speak as some sort of beast of burden to his wife and children. If he stays, it is for love, and I see this love in the most normal of fathers. My favorite thing to do is to look at the dads who drop off their kids to school in the morning- they are so fun and sweet, I couldn’t imagine they were doing this because of some social enforcement.
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
January 26, 2016
BR: I saw the film some 10 years ago, can’t remember much except the ending. If I’m right, Pandiyan returns to his village after marrying a vada naatukkaari (a Punjabi I suppose). The girl dies under some circumstances. Finally, he unites happily with Revathi (with the pothivacha tune playing in background). All these happen with in a span of 30 minutes. Am I missing something here?
Rahini: I was pondering over names that cannot be easily duplicated, much like Kamal in this video:
‘Anonymous’ and ‘Newbie’ were my initial considerations. But then, I remembered a comment under the former name in one of the posts here. ‘Newbie’ will not work out for obvious reasons. Now, I realize that it should’ve been ‘Aanast Raj’. 🙂
Ram Murali: If you are referring to the “kalavu maadu” song, yes, I agree, that did dilute her character. If you are referring to the last scene with Kamal, then I would just say that Kamal asks her, “ena kalyanam panikreengala” and she agrees, that’s all…she doesn’t fall on him…Rohini and Urvashi push her! Comedy film with Kamal’s cameo vera epdi mudipaange!!
As someone who says ‘I’m willing to pay dowry as long as I can tie the knots during marriage’ in the beginning, she instantly falls for her boss, who makes a last-minute America Maappillai entry. More to the point, she has some pre-designed designs on her computer (of her prospective groom). Guess what? They match exactly with Kamal’s. Comedy padam dhan othukkuren, aanalum enakku adhu seriya padalai!
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Anu Warrier
January 26, 2016
Marriage is love is monogamy. and …anyone else is absolutely right in being polyamorous 🙂
Are you the only person who doesn’t see the dissonance in these two statements that bookend your argument? So, if they don’t love each other, a person in a supposedly-monogamous marriage is given carte-blanche to find a lover/another wife? In the society of those times, monogamy was certainly not a defining trait of relationships.
And in any case, that’s not how poly-amory works. Poly-amory does not arise from a person seeking love (in capital letters, forsooth!) outside a loveless marriage – that’s what divorce is for; they are people who find they can, and do, love more than one person and welcome that third person to be a full partner into their original, very loving relationship.
Secondly, I disagree that ‘marriage is love is monogamy’. That’s a false equivalency. Love can happen with or without marriage, and so can marriage exist, with or without love. (Mutual ‘Like’ and ‘respect’ have fuelled many a successful marriage, without ruining any lives.) And monogamy, even sexual monogamy, has nothing to do with either love or marriage. You can have that, without either of the others.
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Punee
January 26, 2016
@Anu : “Ah, now I begin to understand.”
You mean you didn’t realize all this while that I was a highly romantic, idealistic creature? 🙂 On an aside I wonder why filmy as a catch-all phrase is used so easily, snarkily for the romantic souls? Not that I mind…like Ranveer Singh says “Main bada hi filmy type ka baccha tha” 😀
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Srinivas R
January 26, 2016
“If a man/woman stays in a marriage (or a monogamous relationship) it is his will to do so. It is his love for his wife/her husband, for the child, for the family unit as a whole.”
Strongly disagree. Every person’s life is different, why he or she stays in a relationship( married or not) is very personal question and there is no thumb rule to govern it. I know at least a few cases where the society, the lack of choice etc. has kept the marriage going. I know an old aunt of mine who shared in a matter of fact manner that she would have run away from her marriage long back,if only she was educated and had a means for livelihood. This situation quite true for many women of the older generation, me thinks
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pdg
January 26, 2016
Venkatesh is bit of a Rajini partisan. I was shocked to hear KS Ravikumar in bosskey completely disowning Neelambari character and in fact, calling it solely Rajini’s creation. Vasu has claimed Rajini handpicked Mannan as a remake subject. Rajini is bit of a misogynistic prick. 🙂
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MANK
January 26, 2016
Actually marriage itself is artificial, isnt it. Humans, I think, are a polygamous species
Tonks, finally something I can relate to on this thread.agree with you wholeheartedly. I was all at sea trying to understand much of what was said here. Feminism and English grammar, very much my weak points
Not at all surprised by the length of the thread, now that Punee has made her entry. From my Bajirao experience, I can say that she can turn even a short story into an epic. Whether off topic or on topic. Now that’s a sincere compliment 🙂
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tonks
January 26, 2016
I feel like Captain Bluntschli talking to Raina Petkoff 😨
Punee, your way of thinking and attitude is too different from mine, almost alien, and too fixed, for me to even try to explain/ convince and anyway, I was half in jest. I do not want the discussion to end in bad feelings so lets agree to disagree 🙂 ? Please 🙂
Sigh. I badly need BR blog deaddiction tips.
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Iswarya
January 26, 2016
My comments have been disappearing repeatedly for the last two days due to some network glitch on my smartphone! About 5 comments (both short and long ones) lost in the process. Wanted to plunge in even when the “childish vs. child-like” issue was going on, but didn’t feel like retyping everything that was lost.
Punee: I also disagree that in this day and age it is possible for society to “impose” anything on a good man (or woman)
Yours must be truly a rosy, idyllic world and I can see why that description of ‘child-like’ does you justice. I know personally some very ‘good’ people who live right now and here forced to stay in marriages that put them in almost mortal danger frequently (due to physical and mental abuse). And no, divorce isn’t easy for everyone: not because they are too weak to walk out, or fear some general social disapproval or due to financial dependence. Our justice system can be seriously cruel even to the best of people.
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Sutheesh Kumar. P. S.
January 26, 2016
This thread has gradually transmutated into an autobiographical one for several of the commenters here, don’t get me wrong, all i’m saying is that it takes great courage to be this candid on a forum full of people you have not met. BRAVO.
Tonks and Punee, i agree with both of you because humans are capable of both, this Jekyll and Hyde characteristic is what is so unique about us. The vacillation is determined by influences, circumstances and a lot of other intangible factors. So any debate on this is futile. So why don’t we just agree that it’s a case of ”to each his own”. Love, Marriage,Religion, Politics and whole gamut of other sensitive topics should remain a personal choice where one shouldn’t feel the need to vindicate one’s own belief. Peace.
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Karthik
January 26, 2016
I’m having trouble understanding the “unnaturality” of that which is socially sanctioned. Isnt society a creation of human beings? If it is natural for a bird to build a physical structure to protect its eggs from weather and predators, why is it not natural for humans to create a social structure to protect against the perils of polygamy (assuming they exist)?
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eenup
January 26, 2016
There is definite clique here and they pack up together with a pack leader in warrier estyle, towards all they conceive as challenging their writing skills or whatever self-entitled authority and set ideas they possess. You can see it by number of “dislikes” I get anonymously from my comment.
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Shalini
January 26, 2016
“I detest and abhor those who are/stay married for the sake of it, where they just tolerate each other- ruining their children and their own lives in the process.”
@Punee – You have very strong opinions on matters you don’t have experience in, don’t you? How childlike. 😀 As a thought exercise imagine that people have reasons for behaving as they do that may be anathema to you, but perfectly concordant with their own values, needs and circumstances.
I’ve been very happily married to the man of my choice for almost 15 years, but there are days/weeks/months when tolerance is about all I can muster for him/our marriage. I guess I should file for divorce the next time I hit a cranky patch because Punee wouldn’t approve of my staying put. 😀
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eenup
January 26, 2016
And to the person whose kid(s) want them to be taken to starbucks during a blizzard: THAT is not childlike or childish. There are some lines that cross even childishness. That is called spoiled child(ren) with manipulative behaviourial strategies learnt from parents who are careless and keep throwing such treats like expensive drinks from expensive stores where a choclate syrup or power is available in grocery stories for a fraction of price. Parent counseling session in immediate need.
A childlike person is someone who cannot manipulate, who is innocent, gullible and has no agenda.
Childishness is lack of maturity and possibly behaviour patterns e.g. a clique ganging up on a comment(ator) in vicious manner to prove their “superiority” in a virtual world.
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brangan
January 26, 2016
Ram Murali: SNSM is a kind of a great film for me. Very problematic film and theme. Characters that keep gnawing at you through various stages of life. Every time I watch it, I watch it through new eyes, because I am older and increasingly less black-and-white about these things.\
Sirai – okayish film. Pudhiya Paadhai is misogynistic garbage.
Wrote about SNSM here:
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Punee
January 26, 2016
@Shalini: I am an atheist and I really don’t know who appointed me preist or god that my opinion should matter to you. Why does my abhorrence of a certain kind of marriage matter in your world? Jeez 🙂 I certainly couldn’t care less about the opinions of others, especially those I meet on the interwebz when it comes to leading my personal life. We debate, we agree, we disagree (most times) and that is that. Your thought exercise is exactly how I live my life. One doesn’t need the approbation of anyone.
@tonks: Agree to disagree indeed. Thanks for providing me a counterpoint. I loved that comment of mine a lot and have saved it for future use and refinement.
@eenup: Thanks for the interesting comments though I think one should refrain from criticizing another’s child. Highly personal to do so.
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Punee
January 26, 2016
@Anu: “They are one and the same in my dictionary.”
It is a highly subjective viewpoint that marriage/love/monogamy are one and the same to me. Of course monogamy without marriage is considered equivalent to marriage for all practical purposes by the Indian Courts, but that is a different matter and not my source for the idea as such.
I am an idealistic person, a romantic person and as such my thoughts on these matter might cause dissonance to other people but not to me. I know people who were in love and who couldn’t get married for x.y.z reason and in my eyes their prior love is more valid than their current marriage. And I know loving monogamists who suffer in the name of society due to being unmarried but love each other with a passion I have rarely seen outside of movies. I have seen people separated by geography, meeting each other once a year or once in two years- in beautiful marriages.
@Iswarya: I know battered women/men in bad relationships, but I don’t think they are staying there due to society, it is a child, or some financial difficulty that is forcing them to do so. They would leave in a jiffy if they had been equipped by their parents with a college degree or a job outside the family business- which enabled them to live the life they deserved.
Its quite fantastic that you think my life is rosy just because my views indicate a somewhat romantic, idealistic nature 🙂
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Punee
January 26, 2016
@Anu:
” Love can happen with or without marriage, and so can marriage exist, with or without love. (Mutual ‘Like’ and ‘respect’ have fuelled many a successful marriage, without ruining any lives.) And monogamy, even sexual monogamy, has nothing to do with either love or marriage. You can have that, without either of the others.”
You seem to treat love as some sort of mathematical formula, 1+3=4, 2+2 is also = 4 and 2*2 is also equal to 4. But that is precisely not what I am speaking of. I am not speaking of what is “possible”. It is possible for people to marry their dogs too, like the old rich lady who married her dog and bequeathed her millions to him once she was dead.
The possible is not the ideal. And what “can” exist is not what love is about, it is about what one strives to make possible, like youngsters under Khap Panchayats who attempt to love despite having the kind of strife that is unimaginable to a city bred person like me (or most others on this thread).
To quote Spike (from Buffy The Vampire Slayer):
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Iswarya
January 26, 2016
I know battered women/men in bad relationships, but I don’t think they are staying there due to society, it is a child, or some financial difficulty that is forcing them to do so. They would leave in a jiffy if they had been equipped by their parents with a college degree or a job outside the family business- which enabled them to live the life they deserved.
I mentioned “good” people whom I know who are stuck in dangerous marriages. This was in response to your general opinion about what could happen in this day and age. I clarified that their being stuck in such marriages has nothing to do with their level of education, financial dependence, lack of courage and so on. I even hinted that it had something to do with an insane legal system.
In response to this, you bring up people you know who ‘would’ walk out, if only, etc. Clearly, this is hypothetical. When pitting real vs. hypothetical cases, there can be no argument made. Additionally, the people you talk about are clearly different from the ones I’m discussing. My idea was to offer an exception to your generalised view. But as I said earlier, these are real people whose privacy I cannot compromise by elaborating anything more about their circumstances.
In any case, this conversation will not make much sense any longer when we’re clearly talking about different people with different situations. Anyway, my takeaway from this is that I have met one more person who still holds a pretty romantic view of the world which, alas, (prematurely) old and cynical people like me have been forced to leave behind in their mid-teens. Thank you for that. Peace.
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apex
January 26, 2016
@ Punee: u r one-woman army, buddy hahaha
@ Aishwarya: u hav a point there (or 2)…
@ Anu: “I laud your support for Punee. You can do that, surely…”
Oh ok, so I will ‘support’ u also intermittently 🙂
Btw u write well & some of your points were educational (2me) …ta
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
January 26, 2016
pdg: Which Venkatesh are you referring to?
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apex
January 26, 2016
@ eenup: good one about the ‘clique’…
But that’s beside the point — well u made me roflol here
“And to the person whose kid(s) want them to be taken to starbucks during a blizzard: THAT is not childlike or childish. There are some lines that cross even childishness. That is called spoiled child(ren) with manipulative behaviourial strategies learnt from parents who are careless and keep throwing such treats like expensive drinks from expensive stores where a choclate syrup or power is available in grocery stories for a fraction of price. Parent counseling session in immediate need.”
Can guess what will u say bout grown up kids (like me) tho …. 🙂
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Rahini David
January 26, 2016
eenup Did you say “You can see it by number of “dislikes” I get anonymously from my comment” in your first comment in this thread? And you say such naughty things about Shalini auntie’s son. Tut Tut.
Sock puppeteering isn’t a rare art. But sadly you could not pull it off. But of course darling, I find your lack of guile absolutely adorable. ❤
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Arjun
January 26, 2016
@Rahini
Did you just call shalini an aunty. Seriously? 😉
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Anu Warrier
January 26, 2016
@Punee, and in my eyes their prior love is more valid than their current marriage.
Who on earth gave you the right to decide for someone else how valid their current relationship is? What on earth makes you think that humans can only love one person in their lifetimes? Or that one ‘love’ is purer or truer than the others? I’m gobsmacked by the arrogance of that view.
Re: Love as a mathematical formula, I present not it as such. What is ‘possible’ may not be ideal, but it also might. Neither you nor I can decide for someone else what is ‘ideal’ for them. (And did you really bring in the idea of a woman marrying her dog to bolster your argument?)
I find your ‘child-like’ enthusiasm very rigid in its idea (or ideals). The Bard said it better than I could: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
enup – I don’t know if you deliberately misspelled ‘warrier’ or not, but I’m no pack leader, nor am I leading a ‘vicious attack’ against anyone. If disagreeing with a particular comment is a ‘vicious attack’, then I’m sorry, no one should be commenting. Because you’re given no written guarantee that every person who is responding to your comment will agree with you on all occasions.
And oh, the irony of personally (and quite viciously) attacking a commenter (and her son, who didn’t comment here) for ‘viciously attacking’ a commenter simply by disagreeing with her!
Rahini: Sock puppeteering isn’t a rare art.
That’s the first thing that occurred to me. 🙂 I’ve been trying to figure out who, though.
Tonks: I hear you, sister! 🙂
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Punee
January 26, 2016
@apex: Why do you think I like Mastani so much?
@Iswarya: I wish the best for people stuck in truly terrible situations due to the screwed up legal system, I can’t even imagine the horrors they must go through- I apologize if anything I said seemed to minimize or erase their troubles or travails. I had no intention of doing anything except see the good in people, even those stuck in bad situations. If that makes me a teenager in your eyes, well, its not something new to my ears…
@Rahini: I am quite uncomfortable by the things said about Shalini’s child too. This seems to be turning ugly 😦 It’s upsetting 😦
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ThouShaltNot
January 26, 2016
even the lapses into “the poetic” didn’t stick out as much as in, say, Mudhal Mariyadhai, because the Nizhalgal Ravi character is a Tamil vaathi, and he could behave that way
Mudhal Mariyaadhai getting short shrift? Got to respond 🙂 This one IMO will find mention among the top Tamil movies, at the very least for its unconventional story. Also, one of those instances where a tyro in the “acting” department surpassed a stalwart. The movie riled the conservative populace of the state, but gained grudging acceptance once people realized there was nothing crass in it. My comment here is about a beautiful song from the movie, titled “Poonkaathu Thirumbumaa”. Vairamuthu, the lyric writer for the film, who until then had shown flashes of brilliance, surpassed himself with this song and it will remain one of his crowning achievements. Credit for the film version of the song should go to many more, but he gets the lion’s share.
A man’s aching heart seeks solace for his desolation. He turns his woes into a song hoping someone would respond. Does his soul find the comfort and consolation it yearns? Turns out the antidote for his angst comes from a woman much younger than him. This compassionate village belle, full of wisdom, becomes the elder man’s companion.
Here are some noteworthy lines from the song, a spell-binding, plaintive number
M: “Poonkaathu thirumbumaa, yen paata virumbumaa,
paaraatta, madiyil vachu thaalaata
yenakoru thaai madi kidaikumaa”
W: “Raasaavae varuththama,aagaayam surungumaa,
yengaadhae, adha olagam thaangaadhae,
adukkumaa sooriyan karukkumaa”
M: “Enna solluven ennullam thaangala, meththa vaangina en thookkatha vaangala”
W: “Indha vedhana yaarukkuththaan illa, unna meeravae oorukkul aal illa”
M: “Yedho en paattukku naan paattu paadi, sollaadha sOgatha sonnaen adi”
W: “Soga raagam, sOgamdhanae”
M: “poonguyil yaaradhu”
W: “konjam paarunga pen kuyil naanunga”
M: “Adi needhaanaa andhak kuyil yaar veettu sondhak kuyil,
aaththaadi, manasukkulla kaaththaadi,
parandhadhae, olagamae marandhadhae”
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Sutheesh Kumar. P. S.
January 26, 2016
Eenup, no offence but are you by any chance Surya’s character from Pasanga 2?
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brangan
January 26, 2016
ThouShaltNot: By “poetic,” I did not mean the poetry/lyrics — or the music, which is beyond divine.
I take severe objection to your contention that VM “until then had shown flashes of brilliance” — but I don’t have the energy to retaliate now and you shall live to see another day 😛
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Rahini David
January 26, 2016
Arjun: Oh by Eenup’s standards we are all ancient. He/she is a wee little one you see?
Nice name though, don’t you agree? Reminds me of someone.
I will get back to the adults later regarding Azhagan and Magalir Mattum.
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Ram Murali
January 26, 2016
@brangan – thx for the response re: Sirai, SNSM and PP…
I read your SNSM write-up. One line stood out – ” Still, I’d wager Sila Nerangalil Sila Manidhargal is the best of the author’s work that made it to film, and arguably Tamil cinema’s finest literary adaptation of our time, at least till Thi. Janakiraman’s Mogamul found itself on screens.”
–> Raja’s music and Archana Joglekar’s performance in MogamuL were unforgettable… don’t you think that it’s Gnana Rajasekaran’s best work till date?
Re: PP being “misogynistic garbage,” I’d love to hear more but since you already gave me the 1-line review I asked for, I will save this conversation for later unless of course, you’d like to elaborate.
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Anu Warrier
January 26, 2016
Rahini – Oh, oh, oh! 🙂 Smacks head in exasperation! I should have guessed!
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Punee
January 26, 2016
I just realized what you are doing “Eenup”. This is disgusting. You had better stop if you have any self-respect.
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George
January 26, 2016
It’s wrong to disclose intimate details of your spouse or child on a public blog like this. You will get burnt. No use blaming others. it is your job to be careful
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brangan
January 26, 2016
Just wanted to clarify that “eenup” and “punee” are two different people (based on their IP addresses).
It would be good if commenters could give others the benefit of the doubt in such matters, as it’s not always possible for me to be eagle-eyed (given the volume of comments).
Thanks.
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Punee
January 26, 2016
Thanks so very much BR for confirming this. I was close to tears when I realized (quite late) the kind of insinuations that were going on.
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Punee
January 26, 2016
@Anu: Just for the record, we all are judging love and its varied choices and ideals here. I don’t presume to question your right to your judgement of me or other people. Why do you question mine? Because they are different from yours? If my rigidity matched yours would you be ok with it?
If I am being arrogant and sticking to my opinions so is everyone else on this thread and in this world.
Despite that I don’t think you were being “vicious”. I don’t think that of anyone JFTR. People do get passionate and aggressive when they are debating and exchanging views- “Eenup” has tried to create a malicious environment which slurs me out here. Who knows how far this would have gone if BR had not confirmed the IP address bit 😦
I am quite disappointed
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Sutheesh Kumar. P. S.
January 27, 2016
Thanks BR for clearing this confusion, i was beginning to think there is an Anniyan among our midst.
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Shalini
January 27, 2016
Whoa, things got tense in a hurry here. 😦
@Punee – I didn’t for a moment think you were posting as “eenup” and am sorry you were tarred by someone else’s actions. We occupy different solar-systems of thought but that’s an intellectual disagreement, not personal. Besides, anyone who quotes from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is alright in my book. 🙂
Now please excuse me while I go weep because Rahini outed me as an auntie. 😀
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Rahini David
January 27, 2016
Punee: I am sorry. I did not mean to hurt you. Circumstantial evidence just were stacked against you. But there is one thing in your favour. No one chooses their own name spelt backwards to sock puppet. 😀
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Punee
January 27, 2016
@Shalini: Thanks muchly for your kind words. I have been working out like the devil at the gym all morning in order to get this out of my mind. Nothing has upset me as much as this incident, more so the reactions of people, and the automatic jumping to conclusions. Its shocking. I staved off the idea of opening the page all day because I didn’t want to see if worse things were written.
I am really glad that at least YOU didn’t think I was behind those horrid comments. I have enough manners to never comment on someone personally, especially an innocent child.
Also Buffy Rules.
@Rahini: What circumstantial evidence pray? For Christ’s sake, you don’t even know me, this is an online forum that I have become active on since a month at max. Even so, I have been saying whatever I wanted to publicly, facing multiple debaters at a time. I may be a lot of things, but I am no coward.
I am not in a forgiving mood after the kind of things you said yesterday, and it was not just what you said, but how you said it. Sorry.
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newbie
January 27, 2016
Rahini – glad that you enjoyed my Roja related comments..
punee – Don’t have a wordpress ID so cannot ‘Like’ comments yet, but just wanted to say I am with @Shalini too in that I absolutely didn’t think you had anything to do ‘eenup’ who seems to a troll. To paraphrase someone, social media can be many useful things but it can also be an amplifier of acrimony sometimes. (Also if its any consolation, in my experience, its quite rare for moderator-confirmed-clarification and apologies to float around so soon) Hope it doesn’t put you off against debating in the future.
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ThouShaltNot
January 27, 2016
Punee, I don’t like to comment on these sorts of things, but if it is any consolation, I will make an exception here. I did not misread the situation either. You writings here sound very earnest and forthright for you to have resorted to such shenanigans (of concurrently having 2 diametrically opposite views on the issue of slamming people’s kids). Unpersuadable, yes, but I am that way on a whole lot of other issues (as BR would have found if he got to throwing the kitchen sink at me on the VM issue 🙂 ). Cheer up!
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MANK
January 27, 2016
Rahini, you have always been such a fair person and arguably the best commenter here 🙂 I think those insinuations should have been avoided. It was so unlike you. This is a free for all cyberspace. Anybody can take any Moniker in these parts. I mean if tomorrow somebody takes KNAM as moniker and goes around bashing everybody else and their kids and their pets, there is precious little i can do, except to hope that He\she has a better grasp of english grammar so that i can out them 🙂
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MANK
January 27, 2016
Punee: I have been saying whatever I wanted to publicly, facing multiple debaters at a time. I may be a lot of things, but I am no coward.
Punee, chin up gal. so sorry this happened to you. I never seem to agree with you on any of your views, but the above one, i absolutely agree with. i mean, Who has been at the receiving end of your courage on this blog more than me , eh? 🙂 i never for a moment doubted that you needed a ventriloquist dummy to say what you want to say.
I have been working out like the devil at the gym all morning
Aah there now, Health concious eh, so that is one more reason to like you 😀
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Anu Warrier
January 27, 2016
Just checked the comments now, and thanks, BR, for clearing things up.
Punee, I owe you an apology for thinking eenup was you for one minute. I still feel he/she is a someone I have read here before, but as I said in my first post, I can’t think who. So when another poster suggested your name, I jumped right into conclusion land. As you can see, that’s just left me with mud on my face. Mea Culpa. I’m truly sorry.
I will say one last thing – you initially made a few statements as universal truths. Not as your views, particularly. And I, and others, were pointing out that that is not true. It was that rigidity of stance that I was questioning. Not how you live your life, or what you think about it.
So when you make blanket statements about something, yes, there will be pushback. As I said on the Bajirao thread, you are an extremely passionate young woman, and you did make me see your viewpoint there through your eyes. I may still not agree with what you say/said, but I can appreciate the passion that makes you feel that way.
But, without any equivocation, let me say, I’m sorry.
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Iswarya
January 27, 2016
Anu, Rahini: I too felt that some kind of sock-puppeteering was taking place, though I did not think it was Punee doing it. In fact, I initially thought it was someone who wanted to ‘impress’ Punee by coming to her defence. Then, of course, it became ugly and personal and I could no longer feel sure whom to suspect. I agree with Anu that the troll who was using that name definitely isn’t someone totally new to the thread. It’s probably someone who has already been commenting here (which is the only thing that can account for ‘dislikes’ to previous comments being mentioned there – unless it’s a much more calculated act of malice).
Punee: This is usually a really nice, welcoming place and your experience is anything but typical, especially for someone who’s been around here for just about a month. But then, I hear you on your morning being ruined. We’ve all faced a little unpleasantness and personal attacks some time or the other, even in this most civil of blog spaces.
Anyway, since you seem be to such a dewy-eyed romantic, I hope you will not let this dampen your spirits too much. (BTW, to avoid any misreading again – that was an absolutely sincere compliment. Here’s a smiley to prove that!) 🙂
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Ram Murali
January 27, 2016
Punee – I feel truly sorry for how the whole “eenup” episode has made you feel. It was truly unfortunate. I sincerely hope that you don’t let that come in the way of you commenting. The passion that you exhibit in your comments is definitely praiseworthy. Even though I may not agree with several things that you say, it is out of respect for the way you make your points that I have not posted my own diametrically opposite views just because sometimes I enjoy listening more than speaking. (Or rather, reading comments more than writing my own.)
All – I feel like a broken record. But I will say – yet again – that the online environment is a true privilege that we have. Otherwise, how would I, sitting in cold, snowy Pennsylvania, be able to ‘converse’ with people in India, Singapore, etc. I really hope that all of us are extra careful with our words, esp. when we start to make comments about a person instead of a topic. I really feel like we can enjoy this place a lot more if we debate about issues without passing judgment or assuming negative stuff about anyone.
As our KB famously wrote, “Iniki seththa naalaiku paal. Life is short!”
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tonks
January 27, 2016
I’ve been active here for only just below a year but I whole heartedly agree with Iswarya that this blog has been, in my experience, a very welcoming place with intelligent, informed commenters who are usually very polite to each other, so much so that you hardly feel you are in a public space. It was a little upsetting to see things take a bit of an ugly turn there. I too thought at first that it was someone trying to impress Punee, until the maliciousness of the person choosing that particular name was brought up. I’m sorry it happened to you, Punee, and I hope it will not dampen you for long.
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Punee
January 27, 2016
@newbie & @ThouShaltNot: Thank you. You needn’t have. I appreciate it. I really do.
@MANK: Thank you for being on “my side” this once 🙂 My morning was so ruined and I was so upset (have never faced the “bad” side of the internwebz before to this degree) that the sweet techies I work for offered to hack “eenup” and make his/her life miserable. I thought the gym and really killing it there was a better way to vent out my anger. I usually go there for an hour, but was there for about two today. Come and hang out anytime 🙂 That is if you are in Bangalore.
@Anu: As a fellow editor, the very least I expected of you was to notice that there were way to many dangling participles and missing articles in the comments of “eenup” for it to be me. But I thank you for your apology all the same.
@Iswarya: Yes, I have somewhat returned to my “Life is Beautiful” mode. Slowly getting out of my Uma Thurman in Kill Bill mode.
I would like to thank apex in particular, his comment about being as childish as Shalini’s son was about the only thing what made me laugh and gave me perspective. ❤
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Rahini David
January 27, 2016
MANK: Yesterday some one called Venkatesh a rajini partisan and that too soon after gabtun and I gamely decided to do our sparing another day. I do know that there isn’t much I can do to prove to him that I didn’t do it that I don’t do it. I noticed the possibility immediately.
I noticed that eenup was punee spelt backwards almost immediately. Everyone else here are just more trusting people here. I guess skepticism is just as inborn as childlikeness and some people just are.
I did certainly consider all these points. That someone was framing her, and that someone was impressing her etc. I did keep away from commenting and then a certain something triggered in me to write that. It may have a lot to do with personal prejudice to certain comments made here. I am sorry I did that. 😦
Gabtun: It wasn’t me, dude. I swear. You believe me right? 🙂
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Anu Warrier
January 27, 2016
Punee, the point about having/being a sock puppet is that you (general ‘you’) write in a completely different way from your usual style. So as to make others think you are a completely different person. Anyway, I obviously jumped to conclusions, and there’s a lesson to be learned there. I’m a quick study. 🙂
Thank you for being gracious about my error.
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Punee
January 27, 2016
@Ram Murali: I must start with saying that I love your name. A perfect combo of my two favorite mythological characters. And thank you. I appreciate your kindness. I also would ask you to not hold back on your views. What is the fun of a debate without unbendingly opposite views- that is the true nature of jousting- isn’t it? 🙂
@tonks: Thank you. The thing about being child-like is that now that my name is cleared my mood has improved and I am right as rain again. Quite a few people seem to share your thought that “eenup” was trying to impress me. If so, it was a pathetic attempt. For future reference, anyone wanting to impress me just needs to take cues from “apex”. He won me over in nary an instant.
@Anu: ah, I am not familiar with the ways of the internet outside of Facebook/Twitter/Tinder so I had no idea what was going on. Thanks again. And no worries, your erudite apology more than made up for any jumping to conclusions- it seemed to me that you were truly sorry (and you made no excuses for yourself), and I can take that at face value. I enjoyed our jousting honestly and would be glad to do so again the next time the opportunity arises.
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Punee
January 27, 2016
Thanks all, from feeling like a rank outsider, I kinda feel I went through my trial by fire and have earned my stripes. I am quite overwhelmed with all the kindness and genuine empathy by the regulars on this page starting with BR who took the time to clear my name (and reply to my email requesting him to do so).
I found this funny thingie on Facebook and would like to share it here, hope it elicits some laughs and changes the sombre mood.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CZbk5-nUAAACsuo.jpg:large
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Ram Murali
January 27, 2016
Punee – thanks for your kind words. You wrote, “What is the fun of a debate without unbendingly opposite views?” The truth is that I don’t come to this blog for a debate. I express my views and more importantly, drink in all those rich perspectives that I can get from all commenters. When I was much younger, I used to argue, bicker and fight passionately with my friends about movies and movie stars. But over the past few years as more and more blogs have come up and since I write as well, I feel like I enjoy the listening/reading part as much and so, I don’t really go about arguing passionately. I am certainly not saying that you (or anyone else here) shouldn’t. It can be fun. But sometimes it can get out of hand (and unpredictably so) and so, I’d rather express my views, ask questions and see if I can get interesting responses.
For instance, I absolutely love Parthiban’s “Pudhiya Paadhai.” I wrote an article on Parthiban a while ago and here’s what I wrote about the movie – “Making his debut as an actor, writer and director, Parthiban did not just make a splash with his effort. Instead, he redefined the rules for jumping into the water. “Pudhiya Paadhai,” for whatever flaws it may have, is a raw, bold and beautiful piece of cinema. Every line of dialogue uttered by Parthiban in the movie is as bold as bold is. After writing a script that sparkled with wit, raw emotion and inimitable play of words, Parthiban the actor added even more weight to the controversial subject with his acting which again was raw, rough around the edges, yet hit you in the face with punches so hard that it hurts (for the right reasons) even 25 years after the movie was first made.”
Recently, I asked BR what he thought of the movie and he called it “misogynistic garbage” :)) Did I agree? Of course not! But I didn’t feel the need to tell BR that I disagreed with him vehemently. What am I going to get out of that. I doubt if BR would really have the time to explain further or if needed, argue. And, it’s not even as though the movie released yesterday and I am trying to explain my stance like you did so passionately with your comments on Bajirao Mastani! I would get a greater kick out of BR explaining his stance (if he finds the time) and then I’d just smile to myself as to how varied reactions to the exact same piece of art could be!
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
January 27, 2016
Venkatesh is bit of a Rajini partisan
Rahini David: Even Einstein/Kamaraj/Kalam had haters. Doesn’t matter even if it were you. No, I wouldn’t mind at all. I’m not that emotional. 🙂
As always, I’m open for a debate with anyone.
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Punee
January 27, 2016
@Ram Murali: Oh, I didn’t know you noticed my comments on Bajirao Mastani, guess nothing goes past the regulars here 🙂 That movie is a once in a lifetime experience for me, I even made drastic changes in my life because of it. It changed me- and knowing me I know what a task that is. I don’t know if I will ever be in a position to be so passionate about a movie again.
I think your perspective on “debates” as such is interesting, and I will now eagerly look forward to your comments. And I have already started reading your blog 🙂
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Iswarya
January 28, 2016
Ram Murali: That was such a measured and sober comment about drastically differing perspectives and why listening could be much better than talking! Being used to your Crazy-brand humour, I felt this comment revealed a delightfully different facet of you! With all this, why do you still have those anonymous dislikers’ band here? 😉 (My own conspiracy theory I told you about aligns with Rahini’s speculation that you must have mightily annoyed some overly sensitive person long ago and must be reaping the rewards ever since.)
Punee: If you’re unused to web forums and the attacks that can happen there, especially if you think this particular episode felt like a trial by fire, well, well, I’ve got just one word for you: Rediff! 😀 (I guess I’ve now joined the long list of people whom you said were wishing for bad things to happen to you to disillusion you – though I bet that’s not my intention at all! Actually just browsing through some of those comments might give you a fair idea.. Go on and try.) 😉
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sutheeshkumar
January 28, 2016
Actually, when i look back there were a lot of commenters who used to comment here regularly, it is only after this new feature of dislike/downvoting was added that they stopped commenting.
BR, is it technically possible to turn this feature off? I reckon it would do a world of good. I don’t think that everyone are in the mould of a Ram Murali, Utkal Mohanty, Mank, Amit Joki who cares a hoot about the dislikes and carry on spiritedly.
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Ram Murali
January 28, 2016
Iswarya – Thank you for your kind words.
You wrote, “With all this, why do you still have those anonymous dislikers’ band here? ;)”
–> LOL! I have been trying to not pay too much attention to those thumbs downs ever since I wrote those comments (about these thumbs downs) around New year’s and got reassuring responses from quite a few of you… but as I said earlier, Azhwarpet-la irukara ennode 80 vayasu Padma paati mela promise, I don’t think I have said anything offensive to anyone I don’t know personally :)) And the ones that know me personally love venting to me in person so, they wouldn’t bother with these anonymous thumbs down symbols! Then again, I must have unwittingly pissed someone off… adhaan paavam kye valikara alavuku thumbs down kaatraange pa…
adhuvum indha comment-ku 3 dislike-a? Apdi ena naan solliteno!
“And, lest there maybe any confusion, I have always commented here as Ram Murali. Rm is a different person :)”
You wrote, “My own conspiracy theory I told you about aligns with Rahini’s speculation that you must have mightily annoyed some overly sensitive person long ago and must be reaping the rewards ever since.”
–> I will just channel PKS Kamal and say, “Naan kolaikave illa ba aanalum yaaro enaala aNaai (annoy) aaytango!”
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Punee
January 28, 2016
@Iswarya: Haha! I am afraid I will never wade into the muck of reddit or 4chan for the sake of my own mental health.
I have been following BR’s column from exactly two years ago (when Ram Leela released I remember) and it seemed so homely and nice and very much like Facebook where everyone knows everyone else so I didn’t mind putting out my real identity (finally just a month ago!) and engaging like I would with friends- that is why I was in shock. Because friends don’t speak like this, don’t treat you like this, do they?
I don’t at all think you are wishing ill will upon me, since I don’t believe in such things (atheist in every sense of the word) 🙂 And even the people I spoke of earlier who say these things are my friends, who worry for me and think that maybe if I were more “adult” I would better protected against the vagaries of life….
As for bad things, I just want to make clear that a lot of them, unimaginably bad things have happened to me. Unlike what some may think- childlike earnestness and a positive, romantic, happy attitude is not something you are just born with, it is something you work towards safeguarding. True benevolence is not pure luck, its a science, an art- and I have worked toward not become negative due to these bad things whether small- someone stealing my money on a train, or large- the death of my father at a very young age.
Its easy to be negative and have a “chalta hai” attitude and forget the idealistic dreams of childhood- its more difficult to hold on to them and achieve them and I choose to do the latter.
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MANK
January 28, 2016
Punee, that’s the spirit girl. I have to say i never met a girl who is more passionately volatile as you are – who goes from rain to sunshine and back in such a jiffy – in real or cyberspace. One moment you suspect we are all out to bury you, the next moment you love us so much that you started reading everybody’s blog eh? just kidding 🙂 Your passionate spirit is an absolute turn on for die hard cynics like me. But i hope you protect yourself, you know in this world you are bound to get hurt real badly. oh and Thanks for the invite. i thought you stay in mumbai. i remember vaguely you mentioning something about watching Bajirao there. i may be mistaken. i have been briefly to your blog. it was a surreal experience to see what you do- Translate hindi songs into English-, i was quite taken aback by some of the meanings of the songs you know that i thought never existed. quite a hobby 🙂 No, i am not from – But i do shoot in and out occasionally – Bangalore. I got relatives there. so next time we might hang out at your gym. But beware, i am much less charming and handsome in person ok, so brace yourself 😀
And in return for your Nihilistic passwords, here is something about your king Ranveer that you gonna like and for solemn reassurance that chhete ki chal, baaz ki nazar, Ranveer ki talvaar aur puneeta ke zabaan par hum kabhi sandeh nahin karenge,…har har mahadev…
http://www.desiblitz.com/content/10-reasons-love-ranveer-singh
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Rahini David
January 28, 2016
Punee: I guess that I did think that my Eenup/Punee prediction can have only a 50% accuracy at best, but never did I think it will hurt your feelings sooo badly. I skimmed BMastani thread without THAT much interest and may have guessed that you will feel extremely strongly for such things if I had paid attention. I play about 2 hours of Clash of Clans a day and belong to a clan of 15 teenage/pre-teen boys. And I suppose I carried over a certain teenage irreverence they have taught me over the past 6 months to this predominantly adult thread.
If Gabtun himself had accused me of sock-puppeting. I would have reacted with a giant shrug at best. I admit that I should not expect that same out of emotional people. I did not mean to hurt you and certainly not to the this extent. I am extremely sorry.
Gabtun: You rock, dude.
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tonks
January 28, 2016
I loved your comment about debating, Ram Murali, and that’s how I feel mostly. Each of us may have a different perspective about every single thing and there is no point, in defending to the point of acrimony, things which maybe totally personal : every one is entitled to their own opinion. Its nice to hear others’ perspectives though, and to hear others debate and in time, it slowly sometimes even modifies your own (and its one of the things that has me hooked to this blog’s comment section). Like for instance, I had a fairly rigid view earlier against showing characters who are chauvinistic in movies, that was one thing that I disliked in Drishyam, but after reading the comments section under the movie, I realised that there is nothing wrong in depicting a character like that (because of course we all know people like that) and the slight chauvinism in the earlier scenes even adds to the believability of the character’s macho, cave-man response of single handedly protecting his wife and daughters from danger later.
Also, anyone : I enjoy Tamil songs with poetic lyrics, but havent heard many (especially outside the ARR hits collection). Some gems were posted in that earlier thread about Thathuva paadal. But I’m hungry for more. I was checking out some of Vairamuthu’s songs online but I realise they are not all good (the ones I heard randomly were one, an absolute copy of Marley’s Buffalo soldier with average lyrics and another about someone hitting sixers and centuries and the lyrics contained mostly names of cricketers like Ganguly and Sachin 😕 ) Is there any earlier link/ discussion here on the best of Vairamuthu? Which would be the Tamil songs with the best, most poetic lyrics?
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MANK
January 28, 2016
Rahini, it is alright. we all have our good and bad days and do succumb to paranoia now and then. But you know somehow i had this image of you with a white halo of shining light around your head, of some warrior saint. St. George of hagiography, perhaps, bestride on his horse and slaying the dragons of Misogyny, sexism, and gender inequity, everytime when they raise their heads around these parts. i have tried to avoid direct engagement with you as much as possible for the fear of being slain 🙂 so i never thought you would succumb to human weaknesses like the rest of us. Anyway i hope this incident doesnt deter you or let you tone down your comments, which i very much enjoy reading. whoever that eager to please doppleganger of Punee’s was, ultimately he turned out to be good for her. she practically has all of us on our knees and eating out of her hands. so cheerio and lets get back upon that horse and continue the dragon slaying
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
January 28, 2016
While we are discussing about misogyny and stuff, has anyone come across this:
I chanced upon this one while browsing YT many years ago. I can’t understand most of the lines as they are in Malayalam. But I sense some male chauvinism here! Any help from MANK/Anu/Tonks?
Rahini: Honest Raj (or simply ‘V’enkatesh) would do. 🙂
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Rahini David
January 28, 2016
MANK: i have tried to avoid direct engagement with you as much as possible for the fear of being slain ? WOW. I thought you did not engage with me as you were this Engleesh Padam dude and would not know much of earthy tamil padams like say “Mann vasanai”. But of course, I did notice that you did not engage much with me. I mean we are the top 2 commenters here (number of comments-wise)and we hardly ever interact.
Regarding me being deterred. Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Lightnings could not. You thought a wild horse could drag me away? 😀
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apex
January 28, 2016
@ Punee —“I would like to thank apex in particular, his comment about being as childish as Shalini’s son was about the only thing what made me laugh and gave me perspective. <3”
It’s my pleasure Punee … ❤
Btw peoplez spare a thot 4 poor “eenup”. Putting my Sherlock hat on …
Actually I have no doubt from the language, writing that “eenup” is actually a girl, who’s secretly so enamoured and impressed by Punee that she adopted her name albeit in reverse. Eenups comment was also an attempt to gain our attention & tho I didn’t agree with it at all, it did make me laugh out loud at its sheer ‘intolerance of kids’ (like me) lol and that out the spotlight on her comment ….
Ok eenup: plz (zag least secretly) admit that I’ve got the psychoanalysis right? And plz come out. I promise we will protect u from attacks 🙂
Damn. Gtg bak 2 wrk but wil be bak……
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MANK
January 28, 2016
sutheeshkumar, about soldiering on , well the first time the downvotes appeared here, it was a culture shock. but i guess i got over it soon enough. I always realise the fact that when we comment here, we are immediately set up to fail. i am a movie geek and fairly individualistic in in my tastes. so downvotes dont bother me. I am more surprised with the upvotes and likes though, that somebody else would agree with my views. But more often than not, my comments doesn’t get any votes at all, either up or down, which i perfectly understand as much of them are too geeky and dont connect with the general populace.
Honest Raj, about the clip from The king, well that’s just one of those typical misogynistic scenes that are the norm of those herocentric mainstream commercial films. Actually Mammooty plays a kind of Rajni character in the film with punch dialogues and star mannerisms. hell he actually whips his hair like Rajni after delivering many of the punchlines. The scene is where asst district collector played by Vani vishwanath is dressed down by Collector Mammootty for ignoring a petition for pension from a freedom fighter. yes the lines are very chauvinistic. it ends with Mammooty calling her a slut, vani tries to slap him for that. he holds her hand and tells her that ‘i know what to do to you so that you will never ever raise this hand against a man again, but you are a girl, just a girl’ and dismisses her, that sort of stuff you know. In typical Rajni film style, she soon falls in love with him too , so you get the gist.
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MANK
January 28, 2016
Rahini, Engleesh Padam dude, that’s me for sure.:) i do watch those earthy films, but i am more of a city guy and sort of approach films more from its aesthetic and technical POV, you know. so i dont get much of those hidden nuances and meanings that you people seem to dig out regularly. Many of the the things in films which you people find reprehensible and go on a rampage about are stuff that never occur to me all. I dont really have much of a feminine sensibility i guess.
Like the Rajni-bhanupriya marriage scene in dalapati for instance, yes i did find Mammootty’s over enthusiasm to get Rajni married – to the widow against her wishes- a little creepy. But i was more looking at the larger picture. that scene connects to the opening scene in the film, where you see srividya or her 13 year self pregnant and abandoned by her lover, then this scene which i guess comes right at the interval point, where you see the widowed banupriya with child and Rajni marrying her. i see a connection there, almost oedipal in sense, which leads up to the scene where srividya finally finding about Rajni existence and she does it through Banupriya and child. It was almost as if the child is stand in for Rajni himself. Those 3 scenes are like these pieces or threads in the grand tapestry that Mani is weaving. That’s how a look at it, especially if it is a great filmmaker like Mani and whose body of work i admire. So just randomly picking out that scene and criticising it doesnt suit me. But that doesnt me that you or anybody else can’t.
So in such cases i just keep my opinions and prejudices aside and just read and listen and absorb. Anyway i dont hope to argue with you on those things and win anyway, so why try 😀
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Bayta
January 28, 2016
Tonks – For consistently excellent Tamil lyrics, you’d have to go further back than Vairamuthu to Kannadaasan. I don’t recall this Thathuva paadal discussion, but I’m sure many of his songs must’ve come up in it. As for Variamuthu, check out his collaborations with Ilayaraja and Bharathiraja. That trio produced some of the most wonderfully poetic and musically brilliant songs ever in Tamil film music. Mudhal Mariyathai, Nizhalgal, Man Vasanai..each of those soundtracks has some real gems.
Oh, also, in keeping with the rough theme of this comments thread, here’s a personal favourite of mine from the movie Avargal (pretty sure it’s a Kannadaasan song again):
BR – Thanks for alerting me to the RSS feed option for comments. Has it always been there? Haven’t used RSS feeds in a very long while, so it didn’t even occur to me to look for that (I’m usually on my phone when I visit here and the mobile page doesn’t have the sidebar). I really appreciate you remembering my request and offering this suggestion even if it seemed like no one else really cared..even got a few thumbs downs for that comment which baffles me..maybe because I said I loved the comments section more than the reviews? Glad you, at least, didn’t take that the wrong way! 🙂
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brangan
January 28, 2016
MANK: To take your point further, Bhanupriya and her daughter are the second time we see the “single woman and child” scenario,” and by marrying her (or being asked to marry her), Rajini inadvertently gives this “single woman and child” the kind of life Jaishankar gave the earlier “”single woman and child.” It’s an echo.
And the function of this second “single woman and child” is to reunite the first “single woman and child,” so it all comes full circle.
So yes, these echoes are all part of the tapestry, as you call it.
About your comment, the thing is, most people look at films emotionally. The number of viewers who look at it from a “screenplay angle” are fewer.
So you’re looking at the larger picture, you’re looking at things “cinematically.” Hence the emotional disconnect at times. Because this approach ties the loose ends in your head (the way it does in mine), there is no sense of dissatisfaction,
But for those who view this purely in emotional terms (which is most viewers), the only thing they have is the emotional response to the scene or characters, and they respond that way.
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tonks
January 28, 2016
‘V’enkatesh : Yes, dripping with misogyny and patronization of the upper class ‘society’ women. One reason I like the new gen Malayalam movies is that, despite being out of touch with reality (and perhaps precisely because of that 😉 )they do not have so much misogyny, this sort of ‘taming of the shrew’ dialogues that makes the entire theatre roar with approval and applaud. The “sense undavanam, sensibility undavanam, sensitivity undavanam!” bit of the speech is a hugely popular classic with Mammooty fans, often quoted in memes and jokes.
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tonks
January 28, 2016
Thank you Bayta 👍😃
More please, when you think of them and find time to post. You can name the movies alone if you find thinking up individual songs difficult. I spend more than an hour driving daily, and I’m always in need of good music.
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tonks
January 28, 2016
Also theres this song that I want to hear again, it has a chorus that goes :
“Atthanayum poyyaachey raasaa,
Something something something intha rosaa”
I remember the tune quite well and I think its from the nineteen nineties, at least thats when I heard it. I do not remember any of the other lyrics but the imagery I have in mind is that of a young girl walking alongside a river/? paddy field singing about her lover. The bit I remember is not enough for me to get it from google. Doesn anyone has an idea which song it is?
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Rahini David
January 28, 2016
MANK and BR: It isn’t that the large picture is lost on me. I do see where he is going with the child, the mother and all that. It is just that her voicelessness there bothers me.
Of course, 13 year old Pregnant Srividya also bothers me. But when most others see a poor pregnant girl with no one willing to see to her labour, I see a girl who was abandoned by a family for being pregnant. I see a teen begging on the streets as a fully pregnant person for months and so extremely vulnerable to more rapes and torture and no police station is a safe haven for her. In fact, a police station is even scarier than the streets to her. I see her life after she loses her first child. Where does she go? Who does she turn to? How does she meet her husband? Where does she meet him? Was she taken back into the family? What did her in-laws think about her? How much did they know about her non-virgin status? I can spend hours thinking about her alone. And by all this I don’t mean MR should not have shown a preg teen there. It does not mean that I grudge the point that from there we follow the son’s story and not the mother’s. That is the movie. That is Dhalapathy. I know. I am just saying that she remained with me for a long time. Saying that is a compliment to the writer, not an insult.
Regarding the remarriage, I again tell you, I am not questioning ManiRathnam’s decision to place the story in that way. I am not even questioning Deva’s decision there. As I say, he is a uneducated man, and it is quite possible that he takes a decision like that. You say “yes i did find Mammootty’s over enthusiasm to get Rajni married – to the widow against her wishes- a little creepy” and that is pretty much what I am saying too. That there is a creepiness quotient to it. It is not a neat solution as people sometimes see it.
And it is not just the women that I get bothered about. When I first saw the movie there was one other forgotten person whose life bothered me. The man who is expected to go and falsely admit that he commited a murder when Rajini is the real murderer. Rajini asks “Yean?”, he answers “Deva”. I am not sure if we see the scrapegoat again. Maybe he is brought out, but I am not sure. I understand the elegance of the single word question and single word answer. I undertand why it excites many. But that man’s story matters more to me than the story of the people who are deemed important. (i.e the Protogonists). But this doesn’t mean that the elegance of the Protogonist’s story is lost on me or something. It is just that that man’s fate remained with me for a long time.
And it is not randomly picking out a scene and criticising it. Seeing the story with more eyes than just the protogonists’ is something I seem to do naturally. In case of movies like Dhalapathy, the experience is enhanced because there are many stories that can be derived from it. This is probably because it is derived from an Epic. And Mahabharath is called an Epic for a reason. But a more regular “normal” tamil movie can sometimes leave me feeling dissatisfied as none of the shading/characterisation work for me.
And BTW, I don’t think people who see it the other way are wrong. 🙂
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brangan
January 28, 2016
Rahini David: Oh, it’s not wrong. It’s just a different way to analyse or get into a film.
IMO, Mammooty’s “creepiness” in that scene is part of the character. Now, you can ask “Why is only this a part of the character? Why can’t we then say Rajini’s misogyny is part of that character too?” The difference, to me, is that this is more organic, whereas with Rajini (or other heroes), this is just a “punch line” to create a dramatic high for the audience.
PS: If I sounded peevish in that comment, it’s probablty because I keep running into people who keep throwing about the terms “screenplay” and “editing” while discussing a film and then go on to show they know NOTHING about any of this. 😀
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Sutheesh Kumar. P. S.
January 28, 2016
Mank is absolutely right about that scene from King, even back then I remember being shocked to hear those cringeworthy lines being mouthed by a star of Mammooty’s stature. This trend of firebrand dialogue delivery which I find laughable, can be credited to Shaji Kailas and there were many female characters (especially working women in authoritative positions) who bore the brunt of his chauvinism.
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Sutheesh Kumar. P. S.
January 28, 2016
As for Deva and Surya, they weren’t portrayed as paragons of virtue, they were just good to each other that’s it. Fairness and nicety is not what you expect of people who resort to crime to protect their interests.
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Iswarya
January 28, 2016
Rahini:
Wow.. I bet you’d love this play “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” if you are so interested in the alternate lives of supporting characters! (Assuming, of course, that you care for the Bard’s Procrastinating Prince.)
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ramitbajaj01
January 28, 2016
As much as I love reading everybody here, I wish there was a way to keep the discussion pertinent to the topic in post only. How about a readers’ page here, where people could talk about personal stuff and/or any other topic. Or, if a topic is wide enough, it could be discussed in a separate page itself. But then that would increase the work of BR sir. So, any other option?
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
January 28, 2016
MANK: Thanks for the detailed explanation. I won’t to be too surprised if somebody says Rajini has not just spoiled the next gen. Tamil actors, but also his contemporary actors who belong to the neighbouring territories. 🙂
Re Thalapathi: Thanks BR for the ‘full circle’/’echo’ thing. In one of the scenes, when Srividya helps the slum-kids by vaccinating them a lady asks: Eppadi maa ovvoru kuzhanthai mela ivlo akkariayum paasamum? Srividya: Mathavanaga kuzhanthaiya naa paathukitta yen kuzhanthaiya yaravadhu paathupaanganu oru nambika!
I think there is a parallel between this and what you’ve said.
//And it is not just the women that I get bothered about. When I first saw the movie there was one other forgotten person whose life bothered me. The man who is expected to go and falsely admit that he commited a murder when Rajini is the real murderer. Rajini asks “Yean?”, he answers “Deva”. I am not sure if we see the scrapegoat again. Maybe he is brought out, but I am not sure. I understand the elegance of the single word question and single word answer. I undertand why it excites many. But that man’s story matters more to me than the story of the people who are deemed important. (i.e the Protogonists). But this doesn’t mean that the elegance of the Protogonist’s story is lost on me or something. It is just that that man’s fate remained with me for a long time.//
Rajini to Mammootty: Un aala ulla anuppi enna veliya konduvandhrukka?
Mammootty: Ramana senjathu thappu. Nyaym nu onnu irukku.
As BR says, these scenes tell a lot about his character!
Interestingly, there is a similar (scapegoat) scene in Nayagan, where a man (supposedly a rich guy who was benefited by Kamal previously) visits Kamal’s house in order to seek protection for his son who just made a hit-and-run. Nizhalgal Ravi comes to his rescue by making one of his henchmen as the ‘scapegoat’ and says to the man Unga paiyan naalaiku entha vitha prachanaiyum illama Dubai povaan! An elated Janagaraj says Nayakar indha edathula irundhrundha idhayae thaan panniruparu.
This bothered me for a while because Velu Nayakar is supposed to protect the poor, no?
//If I sounded peevish in that comment, it’s probably because I keep running into people who keep throwing about the terms “screenplay” and “editing” while discussing a film and then go on to show they know NOTHING about any of this. 😀 //
I cannot talk about screenplay and editing. And I don’t care when someone talks about screenplay. But surely there is a problem, for me, when they comment about editing (that too when they don’t even know the ABCs of it). Cinematography is okay because these DSLR guys assume themselves to be great cinematographers! A while ago, when everybody were bashing Vedalam, one of my friends had put up an update in FB saying that he liked the film very much (purely from an entertainment perspective) and the film is running to packed houses even during weekdays. One of his friends (a non-mutual one) said, I didn’t like the film because of ‘Poor screenplay and editing’. 🙂
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Ram Murali
January 28, 2016
About your comment, the thing is, most people look at films emotionally. The number of viewers who look at it from a “screenplay angle” are fewer.
–> I think that this is a point that I had raised in an earlier post as well when there was a discussion on “Iruvar.” I had cited a Rajiv Menon interview where he said something that fascinated me:
“The film was too detached. Mani did not cry when MGR died, that shows in the film. He has taken a film in an impassioned, detached kind of manner. That’s why I said, you cannot make any kind of film in India. You have to make a film which should make people cry and laugh about. That’s the only mistake. I think it (Iruvar) is marvelously written. Some of the scenes in the film are much better than all his other films.”
I think that to look at a “screenplay angle,” subtext or looking at how say the cinematic tropes make a scene special requires a bit of investment of time and the interest to learn about movie making from literature or deeper discussions (that are lucid of course to the lay person) with filmmakers. Which is why – no flattery intended – I find CWMR to be a seminal work of movie literature, one that has made me appreciate a movie beyond just its apparent emotional core.
My favorite example from Iruvar is of the pre-intermission hospital scene where the bgm, cinematography and acting all combine superbly to create an impact; I loved how you and MR discussed the notion of the two leads being “locked” in the confines of power, which is signified by the image of their hands joined together, behind the bars of the hospital window.
http://www.rediff.com/movies/apr/04rajv2.htm
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Ram Murali
January 28, 2016
I don’t think that everyone are in the mould of a Ram Murali, Utkal Mohanty, Mank, Amit Joki who cares a hoot about the dislikes and carry on spiritedly.
–> @sutheeshkumar: This reminds me of two comic lines. (I am inserting my name into the second one.)
“Ivan evlo adi vaanginaalum thaangaran…ivan romba nallvan (sob sob)-nu sollitaan ma!” (Vadivelu in Giri)
“Inge Ram-nu oru maanasthan irundhan…avan kedaika maatan!” (Counds in Indian)
Jokes apart, I must confess that I used to be a little bugged by these dislikes for seemingly innocuous posts. But now, I just derive happiness from meaningful exchanges and the pen pals that I am developing on this blog. Now, the thumbs downs amuse me.
Here’s a sample:
Comment:
“Don’t worry, I will get Kabali and Chandramukhi ready for school”
–> @brangan – you made me spill my coffee! (Seriously!) That was the funniest line in your article esp. because of how unexpected it was!
Dislikes: 6!
Potruvaar Potratum Thootruvaar Thootratum Pogatum Ramanai Theydi!! LOL!!
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brangan
January 28, 2016
Sutheesh Kumar. P. S.: As for Deva and Surya, they weren’t portrayed as paragons of virtue, they were just good to each other that’s it. Fairness and nicety is not what you expect of people who resort to crime to protect their interests.
It’s not that AT ALL. For within the moral universe of THIS film, both Deva and Surya are very much paragons of virtue — if they hurt or kill, it’s only the corrupt cop (forget his name now), or the gangster (Kalivardhan), or the man who has eyes on another man’s wife (Ramana).
So what Deva does in the arranging-the-marriage scene is PRECISELY because he’s a paragon of virtue.
Padma comes to him and says she’s leaving. Because men look at her like she’s easy / available. Deva’s men too. That’s when Deva begins to chafe.
It’s two things now:
(1) random men are harassing this woman who’s under his protection. This undermines his power, as in “how dare they?” ((As an aside, this is a good instance of how good mammooty is in this film — and probably how well MR directed him. At this point, he’s all macho bluster.)
And (2) His own men are doing this too (this violates his moral code, because, like Don Corelone or Velu Nayakan or almost every other “sympathetic gangster,” he justifies what he does because it’s for doing good for people whom the law doesn’t always take care of). Now you see in Mammooty’s performance a man whose bluster has weakened, despite the fact that he goes and shouts at his men.
And it’s this MORAL code that propels him to arrange the marriage. Look at the buildup of events:
(1) He’s just failed to arrange a match for Surya, and that’s on top of his mind — he feels he’s screwed up Surya’s life by being hasty. He must feel he wants to make up for his actions.
(2) Now, he’s failed to take care of his henchman’s wife.
So by arranging this match, he’s trying to right two wrongs. He knows Surya is a good guy. He knows Padma needs someone to protect her. According to HIM (maybe not us), this is a good thing he’s doing.
Everyone’s happy. Padma gets a protector. Surya gets a replacement for Shobana. And Deva gets a chance to atone for his mistakes.
IMO, it’s not important whether we agree with the characters, especially characters like these, who are so far-removed from us. What’s important is whether these characters act consistently within the universe of the FILM.
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Rm
January 28, 2016
@BR
“most people look at films emotionally. The number of viewers who look at it from a “screenplay angle” are fewer.”
Agreed. But for the average film goer, the movie is also about an emotional connect no?
IMO, most movies here which puts out its ‘screenplay first’ stance are seldom emotionally engaging, albeit entertaining. We have seen it all in the eighties and nineties movies here – political correctness, sweet endings often with a character having a sudden change of heart, I may necessarily not talk about Dhalapathy or even Mani Rathnam here, he brings about this balance so delicately for most of the times (certainly not when Prakash Raj has a change of heart after listening to Nithya Menon sing in OKK 🙂 KH does it so beautifully, even with a head-spinning maze of a screenplay in Virumaandi. But when you solidly characterize somebody ahead in the movie and later when you find them doing something for the sake of a poetic justification in the screenplay, IMO I find that doesn’t quite conform to the same emotional sensibility with which the film maker presented them first. The same happens for most parts in Raavanan also, and interestingly both Dhalapathy and Raavanan qualify as a ‘remake’ also 🙂
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MANK
January 28, 2016
Brangan, that is a superb analysis of the Rajni-bhanupriya marriage scene. Its the way that scene builds up and what leads to that creepiness, eerie almost unhinged behavior from Mammootty. Its the combination of all those factors that almost drive him to that point of some kind of temporary insanity.
As an aside, this is a good instance of how good mammooty is in this film — and probably how well MR directed him. At this point, he’s all macho bluster.
Yes absolutely agreed. You see Mammootty is a method actor and always felt that Mani was the perfect director for him rather than someone like Mohanlal. Mohanlal is an instinctive and extraordinarily gifted actor who just erupts into histrionics. As much as i admire Lal in Iruvar, i always felt that he was a little uncomfortable in that film. Mani is a true auteur director – like Martin scorsese – who likes to put his imprints on every aspect of the film even the acting. there is a typical mannered style in which all his characters behave in his films. It is something that actors like Mammootty, Kamal or Prakash Raj are very comfortable in picking up and incorporating in to their performance. Mohanlal on the other hand has his own characteristic free flowing style which is actually at odds with Mani’s drive for a methodised performance from his actors. I dont know whether it is because i have seen so many of lal’s malayalam films that i fee like so, but i always felt that something changed in Lal as an actor after he did Kalapani\sirasallai and Iruvar practically back to back. Both of them which required a more method performance out of him. He had his share of health problems as well around the time. He was never the same spontaneous actor again.
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MANK
January 28, 2016
The film was too detached. Mani did not cry when MGR died, that shows in the film. He has taken a film in an impassioned, detached kind of manner. That’s why I said, you cannot make any kind of film in India. You have to make a film which should make people cry and laugh about. That’s the only mistake
Ram Murali, But thats why the film is so brilliant. there is no taking of sides and no intention of manipulating the audience. He could have very easily gone the other way, the safe way which he took with films like Roja and Bombay. he didnt. when you say mistake you are looking at it completely from a commercial angle,that it did not connect with an audience But that is not the only reason to make a film. He has had a string of commercial blockbusters up to that time and he could afford a box office flop for his greatest artistic success. and what you mean some of the scenes, for me this is his greatest film unequivocally. Iruvar and dalapati. both are fully formed works of art for me, with the least amount of pretentiousness and which he conceived and executed with the maximum amount of clarity in his vision.
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Punee
January 29, 2016
MANK: Thank you 🙂 I take people at face value- so when people were so genuinely emphatic here, it kinda auto-canceled the past… plus, I know I am not an easy person to “ingest”, so I take it all with a grain of salt. I am glad that I am a turn-on for cynics- as they say, cynics are just disappointed idealists- so maybe I echo something you once were 😛
“But i hope you protect yourself, you know in this world you are bound to get hurt real badly. “
To quote Mastani: Qubool Hai.
Pain and happiness are two sides of the same coin, removing the risk of one, takes away the chance of the other 🙂
I am based out of Bangalore but I fly to Bombay and Goa for work often. Hahaha! My blog actually started out as emails, I lived abroad briefly and turned a lot of my friends to Indian movies and they always complained that the DVDs didn’t have subtitles during the songs. I sing too- my favorite song is O Saathi Re from Omkara, and many of my South Indian family didn’t understand the meaning of those complex Gulzar lyrics, so I started with emailing my friends and family lyrical meanings of the songs they liked and it went from there, soon there were too many and I needed to collate them. I am still in the process of collating those emails- work comes in between of pleasure, so I am slow…
I wouldn’t presume to know how charming or handsome you are because you (just like this bad boy “apex”) neither have a name I can google nor a picture I can check out 🙂
Oh, I loved that article about Ranveer, how adorbs! 🙂 This quote was the best:
“As a physical presence, he’s almost overwhelming, as if the power of his stardom is not to be contained.”
Apex: How do you turn everything into fun? Loved your psychoanalysis. I have never seen a more happy-go-lucky person. Don’t change. Ever. Ok? PS: I watched Bajirao Mastani again- for the 8th time! 😀 😛
Rahini: It’s fine. While I still don’t understand that you didn’t take it up with me directly, I can let go of it.
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Sutheesh Kumar. P. S.
January 29, 2016
BR, I’m left gobsmacked by your well constructed and detailed arguments and you a have already covered all the points that might I have considered. But still, what about the gratuitous violence in those scenes? It was like playing to the gallery, akin to a public prosecution. Your arguments are very valid as seen from Deva’s or Surya’s perspective. That is right or rather they think they are right, that is until a counterpoint to their perspective appears in form the character Arjun.
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Punee
January 29, 2016
BR: What a fabulous explanation of the Universe of Dalapathy. It is my all time favorite tamil movie, the reason I fell in love with Rajni and started my lifelong obsession with the Mahabharata.
I am quite speechless at what you have written and will watch Dalapathy tonight 🙂
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newbie
January 29, 2016
BR:
“It’s not that AT ALL. For within the moral universe of THIS film, both Deva and Surya are very much paragons of virtue — if they hurt or kill, it’s only the corrupt cop (forget his name now), or the gangster (Kalivardhan), or the man who has eyes on another man’s wife (Ramana).”
Completely agree with that. Adding to that, considering this is a modern-day retelling of Karna’s story basically, my own theories are as follows (I might have severely over-analysed this so do feel free to tell me so…)
Why Ramana had to be killed by Surya for the reason that he had to be killed; From a modern perspective, the greatest fault probably of Karna (in the epic) is his support for Duryodhana during the terrible misogynistic Draupadi-shaming incident that followed the infamous dice game. Now a modern-day Karna, particularly one played by Rajinikanth, cannot still be like that so one of the first ‘crimes’ that he has to do is kill someone with such misogynistic tendencies. This establishes that Surya is not only a version of Karna but arguably a better one too. (I would imagine this is why Mammooty’s character had to be updated too)
The name of the henchman Ramana is so typically Brahmin no? Do correct me if I am wrong in my supposition, but its such a distinctive name for a tamil cinema rowdy that I cannot help but wonder if Mani Ratnam wanted to get Surya (who has been terribly shameful of his background) married to someone of higher caste like he would have if he hadn’t been abandoned and had had a normal childhood. (All this assuming Padma is brahmin too and they had an arranged marriage)
The name of Banupriya’s character Padma – To me its so evocative of Krishna (lotus-eyed one, has a lotus in his hand too). I still cannot put my finger on it but my thoughts run somewhere along these lines – She has such a conflicting relationship with Surya that I cannot help wonder if it kind of symbolises Krishna’s complicated relationship with Karna too.
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Ram Murali
January 29, 2016
MANK – if you re-read my comment carefully, you’ll see that none of those were my views. Those were Rajiv Menon’s which is why I put that stuff in quotes and also provided the link at the bottom of my comment.
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MANK
January 29, 2016
Newbie, those are good points, but no, i differ in my observations. the scene where Mammootty goes to shobhana’s house with the marriage proposal for Rajni is a reference to panchali vastrakshepam scene. he insults her father and the scene – ends with shobhana on her knees begging him not to harm her father anymore- is very much an echo of the vastrakshepam. And of course Rajni\Karna is complicit in it as it was for him that this happens.
The Ramana angle always looked as an oedipal thing for me. as mentioned earlier, Bhanupriya and child is very much an echo of srividya and Rajni. the Ramana character seems to be a stand in for his father. The person who impregnated a teenage srividya and abandoned her would be a person very much like Ramana. the first act that we see Rajni do as a grown up is to kill Ramana. the opening fight and killing of Ramana takes place in pouring rain. It is almost like an act of patricide.
Rajni’s father is never mentioned in the film. it was a brave artistic choice by mani, because in these films and in many past Rajni films, the son is searching for the father. so it was more like the Father is dead, now the search is for the mother. I think similar reasons why bhanupriya is named Padma. the blooming of the Lotus is associated with the sun. In some mythologies The Lotus is even believed to have given birth to the sun. i don’t know whether there is any other mythical dimension to the Rajni-bhanupriya relationship.
The one thing always interested me was why Mammootty was named Devaraj. that actually signifies Indra, the father of Karna’s rival Arjuna. surya gets into deva’s fold by killing Ramana, who is deva’s best man. it is like surya killing deva’s son and replacing him at deva’s side. Deva not only becomes his friend but also a surrogate father figure.
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MANK
January 29, 2016
Ram Murali, sorry. i thought only – “the film was too detached. Mani did not cry when MGR died, that shows in the film. He has taken a film in an impassioned, detached kind of manner.” was what Rajiv menon said and rest was you talking. i didnt check the link. so i apologize to you and address the comment to Rajiv Menon instead 🙂
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
January 29, 2016
Newbie & MANK: Great points! The scene where Mammootty goes to Shobana’s house could be equated to Draupadi’s Swayamvara rather than the Vastraharan – Charuhasan insults Mammooty (or rather Rajini) by asking about his parentage, kulam, gothram, etc., Also Devaraj can no way be considered the equivalent of Indra. He is the Duryodhana of Thalapathi. In the scene where he convinces Rajini to stay with him, he says people used to look upon him with fear, but now there is a respect as he befriended Rajini. All that said, Amrishpuri could be the equivalent of Shakuni. It’s said (not shown though) that he was the one who adopts Mammootty when he was young, before they parted ways.
While I’m scratching my head to find out the MB equivalent of Ramana, has anyone noticed the gross similarities in characterizations of Nayagan and Thalapathi?
Kamal and Rajini both are orphaned at a young age.
They are adopted by slum-dwellers.
They don’t marry virgins.
Friendship is the central theme – Janakaraj & Mammootty.
Sense of guilt – Velu Nayakar kills the policeman but assumes the responsibility of upbringing his mentally-retarded son. Surya kills Ramana (a bad guy again) and feels guilty when he comes to know that he too had a family and child. He is made to take care of Ramana’s family.
No matter what, Kamal & Rajini-Mammootty are the saviours of their dependents – they take the laws in their hands.
Delhi Ganesh and Nagesh characters.
Nasser and Arvindswamy characters (both are like modern-day Arjunas).
Kamal and Rajini both get sentimentally entangled after knowing about their corresponding relationships with Nasser and AS. (Kamal for his daughter, Rajini for his mother).
In Nayagan Kamal gets killed, but in Thalapathi Mammootty is killed.
Except for the ending, I feel Thalapathi (strictly no Rajini-bias) was well-made than any of MR’s films to that point. Ilaiyaraaja surely deserved a National Award for the film.
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Ram Murali
January 29, 2016
MANK – to clarify, none of what you cited were my views.
So, the following (entire paragraph) is what I copy-pasted from Menon’s interview.
“The film was too detached. Mani did not cry when MGR died, that shows in the film. He has taken a film in an impassioned, detached kind of manner. That’s why I said, you cannot make any kind of film in India. You have to make a film which should make people cry and laugh about. That’s the only mistake. I think it (Iruvar) is marvelously written. Some of the scenes in the film are much better than all his other films.”
The following (from my previous comment) are my views:
I think that to look at a “screenplay angle,” subtext or looking at how say the cinematic tropes make a scene special requires a bit of investment of time and the interest to learn about movie making from literature or deeper discussions (that are lucid of course to the lay person) with filmmakers. Which is why – no flattery intended – I find CWMR to be a seminal work of movie literature, one that has made me appreciate a movie beyond just its apparent emotional core.
My favorite example from Iruvar is of the pre-intermission hospital scene where the bgm, cinematography and acting all combine superbly to create an impact; I loved how you and MR discussed the notion of the two leads being “locked” in the confines of power, which is signified by the image of their hands joined together, behind the bars of the hospital window.
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newbie
January 29, 2016
MANK: The whole marriage proposal scene reminded me of Draupadi’s swayamvara actually. Yes, Shobana indeed is left begging for mercy for her father, but from a larger point of view, I think Rajini/Karna was the bigger loser here. He obviously is a match for Shobana/Draupadi in every way except his background, which was the point of the whole ‘Surya yaaru, appa yaaru, enna kolam’ conversation. And to me, this issue which he cannot do anything about, which he has had to live with his whole life is more terribly damaging to one’s psyche than any threats of physical injury.
About Rajini’s dad, wiki says Mani Ratnam refused to state who was the father of the protagonist, citing the film “consciously avoids the who and the how of the underage girl’s first love. It was the child, the son of Surya, who formed the story” (reference: Conversations with Mani Ratnam book, I am delighted to note!) Given that stance, I am finding it hard to convince myself that Ramana character is a stand in for his dad. I CAN believe the single child and mother echo arc but not Rajini taking revenge on his dad-sort figure. But that’s just me!
Regarding Mammooty’s name Deva, yes I too had thoughts along the same line as yours – that he is more or less a father figure to Rajini.
That said, I do wish someone (Mani Ratnam) would direct a full feature Mahabharata (and Ramayana and Ponniyin Selvan) movie in the scale of Lord of the ring trilogy!
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Ram Murali
January 29, 2016
That said, I do wish someone (Mani Ratnam) would direct a full feature Mahabharata (and Ramayana and Ponniyin Selvan) movie in the scale of Lord of the ring trilogy!
–> newbie, that would be something to cherish! I remember Mani had tried to kickstart a “Ponniyin Selvan” project a few years ago but dropped it subsequently.
On a lighter note, I wonder if this is how the gita upadesam scene would play out in a Mani movie.
Arjunan: Pudikala
Krishnar; Yaen?
Arjunan: Guru…Thatha.
Krishnar: Nyayam…Anyayam…Kadamai.
Arjunan: Vidren…
Krishnar: Sevuda Nee?
Arjunan: Ambu Vidren.
Krishnar: All the best. Vandi ready.
Arjunan: Kelambu Krish…
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Rahini David
January 29, 2016
MANK: So do you see why it is a good idea to voice your thoughts inspite of there being a feminist in the vicinity running amok? 🙂
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MANK
January 29, 2016
newbie&Honest Raj, yeah i am not denying the swayamvara angle at all. that was obvious and connect to the larger picture of Rajni losing shobhana. i was making a specific case for the ‘shame of vastrakshepam’ aspect in the film. I felt that moment where shobhana is helpless and begging to Mammootty could be that moment, there mammootty’s character is the one who is more powerful in that situation and insulting and hurting her father was almost akin to shaming her in public.
In Nayagan Kamal gets killed, but in Thalapathi Mammootty is killed.
Except for the ending, I feel Thalapathi (strictly no Rajini-bias) was well-made than any of MR’s films to that point.
You see i too felt initially that Rajni not dying was a compromise. But when i see it today, i think the picture was complete. Just take the final scene in the film, we have Rajni and srividya framed against the train, then look at the first time the similar framing happened. it was when srividya’s 13 self lost her child, when the train took off without her and separating her from the son. In the last scene you can see she decides not to board the train. she wishes to remain with him. so that search that started for mother and son is over and that tapestry that Mani had started is finished. it all links together in my head for me. we even have Mani juxtapose the sun directly on to Rajni’s face in the end. the first time that happened was when his adopted mother picked him up from the water and named him Surya as film fades from B&w to color. i think he just links everything together perfectly, you know if you are looking at the film as a stand alone art form and not comparing the ending with what happened in Mahabharata.
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MANK
January 29, 2016
Honest Raj, i absolutely agree with Dalapathi being his best film up to that time. You see when you have a star of Rajni’s caliber in your movie your immediate instinct is to take the easy way out- like bharatiraja did with Kodi parakkathu. But no, Mani decided that he was going to make his Rajni film. Even while keeping every element of a Rajni film intact, he still made a very personal, technically brilliant movie by putting his personal stamp on every aspect of the film including Rajni’s performance. He made a film that would appeal to a die hard Rajni fan, without compromising his integrity as a filmmaker. Kamal once said – I think it was in an interview with Brangan himself – that everytime he make a film, his desire is to to satisfy a viewer who looks at movies as entertainment, the discerning viewer and the filmmaker inside himself. But it is almost impossible to do so as all these segments are at loggerheads with each other. But With Dalpati, Mani almost pull of the impossible
Absolutely true about Raja too, not just the songs. the BGM is spectacular
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Punee
January 29, 2016
“That said, I do wish someone (Mani Ratnam) would direct a full feature Mahabharata (and Ramayana and Ponniyin Selvan) movie in the scale of Lord of the ring trilogy!”
Oh, this this this. I so wish someone would do this. It would be amazing. Just amazing. Mahabharata would kick the pants off of LoTR if only someone made it well. Just the C. Rajagopalachari version or even the new two part version by Ramesh Menon could be used as references. It could be a combo of directors, SLB and Mani Ratnam- the only two who understand mythology and its use in classical film-making.
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brangan
January 29, 2016
I don’t know if I can compare Nayakan and Thalapathi. They are two different ways of making a movie. The former is self-contained. The latter is something we have to complete in our heads, using our knowledge of the epic. (Otherwise the ellipses are too jarring.) I see Thalapathi as a kind of precursor to Iruvar, where — again — we have to “complete” the ellipses in our heads, using what we know from real life.
I think it’s amazing that he took similar gangster tropes and make two very different films. I can’t think of another filmmaker who’s done this.
And I do agree that as a filmmaker, he’d advanced to a ridiculous degree by the time Thalapathi came around. It’s almost a sin to watch the film on a laptop or on YouTube, where it’s some 25% of what it was.
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MANK
January 29, 2016
Brangan, Absolutely. Thalapathy opens up so many interpretations. it is very much a precursor to Iruvar. that is why we are having such a good discussion about the film, 25 years after it was made. I understand what you are saying about watching the film on laptop or even TV. each frame is so spectacularly designed, filled with so much details. it was a pathbreaking film as far as shooting close ups. I have never seen such superb closeup with one actor or 2 actors in the same frame. not even in some of the american films. unfortunately today you don’t get to watch that film on big screen.
Rahini, i hear you Dragon Lady oops Dragon slaying Lady! 😀
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
January 30, 2016
BR: You see, I wasn’t comparing both in terms of filmmaking (say screenplay or editing). 🙂 Just found some striking similarities in the way both films’ characters were built.
like bharatiraja did with Kodi parakkathu
MANK: Ugh, would you even call that a film?
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brangan
January 30, 2016
Honest Raj (formerly ‘V’enkatesh): But… but… it had Amala, no?
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MANK
January 30, 2016
Ugh, would you even call that a film
Honest Raj, you have no idea about how highly the film is regarded in these parts. it combines 2 of Brangan’s pet obsessions – Amala & Bikini 😀
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
January 30, 2016
BR: I belong to NFC (Nadhiya Fan Club)!
BR (Bharathi Raaja) was a bit more advanced even during his Tik Tik Tik days, no? 🙂
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Sutheesh Kumar. P. S.
January 30, 2016
I remember reading somewhere that S. S. Rajamouli’s dream is to make Mahabharata into a movie.
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Sutheesh Kumar. P. S.
January 30, 2016
Mank, at this rate you might end up with thousand comments by the end of this year. You surely are a marathon man.
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MANK
January 30, 2016
Honest Raj, we have already analysed the tik tik tik scene in detail in a previous thread. i dont remember which one. May be Rahini knows. she still teases Brangan about it 😀
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MANK
January 30, 2016
Sutheesh Kumar, yes man. i never been on such an intoxicating high. i definitely needs to check in to rehab. i need treatment for De-addiction from Brangan’s blog. my work is suffering man, my work is suffering. 😀
Re:Mahabharata, 2 new films on Karnan are now been planned in malayalam. one with Prithviraj and other with Mammootty. yeah i have herd about Rajamouli’s plan for Garuda, which i think is the title of his mahabharata film.
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R
January 30, 2016
This thread is about Maalai nerathu mayakkam, right?😃
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Sutheesh Kumar. P. S.
January 30, 2016
Mank, your preoccupation with this blog making your occupation suffer? Perfectly understandable.
Imagine Selvaraghavan reading this review and feeling happy to see the number of comments on his movie, only to discover that the discussions are anything but that.
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Enna_koduka_sir_pera
January 30, 2016
“That said, I do wish someone (Mani Ratnam) would direct a full feature Mahabharata (and Ramayana and Ponniyin Selvan) movie in the scale of Lord of the ring trilogy!”
I wish no one would touch Ponniyin Selvan to distort my imaginations of these characters in mind. On a serious note, I feel like the current crop of Tamil actors/actresses except a handful do not have the aura to carry historic roles. They look too modern to me (Look at the period part of Uttama Villain. Except for KH and a couple others, everyone else looked out of place). It might have been good to see this happening during the days of MGR/Sivaji. This might be because I am conditioned to seeing historic movies from that era and that set an impression in my mind which is hard to change now. And, very few speak the “then vandhu paayum senthamizh” well anymore which to me is so important to set up the 10th or 12th century time period.
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Ram Murali
January 31, 2016
Adangappa Adangappa… indha Amala-va pathi Nagarjuna kooda ivlo yosika maatan…
Given things like the video you embedded and the “Selai Kattum” song, “Kodi Parakuthu”-nu title-ku badhila “Thuni Parakathu”-nu vechurukalaam :))
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Bayta
January 31, 2016
Don’t have anything of value to add, but just wanted to quickly jump in and say that, while I really enjoyed reading all the Thalapathy analysis (easily in top 3 Manirathnam movies for me), I’m absolutely loving how we’ve managed to come full circle back to Amala who started this avalanche of a thread. 😀
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Naveen
February 3, 2016
started reading this comments thread a couple of weeks back and just managed to reach the end, holding my impulse to put my own comments in between. nowadays it is better to directly jump into the comments section on BR’s reviews
gr8 sweep folks ( anu, shalini, rahini, punee, mank, Ram Murali, tonks et al ). my few cents below
on MR movies – my best bet is Pallavi Anu Pallavi where the freshness of the characters and a certain innocence of the crew ( first movie for MR, anil kapoor), IR’s first for MR, Balu Mahendra’s camera spills over to the characters too. not sure how the team convinced lakshmi to jump into this, she would have been like the hemamalini or sridevi of Kannada industry then.
Srividya – one of the talented actors wasted by tamil industry, mainly after KB moved on to color. others i would like to add to the list – manorama, sugumari, shobana, geetha. for me Dhalapathy stands out foremost for srividya and chinna thaayaval – kudos to IR, Janaki and Vaalie. rest come after these
women centric roles in india – many directors have had female centric characters ( KB, bhagyaraj, TR, BR, Balu mahendra , k.vishwanath) but they all stayed within the laxman rekha of ‘kallaanalum kanavan, pullaanalum purushan’ i.e. “a woman should be with her husband even if he is a stone or a grass” and the virginity/purity cliche. marupadiyum, pallavi anu pallavi, sagara sangamam etc showed the women being attracted to a different man but cannot go all the way. maybe producers will not give money if they cross the laxman rekha. i can only think of Rekha in Silsila, Urvashu in munadhanai mudichu , saritha in achamillai achamillai as the rare exceptions where the women disregarded the “char log kya kahenge”, “naalu peru enna solvaanga” complex and went ahead to express their love/choice openly.even Tolstoy did not let Anna get Oblonsky, she had to give up her own life
meta comments – some of the discussions above got too personal and i think as a group we should learn and do a self-censoring. some were very avoidable pre-occupation of some of the star commenters. these sections helped me reach the end faster
great going BR, the comments are becoming more interesting than the reviews 🙂 , earlier the reviews were more interesting than the movies. is it some sort of circle
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Rahini David
March 22, 2016
Hi All,
The Loosu Ponnu thesis is finally up. 😀
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