Ponniyin Selvan trailer is here

Ponniyin selvan trailer is here. 

Honestly, as much as I am a Mani fan, the last few of his films have been pretty much misses with rare hits. Starting with Ravanan. I  have only liked kaatru veliyaadai without agreeing to the ending.  CCC was too run of the-mill to comment on.

And Jeyamohan, the writer, has contributed heavily to Ponniyin Selvan. I am a fan of his online writing, but when kadal failed, JM blamed Mani completely. Not sure how the collaboration would work. 

Karthi - Mani previous collaboration didn't work either. 

 But the core material - Kalki's historical fiction-is pure gold. A page turner now that I am re-reading or probably reading it properly now, the historical and geographical details stun me.

 Then there are expectations.

1. Initially, some people seemed to have commented on the graphics, and Mani seems to have relied on more live locations. I can't comment on this because it's not an aspect I am usually drawn too.

2. It is a historical FICTION. I see some people arguing, not realizing the fictional aspects. For eg, vanthiyathevan hardly appears in two or three lines on any stone inscriptions or copper plate from that era. But in the novel, he is the main character and such a delight.

Nandini, the core of the novel, didn't exist in real life. She is purely fictional. 

But now the trailer is here!!!

https://youtu.be/D4qAQYlgZQs?t=183 

There are obviously scenes that I imagined very differently. Like Aishwarya and karthi in the trailer, jayam ravi and trisha are a bit underwhelming. 

But the joy of seeing the scenes that you have only read about is amazing. 

 Sothapidathinga, is my request!

PS: I am re-reading the novel after many years, but I don't think I will be anywhere near completing it before the release.

You bleed blood while others its tomato ketchup or what?

From the time I was born there has always been wars going on.  A lot of it oppression from military actions of the western nations. aka white nations. 

But none had received the unprecedented response from the western countries like ukraine's case. 

Literally none. Leave aside the white people media coverage, I am talking about the unprecedented sanctions.

As much as Putin is unreasonable insane leader but Russia atleast has legitimate reasons of security with respect to ukraine. I still dont understand why US waged a war against Iraq(which US still mispronounces I ROCK) and destabilized the entire region giving us ISIS. They could have instead concentrated it all on afghanistan.

US thinking of sanctioning India is laughable. US wouldnt give defense equipment while it has been arming/sponsoring rogue nation pakistan for many many decades. 

India isnt in a great place,between India and China, Russia will align with china. Knowing this, it still doesnt have an option. 

But US wants to sanction India -For what?  For India choosing its billion plus population's defense. That is not a matter to US or its media( and some opposition party supporters, random woke but not really woke individuals) even. Because brown people?

 This racism and hypocrisy is what has been on my mind for past week. Irrespective of however big this calamity unrolls, the racism and hypocrisy of white world, its governments, its media and coconuts of east( brown outside, white inside) is how I will view this.

 

 

Munawar Faruqui shouldnt have been Jailed but is a bigot and pyschopath

I do catch up with news late. I am not sure if I have ever heard about this before but today I learnt that a standup comedian called Munawar Faruqui was jailed for 37 days in India. 

It is completely wrong because freedom of speech is an absolute.

If it isn't constitutionally guaranteed it should be. Be it Saudi Arabia  or Pakistan or India, it is wrong on a country's part not to provide this basic right to a human being. India has freedom of speech and is much much better than the other two nation's mentioned but it isn't an absolute. There are quite a few caveats when there should be none. ( except probably personal slander?).

But my vent up isnt only restricted to the arrest. Clearly,  Arrest was wrong and shouldn't have happened in the first place.

 

But I also see the left wing portrayed him as something he clearly isn't. He has made very distasteful jokes.

1. He has made a joke on 57 people being burnt alive in a train. When Barkha in an interview with him claimed he has already apologized about this bad incident, he clarified he hasn't apologized but removed it as it made people uncomfortable. He even defends he was only 5 or 6 when this happened, but he was 29 when he narrated  and clearly should have realized 57 people being burnt alive ( or a single person or 2000 people killed in riot) is not something to be joked about.  Only a psychopath wouldn't know.

2. In another joke of his, he has God Ram using the F word and Goddess Sita using the B word. His defenders says he has made jokes on Islam too. I did look through, there have been Muslim lifestyle jokes but none on Muhammad or anything related to him. 

He even stated in an interview about how he is a believer and he will never degrade other's religion because then others could attack his religion. 

Except he has degraded other's faith. 

Does he have a right to do that? Yes.

But has he been respectful of other's religion as he claims - no.

3. There are also articles about how he has apologized, there has been no apology from his side for the Ram/Sita joke as well. 

Do I think he has to apologize? No.

But is it OK for others to claim he has apologized? No. 

 - "“I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” Evelyn Beatrice( apparently). We all know this.

PS: He has also complained about how he and his family has received death threats. Those bigots now they have to be arrested. Doesnt look like that happened.

Respected Coronavirus

 In Tamil land, people usually wouldnt even say ammai( small pox/chicken pox) lest we anger/disrespect the goddess that causes it. 

I have always felt corona is similar. It demands respect.  Boris Johnson didnt treat it right,  he got it. So many ppl on twitter, one day would call the virus fake and next day they will report positive for the virus. Logical explanation would be that these people dont follow the precautions against the virus and the virus being as contagious as it is, latches on. 

It just the respect theory is more fun for me.

And Trump has been disrespecting it for a long time. But Trump is a germophobe too..  ....he is anyway cautious against all the viruses. 

People, respect Corona  that is all I can say. Address it as Mister, Miss or mademoiselle even.

Masaba, Mindy Kaling

In the netflix show of her name, Masaba acts really well. First timer or not, she is a real good actress.

Quite a while ago, I read an interview(either neena's or masaba's) about how Masaba really wanted to be an actress. And at that time her mom said it isnt going to happen in India because of skin color. 

Neena was right though. Its true. 

Similarly, I think Mindy kaling wouldn't have gotten any chance in India however talented she is. I am not a huge fan but her work is good. It is so her and very well done. Actually with "never have I ever", she is path breaking in her own way. And she is popular.

But in India she wouldnt be the celebrity that she is today.

I mean we all know India is racist. Most of the world is. But asian countries are openly racist. There is not even the lets hide it and only show it in our votes like the way it is in US.

When I think about it more, this look check( which sometimes people fail only coz of racism) is only for women. Similarly talented men would be celebrated. 

So far to go. so so far.

To regular blogging

Back to regular blogging. should help in these pandemic times.

Been reading so many reactions to Sushant Singh's death by suicide. Have only watched couple of his films and it still shook me quite a bit.
Before I go any further if anyone is battling these thoughts, please please please take help. You owe yourself to get help.

1. From whatever I know, Sushant did have a good career going from him. He had few hits. Even his last film chichore was a hit.

So not sure why people are posting about career failures and on dealing with it etc. Those are good stories to share in general. But posting in relation to his death.... doesnt feel right.

 2. About reaching out to friends: Years ago, a friend mentioned about someone else have a sibling with mental issue and How he has given up. I judged the guy ( i hadnt even met the person or the brother but... ).

But I do now know it isnt easy. I don't have first hand account of facing someone with clinical depression. From what I hear, it is not easy cheery one  time conversation like lot of posts recommend. It is multiple years of battle that this person goes through. Family and friends are up against  a wall.

More often than not, lot of people would do things all wrong in this scenario.

Right thing would be to keep prodding to make them get medical help.

3. We dont know what made him this extreme step or if there was someone who pushed him towards it. It isnt right to blame anyone without knowledge. 

4. Grief Mafia - I have been noticing this for quite a few years. How people grieve is very very personal. Not everyone grieves through crying nonstop. It is not for random strangers to comment.  Family has to face rest of their lives without their loved ones. People commenting on how this person isnt crying enough or dressing badly enough... just stop. ( been noticing it from the time when Arjun Kapoor lost his mom).

Few months ago, watched dear comrade. Having  never watched Arjun Reddy,  I watched geetha govindam just to see what the hoopla about this guy was. That movie was just a simple engaging romcom with cringeworthy knot( hero takes selfie with sleeping female copassenger!).

I did like the pairing though. That and the killer songs made me watch dear comrade.  

Surprisingly, It turned out to be really good. It is the best metoo movie I have seen in south indian space or probably indian space( i know pink is really good too).

It traces the journey of lily, who we meet through bobby( vijay devarkonda).  Lily, is a state level cricket player. She falls in love with Bobby after bit of pursuing from his side. But the film isnt about just their journey, it is even more about her, about what she has to face and undergo and how she overcomes that. 

ofcourse, hero plays the savior - those are only few scenes anyway. And Movie has its flaws mostly related to the pace. It is not too crisp, falters at places. But I will still take that. 

Because in tamil world(assuming telugu is similar too), I see interviews and interviews after metoo from barely ther female celebrities about how

1. they never faced metoo

2. they would quit if they ever encounter metoo

3. they would slap them so no one would dare

Considering these barely there celebrities/ TV anchors dont even have the guts to ask a sensible question to their interviewees, I doubt if even one of the above is true. 

Which is why dear comrade is important. Even when first half  focused on their love story with her cricket going on in the background almost as a prop, you are aware of that. You feel bad when she has to go through what she has to go through. 

She makes a tough decision on relationship and survives that. When we meet her the first time, she has already survived a personal tragedy.  But she breaks down on losing her dream, her passion, her life over this. And you know she cant quit, the hero wouldnt take it either.  Most importantly you know she shouldnt have to quit.

 I liked quite a few other elements too - Bobby's love letter to lily's cousin and the bama character.

Years later, hopefully no one will remember Geetham govindam and hopefully Dear comrade will be discussed.

Deepavali memories are made

Of Periamma(Periappa's wife) and mom hitting the bed barely before midnight, thinking of the idlis that need to be made in 3-4 hours and wondering if they might as well start now
Of the first burst of cracker before ganga snanam
Of going in order of age starting with thatha(dragging him) for the first rocket
Of references to some morbid pencil cracker in the days of yore(!) so we never bought any for many years

Of asirvadhams in anticipation of the money
Collecting the money across all the cousins and dreaming of spending it all on crackers again and  realizing it is enough for a family picnic
Of writing essays in tamil about naragasura and deepavali 
Of Paati mandrams  
Of spending an entire afternoon with biglis, with another older cousin saying she(I) is ready for them, without realizing others treated as a bore
Of putting a hole in cousin's saree each diwali while holding the agarbathi that thankfully she never got upset about and doesnt even remember now( may you all be blessed with cousins like that)
Of Paati deciding Deepavali/other major festivals dont have to be joint affair anymore - just a gradual transition as families got bigger

Of spending the entire day visiting each others houses

Of cousin's husband marveling at how deepavali was celebrated  in the family
Of pouring over the cracker list, balancing between the expensive 1000 wallah, rockets and other veedis
Of the bottles that are needed for rockets
Of parachutes that never landed in the launching homes
Of the vedis carrying mom's name, so brother would call her out before bursting each one of them
Of the first Deepavali on moving to the city of my birth when my brother burst the vedi at 4.00am, startling the neighbour - neighbour switched on the lights, looked at us and went back. City didnt start the celebration at 4.00am
Of the storms, rains and associated power cuts coinciding with deepavali often enough
In the City of my birth, deepavali often was a lottery conducted by weather gods
Moving here, across oceans, deepavali was/is always a weird day,
A day with memories of the mega festival in the head and no traces of it in the surrounding
Of marveling at the thousand July 4 fireworks on chennai sky on couple of diwalis when I managed India trips during diwali

I have realized quite a while ago, home is where Parents are. Whereever they are, whether it is in India or one bedroom apartment I used to stay in or sibling's homes - parents followed the same routines, procedures that it created home.

But Diwali - no. It stays in the memories in the head. 

Blindly supporting a Political party or a Political Leader seems multiple levels dumber than Film star fandom.
 In the past few years whenever I see support for some party as if it is elixir I have several questions.
Economic Development:
From china to numerous other south asian countries have had tremendous economic development in the past few decades.  You know what that means there are lot more people with jobs/salary/better health care/education than they were before. Why did India not get to the level China got?
How is this not a relevant issue in election?
Is it because you and I still get our roti, kapda aur makan that economic development that could benefit so many others looks like greed to you? How is this not a issue congress had to address - the failure of growing India to the capacity its 1.25 billion population deserves?

dynasty based caste based(potato/Potatah - dynasty/caste same thing) Rahul Gandhi has assured some amount of money to every poor person in the country. As if he is  king who is giving away some amount from his coffer to poor as a charity act. Except this is a democracy, so it isnt a largese you are donating, it is at the end of the day people's money you as a voted official are distributing. And if the country has developed similar lines like China did in these past 3 decades they wouldnt need these sort of dole out.

Corruption:
Scam after Scam is the only constant factor in Congress led governments. I mean they even had one 5 year period of governance without Gandhi government but never without corruption scandal. From bofors to 2G to all other numerous other unreported scams. I am pretty sure there are quite a few corruption scandal that never made it to Media. 2G happened during first UPA regime and came to limelight only in the second.
Yet none of the congress leaders from Sonia to Rahul to P Chidambram ( cough cough) to Sam "middle class shall pay" Pitroda even had to address a single question on corruption. It is not an election issue they had to fight or face. why?


Religious based issues:
   Kamalnath with his glorious role in 1984 Sikh massacre riots is currently the CM of MP.   What does Rahul Gandhi's apologies for 1984 on twitter mean when Kamalnath is the CM? 
    Second issue, Congress's track record when it comes to rights which get affected by the garb of religion. Shahbano had got a fair verdict from the court and Rajeev Gandhi rushed to ensure no muslim women ever gets her fair maintenance. Then there was Triple talaq, congress would never have touched it a barge pole.
Imagine how much women would suffer if Sati, Child marriage and numerous other religious evils werent made illegal. Even after law, there is a still long road ahead towards an actual Societal change. Atleast it is a first step.
       Third, just a reminder Satanic verses was actually banned in India.

Indirect casteism is still casteism:
Any government in India can now come to power only with the help of regional parties. The regional parties
1. are typically casteist - from yadav to ramdoss that is what politics works at regional level these days.
2. Gundagiri: Mamatha is the first example that might come to your mind, truth is this is quite true for all regional parties too. Levels of this might vary based on how despotic the leader at the top is.
Congress have always formed always alliances with these parties, so the blame comes on them too.

The counter to all the above cant be the other party can be blamed on the same issues too. Every party that stands for elections needs to face the issues not get a free pass which I feel congress has got it this time.

As citizens there is only one opportunity in 5 years to take the parties to task and that has been wasted.

It doesnt matter what the election results are at this point.
  

Gmail turns 15 it seems. If you remember, it was invite only initially - an excellent marketing scheme. People created blog accounts because some bloggers had received an invite. That was the craze. Thanks to well connected friend I got mine, distributed to my family, friends, felt cool and all. Lots of joy. Within a short time, people started getting 50 invites.

 Enjoyed the privilege while it lasted. 

Few years later, I started receiving emails from this random mama who had a niece in chicago about some good slokas and their meaning. I didnt reply but then brother2 was like shouldnt you atleast let him know.

The mama replied, " can you send it to her?".

like how?  

Then there was MCA student from somewhere in AP. I mean MCA. It wasnt that she was using my email for some spam accounts. All her department emails, job application... whole geographical as well as career movement could possibly be tracked if one is interested but I am not. 

There are some older women too. Bank details, travel itineary, ATM withdrawals... it gets worse. It continues till date. On some information that might be needed sometimes I reply. Most people apologize, one nut case screamed because I deserve them apparently!(literally what goes for me)

His absolute logic fail apart, here are two reasons why I receive them.

One,  literally no institution in India uses confirmation email. Banks included.  Banks usually have information masked* but others happily send the billing details, address, phone number... Waiting for Jathagam now.

Two, my email  is exactly my name with intial. So yeah that moment 15 years ago when I was feeling super cool creating the email exactly with my name...( instead of weird numbers or other extra alphabets you are forced to because the username isnt available) means it is up for anybody who shares my name. 

On top of that, gmail will ignore some special characters in the email i,e ab@gmail and a_b@gmail is all the same.

So 15 years of gmail, 10+ years of receiving emails of all the sachukichu's of the world anniversary for me.

* Though in a hacker/schemer's hand it would be extremely handy

It started with Steve jobs official biography that released the september of the year he passed away. I read it probably over night. And it is a book I return to often.

Couple of years later I read 'A regular guy' by his sister Mona Simpson. And even later a memoir by Chrisann Brennan -mother of steve's first daughter. I randomly found it on the display during a library visit.  I might have even read a essay by steve's widow - I am not sure. Early on,  I had found a collection of essays/writings by his daughter online - https://lisabrennanjobs.net/. *
 

After reading all these,  I remember thinking if somebody has write in that family i, it should be his daughter.

Her book comes out in less than a week.  I might or might not read the book but I will definitely read everything else she will ever write.

* Earlier it just had her writing, now looks like it has suddenly been spruced up.

a

Standup 'Comedy'

Caught Hari Kondabolu and Hasan Minhaj shows on netflix couple of months ago. Both good shows.

They talk about social issues. Hari talks about racism, homophobia and all that. Hassan's show is actually a complete bollywood act.  It has father sentiment, sister sentiment, drama, emotion why even a love story with families opposing. You get a happy ending. Quite thought provoking shows.


But where is the comedy man?

Where is the humor about mundane, pointless issues. Like trying to bargain with bag shop owner at the mall who saves you a dollar. or Like that show about nothing..

Why is stand up comedies so serious these days? Can they still be called comedies?

This post isnt about making sense, more like I had to get it out of my chest.

Some one did a good deed, stupidly good deed. It was stupid because it wasnt worth it, stupid on their part to do it, the others who should have done it didnt.  Infact recipients seem evil to me.

But it was an unselfish act.

That someone suffers today. unnecessarily.

It troubles me.

Not close enough to reach out. heck in the past I have judged that some one for something else. I feel so uncomfortable for judging them. On the other hand it was a different act and judgement worthyone.

Though I did think if I meet the someone again I will behave better. 

Oh well, no reason someone should suffer after a good deed.

Tamil nadu politics

My thoughts have been the exactly the same as rest of Tamil nadu wrt recent events. It is just that these sentiments have zigzacked quite a bit this past year. We have been jumping off from one log to another in a sinking situation. Too many blinders.   

At first, we hated DMK for its 2G scam corruption and nepotism so much that TN that Jayalalitha won a historic consecutive term. Then when Jayalalitha was hospitalized, anybody other than sasikala became the new Mantra. We hoped Stalin would be able to break ADMK and form a government in case something happens to Jayalalitha. Well Stalin is DMK ( & his brother & nephews & half sister & so on). Suddenly DMK's corruption which still mattered after 6 years, wasnt discussed after 6 years and 6 months. 

Now we think Paneer selvam anyday over Sasikala. But what do we know about him? Is he corrupt and if so how corrupt? ( surely there are grades of corruption levels for Indian politicians). Is he a good administrator?  

We dont know.  In fact the only thing we know is Jayalalitha trusted him and he never betrayed that trust. 

One cant even say that about Sasikala. How much of Sasikala's corruption did Jayalalitha partake in will be more of mystery than how and why these two were that close. The latter part atleast JJ knew but I wonder if she knew about the former well.

By shrouding herself with all the relatives Jayalalitha had thrown out and by throwing out the very administrative team JJ put together, it is very clear that 30+ years of friendship that elevated her in status and materialism means Zilch to Sasikala. Nobody had heard Sasikala speak while Jayalalitha was alive. What we knew were only the stories in media. Her behavior post Jaya's death has been consistent with all those evil stories we read. 

I understand the need to keep Sasikala out at any cost but I am not sure if Paneerselvam is the elixir we are looking for or if he would be even a reliable log.  

Continuing on how clueless english media and Sasikala

http://www.rediff.com/news/special/is-sasikala-the-next-jayalalithaa/20161208.htm

- Another day another article on Sasikala without a single mention how much people hate her.

Vikatan - The tamil magazine writes one article per hour on how horrible sasikala is.

Updated: Not bad english media is finally catching up but the paid news articles of Sasikala has started appearing too.

Jayalalitha, Tamil nadu and English media

Just some points after reading multiple articles on Jayalalitha's death in English media.

1. Jayalalitha was super corrupt in 1991-1996. An meglomaniac. 100 car trail, an ugly and most expensive wedding. But her subsequent tenures have definitely not been blatantly corrupt. More importantly she implemented schemes that actually had a good impact on  normal lives.

Jayalitha was tempestous, petty and had a colassal ego. None of that takes away the good

2. No they werent all populist measures. Infact one of her strict and the right move - terminating teachers who were repeatedly going on strike ended up costing her election. She made rain water harvesting compulsory -  Believe it or not it actually had an impact. It should be made a pre-requiste across India - Karnataka should do it before fighting for cauvery water. 

She went to court for cauvery dispute - Karunanidhi never did this instead he only purely made politics out of it. Going to the court has been the best for tamil nadu since the agreements have been favorable to tamil nadu. In terms of law and order, she had always been good. LTTE were routed out during 91-96 tenure itself and sandal veerappan was caught when she was in power too. 

These are to name just a few.   

Sure populist schemes would have got her the vote bank but DMK does too. One cursory look, would reveal the popularity she enjoys among the middle class and upper middle class.They didnt vote for her for a mere promise of a bad tv.

 

I guess #1 made news and #2 doesnt. Because negative news travels faster.

There is a reason why she was re-elected this year.

3. That brings us to Sasikala. No tamil newspaper would talk of sasikala after Jayalalita as automatic ascension. Every single English media outlet has. As of now, every one in TN hates her and have always hated her. If you are talking about MLAS - no one voted for any MLA - most people voted only for Jayalalitha. People associate every corruption of Jayalalitha with her. Period. She might have got the right caste equations in politics but so does every political party. Sasikala is well versed in politics and she doesnt have to worry for another 5 yrs but as of today, she has negative public opinion.

English media has not even acknowledged sasikala's absolute lack of popularity( either they didnt understand or they were trying to curry up a good rapport). No tamil news paper/magazine would write about her in glowing terms. 

All of these makes me wonder what quality of news am I getting about other states? I really wish every national newspaper has journalist who are also familiar with vernacular languages.

Aandavan kattalai

I know divorce is extremely painful for people involved but the divorce court scenes in Aandavan Kattalai made me want to check out the court in chennai on my next trip. The scenes were super hilarious especially with junior vakkil taking the cake. The characters are going on with their life's up and down in the movie but it is hilarious for you.

Wasnt entirely excited about Ritika singh before this movie, but she was quite good. Her cheek bones are naturally high - without any contouring(now, I dont know even the basics of make up). Not sure why the movie had to have a romantic track in the end. 

This was my first Vijay sethupathi in a theatre, my friend and I were expecting a private screening, unfortunately five other people were there. His performance was on the mark. So was every one else's. It is an ensemble cast including yogi babu( who nailed it in the last few scenes). Even in the last few scenes when it gets heavy, the two dumbos have to get him on a wrong bus! Pretty sure I will be watching this few times.

Got to know only after the movie that Kakka muttai director is the one who directed this movie too. Extremely surprising that some one who does festival circuitish can do a full fun movie too. (loved KM too). Next on my list - kutrame thandanai.

Indian stand up comedy

The one or two Indian stand up comedy videos I have come across on youtube were mostly about mocking a bit of cultural divide that exists. (  between upper middle class and lower middle class or ABCD ones were even worse). Even technique wasnt mastered in some cases with bad timing and stuff. It put me off. This one came on youtube recos with like a gazillion views and I ignored it for a week ( that is how bad the couple I watched long time ago were) but this  guy seems good.




Only watched 3 snippets. 2 of them were hilarious.