On Child Abuse and Parenting

Child abuse or molesting minor children is slowly becoming a popular topic. More so in the internet. However, it is not a well-advertised topic to people who aren't plugged into the internet. In news reports it is often dramatized to the point where it resembles an airplane accident or a ferrari crashing into 7 star hotel. A common man ends up thinking 'it happens to other people. Not me'. If an average news reader thinks this then I blame poor presentation of news items on this topic as the reason why people relate to it poorly.

An effective presentation of this news item must make any parent think that there is a high probability that their children can get molested or that they have already been molested. Once they see a news item on child abuse/molestation - parents should be able to clearly identify the amount of situations they have left open that is conducive for someone to molest their own children. A child molestor rarely creates opportunities to go after children. Mostly because he does not have to. Parents give their children to him on a platter. He just takes advantage of the situation. And most parents help him do so all the time. The amount of child molestation that surface up to parent's knowledge is probably 1/1000th of what actually happens. And those that surface to the news is 1/1000th of what actually gets to parent level awareness.

Good parents who are aware of this 'angle' have a growing list of potential suspects. They are conscious of people who can potentially get the privacy and opportunity to molest their children. In Madras, during 80s and 90s it was common to send children via rickshaws (not autos) to school. Parents rely on rickshawman to pick up the child from school and bring them home. Many schools have classes that end at different times (for e.g. 3rd standard ends at 3PM whereas 5th standard ends at 3:45). The first child that rickshaw man picks up could have had their school day end at 3PM. The last child that the rickshawman picks up could have their school day ending at 3;45 PM. That is a solid 45 mins of time spent with a child in a rickshaw in a private space under pretext of parking rickshaw in the shade of a tree. This is the 'exclusive time' that the parent has gifted to the rickshawman. And like most molestors, I am sure he looked very trustworthy in the eyes of the parents. Today parents trust a van driver, autorickshaw driver, their own car driver with at least 45 minutes - 1 hour of private time with children. They hand over their children on a platter like father of the bride setting up a wedding night bed. Why? because these parents trust that such things will never happen to them.

This is just the beginning. Good parents also will never leave their children in a relative's house, an uncle house, or a friend's house. Essentially any place where a person - who is 3 years or more older than the child - can have private time with the child. This could be anyone. Most commonly, I suspect the person who gets most private time is the 'anna upstairs'. The college going or Xth standard boy who is your house owner's kid or is the 'trust worthy boy' who lives downstairs. Your child wanders out from your house and is frequently seen going to neighboring door in same apartment floor. Sometimes the child wanders and goes near the gate of the apartment where the watchman is playing with it. Ofcourse, the neighbor's boy or your watchman has a trustable face. You have never seen him mastrubate or fantasise about other aunties. So obviously he has to be trustworthy. And while this boy who lives downstairs or watchman is 'taking care' of your child - you could get valuable housework done. Your child is not around to cry and nag you. So you were able to cook, clean the house, and arrange that furniture. Chores that would have taken 2 hours actually got done in 1 hour. Yay!

That the 1 hour you saved got tranfered as 1 hour of 'private time' for the watchman in the parking garage with your child or for the downstairs boy in his empty house never crosses your mind. Because such things never happen to you. You would have obviously seen some signs if it did. I suspect most child molestation instances is never known to the child themselves. A memory formed when a child is 3-6 years old is rarely a persistent one. Unless via some fluke it resides in subconcious and it comes out at a later stage - it is silent evidence. Dead and buried.

I had an opportunity to meet some good parents during this trip to India. They would never allow their driver to pick their daughter up alone. No matter how tired they were or how much office work or household work they had to do. No matter how personally they knew their driver or friend's father - they'd never let anyone else pick up their kid. They'd go in the car or drive in 2-wheeler to pick up the kid themselves. Parents and grandparents are the only trustworthy people around a kid. Until the child is 17 they should never for a moment be out of their own supervision. They'd never let kids stay in someone else's house. Even if it was an emergency. They kept a constant vigil. It was almost paranoid and unrelenting.

I also saw some parents who said "adhellam summa newsla varuudhu. You cant be doing this all the time. If you look at it with this angle you will never have peace of mind. You just need to have some trust in life. If you are good only good things will happen to you". The casual ones. Ones who took life as it comes and ones who didnt take life too seriously. The happy-go-lucky kind. I saw them handing their children over to complete strangers for close to 2 hours of 'private time'. I suppose nothing bad will happen to the child. The stranger's face had that trustworthy look. I suppose that is enough, no?

Lightning Strikes Everyday - X

Just for the record: I am the only guy in this planet to have bought Apple stock at $80 an Amazon at $48 in 2008 and still made a loss.

On Scholarly Debates with Roommates

While studying in grad school, roommates tend to spend extraordinary amount of time discussing and arguing about the vettiest of topics. These arguments tended to be very intense, created so much tension and anger causing the said roommates to not speak to each other for days together. And the topic of discussion was usually the most worthless topic on the planet.

I was reminded of one such discussion that happened 12 years ago. This was around the time the movie Alaipayuthey got released. In our apartmment corridor there were 3 houses packed close to each other. There were a total of 16-17 people in this little thamizh ghetto. And the discussion started the way such discussions usually start - innocuously at about 8PM or so.

My roommate Xinu (nicknamed after the Operating System) observed that the site of Shalini accident was mentioned as Nelson Manickkam Road. But we could all clearly see Cozee restaurant in the background. Manirathnam had obviously shot the scene in Beasant Nagar. Xinu was totally pissed off at that goof-up. According to him that flaw killed the entire credibility of the scene. Leading him to believe that the critical accident scene in the movie was completely destroyed thereby significantly weakening the movie's believability.

One the other hand :-) I felt some other aspect of the accident scene was what killed the believability. My criticism went thus. Madhavan was supposed to receive shalini in the railway station. That is why he comes directly to the railway station, waits in the stairs for sometime and then goes straight to the railway platform and waits for shalini there. This meant that Shalini was used to Madhavan picking her up everyday inside the railway station. But if you remember the way that scene played out; Shalini comes to station by train, gets off and goes straight to Nelson Manickkam road without waiting for Madhavan. And she walks arbitrarily/purposelessly on the side of the road (This is where she gets pleasantly surprised to meet her sister Swarnamalya who happens to be dating the Hyundai company works manager Raghuraman. And then she crosses the road lost in thought and meets with car accident). There is no reason offered as to why she did not wait for Madhavan inside the train station.

Now why would she not wait for Madhavan in the railway station? The accident would have never happened had she waited. It goes completely against the plot of the situation. She knows he is coming to pick her up. Yet in order to contrive this accident scene Manirathnam ignores that assumption and deliberately shows her walking outside on the road. This is a critical logal flaw. Cozee restaurant being in Nelson Manickam road is easily explained. Its a fictional place in a fictional movie. Cozee isn't known to people outside of Chennai. In this fictional story Manirathnam could've easily claimed that the Cozee sardar opened another branch in Nelson Manickam road. But having Shalini walk out of the station goes against the self-created logic of the movie.

I felt that my criticism was more valid and wanted the group of friends assembled to firmly establish the fact that this flaw was what made the scene less believable. Xinu on the other hand was clearly trying his best to make a case that Cozee restaurant must be held as the reason why that scene was less credible. And we argued for 7 straight hours. Late into the night. Tempers flared. Insults exchanged. And we were stuck on this topic for the next few days until we were distracted by the next huge fight on whether a roommate called ChisBeer was run out or not.

The beauty of pointlessness in having pointless discussions and trying to bring out tightly woven analogies with nuanced logic was what defined a vetti boy. I miss those days.

Dagalti

An interesting phenomena on duping that happens in Madras in Bangalore was pointed out to me by a family member. And then I started observing it with alarming regularity.

Lets say you go to a petrol bank and put fuel for Rs 100. You give the guy Rs 500 and you see him counting four 100 rupee notes to give back to you. He counts four 100s. He makes sure you see him count four 100s. He gives you the money. You think you've got Rs 400 back. In reality he has given you only three 100s. The other one by some sleight of hand is still with him. He relies on the trust he has established with you by counting so clearly in front of you to make you not double check the note count. If you trust him and put the money in your pocket without counting and leave - the guy pockets Rs 100. If you don't trust him and he sees you counting the money again and you reach the third hundred and give the confused look, he will be waiting hand outstretched with the fourth Rs 100. He pretends that he is giving you the last 100 separately. Like it was unintentional and matter-of-fact absent mindedness.

I noticed that this happened both in Bangalore and Madras quite consistently.

That leads us to an interesting story, which can only happen to the likes of me. There is a petrol bank in the intersection of Venkat Narayana road and Mt. Road. Its on Mt Round right before you take a left into V. Narayana road. My cousin and I were driving two separate scooters and we both put petrol for Rs 100 each. So total cost is Rs 200. I hand out Rs 500 and see the guy counting three 100 rupees. He hands over the money to me. I start counting it. There are only two 100s. I smile as I see him stretching out his hand a giving me another 100.

After we reach home I gloat about this to my cousin. Tell him how easily observable this ruse is. He looks a bit curious and asks me, "why did you pay Rs 200, I thought you only put petrol for Rs 100". And then I told him "thats because I paid for you as well". He then shouts at me angrily " you idiot! don't you have to tell me that. I paid Rs 100 as well"

Senthamarai

Last week same time I ordered 1 Ghee Roast masala Dosai and 1 Mixed Vegetable Parotta in HSB.

Now, standing in front of Subway counter and ordering veggie max. Feels like erstwhile villain Senthamarai took a huge thick leather belt and is slapping me with it in a panchayat punishment.

The NRI conundrum

They try to be a local in a foreign land. Speak the accent, use the slang, eat the burger, wear the Abercrombie, be street smart, navigate the culture, get deals in planes and be the roman in rome.

They try to be the foreigner in their home land. Use it as a shopping destination. Refuse to drive scooter or car. Travel in taxi. Stay inside. Speak like a tourist. Act dumb like a tourist. No Street smartness. Cant navigate the culture. Be a dependent on other locals for travelling bargaining and generally moving around.

Request For Help

I have negatives of photographs taken in late 1970s. I went around some photo developing places in chennai and asked them if they could develop those negatives for me. Unfortunately they said that the machines used to develop those negativeshas been discarded by many photo studios in the city.

Request: If any one is aware of photo studios in and around Chennai who may be able to develop such negatives taken in 1970s - can you please leave a comment or send mail to hawkeyeview@gmail.com. Thanks

Madras Crowd II

T.M.Krishna concert:

Concert Close Time is 9:00PM and the Time now is 8:58.

T.M.Krishna: Can I sing 2 more songs? (after discussing with his mridhanga companion) I hear today is Chandra Grahanam and so people dont have to rush out and eat.

(crowd laughs)

Voice From The Crowd directed at TMK: You should also not be drinking water now.

(crowd goes silent)


p.s: Mandatory canteen comment: No one ate in the canteen that day because of grahanam. The canteen people seemed to be shocked and had no clue why.

Osthe: Dabang for Tamils is like holding TorchLight for Sun

My room mate in Ohio State made really bad sambar during his cooking turn. Everybody including him knew his sambar did not taste well. It was really really bad sambar. So what he did was affix a proper noun for his sambar. He named his sambar 'The Tasty Sambar'. That was the name. Similar to vattha kozhambu, paruppu kozhambu, vengaya sambar, pooshnikkai sambar - the name of his sambar was 'tasty sambar'. After that whenever you ate during his cooking turn - you couldnt say his sambar was not tasty sambar. Because that was the name of the sambar. So he kept making really bad sambar and we kept calling it 'tasty sambar'.

Osthe is somewhat like that. You cant call the movie 'thazhmai' or cannot claim its 'not osthe' because that is the name of the movie.

Revenge

While attending marriages, I am going to approach any and all elderly relatives I see and ask them "do you remember me? when I was a small child you said cooooo to me. Do you remember me?"

Mayakkam Enna

I am getting used to the peculiarities that happen in the 2nd half of a Selvaraghavan movie. Pudhupettai and Aayirathil Oruvan are the Selvaraghavan movies I have seen so far. The other movies I didn't care to see. In all 3 movies the first half seems to be cruising along telling us a good story in an energetic fashion.And the second half takes off in a direction that I never expected it to go. I found the second half of Pudhupettai exhilarating. The second half of AO had its odd moments but was very impressive. Everytime I feel at odds with the direction Selvaraghavan's story progresses in the 2nd half - I kick myself for having an expectation in the first place. I find aksing myself - why shouldn't the story progress in Selvaraghavan's way? It is eccentric but super entertaining nevertheless. Way better than the boring predictability that one is used to.

Mayakkam Enna is a lot about what Selvaraghavan refuses to show us. For example as soon as the second half begins there is a remarkable plot accelerator. I loved that. All the menial aspects of getting to a story milestone were dispensed off with. The story just gets to the point. Then there is another twist that elevates this from a happy-go-lucky movie to something serious. Not that the first half was by any means less good. It dabbles decently on the subject of making a career out of your passion versus having a career and no passion. My wife does not like Selvaraghavan because he has 'vakkra buddhi'. Maybe she has seen more Selvaraghavan movies than I have. But I like his perversion. This movie has a softer version of the same 'vakkra buddhi' seen in Pudhupettai. In that movie the ape just grabs the female from another male. This movie had splendid opportunity to explore this sort of forbidden love. But it plays it down.

What I didn't like about Mayakkam Enna was the angst part. Dhanush's angst wasn't brought out well. The movie spends a lot of time in trying to show it. But it comes off as a little superficial. Instead of showing the angst of a talented wildlife photographer being screwed out of a career, Dhanush shows the angst of a 8th fail boy who has been deprived of a great opportunity to stick Rajinikanth movie posters on the walls of public toilets. Angst has class too. The nick name 'genius' exists for no particular reason. Similarly if in the first half Selva was planning on showing 'carpe diem' as the reason why Richa falls in love with Dhanush then it doesnt come off well. Maybe he wasn't and I was imagining stuff with all that talk about passion and career. I almost felt like the reverse psychology of 'he hates me so much, I gotta love him' was what made Richa fall in love.

I didn't like all this dating, 'I have bought a ring to propose to her' kind of stuff. I also didn't like the 5-6 friends being so close that they live , eat, cry, fry, shit and die together kind of stuff as well. It felt artificial. It seems a little Amerikka wannabe. People who say 'it really happens in India' probably like to think it happens more often than it really does. Even if it really happens, it is so amerikka wannabe that it is an unpleasant sight. There is a cliche with 'wild life photography' being a sole example of having a different career. But since this is the first main stream movie to touch it - I guess we will have to wait until Nanban before really calling it a cliche. I suspect this career will become something like 'I want to be an astronaut' that all 3rd standard kids reply when asked about career choices. The market size for this sort of employment is in single digits yet every school child wants to become one.

Madras Theater Crowd

A scene where Dhanush asks Richa to pose nude for a photograph

Someone from the crowd "saami eallrum ezhunthiruchu veliya poo"

LSE IX

I wont claim that its been a long while since I have been hit by lightning. However, this one kind of stood out. After 2 frustrating days of waking up at 2;30AM because of jet lag, I was hoping to sleep straight until 5AM on the 3rd day. 3AM: The 'bladder full' sign starts flashing. I had to go. One thing about bathrooms in West Mambalam is that you are never alone. I had about 100 odd Dengue Lakshmis and Malaria Malathys for company. All I wanted to do was take the piss and get the hell out. Flush and twist the door handle. Nothing happens. This is usually when door opens and I run out to get inside my blanket to get that shut eye. Instead I found myself standing and staring at the inside of the bathroom door. I twist and turn that special korean door handle lock that my builder charged a zillion rubees to install. One hand is warding away Virus Visalakshi and the other desperately trying to open the door. Finally I give up and start banging the door. After about 5 minutes of banging - I hear my father's voice slowly seep in. "kadangaara, who asked you to lock the door?".

I wonder about that for a moment and continue banging. I really need to be out of that room soon. I feel a few more physical exertions and I will be fully awake. Then there is no hope of sleep. I was holding on to that rapidly evaporating 'sleep feeling' for dear life. 20 minutes later: I was sitting on the bathroom floor and swatting mosquitoes. Hoping the loud clapping sound will wake up someone downstairs. My father is trying to work the door with spanner and screwdriver yelling "This never happens to anybody. Only you, so much complications. All the time." 30 minutes later, watchman is called, then watchman's son arrives and asks "yen saar lock podreenga". Really, the only answer I have as to why I locked the door is "because it is there". Finally boy breaks the lock open and splits the door into two.

5:15 AM - I commence kshethradam with hope of first visiting Thiru 'which room' temple, then driving on to thiruvengadam, and then visiting kanchi Varadhu on the way back. My chitthappa is sitting next to me in the car and he has opinions on why amerikka returns are such slow drivers. "Viswaroopam at 6:30 AM. Veera Raghavan waits for no one. Rush rush," he whips me. In North Arcot road I feel poor pick up in the car. I would later be giving interviews to press saying "Naan appove lighta doubt aanen saar". The next time I felt the pick-up lag was when I crossed 'where jasmine resides' Valli. Then it was all fine until we entered the first destination of 'which room' place. We are 2 hours away from Madras. I cross a flyover and the car refuses to budge after that. Everything looks fine, but no matter what gear I put, I cant get off neutral. 30 minutes later, a half-asleep mechanic says "Clutch plate outtu saar. 1 week aagum replacement. Towu pannidunga.. back to madras". The previous day I had withdrawn Rs 15000 from ATM with the hope that I would limit the entire Madras trip within the 15K. Towing car back to Madras: 5K. Clutch plate 20K. New Car rental for remainder of trip: 5K.

After the car broke down and we were waiting for towing to arrive, we decided to visit the temple. Don't ask me why? - Due to variety of circumstances and as a result of multiple back and forth between car and temple - I was in a situation where I was near the car, attired in a panchagajam, angavasthram, no shirt (shirt in temple) and Rs 20 in hand (wallet in temple). I had to go back to temple and I was trying to figure out how to get to the temple with Rs 20. The car had stopped right in front of St Antony's church. As I was standing on the road trying to stop an auto, a brother from the church walked out and stood next to me trying to stop an auto as well. We nodded at each other expressing quick acknowledgement of each other's faith among other things. Non-share Autos in 3rd tier towns are also share autos. The Auto that stopped for us had a passenger inside. The driver agreed to take us to our respective destinations for Rs 10 each. And lo behold! the 3rd passenger was a Muslim Bai with skull cap and the works. So all 3 of us sat and drove. The Bai had to get down first. So the brother and I got down as well to to give way for the Bai to come out. As Karim Bai fiddled with his wallet to pay the driver - we stood the three of us - in panchagajam, white robe and lungi. A casual bystander must've thought we were rehearsing for a remake of a 1980s DD advertisement on religious unity.

Why This Kolaveri?

Self Awareness, Steve Jobs etc

People put steve jobs quotes in their twitter, facebook, and blogs. Yes, the ones who put scene on how they admire his ability to 'fight' the status quo, 'think differently', live life in his own terms and rebel against the tide to get his way

These people are the status quo that steve jobs had to fight against. Almost all of them who profess to be inspired by steve jobs and display his quotes are exactly the people who would push back and suffocate someone who thinks differently. They are the tide who will negatively brand a person trying to swim against the tide. Steve Job's life was more interesting and his legacy exists because of the fact that he had to fight the sort of people who put up his quotes after he died. If these people lived in 80s and 90s and met steve jobs in a professional setting - they would be the kind who would strongly oppose his ideas and plans.

I am reminded of people who complain that no one responds to the emails they sent but in-turn they never reply to emails they get. They imagine that a self-professed 'I am inspired by Steve Jobs' quote automatically bestows upon them a cause worth rebelling for. While in reality what they fall in the category of those who block the minority few who actually have ideas.

J.Edgar

I really liked this movie. I found it surprising that Clint Eastwood managed to keep the pace of the movie really fast. The movie was what we'd call a 'conversational movie' and so keeping a viewer totally riveted is a admirable task. I actually ended up liking J.Edgar Hoover. All I knew about him prior to watching this movie was he was a loony cross-dressing, longest-serving head of the FBI. And this movie completely changed my opinion of him. Eastwood seems to not really care about J. Edgar being perceived as a good guy or a bad guy and simply makes a worthy attempt at showing him for what he was. Yes, he was anti-black, anti-women, was a ruthless self-promoter, and black mailed every single US president to get his way. He (probably) was gay but maintained an aggressively anti-gay public stand. These were the items that were shown to portray his other side.

To portray his positive side, the practices he introduced seem to have helped crime detection/prevention world over. Especially his agenda to use finger prints as criminal evidence, begin a practice of collecting them and building a central data base for finger prints. He is portrayed to have made the Buerau of Intelligence from an agency of no power to the very powerful FBI that it i today. Yes, you need to be a unpopular and a prick to build that kind of beast. And he happened to be the one. And I didn't think he was any more or less biased than an average human being.

There is a unnamable magic about watching DeCapiro play this role. I guess it has to do with the accent and the way he enunciates words. The force of Hoover's personality has been brought out well. Agenda-driven. focused and ruthless men impress me. Even if they are bad men. And in showing all that very well this movie thoroughly entertained me.

Heavy D Passes Away

In the gzillion times I listened to this song - Heavy D's cameo was awesome every single time. Etched in memory. Man... I miss the age of MJ obsession.



"Jam Jam
Here Comes The Man
Hot Damn
The Big Boy Stands
Movin' Up A Hand
Makin' Funky Tracks
With My Man
Michael Jackson
Smooth Criminal
That's The Man
Mike's So Relaxed
Mingle Mingle Jingle
In The Jungle
Bum Rushed The Door
3 And 4's In A Bundle
Execute The Plan
First I Cooled Like A Fan
Got With Janet
Then With Guy
Now With Michael
Cause It Ain't Hard To..."

Kedaram

Whats a Saturday evening if not spent on random patterns of music. Here are some songs in Raagam Kedaram.


Pon Maalai Pozhuthu



Sundari Neeyum



Ennavale (famously called by subbudu as kedarathukku sedharam)



Manam Virumbudhe



Raama Nee Pai thanaku (KJY)



Sawan Ki Bundaniya (Pt Bhimsen Joshi) - Very different :-)

7am Arivu

I saw the movie on Sunday and wasn't planning on writing a review until I saw this elitist fool tear apart the movie with his '8th std fail 10th pass seeman tutorial' logic.

Let us examine how the logical settings in this fellow's brain is configured. Consider this hypothetical scientist. This scientis extols the virtue of The Sun. The scientist says, " the sun sustains life on earth, the sun provides valuable vitamin D..etc etc". The way Mr. Rangan will criticise this scientist is as follows - "but you are living in Earth. If you like the Sun so much, why don't you go and live in the Sun. Why do you live on Planet earth, drive on planet earth, see the moon every night, drink water from planet earth and go and praise the sun". That is how logic works in his mind. In the minds of elistist tools like him who suck up and pander to indhi audience - the "qualification" someone needs to have to praise thamizh is that one must not (a) wear jeans (b) drive german cars (c) one shouldn't make movies shot in forign locales.

So per the logic of Baradwaj Rangan type people - if you say Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina or claim that Jupiter is larger than Planet earth - the actual fact of whether or not Buenos Aires being a capital or not / jupter being larger than earth or not - does not matter at all. He will refute both points based on something that is irrelevant to those facts - you. He will say that because you have never visited Bueno Aires or Jupiter and have lived all your life in India - you cannot state anything about it. So Rangan does not care about the actual facts that Murugadoss and Surya seem to be saying. Rangan's claim is that because Murugadoss had a song called 'Ragamuffin' and wore jeans and drove in a german car - he is instantly eliminated as a candidate for promoting thamizh history. Less educated people like baradwaj Rangan believe a lot in Mutual Exclusivity. They have rigid narrow views that in order for a person to say X - the person must be steeped in X. Any trace of Y in that person and that is enough to kill the man. Someone wanting to co-exist with X and Y (say drive a german car and want to promote thamizh history) will be trashed as incongruous. That is because people like Baradwaj Rangan cannot comprehend complexity or nuance.

The talent that Baradwaj Rangan type reviewers have is that they can trash or praise any movie regardless of the actual merits of the movie. The logical flaws that he points out in Shruthi Hasan's transport mechanisms - he could have pointed that out in Manmadha Ambu and Ravanan. Instead he over praises those movies. Even Maniratnam may not have realized that the white salwar Aishwarya was wearing in Raavanan represents her chastity, that ploiceman vikram shoots someone in dark night t show his demon'like quality. But reviewers who need return favors will use any angle to over-reach and praise bad movies.On the other hand they will unfairly trash other movies if they have no incentive in the offing.

My thoughts on the actual movie: It is not a good movie. I am not saying this to avoid the perception that I am trashing Baradwaj because I disagree with him and think that the movie is good. The movie is bad - but not for some of the reasons Baradwaj has mentioned. And his reasons are insidious and illogical. I thought the movie had its heart in the right place but Murugadoss' inherent lack of class in story telling brought it down. As I noted in the Ghajini review - Murugadoss lacks class. He is persistently loud and uncouth. The logical flaws in the movie didn't bother me. I was willing to be led by the ambitious approach. The movie claims that we have no sense of preserving historical information and so that in effect means that whatever recourse bodhi-dharman prescribed for the deadly chinese disease - we must've have lost that information. That is the basic premise of the movie. (Note B Rangan's stupid question on the same subject).

Murugadoss cannot seem to decide if he wants to make a movie for A center or C center. He has a story that is inherently A center. But he decorates it with stuff that is targetted at C center. In the end the movie falls through the cracks and is neither sophistcated, underplayed or nuanced nor is it out and out masala. What it becomes is a good story trapped within a formulaic thamizh movie structure and language. Who in the world introduced thamizh cinema to these 50,000 cuts per second rule. Movie makers today sem to think that the faster and higher the number of screen cuts - the more brisk the pace of the movie. That is not true at all. It didnt help that the songs were horrible. It didnt help that the director forgot to have a tense tight narrative and abandoned everything midway to deliver a sermon.

It is true that thamizhs are losing the essence of their culture. It is also commendable that people like Surya and Murugadoss are marketing the features of thamizh civilization to create more awareness. That part of the movie got me on its side. I also thought it was very bold of the movie to state an anti-reservation and anti-religious conversion message. Murugadoss is scratching the edges of what I think is the truth. That I thought was really profound for a commercial director. But at the same time a little more nuanced story telling might've helped. Srilankan thamizh issue is too important and too senstive an issue to be a one-liner. All the items (60% of the movie) he aded for masala effect was not entertaining. I dont think C center people would've been entertained either. But it was important that this movie was made.

R2I

The debate in the comments section of previous post between IITG and Gaurav prompted this post. While it has become a dead-horse now, a few years ago Return To India (R2I) was a topic - I often liked to discuss with close friends and relatives. This post isn't about the broad topic. But just the portion that is relevant to the debate going on in that comments section.

My strong belief is that - R2I is not much different from preparing for an exam. For the most part if you don't perform well, it is *your* fault. You can come back and say that the question paper was tough or you made a silly mistake or you didnt have time. Its your fault. You screwed up. You failed. Outside rare events where something outside your control happened (someone died, car accident, etc) - the reason for poor performance can be boiled down to the fact that you didn't anticipate what the exam was all about and did not prepare very well. Or you failed to continue to fight everyday life challenges the way other people living in India do. My disappointment with the article was that the author was shifting the blame on an intangible 3rd party.

Returning To India is in general difficult because people don't see it as an exam and don't prepare well enough and fail most basic challenges thrown at them. They sort of have an attitude of 'Its my country. I can wing it'. The following are reasons why I think people say this or fail in the R2I efforts:

1. Returning with a pre-conceived notion of what their experience is going to be. One that is suitably colored due to nostalgia.

2. Returning and expecting special treatment as a result of being NRIs. Going to India on vacation is not the same as going there on a permanent job. Not knowing this makes a person's humility setting as very low. There was a time in 80s when someone who had been to Singapore for a week would put scene for 6 months and people would listen to him with mouth wide-open. The concept of 'foreign return' lost its sheen in the late 90s. And people who R2I have trouble being treated as normal people. They are unable to resist the urge to do running commentary on Indians as if the people living "there" were lab rats. So when you hear some one say 'I cant adjust 'there', cant live with 'them' etc'. The first instinct one feels upon hearing this is - what do you mean "them"? You are "them". What is all this drama about "me" vs "them". While there are logical reasons why one would like to think of non-NRIs as different - the first gut reaction in any person's mind is that it sounds supercilious when an Indian refers to other Indians as "them". I feel that way mostly because *I* mean to be supercilious when I use it that way. So the first suspicion I would have is that the person is trying to put scene and show that they are better people by virtue of staying abroad.

3. Most people I have talked to - fail in their return plans for reasons like "paying electricity bills is such a hassle, they ask for bribes, they are changing me to a corrupt person, traffic problems are too much, people are rude at work". Almost all these reasons are cliched and have been said several times before. The most cliched reason being 'I have changed as a person' and so wont fit there.

All the above only means that you didn't prepare well and so you failed the exam. Running a ball-by-ball commentary on every experience you have once your return is a sure-shot recipe for disaster. Not knowing about the way people pay electricity bills in India or whether you changed as a person - is your fault. Making a choice to come back, preparing poorly at that and putting blame on some vague intangible stuff is just bad. Putting on the garb of 'I want to change the world' as an excuse to criticize everything under the sun - smacks of arrogance and just hides the real problem even more.

There is also another angle to this. When people say they aborted their r2I effort and give above reasons - the 'real' reason lies somewhere among the below two points

1. Wife came back and couldnt get along well with her in-laws. She hates the concept of moving from an isolated environment to one where there s family all the time and everywhere. The complaint noise has increased.

2. Career progress isn't working out and dude is getting screwed at work.

If everything is going well - you never notice the environmental variables. they are just things you have to 'adjust' to. If family and career get screwed up - you are searching for things to blame. I have seen many articles by NRIs that refuses to admit *the person's own* failure and explains it away as some sort of a problem that India has. They blame the failure on some external thing that they had no control over. I usually dont react to them. The reason why I took exception to the specific article that I linked was because the bar was too low. The reason seemed ridiculously silly and trivial.

Now there are many kinds of exams. You can ask a grown-up person to appear for an IIT-JEE exam and if they fail, its understandable. Thats a tough exam. But if you ask them to appear for 2nd standard Math exam and they fail - one should be allowed to say without hiding behind subjectivity that failing addition subtraction type questions is a shame.

I cant imagine the Mungee dude and his wife having a conversation that goes "Honey.. I am treating my maid badly. This country has made me a bad person. boo hoo. I don't want to be this person. Let us go back to USA". At a practical level - I don't see a person changing his life for such a trivial, negligible reason. Losing a few bucks here and there due to someone duping you has been happening since my grandparent's days. I remember my grand mother's mom telling me stories on how her maid duped her of Rs 10. This is the most common form of duping ever. These things are like paying tax. Pay it and get on with life. If you choose to become rude as a result of life experiences - then that is the kind of person you are. Live with that. If you choose to ignore it, continue to be a nice guy and think that in 5% of the cases you will be duped but in 95% of cases you will be all right - then that is the kind of person you truly are. The key thing is - if you decide to enter a jungle then fight like an animal there. Don't compare every single experience to a hypothetical situation of "this wouldn't happen if I were in a zoo or in a different jungle". You are where you are. Deal with it. If you cant - accept it was your fault and go back. Don't shift the blame.

Writing that kind of maudlin and weakling type article that Mungee has written only happens if you received money to propagate someone's narrative.

LIC Narasimhan Passes Away

From acting as Rajini's brother in "from-6-to-60" to playing the Judge in almost every movie that needed a judge character to playing key characters in DD Tuesday 7:30 drama - he was one of those actors who added richness and charisma to a show without being noticed.