Madras - A Movie Review

Was intrigued by some of the interviews and news articles that came up in the last few days about this movie. 

This movie released about 3 weeks back and I read some good reviews about the movie but somehow didn't get to watch it. After reading the recent spate of views watched this movie over the weekend. 

The director mentioned about some of the aspects that he had used like the color blue - associated with the ambedkarite parties - used extensively in many frames and also the book the the hero reads in a particular scene. That's when I realized how I miss such minute details when watching a film and how each element is there to convey something. I still didn't catch the book in the movie though :(

The casts include Karthi(Kaali), Catherine(Kalaiarasi), Kalaiarasan(Anbu), Johnny(Hari). The music is by Santosh Narayanan. This is Pa. Ranjith's second movie after critically acclaimed Attakathi. 

The story takes place in North Madras. The main issue is about a wall (a pretty large wall in a housing board flat) and how two political parties want to reserve it for them. Anbu is in a party and he wants to take over the wall which is used by another party. Kaali is his friend and he works in an office. 

Kaali falls for Kalai and the usual things happen before they fall for each other - Does such movies need a love angle? And secondly Catherine definitely doesn't look the part. Ritwika who plays Anbu's wife looks the part and could have even played the role of the heroine (if one is really needed)

The first half is breezy and before you realize you are at intermission. Once the movie starts we know that Anbu will get killed and I was surprised that he was not when the first half ended. However, he gets killed in the beginning of the second half. When it comes to North Madras there has to be a gaana - unwritten rule of tamil cinema. Could have been avoided. 

Second half is a bit of a drag with the director trying to include some of the commercial elements like gaana (mentioned above), love, etc. Movie would have been much better if these could have been avoided. 

The second half is about how Kaali takes revenge for Anbu's killing and what happens to the Wall. 

This is a good movie. 

Music is by Santosh Narayanan. Songs are good - Naan Nee, Enga ooru Madras, Kakitha kappal are good. BGM is also good. 

In terms of acting everyone has done a good job. You don't get to see the usual Saranya or JP as parents - which is a welcome move. 

Happy to have watched a good movie. Watch it if you get a chance. 

You might also want to read some of the articles that I referred at 

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/impure-tamilians/article6490030.ece

Best line in the above article is Roja reminding Paakku thool to KB :)

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/madras-a-critique-of-dalit-politics/article6507818.ece

What next for TN

Following on from my previous post (http://dailykaruthu.blogspot.in/2014/09/jayalalithas-conviction-lesson-for-all.html).

As expected O Panneerselvam has been elected as the leader of the Legislature and took oath as the Chief Minister for the second time. Also there are rumors that Sheela Balakrishnan, who is currently the Advisor the Government of Tamil Nadu (after her superannuation as Chief Secretary) and R Natraj, who is a member of the ADMK party was the Commissioner of Chennai Police and Chairman of TNPSC will be actively involved in guiding the Tamil Nadu Government.

As expected the violence that occurred on the day of the verdict ended the same day. Things came back to normalcy the next day. There were people who were baying for blood and asking for Presidents rule. Which is the most opportunistic that they can get. Things have changed after the Bommai verdict where dismissing the Government is not an easy task. The principal opposition party was wise to say they don’t want elections as they are not in shape to fight an election after two consecutive drubbings in the 2011 Assembly election and 2014 Parliamentary election.

Jayalalitha has moved the Karnataka High Court seeking bail, suspension of the conviction and quashing of the same. With the High Court in Pooja Holidays as expected the hearing is pushed to next week. She has to stay in Jail at least till October 6^th when the hearing will be taken up. There are some views that the fine is not in conformance with the Prevention of Corruption Act which states that the fine can be a maximum of the corruption amount. Will wait to see how the lawyers (including Ram Jethmalani) handle the case in the High Court.

The Chief Minister in his last term was not even sitting in the CM chair. The key difference between the last time and this time is that the appeal process was on going and it was a matter of time before a decision was made by the High Court to acquit her of the charges. This time not sure how long it will take for the appeal to get to a stage of verdict. The original cast took 18 years in the lower courts. Not sure Jayalalitha can allow the appeal to go on for 18 more years. Supreme Court has also ruled that the higher court cannot suspend the verdict when in appeal especially in such cases of prominent people. That being the case should be handled quickly.

In the worse-case for her that the appeal doesn’t progress at a fast pace, the state cannot afford to have a non performing Chief Minister. Even if Jayalalitha comes out on bail (which will definitely happen in a short duration) she will not be able to ask votes for a non performing Chief Minister. People will not vote for the person that she shows if they don’t see him working. The Chief Minister unlike last time cannot go to Poes Garden daily morning and act based on suggestion by Jayalalitha. He has to take his own decisions. He also needs to be even more proactive in all aspects. He has to show the people of the state that he can work only then the next election ADMK will come back to power. Not sure if Jayalalitha is ready to accept that.

Jayalalitha has to understand that she doesn’t have an option but to have an effective Government in place. That is what will be to her benefit in the long run. O Panneerselvam is not a person with high ambitions so she should not have a problem with him becoming over ambitious (that is highly unlikely to happen). He is not a mass leader and cannot become one also in such a short period of time. It is in everyone’s best interest that he performs effectively till the next election (I don’t think the appeal will get decided before then). 

Jayalalitha's Conviction - The Lesson for all of us

Yesterday Jayalalitha was convicted in the Disproportionate Assets case by the Bangalore Special court. The case was filed in 1996 and it has taken 18 years for it to reach a conviction stage in the lowest court. This case was moved to Bangalore 2003 and even there it has taken 11 years. That’s how slow the judicial process works in India. Obviously, the case will now move to the High Court and even to the Supreme court if the High court doesn’t over turn the conviction. She becomes the first sitting Chief Minister to be convicted.

The sentence of 4 years rules her out from contesting elections effectively for 10 years (4 years now and another 6 years of disqualification). With the conviction she loses her MLA seat and effectively the Chief Ministership immediately. She has also been fined 100 crores – at this point of time it is not clear how she will pay the 100 crores when her assets as per her affidavit during the election shows her net worth as 51 crores. Heard that some of the fine will be adjusted against some of the property already attached. Not sure how much fine will be pending still.

This is the second time that she is being forced to step down from Chief Ministership. Last time she tried to use a loophole in the law – Law states that you cannot contest an election if there is a conviction but it didn’t state you cannot become a Chief Minister. This is what the Supreme Court didn’t accept in 2001 and she was forced to step down. That time she brought in O Panneerselvam as the CM.

Jayalalitha has been convicted by lower courts in two other cases – Pleasant Stay case and Tansi Land case. She got both of them over turned. She would hope that she will be able to do the same in this case as well.

In case the sentencing was less than 3 years the convicting court itself could have issued the bail. In this case with her being sentenced for 4 years she has to go to the High Court for bail. With the Karnataka courts going off for Dussera holiday from Monday, the earliest her lawyers can file for bail in the High court is October 6^th.

The ADMK cadres as expected have gone on a rampage yesterday immediately after the verdict was announced. Buses were off the road yesterday and most commercial establishments were shut down. It was more of immediate reaction and I am sure things will be back to normal today. Any politician will definitely try to get some sympathy going for them, I am sure she will also do the same. However, for that the situation should be kept under control. The former CM has sent a letter to all saying the law and order situation has gone out of control trying to show the world that his party is still around. I am pretty sure the administration (yesterday itself the police have issued a stern warning to everyone) will bring the situation to normal this morning.

The major problem for Jayalalitha in this case is that she has been convicted in Karnataka and her appeals should only go the the Karnataka High Court and not here in TN. She is also going to be in Karnataka jail and not TN. There are no major elections for next 19 months , which should give her time to at least get  a stay on the conviction. In case she doesn’t get a stay or in a worse situation she doesn’t even get bail by then, then there is a bigger problem. As with many other strong woman leaders (and our PM) like Mamata and Mayawati, Jayalalitha hasn’t allowed any strong second layer to be formed.

She has to ensure she is able to come to Tamil Nadu before the elections. With absolutely no second layer, I am not sure if people will vote for the party without her at the helm.

A leader’s main role is to create a strong second layer who can take care of things when they are not there.  There was a nice article in the Times of India some time back (Does India Inc have a drop dead plan). This should apply to our politicians also. That to me is the lesson for every one of us. Not the clichéd – No one is above the law. 

Book Buying - How things have changed

I am still a book buyer. Haven't really migrated to kindle or reading using my tablet. 

When I started buying novels, I used to buy them from the road side shop. These are poor quality pirated copies which were available for less than 50 rupees. I used to buy regularly from a shop in Pondy Bazaar. Then after few years (rather many years) of buying fake I became conscious of the fact that I am buying pirated books. 

That is when I moved on to Landmark - That was one of the first book stores in Chennai. The books in this store are priced at MRP. Even then started buying books from there (but kept going back to my pirated store as there were no deals at Landmark). 

Once every year Landmark has a sale (around September) and I make a list of books that I want to buy through the year and buy during the sale. Slowly migrated to Landmark website which had good deals - we used to get 30-40% off through the year. 

Now I have moved onto Flipkart which offers better deals than Landmark. Landmark deals have reduced to 25% max for all books on the net and they still sell at MRP in their stores. Flipkart offers at least 33% off on most books. Now a days it is mostly Flipkart where I buy my books. 

I still go to yearly sales of Landmark. Make it a point to visit all Landmark stores in the city during that time. This sale generally goes on for a month. 

For the first time with the Chetan Bhagat book Flipkart is offering an exclusive sale of the same for first 1 month. The book is also priced at only 15% discount of MRP which was a surprise but expected with the exclusivity. Book is releasing only mid October but it is available for pre-order now. I am not a great fan of his but his books are a decent time pass. My wife loves his books though. 

Will I pre-order now? The answer is NO. I have many books that I have not read so I can definitely wait for the price to fall after the 1 month exclusive period. Not that his books are expensive. You generally get only paperback.

One thing is true for all big Retailers(Flipkart is a big retailer now) they kill the competition by giving discounts but once there is no competition they will start pricing at MRP. You end up spending more than what you used to. 

PS : Landmark closed it's first book store in Chennai recently, felt bad about it.  

Why the negativity?

I wrote a positive blog on the Indian performance in the just concluded Commonwealth games.. Look what Hindu and TOI wrote

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/the-hindu-editorial-for-india-a-mixed-bag/article6281130.ece

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-editorials/lacklustre-showing-indias-performance-at-glasgow-games-is-an-indictment-of-the-countrys-sports-system/


We need to take into perspective that nearly 15 events in which we won gold medals in 2010 was removed in this edition. 

Glasgow 2014 - India's performance

India ended with 64 medals in the just concluded Commonwealth Games. This medal count was much lesser than the 101 we got in the Delhi games. The major difference between the two games was Archery, Synchronized Swimming, Greco Roman Wrestling and Shooting Pairs were removed in this edition of the games. In it's place we had Judo, Powerlifting and Triathlon.

We knew for a fact that with Archery, Greco Roman Wrestling and Shooting pairs not being part of this edition of the games we will not match 2010 games in terms of the medal count but it is good to see a higher % of athletes winning medals.

As usual Weightlifting, Wrestling and Shooting are giving a good haul of medals. Boxing was a bit of a let down this time with not much medals coming there. 

As usual we lost to the Aussies in the finals of Hockey. The scoreline was a bit better than last time we only let 4 goals compared to 8 last time. 

It is also good to see us getting close to winning medals in events like Lawn Bowls we lost in the bronze medal match for Men's fours event. 

Some key highlights from this edition of the games

1. Dipa Karmakar was the first female athlete to win a medal in Gymnastics and second Indian after Ashwin Kumar to win a medal in Gymnastics. Ashwin won 2 medals in the last games
2. Vikas Gowda won the second individual Athletics gold after Milkha Singh 
3. Wrestling except 1 individual all Indian Participants won a medal
4. Percentage of athletes winning medal has gone up from 22% to 29%
5. We won medals in the new events added in this edition - Judo & Power Lifting

Some people were cribbing about the coverage (or the lack of it) for the games. I felt the coverage on the news sites and also in papers were good. One let down for me is that it was telecast on Ten Sports and DD also didn't show anything. 

Overall a very good performance by our athletes.  Hope we continue to do this well in the Asian Games coming up in September.

In all this one latest embarrassment as usual has been our officials. Two of them arrested :(

Jiggarthanda - A Movie Review

Watched the Jiggarthanda movie on Saturday.

Cast includes Siddharth, Lakshmi Menon, Karunakaran, Bobby Simhaa (the real hero). This is Karthik Subburaj's second movie after the super hit Pizza.

Movie starts off with a scene from a realty show (which you generally see in almost all realty shows of two people fighting). The hero is a budding director and makes a short film which a acclaimed director (Nasser) claims as a kuppa padam and the other judge of the show a producer claims the movie is excellent and promises to produce Karthik's movie. The producer asks him to make a nice gangster movie - showing DVDs of Scarface, Godfather etc. He nicely says make a movie like these or even make these :)

Karthik wants to make a gangster movie by studying a real gangster. Off he goes to Madurai to study Assault Sethu played by Bobby Simhaa. A dreaded gangster in Madurai. As per the cops a "oru madhiriyaana pyscho". Introduction scene establishes that very clearly. He burns a journalist who writes about him.

Karthik uses his friend Urani (played by Karunakaran - be it Pizza or Sudhu Kaavum or this movie, he is establishing himself as a good actor) to get around in Madurai. Heroine Kayal and her mother cooks for Sethu. They are also saree theifs. He wants to use her but she falls in love with him.

After much struggle Karthik to find out about Sethu, he finally gets to hear everything from his horse's mouth. Sethu also wants to act in the movie. Movie is made finally and this is where the movie turns from a gangster movie to a comedy movie. The movie finally ends in an expected way - which was a let down.

There was a bit of a drag in the early part of the second half.

Kannama song is good but was forced on us. There was no need for such a song in that situation.

BG music is good by Santhosh Narayanan.

In terms of acting Bobby Simhaa rocks as the gangster. Siddharth surprisingly doesn't overact. Lakshmi Menon - not sure why there was a need for a heroine in this movie. Karunakaran as usual does a decent job. Vijay Sethupathi shows up in a cameo.

Overall the movie was very good. Successive hit for Karthik Subburaj.