T a l k i e s

“Madambi” and “Parunthu” should go together, for the sheer hype and controversy around these movies, the two superstars playing moneylenders, almost the same cast, and the fact that both the movies deliver nothing new.  I’d watched “Madambi” and “Parunthu” almost back to back a week back, but then both the movies dont live upto even one tenth of the hype around them. “Paruthu” is a painful failure putting an end to Mammooty’s dream run of superhits, as one friend put it “yevan Parunthalla ketta, yevananu kaakka”

Hype: “Madambi” Vs “Parunthu” has been doing rounds for months now, almost every film magazine had features and cover stories on a weekly basis, truth be told it wasn’t mere hype. “Parunthu” topped the list! “Parunthu” was Pathmakumar’s first Mammooty movie. The director of  unforgettable “Vargam” and “Vasthavam” was getting Mammooty to play an anti-hero, a dark character. Personally I liked “Smart City”, B Unnikrishnan’s flop starring Suresh Gopi. And “Madambi” was tipped to be his comeback movie into the “superhero” bandawagaon.

foto courtesy: Keralapals

Controversy:

Outright childish stuff to a Police Case registered against Mohanlal Fanooligans in Kochi. We are entertained!

Yeah its almost cold now, but the crowd erupts when Mohanlal’s character says “Panathinu meethe Parinthu parukkumo illayo ennu enikku ariyathilla. Athellam Parinthinte sowkariyam pole. Pakshe ente ee thalaikku meethe oru Parinthum parakkila. Paranaal.. chiraku arinju kalayum njaan.”

And posters across the Malabar belt saying “Parinthu Madambiye kotthi thinnum….!”

And “Madambi” released at 3:01 AM overtaking Roudram’s record of 3:02 AM. Parunthu released at 12:01 AM overtaking Madambi’s record of 3:01 AM. and many Lal fans wondering “have we lost?”

And a police case registered in Kochi against so called Mohanlal fans who disrupted screening of Parunthu

And T A Razak, script writer of Parunthu claiming his script wouldn’t stoop low like Madambi did [as if he had a script]

btw end of two weeks, the verdict is clear - Madambi is a clear winner! controversial or otherwise. [Read more →]

 Vairamuthu’s gem from Mani Ratnam’s Iruvar. Voice Over by Aravind Swamy.

Unnoadu naan irundha ovvoru maNi thuLiyum
maraNa padukkayilum maRakkaadhu kaNmaNiyae
90 nimidangaL thottaNaitha kaalamdhaan
800 aaNdugaLaai idhayathil ganakkudhadi
paarvayile sila nimidam bayathoadu sila nimidam
katti aNaithapadi kaNNeeril sila nimidam
ilakkaName paaraamal ella idangaLilum muththangaL vidaiththa mogathiL sila nimidam

Unnoadu naan irundha ovvoru maNi thuLiyum
maraNa padukkayilum maRakkaadhu kaNmaNiyae
edhu nyayam edhu paavam iruvarukkum thoandravillai
adhu irava adhu pagala adhu patRi aRiyavillai
yaar thodanga yaar mudikka oru vazhiyum thoandravillai
iruvarume thodangi vittoam idhu varaikkum kaeLviyillai
achcham kalaindhaen aasayinai nee aNindhaai
aadai kalaindhaen vekkathai nee aNindhaai
kaNdathiru koalam kanavaaga maRaindhaalum
kadasiyile azhudha kaNNeer kaiyil innum ottudhadi

Unnoadu naan irundha ovvoru maNi thuLiyum
maraNa padukkayilum maRakkaadhu kaNmaNiyae
Unnoadu naan irundha ovvoru maNi thuLiyum
maraNa padukkayilum maRakkaadhu kaNmaNiyae

You can watch the Iruvar Theme and Kanmaniye song here.

P.S: Any tamilians around who want to translate?

When Manmohan Singh moves the one-line confidence motion on July 21st, the Indian Parliament will be finally voting for the Nuclear Deal, thanks to the Left parties. But after disregarding and devaluing the Parliament on the nuclear deal for almost a year now, Manmohan has finally created value. One Lok Sabha MP in India is currently selling at 25-30 Crore per various media reports.

Willard: ” They told me that you had gone totally insane and that your methods were unsound.” 

Kurtz: “Are my methods unsound?”

Willard: ” I don’t see any method at all, sir.”

From Coppola’s Apocalypse Now

Manmohan Singh is an honourable man and for the time being I’m assuming the Nuclear Deal is good for the country. There is no questioning his credentials as a technocrat, nor has he given reasons to doubt his patriotism. He was never a mass leader, but then he never pretended to be one even after becoming Prime Minister. Manmohan was never disloyal to the Gandhi family despite having to share his legacy with the UPA Chairperson. He is secretive, then as I’d read, callosity from being in the beurocracy for decades doesn’t melt away so soon.

Manmohan Singh knows well that when history appraises him, his legacy will be closely knit to how well economic reforms fared in India. It might be this pressure that makes him overboard to convince the corporates. There is a decade old joke that Foreign Investors come to India thinking that he is still the Finance Minister. Despite utterances on inclusive growth, Manmohan has mostly been the Corporates’ man talking to the people of India. The Prime Ministers before him were populists talking to the Corporates.

I’m not saying this is bad, it might actually be good for India because people who invest would like to invest in a place, where executive power will not be handled irresponsibly. And Manmohan Singh has created an environment where whoever be the driver, he cannot easily derail the train.

But there is an inherent problem with this. Manmohan Singh was not elected by the people - he is not a Lok Sabha member, nor is he a mass leader with roots in any political movement. He doesn’t act like a leader who can electrify the nation and he knows he cannot be one now.

Hence, he doesn’t need to convince the people of India, nor does he value their mandate. It is logical for a technocrat to conclude that an issue like the Nuclear Deal cannot be understood along with its long term consequences by the people of India - a large chunk who is illiterate and struggling with day to day issues. This could be why Manmohan showed disdain for Parliament.

Do I find his methods unsound? Yes I do. Because I am a citizen. And it makes me a second class citizen.

The United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act was passed by the US Congress (359-68) and the US Senate (85-12). In the same manner, shouldn’t this strategic tie-up be approved by the Indian Parliament? Manmohan could have evaded the Indian Parliament for three reasons,

1. Manmohan was afraid of the Left Parties - This is highly improbable. The vote in the US Houses clearly show that both Republicans and Democrats have voted together. Don’t we need that kind of a consensus in India too, where all national players are aligned on the broad framework and direction of the Foreign and Economic policy? The Left parties cannot hijack a Parliamentary decision - they have only 59 MPs. If the PM had addressed the concerns of the BJP, the Parliament would have endorsed the Deal by a two-thirds majority. Isn’t that how policy is made? And then even if the BJP comes to power in 2009, they will not renege on the pact! Isn’t that what the world community and the US wants?

2. Indians are 2nd Class citizens of the world - The representatives of the American people have to approve the Deal, but not their Indian counterparts. Because the Indian people are 2nd class citizens of the world living in a 3rd rate democracy where highly educated technocrats like Manmohan Singh and Abdul Kalam and Anil Kakodkar take decisions for them. Manmohan is a lame duck Prime Minister in such a hurry to make a deal with a lame duck President of the United States, that too the most unpopular one in history, despite the fact that the probable Democratic incumbent has made it clear that he is Ok with the deal.

In that case, I’ll probably declare myself a Republic and be a first class citizen of the world like Arundhati Roy put it. But before that as an Indian citizen, here’s my one vote against Manmohan’s confidence motion. Nay!

3. Manmohan thought he could get away with it - When Manmohan Singh moves the one-line confidence vote on July 21st, the Indian Parliament will be finally voting for the Nuclear Deal, thanks to the Left parties.

P.S: If Congress ends up battered in the next General Elections, then the Left will have nothing much to do. Another Political winter for the leftist-centrist forces in India. But if the Congress puts up a decent show and the Left comes back with 50 MPs, they could come together again minus Manmohan.

P.P.S: With Manmohan out, Pranab and Arjun cancelling each out and Patil vetoed by the left, it could really be this guy. Good old Mr Clean!

Dear Shri Pranab Mukherjee,

….that time has come

- Signed: Prakash Karat, A B Bardhan, Debabrata Biswas, T J Chandrachoodan

- and a few of us sighed and others,

Good Riddance! said the TOI editorial,
Lal Salaam! said Bloody Mary and,
in the mayhem added that
airports must be privatized.

I dont know why Sagarika says that all the time,
maybe even the media has an agenda
Do I know what the Left’s agenda is?

then I don’t know why they’re leaving,
Or where they gonna go,
I guess they got their reasons,
But I just don’t want to know.

Because in early 2004, in reply to a mail which asked whether he was still alive an old comrade said “I am very much alive, and so is the hope for a non NDA alternative at Centre“. AMEN. Hope as a strategy works in theology, not in politics. But then YSR Reddy swept Andhra for the Congress, the BJP declined in key states and the Left posted their best tally ever. The national destiny was re-written with the UPA and Left coming together based on a Common Minimum Programme, and Sonia Gandhi delivering the master stroke by relinquishing the PMO and denying BJP its last straw.

Now that the UPA and the Left are parting, or cutting the flab, the Congress and the CPM are back to their pre-2004 line ups, it is time to take stock. Critics across the divide are looking at the half year they did not give the nation, but what about the four and a half years they gave the nation.

The Good of UPA-Left years

Stability with Dignity: If one remembers the NDA years, despite the coalition having 300 odd seats in the 545 member house, there was George Fernandes and Pramod Mahajan skirting from one “Allied” capital to another appeasing the allies, and the national political scene became a circus around the whims of Trinamool,the DMK, the Sena and other regional and single-issue parties. Despite their differences, and the fact that they are political opponents in the Left’s bastions of Bengal and Kerala, there was a certain dignity maintained by both parties even during the WB & Kerala assembly elections in 2006. Which other two political parties can do this?

The UPA too had constituents, if one looks closely, who don’t have any national accountability and could have rocked the boat any time. This was prevented by those 59 MPs from the left, who sat right in the middle of the house and to some extent by Mulayam Singh’s 39 who toed the Left’s line on any issue. The leaders of the Congress party and the CPM never crossed the limits, and India had 4 and a half years of a stable coalition that worked with dignity.

The Centrist Centre Stage:  If one remembers the NDA years, the national stage was pretty much dominated by whether the Vishwa Hindu Parishad will give more time to the centre before they start building the Ram temple? or whether Godhra was the trigger for Gujarat riots? or whether Narendra Moditva can be replicated?

The debate shifted with the 2004 verdict. The Left had no need to interpret the 2004 verdict as one for secularism - for them it was an anti-Congress verdict in Kerala and Bengal, but they did.  “Pseudo-Secularism” - I haven’t heard that word used that often in the past 4 years. India started talking about inclusive growth despite the shining. Programmes like NREG and the Loan Waiver, despite the criticism, made the nation’s priorities clear. The national debate shifted to the left of centre.

Reader’s Words has sanely put it, in the tragic end of an experiment

If the UPA had not gone ahead with the deal, it might have suffered a temporary loss of face, and the Left would have taken the flak for its obstinacy. Ironically, it was Mrs Sonia Gandhi who used the Gandhian technique of sacrificing a position and winning a moral battle. Manmohan Singh has done exactly the reverse- he might have won a battle, but he has lost the war and put to rest the experiment to build a Centrist United Front.

It is a political oppurtunity lost, but I hope the Congress and the CPM come together again in 2009 because they are both patriotic parties and dignified partners. Hope is not a strategy in itself, but as my friend said in 2004, hope is alive for a non-NDA alternative at centre.

The girl next door has a rabbit now, she says there’s male and female in rabbits, so funny right? I thought there were only cute rabbits. The girl says they run fast too. Ok fine! but my tortoise finally wins.

Moth? Butterfly? you can call it unidentified flying object, I call it “jeevi”. The wood is teak, it costs a future these days.

I said Chempakam, dad says Arali. He also said how much it costs a kg. I’d thought he was a romantic like me.

Cats are sad animals, they say cats dream of those good old days when they were lions. Hehe, two white lions then they are so afraid of me

P.S: I have purposefully omitted my dog’s snaps for Privacy reasons

P.P.S: Any comment which makes fun of the snaps will be moderated