A bit of history about the title first: the Malayalam word ‘kaliyattam‘ is actually the name of an art-form that is often refered to as the predecessor of Kathakali (which, I hope, needs no introduction). Kaliyattam is a temple art-form performed in front of temples – mostly owned/managed by celestal homesteads in the time this art-form used to flourish – as an inaugural function, and also as a kind of annual pooja for social and/or familial safety. Each character is the staging of a kaliyattam is called a kolam (form). To distinguish between the type of character (heroic, wicked, comedic), each kolam employs special styles of face-painting. Of course, being a temple art-form, the chief kolam is usually the god/goddess of the temple. Rumour has it that at the time of performing the kaliyattam, the spirit of the god/goddess enters into the person assuming the kolam. Hence the person who assumes the lead kolam, so to speak, has rigorous processes to follow and is held in great esteem by everybody.

Jayaraj places Shakespeare’s ‘Othello‘ into this religious & artistic milleu. Othello, of course, is the person who enacts the chief ‘kolam‘. In a masterly performance, Suresh Gopi enacts the insecurities of Othello with masterly command. However, Lal (a popular director, forced into acting by Jayaraj in what would prove to be a stroke of genuis) as Iago steals the honours right from under Gopi’s nose. As the scheming, ingratiating and evil Iago, Lal gives a performance of a lifetime. Manju Warrier plays Desdemona straight, with none of her usual quick repartees that the audience of Kerala had come to love by then (indeed, IMO she is one of the finest young actresses to have graced the Indian screen). The rest of the cast perform competently.

I read in a recent interview with Vishaal that he had opted not to put in the song that Desdemona songs on the night that she is killed. Bad decision, I think. In the Malayalam version, this is a beautiful number that goes ennodenthinu pinakkam…(Why are you upset with me…) that has gone on to become an immortal song for Kerala cine-goers. Bipasha’s items numbers currently blaring on screen haven’t really impressed me much, but let us see whether Vishal manages to upstage Jayaraj.

Anyway, due to such hindrances at work I decided to opt for a broadband connection. But the Airtel customer-service being what it is, I truly do not know when I will get a connection (a visit to the Airtel office has already proved futile).

It’s been an eventful month, certainly. On the personal front, hectic wedding preparations are going on. And of course, this has not been the quietest of months otherwise either. First we had the RD (Reader’s Digest) survey on rudeness (which, it appears, was really a survey on courtesy) which hit the news. There were a lot of Mumbaikars vehemently protesting against the methods of survey, against the results and even recommending ‘ruder’ cities. The last I heard, the Shiv Sena were planning to burn all shops that sell RD (hopefully, they won’t really do it; I am just kidding!).

And then we had the Mumbai blasts. Of course, for all our government has done about it, the blasts might never have happened at all. I remember what happened when there was an attack on Parliament; military operations on the border were instantly escalated, and remained intensified for a couple of months. Moral of the story, I guess, is that our government will act against terrorists only they are targetted personally. Wah, government ho to aisi!

Many people also praised the ‘spirit of Mumbai’, and remarked that this was an apt rejoinder to poor RD. The poor Mumbaikar attempts to get on with his life as best as he can, and even that is politicised. Could people please stop talking about this indomitable spirit, at least at this time? Any other city in the world would have responded in the same way in the face of such devastating tragedy (e.g. NY during 9/11, the affected areas during the tsunamis etc). Instead, hit out at our inability to do anything about this continual terrorist threat.

For all our criticism of America’s policies on terror, remember one thing: they have not had another terrorist attack on their soil. I am sure thay’d rather take on all the criticism than face another 9/11. Most unfortunately, our government seems to believe in the reverse – hence the sorry state of affairs.

Some of the books that I have read over the past few months have been quite interesting, and some others have been outright trashy. Here I describe a few of the interesting ones:

‘We need to talk about Kevin‘ by Lionel Shriver is a humdinger of a book, though morbid at times. The book worked for me at several levels: as a commentary on society’s perceived notions of the mother, as an interpretation of the possible motives that compel a teenager to kill his peers and most of all, the more-than-ample suggestions that the narrator may not be presenting an entirely unbiased account. The book is about Kevin Katchadourian, who kills 10 people at his school when he is just 15. The tale is narrated by Eva, Kevin’s dysfunctional mom. To the author’s credit, neither Kevin nor Eva ever descend to being merely stereotypical characters – they are complex, difficult (even hateful) characters sometimes, but on the other hand even Kevin is endearing sometimes. For those of you who enjoy serious reading, this is an amazing read.

‘The Poisonwood Bible‘ by Barbara Kingsolver is an interesting read, but IMO falls short of being great. The book narrates the tale of a fiery evangelist who tears his family away from everything they are used to, and hauls them away to the politically volatile Congo. The story moves forward through the viewpoints of the preacher’s daughters. Despite a great plot, the book really fails to propel itself to a modern classic. Kingsolver failes to bring alive the Congo, the way Wilbur Smith used to bring alive Africa in some of his earlier works (or as Khaled Hosseini did Afghanistan so eloquently in the wonderful ‘The Kite Runner‘). Also, one of the protagonists – Rachel – has no character graph at all. I did enjoy all the biblical references, though (I am a big fan of all biblical fiction).

‘The Pilot’s Wife‘ by Anita Shreve is highly overrated, IMO. I could foresee where the book was going almost from the beginning; was almost like one of those cheesy 80′s Jeetendra-Rekha-Jayaprada potboilers. I did like the way she conveyed the way the family copes with the sudden tragedy, but the other-woman-angle (sorry!) was uncalled for. Recommended only for staunch followers of Danielle Steele and the like.

‘Like Water for Chocolate‘ by Laura Esquivel is more like a re-telling of a legend (like somebody narrating the Ramayana, for instance), and less of a conventional novel. Once this fact was firmly entrenched in my mind, I was absolutely entranced by this novel. First of all, the book follows a unique, rivetting format: every chapter begins with the recipe of a dish that Tita is currently preparing, and then dissolves into the actual plot. And the Mexican recipes (especially the quail in rose-petal sauce one) sound really yummy, I have to admit (but my being a glutton has nothing to do with the quality of the book!). This is a great, great book – just have to see the movie version too.

I am currently reading:

‘Hangman’s Journal’ by Shashi Warrier: This boasts of a plot that seems (at least in the initial stages) similar to Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s latest masterpiece ‘Nizhalkuthu‘ (Interplay of Shadows). The books got some good reviews, and Shashi Warrier has written some decent stuff before (‘Night of the Krait‘, ‘The Orphan‘ etc).

‘A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian‘ by Marina Lewycka is next on my list. This too has been heavily recommended to me, and is supposed to be a damn good read; let’s wait and see!

P.S.: Excuse the bastardization of the great Bard’s work!

tusi ro rahe ho? You no cry. I give what you want!

It was our own Bhaji, whose tender heart could not bear the sight of the misty-eyed foreigner. Apna Turbanator promptly proceeded to give her his own autograph, and was promptly rewarded by a 100-watt smile.

Of course, the clothes (sic!) had nothing to do with it!

(Image Courtesy Cricinfo)

Now, being the bridegroom, I find myself in the fortunate position of having to do almost nothing! One of the few things that I did need to take care of was choosing a decent invitation card . Upon making some ‘discreet enquiries’, I was convinced that my choices in Chennai boiled down to either ‘Menaka Wedding Cards (Kodampakkom)‘ or ‘Olympic Cards (Parry’s)‘. Now, I just knew that Kodampakkom is somewhere close to the dreaded Panagal Park zone, that area in Chennai where even the most seasoned drivers venture into only with trepidation. However, emboldened by my friends’ comments on how the traffic was ‘much better nowadays’, I made the foolhardy decision of trying to reach the damn place on my two-wheeler.

Several hours and half a dozen flouted traffic rules later, I finally found myself weary and drained at the entrance of Menaka Cards. The showroom itself offered a bewildering array of choices, not exactly a reassuring sight to somebody who had just drained himself by participating in traffic that seemed straight out of a Matthew Reilly book. For reasons best known to the proprietor(s), they did not have an organized catalog of wedding cards; instead they just had the huge collection displayed on the walls, whose texture and text you could personalize. The kahani mein twist, however, was that these displayed cards could apparently be switched daily (randomly). I mean, if I’d chosen a card and come back the next day with my fiancee to show her the card of my choice, there’s have been the distinct possibility that I’d have driven myself crazy hunting for the damn card. Seems to me an extremely inefficient and inorganized way of doing business, but then they are the biggest suppliers of wedding cards in Chennai; so I guess their friggin’ system works, after all. Anyway, due to this queer idiosyncrasy, I found myself in the rather unenviable position of having to make a second trip to the bloody place, this time with Smitha in tow (she wanted around 100 cards too), so that we could choose a template and give the order.

This time around, I wisely keep my bike at a friend’s place, and continue the journey by an auto (Chennai autowallahs are not exactly paragons of virtue, but anybody who can navigate through that kind of traffic for a living has earned his money alright, IMO). After several breathtaking kamikaze moves (through which Smitha has her eyes tightly shut), the auto-driver gets us to the above-mentioned cardshop within 20 mins. I tip the guy, who’s puzzled face suddenly breaks into a beatific grin. He asks me whether he should wait. I tell him not to ride his luck too hard, and venture inside the cardshop for the second time in the week.

To tell you the truth, they do have an awful lot of good cards. I was rather keen on a wonderful card with MGR on the main-page, with a stamp-sized beaming Jayalalitha on the right-bottom corner (it had red-gold borders too), but unfortunately my fiancee did not quite see things my way. Neither of us wanted the huge newspaper-style cards, and hence we desisted from even going near that section of the store. The card that we chose finally was pretty decent, after all (in spite of me, I should say). My only grouse was that the card had one Ganpati too many, but I was quickly overridden and hushed up, so the Ganpatis stay, I guess! We studiously avoid all those horrible cliches – ‘Compliments, beloved sister Nimmie’, ‘Ensure presence & avoid presents’ and other such crap.

A week later, I am back at the store – this time to collect the cards (by auto again, of course). I am horrorstruck to note that the cards are not in their respective envelopes – drat it! I guess I have a couple of hours of folding to do too – makes me think we could have avoided the envelopes, but what the heck!

P.S.: This is my 100th post on this blog – wow!!!! I do hope there has been some improvement in the quality as well!!!

This post lists down the few actual lovemaking scenes that come to mind. Please do note that this list is not in any particular order – titillation-value, aesthetic-sense etc – I am just writing them down as and when they come to mind. You are welcome to contribute!

a. Kamal Hassan and Rani Mukherjee in ‘Hey Ram’:

One has to admit, Kamal Hassan is one lucky bastard. Wielding the directorial helm, Kamal does a fair imitation of a dog with a bone – he paws poor Rani, slobbers all over her face, and even bites her butt. However, when it comes to the actual scene, Kamal goes back to the old bedsheet-covered demure Indian woman cliche.

b. Mallika Sherawat in ‘Murder’

Oh-man. This truly showed us ‘what lies beneath’ alright! Mallika’s ample ‘screen-presence‘ reduced even Emraan Hansini, the serial kisser of our times, to a mere spectator on the sidelines. i suspect even a suggestion of a bedsheet would have been pooh-poohed at by Mallika.

c. Rahul Khanna and Nandita Das in ’1947: Earth’

Rather elegantly picturized, this one. The good-looking Rahul and the dusky Nandita sizzle in the background as the villain of the piece, Aamir, shows us the turmoil in his mind.

d. Kamal Hassan and Vasundhara Das in ‘Hey Ram’

Hey, our man ain’t done yet! After Rani is bumped off, Kamal ‘discovers’ Vasundhara, a demure yet intelligent Brahmin lass. Kamal is unnaturally controlled in the first few frames. However, after some bhang, Kamal unleashes himself on an unsuspecting Vasundhara; natural order is restored.

e. Anil Kapoor and Dimple in ‘Janbaaz’

Feroz Khan’s Janbaaz features a love-making scene shot with the hero and heroine romping around in hay, probably to camouflage the hairy Anil Kapoor. Remember, this was the shot that prompted Dimple to label Kapoor a barber’s delight, probably in jealousy of him usurping her own ‘crowing glory’ tag.

f. Vinod Khanna and Madhuri Dixit in ‘Dayavaan’

Feroz Khan directs this one as well. Or rather, mis-directs it, considering that he flicked almost every scene of the Mani Ratnam-Kamal Hassan classic ‘Nayakan‘, and yet produced such excreable stuff. Featuring a teenaged Madhuri (and a teenaged Ramya Krishnan as well), this movie is still remembered only because of this love-making scene. Vinod Khanna exhibited a marked enthusiasm for the scene, that was noticeably lacking in several other scenes. Well, I guess one can’t really blame him!

g. Manisha Koirala and some kid in ‘Tum’

One of the most horribly picturized love-making scenes ever, in most probability. Manisha sprawls uninvitingly on a bed, looking more like a blue-whale trapped in a net and less like a desirable woman with every passing second. The poor kid, trying hard to simulate some semblance of passion, struts his stuff while Adnan Sami sings some nonsensical song in the background. Truly tragic, this, especially when one remembers the likes of ’1942…‘ and ‘Khamoshi‘.

h. Madhuri Dixit and Anil Kapoor in ‘Parinda’

Loudmouth though he is, Vidhu Vinod Chopra is one of the more sensible directors around. ‘Parinda‘ features an elegantly shot love-making scene, with Anil Kapoor thankfully not showing much of his hairy self. The scene interperses with shots of a manic Nana Patekar (in a brilliant performance)furiously in search of them, and the suspense is built up skilfully.

i. Mallu love-making scenes – featuring Shakeela, Maria, Reshma and others of ther ilk

Now, these are genuinely funny, and form an entirely different category by themsleves. Most of these women are 40+, and look it too. Plus, they are all massive. For instance, the last emotion one would feel upon the sight of Shakeela on a bed would be lust (except in the case of a male hippopotamus, perhaps!); she is absolutely gigantic. The others are not much better either. And as for the actual scenes, they are so ludicrous that one can’t help laughing out aloud. I will not attempt to describe them here, they are absolutely beyond words!

P.S: I think Kamal Hassan should form an entirely different category by himself too. I mean, hey, just count for yourselves: Hey Ram, Nayakan, Chachi 420, Virumandi, and still counting) but I’m a big fan of his movies, and hence I shall desist.

An chinky-looking tourist guide (Aamir Khan, with more wrinkles than Jackie Chan) tries hard to woo the visiting Kashmiri lass (Kajol). IMO, one of the few intelligent things about the screenplay was making the girl blind; its sorta hard to imagine anybody else falling head-over-heels in love with this particular sicko shayari-spouting guide. To cut things short (and avoid umpteen shayari-bantering scenes), he flirts, she responds, he backs off, she becomes horny, they make love and lo – the inevitable happens: the babe-in-the-woods is now pregnant.

Now, Kajol does try to call her parents for advice before hopping into bed for what would be her first desi love-making scene (you know, the kind where the people making love are all cosily wrapped up inside satin bedsheets so that only their shoulders are visible, and the enthusiastic actors try to comepensate & enliven the procedure by furiously necking) on screen. Her mom Kiron Kher hogs the call, not allowing poor li’l fat daddy Rishi to talk to darling horny beti. Now, I am sure he wanted to talk about safe sex to his horny daughter, but because Kiron did not give the phone to him, Kajol did never realize the vritues of safe sex, and she became pregnant. Public Message 1: So all ya Kashmiri gals visiting Delhi, make sure you listen to your respective dads!

Well, getting back to the story (hic!), Aamir now takes Kajol to a bald doctor speaking in some strange wacko accent, who provides what seems to be Public Message 2: keep visiting your doctors, as medical science is progressing by leaps and bounds, and anything may be possible tommorow. Of course, the hefty consultation fees are but a minor incovenience. I bet the director’s dad was a bankrupt doctor or something – any takers for this theory? But I digress: after delivering the public message, the bald doc promises a sucessful ‘retinal transplant‘ and wheels off poor Kajol to what is presumably the OR. When she wakes up, hey presto: she can see! But by this time Aamir is AWOL, and presumably dead (Kajol acts well in this scene). But then comes the proverbial twist in the tale: Aamir is very much alive, and is in fact a dreaded international terrorist (a much trimmer and better-looking terrorist at that), who happened to fall in lust (sorry, love) with the blind Kashmiri lass. And then there’s poor Tabu, a hotshot member of some obscure (well, given that the only other hotshot member seems to be Sharad Saxena, I bet it has to be pretty obscure) anti-terrorist squad – she must have been in need of some desperate money to have even given a moment’s thought at this role.

The post-interval events are, in comparison, more entertaining; cliched and hackneyed though they may be. The terrorist organization now (that is, after 7 years) has a nuclear bomb, and Aamir has infiltrated a militray base to get his hands on the last piece (the ‘trigger’). But then, Tabu’s hot on his heels, and after a Bond-like chase sequence Aamir is injured badly enough to take shelter in a house (who else, but Kajol’s). But of course, Kajol doesn’t recognize Aamir (she was blind then, duh!). Possibilties of yet another love-making scene, where Kajol would recognize Aamir by the ‘feel’ of him, did cross my mind; but the director resorts instead to the antakshari phenomenon for the oh-my-gawd-its-him scene (I thought shayari would have been more appropriate, considering all that speil in the first half, but never mind!). Aamir and Kajol manage to make this stupid scene work, and that’s quite a herculean task, believe me. Oh, and before I forget, there’s the mandatory cute-as-a-button kid as well: the result of Kajol not listening to her ‘experienced’ dad. Rishi, I suspect, probably did the movie for all the free Scotch whiskies he was seen gulping throughout the movie.

The logical (a misnomer if there ever was one, I know) culmination follows: Aamir recuperates and even bathes the child (this is not the damn climax, ok!). But then Tabu (yeah, she was thinking all this time) has the bright idea of sending out televised warnings about a diminutive but dangerous man, and Rishi & Kajol get the picture. So Aamir bumps off Rishi, and Kajol bumps off Aamir. From a flying helicopter, Tabu shoots down the head of the terrorists, who is in yet another helicopter enough! Whew !!!

The sad part is that despite the hackneyed plot, the screenplay does have its moments (especially in the post-interval portions). For instance, Tabu argues briefly about a referendum on Kashmir, a topic hitherto left unexplored in cinema. There is also a subtle undercurrent of animosity between Tabu and her colleague, which remains unexplained and unexplored until the end (compare this to how well the relationship between the characters of Aamir and Mukesh Rishi was conveyed in ‘Sarfarosh‘). In the climax (clearly ‘inspired‘ from Ken Follet’s ‘Eye of the Needle’), Aamir displays a fanatic steeliness to his character that could have made for cinema in the hands of a competent director.

Kajol, appearing on screen after a brief hiatus, is effective. Her character is essentially a repeal of her meek, obedient, docile sister-act in ‘Dushman‘ and ‘Kuch Khatti, Kuch Meethi‘ (yeah, I know, I am entirely jobless!). Oh, she’s Kashmiri, so she dutifully throws in an ‘abbu‘ and ‘ammi‘ every few sentences – must be due to all the hard work that Kunal Kohli put in researching the Kashmir ethos, you know. Still, Kajol looks as radiant as ever, and her sheer presence is infectious. She plays a large role in salvaging this crappy movie.

Aamir Khan, whose new-year resolution seems to be to become this generation’s Manoj Kumar (there’s Sunny Deol in the fray too, but that’s another story), plays the terorist, who is also supposed to be a master-of-disguises. Well, his first disguise was certainly very effective; in the pre-interval portions Aamir looks OLD and sorta plump as well. However, in the second half of the movie he looks as young and active as ever. On the emoting front, he is competent; however the absence of a strong screenplay jars.

Tabu is convincing. Rishi looks the part. Kiron Kher is fast becoming the female Alok Nath, which would be a shame given her considerable talent. Sathish Shah and Shiney Ahuja appear have miniscule screen time, and are roped in for the sole purpose of illustrating how ruthless Aamir is.

Verdict: Give this one a miss!

Chennai: Mon to Fri
Now, I work on the ‘IT Corridor‘ in Chennai; yeah, the same general area where the proposed six-lane highway is going to come up by the end of the year (optimistic, aren’t they!). Irrespective of lanes and highways, I hope they think of repairing the roads sometime before the end of this decade. Riding a bike on OMR (Old Mahabalipuram Road) would be easier if you have ever played a bike-racing game; the potholes, traffic and terrible driving sense would make this a truly memorable experience.

Now, there is this particular junction called SRP Tools on this road; a month ago, the traffic jams here looked like the release of a Rajnikanth movie. Honking, screaming cars with their bonnets angled in every possible direction; hapless two-wheelers trapped between the maze of cars with no way out, with their drivers’ eyes darting left and right through the helmets, looking for the slightest opening; far-sighted (literally!!) two-wheelers giving this whole chakravyuha a wide berth, encroaching upon the oncoming vehicles in a desperate bid to reach the other side; abuses hurled galore – we had it all. Of course, needless to add, there is no traffic signal here! Most importantly, not one driver had the simple courtesy of giving way; everybody was bent on inching forward centimeter by centimeter, at the same time. A deadlock that would have had even Dijkstra tearing out his hair in frustration, I am afraid.

From the beginning of this month, I was pleasantly suprised to find able policement patrolling this junction to make sure that such hopeless traffic-jams do not occur. Things are much better than they were before, although the roads are still horrible and people still have horrible driving-sense. The cops have their job truly cut out, and they are doing some fine work in this highly congested area. A big thanks to them, and to the administration for acting in time.

Mumbai: A Weekend last month
I was in Mumbai for my aunt’s 25th wedding anniversary celebrations, and the stifling heat as well as the overpowering dust put me off immediately. Trust me, Chennai and Bangalore seem nowhere as hot and dusty as Mumbai was (that particular weekend, at least!). Needless to say, I don’t plan to return anytime soon.

But during the way back to the Mumbai airport, I had a whiff of what everybody talks about: the indomitable Mumbai ‘spirit’. The roads were hopelessly jammed, with all kinds of vehicles blocking each other. And not a policeman in sight, to boot; I was resigned to the fact that I’d miss my flight (even accounting for the hopeless ineptitude of the Mumbai airport, but that is another story altogether!). But then, I’d not bargained for the resilience of some citizens (a Marwari, another guy who looked like a chauffeur, and a couple of others) who came out of their vehicles and forced the jammed vehicles to back off – one by one, inch by inch. Cajoling a lady on a scooty, berating a truck-driver who tried to inch forward while everybody else was backing off, exchanging good-natured banter with the auto and taxi-wallahs – they did all this and more with an easy familarity.

The junction (with no traffic signal, of course) was finally cleared, and the volunteers (for want of a better word) stayed at the junction to ensure that all the vehicles cleared that junction smoothly. This is something I have seen in no other Indian city before, and I have been to many cities in South India. Indeed, if somebody tried the likes of this in Kerala, he’d have probably got hit for trying to act too smart (and there’d have been a Communist bandh as well as a Congress bandth too). I was really, really impressed (and needless to add, thankful for saving me my 5000 bucks!).

As Govinda would put it, it happens only in India .

Chennai: Mon to Fri
Now, I work on the ‘IT Corridor‘ in Chennai; yeah, the same general area where the proposed six-lane highway is going to come up by the end of the year (optimistic, aren’t they!). Irrespective of lanes and highways, I hope they think of repairing the roads sometime before the end of this decade. Riding a bike on OMR (Old Mahabalipuram Road) would be easier if you have ever played a bike-racing game; the potholes, traffic and terrible driving sense would make this a truly memorable experience.

Now, there is this particular junction called SRP Tools on this road; a month ago, the traffic jams here looked like the release of a Rajnikanth movie. Honking, screaming cars with their bonnets angled in every possible direction; hapless two-wheelers trapped between the maze of cars with no way out, with their drivers’ eyes darting left and right through the helmets, looking for the slightest opening; far-sighted (literally!!) two-wheelers giving this whole chakravyuha a wide berth, encroaching upon the oncoming vehicles in a desperate bid to reach the other side; abuses hurled galore – we had it all. Of course, needless to add, there is no traffic signal here! Most importantly, not one driver had the simple courtesy of giving way; everybody was bent on inching forward centimeter by centimeter, at the same time. A deadlock that would have had even Dijkstra tearing out his hair in frustration, I am afraid.

From the beginning of this month, I was pleasantly suprised to find able policement patrolling this junction to make sure that such hopeless traffic-jams do not occur. Things are much better than they were before, although the roads are still horrible and people still have horrible driving-sense. The cops have their job truly cut out, and they are doing some fine work in this highly congested area. A big thanks to them, and to the administration for acting in time.

Mumbai: A Weekend last month
I was in Mumbai for my aunt’s 25th wedding anniversary celebrations, and the stifling heat as well as the overpowering dust put me off immediately. Trust me, Chennai and Bangalore seem nowhere as hot and dusty as Mumbai was (that particular weekend, at least!). Needless to say, I don’t plan to return anytime soon.

But during the way back to the Mumbai airport, I had a whiff of what everybody talks about: the indomitable Mumbai ‘spirit’. The roads were hopelessly jammed, with all kinds of vehicles blocking each other. And not a policeman in sight, to boot; I was resigned to the fact that I’d miss my flight (even accounting for the hopeless ineptitude of the Mumbai airport, but that is another story altogether!). But then, I’d not bargained for the resilience of some citizens (a Marwari, another guy who looked like a chauffeur, and a couple of others) who came out of their vehicles and forced the jammed vehicles to back off – one by one, inch by inch. Cajoling a lady on a scooty, berating a truck-driver who tried to inch forward while everybody else was backing off, exchanging good-natured banter with the auto and taxi-wallahs – they did all this and more with an easy familarity.

The junction (with no traffic signal, of course) was finally cleared, and the volunteers (for want of a better word) stayed at the junction to ensure that all the vehicles cleared that junction smoothly. This is something I have seen in no other Indian city before, and I have been to many cities in South India. Indeed, if somebody tried the likes of this in Kerala, he’d have probably got hit for trying to act too smart (and there’d have been a Communist bandh as well as a Congress bandth too). I was really, really impressed (and needless to add, thankful for saving me my 5000 bucks!).

As Govinda would put it, it happens only in India .

There’s this particular passage in Mario Puzo’s ‘The Godfather‘, where Michael Corleone suddenly stiffens and glares at his brother Sonny who’s laughing hard at ‘the kid who wants to gun down the police captain, all because he got slapped around in the face a little bit’. Puzo’s prose is absolutely rivetting when he describes the change that comes over Michael’s persona; a chillness seems to emanate from Michael that fills the entire room.

Justifiably, this scene is not present in Coppolla‘s own version; nor was it filmed by Mani Ratnam or RGV in their own versions of this masterpiece (I am not even looking at stupid remakes like ‘Aatank hi Aatank‘, ‘Abhimanyu‘ and others of their ilk). Trust cocky Selvaraghavan to take a stab!

As a gang-member repeatedly hurls abuses against Kumar’s (enacted magnificently by Dhanush) dead mother, the hitherto meek and obedient Kumar suddenly snarls back: Shut up, #$#@ or else! Of course, the scene falls flat on its feet (as a ‘Godfather‘ tribute, else it is rather decent); Dhanush, not a Pacino, Kamal or a Mohanlal on even his best day, has neither the looks nor the panache to carry off such a scene.

What does Selvaraghavan do now? Well, try again, of course! This time, he resorts to the genius of Yuvan Shankar Raja to provide a lilting bgm as he prises out a nearly perfect scene – as perfect as they can get in commerical Indian cinema, I’d say. As a political hoodlum swings his arm to finish off a battered, staggering and dead-on-his-feet ‘Kokki’ Kumar, the director – in an astonishing display of film-making savvy – has his gawky protagonist blindly hit out with every iota of strength left in his body. The hoodlum drops down dead, and the 100-odd mob stands by in a shocked silence as a clearly exhausted-but-indomitable Kumar yells out like a maniac for more punishment. Combined with Yuvan’s background-score, the scene underlines yet again what tremendous talent this brother-duo possess.

Now, there are a whole lot of people who avoid Selvaraghavan movies, claiming that he makes utterly crass movies about psychopaths. Well, their claims are partly true – his protagonists do exhibit signs of mental illness. But his movies are never crass; he just makes movies on crass people. And that, my friends, is a huge difference. With ‘Pudhupettai‘, Selvaraghavan reaffirms that ‘Kathal Kondein‘ and ‘7G Rainbow Colony‘ were no mere flashes in the pan.

‘Pudhupettai‘ tells the tale of ‘Kokki’ Kumar, who narrates the story of his life from an imaginatively shaded prison cell (was the dual coloring supposed to indicate symptoms of multiple-personality disorder in Kumar? I am not sure, but the thought certainly crossed my mind). Kumar ends up in a life of crime upon his sheltered life being thrown into shambles when his father murders his mother in a murderous fit of rage. The meteoric rise of Kumar from the baby of the gang to a sudden adult is depicted mostly through a series of random scenes – Kumar eating, Kumar having sex with the prostitute (Sneha, who puts in a performance that can be best described as dignified), Kumar surviving an attack by the skin of his neck etc. The pre-interval portion of the movie is a treat to watch.

Post-interval, Selvaraghan resorts to idiosyncratic techniques which are fascinating to watch but do end up spoiling the tempo hitherto established. Moreover, much like in Mahesh Manjrekar’s Vaastav, this part of the movie deals with a Kumar drunk on power (as they say, there is no better aphrodisiac than power), and the gradual unravelling of his empire. Unfortunately, Dhanush tends to go overboard in more than one scene, and his gravelling voice is irritating in several sequences. There is also at least one song more than what would have been ideal, and the best song of the album has not been picturized at all. The politics-gangsta’ nexus is all very nicely filmed, but evokes strong feelings of deja-vu (RGV’s ‘Satya‘, for instance). However, there was an AWESOME scene with Dhanush and Sonia Agarwal (whose sole purpose in the movie was this scene, IMO!), where she almost snidely tells Dhanush that Sneha’s child may not quite be his; Dhanush’s heartbroken expression and the subtle hardening of his eyes speaks volumes (more than his voice ever could).

Now, for the performances: its the gawky, skeletal Dhanush all the way. Overcoming his looks, the young actor puts in tremendous effort and delivers a powerhouse performance. The only scenes that jar are the ones in which he hams, and thankfully Selvaraghavan does a fine job of reining his brother in most of the time. Sneha does another one of her trademark roles (the beautiful, dignified-in-the-face-of-suffering Indian nari), and she does pack in a lot of screen-presence, one has to admit. Most of the new actors do well. Sonia Agarwal has nothing much to do, except for that great scene.

Selvaraghavan is a tremendous talent, and he will only improve (the guy is just 3 movies old!) as time goes by. One wishes, though, that he stops picturizing those inane dance-numbers even when they clearly do not fit in to the scheme of things. Also, I strongly felt that in ‘Puthupettai‘ the erotic song with Sonia was put in only to underline the fact that he is not a director to shy away from depicting sexuality on screen. However, in his previous outings (namely ‘Kaathal Kondein‘ and ‘7G Rainbow Colony’, though to a lesser extent), the scenes were integrated into the script, whereas here it is NOT. The climax, though perhaps as close to real-life as one can get, is a tremendous letdown (this was the case in his previous movie as well).

Verdict: A firm thumbs up (not for the faint-hearted; there’s plenty of sex, violence and abuse).