Message in a Bottle

Vaazhkaingardhu soda bottle maadhiri,
Pagaloda mudivu dhaan raathiri.
Pondaatti pera modhalla sollardhudhaan purushalakshanam,
Indo-US nuclear agreement dhaan Manmohan Singhukku sigaram.

Life is like a soda container,
Night is the day's terminator.
Mentioning the wife's name first is the quality in a husband best.
The Indo-US nuclear deal is Manmohan Singh's Everest.

Deep stuff!

Such is the modern conundrum we live in that we search for meaning in all things under the sun. One wonders why the price of onions has gone up by another ten rupees, and whether there is an ulterior motive to this played out unbeknown to him by supernumerary powers that be. Another frets over the birth of a child unforeseen, often left bemused by what must surely have been a plot of diabolical dimensions by the Catholic Church to sabotage the condom industry... or worse yet, the wrath of God ushering in the Kali Yuga by unsustainable population explosion. Here she stares at the spinning fan, searching for clues that might explain why the swirling winds do not cool that side of her face resting on the pillow... surely, had Coriolis switched poles... Katrina would not have happened, and the proverbial cool side of the pillow would have been but a whimsical sales pitch. Yes. There must be meaning to all the madness. "Order and method, Miss Lemon, order and method. That is the key, n'ai pas?"

Oui, certainement. So we have movies like The Dark Knight and Indian and Dhrokhal and Varumayin Niram Sivappu made from time to time. To restore faith in that most desperate of human conditions... the search for the inner truth. But what of those amongst us who do not believe in the human condition? Or have gone past it? Or have simply deemed it the proverbial cold side of the pillow and put it away, like a nice thick nine-hundred and seventy four page book on the philosophical musings of Pliny the Younger? For these people, the pudhu kavidhai (new-age poem) need not be logical. Or, it might be an algorithm for life, the universe and everything so profound that the true import of forty two escapes all but these elite few. For this clique, there are majordomos in Tamil Cinema today. CS Amudhan, Venkat Prabhu, Pushkar and Gayathri, and to a lesser extent, TP Gajendran. Why him? He made Maganey En Marumagane, that shameless throwback to the 80s familial problems diatribe formula. But remember, he also made Budget Padhmanabhan, and Middle Class Madhavan, two gems which for their time, and their cast, were truly as forward looking as the Chennai 28s, Oram Pos and Tamil Padams of this millennium.

The Western film industry has always lapped the Indian film industry several times over until now. Stoner comedies, such as the unforgettable 1974's Dark Star, cult favorites, the doyen of the genre being 2004's Napoleon Dynamite, and just plain weirdos like 2007's Hot Fuzz have always cropped up amidst the more serious stuff. Tamil Cinema has now reached this plane of superior existence, what with Vaanchinaathan, Narashimha, Veerasamy, 6'2" and Englishkaaran having exhausted the gamut of metaphysical possibilities. With Picasso's cubes and Dali's clocks having embellished the thinking man's brain to its fullest capacity, it is now left to MF Hussain's stick men and nude women to give new meaning to the question of existence. But no, it would be heretical to go so far. All Mother India taught us was that he has a deep seated Freudian obsession with the female form, and all Gajagamini showed us was that brightly colored water probably has Azo dyes and Benzene. Don't drink from that river!

No, the new lineup of movies, Oram Po, Chennai 28, Saroja, Goa, Tamil Padam, Boss Engira Baskaran and Va Quarter Cutting teach us something more. They portray a world that is unique to the ones we are left reeling to have had the misfortune to have been born in as we leave the theater having watched the serious attempts at philosophical exposition or action explosion. These new movies, and indeed the examples of the English ones I listed before tell us something that even proper "comedy" flicks fail to do. They tell us that life need not always have meaning. They tell us that not every moment has to be mired in gravitas. They tell us that every though need not be analyzed, every expression studied, and every action scrutinized. More than telling us to laugh, they tell us that you can take yourself less seriously from time to time. You can enjoy yourself a little bit more by losing yourself in the moment, not by getting lost in its inner workings. And that sometimes, the four lines in a new-age poem's stanza may rhyme, but without reason. After all, what has the Honorable Dr. Manmohan Singh got to do with the Luni-Solar cycle, or soda bottles with spousal relationships, eh?

The Devil and Narayanan Krishnan

And that is a shameless ripoff of the Title of Vincent Benet's 1939 classic short story, which itself was stolen blatantly from Washington Irving's 1824 faust tale. Anyway, I watched Narayanan Krishnan's speech during a fundraiser in New Jersey a few days ago organized by my aunt and a few of her friends. My parents, who were told by that same aunt that that speech moved her to tears, advised me to watch it. It didn't open the floodgates of fluids in me or anything, but it did give me hope about something I've been saying for quite a while now. India is moving forward despite the politicians who would hold her back. Because we are a nation whose greatest resource is not brain-power or man-power, but will-power to fight on against the odds. That translates to a will to make something out of nothing for folks like you and me. For heroes like Krishnan, its the green mile. See, for them, its about changing the lives of people who aren't lucky enough to be you and me.

Friends, this isn't my usual blog about a movie, because real life is more interesting with real heroes. So, its - to make this as unimaginative a vocabularial extravaganza as imaginable - about real heroes. Specifically, its about Mr. Krishnan (whom I've referenced four times now if you've been keeping tabs diligently, and if so, would have already guessed what the import of all this is going to be. Well done!), and to a lesser extent, my aunt and her friends.

And with that setup out of the way, let me get down to brass tacks. Narayanan Krishnan feeds four hundred people three meals a day seven days a week three hundred and sixty five days a year on less than four hundred dollars a day. Think about those numbers when you go for that next bag of Doritos or that ice-cream treat you've been promising yourself. Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't indulge yourself - forsooth - but think about it.

Obesity means different things in different places. In the USA, it usually means that poor people are at the mercy of corporate culinary giants who dole out the bad stuff in heaps for a pittance. Let's not delve into that too much, because its a necessary evil here. In India, it means that the "I got rich quick" crowd has decided to gorge itself on the starches, often spending vulgar amounts of Gandhis to do so. Think about the difference you could make in the life of just one of those four hundred people only if you ate what your body needs to survive. I am personally overweight by about twenty-five pounds and by the time I've finished writing this spot, I'll make the solemn pledge that I'll try to eat only what I biologically need.That's possibly save that extra bag of crisps or that superfluous burger for the poor in the USA. It'll mean that extra leaf of corn that will be freed up to send to China to feed the needy there, or burn up for Ethanol to power our "green" vehicles and save the planet. There, that's my Krishnan move.

We are both a nation of the hungry and one of the gluttons. When I went back to India this summer, I was shocked to see that on average, two diabetes testing centers had cropped up on every street in Chennai; the same streets that were rife with beggars or all descriptions. My god, how much insulin would it take to combat those calories weened off the mouths of babes and sucklings, and how much loss in revenue would our country have to endure, treating this disease of the excess? Revenue that could have been used to feed the poor, or whatever was leftover after our politicians gorged most of it and got more diabetes.

Amidst this backdrop, what is it that sets Krishnan apart? Here is a man who had it all: a gourmet chef at a five-star chain with a life bearing the infinite possibilities of diabetes on the horizon. Yet, he threw all that away to feed people he didn't know but whose souls his own formed an intrinsic triple-bond with (as in, the strongest biological bonds found in our molecules). He took a bold decision to diminish his own material experience, but enrich the sustenance of so many. He decided to answer his call of humanity, and became a hero instead. Good trade-off, this. Granted, the people under his wing will never die of diabetes. But, more importantly, they will not die of malnutrition either. Now, that's no longer Endhiran or Spiderman or Batman territory. Hell, its not even his namesake Krish's territory. This is the domain of Annapoorna and Jesus supreme combo.

Look here, the supreme combo is all and well, but without facilitators, heroes can be but a pipe dream. That's where people like my aunt and her friends make their foray into this essay. People with the motivation to go above and beyond the call of duty of mere charity, who put together events such as plays and fundraisers for worthy causes. People like my aunt, who from my personal experiences with her, would rather go hungry themselves or sleep a little less to ensure that a needy person may never feel the pangs of hunger. These people are the antithesis of Marie Anne, who asked "them" to eat cakes. Their lifestyles oftentimes aren't practical, for most of us, it isn't feasible, and it certainly doesn't make for a good self help book on how to become rich and successful. But, its certainly a thesis on how to be a human being.

So, the need of the hour is not to be a Krishnan or my aunt or her friends. Be yourself. Be honest and live for the need, not the greed. I guess what I've been trying to say is, you don't have to be a Gandhi or a Periyar or even Krishnan to be a good citizen. Pay your taxes, don't spit on the road, throw that next water bottle into the nearest dustbin, and don't waste food on the plate. That's enough. I'm not saying that you shouldn't grease the palm of the next cop who pulls you over with an ulterior motive or pay full white on your next land-grab: Fair and Lovely works well for that matrimonial ad photo, but our country runs on the power of Black! But please, be a good citizen. And contribute or Akshaya or any other organizination doing the good works if you can. Ciao!

Hollywood, move over, Tamil Cinema is here

In my 20 something years of watching and understanding movies, I don't think I've ever seen a non-Hollywood movie that had the chops to beat a Hollywood one in technical aspects. In areas such as makeup, visual effects, animation, graphics, cinematography, editing and stunts, no single movie has been equal to a Hollywood one in all these disciplines at once. The creation of a fantasia that suspends our collective disbelief has never been better accomplished than in a Hollywood movie. Movies such as Terminator, Jurassic Park, Avatar, Indiana Jones and Star Wars have had facets to them that simply could not be reproduced by a contemporary movie made anywhere else but in Los Angeles. Today, that world in which Hollywood ruled the science and technology of movie making changed for me. Well, it actually changed a couple of days back, on 1 October 2010. To appropriate a much bandied about quote from politics (thank you, sister Sarah for making it the slogan of wolf hunting hockey moms all over the world), "there is a crack in the glass ceiling." Endhiran has arrived.

What can I say about this movie? There's no way to put into words the accolades that a technical feat of this magnitude deserves. To talk about each behind-the-scenes area of movie making for this film will require an individual blog and more. So, I've decided that I'd rather talk about what this movie did for me, and I hope, for many more as well. If its a review of the film and its various facets you're looking for, I'd recommend this excellent video review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL_55IVCCRY. Unfortunately, its all in Tamil, so you need to know the language. But hey, if you're already here having braved the blog's moniker, you would, wouldn't you?

There have been countless films in which robots, and more specifically androids - or a human looking bucket of bolts - have featured prominently. Mr. Sujatha's core story, while not unique in any way, is still a nice platform on which to build a colossus. You see, for a movie like this, where fantasy has to carry the underlying reality, presentation is everything. That is why a post-apocalyptic world in Blade Runner or a superhuman cyborg killer in Terminator carried us away, while Robin William's Bicentennial Man or Robocop have faded from memory. Okay, the basic story of an innocent entity gaining sentience and being manipulated by the fickleness of human nature with a love triangle thrown in (yennadhaan Hollywood padathukku yeedu kuduthaalum, Tamil sentiment iruukanomudaa!) is quite predictable. But the flow from scene to scene, the picturization of each event in the movie, and the visual effects that are used to show unrealistic situations with as much verisimilitude as possible boggle the mind and addle the brain. You are left with a look resembling that of a dying duck gasping its last - mouth agog and eyes bamboozled by the sheer grandeur of each shot. This movie works not so much because of the story, but because of the breathtaking visuals, sublime background scores and Rajni's superlative acting that all gel into a cohesive unit.

Suspension of Disbelief:
The Chennai city of 2010 that Shankar has created for us, replete with its opulent houses, buildings that are architectural marvels and roads cleaner than a baby's freshly powdered bottom probably only exists in some parallel universe where India has no politicians. Several times, like when looking at scientist Rajni's lab, or the fictional AIRD (the Indian Army's advanced technology procurement division) headquarters, I was left scratching my head, wondering where these places are supposed to be located...


When Chitti, the robot says that his processing speed is 1 terahertz and memory capacity is one zettabyte, you have to wonder. The World's fastest computer today has 225,000 processors operating in parallel, and has a speed of 3.4 gigahertz, with total RAM of 360 terabytes. That sits in a room the size of two football fields. So, Chitti, the size of Rajnikanth, with limited cooling options, has about 300 times the processing speed and three billion times the RAM capacity of this computer. Interesting that such a robot was developed in Chennai by one man.

Chitti's varied talents include technical wonders for which we simply do not have the know-how today to be able to incorporate into the space constraints of one average human sized body. As a simple example, his ability to become a high intensity electro-magnet would require roughly the same power as to run an MRI scanner.

But, Shankar asks us to take all this in stride, and reassures us thus: accept that this might be all be possible at some point in the future, that's all I ask. I'll give you a watertight explanation for every stunt, every action sequence and every superhuman action that follows. That is this movie's greatest strength.


Visual treat:
Without giving anything away, its impossible to describe the feelings the visuals in this movie evoke. Because, more than the story itself, its the visuals that, if I were to describe in any detail, will give away a lot of what you will see on screen, probably for the first, and maybe the last time in your lives. All I'll say is, while every visual effect is a treat in itself, watch the last 45 minutes of the film. There is a sequence in which thousands of cloned Rajni robots join electromagnetically to blitz from one shape to the next - starting with simple shapes like spheres and cuboids and finally culminating in... well, that last one has to be seen to really understand its magnificence! I will wager you anything that you won't be able to find another movie that was ever made that has anything that comes close to this sequence!!!

Asimov, Sujatha and Shankar:
Isaac Asimov gave the world the robots of dawn, the three golden rules of robotics and the first true romanticization of robots. Sujatha, I'm told, gave that romance with machines a distinctly Indian flavor with En Iniya Iyandhira and Meendum Juno, two novels on which the movie is loosely based. Shankar has given the concept wings. I honestly believe that there is no director in the world today with Shankar's imagination and selling power. In him, we have a bit of P.C. Sarkar, a tad of P.T. Barnum and a whole lot of P.G. Wodehouse. He can create new world on celluloid, snare us into it for those three hours the 20 dollar ticket is worth, and give us a ride in that world which leaves us with a warm and fuzzy feeling.


Rajnikanth:
What can I say about his performance in this movie. Playing characters like robots is usually described as very difficult, because the performance has to be muted. But, what starts out as such a performance, goes through the full gamut of thespian prowess as the robot changes from an emotionless machine, to one gaining sentience, to one exposed to the evils of human nature, and finally one succumbing to that same evil. His gear shifts from phase to phase are seamless, and when the final villainous being emerges, you can actually experience the definition of evil first hand. This is a very different Rajni that we see here, and I am in love with his performance. Many said that this being a movie originally intended for Kamal, Rajni would be a misfit. But I believe Kamal could have at best matched Rajni's performance here. No more.

So, as Vivek said in the music launch function, Endhiran, the mass. Ergo, watch it in the theatre with the mass. Like Haley's comet, this kind of thing happens once in a lifetime in Tamil cinema. This is its first occurrence, and if you think I'll wait until it comes on TV as a Deepawali or Pongal special, you'll probably die having missed one of the celluloid wonders of our lifetime.