Reel Netas

Politics seems to be stuck with Tamil Cinema by a "Fevicol ka jhod - toot nahin saktha!" And it seems that for most, if not possibly all, actors with even a modicum of fame to be the final frontier they must reach. There are, I believe, three primary reasons for this state of affairs.

Fan Power
Nope, I'm not talking about windmills and wind power here. This is the power of the fan-base an actor manages to build up through his career. For instance, actors such as MGR, Ajith, Vijay, Surya, Rajnikanth and Vijaykanth have fans that are prepared to die for them. They will do whatever it takes to see their hero rise up the echelons of power because they believe that he can do something different. They always seem to in the movies, so why not in real life? In politics?

People tend to underestimate the capacity of an ardent fan-base in changing the dynamics of political power. But the reality is that, in a state with just over seven crore people, all an actor needs to have is a concerted base of around fifty lakh followers for him to pull something out of the hat. If you consider that people such as Sarath Kumar, Radharavi, Karthik, SS Chandran and Pandian have not only entered politics, but have also gone on to become MLAs and MPs with popular parties, its clear that their saleability to a huge party is primarily because of that party's belief that they will be able to garner votes. And these aren't even the A-list heroes we are talking about. Now, consider the case of Vijaykanth, who not only managed to start his own party, but has also successfully contested in two elections and has retained his seat, simply because of his persona and his millions of ardent fans. If Vijay or Rajnikanth were to start a party today, who's to say what heights they may not reach?

Secondly, and probably more important, is the image fan associations can create about an actor. Through good works, charities and awareness programs organized under the auspices of the star and through their banners, they not only help bring about grass-root welfare to society, but also create an aura around the star that is worth its weight in gold. Cases in point are the fan associations that owe their allegiance to Kamal Hassan and Ajith. This sort of feel-good factor that these associations create can go a long way in winning the star votes, when the time comes.

The Medium
Tamil Cinema is a very potent medium that can carry any message across to the masses. Infact, its the only real sustainable medium of doing so. This is because other forms of media are not reliable, and because Tamil Cinema has the liberty of being an art form and a mass entertainer, and is therefore capable of representing key issues that matter to people from all perspectives. When film-makers give us fare that is an exposition on good vs evil - which is the case in most commercial flicks, they are always portraying some evil that everyone must have experienced, or are showing us ones that we did not know existed. So, there can never be an angle that is left unexplored, and movie-goers can always expect to get the "truth", no matter how exaggeratedly it might be portrayed. This is not necessarily the case with other mediums.

No matter how many newspapers and magazines you have - the common man is not educated enough to even read one, that the print media can ultimately only cater to a small segment of the population. Also, apart from a few national papers which are not available in Tamil, most of even the very respected journals are polarizing and often paint only one side of the picture: a picture that seems to be distinctly discordant with the one which we see everyday. For instance, a newspaper may report that the government is doing everything it can to beautify the city, and yet, that claim seems to be only as real as the words that talked about this so-called action.

The same problem lies with television and news channels. News channels in India are predominantly owned by political parties and corporate bigwigs with each one answering to its own agenda and preaching to its own choir, that the Fox News vs Liberal Left fight seems to be a mere schoolboy tiff in comparison. So, atleast for the small number of people that are lucky enough to own a television (Kalaignar's Color TV scheme notwithstanding), there seems to be no veracity to be had through this medium.

For most people, the lack of education, or inaccessibility to both sides of the coin - such as internet forums, blogs and opinion pieces available online on both sides of an agenda means that intelligent conversation about the ground realities vs the election time fictions is often impossible. People by and large are therefore polarized not because they are well informed, but because of extraneous issues such as religion, caste, loyalty to an individual, and probably worst of all, the belief that a known devil is better than an unknown god. In this case, the known devil being the leader they elected last time around. For the few people, i.e. the educated urban middle class and worldly wise rural folk, who have access to both sides, sadly, their vote bank is too minuscule to count for much.

The Silver Screen - Political Nexus
The silver screen provides a forum for a star, or for a political party looking to use the star power of an actor, to portray their agendas in full color. It gives solidity to their image of the future. It gives credence to their role in changing social evils. This is simply because their ideas can be visually portrayed to the public on a grand scale. Actors such as MGR always played roles in which he was the savior of the oppressed. But this alone is not enough.

This ideal of a future needs to be sugar-coated. That sugar coating is the grandiosity of the cinema. The extravagant songs, the fights, the impossibly beautiful heroines, the locations, these transport the moviegoer to a fantasy world. For someone who works menial labor all week round to come and see a movie in which the hardships he fights everyday are simply washed away by this superbeing is something fantastic. Add to that the things the Hero does and places he goes, and that movie-goer is sold, hook, line and sinker.

It is this sugar coating that party manifestos and election time promises lack. They also promise a world in which there is no more pain, no more evils, but they lack the pulling power unless the face of the party is a strong, proven leader. This isn't always the case. Another problem parties in Tamil Nadu face is that but for minor local issues, there is no dividing ideology that separates one party from another. There is very little polarizing people by way of ideas or ideals. Everyone pretty much promises the same thing. So, the question then becomes one of loyalty to the party leader. All things being equal then, the bigger star you can get to endorse your party, the more votes you will win. And what better example of this truism than the nexus between Annadurai, Karunanidhi and MGR that created and has sustained the most successful Dravidian party in Tamil Nadu till date? And if a star is big enough in his own right, he doesn't need a political party to back him. He can start his own. And, what better example of this, indeed, than MGR's own party that has proved to be the only real competition to the most successful Dravidian party in Tamil Nadu till date?


So, there. But is this a good thing? Is this a bond we want to stay stuck on forever, or should we break it? Is it possible that actors are entering politics based on the high they get playing roles that are messiahs of their people and that they genuinely think they can change things for the good? Or is it just power for the sake of power, fame for the sake of fame, and politics for the sake of wealth? Are the biggest superstars going to simply join a well established party and tow the party line, while lining their pockets on the side, or are they going to start fresh, and really try to do something?

While there are numerous examples of lesser persons who have done the latter, there are also a few who have managed to really alter the course of history. MGR, on whose popularity, the then fledgling DMK party took to wings. MGR, who started the AIADMK and became the longest serving Chief Minister in one stretch of the state based purely on his Charisma. Vijaykanth who has started his own party, and promises to provide uninterrupted electricity to every household if he comes to power. Rajnikanth, who is a volcano waiting to erupt... all he needs to do flash his eyes at the yearning public, and he will be CM tomorrow. To quote his own Dialogue from Sivaji, "ore oru kan simital."

I think this Cinema-Political nexus is a good thing, if reel Netas become real Netas. Not just real Netas, but REAL Netas. History has shown that there is potential for this sort of thing to happen, that principled movie stars can come to power. MGR, Reagan, Jayalalitha and NTR are but a few examples. I think its fine for us to go ahead and chant, "Thalaivaa," but for the right person.

Message in a Bottle (Lite)

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!

We live in such a confused modern world that we search for meaning in all things under the sun. One wonders who's behind the ten rupee hike in the price of onions and what they're upto this time. If a child is born unexpectedly, then it must surely have been a Dan Brown like plot by someone high up in the Catholic Church to sabotage the condom industry. Or worse still, God's way of telling us that the Kali Yuga is going to end all life by bringing in more and more. With your fan going on a hot day, and the other side of the pillow cooler, wouldn't you wonder if it would have been the other way round if the whole world turned the other way? Maybe Katrina wouldn't have happened, because the cyclone would have spun the other way and gone away? As Hercule Poirot would say, what we need in all this confusion is "order and method."

Yep, order and method. So we have movies like The Dark Knight and Indian and Dhrokhal and Varumayin Niram Sivappu made from time to time. These clear the cobwebs and put us back on the path of the most important issue... the search for inner truth. But what about those who don't believe in the inner truth? Or have gone past it? Or have simply decided its boring or useless 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, either these guys simply don't care, or have gone so far beyond the meaning of forty two (which, if you don't know by now, is the answer to life, the universe and everything). For this club, there are guys 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, a shameless throwback to the 80s familial problems diatribe formula. But remember, he also made Budget Padhmanabhan, and Middle Class Madhavan, two forward looking gems like the Chennai 28s, Oram Pos and Tamil Padams.

The Western film industry has been miles ahead of the Indian film industry for several decades now. Stoner comedies such as the unforgettable 1974's Dark Star, cult favorites like 2004's Napoleon Dynamite, and just plain weirdos like 2007's Hot Fuzz have always cropped up amidst the more serious stuff. But Tamil Cinema has been giving us the "right stuff" with Vaanchinaathan, Narashimha, Veerasamy, 6'2" and Englishkaaran. With all the really cool philosophical ideas like zero gravity and faster-than-bullet travel exhausted, we've started seeing a new kind of cinema. Its like finding freshness in MF Hussain's stick men and nude women after years and years and years of Picasso's cubes and Dali's clocks (actually that one is really weird). Yeah, right! Ofcourse I'm being sarcastic. All Mother India taught us was that MF Hussain 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 take us someplace away from having to sit through serious attempts at philosophical exposition or action explosion all the time. These new movies, and the kind of English ones I mentioned before tell us something that even proper "comedy" flicks don't. They tell us that life need not always have meaning. They tell us that not every moment has to have 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 lightly from time to time. You can enjoy yourself a little bit more by losing yourself in the moment, not by getting lost in it. And that sometimes, a new-age poem may rhyme, but be meaningless. After all, what has the Honorable Dr. Manmohan Singh got to do with the Luni-Solar cycle, or soda bottles with marriage, eh?

P.S.: I've been told by many that my original post was too difficult to read or make sense of, and that I should simplify it. Hope this is more readable if you didn't enjoy the first one.