Mai Bahoot Bore Ho Gayee

A letter from a former fan...

Dear SRK,

What is with this South obsession ?
Please be content with the "Bollywood Badshah" title. Pray, DO NOT - DO NOT , try and emulate Rajnikanth. Not, ever going to happen.

I used to think you to be a versatile actor having seen you in Fauji and Circus in my teens; though after a few movies you took to hamming like Devdas to the bottle. These were still pardonable with the overly melodramatic plots and roles, and considering the rare movies like ChakDe , Swadesh or even Paheli where you showed glimpses of  what you started with. But hamming in a slapstick comedy?  Please leave that to Jim Carrey. Do remember, we are seeing your face on a huge wide screen after paying close to 500 bucks.

(Pass on critical sections of this letter to Rohit Shetty too ..)

Chennai Express, is a movie constructed in bits from various Bollywood and Tamil movies.
Did you guys even need to copy the scene where the villain getting the slush washed off him by his cronies outside a temple (from Gilli)?; If I recall well, the ending too was straight out a couple of Vijay movies?

Dude, you guys need to understand that this lacked the split second comic timing and the "mass-do-gooder" hero of a rajnikanth movie. It neither had the intelligent and at times poignant, unassuming wit of a Kamal Hassan movie? Have you by any chance as part of your homework watched Pammal K Sambandham ? Notice any OTT hamming there?

As an attempt to get this running in South India, this film at best can be likened to a hyper-stylised Sundar.C film on steroids.
Was there even any attempt to put logic in the story? Why on earth would a girl running "away" from her dad (who happens to live in tamil nadu),  get on to a train coming to Chennai from Mumbai ?

Music - well , "Ban ke titli dil uda" was the only one that was rememberable.

Costumes - did you by any chance borrow Kanaka's Karakattakkaran outfit for Priya Mani? or did you just want to cut down on the cost of using flash for filming that song - so much bling!!!
I'd personally like to speak to the costume designer for the lungi song at the rolling credits - seriously - garish and yuck!!


Decency and my ingrained South Indian culture demand that I add something good about the movie.
Deepika Padukone.

You did the good thing by adding top billing to her. She so deserves it.
Though her Tamil doesn't cut the scratch, she has proven that she could do comedy, and fares quite well at that. It certainly helps that she is a stunner even in the garish costume that is given to her in her introduction scene.

Hmm  - all I can say is - Mai Bahoot Bore Ho Gayee ;
and hope Bhagwan teri  guidance karegi  for your future attempts at making movies ... :-(





  

The Mask

This was touted to be the first super-hero movie in tamil, though "Kandasami" that bombed a couple of years back too could have fitted the bill.

Had seen this movie soon after coming back to Bangalore in 2012. Being Tamil-starved for two whole years, had really looked forward to seeing this.

Mysskin has portrayed well in the first half the protagonist's attempts at anonymity, hiding behind a mask, and due to his good nature, unwittingly ending up as a masked crusader sans the steroids or superpower.  Jiiva as the eponymous "Mugamoodi", Nasser as the cop (yet again) have done their dues convincingly. Narain- well, would have looked better of with some facial foliage?? Gramps Girish Karnad, and Pooja Hegde as Mugamoodi's love interest did not have too much of space or character definition.

While the director scored on realism, in portraying angst and bonhomie, he sadly missed out on tightening the second half. Much of the audience started fidgeting, moving out for a second round of popcorns, and less forgiving patrons like G dozed off only to suddenly wake up and ask "Why are they all on a ship now? and who's this weirdo with the orange wig?"

 The climax especially ended up cartoony - what with the implausible tricks with a joker and the grandpa Girish Karnad dressed up as Sherlock wielding a taser!! Add to this a cliched ending, providing the ubiquitous escape clause to the villain - What Mugamoodi -2 much? 

Hope to see a less lengthy sequel from Mysskin with a less boring villain, a better fitting outfit for Jiiva (Hint! TDKR?)

To be honest, I did like this Karate Kid meets Spidey story for being more believable than Kandasamy.

Ironically when this was broadcast on SunTV yesterday, it was followed up back to back with a dubbed version of....... The Karate Kid !

Boy! they do know how to rub it in :-)

Life of Pi

Watched Life of Pi at PVR IMax Bangalore.

 

The story as we are reminded time and again is about a ship-wrecked teenagers survival on the Pacific aboard a lifeboat, with just a Royal Bengal tiger for company, a story to strengthen your belief in God! The God portion - felt like it was being thrust in just because the author thought to be consistent.
Having not read the book I am not in a position to compare it with Ang Lee's treatment of the story. There were portions we were left wondering...

 

Not withstanding the cliched South Indians or the mildly irritating Indian accent, the movie was quite a watch. The visual effects spared us from yawning and kept us hooked, open jawed at times. The director having paintstakingly put together every frame , as would an artist do a landscape on his canvas. They were at times overwhelming , So much so that the kids ( Karthik especially) watched it bug-eyed, never once disturbing us with a "Amma loo" or "Appa get me a cheese popcorn now -I'm sooo hungry".

And, boy, Richard Parker - What a tiger! Arguably the most beautiful CG creation till date.

 

A good half of the story crawls along with a Rushdie-esque story telling, interest picking up with the wrecking of the ship, and the later portions hanging on just to the strength of the visuals.

 

Hey, was the bikini even invented when Pi's mamaji visited the Piscine Molitor in Paris? I thought the bikini made its intro after Indian Indepedence. Gotta google and check.

 

And, meerkats on a spot of an island in the Pacific?  A carnivorous island, with carnivorous flowers? Really? How were the thousands of meerkats surviving then? Am sure if some of our பெரிசுகள் see this, they will surely ask "என்ன விட்டலாச்சார்யா படமா இது ?"

The inspiration-dried writer visiting the adult Pi said it all : "Well it is all too much to take in... Its incredible!!"
As we left Sripradha said " I could write a story like this!" Ganesh interrupted "Mine will be the Life of Gi!, Karthik's would be the Life of Ki !!"
 

An Evening with Mr.Bond - 4th Nov, 2012

And Mr. Bond: Spent close to 3 hours until midnight yday but im lost!
Granted I get the whole humanising Bond thing, and enjoyed it in the earlier outings of Daniel Craig. But hey, there is a certain devil-may-care attitude, jaw-dropping gadgetry and a convincing enough Intnl espionage plot expected, that makes a Bond film - all of which were missing in Skyfall. To top it, they had to make a perfe...

ctly good Javier Bardeim creepy with gross orthodontics and bad hair colour. And, whats with the Bond girls? Even they lacked the punch.
If not for the opening sequence on the train until the titles, it would have been a complete washout. To rinse this memory away, I'm finishing up Sunday lunch quickly, dusting away my archives and settling for the afternoon with an earlier more suave Mr.Bond.

Sinful Beta Carotene

" Carrot saapidu!  Kannukku nallathu!"
This is something we have grown up listening to. Right through my childhood, ( and a good part of my adult life), I have tasted carrots mostly in sambar ,avial, kootu or poriyal - As a standalone dish or to add colour or volume to the beans or cabbage poriyal.
Generally I have found South Indians preferring the taste of the orange Ooty carrots, and the North Indians swearing by their red winter carrots.
But orange or red, I really love eating carrots, and do love cooking them as well. Guests at my home would have surely tasted my pale orange Carrot Kheer for dessert, or the occasional carrot halwa.
Ever since I travelled to the North in the Winter of 2009 I have been captivated by the vivid images of roadside markets full of sarson , long tender radishes , and deep red sweet carrots. This winter, the day carrots hit markets in Gurgaon, I had decided to try my hand at a carrot cake.
Thanks to Google, and many nameless generous home-cooks across the world, I found numerous recipes with fab pics for this cake. Many called for almonds, Most mandated eggs. Finally, after spending a good two hours searching and thinking, I decided to take the plunge with my own recipe. The cake turned out pretty much ok.

1 1/2 cup grated Carrots,
1 cup powdered Sugar
1 cup Oil
1/2 tsp Cinnamon Powder
(guess i should hv added a pinch of nutmeg too - but didnt have any)
1 tsp Orgran egg replacer powder
21/2 tbsp milk
1 1/3 cup Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
to Decorate: 1 tbsp almond slivers; a bit of butter

Preheat the oven to 400F (200 C).
Grease and flour/line an 6-inch cake tin.
In a bowl, the sugar and oil and beat well. mix up the egg replacer with milk and pour into the sugar / oil mix. Add the carrots.
In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and the cinnamon and nutmeg powders. Sift this little by little into  the wet mix gently until it is completely incorporated. Pour into the prepared cake tin and bake for 30 minutes.
Remove the tin from oven and quickly brush over the top of the cake with a bit of butter in room temperature - arrange almond slivers , push it back into the oven for another 6-7 mins.
Your cake is done when a knife or toothpick, inserted into the centre of the cake, comes out clean.
With this version you should get a cake that is soft inside with a mild crunch on the top.
Quite scrummy - perfect for a year end wintery cold night.

One question atleast 4 people have asked me is why my cake did not look orange?
Hey ! I used the red winter carrots here.
Also, most recipes had asked for 2-3 cups of carrots - I had added less, thinking it would be too much or make the cake dry. On hindsight maybe I was wrong!
There's always a next time. Though I think next time round, i'd replace carrots with beets, and catch a better camera for the pictures ;-)

You Toobe ?

I read recently in a tech newsletter that the very first video uploaded to YouTube, all the way back in April of 2005, was a simple 19 second video of YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim visiting the San Diego Zoo

In just these past 6 years of You Tube existence, the net savvy neo Indian has  taken to this video sharing service like a Tamizhan to his early morning Kaapi.

 In the initial days we saw only our NRI brethren using this for sharing compilations of some “society functions”  like the SunnyVale  Sangama  or some Tamil Sangam get –togethers. 

As days progressed we started finding more uses for this service and by more segments:

Whether you want to publicize Acchukutti’s first Achooo, or teach the world how to play “Jai Ho” on a Casio, why fear when You Tube is here?

This is the popular vehicle for NRI aunties sharing their domestic expertise -  like new age dronacharyas to far away ekalaivis across the oceans. They  de-mystify in a fake nasal accent a wide range of topics:

Recipes  of  “aamlet” , “aappam” , “vaazhaippoo  usili” to “mysoor paagu” . They even share secrets on how to source these ingredients in the wild wild west.

Poo thoduppathu eppadi ?  How to stitich a button-hole?

Quite useful to all the world wide Indians  staying away from mommies

YouTube has now been glorified as the tamizh magan’s  preferred communication vehicle with our own superstar maappillai releasing a so-called candid video of his upcoming movie’s catch song Kolaveri. How candid the video is , is anybody’s guess – with a poor gawking music director seen lurking in the corner frames , the made-up-to-the-teeth director Aishwarya occupying most of the screen. Whether or not it is worth the attention, you-tube has managed to put this tanglish sangu on the lips of every single FM jockey all over India.  The craze for this ‘soup-sangu’  is now so much that it has spawned off its own offsprings .

Popular singer Sonu Nigam has released a video of his son singing Kolaveri . Maybe to prove to the world that even a  4 yr old can pull of  such a song with some clever editing and cute montages.

Last night at 11 my daughter and son were rolling in the ground laughing to a cartoon version  where Tom and Jerry were lip-syncing to vent their inner KolaVeri – My eyesu  fulla tearu.

No! no aanantha kanneer this -  I was just thinking of the difficulties of getting them ready to school the next morning  on time!

Welcome FDI = Community Retail RIP?

Is FDI really going to  change the fabric of our Indian Retail?
If it is indeed true that 70% of India lives outside of  cities, why are we so concerned in letting open a few monster stores in cities?
Cut down to the cities. Being a city girl myself, I would talk about only these here.
Given the fact that most of our populace depends on public transport, and these mega stores owing to their sheer size needing to be located on the outskirts of the city, how many of the complete BPL + SEC C +SEC B + SEC A diaspora do you think would end up going to these stores regularly ?
BPL and quite a chunk on the lower SEC C populace have smaller wallets and practically very poor storage space at home and  buy stuff on a daily - weekly basis. This would translate to really smaller packaging or sachets. None of the HyperMarts carry this kind of merchandise.
Owing to their smaller bills and frequency of purchases this section tends to buy from as near home as possible. This means 95% of such buying would happen from kirana stores even if it means there's a Carrefour right around the corner.
Most of out community retail or unorganised retail operates on two key words - convenience and loyalty.
These kirana stores whether its a "Bhauji ki dukan" or a "Pandian Kadai" each have their own catchment (read residents of a few streets around the shop).
Main reason being their 
1. Willingness to entertain credit sales (Khata / kanakku/ account book ) which would be settled every month  after the customer gets his monthly salary
2. Selling items in very small sizes - imagine selling 'thengai chillu' or 'thengai bathai' instead of a whole coconut. Would any WalMart sell you Rs 5 oil sachets? Hey, and where would we go for buying our shampoos and conditioners in sachets, and the fair visage for Rs 10?
3. Carry specific quirky items in their stock even if it is just for a handful of households
4. Loyalty due to personal touch  - the  shopkeeper would remind you of buying something even if you have forgotten. Selvam my mom's vegetable vendor calls her up to remind " Maami  naalikki amavasai vazhakkai vangama poiteenga paiyana anupparen!" . After this would my mom ever go anywhere else to buy veggies ? No! Never.

Is FDI really going to  change the fabric of our Indian Retail?
Well, for the majority of the vaadikkai makkal  - they are going to be least bit affected by this, let alone change their habits for some few firangi backed megaliths.