Alaipayuthey, a review.

Alaipayuthey as we all know was a blockbuster released in the year 2000 and it still continues to be the favorite movie of  thousands. It is as fresh and new as it ever was even today. Wondering what really makes it stand out is not the story or the plot or even the situations but the characters, them who give life to a plain suburban love tale. Its a movie about how Karthik and Shakti fall in love, lose it somewhere after marriage, and mature to find it again.

Karthik Varadharajan is the son of an established advocate Varadharajan. Karthik is a graduated computer engineer who along with his five friends aims to meet his career needs.  He is less emotive towards his father’s upcoming-in-life stories and is practical in that aspect of saying he could do nothing about it ‘now’.
” Appa enna problem? Neenga kasta pattu munnuku vandhachu, avlodhane? Okay. Othukrom. Vizhundhu kumbudrom. Aana adhukaaga naangalaam seruppu potukaamale nadakanuma? “
Though he gets into such verbal fights with his father, there is a bond that they share with is unspoken about even till the end of the movie.

Shakti Selvaraj is the younger daughter of a railway employee, a girl from a middle-class family. Shakti is doing her medicine while her sister is working, helping the family move forward. Shakti is the notorious girl in the family who talks a lot and is shown to be lively, while her sister is a typical traditional family girl. Shakti’s mother keeps advising her on little things, like to tie her hair the way her sister does and not to read books while having food and likewise. Shakti doesn’t take such things seriously but gets tensed for the moment. They both know nothing was meant.
” Ipdiye chumma chumma thitneengana apro sandharam veetuku vara maatean! “

When Karthik and Shakti meet at a wedding in a village, Karthik mistakes Shakti to be a village girl and he is surprised by how frankly she spoke with him. Given it a city background, Shakti wouldn’t have spoken to a stranger as she did, for the village had a surrounding full of people whom she knew. They both keep exchanging talks here and there through the wedding and they knew they both were attracted towards each other. But neither of them gives a thought more about it, until they meet again.

After few months, they come across each other in the city railway station, both traveling in different electric trains. With the two trains running parallel, they find their lives intersecting yet again.

Karthik tells his friends and stays positive that he can find her again if he had found her now, as his friends think its impossible for a coincidence to occur again. Shakti tells her sister that she finds it idiotic, the whole concept of falling in love at first sight. Though her sister teases her that she’s fallen in love, Shakti dismisses such thoughts and ends the conversation.

The next morning however, Shakti expects Karthik at the same railway station. She hides herself when she finds him searching for her, standing on the parallel train. The next day while Shakti along with her friends check if Karthik’s there, he is not there on the usual train. As her tone of voice turns to a dismay, Karthik stands there on the platform with his friend with a ‘I know’ smile on his face.

Karthik finds her home and goes rounds around it on his bike. He also handles the comments his friend passes with a “kocha paduthadhey” and even hits his friend with a basketball. He meets Shakti at her college gate, where she asks for his name. She indirectly comments on guys who follow girls.  As she is about to leave, Karthik calls out and waves a ‘bye’ and she returns a smile.

Karthik is overjoyed with what happened and shouts, ” Ava enna paathuta ! enna paathu sirichita ! “, ignoring what she said prior to that. With that the ‘pachai nirame’ song beautifully takes over.

( Will be continued ).

Memorable experience #58353.

It was one fine evening at a movie theater with my family. Movies generally excite me and theaters excite me more for they come with an additional pleasure of food being served right outside the cinema hall.
After three hours of bliss, as I came out of the theater having had a good time, I saw an old man searching for something. He had in his hand, his collected share of trash from the cinema hall and was searching for a trashcan. His grandson seemed to be in a hurry to leave home. He was explaining to his grandfather that it is alright to leave the trash wherever it was and that there are people employed to collect them before the next show. But the old man was very much intended to find a trashcan and he finally found one which was placed a few inches from where I was standing. As he threw the crushed coffee cups and paper popcorn buckets into the bin, he looked up at me and smiled.
I never knew that that simple act of his would have had an impact on me until the next time I went to a theater and saw myself unconsciously mimicking the old man’s behavior. On the other side, I had my brother teasing me, few strange pairs of eyes staring at me and few voices mocking at me.
But I knew right then and there that if not that day, someday somebody will pick up the practice from me and pass it to others likewise.
I thereby came to realize that a right sense of attitude matters more than the pleasure of breaching one’s trivial duties.  For improper attitudes could change in three given seconds, if one beings to appeal to the head and the heart.

Why she deserves to be treated right.

Men of early generations, knowing or unknowingly, restricted women from most of their common and religious activities. They practiced child marriage, Sati and many such occult rituals against women. Times have changed. Women are now recognized as equals and are competing men in every sector of a society. While in one part of the world a woman rules a country, in another part of the world she is inexplicably in pain. She suffers not because of something what she has done, but because of the unfairly ascribed status of being a female human being bestowed upon her.

The men who misbehave with a girl do not understand what the girl thereby has to go through. Once if abused, a girl is changed forever. An acute mixture of anguish, pain and fear strikes her and she does not have anything else to do but cry inside her locked room, literally or even otherwise.

I respectfully disagree with the common claim that women who dress improperly are the root cause for men to harass them. Girls are being stared down by men even when they are ‘modestly’ dressed. Its incomprehensible to explain the level of stress caused when people stare at your body, even through thick line of clothes. Its highly disheartening to know that few women are also in support  to this cue. It is in one’s mind, a small string between being moral and immoral, to act indifferently to a woman. A man should know and practice the attitude of how to respect women, however may be the way a woman dresses or acts towards him.

We, women, are not asking the world to treat us as a princess or a queen. It was not our choice that we were born this way and its unfair for us to go through unnatural sufferings in the course of it. Lets stand up in voice for violence against women and cease not until she is treated right.

29-02-2012.

There is a strange feeling from the very beginning of this year, whenever I hear or write the numbers 2-0-1-2 together. Nothing relating to any fear factors about the whole issue of  ‘The end of the world’, but something that makes me go thinking,
” It’s already 2012 is it? “.

A soft leap: Celebrating an uneventful day as a complete success – this was my case today. I had no special person to share the day with, nor anything happened to mark this day in my calender. Yet something so fresh and lively about
today, the 29th of Feb, kept running on my mind. It kept telling me not to forget what day today was and without that, to tell you, I would have regarded today to be the most lame and drowsiest of all days in college. This recognition was ringing on to tell me something different and kept me going. So weird, I know.

Another spectacular factor about this year is that this is the first time I gave much thought to the concept of  leap years. Its funny how the world grants one extra day into the calendar every four years. I remember it was Cleopatra from whom Julius Caesar got this idea from and thereby introduced it in his calendar. But the Gregorian calendar that we use today has not adopted it likewise as Caesar’s. The slightest change was that it skips a leap year for 3 out of four centuries ( 2100, 2200, 2300 are not leap years, whereas 2000 was a leap year).

In today’s world conditions, I don’t think it would make a huge difference if we not allot this one extra day. The seasons are already confusing enough.
[Seasonal changes are interestingly changing themselves :O ]

I was wondering something more crazy. What would it be like if all of us take this day completely off from work, daily classes and all other ties. What would it be like if sales are at cheap prices just for celebration’s sake. What if all of us burn the shyness to talk with all others of us for today. What if there are no obligations at all. To share this day as a complete bonus. A break free. Like a shooting star. Incredible bonkers. People going crazy with happiness. A total madness swallowing cities. Advertisements, television and radio talking only about the current day – no examples from yesterday and no suggestions for tomorrow. A complete package of craze and fun!  This can’t be categorized as a fantasy either. . . Hahahahaha.
I knew I myself wouldn’t be a part of it to see people running mad, to and fro from street to street. Talk of  fools and social control.
I apologize for the emotional outburst. Take care, byebye.

An enduring craze.

We all listen to music. We all love stamping our feet to the rocking numbers, drooling over the sizzling numbers, getting charmed by the melodious ones and we’ve been moved to tears by some heart-touching lyrics. There are few lyrics, all I’m going to share here, which are very close to me. They make me wonder how the lyricists could actually bring out their thoughts so fabulously. I’d like to keep an enduring copy of all my favorite lines and here I have come, to the networking space. I will be adding the line entries here, day by day as I remember  ( I wouldn’t remember all in one day).

________________________________________________________________

• “ Azhage nee engirukiraai, valitaal anbe angirukiraai.
  Uyire nee enna seigiraai, uyirin ulley vandhu selgiraai “.
  I know this will be my most favorite of all. This one has a vibrating effect on me. I was taken aback when I realised the pure meaning of the lines. The song is ‘Siragulal vandhadhu engo sella’. The whole song is beautiful. In every aspect of it, the music-lyrics-picturization, this song is beautiful. 
• “ Adi seethai nee sonnal, indha raaman thee kulipean.
   Illai kaatil uyir azhappean “.
  Some have given different words but I like it this way. The song is ‘Kadhal Piriyamal’. Here the man is trying to get back with his wife who finds flaws with his past. He is asking her to come back to him saying he has changed forever. In contrary to the story of Ramayana, here the man is ready to do anything to prove to his wife that he loves her. 
• “ En vaazhvum en saavum un kannin asaivile “.
  From a movie that is being cherished for eleven years now. Alaipayuthey. I don’t want to translate the lines and make it look simple. 
• ” Thendral vandhu theendum bodhu enna vannamo, manasule “.
  The first song that made me listen to more of  Ilayaraja Sir. The song brings out the similarity between our emotions and various colors. He says each of our thought is a color and the color of our heart keeps changing as we induce it with our emotions on various things. 
• ” En uyiril nee paathi endru un kan maniyil naan kandukondean “.
  What a beautiful way to say that he experienced love at first sight. This is that kind of song which feels great even today; or any day for that matter. Unnai paatha pinbhu naan, naanaga illaye. The video speaks for itself, such beautiful editing. 
• ” Penne, un vizhiyaal pirar kazhudhal, kaneerum aanandham “.
  There is no other word that could describe happiness with much essence than ‘aanandham’. This song, Pachai kiligal tholodu, is from one of the best movies of Tamil Cinema, Indian. 
• ” Un koondhal irutil en kizhaku tholaindhum, kadhal theendudhey “.
  It feels like flying in the air when you sing this song. It’s Udhaya Udhaya from the movie Udhaya. 
• ” Enadhu vaanam nee, izhandha siragum nee. Naan thooki valartha thuyaram nee oru deivam thandha poove “.
  A  loving mother sings to her adopted daughter how she loves the joy and sorrow of bringing her up. This song won the Best song award, Best singer award and Best lyrics award for the year. Truly deserving.
  

What am I doing!

Several hours gone thinking about the same thing and yet there seems no clearance about the particulars. This is the case with many of us which we go through at least once or for a short phase of time.
Thoughts about various advices, ideas, information and people and life.
Everyone of us got this burning fire within us to do something.
Just  Do Something Someday.
We keep awaiting that single day that would make a huge difference to our life. The day that will tell the World who you are. The day that will keep flowing with refreshing waterfalls over and over through our life.

But, What is it between I will do it and I will do it now?
Why is that small pretty ounce of laziness keeping one back from the great things of life. That is the matter with me. I postpone things. I find my day monotonous. I find it empty with things that have to be done already been done by somebody.
I wondered and searched for a chance to do something.
Then started to think, what is it like to let go off that laziness factor and stand up? There I found new chances. I realized, our kind of world is what we create for ourselves.

Though not any tremendous changes, I could sense a goodwill within myself. A flow of positive energy and a great amount of will to try something or everything. Yes, I started of with arranging my desk at home and cleaning my room, renewing my bus pass, opening a bank account, saving money, listing books to read and some to study; and when I summed up all such small activities as work to be done, I found a whole week to be busy. (It was amazing). I haven’t got done with that list yet. Yes, I have to keep replenishing that fire within me of NOT TO SIT IDLE. I’m finding more ways to encourage myself and yes, that keeps me busy too.

Why am I keen on making myself busy? I’m likewise because being idle gets me nowhere, while being busy gives me a feel of procurement. Procurement of a purpose. I wouldn’t say the purpose of life as I don’t believe in the concept of ‘Life’ and there are many such concepts that I don’t believe in. So the purpose can better be that of the day. Yes, simple.

That is it. Thank you bye bye. Take it and go.

Tagged.

Three Names I Go By :
Dheeptha.
Dheeps.
Dhee.

Three Physical Things You Like About Yourself:
Voice.
Hair.
Hands.

Three Physical Things You Don’t Like About Yourself:
My voice.
My hair.
My hands.
..On a bad day.

Three Things That Scare Me:
Excitement.
Losing something, like anything.
..That is it.

Three Things I Want To Do Badly Right Now:
Watch an amazing video.
Sing.
Learn something new and fascinating.

Three Places I Want To Go On A Vacation:
Barcelona, Spain.
Coliseum, Italy.
Rhine Falls, Switzerland.

Three Kiddy names I like:
No Idea.

Total Number Of Films I Own On DVD/Video:
Couldn’t remember.

Three Of Your Everyday Essentials:
My ring.
My spectacles.
Good sleep.

Three Things You Are Wearing Right Now:
Night clothes.
Specs :D
Caution.

Three Things That I Love To Eat:
Anything with salsa.
French fries.
Amma’s Kesari.

Three Books That Mean A Lot To Me:
An Angel’s Touch, Nathalie L. Biscoff ( My first book to be read).
The Rescue, Nicolas Sparks.
The Witch of Portobello, Paulo Coelho.

Three Authors Who Fascinated Me:
Dan Brown.
Sidney Shelton.
Paulo Coelho.

Three Personalities Who Inspire Me:
Everybody around me.
Dr. Kamal Haasan.
Dr. Mani Ratnam.
Three Things To Do Before I Die :
Live.
Raise an orphan as my child.
Teach people all that I know and will know, through my movie.

Your perception is what you are.

This is something irritating that I don’t wish to tell anyone about, but this had to come out of my mind – I’ve had enough of it.

I used to wonder at times, ” Why ain’t I as stupid, unaware, idiotic and mercilessly happy like other teenagers? “. I look at many (many) others of  my age and wonder why I’m not one amongst them like how I should have been. I clearly can see myself renouncing socialization. I’ve always remained an active person and was open to accepting people as they are, back then. Now, I’ve started to question everything and everyone around me. I’m yet to discover whether this would lead to a superiority complexion, but that’s not the point as of now.

There are simpler solutions all inside one’s own mind. Yet people go about complicating a problem. Maybe it gives them an experience, but why doesn’t it give them the immunity that’s highly required? People fall into same traps again and again, over and over. Let us not talk about learning from others’ mistakes here; learning and analyzing by itself is in great demand here.

Coming back to the problem I faced, I’m now starting to find a solution. Yes, there ain’t no solution actually, but at least there ain’t any mind blogs happening with me anymore. I’ve started to accept people as they are, once again. I complained, complained and got over with it. I’ve started to look at the other side of people and to tell you, there is so cute an innocence you couldn’t encounter anywhere else.
You need people of all kind – serious, annoying, childish, crazy, funny, irritating, illiterate, genius and all other mentals.
When something irritates me, I smile and leave the place if there is no reaction to my concern – like people change only when they wish to change. Going through miseries  puts them in a stand to always have something to talk about or think about. So that might very well become an excuse when asked why they don’t want to care about anything else but themselves.

So it all, you being happy or annoyed or sad,  depends on simply one thing. Your perception.

Take me back to the start.

The year in which mobile phones were introduced in India (in Calcutta precisely), is the year I was born. I don’t remember my childhood very clearly. But those days sure would have been pleasant and colorful,  that I could say with much assurance. However, I could remember what I used to do.
I lived in a colony where I had this bunch of friends to play with.  During holidays, we come out of our houses early in the morning and get back only around 8 pm. We play all sorts of games that comes the way to our mind. In the initial years we all  used to play together non-stop. But then, there always wee this two girls who kept jumping between the relation of a friend and a rival, from two others of us. I remember pulling Rashmi’s hair when she tore my new dress. I remember another girl saying, ” I’m not a cry baby, alright? “, during an argument and starting to cry the very second. She then frightened us by saying she’d call her mother. We said we could tackle anything and watched her as she went inside her house and we quickly ran to the other side of the apartment, panting. Then as we grew up, we found it very funny to keep poking each other and we all became good friends. We started talking and walking instead of playing. (But this can never be a reason, I’ve always been a fat child).
What else my childhood brings to me is my brother. We used to fight non-stop. I was a pest; I keep asking him questions and if he doesn’t reply to them I’d start to tap him and wouldn’t stop until met either with replies or a tight slap.
We had just one television and of course our tastes didn’t sync very well. He makes me watch all his kind of animated shows like Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z, I-don’t-remember-the-name and WWE and all of that sort. Much earlier however, we used to watch pleasant cartoons like The Jetsons, Flintstones, Tom & Jerry, Smurfs, Swat Cats, Adam’s Family and all those wonderful ones. I still remember us getting back from exams and watching Smurfs while having our lunch.
We go on tours occasionally, our family the four of us. We had a still camera and buying the Kodak roll was a real treat while realizing the roll is all used up, even during the tour, was surprisingly not that disappointing. Yes , the tour was what that remained important.
Also back then, going to a theater to watch a movie creates an excitement. So much for, be it a 3D movie, it is beyond words to explain. We never actually chose as to which movie we could go today; we went to movies and that by itself was an amazing feeling. I take pride in rejuvenating that feel even today.

I will like to go on and on about those times. And it’s still a shock to me that I’m already nostalgic about those days. Not just ‘my’ childhood days, but the simple and peaceful life that we led being with family and sharing the joy. Today, I regret when I switch on my mobile music player during power-cuts; as earlier we normally used to go to our terrace and play Anthakshari. As somebody said, “Though techonology is giving us a lot of things, it is slowly taking away from us, a little something”.

Panivanbudan, naan.

Kaveri is a Tamil girl. She travels by bus to get to her college every day. She has this habit of listening to music while traveling,  maybe because she doesn’t want to hear others conversations and get agitated. So she gets her headphones and listens to songs. One day she forgets her headphones. But she couldn’t do without listening, she puts the songs in her mobile loudly. Her mobile rings and sings in English and Hindi and French. She doesn’t play her favourite Tamil song that she’s currently addicted to. Does she feel embarrassed to listen to songs of her own mother tongue? Why because there aren’t much pop numbers in Tamil, she opines.
To answer Kaveri and people/ teens like her, there comes this new genre into Tamil industry film songs. Tamil songs get westernized. They get “revolutionized”, to a degree that nobody can even make out that it’s actually a Tamil song. So happy-happy, we can take pride. We’ve got talents too, we can make pop-songs.

But where are we heading our Tamil language now? Where in between are we missing to realise that as such genres come up, the old heritage value of the Tamil language might even get lost? Actually speaking, this downtrodden feeling over our language might have come about during the colonial period. In order to get a higher status in the society, people of our country turned towards the English language used by the Britishers.
But why is it that we, Tamil speaking people, regard it an intricacy while the other language people of India are still high headed while talking their mother tongue. As Kamal Hassan noticed, saying “Enaku ippolaam Tamil varadhey ille, English’le pesi pesi (By Talking in English all the time, I quite forgot Tamil)” is considered a pride.

One of my favourite critics once quoted,  “Tamil film heroes routinely demonstrate their bravery not by battling burly villains but by facing these actresses mid-performance and not running for their lives.” These actresses mentioned are our current list of Tamil actresses, none of them being a Tamilan. Yes, one or two might be an exception, but they don’t even have a market anymore. Portraying these other language heroins in the Tamil industry, making them manage Tamil might be worth for that actress in gaining the experience of a new language, but what about the plight of our poor Tamil girls? They do get influenced by the actresses; As many and many come to like them, many and many change themselves to become like them.
All the way, it’s my Tamil at despise.

Reconsidering Kaveri’s story, I would like to prescribe that of all the songs of different languages that I love,  being a Tamilian I could connect truly only with a Tamil song.  It is the same way to everyone, ain’t it? One doesn’t have to relate one’s life situations to a song. Empathizing, by itself is a great venture towards one’s life, and it’s a great feeling too.

” Illai endru solla oru nodi podhum.
Illai ennum sollai thaanguvadhenraal,
Innum innum enakor jenmam vendum,
Enna solla pogiraai “

“Odhata nee kondam suzhikayila, Usure pogudhey en manikuyile”

“Yetti thodhum vayadhu idhu,
Oru vettu katthi pol irukum.
Adisayam ennavendral,
Adhan iru pakkam koor irukum”

“Un karam korkayil
Ninaivu oraayiram
Pin iru karam pirigayil
Ninaivu nooraayiram”

“Kandadhum kadhal vazhiyaadhu,
Kandadhaal vekkam kazhiyadhu.
Poonayil saivam kedaiyadhu,
Aangalil raaman kedaiyaadhu.
Puratchigal yedhu seiyamal,
Pennuku nammai vilaiyadhu.
Kannagi silai dhan ingundu,
Seethaiku thaniyaai silaiyedhu”

From deep emotions to revolutionary thoughts ; from friendship to fatherhood ; from love to practical thoughts,  we have so many Tamil songs to get connected with. Vaiyagamum potrum en tamil mozhi.