Sivappu Milagai

Controversy or Opportunity?

2009-02-09T18:08:00.001-08:00

Very recently, this movie has picked up a lot of publicity due to its nominations in the Golden Globes and the BAFTA's of this world. Typically its the other way around. A movie picks up controversy and then has a successful run. The major point of contention is that SDM portrays India and Indians in very bad light.

I watched the movie last weekend with high expectations. After all, it is the talk of the town (world). I thought it was a good movie, not an extraordinary one. It had excellent screenplay and a good story: a rags to riches story combined with a backbone of romance strikes a chord with most of the moviegoers. The performances, music and direction were good. Good, not great. Arrahman (my idol) has composed far more exemplary tunes in his career that has gone unnoticed. Anyways the world likes his music in this movie and lets leave it at that.

Now to the actual controversy. I thought it was a very abject and true portrayal of the slums in Mumbai. Did the director need to pick a guy from a slum? why not a middle class guy who went to the show? That doesn't have as much impact as a dirty, crap-covered, almost-beggar, gang-warfare affected dude making it big as a millionaire. So that was needed for the movie. Add that to the Western audience's interest in poverty in other parts of the world (Salaam Bombay, City of Gods) and you have a powerful combination to sustain interest.

We had some callers in the show last Sunday with some very interesting views on this topic:

Mala Padmanabhan (California) shared her experiences with school going children in the US and their 'ideas' of India. Mala mentioned that she was asked questions such as 'do you burn women in India after their husbands die' by these kids. She suggested educating the teachers in the first place about India and its culture and was optimistic that it would percolate down. Vishwanathan (Houston) commented that the best media for dispersing information on India was ourselves and the way we are perceived by others. That according to him was going to be more powerful than movies. These and other comment put the onus on us to be better ambassadors of India. I was expecting some heavy SDM trashing and instead returned with a very positive outcome to the discussion.

Look forward to more of these!

Saturday Night Live vs Auto loudspeakers

2008-11-02T08:15:00.000-08:00

so after all the hype and hoopla, we have the elections coming up on tuesday. I am sure a lot of people are with me getting tired of hearing the same news (or some twisted version of it) day after day for the last year and a half. With 30 min commercials of Obama and the SNL splash of McCain, the elections have reached another plane in reaching out to people. Drew me back to the dust and noise of namba oor therdhals. Even though I hated it at that time, at some level I really miss the posters on every imaginable nook, the super-size cutouts, the thoranams on the roads, the auto's with flags blaring movie songs. The white dhoti clad thalaivars on open roof Sumo's and their larger than life dark glasses.

Even though we use rudimentary techniques, I beleive the Indian democratic electoral process is a more mature one. The grind is tried and tested and somehow yeilds results every time. Agreed that money and violence play a sustantial part in some places in deciding the outcome of polls. Overall, in spite of all the media has to say, the voting public is intelligently aware of whats important and whats not. They dont demand perfection but just the ability to keep it running without major surprises. The voters are also not so intense on the personal background of the contestants like what they did in kindergarden or high school. If they put up desi thalai's to the kind of scrutiny they have out here, 99% of them will be disqualified. The system of checks and balances that we have with our multiparty democracy is much stronger. Many times, nothing gets done legislatively because of gridlocks. But that has probably prevented us from following the wrong policies many number of times.

That said lets see what Tuesday is going to tell us!

Tamilmirchi - Houston's Own

2008-10-24T23:17:00.000-07:00

When 2008 began, the panchangam (I think!) said that this year was going to bring in new experiences for me. Little did I imagine ending up in a radio station in Houston as a radio jockey. Radio station = Tamilmichi. Timing = Sunday 1-3PM. http://www.tamilmirchiradio.com/

Tamilmirchi on AM1050 brings some quality programming to the makkal in Houston and other cities in the US. The key part was that I was supposed to host the program with other folks in tamizh. Me! in tamizh!! I speak tamizh at home but have never attended a formal tamizh class due to various reasons. As a result, I cant really write the language and my reading ability pretty much stops with daily newspapers and magazines.
I started off in my first hour by asking one sentence questions to my co-hosts and the moved on with some prudent use of 'thanglish'. Beleive me, I talk the language at home well, but when it comes talking on the mike, its so hard to summon the words. And so its been 3-4 months now and I guess the ratio of tamizh:english is slowly going up. We even did a show once on starting to learn tamil in your 20's and 30's.

The most encouraging factor is the response from the listeners. Frankly, we expect some of them to call in every week that we are on air. We enjoy our conversations with the callers and try/think a lot to bring in new ideas to the show. For my part, I love movies of all kinds and really enjoy talking about them. But more than that, I love opinions on all issues. As my favorite quote goes - "If you have an opinion, why be humble about it?". So in case you are listening to the program and would like to share your thoughts - Bring it on!!
cheers
K

Welcome to Sivappu Milagai

2008-10-24T23:09:00.000-07:00

Its 1.10 in the morning and I am all excited about starting this new blog. I have been in and out of the blogosphere for a while now. But today, I suddenly wanted to share my thoughts and views in writing after a long time and decided to start afresh. Lets see how this attempt goes.

cheers
K