sridharfc - new look



I, in an exasperation of idleness, experimented with adding pictures to my blog. It is not a breakthrough technology and actually as easy as sending an email. But I am quite excited about the possibilities.

So you'll find a lot of pictures being used for some of the old posts as well. From next usage, I shall acknowledge the image sources.

Perhaps this trend will continue till I get bored of seeing pictures in my site or find a better method of improving the content.

Disclaimer: Most of the images used are from various sites; I'm not paying for these images because this blog is a non-profit operation.

Fear - Update



People keep asking me. And today is the deadline we've set ourselves. Obviously we are missing it. Here's the update, however.

The project Bayam (Fear) is in full swing. Dinesh and I actually underestimated the casting process. We took a long time and a lot of deliberation in scripting and storyboarding and we thought casting can be done in two days. After auditioning some of our friends, we bitterly realised that acting isn't easy at all. Even I dabbled with it very briefly only to realised that I faired only slightly better than Nicholas Cage.

So we went around knocking the doors of various theatre groups and finally ended up at Koothu-p-pattarai (Folk Workshop), a Tamil theatre group funded by Alliance de Francaise. We auditioned a few and that was a lesson on casting. The actors keenly listened to the mock sequence, gave some suggestions of improvements and when we shouted 'Start', voila, they became our Bhavani and Subramani, the characters in the film! That afternoon we understood why the Al Pacinos and Sivajis are so revered.

Now the hunt is on for just one character left in the movie. KP didn't have actors for this requirement so we are back to trying out some of our friends. Nevertheless, the shooting date is 11th and 12th and post production could go on for a few more days depending on the studio availability.

We're keeping our fingers, arms and legs crossed. Watch this space for more.

Munnabhai in action

Rebecca*, my friend, is undergoing treatment for Adeno Carcinoma. That, in English, means cancer of the soft tissues. She had a round of surgery and underwent a gruelling Chemotherapy routine in a very 'famous' hospital in Chennai. After every chemo, Rebecca used to call me to share the horrifying stories on how it was administered. She screamed in pain every time that huge syringe searched for her vains in alternate inner-elbows.

After the horrendous time, the tissues vanished and she began a new life.

The Adeno returned last month. Rebecca had a lump in her right shoulder and the 'famous hospital' brushed it aside as 'nothing to worry'. Some good sense prevailed and she went to take a second opinion. This time, from a little known nursing home and an ambitious, london-returned, yet-to-settle-down surgeon called Dr. Narayan* who took up her case.

And how. The lump was surgically removed, dressing is done regularly and now she has to undergo the radiation therapy. All this without a pin prick pain. Today, Rebecca just can't stop talking about Dr. Narayan. He was so caring and affectionate, she started calling him a brother from the past life. In a relaxed moment during a coffee break, Dr. Narayan told Rebecca about how much he hates himself for getting emotionally involved with his patients and how much it hurts when the results turn negative. He was seriously considering changing his attitude.

Two days after the surgery, Rebecca bought a nice big card with flowers, and the inside of the card said, 'For heaven's sake, don't change your attitude'.

The cancerous tissues are still lurking inside her. She still has to undergo god-only-knows how many sessions of radiation and god-only-knows whether it'll
return. But Rebecca is a changed person now. She has Dr. Narayan by her side. He'll somehow make her live. His mere presence in the newly set up clinic is comforting enough for her to battle those treacherous tissues. Various articles on cancer indicates that it's fought more in the mind than in the body. To fight it in the mind one needs strength and 'famous' hospitals don't seem to provide that. Run in an impersonate and clinical way, these hospital are not valuing the need to provide human touch. What is needed is affection and care. And being concerned. I reckon it works not just in medicine. It works everwhere.

Last time we spoke, Rebecca said Dr. Narayanan must have a divine blessing because he has a healing touch. I nodded in agreement. With a pang of pain inside, pitying that it takes a divine blessing to be human.

* - Names changed

Lawrence of Arabia

I'm deleting the post on Lawrence of Arabia. A few reasons: When I read it later, it didn't sound as convincing. One feedback said it's bland and I don't want a bland review for a grand film. Also, and more importantly, someone said that the first paragraph of the piece dangerously resembled what Omar Sharif once said about the movie. That would be plagiarism and you know how much I hate it. Hence the deletion.

Ismail Merchant

1936 - 2005

by Gayathri Varma

Ismail Merchant, the one half of the famous Merchant Ivory duo passed away yesterday in his London home. As a part of a very high profile career, making films such as A Room with a View, Howards End, Mystic Masseur Surviving Picasso, and Cotten Mary. Gayathri Varma, who had known him pays her homage.


Yesterday was a sad day. The world cinema has lost Ismail Merchant. At this sad moment, I thought I would write a bit about some personal encounters with the great man.

My brother, Suraj had the good fortune of working with Ismail Merchant in two of his films, Cotton Mary and Mystic Massuer (adaptation of VS Naipaul’s book by the same name) as his 2nd Assistant Director. Our family still cherishes some unforgettable memories of Ismail Merchant from our association with him during the making of Cotton Mary at Cochin. Certain sections of the audio for Cotton Mary was recorded at our ancestral home in Cochin.

Ismail Merchant was a warm, spontaneous, vivacious, intelligent person. Yet he was extremely down to earth. His sense of humor and love for life was legendary. He had an enormous passion for cooking. During the shoots, if you don’t find him anywhere, you can safely go look up in the kitchen and you will find him cooking a meal for the crew. And he always made it a point to eat with them too. When my brother invited him for his wedding two years back, he answered with his trademark wit, "I will attend, only if you let me cook for the occasion."

There is so much more to the man we will never know, now that he is no more. Strangely, in India, the media coverage appears quite luke-warm considering that Merchant put India in the world map of International Cinema and the films made by the Merchant-Ivory duo were internationally acclaimed, won six Academy awards and a staggering 21 nominations. And for some who didn’t know, Merchant actively lobbied in the Academy and managed to win a long overdue Oscar for Satyajit Ray.

Those who love aesthetics in cinema will miss Ismail Merchant, most acutely the likes of James Ivory, Shashi Kapoor, Ruth Prawer Jhabhwala, Madhur Jaffrey and in a small, yet significant way by people like my brother, whose lives he touched in an earnest, memorable way.

Morality and Me

My friend, while defending his stand on 7G, countered my view on voyeurism in that movie. Why didn't you criticise sex in American Beauty and Monster's Ball, your favorite movies? He demanded.

He thought I'm completely against sex and because I've shown my affinity towards BJP in the earlier blogs; he thought I show Sangh Parivarian moralism while commenting about skin shows in the movies. I explained him my stand on that. He jokingly asked why am I not airing such views in my blogs? Because those are the grey areas I was embarassed to talk about? Am I scared because I might offend the 'conservates' reading this blog?

I guess not. Here I go.

I'm not against sex being portrayed in the movies. On the contrary, I'm all for abolishing censorship, legalising pornography and prostitution.

The censor board should be rating the films instead of 'censoring' them. The NFDC, which is draining out taxpayers money, can play an active role in it. In fact, I even have a nice name for such a body. Indian Motion Picture Regulatory Authority (IMRA). They can do what TRAI does to telecom. If any movie is socially offensive, they can take it to court and get it stayed or banned. Also they can educate the public (especially parents) on the ratings scheme. Movie halls should also be rated based on the type of movie they screen. This will discriminate, for example, X rated and U rated halls. This will prevent families from landing up in an X hall. Apart from Bajrang and Shiv saniks protests, this will also cause a lot of chaos initially. But these are the teething troubles that needs to be managed and soon the dust will settle in.

Since there will be a legal outlet for voyeurs, moviemakers such as Mani Ratnam, Varma and Selvaraghan will stop deliberately showing skin in their movies and start making good films.

Porn is an art. There are directors in India who can make good porn films. They will thrive. Porn is a $4 billion industry in US. Imagine such a business here. It will generate huge employment opportunities and any harmless business to generate money is welcome for a poor country like India.

Secondly, legalising prostitution will streamline what is one of the biggest grey market industries in India. Let's face it. Prostitution does exist in India. From politicians to rickshaw-wallah, every one seeks their services. I reckon the Police Department in India must be making some hundreds of crores on bribes from this industry. Instead of cops eating them away, let the sex-workers pay tax and live respectfully. Legalising will provide a great relief to them all and regulating and managing them through licenses will help control AIDS in a big way. Considering the bribery culture here, licensing will not eliminate AIDS totally but the scenario will be much better than it is today.

For some miscued and misplaced reasons, some of you may see these as 'indecent proposals'. Such an attitude has what led a whole society of frustated youth stagnating our growth.

Ironically, we were not such a society before. We had courtesans, drank freely even in the courts of Hindu kings and carved pornographic materials in the temple pillars. I exactly don't know where we lost that lifestyle. Ancient Tamil literatures even refer to living-in relationships. Along with these proposals, I strongly recommend our policy makers and their moral police friends to read them to see where we came in from.

I strongly feel that these reforms are as essential as that of economic.

7G Rainbow Colony
Cast: Ravi Krishna, Sonia Agarwal, Shalini, Vijayan; Director: Selvaraghavan; Music: Yuvan Shankar Raja



This requires a prelude. 7G Rainbow Colony is not a new movie. It came, ran for more than 100 days and went. As I have mentioned in the past, I have been avoiding Tamil movies altogether because of lack of talent and content and hence did not muster the courage for 7G. My friend, an ardent fan of this director kept pressurising me to watch it. The enforcement became so strong that he procured a Singapore DVD. I kept it with me for a week and finally it happened yesterday.

I was too scared to talk to my friend, so decided to write here. Those non-Tamils, please bear with me. Or read on to know where Tamil film industry is heading currently.

As a disclaimer, I started watching the movie with as much unbias as I can muster and more so my objective was to figure out what is so 'cult' about this film.

The result, I must humbly say is extremely disappointing. The movie rattles on and on and never seems to end and when it does it leaves a great sensation of relief that it finally has. This is perhaps the longest three hours I have spent in my life.

I don't want to reveal the story. But some details The movie is about what I have been accusing the Tamil industry for. A lower-middle class below-average looking Tamil guy with 12 arrears, with absolutely no aim in life, who steals money to drink and smoke and unbrazenly gyrates inside a movie hall. Some samples of his miscreant activities: using a cycle key, he scratches all the cars parked in the movie hall, he spits on the girl's boyfriend for questioning his nuisance inside the hall, he tries to slap his dad for questioning why he failed in his finals and, drinks himself silly, pukes in the middle of the road because his girlfriend told him to study.

And he meets a fair, beautiful, intelligent north Indian girl who is good disciplined and studies well. Alas, his life changes. And how! She, who despises him and suddenly gets into a confused-love-or-friendship dilemmas and tries to refine him. In the process there are some pearls of wisdom like 'When you make love to me, even if there's a hint of lust, I'd think you don't love me truly. It must be pure love and not lust'. Can the director explain how this can be done? The movie is full of such enlightenments.

The jarring aspects are when the rowdy-loser suddenly gets a Buddha-type awakening and speaks to the girl for five continuous minutes on why he's doing what he is doing. The reasons are easy to figure out. His dad has always yelled at him, beaten him up and never bothered to sit with him to counsel. Well, my nagging question is what happens when the girl sits with him and counsels? He still goes around drinking and puking and mouthing expletives. And there some serious plot-holes like, the in a momentary decision, the girl tells him let's break our contact and continue with our studies and career and meet after two years. But from the next frame they continue to court. Then why was that advise?

These are notwithstanding, my first problem is with the intention of the director. The nuisance activities of the youth are quite elaborately depicted and his change (if anything) is just skimmed through. Those awakenings are always split-second ones. So is the objective is to show how rubbish their activities are or is it celebrate that. Someone remarked that usually Tamil movies show these low-class rowdy-characters behaviour as heroic. 7G alone has managed to show it without celebrating it. I doubt. it. As a matter of fact, I don't remember any other movie where such activities are shown so elaborately and graphically.

My second problem with this movie is the voyeuristic tendencies. The camera freely and unabashedly scans various yet strategic parts of all the women in the movie. Especially on the female-lead. I'm sure those sequences must have been welcomed cheerfully in the theatres with roaring applause.

To me 7G is a movie about a dark-loser aspiring for a fair-beautiful and intelligent girl. Just like every second Tamil movie is. I was told that there are millions of such men all over Tamil Nadu (perhaps even India). And this movie caters to them. If it is no, this movie doesn't do much except titilating them and feeding their failed esteems. And making money in the bargain.

This movie can be about identifying the talent of an individual or refining a youth. The girl suddenly discovers this guy's interest in automobiles. This again comes as an enlightenment and nowhere in the movie it was shown before. But such refining-a-lose-guy movies are dime a dozen in Tamil and some were really good movies. Bharatiraja handled it so delicately in Kadalora Kavithaigal (Poems by the beach), and a lesser-known Thiramai (Talent) is purely about reforming drug-addicted bad-childhood kids into realising their real talent. Even Rajinikanth's Nallavanukku Nallavan (Good guy for good men) is a much better presentation of this theme. In 7G, this is hardly focused and is also underminded by some really insipid performances.

A letter to editor in Outlook called 7G a new wave movie. If it is so, I'm extremely content with ancient masalas. Give me a Baasha anyday.

Travails of blogging

If you have read the comments for the previous posting, you'll know that I'm being confronted by a friend for not keeping in touch. I've not been mailing, offering 'I'm busy' tales, yet having 'enough' time to write blogs.

Yesterday, a colleague suddenly asked me 'how's your dad' and I, in a surprise wonder asked 'how do you know about my father?'. 'You had written about it in your blog mate', pat came reply.

Another guy who recenly broke up with his girl asked me how I coped with my own and wanted to know if I'm still in touch with my ex-girlfriend.

All this led me to believe that blogging is not all bed of roses. There are certain aspects of your life that are open to the world and it borders on exhibitionism. I was actually caught off guard when my friend pointed out my priorities about blogging versus mailing. And I was a bit ashamed about my friend's references to my ex-girlfriend.

Though I have consciously travelled far from using my blog as a diary, it still seems to have those traces. A professional columnist may not be writing about his failed love affairs and his family affairs. That perhaps is the message. I have a long way to go before I consider myself a professional columnist.

The format and design of the blog especially prevents one from breaking free from the designated format. I often thought of redesigning my blog with ample photographs and good layouts. To do that, I must buy a URL and run my own site. I don't know doing that will attract same number of hits. The objective is to essentially break free from the diary mode.

That is not to say that I was embarassed about my friends coming to know about my personal affairs. Some one, after visiting my blog for the first time was appalled at the personal details revealed in them especially in the older archives.

Though I don't subscribe to the term 'very honest' because there's plenty of gray shades in my life that I don't discuss in my blogs, I seem to be open about certain things which many consider private. Last week, while discussing this, a friend of mine remarked that anyone who knows me for six months can write my biography.

What's in a name?

I recently discovered that I suffer from Name-dyslexia. This disease, discovered by me, leads to mixing up names. This essentially means that I may not forget people's names but mix them up or change them involuntarily. Recently I addressed Gayathri as Kavitha and Srivatsan as Srinivasan. Going back, when the Iraq prison abuse story broke out, for sometime I was reading Abu Ghraib as Abu Gharib. And pitifully thinking that it must be a poverty-stricken area to get such a name.

I realise that people get offended when I address them differently. In the list of most provocative actions, calling people by a wrong name should feature among top five. A colleague of mine started calling me 'steedhar'. I confronted him eventhough I knew that semi-literates pronounce my name that way and hence he was actually making fun. He reminded me the background funnily, and I gleefully withdrew. The point is, I wasn't happy initially and probably, a bit scared that others will pick up that accent to ruin my name forever. Such was the fear of holiding onto one's name. My friend Ganesh had his name tampered into 'ganesoo' by his wife. He wanted that to stop desperately but she persisted until I found a solution. I gave him an idea to tamper her name 'Shalini' into 'solnyee'. This I borrowed from a Kamal's movie where he is a slum-dweller and calls his girlfriend that way. Now they have come to a compromise and started calling each other properly.

Perhaps this name-fantism applies to everything. My friend Swati and other fellow bengalis still want to address their capital as 'Calcutta'. And Outlook wrote vehemently about Shiv Sena's drive to change any and every landmark of Maharashtra into 'desi' names. Though Chennaites grudgingly resigned to the loss of 'Madras', they are still adament about calling 'Anna Road' as 'Mount Road'.

Perhaps a rose in any name doesn't smell as sweet.

Almost famous

I had one Gayathri Varma posting comments at my blog and I didn't know who she was. Since I was getting famous anyways, I presumed it's normal to receive fan mails. when she wanted to know if I have seen her comments, I figured -albeit bitterly- that she knows me. After a brief detective work, I found out that she's indeed my colleague and I ended up at her desk. After introductions and a bit of small talk, she funnily remarked that my blog is turning out to be my PR board.

It could be true because a lot of people from inside my company know me only through my blog. And then there are mails from strangers.

It is also a drugging feeling to know that what you are writing is actually being read. And also talked about, positively or negatively.

Now I know why people long to be writers, actors or musicians.

Relative morality

Recently, a friend and I, while awaiting some one's visit from Bangalore, got talking on the vices of our other friends. Viswa (name changed), took a cell phone connection, yakked endlessly with his girlfriend in Bangalore and raked up a bill for 16,000 bucks. While doing this, he earnestly searched for jobs, found one in Bangalore in one of the leading IT firms, then threw the SIM card in a dustbin and left without paying the bill. Since he was my ex-colleague, the mobile operators called me to check if I have his number. I promptly gave them. They called him and harassed him to no end. He got irritated, gave them a cheque, bounced it, and changed his number again.

Needless to say that he didn't give me his new number. Later when we met up for a drinking session, he returned the harassment with relish and told me how unimportant his non-payment is to me and why I should have kept quiet.

On hindsight, I should have kept quiet. It is actually not important to me that he pays or not. This friend with whom I was discussing this topic, argued that the mobile companies are equally guilty for this. As per the procedures, they should have barred Viswa's number when the amount exceeds 6,000. They let him talk beyond the legal limits and now they can't 'just' blame him for the delinquency. In the same breath, he also accused the credit card companies for tempting the youth with free uncontrolled debt. The point is, if Viswa is to be blamed, so are these venomous multinational corporations. So they 'deserve' to be punished.

But isn't failing to pay your bills something to do with morality? I asked. So what's morality? Isn't it relative? While the mobile operators deviously let Viswa talk on, hoping that they'll choke him to pay, he happily exploited it and cheated on them. My friend replied. So one bad act cancels another.

Is it as simple as that, I wonder. Since morality is a deceptively relative term and often abused by our politicos, I prefer to use another term, state legal. A car is considered street legal if it is legally allowed to be driven on the public roads. A person is considered state legal if their life stays within the legal boundaries. And lives without hurting others intentionally. Failing to pay your bills may have different defintions in a moral context. But it's certainly a breach of contract and hence is illegal. And it hurts the company providing you those services. If eight out of ten customers fail to pay, the company files bankruptcy, which impacts its employees and in turn our economy.

A company uses certain business tactics to lure its customers which is legal to do. If you get tempted by the concept of credit cards, stack your wallet with several visas and masters, and go around binging, the card company certainly cannot be blamed. And for a mobile company to disconnect your services at 6,000 limit in a consumerist economy is not possible. If Aircel does it, Hutch will advertise that they don't have a ceiling and try to snatch subscribers from Aircel.

Finally, my friend, who wanted to buy a bike, approached Viswa to sign as a gauranter. He happily obliged. After taking the necessary signatures, my friend said that he's going to default and so the bike dealer is going to be after Viswa, hoping it'll shake him. Viswa gave a serious look, then widened his eyes and said, 'So what? I've faced these collection guys as a debtor myself, What's the big deal facing them as gauranter! Child's play!'

The curse of the cross belt

Two recent and countless other incidents prompted this piece. I was in a discussion with a friend on religious fundamentalism and world terrorism. This somehow led to casteism and Indian varnasram. During the conversation, on some contentious point, my friend suddenly popped in this bomb, 'Sridhar, you're talking like this because you're a brahmin. You'll talk differently if you were a Dalit'. That silenced me and ended the discussion. Because I know it's futile telling him that I'm thinking in certain ways because of my conviction rather than the family I was born into.

Another Friday night out to celebrate my friend's new car led to discussion on heritage and freedom struggle. I explained who V O C Iyer is and his contribution to Tamil literature. I also explained why he is called the grandfather of Tamil language. People were spellbound and wondered how I knew this. My ex-boss, who was around, clarified simply stating that 'he knows because he's a cross belt'. (cross belt is a slang for brahmins, referring to the sacred threat they wear diagonally across their sholder)

This time I tried in vain to establish that I know this not because I'm a cross belt, because of my interest in Tamil literature. No one listened.

This is not the first time this happened. My ex-boss in Hyderabad had the uncanny knack of sparking off a debate and when it reaches its peak, dismissing it mercilessly with the statement, 'you brahmins always talk like this'.

Strangely, I don't get the answers for the questions that I raise during those debates. I only get rebuked for being a brahmin. I presume that the atrocities of my forefathers must be really harsh for the rest to have such a contempt over the current generation brahmins. I don't deny that some of my relatives still wear their 'cross-belt' identity on their sleeves. Within fifteen minutes of a conversation, they begin to exasperate about how those 'lowly class' people who should be living shamefully at the outskirts, are dominating every strata of the society today. 'This is Kali', another will utter dismissively (kal yug).

But that lot, I guess, will bound to be around for some more time. Like there are still some Ku-Klux-Klans and neo-Nazis operating elsewhere, this aryan-supremacy will continue to prevail in certain pockets. However, I would like to believe that the majority doesn't care anymore. For me, I have moved far away from the attitude and thoughts of brahminhood. I know very well that it's for others to certify but from my experience, I have -often consciously- defied every trait of brahminism with relish.

These attempts, however hard I try, will never break myself away from this taboo. The venomous campaign against the brahmins by the politicians have been extremely successful in making the brahmins villains. The Ranbir Senas go around massacaring the Dalits in rural Bihar and in Keeripatti, the upperclass Devar community refuses to let a Dalit contest in their Panchayat election. Haryana Congress' cadres insisted that only a Jaat be made CM and the 'high command' gives in. Yet, no one gets targeted for being a Jaat or devar. Laloo still is at the helm of affairs despite brazenly defending Ranbir Sena and their crime against dalits. But Sridhar will carry his Brahmin cross for the rest of his life because perhaps long ago, his great grandfather refused to let a dalit enter a temple.

Or am I talking like this because I'm a brahmin? Perhaps this blog would read differently if I were a Dalit?

Being busy has one important benefit. Weekends arrive quickly.