Service and public sectors



Everyone knows that I'm an ardent advocate of privatisation. Though many evangelists of public sectors can't push their defense powerfully against us, they always think they win over a point. That public sectors are socially inclined, which means they are 'service' minded as against the 'evil' minded profit-driven private sectors.

For instance, who will loan those poor farmers but the public banks, who will run buses to those remote places but the public transports, etc.,

I saw one movie last night which made me think heavily on these lines. I was idly flipping channels and suddenly, when I moved to DD National, the unmistakable frame made me stop there. Pather Panchali was being screened in DD National. I stopped surfing and started watching. It was around 11.15, and I guess I must have lost around half-hour of the movie. Nevertheless, I sat on.

Alas, the joy didn't last long. I had seen the movie several times before and I remember most of the dialogues. The one I saw in DD didn't have proper dialogues. Subtitles kept skipping and often they were wrong. And I don't know what was wrong with telecasting, but half-inch of the top and left portion was cut, so you can't see the faces of the characters if they were standing. And the subtitles were plain white so if there's a pale background in the movie, the subtitles vanished, making it difficult to read. To make things worse, the huge blue logo of DD stood like a monster at the top left corner against the faded film print as a constant irritant.

The version I saw earlier was a DVD from Sony Classics. It was digitally remastered so the picture was crystal clear. The subtitles are well-timed to sync with the dialogues and were clearly understandable. The letters in the subtitles were given a soft brownish yellow outlines so that they didn't merge with a pale backgrounds. And there was no other logo or anything so you could clearly enjoy the movie.

While I said all that I understand very well that one had to dish out $16 for that flawless copy while the DD version was beamed to you for free. But I wonder what's the use of beaming it for free if no one's going to use the service? I have seen that movie several times before and I know how valuable it is. Even I found it very difficult to sit and watch the 'free' version. Then imagine a someone who's being initiated into Satyajit Ray? I can bet that the person can't last five minutes into the movie.

This arises out of carelessness, arrogance and disrespect. I don't believe that the people in DD beamed the movie because they respect it. I believe they didn't have anything else to do. In the bad old days DD used to play Nirod commercial during long breaks. Now the breaks are getting longer because DD isn't getting quality content from elsewhere and hence I suppose Pather Panchali has replaced the Nirod ads.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Category: Fiction, Author: Mark Haddon, Publisher: Red Fox De, Price: Rs. 225/-



This is another book that reaffirms my faith on British writers. I know good book reviews don't start like this. But I don't care. It's fiction yet it's not those mind-numbing 'unputdownable' factory-made paperbacks those Americans churn out. This is actually a murder-mystery but it's not the whodunnits. Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is about love, relationships, handicap, loneliness, murder, investigation and also Algebra, Physics, and Astronomy. And then, yeah, also prime numbers. Oh yeah, this book is children's fiction.

Such a bizzarre combination is enough for somebody not to pick up this book. But I found myself smiling -and laughing out loud at times-through the book till the last few pages, and towards the end, feeling extremely gloomy. I found myself nodding vigourously for every page. It's bitterly humourous yet heart-wrenchingly serious. Mark Haddon transends the barrier of childern's literature by adding adults too in that category. A 10 year old child can read this book and perfectly understand it and will even find it very interesting. As an adult, I could put myself into the shoes of the protoganist, (a fifteen year Christopher Boone), and feel exactly how he felt.

I'm not going to reveal even a single line of the story here because it's important that the reader savour every line of the story from Haddon's words because it's so fresh and innocent and hence beautiful. For once, a successful Children's literature need not contain anyone waving their magic wands. And thank god for that.

As a perfect end to this review,

'Gave me that rare, greedy feeling of: this is so good I want to read it all at once but I mustn't or it will be over too soon'

- The Observer

While reading this book, I felt exactly how The Observer felt above.

Two directors and one and half movies

I saw two Tamil movies last week that gave me some new perception of people's tastes. Actually, not two but one and a half movies. I saw a movie called Bharati Kannamma (Bharati and Kannamma) fully and Idhayathai Thirudathey (Don't Steal My Heart) half. Bharati is debut by a village-bred director called Cheran. Idhayathai is is a dubbed version of Nagarjun's debut film Geethanjali by Mani Ratnam, the 'legendary' director of Tamil Industry. I'll explain that apostrophe later.

Cheran's latest film Autograph was a run-away hit and was critically acclaimed too. It won several Filmfare awards and a coveted National Award. I didn't know anything about Cheran till Autograph. For a perennial Tamil-movie-basher like me, Autograph was a whiff of fresh air. Autograph was a most satisfying Tamil movie I saw in a long time. I started learning about Cheran's background and realised that it is his fifth or sixth film. So I searched around for the VCDs of his other films. Believe me you can rent an Iranian movie in Chennai but a legal VCD of a Tamil movie is next to impossibility.

Cheran

I finally watched Cheran's first movie Bharati Kannamma. It was, as expected, a very well-made, honest portrayal of feudal-caste-structures in a typical southern Tamil Nadu village. Though mildly propagandist at times, Cheran generally stuck to the realistic portrayal of a village life. The actors genuinly human and non-heroic, characters are not pure black or white but in shades, and finally the ending is very believable, though a bit dramatic. But that's understandable.

Mani Ratnam

I picked up Idhayathai Thirudathe when I went to buy Bharati VCD. I struggled to go past half the movie. The scene settings were clever but artificial, dialogues were cheeky but pretentious, and the actors were good looking, well dressed yet pompous. But overall the movie is very stylistic. This movie came in 1989 and I remember, as a teenager, I went bonkers over it.

Watching it some fifteen years later, I felt quite depressed. Even post-Autograph, Cheran isn't half as celebrated as Mani is. I might even be tempted to add the caste-angle to the whole thing.

But I guess, it's not just brahminical. It's about style over substance. I feel we are overtly excited by the style -however pretentious- from the likes of Mani Ratnam rather than downright realism of Cheran. I still can't figure out how Autograph got the box office kicking. From the seventees, we applauded the stylish arrogance of MGR, deep, brooding and cigarette chewing Sivaji and the angry, young word-chewing Bacchan. And of course not to mention the style phenomenon called Rajini.

It's easy to understand why Mani Ratnam succeeded. People lapped up his hollow, yet slick Dalpathi or wordless pop-flick Agni Nakshatram. My memories of Idhayathai.. are quite fond and as a teen-ager, that movie fed my thirst to be hip. I wanted to run away to a nice lonely hill station and sing along down its valley, while a girl quietly followed me. I wanted a girl to come and ask me if I want to elope with her. Idhayathai.. showed me all that I wanted to do but couldn't. In a semi-realistic presentation, Mani Ratnam deceivingly made me believe that I'm watching a good movie.

Cheran shows you a village with all its failings. I'm a no villager and I've not spent a single night in any village. But I could identify with every character and their grayer shades of personalities.

Cheran's next movie, Thavamay Thavamirundu (literally, A long wait), I am hoping, coming a the wake of the hugely successful Autograph will be a path-breaking film. I'm also hoping that he sticks to rural Tamil Nadu, his strongest area. Post-Barathiraja, there was a huge slump in realistic and original portrayals of rural India. In the midst of pretentious, overrated copy cats like Kamal Hassan and others, Cheran comes with a huge promise. Let's hope he delivers Tamil Industry. Pun intended.

I'm suffering from writer's block.