The Grand Illusion Called Kamal

A joke from an eighties stage play goes like this: An aspiring scriptwriter meets a film producer with a script and upon asked to narrate the story, he starts thus: ‘Once upon a time, there were five brothers who had 100 cousin brothers. Both the groups go to a casino to play card game against each other…’

In real life, such things are not very funny but make very serious business propositions. Plagiarism is a serious business here in India. Some of the very big names and bigger money are involved in this activity. Kamal Hasan being the biggest of them all.

For years, especially since his Nayagan changed the face of Tamil films, Kamal has been busy talking and writing about his ambition and efforts to provide better cinema and more importantly take Tamil films to the level of world cinema.

A brief glance at the following links would serve as a testimonial to that claim:

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

These links discuss elaborately and often rhetorically about the plagiarism practiced by Kamal. You would have to cut past the anger of the writer and the abuse showered on Kamal in these pages. Just like how his fans worship him as God his critics render him absolutely worthless, and both voices need to be ignored.

Nevertheless, the claims made here are not to be ignored. Watch some of these clippings and check out the long list of the straight rip offs (a few are not entirely correct) that would indicate the seriousness of the problem.

In the developed part of the world, plagiarism is a serious crime. You lose your career, money and fame. You are brought to the streets, people call you all sorts of ugly names and you’re generally finished for life. Nella Larsen, an African American novelist of late 1920s created what was hailed as ‘best piece of fiction that Negro America produced,’ became a centre of a plagiarism controversy. Though it was not conclusively proved, after that controversy she never published anything, turned an emotional wreck and died a lonely death. As recently as last year, Kavya Viswanathan, a Harvard student, returned her contract money after her book was withdrawn from the stores by the publisher because of a plagiarism claim.

In India however, such plagiarists are conferred series of titles and even revered as geniuses.

However, the ardent devotees of Kamal and other nonchalant moviegoers discount these evidences are ‘mere’ inspirations or worse, comment that it is being done by everybody in India. We are a land of non-creative people and hence it is natural. Look at our achievements in other areas. We aren’t all that creative anyway, these naysayers claim. So why blame Kamal alone when the whole country is aping the West and doing copycat jobs.

Whatever is the validity of these naysayers (which includes yours truly,) these claims are not entirely true. It is hard to believe that the descendants of Kalidasa, Kamba, Vatsayana, Tansen, Thyagaraja, Valmiki, Vyasa, and those who built Taj Mahal, Thajavur temple, Khajuraho and Ajanta cannot be creative. Also, that lacking creativity and plagiarising cannot be a genetic disposition of our race. Such being the case, the derivative could only be the social inclination of the people. How can one attempt to be creative when all he or she needs to do is rip off something from the West and roll it into an Indianised package to be instantly revered as a genius?

When people nonchalantly dismiss voices such as this and continue to patronise copycat creators, a whole new generation grow up believing that it is okay not to rack up your brain for ideas. Then you have Yuvan Shankar Raja lifting tunes from Corrs and Venkat Prabhu going Kamal way in seeking ‘inspiration’ from late 80s Hollywood.

From the links above and from elsewhere too, it is quite evident that Kamal has drawn abundant inspiration on story lines, script techniques, performance styles and even camera angles. It appears that Kamal, the ‘Prince of Romance’ of 80s who was running around trees was indeed real and the one we see now is a masked man with plethora of impersonations. Just like one of those prosthetic facial skins he so ardently wears in many of his films.

Thanks to Dinesh Saravanan for providing useful arguments that helped shape this blog

Two films and a director



Many hailed Chennai – 600 028 as a landmark film. It did extremely well in the box office and created a huge hype for the director Venkat Prabhu’s next outing Saroja. When Saroja hit the theatres a few weeks back, the response was unprecedented and Sify hailed it as 'a new millennium cinema.’

Both the films have many things in common that showcase the director’s inclination and perhaps style. Heavily edited and colour corrected, they would give the MTV videos run for their money in terms of ASL (Average Shot Length.) The colours change at whim, frames dissolve, fade in and out in a tearing hurry, frames interlace, cut back and front and even layer out so rapidly that it appears to be quite a novel form of storytelling but soon tires out the eyes. The ASL is so short that it often disorients rather than lead your focus.

Well known film critic Roger Ebert has a phrase that goes like this, ‘the characters are acutely aware that they are in a movie.’ The operative word is ‘characters’ and not ‘actors.’ The phrase can be aptly used for two films in discussion. The characters know when to appear naturally like your neighbour and when to walk in stylistic slow motion to a geared up electric guitar lead. Both the films contain motifs and well known phrases from well known films that will retain your familiarity to the idea of characters. Here it’s about the ‘idea’ of the characters and not exactly the characters themselves because the viewer is still distanced from the performance. The characters walk in and out of their two garb of ‘appearing natural’ to ‘enacting something for the viewer’ that the viewer will again be disoriented. This causes enough surprises because you’ll never know which garb the particular character is wearing, and keeps you guessing and interested as the movie progresses. Again remember that it’s not the story or the plot twists that keep you hooked but this constant character swapping.

Apart from this, Venkat Prabhu plays around with the tonality of the film, ASL, and increased intensity through upbeat music to narrate simple stories. And then there is the obsession with the editing software. It is difficult to tell whether Venkat Prabhu spent more time at shooting spots or at the editing desk fiddling around with the latest version of Final Cut Pro. As a result, what you get is Brazilian City of God meeting quasi-realism of Bharathiraaja presented in the package of Memento and Requiem For a Dream.

The result is not extremely satisfying. Disoriented and rendered colour blind, the viewer is unable to decide conclusively whether he has really enjoyed the film. It may be enjoyable for an audience unfamiliar with Latin American and independent cinema of Hollywood. But to others the effort becomes tiring after certain point. Chennai - 600 028 does not warrant so much complaint because of its novelty but Saroja clearly does. When Venkat Prabhu – this is really exasperating – plagiarises an early nineties flick Judgement Night for his Saroja, then all the other criticisms becomes pointless. It’s absolutely intriguing why such a celebrated and emerging creator like him would choose to tread the beaten path of countless other mediocre filmmakers. On second thoughts, if other plagiarists in the industry can be called icons and walk around so brazenly, Venkat Prabhu can't be singled out unfairly. After all, he is in an august company.

Image sourced from: Sify

The Massacre of Ideas



Pankaj Mishra's essay 'A Massacre Justified By Philanthropy?' is a political essay drenched in western philosophical embellishments. At the onset, it is very difficult to disagree with Mishra about Kashmir and also about the ideological fundamentalism of Indian secular liberals, the phrase that is supposed to confuse most readers. His essay is much worse though as you would require an enormous dose of openness and patience to decipher the essence. Once you do, you can't seem to agree more with his viewpoint.

Let me explain. Mishra talks about military occupation in Kashmir being justified in India, not by Hindutva forces who vehemently argue that Kashmir can't split simply because 'they are Muslims,' but by liberal secular Indians who do not have any alignment with BJP or VHP. These seculars use phrases like Indian identity, democracy, nationalism, etc., to denounce Kashmir’s claim to self-determination. But Mishra's question is this: isn't it as bad to kill people in the name of nationalism as killing in the name of religion or race? Hence secular 'fundamentalism' is equally deplorable as religious 'fundamentalism'.

You get the point. Mishra says the West massacred people using secular ideals and India is repeating the same mistake now. Actually Walter Benjamin, the theorist and German philosopher had views quite similar to this when he talks about nationalists astheticising war. Nevertheless, Mishra's theory differs and makes a lot of sense. Scratch the surface and you will see a different picture.

In the middle of his argument, he liberally throws in generalised ideas which are the viewpoints of the very secular fundamentalists he deplores in the essay. Consider the following paragraph:

'The Kashmiris are hardly alone in failing to detect wisdom and generosity in a state that detains and tortures Muslims on the flimsiest of charges, ignores the killing of Christians, organises mercenary armies against tribals and Maoists, and helps big businessmen to fleece small farmers and uproot the landless.'

All the practices mentioned in the above paragraph take place in India today. But the question is whether these points are sufficient for the argument. The above atrocities are done not just to the religious minorities but even to minorities within Hindu caste hierarchy as well. And the ruthless big businessmen affect every rural dweller. And custodial torture is not plaguing India alone but every developing country affected by terrorism. It even figured in the recent presidential debate in America.

But that is not the point Mishra is trying hard to make here. The arguments in favour of Kashmir's liberation has lost its steam with the onset of Amarnath row. The people of Kashmir have blatantly declared that they are seeking liberation simply because they are religiously different from the rest. They will not allow forty acres of land even temporarily to a Hindu establishment. And they will throw away half million native Hindu Pundits out of the state which should not figure in the question of demography. The flag bearers of Kashmiri Freedom do not have answer to the question of the brazenly communal 'topographical alteration' argument or the question of Pundits. They are not even willing to respond to the question that Kashmir's story did not start with 'military occupation' but with armed unrest by the fringe groups. Mishra naively believes that 'it has never been clear that radical Islam has a sustainable appeal in Kashmir.' Even if that were true, that is not the reason why India wants to retain Kashmir. To rephrase this argument, 'should India 'free' Kashmir because those Muslims are liberal and not fundamentalists? Are we retaining Kashmir to make them liberal minded and secular?

The military occupation is only a reaction and not an action that started the conflict. The conflict was started by Kashmiris. Consider this: If there is a riot in South Extension, police force will be deployed with tear gassing. If the riot continues police will open fire and impose curfew. Curfew will continue until peace is restored. The miscreants cannot use curfew as the excuse for continuing the riots.

That is the state of affairs now and the intellectuals such as Punkaj Mishra use western dialectics to support this. For a long time writers have been inventing one reason after another to try to justify the Kashmir conflict. Tavleen Singh, in her book 'Kashmir: A tragedy of errors' attributes the conflict to Indira Gandhi's faltered political strategies. The democratically elected government was dismissed unconstitutionally by Gandhi and hence the conflict arose. Indira Gandhi did not just dismiss governments in Kashmir but in Tamil Nadu, Andhra and various other states. Actually some of the dismissals were far more unconstitutional than Kashmir's case but those states did not take up to arms in call for liberation.

Europe blundered in their massacres because they were either conducted on their own societies which were peaceful before or in their colonies which were less powerful than them. The military occupation in Kashmir is not such an exercise and nor the 'Idea of India' an abstract dream based on European discourses. If Kashmir is adamant in wanting to go, let them go. But let them not fool themselves or the rest of India by inventing audacious excuses in deriding India's faith in multiculturalism or secular credentials.