Rajinikanth - Katham Katham !!

   'Rajinikanth' is one name in Tamil Nadu which is announced more often than the droplets of water in pacific ocean and when every celebrity seeks publicity I believe publicity seeks Thalaivar Rajinikanth. As an entertainer he has been amazing, right from Stanford graduate to Class 1 dropout in government school everyone adore him. The euphoria he creates before his releases are unimaginable. People spend 10$ to see James Cameron movie but end up spending 20-25$ for Thalaivar's FDFS and people still don't complain. If at all there is one thing that brings Tamilians together all over the globe then it has to be Thalaivar Rajinikanth.I have many fond memories of watching many of his movies with some hardcore fans - Chandramukhi in Kansas, Sivaji in Chicago, Kabali in Virginia, 2.0 with Skandan who likes Thalaivar already; I may not be a fan to do milk abhishekam but definitely one of those fans who have enjoyed every bit of his style, charisma, screen presence etc., When he smashes 20 guys at the same time we don't feel like questioning him, when bullets are fired towards him and none of them happen to harm we don't question him, when he throws cigar or flips his spectacles we just enjoy every bit just like how a butterfly rejoices every drop of nectar. 

Right from day one I was not personally happy about his plunge into Politics. I think Mr.Rajinikanth underestimated Politics and got everything wrong.In reel life he can easily come up with a mass scene and with good bgm score it may elevate the scene bringing goosepumps to audience but Politics is a completely different ball game. I would wholeheartedly appreciate Vijayakanth and Sarathkumar for taking up Politics when two of Tamil nadu's bigwigs were there - Jayalalitha and Karunanidhi respectively. They had the guts to get their hands dirty though it was a tough ride. Vijayakanth had to mortgage his properties but he visited every district in Tamil Nadu and gathered votes. Rain or shine he had to toil and spend quite a lot of his time and money in Politics. I am very disappointed that Mr.Rajinikanth has not taken any serious measure and doesn't know the dyamics of running a political party. First and foremost a party has to be registered and party operations have to be carried for atleast 2-3 years before contesting in 234 seats. Registering a party on Jan 1 and contesting in all 234 areas in May-June sounds like once I finish Kindergarten I want to give my NEET exam. There is something called as By elections and that would be the best thing to test waters. 

I am sure many may say it is his personal decision whether to take up Politics or not (even my wife said the same); Well it is true but let me ask some questions :

1) Why did he create an expectation that party will be formed on January 1

2) Now or never tag went viral and he promised change has to happen - why did he give false promise to public?

3) When he informed party will be announced on Dec 31, Corona was still there; Did he not know then Corona will have a major role to play in his campaigning?

4) We all know he had massive health setbacks in the past, did he not consider these before making a decision whether to join Politics?

5) Three years Rajini makkal mandran workers was involved in social activities, what happens to their future ?

Politics and Cinema are interlinked in Tamil Nadu and after MGR, Rajinikanth has the maximum fan following. Rajinikanth's track record of box office success mainly attributes to repeat audience. Right from auto driver, coolie, milk man, post man, driver all are rajini fans and they flock the theatres more than once and all this set the cash registers ringing. When people of his stature becomes CM of the state they expect new schemes to be launched which would benefit their respective fields. Now people are disappointed and feel they are being cheated.Normally actors are paid but in case with Rajini from what I hear he pays Producer. He works on percentage basis and carries lump sum home and am not against this since he has the talent and charisma and gets fat pay but there is something called as Gratitude. Not necessarily one has to enter Politics to show gratitude but with power one can reach out to masses to do social causes.  

Even in the event of his starting a party he would have just split the votes between DMK and AIADMK and now that he is out of the race it is advantage AIADMK. When someone is doing well it is natural to see everyone behind you but when someone is facing the heat that is when you have to show the support but unfortunately I feel Mr.Rajinikanth has let down people of Tamil nadu and feel like I should not support him. 

P.S: I have used the term 'Thalaivar' as a fan and 'Mr.Rajinikanth' as a normal citizen. Once Annathe comes I may even come with an article praising him but my stance is he is always at his best as an entertainer. 

World of Marketing !!

 

  ‘Marketing’ is the buzz word in today’s world and anything and everything is marketed to reach general public. In the year 2008, I took appa and amma to Coca Cola factory in Atlanta as it was a custom for anyone living in Atlanta to take it to Coca cola factory, CNN when parents visit their kids. It costed 15$ per person for the visit which includes a short synopsis on the company,  short film on coca cola brand, taste 50 or 60 types of Coca cola served all around the world and I felt it was worth the visit. Appa came to me and said in order to market their brand why should we pay money as he was promoting his brand big time? I had absolutely no answer to his question and I remember his words though 12 years passed by. I would like to share some interesting marketing techniques I have observed which were quite effective too.

Brand new Car in a cricket stadium: I am sure all of us must have witnessed this scene – a brand new glossy red colour luxury car sitting in the stands attracting lot of eyeballs and the sponsor would gift that to the man of the series. The car would travel throughout the series to various grounds and the game maybe broadcasted to many different countries through satellite. Every time batsman goes for a lofty shot aiming into the stands in the direction of the car, commentators would go gaga over the car and as audience we feel OMG ..what would happen if ball falls straight into the car either causing a dent or breaks its glass. Just imagine if people like Chris Gayle, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma, Shahid Afridi who are all big hitters of the ball go after the full toss and ball goes straight into the stands where car is located, everytime ball goes into that direction it creates a panic and all this translates into wonderful marketing for the sponsor. Even if balls does damage to the car the cost to fix the damage is far less compared the publicity it draws from viewers both in person and international audience gloomed to the television. In a series which consists of few matches the number of times car gets highlighted and the mileage it draws makes it an effective Marketing strategy for the sponsor.

Celebrity to open jewellery showroom:  In tier 2 cities like Trichy, Madurai, Salem, Tanjore etc., opening of a jewellery showroom is conducted with so much fanfare where posters are splashed all across the city broadcasting of a top actress opening the showroom. Just to let you know some of the ambassadors for leading brands are as follows: Nayantara endorses Tanishq (Tata brand), Kajal/Tamannah endorses Malabar Gold & Diamonds, Manju warrier for Kalyan jewellery, Kajol/Amala Paul for Joy alukkas, Radhika for Pranav Jewellers, Jothika for Saravana stores Thanga maligai etc., Nayantara is too big a ambassador who may bring city to a standstill so she does not come for showroom openings. There is so much buzz in the city on the actress visit and news travel across all sections of people; Local radios, televisions, social media, Facebook groups all create so much hype and start updating people on arrival time, route the actress may take from airport to shop etc., A section of the group also talks about what attire would the actress come in and encourages viewers to participate on the discussions regarding Actress visit. Then comes the D day and actress once she has opened the shop and given poses to the shutterbugs says following words “Vanakkam Trichy ..epadi irukeenga ..nalla irukeengala” which is good enough for the people to pronounce letter ‘O’ for few minutes; I seriously guess actress must memorize what they want to say in public during their flight trip since the expressions on the face looks like a CBSE student wanting to reproduce whatever they have memorized. Next day actress opening the showroom gets highlighted in all the daily’s in prime locations pushing some important news regarding Healthcare, Military, Education to nonprime areas like 5^th page corner. So end of the day shop has got all the attention it expected and can consider the promotion to bring an actress is a huge success.

Mersal movie: Movie promotion has become just an inevitable task that every movie had to come up with a motion poster, trailer, grand audio launch, media interviews, preview shows etc., These days every harry and dick has a Youtube channel and looks like people who have channel exceed compared to people who don’t have one. Everyone who owns a channel is a critique and people review it in piecemeal basis. Filmmakers has to do something out of ordinary in order to grab people’s attention since most of the movie promotions are mundane stuff with people uttering that their movie is  ‘Vidiyasam’ (different) from others. Mersal movie came and Thanks to two BJP politicians who made a single dialogue about GST a huge national topic and created huge curiosity amongst film buffs and so many people wanted to watch the movie just for Vijay’s talk about GST. Actually if you were to buy  popcorn or quickly go for a restroom that dialogue would be over since it lasted very few seconds. Makers of the movie did not open their mouth as media and public were doing all the promotion on their behalf and every single conversation translated into making the movie a huge commercial success. So in a way I think this is also a marketing tactic that worked wonders. On a sidenote as long as Tamil nadu youngsters keep brawling about Thala vs Thalapathy, Thalaivar vs Ulaganayagan state will always be at the mercy of Centre, politicians and actors fight (pretend like fighting) only to gain more mileage in their respective career.

  You can come up with a good product but to take it to public you need to rely on marketing techniques which has to be creative as well as unique. Coming up with a controversial content to attract people (negative publicity) may work once or twice but end of the day content speaks and good marketing techniques always has a positive impact. People make fun of Legend Saravana Stores owner and meme guys work overtime to create memes but the guy is making all this translate to advertisement for his business. Just take two fruits – Apple and Guava and Apple may sound a healthier choice than Guava but if you do more research then you will get to know Guava is a better fruit in terms of nutrients. So long story short whether it is the U.S presidential election or Nandu brand Lungi (seriously need to know the rationale behind their brand name) anything and everything needs a marketing push.                                                                                                 

 

Big Fat Indian Weddings !!

 

    ‘Big Fat Indian wedding’ is a common terminology used in the media to describe wedding of celebrities/VIPs. Then came Corona and pretty much wiped off all the big fat weddings in 2020 much to the delight of so many financially backward people since they believe marriages are happening the way it should happen. So basically all the Dhaam-dhoom functions are gone to pave way for Zoom weddings. I just want to do a deep dive into Indian functions in general and come with some observations. Let me go over some of the misconception one by one:

   [1] Come late if you need to be considered as a VIP: This is kind of sick attitude which many Indians follow as they believe if they go early then people may think they do not have any work. There could be ‘n’ number of reasons why someone may want to come early or late but people’s mentality to go late to get an impression they are busy bothers me.

   [2] Number matters: This is an interesting topic and so many numbers float around when it comes to attendance of an event. You can even figure out number of threads in a dhoti at one go but trying to come up with an accurate figure of an Indian event is very difficult. Let us say you print 700 invitation cards anticipating 1000 people to attend then there are lots of Ifs and Buts – Is it a muhurtham date, is it a holiday, is this exam season (In India if kids have exams parents are either in Temple or convert home into temple), in community like mine inviting in person or at least inviting over phone makes a huge difference (I am glad this is finally changing) etc., The funny part is Host tend to rely on Caterers to get a glimpse of final number and those guys just to please you come up with an inflated number. There is absolutely no problem with the number game and each individual based on their family circle and relationship with near and dear ones attract people, the thing that bothers me is when people get carried away with the numbers  and create a chaotic atmosphere for general public. In places like Chennai, Trichy when a marriage takes place in a VIP family then roads are blocked, procession takes place earning wrath from public, fire crackers burnt with zero precautions. Inviting more guests is purely host’s personal choice and as long as common public’s day to day life is not disturbed it should be fine.

  [3] Waste food:  I don’t want to portray myself as if I don’t waste food but can confidently say that I make every step possible not to waste food. I try to enjoy the food served and try to finish off all the stuff in my plate but then I am advised to keep some food since if I finish all then it may sound as if I have come to have food. I am not sure how to deal with this only to later realize that odd(est) thing is when a camera guy come rushing to you to capture you and your lovely plate. Just imagine you being captured with a plain plantain leaf which is good enough for people to make fun about you.

   [4] Lavish Decorations: Posters all across the city, Flex cutouts in prominent junctions, Huge maanaadu panthal, Plaintain thoppu in the entrance, flower decorations good enough to give deserted look in Ooty all this can be noticed for the big gala weddings in India. Decorations give the first impression of how grand a wedding is and people spend lakhs or even crores of money which is basically a ’24 hour showoff’; India is one country where there is more unaccounted cash and this is used effectively for decorations by the politicians in order to build an image with public.

   [5] Gifts with so much rules: Whether to gift or not is a separate topic and am not going to talk about that since I feel it is a personal choice and it differs from individual to individual. I am personally okay host gifting the attendees as a token of thanks but the thing that bothers me are the rules people come up to gift. I like my community in many ways since when it comes to culture and heritage I think we are torch bearers and try to preserve all the good old values from previous generation. But when it comes to gifting ..OMG .....9 inch vaali and 11 inch vaali still takes place in this Swiggy era, bigger vessel for group ABC,  medium vessel for group XYZ, different currency note for different people, different gift for people with paper invites (men only), different set of gifts for family invites so on and so forth. Trust me even Christopher Nolan can get confused with the number of rules my community has as far as gifting people.

  Functions are perfectly fine and we need lots of functions to get that cheer going on but some things have to change for good. Even in western countries birthday gifts gets rotated and occupy basement real estate. Once people host a party they get tons of gifts which are arranged in garage only to pass on one by one and these namesake traditions are followed in the name of formality. Number of shawls and bouquets people gift in India can be easily replaced into something useful such as seed balls or a small plant sampling which is very much need of the hour. Unfortunately people trying to pinpoint these are tagged as ‘Rules ramanujam’ and that is the reason many have inhibitions to speak out in public. I think rather than preaching about change we have to be the change and lead the crowd in changing some things about Indian events.

Karma - Bitter truth of life

 

Karma is a fascinating fact about life that fellow human beings seldom notice. Delving too much into it may not give you peace of mind but it is good to know that you are accountable for your wrong doings. I am going to take an example of how a 500 rupee note travel between various parties and Karma’s role in the background. This blog is a fictional one but the core idea to come up with the topic came from real life incidents.

    Consider a 500 rupee note in the hands of a construction worker. In his leisure time just for fun he may write some funny wordings in the note which is basically wrong and against the norms of RBI but he does that purely to enjoy the fun in the spur of the moment. Let us look into how the note travels from this point. Construction worker obviously wants to get rid of the 500 rupee note since he knows he is running a risk of note falling under ‘Non acceptance’ category and he chooses a busy place such as Railway station where the clerk hardly have any time to have a sip of water. Now the note is with Railways and as part of its monthly settlements, Railways pay vendor dues (Catering Company) and the 500 rupee note travels from Railways to Catering Company.  Catering company as part of paying wages to its Employees gives 500 rupee note to one of its employee’s hands. That employee who got the note is worried how to dispose the note and hence chooses a grocery store which is kind of busy one to get rid of the note. Grocery store in turn deposits money into the bank as part of its regular daily routine and though Bank is not happy with the 500 rupee notes still takes it.  Bank as part of refilling its ATMs around the city takes the cash and deposits in various ATM machines and the note in question gets into an ATM machine in a proper residential area. One gentleman living in the neighborhood draws money from ATM in order to pay school fees for his toddler son. School now has the 500 rupee note and as part of the settling bills for a recently concluded school day function gives money to an Event management company. Event Management Company has multiple partners and one of its partners owns a pawn broker business where they deal with quite a lot of local workforce as their clients. Now our dude Construction worker who is in need of money mortgages some of his jewels in turn for money to this particular pawn broker and he receives cash much of his surprise to know that a 2000 rupee note he received had some funny drawings and scribbling.

    That is Karma explained through a 500 rupee note. Karma gets back at you upon time with both ‘Principal + Interest’ concept and construction worker what he did for 500 rupee note got backfired and had the same treatment for 2000 rupee note.  Now imagine of the very many wrongdoings we either directly or indirectly deal in day to day life and imagine its ramifications. The little scratch or dent in your car which ends up you paying $$$ to fix the issue may be indirectly related to some financial wrongdoing in the past and in the process life teaches a lesson and makes you grounded. Karma is a much bigger force to reckon with and the key thing that we got to acknowledge is ‘Karma is the bitter truth’ of life.

R-E-V-A-T-H-Y - Evergreen Actress !!

  I wanted to write a blog on my favorite actress and one of the most evergreen actresses’ Tamil cinema has produced - ‘Revathy’. Now coming to a shelf life of an actress, this is how it works – Great debut movie attracting lot of attention, signup 1-2 movies where media projects as the next sensation, signup movies with Top actors merely running around the trees in the name of commercial entertainers, Signup Glamour roles due to industry trend, signup movies with top heroes of neighboring states and toggle between Chennai and Hyderabad, around this time they must have completed 5-6 years and act in once in a while heroine oriented role good enough to win filmfare award, around this time gossip mills are around that she is in love with a top actor and then slowly roles shy away from the actress since there is latest sensation from Mumbai or Kerala who is grabbing all the attention. You cannot really complain the actress because industry pushes you to make wrong decisions and there are lots of factors that play a role in how a career of an actress shapes up. I liked Simran for her role in ‘Parthen rasithen’,  ‘Thullatha manamum Thullum’, ‘Kanethirae Thondrinaal’, ‘Kannathil Muthamittal’ but she has to rely on quite a lot of glamour roles before she got these roles. Jothika is fitted for bubbly roles and people are under the impression that she is acting in good roles off late but according to me she is acting in ‘Heroine dominated’ roles and not ‘Character driven’ roles. If you take ‘Kaatrin mozhi’ for example all the other characters have poor screen space and her role is prominent throughout with Vidarth hardly had any role to play, making villain of baadsha to give such a pathetic role in ‘Jackpot’ was ridiculous, ‘Ratchasi’ all the other characters hardly had any dialogues.  If you take ‘Revathy’ she neither relied on glamorous roles nor big top heroes to climb up in her career. Her choice of scripts were great and her role always complemented the lead actor and am going to list some of her favorite roles below:

(a  )Thaayamma in Kilaku vaasal: She had a great intro scene and in villages it was common for a village big shot to have a second wife not officially but still good enough for the public to know. As second wife she was brilliant and had to feel insecure with her life and to sign up for such a role in beginning of a career may sound alarm bells for an actress but not for Revathy since she performed with so much ease.

(b   )Chitra in Anjali: Once again Mother of Three kids and she has to portray so many emotions – Suspect Husband for having an affair, show love and affection to husband for taking care of a special child, feel worried that special kid is not able to accept her love, deal with kids who feel ashamed and then teach them on empathy ..so on and so forth; Though it was Mani Ratnam the master craftsman on board to extract the talent I would give it for Actress Revathy who was absolutely brilliant.  

 

(c    )Dhivya in Mouvna Raagam: If you give me A4 size notebook I think I can write most of the dialogues in the movie. Though I have written quite a lot about the movie in my past blogs I don’t think I have written anything about Revathi character. Right from the mischievous teenager, lover girl with Karthik, Egoistic nature with Mohan everything was just too good. To pick a favorite scene is difficult one for me but the way she expresses her nature to Mohan when she sees him for the first time and to break her ego and publicly express love towards Mohan in the climax were absolutely top notch. Mouvna Raagam is one movie where First night is showed in the most dignified manner and Revathy’s body language to look timid was captured wonderfully in celluloid. Had google been invented in 1980’s then the term ‘Kambilipoochi’ would have been the most searched term. Sillunu oru Kadhal and Atlee’s Raja Rani were big time inspirations from Mouvna Raagam but a good movie becomes a classic only of how a woman’s role is written and Revathy was picture perfect as Dhivya and Mouvna Raagam will always hold a special place in my Film library.

(d  ) Malini in Punnagai mannan:  In Punnagai Mannan, Kamal lost his first love Rekha and to avoid depression gets into dancing. He has this ego of self defense of not falling into love again and Revathi as a Sinhalese dance school student falls in love. Instead of writing poems and singing in rain she was bold, witty, and confident girl who could make Kamal fall in love again through her attitude.  

(e   )Tulasi in Marupadiyum: This is such a beautiful movie that only people like Balu Mahendra can take. Husband ditches wife and openly admits that he is in love with an actress, the way Revathi handles husband, financial constraints, meaning of life and new found admiration with a gentleman is all told in a poetic way and Revathi just nailed it and I don’t think any other actress could have done this role.

(f)     Panchavarnam in Devar magan: In this digital world of Netflix/Prime/Hotstar, Devar magan is one movie which you cannot easily find it online. This shows that there is still market for the movie as it is considered one of tamil cinema’s all time classics. ‘Inncocense’ is one word to describe her character and as a village girl getting married to a village biggie she has performed her role very well. 

(g   )Sathya in Magalir Mattum: We live in a world where girls working in IT has become very common but back in 80’s and 90’s there are very few sectors where women used to work – Bank, Telecom, E.B, Postal etc., Workplace harassment was still prevalent in those days and woman had to muster courage to handle that in a brave manner keeping the family commitments in mind. Movie dealt with how a womaniser manager tried to exploit women in his office and Revathy as Sathya was bold, clever and had the guts to tackle lecherous manager. I would say this movie as ‘Me Too’ movement of 90’s.

   Revathy also has acted in many memorable roles where she had a minor role to play but still had substance.  As a village girl Muthupechi she had a fantastic debut with Mann vasanai  grabbing lots of attention for her meaty role and Pudhumai penn she played the role of seetha where husband doubts her chastity and she has to fight against all odds only to leave her husband in the end. In Aan pavam she had a small role where her role demanded her to turn to be dumb and Udhya geetham she had to turn the tables on with her determination to save Mohan. Arangetra velai may not be in my favorites list but the song ‘Agaya vennilavae’ is one of my all time favorite song and the portion where Revathy appears in black and yellow attire for few seconds will remain as one of my favorite stills of the actress. I think Revathy has penchant towards Silly comedy movies like Arangetra velai, Gulaebaghavali, Jackpot and her name in all three movies is Masha.  If you take recent movies like ‘Amma Kanaku’ where revathy as Dr.Nandhini she instills confidence to Amala Paul and plays role of a catalyst, In ‘Power paandi’ Revathy plays role of Poothendral where she meets her lover after so many years and romance was very subtle and she acted in a very matured way. Recently when Corona virus outbreak happened I watched Malayalam movie called ‘Virus’ (which showed how a small state stood against Nipah Virus) where Revathy played role of a Health Minister named Prameela. It is not the number of dialogues that determine how good a person has acted but as an administration person she had a serious look full of concern for the public and was always a listener since she has to liaison with Health care workers, Researchers, Government officials, law enforcement officials, media and general public.  In the climax she gave a good and simple speech and liked her role very much.

 

   Now speaking about how multifaceted Actress Revathi – She was doing movies in Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, Telugu and Kannada. She has also directed movies in English (Mitr, My friend), Hindi (Phir Milenge, Mumbai cutting) and Malayalam (Kerala Café). She has been the voice actor for many films and it is a unique experience to give voice for someone’s emotions. She has also donned the grease paint in small screen by acting in many television serials but I have not seen any since I have a policy of not to watch any television serials. On top of this she is a trained Bharatanatyam dancer and involved in many social organizations and most notable being Banyan organization. She was also the host of the Malayalam reality show ‘Malyalee house’ and has also been judge of many award shows.

 

Appreciating or criticizing a girl based on her culinary skills should be considered fourth degree murder. I cannot think of a commercial potboiler where her role was simple to run around the trees and speak blah blah of the heroes. Revathi did not rely on skin show and was not behind big heroes to bag movies. She did not have a godfather and was never part of any gossip. I think filmmakers when they thought of bold, headstrong, Independent feminine role they thought of Revathy. Directors like Bharathiraja, Balu Mahendra, Mani Ratnam, Balachander gave her great roles and she proved their conviction was right. I am sorry for her personal life but pretty sure all the roles she played in celluloid would have given her enough solace in overcoming her hardship. Entertainers are not someone who merely dance or sing but someone who gave memorable performances and in that way Actress Revathy is a great entertainer and will remain as an evergreen and a favorite actress for many.