Naveena Chanakyan

 My favorite topics include 'Food', 'Cinema' and 'Religious aspects' and 2021 is the year where 'Politics' and 'Economics' have joined my list of favorites. I have written quite a lot of blogs on Politics and still yet to make my debut on Economics. Reason why I started liking these two topics would mainly attribute to two personalities - Prashanth Kishore and P.T.R Palanivel Rajan respectively. I have simply admired both of them and they have kindled my interest to great extent on these topics. When I saw RJ Balaji's L.K.G there was a character who act as a political strategist and make individuals win polls and at that time I hardly knew who Prashanth Kishore was but then after knowing about him and his organization I am completely flabbergasted on the talent he brings onto the table. 

Now before getting into Mr.Prashanth Kishore let us understand on the Indian political climate; BJP is literally going from strength to strength and its opposition Congress party is becoming like a villain in recent Thalaivar movies; As such India is going through a massive transformation in terms of Industrialization, Governance, Infrastructure and Corporate affairs and if results are to be believed India will soon become third biggest economy in the world. I would say two things are playing a crucial role in India's glorious run - (a) Stable government which is into its 7th year @ Centre (b) Revenue generation through GST. Stability plays a major role on governance and with BJP government on its seventh year is going from strength to strength and Mr.Modi has created something like 'Brand India'; GST is another factor which is generating huge amounts of money for both central and state governments and this is getting translated to lot of infrastructure changes across the country. Now that I gave a brief overview about Indian political scenario let me jump into Mr.Prashanth Kishore. 

Who is Mr.Prashanth Kishore? What role did he play in Indian politics? What contributions did he make ? Prashanth Kishore is an Indian political strategist and tactician. He has been trained in political strategy and has eight years of experience in United Nations working as Political strategist for various international politicians. Prashanth initially created CAG (Citizens for accountable governance) and then later regrouped as I-PAC (Indian political action committee). Basically Prashanth wants to create a platform for youngsters to participate and make meaningful contribution in political affairs and governance of the country without necessarily being part of the political party. Prashanth wants to make sure there is a citizen-centric agenda and partners with politicians to conceptualize and implement the most effective methods of taking it to the public. Let me list out some of his contributions :

1) Success in helping BJP win 2012 Gujarat legislative assembly election

2) Success in helping BJP win 2014 Indian general election 

3) Success in helping JD(U) win 2015 Bihar legislative assembly election

4) Success in helping INC win 2017 Punjab legislative assembly election

5) Success in helping YSRCP win 2019 Andhra pradesh legislative assembly election

2) Success in helping AAP win 2020 Delhi legislative assembly election

3) Success in helping DMK win 2021 Tamil Nadu legislative assembly election

4) Success in helping TMC win 2021 West Bengal legislative assembly election

That's just WOW ......It is incredible because he was a driving force in how political parties carried out campaigns, what electoral promises to make, how to address challenges, how to tackle opposition etc., If you look into some of the directors of I-PAC they are from premium educational institutions like IIT and what they are good is getting as much DATA as possible and mining information from the data retrieved. You need to understand the constitution, rules of the land, laws and regulations and then devise your strategies. Prashanth just marshalls his resources to come up with a perfect strategy for each individual and the results are for everyone to see but there is plenty of information being carried out in the background. DATA plays a super duper role and prashanth collects as much data as possible before getting his hands dirty. I am going to walk you through some of the fascinating tactics Prashanth deployed during political campaigns which brought him so much of laurels

[1] 'Manthan' initiative: Prashanth realized out of 130 crore indian population 62 crores + of voters were under the age of 25 and realized a huge potential for indian youth to engage in political affairs and wanted to come up with a nation wide movement to bring the youth together and that is how 'Manthan' was born - he came up with a nation wide contest for resolving top 14 issues of the nation. This initiative saw 5 lakh youth participating and presenting their idea on the roadmap of India to a spectrum of leaders across party lines. Guess what the impact was so huge that some of the things like 12 special courts for fast track delivery of cases against politicians, 1.53 trillion rupees worth of loan released for small businesses under MUDRA yojana scheme, 17000 crore budget for seperate skill development ministry were made by Prime Minister to the nation and the idea was from Manthan initiative

[2] 'Captain's Nau Nukte' initiative in Punjab: Prashanth and his team devised a campaign called 'Captain's Nau Nukte' which focuses on nine point agenda bringing back the lost glory of Punjab and he executed the campaign through a large door to door campaign led by 1500 volunteers and reaching 1.2 crore people. This initiative had huge impact in the state of Punjab as it brought 35% women reservation in government jobs, 1500 crore debt waiver to 5.6 lakh farmers and special task force to control smuggling, peddling and consumption of drugs. 

[3] NAVARATNALU initiative in Andhra pradesh: AP was going through a bad phase with corruption charges and bad governance and YSR Jagan mohan reddy teamed up with Prashanth and released nine promises to people of AP. Following footsteps of his dad in 341 days, he walked more than 3648 kilometres meeting citizens directly in person to get an understanding of their problem and what would it take for his new government to resolve the problems. With over 5 lakh party workers, 90k volunteers, 70k influencers, 600 professionals getting connected through 35 online and offline campaigns, people of AP gave YSRCP a landslide victory. YSR acted swiftly on his electoral promises and NAVARATNALU was soon a reality with 55 lakh loan waiver promised to farmers, 15000 annually for every school going kid, 1.5 lakhs students promised reimbursement for accommodation etc., 

[4] KEJRIWAL KI 10 Guarantee in Delhi: Prashanth devised a strategy which consist of an extensive exercise to collect feedback on government's performance in the last 5 years through a door to door campaign reaching 35 lakh households in Delhi. Across Delhi, People were invited to townhalls with the CM and they became part of the discourse for coming up with the agenda for the next 5 years. People's voice, suggestions and feedback culminated into a 10 point agenda and once Kejriwal came to office some of the agenda items were executed like - Revolutionary education reform, Healthcare for all scheme by ensuring network oh Mohalla clinics and advanced government hospitals, 24/7 clean drinking water available to public, 7 million women has access to no cost transport etc., 

[5] DIDI 'R 10 ONGIKAR, BANGLAR GORBO MAMATA: With Congress in no form and J Jayalalitha no more BJP realized their only threat in the nation was Mamata Banerjee so they went all guns blazing and made elections in phased out approach and pulled lot of ministers from TMC to BJP. Prashanth and his team really had to work very hard to get things right as they faced stiff competition from BJP. Once again Prashanth introduced flagship campaigns to reaffirm faith in didi's leadership. Multiple citizen participatory campaigns were designed and individual concerns were addressed. Once Didi came to power 'Universal income support' that of offering 500 and 1000 per month to female heads of SC/ST community, student credit cards for limit upto 10 lakhs for all eligible students, free doorstep delivery of ration goods for 1.5 crore households, 10000/acre for 68 lakh small and medium farmers were introduced

[6] STALININ 7 URUDHIMOLIGAL: Tamil Nadu was merely remote controlled by centre and with stalwarts like Karuna and JJ out of picture state was going through a bad phase with lot of misgovernance. Upon working closely with Prashanth and his team Stalin came up with a '10 year vision document' which focused on revamping areas in seven sectors such as Agriculture, Water management, Health Urban  development, Education, Rural infrastructure, Social injustice, Economy etc., Stalin also had over 500 election promises which was made fun by the entire state but close to 50% of the promises were fulfilled is the reality. Finance minister selection raised eyebrows and for the first time we saw an well educated smart youngster given Finance portfolio, opposition party were treated with dignity, Tea party was hosted by CM which were attended by politicians across party lines. With just over six months DMK has literally had a glorious run and overall functioning of the state, handling of pandemic, governance has simply been outstanding and brought heaps of praise and appreciation from all over the country. 

I have just pointed out some of the things Mr.Prashanth did and he did a whole lot of things which is opening a new chapter in Indian politics. If you take a closer look almost all of his initiatives involved interacting with people to know and understand their problems from grassroot level since Prashanth believes only when you understand from close quarters you can come up with a solution. Modi's ever famous 'Chai par charcha' campaign where he had a chai and interacted with public and Stalin's Grama sabbhas before TN election to sit with people and talk to them all not just won praises but also respective elections for BJP and DMK respectively. If you look at BJP it has taken some of the boldest decisions in Citizens amendment act, decision to revoke Article 370, law related to Triple talaq, decision to make Jammu, kashmir and ladakh union territories etc., When a dynamic, young and revolutionary architect in the form of Prashanth Kishor come to the equation it augurs good for Indian Politics as it changes the grammar of how a political party should be run.

Next topic: Perspective

P.S: I wish all my readers a very happy and prosperous new year; Readership for my blog has gone ten times more and thank all of you for your time and thanks for sending me your feedback and healthy debates over Whatsapp. 

How Drahma Unfolds !!

 Staging a drama doesn't happen just on stage instead it happens in different contexts on various matters in India. I am going to list some of those based on my experience in the past. There is always a motive for people to stage a drama - sometimes it could be for monetary reasons whereas sometimes it could be to win over people, some occasions to gain sympathy, so on and so forth etc., 

[1] Drahma at Road side: If mass shootings is a concern in US then road accidents is a concern in India and sometimes road accidents are enacted through a drama too. Along with my family I was on my way to Vaitheeswaran Temple and of course this happened before Corona made its debut, once you cross Kumbakonam roads are narrow and it gets congested as population is dense in those areas. I was comfortable driving but I had to be very watchful since I could see bicycles, cows, dogs, suddenly making its appearance just like how elakai makes its presence when we enjoy the yummy biriyani. But I was moving along and at one spot and couldn't recollect the exact location I heard a big noise back of my car and I was very confident me and my car had nothing to do with the collision that happened for a two wheeler against one of the moving vehicles on the road. I looked into the mirror and saw people gathering in big numbers and since I had nothing to do with the accident I moved along. One person from the spot rushed towards me and parked his bike in front of my car and asked me to get down from the car. I obliged and got down and he said I was the one responsible for the accident and had to come to the spot immediately .....I said this is absolutely false and I cannot take responsibility for accidents taking place on road ...he was adamant that I had to come to the spot so I had no other choice but to rush towards the spot. First and foremost I am going to visit a temple so if I commit a mistake and then offer my prayers I am aware almighty is not going to listen to my prayers so I was confident lord will take care and gathered courage to face the crowd. People were furious at me and some even pointed fingers that I was responsible for the lady who fell down from the two wheeler; Guy who drove the two wheeler said I dashed him which made him and the lady fall ....I said to the crowd ...first let us all try to understand what happened .....I asked the guy to explain in detail ...I questioned him just like how Surya did in Jai Bhim ....Right from the direction he came, side of my car which seem to hit him etc., I also asked the crowd to look into my car whether it had any scratches or paint removal like how the guy explained ...I also spotted a Security Camera in one of the shops nearby but unfortunately shop was closed but I asked the crowd let us call the show owner and get footage of what happened ....Crowd listened to me ..they looked into my car which had my entire family waiting in patience. At this point of time crowd was convinced this guy is enacting a drama and was confident on the way I carried myself ....I even asked the crowd if I am proven wrong I can take care of any medical treatment and any expense that incurs for the boy but I cannot be fooled around. I gave all of my identity proofs in case they want to contact me further. I am pretty sure this guy basically wanted to enact a drama and get cash from me and he gathered sympathy by pulling the crowd and the lady and ambulance are all character roles in his play. God knows the truth but I realized once you are confident and truthful you need to FACE the challenge by yourself and my attitude was the saving grace on the incident and I thank lord Vaitheeswaran for giving me the strength to face the situation. 

[2] Third person make merry: When two people have misunderstandings the worst thing that happen is third person take advantage of the situation. In any Business when two generations work together it is super natural to have difference of opinion of various day to day operations. Best thing to do is for the two to iron out the differences and settle things amicably but at this juncture third party and in this case the employees in the same organization take advantage of the situation. Since older generation is lenient on lot of things they tend to get arguments with the new generation person and employees slowly but surely make more inroads on the rift between older and new generation. This is sort of a drama people undertake in every organization and I would strongly say reasons for family feuds are more of internal in nature rather than from external forces. This can be frustrating but one day truth will triumph. 

[3] Video leak: This one is not my personal experience but just my observation. High profile movie shooting may be in progress and all of a sudden some video footage may be leaked from the film's shooting. News spread all over the state and fans start to rejoice the content and start sharing virally on social media. Some people just want to get a glimpse of the video due to curiosity factor ...Overall this has been a paisa vasool marketing for the movie. If you take a deep look this whole thing could be a drahma ....when you release a video as a teaser it may generate 1 million views whereas you term it has 'leak' it may generate 2 million views ...This is like stolen mangoes are more tastier than mangoes bought. 

I have just listed few but there are whole lot more which I could keep writing; I feel there is always a motto behind every drama that has been enacted. People choose the characters, script and stage for the drama but whatever drama one does end of the day people are responsible for their own wrongdoings through the Paavam-Punya Kanaku just like Credit and debit entries in Journal Book. 

Next Blog:  Naveena Chanakyan 

Annathae, Rajini and Next steps

 Annatha was Thalaivar's latest flick and it was very disappointing and the disturbing factor for me was Thalaivar had to rely on so much emotional quotient to make his movie a Box office success.  In my community when someone reaches 70, Beema radha santhi is celebrated and it is time to increase dosage for Metformin, Amlodopine and Rosuvastatin ...but looking at Thalaivar he is still on the ground fighting it out when his counterparts like Vijayakanth, Sathyaraj, Chiranjeevi, Mohan babu all have either retired or doing character driven roles. You have to give credits to the man for pulling this feat. But before we get into Annatha would like to go over some of Thalaivar's strengths which I would personally like to term as his success strategies.

1) Almost Nil endorsements for commercials: Apart from the Polio campaign have you ever seen Thalaivar endorsing any campaigns? Have you seen him as a celebrity endorsing any FMCG product? Apart from the cut outs and hoardings during his releases have you seen his advertisement during any other time ? He played it very smart by limiting his public appearances and that translates to Freshness factor in Cine world. When you endorse for a FMCG product the company plays the advertisement multiple times in televisions and people tend to see your face 'n' number of times and this psychologically brings down the curiosity when audience tend to see a mass hero in big screen. Now you may understand how actors like Vijay, Chiranjeevi are mass heroes whereas actors like Surya who chooses good scripts can never become a mass hero. 

2) Limited public appearance: Getting invites is pretty common and just imagine for Thalaivar how many invites he would receive in a calendar year to attend for functions (wedding, cine related) etc., If Thalaivar attends everything he would hog limelight but once again that will translate to bringing down the curiosity factor when people see him in big screen. He has always maintained low profile - attend very few functions, skip cine functions for most part, minimum participation for any protests etc., One other significant thing which Thalaivar does is he does not participate in Film promotions even for his own films other than Audio functions (2.0 was an exception as he had to oblige Zee networks since Zee procured satellite rights for 2.0 and Endhiran at the time of release was an expensive movie so he gave interview with Sun TV as SUN network acquired satellite rights); On a similar note I see that people who are super duper talented like Ilayaraja, AR Rahman, Mani Ratnam focus less on marketing and instead focus on their respective work to  do all the talking. This particular strategy of Thalivar pays rich dividends as he always keeps the freshness factor and when people see him in celluloid after one or two years they go mad to catch glimpse of him. 

3) Family audience: These days film's fate is decided in the first 10 days but if you look into the past silver jubilee films run for 25 weeks (175 days) and if you deep look first 30 days belongs to hard core Thalaivar fans who consists of Auto drivers, rickshaw man, Milk vendor, vegetable vendor, lorry drivers etc., and then once the film crosses 30 days mark that's when Thaikulam come into theatres and they take the kids along with them. Thalaivar has this uncanny habit of attracting kids through his movies - the graphics song in Raja chinna Roja may look amateurish in today's world but it was considered cult classic at those times which attracted kids, Thalaivar's body language of catching Snake in Annamalai and murmuring 'Kaduvulae Kadavulae' will make kids laugh like anything, flipping of sun glasses/cigars all attracted kids. Can you name one movie of Thalaivar which is considered very glamourous and embarrass family audience ? Consider two songs - "Adikudhu Kuliru" from Mannan and "Siva Rathiri" from MMKR and nature of both the songs is same that of heroine trying to woo hero and director's intention is to make the song look sensuous. But such was the choreography and picturization that Adikudhu kuliru brought out the intention of the song merely through the tone and kudos to Thalaivar for making his movies family friendly in nature. I am not saying he doesn't have glamourous songs in his movies but he has always kept family audience in his mind whereas his arch rival Kamal Ji is considered to be kadhal mannan. 

Now that I have gone through some of Thalaivar's success strategies I would like to point out his current state of mind. Some of the biggest directors in 90's were K.S Ravi kumar, Mani Ratnam, Shankar, P. Vasu etc., After Linga bombed and Jaggubhai didn't take off it was curtains down for K.S Ravikumar. P.Vasu pulled off a miracle for Chandramukhi but then Kuselan was absolute disaster and the movie was completely written off so P.Vasu was out of equation too. Shankar made Sivaji, Endhiran and 2.0 and problem with Shankar's movies are like it takes whole lot of time apart from demanding huge budget. There are rarely any producer who could afford to produce Shankar movie on top of casting Thalaivar as hero so Shankar was out of question too. Mani Ratnam is still an option but believe both Thalaivar and Mani ratnam want to keep their everlasting record of Thalapathi intact and don't want to create any mishapenings in their combination. Thalaivar tried his luck with his daughter on giving audience an absolute new experience in the form of 3D Avatar by doing Kochadaiyaan but unfortunately audience did not like the movie very much though it was a novel attempt. Now Thalaivar sat back got his act together and realized new comers are the future and that was when movie 'Madras' was both critically acclaimed as well as huge box office success. Thalaivar surprised everyone in the industry by giving PA.Ranjith to direct his next movie. Movie was produced by marketing wizard Kalaipuli Thanu sir and there was almost feverish pitch as far as marketing was concerned and the scenario in Tamil Nadu was like if you haven't watched Kabali you have wasted your life. Movie released and though it was different from many of Thalaivar's past movies I personally did not like the movie as there was excessive violence and gun shots were used like "Potu vedi"; I watched the movie with hard core Thalaivar fans and enjoyed every bit of the experience. Movie was declared box office success and Rajini handed over next movie to Ranjith for 'Kaala'. 

  Kaala was an average flick and the movies didn't fare well at Box Office and Rajini moved onto Karthik Subburaj, a hard core Thalaivar veriyan for PETTA and the movie by far was the best of thalaivar's movies retaining the vintage Thalaivar factor as well as coming up with a good script for a mass hero. Personally apart from the flashback which was not at all convincing overall movie was very good. Now Rajini moved onto AR Murugadoss for Darbar and the movie happened to be an above average flick. Now Rajini saw Viswasam and blown over by the movie gave Director Siva a chance to direct his next movie and that is how Annatha happened. You cannot blame Thalaivar as he had to trust his instincts and give someone a chance to direct. But Annatha relied way too much on emotional quotient and villain was like a puppet. Movie must have run in villages and Tier 2 cities but overall movie disappointed many including hard core fans. 

Now that he is out of Politics TN People are not going to make him retire so it is always going to be LIGHTS - CAMERA - ACTION ...I think he should work on following as next steps

1) Thalaivar has to bring on board a strong Antagonist to rub his shoulders on screen.....Antony of Baadsha and Neelambari of Padayappa is still fresh amongst audience. There has to be lot of screen space for villain ..in short we no longer need Mighty Australia vs docile Zimbabwe on field rather we need nail biting India vs Pakistan matches of 1990's ...

2) Focus on Character driven roles: I think problem with Industry is they want Thalaivar to be the hero for economics to work out ....if he does Guest roles it affects Business hence Thalaivar is forced to be commercial hero. I think he is coming to a point he has crossed threashold of a mainstream commercial hero rather do roles pertaining to the age and what story demands. Dhruvangal 16 was a classic movie and if Thalaivar does what Rahman did it might still work out because there is a good actor inside thalaivar which no one really extracts. I would personally like to see two releases every year and roles can be character driven. 

3) Please stop the romance: Nayantara and Thalaivar's daughters should be of same age and it is absolutely awkward to see him romance, run behind the trees, slow motion shots trying to attract girls. If it is delicate for us to see I cannot imagine how Thalaivar acts because am sure it would be very embarassing to act on romantic scenes where his grand son is already a teenager. 

4) Bring back the scenes to tickle your bones: Action scenes are fine but too much violence through gun shots is definitely not cup of tea for Thalaivar rather go back to his strength of including scenes which invokes laughter. Kids adore him, Fans worship him, Thai kulam like him and he shouldn't let these go as these are the building blocks for his growth. 

As a politician I have never supported Rajinikanth because I feel he is not qualified to be a politician but as an entertainer I like him and want him to do more movies. He sees a movie and if he likes a movie very much he gives a chance and that is how Ranjith, Karthik Subbhu raj and Siva got chances. I am pretty sure after seeing Maanadu he might consider Venkat Prabhu, people like Lokesh Kanagaraj, Vetri maaran, Pandiraj, Karthik Naren, Mari selvaraj, Nalan Kumarasamy all stand a chance to direct him in future. I hope directors acknowledge his age and give him nice character driven roles which both extracts his acting talent as well as give audience meaningful cinema. End of the day we love Thalaivar as an entertainer and we want to see him on big screen time and again and enjoy all the euphoria and excitement for many more years to come. 

Next Blog: How Drahma Unfolds !!