Aayirathil Oruvan

Selvaragavan’s new movie was in the making for more than 2 years. With a good story idea, you’d expect the director spending most of the time discussing and developing the story and the characters. But he has other ideas like:

• How do I make the two women, whom I personally seem to like, do idiotic exposures and speak crass dialogues?
• How do I take western hard rock like picturizations and senselessly apply them to my period movie?
• How can I cast creatures who cannot speak/mouth even modern tamil in a period movie?
• How can I show my own demonic/crass/cheap/perverted desires in the screen with complete disregard to my own screen play?
• How do I go to the interviews/promos once the movie is released and make myself sound like a genius in front of an anchor (who doesn’t know anything anyway)?
• etc.

Having endured the torture for ~3 hours, few suggestions on how to approach this movie:

1. Don’t go to this movie.
2. If you do:
   • Please don’t talk about “a brave/bold attempt”
   • Please don’t brand it “path breaking”
   • Please don’t praise Reema or Andrea or Karthi for “living the characters” in the screen
   • Please pass on this advice to others
   • you get the point…

Dear Aamir,

I do admire your work as an actor in general. I did watch the movie “3 Idiots” and have read Five Point Someone in the past. I am not excited by either of these. If I must pick one over the other, I’ll pick the movie. In fact, none of Chetan’s works have appealed to me thus far. That said, I have few things to say about the current issue.

You seem to classify others’ thoughts as “sincere” or “insincere” (I don’t know how!!). All I can tell you is that I am not being flippant here.

Some background: The notions of originality is well defined for more than 60 years now. If a movie is based on anything that’s published before then the movie’s story is “adapted” and not “original” (for instance, sequels can never have “original” screenplay!). So, In Raju’s way articulating relationship between 3 Idiots and Five Point Someone, even if there is an acknowledged 0.000001% relationship between the two, Chetan has to be given equal credits as any other writer involved in 3 Idiots (Note: Chetan has to be paid too!)

Some reasons for why 3 Idiots team has acted wrongly so far:

1. Based on the above definition, Raju/Vidu Vinod saying “5-10%” is pointless (I can’t believe that you don’t know the definition of “original” in this context given you have been to Oscar-s more than once!!)
2. You speaking about something which you haven’t read is pointless
3. You speaking about Chetan being famous and credit to be given to Abhajit (as if Abhajit is unknown, anyone who cares for movies will know Abhajith is the guy who wrote Lage Raho Munna Bhai!!) is pointless
4. You speaking as if you had recorded the exact conversation you had with Chetan is pointless. Quoting something that happened months back from memory isn’t a winning evidence – when probed it is more likely to be broken in a court of law
5. You presenting “new interesting evidence” in the future isn’t going to make any of the above points invalid.

What do I feel personally? I feel you should just stay away from this. You are an actor and you limit yourself to that. When a jorno asks about this, you could delegate the answering responsibility to the people who are involved (Raju/Vidu Vinod). It makes no sense for you to defend someone blindly just because they happened to provide you job (you should know that you are defending Vidu Vinod and Raju who made a successful movie named Munna Bhai MBBS but failed to mention about the existance of Patch Adams!). The simple reason is, when you get inolved thousands of people get involved – They spend their emotions and time by getting involved,  Thousands of comments/blogs/web pages/print pages get written etc.

If at all you want to get involved in the issue, please limit your involvement to advising Vidu Vinod and Raju that they should just pray Chetan doesn’t sue them for copyright infringement (the current agreement between them can be deemed void in a court of law, arguably). Ask them to thank Chetan if possible. Also, if they want to retain some self dignity, ask them to pay Chetan for using his work in spite of him not asking for it.

Regards, ~A

PS: Please note, being emotional can never be an excuse for not being responsible towards your fans/readers given the stature you carry in the society.

Gift Request

“Perfect Rigor” by Masha Gessen (“an accessible book about an unreachable man” says The NewYork Times).

Bye Bye, Kimi

As Melanie has rightly put, I am saddened by Kimi’s departure from F1 (albeit being temporary as of now). Needless to say Kimi is one of 3/4 best men on earth to monster a car. What he, Alonso, Hamilton, Vettel (and at times Kubica) do on a car, even though watched via television, is magical. Kimi “drives” period.

Of all these folks, Kimi is natural when it comes to PR. He doesn’t think one second about what he says will be nice enough for the audience, he just says what he has to say. That’s a quality that you don’t find in most of these drivers. His integrity and class be it when moving out of  McLaren and later after having been forced out of Ferrari says loads about him. He is naturally classy and straight forward. He’d have never indulged in discussing Ferrari design documents when working for McLaren (unlike Alonso and Hamilton). Neither he’d have lied to stewards (unlike Hamilton who was penalized for the same). He is a rare breed of unadulterated men who drive dangerously fast.

Seeking Divine Intervention

To understand what this means:

“I am conservative with a modern outlook”

Yay

Seb’s 6th and Valentino’s 7th!!

We are watching geniuses, aren’t we!

Inglorious Basterds

After having watched this movie thrice (as that’s the best way to watch it), it is inappropriate to say nothing. So….

See it.

Berlusconi is at it again!

This guy is damn funny

News and memory

The memory of immersing myself reading this in the recent past, is brought back by this news. Along with the news come several facts that could potentially damage the feeling I got when I read. Strangely, that didn’t happen.

ஆண் ஆதிக்கம்

பெண்ணே!

நான் உனக்காக வாழ ஆசிப்படுகிறேன், நீ எனக்காக வாழ மாட்டாய் என தெரிந்த பின்னர்.