Monday

The Great Indian Comedy Show!

The Manmohan Singh government faces a trust vote against the Left and the BJP. Déjà vu.
1993, the Narasimha Rao government faces a confidence against the Left and the BJP for not having protected the Babri Masjid. 1993 was possibly dirtier than now only because of the cause of the trust vote.

The word that’s been doing the rounds in the media for the last few days is “horse trading”. What horses? Jackasses would be more apt. In a period when there is rising inflation, the bunch of jokers in the Parliament (read as “Hall of Shame”), talk about whether they should go for elections or not. The jackass trading is going great, so much so that, jackasses that were convicted of heinous crimes are coming in vote because of the “Nuclear Deal” although the blundering freaks would not now even the spelling of “Nuclear”, let alone the damn impact of the Nuclear deal whether its good bad.

The Parliament has started serving soup everyday, did you know that? It’s a new variant that traces its roots to the English language and the number system. It’s called “The Alphanumeric soup”. It’s filled with the spice like BSP, SP, CPM, 368, 268, 271 and a lot more pieces. The chaos is no longer about the deal. It’s come down to just toppling the government. It’s pathetic yet on the sarcastically funny side that ALL our politicians can come together when it comes to creating chaos, confusion, and instability. It doesn’t matter whether an MP knows about the deal or not. There is no limit to which our politicians will stoop so as to not prevent the seat from being pulled away from their buttocks. They could all be patrons for a Fevicol advertisement.

In all the dry humor of a comedy show that the country has seen in the last few days, politicians have proved they create a politician out a genius like Mr. Manmohan Singh. One cannot help but feel sorry for the sardar who has been torn apart in an anticyclone of farcical jokers who have got their brain and political incorrect part of the anatomy severely misplaced.

Wednesday

Left, Right, Left

Whats the big deal? Pathetic to see the Left desert the government during a crisis for the N-deal. The Left has shown the nation how preposterous they are. The so called Communists are still living in the aftermath of the cold war under the belief that the wrong side won! They struggle to get any ideology of any sort and have got their priorities severely mixed up!

I might have been almost proud of the CPI if they had pulled the plug for not having tackled inflation, lack of basic amenities to the poor etc. The best that they could do about inflation was to say "We're severely condemn the hike of prices(read as inflation) and expect the government(read as the Congress alone, and not the UPA) to aggressively tackle inflation".
What are the CPI, next door neighbors? Aren't they a part of the government? This is a simple case of denial of responsibility, which is so typical of communists in India. They would rather play the blame game, shove the responsibility of resolving issues on to others(similar to outsourcing) and create more chaos in any system that would make the disturbance of a bee hive look like a pleasant breeze.

The timing of the withdrawal was worse. The communists have been threatening for the last 2 months of withdrawing support. They have a been a pain in the wrong part of the anatomy and have only been a hurdle to growth if anything. They have insulted the PM and the country by withdrawing support at a time when the PM was representing the country on a global platform. Being rhetorical, is there any level cheaper that they could stoop to?

Take the example of China, they are supposedly the world largest Communist power. I cant compare the strides they have made in implementation with the efforts of our "Indian Communists" only because it would be too insulting to the real communism.
They have proved that they are a bunch of losers who are here to play politics in the name of communism putting the chances of re-election, party interests, vested interests well above the nation. What a farce they are, the only solution they have come up with in 4 years was to create more chaos and destabilize the government. Kudos to the Manmohan Singh government for having tolerated nonsense for what seemed like an eternity. They have proved that elastic is not infinitely stretchable.

Tuesday

Dasavatharam


Ten roles! All the hype, the money, was it worth it?
A big YES! Kamal has surpassed his best performance ever, not because of just the complexity of the script, but the effort needed to implement a fabulous idea. A repertoire of ideas represented in the movie ranging from belief to chaos theory to bio-weapons. One of the biggest concerns raised prior to release was whether or not the 10 characters were necessary. Looking at it in critical way, it would not be "needed". Yet an objective view of the whole story would clearly indicate that each of the ten roles were clearly defined and not nascent.

One the most impressing features of the movies was the extent of detail. The detail was cared for not just in the scenes depicting the 12th century, or the research center, or the Tsunami. Importance of detail was a perennial aspect of the movie. For example, the accent of the Govind, one of the Kamal's trying to save the world was not perfect American but the Indian settled in the US of A accent. On the other hand the accent of Fletcher, the ex-CIA agent was one of the many American accents. As an actor it must have been extremely challenging considering the make up effort, switching accents, characters, their mental approach and what not. It would supposedly take anywhere between 3-5 hours just for the make up! A marathon effort by Kamal. Kudos to his effort and few skeptics can deny that this is the greatest effort by any actor contemporary or history!

Ranging from the 12th to the 21st century, the movie is flawless in terms of the logical flow, which is not the case with most movies. Its a case of connecting the dots and once all the dots are connected and you see the full picture (Here, i mean the picture formed by connecting the dots, metaphorically), its brilliant. The essence of chaos theory that every single action of ours has its implication although we don't realize has been beautifully delivered in the span of 3 hours. For those of you who are chaos theory illiterate, I would suggest a bit of background reading to really put the movie in perspective.

In all the adulation for Kamal, one cannot miss out on crediting the artists, art directors etc who have done a fantastic job. Despite the small role, Napoleon who plays the Chola King in the 12th century has done a great job. Asin, as pretty as ever and did the role of Kamal's love interest in the best possible way. Mallika the vamp, though she manages to use the gun as well as land a few kicks at the right places.

Like every other of his movies, this too requires a certain level of understanding to really enjoy the movie and appreciate the effort. Unfortunately for Kamal, as always, this is limited to a small quantum (read as minuscule) of the population. Thats where a movie like Sivaji or Baasha or Padayappa (Its purely intentional that I quote Rajini's movies) beat movies like Dasavatharam or Anbe Sivam on economics of the mass that is used to classify as Blockbuster or not.

My favorite of the ten was the role of the Naidu. Comical in a serious situation was just spectacular and perfection in being a multi-linguist is the specialty of Kamal as he has proved in several of his earlier films. I'm not sure if any one can pick out a single entity that is the reason for Dasavatharam being what it is. Its the movie as a whole that was brilliant.
All in all, its one helluva movie and definitely worth watching whether you are a Kamal fan or not!