Kireedom -- Movie Review

Ajith has never been my favorite actor and I was very apprehensive about watching his movie in a theatre. The last movie that I saw of Ajith in theatre was "Kandukondain Kandukondain" and that was way back in 2000. For lack of anything worthwhile to do, I have ended up watching movies like 'Red', 'Citizen', 'Anjaneya' & 'Paramasivan' in the
computer and these movies did deliver great comedy & tragedy movies rolled into one. I knew that I was taking a huge risk when I decided to watch 'Kireedom' along with my friend.

The movie gets rolling with 6 prisoners escaping from the central jail and they end up running (With their prison uniforms intact) into the marketplace in broad daylight with rain also providing perfect foil. Someone kicks one of the prisoners in the chest and the prisoner flies in the air to land 50 ft away. The camera pans towards the person who kicked the prisoner and it is none other than our very own 'Thalai' Ajith. Add to this some extraordinary stunts and stylish poses (Ajith and the other prisoners pause to allow our hero to tie his bootlace in the most stylish fashion possible) and I squirm in my seat. This sequence ends with Ajith catching all the 6 prisoners using a long 35 feet iron chain and the entire police force saluting him. One of the police who is seen saluting him is Raj Kiran. I start to cringe as my worst nightmare seem to be materializing in a wide screen infront of me. Then, the scene pans out to show Rajarajan (Raj Kiran) getting up from his bench in the police station (Rajarajan is a head constable) and we understand that it is his dream to see his son Saktivel (Ajith) as a police inspector. On retrospection I feel that the director Vijay has come up with a perfect scene. It would have satisfied the hard-core Ajith fans with a grand hero entry without compromising on the importance of the scene to the overall movie as it showcased perfectly the dream a father has for his son.

And thankfully, this scene marked the end of 'Ohh My God, how can they be so stupid?' kind of scenes. It is not just Raj Kiran who sits up after the dream but the story as well does at this point. The story is about the dream of a father to see his son become a inspector and how fate scripts a different route for the family forms the rest of the story. The movie, a remake of a malayalam movie of the same name, reeks with realistic scenes and performances. There are no exaggerated melodramatic emotional scenes and even the songs (barring the 'Thalai' song) are beautifully placed in the scheme of things.

We all believe that we have complete control of our lives and that external unforeseen events are just minor irritants that force us to deviate from our chosen path a wee bit. Is that a fact or fiction? This movie questions the above belief as the hero is forced into a situation that is totally out of his control & he is forced to be just a player who plays out the role dished out to him without having any control over the flow of things. Ajith plays the role to 'almost' perfection, the minor complaint being his monotonous voice proving to be his undoing in highly charged scenes.

Raj Kiran comes up with the best performance of the movie. He seems to have been created for these kind of roles & he dishes out an admirable performance. The maturity, the anger, the dreams, the understanding, the sorrow of a father comes as naturally as mosquitoes flocking an house in West Mambalam. I could even go on to endorse the view my brother has about him that one can expect Raj Kiran to attain the position of 'Sivaji' Ganesan in these kind of roles. And to even compare someone with 'Sivaji' is no mean achievement. Well done, Raj Kiran!

The rest of the cast play out their roles as expected and the team work pays a lot of dividends. The technical team has done a commendable job. The camera, the editing, the screenplay and direction are upto the mark and make the movie a complete one. Special mention needs to be made for the songs tuned by G.V.Prakash Kumar. Three of the songs will remain in the minds of the viewer for sometime atleast.

Final Cut: A movie that can be watched and enjoyed for the sheer honesty and lack of melodramatic elements.

Rating: 7/10

Eating My Words!!!

It is one of the most unpleasant things that can happen to you: to be forced to eat your words! Tendulkar has just proven me and my predictions wrong. He has performed extraordinarily well in England and is making me look real bad. I have no qualms in accepting that I have been proved wrong by the greatness of Tendulkar. The fact that Tendulkar is batting so well is good news for India and the Indian fans. India were able to escape from the jaws of defeat at Lords and now they have won the test at Nottingham. With the animosity in the ground increasing between the teams, the third and final test at Oval is poised for a great finish. Add to the fact that a draw would mean that this would be the first defeat of England at home after their defeat at the hands of Aussies in 2001.

Paruthi Veeran -- Revisited

A couple of months back, I was discussing with my friend (A movie freak) about the present state of tamil movies. The discussion veered to the movie "Paruthi Veeran" and I expressed my pleasure about such unique attempts. I had described the movie as a decent attempt for 'Tamil' standards and my friend (He has not watched this movie) did not sound happy about the fact that the movie is just meeting the 'Tamil' standards and not the 'International' standards. The news that this movie has won two awards in the Osian's cinefan festival is very heartening. The movie won awards in the best film and best actress (Priya Mani) category. I do not know how much 'Global' this film festival is or what kind of movies were screened in this festival.

The thing that needs to be noted is that this movie has silently made its way into this festival without much fanfare. The sad thing about the whole thing is that there seems to be very less news coverage about this in the state. I only can hope that this blog does its small bit about spreading the news.

Travelogue - Kancheepuram

“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.” -- R.L.Stevenson

There is something unique about traveling and visiting new places. It is a pulsating as well as a serene experience rolled into one. The objective of travel is not about finding a new place. Rather, it is about finding a new 'You'. The objective of travel is not about exploring pathless paths of a land. Rather, it is about exploring unknown regions of your subconscious mind and heart. The land, the people and the culture of a new place lends beautifully to a learning that no modern university can attest of teaching.

I have always been fascinated by towering temples and their architectural brilliance and when one of my friend agreed on traveling with me to Kancheepuram, I was eagerly looking forward to the journey. Having heard about the fact that there are close to 108 temples (small & big) in and around Kancheepuram, it was always bound to be a great experience. With two other friends joining us, it was very clear that there would be no dearth for fun. One of the things that we failed to do before we embarked on the trip is to find out the temples that we ought to visit during our short one day trip. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we had a free rein and hence gave us the liberty to choose places on the fly.

Let me be honest about one thing here. I am surely not an atheist but this trip was more about seeing and appreciating the sculptures & the architectural beauty of the temple and less about God itself. A lack of mention about the beauty of the God in those temples can be expected in this article.

The first temple that we visited on reaching Kancheepuram is the ‘Kamakshi Amman Temple’. This is one of the most famous temples here and is dedicated to God Parvathi. We had to stand in a long queue to see the deity but the best thing about this queue is that there is no ‘Special Entrance’ or ‘Darshan Ticket’ through which someone can bypass the line.This queue personified to me the fact that all are the same before God. As we reached the temple only at around 11 and the temples will be open only till 12:30 PM, we had to rush the visit of this temple a bit.

The next temple that we went is the ‘Ekambareswarar Temple’, a temple constructed for Lord Shiva. Photography is allowed inside the temple (We cannot take photos inside the sanctum sanctorum though). It is a very big temple with lots of deities and a very big praharam. I have heard that one of the purposes that temples served during the ancient days is a place to take a long walk (As an exercise). This is clearly evident in this temple as it has a very big praharam. Completing three rounds of this would easily account for 2 to 2.5 kms of walking. I couldn’t restrain myself from imagining about the various other purposes that the king who constructed these temples would have thought about.

There is also a beautiful Siva Lingam that has 1008 small Siva Lingams carved into it. I was so tempted to take a photo of this Lingam but somehow I had this nagging feeling of performing sacrilege and destroying the sanctity of the deity and hence restrained myself from taking a snap there. Apart from this big Siva Lingam, there are lots of small Siva Lingams around the praharam and with various names. I would really like to know how each of these Lingams gets a different name. I did take a photo of one Siva Lingam and it has been uploaded here.

The third temple we visited is the “Varadharaja Perumal Temple’. Unfortunately, by the time we entered the temple premises it was closed and we had to content ourselves by looking at the temple and the 100 pillar hall that is present there. The 100 pillar hall with its exquisite and delicately carved sculptures is a feast for the eye. Each sculpture in the pillars of the hall is a thing of beauty and the sheer effort and perfectionist work that has gone into each one is mind-blowing. Once again, my camera became very active and two of the photos from this temple can be found here.

One is the photo from the 100 pillar hall and the other is the view of the temple tower itself. The sunlight permeating inside from the temple and the entrance blocking the sunlight to give a feeling of a photo frame is something that I loved about the temple tower photo.

As all the temples in Kancheepuram closes by 12:30 PM, we were left with nothing else to do but to visit the “Kailasanathar Temple”. This has been declared as an Indian heritage site and hence we were allowed to look at all the great sculptures that are present in the temple. This temple is around 1350 years old and I would consider this temple as one of the best temple I have visited till now. I could easily write essays about each one of the sculptures that is present in this temple.

The only unfortunate thing about the visit to this temple is that we did not have the patience to wait till 4 PM for seeing the main deity of Lord Shiva. Nevertheless, I could see God oozing out through the work of the master craftsmen who would have worked on each and every piece of carved sculpture that is present in this temple. The sheer amount of effort that would have gone into making this temple left me awestruck. The paintings that used vegetable oil colors are also something that should not be missed.

Entering this temple is in itself a surreal experience as it transported me to a different era when kings ruled the world and the minds of the people remain unpolluted like the environment. We spent nearly 2 hours in this temple and at one point the security person who is posted there came to me to comment about the number of photos I had clicked away till that point!!! I would really love to visit this temple once again with a DSLR camera so that I could take even more close-up shots of idols and sculptures. Even though it is not fair on my part, I have given just two photos for this temple.

The fifth temple we visited is the “Ulagalantha Perumal Temple”. Ulagalantha means to measure the earth. The folklore is that king Bali, the grandson of Prahlada, conquered the whole universe and even defeated Indra, the king of Devas. On the request of Devas, Lord Vishnu took the form of a small boy and asked Bali for three foot space. When Bali accepted this request, God placed one of his feet and covered the entire earth. With the second foot, he covered the heaven. When God asked where he can get his third foot of land, Bali asked God to place his feet in his head. The idol of Vishnu here in this temple is close to 15 feet in height with his right foot on the head of Bali and his raised left foot on heaven. The sheer size and beautiful stone carved jewelry that adorns Lord Vishnu is something that can be appreciated only when seen directly. Unfortunately, cameras are not allowed in this temple and I was left to take just the temple tower from outside.

The last temple that we visited is the “Chitragupta Swamy Temple”. According to Hindu mythology, ChitraGuptan is the accountant of Lord Yama, the God of death. For all practical appearances, this temple looked like a modern one and even had mosaic floors. The unique thing about this temple is that the board outside the temple said that it is the only temple for ChitraGupta in the whole of south India.

“We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.” -- John Hope Franklin