Raavanan

Not always you avoid what you want to avoid. Last night was one such occassion. I saw 'Raavanan'. I have enjoyed watcing Mani's movies in the past and movies like Iruvar and Mouna Ragam fascinated me. More than the story, the way he brings it on the screen and narrates made the difference. I am a big fan of good narrators. I wouldn't mind listening to 'Crow' and 'Vada' story thousand times if the narration is different and fascinating each time.


I was itching to watch 'Raavanan' ever since I saw the promos, despite my own apprehensions about recreating Ramayanam. But then reviews dampened my enthusiasm. Slowly I lost interest and even added the movie to my 'Not to watch list'. But as fate would have it, or is it my subconscious, I watched the movie. There is no way I could have said 'No' to my wife, after all my pre-release hype about the movie. So we went, saw, I got bored and returned home.

There are so many reviews of Raavanan, very good ones to bad ones, and they all have listed where Mani went wrong, Vikram failed and Vikram scored. I share most of their views. The screenplay is probably the worst to come from Mani's stable. The story starts with the kidnap, stops after Ragini's jump, goes into a slumber before the flashback unfolds late in the second half. It would be harsh to qualify it as a 'drab' but it nearly is one. Notable failings of the movie, besides screenplay are

*Rahman's Music (BGM)
*Suhasini's Dialogues
*Vikram's poor antics
*Unnecessary, irritating and totally avoidable character that of Karthik, the forest guard

I used to be a big fan of Kamal Hasan, the actor. I still, am, I think. A recollection of his best performances always plays with the background music. I can't disassociate it and perceive the performance alone. Be it in Moondram Pirai (drums in the climax), Nayagan, Mahanadhi (Veena), Virumaandi, Guna (Going around the room scene), Apoorva Sagodharargal or any other brilliant scene / performance, the music always leads us into the scene. It sets the mood, draws and let us travel with the scene. Good music evokes and cause our emotions to rise and fall with the scene. Take Hey Ram for example. The Calcutta riots scene may not have made so much of impact but for Ilayaraja's background score.






And here in 'Ravanan', Rahman is a big let down with his BGM. He has always been an average to, at times, good music director when it comes to background score. What's pathetic is, his poor performance can actually be perceived as you watch it. There are scenes where the music is completely separable from the scene. In a scene where Ragini, in captivity, shouts out to her husband, who is somewhere in the forest, I was wondering about the background score and what was he doing. Two big let downs in that scene. One Aishwarya's horrible performance and Rahman's BGM. Another example is the scene when Veera takes Ragini to a cliff to shoot before she jumps into the deep falls. Brilliantly conceived scene once again let down by Rahman and Aiswayrya (especially the dubbing). Is it time for Mani to look beyond Rahman or is he so dependent on his songs to give us a hit?



Suhasini, makes us realise how badly Mani and we miss the great Sujatha. Hope Suhasini minds her work with Jaya TV in future and not influence her husband and cause us hear her poor dialogues. I wasn't bothered to hear the dialogues, whenever they were not clear. For once I don't lament about not being able to hear dialogues, in a Mani Rathnam movie. Good riddance.

Vikram is probably the saving grace of the movie but then his 'pak pak pak' and 'tun-tanakka-tun' antics are poorly conceived and carried out. I wouldn't tolerate such poor antics even if it is to come from a complete psychopath. They were complete irritants. His characterisation is far from convincing. Mani generally leaves a shade of grey in his characters. But this is just too much and is blinding.

Did Karthik go and beg for a role or did Manirathnam felt obliged to give Karthik a return of sorts? Is it necessary to create a 'Anuman' role, when all he does is jumping around and doles out suggestions to Dev (Prithvi Raj)? Any other police character could have done it. May be Mani could have used Karthik as the DSP and not as Anuman.

There are some unnecessary and irritating scenes like the one where Veera cuts the hands of his brother-in-law. May be Mani wants to show the gory side of Veera to Ragini but it was like water on lotus leaves.

I would have preferred to watch 'Raavanan' on my telly with a remote in my hand. Even then I would have spent only some 15 or 20 minutes in front of the telly. That's how much time 'Raavanan' is worth watching. I never expected such a boring movie from Manirathnam, the one who gave me the joys of watching Iruvar, Mouna ragam, Kannathil Muthamittal, Alaipayuthey, Idhayathai Thirudadhe, Agni Nakshathiram, etc.

Can Euro become the single currency of Europe?

In the early years of this century, when Euro was adapted by the member states of EU as their currency, I used to wonder, how will this ever be possible. My doubts were based on the fact that all European countries were not equally well developed and managed economies. The western Europe was well developed while the eastern bloc that followed the Soviet Model wasn't shining and even today the differences between ex-communist countries and countries like Germany, France etc, are starker. I recently read an article which talks about the differences within Germany, after so many years of unification. You can only wonder the difference between countries. (the image is sourced from The American)

The difference in economies would also mean difference in the way fiscal policies and programs are developed and rolled out. Naturally this would cause big differences in fiscal deficit between countries. Fiscal deficit generally determines amount of government spending, interest rates and in turn currency rate. So how will the EU manage one currency for economies as different as Germany and say Romania or a Poland was my question. But then for the last 5 years or so, Euro was climbing up the ladder and everything looked normal. May be my economics is not that good is what I felt. I also thought I should learn more on this topic, and international finance.

Few days back, I came across an article in Knowledge @ Wharton, titled 'Whither Euro'. It is a good article on Euro and opposing views on its future. Take this link if you want to read that article.

We all know Greece ran into huge debt problems and as a result an economic earthquake on moderate scale shook Europe and other markets. Some are predicting a huge one shaking everyone what with Spain going Greece way. Let's hope that's averted. Now from the above linked story I learnt that ECB (European Central Bank) fixed 3% as the upper limit for fiscal deficit for countries adopting Euro as their currency. And ECB has the right to levy a penalty of 0.5% of GDP as a penalty on countries that exceed the 3% limit. Greece exceed the fiscal deficit level fixed by ECB not by 0.5% that it reported but by nearly 10%. The new government in Greece found out, when they came to power, that the actual deficit is not 3.5% as reported but 12.5%. It made it public and set the crisis ball rolling. It has since increased to 13.6%.

ECB did not levy a penalty because it believed what Greece reported that Fiscal deficit is only 3.5%, marginally higher than prescribed limit. Had the real deficit of 12.5% was known to them they may have levied a 0.5% of Greece GDP ($343 billion). Just think of it. A whopping $17.65 billion as penalty. In Indian Rupees the penalty would have run close to Rs.800 billion (100 Crores is one billion). I understand why Greece fudged. Now that it's all in public, Greece government has tightened the screws and cut back public spending. This has created a furore there.

I don't want to get into the ramifications of all this for Greece and EU, in general. You can make your views after reading the above linked article. But my question is, is it possible to bring together people with differing economic interests and make them all stick to a tight control for the sake of one common good, that too mostly to the well off? In fact, contrary to my original thoughts, it is members of west bloc like Greece, Spain, Italy etc. are causing problems to EU unlike the Eastern Bloc. In fact many of the east bloc is yet to be admitted into Euro zone. I am sure Greece story will delay the chances any of Euro wannabes from the east block.

This world is far from ideal place, and people can and many will think and find ways to serve their interests. This also mean that Euro may never make it to be the sole currency of Europe or for that matter EU. It may at best remain as a currency of well off countries like Germany, France etc. It cannot unify Europe, not until all of them have same pockets.

Difference between British Petroleum and Union Carbide

"We will fight this spill with everything we've got for as long it takes,"

"We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused. And we will do whatever's necessary to help the Gulf Coast and its people recover from this tragedy,"

Barack Obama on BP Oil spill issue

Under intense pressure from President Barack Obama, BP Plc agreed on Wednesday to set up a $20 billion fund for damage claims from its huge Gulf of Mexico oil spill & suspended dividend payments to its shareholders

Yahoo news

Big brother is furious, rightly so. British Petroleum has agreed for $20 billion oil spill fund and also cuts dividends to its investors, that's according Yahoo news. Big brother, Obama, has forced the corporate in the wrong to pay for its mistake. How righteous and just America is? They won't allow a wrong doer to go scot free? Even if it is Mr.Anderson? Oh, Oh sorry, sorry....

Actually Mr.Anderson did not cause any damage to America. His actions did not lead to loss of American lives. He may not be a darling of Americans but he is an American citizen and he cannot be touched for lives lost in some eastern, under developed country nor for the continued troubles of those who faced the wrath of poisonous gas, escaped from Union Carbide, that engulfed Bhopal on that fateful day in December 1984. Well the country in question may have grown in stature, yet Anderson cannot be made accountable because he is American and no American lives were lost. It was India's fate, that's it.

What we care is what is the loss to Americans? If they come in Aeroplanes, we will carpet bomb them, the civilians, the women, the children and hunt till all our soldiers die. If they hit other people in other countries, we will preach patience, diplomacy etc. If they spill oil, spoil our coast line, hurt our tourism, cause damages to our people we will make them accountable and force them to pay. If they are responsible for some gas leakage, somewhere else in the world causing thousands of life, generations to suffer, well we will look the other way, and provide complete and total security to our men who are responsible. We make sure the concerned person is in no way disturbed.

If your own Neta's don't care for you, why should we care for you. Look around, everywhere & everyone, this is how this world is functioning. God has given two tongues for the powerful. Why to waste one? Go enjoy yourself and if possible get powerful. You can become one amongst us. Let's all doublespeak and rule the world.

Practice Makes Perfect

Image via Wikipedia

I stopped posting here because Balajhi was disgusted with what he called my "addiction to links"- and I resumed it, promising myself that there wouldn't any links in the body of the post.

But this post- I am making an exception. Because it is an interesting point, and I couldn't make the post without linking it posts and articles elsewhere. They are absolutely necessary.

What set me off writing this post is this post by Derek Sivers- he writes that he wanted to be a great singer when he was fourteen, but he was a bad singer with no control of pitch and tone. He practiced for over fifteen years, learning and improving, exploring what he could do better. And after fifteen years, at the age of twenty-nine, he had become good enough for someone to tell him after hearing him for the first time, "“Singing is a gift you're either born with or you're not. You're lucky. You were born with it!”".

He writes,

At 19, I was still practicing two hours a night, but still having a problem with pitch. People kept telling me I was just not a singer - that I should give it up, and find a real singer.

Then I heard a man giving a demonstration of Indian vocal music, and his pitch was so perfect, I went rushing up to him afterwards to ask how he did it.

I said, “How are you able to hit the notes so perfectly dead-on? Are you just natually good at this?”

He said, “No! When I first started singing, not only was I not within an inch of the note - I wasn't within a football field of the note! I was horrible!”

“So how did you do it?”

He jabbed a finger in my chest, and looked me in the eye. “Practice. Thousands of hours of practice, and eventually I got it. I can show you how.”

Impressive, right? And now, he says he is determined to be a great computer programmer, and if it takes him another fifteen years to get there, he is game.

This is one of the most inspiring posts I've read in recent times.

It is not likely that you can become better or best merely through putting in fifteen years of practice- I think you need to have passion, explore new directions and be open to turn back from avenues that don't take you anywhere.

Here I am, a no-good blogger, and this is the only thing that keeps me blogging. Who knows, after another twelve years of blogging, I might be some good at it.

Come back after twelve years if you don't like it now: I promise I will do this better.

Related Links:
This seems to be similar to Malcolm Gladwell's ten thousand hours rule that is discussed in his book, The Outliers. His position seems to be that, among other factors, the fact that you have worked a long time at a given thing gives you mastery over it: practice makes perfect, some people might be naturally good at something, but for most of us, it is sustained hard work that brings in the desired reward.
This could be argued, of course. There are obvious examples of people who didn't put in the required ten thousand hours of hard work- but they did taste success.

It might takes years of hard to get better than others in an establised field of work or enterprise, art. But not so if you are going to be innovative. Seth Godin writes that it would be easier to break through The Dip than in established fields.

You can get through the Dip in an online network or with a new kind of music because being seen as the best in that area is easier (at least for now). You can get through the Dip as a real estate broker in a new, growing town a lot quicker than someone in midtown Manhattan. The competition is thinner and probably less motivated.

I am going to link to another post which you should read in its entirety, because it discusses the intellectual history of the ten thousand hours rule and the exceptions that question the validity of it. Michael Nielson looks at these exceptions and writes it is not just practice, learning has to go along with it: the kind of learning that helps you push back your boundaries, and the kind of learning that opens the doors of imagination and see what others are not even looking for. This quote might seem prescriptive, but it is good: it gives you the right perspective on the ten thousand hours rule:

I believe it’s a mistake to focus on building up 10,000 hours of deliberate practice as some kind of long-range goal. Instead, pick a set of skills that you believe are broadly important, and that you enjoy working on, a set of skills where deliberate practice gives rapid intrinsic rewards. Work as hard as possible on developing those skills, but also explore in neighbouring areas, and (this is the part many people neglect) gradually move in whatever direction you find most enjoyable and meaningful. The more enjoyable and meaningful, the less difficult it will be to put in the time that leads to genuine mastery.

You can make everyone watch your star's movies

Are you a die-hard of a particular film star? You may get an opportunity to make your star's movies make noise at the box office. No, no don't start jumping. You will have to wait, wait at least for few years before Movie futures make an entry into India. Oh well, I can understand your disappointment. Even a year is too long a period for your Star to survive. But then if he manages to survive then yes you may have an opportunity to push him further near to his dream chair.

Recently Movie futures exchange proposal is cleared by Commodities Futures Trading Commission, USA and is waiting for US congress vote. See the news item here. Once it comes into existence, it will allow investors in Movie industry to hedge their risk. Once it makes it there we may also follow suit, as most of our script writers spend all of their time watching English DVD's just for inspiration.

I can understand your impatience. I will come to the point. If and when Movies futures are allowed in India, all that you guys have to do is, this.

• First bring together all your lot (fans of your star)
• Commit money. Never mind about your family's needs
• Go short. That is, place a bet that the movie will flop. It is important that your collective bet size is as huge as possible. Make sure to bring together the entire fan club and make everyone to commit to star's future and his dream chair. Remember to forget your family's needs.
• Once all your bets are placed, the gambler who runs the bet will be praying for the movie to run. He or they, will not only pray, but also get into action. They will promote the movie in every form and manner(including arm twisting). You will need no longer worry about SMS's. All mobiles will be inundated with messages promoting the movie and the star and how blessed we are all to have such a star in our midst and how great the movie is.

Your risks will be well covered. Of course you will have empty pockets. Never mind, after all it is for your star and for his dream chair that you are spending. Also you can live peacefully for another 3 or 4 months before his next movie hits the screen.

By the way, what if Movie Futures doesn't make it to India. Simple ask your star to act in Hollywood movies. You can also feel proud about feeding Tamil scriptwriters. More importantly your star can start dreaming about the big brother's chair. But the downside is you will all have to spend in dollars and also migrate to a country that allows trading in foreign securities. Any thing is worth promoting your star. Go ahead.

Have a fun time.

Disclaimer

Any intended representation of any particular star is completely unintended

Is there a good killer and bad killer?

The Guard - Mr.T.Rajasekaran

Few days back a major train accident was averted thanks to an observant guard, who heard an unusual sound as his train (Egmore Express) passed the particular spot and immediately informed a station master through-walkie talkie, who in turn acted swiftly to warn rockfort express driver. You can read the related news item here. http://beta.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article454125.ece.Thanks to him hundreds of children, women and men were saved on that day.

A blast was set on the track to protest the visit of Sri Lankan President Rajapakse to India. Since he led the mass killings of Tamils in Srilanka these miscreants (Pro-LTTE supporters) blasted the railway track. I have a question to these people. What is the difference between them and Rajapakse? He killed people in Srilanka and these people want to kill here. Both target civilians. People may have their own reasons and explanations but end of the day nothing separates people who want to kill, irrespective their reasons.

An old blog

Image via Wikipedia

For some days in the past this word, "சிந்தாகுலம்" has been recurring in my mind- it is made of two words, one in sanskrit, Chinta- thoughts-, and the other in tamil- aakulam- worry, I think. This occurs in Kandaralangaram,


"சிந்தாகுல இல்லொடு செல்வமெனும்
விந்தாடவி என விடப் பெறுவேன்..."

which means- I am let the forests of the Vindhyas which worrying thoughts of home and prosperity is..." This is a rough idea of it. May be if I work at it, I can refine it better.

சிந்தாகுலம்- Chinta-aakulam: is usually taken to mean, as I wrote, worrying thoughts. But it could be more than that. Thought itself is the worrying factor: if we read it thus, it means, "the worry that is the thought- that of home and prosperity..." and so on.

And again, il- illam- home, wife and others- could be read to connote the me. If one reads the above verse bearing that sense in mind, one reads it as the worrying thoughts of me and my prosperity is a forest to which I have been consigned...

This thread of thought gave me the idea of resuming the kandharalangaram blog- which I notice, has not been updated for more than a year and half-, so I went and took a look at it. It was a great outlet for me to speak about my own personal feelings without violating my sense of privacy. It helped me speak about what I felt without owning to the emotions in a personal sense.

It was good as long as it lasted- may be I might write there again, who knows.