Ratheesh KrishnaVadhyar's Journal
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Below are the 10 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Ratheesh KrishnaVadhyar" journal:[<< Previous 10 entries]
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07:40 pm
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Amar Chitra Katha on Salim Ali
Got the latest ACK album on the life of Salim Ali.
The most striking element in the comic is its artwork - illustrations by Sundara Moorthy, and coloring by Ramesh and Silambarasan. I think this is probably the first time the illustration for an ACK comic has given this much attention to the details (with the exception of the illustrations by Yusuf Lien for the album on Tansen), and along with the coloring and effects that have taken care to emphasize lighting patterns, shadows, etc., the frames of Salim Ali make it different from any other album released before.
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08:32 pm
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Kochi Underworld and Umbrellas
While watching a recent unintentional comedy movie called Asuravithu, I was wondering if umbrellas are some kind of scepters or signs of power of the Kochi Underworld.
The hero of Asuravithu, played by Asif Ali, lives in the seminary aiming to become a pastor. In the second half of the movie, the hero suddenly becomes an underworld Don, because of "pressure of circumstances". He starts wearing suit, cooling glass, etc. and drives expensive cars in style. And then, the umbrellas start playing a key role in the film. Along with the hero, always there are a few other assistant goondas, who carry large, beautiful and colorful umbrellas with them. The moment the Don steps out of a car, the assistants come forward, unfold the umbrella in style (the process of unfolding is picturized in a detailed manner, signifying their special importance), and place it above the Don's head, as if he is a king of ancient times. Towards the climax, the role of umbrellas become so prominent that they almost become the hero of the film. It looked like watching the kudamattam function of Thrissur Pooram.
What do these umbrella's signify? Do they symbolically indicate "paavappettavan Don aayal eppozhum kuda pidikkum"? Or do they mean a Don has to keep his skin fair and shining, and should not expose it to sun? Or is it just a sign of power? By the way, this is not the first time the umbrellas are used in Kochi Underworld movies. I remember seeing them in Big B and a few Suresh Gopi movies. Perhaps it is just that Johns or Poppy umbrella makers are regular sponsors of such movies, and the umbrellas are showing up just as part of some marketing gimmick?
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06:39 pm
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Aravaan
Watched the Tamil film Aravaan directed by Vasanthabalan. The film narrates a series of dramatic incidents set in 18th century rural Tamil Nadu. The people of Vembur village make a living by stealing things from the rich people's homes in the town. Komboothi (Pasupathi) is the leader of the gang of thieves. Once, they are accused of stealing an ornament from the local landlord's home. The villagers claim that they hadn't stolen it, and they promise to catch the real thief behind it. Komboothi manages to catch Varippuli (Aathi), but he is greatly impressed by the skills of the youngster, and invites him to Vembur. Varippuli becomes a key member of the thief gang of Vembur and a great friendship develops between him and Komboothi. When Komboothi learns about Varippuli's real identity and his tragic past, he wants to help, but by then probably it's too late.
Like all of Vasanthabalan's films, Aravaan is made with sincerity that is visible in its every frame, that made me forgive shortcomings in the story and narrative (for example, it is not clear why Varippuli, who is otherwise shown as an honest guy who doesn't think stealing is a very respectable occupation, leads the life of a thief during his time of exile). It is amazing to see the way the atmosphere of the rustic 18th century village surrounded by rocky terrains and forests is captured in the film, with its wonderful art direction and cinematography. Pasupathi and Aathi are excellent in their roles, and the scenes showing their adventures are brilliantly picturized. Kabir Bedi comes in the role of the King, and gives an elegant performance, though I felt he didn't quite look like a Tamil king, and his lip movements were not at all in sync with the dialogues. I felt that the length of the film should have been reduced a little, by removing one of the songs, in which some special effects were used (which anyways were looking out of place in the movie).
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08:47 pm
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The Lives of Others
German film The Lives of Others (2006) is set in 1984. The police of East Germany sets up secret surveillance at the houses of many of its artists, to ensure that anything coming against the Communist Government in the form of writings, plays, or any form of art is caught early enough and suppressed. As part of one such mission, a secret agent named Wiesler is assigned to monitor the activities at the apartment of famous play writer George Dreyman, and the police installs eavesdropping devices at various places in the writers house, listening to which Wiesler is to make daily reports to his boss.
As days go, Wiesler comes to know more about the life and personality of Dreyman, and he finds himself getting more and more and sympathetic towards the writer. Dreyman writes up a controversial article about increasing number suicides in the country, and anonymously publishes it in a West German magazine. Wiesler knows about this throughout the process, but he doesn't report about it. When the police gets suspicions about the writer behind the article and searches Dreyman's house for evidence, Wiesler does what his conscience directs him to do.
I enjoyed watching The Lives of Others. It has a good story thread, nice narrative, and good performances - the basic things that a good movie needs.
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11:14 pm
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Raktha Niramulla Orange
I read one more book by GR Indugopan this week - Raktha Niramulla Orange, which has two detective novellas featuring the investigator, Prabhakaran. It seems this is the third one in the "Prabhakaran Series" by the author, published by DC Books.
The character of Prabhakaran is not well developed in these stories and we could just guess that he is some sort of a private detective or something, so I think there might be some background that is given in the earlier books in the series. Probably it doesn't matter whether we know Prabhakaran or not, as I guess the focus is not at all on the character of the detective. In fact, in the first story in this book, he has hardly any role to play.
The two stories in this book fall in the category of pulp fiction. They don't have any intelligent investigation threads that would keep is feel excited; the idea is to keep the reader amused using a set of unusual circumstances and characters in the story - like people spotting a strange "animal" without any legs, and a mysterious rich man who appears to throw away his money in an incomprehensible way, computer-driven "advanced" weapons playing a key role in unraveling a mystery, etc. I didn't feel bored reading them, and they are perhaps good for reading once for some casual time pass. I may probably get the first two books in the series, and give them a try too.
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11:15 pm
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Kallan Bakki Ezhuthumpol..
Read a book Kallan Bakki Ezhuthumpol, autobiographical writings by Maniyan Pilla, prepared by GR Indugopan. These narrate incidents from Maniyan Pilla's life after he published his autobiography, and serves as a postscript for that book.
In this book, Maniyan talks about his life as a junior artist in television serials and movies. In a humorous way, he writes about the change in attitude of people surrounding him after the publication of his book, and brings out the hypocrisy of people who are annoyed by the Thief's presence in the television. He also criticizes the development of ego in his own self after his increasing fame as a writer. We could also read Maniyan's accounts about a few cases that were charged against him recently. The Society wants the Thief to remain as Thief, he says.
This is a very short book, but it has the signature of Maniyan Pilla's personality that was painted in detail in his autobiography.
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10:27 pm
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Where Are You Going, You Monkeys?
Blaft Publications has been bringing out translations of interesting works from Tamil. The two anthologies on Tamil Pulp Fiction were good to read, and I guess those books became very popular as well. The book Where Are You Going, You Monkeys? is a collection of folktales from Tamil Nadu, selected from Nattupura Kadhai Kalanjiyam, a larger collection in Tamil, retold by Ki. Rajanarayanan. Pritham K Chakravarthy has done the English translation.
This collection has over a hundred stories divided into multiple sections like Birds & Beasts, Gods & Goddesses, etc. There is even a section on "adults only" stories, the pages of which are sealed using a red cloth that is attached to the book! There are illustrations by Trotsky Marudu in the beginning of each section.
Many of the stories in the collection I have read before in different forms at different places, but it was still enjoyable to read them in this collection.
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10:18 pm
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Thaskaran: Maniyan Pillayude Athmakatha
Thaskaran: Maniyan Pillayude Athmakatha is the autobiography of Maniyan Pilla, prepared by GR Indugopan. Born in 1950, Maniyan Pilla had a difficult childhood, as his family found itself deep in poverty after his father's death, and had to see their ancestral properties being taken away by their wealthy and powerful relatives by various means. By the age of 20, Maniyan establishes himself as a thief, and becomes kind of well known in his profession by late 1970s. In late 1978, Maniyan absconds to Mysore with his wife and baby child, carrying the earnings from his latest adventure. He lives as Salim Pasha at a village near Mysore for a few years, during which he steadily grows into a successful and rich plantation owner. When he is about to file his nomination for the 1983 Karnataka State elections as a Janata Party candidate, his fate takes a turn again; He is caught by Kerala Police, and is sent to jail. He escapes during parole after a few years, and tries to establish a living at a remote place in Tamil Nadu, but is caught again and is sentenced. Today, Maniyan is a man in his sixties, who looks back at the ups and downs of his eventful life with a philosophical mindset.
Maniyan Pilla warns in the beginning of the book that, though we may find many of the incidents narrated in the book as "thrilling" as we sit inside our comfortable reading rooms, we should not get carried away by that "thrill element", and understand that the life of the adventurer behind these incidents was nothing but suffering. Maniyan is frank in his narratives, and often I wondered how a person who makes such deep observations about life found himself in many of the provocative situations narrated in the book. The book probably starts giving the answer for this question, through a quote from Kumaranasan's Chinthavishtayaya Seetha: "Manamotatha kumargamilledo..!", which can be roughly translated as "there are no mean paths through which the mind doesn't tread". Indeed, there are not many who would actually implement their actions closely following their minds, and there would even be fewer who would have the courage to note down such a life story as a book. Maniyan Pilla's autobiography is a unique one because of multiple reasons, and at many sections, it rises to the level of a masterpiece.
Though it doesn't matter at all from the perspective of literature, I found the timing of one important incident mentioned in the book as inconsistent, especially since the rest of the incidents are all well-connected in time and space to add credibility to the stories that may sometimes seem fantastic. During 1978-1983, Maniyan lived as Salim Pasha in Mysore, but he mentions another incident in Kerala when he was caught by the police during the days the movie Madrasile Mon (1982) was released in theaters, so that sounds a bit conflicting. Maniyan Pilla promises in the end that he will come back with an updated edition of his autobiography after the latest cases against him are resolved. Hope the updated edition will have the required corrections to fix these possible errors in timelines.
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02:36 pm
[Link] | The Artist
Watched The Artist yesterday. It is a romantic comedy set in 1920s, telling the story of a love affair between a hero of silent movies and an upcoming star actress of the "new generation" talkies. With the talkies taking over the scene, the hero finds himself jobless, and struggling between his unexpressed love, inferiority complex, and ego.
Though thematically it is just a simple story that has been told umpteen times before, It was pleasant to watch The Artist because of its innovative narrative style. It is made in the format of a silent movie, shot in black and white, giving a feeling of watching a movie of the 1920s. The performances are good, and a special mention should go to the hero's pet dog, who looked adorable.
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09:36 pm
[Link] | Manjaveyil Maranangal
Last few days, I was completely engrossed in Benyamin's new novel, Manjaveyil Maranangal. Completely different from his earlier novel Aatujeevitham, this novel is a suspense thriller telling a story spanning different landscapes and time lines. The thrill element is maintained till the very last page of the book, and I felt excited thinking "what will happen next?" in each sentence, and felt very sad when the book ended. The absorbing narrative completely takes us along with it, making us ignore or forgive those several strange coincidences on top of which the entire story is built. Overall, it was an unputdownable book.
The novel is told as a story-inside-story, and Benyamin himself comes as a character in the outer story thread. The author gets an email from Christie Andrapper, an aspiring novelist living in the country of Diego Garcia, who sends the first part of his autobiographical notes to him as an attachment. Because of reasons which he doesn't want to reveal, he doesn't want to disclose his whereabouts. He has given different parts of his manuscript to different people, and says that Benyamin would be able to guess about the people who have the copy of the other parts, and would be able to procure it from them and join together to make out the complete story. Benyamin learns that Christie (the name is not known to Benyamin until much later) is a member of the ancient Andrapper family, which had migrated from Portugal to Kochi to Pondicherry to Diego Garcia over a period of several centuries, and had ruled Diego for nearly two hundred years, as part of a treaty they had made with the French Government. Christie's notes talk about his investigation of the murder of his classmate Senthil, which takes him through several unknown territories, and changes his life itself. In parallel, Christie also talks about his discoveries regarding the history of his ancestors, and his interactions with the mysterious Valyedathu family of Central Kerala.
Benyamin, along with a group of friends, manages to get the different parts of Christie's book, and they find themselves looking for Christie himself, who seems to be missing presently. Towards the climax, we see Benyamin and friends taking over Christie's investigations themselves, and trying to solve the various mysteries involved.
Having "international themes" is not new for Malayalam novels. The thread of investigation involving the historical backgrounds of Andrapper and Valyedathu family reminded me of Francis Ittykkora, and it appeared like Benyamin wanted to connect to the fiction of Ittykkora when he writes about an old book in Andrapper's family library being written by someone who claims to be a predecessor of a certain "Kora". I also remember reading another novel called Heuvalosinte Suvisesham that was mostly set in Israel, and had a theme related to investigation. However, Manjaveyil Maranangal stands apart because its characterizations are more vivid, and many people mentioned in the book come out very much alive when we read about them. So, we find Melwin's tragedy touching, at the same time we feel curious to know about the reasons behind her death.
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