Vetti Post - 9

It was the summer holidays of the year 1993 and I used to listen to a comedy gig by 'Moorthi-Gopi' in a cassette player. It had a lot of actors (i.e. impersonated voices) put together in interesting scenarios. There was a very funny line that I can never forget. Scenario: All the actors are gathered in TN assembly as elected representatives (on both ruling and opposition sides). The speaker starts the day with 'thamizh thaai vaazthu'. Chorus: paandiyanin raajiyathil uiyyalaala (because, Rajini is the ruling party leader) Kamal: idhuva thamizh thaai vazthu? (and sings angrily) oru vaai kozhupedutha...thamizachi paal kudichavan da! Goundamani: yow! appa naanga mattum enna vellakarichi paalaya kudichu valandhom? What reminded me of this? I was browsing through the headlines and found that the Mumbai's IPL team has been named 'Mumbai Indians'. appo mathavan ellam Nepal'kaarana?

 

 

Found this

WTF?

In the match between India and Australia yesterday, there happened a fielding accident/incident involving Michael Clarke and Tendulkar. Basically, Clarke ran into Sachin and ended up dragging him down in the collision. Here's what Ravi Shastri had to say about it when they were showing it in the replay: "Clarke was going for the ball and ended up having something bigger in his hands". Just as he was saying that with a rather 'straight-faced tone', Clarke was seriously grappling with Sachin's buttocks in slow-motion. This is why cricket is worth watching with commentary on.

Ostracized solitude (in Tamil movies)

This podcast is a general commentary on how solitude/family life etc., have been dealt with in Tamil movies over the years. It threads itself loosely around the movie Pirivom Sandhippom's theme, but it's not a review of the movie. (Download mp3.)

Apology: I realized that I had used the filler "vandhuttu" excessively throughout the podcast. Excuse me for that.

Sabapathy

It's one of the funniest movies in Tamil. Even as a kid I laughed so hard when I first saw the movie, probably around 1990. I found the movie online and started watching it again. Among a lot of new surprises from my first time viewing, I picked up some ridiculously funny expressions. It's not just the comic timing, but the use of language, acting etc from a historical perspective. The movie is over half century old, you can see that a lot of things have changed since then. But some of the 'changes' catch you off guard. One of the parts that totally cracked me up was this (In case you don't have the time to watch it yourself):

There are two Sabapathys: the young 'master' and his slightly older servant. The servant is a bit of crackpot -- a bit more than the 'master'. Sabapathy and his mother visit the 'would be' bride's place with the servant accompanying them. They reach the place and as they get down from the car they hear someone dancing upstairs (bharathnatiyam it would seem). At this point the exchange goes:

Servant: amma, edho thevudiya kacheri nadakudhu
mother: edho vishesham pola irukku, nalla sagunam dhan

The word thevudiya--which is now more than derogatory and often bleeped--is used again, rather casually, in another scene that follows immediately. If you want to watch just this part, click on this link and slide it to 35 minutes. You can watch the entire movie from here.

Aside: The link between the word thevudiya and bharathnatiyam may be understood from this interesting post on the movie Arangetram.

Maida

Based on some superficial research and a lot of painful experience, I want to say that maida and 'all purpose flour' are not the same. Maida has some minor percentage (I don't know exactly what %) of tapioca flour mixed in it, making it more elastic when made into a dough. Maida is also quite finer and whiter than 'all purpose flour'. Although the difference may seem insignificant, you'll feel the difference in the outcome of many dishes; especially when you try to make South-Indian style parottas. So all you cooking enthusiasts please start making this distinction in your recipes. Please don't continue with your dubious ingredients list and give others a hard time.

What prompted this post? The Patel guy who owns the Indian store where I buy my stuff, sold me a bag of 'all purpose flour' crudely labeled as maida. This is not the same pack I usually buy, so I ask if it's actually maida? He first argues that they are both the same. I almost refuse to buy this new bag because I get a strong feeling that, with the increase in wheat price and everything, they no longer export maida from India. And this guy just made his own little bags out of the regular 'all purpose flour'. Anyway, I bought it, got it home and got screwed up 'ceylon parottas'; disappointing my Sri Lankan friends and embarrassing myself.

PS. Both 'all purpose flour' and maida aren't the best food products for "healthy" eating.

Jodhaa Akbar

I tried to download the movie a day after its release and much to my annoyance it turned to be a fake torrent. Well, there was another movie in its place -- Super Star. I did, however, get the actual movie yesterday. After watching it, I so wished that the second download was a fake too.

The fact that this movie has been lauded as one of the greatest in recent times just shows the perversion in the mainstream consumption of mainstream art forms, especially movies[1]. It happened among Tamil cinema viewers in the last decade. When the dearth of 'good' movies and pseudo-critiques in TV created an illusion of differentiating the 'good' from the 'bad'. Of course, the need to put down the Other -- non-Tamil movies, especially Hindi -- effectively blurred the viewers possible 'objective' assessment of a movie further. Veyyil and Paruthi Veeran are lauded ubiquitously, almost (Paruthi Veeran is also "going places")[2].

I wonder if the same phenomenon has caught up with the Hindi movie viewers as well. The need to "have something on par with Hollywood". I'm not as surprised by a few "critics" on TV because they are known to be cronies of one faction or the other. After all, they need someone for their 'Grope a star' kind of shows. But the mainstream viewer's enthusiasm to suck up, in this context, is slightly disturbing. They are either gleefully buying into the false binaries created by the TV hosts (Hrithik can act, Sunil Shetty cannot. Aishwarya Rai looks like a feathered turkey, but she looks stunning etc.) or they are caught in some kind of self imposed binary. To choose between national pride, supposedly represented by this "great Indian movie", and being an American boot-licker.

The reason one likes this movie cannot probably oversimplified like above, but who cares? When one likes an oversimplication like Jodhaa Akbar, he/she better be prepared undergo the same treatment.

-----------------------------------
1. To quote from one of my previous posts: the perversion is not in the consumption per se, but how it's perceived. Ex: when a health expert appears on TV and starts explaining the benefits of consuming 500ml Pepsi everyday.
2. Read this interesting column by Sudhir Mishra

WTF(s)?

Dhoni is probably the worst batsman the Indian team has had in the last 5, 6 years. Whenever I talk about Sachin I say, "he brings in so much life and flavour to the game" at one point or the other. I think the opposite can be said about Dhoni. Everything becomes ugly and embarrassing. His unwieldy stroke-play, lack of technique -- ewww, this kind of cricket is probably fun to play; like in under-arm cricket at your 600x800 ft terrace, but it's so painful to watch. That's the way it has been since the day he stepped into the team (well, those days it was also his kuruvi koodu hair). But there was some hope that he'll be in and out, if not thrown out for good. No. What happened was the opposite -- he became the bloody captain. What's worse? Nobody in the media seemed to have a problem with that. Some even wanted him to be made the test captain. adhu seri.

A lot of people compare Afridi with Dhoni. There cannot be a bigger travesty. Afridi, as much as I hate him when he plays against India, is actually quite capable of playing decent cricket shots. This guy Dhoni, on the other hand, gives new meaning to the expressions "kaatan maadhiri", "kaatu adi" etc., (even that only when manages to send the ball to the boundary).

It's not so much his batting or the fact that he's been made the captain that irritates me, it's the unbelievable silence from the cricket commentators. Harsha came close to commenting on it, but chose to play it safe by asking Slater what the Australian cricketers thought about Dhoni's batting? The best that Slater could come up with was, "he's not the most orthodox player, but that's what is unique about him. The raw approach to the game." What?

Gavaskar to Shastri, none of them have a problem with the way he bats? Is this the big elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about? To top all this he has the nerve to assume self righteous authority when he talks. Who the hell said this moron is "humble"? "I could have a completed that run with my cramped leg"? Can you be a bigger asshole than this?

Disclaimer: some quotes may not be exact.

Found this

I spend no less than an hour on youtube, everyday. I thought I'll share this video here. These guys are awesome (of course, only if you like random humour).

The solution

I was running through a few comments for an article in a news website and an annoying exchange caught my attention for a brief moment. Because this is a common phenomenon, the site or the article is not really important. This is the pattern:
person 1: As long as we have blah blah blah, India will never improve (or something like that)
person 2: (in reply to person 1) It's easy to point fingers/criticize, but what's your solution?

I hate person 2, just as much as person 2 hates person 1. Maybe I hate person 2 a little more. As I've been asked this question several times and I've answered it a few times myself elsewhere, I'll mention it here. (It's often two stupid men, so let's go with that gender.) Why is he so obsessed with a solution? As if "solution" is the only problem. Except for a number of "purely" scientific questions, almost all other economic, political, sociological issues have been reasonably analyzed and 'answered' one way or the other. Only that the said answer, or "solution", if you will, would often exist as a moot point. So the "solution" is simply pushed aside and the queries are "analyzed" again with false teleologies; meanwhile funding certain brown men to upload cooking videos in youtube.

Applied, mutated versions of Marx's socialism to unapplied, much romanticized versions of anarcho-syndicalism, none of them can be a "solution" to anything. For the very notion of "solution" is inherently flawed, at least in the socio-political context. It can only exist and operate from within a continuum that transfigures the status-quo with respect to the new entry -- "solution" -- into the hitherto itself. And status-quo can't be anything but a problem, can it?

Anyway, you might want to ask, "so why is person 1 more agreeable than person 2?"
Well, person 1 is pissed off, and he wants to put his testosterone into an activity that will stop him from breaking his neighbor's wind pipe -- like, playing football, basketball or simply "whacking off" to porn (or "point fingers" in a blog). Person 2, wants to be the neighbor who wants to incriminate an innocent civilian to feed his masochism. Who would you rather?

India

In an NDTV 'debate', a student said "This is a democratic country, these politicians are trying to make it into a socialist country". I don't think he knows this: The preamble of the constitution defines India as a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic (wiki page).

"Equality" is a constitutional right in India (including reservations for 'backward' classes).

PS. Hindi is not India's 'national language'. It does not have one.

Bluetooth Users

karumam

India Vs. Australia - 3rd test; AUS' second innings. 253-8 to 326-9: haven't felt so irritated in a long time. It was such a horrible feeling; felt like giving ten tight slaps to Kumble and RP Singh.

ebook - Shantaram

I don't know anything about this book, but a friend has been asking me to read it for a long time. Apparently it's very popular. I found the PDF version online, I thought I'll share the link here: download page.

WTF?

No, the WTF moment didn't happen because of the video itself. But because of series of insignificant events that transpired over the last 36 hours.

I get an invite from youtube user 'Kandibanbala' to view his new video (embedded above). I don't know Balaji so well. I have seen some of his videos before and left a few comments. I've had an impression that he's a professional editor/film-maker who has worked in ad films etc (just an assumption). I think he sent me the invite just because I've left some comments before. I don't see anything else to it.

So I go see the video and get a "hmmm!" feeling. Not too impressed, but I say "it's alright". Then I start thinking why the video didn't really appeal to me, for a couple of minutes. Then I leave the following comments. (Italicized parts are those that I had to delete because of character limit.)

Comment 1:
Good skills, but the freestyle tri-hop/house moves get a little monotonous after a while (I understand, there's only so much you can do on the streets). And I would have liked it better had there been lesser focus/emphasis on the abstract 'fusion' moves too. Are they supposed to convey something?

I like the "curious indifference" of the people in 56", 1'22", 2'2" 3'20" etc.

Comment 2:
Problematization: Although, probably, unintended, there's some exotification of the 'tilak' and the "classical" dance moves as done by a white man. Celebration of the "global culture" that has subsumed the white man in the brown wilderness; providing him with a "rich and colourful" background for his performance. Invariably evoking this feeling, "wow! Isn't it cool that a white man (wearing a tilak) is so elegantly(?) fusing hip-hop and classical dance moves in front of all these people? Cha sooper pa, pul arikudhu po!" - emanating from good old self-imposed orientalist condescension:
White man speaks Tamil - vaaaaah!
White woman learns kalari payattu - vaaaah!
White man loves "Indian food" - vaaaah! and more.
I might be reading too much into things, but what is a white man's "classical dancing" supposed to mean when "Chennai is on the move"?

Comment 3:
My second comment might rile a few/many viewers here who might say "dei romba peter udadha" or "dude, don't look at everything so negatively, learn to enjoy art" or some nonsense like that.

So here's the disclaimer: one probletamizes things so that the hidden layers embedded in an art form (or any representation) is/are better understood before it's consumed a certain way.
That the creator himself/herself may be unaware of what it represents is irrelevant because the product itself communicates independently.

Comment 4:
This video works mostly because of its editing and music. Good job on both areas. Thanks for the video.

--end of comments--

This was yesterday (Jan 8, 2008). I was quite critical because, as I said earlier, he seems like a pro (of course, the problematization would apply for an 'amateur's product as well). I check today to see if he had replied any of my comments. I stop for a moment to make sure that I've landed in the right page. Yes. I don't see any of my comments. All of them have been deleted. WTF? (yeah, this is the moment).
I thought, "if you cannot take my fucking comments, why fucking invite me?" (ok, that sounded a bit like Chimbu!)
But seriously, the comments, I think, aren't that disrespectful or snappish; a bit detractive, may be. So if he didn't want to reply, the least he could have done is tell me that he's going to remove the comments. At least I wouldn't have had to retype the whole thing (here). adhellam illa, mayiru he has just removed it. People, don't pull these kind of stunts. It's beyond annoying.
Now the page is squeaky clean: hours and hours of work 'appreciated' by a few as "nice job" etc. That's probably all he wanted to hear. Well, whatever.

Quote

From the book 'Caste, Colonialism and Counter-Modernity' by Debjani Ganguly.

Chapter 3: The Anamalous Insider, p. 69-70.

--Quote--

Here I cite two instances to illustrate Ghurye's version of what constitutes 'true' India. In the first case, we see him agonizing over the attempt made by Annadurai, (the then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu) to translate the national motto ‘Satyameva Jayate’ into Tamil. Such translation, Ghurye claims, is nothing short of sacrilege to Indian nationhood. How dare a lower-caste Tamilian upstart trifle with the sacrosanct Sanskrit of the Upanishads, and in the process deprive the 'true' Indian of a glimpse of his glorious nationalist past?

The national motto, 'Satyameva Jayate', a sentence taken from an old Upanishad, is in Sanskrit language and is written in the Devanagari script. The associations of the motto thus transport, or are expected to transport Indians to their glorious past of two thousand five hundred years ago. Annadurai's action has destroyed the national motto as a national symbol which it has been such [sic] for the last seventeen years.

Note how Annadurai and his Tamil ilk are excluded from this special journey to India's ‘glorious' past. The non-Brahman, non-Aryan claim to nationhood cannot but be counterfeit, and in some senses a betrayal of the 'genuine' claimants. A similar rhetoric informs Ghurye's critique of the DMK government's success in transforming parts of the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 by granting legitimacy to 'Self-Respect' or ‘Reform' marriages. As is well known in dalit studies, the Self-Respect Movement initiated by Periyar in Tamil Nadu has been among the most politically charged dalit liberation movements of modern India. Ghurye interprets the DMK government's action as inimical not only to Hindu morality but also to Indian nationhood:

Such conditions as of [sic] avoidance of certain relationship between the spouses considered to be part and parcel of the moral code of a people would evidently be difficult of being observed [sic]. Restriction of bigamy, an advance in morals and marital happiness, is of course non-existent. The sentiment of Hindu India as a whole is flouted and the right of any successful political party to change the Indian law of marriage for its own State of domination is asserted.

Ghurye's writing, in its critique of lower-caste militancy and its assumption of the Hindu Brahmanic essence of the Indian nation, can be situated in the cusp of two dominant narratives of Indian nationalism that are hegemonic to this day. They are:

• the secular, liberal democratic 'modern' discourse that attempts to focus on India's Unity and Oneness by seeing its cultural diversity in the image of many small streams that would eventually converge to form an awesome yet harmonious national torrent:

• the discourse of Hindutva that categorically traces the genealogy of the new nation to its hoary Hindu past and that, in its more benign form, expects non-Hindus to 'fit in' and not claim any special benevolence from the State.

--End quote--

Disclaimer: some spelling mistakes may exist.

Body

I haven't seen Saawariya yet, don't think I will. But I have seen parts of the 'towel dropping song'. It's been described as the most 'homo-erotic' song of 'Bollywood,' by a few people in the media. Sure, the guy shows a lot of skin, but is "homo-erotic" the best way to describe it?
It can only come out of one of the following assumptions: women don't watch movies anymore; or women who scream "Hrithik, I love you" are impressed by his "acting skills"(!) and don't care for his curves, I mean, cuts; or women shaking their "stuff" isn't homo-erotic because there are no lesbians watching it.

adheppudi!

Was watching Nayagan to clip out a scene or two. Just realized: this kid goes to Bombay when he's around 10. He spends the rest of his life there. But he still cannot speak Hindi. It's not that he does not speak Hindi, he cannot. He actually has someone to translate stuff for him. ennangada dei?

Request

I'm looking for certain clips from certain movies. I was hoping to get it from friends and others who have the movies either in Divx or DVD formats (or high quality WMV etc). I'll be specific if you're interested in helping me. It basically involves editing some clips from the movies you have and uploading it to a public server like rapidshare. Each clip will be no longer than 10 seconds, so uploading should be relatively easy (unless you want to splice different ~10 second clips together before uploading). Of course, if you want to upload the entire scene (say 3-5 minutes), that's fine too. Finding the 'appropriate' clips themselves is probably the most time consuming part of the process.

Ex: I don't have Nayagan or Guna with me, I would very much like to have some scenes from those movies. If you have either, you can help me.

I need clips from half-decent to really good movies (you be the judge). I hope the scenes to be somewhat visually compelling even if it's for a very brief time. Either that or scenes that are popular in general.

No Smoking

The movie was alright. Probably a bit pretentious in that Kashyap even chose to do such a film, except for that there's little in the movie that is self-indulgent (or, again, pretentious) as claimed by Rajiv Masand and a few other "critics". He even went so far to call the movie "one of the worst of the year." Some "critic" he is. Interestingly, the scenes which seemed to impress him the most were the ones I found hackneyed. (Well, he is, after all, the one who gave 4/5 for 'Black Friday.' It showed how much he loves manipulative BS.)

Given the kind of dreams I have myself I have had little trouble 'enjoying' movies like this. I just love the screenplay. But again there is a scene that was self-indulgent: the last part where Kashyap is probably trying to say "huh, you thought you figured it out?" and you feel like going "well, I don't give a damn, really!"