Summers of 69

Its not unusual for us to turn back the folders (no longer pages) of our life and take out certain days as " (the) best days" and then there are bunch of other days which we refer as "those good times"

As I write now, I am closing out one of those good days!

The day was generally good to begin with and ended great!

No milk pouches lying around, nothing to cook, nowhere to rush -The day started like how a saturday should.I strolled down to the hair saloon and had a mild makeover, as though I intuitively knew that the day is going to be memorable.

I watched FIFA with Germany somehow managing to win a high scoring opening game and Poland struggling with its form.

The noon was how it was supposed to be. Nice food, pristine sun and laid back mind. Came back home and cleaned my bedroom that apart from my dear laptop, bed and the wires, had accumalated more than 100 grams of dust. Cleaning is reviving. And no better day than saturday to do it. Did it!

The nice day became good when Suresh called. He is a good friend who has come down from Bangalore. I co-ordinated a quicky getto and we meet at 4 at Cafe Coffee Day. Lamented about jobs, ranted about ourselves, worried about the future of the smoking (literally) hot chics in CCD and amply drunk carmel laced frappe.Had a mouthful to talk about old stories. Re-distributed old gossips to the eager ears of Lopa and Suresh. Gossiping is a good addiction than smoke and alcohol. So I profess this for fellow teetotallers.

A great day becomes more memorable when you meet another gang of good friends in a place that stood for good ol' days. I went from her treat straight to boat club at adyar. True to the charm of adyar, this is one place which is adventorous, outdoorsy yet conservative.The night's charm was captured well by the Volkswagen Beetle that stood right outside the boatclub verandah. Met a couple of ex-collegues. They boozed. I juiced.

In the background sang Bryan Adams " Those were the best days of my life" and said Tamnus of Narnia "Not everyday you make good friends. Come over to the corner. There is tea, cookies and cakes. We'll have sardines"

Maniratnamesque

As I beat my suddenly engulfed loneliness by resorting to cooking therapy, I switched on the TV today. “Iruvar” was playing.

There are some reasons for which am not a big fan of mani ratnam movies. Cinema to me is a medium that lends itself beautifully to capturing period themes. Iruvar is one such storyline.

Its about the friendship of MGR and Karunanidhi. How realistic a plot can you get than this?

As I write this now, I am just half an hour into the movie.I see a few unnecessary exaggerations that are typical of maniratnam movies.To me, maniratnam's characters are etched to me rememberable if not realistic, cute even if its out of place, always have an admirable (yet unnecessary) modulation (If you don know what I mean - Hold your neck with one handral tight, hold your breath and start speaking - Arvindsamy,madhavan they all did that)..

Now cut back to Iruvar, as a case in point.

To show MGR and Karunanidhi’s friendship – For no reason they are in each other’s hands almost all the time they meet and they are in some eccentric spell of poetic madness. From when did tamil culture promote hugging as a form of sharing affection between men, at least in public? When you make history you hug, But you do not make its lead characters hug all the time, when you make a ordinary scenes in a history movie!

Aishwarya Rai and Mohanlal’s marriage – Their honeymoon night. They run around the bed a la madhavan/shalini in alaipayuthe. Come on – That was not how 1960’s girls were (even if it were jayalalitha types)

Maniratnam one liners –
Sample this : ML”: Ena pidichirka? Aish: Naliku solren (No they don’t talk that way. Do they?

Cinema Set – You are showing black and white era and the set shows twilight in its blue, orange and yellow. From when did art directors give real colors when they know all that’s going to be shown is black and white?

Prakash Raj’s idealism – I understand he is a poet in this movie. However poets who are idealists talk regular tamil under normal circumstances. They don’t have to ooze idealism in poetic overtones whenever they speak. It does add to the aura, but that’s very maniratamesque! A thirvaroor based tamil young man in 1960 speaks with the same modulation that arvind samy speaks in minsara kanavu. How realistic is that?

In short maniratnam’s characters are cute in their own way, well etched and they act for an audience but not really realistic!