Flowers on the road

This morning I decided for a change I will walk to the shop that is a couple of kilometers away instead of wimping out and catching an auto. Thanks to my inability to raise the windows in my car and the rain that had battered the previous evening, I had to navigate potholes and open drains, brave extremely irregular and uncaring traffic, a battalion of street dogs and the strong stench from large dumps with their rotting filth.

African tulips on the rain washed asphalt are easy to spot from within a car.

Monkey Menace

Apparently some neighborhood monkeys have discovered my apartment complex. I opened the utility patio door to a chaotic scene the other day. Unwashed dishes strewn about, trash can upturned.. I have to read up on what all monkeys can do. I wonder if they can open doors or turn my gas on. They could sneak in through the ventilation slots too. One of these days I am going to find a little monkey sitting on the couch watching TV when I get back home. Then again, it will be in good company.

Remix on the road

Drove to Thiruvannamalai to see SS. Rain clouds followed throughout and the drive was beautiful. Much to the displeasure of everyone in the car -"You don't like melodies do you" - I played upbeat song, including some remix. "My name is Billa" was fast enough but "Ponmagal vandhal" is the best of the lot. "Engeyum Eppothum" has a hilariously brilliant moment when right after the initial intro you hear a voice, very quick saying "Tharumararukudhuppa". I think quite a few ols dongs will do well with a remix.

Well paved asphalt till Krishnagiri, young trees with flowers on the roadside, the mellow sun made me momentarily wonder where I was.

Dasavatharam

Dasavatharam was my third choice after finding out 'Indiana Jones' and 'Sex and the City' were sold out. I wonder if that somehow disqualifies me from writing a review. But whatever my lofty opinions about Kamal and Dasavatharam may be, I decided to watch the movie with an open mind.

Why would any actor want to play ten characters in a movie? It does not seem like a great testament of one's acting ability. After all whether you play ten or a hundred, each one has to be studied and expressed with sensitivity and intelligence. Once you look at it from that angle the ten characters seem to be an unnecessary distracting circus that Kamal doesn't need. It is a bit of a surprise he still feels he needs such gimmicks to show off his acting caliber. Or perhaps he felt he needed it to win in the box office.

The much acclaimed Nambi was a disappointment for me. I felt the character was contrived and over-acted. So was Govind and the other forgettable avatars. If not for the Telugu police officer , Poovaragan, and the grandma, the movie would have been a disaster. Forgetting for a minute the mis-placed accent, Kamal shows what a great actor he is when he plays the character Poovaragan. The sensitivity, the moral anger , the love for the language, the greatness of the character shines through memorably in Kamal's voice and expressions. The grandma and the police officer are equally hilarious.

But at the end of the day these characters are only there for one purpose. To show what a great actor Kamal is. And that is where it all starts tumbling down. There is no depth to most of the characters Kamal plays and the characters played by others are completely cardboardish, for want of a better word. It clearly shows a failure on the part of the screenplay writer to care about even his heroine.

That brings me to the puzzle of the story and screenplay. Let us set aside for a moment the story and the movie exist only to showcase "World-hero" Kamal. After all there is also the intellectual screenplay and story writer Kamal.

Kamal seems undecided on what he wanted to say. Why bring this whole story to imply even the tsunami must have had a purpose and then backtrack by having the lead character express skepticism to that idea? That too somewhat carelessly and callously. I could see his intellectual side would be horrified to take a stand where that question is even given some serious thought. But that is what the story stands for. At the end of the day, according to this story, if the tsunami had not happened more lives would have been lost.

This movie is not serious enough to ponder a profound question like that and it seems pretentious at best. Or was the purpose of the movie as Kamal pompously states at the beginning of the movie about chaos theory? If we were to look at movies like Babel the connections are seamless and believable. Perhaps they are unlikely but still they could happen and that is what makes such movies interesting. Here again in Dasavatharam, everything seems contrived lik the bullet that 'operates' avatar singh.

Kamal tries to be too intelligent. Tries to prove a point. He tries too hard, period. And that I think is the movie's biggest handicap.

As for the make-up I would prefer the blond, white Shivaji any day to Fletcher.

American food

Did a short US trip. After a really bad flight full of turbulence that I spent throwing up, I landed in Paris somewhat in a haze. Paris airport folks do a good job of hiding the rest rooms. After spending a lot of time trying to figure out where they were and struggling with the non working water fountains I embarked on the next leg, the haze still quite in place. Every time the air hostess brought the standard airplane fare I was ready to dig my head into the sick bag.

I landed finally in Atlanta after what seemed an eternity and I walked to this food court. Bought this huge sandwich loaded with veggies and a nice thick soup. It was the best lunch (or was it dinner) I had in a long time.

I miss some of those nice sandwiches and soups I used to eat a lot. Getting reminded of the 'is soup a meal' Seinfeld episode.