Tuesday, March 31, 2009

As March Goes by...

There was a time I aimed at 6 posts a month, and I think I felt quantity would make up for quality. Now as even the number of posts dwindle every month, I have neither to offer you. I look at my friend srinis blog. Those who haven't read his posts please do. His vocab and language is to die for. He writes only when he really really feels like doing so. And it shows. I don't see that kind of organization or discipline from my side. As always , I remain mediocre at best.

There are times when you are struck by a life truth, some observation that makes you smile proudly and give you an air of having made a discovery , awaiting recognition from some authority. You should be able to capture that thought and feeling right then and there into a blog. You cannot but come out with a good one. I have often thought of having been gifted by God. I have a super power. Its uncanny how many times its worked, and I have often thought of writing about it here, but I fear persecution from some secret government agency [Trend Alert: novels and films about a group of people with some abilities being on the run from some agency or the other eg Jumper, Push, Maximum Ride etc] Okay I did not make the big announcement. I am no mutant with regenerative abilities or the ability to convert PEnergy to KEnergy. I am a technopath. I have to think of a film, or a scene from a film and some force in this universe bends itself to bring that movie onto my TV screen. It has to be the TV. I wish I could illustrate this with examples but I dont remember specifics, but the way it works is so goddamm wonderful that anyone would agree with me. Sometimes i just wonder to myself , ask myself a doubt what exactly did happen at a particular point in a movie, or what a particular dialogue was and at some time I am offered that very scene or dialogue.


Just the other day i was thinking about Yathra. A film starring Mammotty that I wrote about a year ago . At that time I had scoured through the net in search of an online print or scene but to no avail. But recently I had noticed a deluge of Mallu films on youtube all neatly arranged in playlists in clips of 10 mins each. What a delightful treat it was. I saw " Nammukku Paarkan mundhiri thoppukkal" - "Vineyards for us to dwell in " a beautiful love story starring Mohanlal and Shari. Beginning of digression - I need this to happen in Bollywood, that title above is a reference to a qoute from the bible pertaining to King Solomon's vineyards (Mohanlal is named Solomon and incidentally owns vineyards), why cant film titles in Bollywood refer to songs or poems, really thought out or deep. The only good one I can think of is "Khoya Khoya Chand" and " Hazaaron Khwaaishein aisi" both by Sudhir Mishra. The lame ass govinda song titles dont count. - Digression ends. So i decided to search for yaathra and lo there it was neatly arranged in packets of 10 minutes. Its a poignant story that really tugged my hridaya strings when I first saw it. From the first scene where mamootty gets on a bus and asks to sit by the Window seat to its relevance in the climax, everything is so beautifully woven together you have to tip your Ten gallon hat to the director Balu Mahendra. The dude is more famous for directing Sadma or Moondram Pirai. The dude like sad endings and sets his films in Hill stations. Ok , my point in all this was that Although I swear by the quality of mallu films, i suddenly realized they do not particularly have any outstanding cinematography. Everything else works so well but rarely do you see any camera work that makes pout your lip and shake your head in movie geek approval.
I realized I could have made 2 different blogs out of this one. And also there is no particular importance of the post title to the post. "As March goes by" very clever Arjun. very original. Only not.

Trivia:I dont remember what Khoya Khoya Chand was going to be called originally. 53 points to the person who tell me the answer, all I remember is it was the first line of some poem.

5 comments:

Ramya Ramadurai said...

i think i have seen yatra and i remember one line from it. maybe i'm talking about a whole different movie, i don't know. when mammootty gets into the bus, he asks one of the school kids a riddle: what happens to an elephant when it rains? the answer: it gets wet.

you know what my superpower is? whenever i think of something related to a movie, somehow that very thing i was thinking about gets mentioned to me in the next couple of days. i was, in fact thinking of that particular riddle scene with mammootty yesterday, and today you remind me of it by writing about yatra. :)

Angelus said...

you are totally making it up... you went ahead and saw the first clip on youtube didn't you??? Yes it does get wet and its the same movie :) You are one big leg puller, aren't yu??

Rajlakshmi said...

haven't seen Yatra ... but the way you have described it here ... wish I would watch it too :)

Ramya Ramadurai said...

i am NOT!!! cross my heart, pinky swear.

i watched it like eons ago, and judging by what i remember of the movie, i don't think i was very mature then. :P

Srini Iyer said...

I have no option but to go and watch yatra right away.. you will face the consequences whether i like the movie or not :)