Indian First

Some random musings about our country, thanks to all the patriotic songs I was listening to during this Independence day period...

What gives you the utmost feeling of relief? Like really, just sit down for a minute and think. What gives you the utmost feeling of relief, peace, however differently you try to name that feeling.  

It's the feeling of being at home. What can top that?

A lot of people move away from their homes, go to other cities and countries in search of other opportunities and they will tell you the relief that they get by going home for just a weekend. No worries, no tension, no targets, no stress. Feeling at home is the best feeling in the world.

I listened to the song “Vidai kodu engal naade” recently. It’s about the heart-wrenching pain of those people who had to forcibly leave their countries because of various reasons, violence and blood-shed being some of them. There is a line “Verum koodugal matum oorvalam pogindrom” – meaning, we are soulless bodies leaving our homeland. Can any of us now imagine a life like that now? Life is so normal for us and we take so many things for granted. Having your life uprooted like thatis unthinkable to me. I cannot imagine what those people would have experienced, leaving their homes, their land, their country to save their lives. 

I get annoyed when Indians who left the country and got settled in various parts of the world, blame India.These are the people who enjoyed our panipuris and veechparotas and crowded bazaars and our cinema. But the minute they land in the other country, it is as though they have become this pure responsible citizen who just disapproved of how chaotic their homeland was.
It is not fair to blame the country you just left. I just wish their concern would give rise to some action, and not just mere words of blame.

My country may be corrupt, it may be evil, it may be a haven for crime. But it is still MINE to blame, mine to save and mine to heal. There is no grudge here about them moving to another nation. Everyone is free to explore and utilise life’s opportunities. There is a possibility even I may be forced to go to another country for different reasons. But that doesn’t give me the right to forget what I enjoyed here. If I am concerned enough to blame, then I should be responsible enough to correct the situation too. I cannot give up on my nation just like that. 

It is just like the feeling of possessiveness we have over our family, our city, our school, our college. I can fight with my sister, but I am not going to shut up if you criticise her. This same feeling reflects for my country as well. I know we have a lot of problems at hand, but please, let us quit blaming others and start taking responsibility for our actions, and this applies especially to us Indians. Some say “Why should I pay tax? It doesn’t go to the right path anyway”. How could you say that when you don’t pay tax yourself? You start paying tax, do your share of the responsibility, only then do you get the authority to blame or question another person. If there is something wrong with our country, it is our job to fix it. Let us be correct in whatever we do, and keep our nose out of whether others are also doing the same. We can correct them, but we cannot use their ignorance as an excuse for our lack of responsibility.

They say charity begins at home. Do your bit for the nation. Do not throw garbage outside on the road, even if it is a bus ticket. Know your ways of separating the waste. Reduce your usage of plastics. There are a 100 things that we can DO, instead of just blaming others.

The next time you blame our country, take a minute and think of how you will actually be if you don’t have all the luxury that is unconsciously taken for granted. To live here by choice is better than having to leave by force. 

PS: Thank you Vaagdevi for some ideas and words. (Unconsciously, you have helped me write this ;) )

Jigarthanda - Audacity at its peak.

Wellll…. Where do I start? Before I start showering my praise on this movie, people who haven’t seen the film please read this review after you watch it. This may be a spoiler. And if you don’t have an idea of watching this movie, get the idea into your head right now. This is one 2 and half hours and 120 bucks well spent.

When I watched the trailer, to tell the truth I wasn’t really into the gangster musical idea. But I had watched Karthik Subburaj’s first movie – Pizza and I loved it. So I decided to give this one a try. I respect that decision now.

It is very difficult to describe this movie as I can’t seem to pen down the right words. I was just blown away by the sheer audacity of the director to come up with this idea of a musical gangster comedy flick. I mean who would have thought of making a story with a gangster who wanted to act! Something that could have gone disastrously wrong, works amazingly well because the director had the right actors, the right technicians, the right dialogs, the right music all at the right time. From the beginning, where he shows how TV reality shows are hyped today, the director is bold with his story.

The trailer was purposefully misleading. I went in the theatre expecting gunshots and violent deaths. I got them but turns out that was only a side dish, served along with cheeky and intelligent dialogs and lots of raucous laughter and fantastic acting. Simha is definitely this year’s best find yet. His raw and stylish portrayal of Sedhu took me completely by delightful surprise. I had already noted his versatile acting in different movies like Neram, Pizza and Soodhukavvum. But I definitely couldn’t believe the guy who acted as the guileless dumb Pagalavan (in SoodhuKavvum), could pull off such a powerful core role like this, that would have ideally suited an old established actor. But he shows no signs of nervousness or doubts. He is completely at home for his expressions and body language and timing were all just right there. After Vijay Sethupathi, I think I have become a Simha fan! :D

One of my favourite parts of the movie was when a detective kills someone else, assuming he is Sedhu and the part where they show Sedhu had actually witnessed this murder. Sedhu merely looks at the guy and gets in the toilet and that itself was quite enough to convey the scene and raised loads of cheers from the audience. The most notable part of the movie was the very smart dialogs. KarthikSubburaj doesn’t mince the words. He knows the audience today is quite capable of understanding the language. So words like “gibberish and virgin” and not given a detailed explanation and I liked that. Such cheeky dialogs! And the scene with the acting classes, it was a complete laugh riot in the cinema hall. The music by Santhosh Narayan is one of the main reasons for the stylish portrayal of the gangster. It is very laudable and adds the right mood to the story.

If I had to find a fault with the movie, I guess the romance part of it lacked lustre. You don’t really care. After the extremely romantic “Mogathirai”, I expected something similar. That would probably be the only fault I could find. But to be honest, the story is not keen on romance and I don’t complain because the movie compensated plenty more on the other parts.

Being a very biased Vijay Sethupathi fan, I would tell one of the best parts of the film was seeing my hero on the screen as a guest actor. I was so happy that I wasn’t the only one cheering for him. A sizeable portion of the audience erupted as he gave a sudden unexpected entry. The audience laughed and cheered at all the right places and itis refreshing to know we appreciate good acting, whether it is from a reputed actor or a team of newbies.

This Jigarthanda is one that has all the right ingredients. It is a thriller, gangster musical comedy, if you name that as a genre. Again being a biased Vijay S fan, I would say after SoodhuKavvum, this movie is a trend setter. Established actors, directors and musicians, you better look out. KarthikSubburaj and his team mean business. And they are here to stay! 

PS: I am definitely going for a 2^nd time!

The Nostalgic Bus Ride

During the 3 years of my college a recurring dream that I had was getting into an empty bus that’s en route to my college at the usual peak hours and finding a place to sit. 

Don’t think I’m crazy. Usual commuters will agree with me when I express the glee on seeing my favourite regular bus just looming from the distance.  (Yes, I have a favourite bus) And if I find some empty seats, well that will just make my day! :D

A regular two hours on the bus leaves you a lot of time and room to observe people around you. There is the “I-don’t-care-if-twenty-people-are-squeezing-me-I-will-still-talk-on-the-phone” kind of people that you can easily identify once you get on. Theirs are the voices you can still hear on a traffic jam when the whole vehicle is silent. There is also the “Seat hogger”. The minute someone rises from their seat, this person shoots through a crowded bus to the seat. I call these the terminal cases for they just HAVE to sit if they find an empty seat even if they are about to get down in 10 seconds.

There are also the ladies always ready to offer their loud and invaluable comments on anything and everything. For them no one is a stranger. If a couple inside the bus are holding hands she will go, “In our days all these were frowned upon…” to anyone who catches her eye. If the conductor yells at her she will be the indignant passenger fighting for her rights. If someone stamps her leg accidentally, boy you don’t want to be that someone. 

College boys hanging from the last step and still trying to catch an impressed eye, the school girls with their dead heavy bags, the nameless and wordless friendships that are made, the people who duck conveniently to avoid awkward hellos, the general struggle to get through the one hour amidst the crowd and the palpable relief when the destination finally arrives; All of these sights which are usually hard to get used to in the beginning become familiar soon enough and fade into a lull at the back of your mind as you grow to be part of the mayhem.

Now that I’m about 10 minutes away from my workplace, I realise how much I miss these 2 hours. I am in a position where I am having to allocate time to even listen to some music and I realise how much I took for granted, the time that was given to me every day. I miss my bus rides and the people I met… And well I guess I am still the same guileless commuter at heart because I still get the urge to get into an empty 10c or S8 (my college route buses), even though I am going elsewhere! :D

The Indignant Cyclist

When I wanted to start riding my cycle to office again, my mom was very hesitant. As a concerned parent, she was worried about letting me on the main roads in heavy traffic.

Me, I was hesitant too. Not because of the traffic, not because of the weather, not even because of the way people drive with total disregard to the traffic rules. I was hesitant because of “some” testosterone-filled creatures who call themselves men and who jeer at us, just because they can. (No generalisation, guys. I’m talking only about those guys who do)

Today was only my 1^st day and I already went through 2 such instances. I really don’t understand who gave them the right to look and comment and whiz past us with a smirk. If you had so much guts, you would say it on the face. Would it kill you to pass by a girl and not say anything? If a guy was punched every time he dared something demeaning like this, we would have a lot of swollen faces around. This kind of behaviour truly gets to me. Kudos to the regular two-wheeler commuters who put up with this nonsense everyday. 

On the other hand are the other people on the road who have no respect for cyclists. We are people too, with a body that can bleed if injured. No one cares if we ring the bell; No one cares if it’s a cyclist on their side, they just swerve according to their wish. And if they had to brake, they look at us accusingly as though we are to be blamed for the choice of this vehicle. 

Well, excuse me for having some concern about my fitness and about the environment!

The four-wheelers don’t care about the two-wheelers, the two-wheelers don’t care about the cyclists and the pedestrians don’t care about any of the above. Well next time, when you take your vehicle please remember, if it has a minimum of two wheels it means a person is riding/driving it and if there is a person, he/she deserves respect.