Watched and lived vicariously through Retro two days ago—and it hit me like an icebucket. But the hate this film has received made me come here and genuinely question the validity of responses to art in our society, especially in Social Media
Retro was a very interesting watch, in more ways than one. Arguably one of the most conversation-worthy films to come out this year in terms of the high concepts it tackled, the wild avenues it walked into, and the ideas it boiled down to. Not many filmmakers—frankly, only one man in the entirety of Tamil cinema right now—attempt to scratch the surface of the themes that Retro dives into. And so, I present to you this through my weird af FAQ. Spoilers (but not too much) ahead
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1. “Bro, the movie was weird.”
It’s a Karthik Subbaraj movie. The man has never stuck to a single genre even if his life depended on it. What were you expecting?
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2. “Nothing felt real. It all felt like a movie.”
It’s literally called Retro (they definitely could’ve found a better title). It was divided into chapters, almost like a hyperlink anthology, with each chapter carrying a distinct mood. There was a full-on “Senorita I Love You” song montage in the middle like an Instagram edit—that lit up the screen like a mercury bulb.
The story and its payoffs were built upon the biggest character arcs from Hindu mythology. It was designed to be dramatic. It was made for the good guy to win. It was unapologetically cinematic. We’ve consumed so much “real world cinema” lately that we forget—cinema is fiction, and it unfolds only on screen.
This was never a problem for GOAT or Good Bad Ugly which took a jab on how their own filmness. Retro just takes itself seriously… and still remains a film.
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3. “So, are you saying it’s a flawless movie?”
Absolutely not.
Like many Tamil films, it was overwritten in parts. Karthik himself falls prey to the high of a reveal or a payoff—which is always a double-edged sword. When it lands, it really lands. But when it doesn’t, it absolutely crashes.
But here’s the thing—each viewer must decide if it worked for them or not. Some random voice on social media shouldn’t be allowed to speak for all. We get so few Tamil films that are made almost like a festival film, that is open to interpretation. Even fewer star vehicles dare to do the same. Let’s not reduce that into an anomaly.
Now, some emotions in the second half didn’t land for me—especially the ones involving the “newfound family.” They just didn’t sync with the character’s arc. The course correction was good, but in the bigger picture, it felt jarring.
Santhosh Narayanan’s music was a polarising case study. Needs a whole separate analysis. But above all, the film got the marketing wrong as a love story. From the first look and tagline—Love. Laughter. War—people assumed the “war” was because of the love. Thin lines
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4. “Dei nee frog dhaane?”
I’ve trolled Suriya more than I’ve appreciated him in the past 15 years. The man’s been the superman of poor script choices. But this isn’t about Suriya. He did his job. And so did everyone else. Pooja Hegde was divine. Joju was splendid as Thanos. That cult leader, though, felt like a clown—and I still can’t figure out what that character was supposed to represent. But here’s the real point—Frogman hasn’t been in a film this good since Singam 2, and hasn’t had this level of theatrical highs since Ayan.
What truly stood out was how Retro had these epic big hero moments baked into the story itself—something Karthik has never done before with a star apart from a once in a Lifetime Petta. That’s a big win.
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5. otha apram ennada prechana
Retro, much like its actual plot actually opens up several larger, out-of-film conversations outside the film
Like it or not, we’re witnessing the slow death of cinema as we know it. Films today are often made for audiences with the attention span of a goldfish, trained by reels and shorts. The 200 rupees we pay for a ticket often give us an experience that ends the moment we reach the bike parking.
Paintings were never corrupted. Theatre was never corrupted. But cinema, a visual artform, got fucked. There are so few films today that encourage interpretation without resorting to either shock content or outright scams (you know which films I am talking aboiut). Retro, like many of Karthik’s earlier ventures, does exactly that—while making a star hero become the movie’s protagonist just 15 minutes in—and earn his hero status only by the end.
But here’s the issue: the volume of interpretations around Retro has been seen as a negative. That’s absurd. Even Santhosh Narayanan probably had a different read of the film than I did—maybe that’s why the score felt off to me (for the first time ever in a Santhosh soundtrack). But just because an artwork allows for multiple meanings doesn’t make it bad.
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We are cursed by this “first half–second half” formula in Indian cinema. Except for writing a banging interval block, it is always a hedache.
And for a character journey like this one, it does more harm than good. When you open brackets in the first half and leave gaps, audiences begin imagining their own version of what’s to come. So when the second half finally arrives, they’re not comparing it with the first half—they’re comparing it with the version in their heads.
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I’ve never been a fan of discussing films on Twitter, now X. It’s actually unlike any other social media. It’s filled with a bunch of morons who call for equality, say every opinion matters and yet hypocritically consider their opinion superior to others. Been a moron, done that and it is now even worse because of the monetisation policies.
X now has the power to make or break a film even before most people have seen it. The collateral damage Retro faces is actually a wake up call for people who make decisions based on a faceless rando on twitter.
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A little word about my man :-
At the end of the day, none of what I say might matter. But I’ll still say this—art should be viewed through your own lens.
Karthik Subbaraj is, without a doubt, the best writer-director in Tamil cinema over the last 15 years. Not by box office numbers—but by originality and redefining what cinema could be. Each of his films has its own Aadhar card. And love it or hate it, that is on you but the whole point of this write up is that, only you are responsible for your opinion.
The biggest villian of Retro and any other Karthik film after this is just his own filmography. Retro may very well be the 6th best film in Karthik’s own list. But that is just the standards my man has set. It is a large ambitious experiment where he stretches the written word to its limits. The moral of the film is, perhaps, the biggest experiment of all—and one that no major filmmaker would even attempt in undertones.
That moral about laughter deserved a whole film. So did the mythology. So did the cult. So did the love. Retro isn’t a wedding-style full meals—it’s more of a walk through a food street. You like some dishes more than others. Some you might not like at all. But your stomach is full, and your mind is full of thought.
And just like Karthik’s ideas—you can’t ignore it.
Was the recent AR Rahman debacle a one-time event, or is there a bigger problem to be addressed?
It is three more months until Margazhi season, and yet Chennai’s concert scene is peaking. Four of the biggest names in Tamil film music are holding concerts of their music, all within the span of two months. Apart from the thousands of fans that these composers want to satisfy and be the highlight of the weekend for, the one thing that is common for all these concerts is that they are all being held in open-air venues with makeshift stages that will be desecrated once the event gets over. Hence, the event already starts with a risk of rain interruptions, crowd management problems, and a whole plethora of other problems. But wasn’t this the case for all these years? What has changed now?
There are no doubts that Chennai is the live arts capital of this country. The culture of Madras music started way back before the esteemed stages of the city ever existed, and right now, it has transgressed unimaginable boundaries. From being a shrine for religion-specific devotional songs, these concert houses are now a place for any common man with talent to get on to the city’s biggest stages and perform, and more than anything else, mark their signature on an extremely music-aficionado crowd. With Sir CP Ramaswamy Aiyer’s inauguration of the Music Academy pre-independence and the establishment of various halls that have acoustically only gotten better in all these years, the Chennai music scene is unbelievably diverse, vibrant, and offers a new song to sing wherever your roots are from—indie, film, Carnatic, choir, Sufi, or what not. But as much as the power that these places hold and the vibe that it resounds, the recent surge in concerts has chosen to be held on these grounds only to cater to a larger audience. When the Music Academy and Sir Mutha Venkata Subbarao (commonly known as the Lady Andal auditorium) can accommodate 1500–2000 people, these open-air grounds can be pushed to easily add another digit there. 10-15 years ago, this was not a trend because there were only a handful of people who could fill up such a large space, but today, with a much younger audience attending concerts in search of the ‘vibe, and with the advent of social media, it has been much easier for the artists. When Yuvan Shankar Raja did his first concert, Yuvan Live, at the YMCA grounds in Nandanam, he opened a new avenue into live music, like he usually does with his films. But this time, there were 20,000 spectators.
The YMCA grounds at Nandanam are the perfect venue for a choice of venue for various reasons. The place allows multiple entry and exit points; the stage is deep shelved from the entry gate among trees, and hence the noise doesn’t find its way to the residences; it has so much breathing space to control crowds; plenty of grounds to park inside the campus, which can be extended if we add up the Nandanam Arts College cricket ground; and more than anything else, it lies at the mouth of Anna Salai, which is the city’s prime arterial road that connects north and south with all public transport options at its behest. With AR Rahman performing there in 2013, 2016, and then in 2018, and Ilayaraja’s 75th year celebration concert, it was very difficult to look past it. At the same time, much smaller spaces, such as the YMCA Royapettah grounds, were used to attract a smaller crowd and yet did not face major issues. And it offered a canopy for its audience too. The Phoenix Market City courtyard is a game changer in many ways by offering an entire standing concert for the general public, which has invited nationally renowned artists to perform there. Marketing and public relations are also easier because they fall under the umbrella of Phoenix Market City. The Nehru Indoor Stadium is a recent fan favorite for almost every alternate show that has the capacity to fill up a crowd a little shy of 8,000 people.
The AR Rahman show that happened recently is a disaster in a multitude of ways. The traffic was incredibly bad because the venue was situated in the middle of East Coast Road with only one entry point. Vehicle parking was all over the place. The stage had to be reached from the parking lot through an 8-foot road, where crowd control almost did not exist. And after all this, if a person reached his stand, there were no available seats because there were over 1,000 people already standing there. Nobody knew if this was because of the people who jumped stands or poor checking of entry bands, if the event managers oversold the stands, or if counterfeit entry bands were being circulated (wildly, this was a running problem in the recently held Vijay Antony show and was very well handled). Much of these problems can be easily blamed on the crazy number of people that they were trying to attract—more than 40,000 people, which made it one of the most attended concerts in India. Almost double what the YMCA grounds could hold. The Rockstar on Hotstar concert by Anirudh Ravichandar held at Thiruvidanthai Temple grounds held 30,000, which was the previous highest, at least for the city. Even though that was better managed, there were some glaring issues one could find in both of them.
First. Truth be told, Chennai is not equipped to host such a massive number of people at the same place for a concert. This is the harsh reality. The closest place where so many people can be together at the same time is the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, or Chepauk. And in my opinion, the future really looks promising for Nehru Stadium because of the vibrant environment around it. ECR is a road with very few exit points connecting a parallel road with the sea on the other side. With almost no public transport in the earlier part of the night, the traffic that comes before and after is almost inevitable. If ECR is ruled out, an empty space inside the city that is capable of such an event can only be found in two places: IIT-M and Island Grounds, which are both owned by different governments. This exceedingly unhealthy need to only make bigger concerts and shows should go hand in hand with suitable infrastructure and management to tackle it, and this week was a good example of a balance that was lost. More over, at these big headliner concerts, the people who come paying a lesser category of tickets are severely mistreated with the enormous crowds and sound quality that gets poorer at the back. The stages aren’t usually visible from anywhere, which is still not a complaint because the people at the front have definitely paid more and have to get an advantage, but the music is only from one big set of speakers for an entire stand, and the place becomes an acoustic nightmare. I am a strong believer in the fact that this city loves its community art so much because of the equality that it provides to the artists and its audience, making it open for anybody to listen to anybody in the same space and making us forget the differences for the performance time. An average middle-class man or woman spends a significant percentage of his or her monthly earnings on a concert, and it is, in my strong opinion, needless to say which ticketing group they are a part of; the music should not be different. This is increasingly difficult to pull off at these open-air venues with a ton of variables in play.
This concert in the picture was conducted by an event management company that was already notorious for holding the IPL final screening, which was then cancelled, and no refunds were processed. Event management in itself is a capital-intensive, labor-intensive process, and irrespective of the number of companies in this business, these top concerts have been almost monopolized by only a couple of firms. If event management companies are the problem, why do Indian artists not choose to produce their own concerts like their western counterparts? Why outsource it to a middleman under a contract when it is their face that people buy tickets for? The recently concluded Backstreet Boys DNA World tour in Delhi and Mumbai was a grand hit for an international artist ‘touring’ their concert in India, producing their own events. All the Coldplay and Taylor Swift concerts that happen in sold-out stadiums are part of their own production, with the help of a local company to ease things out. The artists here are all homegrown people who we have grown with and seen grow too. It would be amazing to see them do their own concerts in their hometowns. The Anirudh concert was a start, but we would love to see more.
With respect to the venues, the search will continue for bigger places, but things will not change if the root cause of the issues isn’t addressed. What the Chennai crowd faced this week was a reality check, and nobody would want to relive it. We do not know what is going to happen 10 years down the line, but if the artists do not want the volume of people they perform for to die down, they should very well instigate change and develop a venue for the same.
The city of Mumbai has always amused me in most ways. It is a national amusement most times but it holds a special place in my head. Might be because of Bollywood, might be because the city is associated with dreams coming true. Might be because it stands a definition of a city – a large concrete structure with multiple small concrete, steel and biological structures coexisting with each other without the concepts of time, fate and speed breakers. Cities don’t stop running in my head, and if that is the case, Mumbai is some ultra stamina megazord that has lived through the testaments of time for idk how many years now.
It has been excessively romanticised by the entirety of the nation. Bling life was born here. Fashion was propogated like religion and so was paparazzi culture. It was as through the West found India through this city culturally(The Gateway of India, metaphorically), and there’s no fighting that. Music and Shahrukh Khan were being celebrated, wherever we go, they didn’t call this the land of Bollywood for nothing. And so does romance. There are people making out in every nook and corner of flat spaces with the sea peeking on to them, irrespective of age, sex and time. Time. Yes. It doesn’t exist.
The crowds. One at 4 pm. Other at 12 am.
The last time I came to this blessed place was in 10th std with a nerd quiz group and Ranjani ma’am, my school’s quiz club incharge teacher. A literal godsend. It was almost a perfect Mumbai trip. The train stopped at CST where our train into the city started. We studied quizbooks in the evenings and I tried the Bombay Pani Puri (which was a revelation. The pani does not leakthrough the pores of the puri to make a mess!!) It was the birthplace of the Franky and a Vada Pav yet I was the most excited on us getting mac and cheese in the hotel buffet for the finals. We went to the Gateway of India and saw the Taj opposite to it which is one of the most memorable sights of my school life outside school. I was lucky. (Didn’t know how much until 9 years later) but I knew I was atleast to some parts. In these 9 years, after hitting travel puberty with so many hills, streets and restaurants and what not explored, Mumbai was a blank space which just waited for a long time to be filled. In between, there was OK Kanmani (An extremely fuckall movie with 2 tamil people roaming around apparently the entire city with no mention of what they earn), a job from Red Bull which if done with much more enigma and drinking habits, would have cut my amusement of this city in half. And a woman, who came into my life I have no idea how but if not for Mumbai, we do not know where 15 percent of our conversations would have been about. From a blank space, it became a little starry dream with glowing lights because we figured we needed something to decorate our nights with. Someday, I would have come here, I don’t know how near that day would have been so, but it would still be with a lot of effort, an impending budget and a little disappointment that doesn’t need to be talked about.
Marine Drive. Nobody can overrate this.
The city, she, has different ideas. Mumbai is named after Mumbadevi, a spirit of Lakshmi, hence she’s a she. And also because the best things in the world are women. It’s definitely a she. Coming back to cricket. She had very different ideas. She called me out here off the blue to watch her live her day vicariously, dance to the tunes of the horns of probably the highest vehicle loads I’ve seen, and sprawl in an April sun. The gig was to watch your cricket team play from a studio, while creating content for them in your language, appear on national OTT and you get paid for it (much more than what my hospital ever gave me) and to fly in and out of this city starting the next 15 days or so. They had me at the first point. And here I am sitting in Bandra Bandstand writing about how she is (and will be) from my eyes.
Priorties in JuhuBetter priorities in Bandra
I have a decent eyesight. Nothing much wrong with it. Talking from a very neutral point of view, everybody who saw Bombay like I did (Still a void, nobody could romanticise shit like me anyways) was fooled. Bombay was named by the Portugese in the 1500s and 500 years later, the city blasts into a new level every morning. First of all, they didn’t call it the most densely populated cities of the world for nothing. I terribly underestimated the volume and the space that is required to accomodate this volume. I think the Maharashtra govt too did because there are people living in every space they could find trying to make a livelihood with every living we could see. Roads, Sea, Flyovers, Beaches, even Metro Pillars had people with a stove to cook, hands to eat and exactly 5.5 ft of space to sleep in beneath them as long as it offers shade from the sun. We in Chennai say something very dear about the city, Vanthaarai vaazha veikkum Chennai (Those who come to Chennai, she’ll help you reap). Mumbai overdid it. People do every job they could find. My first day in the Suburban railway saw a guy transporting a gate through a train. Another carrying fake awards. There are people in every national monument with a digital camera waiting to take your picture and print it maxi size. It exists. The last time I printed a maxi picture was for a school project. Everybody told them the smartphone has been invented but they didn’t care. The live in 2004 and sometimes, take us into a train of thought that 2004 is not that bad after all. And it’s a parade. If you plan to start a pani puri stall in a street, there are already 3 others on it. For a complete class of people, it is like living in Squid Game except you don’t lose your life in a jiffy. It’s scratching the surface for a living for months or years with all hopes resting on the city’s crowds to uplift you.
And it’s extremely sad to see that for most of them, it cannot happen. It is not ‘doesn’t happen’. It is ‘cannot happen’. Because the rich poor gap is at its all time best in this city. Fighting through a middle class really is a different ball game in today’s world but in this city, I don’t think it exists. A man has to toil his life savings to either live as a rich man or the society puts him at a different place with a different status. Mumbai is geographically divided by the class of the people it could host and that, by far is the worst thing that could happen to the evolution of this city. Did it make their lives easier. Or more difficult? Honestly, I don’t know. But the worse part is that they also don’t know. Because an average Mumbaikar doesn’t have time to think about this as he would have done more work in this city instead of wailing over the same. Time is money they say. If that is the same for the city, 24 hours isn’t enough for anybody here. It is popular belief that Mumbai’s nightlife is one of the most bullish in India taking on any place’s night culture of the world. But if you ponder in deeply, it is because people get time only after 12 am in the night. The turfs are full. Restaurants are buzzing. Traffic is atrocius, just like the rest of the time of the day. So and so that people are scared to buy a car, because of the city traffic. I’ve never seen this anywhere.
Sadak mein traffic. Raat ki sadak mein trafffic
And the same night life causes double the number of jobs for the working class here. The shops are open 24 hours. And people live in their work, irrespective of a clock dictating their life. They don’t live lavish lives. A man doing that in any other city, I feel has a chance to grow into something else. Here, their time is good enough to just merely survive by the bills. The people who grew by a Mumbai migration have their own Hall of Fame. Right from Ambani to Shahrukh Khan. It had its time. This happening in today’s Mumbai is a miracle of its own. Just a miracle, not impossible. The place celebrates South Indian food. Because half of its educated working class is from the down south. The other north is from up north with a little of Bengal. The quintessential Mumbaikar right now is not working in Mumbai anymore. He knows the theory.
My sole life saver in the last 2 months along with a beautiful M-Indicator app. God bless.
The sweaty western line stops at Churchgate. You get down to the Wankhede floodlights to your right and a very lonely piece of green in the city – The Oval Maidan. They celebrate cricket honestly to its fullest glory. Behind the Wankhede is the Marine drive strip where people watch the sun set among the Mumbai skyline and do everything else but strip. The meals scene is real and the open sky above them is proof. A walk and a bhai selling Pani Puri and Rustom and Co ice cream later, there will still be people chilling. 24 hours of the day. At the same time, behind the Oval Maidan, the entire area is a UNESCO Heritage site for safeguarding their history. Props to them for real because this is all done until 2 areas later without commercialising it. And at the middle of it lies the museum and art gallery like the world was built around it. The Irani and Persian Restaurants still smell of old wood and mosaic before mutton. The summer had the street corners with sugarcane juice and aamras with a vada pav (a Marathi breakfast?). There’s an old cinema theatre every street playing a Govinda or Dev Anand movie and I don’t think anybody told them Youtube is real. Everything happens by the roadside. If there’s a small space between 2 shops that needs a compound being built, there’s a little shop there too.
And then among the same roads, there exists the Gateway and the Taj opposite to it which is truly remarkable. Something with cities along the coast with a seafacing landmark. My first days had me going through the sea link by sunset with O Saya from Slumdog Millionaire playing in my head. It felt like home to the music that was made. Actually, to many such art pieces, Mumbai is their birthplace. It is like us going to the hospital we are born, or to go back to the school in which we studied. It hits different and I don’t think I could describe it well enough. The pubs were wilding, there’s alcohol available with water in every restaurant. The women dress party to walk on the roads or it might me just my eyes. (Good eyes) Pav Bhaji was available for 30 bucks and also for 200 bucks (Sardar Pav Bhaji, Tardeo. Oh my my the butter.) and both tasted the same! What I’m trying to say is that, it is a place for everybody in all moods. Rich people on a budget, Middle class people who wanna sprawl, People who wanna buy original limited edition apparel that you won’t get anywhere in the country, people who wanna buy their fakes which can’t even be identified as fake, just one street away. People who want to find niches of history in pockets around Byculla and Girgaon. People who live for the future who just want to go souther and souther into the city. People who wanna pray (Haji Ali, irrespective of religion. My greatest evening of Mumbai came here). People who don’t ever wanna pray for the rest of their lives. People who wanna run around alone, People who wanna hook up, People who wanna find somebody who wants to run away from the city as much as them. You name it, the city has something to represent them. It is a woke man’s dream and a nightmare at the same time.
Allah got your back
For in, going back to where I started. Mumbai runs. Like a marathon. But it is what its people make of it. The city is built from the ruins of great men and women who kept it running so that the rest of the nation can slow down a little. And it rests upon the Mumbaikar to keep up the culture. It is one of the only places in the country to be broad enough to accomodate not just the people but their lives also. It is 2 different things. And Mumbadevi is a god with a big heart. She doesn’t say no. No is a very real word. Doesn’t suit the city of dreams no?
This is how Mumbadevi lives in Mumbai now. As a cat. As billion cats it a city with a million people
Hello Hi! Good 2021 to all my lovely, beautiful amazing humans reading this and having a ball of their life.
No da. This is actually the first article in this entire blog I’m not writing for myself. No therapeutic word vomiting done here. There’s a lot of BlOggiNg iS mY PaSSiOn emotion lying here so I am actually choosing words and all to write this(Chi yuck). So let me start again.
Hello Hi! Good 2021 to everybody who is reading this!!! (With nice 3 exclamation marks to stress on the 2021 factor because it has been sometime since my life fell inside the constructs of time, space and anything that commits myself to the ground. I’m somewhere in the clouds listening to Auckland Symphony’s Pirates of The Caribbean as I’m writing this and this feels like my place. You keep your ground to yourself. Beach mattum koduthurunga.)
What changed after that fuckall year for me to be here? This, is a long story. I’ll keep it for later. So after meeting here last November, I went into a proper spiral which I have no idea downwards or upwards until December Syndrome kicked in. For those who do not know what is December Syndrome, this :-
One of my usual personally created glossaries reflecting my own life. Nothing new. Anyways, my last 15 days of the last to last December was spent in Bhutan among beautiful beautiful people and I kiiinda wanted to keep the streak going. And in one way, try to go a step higher. Last year, when I caught a flight to Kolkata to kick start the trip, it was the first time I’ve travelled anywhere alone in my entire life. And there was this rush inside of me because I’m by myself and there is an open possibility of anything happening. So I thought, what if I had that feeling for days?
Hence, this. Mountains and Beaches 2020. 6 days in Kerala getting yourself dirty in mountains and washing away in the beaches.
Why Solo Travel? Here’s why.
There is a feeling intimacy that comes with Travelling. A glimpse of a life where you are completely independent and responsible for all your decisions, good or bad. For a guy who grew up in the same city all his life, the addiction that comes with this is unreal. It’s a break from the world you are living in, to a whole new world, with whole new people and you get to control how much your world gets to know about you and in turn, there is going to be a lot of things that you are going to be discovering about yourself. And more than anything else, especially after that sort of a terrible year in life in which I felt I lost direction as to where I’m taking this life to (yes. It needed a pandemic for me to fuck up myself), a solo travel gives you the confidence that is going to put you back into the driver’s seat. And you don’t step down until you want to. Sounds very metaphorical like I’m trying to be poetic but this is the closest I can put the feeling in words.
The truth is, I was talking to a friend about how I miss train journeys and all the stranger conversations, packed dinners and Platform Tinkles that comes with it. Went to Make My Trip. Checked if trains to Kozhikode starte functioning. Booked. And then only thought veetla sollanum la nu. I’m impulsive like that. Do not try these extreme stunts at home. Only for the thillalangadis with a cause.
So, in my voyage into the lands of kattanchaya, beef roast and arguably the friendliest people I’ve met in life, (Oh! The people. Good God.) there is a thing or 2 that I learnt solo travels. Some things I had in mind that I tried and I’m glad it worked. Many things that miserably failed there but I didn’t die, so I realized I shouldn’t do this the next time. But mostly, these are not tips or advice (because naa avlo periya punda laam illa) but things that you would want to try out the next time you are also travelling alone and more importantly, if you relate with my style. If it’s not your type, no harm done. Padichitu thittitu poidunga.
Death wish. Ellaame death wish.
Note :- There are 743 different esteemed travel websites that say “Be Patient.” “Learn the Language”. “Smile”. “Be curious” and loads of other generic bullshit. I’ll skip those except 1 or 2 in which I want to give my little opinion on.
Note 2 :- I’ve written this based on India. International solo travel alavukku naa periya puluthi um illa. En kitta avlo kaasum illa.
• Keep the Bigger City at the last.
Most solo expeditions undertaken by we “GVM middle class guys :(” are once in a year or once in 2 years. It’s very difficult for me to be satisfied by just to one city and coming back home with a full heart unless the city is like a Mumbai or a Hyderabad or a metro with multiple flavours of life. If hill stations and other cities are in your plan, one common mistake people do is that they try to go around and finish off the “things to do” list in the city first because that is where you reach first. And then use the city as a pick up point to your ride home. Rather, try to keep the city at the last. You are never going to finish your “things to do” list of a city with half a million people in a 2-3 day trip. Instead if you pick the purpose of your trip well, and leave this to the last, whatever residual time and more importantly, the money you have can be spent in a wise way. Do not use the city as a pickup point, it deserves much more respect.
• Don’t plan until the last detail.
THIS. Please. First of all, there is nothing wrong in being a planner. Absolutely nothing. The thought of travelling alone is as it is frightening and going in unplanned is the dumbest thing you can do (Don’t laugh at me. I’m extremely overconfident.). But be aware that you really can’t plan everything. There are so many things in your trip that aren’t in your control, the weather, public holidays, crowds, your appetite, your own moods too. The problem with plans do not rise when they work out. When they don’t, it tends to take a toll on you because it isn’t what you expected. So, always, leave some space for impulsive decisions and plan just one day ahead and try to be as flexible as possible. The ‘Plan B’ is a very stressful term even to think about sometimes but make your plan B as what makes you happy at that moment. If it is leading to a place where it isn’t working, you move on. It’s like life really. As simple as it sounds.
• Measure your money.
Ok. This is like my type of people. If you are doing this once in your life, not judging at all. Go crazy. It’s worth everything. After all, we decide what we want. But me being me, I’ve been a very ‘care about my money’ person all my life because I like to challenge myself and get satisfaction from it. With this trip, it was one step higher because for the first time in my life, I’m spending the money that I earned for the last 6 months. So, the consciousness of spending too much was always there in the back of my mind. One of the most beautiful practices of life which you can inculcate from travelling alone is measuring the money you spend. SPOILER ALERT. You are never going to master it the first time. Or the second time. Or the third. It’s a very long process in which you always find something fuckall to criticize yourself.
So this trip, was a 6 day trip for which I spent almost 10.3k inclusive of my travel and living. This seems to be extremely less for the brilliant almost-pilgrimage I was gifted by the world but I could still find 2500 bucks which I could have avoided spending on. The growth here comes only when this percentage of avoidable expenditure decreases with every trip but even if it goes haywire once, there’s always a next time. There’s always something you can find to save up on or may have wasted money on. But for each of those experiences, there’ll always be something which you spent 100 bucks on but was worth 1000 bucks. I’ll write and give this to you. Pakka. Take my word for it. But, you’ll know which is which only if you start documenting your money. So, maintain excel sheets, write it down for your own sake at least to look back and laugh at it later in your life.
Personal idea :- Document the bills. Not just the prices. It’s better and more importantly, it’s the best souvenir/reminder you can get of every single place or food or people you came across.
The Bills. Every single one of them.
• Learn about yourself.
On to the best generic point there ever is. You won’t get a better place to think about what kind of person unless when you are solo travelling. We, the people of this society are city-running animals living almost 3/4th of our lives based on someone else’s drum beat. It is not wrong or surprising to see people lose in touch with their own self and get lost in the jungle. Ironically, the best way you can reconnect with that self is to get lost in a new jungle alone. Every single decision that you take will replay again on you. My trip was for 6 days and by the end of the show when I stepped back into Chennai, it felt like I was out for 20 days. That’s what solo travel does. It makes each day look like it had 63 hours. There are going to be a lot of times, in which you would be taking a decision which may end up well or fuck you up but you only know when you look back. There are going to be a lot of times, when you talk to someone and smile unknowingly because you haven’t heard this story before. There are going to be a lot of times (hopefully) in which you feel like sharing the joy that you are feeling with someone. See, the people who you think of first when you are not even in the same world as they are. They are your people. Do not let go of them.
I can go on and on but there are endless things and incidents and some “co-incidences” that make you more aware of your personality, your identity and your perspective towards the world. By the end of the story, when someone says “I took this trip and it changed my life” it is never an exaggeration, it is a painting drawn for days with each decision you make as a splash of colour and with each second as a stroke. So, go in the apprehension that it is going to bring in something new in your life. Because, it is the mind which matters. Not the place.
• Have goals.
This is again something that I love to do on a regular basis. It strikes even better on travel. Don’t travel without a purpose. If you don’t have one, create it. There is nothing that feeds the human soul more than the feeling of accomplishment. Your purpose need not to have a stressful physical activity attached with it or it is something that you need to punch above your weight for. Moreover, doing something out of the ordinary in solo travel needs more confidence than it looks like. The purpose can be as simple as seeing an Arabian Sunset or watching an Elephant or anything that makes you even slightly happy. Make sure it is guaranteed and make it the prima donna of your journey. The rest of the elements dance around it. When you accomplish it, your confidence skyrockets to a whole new level of high.
One of my goals for this trip, was to visit the place where Vasco Da Gama landed in India. It was my first foreshadow into my interest in world history when I was 8 years old.
• Your legs are your best friend.
Okay. Going to go in detail on this one. There are enough travel bloggers and vloggers in the world who signify the importance of walking in travelling solitary. It is the easiest, cheapest and undoubtedly the greatest way to get to know a place hands down because it is the simplest strategy to get your aura and place’s aura to blend in. Even otherwise, to longer distances., Public transport is always preferred because again it is cheap, and it involves walking and you get the chance to meet new people.
The beauty about walking is that even if the route is handed over to you in a platter, you’ll always end up in a new area that you would have never expected. Google Maps walking is a very accurate depiction of the routes and the ETA of your walks BUT it comes with a major problem that should be discussed. Google Maps in an attempt to show the shortest route to a destination fucks up making you take a detour from the main roads into the smaller ones. And sometimes, very very shady ones like the one below.
I learnt this the hard way only where there were 4 sets of different people staring at me wearing a Decathlon bag and a pair of sports shoes walking in that road which I think not many locals too enter. And it is not really the mistake of the app because it gives you what you ask. So remember, use google maps for your ETA, to find the nearest bus timings and other materials which you don’t have a public database right there. Otherwise, trust the locals and believe in their route. They work you through the main roads, because if they identify you as a person from a different city and they are good humans, their aim is to not make you take the shortest route but to make you identify the flavor of their city take pride in the love you give. Which is what you also go for.
• Sunset point
Every single city/town/hill station/village in the entire nation or actually even the entire world, has a sunrise point and a sunset point. In some, it is very evident as tourist destinations but in many, it remains hidden unless you see it from the minds of the inhabitants. There are many tourist places which are overrated and it is very easy to identify which is which. Always believe in these sunrise and sunset points of the city because it is almost one of the very few things that remain constant from the world you come in from and the world you have come to. Make it a habit. It gives you a sense of stability in this ever changing world to see something change and stay at the same time every single day and on the other hand, it ALWAYS is a thing of beauty. So talk to those locals and find the points. Trust me. It’ll be worth it.
• Rise early
It is a continuation of the previous point in which I talked about Sunrise spots but this is serious. There may be a lot of night people reading this but unless you are in like 1 percent of the cities of this nation, nights here are not for eventful. Meanwhile, starting your day early in travel can do you wonders. Can make you explore the place in its rawest of forms in the morning. Make you talk to fresh people waiting for someone to mokka pottufy in tea stalls. Make you feel productive like never before(how nu I’m going to write about it in detail too) and most most importantly, let you spend your energy to the fullest until you burn the midnight oil and the last steam goes off your head whenever that is in the nights. And the fact that there’s no one else with you to tell you “extra 5 minutes thoongalaam pls” makes it even better
Keep the sleeping within 6-7 hours a day and not more and definitely not less because it WILL take a toll on you the next day. You feel tired, wanting to take an afternoon nap and FML, never believe in afternoon naps. If you are doing this out of the blue, I suggest you can try waking up early for 5-7 days before going for your trip just to get a hang of it. It won’t be a habit but atleast you’ll relatively feel easy to get out of bed.
• No Powerbanks.
This can be me going against the basic rules of travelling but I said what I said. Do not use power banks. This year, I chose to solo travel because almost 90 percent of my year went in me whining about staying inside 4 walls and my only connect to the outside world was the social media (which consists of the most frustrated assholes I’ve ever seen in my life.) The last thing you want to do, is take your phone out on impulse while travelling, spend low quality time scrolling through apps and then regret it altogether because there will be 7843 beautiful things happening around you. Not taking a power bank is one way you can restrict using your phone only for the essential situations. Most of the days in my stories had me leaving early from my hostel or room or whatever it is and coming back only at night post-dinner. My One Plus 7T’s battery saver is top notch that gives 12 hrs of charge. Even with the little times, I use my phone to take pictures, videos or listen to music, I feel it’s much better to carry your charger for emergencies rather than power banks. With a power bank , you’ll be compelled to put your phone on charge and with a full charged phone, you’ll be compelled to use it to while away your time. (atleast, I will be.) With the charger concept, you can wait until the last moment until you find a place which allows you to plug in, you can also talk to the people there and make friends which is a clear bonus.
Charge got fucked on Day 2 because of taking too many pictures. So went into a Shawarma shop, got a Shawarma and charged my phone while making small talk with nice tamil therinja mallu vijay fan.
• Schedule your meals
Very very very underrated. If you are an absolute food monster like me, who spends 75 percent of his travel money eating authentic cuisines and trying out something new every single day of the trip, here’s something you need to know. YOU CAN’T TRY IT ALL. Unless you make space in different ways. It is very important to schedule your meals not just to avoid a very oncoming stomach upset some day in the middle to ruin your plans. It is also of very much importance in your daily plan because wherever the fuck you are, it is one of the only events that you are going to do daily. So create your plan with the food intake timings in mind and make it as a checkpoint through the day and also by the end of it. Even if you want to eat 5 times a day, you can without hesitation if you schedule it properly between your visits. And try to indulge in a little physical activity wherever possible (which will be covered I walking as said above) and you are sorted for a wild wild ride.
• Trust the locals.
Introverts. Extroverts. People who are travelling by force. People who are travelling by choice. People who are sad. People who are mad. This is where every single person in the world comes together. When you plan to go to a place, and you do a little research about it which brings you a lot of information, it tends to get on your head that you know a lot about the locale. NO. YOU DON’T.
Random Kerala uncles in Kozhikode Beach on a Monday morning
First, you need to accept the fact that there are people who have spent all life there and they obviously know more about the place than you or your google does. And the only way you can get these gems out is by talking to them directly. Do what the regular tourists don’t. You are a traveller, not a tourist. I’m absolutely anti-small talk but in solo travel, it is your best weapon of choice. If making small talk to random people isn’t really your forte, I suggest you still try it out once or twice because it isn’t that difficult when the person you are talking to is as accepting as you are. And this is one of those countries which have beautiful people who respect guests as gods (and really really mean it.) The people you are going to meet while travelling are a part of your story and against popular opinion, of the fact that humanity is waning down, the intentions of these random people who you are going to meet are very pure. They just want to help you write your story and deserve your gratitude in return. Give it to them. Form 15 minute friendships. Of course, there is a bad nut somewhere but it is only upon your instincts to figure out who is a bad nut and who is not. You are after all in solo travel.
• Believe in your playlists.
I couldn’t have put it in better words and it is pretty much self-explanatory. Solo travelling might get lonely at times because let’s face it, this is what you signed up for. You will see through a time when you don’t want to talk to people or go into an overthinking spiral about your own life and I’m here to say it is completely normal to feel that way. The best ways to while away that time and not regret the same is to either read a book (which for me is something that I can’t do everywhere unless the surroundings call me for a reading) or listen to music. Every place has a vibe. There are very few places that you may end up visiting without a vibe to rest on. And where there’s a vibe, there’s always good music to accompany it. You just need to find the right music and pair it with how you emote. Wonders happen where there’s faith. Your belief rests on very few things other than self while travelling and there’s always an underlying chance of self-belief turn into overconfidence and get into your head. Music helps by sharing your beliefs in and being your best friend at these crunch times. It is also a diversion. It is also poetry. It is also many many things but the end point is that while travelling, it does make a difference.
• Document.
Last but definitely not the least of any sorts, probably one of the most important ones on the list. However good or bad it was at that point of time, the days spent touring are your life highlights. Especially when you are solo, you won’t have anyone to remind you each and every moment that you experienced there. Your friends don’t talk about it after a point because they weren’t there. Your parents have much better things to do. So, it is very important for you to create proper documentation through whichever method you want – photography, videos, blogging, journaling and what not, to pin mark this voyage for the rest of your life and make it stand out. This is not just another snapchat memory that you get reminded of once a year. It is much more. There are going to be times in life that you hit a relative low, there are going to be times when you think you hit rock-bottom, or worse, monotony. You may not be in a position for a trip at these moments, but this documentation is going to help you get back the confidence that you need in yourself then. Makes you feel something on the lines of “Hey. I did crazy stupid things alone for a week. Of course I can do this shit.” and it isn’t an illusion. It is very real. I have an “Anything that makes you happy isn’t an illusion.” rule. The confidence you get by the end is right on top of it.
There rises another side of this debate where you need to live in the moment and not let anything else affect you. It is totally valid. Not disagreeing at all. What I usually do to tackle this is to have a 3 video or a 10 picture rule to record it and keep it in once for all. It depends upon the time you have in the entire place and the time worth of recording it. Differs with every spot I guess.
This is not all of it. This is not even the complete list of things I learnt from this trip. Probably, this is all I could recollect in the last one hour and put in words. I’ll be travelling more and trying to write more about it in the future and if there’s something basic that I missed, I’ll add it here. But if you see, every point above had some small element which you can use not just for travelling but for life itself. That is the easiest way to show you the greatest pro about travelling alone. It is a minimalist version of life in itself with a start, a middle somewhere and an end. The beginnings are rusty. The ends either bring you relief and content or make you bawl like a baby. All through this, there are amazing people around, breathtakingly gorgeous sights (if you are in Kerala, you know what I mean) and very very tasty food everywhere we go. But it is our choice whether we choose to enjoy living it or whine away complaining. Make the right choice. Go for the leap. You won’t regret it. Your own life is the greatest expedition you are on. Bon Voyage.
Before I start, this episode is a little different because I don’t want to talk that much about the situation of the song in the movie and all. I agree that it comes for one of the most fuckall reasons in the movie and it is probably a good thing that almost 90 percent of Loosu Penne listeners haven’t watched Vallavan. Just for comfort writing purposes and I want to reason out listening to Loosu Penne 75241 times in the last week to my conscience. Keeps asking questions.
I love STR. Can also call myself as a proper Simbu kanni. Even when he was all bloated up and playing FIFA in one cringe max Abishek Raaja interview, I watched that fucktard’s face for 40 min just to listen to STR speak about himself. Man is this epitome of confidence, self-belief, a little too much to handle most of the times *giggles at mirror* but who isn’t?
As much as I fanboy DnA anywhere and everywhere, all parts of me accept that no one in my generation has even come close to creating this niche that STR and Yuvan created in the 2000s. Right from Sight Adippom Dum Adippom kaalam which is still my go to college song after all these years. And it was only upwards from there. After creating the single most baller movie in Tamil Cinema till date, how STR went absolute simp in Vallavan is my transformation of the decade awardee. Yuvan ofcourse supported it in both ways but it was very astonishing to see that all it took was 2 films in a social media free world to expect something special when both of them come together every time since then.
Loosu Penne was easily everyone’s pick of the album even though Yammadi Aathadi came a very close second. And that was plainly because of its appeal to the younger people. To be frank no one had ever heard anything like it before, but they wanted more. The trend where the younger generation create what they want to listen begun some point around this time, and then with the internet’s grace, the world termed it a “soup song” after Kolaveri (which came 5 years later.) Every single person in the world credits Dhanush and Anirudh for showing light on the trend but in my opinion, my thalaivans became pioneers of the trend even before it was created. The first soup song of Tamil Music.
Now what is this soup song? How is it different from any other breakup song? Okay so this is completely personal. Tamil Cinema’s love failure songs followed a template ever since Kingdom Come. The majority part of this template was the how the hero is emoting to it and the importance given to its poetry. Because the crux of the idea is very predictable and almost never changes – guy who has failed in love. And it’s always the guy. Always. (Wonder why girls never sang failure songs until I revisited Oh Nanbane from Mankatha after ages. Gotta say. Legendary levels of guilty pleasure felt.)
When you listen to a Kanne Kalaimaane or a Poongatrile, you can feel the tragedy in Kamal’s or Shahrukh’s or Manisha Koirala’s life. Everyone can with someone like Swarnalatha or Yesudas singing it. But the chances of a 19 year old “relating” with it first hand when his first and which he thinks, his only love fails is very very less. The poetry deals with people falling off cliffs, burning themselves and the soul screaming out of your heart in pain and most importantly, the divinity it brings with it made them as classics in their own way. Did its fair share of romanticizing break ups as disastrous tragedies of one’s lives and for a sad guy’s heart, it is a godsend. They keep the song simple for a reason. Such sad songs are very rarely overcomplicated, Atleast tried to keep it simple, but Rahman’s songs had his own way of grandeur (one reason why I feel Rahman can never do justice to my definition of a soup song)
The other side of the conversation has this pump up gaana anthems which Deva is celebrated for. Fucking he doesn’t care about what in the world you are feeling, he wants to make you dance with all of the song’s glory. And it magically gets alright. (It does!!!) Anjala, Local Boys, Venaam Macha all works in that template and it’s honest work really. Chicken soup for the soul but the soul needs to be forcefed it.
Yuvan walked on a different line with Loosu Penne. There was this beat with the bassline which started the song and even today, by far one of the cleanest beats I’ve ever listened to in Tamil Music and it continues all its way until the end of the song making it much simpler than its predecessors. It’s electronic which was relatively new in 2006 and most importantly, none of the celebration of poetry is involved her. Infact Simbu even takes a dig on himself and says “Vaali pola paateazhudha enakku theriyalaye” and I think that’s why it worked so well. More than the meter, the rhyme scheme or anything else, STR and Yuvan’s goal was to speak to the heart of that young adult who is in this shell that nothing good is going to happen in his life and first of all accept him curling up in his shell. Rather than taking the Aalwarpettai Aaluda route modhallaye, it’s better this way. The Loosu Penne phase. It’s like a first aid kit as a YouTube comment said. Of course it isn’t the permanent solution but you know, comfort. (It becoming the mood for life is a different story. That would make a sad life.)
The song was an absolute rage when it came out. Still remember Blaaze’s English portion playing through every single FM station in the city. And NO ONE. No one can NOT sing along and head bob to it. Pallan Simbu comes in the sad parts and this Simbu cosplay looking like low budget Snoop Dogg comes in for the hiphop portion and he did the most stereotypical impression of a hiphop artist from the west! (Why were white ladies dancing around him? We’ll never know) And weirdly, somehow, in god’s mysterious ways, made us actually believe it. And I still stand by it after all this time as this is how “hiphop” looks like. Simbu moving his forearm alone is the USP and just like the headbobbing, we can’t NOT do it. Not everyone still realize that Nayanthara was in the song doing Kadhal Sadugudu-ish things but it was of the least of our concerns, because everyone who listened to the song was thinking about a different Nayanthara.
I’ve come across all the roads that Simbu walked in the song and everytime I even come opposite Citi Centre or a fairly less crowded Gemini or the road adjacent to Santhome Church, it is full on Loosu Penne 2nd stanza mode. Thinking about this more, the idea of a soup song is created to singly cater your loneliness, just as a background music to let your heart run wild. Something like Venmathi or even Yuvan’s very own Pogaathey Pogaathey has a concept of reminiscence about the “good and bad memories” of the past as we call it and end up concentrating on either the fact that these memories are either a façade followed by a lot of girl bashing or how you miss these times and you never wanted it to end thus becoming a mega simp. Soup songs are about the present and most importantly, about YOU more than anyone else. However different your story is, these are ballads created for the psyche just to take a minute and give attention to your own thoughts. Not bittersweet memories. Not how you fucked up or you think she fucked up. Just the present. And straight opposite, on a good day, the song is all laughing at these terrible times. So you either cry or laugh at it. There’s no in between.
The song goes on for 7 minutes. Never fucking ends. For a song with exactly 17 lines of tamil lyric, a 7 minute song with a video that covers the entire song is a minimal experiment of sorts. When you think the song is gonna end with the first stanza’s repeat, the beat continues. When you think, the song is gonna end with the beat, this verithanamana English lyric starts. Finally, when you think the song is gonna end with the rap, the chorus starts again. Finally even when the chorus ends, the beat goes on for a solid 15 seconds. Poo listened to the song for the first time day before yesterday and posed “why does the song never end?” and I asked myself the same. I can assure that all this never ending bullshit is purely from an analytical perspective of my happy mood today. When I’m in that mood to search for Loosu Penne in my music app and put on the earphones around my neck, 7 minutes is nothing. Still the only song of the 1000 odd songs in my playlist which I prefer listening in loop because honestly, that’s how its done.
You May Not Know Know Right Now. The Pain I Feel It Is So Real And No Matter Where The Future Lies I See Right Now Only You And I. Only You And I. Only You And I. Yeah.
There was this person a long time back. 2019 does feel like a long time back. Off late, all I could do is celebrate one year anniversaries of good times when I was reckoning something off life and saw it hand it to me in a golden platter. And that sums up the late parts of 2019. Now to think about it, the early ones was even better. It had this person who had no fucking idea on what he’s going to do tomorrow. Fuck forecasts, it was all instinctive impulsive shit that made him run the day and I can’t even remember him now. Exactly 23 months back, on 1st January 2019, after one of the worst days of my life lead on to the best holidays of my life (until then) which I spent roaming around the city, capturing people, places, art, sunsets, temples, concerts, a fucking fever (which I realized was not a fever. It is my body’s peak anxiety reaction) I took on oath on new year’s making myself capture a selfie of myself everyday on the happiest moment of the day on Snapchat, date it, caption it and save it for eternity. For no joy. It was just a minimalistic approach to take one day at a time. It went on amazingly fucking well for exactly 4 months. That was 119 consecutive days of happy. Lot happened after 4 but I was happy this worked out for me. Still consider it as one of my greatest achievements in life. Seeing Snapchat bring up all those memories early this year didn’t exactly “blow my mind off” because weirdly, I thought I was even more happier now. But this time, this came with silent expectations creeping into the walls that I noticed but never actually did something to weed it out.
So in those fine months almost 2 years back now, the boys and I planned a trip to Hyderabad for a quizfest in a law school. We told the college it was a medical quiz and bunked classes with attendance god knows how the fuck. Roamed around Hyderabad for a day or 2. Faced the first drunk night of my life and realized it’s much more difficult to be the sober person in the group and still believe so. But arguably the greatest thing the trip gave us, apart from this sense of brotherhood and a shitload of memories is this. There was this little place called Taiba café, around the corner of Shanti Nagar in Hyderabad where we got ourselves a room and me being the early bird that I am, left the room on 6.30 am in the morning on my first day there and walked around to discover what was in the neighborhood. There was this huge boiling milkpot in Taiba, the biggest I’ve ever seen and the place was buzzing with tokens and unwashed glasses and sounds of coins with no one noticing the cow family opposite to the shop. The tea had a peculiar fragrance and I got up a token to get one for myself, because I remember Poo’s dad saying the tea is exquisite. The Madras filter coffee guy that I typically am have always blindsided me towards tea but never towards exploring stuff on travel. And BAM. The taste of Irani Chai came into my life for the first time.
The first taste I felt it was that the milk was much more thicker. It wasn’t some 3 roses ad adhimadhuram ashwagantha bullshit that came along. It was pure tea. I woke up the boys. Had another one. 3 more people joined us later. Had one more with them. Taiba soon became our most sought after eat out in Hyderabad because of one single tea and a couple of Osmania biscuits and apart from something new to taste, it gave us half hour everyday of giggling, people looking at us weirdly when we curse each other in tamil, trying to converse with that anna with a buffet of telugu and hindi and fuck, I can’t imagine what he would have thought. We ended up going to Taiba every morning for the rest of the 3 days and will be the first thing I do when I go to Hyderabad again.
Just when I was in this hangover of this trip, my friend Priyan came running with the fact that there’s Irani Chai available 5 min from college. And he told its pretty much the same. I didn’t believe this shithousery for a single second but later that evening we went out to explore. Below the Paradise Biriyani, Porur Branch was this cute cubicle of sorts with tea being made inside the doors with this banner of the menu inside. The tea was 11 bucks. The Osmania biscuits were 2 bucks each. There was veg and mutton samosas and arguably the best we’ve tasted at 12 rupees and I loved it because apart from the fact that it is on the way home itself, it was in my daily budget quota(one cheap motherfucker I am). We were 5 people in total the first time we went there and there were nobody else. Not from college not from anywhere. The first time I (re)tasted the tea, I knew this is our spot. It just ticked all off the perfect boxes.
Days rolled by and 5 became 7 and later became 11 people. College ends at 4 and we roll around in a convoy (later became around 16-17 people in 3-4 cars) to a tea shop which looked like it was exclusively catering us and us alone. Every single day ended with Priyan or Giri or some guy or the other shouting “Chai?!?” and literally, LITERALLY, no one ever said NO. We spend almost an hour there, talking about topics from college politics, pairing guys like kids, finding out romances, gossips about our own selves in front of our own selves, photo sessions and what not. Ayeswar always orders 2 teas and gets one for his driver. Priyan always checks which cup has more tea and takes the bigger one. Varun doesn’t drink tea but still comes there for his samosas, best there ever is. Some guy always never has change, and some guy always never has money and so another guy covers him and the hell knows how the Paradise kaaran has change everytime. Poo tells her driver to come all the way there to pick her up and so the hostel people had a ride back to college.
Almost Every. Single. Day.
We didn’t know how much is there to talk about. We didn’t know if there was any set limit on spending time. If someone finished the tea midway through the conversation we order another one. And almost no one stopped with one tea. Usually, the vibe carries on to a fire where all of us end up in Marina drinking Filter Coffee from Chennai Coffee just after we had tea. Enjoy the beach, contemplate life, get back home at 8 and I tell my parents college la velai irunthuthu. Who the fuck does that for almost a day spent in nothing? Nobody knows. When the college was celebrating birthdays behind the ground or in the car park, this became our birthday spot, exclusivity privilege. Of all the times we went there, not once we never tried to leave out anyone wantedly. There was always space in some car if not, we create space. The only qualification to have tea and samosa with us is to just know us and know how to listen to a conversation. And that’s it. And that’s how life worked. You don’t need to know how to build up a conversation because most of the times, I consider that was what I was there for. But it wasn’t a duty, it flowed. Like everything else in life last year.
We know the Paradise guy hates us. Someone always spills the tea in the middle of the kadai(most of the times literally, and sometimes metaphorically too) and he is the one who should clean it up. On the occasional day, where there are IT professionals coming around, or a family trying out tea for the first time, or that old grumpy uncle you see everywhere, we lose our shit unknowing about the surroundings until they send us out of the cubicle to make us drink our tea in the car park. We giggle our way out and continue like nothing happened. A couple of annas also changed but pretty sure everyone hates us because that’s the brainchild of the ruckus we create.
Every. Single. Time.
I don’t know if I’m overstressing this fact because right now to think about it, we had almost the same routine for an entire year but never got tired of it. The last time all of us met together was in January 2020 before exams and said goodbyes to ourselves because we won’t be meeting each other until March. It is November and we still haven’t met each other. I never thought in my wildest dreams that that would be the last day of having tea at Paradise. Paradise. The name sort of hung up on me. It is my second favourite Coldplay song (sometimes first depending upon my mood) And it was nothing less than what it meant. 9 months since we all saw each other together and with the shop closed up, I’m now wondering was the shop that good to solely provide business for an entire year? Was the shop that good to throw off whatever I had planned to do that day on the gates and spend time happily without considering what in the hell’s mood we all were? I’ll never bet on any of us that all 11 or 16 of us were happy every day. It is almost statistically impossible for 11 single late teens studying in medical college fighting everyday against their own or problems in their own life to be happy almost every single evening of the year. Then what magic did the place hold? That’s the point of magic. It’s magic and we’ll never know.
Lock down is almost over and college is almost open. I miss my 2019 self who found Paradise and yesterday when I saw the boards being locked away inside the same square room that I was once happy in, all I could do was to get reminded of the first times when we came together. To introspect more about it, would it have hit us differently if we knew it was going to close down and had one last day there? Was it wrong to create expectations that life will get back to normal after March or April or June?
Is 2020 really a bad year or was it the expectations of what 2020 could have been to us that made it terrible?
I can’t find the answer to this question. I’ve been asking myself the same for the past 3 days. Every time I teach myself that Expectation someday can put up a bullet through my body, my slightly (very) optimistic self-forces me to silently forget it and see if I can take bullets. It’s unhealthy, toxic, fuckall but I never realize it or understand it for some god forsaken reason. A friend says “The higher It goes, the harder it drops” which I completely agree with but me being the dumbfuck I am, I never think about the drop when I’m in the high. And I’m really not proud of it when I’m in the drop. The idea works only when I can box myself out of creating expectations and I WANT to do it on one side, but think it is inhuman to not create expectations about something. My early 2019 self nailed the fuck out of the artform. Even if it was for a short span of time. And all I want to do, is to go back in time and learn from him here. May be that’s what I’m trying to do by writing this. Relearn to be the happier person. And I can’t help by going hard on myself and this year because I’d love a fresh start to start applying it again. And I hope I get it once college starts in 5 days. Atleast marginally a fresh start.
The place where Paradise was is right now locked off and they are looking for any other rentals, they really do know how to get a fresh start. And apart from all the nostalgia the place holds good for, I hope there comes another place that sells stuff under 15 bucks so that we spend the rest of the little college life we have remaining talking in. I only hope. No expectations. Expectations are injurious to health. Expectation kills.
Adios Paradise. Will meet you soon. And hopefully with the same convoy. In the same style.
I never thought I’ll write about all this in the same article itself but I’ve been doing therapeutic word vomiting all year so figured why not.
So yeah. This blog suddenly comes to use whenever a sad event occurs in my world and looks like I‘ve got the year right. That is what it is. This year is nothing but a series of terrible events one after the other and me ranting about it endlessly so here’s one such non rechecked limited vocabulary rant of another human being we lost to the curse of 2020, but this time with a mission to remember.
Just like every alternate tamizh music listener in my generation, SPB was the first singer I ever knew growing up. He was an icon to my parents. Much before I learnt music or understood, why exactly he is the single most versatile performing singer I will ever see, the name already struck a chord with me. In my journey into music for the love of cinema or the love of art rather, SPB will always be the person who has travelled with me the longest right from that Namma Shivaya CD that my father still theya theya plays in the puja room like it is a ritual along with what we do for god. We’ve got so used to it. And the news rattled all of us. I, personally never did want to go down spiral. Never at all. I took off from newsfeeds of Instagram and Twitter, dodged tribute posts, switched off TVs when they chose to finally do their job right by playing the exact right songs that should be played. A friend of mine says “Denial is absolutely not the right way to deal with things. But it is certainly the easiest way” and that’s the path I’m taking on for now. Denial to a point where I am showing all the anger on the world on a poor CSK team which lost yesterday. I’ll get to accept it in my own time and I hope I go there as soon as possible without much damage but for my parents’ side, I really couldn’t do anything about it. I saw my dad tearing up for the first time since thatha’s funeral seeing the last rites being performed yesterday. Now, this is a man he grew up with. I’m a guy who merely idolized SPB like a million others, but my father is from a generation that walked through life with him. What is he feeling? No idea. Is this how I’m going to feel when someone who I walked through my life takes off into the clouds? It is inevitable but this is the last thing in the world that I want to experience.
I really didn’t know what to write about after seeing all this yesterday but I knew this is my only way out of this misery. Blabbing my way into my computer screen and it has weirdly worked out well in the past. I am a nobody to talk about his greatness and I am nowhere near close to qualified to do it. But I want to in my own way. The impact SPB songs has had in my life (more in the last 3 years or so) is absolutely immeasurable. Words can’t prove justice to it and the only possible way to do it was actually rekindle my memory of the times the big man’s voice made my life better. I can’t count how many times this happened throughout the journey but I remember the best of those, god bless my memory. From music, to lyrics, to what my world was at that point of time, SPB is the closest to what I feel when I sit across the Marina – This entity which I always know that I could fall upon with all my happiness and sorrow and not get judged for it. And finally, intentionally or unintentionally he gave me what I was searching for – whether it was closure, or revelations or devotion etc. etc. So here it goes (with dates for me to come back to this same blog, read it, and laugh-cry with myself.)
Note :- These are certainly not his best songs. It’s just that these are my songs. Thottaa konnuduven.
Pennalla Pennalla Oothappoo – December 2017
A very fuckall start in this list you may think, is with arguably my favourite light hearted song SPB has ever sung. You know how everyone has this dream love one side love song no? This is mine. Half of the world doesn’t know this song exists. The rest doesn’t know that this is AR Rahman music. Even if you are a person who says “dei enna olarra”, I like to believe in the above statement. One side I want to stand at the top of the lighthouse and shout that this is the most beautiful piece of poetry I’ve ever heard and on the other side I want to lock this in the deepest parts of my hearts and keep it to myself. I’m this sucker for the beautiful tamizh in music and flute interludes and that little involuntary smile that I got when I heard it for the first time is priceless. Way back in 2017(feels like a lifetime ago), I decided that if I ever want to sing one song with my kandraavi aana katta voice to a special someone, it would be this, atleast showing 1 percent of the love that SPB showed with just his voice.
Oruvan Oruvan Muthalaali – All life
This is that mandatory thalaivar reference that I have on every blogpost because no part of my life is complete without a thalaivar reference. And I can’t find a more fitting reference here. I was one of those dumb kids who was thinking thalaivar was so cool, he sang his own opening songs(I think from Sivaji The Boss only I realized thalaivar can’t hold his breath this long). And with no other actor I felt this way because it looked so artificial with others. Rajinikanth and SPB is a match made in heaven and I’m willing to fight for this statement at any stage in the world. So much that I still think Baba flopped only because SPB didn’t do opening song. And out of all the Naa Autokaaran, Ballelaikka, En peru padayappa, Vanthenda Paalkaaran, Devuda Devuda and so many other songs which gave all the energy when I needed the most, Oruvan Oruvan Muthalaali for me is the godfather of all peak thalaivar intro songs. I can’t imagine a stretch of my life whether it was the worst or the best that Oruvan Oruvan Muthalaali wasn’t a part of and I don’t know who I should owe this to. SPB? Rahman? Thalaivar? Vairamuthu? I’ll never know.
I’m taking every single line to my grave. Thank you
Kaatukuyilu – August 2019
The film Thalapathi holds a special status in my life. I still believe that it is one of those rare perfect films which never got anything wrong with respect to anything and by far, thalaivar’s greatest ever. For all the “natpu nu enna nu theriyuma” and “thodra paapom” moments that Mani saar literally sculpted in the film to celebrate the friendship between Deva and Suriya, for me the real celebration of friendship was in Kaatukuyilu from Ilayaraja, SPB and Yesudas. I’ve been the guy who wanted the most friends all along life. But then only very lately, I realized that this isn’t as easy as I think and 3 good friends actually matter more than 30 odd ones. But then in time’s lovely turn of events, the “friendship” blessing is one of the things that I’ll be forever grateful for in the last 2 years. And this particular moment was in a Mottamaadi Music show in Sathyam Theatre Main Screen with 10 of my bestest friends (dress coded. As fuckall as possible) along with 1000 others singing the second stanza of Kaatukuyilu at the top of our voices. That was it. By time the song ended, I knew that every single moment of making friends with these people has led to this exact moment singing Kaatukuyilu with them.
I want to talk about this in detail because this is really really distinctive. I love music. Anyone who knows me even a little know that I live through tamil music. And this really really started in 2018 with me alone, not knowing what to concentrate my energy on. And here I am, 2 years later, with people I can recommend songs to and they actually listen (very difficult to find. Mark my words. I’ve been there), with a job for which I can write and talk music that I love and also get paid for. For the artform that changed my entire life, I don’t think anyone in the world has honored it enough as much as SPB and Ilayaraja did together. Check this out. Even other than Madai Thiranthu, these are the songs SPB has sung about music – with due respect to the situation in the film or as a celebration and most of times a very beautiful metaphorical reference to himself.
And the list goes on. This is something that makes SPB stand at a really special pedestal in my life. A place no one else can reach because, in my short life, he was the first person to give it back to the art in the form of art. Like a painter painting a painting of him painting and actually going on to prove justice to it.
“Indha thegam maraindhaalum isaiyaai malarven”
Mandram Vantha – June 2019
Oh the last 2 songs in this list is the most fun and attacked me the most. So, we at home worship the Mouna Ragam album. In various different ways. Even though, I’ve never been possessive over a Mouna Ragam song for some reason, appa has always been a Nilaave Va person (appa has some love story with it but just like every Indian dad, guy is not telling me). It was mid-2019, on an evening dedicated to SPB (Thanks Badri Seshadri if you are reading this) when I figured out that Mouna Ragam has something in my life too. It was a time filled with questions. Too many of them. And I couldn’t my answers to anyone because it involved another person. A time where things were happening all around me but I never know what is good or bad. There it came like a flight crash from above, with “Boopaalamae koodadhennum vaanam undo sol..” with 100 other people. I can call it a revelation or a miracle. But I chose to call it a way of life. A life in which if you believe that you are sincere about a question, you always find the answer. In some way or the other. And however idiotic, the answer may sound at that time, everything happens for a reason. And here, the reason is SPB.
Minnale Nee Vanthathenadi – Febraury 2018
I never thought in my life that I’ll come around talking about this time but yes, I’ve finally pulled up a little courage. SPB made me realize that I’m in love for the first time in my life. And how? By getting my heartbroken. It’s the greatest story that you’ll ever hear. The greatest dramatic coincidences ever to happen in a human being’s life and this exactly was the day of all things I decided that I wouldn’t wish a heartbreak on my worst enemy. I can never separate this song from the event and vice versa and at that point, I didn’t know whether to be happy or sad that SPB and Rahman were by my side when this happened (happy now. The happiest. I couldn’t have asked for better people and a better song.) It is something that haunted me ever since then, just like how the strings start. And as the song says, everything happened in a flash. The lyrics and SPB’s voice with it burnt a hole in my heart that I thought will never heal. But time had other ideas. This February, exactly after 2 years since its happened, I finally decided that this is my greatest SPB song ever and I don’t think I’ll have a reconsideration over it. And someday I wish I have a little more courage to talk about the entire song in detail line by line.
idhe music player dhaan ellathukum kaaranam
“Kanneeril thee valarthu kaathirukiren Un kaaladi thadathil naan poothirukiren”
I can’t even imagine how many I’ve missed. Off the top of my head, there was this time when I tried to hold my breath and sing like him in Mannil Intha Kaadhal and my voice only went lower and lower with each line and all I could pull off is the heavy breathing. His role in Kadhalan as Prabhudeva’s dad is one of my most favourite dad characters in tamil cinema. En Kadhale, SPB and Kadri Gopalnath’s saxophone has another story like Minnale Nee Vanthethanadi in my life but I’ll keep that one for another episode.
lot to do with this video
Apart from all this, he holds the record for singing the most songs by anyone in the world. 40,000 songs. You are wondering how much this is? Let me break it down for you.
If we average each song as 5 minutes.
40,000 x 5 = 2,00,000 minutes.
2,00,000/60 = 3333 hours.
3333/24 = 138.8 days
That is if you play the first song that SPB ever sung now and play everything on loop all day in the order of release, it takes around 4 and half months to reach Chumma Kizhi. Let that sink in.
For such a human, media might focus on his death for 2 days. Social Media hype might be there for the next 1 week. But for every person who truly loves him, he lives all along in little things like that Ha in Kaadhalin Deepam Ondru or every time he cute ah laughs in Suthi suthi vantheeha. If you see the list of events above in my life, it follows a pattern. He stayed with me through friendship, through celebration, through questions, through love, through heartbreak, through almost every emotion that a person goes through in his adult life. Like that, he lives through us with every single memory in our life that can be associated with an SPB song. No performing artist ever dies as long as the art they lived for breathes. And as long as YouTube exists, my earphone company doesn’t shut down, my OC speaker still keeps playing music, SPB lives on. And his name stands as the man whose voice went on to shape an entire generation.
The world’s love for Vaaranam Aayiram as a movie has been dissected so much on the internet, it became acidic after a point. We get that it is the best Gautam Vasudev Menon movie of all time. We get that it was one of Suriya’s most inspiring performances. We understand that it gave you unrealistic train romance expectations. All this apart, for the people who truly love Vaaranam Aayiram a little more than the rest of the world, it isn’t like any other film. We are possessive about the movie like no one else and it feels like a sin to dissect it because of the emotion it holds. But credit where it is due, the beauty of the movie also lies in the fact that it has given us always something new to talk about even after all these years of showing love and Kalaignar TV telecasts. A little part of me doesn’t want to do this writing but I don’t think I’ll get a better stage in this world to celebrate something little that the world doesn’t give enough attention to.
The brilliance of the Vaaranam Aayiram starts with the setting it created in such a short span of time into the movie. A setting where the story can be of so many different perspectives and everything would still hold the film together separately in its own uniqueness. On paper, it is straightforward that it is a stirring journey of a man and how his father changed his life. From the view of Krishnan, it is about how an idealistic dad helps his son handle the curve balls life throws at him. Even Simran’s perspective is about how she saw her son close himself into a cocoon and open into a butterfly by the end. When we talk about all this, we forget that, there is another integral part of the butterfly’s life by the end of the story – Priya and second chances in life.
The album of the film is raved to be Harris Jayaraj’s greatest work till date and honestly, even though some part of me would argue about it, another part of me doesn’t want to. Good albums stay with us through the years but only the best of the best albums form a cult just for its music. “Hi Malini, I’m Krishnan” part of Mundhinam Parthene is still a proposal scene for the ages. Nenjukkul Peidhidum went on to be a synonym for songs to sing with a guitar in hand. Anjala has so much sad boy energy, it makes you emerge out of wallowing in self pity and break cupboards and computer desktops (based on a true story). With all these bangers forming its own fan following with spoofs and tiktok videos over the years, silently at the back, there was a marriage between the chromatic voice of Sudha Raghunathan and the lyrical genius of Thamarai with a heartmelting violin interlude to give Annul Maelae Panithuli as a minimalist representation of the story of Vaaranam Aayiram from the eyes of Priya.
Seeing this story from Suriya’s narration, she was brought into his life at a much later stage, a stage where he was disturbed, aimless and was taking up wrong turns in life thinking he lost his only shot in love. He wasn’t expecting a second chance in life because he was still in denial of Meghna’s untimely exit. Priya on the other hand, even though she looked at him the same way since her adolescence (very evidently, for that matter) was a mature woman who finally gave Suriya what he was missing for the entirety of his rehabilitation – the trust that someone can still travel with him for the rest of his life. Suriya’s conflicted self always had the worst case scenario at the back of his mind like any human would do but Priya waited until he could accept the reality. And I feel that’s what made it special. “Annul Maelae Panithuli, Alaipaayum Oru Kili” literally follows the journey of Priya from a peripheral part of Suriya’s life into his aide to hold hands with. And the feeling is portrayed beautifully in the visuals where the second shot of the entire video features Suriya and Priya shaking hands to break the awkwardness between them because they weren’t the star crossed lovers which Tamil Cinema usually glorifies but rather, they were mere children of destiny. The later cuts showed them actually getting to know each other with walks, lunches and even a flight date (one of the rare occasions where GVM did it before Mani Ratnam in Kaatru Veliyidai) and then Suriya finally gets up the courage to take her hand and literally and figuratively, never leaves her hand for the rest of the song!
Endha Katrin Alavalil, Malaridazhgal Virinthidumo,
Endha Deva Vinadiyil, Manaraigal Thirandidumo…
With time, Priya’s questions were answered one by one. Her dreams were coming alive with Suriya and he is seemingly becoming the hardcore romantic he was in his own good time. Until the scenes leading up to the start of the song, we almost forget that, this guy is the same man who travelled to another continent and sand En Iniya Pon Nilave in front of a random house. With this woman coming her way to a military camp just like he did all those years back, it feels like it was Suriya’s life had come a full circle. This was his second chance. Not a lot of people get second chances and Suriya is no fool to miss them. The last one minute of the video is a time jump from their first holiday into the birth of their first child with the classic GVM montages that fades in with the chorus. It was so naturally stitched with the song, the last one minute had visuals for the next 2 years of Suriya’s and Priya’s lives and we never cared enough to analyse it. It was bound to be a Natchathira Jannalil moment but this is how good things happen when you believe in your second chances, just like the chorus, with lots of laughter and lots of love, unworried about the hurdles in the future because of your trust in yourself that you’ll be able to get past it.
So to understand this, here’s a story of a little Indian boy who grew up like every other Indian boy who watched cricket religiously. I remember my first cricketing memories begin with the 2007 ODI World Cup and it was only onwards and upwards from there. But I couldn’t have chosen a better time, some call it the start of the golden age of Indian cricket, some call it the start of the end of the golden age of Indian cricket, some call it the commercial age with IPL coming in, some call it shit because they still lived in Kapil Dev kaalam and so on. There were so many opinions and more than half were contradicting miserably but I was too young to differentiate between what was right and what was wrong! So yes, I took the easy route and sat through matches one by one. Everything about the first India match I ever remember is cloudy, except this absolute unit of a cricket player named Dwayne Leverock (wonder where this bugger is now) take a screamer of a catch to dismiss some Indian cricketer (Uthappa. My cricketing life started with uthappa hatred) and Sehwag breaking the Bermuda bowling attack to pieces. For a very specific reason, I also remember the hairy dude who came in sometime later down the order. I like hairy dudes because 8 years into my life, my so called “porcupine hair” was my identity. I used to be called as one and it was one weird time to think about. Deep inside, I wanted to grow my hair long. Like this guy on TV and play cricket also(everyone wanted to be a cricketer when you were 8 years old don’t lie) and so that’s how I remember Dhoni for the first time. Not the name, not the post, not why he’s in the squad for, not what he has accomplished till then, just a simple reason because I wanted to be like him in one small way. Today, a man of so many words and even more actions, and I definitely know a lot about him arguably more than anyone else in the world (Dhoni kanni. Sorry, if you are one too.) but that one feeling never changed but only grew, I still wanted to be like him. Only the scale changes. This time in multiple massive to the tiniest ways.
Later that year, hairy dude became the captain of the team for the then upcoming T20 WC and for once and for all, the name registered in my mind. MS Dhoni. From this man making a youngest of teams lift an ICC trophy and later join Chennai for some cricketing league to the run out that happened last year around the same day, it is a trip. It had its highs. It definitely had its falls. It had stretches of doubt, pressure, contentment of victory, half measures not being converted and so on. So it is basically life, in a much more minimalist way where life is a sport played in a stadium only with a little added weight of the hopes of 1.23 billion people. Not that much of a difference right? Small or big, one of the guys I hugely respected in MSD was the decision maker inside him. From the one to push off the veterans of the game to bring in new blood knowing it can bring in backlash to the smallest of DRSes for some urupadaatha 9th wicket partnership (which will most often be right. Otha Dhoni Review system dawww). Post adolescence, this was my first wow Dhoni moment outside the field. I got a series of bad decisions made in life. In fact, it had a bigger effect on me as a person but I didn’t know how all this was connected. When I sit back and see why, it was because I never did see why the decision went wrong. Dhoni also had his fair share of bad decisions, messing up batting orders, playing poker with Jadeja on the cricket field and so on. Actually, his case is even worse because people had the license to trash the fuck out of him if his little experiment didn’t work. But in spite of all this, a man ranges to hit 8/10 good match and life decisions out of the park is absolutely no easy deal. You need wisdom to do this, and you get experience to get wisdom and where do you get experience? From these bad decisions only. The difference between a layman and a clever man is how soon you get to learn from it. And my god, this hairy dude was shit clever.
Today, out of all places, I was in a pet shop buying Pedigree for my dog when I heard the news. My WhatsApp started bombing and my dear @srinimaama16 on Instagram posted about the retirement like it’s a random post and no big deal. I’d be lying if I said I was shit shocked and didn’t expect it at all and react all like general audience. We all saw this coming. Long back. Right from the day Rishabh Pant replaced him in the squad and he made himself unavailable for the West Indies series and joined the Kashmir regiment of the Indian Army. But when, was the question word on rounds. The low key Dhoni kanni in me (sort of high key actually) wanted him to make a comeback somehow for the T20 WC atleast but for anyone who knows how the BCCI works, we know it’s a long shot. I’m a sucker for poetic justice and I thought it’ll be perfect to end his career with the T20 WC where it all started. The time also suited up, it was right after IPL for which he started practice months before, much before than any one or any team because that’s how he is. “Nee pogalaam enbavan yejamaan. Vaa pogalaam enbavan thalaivan.”. Dhoni is a thalaivan. Probably the best in my life. Chumma not saying this because haha bro he hit a six and brought back the WC to us or he got the ICC treble. Much much more than trophies or posts or the records broken, a true leader makes us believe. Cricket is a game of 11 and conditions applied, a good leader makes the rest of the 10 trust in their abilities to get a game up and going. But only the greatest of leaders, make the common man who watches them in 3rd person believe in them, probably more than they do themselves. All my life, I’ve seen a million opening partnership collapses, some pudhu spin bowler going for disastrous overs, muppathi rendu run dhaan da adichirkom occasions and for a every million of those, there were a billion “Dhoni paathuppaan da” moments. And suddenly, “Dhoni inime paathuka maatan” was a concept I still can’t accept straight away even after a year of not playing and the connecting the dots around the picture . And with all the other things happening, like china thala Raina’s retirement, tribute videos all over, people crying their heart out, I just felt numb not knowing where to start and where to end, whether to think about the beautiful past or the future that I’m still in denial about. One thing that straight away hit me is that why has this gotta be on some Instagram post. Legends of the game got farewell matches, ceremonies, parties and you take the greatest captain India ever had and his last match was a WC semi final loss which still half of the world blames him for? This is was the pinnacle of the world being unfair to its best of people but demystifying it, may be this is what is right. Small town boy from Ranchi came in as a nobody and impressed the world on how he raised to situations in his own approach. For him, this is just another situation that he dealt it in his own calm and composed finesse and went out silently like he always did. Man must have had a good sleep but fuck my life, I didn’t.
Anyone who knows me even a little or even anyone who reads what I write (then you know me a lot) will know that there are only 3 men in this whole wide world who shaped up my life from the time I learnt the word “rolemodel.” Rajinikanth. (refer the first post of this page) AR Rahman and MSD. It’s uncanny that all 3 have a very similar set of characteristics and looks like I based them as my own type but actually, my type is only based on them. Simple, trying to be humble, an original unique style which works out or not, and the greatest of qualities you’ll ever find in humans – the ability to rise after a fall and prove the world wrong again and again. Right now, it is a terrible time to be a fan of all 3. Thalaivar is into some shit deep politics which I can’t understand exactly because the man isn’t clearing it out. Social media’s hatred on Rahman is getting on my nerves and as atrocious is to see people say Rahman is a bad musician/classist/casteist and all those blithering bullshit, it is more worrying to see more and more people support it. And then, this. The downs are a part of everyone’s life and you learn it the hard way. But it is people like these who you consider as an invisible pillar of support during the times and make you ask yourself that if they can do it, why can’t you. With every 2 matches there was a trademark Dhoni finish, there was one match where he played a run a ball innings, times in which he was called out for his unorthodox forms of cricket, called as a choker after one single defeat in the ’15 World Cup, and the worst of all. Called as a cheater after the CSK match fixing mayhem happened. But it is at these points where we can see what these people really can do and how they bring themselves back into the roster. To stay fallen never came into the definition of what Dhoni upheld for. And thus, I’ll convince myself that this is just another play of a life lesson I’m going to learn from some day in the future.
Apart from the countless blessings to witness you smash the ball out of the parks or slice it towards extra cover, match finishes, lightning fast stumpings, the most sammanthame illadha fielding plans that work out, there are some little things in my life you were a part of. To start with, however dumb this may sound, you enabled to make me write in English. Half the English I know is from watching Star movies, reading Baradwaj Rangan movie reviews and watching your post match presentations. My vocabulary is still shit and I’ve gotten into an interest in actually learning the language but it is still a “process” of converting ones into twos and thanks to you, there’s a cricketing metaphor hidden everywhere. Thank you for giving me the feeling of home for someone who never came from my home. Your name has always been a synonym for what the yellow jersey has ever stood for right from the time I saw your warrior style poster for the first time in written with the caption “The King of Sixerss” inside Chepauk stands in 2008 along with Hayden’s and Muthaiah Muralidharan’s when the world didn’t know what IPL was. Your Chennai association has only got me to love and fight for my city more and more because there’s always this readymade reason of “dei, Dhoni irukkaan da enga team la.” Your intensity on the field behind dead cold eyes only showed your love for the game more and more and thank you for not giving up on what you love, even if it involved you walking angrily into the field questioning the umpire even though you know it is going to get you fined. As much as captain cool is the tag you go along with, angry Dhoni is like watching directly into the tiger’s eyes and fucking hell you starting to breathe fire is what I live for. You were never the calm before the storm for me. The calm was always a facade for the storm. A big one. Except that I can bet that this storm, will never be a disaster and end up writing the greatest of stories a man can ever write for his country.
So yes. Answering the first posted question. What happened today? This is what happened. A sparrow of the blue sung his last song and vanished gentle into the night without any rage against the dying light. An end of an era as we call it, an era filled with so many surprises, hope that something good may happen, happy tears for a change, because of a man who wouldn’t think he’d be deserving of all these words and tears because he’s like that. There’s an IPL season coming up happening in UAE because of this corona karumam and this is another thing I’m blaming on 2020 and if this is his last season, this will be something I’ll never forgive 2020 for. For once again, I want to see him don the yellow, come out to bat 4 down at home, start slow and fool every single person in the world who do not know who is on the crease into believing that the match is out of hand. But we won’t be fooled. We have seen enough of you to be fooled. The stumps and that paavam terrified bowler who is bowling to you is the only thing between you and the the fastest batswing Indian cricket will ever see that will take the ball straight into the MCC pavilion. And this time, after the swing, you are going to take the off stump home like you always did for one last time. Until we see that live, we wait.
The part of the journey is the end. Your journey may have ended for the blue but not in the hearts of every guy who once upon a time never wanted to keep behind in street cricket but now wants to become a wicketkeeper after you came, or a every girl who broke stereotypes in whatever job she did after looking up to you or me, a person who has always believed that everything in the world is destined to be so. Your journey has taught me and the world that our destiny is what we make of it and if we want to leave a mark on this world, no one can ever stop us from doing it. And until thought prevails in the last man living on Earth, your journey doesn’t end. The show goes on.
To end this, again I gotta bring back all 3 of my icons and, this is something where the triumvirate joins together. AR Rahman composed this for Rajinikanth which I feel, stands good for Dhoni or himself or every man in the world who inspires us to be the better man. Added English translation too below.
December 31st 2015. Growing up, I’ve never been a fan of the final day of a year or the first day of the new year celebration concept. Have always felt it is putting too much pressure on myself to reminisce about the last 365 days for no reason because the next day is going to be exactly the same. 16 years of age, was the time I started questioning about capitalist driven ideas which we don’t profit on, the amount of rationalism and hypocrisy that we need to forgive to be that regular person on this face of the Earth. It was particularly a bad year leaving me alone not knowing what to do or how to end this year and what not and that was when I remembered I couple of CDs from one Thiruttu VCD kadai 2 streets away (no Prime or Netflix us when we were crossing 15 and I couldn’t find any subtitles for non-Tamil films on Torrents). In that list was Sallu Bhai’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Pixar’s Inside Out (Don’t even start. I’ll start bawling) and this. Premam.
Premam was a huge deal at that time. I think it still is but it was a “running in Sathyam Cinemas over a 100 days” level big deal appo (It ran for 275 days in Sathyam. That is massive for any film, leave alone a Malayalam film with this guy who I last saw in Neram – nice movie but next jump is 275 days level growth is a complete wtf moment. It was advertised with the faces of 3 beautiful women, this dude, the title meaning love in a butterfly font. Very cheesy stuff that invites me to see what it really has. I’ve never watched a Malayalam film until then and I’m a sucker for a good romance because that was a time when I was building up expectations for a love in the future (Spoiler alert. Bad idea. Don’t.) So hence, 9 pm in the night after my dinner, turned on the TV, pushed the CD inside, rechecked the subtitles sync and started watching. The very first frame was a colourful Special Thanks to god frame followed by Sun, Time and Love. Then followed a never-ending train of Thank You notes to people ranging from Rajinikanth to Tea Shop Owners to Mammooty to Ex-girlfriends and so on for the next 2 minutes atleast. But then I never wanted to skip it because, it was very cute. In a world that was plagiarising movies left and right, there was this director who wanted to say thank you to random people who helped him in the film or his own life. And then with Rajesh Murugesan’s Idhu Puthen Kaalam and that unbelievable soundtrack that will always be a landmark in my cinema journey, I took my first stride into a genre named Malayalam Cinema.
This is a language. Not a genre. Nope. Absolutely not. Regardless of what/where/when and all the Question words that follow, a genre called life is prevalent in all their films. To be more precise, all films fall under a genre where a movie watcher learns to appreciate his life even with him completely not relating to the plot. The modern age of Malayalam Cinema as they call it, starting from the likes of Anjali Menon, Alphonse Puthren, Vineeth Srinivasan, Dileesh Pothan have proved again and again for years that story telling is more important than the story itself. The budget of the movie, the predicitibility from the side of audience, the tone, the drags, nothing really matters if the audience sees the director’s name in the end credits with a smile on their face. Be it a very simple preface like a Police Man’s routine in Action Hero Biju or an African descent football player’s adventures in Sudani from Nigeria, this philosophy is something that Malayalam cinema has mastered in and actually even getting better at in the coming years.
That in turn leads us into the conversation as to what really differs this from Tamil Cinema. We also have our fair share of films which make us smile on our way out, probably more than just smile. Ofcourse yes, a handful of them but for every film like that we also see a star vehicle with so much hero worship, the identity of the actor is attached to his onscreen persona somehow in alternate films. The beauty of Malayalam Cinema it stands on a pillar of actors and actresses who mold their career as an actor rather than a hero. They act in onsembles, supporting roles, sometimes even in a shade that no one has ever touched upon (pfft. Fahadh Fassil. pfft) With respect to the actresses, they are more involved in showing variety and range rather than showing off a filmography with a higher number of 100 crore films. A Parvathy Thiruvothu wouldn’t done an Uyare if not to bring a part of herself to tell a story that she feels the world needs to know rather than just acting for a director. By this way, not only every good film is more heartfelt and the characters are more memorable, but we subconsciously associate the actors and actresses with more and more brilliantly written characters that they play because they are able to do justice to the arc almost every single time.
The phenomenon named Fahadh Fassil playing a conman but with a good heart in Njan Prakashan (2018) and a cold blooded psycho in Trance (2020).
This Febraury 2020, Bong Joon Ho stood on the world’s biggest stage with 2 academy awards in his hand and quoted his inspiration Martin Scorsese, “The most personal is the most creative.” How he went on to make his country proud with this simple ideology is completely another write up but if people are doubting it, it is really that simple! What Bong Joon Ho proved with Parasite on the international stage, some of the people here have been proving it time in time again be it Vetri Maaran in Tamil or Lijo Jose Pellissery in Malayalam. Talking only about Malayalam cinema, this doctrine is all over the films of the past 5 years where most movies are movies revolving around just people. And their lives. And their emotions. And all the conflicts a person or a group of people face. This may branch out for a social cause like the movies based on Communism or go metal on metal 2 headed drama like Ayyapanum Koshiyum or may deal with relationships man-man, woman-man, father-son, daughter-father, stranger-man, Soubin Shahir-The Universe and countless others. With these many stories among us with unfathomable depths all with a little change of perspective and a lovely sight of the god’s own country, they demonstrate that you don’t need to go to outer space or erect an 8 digit number set to make something beautiful.
I talked about the directors and actors but I forgot to mention about the greatest supporting actor of the entire Malayalam Film industry – Kerala itself! One of the biggest blessings of Malayalam films is their state in itself. Scenic beauty doesn’t only lie in places travelled by Helicopters or places restricted to VIPs. The setting between the rains, trees and rivers ever always play a role in their films by making us live with the character in second person rather than to see the film in third person. How the world saw Kumblangi in Kumblangi Nights or Idukki in Maheshinte Pratikharam is evidence of this feeling. The greens, the wet roads, the use of natural light, the walks into coconut tree sunsets, the pazhampuris in chai shops, the backwaters which we could smell from from the screen are a part and parcel of a Malayalam film and makes you feel there is no bad shot because you can’t show this place in a vexing way!
Idukki song, Maheshinte Pratikharam (2016)
The music on the same levels perfectly complement the visuals to heighten our senses even more which is a rare occasion in any other industry. There is a lot of use of Acoustic Guitars and strings, whistling and sounds of the nature to personify the music and very less of choruses in which the voices overpower the music out. The closest any other language song has come to giving this emotion is AR Rahman’s Moongil Thottam. Cinematography, Music, Actors, Storytelling – The fruitful marriage of all of the above is what that defines Malayalam Cinema and sure does give us a constant dose of pleasure for the whole time for a gratifying experience.
Frames of Cherathukal, Kumblangi Nights (2019)
After 5 years of watching my first Malayalam film now, I’ve watched over a 100 now. This lockdown especially has got me on a marathon that I don’t want to end at all. One side the last film I saw in the theatre was this insane fucked up ride named Trance all praise to Fahadh Fassil, the last Malayalam film that I saw was Anna Ben’s Kappela on Netflix, a first of its genre love thriller narrated in a way that a major part of the audience hasn’t seen before but still didn’t get its credit to the outside world. Malayalam cinema haven’t set a bar high for the other industries to cross it, they’ve set a bar far far away from the rest of the world into the interior parts of Kerala.
This year, especially in this time was celebrated as #5YearsOfPremam all over Social Media. People were talking about Shambu, Koya and George’s friendship or how Malar Teacher is the dream college lecturer we never got left and right. June 9, 2020, I watched the film again at the stroke of 12 on my birthday. I’m 21 now. My love life today is no more a work of fiction but has entered the based on true stories genre. It has been almost 3 years since I bought my last CD because they don’t exist anymore (and Puratchi thalapathy Vishal has thought me to say no to Piracy. Duh.) I’m still searching for answers of my life, but weirdly enough the difference is that I’m positive I’ll find it someday. But still, when I saw Celine eat Red Velvet the same way how she ate when she was a kid or the rain along with George’s life going in reverse to Govind Vasantha’s Unfinished Hope, I feel some things are made to be felt and some moments are meant to be treasured so that they don’t get lost along the way. Life is certainly a box of chocolates and we never know what we are going to get. If we are talking about Malayam Cinema, beware, you may expect a chocolate and may end up finding a chocolate box for yourself.
The Life of Vishnu Aravind 