The tale of a superstar that was not!

Kaantha (Tamil, 2025)

Director: Selvamani Selvaraj

https://www.myvue.com/film/kaantha-tamil

The film marketed itself as a fictionalised account of the life of the first Tamil cinema superstar, MK Thyagaraja Bhagavathar (MKTB). However, when I watched it, I realised it had nothing to do with MKTB, his downfall, the crime, or the tragedy that befallen him. 

Just to clarify, MKTB was the first Tamil megastar at a Beatles level. In the conservative Indian society of the time, women would gape and faint at his first appearance in a film. During the curtain raiser of a particular film, he is said to have winked at the camera, causing a row of enamoured young women to faint. One of the qualities many prospective brides listed was for the groom to have long hair and a cropped MKTB-style cut. One of his films, 'Haridas' (1944), was screened for over three years, spanning three Deepavalis and filling the cinema to capacity. It holds the record for the second-longest-running Tamil film after Chandramukhi (2005), at 784 vs 890 days respectively.

As MKTB was riding high, he, along with NS Krishnan and Sriramulu Naidu, a renowned director, was charged with the murder of a notorious tabloid owner, Lakshmikanthan, in 1944. Lakshmikanthan specialised in publishing sleazy half-truths about movie stars, and many enemies sought his downfall. The trio faced trial in India, and Naidu was acquitted. MKTB and NSK appealed to the Privy Council in London, which is equivalent to the present-day Supreme Court of India, and were acquitted in 1947.

 

The multiple trials drained most of MKTB's finances. To add insult to injury, he was ostracised as a criminal, even after the courts cleared him. His popularity plummeted. Even his singing performances were shunned. The public felt that he was too tainted to sing the divine songs, and his music was fit for Goddess Sarasvathi. He died a broken man at 49 due to complications of diabetes.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245145/

On the other hand, Kaantha's story, undoubtedly set during the golden days of Tamil cinema, depicts the ego clashes between a popular actor and his mentor, the director who introduced him to the screen. Caught in the middle is a new actress, brought in by the director to complete his long-overdue project. She is torn between following the director's instructions and her growing feelings for the main actor, who is, however, married. The actress is shot dead, the police move in, and the rest of the story revolves around discovering who the killer is.

The film is quite enjoyable, nonetheless. One should not, however, ask absurd questions like what a 1970s transistor radio is doing in the set of a 1940s period drama. For the record, the first transistor was invented in late 1947 at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey. The first transistor radio was released in 1954.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

A language war!

Parasakthi (Tamil, 2026)

Director: Sudha Kongara

https://letterboxd.com/film/parasakthi-2026/watch/

2026 is an election year for Tamil Nadu. The year started with a bang with two Tamil movies with explosive political themes. The highly anticipated Vijay of the newly minted party TVK, and his alleged last film, Jana Nayagan, is stuck with the censors for unknown reasons. Some insiders reckon that the dialogue is highly spiced with political innuendo or outright condemnation of his opponents, such as the DMK and the BJP.

The second movie, which did not pose a threat to Vijay’s heavyweight, not surprisingly, was cleared easily. This movie, starring Sivakarthikeyan, the game show host who found fame through sheer grit, is a historical drama based on the 1965 riots in Tamil Nadu against the imposition of Hindi as the national language. This film turned out to be a propaganda movie through and through, putting DMK and their former leaders as the sole defenders of the Tamil language. As DMK controls the whole of Kollywood, movies are and have been the mouthpiece of the ruling class. By controlling movie distribution, production and theatres, they maintain cultural and political dominance in Tamil Nadu. Through this movie, the ruling party hopes to present a false narrative to new voters, the Gen Zs, that only DMK can keep the Tamil language 'alive'.

DMK and its predecessor, DK, have been thriving on the same ‘divide and rule’ policy that the British employed to quell Indian resistance. DMK makes the Northerners their bogeyman. They subscribe to the now-defunct Aryan Invasion theory and create an aura that the Hindi-speaking people from North India are out to wipe out the Tamil language and culture. Within the state, they also accuse Brahmins of usurping others' opportunities with their perceived oppression of the rest of Tamil Nadu with Brahminical ideologies. 

The scenario for the 2026 state election is like this. With the spate of BJP wins in recent state elections, increasing the BJP’s popularity and the entry of actor Joseph Vijay into politics, are making DMK stakwart Stalin feel hot under his tall collar. His party has promised to eradicate Sanathana Dharma, but continues to be seen performing poojas for blessings. 

Recently, the perennial issue of teaching Hindi in schools resurfaced. DMK, the self-appointed defender of the Tamil language, had categorically put their foot down to deny compulsory teaching of Hindi in government schools. 

With the same rebel yell that they shrieked in 1965, DMK is entering the latest elections, and this movie lays the groundwork of their campaign.

Resistance to the introduction of Hindi into the Tamil Nadu school system has persisted for the longest time, even when the region was under the Madras Presidency. In 1937, under British rule in India, the Indian National Congress ruled this region, led by Rajaji. Congress, in preparation for self-rule, was toyying the idea of Hindi as the National language. The issue came up again just before Independence and again when the Constitution was drafted in 1950. Nehru promised Tamil Nadu that a grace period of fifteen years would be given before Hindi was made the official language. 

EV Ramaswamy, revered by DMK as the champion of Tamil, is also affectionately known as 'Periyar' (the Elder) and is anything but a bastion of the Tamil language. He had once condemned the language as barbaric¹, and it is not compatible as a modern lingua franca or for scientific purposes. 

It is ironic that in the 1930s and throughout the 1960s, the Dravida Party was hell-bent on opposing the Indian Congress Party over the language issue. Now, it has joined forces with Congress and is opposing the Central Government led by the BJP. Regardless of which party is in power, the DMK will oppose the Central Government. Remember, in the years before Partition, the Dravidian Party wanted to accede to Pakistan? And EV Ramasamy declared 15th August 1947 as a day of mourning.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianHistory/comments/1qcmlrf/1
965_tamil_student_protest_against_hindi/

This movie tries to retell events that led to the 1965 Hindi imposition riots. Nehru died in 1964, as the deadline to make Hindi the official language of the country approached. University students, instigated by Annadurai and Karunanithi, initiated demonstrations in multiple cities. The story tells a romanticised version of a docile elder brother who tries to save his young brother from harm. The elder brother has a violent past that resurfaces as a vengeful IPS officer who wants to squash the Tamil rebellion once and for all. In the midst of all this, a few figures from the past are shown, painting a DMK-friendly picture of them saving the Tamil language and its culture from being overrun by enemies from the North.

Historians and people who lived through the 1960s vehemently oppose the movie's alternative history of what actually transpired during that time. Others, including the Youth Congress group, are 'up in arms' about the negative portrayal of their former leaders. They scream for the film's banning.

(P.S. In the modern world, people are expected to learn as much as they can, including all the languages of the world. Alternatively, use Google Translate! Also, language is not everything, as seen in the later years. Andhra Pradesh, which was created along linguistic lines, was divided into Andhra Pradesh and Telangana because of economic imbalances.)

1. https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/nirmala-sitharaman-says-periyar-dismissed-tamil-as-a-language-his-was-a-push-for-reform/cid/2088564#goog_rewarded

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Sports unify?

Bison (Tamil, 2025)

Written & Directed: Mari Selvaraj

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15097358/

We have always been told that sports unite people. When Hitler was selling the idea of Aryan supremacy to the world, the Universe tried to shoot him down. It cryptically was telling him that his eugenics was bunkum. A Black American named Jesse James won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics to embarrass the Führer. 

When apartheid ended, Nelson Mandela believed that rugby and sports were the surest way to reconcile the fractured nation. He hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa. The ‘Springbok’ emblem, once viewed as an oppressive symbol of the white minority, suddenly became a source of national pride and joy. 

We are also aware that sports transcend all borders. It is a level playing field that puts aside politics, colour and creed, so they say. Quite early in life, I realised this was not true. If this were true, the world would not have boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The neutrality of sports went out of the window when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan a year earlier. 

Increasingly, whenever there is an India-Pakistan cricket match, there is a meltdown. The losing team would claim that the refereeing was biased. It ends up in fistfights or, sometimes, in something more sinister. 

In the Malaysian football scene, the governing body found it easier and more cost-effective to import fading professional footballers, give them fake identities and create fake family trees to secure citizenship than to invest in local talent. The disease of favouritism and discrimination in Malaysian sport is not something unheard of. It started with the authorities wanting to cash in on the public craze for football (and badminton, too).

In the 70s, when Malaysia was a football force to be reckoned with, we churned out player after player of high calibre. The players were amateurs, of different ethnicities, whose sole pride was to lay for the nation. When the state began meddling under the guise of advancing sports science, the rot set in. The ugly disease of favouritism and racial preference crept in. By the 1990s, the earlier 1970s teams, with varying ethnicities, came to be represented by a predominantly one race; talent no longer being the determinant for selection, but rather fulfilling politicians' agendas. 

During the British Raj, colonial subjects, awed by their master’s gentlemanly game of cricket, began playing it too. Unfortunately, they could only do so amongst themselves. The colonial masters thought that playing with the natives was not acceptable. It ended up with cricket teams formed along racial and religious lines. There were the European clubs for the whites, the Parsis, the Hindus, the Muslims and the rest. The interesting thing about the last group is that it is open to non-white Christians and those from the lower caste. The groups compete in the Pentangular Tournament. 

In the early 20th century, India had a legendary cricketer named Palwankar Baloo. He is considered the greatest cricketer in Indian history. Playing for the Hindu side, he helped them to defeat the European side. He toured England in 1911 and showed great performances there. Between 1910 and 1920, there was a great campaign to make him India's captain, but the efforts were thwarted by the Dalit caste system.

The movie 'Bison' is a sports drama about a boy from a kabaddi family who is obsessed with becoming a kabaddi player. His father, a former player, knows the hurdles and brickbats he faces to reach the next level. He is hellbent on keeping his son away from the game. Along the way, there are gangsters, clashes and overt discrimination of the boy because of the low caste he is from.

Kabaddi is an ancient Vedic self-defence and survival sport that started in India some 4,000 years ago. It is said that Krishna and Gautama Buddha also played this game in their childhood. Persians were also reported to have played it 2,000 years ago. In the 1936 Berlin Olympics, kabaddi was showcased on the sidelines as an exhibition sport. It has not yet become a regular feature of the Olympics, but it is an event in the Asian Games.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Unchain thyself!

The Girlfriend (Telugu, 2025)

Director: Rahul Ravindran

At first glance, I thought it would be another dull Indian college movie. Based on my previous experiences, I believed it was a superficial, illogical love story. The typical tug-of-war in this genre would be between eternal love and an unashamed, ego-driven opposition.

 

It started with a generic script about a girl with innocent eyes, whose mother died in her childhood, who joins a university to study for a Master's in English Literature. She is smitten by her and is pursued relentlessly by a senior, a handsome man doing his Master’s in Computer Science. The girl resists but eventually succumbs after constant wooing.

 

Things change after he gains 'vacant possession'. He becomes possessive, controlling, and a lover reminiscent of 'Fatal Attraction' or Sting's character in the 1983 Billboard No. 1 hit song 'Every Breath You Take'.

The story drags on until the heroine has her realisation. She boldly takes control and asserts her legitimate rights as a thinking human being, standing up for herself and refusing to be shamed for being a woman. She understands that in a game involving two parties, it is illogical to shame only one while the other walks free. Once she frees herself from those shackles, she is free to climb the ladder of progress. The sky is the limit. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

To watch and forget?

Dude (Tamil, 2025)
Director: Keerthiswaran

https://watch.plex.tv/movie/dude-2025-1

This is a Gen Z movie through and through. A movie where traditional values once held in Indian films go down the drain. These values include filial piety, respect for the institution of marriage, a one-man-one-woman philosophy, and the traditional Indian belief that one is married to one's spouse not for one lifetime, but for seven. Sacred symbols are tossed out like playthings. Sex is no longer a society-sanctioned act, but a mere biological necessity. 

The movie starts with a bang. The hero, Kollywood's Gen-Z heartthrob, Pradeep Ranganthan, attends his girlfriend's wedding celebration. The girlfriend had jilted him and chose to marry an NRI to settle overseas. In the slapstick confusion of events, the hero ends up snatching the sacred thread tied around the bride's neck!

From then on, it is a comedy of errors and faux pas. Hero is heartbroken. His cousin wants to pair up, but he declines. Disappointed, she leaves town. The hero realises he loves his cousin and runs to propose.

He approaches his caste-obsessed uncle, who greenlights their wedding arrangements. Hold behold, the cousin had already fallen in love with someone else and was already pregnant. The story of the story is a whirlwind of half-truths and lies to cover the initial cover-up. The uncle @ father-in-law, is a murderer. He killed his own sister for falling in love out of caste.

Even though the whole exercise was in the name of comedy, everyone now shared the sentiment. They viewed the entire thing as mocking Indian culture and promoting a lifestyle not quite accepted by the generation before them. Changing partners is like changing diapers? Remove, clean, powder up, and discard the effluents into the bin, then move on.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

A love song from a shopping list?

https://www.newindianexpress.com/entertainment/tamil/2021/Jun/28/ms-v
iswanathan-and-kannadasan-two-geniuses-born-on-same-day-2322287.html

It is said that when MS Viswanathan and Kannadasan sat down to compose a song, MSV would usually hum a tune to Kannadasan. Just as the melody is hummed, Kanadasan would just mouth pearls of wisdom that would live to be evergreens, able to stand the test of time. All MSV had to do was murmur. Kanadasan would string his verses in his mind and roll them effortlessly, all good to go at first take.

While making the 1962 movie 'Bale Pandya' (Bravo Pandya), Kannadasan brought MSV a paper that MSV thought was a shopping list. At one look, MSV thought Kannadasan had written down the names of vegetables and fruits. Kannadasan told him to play a tune that could fit the verses. MSV asked him why he was asking for a tune for a shopping list. Kannadasan insisted it was a love song and that he could explain everything afterwards. 

https://varnam.my/98228/honoring-the-legacy-of-the-
melody-king-m-s-viswanathan-on-his-96th-birthday/

It turned out to be a love song belted out by two couples on their wedding night. Of course, it was not a shopping list for the next morning, but a manner in which they were expressing their undying love on their first night of wedded bliss. Kannadasan then explained, in detail, each word of the song to each actor so they could act their parts. When MSV suggested that the cryptic details may not be apparent to the audience, the director then butted in to say that it is his job to frame all this on film. In the song, the poet personifies the moon as a female (as opposed to the sun as a male), where the heroine bares her soul to the moon about her love to the beau and asks the moon to be her messenger to pass the love message. The word 'kaai' can be used to mean 'to dry', unripe fruit, glow as a metal would and many more. The poet cleverly conveys all these meanings to write a love song. The song remains an evergreen and is a testimony to the poet's genius and the music director's versatility.

In literary terms, the formal term for punning and deliberate wordplay in poems is paronomasia.

Athikaai kaai  kaai  aalankaai

Vennilavae ithikaai Kaayadhae ennai pol Pennallavo

Nee Ennai pol pennallavo

Athikaai kaai kaai aalankaai

Vennilavae ithikaai Kaayadhae en uyirum Neeyallavo

En Uyirum Neeyallavo athikaai

Kaai kaai aalankaai Vennilavae

Kannikaai Aasaikaai kaadhal

Konda paavaikaai Angae kaai avaraikaai

Mangai endhan kovaikaai 

Maathulankaai Aanalum en ullankaai

Aagumo ennai nee Kayadhae en uyirum neeyallavo

Ithikaai Kaayadhae ennai pol Pennallavo

Iravukaai Uravukaai yengum Indha ezhaikaai

Neeyum kaai nithamum kaai 

neril nirkum ivalai kaai

Uruvankaai Aanalum paruvankaai

Aagumo ennai nee Kaayadhae ennuyirum nee allavo

Athikaai kaai kaai aalankaai

Vennilavae ithikaai Kaayadhae en uyirum Neeyallavo

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

div style="text-align: center;">

Whatever rocks your boat!

Kannappa (Telegu; 2025)

Director: Mukesh Kumar Singh

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5306972/

The story of Kannapan, the tribal hunter, fundamentally shaped my understanding of spirituality from a tender age. I first heard this tale around the age of 13 or 14, when my parents insisted that my sisters and I should dedicate an hour or so on Saturday evenings to religious classes (satsangh) organised by their friend. The highlight of the satsangh was, of course, the stories told by the organiser, RG, in the most dramatic and humorous manner.

The other parts were the chance to lead singing and the opportunity to play the small cymbals (jalra) during devotional songs. 

Kannappa's story opened my eyes (and naive mind) to two important aspects of Hinduism.  

In the version I heard, a tribal hunter, Kannappa, was so eager to worship Lord Shiva after witnessing a Brahmin priest perform his daily routine. When the hunter inquired about the proper way to pray, the holy man shooed him away. The hunter, after observing what the priest was doing, did what he understood. He fashioned a stone to resemble a linga, lit a light with pork lard, placed some wildflowers, and scooped water from a nearby lake with his mouth! The eye on the linga started bleeding, and Kannappa enucleated his own eye to replace it. Then another linga eye began bleeding. Kannappa put his foot on his linga to mark its position before removing his second eye. The Brahmin priest, upon seeing what he thought was blasphemous, caused a big fuss. Lord Shiva took notice, manifested and praised Kannappa for his devotion. His eyes were restored. Lord Shiva further honoured Kannappa by granting him liberation.

RG's story taught me that one need not display piety openly. True devotion is inward. One does not have to practise vegetarianism to earn His grace, nor wear a specific tunic to receive His blessings. All that is needed is sincerity and pure thoughts. It is the middlemen who pretend to know the protocols, itineraries, decorum and laws set out by God himself.

The other thing I could not understand is why God enjoys putting His devotees through tests. The impression I have of Him is that He is narcissistic. He longs for unquestioned loyalty. The impression that the intermediaries seem to give is that our reason for existence is to keep Him happy. His wrath knows no limits. It is important to remember that these stories were created during the Bhakti movement, when it was believed that to attain salvation, one must be devoted to God. 

Kannappa's story in this movie is only told towards the tail end of the film. The lion's share of the movie focuses on boosting box-office takings, such as showcasing how skilled a sorcerer Kannappa is, his love interest, and the various costumes in which she is scantily dressed to emphasise her body contours. 

Shiva intervenes to prevent Kannappa from sacrificing his eye.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

div style="text-align: center;">