Oru Nadigai Naadagam Paakkiraal (An actress watching a play, Tamil; 1978)
Jayakanthan
This is another film penned by the controversial Tamil writer, Jayakanthan. It is said that the story is not a figment of his imagination but inspired by his one time fling with an actress. The film comprise the same main ensemble of crew as in Jayakanthan's other movie, Sila Nerangalil Sila Manithargal - Srikanth and Lakshmi in the lead role, YG Parthasarathy and Nagesh in the supporting role and A. Bhimsingh in the director's chair.
Ranga (Srikanth) is a journalist who writes reviews on dramas. He meets up with a 30 something actress, Kalyani (Lakshmi) for an interview. Ranga is a widow with a 5 year old daughter. He is from a white collar background. Despite negative comments from his uncle (Thengai Sreenevasan) and family about marrying an actress, Renga weds Kalyani legally without any ceremony.
After marriage, sweet love turns sour. Ranga believes in true love whereas Kalyani is practical about truth and honesty in a relationship rather than the hysterionic melodrama in love like suicide in love failure. One thing leads to another where each other something or another to hurt each other just to have the final say.
More differences crop up when he asks her to move in to his uncle's house. The matrimonial bed becomes unslept. Ranga leaves Kalyani to stay with uncle. Ranga suggest that they divorce so that they continue to stay as friend as things were more peaceful then, before their marriage. They meet Ranga friend, an advocate (Nagesh) who suggested a trial separation for a year before proceeding.
Here, it gets interesting. The story makes one wonder what is the secret of a happy marriage. On one hand, Kalyani's fellow actor is happy married to his wife even she has not even watched a single drama in her life - but they are happy. Ranga's uncle (an illiterate) have stayed married for many years even though they cannot stand each other. One of Kalyani's drama members who married after falling deeply in love fall apart soon after marriage! The dialogue pokes fun at the law for legalising of marriage and the hassle of divorce in a very deep manner. After all the uncertainty and worries went out of the window when Kalyani became paraplegic after contracting spinal TB. Ranga cares for her till recovery. Kalyani's married actors who had problems in their married life suddenly was resolved after the birth of their child! At the end of the movie, the million dollar question of why some marriages work while others do not work is not answered. All the philosophical question of meaning of matrimony and pride is forgotten when you see a love one is downtrodden. When the journey is too smooth with its usual waxes and wane, we become arrogant and haughty. Fighting hurdles of life together strengthens the bond.
A nice thought provoking high brow drama - 9/10. Memorable line, among others, "Bernard Shaw once said that marriage is a legalised prostitution." P.S. Lakshmi gave a sterling performance here. Srikanth, an underrated actor shows the credence of his talent. Unfortunately, his subsequent roles in movies that followed were garbage and stereotyped - a spoilt son who was rotten to the core! Thengai Sreenevasan as his illiterate uncle is differently good from his usual comedy role.
Every living day is a day to arm our arsenal of knowledge. As a dynamic language, the English language increases it vocabulary periodically. The latest word that may make its way to our dictionaries is the word 'smoast'. Smoast refers to the act of boasting in social media (sm), hence sm-oasting.
Anyway, that is the reason social medias were created in the first place. To put nice pictures of places that you have been to (indirectly saying', "Eat your heart out! I have been to the 'Four Seasons', see your can beat that!"). To put messages and be 'liked' by thousands of your FB friends- indirectly saying "See everybody likes me, see if you can beat that!"......Show off!
And this is my latest picture with my prettiest outfits even though everyone in my family dislike me because I am ugly in the inside....
Collin Harper Dictionary
Definition of SMOASTING (awaiting approval): The act of using social media networks to appear smug and boast in uploaded images.
The late 60s must have been a lousy time for P. Ramlee. The introduction of the idiot box to Malaysia, the glamour of the Hindi films with unbelievably drop-dead suave actors and melodramatic stories and melodious songs to match in cinematographic colours, the closure of Jalan Ampas studio due primarily to labour disputes and age issues had its toll in garnering finances for his movie-making. On top of all that, he was the punching bag of ridicule for the local papers for his inability to replicate his previous successes in Singapore here. The banks were not forthcoming for loans either.
P. Ramlee expressed Utusan Melayu's dismay for constantly belittling his efforts, stories,s and direction. In a sudden twist of events, an editor from this journal, Osman Abadi, came forward to the legend with a script of this story. After some screenplay changes here and there,' Gelora' materialised. Of course 'Gelora' is the name of his favourite song. The background musical score had a heavy dose of the song in instrumental form in various beats - Indian, electric guitar etcetera.
Talking about music, P.Ramlee also to battle it out with the British invasion bands and the emerging pop yeh yeh for popularity. He had to employ 3 various musical score bands, including a modernized keroncong song sung by Ramlee himself.
This 1970 movie was nostalgic in that it showed certain popular landmark buildings around KL like the Parliament building and the clock tower, a 2-door Fiat 600 with the door hinge at the back, a beetle VW 1300 (BL8785) like the one my Standard 3 master had and a National Jetcycle refrigerator which was a familiar landscape in the more affluent years of our 1-bedroom flat of RRF!
Rima & Rizman
The film starts with thoughts reminiscing a time before the blitz from the Iranian Revolution swept across the globe dividing the world into two- the believers and the nons. 9/11 just tipped the the scale even further! The credit starts with a dancing crowd gyrating and twisting to a live band in a house party. Girls are willing to dance with their new partner at the wave of the hand, dresses were modern (baby doll, mini skirt) and short at mid thigh level, hair was longer than the dresses and smiles were all around. English is used freely, I and you are used freely as pronouns in their Malay sentences. Wine and drinks tracks were available in houses. Peck in the cheek seem like an acceptable form of greeting in the film.
Ruby (Isma Rubee) is dancing happily with her boyfriend Rizman (Arman Yadi) only to be disturbed by her sore-loser ex-boyfriend Mustabab (Bob Mustafa) who wrecks the party by his mischief. Rizman, who has a stormy relationship with his step mother, decides to leave his father's home. Meanwhile, Rizman meets Ruby's mother, Rima Murni (the vivacious Sarimah), when he dines at her home. He is awed by Rima's youth and beauty.
When Rizman decides to leave KL for Singapore, he is coaxed by Rima who met him at the railway station accidentally, to stay at her home.
Rizman, a 21 year old jobless youth, is taught to drive by Rima. After obtaining his driving license, the jubilant Rizman rushes in to Rima's bedroom to thank his teacher. What he saw changed his life forever! Lying in a compromisingly provocative manner, he is lured by the temptress of a cougar to massage her sore back. When the heat built up, he was told to do the necessary and hence a 'Mrs Robinson' kind of illicit sexual liaison starts.
Raziman & Ruby
This jobless guy continues with his clandestine activity whilst Ruby works diligently as a secretary. Rima and Rizman are spotted at an afternoon matinee show by Mustabab (Ruby's old flame) who spills the beans to Ruby.
Meanwhile, Ruby's office has a new boss, Rozaiman (P Ramlee), a 40 something bachelor who fancies Ruby. Repeated attempts at wooing Ruby proved futile as she wishes to stayfaithful to Rizman.
After Mustabab's squealing, Ruby caught her boyfriend and her mother embraced on bed in an awkward manner. In rebound, she left her maternal house and moved in to her boss' house to stay as a mistress!
Rima and Rizman's sinful union based on lust lands on a rough patch. Rizman was not comfortable with her frequent late night early morning trips dressed to her nines to do her work which paid her bills. A small tiff ensues.
Here, Mustabab emerges again. He coaxes Rizman to go for a drive just to bring him to Rima's alleged workplace. Here, Rima is seen entertaining an old man in bed. Devastated, another confrontation happens back home and the truth is told.
Tengku Zaman & Rima
Rima was a young unwed mother from Northern Sumatra who left her abode after the shame. Visibly pregnant poor and hungry, she was ushered into the care of a Tengku Zaman who took care of her so well that she decide to reciprocate her gratitude by staying as his mistress.
An ultimatum was given - "leave him or I will leave". Used to the good luxurious life, Rima hesitates and Rizman leaves.
On the rebound, drinking himself to the ground and walking around with his suitcase, Rizman is courted by Hayati, a colleague of Ruby. Pretty soon, they hold their engagement party.
Haryati & Rizman
Rima, on the other side, yearning for Rizman's love and longing to be legally married, decides to woo Rizman back to her life at the engagement party. A duel ensues. Rima stabs to death Rizman and Hayati with an decorative dagger displayed on the wall when she is called as a whore.
Rima then goes to see Ruby to say her peace before surrendering to the police. There, she discovers that the man that her daughter has been co-habitating all this while is indeed Rima's jilted boyfriend who absconded when he discovered that she was pregnant. In a fit of rage, she guns him down.
The movie ends with Rima calling 999 and waiting for the arrival of the police....
Mak Enon
A full length heavy drama dealing with adult matters that seems to have crossed all boundaries of accepted norms. I am yet to see a film where father and daughter are lovers!
Mustabab (with hat)
P. Ramlee here acts a supporting actor only whilst the main show is dominated by Sarimah and other new actors. Unfortunately, Arman Yadi (Rizman) and Isma Rubee (Ruby) need to polish on their acting skills. Bob Mustafa (Mustabab) is likeable as a villian. The famous Mak Enon with her toothless smile appears briefly in a gambling scene in Rizman's father's house and is memorable in her comedy sketch. At one time I wondered why the four main characters had their names starting with the letter R and sounded confusing.
Interestingly, a scene was shot at a A&W food outlet. Hey, I did not know that A&W was already around in 1970!
Amir Muhammad, the famous new movie-maker was searching high and low to lay his hands on a copy of the film to review in book but his effort proved to be in vain. He was probably trying to get a 35mm film copy; mine is a DVD-R copy, a good copy though!
Gelora -P. Ramlee and Saloma; Seniman Bujang Lapok (1961)
Pattikada Pattanama' (Village or Town, Tamil; 1972) During the seventies, as Indians charged ahead to the future with industralization, they were ambivalent of the loss of their traditional Indian values. Hence, to preserve Indian culture and make them feel good about themselves, many films were made in the early 70s to ridicule the 'modern' way of Western living and to impress upon its audience the greatness of Indian way of life.
The Hindi side of movie-making had their share of this genre of offering. Manoj Kumar was one of the leaders in making these patriotic movies, the classic example being 'Purab Aur Pachhim' (East and West).
Kollywood's offering of the same seem to be this 1972 flick 'Pattikada Pattanama' (Village or Town). In keeping with the typical melodrama and histrionics of Indian drama, stereotyping was maximum here.
It won the Best Feature film for that year with excellent acting calibre and crowd pulling capability of Sivaji Ganesan and typical depiction of Indians' view of how a spoilt London-educated rich girl should be like in the moon-faced Jayalalitha. It is quite comical how she sometimes becomes so naive in certain aspect of village culture but suddenly knows the other aspects like dressing to the nines like a typical village lass in some scenes. Like what my wife says, "Shoo! Don't ask too many questions when you are watching an Indian movie. Just enjoy the show!". So much so that she has given up watching Indian movies - she likes the razzmatazz and glitz whilst I savour the dialogue and analysis. Coming back to the PP, Kalpana (Jayalalitha) returns home from London after studies in high fashion of the era. She visits her cousin in the village, Mukaya (Sivaji), a village brute with knotted locks and earrings who is a respectable figure with clout and wealth. Kalpana's mother hates his guts as she glamourises Western education and culture, which Mukaya lacks.
Talk about stereotyping, here all educated/town ladies are depicted as pushy domineering and the husbands are hen pecked and powerless. Just by a stare or a raise of voice, the husbands cow into submission. Kalpana's father is one such man!
No country bumpkin
Kalpana's mum arranges an educated philandering young man for hand in Kalpana' marriage. Realising his wayward habits, her father instigates Mukaya to help. In the Tamil communities, first cousins on maternal side are allowed and encouraged to marry. They believe that the female counterpart of the union carries passive DNA which is countered by the dominant male chromosomes (just my theory).
Mukaya kidnaps the bride from the dais and marries her in his village temple.
After the initial honeymoon period of singing and dancing, reality sinks in. Kalpana misses her carefree jolly party going light and easy days. On her birthday, she invites her town friends for a party. The villagers are appalled by the drunken dancing behaviour of the attendees. A showdown ensues. Mukaya physically abuses her like how a circus trainer whips the lion into submission !
That was the last straw for Kalpana to pack her things and leave. A divorce notice follows.
Realizing his mistake, Mukaya sheds his locks, dons flower power ala Hare Krishna baggy shirt and pants to woo back his loved one and convert her into a believer of the highly respected Indian culture. Then starts the wooing by Tamil movie style, which in present day construed by harassment, molestation and even rape. He successfully impregnates her.
Honeymoon over!
Another time for showdown - this time, Kalpana point blankly tells him to buzz off for the last time. Disappointed with tails between his legs, Mukaya returns to the village.
Meanwhile, a son is born to Kalpana who is smuggled off to an orphanage by his grandmother without a sedated Kalpana's knowledge.
The villagers persuade Mukaya to remarry. All preparations are set in place. Invitations are out. After seeing the wedding invitation, the now remorseful Kalpana, after losing her child, long to return to her Godly lawfully wedded husband. She shows up just in the nick of time as Mukaya is about to enter the hall to partake in the wedding ceremony. It is only then revealed to us the scam. Actually it was another guy with name Mukaya who was due to marry, not our hero. Kalpana's mother turn over a new leaf through the time the old fashion way - whacking by the newly reformed, rejuvenated and courage found husband. Kalpana falls at her husband's feet for forgiveness conceding defeat that Indian culture is superior. The baby also finds it way to Mukaya 's house.
Transformation
A person not from an Indian background will flip at the behaviour of the men in the movie. The ladies from the village obediently follow their man's orders without flinching as though they are divine decree. And this is condoned by the movie as the true Indian way of life.
Well, with education and exposure, the fairer sex is not going to take these type of hierarchy lying down. Maybe it is just correcting the status quo as it used to be. Evolutionary theorists propose that the female gender was awed upon during pagan era for their ability to create life and reproduce. With the introduction of religions of the sons of Abraham, a male dominated female suppressing population was born. Now, it is just correcting itself, with the inequality being a thing of the past.
Finally finished reading the parallel unbiased biography of two of 20th century's iconic statesmen who are actually remnants of the ideology of the 19th century Victorian values - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill.
It traces the time before their birth with the story of their ancestors. Actually, after taking almost 9 month to finish the book at a snail's pace due to its fact compacted but 720+ paged package and my indulgences in my other vices, I can only recall certain salient points of their lives.
Gandhi was born in a humble family whilst Churchill was born with an aristocratic background. They grew up following different pathways, one thinking that might is mightier than than words whilst the other believe that the soul force is mightier than brutal physical force.
One thing common between them was that they both believed that their respective race was superior to the other. Churchill believed that the English were there to unite the inferior native race via their administrative and ruling skills. Left on their own, the natives would just fight amongst each other and kill each other crazy. In his later of his career, he tries desperately to conserve the majestic British Empire. In his pursuit of glory to his race, he was labelled as an annoyance. Some used his course to advance their own political agenda. In spite of his tough rock stance during the WW2, he was rejected by the war weary nation. One could be forgiven to think the man of stature would have that Midas touch and could do no wrong. on the contrary, he had his many share of fumbles and disappointment, the fiasco of Gallipoli during WW1 being one.
Unfortunately, his offspring could not replicate his political success. Probably, after being in his shadow for too long, Winston's political foes just killed his. In spite of his heavy whisky drinking, penchant for cigar and multiple strokes, he lived to a ripe age of 91.
Gandhi was also racial in his outlook. He considered his subject to be of superior race with a far longer civilization history. The invasion of the conquerors is just a speck in their long history. Some of his quirky ideas were to reject modernization that was brought in by the British, citing them the tool of evil. In spite of that, he was a frequent traveller of the then new Railway services for his political tours. He also rejected industrialization and tried to promote the use of khadi and making India a nation of khadi yarning nation. His dressing was ridiculed. His undying steadfastness to stick to truth and fairness irked his devoted son, Harilal, to take to the bottle, convert to Islam and died as a vagabond in a public hospital a year after the Mahatma's demise.
Although initially Gandhi managed to unite the nation of multiple cultures, religion and languages but once united, the nation turned against him and labelled him a traitor. Many of his followers gave more credence to their political carrier over the values that Gandhi was trying to propagate.
At the end of the day, one really wonders whether all this worth it - living your whole life just for the glory of a piece of cloth that unites a nation of people. Even then in the case of Gandhi, when the day arrived to unveil the flag of the new nation, the consensus decided that Ashoka's wheel should be used instead of the chakra suggested by Gandhi's men during his independence fighting Congress days!
They say a doctor and a barber knows more secrets about their clients than any other professionals. Sometimes, politicians and policeman hang around the tonsorial artists' outlets to gauge their popularity or hear about the latest gossip around town! By just starting a conversation with their customers and keeping their eyes and ears open, the barbers will pick up so many cues. Just like a scene from the sitcom 'Cheers', their customers keep on coming to continue their banter and small chats.
Three wives meet in 'Madu Tiga'
On my last visit to my barber, who is very Indian in his outlook after being educated in Tamil medium school and only has Tamil magazines in his shop, our conversation which is usually in as much as possible in pristine, unadulterated Tamil (avoiding English words) went on to the topic of P. Ramlee movies!
His assistant, an Indian immigrant on a work contract, join in the fun. I was pleasantly surprised that both of them were also fans of P. Ramlee films and had viewed his movies for umpteen times and still laugh at the antics. Offhand, they narrated their memorable moments in Ramlee's films - scenes from Madu Tiga, Labu Labi etcetera.
It is amazing how the old Malay movies transcended all barriers and had infiltrated all levels of society!
They meet Ranga friend, an advocate (Nagesh) who suggested a trial separation for a year before proceeding.
After all the uncertainty and worries went out of the window when Kalyani became paraplegic after contracting spinal TB. Ranga cares for her till recovery. Kalyani's married actors who had problems in their married life suddenly was resolved after the birth of their child! At the end of the movie, the million dollar question of why some marriages work while others do not work is not answered. All the philosophical question of meaning of matrimony and pride is forgotten when you see a love one is downtrodden. When the journey is too smooth with its usual waxes and wane, we become arrogant and haughty. Fighting hurdles of life together strengthens the bond.
