Director's Cut - Blurb

Three Aspiring Directors see a girl in Marina Beach and the scheme of events that unfolds trigger their creative juice…..

This is the new story I've written, drop me a mail if you would like to read it.

Urumi - Review

I was disappointed.

Why should you have (unnecessary) love story in a period film. That too why you make a Hindu love a Muslim girl and vice-versa.

Why make Vidya Balan an oracle and have one unnecessary song.

Why unnecessary present day role for the period film characters. Why can’t the film be just a period film, why an unnecessary reference to present.

Why should there be a hand to hand combat between the hero and the villian.

Even Avatar had a final hand to hand combat with the hero and villain, cinematic and unnecessary.

I did research on Vasco da Gama after seeing the film and was astonished to find what was shown in the film was true.

This just shows how skewed our History awareness is. Also shows how powerful media Films are.

More (authentic) historical films needs to be made. But care should be taken to give a balanced view. Black and White picturization, we are good they are bad kind of  stereotypic  characters is not the answer.

Good camera but not so good music and also very slow combat. I expected at least 1 full sized war. Most fighting sequence in slow motion.

It seems Vasco da Gama had asked the Hindu ruler to expel the Muslims which the Hindu did not agree.

This important and significant scene was missed in the film.

Sometimes the creator throws in some symbols, some hints, which he expects the viewer will  uncover and appreciate.

A good creator leaves lot of symbols, there is a main story and then there are hints which can be appreciated by viewer who wishes to go deeper.

The Mosquito bite on Gama was a symbol, the symbol was to show that Gama finally died of Malaria. Gama did not care much about the mosquito, he just kills it. Blissfully unaware of his awaiting death.

The Tragedy about the Tragedy

Cinema, fiction are very different from our real life. Real life has a lot of irrational things. But fiction, cinema are technically rational, these mediums present the ‘edit’ version of real life.
2 characters meet and they speak about a point and they speak so that the reader/ viewer understand sthe context. This can never happen in real life.
Take this example
“Do you really have to go?”, asks the mother
“Yes amma. This is educational tour and we are going to Udhagamandalam to study the tribes life”, replied the daughter
Do you see how crystal clear the dialogue is? But can you be sure that this is how the incidents happen in real life? The woman and her daughter would’ve spoken the same things, but it would have been lengthy exchange and could’ve happened over a period of week. But for the sake of Fiction/ cinema the creator has given the distilled information.
Now there is this craze in Tamil Cinema to take a rustic story with a tragic end. But what is tragic in this tragic cinema is the tragedy is irrational!
Take for example ‘Vennila Kabadikulu’, the movie goes for a smooth finish, but the director decides that he needs a tragedy. Nothing works like tragedy, the sympathetic wave of the crowd is extremely important.
So the hero dies accidently. Yes! Accident happens in real life too! Life is so irrational that suddenly a person dies in an accident. But in cinema you cannot do it. You should be as rational as possible.
It’s ok if a character dies of an accident and then the story can be how the people around come terms of what happened. The story can provide space for how rationally the characters react. But abruptly ending a story with a tragedy is a ‘tragedy’ of creativity.
In ‘Valmiki’ the hero is a thief and he finally turns a new leaf and all of a sudden someone snatches the gold chain from the heroine and she gets cut in her neck and she dies. Come on! Be creative, it’s easy to make people cry but it’s difficult to make the tragedy rational. And it’s the duty of the creator to make it rational.

Mirza Raja - Blurb

“We are not slaves of Mughals, to not to care for the empire during time of distress. We are very much part of the glorious Mughal empire. We are partners, stakeholders”

The life of a Rajput Commander of the Mughal Empire.



This story I wrote recently can be called 'narrative non-fiction'.
I tried my best to be faithful to history.
I was intrigued by this Rajput Commander, who witnessed and co-created some of the important events in his time period.
He was eclipsed by some prominent historical figures, I just had a glimpse of him and thought how big role he might've played and did my research which confirmed my intution.

If you want to read this story drop a mail and i will send it across to you.

Don’t fool you readers

I’d seen soaps where in an important event happens. I mean I know when I see that event that it cannot happen. Soap proceeds very slowly why should there be an important breakthrough now and guess what.
An actor wakes up from his sleep, forehead sprinkled with sweat, he gets relaxed that it was just a dream. But you viewer may not get relaxed! This is just cheating the viewer.
The viewer/ reader should be pleasantly surprised but should not get irritated or fooled. If the creator takes care of the above rule the world will be a better place.
In Vinnaithandi Varuvaya, there is the last song where the Hero and Heroine gets married in America. I’ve no issues with it being a dream song, but the hero’s crew members were present in that song, making it feel like a real life event. This is really a let down!
I recently read “The Runaway Jury” a brilliant thriller, but if you look back after reading the whole novel. The girl need not have contacted the Plaintiff lawyer., she contacted the lawyer just to distract us.
I’m given up on thrillers because they try to fool you, there is nothing wrong in not revealing a secret, but distracting you with a non-event is silly.
Why can’t the creators (directors of movie, serial, writers) be more conscious and try entertaining the readers

The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction - Review

Recently read this book from a lending library
I remembered pulp fiction Tamil novels were very famous during 80s and 90s.
I thought they would've died by now, what with the advent of regional TV channels and Internet.
Also its no longer fashion to read a Tamil book.
Even I myself seldom read Tamil.
So here I'm a tamilian reading a translated work of Tamil pulp fiction.

What i noticed about the story is the narration is very abstract, the authors don't describe each character well. If there is more than 4 characters you don't know which one the author is referring too. You will not be able to connect.
Also the stories are like draft, there is this carelessness of the author, he has to complete this work by today, this story is just 1 of his thousand stories. This will be published in a magazine and may be never republished later.

The stories reminded me my own stories, it made me realize that my narration is also as poor as these stories, at the same time i knew that some day under the sun, if those stories were published and are now part of an anthology. My stories can definitely see the light.

Here are some stories which are
excellent
Ripples
The Rich Woman
Dim Lights, Blazing Hearts
Sweetheart, Please Die
GLory Be to the Love that Kills!


Okish
The Rainbow
FLR


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Hospital for Profit

I have been to Fortis Malar and also Apollo and noticed the buzz of activities, the processes followed, world class infrastructure, foreign country patients, cutting edge technology, high skilled doctors and the cash ringing offices.
What a beautiful growth story! Fortis and Apollo are trying to make an organized health care sector. They not only focus on multi-specialty hospitals, but also are having a chain of clinics as well. People coming to these hospitals are surely going to increase, what with raising income level, sedentary and stressful life leading to chronic diseases and a booming health insurance.
So are Hospital stocks looking like stable, defensive stocks?
Well almost! Let’s have a closer look. You have a heart disease, do you go to Apollo/ Fortis. For me which hospital is not important? I want the best doctor. Who is the best doctor? You choose a doctor because he is recommended by your physician/friend/relatives. If the doctor visits a Hospital then you go there. You don’t go to a Hospital because it’s a good brand. The brand of Hospital is not really as important as the doctor’s brand.
A doctor will have to pay more % of his income to a branded hospital than an unbranded one. Usually a good doctor with decent money in his pocket will open his own clinic and ppl throng to those clinics.
Hospital really make the mark in in-patient services like surgery, monitoring of patients and using of cutting edge technology for treatments, which cannot be provided by a doctor in a small clinic. Here a good corporation can ensure quality process, reliable service.
Hospitals can charge any amount of money and the patient cannot bargain and Hospitals can generate profit, but it just doesn’t make sense. Hospitals (just like education institutes) are for serving people. They should really be a Not For Profit organization. In some fields, charity and service mentality should be the focus, Hospital is one such field.
Fortis and Apollo are improving standards of the Hospitals in India and those professionalism is really necessary in this unorganized sector. These companies will sustain and generate enormous amount of profit.
But there is this eternal dilemma, if I go in as an investor I want them to make all possible tests for the patient, let him undergo a big surgery, let him be put in a monitoring unit for 3 days. Should I entertain a patient who is seeing a Physician or a patient with rare disease, let me go to the second one he will give me high margin. But the patient in me always wonders, are they doing this test because its best for me, or is it best for the shareholder!
What should be the agenda for these hospitals, to increase the revenue 3 folds in 5 years! Hospitals should really pray that their income should reduce, that they should close some of their hospitals (meaning Healthy nation)
‘Hospital for Profit’ is an oxymoron.