Cinema, Karam, Kapi

The day of Holi festival is very special to Superstar Rajinikanth, for it was on this day in the year 1975 that he was named so by his guru and ace director Late Shri K. Balachandar. Shivaji Rao Gaekwad was a young lad from suburban Bangalore with high spirits in heart and a hardworking nature. His mother passed away at an early age and his father and elder brother ran the household. He ran errands for people, worked as a coolie, a bus conductor among many things to sustain himself. He had his own vices and needed money for all that. Shivaji also had a deep inclination towards spirituality even when he was young, thanks to his upbringing from Ramakrishna Mission. He performed skits and plays in the neighborhood and that prompted his friends to encourage him to join Cinema – Kannada Actor Rajkumar who was in his prime during the early 70s was a great inspiration for Shivaji. With some money in hand given by his friends, he boarded a bus to reach the erstwhile Madras and join the F...

It is coincidental that I am writing this blog on the eve of Valentine's Day. Just that I found time for this only now. V-Day has been a rage in India for over two decades now. I have never lived in the West, so I don't know what kind of a fad it is there, but here, guys and girls take the event seriously. Some take it too seriously resulting in attempted suicides in the following week, which is very sad. For me, the essence of a relationship has clearly been marriage - I have been married for a decade now and we have had our share of best moments and some not-so-worthy-to-mention too. But, its all in the game. Being a sucker for commercial cinema, I have always been enthralled over the fact how movies capture the essence of marriage, starting from boy seeing the girl to proposing, dating, running around, getting married and fighting thereafter - only to live a few days or months or weeks or years together and everytime a fight occurs, either of them choose to hang on and mak...

I have seen Ajith grow from a boy next door in films like Pavithra and Ullasam to a mature actor in films such as Vaali and Godfather to majestic successes such as Veeram and Aarambam. That the Billa series gave him an undisputed position in the top 3 among next-gen actors of Tamil Cinema is no surprise. What I like about Ajith is that he chooses purely commercial, tried and tested formulas and has been on a winning streak for a long time now. While he experiments with his looks like Kamal Hassan, he sticks to his "Thala" image and larger than life persona created by his ardent fans, many of whom happen to be Superstar Rajnikanth's fans as well. He is also a simple man, as admonished by many people within the industry and outside. There was a video clip of him visiting Tirumala Tirupati temple with just two people around, right before his latest film Vedalam's release. It showed his simplicity and reach among the common people, who were taken by surprise. So, I ...