Thanga Magan

Firstly, this second outing of Velraj-Dhanush-Anirudh that runs for just two hours is not VIP-2. And yes, I too hated the trailer punchline in which the lead actor Dhanush (Tamil) breathlessly rattles out half of the world languages and seals it up with - '...aanaa Tamil Nadula Tamil thokkavey mudiyadhu da..' ('No one can wipe off Tamil from Tamil Nadu'). But, minus such unintentionally humorous dialogues, sporadic episodes of unseemly heroism and sprinklings of simplistic thinking, it is undeniable that Thanga Magan (Golden Son) is a one with a golden heart. The lead ladies Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Amy Jackson amazingly fit into their roles that are devoid of the usual skin show. (I think the former is seen only in sarees throughout the film.) One is the girl friend, who marries Tamil's cousin after they breakup; the other is the arranged-marriage wife that provides rock solid support to Tamil, after his father hangs himself. Such strong female characters are typical of Selvaraghvan-Dhanush movies; no wonder there are tributes to the director placed within the film that runs for  - just the right length given the hairline story line. Veterans KS Ravikuamr (Vijayaraghavan, Tamil's father), Raadhika Sarathkumar (mother, thank god Kollywood is finding alternatives to Saranya to play the benevolent amma character), Jayaprakash ('officer', as he is addressed throughout) have justified their roles, though special mention is for the ace director KS Ravikumar, who seems to be having an alternative career as a bankable performer. But Vijayaraghavan reminds us of Bhavani of OK Kanmani that had symptoms of Alzheimer's disease; and Raghavan is at par with the memorable Bhavani, if not better. And for Dhanush, it is just another day at the office and he excels both as the clean-shaven adolescent lover-boy, and the desperate and disheartened son, who is on the mission to restore the lost glory of his dear, departed father. 

The initial portions filled with teenage fun are really enjoyable with composer Anirudh Ravichander and comedian Sathish lending a beautiful support, but only up to the scene where Hema D'Souza and Tamil breakup. This particular scene marks the first low in the script, and could have been handled better. (Btw, it is said Hema D'Souza has a British father and a Tambram mother.) The next, weak attempt at a twist is when Tamil looks at his cousin Aravindh 's wedding invite only to realise that his ex is getting married to Aravindh (played by Adith Arun.) While VIP touched upon sibling rivalry, in this itinerary it is about the friction between cousins that is made to turn into a raging fire. But was there a real reason? I'm still wondering. Aravindh (fair and handsome) reminds us of Arun Subramaniam of VIP. He, also resembling Siddarth Abhimanyu, is a villain with a fair skin that the mass Tamil audience will easily start hating. Though the trailer dialogues between the cousins make us expect something like Holmes-Moriarty, nothing could be more disappointing, absolutely. The bold and cunning Aravindh fumbles very soon, and he is reduced to the level of a meaningless, lunatic joker ultimately. There is no punch to it. But moments like the scene where the apologetic cousin falls at Tamil's mother's feet inconsolably keep you awake, connected and moved. The performance sparkles. Instantaneously, the centre of focus shifts to the 'officer' of the IT Dept. and things begin to proceed in the auto-mode with the usual stunts-in-rains (..protecting a pregnant wife too! yes, they were on the way to a hospital for delivery in an autorickshaw, and it was raining too when the bunch of goons stopped them. Can you beat it?) and also some superficial sub-plots, and the quick volte-face of the officer's assistant and 'The end'. But one nice thing is that the hero never even touches the villain - forget chasing him down the streets and bashing his brains out. 

The last portions of the film are a let down. It also gets preachy when Tamil spits out moral lessons to his cousin and us. But perhaps that is the soul of the movie. Money cannot buy happiness. And here is where the movie diverges from the beaten track of the rags-to-riches plots, and manages to score too. In the end, Tamil is not even a penny richer, in fact with the new addition to his family his financial worries are only going to worsen, but - the couple is happy, as the film ends Tamil is seen carrying his wife, Yamuna, lovingly.

Though the film does not take the craft to a new level or dishes out something exceptionally entertaining, this golden son with occasional bouts of fatigue - will not fail to warm your hearts.

(Spoilers above)

Land, air and water

In the recent Maniratnam interview with Peter Webber, jokingly reacting to the Indian ace director's comment on Censor Board being a creature that the colonial British had left behind, Webber said, 'Sorry about that! We left trains as well..' True. There are many, many other things the East India Company and the British left behind for us. One among the million things is the Circuit House in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, under 100km, almost north of Patna. Muzaffarpur region has been under the colonial crooks effectively since the Battle of Buxar (Oct, 1764); it was a part of the biggest booty the British East India Company managed for itself. But it has never been easy for the white man here. Like many other tropical places the district has almost never been free from malaria altogether. Blame it on the rainfall and humidity conditions. The district has the distinction of having a malaria control unit as early as 1949. Soon, the guys carried out indoor house-spraying operations, more technically known as 'Interception of vector species'. Sitting in the Circuit House, I too am tackling the same problem. Also, perhaps with the new, improved variants of the same set of tools. (any research done 'Preference for various skin colours: A field-based study conducted from the socioeconomic perspective of a mad mosquito'?)  Hit, Good Knight and the good old Tortoise are not of much help here. It's the very much tangible, physical, white mosquito net that lets you sleep, though you have a feeling that you are camping inside a white, highly-ventilated tent somewhere by a river. But I'm sure people here have not seen the imported electric mosquito bats that are ubiquitous down south, especially in the mosquito lands of Chennai. In fact, these terminator bats can be distributed by the local government; or any of the budding entrepreneurs can take up the exclusive dealership of such bats. Buddy, it's a booming business!  

But I am happy for one thing. Just across my room, there is Room No.1. In the very same room, over one hundred+ years ago, there stayed Kingsford, an infamous British magistrate. He had come on transfer from Bengal. I am happy I am not put up in his room. (Though it might actually turn out that much worse gentlemen and ladies spent nights in the room where I am now.) It's not that I will be tormented by his spirit or something like that, it's just that it is good I did not end up in his room. Kingsford, during his stint in Calcutta, was pretty notorious in the way he gave sentences that the Bengal group of revolutionaries decided to knock him off. Khudiram Bose (all of 18 years-8 months of age) and Prafulla Chaki (19) were the chosen ones to execute the magistrate. Just like the case of mistaken identity that would be repeating itself in Punjab after two decades, the teenage revolutionaries hurled bombs in a carriage that had in it, instead of that lucky fellow Kingsford, the wife and the daughter of a lawyer. The incident happened just outside the European Club, Muzaffarpur. They both were killed. A servant also got killed. All hell broke loose. It was April, 1908. While Chaki shot himself dead, after a speedy trial Bose was hanged in Muzaffarpur (August, 1908). The cell in Muzaffarpur prison where Bose was lodged before he was sent to the gallows (see photo) has been converted into a memorial and the feeling you get as you enter the memorial-cell - has to be experienced.

But my journey to the district was not an easy one. I was bogged down by barotitis media. Well, this is not some kind of social or antisocial media that gets activated around the election time here. It is the doctor's term for the ear-lock thing you feel when you are unlucky enough during a flight's descent from the heights of say, about 10km, to the narrow stretch of the runway at the near sea level. The term is more relevant in the lives of aircrew, though. Ear-lock and the likely drum rupture are easily avoidable, unless you have very serious nasal block and yet you decide to fly anyway. For grown-ups there is something called the Valsalva maneuver, though it may sound like a weird training session taken out of the Navy SEALs manual and worse, when you actually do it you may look like some amateur yogic practitioner trying to impress a foreigner passenger by performing a magical breathing exercise mid-air, Valsalva is really a cool workout to prevent your ear drum rupture. Though the damage by itself is not as dangerous as it sounds, for the simple fact that the ear drum is a membrane that can heal like it happens with a minor damage to the skin, it definitely irritates you - as the ear with the damaged membrane turns you half-deaf for some time; while you also lose the perception of orientation and depth to an extent. Other easier techniques to avoid such a plight are chewing a gum, yawning, or with the children it is about stuffing their mouths with candies. I'm sure all of us are painfully used to the horrible and helpless cries of small kids during the time of landing. I wish the airlines had started handing out lollipops to kids flying. 

But with certain airlines you cannot wish anything more than a safe landing. Though Air India is generous enough to provide you with decent meals on board, and 4-5 movies to choose from your personal entertainment system, it was a rude shock when a hostess pulled me out of the engrossing Chak de India with the announcement, 'We will be landing in Hyderabad in a few minutes'. Man! I got the tickets for Bangalore-Delhi. And now - Hyderabad?! Luckily, it was just a mistake on her part. Nice. (Was she already missing her home?) Sad that unlike with buses and trains, you do not have the possibility of peeping out of the window and being assured that you are on the right path. You can't take chances these days, you see. Some kind of balloons with neon displays at the upper reaches of the troposphere might be just the need of the hour. Else you feel so left out and kind of scared too, amidst the unending stretch of blueness with those bubbly white clouds jumping around pointlessly. At least, I get scared. 

And every time you use the flush (kind of air suction or something) in a flight, the noise it generates gives you a chilling feeling that something has gone awfully wrong and the flight is about to explode into flying pieces any moment. Again, luckily, things are okay soon and you walk out of the in-flight washroom a much relieved person - if not of anything else, at least due to the fact that the flight is still in tact and you have not messed it up by mistakenly pressing some emergency button or something instead of the flush. Thank God! And, I am not sure about the other carriers, but these days, Indigo, has started announcing the home towns of the pilots and cabin crew flying with you. I don't know how this extra, personal information about the flight's people is going to help me as a passenger. Say even if someone gets really worked up about a particular pilot's domicile, there is no way he can jump out of the flight or throw the pilot out. He has to live with it, fly with it. I cannot as well say 'No, I don't want a Delhi pilot, get me a Japanese.' Same with the flight attendants too. So what is this hometown business all about? Perhaps, given our busy schedules, announcing the horoscopes of the eligible pilots and cabin crew will be a more useful thing to do - a flight in the right direction.

On the way to Darbhanga, about 70km from Muzaffarpur, I made a detour to the Research Centre for Makhana (Near Delhi More, Darbhanga) that was bang on one of those highways of the famed golden quadrilateral network that ran across the state of Bihar. The campus is a part of the ICAR Research Complex for the Eastern Region. I had known makhana (fox nut/gorgon nut) only about a month ago, though I remember savouring something like makhana kheer long, long ago. Surprisingly, these spongy pops are from nuts taken from an aquatic plant that is similar to lotus or say, water lily. With broad leaves that are of the size of the royal meal plates in Chokhi Dhani and serious thorns all over, makhana plant is not particularly inviting. Don't you mess with me! But, I would have ended up a totally different opinion had I been here around in summer when they would have been in full bloom - attractive purple flowers all over the pond. Romantic, but thorns attached. 

Soon, the flowers turn into fruits that burst open under water, leaving the seeds to be painstakingly picked up from the bottom of the ponds, around September. Fishermen, not necessarily farmers, do all this. After some cumbersome processing the seeds pop out to give out the spongy, white, tiny balls of makhana. Lots of work is happening to bring about more and more efficient automation to make the seeds pop up effortlessly, and to usher in ways to plant makhana in farmlands with about just 1-2 feet of water, as against in deeper ponds. With a good water source, these plants are ideal for an integrated pond system that can give you year round returns: makhana-fish-poultry-fruits trees on the bund. The pop has good medicinal value; pooja value; and being gifted with the trait of low fat-high protein this kind of pop is an enviable creation - though we can do much better with thornless makhana plants. And for that matter, even with thornless rose plants or seedless seethaphal. Wow!