Manmadhan Ambu Movie Review

Every time you go into a cinema hall for a Kamal movie and if the movie promises to be a comedy roller coaster then expectations are sky high for a rip roaring hilarious comic affair. Beware! Manmadham Ambu does not fit into that genre and hence any preconceived notion is detrimental to the excitement. Nevertheless, it is a good movie and is a breezy entertainer but if you have patience the last 30 minutes are rip roaring.

The movie starts off with a Trisha (Ambu aka Nisha) shooting a song with the real hero Suriya. The first scene sets the tone for the movie as it that scene that where the rift between Madhavan (Madanagopal) and Trisha eruptsdue to the suspecting ways of Madhavan on his lover Trisha.

Madhavan is a class act throughout the movie, his performance is easily the best as a vulnerable lover rich boy. The story takes some twists and turns and Trisha decides to go on a vacation (2 years after her so called rift with Madhavan?) with her friend Sangeetha (Deepa) and her 2 kids (really cute performance by them throughout the movie). Madhanagopal sets up Kamal (an army Major), a private detective who has taken up the assignment to arrange for money for the treatment of his friend Ramesh Arvind (Rajan), to spy on Trisha in Europe.

The meat of the movie follows the trail of Trisha traveling through Europe in a cruise ship and is followed by Kujan (Kurup) and his wife. Kunjan is a producer unsuccessfully trying to convince Trisha to act in his movie but she loathes him. Kamal in his detective avatar is convincing and finds that Trisha is a straightforward girl and lets Madhavan know about the same. The movie gains steam when Madhavan refuses to pay Kamal as Madhavan argues that Kamal did not discover anything wrong with Trisha which ought to have been his real assignment. Kamal needs the money for his friend's treatment and hence twists the tale by making a u-turn on his original assessment to milk money from Madhavan and that is the plot of the movie.

All the actors have performed well but special mention must go to Madhavan and Sangeetha who excel in their roles. The movie also sounds different because all sounds and voices were recorded during the live shooting and Trisha's voice is a refreshing change. Kamal as usual excels in his role effortlessly flipping between a dutiful detective's character to a man with sombre past. Watch out for couple of unexpected twists in the movie one in the middle part just before interval and the second in the climax.

Overall the movie is a definite watch and is techically brilliant. The music and the songs are refreshing and watch out for one exceptional song 'Neela Vanam', the picturisation and the music is really heart rendering. What makes the movie watchable and interesting is the unexpected twists in the story line and a generous sprinkling of practical comedy throughout the movie (not over the top). The supporting cast is the strength of the movie and are integrated well within the main storyline

Rating 3/5

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Soundcheck: Superstar Rajinikanth - WNYC

Soundcheck: Superstar Rajinikanth - WNYC

Interesting discussion about Rajini's superstardom in WNYC radio.

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Akbar and lessons to be learnt from the great emperor

I have seen the movie Jodhaa Akbar  and must say was a brilliant film falling a little short of a masterpiece; I would say that because I love battle scenes and a couple of battle scenes in the movie were not great, but having said that the movie is just like a poetry. The directors vision to make a movie of this scale must be complimented, Hrithik was just brilliant in his potrayal as Jalaluddin Mohamed Akbar and Aishwarya was as beautiful as ever coupled with a restrained performance. The movie has too many things going for it including the music, the performance of the characters, and brilliant costumes and picturisation.

The question here is though about why was Jalaluddin Mohammed called 'Akbar' and the answer lies in the fact that even though Akbar was not literate at a very young age he understood that only inclusive politics and administration will enable him to become the first true emperor of Hindustan. A few examples of inclusive and secular rule are:

• 5 out of the nine ratnas in his court were Hindus
• Jodhaa bai was a Hindu and her son (Salim) became the next Mughal emperor
• Akbar abolished the pilgrim tax levied on non-muslims
• Akbar respected the Rajputs and his commander in chief was a Rajput Raja Man Singh

All this inclusive actions of made Akbar the true emperor of Hindustan. This brings a lingering question to my mind as to why when a Mughal aristocratic ruler 500 years ago could understand in an era where there was no concept of religious tolerance that our leaders of today cannot understand -- the concept of inclusive progress.

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Transition into real world

I can still remember the day 16 years ago. It was a warm day and I had this fulfilling feeling that I have never had since then. I had just completed the final exam of my standard 10 board exam in Dombivli ( a town I grew up in near Mumbai).
It was a feeling of accomplishment that I had after one year of hard work and I was not worried about the results because I knew I had given my best. I came home after school had great lunch and watched a old Tamil movie on very own DD channel.
I spent the evening playing gully cricket with friends. I had never skipped a day playing even during the exams. I used to play for 2-3 hours every day and on exam days it was about an hour.
I was busy planning on how I would spend my 3 month vacation. My planning was around playing cricket and managing my team. I was the captain of a well knit group in my colony. Those 3 months were spent playing cricket, lots of cricket and hanging out with friends and going around the place having bhel puris, pav bahjis and other Mumbai delicacies and endless hours were spent just chatting with friends. I also spent a lot of time at my neighbors place; we were a very close knit community. I never even once was worried about the exam results.
After 3 months of fun and frolic in my very own little world of gully cricket, my team (friends whom i miss immensly in my life now) and the limitless time that I had to do whatever I wanted to do the exam results were announced one day and I had secured good marks. I was happy and my folks and friends were happy too but little did I realize that this would turn around my life forever for this was the beginning of the transition into the real world which in this case was getting into junior college.

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Corruption - A way of life in India

It seems that the trend in India is that every political family has a target of amassing wealth.

Recent examples include :

Illegal iron ore mining scam in Karnataka

2G spectrum scam by A. Raja of DMK

I think corruption is an acceptable way of life in India. Even common man has to participate in corrupt activities because of the way things work. For example if some one is caught violating the traffic the traffic cop pesters the violator for money. Since the violator sees an easy way out he pays the traffic cop instead of paying a fine or going to the court (where the case could drag on) and worse still the violator is not sure what he violated because the traffic system in itself is so messed up. A common denominator in all these instances are systemic failure; let us analyze the process/ systems that fail in this simple example:

• Traffic system - Absence of any traffic rules and its implementation


• Traffic policing - Lack of training, thankless job and low pay and self- esteem


• The motorist - Unsure about traffic rules, lack of respect for the law and possibly could have procured license illegally


• Civilian courts - Unclear policies and punishment / fines for traffic violators
  


• Roads / Highway department -Bad infrastructure and lack of proper road markers,signals etc

If such for such a simple example we can actually point out at least 5 systemic failures then really think about how the rot has spread across our society and systems.

Solutions... any one...

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Tanjore Temples - One of the Gopurams

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Tanjore Brihadeeshwarar Temple

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Indian Democracy - Wrongs

Indian democracy is on life-support and the need is infusion of fresh blood enthusiasm and honest committed young people with a global perspective who can change the world. What the Indian democracy needs is a list of political reforms is the one that will encourage more participation from the common man. The middle class in India has no interest or say in the political process and that is because the whole structure of Indian democracy is flawed. For example: What will a union minister from Madhya Pradesh know about the infrastructure needs of people of Tripura?

State level autonomy seems to be the best course of action for India with each state and city for itself. Regional governments must be empowered to decide for their populace. Local government must be empowered to decide on the following issues:
Infrastructure
Industrial Policy
Education
Power and energy
Transportation
Trade and ports
And others but the federal government must be involved in key decision making like policy for defence, aviation, foreign affairs, telecommunication and just focus on these aspects of policy making.
Devolution of power to states, cities, villages and towns is a must to rekindle common man's interest in democracy and policy making instead of reserving the power with a few babus or netas.

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Information technology and nation building- An approach

Sometimes I wonder what's the impact of Information Technology on India, on one hand it has provided millions of jobs to people like me and a life and career that would not have been possible 10-15 years ago, but sometimes I wonder what about its effect of diverting young Indians like me from contributing anything to the progress of the country, except for the fact that we are helping in increasing the forex reserves through remittances and the country's export standing.

But the larger question is what is role of today's youth in India towards nation building, there exists tremendous apathy towards government and politics, none of us even want to participate in governance at local district and state levels. This generation is more interested in the release of movies and other controversies surrounding the release than understanding what is the government doing to improve infrastructure, education, oil & gas policy, health care and other things that would impact our lives. We get entangled in our own lives and working for our companies than sparing a thought to the nation or helping build the country that we live in. India faces tremendous challenges in the 21st century from issues ranging from economic development to terrorism to political corruption to regionalism to illiteracy to poverty to government inefficiency and the list goes on...

A possible solution to challenges facing the nation could be for people like me and my tribe to take active interest in nation building, be a responsible citizen and show up some interest and involvement in governance. The scenarios that I am talking about is for example if people from the IT industry along with working on building trading systems and automation systems for global multinationals can also contribute and focus on infrastructure projects as project managers, business analyst and work with the same dedication then think about how progress the nation will be able to achieve. I for example always have wanted to work or contribute to the metro rail project in Chennai (my hometown). I can only imagine the satisfaction that I will derive when I take the metro ride from my home in Vadapalani to Satyam cinemas by beating the traffic and not paying crazy money to any other mode of private transport.

The biggest impediment for people from the IT industry is that our political class has ensured that the government organizations present hostile work environment and promote sycophancy which is a big put off for today's educated youth. The government has to ensure that in order to resolve complex challenges it must engage its people and to do that they must create an acceptable environment for people from every walk of life to contribute to nation building. The other aspect is that people from an industry like IT must keep their mind open when accepting such challenges. We need not be Nandan Nilekani to traverse the path of contribution to nation after holding the highest and the most respected position in Indian IT industry, we (each one) at our own levels as project managers, business analysts and software engineers must be able to do that and to enable that the industry (IT), government and the employees must come together. One fine example could be the IT industry getting together with the state / local government and try to understand the technology needs for various infrastructure projects. If the IT industry can participate in such endeavors with the state and local governments by the way of lending some of its resources to work on these projects on a need basis for 1 day a week, think about how much can be accomplished. This will also promote goodwill for these companies in cities or towns or villages where they are located in. I am sure many such endeavors are currently being conducted but it will be tremendously helpful and satisfying to create a movement of this sort, think about this for example if 1 % of the work force in a city like Chennai contribute 8 hours every week to local/ state level projects as to how much we can accomplish.

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