Raavanan

Raavanan

    Raavanan tries to relive the epic Ramayana, it is a good watch with a prerequisite of knowing atleast the short story version of the epic. An able metaphor is to compare the differences between the history textbooks of India and Pakistan, saying the same tale differently. The movie's script varies greatly with the epic's script which involves clear demarking of good and evil. The focus on the movie is to create the character Raavanan and justify the broken reverance against Ram from Sita.

    For me these two are the eyes of the film and everything else are fillers in the movie, you just have to ignore the props around these two characters. When I talk about character portrayal, Maniratnam has given the character a complex blend. The character has severe mood swings but thinks deep, thats strange !! he is supposed to be the perfect gentleman but also one who enjoys doing all the deadly sins.

    Choosing not to kill Sita is a pivotal point in the movie, with that – Raavan has to play host, be decent and also eat the thoughts of keeping Sita with her. Raavan does not like Sita rather he adores her for the character she shows. As time progresses he explains his feelings towards her and I dare say that he even impresses her. First by justifying his stance against Ram and second by simply being the person he is.

    Sita understands that her relationship with Ram will never be the same again . She closes the door on Ram and boldly comes back to see Raavan. This is to be seen as a soul filling moment for Raavan. I dont know how their relationship would have been consequentially but can't help to get a feeling that Sita craves to be with Raavan (sexual or not). Got a feeling of Kaadhal Konden where Sonia Agarwal can't let go of Dhanush how so ever bad the world seees him.

Finally the one line version of character portrayal

Ram: Believes in glory and sancticity. Troubled by perverse thoughts, considers Sita to be his property and not as a person.

Sita: Believes in strength of mind and considers Ram as God and everything that is right. For a person of character and spirit, when her character is questioned she just feels deeply instigated.

Raavan: Free spirited, angry and a genuine person. In touch with the various personalities of himself which he might have mustered by meeting different people in his troubled life.

Naadi Josiyam explained

Well, here it is to Naadi Josiyam. Real records are very very rare, think about the odds but that doesn't stop juggernaut from rolling on.

1. How many letters are there in your name
2. Are you a christian, are you a muslim, is your name a hindu god's name
3. What is your first letter
4. What is your birth star
5. Have you loved anybody
6. Are you 27, 26, 28 , 29?


same applies to your mom, dad and siblings

Then based on your planetary positions he goes old skool and predicts your portfolio. Voila, the most hyped naadi josiyam.From here on everything else are calculations and combinations, he collects more than enough information and goes back to his shell to write self composed tamil poems which are just recitals in old Tamil with common stuff, trust me. I also find a few loan words from Sanskrit which came along recently in Tamil usage.

Naadi Josiyam - Myth or Math - Part I

Naadi Josiyam is an offbeat type of astrology. Unlike traditional indian astrology derived from planetary positions. Naadi is not predictions but supposed to be record of events, written over 2000 years back by holy men.

Its easy to doubt its pedigree and existence. If Naadi exists for each and every person in the world, not to forget those who have passed away in the recent years. The repository should be in the size of a huge library.

SUPPORTING ARGUMENT

From what I witnessed, each bundle carried about 100 names/combinations. Howsoever be the sorting algorithm, housing india's records alone would mean 110 crore/100 = 1.1 crore bundles, phew!!!

COUNTER ARGUMENT

The counter-argument presented is wrapped in mysticism. They say that not everyone will come in search of their records and thats why that name Naadi(To come in search of). Therefore it is also written for who may gets access to his/her Naadi records.

The second argument is the existence of such a thing. Its humanly impossible to write 600 crores or more records and not to miss the supporting documents as in 1-14(Gandams-subsects of main records). An entire lifetime would not have been enough given the writing techniques of that period. Unless, this takes another magical angle saying that Agathiar(a revered holy man) sprinkled water on barren trees and it got converted into records. (This is a fragment of my imagination)

COUNTER-ARGUMENT

The counter argument is simple, they are not ordinary men. God's hand is there, in forming these records. You can't argue with that can you?

The final argument is about the survival of these records over a 2000 years period, where Tamil has seen a major change in its character-set, words, dictionary, etc. Palmyra leave manuscripts have a very short lifetime and if these records have been reproduced over time.

1. Reproducing all these records and sharing these with several institutes all over India is a huge ask.

2. Why do we still painfully reproduce them in palmyra leaves rather than writing in paper if not computers. This seems a gimmick rather than means of saving the records.

My personal account of the Naadi visit and other information in the next blog.

Rice cakes and coconut cream

The Gen-X of our family set out early in the morning to Thiruvannamalai – A Shiva temple built at the foot of a sizeable hill. Got to meet my cousins, nephews & nieces. Our family setting is pretty huge that we need a 30 seater if we all were to travel. It was my uncle's initiative and he wanted to make sure his daughter gets all the blessings of Annamalai (another name for Shiva) towards her marriage life.

CMBT: The Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminal was once housed by Parrys near High Court, I remember buses operating at a gap of 40 minutes. The construction of CMBT and moving the traffic to the western tip of my city seemed irrelevant.

We were so used to booked tickets, confirmed berths or rented buses that anything otherwise seems adventurous. Having arrived by public transport to CMBT we were flummoxed to notice that there were three buses just about to start but all three packed to the roof and a sizeable crowd waiting. We tried to barge in to the next bus but the passengers did not alight even after the bus came to a complete stop, we then realised that the bus gets mobbed on the way and that we have to do the same to travel as a pack.

10:30 AM, we started from CMBT and the bus got passengers en route who were willing to stand all along those long 5:30 hours.

Thiruvannamalai has its charm. My uncle's brother-in-law found religious asylum to his second life at this town. He guided us through the temple and explained its history and arranged a special dharshan. I thought we were done, but the real trip started only after visiting the temple. We were about to walk 14 kms around this hill which is adorned by various incarnations of Shiva en route. A tribute called as girivalam.

The first 2 kms were tough given the damaged roads but went quick, from there after we counted each km passing as watching a (soap) serial without those ad breaks. So we had to start up some insane conversation just to know that everybody is around. One such discussion startled the concept of Kerosene => becoming Krishnaail, Palm oil => becoming Balmoil. As always I said something that made no sense to the rest by commenting just like ”Rice cakes with coconut cream”.

Blank reactions made me realise that none of those knew what I was talking about in reference to weirdly named stuff. I started with some narration, “Well, a friend of mine has this appetite for new and exotic dishes. He has eaten in major restaurants throughout the city and tried many specialities. He came around to pondicherry and went to this 3 star restaurant. One of the items in the menu read 'Rice cakes with coconut cream' – excited my friend went with this choice. After 15 mins my dishes were served and he waited another 10 more minutes for his food to arrive. For a person waiting with much excitement, he got dumbstruck when it got served. Its our idlis and thenga chuttney.(Rice cakes and coconut cream)”

We were able to complete the walk successfully, we took our ride back home at around 10:30 PM and reached back to CMBT at 3 in the morning. The adventure continued nevertheless. The same story: we had to hustle our way into our bus after waiting for about 30 minutes at this strange time. When we squeezed our way in, there were some highly intelligent zombies who booked the seats with towels, hand kerchiefs, bags thrown in from the window.

We had to stand for 30 mins to reach our next junction, not to forget surviving loss of sleep, tired legs, heat & sweat but also ticket-checking at about 3:30 in the morning. Blimey, a ticket checking at that time in the morning !!! , no wonder - why the conductor put up a 10 mins ticketing stage.