Dasavatharam - My View

I watched Dasavatharam yesterday and here is my write-up on that. It probably would appeal to someone who has seen the movie.

Dasavatharam - My view

I can only write my View and not a Review on Dasavatharam because I dont understand Tamil/Tamizh.

And that too a multi-lingual movie like this where we got Tamil, Telugised Tamil, Anglicised Tamil, Tamilised English, Punjabised Tamil, Tamilised Punjabi, Mallu Tamil and ya, the Bush English to add to that.

They all sounded the same to me though!

Why did I watch the movie? I hardly say no to movies, and this one had 10 heroes (1 actor), 2 hero-ines(1 actress),one item-bomb and a lot of hype. How could I miss.

One thing is for sure that Tamil industry has got talent and money. Be it acting, producing, costumes, make-up, cinematography, were very impressive. But the great "Ulaga-Nayaka" (Universal Hero), Dr.Kamal Hassan hasn't given himself a good script to go with the rest of the effort, which are supreme for Indian standards.

Lets walk through the 10 roles and the supports.

Dasavataaras:

1) Dr.Govind, a bio-weopen scientist working for an American Agency where every employee except the security guard speaks Tamil. The monkeys here have super-monkey brains and can key-in the passwords for high security access zones.

2) Rangaraaja Nambi, the pro-Vishnu devotee, who takes on the pro-Shiva group to protect his deity, only to get tied to the idol and thrown into the Sea. I always thought pro-Shiva king looked like Rajnikanth! But, this was my favourite part of the movie. Very well shot. Good that they chose a big idol for the scene, as Kamal's huge paunch and biceps could have made it look too small.

3) George Bush, who is more a Tamil hero than the President, with his antics on stage. But Kamal does a good job of taking Bush from Dumb, dumber to dumbest levels. I loved the expression when he is told Sodium Chloride when he asks "What's NaCl".

4) Mr.Fletcher, the "son of a Gun" guy, and ex-CIA who has got the Terminator look and also plays one. His mission for whatever reason was to feature till the end of the movie to get his hands on a small chemical weapon. He had his share of joy. Gets married to Mallika Sherawat with some near-intimate scenes. Not that they look good, but Kamal wouldn't let off the opportunity.

5) Mr.Naidu, CBI officer with Telugised Tamil , was fantastic till he took a chopper to gun down the "Son of a Gun" guy! I am sure he had some good lines to say, coz he attracted some laughs in the hall.

6) The Paatti, a strong mentally weak 100 years old granny, who for a change offers a chemical weapon to the Lord (Perumal). She is also waiting for the return of her son who died in 1954 and holds his "colour" photograph. I guess Calvin's Dad can explain this better.

Back to the "view"

7) Khali-full-ah, the giant Muslim guy with a name of contradictions. I could not figure out what his role in the movie was, apart from being accused of being a terrorist and giving way for some jokes on his height. (Bin Ladder??!!)

8) Victor Something, a Mallu, speaking Mallu Tamil who has an aandolan against the Land Mafia, puts the heroine rape scene under spotlights to save her, and finally sacrifices his life to Tsunami to save a kid.

9) Avataar Singh, a Punjabi pop star,who keeps forgetting he is a Punjabi, sings Tamil, speaks Tamil(with his Punjabi wife too). Some cancer angle to create a twist and a funny cure too! Get shot! Now, after this, Surgical Instruments will be a .35 magnum for headaches, AK-47s for kidney failure, an M24 sniper weapon for infectious diseases and a battle tank for elephantiasis .

10) The Kung-Fu master, speaks Japanese (Hey, we also got Tamilised Japanese too!!), who is set to avenge his daughter's killing and he is also the first to utter the word "Tsunami". Intelligent stuff here, as not many Indians knew the word till then and Japanese are pretty used to it.

Side-Casts:

1) Rangaraaja's wife(Asin 1) - All she got to do was to make him say "Om namah Shivay" to save her Maangalyaa, which she failed.

2) Andaal (Asin 2) - This for me, was where the movie went totally wrong. It just couldn't get off with the Andaal Perumaal scenario. I din't get the dialogues, but never liked the length of her screen presence and the tone in which she spoke. (If Kamal didn’t play 10 roles, would it be hyped as Asin's double role??? Hmmm)

3) Jasmine( Mallika Sherawat) - A pole dancer in US, whose Tamil is better than her curves. She marries the ex-CIA and becomes his translator and the partner of crime. Its not typical Mallika, as she doesnt get to show too much skin, not to her liking. For Tamil audience??

This was my "view" of Dasavatharam. Did I enjoy the movie? Yes, I did. Do I recommend to watch it? Ofcourse I do.

Kinhal

It was my 25th Birthday and I couldnt have chosen a better way to celebrate it.

I got a chance to visit the place whose name my family has been carrying for decades now. Kinhal, is a small village, about 12 km west of Koppal town. It belonged to Raichur district before Koppal itself was given the district status. I always had the doubt about how my surname is spelt but it was all clear when I saw the board of India Post there.




Being home for few thousands of people, Kinhal is a typical rural India with agriculture being the main source of income. But the place also is popular for its wooden toys, call it "Kinhal toys".
The artisans have inherited the art of making very beautiful wood work with intricate chiseling and magnificent coloring. Popular objects are the puranic figures such as Ganesha, Garuda, Gowri, people depicting various occupation and also animals and birds.




It was a Sunday and there was Santhe (Fair) happening in the village where typically, all the

farmers sell their produce who are otherwise with their work on other six days.It was very interesting to see people participating so eagerly in the fair, with packed street, the Brigade road of Kinhal.

Brigade road of Kinhal, the Santhe street.

My dad and my uncles were eager to show me the place where my Great Grand Dad lived. We were four, and the Great Venkatesh Achar was the common node for all four of us in the family tree.
We were very lucky to bump into Hanumesh(in pic), a lanky young man, who happened to be living just beside the point of interest. I was amazed to see that he was quick to respond, when we asked about the Great's place considering he was young and would never have seen anyone who lived there. Only later I realised that I would have got the place if I had asked anyone in that small village. People are so closely knit.

Reaching the place, I felt I have reached some archaeological site and I have to start my work of excavating the Harappan civilization!! A small piece of land with only one evidence of life, that being a neem tree! Otherwise it was all the rubbles to be likened to some World War II remains. My dad could recall some stories about the place that his dad had told him.

A strange nostalgia going back to the world of memories and imagination for him.

The context of our visit was an idea of our enterprising uncles to set up a School in Kinhal. Lack of quality education and educational institutions in all parts of India is a very common disease plaguing us ever since. Government schools don't have the focus and infrastructure to provide what the contemporary student needs. Quality private institutions don't have the intention and motivation to set up branches in rural India. The main aim is to bridge the gap. We were here to do some ground work on the requirements, availability and feasibility of setting up a School for the children of Kinhal and some places around it. The plan and the talks are in progress and will write about it at a suitable time.

Kinhal, the village: Just moving around the village, it was easy to notice some very interesting hoardings and wall writings which emphasized education and other social issues.
A strange architectural feature of that civilization was the narrow gutters running all along between two lanes of houses seperated by a hand-shake distance.
Best moment of the visit was to see local boys jump into the well to fight the aggressive sun. Just a 10 minutes of swim in the well, the boys came out, took off their "swimming robe" dried it in few seconds and wore it again and were off for other games. What fun!!
We spent some time in the Santhe where my uncle wanted some local cucumber. This turned out to be a very eventful bargain with the cucumber vendor, an old female who startled us with her innocence and may be ignorance. In the course of the bargain, which was the best we could have being from Bangalore, we still could not lay low the habit of bargaining for a few extra cucumbers. She obliged and then, some other vendors beside her wanted their share of entertainment. They saw me wearing my Sony DSC H7 digicam, which for them might be a futuristic gadget, and began frightening the ajji that we are from press and we will bring policemen to the place. We smiled, only to soon realize that the old lady had bought the story and was so much petrified and on the verge of a breakdown, that she started filling our bag with more cucumbers and also returning our money! If a villager in India can be exploited with such small pretexts, then the bridge we are set out to build has to be longer than we can imagine.

So, that was my first visit to Kinhal and looking forward to a few more.