Raja's read only memories

If marriages are made in heaven, then the events preceding it must definitely be made in Kollywood’s studios, whose insistence on replicating the phrase “and they lived happily ever after” on screen is so strong that anything contrary has been (and will) strongly be looked down upon. As Paulo Coelho would have said, the entire universe would have conspired to ensure that the lead pair, be it the newcomer or the reigning star, stand united, no matter how adverse situations may turn out to be. P Vasu’s Chinna Thambi and Mani Ratnam’s Roja are movies that instantly come to my mind when I think of this. Did not the actor Amitabh Bachchan once say that he is intent on providing entertainment to the common man who is burdened with the complexities of life? Which is why the ending in Gowtham Menon’s not-so-recent movie, Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa (Will you cross the stars for me), where the lead pair – Silambarasan and Trisha – despite falling in love, decide to part ways, intrigues me to n...

Appeared in Expresso, the daily supplement of The New Indian Express, Bangalore on 21, February 2011 The one director in Kollywood who christens his movies in chaste Tamil, and focuses on themes that few self-proclaimed champions of that language would identify themselves with - Gowthaman Menon (it is a paradox that he is a Keralite) - is back at it again: a movie with a pure Tamil title, Nadunisi Naigal (dogs of the midnight), and an unorthodox movie subject, a psycho-thriller and child sexual abuse. Nadunisi...builds suspense from the word go; the title credits open with a police inspector falling backwards in slow motion after being felled by a bullet on to a pool of rainwater in the dark. Three police personnel are shot dead and a girl goes missing from a hospital. A police inspector Vijay (Deva), starts investigating the crimes. The scene later shifts to Samar, a boy who gets sexually abused by his father regularly (shades of Bharatirajaa’s Sighappu Rojakkal are impossible to miss...