Kaadhal

Well, today is Valentine’s Day and the title of this post couldn’t be more apt. In case you are wondering, Kaadhal means love in Tamil.
But fear not. Being a purebred member of “the company”, I do not intend to sermonize on this topic. Besides, anything I say would sound clichéd.

“But why the heck do you have Kaadhal as the title of your post?!” - You may wonder.

It is the name of a Tamil movie I saw last week. Thanks to the moratorium imposed by the Kannada film industry, I had to wait a long time before I finally got my chance to see it…but the wait was extra special. Of course, I could have taken the easier and more popular option of catching it on a VCD. But the chances of that happening are as rare as that of Tendulkar scoring a match-winning Test hundred. :)

Varath and me caught this much-awaited, super-hit, low-budget movie last Wednseday night at PVR. Apparently, the story is based on the incident of a person the director was traveling with in a train. He made the movie taking the consent of that person. Apart from the hero Bharath and his friend Sukumar, all the other artists are new faces. Most of the technicians (editor, music director) are new as well. In fact, the most high profile name associated with this movie is the producer – Shankar – the guy who directed classics such as Gentleman, Indian, Mudhalvan.

The best thing to come out of this movie has to be the heroine – Sandhya, an incredible talent with a gamut of expressions, clear voice with beautiful modulation. I can see her becoming the next Sneha. And she is just in her 10^th still!!!

The performances by all the co-artistes were splendid, leaving one with the question whether Shankar chose these new faces because they cost less or did he just see the “spark”!

Some scenes and dialogues that linger in the mind:

* The opening sequence where the camera pans across the board “Royal Court Lodging here” and ends up showing a guy sleeping on the pavement right at the foot of the sign!

* “Unga bodhaikku naanga urgaaiya?” by the heroine’s friend as she is lugged around to the mechanic shop.

* “Horn irundha adichirpomla!” during the first meeting scene between the protagonists.

* “Direct herova? First annan role, thambi role, US maapillai role…indha maadhri edhum vendama? Direct hero..hmm!” the wannabe director in the mansion to a wannabe actor/chief minister/prime minister.

I am hooked onto the songs completely. Here’s wishing a bright future ahead for the composer – Joshua Sridhar.

I guess that ends my post.

Or wait. It does seem odd to end a post on this day without a mention of something related to it. So here is a mail that I received in the morning from a member of our gang (name withheld). It kept me in splits throughout the day.

Lets hope our pals in Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena , HJM etc live up to their reputation today. This is the only day of the year when i completely agree with their ideology....;-)

:-)