A. R. Rahman and Resul Pookutty: Benchmarking Success for Indians

Success is such a cliché, though a necessary one for all human beings. Tolstoy’s opening words in Anna Karenina say “happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”. If I can twist that, it would be – success stories are all alike; every failure is distinct in its own way. A. R. Rahman and Resul Pookutty’s lives are now the toast of India. That both rose from non-descript backgrounds to Oscar heights is now an acknowledged fact. Their trials, sorrows and moments of low self-esteem and self-doubt have now transformed into glory, acclaim and unprecedented success. Having been through all struggles for survival, both sported a mature smile on winning the award. That makes their success so believable and worthy of emulation.

Why is their success so important for India? Yes, like all experts have predicted, it is going to showcase Indian talent to the world. Courtesy Rahman, our music and musicians will be taken seriously worldover from now on. And as Irrfan Khan pointed out, there will be more opportunities for Indian artistes to collaborate with their Western counterparts. More than all these, we Indians now have new idols to look up. Though boasting of one billion strong population, we are a nation starved of achievers. It had happened so many times at the Olympics until Abhinav Bindra, Sushil Kumar and Vijender Singh came to our rescue. We are so used to mediocrity and the ‘chalta hai’ attitude that sometimes we fail to recognize real achievements. That should prove the media and public frenzy created when an Indian wins a beauty contest or is voted the ‘sexiest/beautiful man/woman alive’.

Bhanu Athaiya, who won an Oscar for her costume design for Gandhi, said in a recent interview that when she was surrounded by such talented film artistes and technicians from the West, she automatically had to bring out the best in her and prove herself. Though Rahman’s score for Slumdog Millionaire is not his best compared to his past work, it took a Danny Boyle touch to get him to Oscars. By the same philosophy our BPO industry (in software, finance, animation, e-publishing etc) continues to boom and thousands of Indian youth are realizing their ‘middle class dream’ of getting a five-figure salary and owning a posh flat. This Oscar win is definitely not a bow to the feudal ‘gora’ attitude as some cynics feel. This is the beginning of a journey for Indians to kick out mediocrity and embrace excellence in all walks of life. True talent does not need approval. Agreed. But approval from the right people provides the impetus for a dozen others to double up their efforts and aim for the best.

Because of Resul and Rahman, Indian youth dreaming of making it big in the film industry do not have to convince their parents who might think it crazy to nurture cinema ambitions. It will put in place strategies to establish proper film schools and training academies to channelise the Indian talent pool. (Rahman himself has begun a music school and Resul being an FTII product can now influence many youngsters to think of a new career path.) Their success will now begin to affect the collective mentality of the average Indian family – even if it is a small step as my neighbour who leads the life of a normal Indian turned up his TV volume to catch Rahman, his journey and his ‘Jai Ho’ moment. I think the possibility of having our own version of a Malmalbaf family is very much there. There are numerous reality shows churning out singers, actors and dancers and even directors (as seen in Sony Pix Gateway). That is an encouraging sign. But the vital point is that youngsters nurturing dreams of being the next film sensation should not undermine the value of life-long learning. Their life should not stop with the 15-minute fame achieved via being a super singer. Nor should their thirst for further excellence and reaching to the next step on the ladder of success be stunted by short-lived fame engineered by the media. When Rahman won the national award for his first film (Roja) itself, he was asked by many, “Ok, this is it! You have got it already! Where do you go from here?” We all know where he went now, don’t we?

We need not excel so that we are in the good books of USA or every other country acknowledges us as a superpower. We need to excel because we as a nation are capable of it and desire it. That would be the moment when we realize the legacy of Resul and Rahman – that they have solid value for the Indian psyche and have given every Indian the power to dream and achieve.

Naan Kadavul : Oh My God!

Reams have been written about Arya’s beefed-up body, his whirlwind one-month yoga training to stand on his head, the supposed begging task given to Pooja before succeeding Meenakshi and Bhavana as the final heroine of the movie, how Ilayaraja developed goosebumps on watching the preview. I write this with immense sorrow that for me, none of these has translated into a worthy piece of cinema. Naan Kadavul is half-baked cinema cloaked in confused spirituality and a poor successor to Bala’s last maverick movie Pithamagan.

I feel sorry for poor Arya. I know he chose this film believing what Sethu did to Vikram and Nanda did to Surya, Naan Kadavul would do to him. When the ’story’ would have been narrated to thim, Arya’s eyes would have twinkled and his heart whispered to him ‘go ahead, man! take this up’. Arya pumped up muscle, grew his mane and willingly surrendered to Bala to live it up as a Aghora. There ends the story. Somewhere in between Bala lost all those ‘wow’ elements of his earlier films — a plot, a conflict, a structure and above all the characterization of the hero.

Wait, did I say hero? Was Arya the hero of the movie? That’s such a big joke. Arya as Rudran is a mere shadow, a circus performer dancing to the ‘now here, now there’ tunes of the ringmaster Bala. Seen with a string of black cloth just enough to cover his manhood in the posters, Arya is the real ‘item’ of this movie, not the hero. He appears at regular intervals to mouth hymns, smoke pot, utter pithy sayings and bash up the villains. He is a wonderful actor, no denying that fact. But this time around he got into Bala’s hands when the latter’s cinematic grammar went haywire.

In fact Rudran caused me more irritation and in certain scenes distraction. Arya is clearly overshadowed by some poignant and hard-hitting acting of those beggar folks. Their portions are the USP of the movie and it would make absolute sense if the movie is rechirstened ‘Naan Pichaikaran’ (I am a beggar). There were recent reports in the Chennai press that Bala feared that Slumdog Millionaire’s exposure of the ‘beggar mafia’ would make his own efforts bite the dust. He need not fear. With their native charm, authentic dialect and inherent humanity, Bala’s beggar folk outclass their counterparts in Danny Boyle’s movie. Amidst a caricature hero and a cardboard villain, they are the lifeline of the movie. Bala’s partnership with Tamil writer Jeyamohan seems to have paid off especially in these portions. Jeyamohan has used portions from his acclaimed novel Ezhaam Ulagam (The Seventh World) to feed Bala’s gory but stinging portrayal of beggardom. Jeyamohan’s dialogue needs special mention — witty, thought-provoking and suiting the scene without being cinematic.

The racket that Surya as Sakthivel created in Pithamagan is done in Naan Kadavul by real life deformed people. It was a bit difficult to see hoards of them in the villain’s den at first sight during the ‘pichaipathiram’ song. ( A gentleman behind me hissed like a pressure cooker when their faces were shown on screen. He then ooed and aahed.) Slowly I warmed up to their humanity — A deformed boy with a mouthful of mischievous words (he wants to buy hamsavalli, the blind beggarwoman played by Pooja, with his collection so that he could start his own business). A woman with a broken spine nurturing the dreams of wedlock and a family. Somehow in this agenda to bring out the god in his hero, Bala abandons them now and then.

Bala’s heroes are all incarnations of God. They are humans until they find a villain to be punished and realise the presence of god within them. In Nanda, Rajkiran addresses Surya as ‘avatharam’ — one who had taken birth to wipe out all evil. In Pithamagan, Sithan is the incarnation of Lord Shiva who kills the drug mafia kingpin Mahadevan and avenges Sakthi’s death. In Naan Kadavul, Bala goes a step further and announces that Rudran is god himself. Rudran is the saviour of those unfortunate souls who need deliverance from a shoddy life on earth. So how does Rudran save them? By gifting them death. He gifts a gory death to the evil souls who don’t deserve to live and a honourable ‘euthanisation’ to souls like Hamsavalli who want to get way from leading the ignominious life of being tortured to death every moment for refusing to bed a leper.

Sadly Rudran is the weakest of Bala’s heroes. As an Aghora, he leads an ascetic life devoid of human emotions or bondage. He neither has a sweetheart like Sethu had Abitha nor a ‘friend’(sometimes with gay overtones) like Sakthivel (Pithamagan). Rudran is there for the sole purpose of destroying evil. He seemed to me to be a bouncer who was brought all the way from Varanasi to smash those evil villains and make a mockery of the police. That he was god appeared to me just as an excuse to display his machismo.

In spite of a spirited performance from Pooja and some inspired ‘bhakthi’ music by Ilayaraja, Naan Kadavul failed to connect me — it is a Bholenath with all brawn and no soul.

Originally published on PassionForCinema.com

http://passionforcinema.com/naan-kadavul-oh-my-god/

Slumdog Millionaire: When Reality Meets Cinematic Artistry

There is a huge problem in writing about Slumdog Millionaire (SM). It is that so much has been written, spoken and debated about it. Everybody who has seen SM has taken a stance. There is no need to summarise the highs and lows of the Slumdog debate as it is now part of common lore. The reactions to the film can itself take a SM-style question:

What is Slumdog Millionaire?

It is a movie made by a coloniser determined to show a grimy India
It is a typical rags-to-riches-story with all masala intact
It is just cinema and should not be taken seriously
It is a masterpiece and deserves all accolades and awards



Slumdog Millionaire, for me, is clever cinema striking the fine balance between portraying the honest reality of its chosen plot and cinematic artistry. It is the kind of cinema that aspiring directors need to sit, digest and take notes from. (It was no wonder that recently Danny Boyle addressed a fully packed hall of film enthusiasts on the art of filmmaking and his journey as a filmmaker.) Rags-to-riches and Cinderella-kind of story is the most trusted screenplay formula. A basic screenplay rule is that one should be able to put his scripted story in a catchy oneliner. That oneliner for SM would be:

An 18-year-old boy from the slum, arrested on charges of cheating when winning a TV quiz show, narrates how his life taught him all those crucial answers.

Bingo! Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy (the screenwriter) knew very well that the novel they had just read, Vikas Swarup’s Q & A, would translate into great cinema. Anything could have happened during the course of making the film. Much could have been ‘lost in translation’. But Danny Boyle has ultimately succeeded in delivering a film that is booming with life and energy. I do not subscribe to the viewpoint that he has given a ‘foreigner’s vision’ of India. Boyle has been accused of portraying a poverty-stricken India where the evils score over the good. I strongly believe his motive was only to give us an honest piece of cinema. I could feel it throughout the film. His crew – Anthony Dod Mantle on the camera, Chris Dickens the editor, Loveleen Tandon, in charge of casting and also co-directing, A.R. Rahman the music director, Resul Pookutty the sound director among others – and cast – a bunch of brilliant child artistes share screen space with Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor and Irrfan Khan – have contributed all their talent to aide him achieve his cinematic vision successfully.

In my view Danny Boyle being a foreigner has given SM an edge. He never wastes any screen space romanticising his characters. You do not have a string of dialogues from adults who advise their slum kids to get out of all this filth and aim for a better life. Boyle uses that classic rule: show, don’t tell. Young Jamal and Salim are survivors who constantly strive to upgrade their lives. They enjoy playing gully cricket. Jamal has no qualms wallowing through shit to get Amitabh’s autograph. They move on with their lives after they loose their mom to a religious riot. Jamal and Salim script their destinies, though in their own ways. Jamal is content leading a life of a chaiwallah in a call centre, while Salim finds true happiness in being a gangster. Boyle did a clever move by devoting maximum screentime to the childhood and adolescence of Jamal, Salim and Latika. This has resulted in some poignant and stark scenes, which the audience would remember for a long time. Take that scene where Jamal innocently promises to Latika that he would build her a bungalow on harbour road and breaks into an impromptu dance. Or that scene where Jamal meets Arvind, the boy who was blinded by goons and left to beg on streets. The eyes of Jamal convey a thousand reactions. He could have been Arvind and is grateful to his fate that he is not so.


Joe Fab, the director of the award-winning documentary Paper Clips, said during a recent audience interaction at the Chennai International Film Festival that adults treat children as apprentices who have to be taught how to lead a proper life, when in reality they can teach us valuable lessons of life. Jamal, Salim and Latika personify that quote. Yes, they have to pass through corrupt policemen, religious fanatics, gangsters, brothels and an indifferent social system to achieve their wants and fulfil their dreams. (Boyle has been accused of using those situations to define ‘see this is India, a soon-to-be-superpower’.) What else would you want people of the slums to go through? That is reality. They are not bothered if Chanel opens a store in upmarket Mumbai or if Mumbai is described as a city obsessed with pubs and partying. In showing the real Mumbai, Boyle uses yet another rule: true art holds a mirror on to life.

I can put Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire on par with Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay and Uberto Pasolini’s Machan. All these three movies have been directed by an ‘outsider’. Mira Nair paved the way for SM in a way by focusing on the plight of street children. Her Krishna and Manju are precursors to Boyle’s Jamal and Latika. Pasolini, being an Italian, made a throbbing film of a bunch of Sri Lankan slum dwellers hoping for a better life abroad by posing as a fictional national hand ball team. In its portrayal of local life and culture, Machan has much in common with SM. Among Machan’s characters are a fruitseller, a waiter, a gigolo and a police constable – all craving for a better life like Jamal, Salim and Latika.

What stuck me about SM was its brilliant use of the game show ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ to deliver a critique on Indians. The audience enjoy watching Jamal win that show in spite of a venom-spewing host Prem Kumar. He becomes an overnight star (much like Byron, ‘I woke up one morning and found myself famous’!). Unknown people wish him luck and want him to win. News Channels go berserk about this sudden rise of a slumdog. This is completely believable in this age when reality television is at its peak and we have bid farewell to saas–bahu sagas. This is the new India with umpteen Jamals looking for a pathway to write their own destinities. Whatever the method or outcome of their journeys, the undeniable fact is that Jamal represents a new India which will cease all opportunities to scale up – even if that would mean working doggedly as ‘cyber coolies’ in a non-descript call centre.


Slumdog Millionaire ably documents the triumph of human spirit under all odds. A. R. Rahman, who has emerged unscathed in the otherwise murky slumdog debate, represents the aspirations and hopes of a million Indians and is the personification of the spirit of SM. His riveting score (though not his best; do I say so because I have got so used to his wonderful tunes? No idea!) brings a dignity and vibrancy to the film. MIA (Maya Arulpragasam, the Sri Lankan star who is now a cult music sensation) says in her lines of the pulsating ‘O Saya’: ‘One day I wanna be a star; So I get to hang in a bar’. Slumdog Millionaire is a tribute to that wannabe stars in all of us who are already shining (like our very own ‘Mozart of Madras’) or are in the wings waiting to shine (one billion Indians – like you and of course, me!). Like Jamal, we wait for the ‘Jai Ho!’ moment of our life.