Sense and Sensibilities

How can a man swim against the wave? If the waves are as high as mountain, how does he manage to keep his head straight and steady? Probably I will never come to know how much courage it requires to survive especially in an industry like filmmaking. I am talking about my two favourite filmmakers Maniratnam and Ram Gopal Verma.

My interest to South Indian movies was seeded by Mani Ratnam through his magical ‘Anjali’. I never understand the language or technique of movies. But I remember that it was the simplicity that attracted me. It was like not watching a movie but seeing some very close relatives busy in their day-to-day activities sitting in their home only. ‘Shiva’ was the next dubbed movie that came my way. Again the same feeling. The heroes and heroines were really like ‘next door neighbours’. I was very impressed by South Indian movies. Following my nature, I started to dig into the new invented interest and came to know that a bunch of my favourite movies were directed by South Indian directors. The list of my favourites went like – Garam Hawa, Sadma, Roja, Bombay, Dalpati and many more. I had the idea that South Indian movies are actually intense, sublime, vivid, rooted and detailed backed with some great music. But my idea was soon shattered after seeing ‘Humse Hai Muqabla’- the Hindi version of Tamil hit ‘Kadhalan’. So loud, so tacky, so cheap and so gaudy. Oh my God, was it a South Indian movie? Who is this Shankar? Why doesn’t he follow his ancestors? Well, soon I came to know that he was actually following his ancestors only. Kadhalan was a typical Tamil formula film with those double meaning cheesy dialogues and exaggerating emotional play. Now I understand it well that the part of South Indian movies I was mesmerized with was not the entire but a small subset of a large domain.

Heroes are superstars and megastars here. So much that Rajnikanth fans call him ‘SS Rajni’ where SS = Super Star. They are so tired of writing (and saying) ‘Super Star’ again and again that they actually acronymed it! Ask any Chennaiite, what is SS? Well, I hope you can understand what kind of response you will be getting!

Then how does Mani Rathnam continue to make films like Dil Se, Kannathil Muttamittal, Alaipayuthey, Yuva and Guru? Is he not frightened of failure? Must be, but probably he listens to his heart only just like his maneuvered scenes touches ours.

And Ram Gopal Verma. a man who himself defines unconventionality. Swimming steadily opposite the Shahrukh-Yash Chopra-Karan Johar camped clichéd and thousand times chewed sugar candy movies, this man actually gives a tough fight to these Bolly biggies. Kudos to his efforts.