Kerala Cafe - Movie Review

Probably inspired from the 'Dus Kahaniyan' in Hindi but better executed, Kerala cafe is a set of 10 short films set in different backgrounds.

The movies:

Nostalgia :
A movie about an NRI who goes into nostalgic mood when he hears an old song sitting in his apartment but starts complaining about everything from the moment he lands in his hometown. This story represents every upper middle class Indian who is settled outside the country, who is in a hurry to make money, who sends his/her children to the boarding in an International school, who wants to get his parents moved to a old age home so that he can turn his old house in the village to a resort. Meaningful. But too many dialogues.

Island Express :
A tribute to the ones who lost their life in a train accident in Kollam. The dear ones of the people who died come together on that same day at the river side to pay tribute. Makes one realize about how fast time heals but still we hold the memories of the loved ones whom we lost in the journey of our life.

Lalitham Hiranmayam :
From the director of action movies, one is surprised to see a different take from him. The story speaks about betrayal.Emotions of the actors was the only plus point. The story seemed inspired from the malayalam serials of today.

Mritunjayam :
A short horror flick with interesting plot and fine acting. The audience in left to think about 'what actually could have happened in the end?'. Movie is about a daring attempt by a journalist to stay overnight in a spooky home to make a documentary on it.The movie itself was a daring attempt!!

Aviramam :
This one is about how the recession affected an MD of a IT firm. It tells us success is not permanent, you can lose everything with a single full stop, but a winner is one who takes failure as a stepping stone. Though quite predictable, it shows
you to be humble when you win and accept when you lose.

Makal :
With most of its dialogues in tamil this movie is an eye opener to the people who believe India is shining. It shows the intensity of relationship between a mother and a child, a brother and a sister. Tells us that poverty is the root cause for all the problems in the country. Could have been better.

Happy Journey :
This journey was interesting and engaging. It shows about the problem faced by a female traveller during a evening bus journey and how she overcomes it.
A middle-aged man sitting next to her intrudes into her privacy with his camera mobile and tries to flirt with the young lady with nonsense talk. But there is a turn of events happening here leading to a intelligent climax which stuns both the viewer and the man sitting next to her.


OffSeason:
can be well described as 'Millionaire Slumdog'. We consider every foreign tourist we see to be millionaires. But in reality some turn out out to be the poorest in their countries. Shot in the beautiful location of Kovalam beach, this one was a feel good movie with the climax having a diffrent style of rendering the evergreen song 'Manasa maine varoo' of 'Chemmeen'.

Bridge:
My favorite of the lot. This has all that we expect from a short film. The cinematography, the dialogues, the acting, the direction and the climax. Two stories combine to give a common climax. Watch it even if you have to buy the original dvd.
You'll never regret it. For aspiring short film-makers this one is the best reference i say.

Puramkazchakal:
This one also qualifies as a clear winner with beautiful visuals and a script with a surprise element. Though the viewer finds a little difficulty in connecting a flashback being shown in the beginning and the climax which has almost no relation to it, the surprise element makes you feel you have to rewind and watch it again
to feel what the character in the movie went through. I would say it leaves a message like,"Never judge a person on meeting him for 1st time, You have no idea what the other person is going though."

Overall, it was a refreshing change in malayalam cinema due to the effort of 10 creative directors and the man who brought them together. Thanks for the movie Ranjith & friends.

Doordarshan golden days

"Alif laila alif laila alif laiaiaila".. I wish i could sing the tune over here. This is one of the lines which comes to my mind when i think of the old Doordarshan days.Even though the only knowledge in hindi was through the school textbooks and hindi movies and songs, everybody in the family would be in front of the idiot box for the few hours when there was something to watch. We used to love watching the ads too. I still remember that we kids used to stare at the rainbow colored screen saver kind of screen hoping that it would change any minute.

The serials Ramayan, Mahabharat and later on Jai Hanuman, Om namah shivaya, Sree Krishna were watched by everybody crossing all religious barriers.
The sundays which screened ramayan and mahabharat used to leave the streets empty as whole family used to be in front of the tv.Also the arabian tales of 'alif laila' which was screened in the night was eagerly waited as the family members used to finish off their dinner as early as possible.While Serials such as Chanakya, Tipu sulthan showed the brilliance and valor of historical figures, those like vikram-bethal,alif laila,chandrakanta,malgudi days entertained us. My dad's favorite used to be 'Wagale ki Duniya' which showed the life style of a middle class family. We kids used to get up early on weekends to watch Mowgli, He-Man and Disney cartoons and Duck tales. I also remember watching this english serial named 'Street Hawk' with a cop on a ultra speed motorcycle with a cool background music. That bike was like the dream bike for all students during those days.

Being a fan of good ads i would still rate old vintage ads something which created a bond between the customer and the product.
Nirma('Wahsing powder Nirma..'),Liril('with a bikini clad lady ;)'),Santoor soap,Nerolac paints(i loved the music so much!!),Parle G,Amul Doodh,Vicks action 500,Fevikwik,Lijjat pappad, Ajanta clocks,Vicco vajradhanti,Cinthol soap,Vimal suitings,Fevicol('Zor laga ke'),Colgate,Surf,Complan,Goldspot,Lifebuoy('Lifebouy hain jahan thandurusthi hai wahan'),Cadburys('Kuch Khas hain hum sabhi mein'),Bajaj ('Hamara Bajaj'),Titan (oh i just love the music!!),Rasna ('I love you Rasna'),Pepsi('yehi hai right choice baby' campaign) i could just go on. These ads brought us close to the products. Then there used to be this small ads and cartoons which spread social messages like 'consider both girl and boy child as equal', 'send kids to school', 'give polio injection to new born', 'Do not spread rumours' etc.Mostly these were presented in the cartoon form or as small ads with beautiful music.Then the songs 'Mile sur mera tumhara', 'Vande Matharam' which used to be aired in Doordarshan during early 90's were a phenomenon.

Another programme which glued every family member to the screen was Rangoli and Chitrahar. The presentation of these programmes used to be so different every time that it never got bored even when the songs were not being played.Unlike nowadays a lot of people used to watch informative programs such as 'Surabhi', 'Turning Point','Sports Talk','Krishi Darshan' ,'Bharat Ek Khoj' and even the DD News which had crisp and 'to the point' information presented with elegence. Even though i never used to understand a word i used to sit next to my dad and watch it just for the feel of it. :)

During the summer vacation and other festival vacations when we used to visit our grandparents in the village, there used to be tv only in the house of our gulf returned neighbour's house. So we used to go there in the evening to watch serial or movies aired in the doordarshan. Almost all the village folk used to come if it was a movie which was being screened on a sunday.

Doordarshan and Akashvani were part of our daily life. It was the only connection a person in a south indian state had with the north indian counterpart and vice versa. Since it was the only channel present during those days and the programmes were limited to certain hours, everyone had enough time to spent with family, friends and carry out other hobbies. God!! I miss those days. Its sad that the new generation will never get a taste of that life.I end this post Wishing for a time machine to get back to those days. Its time for the last song from Akashvani :)

Staying connected

Facebook, orkut, twitter any idea what i'm talking about.Yes, social networking one of the ground breaking innoventions of the last decade. After i opened an orkut account during college days i used to log in every week to check if any friend request has come, or anybody had written a scrap to me or if there were any photo updates by friends.Orkut seemed interesting.People with similar interests joined communities online and discussed about them. Some even got their long lost friends whom they had forgotten the faces of, through simple searching.Reunions of old school and college batchmates were conducted easily as everyone around the globe could be informed.It was a different experience altogether.

After i joined work i opened a facebook account since most of my friends were moving to facebook and orkut started to get boring. Facebook was a better and flexible version of orkut. Chatting was easier and updates from friends was received in jiffy. There was less of private stuff and more of public stuff happening in facebook. But even facebook ran into trouble due to privacy issues.

The creators of Twitter would have never imagined that it would grab so much attention in the media and parliament such that it would even result in removal
of a cabinet minister. Just a status message named 'Tweets' with 140 characters from this microblogging or social networking site created news on daily basis.It was like the wishes granted by gods in the mythological stories. Even the gods wouldn't have imagined that the wish might turn against them any time.So celebrities and others alike started posting messages on twitter after giving a second thought about the post.

Even though call rates had dropped, since most of the friends used to come online after work, chatting became more common. Other than speaking to parents or few elder relatives or a boyfriend or girlfriend there was less calls made and even lesser smses sent. More network providers came into market and brought out new offers to encourage more calling among students and professionals. But still none of them seemed to create huge impact since more people were moving to multimedia handsets or smartphones which made them 'available' on net through facebook, twitter etc.

Lets rewind the time to ten years back, 2000. That was the time when i started using internet, when i opened a hotmail and yahoo account. Keeping in touch with old friends was never a big task. You just needed to have an email id to mail, chat, send photos and it seemed very easy. The school projects were completed in less than a day when compared to weeks spent on project work in primary class days. Mobile phones market started off killing the pager industry.A person could be contacted even when he was travelling. The world became a smaller place.

Lets rewind 10 more years back,1990 when Letters were the life line to stay connected for people far off. The writing itself was a lovely thing. Taking time
to make no mistakes, be it a love letter, letter to friends or parents or relatives. It felt nice to write thinking and taking time. Even the wait for the reply only increased the interest in the writing. Collecting the stamps of the letters received was also a hobby. Writing to people whom you have never met was also interesting. We could share a lot of things with Pen-pals what we couldn't share with others whom we know.Since the STD charges were also high during that time, calls to relatives or friends outside the state was very rare. Most of the villages also didn't have telephone network as seen nowadays. Calls had to be made to the post office or village office where a phone would be there.The purity of the relationships were very evident in those days. We kept in touch with those who were special to us.Moreover it was a great feeling to read it over and over again looking at those beautiful handwriting and feeling the aroma of the ink thinking of the person who wrote it to you.I don't know how many of you reading this has actually written letters. But i tell you its a wonderful experience.

Think of the last time you took a pen to write a letter. Can't remember? Well i think it could be for the last english exam you wrote in school or college. I
won't say e-mailing is bad or anything. It is the best way to communicate and get replies ASAP. But when you have the time and you feel like writing to your
special ones even if it is just few sentences, take an pen and paper and write to them. Give them a chance to read and cherish your letters forever. I bet it
will do wonders.I have decided to write a letter or send a greeting every month to my special ones. Let's cherish the good moments. Back to the good old times. :)

With Love
Yours Sincerely
Mayavi
08-Jul-2010