Aayirathil Oruvan is a Tamil language movie written and directed by Selvaraghavan. Karthi, Reema Sen and Andrea play lead roles. Music has been scored by G.V.Prakashkumar.

A warning: This movie is not suitable for children and family audience. Also people sensitive to blood and gory should better avoid watching this movie. Actually this warning could have been included at the start of the movie so that people don’t start feeling uneasy while watching.

Aayirathil OruvanThe story is based on the struggle for power between two Tamil kingdoms – the Cholas and Pandyas. The Pandyas destroy the Chola kingdom, and the Cholas are forced to flee their capital, Thanjavur. But while escaping, they take along with them the idol of a Pandya god. The Cholas establish a secret settlement in some remote foreign island, with the hope that some day they will be resurrected back to the Chola kingdom by a messiah. The settlement is well protected by seven blockades, all of which one has to cross, to reach the place. The movie is based in the present day – a 1000 years after the Cholas are overthrown. A group of archeologists and armed men, led by Reema Sen go in search of the lost city of the Cholas, how they cross the blockades, and reach the place. Now, the twists are exposed – the Chola settlement is still alive in the foreign island, and Reema Sen is a descendant of the Pandyas, bearing a grudge to destroy the Cholas and bring the Pandyan idol back.

The movie is an adventure-treasure hunt kind of movie – at least it looks so in the beginning. The first half of the movie is all about the voyage, and the blockades the crew faces one after the other – all done in hollywood style. Karthi sizzles as a cocky coolie, Reema Sen gives a decent performance as the leader of the expedition and a Andrea does nothing more that just appearing in the scenes.The narration is catchy, and the background score is quite indulging. The crew escapes strange creatures, wades through cruel looking tribes, shoots down hundreds of red-colored men and crosses a quick-sand ridden desert to finally reach the lost city of the Cholas. The audience eagerly get ready for the team’s adventures in the new land. And then, the trouble starts…

The director seems to have become suddenly ambitious. He could have finished it off a hollywood-styled adventure movie with bigger dangers and barricades that comes the team’s way, all of which they successfully break to attain their goal. But instead, the director choosed to become adventurous. He keeps the lost Chola settlement alive in the remote land, and makes Reema Sen the descendant of the Pandyas, seeking to destroy the Cholas once and for all. From here, the movie becomes a torture porn, using the excuse of war, superstitions and agony. The director aspires hard to show how barbaric the Cholas are, and how crude things move about in this land, which makes the audience say, ‘Yuck!’. The script becomes slow, and all characters other than Reema Sen bear a zombie like dumbness about them, while Reema Sen becomes the like of a blood sucking vampire. The audience soon start looking at their watches, mocking at the silliness of the things happening on-screen, and how the movie that started off in a great way, was getting into the boring old rut.

Right from the start of the movie, where a voice narrates the backdrop of the story to the dialogues renders by both the female leads, the pronunciation of Tamil is grossly bad. The difference between ‘la’ and ‘zha’ in Tamil has been sadly ignored almost everywhere. Another thing that was odd about the dialogues was the so-called ancient Tamil used by the cave-dwelling barbarian Cholas. It could have been in normal Tamil itself – at least it would have reduced the zombie-ness of the characters. When a lot of logic has been compromised in the movie, I don’t see the reward in painstakingly bringing in an ancient diction of Tamil, which only alienates the characters from the audience.

‘Logic’ is something missing thoughout the movie. Cell phone works seamlessly in a place which has never been explored by humans. The army from India is able to get to a foreign land and kill hundreds of people there, without any issues or implications. If the army could be air-dropped in the Chola-settlement so easily, why should the crew travel over land, facing so many dangers and losing so many lives? Why do the Cholas look, act and behave like barbarian cannibals? Even though they are shown to have magical powers, how do they get cheated so easily by a girl? When all of the Chola women are raped and tortured by the army, how does Andrea escape, always standing by the side, watching all the horror?

Two good things about the movie are its stunning camera work by Ramji and wonderful music by G.V.Prakashkumar. The songs are indulging, and the background score is good too. ‘Un mela aasai thaan’ and ‘O Eesa’ are tunes that linger along. The computer graphics looks amateurish at some places, but the overall cinematography is quite good.

Reema Sen has given a splendid performance in the second half of the movie, as a vengeful and ruthless female. Karthi disappears in the second half and reappears to sum up at the end. Andrea is more conspicuous by her lack of any part to play in the second half. Parthiban is a huge let down. The most hyped character of the movie – the Chola king – behaves no more mature than the leader of a cannibal tribe. He is speechless and expressionless most of the time, except when they show his large eyes in close-up, trying to make up for the boring screenplay.

The movie is a new venture in Tamil. I have always wondered when the Tamil movies would move ahead of love, revenge and sentiments. This could be a first step, at least the first half. If the excessive gore, barbarianism and blood shed is removed, the characters are made to talk normal Tamil, and the movie is cut down by half-an-hour, the effect could have been completely different. Overall, the movie is nothing close to a must-watch!

Hearty wishes for an exciting and fun-filled new year 2010 to all readers!

I finished my last year with an eventful vacation in Goa, enjoying all the beaches and birds of the west coast.

What’s more exciting?

The new year for me has already begun thunderously, with my write-up on Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary getting published in The Banyan Trees.

You can read my article here. Many thanks to Dhivya.

The Banyan Trees is a new-age online monthly magazine that gives a platform to display creative content. The Banyan Trees team has been doing a great job, and the magazine has improved a lot since its first issue in November 2009. I wish them all the best in their effort. A neat looking flash version of the magazine…

What’s even more exciting?

Looking at the wonderful show put up by the Banyan Trees, I have been lately thinking about starting my own magazine. It will be a collaborative effort, with the help of friends. Watch out for the first issue very soon…

Image Courtesy: americanbedu.com

It is sometimes funny how the simple name of a person metamorphosizes into a hundred different avatars just based on the person trying to pronounce it. The sounds in the names might get beaten black and blue depending on the nasal capabilities of the pronouncer.

Let us take my name for example. DEEPAK. A simple and harmless name with just two noticeable sounds. But the pity is that one of these sounds should closely rhyme with an extra-vulgar super-insultive English word that is often represented by special characters in its written form. So, some cruel callers of my name might choose to call me DEE-%$^#.

Then comes the infamous Tamil teacher at school who prefers to bite hard on the first syllable in the name till it is on fire. The second syllable is, however, monetarily so much valuable. This makes my name THEE-BUCK.

There are more people belonging to the Tamil diaspora who will not be too keen on passing the BUCK so easily. Definitely this sound has to be localized considerably, as in, THEE-BUCKKU – in a coveted Tamil style, or its shortened form – THEE-BU.

Miles away, the English-speaking phoren people, with little or no knowledge of the minute intricacies of the multitude of Indian languages, render new dimensions to the name, munching and punching it into newer shapes, so that my name becomes D’PACK. A better shape would have been a six-pack.

I consider myself enormously blessed and gifted to not have a name as dangerous and diabolic as my brother’s. He is called KIRAN. This name is tossed and torpedoed much violently than a frog on the frying pan. He starts from KI-RAIN and KI-REEN and gets upgraded to KI-ROON and KI-RAN.

If simple names dance with so much glee on our twisty tongues, you can easily make up your mind about the big list of complicated and outlandish names.

The government decided to include the citizen’s father’s name in the electoral ID card, so that people can be more profusely identified, like, M.Kumaran, son of Mahalakshmanan. An unfortunate citizen’s father’s name happened to be ‘Kadarkarai’ (Seashore in Tamil). The hyper-educated officials of the Election commission decided to print his father’s name in the card, in letter as well as in spirit. The result – his father’s name was printed as “The Beach”. May be they found he was a Son of the Soil.

The ancient Tamil kingdom should have been a land of extraordinary scholars and exemplary tonguesmen. How else can you justify the common man pronouncing extra-terrestrial names like Peruncheralirumborai and Thirikoodarasappakavirayar! I believe special tuitions were given for pronouncing these names right. The current Tamils are no less in giving names as long as the Beach-Tambaram railway line. Balasudenthirarajan and Ramanujarajendran are not historical, but very much contemporary names walking around us.

Image Courtesy: givemeaname.com

A person I remotely remember from my childhood had the name “Soodi Kodutha Sudarkodi” – a name actually given to Aandaal – the Meera Bai of the South. For non-Tamil readers, I would like to point out with a slight smirk that this is similar to naming a child – ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge’.

The home minister of India Mr.Chidambaram bears the name of a town in Tamilnadu. However, he is not alone in this feat. Town names such as Madurai, Palani, Tirupathi, Tirumalai, and Kaasi commonly acquire special status as the first names of people.

The Members of the Mallu-land like to KISS… (Keep it simple, stupid!). Rarely would we have come across Mallus with names exceeding two syllables. Biju, Ciju, Ribu, Tanu, Jiby, Simi, Rinu… the list is endless. Of course, Beenamol and Kunjumon have to be interspersed in between these in order to give us the option of breaking the monotony with a smile. Over the years our minds have been rutted to nail names such as George and Mathew directly into the coconut trees of the Mallu-land.

Even the simple names of the Mallus have beware-of-names type of surnames. There is a rumor that certain Mallu surnames are usually generated by writing a random syllable generator in Perl, with only two constraints. (1) It should be a mix-up of syllables, rendering any kind of attempt to remember by a member of the human race, impossible, and, (2) It should end with ‘-il’. Thazhathidathil, Thevaruparampil, Puthenuvetil are some samples. Let us not get started with Prasadaramanakooti!

Funny customs in some families could lead to non-funny situations. For example, I had a friend in school. His family has a strange custom of rotating only 2 names for all male members of the family. He was named after his grandfather, as, ‘Chinnasami’. His brother was named after his own father, as, ‘Chellasami’. So, his brother becomes Chellasami, son of Chellasami, and brother of Chinnasami, also grandson of Chinnasami. I used to find it embarrassing to call his name standing outside his home.

Much ado has been made about the older names. Tuning our focus to modern names, most parents nowadays like to create names for their kids, with combos which have never been used, ever. May be it is their effort to make their kids outstanding by making their names standing out. A person I know has named his kids Migal, Kayal and Iyal. (It is up to the Tamil scholars among my readers to dig into the etymology of these names).

Sanskrit names uncommon in the South like Dhruvesh, Hritesh and Saharshita are among those being commonly conferred nowadays on kids in Chennai. I am sure, when these kids grow up, they will have much more complaints than I had, to write about the way their names are handled by the name-starved public!