Uttama Villain

Uttama Villain

 

Kamal Hassan is one of the versatile actors that Indian cinema has produced and can be included amongst the greats like Sanjeev kumar,Shivaji Ganesan ,Mohanlal and Naseerudhin shah ,of course Amitabh Bachan .

The sheer variety of the roles  Kamal has done over the years  is mind boggling .

 From the quintessential lover boy which I feel suits him the best ,to the innocent orphan he portrayed in Kalaathur kanamma where  captured the hearts of a million mothers to the sun glassed serial murderer in Sigappu rojakkal

As an agile dwarf clown  in his own Mera naam joker ,

how could one forget the middle aged matron with inviting eyes in Chachi 320 where he showed how a man could do a stag act with perfection ,or the raw emotions of a mafia don who loses his dearest in Nayakan , classical dances which he did with élan and grace unbecoming of a man are legends

 what about the many comedy roles he has done with so much ease ,

once upon a time he was the darling of many girls in Kerala as the most popular red lipped hero of those times .

Even today above 60 he can give a run to other younger heroes in romantic roles even with a paunch that threatens to peep out  these days .

Movies Maro cahritra the Telugu romantic taken by his mentor K Balachander are almost epics (Maro Charitra   later on became the hindi super hit Ek duje ke liye )

In Tollywood they say if one needs to ne knuckled in the head better to get it done by someone wearing a diamond ring and that mostly means to be groomed under Balachander because that is like a passport for success in the  tinsel world .

It’s not a myth but a truth .

look at all those talents he groomed from Nagesh the brilliant comedian and actor par excellence to Kamal and Rajini and countless others .

To Balachander amongst his protégés Kamal and Rajni are like his own children .

It’s this relationship that is the most significant in this film made before the legend left this world

It’s a rare few who can live a role with a mentor just as in life and kamal is lucky that he could .

“ Utamma villain “ is almost his story with him in it  being a superstar having a mundane family life with a fat wife of convenience and a lover in the form a doctor .

Very dramatically in the film kamal gets to know he has Glioblastoma multiform which is a brain tumor stage four and his days are numbered so he goes back to Balachander his mentor director who shouts at him at first telling he has done all he could with him and the present kamal is more of an icon than the one he knew but kamal goes on to say that he needs to do a film again directed by his mentor ,

finally he blurts out the truth and the scene that followed was one of the best I liked in the film ,

K Balachander is not only an excellent director he is such a wonderful actor probably all his love for Kamal was really expressed on the camera as he pours his grief on his protégé ,he agrees to do the movie and the film is about the film making and the story of the film that is made which is a period film where kamalhassan is a lucky guy thought to get the spell of life forever and the funny things that happen with a clowning Nasser as the king and seductive heroine who is after kamal and this gives them pleny of ops to romance on the screen and it all ends with a narasimha avatar to kill Hiranyan

strangely here the hero is Hiranyan and narasimhan the villain gets a sudden itch to go to the loo when its time for him to tear the villain to pieces and the villain becomes the king

This part was excellently choreographed by blending theru koothu ,theyyam and nangyar koothu and since it was kamal doing the dance with others there was no doubts about the professionalism in the dances

The film making was blended with real life scenes of kamals illness slowly getting known to his family ,the scene between him and his teen son after he knows the truth is one of the most outstanding ones ,the sheer emotion is portrayed so well by both .

An in the end Kamal bids farewell with a mischievous wink the hallmark of his in real life too

I liked the movie a lot

Please do see it

 

City Streets

Cities and at times some towns have a character to them ,they are liking living entities .
I am jotting down a few cities and towns i had been in India as well as abroad ,a very small collection but these places have left an indelible impression one me .

Al Ain
In Arabic it means The Eye
Al Ain is a known oasis town and a stop for caravans in the desert dunes in the past ,the village had a salubrious climate was green and had water supply ,there was a hot spring near mount Jebel Hafeet

 It was also the birthplace of Shiek Zayed the founder President and father of UAE ,He was very particular that Al Ain retain its heritage and hence Al Ain has no multistoreys like Dubai ,Shariah or AbuDhabi
I landed in Al Ain to work  in Tawam Hospital a very reputed tertiary state of art hospital run by the Johns Hopkins group on a hot Sunday morning in July 2006 ,
staying there for six years I fell in love with  the place and it was like a home to me
,I met many good friends there .
Al Ain is known as the garden city of the UAE as it has finely pruned gardens all over it has beautiful roundabouts and is spacious and expansive unlike other cities .

AbuDhabi


 The capital of UAE was just 160 km away from Al Ain and the fine highway had a speed limit of 160 km per hour and we used to go there often ,

Its a city of straight roads mostly leading to the lovely cornice and the grand Emirates palace ,the Shiek Zayed mosque in its marble splendorour and the several high rises are the hall marks of Abudhabi .
the city has an excellent trasport system of sophisticated buses and cabs ,lot of eateries and malls .

Beirut
the Paris of the east
The capital of Lebanon ,the very name conjures a medicterranean haven of pleasure and leisusre ,dusky eveningss behind frosted windows ,tall clinking glasses ,dark coffee in checkered tables on pavement ,smoke from lazy hookahs twisting itno the gabled roofs the distant mountains ,aquamarine sea ,drifting ships and nights young with dance and song .
History has marked its presence in every part of Beirut ,in the Roman Baaths ,the balbaak ruins ,Magnificient St Georges cathedral where the monks had once hidden its treasures in its basemnt during the long civil war .
The Solidaire is the restored historical area of the city ,its windows did show shattered glasses and bullet holes were seen in its walls preserved to show case the long civil wars ,today it is the epitome of fashion and its streets go gay with pop music group live TV recordings and restatrants of all hues .
Beirut was big but one could make a walk through maor areas from the museum to Hamra street which was like Bengalurus Brigade road and the sea lapped corniche ,
i stayed in the centre of the city and my prestigous hotel looked at the spot where its illlustrious president Rafik Hariri was assasinated in 2005

Bangkok

Thailands capital welcomed us at Swarnabhoomi Airport with a huge tableau of the pallayi kadayal or churning of the mythical ocean and obtaining the nectar of heavens or Amruth ,one of Hinduisms important mythical tales ,shows how much importance Thailand a Buddhist country gives to its Hindu origins of Buddhism .

We entered out of the airport to a cloudy day ,the rainbow colored taxis added great colour ,Banghkok had many streets named after its kings Ramaa 1 ,Ramaa 2 Sukhumvit road and swarnabbhoomi Airport all pointed to its Hindu lineage ,more than nine kings of Thailand were named Rammaa .

Bangkok's prime attraction was the great Buddha temple with a huge reclining Buddha many statuettes of Golden Buddha's ,the pointing spires of the temple looked ethereal in the foggy rain that hampered our photographic attempts

there were a lot of malls one I remember particularly was the electronic mall where one could strike a good bargain for any electronic goods

Evening saw us in a cruise in the Chor payya river as it moved under several ornate bridges skirting the lit high-rises as sky trains thundered past and the hordes  of tuk tuks ,motorbikes colored cabs  raised a babble .

violence against doctors ..petition

The Recent spurt of attacks on Doctors and on hospitals and clinics is alarming.
If people start taking the law into their own hands and mobs start administering justice as they deem fit then it is a sorry state for a country like India.

It means anarchy has set in and this sorry state would spread to every field shortly.

The Medical community in India has been contributing its mite for the present health status of the country and its demoralization by such occurrences will reflect on this.

Every Physician needs safety for doing his work and it is the primary responsibility of the Government to protect him

The Medical Protection Act has been passed by many states expressively only for this purpose.

In spite of that the spate of recent attacks on doctors not only by damaging their property but by bodily injury is unacceptable in any civilized country.

Public anger and emotions may be the reasons given for such acts but if a mistake has been committed by any medical professional or hospital there are legal avenues to investigate the same and punish the guilty.

The present situation of mob inquisitions and violence is not befitting to our nation.

The Medical protection act has been passed by several states expressly for the purpose of protecting the physician and his clinic or hospital from violence

But We hardly have examples of guilty people who do this being punished under the medical protection act, if this has been done it would acted as a deterrent for such acts in the future .

The supreme court order that no doctor can refuse any patient in an emergency and has to offer first aid puts the onus on physicians to treat cases for which his center may not be equipped or he is not professionally skilled to handle (for example a defrillator may not be available in every clinic to treat a patient who may have a cardiac arrest and he may die in the clinic before he is referred to a tertiary care specialty center

 If any such mishap occurs in such cases again the doctor is considered to have committed negligence and many times has to face crowd anger and later legal consequences for negligence!.

Medical science accepts the possibility of unexpected complications for example a patient to whom an allergy test has been done for a particular drug as per guidelines can still encounter a fatal anaphylactic shock though rarely, this would still be considered as medical negligence though after expert opinion the doctor may come unscathed the damage to his reputation has already been done or he may have suffered violence from the relatives by then.

Quackery is carried on in our country with ease and the rules have been made flexible for cross specialty practice,

Health authorities close their eyes on such Practioners who are also considered as modern medical doctors and the crowd does not differentiate between them and qualified doctors, these ill trained quacks add to the negative image of the profession.

The quality of drugs prescribed in the country is not consistent as there are lax regulations and monitoring by Drug control authorities, the use of such drugs by any doctor can produce complications for which again he would be blamed

The media too instead of delivering facts in many instances succumb to sensationalism and induce crowd anger, they hardly make any effort to present the version from the physicians side ,they also d ignore the  achievements of the medical profession .

One has to remember that in such a vast country like India with such a huge population and great poverty reasonable and economic medical care both primary and tertiary has been possible only because of the unstinted efforts of this community ,today India is one of the most economic for medical care comparable to many countries

If there are genuine cases where doctors are negligent there are plenty of avenues wherein the affected public can raise their allegation, they can request an inquiry from the Grievance cell of local IMA branch, they can file a police case against the doctor or file a consumer grievance case where it would be investigated and due justice given,

We support this as it is a fair way to punish the guilty

But what is happening today is taking over of the law by any disgruntled crowd and bodily harm

and obstruction of work by a doctor

The state should not allow this to happen.

Anarchy cannot be encouraged

Hence we request the authorities to kindly address this sorry state of affairs

We demand justice from this unfair situation which is increasing day by day We insist that a fair hearing be given to any case of negligence and no doctor is subjected to humiliations before this is done We hope our pleas are heard by the concerned.

 

Strong Doctor

just to make things a bit light ,of course iam as angry as everyone here
take it in a light spirit we need to laugh too
With increasing violence on doctors i just thought i will take off on a comment written by a doctor in this forum .Dr Praful thanks

All doctors wear helmets and shatter proof face masks...
Bullet proof vests to be procured from Kevlar bought in concession by a Government subsidy
All furniture iv stands and lamp fixtures to be made of plastic
Marked changes in MBBS curriculum
Selection will be like for army and police recruitment height weight ability to fight back will be scrutinised
Base camp under commandos during internship is must
First year physical fitness and 8 pack training
Aamir khan will be roped in as national coach
Salman khan will be the dean of this dept he will teach drs to hit and run
Second year during anatomy special boxing traing with dead body punching and wrestling with specimens
Mulayam singh yadav will teach wrestling
Morning prayers to dara singh
Third year pharmaco therapeutics a special segment for how to treat doctors who are injured by thirr patients
Tamil actor Vijay will show how to reverse dislocated shoulders and hit the enemy telling iam waiting
By final year most doctors will be black belts with judo kung fu kalari and kolattam expertise
Rajnikanth will be roped in to teach juicy dialogues like
If i tell pay bill once you pay hundred times
Doctors will go on deputation in turns to mumbai bhais to learn how to throw back stones and play with knives like with a stethoscope
Voice training will be by Amrish puri oopps sorry cant have ghost lecturers
Doctors will go to kolkata to learn magic from pc sorcar to turn the missiles thrown at them into flowers to have the last laugh
Arvind Kejariwal will be honorary prof of anarchist methods
Supreme court lawyers will train drs in fourth year how to sleep on cases and take summer holidays
Finally if nothing works they will meet our PM .Modiji to learn how to be abroad 365 days in an year

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Kerala Rains

Kerala Rains ...nostalgia
June first is always a memorable day for Kerala ,
its when school reopens ,for a state with 100 % literacy that's an exiting day indeed .
though Iam a Keralite
 I studied in Madras but every year during this time I would be in Parappanangadi in Malappuram district in my ancestral house in Kerala and i would share the excitement of my cousins who studied there .
Our school would open only by June first week .
Days before the D day parents would make a beeline to the local textile shop to buy the uniform clothes give it for stitching
( the school mercifully allowed them to do so unlike these days where the school insists on a package deal ),the shopping spree would also include pencils pens geometry boxes school bags lunch boxes and above all umbrellas .
how could one exist without those as the famous Kerala monsoon would come by June first .
The sweltering torpid heat of April and May where ripe mangoes would fall from trees ,ponds would go dry ,and the grass give a burnt look ,pregnant ,jack fruits would be split open to gorge on their sweet insides ,the holidays would be languorous slow and lazy as it loomed long and we would mostly be on trees rather than on Terrafirma by mid May the heat would be sweltering and people would wrinkle their foreheads and squint their eyes to look at the horizon for clouds .
A few summer showers would only make matters worse as the heat rose from the ground but the number of trees gave a lot of shade too .
The timing of the monsoon in Kerala is really amazing .
One expects the south west monsoon to set in by may end from the southern tip of Kanyakumari and slowly weave its way through kollam ,Allepey Ernakulam and then to Calicut and then upwards to Goa , Mumbai and later across the country to race to west Bengal by July .
Alexander Fraser wrote an excellent travelogue called chasing the monsoon where he would just wait for the clouds before he rushes to the next place by train or bus for it to arrive and all the way upto Kolkata ! great travel writing indeed .
so by end of may the distant rumbles of thunders would be heard like the distant drumbeats of an advancing army ,
strong flashes of lightening and drenching short showers would leave us in a frenzy of happiness as we frolicked in the green pond
water snakes would peep from the weeds as exited as us with the arrival of rains
The birds would chirp happily and the old Namboothiri ladies would hurry home with their bamboo umbrellas covering their face and head as they returned from the temple .
Mostly every June first morning the school children in their new uniforms would reach their schools wet as those days they walked all the way about 4 to 5 km and rains never failed to baptize them
These days rains aren't so punctual they are inconsistent but by June 15th one can be sure Kerala can be seen only through a rainy specter and this would last till august
I would wave my cousins goodbye as the rains poured and the lightening flashed and quietly try to go out with an umbrella and my mother would yell at me to go in and start doing some work as schools are opening shortly
i love Kerala rains