It is impossible not to love The Last Song of Savio de Souza if you have lived in Thiruvananthapuram. This is 53 year old Binoo K John’s debut novel. A senior journalist and founder of the Kovalam Literary Festival, Binoo is a man of immense wit and wisdom as his earlier three books, all works of non-fiction, attest to. His ‘Entry from Backside Only: Hazaar Fundas of Indian English’ is a must read for anybody who has anything to do with India and the English language. This time he delights us readers with this rambunctious fable, a burlesque on the exploitative agenda of organized religion. I felt a sense of déjà vu with the locale and references to my school St. Joseph’s, where the writer studied too. While Thiruvananthapuram is conveniently shortened to Puram, Holy Mary’s is a masquerade for the predominantly girls’ school  Holy Angels’ Convent, famous for its strict disciplinarian nuns. Its headmistress is the rather tantalizingly named Sister Regina.

There are not many English novels set in the Kerala capital. Instantly coming to mind is the philosopher-novelist Raja Rao’s The Cat and Shakespeare, a slender but not easily digestible work, ridden with metaphysical inner meanings that most readers cannot make sense of. Puthenchantha and Pulimood figure in this work whose title is a metaphor for the central characters of a realist and a dreamer. The cat represents grace and detachment while Shakespeare stands for the Hamletian world of conflict. Slow Waltz on Cedar Bend, the American Robert James Waller‘s dud sequel to his best-selling Bridges of Madison County opens in the main railway station of Thiruvananthapuram. Considering that the city is a prominent character in the present book one could say that Binoo does to it what Arundhati Roy (one of the earlier reviewers of whose celebrated book was Binoo, back in a India Today cover story in the Booker euphoria days of ’97) did to Kottayam or specifically the village of Ayemenem. The writer deserves to be lauded for many things – sparkling prose, humor even if often raunchy, giving the chequered city a pride of literary place and finally, as he claims, his battle-cry for the return of rational thinking to a state increasingly subservient to blind faith and manipulators of the grave situation that has arisen out of it. As Binoo said in a magazine interview, his novel is subversive and dares the coy attitude to sex of ‘moral Brahminical matrons’ writing in English.  The writer also professes a love of Latin American magic realism. The book’s opening sentence, a premonition of the catastrophe to come, is similar to the beginning of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Spanish classic, One Hundred Years of Solitude. We learn upfront that the singer Savio, like Colonel Aureliano Buendia, is destined to doom. Otherwise one is constantly reminded of V.S. Naipaul of his early Caribbean novels here. There are parallels among the Trinidadian Indian community of say A House for Mr. Biswas and the Thiruvananthapuram coastal folk of Binoo’s story. Both barely escape caricaturing. The Savio saga unfolds in the sixties and seventies when singer Yesudas and actor Nasir dominated the Malayalam cultural landscape. The finale is set grandly in Dec ‘04, the tragic significance of that time lending eerie meaning to the book’s ominous title. Three places whose names start with V symbolize the essence of this maelstrom saga – Vatican, Velankanni and Vettukad. The church has not exactly found an evangelist in this free spirit writer though  .

Elaborating on side events at times tend to take the tautness off the telling. For instance the preparation of chimpanzee elixir in school is a riotous read in itself but has no bearing on the larger story. Fantasia, Professor Bhagyanath’s popular magic show at Putharikandam which ends in utter pandemonium is one of the last events in the run up to the climax of ‘04. Naming the magician as Bhagyanath could be pointed out as a faux pas considering that the real life Prof K. Bhagyanath (who was as popular then, that is in the schooldays of Binoo/Savio, as Gopinath Muthukad is today) had passed away in ’99. But it can be treated as just a fictional name for a character and the writer allowed his poetic license. Care is taken elsewhere as in Brother Dominic of yore graduating to Father Dominic in the present. I spotted one mention of Father Murickan (with his rumbling baritone voice) the  Headmaster at the time of my leaving school. Even the caged python that we grew up seeing daily has a place in the scheme of things. Transliterations of Malayalam appear at many places. This could have been avoided except for poetry and song lyrics (like Idaya kanyake povuka nee and Kadalinakkare ponnore – choices that are very inline with the plot buildup). To sum up, reading the book is like sipping a Bacardi Breezer, an ambrosia drink Binoo enlightens us about in his Chirrapunji account Under a Cloud, on a sultry Thiruvananthapuram afternoon. Binoo K John has done his alma mater St Joseph’s proud.
(October 2011)

Nandan Nilekani was born in 1955 to Mohan Rao and Durga in Sirsi in Karnataka. He studied at Bangalore’s Bishop Cotton Boys School and later electrical engineering at IIT Bombay from ’73 to ’78. He joined Patni Computer Systems where Narayana Murthy was a senior. They along with five other colleagues left Patni and started Infosys in ’81. Nilekani became the CEO and MD in ’02 and remained so for five years before being elevated to Chairman in ’07. Nilekani is married to Rohini and they have two children – Yale going daughter Janhavi and son Nihar. Rohini Nilekani who has a novel called Stillborn to her name, is the Chairperson of Akshara Foundation. In ’04 the Government of India decorated Nilekani with the country’s third highest civilian honor, the Padma Bhushan. Fortune magazine named him as one of Asia’s 25 most powerful business people. In ’06 Time listed him among the 100 most influential people in the world. Forbes hailed him the Business Leader of the year. He is a member of the World Economic Forum Foundation Board, chairman of the Bangalore Agenda Task Force, president of the National Council of Applied Economic Research and also co-founder of NASSCOM. He is in the review committee of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. As a member of the National Advisory Group on e-Governance, Nilekani sponsors NGOs like eGovernments Foundation who are transforming government machinery through better usage of IT. He has served on the Boards of IITB and RBI.

It is curious to trace how Nilekani’s interest in his environment and the nation itself evolved and bloomed in spite of him being a technocrat with a punishing work schedule, although he terms himself at the outset an accidental entrepreneur. As a child he went to see Nehru when the first Prime Minister visited Bangalore. The seeds of liberal thinking must have been sown at the IIT where he was an avid quizzer. His regular quizzing partner in those days was Jairam Ramesh who is now a Central Minister. He has always been in contact and extended dialogs with intellectuals of his time like Ramachandra Guha whom he describes as a mentor and the main motivator behind the book. Guha, a brilliant academic from the finishing school of St Stephens whose interests range from anthropology and demography to cricket and literature is given credit along with economist Vijay Kelkar for catalyzing the genesis of this book. And as it took shape, infinite support and encouragement came in the person of Rohini whose ‘compassion and work in the social sector made a stunted IIT nerd into a more rounded human being’. The book is a product of tireless research. The writer did have research assistants in this mission, but what is particularly note-worthy is the first-hand nature of most of the information. The author has met or got in touch with people who matter in the Indian industry and politics as well as India watchers from around the globe while painstakingly building his thesis. The book is updated to the point of talking about the Recession that started in September this year. He has also cited from a plethora of writing from Charles Dickens to the recent Rosett Report. Some of the key ones from the surfeit of India books that came after the golden jubilee of our Independence are referenced, notably Sunil Khilanani’s The Idea of India and Guha’s India After Gandhi. The reader might be excused for feeling a stale taste wherever the author recycles twentieth century Indian history for the sake of completion of the narrative. A newcomer, say a firangi who wants to learn about India afresh, might appreciate it better. Nilekani is inspired by the lives of entrepreneur-philanthropists like Rockefeller and Bill and Melinda Gates in the US and their Indian counterparts like Jamshetji Tata and G.D. Birla. Even as he adopts a pan-Indian stance on developmental matters, his special affection for two cities is unmistakably evident – hometown Bangalore and the city of his vibrant student days, Bombay, down to the last chai-chaat he had there. He outlines well-etched plans for the renovation of the IITs. In fact as someone who walks the talk, he had co-founded two new hostels at the Powai institution, thereby adding 1000 rooms, an increase of 30%. These were built under two year’s time. He states his case for developing Dharavi, the largest slum in Bombay and perhaps the world, which is also a hub of industry that generates $1.47 billion annually.

Infosys appears in illustrative examples, like when he points out that it is a marquee company for environmentally friendly business approaches. The governmental interference that Narayana Murthy ran into while chairing the Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL), gets a mention. Another Infosys leader who gets pride of place is M. D. Pai in the context of the nationwide mid-day meal scheme that he initiated. We learn that in the days of the license raj, one of the founders of the company N.S. Raghavan had to hang around in the lobby outside a bureaucrat’s office in Delhi for eighteen days just to change the ‘port of arrival’ from Madras to Bangalore in an import permission letter! Nilekani traces the progression of Indian attitudes to business from the days of Nehru who for all his statesmanship nursed contempt for ‘a bania civilization’ to Indira who spoke of businessmen as the ‘dark and evil forces’ to Manmohan Singh who lauds businessmen as the ‘source of India’s confidence and our optimism’. Along the way came man-in-a-hurry Rajiv Gandhi and the techies like Sam Pitroda whom he patronized. They played a commendable role in steering us on to the right track, disoriented as we were in a maze of complacent and degrading socialism. The crying needs of today are bijli, sadak aur pani which is a shift from the roti, kapda aur makan priorities of the previous generation. Nilekani points out that today we are increasingly less blaze in the face of problems like unscheduled power failures, delayed trains, broken sewer lines and mounds of garbage on the road. Certain initiatives like BATF which he once headed are helping bring about a conscious awareness among the public on the need for change. Even though Nilekani started with a technocratic solution, a few years and many frustrations later he realized that what held us back were financial and political weaknesses and not so much operational ones. Today urban reforms have become the policy bandwagon that everybody is clambering on, he further states. He is all praise for eGovernments Foundation. Their systems, implemented across 100 Indian cities, have empowered citizens by getting rid of the gatekeeper while paying utility bills and property taxes, filing complaints and applying for documents, etc.

I have minor grudges with the book. It is sparsely illustrated and the pictures are perfunctory. Maybe the editors could have done away with them altogether. Here are a couple of bloopers in an otherwise flawless book. On page 169, Jaideep Sahni is referred to as a director of some movies which he had actually not directed by written. Also in the Indian history chronology on page 503, the number of people massacred at Jallianwallah Bagh is given as 10,000 which is factually incorrect and is apparently a case of an extra zero creeping in. I am sure these are editorial gaffes that will go away in the next edition. I also wished that Nilekani had garnished his work with a bit more sprinkling of humor, of which we get but rare glimpses like mirages in the parched desert sands of academic arid land. Pondering on why family planning failed in the rural areas in the years soon after Independence, Nilekani quotes villagers, ‘They talked of the rhythm method to people who didn’t know the calendar. Then they gave us rosaries of colored beads. At night, people couldn’t tell the read bead for “don’t” from the green for “go ahead”. Wry humor pops up in this case of an entrepreneur telling him, ‘Sunil Mittal of Bharti Airtel says that people use their mobile phones most when they are in a traffic jam. So the fact that telecom is far ahead of the rest of India’s infrastructure has brought him a lot of revenue!’

In summary Imagining India is a comprehensive work though not a compelling read. It will be dated for sure, but still looking back many years from now, a person interested in the India of its first 60 years of freedom – politically, economically, socially – would want to grab this amazing book for some insights. The target audience is anybody who is interested in India. It is a serious work and definitely no airport thriller….well, not unless your name is Palaniappan Chidambaram or Montek Singh Ahluwalia or something. In a country where if you sell 5000 copies of a book you are labeled ‘best-selling writer’, Nilekani’s book has already crossed the 30,000 mark in a month. At the recent Kovalam Literary festival I heard two publishing honchos, the India CEOs of Penguin and Harper Collins reiterate as to what kind of books they would love to publish in fiction – it is the mass literature/ pulp novel popularized by the Chetan Bhagats. One wonders what it is when it comes to non-fiction. I would wager my money that it is books like Imagining India – blue-prints by visionaries and statesmen-in-the-making like Nandan Nilekani for a bigger, better and brighter India.

(December 2008)

(October 2011)

Vayalar - Chelangatt Gopalakrishnan
Indradhanussin Theerath – Bharathi Thampuratti
Antharjanathinu Snehapoorvam Vayalar
Purushantharangalliloode – Vayalar
Oru Kaviyude Diary – Vayalar

Gopalakrishnan was a film critic and a close associate of Vayalar for four decades. He explodes many myths about the great man in his memoirs. Firstly Vayalar was not a reckless alcoholic like most of us believe. He did love his booze. But we are shown instances where the responsible professional in him refused invites to evening drinks by film colleagues because he had to go back to his song assignments. Vayalar or Kuttan to those close to him was born in 1928, fifteen years into his parents’ marriage. Before he was three, he lost his father Vellarapalli Keralavarma. The mother Ambalika Thampuratti’s attachment to this only child was one of extreme possessiveness that stayed throughout his life. Vayalar married Chandramathi Amma and when they were issueless for six years, broke up and married her sister Bharathi. That union produced a son, today’s lyricist Sarat Chandran and three daughters Indulekha, Yamuna and Sindhu. The village of Vayalar first shot to fame in 1946 after an uprising there and in nearby Punnapra against the Travancore Diwan resulted in hundreds of martyrs. The poet was 18 at that time. He was led on to the leftist path by C.K. Kumara Panicker who was known as Vayalar Stalin. His son is the present CPI State Secretary C.K. Chandrappan. After the communist split in ’64, Vayalar naturally aligned with the CPI. Despite his high caste origins, Vayalar questioned and rebelled against the injustices of society and championed the oppressed classes. ‘Snehickayilla njan novumatmavine/ Snehichidathoru thatvasastratheyum’ – these lines from his poem Maa Nishada sum up his life’s philosophy. When he first went to Udaya studio seeking work, he was shown the door by the mighty Kunchacko. Years later the same Kunchacko was to accord him a hero’s welcome when he brought home the national award. This was in ’73 for the song ‘Manushyan mathangalle srishtichu’ in the movie Achanum Baappayum. Gopalakrishnan planned a grand felicitation for his friend and invited a hundred people from the industry. A mere half a dozen attended. In spite of personal reminders, big stars like Nasir and Ummar scooted it. Ummar inaugurated a radio shop in the vicinity on the same day! This is an indicator of the jealousy Vayalar’s genius sparked in his peers. The association of Vayalar and music composer Paravur Devarajan which has given Malayalam some of its best loved songs till date was divinely ordained. Vayalar was haunted by a bad liver. When the end came in ’75 he was just 47. Had he been alive today he would have been 83, still five summers junior to that Methuselah comrade called V.S. Achuthanandan. It is a cruel irony that for his funeral the who’s who of literature, cinema and politics of the land except our topmost actors and singers were present. Was it the short temper of a man in creative trance that must have rubbed these so-called stars’ egos the wrong way when he was alive? Malayatoor, a dear friend, wanted to set up a fund in his memory and approached Yesudas who shockingly turned it down. The gandhavaran draws special flak in Bharathi Thampuratti’s book for what she terms ingratitude to the man and his family. But the biggest revelation there is her life’s travails. Her dominating mother-in-law had made a mental slave of the son so much so that Vayalar would write letters from his Madras stay to his mom and not wife. The poet had a narrow escape after Naxals decided to burn down his Raghavapparamp kovilakam. Vayalar ‘adopted’ the writer Lalithambika Antharjanam as an elder sister and communicated steadily with her. A glimpse of that most beautiful friendship is the collection of letters brought out by the dame’s grand-daughter Thanuja S. Bhattathiri. We get to see only one side of the communication though. Antharjanam who was sticking to short stories wrote a reformist novel called Agnisakshi at the coercion of Vayalar. After the latter’s death when the government instituted the state’s biggest literary honor in his name, she it was who became its first recipient, in ‘77! Purushantharangalliloode is Vayalar’s account of a Delhi trip in ’56 to attend an Asian Writers’ Conference. We can marvel Vayalar’s sense of history and mythology. The Diary has jottings on topics like visiting Kumaran Asan’s widow Bhanumathi, a lament over people falling for tricksters in religious garb and sadness at seeing Narayana Guru’s message going unheard among people who purport to be his followers. He talks excitedly about the writing of the Japanese Yasunari Kawabatta who had just become the first Asian in 55 years since Tagore to win the literary Nobel Prize. Lastly there is tribute to Sinclair and Steinbeck, two then recently deceased writers who had had an influence on him. Contrary to what many people believe Vayalar was not an atheist. The writer of ‘Nitya visudhayam kanya mariyame’ and ‘ Chethi mandaram thulasi pichaka malakal chaarthi’ was a true man of religion who took after Sankara’s non-dualism school. He loved life passionately, was ahead of his times and soared in the highest planes of thought. Interestingly Vayalar takes a veiled dig at S.K. Pottekkat who was ‘oblivious of the issues in his immediate surroundings, produced intellectual exercises of world travelogues and drew from original works penned by abler men in different climes’.

(August 2011)

The book is not a chronological trace of the genius from birth to now but rather an examination of the evolution of the man in association with his musical sojourners. The barely 200 page book is embellished with a delectable spread of 30 pages of photographs. The icing on the cake is a listing of all of Dasettan’s songs based on category (love, grief, nature, description, humor, philosophy, classical/ semi-classical, devotional, chant and poetic). In the first ever Kerala State School Youth Festival in 1958 Yesudas emerged winner in classical song. The prize for percussion instrument was bagged by a mridangam playing kid who went on to become the number two of Malayalam singing – Paliath Jayachandran! A photo of the two in concert in the said event is included. Another marvel is Dasettan’s discovery of the talent of a frock-wearing nine year old kid called Sujatha. She rose to prominence as a playback singer and is still going steady even as her own daughter Sweta has matured as a singer herself. Sujatha and Yesudas appeared together in 2000 stages, a record. Yesudas appeared in a few movies including considerable parts like the suruma seller in Kayamkulam Kochunni. His first recorded song was Jaathi bhedam matha dvesham in Kaalpadukal. Sree Narayana Guru’s lines were set to music by M.B. Sreenivasan. Recently while appearing as the chief guest in the grand finale of the popular contest Star Singer on Asianet TV channel, he was seen singing it with the same passion as would a new entrant to the field of music. His dedication to his art is legendary, as also the professionalism. He once refused to sing a song that was first recorded by Jayachandran and then taken off him and offered to Das.

Yesudas is married to Prabha and they have three sons Vinod, Vijay (an established singer today)and Vishal. He founded the recording studio Tharangini in Vellayambalam in Thiruvananthapuram. The city which he enriched with countless concerts, is close to his heart as seen by his championing the cause of Vizhinjam port in recent years. He has two brothers Moni and Justin and a sister Jayamma. Some of our greatest composers like Devarajan, Dakshinamurthy, Baburaj, Arjunan, MSV, MBS, Raghavan, Salil Chowdhury and Ravindran have exploited the seemingly flawless and infinite talent of this singer to create sparkling gems out of lyrics penned by frontline poets like Vayalar, ONV, P. Bhaskaran, Yusufali Kechery and Sreekumaran Thampi. The seventies saw Yesudas rising in popularity in Hindi thanks to a string of hits for movies by masters like Basu Chatterjee and Hrishikesh Mukherjee. The blind composer Ravindra Jain gave him his ‘Jab deep jale aana’ masterpiece in Chitchor. Who can forget ‘Kannai kalaimane’ in the Tamizh Moondram Pirai for Illayaraja? It is futile to try extolling the greatness of those immortal songs. The book is a welcome addition to the corpus of literature on Indian cinema (more than classical concerts it is the playback singing for which the commoner Malayali will remember Dasettan).

This is a treasure trove of trivia too.
Some of the popular Yesudas hits are from movies that never saw the light of the day. IAS man K Jayakumar’s maiden creation ‘Kudajadriyil kudikollum maheswari’ is from Neelakadamb which got shelved. Others include Padarenu thedi alanju, Swapnangallokkeyum pankuveykaam and Hridayam devalayam.
Nellikode Bhaskaran was the actor who had the unique privilege of giving life on screen to the first songs of both Yesudas and Jayachandran (for the latter in Kunjali Marackar, 1965).
Yesudas sang two songs for an Adoor Gopalakrishnan film (!) that never came out. This was in the 60’s and prior to Swayamavaram. This information is courtesy Prabha Yesudas, not a bad singer herself.
Evergreen hits like Devi nin chiriyil, Ila kozhiyum sisirathil, Ella dukhavum enikk tharoo and Ninne punaraan neettiya kaikalil were written by obscure writers some of them one-film wonders and who died unsung and in penury. Who has heard of Vellanad Narayanan and Kunjumoitheen kutty?
Dasettan himself composed the music for numbers like Rasoole nin kanavaale (film Sanchari).
His directorial attempt never came to fruition and the leading girl of that aborted venture was one who later came to be ‘discovered’ by Balachandra Menon, a dusky beauty name of Karthika.
While Yesudas sang for many people including himself, only one singer had the credit of singing for Yesudas and this was Dr. Balamuralikrishna for Anarkali where he played Tansen.
Two regulars of earlier Yesudas orchestras were Paul who played the thabala and harmonist Jose. They are respectively the father and uncle of today’s director/actor/producer Lal.

Any discussion on Yesudas is not complete without a mention of Ayyappan, the Hindu deity he has immensely worshipped in song and otherwise. Harivarasanam is perhaps the most famous of the songs to the lord of Sabarimala. It appeared in Swami Ayyappan in 1975.

Many people consider themselves lucky to be living in the same period as this legend. Last year he released a book called My Life and Thoughts. While welcoming this present memoir of Ravi Menon’s, we look forward to bigger and meatier biographies on the great Dasettan.

(Sep 2011)

Kamal Haasan is the actors’ actor. Almost all the actors we adulate in our land have this great for their idol. Many later day heroes like Mohan, Suman, Arjun, Karthik and the late Raghuvaran have tried to imitate him, with partial success. Kamal Haasan was born on 7th November 1954 to a criminal lawyer named D. Srinivasan and his devout wife Rajalekshmi in the village of Parmakudi in Ramanathapuram district of Tamil Nadu. Kamal was the youngest of three brothers, the others being Charu Haasan who is twenty years his senior and Chandra Haasan. They also had a sister Nalini. Charu’s daughter is Suhasini Mani Ratnam. The father and daughter are winners of National acting awards for Tabarana Katha (Kannada, Girish Kasaravally) and Sindhu Bhairavi (Tamil, K. Balachander) respectively. Kamal himself was thrice decorated with the coveted honor – for Moondram Pirai (1982), Nayakan (1988) and Indian (1996). He has also won an unprecedented eighteen Filmfare Awards including for Screenplay (Apoorva Sahodarargal) and Production. Seven of the films he acted in had entered the Oscar race. Like many of his peers including Sridevi, Ambika, Sarika, Sachin and Padmini Kolhapuri, Kamal was blooded early as a child in movies. When only six he was cast in the Tamil film Kalathur Kannamma made by A. V. Meiyappa Chettiar. He played an orphan who is raised by Gemini Ganesan. He walked away with the President’s award for best child actor. Soon after that he played the thespian Satyan’s son in the Malayalam film Kannum Karalum. Not formally educated beyond high school, the only education he had after that was his rigorous training in dance. He mastered the classical dances with religious fervor and in parallel set himself a strict regimen of fitness training. By the time he was in his late teens, he had blossomed into a fine specimen of a man. K. Viswanath, the doyen of dance films and director of the timeless Telugu classic Sankarabharanam, found a perfect hero in Kamal for a few of his ventures like Sagara Sangamam (Salangai Oli), Swathi Muthyam (Chippikkull Muthu) and Shubha Sankalkpam (Pasa Valai). But his guru and mentor in films was to be K. Balachander. KB gave the 19 year old newcomer hero his first break by casting him in his Arangetram. His first Malayalam film as hero was Kanyakumari (1974) which was written by M.T and directed by K. S. Sethumadhavan. His heroine was Rita Bhaduri. Songs like Swarna Pallunku Manimaala enriched the movie. Rajanikanth’s entry movie Apoorva Ragangal (1975) had Kamal as a young hero who falls for Srividya’s older woman. The movie was sentimentally special for Vidya since she played a classical singer like her famous mother M.L. Vasantha Kumari in it. Kamal’s first production Raja Parvai where he played a blind musician was also his 100th movie. Chartbuster songs like ‘Anthi mazhai pozhikirathe’ made it a raging hit. The popularity of Kamal as a lethal sex symbol – talented actor combination was now growing. By the late seventies, the name had become a rage with South Indian audiences. Girls swooned for him. Adolescent boys idolized him. Rebellious youth identified with the actor who gave vent to their dreams, aspirations and agonies on celluloid. Film after film after masala film, he was made to dance, fight, romance and also tear off his shirt in song sequences for apparently no reason. Kamal and Sridevi proved a terrific pair that came together in no fewer than 38 movies. Varumayin Nirram Shigapp, Pathinaru Vayathinile, Thulavarsham, Thyagadeepam and Premabhishekam are some of the better known ones. But their best to date has been Balu Mahendra’s Moondram Pirai. Although Kamal won the National award that year (1982), Sridevi narrowly lost it to ‘Umrao Jaan’ Rekha. Kamal has starred opposite all the leading ladies of his day like Sridevi, Ambika, Radha, Zarina Wahab, Jayabharathi, Jayapradha, Sulakshana, Poonam Dhillon, Unni Mary, Amala, Meena, Gowthami, Urmila, Khushboo, Rekha, Revathi, Shobhana, Manisha Koirala, Nirosha, Radhika, Aamni, Priya Raman, Dimple, Roopini, Urvashi, Meena, Seetha, Jyothika, Simran, Madhavi, Sukanya, Rani Mukherjee, Vasundhara Das, Ravina Tandon, Sneha and Asin to name a few. Some of the great character actors who graced his movies over the years include Nagesh, Jayasankar, Manorama, Dilli Ganesh, Nasser, Prakash Raj and Kovai Sarala apart from Prabhu, Rajanikanth and Sathyaraj who went on to become one-man industries themselves.

At the age of twenty four, Kamal met and married danseuse Vani Ganapathy who was a year elder to him. Vani put on the mantle of costume designer for her superstar husband’s movies. They split after seven years together. By then Sarika, the quiet and light-eyed actress of Hindi cinema had entered Kamal’s life. Coincident with the birth of their daughter Sruthi, the couple wed. Another daughter Akshara followed. After 17 years the curtains came down on that marriage as well. Sarika re-entered films with an award-winning comeback effort called Parzania. Kamal today lives with former actress Gowthami, along with her daughter from an annulled marriage, Subhalakshmi. As for his children, Shruthi studied at the Musician’s Institute in California and has albums to her name while Akshara is in to dance and plans to compete in the Ballroom Latin dance event at the 2012 London Olympics.

At his peak Kamal the sex symbol and Kamal the actor could not quite be separated for analysis. Even when he starred in those stereotype formula films of the late seventies and early eighties, which never actually called for histrionic merit of any kind, Kamal’s abundant talent would somehow surface in them, inviting the accolades of critics of mainstream cinema. But the credit for thoroughly exploiting the actor in Kamal should go to one man – K. Balachander. Right from his early B/W films like Apoorva Ragangal, Avarkal, Aval Oru Thudarkkadhai to later ones like Varumayin Niram Sigapp, Punnagai Mannan, Ninaithaal Inukkum, Unaal Mudiyum Thampi and Ek Duuje Ke Liye, KB’s and Kamal’s was a highly fruitful partnership which saw 25 projects taking wings. In village balladeer Bharathi Raja’s path-breaking debut film Pathinaru Vayathinile (1977), Kamal plays a village simpleton to Rajani’s rowdy. In Balu Mahendra’s Moondram Pirai Kamal is a Ooty school teacher who rescues and nurses the amnesia-stricken Sridevi only to be painfully deserted by her once she regains her memory, or takes her ‘third birth’ as the title says. Lilting songs like ‘Kanney Kala Maane’ (‘Surmey Akhiyon Mein’ in Hindi) sung by Yesudas added luster to it. Another outstanding yet anti-hero part is that of the psychopath in Raja’s Sigappu Rojakkal. With Ek Duuje Ke Liye (1982) not only KB, but also singer S. P. Balasubramaniam made his Hindi debut. The Rathi Agnihotri – Kamal Haasan pair sculpted one of the many memorable Indian love tragedies that clicked casting fresh faces in that period, the Kumar Gaurav – Vijetha Pandit starrer Love Story being another case in point. A tale of the doomed love of a Tamilian boy for a Hindiwala girl set in neutral Goa, the film had many a teenage heart throbbing. The climactic end where the lovers are united in death in the beach was a bit contrived though. Culture clash is a theme KB has always handled well. In Punnagai Mannan you have a Tamilian boy going for a Sri Lankan girl. The impish Revathi shone in the heroine’s role. It is a wholesome movie with all the ingredients of life in the right mix. Song, dance, romance, humor, comedy, tragedy, fight, paternal love, friendship, kindness and cruelty lace a finely scripted plot. The Athirappilly Falls is as good as a character with a soul of its own. The uncle character Chaplin Chellappa played by Kamal was the much awaited chance for him to pay obeisance to the maestro of silent and talkie cinema. In an interview with Trivandrum Doordarshan he once quipped, ‘Imitating Chaplin is the best way one can pay tribute to him. Who would not want to imitate Chaplin, unless he has not seen Chaplin?’

Kamal is an astute businessman who has been quoted as saying, ‘I am a marketing man, and the product that I market is called Kamal Haasan.’ Is he a narcissist? Well, how many out there who carry the ‘achiever’ tag aren’t self-lovers? His relationship with the Mumbai movie moguls, the enormity of whose arrogance is matched only by the extent of their ignorance, was never smooth. Apart from Ek Duuje Ke Liye, he has Hindi hits to his name like Giraftar, Karishma, Sanam Teri Kasam, Yeh Tho Kamaal Ho Gaya and Ramesh Sippy’s Sagar, which was Dimple Kapadia’s comeback movie. Sadma, the remake of Moondram Pirai, bombed at the box office. Also his Ek Nayi Paheli (remake of Apoorva Ragangal), Dekha Pyar Tumhara, Zara Si Zindagi, Appu Raja or Mayor Saab did not quite rock and roll. Still twenty five years ago he commanded a fee in Hindi that was second only to Amitabh Bachan’s. The self-righteous Bombay bosses however could not see eye to eye with this talented’Madrasi’ who was as free-willed as he was business-minded. A disgusted Kamal quit Bombay tinseldom. Thereafter many remakes and dubbing of his Tamil hits have appeared in Hindi, that’s all. Avvai Shanmughi’s remake Chachi 420 came to be directed by Kamal himself after differences arose with the designated director Sridhar Shenoy. With the novel experiment of a silent Pushpak Vimanam (a.k.a Pesum Padam) directed by Singeetam Srinivasa Rao in 1988, Kamal appeared first time on screen sans his famous moustache. The film, shown to audiences all over India, struck an instant rapport with the public. The poignant tale of the unemployed young man and his daily struggles struck a chord in their hearts. Arousing pathos and comic laughter at the same time, it had the dazzling Amala opposite Kamal. They were to pair again in Sathya and Vettri Vizha (a take off on Bourne Identity). Kamal devoured huge quantities of rice and put on weight in studious preparation for the role of Velusamy Naickar, a character inspired by the underworld don Varadaraja Mudaliar, for Mani Ratnam’s Nayakan. The performance was arguably his best but the movie also paved the way for differences with Ratnam and unfortunately the two titans parted filmi ways. Nayakan became Dayavan with Vinod Khanna in Hindi and not surprisingly fell flat.

Kamal has always loved Kerala. His favorite food is the Malayali dish of fried Karimeen fish. He counts among his best friends Mammotty, Mohanlal and Nedumudi Venu and from the past, Jayan who was our superstar when he died during a film shooting 28 years ago. Nedumudi is among Kamal’s favorite Indian actors, the others include Shivaji Ganesan (Nadikar Thilakam was a father-figure to him), Dilip Kumar and Naseeruddin Shah. In Indian Kamal and Venu matched wits in the respective roles of the freedom fighter and CBI officer. His last Malayalam movie, debutante Rajeev Kumar’s Chanakyan was an early Jayaram film in which a serious faced Kamal played the avenging violinist Johnson rattling sabres with Thilakan’s villain Chief Minister, with consummate aplomb.

Post-Nayakan, Kamal began to streamline his choice of films more. He became choosy about the roles he accepted and did not do more than two movies a year, and certainly no two movies at a time. The immediate reward of that strategy was a superbly crafted Apoorva Sahodarargal with which Kamal reached the pinnacle of his acting career. There were no more heights he could scale from there. The peak had been attained. Playing a dwarf in a circus was something he had always wanted to do. It posed exciting challenges, obviously. In many ways, the film was to him what Mera Naam Joker was to Raj Kapoor, a soul-searching exercise. But unlike the Kapoor film, Apoorva Sahodarargal set the cash registers ringing at the box office. He followed it up with another incredible act Indran Chandran (Indradu Chandradu in Telugu). The diabolical Mayor Rajendran and the simpleton Chandran were a perfect contrast of double roles. Soon after came Michael Madan Kama Rajan, a slapstick comedy experimenting with four roles. In Anbe Sivam, Madhavan as the young ad-man Anbarasu ridicules the communist relic Nallasivam played by Kamal saying communism is extinct since the Soviet Union has collapsed. Retorts Sivam,’If Taj Mahal falls down, will you guys stop loving as well?’ In this film that came before the big Tsunami happened, Nallasivam also lectures impromptu to Anbarasu about that natural disaster! In Hey Ram, Saket Ram sets out to kill Gandhi, convinced that the latter is the root cause of his personal tragedy. The work which also features Hindi sensation Shah Rukh Khan, is a serious examination of what the Father of our Nation stood for. It went above the head of the common moviegoer and miserably flopped. Ditto success for Alavandan (Abhay) where Kamal plays a cop and his lunatic twin brother. His Virumandi employed the Kurosawan technique of revisiting a scene later from different perspectives. Tenali, Pammal K. Sambandam, Panchathantram and Mumbai Express are the kind of racy stuff that didn’t do his talent justice. Cop flick Vettayadu Vilayadu was a focused work that brought out director Gautam Menon’s technical artistry. It is true that Kamal is in a sense a ‘great imitator’. He has liberally copied from the riches of Hollywood cinema apart from drawing from his own vast reading. But in an industry which refuses to grow out of song and dance musicals like a obdurate kid, he is one artist who has raised the bar every now and then and stretched the realms of the cinematically possible. Kamal’s businesses have done creditably well. He started a production company called Raaj Kamal International in 1985. Kamal has choreographed songs and runs a film distribution office. A slight downslide in quality seems to have affected his films since Singaravelan. Mahanadi portrayed the most needlessly sickening violence that I have seen on screen. Kuruthi Punal, a film without songs, was restrained and good, but the credit should go to Govind Nihalani whose Hindi original Drohkal, it was a remake of. Vasool Raja MBBS was popular but could not hold a candle to its Hindi master Munnabhai MBBS which I believe is based on an idea nattily lifted from Robin Williams’ Patch Adams.

Kamal, ever the perfectionist takes extreme pains to hone his professional skills. For the Avarkal role, he learnt ventriloquism. For a scene in the underworld film Sathya, where he breaks in the glass pane of a building, he met Hollywood stunt masters and learnt the techniques from them. Similar efforts were made for Santhana Bharathi’s Guna – a difficult story about a man’s obsession for a woman who is, with apologies to Churchill, a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. For Avvai Shanmugi inspired by Mrs. Doubtfire, he had none other than the original film’s make-up man Michael Westmore working for him. The association continued in Dasavatharam. When quizzed as to why he takes all that trouble Kamal in reply cited the bravura of Kathakali artists who take up up to four hours to don their greasepaint. Compared to those great men, he contented, his efforts are way too miniscule. If I am to draw a comparison of Kamal to Hollywood stars, Al Pacino should be the closest – in terms of versatility if not looks. His own favorite foreign actors include Marlon Brando, Robert de Niro and Marcello Mastrioni. The adored actresses are Vanessa Redgrave, Sandra Bullock, Ingrid Thulin among the foreign and Madhuri Dixit, Savithri, Urvashi, Sridevi and and Meena Kumari among the Indian.

Kamal’s home in Alwarpet, Chennai is a veritable haven of the best collection of world cinema and literature. Always a keen student of cinema, Kamal claims to have seen Orson Welles’s 1942 classic Citizen Kane, on the life and times of a newspaper tycoon,’at least a hundred times’. His directorial venture about a Chola chieftain that got stalled, Maruthanaayagam should turn out to be highly authentic, researched and at the same time obscenely expensive when it finally sees the light of the day. It might surprise Kamal’s admirers to learn that he still considers himself a reluctant actor. His passion is more in writing. In fact he has written the script for many of his films. Even before making it big as an actor, when only 19, Kamal wrote a treatment about prostitution called Unarchigal and made his presence felt in the big league. His other screenplays include Vikram, Indran Chandran, Thevar Magan, Mahanadi, Apoorva Sahodarargal, Avvai Shanmugi, Anbe Sivam, Hey Ram and Dasavatharam. Before entering films big time, he briefly worked with the drama troupe of T. K. Shanmugham, a stage producer who also was popular for his role of Avvaiyar, the poetess. In 1996, Kamal dedicated his film Avvai Shanmughi to his guru TKS. He has even brought out a collection of poems called Thedi Theerpom Va. Kamal who has acted in many languages insists on lending his own voice to his characters. This sometimes led to much hilarious dubbing in his non-Tamil films, for instance, Malayalam. Kamal wrote the lyrics of Hey Ram. He has sung many songs in his movies. I particularly love the ones in Thevar Magan (Kshatriya Putrudu in Telugu. Remade in Hindi as Virasat by Priyadarsan, casting Anil Kapoor and Amrish Puri). Imagine a confluence of greats like Shivaji, Kamal, Illayaraja and that artist with the utmost aesthetic sense among Southern mavericks, Bharathan! Thevar Magan was such a unique and marvelous summit.

The Juggernaut of Kamal Haasan will roll on. He is, to borrow the title of one of his early films, a ‘Sakala Kala Vallabhan’ (All round Artist). The director of Dasavatharam KSR is shown doing a a jig towards the fag end of the movie to singer Vinith’s croon of ‘Ulaga Naayagane’ (Universal Hero) as his unabashed admiration for his lead actor floods over on screen. FICCI bestowed on him the title of ‘Living Legend’ last year. A couple of years back Satyabhama University conferred an honorary doctorate on Haasan. He was the first person to convert his fans’ associations into a welfare organization called Narpani Iyakkam. Kamal also published a magazine called Mayyam to convey his messages across to followers of his cinema. His birthday every year is marked by eye and blood donation camps as well as distribution of free clothes and educational material. The Kalaignani has not pawned his conscience to any religion or political party. Now in his fifty fourth year and with more than 150 films under his belt, Padmashree Kamal Haasan’s is a name that is sure to be printed in pure gold in the annals of Indian Cinema history. As his legion of admirers eagerly await his next film Marmayogi, allow me to list out five of my best loved works from the opulent oeuvre of the Alwarpet Almighty:

Punnagai Manna
Pathinaaru Vayathinile
Apoorva Sahodarargal
Nayakan
Moondram Pirai

(July 2008)

1882 was when a Test was first staged at the SCG. That great son of New South Wales, Sir Donald Bradman, recorded the highest first class score on this ground, 452 against Queensland in 1928. When my company hosted the Christmas dinner for its Sydney clients in November last, it did so at the exclusive Members’ Box room at the SCG. We had the ebullient Tasmanian Max Walker – former Test cricketer, footballer, architect, radio host and author as MC for the evening. Also present was Dean Jones. Maxie reminisced how in that very room Kerry Packer and the lads had sowed the seeds of World Series Cricket exactly thirty years ago. Over the years the SCG has witnessed many outstanding feats in Tests – Brian Lara’s first Test century of 277 run out back in ‘93, Allan Border completing his 10,000th Test run, Steve Waugh emulating the same later on, etc. Waugh played his last Test here, against India in ‘04. It was here that three of the all-time greats from three departments of the game, Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh had together hung up their boots in a Test against Pakistan, back in ‘84. Early last year, bowling legends Shane Warne and Glen McGrath had had their swansong outing in the last Test of the Ashes here. India had not fared very badly at the ground. The first visit of an Indian team to the SCG was under Lala Amarnath in ’48. Our only win though was in ’77. Then Bishen Singh Bedi’s Indians had beaten a depleted Aussie team under Bob Simpson who, at 41, was pulled out of retirement. In ’92 a young Tendulkar dashed off 148 not out here while giving support to the senior Ravi Shastri who notched up his only Test double hundred. Twelve years later Tendulkar again set the ground ablaze with 241 not out, the highest score by an Indian on Aussie soil as India ran up their record score of 705 for 7 declared. A bronze statue of Richie Benaud was inaugurated at the ground during the ’08 match in the presence of the great former captain himself. The Hill grandstand, The Walk of Honor, the tennis courts, the swimming pool, bars, all add to the charm of the ground. It stands beside the Sydney Football Stadium, another landmark in the city. The 2007-8 series saw India losing the opening encounter at Melbourne in 4 days and the Aussies were on a high. It was Ponting and crew’s 15th Test win in a row. After cleanly sweeping South Africa, Bangladesh, England and Sri Lanka, they were now looking forward to thrashing India twice to equal their own record of 16 consecutive wins set under Steve Waugh seven years ago. India had a new captain in seasoned warhorse Anil Kumble. He had won his first series as skipper, a home one, against Pakistan. Touring teams have found it tough to beat Australia in Australia. However the Border-Gavaskar trophy has been keenly contested in recent times. The Indian team boasted of five seniors with a combined experience of 568 Tests and who were on possibly their last tour Down Under. There was much to look forward to in the series therefore.

All roads led to Moore Park on 2nd Jan. The match attracted a crowd of 30,000 each day. VIP attendees on the first day included Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, former PM John Howard and Her Majesty’s Governor General Michael Jeffrey. ‘Serve from Merv,’ a series of ads on crowd etiquette featuring Merv Hughes regularly appeared on the big screen. Milo conducted tiny tots’ cricket practice and contests during lunch intervals. Volunteers of the Glen McGrath Breast Cancer Foundation had stalls set up in the park. Betting booths attracted the usual enthusiasts. The sight in the middle that greeted an early bird like me every morning was of the dapper duo of Ravi Shastri and Rameez Raja. These lookers in their trendy ties did their bit of pitch inspection as a kickoff to commentating for Channel 9. The sun shone on all days except some parts of the fourth day when it actually rained. I found myself seated in one of the concourses of the Messenger Stand and completely baked in the scorching heat before even noontime set in. I must say this is among the most unruly sections of the crowd, heavily Aussie and perennially reeking of Victoria Bitter. To me it was a study in mob psychology on the side that I chose to undertake. Let me tell you the Australian fan is a fiercely jingoistic creature who would not want any team to win but his. One has to see to believe the decrying and demonizing of opposition players. It is hardly healthy. Maybe matters are different in the more civilized sections like the Members’ pavilion but the truth is I would not have enjoyed the tussle from there. Here I could go primal, thump my applause of appreciation on the aluminum fence for every Indian boundary and wicket, sometimes even instigating my Aussie friends into insecure chants of ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie/ Oi Oi Oi!’ for no apparent reason. Insanely chilled beer and Sydney dogs – hot dogs slapped with coleslaw and considerable shavings of cheese – provided succor from the rising heat and hunger. Catcalls, wolf whistles, Mexican waves, rhythmic clapping, teasing of cops and volleying of giant balloons and balls lightened tedious sessions. Two suntanned blondes showing off in Oz flag bikinis garnered more attention than the men in whites at one point. The Indians who guarded the deep in my vicinity included Saurav Ganguly and Ishant Sharma. While the latter was taunted by the crowds for his boyish looks and skinny disposition (‘Hey Shaa’ma, wanna eat some lunch, mate?’ ‘Go back to high school kiddo’, ‘Stick-man!’) Ganguly understandably is the one they just loved to loathe. ‘Hey Gangoooly, retire!’ ‘Go back to Bollywood(sic)’ ‘Chaaa-ppell, Chaa-ppell’ and such war cries rent the charged air. Since the giant scoreboards and public address systems beamed messages warning patrons against racial abuse, some of the lads were curiously mellowed in their outbursts ‘I am sorry mate’, a bare-chested neighbor bloke with green and gold paint all over his face said to me, ‘your Dravid is a @#$% ’. This was when ‘The Wall’ was chiseling a painstaking fifty off 160 balls, like a born-again Boycott from hell. For once I almost concurred. ‘I didn’t pay for this, I came to watch Tandoori bat!’ yelled his chum, emptying a tube of sun cream on himself. As if in answer to his prayers Dravid got out and in strode the gladiator for whom the whole stadium rose as one man and applauded. A midget of a cricketing He-man, a towering genius with an overweight willow, there stood Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar – the subcontinent’s biggest icon for nearly two decades now. The Little Master has had a special bond with the SCG. Laxman’s century on Day 2, his third in as many SCG appearances, was the most brilliant innings of the match, resplendent with flowing grace and elegance. Tendulkar’s unbeaten 154 on the other hand was a study in patience and temperament. His 38th hundred, on course of which he completed 2000 runs against Australia, was followed by Hayden equaling the Don with his 29th ton. Hussey, a latecomer to Tests who had to score 15,000 first class runs before earning his baggy green cap, continued to make up for lost time. This man with the biggest average after Bradman, the Victorian they call ‘Mr. Cricket’ carved a ton yet again. The other centurion of the match was eventual Man of the Match Symonds who benefited from a bad umpiring decision to hit a career best 162, in the process retrieving his country out of the opening day doldrums of 134 for 6. There were fine bowling performances in the form of a five wicket haul by Bret Lee and four wickets by Kumble (twice) and Rudra Pratap Singh. Occasional bowler Michael Clarke drove the final nail in India’s coffin with a freak figure of 3 for 5, eerily reminiscent of his 6 for 9 at Mumbai in 01. The Pandora’s Box opened on Day 3 with the host team lodging a racism complaint against India’s strike spinner Harbhajan Singh – a case of the pot calling the kettle black! But the real pain in the neck for India was Jamaican umpire Steve Bucknor proving their bugbear yet again. Out of the 12 wrong decisions taken in the match by him and his English partner Benson, 9 went against India. Some of these were during the crucial final innings chase. Added to this was the aggression of the Aussie players who wanted to pull off this 16th straight win by hook or crook. Indian fans watched mouths agape as Ponting appealed over a grassed catch, prompted the umpire to rule a batsman out over a doubtful call and threw all gentlemanliness to the winds. ‘Team India c Benson b Bucknor’ screamed the Indian Express back home. The row reached its nadir when the ICC slapped a three Test ban on Harbhajan even in the absence of substantial evidence for his allegedly calling Symonds a monkey. India did its bit in retaliation, complaining about spinner Brad Hogg’s verbal insult of Kumble. They also demanded that Bucknor, the long serving umpire dubbed ‘Slow Death’ for the time he takes in signaling dismissals, be stood down for the rest of the series. BCCI suspended the tour. The tail wagged the dog as ICC considered the fervent plea and reinstated Harbhajan pending appeal, while relieving Bucknor of his Perth Test duty. The respectable Peter Roebuck writing in the Sydney Morning Herald implored Ponting to step down from the captaincy. At the Press Conference that evening the normally restrained Kumble could not help remarking wryly that ‘only one team out there was playing cricket’. This comment which harked back to the infamous Bodyline series made the local media dub the present one the ‘Bollyline’ series. One wishes that these unfortunate incidents had not occurred to mar a great match which saw 1606 runs being scored as 37 wickets fell. Looked at from that angle it was cent vasool for the paying public. One beacon that shines amidst the final day’s mess is the outstanding leadership of Kumble. The quiet maestro led from the front, scalping 8 wickets, which took his tally to 100 against Oz and 599 overall. His defiant, unbeaten 45 was worth more than his Oval century the previous year. I hold it in the same league as Shastri’s 48 in the Tied Test. But alas it was for a losing cause. The ‘Swamy Army’ went home a disappointed lot. It just was not cricket, this loss. Exhausted from all those days in the sun I soothed my tired bones by plunging into the sea at Bondi beach, the trusted refuge of all wearied souls in this part of roo country.

Tailpiece: Today’s Daily Telegraph carried a cartoon showing two monkeys. One of them has his lips smeared with white sun cream. The other says to him, ‘Get that zinc off. You look nothing like Andrew Symonds.’

(8th Jan 2008)

Like Chetan Bhagat I too studied mechanical engineering, though not at IIT. I was among the golden jubilee year batch of students at CET (Govt College of Engineering, Trivandrum). We went through the rites of passage of freshmen and seniors. Our evenings were lightened by Remo and Chitra, Hawa Hawa and Guns N Roses. The campus had its share of the thrills and spills of any college – puppy loves, hardcore affairs, strikes, unrest and sabotages. Every festival from Holi to Onam provided occasions for riotous celebration. Picnics, jamborees and endless discussions at snack parlors over steaming tea and shared cigarettes complemented the clockwork routine of theory, labs, viva, university exams and supplementary retakes. We relished scrumptious five-rupee lunches with fried and curried specials at the college canteen. Internet had not caught on and mobile phone was unheard of. Our time at CET coincided with world events like the fall of the Berlin Wall and USSR, Rajiv Gandhi assassination, Ayodhya demolition, Mandela’s freeing and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Five Point Someone has its protagonists tuning in to the Gulf War which was televised like a soccer game, thanks to CNN. This book here is a tale of three friends who come together at IIT. It unfolds in the action-packed four year period from their entry to graduation. ‘Unputdownable’ is not a word, but I am sure this is how anybody who has been through the pains and pleasures of college life would want to describe the book on experiencing it. If you are out to slot it in a sub-genre, it would be yuppie fiction. Bhagat does to engineering college life what Anurag Mathur, another Delhi based writer, did ten years ago to Indians newly migrating to USA. That work, The Inscrutable Americans, is uproariously funny in the way only desis can write or enjoy reading. Much of the humor could be lost on a foreign reader however and that is perhaps its shortcoming. IAS officer Upamanyu Chatterjee’s novel ‘English, August’, which was filmed by Dev Benegal, had a charm resembling Five Point Someone one thought. The former is about a probationary officer’s travails in small town MP and not a college drama though. If we go back to the eighties, it is a film and not a book that comes to mind for a parallel. Arundhati Roy scripted an award-winning screenplay for In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones, the movie directed by the man who was to be her life partner, Pradip Kishen. That 1989 movie is incidentally the one in which a chirpy 24 year old answering to the name of Shah Rukh Khan made his celluloid baptism. The story revolves around a group of friends, all students of the Delhi School of Architecture, the alma mater of Roy herself. It is interesting to note that although there are many books in English and the vernacular languages by Indian writers of a top quality, there are not many centering on colleges and universities. R.K. Narayan and Ruskin Bond had set high benchmarks, but for tales around much younger denizens, of the school going kind. Swami and Friends retains its luster and importantly relevance, even after nearly three quarters of a century. One can think of Malayalam movies like Chillu and the Mohanlal starrers Sarvakalasala, Yuvajanotsavam and Sukhamo Devi from the eighties and Nirram and Classmates from recent times for depressingly sweet college nostalgia. Tamil, it is possible, has superior fare in this department. Towards the fag end of our time at CET, a movie called Sooryagayatri was shot there. It was a potentially good theme of a widower, a successful doctor played by Lal, sending his only son to study engineering and it turning out to be traumatic. But the plot was played havoc with through some unimaginative treatment of it. The first half scintillated, the second meandered to such a laughable travesty that the movie quite naturally hit the trash can of film lore, in spite of a lilting song or two. These thoughts naturally arose since the plot of Five Point Someone also gives easily for filming – in fact a director called Ritesh Sinha is already on the job. A blurb review lauds FPS as the book version of Dil Chahta Hai. The writer repeated his magic with his second book, One Night @ The Call Center, another smash hit. This one is being filmed as well, by Atul Agnihotri in Hindi as Hello. It will be out by December of this year. Another remote comparison of FPS would be to Eric Segal’s Love Story from the seventies, the evergreen college saga that broke many a reader’s heart the world over and also spawned many clones.

It is noteworthy that Chetan Bhagat practices yoga – the dexterity of his prose and the suppleness of his style are ample proof of his mental equipoise. In 270 pages this promising young writer-techie weaves for us a fine tale, simply told and yet bound to bewitch the reader into having more helpings of the same. It will be unfair to dub him a chronicler of an IIT saga for the reason that the book has a universal appeal that goes beyond the immediate plot. It reaches out to all generations, especially to the younger one. The title has to do with the grading that students aspire for at the ‘insti’. It can be an obsession, a steeple chase that could end up as a nightmare. The grade is a branding that one has to live with for the rest of one’s life and screwing it up is simply not an option. Read the book and you will know how ‘Disco’ need not always be a place to let your hair down and boogie. Here is a keeper: ‘Calling an IIT-ian a commerce student was one of the worst insults the profs could accord to us, like a prostitute calling her client a eunuch.’ Without giving away the story I would add that there is even a moral to be imbibed at the end of it. It has got to do with where the heroes end up for all their peccadilloes. 

(July 07)

If Lords in London is the Mecca of cricket, I suppose the MCG should be the Vatican or Tirupati of the sport. With a seating capacity of about 90000, the MCG hosts not only cricket but also Australian Rules football (footie), soccer and rugby tournaments. It was the venue of the 1956 Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games. In 1977 a centenary Test was played between the traditional rivals and coincidentally yielded the exact same result as the first ever Test! David Hookes who died in a freak accident last year had had a fine cameo in that match. Indian fans would remember the ’85 Benson and Hedges World Championship final that was held there. India under Sunil Gavaskar emerged triumphant with Ravi Shastri taking home an Audi 100 car and the Champion of Champions title. It was Sunny’s last match as captain. In 1992 Imran Khan and his Pakistani boys lifted the World Cup at this venue, in the fiery Pathan’s swansong outing. The majestic ground is a proud landmark in the city of Melbourne and offers conducted tours to visitors during off event times. It is neighbors with the Rod Laver arena which hosts the Australian Open tennis in January. Impressive galleries, MCC members’ chambers in addition to cricket and football Halls of Fame are some of the highlights of the ground. Cricketers whose statues adorn the premises include Dennis Lillee (who had taken the most Test wickets here – 82), Don Bradman (who had scored the most Test runs here – 1671. The Don’s first Test century was scored here as a matter of fact), Bill Ponsford and Keith Miller. In my early pursuit of the game I have some fond memories of it from the 80’s. In the ’82 Ashes Test Australia started the final morning with their last pair of Alan Border and Jeff Thomson at the crease and needing 37 to win. The duo bravely battled on before Thommo fell to Botham, caught in the slips by Miller after the ball rebounded off Tavare! England won by 3 runs in one of the closest matches ever. In ‘85 during Steve Waugh’s debut Test, India felt the excruciating pain of helplessly watching rains rob them of an easy win – 67 runs were needed with all wickets intact when the last day was washed out. The Kangaroos are on extra high adrenalin when playing England, or the Poms. The reasons are obviously more than just cricket – there are psychological undercurrents akin to say India playing Pakistan. ‘Tonk-a-Pom,’ displays the giant electronic scoreboard before replays of English bowlers being hit for boundaries or English wickets falling. It is generally taken in good spirit. The hordes of English supporters, who tour along with their team and call themselves the Barmy Army, are countered these days by the Boony Army, local fans with the mustachioed ex-opener David Boon for their patron saint. A Boxing Day Test match at the MCG has become a regular fixture since many years now. The MCG however is not a stranger to controversy. A Sri Lankan friend told me that she simply stopped going there after her first experience many years ago – it was the match where umpire Darrel Hair called Muralitharan seven times for throwing! This ground was also the scene of an infamous incident in ‘81 when Aussie captain Greg Chappell had his brother Trevor bowl underarm for the last ball of a ODI match against New Zealand, thereby denying the Kiwis a chance to go for the six runs needed to tie. Richie Benaud, commentating on TV, instantly dubbed it the most disgraceful act in cricket history. India last played in a Boxing Day Test in ’03. Australia won then with Ricky Ponting scoring a double hundred. The only saving grace for us was opener Sehwag smashing 195 with five sixes in that 80 yards boundary where many a four are run. This coming summer the Indians will visit to take on the Aussies yet again.

The 2006-7 Ashes was keenly awaited by all since the previous year England under Michael Vaughan had pulled off the unimaginable by regaining the title after 18 long years, in a closely fought home series. Australia was seeking sweet revenge and they did it in great style, with a clean 5-0 sweep of the Test series. By the time the tour came to Melbourne they were up 3 nil and the series was already sealed. Tickets were sold out well in advance and all eyes were on the one statistical interest in the match, that of local St. Kilda lad Shane Warne completing his tally of 700 wickets. I found myself standing in a snaking queue under the summer sun for a book-signing by the blonde Warne the Friday before Christmas. The only specialist bowler among Wisden’s five greatest cricketers of the twentieth century, Warney had announced his plan to retire at the end of the series. He achieved his landmark of 700 victims on the opening day itself as England crumbled like cookies. On the morning as I watched Ricky Ponting at net practice I wished this Tasmanian would score a triple hundred and emulate Taylor, the last Aussie captain to do so, eight seasons ago against Pakistan. Punter disappointed as he fell for 7 the next day. Gilchrist who just one Test earlier at Perth had blasted a 57 ball ton, went cheaply too. Instead it was to be Mathew Hayden, holder of records for highest scores in Tests and ODI for his country, who would be my hero of the match. He carved a classy hundred and in the company of the colorful Andrew Symonds put on 279, the highest partnership at that ground in 38 years. Symonds, whose best till then was 72, bettered it by scoring a maiden century which he completed with a six. They both scored 150 plus and in the second essay England fell again like nine pins. Monty Panesar was a big hit with the crowds who cheered him on at every opportune moment. The gulls took their places in the green and flapped and flew frantically with the approach of the speeding red cherry. Green and gold dominated the costumes of the spectators though red and white were not much behind. On a sultry day when beer flowed like the Yarra River, Flintoff and his men were made short work of. Australia romped home by an innings and 99 runs. The relentless cheer and support of the Union Jack wavers were in vain. The Mexican Wave was very much in vogue during the match. Curiously this was banned soon after this Test match. Back at the ground for a day-night ODI a month later I could see rebellious youth risking the instigation of waves. They were chased around and escorted out by alert Victorian police. Teeny girls came in T shirts screaming ‘Save the Wave’. The scoreboard now and then cautioned of exorbitant fines for patrons daring to enter the green. The Test match ended in three days flat. I got my fourth day’s fee refunded! Warne with his five wicket haul and his patient knock of 40 won the Man of the Match award. He was chaired by colleagues as they made the victory lap. Pacer Glen McGrath and opener Justin Langer who were also playing their last series were given an emotional farewell by the crowd of 79000. Joviality reigned among the spectators even as they took the trams back home. Shouts of what I sincerely believe to be this country’s national anthem, a simple six word ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi!’ rose to a crescendo. Boisterous youth headed to pubs for the celebration bash, singing impromptu ditties extolling the invincibility of the Australian team. As a neutral but amused observer, I could not but endorse that, saying, ‘Fair dinkum, mates!’

(Sep 07)