It Happens only in Tamil Nadu!

Here's a piece of news that has kept me boiling since I heard it. Its not really "new"s as its some 4 months old, but as I was in a time warp zone (to be read as BITS, Pilani) for the last few months, I couldn't get hold of it. So what's it about?

"The Tamil Nadu State Award for Best Actor for 2005 goes to Rajnikanth for Chandramukhi! "

Can you believe it???!!!

Yes, if you are from TN, the only place where such comedies happen and get appreciated too.
Here's something more to tickle that funny bone of yours.

During the post award speech, the "Thalaivar"
(The "ar" is bcos of the respect I give to this 58 year old almost hexagenarian, in fact he's also addressed as "Superst-ar" by his fans respectfully for the same reason. Correspondingly, the evergreen Kamal is still "Ulaga Nayag-an" to his fans! )
of Kollywood thanked the CM for the award, without whose short sightedness and ability to go to any levels for retaining his vote bank, he would have stood no chance of getting it.
But what he spoke later was shocking to say the least. Quoting him, after editing portions resembling bed time stories and sojourns to the Himalayas, he said something like

" I feel the award has been given not to Dr. Saravanan ( the doc character Sunny played by Mohanlal in the original with aplomb and reduced to a quack in this pot-boiler by "Thalaivar" and the primate P Vasu) but to Vetteyan ( the guy who appears for 20 mins in the end, fondling his hair, saying inane stuff like "Thoppi Thoppi" and the more famous "LAKALAKALAKA...")
I feel very honoured because its for the first time that I ve actually researched for any character (admitting that none of his previous characters required any research).
I went through lots of old books and studied the characteristics and lifestyle of the old age ARAVANIS (Eunuchs! ) and have incorporated the same in the character of Vetteyan...."

Whoa!!! So he was acting like a eunuch all the while, and no one knew it! Admitted, the character was quite queer, but was it a eunuch??

Not able to stand my lack of ability to identify characters, I turned Sun Music on, SUN TV's answer to SS Music in its own style of assuming the primary audience to be apes, where the most entertaining things that happen are the SMSes marqueeing in the bottom of the screen carrying stuff like "THALA ROCKS!" "EAST OR WEST VIJAY IS THE BEST" and the less frequent "RAJNI IS ONLY SUPERSTAR" or even more infrequent "PURATCHI THALABATHY VISHAL ROCKS" ( Ya, you caught me...I WAS joking) or the very rare once in a lifetime "AJJU, THONTHARAVU PANNATHA" (the last one was actually sent by my dad showing where I got my lunacy from )

There, if you wait for 20 mins patiently, there will at least be one caller wanting the song that goes "Raa Raa" . You will also be glad to know that he "dedicates" this song to next street sweetheart, whom he presumes is watching this show, but is actually weeping with her mother watching some mega serial in another of SUN TV Group's Channels, this time more elegantly called SUN TV.
Let me digress a bit and talk about this beautiful concept of "Dedication" .
This is not to be confused with hard work, dedication etc. No. This is a different kind of dedication. This is a Dedication of Love.
This dedication of love according to historians has its origins and many parallels with Shah Jahan's dedication of Taj Mahal to his love Mumtaz Mahal.

1) That dedication took 20 years to build, this took 20 minutes of waiting in the queue ( of model 1 ie M/M/1:FCFS/infinite/infinite according to OR - this piece of info is only for the souls unfortunate enough to do Operation Research under CB Gupta in their 3-1. Others can ignore. You are actually better off not knowing this. Trust Me).

2) Taj Mahal cost Shah Jahan Money ( of order GIGA or TERRA Rupees) . This dedication too costs money (of order MICRO Dollars or MILLI Cents).

3)Shah Jahan's dedication needed lots of intermediaries like labourers,huge pool of skilled artisans, architects etc)
This dedication also needs lot of intermediaries like the PCO guy, a whole corporation BSNL is working to carry the message forward, and most important the Handsome (or Beautiful , depending on sex and the reader's orientation) Hunk (or Babe) VJ's of Sun Music who on doing a good job get promoted to anchoring lively shows like "Ilamai Puthumai" in Sun TV, and also suddenly develop histrionic talents leading to roles in the serials needing constant supply of new characters.

4) Shah Jahan was an Emperor , here ....you get it

Right, getting back....so after some nice talk from the lovely VJ, the song was beamed in full glory. Though the music had uncanny resemblences to the original "Oru Murai" from Manichitrathaazhu, and with the better parts of the video being an absolute ripoff, the song is great. Congrats Vidyasagar, you have given a great album.
So there was Jothika, dancing like possessed, albeit ditto to Shobana. Incidentally Jothika got the Best Actress Award, but no complaints there. It's really tough to exactly copy and reproduce it the way she has done. Not so incidentally, Chandramukhi got the Best Film Award too. As for that, the 1 liner in the Raag T Shirt I am wearing now speaks best...
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Then came Dr. Saravanan, our "Ilayathilagam" Prabhu who in the film had just delivered his most memorable "Enna Koduma Saravanan Ithu" dialogue, which in the future will be used by a character in Chennai 600028, Ajith in Billa (speaking to our own Prabhu) and also by an Orkut Community for promoting like-minded dialogue in Tamil Films as its title.

Oops, I forgot there was a third guy too. But he doesn't need any more words to describe.
Then Dr. Saravanan says "Paaru, Un Manaivi Gangavai Paar" and Prabhu gives an awesome expression of shock and disgust. To prepare for that scene, Prabhu would have just thought of how the film was shaping up, and Voila! (Thanks Koba for the expression) , there it was!

The third guy actually is quite important, as he is the dancer whom Chandramukhi-possesed Jothika is in love with. So he enters the fray and they start dancing. They dance their way to the kings' court, all in Jothika's imagination of course and there amidst sounds of "Rajadhi Raja Raja Gambheera RajaMaarthanda RajaKulaThilaka Vetteya Raja Paaraag Paraag Paraag"(if u think that intro was big, this is just a part of a movie made by the only star who challenged Sivaji by releasing a movie with it - Mansur ALi Khan, who hold the Guiness Record for the longest title)
our Vetteya Raja makes his entry, and sits on the throne...and the rest as they say is history.

Then I started to observe the eunuch-ness in the portrayal and it gathered a respectable 1.5% in my lenient marking scheme. And that 1.5% is because of the inherent eunuch-ness present in every Rajni portrayal, with his trademark "Chi..Po" and "Aaaaaan, Appidiya" dialogues and "biting his fingers" expression. These stunts, usually there to emphasize the innocence of the character, actually look more like eunuch portrayal than Vetteyan.

If this is a portrayal of a Eunuch, then what do you call Ajith's Narthaki in "Varalaaru" or how would you pacifiy Prakash Raj's Maharani in "Appu". If this is how eunuchs behave, then what about the real eunuchs that appear in every odd Vijay film or the ones that danced to "Ooraram Puliyamaram" in "Paruthiveeran". Poor souls. Amen.

Would the jury be able to explain how Rajni's performance was better than Vikram's in "Anniyan" or Suriya's in "Ghajini". The only reason he got the award is same as the only reason his films run - "Kanna, ithu Rajni Ma". Or maybe because they thought they wouldn't be able to give him an award in the future, so better give it now. After al, Vikram and Suriya have many more films left to showcase their acting prowess.

Seriously, the award to Rajni is an insult to the hard work of other actors who have sweated it out and really given mind-blowing performances. Anyone could have done the roles that Rajni did, but I can't imagine too many people who can do an "Anniyan".
Its bad enough that fans are crazy about a guy who was wittingly or unwittingly, pushed Tamil Cinema more into mediocrity than anyone else, by the kind of films that he did and more by the kinds of clones that he has spawned.

Make no mistake, Rajni WAS a great actor. But after one stage, he had to shell himself into a cocoon that prevented him from performing to his potential, and definitely the Vetteyan is not the best portrayal of his, and its definitely not a EUNUCH! Look at Alex Pandian, look at Basha, and look at Vetteyan. You can see why P Vasu remains the only guy in the galaxy who can compare them in the same breath.

On a brighter note, better sense prevailed and
The TN State Award for Best Actor for the year 2006 went quite deservingly to
Kamal Hassan for "Vettayaadu Vilayaadu".

Still, it amuses me that this is the only place where
People get to know what the actor was portraying only after he gets an award for it!