Sep 21, 2010

Movies.. Murder.. Madurai..

For the past three years I ve been living in a wonderful city called 'Madurai'. It is the city where almost all Tamil 'mass' movies are based. A city which has inspired a new genre of movies, 'the 3M' (Murder, Mayhem, Madurai) movies.

Now, there are so many 3M movies coming up that the creators are running out of movie titles. So they ve started naming their movies based on well known places in Madurai Subramaniyapuram, Goripalayam are examples. Madurai is full of such localities that would inspire any film-maker to name their movies after. Here are some possible titles for future 3M movies. 


Simmakkal:
This area is situated in the heart of the city, famous for hard-core non vegetarian hotels like Konar Kadai etc., So the movie based on this area should have the hero working or hanging out in Konar kadai. He may fall in love with the owner’s (read local goon with big mustache) daughter and kill a lot of people before winning her love.

Andalpuram: (I live here… J J)
This area is situated close to Subramaniyapuram. The name of this area has a religious ring to it so the movie should be religion based. The classic God vs Evil story. A young girl, who is highly devoted to Goddess Andal should be tortured by her stepmom/mother in law. With the help of the Goddess herself, the girl should defeat all her detractors.

JaiHindpuram:
Im not kidding, there is really an area in Madurai called ‘Jai Hind’puram. Obviously, the movie based on this area should be a patriotic one. Ideally vijayakanth should be cast. The movie should have dialogues like ‘Dei.. na jaihindpurathu aalu da.. desa bakthi na poranthula irunthey enakulla oori pochu da’

Alagappan Nagar/Vasantha Nagar:
This is a highly residential area, so the movie based on this should be a family subject. As with all Madurai movies, violence may follow suit, but it should start as a family movie. An entire family, who once lived happily, is killed by a bad guy. A young boy survives who later grows up and kills the bad guy.

Mattuthavani:
This is the major Madurai bus-stand. So, the story should be based on the power-struggle between two Madurai goons and an innocent bus-driver who gets caught. He soon loses his innocence and kills the two others. There will be a police officer who does not arrest him because the guy he killed were ‘poisons to the society’.

PonMeni:
This area is a very small area in Madurai. It literally means ‘skin of gold’, so the movie based on this should be a skin flick or as local would call it, a ‘gilugilupaana padam’.

Other areas in Madurai which has huge potentials to be movie titles:
Tallakulam
Arapalayam
Therkuvasal
‘Harvey’patti
Palanganatham
Pasumalai

By the looks of it, I think there are lots of 3M movies coming our way.

Sep 3, 2010

Writing exams... :( :(



EXAMS.....
Everybody has seen it and i'm sure everybody hates it.. but it  is the only thing common to all students… It has no partiality among the students. Irrespective of race, creed, caste, sex, color etc., etc., exams treat you the same, but the exam is not treated the same by all students; each has his style of taking exams which fall into some broad categories.
The Perfect

            This guy is so perfect in taking the exams that the word perfect itself seems flawed. He carries loads of pens in all colors, rulers of different sizes, pencil, ink blotter and all that stuff. He plans his exams well in advance [30 min for short answers, 1 hr for brief answers and 1.5 hrs for detailed answers] and tries to stick by it. He stops studying 1 hr before the exams and is usually the first person to enter into the hall. The bad thing is, he doesn’t have a plan B and mostly end up not finishing their exams coz they spent too much time planning and too few time actually writing the exam.

The Mess

            For this guy, writing an exam is like wrestling with a pig; he becomes a total mess by the end of it. His hair becomes a mess, his shirt becomes untidy, even his shoe laces untie themselves. He burns the same amount of calories Lance Armstrong burned during his last Tour de France. It is still a mystery how this guy makes a ball pen to leak ink all over his hands and even the answer paper. He has to be dragged into the exam hall as he will be studying till the last minute. This guy may finish the exam but will have to do lot of cleaning up later.

The Cool

            For this guy exam day is just another day, he is so cool about it. The reason for all the coolness is either has everything or nothing prepared. He just brings one pen to the exam hall and does not bring his books. He competes with ‘the perfect’ guy on ‘who-enters-the-exam-hall-first’ game but wins the ‘who-finishes-the-exam-first’ game hands down. He hardly breaks a sweat during the exams, if one can listen closely, he could hear him whistling during the exam.

The Closed

            This guy has only 3 things in his mind during the exams, the pen, the paper, the subject. He doesn’t even let the hall superintend to sign his papers. It is very very tough to borrow a pen or a pencil from him. He will seem much tensed during the exams and one could see his talking to himself. He motivates himself a lot. It is common to see this guy pumping his fist and saying “YES!!!” if the question paper has a question that he knows well, at the same time will go to the extent of crying if the question paper is tough.

The Devout

      This guy shifts all the burden of exam writing to God. One could confuse this guy with Nityananda on the exam day. The temples run out of vibuthi, santhanam and kungumam when he writes the exam. The first thing he does after receiving the question paper is look up the sky and pray. Some pray with their eyes closed. The time he spends on praying in the exam hall will be inversely proportional to the time he spent studying the previous day. He might even bring some pictures of his lucky God to the exam hall, but it is always a rarity to see him pray after the exam.

       I know into which category i fall.. I'm not gonna disclose... ;) :)