sowparnika’s blog

This is actually a comment I wanted to post on Vidya’s blog about the negligence of N.Indians regarding South Indian movies. Since I ran out of space, I am making it a post on my blog.
Vidya’s blog reminds me of a question that an interviewer once asked Hemamalini quite a few years ago, when she was visiting trivandrum (ok, this happened atleast 10 years back). she was asked what she thought about Mohan Lal, one of the finest actors this country has ever seen. Hemaji went blank, “who is he? i have never heard of him… is he a north indian? since his name is lal and so on and so forth. ironic since she herself is a Tam.
compare this with what Nana Patekhar once remarked to Innocent (another fine Mallu actor with a unique flair for comedy). he said that Innocent was fortunate to belong to the state which could boast of a genius like Mohan Lal. Innocent marks it as one of the proudest moments of his life.
or for that matter hritik roshan’s interview on koffee with karan where he said that when he did not win the national award for his portrayal of a retarded man in koyi lil gaya, shah rukh khan had called him up and siad,”in my book you are the winner,!” Hritik felt this compliment was equal to winning the award.

when i heard that i did not know whether to laugh or cry. please note that that particular year the award went to vikram for his stupendous portrayal in Pitamahan.
probably srk was just being nice to end an earlier cloud of rivalry that existed between them. or a case of you scratch my back i scratch yours… I did watch KMG and it was nice. just that. nice, a feel good movie that you could enjoy with ur kids. but to even compare that with the performance of vikram in PM! 

 well, these are all gleaned from various interviews. but it just shoes two sides of the coin. there are those who know and those who don’t. unfortunately the latter is in the majority.

and yes, like vidya says mahanadhi is one of the finest movies of kamal hassan. the scene when he hears her talking in her sleep and his anguish over it remains one of the most heart rending and disturbing scenes to me ever. such was the power of that movie. normally i hate it when kamal cries on screen. not because it makes me sad. i think it tends to get a tad on the side of overacting.(i hope i don’t get lynched for this comment.)

i always compare kamal’s emotional outpourings on screen with the understated, dignified grief expressed by mohan lal in bharatam. the silent agony, the unutterable anguish when he has to put up a pretense in the eyes of his family that his elder brother is not dead, and continue celebrating the wedding of his younger sister. but then, i guess its the mallu gene. we tend to be more stoic and keep emotions undercontrol. excessive emotion tends to make us uneasy. while the tamil basks in dramatic expression.
whether joy or grief , triumph or defeat. it is always the extremes. it has its own charm, in its own way sometimes.