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ASSEMBLY POLL '98
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'Whose culture? What culture? Have we assigned our lives to the Shiv Sena?'
E-mail from readers the world over
Date sent: Tue, 08 Dec 1998 23:58:05 -0800 Was this column written for a filler? Quite fictitious, if you ask my opinion. Jaleel, is the name of this 'Hindu,' first coincidence. He also happened to 'lose' his identity card, next coincidence. That a fellow devotee reported this Muslim sounding name hanging around the Guruvayur temple, third coincidence -- that our cops, never known for such dynamism in fighting crime, rushed to the scene and actually apprehended the "culprit," too much of a tale in one story. Jose, if all you wanted to say was that non-Hindus are not allowed in the Guruvayur temple, you could have said that in a lot fewer words. Anyway, you couldn't have completed that story without saying that even the semitic religions do not let any persons of other religions enter many of their holy places, at least the functional ones. Srinivas Murthy
Date sent: Tue, 08 Dec 1998 09:17:31 +0530 Very objective reporting by Sharat Pradhan. My greetings to you Sharat. Siraj Hussain
Date sent: Mon, 7 Dec 1998 16:33:49 -0600 It is is not at all a surprise that Karunanidhi has commented about the Sankaracharyas. After all who are they? Which community they belong to? The whole Dravidian movement was started and grew on anti-Brahmin sentiments. Ultimately though these parties didn't do any good for the people whom they claim to represent even after ruling TN for more than three decades, their rhetoric against the particular community has not waned yet. As for the Indian politics rule goes, people can be manipulated across language and caste lines but not on the Hindu religion line. Of course, other religions can do that for the welfare of their communities. By this rule he has only reflected the sentiments of the Tamil race and has done nothing wrong as far as he is concerned. As one gentleman rightly said these politicians including Karunanidhi are only lighting the pyre for Mother India. I pray to God that their evil designs fail. Of course, I will pray in both Tamil and Sanskrit. Aravamudhan S
Date sent: Mon, 7 Dec 1998 17:30:35 I think the Shiv Sena's behaviour is as expected on the Fire issue. These people will take advantage of every possible opportunity to be in the limelight. I will not blame them for this. After all, they represent the Indian people. All I will say is that an average Indian has not yet understood what 'freedom' means. It will take years or a revolution for an Indian to conceive the idea of freedom. And this will not happen until sex and religion are taboo.
Rohit Rakshe
Date sent: Mon, 07 Dec 1998 09:02:41 -0700 Ashok did an excellent job in exposing the Sena's duplicity. A party which believes in changing stances is suddenly taking on India's cultural responsibility? Indians are being pushed to live in a pre-determined world where everything will be decided in advance (unfortunately, by the Sena). What we eat and drink, the air we breath, the people we sleep with, whether we retain the capacity to reproduce, the money we earn, the education we seek, the Gods we worship, the clothes we wear, the information we seek etc. etc. will be pre-charted all in the name of culture. Whose culture? What culture? Have we assigned our lives to the Sena? Ashok has rightly called upon the Hindus to thwart this Taliban styled force. This is the time to act. Unfortunately, the sad part is women who are perceived as rational and fair seem to be caught in the Sena's web. The Sena's poison is at work, otherwise, why would women protest against Fire which highlighted the torture and inhuman treatment they go through in a male dominated society? Ilyas
Date sent: Mon, 07 Dec 1998 19:26:09 +0530 I fully agree with the fact that people are supposed to follow strict rules of avoiding alcohol, tobacco, non vegetarian food and many more of such things... but then the question here is how many follow these strictly? I have seen a lot of people smoking in the sanctum sanctorum of Sabarimala itself, now is this not a evil thing to do? After all Mallya has donated a huge offering to the god, whether with devotion or not is a different question (and not for us to bother). There is a chance that he has done it with devotion to the lord. No one can deny this. As far as the advertisements go, I feel that it is human tendency that if someone who donates even a little money expects his name to be engraved at some place, let alone this case where he is supposed to have donated Rs 180 million. About the person's occupation, I don't feel the lord at Sabarimala has any problem/reservations. If it does matter then all the politicians and scores of criminals who go there should not be allowed to donate any money to the lord as their hands and the money they donate will be more foul. It is just that people are not ready to accept the fact that someone has done something good. I don't see a reason for all this furore. About those hoardings, as far as they are not in Pampa and on the route from Pampa to Sannidhanam, I don't see a problem. The people who are creating all this furore are generally the weaker lot who are not sure of themselves. They are scared that they might be lured by those hoardings. It can be taken as a test by the optimistic lot. I feel that there is no problem with the present set-up.
Vinod Radhakrishnan
Date sent: Sun, 6 Dec 1998 13:48:09 -0000 Jhoot bole has been reviewed well by Sharmila, probably keeping in mind the fact that most readers of this article would be from the Hrishida generation -- a generation of which I am a product -- of the 70s. I did find a very good mix of films to watch during my early days, and having heard from my parents about such wonderfully magical and entertaining films of their times that have within them the essence, taste, the sweetness of Bangla Mishtan, the flavour of the Bangla art, style, the language per se, and their panache for projecting the subtle situations of the middle class which by sheer direction emanate the humour in them. The simplicity of the middle class Indian families that (were!) a very essential part of the society relished their projection in Hrishida's films, and in the films by Basu Bhattacharya, J Om Prakash etc. It was very well depicted and hence well received. The review has been done bringing in the analogies between the previous Hrishida entertainers, but how Hrishida envisaged the whole project is not mentioned. Probably one could try selling old wine in a new bottle, but the wine maker's views are not clarified. Is that how the director wants people to take the movie, by comparing it with the old formula? Or does he want people to believe that the incidents in the middle class families of India undergo very little change with times and even today, people would love to relate to the situations the way they did in those times -- and never really felt let down in terms of the artistic quality and the representation of the whole plot... Shrikant
Date sent: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 18:31:34 -0500 (EST) Although I haven't seen the movie as yet, I would like to point the gross underestimation of the music's strength in the film by the writer. I have been hearing the audio track for about a month-and-a- half and the music is definitely a cut above the rest in the market, and is one of Rahman's really good compositions. The songs do not have that Rahman touch in them as he tends to give a slight South Indian edge to it, and more lately the bhangra touch as in Dil Se. The highlight of the whole audio track are the excellent songs by Kavita Krishnamurthy and Sonu Nigam-Bol Sajani it has an excellent classical touch to it and the instrumental rendition to it on the flute is really good. The other songs that are really good are Kissa hum likhenge by Anuradha Paudwal and MG Sreekumar and Tara Rum Pum by Babul Supriyo. I do not agree with your article saying that it has a weak score, it does not definitely have a funky beat and a jazzed up orchestration of the kinds that we have seen from Rahman, but a more subtle and perhaps apt slow melody required for a love story.
Anshul Jain
Date sent: Sun, 6 Dec 1998 09:18:17 +0530 An excellent, absorbing piece! Keep up the good work. But why does it have to be on three different web pages? If it was on one, it would be easier to download or disconnect the modem while it is open on browser and read at a convenient pace, without being connected.
Date sent: Sat, 5 Dec 1998 14:29:04 +0530 The feature was pretty good. But Malayalam movies were missing. Ranjit
Date sent: Tue, 8 Dec 1998 13:48:04 +0530 One of the finest persons still alive in modern times. An old guard. May his breed grow to inspire us. Nagesh Nayak
Date sent: Tue, 8 Dec 1998 08:41:14 -0500 "Reading about the extent to which the author seems to know about Mani Kaul, Shaji Karun, Girish Karnad, Tapan Sinha and the like, it seems to me that the author himself would perhaps belong to a certain group of 'elite' critics about whom s/he seemed so critical about... To me setting a film story in the context of a current event is a welcome change. In fact, it is the duty of every sensible director to deal with issues that affects the country and the people in whatever form they could. I am sure (on second guess may be I am not) our author would not be critical of Spielberg for "striking gold" by making a movie about the holocaust. Or on the maker of Titanic (I confess I am not a critic enough to remember all the names ) for "striking gold " on a big tragedy. Not sure why our friend should be so (hypo) critical when someone dares to deal with an Indian context." Sathya Krishnamurthy How Readers responded to Varsha Bhosle's recent columns
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