Cowardly terrorist attacks on Mumbai. Need of the hour

When I read the news item on Yahoo about terrorist atrocity in Mumbai I had a sinking feeling. Even though there have been a spate of incidents of terrorism this one is having a deep impact on me. One reason is that these people have not set a bomb and disappeared. They seem to have no care for the consequences of getting caught. They seem to be fighting till it all ends one way or the other.

On Wednesday starting at around 11.30 PST CNN covered the incidents extensively. I was a bit surprised at how India had come into this US media's view. But within a short time the mystery was solved. Much to my disgust CNN kept terming it as an attack on Americans and westerners. By that time we already knew that he number of dead were 80. There was no report of any American or Western causalities. Till the evening of Wednesday (in California) CNN kept covering it from an American centered perspective. It made me angry that they do not seem to worry about the large casualty of Indians.

That is just one instance of how we cannot take what the media gives us as facts or opinions. Coming to the reporting of our own Indian press I am getting increasingly numb at the views, speculations, rumours and politically motivated statements of out nation's leaders. I am finding it hard to comprehend these views as reported by Indian media such as NDTV, CNNIBN, Hindu, Times Of India and others.

a) Nine terrorists have been arrested. - who are these nine people. Were these people picked up while they were committing the terrorist act? Or were they rounded up from somewhere nearby based on suspicion? How did they conclude they are the terrorists?

b) They have blamed foreign hand. This has been used umpteen number of times that its hardly any clue.

c) Steven Cohen of New York Times was on Public Broadcasting Service and he claimed that a top intelligence personnel from India said that this is the work of home grown terrorists. The so called Terrorism experts of the world seem to say "This is done by people from within".

d) The boats in which they came.!! Is it so easy to come into the country!

e) Looking at the poor protection and equipment the police had I was shocked at the lack of readiness and archaic equipment of our police.

f) The horrific incident seems to be stretching for more days. I hear that not all terrorists have been accounted for! I dread to think what would happen if these guys have disappeared into the city.

g) Centre had warned the state of a possibility of attack. Off course the whole country is at a risk of attack. You do not need an intelligence agency to say this.

Ultimately this is a failure of intelligence. (As has already been pointed out). You cannot go and respond when terrorists strike. You need to know that some thing is about to happen and be effective in making sure that "something does not happen".

Now I pray that my countrymen have the good sense and will to keep in mind the following.

h) We need to treat it as an attack on India. All Indians should be included and united in the fight against this grave threat.

i) please do not bring religion into this. Reacting emotionally does not serve any good purpose. If anything it will only weaken India and its ability to tackle this disease. It will make the job easy for the terrorists. No matter how justified you feel, please do not generalise.

j) Hindus, Muslims, Christians and people from every faith must maintain close contact with each other. Even if you do not agree with their views it helps to constantly keep talking each other and engaging each other in a friendly manner.

k) Strongly condemn politicians who are trying to politicise this to achieve their own selfish ends.

l) Please do not indulge in passing judgments on a group of people be it Muslims or Hindus.

m) Please do not allow innocent people to be victimised for the crimes of a few cowards.

If we have to protect India from such heinous acts the dire need of the hour is for all us Indians to sink our differences and come together. this one statement has guided me a lot. "Every person is right from within his own framework. You do not have to agree with them. The important thing is to see the issue from their point of view." Doing this will remove a lot of misunderstandings and potential for dangerous animosity.

I believe India has exhibited great human values in the past and will do so in the present and future.

Thanks for reading.
Madhu

Cyanide: Kannada movie

Title: Cyanide (2006)
Director: A. M. R. Ramesh
Starring: Avinash, Suresh Heblikar, Tara, Rangayana Raghu, Malavika and Ravi Kale


How many times have I not wondered that we miss a good serious Police procedural movie in Kannada. We mostly have Police characters who are card board cutouts made for Superstars to get into. We have seen the honest Policeman, the fearless policemen and some times a corrupt policemen in collaboration with the Politicians. We know that these are stereotypes easily used to extract a certain kind of reaction from the audience. It was hard for me to imagine a Police officer in India who would resemble an ordinary human being and not a super man. Off course the reason for this is the star centered nature of Indian movies. But even those could have been made to look natural.

So finally I saw this in Cyanide. This very well done movie for once does not treat audience like they will swallow anything and not complain. The director A.M. R. Ramesh (this is his second movie. His first movie was Santhoshakke) has done a splendid job of creating a very realistic and believable atmosphere in the movie. The narration is done in such a way that the director wants you to get into the middle of the real life incidents. The characters, the locations and the gritty narration is very interesting to watch and it is quite believable too.

I will not give away too many details because that spoils the movie watching experience for the readers. I Will only comment on the movie making and keep the plot narration to the minimum. I do not want to take away your pleasure when you watch the movie.

This is the story of how the police finally caught up with the killers of former Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi. Shivarasan and Subha are the two master minds behind the assassination and they were on the run after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi near Chennai in 1990. The police are looking for suspected LTTE terrorists and they get a hint that some of them are in Bangalore. They then start investigating and slowly start putting clues together. The leads help them to engage in a hot pursuit of the suspects. As they start getting more clues to where the terrorists might be hiding the police have no clue that they are after a very high value target.

One thread of the story follows the police side and does a good job of laying thread bare the investigative process. In the process we see some nice shots of locales in and around Bangaluru. The way the police zero in on the terrorists is done in a methodical way without any hurry or stretch.

On the other side is the story of the two terrorists and their gang who are on the run. A mechanic named Ranganath gets involved with the terrorists unwittingly when he is approached by the terrorists through an acquaintance looking for a rental property. Ranganath moonlights as a real estate broker. So he does find a home for the terrorists but then when the terrorists realize they have to move for more safety they are behind Ranganath to get them another rental home and he gets pulled into their midst along with his wife Mrudula played by Tara.

What was a bit weak was the way they have tried to create the characters of the terrorists and their interaction with each other. While the director tries to understand the events from their side he seems to have romanticized their roles and attitudes. Some of the points made by the voice over in the movie seems to suggest that the movie does not take any clear stand on the issue . It simply pushes the tough issues of terrorism, its causes and effects, under the rug and deals with them superficially only to the extent they are useful from a cinematic point of view. This is disappointing because the movie has taken a very weighty issue and has succeeded in the art of making a no nonsense movie. I wish they could have also included a clearly articulated message. But that still does not take away the credit the movie rightly deserves.

While watching the character of Ranganath I realized that the actor was putting a bold performance with his dignified under acting. His acting was so engrossing especially in the presence of the Tara's traditional histrionics, I was wondering "who is this bold actor who is holding his own especially in front of the Star Tara". In the end when I saw that this was Rangayana Raghu I thought to myself "No wonder". Looks like he has imbibed the skills of method acting through Rangayana. He just becomes Ranganath and consequently his performance is so good and natural that I felt it was flawless. Others notable are Avinash as Officer Kempiah and the Marathi actor Ravi Kale who plays Sivarasan. Sampath Kumar as Suresh Master has given a dignified performance. Malavika of Mayamruga fame plays Subha.

Editing, Photography, locales and the action sequences are well handled. By the way there is not even one song or any of those cinematic stunts.

This is a rare Kannada movie. I wish Ramesh takes on more such projects.

This movie gets 8 out of 10.

Movie Review: Magnolia (1999)

Watching movies is a very favorite activity of mine. As soon as I watch a movie I write my views. Then I read reviews to understand what the critics think of it. I have picked up some useful hints on what to look for in the movies through this exercise. I watched Magnolia last week and here is my review of the movie.

I try not to reveal the key plot elements. I want the reader to enjoy the movie as much as I did. Hopefully I will not spoil it for you.

Title: Magnolia (1999)
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Written by: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: John C Riley, William H Macy, Felicity Huffman, Juliane Moore, Tom Cruise, Jason Robards, Phillip Seymour Hoffman

I first saw P. T. Anderson's movie Darjeeling Express a couple of months back and simply loved it. I was amazed by the imagination of the director-writer. While reading its reviews I found that P. T. Anderson has also directed Magnolia. I had brought it once before but returned without watching it. This time I was in the mood for such a movie which has absorbing narration with good characterization.

And I was not disappointed. This is a 3 hour movie and I enjoyed every moment of it. There was never a dull moment in this intricate story of many subplots. This is a fine example of what it means to watch a well written Screen Play. Right from the beginning the film's narration travels back and forth and back and forth that I realized how daunting it should be to write a screen play like this. The start of the movie itself is very interesting. They set up the premise of the movie by narrating really strange and weird incidents where things happen out of the blue and is hard to believe.

What follows is really one of those stories where there are parallel subplots going on and keeps you guessing how they all are merged together. The ensemble cast is so great that you are just satisfied with these characters simply playing their roles. Even Tom Cruise has given a pretty solid performance. The characters I like most were those played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Phillip Baker Hall, Juliane Moore and Jason Robards. Jason Robards portrayal of an old man on his death bed is convincing and overpowering.

This fits in with my love for movies like Boogie Nights where they show the night life of the decadent. I kept feeling that this movie reminds me of Boogie Nights and then read that P. T. Anderson wrote Boogie Nights too. This movie too has its share of TV stars, bar life and rich late night revelers.

The most important achievement for the movie is how it treats human relationships in such depth without even once getting into pontification or sentimentality.

Watch out for John C Riley who plays a police offer who is not very well respected by his colleagues. But he is a god loving gentlemen and is a also a loyal cop. He keeps busting houses but seems to always land up in the right place while fighting crime.

The director shows how skilled he is in bringing out the characters of the role. This movie is a great source of rich characters and some brilliant acting.

For someone who cannot imagine close and long lasting familial bonds in American society this was a nice introduction. I could see the longing for parental relationship, the dying parent's regrets for not being there when their child needed them,. a father's guilt at mistreating his daughter and the daughter's lack of belief in any human being all form a very nice mosaic of characters and plots.

One thing I could not understand was the significance of the name Magnolia.

I give this movie an 8 out of 10