The Marathi Manoos

I was born and brought up in a land proud of its culture, heritage, and more importantly, its language. So much so that we made sure Hindi never entered our land for many years. And, even with the IT-BPO boom and the influx of migrant population, when Hindi became an inevitable necessity for doing business, we made sure Tamil never died. It is still evident in how the state government gives tax sops to movies that have Tamil titles. For instance, Happy New Year would never have been made in our land, only because it would have been re-titled “Iniya Puthandu Nal Vaazhthukkal”.

Some of our most beautiful books were and are written in Tamil, our theater quality is decent (though not as great as that of some other regional languages, I am told), and we make some of the most brilliant cinema there is in the Indian film industry. We preserve Tamil that much.

So, when I moved out of Chennai many years back, I moved out with the biggest disadvantage of all – a terrible lacking of Hindi. It has taken me many years to acquire mastery over basic Hindi, which still sucks, I am told. For heaven’s sake, our Tamil words are gender-free! 

But, just learning Hindi has been overwhelming enough. So, I have gone easy on other regional languages. Like most other migrants in Mumbai, I have never bothered to learn Marathi. And, I shudder to think what would happen to my beloved Tamil 50-100 years down the line, if the migrant population constitutes over 50% of the state’s population and behaves just like how I have. Will Tamil become near extinct?

Waxing eloquent about the importance of regional language is so cool, right? But, in reality, I was miffed when I heard about the compulsory screening of Marathi movies in multiplexes. The film business blood in me boiled, if not a little, a lot at least, as I thought about how producers, distributors and exhibitors of Hindi and English film movies in Mumbai would die. Imagine all those lost prime-time revenues, especially on opening weekends of hot and happening Hindi and English movies. But, my film business blood is erstwhile, so it ceased to boil as quickly as it had started.

And, then I went to the movie hall last weekend, much earlier than show time, and the theater was open and empty. As I took my place and submitted myself to a string of god-awful music (sounded like a Punju-Gujju-Bhojpuri mix of random tunes in an extremely irritating hoarsy voice) and Manyavar ads (Have you ever seen them? Don’t they give you a headache?), the trailers eventually came up. 

The first one was “Margarita with a straw”. At the risk of sounding politically very incorrect, it frankly bored me. I don’t think I will watch that movie, not till at least twenty rational connects on my Facebook list update a positive review (rational being highly subjective). 

And then, I was hit by a Marathi trailer. Perhaps the state legislation also stipulates airing of Marathi trailers in prime time slots, but the very thought pissed me off. Who are these people to influence my movie watching experience, I argued to myself? 

As I prepared to diss the trailer without bothering about its content, I got hooked on to it. Just like that, as the trailer progressed, I was reading the sub titles, following the portrayal of situations, getting enamored by the performance of the cast and the witty dialogues (even the sub-titled ones). It is one of the more interesting trailers I have come across in recent past. I think I will watch it in the theater, if they include English sub-titles. 

Perhaps, Marathi will live and thrive for long, and, so will Tamil, if only with a little help from fanatic State Government legislations. Well, I am not complaining.

P.S. Incidentally, the Marathi movie has an English title – Court.

All in a day's work

(This story was originally published on Readomania on April 1, 2015)

Eraniyan Govindswami, or ErGo, as he was fondly called by friends, fans and the fairly-well-wishing-public, woke up in excellent spirits that Monday morning. He had had a satisfying weekend, a fun one at that, not very different from his weekdays. However, unlike on weekdays where his durbar was confined to the studio, this weekend, he had held court at a homestay around 50 kms off the NH420, at his team’s offsite. And, he had come back with fodder that could potentially last him an entire month. 

ErGo took pride in being a news channel anchor with a difference. Unlike his colleagues who ran boring shows and debates on political unrests, socio-economic challenges and public policies, ErGo was ahead of his time. His target audience was Young India, those soldiers of the future who thrived on hashtags, twitter rages, change.org petitions and Whatsapp selfies. He knew exactly what this audience wanted and delivered on it with a vengeance. 

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The curious case of the missing houseguest

(This story was originally published on Readomania on March 20, 2015)

“Have you found him yet?” yelled Raghu from the kitchen.

Kunal lazed languidly, semi-asleep on the couch, as he dipped his hand into a large box of peanuts placed strategically on top of his stomach, spilling a few on the sofa. His mind was contemplating whether it was worth the effort involved in disturbing his relaxed position to pick up the T.V. remote or to let things as they were. Status quo is such bliss, he told himself, as he pushed the remnant peanut skins on his t-shirt into nooks and corners of the sofa that Raghu wouldn’t be able to find easily, hence reducing the net anger in the apartment.

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