Art is supposed to cut across cultural connotations and references. This blog has tons of the second and as for the first concept…. So if you don’t want to look up references, or don’t have referents to Tamil cinema, stop reading. However, if you would just like to hear from me … Ensoy!
The ace cinematographer, Madhu Ambat, who has also worked with my sister on her two films and is a friend of the family, received his third (!) national award. His wife Lata kindly invited me and my niece Dhrishya to the function. So I got out my best clothes and my make-up kit out, and it was worth it. This year, the awards were dominated by South Indian film industry, which gave me a lot of pleasure. Pre-event time was spent trying to identify celebrities and artistes. There were quite a few who were dressed to kill. With a couple of them, Dhrishya was quite ready to take cotton pads to remove about 5 layers.
We sat in the row in front of K. Balachander’s family, and I muscled in on his wife and had a long chat with her. It was lovely to meet someone who lives down the lane from us and whom I had never met before. She was gracious and very pleasant. Not so incidentally, I have grown up on his movies and admire him a lot. Noolveli, Bama Vijayam, Arangetram – I wonder if anyone has done an indepth analysis of his female characters. Worth a thesis, I would say. Perhaps my next research piece. It will be an excellent excuse to watch my old favorites over again.
When Dhanush went up to receive his award, the Chennai contingent whistled, the only time it happened; Dhrishya got a mighty kick out of that. And I could smell Saranya’s mallipoo (jasmine) all the way across the aisle. Hmmmm …
The downside of it all were the emcees, Mahi Gill and Rajat Kapoor. They were bad, to put it mildly. They did nothing when there was a lag of about 10 minutes before the function officially began. Mahi Gill’s pronunciation was god-awful. She absolutely murdered Thenmerku Paruvakaatru, not that we expected anything else. But surely a certain amount of professionalism and respect for fellow artistes is not an unreasonable expectation? To top it all, Mahi Gill has the temerity to get free publicity by listing her recent and upcoming films in her introduction. Crass commercialism.
A strange experience – As we were leaving, we saw an awardee. Given my beautiful manners (ahem!), I congratulated him but confessed I hadn’t yet seen his film since I lived in the US and had not had time to. He shared that it was his first film; he came into acting at a late stage in life; and he wasn’t sure if he would continue to act. Then he insisted on giving me his phone number and asked me to call him with my comments. I don’t know if he was looking for affirmation as an actor, which was strange since he had just been recognized on a national platform. Or whether he thought I was a celebrity and was trying to establish connections. Or whether he was just trying to come on to me. Or if he was drunk, perhaps with happiness. I am going to give him the benefit of doubt and attribute his attempt to building a fan base. Definitely an amusing end to an entertaining evening.
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