A Director's Limited Knowledge

Unlike in the Indian film industries, many famous novelists of today had been working in a day job, and started writing in their free time. With growing success and interest, they changed lanes. John Grisham, e.g., had been practicing law when he started with law thrillers, and is now slowly dabbling with other kinds.

Moreover, the settings, characters and incidents tend to be heavily borrowed from their real lives. This is how it understandably continues to be, because people with a day job can't afford a lot of time researching about things that they are not already aware of.

Selvaraghavan, who goes by the name Sri Raghava in AP, shows a similar body of work. I haven't watched Thuluvatho Illamai, but both Kadhal Kondein and 7/G Brindavan Colony seemed very realistic, especially in portraying the lives of teenagers and lower middle class families. Later interviews revealed that 7/G was based on a true story, and there has also been speculation that it is partly based on Selva's own experiences. (Apologize me, for I shall call him Selva from here on.)

Whether or not these movies are auto-biographical, we can perceive that Selva does have a good knowledge and understanding of these subjects. But that is where a line needs to be drawn. He is no longer a new struggling director. Having proved himself as a good and successful writer, he should afford to research more in his stories and settings. Yes, I'm talking about ADuvAri mATalaku ardhAlu verule.

The movie was at best a joke. The storyline is very similar to the previous two movies. The protagonist personifying failure is rescued from distress by a damsel, knowingly or unknowingly. La Belle Dame sans Merci, so she is engaged to be married soon and can't break it off because she can't say 'no' to her elders though she may be progressive enough for premarital sex. Ha! One more thing, the protagonist's father is as uncouth as the protagonist, especially in words.

Well, there is nothing wrong with the story. Selva being a new director can yarn another cloth with the same rotten cotton, especially because that is what even veteran directors have been doing.

My complaint however is concentrated on a different aspect: the understanding of "software engineers". With software companies and call centers now grabbing the limelight from banks, we see more and more characters who work in them. Unfortunately, these two are very different from banks, and it takes efforts to know what goes inside them. Unlike banks, not everybody has a reason to enter these places. And so everybody has misconceptions about them.

Selva, being the amateur and unresearching writer, portrayed software engineers very similar to college students and lecturers, thereby losing the realism that his previous movies have been lauded for. No doubt, his observant eyes caught the formal wear and company tags hanging around people's necks, but their actions and dictions are still what the director seems to imagine as universal.

A manager grossly shouting and name calling a couple of engineers under him, e.g., is close to impossible, what with everybody's education and strongly implemented laws. Men bidding among themselves for a seat beside a female colleague, again, is unthinkable, especially when they are not old buddies. Let me not even get started about the long leaves that hordes of people take to attend a marriage, nor the visas that seem to be gotten within half a day.

I was extremely disappointed by this movie, and pitied the narrow horizons of knowledge of Selva. He may understand uncouth-type characters inside-out, but a writer should learn about other kinds as well, should attempt to research more. Or it would become such a waste of talent!