MALAISE AFFLICTING TAMIL CINEMA

A strange disease seems to be afflicting Tamil cinema. I don't know if the other Indian movies are affected similarly, due to my obvious lack of knowledge. However I've seen this unhealthy trend for a long period of time and here are my two cents about it. Tamilnadu is the land which has supposedly welcomed the dark hero
Rajnikanth and made him world famous. Rajnikanth is a cult figure here.

In every other movie of his, Rajnikanth harps on his dark skin and says what a great gift it has been , thanking his mother, his country and thanking the Tamil people for accepting him. However all his heroines, and I say all (dispute me if you can) are fair skinned and most likely brought down from Mumbai. They do not know Tamil (obviously) and are pretty bad at lip sync. This is not only restricted to Rajnikanth. Almost all other tamil heroes are dark, but they prance around with fair heroines brought down from the south of Vindhyas. It seems the idea of a dark skinned heroine is anathema to them though most of them encounter dark skinned women all their life. They probably think that their mothers and sisters are ugly too. I don't know. They are dark skinned, they talk at length about the superiority of dark skin and all that crap, but they will act only with fair skinned heroines. This obvious hypocrisy is baffling.

This can be seen particularly in that big blockbuster joke of a movie called Shivaji with Rajni at the lead. In the movie Rajni tries a lot to become fair by dabbing fairness creams, but ultimately his lady love (the fair skinned Shriya) tells him that she likes him just the way he is. It seems this reflects the mentality of Tamil youth (atleast the B and C class moviegoers). They need the constant reaffirmation from fair skinned ladies that they are good looking however dark they maybe. This reflects a deep seated insecurity and self hate seen in Tamil men.
They obviously are not proud of their color whatever dialogues they might mouth in movies targetting the same insecure Tamil youth. And sadly people like Rajnikanth are proprogating this insecurity and self hate unconsciously. Or maybe they have been in the field for so long that they have internalized these values and don't see the obvious hypocrisy involved. I really don't know. This guy is no superstar. He is just super insecure. Pretty pathetic that there are no dark skinned Tamil heroines though 80% of the population here is dark skinned. What message are we sending our girls through these movies? That somehow being fair is superior and beautiful?

These kind of movies are also partly the reason why fairness creams are the highest selling beauty products in our country. These companies tell people (especially girls) that their natural skin color is somehow degrading and ugly and not good enough to be deemed beautiful, and earn millions in the process!! Shame on us Tamilians!

MYTH BUSTED

One more revelation which will help in the transition of this country from a superstitious, irrational one to a sane rational one. The Makara vilaku which appears every year on the first of the Makaram month is a man made one! The Minister of Temple Affairs G.Sudhakaran has just confirmed this.. I personally know many people who actually believe that the makara vilakku is a supernatural phenomenon in this day and age. Too bad for them the list of miracles just keep dwindling day by day. And the temple authorities should be punished for fooling people consistently for so many years.
It is time we busted the other big miracle maker of our age : Sai baba. This guy can apparently produce lingams, sacred ash and what not out of thin air. Millions of devotees throng him every year in the hope of recieving blessings and good luck. He should be tested under controlled conditions and his fraud should be exposed. He should spend the rest of his days in jail where he can entertain his other prison mates with magic tricks. Many prominent personalities (including prime ministers) take blessings from this guy and for long he has roamed this country in the guise of a god man "blessing" people with his "powers".
Worshipping statues and stones is one thing. You could probably call it "projecting" your faith onto something which can be seen and felt.( I dont support this either but doesn't seem to be too harmful to me.) But worshipping another human being is quite another thing altogether. It smacks of slavery and servility. Indians seem to excel in this form of slavery particularly.
We seem to be clinging to the slave mentality that we acquired during the British period. Bending over backward to please our gora masters has morphed now into this strange Indian obsession of deifying human beings. Lack of courage to face the present gets translated as "faith" and "bhakti". These guys make use of the weaknesses in the human psyche and manipulate people and their feelings by making them feel powerless.
Also people who were normal human beings become Gods after they die. There is this one person I know who doesn't believe in the present Sai baba saying he is a trickster out to fool people. However she has tremendous faith and belief in Shirdi Sai baba who according to her is the "original" sai baba. What rubbish!! Orginal or duplicate, both are human beings. There is nothing divine or special about any one of them. They are all living , breathing humans like us, with all the human weaknesses.
The same goes for the controversy surrounding Ram sethu. Rama may have been a powerful king during his time or he might have just been part of a mythical folktale. Either way Rama was no God and there is enough evidence to prove that Ram sethu was not man made. However archaeologists who stated this obvious fact were fired and the Congress had to give an apology to assuage the feelings of "ram bhakhts".
Harry Potter is a pretty popular book now, the way the Ramayan tale was during its time. In another thousand years (by that time the tale might get twisted to give harry "godlike" characteristics), there is every chance that Harry might become God and the Harry Potter books might just become one of the sacred books of the Potterians ( a new religion based on the Harry potter books). And Hagrid might just become someone like Hanuman. Provided we don't nuke ourselves before that :)