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dhooL.com

Topic started by bb (@ 24.4.254.104) on Tue Feb 20 03:21:22 EST 2001.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Hi! We've made a major addition to newtfmpage, and that is a big song bank. Dhool features thousands of songs for your listening pleasure. This site is a part of the newtfmpage.com - swara.com group. Together with newtfmpage, we wish to make this the best place to listen to tamil film songs online and know about tamil film music. Our collection includes old, new, famous, rare and unheard of songs. We are still fine tuning and fixing the database errors, so please bear with us. We value your feedback, and this will help us build the site better. Please post your comments below or mail to comments@newtfmpage.com.
This work was done by us (bb and RR) with MS and swara.com ravi.

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: raja m (@ 24.44.133.72) on: Fri Jun 13 13:47:45 EDT 2003
  
  Naaz:
  
  I think the whole theme of SNSM was people dealing with guilt - in this case, it wasnt the fault of ganga - even though we are not really sure, why she didnt get out of the car as the car wasnt moving (technically)-maybe she had some interest . Her mother deals with the situation by doing the agnipravesam but in reality deals with the situation by denial (understandable from her orthodox background/view of life).
  
  Making ganga feel bad & guilty is what the folk close to her do to her even though they have good intentions.
  
  Your reference to biblical ideas is interesting.
  
  I dont remember much till the stage she meets Srikanth again - they become friends (which I found offensive when I saw the movie when the movie was released ), though with age and a lot of grey hairs one can understand adult friendship.
  
  Geriatric YGP hitting on single ganga is well brought out, probably this is the situation even today for a single woman in India.
  
  Gender and caste are still too important in our culture ( the movie still strikes a chord).
  
  One more movie which was ahead of its time was Aval Appadithan.
  
  the ramble ends here for now..
  
  
  
  
• From: Naaz (@ 24.87.30.219) on: Fri Jun 13 17:50:12 EDT 2003
  
  raja m -
  
  Please do ramble again! :-)
  
  I will get to the whole biblical bit in a while, and also try to address the "offense" you say you felt on the Ganga-"Srikanth" (was his name prabhakar in the novel??) and try to persuade as to why "offense" is the right response - both then and now. Thanks also for mentioning Aval Appadiththaan. It is a work I respect a great deal.
  
  -------------------------------------
  
  Before proceeding any further with this how-I-fell-doubtfully-in-love with SNSMs literariness but still ponder its political relevance, I should state this in unequivocal terms: As a novel-to-screen adaptation it was sincere, effective and successful. Though not fully cognisant of its deeper social implications when I watched it first (I read the novel after, not before) I was greatly affected by Lakshmi's performance (devoid of all her seasoned mannerisms) and the voluminous eyes of Nagesh. Srikanth remains etched in memory as a role-model portrayal for aspiring cads. For YGP and Sundari Bai, this film is a touchstone (that was turned over and over and over in their following films. But such is the folly of all success.) Song, Background Music, and a plot-driven screenplay are all part of the mainstreaming impulse, and this film, surprisingly, did remarkably well for all its sombre proceedings (if only in the urban screenings.)
  SNSM, to be brisk, did for a tamil generation what woodstock did for flower-power. It was and is, to this day, a literary tour de force - and also a Cult.
  
  Let me pick up briefly on bb's apprehension about context and "period." Literary works can only benefit from re-examining and re-contextualising. To be considered a masterpiece, a literary work has to fulfill two essentials:
  Stylistically it should be inventive (the literary aspect of it - or the "aadal" in the "urai" )
  Politically it should see the world anew (hence "novel" - an interpretation or a postulation of "newness.")
  
  Period, I personally believe, is a limitation of the mind and not the imagination. How else could one possibly celebrate a work as being "Timeless"?
  
  Now, a reminder: The point of writing this (and I hope you will add your own views and make this an exchange) is not to display my own reading skills, but in a slightly serious (but friendly) tone to nudge- "yes, but have you considered this?" Always bearing in mind, that while it is true that we read books, we seldom pause to consider how much the book reads us. And everything that could possibly fall into that gap.
  
  Back to the Structure:
  SNSM concerns itself with six main characters, demarcated along gender lines, three men and three women. In critical analysis, Ganga dominates the novel from beginning to end, and the rest are either catalysts or satellites. The other dominant feature is the omniscient "authorial" perspective (this “duality” is lost in the film, but that is also the difference between “text” and “screen”) The novel moves back and forth, within Ganga's head and outside Ganga's body, what she sees, and when she doesn't the "author" sees/comments for us. I don't recall all the character names, so I'll resort to their respective archetypes:
  The men:
  The Author/Nagesh: In a clever rearrangement, the JK / Nagesh distinction is blurred, so much so, the reader loses the "character" / "author" binary and looks upon them interchangeably. This cannot be a coincidence. The insertion of the author into the narrative as "character" is both a reclaiming of the "suthradhar" heritage, and a deliberate device to render the reading complex: Whose story is this? Who's telling it? How much does one trust this narrator? Is the employment of "author" as "fictional character" a ploy to absolve the "writer" writing the "author" of accountability? And ultimately, who's "reality" have we just read? Ganga's? Nagesh's (the character)? or JKs?
  In this regard, the social status of the writer is depicted as "marginal" and this location conveniently leads to the easy assumption (on our part, for the "truth" resonate as “authentic”) of the disenfranchised having earned the moral authority to comment on "victimhood."
  Poor Ganga (count the number of times "paavam" might have been used to describe her circumstance) - and the “economically” poor nagesh-the-writer – he ought to know what it must be like to be used and discarded by the status quo. The "writer" is also a middle-aged, diminuitive - but somehow "sexless" man. In other words, he is neither a prospect nor a threat, just a simple recorder of "truth." The reader is comforted by this lack of extraordinariness, just as Ganga is within the novel. After all, she does not object to him using her "experience" for his creative (however conscientious that might be) gratification. The pay off, it would seem, is the roadmap he provides to her "rapist's" door.
  In summation: he is both custodian of "truth" and the ONLY disseminator of that "truth." But.
  
  (I will continue with the two other "men" in my next post.)
  
  
• From: Naaz (@ 24.87.30.219) on: Fri Jun 13 23:50:33 EDT 2003
  
  OK - if after this post, you don't throw in your two-bits, then I am calling it quits. So, pipe up! :-)
  
  ------------------------
  
  I would like to return to a small word in Saravanan’s summation above, if only to clarify another word that I have used. The word is “seduction.” In the current context, it would mean to “persuade somebody to immorally engage in sexual intercourse.” Seduction is inducing. Rape is not.
  As far as the novel in question is concerned there is brief, if no description of the act itself. Ganga’s motivation to get into the car is not explicit, but the circumstances under which she does, lead us to believe that she has only one thing on her mind: To get home. The skies have opened, and the rain is hard and relentless (the storm plays on many levels – forceful, destructive and impossible.) She is alone on the bus stop, a bus stop on a deserted road. It is dark all around. A car pulls up. Could the driver really be propositioning her? And if he did, would she really get in? So, it could only be that the driver of the car offered to drop her home telling her that it was a waste of time to wait for a bus in this downpour. She gets in – without a better option. It would be good to bear in mind that Ganga, as depicted prior to this episode, is a girl who has minimal to negligible contact with “men” in her every day life. The driver parks the car, opens the back door and slides in. The deed is done.
  Now, to consider raja m’s reading that she could have yelled or screamed. Or could have opened the door and run for her life. That response is absolutely singular. That’s what she should have done – but she doesn’t. Can this only mean that she was a willing participant? I am not convinced. For a woman, who has absolutely no understanding or experience of the physical power of a man, the first reaction in these elemental and menacing climatic conditions, could only be paralytic. She has absolutely no power to think of the “immorality” of the situation. Her only concern is her life. Give in – and you might still live, is perhaps her only thought. This is just as speculative, but the subsequent reactions support the reading of “violation” not “ambiguity.” Ganga confesses to her mother. If it had indeed been a “seduction,” something she resisted but soon enjoyed, then the need to address the “moral” issue would at best be a personal one. Ganga, at this point in the novel is not given to self-analysis. She doesn’t know better and her horror is two-fold – what has happened, and what will happen as a result of what has happened. Was she seeking her mother’s sympathy?
  “This is what happened to me.”
  Is that a statement of guilt or a sharing of horror?
  Might this be a more plausible way of reading why she stayed in the car?
  
  
  
  
• From: vengayam (@ 203.200.84.67) on: Sat Jun 14 00:04:03 EDT 2003
  
  Naaz,
  At last you can get it off the chest.You seem to have been carrying it in your bosom all this time the angst about JK in general and SNSM in particular.
  For me I watched the movie as a gawky 14 year old in a Trichy furnace.( Raja I suppose) it was my first attempt at serious cinema. I had a headache - which I could put down to the theatre but to what could I attribute the heaviness in the heart. probably the film.
  My understanding of the film ( and the novel subsequently) is that the chance encounter/ rape sets in a chain of events in the culmination of which Ganga discovers herself. The ganga snanam is symbolic.
  The movie somewhat (on hindsight) startled me and made me realise that rapists can come in all shapes & sizes.
  Prior to that rapists would all be badand went by one of the two rules.
  a) if they rapedthe hero's sister they weree almost always sucessful.The sister would fall of a cliff , jump in front of a speeding train , jump down a bridge& die and many reels later the hero would extract revenge. a variant would be the poor girl would be rescued by a muslim elder may be Naaz(:-)) to the strain of a loud speaker blaring out Allah o akbar or a bearded priest with a rosary & bible in hand ( of course the organ in the background. In such a scenario she will dutifully come between the hero & the villain get shot in the arm the rapist would apply the blood on her head & alll is well that ends well.
  b) The second rule is if heaven forbid the rapist tries his tricks with the heroine the hero would come right at the opportune time and play spoilsport .of course after the heroine has been disrobed her blouse torn and her cheeks scratched.( As an aside I once saw this amazing phenomenon wherin Mohan the hero was booed by the entire theatre when he tried to intervene in a satyaraj- Deepa(?) rape. Only saravanan can name the film. it was a Sujatha Cine arts dud & came in the wake of kakkichattai!!)
  so it was a shock to find that rapists can be anybody who may otherwise be no different from you and me.
  probably that was all that JK was aiming for !
  My firm belief is nobody writes with an intention that this book, novel becomes a timeless classic. Or if you write on a heavy theme it would be hailed as a masterpiece.Of course you always hope that you will be remembered in times to come ( rajesh Kumar ,madha novelists excepted!)
  I have two other tidbits on JK that I am saving for another post!
  
  
• From: Saravanan (@ 213.42.2.6) on: Sat Jun 14 00:05:50 EDT 2003
  
  Naaz- Very interesting--Please continue the analysis -I am seeing Nagesh ( RK Viswanatha Sarma?)'s role in an entirely new light after reading your thoughts- Waiting for your analayis of the other two men--
  
  

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