Hello, am wondering if anyone has read the original book by Kothamangalam Subbu. Sadly it is out of print but old ananda vikatan bound volumes may be available in some people's homes. Lot of people do not even know this classic was a book, story serialised in AV, and with really nice pictures by Gopulu. It was very difficult to treat with complex descriptions of intricacies of music and dance, I got through two chapters with great difficulty with my grandmother's aid. Would love to read it again but unfortunately I don't think it is available.
The movie was also good but very commerialised version of the story with much older actors.
Hi in my humble opinion konar notes has done more 'sEvai" to tamil learning than all poets writers and tamil liguistic piriyarkal.
forget the notes, but the fundamentals that tamil could be more simpler and accesible to the common man( read the poor student here)it self was a releif.
Thillana Mohanambal was available till recently and I have a copy at home from the last edition of Palaniappa Bros. It's one of my all-time favourites mainly because of the way Tamil and "isai" are blended in Kalaimani's writing. I don't think any novel other than Sivakamiyin Selvan and Thillana Mohanambal has done more for increasing the layman's interest in the traditional art of Bharata Natyam. TM goes one step further and has eulogised nadaswaram, which has since been severely neglected in Tamil Nadu.
Thanks Udanx, that is good to know!! Paper preceding year 2000 was made with acid and rarely outlasts 60-70 years even if preserved extremely well. Have you considered scanning some of your mother's collections? I know it is against copyright laws to sell it but if we keep it personally some day it will be precious source of bygone days.
I am presently scanning one of my father's bound collection - Lakshmi's Kanjanayin Kanavu (1947). In the process I found several jokes and ads from AV of those days. I will post the ads here perhaps over weekend.
Shoba, yes Gopulu's pictures were beautiful. Have you noticed how much Vaitthi looks like Nagesh? My mother used to say this character was written for Nagesh to play and even while reading the story people automatically thought of him.
I think the movie was a good entertainer, especially side actors - Balaiah, Nagesh, Manorama did such a great job. The hero and heroine looked much older than they are in the story and the story itself was considerably altered for movie audience, especially towards the end.
I would love to read it again. I had no idea chennai lending libraries had such classics!!
If I have to realize your idea then I will have to get sponsership! That many books she has got. Jokes apart, thats a good idea probably few books a year I should be able to achieve. Thanks for the suggestion
There are lot of treasure book stalls in chennai, we call them second hand book stalls and others are lending library. I have seen Triplicane beach side book stalls, Luz corner book stalls and another one near Mount Road and Higginbothoms, I hope the book stall is still there which is small where I used to buy computer books. All these second hand book stalls are treasures, if you visit once in a while and buy, then you can have a little library. Other man's waste our treasure :-)
My brother used to buy Kumudam and other weekly books specifically to extract Sandilyan novel episodes and bind them.
It is my understanding ( gained from Kothamangalam Subbu's daughter) that Vikatan has agreed to bring out ALL of his works (including his poems which were never published ) ..in many volumes.. very soon.
Already Vikatan has published 5 of his works.. rAobahadhUr SingAram, pandhanallUr bAmA, manji virattu, miss rAdhA, and gAndhi mahAn kadhaigaL. In fact I was told that TM would almost certainly be the next one. So if you wait a little, you can buy TM from AV !
> > the best places were the luz busstop old man - but it was pulled down > by the corporation i think in 1992..or 94. the old man was a computer > by himself - you would think that the whole place was a maze of > books ..but he would find not one but many diff copies from diff > niches in the pile
aalvar kadai still exists. his entire dwelling place is built of books you know. the guy has a colourful history. he came to act in movies and was even one of the guys holding " manohara " in chains.
venketesh
> > the next was at moore market....it was a veritable treasure > house...the police , army uniforms, ornamental fish shops, birds.bird > feed....old gramaphone plates... > > incidentally does anyone have a picture of the roadside > artist ....the one who used to draw hanuman pictures opposite the > shiva vishnu kovil.. pl share with me... he was my first inspiration > to art ( well my dad used to always have a dig at me to focus on > studies saying my art at best could get me to do chalk pictures on the > road like him) > > on that line...here is another blast from the past.. > http://www.hindu.com/cp/2008/04/25/stories/2008042550441600.htm >
> > aalvar kadai still exists. his entire dwelling place is built of > books you know. > the guy has a colourful history. > he came to act in movies and was even one of the guys holding " > manohara " in chains. > > venketesh >
great...venkat...you have all the ' inside ' info....yeah he was kind of scary looking ...holding shivaji must have been some feat...can picture him walking up in chains but his valor intact...what powerful acting...coupled with kannaambaa's hysterics....
I have said in my previous post that I had purchased TM by Palaniappa Bros. a few years ago and still possess it, but like many of my posts in this forum it has been drowned by an avalanche of responses (at least four per person at one time). I am wondering whether there's any point in me remaining a member of this forum which has been hijacked by a few members.
Anyway, like so many others I have read the novel umpteen times and have always felt the movie never did justice to Kalaimani's writing. For example the character of mattalakkara varadan is very well etched in the novel by in the movie it has made inti a miniscule one and played by TRRamachandran.
But the choice of Saraswati for vadivambal is spot on. Vadivambal is one of the greatest characters in Tamil novels, and Savadal Vaithy (played by Nagesh) meets his match in her.
the old bound books of the story serials also offer us an insight into the living those times.
a couple of years back we did run a discussion on the advertisements in ponniyin selvan serial in kalki magazines. in particular there was a discussin on the cosmetic " snow" which i presume is something like vaseline which frequently appeared in advertisements of that period.
the original bound volumes are very valuble too i am told. the 1949- 54 version of ponniyin selvan is supposed to fetch upto 25000 rs. we happened to see one in kumbakonam during a group tour with our friend seetharaman.
i was lucky enough to be presented by a gentle man ( on our first meeting) a first edition of sivakaamiyin sabatham. in it is an appeal by kalki to MRs bharathi to accept the money the magazine collected for her. he says its a gift for a " guru pathini" it was surprisingly during the time kalki was refuting the mahakavi title for bharathi. venketesh
Don't mean to turn this into a debate ,but I disagree that TM was made into a great movie. You have to watch the movie after reading the book, not the other way. BTW the hero and heroine are in their early twenties in the book, if I remember right. Padmini especially was the best choice for the heroine given her dancing abilities but well past her prime, Sivaji did not look like 20+ either. The side casting was brilliant, especially Manorama and Nagesh.
It is still a huge 'chicken and egg' type of deal - whether movies like this 'educate' masses on classical arts to the extent possible or dilute real classical art to mass consumption. Better to enjoy everything for what it is.
Also on the same lines very few books have been made into good movies, the true test of that is when the book writer acknowledges that it is so. 'To kill a mockingbird' is one of the few movies that has been acknowledged this way.
'Gone with the wind' same on the lines of Dr Zhivago is a nice movie but very pale in comparison with the book. Guns of Navarone etc are potboilers, not classics, they are written probably with intention that someone will make movies out of them.
R K Narayan was horrified at how his Guide was made into a movie - Guide is a small book that too, not a sweeping novel. It could have been made into a movie, RKN disliked the glamor that Dev Anand introduced that took away the simplicity of the book and his writing. He writes two chapters of this in 'My Days', well worth reading to see how world of movies operates!! BTW Guide, like TM is a good 'commercial' movie with great music and good performances by Waheeda Rehman. Just like TM, don't compare it to the book that is all.
Hi; I haven't read the book TM but have seen the movie a few times as my dad loves it (a Nagesh fan) and forces us to watch it also! Its a really nice movie.
I think, to be fair to the director, its hard for the movie to match the book. For that matter any movie made from a book nearly always falls short of expectations. You can take age old examples to the present Harry Potter movies. The movies always fall short of the book. I think movie is a different medium and shouldn't be compared to the book. A movie at a single moment addresses more than 300 individuals from all walks of life hence has to be made in that manner, in other words compromises are essential. A book on the other hand, addresses only one person at any given moment. There is always a common'ness about the individuals who buy that particular book. Also the reader tends to ignore the some flaws (almost always present) in his favorite author's books whereas the movie goer shows his displeasure then and there (whistle,catcall,etc).
I feel its a totally unfair comparision which we sometime take the liberty of doing.
Rahul, there are movies that have matched books - to give you a few examples Kill a Mockingbird, Color Purple, the televised version of Malgudi Days, several books by Agatha Christie and Charles Dickens.
I agree with you, it is an extremely hard task and logistics are different. On the other hand, many film makers take the 'pot boiler' route very easily, just on the pretext that it is difficult and not consumable by masses. Read RK Narayan's comments on how Guide was made into a movie, it is quite enlightening.
TM was a good potboiler at best, the book was a real thesis on classical music and dance, it could have been made into a movie but perhaps with limited mass appeal.
Malathi; Making a pot boiler is also tough. Infact personally i feel making a pot boiler is tougher than making a movie which appeals to a select segment. When a film maker is making a choice between making a pot boiler to a "art" film he is actually choosing between making and loosing money. Also, dear Malathi, why should TM have been made into a film which appeals to a select sect of folk. If that had been the case i doubt whether i would have watched it, i hate such docu movies.
Infact the very fact that PS appeals to all of us is because its a pot boiler (lets not even argue otherwise). Which is exactly why this group has been named after PonniyinSelvan and not Neelakanta Shastri's Colas! :):)
If a movie becomes as famous as the book or in some cases even more famous then we can say that a movie has been faithful to the book. Thats what matters in the end, doesn't it? Writers may feel otherwise but im sure they dont complain when the cash counters are ringing.
> I think movie is a different medium and shouldn't be compared to the book.
for more reasons than one.
the primary reason is the book is viewed by different people in the perception of their own experiences in the visual medium you are forced to look at the directors view of the book. one reason why most of us wont like if PS is made into a serial. everybody would have their own view on the casting for one.
Sujatha also complained about this when his novels become movies, he said "Kolai seikirargal". But he also told that "How long the movie can show only the lawyer?" and acknowledged that not all novels can be made exactly as movie, this was for the movie "Priya".
That is why they have a intermediate stage "Thirai kathai" - Screenplay which is a tuned version of "Kathai" for big screen.
Hi, I thought shivaji was great in the role...especially as a hot tempered artist...his acting on the nadaswaram was superb..but I will remember balaiah's two scenes....the train scene ...intha pakkam konjam nadukkam...n second enakku ange oru sodak kadakkaranai terium....
Rahul, there are many gray areas between what you call an 'art movie' and a total potboiler. Take Malgudi Days for instance (The tv serial). It was enjoyed by young and old, did complete justice to RK Narayan's original work and he acknowledged it himself, and yet had very few elements of a 'regular' tv serial - by that i mean loud music, dramatic story line, etc.
The maker of Malgudi Days - Shankar Nag had a very difficult time convincing RK Narayan to sell the rights because of RKN's experience with Dev Anand's guide. Now if you think making 'cash registers ring' is something writers like, well not all writers are that way. RKN himself talks of Dev Anand approaching him with a blank cheque book for the rights of Guide. He took a small sum which Dev Anand himself said so and thought it was foolish, but he wanted the story to be picturised as much as true to the original. The result was a good potboiler but nothing like the original story. Rosie, the heroine, is a small time street dancer who makes it to the stage in local city. She does not fly in planes or wear make up or become a 'big star'. The hero does not attract huge crowds or die melodramatically.
To me it is like this - it takes some talent to make french fries well, does not make me a great cook if I do so. Potboilers are movies made solely for money,granted an entertaining potboiler, like TM for example is like eating a crisp bag of french fries, very nice at times. But not a well cooked, flavorful meal. And certainly if the author of the book deserves to have their comments valid, on whether it was done well or not.
Venkat, I am not aware of kalki's involvement in movies other than writing lyrics for Meera and Thyagabhoomi later. could you say more?
Sujatha said he took to screenplay writing as a profession itself to avoid producers murdering his stories. RKN sold Malgudi days after a great deal of reluctance after his experience with Guide, and only after he saw and approved two pilot episodes.
JK's sila nerangilal...was a reasonably good movie, true to its story as far as I could see. No idea what he thought of it. There was one more JK story, same Lakshmi-Srikanth pair, name I forget.
We cannot possibly compare writers like Subbu to writers like Sujatha(as far as movies go I mean). Writers like Subbu wrote for love of their art purely, money making secondary or perhaps none at all. Sujatha atleast later days ranks on par with Stephen King, Alistair Maclean etc, who wrote intentionally for potboiler movies, and in the process both movie maker and author went home with happy bank balance, and public with yet another time pass.
Hi kalki was very deeply involved in the day to day of these two movies. visited all the shooting sites and wrote about them. thiyagabhoomi was simultaneul released as a magazine serial when the shootuing was taking place. close circles do mention even amaradara was written as ascreen play type rather than a novel.
Hi In India only we differentiate movies into masala-commercial movies and art-parallel movies. IMO there is good or bad movie only. Sholay is one of the outstanding movie made in India which comes under the genere of comercial movies - which is not exacty a 'crisp french fry'. Some of the world's greatest oscar winning movies like Benhur, Mckennas gold, star wars, saving pvt ryan, titanic are of the pot boilers kind only. I would say these are like full buffet meals where you can pick up whatever you like and art movies are limited 'pathiya sappadu'.
Sundar, who makes these classifications? And why is it not possible to have a 'sappadu' that is a healthy meal but perhaps with less french fries or none at all?
Yes some of the movies you mentioned are potboilers, and won oscars. Some of them like Benhur had books also behind them. But not that many that I know of had unhappy authors. Benhur's author was happy with how it was made. You can also watch oscar winning movies like Kill a mocking bird, Color purple etc where the authors were very happy and the screenplay involved them completely. In some cases such as Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca or Gone wiht the Wind the authors just sell the rights and do not comment on the movie at all. That has also happened.
Be it India or abroad we cannot take someone's work, make it into a potboiler and say making a potboiler takes talent, I don't care how the author feels about it, the movie was a success etc. The author deserves a say in how it was made, not all authors write purely for money and not all audiences watch purely for timepass.
Be it art movies or potboilers a filmamaker can make a hash of it there are good examples..
You mentioned the likes of Where Eagles dare and Guns of Navarone Day of the jackal and eye of the needle were written for movies..I am not sure that's the case.
However there are directors who made good books duds like force 10 from Navarone..Fear is the Key..Sahara raise the Titanic and Da vinci Code.
So it depends on how they make it to make it succeed.
Sridhar, Alistair Maclean the author of the said movies admitted that he wrote them for movies, although he was a struggling writer early on and had no idea how they would make it into movies.
I am not sure how we can define making a 'hash' of it exactly, i mean to me it generally means 'sodhappal' as acknoweldged by the author first and foremost. The majority indian movies are that way. If an author says his book has been murdered we have to respect that, not jsut say it was a potboiler made well.
In addition to that it is sad for one thing our devotion to potboilers itself and thinking movie makers are doing a great job making them. That is perhaps biggest reason why movies don't improve at all.
It was a potboiler Rahul and we can like it or trash it. BTW, it was not as much rubbish as you think, if you look at the painting the person next to Jesus does look like a woman. Nobody really knows.
Dear Malathi, I wonder if there's an English subtitled version of Nag's Malgudi Days? RK Narayan's one of my favorite writers and I'd really like to see that serial. A friend of mine, now deceased, was his editor at Viking, Marshall Best. Kathie
It is well worth the price. Actually Nag made three sets of tv serials, Malgudi Days, Swami and Friends and Sweet Shop Vendor. All of them were extremely good and the normally reticent RKN himself had to acknowledge credit.
Only Malgudi days is available on DVD. I called Padamrag films, the copyright owners while in Bangalore and they said there was no market in India even for one and they would not be able to afford bringing out more. Isn't that sad? I told them of RKN's popularity abroad and perhaps it would be worth marketing them here. But that needs lot of effort.
Hope you enjoy and do share with us what you liked!!
Malathi; Thats what i was saying. THe concept of Jesus having a wife and all that was interesting and unique. But as an adventure i.e. the travel, police chase, etc.. it was rubbish. On the whole i fel it was a massive propaganda. Yethu sonnaalum sandaikki varatheenga
THe concept of Jesus having a wife and all that was > interesting and unique. But as an adventure i.e. the travel, police chase, > etc.. it was rubbish.
the part you are referring as rubbish is a straight lift odf from jeffrey archers " matter of honour" and another sidney sheldon book( the one about the ufos)
A few episodes of Malgudi days is available in youtube. Its a Hindi version. I saw two episodes just now. Dont remember ever seeing them during my schoold days in DD, but the music is really haunting. A well made serial.
I used to think that the quality of serials done by DD a decade back, are much much better than the serials of these days. Good story lines, crisp episodes (just 13 to 15 weeks). I think the mega serials started with Junoon in DD2...which paved for the Junoon tamil and 'kolai' of serials.
Just recently we had a discussion about Hindi in TN. Most of the people used to learn hindi just by seeing the serials. But after the tamizhakkam came in to existence, again the learning curve of Hindi by the common people came to a stop.