Franklin Templeton India Debt Fund Investors – the final redemption.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vijayaraghavan-c-b36abb1a_sbi-mutual-fund-completes-franklin-templetons-activity-7100820155093434368-r7dv?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android

Review of Merku Thodarchi Malai (Western Ghats)

Produced  by  Vijay  Sethupathi  this  2018 Tamil  movie is not everyone’s cup of Tea.  It  has a very slow start and often you feel as if you are  watching a documentary instead of  a movie. For the Millennials who find it  difficult  to focus hard and long on anything the need to soak in the atmosphere and pay   attention  to the  slowly unfolding story is undoubtedly  a big  challenge.

But  it pays to have some patience and watch the movie take a hold  of  you.  Such a simple and uncomplicated narrative about landless laborer’s  who depend on the Mountains to earn their livelihood  – primarily  transporting Cardamom sacks from the  hills to the plains literally on their backs. It is not an easy means to earn their livelihood – indeed their day – as depicted by Rangaswamy’s life – begins early, well before the dawn. Indeed it is their stamina built over the years that allows them to function – a man from the plains happens to join them on one such morning trip and he soon gives up as he finds the journey way to arduous to complete in one stretch.

Khaled Hosseini’s, “The Kite Runner”

“If there’s a gun on the wall in Act One, Scene One, you must fire the gun by Act Three, Scene Two. If you fire a gun in Act Three, Scene Two, you must see the gun on the wall in Act One, Scene One” – Anton Chekov

Khaled Hosseini’s follows the Chekov’s Gun model of screenplay writing to the T in his novel, “The Kite Runner”. The novel narrates the plight of Afghans in the war torn country. It has a panoramic canvass and it faithfully chronicles the human tragedy that has run unabated for decades now. Nonetheless within the story the plot devices have the precision of a commercial pot boiler script. Yet it is still as fascinating as Scheherazade’s “Arabian Nights”.

Read more: Khaled Hosseini’s, “The Kite Runner”

Hosseini wrote this book when he had settled down in America and had successfully integrated in the global melting pot. Yet his narrative is tooled to suit the tastes on the Western world, a lot of asides that explain the Afghan culture and customs. These are likely to appear as charming but strange to that audience.

However we Indians can easily relate to the story as culturally the Afghan way of life in a far closer reality even in our world. Even children get introduced to Afghani Pathans and their culture through tales such as Tagore’s Kabuliwala. Much later we had Bollywood’s drama Khuda Gawah in the early 90s with Amitabh Bachchan (Badshah Khan) wooing Sridevi (Benazir). The movie opens with the familiar setting of a Buzkhashi competition though the movie doesn’t explore Kite Flying in its adventures.

Amir and Hasan even as young kids imbibe the deeply feudal way of life. Amir expects Hasan’s loyalty as his servant more than regarding him as a friend and playmate. Hasan unflinchingly reciprocates and it never occurs to him that the relationship could be set at any other footing. Prior to the Soviet invasion Amir and Hasan have a fun-filled childhood and Kite Flying is a passion shared by them.

Amir never knew his mother who died while giving birth to him and he has a strained relationship with his father whom he affectionately calls Baba. Amir is unconventional as a child – he shows no interests or skills in sports, he is an introvert who is lost to the world of books and Urdu shayari. His precocious talent even leads him to pen stories at a very young age. None of this earns the approval or appreciation of his father who feel rather let down and even worries about Amir’s future. He unerringly analyzes that Amir as a boy never stands and fights for his own cause and this will very likely mar his future.

Still Amir is also good at Kite Flying and Baba shares his passion. So there is one happy story when Amir wins the Kite Flying competition one year and this brings him closer to his Baba. However the same victory is set to produce a very bitter harvest in future as it causes an unbridgeable rift between him and Hasan. Amir actually lets down Hasan and has to live with the guilt of his cowardliness for the rest of his life. In his early teens he is unable to grapple with the guilt and he further compounds his mistake by having Hasan evicted from the only home he has known since he was born.

One expects Hasan to hold a grudge against Amir but Hasan’s innate friendliness and loyalty knows no bounds. Turmoil sets in though before any rapprochement was possible. Amir and Baba flee to America as the Soviets invade Afghanistan. They then struggle for well over a decade to find some semblance of normalcy in their lives. The key note is that Baba ensures that Amir completes his College education and now has a shot at living the American dream. It comes at a cost though as Baba falls critically ill and dies of Cancer. Amir still finds some stability in life as he had met Soraya, a fellow Afghani and as happens in fairy tales the two are able to get their families to agree on their marriage.

Afghanistan teeters from one crises to another and for decades there is no peace in the land. Amir then gets called back to Pakistan to learn more about Hasan, Baba and some unsavory family secrets. Endgame he sadly learns is that Hasan is dead now though he had returned to Amir’s home and his small hut therein. What is left is for him rescue Hasan’s young son who is now an Orphan facing a bleak future. For once Amir finds the courage to make amends and pay in part the debt that he owes Hasan. After a lot of trials and tribulations – some nifty twists in the story – we do end with a happy ending.

The novel was well acclaimed and one of the books that I always meant to read but never actually got around to doing it. So as I mentioned earlier about Chekov’s Gun – Hosseini has an authentic tale to share and he is very clever in employing all the trademark screenplay tricks to make it an engrossing read. Eventually it results in the climax appearing to be a bit convoluted and contrived but the book remains a page turner as we rush along to find out, “what happens next?”. So well worth a read. There is even a film on it but am sure to get all the nuances the book remains the best choice for us.

The Wonderful World of Wordle !

I just completed a month with Wordle. Wordle has caught the fancy of folks on the social media and it attained a great status by migrating to the New York Times platform. For now nothing much has changed – it is still free and it is not much interested in monetizing your profile as well – no ads, no hawking of your personal data as far as we know, no targeted ads – really nothing that is turn off on the free social media gravy train. At least not till now.

Wordle did began its journey as an anti-clutter proposition. It was kept very simple – every day we have only a single puzzle, not too intellectual so as to put off the majority of it players, no ads, not even an app, no cookie disclaimer and a simple format to share your score and get some bragging rights with your family and friends. I would like to share my experience playing this game over the month.

Madonna – the ‘Papa Don’t Preach’ girl

It was the late 80s – I was about to become a teenager when I came across Madonna’s pop album, ‘True Blue’.  We are talking about times when the internet was nascent, there was no social media and in fact not much in terms of private TV channels. It may well sound  like we were living under some rock then. I never saw the video when it as released in 1986 – I came across it during the lockdown in 2020 and it brought back memories of that album and our teen years.

As I said we had limited options for entertainment particularly on what was happening globally far away from our own home and lives. I used to listen to this album on an ordinary cassette player – there was no loop concept then and you actually rolled back the tape to listen to the song again.

Somerset Maugham’s, ‘Orientations’

This happens to be first short story collection published by Maugham and it is early days in his long journey to be acknowledged as one of the best short story writers who modelled his style on Maupassant.

The book comprises of 6 stories – 2 of them really have great potential while the rest are a bit of ‘also rans’. Possibly Maugham didn’t think highly of any of them as he didn’t include any while issuing 3 volumes of his short stories collection. Daisy in particular seems to merit an inclusion -indeed many Maugham lovers would have missed reading these short stories given they were published early in his career and not curated subsequently.

Somerset Maugham’s, “The Magician”

Bluebeard and his cruel behavior towards his wives. That is the instant image of Oliver Haddo who manages to seduce Margaret Dauncey – a happy fiancée of  the English Surgeon, Arthur Burdon. Haddo uses his powers of the occult and black magic to make Margaret leave Arthur and get married to him instead. Initially a heart-broken Arthur decides to make way and immerse himself into his work to make peace with his hurt and pain at the sudden turn of events.

But things take a sinister turn and when he learns that Margaret is in mortal danger as Haddo plans to sacrifice her in his attempt to create new human life. He seeks help from Haddo’s spiritual master Dr. Porhoet to avert disaster. And we are in for a racy climax.

Daniel Craig’s swansong, “No Time To Die”!

First the good news – it was a long wait and it was well worth it. James Bond’s latest caper, “No Time To Die” is very unlike its signature style and yet it is possibly one of the best Bond movies and certainly the defining one for the Craig’s franchise – yes we know Casino Royale and Skyfall were great movies as well.

It is like clockwork in case of James Bond movies wherein 1 great movie often is followed by a Turkey and fans start writing obituaries for the franchise that has managed to survive for 50 years. I guess the preceding debacle give the Maker a License to rework the Bond paradigm while paying token tip offs to the signature monikers.

Myskkin’s Cinema # 5 – Psycho!

Myskkin’s is known to experiment with various genres and completely transform the narrative from the traditional format. He succeeded in upending the supernatural genre with Pisaasu – it started the trend of moving from it being only a horror fare and evolved more into a comic capers like the Kanchanaa series. He tried to do the same with Psycho but doesn’t quite hit the jackpot – Udayanidhi can’t take it to the next level, the climax is contrived and not with the kind of twist we have come to expect in Myskkin’s movies.

Still it has some redeeming features – Illaiyaraja’s BGM and music is evergreen as ever and the cinematography sparkles as well though it is helmed by Sreeram’s protégé Tanveer Mir.

Myskkin’s Cinema – # 4 “Anjathe” (Do Not Fear)!

It was released in 2008 so a monstrous run time of 3 Hours 10 Minutes didn’t prevent it from opening to rave reviews. Mysskin’s tryst with the dark world of crime started with “Chithiram Pesuthadi” and “Anjathe” is a fine follow up with Narain being the central character yet again.

Friends falling out and going separate ways is not a new story – their paths crossing and setting up a game of one- upmanship is familiar scene as well. But what’s interesting is that Narain never sees Ameer as his foe and in fact sympathizes on his misfortune whereby he failed to become a Cop and his life spiraled out of control. In fact Prasanna understood the true dynamics of their strained relationship and lured Ameer into the world of crime.