Thuraimugam(துறைமுகம் ) (Harbour)

My first book of Thoppil Muhammad Meeran, i should say i was really lucky to buy this book at the book fair, his writing is unique and the way he hanldes the native slang(malayalam mixed tamil) is excellent.

Story :
Thuraimugam is a story of a preindependence muslim fishing village.Meeran Pillai a fish('Nethilli') exporter and his family is living here for generations, the story revolves around him and his family.They lose everything including their house to the Colombo export owner, who always gives loss account.Many exporters became homeless,died because of the loss incured.Meeran Pillai is a typical muslim father who believes that education is not good for children, but Kasim his son is good at studies and persue his own interest, he involves in freedom struggle by participating in demonstration against the government and help the community in whatever ways possible.In the end after losing everything, Meeran Pillai acknowledges his son's views on religion and way of life.But he can not bear his wife and children suffer, he left the house never to be back.The story ends with the arrest of Kasim for treason.. and the family left without a male...

When i read this story i felt how much my community(im from a Fishing community) people suffered through the years, this story almost reflects the current state of many fishing community.Now the big companies themselves fixing the cost of prawns and fishes and leave the fisherman without any profit,i have seen many family losing everything just like Meeran Pillai in this novel.

Come back to the Story, the author is excellent in bringing the emotions of the characters like the dialogue between Meeran Pillai and his wife when Meeran pillai wants his wife's 'Thaali' to pawn and get money to run the business.Its clear that the author criticizes many belief of Muslims in a positive way specially about the education and marriage.

As written on the back of the book " the story lingers even afte finish reading".. yes its true.I imagine myself as this author and standing with lots of hope on seashore and  waiting for the boats to come ..  like me hundreds in my hometown waiting in hope.. the life story continues..

I should say that the physical nature(printing&cover) of the book is excellent ,very handy not like other Tamil books i read over the years which has hard cover and designed pathetically.This book is printed excellently , the covers are also good.I wish many more Tamil books will come like this one.Why im mentioning this, because this book is very easy to carry and read when you travel in trains and buses.Very handy.

First Tamil book of the year.. a great start to my Tamil  reading.. 

About the author

Adukalam(ஆடுகளம் )

First hats off to the Adukalam team, meticulous planning by director Vetrimaran is visible in each and every frame.

The backdrop of the story is very new in Tamil cinema - Rooster fight.The cameraman and the director brings alive the native rooster fighting before our eyes, the entire first half of the movie is about rooster fighting and rooster rearing which sets the story for the second half.Petaikaran,an old man is the numero uno in rooster fighting and rearing, he always wins the fights against the police officer Rathinasamy.Rathinasamy on the other hand wants to win atleast once before his mother dies.Petaikaran never sells his roosters to anyone but allows youngsters to rear in his place,Karuppu is one among them.Karuppu is living with his mother ,when his father was alive they were rich but now they pawned the house and living in a small house.Karuppu is an innocent guy who falls in love with Irene  an Anglo-Indian girl living in Railway colony with his family.Durai is also understudy of petaikaran who supports them financially.

Rathinasamy decided to fight one last fight with Petaikaran and to win for the sake of his dying mother, he also granted permission to Petaikaran to conduct the Rooster fight tournament.The contract between them is that whoever loses the fight will have to shave their head & moustache and quit roost fighting .After losing more than 10 fights ,Rathinasamy brings roosters from Banglore and uses 'english' drugs to enhance the performance,as Petaikaran is looking for roosters to fight against the bangalore roosters, Karuppu brings his rooster and participates in the fight against will of Petaikaran and he wins big money,here the story take a turn.

Pettaikaran is not happy and is upset with Karuppu's fame,he  plan for karuppu's downfall.He make karuppu and Durai fight each other by killing Durai's roosters and put the blame on Karuppu that leads to heartbreaking and riveting climax.

The romance scenes were crafted beautifully particularly the song "Yathae yathae".Background music by GV Prakash is another huge bonus for this movie,he did not overdone in any scene,everything is perfect.Another hero of the movie is cinemtographer Velraj,he captures the essence of Madurai wonderfully.

Dhanus as Karuppu has done a amazing job,his mannerism and dialogue delivery were excellent, one of his best effort.Jeyabalan as Pettaikaran,my gosh he is simply awesome,hope we will see him in more movies in future.Kishore as Durai,this is a kind of role made for him, done his best.Taapsee as Ierene has done her job well.All the credit should go to Vetrimaran for his wonderful story and the way he handled all these characters,its pleasing to watch these director's work.Vetrimaran and Dhanush combination has done it again.Keep going guys.

Oru Naal Varum

Gopi Krishnan (Sreenivasan) is a corrupt Assistant Town planning officer.For each and everything he gets bribe but he manages everything with wife Rajalakshmi (Devayani) who believes that Gopi krishnan is a good man.Sukumaran Kulapully (Mohanlal),is a Anti-Corruption police Officer who disguise as a guy who wants to build a house to catch Gopi Krishnan red-handed.Sukumaran has his share of problems with his estranged wife meera(Sameera reddy) who wants his daughter back.Sukumaran is facing trail regarding the child custody.In a twist ,Sukumaran is arrested for offering bribe to Gopi krishnan, this makes the situation worse for Sukumaran in his child custody's case.He loses his child's custody to his wife meera but promise to nap Gopi krishnan.The rest of the story is about how Sukumaran arrests Gopikrishnan.

Mohanlal is so good, he carries himself as Sukumaran with ease.Srinivasan,done his role splendidly.Sameera reddy has done good with what she got.Devayani is excellent as a house wife and a good mother.Suraj Venjaramoodu as Srinivasan's driver is good , the notable performance is from Nedumudi venu as a hawildar.
There is nothing new in the story but we can watch it once.The Mohanlal-Srinivasan combination fails to impress me this time.Music is good.

Story,Screenplay and dialogues : Srinivasan
Directed by : T.R. RajeevKumar
Music :M.G. Sreekumar

A Rainbow In The Night - Dominique Lapierre

I  started reading this book in December 2010, i finished that year with this great great  book.I believe that everyone should read this book if they want to know more about Apartheid.Dominique Lapierre, one of my favourite author, he is the best in writing real life story .This book is also written typically in his own style.
The book starts with how the Dutch East India Company sending Van Riebeeck to Africa to farm lettuce to cure scurvy.The Dutch thought they were the chosen people following  Calvin's theological views.They used Bible quotes for their actions.

"For you are a people of holy unto the Lord!Thou shalt not be affrighted  for the Lord thy God is among  you..His angel fighting at your side!"

"Have I not commanded thee be strong and of good courage?... You Shall go into possess the land  which the Lord your God giveth you to possess it."

"And I will give their kings into your hand and you shall make their name perish under the heaven."

Van Riebeeck planted a double row of wild almond trees across the peninsula to protect his companions from hostile blacks, this was the first act of racial segregation, which latter grown into Apartheid.The Dutch gradually moved inner in searching of the Lord's chosen land, they  fought bloody war with Zulus and was involved  in a diplomatic battle with the English to control the land captured.This became the Great Trek.These trekkers gradually avoided the East India Company, to the envoy who came to claim the taxes, Hendrik Bidault replied fiercely "Be off with you! We are no longer Dutch but Afrikaners!". Thus the new tribe born- "Afrikaner".These God's chosen people started segregating the native blacks based on  their skin color.

But the English did not like the idea of black slavery, so they decreed that Boers should work on their own and they also formed a tribunal called " Black Circuit Court " to hear the charges against employers.These made the friction between Boers and the British who started to control Boer's domain.In  1835, French Huguenots  named Piet Retief sent a message addressed to British Crown to a newspaper in Cape:"We leave the colony with full assurance that the British Government expects nothing of us, and that in future it will allow us to govern ourselves without interference".With trek wagons christened "Freedom Wagons" they started their Great Trek to their promised land.

The Voortrekkers encountered many obstacles , first the fight against the mighty Zulus lead by King Shaka,then the Ndebele  warriors ,wild animals and cruel weather,.after two hundred years Her Majesty's government recognized the independence of Orange Free State and South African Republic of Transvaal.The Boers desired to have their own identity and they created their own language "Afrikan".Unlike British who governed the other part of the Africa with thier own parliament and constitution where all people enjoyed the right to vote but the Boers decided other way round.Their founding text of Orange Free State said "Only Whites are citizens of the Republic" and Transvaal republic declares "The Nation recognizes no equality between whites and natives".

Then the book tells how the Diamond and Gold were found and how the Boers utilized these precious metals for their economic prosperity.Boer war between the British and the Boers which resulted in Boers subjected to Her Britannic Majesty.With the government change in England , the Boers were able to negotiate and got what they want,after the 1912 election, the excluded blacks from the national community by passing "Native Lands Act".They divided the entire nation into two , one for whites and other for blacks and others.

Although there were twelve times more black people than the white, they inherited only 7.3 percent of the total area of the country

Thus they planted the idea of total segregation "Apartheid". On January 8,1912 Pixley Seme founded African National Congress(ANC) a nonracial and nonviolent movement for equality and liberty.To counter the growth of ANC, the Afrikaners' created a secret society called Broederbond(League of Brothers).The main aim of the league was to uplift the Boers from their poverty and create Afrikaner businesses.The people behind these league were Henning Klopper,Daniel Francois Malan and Hendrik Verword.They revitalized the Boer's spirit by organizing twelve hundred kilometers new trek which reminded the people of their incontrovertible right to the land bestowed upon them by God.

The remaining part of the books tells the cruel story of how the White government suppressed the blacks and other tribes.The whites gradually moved all the blacks from their land to the ghettos.The introduce many legislative acts like the blow ones to restrict the blacks in all sides.

Urban Areas Act

Immortality Act and the Prohibition of Mixed Marriage

Population Registration Act

Group Areas Act

Black Prohibition of Interdicts Act

The Bantu Education Act

Sabotage Act

*click here for full details Apartheid Legislation in South Africa

They used a "moronic" way as author describes to find whether a girl was white or not.They placed a pencil
in the parting hair, if the girl belongs to the white race, the pencil would slip between the locks and fall to the ground.The difference between other books and this one is that Dominique instead of telling all the negative things happened , he shares the stories of human triumph like Helen Liberman and Christian Barnard and their work among the blacks.
Nelson Mandela, no words to explain, have to read his book "Long walk to Freedom". If anyone asks me to suggest a book about South African freedom struggle i will say "Read this book!".

Some info from the book:
District 6
Coon Carnival
Walter Sisulu
Nkosi Sikelel iAfrika - God bless Africa.
toyi-toyi
Wouter Basson-Dr.StrangeLove
466-64

Pheromone

Operation Mayibuye iAfrica -Let Africa Return

Amandla - power

Erasmus and Louisa - the kids who found the diamond 

Shebeens - clandestine bars

Wit baasskap - white spremacy

Asihambi - We are not moving

umkhonto we sizwe - the Spear of the nation
"Eie Volk,Eie Taal, Eie Land" - Our own people,Our own language, Our own land

Chennai Book Fair 2011

I was really lucky to be there at Chennai on first week of  this month, i had only few hours to spend before boarding the flight to Singapore.Those  few hours were spent worthily by visiting the book fair.It was my first visit to any book fair in Chennai.The 34th Chennai Book Fair will be going on till Jan 17th .As i have already decide to read maximum number of Tamil book this year, this fair was the best place to check out the books, i did not had any list ,i just went through the all the stalls once , then visited particular stalls to explore more.The list of books which i bought on the fair:

1.ஆமென்(Amen) by Sr.ஜெஸ்மி (Jesmi)

2.கோபல்ல கிராமம்(Gopala gramam) by ஜி.ராஜநாராயணன் (G.Rajanarayanan)

3.கோபல்ல கிராம மக்கள்(Gopala gramathu makkal) by ஜி.ராஜநாராயணன் (G.Rajanarayanan)

4.உள்ளேயிருந்து சில குரல்கள்(Ulaeirunthu sila kuralgal) by கோபி கிருஷ்ணன்(Gopi krishnan)

5.சூடிய பூ சுடர்க(Chudia poo Chudarga) by நாஞ்சில் நாடன் (Nanjil Naadan)

6.சோழர் வரலாறு(Cholar varalaru) by சி. கோவிந்தராசனார் (c.Govindarasanar)

7.துறைமுகம்(Thuraimugam) by தோப்பில் முஹம்மது மீரான் (Thoppil Muhammad Meeraan)

Most of the books were bought 10 to 20% discount.Thought of buying many more books but no time as well as no place to arrange all those books.One disappointing thing was the day(07-01-2011) i went i saw more old(around 45-50 years of age) people  than the young people, i had a chat with some youngsters who were busy in checking the research books , they told  me they were Tamil literature students came from Thanjavur ,still our youngsters are not showing good interest to read .On the other hand i met a guy in Mettupalayam who is a shopkeeper and he is selling some good collections of book, he told me that books are like his children, we can see how much care this guy is taking by looking the covers of the books(every book is covered by plastic and sealed).I bought two books from him, he was able to quote from each and every books as i inquired him about the subjects of the books which is simply awesome.