Month: November 2020

True Biopic Vs Inspired by

This Diwali, Soorarai Pottru meaning ‘Praise the Brave’, a much awaited Tamil film finally reached the audience. With theatres barely opening up few days ago amidst myriad Covid restrictions, the makers took an early call to go for an exclusive OTT release instead of a mega theatrical release. The film is based or rather inspired by Capt. Gopinath’s book Simply Fly which is his autobiography. However it is not a true biopic on Captain Gopinath whose calling card has been that of being the pioneer of low cost Aviation in India. The book Simply Fly which I just quickly glanced through in the last couple of days traces his life as a diligent child to his brief stint with the forces and then turning an entrepreneur with Deccan Helicopters and finally achieving his dream of building an affordable airline for the masses by launching Air Deccan. In the book, he outlines the travails in this journey which is certainly inspiring.

Unlike films that are released in theatres where the reception could be gauged by the Box Office numbers, for OTT releases, one has to just go by the buzz the film creates in the media and in particular Social media. So by that gauge, one must say that Soorarai Pottru has opened to positive reviews from critics and a rousing welcome overall from general audience.  At the same time, it has also drawn a huge flak particularly on Social media.

The brickbats for the film are around the way Captain Gopinath’s role is portrayed which has triggered a social media storm, if I may say, in the tea cup. The major angst is over portraying the main protagonist character played by actor Suriya not as an upper caste Brahmin which Gopinath is. In the film, the character goes by the name Nedumaaran Rajangam and is shown as belonging to the under privileged class.  The question which has been raised is, why twist the facts while basing the story on a real life individual, Captain Gopinath in this case. What’s wrong in show casing the story of a struggling upper caste individual, is the follow up question.

Here’s the thing. A biopic by definition is a film that shows the life of a person typically a public or a famous figure. A biopic follows the true life of the individual and the screen play is around actual events that took place in the person’s life. This means that such a film portrays real characters of not just the main protagonist but also others who were part of his or her life. The names are real, the time lines are accurate and reflect true events. Examples of biopics are Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi and in the recent past M.S.Dhoni based on the popular cricketer.

In a biopic, it is assumed that the makers have done enough research to portray true events based on the individual’s life and therefore must be ready for factual scrutiny. There is little or no room for creative liberties on facts that matter. Even here, based on real life incidents, film makers do resort to a bit of dramatization for effect.

On the other hand, a film like Soorarai Pottru is NOT a biopic on Captain Gopinath. It is a film that is based on his life as depicted in his book – Simply Fly. That’s all. Like how, many films are based on novels, this one is based on this book. Having bought the filming rights for the book, the makers do have the right to exercise their creative liberties to flesh out a script that can be made as interesting as possible.

Cinema is commerce. Film making apart from being an individual’s artistic pursuit, it is also business. It is an industry where there is investment and Returns On Investment. So, naturally the makers would like their films to get a reach that is as wide as possible and make them blockbusters. In that pursuit, if showcasing the protagonist to be from an under privileged class makes it more dramatic and more relatable to a wider audience, I don’t see anything wrong. Again my point is, this is justified if the film is not a biopic and is just based on some one’s life. Mani Ratnam’s Guru is loosely based on or inspired by the life of Dhirubhai Ambani but it is not a biopic on Dhirubhai. And hence we saw the many deviations and added drama in the script.

Recently, there was a Hindi film by name – Gunjan Saxena – The Kargil Girl that was released and had its own share of controversies. This film is based on the real life of Gunjan Saxena an Ex-IAF pilot. Here the problem was, the makers while calling it a biopic took too much creative liberties whereby the IAF was shown in poor light. The film also was not factual in its depiction in many aspects. So, the panning of the film was justified.  The case of Soorarai Pottru is different from Gunjan Saxena in my opinion.

Inserting a card that the film is inspired by true events and any resemblance to real life characters is purely coincidental is the maker’s way of taking anticipatory bail from probable trolling.  But, even that didn’t help in the case of Soorarai Pottru.  The makers over marketed the Captain Gopinath aspect while they completely changed the story. I also feel that they should not have used the brand ‘Air Deccan’ in the film.  But for these small issues, I don’t think the outrage over the film by section of the audience over twisting the facts regarding Captain Gopinath when it is not a biopic, is justified. Soorarai Pottru is the story of Nedumaaran Rajangam BASED on the life of Captain Gopinath and NOT the story of Captain Gopinath himself. And that’s a huge difference.

Post script: Captain Gopinath himself watched the film and he seemingly did not have any problem in the way the film has come out.

Pic Courtesy: Times of India

End of a Nightmare!

The last few days, almost whole of the world was consumed by what was happening in America with respect to the presidential elections. In my memory, no other US presidential election was followed so much with anticipation and anxiety. Partly it could be due to the proliferation of the media and of course the monster called Social media. Also it could be due to the long drawn electoral process this time around which meant that people had to remain connected with this topic for a longer time than usual. All these notwithstanding, I doubt if a character called Donald Trump was not in the frame, the US elections would be followed with so much interest.

In 2016, when Trump won the elections and became the President, there was a sense of shock outside of America. May be even within the US. During conversations following that election, I remember many of my American friends being embarrassed about the fact a person like Trump has been elected by their country. These could all be liberals who couldn’t fathom how Trump with his idiosyncrasies could pull off a win. Though there were many reasons attributed to his win that time, it was important to respect the democratic will of the voters which elected a person like Trump.  It was believed that once in power, Trump will behave more responsibly and be an inclusive President. That was not to be.

In the recent past, world over we have seen many disruptions. But, I would say that the mother of disruptions has been the Trump Presidency. Trump put foreign relations completely on transactional mode with no considerations of the past. He displayed a fair amount of disdain and contempt for multi-lateral International bodies like the UN, WHO, WTO etc. He pulled out of agreements which America had committed to in the past. And much more all in the name of protecting America’s national interests. But to be fair to Trump, we can say that he was only following his agenda basis which he secured the mandate. And he was ticking off his poll promises one by one.

It is widely believed that Trump’s track record on the economy front has not been too bad till Covid struck. I am in no position to comment on this. But data on the GDP, unemployment, jobs etc. show that till the pandemic hit US, Trump era has been good for the United States from an economic perspective.

The real issue though, was his own personal conduct as the President of United States of America. One lost count of the inner presidential staff he fired during his term, at times through social media. Most of the days, the world woke up to his tweets that were disruptive in nature. He would in a seemingly innocuous style blurt out comments that are not expected out of any Head of a State. Trump would callously speak about personal conversations he had with other leaders taking everyone by surprise. For example, one day he will be in full praise of “his dear friend Modi” and the next day in a presser he would decry the high custom duties India levies on Harley Davidson motor bikes. Similarly, he will volunteer to mediate between India and Pakistan when the established position has been not to intervene. Trump became notoriously famous for this kind of “hit and run” diplomacy that would create chaos only for his team to clean up the mess through clarifications later on.

Trump’s unpredictability, his disdain for established conventions and a total lack of grace has been in full exhibition even in the last few days after the polling has been over. To the rest of the world, it comes as a complete shocker when a Head of a State calls his own country’s electoral process a fraud. Even after the election has been called in favour of his opponent, Trump continues to claim that he has won.

There are many in India particularly those belonging to the liberal intelligentsia clan who claim that the Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi is similar to Trump in terms of personality. This comparison is nothing but prejudiced and completely preposterous. Apart from their contempt for liberals, I don’t think there is anything in common between Trump and Modi in terms of their personalities. As a Prime Minister, Modi’s social media communication has been extremely measured and calibrated. He seldom interacts with the press and even then, there has been no instances of embarrassing comments about leaders of other countries. Even on the diplomatic front, though Modi has challenged the status quo in many fronts, he has never tried to show disgrace in his conduct.

Even as the results of Trump’s imminent defeat was trickling in, there has been few articles by opinion leaders which said that Trump may be out but Trump’ism will continue to stay. In the sense, though Trump has been unseated, in terms of popular vote there is only a thin wedge that separates Trump and Biden. So, there is a large American population which believed in the way Trump ruled the country in the last four years. And that it would be difficult for any new incumbent to ignore the sentiments of this large base and completely move away from Trump’ism. Well, if this means being sensitive to the voice of even those who voted for Trump and taking steps accordingly it is fine.

I have no great insights into Joe Biden’s calibre or his past track record in governance. However, I am sure that whatever we have seen of Biden so far, he can never be an embarrassment to even those who did not vote for him, unlike Trump.  It was important that a sense of grace and order be brought back to the seat of the President of the United States and I am glad that it happened with the defeat of Trump. I am not sure if Biden’s term is a beginning of a dream for the world but the nightmare is over.

Post script: If Covid had not struck, they say that Trump’s re-election would have been near certain. So, there you are. If there was a silver lining to Covid, this is it.

Image courtesy: nytimes.com

Death of an Emotion!

Yesterday was one of those days. That too a Saturday. I had not seen or touched the day’s newspaper till about 5.00 PM in the evening! It doesn’t happen this way. Usually, the newspaper is dissected in the early hours in the morning and by evening it is consigned to a heap meant for raddiwala. The Covid-19 pandemic has ushered in a lot of changes in our lives and lifestyles. Some temporary and some I reckon would be permanent. Our connect with the newspaper would probably fall in the latter category.

When a complete lock down was announced in March, among other things, the daily newspaper became a casualty. Media houses had to suspend printing of the newspaper and so there was no door to door distribution. For few days, there was an intense sense of withdrawal symptoms in the morning without getting to read the newspaper. And why not? After all, the daily newspaper has been a fellow traveller in our lives all these years.

When I was growing up in Trichy (Tamil Nadu), The Hindu newspaper was part of our lives. Initially for reading in detail mostly the sports column in the last page. Descriptive analysis of Rajan Bala about the previous day “Test Cricket” or Nirmal Shekhar’s take on the Tennis match the previous day were part of my daily routine. When I was over ten years, the attention started going to other pages as well to cover politics, arts, films etc. Reading of The Hindu served many purposes. Apart from helping us to keep up to date on the news and happenings of the day, it helped to polish our English language skills immensely.

When I moved to Bombay later for further studies, I had to shift from The Hindu to The Times Of India as Hindu was not available in the mornings. It was not printed in Bombay those days and the day’s edition used to come by the evening flight and was available for sale only after 3.00 PM that too in select outlets in select suburbs like Matunga. Those who have read The Hindu for long would admit that adjusting to any other newspaper was so difficult then.

Eventually that adjustment happened. So much so, reading any other newspaper then became difficult. It was the 90’s and India was witnessing the first waves of consumer boom. The manifestation of this was being witnessed in the media whether it was Television or the Newspaper.  A medium like The Times of India joined the party early, while it took a while for others and eventually almost every newspaper started emulating the Times!  I don’t want to make this piece as a commentary or comparison between different newspapers. But enough to say the newspaper would change but reading the newspaper in the morning as a habit continued to thrive all along.

This trend continued through the next two decades of the internet boom. The obituary of the newspaper has been in the works for a long time now. Particularly with the advent of the mobile phones, TABs and more importantly cheap connectivity. I don’t want to comment on other countries where the dynamics are different. But in India, even till last year, the print media readership overall grew by 4.4% over the previous year.

In spite of the possibility to read newspapers online, somehow most of us were still hooked on to reading the physical newspaper that too first thing in the morning every day. We might have caught up with the main news the previous day itself on TV and would have seen some of the headlines on social media then and there. But still, reading the newspaper was a morning fix. For many, particularly of the previous generations, newspaper in the morning with the coffee or tea had even a romantic ring to it. And for few, the daily chore of emptying their bowels would not happen without the newspaper in hand. And there are those who get depressed in the morning after a national holiday when the newspaper doesn’t make the morning appearance at the doorstep.

The pandemic though has changed everything. There was no newspaper at all till June. By then, we had survived the initial withdrawal symptoms and learnt to manage without the morning physical newspaper. After the initial few weeks, many of the media houses smartly started sending the links for their E-papers. We started reading the same though grudgingly. Then they allowed the physical printing and distribution of newspapers around July, even then there were very few takers. Considering the nature of the Corona Virus spread, newspapers were seen as a major threat. And finally around September when we all started reconciling to a co-existent life with Corona, we allowed newspapers to be distributed as before. But then somethings have changed at least for me.

At home, I don’t rush to the door in the morning to pick up the newspaper when the bell goes. The newspaper remains at the door for a long time till one of us remembers to pick it up.  Even after that, it is left in a corner untouched for some time. And after few hours during breaks, I glance through it very quickly.

Yesterday was one of those days when I didn’t look at the paper till evening! Today is a Sunday and as I type this piece, I have still not read today’s newspaper. What a climb down from a time when during weekends we used to call for an additional newspaper like The Indian Express in addition to the regular newspaper and spend more than an hour poring over from top to bottom. Post Covid, things may be limping back to normal. Newspaper business may not be dead yet. But I can vouch that the newspaper emotion is dead.  Do you agree?