A Survey Experience

Its the election fever.. thought I should write down my experience as a Field Investigator, for the Centre for Electoral Studies, Thiruvananthap'rm, assigned to a rustic village in Kozhikode Parliamentary constituency. I enjoyed the designation as part of a pre-poll cum post-poll survey during the General Elections 2009 in some way or the other. The post field investigator seems so hefty to me, guess what? I was a Field Investigator (though for juz 3 days), before reverting back to my age-old designation that of a student. But I tell you its is nothing special than tolerating the feel-sorry looks of old women and the doubtful looks of old men in Muslim dominated areas of Calicut, who are chosen randomly for the All Kerala opinion poll survey. Why are these men so cynical when they come to encounter simple questions in politics? Had I been a Muslim girl, I surely would have been recieved well in these homes notwithstanding the honest answers I may get. Women sympathise me by my appearance as naive and childlike (truth be told lol) and also so short of money, perhaps thats why they see me wandering for getting the right persons out in the sun. Some ask me whether it is some innovative game to vote for their candidate even before elections and invest them in a small ballot box (the casting of vote in a secret ballot used for the opinion polls).
End of the first day of a bumpy and weary survey ; I wasted half the day in searching the samples in wrong places, accidentally meeting a lovely old couple who served me lunch with great love for a stranger like me.
Day 2. There's no option left for me than to hire a bicycle to go by, if I had to locate the voters in the list provided to me. Now, thats something a novel approach as far as girls are in question. I had to somehow cajole a cycle mendor to hire me a cycle in the promise that I would return his gadget by evening. and he did provide me one! God bless....

And now to some election news...
The ACV pre- poll was telecast on TV on 12 and 13 April in which it predicts 13 seats for UDF and 7 seats for LDF with 4 pc voters remaining undecided.
Let us all wait and see how this election turns out to be, whether it be favour to UDF as the poll predicts or does it take a U-turn? 48 hours remain...

Movie Review: 2 Harihar Nagar

The comedy-drama In Harihar Nagar, chronicling the story of four intimate friends Mahadevan (Mukesh), Govindan Kutty (Siddique), Appukuttan (Jagadish), and Thomas Kutty (Ashokan) is a gem beyond price, a movie class apart for Malayalis.
I went by the review where someone said the multi-starrer, 2 Harihar Nagar, written and directed by Lal, is so simply rocking, and that all you need is to grab some popcorn and watch it in cinemas because it is ‘so genuine’. Sure I grabbed some popcorn, but was enjoying it more and busy defending the pack from my friend, than the movie before me.
The release date of the movie, April 1, is simply not co-incidental; it was to fool its thronging audience with trite comedy (my classroom is even funnier), familiar Sardar jokes, except that here the sardar is Appukuutan who is a dentist, and upsetting performance by some of its lead actors.
The film opens with childhood days of the quartet when they vow to stand by together in all times. Scenes shift to their present times, where they are now irked by their responsible and dutiful lives. The four are in search to spice up their lives beyond the lens of their families and end up meeting each other after many years in the backdrop of the wedding of Thommasutty.
The plot picks up when beautiful Lakshmi Rai comes to stay in Harihar Nagar under false name, Maya. She allures the foursome, and eventually traps them in her spin saying her husband, Vineeth, a dancer by profession, was ravished by John Honai, their common enemy. The four tries to rescue her and their kidnapped friend, Thomasutty but eventually comes to know that it was a well-planned plot by both. The trio then meets Vineeth, who claims to know Maya, but under some other name and warns them to steer clear from her. Took by surprise that the dancer is no way her spouse, they realize her intention was to dig up the cash suitcase they were associated with from the prequel. The twist is Thomas Kutty too is a party to this perpetration. He questions his conscience while he passes through the old church where the friends once bonded each other. He changes his mind and abandons the suitcase in the doorstep of Govindan Kutty’s home. The final scene is when the trio present the same suitcase for his marriage the next day.

In a manner of speaking, the first-half of the film is simply anti-woman. The playboy manners of the quartet send wrong signals to the society and reinforce such thoughts already present in some nasty men.
As an actor in profession with years experience, Ashokan just piss off with his poor acting skills, Jagadish seems overly stupid and clown-like with his loud, straight and unfunny jokes (CHALI, in colloquial) but not all times though. On the whole, Appu Kuttan, the dentist, we love you more than any character in the plot. Mukesh and Siddique and Lakshmi Rai does justice to their roles.
The choreography for Vineeth in his dancing role was a real laugh. The time has exceeded for him to call it quits as he is not even able to perform a bold leap, age constraints, you know.
The good-old Harihar Nagar seems to have gone upmarket, never mind as it cannot remain the same 18 years before.
The music is good remix, full stop. An easy job for the music director, Alex Paul as there’s nothing new in it.
The post-production team was busy flaunting the technological advances in film-making. It would have been better to KISS, I mean, Keep It Simple, Stupid.
As a viewer, I think I have all rights to rate a movie, and I go by 2 stars on 5 for 2 Harihar Nagar.
Whatsoever, the audience has heartily welcomed again the funny four, as a good excuse to revisit the golden years of comedy films in Malayalam.

The EU Film Festival 2009

Kozhikode, one of the six Indian cities that have been chosen for this year’s European Film Festival, hosted the 14th European Union Film Festival held from March 29 to April 2. Films from 15 countries were been screened for the festival.
Most of the films I viewed in the package seek to shore up friendly-ties between EU and Asian and African countries or to prove the stand of these countries vis-a- vis some political issue, better still to acquaint their audience with people, culture, language of other countries.
I truly, madly, deeply loved the Polish movie Hania (2007) directed by Janusz Kaminski and Arabian Nights (2007) from Luxembourg directed by Paul Kieffer.

The plot of Hania revolves around the life the perfect young and gorgeous couple, who has good jobs, good home and so forth, but Ola, the cute wife of Wojtka, yearns for a child. Wojtka who is a workaholic disappoints her saying that they are not still prepared for it. She turns to her childhood friend, Jozef, who runs a pre school to help adopt a child. She brings home a quite, unconventional, contemplative wonder kid, Janek who plays a big role to bring the couples closer. The setting of the film is a livid, lovely winter and the Christmas with all its liveliness. Janek teaches Wojtka the essence of a man’s short life and how can it be made worth living with people you love. But I don’t why the script kills the boy with some ailment after he takes an effort to fly in the air. And he does it! The final bird’s eye view shot is Janek’s from heaven, watching the little family take a stroll in a lush garden with their biological baby.

Another must-watch in the fest is Arabian Nights, a Luxembourg movie. “What happens when a westerner falls in love with the enchanting East?”
When ticket inspector Georges Turmes first meets Yamina Ben Khouri on the train between Luxembourg City and Bettembourg, she is just another passenger. When he sees her again, she is trying to sleep between some old petrol barrels and an abandoned garage near the railway station. When they run into each other a third time, she is trying to hide in the train toilet, severely beaten up, blood all over face. Georges offers her help, and she accepts, reluctantly – and both their lives will change forever. Then Yamina disappears, leaving Georges completely disoriented. He leaves a final note to his wife that he was going to leave her. Trying to find Yamina, Georges meets her old acquaintances. The more of them he speaks to, the less he seems to know about her; everybody has a different version of her life. Finally, he is convinced he has to go to Algiers to rescue her.

From being penniless to hire a room at night, the ghastly accident he witnesses in which Yamina was traveling, and the consequent spending a night sleeping in cold mud floor, the second half of the movie chronicles the real hardships he has to undergo to locate the whereabouts of his damsel. He walks through the red-hot desert sands and reaches at an oasis populated area. He sees Yamina and her family under a tent. Totally worn-out by the cruel Saharan desert, Georges, wearily walks towards her and both immerse in a deep hug.
“Dream or reality? A simple and beautiful drama from Luxembourg.”