Endhiran - WYSIWYG

WYSIWYG in most of the Rajni’s films. The same goes for Shankar’s films too. Both of them are adept in dishing out ‘formula’ films. If a dash of comedy and style was the usual seasoning in the former’s flavour, ‘hero versus corruption in the society’ is the latter’s. When these two master chefs decided to conjure up something different three years ago and named it after the ultimate thespian of tamil cinema, it turned out to be the most definitive talking point between any two individuals at that time. ‘Simultaneous worldwide release’ was a phrase never known to any Tamil film distributor, until ‘Sivaji- The Boss’ happened. From then on, every release of ‘anybody who claims that he is a somebody’ in Tamil cinema was touted as a Mega Release. If ‘Sivaji …’ has ignited that trend, ‘Endhiran’, yet another Rajni–Shankar combo has certainly exploded all over the world, in terms of marketing and release.


But what about the signature flavour of both? It may have been 30 months since author Sujatha had passed away, but his trademark spices still waft throughout the film. Shankar’s fondness for ‘what-if’ films continues in Endhiran too. If ‘Indhian’ showed glimpses of his taste to this particular genre, ‘Mudhalvan’ turned out to be his best until ‘Endhiran’ happened. Shankar continues the same here too, with ‘what if a robot (Rajni) develops human emotions?’


Scientist Vaseegaran (Rajni) develops an ‘All-in-all-azhagu-raja’ robot that does everything, except emoting. (Shankar, I must say, has struck gold here, by choosing an actor who’s not well known for expression of any emotion on the screen! It is difficult to imagine a dumbed down version of Kamal or SRK! ). As in any sci-fi film, there’s always a mad scientist and that role is reprised by Danny Dengzongpa. When cornered by the latter, Vaseegaran ‘imparts’ human emotions to his new creation. From then on, ‘the show begins’. Oh, I forgot! There’s also a love interest for Vaseegaran, in the form of Aishwarya Rai.


While Shankar cuts to the chase right from scene one, he loses his breath midway and towards the end falls into the Helen/Alam formula – ‘glam-doll heroine dancing and luring the villain in his den’. Thankfully, he quickly recovers and resorts to what he knows best, CGA. And the film makes or breaks with this acronym. Courtesy a meiotic reproduction, the screen is engulfed with monster robots out to destroy everything, ensuring mayhem in town, Shankar ensures that Sun Productions spends at least one-third of the budget for the last 15 minutes. And as it happens in most of Shankar’s film, the protagonist, in spite of being the ‘raison d’être’ for tearing the city to shreds, is grandly released by a jury.


Rajni, as Vaseegaran, looks old and jaded. One of the biggest let downs in ‘Endhiran’ is the lack of typical Rajni-isms – without any punch dialogues or a grand Rajni-entry song, something seems amiss. Perhaps, it is deliberate on Shankar’s to rip apart the old formula and to create a new Rajni aura. It is only the robot Rajni that saves the grace for Rajni fans. Especially for diehard Rajni fans. He ignites a spark into an otherwise dumb robot. His gaits and his menacing looks add a different panache to the character. Apart from wearing some skimpy dresses and prancing around UNESCO heritage sites, the story ensures that Ms Rai has nothing much to do. Santhanam and Karunas seem a complete misfit and this could perhaps be the first Rajni or Shankar’s film that is devoid of comedy. With Rajni – the scientist and the robot – taking up almost three-fourths of the dialogue, there isn’t much for others to speak and most of the other known names just breeze past. Rahman’s music is more like a Dravid innings – taking time to build up, but when it does, it is savoured for long.


A catchy line for a popular retail store in Chennai belts out, ‘Brammandamai … Brammandamai …’. I am no great fan of the quality of the dish served there. The same goes for ‘Endhiran’ too. However, it is worth a dekko if not for anything but to announce proudly amongst your friends that you too have swum with the current.

PS: This review is by Rajaram, who has a blog. Either he is too lazy or too busy to keep it updated!


My comments: For a change, I am happy not to be swimming with the current!

BRINDAVAN – THE REAL SUPERFAST

(Sequel to the Cardex Cardiacs)

After all the trouble taken to book the tickets and all the trouble taken to wait in anticipation for more than two long months to embark on the first ever trip on the Brindavan, the day did not dawn – we were up even as it was dark. After finishing the morning chores, filling up water containers (not sure if they were glass bottles or stainless steel koojas, as they call them in Tamil), checking out on the luggage and the tickets, we were out at a rather bright time in Madras – around 0645 hrs. Boarding a taxi, we reached Madras Central (MAS) in about 15 minutes from Perambur. We headed to PF 1, where the most prestigious trains were parked for departure those days, and quickly settled into our seats in what I think was coach ‘C’. Coach identifiers those days were only alphabets; I think one or two of the later letters like S and T were for the upper class coaches, A through R was for the Second Class coaches of those days.

The seats were wooden, three by three separated by an aisle. The capacity was even then 108 seats to the coach, with a door after the first 48. The wooden seats were punctured with holes forming a pattern of a large SR on the backrests – were these patterns made on the seats also, I cannot recollect. Large coir carpets welcomed us into each coach – yes, they were placed at every vestibule, to overcome the uneven nature of the footplate of one coach overlapping the other!

We had two window seats facing each other and one middle seat – dad was not travelling with us. He would come down towards the last week of May, which was to be our last week of travel, make a quick dash to Bijapur (BJP) to his sasuraal, accompany us back to Hubli (UBL) and then to MAS. The scheduled departure was 0800; the Coromandel was scheduled to depart 0810 from PF 2, as I hazily remember – it could also have been the other way.

As we bade good-bye to our dad and the numerous other senders-off (most of them for seeing the unique green and yellow liveried train, rather than sending off their relatives), the engine started pulling out the train. I must confess I do not remember whether it was a steam or a diesel; chances were we could have been hauled by a steam loco. We quickly picked up speed as we passed Basin Bridge (BBQ) and braked for moving into the main line at the Veysarpadi (VPY) cabin. As we merged with the mainline, the train picked up speed and passed the Perambur (PER) station in about a couple of minutes.

As we passed PER, a huge rustling noise caught our attention. It was the sound of the Pantry Car shutters opening. As soon as the door opened, calls of ‘kaapi, kaapi’, ‘chaai, chaaya’ and ‘idly vada’ rent the air. People started loosening their purse strings and had their first gulp of tea / coffee. Served in disposable plastic (rather thick for a disposable) cup, the coffee was very good – at least I remember it to be very good. It was a fight between my sister and me to throw out the third cup through the window – we had thrown out our own cups; mother’s cup was to be done. We arrived at a compromise – my sister would get the first turn to throw out mom’s cup; I would get my turn when we had our second cup later in the day.

I remember crossing Arakkonam (AJJ) in about an hour and, rushing past at about 30 kmph, there were many surprised souls in the train, some even wondering aloud about the non-stop run at AJJ. We blasted past stations one by one – the tracks were so well maintained that I do not recollect today any caution orders that slowed us down. We reached Katpadi (KPD) at what I remember as around 0950, and started in about a couple of minutes. We picked up speed as we joined the main line and again started blasting past stations like Ambur and Vaniyambadi at mps.  It was around 1100 when we screeched to a halt at Jolarpettai (JTJ). The brief two minute halt was stretched to five minutes – not many bothered, though. This was a chance to take a small walk to stretch the idle limbs out on the platform. Adjacent to my coach, steel trays, covered with newspapers were being loaded – these contained fresh, crispy, golden brown medu vadas, dal vadas, packets of tamarind rice, sambar rice, lemon rice and curd rice (I am not using the word ‘bath’ or ‘bhath’ for the rice, chastened by the need for a clarification for the uninitiated on whether people actually take a bath in tamarind and the like J). 

We must have left around 1106 or 1107, and quickly took the huge right curve, veering away from the line towards Salem. We crossed the JTJ link cabin in good speed, and blasted past Somanayakanpatti. We then braked hard to slow down to about 30 (or could even have been 45) as we crossed the home signal at Patchur. Here, I cannot but help sympathise at the status of Brindavan these days – even a thought of a stoppage at Patchur would be considered blasphemy – the controller, had it been a dictatorial regime, would be summarily hanged without explanation! Now, even a hilarious talk of a halt at Patchur for the Brindavan does not elicit as much as a snigger – it sparks off a thread of about twenty mails on the mailing list (yours truly included).

We exited the ghats and blasted past Kuppam, Bangarpet and many more ‘wayside’ stations and slowed down a bit only when we reached Baiyappanahalli; we reached the third stop of the day, Bangalore Cantonment (BNC) at 1240. A quick two minutes later, we began snaking our way on the curves past the trackside bungalows – don’t bother to see them these days, they are all multi-storeyed apartments – and pulled into a curvy Platform 1 at Bangalore City at about 1250. On time? No way, we were before time by at least 10 minutes; if our departure, which I speculated to have been at 0800 was right. If our departure had been 0810, then we were in at least 20 minutes before time. To think that we start threads if the Shatabdi these days arrives five minutes before time!

We alighted to be surprised at the fact that not one soul on PF1 made a beeline for the coaches – each one heeded the announcement that the coaches were being cleaned and passengers had to wait for clearance to enter. Amazing! We then made out way past the crowd, deposited our entire locked luggage in the cloak room and exited the station building. We took a right turn, walked past Hotel Pavana (?) and entered the Krishna Vilas for a sumptuous meal, before we would go sightseeing. 

We would continue our journey by the SBC-Miraj (MRJ) Mail/Passenger – that has to wait for some more time. Meanwhile, a request for confirmation of the timings in the report above – those having TTs of early 1970s, please correct me. Thanks for the reading.

Cardex Cardiacs!

I am not sure about the year – could have been anytime between 1972 and 1974. We were planning for the summer vacation – my parents, my younger sister and I. We were all pretty desperate to travel on what was the real express then – and probably the fastest on SR – the Brindavan Express. We had heard stories from friends about how fast the train was, about how they had a ‘kitchen’ inside the train, about how they prepared food in that ‘kitchen’ and served to the passengers, about how the cups could be thrown away after drinking the coffee/tea – all with an awe that is unique to kids of our age. I would have been anything between six and eight years old; my sister two years younger – and quite an impressionable age to be awestruck by these things. 

We had been pestering our dad to book us by the Brindavan – we were always headed to Bangalore (SBC) and thence to Hubli (UBL), thence to Bijapur (BJP) for the first leg. The return was also the same route. He had been stonewalling – who would ‘pay’ for the tickets, he asked. As an employee of ICF, he was eligible for free passes and PTOs, the latter providing a concession of one-third of the fare (one-sixth for dependent children eligible for half tickets). All the stories heard about the Brindavan came from class and school friends whose parents were not shackled by the free travel – the money saved on the fare had to be saved by us – those were the days!

During one of the evenings, my dad came and broke the news – Brindavan was ‘dereserved’ for free passes and PTOs. That meant we could now reserve on the Brindavan and travel for free. So we set about fixing dates and working out connections onward to UBL. After my parents figured out the dates, we then set about figuring out a date to go out and book tickets at the Advance Reservation Counters of the Madras Central booking office – it is only now that we have the PRS and the e- and i-tickets!
One rather warm Saturday morning in early February, at about 0330 hrs, my father woke me up and asked me to get ready for the ticket booking mela. He had returned home at 0230 completing his Friday night shift and he was ready, just for our sake. We walked down the three-fourths of a kilometer to Perambur and took some mail that was in at that time and reached the counter at about 0415.

At that rather unearthly hour, there were already a few bricks – yes bricks – representing people who would join later in the queue. We would have been about the twentieth or so in the odd-date counter for Brindavan.

About the counters

Each train had a separate counter for II class, either sitting or sleeping, two or three tier. Some popular trains like the Brindavan, the NIlgiri, the Bangalore Mail, etc. had two counters each – one for odd dates of travel and another for even dates. For the upper class, read FC and Air-conditioned two tier, about six or seven trains were bunched to a counter. If you had to travel second class and the date you wanted to leave was full, you either had the choice to make for travelling two days early or two days late; otherwise, you had to start all over standing at the tail end of the queue for the odd/even date! Unless, of course, you planned for the 31st of a month

About the process

The cardex method was followed in booking tickets. A rudimentary explanation of the cardex method is due here. You could visualize a large sheet or polished cardboard, bleached and printed, about the size twice that of a double foolscap paper, or the A2, as we know it today. On this was printed rows and columns, each sheet holding one day of travel. Each column could hold data for three/four coaches depending upon the capacity. The train number, class and date were filled in before the first berth/seat was booked. This was done using a variant of today’s marker pen – double bold and probably in 32-point sized font, handwritten. A thicker cardboard was used to secure fifteen/sixteen/thirty such sheets representing one month of booking. The name of the passenger, age, sex, ticket number (card or BPT) was written against each berth/seat. The quotas were well marked; so were lower, middle and upper berths. I did not notice any cardex having window seats indicated. There was normally no way one could be booked against another quota – that cell was darkened before the process started for that day!

What happened to us

In an inspired move, or well-thought one, my dad asked me to stand in the odd-date queue and he stood in the even-date queue. I was surprised, at about 0600 hours, to see a large number of people enter the hall and take their places – it seemed everybody were headed to our counter, and everybody were ahead of us. My fears were allayed when I saw I was around twentieth from the window; my dad was tenth. We had a flexible option – so we could book on a date whoever reached the counter first.

The counter opened at 0700, and people began to book tickets. Some had travel dates that were not on the cardex of the clerk, he had to go to the large shelf and fetch the correct cardex for the month and thumb the edges for the date. For some, the cardex had not been opened at all – he had to fetch a balank cardex, fill out all the train details in marker, then bind it with a tag to a cardboard. As the tickets were removed from the slot, he had to write the name of the passenger and the age at the back of ticket, besides coach ‘A’ or whatever. Then he had to repeat the same process on the cardex and then collect cash and hand over the tickets. All this took a long time – almost four to five minutes per transaction.

My dad’s turn came at about 0830, sadly there were no tickets for the 16th of April. Our next choice was 18th, so that we could finish our booking. There was no cardex opened for this date as yet! The clerk went out and took his sweet time to bring the cardex – but he had the master details filled up as he brought it! Quicky filling out the details on the cardex and on the free pass, he proceeded to bring out a book. He inserted the carbon papers at the right sheets and filled out our request for onward reservation by the Bangalore-Miraj Mail/Pass leaving Bangalore at 1730 thereabouts. This would be forwarded to SBC via telegraph. All such requests would be processed in batches at SBC by a separate person; a reply would be sent to MAS confirming reservation, or informing a WL number or no room was available. Invariably, the reply was not forthcoming – we had to check out in SBC upon arrival and get the details 

Luckily, we got two window seats and two middle seats facing each other. As we found out later, our onward reservations were also confirmed; so were the return reservations. The journey was a memorable one – our first on the Brindavan, but that report will have to wait for some time.

My father recalls these things during a small talk this last week as he is recuperating from an small surgery to remove a cataract from his left eye – he has been barred from reading the newspaper and watching the TV – I thought it would be of interest to reminisce about this. 

This is also available here.