Kabali: The Route back to Thailava's long-forgotten Reel Succes?

Somehow, when it comes to Rajnikanth and his movies, nothing ever feels ostentatious. Maybe it’s the charm of the actor or maybe it’s the inexhaustible stream of fans. Or maybe it’s because of both, with the former inspiring the latter, in a never-ending cycle of continuity.

One will never be able to tell. Rather, there’s no one who wants to extrapolate the unique dynamics of what the 65-year old actor brings to his audiences, not just in India, but also across the world in far-flung regions. For, it’s not something that needs to be delved into, but accepted like an axiom – it is what it is and so shall it be.

It’s why repeated patterns never get old with the actor, regardless of how old he might be getting in age. Starting right with the fact that his movies tend to be mostly about him tending to the plotline, with other actors being reduced to puppets sharing screen space with him. His leading ladies too have not much to do except look decorative – however, with the least possible sexist innuendoes and remarks – and pop up during elaborate song sequences.

To give an example, a movie like Chandramukhi, whose theme had been borrowed from the Malayalam movie Manichitrathazhu, had been majorly about Rajnikanth’s character, Saravanan. A character, whose introduction was a mini-whirlpool created by him twisting the dust around his foot followed by a song-and-dance routine.

Had it been any other actor doing the same things that Rajni did in Chandramukhi, it would have been a riotous comedy of errors, but with him helming the film as an actor, it was as if nothing could go wrong with it.

And that’s the sort of feeling that’s prevailing about his upcoming film Kabali unlike his last two releases that seemed like a case of ‘bitten-more-than-could-be-chewed.’  The anticipatory air that has been building up steadily, along with an infusion of disappointment, when its release was postponed, looks like it will be justified once the movie hits the theatres – as early as 3 AM in a suburban theatre in Mumbai.

There will be scenes with him defying all laws of nature as there will be some predictable clichés that are invariably present in his movies, but this time around it does look like the superstar Thalaiva is back where he belongs. Amidst the wave of success that usually follows his characteristic panache in reels.

Archangel's Heart Cover Release: Anticipation builds-up as Fierce Elena looks on!

Nalini Singh continues to lead us further in her intriguing paranormal. There are quite a few releases scheduled for this year, one of which, within the Psy-Changeling series – Allegiance of Honor (Honour for the international and non-American audience) – released a couple of weeks ago, on 14^th June.

While a Psy-Changeling novella, Wild Embrace is expected to be out almost after a month, in August, the Guild Hunter series too will have a release – Archangel’s Heart – in November.

Ms. Singh had had revealed the cover of Archangel’s Heart and suffice to say, it was glorious and beautiful as expected. Hope you guys enjoy it too!

Archangel’s Heart’s Blurb
One of the most vicious archangels in the world has disappeared. No one knows if Lijuan is dead or has chosen to sleep the long sleep of an immortal. But with her lands falling into chaos under a rising tide of vampiric bloodlust, a mysterious and ancient order of angels known as the Luminata calls the entire Cadre together to discuss the fate of her territory.

Accompanying her archangelic lover Raphael to the Luminata compound, guild hunter-turned-angel Elena senses that all is not as it seems. Secrets echo from within the stone walls of the compound, and the deeper Elena goes, the uglier the darkness. But neither Raphael nor Elena is ready for the brutal truths hidden within—truths that will change everything Elena thinks she knows about who she is…

Nothing will ever be the same again.
 

Of Tattoos, Decisiveness and Regrets

I got my first tattoo almost seven years ago, in 2010. That time it felt like a huge deal though the tattoo itself was minuscule. I spent months discussing the design and the location and though I knew what I wanted – a coat of arms in the form of two tennis racquets with the names of my two favourite tennis players’ names above the acronym GOAT – I still wanted it to be perfect.

And while budget constraints eventually forced me to just get only racquet-heads – instead of images of the entire racquets – above the inscription of GOAT, and despite that I had to explain to most people who saw my tattoo that the GOAT wasn’t describing the animal; I never regretted getting it done. 

My original tattoo, with Rafa written inside the left racquet-head and the RF insignia within the one on the right

But trying to explain the same rationale over and over again did get futile prompting me to get a newer tattoo to cover it up. This time, coming up with a good enough design took even more time. Try as I did – along with inputs with my creatively endowed cousin – I eventually gave up thinking of a good enough design and decided to approach a tattoo artist instead to try and figure it out for me.

Interestingly, it didn’t take long for the artist to figure out an appropriate image to cover my existing tattoo though he did admit that the term GOAT was one that had confused him too. The proceedings didn’t take long after that and when I saw my new tattoo, I was excited that it had not only adequately camouflaged my older one, but it firmly struck to the premise I wanted in my tattoo – tennis, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. 

 

My new tattoo that has the stanza from the Rudyard Kipling poem If

Recently, I read an article on BBC about how a lady in England had been getting her tattoos removed through immensely painful laser treatments. Reading it, I was once again struck by the need for firmness when it came to getting one’s body etched in indelible ink.

The where, why and how of getting a tattoo is a rationale that differs from person to person. Likewise, it’s also a decision that differs from individual to individual. And like every decision taken at any point in life, there exists a probability that one could change one’s mind about this too. This is why it becomes all the more important to patiently evaluate the decision of wanting to get a tattoo.

Moreover, there’s also that that unlike the lady in the article, not many would be able to afford getting laser treatments to remove the inking. Especially in India, where to get inked is expensive and to try and remove it is exorbitant.

Wanting to get a tattoo may be because of wanting to live up to a fad. But once it’s done, it’s also about being able to live with it. Somewhere then, I too have tried to modify the status quo of what had been, rather than letting it continue. But having said so, I do have to say that if I had to redo things, I would go and do them exactly the same way as before.