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abhinz · 2 years ago

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Thiruvananthapuram

Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala, is a graceful, evergreen city that is sprawled over seven hills and is rich in culture and history. Its coasts are bathed by the warm seas of the Arabian Sea, which is situated in the state's extreme south. One of the nicest cities in the nation, this one is where time flows beautifully and the day unfolds in accordance with time-honored routines. Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple, devoted to Lord Vishnu who lies atop the serpent Anantha and after whom the city is named, is a stronghold in the centre of the metropolis. The city's original name, Trivandrum, was reinstated in 1991. The tourist will undoubtedly notice numerous traditional aspects of Kerala culture as they go throughout the city because they have been handed down through the years. The sights are numerous and frequently unique to this region of the country, such temple elephants strutting down a street, ladies and men dressed traditionally, and people eating off banana leaves. Additionally cutting-edge is Thiruvananthapuram. The Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, Technopark, and the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management are all located in the city, which holds a prominent position in India's space research programme.

KOVALAM - In the latter half of the 1920s, Halcyon Castle, the seaside resort built by the Regent Maharani Sethu Lakshmi Bayi of Travancore, was built in Kovalam. The Maharaja of Travancore, her nephew, later made the location known to the general public. The 1930s saw the emergence of Kovalam beach as a prospective tourist attraction thanks to the European visitors to the former Travancore kingdom. A little fishing town in Kerala started to develop into a popular tourist attraction when a large number of hippies travelled the Hippie Trail in the early 1970s on their way to Ceylon. Beach resorts may be found in great numbers in and around Kovalam. About 3 kilometres distant is the seaport of Vizhinjam, which is renowned for its unique fish types, ancient Hindu temples, churches, and a mosque. Kovalam is also adjacent to the Vizhinjam International Transshipment Terminal proposal. During the hippy era, Kovalam was one of the most well-known tourist destinations in India. Tourists still hold a high regard for it; the majority are from Israel and Europe. With the addition of numerous Ayurvedic clinics and resorts that offer a variety of Ayurvedic therapies to visitors, Kovalam is taking on a new relevance.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ZOO - Among the oldest zoos in India is the one in Thiruvananthapuram. The Museum and Botanical Gardens are also among the nation's oldest institutions of their sort. The Thiruvananthapuram Museum and Zoo was founded with the help of Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma (1816–1846), the Travancore monarch from 1830–1846. In his horse breeding facility, he kept a wide range of animals, including elephants. He built a menagerie within the Trivandrum stables and kept tigers, panthers, cheetahs, deer, bears, and a lioness there. But the creation of the Napier Museum and Zoo at Thiruvananthapuram was left to his brother Uthram Thirunal Marthanda Varma and the then-British Resident General Cullen.

SREE PADMANABHASWAMY TEMPLE - Thiruvananthapuram, the state capital of Kerala, India, is home to the Shree Padmanabhaswamy Temple, a Hindu temple. The translation of the name "Thiruvananthapuram" into Tamil and Malayalam is "The City of Lord Ananta." With tall walls and a gopura from the 16th century, the temple is an elaborate mix of Dravidian and Chera architectural styles. The Adikesava Perumal temple at Thiruvattar, in the Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu, is quite similar in design to the Ananthapura temple in Kumbla, in the Kasaragod region of Kerala, which some traditions claim to be the original spiritual residence of the deity. The main deity Padmanabhaswamy is housed in the yogic position known as "Anantha Shayana," which is the state of eternal sleep on the endless snake Adi Shesha. The protector god of the Travancore royal family is Padmanabhaswamy. The titular Maharaja of Travancore, Moolam Thirunal Rama Varma, is the current trustee of the temple

#thiruvananthapuram #sree padmanabhaswamy temple #thiruvanthapuramzoo #kovalam #capitalofkerala

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nctmoonstarsun · 7 years ago

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11 question tag

I was tagged by @g-te for the 11 questions game where you answer 11 questions then write 11 new questions! (Thank youu! ^^)

how are you? / Meh lmao

sad ballads or happy upbeat songs? / Depends on my mood really, but right now, happy upbeat songs

fave anime movie? I haven’t watched any haha

dogs or cats? / Cats!!

do you keep stuffed animals in your room? / no ^^

someone you miss? / Honestly everyone is there for me, so no one

describe your phone case? / A black, professional-looking case

favorite lore/myths? / Ooo i dont know..

earbuds or headphones? / earbuds

can I steal your heart? / um you can try..?

favorite thing about your ult bias? / How he is always really cheerful and positive, such a little fluffball honestly ^^

cloud’s q’s

Do you know a ksong by heart? (bc I don’t :x I can hum a trillion tho) / A few (I do karaoke a lot sooo)

When it comes to friendships, are you low or high maintenance? (As in your friends gotta talk everyday with you or you’ll feel like the friendship is dying OR if you can spend days without talking to them yet you still remain close) I can spend days without talking to them yet I still remain close

Do you have a secret that you will take to the grave? (Ofc I’m not asking you to reveal it) / No XD

Recommend me 5 songs (not necessarily kpop songs) / DRAMARAMA (MonstaX), Limitless (NCT), See You Again (Wiz Khalifa ft. Charlie Puth), Red Flavor, Russian Roulette (Red Velvet)

What do you prefer?: first, second or third gen kpop songs? / I listen more often to third generation kpop songs

What’s the cheeeeeeeeeesiest thing you’ve done? (one time a former friend of mine was telling me about a problem she had and at the end of our convo I kissed her in the forehead bYE) / Um… honestly I have the worst memory so I can’t actually remember

If you were asked to participate in a variety show, which one of the following would you pick and why? (Pick two!): problematic men, master key, hello counselor, weekly idol, one fine day, law of the jungle / WEEKLY IDOL, Hello Counselor (honestly I love these shows so much)

Your top 10 kpop songs of 2017? / DNA, Mic Drop, Cherry Bomb, Red Flavor, Likey, Really Really, Dramarama, Russian Roulette, Limitless, Rookie

Would you rather live in a huge mansion or a compact studio house? Compact studio house

Tell me a fun childhood story (I’ll start! One time an aunt gave me money to buy ‘papas’ (potatoes) at the grocery store so bc I’m obedient af I went and asked the counter lady how many of em could I buy with the money I had so she went ‘uhh, not many tbh’ so i ended up getting like two and when I returned to my aunt’s house she laughed her ass off and said: I meant ‘papas fritas’ (potato chips) Not those! - and uh yeah this is funnier in Spanish but it proves that I’m such an innocent angel I mean wow) / Well not much happened in my childhood but I remember how before I moved to England (I used to live in India), me and my friends (we were 7 year olds) would practice talking in English because ‘I needed to get used to it’, and now I talk to them about that and we just laugh at it lmao trust me it’s funnier than it sounds if you’ve experienced it.

If you were offered to start a band, would you accept? / HELL YES (even tho I have no talent I still love singing does that count?)

kiki’s q’s

Link your favourite playlist here if you can and if you can’t write out the first 10 songs on it! (Not a question but shh) / I don’t really have a playlist I literally just go onto the group and then pick the song on spotify ahaha

Is your current ult bias your first ult bias? If not who was your first? / No… My first ult bias was Jungkook ^^

Who is your ult bias? / Jung Jaehyunnnnn <3

Who is more likely to hog the aux cord, you or your ult? / Hmmm I feel like neither of us would hog it, more like just take turns or something I guess

Who is more likely to forget an important date, you or your ult? / Ummm… guilty as charged (basically me)

Who is more likely to ask the other to pick them up after work, you or your ult? / Me, just cos I love the idea of him picking me up after work lmao

Who is more likely to write the other a hand written note expressing themselves rather than just saying it, you or your ult? / That will be me… I’m not that good at expressing my feelings in general, but if I really want to, I’ll sit down and write a long heartfelt note

Who is more likely to cry when a dog dies in a movie, you or your ult? / I don’t cry at movies, but I feel like he’ll be upset and then I’d start crying because he’s upset

Who is more likely to almost burn the house down while cooking, you or your ult? / I can cook, but so can he..? So I don’t know

Who is more likely to start a pillow fight, you or your ult? / Probably me, I have a habit of throwing pillows at people if they tease me

Who is more likely to ask the other to come over to cuddle with them so that they can fall asleep better, you or your ult? / Me probably haha

Mir’s q’s :D

If you could travel anywhere, but were completely by yourself, where would you go? / I honestly don’t know because I hate going places on my own

What inspires you? / Stories of successful people who got where they are now by hard work and dedication (esp. those with the same aspirations as me)

How many pets would you have in your ideal future? Any specific names or types in mind? / Just one small puppy

What are you opinions on fedoras / Um, not really the biggest fan of them

how many spoons can you balance on your face at once (picture or video proof preferred (i’m trying to get someone to do it pls anyone)) / They’re all the way downstairs and I’m in bed right now I can’t be asked to move

What is your favorite type of tree? / Willow tree

If you could convince one person to like kpop who would you convert? / My dad, cos if he’s convinced, my mum will automatically be converted too XD

What are three things you are normally associated with and/or what are three things you want to be associated with? / Well, I guess making people happy, but that’s pretty much it

If you were in a kpop group what position would you hold (ie. leader, main vocal, moodmaker, etc) feel free to tag your mutuals and who they would be! / I think I’d be vocal, leader and the 4D member haha ^^ @g-te would be rapper/moodmaker and @thatbubblecat would be the lead dancer and visual

If you could have any wild animal as a tame pet what would it be?? (i’m ocelot loyal all the way) / Probably a lion

What is your opinion on mint chocolate chip ice cream? (for maj) / LOVE IT!!

Gitte’s q’s

What is your (clothing) style? like is it casual, street style, sporty, classy… It really depends on my mood, like sometimes I wear casual, and sometimes classy, sometimes girly.

Would you reather be very smart/intelligent but ugly, or dumb but beautiful? Very smart but ugly

Which languages do you speak/understand? English, Hindi, Malayalam, French

What is your biggest dream? To be a doctor

Do you fold or do you crumple up your toilet paper? (I am curious okay?) Fold XD

Your favourite season? Winter

Do you have a favourite number? If yes, which and why? It’s always been 17, I think it’s my lucky number

Do you prefer, day or night? Night

Do you like bright or dark colours? Both, I usually tend to stick to two colours though; bright red or black

Do you have any habits? Accidently hitting people when laughing (even though I apologise immediately after), covering my mouth accidently with my hand when awkward and mumbling at the same time if I’m talking.

What’s your ideal type? Oo well he's caring and protective, a pure baby but can be manly. Can sense if I'm upset and quickly tries to make me feel better. Empathetic, down to earth and modest, generally cheerful person who is positive and optimistic. A bit extroverted. In general, similar to me, I guess.

Ae Sook’s qs

1. What qualities do you like of your ultimate bias? (Say who he/she is too)

2. What sort of animal would you be if you were to choose one? (your spirit animal)

3. What is your favourite ice cream flavour?

4. Do you like kpop? If so, how long has it been since you’ve been into kpop?

5. What star sign are you?

6. List all the groups/bands you listen to regularly (any genre of music).

7. What is your favourite choreography (kpop)?

8. How would you describe yourself? (positives and negatives, but put mainly positives)

9. Sushi; yes or no?

10. Who is that one idol you can relate to most? (Who do you think you’re most like? - and no, I don’t mean your ultimate bias)

I tag:

@thatbubblecat @taeyongtown @deeimana @g-te (i know you’ve done this, but I want to see what you would put for my question lmao x)

#kpop #tag

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mredlich21 · 8 years ago

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I’ve been tossing around the idea of doing a post that tries to put Bahubali 2‘s all India success into context. And then both T.J Stevens and Cerusee indicated that they would be interested, so the poor Samarth-Mukherjee family has to wait another week for me to finish them, because I want to try a brief history of “regional” films.

Non-Usual Disclaimer: Hindi film is my area, I know all kinds of things about Hindi film, but I only have the tiniest knowledge of non-Hindi films from India. So I will do my best, but forgive me if I miss things.

Indian film did start in Bombay, everyone agrees on that. The actual film is disagreed on, it was either Raja Harischandra in 1913 or Shree Pundalik in 1912. But either way it was in Bombay where it started. And then film spread very very rapidly through out the rest of India, with multiple film centres popping up for each language.

And it wasn’t just a matter of different languages. Because a language isn’t just a language in India. You might as well say that the only difference between Spain and Sweden is language.

Bengali films tended to be literary, complex social issues and characters and so on. Marathi films had a kind of hearty earthy comedy. And the Telugu films were epic historicals. And so on and so forth.

In the silent era, there was some travel between industries, since it was a simple matter of swapping out intertitles to open up films between language groups. But there wasn’t as much travel as you would think, audiences liked what they liked, and it wasn’t just about the language the intertitles were in. It was about the stories being told, familiar stories from childhood, and the architecture, and the character names, and everything else.

(remember my epic Devdas posts? remake after remake after remake? Because each audience wanted a version in their own language. I didn’t even talk about the Telugu version!)

Sure, there were cross-overs. Bengali to Hindi was a common one in that era, Devdas and Parineeta. But the cross-overs tended to increase as there was actual mass migrations of ethnicities. So, after the Bengal famine, more and more Bengali filmmakers moved to Bombay, along with massive groups of refugees, and the Hindi industry shifted to accommodate them. And there was an influx of Urdu poetry and the creation of the “Muslim Social” genre after Partition, when masses of artists from the Lahore industry, along with more refugees, suddenly found themselves part of the Hindi audience.

(Chaudvin Ka Chand, in Hindi and Urdu, set in Lucknow, and produced and filmed in Bombay)

But, as we all know, the south was something different entirely. Bengali and Hindi, Urdu and Hindi, dozens of other smaller regional languages and societies had elements in common. The audience members shifted back and forth across borders, and so did artists. And a Hindi audience could vaguely follow a Bengali film, the architecture wasn’t that different, neither were the clothes or the religious festivals or any of the rest of it. It wasn’t the same, I definitely don’t want to say it was the same. But it was similar.

But the south, that was something different. Just as Bombay attracted artists from all over the north of India, so did Chennai/Madras start attracting artists from all over the south. And while the Tamil audience was not the same as the Telugu audience, they were similar. Much more similar than Tamil and Bengali, say.

I’m not talking about actual film styles here. Or not only about film styles. Bengali social dramas with strong female characters share a lot of Venn diagram elements with Tamil social dramas with strong female characters. But it’s the little things, the kind of pictures on the walls, the colors used in the costumes, the way of doing hair, it’s all just different if it’s not from your home region.

(Two strong 1970s heroines, but one is Tamil and one is Bengali and they look totally different. In little bitty ways)

And you combine that with the genre differences that are there, and it is all just too different to cross-over. If you are raised on Telugu historical epics and action films, with heroes wearing lungis and heroines who never wear Salwars, with mustaches on the men and heavy eye-liner on the women, and Bharat Natyam dancing instead of Kathak, than any other kind of film from anywhere else in India just isn’t going to feel “right”.

And so by the 1950s, Indian film had settled down into a nice segmented audience with a nice segmented map. Tamil films and Telugu films played side by side, each taking one half of the southern regions with the occasional blurry areas that they shared. Bengali films stayed fairly firm and steady in the East. And there were the smaller areas, each with their own little personalities, Bhojpuri and Malayalam and all the others. Tiny hidden gems.

And thinly smeared all over north India, like butter that can’t quite cover the toast, was Hindi. Every other genre has this strong identity, specific to particular ethnicities, but Hindi kind of doesn’t. There’s quite a bit of Punjabi in there, and some Marathi, and a touch of Bengali, a little Gujurati, and this that and the other thing. But it is a rare Hindi film that makes you go “yes! That is exactly and specifically what it was like to grow up in my hometown!”

(Chashme Baddoor was one of those rare Hindi films that actually felt like it was in a real place, and then of course it got remade as a ridiculous sex farce)

Hindi played down south too, just not as much. But it did play at least. If you wanted to, you could see a big release anywhere in India. Unlike the southern films, which would rarely make it out of the southern half of the country, and even more rarely overseas.

And this was life from, say, 1950 to 1980. Everyone had their regional language films as a main course, with Hindi as a side dish. And in most areas in the south, you had your local films as a dessert on top of the Tamil and/or Telugu main course. Languages like Malayalam had their own industry, but they weren’t bringing out films every single week, if you wanted to go to the movies each Friday, you would primarily be watching Tamil/Telugu and the release in your own language would be a special occasion. And then there would be Hindi, if there was nothing else, or if there was something really remarkable, you might as well watch it.

And then in the 1980s, things started to shift. Not artistically at first, but technically. VHS came in. Suddenly if you had grown up in Madras and were now living in Delhi for work, you could just rent a movie from home instead of suffering in some Hindi theater. And if you were living in New York, you no longer had to suffer through some Hollywood film, you could rent a Hindi film from back home too.

(Aw, I’m all sentimental for VHS now!)

Hindi film went from being spread very very thinly all over India to being spread even more thinly all over the world. The flavor kind of got sucked out of it, you know? It became truly “Indian film” with no real specific identity. And I say that as someone who loves Hindi film! But if I watch it, I might pick up a few words of Hindi and a basic idea of the Ramayana and see Marine Drive in Bombay about a million times. But I will never really get an Idea of what it is like to live in a village in India, or on the streets of a city, or the political history of the country, or the artistic traditions, or any of the rest of it.

There was a lot of other stuff going on in the 80s too of course. Amitabh had kind of taken over the industry, with his action films, and the women and children were being driven out of theaters, there was a general artistic decline. And, this is my personal theory, but I think this artistic decline was self-perpetuating because great art attracts great artists. If I am a filmmaker in, say, Kerala. And I am watching amazing films coming out of Bombay in the 1970s, the heyday of Salim-Javed and Yash Chopra and all those other brilliant people. Then I will think “boy, I want to go to Bombay and work with these people!”. But if I am that same filmmaker in Kerala in the late 80s and I am watching the current Hindi films, one repetitive chauvinistic action film after another, I am going to want to stay where I am and work with all the other interesting people who are staying in Kerala as well.

(I really need to watch Aalkkoottathil Thaniye again. Also, this kind of deep character drama is what Kerala was making while Hindi films were cranking out Amitabh movie after Amitabh movie)

And so, in the 1980s, for the first time those regional films started to chip away at the traditionally solid Hindi audience. Tamil and Telugu hits started making waves in Bombay. And being remade in Bombay. Boney Kapoor, that’s how he made his money to start with, going down to Chennai and funding some southern stuff, and then taking those same scripts and remaking them in Bombay for the Bombay audience. Taking some southern stars along as well. Sridevi, of course. Also Mithun Chakraborty. Kamal Haasan and K. Balachander, on the slightly more artistic side, also made their way north in this era. And the Hindi industry started running scared.

Look at the old Agneepath, for example. It was supposed to be a major Amitabh hit. But not only was Mithunda brought in as a second hero, his character was aggressively southern, a desperate attempt to grasp at the audience that Hindi films could feel slipping away.

But there was nothing to worry about, really. It was just a natural shift of the industry. Hindi films were in an artistic funk, and were confused by the new reality that forced them to fight a bit harder to keep their audience.

And then it all got sorted out in the 1990s. Hindi films firmed up their domination globally, and started to find their new home in India in the slightly higher priced theaters, making going to the theater an experience again, something that no VHS tape could compete with. And regional films firmed up their audience as well. And found their own global presence, I’m sure we have all heard stories of how big Rajnikanth is in Japan. And obviously Tamil films rule Malaysia with no competition able to break through, and I am sure there are various other older pockets around the world I don’t know about.

This is also the era when the 3 biggest artistic breakthroughs from the south came up to Bombay. Which kind of proved that the boundaries were firm, I mean, we don’t talk about how Yash Chopra was a Punjabi filmmaker in the same way that we talk about Mani Ratnam as a Tamil director. Because he went back home, you know? He made Roja, it was dubbed in Hindi and released all over the country and became a massive hit. The first film (so far as I know) to do that. And then Ratnam went back home to Madras and kept working there. Heck, his production company is called “Madras Talkies”! And Ram Gopal Verma did the same thing, came up north to make Rangeela, massive hit, and Satya, massive hit, and then kept shuttling back and forth between Hindi and Telugu films, never really landing on one more than the other. And of course AR Rahman has made his commitments very clear, 3 Tamil films to every one Hindi or English. Mostly, we know the boundaries are firm because these are called “crossover artists” and their films are “crossover films”. Which means there must have been a border for them to cross over.

(If you want to know more about Ratnam and Rahman, you can check out my post on them)

And this brings us to the 2000s! When everything changed again, some more. Firstly, there was that global audience. It had just started to spread in the 80s/early 90s. But by 2000, it was firmly in place. Hindi films played in mainstream theaters all over the world. Non-Hindi films were slowly following their lead. They both started the same way, small community groups renting out church basements and playing reels they’d shipped over through some funky little distributor. And then slowly getting big enough to rent a theater in a multiplex and sell tickets, and get the reel from a real grown-up distributor that had started investing in Indian film. And finally getting so big that regular American theaters and distributors were dealing directly with Indian producers. Only, Hindi films started out like that in the early 90s, and non-Hindi films started out like that about 5-10 years later. They have been running to catch up ever since and just in the past few years, they finally have. (if you want to know more about the global audience, you can check out my thesis. And if you want to know more about Hindi film history in general, check out my book)

Let me back up for a second to that 50s-80s era when every language group had its own set audience and Hindi film kind of filled in the gaps. One huge thing to remember about this era is that there were no “all India hits” of the way we have them now. Because there were no all India releases. It was a simple matter of the number of prints made up. Back then, dozens of prints were a big deal. Now we are talking about thousands upon thousands of prints. Bahubali 2 supposedly took up 80% of all screens in India. I don’t believe that for a second, by the way, but just the fact that the producers feel comfortable making that kind of a lie tells us how big the releases are now.

So when I say “Hindi film filled in the gaps”, what that meant was that some Hindi print that had started out in Bombay and months later slowly made it’s way to Madras would be used to fill in an empty screen in a theater that was mostly playing first run Tamil stuff. Hindi film didn’t release all at once everywhere it the country and unite the entire audience with one story. No, it was more that some poor tired print would make it’s way very very slowly over the course of several years from Bombay to Madras to Calcutta to Hyderbad to Delhi, with a little jaunt over to New Jersey, and then maybe Egypt or Jamaica, and finally take its poor sad self over around a tour of the hinterlands of India, with whole reels missing and the sound cutting out and half the audience having already seen it somewhere else but still ready to watch it again. This was an “all India hit”. A movie that could play and replay for decades anywhere in the country. Not a film that released simultaneously in every theater everywhere. If you are talking about a film like that, arguably the non-Hindi films were more likely to do total coverage of an area. Just because they weren’t spread so thin. You could take those same 30 prints and manage to fill every major theater in the region, and every person in the region could watch the same thing opening day. Or at least opening month. Unlike Hindi, where those 30 prints would be split between Bombay and Delhi and Calcutta and Chandigarh and a handful of other cities. And only one or two theaters in those cities.

Now, coming back to the late 90s/early 2000s. Hindi film all of a sudden had soooooooooooo much money (blah blah, liberalization and industrialization and some other stuff you can read about in my nepotism post). And it started shifting from the idea of an “all India hit” being a film that could play and replay all over the country as it slowly traveled, to the idea of a hit that released all over India simultaneously and did equally well everywhere. And then, shortly after, a film that released all over the world and did equally well everywhere.

(Hum Aapke Hain Koun, first film to really crack the NRI market. By giving them a generalized happy family version of India)

And it worked, for a while. Because Hindi film had a lot of experience in appealing to everybody. Like vanilla ice cream. It’s not necessarily anyone’s favorite, but no one really hates it, you know?

But now Hindi film is beginning to hit another one of those draggy periods of artistic funk. And it’s lost track of it’s audience again. India as a whole is getting terribly divided. It’s the multiplex revolution, theaters that used to be a place where everyone watched together, maybe some in upper and some in lower stalls, but at least all in the same place, are now getting completely segregated. And Hindi film seems only able to appeal to the multiplex audience. It’s easier that way. Once you have gone to an English medium school, and then an international college, and now work for a multi-national corporation, all the rough edges are sort of scraped off and everyone is the same whether you grew up in Bombay or Hyderabad or New York. And you can all enjoy some movie with an NRI hero living in London, and a heroine who is a fashion designer, and dialogue that is half English and half very high class Hindi.

But no one else can enjoy those movies. It’s not just that the lower classes in India can’t relate to the characters, the second generation in America can’t either. Or the negative generation in America. “Negative” meaning the uncles and aunties and mothers and fathers who are brought over on Visas. It’s just the middle generation that gets some enjoyment out of the films. They’ve gone too far, gotten too neutral until they are less vanilla ice cream and more, I don’t know, skim milk. You still don’t hate it, but you don’t exactly enjoy it.

And thus, the rise of the non-Hindi films! Because they still have some flavor to them. And suddenly instead of Hindi films filling in the gaps in other regions, the other regions are filling in the gaps in the traditionally Hindi territories. Which, now, means London and New York and Sydney along with Bombay and Delhi.

One thing to remember, Bahubali excepted, is that the non-Hindi films still aren’t really breaking out of their regions. It’s just that the borders of their regions have expanded. Punjabi immigrants ended up in Canada and Australia, their films play really well there. Southern immigrants landed in America, Telugu and Tamil films do well here. Malayalam films do well in Dubai. But Punjabi doesn’t play in America, Telugu doesn’t play in Canada, and so on. The Global hit is as much an illusion as the All India hit.

(You see how this is a Punjabi territory for film?)

My interpretation of the current trends, again Bahubali excepted, is that things are bubbling back down to a healthy level. The future of Hindi films isn’t in Sultan and Bajrangi Bhaijaan, but in Badrinath Ki Dulhania and Dum Laga Ke Haisha. Hindi films can use their slightly higher degree of gloss and budget and so on to make movies that most people can enjoy. But they can keep their aim smaller, lower budgets and fewer screens, not trying to please everybody and ending up pleasing nobody. Go back to being the films that play very very well in some places, and can be more or less enjoyed everywhere, in between people watching their “real” movies. Whether they are watching their “real” movies in Toronto or Chicago or London or Kochi.

Hindi Film 101 One-Off: Bahubali 2 and the Future and the Past of All India Hits I've been tossing around the idea of doing a post that tries to put Bahubali 2…

#Bahubali 2 #Hindi Film 101 #Hindi Industry #Regional films #Tamil Industry #Telugu Industry

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saudiarabialit-blog · 7 years ago

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Ten Interesting Fiction Novels

1. The Arabian Nights (New Deluxe Edition) translated by Husain Haddawy

The stories of The Arabian Nights (and stories within stories, and stories within stories within stories) are famously told by the Princess Shahrazad, under the threat of death should the king lose interest in her tale. Collected over the centuries from India, Persia, and Arabia, and ranging from adventure fantasies, vivacious erotica, and animal fables, to pointed Sufi tales, these stories provided the daily entertainment of the medieval Islamic world at the height of its glory. No one knows exactly when a given story originated, and many circulated orally for centuries before being written down; but in the process of telling and retelling, they were modified to reflect the general life and customs of the Arab society that adapted them―a distinctive synthesis that marks the cultural and artistic history of Islam.

This translation is of the complete text of the Mahdi edition, the definitive Arabic edition of a fourteenth-century Syrian manuscript, which is the oldest surviving version of the tales and considered to be the most authentic. (Amazon)

2. Barsa by Khadija Mumtaz

Barsa is a 2007 Malayalam novel written by Khadija Mumtaz. The story deals with the haunting and agonising questions of Sabida, a devout and educated Muslim lady, a doctor, who spent six years in a hospital in Saudi Arabia. It won critical acclaim for its forceful but humorous presentation of the restrictions under which Muslim women are forced to live and was hailed a milestone in Malayalam literature. It won many awards including the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award (2010), Cherukad Award (2010) and K. V. Surendranath Literary Award (2008). A Kannada translation of Barsa was released by the Karavali Lekhakiyara Vachakiyara Sangha in February 2012. (Wikipedia)

3. Cities of Salt by Abdul Rahman Munif

Cities of Salt is a novel by Abdul Rahman Munif. It was first published in Beirut in 1984 and was immediately recognized as a major work of Arab literature. It was translated into English by Peter Theroux. The novel, and the quintet of which it is the first volume, describes the far-reaching effects of the discovery of huge reserves of oil under a once-idyllic oasis somewhere on the Arabian peninsula.

“Oil is our one and only chance to build a future," Munif once told Theroux, "and the regimes are ruining it.” In the novel and its sequels, great oil-rich cities are soon built, described as cities of salt. "Cities of salt," said Munif when asked by Tariq Ali to explain the book's title, "means cities that offer no sustainable existence. When the waters come in, the first waves will dissolve the salt and reduce these great glass cities to dust. In antiquity, as you know, many cities simply disappeared. It is possible to foresee the downfall of cities that are inhuman. With no means of livelihood they won't survive." (Wikipedia)

4. Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel

Eight Months on Ghazzah Street (1988) is the third novel by English author Hilary Mantel, who won the Man Booker Prize in 2009. It concerns the Englishwoman Frances Shore, who moves to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to live with her husband, an engineer.

Based on Mantel's own experiences in Saudi Arabia, the novel explores different peoples' struggles with the contrast in cultures, including those of people of different Islamic cultures, and the misunderstandings between the Saudis and Westerners, as well as between women and men. Mantel felt the book anticipated later developments in the culture clash between Islam and the West: “I felt a bit frustrated because as events developed, I had a sort of I-told-you-so feeling.” (Wikipedia)

5. Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea

The novel describes the relationship between men and women in Saudi Arabia. Girls of Riyadh tells the story of four college-age high class friends in Saudi Arabia, girls looking for love but stymied by a system that allows them only limited freedoms and has very specific expectations and demands. There's little contact between men and women—especially single teens and adults—but modern technology has changed that a bit (leading to young men trying everything to get women to take down their cellphone numbers). The Internet is also a new medium that can't contain women and their thoughts like the old system could, and the anonymous narrator of the novel takes advantage of that: she presents her stories in the form of e-mails that she sends out weekly to any Saudi address she can find. Sex is described in this novel, and how men ignore women if they give themselves up before marriage. (Wikipedia)

6. Goat Days by Benyamin

The book is divided into four parts (Prison, Desert, Escape and Refuge).

Najeeb Muhammad, the protagonist of the novel, a young man from somewhere near Haripad, Kerala state, is newly married and dreams of a better work in any of the Persian Gulf states. However, at the King Khalid International Airport, he gets trapped and is taken away by a rich Arab animal farm supervisor to his farm. He is being used as a "slave" labourer and shepherd and is assigned to look after goats, sheep and camels for almost three and half years in the remote deserts of Saudi Arabia. He is forced to do backbreaking work, is kept half-hungry and is denied water to wash and suffers unimaginably. The farm's brutal supervisor keeps Najeeb in control with a gun and binoculars and frequently beats him with a belt.

In a country where he does not know the language, places or people, he is far away from any human interaction. Najeeb steadily starts to identify himself with the goats. He considers himself as one of them. His dreams, desires, avenges and hopes starts to become one with them. He talks to them, eats with them, sleeps with them and virtually lives the life of a goat. Still he keeps a ray of hope which will bring freedom and end to his sufferings some day.

Finally one night with the help of Ibrahim Khadiri, a Somalian worker in the neighbouring farm, Najeeb Muhammed and his friend Hakeem elopes from the horrible life to freedom. But, the trio fumbles across the desert for days, and young Hakeem dies of thirst and fatigue. Finally, Ibrahim Khadiri and Najeeb manage to find their way to Al-Bathaa, Riyadh, where Najeeb gets himself arrested by the Regular Police in order to get deported to India. Najeeb spends several months in the Sumesi Prison before being put on a plane to India by the Saudi Arabian authorities. (Wikipedia)

7. The Jewel of Medina by Sherry Jones

The Jewel of Medina is a historical novel by Sherry Jones. It was scheduled for publication by Random House in 2008, but subsequently cancelled; it was subsequently announced that it would be published by Beaufort Books in the United States and by Gibson Square in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. Eventually it was published in the U.S. by Beaufort Books. The novel tells a fictionalized version of the life of Aisha, one of the wives of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and the person who reportedly accompanied him as he received most of his revelations. The novel tells Aisha's story from the age of six, when she was betrothed to Muhammad, to his death. (Wikipedia)

8. The Scorpion's Gate by Richard A. Clarke

A coup in Saudi Arabia topples the sheiks and installs an Islamic government in its place. The weaknesses of the new government, combined with the oil riches of the country, attract attention from all over the world as larger, oil-hungry countries attempt to realign the map of the Middle East. (Wikipedia)

9. East of the Mediterranean by Abdul Rahman Munif

The novel deals with powerful themes of freedom. Its protagonist is Rajab Ismail, who is subject to eleven years of extreme torture and is eventually made blind during the horrific ordeal. The novel marked the beginning of Munif's exploration of the Arabic wilderness in his novels with Munif's venture into the desert. (Wikipedia)

10. The Shadow of Government by Mundhir al-Qabbani

The Shadow of Government is the #1 bestseller Arabic novel of 2007,written by Saudi novel writer Mundhir al-Qabbani. The book was praised by many critics for its groundbreaking style in Arabic literature which was dubbed as the true first Arabic intellectual thriller.

The author, Mundhir al-Qabbani has been nicknamed by readers as "the Dan Brown" of the Arab world. (WIkipedia)

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