Kandasamy in Geneva - A Prequel

Kandasamy English review (from a city-bred pseud's perspective)
Kandasamy Tamil review (from Pandi's perspective) – Coming up tomorrow…

So, VeSa calls me on Friday and says, 'We shall go to the open air market in France on Sunday.'

Immediately, I go like, 'But isn't that the santhai of our glorious land?'


He then goes like, 'Yeah! But you only wanted to go somewhere! And I can suggest only this place. It is good. You might even be able to buy some cheap shoes, now that your pair has given way...'


Talk about aggression and you can't leave out VeSa from that discussion :-)

Then on Saturday, after I have promptly lost the hard-earned-money-bought-sun-glasses, VeSa calls once again. 'The open air market is closed this Sunday. So we can't go there'.


No, he doesn't have to apologise for that. Then five minutes later, he calls again.


'By the way, Kandasamy is being screened tomorrow at a cinema near your hotel. It is at 10.30. I will pick you up at 9.30.'


No, I don't have a choice to say no there. Thou shall be informed and thou shall conformeth (?). Refreshing attitude. But then if you implement Tnn, then you will have acquired that approach, I think.

Anyway, on Sunday, wake up at 8.45. Light breakfast - water and fruits. (yeah, right!) Get ready by 9.30. Hot sun. 10 minutes walk to the cinema. Pay 20 swissies. Pandi was there and so were a couple of other friends - one of them an ardent Sai devotee & the other a marathi-from-madurai--who-can-talk-Tamil. Motley crowd.

After some suspenseful moments amongst the total of ten people at the cinema entrance, one person suddenly opens the car boot and brings out these two huge 3-feet diameter fill rolls and voila! I see a film roll after ages - Nostalgia, Vellore. Vellore to Geneva - really long journey!!

But whatever happened to the movie on the hard-disk or DVD or blue-ray, which many of the guys averred is the defacto standard at Sathyam in Chennai?

We troop into the smelly cinema - you get used to that, anyway. And slowly the crowd builds up.

At around 10.00 the music starts - yes, you guessed it. 'Daddy Mummy.." from Villu and the playlist is quite contemporary.

Around 70 people trickle in. The movie starts at 10.45.

You expect the standard high standard on the audio and video fronts in most of the cinemas. This theatre does not disappoint much. An interval happens after what seems like an entire movie length and then there is only one Coke-vending machine. One is hungry and one surfs the neighbourhood for some snack joint. Sorry! Nothing doing. This is Europe and nothing works on Sunday. Funny and thank the Lord, that you are able to watch a movie!

Rush back to the cinema. Miss the first few minutes. Oh, shit! Loss of 20 centimes!

After another movie length duration, troop out of the movie into the hotter, brighter and blinding sun!! (Remember the lost sunglasses! Aaargh!)

Pandi is all agog. VeSa and Marathi are cribbing about a few things. Sai devotee is smiling non-comittally (What can he do? Mother Tongue is Telugu; Brought up in Rourkela and Mumbai. He was hoping for sub-titles - but then you do not need sub-titles for many movies - definitely not for Kandasamy!!)

Trudge along to India Plaza and have lunch - trying to dissect the movie as if we are intellectuals. Futile.

Call home and inform the news. Promptly get cut. Capital J.

Have to watch the movie again in Singapore.

Hmmm.. What to do, we are like that only! Mind It!!!

PS: The pictures just happened. Lord Murugan is supposed to be around wherever there are hills and mountains... So He is on top of the Geneva mountains as well :-)