Vineeth Sreenivasan, You Traitor!!!!
Dear Vineeth,
Before the fanboys start sending me death threats or hate mails, please read on till the end.
Thanks to being a product of the malayali NRI kid-sent to boarding school scheme, I got to spend a lot of quality time with my grandfather during the vacations. The long hours spent sitting next to him and letting him go into flashback mode, made me realize that it wasn't just his male pattern baldness that I would inherit. I wasn't that bad in narrating stories in animated ways. It was like my appachan just handed me the key to open up my mind to the infinite stories that the wonderful dream factory in our head could produce.
Fast forward to Chennai in 2000, and I huddled up with a bunch of friends in a room at Gemini hostel to watch what I consider a milestone in story writing, The Truman Show. The titles rolled in and a few minutes later, the chirpy and extremely likable Truman waves out to his fake neighbors and tell them, "Good morning, and in case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!". That was my moment of reckoning that I did want to write stories for films. But, I was no white skinned American with western sensibilities to cater to the big world of Hollywood. I will remain a true blood Indian till I kick the bucket, and my mind worked like an Indian. Cut to the chase, I scribbled down a lot of ideas but how exactly did a movie script look like...I had no clue!! I surrendered my soul to the Indian Engineer's assembly line and took up a job at a reputed "IT" firm but never let my story telling ambitions off the hook. A few years on, I was forced into Satyam for the FDFS of a movie titled Chennai 600028 by a friend. "Why was I here???", was what I kept asking myself. A bunch of amateurs were the face of this movie, and Gangei Amaren's son was the captain of this ship. The next few hours was pure kick ass!! Venkat Prabhu, you beauty.... You just turned my world around. I found my calling. I wanted to be the Malayali Venkat Prabhu. The man with stories laced with common man humour that hit you at the most unexpected situations. Who among us can forget the "Yaar sir andha figure" from Saroja.
Flash forward to about 3 days before today and I was sitting in a little theater in New Jersey with about 70 odd people waiting with bated breath to watch this little movie that was doing phenomenal business in Kerala, Thattathin Marayathu. About 140 minutes later I walked out of the screen with my head hung low.....in shame. Vineeth Sreenivasan, you son of a genius, you just crushed all my screenwriting aspirations!! Oh you traitor, I'd so love to give you a hug as well as strangle you to death at the same time. The malayali Venkat Prabhu has indeed arrived, but sadly it wasn't exactly like how I planned it out to be. I haven't had such genuine laughs from a Malayali movie in quite some time. Touche, my boy.
In case, you ever see me lined up at the Unemployment Exchange in Kerala, you would know why and who's responsible as well. Vineeth Sreenivasan, you traitor. You have my respect!!
With regards, love and a load of luck,
A former Venkat Prabhu impostor
Dude ... we never saw that coming ... aspirational director.
ReplyDeleteCompletely disconnected, yet reminds me of the last years BAFTA, where the best screenplay went to the the film "The Artist". The guy laments everyone was surprised that a mute movie had a screenplay award. :)
Saw Thattathin Marayathu ... sure its gonna strike a chord with the college croud. Some good music. Very romantic .. now thats a college movie for you. I thought the girl was so-so in her acting, her job was just to walk around looking like an angel.
the guy was the corner stone ... although i thought the expression range was very narrow. All the screens ended up in the 'oh i am in love' look.
Wish you all the luck with your aspirations ... did you know that the actor is an ex infosys guy?
Maybe IT is only the penultimate destination.
also, all the very best for a new life ahead. Sorry but i will not be attending the wedding (working in Hk nowadays). Thanks for the invite nevertheless.
Got to know of this post and ur site thru Vineeth Sreenivasan's FB updates..I must say..a real dramatic way to put up any matter..after reading this post, read thru all ur posts and loved the way u have written things..Keep writing..Expecting more from Malayali Venkat Prabhu II !
ReplyDeletehey venkat prabhu,
ReplyDeleteloved your writing.. got to know abpout this post from vineeth sreenivasan subscriptions.. gud writing! keep writing! n do the next film before vineeth does the next.., never make a chance to call him a traitor again!!!!
Loved your writing bro... N yes,im sharing this one :)
ReplyDeleteBro,
ReplyDeleteThat was totally unexpected. When I first read this on fb, it kind of blew me. Now the point is, you have written this article smartly. You mentioned you would love to hug him as well as strangle him to death. That gave me a good laugh. Pretty good for a writer, and pretty aspirational. Bring it on. Go ahead and bring out that 'Venkat Prabhu' in you. All the best bro. :)
It's my pleasure guys.
ReplyDeleteArun - Long time man! The movie was quite an experience
Vidya - All this feedback will definitely coax me to write.
Ashwathi - :) Dont know about a film, but I will keep writing.
Shaan - You have no idea how big a fan I'm of yours. I keep telling Vineeth and Aju about how I'd have you do the entire score if I end up making a film. Thanks
Sandeep - The pleasure is all mine :)
This is so amazingly narrated, I would say a very well presented review of all I have watched and read so for.. You sure have inherited the male pattern baldness along with the awesome story-telling ways :) .
ReplyDeletenice writing yaaarrrrr , keep writing u have amazing skills
ReplyDeleteFollowed vineeth's post 2 reach here. good writing bro.
ReplyDeleteGood 2 c that there are other guys too who think like me. Haha! well, apart from watching movies even I would love someday to be a PART of a crew ! But I havent figured out that yet. But yes someday. Do count me in if you dare to.
Dare to live ur dream.
Dare to count me in.
Tc bro
Lov Manu
Very interesting blog. A lot of blogs I see these days don't really provide anything that attract others, but I'm most definitely interested in this one. Just thought that I would post and let you know.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing. I hope it will be helpful for too many people that are searching for this topic. Keep posting and keep this forum a great place to learn things.
ReplyDelete