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Kuselan: Superstar makes you cry
Kuselan is not your regular Superstar formula film.
It is just a film with Superstar in it. It’s about the human side of Superstar.
By not a regular Superstar film, I mean there are no powerful adversaries, no challenges, no revenge, no riches to rags to riches character graph. And a Rajnikant film without a villain is something we haven’t seen in God knows how long! Two decades?
Kuselan is faithful to the Malayalam original Katha Parayumpol with an extended Vadivel comedy sequence and a few Superstar-movie elements inserted into the film under the pretext of movie within a movie, though we are really never sure what is the movie he’s shooting for in the film – Sometimes it’s Annamalai 2, Sometimes Chandramukhi 2 and sometimes, Kuselan.
Real meets reel as Superstar Rajnikant plays Superstar Ashok Kumar and frankly, you can’t tell the difference nor does director P.Vasu want you to know the difference. Montage of Rajnikant films and references to Superstar’s life are thrown in liberally into the Tamil remake.
Since the pace of the original is already slow, these elements further slacken the pace.
Performance-wise, Superstar is a little subdued because he has to play himself. As a fan, I understand the expectation out of a regular Thalaivar film. Though it is closest to the real him, with Kuselan, we realise that his screen persona is larger than the real him and it’s like watching a tiger put inside a cage at the circus. We so want him to break free and send bad guys flying into outer space.
All we see is Superstar flashing a smile all through the film, except the climax when he really makes you reach out for the hankies, along with the phenomenally talented Pasupathy who underplays the role to match Srinivasan’s subtlety in the original. At least most of the time. If only the background score had a similar sensibility.
To make up for the lack of masala, Vasu unleashes glamour in the form of Nayanthara cavorting in the rain and has Vadivelu leer at her like a voyeur. That should keep the front benchers happy.
But by genre, it is a sentimental film targeted at women and family audiences. City folk who are fans only because it is cool to be Superstar fans may not like the film because it has absolutely no superhero elements. Also the climax gets a little too sentimental that the “macho men” in the hall decided that making fun of the sentiment as a defense mechanism was the best way to stop the tears from rolling. Just like how people watching a genuine horror film begin to make noises just to take their minds of it and trivialise it so that they don’t have to be scared.
But, like Superstar himself says in the film: Watching a film being shot is not as exciting as watching the film itself. And Kuselan is a soppy drama with the shooting of a Superstar film being a mere backdrop. There are a few good lines written specially for Superstar in there though about 70 per cent of the film is so faithful to the Malayalam version that it’s not just the jokes that are borrowed, even the exact timing, dates, names and even shots have been recreated religiously.
Qualitatively, though Mammooty and Srinivasan churn out a much classier performance, P.Vasu’s focus here is to have Superstar and Pasupathy play it up for the masses. Some of the interesting touches from the original have been sacrificed to maintain political correctness. Like that bit in the original when the youngest of the kids asks his father why he’s the dark child in the family and the father replies cheekily that the mother had the first two kids with a foreigner. Can you imagine a mass-based audience buy that kind of irreverence in this part of the world?
For people closely following his political ambitions, let me just say that Superstar distances himself from the political punch-lines from his past films saying that he was only an actor saying his lines.
And he hastens to add, that he does not have to answer to anybody about whether or not he will do something in the future. There’s also a tinge of Superstar’s personal philosophy when he reveals why he takes a trip to Himalayas every year.
Kuselan though slow is extremely watchable if you forget the hype.
Go for it only if you are a sucker for sentiment. Let the taps flow. Bring out the hankies.
Suderman Rating: 3/5
Money Hai Toh Honey Hai: No Funny, No Money
Genre: Comedy
Director: Ganesh Acharya
Cast: Govinda, Manoj Bajpayee, Aftab Shivdasani, Celina Jaitley, Hansika Motwani, Upen Patel, Prem Chopra
Storyline: A dying man names six random strangers in his will to take over his textile business
Bottomline: Say Govinda, Govinda to your money. Drop it in the Tirupati temple instead.
You can tell a comedy that tries hard from the first frame.
Right from the moment the lead women, dressed as Chinese, sing us the title in a sing-song accent for the opening credits, you know what to expect. Before you can say pop-corn, there’s good old Govinda letting his eyebrows do all the dancing.
Ganesh Acharya’s filmmaking is like David Dhawan overdosing on hip-hop and bling, which would’ve been interesting by itself but the dance choreographer-turned-director also has ambitions of being Rajkumar Hirani or Aziz Mirza, as he attempts to put together a good-hearted ensemble to manufacture feel good cinema.
Like David Dhawan’s cinema, the wackiness quotient is on a high.
Sample the score that sometimes gives out cock sounds to suggest that the character (Prem Chopra) has gone cuckoo and sometimes, cues in the rap version of ‘Tujhe Mirchi Lagi Toh Main Kya Karoon’ as Govinda, dressed like a gangster rapper, sporting a G-tattoo, drives in for a character introduction scene.
And, like Dhawan’s cinema, the crass quotient hits new lows.
Like, when Upen Patel replies to: “I like your guts” with a charming “I like your cuts and curves.” And, when moments later, the cleavage-obsessed camera loses itself in the curves of a model-kamwaali bai. There’s also a chance for Govinda to size up single-ready-to-mingle Sophie Chowdhury a few scenes later and wonder “Itna Achcha Maal Ab Tak Godown Main Pada Hai (Such goods lay waste in the warehouse until now)… Are you hanging out with gays?” There’s scope for a slutty Archana Puran Singh to show us what a cougar she could be and to establish Upen Patel as – as Manoj Bajpayee wisely observes: “Dheeley langot ka lagta hai” – one with loose morals. Poor Patel plays a struggling underwear model with author-backed lines such as “Kachcha pehna paddtha hai, utarna paddhta hai.”
Ganesh Acharya, like Dhawan, too has a natural flair for spoof when he pokes fun at an Ektaa Kapoor-like character and the soap opera routine as we are introduced to a popular TV bahu called Meera (a chirpy Hansika Motwani) who wants to break out of the ‘devi’ image and become a diva. It captures the angst of a TV star, though light-heartedly, as she whines about not being considered for Filmfare awards, item songs or Koffee with Karan. And, God bless irony, a bikini-savvy Celina talks of coming up with affordable designer-wear for the common man blessed with a not-so-heavenly body.
Despite a few such ideas with potential, the film is hardly cohesive.
Now you see Aftab (not too bad this time) and he’s gone for a while. You see Kim Sharma and she’s gone for the rest of the movie. Till the interval point, the disjointed parallel narratives (over half a dozen of them) keep inter-cutting each other with no rhyme or reason, making way for each actor to dance to some hip-hop loops with Govinda before their individual stories are sketchily assembled together at interval block for a common conflict – though there is none.
They all need money but not all of them are in dire need really. Yet you see, a street-smart Govinda stare tragically into nothingness just to keep the mood of the montage in tact. That’s the kind of drama that ruins it for Acharya.
Yes, David Dhawan makes a movie out of random dramatic scenes too but he knows where to cut it short and get on with the story. Here, Acharya has noble intentions but finds himself in troubled waters not knowing what’s important and what’s not. He wants to tell us a story about six different individuals with differing attitudes towards money who are put together in a situation, thanks to a random screenwriting ploy, so that they can earn their money with what they are best at. But he does not understand editing, brevity, pace or the need for consistency of mood.
He needs to forget dance basics – it’s not just a few great steps that makes it a popular number. It’s the cut to the beat.
Mission Istaanbul: Sitting Thru is Mission Impossibul (UNRATED)
Genre: Action
Director: Apoorva Lakhia
Cast: Zayed Khan, Vivek Oberoi, Shriya Saran
Storyline: A journalist finds his life in danger as he discovers the truth behind a controversial TV network with a little help from a mysterious commando.
Bottomline: Destined to be the butt of all jokes
Mission Istaanbul is not a joke. It’s a series. Here are a few random thoughts that ran past my mind as I sat there in the dark trying to take Mission Instanbul seriously:
What’s the best season to release the film in the US?
Thanksgiving. Because it would be the biggest Turkey.
* * *
How close are Suniel Shetty, Zayed Khan and Vivek Oberoi to Hollywood after Istaanbul?
Very. They are wholly wooden.
* * *
Why do Zayed and the villain take off their shirts half the time they see each other?
Because they wanted to rub more than shoulders?
* * *
What is Apoorva Lakhia’s idea of terrorism?
Showing us what the world would be like if Suniel Shetty and Zayed Khan played journalists.
* * *
What is Mission Istaanbul in journalistic parlance?
Bad news.
* * *
Is Shweta Bharadwaj a double or a triple agent? Whose side is she on?
She hasn’t found out yet. Has to be the audience’s side. She wants to please everybody.
* * *
Why is Abhishek Bachchan doing an item in this film?
To console Vivek Oberoi that he also does things apart from Oberoi’s ex-girlfriend.
* * *
Why did a soft drink brand this film and insist on the tagline: Darr Ke Aage Jeet Hai before the action sequence?
It was the competition’s masterstroke.
* * *
Bad guys keep spraying bullets but why don’t Vivek or Zayed ever get hit?
Come on, when have Vivek and Zayed ever even remotely been in a hit?
* * *
What is Shriya Saran doing in Istaanbul?
Trying and hoping to get killed right from the first scene. Is there any other way out of this film?
* * *
Why does Vivek Oberoi keep smiling through out the movie?
He’s the only one who got all the jokes.
* * *
What was Apoorva Lakhia thinking?
He was?
* * *
What is common to Istaanbul and rocket launchers?
It is their destiny to bomb.
* * *
Knock, Knock…
“Who’s there?”
Bull.
“Who Bull?”
Mission…
[interrupts] “Oh! I’m not opening.”
* * *
Knock, Knock…
[No answer]
Knock, Knock…
[Still no answer]
Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock…
[Snore]
Ah! Mission Istaanbul is playing. Even the gateman’s dozed off.
The Dark Knight: Don’t bat an eyelid!
Genre: Action
Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman
Storyline: Batman wants to retire but Joker wants him to play with
Bottomline: The best superhero movie ever
Heath Ledger probably didn’t care too much about death.
Maybe because he knew he was going to be immortalised as one of the best onscreen villains of all time. Maybe he also knew that the world, at some subconscious level, loved and related to Joker more than Batman.
Because, like Joker observes: “Insanity is a lot like gravity. All it needs is a little… push.” At some level, Joker as “the agent of chaos” is the alter-ego of the common man stifled by the system.
What makes Christopher Nolan and Heath Ledger’s Joker so scary is that they make you realise that this psychopath actually resides in that darkest corner of your heart. Never has a comic book character become someone so real that it could easily be YOU… if put in a situation and asked to make a difficult choice: Like the people of Gotham are asked to, towards the end.
Sacrificing the back-story of Joker’s origin was probably just what Nolan needed to make Joker that enigmatic villain who people, including Batman himself, do not fully understand.
The Dark Knight is Joker’s movie all the way (watch the cinema hall erupt with applause for every single punch line) and Batman just happens to be in it just to remind us that someone’s got to clean up the streets (Batman gets his due too and earns the applause as a matter of right, taking on an adversary as clever and dangerous as the Joker).
Christopher Nolan makes Tim Burton’s 1989 ‘Batman’ (arguably the best Batman film before Nolan took his shot) look like child’s play. Why does Burton’s version seem so amateur now? It was awesome when we watched it as kids. Heath Ledger makes Jack Nicholson’s Joker look like a circus clown. Also, Bale’s certainly a better Batman than Keaton for his ability to play Batman as well as he plays Bruce Wayne.
Here’s why ‘The Dark Knight’ may be the best superhero movie ever.
To begin with, the near-flawless ensemble cast – Apart from the phenomenally talented Heath Ledger and the charming Bale, there’s Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Maggie Gyllenhaal (replacing Katie Holmes), Aaron Eckhart (Harvey Dent) with author-backed roles.
Second, though it derives its characters from comics with two-dimensional depth and simplified differentiation of good and evil, Christopher and his brother Jonathan Nolan have fleshed out these characters to an extent that none of them are monotone. They are all complex characters with relatable issues – the superhero just wants to retire and spend time with the girl he loves, the girl herself may just move on with her life, the psychopath does not want to be the only freak in town, the honest guy is unable to deal with the price he’s had to pay to be good (a nice contrast between Harvey Dent and Gordon when people they love are in trouble) and even the loyalists do not approve of all things the superhero does.
Third, the man who was consumed by the dark side of Joker. Heath Ledger plays the role of his lifetime. If Nicholson’s Joker was all cheese, Heath’s is chalk (yeah, we’re talking about the minimalist make-up too). At no point do you see Heath, it’s always Joker. Apparently, Heath improvised quite a bit (especially the part where he starts clapping sarcastically in jail) and absolutely seems to relish the part with his drawling dialogue delivery, smacking his lips at his shot at immortality. He’s lived the role, keeping Joker larger than life yet believably relatable. This is something that could’ve easily gone so over the top, the Nicholson way.
Four, the mix between dialogue and action choreography. There’s enough in there for hardcore action buffs and also plenty for those who like their movies layered and deep. It’s not sitting pretty right on top of IMDB’s top 250 (with a 9.5 rating with over a lakh votes) for nothing.
In the coming months, it would be interesting to see how it fares with The Godfather considered to be the best movie of all time (currently at No.2 with a 9.1 rating with almost three lakh votes).
We could go on talking about it but we need a book. Go watch it, again and again and again.
Contract: Cheap thrills on an underwear-string budget
Genre: Action
Director: Ram Gopal Varma
Cast: Adhvik Mahajan, Sakshi Gulati, Amruta Khanvilkar
Storyline: A former soldier seeks revenge, infiltrates an underworld gang to establish contact with terrorists responsible for the death of his wife and daughter.
Bottomline: Only for Varma’s chaddi-buddies.
Contract begins with a line: You may ignore terrorism. But terrorism won’t ignore you. We could say the same thing about Varma. He keeps coming back to haunt us. The man is evil. Only he could’ve made an entire film as an inside joke.
His idea of the underworld has something to do with an encounter cop, streaking through streets of Mumbai, without his underwear.
And this, moments after the hideous looking chap walks out of his bath in a towel and flashes Mallika Sherawat, staring down at him from her photograph (that busty one taken during the Myth premiere). With the kind of money she charges these days, this was the best Varma could do – use her poster.
And before he knows it, the cop does a Ranbir Kapoor-Saawariya-towel-drop and runs around the streets in the buff, chased by the hero of the film. Someone shoots this on his mobile and after the thrilling chase sequence, the cop returns home to complain to Mallika, who still seems to be smiling down at him from her poster.
Contract is all about the ‘underworld,’ the ‘ghusna’ (infiltration) and the ‘maarna’ (‘Wham Bam,’ of course).
We know someone’s going to have a broken back mounting the saddle, “entering the underworld,” when the chief of police (a poker-faced Prasad Purandare) tells our ex-soldier hero mourning the death of his wife: “Ab Jo Kuch Hoga, Hamare Beech Main Hoga. Main Iske Baare Main Kissi Se Nahin Kahoonga” (Whatever happens from now, will remain between us. I will not tell anyone).
The cop wants him to go to prison because that’s where all the gangs go bang-bang at each other. As he eloquently explains: “Underworld ke andar ghusne ki training police se behtar aur kaun de sakta hai” (Who could train you more for entering the underworld more than the police itself) and immediately spells out: “It is supposed to be a joke.” Since most of the film is filled with such juvenile humour about all possible puns the word ‘Underworld’ could accommodate, you hardly get a chance to get serious about the plot. That’s a tragedy because Prashant Pandey’s screenplay comes across as a tribute to crime-dramas like ‘Drohkaal’ or ‘The Departed’ where an honest officer has to go undercover to infiltrate a gang.
Varma botches it up trying to make a masala film out of this seriously explosive material by shooting it like a low-budget student film. One gang leader lives on a boat, another lives in someplace ‘vilayat’ (which looks suspiciously like Goa) and the rest of the film is shot in extreme close-ups. Which is okay if the people featured look good.
Adhvik looks like a cross between Ajith and Simbu and tries hard to be all angst, the chubby girl (Sakshi Gulati) pouts like Namitha unconvincingly and the rest of the gangsters look like they haven’t had a bath all their lives because RGV is gunning for realism in the Satya mould… while trying to make a masala movie ridden with Hindi text book proverbs for dialogues.
Sample: Jahaan Mitthai hoti hai, Makhi aa jaati hai (Sweets attract flies), ‘Mashoor Betey Ke Sau Baap Hotey Hai (Success has many fathers), ‘Jab Sar Katnewala hai toh Dhadi bananey ka kya fayda (What’s the point of shaving your beard when you’re going to be beheaded). Or something as charming as “Har roz ek hi rang ki chaddi pehanta hoon kya” (Do I wear the same colour underwear everyday?) and that’s supposed to mean: “I don’t need to feel the same way everyday”.
After Contract, we can be sure that Ram Gopal Varma is only as good as his screenwriters.
As he admits himself, Satya happened by accident. We know Company was Jaideep Sahni’s genius. Contract looks like a hurriedly made low-budget assembly-line action film that smacks of Varma’s disregard for writing. Wasted potential.
Kismat Konnection: One Minute Review
Genre: Romance
Director: Aziz Mirza
Cast: Shahid Kapoor, Vidya Balan, Om Puri, Haider Ali
Storyline: An unlucky architect falls in love with his Lady Luck but has to decide what he wants more.
Ups: It makes you think Lindsay Lohan-starrer ‘Just My Luck’ wasn’t that bad. Kismet is on the same lines towards the beginning and then gets into ‘Two Weeks Notice’ territory with the shopping-mall versus community-centre conflict. Om Puri and… never mind, we forget. Actually, with female company you may not mind this seemingly long film that demands absolutely no attention from you.
Downs: Shahid Kapoor is back to being Shah Rukh Khan and suggests that Jab We Met may have been a fluke. Vidya Balan is all set to win the Na-Real again for her choice of wardrobe that often gives her arms to match Shahid. No doubt she’s pretty but I wouldn’t dare an arm-wrestling match with Vidya after Kismet. We know Aziz Mirza’s signature is in creating an ensemble but here, it just means more annoying characters than ever. It’s always tricky to make a film based on chance and luck but there’s only so much disbelief you can suspend. Suddenly telling us that nobody, including all architects pitching for the project, knew the disputed property had a strong foundation is not just convenient and lazy screenwriting, it is the kind of stuff that makes you want to walk out in a terribly slow film that tries hard to be sweet.
Bottomline: Miss Kismat. Mat Jao.
Suderman on Chennai Live 104.8 FM
My dear friend Creative Head/RJ Roshni Menon of Chennai Live had called me over to her radio station for her show recently.
Chennai Live 104.8 FM recently launched itself as the city’s first talk-based radio station.
After a few unsuccessful attempts in trying to embed audio, I’ve finally managed to do it. So here we go:
Part 1: On Reviewing, Blogging, That Four Letter Word and Filmmaking
Part 2: On Movies playing in Chennai, Favourite Critics and Filmmakers
Part 3: Personal Favourites – Suderman Recommends
If you have a problem listening or if you just want to save it and listen to it at leisure: Complete Radio Show
Sondarya Rajnikant: Why the daughter is The Boss! (Uncut)
What if you are Superstar’s biggest fan and you got a chance to live with Him all your life?
And then, you grow up, dream big and get a chance to direct Him in your very first movie – a ten million dollar baby with Adlabs?
And, though He’s your father, here you are telling Him what to do and calling the shots.
And, apart from being among the hottest single eligible women in the city, you’ve signed an exclusive motion picture production deal with Warner Bros., a deal with Landmark for two books including a biography on the Superstar himself, and are helming Ocher Studios, a three-year-old company that executes about forty per cent of the market’s animation and visual effects projects in this part of the world.
All of this, on your own, without a single rupee from Him.
Well, that much success when you are still twenty-something usually adds a few kilos to the weight of your head. But not her. Sondarya Rajnikant travels light.
So when she breezes in sporting sunglasses, a rudraksh around her neck, a smart deep blue semi-formal shirt buttoned down with jeans to sit down for an interview without a prepared speech or notes to read from, you are impressed. It’s a style statement that incorporates fashion, spirituality, simplicity, business and casualness.
Just back shooting after her first experience shooting for her own film in Vietnam (she spent 40 days shooting the action sequences including a war scene with International stuntmen) and ahead of leaving to Hyderabad to shoot with her Dad for Sultan, she seems to be in a mood to open up about her company, her private life and family.
“The shooting is strictly for reference. What we shoot, we edit and then motion-capture,” she explains. “I expect perfection. So even if we could shoot just one guy and replicate it for an army, we shot with 100 guys. Just for reference.”
She’s certain Sultan is going to break new grounds in animation. “We’re attempting something as realistic as Beowulf. I’ve always been interested in visual effects and I knew I wanted to direct but I didn’t want to do the usual things. Why travel the road already taken? I have always felt that everybody has looked at India as an outsourcing hub. But it’s time we produce content that’s as good as Japanese content or Chinese content.”
She recalls how the film was originally conceived as ‘Superstar’ and then titled ‘Hara’. “The main character is still called Hara. We know Hariharan is Ayyappan. But we’re releasing in Hindi and the people at Adlabs told us they would say ‘Haara’ (as in flop). So I told this to Appa, he took a minute to think over it and said: Call it Sultan. It’s universal for a story about a warrior.”
How come she wasn’t bitten by the acting bug?
“There was a time when I came back from Australia and I was getting a lot of offers. Good friends in the industry gave me scripts. My parents were not for it or against it, they left it to me. But I had just started Ocher. So I took it to my Dad, said ‘Appa, the story is good but I want to do this (Ocher)’ and he asked me to think what exactly I wanted to do… That’s when I realised this (Ocher) is what I want to do, it’s a blessing when you get to do what you are passionate about. So many people are stuck with jobs they don’t want to do.”
Being the youngest in the company where all, but one, employee are less than 40 years old, Sondarya says she’s never had a problem with responsibility. “I was Cul-Sec in school, I was class leader… In the university too, I’ve been the group head. I have always been the person who leads, never the one who follows.”
Being a leader needs vision and Sondarya can see far enough, her self-belief further vindicated when she convinced Warner Bros to sign along the dotted line. “It was a lot of work but we signed the third time we met.”
On the state of films:
Every other hero wants to be Superstar. But isn’t her Dad responsible for this himself? Creating an iconic status so desirable that everybody wants to get there.
“Yes, he’s responsible,” she laughs. “The most aped part is how he walks swiftly towards the camera… Everybody is doing it. He’s an inspiration but there can be only one Rajnikant. We are going through a phase where it is easy to get in to films but the question is how many films are you going to last? That’s why I say the script is the hero. We’re trying to do films with good scripts, not necessarily hero-centric films. We’re trying to cover a market that’s not been touched. We’re starting production on Venkat Prabhu’s Goa in October. We want to encourage performing actors, different genres… not aruva all the time. Everybody wants to be a don like Baasha, everybody wants ten people to walk behind them. We hope we can change that.”
Ocher has already signed up Ajit for the Billa sequel (or is it going to be a prequel? Wait and watch, she says mysteriously) next year, is doing a Telugu film with Mahesh Babu and Puri Jagannath apart from Venkat Prabhu’s Goa and Sondarya has plans to direct a live-action film once she’s done with Sultan.
* * *
The daughter calls the shots
Growing Up – the personal story:
“My father used to do 14 films in a year though now he does one every three years. My mother never made us feel his absence. My sister and me used to fight a lot. For clothes, in particular. Mother had to come and separate us. We are very close. Mother insisted we stayed in the same room. After Aishwarya got married, it took time for us to accept it. That first night when she wasn’t at home, that was the time I realised how much I missed her. I called her and cried.
The best experience growing up when we took off to see the World Cup in London. We love watching cricket as a family. You should see my Dad cheer India. He’s out there standing and whistle. It was cold but we never took flights. We insisted on taking trains. We wanted to see the countryside.
You know how my Dad is. We were raised to live simple. So even when you know you can have what you want, you are happy with what you have.
I’m not saying I don’t splurge. I obsessed with Aviator frames (sunglasses). I have the same thing in different colours.
When I took Appa to Brussels for body scan to Eyetronics (the company that did 3D scanning for Brad Pitt for Troy and Johnny Depp for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), we were there for 20 days. On the way back, we stopped in London and I took my Dad shopping. He’s the best shopping companion I’ve had. He never complained and I was like a princess just buying whatever I wanted and he was carrying all the bags. I took pictures of him carrying the bags thinking ‘That’s Rajnikant, carrying luggage for his daughter.’ He’s a fun dad.
Appa can’t walk on the road the way he does in London. We do go out. I do get recognised. When people come and talk to you, we don’t look at it as interference. It doesn’t reach a point where it becomes a nuisance. But can I go and sit at Zaras? No, I can’t.
On dating, freedom and curfew:
(Laughs) I don’t have the time for that now and anything I do becomes news. I cannot do things I did in Australia… I cannot take my car and get petrol without being stared at. Yes, it’s a blessing. We have curfew and all that but I don’t complain about it. Why unnecessarily give room for people to talk about you. I used to complain when I was 17-18 and ask “Why should we back by eight?” But now, I understand why my parents are protective about us. And I think it’s a good thing to have one close friend than a group of 20 people you’re not sure you can trust. I have a close circle of friends. I do unwind with them, again but not in public places.
Marriage, I have a long way to go before I can think of that… The thing is right now I am focused about my career. And that’s all I think about all the time.
I wouldn’t say I like control. I lead and I don’t follow. A guy who’s mature enough and who’s on his own is all I’m looking for but not now. Definitely not in the near future.
* * *
Sondarya’s Favourites:
Genre – Fantasy
Films – Lion King, Thalapathy, Roja, Shrek, Finding Nemo, Annamalai, Lagaan, Dil Chahta Hai, Gladiator, Last Samurai
Filmmakers – Mani Ratnam, Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood.
* * *
Kuselan News Watch – 1
Superstar fans may want to see this.
MADRAS INK. 