But this day was no ordinary day... It was the day an advertisement at the very last page of the paper distracted me from actually looking at the sports world happenings.. There was a 2inch by 2inch advertisement which captured EVERY Tamil movie watcher who looked at that paper enough to make the publisher of the ad feel that every paisa he spent for that 4 sq. inch real estate was worth it !! It was this pic...
I was staring at this picture for a solid 5-10 minutes atleast because it had everything I could possibly ask for from a movie poster.. To start off there were three unique names listed there that everyone even remotely familiar with Tamil movies, heck, Indian movies will recognize.. "Super Star" Rajnikanth, Shankar and of course, A.R.Rahman !! The AVM banner didn't mean much to me but it is also a name to reckon with. The next most pressing reason was that I have never seen Rajni in this kinda radical look before in my life.. Of course we have all seen Rajni in all sorts of costumes but come on, a turtle neck with a sporty jacket and snazzy coolers to top it off.. wow !! And what a title to boot.. Sivaji.. the boss !! Awesome !! The most disappointing part of the entire poster were the words... "Shooting starts today".. Knowing Shankar and his shooting habits, I was sure that it will be a loooonggg time before this movie is perfected for release.... But any day I will pick the release of such a promising Shankar-Rajni combo movie over Shankar directing 5 unknown guys or Rajni acting in an atrocious movie like Chandramukhi.. The reasoning is even more obvious when the fact that Shankar wanted Rajni to act in Mudhalvan is considered... Just imagining 'thala' in the CM interview scene instead of Arjun gave me goose bumps that I was filled with wonder at what Shankar's magical script for Sivaji might be !
And frankly the most consoling fact for me was the name of "A.R.Rahman" listed in the banner. The last Shankar movie "Anniyan" had Harris Jayaraj instead and frankly even though the songs were decent, the BGM was one of the worst I have ever heard.... (Oh man.. for a scene like a young girl dying he comes up with "thaale laalo... thaalee laalo"... yuck !!).. I was so frustrated at this second rate choice for a music director that I felt that reinstating Rahman was the best thing Shankar could do to make up for his immensely unpardonable mistake.. (Half you might have argued that Rahman was busy but that is a matter under investigation.. so lets just blame Shankar for now !)..
So the next obvious step for me was to wait to hear other titbits of news about the movie to come out and they were constantly coming my way... But the mega step of the audio launch was what I was waiting for, being a Rahman fanatic.... And finally the day arrived April 2nd, 2007 when I immediately got hold of the songs and put them on my iPod.. And trust me when I say that those songs were playing on the iPod and our home speaker system day in and day out for a loooongggg time... Even now close to 3 months later my interest hasn't faded a bit... You can say that its because I am a Rahman fan that I am listening to it repeatedly without no other reason but frankly.. I don't care.. they still sound good to me !!
Then came the release date issue... First it was announced that the movie will hit screens worldwide on May 17th !! Oh my god, Sivaji releasing on my birthday...:-).. every Tamilian in the world will be looking forward to that date for every reason apart from the fact that it is my birth day.. :-( .. Bah... who cares... Sivaji is releasing on my birthday !! But my enjoyment (and of lakhs of other people too ) was short-lived when the date was postponed to May 31.... But its OK.. I can still see the movie as I will be in Houston till June 10th after which I had to go to Folsom, CA... So all plans of watching the movie first day and in 2 shows back to back were made by me and my roomies but alas, another announcement was made that Sivaji would see light only on June 15th... Now it was my bro's turn to celebrate as that was his birthday !! And this date was formally announced by AVM that people knew that it was THE DAY for Tamilians all over the world to celebrate the icon of STYLE !! But my dreams came to a screeching halt as I knew that when the release happened I would be in a city where I knew pretty much no one and with no clue as to where a movie theatre would be let alone one which screens Indian movies !! So I made some pre-meditated moves and contacted my friend Shwetha in Santa Clara, CA and asked her to enquire on Sivaji being screened in the Bay Area.. And after some feedback from her and my brother, we finally came across a theatre called Camera 3 in downtown San Jose, CA was screening the movie the weekend it released.... Hurray !!
So I land in Folsom resting assured that the movie was there for me to grab and I took the opportunity with open arms.... It was my first week of work (meaning - I had pretty easy work) and so I made good plans to rent a car, buy tickets and also plan a post-movie trip to Hotel Saravana Bhavan !! All set for the movie release ! And the expectations were high after initial feedback... My mom who usually after watching a movie says "The movie was good" or "the picturization of songs were nice" opted this time for a higher form of praise and said "It is an excellent movie... definitely worth a watch"... That was good enough for me!! This was from the preview show and another friend in Houston (Miru) gave a similar opinion after her viewing on the first day of release... And calls from Cincinnati (Balku) also confirmed that the movie was sensational... Such positive feedback from all quarters was my stimulus to gear up for a two-and-half hour drive from Folsom to San Jose which is the longest ever I have driven at a stretch... I know its a pretty short drive actually but for a comparitive beginner like me it was a challenge !
So that Saturday morning, June the 16th, 2007, me and my roomie (Pratik) started off on an epic journey (atleast for me !!).. We rented a car and left for San Jose quite early in the morning considering that the show was actually at 16:30hrs.. We drove till SJ and picked up Shwetha and drove off to Santa Clara to visit the Boardwalk but only then we realized that hundreds of others had the same idea ! Traffic was so bad that by the time we reached the Boardwalk, it was time to leave ! And I'm not kidding, we didn't even set foot outside the car and just did a U-turn back to San Jose for the movie.... My constant nagging of the two car-members to leave at 15:00hrs from Santa Clara helped a lot because while coming back to SJ, despite taking the right exit, I made a right turn instead of a left and ended up going on a one way street to god-knows-where !! Finally after some enquiring at an Indian store we were on the right track but having lost precious time.... (Seriously.. this country needs more tea kadais and dhabas for lost travellers to get directions...) It was almost 16:30 when we found the street (thanks to a brilliant lookout by Shwetha who spotted it) where the theatre was and to our luck, there was no parking there.. So I threw these two guys out of the car to make them exchange the booking confirmation we had for actual tickets and went to park it nearby for an exorbitant cost of $7 !! But I was concentrating more on not missing Rajni's intro that I had to suppress my frustrations of daylight-parking-robberies....
After entering the theatre we were told that there was a delay in the start of the movie as the previous show had ended a bit late.... That was such a relief !! So we were glancing around looking at the festive atmosphere in the complex because of all the Tamilians (and other South Indians and few Americans) lined up to watch the magic of "The Boss" !! And finally at around 17:00hrs the crowd was let in and the magical words of "Super Star" Rajni were shown... THE CROWD WENT BESERK !! It was AWESOME !! I had never seen such a great crowd after coming to this country... I was so happy because this theatre and its crowd gave me a feeling of watching Sivaji in Chennai with "namma makkal"....
The movie raced to the interval with Rajni's and Vivek's good comedy and of course 3-4 excellently picturized songs. I was so eager to get back into the theatre that I forgot to put sugar in the tea I ordered at the theatre cafe and during the second half I was sipping bitter masala chai !! But frankly that didn't register in my mind at all because after the interval, Shankar unleashed the Sivaji side of Rajni that I was mesmerized !! The movie just totally blew me away that as I walked away from the screen after the movie ended I realized that Rajni was so right in saying "Paera kaettone chumma adhirudhullae !!" Kudos to Shankar, Rajni and Rahman for churning out such a great movie which appeals to people of all ages and also carries a good social message...
Then we went to Saravana Bhavan and ate to our heart's content (and stomach's capacity).. For me it was a great experience as it reminded me of the days where I used to see a movie in Sathyam and then go to the Peters Road Saravana Bhavan all the while talking about the movie we just saw !
All in all, it was a grand and unforgettable experience in so many ways that it propelled a lazy guy like me to actually sit and type a blog with close to 2000 words !! And to sum it all up, I would like to describe the experience in one word that all the people who watched the movie will recognize and identify with...
COOL !!
Thanks again for visiting my blog... Have a nice day !
Suresh Balasubramanian
June 23, 2007
