Paradesi - not hard hitting

Plot

   Director narrates that this movie is about the struggle of people at tea plantation before independence.Story revolves around the young town crier who begs for his livelihood and with no reason the   heroine falls for him.As usual whole village against their love so hero decides to search job and falls in the way of a overseer of tea plantation,he deceives protagonist and the whole village.The whole village falls in the trap of whimsical overseer and the people in the plantation were been badly exploited.Then the rest of movie is about the difficulties and the struggle met by the people and how protagonists tries to escape from that place.

Screenplay

  An usual story of a realistic exploitation film we have seen through ages but it lacks pace.Although its not an usual mainstream movie but the christian conversion scenes was added purposefully and handled poorly.People lost their patience at many times particularly the scenes before climax.Except climax the movie don't contain single scene to applaud.Not even a single point of brilliance in screenplay in the whole movie.

Screen play is very straight forward and predictable one only climax scene has some class in it.

Performances

 Bala was always known his characterizations and extracting performance from actors and this movie is also not an exception.Stellar performances from leading protagonist Adharva murali who lived up-to his character without over acting. Vedika,Thansikka and all other junior artists of the village and tea plantation lived to their characters. But the director able to get only amateur performance from the foreign junior artists since they were not to the subject of cruel methods in acting. 

Music

  Neither songs or BGM makes impact even though GV.Prakash hugely praised for his versatility in works for periodic film like Madrasapatinam. Re-Recording is average and not synced with movie at some parts and no one will have a feel of a periodic film.

Cinematography

 Average one and very low saturation level of color makes us to feel whether its a color movie or black and white.

Final word

Not hard hitting and a average movie with average screenplay the movie with few crappy dialogues the movie can be credited only for the team's hard-work and performance of the characters.Not even nearer to the levels of Naan - Kadavul, a mile stone in directors career.The movie is only for the people who were not aware about the exploitation of plantation workers before independence.

My Rating

                               5/10

Pathetic end to Srilankan Civil War

Who were Srilankan tamils? Pandya conquered the island some thousands year ago.Before that there were no records for promient tamil settlements in srilanka,It was Pandyan who invaded Anuradhapura kingdom(Srilanka)and captured it and they appointed minster to rule for the period for 103 BC–89 BC.

.After that Pandyan kingdom was defeated and Srilankan king took the throne then again pandyan invaded and defeated the srilankan kings and they rule from  436 - 452AD.Again Pandyan kingdom were overthrown both in India by Chola's and Srilankan kingdom restored their rule then Chola invaded Srilanka and conquered it once again.Once Chola dynasty came to end in India by Pandya,they again invaded Srilanka and established their kingdom.After he defeat of Pandyas in India by Delhi Sultanate, Arya Chakravarthy a new Tamil Kingdom formed. It rule the northern parts of Srilanka(jafna) but they were overthrown later by Portuguse,Dutch,British invasions.By learning this history one could easily have an idea there was a rift always between them in Sinhalese and tamil it was British who united them.

Chola Dynasty

During British colonial rule there were large tea plantations in northern part of srilanka and people from tamilnadu moved to srilanka as bonded labors.During Aryachakravrthi reign they made gurukulam education to all tamil people under thier rule after the invasions Portuguse,Dutch,British introduced their style of Education, therefore Tamil peoples were highly educated. During the selection of representative there was a rift between Tamil and Sinhaleese but British were not interested in bringing representative based on community and not interested in two country idea.In 1947 during independence there were big dispute among majority Sinhaleese and minority Tamil that who should represent the government.However, the British Governor William Manning actively encouraged the concept of "communal representation" and created the Colombo seat which was dangled between the Tamils and the Sinhalese. Subsequently, the Donoughmore Commission strongly rejected communal representation, and brought in universal franchise. The decision was strongly opposed by the Tamil political leadership, who realized that they would be reduced to a minority in parliament, according to the proportion of the population they make up. G. G. Ponnambalam, a leader of the Tamil community, proposed to the Soulbury Commission that there should be 50-50 representation (50% for the Sinhalese, 50% for all other ethnic groups, including Tamils) in the proposed independent Ceylon - a proposal that was rejected. The Second World War served as an interregnum where the adroit politics of D. S. Senanayake successfully balancing the polarising tendencies of the Sinhala as well as Tamil nationalists.

Srilanka during colonial rule

Following independence in 1948, G. G. Ponnambalam and the party he founded, the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (Tamil Congress), joined D. S. Senanayake's moderate,Western-oriented, United National Party Government. This Government pass the Ceylon Citizenship Act of 1948, which denied citizenship to Sri Lankans of Indian origin and resulted in Sri Lanka becoming a majoritanian state. Sri Lanka's government represented only the majority community, the Sinhalese community, and had marginalized the minorities, causing a "severe degree of alienation" among the minority communities. When this Act was passed, the Tamil Congress was strongly criticized by the opposition Marxist groups and the newly formed Sri Lankan Tamil nationalist Federal Party (FP). S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, the leader of this new party, contested the citizenship act before the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, and then in the Privy council in England, on grounds of discrimination towards minorities, but he did not prevail in overturning it. The FP took two seats in the 1952 election, against the Tamil Congress' four, but in the 1956 election it became the dominant party in the Tamil districts and remained so for two decades. The FP's came to be known for its uncompromising stand on Tamil rights. In response to the parliamentary act that made Sinhala the sole official language in 1956, Federal MPs staged a non violent sit in (satyagraha) protest, but it was broken up by a nationalist mob. The police and other state authorities present at the location failed to take action to stop the violence. The FP was cast as scapegoats and were briefly banned after the 1958 riots in which many were killed and thousands of Tamils forced to flee their homes.

A tamil passenger was taken out of the vehicle and beaten up  

After there was a call for separate nation for Tamil and srilankan government are not interested in accepting this demand after many intolerable incidents like , led to formation of LTTE and soon after Prabhakaran became its leader and their assault on Srilankan Army on  July 23rd, 1983 cause 13 srilankan army officials to die.This was the root cause of riot on july 24( Black July) and srilankan citizens assaulted tamil people in srilanka around 4000 + have died many more thousand injured raped,houses and shops were burnt and sacked after this many people left the country to save their life.And Government were silent after this incident many outraged tamil youth joined LTTE and many flew to countries European countries and Canada.

                                                             Documentary on Black July

                                        

Then Primeminister Mrs Ghandi supported LTTE  by providing arms and  training.But her son Rajiv itroduced compulsory hindi education in schools which led to open talk for a separate tamil nation in Tamilnadu.So Rajiv Ghandi want to end the war so he made Indo-srilankan accord which led to cease fire in the war zone Indian Peace keeping force were sent to be as a barrier between  LTTE and Srilankan Army.But Indian government want LTTE to surrender their weapons initially they were agreed but later due to a incident which costs the life of 17 LTTE after that LTTE involved in many assault against IPKF. They were strong in their stand for a single nation but India never going to agree to the demand since it will make Tamil people in India to demand the same.

This creates tension between LTTE and IPKF but as by accord IPK should never fire and this led to the loss of many Indian soldiers so the Commanding General ordered Army to attack by neglecting PM's order and costs thousands of casualites in both LTTE and hostiles many womens were raped which led to the defeat of LTTE but Prabhakaran escaped from this assault .Finally Prabhakaran made a biggest mistake in his life time,the assasination of Rajjiv Ghandi after that LTTE was banned in India and branded as a terrorist.

After that India never intervene in Srilankan issue. Yet Prabhakaran did many mistake in assasinating own Tamil leaders who were trying to negotiate peace between Srilankan government and after assasination of Premadasa LTTE was considered to be one of the most endangered terrorist organisation in world wide.After many worse assault from both sides it was Tamil people between them were suffered lot.Finally norway tried to bring peace between them but that also went in vain.Due to lack of support from tamil people as they boycot the elections Rannil Wikramasingh,who wanted to re initiate peace process lost his power and srilanka came under dictatorship kind of rule,Rajapakse became its president he wanted to put an end in tougher way to this issue, he made diplomatic alliance with China as they plan to construct a 1.5 bn dollar naval base and this alerted India since it will allow China to attack India in future from both ends.so they also extended their support,and other countries were supported Srilanka because of their weapon bussiness and want to put a end to terrorism. Finally Srilankan government defeated LTTE at 2009 and put an end to the civil war at cost of thousands of innocent tamil people lives.

Where it went wrong??

After Independence British should have given a separate nation for Tamil minority then its Hard to believe Sinhalese mob who took part in 1958 riots and July 1983 were human LTTE was started with a noble cause  had good administration.But later its audacious leader Prabhakaran  became more autocratic,he didn't trust anyone and made some fatal decision such as attacking IPKF,assasinating Rajiv Gandhi,Premadasa and many more Leaders who tried to bring peace by negotiations.He should be conscious before making a move and after 9/11 USA not only declared war against Afghanistan, its a war against terrorism and they supplied arms to Srilanka and its good business for them.And srilanka sorted the help of China and India,china helped them lot in the war than any other country and they built their own naval base at srilanka this alerted many country including India.Why he made a call to tamil people to boycott elections and made Rannilwikrama singh to lose, who has pledged in his election campaign that he will bring end to this civil in suave where  Rajapakse want to end by tougher means.Do he think that his subtle force he can defeat mighty srilanka aided by China,USA,India.Look who suffered at last, the people he protected these many years, his own family and thousands of innocent tamils.Even i believe separate nation is the only solution to this civil war but we have no choice when things are not in right direction.

War crime is another major crisis we are facing at the end of every war its but this is similar horrible that what we saw in Kashmir,Afghanistan,France,Poland, will UN or USA's resolution against srilanka will put an end to war crimes never.We were not in a barbaric world of monarchy rule anymore since there were no place for human values in army hence it will be better to give more psychological training in army also i swear, i am not aware of the training given to army then we can't expect justice in these alleged war crimes at-least it will be better if we assure peace life to remaining tamil people at srilanka since we cant bring back the lives of dead.