Gracias

There exists, in the corner house of a street in Anna Nagar, the legend of a boy who recognized Singaravelan from the brief shot of a waddling duck. Since this is not exactly an achievement in the order of an International Math Olympiad appearance or the ability to recite the Vishnu Sahasranamam in its entirety without prompting, few people outside the family that inhabits this house are aware of this legend. Through some extremely diligent intelligent investigative journalism I've discovered the identity of the aforementioned boy - Me. And the investigative journalism was rifling through years of repressed shellackings received for an inordinate interest in Cinema during my early years.

The shellacking obviously had little effect and as I write this I've just had my first weekly review piece published in the papers (in the papers, I would repeat if I was Johnny two times). I am extremely thankful to the folks at the New Indian Express for the opportunity but I would be remiss if I did not mention my predecessor here. Baradwaj has been (and will remain) my go to for the weekly film review as a reader. He has been extremely kind over the past year and my first few columns on Malayalam Cinema for the paper would not have happened without his efforts. And to top it all he has been very gracious with the welcome he has accorded me. While I hope to maintain the tradition of personal reviews, as he so aptly mentions in his welcome, it will be a process finding a unique voice and style. But I must thank him for blazing the trail and making this sort of dissection of film possible - through the blog, his pieces in various publications and most importantly the comments in his blog. After all, it was in one such commentspace that I began the active participation that has culminated in this opportunity.