Southern mania

More than 60 people have died following YSR Reddy's demise in Andhra Pradesh. Some of these due to shock, others due to suicide. So much that YSR's son had to make an appeal to people to stop taking these drastic steps. One channel in fact reports this number as a shocking 122 people.
I can understand the feeling of sadness following the death of a leader. I felt it myself when Pramod Mahajan passed away. I had never seen him, leave alone knowing or interacting with him. Still.
But suicide? That's a different matter altogether.
What is it with South leaders, that they are able to whip up this frenzied support from masses? Or does it have something to do with South Indians as a whole? Political figures becoming colossal icons in the minds of people is not rare in South. MGR, NTR, Raj Kumar, Jayalalitha, Karunanidhi... the list is endless. Chiranjeevi is the latest addition to this I presume.
Or is it something that is a very Indian trait? But I don't see such frenzy in other Indian states, it is too pronounced in South. I am sorry if I sounding parochial, but there seems to be more to this than meets the eye.
How does culture influence the way we see our leaders? Did something similar happen after the demise of Gandhi, Nehru or Patel? I was not born when that happened. But I clearly remember Indira Gandhi's assassination and its aftermath. I don't recall so many people killing themselves (they killed others, but that's a different story). Now, Indira Gandhi was a national figure, unlike YSR or anyone else mentioned above. There surely were people who grieved her passing away, but not many took the drastic step of ending their own lives.
So instead of it being an Indian trait, is it a Dravidian trait? And if it is, what part has cultural upbringing played in this trait becoming so pronounced? Or is the loud media that plays a part in this sordid drama?

A Wednesday

After missing it at least five times, I finally saw "A Wednesday" yesterday. The movie has received rave reviews all over and I am not going to repeat all that has been already said.
Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher - its tough to decide who's superior. I am sure the majority will vote for Naseer. But his role is such that it totally 'drives' the character. Anupam Kher on the other hand has to play a role which is itself caught between the person and his formal role. The underplayed tension and frustration of the person and firm purposive actions of his official role is a unique mix and only a Anupam Kher could have carried it off like that.
The editing and cinematography are both just perfect. And the Director (Neeraj Pandey) deserves the credit for staying away from the scourge of a majority of Hindi movies - that of converting a good plot into a three-hour chewing gum! (Ashutosh Gowariker, are you listening?) This movie is just the right length. Even when there are long sequences where nothing 'actually happens', it still retains its crisp edge-of-the-seat feel all through. Oh yes, Thank God there are no songs - item or otherwise!
One thing I was glad about - after many years, there is a movie which portrays our police neither as incompetent fools nor as bumbling pot-bellied comedy artists. Yes, our police are far from perfect, but then. One shouldn't forget that in spite of a multitude of problems, our country of a hundred million people RUNS. Hundreds of trains and aeroplanes carrying millions of passengers leave and reach on time. People go to office and earn money to raise their families. Their children go to school. Elections happen. At least some of the credit for all this goes to the police. One must not forget that behind every failure of the cops which get highlighted by the media, there must be at least a hundred success stories that go unreported. The cops in 'A Wednesday' are shown to be immensely tech savvy (although the hacker who is trying to help them does pity their outdated equipment). I can just hope that our real police are equally, if not more, tech savvy.
Sure, there are glitches in the movie. How does this man coolly leave his large bag right inside the police station loo and get away? That too, in these days of surveillance? How does he calmly rig up a bomb on the Juhu airport tarmac, even if its not a busy airport? Scores of Mumbai-ites will agree with me that Colaba to Malad and back in a Qualis takes a LONG time, and that Jimmy Shergill should be sent to Formula 1 races if he actually makes that journey in the time shown. But then, these questions don't take anything away from the movie.
In the end, while Naseer goes into a moving near-soliloquy, he doesn't fail to make a point and touch many a chord in the viewers. Nevertheless, an essential part of the movie IS very much a fantasy, and one does walk out with a 'but then, come on. This can't happen for real' kind of feeling. In any case, I don't think the Director is suggesting that someone emulates Naseer. He is making another point, which has been made by others too. The list of movies depicting a 'common man' making a difference are on the rise. Rang de Basanti showed this too, albeit in a much more dramatized fashion. Amir (the movie, not the Khan!) and for that matter even Taare Zamin Par have a similar message.
I am no sociologist, but this surely has a connection with the way India and Indians are evolving. Are the days of a Dharmendra or Amitabh-style superhero behind us? They too portrayed common (and angry) men, but their acts were highly uncommon. What's more, they were often highly impossible. The 'common stupid man' portrayed by Naseer may seem impossible, but then, who knows?