Kadhalar Dinam

Having recently discovered Bollywood films we are trying out different titles. This one goes on the bottom of the list, whereas Bride and Prejudice remains at the very top. Hearts Collide starts out overly dramatic with a young man weeping his story out to an interested soldier at a train station and it continues for three hours. Three hours! There were aspects of the plot that held well, such as the near misses of the on-line lovers meeting, and the altruistic intentions of the college president to help the young man. Yet the usual array of song and dance were way overdone, and the strung out finale was almost too much. The nearly ten years age of this film shows. Bollywood has greatly improved in plot, pace, and music over the years. I suggest this film as a means of showing where Bollywood started.

In Earth if this kind of beautiful music can be created...why you care to go heaven.... Beautiful movie and.... Everlasting music...and Lyrics.

Ratings is not necessary for this movie.

Kadhalar dhinam.

Yes, I may have exaggerated a bit, and gave it a 10 star only to help boost the average rating of 6.8 that it has got. But I really like the film. As a film that came out when Internet was in an nascent phase, especially in India, this film makes it a central point in telling an, what could otherwise be a normal rom-com movie.

The film starts on the new year eve of 2000, and goes on a flashback. The film have many sub-plots which interweaves various characters and tells a story in a very comfortable way. The music by A.R. Rehman is probably the driving force of the film with a song dedicated on the role Internet in finding love.

The film may seem kiddish or weird from today's standards, but the story itself is very telling of the imagination that the storyteller of "Kadhalar Dinam" (or Dil hi dil me) must be having. The film uses many special effects in telling the story and to show the technological advancements that Internet had brought to the lives of youngsters.

In the hindi version of the film, Sonali Bendre, Anupam Kher and Johny Liver are all big shots that have done phenomenal acting. The actor Kunal too did a great job, but it's pity to know his eventual fate in the real world, (which I came to know a lot later after watching the movie).

It's sad to see that this film today have almost no recognition, no review on IMDb (my review is the among the three), but the millennials who saw the Internet grow, will have a field trip watching it. And I urge them to give this film a try (if you are lucky enough to get a good print that is).

The way I look at this movie is that A.R. Rahman produced some hits in his earlier movies but all of these super hit songs were only famous because of the music as the lyrics were (sorry to say) horribly incorrect, inconsistent and meaningless.

In this movie he proved his ability to direct music of a film with some out of the world lyrics which came from the pen of Mehboob Kotwal. Unfortunately, the point everyone miss to see is that "Music" was used very little and to preserve the quality & freshness of the lyrics. The actual magic is in the lyrics and spell caster in this instance was Mehboob Kotwal. Hats off to Mehboob and to A.R. Rahman for encasing it with such beauty that even today it sounds fresh to the ears.