The Matinee Ministers

04 February,2011 06:43 AM IST |   |  Prahlad Nanjappa

There is a reason why the Kannada Film Industry is not as vibrant or powerful as Kollywood, Mollywood or Tollywood


There is a reason why the Kannada Film Industry is not as vibrant or powerful as Kollywood, Mollywood or Tollywood.


Out of the four Southern States; Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have multi-crore budgets. Their screen idols are more iconic than Bollywood's badshahs and their movies have global audiences.


But then, we have our politicos. And their antics make even the wildest Sandalwood script pale in comparison.

Granted, Chief Ministers of other states have their moments at the Box Office. One gets caught in an Adarsh condominium scam. Another insists on putting up concrete memorials to herself. But those are mere trailers to our man' s shenanigans.

Once the entire charade of Chief Minister vs Governor had played itself out, we wake up to the news that the chief political leader of our State had gone to yet another astrologer for advice on how to avoid these hiccups on his personal path to pilfering the entire state. The sage soothsayer gives him a powerful panacea: to do suryanamaskars every morning ufffdu00a0 in the buff!

The Deadly Yeddy has probably never heard of TMI: too much information, dude! You can be doing suryanamaskars in whatever you want to do them in ufffd but please, please don't share them with us. We're content griping about the prices of onions and petrol, and the deplorable traffic and the weather without having to deal with graphic images of Chief Ministerial Chippendales!

Rumour has it, that the Aero Show delegates already landing from various parts of the globe, scanned the news and are swiftly redesigning their hostess uniforms as they feel they cover too much. Activists agitating against the denudation of forests are now switching their tack to fighting for khadi cover. And Bangalore businessmen are attaching a whole new meaning to dressing up figures.u00a0

Doesn't the soothsayer ever advise the guy to spend less time surya-namaskaaring and shanti-poojaing, and a little more time doing some work for the State, to change his luck?u00a0

This celestial caper follows quick on the heels of the juicy story breaking of an ex-chief minister visiting a temple with his wife. Nothing wrong about that ufffd except that the ex's present girlfriend, a popular actress and her daughter, speculated to be the man's daughter too, were also visiting around the same time. If this was a Sandalwood movie, the air would be rife with tension-filled violins playing in the background.u00a0u00a0

Neighbouring states have their movies and matinee idols. They even have matinee idols who become political leaders. And then there's the Tamil Nadu feud of former oomph girl pitted against a Ray-Ban toting baddy. But none of their histrionics come even close to those at the Sandalwood Soudha.
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Kannada Film Industry Chief Minister