DesiPundit

I’M a Tamilian. I’m in my thirties. There, you have it. That’s everything you need to know about why I am at once the most qualified person to write about Mani Ratnam as well as the least qualified person to write about Mani Ratnam. Because to those of us in our teens and in Chennai when Mani Ratnam started out, he wasn’t just a director, and he didn’t just make films. He was a zeitgeist-defining pop showman who propped up before us mirrors into our selves – our young, urban selves. No one – just no one – could put on screen what we thought and what we felt and what we dreamed the way Mani Ratnam did at the time.

B Rangan pays a beautiful tribute to Mani Ratnam.