October 06, 2008
 

Singur and Singaravelan

With Tata Motors announcing that it would be relocating its Nano car project from Singur despite the attempts of the Bengal government, a lot of states have now jumped into the fray to get Tata Motors to move the project to their state.

The list of states vying for the project is pretty impressive, but Tamil Nadu's absence is a little odd, given that so many of the world's leading automobile manufacturers have plants in the state.

The jostling for the project though reminds me of a scene in the 1992 Tamil movie Singaravelan (Kamal, Khushboo, etc.). Kamal goes to Madras from his village and is immediately surrounded by dozens of auto-rickshaw drivers, each of who wants Kamal to be his savaari (customer). Ultimately, one of them throws down his trump card, and claims that Kamal is his maamool savaari (regular customer). The scene, and the movie in general, is an absolute riot!

See the video (piracy alert!). If your browser (or feed reader) can render the embedded image, you can also see the video below. The scene begins around the 24th minute.

Labels: comedy, kamal haasan, movies, singur, tamil