Podcast gets the real you out of YOU!!! (The 4-Month Void #3)

Podcast Parithabangal

I started April by going to the theatre.

Godzilla Vs. Kong had got released in the town and I booked the ticket on a whim. It was the evening show of April 1, 2021.

I guess I took sick leave that day to watch that movie. I was too bored to work that day and planned to go to theatres. I was so happy when I heard this movie was playing in the theatres. But the real shock came when I went inside the theatres.

I was the only one watching that movie that evening.

I booked for the English version and got shocked to realise that I was the only one booked the ticket to see the English version of an English movie. But sooner a couple came and that’s it. They sat behind me and we three watched that movie that evening.

Godzilla Vs. Kong (2021)

I didn’t expect this movie to be good as I thought it would. It exceeded my expectation. I had watched King Kong movies before, but they didn’t satisfy me. I watched Godzilla animated series in cartoon network as a kid. That too didn’t leave any impact on me. But this movie surely did. One fascinating thing about this movie the fact that it didn’t deal with the humans, instead, we saw the King Kong World and Godzilla’s Stone like something. The thing is this movie explored the origins and specialities of these creatures instead of their interaction with the humans. I loved the climax clash. WOAH!

And April was not only the month of Harry Potter, but it was also the month where the 16^th Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Election was held. From the start, we all knew who’s gonna win the election. It was obvious.

At this time around, I started reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson and instantly got bored. It doesn’t mean that the book was bad, it means that the time I chose to read that book was bad. 

It was the election season, and I didn’t feel like reading any self-help books or any fictions. That was the time to dive into the politics. Every YouTube video I saw either talked about politics or talked about politics. To be honest, I was not a political guy. I don’t know shit about Indian Politics. Even after joining college, I didn’t have any interest to know about politics.

That was when the Jallikattu issue happened, and everyone talked about it. Even me. That was the time I came to know about dirty the politicians can play a situation. Jallikattu protesters were disassembled by party bribed goons and it was all blamed against the students who protested in favour of Jallikattu. Slowly, we started speaking politics without even realising it.

And I had fallen in love at that time around. Another realisation hit me. I was an insecure misogynist. I wanted to shout at the girl I loved to stay away from other boys except me. This may be an irrelevant statement. But being a misogynist helped me to learn more about Indian politics. Because as a misogynist, I understood the concept of caste.

And my disgust towards casteism correlated with my atheist shelf. My inner atheist loved hating casteism. And I wanted to learn more about these things that time. It was when I got introduced to a guy named Periyar. I was doing 3^rd year of my college, I guess. I always loved to hear speeches of Atheists. Periyar was a guy who was an atheist, an anti casteist and to top it off, a feminist.

I instantly liked the guy. 

And I started listening to the people who talked about him. My college ended and when I started doing my job, I had dived into the world of podcasts.

The first ever podcast I heard in my life is two guys discussing about superhero movies or something about why it won’t work in Tamil Cinema. As a cinephile, I liked that episode. But what really intrigued me was the name of the guys who did that podcast.

One’s name is Hashirama Senju

And the other guy’s name is Uchiha Madara

The name of that podcast is Schummy Vanna Kaaviyangal. (SVK)

And I became a kanni – right that instant.

Politics and Podcast

The Election started on 6^th April and ended on 2^nd May.

I was listening to a lot of politics related podcasts during the first week of April. I didn’t even start any books, watched any movies or anything else.

And on the day of the start of the Election, I started hating SVK.

My SVK weekly streak lasted from November 2019 to November 2020. Exactly one year. They took nearly half a year break to start the next season. In the meantime, their account got suspended and took down. And their comeback to season 4 was one hell of a comeback. After listening to few episodes in season 4, I lost interest in them. I liked SVK more because of their cinema episodes and non-party related episodes. And in season 4, they went full frontal talking party politics.

I watched few movies in this month as I started reading Harry Potter books. But the movies I watched were political as fuck. In April 10, I watched one of the best movies that had released in 2021, and that movie is Karnan.

Karnan (2021)

What happens when a bus doesn’t stop on the village you live in? Obviously, we would request government to make their village a legit bus stop. Seems simple right? But it was not simple in the world of Karnan. This movie hits us by saying the caste mindset is filled even in the silliest of things.

And the next week, I watched another movie named Fandry. 

Fandry (2013)

Karnan’s interval sequence is the Fandry’s climax. The fact that one is getting judged or treated as if they did something unlawful and wrong (even though they didn’t do anything wrong) is the crux of fandry. In college, me and my friend entered late for a class. The asshole professor left him and started blaming me. Even I entered the class early, he would blame me for coming to the class soon. What is that professor was a whole community, and I am a little boy? The frustration would be too much to handle, and it erupts in the end. 

A masterpiece!