A fanboy’s defence of this very different Mani Ratnam movie.
Prologue
As a Tamil boy who grew up in Delhi, my first experience of Mani Ratnam was Nayagan in 1987, which I saw in Bangalore while doing engineering (caught up with Mouna Ragam later). If that hadn’t blown me away enough, the next year at a cousin’s place in Madras, he played me the ‘Raja’ song from Agni Natchatiram on his home theatre & we couldn’t repeat watch it enough! I remember being delighted when that song blared from the rooms of North Indian hostel mates; the movie itself went on to become the cult ‘youth Tamil film’ of that time.