A Hall of Mirrors

A Hall of Mirrors is a 1966 novel by the novelist Robert Stone. Set in 1960s New Orleans, the book depicts "the dark side of America that erupted in the sixties" and follows a number of characters who are tied to a right-wing radio station, the civil rights movement, and 1960s counterculture. The book won the 1967 William Faulkner Foundation Award for notable first novel, a predecessor of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award.
Plot summary.
Rheinhardt, an alcoholic former virtuoso clarinetist, arrives in New Orleans, where he meets Geraldine, an attractive former prostitute with a distinctive facial scar and an appealingly easygoing demeanor. Desperate for money and booze, Rheinhardt takes a job as a disc jockey and radio commentator for a new right-wing radio station called WUSA, whose unironic taglines include "The Voice of an American's America" and "The Truth Shall Make You Free." Though Rheinhardt wholeheartedly embraces his role at the station and delivers its toxic and divisive messages with gusto, his eccentric friends, general outlook, and lifestyle of drinking and smoking marijuana belie his affinity for the socially-liberal counterculture of the 1960s. Nonetheless, his affiliation with WUSA brings him into contact with a group of powerful, manipulative ultra-conservatives and race baiters who plan to use the radio station to racially divide the city and combat the civil rights movement, goals of which Rheinhardt is oblivious.
Meanwhile, Morgan Rainey, a dour former social worker, takes a job conducting site visits for City Hall's survey of welfare recipients. Though Rainey initially believes he's engaged in a noble (if last-ditch) effort to improve services for the poor, he quickly realizes that the people dubiously assisting him in his efforts are part of a cynical plot to remove blacks from the state's welfare rolls. Rainey solemnly vows to fight back against the politicians of City Hall and its enablers at WUSA. He first tries to enlist Reinhardt, his neighbor, to help, but he ultimately vows to take decisive action to derail a major public event that WUSA sees as its coming out party.
Influence and significance.
In addition to winning the 1967 William Faulkner Foundation Award for notable first novel and the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award, the book has been called "one of the two best first novels I have ever read" by Wallace Stegner, "fantastic, brilliant, and fast-paced" by Joyce Carol Oates, and a "prodigiously talented piece of writing" by the New York Times' Christopher Lehmann-Haupt.
In 1970, "A Hall of Mirrors" was adapted into a movie, "WUSA", with a screenplay by Stone and starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Anthony Perkins, and Laurence Harvey.
Stone was admitted to the Stanford's Creative Writing Program after submitting part of "A Hall of Mirrors" in manuscript form with his application.

The plot revolves around a minibus driver named Velpandiyan (Vidharth) and a conductor named Muthupandi (Soori) and how romance evolves with Kanmani (Manisha Yadav) on the bus.
Soundtrack.
The music was composed by Aruldev, who earlier composed for a film called "Potta Potti".
Release.
The satellite rights of the film were sold to Raj TV.
Critical reception.
"The Times of India" gave the film 1.5 stars out of 5 and wrote, ""Pattaya Kelappanum Pandiyaa" is very much a film from the 1990s. The problem is that it hews closer to the dreary ones from the decade. It is the kind of film that stops for the director to utter a punchline to a joke before displaying his name in the credit". "The New Indian Express" wrote, "The narration could have been crisper towards the latter part. "Pattaya..." may not have the best of screenplays, but it’s a fairly watchable and a clean wholesome family entertainer thanks to humour quotient". Onlykollywood wrote: ""Pattaiya Kelapanum Paandiya" is just another Tamil film which glorifies barbaric stalking in the first half and renders an atrocious justification in the second half. The only saving grace in the film is its occasional situational comedies appearing out of nowhere".