Aadukalam - The ground set in Madurai Again!

Director Vettrimaran unfolds a story which revolves around the descendants in southern Tamilnadu region who care and care only to win the age old gambling animal sport in southern Tamilnadu – Rooster fight. Rooster fight is an age old game not only in Southern Tamilnadu but all over the world especially in Mexico. Wikipedia says it has reference in Tamil literature which is more than 2000 years old. Such genres are very rare and welcoming to Tamil cinema. This film not only portrays the sport but also reveals its cause and effects over the people who were deeply involved and show us how determined and egoistic are they and how extent they turn villainous for retaining and regaining the pride in winning the blood sport game. For them it’s a life and death scenario.

Definitely the director has taken me to seat edge experiences in a couple of scenes, especially the rooster tournament scene. Be it the history of rooster fight or referring the diminishing Anglo Indian people in Madurai, the director has taken close to real facts and figures and filmed it. More than rooster fight, this movie is full of emotions. Every small character marks their presence and show justification to their role.

                                     

This movie also evolves a mind game filled with loyalty, trust, betrayal, cunningness between the mentor and his beloved student and when the student outsmarts his mentor, the director has cleverly handled the characters and reveal how trust turns betrayal, and betrayal seeks guilty. It is hard to say who the bad guy in this movie is. If you think one person to be the baddie in the beginning, you are probably wrong. There is no good or bad but the situation and circumstances is when good turn bad and bad turn ugly. What is something unique is the ending. It’s not about the stunts but the emotions between people that talks more.

Madurai based theme seems to be the genre these days. Most of the movies seem to be exaggerated and over shadowed creating a misinterpretation for how Madurai and Madurai people are. Well I think I have seen Thirumalai Nayakar Mahal more in movies than in person! Tamil cinema needs a destination change! Though this movie is also set in a Madurai backdrop, people shouldn’t care as the characters and the story outplay altogether.

The White Balloon

When we were a kid, do we ever remember how we nagged our mom for a chocolate or a toy car or for that matter any thing we wanted at that moment? We were so adamant on that and we would either cry or be silent or shout until we get what we wanted. Did we ever care why our mom scolded us for not obeying her?

When we were a kid, did we ever know what is good and what is bad? We always believed whatever our teachers, our friends or anybody said is true and we follow it blindly.

When we were a kid, little we had known about the value of money and we were so determined about the small small things which would shower happiness. We didnt even know how long would that happiness last long! May be it would have lasted till our mind gets distracted to some other things we see. Have we ever remembered to talking to strangers? If so how did we do? Were we afraid? I dont recollect!


What if we had a chance now to see that cute little face of young times, when we showed all kinds of expressions through our little face - happiness, curiosity, anger, sorrow, fear, respect, loneliness, restless, adamance and so on...

It was a few days back, I came across this Iranian movie - "The White Balloon". I saw this movie, of course with subtitles and I could not say exactly why I liked the movie. The movie is about a seven year old cute litte girl who is desperate to buy a fat gold fish for the new year which is approximately 75 minutes far and this movie is narrated in a very ordinary, yet beautiful way from the little girl's perspective. Some movies are inspiring, some are fun, some are romantic, some are interesting, some are boring, some are bloody, some are crap. I felt "The White Balloon" is a feel-light-good-movie.

Be it the determined, yet sad face when her mother denies to buy her the fish or be it the change of her expression when her brother actually convices her mom or be it the way she builds confidence over the guy in the fish store or be it the affection she shows for her brother, when he is beaten by another guy or be it the determination and expression of hope she shows when she finds a way to take the money out or be it the way she tries to protect the money from the Iranian soldier or be it the courageous, yet fearsome talk she makes to the snake charmers to get back her money, or any other expression she had to make, one has to watch the movie to feel it!
 
 

 
So did I....Better late than never!

Five years and still counting...

Okay, its a milestone in my life and I have completed five years in the IT industry! Ooph! Should I appreciate myself or should I think of doin something else? Well instead of talking about my profession, I thought I will recollect what all the irrelevant things I had gained out of this journey so far!

If I am blogging here right now, I dont think I would have done it or even thought of scribbling such crazy thoughts, if I am not in this industry. May be I could have not known what blogging is! Thanks to my "bench" days which actually made me to create a blog!

Something which I can boast of is may be I have learned basic cooking or atleast made some attempts to try to make some regular dishes. No no, dont expect a delicacy, I said basic cooking...!

 



If I am lazy and not active, thanks to most of the weekends spent literally by just staying at my so called bachelor family home and not doing anything. Sometimes we dont even go out for breakfast! And now we dont even do the basic cooking. Andhra Mess is our rescuer for most of the weekend afternoons. Birds of a feather, flock together, Bachelor guys mock Andhra Mess together! Any area you are in Bangalore, there will be one such eatout. Full meals with dhaal and egg burji! Wat a combination!!!

With the increasing factory outlets and shopping malls in the city and given the fact that we have to push the weekend going, we land up in these places and have most of our money exchanged for new tees and casuals almost every alternate week! Gone are the days, where you purchase clothes only during Diwali festival!



When you are in this industry and when restaurants offer corporate lunch buffets and when colleagues throw birthday treats and farewell parties and particularly when you are in Bangalore where you have lots of eatout options ranging from south indian to international, Almost, you can say you will become a foodie and so have I! It is very obvious, you get to go to all the team outings or fun trips and so did I. No matter if its Coorg or Las Vegas, it is the enjoyment and break you get out there!

In movies, policeman are portrayed with their pot belly, soon they may show IT people in a similar way. If its one thing I think I should take measures atleast now, is to control my tummy level! In fact I know, how much lean I was in my college! Thanks to KFC and Dominos and of course Andhra mess!

Almost I have watched most of the movies in this five years. I have learnt to admire good movies. If I am not in this industry, I would not have known the torrents site and wikipedia. May be its a very useful site for all purpose, but for me mostly I have used this site searching information about movies,actors and directors. I just love to click links in a link in a link and browse information.

So far so good....Five years and still counting!

Sujatha's நைலான் கயிறு (Nylon Kayiru)

I dont know, suddenly I started reading novel. I remember being addicted to Rajesh Kumar's crime novels. Once I used to go to the streets near New Cinema Theatre in Madurai to get the second hand novels from the book stores. Somehow I came out of that habit!

And its now when we guys went to Erode for one of my colleague's wedding reception where we just happened to walk into a book shop opposite to the hotel we stayed and I picked up a couple of books which included Nylon Kayiru (meaning a nylon rope)! 

Well its the first novel by writer late Sujatha in the end 60's which was published for 14 weeks in a Tamil weekly magazine. Now they have compiled all the episodes and published as a single novel. I started reading the novel and finished in 3 hours. The reading experience is like watching a thriller movie! So interesting!

I was amazed with his writing style and given the fact that it was published 40 years before! His style was different. He is so knowledgable. He is trying to intoduce unknown facts and also explains them. In one of the episode, he hints about a medical term "sepsis" and "internal hemorrhage". These terms are definitely new 40 years back and even now "sepsis" is new for me :) ! I did a google search to find its explanation!

He has adopted a different narrative style in this novel with inserting a snippet from a person's diary and narrating a murder followed by the sequence of its investigation and finally the investigation leads to the diary. It might have been a trend set in introducing different writing style. At first you dont get to know the relation between the diary and the scene described in the episode. Given the fact that it was published weekly, it would have created an immense curiosity among the readers! In fact, after reading the whole novel, I went back and read the diary snippets alone from each episode again to get a clear picture of the story! I am sure, movies are inspired from his writings! If I was amazed with the non linear editing style in Christopher Nolan's Memento, then I had a similar feel while reading this novel. I didnt know that through writing also one could give a non linear view!

Sujatha is no more, but he has shared lots of his knowledge and views through his writings and has given work for us to read, enjoy, learn and think! Indeed, Art is long and life is short!

It striked me when..

... I went home for Diwali. I was occupied more with my laptop than with my mom! And this was not the first time. She was surprised when I started talking to her when the power got cut. She enquired for which I replied there is no power and there is no internet! She now understood the fact and asked me to disconnect the internet connection permanently.  Lately there has been such cribbings in my home that i am being a guest at home and not spending most of the time with them. Very true, now there seem to be a sort of addiction among we young guys. Either we meddle with our high end mobile or glue to our lap tops all the time. 

I guess, soon there might be a substitute name for a mobile phone as it is used for more than the required telephonic conversation. There will be no surprise at present if some body asks you that apart from being a teetotaller, how many hours you waste before the internet or how often you use your mobile phone per day. I dont know where it will lead, the destination is still unclear! And definitely not a healthy destination. On the other hand, its high time we can imagine being without mobile or internet! Its like the earth stood still and have a feeling like having losing something close to the heart.

I admit its important to stay connected when we are away from our dear ones. But, is it required when they are close and near is the next billion dollar question... Well then I can call it addiction! If you smoke or drink, it takes time to quit or you dont quit at all, may be you reduce the frequency and so is this..atleast stay away when you are at home ! 

Which generation are we?

Off late, this question had been provoking frequently in my mind…which generation are we in? Any guy in the mid 20’s and 30’s can almost feel like being in a 50-50 generation…neither previous nor the next…Being in India and keeping the fact that it is a developing nation, there are day-to-day improvements in our happening life. Be it technology, culture, movies, education, food, travel, relationship and what not…


I don’t know, I always feel like a testing rat being tested with all the changes and developments happening around us. Or may be I am glued to this digital world so much that, I am forced to think so!


My uncle cherishes his nostalgia by recollecting the letters he used to write to home when he was in hostel. I can’t even do that...all I should have done is to have recorded my telephone conversation then.


During college days, my mom used to ask frequently, with whom are you talking over the phone. My dad used to ask why the phone charges are high. And now it’s mobile. You call it privacy..But yet you are not alone!


I cannot forget my cassette collections. Then CDs. We had to pay a huge price to get a CD player. By the time we get used to it, and then came DVDs and now Blu ray! Come on give me a break!


I could recollect using an ordinary Kodak camera with film rolls during my late school days. You don’t even know how the output is unless you finish it off and give it to a store to take prints! Then came the digital camera. They were tested on us. We paid more initially. Our first expression was Wow! Being able to see instantly the snaps we take and the capability to store it in our PCs without even having to print it. One single photograph in hand is worth more than the thousands of jpg files you store it in your PC! What an irony!


I still have a pass book of my first bank account. I was then thinking will there be any way to reduce the queue for money withdrawal. Now I don’t even need to know where my bank is present physically. But the queue has not reduced but switched places from banks to ATMs. I was thinking what would happen if a day comes when the internet world goes black.


What I thought in a computer was then a black and white monitor with some programs running. And thought computer programmers were genius! Am I a genius then? No not even the first letter of it. Yesterday they talked about internet, google, blogs, facebook on a larger screen…and now micro applications. We are forced to cope up or else we become obsolete.

I can say that these kind of thoughts will not strike the future minds as they donot have a chance to realise the transformations from what it was to what it is, like we realise it.


Changes are happening so rapidly that what has happened yesterday is outdated today. Somehow, we are in this period of time. Should I call it a boon or bane? It’s become an additional burden to strike a balance between our elders and our juniors. Nowadays even a short gap of two to three years between us and our juniors have a lot of differences in terms of ideas, education, technology, communication etc. So you cannot even call it a generation gap. What do you call then? The people who have hard times to stand these are our elders. It’s not their fault though. Most of our parents would find it hard to even understand what a computer is. So definitely they have hard times to cope up with the current trend. Imagine your father asking how to surf the net and your younger brother asking details about iphone. You know where you stand now!

Endhiran - An Experience!

I have to admit that Endhiran is an experience! For me, it didnt start from the title cards. Rather I would say it started from its audio release! From then, every single bit of news about the movie spiced up my expectations.  With the teasers released during the audio launch or the theatrical trailer released a couple of weeks back, one could not wait for the actual movie and I am no exception. Moreover it became a day to day activilty for me to do a google search with the key word "endhiran". I bet there is nothing unusual in it. Savvy? 

So where is the difference? What creates all the hype and fun? The only name is Rajnikanth! Its like you are waiting to have your favourite ice cream and what will you do when you hear that it would be topped by hot chocolate, crispy nuts, raisins and berries giving the final touch. Dont you go berserk? So Rajni-Shankar-ARR-Ash combo delight dons the magic here!

So why Rajnikanth? Why are his movies have a cult following in the South? I have always wondered. Atleast to my knowledge from seeing his films, he is the only man in the industry whose films can be watched along with family..along with friends..along with cousins...at least alone! He is a mass entertainer! Be it any film..Baasha, Annamalai, Padayappa or Sivaji for that matter. Ironically he is the best villain than being the hero! If you think Karunas and Santhanam are for comedy..then what is Rajni for...Media portrays Rajni as a God in the South! Director Shankar has transformed this vision in a scene in this movie which is enjoyable. One must watch Endhiran for it! All you see in each and every frame of the movie is Rajni..Rajni..Rajni.. 

Shankar is the man of execution of one's own thoughts! You may drink a coke and thrash the tin...Shankar would use it in a song in Boys! He is an out of box creator who can make an aam aadmi to virtually experience the exotic locations! Watch the picturesqueness in Kilimanjaro and Kadhal Anukkal!  However I felt the screenplay / plot in the second half could have been a little crisp. But who would think there would be hundreds of Rajni transforming to whatsoever objects we cannot think of! Visual treat! So any flaws in the story or script is covered here! Watch Endhiran second time for it!  There are a quiet bit of social awareness too, may be its not told but thats what i understood. One is such a scene which shows a humongous dumpyard symbolising the environment pollution. When the Robot asks "Did I ask you to create me?", it was touching and also strikes a chord!

                                     

ARR songs have already been chartbusters! His songs are apt  for the sci-fi-masala theme of the movie. So its doesnt make a point to compare with any of his other works! Its commercial, robotic, hypnotic, metallic.  And when you watch it on screen with the visuals, its fantastic. ARR the magician! Its inevitable for people to expect that pinnacle of background score from the Grammy winner for Endhiran, so even the better background score doesn't leave an impact at the first time!

I think i haven't talked about the gorgeous lead actress Aishwarya Rai. Full credit to Superstar for grabbing my attention in spite of her on screen presence! It was very clear what to expect and what not to expect from the proven masters in their respective field! Thanks to Shankar for giving a new genre for the Indian audience and also making us to understand it as well. I thoroughly had a very good experience watching the movie in theatre.

Endhiran is an agmark Indian recipe with all the native masala ingredients topped with spices imported from foreign soil DOT.

When childhood pals meet...

Its been almost nine and a half years we completed schooling and its almost five years, we had visited a place together. After Kodaikanal in 2005, its Pondicherry now!

Its been a long pending item, which we had achieved now. We missed our other guys, but still we six managed to make it. It was like married guys being single for one day and singles feeling even younger and surprised by the mature talks of the latter ;). The talks about our school were still fresh, still remembering and cherishing the good old days we were in school.  It was great to see how we have transformed ourselves from how we were in school to how we are now. Altogether, it was a pleasant holiday! Lets see when we meet up again! Sometimes these kinda activities give us a sigh of relief from our routine...aint it?

I dont recollect how we came to this topic...

...but suddenly one of my roomie commented about social networking especially twitter or facebook, that most often people use it to show off. He also added saying that some tweet unnecessarily saying that they are in the middle of so and so movie or they are in so and so restaurant or bla bla bla... My thought was completely different...I feel we have at least this freedom of expressing our thoughts. If some body tweets something or posts on his wall in Face book, take the one's which is relevant for you and leave the rest. Something which you dont like may be liked by others and vice versa... :) We dont get to talk to our friends everyday and atleast these networks help to keep us atleast aware of what our friends are doing currently, even if we dont respond. Of course, you may or may not be really interested in what he or she is doing at this current moment. But at some cases, it may help recollect good memories. Say for example, you happened to visit your old school recently and you tweet that, it may bring good old memories to your school friends who are following you. May be social networking is a time pass, may be it is useful, may be it is a show off, its how we see it...thoughts ?

Its been a regular routine....

... to start my blog with.."its been a little while i blogged..." i wondered if i could try out some new way to start off with...

Now its been over a month, I am back to namma Bengaluru. Seems nowadays i feel even more lazy to tweet...some how made up to scribble here...so what shall i talk...should i talk about my stay abroad or should i talk about the way they see a guy after he returns abroad or for that matter how you take it....I am no exception..u could atleast find some symptoms of an onsite return..... and whatever i scribble here is the fun teaser my colleagues had to tease on me...

Once when my colleague looked at my playlist - Rihanna's Rated R...thats it gone...they even asked if i changed my name to Kish..or Ken or something...

The lift was really slow in the new building of my office...Should nt i ask about it ? It was the talk of the cubicle the next moment.. :) :)

I was a liitle cautious in whatever i speak...some how when i was speaking to my manager... "okay" turned "k"..and it repeated a few times and he also didnt leave me without making fun.... :) :) I was extra cautious in not using the word 'appreciate'.

One afternoon, I had my parota at the road side opposite to my office. It added more flavour to the talk...They had to tease me somehow and started like "See the simplicity of this US maapillai having parota in the roadside...(now i am not an Indian it seems :( :( ).

Mostly you will find a Cheroke brand in the Mega mart stores here. Is it my mistake to buy that brand? :) :) It had the eagle logo...They were asking if i remember our national bird.... :) :)

..i think its been a month and hope the fun teaser is over...you go away for one month or one year...they dont care...your legs need to be pulled...