First Day,First Show.Last Word.Full Stop.

What's ailing Dhoni ?

2012-01-13T02:12:00.001-08:00

I usually don't like to talk about cricket or to a much lesser extent write about it.I prefer to watch (and will watch anything) and play .So when I wanted to write this ,it is simply because the modern media sucks at writing about cricket.One of the many reasons I have stopped reading about it ,except for the stats based articles and at times the few intelligent ones remaining like the Bhogles and the Chappels is that it is written by fools who have never been in a professional sports environment.

The media writes a lot of gibberish on cricket and all of these fit the traditional arm chair critics.Not one article goes into the minds of a person and they wont because they have never played the game.You dont know what it is to perform professionally day after day.

"So Why has Dhoni failed" and I have probably the best answer for it.It is an answer I formulated about 6 years back and the question then was "Why is Dhoni so successful?"The answer for both is the same.

Dhoni by birth was not a cricket fanatic,he was more passionate about football and took to cricket by chance.Somewhat similar to Saurav Ganguly.When he did start doing well,it was because to him cricket was a job ,and as any employee in a company you want to start doing justice to the job.He did not care about whether he had the passion for it ,or not .To him it was a 9 to 5 job and he did it so well.This is the biggest difference between Dhoni and all the other failed captains before him ,the sachins the dravids etc.To them it was an "oh my god what If I failed this is my life",to Dhoni it was not.

His mind was clear,he always knew if he sucked at it ,he will give it up .
Now you may ask how would you play a game if you didn't like it.Well much the same way as one would work even if he did not like it...Ambrose the former West Indian fast bowler has publicly stated he hated cricket ,but he was so good at it only because to him it was a job and nothing would please his Mom more than doing his job correctly.He says that after his last ball in cricket,he has never ever watched cricket again.You see where I am going! To some people cricket is just that,A job! (and in modern day sports, it is just a rarity because the game is so professional).

This is the same reason that espouses Dhoni's don't care attitude and coolness. I put in a bug in my code today ,I don't sit and weep for it,I come back and fix it whenever it surfaces.You see that is the difference between passion and doing it for the job's sake.if you had passion you would ensure the bug does not happen ,but if you do it as a job there will be chinks in it and eventually the chinks arise because of your don't care attitude.

The thing that has happened today is that Dhoni has just lost his love for the game.He does it day after day just like we do because of some sort of loyalty.We know our company has treated us well,so even though we hate it ,we keep chugging along.Dhoni has the same attitude.And when that attitude surfaces it is bad for both company and the employee .In this case bad for both Dhoni and India.

All his recent conferences where he talks about retiring from one format ,points to the exact reasoning above.It may not be a bad thing for him to do,in fact I would encourage him to take a break from test cricket,maybe he will want to do it again,but mostly he wont and if he does not want to,so be it.Let him play the format he at least likes and quit the rest.

The hiding that India is currently receiving is actually good ,this will help them build a stronger and better base for the future.And in reality it does not matter as every thing in sport like life is a cycle.You will have good days and you will have bad days.

Dhoni has to take this decision and I fancy him taking this decision by the end of the year.You heard it here first.

Hangman Game Updated

2011-12-15T05:26:00.000-08:00

The hangman game that I had developed earlier is now updated .It includes the T20 players list as well now .

So there are three versions you can choose from Test,ODI,T20 .Have Fun !

http://crickethangman.50webs.com/index.html

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I have maintained this game for over 2 years now and have studiously updated with list of new players now and then .Make no mistake this was a manual effort from my side,the only automation being the player value that was generated using some heuristics.A wise manager whom I had worked with earlier often referred to making repeatable tasks as an automation.So that is what I did .
The manual process is ,
a)Get the list of new players from Cricinfo
b)Add it to the list of players.
c)Upload to the Hangman site.

So I wrote a simple utility combining batch scripts and java to
a)Downloads the earlier list from hangman game site
b)A simple Cricinfo parser that first fetches the list of new players alone,then looks up the player page to extract the name.
c)Merges the new information with the old one
d)Upload the old one.
e)EMail the status of the above steps
f)Automate steps a)-e)

For steps a) and d) I had to use a FTP Java Library
For steps b) and c) used java HTML Parser Kit.
For step e) I used an an awesome utility available for windows called sendEmail
For step f) Tried and tested Windows Schedule task (that runs daily) which invokes a batch file that does the above steps.

So simple.? It has now saved all my manual effort and the site takes care of auto updating itself. Yay!

The ACK Collection Story

2011-12-14T05:18:00.000-08:00

I started revisiting collection of my ACKs in my break during August from work.What started off as a small time hobby to keep myself busy quickly turned into an almost full time obsession.So it slowly started by hunting down all possible ACKs uploaded,getting access to rare private blogs by contacts,downloading few more,revisiting my earlier collection of ACKs back home and then coming up with a list of ACKs to get. In August the count to get was roughly around 200+ out of a possible 440+ .Then things started to roll,I got a big bonanza of ACKs on my birthday which reduced the count to 100 odd.Scouring old book shops ,getting more ACKs with some landmark vouchers that was presented to me and quickly the count came to 40 .More trips to unknown second hand book shops in commercial street and other places and then the count is now 29 .

What makes ACKs tougher to get is that there are roughly around 50 ACKs that are no longer in print.It was getting tough to keep track of all these so I went about and created a site on sites.google for all .If you see the lists you will just see why it is incredibly complicated to own an entire collection.Some in old series are not in new,some in new series are not in old,some are present only as bounded sets and so on.

Around this point of time I also felt bad seeing the Wikipedia site which maintained the list .It had a lot of bogus and erroneous entries.So there I was contributing my first full length wiki article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amar_Chitra_Katha_comics

That is when I realized the amount of work that goes behind creating a wiki article.Creating the contents is one thing,then making sure wikifying each link is quite another.Anyways over a weekend I did nothing but that and am done .

The efforts have now paid fruit.A kind hearted soul whom I met via comic blogs saw the effort I was making and decided to hunt down the few remaining ACKs for me.That person has now scoured Delhi Second hand book shops and has got 11 rare ones.This means my count is now below 20 .He has of course promised me to hunt for more and if that happens I may well have the complete collection :) .

Collection is a worthwhile pursuit.It takes away a lot of your time,energy and resources but at the end of it all,It is pretty satisfying to reach your ultimate goal just like any other job.

I have most of the Tinkle Comics numbered under 200 barring a few missing ones here and there .Might just think about collecting that next ,but If I do that,I will probably get thrown out of the house as well :)

Revolution 2020

2011-10-30T10:24:00.002-07:00

The year is 2005 and I have just moved to bangalore.I am not a book lover ,and I have never read any of the sidney sheldons and so on .My knowledge has been limited to comics and the tintins.

I decide to pick up a book in landmark,the book has got no reviews as of yet,but the blurb looked interesting .Something about coaching,entrance exams, iit and a love story all rolled into one.I pick it up ,start reading around 10 to get some sleep ,finish off the book at 2 in the morning without a break,in between huge bouts of laughter.The cult was born.The book receives excellent reviews from word of mouth ,media laps it up,the piracy industry laps it up .A legend is born. Five Point Someone and Chetan Bhagat has given a new face to the term "Indian Writing" .The man becomes a rockstar releases books on a yearly basis ,writes screenplay,directors copy his screenplay,movies become hit .Yet Another legend starts.You could be forgiven for thinking if the man has more legends than the Ghost Who Walks.

I am an unabashed fan of Chetan Bhagat,for quite simply he is the man who has put the Indian reading industry on the map.He writes well,He writes stories where every one of us can relate to to.

Revolution 2020 is brilliant.It is an amazing piece of story telling,I still wonder how a man who belongs to a slightly older generation,gets the mobile phone conversations between the characters perfect,how he integrates a nice political issue into a yet another love story ,on how he describes the city of Varanasi ,that we feel as though we are there,on how he brings the characters alive within our eyes.Critics can dumb them do what they want.When I sit and curl up on my bed and I want to read a fun book on a rainy day,I sure do not want to read a Midnights Children.

There are many book reviews out there ,most of them critical.Do not believe it.Read it and enjoy it.The ending is nice and quite appropriate.I now own all the copies of Chetan Bhagat and all legitimate ,not a single pirated one! .

Amar Chitra Katha Title List

2011-09-04T00:37:00.001-07:00

Taking a little break from work , I have gone back to things that used to get me excited in my childhood. Comic book collection was one such thrill for me and my collection is now stacked with numerous tinkles,amar chitra kathas and indrajal comics.

The quality of Tinkle comics went down once the numbering crossed 300 and I sort of lost interest in that ,in any case I reckon I have about 250 comics of the first 300 .I just realised that some of these comics are worth a lot .Go look it up on ebay and you will find that they cost anywhere between Rs 125 and Rs 200 .The reason for this is quite simply because these comics are not reprinted as individual issues,they are however reprinted as Tinkle Digests ,which somehow does not hold the same sort of charm for me.And ofcourse Tinkle Digests ,does not capture the entire comic contents as a whole ,for instance it leaves out the competition pages ,and all the little 3 comic panels.In any case I am happy with my collection and would not part with it for anyone.Trying to complete the collection would also be a near impossible task.

Indrajal Comics on the other hand,of which I have very few and which are equally as valuable are also not in print.However the good fellows on the internet have a own blog for this ,painstakingly scan each issue and upload on the net.The complete collection is available as a torrent,and few missing issues can be got from the indrajal blogs.A top class effort indeed.

The Amar Chitra Katha comics which espouses various stories on Indian/World Mythology is indeed a superlative effort from the India Book House. It has since been taken over by ACK media who have decided to issue reprints of all the issues earlier.Some of the issues are still not reprinted which I suspect is because of the fire that broke out in India Book House in 1994 .However they are doing a good job bringing out the old comics in hardbound editions and glossy covers.They have also got some new titles which were not published in the old ,which I have started collecting now.These new editions unfortunately do not have the stellar art work of the old comics.Again this I suspect is because of the heavy use of computers for performing the coloring operation while the older comics were hand-drawn which is definitely superior.

It is now an offence to upload ACKs to blogs as for other comics as the copyright is held now by another production house,so they are indeed tough to find on the net,but you can find a substantial collection on the net that was already uploaded before the copyright issues came into existence.

My aim now is to complete the collection of ACKs and I have less than 100 to go out of the 439 printed editions .Some of them are in print and so buying them to increase my collection is just a matter of time.Some of them are still out of print and hence extremely rare.
For instance 340 The Making Of A Swordsman is out of print .Getting this copy is indeed priceless and options could be scouring for it in old book shops ,which is what I am currently doing on every day of my break .

And as I have been doing this I needed to complete a list of Amar Chitra Comics which I carry around in my search ,so I have split the list into new series publications,old series publications and more importantly old series publications which are not in new series.The joy of finding one from this last set in the bookshops is the ultimate.I have joined a library that stocks some of these and needless to say it was like finding a gold mine.

It is good to enjoy these small childhood thrills ,but in another week ,it is back to work.

I have created a site for the Amar Chitra Katha titles here.The wiki entries are wrong for most and John's site is probably an excellent resource as well,although few entries are missing in that.I hope to expand this to contain details of each book ,much like the good folks at ipcomics.net

Vinnaithaandi Varuvaya-Thanks GM

2010-02-26T07:33:00.000-08:00

There was a period in the late 90s where I lost complete touch with Tamil Cinema.It was a lovely period where my only interest was sports of all kinds,and I never missed out on a single sporting event ,be it league football or snooker or rugby.And I feel proud for it.

And then along came a young debutant director who gave a heart warming romantic comedy complete with all the commercial elements sans the vulgarity that became an instant hit amongst all college goers.It was the movie which everyone related to in some way or other.The movie "Minnale" was a path breaking effort from the cliched Tamil Cinema seen earlier.I realised that I had missed out on a treasure trove of cinema and started watching all the movies that I had missed earlier;hardly missing even one.And I feel proud of it.

The story then moves to the brilliant movies that GM subsequently gave us and I had found the man who in my opinion gave the perfect mix of commercial elements and artistic elements in a tamil movie to the world.

Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya is quite simply a gem in his crown.It is right up there in terms of his best movies.GM does three things quite brilliantly in a simple storied movie.
1.He focuses on human thought process.Eg.Trisha's confusing emotions at all points o f time
2.He focuses on reality and practicality. Eg. The thought process of the parents.
3.He focuses on typical scenarios one experiences in the world of love.Eg. The whole movie!

The climax uses a plot device that is mind boggingly brilliant when you think about it more and more.When rumours of two climax surfaced I was skeptical about what GM had done, but I had the slight hope that even if two climax were present it wont be bad.Well technically there is one climax although you could claim it as two and yet the movie makes sense.If you are curious watch the movie.!

The reason why I think GM is successful more than any other tam director is that the guy is basically an intelligent young man.Most directors have sarakku for 2 or 3 movies Eg VenkatPrabhu and then fade.The man being intelligent spawns his own sarakku from his life,from other peoples life,imbibes a good thought process on it and gives us viewers a treat.I am glad I caught the first show,I will be even more glad to catch another viewing of it in theater,probably for the first time ever I will watch a movie twice.

Technically the movie is brilliant and GM as in every movie of his produces a character whose performance leaves us remembering more about the movie.If it was Vivek in Minnale,Pandya in KK, The villains in VV, the award goes hands down to Producer Ganesh whose performance is quite simply outstanding.Every word out of the man elicits laughs,his body language am sure cannot be taught by a director but has just come out naturally.

Btw where is GM's cameo performance in this movie.Is there one?

Thanks GM , I know Tam Cinema is in safe hands with directors like you.

A reference to my work in Cricinfo

2010-01-04T19:45:00.000-08:00

One of my hobbies these days is to build up my own statistical articles.I wrote a simple parser to extract information from the wonderful tool Cricinfo Statsguru and build up my own little database.I subsequently use this set of text files to generate my own information.

One of the work that was borne out of such an effort was this article.Thanks to Ananth ,the Cricinfo It figures blog editor who acknowledged my effort for the article.

The blog addresses the simple question how often have the same team played a particular match.This gives more answers with regards to the stability of the team.Now we extend that notion to n=10 ,meaning how often have the same 10 people played the game,it gives us more idea on which teams had a solid foundation of 10 similar people on more number of games.We can slowly extend the idea to n=9...so on till n=2 to give us more insights.Ofcourse the answer to n=1 is trivial and simply boils down to which player has made the most number of matches.

The question is interesting,the answer to this is tough to find given the large amount of data we need to parse through.
There have been 1944 test matches at the time of writing the article.Each test match contributes to 2 teams so 1944*2=3888 teams. For finding n=11 the most inefficient method is to compare team#1 with team#3888 and see if there is a match if so increment the count for that team.Basically a brute force algorithm where you compare one team with every other team.This is time consuming,and is not easily extendable for all n.

So I adapted the following generic algorithm.

Consider the solution for a particular n.Say n=6.
So in a particular team How many sets are there of size n=6 .The answer is 11 C 6 (11 Combination 6) i,e 462.So like this we will construct 462 such sets for each team.
462*3888 i.e about 1.8 million sets.Now basically see how many of these 1.8 million sets are matching and you have your count.
So the solution boils down ,given a set of 11 elements,construct all possible subsets of size 2 ,size3 and so on till size 11 and get count of each possible subset across all teams.Wrote a simple Java algorithm for the same and we are done.The whole thing took 2 mins to run.Once the results are out a simple unix script to sort it on country basis will give me the formatted results.

That is the long and short of the algorithm I used.

Cricket Hangman Game

2009-11-08T09:11:00.000-08:00

Back in school/college days,One of my favorite pastimes used to be to play a game of hangman(either on movie names or on cricketers) with my mates.I used to be pretty good at the cricket hangman,however sadly most of my mates are now in distant lands.

Work no longer permits me to enjoy these pleasures of fooling off any more,nor have I found similar like minded enthusiasts to keep playing the game.So I decided to develop my own little version of cricket hangman.It is fun,fantastic,has levels of toughness and aim is to maximise your points,which you can do with minimal losses.

For playing the game,there are two versions,

Test Players Hangman
ODI Players Hangman

Bear in mind that the list is complete and I hope to maintain the list up to date as well.As you keep playing the game,you might get tougher names,like Ian Colquhoun or Jack Nitschke.
However those would only be in the end levels.The start levels will get you easier ones like Sachin Tendulkar.!

Game sounds good? Why don't you check it out here
http://crickethangman.50webs.com/index.html

The first glimpse...

2008-07-11T08:23:00.000-07:00

May 28 2008

I have just had a terrible 1.5 hr flight to Hyderabad. The flight booked by Oracle a Jet Airways, one in which men are packed like sardines, sandwiches are of the size of shrimps and no fresh water to survive.

It’s the onset of recession, things look bleak everywhere, and the mantra in every company is to diversify. I have many mentors at my office, and one amongst them is someone whom I know from my cricketing days at Oracle. He is a manager in the BDE team of Oracle BI.He tells me that BI is the in thing right now,Oracle BI is ramping up and I should try and make a move to the development side of it.He also adds as a side note ,that the development team is completely based out of Hyderabad, and that there is a 3 day training session for new joinees.I decide then and there to make a presentation to my manager and convince them that this is purely for knowledge and I need it on my resume to make my promotions easier.

Arriving on an early morning flight and heading straight to the cyber gateway office in half senses, I enquire at the reception of the whereabouts of this supposedly path breaking training. All I hear is words of "cheppu" and some other word that starts with the syllable r,that sounds like someone has done something with a girl .I know from my basic knowledge of telugu that one of them refers to someone talking and the other one although obscene really means tomorrow in the local lingo. My brain conjoins these two words and looks forward to the day's rest in the hope that the training is really tomorrow.

In walks a slender, lithesome girl, with the perkiness of someone who has just turned 21.The girl overhears the reception folks talking and conjoins the same words,and asks me straight,"Are you here for the BI Training" .My mind partially numbed by the flight, wants to say No,but has registered always to say Yes to a beautiful girl. The brain and the heart of course says "Yes".

The girl proceeds to introduce herself saying that her name is "R" and that she is here for the training herself. She also conveniently mentions that she happens to know the mysterious training room .I follow her footsteps merrily, and try to start a flirtatious conversation, but the girl is more insistent on why a developer in Bangalore wants to learn Business Intelligence. I struggle to say something intelligently at this point of time and merely say purely for business purpose.

We enter the training room together and as is my wanton habit, I proceed to go find the last rows. The only mistake I made is not looking back and I see her sitting at the front. I then thought maybe she is one of the studious types who are going to ask questions the whole day. The clock ticks over to 9:30 and she gets up and closes the door, and switches off the light. The light however dawns upon me, when I realize that she is not only a developer but someone who is playing the technical lead role in her team. She gets up and switches on the projector, I sink further into my seat and proceed to get stunned for the next 3 hours. The session is over and in walks another balding head, who says we have a 30 min break and we shall continue the interesting session with him for the noon. At this point however I know where my interests lie.

Post noon, at the first tea break I rush to the cafeteria. I know my chances of finding her are roughly same as the sun rising in the east. Hey it’s an IT office after all; every coffee break means every employee at the cafeteria! Then I find her amidst a gang of girls talking incessantly. Her age somehow seems to have reduced from the 21 I thought she was. My brain gathers up an unusual never to be repeated instant courage, to go and talk to her.

I walk up to her, and utter a weak “Hi”, the gang of girl cast a shady look at me, I cast a dirty look back at them, they move away. She says "What’s Up?” I say ,"In the morning your lecture got me out of sleep, and this man has put me back to sleep, and I really need someone hot" .The expression changes on her face and I quickly realize the slip of my mind and tongue and say "err I really meant something hot, like the coffee". She laughs a bit, her hair tossing about across her face, she rolls it back across, waves sweep past me and a zillion butterflies flutter about in my stomach. I proceed to smooth talk with her and tell her that we shall probably catch up sometime before I leave. She says sure and walks back to her gang of girls. I notice some shady guys now giving dirty looks at me.

I get back to my training and scenes out of “Minnale” jump onto my head. However in reality when I close my eyes and open, the bald trainer is still out there.

May 29 2008

Day 2 of the training and I am really chuffed. Since there is a reference to “R”s first session, R has another small section left to complete. I sneak in a bathroom break, borrow the comb from one of the shady guys that looked at me, and try to set the hair in place. I give up, I have always had a bad hair day since the time I had my first “Palani Murugan Temple” tonsure. I walk back only to unfortunately hear that “R” has been held up in a meeting and hence would be unable to take the training.

Day 2 passes off quite uneventfully to say the least

May 30 2008

Day 3 my last and my make or break day. I decide to quit the training in the afternoon, in order to at least get her number at lunch. Lunch is filled with the aroma of bad smelling yesterdays cooked sambar and sounds of rock hard rotis hitting the plate. They however are immaterial at the moment. The brain is funny, it knows when to reject the bad things.

My luck seems to be turning, I notice her at the lunch break sitting alone. The chances of that happening are same as the chances of sun not setting in the west.I walk up with the “thali” food and start the “vetti” talk.I gather that her meeting with her US manager slipped into overtime and hence her pals had already had the lunch. We crib about the bad lunch, the bad weather and somehow it does not seem all that bad. It seems like we have known each other for years and coming from the same cultural background it helps us relate to common facts more easily. We crack several jokes straight out of tamil movies and the camaraderie has now reached awesome proportions. She professes herself that she has never had such an enjoyable “Friend” in her life. The body heats up like a rapidly running Chennai Auto meter and glows like the Chennai Sun. I know I have made her feel comfortable but then how do I make the move. ? We overshoot lunch timings and join for a quick coffee as well. Oracle now suddenly seems like it has 2 new government employees.

Time runs out we bid each other good bye .I walk out of the office, drop off the temporary id card, sign a million things (actually two things but seems like a million) ,wait till the evening to collect my certificate and zip off to the airport. We are yet to take off but I already feel like I am floating in mid-air. I know this is the dreaded “L” word,the word that breaks a heart or makes a life, the word that has different connotations for different people, the word that somehow adds the word puppy and mature before it. I do not know what it is, but I sure do know that it is a good feeling.

Jun 2 2008

Back in office at Bangalore, I speak to my friends excitedly about this new person. While everyone seems over eager to hear how I made the approach, the gaffes that I made, everyone also comes to the same conclusion “Machi,distance da,free a vidu,will not work” .The rational sense to actually analyze the line with strict principles of Mathematical induction has long gone. My brain has also long gone into an overdrive. I proceed to add her on the Internal Pidgin Messenger. The talks start, a bit aimless at first, a bit more strategic at next and a bit more sophisticated by asking questions on BI to make sure that she knows my aim at the moment is purely being a friendly professional.

Jun 24 2008

A buddy’s bday is done, he has just informed me he is getting engaged to his dream girl soon and that things are all A-ok at his home. My hormone levels rise, I decide today is the day. I can either spend the rest of my life worrying that I never ever made the move, or make the move and be happy that I made the effort. I decide to take a chance with the latter. I am ready to face the worst I tell myself. I also tell myself If not R someone else.

Jun 24 2008 Evening 6 PM

I ping her and tell her I need to speak to her when she gets back home. Luckily for me she is already back home that day a bit early. I fancy the stars aligning in my direction. I get her number this time and she gives it with no questions. I can see the symmetry of the stars. I am direct and bold, and come to the point I say “I think I would like to spend the rest of my life with you, What do you say” .There is no romantic I L U,no dreaded pauses on my end, it’s as quick as Akthar’s Yorker. Full and Straight.!

She blocks the question and says quite simply, “No all I have is friendly feelings for you,I can’t think of you that way” .The best answer in my view to block a guy. Simple and Straight.Clean Bowled.

Jun 24 2008 Night 9PM

I am unable to have a proper dinner, I call her again and she tells me quite strictly never to call her up if this is what I have in mind. Case closed

Jun 25 2008 Evening 8 PM

I give her a day’s break in the hope that her mind shall change. We have not chatted online the entire day, something new as it is the first time since I got back from Hyderabad that we have not spoken an entire day. I call her in the night.Today she is a bit surer of herself and is ready to reason out. She tells that she appreciates the feelings I have for her and she does not doubt that I am a nice guy, but she says being a nice guy is not enough, I have a career to think about and I am happy to be in Hyderabad, but you are in Bangalore, am not ready for a shift now. She then says the big thing, that her family is orthodox and they shall not encourage her to do all this. She is quite clear on that part, and knowing that I decide to back off.

The brain and girls my friend is after all funny, it knows when to reject the bad things.

2 yrs goes by, we have the occasional Hi how are you chat. Every time I do that, my heart skips a beat. I am afraid that someday she is going to pass on the message of her getting hitched. Time goes by, we move on professionally, Things happen in our lives, but we don’t share it. I feel a bit bad at times, that I might have ruined a beautiful friendship. I however decide to move on, rather than fret about it.

Edit: The story might have ended on Jun 25, but just like the VTV movie, it has a twist. I proceed to narrate this further in my edit. These events have been updated in April/May 2010.

Apr/May 2010

I have just seen another alliance and have decided that though the girl is nice, it is not going to work out. My thoughts drift back to her words, you are a nice guy but all nice guys need not have good chemistry with me. Fair enough, I console myself with the same words. My dad says do not worry, Some girls dad has called him today and has indicated they will send her gals photo. I say to my dad, no more photos, you decide and let me know, and then I shall take a call.

I work on my laptop, trying to find out How Anushka looks so young at 30.A mail pops from Mr.Ra saying “pics attached”. I realize my dad has not signed out of the messenger. My mind impulsively instructs my hand to click the mail, and there I realize the shock of my life, Its sweety –No Not Anushka .Paulo Coelho’s words spring forth “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

I tell my dad to please proceed with this one. My dad is taken aback, he’s asking me what prompted this turnaround. I am unable to explain the past but I just tell my dad, look am ok, if the gal is ok, I would like to speak.

Turnaround time is rapid, Within 2 hours I hear the girl has approved.

The calls start, the initial call is not about breaking the ice. It’s more about now that the ice has melted; do we still want to skate on it? Everyone knows skating on thin ice is dangerous. The calls take a more rational and professional approach than I can think of. We are one step short of creating and sharing a Google spreadsheet and checking off things. We decide to meet again. The meet happens, it goes well. We decide this is it. The word spreads to her family. There is a great deal of joy in her family , a bit of indecisiveness on both our parts, we go back and forth much like the Indian Home Minister. Then we decide this is it, we are the ones going to end up in the same Home. The deal is done.

We shake hands on our deal. She laughs a bit, tosses her hair about her face, I scratch my head, waves sweep past me, waves radiate from her, a million butterflies fly in her stomach, a zillion in mine, the eyes meet, the spark is seen.!We are ready to ignite the holy fire with the same spark.

So the question as to what is my marriage is this, It was a one sided love, that transformed into a 50-50 AM, that has now transformed into 2 sided LM.

The girl meant for you my friend is after all funny; it knows when to accept the good things.

Thanks and keep rocking “R”.

Notes:

The above is a work of pure fiction.I am trying to explore different concepts that tamil cinema may not have explored with the love stories.What happens if the person you love is the person you eventually get into an arranged marriage?What about that case when the love was one-sided and it clicked in the end via arrange marriage ?can we narrate it from the guy's point of view or the girl's point of view? GM unfortunately has explored good concepts around LMs but I sure wish he could explore this more.The closest I can think of in tam cinema history is Parthiban Kanavu which was a very very novel attempt,it explored the concept of falling in love with a person and getting arranged to someone else ,but still able to fall in love,the use case being both of them look alike.I am excited by these variations,and like chess openings I am sure we can fiddle around rather than seeing rowdy boy-rich girl.

The Art of Giving Interviews

2008-05-20T06:30:00.000-07:00

I do not enjoy television cricket interviews at all,coz more often than not there is repeatum ad infinitum of same nonsense.I really wonder how many times people have asked the same player question during the ipl ,"So how is this experience of playing with other internationals in your team" and everyone comes out with an hackneyed answer saying "Great learning experience"

On the other hand once in a blue moon ,there comes some fantastic interviews .No not those sachin exclusive interviews that he gives every 4 years which btw are extremely extremely boring ,for the simple reason sachin is diplomatic and does not let much out.

If you ever have time and are a cricket enthusiast who wants to learn something from the game,you should read this interview with Haydos

Every sentence he speaks has something that you can learn from.They say the mind makes the man,in this case there is no wonder why such a wonderful mind has made such a big man.

By far,the best interview from a cricketer in a long long time.Hail the print media!

Edit : Add Martin Crowe's Fabulous interview to the above.Sriram Veera of Cricinfo certainly has managed the art of making great interviews

One Test One ODI player Quiz

2008-04-21T01:47:00.000-07:00

Another cricket quiz that I recently designed.Have a shot at it.Most of it can be worked out.
I have all my older quizzes,I am hoping to upload it somewhere ,so that folks can take a look at that as well.

As most of my quizzes go,they are based on one theme,this one is the one test/one odi players that we all remember.Try it.

Answer Time: All questions were cracked,barring the toughie I posed in Q4 .The average score was around 5-6/11 which is really really good.

1.My middle name is Tara.I played my only test against Australia in 1992.I picked up 3 prize wickets in that match that of Mark Waugh, Mark Taylor and Geoff Marsh.Anybody with that credentials could have gone on to play more than one test,but then my one day performances(in the 1992 world cup) were disappointing and I was discarded soon after.Notably that debut test was also the debut of another player who went on to represent his country with great fame.Recently I was appointed the bowling coach of the Mumbai Indians.

-Identify the One Test player and the other debutant. (2 Pts)

Subroto Bannerjee - The forgotten pacer who moved to Australia for coaching after his Ranji Career.He recently returned as the bowling coach for Mumbai Indians
The other debutant was ofcourse Shane Warne :)

2.I cracked a 100 and 50 in my only test that I played.However back then contact lenses were not too good and I had problems with my sight soon after.I was then discarded from my team and I was buried in record books being only one of the two players to have scored 100 on debut and never to play again.I live in Perth,but my son wanted to go back to his country of birth to represent them.He has worked long and hard for it and has recently earned his first call up for the country squad.

Identify the father and son pair.(2 Pts)

At the time I write the Answer,the son has already made his debut .
It is Aaron Redmond of NZ and his dad Rodney Redmond (NZ)

3.1987-88 .Tami Nadu became the Ranji Trophy Champions.It brought into limelight,two players who would go on to play for India with reasonable success.WV Raman And Robin Singh.While these two were the architects of batting,It really owed its success to this bowler who toiled manfully on the Chepauk tracks to come up as one of the leading wicket takers for that season.
However he is till date one of the two Indian player to have played exactly one odi and one test.

Coincidentally call it curse if you may,the only other Indian player to have played one odi and one test was the other debutant in the ODI .
A left arm fast bowler,who bagged a pair in his only test,and went wicket less in the test and odi that he played.Just when you think no one else could have such a miserable career,he earned a ban for chasing Raman Lamba with a stump in a Ranji Trophy match and faded out soon after.

Who are the above two unlucky cricketers (2 Pts)

M.Venkataramana and Rashid Patel (The Stump Chaser,Prior to Harby ,the only person to be banned for onfield reasons for a long time).
Quite a few good guesses with Bharat Arun

4.My Umpiring career was controversial recently.However I am also a member of the one test and one odi club,I am a left handed opening batsman who made my debut against India in 1986 tour.I got my chance coz of an injury to this other opening batsman "X" who was recently jailed for 12 months for attempting to illegally obtain a mortgage secured against the house of his partner's sick father."X" though played a few tests before his career also sank into oblivion.Anyway getting back to me,I played for Kent till I was 40,scoring heavily for them and am pretty disappointed that I never made enough money .However with me getting promoted to the elite panel,and getting to be part of IPL I have suddenly found my cash box full.Maybe I never have to resort to a scam like "X".

X is a toughie..however who is the umpire ? ( 2 pts)

Mark Benson -The sitter of the lot and not Peter Willey (who does not feature in IPL in any case).
X was Wayne Larkins -A really nice cricketer,remember this guy coz I had one of his pics worth 6 runs that used to come with bubble gums back in the 1980s.

5.This one is a personal fave of mine.I used to follow the English County matches in the late 90s religiously on television.One such wonder was this guy.Awesome stance ,used to stand a few feet outside leg stump and move in as the ball was being delivered.He had a brilliant first class career spanning 30 years,banned for 2 years in middle for taking a rebel tour to South Africa,200 first class wickets,Wisden Cricketer of the year,30000 first class runs,61 hundreds and so much more.In the county leagues,he smashed nine sixes en route to record books.Surprisingly he played only 4 tests and a solitary ODI ,for a person of this caliber.Unsurprisingly like every Englishman's career ,his failure was against Australia and maybe thats why he was consigned to the domestics.Youngest ever captain or Derbyshire at age of 22 and tipped as future English captain,his was the Amol Muzumdar career in more ways than one.

Identify this domestic English giant.(1 pt)

Kim Barnett-What a first class Career.

For bonus,Another English Cricketer,born in South Africa also made his debut in the same match as the above.When he played his last match ,he had the highest contemporary average by any England player.He was a great player of fast bowling with favorite shots being the rasping cuts and powerful pulls.He ended his career in 2003 as the Hampshire Captain.

Who ? (1 pt)
Robin Smith -The greatest underachiever for English Cricket barring Mark. Ramprakash

6.I played for Australia in an ODI only once at international level against Pakistan.I was an unlucky player in that I was diagnosed with a stomach bug when I was at my peak form in 1988 and diagnosed an years rest.During my comeback year,I was struck on the face by a Merv Hughes bouncer in a local match and my season ended.I got back the next year again to win the Sheffield Shield player of the year scoring 1190 runs,only overpowered by Bevan and by Katich recently.I also led South Australia to Shield wins in 1996 .Outstanding fielder,I still hold record for maximum catches in Aussie domestic cricket.Darren Lehman ,my South Australian team mate,reckoned I had dropped just one catch in his whole career.I now coach an international side.Who am I ? (1 pt)

Jamie Siddons - Bangla Coach

Lots of guesses with Trevor Bayliss the windies coach

IPL-Premier Impressions!

2008-04-20T07:54:00.000-07:00

After all the brouhaha and the media hype,the IPL finally kicked off this weekend.First Impressions -well neat.

Why neat? well when I first started watching ICL, I absolutely loved the talent some of the local boys started showing.The fielding standard was awesome,and somehow I felt the commitment was more there.I think after watching 3 editions of ICL ,I can pick few guys who would be in the mix for India in future,but such a pity that they never will be allowed to show their wares.
R.Satish,Ganapathy Vignesh,TP Singh,Stuart Binny,Ibrahim Khaleel were absolutely stunning.Their all round skills were special ,not to mention the exceptionally high fielding standard of all of them.

The ICL had a mission.They not only wanted to make money,but they had a genuine concern to bring up standards of Indian domestic players.So they hired all the external support staff,physio,mental trainer ,fielding coach etc,and their effects clearly showed.So ICL is like the good guy who will end up finishing last.

The IPL on its first day of launch bragged something about the same thing,the domestic players and stuff,well thats all nothing but a cock and bull story.The IPL will never do anything to actually improve the standard of the domestic players -trust me on that.They will go back to domestics probably having gained experience from mingling with the international players but they would not have added anything new to their game.

The reason is simple,Each IPL team has 4 internationals,3 Indian players fixed .That means a chance for 4 of them and they will be rotated among the 8 -10 domestics in the squad with the result that each of them gets 3-4 games.Thats not enough.(An Opening bowler Akhil does not get to bowl in Bangalore's opening match,An hopeless bowler like Cameron White does.Case Closed)

The IPL to reiterate is nothing but a money making exercise,but its fun.You know that; but I am telling this to people who are going to say something about bringing domestic standard up.This will never happen.The ICL players,if you get them back to domestics by some miraculous fairy,then I can assure you atleast 15 of them would be future Indian prospects.Never anything similar for the IPL.

The fielding standards of the IPL barring one or two sucks by the way.Even good fielders like Yuvraj,Hayden suck.The domestics suck more.No initial games ,nerves jangling excuse can be given .The ICL players rocked from the start

However having said that I am going to watch every match of the IPL.For starters its cricket,for seconds, it brings some of my favorite Australian players into the mix.One of the things I have started following closely is the Aussie domestic cricket over the past few years.David Hussey has become an all time fave of mine (and I dearly wish he played for chennai) , over the past year,while I would not budge my seat if any of Ashley Noffke,Dominic Thornely and Luke Ronchi play.I hope to see Shaun Marsh and another person whom I have labelled as the future superstar -Luke Pomersbach get a game or two.I do not want to see,Glen and Shane play-Dont ask me why,but hey they are the past and I want to see new talent.

So thats that.
Pros -
Its fun.
Aussie domestic players in the mix
Lalit Modi - Concept was already there,but he really did pull off a nice coup with the hype

Cons-
Retired players
No Chance for an Indian Domestic to up his game.
Lalit Modi -No official Permission to cricinfo and other news agenices.
The IPL Website does not work most of the time by the way.
Set Max is Worst Max .
-I do not like ladies to host anything during a Cricket Match.Barring Anjum Chopra (DDs only bright move ever) who having played the game actually makes better comments than Arun Lal ,The rest of the ladies are hopeless.
-They do not know the game of cricket can be clearly seen by the questions they ask
-Set Max have some one called Lekha Washington (starring with Simbu in Kettavan),who very clearly thinks DuckWorth is some kind of exotic dish.When interviewing Asad Rauf,today during the flood light failure (who Set Max graciously labelled as Aleem Dar),she asked him which team he was supporting.Egads - he is an umpire,No one ever asks an umpire who they support,thats basic ethics,basic presentation even a 10 yr old knows that.You are adding these ladies to add to the oomph,don't do that,Have a cricketer there to ask these questions,I am sure you wont even lose your audience by 1 person.
-She later went on to ask an assistant coach of Kolkatta questions like,Which is your fave team apart from kolkatta,who else is strong,which is ur fave ground and tons of blah .There was not on cric related question.Heavens he is an aussie domestic coach,I would like to hear him say something technical not sprout nonsense.
-ICL by the way does the same interviewing actress who have no freaking clue of cricket . remember Atul Wassan asking some actress who is she supporting today,and she had no clue the teams which were playing.She replied the guys with the green outfit!!!

Nostalgia.Hope and Sacrifice

2008-04-16T10:55:00.000-07:00

The academy awards normally come up with lot of stupid choices.
Case in point The Shawshank Redemption never getting an Oscar and Titanic fetching a zillion oscars.One place where they normally never bungle up is the foreign film section.

They are mostly carefully chosen and you can be sure that the list of 5 nominees are a minimum guarantee.This is probably because they go through a 2 tier process,where in the host country selects its best and then the Academy Awards committee prune it further.
Featuring 3 academy award winning movies below.This is a must watch,or if you ever drop by my house,be sure that the dvd would be popped in and ready to play :)

The Lives Of Others -2006 Academy Award For Best Foreign Film

"An innocent prisoner will become more angry by the hour due to the injustice suffered. He will shout and rage. A guilty prisoner becomes more calm and quiet. Or he cries. He knows he's there for a reason. The best way to establish guilt or innocence is non-stop interrogation. "

The Lives of Others is a classic movie that features all the above traits.- NHS (Nostalgia Hope and Sacrifice) .It shows how East Germany monitors the citizens with the help of stasi(the secret police).The movie focuses on the life of one such secret officer,who is asked to monitor a set of stage artistes for suspicious activities.His initial dedication to his job is soon overpowered by the empathy he feels for his subjects and tends to agree with the hope and sacrifices undertaken by the subjects.Its a must watch,got a classic climax like all foreign movies and brilliant performances.

Its released in bangalore for now ,do go catch it up,I doubt it will run for another week.

Cinema Paradiso-1989 Academy Award For Best Foreign Film

"Living here day by day, you think it's the center of the world. You believe nothing will ever change. Then you leave: a year, two years. When you come back, everything's changed. The thread's broken. What you came to find isn't there. What was yours is gone. You have to go away for a long time... many years... before you can come back and find your people. The land where you were born. But now, no. It's not possible. Right now you're blinder than I am."

- A celebration of youth, friendship, and the everlasting magic of the movies.

Cinema Paradiso is an all time favorite,and you can be the typical "masala" guy and still like it,coz this movies involves plain sentiments like our movies.However it shows what is the difference between rational and mature sentiments and that which is portrayed in our movies.A story of a young kid who helps out an old man in the projector room of a theater and goes on to become a successful director.The gaps are filled in with flashbacks and also involves a love affair.
If you are the kind of guy who appreciates powerful dialogues,believes in hope and understand sacrifice ,this is for you.

Nowhere in Africa-2002 Academy Award For Best Foreign Film

"This country saved our lives, but it isn't our country! "

I don't even know where to begin to describe this.Its as simple a story as possible and talks about the entire NHS package.A simple story of a family that migrates to Africa to escape the holocaust,a little girls friendship with a native african,and the native african's support and sacrifice for the family.One of the best supporting actor performances ever,If you don't shed a tear at the end ,you are not human.!

IPL or UPL ?

2008-04-14T23:52:00.000-07:00

I wonder if the IPL should be rechristened UPL(The United States Premier League) .No its not the fact that Vijay Mallya plans to bring in cheerleaders from Washington Redskins ,nor is it the fact that we have stupid team names like Super Kings and Mumbai Indians (who are neither Red Indians nor a team comprising wholly of Indians!) .

Its plainly this!I was trying to book tickets via ticketpro site for Bangalore Royal Challengers matches and what do I see in the user registration field.

A STATE field that shows up INDIA and a ZIP field (Wasn't ours PinCode??)

Aasai - The Classic RomThrill

2008-04-01T08:45:00.000-07:00

For the uninitiated Sex and The City a sitcom that ran on prime time television for six consecutive years led to the start of a new term "Dramedy" . Dramedy is basically a combination of drama and comedy and was adored by not only the lady folks,but drew a wide variety of male audience coz of the comedy factor.It spawned off many successful series namely the critically acclaimed Desperate Housewives and more recently the sitcom wars of Cashmere Mafia and Lipstick Jungle

I started the above drawl to mainly point out that sometimes the hybrid variety like that of breeding of cows is the best way to guarantee success. TamCinema have in it a long history of Romantic Comedies but hardly ever a RomThrill -Romantic + Thriller.

Two movies kick started that trend and surprisingly had 2 common factors in both of them,an intelligent director and the actor who would go on to build a niche for himself -Ajith.
While one launched his career the other established it - Aasai and Vaali.
Aasai in many ways is one of my all time favourites,not many would agree with it but the movie is just as classy as Vaali.

There is no point in reviewing a movie which was released nearly 10 years back,but I got a glimpse of the movie yesterday night and it left me awestruck .

Every time I revisit the movie something about the movie strikes me as impressive.
Prakashraj(PJ) in his role as a psychotic villain,who oozes niceness is the very antithesis of a typical villain.PJ is absolutely brilliant with his dialogue delivery,what he says is exactly opposite of what he thinks.Ajith is the typical lovesick hero who has some brilliant lines and goes out of his way to show his love for Suvalakshmi. Suvalakshmi on the other hand is a practical lady,who however has no knowledge of PJ's villainness.

Some of Ajiths lines "Veetuku poriya illati Vitutu poriya" makes us yearn for his love as much as he does.While Suvalakshmi's lines of "Kattikuvenam nu sonnena" multiplies the rom factor as is necessary for the Rom part of a RomThrill multiple times.When she cries at the death of her dog and the bgm(Pooveli Pooveli) runs ,it makes us feel as well.
Poornam Vishwananthan is magic as a doting dad and brings out his best as well.

However it would be unfair to simply increase the goodness behind the movies individual performances ,for without the director Vasanth's magic it would mean nothing.Did anyone notice the little things ; (PJ) professes his love for Suvalakshmi to his wife ,and his wife who has a failing heart finds it hard to digest the news.The entire thing takes place in a parked car when it rains and the only background noise that you hear is the windshield wipers swishing back and forth indicating the rapid beating of a heart.

What about the way PJ disposes of his wife that leaves absolutely no trace of a murder.Is that directors touch or what?The best part is that no character changes who he actually is depending on circumstances.Ajith is the angry suspecting young man - The scene where the family meets with Ajith for the first time,Ajith finds his wallet missing and goes right up in front to accuse PJ of stealing his wallet.-Can anyone ever remember such a scene in our movies ever ?Ajith is also portrayed as an intelligent man,when he does not take the air tickets that PJ gets him-again a stroke of brilliance - Any normal movie would have the hero move back to Chennai and Get back to Delhi once he realised PJ's true intentions,but not here.Ajith is two steps ahead of PJs at most times.

These are the exact reasons that keeps us glued to the movie,since we are trying to solve along with Ajith in guessing his response to PJs plans.The climax involving Poornam Vishwananthan and PJ is one for the Sun TV Super Scenes.

The songs,each one is brilliantly pictured and melodious.The surprising part ,it comes from the "gaana" king,who could have imagined a "gaana" king could give us such numbers.

If you are a Tam Movie buff and if ever there was something like imdb top250 for tamil movies,This has got to be in the top 20 for sure.

Priyasakhi -Deja vu but can watch

2005-09-10T04:39:00.000-07:00

Intro-
A fresh director( atleast fresh to me coz I havent heard of any movies he had directed before),a top notch hero with a fresh look,a top notch heroine with skin showing,some beautiful melodious music should normally be the perfect plan for a decent hit,however the movie fails to hit home mainly because the entire theme has been played out in various movies and hence you linger with the feeling of deja vu throughout.However there are few positives going for it,some good performances and funny sequences interjected here and there,that doesnt make you feel all that bad sitting through and watching the movie.

The Story- for those with a lets get married enthu
The whole story revolves around marital problems that maddy(known as sakhi - shortened form of "santhana krishanan":offtopic: reminds me of a person named rajagopalan who went by the name roger raj in the US coz his name was tough to pronounce) and sada(priya) face because of their different outlooks in life.Maddy is a person from a conservative picture perfect joint family household while sada is a person from one of those rich upper class households .Inadvertently there are conflicts that arise between the two and how little conflicts get blown out of proportion and how they resolve them forms the basis of the story.

My views-
Inspite of a cliched story line and stereotype characters,a semblance of freshness is prevalent throughout the movie,which is why I have given it the tag of "deja vu but can watch". The romance that leads to maddys wooing of sada is quite novel and is very enjoyable to watch.The way in which he makes sada fall in love with him by talking of him being in love with a different girl seems like a takeoff from vaali,but yet some "vetti kadlai dialogues" gets a few laughs .
Ramesh Khanna(who plays maddys brother) provides the comic relief and some of his oneliners are quite entertaining.Kovai sarala tries to provide some pep in the name of comedy in the midst of serious scenes but somehow somewhere along the line,it doesnt quite tickle us.

Directorial touches are almost nil to comeby,although some of the songs picturisations shot in dubai mostly are breathtaking.The end scenes are almost predictable and that takes some lustre of a somewhat decent movie till that time.However with the script that the director has had,I doubt anyone could have done something better.The director to me,(this is where I dont quite agree with the other reviews) has done his best possible with the given script and there is nothing much he could have done to give us a better fare.

Couple of songs especially the priyasakhi song itself is very good and quite hummable.

There were really no bad negatives throughout the movie except for a court scene in which the decision given out is downright ludicruous.

On a personal note,for the first time I felt that Maddy truly looked like a hunk ( although most of the gals thought that this was his worst possible look so far,which sadly also explains the fact why I am still single),sada could be passed off as yet another sappi figure(something which vivek had already pointed out in anniyan).

Performance-
Maddy seems to have given as usual a truly sincere performance,and with his new look,I think he has done an extremely good job.Sada has given it her best shot too.Pratap pothan who plays the dad of sada is wasted and plays the part of a henpecked husband,while his wife Ishwarya with her hoarse voice irritates me to no end.(I still dont know why directors play her,Forget abt the hoarse voice,she just cant act for nuts).Everyone in the Maddy household,seems genuine non-overtly sentimental but practical characters and they do it without any hassles.

Climax-
I could have said that this was the climax 5 minutes into the movie,and in that sense it was too predictable.Why pratap pothan couldnt slap his wife earlier in the movie baffles me.(Dont worry this is not a spoiler,anybody with the brains of a 3rd std kid could have predicted this).

If you have nothing better to do a saturday afternoon,watch this movie and if you are single feel happy that you are.

Ponniyin Selvan- A movie to remember

2005-08-23T06:31:00.000-07:00

Intro-

Azhagiye Theeye-One of the best movies of 2004 had 3 things going for it a believable story and a strong dialogue oriented humor with little sentiments.After seeing that movie ,I reached a conclusion that here was a director to watch out for,simply beacause it was one of the most novel movie of recent times.The director,RadhaMohan hasnt disappointed us a second time around.He just uses the same combination in slightly different mixtures of a believable story,less dialogue oriented humor and more sentiments to succeed.Ofcourse the novelty of the concept impresses us this time around too.As I have always said earlier tam cinema has a simple formula to win the audience,clean entertainer with a different storyline is always a guaranteed success.It may not be a blockbuster,but it will get you the rewards and Radha Mohan has realised this.

The Story-For those with a theres nothing to look forward in life attitude

Venu is a hard working normal individual who strives to make everyone around him happy.However he has a huge inferiority complex due to a disfigurement in his face.The problems that he faces because of his appearance discomforts him to no end.His friends advise him to do a plastic surgery but the only dampener on this solution is the cost.As a result,his sole aim in life now gets devoted to saving money ,that he begins to withdraw from his normal relationship with his friends and mother.There is a seachange in his attitude and he starts becoming selfish for his own personal means.The story then boils down to a tale of sentiments and how the lust for money affects even simple relationships.

My views

A stand out performance by every one of the actors involved and the director should take a bow for this.One of the main reasons why movies like "kadhal" and "autograph" became such a huge hit was that it was more like watching reality rather than a movie.In the same manner RadhaMohan creates the same effect through conversations.The dialogues that take place between the mother -Ponni(revathi) and the son -Venu (ravi krishna) is normal every day kind of conversation about his day at work and their concern for Venu's sister.(Played by deva darshini).Gopika plays the gal next door role to perfection and the teasers and jokes that they play on each other could happen between anyone.The friends whose everyday life depends on Venu's earnings,are characters straight out of people you would see sitting at tea shops every day.Revathi and Gopika espouse a true concern as they are awestruck by the reason as to why he should change his looks.The conversation that takes place on such a serious topic between the three people is filled with humor and is one of the best scenes in the movie.

Directorial touches are few to come by since the emphasis is on dialgoue throughout the movie although one of the earlier scenes in the movie stood out for me.
An initial scene is shown where Gopika is seen singing a devotional song and Ravi krishna enquires which wedding reception she is gonna sing for.Gopikas reply to that is,didnt u hear me singing a devotional song ,ofcourse its for a temple festival and not a wedding.Then the director interplays couple of scenes which focus on entirely different aspects.Then all of a sudden you see the scene of a temple festival with people dancing to the tunes of "Appadi Podu Podu" .The camera does two quick pans now,A scene of Ravi krishna arriving on his cycle and to the singer who happens to be none other than Gopika.Without any dialogues, The humor and satire involved is conveyed.

Sanjita is the love angle portrayed.She is the cute gal(and my god a really cute gal in tam movies after a long time) who works at the pizza joint that Venu falls for.Her role though short is quite important.Saying anything more about the role would be a spoiler,but it is the basis for the theme of the movie that internal beauty is much more important than external beauty,and it is better to go for someone who likes you rather to go for someone you like.!A poignantly drafted theme that hits home hard in the final climax scenes.

However for all the positives that the movie has going for it,song sequences and picturisations stick out like a sore thumb.It actually drags down the movie albeit for one or two peppy numbers but the picturisation seems just for the idiots who wont come to the movies otherwise.

Finally,I could relate to so many things in this movie and its this bias which leads me to give it a tag of must watch

Performance:

The only thing I liked about ravi krishna in 7g was his dialog delivery,and he uses that to great effect in this movie,with his emotions of a confused man delivered in an excellent manner through dialogues.Gopika,post autograph is probably her best performance now.Revathi,for an experienced actress it seems like a cakewalk,The new face Sanjita(Sorry I was too busy checking her out to notice her acting),The friends et al are brilliant.Prakash Raj with his fundas sound more like that friend in every gang whom you turn to for advise and ends up giving you life fundas.

Climax:

Simply Astounding,watch it,shed a tear if you care to,and go home with a full heart.
Take that heartbroken friend of yours or your ex-gal and make someone else feel happy.!!

Arindhum Ariyamalum -An Average Entertainer

2005-06-10T03:52:00.000-07:00

Intro-

In my earlier post I had earlier mentioned how I always looked forward to a debutant(e) directors movie.Most occasions have left me disappointed and few have left me with a feel good effect.The director of this movie Vishnu Vardhan had an eminently forgettable debut with a movie known as "Kurumbu".At every screen shot I was thinking what the hell was the director doing when he made this scene.It was supposed to be a parody of an american teen movie,with the similarity being the same stupid insipid story line where the guy wants to get laid and the difference being an eminently below par cast.I was thoroughly shaken after watching such a movie.Hence when people told me that this movie was good,I was quite shaken again as to what could the director have done better in a span of one movie to achieve such good recognition.And to tell you the truth he certainly has made giant strides.A movie that is a good entertainer with a different storyline is hard to come by these days and thus the director must definitely take all plaudits for this effort.Without further ado on to the review

The Story-For those with a "I want to see a different movie" attitude

The hero(Navdeep) leaves his native nagercoil for chennai to gain admission into a prestigious engineering college.(Ya obvious coz hes the hero and cant get into any rotten college).He chances upon a gal in the college whom he had seen earlier in nagercoil and ofcourse love blossoms in due course of time.During a fight between 2 rival rowdy gangs,the heroine gets shot at,the hero being the sole eye witness to the assailant.As the story unravels past the interval ,it comes to be known that the assailant was none other than his half brother(Arya) and his dad(Prakash Raj) is the gang leader.Just when you thought the story would become serious at this point of time,it doesnt;rather the revealation leads to rather comical situations and the story is then what transpires;does the hero accept Prakash Raj as his father or not.

My Views-

It is really really very tough to make a commerical masala movie with an element of comic nature being retained throughout.The risks being it becomes a spoof of something else or just ends up being a slapstick.The fact that it ends up being neither but a good entertainer is superb.
Directorial touches are few to come by ,although one must congratulate him for efficent casting.
The other notable directorial touch is when Prakash Raj realises that Navdeep might infact be his son,(With both Navdeepa and Prakash Raj doing "thithi"(funeral rites) for the same name,gothram etc on the same date one after another) is something innovative .Earlier we would have seen a family heirloom sported by the hero or the common song or some other weird connection like some arbit birthmark that is discovered during a fight scene.
Each and every song is brilliant and yuvan shankar raja comes up with another masterpiece post 7/g. Song picturisation is done really well,the little kids dancing in the rain in "Sil Sil Malaiye" and the "Yele Yele" song with the "dhavani clad ladies" being the best.

Plot-

The majority of the plot is only post interval with pre interval being limited to romance buildup and comic capers of his friends and himself being caught unawares as to whether it was the same gal he saw in Nagercoil.The actual plot is limited to revealations of how prakash raj is his real father , how he ensures there is no sibling rivalry ,the efforts he makes in trying to make Navdeep accept him as the father is the essence.The honest cop(who is out to get prakash raj) being thrown in to the picture to ensure the racy nature of the movie is critical.Just imagine taking him out of the equation and you would have an illogical movie.The cop ensures that there is a constant confusion in the minds of the hero as to whether turn his bro in or not and helps keep alive our interest in the movie.

Performance -

The half brother Arya is stylish ,different looking with his blue eyes and is probably the best of the lot.Prakash raj is his usual brilliant self with Navdeep being his limited self.Samiksha the new heroine (whose looks are quite asymetrical) doesnt have much of a role but performs adequately.The supporting cast led by "five star" Krishna with his strong histrionics and penchant for comedy really impressed me.(I got reminded of a similar strong performance by the supporting casts in Azhagiya theezhe)

Climax-

I was looking for a different climax than the usual since the entire movie had been different.However the climax was quite the usual.I cant blame the director coz he wanted to give a good entertainer and not a tear jerker or a message oriented movie .All in all ,a watchable movie with your friends/date/family/the gal next door.(thats a mutually exclusive set btw)

*Note family doesnt mean taking kids to the movie - read a very good opinion at http://bbthots.blogspot.com/2005/05/no-kids-please.html

*The Azlan Shah tournament and the French open just kept me busy over the past week and hence a dearth in reviews.I shall try to update my pace to twice a week.

Righta Thappa-A message for the youth

2005-05-29T22:46:00.000-07:00

Intro-

Righta Thappa is scripted and directed by the producer and director of many teleserials R Buvana.I must admit I havent seen any of her ventures before, but I have always been an avid expectant of any debut director in what they may offer for the tam movie world .Janaki Vishwananthan the only other female directors name I have heard of in the recent past in tam movies gave us some truly memorable experiences of movie watching with "kutti" and "kanavu meipada vendum"(truly awesome,if u havent gotten round to watching both these you should).So it was with a great deal of hope that I began to watch this movie;However it neither enthralled me nor left me disappointed..It just gave me a feeling of could have done better.

The Story-For those who have nothing better to do

A simple story line centred around a youth,the lead actor Ramana who is the son of a school teacher played by erstwhile actress Seetha.Hes your normal topper guy in college,with respect for elders and no bad habits.However his acquitances with his no good friends ,soon leads to an eve teasing incident which causes the death of the 4 young girls.Ramana however has no clear picture of whether he was involved in the incident beacause the images of the incident always remain a blur to him since his actions were done in a case of drunken stupor.The story then is,did Ramana create the crime and how it affects everyone around him.Uma plays the lead actors love interest,the lady clearly thrown in to add to the commercial element of an otherwise preachy message for youth movie.

My views-

The only strong point of this entire movie is the message for youth and what it can lead to if one has got bad acquitances.The rest direction,screenplay is quite average with nothing spectacular.Sound Tracks though are passable.Performances are quite strong although Ramanas squeaky voice could have been dubbed to be more machoistic,but I guess that was mainly to emphasise the soft nature of the hero.(Else he would have gone around bashing the rowdies ..thankfully none of which were there).Some of the reviews I read on other sites claimed this to be a family entertainer!!It certainly has no unpleasant scenes but very clearly the story line should suggest to you that this is not a family entertainer but a message oriented movie.

And surely what was ramana(or for that matter the director) thinking when he never says a word about the chances of him being innocent to his mother until he has been sentenced..Duhh..I just couldnt digest the logic.The screenplay could have been made quicker and the movie given a quick ending.Just too many dragging scenes.!

Performance:

Standout performance for me was very clearly Seetha as Ramanas mom,the ever encouraging and dutiful school teacher , and the chirpy lass who plays the role of Ramanas sister.She was especially quite outstanding and played her part without any melodrama.The entire supporting cast has done a good job with very small roles being given to each of them.The heroine surprisingly has almost no role in the entire movie.The honest police officers role(played by a familiar face,but couldnt recollect his name) is wasted.The director could have done something about it.

Climax:--SPOILER dont read if you havent seen and are planning to see

Obviously a feel good ending climax,I always thought that the friends are going to accept that they were the culprits and the hero would be set free just before he was going to be put to the gallows.Well it is done with a slight twist that 2 of the three friends decide to admit and the third guy who refuses to accept the blame dies in an unfortunate accident.Maybe the director was just giving us a feeling of how dire the consequences are for some insensible acts.!!

Kana Kandein -A visual Treat

2005-05-25T21:17:00.000-07:00

I wanted to desperately watch this movie for 2 reasons.One the previous movie in which the director KV Anand had worked as a cinematographer (Chellame) was an absolute spectacle with regards to song picturizations and second for a very guilty personal bias that his brother was a former alumni of my alma mater ,the stony brook university.With years of experience in cinematography for leading directors like mani rathnam,I was sure that I wouldnt be disappointed and I certainly wasnt.To me personally, the screen effect was as pulsating as Kakha Kakha and kept me engrossed throughout,but perhaps where it failed in comparison with the former was the logical flow of scenes and certain interruptions and crazy acts by the lead players here and there.

The Story-For those who came in Late
Srikanth is an aspiring Phd candidate whose research is focussed on finding a cheap way to achieve desalination and thus solve the city's water problems.Gopika is Srikanths love interest ,who also has an old acquitance (and the villain of the piece) Prithviraj who promises to help Srikant get the necessary funding to complete his project.Prithviraj is however a loan shark and resolves to unscrupulous ways in order to cheat Srikanth and Gopika of their money.The Story then is how Srikanth manages to outwit the villain and succeed in his project

My Views-
Two strong points of this movie was some key directorial touches and an excellent plot.For instance the fact that this entire movie has something related to water ,is something the director has kept in mind.The amount of time he spends in focussing on little aspects that deal with water is quite stunning.Here are three cases that stand out..The initial scenes which shows srikants younger days show several children playing about gleefully in an area where salt is extracted,second the time when his mother falls down to the ground coinciding with the pot full of water(that is placed on the cycle) also going down and the third the time at which he has no hopes of his project succeding and hes talking with gopika.. ..and where is he talking? inside the veeranam pipes(Now after the late 80s where we used to see the lead pairs meeting in the huge pipes when did we ever see it again).These might not be big details to the common viewer,but I am sure that the director wanted to keep the idea of water in the background throughout the movie in order to drive home the point.Another brilliant scene that I absolutely loved was the love making scene between the lead pairs interspersed by brilliant and naughty euphemisms ,like the bike running over the lemon,the lady tearing apart a packet of mineral water in a crude manner and several other short scenes.That to me was something new in tamil cinema,that had previously got used to earlier showing two birds kissing each other and a long shot of the sun.I liked the anna univ settings which shows the HOD least interested in any of srikanths research and saying it as garbage,the experimental setups in the lab,atleast much more believable than the thing which was shown in udaya(where vijay mixes two test tubes and claims to have achieved nuclear fusion) and in general his thesis presentation where he unleases a lot of technical garble that makes it sound realistic.

The things that I hated,For someone like kv anand who has done a good job in the cinematography of the movie his song picturisations were in absolute bad taste.The seductress guide...now why do u need someone like that to drive home the point,coudnt she just be an experienced professor.This is kind of becoming a trend these days with bipasha in sachin and now this lady in the movie,and ofcourse as even you would have noticed Gopikas sudden decision in the movie to do something stupid .( I wont reveal what it is ,as its a spoiler then to those who havent watched it yet).Ofcourse the item numbers at inopprotune moments were a blot on a good movie

Plot-
Strong plot,not many loopholes,well crafted,as expected since it comes from a famous crime story novel writer.

Performance-
The leads played to their capacity ,the villain was outstanding,(especially when he keeps repeating those lines "It hurts",It increases our ire on him,Vivek was his usual funny self,The HOD is superrr(although a short role, I like his mannerisms more coz its supremely realistic like any other college prof)

Climax-
One of the best climaxes you could possibly see in a tam movie.And no the cops dont come in the end to arrest the villain.Needless to say ,the climax is in the desalination plant.Remember how I said the focus the director was trying to maintain with regards to water the whole movie.He has just kept that till the very end

Intro-Whats this all about

2005-05-17T22:45:00.000-07:00

I consider myself a TV and Tamil movie freak.Considering the number of bloggers and other review sites which seem to provide you a complete critique of the movie ,I want this blog to reflect more on the perceptive future wanna be directors opinions about a movie.Normally when I watch a movie,I keep thinking what the director was thinking when he was making a particular scene and whether that idea was clearly translated onto the screen.My idea of watching a movie is totally different from the rest.For Example;I dont care whether the lead actors/actresses look presentable or not.What I look at is for the character that the person was supposed to enact and has he or she done justice to that.I dont really look much into the entertainment value of a movie or whether the script was plausible and stuff like that,(which the other reviewers normally do..incase you are interested in such reviews I suggest bbreviews )

This blog will also reflect any documentary,serial or any significant shows that I manage to watch on television.
Lets hope I will have something interesting to write about on a periodic basis.
I currently have 18 tam movies on my things to watch list.Hope to exhaust them all!

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2005-02-28T04:15:00.000-08:00

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