THE WEEK THAT WAS

Hi folks this post comes a bit early, as from Monday onwards, I am on night shift, and might not find time to blog. So happy reading....

POLITICS

A.P.J. Abdul Kalam bids goodbye to the Rashtrapati Bhavan and Pratibha Patil becomes the first woman President of India.

SPORTS

Another controversy hits the Tour de France cycle race as more cases of doping are reported.

Sania wins a WTA doubles title, and has defeated Pattie Schnyder to reach the semi finals of the Cincinnati Open.

CRICKET

India escape by a whisker due to the fury of the rain gods to draw the first test at Lords, England failed to get the last wicket, and a sensible knock by Dhoni saved India.

At the end of the first day of the second test match played at Nottingham were tottering at 162/7. Zaheer scalped three wickets, and was ably supported by Sreesanth, R.P. Singh, and Kumble.

CINEMA

As predicted Kireedom flops (rather fails to do the expected business/no usual Ajit opening).

Veerappu a remake of Mohanlal's Spadikam, and a movie Thee Nagar starring comeback king Karan released, both carry good reports.

Bye folks, see you next week.

DVD Review

Over the weekend, I saw two Malayalam movies on dvd, they were radically different and I enjoyed them both. The first one was "Nottam," with Nedumidi Venu and Jagathy giving solid performances. Venu is a Koodiyattam dancer, and Jagathy is his assistant. The movie is simple and has excellent music by M. Jayachandran. The songs "Pacha Pannantathe..." and "Mayangi Poyyi..." are superb. This is one of the most underrated Malayalam movies in recent times and as it did not boast of a stellar star cast it hardly had a theatrical release. Watch this movie.

Moonamathoral, starring Jayaram, Samvritha, Sherin, Vineeth, and others is a brilliant attempt at horror, I really fail to understand how this movie bombed at the box office. The movie starts with a police officer looking at two figures hanging by the noose from a tree.

Two young and beautiful nurses move into a nice cottage on the edge of the woods, a mysterious boy chasing his tennis ball keeps appearing and disappearing, one of the girls sees a mysterious lady dressed in white-Jyothirmayee. When Samvritha is frightened, Sherin ridicules her. Meanwhile Samvritha is too shy to reveal her love for Vineeth the psychiatrist.

One day Sherin also sees the lady in white, after taking a bath, and is scared out of her wits. The two girls rush to meet Vineeth, thinking he might help them. Now comes the best part, the two girls go to Vineeth's house and call him, he does not hear them, and continues to read his newspaper, and then throws it on to the table. The girls are perplexed and glance at the newspaper; it has their photos with a caption that they are dead. I do not know if this is an original idea or if it is ripped from some foreign movie, but it is one good idea. Kudos to director V.K. Prakash.

Then we are introduced to the police officer Jayaram and his wife Jyothirmayee, who is a novelist. They stay in the same house where the girls stayed. Now Jyothirmayee sees the spirits of Sherin and Samvritha and is possessed by their spirits and goes into a trance like stage from time to time. Jayaram takes his wife to the psychiatrist Vineeth, who gives her some sedatives and advises Jayaram to move to another house. Jyothirmayee sees the framed photographs of Samvritha and Sherin in the hospital and faints. She informs Jayaram that the photo resembles the spirits she sees.

Jayaram investigates the death of the two girls, a flashback shows the dead bodies shown in the first scene to be the corpses of Samvritha and Sherin. Jayaram visits Vineeth and congratulates him as Vineeth is scheduled to go to Australia the following day. Vineeth thinks about the incidents and in a flashback we are shown Vineeth killing Samvritha and Sherin. Then we are shown Jyothirmayee stalking Vineeth, Vineeth escapes from her clutches and runs in the pouring rain in the darkness of the night.

We are shown a shot of Jayaram escorting Jyothirmayee in a jeep. Vineeth returns to his house and sees a crowd, outside it. He sees a dead body covered with a white cloth, he moves closer to have a glimpse of the corpse. The face is uncovered and he is shocked to see his own face.

A flashback shows Jyothirmayee stabbing Vineeth.

This is one movie, sans lots of bloodshed, and really holds your suspense.

Two thumbs up.

The week that was....

This is an experiment, every Monday I am going to write about things that happened to me, or had some impact on me in the previous week. Thursday saw big protests at Chennai Central suburban railway station. July 1, onwards a loony railway minister altered local train timings, which wreaked havoc on the common man's schedule; lots of protests and strikes led to a commuter-friendly train schedule.

On Thursday evening, commuters were left stranded as there were no trains for close to three hours, frustrated passengers squatted on the tracks and demanded an explanation, regarding why the trains were not running on time. Many people including my father could not return home on Thursday night and went back to their office/shop, slept there, returned home on Friday morning, took a bath, had breakfast, and then back to office.

I did not get my usual 4:25 train and had to take a day's casual leave. An extended weekend as it was my double off (Saturday and Sunday holidays). I had lots of work to do, arranging my books, writing some poetry, and watched some movies on dvd.

A RUDE SHOCK

Dvds that I buy for Rs 40 and Rs 50, from the footpath, work fine, but to my surprise and shock an original dvd that I bought from a reputed music store in Spencer's Plaza, did not work at all. I need to take it to them and find out if they will replace it.

POLITICS

Pratibha Patil has been elected as the first woman President of India. You know what that means?

One more puppet for Madam Sonia Gandhi, I guess all of you know who the other important puppet is:)

CRICKET

India face an uphill task and require 243 runs to win with 7 wickets in hand to defeat England in the first test match at Lords.

KIREEDOM

A great performance by Ajith and Rajkiran, but this lavish remake of Mohanlal's classic is most likely to bomb at the box office.

I AM BACK.....

So many things have happened in the world of cricket, since my last post here; I have been extremely busy, and have just posted some topics on the other blogs, anyway it is good to be back in business.

India defeated Bangladesh, in both the test and the ODI series, then defeated Ireland and South Africa to win the Future Cup. The India-Pakistan match was unfortunately washed out.Chandu Borde, I will refer to him as Grandpa, is the manager of the team, and will be in charge, till the end of the inaugural 20-20 tournament in South Africa.

Pakistan have got a new coach-Geoff Lawson.

Sangakkarra and Murali tormented the Bangladesh team, with Murali reaching the magic figure of 700 test wickets; and Sanga smacking two double hundreds.

The first test match starts between India and England today.

This might perhaps be the last tour in England for Sachin, Sourav, Dravid, and Laxman.

The latest update is that Laxman has been signed on by Lancashire to play county cricket, once the test series finishes.

Bye for now.

LIFE IN A METRO

I saw this movie, and really enjoyed it. It is not in the usual commercial formula of five songs, four fights, songs in exotic foreign locales, and a comedy track. It is a story of modern life, where money and status rule over sentiments, emotion and a happy family. The life of people in BPOs, harried executives, frustrated housewives, families on the verge of breaking, homosexuality among office colleagues, secretaries sleeping with their bosses, and a mad lovable city in which they all live. The movie has good performances by Kay Kay Menon, Sharmaan Joshi, and Irfaan Khan; Konkona Sen has given a credible performance, Shilpa Shetty hams through the movie, and Kangana is O.K..

The music by Pritam and his group is the biggest highlight of the movie, no running behind trees, no group dances in New York or Amsterdam. Just plain soulful singing. I am not going to go into details about the plot, saying who is who, so go watch the movie.

Three cheers for director Anurag Basu.

My Rating-****.5/5*****.

SHIVAJI-"Full of sound and fury"

It was the biggest combination in Southern Indian cinema, A.V.M., director Shankar, music genius A.R. Rahman, and superstar Rajnikant. When you get such a huge canvas of talent one expects nothing short of a masterpiece. Honestly speaking after watching the movie, I feel it is hyped too much. When all news channels run Rajni specials every day for a week, leading to the release, one tends to get irritated, then again the Superstar, is the Boss, and no one can deny his charm, flair, style, and the adoration that people have for him.

Shankar has just one story that he remoulds and recycles again and again from Kaadhalan, to Gentleman, to Indian, it is one man against the system. Boys was a group against the system. Shivaji is no different. Shivaji a software engineer returns with a lot of money to Tamil Nadu and plans to construct hospitals, colleges, and create job opportunities for the unemployed. He has a nemesis in Adiseshan played by Suman a kingmaker who runs education and hospitals to mint money.

The conflicts, accusations, corruption in society and how Shivaji succeeds in his realizing his dreams makes up the movie.

Shriya Sharan looks anorexic,Vivek is the gem in the cast and has excellent lines. Livingstone playing a police officer also gets some funny lines.

Songs are O.K., fights have been choreographed well.

Overall it is paisa vasool time pass, no masterpiece.

Shanker has to break away from his single story mode and do better.

My Rating ***/5.

The Early Bird Gets its Worm....

No time for proverbs, it is just that from this month onwards I have been put into the first shift, I have to be in office at 6:30 A.M. and my shift gets over at 2:30 P.M., it is a new experience. I have to get up at 3:40 A.M., brush my teeth, have some bread, dress in formal wear with a tie, and cycle to the station. I have to catch a 4:30 A.M. train, get down at Avadi and board another train leaving Avadi at 5:10 A.M., I manage to reach office in the nick of time, at around 6:25 A.M.. Then it is work, with lots of practice documents, I feel terribly drowsy between 7:45 A.M. and 9 A.M., but my seniors tell me the drowsiness will go away in a couple of days, till I get used to coming early.

I have breakfast in office, the food that they serve here for lunch, does not suit my taste, so I have lunch in a hotel and retun home by around 5:15 P.M., then it is time for a bath, some reading, then dinner, and I am asleep by 8:15 P.M..

That is my life till August 8, and then the shift will change. I will write about it then.

Cheers folks.

A TRIP TO OOTY-EPISODE 2

We reached the resort and found that not enough rooms were free, about twenty of us did not get rooms, the others got rooms with three people staying in one room each. We proceeded to a hall, to have our much needed breakfast. I tasted the worst coconut chutney of my life, which had absolutely no salt or spice in it. I had some idlies and aloo parathas(not bad).

Then we went to the reception and finally I got a room, I shared my room with two members of my own team, we actually got a separate cottage instead of a room. I switched on the T.V., (no remote) and the resort is supposed to be a three star one. Only 14 channels were available, thankfully I got to see the India-South Africa cricket final.

I took a bath in hot water, the geyser took an hour to warm the water, then went to the dining hall to have lunch(lot of stuff but quality was just O.K. not befitting the standards of a three star resort).

Then we left for the Boathouse, it was drizzling incessantly and we had a boat ride on the lake.

We returned to the resort and had dinner and had a peaceful night's sleep. The power went of a couple of times in the night(no generator), but it was already cold and I just huddled into my bed(the bed was comfortable), and one thing I noticed about Oooty there were practically no mosquitoes there.

The next morning we had breakfast and went to the Botanical Gardens, once again it was raining in short spells and there was a biting chill in the air. There were varieties of flowers and trees in the garden, there was a greenhouse devoted to roses, and also a small shop selling seeds, plants, and jams.

Then I went shopping an bought some tea, chocolates and a raincoat. By now the rain had increased in intensity and I ran to the bus and sat in my seat waiting for the others to return.In the evening we went to Dodabetta, which was closed, so we went to a tea factory and experienced first hand the process of manufacturing tea.

We returned to the resort, and we were informed that we would not be able to visit the Pykara Lake as the route to the reservoir was not motorable because of the heavy rains and the landslides.

A TALE OF VOMITTING

The last day of the trip, June 3, 2007, was one of the most horrible days of my life, a feeling shared by almost all other trip members. Everyone was vomitting like anything, the badly cooked food, the horrible weather and the incessant rain had taken its toll, I felt too nauseated to have anything. Then one of my roommates suggested a walk to the Fernhill Palace, saying the fresh air would do me good. I accepted his offer and we were joined by three others and we took a "short cut" actually a longer circuitous route to reach the palace. We paid an entry fee of Rs 50 each and entered the palace, a part of which has been converted into a resort.

DAYLIGHT ROBBERY

I was feeling very thirsty and tired and decided to get a bottle of water, and the hotel staff charged Rs 35, for a bottle of Kinley water priced at Rs 13, that is bloody robbery in the name of tourism. I guess only the Maharajas and CEOs stay there, and they don't care two hoots about paying triple the price for a bottle of water.

FERNHILL PALACE

The palace was excellent, and transported the visitor to the era of the British Raj with its elaborate furniture, ball room, piano and paintings. They showed us the kitchen and dining hall, the bedrooms of the Maharaja and the Maharani, the palace is owned and run by the Maharaja of Mysore. It was a memorable experience, and I wondered how life would have been 70 years back in the palce, with their elaborate feasts, gala parties, fox hunts..., a time gone by, the glory of the maharajas, no longer ruling the country.

RETURN TRIP

We returned to the resort and boarded the bus that took us back to Coimbatore, they played Dhoom 2 and Stealth on the bus. The return trip was no good for the already suffering travellers and we made about five stops for people to vomit. We reached Coimbatore railway station at around 7:30 P.M.

We were once again conned by the trip organisers, who packed parottas(almost no one had them) and ooothapam for dinner. Anyway we were tired and I had the foresight to buy bread and jam. I had it and slept. There were many complaints of an upset stomach and vomitting by people who risked the parottas.

I got down at Perambur at around 4:30 A.M. and was at home in Tiruvallur by about 6 A.M.

An end to a trip that was a failure.

Hope to have a better trip next time around.

A TRIP TO OOTY ALSO CALLED A STUDY IN VOMITTING IN THE MONSOON

I felt extremely lucky to have joined a new company and get a chance to go on a team trip almost immediately, but by the end of the trip, I felt foolish and this post will explain my feeling foolish and nauseated. The trip was to the Queen of the Hills-Ooty.

An entire coach was booked on the Nilagiri Express and about 60 employees and five or six kids boarded the train at Chennai Central on June 30, 2007, the entire team looked as if the members had returned to school, there was total confusion and we finally found our coach S-10 and got into it. My first shock was that there was no ticket in my name, I was a replacement for someone else who ahd backed out after giving his name. So I assumed a false name, (was really frightened thinking that good old T.T.E. would catch me). Then the train left half an hour late and the party started, a full fledged TASMAC shop was on show as a group decided that it was time to make merry and I believe alcohol flowed till about 1 A.M., on another end Antakshari(song-fest) was in full swing. I left my berth, found one berth belonging to a reveller and shut my eyes and slept.

July 1, 2007-Sunday-Coimbatore Railway Station-4:30 A.M.

I had woken up at around 3:30 A.M., so I had brushed my teeth and was awake and alert. We reached Coimbatore, and a representative from the resort where we were staying met us and took us to a couple of luxury buses. There was a pale yellow coloured bus and an orange coloured bus. I chose the orange one, put my stuff in the luggage compartment and sat in the comfortable cushioned seat. The buses started and stopped after fifteen minutes to fuel(Bloody drivers couldn't they fuel the bus before they reached the station), then we stopped in front of a bakery cum tea shop, where I had some bread and coffee. Finally we started moving at around 5:45 A.M., the sun had risen and there was a cool moisture laden breeze that accompanied us.

I took some snaps with my camera mobile(have to find a way to upload the images onto the blog). The bus left the plains and climbed the hilly roads and we crossed the breathtaking beauty of the Nilgiris travelling through Coonoor and Mwttupalayam. The bus finaly reached Sterling Resorts, Fernhill, Ooty at a round 10 A.M.

To be continued...

Hi Folks.

This works, though the post took some time to appear on the blog. So what do I write about?

Saw Chota Mumbai to complete the Vishu releases, now Hello is on show and I am not very enthusiastic after reading the reviews.

I have returned to Tiruvallur, spent about Rs 550, to book a cab and bring all my dtuff to home.

Not on a live project yet, doing sample documents every day. Happy, but the food is lousy. I am spending close to seventy rupees on food.

Amma is scheduled to return from a Temple Tour tonight.

Next post is on the Ooty trip.

So finally on track, there is this tech guy in office called Prabhu who has shown me a way to blog, hope this works, let us see....