A Year-end

With 2012 coming to a close soon; wisdom from a series that gives me so much joy - Peanuts!


Click on the image to view it in large-size!

All copyrights reserved with Charles M. Schulz

2012-Hitlist

This is an entry for the Blogathon hosted by fellow cineaste Murtaza Ali

It is that time of the year again, when I sit back and look at the movies, which I had the pleasure of watching and those movies, which I endured for the sheer sake of letting others know - 'don't waste your hard-earned money on these movies.'

With priorities at work changing and my mother's health taking a turn for the worse I did not get to see as many movies as I would have loved to and the list of independent and foreign language movies finding a release in India remains as pathetic as ever. My friends who download movies Ravi Kiran and Lijoy and the trusted shops at Burma bazaar ensured that the supply of movies would not end!

Numero Uno Movie:

Undoubtedly Moonrise Kingdom, for bringing back the innocence of puppy love, for putting a bunch of unknown child-actors who stole the thunder from seasoned performers like Edward Norton, Bruce Willis and Frances Mac Dormand - take a bow Mr. Wes Anderson!

Paan Singh Tomar:

Directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia this movie is based on the true-life exploits of a an army-man athlete who ended up as a dacoit. A remarkable portrayal by Irrfan Khan and his effort and transformation into a long-distance runner is seen to be believed. How cruel Indian administration is as some of our greatest sports-persons end up in penury and ignominy!

Pizza:

This Tamil movie stands apart for its innovative script and takes the cake for delivering chills and thrills. How a pizza-delivery turns traumatic forms the crux of the story. But then don't believe everything that you see! Vijay Sethupati does a fantastic role here! A rollicking sound-track and taut direction by Karthik Subbaraj deserves special praise.

Kahaani:

After watching Kahaani there were a number of questions about how dumb could an intelligence network and the cruel terrorists be? But all was forgotten in Vidya Balan's masterly performance as the lady searching for her her husband and Nawazuddin Siddiqui announced himself with a bang and went on to deliver brilliant performances in the Gangs of Wasseypur and Talaash!

No.22 Female Kottayam:

Directed by Aashiq Abu and starring Rima Kallingal, Fahaad Faasil and Prathap Pothen this is a no holds barred revenge saga, of a nurse who has been brutally raped. How Tessa the lead character played by Rima avenges the injustice meted to her and a brilliant music-score make this a memorable movie.

The Pirates:

Charles Darwin, a bunch of motley pirates, a dodo, the Queen of England and a monkey make this a thoroughly enjoyable ride of laughs with an immensely funny script. There is a sequence when the pirate captain mistakes a baboon's kidney to be a gold doubloon, that left me laughing like mad! Don't miss this movie!

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo:

Masterly adaptation by David Fincher and a superb performance by Naomi Rapace. Sadly graphic content of the movie prevented a theatrical release in India!

Avengers:

Big-budget Marvel pot-boiler that brings all our childhood comic heroes and heroine together on-screen; the Avengers rocked the screen with the Hulk played by mark Ruffalo pipping Robert Downey Junior for the maximum applause in the theatre.

The Diamond Necklace:

This Malayalam movie directed by Lal Jose and starring Fahaad Faasil, Samvrutha Sunil, Gauthami Nair and a host of others is a convincing tale of love and tribulations faced by a young doctor in the UAE and the complications of his affairs with three women and how he comes to terms with his love for each of his ladies.

The Dark Knight Rises:

Christopher Nolan gave a fitting finale to his Batman trilogy and Tom Hardy had the tough task of matching Heath Ledger's Joker from the previous installment. Tom Hardy accquited himself remarkably well and the climax hints at Joseph Gordon Levitt starting a new franchise of caped-crusader movies!

Skyfall:

There was an agonising wait for 007 to be back after the turkey called Quantum of Solace. Thankfully the wait was worth it and a fantastic villain who deserved a better death made Skyfall special!

Ordinary:

A loud-mouthed bus-driver, a newbie bus-conductor and a host of villagers in a remote hill-village. A strange premise and a rollicking comic chemistry between Kunchako Boban and Biju Menon made Ordinary a surprise Malayalam hit of 2012.

At the time of writing this, I am yet to see Life of Pi, Lincoln, Frankenweenie, Cloud Atlas and a bunch of other movies! Hoping 2013 provides enjoyable cinema and there are lesser turkeys unleashed upon the unsuspecting public!

A Blog Award

All these years here on blogger and someone finally gives me an award :)

Kalyan's bestowed the following award :)

The Liebster Blog Award and The Awesome Blogger Award.

I am truly honoured. Thank You Kalyan!

Now that I’m tagged, here are the rules I need to follow:

RULES:
If you are tagged/nominated, you have to post 11 facts about yourself.
Then you answer the 11 questions the tagger has given you & make 11 questions for the people you are going to tag.
Tag 11 more Bloggers.
No tagging back.
Person you tag must have < 200 followers Eleven Facts About Me:


1.I am a POET and a die-hard romantic!

2.Curd-rice and aloo-masala fanatic!

3.Worship Illayaraja, The Beatles, RD Burman, Kishore Kumar and Mohammed Rafi.

4.Am a self-taught kick-boxer; interested in mixed-martial arts.

5.Hate men who abuse women physically and verbally; have bashed up a few guys to drive sense into their heads.

6.Hate two-faced people - I can't decide which side of their face to slap first!

7.Love cooking, but for the life of me am not able to roll out a perfect chappati !

8.Dog-lover!

9.Hope to become a movie-maker some day!

10.I believe that ‘Love never fails’ - the people whom we may choose to love may fail us but the purity of Love can never ever fail!

11.Have toyed a lot with the idea of becoming a masked vigilante and clean up the criminal elements that abound the world-over! Alternatively, a career as an assassin!


If you can write a testimonial for me, what would you write?
Have met Kalyan about thrice, a nice and jovial person and as he claims a flirtatious nature and a great photographer :)

What’s the strangest talent you have?
I can whistle the complete audio-tracks of some of the most popular Illayaraja songs!

Do you have weird habits?
I have hair-cut every 20 days, I wish I could grow long hair but even a bit of hair on top of my ears, I get a nasty cold :(! So I have had the lawn-mower hair-cut since nursery-school!

If you knew the world was going to end tomorrow, what would you do in your last living hours?
Dash to someone special's house with a ruby-encrusted platinum ring and ask someone-special to marry me! I will tell her - 'Dearest, the world is going to end and when it ends I want to hold your hands and share a laugh with you!'

Have you ever felt jealous of friends or fellow competitors’ success and how did you suppress it?
We all get out just rewards, so not jealous of friends and colleagues, but jealous of cricketers who do not play properly and make millions in IPL-deals!

Have you ever been betrayed? If so, how did you douse the flames?
Let bygones be bygones! Nothing further - forge on as one would say in sales!

List down 5 music tracks which you would always listen to and would never get bored of.
Chehra hai ya chand khila hai - Saagar
I Wanna Hold Your Hand - The Beatles
Sundari kannal oru seidhi - Thalapathi
Zindagi kaisi yeh paheli bujhaye - Anand
Janani Janani - Thaie Moogambigai - Illayarja

If you are a guy, have you ever been got slapped by a girl? If you are a girl, have you ever slapped a boy?
By God's grace nothing so violent with the other gender; but I have bashed up quite a few roadside romeos for misbehaving with girls; had my fair share of fights in high-school during cricket-matches as well.

What qualities would you be prescribing to a girl/guy to be ideal for you.
Vegetarian, dog-lover, book-lover and I promise to remain faithful to her till my last breath :)

Do you believe in life after death? If yes, what would you like to be reborn as?
Yes, I do believe in rebirth; I would like to be reborn as a monk in a Buddhist monastery in the Himalayas.

Please explain ‘Einstein’s Relativity Theory’ in layman terms. (I know the Hot stove – Girl analogy. Please use something else!)
The Twin Paradox Theory - Twins - one sent to travel in outer-space in a space-capsule travelling at a high velocity and the other living on earth. After 20 years the chap on earth would have aged 20 years but the chap in the space capsule would be considerably younger!

Eleven Questions for 11 special bloggers:

Your pet-name / nick-name
Your celebrity crush
Your favourite book
Who was your favourite teacher
Which dish can you cook best
Your idea of a dream-date
Should cricket be banned in India
Rajni or Kamal
The one possession that you would like to save if your house were on fire!
Love marriage ya arranged marriage!
If you had the power to give one tight slap to three people - who would they be!

Karen
Dr. Ganesh
Padmapriya
Ashwini
Vandana
Sowmya Sarag
Shashi
Priya
Karpagam
Anand
Aravind

Some in this group might have already rec'd this award! Keep the faith and know that someone loves to read stuff that you write!

Keep blogging, keep the love of writing alive!

Cheers to life :)

Chennai Bloggers for Social Action

It was a fascinating Sunday evening when I had a long conversation with Shashi and Dr. Ganesh over cups of black coffee on how we could utilize the inherent strength of the team - Writing or actually Blogging to promote social causes and highlight issues both good and bad.

The conversation was enlightening in many aspects:

1 - Social Action need not always be for a negative issue; there are a number of good and positive things happening around us; we can highlight them as well.

2 - Social action has two primary and distinct aspects:
a - Online activity wherein we write about issues and promote them using social networking tools.
b - Off-line (or) ground-zero activity - the actual task of visiting orphanages, slums, old-age homes etc, and doing constructive work.

3 - We as a network of bloggers can do a lot; one post by our revered doctor on marital / domestic abuse has been making the air-waves online. Similarly if we plan and write on one topic every month; there will be a theme for every month. Just imagine the impact of 100 plus bloggers writing on a topic and publishing it simultaneously, say on a given day and then promoting the post through Twitter and Facebook. We are sure to draw attention for any noble cause or good positive trait of Chennai that we choose to champion / highlight.


Building the core team:
We are looking to build a core team of partners (the Starbuck philosophy where everyone is a Partner). The team will have to identify issues that need to be popularised and highlighted and moderate / review the posts submitted by bloggers from all over the country.

We are looking for volunteers who can offer their time, knowledge and expertise. Meetings will be held on a regular basis and if the core-team partners can attend the meets it would be great!

The Future:
We shall be starting the Chennai Bloggers for Social Action - CBSA as a group within the Chennai Bloggers Club and everyone is welcome to help us in our initiatives. The CBSA will be a part of the larger Indiblogger for Social Causes / Action network as well. Our work as part of CBSA will be highlighted and used to set up and start similar projects in other cities in India. So team we are part of a hugely challenging and interesting pilot-project for change!


The Competition:
To start on a positive note; we announce a blogging competition; the topic is - Magical Melodies of December in Chennai - As the topic suggests it is about the music-scene in Chennai during December when sabhas run to packed houses with concerts. Write about your experiences and explain why you feel the event is special to Chennai. Word-limit - 450 to 600 words.

There are three prizes:
First prize - A voucher for Rs 1000.
Two runner-ups - Vouchers for Rs 500 each.
Deadlines - Contest closes on January 1, 2013.

End your post with the tag-line - "This post is part of CBSA's 'Magical Melodies of December in Chennai' blogathon!'


The Beginning:
These are exciting times ahead for us; with a whole new world of possibilities and challenges; let us have the self-belief in ourselves that we as bloggers can truly contribute to making an instrumental difference in society.