Variety is the spice of life

 This was one of the episodes from the latest season of Black Mirror. I saw it almost month back but somehow this episode had a lingering effect and wanted to post about it. It begins with one company called Eulogy, reaching out to a guy for colleting photos about his ex-girlfriend who had passed away, to include in the memorial service. Like any guy who has shared a bitter past with his ex, he is very reluctant at first and shares few pictures where the face of his girlfriend is either not clear or where she is looking else where and face not being covered in the picture at all. The company has a feature that allows people to actually visit the photo, meaning they can walk inside the picture mentally and look at the moment when the picture was clicked from a third person perspective. Like a mini time travel, only within that photo. The more pictures he dig up, the more it becomes clear that, he had purposedly struck out her face on all the pictures he had of her out of hatred and ...

Square, triangle and circle had never been so scary outside of the domain of mathematics!! Squid game season three came much quickly and unlike other series like Stranger things, they didn't delay it for years together. One reason could be that even when the previous season was launched, there were sufficient clues that it was intended as a two-season series, but since the content was quite heavy, they had to split it into three. And unlike the first season, which had a well-rounded ending, the second one felt as if it was stopped midway from airing, just to extend it by one more season. And like its illustrious(!!) predecessors this one is super-fast paced as well and like our own masala movies, it has enough sentiment scenes to trigger the eye gland. There are 2 mothers included into this murderous mix at the beginning of season 2 and it was quite evident that at least one of them will not make it to the end. Incidentally, neither of them makes it and both of them sacrifice thems...

When I read the reviews about this book, everyone had appreciated the way how the story was told in reverse. Making one wonder, why a middle-aged woman, happily married for decades, with her childhood friend, ends up pushing him to his death. It immediately makes one to take sides - debating who would've been the victim and who the abuser. Straight forward thought would be to side with the lady, stereotyping the guy as the abuser means nothing fancy and yet another life mimicking story. If you make the lady the vamp and the husband a hinderance for her lifestyle, well, looking at the newspaper nowadays, it is becoming a fatally fashionable thing as well!! So where is the novelty in the novel?? Well, how about starting with the ending and leading to the beginning? Pretty much this is how Swanson would've ended up with this novel I guess!!! He has literally written the book from start to finish only to label the chapter in descending order!! Now, that is some idea, especially in ...

 When i was watching Marmadesam, one thing that stuck me was the greenery in the city 3 decades back, especially the "Ambalakkaala kadigai" portions!! Either they had shot extensively in and around Besant Nagar or inside some studio with wide open spaces and gardens!! It is hard to believe that Chennai was this green a few years before. And the lack of traffic on roads that go deadly empty in late evenings or even those traffic that they show during day time is hardly comparable to what we witness on daily basis. Of course the population increase of both people and their vehicles has been humungous in the last 2 decades. But still, to realize that we had actually lived through such times as well, when things were green and traffic was lean is hard to believe!! One thing that stands out common and in fact has increased like everything else is the heat!! In most of the scenes the actors are drenched in sweat, especially the out door shots with huge blobs of sweat covering most ...

This is one movie, that has been raking in good reviews and great word of mouth publicity in recent times. After "Labber pandhu" this is the next movie that has gained immensely true genuine appreciation by movie watchers and has become a blockbuster hit. When i started watching the movie, the initial few scenes made me wonder, if all of those comments on the movie were biased. But the moment the little boy steps in, the tone of the movie became clear.  The srilankan family of Sasikumar, Simran and their 2 boys, who illegally enter India (something to ponder in the age of Trump) get settled in a residential area in chennai through their relative Yogi babu, who strictly advises them not to indulge with neighbours for they may get caught by their tamil slang, which will reveal their nationality. The ease with which he arranges aadhar till voter id for them, makes one wonder, how easy it is to get identification proof's for illegals while the resident citizen struggle to get...

Whenever i encounter near miss situations, i often think of the timelines where that miss might've actually happened and how that stream would've progressed. A weirdly wicked thought of a wandering mind, but still considering all those multiverse, alternate realities, parallel world concepts abound, an alternate timeline triggering from a road not taken or an incident that happened or otherwise is something that i often think. What if is my favorite dream scenario where in i keep wondering what would've happened, had i stayed in the same school beyond my 5th standard. That school had sections only till primary and eventually i would've had to move out is a different story. What would've happened if i had not moved to CBSE but continued in state board? what if we had moved to a different house instead of the one where i spent most of my childhood till the time i went to college? what if i was not the elder sibling and had someone to look upto? would i've actually...