Variety is the spice of life

 I often used to wonder, all those super spies, how do they manage their daily routines, especially in midst of a major action. Sometimes, they are shown to go without sleep for several hours and there are rarely any note about their food habits. But they will be shown as connoisseurs of drinks and have in depth knowledge of several types of cuisines that they will proudly display to impress the villain or his spouse (especially James Bond) many of whose scenes and situations would be depicted around the dining table. While hero would be actively in pursuit, the villain would be shown as sitting and pondering or lashing at this cronies for having either lost to the hero or secretly planning his next action from dining table. Except for James Bond who made the shaken but not stirred Martini, there are hardly any other famous hero character who are known for their taste in any other routine like normal human beings. One reason that i felt was, rather than depicting how they get up, b...

I can say with all confidence that when it comes to cine music, my generation(!!) was the blessed one, for they were able to witness magic made live by great music directors of previous generations who were masters of melody, like MSV, KV, supposedly newbie, like Ilayaraja who successfully managed to bridge classical with western blending it with local dappankuthu, and his famed "assistant" ARR, who literally swayed the nation to his techno tunes and his peers who came after him like Harris Jayaraj, if you add Deva, Shankar Ganesh, and several other small players who had their moments in the sun, these giants literally ruled the movie music world and most of them are still active, even though their best of days are long behind them.  The taste in music is one clear parameter that defines ageing is my strong belief. The more one dislikes the music of the next generation, the faster they are becoming old is "Gils law". My dad never really liked Ilayaraja for he rarely...

 Be it SRK or Aamir they rode on the crest of a set of movies that took them to topmost tier of superstardom. While SRK took to love subjects and catering to NRI audience, aided ably by simple dance steps of Farah and pleasant lyrics of Javed Akthar tuned to hummable songs by a plethora of musicians including Jatin-lalit to Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy to ARR, Aamir took a more studious route, picking up stories like PhD subjects and dwelling more on the detailing and characterisation that set him apart in the Khan trio. Salman took the easiest route of all, remake southern hits and rehash the same hit into various versions in hindi. For a good part of previous decade and before, the trio ruled the BO with ever increasing foot falls and ticket revenue. The first to fall off the tier was Salman, whose masala movies began to bomb abruptly. SRK had a string of failures and interestingly he found success in the same formula that propped Salman - action movies. Aamir, despite choosing the script ...

The thing with having a bad memory is you get to relive as if the happenings are new and start afresh. It is especially helpful in cases of book that gives you additional joy of re-reading it as if for the first time, enjoying the same thrill that you might've felt when you read them prior. But the sad part is, if you'ven't remembered reading the book, chances are there that it might be one to forget as well and you might've not finished it for it could've been boring. With "Excavation" i am not sure in which category it falls under!!! Either way, having finished the book, i felt it was worth posting about. It all begins in typical Rollins fashion of a monk in run from natives, trying to protect or hide something that would cause the end of world, but would leave enough clues for future generations to find it out eventually!!! He commits suicide atop a sacred shrine of the native Mayans/Incas/Aztecs?? Edho oru tribe of that time. Right from there begins th...

 It has been a while since we disconnected cable tv at home relying wholely and solely on internet for tv subscription and viewing. And we didnt even realize that we have moved away from regular TV channels like Sun or Vijay till the time this incident happened, for mom, who regularly watches only Vijay, now has switched over to Hotstar app and doesn't even switch on TV!! It's all available within her palm at the touch of a screen. I am the only person who watches TV that too not on a regular basis, but to watch any sports or news. One day while browsing over the channel list i saw Anniyan movie playing on K TV and looking at references to Garuda Puranam, Junior was curious about the movie and said let that channel play. When the owner of the remote himself has decided, that wish obviously becomes the command right! After a while he came to me complaining that the TV was broke and something is wrong. I could hear that something was playing and was wondering whether the picture ...

After so many years yet another Dan Brown novel and based on who else but the redoubtable Robert Langdon, whose eidetic memory and the speed with which he could link clues would put any processor to shame!! This time, after several books, he finally finds his pair, Katherine Solomon, who, if i am right, is only the second recurring character, apart from Langdon, obviously. She is a renowned noetic scientist and if "Origin" was pushing the boundaries with its theme, you should read this book!!!  There were previous instances, especially the books leading to "Origin" were Brown was dwelling more on the creation moving slightly away from the creator, dabbling more into the sciences associated with that porous topic that is finding firm footing as we speak and is more evident in this book. As science advances more into unchartered territories, nothing could be more interesting or complex than what goes inside one's mind. As much as they try to explore the world beyo...

Yet another self peethal post.  For last 2 years, this blog was clocking 100K hits per year, which was possibly the highest it has ever encountered since inception. But intha varusham ennadaanna it has reached 250K hits already with last month alone clocking 100K hits!!! Ithanaikum my frequency of posting has a huge variance though i try to maintain the monthly average. Post podrapo hits kuraiyuthu aana podathapo neria varuthu!!! Enna thaanpa sollavareenga. Whatever the reason is, i was thrilled to see the hit counter turning yet another first digit and thanks for all the visits.  Ithu athanaiyum moola karanam, the one and only reason and person is undoubtably and absolutely Mr.thalai Ramesh. Thank you for your words of encouragement and as i keep mentioning unga comments padikarathukagavay edachum oru post podanumnu thonum. And possibly the viewers think the same as well as unga comments vanthaprum thaan hits rise after each post. Ungal aadharaviruku nandri. And ditto for oth...

The title is kept as such to to kelari vittufy the curiosity in Thalai..hehehe. OMITB is Only Murders in the building, a famous drama series which is into its 5th season, currently playing in Jio Hotstar and TMC is Thursday murder club a movie in Netflix. Renduthukum enna common? Well, both deal with elderly lead characters trying to solve murders. Selena Gomez elderly listla sertha paavam. But that crew involves Steve Martin and Chris short who are not exactly teenagers. The reason for this post being, i happened to see Thursday Murder club the movie on Netflix and couldn't help but wonder how such a stellar cast had been put to waste as compared to sterling attempt by the drama series crew!! The other reason why i was drawn to the movie being, it was a novel by Richard Osman, which came in a book recommendation list. I tried reading the novel and gave up midway as it was neither too thrilling for a murder mystery nor was it funny. But when i saw the movie cast involving the best ...

What is real and what is fake.  This has been the basic and barest of all existential question since the beginning of time itself. Some call it Maaya. Scientists may term it hallucination.  But what is real in the "real" sense?  The movie Matrix was a classic example that literally shook the concept of reality, despite being a fiction. People were so smitten and taken by the concept that many still believe that we all live in a Matrix while the reality is something else! Considering the rampant advancement in AI tech and related tools, specifically on the media space, no one can be sure on the authenticity of any media - be it audio, video or images. The deepfake media content is so authentic that even the concerned individuals may get confused for a moment on the content. And proving them otherwise seems to be the most demanding task at present. So many celebrities take to the streets on proving their "innocence" or "ignorance" on potential controversial ...

As i mentioned before, i was on a spree to finish all of the Alex cross series a while back and was ploughing through the whole series. Of the 34 books and counting, i managed to come till the 24th and more than fatigue it was terribly repetitive. Right from the titles, most of which are the starting lines of famous rhymes, to the villains whom most of the time happen to be patients or stalkers of Alex cross, to the way in which they get killed/captured only to return back in another book, or copy cats of the famous villains. But this book felt slightly different as the beginning itself gave hints that this might be more on vigilantism. A bike driver, capable of going at more than 100mph and still shoot without missing the target on an equally fast moving vehicle, starts of the novel by killing some one for violating speed limit, by violating the speed limit even more than the victim to shoot them. There are spate of murders, even by the count mentioned, grossing more than 50 in body c...

Life in a Metro (hindi movie) is a favorite of mine mainly because of its music track. Pritam's best i would say. And some of the stories in that anthology were nice as well. Especially the ones involving Konkona and Irfan alongside the one involving Kangana and Sharman (a direct lift off from "The apartment" movie). There were couple of other story lines as well, with the core theme being, relationships and love between couples of varying age groups and social status. It was the decade that began to normalize depiction of gay/lesbian characterization on screen and there are sequences involving those relationships as well. Overall the story was about how people fall in love, fall out of it and while some manage to fall back in love, some retreat into a shell and few ends up relinquishing it, living with the support of memories. When i heard that there is a "spiritual" sequel to the movie i was actually feeling bad, being dead sure that they would've screwed ...

There is a favorite quote of mine - venda veruppa pullaya pethu gaanda mirugam nu per vachaanam. Maareesan movie does quite fall into that description, but looking at the way it ended, made me wonder, indha padathuku kaanda mirugamnay per vachurkalam. But why Maareesan??!!!  Malayalam movie world has made Indian cinema take note of its success and its mastery in the thriller genre. The movie begins in similar note to any Malayalam crime story with even the lead actor being borrowed from there - Fahadh Faasil. Vadivelu in a "Maamannan" lite avatar, hardly gets to crack an emotion on face except for sticking very close to the character of being an Alzheimer patient. Alzheimer's patient na emote panna koodathu purinjintaangalo enamo!! Or probably it is called under play?? ennamo onnu. He comes with same pose mood and performance throughout the first half and the story moves from one town to another, taking as much time to travel in real time in reel as well!!! All just for s...

 Whenever you see some one saying, first halfu nalla irunthuchi second half was lagging or not upto expectations, outside a movie hall after watching a show, i used to wonder, had there been no interval, would they've still felt the same about the movie? Interval block nu onnu ilaati is it even possible to split the story into a good half or bad half? Possibly it can be categorized as good sections and bad. But this book by Patterson is definitely making a case for great first half and torrid second half!! May be the way he started the story at a break neck pace and the speed with which things unfolded, it was reminiscent of a Sehwag innings against Srilanka where he would've scored almost a double century over 100+ strike rate (obviously!!) in a single day only for the whole team score to still fall under 400!!! I was reading the entire series of Alex cross novels (almost 30 plus and counting i guess) and gave it up half way after halfway through, for the pattern became too bo...

" At some point in your childhood, you and your friends went out to play together for the last time and none of you knew it " If there is a quote that broke me, bothered me beyond words, this would be it. It was almost traumatic to read and somehow I ended up reading it in a loop unable to stop, with pictures from the past running like imax screen in mind.  I read something similar that every year we cross our date if death without knowing it. This one felt kind of funny. Morbid, yet gallows humor kind. But I became so emotional after reading that other quote that, it took a really long while to get over it.  Never realized just a quote can trigger so many pent up emotions and never realized those were pent up as well!!!! 

Mandela already dead aachay..avara edhuku murder panranunga..oru vela "Day of jackal" pola assassination attempt storya irukumo nu nenachu paakaatheenga..ithu adhu illa. Or mandala art perform panravangala poattu thalra storya irukumo nu guess panna adhuvum thappu. Ipdi mandaila egapatta madakozhapams cause panra titlekaga started watching the serial. First konjam viruviru nu poachu. Thideernu paatha running riverla oru body..sorry no body...not nobody because we know who that is/was. It is a dead body minus the body. Adhavathu only head and 2 hands and 2 legs stitched to that head, floating in the river. Ivlo vela menakettu edhukuda kill pannirukaan paatha..adhaan manadla murder. Mandailaye naalu poatu murder panuvanunga pola. It is a cult. Ithu oru ritualistic murder spree. Adutha murder ipdi thaan irukumnu aadhi kaalathu book onnu iruku. Adha decrypt panni decode panni decay aagitrukra andha document lendhu derive panni next death eppo and epdi irukum and adhu endha mathir...

We've a strong sentiment at home. Whichever movie my votes as good will turn out to be a blockbuster. If it even remotely manages to catch her interest, that movie is bound to be a sure shot hit. When "Pichaikaran" movie was released, i wasn't even following about the movie. And the first time we saw it was when it premiered on a tv channel. She liked it immensely and since she was watching the movie, we were all curious and it ended up being a fun watch. The movie was already a blockbuster, and Vijay Anthony is always identified as the "pichakara" actor (honestly not in disrespect but as the actor from the movie) in our house. Same goes for "Gentleman" and Arjun is the "appala kadai" person. When i started watching this movie on Prime, i wasn't too thrilled for it felt like an azhumoonji story with lots of forced melodrama. We began watching the movie as there was nothing else to watch at that time and were discussing the travails of...

I was introduced to this book through a recommendation in one of the sites as a good mystery novel. Initial opinion was that it was dragging a bit and still wanted to soldier on just out of curiosity. The story begins with a psychiatrist, joining a new hospital, wanting to treat one specific patient who had proven to be a tough nut to crack (no pun intended) for even the chief psychiatrist of that hospital. He slowly tries to engage with that patient, who had been admitted to the institution, for having killed her husband in cold blood. She had been diagnosed with the illness prior to that incident and had been known to exhibit hallucinatory and aggressive behavior. The very second meeting with the doctor, she attacks him and inflicts severe wounds. The biggest challenge in dealing with her being her silence. Never once had she spoken ever since that incident happened and despite the best efforts from everyone attending her, the result is always the same stony silence. The doctor slowl...

Till the time i was sitting to type this post i was wondering why they named the movie "Morgan" when there was no such character!!! 2 mani neram padam paathum padathoda title ku artham puriyama google panni paatha oray aal naana thaan iruppen!! Apparantly it means "one who follows margam (path)". For a while was wondering had this been based on Kumari muthi it could've been titled "Maaru kann" (squint eye)..hehe!!  Title apart, the movie was quite decent and interesting. The premise being a dead body is found blackened like coal and immediately the chennai police reaches out to the hero in mumbai for he is also similarly afflicted, except that he somehow survived the blackening with half of his face and body alone tarred!! The sad part being, his only daughter too suffered a similar fate as the dead girl in Chennai and what other pretext you need to bring him into the picture. He follows the routine investigation procedures and within no time lands up ...

The first thing that made me watch this series was definitely the name - it sounded so James Bond-ish. And within few minutes into the episode with the supposedly lippy guy (whom i thought was the hero) getting shot made me wonder was he really the hero? If not why so much scene putting for a side character? Then like true mega serial setup, the hero joins back to the police squad after the into name reels. I almost gave up on the series, when it suddenly switched into a different story altogether only to cut back to the police officer part in a bit. It takes some adjusting to figure out the story is about Past and what happens in the present. There are 2 "pasts" - one about the officer who gets shot at the beginning and other about a kidnapped woman, whose case comes to the officer as a cold case to pursue. He is joined by a deputy, who resembles guiness record winning hindi actor for having been typecast as inspector in over 100 plus movies. The deputy is an immigrant from ...

Bus - this multi tyred man made moving machine has played a major role in my commutation life. Right from the last year of my school life till the time corona made a grand entry into our lives, buses had been the de facto mode of transport for me. The very first time i travelled alone in a bus was during my twelth standard, from my place to Royapettah. The thing about 21 series is that it goes all the way to central which means, rather than getting down, people keep boarding the bus at every stop. It was a lucky design that the bus makers decided to have a seat for the drivers. Else 21 bus drivers would've had to manage the driving by sitting on the steering wheel!!!  There are several key criteria for being the conductor of 21, primary one being that he should be insulated from every sensory neuron in his body and waist should be less than size zero, for he has to squeeze in between 50 different tummy sizes. He should have the mental processing capacity of a gigahertz processor, a...

I came across a Reel video, which was actually "shorts" from a movie, with Irfan khan mouthing a couplet for the heroine and another couple of friends, all of whom were sitting around a campfire. My first reaction was that the poem sounded nice but there was a lingering feeling about it. It felt like i had heard it before but couldn't quite remember when and where. Incidentally the next video on the reels section was that of a kid singing that song in "Indian idol". The power of algorithm and how they line up things for our viewing is really amazing when it actually works for the reason it was meant to be!! From there began the rabbit hole that took me through the entire back story about the song, the singer, his background, his claim to fame, the original movie where it was picturized, the other movie where Irfan was quoting that song and finally why it sounded so familiar!! You would've heard of songs being ear worms, playing in loops in your mind, in that...

Finally managed to finish the series. As mentioned in a previous post, the first 30 odd episodes where direct screen adaptation from Indira soundararajan's book "Ragasiyam parama Ragasiyam" while the rest of the 40 episodes where apparently co-written by the director (Naga) and the author himself. Interestingly, more than the actual book adaptation, the second half of the series titled "Amabala kaala kadigai" is very fast paced and takes the story forward with each episode very tightly written. The story begins with the "Navapaashana lingam" laden wooden box being stolen by the village Vaidhiyar in a tempo and how it keeps changing hands, eventually to land at the house of the very doctor who is searching for it desperately along with the police. There is an odd bit of a petrol tanker lorry, touted as a ghost vehicle, that kills most of the main characters one by one. Wonder how come such a big lorry can just like that appear out of nowhere and kill pe...

 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...

Couple of weeks back, towards the beginning of this month, we were at war with our notorious neighbor country. Ever since the attack on the tourists happened, it was an inevitable scenario that was waiting to happen. In this era, where every leader worth their salt, wants to shoot out not just from their mouth but also from their arsenal, there is no country in the world that wants to just buy missiles and other arms for deterrence alone, but to use them for any eventuality.  When the first news of our Airforce bombarding the terror targets came out, the next immediate thought was on the retaliation from their end. Last time when the surgical strike happened, despite the entire world being aware of the targets they had the guts to retaliate and even capture one of our pilots who by god's grace came back. Wars, especially with those who don't follow any rules, are never ending. When the rouge nation has openly declared that they would bleed India by waging a battle of thousand c...

 I've often mentioned about one mokka game that me and junior play. We play act stories with a gang of companions - namely, Teddy the bear, Elly the elephant, Mangu the monkey, Chotta bheem as himself and few other folks who make adhoc appearances as per junior's wish. The thing is, he has to compulsorily play at least one "episode" each night before going to sleep and as many times as i can fit in during the day time when he is free. He is so fond of these "episodes" as he has named them after watching all those cartoons that he has a photo of himself along with his gang members stuck on our bedroom door, which has been renamed as the episode gang room. Whomever hears us play act those "scenes" would be wondering for sure what is wrong with these guys, playing with toys after all these years!! At times i feel it has become too tedious and an addiction of an activity that junior should come out of but making him laugh is something that i love and d...

When i saw a few episodes from the earlier seasons it was nauseatingly gory and alarming instead of Dystopian. The Black Mirror series, i felt, was meant to scare people on how irresponsible use of technology will destroy the fabric of humanity. The latest season seems to be a much-diluted version when it comes to the disturbing reality of the future and has a lot of human emotion mixed in as the base theme. The very first episode made me wonder at how realistic the possibility of such a scenario happening and, in some cases, how it is already happening!! There is a happy couple, an engineer husband and a schoolteacher wife, who are trying hard to get pregnant and suddenly the wife is diagnosed with a fatal disease, which is albeit uncurable by present day medication. There is an up-and-coming startup who offers an experimental treatment at a limited cost which the husband readily agrees to. Initially, the monthly subscription for the treatment is a bit manageable, but the side effects...

 For those who grew up with Sun TV, Marmadesam would be synonymous with great story telling and riveting weekly thrill ritual. It was one series that played a great part in establishing Sun TV as not just a credible replacement but a very strong opponent to DoorDarshan, which later waned into oblivion with its proud spot as the defacto (being the only option) channel for the masses. While DD was known for identifying gem of talents, Sun TV cashed in on their creativity with unhindered freedom. Indira soundararajan, the author of the books on which the marmadesam series were made, became quite popular after the series. I've seen Vidaathu karuppu, Rudra veenai when i was abroad and was amazed at the production values and the kind of casting alongside brisk story telling , which has made those series as fresh today as the day they were made. Never had a chance to watch Ragasiyam and by luck stumbled on an Youtube channel, who are playing these series. Thanks to them for bringing these...

For a long time i've wondered how directors convince producers to fund their films. When someone shares their experiences during their interviews i used to find it unconvincing. How can some guy, especially if he is a first-time director, convince someone to spare crores of rupees to fund a story!! How convincing that guy had to be in effectively making the other person part with their hard-earned money!! And how gullible they sound if they are throwing good money after bad at some guy who had narrated a story, how much ever interesting it may be!! And to top it all, most of the time the producers borrow money at cutthroat interest rates to fund those projects, more often than not ending up with debt that has proved fatal in many a case!! And imagine the skill of those story tellers who doesn't just make you fund their dreams but also push you to the extent that you borrow money to pay you!!! And despite knowing that 9 out of ten movies fail miserably, there are still so many p...