Variety is the spice of life

As the year winds up to a close, the book also got over. A man called Ove was such a pleasant experience that it would definitely be one of the best things that happened in 2016. When I was mid way into the book, I was almost certain that this is the best book ever. Hard to say the same emotion is retained towards the end. If one could mercilessly chop off say 20% of the chapters from 60th till 80th percentile, may be it can reclaim the masterclass status. To sum up, the book is about Ove, an elderly widower, who unable to bear the death of his wife, wants to commit suicide. The book illustrates how his repeated attempts on his own life fails miserably and how the interruptions make him the darling of the very neighborhood, he despises. From an uncompromising person, he is made to change so much and is forced to accommodate all those changes/people in to his life and house, right from an adamant cat to LGBT guy. Even though he doesn’t want to involve others in his life and wants to l...

I started this year with this statement as a wish,” Gils plan to be more steady and static. No more jumping and changing. Planning to stand and stay secure for more time to come :)” It was more like an objective to stick to and it didn’t even last 5 months L Of all the changes that happened this was the saddest and I could never forgive myself for what happened. It was demoralizing to say the least and has left a lasting gash in my psyche. If could go back in time, I would stop myself from making that decision  2 years back that changed the course of my career. But that would’ve meant I would’ve still been doing what I left, a dull boring job which made clichés look brand new. If not that instant I would’ve intervened on my other decision that came like an year back, which was solely attributed to my non-sticky nature that longs for change once familiarity sets in. I always have the best phases of one’s life coinciding when my mindset is at its peak negative or foul. Prob...

The best thing about the first part of the movie, Chennai-28, that came like a decade back was its originality. The pin code had a role to play and was right in the scheme of things which made the movie a hit. It was a nostalgic walk through for people like me who grew up near that area and all those cricket grounds and lanes and streets had ready recall value. Bonus was the simple story with tongue in cheek one liners and the climax twist that was a roftl howler on the team. Even the songs were memorable and everything clicked well in first part. Very rarely do we get sequels which are a literal continuation with almost the same cast playing their age per the story. A big kudos to the director for the setup. Nothing seems artificial and he has played to the strength of the story pretty well. The cricket crazy boys in first part have all become adults, with none, but for one, are bachelor. They’ve their daily routine life, which other than many things, is totally devoid of playing cric...

“How do I look” If 143 is the universal love code for “I love you”, this 3214 should be the universal alert code for men, especially husband folks. However innocuous it may sound, the question has all the traps one could ever fathom and is as tricky as navigating the trap ridden field in “Black Hawk Down” movie. What do you answer for that question? More importantly what is the expectation as an answer for this question is what makes it the most difficult question ever posted to “man”kind. Should you answer honestly? If you are someone who goes by that virtue as a best policy, probably there are lot of other policies you may’ve to opt for post the answer. Should you blatantly lie? It may and will backfire and whatever you said will be held against you and your right to silence can’t save you anymore. Should you be a constructive critique? May or may not work and has all the chances of a rework effort involved for both parties which would definitely delay an...

I don’t have many references to compare. But I can say with all my heart that “A man called OVE” is probably the best I’ve ever read, with still about 60% of the book to complete. As mentioned on my previous post about this book, would take as much time as possible to read it and I am sure would probably read it a lot more times even after I’ve finished reading it, for it has not just impressed the hell out of me, but every time I open that book to read, I simply lose track of all that happen around and start to follow Ove on his daily routine. If there is a list of impossible things to do, "not liking Ove" would probably top the list. Just realized while commenting about the book that OVE is one letter short for LOVE. So much for my takku regarding this. As the story grows on, what I’ve read till now is about the life of a stubborn old man, OVE, who is a loner and is a stickler for rules. He hates interacting with people especially those who has no respect for rules and...

My friend suddenly got a call from his kids school to come and meet him. When he went there the teacher showed him the answer sheet of his kid. Draw 5 fish was the question that was highlighted and against which the kid has drawn numeral 5 followed by fish diagram. The teacher hadn’t given her any marks for that answers but a golden star badge and made it a point to talk to her mom during PTA. In fact so impressed where they about the kid that they’ve asked her to be enrolled in lot other mind improvement courses. Reminds me of another kid of my friend. One day my friend had got an unscheduled call from her kids school asking her to meet the class teacher. Worrying for worst, she had rushed to the school only to be pacified by the teacher that it was nothing to worry, but the news was definitely about her kid. The teacher had shown my friend the answer paper of her kid and she was stunned to see the answer that was highlighted in red. The question was to name a living thing and a non-...

I couldn’t resist posting about this novel. I had resisted the temptation for a few weeks now and even now without completing 25% of the book I have yielded to the temptation of sharing it as a blog post. In a way, I had been way to selfish and childish and lot many “ish” in not writing about this book for I wanted it to belong to me alone. Considering the fact that it was a loaned one shared by a fellow blogger friend, the idea sounds all the more ridiculous now. I owe a lot to Bragz, the blogger friend, for sharing with me this book – A man called Ove. The first few chapters give the visualization of grumpy old Ove as the grandpa character from the animation “Up”. I could almost visualize him with his square thick black specs and blond white hair and him in his suspenders. For some reason, without a word being described about how he looked, this image crept in my mind. I never realized when it got changed to that of my dad. His meticulously pain staking effort for detail, perfectio...

Month of December and TN usually are never in best of terms with each other. The month has separated the state from its most popular leaders who breathed their last, the worst natural disaster ever wrecked the state as tsunami and the most recent man made (??)water logging disaster stuck in December as well. Even before the dust could settle on the news of J’s demise, time has claimed its next victim in Cho. Having been her advisor, at least been touted as one, it wasn’t surprising that he followed her quick to her heavenly abode. Though being on medical review since two and a half month, the news was more or less expected, considering her age and deteriorating health. What was surprising was the agony it created mentally on everyone who came across. Till few days back, the very same people, who were cribbing over the non-functional government and how the entire system is paralyzed  by the absence of one person, who held sway over every single function and when the rains came,...

Some posts back had marveled at Vijay Anthony, the music director turned actor, for his knack of picking the best script that suit his limitations yet are intriguingly good. Saithan, his latest movie, impressed right from the trailer, with its scenes reminding of Sujatha’s AAH novel and the movie posters only added to the mystery. Was eagerly awaiting its release and the reviews were more or less similar to his other movies – being predominantly positive and credit for his improving performance. Decided to take the risk and saw the movie on second day. Storywise, its about a newly married IT guy, who solve complex issues with his obsessive dedication and concentration,  when he suddenly starts hearing voices. What starts as a jumbled incoherent mix of noise soon starts taunting him, forcing him against his will and almost driving him to suicide. The voice keeps telling him to kill some lady named Jayalakshmi who murdered him. It even makes him create an accident in which he...

At times, despite all the warnings and caution, you still end up doing things just for the heck of it. Watching "kadavul irukaan kumaru" and "kavalai vendam" fall into that repent after reason failure category which would be definitely followed by "i told you so" by all those on whom the same misfortune had befallen.   Note:   Idhulam padam, ithuku oru review..topic vera kedaikalaina enna vena ezhuthivia nulaam kraas kostin pannapadaathu. Considering that black money and demonetization being flavor of the day, want our government to send notices to the producers and backers of these kind of movies. Its pretty obvious that they had money to burn and ended up burning not just their excess money, but also the call sheets of the actors and time of the audience who ended up watching them on theaters. Worse of all, the censor board need to be sued for certifying these movies for public viewing. Probably there should be a guideline at their level itself to ...

Whenever he wakes up, the first person he looks out for is his mom. How much ever me and my mom pamper him, junior will always look out for his mom as the first choice and we are all a joint distant second. For all the effort that she takes to make sure he is fed on time, even during odd hours and for having a parallel processing running on mind about him 24/7, despite the fact that he spends very less of his waking hours with her, his reactions when he sees her back from office, the liberty with which he tries out all his antics first with her and then using us for replicating, it all has a clear hall mark of a sense of gratitude hard written on it. You may term it mother love, genetics, 9 months advance acquaintance etc. But it all boils down to three people who live with you, of which two are not to be seen during majority of your day time, yet you choose one of them as your play mate. Even for voicing out his gibberish, learning new things like an ink over blotting paper, his first...

Whenever I post a movie review, I often mention how a good looking couple with crackling chemistry on screen, make even normal and monotonous screen play look magical in a movie. Vijay Anthony, time and again proves that with a good script, looks doesn’t matter at all. Right from his first movie, Naan, which literally was the trendsetter movie of music directors donning the lead actor role, his follow-up movie Salim which was a sequel, he has showed his acumen in picking the right script that suits his limitations as an actor at the same time keeps the audience hooked. His last movie, released few months back, raised quite a few eyebrows with its title as Pichaikaaran. In the superstition abound cine industry, any negative title or one with negative connotation are always a strict NO. To rub it in he has went on to register more such “unlucky” titles for his upcoming movies as well. Pichaikaran turned out to be the biggest hit of his career and probably one of the highest grosser of th...

Thurmugi seems to be the year of the right. Both from a political standpoint and also from a literal sense. We see the rise of right across the globe, with some even managing to win the coveted House post on the far side of the planet. Never before has the world nations been so united in being discorded for similar reasons. Nationalism and Patriotism are tested and verified as many times, if not more than, blood sugar and cholesterol and this is a common phenomenon world over. Powers to be and incumbent power centers, both drive their people away from their home in the game of one-uppance and civil wars, on who is more right in catering to their scattering masses. Insane statements by people in power are taken at face value and in deeper sense and are fought against and for on the streets. Right has never been so wrong and right at the same time. Opinions are never debated but are fought over and aren't at rest till the opposition is grounded to dust. There are more character assas...

As a part of the entry for SWEEK, where n you’ve to reminiscence how blogging changed your life, i thought of blogging a post. The flashbacks were sporadic and random and to streamline the thought process and recollections wanted to trace back to my very first post. Since I post at a random frequency had kind of forgotten from when it all started. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious was the very first word on my blog. Should it be called a word or a sentence begs a debate of its own. The back story behind the post says that it all started 10 years and 9 months ago to this date when I was impressed and intrigued curious word that I stumbled upon on a quiz show where one of the teams were named the same. Per my own volition, I had googled for the word and what originally started as a mean to record anything that interests me and is intriguing is continuing in the same way in one form or other across 846 posts. As I glance across the posts, they are nothing short of a chronological arc...

After my previous post on CB, I am stumped for a start for this post. Right from the title, there is a formulaic approach. This guy has some fetish for numbers in title – 5 point someone, 1 night at call center, 3 mistakes of my life, 2 states, revolution 2020 and 1 Indian girl. And yes he deals in fractions as well with “half girlfriend” !!! Either he has a fetish for Maths or was  a Maths buff, but the titles are more like buffoonery. There is this other guy, Matt Reilly, who gives similar titles to his books – 7 ancient wonders, 6 sacred stones, 5 great warriors. At least he sticks to Natural numbers and with any mercy the series might stop after one. Shudders at the thought that they might get an extension as a whole number or integer series. Coming back to CB, thann muyarchiyil satrum Manam thalaratha vikra’mad’hithiya gils finished his latest book as well. Not sure if it had got to do with the previous post or the typical mindset to desperately try to support the underdog, ...

Ever since his five point someone became a hit and set him on path to become the commercially most successful of Indian authors writing in English, Chetan Bhagat has always been at the center of one controversy or other. In a country, more specifically in an era, where success is worshipped and "success"ors even more so, the adulation received by CB is only matched by the audacity with which he continues to defy all odds in raking up bigger and growing box office collections for his novels, which are, to quote in comparison, like Harris Jayaraj music for movies, a mere copy or rehash of same old setup with different names. Yet, surprisingly, that is the least of all the pointed criticism barbs thrown at CB, with the topmost cry being from the language Nazis, who crib and cry over the cheap level of language used by him. Some even go to the extent that those budding authors who get “inspired” by CB may spawn and their tribe may ultimately result in the death of English la...

Much ado about Remo could very well be an apt title for this post. Siva Karthikeyan has reinvented the tried and tested success formula of wastrel hero winning laddu heroine, patented by Dhanush and Vijay and Ajith and who-is-who in the movie industry. At some point of time in their career, before their image started deciding scripts for them, all mass heroes have been victim of picking scripts that were bordering on female harassment to abuse, when the same scenario if applied to the villain would lead to fatal consequences for him what might earn catcalls and whistles and even duet for the hero, mocking the heroine. And all said and done, if she, sanely, decides to reject the advances of the hero, there would be even more bashing bhashans on how selfish womenfolk are as compared to how selfless and pure the guys who woo are, who are in fact wastrels as pronounced by all and sundry, right from their own parents to peers to people of their parish. Rajini successfully tapped the male ...

Vijay sethupathi actor thaana..athenna padam per mathiri review potrukannu pongum singangalay..avar paatuku daily oru padam release pannitu poraru. Avlo moviesum thani thaniya review poda mudila. Still, as an actor he has impressed one and all. So mothama a review on him as an actor across all his movies would be apt nu felt. Exact sequence epo started therila,except for sethupathi and possibly rekka (which I’vent seen yet) in almost all his movies, be it soodhu kavvum or pizza or idharkuthane aasapattai balakumara or even the recent ones like iraivi,kadhalum kadanthu pogum, nanum rowdy thaan, aandavan kattalai or even dharma dhurai for that matter, (shabba..padam perlam mothama sollavay ithana neram aaguthay..intha manushan epdi ivlo padam nadichi release vera panraro) his character always stands out on each of the movie and is always that of a middle class person. His looks, but for soodhu kavvum, is almost same in all the movies,except for trimming of the facial hair. His voice mo...

After a really long time, a movie review :) Have been hearing and reading rave reviews about this movie. The title suggested it could be yet-another-feminist flick, hell bent on painting all men bad and how miserable and suffering women folk are. But the positive reviews aroused curiosity on the movie. More than being feminist, the movie scared the heck out of me is an understatement. To rephrase, its one of the scariest movies i've ever seen. It doesn't have any jump out of your skin kind of horror or make your spine chill kind of bgm's and sudden heart stopping twists on screen play. What makes the skin crawly moments of the movie is its candidness. When people watch horror flicks, they kind of know what to expect, the least of which being getting scared. They may jump at the shadows for a while, till the after effects of the movie passes by. But movies like PINK would surely give you sleepless nights, more so if you care for the women in your family. More than a stor...

What is the starting point for identifying your passion? Does it start from childhood? Is it a matter of co-incidence that makes you stumble onto it? Or is it sheer fate that leads you to it? Even if you figure it out, how to start believing? Off late one question that rings in mind non-stop is on the topic of trust. How does people begin to trust whoever the other person maybe? To have trust in one's own abilities and backing themselves is a totally different aspect, over which at least we can have a semblance of control. But how or when does one start trusting another person? Does it start with the other person doing things on expected lines? Does it get strengthened in one’s ability to predict the reactions and responses of the other? What happens when the other person on whom you base your trust happens to be your spiritual guru?!! I got drawn into a conversation by accident that set the stream of questions raised above. It was between two of my colleagues who are also absolu...

People who are unfortunate enough to visit by this blog would know about the punctuality of gilsbert and how comfortable and dependable he is in keeping up on time, which has been explained in no less than several thousand words across so many posts. It so happened one day that, despite all his reluctance, he had to set up a call early in the day, to catch up on the tasks to be done, before the clients came barging in the evening. After much deliberation, it was decided to be scheduled at 9 AM. Much to his surprise, there were hardly any takers for the call. The responses for rejection were more on the lines of  "i would be on commute and hence tentative" or more simply since they left late yesterday, joining a call at 9 was simply out of question for those invited. Not one of them mentioned that they had a conflict with another call at that time, which usually would be the standard response for rejection. And when he checked their calendars before setting the call, the 9 t...

"Do you understand physics jokes?" A rather innocuous sentence or question. But the situation in context was hilarious or sad, depends on which side of the conversation you were. A friend of mine, your typical America mappillai, recently had a skype chat with his possible bride-to-be. Ponnu paakrangaratha epdi solrathu? hunting sonna sandaiku varanga. Anyways. While discussing about their respective profiles, that girl suddenly had popped the question. Though he had heard the question, he was kind of confused as to if he heard it right and had it reconfirmed. While deliberating over the question, it was explained to him that, since he was from art and science background and not an engineer, that girl had wondered out loud, would he be able to appreciate nerdy jokes like science jokes. Needless to say on the status of the discussion. He polambified to me and was funny cursing the day he chose not to take up engineering and settled for B.Sc. Though we had a hearty laugh at ...

Some time back i had posted about a person, whose life story stunned me, for it was what i felt, would've been my life story, had the choices i made been any different. Personality wise his was an extreme version of mine. Anything i had in mild he was the wilder version, the espresso to me latte. It was an interesting study in contrast for me as i had a ring side view of what would've possibly happened in my life if i had chosen the other road that i left behind. I had even posted about it in this very blog. There is a saying that there are always seven people in the world, who look the same - possibly the crudest translation of "unna mathiriye ezhu per ulagathula irupanga". Recently, i met the second of the seven. This guy's life story was a lot more similar and curiously, our lives had been interconnecting for past decade and a half without either of us realizing. We had stayed on the same street, on houses on either side of the road. When he was in Hyderabad,...

There is a scene in one hindi movie, where the heroine, on a road trip with the hero claims - "I don't want to go back to the place where we came and I don't like where we are going as well. This journey..this road..which seems never ending..this I like. Wish this journey never ends." Cut to the post. Being a cynic bordering on satire, under the guise of striving to be near perfect, one might be tempted to ask, what did she like in particular - being the passenger driven by some one, who in fact is the deciding authority on when, to where and how the trip progresses? Or was it the thought of never settling down and be on constant movement, drinking in the joys of nature as is where is? Its getting tad philosophical for a simple dialogue. Yet, that scene really set the thought process behind the post. I've written few posts on my "close encounters of the bulb kind" with kids. I've always been fond of kids and to quote my BIL, a certified kid tam...

Previously Mun Kurippu: Intha seriesoda last partnu poatta neram post poda systemay ilama poidchi. Irunthiruntha mattum kizhichirupiana..adhu vera matter. Whenever i write, epdi ending vara poguthunu post podra varaikkum i will have no idea. At the spur of the moment enna thonutho athaan ending. But for this one, it was decided way back that ending has to be different. Epdiyum onnum ulaga varalaatril mudhal muraiyaaga sollarathuku onnumilla. Same arachha maavu theme. Intha storyoda endinga title base panni mudicha epdirukumnu yosichathin vilaivay intha post. Here it goes. Venue: Blog Bhavan Restaurant Participants : Thala Ramesh, Raji, Asha, Mages, Vincy,Adivasi matrum Gils Thala: enna Gilsu..adhukulla end card potuta..innum oru 1000 episodesaachum edhirpaathene G: Podalaamnu thaan paathen..opicela blog cut panitaangala..adikadi kadhai maranthirunthu..yosichi yosichi izhukka mood illa Asha: adhu kadhai nu onnu iruntha kavalapadanum..thoninathu thonaathathu elaam pos...