Variety is the spice of life

The master of investigative thrillers is at it again. I am amazed at the simplicity with which Keigo Higashino, weaves police investigations and how original he makes it sound. There are no slam bang, breathtaking chases, blasts and not even gun shots for that matter. The only violence in the story would be that of the incident under investigation. The meticulousness and methodical approach with which the detectives solve the crime is so simple and detailed at the same time that, it is almost impossible to guess or watch out for that sleight of hand trick, which reveals the “who” and in some cases, the “how” part of it. Many a times I’ve wondered around the side stories of the minor characters involved in a story. If there is a hero who has an issue with a villain, many a times we get the back story of the hero’s friend to some extent, but never about the henchmen of the villain, unless they are like second in command to the main villain. In this book, I felt the approach towards, ho...

Whenever I read meme’s, about the tricks used by parents to wake up their kid, I would be reminded of my own experiences. My mom would be busy in kitchen and usually it would be my dad who would be burdened with the task of waking me up. He would switch off the fan and I would be all sweaty, irritated and angry when I wake up enraged. My mom had a simpler way of waking me up – shout out my name and start scolding at increasing levels of decibel. You can never fight with someone who is more angrier than you. My poor dad used to bear the brunt of my anger. At times in fit of anger, I would switch on the fan and go to sleep again, only that the anger would’ve made me wide awake. May be he might have tried his best to nudge me awake and switching the fan off would’ve been his last weapon. I never thought about all those and only bore grudge for each time he employed such methods. Another peeve being, round neck banians. I was forever growing in size and for a really long time in my life, w...

A while back, when I had posted something about, how having kids soon grows onto become the mission statement of every adults life, one of the comments was about, how wrong it was, as a philosophy. The lady had mentioned that, no person, however close they may be, should ever be the reason or purpose of anyone else. It wasn’t as blunt, but the message was more towards, how one should always have their own passion, independent of anyone. Of course, caring for your family, friends, kids all those are given. But we should all have a purpose or passion that we should strive to achieve to our full potential was the message she wanted to convey. Highly idealistic it may sound. But on an emotionally charged environment of a family setup, where the word bonding takes literal and figurative meaning, it is highly unlikely to think of anything beyond kids, till some point of time, after some point of time, I guess. I never knew, when I began to care so much about junior and when did, every single...

I’ve been relishing a 500 page Sujatha short story collection since January this year. Didn’t want to finish the book at all as almost all of those stories were awesome. What a man Sujatha has been!!! To conceive such themes and story lines 3 decades before and to even think on such areas for a short story is astounding. Be it sci-fi, romantic, thrillers, drama any genre, Sujatha manages to leave his stamp of perfection and freshness. In fact, he has grown into a genre of his own and anything which is novel and unique along with some scientific inputs explained at a basic level, is called out as “pulling a Sujatha”. Of the several dozen stories, which includes the original short story which got made into the movie “Kannathil Muthamittal”, the one that immediately stuck a chord with me was “Red Maruti”. The story is about a family that travels back to Chennai on a Red Maruti car. There is a grand old lady, her son, his wife, their kids all part of the group who are on the commute. The ...

After a long time, a decent thriller movie in Tamil. Right from the time, the teaser trailer was released, the movie piqued interest. It was a really long trailer at that, running close to 4 mins. The hero meet heroine on a crowded lift. They work on the same building, different floors. He asks her out for coffee which she declines stating that he is asking the wrong question. His brilliant response being that, she may be a feminist and he doesn’t mind her taking him out for coffee either. She again rejects with same reason. He wonders out loud, probably she believes in equality and rephrases his invite as, let both of them go together for coffee, which she smilingly refuses saying the question itself was wrong. And if he asks the right question, she would consider. It is not just the hero, but any viewer would be tempted to think, what the hell is wrong with the question. Was it grammatical or any other logic around the same. He finally breaks the puzzle and asks her out for tea. By t...

Ever since I stumbled on this gem on Jio music, has been wanting to write about the songs from the movie. I prefer slightly classical touch on movie songs accompanied by good lyrics to go with as well. K.V Mahadevan has composed most of my favorites from the Puranam/ Raja-rani series of movies. Be it Thiruvilaiyaadal or Konjum Salanagai or numerous other instances where the songs are class apart and are evergreen even 7 decades after. I vaguely remember hearing these songs growing up. During that time there was no recorder or player in our house and the tenant next door used to play these songs at a high volume, much to the chagrin of my parents, as it would disturb our studies. Recently, while going back home was song hopping across genres and landed up with KVM hits. I didn’t realize at first that the playlist was a mixed bag of tamil and telugu as well. So when “Omkara naadhaanu” song started, I was about to switch over to the next one. Sensing some familiarity around the song I dec...

Considering the school hunt situation, this movie couldn’t be more timely at least from title perspective for me. And considering the response to the movie, getting a LKG seat, both in school and also for this one, seems quite tough. The movie is what “Tamizh padam 2.0” failed to be -  a tongue in cheek satire. The movie achieved what “NOTA” movie couldn’t – keeping audience interested, even though content wise both are more or less same. They are candid camera attempts on the current political situation in TN, post the demise of J. But LKG goes one step extra and picks up on the comical side of those issues and I am pretty sure, they are immediately connecting with the audience. Where NOTA failed was, it was mere representation of the situation and it made it look like watching the same news reel on screen as well. But LKG pokes fun at the satirical aspects of those sorry scenarios. Be it floating thermocol to save water, J’s death related controversies, school admission situation...

A book that I was so eagerly awaiting, considering that it touches upon Artificial Intelligence. Knowing his penchant to weave thrillers from even hitherto un-interesting topics, I was having great expectations around this topic, only to see the book fail miserably on all counts. It starts off on an interesting historical note, as always in any James Rollins book, with the trial of Witches as background. There would’ve been a million references about the book on witches as to how it is supposedly the bloodiest book on documented human history, for it has contributed to the death of so many innocent women. Beyond a point, it has become so monotonous that, the build up around the book became pretty obvious. There was an even explosive parallel track of a pregnant Seichan (wife of the main character) being abducted along with the kids of another main character, with the wife of the latter, battered to near death. Usually, the parallel tracks wouldn’t have any knot till they converge on a ...

For previous parts click here Joey and Chandler while taking the stairs to their apartment “Wow man… that cab driver was rude” exclaims Joey “Why…what did he do?” queries Chandler “Whaaa..didn’t you see? He showed us the finger!!” “It was Thumbs up” “Is thumb not a finger?? then what is it?” Chandler face palms and controls himself. “Dude..not all finger's are offensive” “If that’s the case then why he got offended when I showed him the middle” “IT IS offensive to flip someone with the ..middle” “Who gets to decide that?” Joey opens the apartment and the conversation continues into their room, with chandler mimicking brain exploding, on Joey’s comment. Both get startled to find Phoebe sitting on their couch and watching TV. “Whoa….Pheebs..how did you get in?” blurts Joey “What are you doing here?” asks Chandler “Duh..thanks for your hospitality. No wonder you never get any guests” mocks Phoebe “But how come you are here in middle of your working day? Aren’t you s...