Variety is the spice of life

Unity in diversity!! Such is the disgust with which it is uttered nowadays that, every district and street declaring itself as a self-anointed country is not far off!! It may sound like extreme exaggeration but when you extrapolate the utterings and mutterings of local politicians and their side kick media folks, it is more than evident that they are not just sowing the seeds of discord against the concept of India, but are hell bent on dividing the nation into how many ever-smaller pieces possible!! Makes one wonder, how people get away with such things, that are clearly against the concept of this great nation and are literally creating disharmony amongst its citizens. Take for example, the recent “vadakkan” debate that has literally drawn a target behind every hindi speaking people in TN. The amount of vitriolic content being spewn online would make one wonder if at all there was ever a decent thought in such people’s mind about their neighboring citizens from other states. The way ...

Recently there was an incident in junior’s class that left us shocked. The way in which kids were talking with each other, the bullying, and the kind of ease with which they were talking about things that were much beyond their age left us dumbfounded!! I’ve been cut off from school circles and school going kids’ lifestyle for a long while now and possibly the gradual erosion of the discipline setup in schools is showing its ugly head much closer to home. When I travelled to office, I often used to cross multiple schools going by the different uniforms and irrespective of which time of the day, I always used to see them either in bus or train. Their hairstyles, kind of footwear, even their trousers for that matter, would hardly qualify as school wear. And I used to wonder how come those kids are available at such odd hours, outside during school time. The kind of language used was hardly parliamentary or fit for school kids. But even those can be discounted a bit considering that popul...

Like the Meluha series, War of Lanka happens to be the fourth and final installment of the Ramachandra series. Like how he distorted Shivapuranam to his material gains and ill-gotten popularity, Amish has butchered Ramayanam in these series to the maximum extent possible. Of all the people who have been baying India is intolerant, the success of these series is a testament to the patience and mindfulness of our people. Had it been any other religious book or any other famous book for that matter, where the lead characterization is distorted to this extent and glorification accompanied by misrepresentation in the name of fictional liberty, the author might’ve found himself in a precarious position if not life threatening. This book is nothing, but trash be it for the way of misrepresenting a holy epic. If not for the religious angle, even as a regular pulp fiction it is still garbage. Of the 4 books in the series, this is the worst. There is literally no space for story with only the tr...

There were 2 nice movies that I got to see last weekend and here you go with the result.  18 Pages – a telugu movie starring the “kartikeya” hero. Off late have become fan of this guy and for the kind of scripts he chooses. Be it Kartikeya 1, Kartikeya 2, Ekkadiki pothavu chinnavada , all the movies had him playing a decent guy character, which is a rarity nowadays in movie heroes!! His roles are often positive and good natured, at least in the 4 movies that I’ve seen so far, with a boy next door appeal. 18 pages happens to belong to the syrupy romantic genre, where a hitherto heartbroken hero, happens to stumble on a diary on the roadside. He almost burns the book but as the story line would have it, happens to read it and falls in love with the girl who wrote the content. Of course, without even looking at her. And typical to movies of fantasy genre, even in his dreams of imagining the girl narrating the contents, it is the heroine’s image that props up perfectly. At the risk of ...

National treasure series are like movie equivalent of a Dan Brown novel from the Robert Langdon series. The first 2 parts that came out as movies, starring Nicholas cage, have their own fan base. It dwells majorly into symbolism and generous dollops of fiction mixed with real world items and facts. The first part dealt with the clues hidden on the original copy of the American constitution and the second part covered various other historical artefacts related to America, in getting the name of the Gates family cleared off one Abe Lincoln’s assassination. The places where the quest takes them and the way in which they are resolved often lead to edge of the seat thrill situations. The movie scripts of both the editions would’ve made bestseller novels as well on the thriller genre. This edition of National treasure is typically made for OTT and the ten-part series is again has its roots in America, only bit wider this time at the continent level. There is a supposedly pan American treasur...