Variety is the spice of life

The more I write on these introspection series, the more I realize how confusing it becomes how I often end up admonishing myself for over thinking even minute details. The process by which you can draw a line on how much is too much is very difficult to identify and maintain for any action, leave alone thinking. And if I am not thinking about things that impact me, who else will!! Be it on professional or personal circumstances, I often find myself at odds with my own thoughts and how others deal with such similar situations. At the outset, people easily tag me as an overthinker who is very sensitive and reactive. But when they go through similar situations, they feel their responses are more measured. From my observations, I find that, the very people with whom I open up, often end up being those who tag me as such. Maybe I am bad in identifying people that I can confide in or to get clarity or advice. When I try to segregate my thoughts as those that I can action and those that are ...

Whenever I saw a decent web series in English, I often wondered why such concepts are not made in India. With story telling being in our genes, we should be much better than the crap that get churned out in the name of originals and specials that cost a bomb to those OTT channels that produce them. To answer this anguish comes Kala paani or as I would like to say, the best series ever produced, written and made in India. It is the perfect script, perfect storyline with perfect casting, perfect setting and pulsating finale that sets the series up for next season, on the lines of other famous series across the world. The dialogues are sharp and noticeable which add weight to the characters, the sequences are well thought through and connected to make them complete and above all the location – Andaman!! When was the last time an India movie, leave alone language specific industry ever came out with a story based on Andaman!!! The only instance I remember is Andaman Kaadhali, a Sivaji movi...

Another interesting novel by Rollins with an intriguing premise. Typically, his premises will involve global devastation by manmade or historical/urban legend kind of weapons, where the good guys (SIGMA team) and bad guys race/fight against each other to own the weapon. Off late, be it in movies and now even on novels, Russians seems to have been replaced by Chinese as the antagonists for American heroes. Ditto with this book as well. In fact, for last couple of books what was being hinted, is a full-blown battle between PLA and SIGMA team, where in, like every Hollywood movie, the good guys in the bad guys team, side up with the good guys team (read Americans) and fight against their own team, to save the world. The premise in Tides of fire being mother earth and her secrets under the sea, being fought over to be made as the ultimate weapon.   Couple of things that made me wonder once the book got over were – was this really written by Rollins or ghost written by Matthew Reil...

An interesting trend is happening in front of our eyes and wonder how long it will take before it morphs into a being that is resisted and fought against. I am talking about how adulthood had eaten into cartoon space and how the stories that were once meant to entertain children has grown way beyond into the domain of adults. When I first came across the concept of “comic-con” on Big bang theory drama series, it never struck me at that time. Even though those gatherings involved adults who were dressed up like their favorite superhero or comic character, it took me long to realize that more than being man child, in the name of reliving their childhood fetishes and likes, they are competing with kids for whom these creations were meant for. I am going with the premise that comics and superheroes are meant for kids to be inspired and if any adult feels the same way it’s a bonus for the creator. If that underlying premise itself is at fault, then do not read any further : ) I recently saw...

Lucky man (Tamil) is a Yogi Babu starrer that is quietly making waves on Amazon prime. I am not sure if its release was a theatrical success. But it has quickly climbed up to number 3 in all India view. The movie is tailor made for OTT watch and goes on to confirm the belief that even those movies that may fail at BO have another option to resurrect via OTT. Possibly the more such movies succeed in OTT, content providers may be inclined to make movies more suited for OTT. The advantage of such alternate mechanism being bigger movies that are commercially more expensive to produce will have free reign in theaters. The makers of such monster movies anyway trample small time producers, squeezing out theaters for releasing small budget movies and edge out their screen space. And even if they do manage to get a decent release, for the huge amount of money spent by average viewer to watch a movie on theater makes them feel deprived of value for their spent if the movie is slow paced or conte...