Variety is the spice of life

There was a time when people used to make fun of those who mentioned him as their favorite director for his kind of movies were more known for their adult content than anything else. More than Rajini or any one else who claims to be the hero who resembled the guy next door, it was Bagyaraj who could stake claim for that role and was well and truly justified for that moniker by the kind of roles he wrote and played. Often praised as the king of screenplay writing, what many miss out is the witty and intelligent brain behind such scripts and scenes. Considering his battalion of assistant directors who later went on to shine in their own way, how much of those were team effort and how much were his own is open for debate. But the fact that he was able to identify such content and justify them on screen, at least makes him worthy of all the praises he receives. This is one clever man who knows how to twist a scene or a story just enough to tie into a knot and untie the same using clever si...

Like tax and death, if there is one another thing that is unavoidable that would be ads!! Even if you opt for ad free subscription, they will always find a way to seep into your eyeline!! I always used to wonder how they decide on the duration of the ads for some of them would go on for almost half a minute will some may be just 5 seconds! But even for a 5 second ad, the amount of effort that might go behind in making wouldn't be any less than a movie shoot i guess, for you need to pick the right crew, cast, script, artwork, camera and above all music, which i believe plays an all important role in ads, even more than how it used to be for movies. Airtel became a household brand as much as by its product as much as by ARR's theme song. Same goes for Titan, Washing powder Nirma, Green clad glam gal bathing under a waterfall fame Liril soap, and the simplest yet cutest Pug dog fame Hutch - which launched the dog as much as the service provider and several other ads which have the...

RCB pona varusham cup win panapo saw a meme that said, innum paaru adutha varusham Vijay CM aagi TVK ruling party aagi oru shock kudupaanga paarunu. This day that memory nu Facebook reminded of that post. Oru one month gap la ennalaam nadanthu poachu!! Weekend was watching Pokiri on some channel and then only the realization struck that the guy on screen is the current CM!! Probably something similar my dad and his generation would've went through watching MGR becoming the CM 5 decades back. Nothing wrong or right in anyone from movie industry or any industry becoming a democractically elected ruling party and the CM, but TN some how has this penchant for picking its leader only from the entertainment space!! For a state that has shunned national parties continuously since last 6 decades, picking a new party outside of the 1 A 2D 2M and 2 K combination is in itself quite something. But the way in which they've went about electing their representatives is a case study in itself ...

Self peethal time again. Crossed a kutty milestone of 1 million hits and is more than half way into the next 100k by the time i posted this. The trend of the hits and views increasing when i don't post and the same decreasing whenever i post continues well into this cycle as well!! Enna thaanya solla vareenga. Post podrana iliayanu paathu pogra gumbal post padikaratha vida jaasthiya iruko? Oru vazhia kadaiya mooditana nu check panrathukaga athana per visitinga?? :D :D Hehehe..either way. Varugaikum tharugaikum nandri.  Anaithu creditsum Thalai Rameshkay urithaaguga. He is the foremost inspiration, perspiration and respiration behind all these posts. Thanks Thala for regularly commenting and unga comments vandhurkanu paakrathukaga naan selfa adichay visit countay oru 40% hits ethirukum nenakren. Mikka nanri for all other regular and irregular visitors as well. Intha milestonelaam indha blogspacela activea iruntha palar reached decades back. Like the proverbial tortoise, it has liter...

At the beginning of every year i always lament about how drastically the climate is changing and how terrifying it is to imagine increasing summer months with increasing temperature. Edhapathi thaan nee polambama irunthirukka idhu pathi sollama irukkanulaam kekkapdaathu. Last year, around early Feb itself it began to sweat and we had to resort to air conditioners from the second month of the year itself. With the heat wave, agni natchathiram, increasing its span from the designated 20 odd days to months together, coupled with ever increasing slab rates for electricity consumption, people are not just caught between a rock and hard place, but a very hot rock at that as well. Every year, the number of months of summer, heat rather, has been on the increase with the supposedly cooler months on the reduce, but the cooler temperature are now moving towards colder temperature. The supposedly monsoon months have reduced in duration while the volume of rain has more or less remained the same, ...

I saw 2 interviews which formed the basis for this post. This has been running through my mind for quite a while now and recently saw another interview which eventually resulted in writing it all up. The first interview was that of Singapore's PM Lee Kuan Yew. It was more of a snippet about his views on India. The part that grabbed my attention was how much he is surprised about India as a whole and despite all its misgivings and contradictions how it continues to surprise everyone and sets an example for the world to follow, especially with its idea of Unity in diversity. He mentioned how easy or streamlined it is for his country or countries like China/Japan or even bigger countries like Russia, where majority of the nation follows a common language and it is easy for the government to pass on their policies and ideas to their population. Whereas in a country like India, which is more of a subcontinent and more diverse than even Europe, a small region which is actually an extensi...

Last year started off in the worst way possible and the wringer through which the whole year put me through emotionally made me as numb as possible. But when god puts you in through those loops the only reason is to prep you for upcoming situations and with the learnings from previous experience, what would've been daunting and shaking in the boots kind of situations became calm and manageable. The biggest lesson was to fine tune the expectations. When we expect the least, whatever turns up has little impact on your thoughts and actions. It is like jumping from a 10 feet high place as compared to somewhere closer to ground. The jump may have its jolt but when you are closer to ground the impact would obviously be less felt right. As simple as that. At times it felt that the year will never end with excruciatingly hot summer and severely high EB bills. Especially the months of March and April felt never ending! And the second half of the years comparatively just romped past! Oru vel...

After almost 8 years since crossing the 1000 post mark, here we are at the next 500th milestone post. In fact i wanted this to be a thanksgiving day post which would've been apt considering that all thanks to this milestone was courtesy mainly due to Thala Ramesh and his "patronage" (aged patron nu padikapdaathu). But as usual, lighta late aaidichi. Still aairathil oruvar pola, namma thala, 1500 ilum oruvar. So happy to have managed this post and glad that he is still following this space enriching it with his wise words. I am literally awestruck by his comments to even the mokkaiest post and how his comments elevate the actual post and the thought process behind it. Thank you thala for being the solo source of inspiration behind all these posts. While the first 1000 took about a dozen years to reach, the next 500 have been quite slow, with the turnaround time for each post having grown more in duration and the volume having dropped to 5 a month from usual 6. Many a time ...

I first heard of this term about 4-5 years back. FOLO being fear of being left out and FOMO being fear of missing out. In past few days, the articles and posts that i read on Linked in have made me FSLO, feeling so low, that i was actually FOWE, feeling overwhelmed with emotion.  FOLO as a word has several expansions, each one borderline different than other. Most of the people in tech industry have a fear of logging off - even and especially when on leave. The fear of missing out is more common among non smokers and non drinkers, who definitely miss out on close circle conversations, where the tongue is let loose by whatever is being consumed. You may call it insecurity or lack of confidence. But it is a problem that is existential. Mine is more of a different form of FOLO which is fear of living offline. The "online" aspect is more towards being in trend on the technology side and which means not just improving/learning on what is new in our area of work, but also across th...

Like many other people, i follow women's cricket only during world cups and especially if they make it to the knockouts. There is a sense of relatability and grounded nature to their matches and somehow the level of passion which they display on field shows more strongly and expressive than men's version. For every single victorious step - be it a wicket or a boundary or a six - leave alone a century or half - it only shows the effort and struggles that would've gone behind each of those actions which would be several times more than the men's version. Not to belittle their challenges or to show up the ladies. They may've their own problems and expectations and stumbling blocks which could be quite different than what their lady fellow mates may suffer. But there is something that comes out extra and makes the heart bit more warmer to see them celebrate their victories, however small or big they be. It feels like - justified - deserved - and several other better wor...

" 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!!!! 

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...

 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 ...

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...

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...

This is not a fanboy post. For it requires a certain sense of knowledge and level to appreciate or even talk about this mad genius. Mad because, despite all those accolades and appreciations and awards, i still believe people are yet to grasp the full impact of what this man has done and been doing for several decades!! When the news of his symphony being performed live at London started pouring in, i had a dream that day. I am going somewhere and there is a huge crowd pushing each other to witness some one walking in front of them. That personality is none other than the Maestro himself. Possibly returning back after a successful rendition of the symphony. Our eyes meet for a moment and not knowing what to do i stand still for a moment with tears streaming across face. Incidentally i could see the same emotion on IR's face as well, possibly more of a relief having completed one more of his dreams and conquered yet another peak for others to follow. I had never been a die hard fan ...

Music has this special place in everyone's heart. Even the lyrics that you might not have heard for years, comes rushing to your mind the moment you think of it or hear the music associated with it. At times it becomes a ear worm that refuses to switch off, playing continuously in loop. Likewise are the singers i would say. Years back, when my friend mentioned about Mohammad Rafi, i was hearing his name for the very first time and was thinking of him as some foreign individual. It was several years later only i got accustomed to his mesmerizing talent and all those fantastic songs in his honey dipped voice. Kishor kumar got introduced as a comedian in movies and later only realized it was the same guy who sang all those master class songs. Even now, the moment i think of him, his performances in padosan or chalti ka naam gaadi comes to mind and then only his mellifluous voice. Ditto goes for SPB.  For long his name was a default one that i assumed to be present on every movie title...

Not a day goes by without me missing my dad. With each passing day, I continue to wonder about the kind of childhood and care he gave us and the way he managed to hold the family together financially, at times thinking if it was all even real and possibly a scene out of matrix!! To put things in context, my PG course fees per semester was 9 times his salary at that time and he also had 4 mouths to feed at home alongside other expenses, including educational expenses of my sibling as well!! More than the money or the ability to earn it, I am amazed at the level of confidence he must’ve had in himself and the belief that he can pull it off!! Ditto goes for my mom who was a home maker and as I used to teasingly say then, which sounds emphatic now, that had she been the finance minister of India, we would’ve been a surplus economy several decades back! Somehow, they managed to not just balance out the expenses but also in ensuring what was “must” and be always available. It is not a surviv...

What can i say about an year, which literally changed my world upside down in a matter of moments. It started of in trepidation of something that was threatening to happen for several months and when it actually happened, more than fear it left me with a sense of profound anger. God was mighty caring in the sense that he showed me a new path right away and despite it being the hardest couple of months, somehow with his immense grace, managed to survive those tense times. Hopefully next year should be much better and path breaking into newer frontiers. Whenever i go through certain unpleasant times, i always realize at hindsight, they kind of prepared me for where i ended up down the line. "Testing" is barely the word to describe those passages of time for they are so traumatic that it sends one into downward spiral of negative thinking of which i am already a master. In fact at times, i hate to read positive quotes or avoid self motivational books, for they sound so phony and...

 Getting haircut is nothing short of a great incident in every kids life. Some may have good experiences and pleasant while for majority of them, the barber with their scissors, making that tickety-ticket sound and the half blade razor that makes a scary appearance towards the end, scratching the skin behind the ears and right over the backside of the neck, above all one cutting plier like contraption that is used for plucking out hair to its lowest root (also called as summer cut) - to even think of those days makes me shudder. Odeon saloon, which was right at the entrance of our street, used to be the venue for so many of those painful memories. It was a 10 by 10 room with two rolling chairs, that rivalled the hot seat in KBC. The elderly man who cut our hair (i am particular in not mentioning it as styling for every single one of us who ever had hair cut during our school days ended up being commented as having had our hair cut in a rats hole (eli bondhu)) was quite scary and wo...