Life is a camera, Face it with a smile
A smile is like saying hello without any words.


Sunday 30 October 2011

Ra-One Bad

Firstly and foremost,

1. Tamilians are not idiotic and clumsy.

2. 'Konjam' is very different from 'Condom'

3. Even if we eat with our hands, we eat decently and do not put curd in our noodles.

4. 'Haiyoo' is not said after every single sentence.

5. Idly, dosai and sambar isn't the only identifiable south indian thing.

Ra one dminishes all hopes of even an average film. Untouching sentiments, sad humour by stereotyping tamils, and high expectations of action packed scenes ruined the experience. Even Chitti as Rajni on screen was not enough to connect songs and fights. The first 5minutes of the movie was probably enough to put you off the whole movie (What was the point of Prinyanka Chopra, and Sharuck motor biking, and etcetc...). If that wasn't enough, the train scene was an epic copy cat fail. Metaphorically, Ra-one, the movie, is as poweful as G-one trying to stop the train, and takes five minutes to do so, destroying the entire station.

In my opinion, the idea of a modern raavan, Ra-one and G - one (Jeevan) are the most historically dated characters that we have ever seen. A total miss.

Wednesday 26 October 2011

ஜாதகமா ஜோக்கா

ஓர் இடத்தில் ஜாதகம் பொருத்தம் பார்த்தா ஏழு பொருத்தம். குரு உச்சிலே இருக்காரு அமோகமான பொருத்தம் என்கிறார்.
இன்னொருவர், அம்மா தாயே வேணாம், நாக தோஷமாம், இனைந்தால் சண்டை மட்டும் தான், மூன்றே மாததில் பிறிந்திடுவார்கள் என்கிறார்.
எது உண்மை, எது பொய். நடந்த பின் கூறுவார்கள். அந்த ஜோசியகாரர் சொல்வதை கேட்டிருகளாம் என்று.
மிகவும் பிடித்த வரன், பொருத்தம் இல்லையென்றால் 'வேர் எங்கையாவது பார்க்கலாமா ' என்று கேட்க தோன்றும் மனம்.
எதுக்கு அப்போ இந்த வீன் வேலை. நமக்கே தெரியுது, ஆளுக்கு ஆள் ஜாதகம் பொருத்தம் மாறுபடுது. நம்பிக்கை கொடுக்கிற மாதிரி ஒன்றும் இல்லையே இதில். இப்படி surety இல்லாத ஒர் விடயத்தை எதற்கு மெலும் மெலும் வளர்கனும்.

Saturday 8 October 2011

Engayum Epothum - A Reflection

Just saw engayum eppothum after multiple reccomendations.

Thus with expectations of a good movie, I watched and I should say it was worth the watch.

Some well crafted scenes. Two very different love stories, yet natural enough to believe. The scene of Anjali getting Jey to organi donate was classic.

But the best thing was the message at the end. It's good to see the quality of low budget movies improving drastically in recent times. From the fleets of 'kallori', 'thoonganakaram', 'angadi theru', 'myna', 'nadodikal', comes yet another impressive flick. Sufficient commercial aspects to sell the movie, yet interwoven with a message to the audience, to also fulfill the social responsibility of the movie maker.

What is lacking though is the strength of the message. The climax sends home the message that road accidents shouldn't happen as there are real people and families impacted by this. It attacks the problem at the point where its most likely to touch Indian people, i.e kinship and love. And I was touched. Tears.

But the fact that the director failed to mention causes or solutions to this problem is lacking. Fleetingly reasons such as high speed, negligent driving may have been indicated. But to drill home some reasons even more strongly would have been appreciated. Even a solution such as seatbelts would have been the icing on the cake.

But, as a start to the trend of mature movies, its amazing and much welcomed by me, 'an' audience who wants a message packed novel entertainer and whose sick and tired of the old masalas.

Uni Life - Not a reflection, but an analysis

What's spurred this particular blog post, a particular comment I received recently from an Imperial College student.

'I never had time for anything. All I did was study'

It's not the first time I heard this comment. The same comment phrased slightly differently was said from a deligent student in a university in Thiruchengodu, Tamil Nadu, India.

I don't know if the situation is different in Australia. My particular case might not be the best representative of an Australian student life. But I know Australians, even if they don't study a lot, sure do work a lot. They work so much, they don't have time for anything else either.

Doing a number of things makes you smarter at the way you do a number of things. You learn to squeeze 10 pages of reading into 10 minutes and not 20 minutes. You optimise time.

But there is a saturation point. Just like 10 pages can't be squeezed into 2minutes, overloading us with information, isn't going to get us smarter. This is what I criticise about the education system in some universities. Teach us the techniques to be smart learners, but don't feed us with information to the extent of making us machines that just grind the material, but don't really think for ourselves. How many of us would have thought 'If only I had the time, I would have done that' or 'I'll do it after exams, I just don't have time now'. The number of missed opportunities to discover ourselves.