This Kuruvi should be shot down! Immediately

If I am blogging amidst my really busy schedule , there must be really a very strong reason for that. And indeed it is. On Saturday I was subjected to Nazi style of torture for 3 hours the difference being that I was the one who voluntarily chose to be subjected. Now if you want to escape from the same self-subjugation , please go thru this.

On Saturday morning I gathered enough courage to watch the latest Vijay movie Kuruvi. Not that I remember too much of this horrible movie to share with you , but surely I can share with you the torture I experienced. The movie begins with an amateurishly shot car race scene. Vijay's histrionics during this scene make u cringe in the seat. But if you thought you had enough, the film proves you wrong. Vijay lands up in Malaysia in search of a "Kocha" as Kuruvi only to beat up the goons in their own bar. Somehow the movie drags till the portion where Vijay discovers the truth about his father and "Kocha". From here the second half of the movie talks about how Vijay single handedly lands into the villians's fort to kill him and free his father. Running parallel and rather uninterestingly is the love track between Trisha and Vijay. It is really hilarious when Trisha compares Vijay to Mask of Zorro Antonio Banderas. Director should have portrayed Trisha as playing a blind character or a mentally retarded person to justify this comparison. The long drawn action sequences and the gory violence in the second half only goes to prove the movie ends on the same note as it began. There is nothing , absolutely nothing watchable in this movie. Vijay is his usual self not showing any sings of improvement. All villains act as if they are not going to act in future and they want to finish all their acting dues in this same movie. Trisha is as horrible as ever. Songs and their placements the lesser talked about the better. Vivek is horribly wasted.

To sum it up, instead of seeing this movie in a AC hall, you can bake yourself in the Chennai's hot sun blazing down at 43 degree for 3 long hours . At least you will end up making up some Vitamin D for yourself.

IPL: A Walkthrough

IPL has been a blockbuster. Like it or not, you simply cannot ignore it. With more then half of it over, its time to recollect some of the important milestones. Some moments which stood out . Here is my list of imp events in no specific order.

• Harbhajan Slapping Sreeshant: This will rank as one of the top event in the IPL. Never before in cricket we have seen such an incident involving players from the same team. Harbhajan has been portrayed as synonym for indiscipline and as for Sreeshant, well statements like" Don't cry like Sreeshant" have become common.


• Rahul Dravid not good enough for T20: This event comes as the biggest proof for Rahul Dravid's inefficiency in the shortest form of cricket. Not that this is the first instance. But here he has failed in all aspects batting,captaincy,leadership,chosing the right players resulting in backlash from team owner Vijay Mallya.


• IPL means money and everyone loves money: Players from all over the world enjoy playing for IPL or at least they pretend to enjoy playing for IPL. Gilchrist retiring from international cricket citing "age" and speculations about Hayden considering retirement in another year are some proofs. Pakistan board planning to come up with PPL (with the same money spinning plans as IPL) ,well I won't call it exactly a proof but a rather immature attempt .


• McGrath still the one of the best: With his stingy bowling, he surely has proven that he still is a match winner. Delhi still manages to find ways to lose in form of other bowlers is another thing.

IPL Loyalty Dilemma

Off late I am in a new state of dilemma. This is over the tsunami which has taken frenzy over the entire nation called the IPL. Whichever TV Channel you open or whichever radio station you tune in to people are ga-ga over it. Now I am not going to write about whether it is worth the hype or not. Time will tell the answer. My dilemma here is to decide upon which team should I be supporting. And I think this must be a common feeling.

There can be numerous logics in deciding which team to support. I tried the following:

When I looked for my favorite players, Yuvi and Pathan is in Punjab , Gilli is in Deccan, Gayle is in Kolkotta, Warne is in Rajasthan, Murali is in Chennai ,McGrath is in Delhi, Jayasuriya and Sachin are in Mumbai and last but not no way the least Nathan Bracken and Praveen Kumar are in Bangalore. So, I am torn into pieces if I decide to support based on players of choice. But still If I manage to make a decision, I would go with Punjab.

If I go by the logic of location of the team on the map and my nativity , Chennai is the place where I belong while Bangalore is the place where I have some wonderful memories and Delhi is a city I really really like. But still as nativity counts above other factors this factor draws me towards Chennai.

Then, I decided upon to support the best team, but with surprise results being thrown in like Royal Challengers being dismissed for 82 going on to beat Mumbai Indians. When I thought Rajasthan Royals were the odd men out in this league they came up with a surprise win over Yuvi's men. Still going by this philosophy, as per the points table Kolkotta team looks to be favourite. But the level of uncertainity raises serious doubts over this philosophy.

And if I decide to go by the team ownership and ambassadors of each team, one side we have Shahrukh Khan (for Kolkotta) and Preity Zinta(for Punjab) from Bollywood while the rest of bollywood seems to be rooting for Mumbai , Kris Shrikanth and Vijay (Oh! God didn't they find anyone else) are rooting for Chennai cement's Chennai team, Business tycoon Mallya has Bangalore to his name and so on. Based on my preference of the ownership, I would go with Bangalore team.

And in case I decide to think as silly as to decide by the gersey, I felt Delhi's gersey was the best and Chennai's the worst.

So, here I am still unable to decide whom to cheer for apart from the cheer girls as of now.

Banes of reservation

It is shocking to say the least that supreme court has passed the judgment on the reservation row  justifying the 27% reservation for "Other backward class" in educational institutions. I fail to understand how this reservation is going to help the real "needy". If a person from the OBC can make it to an engineering institution then I don't think he is backward enough to be given reservation for entering into IIMs. And I do not see how this will help the really backward villagers to gain their primary education and forget IIM, at least  attain a matriculation. I am not completely against reservation.( Though this may sound cliched, this is the truth.) Reservations need to be made on the economical status and the residential status . I have personally seen in my own Govt. Engineering College seats from ST rural going vacant which clearly says that people over there have not risen enough to attain education upto Class 12th. How will reservations in Engineering Colleges and AIIMS help is anyone's guess.

Consider this:

• One out of every 2 students passing out of IIMs henceforth, doesn't deserve in the first place to be there.
• If the power hungry political parties have their say, this is going to be true with all the Engineers graduating out of India when the same law is passed for private Engineering colleges of India. This wil in turn increase the money laundering done by Private institutions in the country.
  
• More and more patients will die due to doctor's negligence and more and more bridges will collapse because of the quality of doctors and engineers graduating out of our country .
• With outsourcing industry already facing threat from other countries and US election promises, this will hit India further.
• IITs,IIMs and other premier institutes will surely lose their global recognition though not immediately.
• This step will further boost the confidence of the political parties to introduce reservations into Private sector Jobs as well

Well , Have I written anything path breaking here. No, all of us know this and realize this. But none of the political parties dare to raise their voice against this injustice fearing to lose the  vote bank in an election season.  The only relief I see here is a clause in the judgement which says that this needs to be re-considered every 5 years. Lets hope this nightmare lasts for only 5 years.

The dogs of war: Not as good

Of late I have turned to be a termite , gobbling up lot of stuff all useless of course. Hence, here I am writing about the 3rd book of Frederick Forsyth I recently finished. Titled "The dogs of War" it is a tale of treachery and double crosses. Once again Forsyth surprises by the meticulous detailed planning for the toppling of the Govt. in erstwhile African state. And as always it is full of information about the black market of weapons,African politics and the difference between Capitalist and Socialist economies. In addition, he provides a certain humorous situations in the narrative wherein the humour is at the expense of the poor uneducated Africans.

However, when it comes to the story, one is left wanting for more once you turn the last page. Lots of strings are left untouched. And the operation seems to be over very easily and smoothly. It cannot be recommended to a non Forsyth fan to turn him into one, but it is a defnite read for a Forsyth fan like me.