Finally it has hit the roadblock in the name of elections. For those who consider it more important than the general elections, well I don't have anything to say. It is nothing but the arrogance of the organizers and the BCCI to be stressing upon having the event amidst such security crunch. In fact, IPL has now become the Indian "Political" league now. With politicians reaping out benefits from each and every leaf that falls from a tree, this is like a boon. They have started throwing stones at each other. Statements like moving out IPL out of
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
IPL:Indian Political League
Enough of hype and hoolah around IPL. What started out as a innovation in cricket , at the culmination of its first league turned out to be an entertainment gamble which paid off money in millions to the organizers and players. It sparked off war of words between the franchise owners over the selection of players. Then it metamorphosed into a dream to play for, even among prominent international cricketers. England
Finally it has hit the roadblock in the name of elections. For those who consider it more important than the general elections, well I don't have anything to say. It is nothing but the arrogance of the organizers and the BCCI to be stressing upon having the event amidst such security crunch. In fact, IPL has now become the Indian "Political" league now. With politicians reaping out benefits from each and every leaf that falls from a tree, this is like a boon. They have started throwing stones at each other. Statements like moving out IPL out ofIndia Centurion Park India
Finally it has hit the roadblock in the name of elections. For those who consider it more important than the general elections, well I don't have anything to say. It is nothing but the arrogance of the organizers and the BCCI to be stressing upon having the event amidst such security crunch. In fact, IPL has now become the Indian "Political" league now. With politicians reaping out benefits from each and every leaf that falls from a tree, this is like a boon. They have started throwing stones at each other. Statements like moving out IPL out of
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Vennila Kabaddikulu: Movie Review
Warning: Spoiler ahead. Details of the plot and twist revealed.
Vennila Kabaddikulu happens to be one of the progressive movies in the Tamil industry by one of the directors who have now started to think beyond the obvious. The plot , or the absence of it , is filled with such twists and turns which the viewer would not have expected at the least. The movie is character driven and moves along only with the help of some situations and the reactions of the various characters. Some scenes are certainly worth speaking about, for instance the way the friendship between the bus driver and hero develops and the scene where the heroine is scared of the dog. The movie gradually shifts its focus to the kabaddi game in the second half and those portions and the nuances of the game are portrayed well. The photography,music,background music ,performances and the comedy are all first rate.
The only sore thing for me in the movie is its climax. I mean, it seems to be forced in. There is no logic for the hero to die while playing a kabaddi match and it ends on a jarring note which is otherwise a smooth narrative. One feels happy when all the problems hero faces vanish , call it luck or due to humility of the hero but in the name of a final twist at the end , the director gives a sour taste in the mouth which otherwise is a delicious watch. I beleive the director got carried away in his intention of giving twists and got inspired by the recent village based filcks which all had a tragic end to it.
Vennila Kabaddikulu happens to be one of the progressive movies in the Tamil industry by one of the directors who have now started to think beyond the obvious. The plot , or the absence of it , is filled with such twists and turns which the viewer would not have expected at the least. The movie is character driven and moves along only with the help of some situations and the reactions of the various characters. Some scenes are certainly worth speaking about, for instance the way the friendship between the bus driver and hero develops and the scene where the heroine is scared of the dog. The movie gradually shifts its focus to the kabaddi game in the second half and those portions and the nuances of the game are portrayed well. The photography,music,background music ,performances and the comedy are all first rate.
The only sore thing for me in the movie is its climax. I mean, it seems to be forced in. There is no logic for the hero to die while playing a kabaddi match and it ends on a jarring note which is otherwise a smooth narrative. One feels happy when all the problems hero faces vanish , call it luck or due to humility of the hero but in the name of a final twist at the end , the director gives a sour taste in the mouth which otherwise is a delicious watch. I beleive the director got carried away in his intention of giving twists and got inspired by the recent village based filcks which all had a tragic end to it.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
delhi 6 : A pleasant journey
Delhi-6 happened to be one of the most eagerly awaited movie for me this year and I managed to catch it during the first weekend of its release. Amidst all the contrasting reviews for the movie(mostly terming it as a boring personal movie) , I found a simple and likable tale in this movie. The movie is very different from the average Hindi film. There are no main and sub characters in the movie. All characters have equal footage and it is the simplicity of these characters that scores for me. The scenes also are very simple and look to be straight out of life. Take for instance, the scene where hero and heroine meet for the first time, there is no slow motion, there is no showing the same scene from 3 different angles and there is no background score specially for the scene, the scene comes just as another scene in the movie. This realism is what I liked in the movie. The movie is about the two sides of human personalities, the good and the evil and the way we switch from one to the other at the slightest chance. The situations on which the good and bad come out seem very simple and childish but a look into ourselves will tell that this is exactly what we have been doing, reacting to very simple situations. It rightly shows the way media feeds on the news created by them and the way rumor mills work overtime always in India . The movie has terrific music, beautiful photography and some very good acting from one and all. Except for the climax which appears cliched and artificial the movie is a treat to watch. Overall, the movie catches and grows on you slowly like a typical ARR song.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Inspirational photography
Some really cool photography tricks...
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/100-funny-photos-taken-at-unusual-angle-humor/
And technology at its best...a pic of 1,474 megapixels.
http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=15374&window_height=824&window_width=1263
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/100-funny-photos-taken-at-unusual-angle-humor/
And technology at its best...a pic of 1,474 megapixels.
http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=15374&window_height=824&window_width=1263
Friday, January 30, 2009
Go Goa: At last
Well, this one has been pending since a long time. I mean, both the trip and the write up on the same. Ever since we formed a gang of ours in Bangalore and settled down well, the Goa trip is on the cards and every time we do lot of planning and then eventually drop the whole thing because of one reason or the other. I guess, destiny had chosen Jan 2009 for us to bless Goa and so it be.
We 5 set off for Goa on Jan 16, not before another glitch of one of us dropping out at the last moment and we finding a replacement for him. We three , me , mohan and his bro(the replacement!) set off from Chennai by Vasco express on Jan 16th , the Friday to be joined by Rajeshwaran and Deepak from Bangalore on the same train but in a different compartment 5 bogies away from ours. Well, the journey mostly went without any big events and problems except for the last wing of the journey i.e., after the station called Castle Rock. This is when the train cuts through the western Ghats to descend to the beaches of Goa. This one hour or so of the journey makes the whole slow train journey worthy. We got amazing view all famous Dhoodh Sagar falls and many tunnels. The way the track is built here makes one thank Indian Railways for all the hard work which would have gone in , in bringing this up. Finally after much confusions about whether to get down at Margaon or Vasco, we got down at Margaon. Our hotel booked at Calungate was equidistant from both of these places. And we took the public bus all the way till Calungate which is definitely a good bargain against the fares the taxis charge there. And we checked into our cool and cosy Alfa guest house in Calungate. Once we got hold of our honda activas, we set off to Aguda fort which was closing in another hour.
Aguda fort is a old 17th century fort with some scenic view of the sea from the top and some nice spots for memorable snaps. We followed the herd and did the same.
Our next destination after a lavish lunch was Anjuna beach. For some reason, this place did not live upto its expectations for me. The reason might be that it is a rocky beach and we cannot go down and touch the water and also may be the point that we reached here late in night to find nothing but some drunkards lazing off there. But I believe this would have been definitely a pleasing site during day time. There was also one single way to get to the sea which was clear during the night hours.
Once done with this, we went back to our rooms, put our bikes to rest and decided to have a stroll around, which ended up being an extra long stroll and without our knowledge we reached the beach next to Calungate beach, Bagha beach. Goa beaches look amazing in night. The waves are still very low and calm during night hours and hence the beauty of the beach is not at all diluted in the night. For some reason, there was no light on the beaches except the lights the hotels had. After having a stroll back and dinner we went and retired to our room.
Next day was a big day in our trip. Our only complete day and the first thing in the morning we hit a beach called Vagator beach. Now, this beach is by far the best beach I have ever seen. Very small , hardly 200 metres in length, this has nature in its pure nascent form. Due to ground level being not even, bathing was prohibited in this beach. May be because we hit this very early in the morning, we did not find much crowd here but the abound beauty of nature was enough for us to keep us engaged. It is here that we realized the bliss sometimes being alone can bring.
Next, we went to our own Calungate beach. Now this is a hustling bustling business beach. You have various restaurants at the beach and all sort of water sporting events and for calmer ones, you can have a cool bath in the sea here. The waves were just lovely and calm. Among the various sporting events we tried dolphin watch,water scooter and paragliding. The 3 minutes of paragliding were the moments of this trip.
By the time we were done with all the activities of Calungate beach it was well past lunch time . We went to our rooms freshened ourselves and then headed to Panaji. First we booked for our mandovi river cruise and then headed towards old Goa to visit the famous churches. We managed to visit just St.Francis Xavier's church in the time we had. The beautiful drive to the church was along the Mandovi river . Then, we headed to Miramar beach to catch up sunset there before our river cruise. And for this we had to drive through almost the whole of Panaji. Miramar beach is just another ordinary beach but the sunset we saw here and the pics we took made the trip memorable. The next stop was the Mandovi river cruise. Frankly I expected it to be a cruise where they would show us some memorable places but it was just a party. It was a celebration of the goan spirit and we celebrated it in our own way. Once down with the 1 hour crew, we drove back to Calungate and then that was the end of this long eventful day.
Next day was when we had to start. So we preferred a simple walk to the Calungate beach in wee hours of the morning before finally starting off from Goa and this is how our long planned, late executed mission "Go Goa" culminated. The moments that stood out for me : Moments in vagator beach and paragliding moments. And finally, Goa is only as good as the company you go with. Have a rocking time!
Album link
We 5 set off for Goa on Jan 16, not before another glitch of one of us dropping out at the last moment and we finding a replacement for him. We three , me , mohan and his bro(the replacement!) set off from Chennai by Vasco express on Jan 16th , the Friday to be joined by Rajeshwaran and Deepak from Bangalore on the same train but in a different compartment 5 bogies away from ours. Well, the journey mostly went without any big events and problems except for the last wing of the journey i.e., after the station called Castle Rock. This is when the train cuts through the western Ghats to descend to the beaches of Goa. This one hour or so of the journey makes the whole slow train journey worthy. We got amazing view all famous Dhoodh Sagar falls and many tunnels. The way the track is built here makes one thank Indian Railways for all the hard work which would have gone in , in bringing this up. Finally after much confusions about whether to get down at Margaon or Vasco, we got down at Margaon. Our hotel booked at Calungate was equidistant from both of these places. And we took the public bus all the way till Calungate which is definitely a good bargain against the fares the taxis charge there. And we checked into our cool and cosy Alfa guest house in Calungate. Once we got hold of our honda activas, we set off to Aguda fort which was closing in another hour.
Aguda fort is a old 17th century fort with some scenic view of the sea from the top and some nice spots for memorable snaps. We followed the herd and did the same.
Our next destination after a lavish lunch was Anjuna beach. For some reason, this place did not live upto its expectations for me. The reason might be that it is a rocky beach and we cannot go down and touch the water and also may be the point that we reached here late in night to find nothing but some drunkards lazing off there. But I believe this would have been definitely a pleasing site during day time. There was also one single way to get to the sea which was clear during the night hours.
Once done with this, we went back to our rooms, put our bikes to rest and decided to have a stroll around, which ended up being an extra long stroll and without our knowledge we reached the beach next to Calungate beach, Bagha beach. Goa beaches look amazing in night. The waves are still very low and calm during night hours and hence the beauty of the beach is not at all diluted in the night. For some reason, there was no light on the beaches except the lights the hotels had. After having a stroll back and dinner we went and retired to our room.
Next day was a big day in our trip. Our only complete day and the first thing in the morning we hit a beach called Vagator beach. Now, this beach is by far the best beach I have ever seen. Very small , hardly 200 metres in length, this has nature in its pure nascent form. Due to ground level being not even, bathing was prohibited in this beach. May be because we hit this very early in the morning, we did not find much crowd here but the abound beauty of nature was enough for us to keep us engaged. It is here that we realized the bliss sometimes being alone can bring.
Next, we went to our own Calungate beach. Now this is a hustling bustling business beach. You have various restaurants at the beach and all sort of water sporting events and for calmer ones, you can have a cool bath in the sea here. The waves were just lovely and calm. Among the various sporting events we tried dolphin watch,water scooter and paragliding. The 3 minutes of paragliding were the moments of this trip.
By the time we were done with all the activities of Calungate beach it was well past lunch time . We went to our rooms freshened ourselves and then headed to Panaji. First we booked for our mandovi river cruise and then headed towards old Goa to visit the famous churches. We managed to visit just St.Francis Xavier's church in the time we had. The beautiful drive to the church was along the Mandovi river . Then, we headed to Miramar beach to catch up sunset there before our river cruise. And for this we had to drive through almost the whole of Panaji. Miramar beach is just another ordinary beach but the sunset we saw here and the pics we took made the trip memorable. The next stop was the Mandovi river cruise. Frankly I expected it to be a cruise where they would show us some memorable places but it was just a party. It was a celebration of the goan spirit and we celebrated it in our own way. Once down with the 1 hour crew, we drove back to Calungate and then that was the end of this long eventful day.
Next day was when we had to start. So we preferred a simple walk to the Calungate beach in wee hours of the morning before finally starting off from Goa and this is how our long planned, late executed mission "Go Goa" culminated. The moments that stood out for me : Moments in vagator beach and paragliding moments. And finally, Goa is only as good as the company you go with. Have a rocking time!
Album link
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