Singh is NOT King!

One brilliant test series and immediately you become an automatic choice for one day series. That used to be the story of VVS Laxman. Not any more. However, one brilliant one day series and immediately you become an automatic choice for test. That's the story of Yuvraj Singh. Did selectors not learn their lesson?

Though I hate Australian cricketers, I have always admired their selection process. One of the greatest one day player of all time, Micheal Bevan was consistently omitted from test cricket (though I believe he would have been a great test player too) and one of the most attacking test opening batsman, Micheal Slater was consistently omitted fron one day cricket.

If Sachin Tendulkar can walk in to the one day side and take his opening spot, leaving Gambhir, who was in red hot form, to either move to #3 position and even worst, sit out for a game in name of rotation, why not apply the same in test cricket. M Vijay must be wondering what he did wrong to not find a place in playing XI after that brilliant debut against one of the toughest opposition. Should I talk about why Rahul Dravid still thinks he can play test cricket? I guess that deserves a post on its own.

Picture Courtesy: AFP

Quotes of the week

While everyone moaned for the death of our heroes in the recent Mumbai terror attacks, Kerala CM did not bother to participate or send anyone to Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan's funeral. To top that he made some pretty inappropriate comments.
My quote: Even a common man will not dare to say such words to his worst of enemies. Way to go Mr. CM. Your son or someone in your family is not dead during the attack, you can make any comments.

Sourav Ganguly recently said "We in India make the mistake of thinking only good boys make good captains."
My quote: Is he claiming he is a bad boy but still was a successful captain? Or is he saying he was annoyed that Sachin captained India for a while? Rumor has it, he is going to do cricket commentary soon. Get ready for the high end version of Arun lal. "We in India make the mistake of thinking (sometimes) good cricketers make good commentators".

Ford CEO says he'll work for $1 per year to get govt. loans.
My quote: Looks like these type of stunts are not just confined to India.

November 19th

Today is International Men's day and also World Toilet day.



We cannot even have a day for our own sake, we are sharing the spotlight with a toilet:-)

Shut Up Mr. Ian Chappell!

End of Day 3 at Nagpur and India lead by 86 runs. I thought there was some shrewd captaincy from both sides. Ponting, by bowling Krejza, played on Indian's mind and confidence and drew Indian batsmen to a point they became over confident and start playing recklessly. Dhoni for his part, employed an one-sided field and dried up runs for Australia to a point where they were frustrated and started losing wickets and gave India the lead eventually.

Ian Chappell in his column makes this point "It is not the sort of cricket I like to see. Administrators have got to think about suggesting that perhaps no more than two-thirds of the fielders can be on one side of the wicket. It really isn't a lot of fun watching the bowlers bowling well wide of the stumps and batsmen putting their bats on their shoulders. " As a spectator, I agree, it was boring to watch at times, but you cannot complain the way test cricket is played. If you are going to make changes to every single rule (like one-day and T20) to make it more batsman friendly, it will truly kill the essence of test cricket.

On an another note he writes "The over-rates were appalling again. The Indians really showed the true colour of cricketers. They are just not bothered by fines. They were quite prepared to slow the over-rate in the morning and even use it as a tactic. That is ridiculous. You shouldn't be allowed to use it as a tactic. Until the administrators suspend the captain for a couple of Tests, they are not going to get anywhere with over rates. They haven't got anywhere with fines because fines don't work. They need to start suspending the captain. " and I have no idea why he is complaining now. If you look at the last 3 tests, when Australia bowled, they did not complete the alloted overs in a session on almost all the occasions (even worse they used 30 extra minutes in the evening and still not completed the stipulated 90 overs) and no one cried foul on Ponting. Ponting was guilty of over rate even during the last series back in Australia.

Shut Up Mr. Ian, the fact is Dhoni did come with a plan to put Australia on a defensive mode and then purchased wickets by playing on Aussies patience and he executed his plan to perfection. Now it remains to be seen if India can stay positive tactically and win the series.

(Thanks Getty Images)

Cricket Notes

* Enough said and written about Stanford and his attitude in the last few weeks. But on the positive side, he is trying to do something that ICC never ever thought of doing: tap the market in North America and other untouched areas that has a huge potential. ICC had always overlooked and even failed when it comes to globalizing the game. Even the established markets like NZ, Kenya, Zimbabwe are suffering due to lack of pro-active attitude from ICC. Pakistan and Sri lanka are struggling too due to IPL-ICL war. Looks like ICC has no control over BCCI and by NOT imposing strict regulations on T20 matches/tournaments, cricket as a game will suffer in the long run.

* Autobiography books from ex-cricketers has become a joke, and I am afraid Gilchrist might have joined that list. As a player, I really rate Gilchrist very high when it comes to being ethical, most of the times (he is human after all), but if his intention is to talk truth about Sydney test, why NOT write about Ponting's behavior or Clarke's stupid antics from the same test? I did not get a chance to read his book and I am sure our media had distorted facts and blown this out of proportion, but I am almost positive, Gilchrist did not write the whole story.

* Chris Broad had slapped a one test ban on Gambhir and I think it's a fair decision. But why ONLY 10% fine for Watson (Zaheer was fined 80% @ Mohali) who clearly seems to have started the whole issue and almost hit Gambhir by poking his hand out while the batsman was trying to take a run. Also, why there is NO warning or punishment for Katich who was very animated and uncontrollable? Something is wrong, right?

RIP - Director Sridhar

One of the greatest director from tamil cinema passed away. To me he was a brilliant story teller who was extremely talented, who came up with several "new" and "first time" in Tamil cinema.

His attention to details in his movies is amazing and he always had many surprises in all of his movies. His song picturizations are fantastic. Watch the song சொன்னது நீதானா from நெஞ்சில் ஓர் ஆலயம் where the camera zooms out of Devika, goes right behind Muthuraman and then zoom in on Devika again. The other song that comes to my mind is பூமாலையில் ஓர் மல்லிகை from ஊட்டி வரை உறவு. We usually see "continuity" in scenes but you can see continuity from scene to scene in this duet.

When it comes to comedy, who can forget டணால் தங்கவேலு in கல்யாண பரிசு. His evergreen காதலிக்க நேரமில்லை is still the benchmark for full time comedy movies.

His long list of new faces introduced to film industry includes J Jayalalitha, Kanchana, Venniraadai Murthy and Nirmala, Devika, Ravichandran, Srikanth, Vikram and may others.

May his soul rest in peace!

Office Space

Me: I need to know how far we are in terms of automating the tasks.

Developer: We are almost there, we have semi-automated the whole process.
Me: Could you please explain in simple terms so that I can update our clients appropriately.
Developer comes up with the following picture.

We had an issue with our restroom flush and there were notices/signs (with additional funny comments) to keep the place functional.

வாரணம் ஆயிரம் - Music

One of the popular director-music director duo, Gautham Menon and Harris Jeyaraj teams up again in வாரணம் ஆயிரம். Looks like the theme of the album is youth and Harris had leaned heavily towards rock music.

Adiye Kolluthe - This is typical rock number with some jarring instrumentals. The song sounds very western and reaches different levels due to change in tempo at different stages of the song. Shruthi Hassan's voice is different and the male duo Benny & Krish blends well together.

Ava Enna - Karthik is back (I don't hear him a lot these days) with a very versatile performance in this செம்ம local song. Very nice டப்பாங்குத்து considering the number of similar songs that have come in recent times. This will definitely be popular among all and will be a sure hit.

Mundhinam - This is my favorite song of the album even though it reminds me of Mutham Mutham from 12B and beats/instrumentals from 1942-LS. This song has too many good things going like Naresh Aiyer's youthful voice and the ease with which he sings high notes, Prashanthini's brilliant voice that keeps up with Naresh. This is probably one of the best orchestered song of the album.

Yethi Yethi - This is a very average number and reminds us of several latest hip-hops. Harris's use of Na.Muthukumar and Benny for this song doesn't help much and reminds us a lot of Taxi Taxi from Sakkarakatti.

Anal Mele - Typically, this song would have been sung by Bombay Jayashree, but this song has the beautiful voice of Sudha Raghunathan and she gives a fresh breathe of life to the song. Again, this song reminds us of some of the older songs composed by the same music director, especially the instrumentals in the middle portion.

Oh Shanthi, Shanthi - This song has a very nice rhythm and the voices of Clinton and SPB Charan sounds great in another typical rock style song. This is really short and sweet.

Nenjukkul Peidhidum - This is one of the sofy melody in this movie and in spite of Hariharan's magical voice, heavy chorus and Thamarai's catchy lyrics, the song is not so appealing. I am not sure if this song is an attempt to compose an "Unplugged" style melody or a "Typical" melody, but it ended up being neither.

All in all, this is another typical Harris Jeyaraj album that has a few surprises and lots of old songs reminiscence.

Pact on Catches

I am more than surprised to see Ponting still trying to sell his pact on catches after all the incidents during the last series between India and Australia. As a team in that series, Australia played bad sport by claiming everything as a catch. While batting, their batsman stood their ground even after the catch was taken cleanly at waist level. In the recent past, Australian team is the one that benefited most when it came to umpiring decisions and match referee verdicts. For opposing captains, it's essentially choosing between umpiring errors vs. Australian fielder's word when comes to close catching. No wonder they choose NOT to sign the pact to minimize damage to their team.

Bell the Cat.. Somebody..

The tamil movie screenings in different parts of USA is mostly managed by a group of individuals or by some locally formed club. But in recent times, especially after the huge marketing success of Sivaji - The Boss, some of the big names are entering the movie screening business in USA. While this may be good in terms of bringing professionalism, it has led to lack of personal touch and customer service. Some of these big names (Reliance, Sulekha etc) are going to run this like business which means they will try to maximize profit at any cost. What this means for regular filmgoer is higher ticket prices, fewer and even no shows in some of the areas. The recent incidents include cancellation of preview shows in some of the states for the movie Kuselan, very low collections for ATM, Kuselan and even Dasavatharam due to very high ticket price - $21 per ticket (it used to be $12 before "Sivaji - The Boss" days). The movie SAROJA is getting released this week here, which is very very late for a movie release. Since this movie has no big hero names, the corporates probably waited enough to make sure the movie is a hit before releasing the movie. Bad idea and this type of attitude will never fly with the audience here.

This is exactly what happened with satellite channels and cricket in USA. The satellite networks started showing cricket on TV and slowly the prices started going up and at one point they were charging as much as $300 for a 5 match one day series against Pakistan. What it led to is total boycott and viewers found other alternatives like internet.

As such it is easy to get DVD version of the movie relatively quickly here and given the current economy, we will have fewer families going to cinema hall if this trend continues.

Reality Shows

Reality shows are often fun to watch, not so much for the actual performance, but for the unusual situations and unintentional comedy that comes out at some weird random moment. Here are 2 examples from popular Vijay TV shows.

Super Singer 2008 - One of participant rendered a female duet and she had so much shrill in her voice it was hard to enjoy the whole song. She should have kept quiet with the judges. Right after she completed, she explained how she can sing high-pitch notes well and how she curbed her voice to accomodate and adjust to the other person's voice in the duet. The other person (who in fact sang the high notes really well) promptly got selected. The judges could have (IMO, should have) rejected this singer, instead they were so nice with all their advise and waitlisted her.

உங்களில் யார் அடுத்த Prabhudeva - This is more of a laughter show than a talent show. The person to watch is one of the judge "Sridhar Master". If Super singer judges are extremely humble, this guy is opposite. He is serious, rude and never say a sorry. This is how he gave his verdict to one of the participant. The participant was wearing a jacket with the hood on and also had sunglasses on and performed for a good 3 minutes. His dance was mediocre, but this was only an initial screening. Right after that performance, Sridhar asked him if he ever considered himself a dancer and the guy replied passionately "Yes". Sridhar followed it up with "Ok, எதுக்கு hood போட்டுருக்கீங்க, அத எடுங்க, எதுக்கு கருப்பு கண்ணாடி போட்டுருக்கீங்க, அத எடுங்க. The participant does everything in anticipation of good verdict. Then comes the clincher from Sridhar "இப்ப எல்லாருக்கும் ஒங்க மூஞ்சி தெரியும், you are rejected". Seriously, this Sridhar guy should never be in front of the camera.

Congratulations M(Master) S(Strategist) Dhoni!!

Congratulations MS Dhoni on being conferred with Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award!!

Though I am little against giving him Khel Ratna award, which IMHO is too soon and for too little achievement, I still love this shrewd guy and his street smartness. He appears to be a very good leader and he is able to get what he wanted from his team. He is able to get his teammates respect without much of a fuss something that past captains did not get all the time.

- Tendulkar is probably the worst captain India had produced in the last decade or so. He always looked tensed as a captain and it showed up on the team performance under his captaincy.
- Dravid was too timid and too conventional. Even though India had the most number of consecutive successful run chases under his captaincy, he still falls short when it comes to thinking out of the box.
- Ganguly is probably a better captain (compared to Tendulkar and Dravid) but his team's failure in the "FINALS" outweigh the overall success he had as a captain. He was also responsible for nurturing some abrasive characters during his tenure.

In the short span, Dhoni is able to get the players he wanted and he always seem to know the right team combination for a game. Getting Raina (and even Badrinath) and using Praveen Kumar as a front line bowler and sticking with Harbhajan are a few examples. Getting rid of Yusuf Pathan, Sreesanth (although I believe BCCI politics has a BIG role to play in his exclusion and that of Robin Uthappa) from ODI side are other good examples. Even in IPL, he was able to take his team to finals in spite of having limited bowling resources.

I recently wrote on FAB four's shelf life and I stick to it. Even though Dhoni's success has come only in the shorter version of the game and that too not so consistently, he has shown good early signs and positive indications to be a very successful leader.

Singh is Kinng - It's a poetry

Singh is Kinng - The Gang of Punjab will arrive with a bang!

Talk about inspiration - Movies and titles like this inspire you to do new things in life, Singh is Kinng made me a poet. Strong word of caution - This is my first attempt to write a poem. If Singh is Kinng is considered a blockbuster (At the end of first weekend, it's gross (no pun intended) is Rs. 29 crores ), then this should be considered poem.

Singh is Kinng, Singh is Kinng,
Movie is agonizing.

Akshay'a name is happy,
His acting is as usual crappy.

Katrina is paired opposite hero,
Her expression in the important scenes is close to zero.

There are a lot of characters in the movie that goes with male lead,
Most of them resemble a woodenhead.

Javed Jaffrey who is deaf and blind is the villian who is homegrown,
And he is not the only abscind clown.

Kiron Kher comes in as poor mother,
Her acting is better and character in the movie is a banter.

The movie has lots of singhs and handgun,
Watching them was not a lot of fun.

The movie is supposed to be funny,
But most of the sequences and events is phony.

Looks like they have spent more than hundred crore,
In the end the movie turned out to be a bore.

Singh is Kinng, Singh is Kinng,
Movie is agonizing.

சுப்ரமணியபுரம் - Quick Review

Here's a movie that touches the same old theme of youngsters falling prey to politicians and being used as pawns. But the execution of story by the director is brilliant. There is enough drama and improvisation right through the entire film that keep you interested in the film till the very end.

Actors - Jai is good but he needs to learn to modulate his voice otherwise he will sound the same in all of his movies. Sasikumar underplays his role quite well and it is difficult to judge him as an actor with just this one performance. Ganja Karuppu is a real surprise and he shows that he can do more than just comedy. The new heroine Swathi looks good but I have never seen any actress show so much வெக்கம் in one movie. Little overdose.

Camera & Music - Brilliant camerawork and lights right through the movie. I heard that this cameraman rejected an offer to do Dhanush's பொல்லாதவன் since he was already committed to this movie and badly wanted to do this movie. Great job. Music by James Vasanthan is a decent effort for a debutant. Kangal Iranda is very catchy (though it reminds us of several old songs) and BGM is adequate.

Director Sasikumar - Here's a new director who understands what cinema is and what's needed to make a film successful. His attempt in setting a story in 1980s and his attention to details is commendable. From fiat, ambassador cars to Dyanora tv to மாந்தோப்பு கிளியே poster to public buses (did you notice a man with glasses in the background chatting or waiting for a girl in all the bus stop scenes?) to background songs from 80s shows a lot of homework to get everything right. I loved the climax and the way it was executed.

We hear a lot of directors/actors talking about hollywood style movies and end up with cheesy CGI and plastic music. Subramaniapuram has no major commercial elements or hitech gimmicks, but the quality and execution of the movie can be compared to a hollywood movie.

Olympics TV Coverage

NBC did it again for west coast viewers. The LIVE coverage of Olympics shown for viewers in California and other west coast states is actually the recorded tape showing the already concluded event. They do this every year during Wimbledon where they would show the match during what they call "Prime Time" coverage. West coast is the worst hit when it comes to any LIVE coverage of any show. From weekly reality shows to annual sport events, most of the shows are actually telecasted late. You have to avoid all possible human contacts and internet to maintain secrecy if you want to enjoy the show on TV. I am reading that NBC paid close to 900 million for the exclusive TV coverage and if they continue this policy for west coast viewers, they are going to end up with unhappy viewers, sponsors and bad ratings. It makes absolutely no sense to watch the tape knowing that LIVE is not actually LIVE.

FAB Four

I think time has come for FAB four of Indian cricket team to move on and retire from active test match cricket and this includes Sachin Tendulkar. Look at how pathetic they are in the on going test series. Die hard FAB FOUR fans don't even think about saying "Don't judge by one series" or "this is just a bad patch" or "look at their contribution in the last 10-15 years". At the moment, they can neither negotiate experienced bowler like Muralitharan nor dominate rookies like Mendis or Prasad. If selectors were brave enough to send an inexperienced one-day side to Australia last year and say "baptism by fire", why not do the same for home test series this year against Australia?

THANKS SO MUCH to all the four players for all the memories over last several years. Time for new faces.

குசேலன் - திரை விமர்சனம்

Another much anticipated movie of தலைவர் was released yesterday and the movie had the usual hype and marketing that you will normally associate with Rajini films. Kuselan is an attempt to blend commercial elements and real-life emotions in equal proportion and still provide a family entertainer. Did P.Vasu succeed in doing that?

The movie kick-off in a beautiful village setting trying to establish Pasupathy's approach, attitude, social status - all in one letter that he writes to the local government officer. The first few scenes of the movie revolve around Pasupathy and his family and immediately you get an idea on his whole state of affairs. Right after that, too many characters gets introduced and finally after 20 minutes or so, you get to see Rajini with a very promising intro song.

What really follows after that is pesky screenplay and a lot of loose end events. The rest of the movie revolves around Pasupathy's several attempts to reach his old friend and how other characters flip-flop their attitude towards Pasupathy and his family.

Superstar as always excel on screen but he has only a handful of scenes in the entire movie . His only scene with Vadivelu creates enough laughter and the scene where he confront R.Sundarrajan really shows his versatility.

Pasupathy plays the simpleton quite admirably. Nayanthara was "effectively" used by P Vasu. Some of the camera angles and scenes picturized on her are atrocious. Meena as Pasupathy's wife fits in her role perfectly. Vadivelu's comedy is pathetic and talented actors like Livingston and Santhanabharathy are made to look like jokers in the movie. There are a whole bunch of stars who gets an appearance in the movie either as "real" or "reel" characters.

Now to the much hyped climax of the movie. Was it emotional? - Yes. Did Rajini and Pasupathy excel? - Absolutely yes. Did it justify watching the whole movie just to understand Rajini-Pasupathy's friendship? - Heck NO. What's the big deal in keeping the width and depth of friendship as suspense till the end? I really feel that the movie would have worked if they had established deep friendship upfront and then give a gap and then re-establish the friendship in the climax.

P Vasu had let everyone down with his shoddy screenplay and not so great dialogues. This movie equals his earlier offense "Seenu" (remake of "Bharatham") when it comes to Malayalam movie remakes. If you are a Rajini fan and watch the movie either as a typical or a non-typical Rajini fan, you will be little disappointed. You will be even more disappointed if you are a regular filmgoer.

Los Angeles Earthquake

It was around 11:40 AM and I was stepping out of my office and driving for lunch. As I approached the signal I noticed the whole pole that had signal lights was shaking and swaying quite vigorously. Then I realized my car waiting in the signal started to sway left to right and back. Having lived in Southern California for over 6 years now, I immediately realized it's the earthquake that's shaking the whole place up. On previous occasions there was very little or nothing to react since the quake shake was either too short or too mild. But this time around it was well over 15-20 seconds and it was pretty heavily felt. Meanwhile the lights turned green and I started driving but could still feel the shake. For the whole time, I had no clue what I should be doing. It was one of the weird experience I have ever had and fortunately there is no major damage reported yet.

Sakkarakatti - Music Review

When I saw the promo pictures of the movie, it looked really fresh and youthful. My expectations on the music was very high since this is the first time after "Boys", Rahman is composing for a "much hyped" movie that has a lot of newcomers.

I Miss You is a very different number sung by Chinmayi. She had shown another variation in her voice and I guess ARR likes experimenting with her voice (Like Tere Bina in GURU and Sahana in SIVAJI). The song has some interesting lyrics by Na.Muthukumar that will create fever among youth.

Marudhaani is a very sofy melody that has shades of Sahana Saaral but you will definitely get awed the first time you hear the song. Madhushree has come a long way in terms of tamil pronunciation. Her accent is much better and ARR's interlude in the middle of the song is brilliant. Vaali continues to amaze everyone with his youthful poetry in this song.

Chinnamma is tamil version of ARR's similar song from MEENAXI. This song has a good mix of chorus blended with Benny Dayal's voice that touches some height. The flute notes is reminiscent of old songs, but overall the song has a very good feel.

Taxi Taxi is a typical fast youth number with lots of energy. This song has generous sprinkle of rap & thanglish from Blaaze and Benny once again shows his talent with some bold voice. This will surely be a popular hit in college circles.

Naan Eppodhu is another tamil version of hindi song from MEENAXI and this one is sung by Reena Bharadwaj who also sang the original hindi version. The song sounds very "north indian" due to the heavy use of dholak drum. The lyrics by Pa. Vijay is brilliant and the singer has beautiful voice but she perfectly fills the void that Madhushree has left in terms of awful Tamil accent.

Elay Neram by Krish and Naresh Iyer is very soothing and the highlight of the song is the wonderful orchestration. This song reminds a lot of Roobaroo from RANG DE BASANTI since it has the same youthful chorus and very serene flow. Na. Muthukumar is very impressive with lines like "காற்றின் மூஞ்சியில் கரி பூசவேண்டாம்" and "டௌரி மாப்பிள்ளைக்கு காதல் சொல்லி தருவோம்"

Overall, ARR did not disappoint by delivering a fresh breath of highly energetic youthful music.

Pasupathy

I am a die-hard Rajini fan eagerly awaiting the release of Kuselan, but I cannot stop wondering why Pasupathy, supposedly playing the title role, is not featuring in a big way in any of the major promo pictures that are circulating. I remember seeing initial movie stills of Virumandi, which was so impressive, and seeing Pasupathy along side Kamal made everyone curious. Pasupathy was not so popular back then and for him to get such marketing at that stage of the career was huge. Rumor has it, Rajini has only 20-30 minutes of screen time in the entire movie. If that's true, Pasupathy probably has a very big role in the movie and his nonexistence in the movie promo is clearly unfair.

சாமி மாமி - Pre-Marriage Talk

சாமி - Eligible "software engineer" bachelor who is living in America for the last four years.
மாமி - Eligible, beautiful, "movie & TV" loving "Tambram" waiting for an American மாபிள்ளை.

ஜாதகம் செம்மையா ஒத்து போக, photo exchange செய்து பிடித்து போக, சாமி-மாமி இருவருக்கும் இடையே மிகுந்த வெட்கத்துடனும் எதிர்ப்பார்புடனும் காதலுடனும் நடக்கும் phone chat.

சாமி - Howz it going?
மாமி - நன்னா இருக்கேன். இவ்ளோ சீக்கரம் எழுந்தாச்சா?
சாமி - I spend less time in sleep mode and I am usually up and running early in the morning. How about you?
மாமி - எனக்கு தூக்கமே வரல..இது ஒரு கனா காணும் காலம் இல்லையா? மனசு அலைபாயுதே, அது சரி, Breakfast-க்கு என்ன சாப்டேள்?
சாமி - My breakfast window is very small, I usually save some cookies and food in the office storage. BTW, I forgot to ask.. If this is the right time, Else I will call later.
மாமி - சேச்சே, நீங்க கால் பண்ணறதே Jackpot அடிச்சாமாதிரி. அது சரி உங்களுக்கு என்னை பிடிச்சிருக்கா? ஜோடி பொருத்தம் எப்படி? எப்படி என்னை select பண்ணேள்?
சாமி - I searched a lot initially and I was not sure about my requirements, but after I saw your picture and spoke with you, I developed love for you and felt you will be compatible with my family. Finally, I decided to commit myself. But that is history now, you tell me what do you think of me?
மாமி - என்ன சொல்லறது, உங்களோட அரசி மாதிரி வாழுவேன்னு நம்பிக்கை இருக்கு. நாம ரெண்டு பேரும் ஜோடி நம்பர் ஒன்னா இருக்கணும்கறதுதான் என் கனவே.
சாமி - Wow... You speak really good home tamil, it's hard for me to decrypt. But I love it, our conversations are cached in my memory forever. What else?
மாமி - நான் இங்க இருக்க, நீங்க அங்க இருக்க காதலிக்க நேரமில்லை.
சாமி - Don't bother, people tell me that there has to be proper settings for love, but I am telling you, this phone chat really recharge my battery ahead of my busy day at office. What do you think?
மாமி - உங்களோட பேசும்போது ஆனந்தமா இருக்கு, பின்னாலே யோசிச்சு பாத்தா எல்லாமே சிரிப்புதான், மொத்ததுல இது ஒரு லாஜிக் இல்லா மாஜிக்.
சாமி - Alright, I got to go, will ping you again tomorrow.

PAPA CJ

Who is PAPA CJ? He's one of the semi finalist in the NBC's most popular reality show "Last Comic Standing" (American version of கலக்க போவது யாரு). He bowed out of the competition yesterday after a tough semi final elimination. PAPA CJ is from New Delhi and he was performing stand up comedy. He was one of the very few "foreign" performers who qualified for semi finals for this show where a winner gets $250K .

I thought PAPA CJ was funny in the beginning but as he progressed from initial screening to next rounds, he became a little repetitive. Most of his jokes revolved around "IT outsourcing & Call centers", "Reincarnation" & "KS". But I thought he competed well. What he could have avoided is picking a person in audience and start making comedy using that guy. Also, I thought he lacked the very basic ingredients "body language" and "dramatization", which is very critical in the American reality TV shows. In American television, even a 5 year old kid behave differently by showing emotion or being funny when on camera and people here like it. In India it is opposite, when on camera most of the guys pretend they are very quite and composed and show lots of humility, even though they have different personalities. The most recent example is the behavior of some of the kids in the show SUPER SINGER JUNIOR.

Overall it was pretty interesting to watch PAPA CJ's journey in this show and guess what he said when he bowed out..something along the lines of .."I don't care if people don't remember me as PAPA CJ as long as they know that a guy from India came here and competed in semifinals..". I seriously love "Mera Bharath Mahaan" style statements from our Indian stars and performers.

BCCI Gods

Niranjan Shah, BCCI secretary, told Cricinfo that its contracted players - including VVS Laxman, Piyush Chawla and Ajit Agarkar - who have signed or are in the process of signing with English counties this season are being "advised" to pull out if the county has ICL players on its rolls.

What's BCCI thinking? They are God and can do anything? For some of the players it is hard to get county contracts and even if they manage to get it, with this new rule, they should get permission from BCCI. Ridiculous. If BCCI has problems with ECB and ICL they better take firm decisions at the management level and not kill players with annoying rules. The following subclause to the above rule from Niranjan Shah is classic:

Shah, however, clarified that "non-ICL" players from these county teams will be allowed to take part in the Indian Premier League (IPL) - Hampshire's Dimitri Mascarenhas had played for Rajasthan Royals in the tournament's first season.

What's next? Advice players not to talk and take some useful tips from Sandip Patil or Dean Jones or Micheal Bevan because they are associated with ICL. BCCI's act can only be associated with the dirty games that we see in politics.

Kuselan - Music Review

Another much anticipated music album of the year was released last week. For a young music director like G V Prakash, to get to compose Superstar's movie so early in his career, this is like a golden dream opportunity to take his career to next level. Was he successful?

The first thing I thought the music director got it right for the most part is the choice of singers for songs. Hariharan-Sujata were beautiful in Sollamma, Shreya Goshal is good in the solo number Chaaral, Shankar Mahadevan is bold in Cinema Cinema (though I would have prefered SPB considering the sentiment of the song), Daler sounded differently in Om Zaarare and Kailash Kher & Prasanna blended well as a pair in Perinba. I really feel happy for Prasanna who got a chance in such a big movie. He is one of the few young singers (like Vijay Yesudas) who has got terriffic depth in voice and still maintain melody.

Sollamma is a very nice melody number and probably the best song of the movie. Cinema Cinema is nice to hear with some interesting voice-sound mix. Om Zaarare sounds different but there's nothing great about the song. Chaaral looks like 2008 remix of 80's Ilayaraaja song. Perinba is "Veyilodu Vilayaadi" revisited. The instrumentals used in the songs sounds Rahmanish and some of them are direct lifts from old songs.

In terms of lyrics, looks like we are back to நீதான் இவனே, நீதான் அவனே mode again. Too much hero worship, hopefully it is in tune with the tone of the movie.

Now back to the question, did G V Prakash grab the opportunity? May be yes, may be not. The songs are peppy enough to keep the listeners interested, but not outstanding to tag G V as "big movie" music director yet.

அறை எண் 305-ல்....குருவி

டைரக்டர் - டாக்டர் சார்... ஒரு நல்ல கதை இருக்கு, கேக்கரீங்களா?
டாக்டர் - நான் சூப்பர் ஹீரோதானே?
டைரக்டர் - கண்டிப்பா, நீங்கதான் கடவுள்..
டாக்டர் - ஓகே, படம் பேரு என்ன?
டைரக்டர் - அறை எண் 305-ல்....குருவி.
டாக்டர் - intro சீன் எப்படி?
டைரக்டர் - வானத்துலேர்ந்து குருவியா பறந்து வரீங்க.. land ஆகறதுக்கு முன்னாடி ரெண்டு ரெக்கையும் ஒடஞ்சு கீழே விழுந்துடுது, அப்ப நீங்க ரெண்டு கையையும் நீட்டி, தலையை ஆட்டி, காதலுக்கு மரியாதை ஸ்டைல்ல land ஆகரீங்க.
டாக்டர் - பன்ச் dialog?
டைரக்டர் - ரெண்டு கை இருக்கும் போது, குருவிக்கு எதுக்குடா ரெக்கை ?
கடவுளா வந்தாலும், போடுவாண்டா குருவி மொக்கை.
டாக்டர் - கடவுளா வந்தாலும் சில யதார்த்தமான சீன்ஸ் வேணுமே?
டைரக்டர் - இருக்கு சார், படத்துல நீங்க London-ஐ clean பண்ணறீங்க.
டாக்டர் - போன மாசம் இங்கிலாந்து போயிருந்தேன் லண்டன் கிளீனா தான் இருக்கு, புதுசா ஏதாவது சொல்லுயா.
டைரக்டர் - நான் சொல்லறது நம்ம ஊரு லண்டன், toilet.
டாக்டர் - என்ன வெளயாடுரியா, வேற ஏதாவது சொல்லு.
டைரக்டர் - கொசு மருந்து அடிச்சு 2000 கொசு சாக போவுது அது உங்களுக்கு முன்னாடியே தெரியுது.
டாக்டர் - நான் இருக்கும்போது கொசுகூட சாவாது, கொசு மருந்த வாயால அப்படியே உரியறேன், திரும்பி வேற பக்கம் ஊதறேன், அங்க வில்லன் மயக்கம் போட்டு விழறான், எப்படி? கிளைமாக்ஸ் சீன் சொல்லு.
டைரக்டர் - ரெண்டு aeroplane நடு வானத்துல பறக்குது நீங்க ஒரு விமானத்துல இருக்கீங்க, இன்னொரு விமானத்துல வில்லன் உங்க அம்மா, ஹீரோயின், தங்கச்சி, இந்த விமானத்துல இருந்து அந்த விமானத்துக்கு பறந்து போயி ஒரு bomb போட்டுட்டு, உங்க அம்மா, ஹீரோயின், தங்கச்சி மூணு பேரையும் உப்பு மூட்ட தூக்கிட்டு உங்க விமானத்துக்கே வந்துடறீங்க.
டாக்டர் - இது கொஞ்சம் பரவாயில்ல. நீங்க போயி என்னோட மத்த படத்த பாத்து இன்னும் நல்ல மசாலாவா கதை பண்ணிட்டுவாங்க intro and climax அப்படியே வெச்சுக்கலாம்.
டைரக்டர் நொந்துபோய் வானத்தை பார்த்து "அட கடவுளே " என்று கூற
டாக்டர் - என்னய்யா கூப்பிட்டியா?
டைரக்டர் - என்ன சார் சொல்லறீங்க?
டாக்டர் - ஆமாயா கடவுள் கதையா கேட்டு அந்த characterஆவே மாறிட்டேன்.
டைரக்டர் - ?????

அறை 305-ல் கடவுள் - கடவுள் கூட ஒரு யதார்த்தமான மனிதனாய் வந்து அசத்தும் low budget அற்புதம்.

குருவி - சாதாரண மனிதன் கடவுளே மூக்கில் விரல் வைக்கும் அளவிற்கு போலி சாகசம் காட்டும் high budget அபத்தம்.

Dasa Impacts - Just won't go away..

There's some frantic activity on the number of posts/reading on Dasa for the last couple of weeks. Even I managed to get about 160+ hits in my blog in the last 2 days, thanks largely to auto search & post tamil websites.

While browsing through other blogs/websites I came across several interesting notes which I have compiled in to one logical piece. These are some of the interesting(?!) observations on Kamal's names in the movie.

Most of the names, for instance, were based on the actual Dasavatars..Govind Ramaswamy (has a monkey called Hanu - he should be Rama avatharam), 'Balram' Naidu, 'Krishna'veni, Rangarajan (matsya or may even be Koorma since he drowned in sea), 'Avtar' Singh, Boo'varaghan', Kalif Ullah was the opposite of Vamana Avatharam (Tall vs Short) and the coolest name of the lot..Shinghen Narahasi, the Japenese guy. The word Fletcher means ‘arrows’ or the ‘maker of arrows’. Though Parasurama wielded an axe, Fletcher is modern Parasurama because he is angry and kills everyone in sight.

I also found several posts on Chaos Theory and Butterfly effect thats incorporated in the movie. These are not new to cinema, they are very well known and popular entities that was used in several movies and stories in the past. Last year, I tried my own version based on these theories in one of my short story விதிமுறைகள். The story was a huge inspiration from movies like 'Crash' and 'Babel'.

One thing is for sure, either Kamal & Co did all the research to come up with all subtle details in this movie or it could just be that fans are going overboard to find logic and relevance on just about everything from the movie.

Final note on Dasa: New year's day is not coming anytime soon, but I have taken a personal mid-year vow to not read/write on Dasa for the next several weeks at least. Personally it's been an "overdosavatharam".

தசாவதாரம் - திரை விமர்சனம்

Good start, surprise, interesting, laugh, dragging, finally over. This is the sequence of emotions I got when I watched Dasavatharam. The movie starts with a 12th Century episode which was a good start. The plot around bio-terrorism was a huge surprise for a tamil movie and the events that unfolds right after that was interesting. The whole Naidu episode and parts of Govind & Andal ride was laughable. The sequence and the characters in the later half of the movie to cover 10 avatars was a bit dragging. After several doses of Kamal's personal agenda, when the end comes in this 3 hour plus movie, you get a sigh of relief, it's finally over.

I think the whole movie was made with just one goal in mind - பத்து அவதாரம். Kamal was brilliant as Naidu and Rangarajan. Fletcher and Krishnaveni are good attempts. President Bush was technically correct, but for some reason, the character invokes a lots of laugh and not enough seriousness. Young Govinda looks old and there was nothing special about Avtar Singh. Japanese & other characters are just fillers to make up the numbers.

Asin has quite a bit of scope for acting and comedy, but there's nothing new in her acting (Madhan once said "Asin is like அளவு சாப்பாடு", how true?). Mallika Sherawat (she is gorgeous), Jayapradha, Raghuram, P Vasu, Nagesh, KR Vijaya and bunch of other Kamal movie regulars like Santhana Bharathi, Vayyapuri, Ramesh Khanna etc forms the rest of the cast.

The screenplay could have been stronger for this 'one line story' movie. I personally believe that both Kamal and KB miss Ananthu when it comes to fine tuning screenplay. Kamal has shown great improvement since Mumbai Express (which I thought was a disaster) in the comedy portions of the dialogues. CGI was cheesy for the most part and could have been much better, and the songs in this movie was a huge letdown.

Kamal has tried to dish out this scientific thriller with a good mix of religion and comedy. He also gets enormous help from K S Ravikumar's direction and his usual commerical success formula. The end result is a good masala movie.

தசாவதாரம் - வருது வருது

What would be the best betting ticket at the moment for Tamil movie fans? தசாவதாரம் - வருது வருது...

What are the odds on Dasavatharam releasing on 6/13/2008? Your guess is as good as mine. In the superstition driven Kollywood world, I am surprised that they picked Friday, the 13th as the release date. Who cares, at this point, all that the Kamal fans want will be the actual movie release, period.

Meanwhile, the movie is getting huge publicity in US just ahead of the release date. Chicago fans did their own celebration ahead of the release by arranging for a தோசாவதாரம், more here.

A special preview show is scheduled in the Los Angeles area to screen this movie on June/12/2008, ahead of the actual release date, similar to the one we had for Sivaji - the Boss. I am not as excited for this movie as I did for Sivaji (paid extra bucks to watch the special preview show) so I am planning to watch the movie either on June 13th or 14th. The lack in enthusiasm can be attributed to several reasons: the annoying delay in release (from music to actual movie), not so impressive music to name a few. I am just hoping this doesn't turn out to be Kamal's "BABA". I am hoping for K.S.Ravikumar's magic more than Kamal's brilliance.

Hopefully it will be a good entertainer!

IPL Wrap up

The IPL semi-finals are due to start tomorrow and with the matches being knock-outs from this point on, the championship could be anybody's. Rajasthan played well as a team, Punjab looks solid, Chennai was good in patches, Delhi seems to have a good blend of batting and bowling resources. I am going to root for my home team Chennai and I won't be surprised if Dhoni pulls a trick or two as a captain.

Hyderabad Deccan Chargers - This is the team that started as real hot favorites before the tournament, but still ended up at the bottom of the table. They probably went with the theory that "T20 is batsman's game" by not picking good front line bowlers and that clearly let the team down. They need to get some quality bowlers in their line up before the next IPL edition to have any chance of putting up a decent show.

Bangalore Royal Challengers - This is the first team to show signs of jitters both on and off the field, and rightly so. I really feel bad for Dravid, who inspite of finishing in the top 10 in terms of scoring most number of runs at the end of league stage, is almost looked at as "the culprit" for RC's debacle. He probably had a bigger learning curve as a captain in this format and that coupled with poor final playing XI selections probably let his team down.

Kolkata Knight Riders - This team went with "Star Value" when it came to team selection, did not bother to even test some of the players before sending them back home mid-way through the tournament. IMHO, KKR had no control on any of the matches they played after the initial flurry of wins. The performances of Ishant Sharma, David Hussey, Ricky Ponting clearly showed that the star value does not always automatically deserve the super heavy price tag.

Mumbai Indians - If this team wants to have any serious chance of winning IPL next time around, they should let Shaun Pollock lead the team and have Tendulkar concentrate only on his batting. They really should have won both against Punjab and Rajasthan and I am convinced that Tendulkar's captaincy had a huge role to play in the defeat against Rajasthan. He seems to talk too much to his bowlers and looks panicky at the first instance of pressure.

Delhi Daredevils - This is one of my favorite teams and as I said earlier they appear to have a good mix of bowling and batting options. I thought they were unlucky on couple of occassions (rain/DL method against Punjab and too close a match against Chennai), but overall you cannot complain too much about this team.

Chennai Super Kings - This team started as hot favorites along with Deccan Chargers and they deserve to be in semi-finals because they played the high pressure close games better and finished as winners. They did not have big names in bowling department (except for Murali), but they managed to find stars in Gony & back from injury Balaji. Dhoni is very impressive as captain and this team will be really strong next year if all the players are available for the entire tournament.

Punjab Kings XI - Yuvraj should feel really lucky for having Jayawardene, Sangakkara & Tom Moody in his team for strategy. Shaun Marsh is unbelieveable talent and their bowling seems fairly decent. Yuvraj does not impress me as a captain and if he continues his "hit or miss" batting form, he will soon lose his credibility as a player.

Rajasthan Royals - This team was not even in headlines after the team auction where they did not spend even minimum amount at the end of first round. Shane Warne is magical as player and more importantly as leader. The way this team performed clearly shows what shrewd leadership can do. Unfortunately this attribute was clearly missing on even some of our established icons. This team totally deserves all the praise and I think no one will complain even if they go on to win this tournament.

Sports Thriller - Double Bill

I didn't mean to start a double bill series, oscar last week and sports this week, but the 2 classic games played on same day - 5/21/2008 deserves a double bill column. In the morning it was Punjab who sneaked a last ball one run win against Mumbai in the IPL league match. In the evening, thanks to ESPN's delayed relay, I was able to watch the UEFA champions league final that Man UTD won.

IPL Match #45 - Punjab Kings XI vs. Mumbai Indians

We often hear or read pundits saying "the defining moments" in cricket. Though Mumbai's defeat can be largely attributed to the way they choked at death, I thought the defining moment was the 17th over that Irfan Pathan bowled. Uthappa had just come to bat and Irfan served him a beautiful bouncer that hit Uthappa on his helmet. Uthappa tried to blast Pathan off the next ball and all he could do is to hit that straight to mid-wicket. At this point Uthappa was clearly rattled and probably was not thinking clearly that resulted in a needless, confusion laden run out of well set Tendulkar. Later, I thought Yuvraj almost blew the chance by bringing in off-color VRV Singh for the last over and in the end, it took a brilliant youtube moment to clinch the last ball thriller.

UEFA Champions League - Manchester United vs. Chelsea

The local sports broadcasting here in US is mostly dominated by NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB. I was shocked to see the delayed relay of UEFA finals in the evening and I couldn't move an inch during the entire match. Man UTD dominated almost the entire first half and were leading 1-0, only to let Chelsea even the game at almost the last minute of the half. Chelsea clearly dominated the second half and I thought they were extremely unlucky to hit the goal bars on at least two occassions before the shoot outs. Watching penalty shoot out was extremely thrilling and the end must be heart breaking for Chelsea fans.

Truly an overwhelming day!

Oscar - Double Bill

Inspite of the hectic last 10 days, I still managed to watch couple of movies, that had Oscar nominations, over the weekend.

Charlie Wilson's War - I picked this one for sheer star cast and reputation. Tom Hanks was his usual best, Seymour Hoffman was funny as ever and Julia Roberts was good. The movie inspite of brillaint star cast lacked intensity that you would usually associate with political dramas. That probably could be the reason for Oscar nomination but no win.

Juno - This is one of those type of movie that I would normally decide not to watch by just looking at DVD cover. This one had two Oscar nominations and of course has beautiful looking Jennifer Garner and Ellen Page, it was difficult to pass. The movie was average, the over hyped dialogues (the writer actually won the Oscar) are not so witty, the movie turned out to be very boring even for my wife.

தசாவதாரம் - Music Review

I always feel some kinda alienness in music when I hear tamil music composed by a predominantly Hindi music director. Bappi Lahari, Laxmikanth-Pyarelal, R D Burman had composed music for a few tamil movies before and they have been reasonable hits at that time. Himesh Reshammiya's music for தசாவதாரம் is not too bad an attempt.

Vaali and Vairamuthu's lyrics are effective and there is a new singer Vinith (at least I have not heard of this guy) who had sung உலக நாயகனே, probably the intro song for one of the Kamal. Vinith's voice sound really fresh but the song is average. Hariharan has tried something new with his vocal in கல்லை மட்டும் and it is very impressive. கருப்பனுக்கும் is a mediocre disco style number rendered by Shalini Singh.

As always, Kamal himself had sung 2 songs in the movie. I was almost surprised to see Kamal's name in the song முகுந்தா முகுந்தா because I heard only Sadhana Sargam's beautiful voice till almost the end of the song. I almost felt, like பத்து வேஷம், Kamal changed his voice and sang like Sadhana. Kamal was his usual self in the other song Oh Ho Sanam and this is one of the better song of the movie.

Not sure who decided on selecting the music director for such a high profile movie, I am afraid the album is not so ecstatic.

Where is our "culture" bodyguards?

I read this very sorry story in Hindustan Times and was wondering where's our culture bodyguards and why they haven't crowed foul yet on IPL cheerleaders. When Shriya's attire was inappropriate (according to some attire police), they made a meal out of it. Similar fate for Shilpa Shetty when she got kissed publicly by Richard Gere.

We have incidents on women being attacked, even though they have not provoked anyone even a bit. In such a country, why would you make these half naked girls dance in public, when our countrymen until recently are used to seeing these type of dances only in rated movies. I was wondering how comfortable it will be for parents to take their pre-teen kids to these matches.

I have no idea as to why we need to copy western culture on everything. I don't want to sound like an oldie baldie, but we have seen on numerous occasions, our cricket fans show up for any "tamasha" match in large numbers in almost every single venue even without cheerleaders, supported their teams inspite of scorching heat, poor stadium facilities including food courts and toilets.

"ஆஹா" moments in music

I recently came across this quote in Chinmayi's blog:

"Though a lot of us have grown up listening to old songs, it sometimes requires some kind of an 'aha' moment for a song to come to us, in a rush and its surprising how we suddenly perceive a certain magic in it that we had previously failed to notice. "

I think that is almost perfect explanation on how we comprehend the true feel of a song at some random moment. I have had similar moments on several songs, not just the old ones but on several recent ones that I have heard multiple times. There are also instances when you hear a tamil version of popular other language song and get "wow"d about it. "முழுமதி அவளது" by Srinivas is one such song. This is the tamil version of "Jashn-E-Bahara" sung by Javed Ali in the movie Jodhaa Akbar. Outstanding melody by Srinivas.

I have also felt that when a male singer render a female version of a popular song (and vice-versa), the transformation is most often phenomenal. I don't know if the singer gets some distinct advantage in such situations or it's truly different perception of the listener or if it is combination of both.

Couple of months back I was watching Vijay Tv's "பாடும் Office" and one of the girls sang 'இசையில் தொடங்குதம்மா' from Hey Ram (Orginally sung by A Chakraburthy). I am not sure what her musical background is, but she sang so well and outclassed everyone else in that show with that performance.

This week I was watching American Idol and one of the contestant, David Cook rendered his own version of Mariah Carey's "you will always be my baby". It sounded absolutely brilliant.

My all-time favorite in this category (male singing female number) is the one from movie "கேளடி கண்மணி" and this one is not even a regular soundtrack in the album. There is this scene where SPB sings "கற்பூர பொம்மை" for his daughter and he will only sing a few lines in that scene.... truly magical!!!

"Kublai Khan Paw Paw Chow Chow Chow" and "Hatch-chan"

If you are wondering who is "Kublai Khan Paw Paw Chow Chow Chow" and "Hatch-chan" and why they merit being in the news, here's the scoop.

Kublai Khan Paw Paw Chow Chow Chow is the popular Martha Stewart's dog who died recently (I have no idea as to why CNN.com would carry this in their homepage) due to renal failure. I can only imagine what if an Indian celebrity have a pet with this name and how our "esteemed" political parties and organizations would have staged protests.

Hatch-Chan is six-year old cat, who has his own blog (I know what you are thinking, someone actually owns the blog) that gets 50000 hits a day per this website. The cat must be busy everyday posing for the pictures to keep the blog going.

Imaginary dialog between the two:


Chow Chow: உடம்பு சரியில்லாததிலேர்ந்து வீட்டுக்குள்ளேயே பூனை மாதிரி சுத்தி சுத்தி வரவேண்டிருக்கு!


Hatch-Chan: அட நீ வேற, தேனோம் photo-க்கு pose குடுத்து குடுத்து என் வேலையே நாய் பொழப்பாயிடுத்து!!

Cookie Cutter

On one Friday morning, one of my co-worker dropped by my office and said "Hey, I am quitting in 2 weeks and I going to become a fire fighter. It's my long time dream". I didn't get it immediately. Here's a guy who is Senior Manager for one of the sales division in one of the largest company in the world, earning what most of the americans can only dream of, and he wants to drop all that in 2 weeks to pursue his passion. Mind you, fire fighters are paid well in this country, but their life is very risky and they will be out of home for at least 18 FULL days in a month.

For a person like me, who was born and brought up in a country where MOST of the people start their career by getting some job, work vigorously to move vertically and almost retire in the same company or similar job, I seriously didn't get it immediately. Some of us do chase our dreams partially, but I have seen only very few people who have pursued 2 different careers in life (not by default) and still be successful and more importantly happy.

Forget one or multiple careers, I always think about what my friend Suresh once told me "Do whatever you want, but make sure that you do things that make you happy". I guess the tough part is finding what makes you happy, right?

How easy is it to be an Indian Cricket Fan?

- Jaffer failed the whole series in Australia and continue to fail in home series and there is no talk on his performance or replacement.

- Physio says Tendulkar is not fit, but he declares himself fit, but does not show up for fielding for most part in first test and scores a duck. Guess what, he is indeed not fit and ruled out of series. He probably realized that all he needs is a few weeks rest to be ready for IPL, so played @ Chennai inspite of being not fit.

- RP singh was pathetic and not fit for first test, but played first test and performed badly, got a chance to play second test and bowled pathetically under helpful conditions.

- While RP singh is finally dropped, his place was taken by Munaf, which is even more surprising. Munaf has always either been unfit or whenever he played, his bowling was average and his fielding was always awful and have shown no signs of improvement in any area.

- Ramesh Powar in tests ahead of other spinners? Well, the less you say the better it is.

- Irfan Pathan in tests is a huge luxury and it has been proved on several occasions. We need a bowler who can bat a bit. Unfortunately Pathan looks like a batsman who cannot bowl.

- Kumble appears to be not fit either and he played in the second test too. He might play third as well since he is the captain.

- Kaif is included in the squad (huge surprise in first place) and might not get a chance before getting dropped again.

- Suresh Raina, Dinesh Karthik, Gambhir, Badrinath, Praveen Kumar, Rohit Sharma and bunch of others must be wondering what they need to do to get in to the squad.

- Modi and Bindra are busy trying to get every dollar added to the BCCI treasury, Pawar is not concerned about anything happening locally and looks either incompetent to solve issues or looks too keen to take over ICC, Vengsarkar is only busy promoting Mumbai players and not ready to accept any blame.

Meanwhile Indian fans are confused with all these questions, still trying to post mortem Ahmedabad defeat, anticipate Kanpur test and IPL and hope India wins inspite of all goof ups.

அஞ்சாதே - திரை விமர்சனம்

சமீபத்தில் அதிக எதிர்ப்பார்ப்புகளுடன் பார்த்த சில படங்களில் ஒரு படம் "அஞ்சாதே" . எதிர்பார்த்ததை விட அதிகம் impress செய்த படம் இது.

தமிழ் சினிமாக்களில் போலீஸ்காரர்கள் படம் என்றாலே, ஹீரோ வருவார், நாலு பேர் சல்யூட் அடிப்பார்கள், சட்டை கசங்காமல் எதிரிகளை பந்தாடுவார். அப்படித்தான் தன்னுடைய Inspector வாழ்க்கை இருக்கும் என்று நினைத்துக்கொண்டு நரேன் போலீஸ் ஸ்டேஷன் நுழைய, யாருமே
கண்டுக்கொள்ளாமல் இருப்பது ஒரு புதுமை, அதை விட புதுமை ஹீரோ சந்திக்கும் முதல் கேஸ் - ஒரு கட்டை பையில் ஒரு தலையை கொண்டு வரும் மனிதனும் அதை அடுத்து வரும் காட்சிகளும்.

பாண்டியராஜன் மற்றும் பிரசன்னாவின் காரெக்டர்கள் பெரிய surprise. இப்படி ஒரு வில்லன் காரெக்டருக்கு ஒத்துக்கொண்டு நடித்த பிரசன்னாவின் தைரியத்திற்கு பெரிய பாராட்டு (அந்த wig-ஐ தவிர்த்திருக்கலாம்).

படத்தில் ஆங்காங்கே வரும் கேமரா angle-கள் வித்தியாசம். குறிப்பாக, வெறும் கால்களை மட்டுமே காட்டி, கடைசியில் வில்லனின் சின்ன புத்தியை காட்டும் இடம் பிரமாதம்.

பெரிய நட்சத்திர பட்டாளம், முன்னணி/கவர்ச்சி நாயகி, அதிக செலவில் foreign பிரம்மாண்டம், ஹீரோயிசம், தாதயிசம் இப்படி எதுவும் இல்லாமல், வெறும் வேகமான திரைக்கதை, யதார்த்தமான காட்சி அமைப்பு வைத்து ஒரு நல்ல, விறுவிறுப்பான க்ரைம் ஆக்க்ஷன் படத்தை எடுத்திருக்கும் டைரக்டர் மிஷ்கின்னுக்கு ஒரு பெரிய சபாஷ்.

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