The Trichy Trip

Had gone to trichy two weeks back to attend see Senthil reluctantly putting an end to his Bachelor life but willingly stepping into the role of a family man. Finally found time today to blog about it. As usual, the preparations for the trip started a long time back, even the marriage preparations might not have happened at that time. And as usual after lot of discussions we decided on starting on saturday morning to Trichy. After a long time i enjoyed a bumpy ride in our normal TNSTC bus with attention oscillating between the "Sivagamiyin Sabatham" and the movies that were played in the bus. Conductor made sure that nobody slept in the bus and played the movie in full volume.

Reached Salem at 3.15 and from there started to Trichy. After a bit of reading, a little of discussion the tiring bus journey came to an end and we were at Trichy. From then started that eating spree. The marriage was grand, and food was just great. For two days every inch of space in the stomach remained occupied.

We did not have enough time to visit the temples around Trichy. When the initial plan was made, we had the plans of visiting all temples but once we started the trip we knew . Fortunately with help of Praveen we were able to visit kallanai and thiruverumbur temple. The recent rains have helped cauvery to cause enough damage to the nearby villages and we could see that on the way to kallanai or Grand anaicut, the dam built by Karikaala Chozhan before 2000 years. Due to the recent floods, water was diverted to Kollidam. The water gushing out of the opened shutters with great force creating a pattern and giving a illusion of standing in a ship was a wonderful sight. After visit to Thiruverumbur, we returned back to Bangalore pledging to return back to Trichy to visit the places we had missed this time. After reading Kalki's book the curiosity to visit the temples has increased a lot. Lets see how the plans go.

Home made office lunch

Inspite of the recession, customer escalations & annoying managers one thing that is to be appreciated about the software companies is, they always come up with something for the engineers to sway away from the work a little. Though most of them turn out to be favorites of management which they claim is good and voluntarily force you to enjoy, sometimes we do enjoy it. One such event happened in our office last week. Last friday we had a section cook off. Every team member was made to bring some home made food and a grand buffet was arranged in office. Not so sure how much one needs to spend to get a buffet like that. As far as bachelors like me, we had taken our empty stomach and participated only in eating. Anyway, it turned out to be a great event. There was almost all items that i could think off. To name a few, chicken briyani, chicken roast, chicken curry, egg masala, vegetable briyani, fried rice, aloo parota, chapathi, dahi vada, coconut rice, gulab jamun, carrot halwa, curd rice etc etc. For a guy who feeds on hotel food daily they all tasted delicious and i did not leave any item untasted. For the first time i ate food in office allured me. Thought it needs to be  remembered, so there goes the post.

What followed that is two customer escalations, which forced me to work from dawn to dusk in the weekend :( but that is a different story better when not thought about.

Vaaranam Aayiram

I liked the movie very much, it lived up to my expectations, looks like this is the best comment that can be made. Generalization might lead to argument. The movie has created mixed response and has kept people at two extremes, one who feel the movie is too good and another section who feel the movie too sentimental and moves at snail's pace. I was totally mesmerized by the movie and would love to see the movie once again. The story is about the life of younger version of Surya guided by his affable and responsible father, who is none other than the older version of Surya. I am not revealing the storyline more than this. Gautam Menon and Surya's hard work needs to be applauded, as they have worked really hard and achived success in showing the transition of Surya as ages from a mischievous school student to responsible Major in Indian army. What happens in between forms the story.

Though it is Surya who occupies every frame, the three heroines have used the little opportunities and make a little impression. The highlights of the movie are the songs and the romantic scenes between Surya and Sameera. Thamari's lyrics blended with Harris Jayaraj music and Surya's dance add strength to the movie. Almost all Surya's dialogue seem to begin with "Daddy" which tests your patience a bit. I am not sure about how many people will accept Surya's family using English to converse most of the times, even in critical situation they seem to stay away from their mother tongue. We have no clue on Gautam's  choice but it does suggest that the movie is intended for only one section of the audience. Other than the movie is great and does make an impact. It is better not to believe the reviews as there is a very high probability of you ending up liking the movie. Hope this film turns out to be a hit.

Ponniyin Selvan

This is going to be a review of the first ever Tamil novel i read recently and not about a junk tamil movie that got released in 2005. The book turned out to be quite interesting one. I was struck by Kalki's imagination, it appears as though everything happens right in front of the eyes. His depiction and the way the characters are introduces is awesome. So elaborate in explanation and so poetic in description kalki wins easily in delivering what was intended. The book also gave a great insight into the Tamil Nadu history and about the medeival chozha empire. The book gives a good description about most of the kings, clans and habits that existed during that time period. Kalki makes use of every available opportunity to provide some historical reference. His characters also highlight the practices that was followed during that time. There were places where Kalki changes the history for the sake of the story, but they were acceptable.

The story starts with "Vallavaraiyan Vanthiyathevan" a vanar kulam prince, taking a message from Aditya Karikalan to his sister Kundavai and king. Later the story plunges into the fight for the chozha throne with  unimaginable stories inter wined which keeps you thinking till you complete the end of the story. Believe me even after the story ends, you might be confused about few parts of the book.  He takes you through the city and Kalki explains the history and beauty of the cities through his eyes and thoughts. His job does not end with that and he gets tasks one by one and we are mostly introduced to the characters through him. Just like the cities,  Kalki explains the beauty of the princesses and their nature through Vanthiyathevan eyes. Kalki provides a very very elaborate description about the characters when they are introduced into the story, so that you get a mental picture of the character. That is the strength of the novel. Kalki has the strength to make you like a character or make it detestable. Kalki imagination seems to gone a bit higher whenever the princesses are involved. The comparisons he makes to compare their beauty is unmatchable.  One more interesting character is Azhwarkadiyaan, it is through him Kalki portrays the feud that existed between  shaivaites and vaishnavaites at that time. Vanthiyathevan is the most adorable character in the book  and at times he steals the limelight from the actual "Ponniyin Selvan". The princesses Kundavai, Vanathi, Poonguzhali and Nandini are lovable. There are many other characters involved in the book who are important in their own aspect, which you will know when you read the book. Once i started reading the first volume, i could not control my curiosity and i kept reading till i completed it. I am planning to read it once again, as i am completely mesmerized by the book. It does deserve a second reading. Also next in line is "Sivakaamiyin Sabatham" and "Parthiban Kanavu" from Kalki.

Suggestion: Better grab a copy instead of searching for online copies. The book is too good to get disappointed and does not cost much also.

Trip to Jog, Murudeshwar, Kollur and Sringeri

I am yet to recover fully from the effects of the trip, both physically and mentally. Physically it was challenging and it is not a trip to forget so soon. It was not a well planned trip but it turned out to be a great one with every piece falling into place at the last minute. The trip started with the journey to Jog falls, through the orphaned roads of Karnataka. Any road that is outside bangalore is neglected and looks like government rarely notices those roads. Anyway after few hours of bumpy ride, we reached Sagar where we spent sometime to clean ourselves and finish breakfast, before we headed for the most gruesome part of the trip. We reached Jog falls and then started the journey down to the abyss of the waterfalls. The cataract falling from around 900 ft height is the highest waterfall in India, and the journey to the bottom of the fall s through the half constructed steps tested the physical fitness. The view from the bottom of the Jog falls is worth taking and view and the  cool breeze is all too great to ignore and the pain is worth taking. Climbing back to the top required arduous efforts.

After that we went to Murudeshwar, a silent sea shore with a huge siva statue. Rest of the evening went in mini football. If you are in doubt what was mini in that, everything was mini right from the team, playground to the ball. Yep, we played football with a tennis ball in a small area with four members per team. But it turned out to be an interesting game. After few months, it was good be involved in some fat burning activity.

Next day we went to two temples kollur and shringeri. While kollur potrayed kerala architecture and look, in shringeri it was fully Hoysala (borrowed from Prabhu's IP). Sringeri temple is  located on the banks of River Tunga. This river deservers special mention because on the shores you will find huge school of fishes of size which i had never seen till now.  After that started the most difficult phase of the the trip, sitting in van for several hours and being rocked like a baby because of the narrow turns on the way to chickmagalur. Putting all together it is an wonderful trip to remember.

Before i fall asleep without switching my laptop, here are the links for the photos

http://picasaweb.google.com/kpraveen85/JogFallsShimoga
http://picasaweb.google.com/kpraveen85/Murudeshwar
http://picasaweb.google.com/kpraveen85/SringeriKollurAgumbe

For my share stay in touch with http://picasaweb.google.com/sens2003 It would take a little more time before i upload the photos. Before last half of the left eye closes, i am signing off now.

Dhaam Dhoom

Definitely did not want to turn this into a cine blog with posts only about movies, but movies seem to be the only matter of interest which is worth sharing in the uneventful life :( So here goes yet another post about recently released tamil movie.

Recently watched the movie "Dhaam Dhoom" along with two of my friends in theater that was almost empty except for 60 wavering heads. I was there since it was Jeeva's last film, and his previous two films had turned me into an ardent fan of Jeeva. The film was ok,  but you may notice few lapses in logic initially, something which i would not have expected in a Jeeva film. The film is about an Indian doctor who foolishly or unfortunately gets caught in a murder case in Russia, and runs to save his life from criminals and from police. As usual our hero escapes showers of bullets with small jumps. In this film you could also see Ravi defying laws of physics, and floating in air without effort. That is ok, Tamil Cinema never respected Newton's gravity.  Songs are the best part of the movie, and Jeeva's dexterity is visible in the locations selected for the songs. Kangana is good, Lakshmi Rai is better.  A bit of suspense is maintained but it should not be difficult to guess the villain. Though it did not satisfy my expectations, it is good and can be watched once.

BMTC bus journey

Yet another incident happened yesterday as usual in BMTC. For me a lot happens in BMTC. Yesterday i gave the conductor 20 Rs and asked for three tickets. He gave the right change of 5 Rs. I was waiting for him to give the ticket, he saw us for a moment and decided against it. Just a glance was enough for him to confirm that we are not locals and he has an opportunity to earn 15 Rs. Anyway yesterday i was in a pugnacious mood, and did not want to leave the matter just like that. If i was alone i would not have done anything certainly. Since i had the company of two of my friends, we decided to give it a try. But he was prepared for it. When we went and asked for the ticket, using the only known local word "Ticket Kodi" :) He just turned his face away and kept silent and did not even bother to see us.  Wondering how BMTC manages to run in profit. If we had known the local language, we could have tried a little more but even after one year, it is still difficult to pickup the local language :( and it is affecting a lot. Anyway i will get an opportunity to see the conductor again i guess, lets see whether i can do something that time.

One year of corporate and bachelor life

A long unintended break from blogging. Had been thinking about what to blog for a long time and later realized that i had completed one year in the software industry on June. Not much has happened over the past one year and life is becoming more and more monotonous. Wake up at 8.00, go to office work till night and sleep has been the daily routine. Anyway few things have changed over the past one year. Had dreams about the software engineer life but after one year of reading and modifying huge well written code base, it is now difficult to write even small programs from the scratch. After using wrapper functions for almost everthying now it is difficult to remember the return values of normal c functions. Even if the tea is horrible life does not move without two tea breaks a day. Bachelor life is teaching a lot of lessons. From a guy who hates idli, it has transformed me into someone who is searching for good idli shops around the city. Stay awake late in the night for no reason staring at the monitor in front of me checking orkut or refreshing google reader.

Dasavatharam

If you are searching for story of the movie, this may not be the right place for you. I am not going to take away the suspense of what actually happens in the movie. The film was released with a lot of speculation about how the ten kamal characters will be related and on what the 140 Million has been spent on ? The movie was neat and clean. Kamal Hassan has done the ten roles with perfection and shows that "Ulaganayagan" is in fact a title well suited to him.

After watching the first half i thought the movie belonged to the hollywood action film genre, since the first half was filled with ruthless killings and breathtaking car chases and some geeky stuffs and jargon which would be difficult to pickup for a normal guy. After that the film moves on with beautiful screenplay taking care of the weak story and you don't feel bored during the whole 3 hours.

Each and every important character that you see in movie is only Kamal. It was difficult the ten characters played by him at the end of the movie. Kamal in villain role needs to be applauded and it happens to be my favourite. Some characters were not necessary but probably added to exceed the count of nine characters already done by veteran sivaji.

Asin comes along with the hero for almost the full length of the movie but fails to impress but irritates with her repetitive dialogues. Mallika, as usual included for a skin show, but looks like most of the scenes were eaten by the censor board :) Other characters, not much to mention.

There are too many ways to interpret what kamal has tried to tell in the climax. Anyway watch the movie and decide it by yourself. Incase you have problems, refer to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory. We had a discussion among us for 90 minutes after reading the page and what kamal has tried to say in the movie. But do read it only after the movie, not before that.

To end, Dasavatharam is a great work by Kamal and is a movie worth spending money and time. Looks like a trend setter for tamil cinema, that is recovering slowly from the love for masala movies.

An Exciting finale

A truly sensational end to the first season of the IPL T20 season. Could not have expected more excitement. Few misses from chennai and few sixes for Rajasthan royals, taking the match to final ball was simply exciting. For the first time watched match through live streaming and a live cricket match after few months was like a feast to a person dying of hunger. I remained as the supporter of chennai till the last ball of the match and there is nothing to complain about. It was a close contest and Rajasthan snatched it away at the last moment. Anyway here are few things that are to be remembered about the first IPL.

Before start of the season, it was Deccan chargers whom i thought would produce some records and win all matches easily but they failed to fire till the end of the season. Bangalore Royal challengers were  little shaky and failed in all challenges. Mumbai a bit unlucky, and Delhi a lot lucky for a place in semifinal. Kings XI no issues. Knight riders made headlines at times.Rajasthan royals delivered together as a team. My home team, chennai were satisfactory, nothing to blame.

When expected players like Afridi, Gibbs, Ponting, Symonds shattered the expectations, youngs players like asnodkar, badrinath, yomahesh created some. Shaun marsh, Ross taylor, shane watson were outstanding.

Anyway it all ends here this year. IPL had lived upto the hype that was created. Inspite of incidents like Bhajji's slap, IPL deserves a clap just for the entertainment it has provided for the past six weeks. It had something to talk for the past two months.

Most important thing, it gave me an opportunity to see a cricket match live for the first time.