Madraasapatinam review

Chennai has found a new liking to shopping malls, well not quite even 10 years back Spencer's was a popular hang out spot for all genders and T.Nagar continues to be a female-magnet. With IT-fication of the nation Chennai has attracted many families from all over the state and has grown from what it was to what it is now.

So "express avenue" and "Sky walker" are the latest shopping blocks infused in to its today's lifestyle. I've been to Sky walker around January when many of its outlets were yet to be open and awed at its great interior decors. I knew it will be put to a stern test of countless window-shoppers and people who just want to hang out. Well I have to say its holding up pretty good after 6 months of its inception.

This complex also houses the famous PVR cinemas. Having got there I found it to be world class and was really astounded at the quality especially of my screen. The design was something straight from a futuristic decor book. Royal red all over with blue LED lights setting up the way. Ok..Now to the movie review.

The movie is set in Chennai of 1940s. The concept of an uptown girl taking a liking to a backstreet boy is explored. Arya is portrayed as a wrestler, looks authentic. The grapples and the counters that he performs are well researched. The traditional villain approach is cut off and people are conceived as righteous characters within their own frames. This is the best part - characterization. Music is OK, but has a bit of old Rahmania in it. The movie flows well but overall seems very slow. It is easy on the eyes and mind on a weekend night for a slow romantic movie but in the climax with a loud fast paced song to its back drop - the slow pace is irritating. The celebrated editor Antony could have done a better job by infusing the music into the background carefully.

Amy Jackson does a great job for her first movie that too in a foreign language. The director has put a lot of thought in preparing the script and working with the art directors. It shows in the movie's detail especially so when the Asst. Commissioner tracks the escapades with an old Chennai map (Mint street, Walltax road, Central and Buckingham canal). I stood up around 2-3 minutes before the end of the movie and found about 15 rows behind me still glued to their seats. That's an interesting scale to gauge the movie's reach.

Raavanan

Raavanan

    Raavanan tries to relive the epic Ramayana, it is a good watch with a prerequisite of knowing atleast the short story version of the epic. An able metaphor is to compare the differences between the history textbooks of India and Pakistan, saying the same tale differently. The movie's script varies greatly with the epic's script which involves clear demarking of good and evil. The focus on the movie is to create the character Raavanan and justify the broken reverance against Ram from Sita.

    For me these two are the eyes of the film and everything else are fillers in the movie, you just have to ignore the props around these two characters. When I talk about character portrayal, Maniratnam has given the character a complex blend. The character has severe mood swings but thinks deep, thats strange !! he is supposed to be the perfect gentleman but also one who enjoys doing all the deadly sins.

    Choosing not to kill Sita is a pivotal point in the movie, with that – Raavan has to play host, be decent and also eat the thoughts of keeping Sita with her. Raavan does not like Sita rather he adores her for the character she shows. As time progresses he explains his feelings towards her and I dare say that he even impresses her. First by justifying his stance against Ram and second by simply being the person he is.

    Sita understands that her relationship with Ram will never be the same again . She closes the door on Ram and boldly comes back to see Raavan. This is to be seen as a soul filling moment for Raavan. I dont know how their relationship would have been consequentially but can't help to get a feeling that Sita craves to be with Raavan (sexual or not). Got a feeling of Kaadhal Konden where Sonia Agarwal can't let go of Dhanush how so ever bad the world seees him.

Finally the one line version of character portrayal

Ram: Believes in glory and sancticity. Troubled by perverse thoughts, considers Sita to be his property and not as a person.

Sita: Believes in strength of mind and considers Ram as God and everything that is right. For a person of character and spirit, when her character is questioned she just feels deeply instigated.

Raavan: Free spirited, angry and a genuine person. In touch with the various personalities of himself which he might have mustered by meeting different people in his troubled life.

Naadi Josiyam explained

Well, here it is to Naadi Josiyam. Real records are very very rare, think about the odds but that doesn't stop juggernaut from rolling on.

1. How many letters are there in your name
2. Are you a christian, are you a muslim, is your name a hindu god's name
3. What is your first letter
4. What is your birth star
5. Have you loved anybody
6. Are you 27, 26, 28 , 29?


same applies to your mom, dad and siblings

Then based on your planetary positions he goes old skool and predicts your portfolio. Voila, the most hyped naadi josiyam.From here on everything else are calculations and combinations, he collects more than enough information and goes back to his shell to write self composed tamil poems which are just recitals in old Tamil with common stuff, trust me. I also find a few loan words from Sanskrit which came along recently in Tamil usage.

Naadi Josiyam - Myth or Math - Part I

Naadi Josiyam is an offbeat type of astrology. Unlike traditional indian astrology derived from planetary positions. Naadi is not predictions but supposed to be record of events, written over 2000 years back by holy men.

Its easy to doubt its pedigree and existence. If Naadi exists for each and every person in the world, not to forget those who have passed away in the recent years. The repository should be in the size of a huge library.

SUPPORTING ARGUMENT

From what I witnessed, each bundle carried about 100 names/combinations. Howsoever be the sorting algorithm, housing india's records alone would mean 110 crore/100 = 1.1 crore bundles, phew!!!

COUNTER ARGUMENT

The counter-argument presented is wrapped in mysticism. They say that not everyone will come in search of their records and thats why that name Naadi(To come in search of). Therefore it is also written for who may gets access to his/her Naadi records.

The second argument is the existence of such a thing. Its humanly impossible to write 600 crores or more records and not to miss the supporting documents as in 1-14(Gandams-subsects of main records). An entire lifetime would not have been enough given the writing techniques of that period. Unless, this takes another magical angle saying that Agathiar(a revered holy man) sprinkled water on barren trees and it got converted into records. (This is a fragment of my imagination)

COUNTER-ARGUMENT

The counter argument is simple, they are not ordinary men. God's hand is there, in forming these records. You can't argue with that can you?

The final argument is about the survival of these records over a 2000 years period, where Tamil has seen a major change in its character-set, words, dictionary, etc. Palmyra leave manuscripts have a very short lifetime and if these records have been reproduced over time.

1. Reproducing all these records and sharing these with several institutes all over India is a huge ask.

2. Why do we still painfully reproduce them in palmyra leaves rather than writing in paper if not computers. This seems a gimmick rather than means of saving the records.

My personal account of the Naadi visit and other information in the next blog.

Rice cakes and coconut cream

The Gen-X of our family set out early in the morning to Thiruvannamalai – A Shiva temple built at the foot of a sizeable hill. Got to meet my cousins, nephews & nieces. Our family setting is pretty huge that we need a 30 seater if we all were to travel. It was my uncle's initiative and he wanted to make sure his daughter gets all the blessings of Annamalai (another name for Shiva) towards her marriage life.

CMBT: The Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminal was once housed by Parrys near High Court, I remember buses operating at a gap of 40 minutes. The construction of CMBT and moving the traffic to the western tip of my city seemed irrelevant.

We were so used to booked tickets, confirmed berths or rented buses that anything otherwise seems adventurous. Having arrived by public transport to CMBT we were flummoxed to notice that there were three buses just about to start but all three packed to the roof and a sizeable crowd waiting. We tried to barge in to the next bus but the passengers did not alight even after the bus came to a complete stop, we then realised that the bus gets mobbed on the way and that we have to do the same to travel as a pack.

10:30 AM, we started from CMBT and the bus got passengers en route who were willing to stand all along those long 5:30 hours.

Thiruvannamalai has its charm. My uncle's brother-in-law found religious asylum to his second life at this town. He guided us through the temple and explained its history and arranged a special dharshan. I thought we were done, but the real trip started only after visiting the temple. We were about to walk 14 kms around this hill which is adorned by various incarnations of Shiva en route. A tribute called as girivalam.

The first 2 kms were tough given the damaged roads but went quick, from there after we counted each km passing as watching a (soap) serial without those ad breaks. So we had to start up some insane conversation just to know that everybody is around. One such discussion startled the concept of Kerosene => becoming Krishnaail, Palm oil => becoming Balmoil. As always I said something that made no sense to the rest by commenting just like ”Rice cakes with coconut cream”.

Blank reactions made me realise that none of those knew what I was talking about in reference to weirdly named stuff. I started with some narration, “Well, a friend of mine has this appetite for new and exotic dishes. He has eaten in major restaurants throughout the city and tried many specialities. He came around to pondicherry and went to this 3 star restaurant. One of the items in the menu read 'Rice cakes with coconut cream' – excited my friend went with this choice. After 15 mins my dishes were served and he waited another 10 more minutes for his food to arrive. For a person waiting with much excitement, he got dumbstruck when it got served. Its our idlis and thenga chuttney.(Rice cakes and coconut cream)”

We were able to complete the walk successfully, we took our ride back home at around 10:30 PM and reached back to CMBT at 3 in the morning. The adventure continued nevertheless. The same story: we had to hustle our way into our bus after waiting for about 30 minutes at this strange time. When we squeezed our way in, there were some highly intelligent zombies who booked the seats with towels, hand kerchiefs, bags thrown in from the window.

We had to stand for 30 mins to reach our next junction, not to forget surviving loss of sleep, tired legs, heat & sweat but also ticket-checking at about 3:30 in the morning. Blimey, a ticket checking at that time in the morning !!! , no wonder - why the conductor put up a 10 mins ticketing stage.

Adadaa Mazhai daa adai mazhai daa

Mazhai, ManVaasanai and Molaga Bajji

Laila's hovering around Chennai. The new cyclone strangely named as Laila puts up a thick cloud cover. No rain yet, till late in the evening. One thing that I missed in Singapore is heavy rain and a thing called 'Man Vasanai', sounds filmy but its one of those things that takes atleast 4 months of stark dryness and a gentle rain to raise that aroma around the town. Singapore has rain but almost every day. These cyclone ladies have some affinity for Nagapattinam or further south towards SL. Its been a year since my granny passed away. She was from Nagapattinam, the famous cyclone magnet. The illustrations about the heavy rain she witnessed were records of life from that era.

“Life comes to a stand still when there is an outbreak of rain. A fishing village with an iconic church facing the sea has its huts flooded. The clay which forms the base of the hut transforms into buckets holding sea water. Fishing has stopped before the rain has started and may be paralysed for 2 weeks or more. Temples and churches become humble abodes of hordes of villagers. The rain drops are heavy and decieves to form thick shiny silver strings towards heaven. These temporary settlement are not perfect shelter neither. These acts seem to remind people what are the most essential things of life. Amongst cries for people gone missing the genuine care for each other enables people to see through another cyclone.”

The first time I thought that she was exaggerating. Slowly I got to see glimpses of what might have been a terrible situation to be in. Having born in Chennai, with radio and Television. Rain is fun and heavy rain is unheard of. Oldies talk about hailstorms (Aalangatti mazhai), in Chennai, really !!. The first time i got to visit a hut house was in 1997-98, to visit my classmate's house. The house was only the size of an average drawing room but had a television, a pedestal fan and a cot. It housed a family of 5 and an infant. The sea was just 50-80 m away from those huts. My memories painted a quick picture of the yesteryears with those houses. We went passs a nearby temple which is ill-managed with a thick coat of sea-algae. I don't think prayers are offered anymore there and the last time I went to that temple was to witness distribution of rice and clothes after a heavy rain. The ration card's color decided the kilograms of rice to be distributed and the entire village was there to oversee the operations. Therefore rain, especially cyclone and now tsunami are big stories to be told about for sea-side dwellers like me.

Now, I am enjoying a light breeze with some Samosa&Sundal. I rewind myself to my yesteryears of summer rain: paper boats and games on the road. With motorcycles, traffic these; you can't have any sort of game these a days in the roads. So much have moved on and I understand that a generation has rolled over and I am in the middle of that process. Scooby Do/ Dexter/Tom&Jerry have given way to Pokemon/PowerRangers/Avatar(AirBender). I can't really appreciate these content is more proof that the ball is set in motion.

Now with a gentle drizzle, but a thick cloud cover I ride through my neighbourhood.

Stop 1: Molagaa Bhajji / Whats with Rain and Molagaa Bhajji I dono, they seem to be a wonderful pair. Molagaa Bhajji seems to have married Marina Beach nevertheless Mazhai and Molaga Bhajji make a good couple any time.

Stop2: Samosa Sundal / Traditionally the eateries pour sundal cooked as a semi gravy over smashed samosas and they make a lip smacking combination. Bought some and on my way back home, I rode slowly through one of the quieter areas to enjoy the drizzle.

The drum roll of heavy rain eludes as of now but the rain songs have started in the radios. Let me sit back and enjoy those songs from the present and past to take me to some cherished memories.

IPL 2010

Even before the series started I was pretty sure that Mumbai Indians will go into the finals, not because they bought Pollard or the unexpected emergence of Saurabh Tiwary/Ambati Rayudu but for that man Sachin Tendulkar and his magic. I can't but amaze and accept that there is a new found rejuvenation about the Mumbai maestro.
There is a story that goes around, Eagle is a proud creature and obviously a powerful amongst its kind but it loses it edge at halfway during its life.(Apparently this is a myth) Its beak tends to mellow down to become soft and fragile. Presented with two options: one is to live a half life with former glory or to endure great pain in breaking its beak and allowing it to regrow to its former self.
Sachin faced a similar problem during his mid career crisis with tennis elbows, he was not able to wield his heavy willow. He was asked to change to a lighter bat and change his game style from blitzkrieg to light cavalry. The fact that he created many subdued knocks that would have made the purists happy is a different story. The power and monster that Sachin has been at the crease was missing. Missing for 6 years. In all these times he was learning to master the 2,3 and 4th gear and when nobody was expecting it – Sachin announced himself with that 175 knock against Australia and then poor RSA had to face the new Sachin. The God is back.
With that sort of inspiration, the Mumbai team studded with heavyweights can gel in as a team. For there is a man who holds answers and ways for what could be achieved in a cricket ground. Being a Chennaikaran, I am fond of my Superkings and Superstars. Superstars were an excellent team – a Team in the first place. I just love the sight of Ian Harvey and Ganapathi Vignesh blasting through almost every bowling attack around. Sadly, I may sound as a strong critic here but the sight of Parthiv Patel or M Vijay along with Hayden was not making it click. I had great regards for Badrinath but he needs to put some muscles for sure. He can't clear a normal ground, he seems to time the ball very well but get caught at long on, deep fine leg, or deep extra cover. He then proved me wrong with a few innings of substance and moreover intensity.
Ok, IPL2010. The adminstrators of Superkings played down the event by not picking up any big marquee players. I just can't take Jacob Oram bowling at 120 k. We could use Joginder Sharma /L Balaji for that place. Naturally there was no teeth in Chennai's attack. I was routing for the return of ICL players like G Vignesh and R Satish but they were picked by KKR and MI teams, I was totally lost and using the choice expletives at the administrators. I still think they should have held them within CSK, but there is a reshuffle next year so who cares!.
Seeing my team, getting bashed real hard in the first half of the IPL made my stance even more obvious and the predictors said that CSK would have to play out of their skins to reach the semis. As usual there were some teams who were willing to top the IPL charts from the bottom. Kings XI and KKRs. Then the turnaround happend in the absence of Dhoni on a bright day in Chennai. Generally cinematographers use light and color themes to match the mood of the films, they picked the perfect color yellow to burn the demons away and mark the genesis of the new era. Managalam Undaagattum. It was burning hot and amber was the color painted all over Chennai. A brighter innings took the commentators and Chennai crowd screaming their lungs out. M Vijay and A Morkel smoked Rajasthan's attack to all corners and it was one of those innings where Vijay was in the zone and was timing the balls so fluently, Jujube.
From there on, we were able to witness the genesis of a team which was writing their own script. There was intense passion on display and not to forget the enormous grit and steel on the faces. The lead up to the finals is a story to be told from generations to generations.

KXIP VS CSK : Athaan vantenla says Dhoni, Yaarukitta

Dhoni had a quiet tournament till then, the last time the two teams met there was a heartbreaking tie and a subesquent loss to those Jalandhar Jalsawaalaas. Now, Marsh toys around with Chennai bowling and props up the score to 190+. It all looked bleak with Hayden and Vijay back in the hut. Much was expected of Badhrinath and Dhoni both left to prove themselves. A steady partnership was put upon and the match was in auto-pilot. With the match reaching its climax, all signs were pointing to Dhoni for Chennai and Dhoni was smiling away at the situation. Enter the final over, 15 runs were required and it was that man Pathan who added to Chennai's misery earlier with his bat. Ball 1 was dispatched through extra cover it was full toss at yorker length wide outside offstump and with the angle very difficult to even nurdle around, but Dhoni found the gap perfectly and threaded the offside field for a boundary, the second ball was a mishit and it was signs of destiny that it landed safely between long on and mid on. Still a taunting score to chase. Then came the moment and the arrival of the man. It was a full length delivery and all L Siva had to say after seeing the ball hit was “WOW”. He needed to catch his breath and say unbelievable. By then, the ball had been couriered from Dharamsala to LeordGanj, which resides over the hills off Dharamsala. The next ball was powered away to another six and semifinals berth was confirmed. Just to see Dhoni react at the opposition was tinitillating to watch, there is a remix version of that moment to “Puli Varuthu” song from Vettaikaran, believe me it matched perfectly as a backdrop to that moment.

SEMIS DC VS CSK
So there is was the big semis and neighbours in the political map of India it was Andhra VS TN. The ground DY Patil, Mumbai. Have to say that CSK had better support at the neutral venue. Half the side was lost early and again it was that man Badhrinath who silenced his critics and proved why he is in the side with a Steely 37, Dhoni provided much impetus to the score with some quick runs and yet the score was slowly moving ahead. It took some rush of blood from young Anirudha Srikanth to hit two towering sixes and prop up the score to 142 which was pretty decent. Game on, I said.
Now, now : The Chennai bowlers put up one hell of a show and was spitting at the batsmen with venom, scoring was impossible and getting big guns like Gilchrist and Gibbs bottled up the way they did was remarkable. Not to forget the catches taken by Anirudha and Raina, this is a team. At no stage was I so pumped up or feel affiliated to a unit than at that moment.

FINALS
So you have Sachin, Pollard, Harbhajan, JP Duminy, L Malinga amongst others, what do YOU have? Well we have a team. Even a team studded with superstars was not able to stop the colossus of the CSKs. Raina had a brilliant day and Sachin played amidst 5 stitches, there was coincidence that I carried 5 stitches on my right thumb just around the same time, LOL. The moment of vindication was in the destruction of Pollard. Well you have an exploding device which can ricochet the ball back with more energy wherever you bowl at it. What to do? When everything else fails don't retreat but follow the instructions. Who's that, the captain, Dhoni. Just put two fielders in the V in the offside and continue to bowl yorkers around offstump. This tactic may soon be called as “Cutting down Pollard”. The marauder hit the ball lunging outside his reach and picked the Brisbane fisherman who proclaims himself that he is a madraskaran now. Match virtually over with the stadium emptying before the final over started.

“The theory of evolutions says, only the strongest will survive, but the theory of sports says only the passionate will win”

Go Team.