End of an era

This is it... it has been a search, rather a marathon run that I have been running over the first stage of my life. To continuously challenge myself and arrive at a stage where I think - I belong, drained a lot of time. Men and their material wants. What is it with Indians and higher education, don't ask me - but it seems to be a common attribute or aspiration.

Was chatting over the internet to my friend other day. About things over commitments, responsibilities and what time takes away. People change, for the better, for the times or for the situations presented. One thing is never ending: change.

Encountered lots of things to record over this past 12 months. First flight, new country, masters, international friends, Singlish, travel aided by google maps, cooking, college reunion,  friends reunion in Singapore, Rat fever, Cousin's marriage, Girivalam, more cooking, construction of property, transfer of mortgage of existing property, semesters, combined studies, the list goes on...

In the meanwhile, caught up with friends. Setup skype in my TV for my mom, so that she can read in a 32" TV- monitor. Did a part -time stint with a healthcare company and on track to join back with them full time. Waiting for a few interview results. Is this a blog or a compilation of an advertisement - I dono, but the past one year had been a roller coaster really. It opened my eyes to new faces and characters. But wait, there is still one more scene in the climax of this year, wait up for it.

Deepavali 2010

Blogging is not an addiction, but a netizen's way of rethinking where he is heading. While socializing got restricted to an online activity, real life doesn't. So to take one's boredom, repetition and loneliness; people choose to call their loved ones, indulge in activities like traveling, visit to temples, meditate or get lost amidst all this. You see, it is not about propaganda or the page count that matters, it is just that people lent you their ears to your current state of mind. Sometimes, things don't make sense to the subscriber. The vivid descriptions are not painted the same way to the audience. This warrants a disconnect between the blogger and reader. Unlike writing a book, the blogger is not restricted to the constraints of the characters or the plot. You often find a blogger, floating around various topics under one heading. It goes on to tell you that, "the mind is a monkey" and even though it is staring at a wall, it doesn't stay on that frame.

Deepavali 2010 was a unique experience. My conception of deepavali, is waking up early. Sneaking out snacks before poojai. Bursting crackers, lots of''em and settling down to watch the newly released movies' songs. Having brought up in the bronx of Chennai - Royapuram. Deepavali always has some fights. Simple ones like kite-fights, hurling crackers at people and verbal spats. The new clothes were very special in those days. We have to wait for Pongal, birthday and Deepavali to earn those new clothes. Not anymore with a thriving Indian economy!!

This year was different. For starters I wished my mom happy deepavali through Skype. Wore a dhoti and went to a Murugan temple in Jurong, Singapore. Just looking at so many tamilians wearing new clothes and Indian music in background gives you a festive feel. Got back home, spent the afternoon cooking up biryani, prawns, sambar, dhalcha, carrot halwa. Yup, we did it!. The sleep after that meal is priceless. Woke up at 6:30 in the evening.

Deepavali is not complete without a dose of movies. So downloaded "Social network" and saw it to end the day. Nice movie, good screenplay and nice characterization - must watch!!. Chatted throughout the evening to various friends all over the world. Ended the day at around 2:00 AM into the next day. The huge pile of vessels left to be cleaned was laughing at me, the next day. Sighs. Another Deepavali has gone by. Happy Deepavali

Commonwealth games 2010

I did not know what to expect of commonwealth games. A few years back I heard the news that New Delhi is gonna bid for Olympics 2020 and is gonna build a sports village. Having won the bid for CWG, 2010 - the capital has a farsighted vision of going for the olympics. I shrugged off and said to myself "what is the big deal, if the medal tally is not going to go up from single digits?". As with any Indian - growing up in a crowd could hold you down. There are always doubters and lack of recognition, which percolates deep into the minds questioning whether sports is worth as a career?

When I heard there were issues with CWG, I honestly felt that media is blowing up the issue and piggy backing on a few minor issues. On the flip side, I did not believe the organizers as well. As they say "the proof of the pudding is in the eating". When it came to a point where CWG were about to be called of, I thought there will be some money transfers here and there to make it happen.To my surprise and to my cognition, the govt. was hell bent on making the event a success. The presence of Dr. Man Mohan Singh overseeing the happenings, made me rest assured that things are in full swing. Still, I was not expecting anything out of the ordinary.

Like many, I didn't catch the opening ceremony live. The next day, I saw pictures of the ceremony as a netizen. Reading through the article, I was consumed in by the list of acts put together for the ceremony. I searched all over, and with help of my online co-ordinator in Las Vegas and facebook - I got the recorded version of the ceremony. The sounds of Indian drums filled my mind. The young tabla maestro at the epicentre of the drum blast, enjoying the beats of India - gave me goosebumps and bliss. The events were well thought off, though for a little jag in line formation from top, all seemed fantastic. To top it up, performances by Hariharan, AR Rahman. What more can you ask for?

I thought, ok, now the fun ends. Tomorrow onwards is the boring part. We are gonna get delirious coverage of media from England, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Canada et al. For a change, India's time has arrived. They said the focus of organizing this event is to make India as a sport conscious nation. I could not understand what they meant by that, by then. Personally I like to follow tennis, table-tennis, boxing and wrestling. India was primed in all these sports and that made a hint to my perception on the notion of "sports-consciousness". Over the course of the CWG, listening to raucous cheers, live coverage, fist-pumping and adrenaline rush - the event was more than an administrative success for me. For it upheld its objective. The sight of athletes feeding off from crowd-support and oppositions wilting with the pressure made it even more appalling to watch.

I often hear people say, "Sachin makes me a proud Indian". WTF, I say to myself. As a sports lover, I want to see the tussle, team tactics ,the sweat, the hunger and "never say die" attitude - not just talent. Cricket is a team game, and we can't be proud for having individual brilliance. If not just for the medals, I can see better support-system for the athletes these a days and crowd-recognition. Hope the sponsors are listening.

The infrastructure, the outlook of Indian sports have really moved on from family tradition to individual expression. I am hoping that these are signs of days to come. bfn

Endhiran

The hype is unavoidable, partly by the developers but mostly by the hardcore fans all over the world. Was sincerely looking forward to it and shouting like hell, and whistling made us deaf through the titles. Movie starts in the research center, but wait a minute what in the hell are Karunas and Santhaanam doing in the lab. Ok, accepted, they are computer graduates specializing in robotics working as apprentices to thalaivar. Moving on, they are working on the final stages of a decade long work of Rajini (Vasi endra vaseegaran) in hope of building the perfect android humanoid. What is an android humanoid, android refers to mimicking human appearance to a robot and humanoids are ones that are modeled on human skeletal movement system. 

Vasi manages to come up with the perfect humanoid, capable to live in real –world which is a draconian ask for the best of robots today. Chitti, the robot seems to be on the learning curve, learning human emotions like “Why people lie, why people cry, etc”. As usual, Shankar throws science here and there to make the movie from a part of his PhD work. He tries to explain the absence of human rational behavior in Chitti. So Vasi is forced to add human psychology, emotions and other feelings into the routines of Chitti. From the camera’s eye the skin of Chitti is just molded plastic so how he feels the wind or a kiss is left to our own perception. Love the larger than life fighting, style and maassu of chitti in his fights and innocent nakkal nickel over the first half.

Chitti learns everything from medicine to martial arts. He is a built in electro magnet, able to communicate in any protocol through infrared, wifi, radio frequency and what not. I have to take the plot of Chitti reasoning with mosquitoes as a joke, even though he speaks in the bzzzt language. But all this from just a few units of electricity, you have to be kidding me. Terminator thought better by using a mini-nuclear reactor powered fuel-cell to charge the robot. Traditional battery storage, ha ha haa. Ok for motor movements, but for vision projection, communication and electromagnetic force, you ought to have though better.

I don’t go into the plot of the movie, but the songs seem to be loosely intertwined in the picture. You feel like suddenly you have changed the channel to MTV, listen to the music and come back. For beginners they should have at least used some part of the music in the background, the BGM seems to be empty for me.

Don’t kill me with the concept of human-robot hybrids, intra-species mating is observed to be a common factor like the case of Liger. This is through fluid exchange, in captivity. I would have agreed to any sort of bio-fusion, even spiderman for heaven’s sake. What about robot and human, the screw will impregnate an ovum, ROFL. Even if you are able to synthesize a fertilized egg, that could be conceivable in a woman, it grows with “oxygen, water and blood” or “current, silicon chips, nickel”. Please let us leave it here.

With regards to cinema making, Rajini looks awesome in the movie. Can’t dance to his own standards, but the performer juggernaut rolls on. Music is awesome, camera and photography is cool, the locations are exotic, but no life in the movie. The characters just make up for the number and hardly use up the screen space, meaning there is no scope for others in the film except Rajinis and Aish.

When there is a force, there should be a similar force to tackle it. Battle of transformers, terminators, aliens VS Predators. If not there should be extreme outwitting from humans to win it over the much able robots. Nopes, the Goliath fells over and got his head cut off by David. It makes a good fairy tale but doesn’t warrant a movie.

I felt a big headache after the second half of the movie. Though have to say majority of the scenes look good. I have my fair share of doubts which I have posted above. Can watch once for the Rajini factor, but not worth to watch it over an over.

P.S: In reality, robots are doing a fantastic job in precision cutting, painting, load handling which means they are larger or shorter in size and need not necessarily have to mimic human movements. Advanced robots do a dance or play a game of football, covering a few issues like getting up from a fall, in built AI to track opponent behavior and realization of a goal state, yes GOAL state. A concept of a complete android robot is way beyond today's technology.

Terminator, Bicentennial man, AI and Wall-E are a few of my favorites in this genre. Wall-E is more of a fun and watch with kids movie. Terminator explores the destructive capability of an intelligent android. Bicentennial man is the learning curve of a robot over the issues of humanity, slavery, prejudice, maturity, intellectual freedom, conformity, sex, love, and death. A.I defines how tough it is to train a robot human emotions. Shankar seems to have found and lost a match with all the above concepts

Rest In Peace

நான் எப்படி வளர்ந்தேன் ,
இந்த உலகில் தனியா நடந்தேன்
நீ விலகி இருந்தும்
அந்த உறவில் மகிழ்ந்து நினைந்தோம்

துறுவம் பிளக்க , அவரவர் பாதை விலக
பாசம் மறக்க, உன் மதியில், நம் விதி என்பது கசந்து போனதோ !!

நான் உறைந்த பொழுது
நீ இந்த உலகை பிரிந்தபோது
ஓர் நொடியில் என் உலகம்
உடைந்து மீண்டும் பிறந்த தருணம்

காலம் கடக்க, நம் வீட்டில் மீண்டும் உறவு உயிர்க்க
பிரிந்து கிடந்தும், உன் உறவை உறைந்து போன மனட்சுவற்றில் காண்கிறோம்.

Back to Bachelors

Back to Singapore

    People keep asking me, "wow, 3 months. Didn't you get bored? What did you do?". Well those 3 months were what I call my last academic summer vacations, remember the fun filled ones we had during our school days. It was not exactly like that. To begin with my friends were either married or out out station or simply busy. Managed to visit a few and share a few jokes but it was not exactly a vacation. It was a period to regroup and restart my next period in life. At this moment with all my friends getting married, and my greys increasing ever so often; my mom has started what we call bajji-sojji stuff.
   
    The vacations were about going to car-driving sessions, attending marriage, funerals, visiting friends, watching movies, going places, falling sick and finally a lot EATING and SLEEPING. Managed to spend some time with my mom discussing about a few family stuff and permutations. Had a few hot headed arguments and a few light hearted sessions as well. She said "Who will I now fight with?" when I was about to leave Chennai to Singapore but managed to put up a brave face when sending me off at the airport.

    Back to college, it embraced me with smiling faces and hi5's. Lost sleep in the first few days at my flat and consequentially eased into this place where I am put up with 4 more friends from NUS whom I met the previous semester. Life as bachelors is lots of fun, you manage to invent something new at food everyday. Not that we are that bad, but things go weird sometimes at cooking. Thank god, internet came about and we stay connected to the entire world within the reality of cyberspace. Recommending books and music happens over facebook. I found "The story of two states - Chethan Bhagat" as a very interesting read recommended by "several likes" in facebook.

    So another 4 months of college, self-cooking, downloaded movies and I would end up with my masters, Insha Allah!!. Interestingly I am enjoying this phase and I am beginning to miss it before it is about to get over as well. For the first time in life, I am not looking at tomorrow as a better day and enjoying and celebrating today. That is to do with myself rather than the place or people around me.

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.