I’m back

I’m back.

It has been quite a while. Actually a little over a year. Work kept me busy. Or rather I didn’t manage time properly I would say. But then now I’ve decided I’m going to be regular. Missed out on a lot of things by not being very active online.

In this one year life had its own surprises. Some really suprised me, actually.

1. People really asked me to come back and blog

2. I found my significant other in my best friend

3. We actually completed one year. A roller coaster it was!

Work is really hectic. But the only factor that keeps me going is that I like what I’m doing. Its been almost 5 months since NDTV HINDU launched and working there is definitely one of the best experiences. There was a point of time when I lived at work 24*7. Today life is more organised but it is still as chaotic as it was.

Personally I missed out on the hanging out days with my friends. Catching up with each one is a task in itself … Going to Besant Nagar beach is like booking Mysore Express tickets and going to Bangalore. It needed so much of planning. I so hate it. I’m going to break this monotony. I’ve decided I’m going to be more active socially. And today is the beginning.

Bold and the beautiful: Sa-Ro-Ja

Chennai 600028 was not a fluke hit. Venkat Prabhu has a proved this point with his thriller Sa-ro-ja and has clearly shown how to make films with a fraction of the amount budgeted for a Superstar or a Universal Hero film.

Trying out the Nokia Maps

Recently I updated my phone’s software and Nokia Maps came as a default application. Till then I thought Nokia Maps were only for N95, 82, etc … Even at the Nokia Maps stall at Citi Centre, the babe in the counter told me N73 cannot use maps. The other day I had called up Airtel to just ask about GPRS but for reasons best known to them, they activated GPRS for my connection. So there is GPRS and Nokia Maps in hand and joblessness in mind. So I started trying it out and it came out to be much much better than expected.

Its very fast. And the maps are almost 50% accurate in terms of geography and location labels. A quick address type to Chennai lands me near the GPO, and from the GPO finding the way to my house in Mylapore was a breeze. Type in your start point and your destination point and there you have right in your screen a real time navigation to the desired destination.

But unlike the Wikimap, the end user does not have any control over location tagging on maps. For instance the Bazaar road in Mylapore is mis-spelt as Bazar road. So anybody searching for Bazaar road is never going to find the right place. So even if I spot a mistake, I cannot correct it. My street has not been named/tagged in the Maps and the end user has no privilege to tag places, so any number of search for my street is going to give no result.

The Nokia Maps TVC was brilliantly conceived and executed, although like all advertisements this one too is a bit exaggerating. This map is good fun to experiment with but needs a lot of correction before it can be used on roads. Another disaster I saw in this map was with the Show route option. I gave the start point and the destination point and searched for the route. The map shows the shortest and the simplest route, it does not give a damn about no entry signs and at times shows roads were motoring is out of question.

The kilometers count which it provides for every route by asking the satellites is accurate enough. Just a few updates and some changes and this map will be a treasure. Nokia can even price it.

Dasavathaaram – a terror ten

Thanks to a delayed meeting, I missed the premiere of Dasavathaaram on Thursday night. Which also means I saved 300 bucks + good 5 hours of sleep. When Dasavathaaram was announced saying Kamal Haasan was the man in front of the camera, Tamil film audience were celebrating. They knew the movie was in safe hands. They knew history was in the making. But then on the first day, sadly Arun and I were in complete splits laughing all through the movie which claims to have a lot of AlGore and Ramanujar in it.

Oops, I’ve written 100 posts …

… and this is my 101st post.

Arun called up in the morning

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It was a star studded …

… defeat. No, you can call it a disaster.

I freaked …

I freaked. That was during my +2 exams in 2002.

I freaked. This morning, thanks to my aunt. It was 8.50 in the morning and I was rushing with my breakfast when my aunt came up with a topic. Balaji’s bro-in-law is getting married. Its high time we started searching an alliance for you. I almost spilled the barley I was trying to drink. I couldn’t react. I turned to my aunt, tried my best to hide all the thoughts running together in my head and said, better do a proper research. My voice cracked. I freaked out. Totally.

For fun, I’ve had these conversations with my friends and family about getting married by this year, I even made my cousin bro believe that I’m in a serious relationship and want him to come sign the witness for marriage in case we elope. But today, my aunt kicked the guts out of me. I’m only 23 and I don’t want to get married for the next 4 years.

Marriage definitely is a very beautiful bonding but I’m just not ready for it yet.

This kuruvi doesn’t fly

In case you have booked tickets for Kuruvi, try selling it off for atleast half the price. You’ll also save three hours of your time, twenty bucks on parking and a good hundred bucks on popcorn and coke.

Vijay’s big budget summer cooler Kuruvi is an outright disappointment for Dharani fans. Vijay fans did enjoy the movie. I still remember the previous Vijay-Dharani combo Gilli, it kept the audience at the edge of their seat. As always expectation has once again killed. This movie cannot get worser.

Nobody comes to watch Kuruvi expecting to see a feel good family entertainer, everybody wants a racy, no logic and all magic movie from Vijay and Dharani. As the plot opens, there are cars lined up in a race track all set to burn rubber. There is Vivek and there is Malavika and then comes Vijay right out of a man hole. God. We were all set to throw bits of papers as Vijay comes on screen but when he came out all wet from the man hole, he only dampened our spirits. Come on, when people in the race tracks are waiting for Vijay, he should have come out of nowhere and land on his fully loaded race machine, instead he comes flying out of the man hole with all smiles and takes an auto to the race track only to drive a completely disfigured Skoda Octavia.

Once again Suman makes a bad villain. No not a bad bad villainy guy, he was a bad choice as a villain. Any day he can give Vivek a run for his money. And Trisha, she might easily be banned from films for comparing Vijay to Antonio Banderas in one of the scenes. Not to mention the songs, I was infact waiting for the movie after listening to the songs. Sadly none of them were trademarked with Vijay or Dharani’s stamp.

The story takes place at Cuddapah, Chennai and Kuala Lumpur but not even at one of these places does the story actually start. All through the movie it is a group of people chasing Vijay. He runs, they chase. He runs, they chase. He runs, they chase. Suddenly the title cards start running, giving a hint that the movie is over. Even then I waited patiently for the movie to start but only as people started walking out did it hit my brain that the movie was over.

No doubt Vijay is a good actor, a very good dancer, but no director is making proper use of his talent and popularity. And Dharani is in fact one of the best screenplay writers. Even when there is no story, he can weave a screenplay around the characters and make the movie a blockbuster. Dhool and Gilli are rock solid examples of his ability to keep the audience bitting the nails. But Kuruvi flies out of the hands of Vijay and Dharani.

Cricket, Cinema and Chennai …

… goes hand-in-hand.

A quick phone call to Mia in the afternoon and she gets me tickets for the IPL matches in Chennai. I was hoping for normal stands but the it turned out to be a pavilion. In the row beside us was Vijay. In the AC cabin behind us was our CM.

The flavour of Twenty20 is still fresh and is keeping the crowd in high spirits all through the four hours of the game. The essence of cricket has been retained but a lot of cinema has been added to make the IPL taste splendid.

What could be a better way than to start the evening at Chepauk with Hariharan and Sivamani rocking the stands with their music. Soon the Chennai Super Kings brand ambassador Vijay joins in and makes a walk around the ground. The crowd erupted in joy. Vijay came up to the pavilion and the crowd ran to him for autographs. Mia and me rushed up to him like we’ve never met him in our lives, to get a closer look of the actor. No matter how much ever we meet them in person, the joy of rushing up to a star, fighting the way through the crowd has to be experienced.

And after a very quick two hours of music, cinema gave way to cricket. The Mexican wave by the crowd was a perfect sync. No one new anyone in the 40,000+ crowd but everyone joined together for a Mexican wave all around the stadium. The match rocked till the very last ball.

Everytime a Chennai team scored, there was a Rajini / Vijay / Ajith / Vikram number played and for Mumbai there was Hrithik’s numbers. Very bad DJ btw, no fade in, no fade out. It was like listenting to ear drum tearing music in Amman temple.

Keeping spirits high even after 4 whole hours of cheering. Wondering why Mia alone isn’t sweating? She has a ‘do-it-yourself in 1 minute’ make up kit. Even before I switched on the cam and gave it to the chick sitting in front of us to click a pic, Mia was ready 🙂