Vagamon

Vagamon, in God's own Country...


The final sem was quite pain. Even though there was no great work pressure, may be the concept of doing things that we never liked might hav made things more arduous for we guys. This made us very excited from the very first word say tour. After almost 2 months of discussions about selecting the place to tour, finally we came to a conclusion with a bit of verbal misunderstanding. Vagamon was decided as our place of touring. It was 13 of us who settled for the tour finally. Kerala usually called the God's own country consists of explored and unexplored hill stations, and vagamon is supposed to be one of the unexplored spots in kerala. It is actually situated 65 kms from kottayam.

We started on the 8th of may nd reached kottayam on the 9th by 5 AM through train. The tempo traveler dat we had arranged was already waiting for us at the kottayam station. After a hot sip of tea we proceeded our journey to vagamon. Apart from enjoying the early morning site seeing, we also had fun in pulling each one's leg after a long time (actually pullin each other's leg was inevitable during the whole of 3 days) We had to travel 2 hrs uphill to reach vagamon. On reaching vagamon, we received a very warm welcome from the home stay ppl who were waiting for us. The resort was located at a remote place and provided us a gorgeous view from the hill top. The home stay was one of the best experiences we had in the tour. We had a peaceful accommodation in a gud bungalow as it was quite preplanned.


After the little breakfast with idly and banana, we went for a walk in the roads of vagamon with tea estates nd unknown trees on both sides of the road. Not very cold as it was already May, but we could experience a very cool breeze allover. Then returned to the resort and relaxed for sometime. After having a typical kerala cuisine lunch(typical kerala rice as well :( ) with fish and chicken we started to visit few places around vagamon. The pine forest was not all new when compared to the other hill stations but still not a bad place to take few snaps. Then we proceeded to the vagamon meadows and the kurisimala. Kurisimala was basically a Christian pilgrimage place, we trekked for abt 3-4kms in rocks and again a place which is worth a number of snaps. Then returned to the resort at around 6.30. It started raining quite heavily soon after 7. Then few of we guys started with the water service (velilaiyum thanni, ullaiyum thanni..) We were having a nice chat along with few pegs of vodka and music. Finally ended de day with a couple of chappatis.

The next day was scheduled for thekkaday, woke up and had the typical kerala breakfast of puttu nd banana. Then proceeded for thekkaday, spent more than a couple of hrs in the wildlife sanctuary nd lake view nd then proceeded to the surli falls in kumily. Not a very big falls all along, but still worth bathing der for an hr(especially for guys from chn) Then we started towards the resort. It was almost 9 by the time we reached the resort. The campfire was ready as we had planned it previously. Had long sessions of chat, dinner with music and campfire. It was almost 2.30 at midnight by de time we went to bed after a couple of pegs of vodka.

The next morning we decided to return home. Vacated the resort quite early in the mornin and proceeded to kottayam. From kottayam we moved on to thrissur which was more than a 3 hrs ride in bus. Next step was to move to pallakad, it took us nearly 2 hrs to reach there in a more than pathetic bus ride. Pallakad to coimbatore was equally bad experience, guess the driver was a beginner, was taking his own time to reach coimbatore(nearly 3 hrs). I should say dis was de most worse experience for me to travel a 650 odd kms in bus. Kerala is basically known for de pulchritudinous female, but never saw one in vagamon(had to digest the fact dat, vagamon was quite unexplored ). Had lot better site seeing in the entire bus travel from kottayam to pallakad ;)Finally reached chn on 12th mornin.

In all it was a memorable trip except the fact dat few of our friends were not able to make it for de trip.

Kuruvi - A curse to watch...

Kuruvi - Suttu kollunge

After the mega flop "Azhagiya Tamil Magan", Vijay was supposed to bounce back in Kuruvi with the Gilli team, which was a run away hit in 2004. The movie was planned for a May 2nd release but was postponed to May 3rd coz of the IPL match in Chennai. Kuruvi is the debut film from the Red Gaint productions, the home productions of Udhayanidhi Stalin. It was very obvious dat it was the first movie of the production house, coz of the marketing done for de movie. Stepped into Satyam after fighting for a 120 rs ticket (dis has becum quite usual des days) for the night show at 10.15 PM on the first day. Knew dat the movie didn't get a great reception, but still went for it with a hope over Dharani, de director. The movie began with an ill-favored car race, guess Vijay says "why only Ajith can drive, but even I wil do it". The highly expected Vijay introduction was in a nonchalant style, with even de die hard fans of the star showing a beam through their face.


The whole storyline can be guessed within the first 15 mins, when manivannan makes his un-distinguishable promise to the villians. Vivek was able to provide atleast a very minimal comic relief in de movie. But he too was pulled out after the intermission. There was a huge commotion in the theater during the interval - A fan of Vijay was suffering the beatings on behalf of his thalaivar from his friends for having pulled them for such a movie ;)

Music was better, as usual in all Vijay films. The song pallanadu sung by vidhyasagar was a gud number and will make ppl tap their foot. The re-recording was gud and supported the so called action packed movie. Vijay trying to expose his non-existing muscles was one of the most weird concepts of the movie, apart from his idiotic stunts. Suman and ashish vidyarthi provided the role of bad men. The talented actress Saranya was very hardly used, nd the facial expressions for which she is known for was total irrelevant. Trisha as usual appears in scenes just before and after each song sequence. Malavika was wrapped-up for shaking her legs in the opening song, but audience seldom found her on screen except to provide a smooch for Vijay.

Usually Vijay remakes some telugu movie, but dis movie is shot mostly in andra (cudappa). There is some huge sentiment associated with Vijay and gulti, I suppose. The film was taken to malaysia nd singapore without any reason, may be just for de sake of high budget stunt sequence. The Kuruvi team which aimed at a block-bluster wil end up in just scattering a great amount of shit at the box office. Really a curse to watch it.

Positives: Dasavatharam trailer in the beginning :) :) :)
Vivek Comedy
Song Sequences

Negatives: Storyline
Screenplay
Action
and finally Vijay