Aayirathil Oruvan

A movie which was awaited for more than 2 years is finally at silver screens, and is straight away worth the wait, purely for the people with a movie watching dexterity. The Dream Valley Corporation's Aayirathil Oruvan deals abt the war between the Pandyas and Cholas. The notion of the war and its intensity in the current era. Dealing with such a complex motif, Selva has given a perfect period drama of 2.30 hrs.
The film begins with the cholas chased away from their native(Thanjai). The muddle conceived by them during their evacuation forms the reason for the combat in the modern era. The trick(read it as casuistry and delusion) handled by the pandyas to solve the snare laid by the cholas, and who won the battle forms the core of the storyline. Selva has taken pain in giving the viewers the exact feel of a period film, which is quite evident in the second half of the film. Beholders are expected to have minimal tamil (Sokka Tamil) and medieval tamil history knowledge to enjoy the piquancy of the film. (Thanks for my 10th grade Tamil)

There are surely few scenes in the film which no one can have a justification, except Selva himself. Few gore scenes do make your face go crooked, but one just cant avoid most of the on screen display. Few Scenes involving reema sen, and the others involving the army during the latter part of the film are quite disgusting, however this indeed does provide the quintessential emotions.


Karthi and Parthiban have done their job to perfection. The dance sequence for the theme song was a sure "once more" at the theatres. Reema Sen's lip sink seems to be very grisly on screen and Selva should have had a second thought in selecting an artist for such a powerful role. But yes, her performance is sure to gain appreciation from all corners. Andrea's inane acting skills would hardly earn her a name, may be she should restrict herself in just the singing department. Although the screen is almost crowded with a huge clan of junior artists throughout the film, other familiar faces to share the screen are Alagam Perumal and Pratap Pothan.

Camera my Ramji has attributed to the film to a very good extent. G.V.Prakash's BGM was a big plus to the film and the songs have undoubted grossed to a huge amount even b4 the film hitting the silver screens. The only glitch abt the flim would be its extended and a little obfuscating screenplay. But, handling such a complex subject, these minimal flaws should be condoned and overlooked. The targeted audience are not all of the theatergoing "freaks", but the sophisticated movie beholders who do enjoy the feel and auro of ecstasy. (Ecstasy: The feeling of having a feel to feel a feeling which has never been felt before)

Selva has provided a movie which surely cannot be explicated as a trendsetter. Such movies would rather have the value only if they are filmed by great people and once in a decade. They are not easy to make and not easy to enjoy. Selva has laid a visual platform for Kamal Hassan, who has been aiming to make Marmayogi and Maruthanayagam which would be period films on its own terms.

Bottom Line: Hit the theatres if you have the oomph to enjoy.

Aayirathil Oruvan - SelvaRaghavan

A Responsibility

"Cop attacked, Ministers mere spectators"

"Irresponsibility from ministers"

"Cop died on road, struggling for help"

These are the few phrases hitting the headlines of the media in the recent days. This is one of the brutal acts to have happened in the recent past. The term "Brutal", I am quoting here is not the attack on the cop, but the lose of a life on the camera.



"Cop attacked", Ho yes!!! "Ministers were spectators", Ho yes!!! So what was the guy with the camera doing there? Shooting a live death for a blunt publicity, obtuse money and perfect exhibition??? In first place, people to be questioned in this act are obviously the politicians in white and white, but as of now, we should be tired of complaining about the politicians. All what is expected from the politicians is "I seriously condemn this incident". I have been struggling to conceive the connotation of this very phrase for a long time now. Anything happens in Oz for the Indian students, the External Affairs Minister condemns it; For a very serious terrorist drama, the Prime Minister and Home Minister condemn it. That is the best thing they have been doing all these years. So, its mere desolation in investing time and faith on such egocentric, narcissist politicians. (It wont be of a great surprise, if the word POLITICIAN becomes the synonym for egocentric and narcissist in the near future)

So, now the next person who can take the responsibility of such acts are the public in the proximity and the dignified camera men, who are very patriot over their job. The priority of shooting a live death over the humanity of providing an assistance to a man on the verge of losing his life is a perfect example of the uncivilized, boorish, uncouth characteristic of the media. This ignorance should be considered as a high priority criminal act.

Countries like Albania, Belgium, The Netherlands, France, Germany, Croatia, Hungary, Finland, Russia etc have this law seriously implemented. In Germany, "Unterlassene Hilfeleistung" (neglect of duty to provide assistance) is a serious offense according to the para 323c.

Under para 323c of German Law: Whoever does not render assistance during accidents or common danger or need, although it is required and can be expected of him under the circumstances and, especially, is possible without substantial danger to himself and without violation of other important duties, shall be punished with imprisonment for not more than one year or a fine.

A notable incident to quote is, the investigation carried out against the photographers, who were present at the scene of Princess Diana's fatal car accident for violating the French law of "non-assistance à personne en danger" (deliberately failing to provide assistance to a person in danger).

The need of such a law in India is highly indispensable at this point of time. When the section 377 of Indian Penal code can easily be amended to decriminalization, under huge publicity, then this law has to be implemented at any inevitable cost. Hope this gets materialized as soon as possible and courtesy and responsibility among individuals increases atleast during pathetic crisis.

Back at CBE...

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I am drafting this blog sitting on the steps of my department at college, yes sitting there after a long time, nearly after 1.5 year (well, not too long though). Never had dreamt of sitting there again, may be this is what people call “kismet connection”. Empty classrooms, hardly any people on the campus, total silence, cool breeze and solitude my only company, (actually I am nuts, I should say) how can one expect anyone in the campus on a Sunday evening, that too after the semesters have ended.

Landed in CBE(Coimbatore) on friday morning, regarding a work(work??? Zzzzz) in the college office. Checked-in a hotel room near the bus stand and took a bike from my friend (i am always gifted with kewl pals). After a very long time, I was driving a bike on the roads of Coimbatore. The roads seem a lot different than a couple of years back; they were wide enough with hardly any trees on the sides. I drove straight to college to begin the purpose of my visit. Lots had changed in college as well, students and faculties roaming around with an identity card hanging in their neck- What crap, there are trying too much for maintaining discipline, I thought to myself and proceeded for my work. I was

-->befuddled to see many of my not-so-close faculties also calling by my name. They started inquiring about my life, my work, this, that, blah, blah, blah. Finally, started with my work, and as expected I was told it will take sometime for the work to be done. I just replied with a blunt OK and decided to roam about the city. First to Krishna bakery or KB as how it is known to us (students of CIT). Ordered for a tea (strong’a sakkare jasthi) from outside the shop and lit a cigarette (I dont remember the last time when I lit a cigarrette in front of KB. Yes, I wasn’t a smoker those days).

Sipping the tea and fagging, I was thinking about something (don’t remember exactly what). Fine then, drove through each and every street near college; to the old house where my friends and me stayed (it was totally an entertainment zone those days), to the place where we guys used to eat which no more exists (except the pity senile old man) and to few other spots where I used to hang around those days with my friends. That day I was at KB for tea and smoke at regular intervals. Neither had I visited KB so frequently nor had I drunk such a lot of tea per day; may be that’s what a total jobless person can afford to do.

Was back at college for the formalities and finally got few papers signed and was asked to come the next day to finish off the work. Drove out of college and the first place to go was the Jenny’s club for a coffee. This was the first time me going to Jenny’s all alone. Ordered for a cappuccino and was staring at the empty chair in front of me. And here came my coffee, I had a sip at it. Yuck!! Was that really a cappuccino? Has the standard of the restaurant gone down or I never realized its taste during my previous visits :D? Whatever may be the reason, I hardly completed it and drove to “hope college” for a spicy sweet corn, which charan and me used to enjoy during our college days. I decided my next halt to be “laiden” for a chicken sheaf submarine. Drove to “laiden”, gawking at the Chanthini’s and the Anjali’s on my right (both restaurants). Anyway, I wasn’t able to eat the submarine, as the shop was shut down and a new building was coming up. Next, to the “café coffee day”; took a corner seat for a coffee. Drank my coffee all alone and then to rayappas for my dinner, I wasn’t hungry at all but still, just for the prawns fry and for the reminiscences. I took prawns fry and a roti. My tummy was now filled with 10-15 teas, 2 coffees and the prawns and roti. My goodness, I was about to burst. Huff!!!

Back to the hotel and had a pretty good night’s sleep. Drove to college in the morning and proceeded with the formalities. I was almost done with the work but was asked to come once again on Sunday at noon to finish off the remaining work. Everything in the city has changed except these idiotic guys who still keep procrastinating work, I told to myself and left the place with a smirk. Spent the whole of Saturday driving; and before I could realize, I was nearing the outskirts of the city (I was at the agriculture university). Drove back and had my supper at the hari bhavan with dosa (and chicken curry). Back to my hotel room and switched on the TV for the India vs Australia match, which I almost forgot. Sat on the bed with my smoke in hand, it was an easy win for India, I thought. Yes, ofcourse it was a cake walk in the end even without the little master firing.

And finally, on Sunday at approximately 4.10 PM my work (What hell work was that? the purpose of this post is not to describe it, so leave it..) was done and I am here sitting in front of my department, composing the content for my blog and cherishing my old college memories. I might sound like a sentimental idiot, but I am fkin not that way, but a humane with a blend of emotions; doesn’t that make sense? Albeit, it was indeed altogether a different stay at Coimbatore.

Well, it is getting late, I have to hit a hotel for dinner and catch the bus at 9.00 PM for Chennai.

The Indian T20 Dream

The Indian T20 dream finally ended in a dismal fashion of defending the title. Although the Indian cricket does not have the history of inveterate winning and defending titles, there was a huge confidence in this Dhoni lead Indian team to defend the World T20 title. But still the men in blue continue the notorious habit of not defending the title successfully. Being the best team on papers the Indian team started its World T20 journey with an yet another defeat against the kiwis is the warm-up, but made it up by beating the arch rivals Pakistan in their second warm-up. With 2 underdogs in the pool, India marched into the super eight stage with ease. But that was all nd der was no further advancement by the men in blue in the tournament.

Speaking abt the incorrigible list of mistakes made by the team, the Sehwag controversy tops the list. Still no know except the team management know the truth behind this Sehwag issue. Missing the most devastating batsman in this form of cricket was a huge minus. Rohit Sharma in Sehwag's shoes was more than a weird experiment and penultimately India had to pay the price for it.

Dhoni's unconscionable innings of 23 balls 11 runs in de all important WestIndies match marked the beginning of India's exit from the tournament. No one except Dhoni know wat was running in his mind during de match. His impeccable shot of coming down de pitch nd defending the ball for more than a couple of times in a part-time spinner's over was a perfect example of how exactly not to play in a T20 match. The show of his batting in a batting paradise wicket would make one feel dat der was somethin pathologically wrong with the Indian Captain. Addendum to dis was his great capability of fumbling behind stumps. All this was enough for the Caribbeans to win very comfortably.

The match against England started under huge expectations with do or die situation for India. Bring Ravindra Jadeja as an extra batsman was supposed to be quite a pretty move from Dhoni. But gettin him in before the likes of Yuvraj and Yousuf pathan was a mistake of astronomical size from the Indian Captain. Dhoni is known for experimenting in the middle, but such a weird experiment in an important game was very close to a child's play. Finally to epitomize the story, Dhoni did everything possible to step out of the race of defending the World T20 title. All credits were to Dhoni when Team India was in a winning streak nd now its de vice versa. He has to taste the medicines of both kinds, after-all India is an emotional country( as per Dhoni's words in the post match interview)

Slumdog Millionaire...

Slumdog millionaire as a movie nd as reality...

Speaking abt slumdog millionaire as a movie has a lot of positives and makes is always worth a watch. Inspired from the debut novel of Vikas Swarup's Q & A, de Britain director Danny Boyle directed Slumdog Millionaire. Danny Boyle is one man who makes his movies speak, may it be his 28 days later or A life less than ordinary or the Di caprio starrer The Beach. On the same traces Slumdog Millionaire is also a stupendous movie which deals with pain, romance and human emotions without any hi-fi or sci-fi. The story of Slumdog Millionaire deals with the life of three youngsters who start their living in the Mumbai slums nd from der on whr life takes them nd further on. Story basically revolves around Jamaal an young chap (played by Dev Patel, an England born Indian) who contests for de game show "Who wants to be a millionaire" aka "Kaun banega crorepati". He is just one question away from becuming a millionaire nd cop arrest him accusing him of committing fraudulence in the game show to gain money.

How Jamaal proves his innocence nd wins de game show forms the rest of the storyline during which he describes his painful childhood period. Anil kapoor trying to immitate Amithab bachan had ended up just trying. Jamaal's elder brother makes significance to his role as equally as de female lead Frieda Pinto. The film is being canned in a very naive manner so as to stick to reality. The re-recording nd de screenplay plays a very significant role to throttle de movie to a opulent success. The charecterization has been very savvy nd flawless, just to meet de original requirements of the movie, with even de female lead not so attractive. There has to be a special mention about the BGM nd de songs composed by the legendary Indian music director A.R.Rehman. His composition has already got him a golden globe award, nd de world is sure he is gonna fetch lots of more lourels. Jai ho nd O.. saya hav been the best of de lot among the 12 temperamental numbers in de movie.

Now, moving on to the reality of the movie. I am quite undoubtedly sure dat I wuld be one among the very few in the internet to speak against de movie. The movie has had the mumbai dharavi slum(in fig above) as the backdrop of the movie nd the story is being canned in nd around the slum. It is at times highly atrocious to watch de movie nd cognize that India still has such a worst slum in de city which is considered to be the business hub of India. Addulent to dis is dat the film is being directed by UK based Danny Boyle, who had done lots of homework for making dis movie wuld hav totally studied de entire situation at dharavi. It is a clear evident to all dat, India has such a diversed society. World which had earlier known dat der r 4 Indian in the world's top ten billionaires wil now know dat India also has 5% of de world's total poor. The news channels propaganda it such dat every Indian shuld b proud of d movie, i am totally left bewildered of why de hell shuld I be proud of dis bloody movie which showcases India in a totally unworthy manner. But once de movie is released in India the A class crowd wuld happily enjoy de movie, forgetting wat they hav literally visualized (I guess they wuld be aware of de slums only from de movie) nd guys de English man Danny Boyle knows more abt the Indian slum than we Indians.

Nevertheless, de movie had been a run-away hit around de world, nd will also top de box-office in India once it is screened from de 23rd of Jan-2009.

Slumdog Millionaire- Barks a bit louder...

Massacre across the nation...

Bangalore
Ahmedabad
Delhi
Mumbai
???
???


The above listed cities are not the venues of any cricket match or de new SEZs but des are the cities which were on terror very recently by the terrorism acts. Among these, the mumbai attack has been the worse where the terrorist strike the Taj hotel and the very prestegious Trident Oberoi, Narimon House and few other places. The southern part of the economic capital of the nation was set on fire by de volunteers of not the very famous terrorist organization-Deccan Mujahideen. Its very unpleasing to infer de truth dat calling India an unpeaceful nation is not too far away. One of the many million dollar questions is how were the terrorist able to accumulate arms and hand grenard in the heart of the city. The terrorist were supposed to hav travelled through the waterways from karachi to mumbai. In dat case how did they escape the navy border security force. The arms hav ben supplied to de terrorist by the Indian islamic movements says authenticated sources.


The terrorist who hijacked a police vehicle made a police to drive the vehicle at gun point. The terrorist instead of absconding from de place slowed down their vehicle nd started to open fire against the cop. It clearly indicates the ingenuity of the terrorist just to kill as many people as they can before they finally get killed.

Whatever may be de case, there has been attacks across India time and again, and wat is the government gonna do regarding this issue. It has becum a habit for de PM nd Ms.Sonia Gandhi to just verbally condemn each nd every attack nd forget it rite away. Wholly 2008 has been a worse calender year in the history of Independent India.

This being the first time dat de economically forward ppl nd the tourists of the nation hav been experiencing crisis coz of terrorist attacks makes it very evident dat Terrorist are now concentrating on the tourist attraction of India. It was quite strange to cognize that terrorist were shouting nd asking for ppl who had UK nd US passports.


The ho'rable Union FM Mr. Chidambaram proudly sits crossed legged with Z category security nd raises his white collar by saying India has a GDP of 8% dis financial year, But wats de use of talking abt GDP wen der is no security for de people's life. The attack has not only made India to lose its recognition of being a peaceful nation in the world but also to lose some of its high profile security officers who lost their life during the fight against the terrorism.

The politicians who are given the Z category security, kindly wake up from the wonderland of just making money nd think abt wat can be done to eradicate terrorism atleast for safeguarding their lifes. Nevertheless, they can be de next target by the al-quedas or de lashkari thoibas or de Deccan mujahideens. Else, finally the citizens hav to condemn the terrorism after the PM of the nation is shot dead.

The world is experiencing economic crisis, but India for a change is experiencing "crisis of human life". Which is de worse case???

Men come.. Men go...

The World is a drama on a wide stage,
once said the literature sage;
I was hit by the greatest trauma,
when one terminated his role in dat drama.

was not even half way through his role,
he was just thinking abt his long term goal;
but had to abide by de unfavourable haul,
nd I had to miss one of my close pals'

still unable to digest his impetuous demise
nd der is nothin at-all for de compromise;

days we ate together, days we roamed together
days we shared de fun together,
but now, feeling his loss all-alone
nd am helpless except to mourn;

Tribute to him, wuld be to make
his dreams cum true for his,
soul to view;
nd from my side, it wil be at-least a few;

Men come, men go
wat we know is their presence;
wat we should know is their absence,
at least of those who influence'd;

..... in remembrance of Srikanth Nagarajan

...travelling through the grief of hEaRt

She never made dramatic gestures

nor any solemn lectures;

my talks were with her potent eyes

nd so wasn't able to broach any lies

the adorable gift for me was her time,

to me it worth more than a mime ;

being with her I heard de music of chime

but now, de pain is worst than a dime

those were de days

I hate de night dreams;

but now,

I love them atleast to hav her gleams

When walking on the street sides

I search for her footsteps besides,

but once I fail to find her

it was her name dat I slur

wat she

made in my life was just jaunts

but it was,

her images dat always haunts

consolable is,

the pain when hit by a dart

but not,

my travel through de grief of heart

Those 3 months...

Those 3 tiresome months...

"Wake up Pradeep, its already 10", it was my mom's voice from the kitchen. Immediately grabbed my mobile from de bed to chk de time, ya she was rite, it was 5 mins passed 10 in de morning. Pulled out a towel nd ran to de bathroom to take a quick bath to get ready for de company(internship). It striked me very late dat my internship had already ended de day before. So, I was free till I get a call from de company to officially be in a corporate world. Immediately I quit de idea of taking a bath, came out took de newspaper nd started browsing it. "Cum, drop me in de college", a voice disturbed me, it was my sister who was getting ready for her college. "Wat, me dropping you in college??" I sounded quite harsh, "yes ofcourse! you dont hav any other work, rite??" her counter was acceptable nd I was unanswerable. Silently put-on a shirt nd took her to de college in my bike. The college road was flocked with colourful girls with salwar, jeans, skirts, shirts, sleeveless nd to be honest I hardly found any bad looking female in those gangs. Actually, not a bad idea of dropping her to college daily. I wondered why werent girls dis pretty in my coll, atleast I wuld hav been regular to college. Thinking of my curse, I almost hit a car infront of me. "are u alrite?" asked my sister from behind, "yea absolutely!!!" I said, even though I was not. I dropped her nd returned home, halfheartedly.

Came back home nd switched on my PC to check my mail, nd asusual found it empty. Browsed for a couple of hrs. "have your lunch" mom called, sat for a mid day meal at home, just thought when was de last time I had my mid day meal on a week day at home, anyway my database failed to retrieve any match for my query. Once again, was back with my PC, nd whiled away the entire day with nothin to do constructive. Days passes, nd suddenly wen I luked back it was end of june nd 1 month gone at home. Enjoyed de initial days, but as days passed by de joblessness accumulated hell a lot of pain in me.

Watching movies turned from fantasy to compulsion for me during these days. I had to watch all gud for nothin movies from de internet nd few amazingly stupendous movies. Few of them in the positive list are The dark knight, donnie brasco, babel, the happening, dejavu, jaane tu ya jaanena, dasavatharam, eastern promises nd good fellas. I never thought in my life dat books wuld turn me towards them, again started them with mere compulsion but soon was obsessed by them. It was my tenth standard, wen I last read a book. De fantasy world books which I chose those young days never fascinated me, nd from there-on I was against books. May be dis time the books dat I picked up were too gud nd carried me away. Sidney Sheldon was one author whom I had been hearing from childhood, so selected his books. His narrations in Tell me your dreams, are you afraid of the dark, if tomorrow comes and memories of midnight were agile nd totally ingenious, inspite of being quite lengthy. Reading those books made me loss sleep nd adding to my books list were the five point someone nd 3 mistakes of my life by Chetan Bhagat. I had to close down novels of Robert deLudlum nd Poul Anderson half way through, they tend to increase my boredom to de greatest extend.

All of a sudden after college days, 24 hrs seems to be too long for me. I had to do all sorts of things to burn my time untill I got an official call from my company. Was very eagerly waiting for the call till mid-july but lost all hopes of getting it any sooner. Couple of trips to bangalore might hav eaten a weeks time, but dat too didnt help me much. Chennai has always been my place of joy from my mid-teenage yrs, but these days I didnt find much places to roam or any company to roam with. Had very few friends in chn, who wuld call up to roam to de usual hang outs, enjoyed their company. Going for films in solitude had becum an habit. Although I didnt enjoy roaming about lonely in de past, dat was not a pain for me anymore. Considering my lack of Vitamin M ;) I had to stay home for de most of my time. Thanks for de telecast of the Olympic games nd cricket matches which favoured me for few days.

Days passed very slowly, pushed it hard nd it was mid-August. After a long time I had been at home for all auspicious days, mom was quite happy. To be candid enough dis was de most longest vacation for me in my life. Actually "most longest" wuld be a normal superlative description for dis vacation of mine. People around me always said de time between end of coll nd joining a company needs to be enjoyed to de core, yet 3 months was too big a time span. I know I wont get any more of such hols, but dat was not a reasonable answer to enjoy it.

Finally my prayers were answered, de day arrived nd I was quite happy nd cheered to receive a call letter from my company on de 1st of september nd I had to join de firm by mid-sep. Now my prayers start for gaining a base branch of my wish. hehe :D :D Prayers of human never end nd I am obviously not an exception.

Thats me...

I wanna say...


Once a while when I sit by a side,
makes me pod if I worth de birth
failure is de wave dat came my way
plea is what a lame man say
all I wanna say is can can can

Pain is wat strikes very hard,
can I ever get away from dat
mind is de reason for all dat goes
cant always expect the heart to accept

Agony may be coz of break-up, but
success always require few martyr
even if dat doesn't lead to heights,
der is no reason for de life

Can I ever get to de peak of glory,
those dreams makes me go sleepless
nd pills don help my insomnia
just keep telling, I wil get der

Barriers infront confront de seas,
to reach de peak is lots of arduous
but shuld get der, atleast before
de earth loses dis useless
and in the end
all I wanna say is can can can...

by Pradeep KC

Teach India...

Teach India...
Each one Teach one...

These r the few slogans which we r coming across very regularly these days. India has been trying to educate its citizens nd this try has been for years. How far has dis goal been successful???

The abysmal fact is, even today India's literacy rate is below 75%. Kerala is topping the list in the literacy rate nd de obvious Bihar has de lowest rate.


Today, as most of you might have noticed, English is becoming increasingly popular. Ever noticed that little kid who comes to you at the traffic signal? Doesn’t he know a few words of English? So would you call him literate or illiterate? The National Literacy Mission defines literacy as ‘acquiring the skills of reading, writing and arithmetic and the ability to apply them to one’s day-to-day life’. That child may not have gone to a school, he may not even know that he was talking in English! Most of them today don’t know ‘Hindi’ numbers, but on the other hand English numbers are on their finger tips. It is the same with directions and simple words like ‘yes’, ‘no’ etc. How many times have you sat in a rickshaw and then suddenly realized that the driver knows English? Or don’t you absent mindedly give him directions in English? Or what about when you just know the address of somebody’s place, and your driver helps you point out the house? Ever thought about how he reads those house numbers? I wonder how many people have realized that the digits on a cell phone are in English and not in Hindi or any other regional language. But it is a common misconception that just because a person knows English, people think he’s educated! Most of them know English only because that is what they have grown up hearing. On the other hand, many people also think that just because a person doesn’t know English, he is uneducated. This is also not true. Many people in India are educated in their regional language and not in either Hindi or English.


Today, the government is trying to increase the literacy rate with the help of a whole lot of new programs. The ‘Sarva Siksha Abhiyan’ was started in 2001, and it aimed at ensuring that all kids between the ages of 6-14 years attended school and completed 8 years of education by 2010. This wasn’t the first program to be launched but earlier programs weren’t as successful. One of the most popular schemes adopted to attract children to schools is the ‘Mid-Day Meals Programme’ launched in 1995. But it is a squalid situation that children considered it only as the place for a meal nd not as a place for education. There are various private organizations which have also taken responsibilities in educating the children. Very recently an organization Agaram foundation was founded by actor Surya. The agaram foundation was inaugurated with much fanfare with Vijay nd Madhavan as its non-malicious ambassadors. The slogan of agaram "Saadhikka Va Thozha" seems to have reached de rural areas to a wide extend nd hopefully dis shuld yield success as a proof dat de cine media is quite powerful.

Private companies too are lending a helping hand to this noble cause, Like the ‘Teach India’ program launched by The Times of India, or the NGO ‘Literacy India’ which helps underprivileged children with their dreams and aspirations of good quality higher education or the National Literacy Mission which pays special attention to women’s education. Another foundation that helps educate the underprivileged is The Smile Foundation. Mission Education is a national level program started by the foundation which focuses on basic education for underprivileged children and youth. They are working with ‘partner organizations’ in various states across India.

One of the major problems we face today is lack of infrastructure. It is not easy to create schools for our large and ever growing population. Today ‘good’ schools mean expensive schools, mostly private which most lower middle class people cannot afford. That is the fact—every year education gets more and more expensive. It is a vicious cycle—the more the population, the more the unemployment, and the more the unemployment, the more illiteracy, and the more the illiteracy, the more the population will keep growing! We need to somehow break this cycle somewhere. And like they say, nothing is impossible! If each one of us contribute in our own way, may be we can make a difference...

The controversial - Facebook

Possibility of crime behind every success...

Facebook is one of the few very successful social networking, business sites in the internet. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO-facebook is just 23 yrs of age is regarded the world's youngest self-made billionaire by forbes 2008 edition with a net worth of around 1.5 billion USD. Mr. Zuckerberg was a student at the Harvard University, when he launched facebook on the internet from his dorm room. It was created for de contacts of the students at Harvard nd was marketed for the neighbouring universities. Today facebook has over 37 million users world wide competing the famous orkut. Right from its launch, facebook has always been under speculation for few indisciplinary acts.

Controversies against Facebook

Three of Zuckerberg's classmates(der was an Indian among the 3 classmates) filed a case against Zuckerberg stating that he stole their source code ,design nd business idea when he was hired to do the code completion for their site, ConnectU. Zuckerberg however denied dis nd strongly improvised dat facebook was personally coded by him without any partners, nd he did not infringe any copyrighted ideas. Adding to dis case was Zuckerberg's other Harvard mate Aaron J Greenspan's(1 yr senior to Zuckerberg in univ) statement dat, it was his idea of the houseSYSTEM, that was featured in facebook. houseSYSTEM(yet another social networkin site) was on floor in the Harvard university even before de start of facebook. Zuckerberg had frequently plotted ideas from Mr.Greenspan abt his houseSYSTEM, which was quite evident from the email conversation dat Mr.Greenspan put forward to the Newyork Times. This shuld make us remember de more famous scandal in de silicon valley when Bill Gates nd his friend Paul Allen copied a version of the BASIC programming language from two professors to jump-start a company which eventually turned out to be the most powerful firm in the software industry. I guess, may b this is a "Harvard Tradition" to succeed.(above: Mark Zuckerberg, below: Aaron J Greenspan)

Now Greenspan has closed down his houseSYSTEM site and has started CommonRoom, an yet another social networking, business site. Although CommonRoom has just 1500 users compared to de massive 37 million users for facebook, Greenspan has not given up his idea of social networking. He is about to start his next company Qubescape with a new partner. Greenspan wrote an autobiography(unpublished) which is supposed to explain his painful times at Harvard in creating houseSYSTEM nd even abt his unfaithful fellowman Zuckerberg. It is obviously bizzare for a guy to write an autobiography at his early 20s, but it shows the agony nd pain dat he would hav experienced. Greenspan often quotes dat he had learnt a lot in his life nd has no love for thoughts of becuming a serial enterpreneur in the silicon valley. Mr Greenspan is said to be a strong believer of the phrase "Wait for long enough nd the truth wil cume out".

Watever may b de case, Mark has earned a ransom amt of 1.5 billion USD nd had earlier turned down the famous yahoo bidding of 900 million USD.

Dasavatharam...

Dasavatharam hits silver screen...

Finally, after being in production for nearly 2 yrs Dasavatharam hit the silver screen on 13th June. Waiting for nearly 4 hrs, I was able to grab a ticket for de evening show at Satyam cinemas. I knew the film will surely be worth my wait. Splendid, fantabulous, mindblowing, effulgent, exquisite will be few words dat I would describe any Kamal Hassan's film, may it be de blockbuster Vittaiyadu vilaiyadu or the box office flop Mumbai Express so Dasavatharam is no exceptional. Moreover the cast includes my very favorite actress, the uncrowned beauty queen of kollywood-ASIN. So, wat else would I expect from a movie. But I am sure, this is a film dat will be successful at both the box office nd among the fans.


The film begins with the present day situation with Kamal thanking the crowd gathering nd quickly moves to the 12th century. One who misses the first few mins of the movie wont b able to understand the presence of the 12th century situations in the movie. It describes the clashes between the saivism nd vaishnavism. nd how a vaishnava priest, Nambi was thrown in sea along with the idol of Lord Vishnu, for uttering Om Namo Narayanaya when he was asked to chant Om Nama Sivaya.Then the film is again cut to the de present time where Kamal(Govind) is a Phd who is involved in researching the components of biological warfare which has the potent of destroying the whole human race. When Govind instinct's about the wrong don by his higher officials with that virus component for the sake to ramsum amount of money, Govind decides to save the human race. The chase for the viral vial begins in the US of A nd ends in chennai. The movie correlates the sep 11 twin tower blast nd the dec 26th tsunami incidents. How Govind tries to destroy the vial amidst a number of chaos situations is pictured in not less than 3 hrs. The film requires a mind of ingenuity to understand it to de fullest, Dasavatharam reaching the B nd C class is tedious nd it is quite understandable.

Among the 10 roles exhibited by Kamal only a few were really commendable. Chris Fletcher, the ex-CIA agent nd the bad man of Dasavatharam was stylish in his stunt sequence. Balaram Naidu's dialog delivery provides timing comedy nd it very obviously reminds you of the yesteryear comic actor balliah(1960s kadhalika neramillai fame) nd the role done by SPB in guna(mixed telugu slang). Anyone is sure to laugh out coz of his fun filled acting nd dialog delivery. Nambi, the 12th century vaishnava priest's role was totally justified by Kamal. Poovaraghan, the dalit hero's nelai slang is sure to reach stupendous heights and his death in the end makes one's heart melt. The 95 yrs old krishnaveni paatti's role shuld not miss the consideration aswell. The role of the singing singh avathar was too gud nd de cameo by jayapradha was supportive. The roles of George Bush, the tall muslim(Kalifulla Khan), Japanese kung fu figher may gather appreciations for the opus work involved in makeup.

Asin was on par with Kamal Hassan in acting. This most gud looking female plays the role of a agraharam girl nd was along with kamal for the whole lot of chase in the movie. The other artist like Nagesh, M S Basker, Jayapradha have don their roles considerably. Mallika sherawat has not performed her part for wat she was included in the script, she has actually disappointed her huge fan follow. Music was been meticulously handled by Himesh Reshmiya nd the picturization of the same has been justified. The song "ulaganayagane" features the behind screen work of all the makeup done by Kamal Hassan, the song even features the director K.S.Ravi Kumar. Ravi Varman's cinematography is creditable nd the way in which the scenes featuring more than 1 Kamal has been picturized receives appreciation. Each nd every scene was not just filmed but it was constructed with a high technical care. The graphics seems quite artificial only durin de 12th century part.

"Oscar unaku thooram illai" line nd the adage "Ulaga nayagan" seem to be matchable for this masterly actor, Mr. Hassan. The atheist Kamal affirms the existence of God wen he tells "kadavul ille nu na sollale, iruntha nalla irukkum nu solren". The tsunami scene seems to be inevitable in the film nd the actual Dec 26th tsunami incident was partly justified in the name of God's minor destruction to avoid a very huge loss. In short, Dasavatharam is a colossal performance by Dr Kamal Hassan with a huge technical opulence. It is worth a watch more than once especially if u r a Kamal fan.

(Pictures courtesy: Behindwoods.com)

RIAs Development...

Rich Internet Applications...

Hah, yea this is my first technical post in this blog. Donno wat made me think fascinating towards RIAs. RIAs are generally internet applications which are provided with features and functionalities of de very traditional desktop applications. The processing information is passed on to de UI but the actual bulk data is present in the application server. As RIAs is based on web applications, installation process is obviously very less or not required. Users can consistently use it irrespective of any operating system. Richness in application can be incurred when developing application in which calculation needs to be performed in the client side nd need not be sent back to the server. All these advantages might sound very simple during the early stages but these are quite distinguishable pros' of RIAs(eg. anyone involved with the mortgage calculations can typically guess the advantage of such a client-server/fat client approaches, I was involved with it for an half a dozen of months). Still being in the very early stages of learning RIA fundas, these were de very few advantages dat I was able to cognize abt RIAs.

Adobe(kindly pronounce it "a-DOE-bee", ho s**t! I had been pronouncing it "a-dob" till very recently. I had to bend my head down with shy when I came to know de right pronunciation. Anyway, I am just in de learning phase(an uncontrollable giggle within myself)) came up with its innovative product Flex which is dedicated for the development of RIAs. It comes up with a fantastic IDE(obviously, u need to pay for Flex Builder 3 or avail the 60 days of trial version) or the flex framework can be utilized in eclipse. Flex 3 SDK is released under the Mozilla open source public license. Flex uses MXML, an XML based language for building applications in it. Flex builder provides with the readily built swf files as compiled form for ur app. Scripting languages can be used alongside with MXML for the interaction with DB. It can very easily interact with XML based issues. Technologies that are commonly compared with flex are openLaszlo, AJAX, etc...

This is a sample screen developed with flex, PHP to interact with the mysql DB nd apache supports for the sake of a web server. As understandable, this screen implements very few features of flex. This is just for the sake of how flex interacts with the PHP script. It uses a very simple PHP script to make connection with the DB, fetching the records from the DB and building XML nodes which contains the fetched records. The script url is passed to the MXML code nd the nodes are parsed and displayed accordingly, as simple as dat. (Below is a sample code snippet irrelevant to de app in de pic )

Dedicated learning of flex will require a fair knowledge of actionscript as a prerequisite. The look nd feel provided by flex for RIAs is totally amazing. There are various sites designed with flex these days like Sony Ericsson, Yahoo!, Satyam Cinemas, etc...

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

End of College days - III

The Bike...

My third yr started of normally, it was during de start of the 5th sem dat I got my bike from home(had to try too hard to convince my dad, thanx for the support from mom :))... Started spending the days roaming in it. It made me quite easy to bunk the noon hr classes and get to movies at 2 PM quite peacefully. My frequency of night shows also increased quite drastically, increased visiting distant restaurants.
Days passed quite soon, de count of bikes in class increased nd we guys planned for a trip to munnar. We planned for the trip with 5 bikes(10 guys totally)... I could still remember the trip was planned for a weekend startin from 25-08-2005(:) purely coincidental, i say).. The rain started to pour as we set for the go. We had planned the trip to munnar via pollachi and udumalpet. The rain was pouring down quite heavily but it hardly intervened our enthusiasm. To be honest, it was the first time my bike's reading had touched 100 km/hr. Ho yea! we were setting the roads on fire during a rainy evening.. Reached udumalpet dat nite nd decided to stay at a friend's place as planned earlier. Woke up early (a very short nap, i shuld say) and started heading towards munnar. Amazingly beautiful nd a fantastic drive to munnar. We decided to stay in a so-called resort. Started to explore the naturally inherited beauty of munnar. It was heavy rainy period during dat time, basically supposed to be rainy almost throughout the calender. Went to few places like the rajamala, devikulam etc(don remember the places xactly). One place that was supposed to be more than awesome was the top station. Actually we failed to reach the place, we had to stop a few kilometers before the top station coz of mist, fog nd heavy rain. But still de journey til dat was too gud. Then we returned to the resort in de evening and had dinner in sum local hotel. That night was quite pain wreathed with few bikes giving trouble. Had to keep everythin in check before proceeding the next morning. Had a dreadful sleep among few leeches in the bed.

The next morning was still rainy, we just decided to visit a couple of places before the journey downhill. The journey downhill was equally joyful. The travel through the ghat roads was highly spectacular. We returned to hostel after a really great trip.
The 5th sem was quite very usual, I continued bunking classes with or without someone for company. I had my PC nd my sleep as a very reliable company for me those days. As a trend of software engineering dept in my coll, I too had a couple of gud friends in the chemical nd mechanical dept. Had spent sum valuable time with them. Got a better company in their form whenever I bunked my noon classes. We used to speak about all crap issues, mostly pulling each other's dept.

The third yr was supposed to be one peaceful yr without much speculation except the aim to get an internship. There were all big deals of ideas across the class to fetch an internship for each one. As time passed, sum how I managed to grab an Internship in my home town. So, my 7th sem was supposed to be spent at home. That sem internship was one big hell(actually, I hav to use a worst adjective than dis to describe it) where I ended up learning nothing at all.

End of College days - II

The split...

The second yr started of with lots of expectations and de wait for juniors had cum to an end as they all flocked de college. Joined hands with few mechanos in de coll and found some gud plans to treat de juniors. Started off few crap sessions with de juniors, may b they wuld hav to re-quote the same experience of mine with my seniors(no big diff was shown from our side as-well).. But, I hav to mention de fact dat der was one big diff dat v experienced with our juniors. We were convicted by de college officials for ragging de juniors off campus. It all happened wen v took de juniors for an evening walk to de near-by deserted road, whr we were caught by a patrol police nd in turn informed to de college officials. We were then asked to attend an enquiry on de following saturday which included the princi, our dept HOD nd the AO. It was 9 of we guys who were made to wait for nearly 4 hours before attending the enquiry. Advices were flowing from all parts of the students community abt what nd how to talk during de hearing. Few of de final yrs were also present der told their experiences wen they were found guilty, ragging. They also frightened us abt their suspension from coll for 10 days for their act of ragging. On hearing dis, couple of them from my set started to weep. Though I too had de same feel, didnt show off dat much but started teasing them for sumtime. Finally de hearing began, we were asked some so-called intelligent ques but somehow we manged to be acquitted(thanx to few of my jrs for their co-operation)(In pic: I am quite kempt, unlike these days ;) )

When all des were happening, I had to experience de all time big split within friends of de class. I was not able to find out the exact reason for the split. Had to digest the fact dat few were due to my loose talks nd others however without my own knowledge. Splits were from various corners of de class. I found pain even in seeing few of their faces. I tried creating situations for solving de prob or atleast to ease things a bit, but my attempts were in vain. I had to say, I lost few of them completely. After quite sometime, things had calmed down nd I was in a position to regain a couple of them :) :)).... The 3rd semester terminated with few ups nd downs, mostly everythin being on de negative line for me. Had to crack my balls for clearing dat semester. Till date I donno how I cleared my 3rd semester. (In Pic,left to right: Raja(hehe), Gopi, Venkatesh, Bharath, Sriram.. Undoubtedly, I had to miss dis trip intentionally ;))

4th started started off quite peacefully. Later on again problems seem to raise from all corners of the class. I tell u, my second yr was THE worst during my coll days. All sorts of crap happening all over. It was durin dis yr, I had my first genuine booze, guys called it vodka(MGM vodka, some local brand)... I had sat down with one of my seniors(my gud friend) nd de rest were my juniors along with a couple from my set. We sat, forming an irregular circle... "phuk" was de sound nd der opened de vodka bottle(one of my jrs opened it), HO my god!!! it was an art opening de vodka bottle dat way, I still don do it correctly. I didnt know de correct way to mix it with de soft drink. Few der helped me around. I found it quite diff to cope up with 3 rounds after a heavy dinner. So, went to bed nd had a fabulous sleep(In pic:The Class).


I started bunking my classes regularly starting from dis semester. Though I didnt hav better things to do in de hostel, just bunked nd had few gud sessions of post-lunch nap or even gud chattin sessions in hostel. Attendance was lagging quite a bit, so was losing few dozens of marks(who cares!!!).. Lab hours were equally bad, so I spent most of them in my room watchin repeated movies ;)).. Was not a very tough semester to clear, may b those days it had becum a practice for me to clear papers in border. Finally cleared de 4th sem nd now I am into de 3rd yr. Dis yr was supposed to be tough as I had to find an internship at de end of the yr.....................