Looking into the horizon

Director Ram prefaces Taramani as a knot of unconnected events and so may be meaningless. (மொட்டைத் தலைக்கும் முழங்காலுக்கும் முடிச்சு). The film gets into extremes of almost everything. It portrays the relationship of a street dweller with an upper middle class single mother. It tries to portrays the lights of feminism amidst societal norms. Money gets drawn parallel to honesty. Opportunism is brought in against sincerity. Globalisation versus anti-globalization and self sufficiency. It is a kind of overkill and problem gets widenend just because everything is a conflict. Everything gets pardoned and forgiven and you are at peace. A popular phrase in literary appreciation is "Let the story travel by itself. Let the characters speak!". The problem with Ram's films is; he will be seen throughout the film. It's not just traces, sometimes he gets over the top. In Taramani, he himself acknowledges that and passes on comments and directs the audience (he compares this

There is a theological belief that says Jesus was not of flesh. Gnosticism tries to substantiate that belief and says; since Jesus was not of flesh, he didn't die in the cross. It was indeed Simon of the cyrene who got crucified for Jesus. I am not an advocate of any of these beliefs but what is enthralling is all these stories gives you questions which shakes you. If you are questioned "If Gandhi's father was Gandhi? Or Is Godse's son a Godse?", then you are in the never ending tale of Good vs Bad or God vs Devil. This goes on from Generation to generation. From childhood, we might have heard a lot of stories on moral values and principles. One of the intriguing things in listening all those stories is; how to attain the wisdom to decide between good vs bad. Some of the stories end with a verdict so you need not really bother about the process of deciding the evil. The ambulimama stories of Vikramadhithan-Vedaal never end with a verdict. They always question you

My list of favorite batsmen in that order are 1. Ricky Ponting 2. Dravid 3. Kevin Pietersen 4. Rohit Sharma 5. Gilchrist Disclaimer: Leave out Dravid from the crux of this entire article. He is my out of world cricket love. The Gilly pull Rohit Sharma, Stand and Deliver! One common trait that you can find in the rest of them is they lose the grip of the bat quite frequently when compared to other cricketers. You can list 'n' number of times the bats flying out of the hands of all these players. All of them are exceptionally powerful hitters. They stand tall and are terrific pullers. Their long on to deep mid wicket sixes are as gorgeous as the world beauties. Personally, I like Kevin Pietersen's Flamingo and Ricky Ponting's pull. Gilchrist's jabs are equally powerful and effective. Yesterday's I was watching Harmanpreet Kaur's class. If you can see a pattern in the list above, then you can easily say, Harmanpreet fitting into that cla

If I have to pick the best among the bunch of Indian actors today, I would pick Fahadh Faasil and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum (TD) is just another proof for me to say so. I have only one complaint against Fahadh... on taking away the beautiful, charming actress in Nazriya out of the film world. TD is a second film of director Dileesh Pothan and his second assembly with Fahadh. TD is way ahead of Maheshinte Prathikaram (MP), (theirs first) in substance, making and in the performance of the actors. Maheshinte prathikaram with all its difference in film making can still be written off as a masala flick with a great screenplay and making. MP has a real good hero, falling for a girl, good at work, happy with his average lifestyle, getting disturbed and retaliating as masalaic as it can get. TD plays with situations and thus has a very enchanting travel. The wall that separates the good and bad and how tall it gets built by situations, is dealt with finer details.

When I was born, the 1 paisa was already demonetized (rounded off\decoinized). My life started when 5 paisa was still legal. I have all of these coins in the pic. In addition, have few annas as well. Both of my grandfathers used to say "ettanna" (eight anna) and "naalanna" (four anna). Apparently, my first pocket money was nalanna given by my dad for a bubble gum (big fun with cricket scores wrapped over it) during my first standard. Machaan when pronounced in tamil means brother of wife (brother-in-law). This is the relationship version. There is this farming version as well; whereby people have support sticks mostly of bamboo grounded for the vines to spread easily. In short multi-layer farming. Dad was good at both the versions. We used to get more than 10 gourds daily during seasons (mostly we harvest during December and January). Neighbors were bored of gourds and so my task was to give some of the gourds to a shopkeeper in exchange of some money.