Travel to Amsterdam

I reached Amsterdam on 12th Oct 2009, a monday morning after a good long journey from Bangalore via Frankfurt all the way through to Lufthansa Airlines. Surprisingly this time the journey was very good and the food served was wonderful and tasty. This was in direct contrast to an average journey we had last year when I traveled with my Archithaa and Priya from Bangalore to London via Frankfurt.

The weather was very good at Amsterdam. It was a bright and sunny day as I came out of the airport and obviously started pricking my hands to shoot a picture and I did do that:) Then I started my journey using an unique service called "Connexion Airport Transfer". I can Equate this in a crude way to our "shared car"! The cab picked up passengers coming out of the airport and dropping them in front of their respective hotel and all this at a minimal charge of 15 Euros only. A wonderful service indeed.

Then I reached the hotel where I had already booked a room. To my luck I was provided with the service apartment itself and hence I found my way to the apartment thanks to a taxi which was none other than our dear Mercedes. Yes this is another surprise that would greet any Indian who travels into this part of the world for the first time. Most of the taxis are expensive cars like Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen, etc.

Thus I started my life 1 month at Amsterdam. I will keep writing more in separate posts ... So keep reading ...

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Abhiyum Naanum -- a movie review

This is an yet another "out of the box" tamil movie released in 2009 keeping in line with the trend of such interesting movies. This time let me put down my thoughts about the movie after providing some basic details of the movie :

Director - Raadha Mohan ; Producer - PrakashRaj
Main cast : Prakash Raj (Father), Aishwarya (Mother), Trisha (Daughter) & Gansh Venkatram a.k.a Joginder Singh (Trisha's lover)

Prakash Raj dons the role of the father of Trisha who has abundance of love and affection over his daughter, Trisha. He almost gets tensed or excited with each and every event in day to day life as his lovely daughter grows up. In fact he exhibits lack of practicality on certain occasions due to his extreme amount of love and affection for his daughter. One such incident is when the daughter is around 6 years old, she starts crying in the kitchen and just tells Prakash that hot water has poured down. Without realizing that the hot water has actually poured down his wife's hand he slaps her and takes the kid out of the room...... That is his way of expressing his affection for the sweet little kid.

The next interesting sequence in the movie is Prakash's preparation for the school interview for his daughter's admission. Though a part of this sequence has been slightly exaggerated (probably to add cinematism), one can feel the pressure that parnets have to undergo these days to get their kids admitted into the best schools.

"Dad, I know what I am doing ......"

As Trisha grows up and enters high school, she asks her father to get her a cycle so that she commute to school on her own happily. But Prakash tries to avoid that because of his fear that she might get hurt while riding a bicycle. Eventually he gifts her a cycle but follows her up on the road to the school. Trisha stops her vechicle at a point and tells her dad "...Dad, I know what I am doing....". Prakash gets shocked at this dialogue. He starts understanding that his daughter has grown up and he has to give in to her interests, excitement, etc etc.

In fact Trisha repeats this dialogue at many more instances across the movie. Guess all parents of this generation will have to be mentally prepared to hear this from their children more often !!!!

Other snippets from the movie:

1. Young Trisha bringing home a beggar due to her sense of charity for the person and eventually making him a member of the family by convincing her dad !!!. This character plays a very important throughout the movie.

2. Jogi -- Trisha's lover -- an economist by profession who is basically an orphan, but adopts "family members" from across the society who had in turn lost their dear ones in some incident in the past. Jogi's character has been carved out very well by the director and the newcomer Ganesh has portrayed the role excellently.

3. "Thalaivasal" Vijay -- Prakash's friend who doesnt have a child but is inspired by Jogi towards the end of the movie and adopts a kid thereby giving lease of life to yet another orphan.

4. Prithivraj -- A young father to whom Prakash narrates the whole story.

On the whole the movie is worth watching for all young fathers. This movie also has loads of social messages, good thoughts, etc etc. Of course, there are instances when the viewer does get a feeling that its an overdose of good thoughts. But then the mix of comical sequences make the heart lighter.

My verdict: A movie worth watching and a good collection for the personal DVD library.

Pasanga -- a movie review

I watched this tamil movie yesterday along with my wife. This movie should be listed amongst the best tamil movies in recent times that do not fall into the category of "commercial movies". Yes, this movie is not for the average movie-goer who expects regular commercial elements like song sequences, fighting sequences, etc. The story line is a simple one talking about the tale of 2 boys going to a Govt School in a small village in Tamilnadu, India.

The movie starts with the "hero" of the story, joining the school. The boy introduces himself in the classroom as "Anbukkarasu IAS" stating that his dream is to become an IAS officer. Kudos to the director for this innovation which is like hitting a SIXER of the first ball of a cricket match. The "villian" of the story is an arrogant boy who is incidentally the son of the class teacher. The movies goes with sequences wherein the hero and villian fight with each other and vowing to outwit each other.

At a stage the fight between the kids develops into an altercation between their fathers which irks up the economically backward father of the hero who determines to come up in life to satisfy his son's aspirations. At a stage the hero's parents almost decide to separate from the marital bonding when the villian's father gets into act providing some vital advise to the hero's father which twists the story.

Things fall in place and both families decide to become relatives with the hero's uncle falling in love with the elder sister of the villian. But the rivalry between the 2 boys still exist and the climax to the story comes in the form of an accident to the hero which gets the villian to join the list of all his wellwishers and the movie ends in peace.

Some of the messages that I feel as takeaways from the movie are :

1. Parents shouldnt necessarily impose their aspirations and dreams onto their children which could have adverse results in some cases
2. Parents as well as teachers should know when and how to encourage their kids/students which would definitely go a long way in bringing them up in life.
3. Parents should show exhibit extreme levels of maturity in sorting out altercations between kids therby ensuring that it doesnt explode into an altercation between the elders.

Nevertheless worth a movie to watch. I am sure that this movie would stay in my memory for a long time to come.................

Low voting percentages in Urban areas

With the general elections in India crossing the half way mark and with 2 more phases to go, it has been yet another election when the voting percentages across the urban areas in the country going down constantly. The percentage of voting in major cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi and Hyderabad has gone down considerably in 2009 when compared to the figures in 2004. It is very sad to learn that despite Mumbai being the business capital of the country, the voting percentage to somewhere around 45%.

Is this a result of the educated, affluent class of people losing faith in the democratic process itself ? Or is this because the salaried class feels that there has been no change in their day to day problems irrespective of their elected representatives ? Whatever might be the reason for this reduction in voting percentages, the reality is that the elected representatives would be crowned as MPs on the basis of a simple arthimetical calculation, but they are not necessarily the true representative....

There is a danger of the voting percentages go down even further in the years to come. I believe the next Govt should take some steps to identify the reasons for people not coming out to vote and take measures to improve the same.

PS - I did cast my vote along with my spouse.

2 thrilling matches on 01-May-2009

a. Mumbai Vs Kolkata at East London

This match was billed as the clash of the legends of Indian Cricket, Sachin Vs Sourav. Mumbai batted first to put up a fighting total of 148 runs thanks to the brilliance of one of the costliest recruits in IPL, JP Duminy who scored an unbeaten 52 runs and a quick-fire 34 runs from the master blaster himself.

Kolkata started their run chase miserably losing "DADA" Ganguly for a first ball duck wherein he was clean bowled by Zaheer Khan. Soon after Zaheer removed Gayle in the same fashion. Hodge later consolidated the run chase and got them so near but yet they were not able to overhaul the Mumbai score. It was also the miserly bowling by the talented Malinga which put an end to Kolkata's hopes resulting in their 5th consecutive loss. Mumbai won the match by 9 runs in the end.

b. Bangalore vs Punjab at Durban

Bangalore had a new captain in "Jumbo" Kumble after KP left for England for the Windies tour. Batting first they struggled to put up a total of 145 runs. The new recruit for Punjab, Abdulla was on song yet again taking 4 wkts and reaching the top of the bowlers table to fetch the coveted PINK cap. This was after Yuvraj getting a hat-trick at his favourite ground (the same ground where he hit Stuart Broad for 6 sixes in the 2007 T20 world cup).

Yuvraj came in as an opener for Punjab and continued the good form to score 50 runs in just 34 balls before falling to Kumble. Bangalore soon picked some more wkts to increase the pressure on the Punjab team. Sangakkara and Jayawardene joined together to take them towards the victory. As the required run rate starting climbing up, Jaya and Sanga, both of them got out in quick succession leaving 17 runs to get in the last 2 overs. Kumble displayed all his experience in bowling a tight 19th over giving away just 4 runs. The young Praveen Kumar proved his mettle by picking up 2 wkts as well as bowling a tight line thereby denying a victory for Punjab.

This victory helped Bangalore to stay alive in the tournament and moved up to the 5th spot in the points table.

Retirement age in politics ???

I had always wondered as to why there is no retirement age in politics. If we take a simple mathematical average of the members of parliament, I am sure that the average age would be well past 60. The situation wont be different across the state assemblies. The most worrying factor is that more than 50% of the Chief Ministers are also well above 65 years. Its not only the old age that is a cause of concern. But the amount of time a CM/MP/MLA is able to spend for the people who had elected them is definitely much lesser as the age takes the toll on their health and many of the elected representatives spend a substantial amount of time in hospitals and taking rest at home thereby depriving the citizens of quality time.

In fact one of the oldest CMs of the country who has been in politics for more than 60 years is unable walk and is moving around in a wheel chair apart from spending most of his time in hospital. Though I completely respect the fact such a senior person's experience is very much needed for the country's progress, I would appreciate if the person becomes a consultant to run the Government rather than run the Govt himself. I hope the day when young people run the country is not far away !!!!

Voting day in Bangalore

Today, being the 23rd of April 2009, its the day of voting in the city of Bangalore (also called as Bengaluru). I was one amongst the first few voters to cast my vote at the nearby polling station which is part of the Bommanahalli assembly constituency. I cast my vote to elect the next representative for the Bangalore South parliamentary constituency. Its an exciting feeling as this is the first time that I have cast my vote in Bangalore. In the past I had cast my vote in Chennai almost every election ever since I became an eligible voter of this country.

I sincerely hope and wish that more number of people cast their votes and hence ensure that the elected representative is indeed a true representative who has been preferred by a vast majority of the voters of the respective constituency.

IPL Season 2

After all the confusions and arguments surrounding the conduct of IPL Season 2 in India, the tournament got off to a grand start on the 18th of April 2009 in Captetown, South Africa. The credit for turning things around in a matter of 3 weeks goes to the IPL Commissioner, Lalit Modi who has yet again proved that he is not only a smart businessman, but also an equally shrewd administrator and organizer. With the Mumbai team getting off to a rousing start in the first match thanks to yet another masterly innings from the batting maestro, Sachin Tendulkar the IPL season 2 promises to offer exciting entertainment for the next 45 days to all cricketing fans around the globe.

Hats off to Chiru

It was a real brave and honest gesture by the superstar actor-turned politician of AP, Chiranjeevi to have declared assets worth Rs. 88 crores while filing his nomination papers for the assembly elections in AP. While its mandatory for all candidates to declare the complete details of all movable/immovable assets they hold as well the liquid cash on hand, shared, bonds, etc while filing the nomination for assembly/parliamentary elections, most of the candidates declare fictious figures....The general conception is that the EC doesnt have the power as well as the machinery to verify the details even for the elected candidates. In such a scenario, Chiru has lead by example. Kudos to him for this move. Though the results would only tell if he and his party would be able to get to power in AP, nevertheless he has done an act by which the voters can feel that he would make a difference if voted to power. All the very best to Chiru and his party.

Indian Elections 2009

Its time for the greatest festival of the largest democracy in the world. Yes, its the time for the elections to the country's democratic body, the Lok Sabha. Its the summer heat that adds up to the soaring political temperatures in the country. This time the elections seemto be fought more on personality clashes with the BJP's PM candidate, Mr. L.K.Advani, taking the present PM and the UPA candidate, Dr.Manmohan Singh heads on.

There have been already breakages of past alliances and creation of new alliances. Shifting of loyalties of political parties across the length and breadth of the country depending on various factors. So the festival is truly well and on...

The elections which are going to be held across 5 phases concludes on 13th May 2009 and a week after that the results would be out when the next "tournament" of government formation would begin.

Let me stop here for now and would continue to reflect my thoughts of course in the most apolitical manner at regular intervals.

A different movie indeed.....

I watched this movie called, "Santosh Subramaniam" last week. A very interesting and different movide indeed. The story is about a wealthy father, who, in the pursuit of providing the best to his son, fails to understand whether his son really needs those things or not. The father decides almost everything what his should do right from his dresses to eduction, food, etc etc. The movie kicks up speed when the father decides the bride as well for his son whilst the son wants to select his dream girl. The story takes interesting twists and turns towards the climax when the son makes the father understand the mistake he has committed. And its a happy ending with the son joining hands with his dream girl whom he chooses on his own.

The hero of the story has been played by 'Jeyam' Ravi and the father's role by 'Chellam' Prakashraj. I feel this is one very good movie directed by Raja who is also the elder brother of Ravi. Ravi's performance is just exemplary. He has improved a lot as an actor and has portrayed his potential to a great extent. There is nothing to say specially about Prakashraj who has established himself as the best multi-talented actor of the Tamil film industry in the recent years and this is yet another master-piece acted by him.

I was able to relate some scenes in the movie to my own personal life as I became nostalgic about the past...........All in all, a good movie to watch.