Obama in India

Yeah, I know, you are probably aware that Obama is here in india. Infact everyone knows that and he is here for what ??  May be – To visit the place where the 26/11 incident took place, or To sign a 6$ billion deal so that he could go back with 50,000 odd jobs , or To get the tension Off  between india and pakistan, or To Visit Taj Mahal. It Could be anything, i mean the reason which is not important to us, all that is important eventually is that he is here.

Well, I dont mind the unnecessary attention that is given to him , he is the president of United States so let him get the special attention. He gets to set out his food on a specially made Red carpet from his plan. He gets to occupy one whole floor in TAJ HOTEL . He gets whatever a King would get . But this is something i found totally unjustifiable  –

Coconuts removed in India ahead of Obama visit

In their effort to provide maximum security in the run-up to his visit on Friday, they have removed coconuts which may fall on his head from trees.

All coconuts around the city’s Gandhi museum have now been cut down, an official told the BBC.

Courtsey : BBC News

And yeah, I forgot to mention that  as funny too 😉 .  I don’t have anything  else to say. You have any comments ??

YERCAUD TRIP

All you need after a stressful week at office is some place where you can go and have some peace. A place where you  can just relax and forget your cubical where you sit for hours and hours staring at the god damn monitor. Yercaud is one such perfect destination.

Yercaud is Small Hill station in Tamil Nadu situated around 1500 meters above sea level  on the eastern ghats. We started from Chennai around 10:30 Pm and reached Salem, the nearest town to yercaud, at morning 5 .   It takes almost 1 hour 30 minutes and around 20 hairpin bends to reach Yercaud which is around 30  kms from salem.

Picture taken from bus on the way to yercaud

You know, when u go on a tour or to a small trip you need to plan it properly and my friends who claimed to have planned everything before starting from Chennai did not even bother book a hotel room to stay, not to mention they din’t even book a train ticket for me. :x:  Luckily we met an Auto driver who said he has contacts with Hotels where rooms are booked in his names so that he could bring the “well planned” tourists like us 😛 . The hotel looked good from outside but when i got in, it appeared something similar to the rooms they show in the B-grade movies 🙂 . We had no option so we took it and agreed to pay 1000 rupees which included an extra bed’s cost because we were 5 in total. We knew it was expensive and he was charging way above the normal rate but thats ok considering the fact that only other option left to us was to sleep at a bus stand or a railway station . Wait a minute , At Yerkaud even that’s not possible 😛 .

Yercaud is a place where still lot of importance is given to the nature. The place is not much commercialized like Ooty or Kodaikanal so its less crowded  There isn’t a good mode of transportation within the hill station . So if you plan to visit it’s better that you take your own vehicle . We , however , approached the same Auto driver who said he could show us all the places for about 900 Bucks .5 people in a single auto  was going to be really difficult. But again, we had no other  option.One of my friends sat in front along with the auto driver and remaining four of us squeezed ourselves into the back .

Yercaud hills taken near Killiyur falls

Our First Spot was Kiliyur falls . The best part  is that there is no proper road to the falls . After a particular point you need to trek down to some distance.  It takes around 20 minutes in a ruthless route of thorny bushes and steep terrain to reach the place. Excitement grew just  bigger and bigger as we were getting faint sound of water Gushing through some big Source, we knew we were near and a great sense of hope and relief engulfed us 🙂 . Am i getting too melodramatic ??:P Ignore karo yaar You had to look at all our faces when we reached that place 🙂   Everyone looked so fresh and excited just by seeing the  water rushing down the huge rocks.  You forget all the pain and you just wanna take a plunge into  natural wonder .

Killiyur Falls

Because the place is not easily accessible there is less crowd , infact when we reached , there were just a couple of people 🙂 .  The Water was too cold so we all hesitated at first but couldn’t  stay back long .I gave my Digi cam to the autodriver and ran into the water straight away.

Unlike other waterfalls, this one had had steps that could be climbed so soon we started climbing although we knew that  one wrong step could just get our head smashed 🙂 . I started and my friends followed soon, except one who thought Posing for the cameraman was less risky 😛 .

We Climbed right up there 🙂

We were there for around two hours and then our guide- Cum- Autodriver cum -cameraman signaled that it was getting late and dark as well. The Dark clouds were looming a big danger for us as we had to get back up to the place where our Mercedes Auto was parked. And like we expected it started drizzling and suddenly in a span of  5 minutes  everything around changed .It was getting little foggy, Everything suddenly appeared much more green 🙂 .  Clouds suddenly were so near to us . It was an amazing sight .  Everything , i mean everything was perfect.  Had there been a Beautiful Girl along with me instead of my Friends :x: it could have been a perfect place for a Romantic Song :P.

Yercaud hills While returning from Kiliyur falls

I think this post is getting a little longer than what i expected so i would stop here and would continue my trip details in next post 😛 .

Enthiran (ROBOT) – Movie Review

No Spoilers !!

I cant think of  any movie that was being as eagerly awaited as this one and why not, just look at the names of the People Behind the Movie – Rajnikanth , Director Shankar, Aishwarya Rai , A. R. Rahman , Yuen Woo Ping as the stunt coordinator , Stan Winston Studios (special effects) and not to mention the Production house  SUN Pictures which backed the whole project with a whopping 160 Crores (and for the worldwide publicity) . And when names like these come together its natural to have an expectation beyond imagination.

Its not everyday, that your friend calls you  for a movie like Enthiran saying that he has got tickets for  weekend night show, at possibly , the best theater in the city. You dont get luckier than this 🙂 . And It is even more unlikely that during a time like this when you are high on mood waiting for the spectacle to began you realize that you are sitting on the Very First Row of the theater  😛 . You just feel like standing on the seat and to Cry out loud.. “MAAPU !!! Vichitaaan da Aaapu” 😛 . I guess this was only thing i regretted for the next 3 hours.

The movie sure ,unlike the other movies in the past, has lived upto its expectations (i mean my expectations 😛 )  . Before seeing the movie i had got a little “not so” promising remarks about the first half of the movie but i believe it could not have got any better.  All Credits to Director Shankar for believing in his script and waiting for almost  a decade for making this Historical movie Which might well be the opening for Sci- Fi Movies in the indian Cinema.  The Sheer flamboyance of Shankar’s direction can be seen in movie everywhere right from the Scene one. The locations for the songs couldn’t have been better  especially the ” kathal Anukkal “ which has been shot GOD KNOWS WHERE (please enlighten me ). I have never seen Special effects of such Quality in indian cinema ( Mind you, i am a big hollywood fan so i wont compare it to hollywood standards ) although i feel , had the movie been under Hollywood Productions , the special effects could have been even better with even more budget 😀 . Stunt sequences were awesome ,the train one in particular ( leave alone the ROBO rajni running on the train 🙂 ) and I am really tired of actually saying that the music is good 🙂 . When A.R . Rahman is the Music Director, it has more or less become a default compliment associated with him 🙂 .

Rajnikanth politely declared in Enthiran why he is still acting at 60 . Although the movie is not exactly the Stereotype movies he normally selects , he has carried the whole movie and taken it to a different level altogether .  Sometimes it is really irritating to  find people mocking rajni and his so called exaggerated stunt scenes .  Yes,  he might have done something overboard but everyone in the industry too have done that at one point or the other, so why pick this man out. Better than mocking i think all those people should consider watching his old movies :X . Anyways lets come back  to the review, Rajni obviously stole the show through his ROBO character ” CHITTI ” . Honestly , there was nothing much in the movie when we talk about the performances. Almost 80 percent of the scenes has Ranji in it . I just felt as if there were just 3 characters in the whole movie (two of them being Rajni 😀 ).  Unbelievable but true.  There aren’t many Indian movies where you would actually be enjoying a villain’s character and i can assure  you that this one is one such kind .

Songs although wonderfully shot, sometimes appear to have been introduced just for the visual treat, like the “kilimanjaro” which seem to have no proper reason of being there.  Some action sequences in the climax too appear baseless but in indian cinema you are bound to watch those even though u dont like it 🙂  and yeah the funniest of all where Rajni talks to a mosquito ,it is actually not something that i expected from shankar’s movie 😛 .

Inspite of those things that i mentioned above i wouild still rate the  movie 7 out of 10. Please do watch the movie just to witness -the flamboyance shankar has given to the indian cinema,   life that Rajni gave to the ROBO character called Chitti ,  Music that was equally complimented by the superb locations they were shot and may be, on a lighter note , even for the kisses Aishwarya Gives to Rajni (almost double her age) 🙂 .

My Friendly advice for those  who love to watch a movie just to find logic behind the scenes is just avoid the movie rather than lamenting later 🙂 and yeah, once again for all those Who dont like Rajni, you should start watching his earlier movies first 🙂 .

And I being a Rajnikant Fan would be surely watching it once again ( atleast ) 🙂

 

PS: Did I say that one of scenes in the movie was shot at My office (Olympia Tech Park, Guindy 🙂 )

 

You might wanna check out my other Reviews – :

The Dark Knight

Roadside romeo

John Rambo

Happy Days

Billa

Partner

 

https://arvind1187.wordpress.com/2008/07/31/the-dark-knight-review/

Cricket !!! What else ??

A 5-0 series white wash  against India in their own den would have been disastrous for the lankan lions. Thanks to some lousy bowling from indian bowlers and really stupid selection of shots , Sri lanka has been able to save a little pride by winning atleast the last one day match of the series .

India sure is on a roll and i have never been so optimistic about the current cricket team  . Yeah its the  same me who use to talk about the enigmatic indian cricket team and i still stand by my words . Anyways ,lets not talk about that 😛 . 5-0 against england and 4-1 here in srilanka is laudable effort considering the team without ganguly,dravid ,harbhajan and even sachin (if u consider that he dint score in two digits in the series 😛 ) . The best part being that they have been able to win convincingly and comfortably (Second one dayer was an exception ofcourse ). First time TEAM INDIA is starting to show its real meaning because the team is playing as a unit as for the first time ,not depending upon a individual.

Last couple of months have been quite exciting for Cricket fans like me .Indian cricket team is on second position in ICC cricket ratings for the first time . Yes , for the first time and thats quite a shocker isnt it  ??.A country like  ours  which has given so many great legends to the sport like kapil dev ,sunil gavanskar ,sachin tendulkar ,bishen singh bedi etc , has never been able to reach the second position leave alone the first place . Better Late than never now that we are in 2 , the no1 spot is just a series away . Touchwood 😉

South african team becoming  the no. 1 team and australia moving to 3rd place , Sounds so good rite ?? I mean i was sick of seeing a perfect side like australians had 😉 .  I am really happy to see the fall of the mighty australian side .Yes they were the best team and played some fabulous cricket over last decade but then they could never gain my respect ,may be because they were a proud team and had an acute superiority complex . MR . Ponting – i know it must be paining a lot .but thats the way it is . Higher you go , Harder you fall !! 😀

Coming to IPL seasons II , I wonder if the last two letters mean Paisa Lutaao . These so called business tycoons with their so called Girl freinds / cine stars are spending money like hell . The news channels have already raised questions if spending this much is necessary during recession times . I guess ITs there money and and they can very well spend that and i am sure they will get huge returns for that . Thats why they are investing it . So simple logic 😛 . All i feel sad for  now is that my DAD is not a Cricketer 😛 . If he was one i would have been one too and that way  i would have  made so much money by now 😛 and instead of posting a blog post , i would have released a book . I would have been famous . Not to mention that i would have become  a heart throb among the indian girls by now 😛 .. and then…….wait a minute i have gone way off the track .. .So where was I ,.. yeah IPL . So I was saying IPL is really merry making time for cricketers . Take for example Peterson and Flintoff , they are getting 1.55 million dollars for 3 weeks .. and Mortaza , the guy from bangladesh valued at 50,000 dollars was auctioned at 650,000 $ ,more than 10 times his value . like we say in tamil ..

engayo macham irrukku pa ivangaluku .

sorry guys cant translate that one 😛 .

Anyways  lets forget about money . All i want to say is that i cant wait to watch these guys come out and play .

well , I will call it for today . I know most people dont like cricket here 😛 . never mind the post ,u can always post some off topic comments on my blog  😛  .

MILE SUR MERA TUMHARA !!!

I hardly get to watch Tv these days and even when i do  get time , most of it goes by just surfing around the channels . There arent any genuine entertainment programs available these days . All one could see is sick mega soaps where one women plots against another or  the reality shows where people do everything to disgrace themselves in front of public  or lame news channels which covers  a tiger-tigress love story . And living in cities like Chennai doesn’t help either because they bring in some crap Set top system and remove all the good channels saying that they are not free . Now i understand the meaning of Nothing Comes Free.

Let me come to the topic without deviating anymore 😛 .   Changing channels with a stone aged remote is a big pain in the ass hands 😛 . Bang it here ,bang it there and then press the button and it   will work . Thats the mantra for operating the remote  which no one in my home ,except me, understands . So i was changing the channels .. 1 …. bang bang …2… bang bang … ..67 . and then it stopped .I could not beleive my eyes .I was seeing the good old DD channel  in malayalam though . and guess what ??  The channel showed Mile sur mera tumhara ad  . I dint move an inch during the whole song . Even even my mom who was running from one room to another , stopped to watch it .

Created in 1988 by Lok Seva Sanchar Parishad, and promoted by Doordarshan and India’s Ministry of Information , the song still remains in the heart of millions of people . 6 minutes of complete bliss .thats what the song is .A song which describes our country as a whole , which teaches the meaning  of Unity in Diversity ,harmony and National integration .Too bad that no private channels show it anymore when it is most needed.

Political Parties dividing the country for vote bank is not new these days . I think those people should be locked in a room and this song should be played 24×7  😉 .

Anyways here is the song ..