Our wanderings and perceptions

 From the time of announcement of Ponniyin Selvan I, there was a buzz around this movie and all us were waiting for it to hit the screens. It did on Sep 30 and we happen to watch FDSS - First Day Second Show :) Ponniyin Selvan is a historic fiction Tamil novel read by most of us during our teens or early twenties. So it easily makes an evergreen mark in us. While reading it we imagine the the scenes, give face to the characters and adore the story. Hence the mere thought of the novel coming alive in cinema fascinates us. Thus when the news of Maniratnam making Ponniyin Selvan in two parts floated, all of us were eagerly waiting for Sep 30. The pre release events and interviews from the makers almost prepared for a movie that is Director Maniratnam's adaptation of the novel. Never had imagined Maniratnam was also a fan of Ponniyin Selvan like us and also decided to film it. Favorite novel getting filmed by your favorite Director is a double excitement. Maker of classics like Nayakan

 Vikram - This movie was so so different and has made Tamil cinema proud. Having watched so many Malayalam movies in OTT since the covid time, was longing for an out of the box Tamil movie and Vikram fits the bill easily. After having got many spoilers about the movies got to watch it in the theatre almost after a month. Kamalhassan makes his presence in the interval block only but he is omni present in the first half in the form of a ghost. His acting skills just elevates the movie to a completely different level. One look and slight eye shift convey so much. The scene where he sees his son's mortal remains and ask Narain about the weapon used to kill him just by mere face reaction is a killer. Man.. every nerve in his face acts. Similarly the scene with his son where he tries to find out if Kalidas knows that he is the biological father, was great! This one reminds us of the interaction between Sivaji Ganesan and Kamal. The scene when Sivaji gets elated after Kamal asks his manag

Here is the era of music and songs through apps. Gone are the days of tapes and discs. Until recent years it was mp3 songs but with the advent of unlimited internet its music streaming. New songs are released in one of these apps.  When this concept of music apps came in being it felt ambiguous with the numerous mp3 files lying in the system storage. Once you start using a music app you'll get the feeler of it and start falling for this app.  Their websites are available when you are listening to music via a desktop or laptop and install apps while on the smart phones. All these play the local music or mp3 songs stored in our smart phones. Its free to listen to these songs with high speed network. To download your favourite songs or to listen to songs ad-free one will need to make the payment. There is option to go with monthly or yearly payment. Also coupons are available on other online purchases to make the required payment. Lets see in detail some of these Indian

An interesting Ad - when a daughter asks her Mother for her favourite dish, the Mother refers to food delivery app to get it. Gone are days when Mothers toil in the kitchen to make their kids's favourite dishes healthy and tasty. Moms who were seen to be packing food items for travelling children like making masalas, papads and ready made powders are now  preferring to stay away from kitchens don't seem to be good. But food delivery apps come in handy whenever you chose to eat from whatever restaurant you may prefer. Be it a hot afternoon or a cold rainy night the delivery boys weather all that to get your food. Two wheelers fly along the road with the delivery boys carrying square shaped bags on their backs with red, orange and green wordings. At main road corners you see them awaiting with their smart phones for the next orders, at near the gates of SEZ areas catering to the crowds delivery and outside the restaurants until the orders are getting prepared. There are t

This film is a skate through technology for Tamil movie buffs. 3D visuals, 4G sound and CG of 2.0 compete with Hollywood. Plots which thrived on social reforms, love and revenge has finally arrived at the technical platform hence the lack of story, but who cares when there is so much on screen to enjoy.  Its been 25 days since the movie has hit the theatres, but we ended up watching only after the number of shows reduced to 1 per day in the near by multiplex. 25 days is an achievement today for any movies. It was a full house but sad to see that our theatres are not to exhibit such technical extravaganza. Seated in the costly lounge area we were not able to view the lower 25% of the screen. The initial scenes are filled with flying cell phone, some of the talks that happen over mobiles makes you actually feel happy when the phones literally fly off the handle. Enter Dr. Vaseegaran from how we left him in Robot but with an able Robo assistant Amy. Can't think of anyone els

There are various types of cooking world over depending on the style of cooking, the ingredients available in that part of the region, the weather conditions pertaining to that landscape and also the religion practised. In today's world as the universe converges to one, the availability of multi-cuisine food has become the norm of gourmet. Most of us are aware of Chinese food like dumplings and spring rolls; while we have never kept our foot near its boundaries. The much conservative city of south India - Chennai, has now opened up to international cuisine. Though the star hotels of Chennai have specialisation in internationally acclaimed cuisine, it served only to the more affordable class of the society and the rest got a taste of it only when the specific restaurants came up. With the food delivery Apps - its is easy to try variety of food from the confines of our home and also reserve tables in the top restaurants of the city with just a click. Majority of the households

Aadi koozh vaarthal is a religious occasion for most Tamil house holds. In the month of Aadi raagi koozh is served to all thirsty people around the neighborhood. Koozh is prepared and offered to Amman followed by the distribution. While offering koozh there are also other heathly eatables included in the Padayal.  The koozh preparation starts a day earlier. Rice is cooked first and raagi flour mixed in water is added to it and cooked till ragi gives a glazed look to the koozh. This is then left over night to ferment. The next day water is added to the koozh to get a drinking consistency. To this we add finely chopped onions as topping and curd to give that cooling effect. Once the koozh is all set we go about the padayal to the almighty Amman. Aadi, the Tamil month solely dedicated to Amman is for celebrating her and her kindness to her devotees. So we first offer the koozh to her in the Padayal followed by white rice and other items. The USP of Aadi koozh is that  simple

After hearing rare reviews about the movie, decided to see it at once. Online tickets were readily available for the evening show. This is dubbed to Tamil from Telugu unlike Bahubali and so the story too is viewed from the other region of the country. The film has a scene where hunger strike happens for separate Telugu state from the Madras presidency. Though Savithri had lived in Chennai during her last days the film is narrated from the Telugu industry point of view. Few scenes could have been from Tamil industry side and from Gemini Ganesan's end to give us the audience a more holistic view of the biopic. That said and done, this is a excellent attempt on an actor's biopic. In most scenes we tend to forget Keerthy Suresh and see only Savithri on screen, its surprising how she donned such a heavy role with ease in the nascent stage of her career. Never thought the doll heroine of Remo, Bairava, can pull this through. The maya bazaar  scene is worth all the pennies. The

This film made a great impact with a message in spite of the attention it garnered being a silent movie made after 3 decades. When people have to take to streets to bring awareness on pollution due factory residues and the fight against sterlite, this movie just hits the core. Just shows how powerful a cinema can be. When one goes to a theatre for entertainment, the movie maker also tries to give that to the maximum and rake in profit. But here is a movie which is a fantastic mixture of enjoyable cinema with the much needed thought provoking base. A good batting track is laid down by the Director with a strong backing script. The DoP and Music director have taken advantage of it. They have played each ball bowled to them to a hit. When you feel sympathy for the five youngsters, its because they have simply lived those characters. At the same time the wrath Prabhu Deva receives from us and pity towards the end shows his acting is a class apart. The scenes we thought are do

Malls - a western culture which has caught on to our side of the world and has been a craze since its existence. With cinema theatres claiming their spots in these malls, the crowds seem to just pour in, paving way to closure of cinema halls through out the country as multiplexes have cemented themselves victoriously. The only hazardous issue with watching movies in malls is the parking charge levied, worse than taxes to be paid. Most of the malls seem to set their own charges for 4-wheeler and 2-wheeler without any norms from the government. Of course modern architecture provides ample parking space for thousands of vehicles during weekends but still cannot justify the charges.   The orthodox population which came out of their huts just for temples and marriages have long vanished. Even older generation now prefer to break the age old boundaries and dine out in these huge malls. Unlike restaurants catering to specific cuisines the malls offer different types of eatables at one j

கல்யாணத்தை பண்ணிப்பார், வீட்டை கட்டிப்பார் says an age old Tamil saying denoting the tedious nature of both as duties. The house warming ceremony denotes the culmination of building a house and entering into it for living. In a typical Tamil house hold, buying or building a new house is a pride and a dream. Building a house involves lot of rituals. First comes the 'Adikal naattu', laying the foundation stone. On an auspicious day, Just before the sunrise Bhoomi Pooja is done and the first stones are layed by the family and the builders involved. All present are given Prasad or sweets from the Pooja. This marks the kick start of the house building project. Once the building skeleton comes up with walls built and rooms differentiated there comes a time to fix the frame and threshold of the doors. This requires Vaasakaal Pooja to bring up the Vaasal. A team of married ladies in odd numbers form the main part of this ceremony. Navaratnas are buried below the Vaasal and e

In today's fast moving competitive world we have no time to even stop and look around us. A deluge of selfish tasks keeps us secluded from the outside world. Very few come down to fight for common cause and not many willing to participate in legal proceedings benefiting society. We need to go out of way sometimes for betterment of mankind. Our country has numerous social activists who are the above said few. Dont we need more people to join them at least on a part time basis? Every citizen of this country need to join hands with these like minded people for the betterment of our society and the greater India. Recently two of such citizens from our very own Chennai caught our attention for their selfless work.  Are we not capable of planning our work and provide enough time to the society? Arun Krishnamurthy who runs his own firm and does election analysis is an activist for restoring lakes.  Environmentalist Foundation of India is the NGO which does this marvelous wor

Our beloved city is now in the UNESCO creative cities list for its outstanding contribution to music! https://en.unesco.org/creative-cities/events/64-cities-join-unesco-creative-cities-network Congrats Chennai! May the Carnatic season coming up next month take us to another level is ecstasy.. 😀😀😀

ஆப்பிரிக்கா கண்டம் அடர்த்தியான காடு  மிருகங்களின் தாய் வீடு செழிப்பான பூமி  பழங்குடியினரின் சாமி வறுமையில் மண்ணின் மைந்தர்கள்  அயல்நாட்டவரிடம் கைப்பாவைகள் காரணம்? மனிதனின் அடங்கா பசியா  கடவுளின் மகா சதியா

பலன்கள் இல்லா காரியம்    பாராட்டுகள் இல்லா சாதனை இவை செய்யக்கூடியவள்  இவ்வுலகில் தாய் மட்டுமே!

வாழிய செந்தமிழ் வாழ்கநற்றமிழர்! வாழிய பாரத மணித்திருநாடு! -Bharathiyaar The whole world watched in awe how a protest can be held in a peaceful manner with almost dignity. The protestation of Tamilians can serve as a model to any group protest across the globe. This protest had high standard - no individuals were crowned as leaders, both genders had equal participation in the common social cause, and it was non-violent. The peaking of bravery is non-violence and the young Tamilians only demonstrated this for more than 5 days. None of the public property were damaged, in fact the liter at the Marina beach was cleaned by these people. Under the watchful of the 24/7 media the protestors just excelled in their behavior sending strong signal to the world. This paved way for Tamilians at various parts of the globe to unite and express their solidarity as well. As Indians each of us got the true taste of what democracy is. The government/court which always had the option of regulating

W hat kind of a n effect can a cyclone of more tha n 100km  have? here is it,  Few minutes before Vardha's occurrence Just before Vardha crossing Chennai Due to predictive forecast and proactive planning from the gover nment , loss of lives was avoided to a great extend and Chennai ag ain pro udly d i s played its hospi tality face. Huge voluntee rs got into ground helping people get back to normalcy a t the earliest.