Friday train accident

Yesterday was a horrible day for most of the commuters who are dependent on Mumbai's only life line 'The local train'. A bridge (the one supporting water pipes) between Thane and Mulund collapsed on a train killing motorman, Ramachandran Iyer (age 43), a fellow resident of Dombivli. He got crushed under the girders that fell on the train.

My heartfelt condolences to the family of Mr.Ramachandran.

His life could have been saved had the rescue operations acted swiftly. His hands and legs had to be amputated to get his body out. ;-( The rescue team came on site after 3 long hours after the incident took place.

Would this lethargy had happened if a Marathi Manoos was battling for his life?????

Had a harrowing time reaching home. Left Sakinaka in car @ 8pm and came to Thane battling hell lot of traffic. Had to coax the driver to take us till Kalyan as the train service had come to a halt. He reluctantly agreed. Else had to cool my a$$ on Thane station. Took the Bhiwandi-Kalyan highway where the traffic refused to move even at snail's pace. 10...11..12...1.. Finally reached Kalyan station at 1.10am. Took a rick from there to dombivli which made me poor by 100 bucks.. ;-( Finally reached home at 1.35am..

total travel time: 5.35 hrs... but realised 'Thank god its Friday'.. oops Saturday..

wonder if life in Blore was better..... ;-(

image courtesy: rediff.com

After a sabbatical...

Well, I am back to write a blog after a sabattical of almost 1 year. A lot has happened in the past 1 year. Have moved out of Bangalore to hunt bigger? dreams and now in Mumbai with my parents. There was no great inspiration for writing a blog. Not that many read my blogs, but there wasn't anything to write. Thought of closing down this too... Anyways, Life moves on...

p.s. Have tagged this blog with pamela anderson, sex, namitha and MNS. ;-) selfish way to increase indexing of this blog. Sorry for those who landed up on this blog thinking of something else.

How I got hold of Udayan ?!?

Right now (Friday, October 24, 2008 10:53 AM) I am writing this post sitting in train with complete awe that how I managed to catch this Udayan Exp. It was touch and go. Now I am happily going to Mumbai; my home; to celebrate Diwali.
Yesterday, The train was scheduled to depart at 20:10. I had left office by 16:40 and reached home by 17:35. I left home by 18:30 and waited for half an hour in Sony World signal for a bus to Majestic. But, I couldn’t find any to my despair. It usually should take 45min to reach Majestic, but today the traffic was quite gruel some.
It was 19:05 and still no sign of a bus. I finally decided to go for a rick. But as a usual nakhra with these Bangalore Auto Drivers; they won’t come to the place where you want to go. I had asked at least half a dozen autos, but no luck.
I was scampering around the Sony world signal like a beggar with child (here luggage) in hand and begging autowallahs to come. A mid-aged autowallah seeing my misery offered to go. He was like a messiah at that point of time for me.
After that I had to go through the emotions of Bangalore traffic. Signal after signal, road after road, gully after gully; everywhere there was jam. I pleaded with the driver to take me somehow to my destination. But what can he do? It was too much traffic yesterday. It seemed everyone on the road was conspiring to block me. It was 20:00 and I was still near Mysore Bank; still a good 6 signals to scamper through. It was 21:10 (the departure time) and still 3 signals to go. I was almost in tears. The fear of missing the train was gripping me. But still something said inside me I can make it. It was a challenge thrown to me. I was stuck in one more blockade and asked autowallah whether I can make it by foot.
The moment he said “Yes” I threw a 100 rupee note to him and bolted like Usain Bolt towards the station. Still the sight of Bangalore City JN evaded me. I had to cross a huge barricade, but it seemed to be too small at that moment.
20:17hrs
It was 7 min past the scheduled departure time and any other day the train would have chugged out. I ran as if I am running for my life. My worst fear being, seeing the back of the train; that dreaded ‘X’ mark.
20:19hrs
I finally made it to the entrance and gasping for breath as I carried quite heavy backpack and an equally heavy shoulder bag. One porter came rushing to me saying, “Saab, Sirf 10 minoot hain Rajdhani ko”. I replied in vain almost in tears, “Udayan”

I didn’t had the heart to hear ‘it had already left’ from him. But, it was my day. He took my bag and ran to the platform. My Udayan has not ditched me. How can she go w/o me? ;-)
Btw time I reached platform, the train had just started moving. We just got into some coach. I gave him 10 bucks. Me in total disbelief of not missing the train. My lungs were longing badly for some much needed oxygen. A fellow passenger gave me some water. Belly was aching badly. I had never run like this. My round physique making matters worse.
Then I checked with TTR and came to know that my reservation was in the same coach (My RAC had confirmed). I am on my way home still with the disbelief of, how I got hold of Udayan!!

Dasavatharam : Movie review

Saw the movie in Mumbai with my family yesterday and I must say it was a spendid evening indeed.
The film starts with Kamal (Scientist Govind) giving an thanks acceptance speech in a stadium... the film then darts back to 12th century and then follows a complex screenplay which leaves you a bit confused and mind full of chaos. Thats right! The chaotic screenplay is the base of this movie. To be more precise, the movie is loosely based on 'Chaos Theory' or the 'Butterfly effect'. The audience is presented with string of seemingly unrelated events; thereby portraying the ten avatars of Kamal.. and all these un-related & chaotic events/charecters converges in the end to the tsunami scene (in fact the scene where the film starts the narration with) .

Well, Kamal leaves you in awe with his breath-taking performances, be it the tough American ex-CIA, the telugu investigator, Dalit Leader etc.. This is a performance which cant be matched by anyone around in the planet. The body language, the voice modulation differs from each of the ten characters. We just cannot believe how this man can pull it off... Amazing performance by Kamal.

KSR adds all the required commercial elements needed for Tamil cinema. Apart from the ten charecters of Kamal; I enjoyed the work of Pattabhi (the driver/translator of CIA agent -Kamal). He excels in inducing belly-ache through his funny dialogue delivery. Only person who has failed Kamal is Himesh. His music is not upto mark. ;-(

The screenplay reminds you the screenplay of City of Gods. The cons are the length of the movie. But it doesn't bores you though. Finally, when you come out of cinema hall, you will be left in complete awe but still wont be able to recall a scene. The film has set the benchmark for its technical brilliance. I felt proud to see a Indian movie, so well made. Kamal's hardwork and dedication reflects in each and every frame of the movie.

If this was a Hollywood movie; the oscars would have been bestowed for the screenplay for sure. Overall, An excellent effort by Kamal. Kudos to him for taking tamizh movie to international standards.

Back in Bombay!

Finally I am back in Bombay or say it Mumbai (to please the Thackeray). I was supposed to travel by Udayan Exp on Friday night, thanks to W/L status of my ticket; I had to cancel it and take a evening flight to Mumbai.

66 kms. Yes, You read it right. Its 66 kms from E-City to Airport (Devanahalli one). The volvo travel from Infosys to Airport costs 200 bucks :-( Took the bus at 1:50 pm and reached airport at 4:20pm. No traffic at all. The new airport kinda looks good. Lots of checkin counters and all. But, you need lots of food stalls there. Well, there is CCD, but pls go there if you are ready to dish out 70 bucks for a Veg. burger :-(

Flight was supposed to depart at 18:50hrs. But, to bring unwanted spice in the journey; my Spicejet flight got delayed by 2 hrs. Spend some boring hrs flirting with a cute chick w/ a laptop. actually my motive was to check some mails. But I ended up seeing some pics of Namitha on IndiaGlitz. hehehhe.....

Atlast, boarded the flight at 20:00hrs. The air-hostess (she was a cutie indeed ;-)) started the boring demo of what to do when your flight nosedives in sea, air-mask, seat belt, blah blah blah...
I could notice the guy seated next to me was scanning the airhostess curiously and asked me, "Do you feel those are real ones?" Infact I closed my Chetan Bhagat's novel and looked at the crew for the first time. I didn't knew what to answer to that question. But, the guy too didn't seem interested in getting an answer from me (was scanning the other girls.. )

Flight started rolling (at last). The guy next to me, he called a flight attendant (girl of course) and asked... ""Plane late hogaya hain... snacks-wacks nahi milega kya??" (Plane is late, cant I get some snacks?). the girl smiled and replied in negative. Instead we were given a 'complimentary' water bottle (some 100ml i think). The guy turned to me and said, "I called her to get a close-up view u c" ;-)

The climate was very rough in Mumbai (as usual heavy rainfall). There were some delay in landing due to this. We were supposed to land @ 22:45hrs, but it was 23:10 and we were still airborne. The lights were switched off for landing, suddenly the guy stood up and yelled in his typical Sachin' voice... "yeeeeeeh.... route bhool gaya kya???? " (hey, Have you forgotten the route?). the passengers errupted in laughter on this. A nightmarish day was lightened by that guys stupid prank. Anyways, I last I am in Bombay.... ;-) but just for a week ;-(

Billa : My review

Its been a long time since I blogged. Infact there was no mood and topic for blogging! Yesterday happened to watch Billa. Here goes my review of the same...

The storyline is the same as that of the Rajni's Billa. But the look and feel of the movie has been taken to a different level altogether. The movie starts with an amazing introduction of 'thala' Ajith. The first half is racy and adrenaline pumping. The director has made sure he has got all the hollywood action movie elements in place. Some of which are car chase sequence shot using high speed cameras, monochrome ambiance(black and white used superbly), distant roving camera shots, designer clothes, crisp dialogues, very low EQ (emotional quotient), using computers and so on.

Hats off to VishnuVardhan, the director of the movie, in his ability to bring the creamy look to the film and the guts to remake the yesteryear blockbuster without tweaking the plotline. The main hero of Billa seems to be Nirav Shah, the cinematographer of the movie. His work is excellent and comparable to the best in the business. The movie rides on the charm and charisma of Ajith and if you are an Ajith fan it can't get better than Billa. Ajith performance cannot be said the best but his looks are amazing in this movie. He rocks in his Armani suits and never has tried to imitate Rajini or SRK.

Yuvan has done a decent job with music. Though none of the songs linger in our mind much; the title track and background music is truly awesome. Next up, Prabhu has played his part well as a cop and so is Rahman. The other cop (dont know his name though) has also done quite well.
Santhanam's comedy looks out of the box and is injected for commercial purpose. The film seems to be a bit longer though esp. the second half. The over-use of sunglasses by each and every character in the movie could have been avoided.

The second half of the movie slightly slackens with its screenplay. The item song with a new girl completely puts one off. :-( Namitha has tried hard to bring the oomph factor but has failed miserably at the hands of Nayanthara. 9thara looks amazingly sexy and the TombRaider Lara Croft look fits on her nicely. She has flashed her cleavage to good effect in billa's success :-D

People looking for a twist in plot are in for some disappointment as this is a honest remake of the original. The main feature of the movie is; you won't be able to recall a single sequence of the movie easily after watching which itself gives you the experience of watching a high-end holly flick. One can always complain what is the need for imitating hollywood, but ain't we bored with the usual stuff??

Overall, we can enjoy Ajith's Billa much more if we dont carry the baggage of Rajini's Billa in our mind.
Billa = Visual Treat!!!

Happy Gokulashtami

Today is Janmasthami day. Wish you all a very happy Gokulashtami day.

Janmasthami is a celebration of the birth of Lord Krishna and every ritual in the celebration of this auspicious occasion is associated with various phases of his life, which have been immortalised in both the religious and the folk literature.

Janmasthami tops the list of my favorite festivals. As a Iyer brahmin family we celebrate this festival with lots of zeal and enthusiasm. Typically the celebration starts with my mom preparing mouth watering eateries like cheedai, then-kuzhal (a form of chakli), thattai, coconut appam etc (pic attached).

pics: cheedai, thattai,thenkuzhal(from L to R) coconut neiappam(below)

Special care is taken so that I am not allowed inside the kitchen ;-) The snacks are not tasted before the Krishna pooja where Lord Krishna will himself have the first bite. Its a anxious wait for the next day for the pooja as we can enjoy the snacks only after Neivediyam (offering it to the Lord). There is also panagam (dry ginger-jagerry water), buttermilk, honey and fresh fruits as part of the Neivedyam.

The house is cleaned and spruced up for the D-day. A big kolam (rangoli) with beautiful diyas welcomes the visitors to our house. The major attraction being the baby foot-marks drawn using rice-flour paste all the way from the entrance to the pooja room where Lord Krishna is celebrating his Bday with lotz of fervor. This symbolizes the entry of the infant Krishna into his foster-home. My mother dressed in traditional Silk saree would perform the Krishna pooja. After the pooja is done, Ladies would sing the EntharoMahanu Bhavu keerthana of Sri Raaga to welcome Lord Krishna to our humble house.

After the pooja and the Neivedyam is done with its snack time... I am dearly missing all the fun and fervor of Gokulashtami sitting in this moron cubicle of mine. Entha ro Mahanu bhavuuuuu...........