True Friends INDEED!

As I continue my reminiscing ways, there is one incident that happened during my school days that I remembered and wanted to write about today. I believe it was during my 11th grade. There was this girl from my colony that I was crazy about since my 7th grade, but I have never talked to her even once. She didn't even know I existed until a couple of months before this incident. 

One fine evening, I decided that I should talk to her and told two of my best friends Karthik and Balaji about it. Like all good friends, they were happy about it and motivated me more. The truth was, they were sick of my everyday ramblings that go something like "Machaan, nethu ava ennai paatha da!" (She looked at me yesterday) and they wanted it all to end. I wanted them to go along with me for moral support and of course to help me out if I get beaten up by the roadside do-gooders seeing a damsel in distress.  Surprisingly, they agreed without a second thought. 

The plan was to confront (that's right!) her when she gets out of her ______ training. It's a good 2 Kilometers from there to her house, so I was sure that I can make her talk to me before she gets close to her house. When she walked out of her class, I saw that there was a kid walking along with her. I recognized him as her neighbor and with the hopes that he wouldn't know me, I approached her leaving my friends behind after getting their blessings. As soon as she saw me walking towards her, I could clearly see she was getting all nervous. She started walking as fast as she can. When I caught up with her, I was panting! Without going into the details, except for the fact that all I managed to say was "Hi", I was VERY VERY disappointed at the end! After watching her walk away, realizing that I had managed to get her all mad at me, I wanted to talk to my friends real bad. I turned around looking to hear some consoling words and imagine my surprise when I couldn't see them anywhere in the line of sight in any direction. After about 5 minutes of standing there all alone, I saw them walking towards me from far away. Even my sad face couldn't stop them from laughing! What can I say, my friends are just pretty good runners! 

By the way, that blank up there, it's Karate!!! 

Duplicity

The story was very confusing for the first 15 minutes or so or atleast I felt that way. Actually, I think it was the beer! I was at one of the very few theaters where they serve beer. Nothing could be better than this combination of the two things that I love the most – Movies and Beer. May be you greater mortals won’t have the same problem. If I remember right, this is one of the movies that belong to the fun category, without worrying about the logic, after a long time, since Ocean’s 11. Yes, Duplicity belongs to the category of Heist/Spy flicks, except that it’s not money or jewelry that they are trying to steal. But, there is a major difference here compared to the other movies of the same kind, which will leave you wanting more at the end. You should watch it to know it.

I liked Clive Owen’s acting when I first saw him in Derailed though the movie wasn’t as good. Here he seems to be repeatedly fooled by Julia Roberts, only to find out that it’s not him who is being fooled, but it’s us, the viewers. One second he is the victim and the next moment he takes control with ease. I am still wondering if he would have made a better and a much cooler James Bond than the very serious Daniel Craig. And then there is the inimitable Julia Roberts with her trademark laugh. Assuming this is not a remake of some older hollywood movie or a foriegn language movie or an adaptation of a comic book, it's an original Hollywood movie that I thoroughly enjoyed after a very long time. 

LOL!

Anu and I were on a call with my friend Shiva to wish him for his birthday. Suddenly, the topic diverts to women and driving.

Shiva: Women can't drive!

Anu: Don't put me in that list. 

Me: Oh yeah, I remember now, Anu said men can't multitask.

Shiva: Eei, enna pechu pesare, do you know how hard it is to manage 3 girlfriends at the same time? 

Good one dude!

Super-hyped Millionaire

Seriously, 8 Oscars for this movie? Clearly shows how the Oscar selection committee gets it wrong time and again. I haven't seen any of the other movies that were nominated in the Best Motion Picture category, but I don't have to be psychic to know that there was surely a much better movie that deserved the award. The best part of the movie was the last 5 minutes, when they manage to make you sit up and think if he is going to answer that last question or not. 

And to think that some celebrities in India made such a big deal out of this movie by making smart-ass comments describing how the movie shows India in a bad light, it's just hilarious. Mr.Bachchan, you have to know when to shut your mouth. If someone sees a duet that you have done with heroines running around a tree and says that Indians are silly and stupid, would you have stopped doing that? We don't do that in real life, do we? It's all about the money dude! You have made enough, now let others do the same. 

Though I am glad A.R.Rahman won two Oscars - for something that he himself accepted was not his best work - I don't understand what qualifies a song to get nominated in the best song category. Does it have to be part of a famous movie? Hopefully from now, more of our music gets recognized globally! If there was one category that this movie deserved an award in, it's the editing. It takes a lot of effort to make sense with a non-linear screenplay. Kudos on that! 

Norman Days

Of all the places in the world, I decided to come to Oklahoma to do my Masters. Let’s just leave it at that as this post is not about that. For a change, I am going to pour out some of the nice (Cricket) memories. When I was desperately searching for something to do, other than the courses I was enrolled in, suddenly there was talk about a tennis ball cricket tournament! There were three apartment/residential complexes with major Desi presence. I lived in an off-campus place called Essex Square, nicknamed the unofficial Indian Consulate by the International Student Office. There was an on-campus place called Kraettli and finally another off-campus place called Bishops Landing, where the people who usually don’t get an apartment at either of the first two places go.

It was decided that there would be three teams, each representing the respective apartment complexes. Somehow I managed to get into the team that was full of Telugu guys with my nice guy attitude, or so I would like to think. I can vaguely remember that they were one guy short and hastily added me as the last member, since I lived next door to the captain.

On a fine Saturday morning, we all set off on a mission, wearing full hand shirts and jeans with bright white sneakers! As we arrived at the ground, I realized that the ground was indeed a huge parking lot! My knees started aching just thinking about playing on that hard surface, especially since I hadn’t done anything that could be termed as physical activity in the past 6 months or so. Soon we found out that the Bishops Landing team is not going to show up. So, it was decided to have a best of three tournament between Essex and Kraettli. I don't remember much about any of my contributions in the first game, but we lost it. The next game was in the afternoon on the same day. I remember contributing towards an important wicket by taking a blinder of a catch, which turned the match in our favor. We did win that match. As expected, we did lose the final match the next day. One thing I understood was that the people from the Kraettli team were always trying to bully us, whether it was a run out decision or a wide ball. 

During the subsequent semesters I became a little known to the extent of captaining the Essex team. Though there were other teams in the mix with all the new arrivals fresh off the boat, it was always our arch rivals Kraettli, who were stomping us everytime we were in the finals. On one such instance, I was bowling the last over with Kraettli needing 12 runs in 3 balls to win, with the last pair in the middle. The last batsman actually limped to the striker's end. He was a small skinny guy. Obviously, I wasn't taking him seriously. I can bowl at a good pace and if I am not bowling wides, it would turn out to be a good ball. I decided that I should bowl slow balls in order to prevent wides. The batsman was standing there like a baseball batter, with the bat up in the air. I smirked as I was running in and bowled a slow but full length ball. The next second it disappeared over the long on boundary. It was a six. I was astonished at what just happened. There were still 2 balls left and I still had some confidence left that we could win this. Next ball I bowled a little faster and it ended up full again. One more baseball-like swing and one more six over long on. Everyone in my team just stood there for what seemed like an eternity while the batsman was carried away by his teammates! They couldn't believe that I single-handedly lost that game. Even today, my friends make sure that I don't forget that over. 

The next semester we came back with a vengeance (it was about time) and the matches were played in a proper cricket ground that OU had provided for the Sooner Cricket Club. By now I had become a kattaan and it gave me great sense of satisfaction that people would justt stay at the boundary line when I bat. Since we used to play almost everyday with the same people from Kraettli, they knew we had better players than their own. They brought in new players who used to play for the Sooner club - the ones that played league games with the actual cricket ball. I had Ajai, the best batsman I could have, Shiva, who could bowl great leg spin, Roux, who can hit boundaries at will, and Ravi, the other kaattan of the team, just to mention a few of my good players! At the beginning of the game, it was unanimously decided that the captain would not bowl ;), so I donned the role of the wicketkeeper. Even before Kraettli could start scoring, they were all out for some 60 odd runs in 13 overs. One of the highlights of the game was a diving catch I took off of a leg glance. Shiva did well with his deceiving leg spinners. I was literally praying to Sachin that Shiva shouldn't start bowling wides as I very well knew we might as well walk away, if that happened. Ajai and Ravi picked up most of the wickets with their wibbly wobbly medium pacers.

I opened the batting with Ajai. We didn't show any urgency as we took our own time, scoring in singles. By the time we crossed 10 overs, Ajai was gone and Roux was in and he started hitting sixes. Soon, I joined in and finished off the match with a boundary. It was a great win, for which I had to wait for almost 3 years. We even took pictures after to savor the moment and to rub it in on Kraetli's players' sad faces. They had talked a lot before the game, like we should have LBWs, as they claimed that most of the Essex players use cross-bat shots. Well, we showed them what those shots could do! 

Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu

After watching Subramaniapuram, I was craving more movies with a village backdrop. If it's combined with a sports theme, nothing could be sweeter than that! The main theme of the movie is Kabadi and there is a love story on the side to go with it.

It's about a local Kabadi team in a small village overcoming all odds and making it big against some professional teams in a major tournament (yes, it's not an unusal story these days). They are mocked for not winning any games and for wasting time in the name of Kabadi without doing anything useful. The team members range from a couple of bachelors to a newly married man and a tea-shop owner, whose mother in law keeps cursing him for nothing. Then, there is the hero, a very ordinary unknown face, who is just the substitue player of the team at the beginning. 

There are no unnecessary characters in the movie in the name of comedy or villain-ism(?!)- everyone has a purpose, from the bus driver to the rival team members. Speaking of comedy, everyone does their own bit to tickle our funny bone, in a genuine way. Watch out for the parotta eating challenge - it's comedy at its subtle best! Of course, the Kabadi matches don't match the intensity of the Cricket matches of Lagaan or Chennai-600028 for that matter. The climax left me very unsatisfied! I guess the director wanted to shock the audience and he sure did it, but I felt it was totally unnecessary. Overall it was a fine movie with loads and loads of nativity and a sensible screenplay, which seems to be missing in most movies these days! Vijay and Ajith need to watch this movie atleast a 100 times to learn...NO, they should just stop acting, because they will never learn!

A Wednesday

If there was ever a movie that defines the phrase 'Short and Sweet', this should be it. No beating around the bush in the name of character development, no crappy duets, no fight/song to introduce the hero, no punch dialogues, nothing that you see in most of the Tamil movies these days. Hits the spot right from the beginning and keeps up the intensity throughout the movie. Both the lead actors, Anupham Kher and Nasseerudhin Shah, fit their parts to a T. When I first heard that they were doing the lead roles, I was a little apprehensive about it, but then they proved beyond any doubt that they can bring in aggression from nowhere, no matter how old they are. As mush as I hate to admit it, Hindi movies are proving to be something far better than Tamil movies.
Now, here comes the best part! Apparently, Kanalhassan has bought the remake rights to this movie and plans to make this in Tamil with Mammooty/Mohanlal. If anone can do justice to this story, it's definitely Kamalhassan. I do not have an iota of doubt that this remake - if it ever happens - will be light years ahead of the original. But, you know what? I'd rather have Nasser doing the Police Commisssioner and Kamalhassan do the role of the terrorist, which would be a complete reversal of what they did in Kuruthipunal. Wouldn't that be something?

Fast but not Furious!

If I have not mentioned before (oh, I sure know I have) that I drive a BMW 325i, here is a chance to bring it up again. Since I have never posted anything about my car in the 3 years that I have owned it, you have to bear with me now. When I was looking to buy a new car or a used car 3 years ago, this is the first car I looked at. With only 24k miles to show for 5 years, it looked brand new. I took it for a test drive and absolutely fell in love with it. No wonder I named it 'Lakshmi Reloaded', as a tribute to my first car Lakshmi. A week later, it was parked in MY garage! If you are wondering where I am going with this, hold on my dear readers (yes, both of you). 

I was driving back home from the gym today at about 7pm and stopped at a red light. A Ford Mustang pulled over to my right. I looked at them and there were two guys with shaved heads in it. The guy in the driver's seat looked at me and said something. I had my windows rolled up, so I couldn't hear him and I didn't bother to roll them down either. Then, he started pointing with his hand towards the road ahead of us. He wanted to race! Though it was very tempting, with an empty road ahead of us , I managed to ignore him. As the lights turned to green, he sped ahead of me, like I accepted his challenge. As my ill-fated luck would have it, the next lights were red and he was waiting there for me. When I pulled over next to him, he was laughing so loud, I could hear him even with the windows rolled up. My ego was bruised, to say the least. Again, when I looked at him, he was pointing towards the road ahead of us. My heart was racing now. The not-so-good-side of me was taking control. From that point, there are two more lights and I decided to take my chances hoping the lights wouldn't be red and I could take the left at the second lights to get to my garage. 

The moment the lights turned green, I gave it all the gas I could. The mustang was able to keep up with me but not after I shifted to second and accelerated. Soon, I could see them on the side view mirror. Without mentioning the speed here, let's just say that I was way ahead of them! And this time, all the lights were green and I took the turn as I watched them go past the lights on my rear view mirror. Oh, what a satisfaction! I am still trying to wipe the grip off of my face after 2 hours!

Moral of the story - Mottai adichavan ellaam Vin Diesel aayida mudiyadhu! (Everyone with a shaved head can't be Vin Diesel)

ESPN sucks! (so does Texas)

Does anyone at ESPN really understand the meaning of a 3-way tie? The reason it’s named like that is because there are 3 teams involved. Apparently the dummies at ESPN don’t understand this or else why would they keep talking about the head-to-head matchup between OU and Texas and conveniently forget the fact that Texas Tech beat Texas. If neutral field is what counts, then every team should start playing their games at a neutral field, like in London or something, like how the NFL has a game or two there every year. For anyone who doesn’t know what this rant is all about, this is about college football. Long story short, Texas beat OU, Texas Tech beat Texas and OU beat Texas Tech. 

Now, the question is who goes to play in the Conference Championship and then to the National Championship game. Last week, OU was ahead of both the teams in the overall rankings, which was used to break the tie. Now, everyone (mostly at EPN) is complaining that Texas should have been ahead of OU based on the fact that OU lost to Texas at a neutral field (Dallas – some neutral field, huh?) while Texas lost to Texas Tech at Lubbock (away game for Texas). Oh yeah, Texas Tech was blown away by OU at home. Confused yet? So, according to the ESPN analysts aka MORONS, since Tech lost by a whopping 44 points, they are out of contention in a 3-way tie which makes it a head-to-head comparison between Texas and OU and since Texas beat OU, they should be ranked ahead. Are you f*#&ing kidding me? Why call it a 3-way tie in the first place, if that’s what you are going to do? 

Here’s my question: So, if OU loses this week at the Big 12 championship game, then which team should go to the National Championship game? Texas or Tech? Based on what all the experts (!?) are saying this week, shouldn’t it be Tech, since they beat Texas on a head-to-head matchup? Oh, now you want the overall rankings to send Texas to the final game? How pathetic is that? Atleast try to be consistent, you IDIOTS! If the focal point of your argument is the 'neutral field', then mine is '44 points'. That should be more than enough to nullify whatever advantage Texas had over OU. So, here’s the one thing I wish you’d all do: SHUT THE F@#K UP!!!

Vaaranam Aayiram

What could have been a really nice, heartwarming movie about a father-son relationship has been spoilt because of the smart-ass attitude of the director. What he and most of the Tamil movie directors need to realize is that if you can’t pack a powerful punch of emotions in 2 hours, you can never do it in 3 or 4 hours. It’s like how the Indian team used to claim that having 7 batsmen was going to win them matches, when they made Dravid the scapegoat/wicketkeeper! If you can’t do it with 6 batsmen, then forget it. Bad analogies aside, this movie is the best example of how the second half should not drag. Gowtham did it with Vettaiyaadu Velaiyaadu too.
The first half took me back several years, in fact more than a decade, reminding me of my relationship with my dad. I still remember when my dad took me aside (and away from my mom) and told me “I know you are going around with that girl, but don’t overdo it”. There were a also a lot of funny moments between Surya and Sameera Reddy, the girl he is madly in love with. More than the movie, the people who were sitting behind me were making me laugh out loud. When Sameera Reddy finally accepts that she has fallen in love with Surya, with the Golden Gate bridge as the backdrop, Surya immediately picks up a bunch of very small flowers from the grass and gives it to her. The girl sitting behind me tells her husband, “Paaru, avan evalo romantic-a poo eduthu kudukkaraan, neeyum irukkiye, enakku molaga bajji eduthutu vandhu kuduthe!” Before I could stop laughing, the husband goes, “Beach le bajji dhaane di kedaikkum, adhukku naan enna panradhu?” I felt like I was sitting in Abhirami theater for sometime there! Coming back to the screen that was in front of me, Gowtham definitely knows how to handle the little things between the lead pair without making it look cheesy. I can give him that.
During the second half, I don’t know about the other people in the theater, but my eyes were watering up for sure. WAIT! Before you make any judgments on my sensitivity levels, let me make it perfectly clear that I had tears in my eyes because I was all sleepy and I kept yawning non-stop. If you want to show a man’s journey through his successes and failures in life, you don’t necessarily have to take up half of our lives. Even one of the best movies of the last century, Forrest Gump, which coincidentally (!) deals with a man’s life journey, was only 2 hours and 22 minutes long.
Overall, the movie was good when it took us through the 70’s and the 80’s, started to slow down during the 90’s and finally limped it’s way to the end credits after 2000. Oh yeah, there's also the pathetic attempt at justifying the title at the end, by making Simran explain the meaning of Vaaranam Aayiram!

Adios Sourav!

No matter what you say about his technique against the short ball, he will always be one of my favorite cricketers. For some reason, I have always liked the cricketers most panned by the critics for technical and non-technical reasons. Examples from the past would include Ravi Shastri (yeah, laugh it up) and Azharuddin. I am going to try to write atleast a few words about Ganguly, without mentioning that clichéd saying about his off-side technique supposedly said by Rahul Dravid.
When you look at Ganguly he doesn’t look even a little bit aggressive. In fact he has this look on his face like a kid who just lost his parents in a carnival. He saves his aggression for when he bats. How many batsmen can step out to a fast bowler and dispatch the ball to the boundary like he does, without any apparent effort? Do I need to say about the way he handles the spinners? Don't even try telling me that he has his fifties and hundreds ONLY against the minnows. Well, what were the other big guns doing in the same match? Someone has to get a big score even against the weaker teams! I cannot think of a much better pair than Ganguly and Tendulkar to have opened the batting for any country and demolished the bowling attack like there was no tomorrow. The statistics prove that. It's was obvious that he slowed down a lot in the past 3 or 4 years, but he definitely had his fighting spirit intact. It showed in his comeback after being dropped from the team.
I had the chance of watching the last day of the test match between India and Australia. It was really heartening to see Dhoni handing over the captaincy to Ganguly after the 9th australian wicket fell. That man deserves it! Not everyone gets to leave on a high note, but Ganguly chose the right moment and the right series. Good-bye Ganguly, we sure will miss your well timed drives piercing a packed off-side. And for one last time, "On the off-side, first there is God, then there is Ganguly". Sorry guys, couldn't resist it!

OU #1

Ok, USC just lost to an unranked team! Where is Jason White? May be he can apply for a 10th year of eligibility and take OU to the National Championship game!!!

Burn After Watching

Subramaniapuram:
This must be the sleeper hit of this year. A simple story, lot of attention to details and a linear screenplay with lots of nativity are the highlights of this movie. The 4 (or 5) protagonists hide very well into their characters (and their beards) and amaze us with some casual acting. The story is not original by any means – unemployed youth being exploited by the local politician for his personal benefits – but the treatment given to it is original, with the early 80’s Madurai as the backdrop and a love story as the sidetrack, which would have looked completely stupid in any other movie. The director has made the job of making it look like the 80’s easier by confining the screenplay to a few streets, a couple of ambassador cars and a scooter. As I was trying to find the face behind the beards, two of them seemed very familiar. One was that comedian Ganja Karuppu who always has a beard. As I was pulling the rest of my hair out trying to figure out the other familiar face, it struck me halfway through the movie that he was that same guy from Chennai-600028, the one who moves from Royapuram and joins the rival team. I had no idea that he could pull a Chandrasekhar with so much ease. Yes, that’s who he reminded me of, the way he smiles whenever he sees his girlfriend, with his head shaking a little, he looked like a clone of the yesteryear hero Chandrasekhar. May be that’s what the director wanted from him. The music too was reminiscent of the 80's reminding me of some of Ilaiyaraja's best BGMs. If you get a chance to watch this movie, don't forget to burn yourself a copy.

Phoonk:
I don't know why I make the mistake of watching a Ram Gopal Varma movie again and again. I guess I don't learn my lessons that easily. Phoonk was advertised as the scariest horror movie ever and I even read somewhere that RGV announced he'd give Rs.5 Lakhs to anyone who dares to watch this movie alone. Of course, it came with strong recommendations from my friend Vaibhavi, who is my horror movie partner. Well, RGV has managed to make a stinker of a movie once again. The movie did not have a single genuinely scary moment. I have never felt so guilty about wasting almost 3 hours of my life. I don't know what else to say about this stupid movie other than RGV should do us all a huge favor and stop making movies anymore. If you happen to make the same mistake, do not forget to burn the dvd, literally!

Droh Kaal Vs Kuruthipunal

Watched Droh Kaal, the original version of Kuruthipunal a couple of weeks ago. I had major expectations, what with it being the source of one of the best Tamil movies ever made and having all the three people of Hindi Cinema - Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah and Amrish Puri - who can really act. I have only one word for this movie. DISAPPOINTED! At the end of this movie, I was so glad that Kamalhassan made this movie in Tamil.
I can still remember, when Karthik and I walked out of the theater after watching Kuruthipunal, I was trying hard to comprehend all the immaculate details and the realistic portrayal of the way terrorists operate, we met this friend of Karthik's from BITS, who had the guts to tell us that the dialogues were more powerful in Droh Kaal. If I had seen this movie then, I would have laughed my ass off. OK, I don't know how to speak Hindi, but I can understand most of it. I swear people, I am not the "Ek Gaun mein, ek kissaaaaaaan, raghu thaatha" kind of person! Kuruthipunal's intensity was mainly achieved by dialogues written by thalaivar. For example, "Veeram na enna theriyuma, bayam illadha maadhiri nadikaradhu dhaan. Un bayathai un kannule naan paathuten, adhai medhuva nithaanama veliye kondu vandhu unakke arimuga padutharen". There was not even a single dialague in Droh Kaal that was even remotely close to that.
Forget the dialogues. Let's compare the terrorist leader in both the movies. Aasish Vidyarthi looked innocent at best, to the extent of "Vaaile veral vecha kooda kadikka theriyadhu". Nasser's Badri on the other hand was more than an equal to Kamal's Aadhi. Right from the beginning, we know that Nasser couldn't be killed that easily and it's confirmed by Kamal's battles, both verbal and physical, with him.
Overall, Droh Kaal was inferior to Kuruthipunal is many aspects, including production quality, which was truly below average. Of course, star power helped the Tamil version a lot. I have only one thing to say to the guy who commented on my post "Who killed my favorite actor?": Watch the Original first and then you'll know how good the remake is. This is truly a case of the remake being a far better movie than the original.

Nuggets

• Love the new job despite all the negative things I heard about the place before I took the job. Guess it all comes down to the team that you are in and how cool your manager is.
• College football is back and so are the sooners. Welcome back Bob Stoops!
• Still don't care about the NFL.
• Been playing tennis for the past 3 months and loving it.
• Started playing cricket after 5 years and loving it more.
• Want to do skydiving before the beginning of winter.
• Planning to take snowboarding classes this winter. Hope I don't break anything.
• Can't believe it's already a year since I went to India.
• Still can't decide between Xbox 360 and PS3.
• Want to change the title of my last post to "10 down 1 to go". Courtesy: Shiva

9 Down 2 To Go

I can’t believe I am at this stage of my life now. I wouldn’t be surprised one day if the strangers passing by me on the street start asking, “Why aren’t you married yet?” and tell me “YOU NEED TO BE MARRIED!” with a thick Indian Accent. Why this crazy obsession on marriage! As I start hearing some of the horror stories, the only feeling that’s gripping me these days is, marriage is probably not the right way to go. Almost all my friends call me to complain (that’s putting it in mild terms) about married life. I hear people say things like, “I wish I was still single” or “I would have done that in a heartbeat if I was still single”. Don’t give me clichéd statements like, “You won’t realize it until after 5 or 10 years down the lane”. So what if I am single when I am 40? I promise I won’t blame any of you for it!
Recently, I feel people just get married to fight off boredom in life or fear of being alone. Once you are close to the big 3-0, everyone starts feeling like they can’t be alone anymore and it just follows a preconceived pattern from there. Once you get married, you get bored of each other in a couple of years and decide to have kids. Some people don’t even wait; the guys just let their swimmers loose like Michael Phelps and wait for the inevitable to happen, like it’s some world record to be broken. After the first kid and all the sleepless nights that come along with it, they wait precisely for 3 or 4 years, or for the next Olympics to start so they can begin breeding again. It’s hard enough with one kid and imagine life with two kids. Where is the time for you and your so-called companion? I was also one of them, but right now I don’t feel like I need someone to share my life with. I am not in a position to follow this pattern. As if there aren’t enough people telling me to get married, my dad’s side relatives have joined in to have some fun. They keep sending me emails like, “Believe in Jesus and he will find the right girl for you!” When exactly did Mr.Christ start running a matrimonial service? There are more chances of a Hispanic guy named Jesus finding me a girl.
Despite all the things that I mentioned here, I am not against getting married at all but I can’t get married just for the sake of it and hope for it to work. I am starting to feel like marriage is totally overrated. Age doesn’t matter, at least in this country. After all, isn’t this the land of opportunities ;-)? After all this, I might do a 180 degree turn tomorrow and decide to get an arranged marriage or fall head over heals for someone. Again, it will solely be MY decision. When that happens, I am sure every single one of you will be there to say, “I told you so!”. Watch me give a damn then!

P.S: In case you are wondering, what the hell the title is about, the numbers refer to my close friends.

WHO killed my favorite actor?

Kamalhassan - The name that used to make many of us look up and wonder what he is up to now, has apparently gone missing since the release of Kuruthipunal, way back in 1996. Thinking back, I find it hard to point out when I became his fan or even why. As I was watching Dasavatharam, I was searching for my favorite actor, but I couldn't find him. I do not mean that in a complimentary way. Sure, the movie was entertaining and not as bad as some people seem to think it is but I really couldn't see the Kamalhassan who donned 4 different roles just with the help of a beard, whacky sideburns, an accent and some amazing variations in body language, in MMKR. These days he has to resort to prosthetic makeup, amateur graphics and Jackie chan to even promote his movies. What he doesn't realize is, we as fans and non-fans, only expect the simpest of movies from him, like Thevar Magan. For me, that is the best Kamalhassan movie ever, with an original storyline and a neat screenplay without any flaws. Nayagan will always be a close second, because it wasn't really a complete Kamalhassan movie.
I still remember the days when I went to watch Die Hard with a Vengenace twice, just to see the trailer of Kuruthipunal. The trailer itself was so thrilling, and made you sit up and take notice. One of my friends from Peter's Colony, who is a big Rajini fan said, "Ot**, K.S.Ravikumar soo*** madhiri padam eduthurukaan da (referring to Muthu), Kuruthipunal chance-a ille da". It gave me so much confidence that Tamil Cinema is in good hands and it's going to go places. Of course, I could get tickets for kuruthipunal at the counter easily during the second week and tickets for Muthu were hard to get even outside the counter. Somewhere after that, the perfectionaist in Kamalhassan died. Hey Ram and Virumandi are indeed good movies, but they really weren't simple by any means. They were contaminated with his own idealogies and principles. That's when I realized Kamal can never make a movie as a neutral person. Have you noticed, in every movie of his, there has to be a peeing scene or a supposedly comedy scene where he/someone else gets hit in the crotch? If that's going to be your trademark, then it ain't going to help you get any critical acclaim.
I watched Salangai Oli pretty late, like probably 10 years ago. I couldn't belive the fact that he did not get the National Award for that. The scene where he does Bharathanaatiyam, Kathak and Kathakali for the same two lines of the song is enough to say what kind of an actor he is. Who hasn't cried watching Moondram Pirai? Sridevi dominates throughout the movie and then in the last 5 minutes, Kamal shows everyone why he got his first National Award. If anyone here brings up Indian as one of his best movies, I will definitely put my foot up your ass for saying that. I watched that movie in Satyam theater with my "baalya snehidhargal", Karthik, SP and Balaji. When the lights came on for the intermission, I was wondering what the hell kind of a movie is this and I heard Balaji say to Karthik, "He will definitely get a National Award for this movie". I didn't say a word and Kamal did win a National Award. I remember Kamal once saying in an interview, "If mediocrity is our standard, then we will never make high quality movies". Well, Mr.Kamalhassan, mediocrity is present everywhere in your movies these days, please don't make it a standard. I want a movie like Kuruthipunal and Thevar Magan. All I am saying is, keep it simple, instead of talking about Chaos Theory and Butterfly effect! I am already hearing that there's going to be a whole bunch of graphics for his next movie Marmayogi and it only makes me nervous.

Cheerleaders and 20/20

My buddy Shiva and I had a very insightful conversation about why cheerleaders look so out of place in cricket, despite the best efforts of Mr.Mallya and the Washington Redskins cheerleaders to make it look as sexy as possible. Here's what I think. American football is the manliest sport you can ever see in this world, with super-sized muscles and testosterone oozing out of every 10 yards on the field. When you watch something so manly, you tend to look for something that complements it, like for example, cheerleaders. They perfectly complete the circle by providing the necessary refreshments in between the grunts, helmet clashes and the pats on the back. Now, if you take Cricket or Soccer, it's not as testosterone-based as football, barring the headbutt by that French soccer player in the worldcup final. The manliest diplay I have ever seen in cricket is Venkatesh Prasad showing the dressing room to Aamir Sohail in the quarter finals of World Cup 1996. So, when you put a bunch of cheerleaders in the gentlemen's game of cricket, no matter where they are from, it only makes it look like a cheap stunt to get some attention.

Ninaithale Inikkum.

Bell bottom, thongu meesai and step cutting. That's Kamalhassan in Ninaithale inikkum. If you thought that was funny, then add Rajinikanth, sporting a french beard, as the guitarist with a compulsive stealing habit and you have the deadliest comedy combo. Can you even imagine Rajini calling Kamal "rascal" and "thalaivare" among the numerous "va da"s and "po da"s today? The movie can be easily classified as belonging to the MUSICAL genre, but it's a mix of comedy, drama, and of course musical. To even think of a musical band like this based in Madras/Chennai sends chills down the spine. Rajini clearly plays second fiddle to Kamal throughout the movie, but you can clearly see Rajini stealing the show in many scenes with his comic timing and the ability to take over Kamal in the form of a solo song. Kamal should have seen it coming. No wonder Rajini is always the unanimous No.1 and Kamal will always be the deserving challenger to the No.1 spot. Jayaprada was so cute with a boy-cut hairstyle, reminding me of my ex. The "Engeyum Eppothum" song is much better than the remix, without the jarring beats and the unwanted lines replacing that best part of the song. I think this is the best tamil movie to watch when you are drunk (or not). FUN is the only word to define this movie. I hope they don't remake this evergreen movie and spoil it.

Turkey-Mushroom Meatball

It's been quite a while since I cooked anything substantial. I have been too lazy to cook for myself since my mom visited me and then I was forced into an entended vacation in India for 2 months. Do I really have to explain what those things do to a single guy in the cooking department? Today I decided to make something good/deep fried/fatty to go with my 6-pack. Here we go:

Ingredients:
Ground turkey - 1 lb
Onion - 1
Mushrooms - 15 small ones (stem removed)
Gram Flour(Kadalai maavu) - 3 tsp
Ginger paste - 1/2 tsp
Green chilli - 4 small ones
Red Chilli powder - 1 tsp
Curry Leaves
Cilantro
Salt - appropriate amount

Chop the onions, green chilli, curry leaves and the cilantro really fine. Mix the ground turkey with the gram flour, the chopped ingredients, ginger paste, chilli powder and salt. Now we have a meat paste. Make balls (NO, not those balls!) with the mushrooms by rolling them in the paste until the mushrooms are completely covered. Here comes the best part: Deep fry these balls in medium heat until they become brown (a little on the darker side) in color all around. You can enjoy them with Maggi hot and sweet sauce or if you are the intense kind, with the chinese chilli sauce. OH BOY, it almost tastes illegal!