Sivaji - a visual treat

GRANDIOSE - if i could use just one word to describe the movie. Now you can add all the adjectives that describe pomp and show to follow on. Exorbitant song sets, fight settings and many more is what you will feel when you walk out of this entertainer.

For all readers in Chennai, I must tell you that Abhirami theater is one hopeless place to watch this movie. Its such a congested place with no planning. All efforts have been made only to make money and create inconvenience for the public. Abhirami Ramanathan who is supposedly making a killing because of buying the movie rights for this movie is just filling his bank accounts. He seems to be least bothered if the public have so much trouble getting into his establishment. The idea of a wholesome entertainment gets lost when one walks into such a theater. Broken seats, unclean surroundings, uninvited visitors like rats are part of your blockbuster movie.

ARR has surpassed everyone's expectations by giving just the right beats to keep the audience tapping their toes. As it happens in most Superstar movies, Superstar begins his reign embellished with SPB's enchanting voice and we can feel that vibrating in the "Balleilakka" song. Nayantara (seems to have toned up a lot for Superstar) who just appears for the first song has done a neat job. Supporting dancers with painted faces of the Superstar on their body is different. Director Shankar has brought in the flavor of the "Andan Kaakka" song from Anniyan into this too, but obviously is much more extravagant.

"Vaaji Vaaji" that follows next is probably on the Prince of Persia theme. Crores of rupees have been spent in almost every song. This one was phenomenal with an exotic harem. It seemed to me that all efforts have been made to make sure that Shreya wears just the amount of clothes thats required to get the pass certificate from the censor board. If you told me that Shreya is the most beautiful girl you've seen on screen, I wouldn't bother to disagree because thats 100% true. I am just short of words, but This lissome beauty is crazy beautiful and awesome. In this song, Shreya is like an Egyptian Queen. If Cleopatra was alive today, she would be of no comparison to Shreya.

"Oru Koodai sunlight", which I think is also called "Style", reminds you of some music themes from 50 cents. Another wonderful attempt accepted very well. All care has been made to make sure that the music in every song complements Superstar's moves, especially the STYLE sequence in this song keeps you highly enthused.

"Sahana Saral" shot inside glasshouses (location looks like a new ecosystem) with a classical theme is worth mentioning. Singer Udit Narayan's rendition doesn't sound like a north indian's attempt on tamil music. He has worked a lot on the diction part and the result is very good indeed. Again Shreya is a treat to watch with her princess looks.

"Athiradee Kaalam" is another remarkable song by AR Rahman. The song does remind you some beats from Michael Jacksons compositions, but still rocks. Rahman is the singer here and when he sings we get reminded of own style, which just repeats. Shreya looks like a Latino woman here - reminds me of Salma Hayek.

Fight sequences have also been given equal importance although there is not logic when Superstar fights. Everything thats questionable is defied. The sequence in the instrument store is organized, but i wonder why the director chose to break all the instruments. I hate it when someone tampers with the music instrument. Here is someone breaking them. Superstar also reminds you of Agent Smith and Neo is certain places. Towards the end he completes it by also becoming Morpheus.

Comedy is just right. Superstar does not have punch dialogs. Comedy King Vivek does most of the work required. The amount of seriousness that the movie brings along is complemented with an equal amount of comedy that keeps the audience laughing to an extent. Director Shankar has continued with his anti corruption theme - it black money this time.

I'd definitely watch this movie again.

Intelligence ???

Although I dont totally believe in this particular prediction, its somewhat fun.

Your Dominant Intelligence is Musical Intelligence

Every part of your life has a beat, and you're often tapping your fingers or toes. You enjoy sounds of all types, but you also find sound can distract you at the wrong time. You are probably a gifted musician of some sort - even if you haven't realized it. Also a music lover, you tend to appreciate artists of all kinds. You would make a great musician, disc jockey, singer, or composer.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

The temporary status continues

I cant believe that I still dont have an employee id. I have given up now. I have better things to do. Since yesterday, I have been looking up a good number of websites on furniture design, suspended bridges, architects etc. Its good fun to read something new.

Office etiquette has been shown the backdoor at my workplace. Every 5 minutes you can hear someone's phone ringing. The volume level is extremely high. The ringtones are also picked up from the Tamil movies and hence its almost like listening to a radio station. Apart from this, I have a jobless neighbor at office who keeps entertaining me with his activities. He uses the phone (both land and hand) extensively to talk to anyone and everyone about anything other than work. And apart from this, his phone gives this stupid alarm when he gets an SMS - "Excuse me Boss, you have a text message", as if its as important as "Houston, we have a problem". The sounds dont end here. There are some managers, sitting in open cabins, around me who use the speaker phone to talk to their friends, or family or banks.

During the entrepreneurship conference that happened in ISB last year, a professor from one of the IITs told us that his team had come up with a mobile jamming application - one that would stop all the mobiles within a particular area, from ringing loud. I definitely think we need one of that here.

I was listening to Burt Rutan's talk from the TED Conference, where he was mentioning about innovation cycles being reduced to none and how the US had crossed two generations of no innovation in the space exploration area. It was also interesting to listen to his observation of how airplanes became successful only because of the theory of natural selection.

Bill Clinton meets Dick Cheney.
Bill Clinton says - "Nowadays, you Republicans get away with everything you do. When I just took a shot at someone, I got impeached for that."

Chennai 600028

My friend had rightly said about this movie - "The Kollywood answer to Dil Chahtha Hai" and it truly was a movie like that.



The weekend in the Manchester of South India was fabulous. A good reason to get away from the hot and humid madras, although i keep complaining about madras, i never get bored of this place. maybe its because of the 27 year itch.

Chennai 28 was a treat in the form of a movie. Made on a very low budget, hats off to the guy who wrote the screenplay. There wasnt really a story line - its just a year of life along with everyday friends in your community and passion for cricket. With such a simple theme, every shade of a bachelor's life has been touched upon in a vivid fashion with intricate details. Comedy is just apt to prove that laughter is the best medicine. In certain instances, some would just feel that this wasnt a joke at all. But for all those people who have been on the streets during those few years in college, every moment can be related to some way or the other.

Outlook India carries this article - The circle of Frisson, where it talks about the family being a faraway world and friends defining the new relationships. Click on the bold words to read the full article. This movie was yet another reminder to such a theme.

As Dil Chahtha Hai did to a lot of us - you walk out of the movie hall with a feeling that you have been inside the theatre for just the right experience. No message, no evil and no good triumph. Its the same good old feeling here too.

Anyway, after all that good stuff, I am back to simple interest, compound interest and stuff like that. People at work have this feeling that a management programme at one of the best schools in the country is no proof that you are qualified to be on the job. They have given me some hopeless learning modules to read on.

And I still dont have my employee id. Is someone doing the Hewitt Survey or anything of that sort. Please take a note of this.

Its Training Time.. Alleluya

"Icebergs are those things that, on the surface, appear much more trivial than they are. Unlike the Titanic, they don’t always sink your project, but they may knock it way off course."

This is what i read from one of the presentations.

For the funniest part, I still havent got my employee id. Today is the fifth day. The latest reason that the HR has found to tell me is - the server has crashed and it will take more than 2 days to rectify that. I was like(in my mind) - Huh!, do you know where you are working? A company that boasts of being one of the top players in the IT services industry. And you tell me that it would take 2 days to get a server up and running. Would you tell something like that to your client?

So if you dont have your id, you cant do anything. No access to any floor. No coffee or tea or lunch without the help of others. YOU CANT EVEN GO TO THE LOO. Because of the funny way in which things are arranged around the office here (projects are demarcated within a single floor through access points), you cant get to any place without the ID card.

Every morning I keep talking to myself that today would be the day the bus driver would check if I had a valid pass and with that feeling I would try and sneak into the bus with that confident look on my face, that look which says that I am one of those old-timers in the organization and you better be smart enough before you pop up any question to me. But yes, if he got brave enough to do that, then I dont know what to say. I definitely cant tell him that the SERVER CRASHED.

Work starts on a cold note

If I could get paid for studying or living in a university campus, that would be absolutely great. Work isnt any interesting. We started off on a not so good note. The so called auditorium was freezing and maintenance was so responsive that they did not bother to turn the temperature up even after frantic calls from us. Thats the beginning i guess. and then we had these boring presentations from the various teams and the people representing the senior management. it was more or less like the PPT we had on campus. i wonder why we had that again. maybe it was a refresher that out me to sleep.

presentations overshot the allocated time by more than an hour. then it was the turn of all the banks and the mobile service providers to make their pitch. out of the four banks that made their offers, citibank was the only one to screw up big time. well, we always know that the second largest bank in the world had to make a big noise and then defame itself knowingly. and then they say that they are not the tom dick and harry of the banks in india. they just want to serve the best customers int he best way. sounds like a good customer value proposition, but never suits a country like india where there are so many people and the only way is volume. anyway, their strategy is best left to them.

i must also mention some things about my friends who joined from tier 2 and tier 3 business schools in india, who were asking a number of questions. they perhaps did not know that there were not being paid extra money for class participation.

the admin group at the office has not been very cooperative till now. they just want to throw some information at us and run off immediately before we ask them questions. with the HR, well, they could have managed this whole day in a much better way. yet another reason for WHY WE HATE HR. but they always want to be hated and hence will be the laggards. in fact, my first day at iflex was 100 times better than this one. i wonder if the joining procedures are different for undergrads and post-grads. forget all the fun. we were not even given a copy of the schedule for the day.

do you really think that the grass is greener on the other side?

i did want to make a mention about the under-underpants and the over-underpants. sounds confusing isnt it. but thats the fun i guess. lets see if i can get to write more about this.

Visual DNA

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Back again with views about bombay

05/06/2007
Originally uploaded by SuzyMBA

After that last post I did, I made a small trip to Bombay. People in bombay, whom i did not call - please do not get angry. first thing - i did not carry your numbers. i myself had a loaned phone. i was living in a place where the nearest internet cafe could not be located. and i was totally disoriented with the way the city lived.

perhaps bombay is such a nice place for millions of people. not for a person like me who needs some breathing space. in about every place in bombay there are more people per square feet than in any other city in india. you cant to any place soon. if that had to happen then it should be after 12pm and before 5am. a lot of people like the way bombay functions. i personally did not like it at all. everything is so fast. sometimes, the city life can be compared to how it is in New York. Even London is not this fast. although i did not explore the whole city in great depths, i was astonished to see asia's largest slum dharavi, while the aeroplane was descending. its HUGE - in the real sense, its HULK size. from the top i cud see all the small lanes inside the slum. these lanes were just enuff for one person to walk through and houses were placed on the landscape like a collage of matchboxes or maybe just a confetti.

the next funny thing to understand and practice was the suburban train. i stood stationary on the andheri platform for more than 30 minutes to get onto a train. the idea was to get onto the train before someone got off. and to do this, you had to be agile and fast because there were 50 other people trying to do the same thing. nevertheless, the all-ladies compartments were free of any trouble of getting in or out.

public transport as such is quite efficient. the city more or less is totally dependent on the public transport infrastructure. in that way its managed very efficiently. the auto-rickshaws are not allowed in some portions of the city. you can drive only cabs there. this keeps out the rickshaw drivers who keep shifting lanes every 10 mtrs and who do not see the vehicles coming behind before taking a U-Turn.

While I was browsing through some of the other blogs that I visit, I found this interesting picture. Click on it to read what it says