Mob Mentality or Mental Mob

The Kannada Film Industry woke up on the morning of 30th December 2009 to the newsreel that Dr. Vishnuvardhan, ಸಾಹಸ ಸಿಂಹ of the industry rose to heavenly abode. Apparently he suffered a massive cardiac arrest on the early morning of 30th December. This news comes in the wake of yet another loss to the fraternity when ace singer Dr. CS Ashwath passed away couple of days ago.

From years of being a star, he has encompassed numerous fans all over the state. His popularity is no less than, maybe a wee bit less than Dr. Rajkumar. He even has numerous fans' association across the state. His mortal remains were put on public display for his fans to pay the last homage. As was seen during Dr. Rajkumar's demise, the uncivilised, not-fit-for-society hooligans began stone throwing at shops, people, public transport et al. They made attempts to bring things to a standstill. What sadistic pleasure do these trouble mongers get when they destroy others belongings? General public's vehicles were stoned, BMTC buses were stoned, even police jeeps were not spared. Amidst all these chaos, the ಕನ್ನಡ news channels kept beaming these images titled ಅಭಿಮಾನಿಗಳಿಂದ ಕಲ್ಲು ತೂರಾಟ.

Whose abhimaani's are they? If they cant respect the dead or the alive, they don't even deserve to be called humans, leave alone abhimaanis. Suvarna News had some lady reporting that she was amazed looking at the number of abhimaani's who were throwing stones & footwear. I wonder if she was aware at all of what nonsense she was blabbering. Despite all this, there was no call either from the ministers or the top cops for people to remain calm! Crowd control measures seem to missing from the police minds & manuals as well.

Alas! The ugly side reared its head again and the illogical continues to happen. ದೇವರೇ ಕಾಪಾಡಬೇಕು ನಮ್ಮ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರ್ನ!

3 idiots...unlimited fun

Come December 25th of every year, Bollywood looks forward to powerful entertainers from the Mr. Perfectionist, Aamir Khan. 2009 doesn't disappoint either with 3 Idiots. 3i   is a very endearing story of friendship, love, passion & ability of one's self to identify what one is made of.

Said to be based on Chetan Bhagath's book Five Point Someone, 3i follows the book's plot for most of the part. Unlike other book-turned-movies, 3i is a remarkable rendition on celluloid with the story told impeccably, managing to hold the interest till the very end. Trust Aamir Khan to give a mind blowing performance. He may be 40+ in real life, but his transformation to a 20yr old college student is entirely remarkable. Neither his looks, nor his mannerisms betray his real life identity and this works to the movie's greatest advantage.

Aamir "Rancho" Khan, R "Farhan" Madhavan & Sharman "Raju" Joshi become the inseparable hostel mates & class mates in Imperial College of Engineering. The introductory scene of Rancho is hilarious. While the freshers are being ragged & Rancho refuses to get ragged, the senior threatens to piss on Rancho's door. Rancho counters him practically by holding a metal spoon plugged into the power socket & delivers a shock of life. Farhan recollects Humne sirf pada tha ki Salt Water is good conductor of electricity, isne to practical use kiya. 

The college directory, Boman “Viru Sahastra Budhdhi” Irani (fondly known to his students as Virus), is a proud man who has kept the college on top for years together. His mantra life is a race, tum baagoge nahin to kuchal diye jaaoge. He expects only one thing from his pupils, they should excel at whatever they are doing & earn themselves a fat plum job at the campus interviews. Rancho appears on scene to question each of Viru’s rat-race tactics. To prove that learning by rote without really understanding what it means, Rancho plays a hilarious prank on another student Chatur Ramalingam. Chatur is selected to orate the addressing ceremony on the teacher’s day. Rancho modifies Chatur’s Hindi speech with occurrences of chamatkaar with balathkaar and dhan with sthan. What follows is a total laugh riot. This arguably is the best scene of the movie & half of my money's worth was recovered here. Chatur is humiliated & in drunken anger he challenges Rancho to see who will be most successful in life ten years later.

Virus doesn't like his conventional ways to be challenged. Chatur doesn't want to be defeated. Rancho doesn't want to be bothered with any of these. Virus tries to separate the trio but he fails. This is where the movie showcases the true college life, friendship, helping one another, trying to realize one's own potential & finding love as well. Aamir has put in a tremendous performance, while Sharman Joshi excels. Its a pity Sharman doesn't get many roles. Madhavan is good too, but is a bit fat too. Kareena plays Aamir's love interest. While she doesn't have much to do among the boys, she gyrates well, looks gorgeous and puts in a heart warming performance.

Music by Shantanu Moitra is quite good. The song Zoobie Doobie is peppy & foot tapping. Watch Aamir move like Shashi Kapoor in this song. The attention paid to so such small details is amazing. Eccentricities of Virus and the quaint mannerisms is ably enacted by Boman Irani. What a fine find he has been to the industry.

Somewhere along the movie there are echoes similar to Taare Zameen Par; like when Farhan's father chides him when his percentage slid down from 94 to 91; but they do seem inevitable. The gist is that dont try to achieve something because your parent wished you to do it. Learn with passion, learn things so that they can be applied practically & you have got yourself a success mantra to be happy in life. I could easily connect with this thought, because it is the same mundane booky stuff that I too went through in college without actually getting to visualize them in real life.

Rajkumar Hirani's direction is razor sharp. Though there are some things which seem over the top, like Aamir assisting in child birth using a Vacuum Cleaner as the suction cup to pull out the baby, the stress is really on not being a bookie, I mean book worm. This line of thought is superbly collated with other bollywood stuff like comedy, emotions, songs & terrific one liners, that make 3i an absolutely entertaining movie to end the year with.

Ek free advice du, dont miss this movie :)

Meta Blog

Whenever my RSS feeder is launched, the typical dialog box I see if of panic. Panic because I wouldn’t have read 99.999% of the feeds of days ago & FeedDemon wants to keep things neat & clean. I dutifully hit the panic button to clean up the mess followed by, again, updating my entire list of RSS subscriptions.

But, whenever I sift through my subscriptions the mandatory ones I manage to read are the various blogs that I’ve subscribed to. There are a variety of them & I pay most attention to the ones which strike a chord within me. One is laced with humour, one filled up with facets of life, one with delicious aromas of kitchen, one was full of sports masala (albeit fictional, was it or was it not), one brimful of passion for various things and so on.

Here I list some of the varieties of literary & other geniuses in my Meta Blogs' blog!

Ø  iyermatter is a quaint blog name obviously belonging to an Iyer. Jai Iyer is my schoolmate & I remember him as one of the best cartoonist I saw in my formative years. His penchant for toons is abundantly reflected in his blogs. His whacky introduction of himself is as whacky as it can be. Satiate your humour senses with a visit to his blog & like me, you’ll wish that he blogged daily J.

Ø  deponti to the world has plenty of unique perspective on life & everything about it. She has her skills lined up in many things. Not only is she a swell writer, she is also a darn good photographer. Her photos reflect a unique perspective on life & are sometimes philosophical as well. Her blogs are on many different subjects and often bring a smile on my lips. Checkout her blog on butterflies which reflect her passion for photography & more passion for details.

Ø  The Cooks Collection blog came to my notice, thanks to widespread power of Facebook. During my Farmville addict days, I got introduced to Ramya as a farming neighbor and in turn to her cookery blog. A unique combination of passion for writing, shooting & penning makes her blog a gastronomic experience. Mere look at the shots of her recipes are enough to make mouths water. See what I mean, marshmellow cookies or the baingan bhartha or the chocolat-yummy-cheese cake. The mug shots of the recipes are as well defined as the recipes itself. Savour it!

Ø  IPL became a rage thanks to the mastermind marketer Modi. The 2^nd edition in SA had its fair share of controversies too, with what was rumoured as a disgruntled KKR player, venting out his frustration on the management, with plenty of inside masala scoops doled out to lapping netizens all over. Whether the facts hold any weight or not, the entertainment was unlimited. The fake IPL player has a flair for scandalous reporting which the likes of Zoom, Aaj Tak, TV9 would’ve been proud of. Read of some of his initial blogs to have yourself in splits.

Ø  Churumuri has the passion, flavor & enough ingredients to ensure that you have your fill. I got hooked onto this blog when I read a passionate piece on how the author idolized GR Vishwanath. This idol worship is linked to Ganesha worship in this beautiful piece & ever since I’ve never turned back on this blog. Blog on numerous national issues are discussed in true practicality here.

Ø  Through deponti’s blog, I got linked to Mahesh Devarajan’s blog. Mahesh seems to be a class photographer and an avid traveler. Through his lens, view the vivid landscapes of India or the mesmerizing nature of flora & fauna. His shots are a treat to the eyes & are definitely one of the best photo blogs I’ve seen.

Blue, gave me blues

The trailers of the movie was inviting to take a dip in its suave cool blue Bahamas waters, savour its story, locales, action; the music is funky, full of beats and smacked of signature AR.Rahman tunes. And add Kylie Minogue to the charm and the producers ensured that I took the fatal bait. I watched the trailer on the idiot box many a times and wanted a dekho at this newest Rs. 80 crore bollywood flick.


The movie opens with the sequence of a shipwreck in 1947 followed by Kabir Bedi's grim face. We get back to the present times where Akshay Kumar (Aarav) & Sanday Dutt (Sagar aka Sethji) chit chatting on their boat about the last night's party where Akshay got to ride two chicks back home. They are fishing for their livelyhood when Aarav's cap gets blown in by the breeze into the blue. It being his favourite cap, Sagar tries to retrieve it and out of the blue swims up a shark bearing its jaws. Net mein hole to jeb mein hole is the mantra and both of them dive in. Aarav tames the shark & drives it away and you are ensured that the movie isnt short of style.


Aarav is the rich businessman who employs the faithful Sagar, who knows the ocean like the back of his hand. They are friendly, but fight a bitter boxing match; they are the employer-employee but share a friendly rapport and all their conversations are steered by Aarav to the Lady in Blue. This is enough to make Sagar's blood boil enough to make a cuppa tea! 


Cut to some glam quotient, and muse if Lara 'Mona' Dutta whose dream is to save the marine life and setup some kinda marine museum in Bahamas. Phew! whatta dream mate, the muse wants to save while the guy is catching fish!!!


Cut once more to east Asia, Bangkok. We get a glimpse of Sagar's chhota bhai Zayed 'Sam/Sameer' Khan who we immediately know is a brat and will get into trouble and its because of him bada bhai has to do the unthinkable. Meanwhile Kat Kaif is added for some more glam quotient. Whatever her role length is, she definitely sizzles. Action follows, Sam races Rahul 'Gulshan'Dev, wins, agrees to do a sleazy job for him, zooms again on his bike, cops chase & the streets of Bangkok see a truck overturn and balls of fire. Yup, Sam doesnt finish the job & enters Bahamas to be under the protective care of bada bhai.


Aarav, Sagar, Mona & Sam have some fun in the islands. In a happening night club, we see a stunningly beautiful Kylie singing & gyrating to chiggy-wiggy. More fun follows to the theme song of Blue. The song is very well shot with cool underwater cam scenes, corals, colourful fishes, hitchhiking a ride on a tortoises's back and adds oodles of panache & style to the movie. But does it add any to the story, hmmmfff!!!


One more bike chase follows which is rather stupid. Who has ever heard of bikes landing on the roof of a moving train, then jumping off in front of the monstrous engine, out running the train and then moving to safety! Its clear by now Sam is in trouble and the troika of boyz need to help Sam & themselves. Needless to say, we know what the second half has in store.


The first half has as much story to tell as the length of Lars's bikini.  Something that could have been said within 10 minutes is stretched to an hour. Though, there is no dearth of style the story falls flat. Second half is equally rubbish. The underwater stunts could have been done much better. The much touted scene where Akshay had to swim underwater while there is an explosion above, appears hardly for a second or two. India's officially first underwater movie managed to pour gallons of cold water over my  expectations of the movie.


Like numerous Akshay's movies, this one too has a very weak story line. Logic has no role to play at all. Imagine calling the coast guard for a may-day help in Bahamas. The climax of the movie is as stupid as in 8x10 Tasveer. First time directory Lawrence D'Souza needs to do his homework. 


The only good thing about the movie is the music and good underwater cinematography. Apparently the makers roped in the same cinematographer as of Pirates of the Caribbean fame and thankfully they got it right. Chiggy-Wiggy, Blue & Fiqurana are foot taping songs.


Lara Dutta is in purely for the glam factor. Sanjay Dutt looks ingloriously unfit. His bulging muscles have moved from his arms down to his stomach. Akshay bares his fit body & his son Aarav's tattoo on his neck. Zayed is just about ok, as ok as he was in Dus or Main Hoon Na. A highly disappointing flick worth giving a complete miss. I would rate it only 2/5, not that my opinion really matters to the Rs.50 crore that the movie has already collected!!!  

Kool Kodai

The work was driving me mad. It had my hands full to the extent that I was driven to balance the load with my feet too. Enough was enough, and we wanted to get away for a while without touching a phone, laptop, TV and not endure the Bangalore traffic.

Kodaikanal was our choice of vacation, since neither of us had been there and its not far from Bangalore either. Located on the Western Ghats on the western side of the southern state of Tamil Nadu, Kodai is a much sought after hill station, to literally cool your heels. We decided to travel by train.

How we got there?

We decided to make the journey by train. Kodai doesnt have a railway station. The closest place is Kodai Road which is about 75kms from Kodai. Tuticorn Express (Train No. 6732) leaves from Bangalore at about 9:15pm and reaches Kodai road by 6:30am. A "AC 3 Tier" costs about Rs. 510 per person. From Kodai Road we expected to strike a bargain in a taxi or take a bus. The illusion was purely shattered upon alighting.

Taxis are dime a dozen there, but its the brokers who call the roost. They demand nothing less than Rs. 1100. After a hard bargain we were able to round it for Rs. 1000, only to be told by the driver, on the way, that if one approaches the taxis directly you can get away by paying about Rs.800-850. The journey takes 2hrs and the roads are good. The ghats form majority of the distance, about 55kms.

Tips: If you are making a similar trip to Kodai, think about driving yourself. Or if you know a tourist operator in Kodai, call up before hand and strike a deal. All Hotels in Kodai charge about Rs. 1000+Taxes for this trip.

What we saw?

Kodai isnt such a place where you need to do an elaborate plan to decide what to see and when to see it. Its a pretty small town and you can pretty much cover all the attractions in a single day. We booked the same taxi operator who brought us to the hotel, to take us around the town as well. To take it all in at an extremely leisurely pace we split up the tour into two halves for two days. Some of the main attraction to see are...

• Coakers Walk: Lt. Coaker, an Englishman, mapped the Kodai city. He also designed this walk which is on the edge of the mountain and overlooks the valley below. It makes for a beautiful sight of the magnificent nature. A must-see place and try to visit during the twilight hours for a better experience. But be warned that fog may play spoilsport.

• The Lake: This ought to be the most famous attraction in Kodai. Spread across almost 6 sq kms of area the vast expanse of waters have a mountainous backdrop. Boating here is a must & makes for a serene soothing experience. Take a rower boat & if you are luck the boatman Laxman will tell you interesting facts and click some good pics too.

• Upper Lake View: A beautiful spot from where you can feast on the view of the entire lake. If you have a SLR cam with wide angle lens, then you get the best desktop wallpaper you can lay your hands on. Else, you can splurge Rs.200 for 2 photos from one of the multitude of photographers there.

• Pillar Rocks: Natures show of strength and invincibility is showcased at this site. True to its name, sheer vertical rocks stand tall next to each other. Monkey menace is large here.

• Pine Forest: Touted as the Cine Shooting Place, this is really a beautiful location. Pine Trees grow in abundance here and are so dense in some places that sunlight can only trickle through in. Calm, quite & serene, this is one romantic spot any couple would love to spend lots of time in.

• Green Valley View: The name makes full justice to the place. However it is infamous for its numerous life ending missions as the steep fall ensures that no trace of any bones can be found ever. Beautiful though, one must tread carefully to enjoy the vast expanse of nature.

While these places are the bulk of the main attraction in Kodai, there are few smaller ones. Dont be fooled by names like Kodai City View, Palani View, Golf course etc. The views can be seen standing near the Kurunji Andavar Temple (dedicated to Lord Subrahmanya) while you can only glimpse at the golf course on the way to other places. There is a small Jain Temple too, but Lord Mahaveera is truly resplendent in marble. Chettiar Park & Bryant Park are not out of the ordinary but a quick visit doesnt harm. Both parks charge a minuscule entry fee and some more for the camera as well.

As I said earlier in the post, one can round off all these places within a day. If you want to do it at leisure, the max you need is two days. Apart from the sights, there is no other attractions. Night life is non-existent, while shopping offers nothing new. But some Tibetian shops near the lake have some good fare to be considered. Plethora of "Home Made Chocolates" shops are seen too, but again nothing special about them.

Other forest & trekking tours too are offered for which the forest department's permissions is a must. I am sure the tour operators can get your the permission without any hitch.

Where to eat?

Veg restaurants are not hard to find in the city, near the lake. Hotel Hilltop Woodlands, Astoria Veg, Tava are some of the restaurants which have fairly good variety to satisfy the gastronomy. The local Pizza Corner (next to Hilltop Woodlands) delivers to your hotel room too, if you want. Branded bottled water comes at a small premium. Aquafina costs about Rs.2-4 more than the MRP.

To sum up, Kodai is truly a nice place to visit to getaway from the maddening hustle-bustle of the city. We lazed, I am really lazed around in our hotel room for one more day, before we were travel bound to our next destination.

Hotel Tip

The only grouse I had about Kodai is that Taxis are the sole mode of local transportation. If you hotel is not neat the city, then you end up spending a minimum of Rs.60 per taxi trip. We stayed in Hotel Kodai International which is 2kms away from the lake. While 2kms. doesnt seem a long walk, it indeed is tiring when you walk uphill the entire distance. If you are planning a trip to the Kodai, check for a hotel which is not more than 1km away from the lake.

Numero Uno

This is my first blog ever on the cyberspace. What took me to blogging is that it helps one to connect to like minded people across the seas or land and to share & learn newer things. I fondly recollect a line from a song which goes like the more you know, the more you want to learn or something on similar lines :).

I've read various blogs on the Net and I'm amazed at the talent that people I know, have got within them. Its a pleasure to assimilate all their knowings and a true stress buster too. For long, I wished I could write like them too, but then I know that I am not them, but I'm me.

A few days ago, me & my wife took a week long vacation, which was long overdue for us. We visited a few places, had a good time and it was then I decided that I should, somewhere, log where we want, what we did, what we saw & where we stayed. Voila, blog was the answer to this. But my entire blog might not be a travelogue. It might hold whatever comes to my mind that I think is useful of sharing.

Soon, I shall be penning about our vacation!