Late Summer movies - Malayalam

I saw two movies this week - Vinodayatra & Mayavi. Vinodayatra is a story of Vinod finding his calling in life. It's a feel good family movie where the screenplay takes us into a families daily life without any fanfare and at a leisurely pace. Sathyan Anthikkad is a master director at weaving good family stories and though this movie is not his finest, it' s certainly a decent one with oodles of melodrama. Dilip is funny and so is Mukesh. Seetha, Meera Jasmine, Parvathy (the Kiran TV compere), Mamookoya, Innocent and a few others complete the cast. Screenplay this time is done by Sathyan Anthikkad himself. Ilaiyaraja's music is apt.

Mayavi is a humor loaded movie which doesn't offer any logic, I didn't expect that too. Mahi is a good guy who walks in and out of jail for various crimes he did not commit but owned up to for money. Inorder to get big money he accepts to own up to a murder that is to be committed so that he can save his best friend's brother's life by paying for the operation. How Mahi goes about the task unfolds in the story. There's deception at the highest level, there's jealousy and every Shakespearean vice in this movie. But what I am deliberately trying to understate is the fact that this movie has tons of laughs stuffed into it.

The first half races past you, the length is not felt because of the incredible humor by Mamooty and the entire cast. The second half meanders into the illogical to the absurd but who cares, you can still laugh. Overall, Shafi has directed a hot comedy screenplay penned by Rafi Mecartin and delivered the first superhit of the year. After the dissapointment that was "Big B", "Mayavi: was a refreshing change. Incidentally "Mayavi" released before "Big B" but took so long to release in Coimbatore.

Crossroads

"When you are standing at life's crossroads
When you're confused and weighed down with loads
When pain and strain, explode and sear right through you
Take the long hard road, take it O my friend
Journey ride along, don't let your patience bend
And at the end of the road
You will find the Lord
He'll be standing there and waiting with his arms open wide
He'll gather you in his side with a love that so bright
His love will soothe your tired mind and heal your weary body"

This song written by Daryll Atkinson best describes the state of mind I'm in these days. Thank God for the power of prayer and the gift of love, it'll take a lot of time and effort to sail through.

Seasonal vibrations

It is hot in Coimbatore, hot like I've never experienced in the past. I am known for covering myself under a sheet all round the year when asleep, this year I had to abandon that. Intermittent summer showers cool things down a bit but the afternoon heat is excruciating. The lull after the last race in Sepang and the race in Spain this weekend are heating things up too. Will McLaren continue their good run despite their car looking shaky at times (the blue haze from Lewis' car at every turn was scary)?

AR Rahman's "Sivaji" is another thing that is adding to the summer heat. This album is hot and shows what Rahman can do when he get's his own sweet time to work on a soundtrack. I hope the background score lives up to the demands of a Rajini movie. Waiting for this movie to release to see how it fares. Though 'Big B' was a dissappointment, it's music was the best to have come out in recent times. Alphons Joseph is the man behind the soundtrack which get's me to a pertinent question. Why is he not doing the background score for his movies? "Big B" is a case to point.

Haven't read anything in the past 2 months except weekly magazines and the daily newspaper. Call it laziness or not being able to allocate time for it. These days I sleep all day and then work all night. Catch up with some errands early in the morning before going back to sleep again. Heading toward to Madras this weekend and guess what? It's always fun to be with kids and the joy of being with Mia and Meeshma is unparalleled. Especially when you see them fighting for ownership over you, it's not to be encouraged but it's a nice feeling. I will drive them back to Coimbatore on Sunday and I hope the roads are better this time around.

On the back of my mind there's a thought to take a quick trip to Edapally and take part in St.George's feast this year, this is one of those random lightnings I keep getting so it may happen or simply may be dumped. "Roses in winter", "Destination Christ" - two albums Timmy brought back from the trip to Malayatoor released by the RexBand lives up to the expectations I had. The songs are simply fantastic and there's a particular song dedicated to the Late Pope John Paul II which moves me in ways I cannot describe. I am a fan of the late Holy Father and I cannot but submit myself to the power of the music and lyrics and experience his presence in my life. I would love to share the music with everyone on the internet but I don't want to encourage piracy, if anybody wants a demo track or something I'll put it up online. I'll also be glad to purchase and mail copies of this CD if anyone desires.

Big B - movie

Being a fan of Mamooty and not wanting to miss a chance of watching 'Big B' (malayalam) in Central Theaters (Coimbatore), I went for the night show on Saturday. To say that this movie was bad would be an understatement. This movie was awful. Earlier last week Benoy Chettan had recommended 'Big B' over 'Chota Mumbai' (starring Mohanlal). I should watch the latter and see how it fares.

"Big B" is simply a collection of disconnected images masquerading as a movie. It's a story lifted off the Mark Wahlberg starrer "Four Brothers". It's pace is dismally slow, the screenplay is a jinx which doesn't settle down nor redeem itself. Songs in the movie are good and the action sequences are shot well. Background score is done well too but I felt it was too loud and the surrounds in the cinema hall were pounded for all and sundry. I'll stop here with a quote from a review on this movie in sify.com.

Mammootty's Big-B, is a stylish and technically savvy film from cinematographer turned director Amal Neerad. It is a fast paced entertainer, which is packaged like Amal's guru Ram Gopal Varma films, aimed at the youth audience.

What a farce!

Malayatoor - the spiritual quest

We started at 2300 hrs IST on Sunday night from Coimbatore towards Malayatoor via Palakkad, Thrissur, Chalakudy, Angamaly & Kalady. The 175 kilometre journey took us about 4 hrs and 30 minutes which included a 45 minute stopover at Mannuthy (near Thrissur) for a midnight dinner. There was this nice place that served tasty chicken legs roasted, mutton fry and gravy with chapathi and omlet to boot.

The trek from the base to Marthoma Mandapam on the hill took about 65 minutes. It was very tiring given the fact that all of us (Sam, Kanja & Tim) are not as fit as we once used to be. I remember running up the hill 5 yrs ago when I went there the first time, compare to the slow walk and you know how much of fitness you should regain. After completing the prayers we spent some time sitting on top of the hill overlooking the forests below.

We got down to the base by 0700 and went to the Periyar river for a long bath. We started towards St.George Church, Edapally at 0930 and stopped over for breakfast in Mezban in Kalamassery. We were served idiappam, pathiri, channa curry and fish curry. The food was tasty and filling. After completing prayers in St.George at 1100 we started back to Coimbatore abandoning our plans to visit Arthunkal. Overall the 5h year to Malayatoor was a grand celebration of the power of prayer and friendship.

I already look forward to the next year's trip.

McLaren updates - 2007 - Malaysian Grand Prix

It looks like Vodaphone McLaren Mercedes team has finally got it's act together. An almost flawless race today in Sepang saw the team taking the positions 1 and 2 and Lewis Hamilton deserves special mention for showing steel will in the start of the race and keeping his cool till the very end, especially in the closing moments when challenged by Kimi Raikkonnen. "Some time this year I am going to win one of these", that was his message to the team after crossing the finish line. A good sign of things to come from a confident driver whose head is firmly on his shoulder.

Double mirrors - McLaren

The McLaren car this season had two sets of mirrors on each sides, this was an interesting aspect in terms of giving the drivers all round visibility. Check it out.

Books - mid March 2007

I have ready the following books till now this year.

* Beware falling coconuts - Adam Clapham
* The Goenka Letters - TJ George
* Lee Iacocca - An Autobiography - Lee Iacocca

Beware falling coconuts is ex BBC producer Adam Clapham's version of life in India. It's humorous, satirical and at times historically interesting. There's a full chapter devoted to Sir Mark Tully.

The Goenka Letters is a compilation of letters written by Ramnath Goenka to various people during his time and vice versa. This book describes the history of the Indian express and Ramnath Goenka's friendships - political, business and personal. A lengthy letter written to the Shah Commission about the emergency is worth a read.

Lee Iacocca, An Autobiography is a very positive book which traces the business life of Lee Iacocca who worked his way up to become the President of Ford Motors only to be sacked. He then took up a challenging assignment to resurrect Chrysler which was going through a bad time and reached the top of this organization too. An uplifting book which certainly is interesting to read.

An update on March

It's been a hectic Feb and March. Feb was throwing health problems in the family and March appears to be ready to win the award for the most hectic month already. Despite having a couple of tracks ready for the 'After The End' section and some other articles, I am simply not able to pull myself together to sit down and write stuff for this blog. I am not on a sabbatical, I am just running too fast. There have been two very interesting trips to God's own country, my birthday and some other reasonably good things to post on a blog which I hope to do soon. The Formula 1 race yesterday was a good start to the 2007 Formula 1 calendar. Sepang on Easter Sunday should be a good one given the heat and high track temperatures in Malaysia. Don't give up on me as yet.

Oscar awards - 2007

The OSCAR results are out and Martin Scorsese has finally been awarded an oscar. I stuck my neck out by speculating the winners for the 'Sound mixing' and 'Visual effects' category and appear to have got it right though the 'Best animated feature' award went to 'Happy Feet' while I thought 'Cars' was a good effort. The whole world and some aliens too predicted an oscar to Martin Scorsese which has ended in a double whammy - Best Direction and Best Picture, so no big deal on telling about that one.

Cross posted on our group blog

Missing in action ....

For all of you who have been wondering what the devil I am upto recently I have to say that I've been having a really tough time juggling work and home especially in the recent ups and down that the family has been going through. A fried motherboard at home adds to the woes which is in the process of being fixed. I stick to my earlier promise though.

Mohammad Kaif missing in the 15 member World Cup squad

It's disheartening to see Mohammad Kaif's name missing in the 15 member squad for World Cup 2007 in the West Indies. This man has the highest batting average in the last series in the Carribean in ODI's and was the second highest run scorer in Test matches behind Rahul Dravid.

ODI's - 5 Matches, 5 Innings, 205 Runs at an average of 51.25

Test's - 4 Matches, 6 Innings, 226 Runs at an average of 56.50 [Ofcourse the only excellent Test match score is the 148 not out in this series]

Surely his ODI performance in terms of batting (in West Indies) is decent and his fielding is the best amongst the players today. Having thought of Robin Uthappa and Dinesh Karthik, our selectors should have given Mohammad Kaif a chance especially more when you see that Yuvaraj has been selected.

What are the odds? 13 to 1

After the thoroughly enjoyable Oceans 11 and Oceans 12 comes the final part of the trilogy from Steven Soderbergh aptly titled Oceans 13. If Oceans 11 was better that the old version, Oceans 12 took if further and was an entertaining movie. The premise of Oceans 13 appears to be interesting and that makes it a movie to look forward to not for it's oscar value but for simple entertainment.

When one member of the team get's cheated in a business deal all others join together to take revenge soliciting the help of Terry (Andy Garcia). The idea is to bankrupt a casino run by Al Pacino (who cheats Reuben) on it's opening night. This time it's not for the money but for revenge. The absence of Catherine Zeta Jones and Julia Roberts is going to be a minue, but Al Pacino's entry should raise the bar a few notches higher. Andy Garcia and Al Pacino will be seen in the same movie after "The Godfather III".

Disclaimer - Story snippets is based on leaks on the internet, this may or maynot be the actual story in the final version of the film expected to release in June 2007.

Ratan Tata, F16, F18 ......

This week saw Ratan Tata fly the F16 and F18. That's surely an achievement considering the man's age. The Bangalore air show made Pakistan turn pussy and blame India for once again starting an arms race. Defence AK Antony promptly returned the message that India's defence budget was the lowest in the region. But with the Sukhoi's already orders and with Lockheed Martin waiting for it's order from the Ministry of Defence, India is surely planning to spend every paisa in it's Defence budget.

Police mobile helpline - Coimbatore

Coimbatore City Police can be reached on 9843100100. The following is a notification to this effect.

Members of the public could make use of this facility to report law and order problems, crime, criminal movement, drunken brawls and even traffic snarls on any of the roads when they saw them while travelling.
For people with speech disability or those who were in distress and not able to make voice calls could send messages over Short Message Service (SMS).

Kerala CM v/s Tamilnadu, where are we heading towards?

Something is surely amiss between Chief Minister VS Achuthanandhan and Karunanidhi. Kerala and Tamilnadu have enjoyed cordial relations for decades which appears to be on the verge of a roadblock now. Currently we have the following issues simmering between the states and most of them have been publicised by the Kerala CM.

• Mullaperiyar water dispute
• Parambikulam Aliyar water dispute - Kerala alleges now that it didn't get it's share of the water from Tamilnadu which Tamilnadu says it has.
• Bifurcation of the Palakkad division of Southern Railways - The bone of contention here is to in making Coimbatore Jn a part of the new Salem division which means huge loss of revenue to Palakkad division. Coimbatore Jn is the second highest revenue generating railway station in Southern Railways after Chennai Central.

Coimbatore City Police Helpline

Police Commissioner CK Gandhirajan after taking charge as COP of Coimbatore has put up a number of way where the common man can reach the Police in a free and fast manner. First was the setting up of an email ID to write to the Commissioner of Police (COP).The latest is a police helpline number which can be used to report any law and order problem in the city. 9994310000 is the number to be called. The first instance of immediate police action is the arrest of a bus conductor of a private bus with route number 1C on charges of eve-teasing. This city surely need an upright and effective police force to keep up with the growth it's going through recently. Incidentally Coimbatore has seen some of the best officers in the country despite being a low profile destination. MS Jaffer Sait IPS who is currently the Inspector General of Police (Central Zone) worked as an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) in this city.

During my polytechnic days I've seen the amount of respect DSP Muthuswamy commanded in the city. I can remember names like Radhakrishnan, Lalawm Sangma, Karan Singha, Sanjay Arora, all COP's at some point of time. The last person was known for his no nonsense approach when it came to police matters. The current COP of Coimbatore has also been an officer who wants police to be friends of the people. This is a welcome move and will help both the police and citizens. Traffic is one of the bigger challenges in this city. With racing almost in every one's blood, every rider/drive in Coimbatore is a one man driving team. The Police are certainly doing a neat job of enforcement in terms of traffic violations and general road safety.

Coimbatore is also one of the safer cities to live in South India and most certainly safer than Chennai or Cochin. There are excellent avenues for primary and higher education and recently the job market has been also showing promise for the IT and Engineering sector. As this city grows, it needs good infrastructure to keep up with the demands of the population, good citizens and above all excellent law enforcement professionals. Men and Women of honour and integrity whom the citizens can look up to. In the way progress is being made by the Police force, we are on the right track. It's now simply going to be a matter of time. Many congrats to the COP for all the positive changes in the department in such a short span of time.

P.S - "Organized Crime" is a book authored by CK.Gandhirajan IPS, it's a good book that deals with what the titles refers to. Get the book, it's worth a read.

Facts and stats - Vodaphone McLaren Mercedes Team

• began development of MP4-22 in March 2006
• began initial wind tunnel work on MP4-22 in May 2006
• sends between 95 (fly-away races) and 135 (European races) personnel to each Grand Prix
• has a race team which comprises: race team manager, senior race engineer, chief mechanic, software engineer, race strategist, two driver engineers, two assistant engineers, two system engineers, two data analysts, 10 mechanics, two gearbox mechanics two fabricator/carbon repairmen, engine dress, chief truckie, two tyre men, electrician, two support crew, security, senior fuel technician, fuel technician, spares co-ordinator, team co-ordinator
• used a total of seven chassis throughout the 2006 season
• transports approximately 30 tonnes of freight, including three complete race cars at approximately 600kg to each grands prix
• takes three spare gearboxes to each race, two built with rear suspension and one loose unit
• takes eight engines to each race, one in each of the three cars, two additional for Friday practice sessions and three spares for the rest of the weekend
• completed 53,750 kilometres when testing during 2006
• completed 16,349 kilometres when racing in 2006, including Practice, Qualifying and Races
• generated 100 gigabytes of data during all race meetings and 300 gigabytes of data at all tests in the 2006 season
• was supplied with 236,000 litres of Mobil Unleaded fuel for all track and dyno work during the 2006 season
• competes with a car that typically handles 3,000 gear changes during a race. This figure varies from circuit to circuit with the highest number occurring at the Monaco Grand Prix where the gears can be changed up to 4,000 times during the race and the lowest in Indianapolis where the driver changes gear approximately 2,000 times
• competes with a car that is typically capable of the following performance:
  0-60mph / 0 - 96kph 2.3 seconds
  0-100mph / 0 - 160kph 3.6 seconds
  0-100-0mph / 0 -160 - 0kph 6.6 seconds
  and can decelerate from 185mph to a standstill in 3.5 seconds
• was supplied 3,024 tyres in total for the 18 Grand Prix weekends in 2006. (2,016 dry-weather tyres and 1,008 wet-weather tyres)
• take 160 Enkei wheel rims to each race
• generate 4,600 drawings to create the 11,000 components that make up each car drivers are subjected to forces of up to 5G under braking
• conducted 1,263 practice pit-stops throughout the course of the 2006 season takes approximately seven seconds for a pit stop, with 29 crew working on each car, to refuel and to change four wheels and tyres, and the cars can be refuelled at a rate of 12 litres per second
  [Images - McLaren MP4-22]
  [Source - www.mclaren.com]

McLaren - 2007 F1 season

Wooooha, McLaren is ready with the car and drivers for the 2007 season and by far the MP4-22 is the best looking car in this year's lineup. Interestingly it looks like a departure from the grey-black attire that drivers don in this team, this year the drivers are sporting a white overall with logo imprinted all over it. This looks like an improvised version of dressing McLaren had till 1994 until Mercedes stepped in as the engine supplier.

Music - Pachaikili Muthicharam

All fans of music, rush to the nearest music store and grab a copy of this movie's soundtrack. It's worth the money, time and effort. Simple melodies by Harris Jeyaraj and songs written by Thamarai for a movie directed by Gowtham, now that's certainly one winning combination.