Engey Brahmanam

This is the serial that is relayed in Jaya Tv from 8:00 -8:30 every week from Mon-thur. Most of the Tamil serials that are relayed nowadays have the same story where there is a fight between in-laws,meaningless revenge,people crying all the time and full of negative vibes but this serial is an exception. As the title says it is a serial about a brahmin boy and he goes in search of "What does it really takes to be a Brahmani and who they are?"

The interesting thing about this serial is that in between the breaks CHO gives explanation about the various customs and tradition followed by Hindus.His speech is very different from his usual sarcastic way of talking. He tells some puranan kathai and also says meaning of verses from Mahabharatham and Ramayanam.

This serial revolves only around Brahmins and so most of the characters speak only brahmin bashai The characters do not speak bad language and the story is also neatly explained without any unnecessary characters included inbetween jus to elongate the serial.All of them have acted very well in this serial a special mention to Apsar and Nalini.

Though i'm not a brahmin i like this serial since it helps us to learn things which we do not know about hindu/brahmin customs which we follow. This is an "Upanyasam in the form of serial".This has given a new dimension to the tamil serial and its nice attempt that is made by CHO.

Its really worth a watch.

Note:I also found a tamil book written by CHO titled "Engey brahmanam?" in Landmark so incase ppl cant watch this serial u can read the book. (I've not read the book.. jus happened to notice)

Prison Break - TV series

Gone are the days when i used to watch "Marma Desan" and "Vidatha karuppu" in SUN Tv. These are the 2 thriller serials which made the audience watch every week with much eagerness. I still remember that these serials were relayed on Wednesdays at 8. Prison Break is the 3rd serial which is liked the most. But the difference was i saw the episodes at a stretch without waiting for a week or a day.

People in my office where bored to download movies so they switched to download and watch serials. So there were discussions abt this serial, thats how i came to know abt this. They warned me that once we start watching,it drives ppl crazy and makes them to watch the next episode. I truly accept that. There were times where i have watched 5 episodes continuously. But i'm nothing when compared to a colleague named Prabakaran alias "Annan" who was on a attempt to create a Guinness record of watching 2 seasons in 2 days.

This serial is a story abt 2 brothers;Lincoln Burrows and Micheal Scofield where one of the brother is sentenced to death for the crime that is not committed by him and the other one tries to save him. As the title says the the younger brother Michael plots a plan to save his brother not by law but by getting into the prison and breaking him out. Ohh the Strategies used by him where truly mind-boggling. Each and every episode was correctly linked and the director has done so much of research in making the entire plan.

My fav are Season1 and season 4. Each and every character have acted to the limit with no overaction (which is seen in Indian serials). A special mention has to be done to "T-Bag" .. the way he says "Captivity of negativity".. Oh truly amazing. He has maintained his body language all through the 4 seasons.
Michael Scofield was always serious there were smiles on his face only when he sees Sara Trancredi. But i personally liked Lincoln burrows acting.. his cool carefree nature.. his smart looks (both in suits and prisoner outfit).. was my fav of the entire lot..
There were only 3 female actors the lawyer, sara and gretchen(she is the best of all three).

As serials are always known for twist and turns and nevertheless this has many.. The one notable point abt this serial is that even though there are lot of characters but all were linked properly and each of them had proper ending. But more explanation could have been given abt "The company" and why everybody was behind scylla. Also the father character(Mr. Scofield) would have lived for somemore time.. dint like the ways he was killed by Mahone. Also season 3 is the one which was boring and the plot used by them to break out was not also all that great. That could have been a lot better. By the time the viewer gets hold of one character he will be soon killed in the next episode... that the specialty of this serial..

The other fav character of mine was Fernando Sucre.. The friendship between Michael and him was really good. He used to be the surprise package many a times in the serial whenever Michael needed help. Paul Kellerman is another character that is much appreciated in season 2.. and a little bit in season 4.. The General was also perfectly chosen(The bald man) by the director..The other aspect which i liked in the serial the naming of the episodes. "Cute Poison",Bolshoi Booze..Sweet Caroline

I always like movies where the central character dies at the end.. Even in this the same thing happens..

On a whole this serial was truly amazing and the full acclaim goes to the director "Paul Scheuring". And thanks to Abdul and Halleys without them i would have not got a chance to watch this interesting, nail biting serial. Its definitely worth a watch..

PVR Cinemas @ Ampa SkyWalk Mall

I had gone to PVR cinemas which is located at Ampa SkyWalk Mall in chennai.I've not been to PVR cinemas in other cities. I had booked for Movie Sura(The movies was not great..) on Saturday morning show. There were totally 7 theaters located on the 4th Floor of the mall. For all these theaters they have a common snack and popcorn counters which was very small area for 7 theaters(It would be too congested if 2 theaters had the intermission on same time) . I thought that the one in INOX was much bigger. As RED is the standard color of PVR Cinemas, the seats,wall, lights display boards were all in RED color.

Before entering the cinemas halls or rather the PVR cinema complex there are various level of security check that we need to pass. There is long pathway in that they first do frisking for Male then they check the handbags and then there is a small enclosed area where they do frisking for women.

I went to Audi 6 (That how they name it.. ) which was very small. There were arnd 150 seats (A-K 15 rows each).The AC was in correct temperature throughout the movie. The seats were also very comfortable and there were lot of space between the 2 rows and hence we could stretch our legs. The seats were embossed with "PVR cinemas".The sound effect was also really good (The songs adn fight seq were not too loud).

When the movie started some of the audience started to shout but the security were so strict that they asked them to maintain silence(Its not the correct place to watch commercial movie..)
I was very much surprised with the limited snacks that were available. There were no seasoning available for popcorn's(In Satyam and INOX u can get butter,masala, caramel). I heard from my friend that Sandwich was not tasty but the burger was good.

It was great movie experience altogether but the snacks has to be improved considerably. But at the end of it i thought although the brand name was there it was not like Satyam Cinemas.

After a long Time

Its been a long time since i blogged (Hmmm may be 18 months). After quitting my job i thought about various things i could do at home. And one thing which came be my mind was "Start blogging again".. It was difficult for me to blog when i was working.(After 5 days of hectic work,Sat and Sun were primarily for TV,friends and food).

Dint know wat to blog abt.. So jus thought will blog about the IPL matches which i was following till the end(I had not missed the first 2 editions). When the IPL 3 began i was initially thinking that its going to be pretty much same like some under performing team will suddenly rise to the occasion and start winning matches and win the trophy too. But things were very different this time. The four teams for the semi final was not sure till the last league match. Finally Chennai Won!!

Everyday i used to come from work(In work too there were discussions about IPL) and watch the matches with great interest(Even the match that chennai was not playing). If there was a match in chennai then my office bus will stop and beach road itself and we need to walk for 15 mins to reach our home.The stadium light will be kept on till 11:30 PM and huge fireworks post match if chennai won. Me staying very close to the stadium had never experienced live cricket in stadium.

There were many matches which i liked.The last league match for chennai against KXIP in Dharmasala. I've not heard about the place till the match was played there. Initially the place sounded like its in Andhra. From wat i saw from the TV it was a great place to play a cricket match. The snow filled mountains, tress with purple flowers and beautiful sunset was very nice to see. The final match was also full of entertainment. I thought at the end of the match it was a great appu for Mumbai crowd and the commentators(Most of them were biased towards Mumbai). The crowd did not wait till the post match ceremony.

In IPL the entertainment quotient is always high when compared to cricket. The MTV IPL Nights party is conducted in various cities that hosts the cricket match . I've seen the show in MTV and thought "ithu ellam oru pozhappu". There will be fashion show that is conducted by leading designers in the city, the MTV vj will ask some silly questions to the players..It was in this party that many ppl would have known Vijay mallya had 2 daughters, Lalit modi's family and Miss Universe McLaren was in the city to attend these party. These party pics were also uploaded in Cricbuzz.

More than the cricket matches it was this IPL controversy that was the top story.The tweet fight between Sashi Tharoor and Lalit Modi.. Even on the eve of finals there was more discussions abt Lalit Modi than abt "Who will win the finals?". I like watching cricket and have always felt like many others that "Nothing is better than Test Cricket". But i felt that the IPL awards was a good start and it would have been better to have it after the final match. Some of the commentators were extremely good like Sunil Gavaskar - Explained abt how the batman should play fast,slow,full toss,bouncers etc And Ravi Shartri - who won the IPL award for Best Commentator.

On a whole IPL was fun,full of entertainment, thrilling but the spirit of cricket was very less..

Taare Zameen Par

I rarely watch Hindi movies,because i cant understand the language. I need somebody to sit next to me and translate what the actors are speaking. But for this movie i saw with the subtitles so i understood each dialogue, and that eventually made me like this movie. Apart from this i liked the movie for various other reasons. I've already read the review of the movie in Hindu newspaper and also Rajeev Masands comment in IBNLive. I wanted to watch the movie in theatre but time dint favour me. I've always liked to watch movies based on small children like Anjali,Kanathil Muthamital,Anbulla Rajinikanth etc.. No wonder this movie bagged a lot of filmfare awards.This was another movie with a different storyline. Somethings i liked :

1. Eenoos mom and brother characters were portrayed well, where they support the child every time he makes mistakes.

2. Everyday morning activities of a mother is shown clearly in the movie. Where she makes the breakfast for her husband and getting all his things ready before he leaves to his office, then cooks breakfast and lunch for his elder son and sends him to his school and then finally does the same thing for his second son. Clear difference between the first and second child is shown here like from bathing to eating to dressing is done only by the mother for the second child.

3. All the paintings painted by both Eeno and Amir khan was really good and different. The one which eeno paints for the competition, the soldiers story of how they escape and the flip book were the best.

4.The final title song video where they show various kids , their cute actions and behavior was also admirable.

5.The clay animation and the "3x9" animation was good.

6. The first road song was pictured very well. They way he eats the ice creams, the way he crosses the road, they way he plays etc..

But i thought that the "learning process" that amir khan used could have been shown in a more detailed manner rather than finishing in a single song. They could have removed amir khan's introduction song.

Some trivia which i collected about the movie:

• Amole Gupte wrote the story as a tribute to his art teacher "Nikhumb Sir".
• Amole Gupte, the creative director, created most of the paintings credited to the character "Ishaan" in the movie.
• It was salman khan who suggested the movie title.
• The house where Ram (Aamir Khan) places Ishaan's scratch-built boat/airplane model on his side table next to his own parent's photo is Aamir Khan's actual house in Panchgani. The actor bought some land there to develop.

There was an important message like only those who study well are not always the best and that "Every child is special". I had tears while and after watching the movie. It was all together an overwhelming experience.

The making of TZP Clay Animation:

Found Nemo in Raintree Ecotel

"Finding Nemo" will always be on the list of "Best Animated movies". I remember watching this movie abt 3 yrs ago with my cousins and my cute niece. I still love to watch this movie whenever they play this in toon disney or Jetix channel. I always thought that the nemo fish and the clownfish, marlin that comes in the movie are imaginary fishes that never existed in real world. I felt astonished to see the real nemo fish in Raintree hotel in chennai.

The fish looked small and was looking the same as it looked in the movie (that’s 3 look in a single sentence). It had those white stripes and wings were looking big. I didn’t believe when my cousin was showing this fish and explaining to her son as nemo fish. I was telling her that it was not nemo fish but some kind of a golden fish. Wen we talking abt the fish the hotel official who was standing next to us explained to me saying that it was real nemo fish which they has bought alone with few other jelly fishes. He then showed us the golden fish which lived in the same tank as Nemo and said that both were different kind. I then finally believed his words and wondered wat would be the real cost of a single nemo fish.

Then i thought to myself that "I found Nemo" like the way marlin says in the climax of the movie. Then after finding nemo we went and had our dinner at rainbow restaurant. The food was tasty. I liked the desert and the ice cream corner. I couldn’t try my hands on Non veg dishes as I don’t eat on Fridays and the pasta corner tooo. The Vegetable pulav with baby corn masala was a good match. The ambience and service was also good. It turned out be "Good Friday" after a tiring week @ office.

Tamil Ghana Songs

I like listening to Tamil Ghana songs!! And i found this song "Nakka mukka" from the movie "Kadhalil Vizhunthen" totally different and interesting. Few years ago in tamil film industry it was just music director Deva who was famous for composing Ghana songs, but in the recent days lot of other music directors are doing very well like Vijay Antony,Yuvan,Babu etc. Besides the usual melody songs and the Dhaam Dhoom intro songs for heros,its the Ghana and remix songs that is gaining popularity in the recent days. The famous tamil song in the year 2007 was "Valameenu" from the movie Chithiram Pesudhadi. "Ghana ulaganathan" also won the best playback singer award in the filmfare festival.Even the "jalsa" song from chennai 600028 was a popular one. "Thailaivasal Vijay" also sings ghana songs.

Ghana songs is full of slang and simple words. These songs makes everyone to dance.When talking about dance, recently in the the small screen dance shows are gaining a lot of popularity. Wherein most of them dance only for koothu songs to prove there dance style and talent.Even the dance masters tell that it is very difficlut to dance for koothu songs.Though i dont have much of classical knowledge, I think Ghana songs are easy to sing and does not have complicated thalams or ragams.

Even in college cultural fests to make the audience enjoy they play only koothu songs. When i was surfing the channels i was surprised to see a special show for ghana pattu in Kalignar Tv. Apart from the standard "Ragam & Thalam" and "Classical music" shows this one brings a new avatar to music.This show has apt judges like "Deva" and "Ghana Ulaganathan".People who participate in the show compose their own tune and frame their own lyrics too.

Listing a few Ghana and Koothu songs that i like:
Ettana Irundha - Ellaame En Raasa Thaan
Vallameenu - Chitirrem Pesuthadi
Naatu sarakku- Pudhukottai saravanan
Saathikadi Pothikaddi - Sukran
Enga Yeriya - Pudhupettai
Gummangoo - Machi
Ethukku Pondatti - Kizhakku Seemaiyile
Naakka Mukka - Kadhalil Vizhunthen

Ghana songs will allways be liked by tamil movie audience!

Sokoban

When I was enjoying 20 days of my first bench life in office I came across this word. It might sound like name of a place, person or a thing. But its actually a puzzle game (some say it as an transport puzzle). My friend Preethi found this game when she was customizing her iGoogle web page. Simple game, where the player pushes the boxes inside the maze to the designated location. The other rule is that you can only push the box and not pull. We almost got addicted to this game. Every morning wen we reach office @ 9:00 we both would start playing this game if we had stopped in the middle of an level and then only check our mails. There are various implementations of the game, but the one we played had 100 levels. We managed to complete up to 63rd level. As the levels increase the number of boxes will also increase and the maze will also look complicated. This game really makes you to think “Out of the box”. I truly enjoyed playing this game. I stopped playing this game since I was allocated to another new project. Another interesting fact about this game is that they use this game for the research purposes for problem solving in Artificial Intelligence (AI). So this game made my 20 days of my bench life exciting and fascinating.

Halcyon Days

If you ask anyone “where did u spend the most memorable days in ur life” I’m sure most of them would say this simple 7 letter word COLLEGE .Within a span of 4 years I’ve got wonderful friends (lots of them!!!) and beautiful memories to carry wen I left college. Wen I was seeing the song “June July madham” song from the movie Kalluri in Sun Music I got reminded of my beautiful college days. I’ve sensed all my emotions like Anticipation, Boredom, Calmness, Delight, Glee, Fear, Zest, Lust, Joy, Sadness, Thrill, Regret, Resentment and FUN. I’ve had the best Birthday celebration only in my college. Vidhya and Niranjana had taken a lllloooootttttt of effort to make my Birthday’s the most unforgettable day of that year.I can’t forget the 3rd year birthday where they managed to give gifts for every hour.

Some remembrances of college Life: Chasing college bus in the morning,sudda sudda Canteen Pongal, Cheering basket ball matches from stands, Colorful Bus day, Bombastic Symposiums, Dancing Off- Stage during culturals, haunting lectures by JK, Kavitha and Shakthivel murugan, Munnar and Kodai Trips, Watching movies in hostel after lunch, Giving proxy, Internal Marks, Practical Exams, Record Books, Checking semester results in www.annauniv.edu, Junior friends, Uncle John’s Kuchi ICE, , Ragging in Bus stop & Canteen, Cup Noodles in MCA Block, Vetti Arattai in the corridor and Library, Taking countless Xerox before exams, Artifical Intelligence Paper, Lab Coats, Movies @ Mayajaal, Night Stays, Namesake Assignments, Last Bench, Inter section and Inter Department Fights, President Election, Van journeys from Kelambakkam to College, Southern Residency, Playing hilarious games like 4 corners and BUS, First year block, Canteen akka’s Marriage, Enjoying in Rain, College Strike, Adi Velli (Anjan calls it Dancing Silver!), Freshers Party, Funny Accolades during Farewell Party and the list is endless... Huhhhhhhh .. Days have gone sooo fast.. Looks like I jus now joined college, but it’s already 18 months since I’m working.

My Favorites:

oTamil Cinema: I can watch any Tamil movie even if I don’t know the actor or the actress name. I’m an ardent fan of Rajinikanth. We’ve had sound debates in both my office and college about: who is the best ???“***Super star***” Rajini or “Ullaga nayagan” Kamal. (Obviously, Undoubtedly its Rajini :-))

o Hershey’s Kisses:: Hmmm….. This is my favourite chocolate. I love all the flavours like with almonds, caramel, cherry (recently tasted it!!).I like the shape of the chocolate.

o Jeevan :Friends of mine would know who exactly is this person. Well ,he is the villain of the movie “Kaakka Kaakka”. Most of them found it very weird when I said he acted better than surya in the movie. I liked his stylish performance in the movie. I also liked his other movies Nan Avan Illai and Thirutu Payale.

o Restaurants: I like to visiting to different kinds of restaurant. From continental to chettinad I like eating all kinds of food. My Favorites : Mexican :Etalica, Italian :Little Italy, Chinese :Cascade and MainLand China, Chetinnad :Anjappar&Karaikudi, Vegetarian : Motel Highway (Banglore High road) & Eden ,Chat:Gangothri

o Music: Any tamil song whether it be melody or koothu or Gana I like to hear. Perfect Example: The song “Edukku Pondatti” (Many of them wud not know this song) from the movie “Kizhakku Seemaile”. In English I like 80’s music like ABBA, Roxette, Dire strait, Bangles, Phill Collins, Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart etc..