kirukkal.com

August 20, 2004

Looking back…looking forward…

Guest Blog #31 – Anand C

I’ve been getting into several conversations about why I blog… in an attempt to try and answer that question, here’s a compilation of the things I’ve been intrigued by, as represented by past blogs:

Co-Blogs with LazyGeek: (World Themes for Indian Cinema)

1. The Man Who Saw Infinity – on Math Genius Srinivasa Ramanujan
2. EYE THINK, THEREFORE ‘EYE’ AM – on Dr.V (Arvind Eye Hospital)
3. The Man in the Mirror – first attempt at verse.
4. Art for Art’s Sake – on dance and the arts.
5. LAUGHTER, THE BEST MEDICNE (Nightly Dose) – on NBC’s Jay Leno
6. Coming Soon…
7. ???
8. ???

The Lonewolf blogs:

1. Vairamuthu’s magAKK! – what kicked it all off!
2. Satrangi…Only You… now Fanah! – on ARR’s magic!
3. Social Influence in Media – Art or Science? – Influence is one of my favorite non-fiction books.
4. Funda on Fanah – Ripples thought this was interesting!
5. Footprints… – Bengali poetry in Hey,Ram translated into English.
6. Thillana’s Mann Vaasam – blogging about a concert.
7. Happy Birthday, Mr.Feynman! – learned he is Kingsley’s idol.
8. Reflections on Mani Ratnam’s Aayitha Ezhuthu
9. What makes NEWS? – rant!
10. Mani Ratnam and the “relative grading” syndrome!
11. On Coincidence… – 5 movies that impress upon the theme.
12. Week in Review – Once upon a time… – remembering a old teacher.
13. Mr. India, redux?
14. Goodbye, blue skies? – on space travel
15. The road to Nirvana… – wondering why Kurt Cobain died young!
16. Aayitha Ezhuthu titles – an easter egg? – thanks, Pradeep!
17. Fahrenheit 9/11, Control Room and the rise of a new genre? – Mitochondria didn’t think so!
18. An ode to 90 school children… – Kumbakonam fire tragedy.
19. Joy of getting something unexpected… – On hearing Matt Damon, watching Catch-22.
20. Glass-bangles Vinayaka (OR) Beauty is skin deep? – on R Parthiban
21. A tale of two Flip-flops
22. HmmM… Night?
23. David VS Goliath and the spirit of August 15th – on independent shops VS 800 pound corporations.
24. You may say I’m a dreamer! – titled after John Lennon’s lyrics from ‘Imagine’.

Looking at the topics above, I think I blog for the experiences it brings… for the interesting new people it introduces me to…for the freedom to think about the things I like.

Thoughts?
August 20, 2004

You may say I’m a dreamer!

Guest Blog #30 – Anand C

We’ve all heard the “graduation speech” bit in most schools about the need for the young to dream. But it’s interesting to see Ms. Marilee Jones, the Dean of Admissions at MIT, integrate “day-dreaming” more of a criteria in the application process. More importantly, kudos to her for coming out and telling the public about it.

This response from her captures the essence of the problem with conventional admission systems:

Baby boomers have such high expectations for themselves and for their kids. The parents think kids have to have music lessons. They’re expected to play two or three sports. They’re expected to belong to certain clubs. They’re expected to do community service. Each one of those activities is headed up by an adult, who expects a lot from those kids.

We have a whole generation of kids who are being trained to be workaholics. They have no free time. They are being trained to please adults. And what started as a natural reaction to not wanting to have your kid home while you’re working has been reinforced by the college admission process that expects kids to have lots of activities.

About three years ago, I asked a group of students: “What do you daydream about?” And one kid said to me: “We don’t daydream. There’s no reward for it, so we don’t do it.” Boy, that hit me right between the eyes.

We tend to make our lives appear planned, smooth and thought-through on any college application, because “sat next to the window and dreamed about doing good for my hometown” or “read every spy novel in my library for no good reason” does not get any points or consideration in an admission process – until now. By giving kids the ability to be flexible and by giving the admissions process the flexibility to take in these flexible kids, MIT is sending out the impression that it’s OK to not be perfect and still succeed.

This new system (50 out of 1,665 would not have made the cut otherwise), is definitely a first step in the right direction.

Maybe we will discover the Ramanujans when they are young if our school systems thought about a similiar system of admission…
August 20, 2004

TGIF dudes!!

[Pic: hindu.com]

How would it be if the celebrities congratulate and ask questions to Vikram on the event of bagging the National Award for the Best Actor. The Hindu does a great job on this. Read today’s friday features column, Vikram, the Victor. For the character that was given (though the characterization had its own issues), as an undertaker in Pithamahan, Vikram did a great job. This one question from Shankar and Vikram’s answer proves his zeal for excellence.

Shankar : I was doing a survey about people’s secret of success. What is yours?
Vikram : Hard work. I am like a bridled horse. I like to do one film at a time. Once I start it, my waking hours, sleep, dreams, everything revolves round the film and the character. At the moment, I am eating, drinking and sleeping only Anniyan. I have taken a short break to enjoy the award.

I was expecting today’s friday review to also carry small write-ups on all the award winners from South. But there was only this feature on Vikram. Others might come next week. Iyarkai starring Shyam and Kutti Radhika which bagged the best tamil film and Meera Jasmine for her performance in T V Chandran’s Paatham Onnu Oru Vilaapam. Thanks to Ashok R in reminding me that I hadn’t blogged a word on Vikram’s award.

I did miss the book reading session of Girish Karnad last tuesday at Landmark, Spencer Plaza. Looks like his new book, Two Plays by Girish Karnad – The Dreams of Tipu Sultan / Bali The Difference has caught the attention. The nice commentary on the book reading session is here, Karnad and the King, in by Shonali Muthalaly. She made me envious on the audience to the session.

There is some good news for Chennai residents to celebrate. The Madras Day is being celebrated this weekend on August 22nd. The venue for the Madras day on 22nd will be the cinema fame Rajaji hall. From Photo exhibitions to painting spree on the landscapes of Chennai, to talk shows and quizzes on Chennai, the Madras day turning out to be fun. A note on today’s Hindu is here, Doing their mite for Madras. The three — historian S. Muthiah, D Souza, and Sashi Nair, a journalist — have been urging public relations agencies, children, corporate houses, artists and Chennai Corporation to participate in Madras Day, the first of its kind to be held in Chennai. S. Muthiah, the historician is the one who writes the Madras Miscellany column in Metro Plus. For a peek into his amazing column read this column on Ellis R. Dungan who made M.S. Subbulakshmi a film star.

BTW it’s TGIF dudes – Thank God It’s Friday.
August 20, 2004

Yahoo Search Blog – New Kid on the block

Yahoo search launches it’s own Yahoo Search Blog like the Google blog. The most visible difference between the both search blogs being, that yahoo has opened up the comments feature and the author of blog signs below unlike the anonymous ‘The Googler’ signed google blog.

The first post written by Jeff Weiner, SVP Yahoo! Search & Marketplace writes “this blog is designed to provide a window into what our team is thinking and doing, in their own words (and maybe some guest bloggers as well)”.

Aye !! It also has a blogroll and one of the blogs to be listed is Google Blog. Should i say the blog race is heating up ?
August 18, 2004

Vasool Raja MBBS – A lovable don…doctor…don

[Pic: vasoolrajambbs.com]

Who would require a movie review for Vasool Raja MBBS? Actually it’s a crime to write a review for a movie like this. Wait. Read the next line before you think of firing me. You don’t actually need to read/write a review for this movie. The primary aim of the movie, I believe, is not to do any lifetime achievement in cinema. Rather the aim (other than cinema business) is to deliver laughs. And Vasool Raja does it royally and rightfully. Are you convinced now. Take a breather. Among the numerous laughs the movie gives, there is also an obvious kind pat to the doctors reminding them that patients need to be treated as humans and not as just cases.

Crazy Mohan known for this indomitable verbal and situational comic sense, has done a fantastic job for Vasool Raja. The only point is that, this movie is like Kathala Kathala has innumerous verbal jokes. Not the kind of comedy that you can remember until weekend and yap with him/her on the beach and laugh again with them. They are ephemeral in nature. Jokes like Dim Dip Dim and Manamirundhaal Marghabhandu are absolute crackers. Crazy is the uncrowned king of Tamil film comedy. Let Mouli forgive me for that statement. He wasn’t all that comical in his latest Nalla Damayanthi.

Not much with Kamalhassan. He has not makeup stunt [except for the first few scenes]. No huge dialogues and no persistent pathos that would allow him to make a loud cry throughout. It seems that he has had his breakfast, took a walk around his house, saw the shooting spot and came inside to enact a role called Vasool Raja. Very casual like what we have seen before in Pammal K Sampantham, Michael Madana Blah Blah, Tenali and of course Panchathanthiram. It is an accepted fact that he has a flamboyant comic sense. He just underlines one more time.

Let this not make you think I’m fastidious, but Bharathwaj hasn’t been upto the expectations. Though he isn’t fully to be blamed for the not-so-good songs and their picturisation, he could have taken his time in the composition. I have really loved his music for his previous films and thought he could weave a magic, having Kamal as the cast.

I hate to compare the Hindi Bhai and the Tamil Thambi but it seems impossible. One reason, why I Munnabhai MBBS was because I saw a song clip in MTV. That song in the hospital where Sanjay Dutt expresses his romantic encounters completely blew me away with the music and the performance of Sanjay dutt. I was placing my bid on Kamal’s performance of the same song in the Tamil version. Instead of a similar song, it was replaced with a silly song called Azhwarpettai Aandava which sounds/resembles like that Kandasaamy song in PKS. A true let down. Also that belly dance song looked like a cheap insert unlike the hindi version.

We know that Airtel is the prime sponsor for the movie but every time anyone’s cell phone rings onscreen it has a loud AirTel tone. Annoying and the height of embedded advertising. It is very clear that the movie was super produced in two-three months. Kamal’s next film cop haircut is visible from that Switzerland duet. If only Kamal can ditch those absurd looking coolers that he keeps wearing in every duet of every comedy film, how nice.

Blessed are those who haven’t seen the original version. Yeah, if you haven’t seen the original, watch Vasool Raja for the sheer Crazy Mohan and Kamal combo. They deliver. If you are the unfortunate one like me, watch it still, for the Kamal version of the don-turned-doctor-turned-don. Limited Feast assured, still.

Looking back…looking forward…

You may say I’m a dreamer!

TGIF dudes!!

Yahoo Search Blog – New Kid on the block

Vasool Raja MBBS – A lovable don…doctor…don