Mourning - BOB WOOLMER

BOB WOOLMER a great figure in the international cricket and one among the men who were passionate about cricket. He was murdered in WI for unknown reasons. Personally I had a great regard for him. I am shocked that he is no more. There certainly was some stress in his cricket life in Pakistan. But nobody imagined that it will take his life in the end. he will certainly be missed by the cricket world.

BOB

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Mozhi

Monday was a Holiday in Karnataka for Ugadi, which is a lunar new year for local calendar. The day started at 9.00am with me getting a call to let me know that, sleeping until 9.00 was better on that day because of a solar eclipse :D First time somebody appreciated such a thing!

Ok it was later in the day that we booked for a show in PVR for this movie. I have been reading and hearing about this movie for quite sometime. I just could not wait watching this movie.

The movie starts with a sequence of usual Tamil cinema where a girl comes out a temple and falling in love with a poor guy. This is a scene which Prithvi and Prakash Raj make the BG music (musicians). The director is telling us that, this is the usual tamil movie and now look at mine.

Prithvi and Prakash are friends who play KBD and other instruments for Vidhyasagar(in the movie) and they move to a new apartment. Prithvi falls in love with Jo who happens to live in the same apartment. Prithvi finds out that Jo is deafmute, and falls in love more deeply. Prithvi and prakashraj take the help of Swarnamalya who is Jo's friend in the school. Jo is reluctant to commit to a wedding due to what happened to her own mom and the proceedings are the movie.

It is a very simple story, but it has been given an extradinory treatment.

Performances -
Prithvi is so sincere, Jo is perfect except a few scenes where he portrays anger, Swarnmalya is natural and Prakashraj is the best, I somehow suspect that, the character he plays is the true of his self.
Supportive characters have got a role to play and they just do it 100%. While the new comer from Andhra (Brahmanandam) makes us laugh to the core, our own MS Bhaskar makes us cry and laugh.
Other characters such as the paati, chips payyan, secretary's wife, including the karappaan poochi which scares Brahmanandham fit the script and play their role perfectly.

Music&Lyrics -
Usually in all Vidhyasagar's movies, there is great deal of importance and freedom given for lyrics and this time it is Vairamuthu who has perfectly seized the oppurtunity. Vidhyasagar has taken the BG music to some different which we have never heard. With leading roles playing as musicians, he has tried a lot of western instrumental for many kind of situations. The BG song for the scene where secretary happens to "see" Prakashraj is just an example. Whole BG score is just pure pleasure!

Dialogues -
Dialogues are done by Viji and they need a special mention here. It is just not just the dialogues, but also the perfect delivery which just makes many of them unforgettable.

One example is "Prakashrah to Swarnamalya - Naanga CBI, Swarna - Naanga epdi namburathu?" Prakashraj - Naan ippo nadanthu poren neenga CBInu koopidunga naan thirumbipaapen". It sounds very ordinary on the text, but you should watch it visually being delivered in the whole sequence. After a long long time all of the theatre was laughing from the beginning to the end of the movie.
Dialogues are crisp with comedy embedded in them through out. Maniratnam uses this technique on some of his scenes, but it is maximized to the best and through out the movie.

Editing & Screenplay -
It is tailored very well for the elegant story and direction.

Direction -
Radhamohan is the director. I have seen his Azhagiya theeye, even though it was a good movie it sounded like simple stage drama and some times artificial. But the success of his direction lies in the natureness he has induced in the character, script and comedy. Some of the comic sequences make us laugh and cry at the same time. That is something new for the first time I felt watching a Tamil movie. There are minor illogical things happening like the Parents of Prithvi and Prakashraj never showing up even for Prakash Raj's wedding. But +ves of the film makes us not to question about them.
One gem of a scene I liked is the experiment done by Prithvi to emulate his lover. It is a great imagination.

Verdict-
This kind of movies can only be made by some one who loves the quality cinema to the great extent than their own interests including money and their image.
I even doubt that Kamal Hasan with his present Ego can make such a wonderful movie, given the time, the artists, the director, the same story and more money than he actually needs.

In the end I want to thank Prakashraj, for something he has produced and acted. This movie might not get awards, but this is going to be a classic. I reserve a DVD now itself.

For the first time ever, I want to watch the movie second time.

MS word bug - Time has arrived for our BPOs to serve the customer in Space

I read an article that ground staff are banned from sending MS word attachments to the space shuttle mission becoz of possible anti-virus issues. It looks some bangalorean call centre will soon get a call from space to fix their PC issues. I do not know what is the make of PC used by space mission :)
More here

Online Map services linked to CNET editor's death

Here is an arcticle which says that a wrong route suggested by online map service could have made this Man one wrong turn which ended his life. We had a similar experience when we took the route to MtRainier from yahoo maps in 2003. We met a dead end junk yard and a board saying "we will not call 911 and tresspassers will be met with a gun" kind of boards.
With the kind of blood flowing in our veins, we still called those guys behind the warning boards and asked them the route to Rainier ;)
Online maps are great inside the city, but I believe that the road signs are the best when traveling around the places like US.

iPhone is a reality???

All the people who made fun of me when I got my new Nano, get ready to get it back. If this is true then Sony will learn a lesson about why they should not mix up camera into a cell phone.

Nokia??? Nokia has to learn a lot and more importantly People who buy N series will know how they are being robbed by Nokia.

Motorola - let us whether iPhone can beat the looks of Razr. There is nothing else in the Razr.

Good one about Gujju's - Thanks Sabari for sending this one

An Arab was admitted to the Lilavati Hospital, Bombay for an open heart Surgery. Prior to the surgery the doctors needed to store his blood in case the need arrived. As the Arab had a rare type of blood group, which couldn't be found locally, a call went out nationwide.

Finally a Gujarati gentleman was located who had a similar type of blood group. The Gujarati willingly donated his blood for the Arab. After the surgery, the Arab sent the Gujarati, as appreciation for donating his blood - a new Toyota Prado, diamonds and US one million.

A few years on, the Arab had to undergo corrective surgery. His doctor telephoned the Gujju who was more than happy to donate his blood again.After the second surgery, the Arab sent the Gujarati a thank you card and a jar of almond halwa sweets.

The Gujarati was shocked to see that the Arab this time did not reciprocate the kind gesture as he had anticipated. He asked the Arab why had he only given a card and a jar of Almond sweets.

To this the Arab replied, "Bapu... now I have Gujju blood in my veins!"

Wal*Mart enters India

After started to bet on stocks, I spend sometime watching the business healdine in the nights. The latest buzz is that Bharti and WalMart are having a JV to start retail business in India.
And as usual the comrades have started raising their flags against it. This specific case is very good I believe, It will be really interesting to see how Bharti will solve the complex logistical problems existing in India.
Similar to US are we going to see a bigger Bharti - Walmart store in Bangalore-Hosur, Bangalore-Hyderabad and Bangalore - Bombay highways soon?
I hate big bazaars because of the crowds they generate. The amount of commercial and parking space they have and the amount of crowd they generate are unproportional and sure someone who has been owning pantaloon retail stocks should have got the rewards for this. If Bharti is going to do the same thing then I would rather go to a food world or fab mall closer to my house than driving in the crazy Bangalore traffic to save 50rs and spend 100Rs on petrol.
Anyway All the best to Mittal!