Biriyani - A Movie Review

Watched Biriyani yesterday night. This was my first movie at the PVR Cinemas. It was a decent experience. 

Movie is the 5th directorial venture of Venkat Prabhu. It is a typical Venkat Prabhu movie where some innocent guys gets into some trouble and how they come out of it. We have seen it in Saroja, Goa, etc. 

This movie was important for Karthi who has been having a string of flops. 

Cast includes Karthi, Hansika, Premji (a must have in all VP's movies), Nasser, Sampath, Subbu Panju, Madhumita, Ramki, Jayaprakash, and the typical VP gang of friends. We also have Uma Riyaz who has a good role. 

Karthi and Premji work in a tractor dealership after completing their engineering (that is a surprise - Mahindra probably induced that decision with lots of in movie ad placements). Karthi has a sister played by Madhumita and whose marriage is fixed with Subbu (manager of the dealership). Shamugasundaram(regular in VP movies) plays Karthi's father. Hansika Motwani plays a reporter and Badava Gopi (another regular in VP movies) plays a cameraman. Nasser plays a business tycoon and Ramki is son-in-law. Jayaprakash plays the role of an AC who is a side kick for Ramki and Sampath plays the role of a CBI officer. 

Karthi is a Casanova who is in love with Hansika. However, that doesn't stop his flirtatious ways. He is a doting brother for his sister played by Madhumita (sadly delegated to sister roles so soon). Premji always is shown as someone running behind girls in all VP movies. Not sure why. In this movie also he is shown falling for every girl he sees but sadly to have Karthi have them fall for him. The sad part about all VP movies is that girls are shown as objects. 

Story - Karthi and Premji go to Ambur for their branch inauguration and at the end of the party they go out for a plate of Biriyani. There they meet Mandy Thakkar (who plays Maya) and when they wake up next day with the dead body of Nasser with no clue what happened the previous night. How they get out of the mess forms the rest of the movie. First half is filled booze, bikinis, and typical VP fun. Second half is a decent thriller where the director will make you believe that the villain is one person but the twist in the tale at the end is interesting. 

Acting - Karthi has done a decent role but in certain scenes he doesn't emote well. Like when he realizes that he is in such a big trouble there is absolutely no paraprappu in his face (which is done well by Premji). Hansika doesn't have much to do. Premji is irritating at times but mostly has underplayed so is ok. Uma Riyaz has a decent role as a hit woman but her reaction (supposedly anger) in the station scene is pathetic. She should have played it more subtle. Mandy Thakkar is HOT as a seductress. 

Some scenes have no logic - Karthi going around everywhere (after his face was published in all papers and TV) with just a cap and not being recognized mostly. Karthi with a singham mustache being called as Surya by Hansika. The van in which Karthi's sister is kidnapped coming back just for a fight. Uma Riyaz shooting in the construction area and being a hit woman she is a pathetic shooter.  Premji is disguised as Nasser.  

Some scenes are good - Where VP in his typical style acknowledges that the movie has taken some inspiration from Hangover or the scene which imitates the Naduvula konjam Pakatha kanom or Nasser saying evalavo panittom edha panna mattoma? Nice to see a good fight scene between the hero and a lady (even though there is a typical tamil movie dialogue - "evalavu neram ponnunu pathaen before fighting with more force"). 

There are some double entendres which are typical in VP movies. 

All in all this Biriyani tastes good. 

ID Cards & Safety

One of the things that we all get used to from the school days is wearing the ID card. This continues even into the corporate world. Some have it with a long rope around the neck and some have it just with the pin. Some buy those rollers with which you can pull out the cards and these rollers are hung on the pant loops.

I personally prefer to wear whatever is offered by the organization. In most corporate organizations it is the long rope (you are sometimes reminded off the leash but we aren't we all controlled that way?).

The main aspect that I wanted to discuss was the safety aspect of the ID card. The ID cards are required in office premises to ensure that no strangers don't come into work places. Every one who enters an office are checked if they are wearing the ID cards. This is the required especially in offices were thousands of people work.

There is another benefit also, in case you want to know the name of someone who you like you can always look at the ID card to find their names. :) You don't have to use any detectives to find names.

There are many girls that I see don't remove their ID cards even when they get out of offices. I haven't seen that many boys wear IDs outside work. There are a few things that I want to highlight

1) You don't want to give an opportunity to everyone on the road to know your name

2) People who work in large companies will definitely be carrying a few cards, decent amount of money. The ID card that you wear around your neck is a clear give away for the thieves.

Do we really need this? The first thing that I remove when I get on to the car or bike is my ID. Not that I work in a lousy company (which I don't want people to know about). ID cards are for work & you should use them only there. 

Which Other Sportsmen/women deserve a Bharat Ratna?

Sachin Tendulkar became the first sportsperson in India to win Bharat Ratna when the Government of India announced the award on day he retired from competitive cricket. Sachin Tendulkar has been one of the top sportsmen that the country has produced and he truly deserves the top honor of the country. However, there are quite a few other sports persons who deserve it equally. 

Dhyan Chand 

The Wizard, as he was called for his superb ball control skills, has scored over 400 international goals. He has won 3 Olympic goals (1928, 32 & 36) during the Indian dominance (partly to do with the presence of players from the current Pakistan) of Hockey before independence. How many of us know the following

1)     August 29th is celebrated as the National Sports Day - It is Dhyan Chand's birthday

2)     The Government of India has an award named Dhyan Chand Award for the Lifetime achievement in sports

3)     The hockey Stadium in Delhi is called the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium 

4)     There are stories that he turned down German citizenship offered by Hitler during the Berlin Olympics

I have read that sadly when he fell ill in 1979 before his death he was admitted in the general ward of AIIMS (it is not only now that sportsmen other than cricketers suffer). He was shifted to a room only after a news article. 

Viswanathan Anand

Anand was the first Grand Master from India. The number of grand masters has grown from 1 in 1988 to 36 now thanks to the popularity of Anand. Some reasons why Anand should be the awarded Bharat Ratna

1)     He is a 5 time world champion (don't think the way the current match is going he will become a 6 time champion, at least not this year)

2)     One of the 6 players in the world to cross 2800 mark in the Elo ratings

3)     He has been a world # 1 for a considerable period

4)     There is not one tournament in the world of Chess that he has not won

Do you know that Anand is one of the youngest to win the Padma Shri (won it at the age of 18) and also the first to win Rajiv Ratna Khel Ratna award. 

Mary Kom

Mary Kom is another 5 time world champion and the only boxer to have won a model in all the 6 world championships held so far. She also won us a medal in the London Olympics. However, she has not won the Padma Vibhushan which is the second top civilian honor in the country. Not sure if that is a criteria for getting a Bharat Ratna

Cricketers 

There are two cricketers who I think defined Indian cricket in the last 30-40 years are Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev. Sunil Gavaskar was the first to score 10,000 runs in Tests and those were the days when 10,000 was a huge number and it took years for Border to reach that number. He also went on to score 34 test centuries and that stayed on for a long time as the most number of hundreds till the Sachins and Dravids and Laras went past that. Kapil Dev was the Indian cricketer of the century. He was at a time the leading wicket taker in ODI and Tests and also the one of the best all-rounders that the game has produced. He also helped us win the world cup. (Dhoni got a Khel Ratna for leading India to World T20 championships.) However, like Mary Kom both have not won a Padma Vibhushan. 

Leander Paes

1)     One of the best Tennis players India has ever produced.

2)     He was second Indian to win an individual medal in Olympics when he won the bronze in 1996 Atlanta Games.

3)     He has a phenomenal record in Davis cup having defeated some of the top players like Goran Ivanisevic.

4)     He has the longest winning streak with Mahesh Bhupathi in Davis cup doubles.

5)     He has won 14 grand slam titles and is regarded as one of the best ever Doubles Player.

Sadly, Leander has not even won a Padma Bhushan so don't think they will even consider him for a Bharat Ratna. At least not in the near future. He also happens to share by birthday and was my classmate for 5 years (don't think those are reasons to win an award, unless I become the PM of the country :)) 

Isolation of Vaiko and the AAP phenomenon

I have successfully reached post # 50.

There is a Mullivaikal memorial that has been constructed near Thanjavur and there is a statue of Prabhakaran and his son in it. I am totally surprised that people have the guts to put up statues and posters of global terrorists. People should differentiate between support for Tamils in Sri Lanka and the LTTE. LTTE was and is a banned organization. It was responsible for the killing of many Tamil leaders even in Sri Lanka.

The TN government demolished the compound wall as it had encroached on the National Highways. Vaiko was very harsh on the TN Government. He said people will spit on Jayalalitha for destroying the wall. Was really surprised with the words that were used. With this he has completely ruled out the possibility of any alliance with ADMK. 

Vaiko has been very vocal in his support of the BJP in the last few days as I have mentioned in my earlier post. Knowing JJ it would be interesting to see what kind of pressure that she exerts on BJP to isolate Vaiko further. To BJP JJ is more valuable than a Vaiko, so they might give in and isolate him completely. He is already become a spent force in TN. Only advantage of anyone including Vaiko is the tireless campaign that he will do for the alliance. He is a great orator which will be useful in drawing crowds. However those have not translated to votes in the recent elections. Even if JJ doesn't exert any pressure on BJP or if BJP ignores her pressure, BJP & MDMK will not win any seats unless they form a very large alliance. With this election MDMK and Vaiko will head towards extinction. Same can be said about PMK also. 

Coming to the second item of discussion. Aam Admi Party. To me personally any party to come to power will need at least 4-5 elections. However, all opinion polls are claiming that AAP can even become a single largest party in their first election (It is completely another issue that no psephologist have a scientific method to translate the support to number of seats). Which is highly impossible. Once people start taking you seriously they will throw all kind of muck on you, which is what the Congress and BJP are doing now. Be it the funding issue or the abusive words used in a rally, everything is coming out because people are taking AAP seriously. How AAP will react to all this will reflect on the true character of this party. They abstained from television debates on the funding issue. That doesn't reflect well on them. 

The art of translating crowd in rallies to votes is not easy. You need to ensure every supporter of yours gets to the polling booth and votes. With AAP the support is mostly the higher middle class and middle class. The upper middle class and upper class are the people who generally don't get to the election booth to vote. Even if the opinion polls are really reflecting the true picture, the AAP will find it really difficult to get support translated to votes. That is my view. 

I will be very surprised if AAP wins more than 10 seats in AAP. 

Possible Test Team for the South Africa Series

Let us first start with the team that we have for the West Indies series

MS Dhoni, Dhawan, Vijay, Pujara, Sachin, Kohli, Rohit, Rahane, Ashwin, Ojha, Mishra, Bhuvaneshwar, Shami, Umesh and Ishant

Now that Sachin is retiring we can safely presume that Rahane will take his place in XI. 

The following members should be a shoo in into the team. 

MS Dhoni, Dhawan, Vijay, Pujara, Kohli, Rohit, Rahane, Ashwin, Bhuvaneshwar, Shami, Umesh, Ojha(not sure if he will get a chance to play in the XI)

Mishra - Don't think he will get selected. We don't need more than 1 spinner for the 2 test matches at Durban and Jo'burg.  The second spinner will definitely be Ojha. 

Ishant - He is lucky to be in the team for this series. 

That leaves either 3 members - 1 Fast Bowler, 1 Batsman and 1 backup keeper or backup opener

Fast Bowler - Do we go with Zaheer Khan or blood some youngster like Jaydev Unadkat or Ishwar Pandey? Zak did decently well in the first match of this season but not much in the second. I would personally prefer someone like Ishwar Pandey. He was the top wicket taker of the last ranji season and has started decently with 12 wickets in the first 2 matches this season. 

Batsman - This could be tricky, do we go with someone like Raina (who himself tweets that he has to be in the test team) or blood some youngster. Let us look at some of the top scorers of last season - CM Gautam, Jiwanjot Singh, Parthiv Patel & Abhishek Nayar. Except for Parthiv(who has scored a couple of 50s this season) others have not done much this season in both Duleep Trophy and in the first 2 rounds of Ranji. That leaves us with the option of the guys who are currently doing well. There are 2 youngsters who are doing exceedingly well - Baba Aparajith(2 double centuries and 1 century) and Sanju Samson(1 double century and 1 century). We can also add Vijay Zol to the list.  All three are very young and not sure if the selectors will select any of them. 

Parthiv patel or a Wridhiman Saha could be the back up keeper. In case the selectors chose to pick a back up keeper. In case they go in for a back up opener then it could be Gambhir (they will not select him unless he will be in the XI, which I dont think will happen) or a Jiwanjot Singh. The other option of a Abhinav Mukund has not done much for a while now. I would probably go with Saha. 

The 3 members for me would be Ishwar Pandey, Baba Aparajith and Wridhiman Saha. 

My 15 will be MS Dhoni, Dhawan, Vijay, Pujara, Kohli, Rohit, Rahane, Ashwin, Bhuvaneshwar, Shami, Umesh, Ojha, IC Pandey, Baba Aparajith and Saha

Review of the 1st Test of the Sachin (India vs West Indies) Series

The first test of the series which was scheduled to have Sachin finish his test career in India (OK, we also had another reason of having some additional revenue from the broadcast rights) ended in 3 days. Here is the review of this game. 

West Indies started off with winning the toss and brought in Sheldon Cottrell for Kemar Roach and India giving Rohit Sharma and Shami Mohammed their test caps. I was personally surprised that Shami got the nod ahead of Umesh Yadav (I even mentioned in my post about the 15 that Umesh was a default selection in the playing XI), but it turned out to be a brilliant move. Rohit Sharma ahead of Ajinkya Rahane was also not a surprise with the form Rohit has been this year and scoring a century and double century in the recently concluded ODI series against the Aussies. 

Dhoni before the match was cribbing about missing out Ravindra Jadeja, but didn't mention anything about Ashwin. Ashwin has been performing better with the bat than Jadeja especially in the tests. In the Australia test series Ashwin did fabulously well with the ball also. He is currently ranked # 1 in the ICC all rounder rankings in the world and still our captain doesn't recognize him as an all rounder. 

West Indies started off well scoring at around 3.5 runs an over for the first 10 overs. Bhuvaneshwar got rid of Gayle in the 11th Over with little bit of away movement and Shami picked up his first wicket with a bouncer to Powell. The 3rd wicket partnership between Bravo and Samuels took windies well past the 100 mark. Shami started reversing the ball and got Samuels bowled who had scored 65 runs at a pretty quick pace. What followed was West Indies' gift to India with Bravo being run out, Ramdin being bowled (tempted to say Speak now nah Dinesh) and Sammy hitting it straight to the only person on the boundary (I was so reminded of Srikanth's wicket in the 92 world cup match against New Zealand, early days of field restrictions when he hit Deepak Patel straight down the throat of the long on fielder). Tendulkar brought on for the last over before tea (he picked his last test wicket in 2010) picked up the wicket of Shillingford in his 5th ball. Ashwin and Shami finished the rest. West Indies ended up with 234. Dhoni dropped couple of catches which was a surprise. 

India started off cautiously with Dhawan and Vijay and India finishing day 1 at 37/0. On day 2 Shillingford started spinning the web around the openers. Dhawan was unfortunate with the ball keeping very low which bowled him but he could have been out the previous ball also which almost carried back to Shillingford. Vijay didn't want to keep the Eden crowd waiting for long for the moment they were waiting for and completely missed the ball when he stepped out and got stumped. Sachin came and he stuck two beautiful boundaries (was he trying to do what a normal player who is tensed will do, start hitting out? don't think so as both were beautiful strokes and not slogs). Was surprised to see Pujara trying to play the bouncer over the keeper's head and ended up giving an easy catch to Ramdin and Cottrell picked up his first wicket. Nigel Llong put an end to Sachin's innings with a poor decision but Tendulkar was completely beaten by the doosra from Shillingford. Kohli followed immediately to Shillingford again defending with hard hands. Dhoni started attacking Shillingford immediately and things started changing a bit from then on. India went into lunch at 120/5 and in deep trouble. Dhoni went after a few overs nicking one to Ramdin of Best and India were in deep trouble with India at 156/6. Then came a beautiful partnership between Rohit and Ashwin. Rohit taking his good form into the tests too. Ashwin clearly telling everyone that he is far better a batsman than other so called all rounders. Rohit went onto make a century and Ashwin ended up at 92 at stumps. Sammy could have tried bowling Samuels or Gayle. India ended day 2 at 354/6 a lead of 120 runs. 

Day 3 - India would have wanted to build a pretty huge lead and take the score past 500 runs but that was not to be. India were all out for 453 around lunch. Rohit out at 177 and Ashwin at 124 and Bhuvaneshwar and Shami not troubling the scorers much. Ramdin dropped two catches returning the favor to Dhoni. 

West Indies started cautiously and Gayle was the first to go trying to pull a bouncer and giving an easy catch to Kohli of Bhuvaneshwar. Windies were 33/1 and Powell and extras were zero then. The second wicket partnership added 68 runs and after that only person to show some resilience was as usual Chanderpaul. Samuels was probably a bit unlucky to be given leg before when the ball hit him on the back thigh pad. You can give someone leg before when the ball hits the thigh pad only when the batsman is squatting or they are pretty short like Mushfiqur Rahim or Sachin Tendulkar but definitely not Marlon Samuels who is well over 6 feet :) Shami bowled beautifully reversing and Ashwin also picked away 3 wickets. Shami ended the second innings with a 5-for and the match with a 9 wickets. Windies were all out for 168 and India won by innings and 51 runs. They collapsed from 101/1 to 168 all out. 

Rohit Sharma was the man of the match. I would have personally preferred either Shami or Ashwin. 

Shami and Rohit had dream debuts and Ashwin (5 wickets and 124 runs) had a great match. Other than these 3 not much contributions from others. Read a stat that bulk of Bhuvaneshwar's wicket has come in the first 15 overs, that is a definite cause of worry. Ojha was a bit unlucky in the first innings as Dhoni dropped a couple of catches but didn't have much to do in the second innings.  

What to look forward to Match # 200

India should be a bit worried about the top order's batting against Shillingford. Windies don't have it in them to fight and I don't see much chance for them in the next match either. 

The match # 199 didn't really go the way the fans would have wanted it with Sachin ending up with 10 runs and 1 wicket. Fans would be loving to see Sachin score more at Wankhade. However, as Geoffrey Boycott mentioned in his Bowl at Boycs there is just too much pressure on Sachin and like what happened to Bradman don't think we can expect a big score from Sachin. I would prefer the way Rahul and VVS left through press conferences and not with such hoopla. 

Some records from this match

1)     Shami's bowling figures was the best by an Indian fast bowler in a match on debut and second best by a indian bowler after Narendra Hirwanis 16 wicket 

2)     Rohit's 177 was the second best by an Indian batsman on debut after Dhawan's 187

3)     280 run 7th wicket partnership between Ashwin and Rohit was the best for India for the 7th wicket and 2nd best for all wickets against west indies. 

Some funny things from this match 

·        CAB got its timing completely wrong, they had ordered 199 kgs of rose petals to be air dropped and got permission from air traffic control also but they had planned it for day 4 & 5. Windies messed up the plans. 

·        I was hearing the commentary on radio when heading to work on the 3 days and some real good gems from the commentary

1)     First slip thoda peechae hain, second slip kuch agae hain and third slip kuch our agae hain(First slip is bit back, second slip is a bit forward and third slip is bit more forward)... Anyone who has watched a bit of cricket would know how the slips are positioned. Do they have to talk something to fill time?

2)     Rohit is nearing the score of Dhawan and cricket is a game of great statistics and permutations and combinations.. ok there are statistics in cricket and permutations and combinations are there in statistics but permutations and combinations and cricket? Doesn't make sense. 

3) Tino Best's pace would not trouble the Indian batsman, he is bowling gentle medium - He was bowling well over 140 consistently :)

Who creates the posters that come up on the medians?

I have always wondered who creates the posters that come up on the road medians during the visit of any leader. I have had personal experience when a minister who was invited for a function specifically asked that such posters be put up on the median of the roads. This trend of putting up small posters on the medians is relatively new in Chennai. It has been in prevalence for the last 5-6 years.

The funny part is the wordings that people use on these posters like Vidi velliyae(morning star), nayaganae(hero), suriyanae(sun), bharathamae(india), edhayamae(heart) and what not. Earlier we used to have meaningful ones like the former Dy CM being addressed as Kurunji malar nayaganae (Hero of Kurunji flower) because he acted as the hero of a serial called Kurunji malar.

Now a days the wordings on these median posters don't have any meaning like Nalayae(tomorrow), etc. What does that even mean?

Some are outright false. Like what was put up when Narendra Modi came to Chennai. There were posters which claimed that he was the Eelam's saviour and Katchatheevu retriever. I am not sure when Modi retrieved Katchatheevu or saved eelam? To my knowledge he has not even uttered a single word on these subjects.

The other major issue for me is the safety of the road users, who is in charge of ensuring these posters put up on the medians stay there? Many times they are dangling on the road or fallen on the road. Already the roads are blocked by the barricades and some more is being taken up by the fallen posters. Shouldn't the parties be held responsible for ensuring the safety for these?