Monday, September 26, 2011

Must watch for Speed Freaks

I am a rash driver in general and i used to think its a MAN THING. I am always crazy about speed whenever I drive. Even after marriage, I didn’t change a bit. Fortunately, my chances turned lesser as I moved to Singapore and stopped driving at all for a while. Wait a minute… How does this relates to the context of this post ? You will know… It’s the review for the no-hype-but-full-of-quality Tamil movie, ENGEYUM EPPODHUM


A simple story, two buses collides and the flashbacks of the travelers. What hits the bulls eye, is the screen play. The initial 30 minutes where a bit confusing with too many cuts and moves with characters and locations but slowly you are pulled in to the story.

The director is a new comer M Saravanan and produced by the Gajini fame A R Murugadoss along with Fox Studios. ARM did a worthy gamble with debutant director and full credit to him for choosing the best possible crew for this movie. Besides screen play, another stand out part was the acting performances of the 4 lead characters. Specifically, Anjali who is maturing exponentially after each movie. I was under a opinion that Angadi Theru will always be her best performance but I am sure she wont stop at anything. After a long time, Tamil Cinema got acting potentials from female leads.

Ananya used her limited scope very well. Another cake walk for Jai, he is sure a directors actor. Debutant Shravanand impresses too. The comical events between Jai and Anjali,, not so practical but a unique flavor and enjoyable. The few minutes characters in the movie also makes a good impact and that for me, is another highlight.

The underline theme of the story is the value of life. Accidents and the associated deaths are just yet another news in the media but this movie did a good attempt to shows the emotions of many who are affected by the accident. The mind blowing bit was the actual accident and what happens inside the buses during those few seconds of the accident. This gives a feel of how gory it will be when you are physically there. I felt the movie was a bit too long with too many songs but, over all a wonderful movie to watch for the thought provoking Screen play.

Getting back to the driving habits of mine, I decided to come out of the adventurous age and be rational when am on wheels again. Looking forward for the pleasant Durban road trip next month : )

Thursday, September 15, 2011

An Enigma called ‘Arulmozhi Varman’

What an exciting last few months… How lucky I am… How proud should I be… Conspirators, Assassins, Spy game, The great Indian dynasty.. you can title it anything but in Tamil, its called PONNIYIN SELVAN… By par, the best book I ever read so far.




I read first 200 pages of the book several times in the past but never got a good stretch of breaks to finish the rest… few months ago, I decided I should do what ever it takes and finish the book.. Lots of my friends suggested me to read this book for past 8 years and finally, I felt lucky, privileged and proud that I managed to enjoy every page of this amazing art work by Kalki Krishnamoorthy.

The base line story is a series of true historic events blended with fictions. The title Ponniyin Selvan is actually the greatest king of chozha dynasty, Arulmozhi Varman who never wanted to be the emperor in the beginning. Ironically, the circumstances forced him to take up the throne and went on to be the THE ONE

I have downloaded the ebook in to my ipad and disastrously addicted reading the book. Though the story title is about the king Arulmozhi Varman (Raja Raja Chozha), the actual hero is Vanar kulla Vanthiya Thevan who went in to lots of adventures to serve the Chozha Empire. There are like 1 million characters in the book. Most of them play significant role in this historical wonder.

More than the history and the narrational beauty, I really really admire the indepth knowledge of the writer (Kalki) on the geography. The names of the cities 1000 years ago, the various routes that connects the cities, the transportation methods they used, the communication methods they used, the names of rivers, the various events/festivals etc., Remember, this book is written in 1950 way before the internet and other modern communication techniques existed. One needs extreme patience and pure passion for history to come out with such a master piece. Read the book and you will agree.

Dear reader, if you know to read Tamil and if you have passion for history and if you think you already read best of best thriller/action/drama books, read this before you die. The first 100 pages or so will test your patience with too many characters and unconnected incidents but keep reading if you wanna get addicted.

I truly wish this should turn out to be a movie and here is my favorite casting if at all a movie could be made out of this book.

Direction : Sankar / Maniratnam
Production : Only Sun Pictures
Music : A R Rehman
Vanthiya Thevan : Vikram
Arulmozhi Varman : Surya
Azhvarkadiyaan : Rahman
Aditya Karikaalan : Sampath (the gay character in Goa)
Kundavai : Vidya Balan
Vanathi : Tamanna
Poonguzhali : Anjali (Angadi theru fame)
Manimegalai : Amala Paul
Periya Pazhvettarayaar : Satyaraj
Chinna Pazhuvettarayar : Prakash Raj
Anbil Anirudhar : Naasar
Sundara Chozhar : Jayaprakash (Pasanga fame)
Mandagini (Oomai raani) and Nandini: Nathiya – Double act
Maduranthakar : Aarya
Senthan Amuthan : Abbaas
Parthibendran : Arjun
Kanthamaaran : Sonu Sood
Pinagapani : Karthik (America maplai character)

Whatever the casting is, if given to right directors, heavy budget producer and good technical crew, am sure the movie will be a milestone in Indian cinema. I am so looking forward.


Here are the Ebook links if you are intrested...



To read it as Tamil PDF book


To read it in English


To read it Online



I am now all geared up to start reading the sequel, UDAYAR by Balakumaran :)