Vanakkam Chennai – Immature

I have watched Vanakkam Chennai last weekend. This is Krithiga Udhayanidhi’s first movie as a director. Movie plot was good and it is supposed to be a romantic comedy, but both romance & comedy were missing. There is no chemistry at all between the lead pair Siva & Priya Anand. Siva was really the worst cast for this role. There is no expression in his face, his dialogue delivery is really bad, no feel, no romance L. He could not dance as well. The songs were really good (music by Anirudh), but Siva made it worse by not dancing and no songs are watchable again.

Siva had put some weight and he did not fit into this role at all. Lot of actors were wasted – Nassar, Urvasi, Renu, Black Pandi etc. I felt that Krithiga was not bad for her first movie, she should have chosen the better hero for this movie. The movie had a good plot and the genre was also good. But something big was missing in the movie. Even Sivakarthikeyan could have fitted Siva’s role better.

I will not recommend this movie – if you really do not have anything to do, watch this else avoid it.

Vanakkam Chennai – Immature !!!

Moodar Koodam – Brave Attempt

I have watched Moodar Koodam last week. It is so very different from the regular tamil movies. I seriously do not know how to express what I felt when watching the movie J. This is the first movie for the director Naveen and he did an excellent job. His dialogues were very very powerful. He was part of the movie cast and the way he delivered his dialogue was cute.

I still remember couple of dialogues “Namba enna thiruvizha-kaa porom Sendrayan, namba thiruda porom”, “Neenga indha kelvi-ku aama-nu padhil solla koodaadhu, edhukku-nu padhil sollanum Sendrayan”. Movie is very different and you get  complete different feel for this film. I really enjoyed this movie trailer and was very impressed, but thought it was a serious movie. They call it as a black comedy and Anandha Vikatan gave 50 marks for this movie. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and thought that the movie was brilliant.

This is really a brave attempt for the first timer and the movie showed the extreme confidence of the director. Naveen was very very confident throughout and did a neat job. I would 100% recommend this movie – enjoy the dialogues.

Moodar Koodam – Different & Brave Attempt !!!

Aadhalaal Kaadhal Seiveer (AKS) – A Must Watch

I have watched Aadhalaal Kaadhal Seiveer last weekend. It is one of the best movies in recent times. Director Suseendhiran is really really talented and his story telling and details are amazing. The cast were perfect and everything looked/showed very natural. I really admire Suseendhiran’s direction except “Rajapattai” movie where he tried to become a commercial movie maker which did not work out.

This movie was really natural and the way the characters are portrayed and the situations and details were really good. The climax was amazing and I cried so badly L. I usually shed some tears for some movies, but for this one I cried really loud and could not control myself. Very emotional and it is really telling you a message in a heart touching manner. Music was very nice and there were no unnecessary songs or comedy. Everything was just part of the movie which was really nice.

I would 100% recommend this movie. Go for it! 

Aadhalaam Kaadhal Seiveer (AKS) – A Must Watch !!!

Varuthapadaadha Vaalibar Sangam (VVS) – Very Boring

I have watched VVS couple of days ago. I had very high expectations as Sivakarthikeyan was the hero and M.Rajesh (OKOK director) wrote the dialogues etc. I felt that the movie was really boring. After some time, I was waiting for the movie to be over. There was no story, comedy was ok, lead actors were wasted. I am not sure how this became super hit. I felt the other movie Vimal acted “Designu Raja” was much better than this. When I watched Designu Raja, I thought it was an ok movie. But after watching VVS, looks like Designu Raja is far better than VVS.

I think it’s high time that Sivakarthikeyan should be careful about his move selection. I don’t think he can survive longer with these kind of movies. I would not recommend this movie unless you have nothing to do over the weekend J.

Varuthapadaadha Vaalibar Sangam (VVS) – Very Boring !!!

Chennai Express – Jolly Ride

I got to watch the Hindi movie “Chennai Express” on Thursday night. I did not know about the Thursday movie screening. I went home late that night and my friend Nandhini called me and asked whether I am planning to go. I did not have any idea about the movie. I usually get an idea or read some review about the movie before I go. Vijay went to play volley ball and I could not decide anything. He came home around 8:45 and at the same time, my neighbor Aparna called me. She wanted to go but her husband was not interested. So, she called to check whether I wanted to go. I asked Vijay and he said Yes J. I asked another friend to buy tickets for us. Aparna & I went for the 9:30 show. We could not sit in the back as the theater was full. Enough of introduction J. Let me go to the review.

I thought that the movie was really FUN. There is no real story or logic, but the whole movie was very entertaining. I did not have any expectations but laughed whole heartedly for many scenes. Shah Rukh Khan underplayed in most of the scenes and he was a comedy piece almost the whole movie. His intro itself was like 40 year old single guy and not as a college student or an NRI guy J. Deepika Padukone looked very beautiful and her costumes were very pretty. She looked more like a Tamil girl and was a good choice. She also acted very well. 

I felt that the $10 was really worth for the 2.5 hours entertainment. More than 50% of the movie had tamil dialogues and except 10 actors, all of them were tamil actors. Movie started in Mumbai but stayed there only for 15 minutes. After that the whole movie was in Tamil Nadu. I really enjoyed all the songs, especially the one which Chinmayi sang (Titli). It was very pleasant to hear. Cinematography was amazing. Most of the locations were really fantastic on screen. Not sure where they pictured, looked more like Kerala. 

Oh! I forgot to mention. I think Rohit Shetty got confused with some dance forms. They had Kathakali & Kalari in some songs which is not really part of Tamil Nadu culture and those are from Kerala. Not sure whether that matters to Hindi movie watchers as they call all South Indians as “Madarasis” and we call all of them (Except 4 south indian states) as “North Indians” J.

Even though the movie had no strong story or logic, it had good comedy, nice songs, beautiful cinematography and fine acting. I would surely recommend this movie for pure entertainment. 

Chennai Express – Take a Jolly Ride !!!

My First 5K R(F)un

I completed my first 5K run last Saturday. I know it sounds crazy, but I really did it J. But to clarify, the run which I did was more for FUN and not much for RUN. I participated in Color Run 2013. It is a 5K run, but you can actually walk, jog, run, do whatever you want basically to reach to the finish line. I felt there were no serious runners in that. Since it was my first time effort, I felt very comfortable in the group.

Let me tell you how this crazy idea started and I will write something about Color R(F)UN. I always wanted to do a 5K at least once. I know couple of my friends do that every year here. I was thinking about it and thought to do Clive Running festival as they had 1 Mile run in it. Thought for the first time runner, it would be easy to try. But unfortunately we were out of town that weekend and I could not participate in it. I was like, it is over and let me think about it next year (usual procrastination but with the feeling that I tried and it did not happen). After few days, one of my colleague asked me whether I could join her for Color Run. I did not know anything about it and also it is for 5K which is 3.2 miles. I was not very sure and told her about it. It was her first time too and she encouraged me so much saying that Color Run is much fun than serious running and we can train together. I agreed and we decided to form a team (needed at least 4 members). I really wanted Vijay to join me, but since one of us need to take care of kids on the race day, I did not ask him. I checked with my neighbors/friends Aparna, Satish and Harish. Finally Satish joined our team and we managed to pull in one more colleague. All of us registered successfully, but the training part was very hard. Madhavi & I could not train together for various reasons, something or the other came up during our lunch breaks. I tried to train with Satish in our neighborhood and we did couple of times, but not a whole lot. And the 4^th member who joined was a runner already and we did not worry much about him.

I was very guilty when the date (July 13^th 2013) came closer. And was not sure whether we could even complete. On top of this, I got neck sprain from Wednesday night and it became worse on Friday morning. I took off from work and went to urgent care. Looked like I strained my trapezius muscle which connects the neck, back and shoulder. Doctor advised me to take large dosage of Ibuprofen and icepack for few days. I asked her about the running and she said it is ok to do run the next day. I became more anxious after that.

I took Satvika with me in the evening and went to Sports Authority for packet pickup. There were hundreds of people in the line to get the packet and everyone looked like a runner to me J. Finally with brave heart, I stood in line and got my packet. But I told Satvika that I am little worried about my run and not sure how am I going to manage the run. She told me “Amma! It is not about winning or losing. You need to participate and that is important”. Looks like I told something like this to her some time ago and she told me the same advise again. Thought it was very cute J.

The same night Madhavi called me and asked about my neck & run. She assumed that I was not going to run as I had neck sprain and she did not even get her packet. I told her that I already picked up mine and Satish’s packets and I am still ON. I thought she was surprised but she decided to join us the next day. On July 13^th Saturday, she went early to pick up the packet and came back home. I went to down town with Satish’s family, but could not locate Madhavi. There were 1000’s of people, it was really cool. My bib number was 18216, but there were people with 90000 number too. They had one run at 9 AM and another one at 1 PM. We picked 9 AM run. They gave each of the participant with the color packet which you can use after the run. But participants already started throwing colors at people when we were waiting.

Since there were tons and tons of participants, they were sending people in batches. We did not realize that and Satish & I were wondering why no one is running even after 9 AM J. Finally we figured out the cause and moved little front in the crowd. We both finally started the run at 10:02 AM and finished it by 10:45 AM. It was about 43 minutes. Really not bad for the first time, I think. I thought we could have done 5 or 6 minutes earlier if we could have run for little more time and if I had not asked Satish to take pictures of me in the middle of RUN J. Because of the crowd, you have to jog for some time, run for some time and walk for some time. And on top of all these, they had color zones in the middle. Whenever you cross them, there were volunteers to put colors on us. We had four color zones – Blue, Orange, Yellow and Pink. By the time you reach the finish line, you will be colored all over. Some brought little kids, babies and even their pets. Since this is not a serious run, we were not intimidated and I think that is the good thing for the first time runners.

Everyone enjoyed and I thought this may be a good family run next time. I hope I could take Vijay & Satvika next time. I really need to thank Madhavi for asking me to do this with her.

On the whole, Color RUN was really FUN !!!

Movie(s) Review

I watched few tamil movies in the last few weeks and interestingly most of them were very good in some aspect except one movie. We watched Udhayam NH4, Soodhu Kavvum, Edhir Neechal, Moondru Per Moondru Kaadhal, Kedi Billa Killadi Ranga, Vathikuchi and Settai.

Moondru per Moondru Kaadhal is one of the worst movie I saw in the recent times. I could not believe that this movie was directed by Vasanth who directed “Keladi Kanmani”. The connection between 3 stories was not very clear or good as well as some of the actors like Vimal acted very bad (looked very artificial). Please avoid this movie.

Udhayam NH4 was good. I felt Siddarth looked much different from all his other movies. His language, body language were good and apt for the character. It is surely a one time watch.

Settai was ok. Looks like it is the remake of Delhi Belly. I really did not like it that much. I watched this when I had nothing to do & when Vijay went to Chicago to drop someone. It is really a “sumaar” movie with lot of silly comedy.

Vathikuchi was ok too. There are lot of loop holes in the movie. You need to watch it without thinking logically J. Also felt Anjali is doing similar kind of roles all the time. If you have lot of free time, then watch this.

Kedi Billa Killadi Ranga was also Ok. Bits and pieces were good, but I felt something is incomplete in the movie. I thought something was going to happen, but the movie ended J. I have been watching Sivakarthikeyan from “Kalakka Povathu Yaaru” in Vijay TV and he really has a good sense of timing in his comedy. Can watch one time.

Edhir Neechal  - This is another Sivakarthikeyan’s movie. There is nothing major to say. Songs are good and story is predictable.

Soodhu Kavvum – This is one of the best movie I watched in recent times. Very different and dialogues are very good. Vijay Sethupathy looked very nice in his salt & pepper look J. Looks like he is going great guns with all his films. He is choosing right scripts and acting very naturally. His voice is also very good. Do not miss to watch this movie.

I am yet to watch “Theeya velai seyyanum Kumaru” and “Thillu Mullu”.

Have a good July 4^th Weekend!!!

Mom - Are you Guilty?

I kind of wanted to blog this morning. Not sure why? But when I thought more about it, then I realized that I want to blog whenever I am happy or sad about something. Today’s blog is for the latter part. I feel very sad and confused for the last few days. Satvika’s school year is ending on this Thursday May 23^rd. She is finishing up her Montessori Preschool this year and starting Kindergarten this Fall. Actually the public school starts little early this year on August 14^th. She told me over the last weekend that her summer vacation starts from Friday. She was very happy to say that to me. But actually there is no summer vacation for her. The only thing this year is, I did not sign her up for summer camp at the preschool, instead she will be going to Samanu’s daycare for few weeks and new summer camp for 6 weeks. My parents were supposed to come and visit us this summer, but my dad is tied up with some work and they are still not sure about their trip. So, it looks like both the kids need to continue their routine even during summer. There is really NO BREAK for them L. I feel very guilty these days. I know how much I enjoyed during my summer break. I feel like I am not giving what they are supposed to experience for their summer break.

I have all kind of thoughts now – Am I doing something wrong that my kids are not allowed to enjoy their vacation?, Is that our parents’ responsibility to come and take care of the grandkids?, Are they(kids) really going to miss something or will they be ok?, Can I do something about this situation?

I also have SOME answer for all of these questions, it might not be the right answer.

Am I doing something wrong that my kids are not allowed to enjoy their vacation? à This is my running race scenario, I already started running in my career path, now I am not sure whether I would be able to stop or take a break. I feel torn between my family and work when I think about this.

Is that our parents’ responsibility to come and take care of their grandkids? à I feel certainly not. But there are some grandkids who are blessed to have that opportunity. That’s what I feel. Some grandparents are healthy as well as have loves to do that, some grandparents are not healthy enough to do it, some are healthy but do not have the interest to do that. I sometimes think that we are misusing their love stating that it’s your responsibility to take care of my kids. I am not sure whether everyone would agree to me, but that’s what I feel.

Are they(kids) really going to miss something or will they be ok? à My younger one is only 2 years old now and I don’t think she would understand the difference between her normal routine or her break. She should be ok. But for my older one, she surely has some logical questions to ask us. I hope she likes her new summer camp. I am really hoping that they both are ok with their summer plans.

Can I do something about this situation? à I can certainly do, but that is not going to be practical or realistic. I should start let go of few situations if we do not have control over it. I am trying it but I cannot surely let go off my guilty feeling.

I think most of us go through this guilty feeling at different points with our childcare. Each of us have our own way of overcoming it and I think one of my way is talking about it. I thought if I share my feeling about it, others who read this post might feel better that they are not the only ones who deal with this situation.

Some of us cannot stay home fulltime and take care of kids (it is not only from financial aspect). Some moms are like that and they like the challenges they face at work. Some enjoy staying at home and take care of the kids & enjoy that challenges. It changes from person to person. I don’t think there is anything right or wrong in any of these ways. One of my friend/colleague told me that she is a better mom when she works. I thought it made perfect sense. You need to satisfy your ego & yourself for sure to keep moving.

I need to remember that some moms are BETTER MOMS when they go to work. And I think I am one of it J.

P.S. I started this blog with a sad feeling, but ending it with a confidence. Hope it stays...

Can a Friendship Change?

Last week’s discussion in Neeya Naana was about girls having boys as “Friends” and how their family sees that and handles that. On one side, all girls were there and on the other side their family was there. Most parts of the discussion were healthier and I even liked the panel member’s views from Vennila and Abhilash. It is always good to hear different perspectives. The way, other people see things different than us – seems very interesting and fulfilling to me these days. I started feeling like I am learning more and more every day. I was in girls school from 6^th to 12^th standard. But was in co-education in college. I always had some boys as “Friends” throughout my life through tuition, through other friends, college, work etc. I never hesitated to introduce them to my family and never was scared about it.

After hearing all the discussions last Sunday, the only thing that came to my mind was, do I ever miss any one of my friends now? The immediate thought was “Yes, I do miss one of my best friend” and he is Gopi Sambandam. I mentioned it to my husband Vijay with a very sad tone. It’s not that I don’t talk to Gopi now. We still catch up sometimes (rarely) and update each other. But I think I miss the friendship which we had before. Not sure whether he does miss too. But it is very unfortunate that I don’t talk to him as much as I did before. There are quite a number of things (in my life) which I would have shared or asked or discussed with him, but all those thoughts/things remained unspoken & unshared L.

I really do miss his Friendship, but will TREASURE the memories forever.

Things changed, Priorities changed, Our Lives changed and sadly Our Friendship also changed.

On a lighter note, I want to mention about Suresh here. He was with us in the Engineering first year at Velammal Engineering College only for few months. He then took a transfer and moved to Crescent Engineering College. I just knew him only for few months, but I still have special kind of friendship with him. His birthday is on Nov 17^th and for some strange reason, I remember that every year and call him to wish him Happy Birthday. We don’t talk to each other almost the whole year, but I always remember his Birthday & on Nov 17^th I call him for sure J. I think I am doing that for more than 10 years except 1 or 2 years when I went to India. 

It’s Snowing Here – Really???

Yes. Today is May 2^nd and it is snowing here. Crazy Huh!!!!!!!!?????!!!???!!!!!!!!!

We are in the middle of Spring and it is supposed to be Summer officially in another 45 days. I did not know that it was going to snow today. When I got up this morning and looked outside through window, I was confused for couple of seconds and it took few more seconds for me to digest that it is REAL. This kind of weather is very depressing. I was talking about this to Vijay and he was like “Humans get sick once a while and it is similar with nature too. Today is a sick day. It should get better soon”. Not sure whether he made sense J, but I liked his simple analogy.

Looks like most of the people were not ready to cope up with this snow like me. City had already started some construction on few roads. So, some of the 2 lanes had been changed to one lane last week. With all these snow and one lane roads, it took almost 45 minutes for me to reach office (closer to 6 miles). Everyone was driving so slow. Temperature is 33 F (little above 0 degree C), so snow is melting which is a good thing so that we will not have black ice and bad roads. But on the down side, roads are so slushy.

We had 80’s F on the first part of this week and suddenly it dropped to 30’s F now. Actually it is very scary and alarming. Looks like it is one of the bad signs from Global Warming!!!! Not sure what kind of natural wealth that we are going to leave for our kids. I don’t think our kids are going to experience the same kind of weather that we experienced for each season.

The growth of Science and Technology increases on one side and on the other side lot of natural wealth is diminishing. Time to think Guys !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cute Ad

We watch only STAR Vijay here and we do not get any advertisements in Vijay TV US version. I got used to it and I like it that way. But I happened to watch SUN TV over the weekend and saw the Parle-Agro Frooti ad couple of times. It was really really cute. Shahrukh Khan is in the ad, but what I am talking is not about him J.

If you have guys have 1 min 34 seconds, please watch this. I think it is really worth it J. It is very simple but the way they picturised and presented, it is very cute.

Click here to watch the Ad.

Vattiyum Mudhalum

Raju Murugan’s Vattiyum Mudhalum ended 2 weeks back in Ananda Vikatan. Looks like he got a chance to direct a movie and he named it “Cuckoo”. I felt both happy and sad. Happy for him to get a movie direction chance for which he was waiting for a long time. Sad that he will not be continuing his article in Ananda Vikatan. Vattiyum Mudhalum is the first thing  that I read in Anandha Vikatan. Now I can’t do that anymore and I need to find another favorite J.

Anyways, I liked the way he mentioned that Vattiyum Mudhalum is “Temporarily Stopped”. Even though it might not happen, I think I wanted to hear this.

Good Luck Raju Murugan! Bring out a movie with your same humor and emotions.

Dance Baby Dance !!!

Just felt like adding a post after a long time today. I really don’t want to add posts for the sake of doing it J. It needs to come from my heart I think.

Lots of things were going on for me for the last couple of months. I started my new job this Monday. But this blog is not about that. Vijay & I performed couple dance for Tamil Association program with 2 other friends couples. It was really FUN. We are going to do the same dance again this weekend for Indo-American association. Hope it comes out good. I choreographed the dance – medley of 3 folk tamil movie songs. Practice sessions were very fun managing with kids, work and with other dance schedules. It was hectic, but at the same time, it was real fun. I also performed one more dance with my daughter’s dance teachers’ group. It was a medley of instrumental music and the dance is more like semi classical, contemporary etc. Satvika also performed in her age group. So our schedules were crazy enough for us. Samanu is the only one who did not perform in our family J, but she learnt our couple dance steps (by looking at our practice sessions) and she dances whenever she hears the songs. Very Cute!

I think the most FUN part was after the performance on April 13^th. We all went to our friend’s house (who also performed with us). We took Satish & Aparna also with us as Satish gave a voice in our song mix “President Prem-gaaru oka manchi song masthu song pettandi”. We considered him as a participant in our dance J. We had a fun-fun party in their basement. We did a game – one person needs to suggest a song to play and next turn was Santharaam’s. He thought he could play best songs after each person. And for the most part, he could do that J. After that we had a dance session. All of us danced for lot of songs. Later Santharaam took an avatar of “Santhaa Master” like “Prabudeva Master” – and choreographed dance for each couple. It was hilarious. We really had so much FUN until 2 and after that we watched a movie “Chennaiyil Oru Naal” and slept after that. Not sure how many really watched the movie.

I felt that “After performance” session was much better than the “Practice” session - “Woooooowwwww”. Actually our friend Suresh says that like actor Vadivelu, but we started calling that as Suresh’s style Wow J.

But with all that fun, we have not practiced even one time for our next performance this weekend. Hope we keep the pace.

By the way, I forgot to mention, Vijay is the one who missed couple of steps in the beginning of the dance while entering for the couple dance. But his colleague after looking at the video told him that he did a wonderful job than me and his entry was super J. Enna ulagama da idhu!

I am happy that we all could do this in spite of our busy schedules, work, kids etc. Special kudos to all the kids – Satvika, Samanvi, Rahul, Sibi & Laksha (I included Samanu even though she did not co-operate very well whenever Vijay danced J but she was only 21 months old when we started our practice). Many more special THANKS to Vijay for taking care of the kids whenever I was in dance practice. Samanu still thinks that I am going for a dance practice every day. As soon as I pick my purse, she says “Ba-bye Amma”.

I think this dance will last in our memories forever !!!