Naan Mahaan alla - Tamil movie review

An apt title - if you ask me.  For the thing that the hero Karthi does at the end, one does not have to be a 'great soul' or a 'mahaan'.  Why he did what he did is probably justified.

The main story track goes on very vibrantly.  Karthi effortlessly essays the role of a happy go lucky hero, who always teases his sister and takes money from his parents!  He is from a middle class family.  On the side is a dark track, a group of good for nothing, perverted youngsters who habitually molest girls and on one occasion dump the girl after hacking her body into small pieces.  As fate would have it, the crooks had used Karthi's father's taxi (he works as a driver in a call taxi company) and he recognises the victims face broadcast on tv.  Being a conscientious citizen, he reports to the police that he can identify the culprits.  Knowing this, the crooks make an attempt to kill him.  Karthi is very shaken by this attempt on his father's life.  The miscreants will stop at nothing and this time they take the help of another bigger rowdy and plan and successfully kill his father in broad daylight.  This devastates Karthi and inspite of police's repeated requests, he does not proactively volunteer any information/help to catch these criminals.  He does not give himself any airs about his 'heroism'.  It was quite a refreshing change from the usual rut.  According to him, nothing is going to bring back his dad and he thinks these crooks deserve a harsher punishment for their heinous crimes.  

He does not plan on going after them to avenge his father's murder but coincidentally he encounters them, that is the end of this story.

Nice movie with the right mixture of romance, comedy, thrill etc.

Kattrathu Thamizh - Movie review

A very unique theme, certainly caught my interest.  Though initially the movie seemed very slow moving, focusing on the violence in the police station and subsequent cold blooded murders, the love story unfolded very well, it was refreshing to see the simple and naive ways of the young couple - Jiva and Anjali.

Karunas plays a pivotal role too, he is the camera man who records the memoir of Jiva under threats from him - he has been kidnapped by Jiva for this purpose.

The hero is a Tamizh language teacher in Chennai.  He has taken up study of Tamizh out of interest for the subject and the positive influence his own Tamizh teacher had on him.  Had he chosen to follow the masses and study IT (Information Technology) he would be earning thousands, may lakhs per month but now his salary is a meager 2000 Rupees.  He is very hopeful and upbeat as his salary will double after he completes Bachelor of Education which is necessary for every teacher.

Gradually the reality hits him - repeatedly he comes across his college mates or others who are not necessarily smarter than him but make much more and are well settled only because they work in call centres or in so called IT job market.  What bothers him even more is their haughtiness and their prejudice against him just because he chose to pursue the subject of his liking.  The points that he makes and the questions that he ask are very relevant; not simply because he has a low income.  These are very reasonable and sensible questions for which we have to find answers only by soul-searching.

It reminded me of the time that I took such a decision to study Sanskrit which people senselessly call as 'dead language'.  I too was a smart science/computer science student who took Sanskrit to prove that you do not have to be necessarily dumb or turned down elsewhere to pursue this subject as the main course of study.

It is indeed true that these days the IT folks make much more than average salary.  Of course they face their set of difficulties - excessive work pressure / ridiculous work timings etc.  They may or may not have job satisfaction but at the end of the month they see considerable amount of money whereas all those people who did not take the beaten road, who may be smarter and hardworking just struggle to make ends meet.

The hero's personal life of course is riddled with tragedy, the death of his mother, then later in life, of his dad; his childhood sweetheart getting lost to him and then later reappearing in his life.  A good movie, could make the common man introspect a little.

Yuvan's music is awesome - memorable, melodious, poignant  and apt.

Karaikudi

Great place for authentic South Indian food; specifically 'Chettinad' cuisine from Chettinad region in South India.

The weekend lunch buffets seem great.  Good selection and authentic variety; I am told that the non-veg dishes are very tasty.  As a vegetarian I get very limited choice - very limited - just one gravy and plain or fried rice, of course I can binge on desserts and appetizers.  It took me a couple of visits over the course of few  months to realize this.  I am not going here any time soon, but would certainly recommend this place to friends who enjoy non-veg food.  Friendly service.

http://www.karaikudiva.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chettinad_cuisine

Minerva review

I would like to give my opinion on two restaurants.  Both share the same name; not sure if they are same management.

Minerva location at Chantilly:
Good food, fair selection, fair service.

Most restaurants close buffet by 3, it really becomes inconvenient for those of us who show up half and hour before closing.  Just into appetizers/ first course the hostess would come by and politely ask us to take more since they would be closing soon!  And most often if we show up late the rice has already become crusty because of sitting there a long, long time.

Minerva Indian Cuisine location at Lee Hwy, Fairfax:
Good food, better selection, fair service.

Food was great, no question about that; it would have been better if they had a website explaining coupon / Restaurant.com policy.  My gift voucher listed some exclusions, but not that it was not valid on a weekend buffet.  Though it is located on Lee Hwy, we had some difficulty navigating to it.  When we tried calling them for directions, we could not get any help - seemed like a fax line. 

 

Sapphire Indian Restaurant

My first and only visit to this beautiful restaurant was very enjoyable.  I would gladly go here often, if not for the distance from home.

A grand selection of food items makes the weekend buffet very sumptuous.  I am not sure I saw any thai entrees in the buffet, but there was an array of north/south Indian; veg/non-veg dishes.  The ambience of the place was good too.  What I liked the most is that the weekend buffet is open till night!  That's fabulous for people like us who 1. habitually go late to places 2.if we are running errands we can just stop by the restaurant whenever we feel like it.

http://www.sapphireindianrestaurant.com/

Jab tak hai jaan - Hindi movie review

SRK, Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma

One refreshing thing is SRK acts his age at least for some part of the movie.  It is a welcome break from seeing him as 'just out of college' kid.  With the opening, Samar (SRK) is shown as challenging death, he takes on risky assignments such as bomb defusing in the Indian Army.  According to him, its only his death which will make Katrina (Meera) lose her faith in God (with whom she has a barter system going on).  She has given up seeing him because of one such barter, even though she is deeply in love with him in spite of being engaged to another man.

Meera's understanding of love is somewhat incomplete; she thinks love is something to be avoided.  Her mother's elopement with another man when she was 12 probably had a huge influence on her outlook.  But in comes Samar with his happy go lucky attitude and creates a reunion between mother and daughter.  She sees her mom very happy and content with her partner.  After the reconciliation Meera's outlook on love is entirely the opposite of her previous one - now she thinks people have to run away to find true love.  Her habit of 'praying' to God frequently and having an ongoing agreement of barter system is very annoying. 

However Anushka's character (Akira) is more annoying with her rustic attitude of youngsters and sex.  She has no problem bringing it up even to strangers.

Unless you are a fan of either of these actors, you can skip this movie.

Moondru per, moondru kaathal - Tamil movie review

Three people, three love (stories)....Hmm...Once again what made me want to watch this movie was Cheran.

The story moves slowly at times; certainly a unique perspective of love.  One of the heroes has completely sacrificed love; another has lost his loved one.  Both these instances have affected the third hero so much that he decides to do a little soul-searching and comes to the conclusion that what he felt as 'love' in fact was nothing deep.

This movie raises one question for me: does one have to sacrifice love in order to do social service?  Is not Love a sense of overflowing bliss that it would encompass all in its path.  Its certainly a very reasonable wish for a girl (or a guy, for that matter) to want to spend the rest of her(or his) life with the person she looks up to - as a friend, soul mate, inspiration all in one.