Theater’s Cut

We would have often heard about Director’s cut. But theater’s cut is something most of the theaters do, usually to shorten the length of the movies so that they can run more shows. Sometimes, they do this final cut to make the movie watchable by editing out the boring (for them) part of the movie. In many cases, this will help the movie run, but in few cases, viewers come out fuming that the director was mindless, editor was sleeping, etc. In some rare cases, some actors lose their prominent scenes and end up like a half-baked character in those movies. This post is to record few such experiences of mine.
Yesterday I was seeing Aayirathil Oruvan, downloaded from torrent world. (Please don’t cry piracy. I have already seen the movie once in theater. First day, First show. Jan 14th, 9.30PM. Technically its the first show in that theater ) About the movie, there are few things to appreciate about this movie and few things to criticize (Have been waiting for this piece). Among other things, one of my complaint was that the character of Andrea remains just as a spectator for the entire second half. But my perception changed (not to a large extent) when I was watching the downloaded copy. There is an important scene in which, Andrea meets Parthiban to suggest the malicious intention of Reema. However, this scene, along with others have been removed by the theater’s editor, leaving us fuming.
Somewhat similar to this is Uma Riyaz’s cameo appearance in Anbe Sivam. But she would have been really disappointed to see that the scene in which she confesses her love for Kamal has been removed in most of the theaters. That particular scene also explains the reason behind someone travelling along with Kamal in that fateful journey.
Sometimes, this theater’s cut turns out to be a good thing for few movies. I remember seeing the movie Paarthaley Paravasam, twice. First, on the first day of its release and the second time, after 15 days of its release. Both were in the same theater but the two versions were quite different. Theater’s editor has removed most of the annoying (for him the scenes in which Simran delivers length dialogs) scenes and made the movie watchable. However, it was too late to revive the interest of the audience and the movie made its way out of the theater in a week or so.
So, in most of the cases the people/operator in theaters play an important role in shaping up the movies. It’s not just director/editor/producer, the theater’s cut is also deciding the fate of these poor actors. Next time you find any missing link in a movie, blame the theater as well.

N.B: As thalaivar says, padam parpathu engal thozil, job is just hobby

One for the road!

This incident happened almost 1 year ago but it’s still fresh in my memory.

One of my friends had been asking for a treat for my newly bought bike and I, without knowing what is going to happen that night, obliged to his request. It’s a simple treat with a decent whiskey and some snacks from ubiquitous “hot chips”. I was aware that police patrolling will be on the high during weekends, so I restricted myself to two small rounds of whiskey with huge amount of snacks. I left my friend’s place at around 11 PM and reached the infamous Sony World signal of Koramangala. Just as I was about to cross, the signal turned red and I, like a law-abiding citizen, stopped my bike immediately. I didn’t realize that I was a “sitting duck” for the cops in that signal.
One thing I love about Tamil is, one need not strain much to pronounce the words. In other sanskritized languages, sounds would come deep from stomach where as in Tamil, its just from the mouth. Coming to the point, since my name is not a pure Tamil name and it has some sounds originating from stomach, when the cop asked me to tell my name, it itself gave away whatever little whiskey I had an hour back. He dutifully took me to the corner and started testing for alcohol level in the blood. First few rounds failed and they didn’t give up. By that time, many senior officials assembled at that point and one “strict officer” took everyone’s bike key. When drunk moderately, my Kannada skills will be very high. So, I managed to do the conversation with cops entirely in Kannada. One cop, who was attracted by Kannada skills, offered an interesting deal. He said, “We don’t usually leave these North Indian guys. Since you are from Bangalore, adjust us and I will get you the key”. I never want to stand before a judge for drink and driving. So, I agreed to pay whatever he had asked for and leave the place.

Only after reaching home I realized that they played Good cop/bad cop on me and I would have negotiated with them for a lesser amount.

Note: Please don’t drink and drive.

Effeminate Things

Yesterday, after a long time, I puked while travelling in bus.(Not a worthy information to share ) Of course, the reason is Travel Sickness. This used to haunt me right from my childhood and I’d even take some tablet like Avomine. But I stopped using it once I reached my college and specially because of one of my friend.

When I was in college, I told this friend (who’s dad runs a medical store) that I always get travel sickness and I’d even take some pills to avoid it. To which he got shocked and replied, “Come on, be a man, why do you take tablets like pregnant women. If you have to vomit, go ahead and vomit but never take tablets”. It appears that my subconscious mind heard him well. I started considering taking pills as effeminate. Much to my surprise, I stopped getting travel sickness ever after. (Except for rare cases like yesterday).

This thing boils down to a basic question, can the mind help cure disease?

A Madurai Odyssey

Got these pictures in a forward mail, googled and found that these were taken by Linnaeus Tripe. Thought of immortalizing them in this post.

South tower

Madurai is the cradle of Dravidian civilization and this temple is the only standing proof. Though most of the outer temple towers are built/renovated by Nayaks (Except the East tower built by Pandyas which is still intact), the garbagraham or sanctum sanctorum is well protected for generations by Pandyas (So that no Reemma Sen will go searching for it ). If Wiki is to be believed, this is what Pandyas had negotiated with Malik Kafur(A eunuch and a General in the army of Alauddin Khilji who invaded South),
1. Hand over all the treasures belonging to the Meenakshi Temple and Madurai Treasury which included 96,000 gold coins and precious stones.
2. Half of the Rice rationed inside the walls of Madurai.
3. All the elephants and horses available with Pandyas.
In return, Vira Pandyan was promised the release of his brother, Sundara Pandyan and safety of the idols in the inner sanctum of the Meenakshi Temple.

pudumandabam

(The fountain like place opposite to the Pudumadabam in this picture was used as a urinal pod until 2 years back )
Pudumadabam, I have mixed feelings towards this place. Originally built by Nayaks to be used as a choultry for pilgrims who visit the temple. But, for the past 100 years or much more than that, this place is used as a shopping hub (Mostly fancy items, books etc). We too have own (Govt has allowed us to use the place until it thinks otherwise!) a shop here!! A shopping complex near the Temple is like double treat for people. So most of the people and I (for a selfish reason) want this to be a shopping place. However, government wants to annex it to the temple and protect it from further deterioration (As it has rare sculptures of Nayak rulers). Sooner or later, the place will be taken over and the shop owners will be asked to relocate to a different place.

Vilakku Thoon

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this picture. Linnaeus is a genius!. This place has gone through drastic changes. Vilakku Thoon (The lamp post) is equidistant from the Temple and the Tirumalai Nayak Palace (and from my home ). The lamp post is now replaced by a bigger one and a statue of Kamaraj is placed here. Even, the ten pillar street and the palace is visible in this photo.

The Bees

As we know, the primary goal of almost all the mutual funds is to beat the market and they all are very successful in achieving this goal . But for some unknown reason, I have always been apprehensive about mutual funds. I go to them reluctantly as they often hide the details of the management cost. During the past 1 year, my goal was just to replicate the market. Its when I found about, Exchange Traded Funds.

Among all the ETFs in India, the simplest is the benchmark fund’s Nifty BeES. In the past 1.5 years, market returns have been like never before. In October 2008, Nifty was as low as 2200. Its when I bought a handful of Nifty BeES (One Unit of Nifty BeES is approximately 1/10th of the S&P CNX Nifty Index, so it was around 220 Rs). As of today, the NAV of this Nifty BeES is 529.17. That’s a significant return, isn’t it?

What attracts me to this is the low expense ratio and transparency. It can be bought and sold like any other stock and right from the online trading terminal. (Or by a call to the broker.. This sounds funny to me). For conservative investors and newbies, this is the right choice. The other attractive ETF is, Gold ETF. I once funnily said, instead of getting physical gold as dowry, I would ask my in-laws to get me some units of Gold ETFs . Its indeed the secure way of holding gold.

Though ETFs are famous in US, Europe and Singapore, Indian ETF industry is in budding stage. And, so are REITs. In fact, India is still in the process of introducing them in the market. So the next time we think of safely investing in the market, mutual fund is not the only option.

Unintelligent ATMs

The recent HDFC bank marketing campaign, “Save 40% time in ATM transactions” provoked me write this post.

HDFC bank have come up with a feature in their ATM machines to save our “favorite transaction”, so that the next time we go to ATM, we can save time by reducing the number of button presses. I have two problems with this feature. They are,

1. Why can’t the ATM remember more than ONE favorite transaction. For example, the favorite transaction that I have saved is “Rs. 300 withdrawal with a receipt”. Why not I have another transaction in this list. Imagine a browser with just only one site in Favorites/Bookmarks. Sounds silly isn’t it?
2. These favorite transactions are NOT networked. The favorite I set in one machine is not available in another machine. (But of course, it remembers the account details, Remember ACID ) So, I am forced to save the favorite in all the ATMs.

These questions lead me to a bigger question, “Why are ATMs not intelligent”. Basically, its a computer. So, it must be capable of everything that a computer does. (I even noticed once that it uses Windows XP). Wondering what is stopping them from introducing intelligent applications and to begin with, all the features available in net banking site.
The first time I used ATM was in the year 1999/2000 in Madurai. Its been almost 10 years. But the machine has not evolved much. Hope to see many innovations in this decade. I could see many possibilities!!!

Adieu 2009

Its been exactly 1 year since I started this blog. Though it has not been very successful, I am happy that I have been consistent and few of my posts have been informative in some way or other. In this year, I have made about 51 posts, out of which I select the following 5 personal favorites.

1. Language Protectionism – Analyzed the possible ill effects of linguistic purism propounded by Tamil leaders.
2. Originality in Art – Though its not written by me, this post is very special to me.
3. An Anecdote – Initially I misunderstood that Net Neutrality will help protect smaller websites and blogs but it turns out to be other way. Government intervention will indeed bring its side effects. (Like the recent enforcement by Indian government of “Safe Search ON” in popular search engines)
4. Faking it – Listed out reasons on why Indians fake their resume.
5. Mentalese – Though this post didn’t come out well, I was really delighted when I first read this book and was excited to blog about it.

Looking forward to another exciting year and hope to write good posts as well.

Wish a very happy new year!

Gourmet Zone – II

When I think of Kannada food, this song from the 1981 Kannada movie Ranganayaki comes to my mind. The song goes like,

nanna maatu kesari baathu
nanna koopa khaara baathu
nanna maatu kesari baathu
nanna koopa khaara baathu

I don’t think it requires any translation and anyone who is from or has been to Bangalore can understand. Its one of those foot tapping songs of 80s. I initially thought it must be a Shankar Nag item, but I was wrong.
Coming to the post, these Kesari Baath, Kaara Baath, Bisi Bele Baath, Chow Chow Baath are an integral part of Bangalore and so are the Darshinis and Sagars. Any Tamil guy would have a tough time tasting these foods, as the common trait of Sambar in most of these hotels is that it will be sweet. I know many Tamil guys who stay in Bangalore for years and have never tasted these foods. I, however was able to find (forced to find as I was staying in core Kannada area) few hotels which really fits my taste. Here is a list of exclusive Kannada hotels and dishes:
MTR: Anyone who comes to Bangalore, will get to eat here within weeks or at least months. Mavalli Tiffin Room, is a prominent Kannada hotel in Bangalore. People wait for half an hour or more to taste the lunch here and that explains the reputation that this hotel has got. If a person starts tasting Kannada food here, he would probably not hate them as much as they do when starting in Darshinis.
Halli Thindi: This buzzing restaurant is on the Bull Temple Road and serves pure Kannada dishes, which are hard to find elsewhere. Akki roti is one of my favorite here.
Kamat Bugle Rock: This restaurant is just few meters away from Halli Thindi and the place is always filled with youths from nearby engineering colleges. So, it doubles up as a treat for eyes. This hotel has a separate North Karnataka style food section, where we get to eat unique uttara kannada dishes like Jowar Roti and some brinjal curry.
Upahara Darshini: This darshini is a class apart from others. Located in Netkallappa circle, this joint is always crowded. Most of my working days would start with a plate of hot idli vada from this hotel.
The Davanagere benne dosa joints are worth mentioning here. Those butter dosas with the thick coconut chutney is one of the main reason for my weight to increase.
I believe Karnataka (excluding Coorg region) and non vegetarian doesn’t goes well. I have never been able to find a decent Kannada style non vegetarian hotel except The Prashanth. They serve Ragi balls with mutton/chicken kurma/serva. Only one ragi ball would make my lunch. This hotel is located in Basavangudi, Wilson Garden and many other places. Each hotel claims to be the only one in Bangalore. (Like Muniyandi Vilas of Madurai).
Along with serving Kannada foods, these Sagars and Darshinis also have regular North Indian foods like Roti curry, parota, Chaats etc.. The sad thing is, I have never seen a Sagar or Darshini open after 9.30 PM.

Gourmet Zone

This is my official 50th post and I wanted to make this post somewhat useful. So, naturally this post must be about my domain of expertise. Someone who closely observed me for few months have come to an interesting conclusion that there are only two things I do with utmost interest and expertise. Those two are nothing but eating and sleeping. So here I come with a post on the restaurants and foods I have encountered in Bangalore. When it comes to food, I consider myself more of a gourmand than a gourmet (engalukkum french theriyum!). So the choices that I make in choosing food will reflect the same. I am categorizing the restaurants/foods based on the cuisine.

Note: This post is written by someone who has spent 80% of his life in Madurai and the northernmost part of the country he has ever traveled is Hyderabad (which is still in South ) and his taste is heavily influenced by the South Indian cuisine.

Chinese: Back in Madurai, the only Chinese food that we get to eat is some kind of vegetable noodles and that too would have indianized so much that a real Chinese person can never taste it. But Bangalore offers quite a handful of choice in Chinese food. (My long time doubt is that they are really Chinese food or part of some north-east cuisine). So following are the safer choices I make once I enter any Chinese restaurant.
Koi-Thio a.k.a Malaysian Noodles: This will be my first choice in a chinese restau because of its close resemblance in taste to the tamil food Kothu parota. Its a safe bet for a tamil guy.
Steamed/Stewed Rice: After tasting this dish, my mom said, “When I make kenni pes at home (a Sourashtrian dish – Steamed rice sans vegetables) you never ate, but you are paying Rs. 100 for a plate here”.
Chop Suey: Though this dish is identified as American, I find this only in Chinese restaurants. This too is a safe choice and tastes good when eaten crispy.
The above three are the dishes which I can manage to eat without any non vegetarian ingredients and the rest of Chinese delicacies would require some form of non vegetarian to wash it down my stomach.
Among the Chinese restaurants I have visited, Mainland China is the most expensive. If one wants to taste authentic Chinese food with a spot of alcohol, this is the right choice. But beware, visiting this place often would leave a perpetual hole in your wallet. Other prominent restaurants include Three quarter Chinese, Chung Wah, Beijing Bites and our favorite adda, the Wang’s @ Jeevan Bheema Nagar.

I don’t want the post to be too long. So, stopping here and will continue in the subsequent posts…

Who’s Time/Money is it anyway?

I have been away from the blog/Internet for a week or so. Ever since I had uninterrupted access to Internet, I never kept myself off from it for such a long time. Though I never succumbed to the urges of those social networking sites, once in a while I was tempted to check my emails, bank sites, etc…Anyhow, I am back now at work, most of the time checking mails, blogs, news sites, tweets and what not.
I was in Andhra for the past few days, but until yesterday, I didn’t care for what was happening in Andhra and Telangana. Even though there are some legitimate reasons behind demanding a separate state, I am very much against this kind of fasting unto death blackmailing. Who cares?. Anyhow, everything changed when the bus that I booked to Bangalore for Sunday night got canceled. Unless its a life threatening situation, I don’t have the habit of canceling the trip just because the bus is canceled.
So, we ventured out on a trip to Bangalore with the help of a hired taxi. All along my journey, what I witnessed was the ugly repercussions of our flailing democracy. At the end of every small city/village junction, a group of insolent thugs, (obviously drunk) were blocking our way. They apparently had as much knowledge as I have about the situation. But it didn’t stop them from blocking, protesting, shouting etc..
This kind of mob violence has been the way of protesting for Indians for decades. The most irritating part of it is that they dance to the tunes of those selfish politicians with no knowledge of what’s going on in the state. It becomes more irritating when the police just become the mute spectator for this menace. It costed us few extra hours and thousands of rupees to reach to Bangalore. But, it will not be the same for everyone. Time and again, it makes me wonder whether this kind of democracy is really working or we just making it work for the pride of it.