The Margazhi Project 2012-13

Come Marghazhi, Amma will draw beautiful, big rangoli.
This year its decided to document it digitally.
Here is the link for this years Rangoli for the Marghazhi season. 

Srivilliputhur- Travelogue

Srivilliputhur is a small town between Madurai and Thirunelveli. Its famous for the Andal Temple.
Usually people may plan for a pilgrimage in Madurai and may come up to Srivilliputhur as a side track.

But if you have a plan to concentrate just on Srivilliputhur, then here are some details.

The Only train which has a stop on Srivilliputhur is Podhigai (from Chennai), but if you have no tickets in Podhigai, you can try for taking a train up to Virudunagar. (Note: There is no decent Veg Hotel in Virudunagar). Bus journey from Virudunagar to Srivilliputhur takes around an hour. The Bus that I went cost Rs 27.
You need an auto from Virudunagar Jn to the Bus Stand it will cost you Rs 40


There are a couple of lodges in Srivilliputhur, the one that I stayed was Hotel Sashitharan, you can search this up in the web. The other I saw was Hotel Ram.
There is a decent Veg Hotel by name Kathiravan in the main road, 5 mins walk from Hotel Sashitharan (and on the way to Andal Temple) This is an AC Hotel which serves only lunch (Rs 75) and there is a mess near by the same name which serves the breakfast and dinner.
If you want to board a bus to Rajapalayam then stand right outside Kathiravan Hotel. If you want to go to Madurai stand in the opposite direction. There is no need to go to the Bus Stand, which will require a walk for 15 mins from Kathiravan.

Srivilliputhur is famous for its pal pannai. Its a beautiful sight to see milk vendor coming in cycle or bike with a big container behind. This was how it was everywhere many decades ago, then we converted to the plastic bag pasteurized milk. Since we are  in the topic have you heard about the raw milk movement.

Palgoa and Pal Alwa are very famous in Srivilliputhur

The walk from Hotel to temple will take 10 minutes, if you cannot walk get an auto for 20 Rs. Cabs are not available in Srivilliputhur.
There is a Vaitheeswaran temple (not to be confused with the Vaitheeswaran temple near Mayiladuthurai) which is  supposed to be 1000 years old. The Vaitheeswaran temple is in the direction towards Rajapalayam and it will be a walk for 20 mins from Hotel. The Vaitheeswaran temple looked majestic with a beautiful lake.

I also visited Thurvannamalai (again not to be confused with the famous Thirvannamalai and Ramana Maharishi)
This is a Vishnu temple, where the Lord had waited before marrying Andal. There are minibuses from the Srivilliputhur Bus Stand to this temple. The Bus stand is a 10 minutes walk from the Andal Temple.The Fare costs 5 Rs in Minibus and 80 Rs in Auto. The Auto they have here is the Diesel Share Auto and it is very uncomfortable riding in it. The Minubus's last stop is Thiruvannamali, so no need to worry about missing your stop!

Thirvannamalai steps are very steep and when you go up, you will have a beautiful aerial view of Srivilliputhur.

There is another temple in Tiruttangal (very near to Virudunagar) but I did not go there. Buses should be available to get to that place.
If you want to travel towards Madurai then you can hop to Tiruttangal

My Friend Sacho - Review

Amit Varma published the first chapter of this novel in his site. I read it and got hooked!
I want to read the novel, my lending library did not had it so I bought it.
One of the first fiction books that I bought.

First of all why create a commercial scenario where a girl stays with a boy, who she had acquainted  just a few days ago. This girl has been born and brought up in Mumbai and you are saying that she is in a situation that she has to stay in this guy's room.
I can handle this in a commercial movie but not a novel. I expect some substance in a novel.
Why publicize your blog in the novel. I consider that very cheap. There was no valid reason to mention the blog at all in that novel. Nowadays some prominent directors come in one of the scenes in a movie, just to show their face. Has novels degraded so mush so that you have commercial break once in a while like we have in TV!

The story was like The Old Man and the Sea, in the end the net result is zero.
But The Old Man and the Sea is a good example of back to square one genre, because we empathize with the character.
I consider A Farewell to Arms to be one of the worst "Back to Square One" genre (interestingly the author of this novel later went on to write the best back to square one in a short story "The Old Man and the Sea"!)


It was fun to read and has big fonts easy on eyes when you travel in train. Towards the end the protagonist's monologue gets interesting and has substance. But other than that its A Total Disappointment!

But I still have confidence that Amit Varma will delivery next time. 

The Litigators - Review

This is the second novel by John Grisam that I'm reading (the first book that I read was The Runaway Jury)  and I'm really liking this author.
Legal is a genre which I like, that too I did not want a murder mystery, I want something different, like a litigation case against a big pharma!
Street lawyers trying their hands against a big pharma company without doing much research fueled only by their greed.
The story is essentially about David Zinc who one day quit his high paying and boring job and lands up in a boutique law firm run by Oscar and Wally.
The greedy and overambitious Wally tries to file a litigation case against a Pharma company with the hope that there will be a settlement reached by the Pharma company before the Trial begins.
The Pharma company which had faced several litigation cases before for other drugs believes that the  drug in question was good and  it decides to go to trial to show to the world that the drug is not harmful.

All hell breaks loose for the boutique firm and the situation changes and David has to represent the case single-handedly.
David Zinc was now in a situation, a financial crunch, facing experienced lawyer in the court, who were determined to torn the trial into pieces.He was working for $500/ hour underwriting some bonds. He ran way from that job and now he is in a dramatic situation.
Will David regret his decision of having quit from a top notch firm and ending in a small firm, hurting his pocket and dignity.

The story also shows that if you have a passion to serve for society you may be rewarded, but your aim is just being greedy and lazy then you have to face the consequence.

I learnt something about the US law from both my novels.
Good Edutainment.

Chinaman - review

‘Wasted Talent’  is a theme that I love. The moon and Six pence is one of my all time favorite of the same genre.

There is another way to view ‘Wasted Talent’, it’s called hidden gem, the gem which will forever be hidden.

We love to tell people our discoveries.

 “Invest in this stock, mark my words. It’s a multi-bagger”

“But no one is saying so”

“That’s why I’m saying this is a multi-bagger, that no one had realized. I found it”

What if the talent that you discovered was never discovered by no one!

Chinaman  - This is one of the first fiction book that I bought.

I wanted to read a sports novel and the only sports that I know reasonably well was cricket and I don’t know much about Srilanka, so I thought that it will be a good experience.

Non-linear narration, a story about the book in the book itself.  Story about a Journalist’s life, about a mystery cricket. LTTE, match – fixing, cricket politics. Is sports more important than life?

So many things are discussed in this book and you need patience, because the main theme is finding the mystery man and you need to patiently go through all the pages to find it out.

There are so many distractions in that book, for example the character Johny, there is no need for him in this book.

You can have a big canvas of picture to provide a good experience, but if you cannot connect everything in it holistically it becomes a drag.  

You know the story is fictional, so many things are looking just out of world, you never will really feel that this is a biography of a mystery cricketer (that’s what I thought initially)

Anyway it’s a different story told pretty well. Taking events from  a person’s life bit by bit and trying to understand him is a difficult effort.

Well done Snehan Karunatilakan

Director's Cut - Blurb

Three Aspiring Directors see a girl in Marina Beach and the scheme of events that unfolds trigger their creative juice…..

This is the new story I've written, drop me a mail if you would like to read it.

Urumi - Review

I was disappointed.

Why should you have (unnecessary) love story in a period film. That too why you make a Hindu love a Muslim girl and vice-versa.

Why make Vidya Balan an oracle and have one unnecessary song.

Why unnecessary present day role for the period film characters. Why can’t the film be just a period film, why an unnecessary reference to present.

Why should there be a hand to hand combat between the hero and the villian.

Even Avatar had a final hand to hand combat with the hero and villain, cinematic and unnecessary.

I did research on Vasco da Gama after seeing the film and was astonished to find what was shown in the film was true.

This just shows how skewed our History awareness is. Also shows how powerful media Films are.

More (authentic) historical films needs to be made. But care should be taken to give a balanced view. Black and White picturization, we are good they are bad kind of  stereotypic  characters is not the answer.

Good camera but not so good music and also very slow combat. I expected at least 1 full sized war. Most fighting sequence in slow motion.

It seems Vasco da Gama had asked the Hindu ruler to expel the Muslims which the Hindu did not agree.

This important and significant scene was missed in the film.

Sometimes the creator throws in some symbols, some hints, which he expects the viewer will  uncover and appreciate.

A good creator leaves lot of symbols, there is a main story and then there are hints which can be appreciated by viewer who wishes to go deeper.

The Mosquito bite on Gama was a symbol, the symbol was to show that Gama finally died of Malaria. Gama did not care much about the mosquito, he just kills it. Blissfully unaware of his awaiting death.