Its been quite a long time since I have posted something. Even though lot of thoughts were coming across and I like to put them in blog, my writing skills (the little I had) were diminished like anything. I have tried to write a post and halfway through I read it and I couldn’t believe that I myself hated that post.. 
SO left the things there itself and don’t want to make suffer you all 
So here I am trying to write a comeback post. Bear with me. And I know there are lot of posts to read and I will read them all in 2 days. Sorry for being irregular 
Lot of things were happening around and most important of all is Vimmuuu’s wedding and I am really glad that I am able to attend. He was very much himself on marriage and he is not that frightened as he seemed to be in his last post And his biggest worry now is……????????? guess what??? the comments that are to be replied in his last post. I tell you… HE IS SERIOUSLY ADDICTED TO BLOG I am also really happy that I am able to speak more with him at the end of the marriage and also know his family members.
Thrissur:
And this presented me an opportunity to see the new city.. Thrissur. It’s really nice to see a uncrowded, clean city. The roads are well laid and it had lot of temples around it. I loved the sloppy road of this city. But the biggest worry in this city will be the late opening of the shops. Its really hard to find a opened tea shop by morning 7:30. Even hotels were opening up by 7:30 or 8 only. Anyway I got a good coffee at Indian Coffee House. Its really superb and its just 6 rupees. Whenever you travel to Thrissur, don’t miss out guys.
So after reading the first line of previous para and think that they will open till late… you are right if you think that 8:30 PM is late. Even by 8:30 you will see only very few shops which are getting ready to be closed by 8:45. In the hotel I had my dinner, I was literally asked to finish up my dinner soon. They put out all the lights and dinners other than the ones which is helping me. And nobody were ready to serve. In every hotel they will ask ‘Do you want anything more?’. Here they have asked, “You don’t want anything more, right?” 
Other than that really a great city to live with very less pollution.
Stealing books:
Yes, I am stealing the books. If you get the original copy of the book ‘The color Purple’ for 40 rupees what can you say. I just went to a second hand book shop and accidentally found that classic and really happy when the shop owner demanded me only 40 and also the book is in real good condition. I have also got Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett and ‘Serpico’ from the same shop.
Tamil Padam:
Anybody who knows Tamil and a fan of Tamil films please watch this film for your own good. I am literally fell off from seat due to laughing. And in one scene I am laughing that my stomach hurts but couldn’t control and I didn’t looked at the screen for few seconds to control it. This film may not give you a complete film feel but still a must watch just for all the fun moments. Songs are also really class ones. I will watch this film for at least 2 more times in theatre.
India Vs. South Africa:
At the end of today’s play, to be precise South Africa were all over India(Courtesy: Cricinfo). Now this is SA’s test to lose or draw. Dale Steyn just ripped through the Indian batting line-up and during that post tea session Indian batsmen has no clue on how to handle him. But it’s not all over for India. India still has a chance to win to this match. All they have to do is, they have see off the morning session without losing any wicket and should runs at a brisk pace tomorrow. If they set a target of 200 runs with 65 overs to spare during the final day, it’s game on.
A conversation:
Me and my colleague were in rest room and after washing the hands he wiped his hand with paper towel and thrown into the dustbin.And waiting for me to throw mine with his leg on the pedal of the dustbin. And I am using my hand kerchief.
He: Come on.. throw it soon.
Me: I won’t.
He: No problem.. throw it in.(Now he has seen the Kerchief)
Me: I am yet to become that rich to throw my kerchief after every single wipe.
He: See.. I am so poor that I didn’t have a kerchief.
Me: Ok then.. then I will present you kerchief on your birthday
He: 
no no.. you can get me something bigger.
Me: Let me give this first.. after that I will present something bigger
A song:
This song is really melodious and so soothing while hearing it.
War is always a bitter thing. The men in the battlefield were prepared to face the death. They have to be strong, forget about the right and wrong, value of a life and the only thing they have to do is order their command. Among the notable films which has registered the war situations, Full Metal Jacket is also one directed by one of the legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick.
____________________________________________________________________
Film opens with the group of new people trained in U.S.Marines under Sergeant Hartman who does the job of turning each individual into a ruthless warriors. Most of the training scenes revolves around the Pvt. Joker and Pvt. Pyle. Sergeant Hartman grows disliking towards Pvt. Pyle as he is overweight and also due to his inability to do lot of tasks. Frustrated by him, he orders Pvt. Joker to take care of him and asks Pvt. Pyle to learn things from him. Under the Joker he learns the things slowly.
One day for a mistake committed by Pyle, Hartman punishes every other in the group which causes everybody to hate Pyle. Pyle becomes alone, frustrated and concentrates hard on training does well in handling rifles. But at the end of the training he does a tragic thing with that the training part of the film ends.
Film then opens in Vietman where Joker was sent to join the American army and serves as a combat correspondent. He was then ordered to join the army in Phu bai, a marine operating base. In the battlefield they were losing their commanders one by one due to the traps and sniper. As the sniper kills one by one, the remaining people moves in the pursuit of the sniper.
____________________________________________________________________
As a law, a great film comprises of great performances. Full Metal Jacket is boosted up by wonderful performances from R.Lee Ermey (Hartman), Mathew Modine (Joker), Vincent D’Onofrio (Pvt. Pyle) and every other. R.Lee Ermey as a drill instructor lives that role. He is basically a drill instructor worked in the U.S.Marines and trained the soldiers for Vietnam war. He has written the dialogues for himself. We could hear all the foul mouthed words in English in the first half of the film. Most of them I didn’t understand.
Mathew Modine as a marine with heart shows a lot of emotions he goes through.Vincent as the obese, absent minded Pvt. Pyle does his part well. Everybody in the film lived how they will live as a soldiers in battlefield.
____________________________________________________________________
Film moves in the eyes of the Pvt. Joker who narrates the story to the viewer. The film doesn’t tries to show what really happens in the training camp or what happened in the Vietnam but it just takes the field as Vietnam war to show about the wars all around the world and the mentality of the soldiers.The film shows how an individual transforms during the training, the interactions between the soldiers in the war situations and their motive of sacrificing and fighting till the end for the loss of their army men.
____________________________________________________________________
Director Stanley Kubrick was one who likes to do enough groundwork before taking up the project. After the release of his film ‘The shining’ he wanted to do a film on Holocaust by drawing the experiences and inputs from Michael Herr, who has written the Vietnam war memoir Dispatches. But he abandoned that in favor of a film on Vietnam war. He needed to suitable story to adapt and after reading the novel ‘The short-timers‘ written by Gustav Hasford, he decided to made a film. He along with Herr and Hasford worked on the screenplay of the film.
To know more about the research did by Kubrick for this film, you can read here. This film for sure will stand for time to come as it’s not standing on its technical brilliance but shows about the war circumstances which is not going to change even in the modern world. But that doesn’t mean its inferior in technical aspects. This film can stand on its own in technical terms also.
Full Metal Jacket – Captured as it is.
____________________________________________________________________
Trailer:
Training Scene:
____________________________________________________________________
An update:
I am not able to write the review of all the films. So I have created page for the same here where I will write my short view about the movies as and when I finish watching. Hope I will write about a film/week atleast 
It was Sunday. Sivaram was not in his usual self. He was tensed and nervous and kept checking the mobile. His semester results are out. Already he feared as much as he can, as the rumor of results coming out is in the air for the past one week. Suddenly his mobile blinked and it has shown “Message received: from Harish”. And as he pressed the button ‘Yes’, it has shown,
“Machi, you all cleared. 72%. I am 78%. Krishna 68% and Arun flunked in one paper. No worries. He will apply for re-evaluation”
Which is continued with endless wide grin smileys.
Sivaram was happy as he thought that he would flunk in atleast 2 papers. Anyway I am not going to tell about the marks to dad today and make my day to suffer, he thought.
His father returned to home by afternoon after attending a marriage. As they both sat to have lunch, his father asked him, “Is the result is out? Bhagya said she has got 85% and she has also asked about yours”
Oh god!!!! What is with this girl?? From the school days she is like this. She can’t even keep her marks to herself. If she wants to know the marks, she could have asked me….
“What are you thinking??? Is the results are out or not???” asked Sivaram’s father.
“Ah.. yes dad. I have got 72%” and he kept looking towards his plate.
His father has given a shocked expression and asked, “72%??”
What’s there to get shocked, he thought.
He nodded his head. His father continued, “If you keep scoring such marks who will give a job for you. Whom they will prefer??? One who scores 72% or the one who scores 85%?? I myself won’t give a job to one who scores such low marks”
Someday I am going to get a job and he, himself, going to say my son don’t deserve it…
“Come on; speak to me Siva… whom they will prefer??”
He kept his mouth shut. He looked at his father and as he has seen that his father going to say something, he said “I will score good marks next time dad”.
“This is the same dialog you are telling to me from exam after exam. How much your friends has got??”
Arghhhhhhhh.. the endless lecture is going to start…
“Harish has got 78%”
“See that boy was with you, yet studied the time he has to study and scored good marks. If he is a good friend he should helped you to get good marks. Ok, then what about others?”
“Krishna has got 68% and Arun got one arrear”
“See how your friends are. That’s why you are like this. You should be friend with the boy who scores high marks. Then only you could score high marks”
If I say my friend got high marks than me, he will say he is not a good friend. And if I say others who have got lower marks then they are responsible for my marks which he thinks very low.
His father continued which made him to bring him back to his sense, “So is there anything like improvement here, so that you could rewrite the exam and improve your marks??”
Now Sivaram is shocked and as he tried to say ‘Dad what happened to you??? Clearing the papers for one time itself is like hell and doing the same for other time’ nothing came out of his mouth.
“Why are you chewing with empty mouth??? Tell me is there anything like that??”
“No dad. There is nothing like that”, Sivaram said.
“It’s your life. You very well know how much competition is out there to get a job. I am not going to ask you about the marks anymore. You know what to do”
He wanted to say ‘This is the umpteenth you are saying this’. But as he was not in a mood to extend the embarrassing question session anymore, he kept his mouth mum.
_________________________________________________________________
This song from A.R.Rahman’s latest album Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya Rocks. Just hear it:
The man belonged to this 3 letter was undisputed king of the 2 of the most entertaining world(Politics and Cinema) in Tamilnadu for little more than 3 decades. The success of him in both was more to do with the way he connected with the people through his movies which he later translated into votes.
Early 1950s, the Tamil film industry is undergoing into a change from song oriented story telling to dialogue oriented and someone has to take up the superstar mantle from Thyagaraja Bhagavathar. Some interesting talents are coming up from late ‘Sivaji’ Ganesan to M.G.Ramachandran. But M.G.Ramachandran won the hearts of the people with his people saviour image in the film MalaiKallan in the year 1954 and the new superstar was born who didn’t left his throne in film industry until he started his own party A.D.M.K after the difference in opinion with Present Tamil nadu CM Mr.M.Karunanidhi (DMK).
His position as superstar was well placed when his directorial debut ‘Nadodi Mannan’(literal meaning: Nomad King) was lapped up by masses when released on 1957. He made this popular statement before the release of this film.
If this film goes on to become a hit, I am the king, else, I am nomad.
And the rest is history. From what I have heard(yet to see it but have the DVD for a long time ) that film is technically superior comparing the year it is released. There is also a unique thing about that film. Half of the film was in black and white and the other half in Tamil. His other notable films are: Anbe vaa, Aayirathil oruvan, Vettaikaran, adimai pen, Engal veetu pilai and Ulagam sutrum vaaliban. Of these I consider the song played in ‘Engal Veetu Pillai’ as the pinnacle of heroism. The song goes as:
Naan Aanaiyital, athu nadandhuvittal, ingu yezhaigal vedhanai pada maatar. Uyirullvarai oru thunbam illai, avar kanneer kadalile vizha maatar which means ‘If I order and if that happens, the poor people don’t need to worry about anything.Until I live there is no problem and they won’t fell into the sea of tears’.
The song goes on like this only, with the enjoyable rhythm and the great screen presence of M.G.R made the song is instant hit then and an evergreen hit now. Enjoy this song:
For most part of his film career he played the character of the honest, straight forward, self-disciplined person and caring for the poor. And tried to show the same in the real life too. And the most prominent part of his films are the philosophical songs featuring him just like the introduction songs of these days. And his favorite among them is:
The song says about by knowing oneself what are all the things will follow. I have read that he always plays that song while driving.
He was really good in sword fights and its really great to watch his old period films as they have good action sequences.
_______________________________________________________________
His political career is as eventual as the film career with he associated with politics right from his start of the film career. He was a member of the congress at first, then joined DMK as he was attracted by the founder of the DMK, late Mr.C.N.Annadurai. His popularity among people helped DMK to gather huge number people for public meetings and he was one of the prominent reasons for the winning of DMK in 1967 and 1971. Of these 1967 win was a special for DMK as they dethroned the then congress government for the first time. MGR was shot by another actor M.R.Radha near his neck and his posters with the bandage in the neck was used by DMK to garner votes. He has become as MLA in 1967.
In 1972 another chapter in TN politics was opened with MGR founded his own party ADMK after the tussle with Mr.Karunanidhi and his subsequent removal from the DMK. Many followed him from DMK and the people too followed him. Its a great achievement that ADMK won the Tamil nadu assembly elections held in 1977 that is within 4 years of launching the party. He has become the CM of Tamilnadu and continued till his death in 1987 which is again an achievement as he won 3 assembly elections which is record in Tamil nadu. Every win is special as,
In 1977, its a new party under a new leader and it took on well established DMK.
In 1980, MGR’s government was dissolved by the pressure given by the opposition leader Mr.Karunanidhi as they had alliance with Congress(central governemnt). DMK and congress has won almost 100% seats in TN by the general election held in May 1980. The assembly election held few months later and everybody’s prediction is DMK coalition will win comfortably but MGR-led ADMK won very comfortably.
In 1984, MGR was not even went to any constituency and canvassed for votes as he was bed ridden and was in America for treatment but then again ADMK won comfortably which shows how the people loved and believed him and he become the CM for the third time.
He is the inspiration for many tamil film stars to enter into politics but the thing is, they are nowhere near this great man and his success in politics due to his involvement for a long time. But the present stars likes to enter politics today and become as a CM or PM tomorrow. Funny, really funny.
___________________________________________________________
Tamil nadu has never seen a person like him before who lived and lives in the hearts of the people and still lives on. Still there are 1000s of voters are voting for ADMK just for the name of MGR. No one achieved something like that for sure. In one of his songs he featured(Kan pona pokile),
irundhalum, maraindhalum paer solla vendum
ivar pola yaar endru oor solla vendum
(Whether one lives or dies, the world should say his/her name and should say no one is like him).
Truly he lived by that/his words.
I don’t know about his administrative skills but I like him as a hero and I am a huge fan of his movies which is entertaining now also. And he lives on.
His birthday is on Jan 17th and this is a little tribute to him from me.
The post on my last trip to Bangalore and Hyderabad was delayed as I forgot to bring the photos from there. I am tired of waiting for the pictures now, as my friend who fell into ocean of work can’t get it while coming to Chennai this week. So before the entire picture from my mind goes off, I have decided to post about my trip.
The Dilemma:
As I have posted earlier, I was in complete dilemma whether to proceed with my trip or not from December 20th and it required lot of assurances from many of my friends to go there. And also I was the most eagerly waiting person to read any news on Telangana issue than any other parties. Constantly checking all the 3 newspapers online editions (The Hindu, Times of India and Deccan Chronicle) for every 15 to 30 mins J J So while leaving from Chennai to Bangalore on Dec 27th I haven’t decided to go to Hyderabad. I wanted to wait till the afternoon of the 28th to come to any decision. But thankfully I have heard some encouraging news and also whatever the news channels’ showing is from only Osmania University and there is no problem in any other place. With that the dilemma got over and I proceeded to Hyderabad. Mom was really worried and she thought that I will be back.
Meeting a good friend:
Just before boarding the bus to Hosur, I have met one of close my training friend Mr.MN, who came to Chennai on that day, in Central railway station after 2 long years and we talked there for a little while. Thanks for the mobile phones, we didn’t stumbled upon how to start our conversations (I am pathetic in conversation with a long lost friends). Then I started to Bangalore by bus by afternoon and thankfully the 7 hour journey didn’t seemed long as I was accompanied by Harry Potter, the movie Guna in bus and how can I forget… my sleep.
Hosur:
I reached Hosur by night 9’O clock and my friend Mr.PN came there and while going to his home itself I asked whether any new film released there. He said 3 idiots is running and we decided to go there after having dinner and meeting his father. And the dinner was MUTTON BRIYANI. While eating his mom asked, “You both can go to some film, right??”
He:
Me: :mgreen: 
So after having a heavy briyani and a little talk with his father we ran off to theatre only to watch the film 30 minutes late. But who cares…. As I know the story of FPS, I didn’t had any difficulty in following the movie and my poor hindi understanding was compensated by my friend’s better English knowledge. After watching a perfect film to kick-off the vacation we came back and talked till morning 2:30 about….. what topic is needed…. Talked about all under the moon… LOL..
I woke up by morning 8:30 and had very nice Tiffin consisting Chappathi and chutney… YUMMY. I bid my farewell to Mr.PN’s mom and reached my Bangalore office after 2 years.
The good old campus and the good old friends:
I have already written enough about the campus and the days with my friends (training tales) in which I have trained and when I revisited again it’s as fresh as I have seen and I wished I could have been worked there. It will surely rank as one of the best and beautiful campus.
Only few of the training friends were working there and of then some took leave on that day 
. I missed them. All the remaining ones met over the lunch and after a long time I had a real fun meal pulling each other’s leg. Ahhhh!!!! I miss that here in Chennai.
Some pictures from there:
Leaving the campus and meeting Vijay anna:
My friend PN took a half a day leave and came along with me to drop me in Bangalore railway station. We started from the campus by evening 4 and off we went to meet Vijay anna in Koramangala. But due to lack of time we were not even able to have a cup of coffee. Anyway I met him.
How I missed meeting Pixie:
As that was a Monday, I thought(by Sunday night) of starting early from Hosur and reaching Pixie’s office by morning 8 to meet Pixie. But me and my late morning sleep completely foxed me as I woke only by 8:30 only. Blame a little on the climate of the Hosur too. It had a perfect climate to sleep till 10. So considering that, I woke up very early Even though I was in half sleep from 7:30 I didn’t want to get up until PN gets up. So I woke up after 8:30 and there was no chance of meeting Pixie after that as she was too busy on that day
Leaving Bangalore once more:
So the parting time from the city which has provided one of the best phases of my life and also one of the best friend Mr.PN. Then also, when I went to Pune he was there and now also……
Next part: Going to Hyderabad, meeting Swaram and Sumanth and visiting Charminar.
