IPL5 – from April 4 to April 15

Note: I will be writing my views on ongoing IPL as one article/week. Mostly it will come on Monday.

Out of all the IPLs happened before, this one, IPL5, doesn’t seems to throw any surprise to us. In the first IPL it was the stunning performance of the Rajasthan Royals which also thrown up many Indian players striking ability. Second IPL was a sort of redemption with the previous IPL’s bottom 2 teams Royal Challengers Bangalore and Deccan Chargers meeting in the final which was eventually won by DC. Chennai Super Kings were the success story of IPL3 who at one point of time looked to go out in the league stage itself. Mumbai Indians atlast matched their ability with the performance on the field only to loss the momentum at the final stages of the tournament. IPL4 was remembered for CSK, a team for the first time defending its crown and the big hitting Chris Gayle who pulled single handedly RCB to finals.

Most disappointing thing for me in this IPL is, no new Indian players are showing their ability. There were lot of Indian players who has shown such a promise during earlier IPLs not even doing half of what they have shown. Ambati Rayudu and Saurabh Tiwary who were the stalwarts of the Mumbai Indians 2 seasons ago looking lost now. Yusuf Pathan seems like he forget the art of how to swing the bat. Iqbal Abdulla is not the bowler we have seen last time. Paul Valthaty is failing big time.

A treat to watch him bat!!!

Only Rahane has shown what he is capable of but he is already an international player. It is such lovely sight to see this young man scoring without fuss. His shots were proper and he reduces the risk of getting dismissed by the kind of shots he plays. Hope the selectors noticing this and gives a chance to this guy instead of other pathetic Indian batsmen.

One thing I like about this IPL is, Dada and Dravid captaining very well. I am such an ardent fan of Dada and it was so nice to see him on the field making those field changes which works all the time. Being away from the attention and glamour of KKR, he seems to be relaxed and more confident in managing this team. He handpicked Samuels, Dinda, Steven Smith and some more players by himself which makes the core of the team. You know he is the same man who picked Sehwag, Kaif and Yuvraj. Surely Pune Warriors starting to look like the team to beat with some great bowling resources and decent batting strength.

Dravid isn’t far behind. He is slowly building a legacy of his own at Rajasthan Royals after the miracle work done by Warne. This season RR looking like a team of first season which posts big totals and testing the opposition with tricky medium pacers. They have now found new Yusuf Pathan in Owais Shah who seems to hit six at will. Where you have been all this time Shah???? Better late than never!!! Both PW and RR looking like going to semis.

Mumbai Indians as much strong as they can be, they have shown they need the calm presence of Sachin at the top of the order.  Without him at the top, all the batsmen doesn’t know what exactly they need to do and eventually losing their heads. If Sachin doesn’t return soon we can write off MI this season.

Chennai Super Kings looking like the best team on paper but on the field their bowling is pretty much poor with the star performers Ashwin and Bollinger going for runs every other day. Batting looks good but with the firepower available in the team they can easily put 20+ runs to what they are scoring now. The line-up needs tweak according to the state of the match. The top order looks brittle with M Vijay awfullt out of form. But Hussey will join the team soon and I wish Badri is promoted up the order to partner du Plessis who is doing well at the moment.  CSK for sure will pick their form soon and I expect them to be in semis.

Delhi Daredevils after a period of lull starting to look like a good team with various pace bowling options and big hitters. They are very weak in slow bowling options which could hurt them during later stages of the tournament. With the batsman like Sehwag, Pietersen and Jayawardane no score will be out of their reach. They are the dark horses for semis.

He is looking like the ghost of what he was at RR

Kolkata Knight Riders have the problem of plenty with lot of international players. Their Indian players are also good enough but they are not able to find the best combination. One thing that works in their favor is their home ground pitch turning square and they have high quality bowlers to exploit it. They also have a top heavy batting line-up and unless Yusuf Pathan comes back to form it will be really difficult for them to get going in the tournament. But sadly, Yusuf hasn’t shown any signs of form till now.

Royal Challengers Bangalore has been poor during when last IPL started and they are again finding it rough this term. Last time its all depended on one man Gayle and this time there is no change in it only that Gayle is struggling for his fitness. Kohli is yet to show his heroics in RCB colours and AB de Villiers is yet to show his class. They don’t have a strong bowling attack except for Vettori and Muralidharan and the team balance is bad. Mayank Agarwal showing some promises with the bat but if Gayle and Kohli doesn’t play at their best this will be a forgetful tournament for RCB.

This year the wooden spoon contenders will be Deccan Chargers and Kings XI Punjab. Both have a very weak squad with pretty much half the players in the XI are of mediocre quality. They can win one or two matches here and there and both teams have the enough quality to finish last. It will be an interesting battle!!!

Certain Semi-finalists: PW, RR

2 out of 3 candidates for Semis: MI, CSK and DD

As I pass by – 15/04/12

All gone wrong:

When I started to blog again by last month I decided to post at least 2 posts per week. All gone to the plan during first week only to get completely messed from second week with my PC’s monitor failing, getting drowned in the work in office, Hyderabad trip happening… Well, that’s how my plans go all the time.

Well, monitor is now back so as my work in office got almost completed. Posts of Hyderabad trip coming up soon And I am really sorry for not commenting on your posts. Even though I read the posts in my mobile I couldn’t properly with them Hopefully will catch up with all the posts.

IPL 5:

Next season of IPL has started and players and BCCI will hope that test series debacles in England and Australia will be forgotten by this high profile(???) tournament. But I don’t think how exciting this tournament can get, it won’t erase those humiliations.

This season has started with lot of one sided matches and now started to slowly picking the tempo with teams picking up their players well and getting into T20 mode.

Dravid’s retirement:

One of the true servants of Indian cricket and member of the league of EXTRAORDINARY gentleman called it’s a day in international cricket. For Dravid, all I have is my respect. If you ask me the greatest achievement of him, I will say from a very technically sound player who can’t score runs at a brisk pace, he become the fulcrum of the Indian ODI. That’s the biggest achievement of him. Oh, he even holds the Indian record for fastest 50 along with Ajit Agarkar. Crazy

 I should have written a tribute and planned to write also. But you all know the way plans go with me, don’t you??

Back to read:

After quite some time I have finished a novel completely. Its ‘The girl with the dragon tattoo’. A very interesting book which deals with a girl who was mysteriously died in the Vanger family.  There is another sub plot too. But don’t even bother about it It’s bland.

Each and every character in the book was well etched with the heroine was not a very normal woman we have seen in movies or other books. She is ‘one-of-a-kind’. I will write my complete thoughts about the book after watching the movies based on this book.

Dark Fantasy:

Its not some fiction novel. Its a newly introduced series of biscuits by Sunfeast group which just blown me away. It has got real taste and in quality I can say it is world class. I have tasted 3 types in them… Vanilla, Chocolate and the chocofils. Chocofils is the best of the lot and the packing itself tells how serious the makers are serious about this biscuit.

Image courtesy: http://www.yummytummyaarthi.com/

Inside the box each biscuit is wrapped in a cover. Instead of chocolate cream between 2 biscuits, in this one the chocolate cream is inside one single biscuit and it retains its moisture, which is the most amazing thing. The cream has a fresh feel to it. Each biscuits costs 5 rupees and I can say every paise spent on it will be worthy. Thanks to whoever behind this biscuit in sunfeast group.

Never in my life I have recommended a biscuit to many people. But this one blown me away. Have a bite!!!!

A song:

This is a real good melody from the movie ‘Deiva thirumagal’ but more so I like it for its real beautiful picturization. Very beautiful.

Kadhalil Sodhapuvadu Eppadi? – [2012] – Tamil

Whenever I see a romantic comedy movie in English, a thought always comes to mind, ‘Why we never make such funny romantic movies? Else are we too serious when discuss about love?’ Well the answer is, after watching ‘Kadhalil Sodhappuvadu Eppadi?’ (How to mess up in love?) I understood love here is as much fun as there in west only the Indian filmmakers have forgotten to see the funny face of it.

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Story? What story? These kinds of movies need the intelligent screenplay and dialogues that will make us to sit and laugh. Well if you still ask… Here it is:

Arun and Parvathy were studying in a college and by the gradual interaction they fall in love. But ego clashes were coming up with each other hanging on to their priorities in life and not on to their relationship which threatens break their relationship.  How they fall in love, breaking up and again comes together forms the story.

Story is nothing to be excited but it’s the presentation which makes this more than watchable. Director has intelligently woven 3 more love stories around the love of Arun and Parvathy each is completely different from the other one. One love deals about a guy so shy but loves a girl who is already in love with his college senior, Other one deals with a girl who broke up with a guy and falls in love with one of his friends and the last one being the 40+ year olds applied for divorce understanding each other characters and again being together.

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Acting is neat from the lead actors and it was the friends around them bring huge laughter with every expression. The parents of the lead characters are behaving in a normal way unlike in some masala movies where they will make them look like foolish.

Dialogues are so sharp, witty and natural that will make us laugh throughout. A sample below:

Girl: Nee epovavathu en kita poi solli irukiya? (Did you ever lied to me?)

Boy: Perusa illa. Summa chinna chinnatha.. kelambrathuku munnadiye kelambiten anda mathiri solli irukken. (Not anything big. Some small ones like I have said I started before even starting like that)

Girl: Inimel anda chinna chinna poi kooda sollada. (Hereafter don’t say those lies too.)

Boy: ok.

Girl: Inda salwar la naan epdi iruken? (How am I looking in this Salwar?)

Boy: Nalla illa. (Not good)

Girl slaps and goes away.

There are numerous scenes like this. Another strong point of this movie is, all the happenings on screen are something happens to everyone. We can easily relate to it.

When I finished watching this movie I felt lighter and relaxed something not offered by any movie I watched. Only drawback of the movie is the music is not upto the mark. Even though they sync with the movie there is no special in it.

All I can say is, go for it and enjoy.

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Director of this movie Mr. R. Balaji has already directed a short film under the same title and you can watch it below to check out how the movie will be. I can guarantee the movie it was twice the fun provided by short film.

One another beautiful short film from the same director:

Note: This movie is also released in telugu as ‘Love failure’

Tag ::: Tough Elevens

DI has tagged me to tough elevens. Rules of this tag are:

1. You must post the rules.
2. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post and then create eleven new questions to ask the people you’ve tagged.
3. Tag eleven people and link to them on your post.
4. Let them know you’ve tagged them!

Here are the questions from DI:

1. Do you remember your first day in school?

No I just remember 1 or 2 moments from my whole first year in school

2. Your favorite song that you hum often?

It changes from time to time… Now its ‘Nee partha vizhigal’ from movie 3. Yeah.. ‘Kolaveri di’ song movie

3. Which was your favorite subject in school?

I liked Tamil and Science. Two subjects in which I am more consistent. But I am good in others too except English. It all comes down which one I understand better. One year it will be Science and Mathematics, on the the other it will be Social science… it changes

4. Are you happy with yourselves, well most of the time, for what you are today?

Yes. From my college final year, I am more than happy with myself. The only regret is, I could do more instead of wasting time in petty things.

5. Role model in your life?

Batman. The version shown in Nolan’s movie. Yes… he is a fictional character. But the values he carries around even as a vigilante is something I respect and follow.

6. Have you got the habit of cursing often?

Not often. But I do. I feel bad if it is something happening in my life.
I curse while watching sports too. For that I don’t feel anything.

7. What do you do when you are very happy?

At that moment I forget everything around me. Used to sing and dance even though it will be pretty crap

8. Do you believe in God or destiny or luck?

• I believe there is somebody with greater power who controls things a bit. And for me he/she/it is the god.
• Destiny – I don’t believe in.
• Luck – I don’t believe this too. But one quote I heard was, ‘The harder you try, the luckier you become’. True, isn’t it

9. Any regrets in life?

• During my childhood days I have been a little show-off kind of boy. I wish I could have been more sensible.
• I used to fear thinking about what might follow if I do a thing. I should have more courage and do the thing that I feel correct for now.

10. A sweet memory that you talk about often?

There are few but I choose, one day outing to Mahabalipuram during my college final year. It was complete fun and everyone of us enjoyed to the core. Whenever I sit or travel alone, I used to think about it. You can read about it here.

11. Do you think you are a good son, daughter, brother, sister, spouse, parent? Mark yourself, if you can.

As a son, good thing about me is, I am not a troublemaker. But the bad thing is, I interact very less. Could have been better. I can rate myself 5/10.
As a brother, I think I fail. Even though I give my thoughts about things on how to be done, again the interaction is very less. My rating will be 3/10

Now comes the toughest part.

My 11 questions:

1. Name your favorite fictional character and why?
2. What you like to do more in your free time?
3. Please tell us the most funniest prank you are involved in?
4. What makes you happy?
5. Any regrets in life?
6. If you can chose an alter-ego, who or what it will be?
7. Do you have any interest in politics? If yes, what you feel about UP election results?
8. Name the place which you visited last? Whats the special about that place?
9. What you like about you most?
10. Name 5 things which you feel is most important in life.
11. Name a childhood favorite serial other than animation one.

Now comes another tough thing with almost most of you have done the tag or tagged. Well… I am tagging the persons who have been already tagged but yet to do it. Now they have different sets of questions to choose from How lucky!!!

Vimal

Ashwathy

Vinaya

Deepa

Vaish

Smitha

Smita

Deeps

Rashmi

Swaram

OMG… I am short by 1.. Well, thats expected as many have done it. Let me know once you have done it

The Dark Knight Rises

There is no secret that I am a big fan of Batman and the latest series of the Christoper Nolan. And if there is one day I want to come soon in 2012, it will be July 20th, 2012. The final part of the movie going to get released on that day.

Trailer of the movie was released on 16th December 2011 along with MI: Ghost Protocol. One word about the trailer: FANTASTIC.

Here’s my version of what the story might be after watching the teaser and the trailer:

The story seems to be picking up after 8 years from the ending of ‘The Dark Knight’ and now Bane (Villain) trying to unleash his own form of terrorism in Gotham city. With Batman fell out of favor of public of Gotham after taking up the blame for killing of 5 police officers, Bruce Wayne was reluctant to take up Batman suit. On Gordon’s request he comes back as Batman but gets badly punished by Bane and gets locked up in some prison. There he tries to gain strength by training again and faces Bane to save Gotham to fall again into mayhem. THE DARK KNIGHT RISES.

On first impression Bane looks so imposing with all those stuffs on the head. Its really frightening and standing before him batman looks like a kid. Its like Bane taking all the calculated steps and Batman just reacts. Batman seems to get some serious kicking and all I hope is, they don’t kill him as part of EPIC conclusion. It would be really sad. But knowing Nolan’s way of film making anything is possible.

Well, these days only past time of mine is watching this trailer as many times as possible. I will update once I find anything new in that

Club football

The thought is always with me, how a person from some other region can love a football club? Or for that matter any region-based clubs? Our own country – understandable. Our own state – understandable. But to love a club which is not originated from your locality? It’s located somewhere which you never visited in your life.Something you didn’t even imagined?

Whether I love any football or interested in watching any club based football match?

If you have asked the above question last year I would have said, ‘R u mad? How one can love a club? Whats there in it to love? We never knew about it. The players are not somebody we know. They don’t even belong to that country. So I can’t watch it on that basis.

Players? Players from different countries play together and they change from one season to another. This option also goes out. Then for what reason I can watch it?

Pure entertainment? Without taking sides I can never enjoy a match. There you go. There is no reason for me to watch club football matches’

But lot of things were changed in the last 6 months with me following English Premier League as much as I can. Its all happened when I started watching this year’s Copa America, a tournament which is competed by South American countries. I usually watch the country-based football matches. During last year’s world cup I found the website goal.com to follow the live action in text. As the whole world is playing football there were no news related to clubs. But this year there were news about the transfers happening in them and I developed some interest in it.

For some reasons which can’t be explained, I started following the English club Liverpool. I just had a feel for them. One of the greatest comebacks in Liverpool’s and Football’s history was their win against AC Milan in 2005 champions league final. They came back from 3-0 and won it in penalties. And there was some great feeling when I watch the below video where the commentator say @ 5:35 minutes ‘40, 000 Liverpool fans hold their breath inside here and hundreds of thousands hold their breath at Merseyside‘.[Click on the link to go directly to that part].

And since then I have seen most of their matches. Also I am sure there is no news I left unread about them. This experience is really rewarding with me knowing the nuances of football more. I am watching many more matches of Champions league, Spanish league and what not. I love this very much as I am able to get to know lot of great clubs, their histories and also many, many players.

I will update my thoughts on matches I watch here

Here are some of the finest goals and assists I have watched over 6 months:

Messi’s one great pass [MUST WATCH]

Goal from Messi in the same match – GENIUS

Larsson’s Kick – WONDERFULLY HIT

http://www.goalsarena.org/video/england-barclays-premier-league/13-08-2011-liverpool-sunderland_en.html
Fletcher’s goal – WELL EXECUTED

[LINK]

Suarez’s great curler:

7am arivu – [2011] – Tamil

Note: I went 10 minutes late for the movie, so my comments are for the remaining parts.

Bodhidharma…

Genetic engineering…

DNA memory…

Operation Red…

Well, these are the terms used to elevate the expectations of the viewer whose expectations already high for a movie which is directed by A.R.Murugadoss, who is yet to deliver a flop in the eye of box office and a bad movie in the eye of critics and have Suriya in lead role, who is the only star soaring high with each of his new releases in the last few years.

Beautifully designed title. It only raised my interest in the movie.

5th- 6th Century A.D.

Bodhidharma was a prince in Pallava kingdom, well versed with one of the oldest Indian martial art Kalaripayathu and also in medicine. On his mother’s wishes he travels to China where he cures an incurable disease with his medical skills and also saves the people when attacked by people from other regions with his martial art skills. He also teaches those people the skills he possesses. On their request, he dies in China itself which is against his wishes of travelling back to visit India.

Cut to present.

Subha Srinivasan… A genetic engineering student who believes the skills and talents possessed by a person will be transferred through DNA, generations after generations and when stimulated we can bring those skills to present. She takes Bodhidharma as the person to bring back those skills.

Aravindan… A circus artist who fells in love with Subha.

Dong Lee… A Chinese hitman who trained excellently in Martial arts and hypnotism. He is sent to India to introduce bio-war and also to kill Subha to  prevent her from bringing back the Bodhidharma’s skills.

The film then answers the questions…

• Did Subha able to bring back Bodhidharma? Or Dong Lee gets ahead of her?
• Did Bio war is introduced?
• Did India able to face the Bio-war situation?

With an interesting plot and interesting questions, all we get was, a movie which was less entertaining and less inspiring. The movie was for sure runs well without pushing us to boredom but the end product was just not memorable.

Suriya for once was not at the forefront of things happening in 7-am arivu. His role is more subdued as Aravindan. Its an effective performance from him. But he can reduce his showing of bare body acts. Shruthi Haasan has done her role well but her Tamil makes it look like somebody dubbed for a Hollywood movie. Dong Lee got the most powerful role in movie he did very well striking fears in audiences mind.

Cinematography could have been surely better with none of the scene created a WOW factor in mind. Music from Harris Jayaraj was a complete let down. Only ‘Yamma yamma’ is good due to the voice of SPB. Other song which goes well with movie is ‘Innum enna Thozha’. Background score was nothing short of horrible.

Murugadoss should be lauded for his effort on reminding our glorious past and also pointing out our mistake of forgetting it. But he did missed the mark the below mentioned things:

• The opening sequences of Bodhidharma are shot well but lacks in depth. It looked like some scenes were inserted just to show his prowess in medicine and martial skills. And then there is no concrete reason why Bodhidharma dies at their request there itself. Is he developed such bond with those people? If so, it is not evident in the movie.
• Dong Lee kills every person he meets on screen and most of them were policemen. But no action is taken against him by Police and they are not even searching him. Quite laughable.
• Climax could have been surely better as it is at the most predictable best.
• There are sequences in the movie which tells about the greatness of Tamil language and Tamil ancestors which are true but when it is explained by the broken Tamil of Shruthi Haasan it didn’t created an impact in me.
• Director says that we forgotten our Tamil ancestors. But he could have chosen a better person than Bodhidharma who certainly spent his fruitful years in China. In my eye, he was a NRI who got his education here and servicing his skills at foreign land. All the skills were taught to Chinese people. When he questions the people in India about Bodhidharma and they didn’t know about that, is not something to be ashamed of, I felt.

In this internet age, the information provided by the director should be accurate. But the details provided on screen about Bodhidharma was not true except he traveled to China. Others were just the theories made up. With a complete inaccurate depiction, Murugadoss lets himself down along with the movie.

7-am Arivu – It won’t be remade in Hindi.

Trailer (Which promised much):