God of cricket hangs up his boots.Feeling proud to have witnessed the revolution created by the little master with his willow. While the accolades and records will speak for him in the decades to come, the unique feeling experienced everytime, we watched this passionate cricketer play, will last forever. The feeling aroused in us when he is out in the middle is unmatched.

Blend of exquisite talent with the most humble and modest attitude took him to greatest of heights and made him do wonders. He serves as a true inspiration for every other sports person in plenty of ways.

This master blaster was the sole member in his league and he knew only one way of responding to his critics. He is incomparable and will remain in the hearts of a billion people for a long time.Undoubtedly, he deserves every respect, every award and every accolade that he has received and will continue to receive.There are absolutely no boundaries here.

Truly privileged to have born during this man's era.

Thank you Sachin for giving us such spectacular treats for more than two decades and for being a perfect role model in many ways.

Take a bow.

Most favorite Cricketer of Mine

I take great pride in writing about my favorite cricketer of all times. I am sorry.You had taken a wrong guess. It is not the little maestro. Well ! I don’t deny that Sachin is the greatest cricketer of all times.The way he plays the sport always brings a visual treat to us. I am completely delighted that his current form is impeccable, which, I wish and pray, continues at least until the upcoming ODI world cup. I completely adore him, both as a person and as a cricketer.

Let me stop here from digressing further. One hint would suffice to identify my king of stars. People call him JUMBO. Yes, you got it right this time.“Anil Kumble”, one of the greatest legends of Cricket. While I write about him, I just can’t stop rewinding my memories, back to the thrilling moments of Hero Cup final. Oh! God! What a match to watch? 6 for 12 in a championship final? It is not just the statistics that speak about him, but the unique style, the passion in his blood and the dedication flooded in him.

It is a known fact that he kicked off his career as a medium pacer only to become a “Spinner”. I don’t want to attach much of importance to his critics, which, complain that he doesn’t turn the ball well, to be called a “Spinner”. As a matter of fact, it is only the blend of his pace and gentle spin that makes the person on the other end and even the one just behind him, turn absolutely clueless. No one on earth can bowl the flippers that he does, with such precision and perfection.

Some of the peculiar incidents of the sport happen, only when this man grabs the ball to offer problems to the person with the Bat. We would have seen some batsmen having headgears on, when a spinner is bowling. It is only, when, our Jumbo warms up to bowl, can you get to see a wicket keeper calling for a helmet. How many Skippers in this world throw the ball to a spinner, for him to bowl the 2^nd over of an ODI and that too in a world cup semi final? Kumble was given that task.

Does luck play a role in life? Yes, certainly, is my answer. Else, I cannot call myself unlucky to have missed watching his 10 wicket haul, live in TV.Thanks to the power failure at my residence only during those golden hours that I had to tune into the live radio commentary, to hear about his wonderful stint in Kotla. With my ears filled with all praises to this man, the fall of every wicket did open up my imagination channel to watch how, he sent every batsman to the pavilion. Needless to mention, that I watched the ball by ball repeat later to correlate my visual imaginations.

The fighter in him refuses to budge until the last ball of the match is bowled.This passionate cricketer of all times does not get tired with bowling large number of overs. Even a fracture in the jaw does not, in any way, deter him from rolling up his arms. I just wondered what courage and passion, it takes for a man to bowl with a bandage around his head, when, he did that in Antigua to dismiss Lara. While, all the memories about this gem, could not be listed here for sheer lack of space, they will never fade with the passage of time.

Watching his Television interviews and post match conference not just brings out his modesty and demureness, but conveys the unequivocal thoughts in him. His statement“Only one team played the game in the right spirit” after the match in Australia only went on to command a great deal of respect for him, from all fronts. I salute his contribution to the game and respect him for all the good qualities he possesses.

Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya

Against my wish, but like I had expected, there was a big gap after my 1st blog. Nevertheless, who cares about commitments and promises? Life is meant to be taken as a chilled beer. Right now, I want to write down my thoughts…the thoughts that keep haunting my mind after watching the movie "Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya".Though, it has been a while since the movie got released (just above a month), I could write about the movie only now.The reason is because, I watched the movie after 3 weeks of its release.It is also partly because the idea to pen it down in this page, came to my mind, a bit late.Not to miss mentioning the usual saying here, better late than never.But for Srinath’s recommendation to watch this movie, I might have delayed watching it or even might have missed watching it, in the big screen.So, a special note of thanks goes to my best friend.

While I sit down to pen this blog, I admit having watched the movie ONLY twice.The 1^st time, I had to watch it in a very mediocre theatre, here in Singapore. During the movie and after that, I can only imagine about the mind blowing experience that I would have had, if I had the opportunity to watch it in our “Sathyam”. Sathyam O Sathyam.The 2^nd time, I watched it in a much better screen, which, despite being one of the best screens in Singapore, does not sit close to our Sathyam.

Speaking about the movie, I crave to talk about so many facets of it and the feelings that it has given to me, which is, the major driving factor for me to write this column. I must say that whatever is written below constitutes an honest expression of my thoughts, as a movie fan. Neither am I skilled nor am I qualified to comment about movie stars or technicians. There is a hidden prefix of Mr/Ms, as the case may be, wherever a person’s name is mentioned.

First of all, it was good to see Simbhu giving us a neat performance, thereby completely deviating from his usual finger twisting performances. He should choose to do movies, with this kind of a style than to revert to his normal one.In the movie, I can only see a normal young chap with a balanced sense of mind, emotions and determination unique to his age, which, clearly brought out the expectations of the director.

Trisha, MYGOODNESS…There was a clear war between her beauty and her performance in the movie and I should say that the former had a touch and go, at last. In one of the recent TV shows, she was asked to comment about her look in the movie, for which, she responded by saying “One of the sexiest look of mine”.After having seen the movie couple of times, I can’t agree more with her statement. While she was lucky to have signed up for such a role, she had done complete justice to it.Mind you,for the complication embedded in the role, there was always an element of risk in getting certified as “over acting” , if there was even a minor defect in the performance. But, she was no way near that path.Awesome acting with utmost simplicity.She was much closer than a “girl next door”.Hats off to her performance and her beauty as well.Only these kind of roles, when performed with perfection, shifts an actor’s career to the next level.

At this juncture I must talk about the “Voice of Trisha in Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaya”.Who else, apart from Chinmayi, can offer such a varied modulation that does nothing but gels with this character, with such ease and perfection to make it a complete performance? Unless, the person giving the background voice, understands the nature of the character and the emotions bundled into it, delivering such a good voice is highly impossible.I would say that Chinmayi had gone beyond that, only to give us a perfect feast.But for her well delivered dialogues and wonderful voice, the character would have lacked its completeness. As she does more of dubbing, she only moulds that skill to grow northwards.One of the finest skills that she had developed.Hats off to her.

It is a good feeling to realize that the best performances of the movie have come from its hero and heroine, which, in my view, is becoming unusual these days. I must also talk about the performances of others like Ganesh (who acts as Simbhu’s friend in the movie), who had an unique and witty voice that helped him to bring out laughter in us. I should say that his voice did bulk of his acting rather than his body language.It is worth noting the good performances of Kitty and K.S.Ravikumar as well, in the limited scenes that they have acted.

Manoj Paramahamsa was outstanding, both with his equipment and with his Location-Angels, the major angel being our god’s own country.I feel fortunate to have visited those places in Kerala.While it was always a good feeling to enjoy such natural beauty in person , the abundance of nature takes a different dimension, when someone like Manoj gets on to the back of his equipment. The photography was simply astounding.

Rahman, the man who does not get any bigger with the bestowment of a couple of Oscars, for the simple reason that he had already achieved greater heights in our minds.For sure,it does not require an Oscar(Or Oscars) to be conferred on him, for us to realize his immense potential. Whenever, I hear to his scores in movies like Bombay, Roja, Pudhiya Mugam,Alaipayuthey,etc, I keep harping that they are the mark of A.R.Rahman’s talent.VTV, to me, clearly falls under that category. Thamarai has penned the lyrics to perfection.Somehow, I tend to rate “Omana Pennae” much higher than “Hosanna”.Benny Dayal, has proved himself to be a sweet singer of melody songs as well. The lines “Oru paarvai siru paarvai..Udhirthaal udhirthaal,Pizhaipeyn pizhaipeyn”(to be more precise, the stress on “thaal” in the word“Udhirthaal”), bring out the vibes in me.No doubt, Vijayprakash has rocked in “Hosanna”,but to me “Omana Pennae” prevails over it.The humming “Hosanna” is a symphony to the ears. Shreya Ghoshal’s voice is complete melody and her diction resembles that of a born Tamilian.Full credits to Naresh Iyer, Alponse Joseph, Devan, Chinmayi (Anbil avan is more of “Sandhipoma” style) and Rahman for their wonderful singing.

Gautham Menon has some unique talent in him, which has brought out such a master piece.I have seen him as a very reserved person in all the TV interviews/talk shows.Yes,he doesn’t speak much, but his talent does that to a very great extent, in a terrific and an orchestrated way. Even the fight scenes has been directed in a perfect way.It requires guts or in his case, abundance of confidence in his talent, to take the usual love story as a subject.It would be an understatement to say that he possesses an unique style to direct love stories.Bulk of the scenes, to me, clearly portrays a person’s own expression of feelings.Most of the sequences in the movie are quite natural, more than anything else.There is a scene when Simbhu speaks with Ganesh after a tussle with Trisha’s brother and father, where the latter asks him as to how he will face them, if at all things get settled, for which, Simbhu gives a natural response by saying “Sir-athellam oru matterae illa”.When he takes time off his shooting, to come and meet Trisha at her home, the dialogues like “enna sms ethu”, “ippo enna ayiduchunnu indha mudivu” only projects a real person speaking in that circumstance to his girl, who behaves in a weird manner, all of a sudden.These are only samples of how the movie has been made to look natural and indeed is quite natural.Other scenes that hit my mind now, are “enna try panra Jessie”when Trisha wants their relationship to be that of friends, “Sir,sorry kekallamnu vandha, veetuku saapida koopadra Sir” .

Likewise, when Trisha asks Simbhu, who had come to Kerala to apologise to her, “endha dhayirathulla enga vandha”.Her subtle expressions make her look even more beautiful, which in itself, is a visual treat.The real peak of her acting comes when she says “enakku unna piduchurukku Karthik” (ofcourse it comes with a wonderful background voice), when Simbhu asks her why she stopped the marriage and whether she doesn’t like the bridegroom. The twist in the climax is well disguised and must certainly be, one of the success factors for the movie. On the whole, the movie was a well packaged treat.

If I had watched this kind of movie a decade back or even half a decade back, I might have jumped into a silly act of relating it with personal events or at least would have made me think, on how good it would be, to have such kind of events in personal life. Today, probably because of the age (or ageing) factor, my thoughts refused to swing that way.On a positive note, it could be this age (ageing) factor that has given improved maturity levels and a different pair of lens to the eye, to view it and enjoy the movie thoroughly from all dimensions .Having said that, I cannot deny the feeling of having seen a real couple on the screen. One of the very few movies, that I will cherish for a long time.

Chinmayi, in her blog had made use of the word “Craft” to depict the project. Yes,it was indeed a craft and million thanks to Mr.Gautham Menon and his entire crew for having crafted such a master piece. Like I said at the outset, I have only watched this movie twice so far, and I intend to watch it as many times as I could. I only hope and wish that this movie crosses the 100 day mark, not only for the fabulous efforts of the crew, but also for the selfish reason that I get a chance to watch this masterpiece, in our Sathyam when I visit Chennai, this May.

My First Blog

At the outset, I must admit that my intention to start blogging evolved a while back and considering that in mind, it is certainly a delayed start now. Nevertheless, here goes the same old saying “Better late than never”. I certainly don't want to assume any kind of undertaking to scribble regularly. At the same time, it is my wish to shift as many thoughts as possible that are hidden hitherto in my mind and those that will originate hereinafter, to this page(s). If you think that I am making a conscious attempt to justify the name of my blog, like they used to, in the old Tamil movies, who am I to meddle with your views.

When I started to pen this note, I am submerged with loads of thoughts. I certainly wish to touch upon as many diverse topics as possible, in the days/months and years to come.

Signing off on Day One, with a wish and lots of hope to frequent this page more often.