Terrace and Tea

I was enjoying a cup of tea a few hours back, sitting on the porch, looking up at the sky and listening to 'Ninnai charan adaindhen'. Ah ! heaven (well, I know there is no such thing but you know what I mean). Between 1995-96 (oh my! that is a long time back!), I used to live in Nungambakkam. My favorite part of the day was running off to the terrace in the evenings with a cup of tea and think about life (hehe). We lived on the third floor of an apartment building that was real close to Nugambakkam High Road(fondly referred to henceforth as NH). I could see Valluvar Kottam, Loyola college, a lot of tall buildings, kites, birds, clothes hanging in neighboring terraces, planes taking off and landing at a distance..... Later, when we moved to the AWHO colony in Vadapalani/Saligramam , my terrace and tea pleasures continued. Here, in addition, I would also see many people in the neighboring terraces and vadams/vathals/appalams being dried and lots of kids....And by this time, I had also moved up in life to be able to afford a walkman. It was usually Enigma/Deep Forest/Robert Miles because back then I had not learnt to appreciate Maestro Illayaraja's (older) music yet.
Fast forwarding back to the present, I had to do without the terrace and so, there was/is no unobstructed view of the sky. But it wasn't bad, not bad at all.

ARR live

I have always wanted to hear Hariharan singing live. So when I heard that AR Rahman is planning a tour to the US and Hariharan was going to be singing too, that got me really excited. Unfortunately its not going to be until Feb/March next year. At least thats what the website says. But all my lucky friends in the UK (Kala, i want to come too!!!) are getting to hear/see ARR/Hariharan the 31st of this month. Not fair! but then, what is...

The end of faith

Just after learning that London is the host of the 2012 Olympics, the next news about London was the subway blasts. what can I say?
I am reading a book by Sam Harris -
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason.
I am only through the first few chapters and they have mostly been about the atrocities that have been perpetuated in the past few centuries in the name of religion. But most of the book focuses specifically on Islamic fundamentalism keeping in line with current terrorist events. While the book has not thrown any flashing pieces of insight (yet), its definitely worth reading for its direct attack on the need for religion itself.

Meenu's off to NY

I am really gonna miss her. Vetti mokkai, awesome arattai, oor kadhai, ulaga kadhai, vambu kadhai, oothal kadhai, oothaadha kadhai, soga kadhai, santhosha kadhai, NPK (Ninaippu pulappai kedukkum) kadhai, vazhiyal , azhugai, sirippu ............ Will miss everything.

Its kinda sad to move away from a place. There are so many people you see everyday and say hello to-a janitor, a person behind the counter at a store, a librarian, a teacher, a student, a person on the street... And then poof , they are all gone .. no longer part of your world...dead to your vision...not just gone but replaced by others .... till you move again....

I have tried to be in touch with most of my friends. It is true, because you are reading this. But mailing or calling someone is not the same as visiting/spending time with them. So, New York can expect to see me in the near future.

Anniyan & Arindhum Ariyamalum

Anniyan was just okay. The story was a mash-up of Gentleman, Indian and Sidney Sheldon's 'Tell me your dreams". Lots of inspiration from Matrix, Kill Bill, Crouching tiger hidden dragon and the Darth Vaderishque hoodie outfit from Star Wars (sorry, i couldn't resist this one :-) ). The music was average and sometimes the 'remo' bgm was annoying.. 5/10 maybe and out of the 5, 3 points are for Vivek. Kalaimamamani and calling Kamal Sir....priceless...
Arindhum Ariyamalum was kind-of funny at times and the music was good. The thing with concluding if you liked a movie or not depends on when you watched it, if you were in a happy state before watching the movie or who you watched it with; so its difficult to be objective. Navdeep looked cute; Prakash Raj's role was similar to an earlier role but it was entertaining; Arya's Tamil was funny. The songs could have been picturized better. 6/10.