Ethir Neechal

This review note was written on May 8, 2013 · 

Next movie this summer vacation with kids - "Ethir Neechal". I somehow felt we were going back to PU Chinnappa days. There was a song every 5-10 minutes. What could have been said in 1 hour, was said so slowly and so damn boringly in 2.5 hrs. What a colossal waste of everything!!! Siva is good. Pleasant-looking and well-mannered! That's all there is to this movie. Sad! Guys - please watch movies like "Pizza" and "Soodhu Kavvuum". Those are the kinds that are "liked" by many. This movie was such a big bore!

Soodhu Kavvum

This review note was written on May 4, 2013 · 

How Tamil cinema has changed!!! This one was a different but fun movie. The first 20 mins, we were squirming in our seats thinking if we made a mistake. Then the pace picks up and there is no looking back. Absolutely done well this movie! Very simple and in a comical way many thought-provoking sad facts brought to light. Light packaging...heavy messaging! Vijay Sethupathy - man! This guy will make it big. This is a hattrick movie for him. I am for one, getting to be one his biggest fans. What could have been avoided in the movie - the number of liquor scenes/bottles/boozed boys (yuck!), that lady Shalu who was there in just for glamour, a couple of songs. Fate of Indian movies! If they could cut down on such unwanted stuff, we are there almost! Loved the movie!!

Vathikuchi

This review note was written on March 29, 2013 · 

Watched "Vathikuchi"... don't know what to say! Crux/plot is good. But script/screenplay has a lull. Sad! And this Anjali...whats with her? Why does she talk as though she is the daughter of yesteryear Saroja Devi? Puts me off, terribly. Hero is ok. But cant see when he smiles...when he tries to dance...when he tries to romance...when he....forget it....cant see. Period! Liked Saranya the best...she is getting cracking by the role. Hmmmm....waste of time & money?! Not really. Enjoyed with the kids. I was the only adult accompanying them. So that made it fun!

Vishwaroopam

This review note was written on 19th Feb 2013.

Watched Vishwaroopam twice. Totally in awe with the Kathak dance. After the second watch most of the questions are answered) Kamal's recent (last 10 years) movies always require 2/3 intense viewing to understand the plot. Planning to do a PhD in this subject:-) Coming back to Vish...Vish (from Vishwanath aka Wisam) and roopam (from Ni"rupam"a) make this Vishwaroopam! Want to watch again at least once to get the rest of my questions answered. If still they are not, then we need to enlist those questions and ask Kamal to answer those in his sequel. I am still in awe!

What’s new in the new-age leadership styles? Is it any different for a woman?

Leadership is not a fashion statement. It does not change with times or with gender. Having said that, can one follow the same style of leadership that has always been practiced? What does it take to be a “New Age” leader? And that too, for women?

First things first, in the past 25 years of my experience in IT, what I have witnessed as typical, distinct challenges that women leaders have always faced are: approval-seeking, networking, balancing work and personal priorities, being assertive especially with men in the top management, fear of being ridiculed, being a minority.

So, what is “new” in the “new age”? Predominantly, “People” & “Technology” have evolved. Evolved to an extent that they have impacted the way companies grow and leaders behave. However, there is no change to the way leaders are looked upon. Leaders are still like the “fish in the fish-bowl”. Constantly watched by the world around!

Technology evolution has paved way for new channels of communication and collaboration. There are so many ways women leaders can now reach out to the world, get more accessible and become heard. Women can be a “part of” all events, not necessarily physically. Social media, for example, is a blessing in disguise especially for women.

People evolution has created a new breed of workers – the Millennials! Most of the times, they are better informed than us. Borders are all erased. They want work life balance. Patience and perseverance are only adjectives in the dictionary. Millennials want results RIGHT NOW! They are always in a hurry and have very little attention span. Money is not the only driving force. They need to be respected, consulted and included.

Only if leaders adapt a style that is collaborative, consultative, inclusive, technology-enabled, does not shy from asking questions and learning from teams, they are reckoned as new age leaders. 

Barring a few, women are by nature, patient, perseverant, listening, focused and inclusive. All these virtues come in handy in dealing with new age teams. However, women must nurture practices of learning new developments without shying away, asking questions without the feeling of being ridiculed, learning what it takes to keep the team together and the art of putting technology to good use in leading teams.

What are the new age imperatives for women leaders? Stay Connected. Stay Informed!

Stoned!

On a drive from Chennai to Kumbakkonam, with family, to spend the long weekend in a scenic, serene village 10 kms away from Kumbakkonam... The very thought was so rejuvenating. The family was so eagerly looking forward for the drive and the days after that. Plans were made carefully. And we left as per plan… without realizing what was in store for us.

We, as a family, are used to traveling by road quite often. We are proud that we are one of the maximum toll payers for using the wonderful highways. Starting from the junior most in the family all of us are quite experienced in navigation, exploration, map-reading and all the associated skills of travel by road.

What we had not experienced was a traffic jam on the high way in the past 20 years of our driving. So the first surprise started there. We started the journey by 4 PM.

What should have taken us just 5 hours of drive or probably 6, took 10 full hours. And how! The first four to five hours were spent in listening to the radio and inching the road thanks to the heaviest traffic jam we have ever witnessed on a high way. The 4 of us were shut inside the car each one lost in his/her own world. My hubby and I were alternating taking our official calls. Some time was spent playing video games which exhausted the mobile batteries to the extent the additional battery pack was also drained. All was still well though the traffic was irritating and taking a toll on our patience levels.

By 9 PM, we had reached half the distance. Even then, we thought, next couple of hours we will reach our destination. Though destiny had other plans!

At around 9ish, when we stopped for a break, I started feeling a kind of “catch” on my right waist. I owed it to the long journey and longer hours of work that I clock in. So, took it easy. Very soon, in less than an hour, the pain started traversing to the right abdomen. That was not all! I started feeling severe nausea. I asked my hubby to stop the car, rushed out and started throwing up profusely until I was almost drained.

From there on, every 10-15 minutes, the car would stop. I would throw up and we would continue the journey. All through, the pain was getting worse and excruciating. My sons were tired nursing me and handing the bottles of water to me every time I vomited. The little one got all too tired and slept off in a couple of hours.

My older son looked around for clinics, hospitals, medical centers, pharmacies. As (bad) luck would have it, we could not spot a single one of those! Desperation was going high and my pain was growing higher. What a miracle God’s creation is! My brain, in spite of this entire trauma, did not stop reasoning. Why am I going through this? What did I eat that did not suit me? Is it a relapse of Appendicitis? What else could it be? Why this pain? When did I eat junk last? All calculations and permutations and combinations…nothing yielded a cognitive response that could be reasoned for all this hell!

We kept driving into the woods. As midnight drew closer, we were still a couple of hours away from our “scenic resort”.  At that point, I fell semi-unconscious which my older son mistook for passing out. He held my pulse and gave out a very alarmed notification, “Dad! She is not even moaning now!!”

Worst was yet to come…we thought we had reached the resort. It was 1 AM. My mobile was out of charge! My hubby’s mobile had 6% battery left. The battery pack had died. Symbolically, everything around and within seemed out of charge! We had used the GPS to find the place where we were supposed to go to. After we reached where GPS took us, we realized we were lost and in the middle of darkness and nowhere!

This is when panic struck all of us! Not a soul on the battered roads. No lights. Mobiles are all down. My pain is increasing by the second and my vomiting is non-stop. Heavens! Am I destined to die this way??? 

With every move of the vehicle, my scream was hitting higher decibels. The roads were adding to the pain.

With the balance 6% charge, my hubby called the resort (finally!!!) I was throughout asking him to do that which he refused to listen! And the guy on the other end did not know where we were in spite of us giving some “landmarks” in an unknown, God forsaken land! Not sure how we got guided to the destination. Reached the resort at 1:45 AM. Phew!

I thought all will be well after I get to crash on the bed. The climax was yet to come. My hubby asked if we should go to a doc nearby. Since the roads were so terrible, I instantly refused saying I would be ok if I am left to lie down and sleep for a while. But sleep was not written for me that night (and for him as well!).

By 3:30 AM, I could not take it any longer. I said let us go wherever but I want this pain to stop. Back of mind my speculations revealed that it could be “kidney stones”. My sister had had similar symptoms years back. I had used the rule of exclusions. Nothing else could be it. With the help of the resort stewards, we went to a near-by clinic (10 kms away from our place of stay).

Screaming and vomiting continued all through! Never in my dreams would I get into such a hospital. Such was the maintenance standards of the hospital. Terrible! But when one is in pain, none of this matter! The duty doc came in checked and declared it was indeed ‘kidney stones”. He injected me twice and the pain stopped like magic. Vomiting stopped. I slept immediately. After observing for 20 mins he let us go.

The next day, I took a day of rest. Family had to tend to me. So, no outing, no sight-seeing. There was only one sight for all of them to see…me gradually recovering from the 7 hour non-stop pain! They were all just relieved with that!!

Next day we all set out and came back to Chennai! What an adventurous journey this was!!

Silver lining in this episode – this did not happen while I was traveling in a flight to or from the US; this did not happen while I was away from family on work.

Life is short. Life is unpredictable. Let us enjoy as long as it lasts!

Silent weddings

Right from my childhood, weddings mainly meant a lot of noise & cacophony – noise in the form of people talking in loud decibels to beat the sound of a “nadhaswaram” and a “dhavil”; high pitches of people giving instructions and orders and seeking clarifications on the procedures; screaming and crying of at least a few dozen kids all over the place; music systems blasting in one end; songs and dances; laughter of young girls, tinkling of their anklets and chiming of their glass & gold bangles; sounds of religious chants/vedic hymns; cough bouts of old & sick people who are there to see their grand daughter/son married off; and the noise levels soar high…

Used to such high decibel fun, my own wedding was something I looked forward to. I was waiting for the previous evening’s dances and songs and all the various chit chats and laughter riots. Thankfully, my cousin did some dancing for a couple of the then Prabhu Deva numbers, the evening before my wedding. That was all! I assumed that since it was an inter-community wedding some aspects of cultural entertainment had been sacrificed. How would I know that mine was the noisiest wedding till date in the northern part of Kerala? Least did I imagine that life would be so different in this aspect after my marriage.

The past almost 20 years of married life, I would have been witness to more than a dozen marriages. What baffles me is that both the groom’s side and the girl’s side marriage events have been totally silent! Especially on the previous day, around 5ish in the evening, feasts are arranged in the respective houses of the groom and the bride. All the villagers & relatives flock to the house in very normal attires – no grand dressing anyone. Men & women, with their heads shining & shimmering because of the coconut-oil that they have applied, come in lungis and nighties (or probably cotton mundu saris), give a dumb, limited edition smile, eat snacks, sip tea, sit around, chat in lowest decibels possible, then eat dinner and…leave. People are fed to their hearts’ and stomachs’ fullest. It is such a no-noise affair…no live/channel music, nobody even hums a song, no dance, no mehandhi, no sangeeth, nothing at all!!! No event at all, forget gala. Huh! For a person like me, this is/was/has been quite boring. Actually, very boring! The only exciting thing is that the entire village assembles in the make-do kitchen in the backyard of the house to contribute their share to cooking the evening feast. On one side women will be mounting coconut shells after scraping them till their last element of flesh, on the other men get together to make some delicious food for the evening dinner. This one sight is worth a watch! This tells me what community means!

Back-tracking to the noise-levels…

Weddings are even worse. Two things people check out on the day of the wedding – (1) food (2) gold. How much does the girl carry? It is immaterial if she has the physical capacity to carry those heavy jewels. One bride has to be heavier than the other in this aspect. Other than these two things, there is absolutely nothing that excites people. The groom straight walks in and ties the mangalsutra in a “not-much-ado” fashion, very matter-of-factly and takes the bride and walks away. THAT IS ALL! No “getti melam” shouting, no mantras, no agni, no pheras, no bidayees, no tears, nothing L So disappointing! The crowds rush to the dining hall once the groom ties the holy(!) knot. Actually, it is not a knot. He hooks her with a golden chain. Done. Chained. Once again, a grand meal is served. This is the one & only highlight of any wedding. And people flock to the dining hall and eat as though they have starved for a week or beyond. This is the limit!

We decided! For our nephew’s wedding, we arranged for a grand welcome of the bride’s party. We had the traditional “chanda” drums beating away to glory. We got the nadaswaram and dhavil for the wedding. We shouted “getti melam”. Thus we created some noise and excitement around the place. Villagers were in total awe!

Next it was our niece’s wedding. We had a repeat of the above performance. Our heart is content almost now.

Still one small desire unfulfilled. Unable to create any excitement on the eve…now awaiting the next wedding in the family to see if we can bring in any difference to this event as well. I would like to abolish the use of coconut oil for the heads at least on the eve and the day of the weddings.

Not sure if there are any parts in India where weddings are this uneventful and silent. Probably, Keralites do not like noise pollution. This is the only state that does not celebrate Diwali! To that extent, I feel that probably their literacy tells them not to pollute the place in any manner? Which is a wonderful thing…however, aren’t weddings meant to be fun?