A tribute to kamal hassan

Looks like Kamal Hassan turned 51 today...

One of my fav actors...and here is a list of movies of his that I'll always cherish....


The problem is I cannot classify them as No.1 or No.2...

Each one is a gem in their own way...

I will still number them though, for clarity sake...not as a Ranking Index :-)


(1) Michael mathana kamarajan...

The movie where he plays as quadruplets - brothers separated at birth, if anything, should be called as the best Tamil comedy I've ever seen..apart from Golmaal's tamil remake...

This is the only movie I can see time and again and still never get tired of it..

There are quite a few comedies of his that are as good...but I am still biased to this movie..till date..


(2) Virumaandi..

This movie is about a community in TN who are by nature a very violent community.
The main reason why I like this movie, besides the fact that he ghost directed it...was the narration..

Itz basically the same story that is repeated twice- one through the accusers' eyes and the next by the defendant telling the viewer where the accuser lied and twisted facts..

Amazingly done and not for one moment is there any jarring note..


(3) Anbe Sivam..

Normally in all his movies, when Kamal has another famous actor, he normally steals the limelight.But this is one movie, where the Costar being Madhavan., both of them have an equal opportunity to perform and maddy duly obliges with a terrific performance of his own..:-)

The film is about how Maddys' outlook on the 'lower strata of society' ppl he despises, changes as kamal and Maddy get to be together during a train journey from Orissa to madras.

Amazingly done...esp for the physical trouble that kamal brings on himself..
Imagine this...His character is a guy that has shortsight and is suppsoed to wear -10 glass all along in the movie. What does Kamal do...esp if he has a near perfect sight..

he wears a contact lens tht a + 10. and then wears his -10 glasses above it.
Hmm.......

(4) Sathi Leelavathi

Made as Biwi No.1 in english ( if TOI is to be believed, that is) is another where his co artist and another leading star at that time, gets as much exposure as Kamal.

Kamal is more of a guest artist but still appears in all scenes..:-), and his female lead in the movie is a full time comedian in southern cinemas..
Wow...any other hero would have said No straightaway..

I was apprehensive too, when I heard abt it. But when I saw the movie, that was when I realised the thinking behind it.

The movie is another rip roaring laughter..about a two timing friend who cheats on his wife because she becomes fat after marriage., and the story is about how he makes him see the truth. Hilariously done, without making anyone a villain...and that is something..

(5) Nayakan
Made as Dayavan in Hindi..more famous for the Madhuri -Vkhanna lip kiss..:-)
ya rite, I have seen the dwnloaded clip hazaar times;-)

Anyways, the credit for the movie shd go as much to the director Maniratnam as it went to Kamal. In many ways, redefined Indian cinema and tamil cinema in particular...even though some may call it a shameless copy of Godfather.

(6) Thevar Magan...Virasaat in hindi

Again which was much talked abt for Tabu's clevage show..

I guess Anil kapoor did a disservice to Kamal hassan by copying his movies in Hindi. He never did any justice. Though I would emphatically say Anil is a very good actor...inspite of his 'karadi Kutti' appearance :-D

translation: Karadi Kutti = For his 'hairy' appearance.

Coming back to the movie, A movie similar to Virumaandi for the violence ..but Kamal puts up a tremendous performance as the foreign returned son unable to understand the violence hatred between his and his dads bros' family.


(7) Hey ram...

Wasnt a hit, but I kinda liked the movie.. made more famous for Sharukhs statement...that I learnt more from this movie in Kamal than what I ahve so far in my career...

and ofcourse his biting Rani Mukherjee's arse...gosh my heart broke into thousand pieces when I saw that scene... Wish King Vikram's Bethal was sitting on Kamal hassan
at that time...:-D

(8) Moonram pirai..forgot the Hindi name..guess sadma

Amazing movie..where he tries to bring a mentally unstable sridevi to normalcy fully knowing that she may not remember him once she gets normal..
The climax at the Railway station is amazing...and I shamelessly cried when I saw that the first time.Not sure what will happen now, guess I wont risk it though... :-)
To be fair though, I was a kid then..:-)

(9) Avvai shamughi or chachi 420..
Even though this movie was from Hollywood as most movies of his are, for the shear ability to do such a varied role and the way he changed the movie to suit local tastes....makes it eminently wachable..

I wouldnt be far off the mark if I say, He did better than Robin williams in the original..:-)


(10) mahanadi

Boy, if there was one movie that I felt totally involved with, this is the one..

Never have I felt so much into the movie...than this one...
Amazing performance.. as a helpless dad..who starts with rescuing his daughter from a brothel house
in Calcutta to seeing them through till the end...


(11)subha sankalpam (in telugu)
forgot the tamil movie name...with Priya raman and amani
where kamal plays a accountant but who doesnt know to read or write...

shades of Dustin hofmann in Rainman, but without the mentally challenged part..

Nice performance...as the old mans servant for whom he will do anything...

(12)There a quite a few movies of his where he plays a baddie...How many top flight heroes would think of doing something like that...Abhay, Indran chandran are some of those...

Kamal..Herez wishing u a memorable half century in life...

and I hope u crack the Oscar puzzle one of these years...:-)

Dreams

There is nothing more stressful than waking up in the middle of a sound sleep., sweating profusely, all over :-).....Dont u think...

And if the centre of 'attraction' of the dream is u urself..itz what I call a double trouble.Now to the dream..

Guess shd be around 3 Am or something, last night, probably the first time in 3 days that I was having a non -alcohol induced sleep..

I was in the middle of a sound sleep..and suddenly I felt as if I was having a laserless painless hair surgery..felt like my hair was parting off, right on the left lobe of my brain..

Isnt it the left lobe that causes you to dream..:-) or maybe I'm wrong..

watever the case, it was like the seas parting when lord krishna's dad took him to safety.. from Kamsa.

or maybe I felt more like that erstwhile news reader from Doordarhshan...Guess his name was Pankaj mohan or something..

I used to be as freaked out by his lack of hair, as much as on the other extreme when I used to see his female counterpart, usha albuquerque...whose hair was like a oversized shrub.

Anyways, it was good enough to wake me up..

But then itz a question of hair, aint it...not content with touching my hair in all the right places and making sure it was okee, I had to get up look at the mirror and satisfied myself...:-)

Boy..wat a dream...wonder what triggered it..

The more I think of it, the more the blame goes to that girl who devised that game idea in the Diwali party over the weekend. The idea was for girls to not cross their legs and guys to not touch their hair.

Now now, that seems like a sinister campaign...I was trying hard not to touch my hair all along..and guess that boomeranged on me in the night...:-)

gosh...and surprisingly this is the first time I remember any dream so vividly..lolz

Quotes can be fun...

Here are some..:-)

This one from a footballer turner cricketer"
I thought it was a bit rude when the umpire gestured me with a finger so I showed my middle one back."
Crystal Palace midfielder Aki Riihilati shows why footballers will never be the new cricketers after he plays his first match

"This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- An internal Western Union memo, 1876
Hello....Hold on am getting another call...hello ...:-)


"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
--Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

Lolz, Jeenu..how much did u say ur 700m weighs, again.....:-)



"But what ... is it good for?"
--Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

ah, it wasnt pringles or lays..was it...that he was talking about :-)


"Life is an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep." -- Carl Sandburg

Rite..I let my roomie peel the onions when I cook..promising a delicious dish as a result



"If you aren't living on the edge, then you are taking up too much space." -- Anonymous

Now, Now...who was talking abt some space...nandya ..was that you :-)

"If we find a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sheesh..wat was I last read.....ahem :-)


"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself." -- Albert Einstein

Now again, wut or who is a virgin...:-)


I'm tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money. I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok.
-- Shaquille O'Neal

ah Shaq, u forgot to add Burger king and that hummer, dint you...:-)


and finally one of my own..
Yes itz time to work...? 1/2 hrs are over :-)



for the day...that is..:D

Blog or work

I knw half of u ppl, dont work :-D...be it school or office...But here are the stats anyways, :-P


Blogs are a work hazard in US offices

Around 35 million workers -- one in four of the labour force in the United States – spend three-and-a-half hours, or nine per cent of their working week on blogs, the survey found.

The week that was..

Well travel seems to be the flavor of the month for me, more specifically the last few weeks..

And so in keeping with the trend, it was LA this week.

And as usual, it was just a casual encounter that got it going.

Another lazy sat aft, we were looking for a place to get free food, and that usually means going to some married persons’ house .

The procedure has been well rehearsed over the years, that I can do it even when half asleep.

Just think back of any the recent coversations with some guy who has talked abt some good happenings at home or work.., call up that guy and demand a treat for that.:- )

‘Demand ‘ is prolly not the right word, maybe Gentle persuasion shd do the trick..;-)

So the guy or the girl now gets alarmed and calls you home instead.

So off we went, me and my roomie to their place..:-D

Few other guys cudnt make it to lunch, though they did join later, and that is where the trip idea started.

We were planning to go a sunset place called South mountain. A nice mini hike place with an awesome view of Phoenix from the top. Remind me to post a pic of that next time.

After a heavy meal though, the legs refuse to move, and my ‘object of terror’ the one that gives me nightmares of late, my ‘mini me’ – my tummy that is..:- ) refused to let me get off the sofa.

So plans started floating around.
I must say all of us are pretty good at floating ideas..and for one we agreed to do what we floated

One of us said we shd go to a beach, rather sarcastic when it was offered the first time, cause sitting in the middle of the desert, you can imagine what the comment was for..

So immediately, it was LA and the plan was made, knowing fully well that someone will come up with a way to cancel it. How wrong we were. To the surprise of all of us , we went ahead with the plan.

Got the rental vehicle and stuff. Getting the rental car is a story in itself.
Will probably hold it for some other time..will prolly have it for one of my flirting escapades..:-)

Any way, so we finally decided to go ahead with this and started on Sunday early morning round about, 3 AM.

We went to the temple first, understandable, cause because of all the recent happenings,. I thought it would be nice to be on the right side of God, and put in an appearance at his abode.:-)
My friend wanted to do an abhisheka’ and the priest asked him his star and other stuff. He gave me the details, and for some reason or the other, the priest suddenly asked him if was married. He replied in the negative and the priest said, lets as well pray for u to get married soon.

“No No. Anything but that. Velai ethavathu innum nallatha kedaikanunu vazhtunga.”

Translated.. -No no, anything but that, better wish me for a better job than to get married, for now.

Wonder what made him say that. There was no reason for him to say so. He did, and so it stands that way. ;-)

The priest that gave him a big lecture as to why he thinks marriage is imp and likened his statement to that of a kid that just denies what he actually wants hinting that he wants it , but feels shy to say so.

Anyway, we all were laughing at his expense. And so were a gp of ABCD girls. One looked cute and even tried talking to him after that, but guess, he was taken aback by the priests’ response and did not heed her.

She looked cute. What a wasted opportunity, I thought:-)

Well, I don’t or rather try not to, at the least, when in a temple..;-)

After that, we did go to the beach….to Huntington..
And then to the river walk. We had a whale of a time..

Btw, how many of you have seen a marriage ceremony happening @ the beach.
We were witness to one…and there were quite a big gp there

What with the windy conditions and lotsa mini skirts around…I did have a whale of a time..:-)

The trend seems set to continue next week as well..with a hike in the canyons that I missed last time, beconing.
Lets see if I get lucky this time..:-D

Houston...We have a problem!!

The weekend was spent travelling.

My roomie and a few other friends were planning a hiking trip to grandcanyon over the weekend. Their main aim was to hike all the way down to the Colorado river which was like 7.5 miles from the top of the hike..and then make it back the same day.

I wanted to go, but one part of me dint want to, as well.

My main grouse was that, ppl should stick together, and not just go on their own.

It being a very risky climb on the way up and wanted ppl to look out for each other.

A couple of guys in it were fast climbers and dont have the patience to wait for the guys tht are not able to keep up with the pace set by others.

In any case, everybody was like " If anyone cant continue, they just drop out and go back and the others can continue"

I was not ready with it, and decided against going.

I need not have worried, everyone managed to complete the full stretch, and it looks like a sunday and a monday still aint enough to recover..

But itz a very good exp, I was just feeling bad that I missed out.

Anyway, one door closed and another opened..

My colleague wanted to go to houston all of a sudden on fri evening..and we decided to drive all the way from phoenix.

Around 1200 miles, each way:-), guess it took us around 16 hrs to go there..

We went all the way to the Harbor and got a chance to look at any of 'Rita's' damages, if any.

Houston, was and is still', a maze of concrete bridges. I m not sure as to when they will put an end to the construction..

There seems to be a maze of them and it seems the construction engineers relish the site of one bridge jutting out on top of each other like a pack of cards..just like any of your Lego construction toys that you would have had., as a kid.

I sometimes get the feeling, that If you let these guys build your home.,they will have a direct walkway from your kitchen to your living room then an overbridge from he kitchen to the batroom and one more from the living room to the bathroom. As if thts not enough, your bedrooms will have individual bridges from each of these above rooms.

Boy..all those concrete structures and the effort it takes to build them.. not to mention the hardship it puts to the traveling public..is enormous.

I can seriously feel, how ppl must have felt while trying to flee from 'Rita'. It would have been better to stay put @ home during the time..

While there in Houston, got a chance to go that Balaji bhavan that everyone were
raving about as the best Vege place of late. For the first time ever, got hold of a Pav baaji Dosa..

Yessss.. dont blink..thts the name..

I was apprehensive, with good reason too..as everytime that I select a dish that I havent tasted before, it ends in disaster..and I end up getting ridiculed for my choice. But this time, it was awesome.. and more importantly the price was just about right.

Next time when you folks go to Houston, make it a point to go there..

Any way coming back to the trip, we had to stop at an immigration checkpoint on the way. You are forced to do it, even when you dont cross the US border..

Kinda stupid, because, u never get to know that such a thing is possible. Why on earth would anyone expect something on US soil, when you dont cross the border at all, is the question everyone will ask..and Rightly so.

The place in question was ElPaso,Texas and you have to pass that town to get into Texas when driving from Phoenix. that stupid jerk @ the outpost..had a look at my papers, and got hold of one line where the heading was a bit bolder than the other places.

All he asked was.." Why is it like this. Do you have any other papers"

Here was a gent questioning my valid papers given by the US govt on the pretext that one of the headings were in bold text. I was so perplexed that I did not know wat to say.

My friend luckily had a older copy and it was the same in that as well. We then managed to convince him, that this is how the US authorities do it and that we did not fudge it. He finally let us go.

Another funny incident happened right after this..a couple of hrs later..actually.

The speed limit in Texas was 75mph and I had set it to cruise at 80. I would have gone faster, if not for the fact that only recently had I exptied my wallet, at one obscure town on the way to Niagara falls, in NY.

The cop there had caught me for over speeding and had emptied $600 in just fines.

I was wary of getting another one and decided to play safe this time..as the incident was still fresh in memory..:-) and so imagine my surprise when a cop caught me this time..for being just 5 miles about the speed limit.

We were just having a conversation in the car that in Tx the cops are so f**King
M*r*ns that they will catch u even if u are just 6-7 miles above the speed limit.

and voila, the lights flashed behind me..

I had no insurance on the car, as it was my friends' car and we were wondering what the heck did he catch us for. He came over and said, " you know why I caught you."

"NO, Officer"

" you were going on 85. on a 75 stretch"

I just lost it right then and there... "NO WAY. I have set it on cruise., for the past hr or so...and I've not even accelerated at any time since then."

I just stopped short of saying he was lying..:-)

He kept repeating his, and I, my lines..

He finally got tired and asked me to step out..

He must have been totally thrown of balance with the way I talked, cause I knew for a fact that this time I never speeded, and wanted to avoid another ticket at all cost, and in all that hullaboo, he forgot to look into the insurance papers., luckily :-)

So I stepped out, and he asked me where Im going.

" We are going to meet a friend of my friend."

I then told him where we are driving from and when we are going back. He was so shocked that we were driving non stop for 16 hrs just to see someone for a couple of hrs then and then head back again..

"Are you crazy. You are just going back immediately today after seeing him"

I had by now started enjoyin this. and was amused at his expression. He just could not believe it and went and asked my friend about it, who basically said the same thing except that the person we were going to meet was his brother., while I had said, friend'.

SO he came back to me and said, "so this guy you are gonna meet, is he a friend
or a family member. "

" I guess family member, a cousin probably."

" so in few minutes itz changed from friend to family member to brother"

I was cornered. All I could do was, give a shrug of the shouders and a none too convinving smile..

"Do you have anything ilegal in the car trunk."

me: " Nope. nothing at all. YOu are free to check, if you want to"

"Can I "

" Im sure you can, officer. I dont see why" I said, tongue in cheek and then biting it immediately after I said that.

I sensed I'm pushing it too far..

Guess, at that point,he just got fed up, gave my license back and said.. "Drive safe man" and pushed of.

We finally managed to meet his friend..oopz cousin...nay nay..brother..;-) who again was astonished that we drove this long to just meet him.

The drive back was eventless..and I guess thats all we wanted..:-)

Of Doctors and Identity...

Was tired of my usual places for lunch..

My friend suggested, why not get to the Hospital Cafteria that I work for.

I work in the admin building that is right opposite the hospital.

So we normally never go into the hospital...,unless ofcourse you are carried into it :-D

So we did get it, and first impressions, I was very much impressed with what I saw
esp, the cost of the food.

Interestingly, everything was measured by the ounce and charged accordingly.

Very very useful, for someone like that me, that ends up wasting the food all the time. That I again wasted, even this time, is a different matter altogehter:-)

I saw all those stuff there, a burger section, pasta section, grilled section...I took a bit of everything and normally outside, that would have cost me atleast my 1 hrs worth of salary..

I ended up paying a very miniscule amount..(pretty neat..eh..:-) ).

There were lotsa chic' docs and nurse assistants, a pretty youngish crowd...and as expected.. I banged ( literally) into a few of the cutsies around..Oh yeah I knw the words..

Excuse me..Just got attracted like a magnet towards you. Sorry about that...;-)

I see all these pretty docs and medical technicians with their stethoscope dangling around their necks..and brightish floral uniforms as their over coat.

Seemed pretty neat...and that set me thinking.. Me being a compu guy, how are ppl to know, on seeing me, that I am so and so.

Just like docs have their steths, shdnt we as well have hard drives or CDs and stuff to be dangling around, that will tell ppl what we are..:-D

ah...I set you thinking, Dint I :-)