The 24 frames

24 Frames, is a show in a Desi television channel Indiavision, where in (according to the channel website) they give light into world classic films.. This week by a mere accident I stumbled upon this programme and on that day, it was about the film Bab'Aziz: The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul).

Courtesy: Google

 It was about a blind dervish's journey to a Sufi gathering accompanied by his granddaughter the small child Ishtar.. The kid is bored and so he entertains and thereby enlightens her and the audience about a prince who contemplated his soul.. The film was complex yet narrated in a simple way and still manages to impart wisdom.. I was totally impressed, by just viewing the one hour program about it.. (2 days show)

Towards the end the dervish, would want a young lad Hassan to be witness of the matrimony with eternity or in simple words, death from the mortal world.. and the lad says that he was scared of death.. Baba says, 

“If the baby in the darkness of its mother’s womb were told: ‘Outside there’s a world of light, with high mountains, great seas, undulating plains, beautiful gardens in blossom, brooks, a sky full of stars, and a blazing sun, and you, facing all these marvels, stay enclosed in this darkness,’ the unborn child, knowing nothing about these marvels, wouldn’t believe any of it. Like us, when we’re facing death. That’s why we’re afraid.”

That made me contemplate the fact that on one remembers where we were before birth.. no memories existed of our life in the womb.. was that also death and birth? the cycle? were we scared at the moment of being born in this world..? just the way we are scared of moving away from his world?? Wow! life indeed is interesting. This was the gist of the Baba's words too.. what I meant by contemplating was that I chewed on to every bit of it.. and let it sink in on me.. 

Courtesy: Google

Another statement that inspired me.. 

"The people of this world are like the three butterflies
in front of a candle's flame.

The first one went closer and said:
I know about love.

The second one touched the flame
lightly with his wings and said:
I know how Love's fire can burn.

The third one threw himself into the heart of the flame
and was consumed. He alone knows what true love is."

what more can be said??

Escape to Nagala!!!

Escape to Nagala is about an official Team outing which occurred before few months.. I wrote this for my office Newsletter...! ;-)


On 7th Aug Offshore testing team, started off for a slightly different team outing to Nagala… located in the outskirts of Tamilnadu and touching the Andhra border..Nagala to be precise is a wonder that nature had kept away from the busy city dwellers… we felt that we could explore it a bit more so we set out as a team of 20 on the clear Saturday morning.. We reached Nagala by around 9 in the morning; the representatives from Ecologin, (the concern which organized the trip) gave us updates about the path and general instructions…


The first sight that welcomed us was that of a huge dam..With some difficulty we reached the top of the dam, just at the other side of the man made dam the nature welcomed us, with beautiful water, kind breeze and a spectacular view of trees and birds and butterflies… We started to walk amidst the small clearing which was made to be a path, in the mid of thorny bushes…

Till that day most of us knew how it would be to walk along with nature with only resonance of the gentle wind brushing the bushes, and no vroom… vroom of the vehicles, with out polluted air and with no direct attack from the sun.. it was a great experience.. But we couldn’t categorize it as soft trekking as it was challenging for all us to walk along side the deep water, slippery and pointed gravels or knee deep water(which was slippery enough that most of us, fell into the water.. Ofcourse Except ME!)

After some 2 hours long and tiresome journey, we reached our destination, of the small hill top with 2 streams and 2 huge ponds… the rest of the 2 hours were the deserved resultant for the tiresome journey through the forest.. The water replenished the lost energy in us, and drove away the tiredness.. We had lunch and some fun talks and started the down hill journey to reach the dam again by 5 or so… It wouldn’t be fair if I missed out about the 2 dogs, which guided us through out the journey to the top and back to the bus… they were so like our guides walking to and fro.. We thanked them with few chunks of food…

Kadha Thudarunnu...!!

Director:       Sathyan Anthikad
Producer:     Thankachan Emmanuel under the banner of Trueline Cinema
Music:          Maestro Illayaraja
Cast:            Jayaram, Mamtha mohandas, K P A C Lalitha, Innocent,
                    Mumukkoya, Lakshmi Priya, Asif Ali, Sreejith Ravi etc
Lyrics:          Sarathchandra Verma
Camera:       Venu


I had many reasons for deciding to watch this movie, I am listing it down..(Office habit couldn’t control!!! ;-) so please don't care about the bullets)
• The 50th movie of the veteran director Sathyan Anthikad...
• The songs by Illiaraja were already chartbusters
• Jayaram and Sthyan team up has always been a hit.. remember....Bagyadevatha, Manasinakare, Yathrakarude srathaiku and so on...


That was why I was in the theatre on the day 2 of the release in Chennai...and went pretty early to the theatre so that I do not miss even a single bit... and after watching... well this is what I felt...




The plot of the story surrounds around the girl Vidhya lakshmi... who in spite her parents words get married to Shanavas a young Muslim pianist they live a happy life and have a 4 yrs daughter when Shanavas is accidentally killed by a gang of rouges who mistake him to be some one else... Now with no family and friends to support Vidhya is in street with her little daughter, and when at the verge of nothing left of to live, she meets Jayaram an auto driver who rescues her and takes her to the colony where he lives, and there she meets a bunch of people and realizes the worth of life and how money is not everything. The people in the colony help her to complete her education as a doctor and by this time Jeyaram has failed in love with her. By this time any one in the theatre would have guessed the climax and no.... that is when the twist of the movie occurs.......




If we are going to watch this movie with lots of expectation for a Sathyan anthikad movie which will always have reality blended with nature and good hearted people, then we are in for a great shock here...the movie does not satisfy an ardent Sathyan fan. By the end of the movie we wonder if a director with such a caliber can create something like this with such a loose ended plot and story line.. In the first one hour the happy life of Vidhya and Shanavas is shown. Asif Ali (of Rithu fame as Shanavas) has done his part very well as a bubbling husband... but Mamtha seem not to comprehend with it and well...!!! she looks more older than him.


The first one hour drags a lot and only thing that made me sit was an expectation for the film to go well atleast in the latter half and the beautiful song(Aaroo....)by Hariharan. When the husband dies, I and everyone in the theatre felt relieved that at least now the film will go forward but ALAS!! that did not occur....


The Heroine had to go through a great ordeal where in she has no one to go to and suffer with her child... most of the scenes of her sufferings reminds us of the "Pursuit of Happiness" but the director couldn’t evoke the sympathy in us like Pursuit.... we get to wonder how the heroine is able to dress up and do make up this nicely even at this bad condition of staying in the railway station... (even her hairstyle in intact...!!!!) As we see the introduction of Jayaram... I let out a Sigh WOW! at least now the story will gain momentum... but there again the story seem to wander like in the scene where the heroine attends interview... and the interviewer misbehaving to her and suddenly she is showed as medical final year student...(what interview did she attend in that concern then?) and some of scenes shows that she understands Jayarams love towards her but she seem to act wired, and we get wierd too... and no sympathy arises for the hero(Jeyaram) who believes in horoscopes and waits for her to come back... She may come back.. But will the audience??? ... anyway i wont! :-)