Trends we can see : 1

This is going to be one audacious try. But, I guess that is fine. It is going to be lots of fun writing this and watching whether my feel is coming out right or not. OK. What is this about? I am going to try and figure out the underlying trends based on what I am reading / seeing in news / magazines / TV and so on and so forth.

I am not going to pretend these are "Mega trends"

My takes for the first trend spotting are as follows:

1. I was reading the sex survey 2010 in The India Today. More and more boldness is what we see. We also see that women are ready to come more and more out of their marriages. You also see the second and third marriages happening more often.

Sunandha Pushkar marries for the third time and is happy about it.

Shashi Tharoor, on his part, also gets into his third with Sunanda and is also happy and open about it.

Vanita Vijaykumar, the daughter of tamil actor Vijaykumar, has 2 sons from her first marriage and one from her second. While the second and third marriages are seemingly on the raise, there are single mothers who taut their wards.


Sushmita sen has two children and is not even married once. Both are adopted children. The 1994 Miss Universe is quite happy about it.

You look at the other side of this spectrum, you get to see that gays and lesbians are scoring important legal victories.

You also see lots of couples living in and absolutely happy about it.

You see Kareena and Saif living together.

And, so do Bipasha and John Abraham.

So, a very simple first trend : Marriage as an age old institution is in trouble. Deep trouble.

When time is scarce, when you don't know whether you can commit, when you don't know how much you would love a person, when your career is important and is more important to you than anything else, and when the woman is as free as the man in terms of both economic and how open she can be to the world, it seems as if there is no need for marriage. So, will the number of marriages come down? I think it will. Would living in go up? Yes. It will. So, what happens to children? I think they will learn to cope up with the uncertainty of living with a stranger who is the current 'father'. What will this trend lead to? What are the opportunities it will bring to marketing people and the cinema dudes? What problems will it bring to those and all of us? How, as a parent, I would take it? These are questions which require some deliberations, debates and discussions.

Movies I enjoyed : Mouna Raagam

Mouna Raagam (Tamil: மௌன ராகம்; English: can be roughly translated as "Silent Symphony") is a 1986 Tamil film. It was directed by filmmaker Mani Ratnam. To my mind, it is the best film by the director - though a lot of people think "Nayakan" is his best film.

The score and soundtrack are composed by Ilayaraja, and the film's cinematography is by P. C. Sriram.It got nominated for the best film award.

The story is simple : the heroine is a playfull girl. She falls in love with a boy who is as mischevious and playful as she is. The lovely boy confronts and robs from a police officer so that the patient that offier assaulted can be treated. The girl understands the reason behind this 'bad' act and this is the reason why she falls in love. As they are about to be married, the police comes in and apprehends the lover boy. He tries to escape and in the ensuing melee, gets shot at and dies. The girl goes into a deep trauma.

But, the parents look for another boy. There is a "pen parkkum padalam" and a genteleman comes- sees the girl. Falls in love with her and consents to marry her. The girl does not want to be a burden for their parents any more. So, she marries him.

But, the marriage is only in the name. She avoids any physical contact by her husband. So, what does the husband do? She tells him the story so far and why she is avoiding him. And, on top of it, she wants a divorce!

The genteleman goes about absorbing all of this quietly. He understands the trauma and accepts her as she is. He is willing to give her the divorce and the freedom that she wants. But, slowly and steadily, the girl starts falling in love with her husband!

That is the story. How, patience, understanding and acceptance of the other half improves the relationship, how it heals the wounds and gives it the time it requires is beautifully shown. Revathy and Mohan do well in acting. Karthik did a quick, witty, beautiful role.

The dialogues were simply superb.

I watched this movie when I was quite young - when I was in my college. I remember thinking : if I ever get into this kind of a situation, how I would handle it and whether I can be as sensitive and understanding as this film's hero.

To my mind, it was a landmark movie in Tamil films.

Movies I enjoyed  : The Terminal

I Watched this movie recently when I was travelling. Absolutely brilliantly portrayed by Tom hanks. The story is quite simple. The comedy - drama focuses on a person trapped in the airport - neither able to move into the country he has chosen to come to nor being able to go back to his country - because that country has been 'derecognised' by the country he has walked into. A 2004 movie, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones, it shows the story of a man trapped. in a terminal at JFK International Airport when he is denied entry into the United States and at the same time cannot return to his native country, the fictitious Krakozhia, due to a revolution. This is supposedly inspired by the 18 year stay of the Iranian refugee, Mr. Mehran Karimi Nasseri in the Charles de Gaulle International Airport, Terminal I, Paris, France from 1988 to 2006.

Tom Hanks plays Viktor Navorski in this film, a man who comes from an Eastern European country to New York. However after he left his country war broke out. This means that Navorski is now a man without a country since US does not recognize his country any more. Hence, he is denied entrance into US. But, since he has arrived legally, he cannot also be deported back.

He cannot speak English well. But he starts to learn and adapt and understand others. This makes the security manager, who wants to expel him, extremely unhappy.

Why Navorski came there, what are his drives, why is he prepared to wait for 9 months in the airport, what does he do to live out there form the rest of the story.

I would say that it is a fantastic story. A story which brings out the idiocy of policies of countries and how they are at cross purposes with human life. How simple rules can become asses quickly. How human will triumps over everything.

Vavorski simply says "I wait". It melts even the toughest of the hearts.

How to take life simply. How to treat everyone - including the one who means harm to you with passion. How to take simple joys in life even though your life itself is not great. All these are lessons from the movie. I enjoyed watching every bit of it. Lovely movie. Worth watching.

Blog Review : Vaaram oru Alayam

It takes stupendous effort to put up a blog like this one. Going to temples; collecting information about the deity, the goddess, the temple tree and so on and giving a commentary also.

This is fantastic. It tells you how to reach out to a particular temple. It tells you when the pooja happens in that temple. Very very good blog for all the religious people and those who love to go to a temple. Serves as a quick compendium for all of those who love to go to temples.

Very good effort. Please keep it up.

Blog Review : Khana Peena

For a guy like me who has interests in restaurants, this is a delicious blog. It reviews all kinds of restaurants across the country though I think I saw a lot more from Mumbai. Photographs of those dishes, what was good and what was bad : all that is put in there. Serves as a good starting point for the foodies!

Very interesting blog.

Blog Review : Think Loud : Carnatic Music Raagas

Another master piece of a blog. He has taken different Raagas and provided film songs and a lot of typical carnitic songs in that raaga. He has given the lakshna of the Raaga also - the aarohan and avarohan of the Raaga also are given.

Simply outstanding. It is a joy to read the blog.

The icing on the cake is the number of song - links that are provided. All the links are from Mediafire so that it is very easy to keep downloading all the songs. It took me a very long time to down load a lot of the songs that I loved.

Keep the good work Sir!!

Blog Review : Raagas in Film Music

I enjoyed this blog. Very informative. Collecting so many songs, categorizing them under the different raagas..it takes fantastic effort. Not just in one language. There are songs from Tamil Films. From Telugu films. From Hindi films. Means that the author is good in these languages and also in spotting the Raagas.


And the collection is also very good.


Recommended for anyone who is interested in Raagas, listening to songs based on raagas and especially old songs!!

The Youtube links makes it even more interesting since we can actually "see" the song!!

Good effort!!

Keep it up!