The night before Valentines day, I and Krish went to see the movie "Naan Kadavul" - not a very good choice after all. I warned Krish before buying the ticket - he said we just watched a jolly movie (Villu the previous week) and lets watch a serious movie !
We missed the initial Kaasi scenes as the hero was just leaving Kaasi when we entered the theater and then these pathetic scenes of beggars started - showing in graphic way how people are being exploited and used for business. Scenes that were supposed to be comedy scenes also did not bring smile as some, the director tried to repeat from his previous movie, but missed the class !
We were contemplating on coming out many times during the movie (as Anku fondly calls "run away") and during the interval, the thinking got strengthened and Krish was game for it. I insisted on staying to see whats in store anyway in the remaining movie. One another option considered was to enter into some other screen (it was a multiplex and "Padikkadhavan" was running in another screen) :-) We were not happy with the climax too.
Over the weekend, I saw rave reviews about the movie in Tamil magazines esp for the director's interest and hard work to show case something (World of Aghori Saadhus and the world of beggars) which others didn't dare to do.
Also in the weekend, heard from Aravind that one of the censored scenes in the movie was, the Saadhus eating (dead) human flesh and looks like it was considered as a good thing by the relatives - basically in that case (if the body was eaten by Saadhus), its believed that the dead person will go to heaven directly. According to Aravind, it is a documentary movie and not having any entertainment value.
Got this link during the week (after all it seems to be true) :
http://www.ceveni.com/2009/01/aghori-sadhus-eating-human-flesh-video.html
Talking of cannibalism, its (human body) just yet another meat anyway :-)
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
A day out at sea (25 Mar 2007)
After a long time, I've got an opportunity to unwind and try out a new sport this weekend - Sailing !
TamilNadu Sailing Association was conducting a one day familiarization in sailing within the Chennai harbor (came in Hindu a week back). There were a group of 17 including us (three of us) coming from different domains - all with a passion of sailing in the sea. The fee is Rs. 1000, but as one of the member (Ravi) from the association pointed out, it's much more costly in other countries to try out sailing.
Learn more about sailing at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing
There are different sailing boats - Optimist is the one used by the kids in the age of 8 to 14.
We got opportunity to sail in Laser (one person) and Enterprise (two person) boats. They also demonstrated capsizing and what to do when the boat is capsized.
It's really amazing to see how the boats move so fast without any energy but just the wind. It looks simple to just manage the rope in one hand to Sheet in/Sheet out and rudder in another hand to change the direction of the boat - but it requires you to understand the wind direction and speed to really sail successfully. There are different terminologies used for the direction you sail with respect to the wind (Run - 180 degrees, Reach - 90 degrees). Other terminologies : Port - left side of the boat with respect to the wind Starboard - right side of the boat with respect to the wind.
What does it give : Sailing in the sea gives you a sense of satisfaction and achievement - it can be equated to riding a car in a road - but this is in a different surface and based on the external nature power - the wind !
As Captain Munna Jamal said, for kids it gives a lot of confidence as they take DECISIONS to manage the boat on their own. It also gives rise to team work when a group of people sail together.
I got a hit on the forehead when turning the laser boat for the first time - didn't realize I had to down my head as the sheet moves from one side to the other. Subsequently the boat was capsized and I had stranded in the water for more than 5 mins as they had to repair the laser boat - floating in the sea water was also a nice experience (with life jacket ofcourse) which I had experience once already arranged by Sterling Resort, Mahabalipuram. Also, I had body pain as I tried to balance the boat with my weight (?) - you would have noticed the familiar pose of a person bending in parallel to the water when sailing - but I had fun. No pain, no gain :-)
TNSA does one day sailing classes for Corporates and individual bunch of people (as we did) though their main objective is to train kids for competition.
Contact :
shantha.ravikumar@gmail.com
I can assure you it's a rewarding experience to go out and sail ! I look forward to an opportunity to go and sail on my own out there in the sea (this was done inside the harbor where there was not much waves - doing it in the actual sea would be much more fun) !!!
Some pictures taken : http://picasaweb.google.com/psk6629/SailingMar07
TamilNadu Sailing Association was conducting a one day familiarization in sailing within the Chennai harbor (came in Hindu a week back). There were a group of 17 including us (three of us) coming from different domains - all with a passion of sailing in the sea. The fee is Rs. 1000, but as one of the member (Ravi) from the association pointed out, it's much more costly in other countries to try out sailing.
Learn more about sailing at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing
There are different sailing boats - Optimist is the one used by the kids in the age of 8 to 14.
We got opportunity to sail in Laser (one person) and Enterprise (two person) boats. They also demonstrated capsizing and what to do when the boat is capsized.
It's really amazing to see how the boats move so fast without any energy but just the wind. It looks simple to just manage the rope in one hand to Sheet in/Sheet out and rudder in another hand to change the direction of the boat - but it requires you to understand the wind direction and speed to really sail successfully. There are different terminologies used for the direction you sail with respect to the wind (Run - 180 degrees, Reach - 90 degrees). Other terminologies : Port - left side of the boat with respect to the wind Starboard - right side of the boat with respect to the wind.
What does it give : Sailing in the sea gives you a sense of satisfaction and achievement - it can be equated to riding a car in a road - but this is in a different surface and based on the external nature power - the wind !
As Captain Munna Jamal said, for kids it gives a lot of confidence as they take DECISIONS to manage the boat on their own. It also gives rise to team work when a group of people sail together.
I got a hit on the forehead when turning the laser boat for the first time - didn't realize I had to down my head as the sheet moves from one side to the other. Subsequently the boat was capsized and I had stranded in the water for more than 5 mins as they had to repair the laser boat - floating in the sea water was also a nice experience (with life jacket ofcourse) which I had experience once already arranged by Sterling Resort, Mahabalipuram. Also, I had body pain as I tried to balance the boat with my weight (?) - you would have noticed the familiar pose of a person bending in parallel to the water when sailing - but I had fun. No pain, no gain :-)
TNSA does one day sailing classes for Corporates and individual bunch of people (as we did) though their main objective is to train kids for competition.
Contact :
shantha.ravikumar@gmail.com
I can assure you it's a rewarding experience to go out and sail ! I look forward to an opportunity to go and sail on my own out there in the sea (this was done inside the harbor where there was not much waves - doing it in the actual sea would be much more fun) !!!
Some pictures taken : http://picasaweb.google.com/psk6629/SailingMar07
Coast to Coast Trip (Dec 2003)
For this vacation, we had a trip from east coast to west coast by car (unthinkable in the U.S.). Touched all 4 southern states.
Purpose of the trip : To wish Roshan personally on Christmas day !
Chronology :
* Started from Chennai on Dec 24th & reached Bangalore in the evening
* Started from Bangalore on Dec 25th, visited Saravana Bela gula on the way & reached Mangalore in the evening
* Had dinner (& drinks) with Roshan at his home & stayed in Hotel Manjarun (Taj group - so cheap - just 1500 bucks + 10 % tax for a double bed room)
* Visited Roshan's upcoming house in the morning of Dec 26th. Then, myself and Anku went to Bekhel Fort and in the evening went to the Mangalore beach with Roshan. Had dinner together.
* Started from Mangalore on Dec 27th and visited DharmaSala on the way & reached B'lore in the evening
* Started from B'lore on Dec 28th & reached Chennai in the evening
Highlight : Anku drove all the 1500 odd kilometers single handedly (actually with 2 hands and 2 legs) in his Maruti Wagon R !
My first trip to the US (Dec 23 1998)
In the first weekend itself I went to Lake Tahoe and skied.
In the second weekend, I went to SantaCruz and a place called "Mystery Spot". It is rightly named so. Situated in a hill, it consists of an area of 150 metres dia(I am still talking in metres guys, notice that!). The area is downhill; so, when you drop a ball, you expect it to roll downhill; NOT HERE! It rolls uphill. Nothing is wrong with the ball. The gravity is reversed in this small region, no idea why. If you have noticed people standing on a hill, normally, their feet is behind them, assuming they are facing uphill. Here too the same thing happens, only that you can almost feel someone pushing you uphill, so you are inclined more! Funny place,!
Santacruz is just a weekend spot. Nothing much. There is a scenic drive by the name "17 mile drive". Winding along the coast, it IS a pleasure to drive through that road...
The next week we went to "Kadala Kadala" in Naz - a Pakistani theater which usually hosts tamil movies in the weekends. It is in Fremont. It is purely a crazy Mohan's Drama - Nothing much to say about it!
Got the tickets for a funworld sort of theme park - Great America, but could never make it in time, so I sold the tickets.
After that, we planned our trip to LA on a weekend. My friend Madasamy drove us from San Jose to LA. Cudos to him! He drove 400+ miles in one night and had the energy to stand in the queues the next day for all the rides, without once complaining!
We had booked rooms at LA, got up early on Saturday and went first to DisneyLand. This is 2nd best to the DisneyWorld at Florida, or so I hear, but nevertheless, it was great! Only trouble was - it was so overcrowded that for every ride lasting 2-3 minutes, we had to stand in a queue for at least 45 minutes. The best were Splash mountain, Space trip and of course the night show on Water. Aye, they projected a small cartoon movie - it was a combination; sometimes people would be enacting Disney characters on the stage in the middle of a pond and sometimes they would project the same characters for the other portions of the cartoon on screen made of water! - it was fascinating, and made the entire day's wait (well mostly wait and sometimes ride) worthy...
The next day we went to Universal Studios. The tram ride was eventful, with KingKong trying to stop us, Los Angeles experiencing an earthquake, the tram entering an volcano(did you see Dante's Peak?), and us sitting there ducks for the thieves from the wild west(we are in the heart of the wild west, aren't we!) asking us to give out wallets and the sherif coming to protect us, and all childish thingies like that happening. We were also pointed to some of the studios, but weren't taken inside :(.
Water World is a show wherein they enact the happening of the movie, "Water World", live. Breathtaking stunt sequences, all done fast, live, made it interesting...
Jurassic Park, the Ride, was obviously another ride, but this time, we went twice for this ride - crowd was less, we needed the photo as a memento and so posed properly. You guys should see me in that Photo; Looks great! Got all wet, but hey, I love getting wet.
Back to the Future is another ride. That's a damn good one, showing you the depths of Simulation. You sit in one place and thanks to the simulation on the screen and sound effects (and aided by occasional rocking of your car), it looks and feels real!
Food was pathetic @ US. Got a cheese pizza that tasted yuk! If you are a veggie, braze yourself... my friends got a cold breast of turkey, so beware!
There were other bits and pieces. Like me being rechristened "Thel" (scorpion) - I was repeatedly dropping, pouring, or losing my grip on some food item or another, right from our first ride to Tahoe so that my friends were afraid of giving any food items to me, esp. in the car!
I went to Jeans on the last day of my stay at U.S. (again in Naz). While Aish looks devastating, the movie bombs pathetically. To me, the beginning of the movie seemed to be a recap of what I saw in U.S. since they showed Universal Studios and Disney Land in the second song. Songs are good, but I guess Shankar is setting a trend, - First movie, GentleMan had a theme and a story. 2nd, "Kadalan" was pathetic, taken for the so called "masses". 3rd movie, "Indian" was good, with a theme and a story. 4th, "Jeans' a movie that has taken 2+ years to make it stupid, fit only for Kunjumone to watch(he wasn't the producer though! - I meant his stupidity). In all the movies, only the songs are good and he exploits the heroines well...
On my way to Chennai, I had to spend 9 hours in Singapore. I went out with my friend by taking a transit visa. I went to Mustafa and bought some perfumes, emergency lights and a cord-less phone.
On my final flight journey (in the series of 6 take offs) there was a worst turbulence on the way from Singapore to Madras. The flight dropped around 500 meters. You can imagine what would have happened inside the flight. It happened after 1 hour of travel from Singapore. The pilot could not detect that with radar. When he warned about that it was too late. I was at the last seat in the tail of the flight. Luckily I wore the seat belt but it was loose. So, I went up around 1 feet high and came back to the seat. 2 persons who didn't wear their seat belts hit the top of the flight and got blood injuries. One guy got sprain in his neck. When they are about to serve the food, it all happened. So, all food spilled over the flight and they were not able to serve the food thereafter. Even they were discussing the idea of returning the flight to Singapore. Then they proceeded on their way to Madras.
So, guys never never remove the belt when you do flight journey.
I got caught in customs also in which I had to pay(bribe !!) 50 Singapore dollars.
This is how my first trip to U.S. concluded with a thrilling and bit sad climax. Anyway overall, the trip was nice and was a good experience in a different world (as Americans think !!).
In the second weekend, I went to SantaCruz and a place called "Mystery Spot". It is rightly named so. Situated in a hill, it consists of an area of 150 metres dia(I am still talking in metres guys, notice that!). The area is downhill; so, when you drop a ball, you expect it to roll downhill; NOT HERE! It rolls uphill. Nothing is wrong with the ball. The gravity is reversed in this small region, no idea why. If you have noticed people standing on a hill, normally, their feet is behind them, assuming they are facing uphill. Here too the same thing happens, only that you can almost feel someone pushing you uphill, so you are inclined more! Funny place,!
Santacruz is just a weekend spot. Nothing much. There is a scenic drive by the name "17 mile drive". Winding along the coast, it IS a pleasure to drive through that road...
The next week we went to "Kadala Kadala" in Naz - a Pakistani theater which usually hosts tamil movies in the weekends. It is in Fremont. It is purely a crazy Mohan's Drama - Nothing much to say about it!
Got the tickets for a funworld sort of theme park - Great America, but could never make it in time, so I sold the tickets.
After that, we planned our trip to LA on a weekend. My friend Madasamy drove us from San Jose to LA. Cudos to him! He drove 400+ miles in one night and had the energy to stand in the queues the next day for all the rides, without once complaining!
We had booked rooms at LA, got up early on Saturday and went first to DisneyLand. This is 2nd best to the DisneyWorld at Florida, or so I hear, but nevertheless, it was great! Only trouble was - it was so overcrowded that for every ride lasting 2-3 minutes, we had to stand in a queue for at least 45 minutes. The best were Splash mountain, Space trip and of course the night show on Water. Aye, they projected a small cartoon movie - it was a combination; sometimes people would be enacting Disney characters on the stage in the middle of a pond and sometimes they would project the same characters for the other portions of the cartoon on screen made of water! - it was fascinating, and made the entire day's wait (well mostly wait and sometimes ride) worthy...
The next day we went to Universal Studios. The tram ride was eventful, with KingKong trying to stop us, Los Angeles experiencing an earthquake, the tram entering an volcano(did you see Dante's Peak?), and us sitting there ducks for the thieves from the wild west(we are in the heart of the wild west, aren't we!) asking us to give out wallets and the sherif coming to protect us, and all childish thingies like that happening. We were also pointed to some of the studios, but weren't taken inside :(.
Water World is a show wherein they enact the happening of the movie, "Water World", live. Breathtaking stunt sequences, all done fast, live, made it interesting...
Jurassic Park, the Ride, was obviously another ride, but this time, we went twice for this ride - crowd was less, we needed the photo as a memento and so posed properly. You guys should see me in that Photo; Looks great! Got all wet, but hey, I love getting wet.
Back to the Future is another ride. That's a damn good one, showing you the depths of Simulation. You sit in one place and thanks to the simulation on the screen and sound effects (and aided by occasional rocking of your car), it looks and feels real!
Food was pathetic @ US. Got a cheese pizza that tasted yuk! If you are a veggie, braze yourself... my friends got a cold breast of turkey, so beware!
There were other bits and pieces. Like me being rechristened "Thel" (scorpion) - I was repeatedly dropping, pouring, or losing my grip on some food item or another, right from our first ride to Tahoe so that my friends were afraid of giving any food items to me, esp. in the car!
I went to Jeans on the last day of my stay at U.S. (again in Naz). While Aish looks devastating, the movie bombs pathetically. To me, the beginning of the movie seemed to be a recap of what I saw in U.S. since they showed Universal Studios and Disney Land in the second song. Songs are good, but I guess Shankar is setting a trend, - First movie, GentleMan had a theme and a story. 2nd, "Kadalan" was pathetic, taken for the so called "masses". 3rd movie, "Indian" was good, with a theme and a story. 4th, "Jeans' a movie that has taken 2+ years to make it stupid, fit only for Kunjumone to watch(he wasn't the producer though! - I meant his stupidity). In all the movies, only the songs are good and he exploits the heroines well...
On my way to Chennai, I had to spend 9 hours in Singapore. I went out with my friend by taking a transit visa. I went to Mustafa and bought some perfumes, emergency lights and a cord-less phone.
On my final flight journey (in the series of 6 take offs) there was a worst turbulence on the way from Singapore to Madras. The flight dropped around 500 meters. You can imagine what would have happened inside the flight. It happened after 1 hour of travel from Singapore. The pilot could not detect that with radar. When he warned about that it was too late. I was at the last seat in the tail of the flight. Luckily I wore the seat belt but it was loose. So, I went up around 1 feet high and came back to the seat. 2 persons who didn't wear their seat belts hit the top of the flight and got blood injuries. One guy got sprain in his neck. When they are about to serve the food, it all happened. So, all food spilled over the flight and they were not able to serve the food thereafter. Even they were discussing the idea of returning the flight to Singapore. Then they proceeded on their way to Madras.
So, guys never never remove the belt when you do flight journey.
I got caught in customs also in which I had to pay(bribe !!) 50 Singapore dollars.
This is how my first trip to U.S. concluded with a thrilling and bit sad climax. Anyway overall, the trip was nice and was a good experience in a different world (as Americans think !!).
Been There ! Done That ! - ParaSailing
A group of 12 from our company did parasailing on 10 May 2003 where we enjoyed the thrill of being in the air (around 120 feet high) for 5 minutes and had a great view of the sea and ECR from the top.
If you want to see those 12 folks in action, look at :
(There are some pictures taken from the top too !)
Did once prior to this and the pictures are available at :
Did once prior to this and the pictures are available at :
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