What are you doing, Maddy?

As I patiently stood outside a small internet shop about 9 years ago in Tirunelveli, wondering what my cousin would be doing, she came out happily with a printout in her hand. One look at the printout left me in awe. For the first time I had seen somebody take a printout of an actor and it was none other than R.Madhavan or famously called Maddy after his very successful blockbuster movie Alaipayuthey.

I happened to watch the movie long after its Hindi version released on a lazy Sunday night on KTV and instantly I recognized why he was the guy to bet all your money on. Charming, sweet, remarkable acting skills and all girls labeled him ‘CUTE’. I quickly remembered Maddy from the one of the previous serials called Sea Hawks where he essayed the role of a navy officer fighting against drugs and mafia and added a lot of color to his character portraying his funny side more often in it.

His next movie, Minnale instantly became a cult movie and was also re-made in hindi called Rehna Hai Tere Dil Mein. But my favorite movie of his is ‘Dum Dum Dum’ in which he essays the role of a young lawyer who is forced to marry a village belle against his wishes. This is one movie which I would have watched over 50 times with my mother (not an avid movie watcher like me), for she likes the movie too.

Movies like Run changed his image into an action hero and his last major solo hit Thambi gave him an extended lease of life. However, his career took a wrong direction after Anbe Sivam(his role was praised in the movie), and he has seen his career plummeting like the Nasdaq during the recent recession.

I read his recent interview where he said he had no idea where he got the chocolate boy image from. Oh, com’on Maddy, your that's your USP mate. Not everyone is a Kamal Hasan to be able to do anything and everything they want and even he did it only after 25 years of acting in chocolate boy roles. I believe Maddy should look closely at the career of SRK who was praised for his roles in Bazigar and Darr but it was the next door lover boy roles in DDLJ, KKHH and Dil to Pagal hai that has helpd rise to dizzying heights.

I was very upset to see a great actor like him just stand behind Aamir khan in most of the scenes doing literally nothing in 3 idiots and perhaps even worse was his acting in comical negative shade character in his latest flop Manmadhan Ambu. His next flop ‘Tanu weds Manu’ has only strengthened my opinion that he should leave off his fixation over Bollywood movies and get back to a superb lover boy role with perhaps… Mani Ratnam.

A romantic movie with you, Asin and Mani sir would be the perfect platform for your re-entry into Kollywood back again. I hope you can enthrall us all again with your million dollar smile and some fabulous acting back again. Hoping to see you in a good movie soon..

West Mambalam.

Sometimes as I ponder what I am doing in this place far far away from the people whom I love and care about, I get more questions than answers. Something seems missing from life and perhaps it because of the awesome place that had been my home for nearly 18 years that any place in this world would always not interest me.

Be it the dry and deserted Tucson, greeny Merida, hot and humid Houston or cold and snowy Denver, none can match the sheer abundance of joy and happiness in West Mambalam. With a small area of less than 1 square KM it’s always teeming with enough people to make to safe even if you return home after midnight.

Whether it is the two minute walk to a very big and cheap sabji mandi or a 5 minute walk to station where all major trains from South stop or a 10 minute walk to the bus terminus in T.Nagar or a 15 minute walk to the busiest shopping place or innumerable temples surrounding my home, I believe no place can match the sheer central location of West Mambalam. Perhaps that’s why I have never heard of any person leave my building over the last 20 years unless they had an appointment with Lord Yama.

Whats more funny is the fact that third floor apartment in my flat is costing no less than 40 lakhs INR. Well, if you wanted to buy a home in West Mambalam, you should try to contact Mani Ratnam to be casted in his movie to match upto the building costs of more than a crore in here.

Perhaps all these make my sweet home all the more pleasant and hopefully, I should soon be able to return to the place I love and to the people I care.

End-Of-World!!

When I was a kid the “End-Of-World” feeling seemed quite funny and remotely plausible. My sister would fondly say that she and her father should be saved somehow :) I hope that now her wish would get changed to she and her brother just being saved.

When I visited the Mayan heartland for my summer internship in 2009, the rumors of 2012 prophecy were so strong and had caught on like a wild fire and there was an entire section in a book store dedicated to that. I passed off the incident as a rumor-mill working its strongest to sell more books.

Even the 10 minutes of extreme catastrophe in the movie 2012 when the entire state of California is shown to be destroyed by a massive earthquake did not affect me and still the end-of-world feeling seemed very distant phenomenon.

But as I and my roomate were watching hundreds of homes being swept away in the strong tsunami tides that lashed northern Japan after the strongest earthquake in its history, I have started to believe in the end-of-world phenomenon and that our end is bound to happen sooner or later unless we take drastic steps.

I can vaguely remember my trip to Kalpakkam nuclear plant many years ago where I saw tens of hundreds of jellyfish being killed when sea water was sucked in and used to cool the plant. Perhaps the Sea god is angry that we have dumped every waste product into the sea that we have had two major Tsunamis in such a short period.

I believe our mother earth has been far too silent and accommodative to all our atrocious activities from mining, to drilling oil to torturing and killing animals and polluting all river bodies that the time for a payback is very near. Unless we learn to live in harmony with Nature, I believe our end is very near and I hope the latest warning given to us would open our eyes and help us and our future generations survive.