Amazon Customer Service Employee Tries to Scam me...Gets Caught Red Handed!!

VEERA DHEERA SOORAN REVIEW: VIKRAM’S STRING OF BAD CHOICES COMES TO AN END?

 

There was never any doubt about Vikram's powerhouse acting talent. But in recent years, I have not watched any of his movies except for Mahaan because his ability to select the right director and script was not up to the mark. I, along with many others, thought his potential to become a superstar was wasted. But if there is one director who has shown top-notch quality and talent in most of his movies, it is SU Arun Kumar. Whether it is Pannayarum Padminiyum, Sethupathy or Chittha, they were well appreciated by both audiences and critics. As if this wasn't enough, my expectations increased ten times when they released a banger of teaser. Did the movie meet my expectations?

Let's find out

The Characters

The movie has many strengths, but the most visible strength is character development. All the characters in the film are clearly defined. We can sense each character's motivations and personality while watching the movie; everything is subtly conveyed through the flashback scenes and reaction shots. For example, there is a scene in the flashback portion where Vikram and Dushara are having sex just before their marriage in the bedroom on the top floor of their mandap and right after; they play with each other while Vikram hangs outside the window on his way back to his room. It shows that both characters are strong and independent and that they focus on the fearless nature of Vikram's character. Even the Villain characters of SJ Suryah and Suraj Venjarammoodu are not one-note and have strong reasons for their actions.

The Plot

Watching this movie had the same effect as watching a Misskyn or a Vetrimaran film, where a relatively minor incident snowballs and affects the lives of everyone involved. The film begins with a woman and her child entering a rich house, searching for her husband, and blaming the men there. How this incident, along with the selfish motivations of each character, affects everyone involved forms the crux of the story. The joy of watching such a movie comes from the connection you get due to the detailed writing.

The Action

This is not one of those masala movies where the hero hits and ten goons fly in all directions. The fight scenes are like those in Korean movies: brutal and raw. Both parties get hurt violently. Even though Vikram's character never stops fighting however much he gets hurt, you are able to buy into the scenes because his character is already defined subtly as strong and fearless.

The dialogues

Don't go into this movie expecting filmy punch dialogues. All characters speak and behave as if they are living in a rustic Tamil village. Most of the dialogues flow in the correct pitch and accent. This is especially evident in the scenes where Vikram converses with the customers of his shop and his family. The only jarring effect occurred when listening to Suraj Venjarammoodu's dialogues, which had a tinge of Mallu accent. But overall, it gave me a realistic feeling.

The Art Direction, Cinematography and Background Score

As I mentioned, every aspect of the movie gave me a lived-in rustic feel of a Tamil village. The scenes of Vikram's shop cum house are a prime example of this. Kudos to the cinematographer, Theni Easwar and the art director for such a delicate and detailed work.  I've always felt that GV Prakash is an underrated music director. Even though he produces bangers with his music time and time again, he has never been considered part of the big league like Anirudh or Thaman. His background score, especially the one in the action scenes, is still ringing in my ears.

The pacing

I was hooked into the movie, sitting on the edge of the seat for the most part. I kept wondering what Vikram's character would do next to escape the conundrum he got himself into. But the film does slow down in the flashback portions, which pulled me out of the narrative a bit. Overall, the movie was correctly paced and suspenseful.

If you are a fan of well-written, detailed, suspenseful thrillers with loads of edge-of-seat action, stop waiting and book your tickets for the next show.

 

Working With Jinta's Rocked My 2024!

2024 was a gratifying year by all means. I always knew I wanted to be a trainer. In fact, I started out as a training manager and a trainer at Corporetta with my mentor Dr.Vipin Roldant, way back in 2012. Two years down the line, I started feeling like my career wasn't going anywhere, for various reasons. First one being, I wasn't sure what exactly I wanted teach. I also didn't know what I wanted out of job (at that time online learning was at its nascent stage). Coupled with lack of faith in myself, i quit in the year 2014 and jumped in the latest fad at that time, which was digital marketing. There was no strong sense of purpose (apart from the money of course!). After half heartedly working with a few companies and sitting through countless "make money online" "side hustles" without fully committing to any of it, I started wondering what the hell am I supposed to do. On top of it, I was hospitalized with a major health issue in 2018. After battling with it for a couple of years came Covid, where nobody's career was going anywhere. 

Cut to chase: 2024. 

I got fit with yoga and meditations, thanks to god and my Grand Master Choa Kok Sui and his trainers. At around august, I started getting these ads on Facebook which said, "English language trainers wanted" or "Teach English online". The inner voice inside me just jumped and told me "just try it, Maybe all those years of going through countless books and hollywood material would finally mean something". I was always good at figuring out how to do something (maybe not "what", all the time). Also, I was good at impressing people at the interviews.

There were 3 interviews in total. I got shortlisted at SpeakEazy IELTS & OET Academy. But there was no contact after that (I hate it when they dont give a reason!). Then came English Mithra. They said, they were not hiring people above the age of 28 (wierd! I know). Finally came Jinta’s English Classes where I absolutely rocked the interview! 

The orientation and trials went pretty OK, I guess. The video recording didn't work during the first one and I was off my mood during the second. Then they started giving me regular students. It wasn't always smooth sailing. couple of students didn't like my style and requested a change of trainer (My ego gets a massive hit when they do that), once I made an error in judgement regarding his needs and I failed miserably with another. 

But, one thing I've learned is that training is not about "you". It is about them, "Learner focused", "Performance based". It is about getting them to perform. It is not some kind of information dump where you show off your knowledge and expect some magic to happen. You got to understand their needs, showing empathy, creating a positive relationship and environment, and letting them fly. The books "Telling aint training" and "Teaching esl for dummies' certainly helped a great deal.

I am a kind of person who dont bother too much about other people think of me (I know! my parents hate it too). All those yoga and meditation helps me "be in the moment. no past. no future". And then all those marketing, copywriting, "influence and persuasion" books started subconciously working its magic (A special shout out to Dr. Robert Cialdini and Blair Warren of "forbidden keys to persuasion" fame. I still wonder why people think reading self help book don't work). I started connecting with my students, really helping them and they usually have a great time with me. Trust me, I get the irony too: A person who dont care about making an impression, makes really good impressions most times. But such is life, full of contradictions. more on that later.

To add cherry to the pie. The quality team at Jinta’s English Classes sends me this email at the end of the year. This absolutely rocked my new year! Energised leaps and bounds! Thanks to my team Jeny james, Jewel Maria Jose, Manu George, Jintesh John and fellow trainers for all the help. Last but not the least, Thanks to my wonderful students. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR FOLKS! (And to those who did, thanks for through my rant!) PS: Did not check for mistakes with grammarly or ai. So pardon my mistakes.

Meiyyazhagan review - A deeply moving character driven drama

Imagine a scenario where you are living in the city, away from your native place like the millions of Indians in the metro cities. You are attached to and have fond memories and attachments to your childhood home. What if you had to sell it out of necessity? The very fact that you had to leave was a very traumatic experience for you. You might be afraid of going back because you don’t want to reexperience those traumatic memories.

This is the internal conflict that Arulmozhi Varman (Arvind Swami’s Character) is facing in the movie. If you remember the director Premkumar’s 96, it was also a character driven drama with not much importance to the plot. It flows through the memories, conflicts and growth of the characters. Meiyyazhagan is similar in that vein. The main 2 characters, Arulmozhi Varman and Meiyyazhagan is extremely well fleshed out. The journey through their backstories, their conflicts, relationships and growth is shown with so much care that I found myself teary-eyed at multiple points in the movie. The dilemma one feels when another person knows you and you don’t remember them when you go back to your native place can sometimes become extremely awkward especially if you care about not hurting the feelings of the other person. The visual detailing of these conflicts makes this movie extremely relatable and emotionally impactful.

Premkumar also does not shy away from weaving in his political perspectives through Meiyyazhagan’s character. The conversations between the two characters include the need for protecting one’s culture and history. The point about avoidance of south Indian history in Indian school textbooks deeply resonated with me. Meiyyazhagan’s backstory also shows how political decisions affect the common man. I didn’t find the political subplots distracting as it moves smoothly through the conversations and backstories of characters. These conversations also deepen the bond between the characters which justifies the conflict faced by Arulmozhi Varman.

Now this is not a movie for lovers of fast paced action movies. The deliberate slow paced narrative can be off-putting for those audiences. I didn’t find the movie too slow as I had already prepared myself to watch a deeply moving character driven drama. I recommend doing that yourself so that you have a highly rewarding experience.

Terrorism Simplified

Terrorism Simplified

Terrorism has nothing to do with mental health as some seem to indicate on social media. It’s basically a type of new age guerrilla warfare. Religious Extremism is basically a learned set of belief systems which is in turn an extremely conservative version of conventional religion. These type of radical conservative elements exist in all religions (cult christian militias in the southern US is an example). The argument that Islam is a violent is unacceptable as the term Islamic terrorism was unheard of before second world war. Let me explain. These are some of the wars going on in the world right now:

      

1. Taliban & Al Qaeda backed forces Vs Pak Army backed by US in Pakistan                  (164 children killed in a school in Pakistan a few months was an ARMY school)      
2. Isreali Jews Vs Palestinian Muslims (1 sided affair, I know)
3. Shia Muslims backed by Iran Vs Sunni Muslims backed by Saudi Arabia in Yemen
4. ISIS (Sunni Muslim extremists) Vs Shia Muslims (and also other religious groups)  in Iraq
5.  ISIS vs Shia Muslims (president Bashar Al Assad is a Shia Muslim) in Syria
6. Muslim extremists Vs other religions in Africa
7. Pakistan backed Sunni extremist Muslims Vs India                                                       (majority of 15 crore Muslims in India do NOT have extremist views and  have no intention of  supporting or going to that hell hole created by Americans and Pak army)
8. Shia Muslims vs Sunni Muslims in Pakistan
9. Sunni muslim extremists Vs US and Allies (This seems like more of a cultural warfare due to the fact that western culture is more liberal as against conservative culture of Muslims especially the extremist)

The Players

Shia Muslims are a sect of Muslims who follow the teachings of Prophet Ali instead of Prophet Mohammed (followed by Sunni Muslims) and are not supported by Sunni Muslims. Iran is the only Shia majority country and usually backs Shia groups in these wars.

Iran is in turn backed by Russia, China and its allies and the US & allies usually backs sunni groups even though extremist groups like al-Qaida, ISIS Taliban etc are at war with US. It’s a lot more complicated mess there because of the cultural factors I mentioned above. So in short it’s a complicated tripartite war which can be simplified as

1.  Sunni Muslim extremists  Vs Shia Muslims
2.  Sunni Muslim extremists Vs western liberal culture (US and Allies)
3.  Sunni Muslims Vs Jews (Palestinians are not extremists at least not in my view).        
4.  Sunni Muslim Extremists Vs other religions

Factors behind Extremism

There are 2 factors which propagate Muslim religious extremism in the world. They are:

 American Myopia

      The Americans educated (more like brainwashed) poverty stricken Muslims in various parts of the world into believing a radical extremist form of Islam so as to use them against the Soviet Union (as communists were atheists) during the Cold War. As the Soviet Union disintegrated and became a non threat, these extremist Muslims trained their guns against their masters, the Americans. This is due to the fact that the western culture is mostly liberal and Muslim extremism is extremely conservative. The Muslim extremist viewed this as threat to their lifestyle and existence.

 Saudi conservatism

      Saudi Arabia which is the Epicenter of Islam still follows Wahabism an ultraconservative radical form of Islam even though it is an ally to the US. This indirectly gives support and confidence to the extremists and therefore uses violence to propagate this form of Islam. It should be specially noted that majority of Muslims in most of the other countries do not follow this form of Islam.

I know this might seem to be a simplistic account of a complicated issue but that’s exactly what it is supposed to be.

Final word: Let Humanity be your community and let love and peace be your belief.

NH 10 review: A movie that should be made and seen

For the past few days since ‪India‬'s daughter released there was a lot of debate whether people should watch it and whether it will help uncover the mindset behind that brutal act. While I found myself oscillating between both sides of perspective, I happen to watch a movie called NH10. Its about an urban couple, while on a road trip happens to watch an honour killing on NH10 with a nearby village ruled by khap panchayat.

         Throughout this edge of the seat thriller where the couple is terrorized by the gang, the director tries bring out the stark contrast between urban and rural India and its attitude towards women. The entire movie has a sense of doom to it as if you are watching a horror movie except the situations are realistic and so are the characters. it has all the elements of slasher-thriller to it a la films like eden lake, Hills have eyes etc. But what makes this one different is that the director has deftly embedded into its soul, critiques on rural India's misogynistic attitude towards women.

         

         Though adeptly scripted and directed, this film has its share of flaws. After giving us a sense that this film is realistic, the director does expect us  suspend our disbelief. For example people will run only through roads in which trucks can pass through so that they can conveniently get injured or killed. But for the most part the makers of NH10 have given us an immersive and thrilling experience with its usual twists and turns. The only time you flinch are at the time of those horrific scenes where the women are slapped, hit and bludgeoned with an iron rod. This film is not for the faint hearted, mind you.  If you are looking for a nice romantic outing with your spouse, look for something else  


              NH10 is, on the whole, a must watch for those who want to experience the environment where people like Mukesh Singh are born. Kudos to Navdeep Singh for his brilliant attempt at bringing those routine newspaper articles to life while at the same time never letting you become bored with any cliched "heropanti" or "dialoguebaazi". Acting is top notch from Anushka Sharma and rest of the cast even though a good actor like Niel Bhoopalam is wasted in a badly written role. Apart from the fact that this film will negatively impact Haryana tourism (Nobody will venture into rural haryana for a while after watching this film, trust me), this is a film that should be made and seen in spite of the fact that it may not run in packed houses collecting "100 crores"