TOscars 2009

This is a Desi Tamil version of the Academy awards :)

The movies are based on what I have seen and felt. There might be a few more worthy contenders left out. If there are any, kindly post a comment.

Here are the nominees for the various categories. Winners will be announced on the first day of the New Year!!

(Winners listed at the end of post)

The categories are simple: Best movie, Best Actor (Male), Best Actress (Female) and Best Album (Music Director). More categories might be added in the future :)

So, here goes the list *Drum Roll*

Best Movie 2009 Nominees

• Naan Kadavul by Bala

This movie deserved every bit of its nomination for the director's bold effort in handling a subject that many would not even dared to think about. He was ably supported by an excellent cast including the lead pair Arya and Pooja who made the movie complete.

• Yavarum Nalam by Vikram Kumar

A nice horror/thriller in Tamil after a very long time. Many have made an effort in the recent few years but only in vain. It had all the components to provide a nice thrill and kept us on the edge of the seats all the way.

• Naadodigal by Samuthirakani

One of those films which went on to prove that block busters don't really mean huge production costs. In a year where films like Kandhaswamy which largely relied on the huge budget/hype and star cast failed to make a mark, few films like this showed that as long as the story is fine, people welcome a movie with both hands.

• Eeram by Arivazhagan

Another not-so-big-budget films and a nice thriller like Yaavarum Nalam. It was visually appeasing and the cast was very good. Virtually unknown actor Aadhi (earlier starred in Mirugam) made a mark for himself with his performance. And ofcourse Sindhu Menon came up with one the best performance from a female actor this year.

• Unnaipol Oruvan by Chakri Toleti

This one movie I had to think a lot before including it for the nominations. It was not an original screenplay. It was a remake of the Hindi version 'A Wednesday'. But it was not a remake that spoiled the original even though you could not say that this was better than the original. The 2 veterans in the lead made sure they carried the movie on their shoulders.

A special mention has to be made for few more splendid efforts. Pasanga by Pandiraj, Vennila Kabaddi Kuzhu by Susindran and Renigunta by Paneerselvam won the favour of the critics and did well at the box office too. Hope there would be more such honest efforts in 2010.

Best Actor 2009 Nominees

• Arya for Naan Kadavul
• Kamal Haasan for Unnaipol Oruvan
• Sasi Kumar for Nadodigal
• Aadhi for Eeram

Best Actress Nominees

• Pooja for Naan Kadavul
• Sindhu Menon for Eeram
• Tamanna for Kandean Kadhalai
• Abhinaya for Naadodigal
• Padma Priya for Pokkisham

Best Album (Music Director)

• Harris Jeyaraj for Aadhavan, Ayan
• Devi Sri Prasad for Kandhaswamy, Villu
• Yuvan Shankar Raja for Sarvam, Vaamanan
• Vijay Antony for Nenaithaley Inikum, Vettaikaran, TN07-AL-4777

*** The winners ***

Best Movie

Naadodigal

Best Actor

Aadhi (Eeram)

Best Actress

Pooja (Naan Kadavul)

Best Musician

Harris Jeyaraj

The day I was blessed

The magician and his wand

Bless my holy angel! Was i really watching this!? I jus CAN NOT BELIEVE!! I felt like I was blessed 175 times today! Its an innings of a life time and something which u can very proudly say to ur kids n grand children that "I was alive when that happened and I watched it live!!"
And for this first time in my life i shud say n am guilty to accept that today something was more important for me than India winning. I was madly hoping that he wud cross 194 n reach whr any ODI player has never been, the magic 200. However it was dreadful that it could not be a fairy tale ending and had to end that way..
Most of us have read about One man show, single man army n all those stuff where an individual brilliance overshadows anything n everything that happened that day. This was that day and Sachin was the man. The Man of the match award for a man from the losing side stands as a little testimony.
Am damn excited and emotions are running high. Penning them all down is a pretty tough ask. I wud have written a blog for every shot he played today, that wud have been lot easier. It had his class written all over, again n again.

I guess am sounding a little lunatic. So, I wud better take a break here n go back to enjoying one of the finest moments in the history of Indian cricket.

The answer was pretty obvious when he was asked post-match as what keeps motivating him all these years. "I care about playing for India, it's a passion and I have been absoloutely honoured to play for India so long" This is why we love u!

I cant imagine hw things wud b, once this guy retires!! I just cant digest that it might happen some day.. Sachin, Do u really need to retire!? U jus keep playing till eternity. Hope the God gives him a long life and in someway an ability to play till his very very end for the simplest of reason that the law of aging just doesn't apply for this man.

- A Sachin Fanatic

ICC Awards 2009

Its that part of the year when the Cricket players are honored. And they have something to brag about officially!! This year the awards had a very good Indian presence. Hope it gets better with years :)


ICC World Player of the Year - Mitchell Johnson [Australia]

Test Player of the Year – Gautham Gambir [India]

ODI Player of the Year – MS Dhoni [India]

Twenty20 International Performance of the Year - Tillakaratne Dilshan [Sri Lanka]

Emerging Player of the Year - Peter Siddle [Australia]

Spirit of Cricket - New Zealand

Umpire of the Year – Aleem Dar [Pakistan]

World Test Team of the Year – Led by Dhoni [India]

Gautam Gambhir (India), Andrew Strauss (England), AB de Villiers (South Africa), Sachin Tendulkar (India), Thilan Samaraweera (Sri Lanka), Michael Clarke (Australia), MS Dhoni (India, capt & wk), Shakib Al Hasan (Bangladesh), Mitchell Johnson (Australia), Stuart Broad (England), Dale Steyn (South Africa), Harbhajan Singh (India, 12th man)



World ODI team – Led by Dhoni [India]

Virender Sehwag (Ind), Chris Gayle (WI), Kevin Pietersen (Eng), Tillakaratne Dilshan (SL), Yuvraj Singh (Ind), Martin Guptill (NZ), MS Dhoni (Ind, captain, WK), Andrew Flintoff (Eng), Nuwan Kulasekara (SL), Ajantha Mendis (SL), Umar Gul (Pak), 12th man: Thilan Thushara (SL)

Women's Player of the Year - Clare Taylor [England]

Associate Player of the Year - Will Porterfield [Ireland]

Thanks Cricinfo, from where the content was heavily borrowed :)

Up in flames

It was just another day at office and I was on the worst part of my day 'Traveling in my office bus back home'. Its a real torture traveling in Indian roads in the evenings, where the traffic is at peak and the climate being no less mean ..phew!! hot n sultry.

This day, it was a particularly long travel. The travel seemed to be smooth until Ottery. There was an intermittent rain here n there. Our bus has to take a big diversion these days, thanks to the never-ending Perambur fly-over construction. We have to go through the Vyasarpadi Jeeva junction and get back into Perambur. The under-bridge (if u can call it so, the one that goes below a railway track) usually messes up traffic. It's always a lot crowded there. But today the buses were really inching their way towards the Vyasarpadi area. There were huge crowds everywhere, lot of traffic diversions and people in khaki were in action too. We had no clue as whats happening, and we thought it was just another traffic jam of some kind. It took around 20-30 mins to cover a half a km stretch. Only when the bus neared the slum area we could sense the smell of smoke. A little further down the road, I was really shocked to see what I was really seeing. What had been a huge slum area with so many huts and small houses, was now literally a piece of land covered in black ash and thick smoke. It was a horrible sight for anyone to see their belongings going up in smoke. It must have been very difficult to those people. Almost all of them have been rendered homeless. To make it worse, it started raining again and people had nowhere to go. There were a lot of babies crying their hearts out, kids clinging onto  their moms and women desperately searching for their husbands and most of the people around with the local police trying to help each other.

I was just sitting in the bus not knowing what to do, and with an even worse feeling that afterall I can't do anything. At times I feel that God might have been a little rude. If everything happens for good, what good can this incident lead to? Only time can answer. I consoled myself saying that everything happens for a reason. And back home, I googled about the incident next day and found that nearly 40 huts had been gutted and around Rs 2 lakhs worth property has been destroyed. But, luckily there has been no casualities.
Seems like the fire broke out around 1.30 pm in Kalyanapuram near Vyasarpadi police station and soon engulfed about 40 hutments in the area. Seven fire engines from nearby stations were deployed immediately and the damage has been reduced to the least. But the people who saw it had a different story to tell. They complained that the fire engines took 45 minutes to arrive. By that time, everything was reduced to ashes. And as always, the police denied the charges. God only knows what happened.

As the old cliché goes, prevention is better than cure. The Government shoud start taking serious steps to avoid similar incidents. Am not sure whether the

[caption id="attachment_386" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Firemen trying to douse the fire"][/caption]

entire slum was a legal one, with proper precautions taken. I have heard of people renting the concrete houses provided for them by the Government and preferring to stay back in the slums. A task force has to be created to make sure that all people stay in their rightful homes.
There was a similar incident in Vysarpadi around 6 years back. People never learn from their mistakes :(
This time it was just a damage to properties which can be recovered, but what if its gonna be loss of lives next time! Food for some thought!

Foto Tag

No one has tagged me so far! So am gonna surutify a tag from one of my fellow bloggers
This one was interesting. The Flickr photo tag!

Here goes the rules

1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into FlickrSearch.
2. Using only the first page, pick an image.
3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.



1. What is your first name?
Ram Mohan

2. What is your favorite food? Right now?
Idly

3. What high school did you go to?
Montford Matric

4. What is your favorite color?
Black

5. Who is/was your celebrity crush?
Simran ;)

6. Favorite drink?
coffee

7. Dream vacation?
Australia

8. Favorite dessert?
Basundhi :P

9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
A media personality 8)

10. What do you love most in life?
Family

11. One Word to describe you.
Nallavan :D

12. Your flickr name.
Sankris Ram

Btw, I found a definition for Basundhi - Sweet fig in cardamom milk 8)

Photo Credits:


1. Ram Mohan Roy, 2. Idly_sambar_vada, 3. Rochester Cathedral HDR x5, 4. Solitude : Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self., 5. Simran, 6. Cookie splash! v6, 7. 'So what are you doing this Australia Day ?' Eyre Peninsula South Australia, 8. Sweet figs in cardamom milk!, 9. ABC coverage, 10. The Finger Family, 11. Nee Nallavanukku Nallavan, 12. Winter Ram