Anuradha Sridharan

I had this really scary dream a couple of days back. It was a series of events. Though I don't remember all of them, this one is crystal clear in my mind. My team is researching about the mysteries happening in an ancient temple in a village. The newspapers are filled with articles about these mysteries everyday. People's lives are in jeopardy. My team is visiting the village after collecting all the details. We reach the village around 5 PM. A local villager takes us to the temple. Things are going smooth. People are visiting the temple and doing their offerings. The local villager explains about the significance of this temple in ancient history. He says there are ruins of an older temple a few kilometres from this temple. I tell my team that we should visit the ruins to find any clue and they agree. The villager sends a woman priest to guide us as he needs to go somewhere else. "Hurry, let's go" said the woman priest. She is a different lady, wearing a thick bl...

I have been waiting for this movie ever since it's launch. I'm talking about my favourite director's and my favourite music director's combo Guru. I got to listen to the songs this afternoon and needless to say, am mesmerized by most, not all of them. "Barso re megha" sung by Shreya Ghoshal is a perfect rain song that reminds me of Mouna Raagam's "Oh oh megam vandhadho". I feel like dancing in rain while listening to the good beats and Shreya's cool voice. "Ey Hairathe" sung by Hariharan and Alka Yagnik is a beautiful melody. It begins with the theme music "Dum Dara Dum Dara" sung by the greatest musician himself which sets the tone perfectly. The way Rahman and Alka alternate between "Dum Dara" and "jashn jashn" is superb. Alka is very good at slow paced songs like Saawariya from Swades. The tabla has been used very effectively. At any day, I would prefer our very own tabla rather than the drums. ...

I'm referring to my morning commute time. When I started taking my office cab in the mornings, I would just look out through the window, observe the bustling traffic, sometimes get irritated by the sudden brakes that my cab driver casually exercise every 100 metres or so, get angry at the overspeeding vehicles and continuous honking of two wheelers. As a result, by the time I reach office, my mood will be in a hyper state and my whole day gets spoilt. I made a slight change and my days now begin with a good mood in the past few weeks. I started reading novels, especially light fiction. I read a few pages everyday and a lot more over the weekend. This helps me to return my library books on time. I managed to complete Paulo Coelho's "Zahir". Currently I'm reading Ruskin Bond's "Lamp is lit". For Paulo Coelho fans, a piece of suggestion. Zahir is not as impressive as his other books. It's very slow and ending is just straight, no twists or turns. I...

One of my favorite directors of Tamil cinema, K.Balachandar had come to my cousin's wedding. Ofcourse, to whom he is related to is totally irrelevant. I went upto him and said that I'm a fan of his movies and I liked "pudhu pudhu arththangaL" a lot. He just nodded and smiled. I admire the simplicity of this man who introduced stalwarts like Rajni and Kamal. My favorite black and white movie is "edhir neechal". A perfect movie with a superb cast. The character of Maadippadi Maadhu is a classic. The hilarious screen play, especially the scenes when the entire household thinks that Maadhu is a rich fellow and shower him with goodies, Nagesh's expressions and the body language of every character in the movie etc etc. Only a genius like Balachandar can make such a nice movie. "Unnal Mudiyum Thambi" is another gem of a movie. The concept fits in so perfectly with my beliefs. I would have seen this movie atleast 25 times but I never get bored of it. ...

I can finally put a tick mark in my goals list for this year. Yes, I volunteered for Dream a Dream's Computer programme. Being a person who likes to teach (it's in my genes, I suppose), I wanted to volunteer for this programme the first time I heard about it. But due to time constraints and unavailability on certain Saturdays, it could never happen. When I came across Shashank's email a month back, I also realized that this is indeed the last programme for the current academic year. I replied quickly, confirming my participation. The orientation session happened in the serene surroundings at Ananya. I spent a whole day with a bunch of enthusiastic volunteers and our trainer Dr.Rao who explained the minute details of how we should go about teaching kids. He made the session interesting with a lot of anecdotes and activities. It was an eye-opener for me. I was really looking forward to the forthcoming sessions. The next week was a planning session. I volunteered for the ...

Today is the birth centenary of a man who can spin interesting stories with simple words. He is none other than my favourite writer R.K.Narayan. My reading habit was reinstated because of his novel 'Swami and Friends'. Though I have read many of his novels, this one holds a special place. He is definitely one of my inspirational writers. I wish Malgudi is not a fictional town. There are quite a number of villages in India that has a flavor of Malgudi. You can read a couple of my reviews here - Vendor of Sweets , My Days Note to myself : I should go home and read a few pages written by this wonderful author tonight.

Yes, I'm talking about Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu. A well-made action packed thriller. The director deserves a big round of applause for making such a good movie and managing to release the film after the financial hassles. The music was amazing and I started to like the songs even before the movie got released especially Vennilave and Paartha mudhal naaLe. The heroine, the one who comes in the first half is beautiful and her eyes are very expressive. Ofcourse, Jyotika looks stunning in sarees in the song Uyirile. Talking about the hero Kamal, he fits perfectly in the role of a cop although he looks pretty old. The pace of the movie was superb, with Jyotika's part as occasional speed breakers. Some of the scenes were violent, especially the hanging finger amidst lemon and green chillies (dhrishti symbol !!) and the dead bodies. In a perfect movie, what is the need of a dance song with skimpily dressed dancers? That's one of the two negative points I noticed, the other being was...