SSDD

SSDD is a term that I came across around 8 to 9 years ago in a Stephen King book a friend of mine was reading, Dreamcatcher if I’m not mistaken. SSDD is the abbreviation for "Same Shit Different Day". Never did I expect that one day my life will be defined by this four letter abbreviation.

At the moment, that’s how my life looks like. My everyday activities have become such a routine that there is no more excitement in it. Weekdays are the worst. My day starts at 6.45am when I’m awoken by my mom. I would need to get her to work with my Honda Wave motorcycle by 7.00am. With whatever energy that I can muster, I would ride my motorcycle half awake and get my mom to work on time.

SSDD

The ride back home would be torturous. I would be clinging on to my consciousness trying not to fall asleep. As soon as I reach home, I would hit the couch and get back to sleep. Even though I have told myself many times to get up early so that I wouldn’t be late for work, I never seem to listen. By the time I wake up again, it would be around 7.50am. I have to be at work by 8.30am. You would think that 40 minutes is more than enough. Not in my case.

I don’t know how I do it, but I always manage to be late. The amount of things that I need to do to get ready is quite few; brush my teeth, unload in the toilet, shower, get dressed and drink a cup of Milo before I leave. Doesn’t seem like much does it? Well it’s the things in between that delay me. Sometimes I get hooked on the sports news and lose track of time. Sometimes when I am just about to leave for work, the stray cats around my house will be waiting at my doorsteps with their huge eyes begging for breakfast. I would spend my time making sure they get enough to eat to last them until mom comes back from work. Many things like this would crop up to make sure I am delayed. But sometimes, I’m late for no reason what so ever.

I would reach work at least 15 minutes late. By the time I reach work, some patients will already be there waiting for me. Not my fault. I always tell them to come after 8.45am, but they will turn up early. Some of them will come late as advised. As soon as I reach my work place, the first thing I would do is turn on my laptop and access my e-mail. I will glance through my e-mail, noting the work that awaits me for the day. After spending less than half a minute on my e-mail, I will tend to the patients.

Usually there are never more than four patients in a day at my place. By the way, I work at the Clinical Research Centre (CRC) in Hospital Taiping. I’m a Study Coordinator that assists my boss, an Endocrinologist, to run Industry Sponsored Research (ISR). So, the patients that come to our centre are clinical trial patients. My routine with the patients are almost the same. Even though they might belong to different type of clinical trials, the procedures are not that much different; measuring BP and weight, collecting blood samples, performing ECG, administer questionnaires and doing any other procedure required in the protocol. After preparing the patients, I will wait for my boss to arrive.

I have a wonderful boss. One of the nicest people I have ever worked with. My boss will come and see the patients. We will discuss any issues that might arise with the patients. Once my boss is done, it’s my turn again. I would need to dispense study drug to patients, inform their next appointment, give any special instructions for the next visit and pay them their reimbursement for the clinic visit.

Seems easy, but even this process alone can be quite the trouble. Study drugs are dispensed using an “interactive system”. It’s a choice between Interactive Web Response System and Interactive Voice Response System. Sounds quite technical doesn’t it. Well it’s not, is either we use the web or the telephone to get the appropriate study drug number that needs to be dispensed. It’s troubling when either the web or the telephone decides to fail you that day. The worse is when both decide to fail you. But ‘touch wood’, that has not happened before.

After I wave my patients goodbye, I would proceed to process the blood samples. The samples need to be centrifuged, transferred to the appropriate tubes and packed according to the International Airport Transport Association (IATA) requirements. The courier company allocated to the specific study has to be contacted to arrange pick up for the samples. Usually the samples are sent to Singapore. By the time I finish processing the samples, it will almost be lunch time. Sometimes, it would have exceeded my lunch time.

I always try to inject some variety into my lunch time. I never eat in the same place in the same week. So I would go to five different places to have my lunch throughout Monday to Friday. But after a certain period of time, I realized that I only had around ten places that I usually go to and I keep rotating between these ten places. So much for adding variety to my lunch. As the clock strikes 2.00pm, I will be heading back to the office. Sometimes I’ll be late. I must be real bad at being punctual.

After I come back from lunch and until I go back, everything that needs to be done would have already been listed. It would have come from my e-mails, instruction from my boss, phone calls from the CRAs and also the patients. I would try to finish as much work as I can, but as all other work, it is never ending. By the time I become exhausted and couldn’t go on, it will already be 6.30pm. I’m supposed to finish work by 5.30pm. I’m even late when it comes to going back home.

Before going back, I’ll make a quick phone call to my mom asking whether she needs anything for dinner or whether I need to get something from the shop. Usually the answer is yes. I would need to make a few stops before I go back home. But there are days that I can go straight back home. During days like these, my mom would have cooked dinner. It’s a pleasant feeling to come back home to mom’s cooking. I would not be able to taste my mom’s delicious cooking if I was working out of Taiping, and trust me, my mom’s cooking is really delicious. She works as a cook; of course her cooking would be delicious.

Well, back home, a quick shower and after having my dinner, I will try to watch a movie, a series or probably read a novel. But it will be difficult. I will be dead tired and would not be able to concentrate. I’ll talk with my mom to find out how her day was and also will tell her if my day was filled with anything interesting. Usually I won’t have anything interesting to tell. I’ll try to go back to my movie or book, but my efforts will be futile. I’ll be dozing off on the sofa and either the movie will be watching me or I would have dropped my book. Realizing that I’m not getting anywhere, I’ll decide to hit the bed.

What happens the next day? Well, the same thing that happened the day before and the same thing that is going to happen the day after. What you have read above is what I do every week from Mondays to Fridays. Are the weekends any different? Compared to the weekdays, of course the weekends are different. I do not work on weekends, some of the weekends to be exact.

Most of the time I do not know what happens to my weekends. It’s usually over before it even got started. My mom works on Saturdays but she only needs to go to work at around 8.30am. After I send my mom to work, I would go for breakfast. This is probably my favourite time of the whole week. I would ride my motorcycle around Taiping and choose which ever place to have breakfast at. I would eat anything that my heart desires. After that I would ride around Taiping for awhile before going back. I would not think about any of my problems. I would not think about anything from the past or anything about the future. Saturday mornings are the time that I truly live the moment.

Back at home, I will watch the movie that I have failed to watch throughout the week. By the time I am done, it will be time to fetch my mom back from work. On Saturdays she only works half day until 1.00pm. Mom will cook lunch and we would have lunch together. From around 3.00pm to 6.00pm, I usually have no idea what happens. If I take my mom to my uncle’s house, I remember what goes on. But if I am at home, I can’t remember what I do or what happens. That certain period of time will pass by so quickly without me noticing.

Saturday nights will only have two activities. Either I watch a Premier League match or go out with any of my friends that had decided to make the trip to Taiping from Kuala Lumpur for the weekend. Saturday night outings usually are quite long. When I say long, they are really long. We end up going back home at around 4.30am sometimes. Usually we go back at 4.00am. But that doesn’t mean I wake up late on Sundays. I’m usually up latest by 9.00am.

Sundays is all about lazing around. Not doing anything in particular. Might watch a movie, might not. The lazing around continues until lunch time when I have to bring my mom to my uncle’s house. My mom goes to visit my grandmother there. I leave her there and come back home. Mom is there until evening. So what do I do at home while I wait for the time to go and fetch my mom again? As I said, it’s a Sunday, so more lazing around. I fetch my mom, dinner and then Sunday is over. Looks like I really waste my Sundays.

Well there you have it. This is what I do from Mondays to Sundays. It doesn’t seem that bad does it? The bad part is I do the same thing every week, every month, throughout the year. There is no change. I rarely or almost never do anything different. I might go out for a movie every other week. But that’s not doing something different. I do not hate what I am doing every day, but things have become such a routine that every day is just full of boredom. It’s like I know what’s going to happen next.

This is how it has been for the past 2 to 3 years. But in 2014 all this is going to change. I refuse to stick to routine. I have to break out of this trap that I have build for myself. I know I won’t make surprise trips or anything. But the least I can do is try to do something different every day. So I’m going to try and do as much as mini projects as I can just to change things up. Most importantly I want to do a lot of something that I really love doing, writing. This is going to be the year that I write almost every day.

No more SSDD. Fingers crossed.

Fifth Attempt - Mariyaan Review

Well it has been a few months since I wrote my last movie review. If I'm not mistaken it was in January and I wrote a review on Vishwaroopam. I managed to get the article published in the Behindwoods webpage. But it is not exactly an amazing achievement as I was published in the visitor’s column and I think almost everyone who writes to them gets published. Never the less, it was great to know that my review might have a wide range of audiences and that is always encouraging for a writer. Though, I'm not sure how many people would have actually read it since there was no comments to be seen.

After Vishwaroopam, I didn't come across any film that needed my immediate attention and nothing sparked me to sit down start writing. The case with Vishroopam was the movie was held from release due to protest by some religious group and I took it onto myself to write about the movie and emphasize that the movie does not cast the Muslims in a bad light but in matter of fact does the exact opposite.

Snapshot of my review in Behindwoods

Now after 6 months, I have written about Mariyaan and got myself published once again in Behindwoods. It was titled "Mariyaan - Bringing Movie Making Back to Tamil Cinema". What triggered me to write about Mariyaan? Well, it was a good movie to begin with. Tamil cinema hasn't come across a near perfect blend of casting, story, screenplay, music and technical aspects for a long time. Mariyaan was that type of movie.

My second trigger was the lack of appreciation towards the movie from people surrounding me. Even though I left the cinema spellbound, many of my friends did not share the same enthusiasm. Not to mention all the other audiences; after half an hour they stopped paying attention to the movie. Most of them were already chit chatting, some were too busy with their mobile phones and the most annoying ones were those who were seated all the way behind and were mocking and making jokes about the movie. It really pissed me off that such cinematic brilliance was not receiving its due credit.

That’s why I sat down and wrote what I thought of the movie. I decided that I need to give it the appreciation that it deserves. It was one of the longest reviews I have written as I needed to talk about each and every aspect one by one. For those who would like to check out my review, here is the link:

http://www.behindwoods.com/tamil-movies-cinema-fans-column/mariyaan---bringing-movie-making-back-to-tamil-cinema-mariyaan-dhanush.html

Snapshot of the comment that my review received

I mentioned that I wasn't sure whether my review of Viswaroopam was ever read by anyone else. But for Mariyaan, I know at least one person has read it. How do I know that? Well after a few days of my review getting published, I visited the page once again just to take a look at it again. To my amazement, right at the bottom of the review there was comment by a reader who thought the review was excellent. That was certainly a delight. Not only I had reader, but he took the time to comment and most importantly it was a positive comment. I was really happy.

Maybe I'm not that bad of writer after all. If one guy can appreciate my writing, maybe others can too. Well one way to find out is to keep writing.

Top 10: Tamil Movies 2012

I did my Top 10 Tamil Movies 2011 last year. So I thought might as well make it an annual review. In 2011, I saw around 30 movies and my Top 10 was derived from that list. 2012 saw one of the largest releases of movies in Kollywood history. Altogether there were a total of 162 movies but unfortunately I only managed to watch 35 of them. Even though I only watched 22% of the movies, I would like to believe that I have managed to watch most of the good ones.

Last year my task of choosing the Top 10 was rather smooth as there was not much competition and the few good movies stood out from the others quite prominently. But 2012 not only saw a lot of movies but it saw a raise in the quality of the movies too. There were lot of good movies to choose from and it was rather difficult choosing the Top 10. But as usual, first we look at the list of 35 movies that I have watched and later we will go on to list the Top 10 and the reason why they were chosen.

Let’s kick start with the 35 watched movies of 2012 (in alphabetical order):

1. 3
2. Aarohanam
3. Ammavin Kai Pesi
4. Aravaan
5. Attakathi
6. Billa 2
7. Dhoni
8. Ishtam
9. Kadhalil Sodaphavathu Yeppadi
10. Kalakalappu
11. Kazhugu
12. Kollaikaran
13. Kumki
14. Leelai
15. Maattrraan
16. Manam Kothi Paravai
17. Marina
18. Mayilu
19. Murattu Kaalai
20. Murpoluthum Un Karpanaigal
21. Naan
22. Naan Ee
23. Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom
24. Nanban
25. Oru Kal Oru Kannadi
26. Pizza
27. Saattai
28. Saguni
29. Sundarapandian
30. Thadaiyaara Thaakka
31. Thandavam
32. Thuppakki
33. Vavval Pasanga
34. Vettai
35. Yaarukku Theriyum

And here are the Top 10 Movies of 2012 (also in alphabetical order):

3

Aishwarya Dhanush’s first venture as a director proved to be a successful one. Audiences of Tamil cinema are used to disorders like multiple personality, short term memory loss and retrograde amnesia. In this film Aishwarya introduces audiences to Bipolar Disorder. Many are not familiar with this disease but around 4% of the world population suffers from Bipolar Disorder. One out of three patients would attempt suicide at least once in their life.

Aishwarya came up with a fresh screenplay. The movie was showed as three stages of Ram’s (Dhanush) life so that teenage romance and comedy can be incorporated into the movie. This made the movie sail smoothly without being too tensed and too focused on the disease itself. The strong point that carried the movie was the performances by the cast especially Dhanush and Shruti Hassan who portrayed their characters very well. Dhanush gave an amazing performance as a school student, teenager in immense love and most importantly as a Bipolar Disorder patient. It’s a very difficult character to portray as the character has to show prominent difference while presenting symptoms like depression and mania. Dhanush is certainly expected to bag an award for his performance.

Sivakarthikeyan made a good impression and showed signs that he would be a star to watch out for in the future. The second strong point was of course the music by debutant music director Anirudh Ravichander. He already made waves with his “Why This Kolaveri Di” song track from the same movie and garnered 20 million views within 28 days making it an international sensation.

Overall the movie packs a good story highlighting the pains and sufferings of a lesser known disease with strong performances by the cast. Though at times the screen play gets a bit dragging, 3 is not a movie to be missed.

Aaravan

Set in the 18^th century Tamil Nadu, Aravaan is story of a man played by Aadhi destined to be sacrificed for a murder he did not commit. Aravaan draws its essence from the customs in the Legend of Mahabharatha, where Arjunan’s son is sacrificed to win the Kurukshetra War. Vasanthabalan tries to tackle a different genre for each of his new release. In Aravaan the forgotten customs of 18^th century Tamil Nadu was presented to the audiences.

Though Aravan carried mixed emotions throughout the film and loses pace at certain points, the technical effort in the movie has to be well praised. Art direction and costumes were designed in such an intricate manner that the 18^th century Tamil Nadu village and lifestyle was literally brought to life on the silver screen. A slow pace story lined with mystery and sacrifice with a backdrop of great technical work, Aravan will be the start of more periodic films to come.

Kadhalil Sodaphavathu Yeppadi

Cinema is always filled with emotional movies, chaotic masala movies; full fledge comedy movies and depressing heart wrecking movies. Every emotion goes to the extreme in these type of movies. So for those who do not want any extremism and just looking for a relaxing heartwarming movie, Kadhalil Sodaphavathu Yeppadi is the movie for you. A story about love in all walks of life mainly focusing on the relationship between Siddarth and Amala Paul surrounded by the love life of their colleagues and Amala Paul’s parents. It’s a relaxing heartwarming movie about love life during college days. Screenplay is well crafted so that the story is not too rushed and avoids hitting a plateau. Cast gave good simple performance in line with the plot. Sit back, relax and enjoy the lovely stroll with Kadhalil Sodaphavathu Yeppadi.

Kumki

With the success of Myna, Prabhu Solomon’s next venture, Kumki was highly expected. The announcement that actor Prabhu’s son will be making his debut in Kumki, made the expectations go higher. Well, the audience wasn’t disappointed. Kumki turned out to be one of the top movies of the year. Kumki is a story of a young man, Bomman and his pet elephant Manickam whom he treats as his brother. Bomman gets entangled in a love relationship with Alli, a village girl and puts his friends and Manickam in danger as Manickam is used as a “Kumki” elephant to ward off the crop-menacing wild elephant Komban.

A heart gripping story about a man and his elephant, being blinded by love and carrying the hope and trust of an entire village. Cinematography, story, screenplay and music were the stars of the movie. The camera works around Manickam and nature were amazing. Fresh story was coupled with smooth screenplay. D.Imaan’s music brings to live every small emotion portrayed in the movie. Vikram Prabhu proved in his debut that he is here to stay. Lakshmi Menon again proved herself as a good actress after her debut in Sundarapandian. Thambi Ramaiah’s performance deserves applause. The biggest star of the show is of course Manickam, literally too.

Naan

Another debutant actor with a well crafted movie was Vijay Anthony in Naan. Vijay Anthony plays a man who is both intelligent and gifted in impersonating others. But being scarred at childhood with his mother cheating on his father leading to his suicide, Vijay Anthony grows without guidance in a juvenile home. He is keen to continue studying after being released but does not garner any support from his relatives. An unfortunate event brings an unexpected opportunity for Vijay Anthony to pursue his studies.

Getting admission into a medical college through impersonation, Vijay Anthony’s supposed good fortune brings him more peril. Trying to lead a peaceful life and get on with his studies, Vijay Anthony is tested through many ways and the harder he tries to stay away from trouble the more his past comes chasing after him. One by one his mistakes turn into violent ends. Well acted, well scripted and well directed.

Naan Ee

You know Tamil cinema has come a long way when a CGI character takes the lead role in a movie. As you would have guessed from the title, this movie is led by a CGI generated housefly. Though the movie lightly plays with the long time used reincarnation genre, it takes a favorable twist when the main character in reincarnated as a housefly.

Even though the formula is something that we had seen before, Naan Ee is fresh with its use of CGI and also a screenplay that doesn’t give you a dull moment. Both Nani and Samantha have played their roles well even though Nani only features for a short while in the movie. Sudeep gave an outstanding performance especially his manic response when hunted by the housefly. And our favorite character in the movie is of course the loveable housefly “Nani”. Never did I expect that we will be cheering of a CGI generated fly while watching a Tamil movie.

Nanban

Well there is nothing much that needs to be said about Nanban. It is a remake of the critically and commercially acclaimed Bollywood movie, Three Idiots. Not wanting to spoil or tarnish the movie, Shankar chose to stay close to the original version and not making any major changes. The movie is exactly the same with the Hindi version with only minute changes and an addition of a song especially crafted for fans of Vijay and Ileana.

Surprisingly Vijay carried his character well as many expected him to give a dull or unworthy performance. Not only he carried his character well, but there was a certain sense of freshness and youthfulness that wasn’t seen in Aamir Khan’s character. The others did the character well. Jeeva was on par with Sharman Joshi. Sri Kanth falls a little short in comparison with Madhavan’s performance. Sathyaraj was equal to Boman Irani meanwhile Ileana had a certain cuteness that wasn’t possessed by Kereena Kapoor.

Overall, Three Idiots was a great movie and getting the chance to see it in Tamil just made it even better. It was a good opening for the year and was followed by good movies throughout the year.

Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom

Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom was a low budget movie made by debutant director, Balaji Tharaneetharan with no big names in his small team. Nothing much was expected form this movie but once the preview screenings for critics were done, the movie garnered highly positive reviews. And the critics were not wrong; the movie opened to audiences and became an instant hit. Not only it was a hit, it became a comedy cult with huge following and has become a movie which will be talked about for many years to come.

The movie was based on a true incident which happened to the film’s cinematographer, Prem Kumar while he was working as an assistant cameraman in Vaaranam Aayiram. Prem Kumar had a small accident while he was playing cricket with his friends two days before his wedding which led him to suffer from short term memory loss where he forgot almost one year of his memory from the incidence. His three friends, including Balaji Tharaneetharan go through series of events to make sure his wedding goes as planned even though he is not even aware about the girl he is marrying. This incidence was the basis for Balaji to come up with this laughter filled movie.

Watch Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom and you will be laughing your hearts out. Watch it again and again; you will still be laughing your hearts out. Watch it after a few years, and trust me, you will still be laughing your hearts out.

Pizza

No one would have ever imagined that a horror movie would be in my top ten lists especially a movie with ghosts in it. Well those who know me would know that only certain ghost movie interests me. Movies like The Sixth Sense, The Others, Yaavarum Nalaam and few others had a different approach from normal main stream ghost movies which attracts me. Pizza was a movie like that.

Pizza is another movie from a debutant director, Karthik Subbaraj. 2012 was a great year for debutants and also for Vijay Sethupathi who has another film in this list. Pizza was a mixture which had everything right; story, screenplay, acting, cinematography, background score, sound effects and direction. Pizza is a thrilling story which keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout the movie and is finished with an equally intelligent twist. Anyone who loves a horror movie will definitely love Pizza.

Thuppakki

The commercial movie of the year was definitely Thuppakki. AR Murugadoss was back after the success of 7aum Arivu. Thuppakki was the hit of the year and the most commercially successful film of the year. This time AR Murugadoss visited the life of military officers combined with the concept of “sleeper cells” which was new to some of the audiences. AR Murugadoss played the movie on a fine line, not making it too serious and realistic or making it into an out and out commercial movie. This proved to be the strength of Thuppakki.

Vijay once again delivered a good performance making it a great year for him as it was coupled with the success of Nanban too. The movie was fast paced and every scene made us anticipate Vijay’s next encounter with the terrorists even more. The minus point of the movie was Jeyaram’s unnecessary comedic role and the romance between Vijay and Kajal which was stretched too long bordering on boredom. Nevertheless these minus points were needed to make Thuppakki a complete commercial movie. If entertainment was what you are looking for, then Thuppakki is the movie for you.

Special mention needs to go to a few movies that did not make the list. Aarohanam was a movie about a woman with bipolar disorder who suffers because of her disease, her domestic problems and also the burden of raising her children. It was a different approach from “3” but carried a good story on its own and wonderful performance from the casts. Dhoni, Saattai and Marina all concentrated on our education system and children. They were three movies with different approaches outlining the importance of education and also the flaw in the system that runs it. Children and the education system have garnered increased attention in last year’s movies.

Sundara Pandian was a village story depicting romance and also the violence that follows in certain cases. It was a wholesome entertainment not going very much into the violence keeping it just nice for viewing. Thadayara Thaakka was the opposite of Sundarapandian. Not focusing too much on romance, this movie was a total action thriller movie but it kept to its realism and not going too out of hand. The action sequences were a big strength for the movie.

Vazhukku En 18/9 needs the most special mention as it received the National Award for the Best Feature Film Tamil and Best Make Up. Not to mention two Vijay Awards for Best Movie and Best Director. Balaji Sakthivel of Kaadhal fame received high critical acclaims for this movie. Why didn’t it make my Top Ten? The answer is simple. If you go through the watched movies list above, you can clearly see that I have not watched this movie yet and if I have, it is a high possibility that it would have made the Top Ten lists.

Well last year in overall I mentioned that the Tamil movie industry is going on the right path. The judgment still remains and I feel that the Tamil movie industry is growing towards greater heights. Hope that the industry stays on its course and gets better and better by the year.