There can be only one person who has made 2008 as his own. And I feel he will make the strongest impact in the international economy in 2009. Rightly so I an writing this on December 31st.

Who would have thought a conservative socialistic will become the world’s powerful man? Who would have thought a colored American will infuse so much confidence in to the hearts of the millions? Who would have that “Change” “Yes we can” will become the mantra of young Americans?

I liked the way he did his campaign, he made equal pitching in person and also through Internet. He became most Tweeted personality, no.1 twitterer, first campaigner in iPhone, Facebook applications and what not?

Somehow I don’t think Indians would have liked his win. Although he would be Indian friendly in defense decisions, I expect his economic decisions to vastly affect the Indian IT ITES industry..

He is the man who we watched march towards the White House, he will be the Man who we will be watching for the year to come. He is Barack Hossein Obama – the Person of the Year.

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Movie of the Year in Kollywood – Dasavatharam

Some of the readers may feel this is a populist decision and it’s not worth to be the movie of the year. There are 2 reasons why it deserves to be the movie of the year.

1. For the 10 roles done by Kamal, the screen play and the chaos theory part.

2. It was the largest grosser for 2008 in Tamil.

I will not term it as a classic. I can’t even compare it to Nayagan,Anbe Sivam or Hey Ram but this one is a magnum opus. It showed the world a single man’s passion towards movies. Kamal is a born actor, he was born to act. He could not have been something else ( like what Sachin is to cricket or Maradona for Football). The film was extremely spilled over with his acting antics,thoughts and beliefs. I just loved it. The other contenders were Subramaniapuram, Anjathe & Varanam Aayiram but some how my bias towards Kamal made me to take this choice.

My extensive review of Dasavatharam here 

Movie of the Year in Bollywood – A Wednesday

I saw less number of Hindi Movies this year than last year. May be I chose my movies this year. The few notable are Jodhaa Akbar, Jaane to Ya Jaane Na, Dasvidaniya. I am yet to see Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and Ghajini but even before that i chose my movie of the year, it’s  A Wednesday. 

A small time movie with two brilliant actors in the lead and a wonderful theme surrounding it. It’s about a guy who plants the bombs at different places in Mumbai and asks for a release of few Mumabi Train Blast Terrorists. There is a twist in the tale. If you not seen the movie, watch it in DVD, then you will know why i say it’s a landmark movie. If you are not enthused with the theme, watch it for Naseeruddin Shah & Anupam Kher, watch it for the slick direction, watch it for the griping screenplay and if you are fan for a movie like Tashan, please don’t watch ‘A Wednesday’.

For the complete review of the movie, check here..

P.S: There was a news in The Hindu yesterday about the remake of the movie in Tamil & Malayalam with Kamal doing the Naseeruddin Shah Role and Mammooty doing the Anupam Kher role.. Should i say awesome?

Movie of the Year in Hollywood – Dark Knight & Wall E

Again, I wouldn’t say Dark Knight is a classic. It was just another Super Hero movie and in fact it was too long, I stood up thrice during the movie, thinking that the movie has ended. You can’t compare it to The God Father, Heath Ledger can’t be compared to Marlon Brando – not even a distant second. ( I dunno why people have given better rating than God Father in IMDB- sympathy wave works everywhere!!!)

But Heath Ledger was fantabulous. One of the best antagonist portrayals ever to be made in the movie history (no.1 for me is Hannibal Lectar of Anthony Hopkins on any day). Heath made the character alive. There will not be a better portrayal than that. The body language, the dialogues, the actions- simply awesome. But the Batman was looking like stupid in front of him. The climax was such that it had to salvage some pride for Batman.

Dark Knight – only for Joker

On the other hand, Wall E is the best movie to be ever made in the animation genre. It surpassed movies like Toy Story, Shrek, Open Season,finding Nemo, Happy Feet etc., by it’s technical provess and storyline.

Sometimes I wonder how Pixar alone has such a imagination ability and can spill life in to inate animation objects. Wall E scores over Dark Knight because it had the romance of Shakespeare ( Romeo Juliet), social outlook of Michael Moore kinds, life of a normal man and technicality of Pixar.

You have to just watch it to love it. A wonderful treat to eyes, ears and heart.

P.S: With Pixar beating their own benchmark every year, I just wonder what will be their ultimate achievement.

Song of the Year – Tamil

Nenjukkul Peidhidum mamazhai – nice choice but not great, Taxi Taxi – liked by a specfic sect of the audience, Where’s the party- semma kuthupa, Kallai Mattunm – a wonderful rendering but a rip off from a old Telegu song, Un Thalai Mudi – a wonderful fantasy love poem after a long time.

There is one silent winner this year for the song of the year according to me. The music director was doing gospel music untill this movie, he is more famous as a anchor, but wow what a soulful melody he has given birth to.

Kangal Irandal from Subramaniyapuram is my choice for the song of the year. A light romantic melody with a simple beat and a strong lyric. The song was rendered by Benny Dayal & Deepa Mariam. Check out the song for yourself

Song of the Year – Hindi

I have a bad feeling when i have to choose songs in Indian FIlm Industry. Because most of them either ripped off from Western Music, Arabic, Korean, Japanese  !$% ( Both Hindi & Tamil). The few songs which really touched me this year in Hindi are Kahin To from Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, Tujh Me Rab Dikhta Hai from Rab Ne ( My caller tune), Ek Lau from Aamir ( The song which ran as a tribute to Mumbai Heroes in NDTV). But the song of the year for me would be Kaise Mujhe from Ghajini. 

No explanations. Just hear it to know why it is the best of the Year. It seeps through your heart and hurts you very deeply.. The guys who were in love will know it better…

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Sportsperson of the Year-India

There were innumerable nominations running in my mind. MS Dhoni for his memorable captaincy ( Lucky !!!), Sachin for initiating 12000 league, Vijender for his boxing feat, Vishy for his world championship, Saina Nehwal for her Junior World Championship and breaking in to top 10, Pankaj Advani his World Championship,Sushil Kumar for his Wrestling Bronze or Jeev Milkha Singh for becoming the Asia’s Best Golfer. It was a wonderful year for Indian Sports but the jewel in the crown was Abhinav Bindra.

I was doing a quiz that day in Ethiraj for their library celebrations. I waited till 10.30 at my home to see Abhinav hitting almost a perfect score in the last shot and I was yelling with happiness. I was in cloud nine and silently tears rolled down my eyes to see my National Anthem being played in the Olympics after 28 long years.

I tried to get a good photo of his in the Internet and wanted to break the news in the quiz. I dedicated that day’s quiz to two people- one was Sujatha,my favorite writer ( as it was my first quiz after his demise and it was a literary quiz) and Abhinav. When his photo was displayed on the screen, there was a thunderous applause in the hall. The girls were clapping,hooting, yelling with exuberence of happiness.

On the dedication note I said “I have been watching Olympics since when I was 6 years old (Seoul). Everytime I would sit and wait for that moment when the Indian National Anthem would be sung. It never happened and this guy has made it for us”.

The best part was his expression after winning it and he said ” I shot better in last olympics but today was my day”. I salute his parents for supporting him with private shooting range and the confidence they had in him.

At least now, let the govt. take some initiatives in improving sports like Shooting, Wrestling, Boxing, Badminton, Table Tennis and even Football ( Our Team became one of the 16 best teams in Asia)

Hail Abhinav for his wonderful feat and making India Proud. Kudos to Indian sports people who made this a wonderful 2008.

His blog post after winning the Gold.It speaks a lot about his thoughts about Indian Sports.

http://abhinavbindra.blogspot.com/2008/08/day-after.html

Sportsperson of the Year – International

Am I going to write about Tiger Woods? Lewis Hamilton? Felippe Massa? Justin Henin Hardenne? Cristiano Ronaldo? Lionel Messi? Gramae Smith? Michael Phelps ( A strong contender with 8 Golds in Olympics) Nope.. There was one guy inspite of my hatred towards him, impressed me with his sports achievement. Tall, long haired and extremely bad dressed Rafael Nadal.

Let’s keep this straight. I hate both Federer and Nadal. I hate them as much as I hate 20-20 cricket. Both suck big time and it’s a waste of time to watch. But conquering both clay and grass is one of the rarest achievements in Tennis. Pete Sampras, Roger Federer, Arthur Ashe, Ivan Lendl are few of those great players who could not achieve it.

You have to play in two different speeds in both the turfs. This year was Nadal’s. He reinstated his reign of clay once again and broke the reign of Federer in Wimbledon. It should have been painful for Federer because he lost a life time chance of equalling Bjorn Borg’s record of 5 consecutive wimbledon titles. Anyways the best player won.

Nadal proves to me the sportsperson of the year because he won against the best possible opposition he could play against ( Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps loses here). Let’s see whether he could repeat it again in 2009.

P.S: I dunno whether someone can beat the Golden Grandslam of Steffi ( all the 4 open titles with Olympic Gold).. That lady was a class act (May be her Son)

Failure of the Year:

Certainly not Sania Mirza although she qualifies for it. Liu Xiang – it was a bad injury. Roger Federer- his opposition was better than him, Felippe Massa- luck or conspiracy? ( My take it’s a conspiracy) but there was one big team which dug their hole for themselves combined with the wonderful performances of it’s opposition. Failure of the year goes to The Australian Cricket Team.

I think it all started with the Sydney Test match. The way they conducted on field, off the field comments, arrogance of Ponting lead to the eventual reselience of Indian Cricket Team. The wonderful win of Perth and following it up with the ODI series win after 1985, the australian empire started to fall like the Trojan Empire.

The coffins were ready and India started hitting the first nails with the home series win. The next nail was by the Proteas as they chased down 414 in Perth.

I say they dug the hole by themselves because the previous Australian played to it’s strengths – the bowlers. Once the legends ( Mcgrath Warne) retired, the bowling has become inept to take 20 wickets in a Test Match.

It was not the Ponting’s captaincy that they won, it’s because he had a wonderful team at his disposal. Once his strengths exposed like a naked lady, he is struggling to cover his modesty and jumping in to word fights rather bat fights.

While I am typing this, they are fighting back with the Boxing Day test match in Melbourne. They may even win it but the real truth is they are guarding a losing empire. Some day in 2009, the Australian Cricket Empire will fall.

P.S: Everybody is praising MS Dhoni for his captaincy. But i would not agree because he has the best Indian Team he could ever get with a strong opening pairs (bowling & batting), the celebrated middle order and a world class spinner ( doesn’t it look like the old Australian Team). Let’s wait and see, when the middle order retires.

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Sunitha (name changed) was a normal Hindu Brahmin girl studying in a reputed college in India. One sudden day, she changed her religious identity in to Christian – New Born. She says she changed her religion because she experienced Jesus Christ on a mud night. She preaches Bible and is in pursuit of converting her family too.

Annie, a pious Roman Catholic till a year back is happily married with two cute children. He was attending Sunday service alone and taking care of her family. She meets one of her friends, who frequents to prayer meetings of Jesus Calls. Due to her persuasion, she attends a Jesus Calls prayer meeting which ran for two days. Mesmerised by the teachings and experiences, she becomes a new born taking a second baptism. Now she has two birthdays.

From Patrick’in Kirukkalgal

These two stories are random picks from huge lot of people who have been converted by evangelists in India, Tamil Nadu and more particularly in Chennai. According to Pradip Ninan Thomas, the total pentacostal churches in Chennai alone are about 3600. The new life AG church in Saidapet has a attendance of more than 10000 people for every prayer meeting.

There are two main targets for these evangelists. One the traditional christian communities,who are easy targets because of their religious inclinations. The other one are Lower caste Hindu communities (so called) and tribals, because of the strong caste divides inside the religion. But even sometimes the upper caste (so called) are highly vulnerable to these preachings.

My encounters with Pentecostal believers are comparatively lesser. My mom was a pious Christian, she used to go to church daily and she has strong affinity to mother Mary (which Pentecostal churches doesn’t approve of). One of my mom’s friends got converted and she was persuading mom to convert. That was the first time I encountered a new born or whatever.
She could not convince my mom ever..

What I hate the evangelists?

The way they waste time of the people. They have prayer meetings for 2 or 3 consecutive days affecting the productivity of these people. I found this a kind of drug addiction, shouting chants and hymns calling Jesus Christ, down to earth. I dunno how will god fly and come (if at all he is there).

From Patrick’in Kirukkalgal

The way they lure people to convert. None of the religions in the world approve of religious conversions. When it comes to Christianity, I dunno when Jesus asked people to start a religion. Money, food, caste respect and above all a false belief that they will be saved from the sins and be given salvation. I dunno who defines sins and morality.

The way they preach that Jesus Christ is the only true god forcing people towards religious intolerance. I have seeen people who doesn’t go along the path where a Ganesh temple is there. This is the worst form of religious terrorism one can think of.

And I could not assess the money spun inside these evangelists. The first Tehelka newspaper edition ran a cover story on how CIA is operating as the fund master for these evangelists. Even Pradip makes a similar observation. A income tax raids on these people will give a better exposure. One evangelist in Kerala by the name K.P.Yohanan was caught for unaccounted assets worth 900 crores.

A research on DGS Dinakaran gives a result that he was a bank officer before becoming evangelist. Now Jesus Calls, his evangelist group boasts a posh office in Greenways Road,Chennai, a few bungalows for the family, a engineering college in Coimbatore and consistent programming in leading TV channels. Is this real evangelism? If funds are received from foreign countries, from whom they are getting it?

The post and the research came due to the attacks on prayer halls (churches as portrayed by media). I am not defending the acts of Bajrang Dal, if evangelism is a form of terrorism, then Bajrang Dal and SIMI are other forms. But the attacks are the results of consistent resentment from Hindus to these evangelists. The Christian groups has come to terms that there is no right for anybody to convert people from one religion to the other. And please cut the crap of ‘voluntary conversion’.

Sometimes when people ask me what religion I belong to, I am happy to say that I am a atheist and I don’t follow any religion shunning of questions of my ‘are you catholic?’ ‘are you pentacoastal’ ‘why don’t you come for this prayer service?’

I like to end with a quote of Ayn Rand from The Romantic Manifesto

Religion is also the first enemy of the ability to think. That ability is not used by men to one tenth of its possibility, yet before they learn to think they are discouraged by being ordered to take things on faith.

On a personal note: My family is a catholic family and I don’t practice my religion for the past 10 years. Was a agnostic, now a staunch atheist.

Some links where you can find more about these people,

http://www.christianaggression.org/

The Tehelka’s Take

Beware of Dinakaran

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Countries of this world lose lives once or twice in a year to terrorists. But India loses lives every day to terrorism. From Kashmir to kanyakumari, the only thing that reigns is bomb blasts and threats.

The string of blasts from bengaluru to Delhi last week claimed by a extremist outfit called Indian mujahideen have conveyed only one thing. It’s a pointless act to hurt people of India and create communal riots. Guys if you are killing for your religion, how could you ever think of killing people who were going for their Iftar prayer.

The people of India are just fed up with your acts. Just tell us what you want, let us speak it out. We don’t need this anymore. If you think, you can create communal unrest based on these blasts, you are in a fools paradise. We are not idiots to yield to your pointless acts.
If you are real men, come out and talk to us in public.

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 Goa is one of my favorite places..In fact it will top the list in my most favourite tourist destinations in India. I am little bit worried and concerned with the way it is projected in the media for the past few days because of the Scarlett Keeling case.. I don’t think i have to explain about the case as it has been discussed, debated and deliberated… I have some thoughts about the way it was done…

1. The Police and Politicking politicians:

Whether the girl is Indian, foreigner or even alien, the girl was raped and murdered and its the responsibility of the police to give a fair trial to the case. Here they were not even trying to find the culprits as they were from a drug mafia which has a huge nexus with the police. All the drug mafias in this world have connection with their local police and none of the govts will be able to stop them…. When a case like this come up, they have to answer the media and the people… As long as the corrupted policeman and politicians are there, there will be such cases coming up all over the world…

2. The drugs and prostitution in Goa

The drugs and prostitution is there in all the places, leave alone Goa its there in nook and corner of the Indian cities. YOu want to smoke a pot or weed or even heavy drugs, you can even get it in the streets of Chennai… When myself and my friends went for a vacation in Goa, we saw how a prostitute tries entice men in to it and how men are roaming around to find a prostitute… And the same thing happens in Mumbai and Delhi…It shows up easily in Goa because it has beaches where its easy for them to work out their business… These things cannot be stopped instead its better to be legalised like what has been done in Thailand, Belgium and other countries.. Stopping drugs is individual choice because you can’t try and stop people from selling it but you can definitely stop people from taking it…

3. Bad Parenting of Fiona?

The British press has been accusing Fiona for bad parenting of Scarlett. People make mistakes and the mistake Fiona did was trusting two friends of Scarlett. She thought her girl will be safe with those people and everybody in this world make mistakes. You, me, people around us, Bill Clinton, Mahatma Gandhi and even Jesus Christ…But what costed her was her child, which is irreparable  loss. Can the British press give back her child and the amount of Teenage pregnancy is increasing at a rapid pace in Britain, so you mean to say all these mothers are bad parents…British Press is as hypocritic as ever…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4584175.stm

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/uk-has-highest-teenage-pregnancy-rate-in-europe-397153.html 

Grow up people, hats of to her for coming up in public and fighting for justice, you can’t count the number of cases which goes unreported every day. From now on, its a lesson for parents to counsel their children on sex, sex education, pregnancy and drugs… Not only for the foreigners but also the parents in India…

4. Unsafe Goa?

This is the utter nonsense of all. If you want to have safe place in this world, you have either go to  Arctic or Antarctic glaciers, even there is a problem of glaciers getting melted. The girls are not safer in New Delhi than in Goa..In every place there is a problem and when there is a problem there is always a solution to it. When you have country where you say sex is taboo, you can’t talk sex in public, you will be against sex education and you will not legalise sex workers, the first thing that comes to the mind of a guy when he sees a girl in lonely place is to have sex. He never wants to see a girl as a girl…And it will continue untill you keep the sex as a tabooed secret…

Any place is a safe place unless and untill you don’t want it to be safer…Goa is a wonderful place and people love it..Thats why it remains as the number one tourist destination in India… DON’T KILL IT…

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