A straight-forward and sometimes, a bit taxing read about Aam Aadmi Party and Arvind Kejriwal. The author, known for her favorable views about AAP, gives a good account on the churning happening within the party from a slight pro-kejriwal perspective. The book is basically a collection of ideas the author expressed in her Outlook pieces. As Saba puts it, though AAP has the imagination and will for the alternative politics they claim to represent, we have to see if they apply it in governance. AAP’s first full-term in Delhi, promises to be an interesting one.

Excellent collection of short stories. These stories dwell on what ‘Aram’ (Righteousness) is. One of the first books that introduced me to Jayamohan, who definitely ranks among the best tamil contemporary writers. Good read for anyone who is crestfallen with one’s mundane existence. Yannai Doctor is a must-read.

I became interested in reading about Sanjay Gandhi for the sheer intrigue and unexplored nature of the personality. And to read it in Vinod’s words is a double delight. This book is written right after emergency. Even though Vinod claims to present a balanced view, can not fully avoid the fad of those times, Gandhi -basing, and rightfully so. The author never met Sanjay flesh and blood, yet tries present a holistic picture of the emergency-taskmaster based on reliable sources. Sanjay was not a super genius child and disinterested in studies. Because of his family name, found himself on the board of Maruti, which turns out to be a misadventure. Sanjay for all his faults was always given a free hand in Indira’s government resulting in various forceful excesses during emergency. Inevitably Sanjay perished in an air crash because his own lousiness.

This book bolstered my views about...

Saw Puli movie a couple of weeks ago. Though the premise, fantasy-setting had a lot of scope for experimentation and opportunity for unique attempts. Seems like it hardly bothered the director, who went with the usual tamil cinema storyline packed with romance, songs, flashback, revenge etc., in a fantasy-setting that demands decent CG effects. The lack of a gripping central narrative coupled with poor screenplay is a recipe for a boring watch and expectedly I was served with same dish of disaster. Give this movie a skip if you can. One little positive note is that actor Vijay is willing to experiment with the mass image with movies like nanban, puli, kathi etc.,

It is not every day that one of the world’s largest technology companies announces a new CEO. So when Google announced the restructuring in its top hierarchy with Sundar Pichai, formerly senior vice-president of product and engineering becoming its new CEO, it undoubtedly occupied the media space worldwide, more so in Sundar’s country of birth, India.

Technology, by itself, is a disruptor. One of India’s contemporary advantages is its “much-hyped” demographic dividend. Developed countries have largely completed a “demographic transition” phase—the transition from a largely rural agrarian society with high fertility and mortality rates to a predominantly urban industrial society with low fertility and mortality rates. During this transition, the labor force temporarily grows more rapidly than the dependent population. With this dividend there is a great potential for economic gains...

This may be a long post. It may not be even coherent and lucid, yet I am gonna pour in all that comes to my mind about Dr.Kalam. To install a method to the madness, I am gonna spilt my narrative into 3 parts

happening in three separate time periods, and by chance approximately equally spaced (1st around 2000-2001, 2nd around 2008 and 3rd 2015)

This was way back in 2000. The world trade center stood tall (hell, I didn’t know what it was then). I was in my class 7. Unusually, I became a good student that year. The primary reason for which was I had a male class teacher who took individual care of my studies. I used to visited the school library perched in a corner on the first floor of my school every evening. I was able to do so because I used commute back home through the town bus, the earlier ones are usually crowded , so I used to stay for an hour or so in the library every evening...

செல்வமே மந்திரமோ

மனிதனே எந்திரமோ

யார் செய்த‌ தந்திரமோ

மர்மம் உண‌ர்ந்து

கர்வம் தவிற்த்து

சர்வம் அறிந்து

உச்சம் அடைதலே

வாழ்வின் விடையம்

First, let me make things clear. This film is not an instant classic. I don’t think it will be one. I am not even sure it will be an archetypal “commercial success”. But I felt it had the central theme and plot to be a great flick if not for (in parts) some loose screenplay, amateurish direction, poor acting by some of the cast, bad camera angles and CG.

Uttama Villain, is a film about an established actor Manoranjan’s (Kamal Haasan) endeavor to set things right in his professional and personal life before the eventual fate befalls him. Leaving apart the fictional layer in which the story takes place, Manoranjan is Kamal Hassan. I don’t know the film equivalent of literary auto-fiction (fictional autobiography). The closest film you could think of is Fredrico Fellaini’s 81/2 (a tale about a struggling director), which is a similar comedy-drama but the similarity ends there.

The film...