In America

I discovered the name "Rex Vijayan" much much after multiple different songs of his had carved out major portions of my mind-space and heart-space at different times.  I am still a "Bijibal" fan and used to follow his songs a lot.  I had attributed "Thane pookkum" song from "Sapthamashree Thaskara" to Bijibal and later realized that it was by "Rex Vijayan". That is when I discovered the name. I used to listen to "Second Show" songs every day during lunch drive from office to home and back about six-seven years back. That is again Rex.  "Neelakasham Pachakadal Chuvanna Bhoomi" songs used to be cult for me. You can feel the travel as you listen to these songs.  "Chappa kurishu" songs were truly international for a first movie album. Still listen to them a lot purely out of admiration.  "Mayanadhi" songs were pretty close to my heart as well. The mood and emotion of the movie is so b...

We sailed right under the golden gate bridge. Charmed. We could see people standing on the bridge. Children in our boat waved, they waved back. Then a ship showed up - it was named TEN as if to score our experience. While heading back, still in the delirium, suddenly we heard loud honks. TEN just honked at us as we were on it's way and we had not responded to the warning messages that it had sent. We circled the Alcatraz as the wind was making our routing decisions. Hype value. All the islands around were green and beautiful. We also appreciated the beautiful residential areas, as well as the sky scaper city, the bridges. Abil had picked me up,today morning, at eight, for a sailing trip, starting from Sausalito, captained by our friends Ranjith and Binu, joined by Biju and son Amit, and also Ranjith's daughter Abha, and also Ranjith's ukranian friend Alex. Ranjith and Binu did a very detailed prep on the boat,ensuring that every single point in the checklist was ta...

    The subdued suspenseful score was the best part. Very good framing of shots. Everyone has acted well. The slow swirl of the movie was awesome and it kept building up slowly and nicely to a very nice finish. Very well scripted. Holds your attention all through.      Some of the edits were very convincing. Really nice for a first film. Sumesh,  very happy for you that you were finally able to do a film, given your need for perfection :). And also, thanks a lot for reaching out to me for an opinion, after such a long time.. Closing the note for another watch.. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ0pkvmls3U&t=3s

  Niya turned ten. Still remember her just born face looking around as I held her for the first time in a white towel wrap in Thalassery hospital. Now, she is ten and at times shows better maturity than her parents. Her idea of a birthday party was a game arcade with all her friends. So that is what we did - at Johns' Incredible Pizza, Newark.      We had invited  our neighbors , couple of my college mates(Abil,Shaji) and a couple of  family friends(Amruth & Anjana, Sajna & Arun) . Niya's best friend from school- Disha came in as well with her father. Everyone came in to a full party. I had left home early, to first get the  birthday cake and then setup the return gifts etc at the hall. When I reached John's, mine was the only car.  Had to wait till about ten minutes after ten to have the door opened. Felt very special to be early for the event. Spoke to one of the hosts(Johns) and walked down the return gifts from the car to the host in...

`While Mammootty just becomes Amudhan, the father, Sadhana astonishes us as the spastic child.  Through the last few months of waiting, from the trailers, the impression was that the spastic child in the trailer was actually a spastic child. Not one moment where the real Sadhana flickers through. Always Paapa, the character.  While Amudhan is always playing the caretaker role,  carrying the responsibility of raising his spastic child, one chapter is devoted to Amudhan and his tribulations. That was the chapter where Mammootty stood up and declared that he is indeed world class, the best of the best. Performance reminiscent of Amaram, and perhaps even better. There are other magical strokes too that come through at various points as would from an honest,  realistic narrative of a storyline centered around being a spastic child and raising a spastic child.  It is however also true that the admiration for Mammootty meant that you could never only see Am...

   Associate director of the movie, Pravin has been classmate / college mate all through my education and that is what led me to this movie. First of, kudos to the team for completing a well intended project, not letting the challenges daunt them and for doing a full fledged release of the movie in US and in India.       The movie speaks about the importance of tender love and care towards your fellow human beings to help each other with the hurts that one can get inflicted by in this potentially abrasive life. If you are not sensitive, your careless and insensitive behavior can take you down a negative spiral, taking others also down with you. It has been a while since I watched the movie and the segment of the stressed out and consequently rude nurse and how she turns out for the better stands out.       All the actors in the movie were amateurs, and towards the end of the movie, there were definite indications of improvement in the per...

 Christmas this year was all set to go on a super lazy tempo. I would have been happy just to sleep through both the christmas eve and christmas day, but Divya had different plans.   On Christmas eve, Divya did some santa toy shopping in the guise of grocery shopping while I stayed home with the kids. After that, we all went out in the nearby neighborhood to see the christmas lighting. Thereafter, we went to multiple grocery shops, hoping to buy a christmas cake, but could not buy one. As soon as we reached home, Divya baked a quick cake at home. Christmas day morning, Kittu got his car track gift from Santa, who had come in through the chimney he had discovered the previous evening. Niya was immediately suspicious of an inside job and noted that the gift messages were in Divya's handwriting. I was happy to note that she had fallen out of  "Santa magic". Kittu was offended by Niya's observation and said "poda kalla.. chimneyokke undu.."      ...