Review of Tamil Movie - Vikram Vedha

Actors - R Madhavan, Vijay Sethupathi, Shraddha Srinath, Kathir, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar
Director: Pushkar–Gayathri
Release Date: 2017

Summary: Who defines DHARMA!!!

Characters:
R Madhavan is Vikram who is an encounter specialist.
Vijay Sethupathi is Vedha, the feared gangster and drugs smuggler.
Sharddha Srinath is Priya, a lawyer and Vikram's wife.
Kathir is Pulli and Vedha's brother.
Varalaxmi is Chandra, Pulli's child hood friend and lover.
Synopsys:
Vikram is a honest cop. He and his encounter team kill dreaded gangsters and people on the wrong side of law. Vikram is very proud of the fact that they are good guys and they eliminate the bad guys. His conscience is clear and he gets a good night's sleep even after an encounter. Vedha is a dreaded gangster and is in Vikram's list to eliminate. Vedha surrenders unexpectedly. Vikram's team starts to interrogate him but he does not say anything until Vikram's turn comes. Vedha tells Vikram that he wants to tell his story and starts to talk about his early life and how he became the gangster that he is. Vikram reluctantly starts to listen to Vedha's story while Priya enters to get Vedha out on bail. Why Vedha decides to surrender unexpectedly and starts taking to Vikram is the crux of the story?

Review: Similar to Vikram and Bethaal, where Bethaal asks questions and King Vikram answers them as per his understanding of Dharma, the movie emphasises about the perspective of good and bad in our actions. The cop, Vikram sees the world in black and white and the gangster, Vedha using a series of short probing stories tries to get Vikram to see the gray in between. Actors Madhavan as Vikram and Vijay as Sethupathi are brilliant. Kathir, Sharddha Varalaxmi have small roles and play their parts well. The tight screenplay is riveting and will keep the audience engaged till the end. Directors have done a amazing job. Go and Watch this movie even now on ZEE5!

Review of Hindi Movie - Lage Raho Munna Bhai

Actors - Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi, Vidya Balan, Dilip Prabhavalkar, Bomman Irani, Jimmy Shergill, Dia Mirza, Parikshit Sahni, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Saurabh Shukla
Director: Rajkumar Hirani
Release Date: 2006

Summary: Yeh tho CULT MOVIE HAI BHAI!!!

Characters:
Sanjay Dutt is at his best as the endearing "Munna" bhai.
Arshad repeats the role of the the loving side kick "Circuit" from Munna Bhai MBSS.
Vidya Balan is a radio jockey "Jahnvi" who stays with a group of elderly people in a bungalow.
Bomman is "Lucky", the businessman who wants to get that bungalow for his daughter's would be in-laws by hook or crook.
Dilip Prabhavalkar plays the role of Munna inner voice in the form of Mahatma Gandhi

Synopsys:
Munna is a regular listener of Jahnvi's morning radio show. He answers questions regarding Mahatma Gandhi and gets invited to be part of Jahnvi's show. Jahnvi invites him over to her house as she lives with elderly folks who are believers of Gandhi and his principles. Munna goes to library and reads up on Gandhi's life and prepares for the visit to Jahnvi's house. Munna lies to Janvi that he is a professor. Munna becomes close to Jahnvi and wants to propose to her. In the meantime, Lucky who wants to get the bungalow of Jahnvi vacated hatches a evil plan to send Munna, Jahnvi and her ederly house members to Goa and uses Circuit to get physical possession of the bungalow. How Munna gets the bungalow back from Lucky without indulging in violence and following the principles of Bapu becomes the crux of the movie!

Review:
The movie is a treat to watch with a simple story and great screenplay. The idea of using Mahatma Gandhi as a inner voice to make the hero take correct decisions is brilliant. The actors played their parts very well with special mention for Sanjay, Arshad and Bomman. Every scene is done well and the climax is the best part of movie where Lucky is forced to turn a new leaf. Go and Watch this movie even now on Netflix!

Review of Telugu Movie - World Famous Lover

Genre - Romance
Actors - Vijay Devarakonda, Rashi Khanna, Aishwarya Rajesh
Director - Kranthi Madhav
Year of Release - 2020
Review: I recently decided to watch World Famous Lover on Netflix. It was a torture to see such a bad film. There is no coherent story. The lead actor is an wannabe writer who cannot write anything that he likes for more than a year. He is in live-in relationship with the actress (who cannot act ... I do not know from where they did these people ... at least send them to an acting school) who is suffering for more than a year and we have to suffer watching them for the 1st 30 mins till the suffering ends for both her and for me who is watching. Then she verbally blasts the hero and leaves. Then our hurt hero starts to write about unconditional love and sacrifice ... year right... the hero thens comes up with two stories ... one in some remote town and the other in Paris. The village story is the same that we would have seen a hundred times in many movies ... the other women ... devoted wife ... husband coming back ... and the paris story ... the LIVING hero donates both his eyes to provide vision for the pilot girl friend ... hey ram ... then ... some more torture and finally the hero comes back to actual world ... blah blah blah ... and finally he reconciles with his live-in partner.... and the torture ends ...
What is good in the film? - Except Aishwarya Rajesh's acting, nothing is good. She deserves good films... should stick to Tamil films with better story lines....
What is bad? - Do not get me started again...

Sri Gnanananda Saraswati Swami Samadhi Trip 7-8 Feb 2009:
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Fisrt Day - 7th Feb 2009
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Our trip started from Bangalore. We took the Prashanthi express departing from Bangalore at 2:00 PM and reached Anantapur at 7:00 PM. In Anantapur we stayed at the Sapthagiri Bala Hotel in Subash Nagar. Another landmark for this hotel is the Sree
Balaji Residency Hotel which is adjacent to it. The Auto fare from Railway Station to this Sapthagiri Hotel was Rs20. That evening, we visited the Ganapati Satchidananda Swami Math and Lord Dattatrya and Anagha Devi Temple adjacent to the temple.

Again, this math is walking distance from the Sapthagiri Hotel. That night, we had our dinner at Hotel Sanman (located underground and decent vegetarian Hotel) which is walking distance from Sapthagiri Hotel.

Second Day - 8th Feb 2009
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We got up at 5:00 AM and got ready. We left for the Anantapur bus stand (RTC, I think there is only one, Rs 15 auto fare). There we took the bus to Pamidi (our next destination after Anantapur). Pamidi is a small town which is around 30 kms from Anantapur and bus going to Kurnool, Gooty etc ply via Pamidi. It takes about 45 mins to reach Pamidi. At Pamidi, we got down at Yaddhanapalli cross. There were plenty of share autos parked at the junction. We decided to take one of the share autos to Vankaraju Kaluva for a two-way charge of RS. 150. The usual charge per person for the share auto is Rs4!!! and around 15 of them take the auto at one time!. The road to Vankaraju Kaluva is a narrow tar road (so there could be times when it might be dificult if another vehicle comes from the opposite direction), but still the road is good enough to take car along with you.

The auto took about 30 mins to reach the village (palle as it called there). All vehicles stop near an Anjaneya Swami temple in the village, beyond which taking your motored vehicle would be very very difficult without puncturing your tyres!!. Inside the village, we reached the Byravaswamy Swami temple Pujary's hosue (his name is Prasad his mobile # is 09949375889, his father was the pujary before him, so it is more of family thing for them). The mobile connectivity is very bad in the village.

Sri Gnanananda Swami' Samadhi (he is known as AravaSanyasi) is adjacent to the Byravaswamy Temple. From the Pujary's house in the village, one needs to either walk or take a Bullock cart to reach the temple through fields. The distance is short (probably 1 Km or so, but the terrain is difficult and so walking might be diffcult for visitors). The villagers are quite used to the terrain and they probably would have no problem to making the journey on foot. Anyways, to reach the temple,
somebody must accompany the visitors to show directions to the temple. We reached the Byravaswamy temple after half hour. The bullock cart experience was good as we were first timers and we toom some snaps during the journey and after reaching the
place. Finally, after 1-2 hrs of starting from the Anantapur, we saw the samadhi. The samadhi is surrounded by black/ grey stones but their is no mention of whose samadhi it is. Then we took bath in the nearby Kaluva, changed clothes and then
performed pooja to the Samadhi. Things needed for pooja are pasupu, kumkum, karporam, oil for deepam, deepam with cotton, flowers, agarbathi, 3 cococuts, fruits etc (usually things that we would need for pooja at home). We decorated the samadhi with pasupu and kumkam, flower garland and performed pooja. The main things to follow while at the Samadhi is to keep one's mind calm and peaceful with good thoughts. (I guess one could do the same all the time and not necessarily at the samadhi site :):) ). After performing the pooja (as told by elders who had been to the place before, prasadam has to be consumed at the same site or left behind, it should not be carried back) and arti, we went to see the Byravaswamy Temple. Byravaswamy

Temple is the temple of Byravaswamy (Shiva) amd his sister (cannot remember the name). Prasad (the priest) of the Temple, performed pooja at both the temples (the remaining 2 coconuts were used here). After finishing the pooja, we perfomed the immersion of Hair Offering(Puttu Ventrukalu)/ Mokku items in the Kaluva where we
had taken bath earlier. After which, we came back to the village through bullock cart and then reached Pamidi through the same auto that we had hired earlier. Thus ended our trip to the Samadhi (truely a memomerable trip as we had started the journey without knowing the whereabouts of the place, we could find the place through divine and people's help)

After reaching Pamidi, we took the bus to Gooty and I will descrie that trip in my next mail :)

Bhavani Shankar Temple, Gooty

The main deities are Lord Shiva and Goddess Muthyalamma. There are vigrahas of Lord Ganesha and Lord Hanuman.

Sri Gnanananda Saraswati Swami - Guru for the Kappagantula family. Sri Gnanananda Saraswati Swami's samadhi is located in Vankaraju Kaluva. The samadhi is located next to Byravaswamy Temple.

How to reach Vankaraju Kaluva from Bangalore?

Bangalore --> Anantapur --> Pamidi --> Vankaraju Kaluva