Poda Podi - Review

The much awaited movie starts with the sensational "Love panlama venama" song followed by Simbu(Arjun) nailing Varu Sarathkumar(Nisha) projecting that he is very rich. Nisha is a salsa dancer working hard to win a dance competion but Arjun is a possessive and a male chauvinistic boyfriend who is irritated to see his girlfriend practicing with her dance partner. Desperate to stop her from dancing, he tricks her into family life. How Nisha wins the favor of her husband for dancing is the rest of the story.

Though Arjun acts like a male chauvinistic maniac in the first half, he becomes a cute father and husband in the second half of the movie. How he overcomes an emotional breakdown and wins Nisha back is touching. The couple's chemistry has worked well. Good to see Shobana again on big screen. Varu Sarathkumar is such a natural- Given that Poda Podi is her first movie, the actress has done a fantastic job deserving an applause. Dialogues in few places get the audience's full attention and acceptance which could be seen from the whistles and claps. But there are places where dialogues were too lousy. Simbu's acting was flawless with his sense of humour soaring up as usual. 

The frequency of songs in first half of the movie is annoying.  Ganesh Janardhanan could have have been utilized well. And Varu's dancing skills could also have been projected well. The funny part is that what Simbu does for a living is not shown till the end of the movie. 

The opposite poles not only attracted but lived through many sorrows and pain and yet with full of love!

On the whole, Poda Podi is worth watching once! 

My Rating: 3/5

Good day!

The Krishna key

As i was sipping my coffee on a Sunday morning, I was lazily flipping through the pages of literary review supplement on The Hindu. Review about "The Krishna key" by Ashwin Sanghi on one of the pages caught my attention and I started reading it briskly.

As Da Vinci Code dealt with symbols, churches, path that leads to The Holy Grail and quest for the living descendant of Jesus Christ, so is The Krishna Key dealing with symbols, temples and Lord Krishna. India as a vast land has gone through innumerable changes through rulers, religions, beliefs from times immemorial. We have come all this way and what is left today is not even half the wealth India had as its own decades earlier. The Krishna Key basically emphasizes the facts which the world has forgotten(or misused) and portrayed it wrong.

The story begins with Anil Varshney handing over four identical seals to four of his friends - Ravi Mohan Saini, Nikhil Bhojaraj,  Rajaram Kurkude and devendra Chhedi. What is the significance of these seals ?What do they represent? What happens when they are united? Who seeks it? This is what The Krishna key is basically about. I do not want to spoil the suspense by writing it here. Some of the other interesting characters are Priya Ratnani, Radhika Singh and Taarak Vakil.

The Krishna key is a story with historical background intertwined with scientific proofs and with suspicious murders. I was spellbound by the facts written in the book and it left me sleepless at night. The story of Mahabharata in snippets before each chapter is really a good touch. The author has obviously worked the hell out in putting all the pieces of facts together in making a sensible plot.

But way too many facts that might sometimes be very heavy to digest.The lengthy conversations are capable of losing the audience. The author could have saved some of it for his future works. Other than this, the work is definitely a masterpiece!

Digging out the past, verifying with the data in hand, cross checking with ancient records and plotting a story is not an easy task though. This is indeed a one of a kind book and it needs to be read by every Indian.
Hats off Ashwin Sanghi!
You have written a remarkable story.

My rating - 7/10

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