Category: India

There and Back again…(and some more!)

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Hmm…yeah its been again quite a long time since I wrote..and for a good reason. Loads have happened in the past 2 and a half months and mostly it has been good for me. When I last wrote I was on my way to join Sesa Goa, now I am an employee of NTPC and am presently at Kahalgaon, Bihar. Yeah it was a hell of a journey!

But the journey that enraptured me with emotions(all the wrong kinds of them) was the one that I made yesterday : to Bhagalpur! What started off as a trip to the (in)famous city turned out to be quite a treat for all the people who love BADDD journeys! We were six people off into the blue. Our errands were different but destination the same. It was the first time that I travelled for more than a hour in an auto-rickshaw and man it was like hell. The roads initially were like you could find some amount of metaled road in a group of several potholes, but steadily the conditions became better to the extent that now all we could see on the roads were herds of buffaloes! Well I’ve to say one thing it was the very first time that I saw trained buffaloes…I mean they were all moving in a line behind their masters..an extraordinary feat really!

Then came the famous Bhagalpur Engineering College (BEC) from where one of my housemates, Shashikant (better known as Konchi @ Danda!!) has completed his Engineering. It was great to see an institution that churns out the electrical and mechanical engineers plunged in darkness…afterall people do good things only when they are forced by the circumstances, in this case the darkness or perhaps there is a rule there to go to bed by 6.30 in the evening (that explains Danda’s habits!)

Jokes apart, I was really saddened by the rampant unemployment and hence the immense poverty that’s spread all through Bihar. I could see beautiful farmlands for stretches as far as my naked eyes could see, and yet the very farmer who is toiling day and night to make the farm the way it is, lives in stark poverty as the money made out of the crops doesn’t manage to trickle down to them. Moreover each family was having a bunch of kids, all half-naked, roaming around in the streets, some helping their fathers in herding the cattle while some just loitering away: In short no signs of schools. Whatever the politicians might be saying, this is the ground reality of Bihar. Yes the situation has tremendously improved from what I had earlier seen in the rule of Lalu Prasad Yadav and the criminals that were the MLA’s back then but still loads of works remains to be done. At this juncture it is quite laughable that LPY is tempting the Bihar public with the offer of a motorbike for every Bihari…what the hell…when will these people learn? All I can hope is that the Bihari junta has come to its senses, risen out of the rampant caste prejudices and will vote the correct people onto power and not the one’s who go promising Bikes to people..

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Go(A)ing away…

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I am sitting in front of my computer, with my favourite word processor flashing its pale blue light on my face, thinking what to write today. Nothing special is going on around here to write about…

Yeah rail accidents are occurring: so what they have become now a very normal occurrence with one big accident happening every month. Yeah there have some more disgraceful antics of the politicians to garner mileage from the accidents: so what, it’s what they do the best.

Yeah, the Indian cricket team has lost the 1st test match to the Sri Lankans like no other world number one team is expected to lose: so what, with the Indian cricket team you get what you least expect every single time.

But yes, there is one thing that’s going to happen after a long long time! I am going to away from the computer screen for quite a long time now that I am going for my job and am not taking my dear computer with me. So it’s going to be a pretty long break, I guess from the world of blogging, starting the 1st of August (although it was already so a few weeks ago!)…the question is will I be able to survive without it?? Let’s see, because that’s one of the most difficult things: to be away from the computer after being hooked to it, virtually 24X7 for the past 4 years! It’s going to be interesting seeing all the extra time that I will be getting and all the things that I can do with that extra bit of time!

Let’s see!

Promises and Beliefs…

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Yet again quite a long time since my last post…cant help it! 😦 But I have some promises to keep (yeah so do you!) and some very important things to believe (yeah yeah you too!)…So things will keep coming and I will keep blogging. However intermittent, however irregular the posts may be, they will come, and that I can promise.

Promises and beliefs…why did I choose such a topic?? Even I don’t know a thing about it…but since it came and threatened to blow my head off with the accompanying throbbing, I decided to give it a jot.

Promises

“Promises are made to be broken“, yeah a trite saying that features only in the B-grade Hindi movies these days. Believe me this has become something archaic. These days people are making promises while totally meaning to keep them with all their hearts. If it weren’t so, would we still have been getting the water and electricity and the food that our politicians promise us while begging for votes? They keep their promises…believe it or not they do…even if the urgency to fulfill them comes to their minds only when the next polls start knocking the doors.   The frantic pace with which the roads are built, the electrifications are done and the other promises are fulfilled, all by the MLA funds and MP funds when the polls approach simply fill us citizens with hope and awe. ” Ahh!! Minister Babu is doing work…see how much he cares about us…” It is really great to see how punctual our great politicians are…poll time comes and they are like omnipresent too…with garlanded visages on every nook and cranny of the street, requesting our votes. No no, don;t worry Minister babu isn’t asking for our precious votes for free; in return he has  many new promises (and some of the old ones that he couldn’t keep). Cast your vote in his favor and see those promises come true when the next polls come!

Beliefs

Now talking about beliefs…they are the most complex and abstract of all the human emotions that God has made for our use…believe me!! Even the English dictionary confirms the importance of this absurdly absurd emotion. There are more than 100 words in the English dictionary that are related to belief only. Some mean lack of it while some mean the abundance of it. Some are severe quarrels due to them while some are peaceful marriages because of them. If we concentrate on just 1 hour of our lives…we will see how much we believe. We believe in our army for our safety, we believe in others for most of the work in the world, we believe in God and feel blessed, we believe in our parents for all nit-bits  in our lives, we believe in our spouse, we believe our friends, we believe our sports persons (most of all Sachin), we believe in luck…most of all we believe in ourselves.

SO…

All I can say is keep on believing and keep on fulfilling your promises, because whatsoever you do in your life comes back to you, in the same form or an altered one, but in the end it comes back. So do good if you want to see good thing happen to you. Keep your promises to see the promises others make to you get fulfilled. Keep on believing people and yourslef, if you want them to believe you…because thats what life’s all about!

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The Union Budget 2009 : Where do we students stand?

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With all the hype after the Union Budget of 2009 the question that flashed into my mind was..where do we students stand? Did we gain anything or is the budget bad for us in some way or the other? I decided that I really needed to know this, and so fished out the speech of our Honorable Finance Minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee that he delivered while announcing the budget of this year.I know nothing much about Economics (yeah I studied Economics in my XIIth Std, but comeon) and so most of the terms like Fiscal Deficit and MAT etc. were way above my domain of understanding. But I did succeed in finding some things that are surely going to affect the student community.

Well the major things that I came across are :

  • Friends ( I mean students of course) from the economically weaker section of the society will be able to get student loans “with a full interest subsidy during the period of moratorium“.  This will cover the loans from Scheduled banks to pursue the approved courses in technical and professional streams.   Now that is a good one !
  • The study loans taken or pursuing higher education in all fields of study, including the vocational studies pursued after schooling will be deductable in respect of interest on the loans with the amendment of the Section 80-E of the Income Tax Act.
  • This time the government has raised the amount allocated to ‘Mission in Education through ICT‘ to around 900 crore rupees. If this amount is used properly (i.e. without the officers in-charge thinking of filling in their coffers) this sure will lead to good education for the Indian youth who form quite a percentage of the totality of us.
  • The government has also allotted Rs. 495 crore for the setting up and up-gradation of Polytechnics throughout the nation. Moreover Rs. 827 crore has also been set aside for the establishment of Central Universities in each of the states that don’t have one till now.
  • Rs. 2113 crores have been allotted for the IITs (after all they are the pride of our country !!) and NITs which includes the 450 crores for the establishment of new IITs and NITs.  Overall the planned expenditure on higher education has been proposed to be raised by Rs. 2000 crore (whoops!!).
  • Pranab Mukherjee, happy with IGNOU(Indira Gandhi National Open University) has allocated Rs. 50 crore to it. In the words of the minister ” IGNOU which has been the forefront of distance education , has been provided with an allocation of Rs. 900 million that also includes Rs. 400 million for grants to the state open universities”. Well atleast we can expect a little better course material and contacts programme from the IGNOU now that they have the cash that they needed (or  wanted!!) .
  • Now since the mobile phones have become almost a necessity for the students these days, government’s decision to fully exempt accessories, parts and components imported for the manufacture of mobile phones from CVD of 4% is sure going to make the mobile phones cheaper than what they are at the present. Thats good news isn’t it?
  • Talking of students, how can we forget paper and other paper related articles. Yes they are going to cheaper too after the decision of reducing the excise duty to 4% from 8% on such items! Keep on writing and studying brothers!!
  • If there isn’t enough light around how will you study? Governemt has also reduced the excise duty from cheaper electric bulbs and CFLs…now no excuses.
  • I know many will be thinking there must be electricity to light the bulbs and CFLs which sadly India lacks on by a huge margin. There is a huge disparity between the amount of power demand the amount supplies. Pranab Da has increased the allocation of funds for the Accelerated Power Develeopment and Reform Programme (APDRP) to Rs. 2080 crore (the hike is a whopping 160%). If this money is utilized well then surely our power problems will lessen, i.e. we wont have to face the frequent power cuts (which curiously rise in frequency during the week before the exams!) that the whole country faces.
  • Yes many of the students of today are en-route of getting employed. But at this time of Global Economic Recession jobs are the most hard to find commodity. To help people get proper employment government has announce the establishment of Modern Employment Exchanges where the job seekers can register online and can approach any employment exchange. A national web portal with common software is being developed under this project that will contain all the data regarding the availability of skilled persons on the one hand and the requirements of skilled people by the industries, making the process of job seeking a bit less cumbersome.
  • Obviously not every thing can be good always can it? The prices of toothpastes are going to rise after the budget of 2009.  But oral hygeine is a must isn’t it? So nothing can be done…you have to cough up more money while colgate-ing or close-up-ing thats it.

The past few days I have been watching the debates over the budget of 2009. Well I got bored everytime I heard big words like Fiscal Deficit etc. (yeah one may refer to wikipedia for that I know) I know that is important, but for us students I guess these were the highlights of the Union Budget 2009!

The Missile Man

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I was hoping someday I could attend one of his lectures and question answer sessions and finally my hope turned into realtiy and all due to the summer vacations at my college. Bemused?? Well actually Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam, the missile man of India visited our city on a 2 day tour here on the 24th of June 2009, and he was to address a gathering of around 500 students of different schools and colleges of the city. Since we were having the summer vacations so only the Ranchi guys could come and luckily I am one of them!!!

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Dr. Kalam , as I had heard and read has a real simple demeanor and way of talking. His interaction with the students with the well timed jokes and several pledges made the address just fly by…I liked the way he objectivized the various ways of achieving what we want in our life and to contribute to the society…the splendid concept of succeeding with integrity was a real food for the thought. The best thing that I remember from the address is, the four things that we need to avhieve anything in life:

  • Having an aim in life
  • Gathering knowledge to achieve it…making friends with good books
  • Working Hard to achieve it
  • Perseverance…never be defeated by failure

The most important thing that I noticed was…well to be truthful I and so many others in my college lost the will to listen to other people…be it classes or the guest lectures by the imminent guests during our college fests…I just could not bear to listen after the passage of a mere 10 minutes…and today I listened on to Dr. Kalam for over an hour and even repeated some of the things he said and requested all of us to repeat with him (which I am sure I would not have if I were attending some other guest lecture!)…Man he has some charisma…certainly he’s the missile man of India…a real pioneer!



Why RED??

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RED is the colour of the day…no its nothing that is pleasurable or even remotely enjoyable rather its terrifyingly repulsive. Yes I am talking about the Naxalites, the Maoists Communist Centre (MCC) and their likes. They are getting increasingly unmanageable and untameable.

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India is increasingly becoming volatile, in just the Pakistan way and am really really sad to say that. The recent capture of Lalgarh and then the following Paramilitary action to take the town back is reminiscent of the Swat incident in Pakistan. The immense bloodshed that the naxals are committing is ghastly yes, but also something that is diminishing the faith of people in the government and that is what’s the most dangerous thing. Its not that the people are losing faith in one particular party thats in power, the thing that is disturbing is that the masses are losing faith in the system of government that we have, in the police. They have already started feeling that no government can keep them safe from these bloodthirsty vampires, moreover the continuous attacks on the Police is worsening the situation.

The naxals are calling for 2-day long strikes in the whole of Jharkhand from tomorrow and the government is already gone into the damage control mode…disheartening, very disheartening. If the government itself is scared, where will the common people go? If the protectors are the ones whos are terrified, where will we go?? The worst thing is that the political parties are going all guns against the president’s rule in the state, stating that all these attacks are a result of the mis-rule of Syed Sibte Razi, the governor of Jharkhand. yes, I agree that the crime rates have flown up very high durin his tenure as the chief of the statem but I have a suspicion that the politicans are one of the people who are behind all this. With more and more evdiences of the politcians’ link with the Naxals coming into light, its getting even darker.

Why can’t we live as free people anymore i just can’t understand…no I just can’t. I hate it!

Solutions : Who am I to suggest any but still I do have some things to share…

Well for starters…the age old mantra of sincerity. If the people start doing what they are required to do with all their heart, the people’s displeasure with the rulers will lessen and so will the chances of theirs joining the terror outfits like the MCC and all. I know that this isn’t  a case of ignorance but sheer displeasure and then some brain washing that leads people in to such an abyss a many engineers and well trained professionals are the ones who form the main force of the MCC. If everything is done sincerely, well no displeasure will be there for such brain-washers to feast on…and hence the situation can be much easier .Just read this for the amount of brainwash that’s there.

I no it seems very Utopian for this to happen in an immensely corrupt country that we are…but still I guess this is the only way…no military action or appeasement of the naxals or talks are going to help if the root cause isn’t  removed..nope none.  I hope the next generation of the administrators, officers and even the workers is less corrupt than the present one so that we can achieve some peace..which is absoolutely required if we are to have some development here..or else..even I dont want to think of the future.

Several things….

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Yet again loads of time has passed since my last post and i really don’t have any other excuse but sheer laziness for it…and you know what I am not even a little ashamed, why? Well I suppose even I don’t know about that much. Well lets leave it at that…better late than never isn’t it? Several things is the name of my post because I need to share several thing s with you all….and here I go…

Thing 1:

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I would like to begin this post with something which I like very much : Books!! Well this summer I have let myself down..how? Well till now, I have read only 3 books (The Story Of Edgar Sawtelle, The Digital Fortress and The Other Hand) in comparison to the massice 31 that I read during my last summer vacation! Even though I bought two others from the New Delhoi airport, I have made no progress towards reaching anywhere near that huge number of 31, as  I havent even read a single one of them! Anyways, on the brighter side, due to coming of my iPod,  I discovered the pleasure of Audiobooks. I listened to the audio version of Twilight by Stephanie Meyer and you know what I simply loved the whole experience…the feeling that the audiobooks impart..as if some one is reading you a story is what is the most appealing thing about them! I am now going to listen to the the remaining parts of the Twilight series too and am quite sure I will like them too!

Thing 2:

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Now comes a totally unrelated topic. LeT(Lashkar-e-Taiba) is making its base down here in the jungles of Jharkhand and Bihar…what the hell. Yeah as if the threats posed by the naxals (the MCC, the PWG etc.)  wasn’t enough, now even these bast***s from across the border are trying to establish their say out here. I mean what do these sadistic vampires get out of killing innnocent people for no reason whatsoever. Why have they misplaced their minds so easily in the hands of some mullahs , who have only one thing in theor mind…how to hurt India, and how to hurt the non-Muslims. I mean, if there is God he is only one, Ram or Allah or Jesus what does it matter? I just can’t understand this… Coming back to the Jharkhand LeT, this news simply has sent shivers down in the hearts of the already under-fire police department and the state’s governor Syed Sibte Razi (as the state is currently under the President’s rule, Razi is the all in all of the state). Now it needs to be seen, what do these people do inorder to tackle this sudden and immense problem.

Thing 3:

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Any of you who has seen me will be knowing that the most striking feature of me is my girth!! Yeah, bluntlyI am quite fat. Now these summer vacations always bring with them loads of delicious food (with the tongue watering Magoes and Lichis all around) and also accompany very lethargic routine meaning no exercises and hence meaning those very very irritating extra kilos that I very painstakingly manage to lose durin the time college is open!! 😦 I have started doing some Yoga but I dont think that’ll work and cutting down on the food isn’t my forte thats for sure, so what to do?? Yes I am going to run…from tomorrow sure shot (but Tomorrow Never Dies…or does it??)

Thing 4:

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Now that I enter the 4th and final year of my B.E. its finally the time of reckoning. As I have a call for further studies so its essential that I start preparing for the GRE (naah no Ties and Lies for me!) from immediate effect. Yeah I’ve bought all the necessary books and all…what is required now is some peace of mind to start over. I think I will begin it in earnest from tomorrow too. Moreover the coming semester will also bring with it the placements…well its not going to be easy, the next sem even though it has a lot to offer too!

Last Thing but certainly not the Least Thing:


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Now speaking so much and yet not mentioning the T-20 World Cup will be something I won’t be excused for. Yeah every one around is leaving no expletives while ostracizing Dhoni, the Indian Captain, yes, I agree he made some mistakes and that his batting form isn’t that purple anymore, but comeon people what else were you expecting? He isn’t some God, after all he is a human too and as the saying gose To err is human, so lets take this loss in the spirit of the game and lets hope Team India wins the next time. Now all my hopes lie with South Africa, Go Proteas Go (and No Pakistan No!!!)

Long Time…

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Its been a long time since I last did anthing here…many many reasons are there…better not to go them…just am happy to be able to do some writing finally…feels great!

Presently am in the gate to the gods, Haridwar. Its an ok sort of place but the thing that made me dislike it is the food…:-(. I mean who the hell wants to have nothing but aloo parathas  for breakfast…comeon. THe only option that we have is either we can have curd with it or chhole. Its been like hell…but still I liked the stay as the weather was a bit less harsh than that in Ranchi. The only good part was according to me, the Ganga. I loved the clean waters (for a change) and the religious fervous alothough irritating for me, was a treat to watch to…I mean where else can you find thousands of people struggling just to get a glimpse of the worshipping of a river?? Well its here only!

Hardwar on the brighter side has numerous temples all unique in their own respect. The Bharat Mata temple is a nice concept. It is a 7 storied building with each floor dedicated to some imporant aspect of our nation. The ground floor houses a grand and beautiful idol of Bharat Maata which I am sure is one of a kind, while the other 6 floors house idols of various saints, freedom fighters, gods and goddesses. The top floor has a big temple dedicated to Shiva. All in all its a must watch if you visit this place.

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Other temples that I went to are the Vaishno Devi temple, the Paawan Dhaam(here all the idols and images are made up of glass…unique isn’t it??)etc. All you got to pay to visit all thes temple is for the conveyance…if you are going by a rickshaw they will charge you around 150 bucks per person..but all in all its all worth it…al you have to do is enjoy every moment…even if you dont like the things at first…soon you will start to enjoy. The roads, the people, the ride, the temples, the idols, the religious fervour, (in my case the torrential rains), the various semi-automatic scenes from various parts of the huge Hindu mythology, the small amounts of money that you have to cough up for watching those scenes, the thrill (mock) of entering the caves(man made) in the temples….all in all it gives you a sense of a unique religious adventure. If a person like me enjoyd it….i guess any normal person would!

 

 

 

 

Time to wake up…

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Yahoo! A.R. Rahman bagged two Oscars, and Slumdog won 8. That’s one hell of an achievement for the Indian Music and Film Industry. Finally, we made a mark in the world,  in the genre of music and entertainment.

While lavishing all the praise on this success, suddenly  my brother’s words crept up in my mind : What if Slumdog Millionaire were a Bollywood production? And the thing that came up to my mind the next instant was the article by the Management Guru Arindam Chaudhary : Don’t See “Slumdog Millionaire”. It sucks. With people like him around one thing is sure, that the bollywood Slumdog wouldn’t even have made the Filmfares let aside Oscars.

The way many people see this movie as something that describes India in a very poor light is something I  find  very inexplicable.  I mean what the hell do you people want ? India isn’t a country of Gods anymore, that’s a fact. Be it the problem of extreme poverty, or the stigma of child prostitution or be it the beggary problem, its all very real and what wrong did Danny Boyle do if he showed the world the darker side of our country?

Yeah we have the Taj Mahal , one of the seven wonders of the world, the symbol of eternal love. But we also have the so called moral police (the likes of Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal and Ram Sene to name a few) who thrash and insult all the starry eyed couples on Valentines Day, and run campaigns like ‘Tie or Die‘ : Its a reality! Yes we were the earliest nation to give voting rights to women, and yet we only are the people who burn brides for dowry, who kill them after branding them witches, who thrash them publicly just because they were having a drink in the local pub. Its a reality my friends!

Yeah we have a culture thats as old as civilization itself, the sacred culture of the Aryans. And yet most of the politicians out here, the so called leaders of the world’s largest democracy exhibit their talent of amassing illegal fortunes through all kinds of scams, be it the Hawala Scam or the famous Fodder Scam! Where did the culture go? Where did it go? Isn’t this a reality?

The problem of beggary isn’t hidden from any of us. The cruelty with which innocent children have their limbs and fingers hacked, or their eyes taken out of their sockets to make them ‘eligible’ to beg is a reality that no Indian can escape from. Same is the case with child prostitution. However hard you may try to deny it, it happens and is as real as you or me.

It isn’t at all that I don’t love my country. I assure you that I am a haughty patriot and I love my country as hard as any of you do, but still I am not someone who will turn his eyes away from the weaknesses and concentrate only on the purple patches that we have out here. I am not one who will praise only the goodness, and turn a blind eye to all the defects that is present out here in India.

Its time that we appreciate that yes these evils have burned themselves in the clothing of our country. Its time to change the nations attire and not the time to spit venom on movies like this which depict whats true and whats bad.Its time we grew up. Its time we wake up.

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Luck By Chance

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I had once listened to the songs of the then ‘Coming-soon’ movie Luck By Chance a Farhan Akhtar, Konkona Sen, Isha Sherwani starrer. Though the cast doesn’t seem that high quality by the names, yet belive me each one of the actors have done tremendous jobs.

Farhan Akhtar, as Vikram J. Singh has portrayed the role of a struggling actor who has a dream of making it big in the Hindi Film Industry, but is really been bogged down by the rejcetions and then by the criticisms of his best friend with such eloquence and grace that it becomes really difficult to encertain if its real or reel. Konkona Sen, as Sona Mishra another struggling actor is as sparkling as her roles in Page 3 and Life in A Metro.

The story of the film is quite simple, and yet the great performances of the actors keep you hooked on to the screen till the very last of the movie. The music by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy is one of the most enhancing aspects of the movie. The song Yeh Zindagi Bhi will become an insant favourite of all music lovers, its a real lifting ode to the dreams by Shekhar Ravijani and Loy Mendonsa. The folkish tune of Baaware performed by Shankar Mahadevan, givs a real variety to the overall album.

On a scale of 5 I will rate this movie 4.5! So do give it a try!

Cheers!