From the day I saw…

The perfect translation to the title stated would be, “Kanda Naal Mudhal”. Yes. It’s the title of the movie I recently saw. I don’t normally blog about movies a lot. Only the fittest of those, would automatically fit itself in my blogs. This movie definitely fits in my blogs cadre.

This movie produced by Prakashraj and directed by Priya (erstwhile assistant to Mani Ratnam), where the storyline offered nothing very special. It’s the usual cine stuff like boy-meets-girl and boy-girl-quarrel and boy-girl-romance and situation-as-villain and climax-as-expected. But, what makes the storyline interesting is the cast used for the story. The hero is the 5-Star Fame “Prasanna” who has done yet-again a decent enough performance justifying the role offered to him. (One can recollect the other movie he did for Prakashraj named, “Azhagiya Theeye” where he did a splendid performance to the role). The heroine is Laila and she has also tried her best to match Prasanna’s performance and she has done it with flair & maturity.

Prasanna seems to be doing the roles at ease. He neither is as charming as Surya nor as dazzling as Vikram, Yet, he is doing the job neatly and he certainly knows his limitations. Especially, when he feels for his love for her, he really creates a lot of strength to that character. One can notice that Prasanna is becoming matured and more of a character-artiste doing these kinds of roles neat enough. If given time, he can prove to be a very good actor in the course of his career.

Laila, on the other hand, showing the facial expressions better than her previous movies, has got a lot to gain from this movie. The rest of the casts are penned fair enough to support the main characters & story. For instance, Revathy, mother of Laila, has done her usual best. And, one can understand Laila & Revathy have got a lot of similarities in their looks and it looked as if they were mom & daughter in real.

The music by Yuvan Shankar Raja is scintillating. The songs are very good to hear especially the Carnatic based “Kanda Naal Mudhalaai…”.

The director has taken a lot of pains to create a neat love-story with some twists & turns and the casting has been perfect which could possibly be a launch-pad for her future as a director.

As a whole, this movie is really worth watching more than once.

All I can say, “From the day I saw….. I couldn’t resist seeing once again…”

Mission Accomplished for Pakistanis…

Though, before the beginning of the Ind-Pak Test Series, the Pakistanis had gained a lot from their outing with the Englishmen, they were more into defensive mode against India preparing flat wickets which offered no assistance for the bowlers whatsoever to either of the teams. Such a defensive tactics would always be a negative ploy for the side visiting there especially a team like India, which was rejuvenated after its series-winning victory against the visiting Sri Lankans earlier.

The first two tests offered nothing for the bowlers, be it for pacemen or spinners. A lot had been said about the pitches and its makers. And, one can surely notice that Pakistan was definitely taking a step back towards its future, by not making juicy pitches.

Pakistan would not have forgotten what happened in India’s last tour to Pakistan, where it won both the tests & ODI’s against the host. So, I am sure that Pakistan would have taken into account its failures in the last tour and while making amends to those failures, they were forced to make a pitch like that for the first two tests.

And, it was a mere gamble when they prepared a nice bowler-friendly wicket in the third test at Karachi which could have backfired onto them, had India put them on the mat when they were trembling at 39 for 6 but for an exuberant effort from its wicket-keeper batsman Kamran Akmal, they could make 245 and bundling out India for a score of 238, thanks to its bowlers. They needed to score rapidly & heavily in the II innings and they did it with style scoring 599declared leaving India no chance of winning the contest and a very little chance of drawing it.

The Indian batsmen did not show any kind of resistance except Yuvraj Singh who scored yet another century. And, within 58.4 overs their innings got over for a paltry 265, giving Pakistanis the much-needed series victory.

Now, all eyes are on the 5-Match ODI’s, which are going to follow immediately next week. As one can expect, the Indians will have to pull up their socks and give them the necessary fight and not letting the pressure mount on them. After winning the home series against Sri Lanka 6-1, Indians should be aiming to do better against their arch-rivals.