Merry Christmas

Hello Friends,

Wish you all a Merry Christmas. Have loads of fun n may your sweet tooth be pacified :)

Snow drenched homes, Santa's sleigh, socks lined up for gifts, colourful candles, ornament trees, shining stars, gingerbread homes, poinsettia decorations, Nutcracker ballets, Christmas Carol plays make this a special season of celebration. Though the tradition of celebration slightly varies from place to place, the spirits remains the same. So lets enjoy the spirit!!!
Heres my Christmas card for u.

Cheers


Vennela

Gossip Gals

Hello People, 

One can’t deny the fact that gals and gossips are inseparables. If guys wonder what gals have to talk so much amongst themselves, the answer is the gossips.  But in recent days, the exclusivity for gals has faded out and gossip has become universal. From kids to vets, everybody have this curiosity. Especially when it comes to a gossip about a successful person or a celebrity, it becomes even more interesting.

Our mums n aunts have all taken part in this, n the legacy is being continued to generations after. The style changes, but actual gossip never does. We, gals are hypocrites in this issue, as we can never admit that if our random chatter is actually called gossiping. For that matter, guys are not even aware that their random talks also fall into the gossip family. As long as the babble is between a small circle and is all random, there are certainly no ripple effects of this. All is fair if it ends then and there. But as the size of the circle grows and babble becomes intentional, it doesn’t need a satellite’s help to transmit the news to the person who was gossiped about.  When this happens, most obvious reaction would be cold wars since all these are unproven.

Fun time gossip does stop at a point n is forgotten by the next day. Intentional gossip keeps making rounds and hits the nose until it bleeds. I would term intentional gossipers as gossip mongers who certainly need a feed as often as their daily meal. These mongers exist almost everywhere in the world and they are faster than light in spreading a rumour without the help of any technology. No matter whatever it ruins, they are happy to dwell on the remains. Well, if by reading between the lines you have sensed something fishy, yes I am coming there. We might have heard many stories about some senseless and clueless ramble causing chaos in a family or friends. Many soaps and films have reflected this on the screen.  And some of you might have come across this in reality too. This mostly happens when somebody is either jealous of you or dislikes you for some reason and start spreading a rumour about you/your family/your friend and is the case when the monger knows who you are. What if the monger has never knew who you are?

Let me quote an example of such dangerous gossip mongers in social living. I cannot hint you how to recognise this evil mouthed mongers except for one prominent quality, as most of them are masked with a sweet smile and innocent face.  

The following lines could be a riddle of words, bear with it please....There was an incident where a gal Xeni has befriended another gal Yuma. Yuma has a rival Abia and since her rivalry was all fresh and new, she couldn’t stop blabbering nonsense about Abia. Xeni had no clue about Abia as she had never seen her and never known her. But she enjoyed bitching about an unknown person. Xeni has got a boyfriend who was more of toy-friend which runs with a key. The toyf-riend has circle of senior man-friends who let their woman to live freely within a world called home. Man-friends have an extended circle of guy-friends. The guy-friends have an extended circle of friends who were gals. Man-friends envied guy-friends because they had friends who were all new gen gals. Yuma’s rival Abia was amongst those friends. One of the man-friend Oron has a wife Zia. As obvious as it is for a man like him, he bragged his virtues comparing the guy-friends he had. Zia was in awe and full of praise of Oron and flaunted her man’s bragging as a brand amongst the gang of similar desperate wives. The toy-friend and his key Xeni happened to meet Oron and his wife Zia. They discussed the hot topic of the season which was one the guy-friends named Ido’s marriage with his so called long time gal-friend Rene. Xeni had opened the can of worms at that point. Xeni n Zia jelled well as both of them are true gossip mongers and Xeni shared her friend Yuma’s agony against ‘Abia’ who was among Ido’s friends group.  Toy-friend praised man-friends worth so as to please him for future favours. Praising him simply means demeaning the guy-friends. Xeni and her toy-friend successfully lifted curtains for the big picture to kickoff. 

As scheduled, guy-friend Ido got married. He ignored his friends group and followed the path of the senior man-friends sincerely, and allowed his woman to enjoy the four walled freedom. Also Ido never denied any comments that were passed by the man-friends about his ex-friends group...instead he enjoyed them as compliments to him. Because of this extreme loyalty, as per rule of thumb, Ido was promoted as man-friend. One fine evening all gathered to celebrate his success. As per the custom they followed, wives had to be bartenders whilst the man-friends enjoyed their drinks. On the same occasion, Rene has been admitted as a new-sheep member in the flock of desperate house wives. However she had no great welcome as Ido. Instead she was bombarded with flaunting.  When she tried to roll her dice, she failed miserably as Zia revealed some unknown, unproven news about Ido and introduced Ido’s group of friends which was all a bizarre to the newlywed woman. Although Zia herself never knew the characters she introduced, she managed to tarnish the face of friendship that Ido had. Zia & Co had almost put Ido down so that their men seemed more virtuous and courteous. The introduction was rather cheesy that she couldn’t resist, but rush back home to bomb this news at Ido. Ido had no clue where she had got to know his past. On further interrogation he got to know the source but he was helpless as Zia was his senior man-friend’s leading lady. Neither could he take this to his man-friend nor to friends. Instead he could show his manpower against a sleek-weak wife. Meanwhile, the regular dosage of unknown facts from Zia have immensely affected the Rene’s mental health and dragged her to mess with Ido. While this seemed most entertaining motion picture ever to Oran and his wife Zia, Ido and his wife Rene struggled to survive under same roof. Finally Abia was approached to interfere and set things straight which she eventually did and pricked the bubble. Also she reminded 1do’s wife to beware of gossip mongers like Zia and Xeni.  

Now you can understand how mindless, idle mongers like Xeni and Zia can collectively spoil a relation with their absolute nonsense contribution. Aren’t these bwitches(b silent) dangerous? And aren’t people like Ido’s wife foolish enough to believe such? And aren’t males like man-friend’s group even more worse who were stuck back in the stone age?

So dear friends, all sweet mouthed and innocent faced people are not the same in reality. And do not go by baseless rumours. Have a health gossiping, indeed :P

Cheers

Vennela

Green Hyderabad

Dear Readers,

For those people who love Hyderabad City would definitely want to see a Greener Hyderabad but ‘Green Hyderabad’ remains a fantasized dream for many of us. Especially. the people who live in there and people who have been there know why it remains a fantasy. The air that Hyderabadis breathe, the water they consume, and the surroundings they live in, are all polluted to the core. When you observe the pollution levels, Hyderabad beats all other cities in the country. 

Environmental hazards are almost completely ignored both by the public and governing bodies. Very few consider this issue and amongst those are the Apeejay Surendra group who took a green initiative for their new Hotel  in Hyderabad, that has been awarded LEED Gold certification.

What is LEED? To those who aren't aware of what LEED is...it is a green building certifying system developed by United States Green Building council and Gold is one level of certification among the four levels.

Now to those who aren't familiar of what a Green building is: ( I guess most of you might know this)...an energy conserving structure which is environmentally responsible. In simple terms, when you build a house, consider the water and energy conservation, occupant health and waste reduction. There you go; you are in path of LEED certification. 

If it is so simple, why won't everybody resort to this? Of course its looks simple, but achieving it is not that easy as you think. To implement this, the awareness among the common public is very important. The cost of construction is bit more expensive as you need a certified person to guide you through this. But, there are advantages of these additional costs as it reduces the future maintenance costs on the structure. So my dear readers please do add this to your dream house essentials list. 

Alright as you all know, its a fact that people hardly practise green building process in Hyderabad. As mentioned above, there is ray of hope in the form a Hotel called PARK which is India's first LEED Gold certified building.  Isn't it amazing to see a structure with great energy conservation and least waste reduction. It is definitely an inspiration to the new green ventures in a city like Hyderabad. Way to go...Isn’t it? And it has also been nominated to the NDTV Greenies awards.

Here is the small glimpse of the wonderful structure. Check it out when you get a chance and let’s promote the place which cares to consider the environment.

http://www.tubaah.com/details.php?video_id=179696 

Cheers,

Vennela

Cut the Crap

Halo Readers,

No matter how many times we address this ugly scam & scandal scenario in our country, I bet we will never run out of material. It just gets busted out every now n then and these days very very often. I am seriously hating to read the news since past 2-3 weeks, pick up any news..you will be tired to count the number of scams, scandals, political break ups & shake ups...the list goes on. I feel very dejected to see so much of mess going on and growing on day by day. Of course, this kind of situation has been there since decades...but does that mean we have managed to live with it? No, unless and until you or I become the victims, we will never wake up and voice out.

I am used to see only bad stuff on headline news and the developments in the country are hidden in the corners. Are we so craving for negative things happening around and started ignoring the positive developments or is it the media that craves for attention? We should agree that we are both mutually responsible for this non sense. But if we just ignore the scams & scandals, will it help to reduce their frequency? I am sure, it will definitely help the scammers enjoy the privacy. Our judiciary system is another big advantage to those who want to commit crimes and escape/delay punishment. The punishment delays can take decades and by then the criminal's next gen is ready with another list. So the new gets the attention while the old gets filed/piled. This has been happening so often that we almost lost trust on our judiciary system. And there is no second thought about politics, since its unanimously voted as the most useless system in the country. Our shameless politicians are happy enough to enjoy this voting rather than enjoying a voting majority for good administrative skills. The one who is worst will only hit the headlines, and its so obvious to see them with a list of scams and scandals in their profile which has become a eligibility credential to enter politics. We always thought that our movies hype the worst and create some drama about the system, but if you keenly notice the recent events, you will never ever think so. In fact, the movies are still way behind ages in portraying the worse thats happening in real political, judicial & governing systems. Indecisive leaders leading major political parties prove their incapability of choosing proper administrators and expelling useless dumb heads which results in most crucial chairs being changed so frequently. Before the new politician gears up to take any new measures, a heap of allegations will pile up at his door against his party/administration. He/she will eventually get busy in revenge dramas or blame games.And we enjoy watching their foul mouthed arguments with so much excitement.

We, the helpless citizens read the news and forget it the next day since we got used to the never changing scenario. But how long can we tolerate the non sense, can't we cut the crappy crops that destroy and pollute the rest? Just as in most of the foreign countries, we can voice out our opinions against this non sense and our strength lies in our billions of people..if atleast 20% of us react and say No, I am pretty sure it makes a huge difference. When we are also technically sophisticated that a common street side internet cafe can create huge mms scandals, why can't we use the same technology to promote common man's opinion. Though the media brings in some discussions about the chaos, most of them are scripted/edited for their own selfish purposes. Lets give out our opinion an importance folks not just once in 5 years but so often as the scams & scandals happen. Lets use it to cut the crap that happens because majority of us don't care.

Cheers,

Vennela

Fwd Fwd Fwd

Hello Friends,

Do not be perturbed with my title Fwd Fwd, I am not attaching any such mail here, so no worries, you can go on n read.

Forward mail traffic, how many of you are disturbed, annoyed, irked, with some of the non sense mails that are forwarded serving no purpose? Well, I am one of those victims, I should say that I have been flooded with such forward mails n share it messages. 

There are some mails, which disturb you n some times ask you to forward because it brings some predictable luck etc. The contents ends with this line generally "just by forwarding the mail,some one got huge amount of money n those ignored met with an accident". Each one of us know, that's bull**** but we will still send across the mail. This will never stop and sometimes come back to you again and again. By then, the subject has some innumerable "Fwds" in it.  I don't know if it can bring luck or not, but definitely can waste some collective time. 

There are some more mails, asking you to donate some money for some XXX person in some XXX country or hospital. I am really surprised because when I myself forward them I think let it be passed on, someone will have a heart to respond. But I hardly care about those. I might sound rude, but the truth is, when we don't care the suffering people who are right in front of us, how will we trust n send our donations to some forwarded mails? I would say that's an absolute time waste trail, lot of people have the heart to forward the mail like me, but very very few might respond n render a helping hand. Sometimes, the incident or accident victim who is seeking help will also get off the bed, or unfortunately passes away..but the mails never stop to circulate. It happened to me twice, the start date of the mail was in 2007 and by the time it reached me, it was mid 2009 and the mail subject says URGENT...One has to get back to the dictionary n check for it meaning. 

Now apart from those luck mails n help needed mails, there are mails with some pictures of pets, cars, bikes n blah blah blah which make no sense with a routine n never changing title "Just for Fun".ufff the fun part is inspite of knowing the content, we still go through the entire mail, curse the sender n finally trash it. At least I do that. :P

Mails that are actually necessary will hardly be circulated, as none of us are interested in them. 

Okay apart from all the non sense junk, some informative n sensible mails are seriously good and deserve to be shared. I would say my dear friends and friends of friends..please stop sending stupid stuff, its quite annoying or if its a so called URGENT mail, please try to check the start date which would at least make some sense.

Cheers
Vennela

Recent Sketch trails

Hello People,

I am sharing few of my recent sketches. Let me know your comments

 English Woman

Japanese Woman

Chinese Woman

Peacock Styled 

Here comes my favourite eternal couple "RadhaKrishna"

Enjoy. Soon will come up with a new post.

Cheers

Vennela

Travelogue - 1 Road Trip to City of Bath (Part-2)

Hey folks,

I am back posting the 2nd part of the road trip here. 

It was a colorful and exciting drive to the castle from Longleat. Near by the castle, a dirt bike jump race was going on. Something that I only saw on TV  and never imagined that I would witness it in reality. Though we didn't manage to get out of the car and watch, we could catch a glimpse of the fun.The place was all jammed with parked cars and so we had hard time to find a parking spot. Unfortunately we had to call off our visit to the castle. I could only manage to get one picture, an outside view of this spot. This castle was built in 13th century and served as a manor house in English Civil war.

The next destination was City of Bath. Before proceeding to the destination description, let me tell you about the route that took us to the city. I should say, it was simply a roller coaster ride. The City of Bath is surrounded by a hilly terrain and the roads were like a sneak peak routes and steep slopes. We came across many small towns on our way to the city and the homes in these towns were  like toy villas with cute gardens, and steeply inclined parking spots at the entrances. Their parking seemed like a challenge to earth's gravity. It seemed like a new face was easily recognized, as we drove along many of the residents who were on their evening walks gave strange looks at us. Apart from residential units, there were so many local pubs and most of them had unique window dressing...may be to distinguish themselves.
Unless and until you own a small car you and of course with exceptional driving skills, you cannot get  out of this route without a scratch. Luckily we drove in a small car. Most of the cars we notices there were Mini Coopers n small coupe cars.

The beautiful window decors used significantly for local pubs

When we neared the City, the drive was like a free fall to the City. The road that took us to the city gave a fantastic view of the City view in between the hills. The buildings and view of the city made it feel like a drive to the medieval period. 

With a neat welcome from the absolute clean city roads, our first halt was at Royal Crescent. A one of its kind Georgian Architecture building is among grade 1 listed buildings of England. This was built to serve as residential building but later turned to hotel and office use.The timing of the day was fabulous as it just started drizzling and we could see the dark clouds about to cover the crescent which was an exotic experience for us. There was a big lush green lawn and an Ha-Ha trench(engineering design term) in front of the Crescent.

The Royal Cresent

Next halt was at The Circus...which was originally called King's Circus. Its another Georgian architecture marvel and is one of the best buildings in Britain. It was actually inspired from the Roman Colosseum but this structure can only be viewed only from inside. Its facades are predominantly inspired by Greek and Roman architecture.  Architects and Engineer's must visit place because you get to see a lot of ancient architecture marvels here.

The Circus buildings 

Then, we moved on to visit The Abbey and Parade Gardens. The Abbey is a 10th century built church. Parade Gardens is just opposite to this church. This garden was said be best viewed after a rain shower. As I said earlier, we were there exactly after a drizzle. I can only say, one should experience the romantic flavor of the City. In spite of so many visitors, the specialty of the City is that, it is very clean and peaceful. I felt the climate also supports the City to preserve its beauty. 

Our initial schedule also included a visit to Roman Baths. City of Bath was established as spa resort by the Romans. The Great Bath is another worth visiting location but we ran late and it was closed by that hour. Anyways, since we decided that the City deserves a second trip, no regrets.

The Abbey

After spending some sweetest and best moments at the City, we were back on to the sneak peak drive,..this time it was not the same. The sneak peak thing ended quickly moving us into the farmlands. The clouds became darker ready to pour down and we drove off with jet speed taking the advantage of being on a lonely road. Rain followed in few mins and also stopped in another few mins. That's the beauty of the place. It lets us enjoy the changes. In midst of the vast farmlands there were very few farm houses here and there and folks you will be surprised to know this..there was an Indian restaurant too.

The hay bale cart

Further down the way we saw a paper flyer board "Free Apples". My apple hunt ended there. All along the drive, we found so many apple trees but there was no possible stopover. I thought I will miss them. As we drove inside the farm we found a lonely farmhouse and giant apple tree in front, farms on other 2 sides and lush green lawn with a hay bale cart on one side and an old couple enjoying their evening tea. When we enquired about the apple board, the old man said. "Help yourself and have a treat". Great! we quickly plucked some green apples from the tree and at the entrance gate there was another small apple tree which bore more fruits than its size.Never such a small tree with so many apples..looked like a Bonsai. Without the old man's notice, we plucked another two and drove off from there. You know how tasty stole fruits are :P

The Avebury Circle

Our final destination was Avebury, another world heritage site. This one was similar to Stonehenge but looked like it was not cared as much as Stonehenge. There were not many visitors and moreover it was not as exciting as the other. So we did not walk inside the site, but just drove around it to get a glance. Before I end let me tell you something else...there were many stables on our way. One that caught our attention was a stable where its horses were dressed..yes folks..the horses were dressed. I wish I could have captured one picture.

Yes by then we finished all the destinations we decided to cover on the day's road trip. The single day drive was felt like a week long drive. Not that we are exhausted but the moments n fun n pleasure we had was very very memorable. I should also the thank the three shades of climate which supported and doubled our fun. I have been on many road trips, each of them were unique and even this was too. 

Hope you guys also enjoyed reading this travelogue. More to come, keep peeping into this page.

Cheers

Vennela

Travelogue - City of Bath(Part-1)

Hello Friends,

I am going to present my first travelogue episode here. This post is all about my road trip to the City of Bath, England. I know its gonna be a long post but can't help it friends. Anyways you can make two visit to finish reading my one visit..I mean I am gonna publish it in two parts.

Here goes the first one....

Our trip started in London at 8:30 am, it took us about 20min to get on to the motorway and it took another 15min to realize that we were running out of gas. In our excitement about the trip, we almost forgot to fill the fuel tank. Soon after realizing this, we had to search for service exits on the motorway. Unfortunately there were no service exits found until we decided to take a small town exit. The small town is called Farnborough. Even after driving into the town, for a while all we could see was an aerodrome and some office buildings.  But there was no gas station found. So we took advantage of the technology and got on to browse on blackberry for fuel stations. Fortunately we found one close, and drove off to the fuel station. Once the car was ready to hit the roads, we decided to drive around the town to have a glance. It was small town but a beautiful town. Just because I said its a small town don't jump into conclusions that it wasn't sophisticated as a city. In fact it was much better than a city, clean and green.

Lush green fields around Stonehenge

Once we took off from this small town, we drove for another 40min to reach our 1st pre-decided destination...STONEHENGE. From about a mile's distance, this monument was visible in between lush green fields. There is nothing but this monument in midst of the green fields..it was spectacular site to visit. The climate added more color and pleasantness to the site. Even the parking and services were a built a few feet down the actual elevation so that all you see is the monument.

Distant view of Stonehenge

Many of you might have seen this monument on Microsoft wallpapers, but let me give a brief introduction about this. Stonehenge is an ancient stone circle; an exceptional survival of  prehistoric culture. It was believed that this monument evolved between 3000 B.C and 1600 B.C. The exact purpose of this monument still remains a mystery. This world heritage site stands as the source of fascination and inspiration to many.

Stonehenge

The moments we spent there were so wonderful. The chilling wind, greenery all around and silent spectators around added more n more pleasure to the moments. After spending an hour at this exotic location, we moved on to visit Longleat House. The drive from Stonehenge to Longleat house was in between country side fields. The route was a single road with lots of ups and downs and great views on both sides. I can never forget the eye-candy view all along the drive. The attractions were lot of apple trees on either sides with full ripen apples and start of fall colors.

The Drive to Longleat

After an hour drive we reached Longleat house which was another awesome feast for eyes. The house looked amazing like a sepia effect sketch on a green fabric. Visitors slow down on the road to watch this view from 1/2mile's distance.

Longleat from long view

The building is an unique masterpiece of Elizabethan architecture noted for its landscaped parkland. This was built by the Thynnes and took 12 years to complete. Since we were short of time, we spent very little time inside the house. I should specifically mention about the kitchen shop which comprised of all those accessories used during medieval ages. I thought of buying few but they were all very expensive and moreover I couldn't spend time on shopping.

Longleat House

Soon after this we drove to a Safari Park located close-by this House. My first Safari experience excited me so much. I never had that close encounter with animals, I mean to say to watch them so close. I got out of the car for refreshments, since our car was blocking the road we had to park it inside the 1st park. After purchasing the refreshments, I walked inside the park to get into the car. But I am in the baby giraffe land already. Before I started enjoying them around me, I was told to get into the car by the crew. That was a fantastic experience I had. They gave us an audio CD at the ticket purchase which narrated the park's biography and about the animals that were kept there.

The Safari Park Entrance

The big cats park was actually very exciting of all and the deer feeding. The park crew sold deer food, so that visitors can feed the deers at the deer park. The deers happily showed up at the car windows to eat their meal. At the big cat's park, all of the visitors were asked shut the windows all along the drive. Unfortunately the tigers and lions were too lethargic to perform a stunt to the visitors. They were fed a heavy meal and so some of them enjoyed a noon nap. But we drove so close to them that if they were up and active, I wouldn't dare to imagine how our reactions would have been. And finally we bid adieu to all those animals whom we got introduced to and moved on to our next destination Farleigh Hungerford Castle.

Alright folks, keep visiting the page for next part.

Cheers

Vennela

Happy Engineer's Day

Hallo Freunde,

Engineers, without whom the world is undoubtedly not what it is today. If terms like technology have existed it is because of Engineers. My first Engineering experience was to draw the graphic "we build the nation" and yes I am proud to be a builder of the nation. And of course I am always proud to be a Civil Engineer(I am biased).

We know that we celebrate this day in fond memory of one of our country's greatest engineer Bharat Ratna Sri Mokshagundam Vishweswaraih (M.V). I would also like to remember another famous engineer on this occasion with equal caliber, Padma Bhushan Sri K.L.Rao. Our country can never forget their valuable contributions. Major infrastructure projects were very well conceived by these men. The Krishnarajsagar dam and Nagarjunasagar dam stand as greatest examples for these two engineer's achievements. 

In 20th century engineering mostly pertained to infrastructure development. In later years other streams of engineering evolved. Today it might not come as a surprise to know that our country has greatest no.of engineers in the world. Engineers are a synonym for development. The more skilled man power we have the more we can develop. But our skilled man power is migrating to different corners of the world to earn a better living. If we look at the scenario prevailing in the country, IT industry professionals are one of the highest paid. Though a lot of engineers are earing their bread and butter through this industry, this industry is not solely responsible for development. In fact more than half of the IT industry is run by the foreign investors. The local IT industries are also dependent on international projects. Other sectors of engineering are just surviving but not at a competitive pace. The vital reason is difference of revenue generated/pay scales offered. Some way or the other engineers are shifting into IT industry, sometimes forced to get into this industry to survive a better life.

Our country needs great developments in terms of technology and infrastructure. But not even 50% of this requirement is met. According to recent news, it was said that the government planned to invest huge bucks in the country's infrastructure development. But one of the major concern was lack of skilled professionals in the country. It is very obvious, because our skilled professionals are rewarded much better in foreign countries when compared to ours. The living example is CWG project, one can definitely notice the deficit of no.of project engineers involvement in the output. When compared to the London's early bird preparations for the 2012 Olympics, and recent spectacular FIFA cup organised by SA, one can say our CWG plans have limped all the way through the race. Of course we have many other reasons apart from the above. 

If our country has to see more of M.Vs and K.L.Raos, it certainly needs to concentrate on retaining/rewarding the talented. Dubai another living example, the world witnessed enormous development in terms of infrastructure as the country had brought in skilled professionals from all corners of the world. And yes it involved great monetary deal too. We also can afford if our alloted funds for development properly utilized and if industrialists/developers don't crazily amass all the benefits of the projects themselves and etc etc;

I wish we see more sustainable development in the country in coming years.

Kudos to all those greatest engineers for their priceless contributions to the world.

Cheers

Vennela

Action Plan

Hello dear friends,


As I have mentioned in my previous post that it is going to continue...here goes the next version.


Well I have ended the post suggesting the mantra "Let us do our part" but how???... if the middle class has forgotten that they too have a vocal cord and started accepting everything that happens to them. If our ladies at home are so much interested in soap operas, and winning crazy amounts in reality game shows, why don't they take part in serious reality? And our gents are busy earning to pay the bills and moan once in a month about the price hikes. Because we take things for granted they keep happening to us again and again.


I have jotted down few things that we can do before expecting the crooked political system to change.

ü  Being responsible in using public property. Protesters,stop vandalising the public property; any act that damages the public property bounces back to us in form of a price hike.

ü  Being responsible in using our resources and premises. To clean off the irresponsible trash, we will again have to pay huge taxes. Needless to mention, the effects are rising pollution levels for which we will be blamed by our own children and grand children.

ü  Not surprisingly, 90% of us are corrupted in one way or the other. We are all so much deeply drained in it that it has become almost impossible to get out of it. I know our elders have moved on with it all these years, but youngsters can initiate the steps. Let us try our best to avoid the corrupt ways and sources.

ü  If we get to see the busiest towns in the country, the worst traffic offences are committed with no fear of law and not to forget the other innumerable criminal offences. Why don't we abide by the rules, at least few? I don’t think it is hard.

ü  And not to forget the NRIs, we also have a responsibility towards our country; important thing to be concentrated is economical disparities. Since a lot of NRIs earn decent amounts, it is not tough to send a donation to the people who need it.

ü  NRI Entrepreneurs can make headway to provide employment for the unemployed in the country and I guess these steps have already been taken. Wish more of these come up.

Friends, our little ones can also bring a positive change. Let us educate them, guide them to make them as responsible citizens since they are easy to mould and pure to preach. And before we get the blame from them, ‘let us do our part’.


cheers


Vennela

Food for Thought

Hello Friends,

The month of August has brought the scams, scandals, robberies, floods, and endless blame games out in the news in our country.

Giving a glance at those, I have a series of questions in my mind,

?          Why do we need the Common Wealth games to be held in our country with so much expenditure   

 and with more than half of it feeding the huge ever hungry bellies of those scammers?

?         Does the Army need to work for free for CWG games while the scammers enjoy unceasingly flooding money in to their accounts? 

?          Do our super rich, swiss bank account holder MPs need a 3 fold pay hikes while flood hit areas in Leh have hardly seen any rehabilitation measures?

?         A media channel questioned that don't the MPs need a performance check before asking for a hike? 

?         Why does a political party shamelessly rescues an illegitimate miner? 

?         Should the common man suffer the effect of gas leak for ages while the culprits enjoy a peaceful retired life? Why don't we speak up for our fellow state sufferers and say no to the product "Dove" while the other nation almost shook their government to hugely penalise the responsible Gas Tycoon and devastated their business empire through campaigns?

?         Why is that the common man's purse is never cared? Why a three time successful dacoity in the Bihar Train had never seen any flag down? 

?         How energetic are those crazy politicians taking part in the endless tireless blame games? The Common Wealth games should be held between these most competitive politicians who had shamelessly looted away the common man's wealth in turns. 

When common people like us come to know about this news, how do we react? Either we hop up on a discussion about what should/could be done, or argue about whose responsibility is this, or give it up saying that why should we break our head, or simply shrug off that there is no use talking about it and some of us never bother at all. And of course some of us write a post like me discussing reasons/causes/effects.

But why should we be so thick skinned? Why can't there be any actions plans to protect ourselves? Hopefully a long term action plan, also something that involves all of us.

For decades, we have remained sober and silent on all those atrocities towards us. Though some of us take an initiative to react against those atrocities, they back off when they see that no justice being done. The media which should speak for the public has turned into a major business industry losing all basic ethics of the so called fourth estate.

There should be something else that we can do for our own betterment. We can't let all those bad things happen to us. If we think that since we are not directly affected we need not give it a thought, then our lives would never see a change. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle class pay off the prices.

Alright let me not start the preach-teach thing here and contribute my presence to the helpless mob. All I wanted to say is, people who at least feel there is ray of hope to change our country's future in a positive way can start on implementing smaller methods which can slowly but steadily influence a large number of people. In short, I would say "let us do our part". 

To be contd...

Cheers,

Vennela

Jai Hind

Hello Friends,

Wish you all a HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY


A Triumph of 63 years of Independence. Wherever we are in the world, putting aside all those problems and disputes our country is facing today, lets enjoy the patriotic feeling that effervesces on this day. It is definitely a special day for all of us because it binds us all. The affection that our motherland offer cannot disconnect us. No matter how many times you hear it, our slogan "VandeMataram" still brings goosebumps to many of us and our "JanaGanaMana" makes us stand up in respect where ever we are.
If the 63rd Independence day could give us an exciting and extremely patriotic feel, imagine how it was during 1st Independence day. No doubt the overwhelming joy must  have brightened the sky like the Sun has come back to shine for us again in the midnight hour.
Years of slavery, tireless struggle, innumerable sacrifices, historic movements, several national leaders give a glimpse of this day's prominence. There cannot be any better occasion than this, to bow down our heads to pay our tributes to our national heroes.
Ancient culture, remarkable history, pioneering inventions all science & technology fields, brave and eminent rulers, abundance of resources, and affectionate people are the pillars of India.
Today we are proud of our Nation's ancient culture which has got immense respect among all the countries. We dwell on this pride but its high time that we should keep up this pride. We know it is slipping out of our hands, we need not be superstitious and stringent to stop this, but we can be cautious.
Here is a video which passes the message to respect our culture.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T2qtEu9e5o&feature=related
Thousands of years of history, and the exuberant proofs are those historical sites which are still standing high. Here is a video which reminds our responsibility to preserve our historic sites.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruJvV7Tb6Mw&feature=related
Preserving history and culture will indubitably bring accolades to our Nation in future years also.
I think the makers of these videos should be commended for executing such a wonderful message. And last but not the least, here is another video "Incredible India"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNWeBVBqo2c

May our nation prosper in the right direction. 

Jai Hind

Cheers,

Vennela

Paintings

Friends,

I have been writing a post and it is endlessly going on without arriving the final point. But I tried to tint my hands with some painting experiments in recent days. 

I am not a great painter but some of my paintings make me happy and satisfied. I thought I would be an ugly painter before I started. I guess the beautiful colours never disappoint no matter how much mess I made with them. 

Here I am sharing few paintings. Take a look and let me your thoughts.

Lord Ganesha - for a good start but did this after couple other trails

I feel this looks even more better on a wall rather than on a canvas..I know the black border sucks ;)

Poppy flowers..my first trail with the colours

Dancing away ..choose a sea n sky theme for the background

Rose is a rose is a rose with an experimental spotted background

I thought this was the best expect for its tail feathers,(I couldn't give the proper look) but I love this the most.

While I finish writing my other post enjoy these.

Cheers

Vennela 

Maniratnam's Villain aka Raavanan

Hello  people,

I mentioned in one of my recent facebook status about choosing to watch Raavan or Raavanan, some of my friends responded and suggested Raavanan over Raavan.  I watched Raavanan telugu version which was named as villain. I never wrote any movie review, but the thing is that a friend had told me that my analysis of a movie is very appealing and sincere. So, I was inspired to come up with this review.

When I started reading the news and watching the videos about this movie, it was quite exciting for me as any other Maniratnam and ARR fan. Next to that, the lead actors brought in more curiosity. Somewhere down the line when I was reading more updates about the movie, I had a feeling that it might either brilliantly do well at the box office or will register as a major flop. The concepts of the movie that were publicized had provoked me to think in that way. I missed to watching it on the release day and the next day reviews were out smashing the movie down. Almost all reviews had said it was so disappointing after so much excitement.

Well, I started disbelieving the reviews since long time. I can definitely say that there is not even one proper review about any movie in recent days. The famous reviewers are ruining the film’s future with their stupid reviews and sometimes coming with absolutely false review for some non sense film. I don’t understand the way they rate it. I don’t think it is right for them to judge the movie on the basis of non sense rating. This rating intrigues the readers whether to watch it in a theatre or go for a piracy video. Well, I am not here to represent the film maker’s community but I always had this feeling when I read the reviews and watched the movies. 

Mani Ratnam, a name we can consider as an epitome among Indian directors. He made his films speak for him. Naturally, audiences have great expectations out of his movies. Even Raavanan was such. With great publicity and with stars like Abishek Bachan, Aishwarya Rai, Vikram, and PridhviRaj the hype was doubled. Cannes red carpet welcome and premiere at British film institute added more and more flavor, and glamour to the film. Finally with so much tout around, the movie released and as you all know reviews literally shattered it down.

First of all, please do not expect this to be like any other conventional style of review. I am just trying to present my analysis here.

With exotic visuals and great background score, the movie was actually a treat to eyes and feast to ears. All the songs were experimental. They were completely new to our audiences and these experiments are in rage from ARR these days. So I believe that they weren’t able to entertain all classes of audience. But I bet songs like Veera and Usure Poyena will keep haunting you. The visuals cannot take this blame, as most of them were absolutely breathtaking. The cinematographer needs to be commended for presenting a visual grandeur.

The movie actually unfolded with a diving stunt by Veera (vikram) followed by some disruptions caused to the policemen by his gang  and then Ragini's (ash) kidnap followed by a war of words between the Veera and Ragini which slowly took its shape into a poetic play. While it still remains as a complete bizarre for the audience to follow this poetry (may be the flaw in dubbed version), the characters take us forward into the plot of the film. The journey cruises from hatred to love and respect on each other. Consequentially Dev loses respect from Ragini's side. One needs no intelligence to guess what exactly happened/the reason as the over publicity has revealed most of it. I don't want to do that here again ...at least for those who haven't watched the film and did not guess the plot, let me keep it as a suspense. ;). So apart from the curiosity, one need to look for the quality that Maniratnam’s films promise, the strength in the characters and the technical brilliance that we expect from such an amazing technical crew of the film. In this case, characters were poorly etched not for their quality but for the attributes of each character. Maniratnam made with an intention to rewrite the meanings of the protagonist and the antagonist in this movie. It is okay if he had done this to his movie, but attributing his script as an inspiration from the epic Ramayana has ruined this film’s future.

While Veera’s character was fully established to show various emotions, Ragini's character was a mishap. Dev character which is also crucial had been very poorly executed. And this was not because of the actor but the character. Ragini’s character was meant to be influential but in the execution turned out as an underplay. Coming to the performances, Vikram can undoubtedly be credited along with PrithviRaj. But Vikram completely outshined the screen sharers, in other words except Priyamani in two scenes, all others couldn’t stand equal to his performance. Virkam had a lengthy role, a responsibility to justify the title, and he had done a fantabulous job. But even with limited role, PrithviRaj had come up with brilliant performance. He proved himself to be a true Malayalam actor who cares more about performance than the image. Female lead Ash was probably chosen to show that a women who can carry off the movie to an international platform but not the one who can carry off with sparkling performance. Not that she hadn’t performed well, but generally her acting capabilities are very limited. A character like Ragini should have had beauty as well as brightness in acting. In one of the scenes it is not only because of her beauty that Veera asks her to stay back but also for her traits. So these traits and that influence were not exhibited by her. Priyamani’s role was brief. She was another actor like PrithiviRaj who had given her best for the little play time she got and made her presence felt. Karthik and Prabhu donned energetic roles and justified their bit.

Coming to the noises that Veera makes were probably shown as the character’s identification similar to that of a forest tribe which was really not required for actors like Vikram. He was able to emote enough to present the character of Veera quite impressively in both positive and negative shades.

Editing department efforts were felt, otherwise the length of the film would be longer and brisk shots would have been lengthier and boring.

The face paints and aggressiveness shown in the choreography of “kullu pudithe” looked like an attempt to portray the hostile environment around Ragini to convince her and audience as well that Veera’s gang was antagonistic in appearance.

Costumes by renowned designer Sabyasachi had hardly made their presence as the use of costumes was minimal. And though Ash’s scenes had got to let her wear this designer’s piece, the costumes supplied looked out of place.

Stunts performed were absolutely necessary and couple of them took the breath out. A Kerala martial art style was adopted for Veera which was perfectly in sync with his character.

All in all it had offered all that a regular Maniratnam flick does. But audience perception was different because of the wrong publicity and the title. From the director’s end, contradictions in portraying characters and comparisons with the Epic Ramayana had turned the film down. It was a risky experiment to conceive a film with the protagonist to have the antagonist’s qualities and vice versa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhBGyv7UmZE&feature=related

If the Hindi and Tamil versions have to be compared, since I haven’t watched Hindi version I cannot really write much about Abhishek, but honestly the trailers spoke a lot. One crucial shot that puts Vikram on a high seat is when he escapes Ash and tries to sneak down with her hair falling on his face..his emotion was so perfect. Abhishek miserably performed for the same shot. Vikram is one major reason for the film to run well in Tamil version. So in my opinion excluding the perception flaws from the ace director in conceiving the project, one can still watch it for Vikram's performance, eye treating visuals and ARR music.

Hope you are not bored of reading my lengthy analysis of Villain aka Raavanan!

Cheers

Vennela