ashokism...: January 2019

Jan 17, 2019

Athangudi Palace house

The traditional houses of the nagarathars or chettiars (the trading /business Tamil community) in the Chettinad region of Tamil nadu are a statement of opulence and reflected their social status . One such house at Athangudi , called the palace house, is where I made a quick unplanned visit with my wife this winter.

Jan 15, 2019

Match box labels

one of my many passionate hobbies as a kid...collecting match box labels !

Some of them are literally picked from the streets !

Ashokism award 2018....96!

96 -
When the whole kollywood film industry was running an impatient noisy race , out of no where comes a movie that stops the clock, winds it backwards by about 20 years and makes you linger in silence in that time capsule feeling like a school kid again. Director Prem kumar for me is the real hero of this movie. Every dialogue and every shot is carefully measured and delivered. For anyone who had done his schooling in the 90's , its a nostalgic trip where you can relate to every frame. Stellar 'under performances' by Vijay Sethupathy and Trisha carry the story like a breeze. The support cast of school friends - Devadarshini, aadukalam murugadoss, Bagavathy perumal and Rajkumar are brilliant. Adithya and Gouri who play the school kid version of vijay and Trisha are impressive. Govind Vasanth's music is mature and does the trick along with Prem's deft use of Ilayaraja numbers to take us back in time! A movie I can watch again...

Special mention:
Pariyerum perumal.

I generally hate caste based love story movies as they are the usually stereotypical poor low caste boy meeting the rich upper caste girl resulting in a negative drama. But this one was a surprise. Mari Selvaraj's handling of the screenplay is very mature with a touch of abstract and subtle elements. Santhosh Narayanan's music takes the movie to another dimension. Yogi Babu offers the right douse of lighter moments. A clean well made movie that I thoroughly relished..