KGF chapter 1 - Its effect on me, on the Kannada industry in general

As a Kannada movie follower since 2005, I have never been so excited...EVER!!
Kannada movie industry had its heyday prior to the 1980`s when the top directors and actors were the toast of the industry and also recognized across India.
I would not get into the details of that here. But somewhere from then, the movie industry took a different direction and hence the movies from Sandalwood were not in the preferred list of many in India.

There was a phase when there were even roadshows and some such mass requests by the film fraternity to the people of Karnataka to watch and promote Kannada film industry back in 2005. That is when I realized that the other movie industries were more profitable and had huge appeal than the Kannada movie industry and we as an audience needed to step up in supporting good cinemas at the least from Sandalwoood.

There were some good movies like 1 or two per year but none of those movies were being talked at nationally, let alone by other movie industries.

Then, there was a team which dreamed of bringing back the greatness of Karnataka cinema industry to rest of India and also the world. The team was led by a able director named Prashanth Neel, director of Photography - Bhuvan Gowda and music director par excellence - Ravi Basrur. The movie script was loosely based on 'El Dorado' or the lost city of gold which power hungry/greedy people want to control over to be powerful in the world. The lead in the story is Yash(Naveen Gowda) who is also known as 'Rocking Star' in the state of Karnataka

The story revolves around life of Rocky(Yash) who when a child loses his mom to illness and his mom asks him to be a powerful person before he dies. Rocky chooses the path of being a gangster by moving to Mumbai. The story takes a turn when he gets a chance to go to KGF on a assignment of killing the person who controls the gold mine.

The first half is loosely about how Rocky becomes a gangster and how he becomes an important person in underworld scene of Mumbai. Second half is more intense where the action goes to the gold mines of Kolar. Here Rocky sees the rules, restrictions and tyranny of the owners, guards and takes control of the mines in his macho ways. The mining scenes are shot in the real mining location close to Kolar and hence the shots look so natural. There is non linear screenplay tried in the movie where the story is being told by a reporter about Rocky, and also Rocky having flashes of his mother`s words` guiding him in his difficult situations.

My Review:
First half of the movie is passable at best. I believe that the first half is aimed at the mass movie goers who want to see their star/hero to do everything!! Matrix-like action, comedy, singing, dancing!! There are a few scenes worth mentioning but nothing great other than that. But the SECOND HALF!!! is a masterpiece. Each and every second, frame, dialogue, music is a symphony of the highest order. It is a edge of the seat thriller till the end.

Reception in Karnataka: From my experience, there are some movies which start off exceedingly well at the box-office and fizzes out. Then there are some more movies which play well with word of mouth publicity. KGF did well on both fronts, the blitzy beginning paired with great word of mouth publicity. The movie became an instant classic and a huge blockbuster.  The movie gave the Sandalwood movie makes to dream big and have bigger canvas

Reception in Andhra: With this movie, I officially became a fan of Telugu movie going audience. They not only welcomed this movie, but also publicly appreciated and motivated others to see KGF. A big hats off to the audience. When I went to see the movie on the first day, there were a few Telugu audience as well.. That too in a cinema hall in North Bergen, New Jersey! A fun fact, till now the number of reviews in Amazon prime are more in Telugu compared to Kannada. 

Trending in twitter and Prime too: I used to follow twitter, especially the hashtag #KGF since December 21 when the movie released and in the past 2 months, there has never been a day of less discussion about the movie. Even Amazon Prime Video India got a few thousands of subscribers on the back of releasing this movie in Prime, including me.

Thanks for the vision and execution to the team of KGF. Hope for many more to come.

Cooking - Needs and advantages

When I was with my parents in Bangalore(India), I used to take things like cooking and responsibilities for granted. Ever since i have been in the US, I begin to realize how easy my life with my parents was.

Here in the US, eating outside is easy but one cannot have have control over the calories and the ingredients. Fast food is so easy to get and is generally high on cheese, sugar, meat and fried items.

Being a fitness enthusiast as well, I wish to have more control over the fuel that will help me be at my athletic best. Hey, six pack abs are made in kitchen and not in gym. Thats added motivation right there.

I initially started off cooking as an alternative for going out for restaurant and began to instantly like the idea of cooking for myself. It is also a great stress buster. Now I have somehow squeeze in a 30 mins time to quickly cook a decent meal for myself over the weekday. Dinner and lunch for the next day is generally sorted because of this. 

Breakfast is a combination of coffee, bagel, bananas.

I manage a quick snack of bagel in the evening and a coconut water hydration at any time during the day.

Over the weekend however I get a chance to experiment on slow cooking of chicken or some DIY dish which I can see online or on Youtube.

This phase has taught me a few things in life:

• Being self reliant atleast in cooking
• Planning my diet for a day or a few days in advance
• Nutrition control
• It brings out the creative best in me.

I am in love with cooking currently and I wish to continue this for a long time to come.

Some tips for a efficient and happy living

After having experimented on a few things, I believe these are things which keeps us in good stead.
Below are the things which I am following, endorse and recommend

• How we do one thing is how we do everything - No explanations needed. Do everything we need to work on with the same passion and excitement
• Take care of small things, big things will take care of themselves - A corelation with having the foundation or basics right which will add more value to the more complex things
• Pursue goals with end in mind - The passion and commitment that we show at the start will also need to be at the end. So, only take up things which you are confident of seeing through till the end.
• Make a checklist of the things you wanna achieve everyday. It is such a liberating feeling to achieve the tasks and also have a check mark saying that you completed the task.
• Write a journal/diary of the tasks of things you did everyday - The advantages of this task being the knowledge of how you felt about your day stays with you documented. The growth and learning that you undergo are also known
• Eat healthy and do light workout everyday - An investment in health is the best investment which one can make for themselves. Invest atleast 1 hour a day for cooking for yourself or a light workout at home or a gym. 

Comments and criticism welcome

My take on Avengers Infinity War(2018) *Spoilers alert*

For a neutral movie watcher like me, I found the movie to be amazing. Grand, star-studded and ultimate entertainer. Got to see this movie in the first Friday of the release week and also in a IMAX 3D. So really happy there as well.

Coming to the movie, this movie is about the Avengers uniting in the movie to safeguard the three infinity stones from the super villian Thanos. The three infinity stones with Avengers to start off the movie are Time(with Dr.Strange), Space(with Loki), Mind(with Vision). If Thanos gets those infinity stones and with the remaining infinity stones he has, he would have the power to destroy the universe at the snap of his fingers.

The movie starts off on a high note for the villain Thanos who gets the space Infinity stone from Loki, Thor the king siblings of Asgard. Thanos sends his trusted aides to Earth to get the remaining Infinity stones from Dr Strange and Vision. Thor is thrown out of the planet but lands of the spaceship belonging to Guardians of the Galaxy - StarLord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket, Groot and Mantis

While Dr Strange, Ironman and Spiderman couldnt withstand the attack from Thanos` aides, they are on the way to Thanos` planet on a spaceship. The Avengers in exile like Captain America, Black widow come to help Vision.
To take out Vision`s infinity stone, the Avengers move to Wakanda the home of the Black Panther.

The movie spans many planets with fights in Titan(planet of Thanos`) and fights in Wakanda. The movie also gives Thanos` vision of the universe having finite resources and having many people

P.S:
I was not a avid Marvel comic characters fan boy but surprisingly I have seen many Marvel movies - Iron man, Spiderman, Blank panther, Dr Strange, Avengers Civil war and also the guardians of the galaxy

Social network and its effect on focus

I generally used to work with passion and with the intent of finishing of most tasks of the day.

But after I came to the US, I wanted to be in touch with my friends using social networks. So started using lots of Facebook, Instagram, twitter, redditt and some such social media platforms

I even registered to networks like wattpad and what not. Boredom indeed makes you do mysterious things

I didn't know what I was getting into until I got really busy with work and also did not time even find time to speak with my family members.
There were a lot of notifications which I was getting constantly. It was like bombardment of notifications and the distractions those notifications took on me was really tough to handle.

I tried so hard and finally decided to control usage of social network.

I fortunately had 2 phones out of which all my social network were in the phone which I used it while at home and another phone for just work related notifications and minimal messages usage.

When I come home now. I see that there are atleast 100-200 social network related notifications. If I had given myself into each of the notifications, that even a minute per notification would have taken out 100 or 200 minutes of my productive day.
More of half of it is really not required.

Staying in control of your social network is really important.

Things I have better control of now: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TV
Things I follow now if I get bored: Youtube, Quora subscribed content, an occasional netflix and books to read.

Changes I have begun to notice in my life:
I can invest more time doing quality and productive work
Focus has improved
I have been doing more work can I imagined I would/could ever do 
Reading and writing skills have improved

By greater network comes even greater responsibility to control our urge for getting distracted and always stay focussed

Movie IT - views, reviews

I was not a big fan of horror movies. When a colleague of mine invited for this movie called IT, I was like why not try it.

This movie is set in 80`s in a beautiful town called Derry, Maine where there is a mysterious case of kids going missing and the people are clueless with a clown behind it.
This film is a adaption of Stephen King novel and interestingly enough, there are internet references to clown related terror and murder in the 80s too.

In the movie, the clown preys on people who are afraid, alone and with no friends.
The story tells of the magnificent 7 kids who go out to solve this mystery and how their friendship keeps them together.

I went to the movie with the intention of not expecting anything and it would be just another horror movie with a handful of horrifying scenes
Well, it was! to begin with.
But then as the story unfolds, I thought there is also a parallel to some life based realities where as one grows older, you tend to be hard on the kids. The kids in-turn go lonely, fearing who are exactly the kind of people the clown is after.

The kids` acting in the movie is pretty good. I liked the way Derry as a town was shown in the movie too -its tidy roads, kids of bikes, adventure spots and some such good things.

Sound effects really weren't that great but some scenes are really well shot.

The movie is definitely worth watching once!

Experiment of waking up early

Being a perennial procastinator, waking up late or waking up without the target in mind came naturally to me.  I used to wake up early but later retire to bed only to wake up later and having a blurr of what just happened when I woke up, over and over. I became very conscious of the time I was wasting by sleeping in this prime time - time in lost productivity, early morning times where the mind is fresh to do creative work which were better off being used for dreaming. Reading many blogs, following Forbes achievers and other motivational stuff gave me the idea of waking up early, like super early at around 4 to 5 AM time.

My aim till now is to:

• Read or write something from 4 to 5
• Finish off some work by 8.
• Work from 9 to 6
• Fitness, other social committments 

Hope to carry on this habit daily and staying motivated to achieve what I aspire to.