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.

Conservative mindset and its perils

This guy`s blog post seriously got me thinking. Its an article about Indians and their 'its OK' attitude. Being mediocre is one the easy things to be. It is just following the crowd and ending up getting the same results we have been getting since decades. India s medal tally at the recently concluded Rio olympics(2 medals-silver, bronze) is testament of how competitive we are as a sporting nation. If at all we as a nation want to be, we should aim to be the best in the world and not just comparing ourselves against the countries of Indian subcontinent.

Do Indians seriously need generations to change the mindset towards getting away from mediocrity. Following heart and passion are one of the forbidden things for an Indian kid. In Indian cities, the aim of a parent is make their kid the best in academics, without giving them free-time to play, explore their personalities. The exceptions are far and few without this mindset.

The social media is the most interesting phenomenon happening currently. It has never been this easy to get virtually in touch with a company owner or a pioneer of any field. If one has a entreprenual acumen and is crazy enough to float a company, there are channels to get funded provided your idea strikes a cord with the venture capitalists. 

We have a prime example of how a relatively unknown kid from Ranchi make it big in cricket. I am talking about MS Dhoni who was a hockey goalkeeper till 19 years of age. Fast forward a few years, the same guy is captain of India winning India the cricket World Cup. There are many more fields where many Dhonis can be discovered if only we let go of our conservative mindset. We just need to come out of the comfort zone to explore the possibilities...

Discussion culture

Have you ever noticed that you refine your idea when the idea is discussed. Discussion has such an impact on the thought process. As a story writer, you might want to discuss how your story would end so that you know how your prospective audience will take the ending. If you think of a designing a product, you might want to discuss with industry experts to see if there are already solutions implemented which your product aims to solve. 

A good discussion not only brings different points of view of the participating individuals but also focusses on intricate detail of the subject of discussion. This detailing is very important when execution of the idea is initiated: to plan for the worst/best case scenarios. If you are intending to be in a shoe making business, it would not hurt to discuss who would be your target audience, whether you wish to tie up with Amazon or any other online shopping portals, who you intend to be your brand`s ambassador and some such ideas.

The reader of this post would think: Why I am wasting time on the things I know and do. 

The point I want to drive is discussion as an act or habit is necessary and needed in the short term. In corporate world, one might move to different projects or different companies and you may not see that individual anymore. The same cannot be said when the participating individuals are family. There has to be a healthy discussion or exchange of ideas regularly. After all, one just cannot let go of family that easily. A part of us would want to connect back to them whenever possible.

The entire family of a friend I know of discuss news or their day`s plan over breakfast everyday for an hour. I find this extremely interesting as most of us dont or cant even manage to get a family meal together even in a week. Parents or adults would bring a lot of patience, knowledge and experience in any discussion. Naturally, the kid will be well informed as it need not discover the ways of the world itself. Fast forward to couple of decades of this family`s discussion culture and you would note that the people from that household are thinking outward, forward and for the betterment of themselves or society.

This is exactly the reason why I am definitely for discussion as a culture to be part of any family, organization, faith, religion or practice

Benefits of competition

Surely everyone likes success. Be it successful companies/brands or humans. Success comes as a byproduct of doing something awesome, by overcoming competitors/competition. 
One just cannot discount the power of competition. After-all, its one of the way to bring out the best among competitors. There is always the runner up in this competition who is equally responsible for bring out the best in the eventual winner.

Being a sport enthusiast myself, I try to see how competition in sports brings out the best athletes. Since this year was the Olympics year, I noted how top countries perform. We were privileged to view superstar athletes like Usain Bolt and Mo Farah in athletics, Phelps and Katie Ledecky in swimming. What made these athletes superior or world class? Its the competition at local, college, state or national level. These competitions are so fierce at all these levels that the competing athletes realize their true potential. 2012 200 meter women`s olympic champion Allyson Felix could not even qualify from USA olympic trials! Jamaican olympic trials finals had all the finalists who are capable of running 100 meter race in sub 10 seconds. Such is the level of competition for Mo Farah as well who is always challenged by Kenyan/Ethiopian athletes. This decorated olympian from Great Britain endured a fall on the track and still managed to win the 10k race

In the PC market Apple and Microsoft were serious competitors. While Apple took the lead with Graphical User Interface(GUI) in operating system, Microsoft had to reinvent and be relevant in the PC business to compete with Apple. Reinvent and come back they did with Windows PCs in the late 80s and 90s. The fierce competition between these technology giants brought down the prices of PCs to such a low level that even a middle class household can easily afford a PC. This type of competition has helped mankind from many such industries like automobile, telecom, mobile phones. I seriously do hope that we get affordable healthcare in the coming future.

So, if life challenges you, do compete! If you are winner, enjoy it or be happy that you have done your best and made your competitor realize their true potential.

The power of literature..

There are some art forms which appeal to us rather quickly: dance, videos, painting and all. They are fast to assimilate by us and hence mainstream. And then, there are also some art forms like literature:books, religious scriptures, technical publications or blogs. Literature is a medium which can be used as a tool to stimulate the mind, satisfy the thirst for knowledge in a knowledge seeker. The experience and knowledge which one gathers from reading is unparallel to any other art form. This art form not just take the reading habit forward but also open up the reader`s imagination. The greatest movies of all times like The Lord of the rings, The Godfather, Shawshank Redemption were initially that literature which some movie makers were interested in and used video as the transformative art form to share with the world.

I am concerned about the future of reading and writing. People now are slowly moving away from newspaper, magazines as their source of information and knowledge in this digital age. Instead masses are being force-fed with information from social media unknowing of the credibility of information. As a result, many authors/publishers are finding it difficult to survive or going digital with their products.

Imagine if a person is attending a conference as a delegate or is part of a sporting spectale like the Olympics as an athlete or a sports lover. Video(s) or image(s) shared will not even give an iota of justice to what that person would want to express. Video or an image will just show the highlight or the highs of the event, but will definitely not capture the entire experience. It is like seeing the success of Apple products and disregarding the immense effort or the breakthrough decisions which were done to make Apple products the way it is now. Highlights gives the direction of the story alright, but not the entire story. A reader will be more satisfied to know the entire story and literature definitely meets this requirement. This way we will not loose out on experiences and stories which are to be told and experienced. 

Me being a sports lover, I was especially intrigued to read this biography "Its not about the bike, my journey back to life" by Lance Armstrong. The intricate detailing upto which Lance Armstrong described his training and the strategies which the US Postal team devised to win Tour de France multiple times are the things I enjoyed to read the most in this book. I had never followed Tour de France till then but this book gave me an insight of one of the world`s most gruelling competition. The training which athletes do in high altitude locations to get acclimatized and perform in this competition, how a team safeguards their leader in the peleton(race leading group) so that this leader saves energy for the final dash to finish the race are some such highlights of this book. It is a shame that he had confessed to doping though. Nonetheless, I am very happy that I read the book and got an insight of Lance`s life. 

There are many stories out there which are equally intriguing and there are many more authors/people who have stories to tell and stimulate our imagination. Let us save this art form by reading more books, blogs, encouraging more authors..

Half year of US life, hoping for more

Coming from India, I was doubtful how my stay here would be in the US.
Since I day I came here, I have been in awe of the opportunities that this country presents and the diversity of people that its home to.
I have not encountered any untoward incident till now god forbid but whatever little I have seen of NY and NJ are nothing short of an education.

From the time one comes here to the US, one would notice that you see more cars than people. People are always in a hurry to get their job done, greet you with a smile even if they don`t know you. Relaxation for people is a quiet drink by the bar, family barbecue or a ball game with family/friends. Its expensive to get a college degree or to get work done. So, one would always see people doing multiple jobs or seek a high paying job to manage their family expenses.

For a person who was attuned to having women settle as housewives in India, I was really amazed and impressed at the tune to which women workforce is in place here. I have also observed that women get more work done faster and are more focussed too. One more thing you would notice about the country is cleanliness. The roads are properly marked out, maintained regularly by the concerned departments and there are designated bins at most places for dumping trash

America is a land of opportunities and land of innovation. One can see innovation in each and every american product which is bought. The furniture bought from Ikea/Walmart can be self assembled by following the instructions, most packages can be opened with minimal force applied by hand, payment of bills by using your mobile as your credit card. The user experience is visible in each and every product we buy.

The people being friendly here is a main reason why I see there are no restrictions on what one can achieve in this country. You can do whatever you want provided its legal. Nobody cares about who you are or what you do unless you are obstructing a way of someone. People are proud of their ancestry or where they have come from and they tell their entire family story if you stimulate this topic with them.

I hope I get to explore and experience the country a little better in the months to come and update this blog regularly.
Until then...