Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Hunters' Tavern: Gamification vs Gaming in Recruitment
Hunters' Tavern: Gamification vs Gaming in Recruitment: I have been speaking to few HR Managers in the last few days about Gaming and Gamification in Recruitment. There is an interesting debate g...
Friday, November 16, 2012
Hunters' Tavern: Announcing PHP developer hunt
Hunters' Tavern: Announcing PHP developer hunt: We are announcing PHP developer hunt this Sunday. PHP hunt : FirangiBhai and Bluegape are hiring PHP geeks through this hunt. Bluegape ...
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Hunters' Tavern: Business Analyst hunt - an analysis
Hunters' Tavern: Business Analyst hunt - an analysis: We spent a lot of time designing questions for Business Analyst hunt. We hope the questions were tricky and interesting. Most questions w...
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Indian cinema - the road ahead
Recently I watched Mankatha-the 50th ajith (popularly known as thala in South-India) movie. Though the movie was watchable, I couldn't digest the theme of the movie where the villain is shown in positive light. The movie was more about justifying the act of two corrupt police officers.
The people throng the theaters whenever a superstar actor movie releases, (be it a negative theme based movie). It is the responsibility of the directors (and producers) to make movies that produce positive energy in the society. Movies have been influential to the behavior of the people in our society. The release of Rang de basanthi (RDB) was followed by public becoming more about corruption. In a way today's anti corruption strike led by hazare owes a lot to RDB.
But today directors, in the name of exploring new themes are making movies like Mankatha which might influence people to commit crimes.
Looking back at Tamil Cinema history, I would say that, Tamil cinema has evolved a lot technologically, but in terms of story, characterization and picturization the quality has come down.
Just look at the kind of movies that are made today. Most movies have a standard theme where the hero has supernatural abilities, the heroine has no role to play and ya there is an item number.... Come bollywood, the movies there add a few raunchy sex scenes. Where is the cinema industry heading?
60's and 70's was the era of classical movies, where lot of emphasis was given to character. Even our demi-god rajnikanth ACTED in the movie 16 vayathinile. We have seen more classic like Edhiroli, Karnan, Apporva ragangal, avargal, mahakavi kalidas etc...oh ya rajni can act!! :)
80's and 90's was the of age of offbeat theme based movies..we had the best of directors in this age..from KB to maniratnam, P Vasu, Bharathi raja to name a few...:) and they gave us excellent movies...remember anjali? i will shed couple of tears even today if i watch that movie! apart from that we had guna, thever magan, chinna gounder, duet kadalan etc to name a few...this period also coincided with kamal shifting to acting versatile characters and rajni doing more superhero roles..
The quality of movies begin to steadily deteriorate in the 2000's..Even Rajni acted in a hopeless movie - 'baba'..we are still having the steady flow of characterless, emotionless and logic-less movies of actor vijay..
but still i feel tamil cinema industry was fairly much better when compared to bollywood or tollywood..even though vijay's movie was logic-less it never promoted any wrongdoing. he would fight the wrong/evil with the help of his supernatural abilities like jumping from one movint train to another, jumping from 100+ feet in the air without any support system etc. We can forgive vijay for that.
but mankatha has opened the pandora's box. now tamil cinema directors will start making 'A' rated porn movies, they wont mind making movies where wrong doing is justified..we would soon see movies like the dirty picture, dellybelly made in tamil.
This is not good for a society like ours where fans blindly follow what their stars do. I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow some ajith's fan commits a crime and justifies his crime by pointing fingers at mankatha.
Inspite of this I haven't lost hope. We still have a handful of quality directors like maniratnam, shankar, kamalhasan etc. The rest have to just refocus their views and make films with moral responsibilty.
The people throng the theaters whenever a superstar actor movie releases, (be it a negative theme based movie). It is the responsibility of the directors (and producers) to make movies that produce positive energy in the society. Movies have been influential to the behavior of the people in our society. The release of Rang de basanthi (RDB) was followed by public becoming more about corruption. In a way today's anti corruption strike led by hazare owes a lot to RDB.
But today directors, in the name of exploring new themes are making movies like Mankatha which might influence people to commit crimes.
Looking back at Tamil Cinema history, I would say that, Tamil cinema has evolved a lot technologically, but in terms of story, characterization and picturization the quality has come down.
Just look at the kind of movies that are made today. Most movies have a standard theme where the hero has supernatural abilities, the heroine has no role to play and ya there is an item number.... Come bollywood, the movies there add a few raunchy sex scenes. Where is the cinema industry heading?
60's and 70's was the era of classical movies, where lot of emphasis was given to character. Even our demi-god rajnikanth ACTED in the movie 16 vayathinile. We have seen more classic like Edhiroli, Karnan, Apporva ragangal, avargal, mahakavi kalidas etc...oh ya rajni can act!! :)
80's and 90's was the of age of offbeat theme based movies..we had the best of directors in this age..from KB to maniratnam, P Vasu, Bharathi raja to name a few...:) and they gave us excellent movies...remember anjali? i will shed couple of tears even today if i watch that movie! apart from that we had guna, thever magan, chinna gounder, duet kadalan etc to name a few...this period also coincided with kamal shifting to acting versatile characters and rajni doing more superhero roles..
The quality of movies begin to steadily deteriorate in the 2000's..Even Rajni acted in a hopeless movie - 'baba'..we are still having the steady flow of characterless, emotionless and logic-less movies of actor vijay..
but still i feel tamil cinema industry was fairly much better when compared to bollywood or tollywood..even though vijay's movie was logic-less it never promoted any wrongdoing. he would fight the wrong/evil with the help of his supernatural abilities like jumping from one movint train to another, jumping from 100+ feet in the air without any support system etc. We can forgive vijay for that.
but mankatha has opened the pandora's box. now tamil cinema directors will start making 'A' rated porn movies, they wont mind making movies where wrong doing is justified..we would soon see movies like the dirty picture, dellybelly made in tamil.
This is not good for a society like ours where fans blindly follow what their stars do. I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow some ajith's fan commits a crime and justifies his crime by pointing fingers at mankatha.
Inspite of this I haven't lost hope. We still have a handful of quality directors like maniratnam, shankar, kamalhasan etc. The rest have to just refocus their views and make films with moral responsibilty.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Book review - the lost symbol by Dan Brown
Having read all of Dan brown's books I couldn't help but compare the lost symbol with his previous books. As in all his books, the novel happens in short time and there are more then one plot which come together at the climax. From the intriguing angels and demons and da vince code, this book is a little disappointing. nevertheless, for all dan brown's book readers, the lost symbol is an enjoyable read.
This the third brown book involving Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon. This book is set in Washington DC and the roles are derived from freemasonry.
Though the book was not as fast paced as the da vince code, the plot here was more believable and realistic. The main antagonist poses as an atheist and the characters try to convince him to have faith and belief in a supreme power.
The reference to Neotic science is a fun read but brown could have given more details about it. Apart from the interpretation of what Hell might be like when Mal'akh dies, there's no Indiana Jones Holy Grail excitement going on here.
Coming to the plot, the novel starts very well. The buildup about the secret - the Freemasons keep and national security crisis forces the readers to keep one hand on the book!! The buildup to find the lost symbol brings along many new aspects connecting science and spirituality. The plot is good until the climax, where he refers to the bible as the 'the lost symbol'. For someone with brown's caliber we can expect a better ending. It is like brown wrote this book with a movie in mind.
Finally saying that the lost symbol is the bible (for a christian, vedas for hindus, quran for Muslims etc) was diluting all the buildup. There are some more loose ends in the book. Was it the bible that the masons were protecting? it is available everywhere! What about the staircase that is going down the earth? cant langdon figure out that he is actually climbing up the stairs?
Barring these mistakes (in the climax), the lost symbol is a nice read. It is typical brown style book. racy, energetic with lot of puzzles to understand and solve. Also inclusion of Neotic science in the book has made every made question his spirituality.
Finally, if you planning to visit washington, read this book and explore the places mentioned in the book (I will if I visit washington DC :) )
For all brown fans it is a must read!! It is an entertaining novel but definitely not the best of Dan Brown’s work.
This the third brown book involving Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon. This book is set in Washington DC and the roles are derived from freemasonry.
Though the book was not as fast paced as the da vince code, the plot here was more believable and realistic. The main antagonist poses as an atheist and the characters try to convince him to have faith and belief in a supreme power.
The reference to Neotic science is a fun read but brown could have given more details about it. Apart from the interpretation of what Hell might be like when Mal'akh dies, there's no Indiana Jones Holy Grail excitement going on here.
Coming to the plot, the novel starts very well. The buildup about the secret - the Freemasons keep and national security crisis forces the readers to keep one hand on the book!! The buildup to find the lost symbol brings along many new aspects connecting science and spirituality. The plot is good until the climax, where he refers to the bible as the 'the lost symbol'. For someone with brown's caliber we can expect a better ending. It is like brown wrote this book with a movie in mind.
Finally saying that the lost symbol is the bible (for a christian, vedas for hindus, quran for Muslims etc) was diluting all the buildup. There are some more loose ends in the book. Was it the bible that the masons were protecting? it is available everywhere! What about the staircase that is going down the earth? cant langdon figure out that he is actually climbing up the stairs?
Barring these mistakes (in the climax), the lost symbol is a nice read. It is typical brown style book. racy, energetic with lot of puzzles to understand and solve. Also inclusion of Neotic science in the book has made every made question his spirituality.
Finally, if you planning to visit washington, read this book and explore the places mentioned in the book (I will if I visit washington DC :) )
For all brown fans it is a must read!! It is an entertaining novel but definitely not the best of Dan Brown’s work.
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