"Sri Rama Rajyam" - Movie By Bapu Ramana - A different perspective

First of all, with all due respect to Bapu & Ramana, they are great stalwarts of Telugu Cinema Industry and i don't even come anywhere near them to criticise or point fingers at them. Below comments are remarks based on my pure observation skills. As my friends often say i am avery good observer and also being a great fan of Legend - NTR, have seen this movie with so much interest and vigour that i found few points could be better.

Overall the movie was excellent and was not a disaster like "pandurangadu" which was totally mis-directed by changing the story and adding unnecessary modernised scenes.

Pray God to give Bapu more energy and health to direct such movies in future again.

Key observations -

1. Screenplay was found to be little too fast in the initial scenes especially where Rama is entering into ayodhya and during rajyabhishekam. In the scene where rama and sita are walking to the throne, stop before it and bend to pay their respects, rama (balakrishna) completes his act a little faster and while sita (nayantara) is still doing it - (her hands are still attached), balakrishna grabs her finger.

2. Song lyrics could be lot better and it is no match to all time great hit song - "E nimishaniki emi jaruguno....".

3. Excellent take by bapu in the scene when Lakshmana bows to pay his respects to sita. srikanth falls on the feet of sita - an excellent picture.

4. Rest of emotions from sita during the time when she is being left in forest and lakshmana conveying the message are not good enough and can be easily seen as little unreal.

5. Overall Srikanth did a great attempt to Lakshmana's character. Good Job.

6. Dialogues from srikanth (lakshmana) while conveying the message  was not appropriate. Even though the movie is to ensure it is understood by all rather than use any sanskrit, some specific words like - "ramudu", "anubhavisthunadu" doesnt sound good. They doesn't show the respect for his brother or his decission.

7.  Rama's statue in ashram was awesome...Very attractive and beautiful.

8. When sita was being guided to outside for srimantham from her cottage, Hanuman in the form of a kid catches her hand and helps her towards the throne. This is "Highly Unacceptable". if you understand the Great Hanuman's devotion to ram and sita, he will never attempt to catch her hand. for me its very important, in that case, lakshmana touching the feet of sita can be shown or hanuman during the rajyabhishekam can touch feet of rama and sita which you seldom see in any movies or plays.

9. Lav Kusa song - good even though again not a match for old song. But definetely is equally good for  these times.

A Tribute to the Great "Jewel Thief", "Guide" and "Hare Rama Hare Krishna"

Its a very sad loss hearing devanand passed away today. He is a great actor, producer and director.

Hope his soul rest in peace.

My Travellogue: Tips for Visiting Scotland.

Having been visited Scotland 3 times in different weather conditions, one in Peak Winter (Christmas time), Start of Spring (April) and Mid Summer (July), I would like to provide my 2 cents of advice for any future visitors.

Point to Note: My trips are all planned from London. As i stay in london.
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Travel: Best option to book your tickets is by National Express Bus. www.nationalexpress.com. If planned well advance, you can get tickets for as cheap as 1 or 5 GBP per head one way.

Stay: Always plan your stay to be based out of Edinburgh. In Edinburgh the B&B/Hotels cost between 30-60 GBP Per person per night. You can search many B&B in this – http://www.visitscotland.com/. It depends on the time of your travel (summer/long weekend). I would suggest you to go for Serviced Apartments rather than B&B’s (In case you are family 3-4 or more). Most of the times, you may find Apartments come for much cheaper prices than B&B’s. One of the guys with whom i stayed was http://www.scottishapartments.com/. Last time i stayed, the Apartment is in Royal Mile (Main Tourist Street - All attractions are in that Street) with my views of St. Giles Cathedral from My Bedroom Windows. It was excellent..

Tours: For Highlands’s tour, Best option, i would prefer is rabbies tour. I would suggest 2-day Tour of LOCH NESS & INVERNESS HIGHLAND. I have been on this in Christmas ’08. It was worth it. You can look out for many other tours by rabbies. But would suggest rabbies only rather than any other, as the tour guide/driver was pretty good and also the tour is very well planned giving us time everywhere and above all this – its 16 member (max) van. So makes difference!!!
http://www.rabbies.com/index.asp

In the event that you have only time for a 1 day tour- then any operator should be fine. As the third time i have been to scotland, i booked for 1 day Highlands tour from rabbies. It was OK.
If you have time, Visit Isle of Arran as well. It is good place to visit (Of course in summer). For this you may have to catch a ferry/train from Glasgow). I have not gone to this place, but heard it’s a nice place. http://www.visitarran.net/

Of course, over all of this, dont miss visiting Scotch Whisky Distilleries as part of your trip. Its worth it. And i would say, Visiting Scotland without getting to know about Scotch Whisky is Only Half-complete. :-)

IPL : Deccan Chargers vs Rajasthan Royals

This is what i call a Match Winning Performance of the team. As i mentioned in the last blog, Replacing Ryan Harris with Vaas is a very wise decission which paid off at the end. And Dwayne Smith replacing Gibbs was a bold move but defined the match.
Suman, as seen in the previous matches, was very good batting as opener. He did his job well may not be great. He just needs to work out in staying little long and playing bigger innings.
Rohit turned out to be true golden duck and as Gilly mentioned may be he is running for Purple cap rather than orange cup this year.

I would like to see the same line up to continue and keep winning. 

IPL Match Report: Hyderabad (DC) vs Mohali (KXIP)

With the Australian players available, both teams made sure they included them in their line-up. Punjab, drafted Brett Lee in place of Yusuf Abdulla and Deccan replaced Dwayne Smith with Andrew Symonds.

An excellent start given by Gilchrist didn't last long but T Suman had made it up by keeping up momentum as he took on the bowlers from the moment he arrived. Except for couple of deliveries in his knock of 27 off 17 deliveries, i was very impressed with Suman. His batting was effortless and elegant. Straight six of Chawla in the ninth over was an example of it.
His shots are not of traditional pinch hitter quality, they have true class in them. A very good young talent India can look forward to.

Then came the record partnership between Venugopal rao and Symonds, i would say venugopal rao has played much sensibly this time. He took over the charge of attacking the bowlers intially when symonds is low in confidence and trying to get his touch. And when he is all set blazing, he rotated the strike giving symonds strike. One key over is the 17th, when Rao scored a six and boundary off Mota's final over. Before that Mota had dream figures of one for seven in three overs, which was runied with 17 in the 18th.

One thing that differentiated Punjab is their bowling. Piyush and Mota had expolited the slow pitch very well, which was lacking in Deccan Chargers attack.

Deccan Chargers bowling attack was seen as tooth less with none of them other than Ojha performing well. As the popular Telugu Movie Dialogue goes "I make the rules and I break the rules". Symonds has his own version as "I am the creator and I am the destroyer". He proved this for second time. In the inaugural edition match against Rajasthan Royals, he saved the team while batting with a fantastic century but he gave all the runs required for opponents Win while bowling. Yesterday it was the same, while he batted superbly ensuring team posts a big target, he bowled the 9th over to give away 20 runs. I think the Deccan Chargers have to note this point from next matches, Symonds can do best job in only one either batting or bowling. Especially when he played a superb batting knock, never give him a chance to bowl. :-)

From my perspective, key over was 19th over bowled by Ryan Harris which changed the match. Gilchrist should have opted for his golden duck rohit or venu. Gilchrist should look for better options in subsequent matches as ryan proves to be not so effective. RP Singh's bowling is also very poor, may be he is only good at hard pitches rather than these slow pitches. He has to add this ability to his sleeve, which would make enable him to be a great bowler.

Overall i would say, punjab is not at all effective either in bowling/batting/fielding and its only because of Deccan Chargers poor bowling they won the match.