Soodhu Kavvum - A review

I think if Vijay Sethupathi is the most versatile actor in the industry at the moment. While seasoned actors in the higher stars churning our duds after duds, Vijay is picking and choosing his script and walks away with it convincingly.

His recent performance is Soodhu Kavvum is top notch. In this film he carries the role of a petty kidnapper Dass who have five basic rules that he follows strictly in doing his business. The story revolves around what happens when he broke one of the rules. This film proves yet another point that content and the narration is crowd puller by cleverly weaving a story with twists and turn and not to forget a good dose of comedy. When I mean comedy, there’s absolutely no separate track nor double meaning dialogues or goundamani-senthil type comedies. The comedy track is woven in the dialogues and the crafting of the scenes and sure is refreshing.

Now what about other characters? The other characters are given enough scope on the screen to leave their mark. The two most impressive ones apart from Vijay is Simha and Shekhar. Their dialogue deliver and body language were superb and evoke laughter spontaneously. These thwo guys make you laugh without efforts. We also have a psycho police character who is after our gang in the second half. This is a particular character of interest because the character does not have any dialogues. Kudos to the director for the genuine attempt. The character conveys or communicate its character to the audience convincingly nevertheless by other means.

Nalan, the director is a revelation and we sure can expect better things from him in the future. He managed to carefully plan the screenplay to leave no dull moment. He crafted Vijay’s character in a very interesting manner. You will never be able to tell whether the character in the movie is plainly insane or hands down genius. He also scored by introducing an imaginary companion to vijay which is somewhat new and add a dimension to Vijay’s character.

The editing was crisp and the musis is one other area which was refreshing. The background score was apt without too much extravaganza which otherwise would have created a dull sequence. The music director was clever to use the score at minimum yet achieved better. The songs are good and does not drag away from the theme of the movie.

All in all I would recommend this movie to be watched in cinema once as its worth your 10 and believe me its way beterthan 3 per 3 kaathal and ethirneechal.

BUKIT ROTAN TEMPLE

 One fine Saturday Morning on 27.04.2013 i decided to wake up earlier than usual to make a trip to Bukit Rotan, Kuala Selangor. Its about 2 days from the Maha Kumbabhishegam of Maha Mariamman Temple which is said to be the temple which was constructed following aagamas strictly. If it is so it is indeed special. The Aaagams are a collection of scriptures in languages like Tamil and Sanskrit which speaks about methods of temple construction to the minute details from moulding of the land and to the placement of bricks. It is a great science of our fore fathers. I dont recall of having knowledge about other temples in Malaysia which was constructed based on aagamas from the beginning.

It took me about 45 minutes to reach there. The crowd was relatively small. Apart from worshipping my main intention was to observe the construction and workmanship of the temple.  
i was truly mesmerised by the way the temple has been crafted. The temple it self is very strategic in the 
vaastu sense. Now dont question my expertise i did learnt a bit by myself and  
furthermore i had a vaastu compass with me. It was windy and the chanting of the mantras can be felt throughout the temple. 

It is also seemed o be a disciplined temple whereby we should not walk straight to the moolaver. Upon entering the thalaivasal we are required to take left and pray to vinayagar first. It is worth mentioning here that whenever we visit temple we may realise that they would always place a vinayagar first. The reason is to pray to vinayagar who is nayagar of vinay also means master of deeds to bless our prayers and lead us in the correct way. 

 After that theres an array of ammans including durga and saraswathy. In the right nook we have lord Murugan with his consorts. I also realised that in the back of the karuvarai lies Vishnu. straight aheah at the right hand of the moolavar is nadavarasar and thereafter we have the nava graha. a few metres from navagraha  people were doing yaagam. Than we come down after completing one full circle into the temple via the steps at the right.

Amman was truly beautiful and powerful. She is a vortex of power indeed. The wind which blows from the karuvarai carries a serenity and peace. I managed to be part of the abhishegam for which i was truly grateful.

After that and as usual i sit down and start to take pictures. Here i share some of the pictures. 

I would suggest that people in Malaysia are truly blessed with her presence and should take the opportunity for a visit. The temple structure is really beautiful and care was taken to ensure fine touch.


 

I learnt that the temple members undertook a 15 months trip to important scared religious sites in India to harness divine vibrations from all relevant Hindu holy sites  in order to enhance the spiritual footprint of our temple and also to complement its physical attributes. 

They went specifically to all the 51 Shakti Peedams (centres of worship consecrated to Mother Shakti) which are spread out over South Asia comprising several countries including India, Nepal, Tibet, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.  They also visited the following sites:

• The 51 Shakti Peedams
• The Thuasa (12) Jyothirlingam Temples
• The Astha (8) Vinayagar Temples
• The Aru (6) Padai Murugan Temples
• The Astha (8) Bhairavar Temples
• The 12 famous Vishnu and Perumal Temples
• The Sapta Nadi (7) Divine Rivers

Prayers and a homa were conducted at all these places.  Furthermore, at each of the Shakti Peedham, a yantra (a geometric religious metal diagram) embossed with the bija (seed) mantra associated with the relevant deity was sanctified and a small amount of earth from each centre was collected. 

These yantras and earth were said to be installed below the manifestation of the Principal Deity (Mother Maha Mariamman) in the Shakti Temple.  Finally, in order to facilitate the proper worship of these 51 Shaktis, their representations have been installed around the Temple.  Manifestations of all 51 Shaktis have never previously been installed in a single temple anywhere else in the world. Some of the pictures are shared here.

But i must admit that there is a real danger of this temple administration falling to the VIP preference kind of temple because all the signs points towards the same. Hopefully, this temple would remains peoples temple where everyone regardless of the social status would be regarded as same.
 I spent about three hours in the temple and left a fulfilled and peaceful person thereafter. i would encourage pepole to take this trip