Saturday, May 13, 2017

Pulimurugan

Watched this excellent action adventure movie in Malayalam that includes Tigers! The title itself inspired me to watch the movie that was released in mid-2016 and being an ardent of forest, nature and mountains I couldn’t miss the movie that shot at the lap of forest. Mohanlal is portrayed as Puli Murugan (Tiger Murugan) and he acted as a trained hunter killing the man eating tigers that invade his village. But the movie isn’t all about Tigers; he also fought against dangerous humans who forced him to move out of forest.

Murugan lives in a small village, inside the forest called Puliyoor and he lost his mother in childhood after his brother was born and later his father in a tiger attack took him for vengeance, where he traps the tiger with the help of his uncle and kill it. The Murugan grows into Puli Murugan, now a lorry driver, married and has a daughter, but he hunt rogue tigers whenever they invade the village.

Meanwhile he was forced to escape the forest/village for killing a tiger, and getting a job for his brother he smuggles Ganja (marijuana) in his lorry which directed him toward another face of trouble. How the hunter weed out all this using his Vel (a kind of spear, his main weapons) remains the subject.

Mohanlal is an apt fit to the subject and the character, and his physique and face structure led him valiant looking against the predators. But the movie doesn’t exhibit great violence yet knives pierce tigers, its watchable quite as family.  The most impressive thing about the move was its action and stunt sequences.  I think I don’t need to say more about it, because it was such skilful to won the first ever National Award for Stunt Choreography.

Peter Hein has executed the stunt choreography and Mohanlal himself preferred to do all the stunt scenes rather using stunt doubles, which is normally used in films where the heroes stand aside and dupes do the stunts. Mohanlal’s involvement really amazed me and having a considerable size structure he performed so well. The little boy, who done Mohanlal’s childhood role, too capture the attention esp. facing the Tiger without fear.

The tigers involved in the movie were real ones and the scenes fighting with tiger were all shot at Thailand using the tigers from a Buddhist temple there, since filming with wild animals is prohibited in India.  Though the tigers were trained ones, the shooting seemed to conduct according to their moods! So was the team hard worked for the success of the movie. An additional fact about the movie was it was the currently highest-grossing Malayalam film ever done and the film is expected to release in Tamil soon, along with a 3D version.

Pulimurugan has some lovely songs to soothe listening and excellent BGM! Kamalini Mukerjee’s performance as Mohanlal’s wife was fair and Lal bring out the best character and Telugu actor Jagapati Babu, Bala and Vinu Mohan (Puli murugan’s bro) were all done their job neat. And not to forget the cinematography, the capture of natural resource of God owns country was fabulous and the lorry chasing and action scenes were stunning.

Puli murugan – fair and interesting to watch

Thursday, May 11, 2017

Fence and flowers

Fence and flowers

Here’s another beautiful fence and flowers shot from the same evening walk (in wheelchair) at the neighbourhood and this was taken at Besant 4th avenue road unlike its sibling Blue Cross road (both are popular for local photo-shoot) here. After my Nilgiris trip last month, I haven’t stretched my walking beyond our streets but I’m thinking of catch up this weekend… let see what I get to shoot.

In the above picture, you could see the yellow bell flowers bloomed inside the fence that protects the roadside garden along the 4th avenue and the pink flowers above the compound are bougainvillea. The following one has red-orange flowers, which I have no idea was shot few meter away along the fence. 

Fence and flowers

Linking this post for  Good Fences by Gosia and Floral Friday Foto 

Saturday, May 06, 2017

Looking for shadow

Normally the national highways don’t have much shadow but the road from Ullundurpet to Salem is worst among them, and we fed up looking for a shadow to take a coffee break while going to Nilgiris last month. The entire stretch look deserted and being an extremely hot day we were almost baked! lol

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Though after a while on road, we found a small temple adjoining a banyan tree provided some shadow off the road. Like a thirsty throat got some water, the shadow showed us some relief as we took a turn toward the same. The scene was really giving me a nostalgic feel with cows and bull tied around the tree, the munching of grasses and the smell of cow dung brought back to childhood days. The smell of cows munching grasses could be perceived amazingly through my conscious, as I have been through this lot in my growing day by visiting grandparent’s house with a cowshed beside.

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Like human, the cattle’s too in need of shadow and the two oxen tied to the banyan tree doesn’t turned until we moved out of the place. So was they busy munching grasses except the one (check last  pic) giving me a side and rear view. lol

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The temple seems to be under construct, has a little lily pond adjacent to the temple (with lily buds sticking out of water) and the cows were taken there to drink water. There was a farmer driving the cows around the temple and perhaps it was his land behind the temple and the bulls were belonged to him.  After 15-20 minutes we hit the road again before halt for lunch, again looking for a shadow. 

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Oxen beauty 
Linking this post with SATURDAY CRITTERS

Wednesday, May 03, 2017

Invisible beauty

A Beach house balcony
An invisible beauty
stands on the balcony
against the sea breeze
brushing off her face...
to never let comb hair
coming out of fresh showing.

Looking over the sea
from the beach house
she waits for her boyfriend
who went on voyage
to return to take her along
for a romantic sail across the sea.

Meanwhile at eventide
leaning over the pillar
she strokes her hair, gently
in fond memories of him
where they went hand-in-hand
before he went on-board.  

P.s. Inspired by the picture I shot at Covelong (Kovalam, Chennai recently, on a beach house balcony.

Linking this post for  Good Fences by Gosia 

Sunday, April 30, 2017

Sunday Photos: Shimmering

My parent follows the custom of visiting a nearby temple before starting a long journey. Here, every street end or corner has a temple for Lord Ganesh the most and they chose to break coconut and pray at the shrine before we move. At our street there’s a small temple called Sri Valampuri Cithi Vinayagar temple and it has been their starting point for last few years following our shifting to the native area.

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It was about 6.30 am when we started our trip to Nilgiris at the beginning of this month and as usual the car stopped in front of the temple and my dad and uncle get down to offer their prayer and right behind us the sun was raising up and the light just falls on the temple and across the sanctum, which inspired me to take the cam and shot at the glowing sight. I zoomed on the sanctum and quite impressed with the sunlight expose over the black sculpture of Lord Ganesh with the gold coated arch behind the idol makes it shimmering.

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I have captured this temple few times before with the mobile during the evening walk, but this was a great chance to shoot with the morning sunlight. I am not a morning person and I wake up usually only by 8 am and only during the travel I wake up early or sleepless thinking about the travel, facing the morning sunlight is a delight I cherish until I get to face the same.