Aayirathil Oruvan is a Tamil language movie written and directed by Selvaraghavan. Karthi, Reema Sen and Andrea play lead roles. Music has been scored by G.V.Prakashkumar.

A warning: This movie is not suitable for children and family audience. Also people sensitive to blood and gory should better avoid watching this movie. Actually this warning could have been included at the start of the movie so that people don’t start feeling uneasy while watching.

Aayirathil OruvanThe story is based on the struggle for power between two Tamil kingdoms – the Cholas and Pandyas. The Pandyas destroy the Chola kingdom, and the Cholas are forced to flee their capital, Thanjavur. But while escaping, they take along with them the idol of a Pandya god. The Cholas establish a secret settlement in some remote foreign island, with the hope that some day they will be resurrected back to the Chola kingdom by a messiah. The settlement is well protected by seven blockades, all of which one has to cross, to reach the place. The movie is based in the present day – a 1000 years after the Cholas are overthrown. A group of archeologists and armed men, led by Reema Sen go in search of the lost city of the Cholas, how they cross the blockades, and reach the place. Now, the twists are exposed – the Chola settlement is still alive in the foreign island, and Reema Sen is a descendant of the Pandyas, bearing a grudge to destroy the Cholas and bring the Pandyan idol back.

The movie is an adventure-treasure hunt kind of movie – at least it looks so in the beginning. The first half of the movie is all about the voyage, and the blockades the crew faces one after the other – all done in hollywood style. Karthi sizzles as a cocky coolie, Reema Sen gives a decent performance as the leader of the expedition and a Andrea does nothing more that just appearing in the scenes.The narration is catchy, and the background score is quite indulging. The crew escapes strange creatures, wades through cruel looking tribes, shoots down hundreds of red-colored men and crosses a quick-sand ridden desert to finally reach the lost city of the Cholas. The audience eagerly get ready for the team’s adventures in the new land. And then, the trouble starts…

The director seems to have become suddenly ambitious. He could have finished it off a hollywood-styled adventure movie with bigger dangers and barricades that comes the team’s way, all of which they successfully break to attain their goal. But instead, the director choosed to become adventurous. He keeps the lost Chola settlement alive in the remote land, and makes Reema Sen the descendant of the Pandyas, seeking to destroy the Cholas once and for all. From here, the movie becomes a torture porn, using the excuse of war, superstitions and agony. The director aspires hard to show how barbaric the Cholas are, and how crude things move about in this land, which makes the audience say, ‘Yuck!’. The script becomes slow, and all characters other than Reema Sen bear a zombie like dumbness about them, while Reema Sen becomes the like of a blood sucking vampire. The audience soon start looking at their watches, mocking at the silliness of the things happening on-screen, and how the movie that started off in a great way, was getting into the boring old rut.

Right from the start of the movie, where a voice narrates the backdrop of the story to the dialogues renders by both the female leads, the pronunciation of Tamil is grossly bad. The difference between ‘la’ and ‘zha’ in Tamil has been sadly ignored almost everywhere. Another thing that was odd about the dialogues was the so-called ancient Tamil used by the cave-dwelling barbarian Cholas. It could have been in normal Tamil itself – at least it would have reduced the zombie-ness of the characters. When a lot of logic has been compromised in the movie, I don’t see the reward in painstakingly bringing in an ancient diction of Tamil, which only alienates the characters from the audience.

‘Logic’ is something missing thoughout the movie. Cell phone works seamlessly in a place which has never been explored by humans. The army from India is able to get to a foreign land and kill hundreds of people there, without any issues or implications. If the army could be air-dropped in the Chola-settlement so easily, why should the crew travel over land, facing so many dangers and losing so many lives? Why do the Cholas look, act and behave like barbarian cannibals? Even though they are shown to have magical powers, how do they get cheated so easily by a girl? When all of the Chola women are raped and tortured by the army, how does Andrea escape, always standing by the side, watching all the horror?

Two good things about the movie are its stunning camera work by Ramji and wonderful music by G.V.Prakashkumar. The songs are indulging, and the background score is good too. ‘Un mela aasai thaan’ and ‘O Eesa’ are tunes that linger along. The computer graphics looks amateurish at some places, but the overall cinematography is quite good.

Reema Sen has given a splendid performance in the second half of the movie, as a vengeful and ruthless female. Karthi disappears in the second half and reappears to sum up at the end. Andrea is more conspicuous by her lack of any part to play in the second half. Parthiban is a huge let down. The most hyped character of the movie – the Chola king – behaves no more mature than the leader of a cannibal tribe. He is speechless and expressionless most of the time, except when they show his large eyes in close-up, trying to make up for the boring screenplay.

The movie is a new venture in Tamil. I have always wondered when the Tamil movies would move ahead of love, revenge and sentiments. This could be a first step, at least the first half. If the excessive gore, barbarianism and blood shed is removed, the characters are made to talk normal Tamil, and the movie is cut down by half-an-hour, the effect could have been completely different. Overall, the movie is nothing close to a must-watch!

Pirate Latitudes

Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton is supposedly his penultimate novel (…another one is slated for release in 2010). The script was found in his computer after his untimely demise in 2008, and has been published posthumously around a year later. That is reason enough for the book to be one of the bestsellers of the year, especially considering Crichton’s prowess in story-telling. The novel resembles heist movies like Ocean’s eleven. It also belongs to the same genre as another of Crichton’s renowned novel – The Great Train Robbery. The novel is a departure from Crichton’s latest works, where the author invariably had chosen scientific themes, especially the hottest discussed topics. On the contrary, in Pirate Latitudes, Crichton takes back the readers half a millennium back to the era of wars, plagues and pirates.

The story is set in the mid-colonial era, towards the end of the 17th century, when the European powers are fighting each other to establish control over the colonies of Central America. The story begins in the English colony of Jamaica. A privateering expedition sets off from here, under the captaincy of Charles Hunter. He assembles a crew of seamen with expertise in different sea tactics, who set out on a voyage to capture a Spanish treasure-vessel stationed in a well guarded and impregnable Spanish harbour of Matanceros. Enemy encounters, hurricanes, sea-monsters, cannibals, escape-tactics, betrayal and retaliation – all these make the story of the novel.

Coming to the review, I should admit the novel has the same characteristics of a Typical Tamil masala movie. A superhero, a heroine who unnecessarily comes around only for adding spice, a loud villain – all of these find place in the novel. The characterization and the sequence of events have been laid out in a neat way, acquainting the reader slowly to the mood of the novel – in this case, the social life in a Caribbean colony 400 years back. However, the author takes pains in detailing the character of Sir Almont – the governor of Jamaica in the initial chapters of the novel, though he doesn’t have much bearing on the rest of the novel, except for brief comebacks – which I felt odd. On the other hand, the protogonist Hunter, gets lesser space at the beginning of the novel.

The novel seems like a summation of smaller incidents, brought forth one after the other. Captain Hunter, similar to the hero in the movie 2012, invariably overcomes all mishaps and emerges victorious, however difficult the situations might be and however stupid his decisions might be. What lacks is a Crichton stamp! A single continuous message line, which the protogonist advocates throughout the lenght of the novel, which could have been a strong connecting wire, is conspicuous by its absence. Nevertheless, all characters in the novel have been portrayed right to the extent required, and accomplish their task pretty well. In fact, I believe the interest in these characters is the one which keeps the reader turning pages. The techniques of the pirates, and the intricacies of sea voyages have been construed very well with enough twists and turns to keep the reader engaged.

The novel is relatively short, or looks so because of the lack of details. The incidents draws the reader quite well into the scene of the novel, but it is not a gripping or compelling read. Half way through the novel, a lot of things feel cliched, and towards the end of the novel, it is not a herculean task to guess what would be the sequence of events leading to the ending. The novel is a casual read, and unlike other Crichton’s novels, Pirate Latitudes lacks the elaboration and substantiation that are typical of Crichton’s masterpieces. The novel somehow feels shallow, and a few scenes in the novel, feel like they end abruptly, leaving the readers in vacuum.

I should also mention that having watched a good deal of pirate movies, the readers are left with little space to imagine, and quite a lot of incidents mentioned in the novel come before our eyes straight from the movies. In fact, I could remember exact scenes from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series while reading few parts of the novel, and even an old Tamil movie of the sixties, MGR’s Aayirathil Oruvan during some of the mishaps the voyage encounters. I can only imagine that the novel could have been an incomplete work, or one written in his early stages as a writer, on which Circhton might have had several pending things to add or change, which never found the light of the day.

The final verdict: Though not one of Crichton’s best, the novel is intriguing enough for a lazy read.

Points: 2.5/5

Some of the questions I keep getting repeatedly from different quarters is:

How can I start my own website?
Is it easy, or is it only for the experts in the field?
How difficult is it to maintain one?
What is the price I will have to pay?

The World Wide Web

In this post, I will try and address most of these questions. I will give a step by step guide for making your own website. Although there is an abundance of information in the internet on this topic, there is not much specific to India, especially for people wishing to have their own personal blog address, like me.

As a prerequisite, all you need is some basic knowledge of computers and the internet, a credit card, and a lot of inquisitiveness. Most of the information provided here is from my personal experience in creating and managing my own website, and a couple of other government and non-profit websites that I have designed.

I have designed, and currently maintain three websites:

http://deepakvenkat.com
(My personal website designed on Wordpress)
http://diya.org.in/
(A social welfare organization site designed on Joomla!)
http://cetl.co.in/
(A government laboratory site designed entirely by myself)

First things first: Who should start a website?

In order to own a website, you need not be a big businessman trying to reach a large audience across the globe. You could be a blogger who thinks it is time he had a website of his own, to build his own brand. You could be an amateur netizen who want to display something creative in a small space of your own. You could be one of those guys who just nurtured a desire to own a website in your name, ever since the dotcom boom happened in India. Or, you could be a small time entrepreuner, trying to advertise your business to net-savvy clients. Believe me, creating a professionally designed website no longer involves huge costs or technical expertise. It can be done just sitting in the comfort of your home, and it can all be done in a couple of hours!

So, even if you are a student with very little pocket money, but with a desire to showcase your stuff to the world, you could just jump in, and create your own website in no time.

Step 1: Buying a domain name

By this time you should have a nice sounding domain name for your website in your mind. Keep it simple, and be ready to go for some variations of the name if what you seek is not available. The most common domain extensions used are “.com”, “.org”, “.net”, “.in”, “.co.in”, etc.

The moment you think of domain name registrars, the provider that comes to your mind is GoDaddy.com. However, I have seen that web domain registration companies operating from India offer reasonably lower prices for domain names, compared to those based elsewhere. For example, I have gotten my site registered at http://www.brainpulse.com, and I have had no problems with it for the past 2 years. Here, you should be able to get a reasonably good domain name for around Rs.400 to Rs.450 per year ($8 to $9 per year).

Some of the popular domain name registrar services from India, which also provide reasonably cheap domain registration are:

http://www.brainpulse.com
http://www.net4domains.com
http://www.indialinks.com
http://www.netlynx.com

Once you have identified the domain name registrar of your choice, just go to the registrar’s website and type in the website name of your choice. For example, if the name of your blog is “Simply Thinking”, you could go for website names like “simplythinking.com”, “simplythinking.net” or something that fancies you. As an alternative, you could name it after your own name (the way I have done it).

Simply Thinking

If the name of your choice is not available, most domain registrars give a list of related domain names from which you can choose one for your website. Choose the name of your choice from the list, or query again with a different name. When you are decided on your domain name, proceed further and purchase the domain name, using your credit card. Now, you are the owner of a domain name.

You will have to pay for your domain name every year. As an alternative, you can pay upfront for 2-5 years in one go, and not bother with payments for the next 5 years. I would recommend sticking to one year, since you might want to change your domain name registrar if you are dissatisfied with your current registrar for some reason. Paying more than $15 per year for a domain name is not justifiable, unless your business badly needs the particular domain name to differentiate yourself from your competitor.

If you can live with domain names that end with “.name”, “.info”, etc., you will find a plenty of discounted offers on the net for such names. Also, rather than sticking to one domain registration provider, a bit of searching on the net for good deals will always yield you the best results. You can get your domain name for as low as Rs.200 per year to Rs.750 per year.

Step 2: Hosting the Website

Though you have purchased a domain name, you cannot do much with it, unless you find a hosting service provider. Hosting is the process of storing your website related files on some computer that is permanently connected to the net, so that people find your site alive at all times they visit.

Hunt for the hosting provider

The same companies listed above provide hosting services too. So, it would be ideal for you to purchase a domain name as well as a hosting plan from the same vendor, as this simplifies the process. On the other hand, you could as well have entirely different service providers for domain registration and hosting, and still it would work without a glitch. The only drawback being, you should remember to renew both of them individually every year.

When it comes to choose the OS of you hosting server, there are two choices: Linux Hosting and Windows Hosting. Some information in this regard can be found here. Linux Hosting is the most widely used, as it is cheaper, reliable and sufficient for most website needs. If you are unsure which one to choose, blindly go for Linux hosting. You won’t regret it.

And it is important to know about some terminologies related to hosting while you make your choice of web hosting provider. The most important of these are— Disk Space, Bandwidth, MySQL Databases, and Email Accounts.

Ideally, a disk space of around 1 GB, Bandwidth of >1GB per month, and more than one MySQL Database are preferred for a simple website hosting. The number of email accounts is a personal choice. Each MySQL database can be used to host an individual blog, photo album, or so on, and if you don’t plan to have more than one, one MySQL database should be sufficient. I have been using Linux Hosting from brainpulse.com, which offers 1000MB space and unlimited bandwidth for Rs.1000 per year. But I get only one MySQL database, which I feel is enough for me.

Bots steal bandwidth

Having unlimited bandwidth is the most attractive option here, for some good reason. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo and so on, crawl your website to find information about your website to update on the search results. Although this is favorable to you (getting you more traffic from search results), there is a downside. The search engines consume bandwidth. There are also a host of anonymous bots which simply eat up your bandwidth limit by frequently crawling your website. Though you can individually ban most of these bots by making certain adjustments, it is desirable to have unlimited bandwidth so that these bots don’t become a problem to your site. Because, once you exceed your bandwidth limit, your site will go offline and will not be accessible to the visitors. Unlimited bandwidth eliminates this fear. (The low-cost hosting provider will expect you to use unlimited bandwidth within reasonable limits. If you need to host a number of bandwidth consuming videos and offer them for download, it is always better to switch to a plan with higher cost).

For web hosting, if you want something cheap, you could look at http://www.squarebrothers.com which offers a minimal Linux hosting package for Rs.450 per year. But in my experience, I have found the downtime to be quite high with them. For personal blogs, it is still ok, looking at the price at which it comes.

So, coming to downtime, an important point to be noted while selecting hosting providers is the downtime. During down times, the website will not be available for public access. This could happen due to some unplanned maintenance work in the side of the hosting provider, or when the hosting provider is not able to handle all requests to his server. Ideally, downtime is required to be zero. But it so happens, that there is always a small amount of downtime with most low cost providers. The catch is to find out which provider gives minimum downtime. You can enquire among your friends or website owners to know if their service provider is good with respect to downtime. For example, I monitor my website using a downtime monitoring service, and I have found my provider to be quite satisfactory.

Don't need more cash

Here we come to the end of the spending part of your website launching plan. You can have a domain name, and a hosting service for as low as Rs.600 per year. For everything else you are going to do with your website, you will not have to shell out even a penny more, thanks to all the opensource resources out there. I will discuss more about these opensource tools in the next part of this article.

(To be continued…)