Entertaining ENDHIRAN

I feel compelled to write a review about Endhiran, a honest attempt in taking our tamil film industry to a whole new level. Everything worked in the movie. Big applause to Shankar for creating this project and to Rajnini for accepting the same. Eventhough the story isn't heavy but considering the audience base for our films, it is a good idea to keep the story easy. Screenplay is making our eyes tiresome in a good way. Rajini is not our superstar in the movie but a real endhiran. A unique factor to this film is, it satisfy both critics and audience which never happens in tamil films(especially with Kamal films like HeyRam, Anbe Sivam). But the movie is not without glitches like when the robot lands on a vehicle, there would be no dent in it. Also trademark court scene at climax in Sankar movies can be avoided.

Now the real success factor is AR Rahman's Music. I will even go to the extent to say that the success of the film would be in big doubt but for the music score. All the songs are superb and musical score with eerie feeling for endhiran is awesome. I am surprised songs of endhiran went not well with other lanuage audiences. In the end, the movie speaks for its budget. Now we can wait for another Sankar-Rajini combination even if it will take years.

Ten Films you don't know about!!!

A long time, I thought to list my best ten films. But after seeing more than a thousand films, I find it to be a Herculean Task or maybe impossible. This is because at least some 100 films are comparatively best, only their genre differs. So I would publish here 10 films you may not have known but they are awesome. Some of these films may be commercial flop but they are critically successful and cult hits. They are not recognized by mainstream audience but I don't know the reason why.

Here is the best 10 know-not films. The lineup is not necessarily reflect which I like most. Just I happen to list them in that order.

1) Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)


About: It is a parody film and full of comedy. I personally think John C. Reilly should been given Oscar for this film. I recommend you to watch the films 'Ray' and 'Walk the Line' before seeing this.

Why: Biopic parody is difficult. This film is full of comedy that you will even shit laughing. Also the soundtrack of this film is awesome having quality original songs which again parodies songs of 60's and 70's.


2) Teeth (2007)

About: The age old concept of Vagina Dentata(which means having a teeth in vagina) is first time used in this film. Yeah the main theme of this movie itself is hilarious. It is not essentially a horror movie but a slight tint of comedy is sprinkled throughout the film.

Why: Black Comedy itself is difficult. But a horror film with black comedy, that is something very very difficult to create. This film did a nice work there.


3) Easy Rider (1969)

About:A road movie about the adventures by two bikers (real bikers) and their encounter with gypsies, redheads and drug usages.

Why: A real movie about hippies and a awesome performance by Jack Nicholson even though it is for a short time. The climax of the film is unthinkable.


4) Awakenings (1990)

About: About patients who were in catatonic state(sort of petrified) for decades and then suddenly come to like due to a wonderful drug(Yes, it is LSD). What will happen if it is for a short period while patient enjoying their life and they are slowly going to catatonic stage again.

Why: Mainly for the performance of Robert De Niro, my all time favorite actor. Best suited for this neurotic character. Robin Williams acting also is commendable.


5) Bad Boy Bubby (1993)

About: A film stricly for people who have a strong stomach. The plot is about a man who after 35 years setting foot outside his house for the first time and meeting people. He is so innocent and so cruel.

Why: A real depiction about change in the nature of man according to his environment. Some films may have scenes which are unthinkable but this whole film itself is unthinkable. Again a word of caution is that those who don't have strong stomach, don't ever see this film.

6) The Boat that Rocked or Pirate Radio (2009)

About: This film is about pirate ships operating in british territorial waters so that they can escape from law. Only they are not real pirates but broadcasting various songs prohibited by BBC. They have overwhelming support from youths in Britain but the authorities want to enforce their iron hand. Who succeeded?

Why: The various disc jockey charaters you encounter in this film are superb. Everyone is of different type. The film lives through songs from Rolling Stones mostly. I have a strong feeling that this film is going to be a cult hit later. The movie also based on real life events.


7) The Producers (1968)

About: A classic comedy film by Mel Brooks. An accountant and a broadway producer join hands to earn money. Only their way is different.

Why: Who can hate Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks combination. The plan itself is in such a way that both of them will earn hardcore cash only if their broadway production fails. Now you will be curious to see the film.



8) Harold and Maude (1971)


About: A portrayal of relationship between a teen boy and 80 year old women. While the boy is notorious for his fake suicide attempts(more than 10 suicide attempts take place and everything is funny), the women is noted for her counterculture style of living.

Why: You will laugh through the whole movie about their relationship but at the end you will cry for you understood their real love between them. Songs by Cat Steven are also nice in the movie.

9) The last of the Mohicans (1992)

About: Based on the novel of the same name published in 1826, it revolves around a tribal group while a ongoing fight between English and French.

Why: The climax of the movie would go for 20 minutes with action packed sequences. But nothing will be spoken, only the music 'The Gael' by Dougie Mac-lean will be heard. I can promise, you wont close your mouth or blink your eye for the last 20 minutes.


10) Chasing Amy (1997)

About: The best film ever by Kevin Smith. The movie questions us about how we perceive ourselves. The movie is about a love between a man and woman who is lesbian. I know, it sounds confusing but bisexual is hard to explain.

Why: When you think you are perfect, the questions really will make you wonder about the truth of your perfectness. It even made me understand that I am a hypocrite.

Guide for Using torrents

The best way to download movies is through torrents. But many folks don't know about it. So through this post let me explain it in detail. Remember torrents are not only for movies but for all like softwares, music, games, ebooks, etc.

First Install Bittorrent.exe which is free having a size of less than 1 MB. Use www.bittorrent.com for downloading the software.
This is the platform through which you can download your movies.

Next Go to the website www.torrentz.com to download a torrent file for the movie you want to download. Remember a torrent file is not the movie but it should be used in the bit torrent software to download your favorite movie.

Search for your movies and select one with high seeds and peers so that you can download it fast. Anything more than 50 seeds is enough to download.

Remember before downloading torrent file, it is best to check the screen shots so that u can verify whether it is up to your expected quality. This is essentially required when you are downloading new movies which are is theater prints because after downloading 700Mb you may sometimes find it impossible to watch. So better check beforehand.

Now open the torrent file you downloaded in Bittorrent software and it will start downloading. Try to download 8 films at a time and not more than that but also not less than that. This is because some films may uses only less bandwidth so it is better to use your resources to optimum. The disadvantage of downloading 8 films at a time is you cannot download a movie in a single day but within a couple of days 4 or 5 films will get downloaded.
The option to download no of torrents can be changed in preferences-->Queuing option in bittorrent.

Change your directories in preferences so that you can change the location where your movie will have to get downloaded.



Some of the terms you need to understand in torrents:
Seeds: The number of peers who have a complete file of your torrent. The more the seed the more the speed of your torrent.

Peers: The number of peers just like you downloading the file using the same torrent as yours.The peers will also upload the datas of their still downloading file. So you are also uploading data while you are still downloading.

Availability: The number of peers who have a complete file of your torrent. Unlike seed, where a single system has a whole file, the availability takes into account all the peers currently downloading. So eventhough a torrent may not have a single seed, you can still download the entire file if the availability is more than 1. This is because one peer may have half the file, while two other peers may have other half combined which totals to 1. So you can download the whole file. So after torrent starts downloading, plz check whether the availability is more than one otherwise it is absurd to download 50 or 97 percent of file.

My experience at IIMB Interview

Venue : IIMB
Date: 2nd April 2010

Profile: B.Com, CA(Inter), Grad CWA
Work Experience: Fresher
Category: OBC-NC
CAT: 84.79(QA), 72.52(DI), 89.77(VA), 88.01(OA)
10th: 84% 12th: 96% Grad: 84%
Calls: Only IIMB and no other.

Essay Topic: Breaking down larger Indian states into smaller will lead to better governance and development.

The essay went well. Anyhow I didnt touched the telegana issue due to its high controversy. Other than that, I started from pre independence era and finished it with various quotes. Overall, an average performance, I would say.

Interview:

The main protagonist is Mr. Mathew Manimala and other two people, I couldnt find out more about them.

Since I didn't remember the flow of interview, I would give it in Q&A type but not necessarily same order.

Q: You are from which university?
A: It is Manonmanium Sundaranar University.
(Shows sort of disapproval having not heard about it)

Q: You are a CA student, so why MBA?
A: Some gyan abt how it improves my knowledge.

Q: But MBA and CA are so different? Why cant you go in CA route itself?
A: Again convinced them abt they are more or less same.

Q: Would you prefer any specific work in job like taxation,etc?
A: Nope I am open to anything.

Q: What do you have in mind?
A: I would prefer Investment Banking.

Q: But IB is not related to CA?
A: Told them abt cost of capital, raise of capital through equity, debt, etc and some gyans again. (That convinced them).

Q: What is economies of scale?(Being B.Com student, this question is obviously expected)
A: Started with learning curve effect and continuing(Sudden interruption). Q: Can you tell it in layman's term shortly.
A: Large production, Low cost(And then shut my mouth close)
(That did it, everybody smiled for the style)

Q: Can you name some of the accounting firms?
A: Deloitte, PWC, Ernst & Young
(Dont know why I left out KPMG in Big Four)

Q: You are a fresher?
A: Yes. But I do have three years of articleship training which is an integral part of CA course.

Q: Tell me some of the crisis you faced in your firm?
A: My firm is in rural place. So some of the clients are not claiming Input credit on tax paid. This I came to know about through my father who is also a client in our firm. (Gave them some figures about how much we lost).

Q: Can you tell us another crisis?
A: Yeah, most of the clients are facing sudden drop in profit. When analysed, they are claiming Gratuity payment in a single year rather than providing provision for it. Being small concerns, they find it difficult to find out the exact amount. So I worked out a small excel sheet and thereby providing for proper provision.

Q: So your client would love you very much?
A: Yes sir, Because I happen to know a lot about them because my father too a client and I can gain knowledge by studying my father's own business.

Q: What do you mean by depreciation?
A: Depreciation is result of wear and tear, obsolete, change in technology.

Q: What are the various methods of providing depreciation?
A: As per companies Act, we can use Straight Line Method or Written Down value method but as per Income tax provisions, we can use only WDV method.

Q: We have lost faith in CA profession after PWC mess? What do you think of it?
A: Told them it is not so. It is an isolated case.

Q: (Not convinced) But today CA are not reporting correctly?
A: We are going to introduce IFRS in the coming financial year. Which somehow will enhance reporting standards.

Q: (Still not convinced) But CA themselves in order to retain their position, play alongwith co's.
A: It is not so. Whenever an auditor is removed, the newly appointed auditor will have to send letter to removed auditor seeking his knowledge and then only take the post.

Q: But still auditor's dont want to quit the co's they are working with.
A: Told them about professional ethics.(That brought a smile for me). Also told them how arthur andersen accounting firm dissolved after enron scandal

Q: What can we do about erring auditors? It seems that nothing we can do about them?
A: A hearing will be conducted in high court regarding professional misconduct by members by ICAI. Also a investigation committee by ICAI will also take up the matters.

Q: Did you do your CWA and CA after B.Com?
A: No sir, I entered through PE-I stream right after my 12th. So when I finished my B.Com, I had three qualifications B.Com, CA(Inter) and ICWA(Inter)

Q: So have you completed your CA or only CA (Inter)
A: I have completed only CA(Inter) but also I have completed one of the two groups in CA Final examination. I am very positive about finishing the other group also in this May examination before joining here. Regarding ICWAI, I completed all the examination and now I am a Grad CWA.

Afterwards, they checked CAT card, OBC certificate, Passport and got the LOR

Q: What is your email, it sounds funny?(Mine is cyman_05@yahoo.com)
A: It is difficult to get a id in the name of simon being very famous. So I chose cyman which pronounced same and the number 05 in id represents the year I created the ID.

Q: So you are a cyber man?
A: In a way, I am more into IT doing languages like Foxpro, etc.

The interview is over.
I told them I look forward to meet them all.
They replied "definitely" laughingly.

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1) Dont know why they didnt checked my Extra curricular?
2) I expected them to ask about my hobbies? But there also no questions.
3) No question about General Knowledge eventhough I am a fresher.
4) The whole interview went in a pleasant manner. No showing of faces.
5) Didnt asked any questions with regard to essay writing.

Everybody's interview in my batch went on for 25 min but mine went on for more. This I realised when only the guys outside told me that. I reckon it went on for some 40 min.

Positive Note: IIMB needs diversified profiles and mine is commerce. Also the interview went very well.
Negative Note: Very low CAT scores and average performance only in EW.


Result: Rejected.

Hello BSNL, we are NOT fools!

BSNL Broadband has torrent of schemes but what happens when you choose high priced schemes is, you lose your money. Sounds great!! Well, here is the calculation. Home Combo scheme will cost you Rs.500 with 1.5 GB free limit and Unlimited plan will cost you Rs. 750. This we all know. What we don't know or fail to note is the difference in speed. While combo scheme has a speed of 2Mbps, Unlimited plan on the other hand will have only 256 Kbps.

You may wonder, "So what, it is unlimited!". But let me take you deep down the rabbit hole. The Speed in Combo plan is 8 times faster than Unlimited plan. The speed I am referring to is both browsing and download speed. The Max download speed that can be achieved in Combo scheme is 200 Kbps while in Unlimited plan it is somewhere around 25~30 Kbps. The result is, a file can be downloaded 8 times faster than unlimited plan in combo scheme.

Still, you may found the facts inconclusive. Here it is. In combo scheme, we have night free download wherein from 2am to 8am, the download is unlimited. So whatever you download whole day using unlimited plan at 256 Kbps can be downloaded within 3 hrs using combo scheme at 2Mbps. Still we have 3 more hours left which in fact can led to the finding that 2 days of Unlimited plan is equal to 6hrs free usage(Max time allowed in one day) or in effect one day of combo scheme.

I can hear you still say "so what, it is unlimited. What will happen if it take two days or week?". You still forget the operation part. The current consumed by your system for two days which you could have saved by using combo scheme. It will come around 42 hours wastage of electricity which now you calculate. In effect, per month, you are wasting around 1260 hours wrt data amount download. Now you do the math with regard to electricity bills.

Of course, the disadvantage is the browsing limit while day time is 1.5 GB for combo scheme which I find highly enough for ordinary usage. The large junk of data through torrents can be very well downloaded during night time. Still, I don't know why majority of the users choose Unlimited plan in BSNL.

Am I Odd or Not?

A few days before, I went along with a friend of mine to help him choose a best buy with a desktop. When I came out of the shop after finished buying, I searched my pocket for my mobile. It was not there. Being panic, I searched everywhere in and around the shop and finally decided to make a call to home to find out whether it is there. I went into a Phone booth and made the call. Thanks God it is there. While getting out, I thought may be I am odd not knowing whether I have taken my mobile or not. The guy in phone booth while handing over the change laughed and told me that everyday he sees four of five persons making the same call to their home. I came out of the booth heartily not that my mobile is not lost but I am not odd and like everyone else.

GMCS Batch of CA Course

Recently, for fifteen days, I attended a General Management and Communication Skills Course in CA Institute in Chennai. All the time, I thought that CA Students are sort of moody, they wont take jokes, etc. But I am wrong. Nearly 50 students participated in the course and it is amazing. Everybody made fun of each other. Within such a short time, we arranged a valedictory function with cultural programmes and dinner. Its nice to work in a team there. Srashta, our romeo friend made a documentary of our life in those fifteen days. I got a award which goes by the name "THE UNDISPUTABLE STAR OF THE BATCH". Yeah guys believe it.