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Three things which didn't work for me in Sankranthiki Vasthunnam

Plot Outline: When a tech entrepreneur ( Srinivas Avasarala ) gets kidnapped, the officer-in-charge of the security detail ( Meenakshi Chaudhary ) vows to rescue him with the help of her ex-boyfriend, Y.D. Raju (Venkatesh) an ace ex-cop. Y.D. Raju accepts the responsibility and sets off on the mission in tow with his ex-girlfriend, jealous wife ( Aishwarya Rajesh ), father-in-law and son. Venkatesh, Aishwarya Rajesh and Meenakshi Chaudhary in Sankranthiki Vasthunnam <Credits: Dil Raju > I finally had the chance to view this film over a month after it's release. It's a passable fare with a few decent laughs intended primarily for the movie starved Sankranti audience. However, you do get the feeling that the director was not able to extract the most out of a promising roller coaster ride consisting of people with differing agendas. So here are three things which didn't work for me in Sankranthiki Vasthunnam: Too many gags falling flat: Just like Bhagavant Kesari , the...

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Until Next Time, Your Quote Master.

Out of Time (2003)

Plot Outline Chief of Police, Matt Whitlock's ( Denzel Washington ) personal life is in doldrums. His marriage is on the rocks and he's secretly courting another man's wife, Ann ( Sanaa Lathan ). When Ann is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Matt decides to fund her treatment with money that was recovered from a drug bust. But before Ann can proceed forth with her treatment, she and her husband Chris ( Dean Cain ) are killed in a mysterious house fire. The case is assigned to Matt's estranged wife, homicide detective Alex ( Eva Mendes ) and to make matters worse (for Matt), the DEA comes calling for the drug money. If this isn't enough, Matt is the sole beneficiary on Ann's insurance policy which further implicates him in this crime. Will Matt escape from the fix he is in and identify who's behind everything? Or will Alex and the DEA catch up to the clandestine secrets he's hiding? Denzel Washington navigating rough waters in Out of Time <Credits: Movi...

India vs Australia draws

I expressed a lot of satisfaction in one of my previous blogs that draws in test matches were drastically coming down. We just had one more draw at the Gabba in Brisbane as part of the Border-Gavaskar series. So, this seemed like the right time to look back at the various draw related stats between India and Australia. Out of the 110 tests played between both countries 30 tests ended up draws. I wanted to find out whether the number of draws between the two countries were increasing or decreasing over the years . India vs Australia draw stats The first draw between both countries was a rain affected match in 1947 . A majority of the draws during the initial decades only occurred in India. 30% (8) of tests played between the two sides during the 60s and 70s ended in draws . All of these draws occurred in India while all the tests played in Australia during this period produced a result always in Australia's favor The 1979-1980 series which happened in Indi...

India's performance in Asian Games versus Olympics over the years

In my previous blog we arrived at a ratio (Total no. of medals won at the Asian Games) / (Total no. of medals won at Olympics) which correlated the performance of the Asian games with the Olympics that occurred in the same four year cycle. We found out that India's ratio of 17.83 was at the bottom of the list (remember a lower ratio points to a greater ability to reproduce one's Asian Games performance on the Olympic stage) when we considered the top ranking nations at Asian Games. But one question remained unanswered, was this the greatest disparity between Asian Games and Olympics as far as India was concerned? I dove straight into the medal tallies from the previous century to dig up the answer to my question. The graph brought about several interesting observations: Until 2008 Olympics, India's performance at the 1952 Helsinki games (with 2 medals) was its best ever so was the medal tally at the first ever Asian Games in 1951. Such a...

Performance in Asian Games versus Olympics - A comparison

From the pinnacle of Asian Games, Olympics was a steep fall for India. That set me thinking as to how many more countries found the going tough on the world stage after excelling at the Asian games. For my initial analysis, I took the top 15 countries at Asian Games and mapped out their corresponding ranking at Olympics. As expected, India's Olympic ranking of 71 was third worst behind Malaysia and Qatar. But rankings are not always a great measure to assess how well a country did at a multisport event where a country with a single gold medal outranks another with multiple medals on the account of that country not winning a gold medal. So, in order to have an equitable comparison, I mapped out the number of medals each country won at the Olympics and Asian Games side by side. This time India narrowly avoided the lower third of the graph which contained countries such as Hong Kong, Indonesia and Bahrain that were placed higher over India in the Olympic rankings. Like rankin...