Terrace garden - 2

If you have an open terrace with a lot of sun light, then Lalbagh is a fantastic place to start. Have a close look at the notice board. Awesome guys there! 

You get a host of quality seeds, ready-mix (ready to use mixture of soil and manure), fertilisers and other garden needs like poly bags, tools, etc. The nursery is remarkable. Go for it! 

But I am in Kentucky and this Lalbagh is thousands of miles away from my home! That is okay, you could find similar nurseries around your place, or may be even better shops. Need not panic on this. You can check out the online stores too. 

But I don't have a terrace!

Well, I am helpless on this. Even I may lose my terrace soon. Have a blast till it lasts! May be we should explore indoor plant options. Or may be there should be a brokerage app for leasing open terraces. Say, this office complex next door has some 5,000 sft of open terrace. They put out their specs in the app, and people like you and me take it on lease and create gardens. The simplest name of the app could be 'Greenterrace'; even 'Greencity' sounds okay.

Do we get to earn, like say by selling the produce and making money? Well, the guys who have been doing this for livelihood are dying in hundreds and thousands. And it is just a 'hobby' here. I feel we got to think in terms of value, and not just cost. 

=

But the insects? They are not going let the plants live peacefully. Yes, I guess it is a part of the larger 'cylce of life'. Around 15-20% of what grows is not for us. But with stuff like neem oil, salt spray, etc. we can really bring down the number.

We have had a pretty good run with tomato, brinjal, ladies' finger, lettuce, and cauliflower; and failed miserably with some flowering plants and pumpkin. Now, trials are on with onion and carrot; but not very hopeful though. 

Long live the garden.

Caution: Gardening is highly addictive. 

Kaatru Veliyidai

1987. Thirty years ago. My dad took me to his friend's house where we watched Nayakan in a VCR (known as dek to us). Now, I just returned from watching Kaatru Veliyidai ('The Wind'). I had taken my son along. 2047. Too far to foresee, for obvious reasons. But two things are for sure - Mani Ratnam would not be making movies (mostly); He would be still reckoned as a legend of Indian cinema, mainly known for Nayakan. It was the movie where the cinema-don no longer wore a safari suit, donned curly wig and dark shades and mouthed loaded dialogs like ' I am a bad man'. But for its premise - set in the intimidating Himalayas and beyond, with a haughty fighter pilot paired with a lady doctor - Kaatru does not offer anything defining that would stay with us for the times to come. Yes, not all movies are made to be treasured.

This is one of the few movies of the director where you do not get to see trains; but don't lose heart - other standard Mani Ratnam devices like - the story taking us to different places, mirror scenes, multi-lingual characters, Bharathiar poems, song sequences set in family functions, rains and a hell lot of rains, and so on are very much there. Dialogs - the master does not fail to surprise you - unpredictable; missing; cheeky; intelligent. That they continue to be. 

Set around the Kargil War, Kaatru is about a love relation between a chauvinistic, arrogant fighter pilot and a pudhumai pen-types doctor. That's all about it. Karthi as the lead man sparkles with his performance. Aditi Rao looks stunning through the lens of Ravi Varman, the DOP. With her nuanced expressions, she has put up a pretty commendable show too. RJ Balaji is there, like Alaipayuthey Vivek. Some of the scenes like - the initial scene where Karthi just walks out of the hospital, the portion where 'Delhi' Ganesh comes to know about the man in his girl's life, the tango sequence, and a few others are staged beautifully; They remind us about the coolness-quotient of the man behind them. Kaatru is novel in the sense that it is among the handful of Indian movies that take us into the world of air force pilots; the last one I remember is Rang De Basanti. In RDB the movie takes life after the pilot's death. But in Kaatru being a pilot seems to be only incidental. This is a weak link. The things do not come together very well. 

The hero's family looks contrived; it seems as if it has been created with only one intention - of breaking all stereotypes. But in the process, that by itself gets stereotypical. For that matter the hero's characterisation - perhaps, such tantrums may suit a college lad or a corporate honcho; but for a Squadron Leader serving near the PoK? I am not sure. Be it in the hospital where the whole family is gathered, or be it in the army bar, or just an army hangout place, the hero is bent on humiliating the lady. When people are around, there are not many cherishable moments between them. And when they both are together, there are not many bad moments. This is a story that tries to sincerely track a predefined path; without any flicker. And the movie gets lost in those crevices in the narrative that has been stitched comfortably without any dense sub-plots or fleshed out supporting roles or overwhelming situations. 

A R Rahman continues to provide rock solid backup to the director. A wholesome album. Just superb! The hall I viewed claimed it had the recently(?) introduced Dolby-Atmos, a technology that offers even ceiling-mounted speakers. I think that also helped in taking the sound to great heights. I also enjoyed when the truck demolished a Pak border post and the flag pole fell down.

Today, even after a good sixty years, we love Mayabazar (Tamil, 1957). Such movies that span across generations do not present themselves often. Within a few years Kaatru will be forgotten - but go for it now for the breathtaking setting, well-made songs, neat performance and the genuine attempt at taking NEP to a new level.

Now, I ask my kid if he liked the film. Firstly, he wondered what I meant when I said 'film'. I asked if he liked the movie. He said, it was nice. And what was nice about it? He said, planes, and the naughty boy rakshashan who broke the wall and ran, and the truck throwing bottles on army. 

Time to sleep, kid.

~
Pudhumai pen - புதுமைப் பெண் - The modern gal!
NEP - Neethaaney En Ponvasantham