Tenali Raman – Movie Review (Tamil)

Vadivelu is a comedian from the time of his entry to movies. One would go with same expectation for this movie and would be disappointed big time except for few shots.
One cannot picture vadivelu as a hero given his stout figure with no proper shaping.
And worst is to see him dancing with Meenakshi Dixit.

Meenakshi Dixit has been added to increase the glamour quotient to bring in more viewers from that angle maybe the director has succeeded. Almost the entire movie she is dressed in a blouse and skirt much to the viewers eyes.

The story is of Tenali Raman, a smart guy who joins the kingdom of Mammanar (again Vadivelu) as as minister. How he outsmarts rest of corrupt ministers and the chinese entry into the market thereby disrupting the local business flow is what the movie is all about.

The songs make you yawn more and more. Lot of times the script is so very weak that one feels like walking out or why did we come for this movie.

In the end Vadivelu Version 2 is a major disappointment.
My rating is 2/5. Giving a higher rating inspite of all flaws for the storyline and the message that was attempted to be conveyed to the audience.

Dwaraka

Not a place for tourists is what it looks like. And neither do the people one encounters makes you change that opinion. 90% of them visiting dwaraka would be for religious purpose.
What have you got in dwaraka, click here.

When we reached Dwaraka we were around 30mins away from mangal aarthi. That is where the stay at Hotel Nand Nandan is recommended. Click here for review of hotel. Clean rooms with A/C and friendly staff and about 200mts from the main temple. When you visit the temple make sure you leave everything back in the room except the wallet. During aarthi time the crowd just goes bonkers. There is a separate section for ladies and gents. Atleast the gents section there is no problem and they just follow the line till front of God, few seconds and out. In the ladies side its actually a made rush.
There is lot of architecture on the temple and some interesting stuff where it looks like balcony areas on the top. There is some work ongoing also. Different denominations available to get prasadam. One thing to remember is people here don’t say “thank you” but “jai sri krishna”.

There are lot of shops around and its pretty old city with narrow streets and lot of shops to eat. Of course one should not miss out “steamed dhkola”.

There are lot of temples around depends on the visitor’s interest. If you want to visit all the temples its a tightly packed schedule. One cannot miss the ride on jetty across to Beth Dwaraka and this should definitely be on the trip chart. Its a short ride and Beth Dwaraka is apparently the residence of Krishna. There are lot more of the city under the sea. Once you get down from the boat to go to temple you could also sit on to the cart and there is a guy who would pull you up. Don’t miss out the food served at the temple “bhojanalya”. In Beth Dwaraka, one could also walk till the other ends of the island. To the end we walked is the crematorium with a temple and a mosque next to it. Its almost like the tip point. Then wait for the jetty back to Dwaraka.

Once back to Dwaraka, head to sunset point in the evening and enjoy watching the sun go down. Then end the day with “steamed dhokla”! 2 plates of that and ones dinner would be done.

For photos click here.

Gir

The royal beast, king of the jungle, lion calling. Not part of the initial plan of the tour was later modified just to see the Asiatic Lions. The only park for lions in India and one other in Africa. To know more about the national park, click here.

This definitely was enough to include in the plan. Did some readings of available hotels on tripadvisor. The entire tour was ad-hoc with no hotel bookings.
From Mumbai we drove and drove through National Highway, State Highway, on wrong route. Till later in the evening re-routed to correct direction towards Sasan Gir. In villages typically by 8:00pm all shops would close down and by 9:00pm there wouldn’t be any soul on the road. Had to hurry up and reached Sasan Gir by 9:30pm. With lot of reviews and quite late went directly to Gir Birding Lodge. Luckily they had rooms available. Without further thought, put all our luggage. The best part is we were damn hungry. They did not have enough vegetables. Still they managed an excellent meal which was way beyond the initial discussion and our expectation. We would have been happy even with curd rice at that time. To read my review of the place you could click here. They cook food right there and three times a day. Evening snacks are also available.

Next day, I woke up to sounds of peacock. I went all over the place and was pleasantly surprised to see that this lodge shares coumpound wall with the national park. With no sightings of peacock, I returned disappointed and when I sat down in front porch of the room they just cross across. This lodge is lucky in that way. Basically a mango farm and with such proximity to national park, animals jump in every now and then. And there are umpteen types of birds. I kept clicking on whatever bird was spotted since I do not know almost all their names.

To visit the national park one has to go to “Sinh Sadan” stand in the queue and get a ticket. There is also an option to book safari online. If you stand in the queue for a ticket, one has to be there good 3hrs before safari time atleast. Safari timings are 6:00am and 3:30pm. We managed to spot 4 lions out of 411 lions which are there inside. All 15 vehicles would not go in same direction. There is also a tribal sect who reside inside the forest.

This is true with all national parks. The safari would not go into dense areas. They would take you in areas which are marked. One reason could be for security of visitors and also prevent animals from getting troubled by over-excited tourists. How much ever is communicated, the tourists loudly exclaim their happiness on seeing lion! Lion being king of jungle does not attack until provoked or extremely hungry.
For a visit to national parks, it would make sense to tie up or get badge from organisations like National Geographic. Atleast for us we were not satisfied with just going around and not exploring further.

Hearing to sounds of birds, bright blue peacock is just enough to spend time outside the national park.

For photos click here.