Arlington Road - A review

"Arlington Road" is one helluva movie and I would count it as one of the best thrillers that I have seen until now. The plot-line kept me absolutely hooked to my seat and just as I was thinking about its probable ending, the filmmaker pulled the rug right from under my feet with an incredible twist in the climax.

The story revolves around the character of Michael Faraday (played by Jeff Bridges) who happens to be a college professor of terrorism. He is still smarting from the loss of his wife, he had lost her a few years back to an accident, she used to be an FBI agent who got shot and died in a botched up raid. That unfortunate incident made Michael somewhat paranoid about terrorism and he believes that most terrorist attacks were the handiwork of a group of people and not of some isolated loners.
Well, one day while he was going back home, he sees an injured kid wandering in his colony street. Stopping his car as he runs across to the boy, he finds that his hands were badly wounded. So he races him to the hospital. There he meets the boy's parents and discovers that they were his neighbours across the street - Oliver and Cheryl Lang - who had newly moved in to the area. In no time do Michael and his new girlfriend Brooke grow friendly with the Langs. But one day while they had gone to the Lang's house for dinner, Michael comes across some blueprints that were lying around in the Lang's house, Oliver happens to be an architect. Looking at the blueprints, Michael gets a feeling that the Langs were hiding something and that things weren't what they seemed to be. Unable to calm his suspicious mind, he starts investigating about Lang's background. He suspects that his neighbour might be a terrorist. However his obsessive investigation into the neighbour's activities actually puts the lives of his dear ones in danger.

Though it's a terrific movie but sadly most people found it to be implausible (yes, there were certain moments in the movie when it did look implausible). But actually movie was ahead of its time, it had got released in 1999. Had it come sometime after 9/11, I am sure things would have been a bit different. But it's the strong performances by the actors which have pulled together this movie. Otherwise there were times when I felt like the story was drifting off its path. Jeff Bridges is brilliant throughout and so are Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack who play the characters of Oliver and Cheryl Lang respectively. Director Mark Pellington could have made the movie a bit crisper but never mind, the movie still looks good.

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Double Jeopardy - A review

Usually I watch family entertainers during the weekends while keeping the thrillers and action movies for the weekdays but this time around, I did the opposite. This Sunday I thought I would rather watch a good suspense thriller and so searched vigorously on the internet. But whatever suspense thriller of the recent times that I came across (that is, reading their synopsis), not one really exited me. It was then that I stumbled across "Double Jeopardy" starring Ashley Judd and Tommy Lee Jones and directed by Bruce Beresford. It is actually a revenge story of a wife played by Ashley judd. It's an old movie from 1999 and though it's not an out-of-the-world movie but it is surely good enough.

Judd playes the character of Libby Parsons who has got a happy family, with a loving husband (played by Bruce Greenwood) and a four year old son whom she dotes on. Then one day her husband and she set out into the lake on a sail boat that he had bought, to spend some romantic time together. After they made love, Ashley falls asleep as she had had some wine too. But upon waking up, she doesn't find her husband around, he was missing but there were blood marks on her night-gown, on the floor of the boat and a knife too. Later she is herself convicted for her husband's murder and is put in the jail, for she had picked up the knife with bare hands and so had left her finger-prints on them. She hands over her son to her sister and asks her to take care of him till she gets released. Unfortunately Judd's lawyer fails to get her released through bail and so she is forced to spend six years in the jail. Her sister does visit her once with Libby's son but after a few months, her friend as well as her son disappear and Libby gets restless on not finding any news about her son.

Then one day she succeeds in finding out the new address of her sister and just while taking to her son, she overhears her husband's voice in the background. Her husband Nick was actually having an affair with her young sister and he hadn't died, that was all part of a plan to earn the insurance money. Six years is a long time to spend in the jail but what keeps Libby going is her burning desire to find her son and also to take revenge from her ex-husband. In the jail, she had come across two other jail inmates whom she eventually becomes friends with, and one of them who used to be a lawyer at one point in time, tells her about a provision in the US law called "Double jeopardy". By Double Jeopardy, she meant since Libby had already been convicted for her husband's murder, she could now walk up to her very much alive husband and may kill him in broad daylight and yet she wouldn't be punished! Libby even succeeds in getting parole and sets out on her plan. However what stood on her way was her cynical parole officer played by Tommy Lee Jones. What then follows is a cat-and-mouse game.

As expected, both Ashley judd and Tommy Lee Jones put up strong performances and it was for them that the movie didn't seem that boring, even though it had nothing new to offer. It could have been a far better movie had it got some suspense. Sadly there is very little suspense in the movie and so one would be knowing about the outcome much before it was to happen.

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Wonderful Magical Stories with Colgate

#colgatemagicalstories
Story time with kids is a special time both for the parents as well as the children because not only do they bond with each other but also because stories help the children in knowing about the world while enjoying them. Parents can teach their kids about newer things around them by associating them with stories. When stories are interesting, the children are drawn into them, they listen to them with raft attention. Thus it helps in developing their listening as well as attentive skills. Plus they would be gaining knowledge. I have so many fond memories of my childhood when maa used to tell me stories every night before going to sleep. Those stories are still etched on my memory because she would make them so interesting that I would remain spellbound. She would also take that opportunity to teach me lessons from my text books, which originally I was not interested in. That is how she taught me about animals, about kings and queens, about Gods and demons, about famous personalities, about numbers, about colours, about important places and so many other things. 

But the biggest advantage of story telling is that it helps in developing a child's imaginative powers. As we all know, a child's imagination can be very vivid and if encouraged, there is no limit to where their imagination can go. As parents, it is our duty to nurture and foster imagination in our kids. Stories are one of the easiest ways of doing that.

My daughter loves listening to stories and every night me and my wife take turns to tell her a new story. However at times, my wife lets her to tell us a story. Though she is only six years old but she really comes up with some wonderfully thought stories that she would have formed using her imagination. So we always encourage her to imagine and tell us a story. Most parents remain concerned about developing the physical strength in their child but developing the mental strength is equally necessary. Doing that is not that easy as improving one's physical ability. However story telling sessions can really help in developing the mental strength and imagination of the kids. Being at a young age, her mind is blank and thus this is the best time to learn about beautiful things of the world and store in her mind. Thus story telling sessions will only sharpen her imagination and brain.

Almost all kids are fond of animal characters especially in pictorial forms in various colours. What if they were given something to play with, like paper cut-outs of pictures of animal characters and sea world creatures? That is exactly what we found in the packs of Colgate toothpaste. Colgate Toothpaste has come up with four different packs that have several pictures of seaworld animals, treasures, and pirates on the insides. When I gave the packs to my daughter, she was very happy and 

at once sat down to cut the pictures along the dotted lines. Thus she had several characters - many sea creatures, pirates, mermaid, sharks, whales, dolphins, tiger fish, octopus and so many others. Being a very imaginative and creative child, it didn't take much time for her to come up with an interesting story about how a young pirate comes to the deep sea in search of a treasure that his father lost in a sea storm years ago and how a mermaid and her friends help him in finding it out. 

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Book review - The Story of a Suicide

Suicides among teenagers and young adults continue to remain a serious issue. Every other day we come to hear or read about a teenager or a young adult committing suicide. The causes for suicides could be many - psychological, environmental or social factors. Youngsters remain stressed most of the time, they find it difficult to deal with their confusions, doubts, uncertainties about their career and future, and several other fears while growing up. But what is indeed very sad is that youngsters consider suicide as an easy solution to all their problems instead of fighting them out. They do not think about those who would be left behind - their families and close ones.

The novel "The Story of a Suicide" by Sriram Ayer is an attempt by the author to draw our attention to one of the most serious problems seen these days - the suicidal tendency among teenagers and young adults and resulting deaths that could have been prevented by proper guidance and assistance. It tells an engrossing story about four youngsters - Hari, Mani, Charu and Sam, studying in the same college in Chennai whose lives get intertwined in a mess of love, friendship, betrayal and revenge. They are like other normal youngsters of their age, however each one of them is shown carrying a baggage from their past. Hari, when he was still a small child, was continuously abused by his own uncle over the years and that left a very severe impact on his spirit and psyche. the worst part was that he couldn't share his misery with anyone. He did try to tell his mother about it but she ignored them all. Mani belonged to a poverty-wracked community, his mother worked in the brick kiln and was the prime bread-earner of the family as his father had left her for another woman. However he would often come back to them and harassed them for money. He would often see his mother being beaten up by his father but being so small, was helpless to help her. His father had even tried to kill him by drowning him in the well to force her wife to give him money. Charu though was a confident and free-spirited girl but she too was fighting with her own inner demons. Sam had recently broken up with his long-time girlfriend Priya and so he too was disturbed. But fate brings them all together when Sam and Hari take admission in the same college where Charu and Mani were studying. From the very first time that they meet, Sam gets smitten by Charu and eventually also falls in love with her when he feels like she too was reciprocating his feelings. But Charu being a free-spirited girl also wanted her own space while Sam was being a bit too clingy. So one day when Charu doesn't pick up his calls, Sam feels like she was ignoring him and thus ensues a misunderstanding and a fight. Sam is left heartbroken when Charu after the argument with Sam, in the heat of the moment, decides to write about it on her social media profile. 

Youngsters these days have this strange fascination for sharing even their intimate details on the social media. Are they seeking approval from the society by doing this? 

It creates a lot of ripples in the college and leaves Sam very disturbed. He decides to take revenge on her and being a tech geek, he succeeds in planting a trojan in Charu's cell phone by which he could take her photos too. He could also record videos from her cell phone.

On the other hand, Hari at once finds a connection with Mani and could share his past with Mani. Eventually they fall in love with each other as they both were gay. However one day Hari's trust on Mani gets broken when he forces himself on him, just the way his uncle used to do. Unfortunately the act gets recorded in the Charu's cell phone and gets uploaded on the internet by the trojan installed in Charu phone by Sam. The video gets viral and so Hari's family gets to know about it. 

Hari feels betrayed both by Mani whom he loved very much as well as his own family who refuses to accept his sexual leaning and so he decides to commit suicide by taking sleeping pills mixed with vodka. 

Youngsters often find it difficult to deal with depression resulting from failures, heart-breaks, fights in relationships and friendships, bullying, and low self esteem. However suicide can never be the solution to any problem. 

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The Island of Emotion - Mauritius

Last week we went to Mauritius one a vacation. My wife has been complaining since some time that we had not traveled to any new place since some time and she was true. It had been a while since we went on a vacation. I had myself felt a strong urge to go to some new destination on a holiday but owing to the work pressures at my office, we could never go. Adult life can be very stressful at times - we all have got some obligations to meet, be it related to our professional career or to our personal lives. However we must keep in mind that we can't let stress get the better of us. Working without a break isn't good for our health. When we get stressed out, we are more likely to falter in decision making and also in our performance. Chances are also high that we may even fall sick. Stress can affect a human body so much that even sleep and digestive system get affected. 

A person becomes depressed, irritable and remains in a bad mood most of the time. The best way to beat that is to take a break from the routine activities and go on a vacation. That is why, when I noticed that our irritability was affecting our relationship, I thought it better to go somewhere and spend some good time there with each other. 

It took us some time to choose Mauritius as the place for our vacation as my wife initially wanted to go to Singapore. But when I showed her the pictures of Mauritius, she at once changed her mind. Anyone would have, after all Mauritius is such an amazing island to visit. Be it to enjoy nature or to indulge in adventure sports or for the food options it offers, I am sure that one won't be disappointed by Mauritius. 

As always, I used Yatra's International Flights to look for the flight options to fly from Bengaluru to Mauritius. After carefully comparing their timings of departure and the costs, I settled for Emirates Airlines. It took us almost twenty five hours to reach Mauritius from Bengaluru with a stopover at Dubai but the flight journey was smooth and problem-free.

I had googled all about Mauritius before booking our tickets. The period from the month of May to December is considered the best time to visit Mauritius because it would have got a pleasant weather. So it would make a perfect time to enjoy the beautiful beaches, the islands and the wildlife there.

Mauritius is famous for the white sand beaches. Even if you do not go far from your hotel, you will still feel extremely happy to just walk along the beach and enjoy the mesmerizing view.

Chamarel
taken from: www.triphobo.com

Among the various places that we visited, our most favourite one was Chamarel. it is a small but beautiful village in Mauritius, Its uniqueness lies in that there you will find seven coloured layers of sand! Yes, purple, green, red, yellow, blue - we couldn't stop marvelling at all the lively colors. We also visited the Chamarel waterfalls.

Chamarel Waterfall
taken from: www.go4travelblog.com

We also went to Tamarin Bay to try the dolphin cruise. We were taken to the open sea just before sunrise where we could spot several dolphins. My wife enjoyed watching them play.

Tamarin Bay
taken from: www.abritandasoutherner.com

We indulged in scuba diving, quad biking and some other water sports as well. We also went on nature walk in the National Park where one can spot several rare birds.

Among other places, we also went to Grand Bassin or Ganga Talao. It is actually an extinct volcano crater which has now turned into a natural lake. It is believed that the water in Grand Bassin is actually water from the Ganga river in India. So it is considered auspicious to take a dip in this lake during Shivratri.

Grand Bassin
taken from: www.internship-maurice.com

On the third day, we visited Ile Aux Aigrettes, a secluded island where we saw some amazing species of fauna. We also saw the famous giant tortoise over there.

Ile-aux-Aigrettes
taken from: www.elite-voyage.com

Port Louis
taken from: www.elite-voyage.com

We spent two days in Port Louis, the capital city of Mauritius. My wife had a great time there as the place offers some really exciting shopping options.

The Mauritius trip really worked out well and when we returned back, both me and my wife felt so good, especially my wife. I had not seen her so happy in the last few months.

If one is looking to visit a holiday destination that could offer some breath-taking natural beauty, serene beaches, crystal clear water and plenty of options for water-based fun activities as well as for bird watching, then there can't be a better place than Mauritius.

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Catch up on Growth with Horlicks Growth+

Their child's health and growth is of utmost importance for all parents. Ever since a child is born, parents take all care and pains to feed their children with nutritious diet so that they grow up to be healthy. But in some cases, despite taking all measures, their child's growth remains slow as compared to other kids of her age. Naturally the parents will be worried. 

Several reasons can impact a child's growth - be it genetic problems (it has often been seen that children coming from families who were comparatively short in height, will also end up being short although there have been exceptions); or continuous illness (a chronic illness especially during childhood can severely hamper a child's growth because then she would be falling short on the essential nutrients). Hormonal problems too can adversely affect a child's growth and so parents should seek a doctor's help in such cases.

But the primary reason for slow growth in children remains malnutrition i.e. the lack of adequate nutrition that is essential during the age of three to nine years. This age period is considered to be a crucial growth phase in children because it has been noticed that children grow their best during these years. Therefore parents should make sure that their child is eating well and that his body is being provided with all the essential nutrients that are required by a child's body for an optimal growth.

But what if the child is not growing as fast as other children of her age? Although different children grow at different pace - some grow fast and some grow somewhat slower and so parents need not worry excessively about their child's growth unless her growth is drastically slower for her age. There have been many cases when some children fail to meet their nutritional requirements - may be due to wrong eating habits. Kids are usually very fussy about eating certain foods during their childhood years and parents have a hard time in making them to eat. 

Having understood this problem of slow growth in children as well as their causes, Horlicks thought of inventing a health product that children would find to their liking and at the same time, help them in growing up faster. Thus after extensive research by International health experts, they have successfully developed Horlicks Growth+ - an advanced health drink to help those children who are lagging behind others of their age in height and weight. Containing high quality whey proteins, vitamins and amino acids, Horlicks Growth+ will surely help children to grow fast and catch up on their lost growth. It has been clinically proven that this health supplement indeed increases a child's height and weight appreciably within six months without causing any side-effects like obesity etc.

Horlicks Growth+ has come as a boon for most parents who were anxious and worried about their child's slow growth and feared that they would end up becoming short and weak. Horlicks Growth+ provides a child with all the nutrition that she needs for an optimal growth and development - both physically as well as mentally. This health drink is available in two flavours - creamy Chocolate and smooth Vanilla flavours and can be enjoyed both hot and cold. One can buy it from any of the top pharmaceutical shops as well as from all the leading e-commerce websites.

Courtesy: www.twitter.com

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Redi-Go: The perfect Urban Crossover car

If a middle-class man living in a city wants to buy a car, which one would he prefer - an SUV or a compact car? Perhaps if not for the traffic blues and not so smooth condition of the Indian roads, one would imagine that he will go for an SUV for the sheer value of his money. An SUV promises reliability, strength, durability and comfort. Nothing compares to that feeling of driving a beast on the road. But sadly he is often forced to settle with a compact car for practical reasons. For one, a compact car is relatively easy to drive through a busy road congested with traffic. Secondly, they are often quite fuel-efficient as compared to the SUVs. Thirdly since they do not take that much road space, so parking won't be much of a problem (given the space constraints in a city). Fourthly and perhaps the most important factor going in its favour, the cost factor - the compact cars usually come easy on the pockets. Now what if a car manufacturer promises us a car that is as strong and manly as an SUV and yet is a compact car? The Japanese car manufacturer Nissan Datsun is going to launch in India, their new baby - Redi-GO. With the Redi-GO, one will be able to enjoy the features of a hatchback in a compact crossover car. Although it's a budget car but the manufacturer has not compromised with the quality. In fact it has been given quite a few high-end features those that one would normally find in a luxury car.

Based on Common Module Family (CMF-A) platform, the Redi-GO has got a 0.8L (800cc), three-cylinder engine and so also a five-speed manual transmission, that would result in great fuel efficiency. It is expected to give a mileage of at least 25km per litre, which is a considerable figure. Fuel efficiency is one of the major deciding factors for a potential car buyer in India.

The designers of Redi-GO have done a tremendous job with its styling. Redi-GO's innovative ultra-modern styling along with its elegant features i.e. the D-cut grille, the stylish headlamps as well as the first in class  LED DRLs (Daytime Running Light) make it a head-turner. These striking features will definitely appeal to the younger lot. Given its sleek and beautiful interiors as well as fairly roomy space to go with several best-in-class features, Datsun's Redi-GO certainly looks like a winner in the mini car segment and will surely be a cause for worry to its competitors.

The Datsun redi-Go has a ground clearance of 185mm and thus is significantly taller as compared to most other compact cars. That results in a high driving position in the Redi-GO and consequently the best in class visibility. So the driver of the car will have a smooth driving experience and will feel confident sitting behind the wheel.

Redi-GO certainly looks very promising, has got a lot of exciting features and so has already created a positive impression on me and my family. However like I had said earlier, before deciding to buy it, I would want to test whether it meets my practical requirements - whether it's easy to maneuver it through congested lanes or through traffic or not. I would love to take a test drive of it in Bangalore. The city of late has earned a bad name for the poor state of its roads; driving on them riddled with bumps and potholes is a nightmare. So I would want to see whether Redi-GO would be able to handle the rough roads of Bangalore. Not just on the rough terrains but also through the narrow lanes of my city. If it passes my test, I will surely buy this car for my family.

Fun. Freedom. Confidence. The ultimate Urban Cross - Datsun redi-GO - the capability of a crossover with the convenience of a hatchback.

(From - Datsun India)

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