Shakthi's "vallakaapu"..and other things

Another weekend in Chennai ! I am now feeling a little tired of the frequent travels to that city. I have made trips there for the past three weekends in succession. This weekend would be a full-rest period in Bangalore while the next weekend which is longer thanks to a holiday on Friday the 22nd, would be spent in Pune and Mumbai.

Shakthi's vallakaapu function went off very well. As ever, it was a well-attended affair with good food and laughs galore. Its good to be part of a family as ours. Even small occasions turn into big, happy family get-togethers. There were absences yes, but many more presences. Rajesh also looked very chirpy and took great delight in pulling my leg over my "bad" photograph of Kodaikanal. Vignesh also joined in with his well-timed comments which had us in guffaws most of the time. We built up a fair collection of photos and movie and I expect to spend the rest of the week editing our footage and making a nice home movie out of it. Back to iMovie and iPhoto.

While on this, let me also thank Apple for introducing folders into iPhoto. I have long felt the need for this. Last year, my friends and I went on a week-long vacation across California and Las Vegas spending a day each in some key resorts - Disneyland, Sea World, Hollywood etc. I had more than 100 photos for each day and wanted to have one album for each day categorized by topic. This meant my album list became huge and scrolling to locate albums became a pain. Now, I just have a folder called the "2004 California trip" and albums inside. How cool !! iPod Photo doesnt yet support this hierarchy but I think it would happen sooner or later.

Due to the function on Sunday, I missed watching Guru Dutt's "Kaagaz ke phool" on TV. This is one of my favourite films - my 2nd favorite in fact sandwiched between two other Guru Dutt masterpieces, "Pyaasaa" and "Saahib, biwi aur ghulaam". KKP is more about the visuals, the effect that the film has on you than the actual story as such. It is filled with glorious sequences, brilliant shots and ambitious angles. I consider it to be the equivalent of "Citizen Kane" in Hindi films. Guru Dutt and V.K.Murthy were the equivalent of Orson Welles and Greg Tolland.

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