Bharathi R

TL;DR - A Rare mainstream surprise with its heart in the right place. To begin with, I didn't expect any movie to make it to my blog this year, especially Dude. I was skeptical even while booking the tickets, and the pessimism only grew when a couple of close friends said they didn’t like it. For context: I didn’t enjoy Love Today , and Dragon was just okay. But if skepticism can ever lead to a pleasant surprise, Dude definitely proves it. I usually look for one out of two things from a film - a compelling narrative or solid entertainment. I don’t comment much on Tamil films because Tamil cinema, at least from what I have sampled, often misses both and at its worst, treats the female lead as an interchangeable prop, contributing no real agency to the story. It has been a long while since a mainstream entertainer offered a female character with intention, dimension, and presence. Dude does, and that alone deserves acknowledgement. PR struck like a typical Gen-Z actor in his first...

Before we begin, I am in no way qualified to review this book. However, I might not be able to move on with life if I don't give this the closure it deserves. I thought my first encounter with Murakami would be through Norwegian Wood. Like everybody else. It could've been through Kafka on the shore too, I saw that book on my dad's desk for almost three months. But no. Maybe this book landed at the right time. Or there is no right time. Sometimes you find the book, and in most cases, it is the book that finds you. With the wind-up bird chronicle, it definitely has to be the second one for me.  The Wind-up bird chronicle - Haruki Murakami I love it when narratives are non-linear. Life, as I've lived it in the last 20 years, or for most of the part that I can remember has not been linear. I've seen people around me leading a linear life.  School->College->job/grad school/get married -> become an adult -> have kids -> realise at 40 you are your parent a...

 It took me a while to finish this book. Longer than I'd like to admit. Partly because engineering can get exhausting; sometimes all you want to do is sit still and stare into the void. And also because this book allows you to take breaks. Yellowface - by Rebecca F. Kuang Unlike many books that demand emotional stamina, this one pauses. Not every book offers to halt its flavour for your comfort. There are books that get you emotionally invested, and books that slowly get you in the zone. We've all binge-read books, if not series, simply because it lured you into an all-consuming world. Yellowface isn't a lot of things, and it certainly is not bait. It probably isn't something you would find everyone mentioning, and it doesn't leave you with characters to love. But it reminds you, in all gory detail, about the parts of you that'd have inevitably surfaced at times. Every century has had its patron cause. The 19th and early 20th centuries were about women's suf...

Edit 1 : This is something I wrote a long time ago. repurposing for entertainment purposes. any harm thus caused isn't intentional; it happens to be a byproduct. Nobody knows how old BK Uncle is. Some say he's 60; some say he's awaiting his 80th birthday next month. He's been around for a long time. "Long time" might not seem so long, but for this young flat, it feels like an eternity. Old BK seemed nice; he'd converse with anyone he encountered. The four W's never mattered until they came out of him. People got used to his habits, like any obedient student would in an assembly. Well, most people. My interactions with BK Uncle have been quite amusing on my end and irritating on his. Incidentally, most of my interactions with BK Uncle happen on Saturdays. Probably because that's when I'm home, and I take a stroll in the lobby. Not so long ago, I'd play with my friends in the same lobby—it didn't matter what day of the week it was. Times...

One of my goals for this year was to write about what I read. The reading ship has set sail, but I’ve been using lame excuses to skip the writing part. Well, I’m ahead of schedule for my next task, so now I have time to kill. Here we go—introducing "Afterthoughts," random notes on what I read. My first encounter with Khushwant Singh was through the English lessons we had as CBSE students. Years later, while browsing my college library, I stumbled across a book called Not a Nice Man to Know , a collection of Singh's work. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was the first time I found myself enjoying an Indian author’s work in English, and that piqued my curiosity. When the Chennai Book Fair came around, I grabbed a copy of Train to Pakistan . It was the first book I read from my haul. Train to Pakistan Conflicts are never easy to read about, and certainly not easy to write about. My first introduction to the Partition of India came through my school history books, which provided a...

Rewind 2024 2024 was a year full of firsts, trials, and setbacks. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was a year of learning, of real growth—both painful and rewarding. I almost didn’t write this post. After all, nothing about this year was impeccable. But out of respect for the tradition I’ve created, here we are. January began with a personal motto: skip my G1 slot and head to IIT BHU for a hackathon. Ironically, I ended up not having the G1 class at all, and I got to skip F1’s Computer Architecture CAT. It turned out to be the perfect way to understand the depth of the subject and its true value. A strange but happy accident. That same month, however, I faced disappointment when my scholarship application for the HPAIR Harvard Conference was rejected. It stung, especially since getting into such a prestigious conference felt like a milestone. Yet, the connection I made with fellow delegates became my first real taste of international collaboration, and for that, I’ll always be g...