Vaayai Moodi Pesavum (Speak With Your Mouth Shut)

A young woman, who resents her step mother and her controlling boyfriend, starts liking a do-gooder orphan, who pours all his earnings into an orphanage on the verge of being uprooted, due to a landlord with a heart of stone, for whom life stopped being the same once his son eloped, though his helpless wife could not alienate herself from her estranged son and as a bonus, a politician (Pandiya Rajan in a winning role) eager to pass the buck and keep his head safe. On the surface, Balaji Mohan's Vaayai Moodi Pesavum* is replete with cliches that provide enough fodder for at least four** long drawn melodramas, but he still makes a film so good that it leaves you a bit speechless (at least just before the end).

The film is not a laugh riot, but Balaji who doubles up as a news anchor, makes sure there a lot of fun moments (Arjunan in another winning role). Don't miss the news scrolls if you can read Tamil/Malayalam. The film's best portions are in the second half, and though situations that play out might induce a yawn in a regular film, you can not but wonder how seamlessly and effectively Balaji works around the constraint that he forces himself into. The execution of these scenes is excellent, especially for an audience that typically frowns at melodrama and is so used to regular films (with regular dialogues). I have never watched a silent film***, but the experience here was so good, that the scenes engage you more keenly. The songs come as refreshing interludes, but when silence breaks slowly on the screen, you are as jolted as the stunned Madhu Bala. A cliche - but easily the best moment of the film (and my speechless moment), which in any other film would be nothing more than a cliche.

Balaji does not seem to be interested in showing how a few of these relationships get to the happy ending. A few of the sub-plots are weak and at best, mildy funny, but once you have bought in to Balaji's ambitious idea, these are minor hiccups in an engaging journey.

Note:
* Also made in Malayalam as Samsaaram Aarogyathinu Haanikaram.
** Four is the most common random Tamil number. Eg: Dress appropriately. Only then four people will respect you.
*** Pesum Padam is quite a popular silent film. But here silence is a plot point, rather than how the movie is shot.

How not to screw up summer internships

Start Early

Like after the Fall final exams. Grab a copy of Cracking the Coding Interview or look at Career Cup website and start solving problems. A google search will find you an endless stream of questions.

OCR Seminar
Go to OCR seminar, get yourself enrolled for Oncampus Placement service. You can then start using Zebranet for applying to internships. I started a bit late, and did not understand what people were talking about when they said apply through Zebranet. As a result I missed application deadlines for Bank of America and Goldman Sachs. If you see that your are not eligible for OCR in Zebranet, then it means that you have to go to the OCR seminar.

Arithmetic
Find out what percentage of companies respond positively to interview requests, and what percentage of companies provide offers after an interview. Finding the request approval rate (a), and successful conversion  rate (s) gives you the expected number of companies (N) you need to apply so that you have (O) offers at the end of the semester. Many people who did not get internships probably applied to fewer companies, which led to their (O) < 1. You can find the values of (a) and (s) from friends and seniors, from your university. While the values might vary based on experience, GPA, etc, it is good to have a number in hand, and I struggled without knowing how many companies to apply too. Matt Might mentions this in his highly informative blog post, but the link might be incorrect.

Interview Mode
Your performance in interviews influences the hiring decision, more than any thing else.  I would even claim that a person's suitability for a job does not influence any thing at all! All stories that you might have heard of some people having 6 or 7 offers by March, might be true. Interview mode, may be?

 I use the term only for a vague description of one's ability to face interview questions with fluency and confidence. When you are in the mode, you can see that you are in tune with the interviewer's expectations. It requires practice, even for people experienced in job search, it means slogging a little hard in the early phases. Answers that you gave may be incorrect, or you will discover the fact many days after giving that answer in an interview or always miss one special case or another. But keep working on it, practice a variety of questions. Being in an interview mode is also about identifying pitfalls in your thinking process and develop an ability to make progress in an interview inspite of an initial misunderstanding or mistake.

It is somewhat possible that interviewers repeat questions at many companies, and simply expect you to produce the standard correct answer. Most seem to be not bothered about repeating questions, so it does you no harm if you google and find out these questions and practice solving them. 

What's not an Interview Mode
I occcasionally got a few answers right, when casually discussing interview questions. I took it as a sign of me being in a good shape for interviews and did not invest further time. But I was nowhere near successfully solving questions during interviews. Even the easy ones. The bottom line is that delibrate practice works better. Some people have daily time slots for preparation. I worked in batches, and coded this,(which you may realize is not much at all) during my full time job search. And coded some simple interview questions for the company I was interviewing.

 And it worked this time, and I think it works only one is an Interview mode. During the internship interviews,  I was clearly not in interview mode. I struggled to recollect information about projects listed in the resume and flattered at questions that I would usually cracked.

The Effect of Bad Interviews
While good interviews serve as confidence boosters, bad interviews lower your morale. I stopped my internship search, probably because I was tried of doing badly in interviews. So if an interview goes wrong, think about how you could have done better. It's not that tough.

Luck
Getting short-listed, the questions that you get, the alertness or lack of it of your interview and several other factors outside of your control determine whether you are offered an internship. In my experience, getting not short-listed for a job that you think you can get was the most disappointing thing. But it happens to every body and let that not dampen you. I do not know, if job filters can not read PDFs. Steve Yeggie recommends plain text resumes.

Get in touch
I do not think it is enough to just prepare well for interviews. If you do not get lucky, you may not get sufficient interview invites. People who cracked the internships right at the end of the semester, did not just stop at applying to companies. They followed up with recruiters on linkedin, mailed them and almost left no stone unturned in getting an interview call.

Code repository
It is useful to have an online code repository of your projects. Some companies require people to mention their github accounts. Though interviewers typically gauge you for accuracy and speed in interview, seeing your commits might help an engineer an insight into how persistent you can be on solving problems over a longer time frame.

References
Take a look at this and this.

Lessons in Love - 500 days of Summer

When a love story ends in failure (for non-Tamil folks when the couple do not end up together at the end), the end of the story is its message. And this message is usually regressive, even in highly rated films - sacrifice your life for your girl (Titanic), avenge her death (Ghajini), end your life if she is dead (Romeo/Juliet, Dil Se), pine for her, even if she has moved on (Vinnai Thandi Varuvaya), help her love succeed (Poove Unakkaga). All such stories may not imply that though the love ends in 'failure', their triumph lies in the message. The makers may accuse any such interpretation as over analysis. But in some cases, the films boldly wear out this message (VTV leaves a message in both endings).

When a love story ends in success (couple get do together and live happily ever after), the end of the story is its message. It is almost always the same: "True love triumphs; beats all odds. So just hang in there." I do not know what true love is but the pattern repeats consistently (Alaipayuthey, Minnale, DDLJ). Once again, the message is usually not explicit.

I heard about an independent English film "500 Days of Summer", when many people accused that VTV was a rip-off of that movie. My curiosity increased when my friend mentioned that two movies are not related at all, but had an interesting take on its ending. I happened to see the movie only yesterday. To tell that VTV has some connection with "500 Days of Summer" is absurd. The lead pair sit at a park towards the end and talk about life. And the guy picks himself up after the mess (that "one way ticket to heart-break city") and moves on. Other than that and both of them being romance flicks, there is nothing in common between them. I think 500 Days of Summer is more like Kadhalil Sodapuvathu Eppadi than VTV.

And like the movies in this genre it leaves you with a message. The film is so delightfully made that you will love it without regards to the message. ( The third person point of view introductions of the leads. The impromptu gig in a Hollywood movie. Witty conversations and post cards. The name of the other woman. My favourite scene is when both Summer and the guy shout "penis" repeatedly in a park, like a Ganapathi Bhappa chant).  So what is the message? My friend told me that a guy who is 'cheated' by his girlfriend (Summer), 'gets' a hotter chick at the end (Autumn).

Here is my take on the message part. The build up to the message is deliberately laid from the beginning. The guy is on the look out for the one girl he is destined to meet. That flawless goddess turns out to be Summer. Subtly and otherwise we are made to believe that she is way out of his league. Summer likes our guy; she lets him through the gates that no other person has ever been through (no pun here. Seriously. There is a scene when she admits to this). But she is convinced that he is not the guy for her - old lessons, she says. So when she refuses to take the relationship further and disappears leaving our guy heart-broken it is not because he is stuck in a boring job or he is not in her league, but because of this conviction of hers. You would feel pity for a guy whose heart break is worsened by among other things - the shattering of his belief. His dream girl just dumped him and destiny has failed him.

The guy later meets Summer and finds that she is married. She just felt right about her husband. How did she just start trusting people enough to marry one, our guy is made to wonder. We are left wondering if the guy was able to cure her mistrust of people and put an end her belief (that she will never be happy with any one - anti-thesis of our guy's beliefs), but ended up being a victim of his cure.

When the guy meets Autumn at the end of the movie, he is made to feel special. She has noticed him before. This is starkly in contrast to how he used to feel around Summer ("Are you serious that you are dating this chick?"). Finally it is the moment of realisation for him (and us): Do not believe too much in destiny. It is all a coincidence and things happen 'with randomness' (without a predetermined course). And in when Autumn says we can work their first date out without fuss - there is probably a message there- Just go with it.

The message is true not only with relationships, but probably with other things in life. We understand this randomness partly. Perhaps many superstitions of our life can be explained as a derivative of this flawed understanding. Success is random. Changing your name or the location of your bathtub is random too. But is it going to influence your success?

You pick up 'The Alchemist' at your neighbourhood book store and tell your friend, 'You know what? If you really want something, the whole world conspires, to get you what you want. That's what the book says. And in walks the girl of your dreams, scanning the stacks for some book. What coming together of destiny, prophetic words, Paul Coelho and the abstruse alchemy called love? No, it's coincidence dude!

Talaash - shining throughout.

It's usual for outsiders to disagree about the goodness of a movie with the native speakers. I have liked Telugu action, song, dance, comedies which my Telugu speaking friends are not fond of. To them probably the movie was another in the oft made genre of commercial entertainers to which they are overexposed. But when I find that people dislike Talaash - supposedly a crime thriller movie, I am surprised because a well made film in the genre appeals to people irrespective of the language and such films are rare, so the question of repeativity does not arise.

Talaash starts impressively with a homicide investigation and makes steady progress. The investigation could have continued briskly, but the film increasingly focuses on how the investigator is reeling from the loss of his young son and his estranged relationship with his wife. While this not itself is not deficiency, the investigation that takes place in parallel appears to be stalled. The unfolding of the investigation is unduely held, because a shoddily made sub-plot  which triggers a clue takes time

to unfold and the trigger could have been done away with. The movie successfully completes a transition into a moral-supernatural thriller where the cop overcomes his guilt over his negligence and the bad guys get punished (although not convincingly).

Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Rani Mukhurjee are convincing and their characters are well developed. The movie at some point becomes a character exposition of the cop, but I guess that the need to accomodate the starriness of Aamir Khan prolongs this unnecessarily. For example, the other kid who survives appears merely like a prop to lead to an Aamir Khan acting moment. But that said, it is only a minor glitch. Nawazuddin Siddique is convincing as a side kick of a pimp and does well too, but the motivations of his character are not clear. The sub-plot where he blackmails the business man is rather weak and need not have streched in parallel along side the main plot. The movie would have been more interesting had it been compartmentalized.

Kareena Kapoor and Rani Mukherjee both shine in their roles. Rani Mukherjee, in fact is the eye candy in this movie and I wonder if her not so young housewife attire is a cultural reflection or 'visual relief' or serves to highlight the plight of the cop despite the presence of an attractive wife.

The movie has several interesting moments. The wife leaving the dinner table as if in distress, at an off-hand comment only to casually return with a utensil. How the wife copes up with the trauma better than the cop is interestingly told. The what-if scenarios as to how the cop could have saved his child unfolds refreshingly told, in place of an overtly sorrowful song (which is the norm in 'our' movies). The relationship between Siddique and an ageing sex worker also has a few brief, but heart warming moments. Especially the scene in which the pimp leaves the woman out as being old is very well done without giving away the suspense, but also serves to bring out their delicate relationship.

Kareena Kapoor as the high ranking escort does a good job, but her character becomes increasingly mysterious and together with Siddique's death is a a give away. With more care, the director could have pulled a rug from under our feet. The summary retributions in the climactic scenes and unfolding of the suspense seem slightly out of place in a movie so far well made as this. I did not buy for one moment, the Goan woman's (I hear a D'souza woman is a standard stereotype in Mumbai based Hindi movies) contact with the dead child, though the sub-plot is not poorly made as it appears. But the climax sells this some what unconvincingly.

The movie lacks a moment or two of brilliance, (3 Idiots would be an average film without its two or three brilliant moments), but is good through out and definitely makes for an interesting viewing.

Das Story

Soodhu Kavvum is a remarkably entertaining film. The film's novelty lies in the fact that it does not dwell into the mental illness of its protagonist Das (Vijay Sethupathi has lived the character!), though everything that happens in the film might be related to his mental illness.

When an important character in a film is afflicted with some mental disorder the film usually takes its own time to unravel the fact. Aishwarya's 3 is a case in point. But in Soodhu Kavvum has Das starting of, acknowledging his mental disorder, how he sought medical help and how it did not do him any good. His gang are made aware of his disorder but still go ahead with him and accommodate this (quite humorously). Other than this, mental illness does not seem to affect the plot (till the epilogue may be). But Soodhu Kavvum looks at only a few months into Das' life in his forties. He is tired of smuggling, and has branched to kidnapping. He has perfected the craft and has his own 5 commandments, which seem to work so successfully. (The portion when the team executes kednapping is the most entertaining portion of the film). So what could have been left untold about Das as a person in the film?

This is shortly what happens in the film. When there is a big offer to kidnap a big fish, his teammates can not refuse, Das seems to avoid it as it violates his Rule #1 (Never touch a big shot). It reveals the fascination that kidnapping holds for him irrespective of the payoff (he switched careers for job satisfaction). But still goes ahead and involves himself in the risky assignment. Shalu who is always around Das during good times disappears after Das stops indulging in kidnapping but reappears only after Das is beaten to pulp by the police inspector. That is the last time she appears in the movie as Das' figment of imagination (Sa Ga song playing in the background has very good lyrics). It could very well mean that the beating some how affected Das' brain (flipped the disorder) that he got relieved of his 'kanavu kanni' and imaginary partner in crime.

During all times Das does not exhibit any negative quantity befitting a villan. He seems to have a weakness for kidnapping as kleptomaniacs compulsively steal things. He is not greedy; he does not extort huge sums; he shows empathy for his victims. But still he sometimes allows himself to get distracted and indulges in big kidnappings that are sure to bring him down. He specifically forbids such indulgences as his Rule #1, but breaks the rule anyway. The movie ends as Das restarts his career in kidnapping with a bunch of newbies, (while the previous batch get placed at various profitable careers) sticking to his 5 Rules, but he is still tempted to break Rule #1 (watch the movie to find out why). Thus the film basically starts over again.

Das does not seem to lie at any time in the movie. He even pleads guilty and surrenders to police. So from whatever we have seem of him - we can try to sum up who Das is. He probably is a smuggler turned kidnapper who had his share of failures till he perfected his craft with the 5 rules. He probably tried his hand at kidnapping a big shot and failed. Worse he could have been beaten badly that caused him the mental disorder. The movie would have made more sense if Das kidnapping Shalini chronologically preceded kidnapping Arumai Pragasam. That would have explained why Shalu hung out with him as his imaginary girl friend, (after a botched attempt like in Arumai's case), while the real Shalini walked away.

Shrewd, practical, risk averse and honest are words that you do not use to describe a kidnapper. But here he is - Das and a bit mental too! We do not find such interesting characters in Tamil films but the credit goes to the director Nalan Kumarasamy. The film is the most entertaining film I have seen in recent years and I will rate it alongside Alaipayuthey, Ghilli and Vettaiyadu Veliyadu as one of the best ever films. Watch it in theatre!

Spider man and waning powers

The best scene in Spiderman 2 is this. Peter has observed his powers wane and has given up being the Spiderman for the sake of other things in life. One day again, he sees a house on fire and child stuck inside. Though no longer in possession of great super powers, he tries as any human being can best do and rescues the child. This might have been pivotal to Peter regaining his powers as the Spiderman. The same thing with how Alastair Cook in the first Test against India in 2012 Winter batted gallantly in a losing cause. They salvaged some pride and helped England recapture the series winning the next two back to back. Keep trying even though you are not your best.

Offline Exams

It's exam time folks! And thankfully we need not deal with the online objective test. It's a real shock to many of us that online tests have been done away with, after people managed to master the nuances of the tests. Online test at our college is much like a late-semester ritual, with every student and staff participating unwillingly. It's actually surprising that it took 2 yrs to find that students find it difficult to score from the tests. I am happy that the test is gone, but not for the right reasons.

In the last two years, I remember taking a few subjective tests (read written tests) which had quality questions which were both intersting and demanding yet definitely solvable. But I've been unfortunate, not to have attended one good online test. Bad questions make bad tests, in general. Come online tests, the poor options also add to your woe. But is anything worse than a question with two options being the same(Now you that's an offer you can decline)? Yes. The same question repeated twice (yes, back to back) with every word and every option intact, except for the question number. But the worst part about this is that, invariably you don't know the answer to the couple. (You can very well add this to our breathtaking Math discovery of the year- The Wretched Double Whammy Probability Distribution. It's discrete, but the agony continues !!).

There is a group which milks online test to the maximum - the daredevil hackers. But there's nothing great about this 'hacking'. You don't even have to guess a password or type a query. Any rookie can break into the database (read 'be lead into') by XAMPP's interface if the administrator is so callous that he does not even set the password to 'password'.And he fails to do it every time when the revamp the entire lab, which seems to be done at every semester break.But I wonder why girls do not open the databases, given their notorious ability to collaborate or carry paper scraps even during written tests (No Big Deal,huh). I just assume that the ladies do not do it, because our own man was spotted texting answers last sem to you know who. Plagiarism rules! And it does not end here.

Some questions are so exotic, that you doubt if you've wrongly entered the subject code in the startup screen. I panicked in the 5th sem, when my screen was replete with Software Eng. questions when I was supposed to do to some other 'entity' what we did to algos. It was more like a SE test and I still wonder which foreign prof was so dim-witted to post SE questions as some thing else in his course website.

They can't and they won't make corrections to wrong questions or answers- I again wonder why. It just means changing your db and restarting the db server if needed. We never get to see the Where You Went Wrong page. In a once in a blue moon opportunity, I got to see that elusive page and found that two questions were marked with wrong answers. When I picked up the courage to report this discrepancy, I was laughed off and was told that Where You Went Wrong was a myth- it simply did not exist! UNO - Unidentified Native Objec, this one!