Hyderabad Or Chennai - 50 / 50
Chennai or Hyderabad? Which city you like? It's difficult to answer for some and easy for others. Chennaite will always say chennai is better than Hyderabad and Nawabs would say Hyderabad. I think any city which is friendly would be considered worth living in. Ask any middle class person relocating from Northern, Western or Eastern part of India, they would prefer Hyderabad over Chennai because Hyderabad has mix of Southern and Northern Indian culture, which is very difficult to find in Chennai. Any person who knows any kind of Hindi can survive easily in Hyderabad, but I can't say that for Chennai.
Chennai has hot weather, it either hot, hotter or hottest and very humid. When ever I visit Chennai, I keep atleast 2-3 towels which keeps me fresh. But anyone living near seashore wouldn't agree with me. It true that evening sea breeze gives a refreshing feeling during hot summer days. Whereas Hyderabad has pleasant weather from July - Feb. Summer are typically hot and dry. But every Indian city gets hot during summer days, so why complain.
Having said that, traditionally Chennai has been a cultural centre of South, with lots of activity happening throughout the year. Its' paradise for Carnatic music lovers. Hyderabad has none of it. There are few times in a year some cultural activity/classical performance happen, but nothing compared to Chennai. Hyderabadis' favorite pastime is watching movies and more recently going to Malls (and then watch movie). Hyderbad doesn't have Marina Beach, which I think is a big plus point for Chennai. The very sound of ocean waves makes you very relaxing.
Chennai has been a metro city for quite a while, and Hyderabad reached that status recently. Being Nawabs, Hyderabadis has no traffic sense. Hyderabad doesn't have local trains like Chennai. Commuting in Chennai is 100 times better than Hyderabad. People living close to work won't realize that but I have friends who commute about 1 hour minimum to get to work. I guess thats the case in almost all the major cities, but Hyderabad does have very poor infrastructure and roads. Development kind of stopped after Cong I came to power and only god knows how long they will be in power.
When it comes to celebrating festivals, Hyderabad beats Chennai hands down. Festival seasons begins with Ganesh Chaturthi and ends with Sankranti. The 10 day Ganesh Chaturthi festival is celebrated with all grandeur in Hyderabad. The only other city which beats Hyderabad in this aspect is Mumbai. Festival of Kites (Sankranti/Pongal) and Holi are celebrated in grand fashion. I don't think much of the activity happens during these festivals in Chennai.
When it comes to jobs, I think Chennai has advantage over Hyderabad. Being Detroit of South Asia, the manfucturing industry is booming in Chennai in addition to software industry. Hyderabad has only software companies, not any other industry.
So I think it depends on person to person, and their interest....
Last but not the least, Hyderabad has Mahesh Babu and Chennai has Dhanush. So decide ;)
Tanu Weds Manu Worth Watch
In the list of my favorite female actors, the top two names are occupied by Kangana Ranaut and Anushka Sharma (not Anuskha Shetty of Tollywood). I have been impressed over and over again by their acting skills, be it serious or a light hearted roles and both of these stars perform with quite an ease.
I happen to watch Tanu Weds Manu over the weekend. I had read somewhere that its story line is somewhat similar to Jab We Met and that Kangana did a different kind of role than her usual serious role. The movie had received mixed reviews so I wasn’t expecting much from it. Ofcourse one of my favorite actor, Madhavan, is the lead actor in this movie. So I sat down to watch this movie over the weekend and after watching the first 10 minutes of the movie, I knew that I wont’ be disappointed and I was not. And it’s not similar to Jab We Met.



The movie is about a lonely Indian doctor, Madhavan, living in the UK visiting India and falls in love with a brahmin middle class Delhi educated Kanpur girl, Kangana Ranaut. The entire middle class family setup, home, rooms, Kanpur, Lucknow and Kapurthala locations, guest house, all looked realistic. I enjoyed every bit of the dialogue and conversation that happens in the typical UP, Punjabi and Patna style. How many times have we seen a Bollywood movie with middle class home (other than Dabangg) or even the streets in a small town. In recent times in bollywood movies, all we see posh bungalows, people speaking with mixed English and Hindi, girls wearing jeans, pants, T-shirt or skirts and locations outside India. In one of the scene Pappi says after flying kite in Kanpur "Tumhare mohalle mein haththey se kaat detein hein, patang udane hee nahin detein". It was so natural. I haven’t heard "haththey" word since I was kid when I used to fly kites a lot during months of Nov-Jan. It was good to see Kangana doing a more light hearted comic role rather than the usual serious role so convincingly. She is just awesome and one of the very few female actors in the recent time who could pull off movie on her own.
Madhavan is great in the role of a lover ready to sacrifice his love. The entire supporting cast of this movie, Mr. Sharma (Madhavan’s father), Mr. Trivedi (Kangana’s Father), Pappi(Madhavan’s Friend), Payal (Kangana’s friend) was superb. I have rarely seen in an Indian Cinema where the entire supporting cast were so involved and fabulous.
Now comes the surprise package of this movie, Jimmy Shergill. Probably the best role he got in his entire filmy career. I have seen him in Haasil, Yehaan, Mohabbatein, and Munna Bhai series, but by far his role in this movie is the best. His second best would be Haasil -> Yehaan. His rough nature, and control aggression and the way he treats Kangana and Madhavan are one of the many scene stealers in this movie. And the last 10-12 minutes of the movie where Madhavan confronts Jimmy is mindblowing. In recent times I rarely remember dialogues unlike Amitabh’s movie from 1980s. But this one from Jimmy in the last 10 minutes of movie are worth remembering:
"Agar yeh itne bhale insaan na hote, aap inke pyar mein imaandar na hoti ,huh… hum thode se beimaan na hote aur aaj somwar na hota , tho bholenath ki kasam goli maar dete inko."
People from Lucknow are Shiva’s devotees and Monday (somwar) is very auspicious day so Jimmy says that its one of the reason he cannot kill Madhavan.
In addition to acting, direction and screenplay is superb. Songs are good and very well picturized. I have already watched it twice and may be watch it again over the weekend.
A must watch…
