Tag: Shah Rukh Khan

Munnar, at last

July 18, 2025 / / 1 Comment

Day 4 :

After our breakfast,  we checked out of Pine Borough, bid goodbye to Kodaikanal and started for Munnar, in the last leg of our vacation.

As soon as we were out of the Tamil Nadu border, the climate felt sunny and mild and I was happy we were not in cold, chilly climate.

N stopped at a random eatery for his breakfast, while Mr.Bee and I had a coffee and tea respectively. The stall had photo of Amma, Jayalalitha and somehow, that reminded me of Thalaivii movie of Kangana Ranaut! (Beats me! Why did they cast a pahadi North Indian to play a pukka South Amma! Incidentally,  I also loathe the Chandramukhi 2 of Kangana. What a royal waste of time!)

Anyway, on our way to Munnar, just as we entered the Kerala border, we stopped for lunch, we were famished. We halted at Safair, which serves the worst food ever. We could hardly eat a mouthful of food. It must be heaven for non-veg customers, because, they were lining up like bees, but it is absolute bekaar and tasteless eatery for vegetarians. We could hardly finish eating the two dishes we ordered, lemon rice and curd rice!

N was surprised we returned in less than half an hour. We ate the fruits we bought, before exiting Kodaikanal.

I also saw a restaurant which was Bethel Suji restaurant and I remembered the famous dialogue  of Phoebe, “Who names their child Bethel?” LOL. (I am FRIENDS fanatic!)

GBee began counting bikes, all those which he saw on the highway and his score reached 1757. ( He entertained himself this way, because KBee would sleep as soon as we were inside the car!)

Even though we knew there were not any good restaurants,  we stopped at Safair because we wanted to take a scenic route to Munnar and NOT the shortest route. We took the Gap road. It is the best! ( Always go for the scenic route, not the shortest route!)

Gap road – Munnar, the most scenic road with tea plantations!

We stopped at many viewpoints, took photos and had fun. Munnar is basically heaven and just looking at it is not enough, you should also be mindfully present to enjoy it! Here, cell is just a distraction.

We saw all the tea and coffee estates, most of them belonging to TATA group, who have them for a lease of 999 years! Trespassing is prohibited, so, no photos from inside the beautiful tea estates.

At one viewpoint, since we hardly had a good lunch, we stopped for sweet corn, which is easily available along with Maggi, along the road at all the viewpoints. All the 4 of us were happily chomping our sweet corn cobs when Mr.Bee saw a group of monkeys running towards us. I swear they were at the top of the hills when we started eating. As we started eating, they came down hill, waiting to cross the road to snatch our precious corn.

Mr.Bee wanted to buy us some time, so he threw his cob towards them. They got distracted for a bit. I asked the kiddos to eat their corn, fast. I chomped as much as I could before throwing mine too, at the hunger- striken monkeys. (Situation called for a sacrifice!)

We then rushed towards the car. N banned us from eating in car and monkeys won’t let us eat in peace!

We also had to throw away the kids corn cobs, before going ahead. The kiddos found the throwing away of half eaten corn cobs towards the direction of monkeys, very entertaining! (They were like, mom let me throw, let me give it to monkey.)

We took in as much beauty as we can, staring at our surroundings and all. Kerala government is strict about the cleanliness, which means we get to see wire bins in unique shapes at almost all important locations, for collecting plastic waste like bottles.

Plastic disposal bin

After spending most of our afternoon checking out the streets of Munnar, we checked into the White House hotel.

The kids were highly impressed with the White House hotel. KBee was so sweet as to believe we were staying there forever.  GBee was laid back and knew, we were only on a vacation.

After quick baths, changing into fresh nightwear, we reached the in – house restaurant,  ordered our dinner.

We also made plans for the next day, after discussing with our hotel manager.

We went to the kids play area, played for sometime (kids had fun) and returned to our room.

The room service brought our dinner, which was simple as ever, fried rice, watermelon juice for all.

Since the weather was not cold like Kodaikanal (Oh, how I hated wearing socks in the hotel room in Kodaikanal), we had fan running at full speed and AC on, we slept like logs!

P.S:

1. Gap road in Munnar is the best. I remembered all the movies I had loved, thanks only to the beautiful tea plantations and estates which were in the backdrop, demanding my attention!

Remember Chennai Express and Life of Pi?

2. India has huge potential,  but maintaining the cleanliness is the problem.  Let’s hope for the best!

Till the next post,  bubye!

Jawan – A Review

January 31, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Let me start the review by saying that this is the first ever movie I have watched of SRK in a theater! I am not his fan but I did love his Om Shanti Om and Main Hoon Na, in that order. Incidentally both were directed by Farah Khan.

You can hardly blame me. Inspite of only watching movies after a good word of mouth talk, I did end up watching an ek number ka faltu movie like Love Story 2050! (I even heard fellow audience saying out loud, ‘kya bakwas hai‘ in between the dialogues of the hero too!) If you ever have time to kill, try watching Love Story 2050 and you will know how bad some movies can be. It is forever stuck in my personal list of worst movies ever! I pity the hero, Harman Baweja. It was his debut movie and it buried his movie career alive!

Anyway, let us get back to Jawan.

Movie: Jawan

Director: Atlee

Starring: Shah Rukh Khan,  Deepika Padukone, Vijay Sethupathi, Nayanathara,  Priya Mani, Sanya Malhotra

Released On: September 2023

Watched on: First day, evening show.

Movie starts with a bloody Shah Rukh, (whom we don’t see fully, because he is bandaged fully, like The Mummy), on the verge of death.  Thankfully he has enough loyalty in his blood to wake him up from his coma, to help his saviours. The next scene is the powerful hero elevation sequence. I love the scene, when Shah Rukh’s shadow overlaps the tribal God’s statue, the hero has arrived!

The hero elevation sequences are a rare feat in Bollywood, whereas, almost every South Indian movie has high voltage scenes, where heroism is celebrated and the hero is introduced, but only some attract us and this one is one of those. (Mr.Bee was busy howling at the top of his lungs, happy for the hero and his heroism.)

Twenty years pass by, we find a taklu Shah Rukh take over the system, by turning into a Robinhood for the farmers. He is also set on cleaning the Government as a whole. (South movies are always so hopeful, that someday, things are going to change. Sadly, it takes time, not just 5 hours, like they show in the movie.) Wait! Did I say South movie? Ya, this one looks and feels like a South Indian movie, except for the dialogues and the hero, that is!

Later we get to know that the taklu Shah Rukh infact has a head full of dyed hair and is also a Jailer! (I recently watched the Rajni starrer Jailer too. So what is this new fixation about Jailers? Beats me!) His gang of 6 girls are also from his jail. By the way, the music by Anirudh Ravichander for Jawan, also reminded me of Rajnikanth’s Jailer, once again!

We also meet Nayanathara, playing an IPS Narmada Rai, who is a single mother of a cutie pie, ends up marrying none other than the masked Jailer cum Robinhood Shah Rukh! *claps*

First half ends with a bang! (I loved the twist. It is very logical, but I was so immersed in the movie till then, I forgot the major clue!) I am not giving away much details because I want you to enjoy the turn of events in the movie.

Second half has a cameo appearance by Deepika Padukone, who has a small but effective role, tugging at our heart strings, with a mother sentiment. (Mother sentiment works like no other, even Hollywood is following suit, with ‘The Wild Robot’.) Deepika gets a meaty role and steals the spotlight, away from Nayanatara, who gets a one dimensional role.

Vijay Sethupathi needs no introduction and he packs a powerful punch with his character. I loved Shah Rukh in the role of Vikram Rathore, it was a treat! Both Vijay Sethupathi and Shah Rukh have much to solve among themselves, settling the scores, that is.

Heroism is real, Vikram Rathore proves it for us (most noise made by the audience during the movie was in his scenes). He also shows us what muscle memory is! Paisa Vasool kind of movie. Even the kids enjoyed it till the very end.

P.S:

1. I had written this post long ago and it had been gathering dust in the draft folder. So I decided to post it, better late than never.

2. As you must have guessed, I will come back in a couple of days with the review of ‘The Wild Robot’.

Bubyee friends, time to draw the cartoons for the next post. Cheerio!

Ooty to Coonoor and back!

July 13, 2023 / / 0 Comments

One of the first things we decided very early on is that, our main stay would be at Ooty, in our 14 day vacation. The other thing we were sure about is to ride the train from Ooty to Coonoor, to take in as much nature’s beauty as we can, to last a year or until we took another vacation, whichever is the earliest!

Day 5:

We woke up early, got ready. Mr.Bee and I wore matching jeans jackets whereas the kids, as usual, were stuffed into their rain proof, winter jackets, thanks to their mom being a scaredy cat! (You would too, if you too had a toddler who has an affinity to catching cold at the drop of a hat!)

We, GBee, KBee and myself,  stuffed ourselves silly with toasted wheat bread and grape pudina(mint) juice. The juice was a little bland for my taste. Only Mr.Bee didn’t have bread toast. The three of us were bored of eating the dosa. (I can eat toast everyday!)

Mr.Bee wanted to surprise me, by taking me to the famous Murugan temple at Elk Hill. The statue of Murugan/ Subramanya is famous and similar one exists in Singapore!

Murugan @Elk Hill

We started for the temple, thanks to Google Maps. But the over enthusiastic Ooty Traffic Police, diverted us to some other road. From there, we were re-routed by Google Maps, only to end up at a dead end. (The French people call it a cul-de-sac!) We cursed under our breaths and ditched the plan of going to the Murugan temple, because, with the snail paced Ooty traffic and the Traffic diversions, thanks to the government servants, we were getting late for our train.

At the Ooty railway station, we wasted another 20 minutes, to park our car.  We ran into the railway station just in time for our train. As soon as we got in, the train had started! I played the Dilwale Dulhaniya le Jayenge and Jab We Met train scenes in my head and rushed towards the window seat, making the petite lady who occupied my window seat to sit elsewhere.  We started at 11:25 a.m. and were to arrive at Coonoor by 1:00 p.m.

Nilgiri-Railway – If this pic doesn’t fill up your heart, I don’t know what will!

We started for Coonoor. The train route showed us the beautiful mountains, the tea estates, waterfalls, tunnels. Mr.Bee also looked outside the window to search for our hotel. He spotted it at last and took a couple of pics too. He spent the entire ride taking photos and videos of the scenery surrounding us.

Spotting the Hotel from the train – Fans of La Montana!

The scenic railway stations on the way from Ooty to Coonoor looked like the ones from foreign movies. (Such beautiful spots exist in India, we can find them at some unlikely places!)

Picturesque and ‘clean’ Coonoor Railway Station!

We took a couple of cute family photos at Coonoor Railway Station, which I am not sharing. We exited the railway station by 1:40 p.m. People were waiting for cabs and cab drivers were eager to be hired! We reached the exit and hired a taxi, to show us around Coonoor. We had little time window, as we needed to catch similar meter gauge train at 4:00 p.m. to return to Ooty by 5:10 p.m.

First and foremost, we reached the restaurant to have our lunch, as the kids and I were famished. (The view was amazing from the window and I forgot the name of the restaurant.) We wanted to waste as little time as possible, but it was already 2:30 p.m. by the time we got out of the restaurant.

Even though, it was not a part of the itinerary, our cab driver took us to Tea and Chocolate Factory in Coonoor!(He wanted to earn his commission) It was already drizzling and it being a Sunday, was a holiday and so we had a private, unofficial tour of the Tea and Chocolate Factory. The old gentleman, who acted as our tour guide, showed us the Eucalyptus Oil Factory too, for good measure. (We didn’t hire a guide, it was hardly needed, but the gentleman offered his services and told us we could pay him as much as we pleased.)

We also tasted the Chocolate Tea, famous in Ooty and Coonoor, didn’t know what all the hype was about and got into the cab, after buying some chocolates and Eucalyptus oil. We took a few pics in a jiffy, trying not to get any more wet than needed! (It was drizzling.)

We reached the Sim’s Park, where there was a fruit festival in full swing. Fruits were arranged in various shapes of worm, pyramids, giant pineapple made with pineapples, fruit basket made with a variety of fruits and so on. We could hardly take any pictures, what with our kids running about, a prolonged drizzle of rain and also the sea of tourists demanding Mr.Bee and my attention, simultaneously!

Queen Bee posing for pic @ Sim’s Park

Finally I got a few pics taken at Sim’s Park, away from all the bustle, once the rain subsided a little.

There were old trees in the park, as old as 100 years. One tourist found himself a Rudraksh bead near a century old tree. I don’t recall the scientific name of the tree, but I went ahead and looked around, hoping find any stray Rudraksh. (The park keepers were so thorough in the cleaning and maintenance that I could hardly find a dry leaf, let alone a Rudraksh!)

With that, we rushed to the train station, with 10 minutes to spare. The Coonoor railway station is well maintained, in spite of the steady flow of tourists and vacationers. We took a couple of photos, hanging from the train, like in the Prabhas starrer, Radhe Shyam! (Our photos were a little less glamorous!)

We shared our compartment with a beautiful Bengali family. GBee tried talking to them, in the little English that he knew. Even KBee tried to start a conversation with them! Everyone in the compartment were older to him and KBee tried to baby talk his way into the conversation! (He is yet to learn talking coherently.)

Each compartment can fit 10 adults. There are two classes in the toy trains too, First Class and General!

On our return journey, we came across some mountain Bison and the train operator had to ‘toot‘ the horn for at least a dozen times for them to move away from the train tracks.

Bison, finally moving away from the tracks and going into the forest

Sorry for the bad quality of the photo. We had to zoom in to get a pic! 40 MP cam is of little consequence!

We reached Ooty on time, checked out the shop to buy return gifts, but everything was super pricey and we returned to the car empty handed. By the time we reached our hotel, it was already well past 6 p.m.

After a sumptuous dinner, we retired to bed, early than usual. Of course, I continued reading my e-book, finished reading it and loved it too.

P.S:

  1. My sincere advice to anyone who wish to visit the Tea factory and Chocolate Factory is that, instead of visiting them in Ooty, you can do that in Coonoor as well. The Ooty factories have heavy rush and the Coonoor ones have lesser number of visitors. It is especially useful if you have toddlers!
  2. The temperature in Coonoor is higher than in Ooty. We won’t even require sweaters or warm clothing to stay here. I think even from the traffic and tourist stand point Coonoor is preferable, if you have already visited Ooty, that is!
  3. It is always better not to bring your car to the railway station, if you don’t have kids below the ages of 5 years.  It is better to catch a cab. We almost missed our train, waiting for free parking spaces.
  4. One round trip from Ooty to Coonoor reminded me of three movies and their scenes. But did you know the song Chaiyya Chaiyya from Dil Se was picturized on one such meter gauge train near Ooty? By the way, we were also given goody bags with chocolates, Maaza, Bourbon biscuits and a keychain. The kids ate the biscuits on the return journey.
  5. I have been to Araku Valley in Andhra Pradesh, but it pales in comparison to Coonoor, as far as I can remember.

Thanks to GBee’s home works (they call them Home Fun in his school!) and my own interest in watching Gossip Girl, I have been late in posting here. Cheerio, till the next post.

© 2026

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑