Reviews and Appreciation

I remember Drishyam (Malayalam) as the one big review I wrote on Movies of the Soul. It came before I developed most of my ideas about this movie blog, and hadn’t shared it much. Still it went on to become the most visited review and remain so for close to an year, only to be overtaken by the review of Om Shanti Oshana which kept that title until yesterday. Where Sapthamashree Thaskaraha coming so close and failed, Kunjiramayanam managed to do that in a day and half. Yes, this review had become fourth most read in twenty four hours and made it to the first spot with just half a day more.

I was actually surprised to see this big leap on the first day itself. It was unlike what I had imagined, and it was like whenever I looked, the number of visits just increased. When I looked at my own review page, I saw that the Facebook button showed the numbers in thousands. This was so huge. I was surprised and found out that the link to the review was shared by both the Official Page of the movie and one of the main actors in the movie Aju Varghese on his own page. It was also later shared by the director of the movie, Basil Joseph on his profile, and a lot of others had also shared my review due to the same reason.

When the movie’s official page shares your review, that boosts your confidence.

I have wished for my reviews to be shared, but never really wrote for the same. I have written the opinions on the movies which I had watched, related to what came on my mind, and concerning that particular experience having that certain effect on me. My reviews were only shared on Facebook improving my traffic only on a few occasions, and it started with Angels review, which had my link as part of a video created consisting of the opinions related to the movie which was shared by the director of the movie Jean Markose, the Official movie page and Joy Mathew who played one of the protagonists in it.

My second share happened related to the movie Ivide when the Official Facebook page of the movie as well as the Assistant Director of the movie, Priya Chokshi gave the shares. The third one was related to Mumbai Taxi when the leading actress of the movie, Mareena Michael Kurisingal gave it a share on her profile. Only the influence of the third can be seen on the Facebook button of the respective review pages, as I had bought the domain after that. So, with the count missing on the pages, I had hoped for something to come up there, and it is big here with Kunjiramayanam as it is above 5000 as of now.

When someone like Aju Varghese shares the review, things get even bigger 🙂

One thing which I have noticed about Kunjiramayanam is that it has the support of the general public and the usual audience who use Facebook regularly. It is more of a common man’s movie without adding anything complicated to it. It uses simple and yet effective comedy to make things work in its favour, and with these shares, they have made it clear that value is given to the opinions of people. When you are with people, they are with you. I know some people who hope for higher and higher ratings all the time, but here they have chosen to share those fair reviews, which has to be appreciated.

Yes, there has been more shares here and there, but among these four big shares which have affected my blog positively, I will rank the latest one far ahead of the others, because they have all shared this review as something significant rather than just adding it to their profiles, and the results have shown in the re-shares which has been received. The fact that it was shared by Aju Varghese makes me a lot happier because he is the one young actor whom I always trust with the comic roles. I do wish that he had a bigger role in Jamnapyari and also in Loham; but he does steal the show in Kunjiramayanam.

And then the awesomeness continues when the director shares the same 🙂

As Om Shanti Oshana which comes second in the most visited list has fallen more than a thousand visits behind, I expect Kunjiramayanam to hold on to that top spot for a very long time – the visits are still going on strong, and the lead is surely going to extend by a much bigger margin. There are only eight movie reviews on Movies of the Soul which has received more than a thousand visits to the page, and among them, seven are Malayalam with the remaining one Hindi – there is always a certain advantage in writing about the movies releasing in your own language, right?

I will leave you with a funny video song from the movie 🙂

TeNy

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Of Happiness and Optimism

There have been too many days which lacked the happiness factor in my life, and I often wondered why it was so difficult to find the joy which has been lost. It has never been my area of expertise. But I have found its opposite side with so much ease, and there has been absolutely no struggle associated with it. The absence of happiness is always present, and even when there is the most need. The reason was that there was no optimism, and the level of hope was so low!

Yes, being an optimist never came naturally to me, and it has been more about being a cynic all the time. Among them all, there was that November 28th which changed a few things. I was rather wandering around with no plans. Then there was something which came to me like music to the ears. It was the cry of a kitten from the canal in front of our house. From between the vegetation of the canal, a face looked up, and said the “meow” and again came up with another louder “meow”.

See who was waiting? Look at the smile there as optimism works out for her 😀

Then I was like, this one is in the canal, and this was going to add to my sadness with this one going to die there. There was no way to bring it up as it was too steep all the way. That was another point of pessimism there, and then I saw it trying to climb up, trying again and again until almost reaching that point from where I could pull it up and take it home. Kittens are optimists aren’t they? I wondered if it could have done that as a pessimist.

We named her Simona and she has been a fighter. She gave a valuable lesson with her struggle to be up with us. From then, she has been a symbol of optimism in a never-ending manner. Simona, the symbol of perpetual optimism continues to be with us at home. She has been very good at providing some moments of happiness, becoming also the happiness factor of the family.

I am an optimist kitty and I know clearly that I can get into that room 😉

The point was that what I have to do is to keep trying. Falling down has been another thing that came naturally to me, and the plan should have been to get up every time. Simona teaches so much, and the way she looks at you is optimism, and her knowledge that you will always be there to feed and look after her is the purest form of optimism. You can feel it in her eyes, and realize that you, the human is her best friend.

She needs her time with her humans, and she knows that they will always be there for her, whether to feed or to play with her, and to make sure that the necessary position on the lap is there for her. It is her optimism that we never want her to miss, as it is a contagious thing and she is a carrier of that beautiful factor. I have often wished that the optimism was a virus that could spread better.

She is Simona, or SI-MO in short, and she is our little cute optimism. Even as she has got bigger, everyday, she sits in front of the closed doors of the rooms of the house, letting us know that happiness as well as a positive approach towards life is not elusive. She has been proving that with each sunrise, making sure that the humans of the house never miss out on the joy of the beautiful day being shared with her. Yes, she tells us that the world is beautiful and better be optimistic about it and your own future!

The photos used for this blog post are the pictures of our kitten taken by me on my Sony Cybershot DSC W-310 during the time period between November 28th 2014 and February 28th 2015. This blog post was written as part of the Happy Hours campaign from Housing.com in association with Indiblogger. Do check this link for details: https://housing.com/lookup

TeNy