It’s been nearly a year, and Malayali’s still praise the movie ‘Cocktail’ for all the good things that the movie has introduced to Malayalam cinema. The tags associated to the movie are many. When some said that the movie started off the trend of ‘new-gen cinema’ in Malayalam, others labelled the movie as crafted immensely perfect. All cheers goes to Arun Kumar Aravind, the man behind the movie. His directorial debut undoubtedly created waves in the industry. His next movie (after a year’s break) is all set to start off work. The movie named ‘Ee Adutha Kalath’ promises to be an entertainment for people beyond age barriers.

Arun prefers not categorising his movie under any genre. “The film will be like a rollercoaster ride, where what meets you is not what you expect. It will be like an Adrenalin-inducing fun ride”, claims Arun. This young man, who used to work with Priyadarshan as an Editor for most of his Bollywood flicks, knows it all perfectly.”The movie proves that ordinary lives are not ordinary at all, and the film travels to the mysterious underbelly of the city and the hidden fears and hopes of those who unknowingly get caught up in the ride. The familiar becomes strange and the strange familiar”, adds Arun.

With a promising star cast comprising of Indrajith Sukumaran, Murali Gopy, Fahadh Fazil, Anoop Menon,  Taanu Ghosh, Mydhili, Lena and more, ‘Ee Adutha Kalath’ is sure to hit screens with a big-bang. Murali Gopy  has done the screenplay, story, and dialogues for the movie as well. With Shahnad Jalaal doing the direction for photography and music and BGM from Gopi Sunder, the movie sure looks good.

The pre-production stage is almost over. With experts doing their bit for the movie, lets wish the crew good luck!

Film maker Priyadarshan is now at Kochi Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium shooting Kochi IPL teams theme song. The song is going to be a fusion between Kalaripayattu and Cricket. According to script writer Sreekumar A, kalaripayattu and cricket share the same kind of fight-till-the-end attitude. Here are some amateur pictures taken during the shoot.

The 2 minute video which is being shot over a week is going to premier on March 15th.

A day after Lalit Modi announced that IPL have dropped all the controversial qualifiers, Kochi’s chance to an IPL team have grown a lot. Currently people who are interested to bid for Kochi are

• Ashok Piramal Group
• Jaypee Group
• Rosy Blue India Pvt. Ltd
• Anchor Electricals
• Muthoot Pappachan Group
• Mohanlal & Priyadarshan

Experts say with these developments, Kochi is going to be one of the top bid teams. Another city that is predicted to win is Ahmedabad with Adani Enterprises, Sahara Group and ICICI bidding for the city. Adani group and Sahara is all set to “show them the money”. Days till March 21st (last day of submitting bids) will be very tensed and only when they open the bids the same day will our anxiety be put to rest. Till than we can just hope for the best because as of now Kochi could not have a better chance. We have our fingers crossed. GO KOCHI!!

Cochin’s IPL-Team dream is just not ready to die. Thanks to the stiff qualification criteria,Mohanlal-Priyadarshan and company who was set to bid for Kochi dropped out of the race. But Lalit Modi’s efforts to sell the 2 teams went belly up thanks to very strict qualifiers.

The decision was made only after 3 companies submitted bids while 10 companies bought tender documents. These unopened tenders were returned to the bidders. The revised Invitation To Tender (IIT) will be made available on March 9th and the bids will be open on March 21 in Chennai. The 2 qualifiers that companies had a problem with was

• The company should demonstrate a net worth of nearly Rs. 5000 crores.
• The company that wins the auction needs to pay $100 million as advance guarantee.

According to the revised rules the Rs. 5000 crores net worth clause has been removed and winners need to pay only $10 million as advance guarantee.

The Muthoot Papachan group (who was reportedly backing Mohanlal and Priyadarshan) initially had backed out from the race and now will be studying the new terms and will let the board decide if they will take part in the auction. So Kochi’s IPL dream is not over and there is hope.

(Wonder what made Lalit change his mind.. )

A lot of our hopes for a Kochi IPL team rested on Mohanlal’s and Priyadarshan’s shoulders. And that dont look too good. Well, its looking bad as the duo have backed out of the auction. They backed out after IPL changed the conditions and asked for Rs. 5000 crores as security deposit instead of the initial Rs. 300 crores. This did not go down well not only the filmy duo but also with the investors who was backing them. The status of the billionaire sheik from Abu Dhabi is not confirmed.

Experts predict that Ahmedabad will be picked up by the Adani group and either Nagpur or Pune by Videocon. Screw them all.  If Kochivibe makes billions and trillions of dollars we promise to get Kochi a ‘Kochivibe’ team!

The buzz of Kochi having its own Indian Premier League team has been around for quite sometime. Here is more information on the bidding process. The cities that have been offered as the home location for the franchises are Pune, Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Kanpur, Dharamsala, Vizag, Rajkot, Cuttack, Baroda, Cochin, Indore and Gwalior. The auction is scheduled to happen on March 9th 2010.

• This time the process of bidding for teams is extremely difficult unlike in 2008. Among the most contentious clauses is the requirement for the bidder to privide a bank guarantee equivalent to 100 per cent of the money that the winning bidder offers for the 10-year contract within seven days of winning the bid. Where as in 2008, the initial franchisees of the eight IPL teams had to provide only 10 per cent of their bids as bank guarantee.
• Bidders also need to have a net worth of $1 billion as a pre-requisite and offer a pre-bid bank guarantee of $100 million. In the 2008 auctions, prospective bidders paid a pre-bid deposit of Rs 20 crore.
• The minimum bid price has been fixed at a staggering $225 million (Rs 1,042 crore), compared to the base price of $50 million (over Rs 230 crore) when the first auctions were held in 2008.

Here is an interesting fact. A list of India’s 10 most affluent cities was recently published. Following is the list

1. New Delhi – Has IPL Team (Delhi Daredevils)
2. Bangalore – Has IPL Team (Royal Challengers)
3. Mumbai – Has IPL Team (Mumbai Indians)
4. Chennai – Has IPL Team (Chennai Super Kings)
5. Hyderabad – Has IPL Team (Deccan Chargers)
6. Kolkata – Has IPL Team (Kolkata Knight Riders)
7. Kochi – One of the home locations thats on offer in 2010
8. Pune – One of the home locations thats on offer in 2010
9. Jaipur – Has IPL Team (Rajasthan Royals)
10. Ahmedabad – One of the home locations thats on offer in 2010

7 out of the 10 most affluent cities in the list, have an IPL team. All 6 cities above Kochi has an IPL team. All 3 cities that dont have an IPL team are on offer as a home location for the auction on March 9th.

Mohanlal and Priyadarshan has shown interest in bidding. Also Muthoot Pappachan Group is said to have making efforts for a Kochi team by partnering with Mohanlal and Priyadarshan. Also there are reports that Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan is interested in picking up a team. Sheiks and Malayalees has been sharing a very good bond from the past couple of decades . Keeping that in mind, we hope he bids for Kochi too . There are reports that YusufAli MA, M.D of EMKE group and person behind LULU group (who is also building India’s biggest mall in Kochi) is keen on a Kochi team. As per some reports Salman Khan is keen on bidding for an IPL team and is interested either in Kochi or Nagpur.

Making this entry on Kochivibe has made us dizzy. Especially the Rupees and Dollars part . We hope that Kochi is one of the 2 lucky cities to get an IPL team. We are amused to see “Dharmsalsa” as one of the cities up for grabs. That just DONT sound like one of the cities that would have an IPL team (sorry Dharmsalians). Kochi would make a better team anyday! .  Fingers crossed for March 9th.!

Priyadarshan and Mohanlal plan to start a cricket team from Kerala for the next IPL season, to be titled as ‘City Cricketers’. They also have roped in Shashi Tharoor,  the new Union Minister of State for External Affairs, as the chairman of their team and have the full support of the KCA. The Director of the City Cricketers will be Robin Singh.

They will approach the BCCI with the proposal and if they get the approval, their team will debut in the next IPL in 2010.
This would give an opportunity for the Kerala Cricketers with a global opportunity to make their way into the national side. More details are awaited.