Who is Nero - Ganguly or BCCI chairman?

• Aussie cricketers donate their second test prize money for Tsunami relief.
• Muthiah Muralidharan escapes Tsunami narrowly. The report states - He had hoped to join the team for next month's Test series but said it would now be difficult for him to join his team mates.
  "Something like this has never happened in my country," Muralitharan said. "In my opinion it is not the right time for cricket ... there is a lot of organising to do, a lot of feeding people."
• Srilanka puts the tour on hold...Srilankan cricket board added that all matches, whether international or domestic, would be postponed in recognition of a five-day period of national mourning in Sri Lanka
• Not wanting to miss the game money and an opportunity to grab a few winning feathers under cap, Indian cricket team and BCCI -- bunch of Nero -- play two successive matches both on Sunday and Monday - day of Tsunami and the next day. They happily gather their prize money, wear a black strap -- like those Dravidian parties, and come hom with a cup.

Do we still need to be crazy and fanatic about cricket?

I only pray God that cine actors and cricketers do not take out a procession or visit the affected areas to offer their "empathy" for the Tsunami victims...

Maybe we are not new to Tsunami...

If people of Madras can recall, the Kapaleeswarar temple in Mylapore is not in its original location. Initially it was well-behind the place which is now Santhome church. There are legends that sea ate the old temple, and new one was restored in current location.
Next Mahabalipuram, we know that the temples were submerged under sea.
We also know about the stories of Chola kings, how they went on to establish their kingdoms in now known areas like Sumatra, Bali, Java islands. And the legends of sea fury also have been narrated so many times.
Maybe we had all along been in the belt of sea fury - only we were not aware...the tectonic movements rendered the land movement that we currently have the chunk of land called Indian subcontinent.
Can any geophysicist/geologist track such movements? Is there any geographical shift happening? Is South India coastal line becoming one of those furious wave-filled beaches that we have heard in stories?

Essex's Perambur - Basildon

(NOTE FOR CYBER PATROL -- Essex is an area/council in UK -- My work location for a year. Hello cyber patrol, don't come behind me because my last post mentioned Trisha, the title of this post contains s*x, Delhi is going to be referred here and am going to write about MMS too…am not 'that' type, okay?)

Essex's Perambur - Basildon -- That's how the place looks like - very lively, and lots of shops around in the day time. When the clock strikes six, the place wears an eerie atmosphere, with pub brats hanging around and giving you stares. Very typical like Perambur. There is even a big bus stand here, and it is a common sight to see buses suddenly arriving one after another, and the correct bus does not stand in the bay. When a driver comes and takes the bus, and you rush to have a seat, the driver says, "I am taking it to the shed…wait till another bus arrives"…well, if you cant draw a parallel to Perambur atleast here, would it interest you to know that a railway station is very close to this bus stand?

Maybe the only difference is that a distance of 14 miles is commuted by the UK driver in nearly 50 minutes, while at Perambur you know the time within which 29c would cover that distance, and also, how many people experience a near death to take a quick peek into their chamber in the upper world, when 29c covers that distance.

Whether it is the UK bus or the MTC bus, skipping stops is not uncommon. Did someone say the British people are known for their punctuality and stuffs like that? The British people know, but the bus drivers don't. Not that there is any traffic hold-up to delay them, but they just take their sweet time - atleast in Basildon. It happens quite often that a bus leaves either before time, or arrives to bus stand/stop very late.

Lots of pubs, workers and the places known for robbery and theft. A sign outside a shop in Basildon's famous shopping center sums it all - "No cash is kept inside the shop." And then, there is a beware card in the bus stand - "Thieves and pickpockets operating in this vicinity". Council is not too active, and it is rumored that the council is known for acts of corruption and swindling of funds/taxpayer's money. But then, the council members have been the long-living members in the area - read local dadhas - and they have their say and way. Recent incident being a local newspaper reporting that council staff seem to taking too many sick leaves, while there has been no instances of any epidemic. They were spotted in pubs.

The train line from London on the entire Basildon line stretch is a bit like North Madras. One would think twice, before thinking twice about looking for a house in these areas. There are few good places around, connected with Basildon by bus. Like Brentwood - I would deem it equivalent to Alwarpet. Posh area, supposed to be housing well-to-do educated families. And then, you have Billericay - like Besantnagar, and there is Wickford - like Mylapore - mix of both good and bad elements.

Am still looking for a house to rent in these areas. Yeah, yeah, I am registered with many letting agents, and also a regular browser of rightmove, primelocation, letalife, teamprop etc…don't give me the same load of information again please.

If any of you happen to know good residential areas on Basildon line itself, pls let me know, so that I can look for a house there. My MMS (Maximum Monthly Spend) limit is 650pounds for a 2 Bedroom.

Later, More on UK,
OK?

Blogging from UK

Its been 9 days since I landed in Queen's land on the job. (Innikki pathu)
After getting internet connections and sorting out the convenient times for browsing and blogging, here is my post.
It was interesting to see Kiruba's post on Trisha, Karthik's bashing and Cogito Ergo Bala's geeky angle to it all. Followed up Jayendrar's case, looks like lot of things have happened. People like Anuradha Ramanan pouring out her bottled up emotions, and people bashing her for doing so - asking what she was doing so long.

Am to work in a place called Basildon which is around 30 minutes from London's Tambaram called 'Fenchurch street'. Looking out for a place to stay around here. Need to sort whole lot of things right from bank account to house to mobile to internet connections to food to visa processing for family!!!

Well, enough of my brag for today, will catch up in next post!

The only Indian channel that didnt...

...carry any news item or even mention about high-profile star wedding of Rajini's daughter Aishwarya with budding star Dhanush was SUN Network.

Karunanidhi proves his cheapskatedness once again!

The J(ailing) Factor

First it was JJ
After some time, it was Jeevajyothi case on Saravana Bhavan Annachi
Soon to follow, Jayalakshmi
Now it is Jayendrar...
Looks like J and Jail go well together...

Some of the books waiting to be written...

..by me, of course.

Here is a sneaky preview of my would-be-books...to be precise, might-be-books.

Desi Dilbert -- This will be the Indianized Dilbert who will deal with the ingenuities of Indian corporate do(o)m. Ofcourse, the book will feature many short anecdotes of funny thins happening in our Indian company bored-rooms. This book is withheld right now, because knowing Scott Adams through his web site where he tries selling everything, we would wait until Scott Adams can allow us to use his t(i)rademark Dilbert...else, we will try sneaking a different name on this character. If we have the name Dilbert,, it will be easier to con people into buying this book.
Some cartoons / anecdotes are all ready. Few of my colleagues will co-author this book. We also plan to release a PPS file of this book, so that our usual Indian crowd can flood everyone's inboxes - specifically all gmail and yahoo mail accounts.

Who moved my underwear? or Catching the boss in the bathroom - Haven't finalized on the name yet. These are the suggested titles of the self-help (in Tamizh, suya uthavi) book that am planning to write. The theme will be based on the famous tamil saying - Bazarla uzaara illaina nijaar avuthuduvaango. And this book teaches you how not to lose your confidence in event of such a thing happening. It is most likely that such things are initiated by higher-ups, you will be able to corner them in bathroom and how you can be prevertive...I mean, persuasive!

Of boobs and asses - No this is defintely not any sex book that I plan to author, nor any biological book. This is the management book that I plan to affix an obscene price and sell them. Am sure the title itself would make people buy the book as(s) those buyers would think, "if a management book has such a fantastic, novel title, there must be something great in the book". All other smart buggers would borrow from these guys and read them. Or will download the e-Book from that Russian site or buy from outside Spencer Plaza. (Un-smart alecs would buy the same at an obscene price from inside Spence Plaza from the Landmark - this is called product-positioning - catering to both smart and unsmart people). The theme of the book is how to identify the boobheads (and hence the BOOBS in the title) that block your career-growth and assholes (well, you get the connection) who make your career stink, and how to get away from them, and still manage to obtain internet connection, browse job-sites and move to a new job.

Also have few more titles in the offing - Milagu Rasam for the soul, A dummy's guide to understanding dummy's guide, Konaar Notes written by Karunanidhi on How to find fifty faults in fifty seconds in a fifty letter sentence uttered by Jayalalitha.

Quality surveys at TIDEL

All those folks stationed at TIDEL PARK know about the dismal quality of RKHS - the one and only caterer allowed inside TIDEL and their high-handed, tyrannical, obscenely priced food (if you could call them).

Now is a quality survey being conducted about RKHS service (or rather lack of it). Given the cynic I am, the survey and service puts even me at utter dismay. For one, in the past 14 months of my stay at TIDEL, this is the second quality survey. First one's resuts or actions taken were never revelaed to us. Nor has anyone seen remarkable improvement in service or food quality. I guess CBRE (which runs TIDEL) owes a change in caterer and visibility of survey results and actions taken.

Wonder what real action is going to be taken apart from mere fulfilment of process with such surveys! (simple reason for non-confidence in the survey is - The survey had just 3 ratings scale - Good, fair, average)

RKHS leelaigal at TIDEL:
1. As per the contract/agreement, RKHS is supposed to run the regular counters and snacks counters till 8pm, and provide all such items. BUT most of items including chutney would get over by 730pm itself. The chat counter will not stack samosa mostly. BY 7:30. the man would simply close the counter and go, no matter that the billing person billed people for some chat item.
2. At any given point of time, the coffee and tea counter will have just 20 tumblers(max) to serve the TIDEL coffee-seeking crowd of over 2000. The paper cups will not be available mostly. And the quality of cups - The cups are so flimsy that getting a hot beverage in the cup and taking it to a table is like watching a hindu pop-music video...you never know when, what would fall down! (ok, ok if that was a poor analogy, leave it - enjoy the pun about Hindi pop-video...)
3. Unlimited lunch costs Rs 30 - you have both North Indian and South Indian. In North Indian, you get chapathi and variety rice (multi-colored one - new color every day), and close to 4-5 sabjis. The person who serves the chapathi would place only 4 at a time, if you ask him to place more, he will give such a look and keep it. Mind you, this is supposed to be an unlimited meals. Similar is the case of south-indian food.
4. On floor one, they also serve limited meals - for Rs 23. It is so limited, that you limit your hunger. The serving spoons - only one scoop of any item - would be small, and half of it would have the food sticking to them. Effectively you get only half the scoop. You prompt the person to drop everything off, he will stare at you before doing it.
5. The hygiene factor! Tables would never be cleaned immediately. Worse, if some company hosts a special meal session. The tables would not be cleaned until end of the day.
6. Water - RKHS cannot invest in a bubble top mineral water cans. CBRE supplies ground water - bore - through its supposed-to-be-working-water-purifier.
7. The take-away juice cups in the juice counter are not provided with a juice-cup cap. Once again very flimsy cups.

Can go on and on...and am sure many more things can be added.

Worst part - RKHS has no competition in TIDEL Park. No other eat-outs are also nearby TIDEL for one to go and have a decent food. (Do I see a good business opportunity there?)

The point is none of the companies administrators (inside TIDEL) take any concern towards this dismal, sub-standard service from RKHS. "Its all in CBRE hands" So ask them to make a representation to CBRE in company letter head, as is the usual practice, the admins vanish out of sight. When you make a representation to CBRE personally, you get a survey!

No wonder...

(Via Instant Kaapi)
Indian farmers, instead of paying hefty fees to international chemical companies for patented pesticides, are reportedly spraying their chilli and cotton fields with Coca-Cola.

Down in the article, Anupam Verma, Pepsi sales manager in Chhattisgarh, states
"If there was any truth in these claims then we would rather be selling our product as a pesticide rather than soft drinks. "

But isnt that what a study revealed close to a year back? That pepsi/coke are mixed with insecticide???

No wonder, Anupam Verma contemplates selling Pepsi as a pesticide rather than soft drinks!!!

Blogally yours...

Chakkarai inikkira chakkarai...
Had been reading Chakra's blogs since the time I started reading dubukku's blogs. On and off, he would also leave comments on my blog. Until recently I read a post of his where he mentioned about Ramco, something was connecting. Went through his site completely, and found out this Chakra is none other than my school buddy - Chakkarapani. This guy is at UK blogging. And what a time to connect with! Am off to UK soon on workpermit, and was looking for some known people.

Another friend of mine - Venkataraman CHivukula who for some inane reason wants to call himself as CVRaman had met up with Venkat at Grenoble in France. This Venkat got known to me by having a collision with my blog name. He wanted to name his blog as "aham brahmasmi", since I had taken the name already, he made it "Tattvamasi". WHile I sent a mail to CVRaman, telling him about my acquaintance with Venkat, CVRaman sends a mail stating that this guy Venkat is dubukku's friend, and they struck a chord being Tamil guys at France and blogs being the next common factors - apart from the glaring fact that both have deceiving innocent faces which has 'n' number of pranks behind them.

Deepavaliyum TNagarum

Inspired by varied experiences of Chakra and many people who are not in India, I thought, let me narrate how it is now in TNagar. And it ended up in almost flooding chakra's comments...here is a reproduction (I am good in that - no pun intended)

Guys, you must be at TNagar to know what it is to do a deepavali purchase! Let me narrate the TNagar for sake of you guys -Offlate there have been heavy showers in the Chennai Maanagaram (Nallor oruvar ularael avar poruttu ellarkkum peiyum mazhai...antha nallor ullooril ullaar), so Deepavali purchase was a bit shadowed down prev week. Not so, in this week.

Last week it was rain and floods, but this week in TNagar it is flooded by people.

Pothys, RmKv, Nalli, Chennai Silks and Kumaran contribute to the kolakalam of Deepavali purchase. WHile RmKv proves out to be the shop for affluent and for elite middle class with their zodiac style sarees, cinderella pattu pavadai et al, Pothys is at the other end wooing the lower middle class with throwaway prices. At Pothys entrance, if you stand (even when you dont intend buying anything) you will automatically be pushed inside the shop and mostly to the first floor. Ellu potta yennai kuda vizhadhu, ellaar muthugilum poi otti kollum. Pothys and RmKv are diagonally opposite each other at Panagal park. So much crowd. And then there is Nalli and Kumaran for those traditionally inclined. Nalli 100 is also crowded with not so elite but affluent middle class.

Lot of thalai deepavali purchases at Kumaran and Nalli. (Nanna border agalama oru shaaree eduthudungo...enna athimber sherithaanay, umakku pattu vetti?). And again Kumaran and Nalli are diagonally opposite to each other. Together, Pothys, RmKv, Nalli and Kumaran contribute to the densely populated polygon of TNagar. ANd not to be left behind, if you walk (get pushed) inside the street of no return namely, the Usman Road, Chennai Silks and GRT welcome you with much bigger crowd that will put a Bryan Adams concert crowd to shame. And then comes famous and liked by the poor class - Saravana stores, Saravana Thanga maligai, Saravana this and Saravana that.

You are exhausted and tired after the nostalgic trip to TNagar. Come, let us sit, relax and have a coffee - thooya philter kaapi - at Gitanjali or Saravana Bhavan. You must be really naive to think, we will have a seat at these hotels. You must be really lucky to first get a seat in these hotels. And then, if you are luckier, one of the suppliers will come to ask you for order. No guarantee, what you ordered is what you get. I recently ordered a coffee and got a falooda, and got the bill for Panneer butter Masala and naan!!!

Encounter specialist

Can you believe that this man Mr. Vijayakumar - IPS who headed the operation cocoon is 51-years old? Does he look the age?

Wonder how many remember that encounter specialist character of Kaakka kaakka was modelled on Mr. Vijayakumar's career?

If I am not wrong, he got the following - Veeramani, Venkatesa Pannaiyaar and a few other rowdies...all encounter deaths. Now the big catch - Veerappan.

Read this God-respecting, inspiring Police officer's interview here at rediff

Duh???

Jackpot show on X TV. Question to a family man
What are the names of highest posts held in Army, Navy and Air?
Bang came the response-
Attorney general
* * * * * *
SCV channel phone-in program. Compere asks to caller on phone:
Which country has the largest number of hospitals?
Entire family discusses, the caller finally responds...
Give us a clue
The clue is it is one of the Asian countries
Family discusses further, and caller responds back
Europe
* * * * * *
Raj Digital Plus
Which batsman has scored 30runs in an over twice?
Pls give us a clue
Ok, he is a left-hander
Maninder Singh
No it is wrong...
Illainga avaru left-la thaan poduvaaru, aaduvaaru
Boss...I said batsman
Pls give us another chance
Ok, tell me now...another clue, this batsman is not an Indian
Robin Singh
* * * * * *
I dont see the same presenter Raj Digital Plus these days!
A sample of Tamilan's IQ and General knowledge as shown on TV.
Perhaps a latest example of Tamilan's IQ & GK could be Jeyalalitha's Thanga Tharagai viruthu. Read this and my comment there.

Bride and Prejudice

As far the story goes, does justice to original 'Pride and prejudice', but fails to keep up the levels in the treatment...

Was waiting with bated breath for yet another "balle balle" routine to pop out...oh man, god!!! This one can compare only with "Hum Aapke Hain Koun" in terms song numbers....

Aish looks pretty...old! Her plastic smile right from Iruvar to Jeans to Kandu..Kandu to Bride - we are used to this...give us something different, and something original, lady!

Wonder why all the cross-over movies take such a pleasure in digging at the arranged marriage system and getting married to foreign-returned? The point is such portrayals have become boring, monotonous and repetitive.

Anupam Kher should be banned as Punjabi Dad of sweet ladies who is hen-pecked but always sways to girls' sides...guess we have had enough dose of Anupam Kher.

Coming back to movie treatment of the original-

Pride and Prejudice is a sensitive story, but the Bride lacks the spirit of Pride. The prejudices have not been dealt in-depth, so the way pre-judices are overcome is unconvincing. Four daughters of Anupam Kher - Jaya, Lalitha, Lucky and Maya (I was basically waiting for the other two to be named as Sasi & Kala - oh boy, it wud have been hilarious!) are being readied for marriage to rich guys from US/UK. Daddy cool says he can't leave his daughters to be married to some unknown people abroad. Lalitha also swears by it. What more? She even admonishes the US-based Mr. Darcy for the westerner's view of India as a mere tourist destination and nothing else...I could almost hear A.R.Rehman in the background crying "Vande mataram"...Mr. Darcy who had come to invest in a tourism resort as son of big hotel chain owner of US, out of love for Aish and taking her words seriously, pulls back the investment (P. Chithambaram will be a happy man).
....
When the story unfolds, finally, Anupam Kher is happy to have Jaya married to UK guy and Lalitha married to Hotel Owner from US. True Indo-UK-US conglomeration indeed!!!
....

Despite all of this, am sure, the movie will be hailed as a new-genre movie, a classic tale retold in lighter vein from Indian perspective etc etc...

Gurinder Chadha even has a snake dance of Anupam Kher's last daughter plugged in, where she dances with a semi-open blouse...nothing artistic in the dance, it looks more like a Midnight masala jig wantonly inserted.

Gurinder Chadha makes a great Indian mockery, and she will get away with it...
In fact with few international awards, and numerous interviews on such-nothing-else-to-show news channels like Deadlines today, Star nutwork etc.

Puthusu Kanna Puthusu

Offlate, FM radio and Tamil channels keep chanting "Puthusu kanna puthusu", meaning "New Dude New"...all about new look of Kungumam - a local Tamil magazine from journalistic household of Dayanidhi Maran. Similarly, the famous Tamil Magazine - Ananda vikatan - also promised its readers a rehashed, new "aalaiyay asathidum Ananda Vikatan". Not to be left behind, the other famous Tamil magazine Kumudam also brought new sections....

After a couple of motnhs of these re-launches where do they stand actually in terms of freshness?

Ananda vikatan is now more of Kumudam flavour in it with 3 page articles on how an actress spends her day (more in line of usual Kumudam's taste for glamourous actresses photos), little bit of religion, over dose of cinema, images bordering light yellow porno, spy vs spy rehashed as vetty-karaivetty, and the likes...Ananda vikatan lacks creativity and adds dashes of Sutti Vikatan, Junior Vikatan, Kumudam, Sakthi Vikatan and the likes....

Barring stuffs like 'Katrathum, Petrathum' by Sujatha, 'Hai Madan' by Madan and a few more, to me, today's Ananda Vikatan reminds me of Kumudam, and not much of their uniqueness in also writing a lot of non-cinema, non-glamourous articles.

Then, one can ask what happened to Kumudam and its unique flavour...well, Kumudam now resembles itself more like Kungumam, when Kungumam used to publish a scoop or exclusive every week, which will turn out to be not much of scope for scoop anyway. Kumudam also lacks depth in the articles. Though Kumudam used to be splashed with lot of articles based on people from cine field, those articles used to be different. Now, they are like Kungumam, which they write something.

If Ananda Vikatan is Kumudam and Kumudam is like Kungumam, then what about Kungumam? Wasnt it supposed to be a "puthusu kanna puthusu"...frankly speaking nothing puthusu in it including their ADMK bashing. Kungumam churns out articles lifted straight from filmfare etc, and also some dramatic invention about Jeyalalitha's aatchi. Nothing more than that.

Technically all magazines have upgraded their printing quality, and use nice paper, so that one cannot miss even the sweat on Aiswarya Rai's cleavage...but, to a person craving for good reading, what have they brought on? ZERO....

So, what new sections can be added? My twenty paisas....

1. None of these magazines cover anything about advertising field...to start with they can have something like ET's Brand Equity feature - Bekaar & Best ADs...

In Tamil, vilambaram means AD. Maybe something like WOWilambaram and Uvvaylambaram...

2. Next, instead of writing junk about internet and websites, and republishing forwards, they can publish blog posts every week with an intro about the author of the post, and some URLs...

3. Explaining science - and sceintific things happening around. Instead of Demi Moore's boobs in close-up and Aishwarya's Rai's half-clad dress with half-cleavage, mags can translate nice articles from net and take science and inventions and innovations to common man who would be delighted to hear about such stuffs...(first give them, then decide whether they like them or not)

4. I remember lot of good travelogues by Sivashankari and Manian in Vikatan, Kumudam etc...Why not start some of them?

5. Original humor as in Devan, as in Madan, as in Ess. Vee. Vee, as in Packiam Ramasaamy - why not search for such good humor writers and popularize them?

....
the point is "guys, get really new...dont be such somberi copy cats!! If not possible to invent, atleast innovate"

DD - Danda Darshan???

Was reading recently this post on DDMemoirs and Memories: Telewatch...
Sat back and thought...
Believe me, none of the new age TV channels are able to give the variety that DD gave or still gives...for example, yday there was a serial which was televised version of Sundara Ramaswami's story, or their regular dial-in programmes which feature non-cinema professionals who respond to many useful queries...not to forget the Sidharth Basu's quiz time or many such programmes...and any major function/celeberation like Diwali, Gandhi Jayanti, Independence day or Pongal, its only DD that makes programmes relevant to the special day...
Ok, forget entertainment programmes, new channels may beat DD with slick sets, rich costumes and good outdoors - even abroad...but talk about such programmes like Vayalum Vaazhvum - who else covers something that is of relevance to farmers or for that matter - which television channel discusses SSLC and +2 question papers (Kaanbom Karpom)...DD also has two education channels - Gayn Darshan and Technology channel...the other day, I was taken aback when for an hour, someone taught UML...clear, crisp repsentation that taught me concepts of all UML diagrams...
Maybe it is not right to discount DD as Danda Darshan...

Krishna cottage

This is the new Teleserial being telecast every night 10 o' clock on Jaya TV. This is an outcome of "Ada" campaign of Jaya TV.

Krishna cottage(KC) is a direct lift-off of the famous teleserial "Friends". 3 guys, 3 gals, one paatti, KC owner and his staff are the key characters introduced so far. A supposedly hilarious serial that is supposed to be complete with slap-stick, PJs and situational jokes.

Bottomline - KC is a poor imitation of 'Friends'....

One good thing is the serial's key characters are fresh faces we have not seen them in the daily dish-wash bars (if the serials presented by foreign channels are Soaps, then definitely their poor couSINs here who have same "paathira padaippu" - the cast, be called dishwashbars...) Mirchi Suchi has rendered voice for Title vocals...her typical "Sema hottu machi..." reflecting in the tune of the song too...but good! A very catchy number - Machi inga vaa vaa, majaa solli thaa thaa...

When titles are being shown, it states "Moolakadhai (Original story) - Kutty Padmini"...

So far, this is the only hilarious part I have found in the four episodes of KC..because we know the original story is "Friends" ;-)

Netnography, HINDU and a bunch of Chennai bloggers

Recently read few articles about Netnography via these links from Charukesi and further observations in this post.

And a specific observation was of great interest to me...Quoting from that post

And some questions Edward of livinginindia (or elsewhere on the planet) always has...- Why are there so many bloggers from Madras ?- And what do they write about?- And from this, can we say what Madras is like - about the kind of people who live there or arefrom there - bloggers over the world with Madras 'roots'

Co-incidentally, I was wondering why no India magazine/newspaper refers avidly about blogs (except for one occasion when Kalki - Tamil Magazine referred Teakada). Its only HINDU that talks about blogs quite frequently. References to blogs and blog software comes from Netspeak column. But nothing about bloggers or some of the popular chennai blogs.

It was a plesant surprise to see for first time, though, an article on bloggers in Chennai...Cool to see Ravages and Kribs names out there on - can you imagine? - Page 3 of Hindu...thats as good as Front Page...great going guys...

Frankly, i took to blogging only after seeing Netspeak columns. I have been trying to be regular after seeing the enthusiasm shown by bloggers like Ravages, Kirubashankar and lazygeek in updating their blogs quite regularly!(I still remember the bloggorhea, Ravages had, quite sometime back - when he posted continuously for 10 days or so...)

Hightime, common media - esp print - starts acknowledging the new type of journalism in the name of blogs...and truly exploit the power of internet, to have proper reports rather than such common 3 columnar articles on Lalu Prasad Yadav's pilgrimage...there is so much in this world to write about, and blogs cover quite a bit of them...Guys, wake up and leverage power of blogging to the advantage of journalism!

UPDATE: Oh wow, cool...Times magazine carries an article on blogs as alternate media vis-a-vis mainstream media (via instantkaapi.com in a post titled Bloggers, The Truthful Media)

Tamilnadu news media beasts

Drunken driving, and accident cases are not very uncommon. But the intensity with which the recent Radhakrishnan salai accident happened that turned upside down the lives of four young stupid a**holes and causing death of a young girl is highly distressing.
As usual, the media played an irresponsible role...Indian Express reported that the lady was also drunk, and seen dancing with the boys. What started out as a playful chase ended up in the accident. Dinamalar reported it as eve-teasing case without even analysing it properly - they had other important information...while HINDU explained that girl was not under alcohol influence, and not was seen with the boys in the car...
No one can easily forget the gory poster put up by Junior Vikatan in streets of Tamilnadu when Srirangam Marriage Hall fire accident happened, with dark, burnt bodies of the groom, and other elders. Kumudam reporter crossed all limits when they flooded Tamilnadu walls with burnt bodies of small kids in Kumbakonam fire accident as their poster material. In such a tender, delicate moment, should they get all gory and dorky?
The visual media is worse - people wont easily forget the visuals of kerala's mahout done to death by an elephant, or the mad Kerala youth who killed a man, or...Well, they are countless...
And to think, it is the same print media - esp Indian Express, Vikatan were some of the key elements that behaved with social responsibility to play a vital role during independence struggle and during many calamities...offlate, all have become nuttier...Sensation is all what you guys need, and you care a damn for what you report!!! You heartless, crude, savaged beasts of news media.
A big middle finger to each one of you!!!

Veedu vs 7% floating rate

SCV Channel - Monday - Sept 13 - 10:30pm movie - Veedu by Balumahendra

Good one! Archana had acted really well. The scene when Iyengar narrates to Archana about handling the investment. When Iyengar talks about the feature of the house, Archana's eyes start glittering with enthusiasm and starts drooping again while thinking how to put in the money. Then, numerous talks and deciding on going for it.

It was  sheer poetry - more than that, it brought back the nostalgic memories of how 15 years back, my father struggled to build a house, taking lots of pains in terms of money to house and other commitments, and the sense of achievement he had - first person from the relatives clan hailing from a remote South Arcot district village to a city, succesfully settled in a permanent job and built a house also. Ok, the house is in suburbs - so what? Own house is all that mattered. No mean achievement it was - THEN.

I remember the days when my father had to go back and forth between panchayat office, builder's home and to HDFC office for getting the loan sanctioned and money released.

Cut to today!!!

I own a flat in plum Triplicane area - 50% financed by Housing Loan Institutions. Its 3 years old, and as on date, am already with my 3rd home loan institution topping up my loan every time. Bottom line is things come easy!!!

Offlate, I keep cribbing to wife and friends that something is lacking in life, life sucks etc etc...Not just me, many people of my generation feel that way. Talk to any elders, they say, "we never felt like this when we were your age". And, I know its true! With lesser salary and a bigger family to support, my dad used to toil a lot. Now, I have a fat paycheck(well, not exactly currently - but nevertheless, scaling up is not a big issue), money to spend on anything and buy anything I may need. Have switched three mobile phones already. Jobwise, am doing a better job than what my predecessor did - not clerical, but more administrative and managerial! Then, what else is lacking?

Maybe is it because everything is offered in a platter now-a-days. Not like those olden days, like in Veedu, when someone describes about having a house on my own, might not be too enticing. Because it is not a challenging task anymore. Give it to a builder, or better buy a ready-made house/flat. Only thing to do is, take half day permission (if in IT company, not even a need for permission, just sit extra hours, browse and add to timesheet as 'knowledge building activity'), go to registrar office, sign a few documents, talk crap about how bad/corruptive Govt agencies have become, have lunch with builder and get back to office. Voila - you are the proud owner.

Now there is another class which sees this class of people get things so easily, offered on a platter. They struggle so much but the results dont come easily. It's worser than in previous periods - they won't get a loan from office like in those days, because office has a tie-up with some schmuck bank, employees can apply to them directly. They don't have eligibility for a loan because their salary isn't enough.

Are we, as a society, growing healthy? People of our class say life sucks and something is lacking, because we do not have to struggle for anything. It's a buyers market for us, and we get to choose from a wide range of loans..we are the '7% floating rate' class, and there is another class which will now take a much longer time period than our predecessors to grow up. But at the same time, they become easily frustrated with this anomaly. This is not a self-sustaining model that will balance itself out any sooner.

For a country of our size, this type of divide is obscene.

Questions you wanted to ask, but never were able to!

The man on Tamizhan TV demonstrating something for Teleshopping always wears coolers...eventhough the coolers is not the product he is marketing. Why?

The accompanying lady compere in the same show wears rings in all her fingers - both hands and legs including a golden-color metti. Why does she want to wear so many rings like nadhaswara vidhwan?

Why does Kamalhassan wear coolers in any duet shot in a foreign location? That too, only in comedy movies?

In all movie-based dial-in TV shows on Indian TV channels, all comperes want to know what the caller is currently doing, who are in their family. If they are students, the comperes want to know how they fare in their studies. Comperes also want to know, whether they have a boyfriend or girl friend, and whether they have been in or are in love. Comperes of Tamil channels also specifically want to know what the caller had for dinner/lunch. Why do they want to know all this? Will they ask for meals to be sent to them as 'parcel'?

E-Mail Post!

This sounds a bit weird...earlier I used to post mails! Now, I post using an e-mail....
Uh...oh...silly jokes apart, am trying to write this post to my web blog using email...
Hope it works...
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What platform are you on?

The geeks of the world, before you go on ranting stuffs like Linux, Solaris, NT....For your kind information, I am not talking about the platform in comp.sci. lingo, but about the platform in Chennai - the US-ers conveniently call them as pavements.

It's true platforms have vanished in many parts of the city owing to flyovers, shop encroachments, and some have become unusable because of "Nature calls".

But, its wrong to write-off platforms utility stating this city does not have usable platforms and stuffs like that.

Am sure you must have seen places at Santhome, entire Adyar road stretch starting from Malar Hospitals to beyond Rajbhavan, pockets in Mount road, TNagar - just before Pondy Bazaar starts, Beach road, Dr. Radhakrishnan salai, Ashok Nagar, so on and so forth....
They are relatively clean, usable and quite levelled...You can walk properly in the bright day light...

If that be the case, why the EFF, so-called educated, civilized tie-clad youths, responsible college girls, civilization-written-on-my-face-type sophisticated elderly men and ladies, walk on the roads, and scold the biker - like me - who honk them to let them know that they are blocking the way????

St. Isabel Hospital

St. Isabel hospital is a nice, wonderful hospital situated in Mylapore, Chennai. Those who had gone there for their own treatment or to visit people known to them would know why I refer it as a nice,wonderful hospital. The ambience is neat and clean. Peaceful, with a spiritual touch, and doctors well-qualified, not Vasool-Raja MBBS but attached to the profession of health care.

This hospital is being run by Christian Charitable Institution, but never intruding with one's personal religious beliefs. The best part is this hospital is completely managed and run by ladies - otherwise for some male doctors and few wardboys, who are also part of this institution.

Right from hospital management, ward care, drug store maintenance to room cleaning, and other dormitory activities, it is run by ladies, ladies and ladies. No fancy MBAs.

The hospital has opened stream of employment for ladies from under-privileged society with even little education. Depending on their capability, they are placed in places ranging from drugstore to aayahs to ward-girls to biochemistry lab assistants. It is amazing how one institution has helped in the lives of so many under-privileged people, fantastically running the institutions without any major issues providing care, nursing, prayers and hope to so many.

Many corporates need to learn a lot from them in terms of corporate management, HR development, finance management, employment generation and most importantly women upliftment!!!

TN-09-G-0045

This Govt vehicle, driven by a Veerappan look-alike, with a (spineless, gut less) bureaucrat seated inside, came on the wrong side of the road today morning. It was near Santhome where the road is pretty narrow. He came at a break-neck speed.
I stopped, signalling him to get on right side of yellow line.
He raised his hand, and mouthed a very bad word.
I didn't budge, nor giving him way.
Traffic police asked me "Why am I getting in his way?" and asked me to give way.
All along, the bureaucrat sat reading the newspaper peacefully inside the car.
1. Is the bureaucrat blind?
2. Does he have a spine?
3. Does he have a gut?
4. Is he imbecile?

It takes a Jeyalalitha to do it...

A couple of months back, the Greenways road-Sathya studio junction underwent a bypass surgery (On an unrelated note, should I get Tamilnadu Doctors' association consent for stating the road reconstruction work as bypass surgery?) of its sewerage lines. What it still needs is a cosmetic makeover!

To put it simply - They dug it, filled it with sand and stone. And still it lies the same.

A new road has to be laid, but it can be seen nowhere in closest future. Only way, it can be done overnight is - Our beloved Amma - Dr. J. Jeyalalitha has to take the Greenways route to Rajbhavan, rather than the Kotturpuram road.

Ofcourse, PWD Minister and ex-Chief Minister O.Panneerselvam lives very nearby, but it takes only a Jeyalalitha to accoplish this...

Amma varuga varuga

Tamils' taste for humor!

When did Tamils' taste for Humor die? -- The question posed by Hemanth on his post about Tamil Mega Soaps, made me come out of my blogstipation.

You might have to start off with Dr. Mu. Ka. aka Great Kalaignar - who will make parody or offensive overtures and pass them as humor against his political rivals, but cannot accept even a small joke on him. MGR followed suit with a case against Ananda Vikatan editor.

Then Dr. JJ started doing this full-fledged. Absoultely no sense... of humor (of humor is not an after-thought addition...believe me)

Dr. Ramadoss is another biggest jerk who adds to this.

And, after that the so-called Dravidian Pagutharivu Pisaasugal started imposing these values on Tamils, slowly the population got influenced (or should I say de-fluenced?)

Today it has boiled down to the point that Doctors cant stand a title called 'Vasool Raja MBBS'!!!
Where do our so-called 'kal thondri mann thondra kaalathey, mun thondriya, nagaichuvai nirambiya, Tamizhargal' have time for taste for Humor?

Tamil's taste for humor has not died, but paralysed - which is worse!

BREAKING NEWS: Sun TV & MDMK enter BPO Arena, start call centers

STATUTORY WARNING: This post is supposedly a dubakoor article, and possibly grouped under 'Humor'. If anyone prefers to take offence, please be aware you have full rights to do so.
 
Sun TV enters BPO, and starts a call center. This is a Korean Collaboration and named 'Kokkarakko Gummango'. The COOs are Chitti Babu and Archana. CTO for this venture is 'Pepsi Uma', now-a-days known as 'Jayachandran Textiles' Uma.

Buoyed by the entry strategy of Sun TV in call center, MDMK also entered BPO. Since they do not have any such leading figures to take CxO positions, MDMK preferred direct entry into BPO through Mergers & Acquisitions route.

As part of their M&A strategy, MDMK acquired fmous BPO player 'Office Tiger'. They plan nearshore strategy in Tamilnadu - India for an MNC with offices at Srilanka, London, Canada and Norway.

Aesop fable???

Once upon a time, there was a forest. In a part of forest, lived a set of elephants. In another part, lived kangaroos.

Lots of competitions used to be held between the animals in the forest. Both kangaroos and elephants used to win regularly. But kangaroos used to be haughty and never accept elephants' victory, but elephants would cheer kangaroos whenever kangaroos won.

There was a highly talented elephant who won the competitions for elephants. Likewise, a certain kangaroo was also quite talented and won competitions.

All kangaroos will just like that nitpick elephant whenever the elephant won for their herd. This elephant would then be subjected to utter humiliation by kangaroos.

Kangaroos would say, "elephant is not an elephant at all and the elephant doesn't walk with its legs, but runs, when it it supposed to walk." Kangaroos would then ask elephant to come for a check-up. They will test the elephants and will certify it only walks. But whenever competition would start, kangaroos would start again.

But elephant never lost determination to win for his team.

The King of the forest was also a kangaroo. He called for a competition. Just before the competition started, he announced that the specific elephant is a cheater and hurled all sorts of abuses.

The elephant known for its sensitivity refused to participate in the competition.

It is important to note that the elephant had won so far 527 medals. And the kangaroos had nearly 523 medals.

King kangaroo was so happy that the elephant did not come. Other kangaroos were happy too, but acted like Nambiar villain and hid their glee.

And then, Shane Warne equalled Muttiah Muralitharan's world record!!!

Past 10000+

I get so many referrals from other sites...I also send self-marketing emails shamelessly to my friends telling I have written a new blog...somehow people keep visiting this blog of mine!!!

But how many of you noticed that I have crossed 10000 mark?

And how many of you noticed that I started the counter at 9500?

Remarkable, eh???

Rue Sadness - Le Pondicherry

Forgive my French! Crassly spoiled French - right?
Pondicherry is as good as my French!
Pondicherry now has mere subtle remnants of a French colony, but more of an extended colony of Chennai.
The affluent people of Chennai through their contant visits to Pondy have set the cash coffers of Pondy business men ringing. What it has amounted to is crass-commercialization, and as a result, throw the French culture, respect and heritage into the sea, and adapt new-age mantra of consumerism.
The Pondicherry beach road, 5 years back, had just one restaurant - Le cafe - run by PT&TDC bang in the centre of beach. Opposite to that, across the road, was an open space where like a typical village fair, some art form would be on display. And petty vendors selling groundnuts, ice creams and the short snacks.
Any other restaurant or eat-out was not within easy vicinity of beach.
The Pondy beach road would be so peaceful, with people thronging the beach to enjoy the cool breeze, drink something at Le Cafe and generally sack out.
But today,
So many eat-outs have been opened on the beach road. No proper garbage disposal, lots of litter.
Noticed a couple of old buildings representing old colonial architecture have been pulled down. Am sure they will be replaced with high-rise fashion apartment or showroom (read: lacking creativity and strength to withstand sea-wind carrying high content of salinity).
Current state of Pondicherry beach was a big eco-shock.
Even within city limits, the infrastructure has not taken a dramatic improvement, but the place is being burdened with so many incomplete, unfinished big structures. The density is thick.
Sad to see that the cancer is proliferating from Chennai into Pondicherry.

Adanga Maattiyaa nee?

I attempted writing crime thriller in my 8th standard summer holidays involving four characters teaming up to form a detective agency and solve a mystery. One of my friends, after reading the novel, stopped being friends with me. Most of my friends were part of detective agency, and me, ofcourse the chief of the agency in the novel. But I had him left out in the story. Torn between friendship and lierary skills, I made an emotional decision to uphold the strength of friendship over literary interest. Besides, I had to recover all the foreign stamps that I had given him (can you imgine losing a Ghana stamp or a Helvetia stamp?). Because he thereatened to burn them all, if I didnt stop writing that novel.

The writer's itch came again to me in my 11th standard, when my English teacher said, "Guru, you must write and give something for a school magazine". I asked her if it can be a novel or should it be a short story. She gave me a weird glance and said, "I want you to write an essay on Patriotism and it should not exceed 1000 words". Enraged by the creative block she put on me, I went ahead and copied an essay from 'Suras essay book' and gave it to her. It got rejected because one of my classmates had raced ahead of me in giving such an essay from same Suras book. And that was the second time, when my writer's itch was scratched badly.

Once in college, I was so amazed by a different world of literature altogether and realized I have a long way to go before embarking upon writng a novel. This time my attention was directed towards reporting. No, I don't mean the reports I gave about the person who snatched my paper away in an exam, so that I had to write the entire exam again within the stipulated time. But the kind of reports that is being written in magazines. There was no tamil magazine in ur college. So I started one. We had 3 issues coming up. Out of the 3 issues that came out, there were 3 issues(problems) in each. Because Chennai Corporate World did not braze itself for a wonderful opportunity of reaching to so many students through a Tamil magazine, the magazine had to be stopped.

Significant resumption of my writing skills came to the forefront again, when I was in the Pre-sales team of my company. While preparing proposals, corporate summary and PPT, I'd write rave things about my company and solutions. My boss called me once and said,"If you keep writing all the junk and grandiose sentences in the proposals, soon both of us would be sent home because of lack of business...", and he put a stop by asking me to do only market research.

And then, I found out about blogs and the hapless victims like you lurking around on the net, and I started this blogspot. And my wife told me this

Paattikal Munnetra Kazhagam

If you guys remember Appusami-Seethapaatti-Rasagundu-Beemarao-Rukmani combination, you would want to visit this site and also read lot more humorous articles.

An AUTOGRAPH session -- Ratnabala, Rani comics, Ungal Junior, Rani muthu...

Though I studied in an English-medium school, my English-read-and-understand skills hadn't grown up much. My intellectual feed used to come from a genre of tamil comics and tamil crime novels in my pre-teens.

Ratnabala, Gokulam and Ambulimama were a craze for me. I'd pester my dad to get them for me. So many interesting fantasy stories, mythological stories - Gokulam would never run out of stories from Mahabhrata and Ramayan - moral stories, and a lot of general facts. I was and am a great fan of Vandumama, who would churn out fantasy story after story in Ratnabala. Ratnabala would go out of print, on and off. Ambulimama was a storehouse of so many nice stories that would always a good ending and a moral to take home.

In my pre-teens, my scope included Rani comics, Archie (not of Riverdale), Muthu comics. I had a particular fascination for 'Irumbukai Mayavi' who could pass electricity into himself, become invisble, go and solve mysteries. Rani comics, when it started had James Bond investigating something in every issue. And it'd be accompanied by his romantic interludes. The caricatures of James Bond and his girl friend in skimpy outfits - sexy enough in those days, a lot graceful compared to cleavages and navel points in close-up on TV these days - would be exciting for pre-teeners.

By this time, I had entered high-school, and friends out there introduced me to Tintin, Tinkle and the likes. Suppandi was my favorite. Around the same time, Ananda vikatan started Mr. X type of jokes (how many of you remember them?)

Once into 9th standard, I thought it was high time. Started drifting towards long stories - mostly verbose, less pictorial. Rajeshkumar's novels used to so exciting. Till date, he has been writing in 'Crime' novel. Novel titles would be so innovative and creative - like ;'Phosphorus pookkal'. His novels would also be interspersed so many tidbit scientific facts. Vivek-Gokulakrishnan pair would resolve case-after-case. Vivek would know everything, such an alert personality. And his wife - Roopala, a courageous and supportive lady.

Pattukottai Prabhakar's 'Bharath-Susila' on 'Ungal Junior' novels. Such a naughty pair. Susila's T-shirt slogans and painter 'Jay' would draw her. And then, Atma's bathilgal on various reader's questions. In those time, the Q&A sections in Tamil mags were very famous - Kumudam's Arasu, Kalki's Tharasu, Ithayam Pesukirathu's Maniyan bathigal, Thughlaq's Cho, Baagya's Bhagyaraj bathilgal. And most of them would be intellectual, atleast one social issue answered, some serious and some humourous. Atma's Q&A was outright cranky and nutty, and most importantly had the flavor of kadalai, jollu - common college terminologies.

Subha - two gentlemen, friends for life - Suresh and Balakrishnan, wrote under pseudonym Suba. It was an amazing feat according to me. Two people - how would they put their thoughts together, handle their egos, and that too write crime thrillers? With an awe, I'd read their novels. He had a detective pair too - Narendiran and Vaijayanthi - Naren-Vaij for short. They were a naughty pair too. And their boss - Ramadoss (not Dr. Anbumani's appa), and his colleague - Johnsundar. Subha's crimenovels would involve good description of physical fight and invariably, less clue-finding-case solving and more enemy-fighting-case-solving unlike Pattukottai Prabhakar's novels.

Not to forget, Rani Muthu and Kurumbur Kuppusami.

These writings made me get interested in reading as an activity and hobby.

Once into college - Loyola college - I was exposed to a different world of literature altogether.

Baby's day out

Too much Blogstipation now-a-days...
Here is one of the methods...talk about personal life! Be forewarned though, you need to ensure you are talking nice things. Then, you will feel nice about yourselves too!!!

Here let me talk about my kuttypayal Sriram. He is now 3 months old, but his leelaigal...as parents, me and my wife go ga-ga-goo....She has gushed a lot about his skills and abilities. Let me bring up another humourous aspect of Sriram and the entertainment he keeps giving us.

Sriram is a big nature-lover. Why else would he attend to nature's call in successive frequent timing? We would be tying the nappy. In the cycle gap of nappy tying and adjusting the little gap in nappy, he'd gleefully empty his bladder again through the narrow exit...mostly in our hands.

A hilarious incident, we had been to Paediatrician for regular check-up. There were other babies too. My Mother-in-law was having him with her seated next to another lady with a kid. Our kutti fellow just cant resist, he aims the neighbouring kid and starts the ceremony. My MIL frantically kept her hand on the flow to avoid him hitting the kid, immdtly kutty fellow changes direction to position everything on himself. She immdtly shifts position, not giving up, Sriram - enraged htis time because his attempts foiled twice - directs himself at my MIL. Everyone in the clinic were laughing their hearts out.

Sriram is bound to grow up into a good music critic - maybe like Subbudu.
Sriram is a great lover of music - in any form. Even my musical form that hovers anywhere between anywhere between a cat's whining and an afternoon's post-lunch status meetings.
Sriram wants to be sung a song to calm down, and at times, to sleep. My sister who is a trained singer, sings nice songs for him. He'd be just listening to the songs, and suddenly try to modulate his voice in a musical fashion. But he wont sleep then, because he'll listen to them.
Well, we need to sleep too. So I'd start singing. Guaranteed sleep for Sriram in 10-15 minutes. Actually, he needs monotonous noise to put him to sleep. One of my friends remarked, he will become a good music critic listening to all my songs. He can thus differentiate good singing, bad singing and my-type-of-singing. So when I start singing for him, and before my neighbours start to think am torturing a poor cat a lot, and ask me to release the cat, I need to put an end to my musical career. The world would then feel that they have killed great musical genius of a budding artist (thats - just to re-confirm - me!!) with its cynicism...hhhmmmphhh...who cares, as long as Sriram doesnt cry listening to my singing!

Cell phones

Yes definitely I have been having blogstipation. So no blogs for a week. I was prompted by a friend of mine who bought a Nokia mobile for some 6000+ bucks. Nothing major in it, features are almost like Nokia 1100, 3350 or all those low-end mobiles.
Then why is this cost?
Its because it has FM radio. Give me a break. You pay 1000Rs extra because the phone has FM radio, and no other extra feature???
Walk down TNagar, there are numerous FM radios - small, pocketable, compact, runs on a single eveready battery non-stop for a week - just for Rs 30/-...
My God, people!!!

Bloggorhea and blogstipation

A new type of psychological (dis)order has been observed in world of blogs. Blogomanic hysteria - experiencing bouts of alternate high-energy levels (of blog posting, taking comments section into a complete bulletin board types) - Bloggorhea - and low-energy level manic depressions (close to a week not posted anything, hitting F5 continuously to see if someone is leaving atleast a comment for some old post) - Blogstipation.

Let us probe further...but before that, a Warning!
Statutory Notice: If you find any inadvertent or overt references (read that as 'digs at you') to you, pls note that I am adopting famous style of writer Sujatha - mixing up incidents from many characters under one concept. It may not be completely you! Even after this warning, if you felt, some points were specific pun on you, Bingo! You are right. They are on you...pls take it lightly.

Bloggorhea : Some incidents/events trigger this in some bloggers. For instance, we had a blogger posting 22 posts in a single day when 2004-election results were out. Another blogger had this running in last week, when he wanted to post continuously for a week. In fact, the 7th day when he didn't have anything to post, he posted his desire to post on all 7 days, and even posted one of his perennial philosophical ponderings. And we have Dubukku posts - travails of his past experiences.

This is not a serious condition. But Blogstipation is.

Blogstipation (TAMIL: Valaichikkal): Some call this blogger's block, some call it creativity exhaustion, some term this as burn-out on writing topics...but a serious condition though. Normally the symptoms are
a. not posting anything for sometime and cheking if site meter still increases
b. Hit F5 continuously to see if COMMENTS section is updated
c. and well, the point is - you know when you have a Blogstipation.

Following best practices have been observed by me to overcome Blogstipation
Super Hit Muqabla: This will ease out Blogstipation. If you have doubt, just go on to some blogs and carefully scrutinize. You might observe that some bloggers who suddenly do not post regularly, would have churned Top 10 lists. Some examples : 'Best tamil comedy movies collection', 'Ten things to do in my life', 'Ten worst books I have read'
Gyabagam varuthe, gyabagam varuthe: From the time, you got yourself your first email-id, you must have received several forwards. Pick out one of them and post it, with your own little twist in it.
Summer of '69: 'Those were the best days of my life2 - so goes the famous song by Bryan Adams which reminisces all that happened long back. Similarly, many bloggers start writing their yesteryears. Even more specifically about their young age experience in some specific place. You can easily say you were inspired by Sujatha's "Srirangathu Thevathaigal"
Philosophic ramblings: This is another common technique/ploy used by experienced bloggers. Asking philosophical questions, writing abstract statements.
Hee hee hee...Writing a post like this

Oh yuva yoovaa, oh yooovaaa....

It was sad to see unkind commentaries bashed out on Yuva/Aitha Ezuthu in many movie review sites. And many seemed to reflect the thought character of Michael - the brilliant student protagnist - is out of touch with reality.
Ajay Devgan(Surya in Tamil)'s character, Maniratnam quoted in a TV interview in a Tamil channel, was inspired by an Osmania University student character who was so brilliant, and at the same time aggressive, knowing nuances of politics, patriotic that he didnt want to leave his country etc. He was done to death by political activists. Maniratnam said this character was an extension of wishful thinking what if this person survived and made it into real politics.
Not a hard to believe story line.
IN TN, we already have instances of people like C.N.Annadurai who were great orators in college, quite studious who took to student movements, drifted into Dravidian politics and made it to CM post of Tamilnadu.
Perhaps the reason why Aitha ezuthu - Tamil version of Yuva - is doing good rounds out here in TN and Yuva posting a good show in AP. People are relate to what is being said because these things 'happened' in reality. Nothing wrong in mixing a dose of wishful thinking.
From that perspective, AE/Yuva is indeed a good movie with a positive outlook from Maniratnam. He has also brought in a different kind of narrative technique to the story - the point of views and their convergence and a conclusion of the convergence.
Yuva had xxxx Puri (I dont remember which Puri...very very sorry) in Politician role which was stereotypical according to many. Perhaps true. Maniratnam again in the above-mentioned TV interview quoted, he wanted a fresh face that did not reflect villain as typical-movie-politician-villain...he had ace director Bharathiraja acting in Tamil version. But with choice of Mr. Puri in 'Yuva', it is Mr. Puri who stands out and not the politician. Perhaps, Maniratnam could have countered this with a different person in that cast.
There are also accusations music is not good. Well, the CDs are selling well, gone down well with A.R.Rehman's music-loving-genre. Ok, forget sales. The variety in the songs offered by A.R.Rehman is laudable - trance, hard rock, rock and roll, jazz, folk - all type of songs are there. Background score - this is never ARR's forte. Let us not expect much and then blame the background score.
So, in all, what I want to say, don't be too unfair to Maniratnam!

Paayum Puli, Pathungum Balli

Uh, oh...this is not a late - very very late - review of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the graphics or technicques. Last Sunday, this movie was featured on Star Vijay, and dubbed in Tamil. Let me confess, though I was very impressed with the Engllish version of the movie, this Tamil version made me understand and ejoy the movie thoroughly.

Thankfully, the Tamil version did not turn out to be one of those "Paayum Puli, Pathungum Balli" type of dubbing, which is normally aired on Star Vijay. Have you guys watched Jackie Chan singing one of the old SIvaji songs or repeating Rajini's punch dialogues in those movies? Thaanga mudiyaathuda saami!

Good we begin to have decent dubbings of good movies, makes it worthwhile - especially understanding some things that one couldnt pick up in ENglish. Soon, we will have "Mothirakkai Maayaavi" - Lord of the Rings. Am sure Lord of the Rings would be much enjoyable too, if going by the trailer I see on KTV. Gawd...imagine who would give voices for some of the characters - Parthiban for 'Smeadle', Arvindswamy for 'Aragorn'...sad Sivaji Ganesan is dead, else he could have dubbed as 'Gandalf'...

My best tamil comedy movies collection

Here is the list of best full-length hilarious, funny, humourous, comedy Tamil movie VCDs I would definitely love to own...So whats your list of such Tamil movies?

Missiamma
Rangarao - the veteran actor in his elements, and Savithri matching every wit. The best one is the character who comes as T. R. Ramachandran's Personal Assistant. No dialogues for him in the entire movie. All through the movie, he keeps taking notes, very sincerely, every action. In last scene, M.N.Nambiar will lift this guy to throw him out, even then, he will be taking notes.

Maya bazaar
Rangarao again. Can we forget the "am aha...im ihi...um uhu..." magic chant or the song "Kalyana samayal saatham"? And the wedding scenes where Rangarao (Kadothkajan) morphs into Savithri (Abhimanyu's wife - forgot the name), and creates a havoc. Savithri's body language completely mimicking Rangarao was fantastic. DO you guys remember the Lord Krishna(NTR)'s vesham as old brahmin and sings with this thunthana - "Vatraadha selvamey vaazhga nee vaazhga"?

Michael Madhana Kaama Raajan
Kamalhassan in four roles! My God! What a movie!!! Crazy Mohan the real star...
Scene where Madhan gets to meet his dad "Appa ennappa odambu jillunnu irukku?"
"Ungammathaan bathirama irukka sonna, fridge-kulla okkanthirunthaen..."
"Ennamma, oru maathiri pesaraaru?"
"Oru maathiri yenna, rendu maathiri kooda pesuvanay?" In a different voice, calls out "Madhan", and in another different voice "Madhan"
Contrary to popular thought, it is Raju (the Fireman) who fascinates with me with comedy rather than Kaameshwaran.

Thillumullu
K. Balachander brought the humor dimension in Rajinikanth as Ayyampettai Arivudainambi Kaliyaperuma Indran and Ayyampettai Arivudai Kaliyaperumal Chandran. Sowcar Janaki and Thengai Srinivasan (a class of his own) would make us ROTFL. Once a favorite movie of DD Pothigai channel. Would be screened atleast 4 times a week. We'd never miss it.

Singaravelan
Kavundamani, Kamal, Mano, Vadivelu, Charlie combination is a complete laugh riot. Surprisingly the movie is from R.V.Udayakumar who is know for his sentimental village movies. Well, we can easily see Kamal's strong imprint in many scenes. Starting from scene where Kamal imagines what happens to his father like in Tamil movies, the riot starts and proceeds till last scene.
Cant forget these scenes:
'Karuvaadu' scene - Kamal says "Intha koovam pakkam poyiraathey, romba naarumaamay..."
Beach scene - Vadivelu - "Can I have one amuks?" Kamal - "No"...slowly Kavundamani will start "Any help?"...
At Kushboo's home, Kamal's first encounter with Manorama - "Ding, ding, ding bbbrrroommmm"

Bommalaattam
Cho as Zambazar Jaggu...Madras Tamil got a status because of Jaggu. The scene where he explains a mythological story to Manorama is the best.

Bama Vijayam
"Varavu ettana, selavu pathana"...comedy movie with a message! V. Sekar tries it, but not as effective as K. Balachander in this movie. Sowcar Janaki, Balaiah and Major Sundarrajan are show stealers. My fav scenes - Sowcar Janaki learning English,

Kathalikka Neramillai
Balaiah and Nagesh combination movie directed by Sridhar, is a real fun movie. Can you afford to forget the thriller story-telling scene of Nagesh and Balaiah. Balaiah - what an acting...he would slowly start perspiring and start building up the fear in his eyes. Other scenes where he would address Ravichandran as "Magar" to Muthuraman...light humour replete in complete movie. The experience is something akin to Devan's writings.

Kaasethaan kadavulada
Ever hit song - "Jambulingamay jadadhara" and our good old Thengaai Srinivasan as Saamiyar, and his magical chants...oh my God. This is fav movie with Sun TV and many people's favorite too.

Sadly, cant point out any particular movie in recent times as full-length comedy movie that did not harp on physical overtures, and apssing them off as comedy...Maybe 'Panchathanthiram' can accept after reluctance, to some extent. Otherwise cant think of any.

Sahana - Sindhu Bairavi - Part:2

{Oops, 17 days without a blog. Thats too much. To make up for it, this lengthy ones that has been due for quite sometime...}

Sahana - SIndhu Bairavi - part 2 is over! Despite Malachikkal Mama YG Mahendran's histrionics, the serial was overall a wholesome entertainment. Sahana deserved special mention in the clutter of mega-serials hounding the Satellite Channels arena.

1. The story moved quite well, and no character was left unattaended too, there was a logical conclusion for all characters introduced

2. No frivolous and gross scenes that have become mainstay in today's serial war on channels. When I mention frivolous and gross, I mean scenes like two women bad-mouthing and filthy-talking each other or some other person, or ever-crying melodramas.

3. Nice songs were interpsersed throughout the serial. Credit goes to Rajesh Vaidya for the good music.

4. A subtle humour element, as such available in most of our lives, had blended into the story.

5. Venkat, whom I have known as comedy script writer to S.V.Sekar's plays, and few 'thunuks' in Anada vikatan, kumudam, was a co-director in this

6. Some of the comedy scenes involving TV world and the serials shooting, were quite hilarious. Only K. Balachander can take a dig at TV serials in a TV serial.

My top 4 characters, worth mentioning, in order of their performance and characterization:

Sahana: Enacted by Kavya Sekhar. Simply superb characterization, and a perfect fit. Kavya fit into the role like Malavika fit in as Anni. Charming voice, expressive eyes, good body language, nice dialog delivery. Am sure many thdukku girls would have identified with her. Her characterization as a bold, honest person refusing to fall into patterns and rules set by ourselves, but ready to be bound by affection and love will linger in mind for some time.


Dhanapalan: Enacted by Prakash raj. Good characterization - a free man, business man interested in listening to songs and a good Ghazal singer. Though O.S.Arun's voice didnt match well with strong base voice of Prakash raj, we hardly noticed it once the song picked up. "Enakkaen veen vambu" ghazal still keeps resounding in my ears. Need not say about Prakashraj's histrionics. He brings in a great life into the role, who ultimately marries (S)Indhu. A well-deserved marriage for a character who is straightforward, very clear about certain lines in life.

Sindhu alias Indhu: Enacted by Anuradha krishnamoorthy. Again, initially she didnt fit into Sindhu's sparkling character. Also, her acting also left a lot to be desired. But through the course of serial, it is shown clearly how Sindhu has mellowed down. So the initial shock of soft-spoken Sindhu was hardly noticed by later. Indhu had blended into the story very well, and showed remarkable improved in acting.

Meera alias KaMEEkaRA: Enacted by KB favorite Renu. She did her part quite well. Her introduction as a 'Muthir kanni' waiting to get married, and like many ladies today thinking all tele-serial characters as living, shedding tears for them, getting engrossed with serials, living a life with TV serials was a good characterization. The character slowly gets married, hurt by the excess doubt by husband, quits wedlock, struggles, faces reality, comes up in life to be a successful entrepreneur. There was enough story in this character itself to be developed as a mini-serial. As an ignorant English-unknowing lady uttering "Adhai chollu", and as a dignified business lady uttering "wonderful", Renu has handled her role quite well. Excellent example of self-belief.

Other characters worth mentioning for their characterization and histrionics include:
Surya - JKB & Sindhu's son
Bairavi - Sulakshana - without losing the streak of Bairavi in Sindhu Bairavi
Sakthi - As JKB's sishyai, and a good singer singing tunes for 'Thirukural'
Sivanesan - Newsreader Varadarajan impresses as JKB's sister's husband, who is forever at loggerheads with JKB
Rasi - JKB & Bairavi's daughter
Mridangam Gurumurthy - Veteran Delhi Ganesh lives upto his reputation
Kumaran - Rasi's husband and son of Judge Kumaraguru who asks "bilahari" ragam as varadakshinai


Sore point (s):
JKB: JKB enacted by YG Mahendran. Gambeeram, chaturyam, vidhya gauravam of JKB of Sindhu Bairavi was missing completely with JKB of Sahana. Ok, one can argue the time has mellowed him down, but then the story doesnt go that way. So, I would remark YGM has not done his part effectively, and I would state that K. Balachander did not do justice in selecting YGM as JKB.

YGM's dialog delivery has earned him the name Malachikkal Mama. Forever, he would talk as though he is under constipation. Worse, when JKB's voice breaks down, he further combines PILES with Malachikkal.

Meera's ex-Husband: Enacted by Madhan Bob. Though bit humourous initially, later on started talking dialogues which was easy to relate to a 'Metty oli' or a 'Geetanjali'

Sahana was a class of its own. Sad that the serial has come to an end so soon.

University challenge

No, no this is not about Sidharth Basu's 'University challenge' on BBC, but of the challenge posed by Madras University to its prospective students.

My sister recently went to Madras University for obtaining an application form for entrance exam to some of the PG courses offered by this University. She thought it must have been an easy task because personally she is going to Univ. Apparently it was not.

She had to apply for multiple courses offered by different schools of University, and also for the self-supporting track too. So she had to carry as many as 4 different DD for obtaining the same application form four times, and be filled 4 times.

At the Univ, she had to show it in a dept which would register that she has obtained a DD indeed, mark her name and give to her

Another dept had to be approcahed because the person there has to affix a seal that the DD is indeed a DD, and it is obtained in Madras University;s name, and had to enter into a register her name and courses, she is applying for

Next, she had to take the sealed acceptance, DD and a letter to another counter where they would supply the application form. This was a confusion again because in each school, cost of application form to apply for one course in that school is Rs 200 and an additinal Rs 100 thereafter for any other course application form. So, the person supplying the App form in the counter has to make a couple of entries in one school's register as the candidate name, DD amount and courses applied ofr. And another form in another school's register. And eventhough, the same school offers the self-supportive courses, the app form info had to be entered into another separate register.

The fun part is all these have to be entered into computers at the end of the day, a printout had to be taken, tallied with register at application form supply counter, DD verification counter and counter-signed by staffs in the relevant departments/counters.

Forget the backoffice process, the loop is not yet over.

After filling the forms, the student has to submit them in the relevant schools of Madras Univ, and not in some common box at Univ/common postal address. The courses my sister have applied span across the four centres of Univ in Chennai. Now she has to submit the forms at the relevant departments.

Madras University, what are you achieving?

Whither goest thou?

Another SunTV-JayaTV type stunt

Read this news article. This relates to rebuttal of some claims pertaining to photographs about illtreatment of war prisoners in Iraq.

The entire rebuttal-claim stuff reminds me of the Sun TV- Jaya TV rebuttal-claim during Kalaignar's infamous midnight arrest.

Rain, rain dont go away...

Oh boy, it rained, it rained...
Right here in Chennai, for TWO DAYS!
Right at the beginnig of agni nakshatram...Fantastic.
It is so pleasant, seemingly cool...

But woes of Chennai continue!
On Velacherry-Tambaram road where they have dug pits in between, which normally people watch out for...now becaue fo rain, and water stagnation, no one knew where is the road with little water above it, or where is the pit filled with knee deep water. MTC drivers and metro-water lorries couldnt resiste the temptation to find the difference...atleast two buses and a water lorry were stranded as of 9am today morning in similar slushy pits. Cranes were pressed into service.

Here is little song for rain:
Rain rain, dont go away
Come again everyday
Little Johnny can at home stay
Rain, rain dont go away

Yellarum searnthu Rain-ku oru 'O' podunga....

EVMs and Indian democracy

New york Times in an article about usage of EVMs in India for Elections-2004. It builds up an image that India is a completely corrupt nation, and a nation of frauds and violence.

There is an undertone of mockery writ into this article reporting the EVM exercise that World's largest democracy is achieving in such a short span, with indigenously built technology.

The article sums up saying EVM is ensuring the election fraudsters are modernizing and decries the by-and-large success of such a national exercise.

Perhaps New york times has forgotten the Diebold controversy. Probably the election fraud is acceptable in the supposedly World's most sophisticated nation, and nothing to raise a hue and cry, but a developing nation's proud attempt is a laughable affair!!!

Perhaps New york times
Read the complete article here(subscription required) from NYTimes

Real cost of offshoring!

{I posted this as response to another blog. Thought relevant to post in my blog too}
The main issue while offshoring tech support is calling for stricter SLAs and faster turnaround times. Above all, key checkpoints at important levls in the process and a tighter integration with all entities is very much needed. Maturity of the process also needed.
Let me give you an example. I am a Business analyst for an MNC automotive company. They have resorted to typical offshoring model by having their different entities at different places for cost-cutting benefits.
A typical scenario - MNC's customer facing website in Australia suddenly gets a 'Page not found' error. The Aus business people report it to India Help desk who are doing Help desk support. Their SLA time is 1 working day for this. Find out its not problem with application, but with infrastructure/hosting environment. The hosting environemtn is once again outsourced to another entitty in Singapore for the MNC. But the follow-up can be done only by this Indian application helpdesk. But the help desk wold have already taken close to 3/4th of day trying to figure out the issue. Now they escalate to this Singapore facility. This S'pore facility has again one day turnaround time according to SLA. They work on it, and found out this happened due to a particular patch from a vendor whose turnaround time is min 3 working days. Business owner has to take a decision on this. This they informed the caller, ie, India help desk, and closed the call. India help desk promptly informed this to Aus business owner and closed their calls too. Technically, each one responded within their own SLA time. Since India help desk escalated at their EOD, technically fulfilled their SLA of one day response time, to S'pore, business has lost a day. Then S'pore worked on it for a day, sent response back. Business lost another day. Now the ball is in business owner's court, who has to call respective vendor - another day lost. Vendor will take 3 days. Essentially business lost close to 6 days of issue resolution and the impact of cost loss is huge.
The cost gained due to offshoring, is offset by such issue resolution cost impact.
Perhaps a case of penny wise, pound foolish.
And probably, with maturity and stability, they will learn to have tighter integration checkpoints or give up so soon like 'Jesus Christ' solution...

Sri Nithyakalyana perumal

Any one knows when this temple's kumbhabhishekam is scheduled?

Sri Nithyakalyana Perumal resides at Tiruvidanthai on East Coast Road.

More

Ilaiyaraja

Out there in my cafeteria, Radio Mirchi was as usual busy with songs.

There were lot of foot tapping numbers, melodious ones, pathos, folk, pure plain tamil cine music, pop in that single session of music-hearing...suddenly realized they all were music-ed by Ilaiyaraja.

Jazz & Rock n roll types
Rum bum bum
Puthu maappillaikki

Light music
Sangeetha meham
Ilaya nila

Folk
Maanguilay poonguilay

Melodies
Ilangaathu veesuthey
Poongaathu thirumbumaa?

Pure plain tamil cine music
Nenjukkullay innaarunnu

Wow the versatility of Ilaiyaraja!!!
What an experience he creates...

Tambaram, Mambalam, Chromepet, Saidapet, Valasaravakkam...???

We have so many areas in Chennai like Tambaram, Mambalam, Triplicane, Mylapore, Chromepet, Valasaravakkam, Virugambakkam, Vadapalani, Pallavaram, Saidapet, Velacherry.

Ever wondered how they got their names? Any one knows the significane behind these names?

I know the naming reasons for Triplicane, Mylapore, Washermanpet. (I will start blogging eventually). But don't know the meaning or reasons for most of other areas. Guess it should be an interesting task to find the meaning and share the same.

HHmmm...maybe let me embark on the assignment, trying to figure why Mambalam was named Mambalam, or why Tambaram is called as Tambaram.


Inputs invited from Blog readers.
Either mail me, or write in the comments section.

Update:Watch out for updates on the naming conventions on my other blog on Chennai

Open Markets

The cost of seeing the following movies in Chennai theaters
Gilli - Rs 60
Lord of the Rings (all 3 parts) - Rs 300
Harry Potter - Rs 100

All anti-piracy laws and cells cant do much. The movie VCDs are available at a mere
Rs 50 per VCD in every corner of the city. It sounds nice to hear things like "one should not buy such pirated things, and must not encourage the piracy industry", but practically speaking, many people just buy this for economic reasons.


I am not talking about those shops where they rent pirated VCD, or those shops in Burma bazaar/Flower bazaar that sell pirated VCDs. They are supposedly covert actions, and once in a while we see an article in Hindu/Daily thanthi that anti-pirqcy cell seized so many VCDs and arrested someone.

The VCDs, I am referring to, are those that one can purchase in the open market. By OPEN MARKET, I mean all the roadsides throughout the city,
1. right in Mount road, in front of LIC, TVS, Devi theatre complex
2. bang at TNagar, across Pondy Bazaar
3. near many temples in the city

Just like street hwakers selling vegetables, you can spot these guys. They sell latest movie/audio CDs, MP3 CDs - with luck even DVD.

Can piracy be really fought over?

Sun Fun

Ok, the sun is gruelling all of us out here at Tamilnadu! So, what's new?

Ofcourse, the usual whines, pains that accompany the summer heat. Much has already been said 'beating the heat'. My two cents here:

Well, why can't we put to good use(??!!) this hot sun?

Solar panel powered lights in highway - The Old Mahabalipuram road has so many IT companies that can assume some amount of corporate social responsibility, sponsor for the solar lamps and have them installed through the road up to Madhya Kailash from Kelambakkam. Similarly in those big roads that connect into the Old Mahabs road like the Medavakkam connect road, Chromepet-Pallavaram connect road.

Those roads are, after all, being commuted a lot only by those employees who work mostly late nights and return home in their bikes/cars, when a little street light will be very helpful.

---

Ok, all those who hang around in the sun, here are few tips:
1. Never go without a cap or hat. Atleast tie a handkerchief on your head

2. In evening, when you feel too exhausted and drained, and you have symptoms like nausea, severe headache, First, sit in a relatively cool place, drink lot of fluid - preferably lemon ginger soda or buttermilk/lassi with salt/sugar

3. Do drink watermelon juice while going out in sun

4. Have kalkandu(sugar candy) in hand. Its better anyday than a chewing gum on a hot day. When feeling too thirsty while commuting somewhere and cannot stop anywhere, just pop a kalkandu in mouth

5. A hot coffee or tea or even a glass of hot water is better than Fridge water/cool drinks

6. No ice creams please

7. Buy wet tissues if affordable. Buy a small bottle of Eau De Cologne, and add two drops of it to the bathing water. Controls sweat a lot. Even shaving lotion should do

8. Try including a 'Thayir pacchadi' in your daily lunch - mango, cucumber, tomato, onion, vaazhaithandu (don't know English term)

9. Curd rice (Thayir saadham) is a good eat for lunch. Definitely, atleast for dinner.

10. If you have water (even recycled water or waste water) for this, then do this daily in the evening. Half bucket of water on outer walls of your home or bedroom. If you live on top floor, in the terrace. This is a PURE LUXURY in Chennai today, I know, but still doesn't hurt to give adivce.

11. Washed clothes, hang them for drying inside the room as window curtains. You escape the hot air from windows, costless AC, the clothes also get dried. To avoid the damp smell, keep a camphor in the room, or some other type of room freshner.

Have fun in the sun!!!

Making Money with your blogs!

Well, this is not one of those African Scam that says you can claim stake in the million dollar inheritance, nor the pranks of my prankster friend , but a real, new business concept catching on.

According to adrants,

Among the potential channels for revenue are selling advertising, becoming a media property, selling products from the blog, selling blog skills as a "product," selling services and selling premium memberships.

More details here

Sambhavaami Yugay Yugay

Recently I had been to Sri Parthasarathy Swami Temple. Moolavar(the main deity) Sri Parthasarathi is not for public view, and the area cordoned off following the works on renovation to the Gopuram (temple tower).
The oorchavar (smaller deity) is installed inside temple premises for public.

What puzzled me was the renovation activities being performed. The renovation was not restoration, but re-painting and even remodelling at some places!!!


* The dolls in the temple gopuram were being painted using normal paints we paint on our walls

* Brick walls were being built on temple wall abutting the actual stone walls

* Bad, outside the temple a big shed erected for some stupid purpose hiding the entire beauty of temple front and gopuram

* Worse, a Gitacharyan rendering in form of sculpture with bright blue, yellow and red colours, modelled on basis of usual Gitopadesam calendar photos you see everywhere. Though its a good work, it in now way contributes to history of the temple and deity.

* Sri Parthasarathy came to rest after Mahabharat war in this place and has a temple here. So, Gitopadesam is not relevant here.

* More over, God came here to rest after war to get some peace, but the sculpture takes away the very meaning of this.

* AND LASTLY, Sri Parthasarathy Swami Temple is the only place where the Lord is seen with a moustache...contrast it with Gitopadesam sculpture in front of temple!

Why aren't these temples seen as heritage sites and restoration done, instead of re-modelling???

These beauties modelled using old stones existed for so many years, why now such colorful 'Asian Paints' type of coloring and change the whole vibration of the temple and the spiritual importance of the temple?

This is not the case with Sri Parthasarathy Temple. The same fate has happened to Sri Trivikaramaswamy temple at Tirukoilur also. I do not know of other temples where such blunders, without even realizing, are happening.

But, unperturbed by all this, Lord smiles at all including me, them, the so-called atheists and everyone else, silently implying,


                  Sambhavaami Yugay Yugay

I have grown old...

Usha fan ad where a fat man gets slapped continuously by ladies. How is it even faintly related to Usha fan? Or is the fat man is a fan of Usha, and all those who slapped him are Usha's...I just dont get it!

Some courier company ad..one guy is in first night room with his wife...a courier packet whizzes, he pushes it off. Once again, another courier packet...and finally, you know what they didn't do. Final shot says something for the courier company. How in the remotest chance that a man's first night is connected to courier company?

Have I grown that old that I am not able to comprehend all of these ads?

Creatively Crippled

All the private TV channels and FM stations offer lots of programmes with slick production quality - no doubt, but what they lack is versatility and variety! For instance, there is no USP between Jaya, Raj, Sun and Star in the types of programmes they give.

If for one day, they block out their logos, scramble signals and start feeding the signals from different frequency, am sure it will be tough to say which channel, as they all would be same.

On the other hand, much blasted DD and AIR's FM stations offer such a variety that these channels fail to deliver. Ofcourse, the production quality lacks, but then, we get to watch or listen fresh items.

Between Radio Mirchi and SUryan FM, it is always 'Unnai vida', 'Kannil unnai yetri', 'Manmatha raasa' ...so many times! But then take Rainbow FM, you have carnatic music, hindustani music, melodious instrumental in the peace of night, English Music - pop & rock, interviews with people from different walks of life, house-hold tips, ladies welfare, medical/legal/governmental dial-in programmes to name a few...

If you take DD, it has an hour of Quiz dial-in daily by Sumanth Raman. It's a hit among kids. And then, we used to have 'Ulavarum Olikathir' - a 15-30 minute recap of religious happenings across the state in past week. During festival times, we are not bombarded with some program or other where some cinema artist is involved, and shots from latest releases screened. Instead there are programs that capture the essence of festive spirit.

Day before yesterday, I saw a 30 minute play where a brat is creating problems in a colony by hismischiefs. The kid was so sweet, and he has a harassed grand father - Poornam Viswanathan. Fantastic simple hilarious play. Nothing as simple as this we get now-a-days!

Just look athe variety DD offers/offered- Multilingual films every sunday, deaf and dumb news, Chitramala - multilingual songs for 30 minutes every week, Rangoli, Mahabharat, Vayalum Vaazhvum (how many channels bother anything about farmers now-a-days??), Didi's comedy show, foreign movies on DD Metro every Friday night, Men and Matters, Wonder Balloon (we have a 24x7 wonder balloon channel these days - Splash Channel), Sports time, Quiz time, World This Week...am sure fellow bloggers can quote more!

We have so many channels these days but why do they lack such versatility and variety? Maybe we should consider branding them as Creatively Crippled