Shocking news

I heard that Metti Oli serial has been completed. I thought it would end only when Daily Thanthi ends it's Kanni Theevu Sindbad cartoon strip.

Murasoli - English edition

How much out of touch I am with what's happening in Tamilnadu! Looks like DMK's primetime Tamil newspaper – Murasoli has started an English edition. Can someone confirm?

Otherwise, HINDU has leased out part of it's news division to Murasoli.

You think I am bluffing??? Then, explain to me how come we have this as a news item???

Maran inaugurates baggage scanning machine at airport!

Knocking up a blog post!

I hear that Chennai is blazing hot still. It is summer time in UK as well. Even though cold at times, it is dry as well. Given my earlier career-change thinking, the current job seems all dry suddenly. It has further crept into my blog posting as well. The thought process is so dry, that have not been able to post anything for close to a week. Perhaps one of those Valaichikkal times…

But, thanks to AF…AF has given me a banana to ease myself out of the blostipation . Oh, by the way, Banana is supposed to help in easing constipation – so my analogy is not a tasteless PJ, but more health-oriented. See, I give useful information as and when possible.

AF has given me something to knock up a post.

While in my college days, I used to take keen interest in Multi-Level marketing (MLM) – the amway type of thing. Those meetings used to promise stuffs like I need to sell only so many of those things, and join only so many members. After that, I need not sell anything or even work. I will get loads and loads of money, and can conduct such meetings.

Lured by the "no-work-later-on" concept, I will buy something, and start canvassing to get a bunch of gullible people to join my team. But only after I start talking to people, it will become apparent am almost at the end of this MLM chain, and moist likely I have coerce my dad to buy atleast one item from me.

In a similar way, the book-tagging has come a long way, and almost many people are already book-tagged. But Thanks to AF for the generosity in book-tagging me and getting me to do a post. And like my Amway technique, it is my wife, whom I am going to book-tag .

Coming to the book-tag part itself:
Total Number of Books I Own: 2 or 3[I consider Ponniyin Selvan as one book]; rest are borrowed, robbed, sneaked .Last Book I bought: Ananda vikatan-Sujatha's "Katrathum Petrathum"Last Book I was gifted: Something got to do with Jack Welch and his gut(ter)
Last Book I read: Triple by Ken FollettFive Books That Mean a Lot to Me: 1. Jonathan Livingston Sea Gull – Richard Bach
2. Bridge across forever – Richard bach
3. Katrathum Petrathum – part 2
4. Dilbert
5. Thirupoonthuruthi by Balakumaran
Tag five people and have them do this on their blogs:
As I said earlier, I am the far-end of this Book-tagging MLM, so its my wife, am book-tagging

Career change

I am bored of Tech-coolie job, and considering a career shift. I am wondering if I should be a "De-motivation Consultant" or open "Organic Isthiri Shop". This doesn't imply, am giving up my pet project of writing those books - Desi Dilbert, Who moved my underwear, Of boobs and asses....

As a de-motivation consultant, I would tell people they are possibly deemed to be doomed. I will ask them to cut all the motivation crap, and simply do their work properly. My principle would be very simple –

Be practical, do your work properly
If you are not getting things done properly, it probably means you are dumb and doomed, and ask them to give up. And best, will ask them to get proper professional help
There is no such thing called 'Motivation'. Saying that you get inspired or motivated by something or someone else is stupid. Either you do it, or leave it.

This is what my de-motivational therapy will be all about.

Next running an "Organic Isthiri Shop"

This is a trendy service offering from me for the upmarket clientele, who prefer to have their clothes ironed in an organic way. This means, the iron box will not use electricity. But, it will use the certain mineral that has been refined by nature subjected to pressure for several years, and is formed the most natural way and is the most organic item next to diamond on earth. This will be subjected to intense heating and in the most hygienic way, without touching the mineral, the hot mineral would be used in the iron box with help of tongs.

To iron those splendid organic cotton clothes, I will use this "organic Isthiri" mode. Yes, by the way, the organic isthiri mineral is called as "COAL"

Tamilnadu abolishes Common Entrance Exam

Just read from Hindu the title of this post.
Imagine all those training institutes going bust. I wonder what will be the implication!
Personally, I feel it's a good idea. The entrance test merely is another kind of examination testing pupil skills with their school final year course knowledge. But that’s what they already undergo in their final exams. Why repeat the same stuff again?

CET is anyway made a mockery by lateral admissions, payment seats, so on and so forth. Why waste money and time?

If a student is indeed bright enough to get into a professional course, the student might have secured good marks anyway. And if the student can afford payment seat, but not got enough marks, the CET is but a mere step.

Announce the results and get on with it. Again, going by personal experience, people from other system of education like CBSE/GCSE might be affected. Because of the way, the tests – final exams – are evaluated. Perhaps, setting aside a percentage of seats for other board students might be helpful.

S. V. Sekar

10-15 years ago, S. V. Sekar was a rage down in Tamilnadu and elsewhere in Tamil-speaking world with his witty and on-the-spot humorous jokes. He was something close to a stand-up comedian successful in stage drama, and to some extent in films too. His jokes were very timely, and cheeky at times.

Along with songs, full-length movie dialog cassettes (like Tiruvilayadal, Capt Prabhakaran, Saraswathi Sabatham), all S. V. Sekar drama cassettes were selling in full swing.

If I remember right, Crazy Thieves in Palavakkam was his first drama cassette to be released. It was such a big hit. And then, many of his dramas were hit. It was the time when private serials were being made for TV Channel (Note there is no plural, we had only DD), and his 'Vana kolangal' was a completely hilarious TV serial that was a major hit. I remember recorded video cassettes were being sold then, and many people bought them.

In our house, every night before going to sleep, we will play a S. V. Sekar drama audio cassette and go to sleep laughing all the way.

His dramas up to recent times till Periappa were quite good and attracted audiences to the drama halls despite the invasion of private channels. That was S. V. Sekar.

While S.V. Sekar was very timely, he also had good script writers with him – initially Gopu-Babu and then Venkat. After doing Periappa, I think he parted ways with Venkat also. He wrote his own script and story which were bordering on being frivolous and lacked the witty storyline, he used to have. He was a phenomenon for nearly 15 years in stage drama.

Now-a-days we don't get to see much of S.V.Sekar, we hear a lot about Ess. Vee. Shekhar not in drama field or movie, but on political front. But his drama and some of his characters are still admired by many.

Some of his good dramas, which I like, are:
-- Vaal Paiyan
-- 1000 uthai vaangiya aboorva sigamani
-- One more exorcist
-- Crazy thieves in Palavakkam
-- Mahabarathathil mangatha (Kunthikinay remmy vilayadalaam…enna, kunthi deviyaarudana?)

Can't recollect more, but there are many more, am sure.

And the movies,
-- Simla Special
-- Poovay poochuda vaa
-- Thangamani Rangamani
-- Another movie with Mohan – totally hilarious – forgot the name
-- And with Pandiarajan – ''Gaja ka dosth'' – name again forgotten

He was also highly timely and gave Kamalhassan an equal performance.

3 movies and a weekend

Thanks to KPS! I got to watch two movies in his home, and thanks to Screenselect for another Hindi movie.
KPS lives in Birmingham with his family, we (Myself, my wife – Subhashree and my son – Sriram) had been to his place this weekend and had a nice time at his place. With catching up generally about friends and specifically bitching about our employers. We have been with same employer for past 6-7 years and we still do that. It is also traditional among us to talk about quitting the job, which we still haven't done!

Ok, first things first!
The movies at KPS place – 7G Rainbow Colony and Chandramukhi

Chandramukhi was a pleasant surprise. Quite a good story line, nice Rajini antiques and some fantastic acting from Jyothika. It was also good to see Prabhu again in action, but unfortunate he had a diminutive role like in Vasoolraja MBBS. Chandramukhi is definitely no Guru-Sishyan. Rajini reminded me of his 'Ninaithaalay inikkum' days in his final and now famous – lakalakalaka character, while in other normal get-up, reminding us of his Rajathi Raja days. While Baasha, Annamalai was a different dimension, this cool get-ups are another one. Rajini is indeed a versatile actor. Jyothika – I was a bit scared after her dance with eyes and her ruthra thandavam. Good acting Jo! Music was a big letdown. It takes a Ilaiyaraja, Deva, Chandrabose or a Hamsalekha to give the beats one expects out of Rajini movies.

7G Rainbow Colony sounded a bit uncomfy at the beginning to watch with family, but the pace of the movie takes you in. College-going tapori! I have seen many such rogue guys who seem to talk excellent dialogues. Forget the seriusness part of the movie, it was a good entertainer. Many of the funny sequences are something I have actually seen in real-time. It seemed like Selvaraghavan didn’t know how to complete the movie at last, and was just meandering. Sharp editing would have given a sharp ending, but was not boring anyway. YuvanShankarRaja deserves a special mention. In young generation of Tamil movie musicians, where A.R.Rehman is not all that specialised or very effective, Yuvan scores effortlessly – the background score.

After seeing Black, I was discussing about this movie to my colleague – Pawan. He felt Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Khamoshi was a more honest movie than Black. He emphasised Black was more dramatic, something exciting keeps happening every other scene and everyone is authoritative in a movie about deaf, blind and dumb girl. In contrast, Khamoshi was more honest in depicting the deaf and dumb parents. While I agreed his comment about Black, I hadn’t seen Khamoshi yet to have an opinion. After seeing Ab Tak 56 by Nana Patekar, I was more curious to see him in Khamoshi. So for these two reasons, I had booked Khamoshi through screenselect. True to my colleague's words, this movie was all about living against odds. Honest acceptance was part of the movie with some great music. Not a dramatic movie, but a slow soft emotional movie. It also showed how versatile Nana Patekar is. With so many facial movements and strong actions, it is quite a task for Nana Patekar to give a very suppressed body lanuage for the cop in Ab Tak 56. With Salman Khan in the movie, it was clearly a Nana Patekar movie. Of course, there are SalmanKhanisque scenes, but he has acted with his vaal-suruttified (curl the tail between legs). The wild affection, anger and the deaf and dumb fear for acceptance in the society without Annie was a very honest depiction indeed.

I didn’t regret seeing any of the mentioned-movies in this post so far. And I look forward to watching Fahrenhiet 9/11 which is now with me.

Of course, I saw three other English movies as well in month of May – Nottinghill, School for seduction and Lost in translation. They were supposedly the romantic comedies, and lacked both romance and comedy!