Just a messy mess !!

Ever since my induction into bachelorhood (not that i was married ever :P) its been more of a necessity than a regualrity to eat at hotels. Initially one can get away with "decent" hotels that provide you s-class food, but as time progresses your purse begins to feel the pinch and quite automatically one begins to let loose his 'decent' funda. And when you get stuck to a place like Hyderabad, the decision come a bit sooner than expected. Believe me guys, it took me only a week to come to that!

Once that wisdom dawns, those hotels which never existed before magically seem to spring up before your eyes. Like fire-flies you move into one of these for 'trying' out the food there. Along the expected lines you tend to 'like' one of these options you have ventured so far. And there begins this blog, with my selection called as the 'KKTA' mess. Every time I think of this one, the more mysterious it becomes.


This mess is very similar to any mess that you would have in your imagination. A medium sixed hall with an amazing number of tables fitted into its small perimeter. It is like a black hole which can accomodate any number of people in it. Given its spatial orientation, you cannot expect it to be very comfortable. But hunger dominates over preferences and this epithet is used to its maxim in this mess. The profile of the mess is far from aesthetic. The entrance contains a rudimentary blackboard etched with the standard phrase 'Meals ready'.., as if people came there with purposes other than to satiate their hunger. The decoration is limited to the solitary portrait of the owner's dad who despite his overwhelming moustache tries to showcase his tobacco-stained tooth. The poor old man would have never smiled, had he lived long enough to see his photo lying in its dilapidated condition with a flower garland round its rusted frame which was to probably lie there until his next anniversary. The only article which looked gleaming was the 'galla' or the money box which captivates the utmost attention of its owner.


Despite its rustic ambience, the mess attracts quite a number of people inclusive of me. The operation of the mess is very unique with its visitors following a steady pattern. For crowd managability, a token system is followed where one has to stand in a queue that perfectly disobeys *all* queing theories known. But with expertise or patience you can manage to get a lunch coupon for yourself after paying a price rounded off to its nearest ten. And next comes the toughest part where you have to literally "catch" a place to sit down. Within a couple of visits you gradually learn the tricks of the trade. One can actually book a table by pinning down their coupons on the table and with a little more experience under your belt, you would want to stick your coupons with a drop of water beneath it so as not let it fly away. With a little more experience and speculative risk analysis you might even abandon your watch on the coupon and sit on a bench for the sake of a fan over-head.


Once your turns arrives, you get a prefilled platter(actually i would have ventured to call it a plate if it were a tad smaller :P) with a solitary banana bonanza and some fired rice (not a typo guys !!). Within an alarmingly short time, a server comes to you and fills your plate with a big lump of rice and another fills up the small pot-holes with a couple of curries and a fry(some inexpensive veggie fry). The refuelling (filling) of the plates happen with amazing response time and you are never with an empty plate. The waiters here are at the pinnacle of optimism. They prompt you for rice once your are at your upper limit as if your hunger can reappear within minitues. The profitability of the mess is ensured with it maximising its clientele within the epoch. A variety of pickles accompany your lunch with a small cup of curd. Customer service is enhanced at this point by proving you an optional extra spoon with which you can rustle up a mini lassi out of your curd cup.

Oh and you must be expecting a couple of probing hands which pin up coupons at quite alarming places. Alertness is the mandate !! Once you are done with your lunch, you are expected to extend the courtesy to your fellowbeing by vacating the chair at the earliest and any delay in doing so might be the causal action for a uncalled bickering. And whats more..., to top the food, you even have fennel seeds to nibble :D. Coming out of the mess, you are filled with contentious emotions, with all thoughts metling into the same trough, getting lost in the oblivion.......

BottomLine Recommendation : Enter at your own risk !!

Tidings of a Kingpin

Now I have least doubts on which of my posts are preferred by my readers.. No guesses .. its Movie reviews. Well, what canI do, but to sympathize our beloved movie patrons.(I cant/am not supposed to find mistakes with myself u see :P). Well after a golti flick it is time for Tamil Epoch to rule my pages. No, never think I would watch any tamil movies on a diwali day. Neither would I watch a tamil movie in Hyd. There happened certain miraculous comedies that made me go to chennai in the recent past. And so I decided to make the best out of the trip with back to back diwali flicks. After four months the first movie I watched in tamil was vattaram, so I deserve your outright sympathy !! "Annan paechu eppovume one way. Angarundu return paechu varapdadu."

Lets get down to business now. And if you thought this review is about vattaram, then perhaps you had ignored my request for sympathy. Grrrr.. The movie theatre was packed to brim with thala fans. Then came the Ultimate Star on the screen with an apparent style that brought a couple of loud cheers from his fans. By the way FYI it was only his shadow that was visible ! Then the priciple of Advaita is shown by the screen-player(huh !?) with the look-alike father-son topology of plot. The rich father pampers his only son(or is it not ??) with all the pleasures in the earth, and the good son refrains from becoming the vitiated tyke. The story moves ahead with the two signing a pact with the former giving up 'sutta' for the latter taking up social work. All this trouble only to launch the US's(acronym for Ultimate Star) would-be lady love. Guys, you cant help it, its the director who has the first,last and the only say in this regard.

The lady love acts as a concubine to teach the hero some lessons on civility or to chase his band-wagon back from their camp.(I am still not able to identify the exact reason, so thought I could add both the possible reasons. Precision is of Ultimate importance u see !!) But the US is magnanimous to ring the wedding bells despite the obvious and what more do you need to spark a romance ?? Well, they get engaged and then one can see a "marked-change" in the US's characteristics. he behaves as a vagabound and ruffian. He even tries to kill the elder US. Well, I should say at this point that if the triple role ad funda could have been avoided, it would have been a better suspense.

The scream-play(oops... a honest typo guys !!) proceeds to shows the other sibling of the younger US, who happens to develop a terrible abomination towards the elder US, thanks to his claim that the elder US was the factor behind his mother's mentally challenged stature. Oh !! and despite the obvious resemblance both the younger US and the elder US choose to consider the possibility of him being a sibling. Aw !! what a crunch.. The elder US, who so far was stuck to a wheel chair, stands up and fights to save his life. The acting looked good here fortunately, keeping us actively involved with the screenplay.

It's flash-back time guys !! the elder US goes on to say his past life of a dancer and his marriage becoming a failure due to his lady-like features. Dont probe more into it guys !! He did have his connubial night :D. Well, the act disrupted his ex-fiancee and she goes into the maddy-realm. We have to give 9/10 to US for this portion of the act. He is pretty good at the walk/stance of a feminine grace. Another round of cheer from his fans !! Well the story takes no more twists and goes along the expected lines. After a revelation they realise that there were two siblings(Thats why i asked you to shed ur doubts abt the elder US earlier :P). The elder US sacrifices his life to save his ruffian off-srping and also manages to marry of his good off-srping to his lady love. The End.

No, its not an abrupt end to the story, as u can see.. All's well that ends well.. Oh ! but the punch dialogue at the end could have been avoided. The tactic of spelling the movie title at the end has been adopted too many a times. Nevertheless, it was an efficient way of whiling away three hours of your life.

Movie Bottom-Line : Watchable if you choose to ignore the semantics !!

All 'bout Geometric proportion !!

Writing reviews about movies has been quite refreshing for me everytime I write it. It is like watching the movie once more without having to pay for it ! Nevertheless, it is the fact that the process gives me a lot of scope to narrate incidents associated with it, that gives me the real motive to write movie reviews. Well, now that I am in the Golti land, what more can you expect than a telgu movie. Now dont ask me whatever in the world prompted me to watch a telgu movie... The pathetic situation is that no tamil movie releases in this part of the world.

There is a big conspiracy behind that scenario. Well, I am gonna reveal that to you, the most dark secret that daunts the tamil-telgu movie industry in the modern times. Most, or rather invariably all Hit movies in Tamil is dubbed into Telgu and vice versa. Now that would reduce the profitability when running multi-lingual movies in the same place. But then, there are always people, samaritans, puritans like me who watch a movie even if they dont understand a bit of it ! The venture took off like this.. Me and my rommies (Note : ALL TAMILs without an iota knolwdge in Telgu ), didnt have much to bicker about the choice of the movie. All of us were in synchrony with the 'Thala' movie.



Getting tickets for a chiru movie is the toughest thing in the world. Thanks to our patience we mangaed to gather four tickets. This city has a strange way of crowd management within theatre. They make you wait on road until the movie is about to begin !! Well, make hay when the sun shines, and so we took this opportunity to treat ourselves to a Ginger Tea. When its 'thala' movie, you never need an announcement as to when the movie acutally began. The hooting begins precisement 2 seconds before the movie kicks off. You could expect a gusty entry for our 'thala', and you wont be disappointed.. A punch (verbal and action), preceeds our thala's face occupying the entire screen. By the way, the shoe that our thala wears dominates the screen for the first few minutes... Man !! that shoe manufacturer would have definitely paid some money to get that kind of advertisement !!



The entire movie revolves around our thala and his bravado. A number of footlooses accompany this three hour ride. Thala dance numbers are a must see, especially the 'collar dance' moves were zimbly awesome !! Our thala blends so well with his co-dancers (lots of ladies of course),that we often miss him during his footloose. Then comes the key concept of the film, the magical "mukkuru" (aka Three) where our 'thala' explains the concept of tree(as in Trie structures) coupled with Geometric proportion Series. I know you couldnt make head or tails out of it.. Obviously it aint such a simple concept !! :P Well, It goes as follows.. Thala says that all that a person need to do for the society is to help three persons. Those three will help another three and so on....The entire movie revolves around this eternal concept.Our thala also proves the fact that world is round when his mukkuru help saves him from the traumatic villain's henchmen.

And our thala has a history too... He is invariably the best Major that the Indian Army had in the recent past. After a putting a brave fight in a war, he gets mortally wounded with a bullet safely lodged mm away from his heart. A small push in his body would in turn push the bullet towards his heart. Such a critical scenario for out thala !! :( . But not to worry guys, for there are milliions to pray and push the bullet out for our dear Thala :)... And that's what happens in the end. The GP factor works out for thala and people come in torrents to pray for him.
Movie BottomLine : HENCE THE PROOF.

Soccer-o-mania

This is perhaps the first occassion where I take courage to write about my responsible days (when I worked !!). We at our firm believe in Mr.Jack who atrributed his stupidity to All work and no play. So at Mr.Jack's behest, we decided to infest ourselves with the soccer bug. Now, now before you start mis-contemplating, we guys practise soccer twice every week. So that implies that we are serious soccer fans/patrons. By now you all might have figured out what this blog's gonna tell you about.


Hmmm.. well, for the lesser contra-brawned ones, a full feldged soccer season is what you can expect.Ok.. you didnt believe that !! Well, if not a season, a soccer evening is what we had. It all starts with a mail sent to the serious soccer fans(entire staff !!), which forms a thread for the soccer forum with the soccer enthusiasts shooting all sorts of questions. The tournament eve is the most interesting of all events that happen. The various teams conduct clandestine conferences and conspire to draw up a strategm against their opponents. Then, there are the professional photographers who pick up snapshots of such pics and post them in the same thread(mail .. remember ??). Aftera brawl over such controversies (We are professional footballers for heavens' sake !!), the D-Day finally arrives.

Oh ! I forgot to tell you about another important aspect of soccer. Jerseys.. Deciding what jersey a team should wear is of extreme importance and is often a topic of great contemplation within and outside the team. After all, your dress is what makes half of your personality. ok.. so where were we ??.. oh yeah ! The D-Day .....

The entire fan club becomes vibrant since the start of the day, the soccer fever fast catches on, and soon the fans become obsessed with soccer-o-mania. The fans start giving suggestions/ advice/ opinions/ hints/ pointers/ tips/ expostulations/ instructions/ priming/ tutoring/ kibitzing/ coaching/ briefing/ sermons/ recommendations/ counsel/ assistance (the last one is paradoxical though !!) to the players. The games are scheduled in the evening, to be under the floodlights, which is yet another example of our professionalism :D. Of course, the minor motive being the fact that we also have a scumptuous dinner following the games :P.

The teams arrive at the Grounds quite early and start their warm up sessions. We do a number of exercises like stretching, snacking, bending, snacking, jogging, snacking and so on...By the time we are done with our warm ups, the soccer fans would arrive to watch the action. Then begins the limelight of the day... Nope.. If you thought it was the match, then you are pathetic !! The photograph session is what follows next. The forwards, bend it like Beckham, giving our official photographers some cracking pics. The goalkeepers dive around in all directions in a 'Sportstar centre page' fashion. After the clicks have abated, the captains go out to "fix" certain important issues, so that the games go peacefully without a glitch.

The lining up of the team is another important ritual that is considered to be the pride of the day for the players. The ref's call up the captains and brief them about the rules of the game. Then begins the game with the ref-blowing up the whistle. A huge roar comes up from the supporters who often rejuventate themselves with the aromatic nutriments served. The players keep themselves busy running, marking other players and chasing the ball. As the quarter time nears,energy sapped out of the players, we often find the frequency of substitutions increasing in geometric proportions(That's how Engineers are supposed to say things :D). Man, this is when one finds the utility of having cheer-leaders !!

Half time discussions are real fun to watch, with lots of discussions going on as to how one should proceed with the game. The second half witnesses more fans and players bustling around the corner.. Oh! And I am referring to the food corner... Well, the match goes on with the usual pace set by the players and by now the ref would have lost count of the number of substitutions made. Then there comes this hero, who somehow manages to put the ball into the net. Then begins the celebration, with all the players making sure that the scorer goes to the bench (That's coz there are no cards given during a goal celebration !! ). The match ends and the winners go around for another photo session and planning the strategy for the next game(as usual :-)). The losers arent yet out of the action. They begin discussing about the schedules for the next tournament (Thats professionalism !!) scheduled next year.

After such hectic activities it is but natural for one to get tired, and ravaged by the vagaries of the match, hunger gets into the top priority slot. Dinner time are strictly meant for small-talk and not serious issues like soccer.. especially after losing a game. Since the winners are always outnumbered by the losers, they naturally have to button up (that's why we say that Mother Nature's fair to one and all !!). Now i ain't gonna tell you about what follows next, thats classified information. Oh ! and by the way if you thought that i am on the winning side, then i would strongly suggest you to read my previous blogs !!

There's nothing official about it !!

It was in the evening that i decided to munch some snacks after sitting before the "Intelligent Box"(Copyright: Shankar - All rights reserved) for almost the entire day. Now for those who dont have a taste of corporate life let me tell what it likes to be in your cubicle. Well, the lessons begin with the word cubicle. The cubicle certainly lives upto its name, a structure that binds you for most of your time with the unseen tethers. It comprises of three major components,

1.The intelligent box
2.books,books and more books...(STRICTLY technical)
3.A telephone

Now that a cubicle is familiar to you, let me get along with what kind off stuff that we guys do with the intelligent box. The intelligent box is not so intelligent as we would like it to be. It throws up all kinds of wierd stuff when you least expect them. But hey, theres more to it than we can imagine, but i exclude it because it is out of scope of this blog. In short, it creates more trouble than it solves. Well, i am being a bit too cynical with my perception,coz ultimately the intelligent box does what we say. But to hell with it !!

As we move out of the cubicle, there is a cafetaria which is the centre of all our "pet pooja", the dispensers and the snacks counter are really inviting especially when we are new entrants. The cafetaria- therein lies the reacreative bundles. The cafetaria can be a real bother to just one sect of people, the ones who sit next to it. They have to exert maximum restraint on themselves to buckle the escape velocity. Ok, lets get on with it. As we move out, we reach the final destination. Now dont start speculating, it another cafetaria :D nevertheless its bigger and is high above all other things. Oh ! and i meant that literally !! It lies in the top floor and so has the top priority :). Now comes the purpose of my narrative. Where was I ?? Oh yes.. munchin snacks. To be very frank, munching snacks in the cafetaria is rewarding in itself. The best part is that we get to notice a lot of people and their vivid activites.

That portion again is beyond the scope of this blog(too many people u see!!). Today was an exceptional day since it was raining and it seldom rains the way that makes rain enjoyable. I was talking to my friends admist snacks that i noticed how pleasant the climate was. There were mild droplets of rain, just the right quantity that one sees in a spray painting. This was one moment where i enjoyed wearing glasses. The way these droplets arrange themselves on your spectacles is really awesome. I wonder at people who remove thier specs when it rains for this was one reare occassion when the spectacles live upto their name! It was kind of irresistable for me to abstian from going out under the open sky. Of course, i was wearing my specs too :P.. There was a mild breeze that was playing around slightly curving the path of the droplets to a pleasant acute.

Our canteen as i metnioned lies on the terrace which was characterized by many outgrowths that would form the strength for any futuristic spurs that might occur to the building. Despite the iron protrusions they seemed to attract many a people to sit on it, though uncomfortably. Strange as it seems, the very same people complain about a broken handle or a loosened strand of fibre of the cushion in thier cubicles. I sat on them thinking of many things that happened in the past few days. I could feel like i was living both the past and the present. I was extremely aware of what was happening around me, at the same time I was intensely in my past. As these thoughts were going on, another faction of myself was looking at these two factions, wondering how fast the mind races. Almost an entire week of the past went through in a flash of a time !

It might seem unbelievable for most of you, and you might tend to think these as a mere figment of my imagination. But there has been many a times when i had felt that i had already experienced what i was experiencing at that moment. Well, it could be my imagination at work..well, i sat watching the rain splutter against my face. The clouds above were pale dark in texture and moving at an amazingly fast pace. It made me reaslise the incapabilities of human senses. Our sense organs are extremely gullible and fragile without our ability to think and reason. Yes, the thinking potential, the raw rationale, is what that drives the human. The raw rationale is the one which made the human invent the wheel, it made him create spokes and hub instead of a solid disk. The rationale is what told him of his weakness and strengths !!

A song of high disruptive nature woke me from my stream of thoughts. Aw !! it was my own mobile ringing and for the first time in my life i hated Metallica. I lazily flopped open my panel only to see my appointment being made to the intelligent box. And i felt a tinge of sadness and awe when the time panel showed that the entire time i had spent was less than 5 minutes. I decided to blog this at the earliest opportunity.Of course there's nothing official about it.....

Shifting fundas !!

Man has three basic necessities in life which are indispensible, Food , clothing and shelter. And things can go real bad when u lack the third of these essentials, more so if you are a bachelor. My quest for the first, made me move out to a new city and the third was the culprit. When you move to a new city, there are many an intriguing factors that play havoc in your hedonistic activities. Language being one of the most tough ones to handle. I landed in the "city of jalebis" ! No not because of the delicacies, but because of the language script that the place uses. The AD boards that i saw on my entry in to city bore a complex look with lots of curves shaped in a intricate mix of slashes. They were an exact replica of jalebis torn into random pieces, with the sole purpose of obfuscation.

That was the first experience of hopelesness that twinged in my mind and which was to stay put for many days to come. Having had a taste of the native tongue and the script, I had given up hope on any attempts to learn it. But to my genuine surprise, Nationalistic flavor permeating through the cross section came to my rescue and Hindi was no less used than jalebis in the city. My benevolent providers had provided me with a wonderful accomodation for two weeks and I was determined to enjoy that under all circumstances.

"Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder", I realised how true the statement was during the first weeks of my relocation. The third essential need that i was talking of just back was the top priority thing in my mind, coz the first two were provided by my benefactors. And so we (Never do things alone ! My folks say !! :P ) went out in the search of a shelter. A big city must have big things to offer, so the people say. But that was just a prevarication of facts or a clever obfuscation. The delusion was soon cleared once we set out in search of flats.

We went into one of the apartments very close to my area of interest(I am a techie for heavens sake !! :D ) and fumbled for the watchman around the place. Oh ! and I finally found him sleeping in a corner. That's at least one situation which corresponds to movies. Well after a couple of minutes of altercation we managed to find out that all that the guy made out was that we were bachelors. From that point on he repeated the mantra "Emi ledu" invariably for all the questions that followed. I later found out that these people here had a well formed and unbreachable network intricately placed with brokers and watchmen at key points which ensured that they had a regular income out of newbies to the city. Having found the key to success, we found a flat which suited our purpose.

With all these fundas under my experience armoury, I went about to purchasing things needed to kick off a humanly life in my newly found flat. That my dear friends,I tell you, isn't an easy task. Well, being an engineer has its own advantages and disadvantages, I could organize a list of items that a common, responsible householder (thats me !!) might need. Now being an engineer, I managed to reconcile the list with another responsible householder and finally ended up with the list of belongings that we really need. I would have liked to put up that list in this blog, but it would seem too much of a wierdo, so I have decided against it. But as a gist, it was the most wierd kind of list that i ve ever seen. The ones who want the list can mail me and i shall be more than glad to share the wierdness !! Oh and to top up this effort we finally managed to end up in our flat forgetting to buy a lock to lock up our treasures. Blah ! blah blah !! well lemme stop the crap because that updates my current position.. and going by my nature and natural goofness i am bound to produce many such stints !! :D

Exam blues,greens and oranges.....

"Humph !!" i said with anguish, making my way out of the exam hall. I was feeling a bit uncomfortable, but i wasnt half as worse i was,half hour ago. I silently made a resolve not too fool around for the next examination at the least. The entire world knows the strength of those resolutions made just after the completion of an examination. I am an ordinary person, and my resolve was just as similar. It is an iterative process that goes on with unfailing regularity. "Dei machi, vaa oru cold coffee adikalam" was all that was needed to dissolve my resolve. Off i went to the Coffee shop (guys,not the barrista !!) to drench my throat with a cold coffee. It was drizzling, and there are days when you wish that u were washed away by a current of water. And the drizzling helped the feeling to get stronger. I looked up the sky, hoping to see God who had committed the unpardonable crime of setting a tough question paper.

On the way, i could see a person smile, i never ever realised that simle can cause such jittery in a person. We sat sipping our coffee (a hot coffee converted to cold thanks to a fan ), a financial crisis acting as a catalyst for this transformation. If at all silence could act as a mode of communication, it was on that day. We were all able to sense each others anxiety with amazing alacrity. I decided to break the ice, and started to talk " guys... ", when they unanimously stared at me. Man !! if only looks could kill, I would have been a dead duck !!! I reverted back to my sanyasi pose sulkily sippin my cup. On our way back our frustration transformed to anger on seeing the smiling face of "Mr.expert in saponification". That guy really pissed me off !!!

We walked with an un(usual) silence that invariably followed any(every) examination. We managed to park ourselves in our usual feelings "spot",a tree-shade which was our temple of confession. Finally,one of us said, "what is our next exam ?". Everyone of us gave the negative nod, though each of us knew very well what and when our next exam was. It was our own stupid way to reconcile to the reality. If at all any piece of paper can rule 8 lives, it was the damn question paper... Each of us had a unique excuse for flunking, Out of portion(ie those which we didnt study), the clocks in exam hall ran at an unearthly rate(no time),the cursed temporary amnesia (we forgot what we studied), optical illusion AKA mirage (read the question wrong),electronic disorientation(calulator failure),tool diruption (A broken nib) and temporal lobe misinterpretations. But we guys werent the hopeless ones who repeated the same mistakes in succession. Our mistakes went in a perfect cyclic order. Never did we fall a prey to sussman anamoly.

After an hour of such so-called retrospection, we finally make up a decision to study for the next examination. The attempt comes to a sudden halt as one of our intellectuals suggested a solution to the problem that hung dauntingly before us. "A paper moderation". Then begins the hunt for the "Mr. saponifier", the biggest man hunt the world has ever witnessed. And Mr.saponifier is a mean customer. He locks himself up with his books in the most obscure places of the insti, with the intention of consuming the book in entirety. Finally we fished him out and put forth(portended) our proposal. After masquerading him with our suggestions, we set him forth on his mission to convince the resective staff. The result of this operation "Temperate" is the most obvious, the answer sheets are due to be corrected by imports from other insti !!!

Providence proves to be the culprit. This extraneous operation subsumes time to such an extent that we wished Mr.Einstein was wrong. We wished hopelessly that time travel was indeed possible. Midnight gong strikes, indicating that there remained exactly 12 hours for our next cold coffee. We started crammin for our next exam, holding every piece of charm that we could conceive of. Night rolls on to day and sunlight fills the room with light and our hearts with consternation and apprehensions. Our scanning of the books had managed to bring sufficient knowledge, knowledge that we were yet again out on a hopeless errand. After a breakfast-less session with books, we make our way through to exam hall, our fingers devoid of its nails. The question papers are yet again on our hands, which better served as napkins to our sweat-soaked hands. All that we could do was to look through the paned window, which unfailingly reinstated the principle of scattering of light,throwing out its spectrum with admirable mix of blue,green and orange......

Of Prima Donnas and Politics.....

People might wonder whats wrong with me as i am churning out more public issues and contemporary topics. I am quite wondering about that myself. So its no point trying to judge whats up with me. But yeah ! one should definitely think about what's happening in our country today. I am not being lopsided or attacking a particular personality. It's more about ourselves that i am speaking about. And the topic is something that all we youngsters should not merely be thinking about, but also act. And my title indicates all about that i am going to say.


As i mentioned about it before, it is not an attack on any particular individual or political parties, but a mere analysis of our involvement in our nation's interest. Politics has been phasing almost all sectors of day to day life. This is acclaimed by almost everybody around so I need not specify its importance. And it's also true that politics is being dominated by the cine sector. The eminent actors who idolise themselves in the people find it an easy entrance into politics and fame. So what the hell does bother u ??? thats what u would be asking now.... well i can list it out....

-> How can a sector which requires high degrees of education and intelligence, be dominated by actors and not by scholars ?

-> How can politicians stand the test of time dominating this long ?

-> What difference would it make if the field was any different ?



I am certainly not going to provide answers for these as I dont think i am quite experienced enough to do that. I am just going to provide my perspective. The first one is what perplexes me as it only requires common sense to make out that point. Persons who can hardly communicate in the Lingua Franca, can they contrieve anything that is worthwhile. Of course there can be exceptions and geniuses who can work that way. But is it something that we can leave it to a such an chance and hope that it works out ??? think guys. Imagine people from IIM's and IIT's and other such intitutions as ministers and members of the parliament. No longer will it be humiliating to watch the parliamentary session over a tv :-). No longer will DoorDarshan be required to put up ADs as frequently as they do now.... Guys, if that sounded funny, i can tell u it is not as funny as it seems. We are paying through our noses for a day that they spend at the parliament. It's time that we thought about this factor. Bring erudite people into politics.

The second question is the one that puzzles me the most. How could the Prima Donnas dominate this field so long ?? One possiblity could be because they are the ones that the masses look upto for identifying qualities that they can only dream of. Little do
they understand that the cinematic image the mummers create are just a mere figment of imagination. Already being a public figure they find an easy entrance into politics. If I were a President ( I am already one in my dreams !! )then i would have a special course on politics in all colleges and only Politics graduates could enter into polls. That too after AIPEE (all india politicians entrance exams)... :D Well that remains a fantasy, at least in the near future.



There have been many such initiatives by people who want to reform our politics, but they have neither been encouraged nor noticed. These thoughts of mine are not restricted to me alone.. It's been spoken about these days and there are a few organisations that are definitely going to come up with such a motive soon enough. I am still having the strong belief that more educated the politicians are the better will be their governance.. I also believe that the day is not very far and a time will come when politicians will be PhD s.


Exercising franchise will mean much more to me that day, much more than getting an indelibe ink mark on my index finger indicating yet another five year period passing off monotonically into perpetuity......

An elegy for the diminishing spirit

It is indeed with a heavy heart that i am writing this post. Despite of a busy schedule that i am supposed to follow, i had to rake up some time for this particular post. As u might have guessed this is not going to be one of the comical interludes that i am going to write about. It's about something recent that had pained me to the core. No i wouldnt blame anyone for this, it is a collective blame.



Now this is a question that one has to answer truthfully. Do you happen to recognize this person ???
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No.. isnt it ? except for quzzing purposes not many know this person. To hell with the suspense !!! He is Samaresh Jung,of India who has been named as the winner of the David Dixon Award for the most outstanding athlete of the Commonwealth Games.

During the Games, Jung won two individual gold in the Men’s 10m Air Pistol and Men’s 50m Pistol, as well as three team gold, one team silver, and one individual bronze. He also set three new Games records.The David Dixon Award is named after the former Honorary Secretary of the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) and is the first of its kind for a multi-sport event.All of the 71 competing nations and territories were asked to nominated one athlete for the award. All athletes are eligible regardless of their medal tallies.

The medal honours performance at the Games, fair play, and overall contribution to their team’s participation at the Games.CGF President, Mike Fennell, said he was delighted that Samaresh Jung had won the second David Dixon Award.

"Jung is a remarkable athlete, who competed brilliantly in Melbourne, establishing a range of new benchmarks for his sport, and is an athlete the whole Commonwealth can be truly proud of,” said Fennell.

Samaresh Jung’s wife Anuja also competed, winning gold in the Women’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions event.

After such a splendid performance in the games, He is hardly reognised.. why ?? Lack of publicity from the media. He is certainly not a media hound, but is it fair enough to let his heroics go down the drain. Imagine if he had been in US, he would have been driven right away into the White house for dinner with the President. In India, his name appears in some god forsaken corner of the papers, while actors rock the front page. Who the hell cares if they are jailed or not ? what difference does it make ?? but unfortunately these tit bits sail through amongst people as hot-cakes. Imagine Samaresh being forgotten while some stupid cine actor is being hailed for wearing a fancy cloth or for cutting ribbons for a sponsor !!!

Guys, this is the sad state of affairs today. When are the Indian media going to act fair and bring true heroes to limelight ?? All they have managed to achieve is to get people scorn at Indian sportsmen for not achieving in Olympics !! How the hell do u expect them to achieve when they are not given the proper incentives. The media is what i would again blame this for. They have been very unfair towards anything except for cricket and football. They have chosen to be commercial ignoring the primary ethics. Had they chosen to eulogise such herculean performances, i have no doubts that a man like Samaresh would be idolised in a couple of days after such a show of marksmanship.

It is but natural that this blog comes out with agony and sarcasm aimed at those those who failed to recognise such a splendid performance. Such a propensity for disregarding such splendid acts is what makes me feel bad. This post is a direct result of that agony.....

An elegy for the dimishing spirit of appreciating excellence.......

Abhi jiska dil na pighla , Dil nahi woh pathar hai.....
jo isko samajh na paayae, woh bekar zindgaani hai......

YAHOO

(YAHOO) Yet Another History Of Obfuscation !!!

So friends after a long gap, here i am back with a burdened shoulder... one which weighs heavy on any conscientious blogger. Yes, i am burdened with a TAG yet again, this time the thanks goes to Trinity ... The tag is about some "weird" things about myself. Hmmm.. so whats mystique abt me ????? Let's see......

Anyone who's into a bit of economics will be familiar with the term scot analysis. This post is somthing similar to that i guess, a scot analysis on myself... Now that forms the first strange thing about me.. i prevaricate crazy analogies. Sometimes the homosapiens around me tend to think that i am thinking too much, a bit too much to their comfort. I tend to talk esoteric sometimes with such crazy and unearthly analogies. But i can hardly refrain myself from conglomerating my ideas once i get into such thoughtful moods. I think i owe this attribute of mine to Rand... Gosh !!! i am getting into one such spell.. so lemme jump on to something else...

My taste for movies and books have been often come under serious contemplation. Most of my friends detest cartoons while i am fida over them. Movies are serious stuff in student life and i find myself out of tune with most the movies esp tamil and hindi.
While i felt Aalavandan and Kurudhipunal are good,i was declared tasteles.. and when i said KNM and Zinda were crap, again i was sent to the corner...As if that isnt enough, i undergo futher tirade with my choice of books... The list isnt too big.. i read Tintin,Aestrix,Phantom and Ayn Rand. That makes things more obfuscated doesnt it ??? On introspection even i myself tend to think that i am a random mix of thoughts.


The most weird thing about me is that my moods dont fluctuate... I am quite stable to all aberrations around me but certainly not impervious.Boon or bane, i remain DC(electronically speaking :D ) at all times. Singing has been strictly restricted to my bathroom and what i sing is classified info :D... i play table tennis and badminton and carrom board and chess and cricket and football, but no where near tolerable at either of these. After a display of my talents for these at college, the college team decided to go without these sports for the next four years.... oh did i forget to mentioned that i haunted the MC desk for almost all college functions since i was the only guinea pig available :(...

And if u have the patience to read this far then prolly u might actually be tending to think that i am crazy !!! And guys, i assure you...I am not just crazy, i am SuPeR CrAzY !!!

AS the tradition goes i might have to tag sombody.. the burden is passed on to

Meetsankar

VIVEK

Swathi

A Thin Red line

This post is about a person whom i used to meet almost everyday on my way to college. No, he is not know to me, and i never did bother to find out about him. I could have if I wanted to, but I havent tried so far. But he does have a gravitational pull around him, which is due to his attribute of speech. It is on a bus that i see him, everyday, almost sitting at the same place each day, with almost unfailing regularity. He has a pleasant face with a curved mustache,a typical charachteristic of a south indian. His mannerisms arent what one would call as gentle. He has a grotesque way of presenting himself. Perhaps that was one which made me look towards him for the first time.

He speaks usually of his days at Army and at New Delhi. Plus he is extremely repetitive, because, unfortunately his co-passengers are never the same. Perhaps, they might even avoid sitting near him after listening to his heroic extempore once. His speeches include, as I said, about his army experiences and his heroics. He says that he can shoot as well as any olympic gold medallist and in fact better than them. He then goes on to say the story of how he managed to down a wild fox from quite a distance. I always used to think
Either this fellow is as good as he claims to be or the saying "as wise as fox" is false

The fox must have been stupid enough to get killed by this character !!! And he is usually returned with a sarcastic smile each day, yet he manages to say the same stuff to some poor unfortunate guy, who in his ignorance manages to sit beside him.

But his words and more importantly his tone of speech made me think of somthing more imortant. I used to take his speech as "trumpet blowing" and him as a conceited person. But then a thought intrigued me, what exactly is the difference between Ego/conceit and self respect. Self respect does not stop with the respect that u carry in others' eyes. It also stands for your admiration of your own abilities. Whats wrong in respecting and stating your own superior abilities ???

Let me move on to a detail analysis of self respect. It has to understood that self respect has a braoder scope than what is usually asoociated with the word. If a person says that
I am good, I can do that, I am confident of that, Thats too easy for me, I ll do it better than many around

These words are often despised by most of us. We immediately brand him as ignorant and arrogant. And what if he does manage to stand by what he claimed ? We immediately say He's good . But whats the use ? He is too conceited. I was no exception to the thought. I had branded many a people as a conceited fellow. But now, as i come to think of it, I feel that i was too hasty. Too much bad influence from the surroundings.I now begin to feel strongly that proclaiming your achievements and capabilities to others arent exactly bad.

Come to think of ego or conceit. Theres not much difference between ego and self respect. These are in fact separated by a thin line. What i say might not be true or could be corrugated facts... but hell !! its my blog and I can write what i feel... So coming to my thoughts on that.. The difference is very minute. When one says "I can do it" it can be his self respect. But when he says "I alone can do it" it shifts a bit to become Ego. Again " I can do better than X " it shifts marginally into the self respect spectra. " I wont allow anyone else to do it" and "I cant bear others doing it" goes into the Ego domain.

Hey, able to spot any demarcation ?? well, I am trying hard not to be influenced by my prejudice. Perhaps this is what Ayn rand has been regularly mentioning when she says about the people of the "mind", the capable ones who run the society by virtue to their merit and demand the respect they thoroughly deserve.This discussion has stemmed from the fellow at the bus, prolly I should thank him when i see him in the bus tomorrow. He did give me a tough proposition to work on. In fact i am now looking forward to meet him tomorrow .....

TOTIL

TOTIL - Test of Tamil as Indian Language

This post is dedicated to improve the vocabs for those whish to augument their tamil skills ...


Here goes the list….


Aapu - vetu vekaradu
Allwa - To cheat
Abase - Loot adiththal
Adichu oothu - kandapadi poi sollaradu
Alpam - A silly/cheap dude
Appeettu – Unsuccessful
Asaththal – Kalakkal
Bajari - A not-so-friendly / loud mouthed
Bandha – Pillim
Bekku - Fool
Biscothu – chillarai
Blade- refer kadi
Body - Muscular Machi
Bulb - refer- Bun
Bun - kevala padithi vidaradu
Correct panradu – Madakaradu
Dapsa/Doop – Lie
Dhil – Courage
Dhool – Super
Dum - To smoke
Daavu - Site seeing
Dealings - mutual understanding
Dickielona - A friendly game played in Delhi (courtesy Movie:Gentleman)
Damaram – Deaf
Damage - kevala padithi vidaradu
Dori - Squint-eyed
Feelingu – sad
Freeyaavidu - Forget it
Gaali – Appeettu
Guru - Head of the gang
Gaanapaattu - Rap song sung by Machis
Galeej - Dirty
Gilli, Goli - Traditional games played in Madras
Goltti - A dude from Andhra
Jigiri - Close
Joot - Escape when caught up by girlfriend's father.
Jujubi - Easy
Kaattaan - Uncivilized/ Rude Machi
Kadi - blade
Kaathu vangaradu - timepass panradu
Kaathu vangudu - gaalia irukku
Kenai - Idiot
Kikku / Mabbu - Intoxicated/under influence
Kilikaradu - refer : damage
Kalakkalls - To cause a flutter
Kanai pakri - Friend of ushar pakri
Kindal - To make Fun
Kaka adikarathu - Putting soaps to someone
K M L - Kedacha Mattum Labam
Koovaradu - shout/ say
Kudumba paatu - A song with which machis identify themselves
Kulls - A short machi
Laddu - Allva
Loot adiththal - to steal
Lord Labakdas - big shot
Maams - One cool dude
Maanga - Fool
Machi - Maams
Mandai - A sharp guy
Maple -machi's hello to another machi
Mary - feminine of Peter
Mavu - refer O B.
Nachunu - Bull's eye
Nambitten - I don't believe you
Naattan - Villager
Naamam - To cheat
Naina - Father (courtesy Telugu)
OB - To waste time
Ottal - To make fun ! of some one
Oththu - move
OTMP - Osie le Thinnu Mangalam Padarathu
Ondrai anna - Worthless
Pattaani - Machi talking to Machi
Party - Machi trying to show off by talking in hi-fi english
Pakkri - A shrewd dude
Petta - Area
Pisaaththu - Cheap
Pillim - Show-off
Peela - To lie
Pongal - Machis talking to machis
Poatu odakaradu - unmaiya solradu
Rambam - refer : blade
Real - refer :adichu oothu
Rivet - aapu
Rod vangaradu - thittu vangaradu
Saanthu pottu - Possibility of getting beaten by a stick (courtesy
Movie:Thevar Magan)
Sangu oodaradu - refer : rod
Sarakku - refer Thanni
Scene - refer Pillim
Sella kaasu - highly useless fellow.
Shoka- Good/ nice
Silencer fit panradu - sudden ah silent aaradu
Songi - Lazy
Thanni - Liquor
Thanni kaatradu - ematharadu
Thalaivar - Leader
Thetharadu - arrange/correct
Tin katrathu - Getting into trouble (courtesy Movie: Anjali)
Ushar panradu - arrange
Ushar pakri - Smart pakri
Vennai - Fruit
Veththu - Useless
Vetti - jobless
Veesaradu - Lie
Weightaana - high quality
Wrong kaatrathu - Acting indifferently

Contact me for the available test dates !!! :)

A day presented itself....

There are many days in your college life that you would like to remember, and so are those that you would struggle to forget. Well this post basically deals with a day that doesn't come under either category. It was yet another day at college where the day was characterised sullen atmosphere.But yeah, i still remember the day as though it happened just a few moments ago. What was special about it, I still think... My college is extremely huge with a sprawling campus, huge due to two reasons. One, it was located well within city limits and so is pretty huge by the standards. Two, because it has a large single block which houses all the components of the college.

I am usually a early riser, thanks to my mom who goes through the daily ritual of waking me up at half past five each morning with unfailing regualrity. And invariably that helped me to go earlier to college than anyone else, supported by my ideology of rush free buses. Speaking of that I usually follow that simple maxim to board a bus. If one can see the rear end when viewing through the front, then it is okay to board the bus. Well I was early into college that day and a lazy fellow that I am, I went through the sprawling mass of green (my conscience prevents me from calling it a lawn) with slow rhythmic steps, marvelling at my own ability to walk on two legs.

The lawn ends in a beatifully laid plaque which depicts the college's motto in a curved handrwriting that cannot be emulated. It had a not-so-good-looking cap which had more than justified is unaesthetic appearence by protecting the plaque from the relentless assault of the avian species. I was always mesmerised by this plaque which had a power of representing the unified purpose behind such a grand educational institution. It was more like a memorial to me where i used to express my silent gratitude to the unseen forces that made this powerhouse of knowledge possible. It also made me remember the polish saying that there was no real substitute for a good education. After my customary three seconds homage to the plaque, I went along the road that leads the way into the main block that was very huge, so huge that one could esily lose his orientaion once inside the building. No, its not exactly that one could call a maze but it was a place where one could get lost.

It was always a mesmerising sight to see the huge building. One doesn't lose the awe for the building with time, I thought. The long winding corridors especially when empty makes you feel royal,as if you own the entire place. The blocks invariably ends in the dreaded Drawing Halls or the DH s as they are lovingly christened by the inmates. All the students have to invariably pass through this h(a/e)ll when they step into engineering courses. Since the drawing boards are fixed to the floor,the hall seems to remind of the immovable movers. It represents that which is indomitable and refuses metamorphosis. It gives a sense of confidence to me, a kind of strength to the mind, a source of illimitable power of the spirit. I always felt that if at all anything could stand the test of time, then it has to be this hall.


I moved out into the corridor that leads to my class room which by itself was daunting enough, and it was empty with only a miniscule portion of the room being furnished with benches, which made it look all the more eerie. Yah, the avaian species has its haunt here but thankfully had so far spared the hall from its feces.The room is similar to a tabernacle which requires a certain decorum to be maintained in it. Seldom it is maintained, but nevertheless it still maintains its sanctity. Apart from serrated desks which formed the major component of the occupied space, there was a dais where the revered stood facing the despicables. The room thus formed a sanctum which imparts valuable tutelage to many a student.


This was the routine that accompanied my college life, a sort of religious ceremony that i underwent each day with unfailing regularity. One can find that such simple yet amazing objects can teach you many a thing, provided the correct perspective is adopted. Believe it or not, it's a gift if you are able to see the astounding aspects of such relatively picayune entities that we encounter. Yes, the perspective is important... and perspective in unison with alacrity of thought can be blissful.........

The Indian Juggernaut rolls....

The Indian jaggernaut rolls on in cricket... At least the batting of the Indian team rocks !!! The past three ODI s that India played are an example of the batting prowess of the Indian Adams.... It also goes to prove that Indians are a world class team in short bursts... Thats what marks the difference between Aussies and Indians... CONSISTENCY


Going on to the positives, the batting has clicked for the Indians especially when they chase. the last two series against the Lankans and Pakis have provided the Indians an amazing chase record.. Yeah !!! it's India's 11 th straight win while chasing.Chasing is one thing that people have avoided in the past, and Indians were extremely dispassionate about chasing.. But Natwest was the turn-around., they started believing that chasing isnt that bad after all :D And it did the trick.. We now find that Indians are doing well at chasing, but the final mania still haunts us at all levels...

Coming about the current series in pak there are two things that come to my mind and wanted to write about... One is the state of the pitches..IF at all there is any miscreant in the tests, then it is the pitches.... They were the worst kind of pitches that one can find... quite the opposite to the ones in New Zealand... both are detestable... Neverthless NZ does produce results in a couple of days, while PAKI pitches dont. The ODI's were thankfully on different pitches and therefore we have had three of the finest matches in ODI's that one has seen in the recent past from these two countries... Second is the so called Inzy funda that had rocked the match.. It was funny for the spectators and for the indians but Inzy was clearly a blown off
fuse...It was a two sided coin for sure.. cant blame Indians... Cant blame Inzy, but yeah clearly Mr.President was clearer abt this issue than anybody around !!!

Since this post is entirely about cricket, I would be commiting a heinous crime if I fail to mention The aussie hurricane that swept of Lankans...The Symonds/Hussey innings was certainly one the very best that one can see...Murali was a devastated man with 99 runs going off his quota of overs... well back to the Indian performers, One cannot fail to notice Sachin's performance that is matched by only Malik in the ongoing series.. He has had an astounding series that must have gone under the shadows by splendid performances by Yuvi and Dhoni respectively... Dhoni is indeed an asset in the team.. He does pack a punch when in form...

This series has got a lot to reveal to the international cricket..The most important being the state of pitches...:D BAN these pitches runs the slogan....

And so goes the legend...

Have u ever heard of a legend getting tagged…Well u r more fortunate.. u are seeing one !!!.. Guess what ?? I am tagged by ma friend and that too with a topic that I‘ve never given a thought about..

So here goes the tag:

tu bin bataye mujhe le chal kaheen
jahan tu muskuraye meri manzil wahin…

Well what’s wrong in exploring an unknown domain (a few of ma friends would disagree with this stmt of mine),Why not take a shot at your picture of a dream gal ! Esp. when V day is around the corner.. I am yet unable to understand the coherence between the poor Saint, Valentine and romance and luv :0 .. Well, whatever.. I wont say much about it coz I'd become the Mr. Ignorant.. every one around seems to be buzzing with enthusiasm, and here I am yet to know what exactly is special about the day... Well, if its about choosing your gal, then any day is fine enuf.. forget it...to get on with my post, I am supposed to seek my manzil aka my dream gal...

To get scientific(man i luv to talk scientific !!!), I can refer to what i call as the Grasshopper theory and effect.. which states that; "when u meet your lady love, a grasshopper jumps up at exactly the other end of the world, diametrically opposite to the event".. Well thats true.. u can check it out any moment .. If that doesn’t work , then it means that She's not the ONE... And still if the gal works fine for u, then be assured, you missed something that would have suited u better...Now since my theory cannot be disproved, It stands proved... :D

What crap am I getting to.. lol yeah I am supposed to write abt the gal on whom i'd go fida !!! Yah.. i was thinking about my gal when i drifted into a dream  like ma friend who tagged me.. And of course my grandpa came too.. But guess what he said.. "Dey shankara, velaiya pakaama enna da unakku gal vendirukku ??? po po poi vera edavadu urupadiya velaiya paaru !!" Click  !!! i turned off my dream mode ... My grandpa doesn’t help me in any way as regards finding ma dream gal....

And there I was, taking out a paper and pen to jot down the qualities that i would wish to see in my girl...Guys taking notes is very important, lest you leave off any attribute !!! You wouldn’t want to choose the wrong gal !!! :D ... And so this is what my paper showed after around two and half hours of pondering

1. Beautiful (of course the essential requirement)
2. Smart (guess traditionally its quite contradictory with the first stmt)
3. Sensible (nah !! thats asking too much...)
4. Understanding (i hope)
5. Intelligent (No reference to the current context, so no comments)
6. should go to work (another essential requirement)
7. Dedicated to her parents (She has to be off to her parents' at least for two days a week)
8. Should be okie with hotel food (Don ask me to cook )
9. Shopping only once a week .. Transportation fee will be provided.. (Don injure ma purse !!!)
10. If not a professional singer, at least should be bathroom singer (Don sing at any other place !!! :D )

So there goes the ten commandments that ought to make ma gal !!!....

Well I was going through my list again just to make sure that I didn’t leave out anything.. Man u gotta double check it !! It’s your gal dude… And so I sat signing off my requirement analysis with a note .. “From your future sweetheart”  . One of my cousin came up silently and stood behind me…. He silently went through my  notes and whistled to someone in the distant past, prolly to his favorite  deity…. He said  “ Dude, if that is what you want then you don’t have a future at all “… well I heard him.. that was sufficient cue, I threw the paper into the dust bin… the question of sweetheart didn’t arise at all ……….

tu bin bataye mujhe le chal kaheen
jahan tu muskuraye meri manzil wahin…
Manzil dhoondtha chala mein kaheen
Par patha chala ki  manzil thi hi nahin…..

  

    

From Paragon To Paradise......

The movie reviews that i have done has given me such an appreciation from my friends that i am planning to write another review. This movie is one of the recent releases that rocked Kollywood. If u guys are already aware of the state of these movies i'd recommend that u read this review as a joke. Not that the movie differs from being a joke....but yeah a joke all the same...The movie is Saravana...


Now guys plz dont ask me how i came about to see it... Thats a very depressing story indeed... Well as they say in tamil.. "a thorn should be prised out with thorn".. so I did see the movie to prise out a worser depression... Now to get on with the movie.. The movie stars a star or our dear "kutti" super star Simbhu who looks his usual self (He cant look worse !!!).. Can't actually blame him though... The days of genetic mutation are yet to come... But to be just, one can find a refined TR in Simbhu... If u have noticed the title of my blog u should have now guessed why it is titled so.

Yeah.. The female cast ie Jo who had risen to be one of the top paid actress in Kollywood. Who would believe when we say she was in Paragon ADs some time back... Well she deserves all credit. She's been jumping up the scene as she did in her AD..and She's jumped pretty high too.. Kudos to her for that.. And so Saravana begins with an introduction to the heroine, or at least the first noticeable part is this.. Jo rises up in the morning with the aid of her "English" Rooster (That's the best the playwright could find to describe an Alarm clock :( ) .. Then she cooks her food, takes bath,eats food with a litre of gingelly oil for two Dosas(And she's proud of that!!! ) , goes to study, and does part time at Pizza shoppie, and gets back home and sleep... Well that's some introduction that u would want your heroine to get :x... Muahahaaaah.. even a novice can contrieve a better introduction than that !!!



After Such an placid introduction we see our little star who happens to have a crush for the sister of his close friend... Well what an epitome for friendship !!! Eat it well guys and chew them well, coz there's more funda stuff to come.. So Mr.S who does his engineering (choooooo...trendy !!!) decides to spend his hols at his friends place to have a good time with the cute sis (JO).. and how does he do that ???? Bingo !!! he takes a female attire (suits him actually) and guess wat ??? he magically remains un recognized by his close friend !!! And the story takes a twist... Aaaaaaarrrrrrrggggghhhhh !!! Suddenly we see S and J at S's house... J is seen witha broken heart for some unknown reason..

But yeah... Rip offs are quite expected in tamil movies and we can see mighty glimpses of Ghilli (which in itself was a rip off )... Gosh we have turned in to masters in Rip offs !!!! So S protects J from certain unseen forces (unseen as of now).. And of course S still has the crush for J...And due to certain complications(fill in your imagination and it will fit in) S has to disclose the reason of his hiding J under his protection.... And the story goes back to where from it broke out....

So here comes the family of Jo.... The family head is invariably the village head (We have seen it for the N th time N--> infinity) and a very respectable person. And yah.. the village is full of violence due to a family feud. And the real punch J's father is a BITS graduate !!! Gosh.. Can kollywood get soo gross ??? seems it has.. Thank God that it wasn't Stanford or Harvard...Did i forget to mention that J was studying at Oxford ??? :) .. And so J's dad doesnt wish his children to grow up under riots and so sends them to study elsewhere. The entire family was attracted towards S (which was enacted with great difficulty let alone it be true..) attracted to such an extent that they wish to marry her off to him..(a really brave decision!!! which would never happen without the director) And at this juncture, the entire family is killed during a riot and the father finds no alternative but to assign the duty of protecting his daughter to S (poor dad !!! )

And so thats how S brings J under his protection and cleverly escapes the clutches of the enemy who's brother he had killed.. But the film has to end and so the villain's finally manage to fish them out from the vast population of Chennai... And so S plans to send J to England.. J tries to bring some sentiment here (romance) but eventually fails to bring out any.. cant really blame her.. a tuff job with S around.. But yah.. a love does develop somehow between them and J comes to know of it from a friend of S who she's never met but yet used her sixth sense to recognize her.... Eat this my dear friends.. I found that pretty indigestive.. Done ?? well.. thankfully the movie is about to end (one can easily guess that in tamil movies ).. and after a coupl of matrix style heroics the movie ends with "and they live happily ever after" .. The film does have a couple of punch lines by S which the director finds inevitable considering the genetics of S...

Well in short I can say two sentences about the movie...

"A must see"

"If at all u need to sqaunder some money !!"

but yeah... paragon to paradise is a true fact .. it should find its place in "Belive it or not !! "

T T T

T T T…. Wondering what this could be … ? Its just my own stupid acronym for The Train Travel…. Now don’t ask me where I was going out on a train… That’s one thing that is CLASSIFIED… Now that I have established my traveling by train, the camera now directly moves into the scene where we (the plural refers to me and my friends) are sitting in the allotted seats… Guys the seating arrangement was the worst u can ever imagine… we were allotted exactly the way we wouldn’t want to… We were seven and we were all allotted side births, ALL side births… So while we were discussing a strategy to counter this act of fate, a big burly man showed up from no where and shoved his bag (I am still able to decide who was bigger he or his bag) right into my back… wow I felt an earthquake in my body when my bones shook up and re-arranged themselves (or it could have been the train effect too…).But when I felt the tremors subsiding I realized it could have been worse, since a group of people with similar attributes treaded the small path. Guys it was like the scene from Jumanji !!!!


Now with that stampede subsiding, the train shook and started at snails pace and I tell u , it managed the same pace till the destination !!! Well no issues about that since things were just getting heated up inside… At last, the most brilliant amongst us said aloud “Alright, we’ll have to adjust and sit together“… Well I was marveling at the brilliance of the solution at our levels of intelligence. But in the end that was what we did, we managed to squeeze ourselves within one pair of side berths, with two having to sit on the handle of the berths on the sides. But yeah, we were looking ahead for a long travel and the only way for time pass was chit chat …

We took turns to keep pullin’ each others legs, and of course one was the main target, the ONE who provided most entertaining stuff…As this was going on, the attendant came up with a small note book, the size of a bus ticket and asked us what we would have for dinner. Well we were unanimous about dinner.. So we were to have chappatis (so it was called) that nite…. When it came we regretted it,They were like synthetic rubbers, the ones which appear soft but u have to struggle to tear them off. Some of us succeeded in ripping them off, but faced another challenge in swallowing them. A few of us succeeded even in that but had to face the music the next day…. hefty stomach ache !!!


As we say in tamil , “Good cow, One heat” we learnt from mistakes.. Due to exertions that we took in our chappati episode, we could manage to get some good sleep at night.. Oh yes, a couple of us couldn’t gather sleep, but I managed to sleep soundly that night….. Hey I forgot to tell some important events that happened !!! We were all christened during that session of chit chat … but the names I will not divulge… One among us was “silently” busy with sms and the result …. 400 + bucks blown off in roaming charges!!!  Now that I ve mentioned the punch lines, I ll get back to main stream….

The next day playing cards was on the cards and we indulged in that so called bad sport(elders say so !!!)…. But we were playing an abridged version of bridge which is highly intellectual… And guess what we skipped break fast!!! We managed to munch certain biscuits and hoped to ward off hunger as we were scheduled to reach by noon. But then we realized that the snails pace had not been broken and that we were gonna be extremely late.. So the attendant gleefully came up and asked us to order lunch.. we politely declined, and guess what ??? the attended told us with a smirk , “it ll be 4 by the time u reach" and pointed four of his bent fingers menacingly at us :( …. "Are u sure u don’t want lunch ??” .. what the hell I thought ??????…. We were being blackmailed into eating lunch !!! Man, the attendant would have sure made a smart marketing executive… But yes we weren’t the ones to succumb so soon to pressure, we did fight out for our rights to abstain from lunch…. more due to fear of rotis of course… But yes we did make it without lunch … Finally we reached out to the destination as a bunch of hungry nomads !!!! thus ended TTT…………………….

Zinda Tha mein...

With an experience that was unique in its own way,I was walking the way back home. "The last three hours were well spent", i contemplated. I was a different man three hours ago, and now my mindset has been altered. I had grown wiser, a new man who is beyond guilt. I began recounting that particular experience of mine. My mind began to see spirals in black and white just the way it happens in movies and i switched into the flashback mode.

I was making my way to the theatre eagerly anticiapting a two houur thriller. The movie board outside the theatre proudly displayed ZINDA and a shiver of anticipation ran through me. I went to buy tickets for me and my friends. The only pinch i felt was due to the fact that i was sponsoring the movie that day. Done with the tickets, we made our way through the crowd (aroung 20 people) and sat comfy in a central location.Guys, thats the advantage when you have little crowd at halls.You have the pleasure of choosing your location.

Choosing the location is an art in itself, as professional movie freaks will tell you. It has many multi faceted tricks like choosing a seat beneath the fan, at the corners so that your view is not blocked, and at the centre so that the acoustic effects are good. Thankfully i was spared of all these acts of skill by my friends. Once perched comfortably in our thrones, we waited for the documentary to end. Next was the turn of colorful models posing themselves for costumes which they otherwise would not even consider touching. Once that was done the movie started off.

The initial sequence of the movie shows Sanjay as a Software Engineer. Guys i had a tuf time swallowing that part, i hope you will be atleast able to tolerate it. My personal opinion is that he should have stuck to something similar to "munna". Well now that u have taken in that part, I shall proceed further. Sanjay(S) has a wonderful wife in celina(c) who makes a very short entry/exit into the movie. The initial rummages with S, C and their friend who has a soft corner for C is quite tolerable. Suddenly the story moves deep into the plot when S suddenly vanishes while he was involved in painting a pier.

Then comes the twists and turns where S is held captive in a room with nothing but for an idiot box as company. Well dumbfounded ?? so was Mr. S. He was given food (yummy Hotdogs !!) through a peephole at the bottom, through which he could see nothing but the legs of the supplier of food. Unable to bear with isolation,he keeps counting the years with marks made out on his arms(typical hero stuff). He keeps himself updated with the happenings of the outside world through the TV. He decides to avenge his captor and so decides to learn martial arts. And how does he do that ??? Bingo !!! by watching movies in the idiot box. Well i hope u can swallow that part too ,but i aint too sure.....


Now if u ve accepted that,(guys u dont have this facility when u r watching the movie)lets get further. Suddenly one fine day,after 14 years,Mr.S finds out that he is bundled out in a suitcase and left atop a tower in the city.(Compare 14 years with the vanvas of Lord Rama)The author does give a mythical touch to the movie here.The story now transcends into the second part where S traces out his villain. And how he does that is another mystery. But MR.S is no ordinary guy. He can smell his food around and spot the cook who made the hotdogs which he had been consuming during his period of captivity. Guess the cook is real good and useless all the same to remain at the same hotel for 14 years. Well Mr. S does this with the aid of a Desi taxi driver (the second lady love for Mr.S).

The method of identification of the cook is pretty awesome. Mr.S manages to recognize the shoes of the cook and thereby recognizes him. I tried my level best to find out the makers of that shoe which can last 14 long years of regular ruf n tuf use. Guys, in case you manage to find it please pass the info on to me. So now coming on to the movie, Mr.S spots the villain, who is MR.J. There ends the first half of the movie, showing the handsome face of Mr.J.

The second part was almost as interesting as the first (if at all u find that interesting). The hero expresses his heroism by a coupl of "teeth pulling" stunts and placid action.The explanation for the captivity of Mr.S is lacking in reality and depth of thought. The playwright could have wrought out something more believable. Then goes the usual stuff of justifying the villains action, hero turning soft towards the villain after he saved his daughter,and finally making Mr. J a good fella afterall.

Guess hindi movies are far from the being different, they invariably have the theme " And so they live happily ever after......". This one too ends in a similar note. For those who ask me, if any movie is different, plz see final destination, Troy, Gladiator, titanic and so on....

That movie really provided the damping force to that day. But i was wiser from my experience that one cannot expect real thriller based on sound logic, esp in Bollywood.

"Faanush banke log jiske hifazat kare, woh film kaise na chale, jise roshan John kare"

My first date with school

As has been the custom, i would like to initially say thanks to somebody who has made me the way i am. Dear readers,if you find anything good in me,anything that is adorable, I would in all humility say that it is not to my credit; it goes to the most wonderful person. Wondering who this person is ? It is none other than my dear school. It seems pretty odd to refer to school as an entity; but it is more than a living thing to me,it has been my friend. It has given me the most wonderful set of friends that one can ever hope to get. This is only a warning to my readers so that they can expect more number of posts on these lines in the future.


Well, this particular post of mine speaks of my first days with school. I was forced to move out from my previous school due to various reasons which is most unimportant. To cut things short i was in quest for a better school. That was when i came across the school which was to change moi completely. Speaking of transformation, it is to be noted that i wasn't before the way i am now. Well, i got admitted into my school not the way i expected, but with a position far better than i ever hoped to achieve.


My school had a sense of mysticism around it especially for newcomers.That was the first time that i heard a school run in shift system. Being in the upper strata of school days we were provided with the pleasure of waking up early in the morning and attending classes at seven. Well i am a lazy bone, the worst kind that you can find on planet earth especially when it come to the art of waking early. But anticiaption made magic that day, and there i was, well in time for school. The first day of our school begins with an invocation to the gods which the hindus call as yaga or homam. That was the first amongst my surprises. The next one was far more influential, we had assembly every morning. The assembly lasted around ten minutes.And i had difficult time controlling my yawns as i was standing right up the line on account of my physical stature.


I went into the class room and was wondering where to park myself.As a fresher i was groping for a sullen corner to seat myself, hiding myself from thousands of curious glances as if i was a piece of artefact from the London museum. One of them came up and said, "hey move your lazy ass, i need to sit! ". Well that were the first set of words spoken to me.I tell you,it was well delivered,mighty well delivered. It scared the crap outta me.Then came the teacher, with a pleasing smile that made me better(still i was very nervous). As the custom is, she asked all of us to arrange in a line sorting ourselves in the process. Then she called up the the one before me to sit in the first bench. Then i was about to move when, horror of horrors she called up a girl and asked her to move to the same bench !!!! What the hell, are we supposed to sit along with girls ??? Though i was studying in a co-ed so far, i had been tutored to see girls as aliens by my previous colleagues.This would be non-agreable for some of my buddies, since according to them,i reached the other extreme during the rest of my tenure. With no other option, i went and sat as the third person in that bench,i could imagine what was to follow.... Another girl came and sat down filling the quota for a bench.There i was, trapped between two aliens !!


But strange thing was, other with a few exceptions were pretty normal as if it were the most common thing in the world.I later came to know that,it was the usual scenario since Kinter garden.When the teacher completed the job she marched off much to my surprise. Then came another, and i could "hear" silence when she marched in. She was our principal who took History lessons for us. The students fell silent more due to respect than due to fear,though i could feel a tinge of both in them.She started off with her lessons straight away, which was the least i expected since all classes on first days were supposed to be closed down with self introductions. Then came a bout of yawn, which was promptly spotted by her. She said ,"feeling so sleepy ? maybe a bit of fresh air could help u out.." ............OUT, that was when I realised the underlying meaning in that. I was being sent out on my first class in that school ! So there i was standing just outside the class,religiously following the LOC of the class. I spent one hour wondering whether i should further pursue my studies or not.


Thankfully the bell or rather the buzzer rang relieving me off my duty as watchman for that class. I went inside and suddenly realised that the students were looking at me as if i were a national hero... Man i got screwed up in the first hour of a school and i was being stared at !!! well, there was some good to achieve out of that punishment. I was known by each and everyone in my class form then on.I had won my first impression and that too with style. I went and sat down in my place silently receiving an ovation that could match a sachin century. well the next two hours were pretty normal as one could expect. And then the bell rang indicating the lunch hour.....

Kaash ....

I was sitting on my bed with the most beautiful object ever exixted, my copy of Atlas Shrugged.I was reading it for the "n"th time....Hey people, dont take me for insane, that book is magical. I was reading through certain sections of D'Anconia's history(D'Anconia is a character in that book)when i was suddenly thinking about "what went wrong in our system of education." Point well taken; said the person in me. I was drifting into one of my dreamworlds, where I was the hero with no competition whatsoever... In this particular dream the hero (moi !!! ) was a teacher.. not the ones that you'd see in real life, but the one belonging to the idealistic realms.



The hero was sitting in his "STUDY" desks thinking about reformation that he'd bring about in the schools.... well this is what he jotted dwon on his "work" sheets...

1. Abolish all weekend assignments, let the students have good weekends every week.
2. Assignments should be made non-compulsary;let the willing do it.
3. All classes should be held for no more than 30 minutes.
4. No classes shall house more than 20 students.
5. Ranking system should be abolished. Lets at least spare the kids of the competition at early ages.They will eventually have to face corporate competition anyways later.
6. Two hours of classes should be complemented by at least one hour of entertainment.
7. Lunch hours should be at least one hour and students should be encouraged to eat at a slow pace.Doctors have proved, it helps digestion and keeps us healthy.
8. Any kind of dressing should be permitted provided it doesnt attract too mudch attention.
9. Attendence should be abolished.
10. Detentions shall be permitted but the students can have an option of choosing the period of detention.

With these ten commandments written neatly in a piece of paper, our hero sat in a pensive mood wondering as to how he is going to implement these in his school. DING DONG went the calling bell... The hero fell dead and i woke up lazily to attend to a sales man selling dictionaries and stuff like that. I showed him out as fast as possible and then with great difficulty resurrected the teacher....



The teacher arose like the phoenix from the ashes,fully rejuvenated and continued his ephemeral thinking. He was now speaking to his set of students about relational physics. And this cannot go without discussing Mr. Einstein... That was when one of the students asked.. "Sir, what would happen if we run around a tree with the speed of light ?"



With that question our hero started vanishing without a trace... So do most of us when we face certain tight situations. All our convictions vapourize when we face challenges. It is but natural that this happens. I slowly woke up (wasnt i sleeping so long?) from my dream and faced reality... Good or bad ,I still like the way our education system runs... I love it, the way it is ...

The camouflage

Well, it seems that my limited set of readers have seemed to prefer my reviews or views. So here goes another experience of mine reading a book.A clue to the readers...I am a reading freak and u shall find many such reviews in the future...Now back to business.... Any book begins with the preface to the author.But i shall not waste any more of your precious time introducing this author. The first of his book that i read was the Da Vinci Code. The book was filled with controversies involving secret societies and christianity. And who doesnt like controversies... Thats the secret of success of that book.Well if u think i'm gonna review that u are thoroughly mistaken. I liked that book,it was fast and pacey,most important of all it was hyped !!! You will be called a fool if u failed to like such controversies and I didnt want to be a fool... so I liked that book...


It was a saturday and i was on my way for a competetive examination. I sat in the train looking gloomy and puffed up due to the heat. It was then that i glanced through the windows and noticed a book seller with his push cart with an expression that seemed to mirror my own. I think that made me pay attention to his miniscule collection more than it deserved. And Dan Brown caught my attention... i called out to that compatriot of mine and asked him to show some od Dan Brown's brainchild. Well i was shuffling through a couple of them trying to gather as much as possible from their synopsis.. Then the train started to move and I ended up with his deception point.


Guess i should have have my warning bells ringing when i read that title. But the devil (the one in my cooking blog) intervened. Well i sat reading it the rest of my journey. The story is about some ET stone found at some forbidden place in arctic(or antarctic.. doesnt make a difference). Then politics makes its entry with the president making a publicity stunt out of it. Now the heroine is a top official (guess dan brown seems to prefer women,all novels of his, has a woman who is smart and a top brass) who is nominated to check up the truthfulness of affairs.


Just when we feel that the story line is like a tamil movie, the story drifts into the line quite ennervatingly. Guess the author must have been influenced by a couple of tamil movies. He seems to have picked out the most obvious twists in the story, made it look as if it was the most expected thing in the world. There are sacrifices too ... a "side-hero" sacrifices himself for the lead pair.Man, he sure must have taken some efforts to make it as uninteresting as possible.


Half way through the book and you can predict whats gonna happen. The villain is a double agent and a top brass,a superior to the heroine. The heroine trusts him implicitly in the beginning and exposes him at the end. A bomb blast a couple of murders and the villain dies. The man who was suspected by everyone suddenly is totally innocent.Well after these unEXPECTED events the reader is left to wonder where the art of thriller writing is going towards. Well the story ends with the theme "and lived happily ever after".....


God help me,i thought after i completed reading it. The first thing that i did after i reached home was to ring up my old book sales point. That was the real shocker.... he said "No,i wont stock 1000 copies of a book".... So my dear frends it lies in my shelf till date as an outcaste, never disturbed from its position of pride.... The book was indeed a peak in the DECEPTION point ....

When luck chases you....

This is probably the first time that i am writing about some controversy. For beginners, it is better to start off with some easy target. Well i decide to start off with Dada... The trouble with him is that he always gets into trouble.In fact it is luck that chased him. There are many situations that clarifies this statement of mine.


He is considered as the luckiest captain for India as we won laurels overseas especially at Australia(We had drawn a test, which is the best performance of India in Australia :( ).He followed it up with a wonderfully crafted victory against Pakistan at Pakistan.These were un imaginable a couple of years ago. The reason for such victories ?? Luck..... Luck had chosen to chase dada throughtout the year.....


Mind you, that was good luck. "When u ride on luck, remember u ride on a edged sword", that was said by no one else but me... Well coming to the point, we find that despite his lucky run as captain his induividual performance has not been as good as his captaincy @li@s luck.Most of us were gagged by the wins, that we failed to oopen up against the individual performance... As the saying goes, "the team wins... that is more important" .. this is said by most of the players and not me....Remember, the players who say this, are the performers in that match(they say it at the end of presentation ceremony).


That was when luck began to come in torrents for our dear dada, the difference being it was "bad luck"... The good performances by the youngsters at the home level was becoming too good and they had to be recognized. So started the deliberation over dada's crown. What else, but bad luck, would you call it....The change of coach at the precise moment when dada was at his lowest point of his career.His luck worsened when the coach switch took place. When one thought it couldnt get worser, the email leak came out as a blot out of the blue.Thanks to the speed of the electronic media, half the population in India was aware of it in a jiffy. When you get into trouble with big guns, you are bound to get shot.The tussle with the coach had cost dada more than it cost the coach.


So far,it has been pretty much talked about...In general,it is a rule that is better followed... "When you are in deep shit, keep your mouth shut".. Seems that our dada did not know this and got into trouble in yesterdays Ranji match, for coming late to bat...That too after being debarred in the bowling department for running in the danger area. He shouldnt be getting himself deeper into trouble after being selected miraculously in for the tour of Pakistan....


Well i am no expert in politics... hey arent we talking about cricket ? well politics is into cricket as well. So it seems okie here... Its just plain common sense that i think should be applied here. Well dada was once upon a time playing well,but certainly not these days.... The days of the tiger are dimming now. The only suggestion that i can make is that he should have volunteered to be out of the team and get back in royally after regaining some form, rather than persisting in the team and putting more pressure on himself after each failure/match (both are synonymous)... Better run from the scenario when bad luck chases you ........