taamil teryaadu

when i was in singara chennai this time, i happened to see many northie folks with this sentence 'taamil teryaadu'... i had a crude pleasure in talking to them in chennai slang and when they replied this i felt elated... i thought to myself wow .. 6 yrs ago in pune when i said marathi maith nahi and spoke in hindi, i usually got replies in chaste marathi ( thanks to tht i am able to understand a bit marathi now).. similarly these northy folks will soon learn claasical divine tamil.... vaazhga thamizh valarga thamizh :-)( Long live classical divine tamil)

bong connexion

after rocking mumbai delhi n kolkatta, Oh calcutta arrived in pune a while ago... well this is about the restaurant owned by Anjan Dutta a famous bong musician/actor....
I have been having a craving to have bong food for long and with Oh calcutta in the vicinity of my office i was getting mad daily... alas these guys dont have buffet on weekdays and i usually stay away from office areas on weekends.. but today i had some business there and that too around lunch... so my dream was about to be fulfilled...
the meal started with bread chops and alor dum... delicious... the main course was a divine treat of alor poshto, veg chorchori, phulkopi....what not..
the non veg selection included hilsa fish, murshidabad style biryani and lauki& chingri curry... alas i am a veggie :-)

then came the dessert... there was a usual selection of mousse n icecreams.. but i opted for payash n roshogulla....its been a good 5 hours since the meal but the aroma n flavour linger on...... Oh caclutta ekdum photaphoti....

team no 1

nopes this is not a title of a govinda david dhawan flick... MS Dhoni and his men have become the no 1 odi teamin the world.. ( they could lose the spot in 24 hrs if they lose today but who cares... weve been there no 1...)yippe.. a consistent performance over a yr... india rockzzz......

censor pangs

while i was on vacation, i caught up with this new hype in tammovie land.. kanthasamy the rooster super hero movie.. the movie was a pain. the best review is written here http://www.thehindu.com/fr/2009/08/28/stories/2009082850560200.htm Yet many tam magazines find something to cheer about this movie... theres no neutrality or common sense in any of the tam mags around...well i also happened to lay my hands on the DVD of a picture called "Iruvar" ... its a biopic with a bit of fiction freely thrown around. Its Mani's masterpiece and Ash's début movie.. It chronicles the friendship turned rivalry of Tamlands two powerhouses Muthuvel Karunanidhi and Mardur Gopalamenon Ramachandran.. well i dont want to say anything about both these movies.. i just have some queries to our censor guys... whats the criteria on whch u give a U or A or U/A and are they transparent... me thinks its as transparent as my company's policy on promotions...u never see a pattern being followed.. why i am saying this is, the movie kanthasaamy has a U certificate .. never know that a movie in which the heroine dances around in towels n bikinis can get a U.... and Iruvar has an A certificate... Goodness me.. Iruvar does not have any violence or sexually explicit sequences.. the only fault of it is, it deals with quite an inflammable topic.. it shud atleat have got an U/A if not a U...this is just a small piece.. if we see many such movies we'll see the inconsistency.. if such is the standards how can we trust these guys and letkids or adolescent folks ( more vulnerable) see some movies.. in today's worls movies and tv play a lot more role in shaping up cultural outlook and we cant totally ignore em..

PS: Why did i choose these two movies for comparision?.. well the director of kanthasaamy was an assistant to Mani and was ne of the important crew members of Iruvar..

back to roots

I happened to be in chennai at the time of the brahmotsavam of the Lakshmi Hayavadhana temple in Nanganallur... Yeah i know its not as famous as tirupathi or any other shrine.. but nonetheless it occupies a very special position in my heart.. its my ultimate palce of pilgrimage and prayer... i have been a devotee of lord hayavadhana ( the male counter part of saraswathi in education, work and arts) ever since my childhood.. Added to the devotion was the association of vedanta desikan to the lord...the temple is a very small one but i get a lot of inner peace when i visit there. I used to go this place almost daily when i was studying back in chennai.. in those days i was a very simple guy ( not that i am a pompous arse now) .. whenever i go back to chennai, i try to relive those days.. walking without a slipper, wearing the traditional outfits et all.. its just a different feeling all together..
The brahmotsavam went on very well and the link to view the photos is http://hayavadhana.co.nr ( not sure why they chose a site based in nauru..)
The highlight of this brahmotsavam was, whenever the lord was taken out in procession in a vahana, one of the committee members had made an arrangement in which a miniature version of the idol and vahana was kept decorated. This miniature version was taken out in procession by small kids... the priests made sure that they taught the kids about all the rituals patiently.. the kids were an enthusiaistic lot and listened keenly.. they way the followed the instructions was amazing.. the kids trying to wear veshtis and kepping it on their waists by means of all sorts of belts was a sight worth watching... amidst all these i did some soul searching... the funnier side is i ended up skipping most of the utsavam as i was sleeping or away to other temples or outside nanganallur... but whatever i could catch up with really took me closer to my roots .. i am glad that i took this vacation..