kahin duur

Not even 5 senses

2011-10-29T02:33:00.000Z

There are people who work in their area of expertise and produce watchable movies.. there are people who explore areas unexplored hitherto and deliver different movies that may or may not be commercially viable... Usually Kamalhassan falls into this category... there are people who want to show off that their area is different and end up making a horrible cocktail of different theme and commercial masala.. its like mixing chinese food and chettinad spices.. & am Arivu is one such product. Utterly deplorable and a colossal disappointment..In summary, the attempt is not that novel... both elements of the plot, indian influence in martial arts and epidemic virus have been dealt separately in two movies, Indian & Dasavatharam The vocally marketed element and the reason for the movie's hype is that it tells the tale of Bodhidharma.. Sadly, Bodhidharma is used only in the first half an hour to set the context and after that all we see is constant references to him by the characters ...Even the first 30 minutes sounds like a documentary ... Very superficial research. Tamil movies Vamsam, & Adukalam have much better research element than the overhyped 7th Sense...Google and Wikipedia also play a prominent role in the movieThe screenplay and the style of narration is overly simple, the plot has very predictable twists and turns. Especially the way the chinese have been depicted is comically ridiculous.The director wants to make a world class movie dedicated to world tamils.. however with songs inserted forcefully in the flow, the movie turns out to be a third class one. Who on earth would believe that hypnotism is such child's play? the villain hypnotizes people at will :-) Taling of acting, I feel Shruti Hassan has the same expectations that northies have from Abhishek...Only difference is Abhishek is an good actor who is unlucky.. Shruti has inherited a lot of talents from her father but acting is definitely not on that list. The sad part is her tamil diction is not worthy of the Hassan surname...Surya flexes his muscles a lot, tires to act sensibly but somehow i feel that by choosing this movie he has given hope to Vijay ....The villain bloke is good but sad to see his talents wasted like this..The sequences where the health officials responds to a reported epidemic is a gross insult to our medic folks...The climax fight somehow reminds of Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle... Not only that, the main element that the talent of an ancient hero lies in some nondescript circus artist seems also inspired from Chow's shoaling soccer and Kung Fu Hustle.. In the name of telling the glory of past tamils, the director tends to give way to jingoistic feelings.. We feel Raj thackeray is bad.. I have a genuine question, what about these people, who in the name of glorifying tamil and tamil fervor end up making heroes out of criminals.. There is a dialogue which says in a neighboring country one tamilian was hunted down by 9 countries with obvious references to LTTE & V Prabhakaran. The director who also happens to be a dialogue writer should be ashamed of such thoughts... LTTE was by all means a terrorist organisation which used child soldiers, trafficked drugs, arms etc. Moreover Prabhakaran had the audacity to dismiss Rajiv's killing as a "Tragic Incident". Supporting such people is dangerous. Though the Sinhalese treatment of tamils is bad, there are ways and means to protest against that. And taking of tamil valor and bravery, LTTE is not definitely an example. This is the main curse of India.. still no unity. Someone kills our leader and we still support them in the name of language...In the end, the director gives a pompous message .. He says teach tradition not the name of religion or God but in the name of science.. WHy sir,... if we have a realization of what a tradition means whats wrong in revering it? you people think you are rationalists, very intelligent and revering certain things hurts your ego is it? The true realization of our own self leads to spiritual well being.. This is what the Indian traditions reveal...I need ample doses of aspirin to recover from this and will catch up with Vijay flick to reverse the effects :-)

AArakshan

2011-08-13T08:33:00.003Z

Two state governments in India have banned the mentioned movie.. Reason they perceive it as anti Dalit and anti reservation based on 3 scenes.. Now I am not surprised.. Politicians and brains are far apart. in a full length movie they can't tolerate just 3 scenes .. not more than 30-40 minutes footage.... Countless movies like dabang which are full crap gets approved by these so called governments...

Aarakashan is a nice movie.. the first half is very realistic.. second half is filmy.. but aren't we all a bit filmy..
we all have a hope.. As summarized by the movie Om Shanti Om.. hamari filmon ki tarah hamari zindagi mein bhi end tak sab theek ho jata hay.. nahi to wo The end nahi hay.. picture abhie baki hay mere dost....

Bofors, near bankruptcy... then reforms and towering growth.. now 2g land grabbing from farmers.. still we have a hope... Aarakshan summarizes this hope...

when would reservation loose its sheen.. when u have competition in the real sense... there is whole step process to active that.. in the interim lets go on with what we have.. not target any one.. after all .. the three scenes in the movie just depicts various states of mind and frustration..
The movie invictus is a great one.. why because.. in order to rebuild a nation, Mandela wanted to forgive centuries of discrimination against his people and treated ex tormentors with respect as fellow country men.. diet MKG (Bapu ) tell the same?
lets all forgive these petty squabbles.. Aarakshan represents that reconciliation and path to the future...

I love this filmy second half and I still hope India will grow above all these...
After all we were knocked out of 2007 WC champions in 2011.. now we are getting battered in england.. so its we know they will win next time.. hope.. hope is everything... We hope anna hazard can change things.. HOPE zindabad... Jai hind...

Let the supreme court place some sense in the madness and let this movie been seen every one....

History repeats itself

2011-07-03T18:36:00.001Z

This adage cannot be more relevant to the neeraj grover murder case than anything else.
Naval officer Jerome murdering TV guy Neeraj as he was involved with his fiance maria.
In 1959 an exactly similar incident happend. Naval officer Nanavati murdered Prem Ahuja as he had relnship with Sylvia, the wife of nanavati.
However, the similarities end thr. Nanavati, officially surrendered to navy provost police and then to the mumbai (bombay then) police. A jury trial acquitted him considering wht he did was socially right in 1959. The govt took offence, abolished trial by jury once for all and retried nanavati handing him a jail term.
2008 and 2011 are diff from 59. Jerome does not surrender. He and Maria cut the body to pieces and burn. After getting trapped Maria says she just was acting under pressure and confesses.
Jerome said he was angry n the killing was not premeditated hence not murder.
Court agrees ... If the killing was not premeditated why the heck did he hack the body to pieces postkilling? Is that not murder? And Maria is free....

God save our judicial system

My Take on Samacheer Kalvi

2011-05-28T14:50:00.002Z

The samacheer kalvi has kicked off an interesting debate.. last DMK govt wanted to standardize the different streams of education in the state under one umbrella. As usual a lot of pros and cons r there.. Tamil nadu is probably one of the weirdest states in India as it has so many different streams.. As such in India,we have CBSE & ICSE at an all India level.. Add to that the Cambridge IGSE of the hi fi public schools.. each state ahs its own state board.. In TN ladies & gentlemen, we have TN State board, Matric, Anglo Indian & OSLC.. Fortunately after 10th its just the one single state board.. TN is known for its cram carzy pattern and add to this this crazy combination of syllabi its hell for parents and students.. A such in TN, state board syllabus was considered ( may be still) a touch inferior.. Matric & Anglo Indian were considered tougher and even on par with CBSe at one time.. I had studied in Matric board from my 8th until 10th and it was crazy.. 11 subjects and total of 1100 marks... i did find Matric decent enuf as i could clear one level of NTSE during my 10th grade.. But as always its debatable.. As far as i have experienced CBSE is the best syllabus .. ICSE is crazy and IGSE is not that great.. We should aim to standardize and roll up all state syllabi to CBSE and do away with individual state boards.. we can localize the second language to the state concerned.. This will be useful as we prepare our students for higher education...this enables easy monitoring and updates to syllabus as per changing needs.. now a days an update to syllabus is like hell...

JJ is hell bent on reversing the trend started under last govt.. lets give politics a break and ensure that we bringin some standardization in education..
Samacheer Kalvi will ensure that private schools cant swindle more in the name of syllabus..

Gurubhyo namah

2011-05-28T12:48:00.001Z

Matha pitha guru deivam.... Guru or teacher is given such a high position in indian mythology...
A minister says IIT teachers are not world class and IITs are world famous just because of the students.. Oh why so jst bcos the dumb min was an IITian ... If the students are so brilliant then why kota and hyd r booming wth iit classes... Before blaming the quality of research did the govt do the right type of funding? Has the min himself done anything to improve the situation ? How many of the world class students have not gone behind money in developed countries... The reason given by them is thr r no adequate funding or facility for research in india... has the govt done anything? A lot of netizens even supported the min... Fortunately the HRD min was sensible enuf to bash his colleague's immature comment. Now the min in question has backtracked. If he was so right why did he eat his own words... Our teachers deserve some respect.. We need not praise them always but lets not criticize them either for no reason.. That too not by such generic statements in public...

Bihar Polls

2010-10-24T17:24:00.003Z

Two phases of bihar polls over and most people predict a second term for Nitish Kumar...

Some facts that i found interesting...

The quitest assembly elections it seems media have not covered the usual stuff like "in the campaign trail wit so n so" etc..
Lalu has run out of steam and all his so called charm is not to be seen
The brother in laws have deserted him
Rabri is contesting from two seats as there is a real chance that she might lose from the one tome bastion Raghopur
Polling percentage over 50 pc inspite of naxal boycott plan... Alas Metro citizens will talk a lot but only 36 pc vote...

Only thing that still stands put is the 4 phase month long festival.... I think we can conduct the same in 15 days as well...

Raktha charitra.....

2010-10-24T16:45:00.002Z

We have a habit in India... All so called educated people will give Bihar as example for something bad....criminals in politics,bihar;bad transport, bihar; violence, bihar; etc etc... But many people hardly realise that there are far worse places than bihar. But we dont quote them because those places are in so called developed states...let me quote some examples...the state election commissioner of TN remarked during one of the by-elections in a Madurai constituency that conducting elections in bihar is easy than conducting one in Madurai due to the level of irregularities and violence....but Chennai overshadows whatever that happens elsewhere in the state..
Similar is the story of Andhra... Cyberabad aka Hyderabad overshadows the violent power struggle that happen in the once naxal dominated hinterland of Rayalaseema.... Andhra is often referred to as Vishala Andhra and has three sectors, telengana that comprises of the erstwhile nizam territory, Rayalaseema and coastal andhra... Rayalaseema is said to be a Reddy landlord dominated area. Most people rarely know that the violence that region has seen is far greater than what the media reports show as happening in bihar UP...
RGV has come with a gory story from the rayalaseema land... Before saying that tjis movie is too violent let us make a note that the director has attempted to show a two decade story in 2 hours and all the dedcade long violence has to be compressed:-)
the movie tells the meteroic rise and the eventual fall of Paritala Ravindra, a naxalite turned politician. The story is straigjt from the masala potboilers of yesteryear Tamil and Telugu films that south indians are used too.. A lower rung mass leaderr is murdered by all mighty political rivals. The eldest son seeks revenge and is killed too, then rises the younger son who avenges the deaths of father and brother, then goes on to become the saviour for many, eventually teaming up with a matinee icon turned political boss and reaching the upper echelons of power.... The movie has portrayed the rise in part one and the eventual death would be portrayed in the yet to be released se ond version...
Part 1 is excellent in terms of narration... The lead actors vovek oberoi who portrays paritala ravi, shatrugan sinha who portrays NTR garu and the main villain Abhimanyu Singh have thrown in stellar performances... The only dampener is that a whole bunch of decent actors have been reduced to nondescript cameo roles....the background score though loud adds a lot of power to the storyline... One of the main features is the dialogue... There are very few of them and all of them are very powerful... The movie shows the real democracy as it happens....
The movie showcases the hyper emotions that are common place in south india and at times rare to see in the north....
I would say that the movie would look even better in Telugu..... Overall one of the best from RGV.... 4 stars out of 5 from me....

Party Leadership

2010-09-26T05:00:00.002Z

In my last post, I just said that we should focus on improving ourselves and not succumb to :"Learn from X" syndrome...
Well I am actually trying to think on how can we do it by just observing others and not try to copy.

In the meantime, i was following the UK Labour Party Leadership election in which Ed Miliband pipped his much known sibling David..

Well David was UK secretary of State under Gordon Brown and a protege of Tony Blair.. He is the same man who went on poverty tourism with Rahul baba and had his foot in mouth when he offered an unsolicited advice on kashmir, which had drawn flak from all quarters and Brown had to refute it as the minister's personal opinion..

Well the election to party leadership in UK is an interesting one.. while the tories elect from MPs and the party members, Labour have an extended electoral college comprising of even trade unions as well..

As with other elections, every candidate is expected to set out policies and win votes... Seems interesting ...
In the UK the leader of the party is the leader of the government/opposition as well..

In the US of A, both the parties are run by National committees, the DNC and RNC respectively for the democrats and republicans...
The chairperson of the committee is the party head... and that person is responsible for the party alone... The government / opposition is run by senators/representatives and the head of the government is the president. The nomination for president is a separate race at the time of elections.. i would say that this is a bit complicated.. Well what else can you expect from US..

COming back to India, well talking about the two major parties.. lets take BJP first.. The BJP is a mixture of both US and UK as per my view.. The party president is elected for a fixed term of 3 years and the term is considered religiously.. Much like US the party president is responsible for party only and the government / opposition head is elected by the parliamentary party..
Much like labour party, the root organization (RSS) has a say in the party leadership.. I feel that this is a good system.. If only the BJP could win more hearts to form a government... The party seems more disciplined than any other in the country...

Another party which follows a set system is the commie group.. both CPI and CPM have politburos and religiously( or rather atheistically ;) ) elect general secretaries and so on...

Congress was a disciplined organization with a party leadership different from government before madam G.. but after madam G, the party leadership is the same as government or usually a puppet heads the party dancing to the tune of the dynasty... Off late the leadership has turned powerful after 2004.. and the government dances to the tune of the party now.. But there is no leadership contest .. only one person is nominated and elected unanimously without even alternate opinion.. well how democratic is that? People can predict who the next party president is going to be.. hmm

Same is the case with most regional parties... all being run as fiefdoms..

I dont want us to emulate anyone but atleast have some system in place and make the leadership selection more visible...

China China

2010-09-25T17:10:00.002Z

I think we are badly obsessed with emulating China in whatever we do.
In Military, in industry, in conducting events so on and so forth...
But lets really give a thought for a second... Is china really that great and worth emulating? I have no doubt that China has grown tremendously and is a major power an hats off to her for the achievement. But that doesnt make me a fan of china..

Some of her policies make me nauseatic. The brutality in which lands were cleared and people oppressed to stage 2008 Beijing olympics is well known.. There were reports of how child gymnasts were trained under inhuman conditions to win medals. There were even reports of some malpractcies in other events as well.. Lets answer one question .. Does not conducting an olympics mean that a country is not great?

We tried to copy china by conducting CWG, planning for an Asiad bid and so on..
Though the intent was right in conducting an event, was it necessary to allot Rs 70K Crores?Did we at all think that the same money could be used elsewhere?

Did we monitor the progress throughout? Our media just kept mum for almost 4 years and suddenly started raking up the issue just 3 months prior the games.. Now after a whole lot of fuss suddenly everyone seems happy. Thats because everyone wants to make India happy just because they want Indian money.. What did we achieve as a country in trying to emulate china here? Loads of bad publicity and hell a lot of money that could have been channeled elsewhere..

Another of China's policies that I am not a fan of is the one child norm and the brutality in implementing that. Though one can argue about the stress that a huge population puts on a nation's resources, one cannot go on controlling births with a stick in a hand.. Lets not assume a statistical trend of growth, we should also think about the declining fertility rates before implementing a program like this.

Thank God we are not yet trying to follow China in this...
Another of China's biggest problems is that She's trying to be a US in this part of the globe or who knows she might want to see itself as the next US.. Hence all that plans to build bases in Lanka , trying to intimidate India, the main perceived rival... Lets not again emulate china in this aspect. In the pretext of trying to strengthen ourselves, lets not increase our defence budgets further...

Our biggest flaw as a nation is that we always ant to learn from others. Be its US, CHina or whoever. Why not we focus on things and make them better in our own way rather that "Learn From X" phenomenon?

I want India to be better but lets focus on the basics like agriculture, proper food distribution.. lets try to bridge the economic gap before we proclaim ourselves a superpower and show off our ability in many non essential things..

Jai Hind....

Latest on nivas

2010-05-07T03:15:00.001Z

Finally the man had made it to the civil slervices, hes 45 on the all india merit list.... Way to go man.....

Hey Ram – Part 2

2010-04-17T12:16:00.001Z

I was never a fan or an ardent critic of Rahul Gandhi. Till about a few hours ago I didn't really know much details about his education and so on. I happened to see his wikipedia page and browse some other links in the net just out of curiosity.

There has been a deluge of links, blogs videos which make claims and counter claims about his qualifications, original citizenship details etc. It is not obviously possible to discuss everything here. But yes, it is disturbing trend that more the number of hits to a video, the sooner it disappears with the website citing usage violation. Ignoring everything that his being said regarding credentials,I just could not help laughing at a certain video(The Video). Naah the video isn’t about someone making a ridiculous claim about him. The video has the congress general secretary speaking on the geographical size of Gujarat and then India. He says Gujarat is bigger than UK. Well we can excuse him for that faux pas as it might have just come in the moment. The next thing is just off the roof… He says India is bigger than the US and Europe put together.. Now this is the best that one can come up with. It would have been easier to accept had it come from some son of some politician. But from the Gandhi scion !!!!! That too he has been educated in the UK @Cambridge and seems has worked in Michael Porter’s firm. Such a gaffe from him… hey raam our PM in waiting is worse than George Bush…

Secular or Appeasing?

2010-04-10T15:59:00.001Z

Well, I have always had a doubt when the media, some so called intellectuals, social workers all cry secularism and denounce fundamentalism… I have had a feeling that most of the times only the hindu right wingers are being targeted for being fundamentalist. In our country, we somehow ignore certain things if its done by certain people… I have a few instances to point out as to what I am coming at.

1) Instance No 1 IPS Officer testifies against Advani; Modi’s appearance at SIT

All the media was gung ho about the IPS officer testifying against Advani. What did she say? Did she say that she heard Advani ordered the demolition. NO she just said he was in an upbeat mood etc etc.

So She becomes a heroine and we now need to prove secular credentials…. Eh… some say the darkest day of India is Dec 6 1992.. Oh is it really…

For the starters, the worst riot that India has ever seen was at Delhi in 1984 which was supposedly orchestrated by some congressmen to avenge the death of Indira… well what the hell did all sikhs do to face such a wrath?.. And Rajiv’s comments on that riot, far from sympathizing actually hurt even more… The quote attributed to him is “When a giant tree falls, the earth below shakes”… Is this attitude any different from what Anju has testified about Advani?

Well I dont think so… then why are we behind just BJP & Advani folks?

Same goes with with social worker teesta setalvad.. who just believes that 2002 Gujrat was the first ever riot in this country and that Modi is equivalent to Hitler… Well go get a life lady. He has done fairly well in the last 8 years and the state has been not only peaceful but developing.. If you can ignore Rajiv’s comments and ignore the perpetrators of 1984 why go after modi alone… If he is guilty let the law punish him.. why a media trial?
And the parliament attacker Afzal Guru gets support from some human rights groups ... he is still not hanged... then why do u want a speedy justice for dec 6 and 2002 gujrat only

2) Recent drama in TN regarding a sleaze video of a Swami

Well here in the case of godmen we again apply different rules…

A channel close to the ruling party in TN showed the video on prime time and denounced the fake godmen, superstitions etc etc …

I have a question for them. If showing the truth was their only intention, it could have been done in a decent way.Couldn’t it?

And there is a case of a paedophile catholic priest which the Tamil media has ignored altogether? why this oversight? Didn’t you guys find this news worth reporting at a large scale?

3) The phone nikah controversy involving shoaib malik

Well in this case, a leading newspaper in India has published an article that seem to say phone nikahs are not valid and so on and so forth (http://www.thehindu.com/2010/04/07/stories/2010040766082200.htm)

BBC on the other hand has done a thorough research and has come up with a more concrete article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/south_asia/8608878.stm)

Why are we so much defensive when it comes to a so called minority community and why are so so aggressive about taking on hindu fundamentalism? Why are we sol guilty about hinduism?

numero uno

2009-12-07T01:52:00.003Z

India becomes no 1 team in tests ??? i dunno how can we become number one in tests without having ever won in Aus in recent times. SA beat Aus black and blue after we handed the arrogant ozs a perth trouncing.. but poor proteas hav just lost their crown to us... may be we stopped oz twice from a record 17th win may well make us the true numero uno.... we may not be world beaters but yeah we give a team a run for their money .....as dhoni said we may find it very very tough to hold on to numero uno.. As
he also said, lets just play good cricket and let the ratings take care of themselves.... foreign media have already started questioning how deserving india is for the numero uno spot? well guys get a break.. brown men also can be numero uno... anyways now that cricket is conquered, let us as well concentrate on gaining lost glory in hockey... Football is another area where we can be numero uno (!!!!!) beleive me it wont take 77 years as in case of cricket if we put the energy in right places.. We can aim for numero uno in 25 years atleast....

Dynasty globally

2009-11-21T01:06:00.003Z

Yesterday I happened to read a feature in the BBC website about dynasties taking over in northern africa. Well Many of us may ask whats new about it. The article in BBC talks about Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and algeria. Consider Kuwait, saudi arabia, syria. The dynasties are everywhere. India, Philippines, Indonesia and some other far eastern countries have democratic dynasties... Why does all this happen?

Indifference of the people. In some cases like in oppressive regimes, any opposition is either silenced brutally or given economic privileges. In a democratic setup, the people themselves are so frustrated that they do not care about the credentials of their candidates... Well even in the UK and US to lobby for a post of governor or PM or President, a person needs to have sufficient clout in terms of men or money to win elections... Its known that hillary put up with bill's infidelity in return for his clout in the democratic party that gave her a realistic chance of running for president. In our own country, Rthe prince is back from foreign and is now staying in huts to feel the real india. In India's richest state Maharashtra, in the recently concluded assembly polls more than a dozen leader kids have been "elected" MLAs.
Even in the remotest states of North Eastern India dynasties have started growing.
America which wanted to bring democracy to Iraq has long been silent about Saudi ....

What really is democracy all about? is there any real democracy in existence where over 80% of people cast their franchise genuinely. I doubt so.

There wont be long before we go back to monarchy but in a different form....

its in the family

2009-10-29T01:05:00.004Z

yesterday, due to some pressing need i happened to visit the office library. There, i chanced upon a copy of business today. The cover story of the latest issue has a profile of Noel Naval Tata, the half brother of Ratan N Tata. Noel has been running the group's retail arm Trent Ltd for over a decade now and yet a few have heard much about him in the media. Everytime i visit a Westside outlet, i am sure to find a surprise. I have taken many of my relatives/friends to westside outlets and they all have been impressed by it. More than the flashy big outlets, westside's subtle ambience has captured senses of many. In the last deacade, apart from westside we have seen Trent foray into books and music by acquiring a stake in landmark, partenring with Tesco for Star India Bazaar ( more importantly going slow on it after the retail bust during sub prime crisis where many retail biggies bit the dust), launching electronic retail chain of croma. One point to note here Ladies n Gentlemen is, Trent is 14th in terms of market cap in the tata group ( my company is the first ) . Trent is also not supposed to explicitly use the omnipresent TATA logo as they have to still reach a few goals as per the in-house business excellence model of the group to be able to use it. Until then all it can do is to just display "A TATA Enterprise" in its brands.The man has led the company ably as his elder bro did Nelco more than 2 decades ago. Yet the man hasnt had a stint in Tata Steel or Tata motors , the flagship companies of the group. Noel is the likely successor to the septuagenarian chairman who is set to retire soon and may become chairman emeritus like his mentor JRD. Iam awestruck by the steady growth of Trent that has lived up to the Tata values. I say this not just because I am a Tata employee. I hope the group gets to greater heights once Noel takes over the mantle. With a team of CEOs in their 40s Noel whos in his 50s will have a brighter chance for taking the group to new heights.

pseudo-moral

2009-10-12T00:32:00.003Z

In India nothing creates controversy more than books that talk history...Nah this is not about the furore caused by Jaswant who was hailing Jinnah... Jinnah and secular.. well its true he was not at all a pious Muslim, his wife was called Ruttie petit ( yup a parsi).. but suddenly he found his religion and became the quaid e azam.. lets leave him apart for a while.. this is about Jinnah's arch rival for premiership, had India been not partitioned; the man in question is Pt Nehru.. a lot has been said , written and seen about his relationships et all... About 2 yrs before an oxford scholar named Alex von Tunzelmann reignited the flame with her book "Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire" . I have read that book and say that there is nothing extremely controersial.. It talks about Gandh, Nehru, Lord Mountbatten, Edwina, very less about Jinnah.. more importantly,it talks about the Nehru-Edwina link. The author has done her bit of research at the Royal Archives.. The book actually talks about the lives of Gandhi, Nehru and the mountbattens before narrating the events of 1947.. Well the Brits are never afraid of writing history and the lady has minced no words in mentioning that the marital link between Lord n Lady Mountbatten was an open marriage and that the Lord was openly bisexual... She has also clearly stated that the Nehru-Edwina link was more than platonic.. It seems some people here have taken their own sweet time to read the book.. after 26 months when some hollywood guy is tryin to film the book, people have come out shouting that this is defamatory to our beloved leader... Well whether or not Nehru had a relation ship with Edwina, the fact remains that he is the architect of modern India and is a statesman par excellence ( yes "IS" is what i use) .. thats how I see it...But with their new found popularity, the congress party doesnt want to take its chances.. It cried foul and a host of Nehru family/extended family members have said that the relationship was just platonic( IJ IT??)....
There has also been an attempt to influence the director to come out n say that he has shown nothing controversial in the movie.. well clear breach of creative freedom.. We are a secular bear all bunch.. aint it friends?.. Well as a matter of fact, the book there are some facts about Gandhiji, which some might feel offensive... But none from Gandhi's family has even made a whimper..
We as a nation are so much obsessed with hero worship that even a small criticism against our beloved leaders is a matter of pride for us....Whatever be the relationship reality is, the fact is Nehru is still a hero... Let us all realise that and not make a hue n cry...

taamil teryaadu

2009-09-20T02:20:00.002Z

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

2009-09-12T13:21:00.003Z

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

2009-09-12T02:14:00.001Z

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

2009-09-05T03:58:00.004Z

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

2009-09-04T15:14:00.002Z

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..

relief

2009-08-26T11:10:00.002Z

Often people see me as an aggressive chap who gives a piece if his mind whenever possible....off late i had been trying to curb that instinct after many advised me not to be so outspoken.. it was a good advise too.. but there are sometimes and some places where one needs to show how capable he/she is in countering people who have no concern for others... Today I did that to a person, who was very close to me once but off late was carrying an attitude.. I tried to be as polite as possible in dealing with that person and even wanted to end things without any hostilities.. but certain limits were crossed and i felt that I was being estimated a weak person on the other side.. Hence I decided to give it all and poured out my not so good feelings with the choicest slang available to me...now i dont give a hoot as to what happens and i am glad that i did it... what a relief........

Jana Gana Mana

2009-08-15T02:54:00.002Z

we celebrate the 63rd Independence day from the brits... Moment of great success. SOme doomsdaysayers will cry saying so many people are below poverty line etc.... But in spite of all short comings we are still a great country and the world cant function without us...At this proud moment, lets reflect on our national anthem.. which is a true essence of our culture... Some say that Gurudeb wrote that song in praise of George V for the 1911 Delhi Durbar. Even that that silly assumption, Gurudeb just stands out. He has written a song in highly sankritized bengali, which is easier for most people in the country to understand. There are still a bunch of fools hanging around who say sanskrit is the language of the aryans and they quote the aryan invasion theory, which in itself is doubtful.. lets leave em out..morons will be morons.

The song praises the adhinayak ( ruler supreme lord) of the mana ( mind) of jan gans ( larger public). It says that all over india from punjab, sindh, gujarat, maratha, vindhya, dravida, himalayas the name reverberates and seeks blessings...and ends with a victory call...

The song praises an ruler which is most likely God. It has been so brilliantly conceived that theres no particular God named...thus reflecting the tenet of secularism.. Gurudeb stands out as a supreme poet..

Jana Gana Mana is not just a song thats sung on government functions.. its a prayer that seeks the well being of our home land.... lets celebrate the spirit of Jana Gana Mana

kashmir again

2009-08-02T03:57:00.002Z

last week kashmir was in the news for different reasons....
of course shopian is always there but some terrorists killed a 3 yr old and as omar abdullah rightly said, the separatists were silent on that... where's their conscience

but slowly we can be sure that kashmir is really now an integral part.... why this sudden realization?
following are the reasons

1) Sex Scandal... this unites India.. we had one in chandigarh, Tamil nadu, kerala, where not.. kashmir has also joined the bandwagon....

2) Assembly mic incident: well UP did thisin 1990s.. almost many other states too... kashmir is the last but yeh we welcome this... true parliamentary democracy has bloomed in kashmir....

3) Resignation drama : Almost every other CM has done it... Omar is the last again but not the least.. yeh Integration of kashmir is complete.......

dynasty again

2009-07-19T02:26:00.000Z

Some time in the 1950s rajaji as CM of tamland had this scheme called kula kalvi. According to it students learnt their family profession in addition to the curriculum. Back then it was vehemently opposed by the dravidian parties as a symbol of brahminism. But the same party now is promoting the family .Anyways politics cinema are for sure dynastic industries. You need a strng surname for sure. Over the last week i was follwing telugu politics n cinema. Another starkid is being launchd in gult land. Tam n gult lands have a lot in common. People of both lands put their admiration and trust seriously. They support whom they admire to any extent and destroy people who betray them. More than the politicos, the stars know this and manipulate their brand value. The debut of tthe third gen akkineni star has been planned in such a way. As usual diff story grt direction rhetoric was thr. As usual the heroine dint knw telugu. Well tam and telugu heroines just thrive on dubbings. They also make it a point to spk a wors or two in the local lingo at a public function. Still we're fine with that. So another son has risen...

Back in tamland the 'trend' is towards realistic cinema. Super. We just look at the trend before making a tam muvee. Other things like story fall in place as we move along. Just for a while we thought tam movies got better but nay its just the trend of the season. They may go back after people get bored.

But bollywood is the best. We make any kind of muvee thr and sell it anywhee. If its a flop in india its an overseas hit. Atlest thats wht we say. But these days comedy's the thme thr. And starkids get launcd daily thr these days. What do the older stars do? Some get a doctorate, some meet hilary and talk abt education. Wow.

we say vanashrama dharma is gone. But thats what prevails. Atleast in politics n cinema all over india. 'unity in diversity' jai ho

he he

2009-06-16T02:31:00.002Z

i had a hunch. i did tell that its unlikely for us to reachT20 semis... now its impossible....

People say dhoni was overconfident etc etc... the only fault of shoni is he isnt batting aggressively.. rest else is fine with him. we dint loose because sehwag wasnt there.. we lost because we have been playing for very long and needed a lot of rest... we arent as atheltic or strong by nature like aussies .. only they can afford such long outings.. if we want to keep winning we will have to take breaks... anyways we won the wc when we were written off. now we lost..lets focus on 2k11 WC.. we should win that... go dhoni go....

பசங்க

2009-06-13T08:16:00.004Z

சமீபத்தில் இந்த படத்தை பார்க்க நேர்ந்தேன். மிக அருமையாக எடுக்கப்பட்ட படம் இது. இதுதான் நிஜமான குடும்ப படம் . சிறு வயது போட்டி பொறாமைகளை ஒரு கதை மூலமாக சொல்லி இருக்கிறார் இயக்குனர். சற்று கூட முகம் சுளிக்க வைக்காத காட்சிகள், வசனங்கள் மற்றும் பாடல்கள். ஐயா படம் னா இது படம். எடுக்கறானுன்களே மத்த படங்களையும். ஜீவாவின் அப்பாவாக வரும் நடிகர் பிரமாதமாக நடித்துள்ளார். இவருக்கு நிறைய வாய்ப்புகள் வரும். பார்த்தால் ஏதோ தொலைக்காட்சி தொடரில் வருபவர் போல் உள்ளார். நாயகன் நாயகி சுமாராக நடித்து உள்ளனர். படத்தை ஜீவா மற்றும் அன்பு வாக நடித்துள்ள இரண்டு சிறுவர்களும் இரு தூண்கள் போல தாங்கி பிடித்துள்ளனர். படம் பட்டையை கிளப்பி இருக்கிறது .........எப்பூடி

பிகு: அந்த நாயகி பர்ர்பதற்கு லட்சணமாக உள்ளார்.

poor dhoni

2009-06-13T02:08:00.002Z

Seems the dream is over.. weve lost the first major match.. dhoni will be crucified and mauled ... his state will be worse if we fail to qualify for semis ( most likely as per my intution)... anyways as an Indian i am used to all these.... lets see what happens... moreover we need the real 50 50 wc and not 20 20 now... ;) ( grapes are sour)

electoral system

2009-06-13T01:52:00.002Z

the first past the post electoral system needs a serious re-thinking... people with less than 30% of the vote are becoming MPs and pass laws that dont have a majority backing.. this leads to law breaches and endless debates....

Reasons for the faults

1) People not voting

we cannot entrely blame the people for low turn outs.. in many a case people who went out to vote found their names missing.. kamal hassan was missing from voter list ridiculous... in delhi many cent govt babus found their names missing... what a pity.... also there should be a provision to allow absentee ballots applicable for even common citizens.. people may not necesarily register to vote in the place they stay .. they may prefer to vote in their home cities just because of the fact that they might have moved into the new place pretty recently.. the voter list should be carefuly revised and ensured that all appropriate names are included. With the technological advances we should also ensure online registration and verification...( Govt enabled and not thru some NGOs as was the case this time)

2) Voting Pattern

why do we need first past the post? why cant we use a proportional system..

this would ensure that to win a person needs atleast some percentage of votes..

we could also try for a primary and a run off system to eliminate people..

we should declare eceltions void if we have less that 55% voter turnout....

lets push for it.....

Secular

2009-06-13T01:49:00.001Z

when BJP lost we are so happy to say that Secularism won.. is that a reality? We have thus far failed to define what secular means and give it conextual meanings.. One cannot digest the fact that demanding a uniform civil code is not secular... if BJP is really communal it could have said make manusmiriti the code ( Sharia is a code in many islamic countries).. The fact is we still want to appease muslims... Muslims are very much part of this country and we need not go out of the way to please them. Our media is happy to say that the muslims have voted in a block to congress.. thats all fine. when some one asks the same to hindus its regarded communal and fundamental...In kerala and tamil nadu, parties named muslim league and Muslim munnetra kazhagam become part of a secular formation.. I am sorry we need to change this outlook...

Prophecy Comes true

2009-06-09T01:24:00.003Z

Just 2 yrs before, before oz won the 2k7 wc , i made a prophecy that a day will come when oz will be screwed badly and knocked outta world tournament in the first round... i dint know that it would happen in 2k9 T20 WC... Gayle n Sanga ensured that they did just that to OZ... go ponting rub your face in some mud :) yeow.. the oz are out Ireland is thru to round 2.........
someone please do the same to them in 2k11 WC ... May eng screw themin the ashes due in a month's time... let everyone crush OZ... Amen...

OZ crushed yet again

2009-06-06T16:28:00.002Z

Gayle is for sure the most exciting cricketer of our times... lovely... his innings made sure that oz idiots bit the dust again...!!! pray lanka defat oz on monday and kick em outta t20 wc....

how foolish

2009-06-02T15:56:00.002Z

i cant fathom why the INC did not decide on the speaker post along with the ministry.. they make meira kumar a minister, then ask her to resign and then make her a speaker... media as usual is gaga abt it first woman n dalit speaker... well they express this dalit word so much that it creates a sort of awkward situation.. they harped so much abt the first dalit prez kr narayanan so much that a french newspaper published his profile as untouchable something like that... then everyone got offended... but Mr narayanan said that the fault was that of the Indian media which just highlighted his caste credentials so much that his other genuine qualifications ( he was a career diplomat) got shadowed...hope they dont create such situation for Meira.. guys we all know that now in India anybody can reach any post :-)... no need to harp....as a matter of fact Meira is also an ex IFS officer....lets see what more the INC has got...now they will have a reshuffle once in 8-9 months as usual... at times its just too boring .....but as and when the assemble elections keep happening we are bound to see more and more drama...

Heir apparent

2009-05-30T13:43:00.001Z

So the race to succession on tam land has been decided… it all started with a survey that claimed 2-3 lives… now settled… the general from south tam land is in delhi and the Chennai man is in chef de mission in the state… DYNASTIC POLITICS!!!!!!!

Ij it.. what abt Nehru clan ( they r in opposition party too.. crap), Abdullah clan , badal clan, chavan clan deora clan, karunakaran clan, nandamuri clan, chautala clan, hooda clan, scindias, pilots, patnaik clan wowwie the list is never ending… the only people whose sons n dughters are not in politics are lalu, paswasn n Nitish…. ( well they’ll come soon I guess).
So it’s a proven fact .. you got to have some connection high up else your likelihood to succeed in indian politics is very less…
But one thing is for sure .. quite unlike the Nehru or some other clan. Karuna’s sons have had to try and test themselves out.. at least the younger one stalin has been in politics quite long.. his stint in politics is roughly my age … but these guys are all the same…

But still the fiefdoms are rotated in a democratic way.. we have ensured that we give turns to these dynasties… hardly theres one state in India without a political family…Sikkim may be? Arunachal ?

Luckily mayawati n jaya are kumaris.. jaya also has disowned her ex foster son whose wedding bash was bigger than the mittal wedding at versailles.
Whats the solution to all these.. one thing is regardless of dynasties, we should put a cap on the terms of a chief minister and a PM… max 3. Then lets see atlest we will get to see new faces atleast once in 15 yrs J .. that’s if a man or woman becomes a CM or PM at say 50 ( he/she might have an offspiring at roughly 20-25).. by the time of his/her term expiry, the child wud still be 35-40 ish but will have competition from others.. the dynasty transition might not be this blatant…and even that happens, it will not go on for generation after generation……its high time we took interest in politics of our nation..

Cicuit break - Record break

2009-05-18T14:31:00.002Z

approx 20% rise in just abt 5minutes trading.. 10% in 30 secs and 10% aftera break.
wow ahs something changed in India so drastic??? whos manipulated such a rise... good thattrading was halted.. else these guys wud have bloated sensex to 20K and then let it go for a free fall....good that we have a stable govt.. doesnt mean that things change overnight .. let them have a yr or two to turn around the economy... lets not be impatient... Jai Hind

Pray this is not False

2009-05-18T14:18:00.002Z

Velupillai Pirapaharan ( thats how they spell it back in so called eezham).... Is dead... Lovely.... This is probably the first time I am rejoicing for a death and praying that the news be true...this man back in 2002 said that Rajiv's death was a tragic incident... his death has not been comic at all.... साला कुत्ते की मौत मारा गया ...Let peace become a reality in SL.. let tamils n sinhalas live in peace... now that Rajpaksa & brothershave had their objective, let them relax the opression on media... reconcile with all citizens... failing which he might well match the fate of other similar people.....

vishesh tippnis

2009-05-17T02:55:00.006Z

Now that congress has won we hear a lot of vishesh tippnis some interesting ones ive heard are
1) New Age sycophancy - the so called royal of gwalior scnidia says Rahul shud be PM ( boss MMS was projected as PM b4.. whats the fun inthis now.. we anyways know that RG is PM in waiting and u will get a cabinet birth.. same as ur dad who was a side kick of Rajiv)
2) Sycophancy of the Old age - Prithviraj Chavan says Rahul can claim the PMs chair wheneverhe wants..... PM MMS says he would like Rahul to be a min .. RG says if PM likes he wud be amin ( he bhagwan... is this a price for a stable govt?)
3) Rahul's so callec coming of age- he won in UP ( 20 seats boss, if it was coming ofage it shud have been 30 or 40) .. alsohis decision was to go alone in Bihar and UP.. in biharthey managed only 2... so lets take this vicory with pinch of salt....
4) Victory of secula forces - Lets see how they work and how many more sops to minorit they offer... there is no dearth of festivals and elections in India lets waitand watch how congress manages its show and the BJP reoups...
5) The MNS factor - last time BJP-SS was unlucky tohave lost mumbai, this time they have themselves to blame... political pundits thoughtRaj Thackeray was a joker but he setoutto achieve whathe planned.. he never wantd any MP seat .. he just spolt the party of BJP-SS.. treat him with respect in assembly election guys... he will be a factor worth considering...
6) On Meera Sanyal - B4 elections ppl were really jittery abt the south mumbai corporate candiate Meera, as tey thought she cud spoil the chances of INCs Milnd... but afterhe won , Shekar something Gupta of Indian xpress said that the 6000 odd votes got by Meerawas from her cocktail party members... As if Milind never had cocktail parties......these hypocrites... self proclaimed righteous fellas.... Meera had every right to stand in elections and had she won considerable votes, these guys wud have been silent or rather praising her...

7) Loss of criminals - Is it?? how can the media be so naive... as per them only in UP and Bihar do crimanals contest and if all of them lose, its a great sign... there are many criminals who have won, they are not clean just because they have not been chargesheeted or vindicated or whatever... its not a court where u say ure innocent until proved guilty.... Tam land itself has so many criminals who are MPs now..... cmon...

MMS cabinet part 2

2009-05-16T14:21:00.003Z

So how should the cabnt look like a wild guess

MMS - PM (some other useless ministires)
Rahul Baba - Deputy PM?? ( can hold any other portfolio as well)
Pranab Dadu - Fin Min
P C ( If hs victory conroversy is not blown up) - Home Min
Sashi Tharoor - Foreign Min
Kamal Nath - Environment or commerce
Murli Deora - Petroleum
Mulayam ( Assuming he pitches hs 22 odd seats t cover the 10 needed) - Defence
La Loo shud this guy be given a ministry at all? Kick him off i say
Farooq - Some minstry
Pawar - Agri
Mamata - Suitable for Railways
Ok enough guesses on portfolios
Praful - Aviaion again to ruin the NACIL
Some guess on who else will me mins
Some 6-8 odd MPs from Andhra ( man they gave UPA and cong a big boost)
some 5-6 from UP ( cong won 20+ alone)
some 3-4 from Rajasthan
the clan - MK Azhagiri , Dayanidhi & Kanimozhi from tamland
sibbal and one more from delhi....
Soren will get another term...

then who else....

Elections

2009-05-16T05:10:00.004Z

Finally elections are over and seems congress has kind of managed to win... but theywould still be short abput 30 seats and mayawati or mulayam may have to pitch in.. coconut headed lalu is decimated... CPM demolished in WB & Kerala.. COng has sprung a surise mainly due to goos howing in Rajasthan, MP , Punjab, kind of better in UP .. In TN though they've lost AMMA hasn't lived up to her billing.. lets see in assembly 2k11 ... BJD sweeps in orissa shows Navin has carried forward the Patnaik clan to new heights.... whats wrong wth BJP, good in Guj, Kar, Bihar with JDU, its nowhere in Delhi...it still has got another 5 years to rebuild and rebound...
Lets hope this time also congress manages to run 5 years in power.......... In the end we managed to pull it off amidst security threats etc etc...

Fasting fasting

2009-04-28T23:53:00.004Z

he he the SL issue took a nice turn with the TN CM and his so called indefinite fast... well , having had breakfast, he sat on a fast and by lunch time he was back :).. no offence intended but everyones does this fast :-)fortunately for him, the Lankan government had announced something, which is definitely not a ceasefire...not sure what else we'll get to see as the poll scene unfolds further..

Back to Lankan Crisis

2009-04-25T12:46:00.005Z

Lanka this time around is creating so much flutter that its not gonna die down soon.. Many people have attempted self immolation in tam land..( emotionally charged eh) .. many saying that SL Army is committing a genocide and that they should stop the fight... well i am pained to see that no one n TAMLAND is empathising with scores of kasmiris wo have been affected by the J&K issue with such a fervour evenhough the nationalty is same... here its just the language that takes precendence.. if you they say that hey show empathy beyond boundaries, do they empathise so much for afghanis who are sufferring for decades or do they empathise with people n darfur ( many in tamland will ask "is darfur a sweet dish?").. Well hell no... these people are just creating political noise based on language and some students and hopeless people have joined in the agitation...If these guys have an iota of genuine iterest in tamil welfare that they show off, did they try anything to stop the real genocide thats happening in tamland??? I'm referring to the scores of rameshwaram fishermen shot down by lankan navy while they were verymuch fishing in Indian waters..... Did the CM who calls himelf tahimzh ina thalaivar ( Head of tamil race) ever protest against this? DId mr Vaiko who claims he will carry weapons to aid LTTE ever raise a voice against this?.. Wake up tamil men... this is a farce....i do agree that people insri lanka suffer but if we try to intervene beyond a certain limit, pakistan might do the same in kashmir citing the same reasons.. here we say language , there they'll use relegion....just realise what we have been upto...

PS: Many of my tamil acquaintences have pointed out that iam heartless toward fellow tamils and my caste is a prime reason for that... To ye all mortals... me being a so and so has nothing to do with my stand on such issues... I see myself as an Indian and first and foremost I tend to see things from an Indian perspective ... I will emptahise as much with Kashmiris , north eastern fellow citizens as i do with fellow tamils in India.. as far as e SL Crisis is concerned.. it pains e but so do the crises in Afghanistan and many other places...

IPL2 - Damp Squib

2009-04-23T16:12:00.003Z

Really with so much rain it has been a damp squib.
Also no match is interesting.. only one match betn CSK and DD has gone down the wire till the 19th over of 2nd innings...........
The only interesting aspect of IPL2 has been the fakeiplplayer blog. The author is a good writer and keeps his posts interesting.. Many may find the language and nick names obscene.. But whateverhe does say seems to have atleast some bit of truth.... My fav nick names are Appam Chu***a and vinnie d**do .... lets see what happens to this guy...
As faras my last post goes i got another first hand experience about my own rotten luck..... though i dont wish to say the incident....

naseeb

2009-03-28T03:05:00.002Z

One of my colleagues and I were discussing the effects of naseeb or fate or luck... our conclsion was neither of us had a good outing with fateand both of our naseebs were "pandu" a mumbaiyya slang for a flop show..... Though i said th, i did not realise how true it was unil i went to Mumbai last week.... The offices in mumbai were so nice and one of them was stunning.. wish i worked in such a place... the place where i work is nothing short of a garbage dumping ground :-).... anyways you will have to take these things with a pinch of salt...

IPL Out

2009-03-22T16:47:00.002Z

Finally after too many meetings and press bites, IPL is out of India....
Sensible decision by the unioin home ministry... Why to stretch our central forces, without hwom this cannot happen... the central forces will anyways have a tough time during elections with the personnel having theirleaves cancelled for a prolonged period... add to this the IPL festival, we risk at stressing them to break point levels.. IPL is an instrument whereby very few people earn hell a lotof money and we should not allow central security to be wasted even though they pay for it.. Increase the security bill 10 tims, and check whether BCCI is sill willing... in the end common sense has prevailed and whatever might be theventual reason, its better that IPL is out of the way.....

hey raam

2009-03-15T05:50:00.003Z

Well, something bizzare always happens in India so one is never short of surprises...
But the latest surprise or shock was to see Kiran Bedi endorsing a beauty cream!!!! hey raam
when the debates are on bashing beauty cream adverts and calls to ban them ... we see the iron lady endorsing one...eesh.. cmon India's first lady IPS, magasaysay award winner, a lady who demosntarted her pride by quitting when her seniority was overlooked for Delhi Commssioner's job now endorses beauty creams... that too she uses slogans that point to her flawless reputation as a police officer to sell a cream????Hey raam

Slashin Sachin

2009-03-08T15:14:00.006Z

Sachin these days seems to be playin to set some of his records straight. Last yr he made is first ever odi century in oz land, in the process enabling india to capture the last ever CB tri series ... today he has made a grand first century in NZ land... nz land especially auckland established slashin sachin as the opener, butit was at SL on vinayak chaturti 1994 that he made a century....43 now in 15 is awesome.... so sachin, the next one i expect is hangon until the next tour to enger land and score a test hundred at lords.... i wanna see ur name on that borad at lords.....

Weekend movie

2009-02-21T09:13:00.002Z

In college days, my good friend Thilak Obla had a fantasy( dream, vision, aim what ever). He wanted to watch 4 shows of different movies back to back in different theatres. I first heard this during the 7th Semester exams ( late 2002) at the canteen. At first, I thought it was madness, but later I took a liking to it and wanted to do something similar but in a multiplex so that travel hassle is reduced. I was never ready to try 4 movies in a day. Two back to back sounded okish but again 2 bollywood or kollywood movies back to back was difficult due to
a) selecting watch-worthy movies back to back and arranging tickets
b) How good the movie may be but standing 12-13 songs in 4 hours is a bit tiresome..
My first trial at two back to back movies was during 2005 on my birthday. Both were English movies, each of about 90 minutes long. Not a big deal.

After 4 years, he experiment was on again but this time an English movie of 120 minutes and a hindi on of around 150 minutes..

The english one was about a plot to kill Hitler that failed and the aftermath of it. Though it dos not sound as exciting as the movies on the holocaust, this one (Valkyrie) was a very neat one. Well planned script and narration, good acting and above all, a plot that makes one sit for 2 hours without moving. Theres not much to go gaga about, still its worth a watch.

Now on to the second one; The much hyped Delhi-6. Swades in anew bottle. The directey rakesh mehra seems to have joined a gang of other film makers who just preach. The portrayal of delhi is clichéd and some the theme for some sequeneces are no different than the ones seen in many other movies… The movie is way too long and boring.
This is one of the movies towing the neo-secular line. Some common aspecs of Indian tradition is mocked at and so called superstitions are questioned. The minority angle is also thrown in. There is nothing new or interesting in the movie. Had it been shorter, it would have been at least a good entertainer. Whatever the makers have tried to do, they have not come out clear and have failed… But many may still like the movie ..

The thamizh feeling

2009-02-20T01:50:00.005Z

Ideally, i should have posted this one in thamizh but considering the fact that it takes way too much of my time, i chose the queen's english.......
All of a sudden, the sinhala- thamizh problem in SL has come to haunt Indian thamizhs... somebody commits suicide by burning himself, some one fasts until death, some rougues aka lawyers create a ruckus and get a nice thrashing frm police and cry foul, some morons jam the roads, a CM threatens the use of force and threatens criminal proceedings to stop some rhetoric, an external affairs minister is involved .. wow thats a big list.....
Well well well.. i really dont care much about what happens in SL... It is really unfortunate that an ethnic problem has ruined many generations of peace...but shud i cry just because the victims speak the same language as i do? nay i have seen the same thing hapen in the very country i live and no one cares a damn...they just go on as normal... Afghanistan is still eing ravaged by petty war mongering does anyone care either? .. almost 40% of the world's population is in the same plight.. so lets not talk about all these... coming back to he SL question... The brits have a knack of leaving things they started in a disaray... be it India Pak partition animosity or the other issues elsewhere... Ceylon when the brtis left was a fairly peaceful land... the protestant Dons were prominent in politics be it stephen senanayake or hs cousin dudley... no issues,... enter the convert SWRD ( yep they are part of his name) Bandaranayake.... B'nayaka was a protestant but converted budhist .. he tried to drive sinhalese as a prominent language etc... which was not taken well by tamils.. he tred to moderate but was shot in cold blood... hence started the issue.. things were okish until about the late 70s and 80s when LTTE started gainig prominence and a full blwn war started....refugees went from Jaffna to India, and all over the world.. the war was on and off and LTTE became internationally noticed when they mastered the assassination of Rajiv, the Gandhifamily Scion and for sure the PM of India had he survived....Lankan Tamils from all over the world kept funding LTTE. and no one cared until about 2002, when Norway thought something should be done abt it.. btw why did norway give a hoot? bcos as norwegian s thought that the SL refugees were too much for them now... so Eric Solheim became the peace negotiator , Pirabakaran ( thats how they spell it) and Anton Flashed all over world's TV and in answerto Srinivasan Jain's (NDTV Guy) question on Rajiv's murder, they replied that it was a "TRAGIC INCIDENT" ... and ask for pardon from India.. what crap??? Luckily the NDA govt said that it will not be a party in the peace process and whatever the outcome be Pirabaharan is still a wanted crimial in India and LTTE is still a banned org until things changed.... now during the peace time, which saw an economic boom, the LTTE had no dearth of funds and built an airforce.. things changed again and in the full blown war that ensued, LTTE has lost...
suddenly after 2 decades, poiliticos in main tam land have something to shout at...
External Affairs minister as said that the tams in srilanka are a trotured gang, the gov pounds them and so do the LTTE.. hes right.. but his remark drew protests from some MPs.. cant beleive some MPs of Lok Sabha have the guts to supprt the terrorists instead of their own minister... and thats how India is... many members of the film fraternity also have jumped in for LTTE.. guys wake up... LTTE orchestrated the murder of any alternate tamil opinion against pirabakaran.. they shot padmanaha of EPLF at Chennai ... they killed kadiramar and many Tamil MPs from SL... they are using civilians as their shield from army.. still you have the naivity of supporting them.. One long tme MP vaiko has the audacity to say that he will carry arms for them... now he should be banned from politics... freedom of expression cant be taken for granted...one simple logic is , if u support LTTE as martyrs then whats wrong with some ppl in Pak supporting LeT or Jaish or what not? they can give the same reasons as you.. but do you really bother abt that...nay.. cos Kashmiris dont spk tamil do they?.. any form ofterrorism should be condemed and LTTE isno better that LeT cos LTTE's act of building up force when peace was declared is heniuos.....
All tamil students who tow the line of politicos are wating their time.. guys do something worthwhile....
Some lawyers pelted eggson Dr Swamy( a long time anti-LTTE man in India).. Dr Swamy may be a polictical misfit but he is an eminent lawyer of the supreme court and an academic par excellence. you as awyers should have respected him.. for he is one of your seniors... Nay.. we just wanna show our "tamil ness".. Acts like these are not going to help any tamil person and beware, everyone is watching your antics...
the government of India's stance of non interference n SL affairs is a very good one.. we gain credeibility as a nation fighting against terror.. Thanks Pranab and all others... True Tamils are behind your decision...

Musings again

2009-02-14T16:48:00.002Z

I am back after trying a post in tamil..

want to discuss a few points here
1) President Obama says wall st bonuses are shameful.
Vald in the current situation.. But knowing fuly well abt the crisis ur campaignspent billions of dollars.. A chunk of it wud have come from wall st.... U better cut costs at gov level before asking them to cut bonuses... also they get fired at will.. not like u guys where 4 yrs is guaranteed and even another 4 yrs is sure if u are popular enuf... ur team is no diff u have tax evaders in ur core committee.. but its just that u get a hero;s image while poor bushie is seen as a villian just like papa bush....
2) Renuka chowdhary says Pub Bharo in response to ram sena.. how ridiculous.. she wants a majority of ladies o be alcoholics just bcos some moron hit an odd gal... will she say brothel bharo if tomm some other moron hits someone in a brothel?... what a mudhead of a minister?
she is known for slapping a traffic police man who stopped her at a signal... God save us from creatures like these
3) Pak says part of 26/11 was plotted in pak and wants Kasab back..
WHAT??? thanks for telling us wht we knw.. but why kasab.. let him eat free food in mumbai for a while.
4) Media covering the beating of a 5 yr gal
You guys are hopeless ... you still say u need more freedom.. u had a surver saying u did a gud job in mumbai coverage.. shame on u... u definitely need censor...
5) Dhoni says we'll enjoy the game and keep relishing the wins until something bad happens ( a loss)
Bravo ur feet is still on the ground.. u said this after 4th ODI, we lost the 5th ...No worries.. we dont need a team like aussies who just win and once they get used do anything to win.... all we need is just win a majority of matches and cups :) or atleast fight well..
6) Commies fight in kerala openely...
Shame on u guys... even when u had a reputation for strict intra party discipline , no one voted... now u have scams and factions and wht not made public... who will vote.. u dare not do politics just for opposing BJP ...
7) Pranab mukherjee bats for rahul and someone compares him to Obama....
Height of sycphancy.. Rajiv never got a degree nt sue if Rahul has one... we all know he studies abroad and enjoyd thr... what he really did who knows.. just roamd arnd india for free and now says he'll be PM .. God Save India...
8) India Inc bats for Modi as PM
too early to say that.. agreed hes a grt administrator.. but he has to moderate a lot....
9) Unprecedented protection for valentines day
Its become worse than Dec 6.. cant say anything except for pitying the policemen as they ve got one more headache day... same wil happen for halloweens and what not..
10) Recession!!!!
when will his get over? seems its like hanuman's tail...

எண்ணங்கள்

2009-02-12T17:30:00.005Z

இன்னிக்கு ஒரு சந்தோஷமான விஷயம் நடந்தது. ஒரு வழியா மேல் படிப்பு முடிச்சாச்சு. இதுக்கு அப்புறம் என்ன பண்றது? யோசிக்க வேண்டிய நேரம். ஏதானும் புது விஷயமா படிக்கலாம். இனிமே என்ன படிச்சாலும் ஒரு ஆர்வத்துக்காக மட்டுமே படிக்கலாம். பரீட்சைல தேர்றது, தோக்கறது பத்தி பயம்,கவலை இல்லாம ஒரு குழந்தை மாதிரி படிக்கலாம். கொஞ்ச நாளைக்கு படிக்காமையே இருக்கலாம் (இல்லடா மட்டும் படிச்சு கிழ்சாச்சு!!!!). எந்த விஷயத்த தேர்ந்தெடுகறது? சட்டம் ,பத்திரிக்கை, கணக்கியல், பொருளாதாரம் இப்படி ஒரு பக்கம். நிர்வாகத்துறை முனைவர் படிப்பு ஒரு பக்கம் ... என்ன முடிவெடுக்கலாம்...?? கொஞ்ச நாள் போகட்டும்... ஆண்டவன் சொல்றதை செய்யலாம்.....

finally

2009-02-12T17:17:00.002Z

after 4 years i started it, after 6 years of me becoming a graduate, finally i have managed to get a part time MBA.. an chievement personally... its not an ivy league MBA, not one that'll give a jb with awesome perks.. but still a major confidence booster.. i have gained knowledge indeed and imhappy about it.. the area of specialzation also is complimentary to the job i do...so its time to celebrate and im off ..

women rights et all

2009-01-26T03:17:00.004Z

This is a country which is no good than many other counries in women rights.. well even the US and A has gender prejudice..so what abt us....usually Delhi has the worst history in women rihts abuse.. butother states are fast catchin up.. yesterday's Mangalore incident brings many questions.. no one tried to stop it.. and btw who was filming all this? the attackers or some curious media man.. if it was media folk i have one question.. "Are u human? is ur heart made f mud? wuld u do teh same thing and film it if ur wife or sis was being hitten?" the worst aspect is no one dared to stop the attackers.. agreed people inside the pub were caught unaware but the filiming crew cud have done more , called some folks for help and atleast cud have tried to put up a fight.. Govt is right in censoring media they deserve that.. senseless idiots.. they wud put anything on air to get cheap TRP points... F*****s!!!!!!!
The min Renuka comes up and says she'll disenfranchise any party involved.. if thats the case, we wud have no party left in the country..congress needs to be disenfranchised for 1984 Sikh riots, BJP for 2002 ,and manymore for many such incidents.. ntil and unless we have a public awaekening nothing can stop these.... and Renuka is known for slapping a policeman who stopped her at a signal.. so shes not the one to speak abt all this.....

ne ways life goes on and the cameras are ready to cover another such shame.. how many such incidents have happened in the recent past, the juhu incident, noida and now mangalore... shame on us

La république

2009-01-24T03:32:00.004Z

So finally R-day is here .. our 60th and 59th anniversary of Bharat Ganarajya aka the Republic of India... and the chief guest is Nursultan Nazarbayev from kazakhstan.. Whenever i hear this name memoirs of Borat haunt my mind.. I have written abt Borat http://kahin-duur.blogspot.com/2006/11/my-name-is-borat.html ... Borat is a fictional creation of Sacha Cohen a hammersmith born cambridge educated brit standup comedian....
comin back to nazarbayev... Not sure why he has been invited.. hes regarded one of the corrupt leaders from the erstwhile soviet era.. with no elections he's clung on to power in Kazakhstan.. Incidentally K'stan is the 9th lagestcuntry in the world and is a land locked country with rich gas deposits.. it borders Uzbekistan, the country where Tashkent is located.. In 1966 LB Shastri died mysteriously when he went for a peace meet with Ayub Khan there...
India of late has been cochi cooing with such people.. including Than Shwe of Myanmar ( Myanmar has untapped gas which China also is eyeing).. Once in some press meet Pranab Mukhejee said we need to change our stance.. im not sure whether this is a part of it..
May be in a yr or two we'll invite Muammar al Gaddafi, Kim Il jong and who not...
of all these dictator guys, the Syrian Assads are the coolest...
Remebering dictatorship, yesterday was the birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Bose who said to hitler that under any case India will not accept dicatorship... I am proud to be a bose follower...
Dr Singh is in bed and already succession talks have begun.. atleast the media has started it.. I wish that he agrees for one more term in case UPA wins... in the unlikely event of NDA winning ( i say unlikey cos anyways the commies will support congress and NDA might fall short as last time ) we anyways know who the PM will be... India wll soon again become the fiefdom of the Gandhi family with RG waiting in the wings...some website said hes the Obama of India.. the best insult to Obama which even GOP cudnt think of......
Lets ee in April what happens unil then long live the republic...Jai Hind

new yr

2009-01-21T16:44:00.003Z

i have been observing for the past 4 years that the new year ushers in a sense of defeatism, boredom and what not in me, which continues for a further 3-4 months.. It has become a pattern since 2006!!!! now i feel i wud have been better off grazing cattle somewhere and want to run away and hide myself at the first instance available......im assuming that this cycle will also have a self correction as teh previous years.. if nuthing happens in the next month or so may be i'll try and make somebody else's life miserable

corollary to my pev post

2009-01-21T16:36:00.002Z

I was mentioning about my jiju's trip and travelogue .. now he's released a blog version of the same. http://harishna.blogspot.com/2009/01/sandesh-from-east-one-day-during-first.html
He has portrayed me in a bad light (well thers nutin gud about me )...!!!

Corollary to Nivas

2009-01-11T13:42:00.004Z

This post is a corollary to the earler post http://kahin-duur.blogspot.com/2008/03/nivas.html on Nivas.. Unfortunately Nivas dint make it to any of the services last yr... he is awaiting this yrs results .. but the new yr has brought in a grt news.. Nivas has made it to the Tamil Nadu State Group A police Service and is appointed as a Deputy Superintendent of Police now... way to go .... congrats....

Travels & travails

2009-01-11T13:14:00.003Z

I dedicate my first piece of crap in the new year to travels...
I am inspired bymy athimber aka Jiju in hindi... Athi shares the same name as me but with the first and last names swapped.. Im Rajagopalan Krishnan n he is Krishnan Rajagopalan.... More than the name, i found out during my 4 months stay in Mumbai that i have a lot in common with him... he is a very practical person with common sense prevaling over him more than anger or frustration.. definitely a person to emulate ( im sure atleast Viju athimber another jiju of mine would agree to this) ..more about Krishna athi later... but this one is dedicated to his first vacation in more than 5 years... While i was in Mumbai, i had played a minor part in making the family plan for a vacation .. My sis jiju and niece had one helluva time in Gangtok , Kolkatta and Bhubneshwar.. Athi who slogs 14-15 hrs at a major bank has somehow taken off time to write a travelogue ( he says it is nt a normal traelogue) .. He is yet to release an official version so i dare not violate copyright..he calls it sandesh from the east... I have been fascinated by the east of india ever since i vistied Guwahati.. and today at 2-3 instances i felt nostalgic abt the east.. first n foremost an NDTV Docu on the Brahmaputra.. it brought the days durin which we used to travel to pan bazaar n phaltan bazaar in front of my eyes.. second my mum called me to get the terminology of magh bihu after reading a newspaper report...magh bihu is makar sankranti in ahom.. the day b4 bihu , which is called bhogi in tamland and whr we burn old ietms,in ahom land theconstruct a hut and stay all night.. in the morning of bihu they burn it.. its called bela ghor...my memoirs in a bela ghor with biblab kolita (landord's son) came rushing to me.. i will soon plan a trip to guwahati ( betel market).....and finally athi's travelogue compunded my resolution to visit the east again.. more than his travels the travails of athi n family make a great read....
I also happened to remember how dad and me just planned a trip on paper using the railway timetable ever year .. we never went on a holiday courtresy my health..
going a step further, trying to emulate jiju i had planned an elaborate two week trip from pune to bangy and chennai and srirangam ...all on first ac ( my long unfulfilled dream)... but had to cancel all and take just a week's holiday to chennai n a crampy low cost carrier....... i end up emulating a scaled up version of our childhood planning ......from planning on paper i got upgraded to planning on web :-) thru etickets................
whatever happens im planning to get one trip by my birthday so that i can also write a travelogue emulating jiju....

Acting and Overacting

2008-12-21T14:32:00.003Z

Though I want to write about a different subject here, i take a moment to congratulate the proteas for mauling the scumbag kangaroos!!!!
Ausssie thoo thoo.. and OZ supporters especially the self procalimed oz fanatics in India who like oz jus becos they win.. ARHHHHHHH THOOOO to u all.... ab aaya na oonth pahad ke neeche!!! people ask me why i keep spitting... well if in the Arab world, the highest form of insult is throwing shoes.. ( its an insult here too)... in tam land the highest form of insult is spitting.. shoes come nect to that :-)....

Ok now back to acting and over acting.. i was just comparing and wondering about the acting of a few indian greats....
startinh with raj kapoor indian films first superstar... well raj kapoor was a great story teller and a connoiseur in the technical aspects.. he was not a very verastile actor .. (Sorry Dad ).
Dilip Kumar was great as Devdas but thers a film called Gopi in which i feel that his acting is terrible... Dev saab was great in hum dono, but Jewel thief was overdone.....rajesh khanna did wonders in many muvees but his so called classic amer prem is awfully done .. the AEY PUSHPAA is irritating at times :-)... I felt shammi ji mostly overreacted expect for Prince....

Bachhan sab was great earlier on buthis later movies like kohraam in which he played dadabhai and Balbir sodhi is YUCK!!!! so is is lal badshaah .. even in the epic black in a scene where he transliterates bull shit in sign language the acting is over and above ... not to mention his role in bhothnath... yaaaawn!!!...i don wish to write abt dharam and sunny paji :)
SRK is a versatile actor but his roles in Anjaam, Ram janee and Duplicate are grotesque !!! i mean he just went cuckoo for no reason ... to top it his Dish TV ad is unbearable!!! plss dont be santhust i feel like banging his head with a hammer !!!!
Aamir is very perfect but his role in Ghulam was overdone.. especially after the success of rangila he just over did the tapori bit.. his later coke ads are also very weird....in mangal pandey only his looks were good that added to the miserabilty of the movie....
now over to tam heroes... the icon MGR was again like raj kapoor .. a technical expert, great story teller but not a very powerful actor...
The stalwart sivaji ganesan is known for overacting at times.. in Motor Sundaram pillai his role was very well executed but his roles in vietnam veedu and Gauravam were kind of comically horrible!!!!! these roles are spoofed quite often....
Rajni again was showcassed more on his styles than his acting.. he is a very good actor, if we see some of his earlier movies... but in ninaithale inikkum his role at times irritates a lot....then there was a muvee called pandian ( guess it was a disaster).. pandian is awful....
now over to the universal hero aka kamal ... he did a great job in some telugu movies and many of his movies are wonderful.... but hs roles in alavandhan, a coupel of characters in dasavatharam, his role in vikram, some aspects in varumaiyin niram sivappu, kakki sattai are all overdone...!!!
so what makes these greats overact.. if we observe closely, as one gets comfy with the type of role he.she plays, the tendancy to overact is more....some of the stalwarts who did a great job in mediocre roles too are Pran, Paresh Rawal, Om Puri, Amrish Puri, Naseeruddin shah, Nagesh, Shivakumar, ...

Siege ends

2008-11-30T05:38:00.002Z

finally what went on in mumbai ends after 60 odd hours....now its time to introspect and decide what to do next. many say its intel failure and we shud ramp up intel... what do we mean by that? Many say home minister shud quit.. if he quits will all these stop?.. someof my colleagues even suggested that we should have an aoperation similar to operation wrath of god ( the plot for steven spielberg's Munich)... most voraciously the bolywood and mumbai high society people are yelling about internal security.. do they care? i can fot sure say that about 10-15 so called eminent people that i saw on TV yelling at politicians either do not vote or evade taxes or do not just care what goes arnd them... they might not even know who the person next door is... the irony is when teh terrorists landed in a koli wada ( fishermen's colony) some ladies were asking them who they are and whr they are from, later they informed police also.... can we expect something similar from the so called eminent high society filths?... we just consider our job done if we pay pur taxes.. but its also our job to take part in the election process and question people about their policies on all major areas... now we have RTI act as well.. we should demand asnwer regarding whats the overall plan now atleast at a high level to counter terror...
But this time around the IB did inform Maha police of a possible sea attack by lashkar in sep itself.. now why there was no action remains a mystery.. and whenevr we say anything to blame Intel , its safe cos no one from intel is gonna defend themselves... its just been over a decade we have been talking about intel before that they were virtually non existant... the failure ladies and gentlemen is not in intel ineptitude... its our failure to invest in HUMINT and over reliance on SIGINT... even the same problem has dogged CIA... HUMINT is human intelligence...so why are we not able to get folks... well one reason could be the nature of work and pay.. now with pay scales revised , we should see some people getting in... another factor is selection of appropriate people.. and training...earlier intel used to have local state police personnel on deputation... it was a lucrative deputation some years ago.. but now they are not getting enough ppl... we should go back to the ways as it was in the late 1940s early 50s and correct the basics... the use of technology should be enhanced... though intel is the defacto powerful poilce in the state and can even tap the phones of anyone w/o permission etc, they need to be given a bit of free hand in terms of anti-terror laws which enable the detention and questioning of suspects w/o charge.. why did we repeal POTA w/o a decent law to replace it??? is there a proper co-ordination betn the state poilce and intel as it once used to be?it seems the internal tension is also a bit to blame.. and do we have enough people in intel first? not sure .. there must be many vacancies when do we fill them train them? one of the biggest problem in India is be it any job the number of people wanting to work hard and rise through the ranks is very less.. everyone wants to get a sort of higher degree and become a manager... bet it finance or IT or police or whatsoever...the craze for quick buck is more than ever.. then why blame them alone? INTEL work ans system admin/support in IT are analogous .. they both are thankless jobs.. u are expected to be perfect all the time.. u wont be thanked for that but if something goes wrong u will be shafted....we should change our internal mindset if we are to become stronger as a nation... simply blaming polictians is not gonna get us anywhwre.. there was some sane politicans who supported teh national security act and by the grace of which we have NSG.. God has helped us .. so letus go ahead and build a stronger nation like this.. lets go out with a positive attitude... JAI HIND!!!!!

dastardly attack

2008-11-26T20:16:00.002Z

What is going on in mumbai is an act of cowardice..... Best cops of mumbai have died and the city is under threat... Mumbai will rise back and make sure that the fuckers who are doing this get back a reply... but i cannot imagine that a few weeks ago i was in mumbai and was feeling very much at home....and i cant imagine whats hapening now.. some where there is a failure... i as a son of an ex intel officer cannot digest this ..... the media is spinning its own stories...as the police are fighting hard.. i really am not able to come to terms with the fact that many IPS officers have already laid down their lives... the very thought of this sends a chill on my spine and i am not able to sleep.. once we deal this, we should be in for tough anti terror laws and speedy punishments so that we show em that we are strong.. sea has been a threat and now its proved... the coast guard should be given more help to make sure that they patrol our waters more vigilantly... I am praying that this all comes to an end tonight very soon and we get into damage control,..... JAI HIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Back to pavilion

2008-11-22T18:40:00.001Z

Its been 2 weeks since im back in pune… purpose being to heal my ruptured maxiliaty sinus….. at each sitting my doc asks” I hope u;ll be here for 2-3 months” and daily my client manager in Mumbai asks “ Hope u are getting better” .. suddenly so many ppl are asking so many questions.. the first real tasks was to stock and setup my kitchen … next one was to get a broadband connection .. boy its still tuff to get a broadband connection and it takes 12 days ..
India are rocking and piling the wooes on KP’s Enger land… sorry to see enger land loose so badly… but the aussies are crying badly after their mauling in India.. they are not magnanimous enough to accept that India is the only team to have troubled them so much over the last 10 yrs or so.. they just crib and call names at every player be it Indian or Lankan.. aussies suck… and to all hardcore aussie supporters here in India “SHAME ON YOU BUGGERS!!” J

In my time at Mumbai, I happened to read the sea of poppies as well as half of white tiger.. I cundt read the other half because I found it very boring.. not sure how it got the booker… on the other hadn sea of poppies in gripping.. it’s a heart moving narration of opium trade and dislocation of people to mareech dweep aka Mauritius………… the amount of research gone into the book itself has to fetch it an award.. lovely.. Amitav Ghosh has set a bar…. White tiger has brilliance but some how I found it highly negative … may be im too much Indian to accept the stereotypical portrayal of India as it is done by Mr Adiga….

I caught up with two tam movies… one of them raman thedia seethai is brilliant and the other much hyped Surya starrer varanam Aayiram is a dud.. It has an over dose of father son sentiments And romance.. and is boring, peppered with painfully long songs… somehow couldn’t enjoy the movie……… the main obstacle was the overdose of English dialogues and the slang used .. considering that a part is set in 70s -80s I am not sure if any father would have called his son Kiddo ( Perfect American slang).. especially in chennai where still Queen’s English is revered…. And many others reasons made me not enjoy the movie.. though yeah i like the base theme of father son relationship J

With a lot of assemnbly elections on, daily the Malegaon probe is being highlighted, the congress has got something to cheer about… hindu terror.. but this government has utterly failed to counter any form of terror… many people feel that the congress is blowing this trumpetto win votes… may be they have a point.. with Malegaon all over the place and Indian Mujahideen almost forgotten, NDTV featured a report on confessions and convictions of Mansoor Peerbhoy all of a sudden…

Suddenly i realize that im being hit by the crunch.. with Pakistan and Iceland gping broke, Japan in recession and india facing the heat, I dunno where to go he he…
Someone advised that I will go loony soon if I don’t take a vacation and suggested Goa or Gangtok as a destination.. I wud like to go to Guwahati, Shillong Aizawl.. but let me repair my sinus first …

Musings

2008-09-07T04:04:00.004Z

so sep 6 has been a remarkable day for both the south asian neighbours india and pakistan...
india finally joins the NSG ending 34 yr of isolation... many feel its bad many feel its the biggest foreign policy ahievement since bangladesh..... well i am still confused, but i am sure that if we start getting the fuel, we can end our power shortages, take some time off and think of alternative source of power... and if it has a price tag to it so be it.... we will do nuke tests and see what they can do abt that... but for now , we need to end the power woes... sittting in mumbai, i really dont feel the pinch....but if yu go places like nagpur etc and further down in the villages you'll knw what power is... Gujarat is the only state in the country with no power shortage.. how did they do it... well we dont care its ruled by modi, america itself refuses visa for him we care only about secularism.. the communists, medha patkar , arundati roy etc will generate power for us......screw this liberal farcists.....i pray god that this deal helps us to fight our power woes in a better manner and may our industries and public benefit from this.......
I am not really thinking much about kashmir or orissa violence as its expected :-)....
During the recent bihar floods lalu announced that nitish fail kar gaya.. well F**k u lalu tum toh 15 saal tak fail hote rahe.. kuch ukhada nahi ab kya nasihath de rahe ho.... its a god sent opportunity that railways is doing well and u re reaping the credits else ur political career wud have been well over .......................
Coming back to N Deal... we will have to wait and watch what the future holds for us.....
Pakistan has got a new president....mr 10% percent will now get a lion's share in all the contracts :).. many claim that he lived in the shadow of Ms Bhutto and is a semi lunatic after his 11 yrs in jail... ah is it,, we are used to seeing lunatics governing countries... and we have seen the worst of bhutto so what can this guy do to harm pakistan or india... one must acknowledge his ability to bring himself through from a playboy zemindar kid to a dummy husband and then to a much sympathised widower to Musharaff's nemisis and now the most powerful man in all of pakistan.... what will sharif do now.. lets watch as i think he will end up in jail or go to saudi again :)... Obama says that Pakistan is using its aid against India, his mate Joey Bidden is pushing a vill to give 15 billion over a decade to pakistan..!!! Americans are for sure crazy... and they trying to say Russia is aggressive .. well if you guys can invade iraq for no reason except ur thirst for oil, Russia can show off some aggression while you are trying to set up missile shields in its backyard....Russia is still all powerful and US better shut its traps rather than start a cold war all over again ......i simply love Putin for the way he made his country stand up after the Yeltsin era debacles.... Putin could have amended the constitution and stayed on as president if he is a dictator as claimed by LIBERAL WESTERN MEDIA!!!! no he has other plans.. he chose to play a second fiddle to his one time protege.....In india almost 50 yrs ago, Rajaji becme a CM of Madras state after his stint as Guv General of India (president)... and how do you describe that ?? a hunger for power or a duty towards his party and state? why cant we see Putin is trying to get back the glory for Russia and he is flexing its muscles only when needed and not needlessly like US.....

This olympics has been a great one for the UK as well, for the first time in years they beat Aussies in the medal count and have their wn best count in the 1008 yr history.. wow way to go before you get the olympics to London.....I would definitely be thr in 2k12 to cheer you guys and see the newham stadium....!!!

disappeared

2008-09-06T04:15:00.002Z

so here we are after a long gap again... why wass the gap... well life had a very interesting turn and i had to come to Mumbai leaving all my luxurious setup in pune alone... the first 3 weeks were gerat with me living in a serviced apartment in the 19th floor overlooking the worli seaface... beleive me i never crossed 12th flr before :) 19 was too much for me.....

then the trials and tribulations of local trains... man for this sole reason i rejected mumbai 5 yrs ago as a place of posting but as fate would have it i am getting pounded in the same trains daily that too in the ever crowded western line betn andheri n lower parel.... even had to pass through the epak time dadar crowd .. boy what an experience... you need not move, the crowd flow will take you like a river carries a log ...............
have been literally cut off from the net and friends and cousins are happy i guess without me around... but i ve literally had enough of this shifting and want to just tsay on in one place for atleast the next one yr....
Mumbai has let me shed of my increasing lethargy that pune has bequeathed me... i am feeling light after shedding extra 2 kilos and fighting to geta seat in a first class compartment is more funny than any other game.... i love mumbai just because they treat a sandwich with so reverence... its not just a snack as it is in other cities or its not just food as in the western countries... a sandwich is much holier that that.. it varies accoring to your need of a bite or a meal.... needless to say about wada pavs and pav bhajis......life is beautiful as the palate is satisfied with such divine preparations... i have been shuttling to pune so have not got time to roam abut.. on the other hand dad n mum are roaming freely.. to srirangam, kumbakonam, ahobilam where not.... one of ma cusins has just had a kid and the other is in the family way...
Srihari ( ma bros kid) has just celebrated his 1st anniversary on earth with a lot of gifts and is expecting one from chitappa.....

all this happened and i am still unable to fathom how 2 months flied and when will i get back to ma bastion.....

relegion spirituality et al

2008-06-29T12:17:00.003Z

"Spiritual but not religious means not subscribing to something just because its professed in a religionor not stopping with a religion to explore the divine connection,to seek out the ideals of spirituality outside the limits of my religion.To be non - religious means to do something or to refrain from somethingnot because God will be angry with me for doing so.It is to choose to do somehting,because i like to do it.It is not to pray for favours but to identify a relationship with a supreme beinghigher than a master slave relationship.It is to question about God,analyse and to have the right to accept or reject.To do things that will be regarded as blasphemy by religion just because they dont conform to set practices.To interact with God outside religionTo engage with humanity and to love and care for humans outside religionand its guidelnes and rules.It is the freedom to choose.To take the responsibility to imbibe discipline to oneself and to strive to become a better human being within our limitations ,rather than dependng on a holy book for that."

This is a blog by a friend aand fellow netizen CVR
http://simplycvr.blogspot.com/2008/06/spiritual-but-not-religious.html
I know CVR for the past year and a half .... Like most friends these days we have me only in net and not in person.... CVR is a very serious person as far as penning his thoughts are concenrned.... His tamil blog is even better
http://cvrintamil.blogspot.com/
so do i agree with what CVR has said?

Yes and no

Yes cos spirituality is needed... and he has captured it fairly...

No.. Cos his post leads me to beleive that being relegious is out of fear....
no i dont buy that .. you can choose to follow a relegion or a set of ideals for yourself and yet appreciate those who follow something different...
how is that possible? by understanding a relegion thoroughly you can align yourself to a path ..
My granny (mum's mother) is a strict vaishnavaite... but she appreciates teh dediation andprinciples of all sects and even islam ... her hubby, my grand pa, was non relegious as long as he was in the service .. but after retirement he went deep into relegion and is now nearly a fundamentalist...(he he) .. same is teh case with some others...
But patti has set examples which is difficlt to follow.. how did she acheieve this... well she reads a lot .. her reading habit has made sure that she read teh original manuscripts and understtod her relegion.. the thing she wants for herself... same habit has ensured that she appreciates all...

So whats the conclusion.. naah im not making any this time....

Flawed masterpiece

2008-06-14T13:45:00.001Z

Kamalhassan has come out with is latest mega venture dasavatharam
Apart from the facts that he does 10 roles and the controversy regarding govindaraja perumal and kulothunga chola, the film has nothing worthwhile…..

Comin to the story of Govindaraja perumal.

Lord Govindaraja (incarnation of lord vishnu) had his abode in chidambaram , also a vey famos shaivate centre. It is said that the King Kulothunga chola , a shaivate fanatic threw the lord in sea and the lord was somehow retrieved and ket at tirupati…

Many also say that to stop the shaivate vaishnavaite feud, the king established a township called raja mannargudi and built sri rajagopala swamy temle and asked all vaishanvaites to make it their centre and stop feuding at Chidambaram… The rajagopala swamy temple has inscriptions that speak of kulothunga’s contributions.

SO it is really hard to believe that such a king would have thrown the lord into sea.. it appears to be an exaggeration of facts by some aggrieved vaishnavites.. Kamal has managed to dramatize it with his own imagination.. the filming is excellent but his imagination seems naïve.. one really cant stomach the fatc that a priest wud have managed to fend of 10-1 men ofkings army single handedly . simply made a mock of history my including commercial aspects of heroism

Another fact to mention is Kamal has seen controversy a lot in hey ram and virumaandi… but this time he has attracted mneedless controversy as the historic ection of the film has no relevance to the plot . the relevance explained in the movie has no base…

The movie tries to address issues like biological warfare, illegal sand quarrying and castetism all in one go. Thus has cme up with a hotch potch of disconnected sequences.
The film is like a collage and does not keep the audience at the edge of he seats…

Movies like Hey Ram and Abe Sivam had a very strong storyline that strengthened Kamal’s efforts. But in daavatharam , though Kamal’s effort is brilliant the story makes it look ordinary…

Adding to the boredom is Kamal’s rhetoric of atheism and stereo typing brahminsim
His repeated tirades at the community gives the impression that he is feeling guilty about his origins….. And it also makes one assume that he is taking hindusim for granted ..
It is hard to imagine if he has the guts to showcase islam in such a manner J

Ah ah im just imagining here not criticizing him… My point is creative liberty should not be taken for granted and once should not cross hisher limits in the name of liberty
What on eath is mallika doin in this movie? And what abt jayaprada or that role of the sadar singer…
In the end it just seems that with the help of prosthetics and his acting abilities kamalhas triedto over come the thespian late VC Ganesan’s (Sivaji) marvelous attempt in Navarathri. Personally feeling Kamal has tried more versatile things than the late actor but in this attempt he has no done enough… Navratri scores over dasavatharam …
The vigour which Kamal wants to thrust his atheist views makes him no better than a fundamentalist doing his propaganda
Mr Kamal you have every freedom to chosse your belief but the way in which you thrust it and try to prove the people who think other wise as fools is not the way…

Underdogs!!

2008-04-27T18:16:00.001Z

We all like supporting the winning team…. Do we really cheer for the losers or for that matter the underdogs? We do cheer for home country albeit its an underdog.. Viz. every Indian would cheer for India (except of course some morons who think they are aussie citizens and cheer for em no matter what). So most of us in India or for that matter any country that usually does not do that well in sports are used to bashing losers and cheering only winners… Take the case of EPL as an example, I have seen scores of my friends and acquaintances following EPL like crazy and cheering for clubs as if they were their home clubs.. Millions in India cheer for Arsenal or Chelsea or ManU or Liverpool…Rarely do I see a person cheering for a reading or tottenham hotspur or Bolton or West Ham for that matter… Reading and west ham are two teams that almost were relegated last year. During my stay in London, I lived closer to Boleyn, the home of West Ham united. Every Sunday when there was a home match scored f West Ham fans rush to cheer for their team with team jerseys and mufflers .. A guy won 2 million pounds in a lotto and shared some 70 K pounds with the club to build some infra at the Boleyn ground (Wow)….my client manager religiously cheered for Manchester city (another underdog) and used to say that I know they’ll ose against big names as they don’t have much money like a Chelsea or arsenal etc bt still I cheer for em… Now this sort of loyalty is amazing. With our own IPL in cricky starting, at first I felt that the Jaipur team is the underdog, I followed their games and found that they are doing pretty well, but alas sachin’s Mumbai is getting bludgeoned.. even Hyd has just won one match….and Bangalore is not doing too well either… especially they have a reputation of having a test team for T20 outings… so I have decided to cheer all the underdogs , especially Mumbai as they have not yet won a single match…. Now that makes me a follower of 7 out of the 8 teams… the only team I don’t like is the Punjab 11 as I am not a great fan of either yuvi , sangakkara or sreesanth … for that mater even Preity zinta is not gud enuf to cheer for…and as a kid o the road said today win or lose cheer for Sachin !!! Whoever wins IPL lets start cheering underdogs and adjust to our team getting defeated.. this will ensure that we will not seethe in anger the next time India gets knocked out from any big tournament in any sport…. After all Winning isn’t everything…

cop muvees

2008-04-13T17:27:00.003Z

indian cop muvees were never close to reality barring a few attempts by actors like kamal hassan etc....
but off late a lot of cop muvees have come up with the story line ver realistic and the generes vaying from social to thrller....

the baap of all cop muvees is gangajal.... boy prakash jha shud definitely be admired for givng such a great muvee with minimal masala.. 2-3 hours of gripping story and powerful performances... this muvee is easily a family favourite for us.. dad simple loves it and we have watched it together some 5 times.....
theres one more muvee that i watched called seher.. another lovely muvee on how lucknow police took to mobile technology.. power packd performances from pankaj gupta and sarkeshwar aka arshad warsi.....then comes muvees like lokhadnwala .. a bit o masala buttill worth a watch..
kurudhippunal by kamalhassan can easily stand out as one of the best in class but many say its inspried from a govind nihalani muvee..
kakka kakka was excellent but again i felt it had some masala elements to it.. same s the case with vettayadu vilayaadhu...
recently i came across a muvee in tamil called anjadhe.. its a hard hitting muvee about cops.. so real and kind of dark.. two of the leads naren and prasanna have put on a very decent show... with such actors around thers a lot more tamil cinema will offer...
thers this unkonown chinese muve that i saw 2 days ago.. its abt a lady cop who joins a secret survelience unt and how she comes of age.. well the plot was so gripping that i cursed the TV guys when ads came up... it was an enjoyable time for 90 minutes... a muvee on a lady cop that too minus he hollywood action is something really great...
so what makes a gud cop muvee.. some nice plot... gud sequencing.. a bit of reality with creativity..
many a times songs are detrimental to such mmuvees but if the plot can overcome that disadvantage its okay.. anjaadhe has 3-4 songs but the pace overcomes em better than kakka kakka or vettaydu vilayaadu ( mind u songs of kakka and vettayadu are chart busters).. gangajal had only one song and it gelled pefectly.. seher has a couple i guess but kuruthippunal has none... there have been only handful f indian muvees without songs ... as music is one of he keys to a muvve's success here,,,,,thinkng of other genuine cop muvees, shool comes into my mind but its just too dark..
i wud still love to explore this area and see what else do we have...........

oh darling yeh hai india

2008-04-04T02:39:00.002Z

at last some politican gets sense and tries to build a reservoir somewhere to end water woes, but this has snowballed into a bigger controversy between two states... as usual the main matter has been forgotten and people have gone for an all out war against two languages.... its easy to understand the kannada predicament now because, assembly elections are due anytime and ever one aspiring to enter vidhana soudha needs to be seen and heard in the print or e-media...
But i cant really understand tamil muvee stars.. they jst cant stop behaving like clowns ... they have started a hunger strike again .. oo ooo what do they plan to achieve? nothing many of tem just want to be seen in public some more what to kck start a career in politics and some just want to pass time... india just had enough from the maharashtra fiasco.... mr MK was speking a lot on that but he keeps mum now... my side of the story is whetver they do in bangalore should not be repeated n chennai... especially film stars need to be ept out of this.. those clowns did a lot of drama at the NLC some 5-6 years ago over cauvery issue, they should be stopped right on their tracks.... Regarding the water project, MK and his ally congress should have the balls to sort it out at the earliest... better wait for a month more and sort things once theres an electd govt in karnaaka in power....

i think winston churchill's prediction will come true if we keep figting along linguistic lines for long....Nuke superpower, IT powerhouse, asiangiant inline wih china etc etc will become pipe dreams if we let this continue....
But from the heart are we truly federal or just parochial....

we are not federal from deep inside our hearts... one best example can be the way people behave when they move outta hometown...
the best scenes were obsered by me some 5 years ago when we were getting posted after training...
the mere fact that we ha no chennai vacancy for a bunch o 200 tams was shattering...people said yes to hyderabad, bangalore and a strict nono to mumbai delhi or whatever.... one is obviously expected to go back to hs hometown... many a times i have been askd in professional circles as to when i plan to move back to chennai.. wen i say no not now it sends a message that i hate to be back there... well the fact is i am location agnostic wherevr be in india... i dunno who understands thsi but definitely my dad understands... thas why when he saw a news saying my company might start shop in north east... he was like cribbing to hs friends that oh no my eccentric son wudlove to travel thr..i cnt go thr at this old age.. (he travelled all over india in his youth)....
so what is the best way to improve federalism.. like the policy of central gvt make most of the gus to roam the country.. this way you will end up exploring your own country....

the fact here is most of us( especially s/w guys) are okay to g anywhere if it is OVERSEAS.. if given dollars we will happily spend lives even in hell holes.. ( china ?) but will definitely shy away from moving our home state or preferred location..
one of my colleagues said that hes the only child and has to be near his parents and went great lenghts to produce fake M/C to refuse an opportunity in delhi.. he came back to chennai and had been in europe for 3 long years... wnder how europe is nearer to chennai than delhi?..if the so called erudite s/w profs behave like this, how do u expect politicians and grassroot party workers, and the not so sophisticated people to get a federaistic mindset??

is india a federal union or just a loose confederation of states??
the founding fathers of the constitution were wise enugh to say that the only citizenship is the citizenship of the nation... but there are a great many who openly say that being a ta,kanndaiga, andrite, or mallu rather than an indian.... even most of those who say that i am an indian see it as mere words and tend to be parochial at heart... i truly ask myself now... AM I AN INDIAN? WHAT IS INDIA?

Nivas

2008-03-25T03:25:00.005Z

It is said that when the english left India, they left behind two of the best gift to their former colony. The great Indian railways and the Indian Civil services. It is still a surprise that free india has added only 10-15% more to the area covered by railways since the British raj... the founding fathers of the constitution were wise enough to create a seperate entity called UPSC to look after the second gift of indian civil services. ICS is now IAS,IPS,IRS,IAAS, IFS blah blah ...what not... The point is most of us dot know about most of the services except of course IAS, IPS and IFS(Foreign service)... long long ago i had nursed an ambition to get into the civil services if my first ambition of being a doc (dont ask me why i became a s/w guy..i have o answers)... SO i was very much interested in becoming an IAAS person. Partly bcos i liked accounts and auditing and partly because until 3 years ago i wud not have been fulfilling the physical requirements for IAS and IFS.. IPS is still outta quesion for me ... though i wud have loved to be an IPS officer and thereby going to the central police forces.....with all these in the back burner, i chose he best wayto get money and ever thought of what to do next.. have been sort of aimless... in the meantime, i met my old classmate nivas.. he had quit his job to prepare for the xams .. this guy had put in a lot of effort to qualify for the prestigious services....
Nivas is a live wire... when i first met him in 1994, i did have initial apprehensions about him... then, 14 yrs ago, i had been just back from Guwahati and kanchipuram is definitely not the sort of place that would make u feel at home .... as usual i was shifting a school after three years... and unlike many KV brethren, i never had comfort with the syllabus as i had studied in a multitude of em.... The matriculation board syllabus was a bit ming boggling after the stint in assam, to top it there was always some pressure to get into the top ten list n the class, and each class had its own star who was pretty much a veteran in school... Initially , i didnt know much about this guy as he kept a low profile... and may be because i was an introvert, i dint speak to him.. i usually clung around a bunch of guys who were new like me... but after a few days, i happened to sit with hm.. then we became regular first benchers..... this guy used to taunt and tease everyone under the sun... he didnt even spare his cousin vijay who was our classmate too.. vijay was very a calm boy back then.. dunno how he is these days..... ok back to our hero...
Our hero was born just aweek after me.. 20th Feb 1982... we shared a good rapport but used to fight a lot... fighting was restricted to war of words only... i am never capable of a hand to hand fight and nivas too was frail back then...
Nivas had avery good handwrting and was very good at oration... not that he is not now :-)
he always puts in a huge anount of effort in anything he does... he stood fist in about 100 guys in the matric examintaion where the odds o him finishing first were not very great... thats cos there were many mammas boys in the school...
My mother was impressed with his docile nature once when he came to visit me when i was ill.. but that was just acting u see...

After 10th we had been pals thru mails (not email it was the written snail mail)... but suddenly that link too broke.... then there was no contact for a gud 6-7 years then suddenly i bumped into Vijay through orkut... he first question i ask vijay is wheres nivas... (Vijay must have cursed me under his breath as i didnt enquire too much about him...) I got hold of hs cell number and called him from london... Usually i never spent more than 5-10 minutes in calls while iwas in lndon and mostly i called only my parents.. my roomie harsha used to say that i make effective use of telecom resources... even harsha was taken aback when he saw that i was oncall for an hour with this guy....

Nivas had cleared prelims of civil servces with ease and was coolng his heels at home after the mains exams when i met him last.. boy he had put in a lot of weight and had a small bade babulike ponch.... why not hes gonna be running our country as he has made it to the PI round with 1800 odd other people... the goi communiqué says hat there are over 70 vacancies to be filled in with over 110 in IAS alone... so our man here might land anywhere into the babudom......

My dad calld me and said find out abt ur friend.. i nver saw him so excited for someone els's results.....

From the horse's mouth, the plan is to serve the country as a bureaucrat( this happens to be a word in good terms but spoilt these days ) for 10-15 years.. then apply for a VRS and start serving he nation through politics... way to go man..
I might join his party or be his campaign manager :P .....
Anyways all the best to this guy who can arguably be the best civil servant not because he is my friend but because he is a good hardworking intelligent person....
WAY TO GO NIVAS!!!!!

oz screwed

2008-03-04T18:02:00.001Z

The Indians have dunnit.. oz is screwed :-).. yeow yeow...

Chakde India!!!

2008-03-02T15:24:00.004Z

Ever since this movie came out in aug 2007 , India suddenly has stared doing well in sorts. In hockey they won the asia cup the win was no big deal but the manner was great.. they defeated one team 16- and some other team 21-1 the indians just kept pumping goals and none of them was an own goal he he.... cricket is sort of revived after a dull and deay 2-3 years capped by 1st round exit in world cup and some words by chappel acusing the indians justto save is arse, the coachelss team ( not ronen sen's head less chickens) did well in enger land, stun everyone by winning T20 world cup... but the performance in australia was the best.. after a dismal start at MCG, the first innings at SCG was promising.. but steve bcknor, and the obnoxiuos ferkin oz sumbitches played foul... no worries they were beaten black and blue and perth and couldt do india any harm at Adelaide... though they won T20 easily they were given a run for their money in all 4 league matches.. inspite of that matt hayden had the balls to say that india are afraid of losing.. mr matt ferkin hayden.. we are accustomed to losing.. but u sumbitches have just started losing and india beat u squarely in 2001, we came close to winning a series in 2k3 but thanks to parthiv patels missed cached steven shit waugh was able to retire gracefully, but ricky scum poniting.... we will not leave u... its a great achivemengt to go one up in he final... thanks a ton to my man sachin who has been at he receiving end .. you know sachin always rocks... befittingly harbhajan got the two pieces of shit matt and andy... well done bhajji.......

moving on to the feat of India colts... the inida u -19 won wc in 2000, smifinals in 2002,2004 and runners up in 2k6... they started 2k8 in style winning every match convincingly and having the opposition onthe mat ... but during their batting SA had them on the mat .. they stuck well and when rain stopped play they had 3 wickets in their kitty.............SA rocks in bowling and fielding but India matched them ball by ball in bowling and had stronger nerves to clinch the cup... well done lads... u get a handsome deal in IPL now......

Comin back to CB series well australia ke muh pe tho tho phir se.... even if india lose from here no worries India is the bst and as i previusly predicted oz will lose to every one and even scots and other minnows will royally ferk em... amen....

hiatus over

2008-02-10T13:42:00.000Z

so its been 2 months since i bloged last..... for 1.5 months i was away to home (chennai).. well it was a vacation cum official trip... had a full blat with firnds one day.. then went on a plgrimage spree with parents... work was okay... while i was away pne froze and India had some bad experience in aussie... but managed o beat them squarely in perth.. and just tdy they bat em black n blue at the MCG.. with that India have won in all major venues in the last 4-5 years... wonderful... but things out here seem tough.. after he recent statements by Raj thackeray i plan to learn to speak marathi... if the situation demands , i might convert to the marathi statehood ;) n call me a marathi manoos rather than a tam.....actually a great debate is ongong regarding the spread of paochialness of Indian n Indians today... i can be a proud person today as we tams started it all.. be it the founding od separatist DMK ( first regional party in India) in 1949.. be it the anti hindi agitations of 1965... we led the pack,,, but as Karuna says, we never said anyone shud leave our land he he.......life is pretty boring these days ..future looks uncertain....o not feelin like writin anymore...

books and sports and what not

2007-12-08T08:06:00.000Z

just finished reading John Grisham's Playing for Pizza, his second book on american football, after The Bleachers, and third non legal fiction. The other non legal book being Skiiping Christmas, whoch I thoroughy enjoyed a couple of years back and tried to emulate this yr by skipping diwali..

Thats a different story and deserves special attentiion, but , for now, back to Pizza.

Its about a pro footballer who has a disastrous run in the NFL of US and A and is ditched by all teams. Finally he lansin a team in Italy. The italians do have their own football americano league and thier players are amateurs with gud day jobs.... they play for the game and for pizzas :-) says the author...the book describes the culture change and the effects on the failed pro and his quest for glory....

The book is a very slow read and it is not as compelling a read as the da vinci or some other thrillers.. but if you enjoy reading, there is never a dull moment andyou wud not put this down.. a very gud weekend read.. I had a similar experience with the bleachers.. i took a month or so to complete some 20 odd pages and then completed the book in a day flat over a weekend...

I dunno a damned thing abt NFL for that matter except Cricket, lawn tennis and some nitty gritties of field hockey, ( OUR NATIONAL GAME ,..eh) i dunno a thing about any other game....

I enjoyed reading about golf wriiten by Sir Pelham Greenvile Woodhouse and enjoyed a muvee on golf called The ratest game ever played based on harry Vardon ( the bradman of golf) Vs Francis Ouimet in 1913.

Similary Herr. Grisham has put together a very intersting story, with 45% football 30% Parma( people know rome, vatican and venice but neglect the other small cities of italy) and 25% human relationships and etc etc .... I enjoyed reading abot wines especiall ater i became a wine drinker last yr....( never mind i just had only a glass or two .. and i am still a dumb ass on wine lingo)..

I dont generally read books just because i have bought them.. ( i mostly buy my books).. the last time i did have a compulsory read was a couple of yrs ago and the subject was the much hyped five point someone (CRAP) .. its the worst book ive read till date though many might debate on that just bcos the author is so and so and the books is humorous (crap what humour? ) any ways i am not interested in bashing that up....

there are a few books that i wud for sure like take into my grave .. books by RK Narayan( they describe my culture ), the two novels ny khaled hosseini, some books by grisham and most byDalrymple.. wow white mughals whata book it took me 2 yrs to complete it but i loved it and the last mughal of which i have completed 40% is enchanting too....there are many boks that i had biught along timeago and yet to read :-) hope i get to read most of em in the coming year....

india began the thrid test quite lackadaisically and are progressing slowly....
the day isjust dull and dreary..
just waiting for y vacation which starts dunno when :-)

started again

2007-12-04T19:04:00.000Z

Its been rougly 8 months since my last post....

in the mean time, Indiabecame T20 champs, thrashd pakis in one day series and are leading the test series 1-0 with one rubber to go...........
Bs Yediyurappa has a vajpayeeistic tenure of a week after Deve Gowda played the memorable drama of indian politics ........ Narendra modi is awaiting to go home.........
Manmohan singh lost face in Russsia and the commies are getting bashed for nandigram..
Nukedeal is still pending.. medicos protesting aginst 1 yr rural service, whch wold delay their rural assignents n UK US or Oz........( medicos areworried that they might start minting moneya touch too late).........

Personally, two more of my cousns got married, my bro had a baby boy and i got a newTV.......
above all i wil be moving to a new team soon.. thats the most expected thing in my official life.., which otherwise sucks..............
Few friends got engaged few got married and a cuple broke up with their beaus.. ( so nice they are free agian )..but nothing remotely like that happenes to me... ( neither hapy abt it nor sad)....

yeah the most improtant event was me being felicitated for completeing 3 years in company after i nearly completed four... thats how their calendar works...

after a long time i had a peaceful aavani avittam ( a relegious function)... dint celebrate diwali......
and looking forwardto sankaranti...........

wot else.. nutin else.. just wanted to scribble something before new year....

hmmmm

2007-04-30T17:46:00.000Z

know what its been 14 days since i came back to pune... still i havent found time to settle down in my new place.... I cleary remember how i left last time... had it been not for my parents i wud have had a tuf time as i was working 13 -14 hrs a day b4 i left.. things hav nt chngd much on return... thats cos te two week unscheduled break causd due to chicken pox... what to do.. I am not able to spend more than 20-30 mins online .. that too once in two days....anyways hope things will fall in place quite soon ......

Back Home .. Yeow

2007-04-15T00:49:00.000Z

Atlast I am bck blogging.... Its been almost a month since i left enger land ..... last 1 month has been quite a nightmare...... I was supposed to leave london on 17th March at 08:45 GMT.. luckily for me the flight was delayed by 12 hours due to adverse weather conditions in new york and it left at 20:45 GMT from Heathrow.... Landed in mumbai on the 18th at 09:40 IST (was supposed to be in chennai at 03:45 IST on th e 18th as per plans).......

After a lot of confusion, Air India managed to put us on a Jet airways flight to chennai which was supposed to leave at 14:20 IST(Ferk... hell a lot of time in mumbai )....

Reached Chennai by 16:50 IST.... Dad was there at the airport and reached home by 17:20 IST... Atlast managed to give teh gift to mum exactly on mothers day.... had a nice dinner at 19:00 (kya karen paapi pet ka sawaal hai ) and slept of by 20:30 ...... there begun my problem... i got up at 01:30 and was not able to sleep .... worst we dont have set top bix and i had only 30 channels to choose from... finally managed to get a decent muvee.. azhagiya theeye in Jaya TV... watched it till 05:00.....

The next week was busy meeting people, doing lot of paper work to clear cargo and some personal work...

The second week was blissful with loads of rest,... alas on 29th had high fever.. teh docs just kept giving dofferent medicines... l;ater on on sunday at the airport (yep had started to pune ) it was found that i got chicken pox....... from thursday to the next wednesday i had fever ranging 102-105 deg farenheit for almost 10 hrs a day...... finally got better on 7th apr...........have been completely resting till now..

will be back with a bang with a sort of daly journal on my activities in chennai soon if time permits..........

Oz ferked again

2007-02-21T06:57:00.000Z

well i wanted to write this some 2 weeks before when Enger land blasted ferkin oz in the commonwealth bank series.. but somehow i missed it.. but gud that i waited....
Oz has been again ferked by the dark horse kiwis that too in a royal manner.. 2 scores of 300 and above ferkin oz cundt defend one of them ... two of teh defeats will be remebered forever.....
teh 10 wikcet defeat( what the ferk.. no body loses by 10 wkts these days.. not even kenya or bangladesh.. they fight .. but OZ crap...........) and the last defeatthey had 346 on teh borad.. kiwis were 41-4 on the 9th over.. now comon from here on u expect em to win.. not even India( who have the flamboyance to snatch defeat from jaws of victory) wud have lost it.. but ferkin oz loose... oz ke muh pe thoo thoo ( i spit on their face)................

Gud that they have received such a rolyal bashing b4 teh world cup.. lets pray that the socts and teh dutch ferk teh OZ royally in th world cup... AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hmmm

2007-02-17T20:23:00.000Z

well its been a decent gap since my last post.. yeah from then on things went from bad to worse and i was feeling really really down.. birthday passed by without much excitement though one of my good friends made it a memorable day for me... followed by my wonderful roomies......

After that i did something, which i dont think i shud have done.. may be i was not worth that.. but whatever i made that move and feel a bit releived but tense :-) lets see i hope something gud comes out in the end and nothing untoward happens :-)

Then came dad's bday.. that was grt i guess. he was rather pleased woth my mega 12 page letter and teh card.. he was also happy abt the card n boquet that his boss had sent (Card courtesy teh one n only Rajagopalan ... yup had mailed teh card to dad's boss in advance,... teh sweet guy sent a nice bpquet along.. shud send him a big thank u card n some chockies )...
Best part is all my cusins had caled him.. thank u bros n sis...... u made his day... he was so ahhpy abt the calls.. but dear all i beat u all to it :-)...................

Finally yesterday sw this crappy ekalavya.. sucks simply... then got the news that my replacement is comin soon and i might get to leave soon :-).... one relief

Then checkd out HOT FUZZ a brit comedy muvee.. really cool...

At the end yeah teh confusion is still thr boredom hmm yeah thr.. added to it is the tension caused by myself.. but yeah feeling a bit better

arbit

2007-02-07T06:48:00.000Z

I was wondering what should I post. Last week I was busy @ work and was busy writing a mega 12 page letter to my father on his 6oth bday... well It was less painful to write after I had had enough practice recently thanks to the British Computer Society.

I feel very down these days dunno why sometimes eveything seems worthless.Dunno what do I need? a new job naah that will be teh same crap as this one..
I never had complaints on job or money .. i feel what i got on these two fronts is okay though many others wud have comments on it...

Then do i feel lonely.... well may be but i sometimes i like being alone really....................

I dunno may be the stress that I have undergone over the past few months is draining me out slowly.

I dont know a way to get out of it.. may be a vacation cud be useful but i dont think that wud help much.........

whatever let me keep feeling shitty and disinetersted until the boredom corrects itself...............

Objects of Desire & Sin

2007-01-28T07:26:00.000Z

This weekend i was a bot relaxed and happened to see a new muvee Blood Diamond..

Blood diamonds is about diamonds from conflict zones finding their way into the normal market and the fund inturn used to fuel civil wars n atrocities...............

Well how sad it is.........the muvee is picturised in 1999 Sierra Leone where there country is torn apart by a decade long civil war betn the the elected govt and the RUF founded by Foday Sankoh... The RUF was formed as result of brainwashing sessions held in Libiya by Col. Muammar Al Gadafi who tired to inculcat Pan Africanism very much like Gamel Abdel Nasser lead Pan Arabism.. but cant really equate the two.. Nasser was a pillar in NAM i guess...

So Gaddafi conducts a training session .. some crappy felons attend it, one of them Charles taylor bccomes a president of Liberia and he helps RUF with arms.. they start a civil war, control some diamond mines, use local popuation as forced labour to mine diamonds.

These diamonds are bought by smugglers n mercaneries..(much of whom included the ex South African apartheid army which fought in Angola civil war with rebels and after 1994 was disbanded after south africa closed apartheid. A chunk of that army became private armed forces, smuggling diamonds, supplying arms to all rebels n happily minting money.. the irony is sometimes these private army help the governments as well:-)

The mercanerires then smuggle the diamonds to liberia where they are certified as mined in liberia n exported from liberia.. thus it fothey find the way into the market...

Back in africa child soldeirs are used to kil people, they are drugged, indoctrinated and made to do all crappy stuff...........much like LTTE i guess.......

And ladies n gentlemen much like oil, the largest market for diamonds is none other than big bro america.......... ferkin hell.... the belgians french n UK sumbitches started ravaging africa for ivory n gold which still continues.... and De Beers is a clear player in all this. Its 2000 Millennium Star diamond of 200 carat (next biggest to Koh -i Noor) was a BLOOD DIAMOND mined in Zarie aka Congo aka Democratic republic of Congo-Khinshasa.. De Beer say that the muvee shud have a disclaimer that it was in teh past as it cud potentially damage their diamond market.

The muvee says how teh diamonds are locked up in vaults just to increase teh demand n price...

Man they are just worthless stones.. I remember clearly my maternal grand mum and paternal grandmum told me stories abt diamond.. Well India had all ferkin riches it had diamonds n oil n everything ..........a world within itself.....

They told me how certain diamonds had dosha or a defect and how they had a potential to destroy a family .. I thought it was bull crap.. but i see how these stones have damaged millions of lives across a continent... Well i beleive now that most of the things that elders have passed on is true..its just that we lost them and had an ambiguity before we were enslaved 200 yrs ago and lost faith in all our tradition............

So ladies n gentlemen as buddha said desire is teh cause of all miseries...

Dont shell too much money on diamonds and make sure that they are Kimberley process certified which came in to being after 2000... and know what even Indian army was part of a UN peace mission n sierra leone....it is all TRUE n not just a muvee...

The second hard hitting muvee after Syriana.....

The message is the wealth that nature gave to people is AFFECTING the normal life of those native people.. only a small number of them benefit from it whereas as the so called first n second world exploit them....

2007-01-25T20:17:00.000Z

tagged by Heidi Kris (Sri)

1. Were you named after anyone?Mannargudi rajagopala Swami an incarnation of lord Vishnu 2. Do you wish on stars?Nopes

3. When did you last cry?2 months b4 when I had a tiff with mum.4. Do you like your handwriting?No
5. What is your favourite meat?Vegetarian
6. What is your most embarrassing CD on your shelf?Embarassing for me or others?7. If you were another person, would YOU be friends with you?Yes I am the best
8.Are you a daredevil?No. 9. How do you release anger?use the hcoiceset of slang and abuse10. Where is your second home?I don’t have a proper first home11. Do you trust others easily?To an extent12. What was your favourite toy as a child?I dint like toys btw13. What class in school/college do you think is totally useless?Drawing
14. Do you use sarcasm a lot?When needed yes15. Have you ever been in a mosh pit?Nopes16.What do you look for in a guy?I am not a batty boy17. Would you bungee jump?Crap.18. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?Yes19.what's your favourite ice cream?Plain Vanilla20. What are your favourite colours?Blue Go India Go21. What are your least favourite things?Sycophancy22. How many people do you have a crush on right now?
1
23. Who do you miss most right now?Dad n Mum24. What are you listening to right now?
Nothin25. If you were a crayon, what colour would you be?Blue26. What is the weather like right now?Cold27. Last person you talked to on the phone?
Mum28. The "first" thing you notice about the opposite sex?Sorry Cant say.29. Do you like the person who sent you this?Yes defly 30. How are you today?Not bad not gud31. Favourite non alcoholic drink?Caffe32. Favourite alcoholic drink?Just tasted wine so yeah it is wine33. Natural hair colour?Black.34. Eye colour?Brown35. Wear contacts?I did wear but they were uncomfy 36. Siblings? elder brother!37. Favourite month?Feb (my bday val day and dad’s bday follow & two of my very gud frnds are feb born)38.Favourite food?Amma panna thayir saadam.39. Favourite day of the year?Feb 13th 40. Have you ever been too shy to ask someone out?yes
41. Scary movies or happy endings?No to both 42. Summer or winter?No to both 43. Holi or Diwali?No to both 44. Do you like your name?Hmm not very much

45. What book/magazine are you reading?Sleeping with the devil by Bob Baer.46. What's on your mouse pad?A calendar.47. What did you watch on TV last night?No TV here48. Favourite Smell?
Hmm nothing spl. 49. Have you ever regretted breaking up with someone?Never got hooked to break up.. A loser in this ….50. Most tiresome thing you’ve ever experienced/done?Answering stupid questions

Tag
???

Guru-Disappoints

2007-01-13T22:02:00.000Z

Well I got up pretty early today did some useful work. Then decided to check out the movie guru by Maniratnam. Little did I realise that this was the biggest mistake that I was ever gonna do . The muvee is inspired from the real life rags to riches story of Dhirubhai H Ambani , the boss of Reliance. The muvee was very un-maniratnam like
It tries to glorify the prince of polyester for all the controversies attached to him.
The muvee captures his Aden stay as an Istanbul stay and modifies things littlebit to prove that its indeed a fiction(Like iruvar n Nayagan. Iruvar being an inspiration of the life n career of ace politicians M G Ramachandran & Karunanidhi and Nayagan being the life history of Don Varadaraja Mudaliyar of Dharavi Mumbai)

As like Nayagan he tries to glorify the protagonist just to avoid trouble. But seriously this muvee lacked the solid Nayagan screenplay. It looked like disconnected bits of a documentary .. and the songs tho brilliant looked oddly out of place.. seriously the songs were just used as bits inn Yuva which helped the pace f the muvee…

God can anyone make a muvee without stripping malllika Sherawat. Mani you too…???

The muvee documents the Wadia-Ambani Feud, battle betn Ramnath Goenka and Ambani etc. The muvee has not captured Anil and Mukesh and also about the Pramod Mahajan nexus.

The jamnagar refinery is shown much ahead .
Aishwarya Rai does some justice to her role…

Finally the climax court scene gurubhai just blurts out some nonsense and he is let scot-free with just a meagre fine. Hmm and the end is that his conglomerate marches ahead.

But the sad story is nothing as such happened in real life and the conglomerate has infact split after a public spat.

The muvee seems to give the message that everything is valid in business and whatever scandal that was done in license permit era was valid.

I really feel that ethics still hold true and ethics should be maintained.

And as a muvee it was too long and disjointed.....

ICE RINK

2007-01-07T21:16:00.000Z

After a long time had been to the office on a sunday to finish off a lot of pending work.
Worked for 3-4 hours and then decided that there should be some fun so called up roomie and askd him whether he is interested in a ice skate session at the Canary Wharf Ice Rink...

He said yes and off we went.. Well I have never one any skating b4 so just wanted to try ...the rink was a medium sized one and when I wore the skating boots it was like tying 4 kg wt to the legs.. worst is i was not able to balance in that boot ............with grt difficulty reached the rink and tried to skate.......and had a great fall like humpty dumpty ....hell a lot painful.. then realised that i shud skate along the barricades holiding the handrails so that i can avoid damage to myself.. after hella lot of mini falls and slips completed one full circle and then decided to take rest ... it was a heavenly feeling when i took those heavy boots off..... then i realised tho i was not the one struggling the others were brave enuf to fall more than once and tried to skate in te centre.. my roomie was doing good as well.. but i didnt have the courage to get back as i had collided agains teh barricade many times and that hurt... also the one fall was still hurting moreover, my legs cudnt carry thse heavy boots....idhu thevaya?(kaiko panga lia baap) finally when i reached home i felt a bit releived... any how it was fun....

JINXED!!!!

2007-01-05T15:11:00.000Z

Well its a new year and this season in chennai is most known for carnatic music...
This month of margazhi though a not so auspicious month, but is a very special month in the hindu calendar....(rather sri vaishnava calendar) and at the end of margazhi is the bhogi vestival .. th eonly day chennai flights are delayed due to poor visibility(not fog gentleman n ladies its SMOG) i will write abt bhogi other time... bhogi is folowed by thai month and pongal festival...

I have seen some similarities betn margazhi and ramadan and thai and shawwal (margazhi being a month in the thamizh calendar and ramadan u know.. is a month the festival ramadan falls on the first day of nah- e shawwal)

leaving all that apart what i wanted to say here was..( huh kya yaar ghuma fira ke baat .. )
Jan in chennai is not only famous for the final leg of carnatic season or ponga; alone.. the gala event in Jan for ppl like me is the annual book fair of BPASI(Book Publishers and sellers Assocciation of south India ) This event used to take place at the Quaid E Milleth College grnds from 7th to 17th Jan every yr(Alas Quaid e is a gals college and gals wont be arnd during the fair ).. This yr due to to the need for BIGGER SPACE its movin to ponamalee high rd opposite to Pachaiyappas Mens collge (Yuck koi jagah nahi mili,... enna kodumai saravanan) and date is from 9th -21st Jan..

Hangon why am i sayin this...bcos i was a regular visitor to ths from 1998-2003 and dad used to sanction atleast 1000 bucks ( Beleive me it was a big amount for me .. that too when amma opposed on such a huge spend on a single day)..Dad ur a gem.....

When Mum said nee sambathichi selavazhichuko da ayiram ayirama.. varsavarsham yen appa kitta kekkara?(Bole toh khud ki kamayi se uda na hajaoron rupaye har saal bapu ki vaat kayko lagata hai?) i replied back.. amma velaiku ponda udana vara mudhal fair la min bill 10 aayiram ...( apun bola mayi kamai ke baad pehele wale fair me 10 hajar udayenga apan) amma said pakkalam enga orukkiyo( dekh le pata nahi kahan hoga)..

Well She was right after 2003 i missed all the book fairs 1 due to ma company 2 due to my mother and am gonna miss this one again thanks to ma company...

2004 i was just postedto pune so no hols for pongal or book fair.. and pune sucks when it comes to book fairs i have been to a few but hopeless...

2005 I ha dthis part time MBA thing going and thr was this exam for that so amma had come down to pune and she left only by march tho the xam was over by Jan 8th she wudnt let me got to Chennai for the book fair as she did not want to go thr early(cos that meant she had to come again to pune after 3 months as per appa's policy) i had to skip it

2006 I had exams again but amma also came in early as one of ma cusins was gettin married in feb andparents had to be in chennai so fair again missed..

Know what both these times my representative attended teh fair and gifted me books.. whos that rep? Dad of course ... who else wud waste money on me?

2007 - Grrr - i thought iw ud hit back to chennai by dec since my London term was supposed to get over november last ....i thought i wud not spend much time in chennai during dec and take a vacation in jan and enjo y fair powered by pounds.. alas my term gets extended and i am here...

amma had a comment to appa that andha payithiam phone pannum aana neenga poga koodadhu( woh yeda call karega pan aap fair nakko jaoo) yeah i did call and dad HAS a plan to go to the fair with a neighbour and his elder bro.. woow wewa periappa and the next door uncle will get nice books and sowill dad 3 musketeers as reps.....

hmm but kahin andar man mein yeh baat ai ki 2008 ko dekhenge..(2008 i will wait for ya lets see if i cud make it )

Espionage

2006-12-31T14:28:00.000Z

Well well 2007 will dawn in a few hours …. And in about 60 days from now dad retires……after more than 35 years of service in the ministry of home affairs GOI……………

Well what work did dad do.. He was a spy………..his forte was espionage… spying on politicians, commies, trade unionists, all public servants and what not.. also the separatists……….hmm one helluva job……I never got the air of what he was up to until I personally started my spying on him… and in the end I discovered the web of the complex structure and responsibilities of the SIB Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau of the ministry of home affairs Government of India….The premier police organisation of the country responsible for internal security …the SIB spies on any Goddamn thing.. needless to say that the foreign nationals were the most frequent targets…..well the better part of his job was in the last 5 years of his career where he moved on to a predominantly desk job in the Bureau Of Immigration, 90% of whose staff are drawn from the ranks of the SIB..

I shudn’t be saying that my dad worked for SIB or what he did but I chose to say after a Joint Director of IB called MK Dhar wrote a book on IB and its role in operation black thunder..(the one after Blue Star cmon don’t say u dunno Operation Blue Star I will write abt it later )

So dad was so passionate abt IB that he still feels that theres no alternative to HUMINT ( Human Intelligence )
The same sentiment is reflected in a book See No Evil by a CIA Case officer Bob Baer.
Dad still is angry about the fact that VP Malik had blamed the IB squarely for Kargil. As he says though it was IB s mistake there have been cases where Army ignored valuable advises by IB.

What good did IB do to me. Well well dad was mostly into counter terrorism and counter separatism braches also he extensively covered elections so my political knowledge grew..i was following elections from 1994 
He never spoke all this at home but I used to catch bits and pieces of it when he spoke to colleagues
Later when some one called on the phine they used t say that his voice and my voice was similar and used to tell something’s to me 

For a while he did boring desk jobs and spying on ppl doing bckgrnd checks.. like verifying judges and stuff..
Then I realised that no matter how trivial is the job u gotta have the same passion.. same as the one echoed by the character playin priety’s dad in lakshya.. ek ghass kaatnewala bhi bano toh acha gaas kaatnewaala bano
(Even if u bcom a grasscutter make sure that ure the best… )
The same sentiment is echoed by Bernard Focker in meet the Fockers (Dustin Hoffman) when he says to Jack Byrnes (De Niro) We just taught him to be passionate and love anything he does..

Dad showed the way to me a long time before….he cudnt stand people predominantly doing desk jobs manages high up the IB ladder.. same sentiment by Bob Baer too..

As I read the book I just compared an Indian and an American who had the same job profile..

And mentioned here is an Ode to not only my dad, but ,to all those IB people who work hard and take the same risk as the army guys… but noone notices em as noone is supposed to notice bcos their duty is to remain under cover......

Salutes to the unknown dads and bros in the IB and the RAW

kabul fiza

2006-12-16T19:25:00.000Z

I suddenly thought that i would see a muvee and went to see kabul xpres....

A very decent muvee... 2 hr movie with no songs is a rarity in bollywood where karan johar makes mega serials naming them beginning with K letter phrases.. if the title itself is half a km long , imagine the muvee length... But mind you i like em too...

Now back to kabul fiza.. two rookie journos from India lookin for a scoop in Kabul.. with a proud Afghan , an adventurous reuters lady and a Taliban ( originally a Paki Soldier ) who wants to escape to Pakistan...

Well a nice story showing some comical realities abt Afghanistan.....

A donkey as compared to a fidayeen is a cool one...

This is one goody Indian muvee that bashes pakistan lie hell without kashmir topic...

It shows ho Afghanistan is ravaged by the war using some beautiful dialogues as props...

And shows that how Pakistan is confused on its own men.. It betrayed its own men in kargil and also its own army who acted lie taleban......

The irony in afghanistan is beautifully presented when the afghani guy says taleban banned Bhuskashi bcos its a VIOLENT game..........

In the end the muvee shows abt islam and Inidan muslims when the pakistani comments'Suhel saab namaz nahi padhoge? oh hindustani musalman ho tum kya jaano mazhabkya hai?' ( mr Suhel dont u pray ? oh u r an Indian muslim how wud u know abt Islam?

Suhel replied' Haan aap hi ne mazhab ka tekha le rakha hai.. bazu meih AK -56 rakh ke dua
karte ho' ( Yeah true you have the rights to relegion.. as i see u pray with an AK-56 by ur side)

That was a fitting answer.......and in the end it shows how Indians make him escape from the Afghans who want to lyunch any Taleban(or pakistani army ).................

hamara Bharat mahan.. also Bharatvasi yede hote hain( India is great and Indians are stuoid including me )
We are an emotional lot.....

A nice prop in the muvee is a song from Dev Anand's Hum Dono 'Main Zindagi ka saath...' .. this song is enjoyed by both pakistani and teh inidan jurnos much to teh annoyance of the Afghan.........

one more link is Dev anand is from Lahore in pakistan...........

i really pity pakistani army :-)

over all a nice muvee and different view of Afghanistan after Kite Runner .................

hmm i wud luv to see more Indian muvees like this.......it can be definitely India's nomination to Oscars........if it doesnt win then the jury is stupid.............. hahaha....

ME Time

2006-12-02T08:10:00.000Z

Someone was asking me the other day as to whether i have some time dedicated to do something i like...... I told him that every now and then i try to find ME time.. in the ME time i just dont care abut anyone else. i skip calls deliberately..... dont log on to the net and worst just donttalk with anyone......when i was living alone in pune having a ME time was not difficult.. it meant just disappearing all of a suuden w/0 telling anyone... but out here in lonodn with no possiblity of taking much leaves, having a ME time sounds difficult. But yeah i did have my share of ME times here.. the best thing to do here in a ME time is to sit in a bus and start exploring ......

what pleasure does a ME time give me.. i just relax and dont think about anything no work no money.. and NOT EVEN my list of fav GALS..... :-) its all about a kind of meditataion and observation.... just staring at an arbitrary person to see what he/she does in the time frame that i stare..............................

the ME time refreshes me and at the end i guess i am relaxed and ready to face this adrenaline pumping job....

Dad said that IT would be suitable for ME??? i realise after 4 yrs that after all being involved in Busineess supprt grops in a monstrous investment banking firm is not the lucrative job or SUITABLE job... where fire fighting is the buzzword on most days...................

I am looking forward to get into another role where i can think normally and not think always to handle a crisis............ i will find that kahin duur kayi mahine baad.....

my name is borat

2006-11-09T06:51:00.000Z

well i happened to see the movie Borat: Cultural learnings of America for make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan..( For those who think that only Karan Johar names his films in phrases...)

its a satirical comedy about a fictional character Borat a televoision journalist from kuzeck in kazakhstan(wonder whether kazakhstan has kuzeck) .. Sacha Baron Cohen, a Cambridge grad is the creator of Borat....

the movi offends an entire natio n so much that Kazakh president nazarbayev has dashed to US to meet Bush and ban the film..

well whats the movie about? Its a mockumentary about learnings of Borat in US and A.
The Kazakhi information ministry commissions Borat to make a movie on US and A for the benefit of glorious nation of Kazakhstan(This man is so ridiculous.. yje movie is too obscene and pungent and spreads hatrrd)
Please see the movie if it not success I execute is Borat's request.

Borat is depicted as a male chauvnist, sexist, racist and what not and he says he is normal kazakh.
Kazkah wine is made of fermented hrse urine(Shucks .. dangerous imagination and creativity)
Since nobody cared about Kazakhstan, the selection of has been ggod now google and wikipedia are busy with hits on Kazkahstan, Almaty and Astana...

as per Borat he does not know Cohen and he supports the decision of his goverment to sue that Jew(incorrigible)
He also says that premier Nazarbayev has visted the US and A to promote his movie...

Dont know what went in his mind to mock at a whole nation .. He mocks as Uzbecks, Jews , Gypsies adn who not...

Imagine what wpuld have happened had he chosen India or for that matter any Arab country as his theme....

people may have hundred opinions but the bottomline is the movie is No1 in US & UK the chash resgisters are ringning and soon we may see Borat in Europe( he says he didnt get European visa due to his sex crime record and he has managed to prove that the horse was above the age of consent and hence can get a visa!!!!!).. also we might see other RATS from other lesser known countries and even bollywood might try Munnabhai in this role with lesser obscenity(rather more as Mallika wud be thr)....

boy Borat did intrigue me .. i spent two days on Kazakhstan reserach and in general reading about the former SSRs. Though all have gone off my mind....

dont know whether Borat will be banned or not but hes created a wave...

and Borat s tooped teh charts in america.. he wants to celebrate now ..

150 din des se baahar

2006-11-04T14:43:00.000Z

Last week Santosh Singh was awarded a death sentnce.. fucker deserved it veery bit 10 yrs ago.. some moronic sessions judge vindicated him and it has taken a campaign and a media galore by NDTV to indict him again....

Now all those human rights sum bitches are in a tight loop... if those morons say no to death of the bastard Mohd Afzal.. then as per their viewpoint same treatment should be given to Santosh....i dare say if Santosh can be hanged for killing only one person, Afsal should be stoned to death for killing innocent security personnel... i would have campaigned for his clemency had he killed one politician at least......

Keeping in lines with older murder caess, Jessicaa Lall case will be closed soon.. And this old fart Ram jethmalani is all set to defend him..

Thanks to Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Rajkumar HIrani, the protest against Oldie jethmalani will eb different people are gonna send him boquets and smses asking him to get well soon.. well that would be fun.. the old bum should not be peaceful....

along with manu sharma, Shayan munshi(fucking bartender model who was a witness but is hostile now), bina ramani(socialtie bitch and owner of the restaurant) should also be hanged...
well a policeman's job is the toughest in the end.......

back home in TN some crappy politicians are asking the Indian govt to give visa and educate the child of Rajiv's murderers... These people will never change.. Agreed that the child has no fault but India should not encourage such things....

Anotonia Maino aka Sonia has a golden chance again to prove that shes a saint....
She would infact welcome teh child herself before the media yto increase her govt's approval rating........

Finally ICC says that the BCCI should not be content on being just the richest borad.. it should show performance on the field... thats all bull shit...

Whoever wins whatever CUp India will do good and whenever it does good , its cricketers will earn popularuty and mint money more than anyone else and BCCI will ever be the richest.. so who cares a damn if Aus or WI win the champions trophy???

Sachins still the best ....

the most murky thing was the murder of a DIG in Orissa.. some say his bodyguards shot him
some say maosists shot him... what the hell? did this guy unearth a scam due to which he was executed?? hmm hope someone finds it...

I like Navin Patnaik so i pray Orissa makes some real progress under him.....

With more states going to elections next year it will be fun.....

CAT is back with a bang.. hmm some people do anything to get an MBA....just an MBA or MS is the buzzword in India these days.. no wonder i am as good as an illeterate as i have neither of these and am still stickin to the job that I got in campus...

Bangalore is Bengalooru hmmm it has got a status after following the lines of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta... err.. Mumbai Chennai n Kolkata when will India be remaned Bharat? or BaharatVarsha??

DMK created a record of sorts by capturing power at all layers of democracy.. Federal minsters, State legislature and now the local bodies... well MK can die in peace now...

Jaya can hope an emphatic comeback as she can sit home blame DMK for any Goddman thing and have a cake walk in the next elections.. who knows if MK ne jaldi kulti mari toh(means if he kicks the bucket earlier ) she can hope an early comeback and behave nonsensecally and get blasted in the media thereby damaging the tamils all together....

amdst all these pandemonium i have quetly completed 150 days.. 5 months in Her Majesty's realms....Long live the Queen for keeping me here so long and long live my managers also...

i had counted days expecting ti get back to my bastion in pune, (err do I have a bastion there nopes ifi go back i am lord of the gutters as my mom had vacated by house) I got to know that i have to count 60 days more... shucks!!!!!!!

Finally i have decided to loose the count and enjoy by exploring Enger Land more......

Soldier way

2006-10-19T05:14:00.000Z

For the past week there seems to be a difference in the UK. for a change we have a different sort of man making the news. Its not a politician or actor or rockstar or some watrel celebrity. Its the commander of the UK army Gen Sir Richard Dannatt.

He has sopken out breaking the protocol of serving army chiefs in democratic countries..(Dont say Pakistan is democratic.. it fucking never was one, and never will be .......also dont consider Soonthi Bonyaratglin of Thailand)

What he said was that the presence of british troops in Iraq exacerbates security problems in UK and also that the British Troops are unwelcome in Iraq.

This is a true statement indeed. Its been almost 3 GodDamn years since the holy shit in Iraq began and I beleive he has every right to say that .

He also felt that the morale of the troops is coming down because of this .. true indeed..

As usual the labour party is irritated and issuing clarifications and statements against him.

Former minister in Blair's cabinet Blunkett has gone a step ahead and called for Sir Richard's resignation... Mr Blunkett is an idiot...

The PM Sopkesman however has tried to cover things up by saying that Sir Richard reflected government policy and troops will be out in 2-3 years(What the fuck??? they have been saying this for too long)
Generally many people feel that a serving chief should not have said this.. why???

I feel he had every right.. because it is his men dying in Iraq for no reason or whatsoever...

Imagine how would you feel if tomorrow Gen JJ Singh comes up saying that the farcicial dialogues and ceasefire with Pakistan is all crap n bullshit...... I am waiting for that day....

Cause u ask army to die for you and dont even let us know what they feel?? crap aint it??

cmon Gen Jaswant Joginder Singh I want to hear you speaking that Gulam Nabi Azad's & Farooq Abdullah's clemency plea for Mohd Afzal is a farce..

Azadsumbitech was the first to be carried out safely on 13 Dec 2001 when Sansad bhawan was attacked..
And does anyone remeber constable Kamlesh Kumari who was the first to die saving these arse holes???...

If Afzal is given a lifer some mutterfucka will hijack another ferkin plane and ask for his release...

i can still remeber kandhar IC812.... and a young married fella being killed .. Mazood Azhar is still at large and Gulam Nabi Azad's suckin party says the GOI did a wrong thing by releasing Azad then.. I say GOI had no other go...

Now they say spare Afzal....how dare they... just to get some ferkin muslim votes...

Guts!!!!!!!!

2006-10-02T05:34:00.000Z

Well I had real fun yesterday evenening..... some of my colleagues arrived at London from India..
I was waxing eloquent to one of them about the potential safety threats in SE London and told him that "Make sure that you are not alone after a certain time during night"......

What happened was after was fun. At around evening 7 pm i had set alone to meet another friend of mine who was staying in a hotel.. the place was a petit place at Ilford in Essex...

The moment I stepped into the road in which the hotel was located, I realised that it was DESERTED!!! and no street lights !!! The entire surrounding was eerie!!!! It was like a horror movie.. This God forsaken hotel was located at the other extreme of the road...
My heart was pumping and pounding as i walked... I was sweating at 12 deg celcius...
I was tense as in the weekends after 7 mostly drunk wastrels roamed in streets and the probability of violence was great... to make maters worse i was carrying two gadgets... somehow i managed to reach the hotel safe and return home...!!!!

But this expereince is a lesson.. i should start following the things i preached to that guy!!!!! :)
......

ein hundert ein und zehn tagen..........

2006-09-22T05:53:00.000Z

thats 111 days.. yep today is my nelsonth day in greater london....the tube, the London taxis, starbucks, tesco, canary wharf, stagecoaches, the thames, foyles, books etc hmm these are all my favs out here... is till remember when i first came out here on jumne the 3rd... i was waiting at LHR (Heathrow) for nearly 2 hrs for my frnds to pick me up.. well the BAA guys were staring me away as i stood in a corner with my luggage .. i was somewhat like that gopal in inscrutable mericans.. though i was not from jajau and i dint drink 17 cokes during my flight .. he he.... the first day was hectic.. the gus said raj why spend £50 on a taxi lets get you used to he tube system.... there we went.. with 38Kg of baggage moved towards the terminal 3 tube station.. well to be honest these guys dint have a clue about it... they took me to the heathrow express station from which trains directly go to Paddington (one of the busiest places in central Londres and a bomb explode here on 7/7).. well i was told that the max tube fare for a day travel tciket was £6.. but we almost fainted when we saw the heathrow xpress fare.. a whopping £17... then we moved along and atlast found the way to picadilly line station..well the plan was to get a picadilly line upto green park and then change to the jubilee line to come to starford where i was supposed to stay... alas the picadilly line was under maintenance and they had restricted services... so we got down at a god forsaken place called acton town and had to take a bus to north acton and then continue to stratford in the central line.. well the bus journey was excactly like the ones in India.. too crwded.. the only difference was it was an 18 meter long merc bus and all windows were sealed.. well before i arrived london was having a cold n wet summer.. but on june 3 it was 29 deg and it felt like 3 xtra degrees on a closed bus... from north acton to stratford the journey was cool watching all the stations and other stuff albeit the fact that most of the journney was undergrpund , the experience was nice... and central lineis too goddamn noisy....

come home arun prepared a nice dal and rice.. had it with pathak's pickle(yeah the same guy who sued PV Narasimha Rao).. the time was 4.30.. gosh my flight had landed early at 10:30.. now 6 hrs had past..... then i started sleeping.. loong sleep when i got up it was jun da 4th 7 am in londra....

the next 2 weeks in office wer pathetically awful.. had to work like hell.... then came my firstvisit to a pub in Londinium.. it was a nice exp with people asking me how i could live in aplace where i had to share the loo.. i told em TCS doesnt pay me that much to afford a kick ass flat in london.......

well i still dont feel im in a phoren land cos i bump into sardars n pakis quite often....

cappucino tall, frappucino light are my beverages here.. also the free hot chocolate from the vending machine in my floor is cool....

visits to some places in london an scotland were te tp activitis during weekend....

the best one was the vsit to the cabinet war rooms... and a stroll arnd the city of westminster....
london bus syetms cool.. u get any oyster card(monthly season ticket) for any zone on the tube .. u can travel for free across london by bus.. though travelling by train wud be restricted to the zones that ur oyster is valid for....

Fav word is TOP UP.. means recharge.. u can top up any goddamn thing here....
mobile card, oyster card(for cross zone travels), the restaurant payemnt card in office, and even electricty.. yep we have prepaid electricity hmmmm...

well a lot to come.. im now gonna to top up me with a coffee

Ramanuja and his teachings

2006-09-17T22:23:00.000Z

well after seeing munnabhai part 2 i felt the relevance of gandhigiri in today's world...

people who call themselves fans & devotees of great people and who boast of following their principles in their lives are just hypocrites.... i had an encounter with one such person...

he is a great scholar .. or atleast project himself as one he he and talks n writes loads abt ramanuja the saint from sriperumbudur.... an ardent devotee of lord vishnu and patron saint of iyengars..

This ramanuja had a person by name yadavaprakasha who was a veda expert and a saivate.. Mr yadava used to ridicule lord vishnu .. yet ramanuja dint get angry as he was a GURU.... such toleramce he had.. now see the tolerance that guy showed for my small taunts....

the backgrnd is .. this X logs to yahoo 24*7 and is in BUSY moide always.. yah always...

now curiosity kils tha cat so i decided to find out the reason for ths ever busy mode.....

Me: if ur dat busy n dont want to be disturbed why dont u log off ym

Hide Recent Messages (F3)

Mr X is using a different version of Yahoo! Messenger with Voice (BETA). Certain features may be unavailable.
Mr X: my wish
Me: hmm point taken.. but it seems ur ]
Me: like vertti bandha (show off )
Mr X: get lost
Mr X: bye
Me: if ure busy u get lost dude
Mr X: what the hell do u know abt me and what i am doing now
Me: i am totally free and jobless
Mr X: u have no business to tell me that
Me: i dont give a damn
Me: ya i have no business
Mr X: i may not want to be disturbed by ppl like y
Mr X: YOU
Me: then why r u replying
Mr X: whereas with some frnds i may be free to talk
Me: if ur really dat busy u shd have ignored me
Me: why r u so excited now
Mr X: ya, its a mistake - now i am ignoring u
Mr X: get lost
Mr X: am deleting u from my friends list
Mr X: pls get lost
Me: ramanuja's teaching have no effect from u
Mr X: ha
Me: ivlo kobma moolai ku kedudhal
Me: if u have that
Mr X: u just interfere into others personal lives
Me: yah i told u im jobless
Mr X: and talk abt ramanuja
Mr X: pls go away
Me: ramanuja is not ur personal property
Mr X: he he
Mr X: i never added u to my frnds list (safedh jhoot.. he was kicked out of orkut once and he rejoined and added me )
Mr X: u must get lost now
Mr X: u r mad
Mr X: pathetic
Me: thanks
Mr X: i pity you
Mr X: go away
Me: dont raise ur BP
Me: workout ur body
Me: not ur temper
Mr X: deleted u from frnd list
Me: thanka a ton
Mr X: still am getting ur messages
Mr X: damn
Mr X: damn yahoo
Me: theres a button called ignore user
Mr X:
Me: pls do that
Me: block me
Mr X:
Me: bllock user nu oru button irkum(pls press block user )
Me: pls press that

preaching ramanuja but not even practising 1 % of his teachings.. itna gussa teek nahi babu moshai....

GET WELL SOON !!!!!

professionalism and all that

2006-09-16T11:23:00.000Z

people talk a lot about professionalism these days.. but what is the definition of it?

people just dont understand anything about it.. each one of us has a perception.

some feel being cordial is professional..!!! is that so?? should i be cordial even when i know that soemone is commiting a blunder for the umpteenth time ?? as a professional should i not try to stop that??? in that process if i am a bit aggressive would i become unprofessional??

Well i dont buy that... passion toward whatever work you do is professionalism according to me.. in that process one cant be good to veryone always... but one should strike a balance between relationship in professional life and passion.... not overdoing any bit...
At the end of teh day its success in both these areas that matters....

Am I professional?? well i keep asking this.....will find answer kabhie....

Coffee

2006-09-10T20:09:00.000Z

hmm i love this beverage more than anything els... ppl get addicted to it deliberately... my coffee addiction dates back to 1985.. yup .. naan 3 vayasula coffee kudika aarambichen(bole toh 3 saal ke umar se coffee pee rela hoon)....... coffee need not be piping hot but it shud have a great taste.. till abt 2003 i lived filter kaapi... breatehd kaapi..
for a short period got addicted to the chai of ahom... bas ahom ke baad no other chai managed to capture my sense....

alas from 2003 to 2006 didnt get to drink a good coffee.. puneites humiliate n insukt coffee..
they do the same thing to chai also.. dont know why they re so tasteles...

RKNarayan has written a great article abt coffee in the hindu(iyengar mama hindu padikkama valardhu irupprna?)( bole toh pakka madrasi brahman bina hindu pade bada nahi hota)

That was a too cool article...in that he elaborates abt the goodness of Filter kaapi.. please catch up with that essay on THE WRITERLY LIFE.....

But with the advent of MNC kaapi kadais (bole toh bidesi taprian)... coffee is got a new life in pune ..
Cappucino can be a distant second chioiceo if u cant get filter kaapi.. Barista n CCD are okay in that....

But London has changed my opinion.. Starbucks Cappucino is a worthy second choice to filter kaapi.. coffee at starbucks comes in 3 sizes tall grande n venti... venti size na kitta thatta SOMBHU neraya (venti lagbhag lote ke bara bar hai baap)....

frappucino light is my fav cold coffee.. slightly bitter.. but sooper..

if temp is below 23 deg then cappucino tall else frapucino tall :)

well im in serious trbl.. need to ask the mericans if there is any rehab for this ultra addiction..
they re the rehab kings....

coffee comes in has many varities .. arabica the oldest one, robusta (50% caff) caffs the best.. londoners have a decaff as well idiots.. bandhar kya jaane caff lka swaad( kazhudhaiku theriyuma caff ruchi)

apart from it we have liberica n esalica... coffe either comes from latin merica or africa... but its too popular out side :D

hmm coffee is one wonderful thing.. eat coffee , sleep coffee he he

Amma

2006-09-06T21:44:00.000Z

kahin duur

Amma a nice lady imust say... all mothers are alike and have similar characteristics... how different is she??

I have seen her as one of the patient creatures ever on earth who later turned out to be the most impatient creature ever !!!!!!
She had her dreams crushed, hopes dashed yet she never complained... she could hav easily bcome another Nooyi or kalpana morparia for that matter... she wud have for sure bcome a great prof!!!!! .. her conservative grandma dint ler her study after high school given the fact that shed secured state rank in advanced maths( Ahh i doubt whether uer my Mom.. state rank !! Maths?? ) then she had married appa.. appa wasnt a bad husband but not a great one either.... then she gave birth to two idiots.. the seond one was the one who was gonna give her trbl for the next 2 decades....

she had to forget her choces her world just bcos of the fact that she got a kid who had some issues.. the docs had told her bluntly that the kid has no hopes.. she dint budge...

she is a headstrong person.. prejudiced to an extent.. and will never change her opinion about any thing.. still shes flexible....

shes too conservative yet gives way to modern ideas... boy she dint have food for 3 days when she came to see her second trbl at tvm....

she was the one who held the house together during crises.. has a cool head...

i would never be able to understand her...

though shes a bullying character i love being dominated by her.....

well i have no plans for marriage.. but if a lady is like her !!! then im readay :)

Prarambh

2006-09-03T00:46:00.000Z

Hmm Well God has always tried and tested me.. I ve a starting trouble with each n everything, get comfy with it then suddenly i am made to adapt to a new situation.. lifes beena constant change for me ever sicne childhood... may be thats why i dont have any best friend who knows me perfectly or whom i know perfectly for a long time....

I look back at life as i crawl towards completing 100 days in a foriegn land.

Huh .. change after every 3-4 years is the only constant thing that my life has given me so far.... it all started off at trichy..(never know how trichy is now he he ) after being born as a second son (last as well ) and one of teh youngest in the clan I did have some previleges early on.. with all that health complications early on, i was teh apple of everyone's eyes.. All elders showered their affection on me... but that became a huge issue.. i got alienated from my own people.. people of my age, peers!!!!! Neever enjoyed a cosy time in childhood with a close frind... my best frnd and playmate was ofcourse my amma... acc to linda (goodman ) aquarian kids are shy .. yeah they are i was one for sure.. used to keep mum in school for the shorter duration that my heath permitted to attend...i was just abt 8 and in 4th when i started getting comfy n cosy with trichy and the school .. ppl had just begun to accept me.. but thunder struck... Dad was transferred to guwahati..(wheer the hell on India was that place??) i never know hindi b4 that.. only tamizh and bits n pieces of english... bro was in KV so school was no issue for him.. but me.????was put in a school that was as close as possible to home so that i can come back whenever something went wrong with my health ... btw what problem did i have... some bloody disorder which is rare .. called menigeocoele (ferkin hell) dont ask abt that...

well guwahati had lots to offer.. first n foremost that crappy place had an academic calendar which started from Jan and ended in dec..(Bhooo) when i joined 5th std it was teh goddamn half yearly exam time... had to cope up all the sylabus,hindi and a new language called assamese(yeh kya hai bhai) in just one month leave... plus english medium schools were just startups in the early 90s in guwahati.. so my school had very few students.. worse very few who cud help me out... so sad.. very bad...

the climate was also crazy.. it used to rain like hell and during winter it used to be shivering cold... again new place.. explain them abt my trbls.. shucks learn a new lang.. took me almost 7 months to settle down... and be normal.. another year and a half to feel comfy.. but yeh kya.. Dad had opted to return to home state..(aap ne aisa kyyon kiya dad... education ke liye )

I thought its gonna be either trichy or chennai where i used to frequent for meeting doctors and visiting hospitals.. but naah it was a place called kanchipuram!!! i never knew dad's org had an office thr... come kanchi again a school change.. matriculation syllabus.. gosh not again.. plus adjusting to the new place and tellin em abt me i hated this boss... bahut jhel liya...

it took almost a year now.. then came 9th.. and 10th...one of my god damn cousins had cleared teh NTSE by NCERT in his 10th.. as per tradition i was to follow suit.. that began my tryst with competitive exams which hsnt ended till date alas but with too little success..dad beleived i cud do anything as health was getting better (yenna nenappo).... the start was wonderful.. NTSE district 3rd in stage 1 ... also soem god forsaken psychiatrist had told ma parents that my IQ(bole toh akkal) was abv average (us doctor ne zaroor nakal karke pass kiya hoga)... so started my prep for the 2nd stage ... same time during model exam for 10th board i topped in my shcool.. school fellas thought that i wud get great marks inthe real boards...par kya jaundice malaria double attack .. baad mein public exam.. saala diya toh 84% mila.. i dont think that was bad.. but dad had imagined my fotos in all the crap papers so he was broken.. probably my house wud have been the first house whoch bore a funeral look even after cracking the 80%.. Amma was the coolest one.. she said porum da kanna nee public exams a confidant a face panni ivlo vaanginadhe perusu.. but appa had plans for me....he was disappointed but NOT ANGRY.. till date he has been never crossed with me even in genuine cases where e ad to get angry.....

As luck wud have it i flunked 2ns stage of NTSE.. i thought atlast i have settlked in kanchi.. but naah Chennai enterd my life... new school in 11th.. it was a shit hole..

Linda again says here that aquarians try to get some independence and make decision at teenage.. yeah i made one.. i told dad n mum that i aint going to any crappy school that curbed my free thinkng and a crappy shcool that wanted me to mug mug n mug the text book.. Dad said 12th la oru 60 % vaanga maatiya indha school la irundha.. i said FAIL AAIDUVEN..

He said ippo quarterly over da yendha school admisson kudukkum.. i said grandly dad lemme take a yr off...and learn some useful things.. But God had other plans.. one kind man took me in his shcool.. again adjustmets blah blah.. by the time 12th was over.. But that yr gave me the biggest disppointment in life.. i wanted to bcoma doctor.. whya doc?? cos they were the only ppl that i met from ma childhood constantly.. many behaved a bit rude.. and even gave probablities n chanes of my survival... i wantedto show that doc profession is all abt humanity..(munna bhai tha apan.. jaadu ki jahppi).. but being born under FC( not F**kin caste but forward caste )... i had to get 99.blajh blah.. still not able to understand why a guy who studied with me got a med seat inspite of scoring 90% just because he was MBC.. i no way he was backward.. infact he had a cosy car to transport him to the various expensive coachin classes he was enrolled to... Reservation ko goli maaro yaar..

godd god i had got 92%.. though ut was not a great feat.. twas enuf to get a free seat in some decent engg coll...

Boy how happy ma dad n mum were for that B.tech ( not balls to technology) seat...
buy kya karen.. kismat ka khel itni jaldi nahin rukta...
My health payed gilli danda and hide n seek with me n i was forced out of college for a month.. i even thought of quitting this goddamn degree n start studiyin somethin else...
Ma mum did not want that.. she was instrumental in encouraging me and pep talking me to success.. yeah i cleared I Btech with just abt the required level of attendance.. and had secured some decent marks as well......

Wow i had a dream again(main jab bhi sapna dekhta hoon wo sakar hone se koson door hota hai)
I wanted to do Mtech in IIT.. i had enrolled for gate coaching and also for CAT in ma final yr.. ek mahine theek taak classes gaya padhai ki.. par health again betrayed me.. yeh saala baar baar villian kyoon banta hai... coaching ellam mootai katti vechach...(matbal coaching gaya tel lene).. ghar to college and vaapis... no gate no cat.. exams to diya par clear nahi ki....

Somehow got selected into one helluva company in campus...(well dad mom were the happiest ones aakhir puttar ne kuch to kamyabi haasil ki)....

by the time all thse storms had blown n i was accepting chennai, ma company moved me to Pune.. aila yeh kya phir se toofan bhoochal...

the challenge ws to live alone.. hostel naam ki cheez bhai ne kabhie deka tak nahi.,,,, ma e peche peche bahaga tha 21 saal tak....

was just settled in pune ki ghar walle bhi bole beta transfer le le..
par yeh kya transfer reject hi gaya.. then maine socha ... lets enjoy freedom.. the real aquarian got unl;eashed... alone ina flat with all applicances.. a decent salary to buy the gadget i wanted.. one great city to live in... par sapna toot gaya.. aa gaya London...

thou its a great place.. adjust ments abhi tak kar raha honn.. i pray god that i feel comfy soon so that i can move out to meet next challenge... kahin duur..........