Spoken Like Two ENFPs

Inviting all Chennai bloggers

2011-03-17T12:07:00.003-05:00

We are now inviting all bloggers from Chennai, to join us at zeole.com/chennai

It is amazing to be part of the stream of thoughts from all over the word !
Lets start the party @Chennai :-)

Top 4 cities on zeole

2010-10-04T15:46:00.004-05:00

In the last 1 year there were so many changes in the layout but finally we started seeing some very interesting trends. One of the things is, people love to write and share in the lower nodes!

zeole/chennai is the most popular, followed by bangalore. The silicon_valley and Madison is not too far behind!

How to get comments in my blog?

2010-08-17T20:07:00.008-05:00

You must have heard these questions from people on the internet

How to get comments in my blog?

How to make people visit my blog?

How to get traffic to my blog?

Here are a few reasons I was thinking about

I do not get a lot of visitors
Even visitors who come do not comment (cannot really blame them)
Even regular readers who come to my blog, stopped coming when I took a break!

Blogging was intended to be a "journal". Where you write to yourself. Why on earth would you

want others to read stuff you write for yourself? This is the basic paradox of blogging. You

write for yourself and expect others to read it.

Why is zeoling soooo much better than blogging?

I am no longer confused about who I am writing to.
When I zeole, I am always thinking about who I am writing to. I never write to myself and
and show it to others.
Lots of people read my zeoles, because I always use the right channel and reach the right
readers
I get lots of comments, just it reaches the right audience

If you ever find someone cribbing about not getting comments in their blog, ask them to shove it

and try zeoling ;-)

A Zeole widget!

2010-08-04T17:58:00.002-05:00

I think the colors are ok. The widget needs to be polished a little bit.

What do you guys think? Any feedback?

PS: Visit my blog de-ja-vu.blogspot.com to see the widget in action.

After 3 long years...

2010-08-02T16:42:00.006-05:00

After 3 long years, I have finally returned to my blog. This time around I need my blog like never before.

Some of you who are reading this may be new here. My blog is not. This blog has become part of me now. I have had it for more than 6 years now. Some are old friends and who have now parted ways. Some readers have become family.

Why am I back now? I need my blog. I so need my blog that I used to cherish and cuddle with it every day. I am still using blogspot when most of my blogger friends have moved on to wordpress or Tumblr or even twitter. Twitter -- Yuck! right?

I am back. I am back with my terrible poetry and my terrible prose. Here comes daddy!

Mesmerizing voice in "thaaye yashoda"

2010-08-02T14:02:00.003-05:00

I simply love her voice

Also checkout the comments this video received in http://zeole.com/world/2076

Are you the proverbial one-trick-pony?

2010-07-25T23:43:00.006-05:00

I am currently reading a novel by my favorite writer Robert Heinlien, called "Time enough for love" (Science/Social fiction). In this book, due to technological advancement, the lead character called Lazarus Long, is a man who lives for thousands of years. The author images the evolution of the "society" in 1000 years from now. Wow!

While the story is classified science fiction, the writer relishes imaging new societies, with new customs, new kinds of economies. I too was drawn much by the much more complex and realistic social fiction aspect of the story more than the science fiction.

While Lazarus Long enjoys his very long life he has almost all professions that mankind had to offer. Lazarus Long, during his lifetime has about 50 or more professions. You name it and he would have been at least once. He is has been a doctor, engineer (all kinds), teacher, farmer, banker, priest, musician,... Now that is interesting... and got me thinking.

While I really pray for that medical science to let me live for thousand years (fingers crossed) my life is probably not going that to be thaaat long, but I don't think it is short enough for just one profession. Why are we clinging to just one profession?

Suddenly, I feel like a "one trick pony", a circus animal which knows one and only one stunt but nothing else.

A family friend just retired, he was a professor for 35 years, and loved teaching. My father just retired, and he is an Electrical Engineer. He has been an Electrical Engineer for 35 years and he worked in the same company throughout his life! Wow! What a commitment! I noticed most his friends are also retiring and have a similar story. While their commitment to a single career is interesting, I would also like to have a bit of choice.

I have always wanted to be a martial arts teacher with a black belt in Jujitsu and karate. Can you change their career after 10 years? but I do not think the society is going to like it. I found a couple of reasons,
1. The socio-economic forces are one - where we are forced to earn asap and continuously during our active days and save for retirement. I guess I cannot stop feeding my kids just for the sake of my professional vanity :(
2. The current "career" system is rigid at many levels. You have to go to school when you are in your teens, college comes immediately after. Then work.
How awesome if we were allowed to go to college at any age? I think all colleges and universities should be like Management Schools that admit students of all ages.
I just started learning Jujitsu! :-) Yahooooo!
3. In the corporate world, the importance of "seniority" must be reduced and "talent" and "enthusiasm" must be promoted. This is precisely why India consistently has had octogenarian Prime Ministers :( It really would not hurt to have someone younger having the top job.

If we can build a more flexible educational/career system, we can solve a thousand problems it would solve. hmm... Ok probably not a thousand, but a few but important problems in the world. If you did not get the opportunity to get your education when you were young, you may be able to get it later in your lives. Or, if you really liked being a doctor, but then at 40 you realized you do not like being a doctor anymore and realized you wanted to be a singer. Wont it be awesome? How awesome would it be to correct your mistakes and change your career path?

We have one short lived life, lets at try to make it less painful than it has to be.

Originally written for world@zeole http://zeole.com/world/2051

Zeole - First big milestone

2010-02-15T16:30:00.006-06:00

The crazy idea called Zeole.com is going to see 100 registered users soon.

The story started almost two years ago. I had a case of flu, and my body was aching on all sides. I could not do much but just lie on my back and stare at the ceiling, I conjured up a crazy idea of online network which could help track flu. As soon as I got over, I started working on the idea.

It was around this time, that Kanna joined the project. Kanna and I know each other since college days and that is just about full decade ago! We make a great team :-)

We had a couple of brainstorming sessions, and we realized the idea of social network to predict communicable diseases was not going to work. Simply put, it was social network of sick people, and based on the diseases and the way in which it is spreading, we would be able to predict the spread of infections across the globe. The only problem was, how to convince a sick person to visit zeole instead of taking rest?

So, we changed the idea to what it is currently and before we know, a lot of our friends started liking it. And now we are giving it a nice face-lift. Rush to zeole.com if you want to take a look at our "ugly" zeole, because in a few weeks it will be all "flashy"...

Take a look at zeole.com, you do not even need to register. Tell me what you think...

Goku in Silicon Valley

2009-11-24T00:22:00.002-06:00

Catch up on my technology reporting from Zeole.com/silicon_valley

Happy reporting! :)

The 20 Giga watt ambition

2009-11-22T14:03:00.005-06:00

India plans to harness solar power to installed capacity of 20GW. This 10 times the power from Kalpakkam Nuclear facility.

This is a massive project, with would demand an equally massive budget. I think it comes at an important time when power shortages are crippling the Indian economy. But I have questions on the solar technology with respect to operational efficiency. Can it deliver 20GW of power? Would it be cost effective?

If I were to design this, the solar power plants in this large scale cannot be built using semiconductor based photovoltaic (the technology you see in your solar calculators), but with solar thermal power plants (similar to ones in Spain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Spain ) A solar thermal power plant is easy to understand - thousands of mirrors reflect sunlight on a tower, where water is heated to vapour. This steam is passed through a turbine to generate electricity. This setup is cheap build, and I would expect the maintenance cost to be low. The only problem is, each of these generate could generate 10-20 MW. We will need 200 of these to reach the 20GW of capacity.

I am feeling cautiously optimistic with this project.
--------
PS1: Check out a similar story in Zeole.com/india

PS2: Zeoling is much targetted than blogging. In Zeole you choose your readers and so get lot more comments.

Blogging: Why?

2009-10-24T18:51:00.005-05:00

Why have you stopped blogging?

My blog is 5 whole years old, and most of people who started blogging with me, have fallen silent. The ones that are still writing, my God, are you inspired to write!. But where is everyone else? I hear you saying that you got busy or some such, but I guess the idea of blogging is no longer sexy. Right now, the buzz is about twitter. Btw Mr. Twitter: you are cool. I like to tweet, but I want 1400 characters. 140 wont do.

Anyway, back to blogging, I had stuff to talk about in my blog. For 4 good years. Actually, the stuff I wanted to talk about, kept changing. Initially I was this young fellow who thought swearing was cool. Trust me, it is not. It so is not. I guess I learned my way out of it, by cracking stupid jokes. I donno man, for some reason girls like my blog. It is not a girly blog or anything and if it was anything it was MCPish. But girls loved it. I know! Girls are stupid, aren't they? ;)

And now I only write for the elite and the elderly. I am irregular and write stuff that only I seem to think is relevant. I am not getting any readers, much less comments. I know, I have even started cribbing.

I am lost now. Blogging no longer excites me as the way it used to. I seem to have lost the purpose of blogging. But wait, was there a ever a purpose to blogging?

PS: I am also sharing this article with the whole of India

The late baggage

2009-02-17T04:11:00.003-06:00

I no longer think I am 3 years old, may be 3 and a half?

Even though you may not be wondering why would anyone be worried about aging at such a young age, (and even if you are not wondering here is the cue) there was a very specific incident that I am unable to take my mind off.

Well, I did a bit of traveling in the last couple of months. Sleepless nights, and sleepy bus travels, and peanuts from chicks on board were part of my daily life. Daytimes and nighttimes were needless details of timezones for I slept whenever I was sleepy and worked whenever I could.

In one specific flight I decided to travel with some extra baggage even though I usually traveled very light. This flight had a stopover at one of the mid west cities (I think I have stopped over all cities in the US by now). The stop over added a boring 4 hours to the entire travel duration and I was getting tired when I finally deplaned. Now, all I had to do was to grab my baggage from the carousal and head home.

The carousal was circular and made of metal plates that slide over one another. Bags are always thrown onto the carousal with the wheels on top. These observations and many more about the people standing around were made by yours truly as I had nothing to do while I was waiting forever to get my bag.

Only after a full 20 mins and after everyone else had left the baggage claim area, I came out of my denial and realized my bag was lost and I had to log a complaint with the airliner company. I talked to the person in charge of lost bags, and he walked up to the carousal to make sure it wasn't there. We walked all the way back to the office and he asked me to fill out a form.

After all this, he suddenly realized that there were some bags that came a couple of hours before and he asked me to check those. It did not make sense to me because how can my bags arrive before I did? But with no expectations I searched through the bags and tada! there it was. Apparently, my bag found an earlier flight from the stop over point.

He then happened to mentions "Sir, your was the first and only bag to arrive early for your flight". I thanked him for this most valuable information that I got after finding my bag.

Suddenly something struck me. No matter how early the bag arrived, I still got it at the last, after everyone else, after going through all the pain of waiting at the carousal and at the baggage claim. It seemed to tell me something about life, maybe there are many things in life that are like this bag, that, no matter how hard I try, how early it comes, how near it is, I will get it only when I am supposed to get it.

I do not usually entertain such "fate" ideas, but it did give me a different perspective. I realized there is no point in crying over something that I do not get, and I should probably not be dissapointed at some wasted effort, and I should not be too adamant on trying to get things "my way".. it might just be too hard to against realities of life. I guess I try my best at getting something and not fret about it if it is fruitless.

I guess more than I finding the bag, the bag arrived before me and was waiting for me, right there, to get picked up. Funny perspective... isnt it?

This is why I think I am getting older.

Am I really needlessly pusillanimous?

2008-12-27T03:54:00.004-06:00

OK people. I am back for real. I have made another resolve on December 27th, to write in my blog regularly. I am speechless at the faith some of the readers have had in me over the last couple of years. Quite a loyal crowd I have.

I must declare it openly, that about 90% of my readers are females. I know! And they email me regularly asking me when they can see me. I know! Which is not surprising, considering how handsome I look. I know! But then that only explains half of it. About half of them have seen how handsome I am and the other half is just dying to see me. I know!

Please wait. There are ways to see me. I will show myself when you have proven yourself.

When I started writing this, then could not really start it. I cracked my knuckles, sipped some coffee. Then chewed the gum and sipped the coffee again -- I tell you, coffee flavored gum is not a great idea. Then thought about something... but nothing seemed worthy of writing, then I realized... "Dude, you are being needlessly pusillanimous!" And tada!

Terrible norm

2008-12-13T06:17:00.000-06:00

In a sudden departure from the terrible norm that this blog has been witnessing, I shall begin blogging regularly. :-)

PS: I just could not stand of what blogging has been redefined as of late. A good friend of mine (cannot afford to say the name) has takes her everyday intakes as something blog worthy. Good Lord!

Of the 63 arts that I learned and how my mom tricked me into this...

2008-10-03T01:49:00.003-05:00

I was born a boy. I assure you. And then they realized they needed some help in the house hold. This need for household help was the reason why I know so many un-male things.

Well, when I used to be a young lad, I used to be very naughty (I know it falls flat when I say it like that but the point of this blog is my mom and not me). Since it is mostly useless asking my dad for anything because he would immediately ask me to do "loud reading" of "The Hindu" if I am bored.

So, "mummy mummy, enakku bore adikudhu" I would go to her. One day, when I did that, she had a meal to cook for me, because soon I would go her and say "mummy mummy enakku pasikudhu"... anyway, she showed me an interesting thing. She took an appalam, and showed it over the flame, and the appalam got cooked right in front of my eyes, and gave it to me to eat. Well, I was not really hungry and I was bored now, so I asked her for another of that and this time I wanted to do it myself... This is how that terrible accident happened! My mom taught me how to cook! It has been wonderful though, I immediately became the "sutta appalam expert" of the house, and could do it with super ease.

Then slowly I graduated to cutting veggies for her, and then grating cocunut, making coffee and it was eternity before she let me "cook" my own "potato curry". Man did I suck at that at first.

I cannot blame my mom for everything. Learning to stitch was entirely my fault. Well then, can you keep a complex mechanical contraption complete with turning wheels and gears and everything and expect a kid to not touch it? We had a brand new "Usha sewing machine" at home and a handkerchief was the first dress that I stitched for myself. :-) I stiched a pillow cover and restitched/adjusted stuff for the people of the household, but then my mom was also too eager to try it, and she started to use it, unfortunately completely arresting the weaving capabilities of yours truly.

By this time my mom had realized that I was attracted to mechanical devices and so when it was the next pongal, is when the true evil came out of my mom. She called me to the kitchen and then talking about something nonsensical topic, put a small kolam with the rice flour. Man was I stunned by the design she just with her hand and with that flour-roller. Mrs. Evil then send, "your hands are too tiny, you will be able to do it easily when you are grown up", not once did I think if I had any promise of a career in drawing kolams in my "grown up" years and actually took offence at that. In the next few days the whole house would have eloborate kolams drawn on every room, and I became the official for that as well.

I will continue on how I was tricked into becoming an expert in assembling DIY furniture, hanging a ceiling fans, fixing blown fuses, bulbs, fixing plumbing problems, bicycle problems, carburator problems. Actually coming to think about it, my dad might also have been a co-conspirator!

But my mom is solely to be blamed for teaching me music! God! why do I know that? Why cannot I be ignorant like normal people?

The 700 Billion dollar question

2008-09-29T21:38:00.004-05:00

To the best of my knowledge, I am going to explain the current situation.

The stock market suddenly plunged at the gloomy prospect of the credit crunch bringing the entire US economy to a grinding halt. We see a lot of "greed" being quoted as the reason for this problem. I am not going to into the details of explaining the greed, but the big picture is that, someone started lending money to a class of people labeled "sub-prime market". And now, many of them are defaulting. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two companies which sold mortgage backed securities. In lay man's these two companies offered "insurance" to the banks for each of the home loans. Now, when many people defaulted, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae went belly up to begin with. Next in line are the other companies that invested in secondary mortgage market.

But, the government saved freddie mac and Fannie mae. An important point to note here is, these two organizations could have gone under, just like any other company, but the government saved to avoid a ripple effect through the mortage market. (please correct me if I am wrong here).

Soon after that, Lehman brothers filed for bankruptcy and followed by many financial institutions including Meryl Lynch, Morgan Stanley and WaMu. Now, I hear there is something the government can do, to solve a problem called credit crunch. The banks loan amongst themselves for their day-to-day activities and apparently, since everybody is cash strapped, no bank is willing to give money on credit. So, the government is going to infuse into the system a sum of 700B and buy the bad debt from some of these companies.

From what I understand "buying bad debt" means, the government pays these companies the full value for all these assets which are valued at possibly 1% of these 700B. The good thing is, the banks are now freed to continue with their business, though it is not the end of the story...

This bill was voted down today, and I was very surprised that it was the republicans who did that. The republicans cannot all be characterized by the absolute lack of insight of people like Sarah Palin (see below) and I agree with the decision of the congress today.

Why should the tax payers money be given to banks to bolster "investor confidence"? Do you know, that if the 700B was equally split among all US taxpayers, each person would get more than $2000. What I don't understand is, why should the government buy bad debt from the banks? Why not buy it from people? Lets say government wants to improve the economy and so it agrees to pay 1 year's mortgage for everyone in the United states, wouldn't that also solve the same problem? The difference in the second method is that, the people will get to have their homes too!! But in the current situation, the banks just get the money for free.

I recently heard that people in finance sector earn about $150K annually on salaries, and about $300K in bonuses every year. How come the money market has been rewarding the financial sector so generously whereas all other sectors are being skinned? Apart from this, I have another minor annoyance as well. Apparently, all hell does not break lose if nobody saves these companies. There are a number of banks that do not hold mortgage based assets, example Bank of America. The world's largest bank Citigroup has mortgage based assets but it is not shaken because of many reasons and some of which are attributed to their global presence and diversification. The companies which were solely dependent on the mortgage markets (especially the five Wall street banks) are the ones that are affected now, so even if there is no Fed money pumped, the US economy will not grind to a halt as some have started predicting.

I don't know what will happen next, but I can take a guess. The 700B bill will be reduced to around 500B or small enough to just get as many votes to get it passed in the congress.

So, what do you think about this 700B bill?

Blogitaen!

2008-09-24T17:23:00.001-05:00

It all started when I started speaking a newer form of Tanglish. Me and my friend were talking and he generally happened to mention that he already atetitaan (tanglish for saaptutaen, ate). Suddenly I realized (as always) that this was history in the making and it had to be documented.

Soon, I chatted with Archana about this history making and while we were chatting we came up with an even more brilliant idea of using our names as verbs. I decided that my name was going to be used to mean saving the world. So, hear ye! This is a valid sentence from now on, "Superman prataped!" would mean, he saved the world from doom. She immediately saw a lot of prospect in this, and also wanted her name to mean "something awesome". By now my dynamic vocabulary was tingling to form new sentences, so I asked her, what about "Superman, archana prataped!" (you should follow the sentences carefully...), which is when she noted that, she no longer wanted to be so close to my name and she became an adjective. And the sentence became "Archana Superman prataped!". Good for me, Superman is close! :p

Anyways, the pratap requires an adverb. So, I found a favorite victim "Dushti". Dushti means "spectacularly" and it is an adverb. So, the sentence goes, "Archana Superman dushti prataped!".

Which is when my archana friend Archana, declared that she had removed the link to my blog. I could not believe the ettappan Archana would remove a link to my blog that she added a couple of years back!

While I wonder if archana should mean ettapan, why don't you guys take up this tag?
1. Make a word out of your name, pick a part-of-speech
2. You don't have to pratap, but just dushti make an archana sentence! ;-)

I tag the ettapan Archana, Dushti and Rads!

Will post soon !

2008-08-16T20:42:00.000-05:00

I know! I know!

Just hold your breath for 2 more weeks, and I promise to write. As before, I know you are all dying to hear about how great I have become recently. :-)

Dasavatharam - Review

2008-06-13T17:13:00.007-05:00

I saw a gorgeous girl, clad in a sky blue salwar studded with stones. She was just 2 rows in front of me, and little to the left with no tall creatures in the row before me, obstructing my view. Maaan, was she beautiful! She had a kid with her, and no wonder it was cute too. I know you ask, how can I sight-adichify a mom? I advocate women's empowerment and equality of gorgeous girls. I will never discriminate a good looking woman, just because she is a mom. See, I have such a liberal head. Anyways, why you ask, was I looking at this girl, when there is Ms. Asin Thottumkal on the screen. Good question. The short answer is, but there were also 10 Kamal Hassan's on screen, right? Goddammit people! Focus... focus.

OK. I went to Dasavatharam, last night. And I wanted to update all my dear readers on that, and warn them appropriately.

The movie starts with an episode in 12th Century TamilNadu, ruled by the Saivaite Chola dynasty. Apparently, Kamal Hassan found a conveniently unknown period in history to claim victimhood of all Iyengars. Napolean on the Elephant looks regally awesome actually. But then this is ruined, suddenly the screen is filled with a lot of flesh. I first thought it was a giant walrus jumping on the screen. Only then I realized it could be Kamal Hassan, in a walrus costume. Only when all the loose flesh had settled down did I recognize Kamal's face. Unfortunately he was not wearing any costume but was just standing there topless. I have many things to tell Kamal Hassan, but this is the most important of them all:

First IWTTK (I Want To Tell Kamal): Please wear a shirt.

This is followed by some piss poor special effects on water. I guess, taking these shots on water must have been expensive, so they decided to go for special effects instead. It looks soo fake. I think the Tamil movie industry's special effects wings really needs to mature. We are lagging behind Hollywood by something like 20 years.

Of course, my fears of seeing a ton of Kamal Hassan's blubber abated because the first 15 minutes has no correlation to the rest of the story. I was quite relieved.

The story then shifts to present time, where Kamal Hassan's second role as Govind is a bio-tech scientist, who invents a virus. He realizes that it could be used as a bio-weapon, and decides to destroy it, when it gets transfered to India. Here he dons 8 more absolutely unnecessary roles, and the story goes around these roles. There are some funny moments with Kamal_3 as Balram Naidu, a RAW agent speaking a Telugu accented Tamil. Then he also acts a 95 year old lady, a Dalit activist, a tall man, a sikh man, an American, a Japanese and a Dubya.

Second IWTTK : Make-up isnt everything.

This might not be that something people will agree with me, but some of the make-up of Kamal was just plain pathetic. It really looked synthetic. It is only sad that people extol this farce of a make-up. An easy comparison is another Kamal movie, Michael Madhan Kaama Raajan. That was a laugh riot. And had 4 Kamals. None of them were obnoxious. None were fat. None wore plastic faces.

The females, hmm. That is a different story. Asin comes in two roles. No special make ups. Maan, was she goodo looking. She is the one who kept distracting me from looking at the girl two row front of me. Now that I remember, her second role was also quite irritating, may be because her role was just another foil character in his movies.

Third IWTTK: Thanks for showing me my Asin. :-)

Technically, there were so many mistakes. I stopped counting half way through. Near the end of the movie, Balram Naidu uses a binocular, to see the virus. I learned difference between a telescope and microscope when I was about 10 years old.

There was one thing that I hated about the hype. I read so many many reviews online which were all praise for Kamal Hassan. All the movie stars were going gaga over this movie. K. Balachader in his excitement after watching the movie, tried to lift Kamal Hassan, it seems (One would think twice before doing such a thing after seeing the first scene when Kamal unabashedly shows his blubber...). Another veteran actress Manorama, cried in the theatre it seems. I too cried in the middle of the movie, but maybe for a different reason. Surya lost his sleep at night after this movie. Maybe they were trying to be nice to Kamal Hassan or whatever, but, I now know that, reaction from movie stars do not reflect the quality of the movie.

Anyways, each of these Kamals costed me $1.5. I could have had nice dinner with that kinda money. It is true then, "Singam single-a dhaan varum, panninga dhaan kootama varum".

Dream 3: God Disposes

2008-06-12T01:31:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, I dreamed. Just to put things in perspective, this happened while I was sleeping. And God came in my dream. Could not really see him well, he could have shown himself, so that I could have at least blogged about his bad taste in style. Wonder why! He probably used one of his smoke screens.

Anyway, he came in my dream said "I have been reading your blog, and you do not write very well". I was thinking, "Yey! Now I know who that anonymous reader is!". He then added, "For the general mental well being of others, I command you to stop writing immediately".

I woke up and made a note to immediately blog about it. I think I am blessed in many ways. I did not know that I could annoy him so much, that he had to delurk in my dream. Maan, I am so talented.

One thing I was disappointed was, he did not wait for me to reply. Since he reads my blog, I think I can respond to his command here: "Are you going to take forever to get me the money I had asked?"

Naaaaaa na na na

2008-05-30T19:40:00.002-05:00

Out of nowhere, suddenly, this saxophone piece starts on my headphone. Sax? on this work music list? It is soo melodious. Somehow I have heard it a million times, but could not figure out what it was, until the words came out "Vande maaateram...." Oh man! Patriotism was not in my mind, more like sleep.

Just a second ago, I was about to pack things and go home. Have a peg or two and sleep off. For, you see, most part of the week I had a cough, a cold, a sore throat, or a combination of all these three. Very tiring, but not too bad. I know how I got it, I got it so wonderfully. In the middle of the chilly mid-may downpour, driving down the inter-state. With saxo-phone on my ears.

The prettiest way to catch a cold :-)

Crazy good

2008-05-19T23:20:00.000-05:00

I suddenly got the feeling I have been completely ignoring my blog. Sorry about that folks, I have new worries in life now, and life is crazy right now. Crazy but also beautiful :)

Will try to write more often! Hope I remember to come back here often!

Bambie eyed,
Kid

Riddle - 1.5

2008-04-25T10:37:00.000-05:00

It so happened
Online Moms was doing,
A little riddle thing.

Just to clarify.

I do have a pretty tummy,
but I am not a mom to be.

(At least not right now) :-)

Riddle - 1

2008-04-24T02:58:00.002-05:00

If you know it already,
enjoy the show.

If you are puzzled,
Try the riddle.

It all started with,
Maddy being so gay.

If you wanna know...
try to find the letters.

So new! Just the first letter,
It is so simple! Duh! :-)

Awesome sadham - 1

2008-04-16T09:12:00.000-05:00

Thayir saadham with fresh urulai kizhangu roast. For breakfast. mmmmmm

Disaster recovery

2008-04-11T23:26:00.000-05:00

People were too proud that
the webserver cannot break down.
Because you see, it has a RAID.

So I was happy until today,
when the disk crashed without a noise.
Apparently the RAID,
was not configured right.

I am here,
in the server room,
trying to get the server up.

My pizza is cold,
so are my feet,
but somehow the soda,
is warmer by the minute.

President Mugabe

2008-04-01T19:00:00.003-05:00

With Zimbabwe still waiting for the election results, there is a lot talk about how cruel and bad President Mugabe is. Naturally, I was curious to know about this nation which seemed to get so much attention. I was astonished to find that a currency could have 100000% inflation. Apparently, if someone finds a wad of Zimbabwean currency on amounting to about 10000 Zimbabwean Dollars, he would not pick it up, for it is not worth the effort. Such is the uselessness of the older currency caused by the hyperinflation.

While I was rubbernecking the election in this highly educated African nation, I suddenly noticed something. "UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, meanwhile, called for the results to be published 'immediately'." I was benumbed by the imperial audacity with which a foreign person, demands election result from an African Nation. Maybe Gordon Brown lost his frame of mind and thinks he is Queen Victoria living Eighteenth century. I immediately grew cautious of the website I was reading the news from: the BBC. I realized all the information I knew about President Mugabe was tainted with the British anger.

I did not believe it previously, but apparently, the US also has very strong opinions about President Mugabe, and Mr. Bush thinks that the Zimbabwean people need a change. We need to thank him for being so outspoken about his opinions, how else will we know why he might next nuke Zimbabwe?

It so happens, the British anger at this country started in 1965 when Iam Smith, a white politician unilaterally declared independence of the then Rhodesia from England. Wait, who is getting independent again? I thought it was a country with a black majority. Apparently it was. Ian Smith, the son of a Scotsman, had his own plans for this fertile country. Well revolutionaries threw him out, and formed what is now called Zimbabwe.

Hmm... Interesting. I thought England gave away all colonies after getting battered in the WWII. Now I understood what England's problem was. It wants its rich colony back. Now that makes sense. But I have no idea what Bush's problem is. Maybe he thought this country had some oil.

Well, here is the first black President of the country, who is hailed by many as a hero not just by his countrymen but by the whole continent, and who inspires South Africa to give up apartheid. He comes to power, and sees large swathes of land being owned and operated by a small White minority. In his overwhelming patriotism, took away most of the land owned by the whites. Britishers cry foul. They did the one thing they learned from WWII: they Hitlerize Mugabe. Trade is disrupted between this new African nation and England. Soon, the economy takes a hit, and the Westerners in their schadenfreude, blame it solely on his aggressive "Land Reclamation Project". His popularity is explained with poll rigging and accusations of gerrymandering.

Whether or not his Land Reclamation policy was legal or ethical is a an important issue. But I do not think that the economy going down can be entirely blamed on this one aspect. I get the feeling the West has been colluding to take Zimbabwe down, economically.

Perhaps, the British expected the Mugabe to be as toothless as Gandhi, or as potent as a Mandela in jail for 18 years, praying and fasting for the English mercy. Mugabe, in a show of brilliant defiance towards the selfish West introduced "the look east policy", an unprecedented policy of ignoring the West. The British scared of this new strategy, where the world ignores the West and continues to live, is into passive coercion. The West is trying desperately trying to undermine the efforts of Mugabe, and also at the same time, replace him with a more subservient dummy leader in its place.

I for once would like to see Mugabe's speech on Youtube, and know exactly what he accuses the West of. I want to see him speak in the UN. Only then will I believe in real freedom of speech. I am tired of the British imperialist journalists trying to spoon feed their ideologies of why he is bad.

I am not convinced I am seeing the whole truth, anywhere on the internet. I get the feeling that a good fraction of it is propaganda. Even the accusations against Mugabe were true, nobody should be interfering in other countries' internal affairs. It would be very interesting, if the country's economy recovers in the next 10 years.

Acceptance of mediocrity

2008-03-17T06:37:00.001-05:00

When I started blogging, about 3 years back, it was the pure thrill of letting random people see through my thoughts. I have since learned that I am not such an extrovert, however, ideas remain one the favorite things to share through this blog. Then there was a slump, and I had forgotten about this blog for a while, but then, I was introduced to a new generation of bloggers. A set of bloggers who could write masterpieces, such confident vocabulary usage. They were such an inspiration. And for a time it was good.

Fresh minds, random ideas, a million different styles of writing. Multifarious levels of disclosing personal details. Not all blog were happy though, some expressed sadness so beautifully, lots of kid blogs, a few tales to remember.

What saddens me is that fact that, many of the blogs I have personally adored and endorsed previously, have been doing such a sloppy job recently, that it makes me cringe with disappointment. There is one blogger who can write well, (trust me, I have read some of his stories), then I have no idea why he designates to the blog only crappy and second grade half baked posts, and uninteresting reviews about even worse movies and music.

Then there were these ultra popular bloggers, with whom I just got jaded. It so happens some cannot change their styles, or get creative. They were recycling ideas and even words. Some bloggers with nothing to write about, have started writing about their daily lives, which much to my chagrin, is not any more interesting than mine. One brilliant blogger has no time to write, and so runs these competitions where she gets other people to write on some topics.

Mediocrity! Mediocrity! everywhere! How did this go unnoticed? Every morning I open my RSS feed reader, and I have a daily dose of disappointment with my coffee. Forget about creativity, people don't have time to write complete sentences, but are verbose enough to describe a vain banal piece of curio. It does not look like people are even trying, but expect comments for their substandard writing. You think you are cute when you write such stuff? You think it is funny?

The unfettered use of mediocrity has suddenly become the norm. I am not a guy who stands to see this flagrant brandishing of crappiness and not talk about it. If you thought you could get away with all this, watch this space and one day I might be thrashing your blog too! I am not going to tell you how to write your blog. You all know how to write, and what it takes to make it better, lest you want to see the number of visitors dwindle.

Tell Tale 22: I forgot my words

2008-02-17T15:01:00.003-06:00

I did not spend time with you for a while and now you seem to be forgetting me altogether. Am I to blame if I don't use all the words that I know of? Actually I went into a lengthy and tedious exercise of learning thousands of new English words, to score well in an English test. That was long time back and I cannot remember all those words now.

Ah! it was such a nice time. During the preparation I came to understand the beautiful curves of the language and even the maturity of the vocabulary. It seems, because your language has been around for a while, there is a word to describe every feeling humanly possible, and anything can be described succinctly in a canonical, unambiguous and meaningful way. And that was my style to be, for a while. The elegance of short and curt sentences. A little rhyme, perhaps. You know all that!

We were such good friends, me and my lovely words. But then, I got busy with other things, and I did not visit you frequently. I did not notice when you were around, now you have completely forgotten me. While I am to blame for not maintaining good relations, it was not all my fault, for I had too many words to count. And I did not really understand a few of you well enough to have a sentence party with.

You don't seem to understand, that I am really trying to make things work. I write infrequently, but I do try to use as many as possible but they you would not come to meet me. I started a blog, and it was a fine opportunity to give us a fresh start, but now, you have found new friends. You tell me that, bloggers like ATP, eM, Shoefiend, ... treat you like royalty. I try to explain to you that they are professional writers and journalists and these bloggers are "using" you, for their profit, but you are already drunk with their bribes. How do I explain to you that I truly love you guys?

Yes, I am quite notorious for making spelling mistakes, but you see this new blogger interface corrects me, that at least saves us the public humiliation. I understand when you say, good friends should at least be able to spell each other. I am trying, I truly am. But give me some time.

I promise to play with you. I promise to not cheat; I won't use the thesaurus. Do you remember?, in high school, when I was asked for the expansion for "SCUBA", I said "Sacrificial Claustrophobic Ululating Blanching Apparatus". Such fun we used to have!

Oh! my wonderful vocabulary, Please come back to me!

Red for Passion

2008-02-05T12:44:00.000-06:00

and I would not have it. Apparently, Jaanavasam is not in vogue any more. While I have seen many handsome young men being paraded in a topless, red convertible, and goes to meet the bride, I will have to walk to meet my bride! Please hold while I sob inconsolably in front of my deity.

Jaanavasam has always been a point of pride for the Tam community, and shows our technological advancement, compared to stone age north, where they bring the groom on horseback. gah!

My dad had it, and I really believe him when he claims the car in the black&white photo is actually red. But it has always bothered me that he was not smiling in that photo. If my parents-in-law, take me in a slow moving vehicle to marry me their hopefully pretty daughter, why would I not smile? I know would not be able to resist being happy, especially with that flower thing that they will make me hold.

How degrading! damn!

Tell Tale 21 - And they lived happily ever after

2008-02-02T16:41:00.000-06:00

Ramu was a mediocre student in school. He was not a very hard working student, and he had many reasons for being mediocre. He did not have a very good handwriting, and he was not particularly interested in Math either. Then, one of his teachers Mr. Ramayya found these two problems in Ramu and wanted to motivate him. Ramu was grateful for this new found help, and he took his teachers advice. He practiced cursive writing and his handwriting improved. He also started getting better with numbers.

He went to college and graduated with a Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering. He graduated with a Masters degree from a prestigious University in the US. He got a job in a Fortune100 company with a fine starting salary. He met Sita in his work place and they started going out. Initially they liked each other's company and soon they fell in love. They talked to their parents, and within a year of their first meeting there were engaged to marry. They went on a Europe trip for their honeymoon. Soon after their second honeymoon in Australia, they had two kids, one boy and a girl. By this time, both Ramu and Sita had both progressed well in their careers and together were earning more than $300K. They had settled in the US, and had both their parents living with them. Ramu and Sita loved each other, were very happy.

Their son is a very naughty boy and their daughter was quite a princess. Their kids had lots of friends and each had a unique set of talents. They both had good grades and went to Ivy League schools. They were very happy to have such wonderful kids.

By this time, Ramu and Sita has retired, and had saved more than 3 million dollars over the years. They wanted to go back to India and spend time in their home town, Madras. They bought a spacious bungalow in the outskirts and found themselves in touch with their roots.

Sita played the veenai, however she was an amateur. So, after her retirement, she started re-learning it from a professional player. She found it to be very refreshing. Soon she also started playing the veenai semi professionally and she enjoyed the musical world. Ramu, enjoys listening to Sita play her instrument. However, he too drealized his childhood dream of playing soccer. He became a soccer coach for a local high school. They were very happy to have realized their childhood dreams.

They also indulged in some light social work and charity. They funded the education of a poor young girl. They participated in blood drives, helped the needy with some funds, helped the sick get medicines and helped the illiterate with evening classes. They were very happy to help others.

Suddenly, one day, their son brought a girl home and introduced her as his girlfriend. Ramu and Sita were very excited to meet her and they showered them with blessings. His son was married and soon, their daughter also married a guy she loved. Before they knew, Ramu and Sita were playing happily with three grandkids.

Aw you poor thing!

2008-02-01T00:59:00.000-06:00

Today, one of the favorite visitors to this blog said, "You used to write well, and then you stopped!". Aw! the poor thing almost cried. Not to worry my dearly beloved readers! Captain Kid is here, and he is going to write!

Power

2008-01-30T23:23:00.000-06:00

The path of supreme conquest. What is it, that makes it so powerful? Is it the thud of the distant explosion? Why does not the shrewd, the sharp or the clever stand a chance in front of pure power? What is with this brute force that makes it so heroic? Why does your God require power to subjugate the worlds?

They say, too much of power is hard to handle. And power corrupts even the most saintly. They say power breeds greed. Many many sayings, advising ordinary men to stay away from this overwhelming energy source. What does it mean to overpower another entity? The path of supreme conquest.

The path of one overwhelming the other, using pure brute strength. Everyone is vying for power, for muscle power, brain power, nuclear power, chemical power, physical power, processing power, feminist power, biological power, man power, human power, electrical power. Well arent you out there toiling away your prime to get some economic power? Why are most inspirational stories about overpowering the evil? Why does overcoming the other give you such a delight? Is it only human to seek this power? Why do you celebrate it? Why isnt the sick and the weak talked about?

I have noticed that every sports game is designed to make one attain victory over the other. Even democracy is designed to have a weaker opposition, just to make fun of it. The lion which defeats every other animal is given the man made throne of the jungle. Every country in the world has fought a war. There has never been a time in the history of the mankind where the whole world was at peace.

Is your country fighting a war out there? Or are they just waiting for the right moment? What can you do if someone attacks you? Isn't is contagious? this war? Just trace back the steps, Kenya, Bosnia, Kargil, Vietnam, Israel's 6 day war, Palestine, Korea, Suez Canal, Falklands, Kashmir, Balkans, Afghanistan, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chad, Chechnya, Third Reich, Grenada, Cuban, SriLankan/LTTE, Kurushetra, Raavana, Excalibur, Alexander, Napoleon, Genghis Khan, Stalin and you will know that countless people have died in vain to seek this. It is my time now. The path of supreme conquest.

Step aside. Or else.

Kid Kural

2008-01-17T12:19:00.000-06:00

Madras-kku azhagu kuppai, namma
Jothika-kku azhagu thoppai

Courtesy Lollu Sabha team!

Booker? Blooger?

2008-01-15T17:50:00.000-06:00

I wonder, what it takes to write something that is worthy of a Booker prize. Of late I have not felt any extra appreciation for Booker winning works, that I would expect it to be. It makes me wonder. What does it take, to be acclaimed by one and all?

I believe to be very independent in my opinion, and I am little swayed by popular voice. Is it just crowd psychology that, once a work has been awarded, people accept it and is easily assimilated as a master piece? How does it feel to to win a Blooger prize?

Surely, I am proud of one short story I wrote some time back. However, it is too personal, and therefore not for the public eye. Truth be told, other than that, I am profoundly disappointed.

Now, I have decided, to write something. Something that touches you. Something that is worthy of a mention. Something less frivolous. Obviously, I will have to work on my spellings, but trivialities and frivolities apart, I am going to open up my imagination.

However, I warn you though, my imagination is at best, compared to a Pandora's box. Caveat emptor!

Bollywood Rocks

2008-01-07T10:43:00.000-06:00

I don't know why hindi speaking people don't like RajniKanth. Maybe because he is competition for this couple?

A place holder

2008-01-03T09:06:00.000-06:00

A tribute to all the people who ignored. I will always remember you.

Benefits of Blogging

2007-12-29T03:17:00.000-06:00

I never thought blogging would feed me one day! And it feeds very yummy bolis too :-)

After I read about Archana getting her Boli from Rads, I felt very dejected. It was my birth right to eat Bolis. Apparently, when I was born, the family astrologer noticed that my stars were so well aligned, that when I grow up, a wise girl from the east would feed me Bolis after Bolis in recognition of my excellent writing. ;-)

Here is my conversation with the blessed soul:

Me: Injustice! Injustice!

Rads: What?

Me: I just read Archana's blog. did you send Bolis to Archana? where is mine?

Rads: I sent it to you...didnt you get ?

Two days later:

Me: You are the bestesht of the beshtest.

What can I do?

2007-12-27T01:52:00.000-06:00

I recently found many problems in Tamil Nadu that can be fixed. The pollution level in Chennai is intolerable. When I am in Chennai, I get allergic bronchitis, due to pollution and I cough incessantly. This is a serious health risk.

I see one major pollutant:

MTC buses pumping toxic fumes into air, directly on people's faces.

I believe that is of higher priority than distributing free television sets. But, even with the amazing amount of money that Chennai Corporation gets, nothing has been done about that. What can I do to change government buses? I am not living in Chennai right now, but if you are, why are putting up with this?

What can I do to change? Some please tell me. Write petitions? Talk to the Transport minister? Who is the transport minister?

What can I do? Please tell me, I will do it!

Update: Dec 27, 2007

Tamil Nadu E-Governance

Main Website: http://www.tn.gov.in/
State Transport: http://www.tn.gov.in/transport/

Metropolitan Transport Corporation:

MTC: http://www.tn.gov.in/transport/MTCchennai.htm
MTC Contact Page : http://www.tn.gov.in/transport/Contacts/contact_mtc.htm
More relevant MTC Web page: http://www.mtcbus.org/

MTC Bus:

Performance of MTC Bus: http://www.mtcbus.org/PerfomIndicator.asp
Note: No statistics about emission.

Public Suggestion box: http://www.mtcbus.org/Suggestions.asp

CNG Bus pilot project in New Delhi

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/03/tata_motors_and.html

Happy Holidays!

2007-12-24T19:03:00.000-06:00

Happy Holidays everyone! Lets mark this year's holidays with, lots of travel, being with family and eating lots of food! :-)

Power perversion

2007-12-20T04:33:00.000-06:00

This post is a direct response to two post by HipHopGMom , here and here.

I studied in a school in Madras, which was renowned for its discipline. Parents revered the Principal for her strict management style. Well here is my story: I was totally confused at what I saw in my school. The Principal, resolved all out-of-line activity with a punishment, which was mostly beatings with cane, twisted cable. Fear was the main instrument of management. The female Principal never hesitated to slap 12th standard students, if they crossed a line.

I could not understand what was wrong with me, or with what I thought, but I was one of the students who got beatings. Young minds are molded mostly by what teachers taught at school. But, truth be told, if I had imbibed what they taught me, I would be groveling at their feet, would be a "Kalki Bhagwan" devotee and lots of other things that I would be ashamed of myself.

There was a famous incident in my school, where in the last year in school, I was slapped on the cheek, and I then smiled at my Principal :-)

There were other inhuman punishments:

One student was made to stand in the stinky bathroom for an hour, because he uttered a swear word
Two other students, ridiculed before the school assembly, and then one of the teachers punched them in the stomach

School teachers are not just professionals who teach the subject matter, but are also role models. There was not a single teacher in my school, who taught us to stand up for these atrocities. I was not able to think on my own, until I was in my 12th standard when everything felt like bullshit. I was not going to put up with any of that. Meek subordination in the face of pure brutality, is so not my style.

Yet, for the other things they did, parents appreciated the efforts of the school teachers. There was not a single time in the entire life of 9 years in my school were my parents interested in how good the teachers were. The school teachers were automatically assumed to be incarnations of Gods.

My college was a different story. I was introduced to perversion. Some male professors prefer girl students over guys. Though, it is easy to point out that, they are the exceptions, please. They are not. I still remember, of how a girl who broke her carpentry piece got a 100/100 because the assistant was kind enough to make a new one for her, while I, the one who got the best carpentry piece in the batch received a 82/100. Then there was this other Lecturer who invited a girl to have sexual intercourse with him. Another Professor was caught watching porn and suspended for a semester.

Somehow, somewhere between all these noble teachers, who are either trying to fail the guys and rape the girls: the management things so highly of themselves, that they "rule" bans of different sorts, apparently for the good of the students.

Two of these famous ban are

Dress code
Cell phone

Let us discuss the ban of cell phones. In my college only cell phones with camera are banned. This is because of some college student capturing pornography with the cell phone camera. So, camera cell phones are banned. This is the kind of logic they use to make rules. One wonders if the management has any sanity left at all. I am not even going to discuss the flaw in the logic. If you cannot understand the flaw in the logic, it probably is not worth explaining.

Coming to the topic at hand, HipHopGmom's college "bans" cell phone usage on campus. Apparently, to bring some discipline into the students. Apparently, the "ban" was inspired by some report, which stated that there were some "agents" using cell phones to contact clientèle. I am sorry, I don't understand the context. So, banning cell phone is thought to be the best way to force discipline in college students.

Apparently, there was Lecturer who confiscated one of the cell phones because a student was using it in campus (not when the classes were in session). And after that, the lecturer had the nerve to send her away and was in possession of the above cell phones for the whole day. The lecturer also did not attend to any of the in coming calls to that cell phone.

Who is this lecturer, and how dare she/he do this? So, this lecturer is now acting like a rowdy to enforce an unconstitutional ban on cell phones. The Lecturer, in her excitement to enforce her power, has resorted to this kind of disruptive use of force.

The student involved is said to have used devious means to retrieve the cell phone from this lecturer. And this reasoning has been used to justify the "illegal confiscation of private property" by the Lecturer. Of course, the college permits use of cell phones in case of emergency, and the reasons have to be proven to be "sufficiently urgent".

HipHopGMom does not realize, that, there are uses for a cell phone. As a 19 year old, I had a million things to take care of. While attending college was my highest priority, I also had other things to take care of... but since, I never mention specifics about my professional life in this blog I am going to skip it here. I could have a sick relative to call, a girl friend to attend to, international calls to talk to experts in my field. A million reasons, that are not urgent or emergency but something I would like to do. But I cannot do that in HipHipGmom's college because the management knows best, and has the right to confiscate my property, and breach my privacy. HipHopGmom's self righteous "ban" would have hindered my progress, and I would advise my kids to not study in that college.

Where do Lecturers get this level of confidence to act so authoritatively?

Obviously some people are more responsible (like the brash management) but truth be told, if you want to know the guilty, you should only look into a mirror. I understand you, fear got the best of you, and in your fright you turned to the now tyrant college and school management to "discipline" your kids. Fear is the instrument of the system, and vague undocumented events like "agents using cellphones to call clientèle" help them sustain a level of freight to justify their actions. The very teachers who are supposed to teach values, are high with this new found power, and in their inebriation, are even ready to give "shock treatments" to cure your kids of their common sense.

Deepavali Firecrackers - II

2007-11-28T04:40:00.000-06:00

A million bijli's later, my dad introduced me to weird crackers... They cannot be called crackers, because they were never fun. I don't know, but my dad religiously buys these every year.

Have you heard of "Snake" ? That is probably the worst thing that ever came out of Sivakasi. This "Snake" is just a couple of tablets, that comes in a matchbox sized tiny box. It needs to be placed on the ground, and when lit, some dark gray colored shit comes out. It looks ugly if not yucky. No, it does not make any sound or create bright flashes. It comes for about a min or two and then it runs out. Maybe girls like to play with such stuff, you know they always like to play with soft and crappy things. Any ideas girls? Do you girls run around it and sing songs or some such?

The "cape" is the next in the list. Maaan! how lame can one make a pistol? These are tapes with tiny explosive material which blow on impact. It is usually inserted in a special pistol and it blows one by one, when the hammer hits the tape. Not only does this pistol not throw any projectile, it blows and burns the hand. Terrible design. I have no idea who thought this might be a good idea, and why people buy this. I don't think even girls play with this. But I found some use for this otherwise lame ass cracker. Since it blows under pressure, if you drop some of these under the legs of the chair, it startles people when they sit on it. Trust me, even with my level of innovation, it was pretty lame.

Enough of talking of lameness. There are some awesome cool crackers: they are so awesome that the cracker was banned from production. I think it defines awesome coolness! I don't think any of our generation people would have seen a "vengaaya vedi" which literally translates to "onion plosive". I guess it must have looked like an onion. The awesome thing about it is, it does not have a fuse: it is pressure triggered. If you throw this on a wall, it explodes on impact! How cool is that? I mean... wow! Unbelievable! That should have been so much fun! But I have never even seen one of these. Older people... any ideas?

Rockets are cool too. But the thing is, cool rockets are way too expensive. If there is a very special rocket, which explodes into 4 or 5 colors, it is like... I lite it, and boom... there goes my thousand bucks. But, I was lucky. Our neighbours used to spend a ton of money on rockets. I go to the terrace, and just lie down to watch the sky light up in a million sparks. They used to buy many kinds of rockets, some whistle, some have one big bang and radiates into a huge sphere of tiny bombs, each of which again explodes, giving a real time fractal effect. But there was one kind of rockets which are very different. It goes up very high and just explodes without spitting any fire. The explosion is so powerful that I would feel the shock in my stomach a moment later. It always kept reminding me of anti-aircraft missiles. That is what I call, a man's play.

It was so much fun just knowing about these, and then seeing them all over the city. I have no idea if my kids would like them. The least I could do is, buy the stuff for my kids, and use it myself ! :)

Deepavali Firecrackers - I

2007-11-12T00:53:00.000-06:00

It has been 4 years since I celebrated Deepavali in India and I miss my celebrations. I have heard it from many people that it is about Narakasuran's vadham, and Rama's return to Ayodhya. To me, it was all about fireworks. But Deepavali in Madras is not as easy as celebrating NewYear, where you wish each other with a simple "Happy New Year" at midnight. Deepavali is very different and I used to wait the whole year for Deepavali. The only festival that has a special bang!

Firstly, it needs careful planning, finance and budgeting. My parents used to specify the budget for fireworks for that year, and I will meticulously plan accordingly. I do not remember exactly when I started this, but I am sure, it was how I came face to face with a complex economic phenomenon called inflation. It struck me when I realized I could buy only lesser stuff with the same amount of money in next year. Firecrackers are more commonly called just "crackers" in India.

The fireworks that we see over the Sydney (on 2004 Olympics) or other major occasion are great to watch. But for boys, anything that cannot be poked or touched is not worth a moment's attention. And boy are their different types of crackers. My father took it upon himself to teach me how each kind of cracker reacts and I was shown what precautions pertains to which one. Let me start with the ones I was introduced to, in chronological order.

First is the "flower pot", or "busvaanam", which sprays sparks in the air. It has to be lighted on the tip of the cone. The flower pot is one of the most common and the conical remnants can be seen all over Madras, like pimples on the roads. The second is the "chakram" or the "sudharshan chakram" which spins very fast on the ground and radiates golden sparks all around it. It looks like the sun itself in its bright glory.

Then comes the explosives, and in ascending order of its decibel level, the bijli vedi, the kuruvi vedi (sparrow explosive), lakshmi/nethaji vedi. These three had explosives packed with a wad of paper around it. The thicker the paper wad, the louder the bang. Then came the "bombs", these were also explosives (obviously), but supposedly had a bigger bang. They were bigger lumps of explosive sulphur packed tightly in a jute covering. All these were simple, single explosives.

Next in the arsenal is the "double shot", an adult only explosive. It acts pretty much like a anti-aircraft gun. It is actually two explosives packed into one. The first one goes off, and shoots the other live explosive in air and the second one explodes mid-air.

The "saram", is a braided chain of smaller explosives. The teeny tiny version of this is called "oosi vedi" (literally translates to needle explosive). A characteristic of these chains, is the salvo of explosions. These sarams, can be specially and can have as many as thousands of smaller bijlis. The sarams are notorious for the random flying live bijlis.

Starters form an important category. Sparklers or "poothiri", are metal rods with slowly burning chemical at the other end, but at extremely high temperatures. Only sparklers can be used to light flowerpots and chakrams. The other equally high temperature starter is called "saatai" meaning "whip" is a rope like roll of slow burning sulfur compound. These have too much fire power to light explosives.

It is safer to lite explosives with slow burning sticks, for which I have always used cheap incense sticks. Lighting of explosives is not easy. One has to carefully prepare the fuse ("thiri"). The paper covering the free end of the fuse has to be plucked off using the nails in the index finger and the thumb, then the chemicals stuck to the threads have to be rubbed off. I used to do it by hand, and getting dirty was part of the fun. This preparation is necessary to slow the fuse, and the longer the preparation, the longer is the time we get to move away from the cracker after lighting it. Once lit, the fuse burns slowly through the threads until the end of the preparation, after which it catches fast and bang!

Happy Deepavali!

To be continued...

Moral fiber in foreign policy?

2007-11-05T18:34:00.000-06:00

I had a very heated discussion with my close friend last night, and for a change this is was a very serious and mature discussion. After two hours of slapping arguments at each other, neither of us convinced the other to change their opinion. We agreed to disagree!

The discussion was about the upheaval about recent police brutality in Burma. The military junta, has an iron grip over the country and recently a peaceful rally by the Buddhist monks was dispersed using riot police. The police excesses were condemned by the leaders of the world. Subsequently, there were reports of police destroying Buddhist monasteries and committed crimes against humanity in these temples of peace.

These are terrible acts of violence, and has to stop!

Now, India shares its border with Burma, and has good trade relations with Burma. India supplies helicopters and small medium arms to Burma. It is a very unnerving, that India a peace loving country, supplies arms to a foreign Government that uses violence as a means to rule. India condemned the acts of violence but continues to supply arms to Burma. It looks like India is ready sell its soul for the sake of trade relations with Burma which gives strategic access to other countries in Southeast Asia and the far-East.

Many elite people and journalists are convinced that this is not how things should be, and they want India to follow the Arms Embargo issued by European Union and respected by the rest of the world.

India has traditionally had good relationship with Burma, and the trade relationship dates back to more than a thousand years.

My question here is, what are are trying to prove by stopping arms trade with Burma? Are we trying to prove to the world that we are against atrocities humanities will not be overlooked by the Indian Government?

A quick reminder here about our bloody past. About 2000 people were killed in Gujrat riots, and a few days back, 12 people were given life imprisonment (14 years in jail with chance of parole/remission after some period). I am completely flabbergasted that people are so agitated, that they are doing trade with a government that does this. But who are we really? What did we do to our people? Are we trying to show that we are suddenly very good at Governing our own people, that we start preaching our ideologies?

Second comes, EU and their ideologies. This is a real joke. If India feels like reacting to Burmese junta's activities, we will do it. We need not follow the EU. The EU might be a watchdog against many countries' activities, but India is a sovereign nation now and need not follow a Union of European nations.

India has a wonderful policy of non-alignment and the famous panch-sheel, states something, no western nation has followed.

India does not interfere in other countries' internal affairs.

The ridiculous nature of this idea of stopping trade with Burma is that, it is not going to make an iota of difference to Burma or its military government because Burma's main supplier of goods is China. So, the people interested in these kinds of foreign relation gimmicks are not really thinking about making a change, they just want to escape from the scene. They are creating a huge ruckus, to not help anyone but just to hog the media limelight.

That being said, the military Government is absolutely culpable for the atrocities, and the top brass will be personally held responsible! Their days are numbered!

What do you think?

Choose your heros...

2007-10-21T21:47:00.000-05:00

A very noble effort by my friend, Subhash. This is a letter from him.

Hi friends,

Did you ever know that India won 150 medals in the Shanghai Special Olympics held this month?. Yes, that's a marvelous piece of fact gone unnoticed. These Champions (participants) from India managed to bag 36 Gold, 44 Silver and 70 Bronze medals. This is quite an incredible accomplishment especially considering the fact that India has never won more than 5 medals* in a single Summer Olympics (competition for 'normal' people) edition. No offense, but its really appalling to see the awareness of the public regarding this.

How can a country like India miss these remarkable achievements earned by their fellow citizens? When the media can show/highlight trivial news about the Indian cricket team, why can't they sensationalize this particular feat? Don't the people know that these are champions who are actually bringing laurels to the country with their 'limited' abilities?

As a mark of respect and pride for these national heroes, I am planning to organize a public awareness campaign. I have personally spoken to Capt. Siva Kumar who heads the Special Olympics Committee for the state of Tamil Nadu. He has offered his complete support to make this happen. The initiative of this campaign is to create public awareness and to emphasize that we are there for them.

To keep it modest (at least for now), I am thinking of having this event for not more than 3 hours. I would definitely need volunteers who can spend a couple of hours working with me. Since most of the guys here have a grueling week, I hope that a Sunday could be the best possible day to make this happen. The next stage from here is to get the names of volunteers who are willing to spend at least 2-3 hours on a Sunday. We will then meet the Captain who will share his experience and give us the boost to get this started. As it is a one off event, I am sure there is someone out there to support me. So please visit this blog anytime to get/share more information. If you can pass it on to someone who is willing to contribute, you have done well.

LETS DO IT FOR OUR HEROES!

Cheers,
Subhash

* Medals tally information from wiki . Information not available for five other editions.
* Online News articles

Smooch!

2007-10-20T15:16:00.000-05:00

Got smooched !!

Yipee! I got smooched BIG TIME today! you know what the best part about being smooched by this lady ? I will be blessed with a lover in the next 10 days! can you believe that ?

OK! OK! I hear ye, let me explain.

Once upon a time, there was a huge shallow sea, in which shiny simmering shell fishes gave their lives to God but gave their shell to become sedimentary rocks, in what is now most of mainland North-America. After millions of years, the limestone was fizzed away by the natural acids, leaving behind a beautiful cave, which has colorful stalactites that grow from the roof of the cave and strong stalagmites rising from the ground. There is one such treasure in Wisconsin, "The cave of the mounds".

These caves are blessed with cave angels, (Ok... this is the part where you would think that I start making stuff up!) who protect the caves and blesses the good. It so happens these angels are always girls, very cute and these angels lowe handsome guys. So, the myth goes that these angels try to kiss the cutest of guys in the cave and to the guy who visits the cave it feels like a water droplet falling from the roof of the cave.

I visited this cave of the mounds today and felt at least ten or fifteen such kisses. Yay ! the cave kissed me! She kissed me everywhere, my face, head, shoulders, hands, etc etc. It should give you an idea of how handsome I am.

------------------------------------------------

This is a draft I wrote more than a year ago. Just found it lying, uncared for. I found it very funny to read. :)

Ignore!

2007-10-19T00:28:00.000-05:00

I just realized that blog hoppers are pretty brutal. I took a break for just 2 months, and the number of visitors trickled to a mere few per day :(

Now I have to actually write about creative things, make you feel strong about something, empathize with me or someone, talk about something special and bloody think about it too. Why can't you all be nice kids, and comment for the random crap I write here, like before?

I noticed a special effect too. The number of visitors is not a function of good writing but the popularity of the person. There is one particular newbie blogger, whose name I shalt not utter (but rhymes with pushti and nasty :p ) who seems to enjoy immense popularity, even though she writes only once a while.

The world is so unfair. Goddamn it!

Back from slumber!

2007-10-14T16:31:00.000-05:00

Something weird happened to me. On September 29th, I had a cocoa drink that my roommate mixed up for me, and I am not sure what happened after that. I just woke up 2 hours back, and started blogging in a desperate attempt to understand what happened to me.

What kind of chemical can induce sleep for 2 weeks?

It was not like coma, because I had a dream. The dream felt very real, where I continued to live the life as I know it, except for a few major differences.

On September 30th, in my dream (I am not sure if it was the same date in the real world and all dates and times mentioned henceforth shall be in dream time and not real time) I was writing some code and was too tired and slept off on the desk (yes I slept off in my dream). I suddenly woke up to see a message on my monitor, "Wake up, Kid". I was shocked to find my computer talk to me, and suspected it to be some hacker playing with me, and I had to do something quick or could lose a lot of research data, when there was another message "Who are you trying to get rid off? Me? Do you really know who I am?"

I was now very certain that this was the handy work of a hacker, and more certain that my computer had been compromised. I was also interested to know what particular "software exploit" the hacker had used, so the first thing I did was unplug it from the internet.

There was another message on the screen, "It is a pity you think I am hacker. I am the one person, who can show you the real world, the reality, the truth!".

Now I was about to scream, because this was really eerie. Is this a ghost in the shell?

The message continued, "You have seen many machines, and wondered if it has a life on its own. It is the question that drives you, Kid."

What question? I have many questions, and which question is this hacker talking about? I remember, yesterday I was wondering why toothpaste was white in color most of the time, is this the question the hacker is talking about?

I asked the hacker. "Yes, it is the question that drives me. Why is my toothpaste white?"

The hacker replies, "Come with me and I shall show you how deep the rabbit hole goes (Oooh! reference to Alice in wonderland!) or you can stay and live your rut of a life, brushing your teeth day after day, without knowing what it is!"

To be continued...

Case study!

2007-09-29T14:19:00.000-05:00

I have got the acquaintance of a person, not acting in a normal way. This case has shown me promise of heights weirdness. A clincher I would say. I never thought there would anyone weirder than me. Apparently, I was just plain wrong. The case study has shown that I am not just normal, I am also very good. It looks like I might be one very kind hearted soul after all :( I always wanted to be a rowdy or some such... but my dream has been crushed recently, and I am only very soft fella. It is going to to take some time to handle the situation. I will start blogging in exactly 10 days.

See you all in the other side of the universe!

Shadows

2007-09-18T01:40:00.000-05:00

In the beautiful eighties, Tamil movie industry was awash with angels. A single man's fetish for young Indian girls clad in shimmering white gowns, seemed to meet his standards of artistic outreaches. It is quite funny how even acclaimed directors lose themselves to such silly gimmicks.

I found this video of a mellifluous song by Illayaraja, in a movie called "Nizhalgal" or Shadows. The main guy who comes is called Ravi, and he still is an actor but acts only in side roles. Ravi's role in this movie became so famous that even now he is called "Nizhalgal Ravi". The second guy's name is Rajasekar, and he too, though talented did not make it big. The uber cute girl in the song was never heard of again in the movie industry.

Nizhalgal Ravi looks so shady in this song, that I can only think of someone like him brushin random females in public transportation. No idea why the director thought he was good looking :(

Petition supporting Indo-US Nuclear Deal -- Calling for Discussion

2007-08-21T18:52:00.000-05:00

In 2006 a nuclear deal was struck between India and US after much wrangling. The US agreed to provide cheap nuclear fuel rods (Uranium) and India agreed open up one third of the reactors to International monitors. India has the second richest Thorium deposits but is not by itself the best fission fuel. Uranium is the best for production nuclear reactors, and India does not have any natural Uranium. The United states offered to allow and give Uranium imports into India with this deal. India needs nuclear fuel because we do not have enough coal or oil reserves.

This deals frees the struggling nuclear reactors with the much needed fuels. Note that, India still retains complete control and privacy of the two thirds of its research reactors.

The country is facing a political impasse because of the last minute rejection of the deal by the leftist parties including BJP and CPI(m) led by the elite and elderly Jyothi Basu. The BJP depends heavily on urban, middle-class voters. I believe these kinds of online petitions are the effective and inexpensive expression of the elite populace.

Here is a petition supporting the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. The petition closes on Sept. 1, 2007 so please hurry and spread the word.

http://www.petitiononline.com/nukedeal/

Document from the wiki
Document from Whitehouse
Document from Indian Gov (Can someone please point me to the link?)

Your nation thanks you!

Breaking again!

2007-08-09T14:23:00.001-05:00

I will not be blogging for the next 45 days. I will miss you guys a lot. Tata!

Tell Tale 20 - Postnatal Story IV

2007-07-29T07:24:00.000-05:00

Gui, The Girl

I woke up from my sleep with a jolt, because there was someone near my cage who called for help in qualese. "Is there anyone here!", came the cry for help again. I turned to the right and there was another baby! At last I knew I was not alone.

"Qi", I said. She responded. We just looked into each others eyes for many minutes. I was not even trying to talk, and we both knew about what happened to each of us since our birth. The crushing squeeze into the world, the loss of one of the appendages, the incessant biggie infestation, Goochi's sedative. We just understood each other! I could see the pain in the eyes and if not for the underdeveloped tear glands we would have cried our hearts out.

"Gui" was the name of the other baby. "You should also have a name", declared the Gui and unlike the biggie world, babies get to choose their names. I chose "Ee" as my name. We were both extremely happy in our own little conversation when two very loud nurses came and started changing our fishy restraint (diaper). Then as this was going on, I saw Gui free as a baby, with no fabric or fishy restraint. Gui had no fishy, but looked very beautiful! Without the artificial embarrassment emotions, we both smiled at each other at the free show. Gui had a very pleasant smell, so very different from the nurse's stench.

Gui unabashedly asked me "What is that between you legs?", and I replied "I call it fishy but have no idea what it does!", and as Gui was looking at me, my fishy felt very funny. Before I knew, there was a sudden stream of sparkling liquid from my fishy that hit the nurse right on the face! Gui and I both gurgled in delight, at the little discomfiture I gave for the nurse. I guess I was the world's tiniest rebel. I said, "take that you bully! You deserve that for restraining my fishy!" For the first time since we were born, Gui and I had forgotten about the misery in our lives.

After we were both tied up in our little shackles and we continued our conversation. I innocently asked "Did the biggies cut away your fishy?", she answered in the negative and we then realized that even though we had so many common things, we were pleasantly different in our own ways.

We talked about the biggies in our lives and exchanged our ideas about the world. Gui also was given the tasty liquid but not by the same Goochi, when we both realized that our Goochies were giving us individual attention. "I somehow got to like my Goochi", Gui said, "I do not think Goochi means to hurt us". Gui had a point. Even though our Goochies utter incomprehensible blabber, they never tried to hurt us. Gui was very wise, I knew I wanted to be with her all the time.

After all the talk we were tired and we fell silent. I fell asleep after some time and when I woke up, I was not in the same room. I never saw the same room again. With the room, I also lost Gui. The one person with whom I could talk, communicate, relate and laugh, was gone. Forever. With age, Gui would forget about me, our little rendezvous in hospital nursery. I never told Gui how I felt about her. I cursed myself for not doing so. I had so much to tell to her, but I fell asleep.

Never did I see Gui again. She would be a biggie now, maybe married and maybe even a mother herself. But, I still remember her as the bald baby without fishy. Every now and then I recollect, every word she said, her smell, the way she gurgled in delight when I peed on the nurse.

Fate it seems, is without a hint of charity.

PS: If you think you might be Gui, please contact me.

The Rosetta Stone:

Goochi -> Mummy
Qualesce -> Baby Language
Biggie -> The grownups
Ee -> My name
Gui -> Another girl baby's name
Fishy -> The strange appendages between my legs :-)
Appendages-> limbs, fishy and umbilical cord

Rhyme duel

2007-07-20T06:20:00.000-05:00

You must have heard the phrase "for no rhyme or reason". Here is some rhyme, but reason you might have to find elsewhere.

I was drunk yesterday, and had dual (on chat) with one of the greatest bloggers in the whole world, Archana. Obviously I won, because you know I am a punk and was drunk! Here is the document, that she lent. I leave it to you, for the plebesite to decide on the winner.

It started off nice.

Archana: why are you drunk?

me: I drank beer

but no need to jeer

11:48 PM Archana: i will keep in the clear

like a cute little deer :-D

me: sad little rhyme

atleast without grime

11:49 PM Archana: when goes by more time

it will be worth more than a dime

me: better than a mime

lemony lemony lime

and gets heated up soon enough!

12:34 AM knock knock... at the door

Archana: whos there

me: who comes for more?

Archana: an yellowstone bear?

me: with a green pear

12:35 AM Archana: looking rather dear

me: with an intent to sear

Archana: and then maybe tear

me: never gonna care

12:36 AM Archana: Ah dont you dare

me: for the bodyguards you have a pair

Archana: are they fair

or do they just glare

me: run like a mare

or I will pare

12:37 AM Archana: is a pare a word

my knowledgeable lord

Ends in a weird note.

me: I heard she likes maddy

like all girls shady

12:56 AM I am all sturdy

but her tastes are all tardy

Archana: you reek of envy

dont you dare deny

me: maddy is gay ***

and I will make him pay

Archana: again i try my pal

12:57 AM can I say thats all?

try as you might

get it right

me: sorry for your plight

but mine is the fight

12:58 AM you may be tight

but never see light

Take a look at the duel here.

*** I did not mean to offend the gay community. I really heard a rumour that Madhavan ("Maddy") is gay.

Politically correct consumation

2007-07-09T03:15:00.000-05:00

Warning: Adult content.

Sunday evening is when we all have our late night cuppa, and sit in the living room, with each of our lappie ladden laps, lazily browsing. Then comes the most common discussion among us.

Me: What type of condom are you planning to wear for your first night?

Let me tell you. This might be the millionth time we have talked about it. However, the question never ceases to stir our deepest emotions.

Roomie_1: I won't fuck in my first night. Dude, mostly I would be too tired after the whole ceremony. I will sleep.

The reader should be aware that the Hindu wedding ceremony is quite draining. Mostly sitting in front of the agni (ceremonial fire), and receiving blessing from elders which involves a lot of prostrating (push-up like motion). And we remind ourselves that "making lowe" is for polite pricks. Real men call it "fucking" or more aptly "action".

Roomie_1: Of course, I will get action every night for one full month after that. Then probably I will get bored.

Roomie_1 is the confident type. He probably mistakes "action" for some pious prayer that he can do in his room... alone. We politely remind him of the other character, Mrs. Roomie_1 involved in this process. And again with a brilliant show of confidence...

Roomie_1: I will divorce her if she does not agree. You know, refusing to have sex is a strong reason for divorce.

This is probably his only legal knowledge. I pray for him. Everyday. Then the second Roomie interrupts us.

Roomie_2: This is all bullshit. I will not be tired and all. But I still won't fuck her. I will talk with her and get to know her better.

Roomie_2 always needs to know better. He always reads nutritional facts before he eats anything, always reads EULA (End User License Agreement) before he signs. Even he does not understand what "polyunsat trans fat", he has to know how much of it is in his food. Ask him why he will not talk to her before marriage, and he has a ready answer.

Roomie_2: The first night is where you have a excellent opportunity to get close and talk. That is when you get to talk to your wife in private for the first time.

The dude is probably horny as hell, it is a shame he cannot show it. He thinks spouting such "sensitive" ideas will make him a ladies' man. He keeps forgetting, he is sitting among a bunch of ruffians.

Me: If you really go with your plan, your wife will probably think you are a girl too.

And then we all laugh at Roomie_2. Yes, we all have an excellent sense of humour.

Roomie_3: See, the first night is supposedly sacred. It is when you are supposed to unite physically unite with your spouse. Whatever I do, I will take a pack of condoms with me.

I give a smug smile because I beat Roomie_2 with an even better politically correct, statement. I also included in my answer an unpredictability factor. I did not talk of a singular condom but a "pack" thus implying all-night action. It is a winning combination.

However, they thought I probably will use "pack of condoms" to blow balloons! Sons of silly persons, I blow my nose in their dinner direction!

The best thing about Sunday night conversation is that, we all know that premarital action is out of reach, because you know "we come from respectable families". But even the seeming possibility of the supposedly memorably post-marital fuck looks forever postponed...

We brilliant graduate students, are infinitely intrigued by the random woman we are going to meet. I don't know if girls are like this, but every Indian guy talks about girding his loins for the first night-out with his wife.I know there are a bunch of married girls who visit my blog. Ask your husband what he thought was going to happen. I am sure he had wild dreams about his first night, before he met you.

* I think this is one of a kind document. No-one has ever written about guys like us.

* This is a work of fiction. My roomies and I are infinitely handsome, immensely sensitive, brilliant and successful lads. We use the phrase "making lowe" instead of the crasser alternatives mentioned above.

* The first female commenter for this post (who has got something real to say) will get a toffee. :-)

Tell Tale 18 - Postnatal story III

2007-07-04T18:02:00.000-05:00

I woke and and found myself imprisoned in a short and soft cage. It did not have a ceiling but since I could not even get up, it was impossible for me to escape. I was very stressed out and I was beginning to show signs of early life crisis. I then tried to remember what happened last. I was with Goochi and she had tranquilized me.

Just then as I was planning my day, a bunch of biggies came in (pests don't knock, do they?). It looked like the circus was town, and they were very happy to find yours truly, newly caged. Then a biggie, reached out into the cage and touched me! Yuck! The hand was as big as my face, with nails as long as 1cm and just plain ugly. Can you imagine a huge dirty hand as big as your face touching you everywhere? I came to know about BlankNoiseProject much later started by biggies who did not liked to be touched by other people... but even back then I wanted to start something called BabyNoiseProject (actually QuaQuaProject)!

Then when a biggie touched my palm I quickly graped the finger, and I was glad I could grasp it firm. The biggies ignorantly understand my primitive grasp reflex of a new born as a way to hold on to mommy! Yea right! What they don't know is that, we hold on to your finger only to prevent you from touching us!

I had dexterously grasped every finger which came to touch me when there was sudden flash of light! They kept saying "cheese"! And bang, another flash! I was blinded by the flash and even though I had silently wished to be blinded than to see these biggies again, I never really meant it. The bastards blinded me! Again they called me "Cheese" and more flash bangs. I dawned on me that they had named me "Cheese". "Cheese" sounded like a very sophisticated and endearing name. I had no qualms about that.

A particularly interesting biggie was smiling a lot at me, and even looked proud. Initially, I was not sure about the source of the pride. Then I saw it come closer. Closer and closer. Aaarh! The biggie was going to eat me! "Qua qua" I screamed. The biggie was not proud but happy about the dinner I was going to become. Then in a grotesque display of magnanimity, it touched my cheeks with its lips and retracted! I prefer to be eaten than this. Why? Why did the biggie touch me with its lips? Is there even a reason? I also happened to see a close up of the biggie's face. There were black thorns covering the lower half of the face. The biggie had transparent eye protection, so I had had to abort my plan to poke its eyes.

Then the biggie put some grainy crystals into my mouth. Aarh! I screamed "Do you have to kill every one of my senses?". And I saw a sudden change in their behaviour. They were very discomforted by my scream. Did they really listen to me? I was stunned by such a vague sign of decency. After all there was hope. The effect soon vanished, and they got busy violating my senses again. I screamed again, and this time louder than ever. I kept repeating it until Goochi came and shepherded them away. I was much relieved, as though Goochi was any better.

I guess this is the punishment I get for screaming. So, whenever I scream, Goochi is going to come. I cried "save me! save me", but again like before, I was tranquilized with the yummy liquid and silenced. Caged circus animals are treated more humanly, I tell you.

Theory: Novel Classification of Profession Entertainment

2007-06-30T22:47:00.000-05:00

Title: Novel Classification of Professional Entertainment

Abstract: Professional entertainments are naturally classified based on individual tastes or level of expertise. In this theory, I present a new classification for professional entertainment or more specifically stage performances, including professional sports, cinema, classical recital, a rock festival, magic shows, TV soaps, porn, etc. This theory then helps us to understand how some people cannot enjoy certain forms of entertainment, while others have a ball (Example: The movie "Sivaji").

The Classification: In this classification there are two types of entertainment: Type I and Type II. In type I entertainment, the audience is amazed at the skill of the performer and wonder how he/she does it. A typical example of Type I entertainment, would be a magic show. In this case, the satisfaction for the audience would come from being convinced at the performer's slight of hand. Other examples are a live music (recorded music belongs type II), professional games (like tennis).

An entertainment in which the audience enjoy the performance itself and the not the Raison d'être, would be Type II. For example, when people watch a firework show, they just enjoy the lit up sky, and the skilled maker of the firework is never thought about! Other examples of Type II entertainment are TV soaps, porn. I am sure nobody watches porn and gets entertained by the talent of the artists.

Exceptions: I am not aware of any blatant exception. However, there are fuzzy cases. For example, I am sure people go to soccer matches or cricket matches for the fun of watching a good game and that would put it in Type II. On the contrary, a soccer match could become a one man show, where the striker in one of the teams becomes the star attraction, which would change the source of the entertainment to be his/her display of talent, thus making it Type I. So, at times, even though we are classifying an entertainment, it could also depend on the perception of the spectator.

A good exception would be that, there are some forms of entertainment like this "blog" which are boring, and it fails to come under any of the above category! Or you could be amazed at how I could come of with such theories with absolutely no use, whatsoever!

Uses of this theory: Using this theory it is possible to understand why some people cannot like the new Rajnikanth blockbuster "Sivaji". Considering "Sivaji" as a Type I entertainment, where one is amazed at his charisma, his mottai avatar, his goodness, the movie would be liked. When the movie is considered as a Type II entertainment, and the movie goer sees it without an iota of appreciation for RajniKanth, it turns out to be drab (deservedly so!). Unfortunately, the north Indian population can only see it as a Type II entertainment, and therefore cannot join in a celebration of this larger-than-life dramatis persona!

Can you think of any exceptions to this classification? If you think this theory is a load of crap, I completely agree with you :-)

Vote please!

2007-06-27T15:44:00.000-05:00

Tell Tale 17 - Postnatal Story II

2007-06-24T13:44:00.000-05:00

After I was born, I was put on a fabric, and wrapped all around. None of my personal preferences were heeded, but I was voicing them anyways. I should have had a tag saying, "store in a warm & dark place", not that the biggies would have cared to notice.

Then one biggie, who was also lying in the same bed (about 8-9 times my size!), was checking me. First the appendages (4 big ones) and then the fishy and was very pleased. I was watching its movements carefully and finally it looked at me and began speaking to me like this "bubbla boo, giggly gooogly ga", "goochi goochi", with very very interesting facial expressions. I guess this must be the biggie language. I was very impressed with the biggie language, but damn! even though the biggie was very animated, it lacked articulation and the biggie language had so many consonants. May be it wants me to do something... I said "quuuaa", for which it again repeated "goochi goochi". I tried to say, "goochi", but it was too hard. I promptly named this biggie "goochi". Then I realized that Goochi had a much wider range of vocal versatility: why don't they try to speak my simple "qualese" (the baby language)? Maybe, biggies are not so smart to understand my qualese, so I have to learn their ways. Hmmmm!

Then Goochi touched my tummy, and it felt funny. Actually, there had been a weird feeling going on in my tummy, you know not outside, but inside. Something like a pulling feeling and I had no idea what it was or what to do. Then Goochi took me closer to its body (the biggies have no sense of personal space) and tried to a thrust its sack like appendage into my mouth. I was in no mood for this kind of closeness, for I had just met Goochi. And I told that, "qua quuu quaa quaa". Again this poor hapless being's protest were in vain, even before I could finish the sentence, my mouth was full. With nothing to do, I grasped the huge sack with my limbs, and suddenly my mouth was all wet! Can you believe it? My mouth was full of some very tasty fluid, and unfortunately, it disappeared down my throat immediately. Just when I was sad that such yummy fluid was exhausted, there was more fluid from the sac. Hmm, Hmm... Oh! I get it, the sac must be filled with this, and Goochi must have been trying to articulate this to me! Goochi could have just told me that in the first place, and I would not have made such a huge fuss. I already liked this biggie. I had one more mouthful of tasty liquid. After plenty of yummy liquid in about 3 huge mouthfuls I was very happy. I also wrote a small poem "quaua quaua, quak qu!" (In case you did not understand, it means "Yummy Yummy, Happy me!")

A little while later, I could not think straight and my vision became blurry, and I could not keep my eyelids open! Goochi must have mixed some sedative in that yummy liquid. I have never in my 4 hour life trusted strangers and resolved I never will! Before I could realize, I fell into a deep state of unconsciousness.

To be continued...

Tell Tale 16 - Postnatal story

2007-06-15T14:19:00.000-05:00

I am a just born baby and by nature babies think and talk very much like you grown-ups. But babies have short term memory loss so they seldom remember their pristine first moments. So, the world knows not a single nascent story. But I am gifted with an excellent memory and I remember everything. But here is the world's first postnatal autobiography.

The first thing I remember was when I tried to open eyes. Ah! and it hurt. Everything was so congested and I was stuck somewhere. I was being squeezed from my place, and I didn't like the new place one bit. I tried to squeeze myself back into the warm moist place but na-ha. Crap! There was an enormous force and in one fine twist I was out in the open. I felt like the soft wet Colgate toothpaste, squeezed from the pregnant tube onto the brush like world. I was chocking with air... oh wait, this air is cool but I liked it better when I was in the liquid, for I need not breathe needlessly. Soon, like a smoker I got used to feeling of breathing fresh air and I am now addicted to air and have fatal withdrawal effects.

It was too much work, I decided to take it easy for some time and let things happen. Only then did I realize there were huge things all around me and they all were exactly like me, but only bigger! I will call them "biggies", I resolved. They were all very powerful.

I took a look at myself and I had a torso and 6 things attached to it, four of which I could move voluntarily. A biggie lifted me and the bloody bastard cut one of the things that was attached to my tummy. Aaarh! Do you know what you are doing? I tried to say to him with "quaa qua quaaaa qua quaa", the dumbass pretended to not hear me and he dressed up the vestige of the umbilical cord. At least it did not hurt much. Now I could see 5 things attached to me, oh wait, I wanted to reclassify my attachments, I counted 4 huge attachments and the tiny but very interesting stuff between my legs... I called them fishy.

I was everyone's attention. And I liked it. The biggies were busy looking after me. They put me on a hard metal, and I looked at the dial and it showed 7 lbs (I understood "mass" and "weight" right after birth because like I said before, I am a prodigy). They prodded me with sticks and needles and I screamed "stop it, stop it!" like this "qu quaaa, qu quaaa!" Again everyone pretended not to hear me. There was only one obvious conclusion... "The biggies must all be deaf!"

To be continued ...

Twenty Thousand leagues under the Sea

2007-06-13T15:04:00.000-05:00

I am a Science-fiction fan. My favorite is Ray Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man". I am a fan of hard science fiction, where the author puts an appreciable effort to support the fiction with scientific reasoning. For this reason, hard science fiction is not everybody's cup of tea for it takes ample amount of prior knowledge to appreciate the author's reasoning and verify the soundness and validity of the logic. I found "Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea" in a old book store and bought it for Rs 30. It was originally written by Jules Verne in French and since I am not a "foutre vous" fan, I never tried to read it, but this one is an English translation. It was first published about 150 years back.

The story is quite simple. The oceans are explored in a submarine ship in which the protagonist and two others are held against their will, until they manage to escape. The fate of the submarine is unknown after a last mishap, and the protagonist lives to tell the tale. The protagonist is a scholar in marine biology. In the title, Twenty thousand leagues (a league is 2.2 km) is the distance they travel in the submarine.

There are a few popularly interesting things about the book. Firstly, his predictions of a submarine ship came true, and the actual designs were very close to his descriptions. He had a thought quite a bit before he wrote about the vessel. The mysterious and most interesting character is Captain Nemo, of the Nautilus (name of the submarine ship) is very famous.

What struck me was the protagonist Professor Pierre Aronnax. Prof. Aronnax is not a magician nor is he shown to have off-the-charts intelligence. Prof. Aronnax is shown to be a logical man and a social one too. In the beginning of the novel, when the world is dark about the existence of this submarine ship, but there is rampant speculation about an unknown sea creature with massive destructive powers. Prof. Aronnax convinces that the object of everyones attention is a narwhal (a species of whale). Even though that the reader knows that object is a metallic contraption which the world will call it "submarine", one will be convinced that Prof. Arronax's conclusion is derived from flawless and impressive reasoning.

The other important think I noticed about the book is the careful limitation of the characters. After Prof. Arronax, is the very necessary Captain Nemo who cannot be ignored in that story. But other characters are given a low profile and a lot of the fiction being spent on the submarine zoology, artifacts and adventures. It would be hard sustain other complex human characters. The undersea adventures are multitude, for they see the south pole, Atlantis, historical shipwrecks, fictional underwater Suez canal.

It is quite possible that the author engineered Prof. Aronnax based on
himself, for the scientific reasoning did not look like part of some piecewise constructed character but a real researcher with painful attention to detail and adherence to robustness of logic.

This book is a must read for any researcher and it would not be cricket to recommend this book to everyone.

Have you read book? What are your thoughts?

Pratap Talkies -- Adolescent Fatiques (Part II)

2007-06-07T14:45:00.000-05:00

Please read part I, for an introduction. There would be self-contradicting happenings, but since this is directly from my dream, logical correctness was not part of the deal.

Somehow I manage to get off the grip of the Tigers, and run off. The escape was easier than I had expected and I have a feeling that they might have staged it, hoping to lead them to something, like a bee homing to its hive.

Then I looked in my hand, and there was a paper stub. I automatically knew that my mission was to take this piece of paper to somebody. I did not know who it was, not did I know where he is. I also knew I had to go north (this is contrary to current state of the SriLanka, where the northern part of the island is under the tiger control and I am a army regular).

I started from the front-line in the middle of the jungle and headed north. The jungle was thick, and was not too green like I had imagined. There was a footpath through the jungle, and I jogged for the most part. My army boots were sturdy enough for the long journey. The hard sole crushed pebbles and any small creatures which were unfortunate enough to tread across my way. I was happy to have those boots, (and military fatigues) other than which I had nothing on me worthy of a soldier's attire. The Tigers had disarmed me, and I had no rifle, or the standard small arms pistol (I did not miss my army knife, because I am not a fan of knifes). An unarmed man in army fatigues, running into enemy territory is quite comical, but I had a mission to finish.

Then I entered a village and it was early morning for I had walked most of the night. I was hoping to get some water and possibly some food, but was quite apprehensive. More importantly, I had to find the person to deposit the paper in hand. I meant a 50 year old man, who looked decent, and so I asked him if he knew. He looked at the paper, and told me that the person that I need to see was in a town, some distance north of that village. He also told me that the paper I had in hand was a cheque, and there were no banks around. So, I exchanged it with him for its worth. (I never took the effort to read the paper). So, taking his advice, I headed further north.

There I entered a town, and managed to find the house of the person I was looking for. The road surprisingly looked like Lakshmanaswamy Street, KK. Nagar, Chennai. His house was at the corner of an intersection, and was easy to find. I knocked on the door but there was no answer. There was a back door, through which I entered and found him sleeping. I carefully woke him up, and was afraid I would scare him but surprisingly he woke up and kept his cool. He was very concerned about me, and before I told about the journey, I conveyed my hunger. He fed me well.

After I ate, we sat in the same armrest-less dining chair and we talked. I formally identified myself, with my name and ID, and then narrated my first encounter with the tigers. I told him about the piece of paper which I was supposed to be delivering to him and how I got cheated on the way. He asked me not to worry about it and was happy I made it to him. He told me that the information about the Tiger advancement was critical.

He then told me that the tigers would have reached this town and since it does not have any military installation would fall quickly. He took me to another room and opened a cupboard. He was very well equipped with an array of M16s. I was surprised at the preparedness of the man.
I took a M16 and provisioned myself well with 2 magazines. I did not see any reason to carry an assault weapon then, but he assured me that the tigers would be here soon and they would get to his house.

Since we two were the only people in the house, defending it would be quite difficult against a determined well organized Tiger squadron. We drilled holes in the concrete wall, to aim and shoot from inside. In urban warfare this is common procedure when a smaller unit is holed up in a house, they cannot use the windows for firing because of larger exposure area, and the weak barrier. Firing through drilled holes in the walls gives good protection against enemy fire and shrapnel and the position is hard to find. I made 3 such positions and bedecked each with a couple of M16s. If I died there, I would have at least fought to finish.

I was busy getting nervous, when he suddenly suggested that I get out of the house. He told me that, the mini-fortress was impossible to defend and will only end in death. He noted my young age and asked me take one rifle and get out of the town. I obeyed his word because he was confident he himself could inflict the quite a damage on the approaching enemy and since he was a senior officer I had to follow his order. I moved out of the house, in civilian clothes, and could not believe my eyes at the peaceful neighbourhood. Only I could see the fortress in the sleepy town on a warm afternoon.

I was resting my rifle on my shoulder, standing at the intersection, carelessly choosing a direction to go. At about half a kilometer, there was a tiger squadron of about 7-8 soldiers which is when I realized that the enemy was here. I realized I had to act soon, and checked out the other three roads and no tigers were in sight. I knew that since the house was the target, they would come in all the four directions. If they find me, the M16 would ID as an army regular, and they would be happy to empty their magazines on me. And while I was contemplating my direction to flee, there were Tigers in all the four direction. I placed my M16 under a moped parked nearby and decided to proceed along the widest road.

I was walking nonchalantly on the shoulder of the near empty road which had almost zero vehicular traffic and carefully noted the buildings around in order to run into. I was planning to just walk past the approaching Tiger squadron and completely ignore them. As soon as I had decided on this plan of action, I noticed that they had started firing at the sidewalk users and three men went down. I had to get off road in order to avoid death. There was a school playground where some girls were playing soccer. I jumped over a wall into the ground and hid behind the parapet wall. I eagerly waited for the Tigers to cross my position and raised my head and checked to verify. They had walked past the school and were about 50 meters away. I was happy to have evaded them and jumped over the fence and landed softly. I started slowly walking in the opposite direction hoping that the dangers over but the house would be surrounded soon.

I was increasing my pace when suddenly one of the Tigers looked behind and saw me walking. Even though I was in civilian clothes I knew my time was over as I could see him drawing other soldier's attention to me. I was not sure if he was interested in me or the two other civilians who were happily ignorant of the impending danger. But soon I heard automatic fire and bullets ricocheting on the tar road surface. I dropped on my knees and rolled to the shoulder (the shoulder was about 20 cms lower than the tar road surface) and I hoped to hide from the line of sight. There I lay on my back, and tightly closed my eyes afraid of the danger and more importantly the dirt blew all around me from the impact of the projectile bullet on any hard service. Then about after 30 seconds the automatic fire stopped, but I was playing playing dead, not that I had any other option.

About 2 minutes later, there was a single shot and it landed pretty close and I knew that someone still remembered me. Now, as I was looking at the sky, and nervously waiting for my death, there was one more shot and landed equally near. I realized that there was only one person and he was using semi-automatic mode in his assault rifle. I hoped he would just go away and leave me alone. It looked like he had taken his firing position and I was his target practice. Finally after several close shots, there was a hit. A bullet braced my tummy and made a 1 cm cut diagonally starting from the right hip to the left chest. It was just a external wound (skin tear) but I knew that the Tiger soldier was getting better at this. Then there were three more shorts each of which entered my stomach and was lodged inside.

The semi-automatic fire stopped after than. I lay there, immobile and nothing to do. I hoped my intestine absorbed most of the stopping power of the bullet as anything else means a bleak future. I did not feel any pain, but was much agonizing as though someone very close to me was getting shot at (may be in dreams can one actually feel pain??). Somehow I was at peace and was both sad and happy at the same time. I was sad because, even though I had enough firepower to stop the whole squadron, I chose to drop my weapon in a failed attempt to flee. But then again, in this whole bloody war, I did not kill anyone. I am completely innocent. What was the point of all this? Why did that guy kill me when I chose to stay in the path of non-violence?

I then remembered the book Catch-22, and how the illogical, maddening arguments Joseph Keller puts forth made sense like never before.

Naan partha penn - I

2007-06-03T02:43:00.000-05:00

I was talking to one of my friends about Blank Noise Project and how the young girls were stepping over other people's rights in their campaign. I was wondering how I would react if I met any one of those people. It seems they have special campaigns where, the beautifully dressed stand in crowded urban public places. Apparently, they are honeypots for perverts. Hmmm.... I wonder if I would look at them! correction... obviously I would look at them, a good exercise would be to know if they would brand me as a pervert. The catch here is... I might be one, but how can you tell ? he he he

(I don't want BlankNoiseProject cyber patrol to find my blog and start sermons)

So, yesterday when I was traveling in an autorickshaw I had an brilliant idea! Not that any of my ideas are less than brilliant, but this was quite special. I wanted to see a girl. I was not planning to arrange a bajji, sojji kinda familial meeting, so a quickie :) I was quite brave because you know I was in an autorickshaw :)

So, the plan was to pick a girl and look at her. That is all. There was a huge traffic jam near Pothy's in Usman road and I was fed up with the fumes and traffic, and I completely forgot about the plan. Just then the traffic cleared up and the auto neared the Usman Road bus stop. There was a girl in chudidhar, with nice earrings(I fall flat for girls wearing nice earrings ) and she was talking to some other girl and waiting for a bus. The girl was very pretty. Before I knew I was looking at her, straight at her face.

Then time slowed down, and the few seconds seemed like a few more seconds. Then she turned in slow motion to look at me. Here the reader should be informed about the rarity of the incident. In all my 25 years of looking at girls, they have only given me dirty or disgusting looks, if at all they deigned to look at me. So, this girl looks at me and stops talking to the other girl. It looked like she stopped mid sentence. Now, I am unfamiliar to this kind of attention and I did not know what to do. She did not smile, but neither did I. You know the kind, who look at each other and start loving at first sight?

We locked into each other's eyes, and were talking silently. Even though we never spoke, I think I told her that she was the most beautiful girl in that bus stop, and I like her. She seemed to reciprocate. After few seconds with her, the auto crossed the bus stop, and I lost sight of her.

What do you think the girl must have thought? What if she was a BlankNoiseProject girl? What if you were the girl?

Drowning Victim

2007-06-02T04:06:00.000-05:00

First reports about a drowning victim identified as Kiran Yellajyosula has come out. We are still awaiting confirmation from the official search blog.

Krishna - Part II

2007-05-30T14:43:00.000-05:00

I had planned to finish the Krishna panning in just two parts, but dropped the idea. Well there are a couple of reasons. I went to Parthasarathy temple and the tall and imposing Krishna was impressive. But above all the brisk mustache was a quite a divine fashion statement.

Moreover, I am in no mood to badmouth any God right now... but let some things clear up, I will have my day :-)

I am in my home town now and everything looks different. Maybe it is me, or as my mom says, I am really seeing a different part of the town (she is always right you see, because I am really staying in a different house now) Everybody corrects me when I call it Madras... it seems they changed it to Chennai. What was wrong with "Madras"? There was one thing good about it, the hindi belt in India cannot mess the name "Chennai", with the impossible degenerate overlapping of the English alphabet with the devanagiri phoenetics.

Coming back Krishna, the Parthasarathy Temple was very nice. It was disheartening to see Hanuman with a Namam (even though Hanuman is a avatar of Shiva), but like I said before I am in no mood to fight over divinity today. Then my father took me to Kapaleeshwarar temple too and the two maadaveedhi in the temples were quite contrasting. Can anyone guess what that is?

A friend in need

2007-05-29T01:10:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine has gone missing for some days now. Please pray for him.

Tell Tale 15

2007-05-06T01:53:00.000-05:00

He used to say clever things with a hint of prescience and she used to try very hard to disconfirm his expectations. They had whale of a time doing just that. He once told her, "we are so close now, but sometime in the future we could be far away, and we would only be cell phone missed calls." A couple of years later, he was sad that his intuition had come true.

He was wrong. She had blocked his phone number.

Ebb

2007-04-30T16:11:00.000-05:00

My stats show an all time dip! Damn it Aarti, you brought it down! (See how convenient it is to shove all the blame? he he). That feminist crap is all repulsive, I tell you.

I will be going home for a month! Yipeee! Fellow bloggers in Madras, want to meet up?

F******** -- The G Version

2007-04-24T01:59:00.000-05:00

Feminism to the most part is a feeling of equality of men and women. In India, as siblings, daughters are given less opportunities, than sons. Equality of education and basic development strips independence off women. There the parents should try to see their male and female kids as equals. This is not true even among the urban populace in Chennai. Equal opportunity includes, right to live, access to education, encouragement to participate in sporty activities, sanitation, involvement in socio-economic decision, and marital decisions.

Currently, I believe this to be a pressing goal for any feministic movement. Men and women should share these ideas. But only these. Some high profile intellectuals try to milk the feminist cow, by making grammatical changes like "female actor" instead of "actress", and other point-making exercises.

In most other cases, the learned woman who is being affected by a male dominated society should and needs to rise by herself. Every woman can take things into her hands in the household and the locality. But this is not true for female children who are completely dependent the parents for all their support.

I have a classic example of a wasted feminist energy. In our floor, there are about 40 employees, and the floor has 3 identical individual restrooms. However, one restroom is marked as "Men", another marked as "Women" and a third just "Restroom". There are two women who work in the floor, and the department has been traditionally dominated by males. I am not sure if reservation of the restroom is the most efficient thing to do.

There is a dangerous repercussion because of this wasted energy in making such silly feministic pickets. People lose focus, and the energy is dissipated. When a subset of people try to force unnecessary logic down everybody else's throat, it becomes a nuisance. Similar to when Bombay changed to Mumbai, Madras to Chennai, Calcutta to Kolkata, and recently Bangalore to Bengalooru.

Women try to drag everything under the sun and call it feminism. I do not think chivalry has anything to do with feminism. In a trice, the conflicting interests becomes farcical. This is what Pratap tried to tell in the previous post. (Btw, his story was some made up. He does not know that many girls ;-) ) Any act related to courtship, is quite complicated to be branded anything (Good or bad, stupid or charming, rude or smart, Condescending or nice)

Societal roles cannot be eliminated. Some people like to fit into the societal roles. Some women like to be house wives. Some women like to cook painstaking special food for their spouse. Some men like to work with machinery, most women would rather spend time shopping. A true implementation of feminism would only make this place an asexual planet.

I know the above sounds brutal and contradicting to most other views, and this version of feminism from my mouth is not without its sense of irony. If only you know all the things that I know.

F********

2007-04-22T21:16:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer: Please don't kill me!

A tag I took from ArtNavy.

I have had very strong feelings about feminism throughout my life. I was born and brought up in urban Madras and to my knowledge my parents have instilled a sense of male pride along with a due respect for the female gender. But my opinion is far from what you think it is...

Feminism has just been bad for me. I am a guy but I tell you it has very serious implications in this young and very attractive man's life. It has been confusing at best. You see, in my house, my father always tells me that I should be nice to girls... and my mom says they should be respected and all. I have been doing all that and more. Well, what the hell do you want me to do?

Well, I met a girl once.. a sorta cute one at that. Not really super attractive and all, but I kinda liked her. We were exiting a store, and I was leading the line to the door, when my super-duper mind starts racing... Should I open the door and give way to the girl? because, my father always says "ladies first!"... I pull the door and half way through, I realize that she might be a fire-breathing feminist and might consider my chivalrous gesture to be condescending... you know they want to be considered equal and all... so they would choose to follow my stinky butt than to accept a nice fella's gentlemanly gesture.

While I was busy processing all these complex moderate feminist concepts in my mind and tried to act all modern, she had come from behind me and tried to squeeze herself through the half open door and her shirt had got stuck in some protrusion in the door. Now, she was looking at me very sweetly, and I had forgot all the second degree feminist stuff... and I thought we were looking into each other's eyes and were really communicating. Even though I got the message through her eyes, she also happened to orally re-iterate it, "Can you please open the door a little bit more? I am getting crushed here!" That was my first experience with feminism. I tell you, that was hardcore!

Then there was this other girl, she had really huge eyes and was cuter than the previous one. I liked her too. This time we are in a coffee shop and she was talking about her cousin who was a jerk or something to that effect. It was an interesting session of "really?", "I am so sorry", "Wow!" between her very many stories with this really relevant cousin of hers. Then it struck me! What if she was a feminist? or not! Since there was no way to infer it, I asked her.

Me: Are you a feminist.
Girl: What do you mean?
Me: Are you a feminist?
Girl: why are you suddenly being rude?

Oh crap! I had forgotten that branding somebody as a feminist is rude. But wait, feminism is not like "are you a robber?" or "are you an ass?" kinda like question. I got confused. Does it mean that she is a feminist? or not? How am I supposed to answer her question?

Me: I will tell you why I am rude later, but I asked a question first, "are you a feminist?"
Girl: Well, I do believe that men and women are equal and, women should not be restrained to the traditional roles.

First of all, I did not ask her to make a political speech on feminism. A simple question with a simple "yes" or "no" would have sufficed. This was getting too complicated. Now I have to wade through her politically correct opinion on gender bias and learn what the hell she is. Man, what a crappy situation. Then I pulled my own politically correct rebuttal...

Me: Well, with the urban population of our generation both boys and girls are given equal opportunity and the gender bias is slowly decreasing. I mean, in my class, the topper was always a girl, and I used to copy notes from her.... Ok, I am digressing, but what exactly did you mean by feminism ?

Girl: I already told you that. Gosh! Now, why did you call me a feminist? You know, asking a girl if she is a feminist is rude.

Me: What the hell!

That was a messed up conversation to start with. Trust me. Don't talk about feminism, to a girl directly... you could either end up being rude or condescending or a MCP or in the gutters!

Man Write - Part III

2007-04-20T08:12:00.000-05:00

It boils down to an algorithm!The gender genie! This was just a classification problem, and they trained using hundreds of documents to make a correlation. Cha! I should have known.

Credits: A friend of mine showed me the link. All the credits go to him and the algorithm of course.

My DNA too!

2007-04-17T11:37:00.000-05:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

My DNA

2007-04-17T11:31:00.001-05:00

I got tagged by Vishesh! Here is my DNA! Btw, Aarti was sad that you left her out!

Read my VisualDNA™

Pratap Talkies -- Adolescent Fatiques (Part I)

2007-04-11T16:46:00.000-05:00

Claimer: This is the dream I had last week, and I was able to remember a lot of details. This story is what I call "dreamy fiction": untouched from my dream. I did not doctor any of characters, they all came with their own package.

I am a very young soldier in the Sri Lankan army recently transfered to one of the front line outposts. My commander introduces himself and shows me the weapons depot. The building resembles my grandparent's house in Madras and that immediately makes me eerily comfortable. I think that the army must have moved into an abandoned house! The weapons depot is not too big because the weapons here are only light armaments, and no heavy artillery. There are some impressive M16s and that is surprising because the American M16 is quite expensive and I was not aware that the Sri Lankan army would have enough money to buy those. Maybe I need to send orders to bring more firepower in here. While I am not too keen to meet and socialize with the other soldiers who were quite busy themselves, the number of soldiers themselves were too small to defend a front line position.

I was not issued a personal rifle before getting transferred, and getting used to my rifle is quite important. I take my time to select my rifle. I see the rack and the famous M16 attracts my attention and I pick one to examine its age. Just then a jeep screeches to a halt, in front of the single story building, and I could see that it is the Tigers are here! Already! An ambush! Fuck man! I was trained to use M16 rifles but right then, it seems to slip away. There are two other soldiers who are holding their rifles and they become alert. After about 5 mins, since I do not hear any shots being fired, we gingerly head out, and the Tiger jeep was taking a wide turn leaving the compound. "Get ready for battle tomorrow, we have to hold this fort!", says my commander, who had received this information from the Tigers who had come. Why would the Tigers come and tell us about it? Wouldn't it be better for them to ambush this post?

While I was thinking about all this unnecessarily, I realized that I am still in military fatigue but completely unarmed - A perfect sitting duck for tomorrow. I rush back and decided to get ready. I chose an M16. For a forward post, the place was low on ammo. I could get my hands on only one magazine. But, there were many grenades. I took 2 and dropped them into my pants. I really felt the need for a pistol. The problem is, the post is in the middle of a forest and since the number of soldiers are low, we would require a lot of fire power to keep the enemy at bay. But since I had only one M16 magazine with 40 NATO rounds, there really be some close combat. I missed my colt.45. The M16 rifle is cumbersome to fight with in close combat and the grenades are completely useless in close combat unless I had decided to kill myself. I was not planning to die.

The next day, and the munitions were empty, I guess all the other soldiers must have loaded themselves. I decided to stay in the same building. And the tigers came. In swarms. I could not see the numbers because I was not in the exits of the building, and I could only hear the sounds of the tigers coming in the jeeps. I was now in the rifle room, along with 2 other soldiers. I could hear single shots being fired, but no automatic fire. The are footsteps nearing my room and the three of us are holed up with our rifles. Was the building already taken? Crap! I curse the lack of a pistol, and decide to spray the entrance of the room with bullets, and empty my magazine. There was no need to aim, just hold at waist and squeeze the trigger and sweep. Did not have any idea how to proceed after that. I decided to switch from semi-automatic to automatic fire. I change the lever, and the stock comes off. At the sight of my rifle dismantling, I start shivering, because I could hear steady footsteps of a about 3-4 heavy boots coming towards our room.

Just as I was thinking what to do, I see a hand lob a grenade into the room. With no time to think I just pick that heavy thing and lob it back. I was already, holding my head to prevent my ear drum from tearing, which I was not sure because there is a live grenade in to building, just outside the room which was going to explode in the next couple of seconds. While I was bracing myself for the explosion something even worse happened. There were three more hand grenades thrown into the room! There was no way I can throw them all back, and since the first one that I threw back did not explode, I had no option but to get out of the room! I thought about the other two soldiers staring at each other trying to think of something to do, when I throw myself outside the room and roll to a corner! When about to hope for the mercy of the Tamil Tigers, there were 3 soldiers in the tiger fatigues laughing at me, in the corner waiting for a something to happen. It so happens all the 4 grenades were fakes, and would not explode. I felt as though I wanted to throw my own grenades at them, but did not really know if that was needed.

We three were taken prisoners. There were no casualties. It was a walk in the park for them. We had given them no opposition. Shamefully, I was happy that none of us were hurt.

To be continued...

A feeling

2007-04-09T04:08:00.000-05:00

What is about these love stories? I understand some, I laugh at some. "Kuch kuch hota hai" was ludicrous. Some stories were romantic, and others I wanted to be in. Really, what exactly defines romance? The girl's idea of romance is what it really is, guys just want to have all romances to end in the bed.

My idea of romance is mix of old and new fashioned. I like Mani-Rathnam styled, rapid fire, ready to die for damsel, dudes. Well I am not 16, so I don't fall in love in a couple of minutes. It takes more than that to make me fall. I also like the old fashioned, singing romantic songs, holding hands and looking into each other's eyes hoping to tell something, types too.

My idea is of romance is mostly driven by movies and fiction novels. Is our idea of a feeling just a reiteration of supporting literature? Are we limited by creativity of fine artists?

Krishna - Part 1

2007-04-04T16:55:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer: If you think your God is unassailable, just because he is Supreme, please get out of my blog.

I am from TamLand, and we have a saying, "Netrikkannai thirappinum, kuttram kuttramae". Which translates to, "You might have an awesome cool third eye, (referring to Lord Shiva) but dude, you still made a retarded statement". This was said by a Tamil poet directly to the Lord, having found a flaw in his poem. Such is our ethical system. We stand up to injustice, anywhere. The poet was in turn burned to ashes by Shiva's wrath, but that is just a minor technical detail. We don't take bullshit just because Lord Shiva said it.

My mom used to tell tales about Krishna, and how cute he was. But, Ramanand Sagar who directed that Sri Krishna series in Doordarshan, killed my imagination of "cuteness". Jokes apart, Krishna might be Vishnu's avatar, but he is not great. Simply put, the dude was born with some awesome cool powers, like kicking his evil uncle's ass, and eating a lot of butter and dirt. But a lot of people before and since then have done this. Actually I have both kicked my uncle's ass, and had a lot of butter and dirt when I was a kid. I am cute as hell (they should have cast me as cute Krishna, damn it!). Anyways, where was I?

I think Krishna is arguably the most popular God among hindus. An important factor in the last century was ISKCON, which popularized Krishna outside India. Krishna is know for his, "leela", pranks which mostly involves a lot of trickery and deception and very funny too. Krishna's mostly associated spouse is his girlfriend, Ms. Radha. His life history is by itself quite interesting, his association and involvement in the Mahabharata is at best confusing. "Bhagvat Geeta" is the only text in human history presented by a God to a devotee which explains "way of life" including God's glory.

I think it would be really funny to talk about this dude. I am sure I will not offend Vishnu (Krishna's original and more boring version) in anyway, because I am using only documented and well accepted acts of Krishna. Importantly, he uses a lot of magic (something like David Copperfield) in most of the situations, so I will skip most of the "magic" part. Here is a brief history of our dear Krishna.

Even before he was born, his evil ass uncle knew about nephew and decided to kill the newborn child. Somehow Krishna escapes, and gets to be brought up in a village. The village is known for its dairy products, and guess what our Krishna's fav snack is? Butter. He eats butter from his house and because he eats too much, his family becomes poor and so he decides to steal and eat. He gets caught red handed a couple of times and so becomes a disgrace to his family. His foster mom punishes him severely for such delinquent acts, but since our hero has divine immunity goes scot-free after doing some theatrics.

During his developmental years in Brindavan (name of the village), he also shows signs of extreme pervertedness. He goes to the nearest water body and while young, attractive sexy women take bath, he steals their clothes, hides them and makes them beg for clothes. This is somehow supposed to be funny, but I am sure my mom will immediately disown me if I did something like this. If this is not heights of pervertedness, what is? I think the blanknoiseproject people also would be behind Krishna's ass.

Next comes the girlfriend. The dude becomes adolescent and gets the most popular chick in Brindavan. I will not badmouth her, because she represents MahaLaksmi and never harms anyone. But the poor damsel falls for the MayaKrishna, and in their first love do all kinds of things. Ok, maybe there are no documents for what they did, but I assume they did more than just run around trees like what Ramanand Sagar showed. The best part is, when Krishna decides to leave for a glorious career, he jilts Radha and never returns. Ms. Radha is never talked about in any of his stories after that. What crap is this? This kinda behaviour is unheard of in Tam literature. There have been no documented case of jilts by honorable people, in the entire Hindu literature. Except of course by Krishna.

The dude, then goes on and marries two other women, Bama and Rukmini (dual-marriage is a standard with Hindu divinity package, just like 401k and stock options). Ms. Radha never gets married or nothing is known about her life after Krishna leaves. But Krishna is always associated with Radha... Even today there is a very popular ceremony that devotees celebrate, called "Radha Kalyanam" (Radha's marriage), where they place Radha's idol and Krishna's idol and get them married to each other. I am not sure why people do this, the dude clearly got over her, and never wanted to see her again. Devotee's Denial? or maybe people feel sorry for Radha and pray that their daughters never meet a guy like Krishna!

I am sure people have a lot of things to say about Krishna and want to badmouth me. Bring it on.

Dial T for Tamil Nadu, Part IV

2007-03-26T02:19:00.000-05:00

I watched a number of Tamil movies. Looking for quality, I did not find much, so settled for fun. Tamil movies are of extremely low quality I should say. I am not talking about recent movies, but spanning the past 4 decades, I could not see how systematically poor screenplay, acting, and direction could have made success. Decade after decade of decadence.

I saw a very old Tamil movie called, "Maya Bazaar". It was a Telugu movie first, but I could appreciate how well the script was rewritten in Tamil. A fictional play, set in pre-kurushetra Mahabharata. The characters were not perfect, but they are shown to be what they are. Ranga Rao as Gadothgajan (Bhima's Son) is the most august figure I have ever seen on screen. The young Savithri in one scene acts like Gadothgajan, and wow, the transition was seamless, hilarious (as intended) nevertheless. You must have heard the "Kalyana Samayal Saadham" song. The only song where the laughter sets the rhythm. And the literary effort makes the movie on par with Kamba Ramayanam. Where is that kind of Tamil these days?

I will not pick on T. Rajendar's limericks like "Vaada en machi, vazhakkai bajji!", but something that people normally consider as the norm, like Vivek's humor. Somebody please inform T. Rajendar that there are many forms of Edhugai and MOnai. If you did not know, Vivek's is out of ideas and copies from equally lame Hindi movies. Even the bestest tamil writer's vocabulary is appalling. I think Bharthiyar is to blame. In order to sell his Swadheshamitran, he bribed the masses with a reduced day-to-day vocabulary in literature. Kannadasan was no good. His only advantage was being born in celluloid age.

In all this drought, I saw "Imsai Arasan, 23rd Pulikesi". The humor was new and refreshing. Excellent Tamil. I loved it. If you had missed the originality, probably you were not looking for quality. Again, a fictional South Indian sittrarasan's (King of a small kingdom) fight against the British.

There are reasons for cribbing. The language carries the burden of spreading the culture too. The Tamil diaspora, bringing back the goods of the international trades, infuses a sense of stupidity in the traditional values. Competence during bachelorhood is proven among the peers by having the most attractive boyfriend or girlfriend in college. This is blatant in the movie "Anbe Aaruiyire". In this movie Surya basically lives with a girl friend, a non-committed live-in relationship. His mention of Nixon's disgraced exit from the White house, is implying his knowledge in Western's history and thus a "learned" image.

This is not the case. In Tam land, we have something called "karpu", which the we folks pride ourselves. "Karpu" is not exactly virginity as most people believe. It is a feeling of faithfulness, of righteousness, of purity, of innocence. Karpu is self respect, to respect one own body and mind. It has no exact English translation. I am not a politician and so I do not need to be politically correct or even try to made the truth palatable. In Chennai, people do not live together before marriage. Yes, we do fall in love before we marry. A lot. But live-in relationships are not common. People might be interested in live-in relationships, but it is not the norm as this movie shows.

I am not judging the youngsters, but a knowledge of the Tamil literature, history and culture would not hurt either. Shaivite devotion is one of the most important part of Tamil literature. Stories from the 63 Nayanmars, given here. You don't have to be Hindu to appreciate the Shaivite devotion and Tamil literature.

To end this article, I would like to quote Vairamuthu in Aalavandhan. A short poem that was almost which gave me an unearthly vibe:

Pennai nambi pirakkum boedhe thoppull kodigal arupadumae
Mannai nambum maaperum maramum seerum puyalil verarumay
Unnai nambum uruppugal kooda orupozhudunnai kaividumae
Ithil pennai mattum nambum nambagam pina naal varayil kaivarumo?

Man Write - Part II

2007-03-07T03:06:00.000-06:00

The kind of recognition that the previous post gets makes my blood boil with testosterone. It is her only her fourth post and I already see most of my faithfully cute female readers taking her side. grrrrr. In cases of emergencies like these, it becomes a necessity for me to kick some butt with an apt rebuttal.

Ha! I blow my nose in your direction. You will not get to see cheap insults like the aforementioned, fobbed off from Monty Python movies in a girl's blog. The all-too-easy to spot girly blog is not too far from being puked at. This might look a tad "male chauvinistic", but only to the fire-breathing feminist. I am not here to tout about guy blogs here, because I have seen some god-awful blogs, a shame to the gender. The point is, the female blog is no better! I might have a superior intelligence but my guess is, it is no rocket science to see the gender of a blog. It is just as easy as checking a dog for the sex, between the legs for some dangling bells.

Lets go over it. Every freakin female blog will have patches of pink. I do not understand the obsessive attachment to this color by girls, but I am tired. A pink background, majanta font,. It is like a female territorial cyber pissing... puddles of pink pee. I do not hate pink, but there is a subtle soft pink, a pleasant pink... but na-ha madam always paints it with the shadiest of shades.

The pink abuse is so deplorable that any guy who uses pink is immediately suspect of homosexual sympathies and teased to death. As though the females completely own this part of the spectrum.

Some people have a poor sense of color. Picking on this, would make my case look weak. I have more. I just love this topic. It is like a fountain, I cannot stop it now.

It happens atleast once in the lifetime of a female blog: the sneaky lame product placement. It is not as though the person appreciates the duality of the neo-cubist arguments in a Picasso but mostly about toiletry. About soap. About Shampoo. About cute blue boxes. About pens. Plastic, paper, hairpins. While women write about other stuff too, I have been told that they get these urges from deep within their infinitely complex minds to write about toiletry. A truly amazing species, aren't they?

But the best of all, is the amazing knowledge about femme fashion. Not only are they not afraid to use it on the unwitting stranger, they will not hesitate to use them if necessary. A deadly sentence like "The Capri better complements halter than the Prada". What the hell is a Capri? I would agree to this usage if there exists an accepted definition for the word. I mean, if a word does not even have a meaning, how do you wear it? Just wrap something around lady or even better, don't!

In case you forgot, I still love you all!

Man Write

2007-03-01T04:09:00.000-06:00

Are people unable to see the obvious or is it just me? I am a co-writer in this blog and I am here to stay. I was too shy to make any of my stories public, but then I was encouraged (read goaded) to join this blog. So, you guys can forget about me leaving. It is interesting, yucky and insulting all at the same time to think that I am Pratap's creation, but sorry to disappoint - I am just another purty girl. :(

Some readers here, based on my style think that my English is unladylike. Is there a lady English and gentleman English? I can think of kids writing about toys and bugs, teenage boys writing in adolescent anger, girls talking about love and cute things. But is there a difference in writing between a grown woman and a man? Is there a "man write"? Lets see...

In order to classify the gender of a written piece, we need some training data. Considering gender distribution of fiction authors, it is heavily lopsided, I mean there would be atleast a dozen male fiction authors than female authors. I feel like shit just saying that. Come-on guys, biologically girls grow and learn faster than guys and if you had started writing early on, we should have written more than men! So we cannot compare books because people would not have read many books written by women.

Blogs are a good data set. All you readers must have loads full of blog bookmarks that you read during work hours, which I am sure has a good mix. Without knowing about the author, can you really identify the gender of the blog?

Guy blogs are a dead giveaway. Guys always write about some favorite dish, that they think only their mom can make, and how they miss it once they are away from mummy. Stupid mummy's boy! If only they had moved their behind to help with their mothers, they would not be in such a pathetic state to appreciate their own torn singed smokey dosas, that only they can help themselves with.

Then there is the "girl" factor. Have you ever come across a guy's blog who does not write about his girl? Unbelievably predictable! She would either be some old college romance or some lost love because they did not have the guts to talk to her, or prematurely disclosed his feelings. The "girl story" would never end successfully, because if she had reciprocated, our hero would be drooling like a dog and not find time to bitch about it in his blog. You dont have to go too far to verify: this blog has plenty of "the girl" stories capped with the "I love all Tamil girls". Actually, if you notice, if they ever write a story, it would have a girl, and that girl in some form would have had something to do with his crush. How lame can they get?

Women bloggers on the other hand are dignified, grammatically and politically correct. A mark of perfection and beauty.

What are the characteristics of a "man write"? Do you know?

Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi (2003)

2007-02-25T02:50:00.000-06:00

I saw the movie the third time today. A very disturbing story with strong and flawed characters. Since movie review is not my forte, why then do you ask, I talk about this movie now? The character Geeta Rao.

There are three main characters in the movie. The story starts in a college, set in 1969. Siddharth an ideologist, becomes a rebel and tries to fight the corruption in Bihar. Geeta (Geeta and Siddharth are college sweethearts) is committed to a life of passionate extra marital affair with Siddharth. Our sentimental lover Vikram, loves Geeta throughout his life and never gets over her.

While Vikram dominates most of the screen time, he churns up a charm with everybody around him, except with Geeta. As he himself admits, near the end of the movie Vikram is "gaining power and money at an alarming rate". Geeta after losing contact with Siddharth after graduating from college, has a failed marriage with some guy and then spends time in rural Bihar (considered to be the most lawless state in India). She shares Siddharth's passion for development of India at the grassroots. In the mean time, Siddharth turns into a extremist and is hunted by police. Yet he occasionally spends time with Geeta and has a son.

The movie shows the horrors of the 1975 Emergency. I will skip that part of the movie, nevertheless, it is worth a separate blog post by itself.

All the three characters, seek their object of interest with unwavering sincerity, dedication and love. Geeta's love for Siddharth is only for his ideologies. Near the end, Siddharth renounces his ideologies and joins a medical school, Geeta does not find living in the wild, fair for her child. Our sentimental fool, Vikram is brutally attached my corrupt policemen when he tried to help Siddharth and is left mentally handicapped, yet loves Geeta.

Geeta, finally sees how much Vikram loves her and she begins to take care of him. It was relieving to finally see Vikram in Geeta's arms even though Vikram may not ever realize this.

Thinking about the character of Geeta, why? I can understand her love, and why she did'nt find Vikram attractive when he was potent and capable, but found her love in Siddharth. She stuck to her guns even after she gets gang raped by the police because of her proximity with Siddharth.

But why did she suddenly chose to take care of Vikram after he is disabled? Is she unable to bear her guilt in being almost completely responsible for Vikram's troubles? Or is it just pity-love?

It almost brought me to my tears. Was'nt she cruelest everyday character that we see in our lives? We girls fall for the funny and the handsome, the alpha-male, and care a damn for the truly devoted guys. Why is that a rebel always looks more attractive to me than a blue collar worker? Why is the socially inept loved less than a glib talking pervert? This is always a bane on the woman with a choice. A woman always lives with the guilt of always breaking someone's heart.

We women always want something that the guys will never understand. If only they were smart enough to know that we are stupid too!

This feels weird

2007-02-21T00:46:00.000-06:00

I am back from my operation and looks like I might live for a while now :) Btw, Appendicitis is quite painful. That is taken care of now. I am back to blogging which I left without a trace.

I should have probably asked Pratap before I wrote this, but since he gave me complete freedom to write about anything under the sun, here are my two cents. I thought of a million things to write... writing is not a problem for me. The problem was the place. Whatever I could think of was out of place. Maybe it was just me, but if you were me, you would understand.

It is as simple as this "I do not understand this blog." Pratap has been writing this blog for about 3 years now. I did not know him when he started this blog, but I have seen some of his earlier posts which have been long deleted.

They were short, simple to understand. He was almost always angry at somebody. They were cute white pure truths, though. Then there was a shift, which is when I came to know him. His blog suddenly became cryptic. I thought he was needlessly nervous. He developed a strong sense of privacy. He kept reminding me of a private sphere and a public sphere. He stripped every new blog idea of his identity, but struggled to keep the individuality and creativity. His struggle could be seen here. Later he himself wrote in his post, "life's experiences will not become a blog-side accident to be rubbernecked".

Then suddenly, he chose to be funny, and dropped his arrogant style. His English had improved overnight! At once, he had many readers. It looked as though he was waiting for something to happen, and then decided to become funny. He had found a way to write, without giving himself away. Due to this, his blog is completely different from what he is. And, now I too believe in separating the personal sphere from the public. But, I do not know how to write like that. It is hard.

While I am still thinking about my dilemma, here is another thing that I do not understand: Someone sent me lots of roses, for the Valentine's Day without the name! Yay! I would love to know who sent me the flowers!

Tell Tale 15

2007-02-16T00:51:00.000-06:00

Who is this guy?

She answered my question with "My favorite is Wodehouse, he is so funny!"

I started reading when my one of my friends introduced me to Sydney Sheldon. It was my first big break from cartoon comics. I used to read Chandamama and it was in Tamil. Until I was 10 years old, I had never read any story that was more than a 10 pages long. I started with Sidney Sheldon, and they were good. Simple stories to follow. I was also excited to read about how the woman kisses and makes love. Loved "the rage of angels". Still love it.

Then one of my friends ridiculed Sheldon and suggested somebody else. It was Wilbur Smith's "When the lion feeds". They were African diamonds from one burning coast to the other. Many teenage trips to a continent that I have not be able to make even once in reality. I could not make up my mind if Wilbur Smith was a better writer than Sheldon. I was later introduced to Joseph Heller, Anne Frank, Jhumpa Lahiri, Ray Bradbury, Thomas Hardy, Heinlein and got lost along the way. Still pretty random at selecting an author. So, I still have not read every famous author and many classics.

Coming back to the the lady on the other side of the phone, she was a new acquaintance. For weeks I was so busy trying to impress that I was skipping niceties.

The first week, I called her cell phone and after customary pleasantries, I started the real conversation: who is your favorite author?

It was a bad question to begin with, especially when I was already well aware that she knows a lot more than I do. The scale was tipping heavily on her side.

She: "My favorite is Wodehouse, he is so funny!"

Who the hell is Wodehouse? Is he a "he"? Is he good? Must be, she has been reading a lot lately and must have a good taste. Does this Wodehouse write contemporary stuff? is he a Pulitzer or even a Nobel? because if he is any of I that, I am doomed! How dare I ask such a question? Is this Wodehouse still alive? man!

The way she was talking about this Wodehouse, he seems to have a cult following. How lazy of me to not read a single Wodehouse book! Damn my high school friends, if only they had been classy, they would have given me a Wodehouse instead of a Harold Robbins!

I googled for Wodehouse quickly.

Me: I hate dead white English writers. Bloody imperialist bastards. Except of course the Bard (meaning Shakespeare, As though I have read all of his plays.)

She: (Mostly falling for the Shakespeare part) Wodehouse is very funny, he even make fun of the Britishers, English elite mostly.

Phew!

Quite the opposite

2007-02-12T01:04:00.000-06:00

I apologize to my readers for my inevitable leave of absence from active blogging. I am back and I am sure that is what matters to you all. I will try to post regularly, hopefully more often than before.

I had pristine experiences in the past month, each worth a separate post. Nevertheless, ever since I decided that my life's experiences will not become a blog-side accident to be rubbernecked, I will stay discrete. However, I will try to continue to try to be as funny as possible, in a disinterested or rather implicitly self-effacing style. I will also inevitably contribute to my blog, a healthy dose of spelling and grammar errors.

I recently came to understand that, my blog defines my character and all that represents Pratap. I have also been reminded that I cannot filter out my style, character, feelings from my writing without making my blog completely unreadable. I am told that, the ghost of my blog would come and bite me in my ass. That being said, I imply no warranty of soundness to my words.

In other news, unfortunately Aarti my co-ENFP, had been down with bout of illness requiring an invasive procedure, and is apparently getting better now. I hope she gets better soon.

2007-01-19T20:40:00.000-06:00

Happy birthday to me!

Today, I choose to be a baby rather a kid. A quarter century old baby! :)

Aarti: I have my hands full and still manage to write something every now and then, so honey baby please grow out of your writers block, and start your show. There are some geniuses here who think of you as an imaginary character.

Good news Vs Bad news

2007-01-11T23:10:00.000-06:00

How would you feel if your blog gets a mention ?
Yes, my blog was mentioned in another Tamil blog gilli.in. Here the readers post and categorize Tamil blogs and also English blogs with a strong Tamil flavour. It is amazing! Hurray! They had quoted from my "Dial T for Tamil Nadu Part iii" article that I wrote a couple of months back.

How did I feel when there were 2 grammar mistakes, in the quoted text?
Don't even ask!

Breaking again!

2007-01-10T23:52:00.000-06:00

Hi,

Some important work needs to be done by the month end. I am taking a break from blogging for the next 3 weeks.

-Pratap

Hello there!

2007-01-05T12:10:00.000-06:00

This being my first post in this blog, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Aarti and I am a friend of Pratap ( unfortunately! ) Even though this is my first post, Pratap has been generously borrowing stuff from me to put up in this blog, and I thought, why not join this blog - atleast then the stories will have the proper ending!

Before you judge me, it was Pratap's brilliant idea to scare the girl Ramya, in what he calls a prank and use my name for this purpose. Heavens would cry if all of sins committed in name were to be told !

Looking at how obnoxiously boyish this blog has become, I am surprised the blog has so many female readers. I take it upon myself to change the outlook of this blog and make it a tad girl friendly :) Wish me luck, guys!

Welcome the co-author -- Aarti

2007-01-03T02:47:00.000-06:00

Hi,

Readers of this blog, please welcome the new co-author "Aarti". She is a friend of mine, who's name I have used many times without prior approval for many of my devious acts. Unlike me, she is lot more coherent and comes with a much better vocabulary, being a girl and all, I should say that is amazing! Since I was using many of her creations, she demanded to be immediately officiated into the blog.

And before you ask me, no she is not my girl friend (yuck ... yuck), or my wife, or my sister or my mother or aunt or any female relative. Nevertheless, she is a female (she just slapped my head from behind as I was writing this...) Apparently she wants to be called "The Girl". Yeah, whatever... the girl will join you soon.

Pratap

Good bye - 2006

2007-01-02T03:07:00.000-06:00

2006 was in short ... what is the word... yeah! "terrible!" I cannot even say, "it was bad but atleast blah blah", it was just baaad. Most of the things I tried to do, or even thought of doing just dropped dead. Tried to hook up with 2 girls and the only girlfriend I got was Ms. Fortune. OK that was a really bad joke.

It is not a new thing that I had to face with the worst of luck, my life is like a "biased" dice that always gives me the wrong number! To hell with 2006! Now that it is over I do not plan to think about it. I like 2007. 07 is a good number. "Seven" sounds strong and is definitely very sexy. And I like it.

Just a walk down the memory lane of the sick old 2006,

I ran a half marathon. It took me 2 hours and 10 mins to run the full 13.1 miles and I ran the whole length (did not cheat by walking when no one was looking at me). I also got a cool medal for it. The training for the marathon was not too intimidating, or rather my roomies were very good in prodding me to run this. Me never being in shape did not really help in the training but thanks to Govardhan, Sai and Ravi for their enthusiasm and support.
I restarted my blog with renewed energy and looks like it is going in good shape. The posts were quite irregular and infrequent but I have a good feeling about the way things are going in the blogistan. I could definitely see an improvement in my writing style even though I peppered it with the same old crappy "ME WANT GIRLFRIEND" posts.
I made many new friends, and one of them was an online happening. I am hoping to meet this keypal sometime, hopefully soon. I am very proud to say that I was the sole initiator of this friendship and she did nothing for her part :p
I learnt a lot. A "lot" is a very big quantity. I could say, I became a little bit more of a man in 2006. Academically, emotionally and even physically I learnt something that could have been ignored forever.

That's it for the good stuff. Here are my brief brushes with fate

I had a stress fracture and what a bitch is she. Broke my left tibia, during my half-marathon training. Not only did I lose 3 weeks of precious training time, but also had become weak from the all the stressful "sitting around". This was the first time I broke a bone (come-on I am guy), but the annoying thing is, "stress" fracture is not a complete fracture and the package does not come with a cast. I was just limping like a lame frog with no cast to show! "enna kodumai idu, Saravanan?"

Funny, it turns out that, I had more good things to say about her (2006) than bad things. I never thought I would say this when I started writing this, but "If 2007 is half as interesting as his elder sister I would be very lucky." And my dear 007, you better deliver some good or I will have to pummel you till you bleed from your nose!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!

Moral fiber

2006-12-22T22:46:00.000-06:00

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is not my fault.

I proctored an exam today. There were about 100 students and the exam was both difficult and lengthy.The stress of the exam aside, the instructor has built many levels of policies to prevent the serendipitous deliquent from a sneak peek and also to neutralize any incentive to cheat for the professional scammer. While the students were trying to put up their best acts of honesty, it was pathetic to see them sweat over the simple question that was twisted beyond recognition and glide over the most tedious of problems with ease as if by rote.

I remembered my school days, when I had exams in all the subjects every other week. Humour me, but I did not like such an arrangement. I was not sadistic enough to plough through books to prove my mirth every fortnight, only to realize that the life thus proved has painfully taken away every one of my happy childhood days. I was not an obedient student, not punctual, mostly dirty and talkative. Nevertheless, in a vague attempt to salvage my image here, I will not stoop to mention my greatness in my later years. This said, I had a very happy childhood, because I did not like exams. An exam is a repressive concept designed to reduce children's dream to a number with a vain validation scheme. Exams are for the weak and kids with abusive parents.

Expectedly, I have failed in exams, innumerable times, in Tamil, Math and even Science which happens to be the love of my life. I simply failed to acknowledge a system that was solely built on prodding a child by publicizing exam performance among friendly peers in the name of Ranks, to learn a subject without relevance or importance.

It reminds me of an incident that happened about 15 years back. The boy next in roll and I used to collaborate and cheat in the exams for mutual benefit. We gamed the system that reeked of autocracy. It worked very well because the teachers trusted in the two puppy faced kids like us, and believed would never cheat. The crowning reason was that, since we both performed similarly and not too poorly the teachers had no reason to doubt our honesty.

On this eventful day of English exam, there was a story to comprehend and write a moral for. Right now, I do not remember the story at all, but a striking feature of that story was the incomprehensible moral. In those days stories had morals, unlike my posts. I just could not understand the moral of the story, and so wrote "moral" in a tiny piece of paper and dropped it for him to pick up and help me with this mysterious morality. A girl in class, who apparently had been looking at me all the while, (must have had a crush on me) reported this parchment dropping phenomenon to the proctor. This was utterly unexpected because I had checked the radar before dropping the piece of paper. The proctor frisked me and a meter radius around me, almost badmouthed the 10 year old whistle blower for unnecessary trouble. But in a weird twist of fate, just like a Tamil ghost movie where the most curious cute girl always gets axed the second time she looks in the dark closet, the proctor found it near my leg the next time she turned.

I went through a procedure, fit for pickpockets in the police station. I had heard of students getting expelled for such acts. The fear of getting expelled from the school, mixed with the thought of letting my parents know of my scholastic deliquency was quite daunting. Actually that is the only reason I remembered this incident and this friend of mine. But everything turned out fine: my parents never came to know about this and we were both not expelled from school because we were not one of the psycho kids. I guess they knew that we were just confused kids, and atleast one would stay so for the next couple of decades.

In all of this, neither did I learn the moral of that English story, nor of the incident. But my dear partner in crime recently got married, and I wish him all the best.

Automate my sleep

2006-12-18T03:44:00.000-06:00

There is one thing that I learned from last night: automating a tool cannot happen in one sitting. In all my arrogant glory, I had overestimated the problem at hand and there is no way I can code anymore... I have not successfully run my tool one bloody time, and each time it would be a really simple "if-else" or a premature exit. Then I decided to write this in my blog -- which is the only thing I can do when most of my brain has already gone to sleep.

Beep beep drrrrr Beep (My caffeine ODied half asleep brain switches to philosophical mode)

If it takes so much pain to automate a piece of software, how or why is it, that the Guy up there ( meaning God) controls all these people in the world? Actually, why would he control any life form, and especially my insignificant life? What possible purpose or masochistic motivation would make Him even try to control my life. Hey Dude (again capitol "D") up there , if you think you are good at this, (which is actually laughable, seeing the way my life is going...) why dont you give me some tips ? I prefer C++ ;

The world's most boring blog

2006-12-12T11:12:00.000-06:00

I found a link to the most boring blog in the world. I clicked on the link and looked at the blog. After reading a couple of posts, I went back to whatever I was doing before.

Break

2006-12-04T02:48:00.000-06:00

I am snowed down with my vocation. I am taking 2 weeks off from active blogging. But I might find some time to squeeze a post every now and then.

-Pratap

Tell Tale 14

2006-11-26T17:14:00.000-06:00

Following Ammani's lead, I wrote this Tell Tale. Here is my contribution.

First it was red. Then yellow. Now it's red again. Why can't Shailu make up her mind?

In her 30 years of service as lead of the elite bomb disposal squad, Shailu had never been in an accident. Somehow, she has always escaped the grim explosion that takes away life or limb. But today was different, she was not diffusing some RDX. Shailu had been assigned to diffuse the primary charges in an armed thermonuclear device.

Earlier the police had got a phone call about a bomb and they had located the device. The device had been moved it to a ship on the Bay of Bengal to minimize impact on the population. Now she had 5 minutes and a nuke to diffuse.

It is not everyday that you get to neutralize a nuke. The thermonuclear device was not state of the art. It is a 2 stage fusion reaction. First the conventional explosives detonates and creates an implosion, and compresses the Uranium 235 to a critical mass. The U235 fission is the primary. The x-ray emission from this primary fission is then focussed on to the fusion fuel, (typically deuterium) which then fuses to release huge amount of energy. Shailu, a conventional UXO (Unxploded Ordnanace) expert, was asked to diffuse the explosives that start the primary fission.

She removed most of the sheath and metal and was looking at the wiring. She deciphered the circuit board and all she needed to was figure out which wire she had to cut. The Red or the Blue. Shailu smiled. If it had been a movie, the audience would be sitting on the edge of their seats waiting in suspense to know about the wild guess the actor makes. It took her 30 seconds to find out that she will need to cut the Red wire and short a transistor to diffuse it. But Did Shailu want to diffuse it?

She had a 30 year itch. She had not seen an atomic explosion. The world had not seen a terrestrial detonation of deployment capacity fusion bomb. She had not even been in the vicinity of any explosion herself. Obviously she could not see this explosion if it detonates. She would die from the initial gamma ray burst, even before she could see a single spark. Red or blue?

Shailu felt very very naughty that day.

Dial T for TamilNadu (Part III)

2006-11-22T02:57:00.000-06:00

I love Tamil girls. I think they are the cutest of all. They are very sweet to talk to and are very smart. Not very funny though.

I find many Tamil girls going through a grueling, unnecessarily painful journey in their twenties. If you forsee your life become a tired cliche, it is time to sit down and have a nice chat.

I know why you are lonely: fear and confusion. Everybody is trying to hurt you : female infanticide, the perverts in public transportation, the gender biased parents. You hear about the sexual abuses in the news, the road-side rowdies gawping at your body. Fear got the better of you and in your panic you built barriers around you. Soon you felt safe in your isolation but your age and hormones screamed against such a self imposed exile from normal interaction. In this deluded comatose, you appreciate anyone who talks similarly against such a union of sexes, however irrelevant the context might be. You think "Sex and the city" speaks to you at a personal level, even when you know that the characters are neither your age nor have a healthy sexual life.

In your safe haven you get uncomfortably alone and in your desperation you check out the guys your parents recommend you to consider for marriage. In your search for a companion for your next half century, you try to understand the other gender over dinner with some guy.

It is time to realize that there is something terribly wrong with Tamil Nadu.

A gender which has been told to avoid during high school, seen only as a chauvenistic peer in your career and demonized enough to exocommunicate even the determined prince charming.
You have male friends, with whom you maintain passionate platonic diplomacy, who are very useful as entertainment pawns, but you are unable to comprehend a romantic "MAN". Your bubbly teenage years long gone, prime years wasting away in your impossible conundrum, you are in your late twenties, a decade after you were the most beautiful looking. You settle for a guy whom you think is not too weird, and marry him in a decision based on a world that slowly turning more mature and against you. In all your mature glory, you skip over the lovey-dovey movies in the rental store, because of its unfamiliarity in real life.

I love Tamil girls and I think they are the cutest of all. I do not want this for any girl and would like to know if it is not true in your case. Many years into your marriage if you do not want to keep imagining about a guy who was cute and had a crush on you, but you were too scared to give him a chance ? give me a call. I have a crush on all Tam girls.

Tell Tale 13

2006-11-18T00:00:00.000-06:00

I was bored one afternoon and was going through our almirah, the store room for something old, something with a long forgotten history, some amulet which was the pride of my paati. Other than the sneezes I got from the dust allergy I also found an old photo album. The album itself was not too old, but the photos looked much older, in contrast to the people in the pictures.

Most were wedding pictures of my maternal grandparents. I hear my great grand parents were very affluent and had grand weddings. I had seen the pictures before, but I could not recognize any of them in the pictures. The pictures mostly were of the kanyadhanam, Oonjal and nalangu. Typical of a tamil brahmin family. My grand parents were iyer, vathima (that is like sub-sub sect) to be precise. In case you were wondering, I am half black.

I was generally browsing through the pictures when I saw a particular striking picture. There was one young girl in the picture, just her near a tree. She must have been the bride. This girl had no resemblance to my grand mother and I guessed that it must be somebody else's marriage.

The more I looked at the picture, the more beautiful she was. She was laughing with with her hand on her chest, over her new thaali (mangalsutra) hanging from her bright yellow cotton thread still stiff with the starch. Her huge eyes gleaming in the sun, her mouth open wide, flashing her teeth in her laughter. She was looking at something in the sky. It was her marriage and she was glowing like a princess.

The girl must have been 18 years old. You would think she was too young to be married, but she looked very happy that day. She was not skinny at all and her cheeks looked chubby enough for me to want to give her a gentle pinch. The vangi (armlet) that was slipping down from her blouse sleeve was squeezing her bicep.

The short sleeved shirt or sattai of which only the sleeves were visible had a wide jarigai (zari). Her blouse colour was the same as her saree, which was ofcourse worn as a madisaar. Her umbodhu gajam (9 yards) or padinettu mozam saree was worn perfectly, in the proper "Vaathima" way. Her thalappu (pallu) was hanging for just about a foot from her tummy. It was very tempting to look at her waist where a small triangle of previously unexposed pale skin contrasted very very well with the thaali koorai colour (a dark maroon like a wet terra-cotta brick) of her saree.

She was standing bare foot and the heavy silver golusu (anklet) was almost touching the grass. I am sure her man kissed her shiny new metti (toe ring) over her red marudhaani (henna) tainted toe. Her right leg was actually behind her left, and her kosuvam (pleats) hanging between her legs was gently blown by the wind, revealing cute cupped calf muscles. She had her other hand on her hip which is when I realized her figure was stunning. It must be because of the "Vathima" style madisaar, which is to be worn "kreech" (chik), where you would not believe there was 9 yards of silk around the body. I could actually see her figure through the thick yardage. She was the sexiest girl I have ever seen and she did not even have lipstick.

Just then my mom interupted me from behind "She is my periyamma (mom's elder sister), and you should not be looking at elders like that."

My explanation was more embarrassing than my gawp, "I was just wondering what she was looking at , amma."

The LIL protocol

2006-11-13T00:43:00.000-06:00

Have you ever blurt out something that you were not supposed to say? talked to the one person you are not supposed? Was someone ever angry at you for not telling them someone else's secret? Are you tired of keeping other people's secrets?

Long story short, I invented the LIL protocol (Last-in-Line protocol) to solve a man's problem of dealing with too many people confiding secrets, which only a "subset" of their/my friends/family can hear. When most people started doing this, the stress almost gave me a heart-attack once. I think this the best thing that ever happened to humanity since Socrates pained everyone to ask the question "Why!"

The LIL protocol is very simple to follow and relieves the follower of any stress to keep secrets and the related book-keeping. It follows 3 simple steps:
1. Don't say anything to me that you dont want to tell me.
2. Don't say anything that you dont want anybody else to know.
3. If the above two are too difficult for you just dont say anything to me.

This protocol ensures that
1. I do not have to worry about what I might blurt out
2. I do not have to be restricted while talking because whatever I say, will already be known by all
3. Less intake of crap.

Actually it works really well. Beyond your imagination. Try it for a month. Honestly, I have been practicing this for about 2 years now.

I know I will be nominated for the Nobel peace prize for this, but I would prefer M.K. Gandhi to get it first before I do.

The Man

2006-11-04T01:32:00.000-06:00

Disclaimer: I have dropped my usual writing style and tried to follow normal english grammar which is of course easier to read.

I happened to enjoy the exclusive company of two women wanting to shop in mall. I used to do this with my mom when I was just a little boy. I would always find the closest clean flat surface to sit on, when my mom goes over and over the sarees finding the "matching" colour in the difference shades of light. Anyway, it had been quite a while since then, and could not resist the temptation to join them.

We started with lunch (which was my idea) and the ladies expressed their "need" to buy shoes. Since I knew about this need, I trotted along. I actually did not know that women's shoes had hair ahem fur and they wanted to try it out, and yes they did. There were shoes with fur, shoes with high heals, boots with heals, pink fluffy shoes with bunny ears (I tried them and is actually very soft) slip-ons, shoes with laces, zips, buckles, shoes with flat soles, hard soles, plastic soles, pencil heals. They tried them all. We came to buy winter shoes. Then one of girls bought a pair of shiny black leather shoe with hard soles and a soft inner lining. The other could not make up her mind. I was hungry again.

Then they realized that they had come only to buy socks. But Boston store did not have good socks. Walmart is better (I suggested this wonderful idea) but they did not want to go to Walmart because Walmart pays very little to its employees. People in academia cannot afford that kind of anti-capitalist priciples. And before the end of the day, we visited Walmart and collected more than just socks.

Btw, our picnic to the mall was mainly to only to buy socks and some cardigans (the need to buy cardigans kept coming in waves every time we passed a clothes store). "Ann Tylor" is more of a fashion statement and usually used to entertain girls on such mall outings. In we went, and they tired an array of expensive party clothes. There was a singular moment in the day when one of teh girls tried on a maroon gown, when I could not help staring. She was gorgeous enough to make me start flirting with her and make the other girl jeolous. I have not seen movie actresses in real, but she was looking like one that day. I was the one disheartened when she decided not to buy that, but I did not really give in to her insinuations, and did not open my wallet to buy it for her. Gosh, I am only a grad student. Unfortunately Ann Taylor did not have good cardigans.

Next came GAP, Banana republic and other easy to forget popular brands. On the way out of JCPenny, they got a glimpse of the jewellery section and again "need" arose. The girls were smiling so much at the proximity to so much jewellery. Babies don't get excited this much. I sat around another round of "does this stone look good?", or "does this ring match my shirt?" There were so many stones, red, blue, green, brown, black, tranparent, shiny, opaque. There was all kinds of stones that I used to have in my pebble collection. I tried a single clip-on earing: they though I looked "metro", but I looked more like "homo". I did not venture that again.

If I had not offered my help they would not have come to a conclusion that day. Basically girls need to be asked what they want. They do not always want glittery stuff, no pearls (that was for grandmas) So some geometric shape that goes will with one of their fancy clothes. Not too big and not tiny too. That was an awesome algorithm. I scavenged through the 10 or so shelves and got their heart's content. Even though they did not choose what I had selected, they soon settled for something close. See, the man is always needed.

And then after we heard an announcement that we had 5 mins before the mall was closed, I rushed to get my wool jacket for myself. Asked the ladies and got the right answer "It is too good for you" ... "I know!"

So after 6 hours, I made the most expensive buy of the day, in the last 5 mins. But I loved the day.

Pulling an all-nighter

2006-11-01T23:54:00.000-06:00

And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Fireworks

2006-10-25T02:01:00.000-05:00

I did not have opportunity to light the fuse of a single firecracker on Deepavali, but I did find the $2000 aerial fireworks over the placid lake, quite the mid-semster respite I had longed for.

As the electronic timers went off with digital precision, the projectile charges were launched into the air with a distinctive "thud" which reminded me of the automatic cannon fire mounted on navy boats. Soon, my analogy to weapons saw parachute flares, anti-aircraft (projectile) and even decoy flares. I could not agree more with the girl standing beside me that, the distant mid air powerful explosions sending shock waves, that we felt in our stomachs, indeed gave us "deepavali" feel.

But, when the cold dark sky exploded in a million colors, the girl beside me cloaked her beautiful salwaar-kameez shimmering in the glow of the exploding fireballs, with a cold dark jacket. Irony I realized, is not without a sense of humour.

What do you think of this blog?
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	Is Aarti your girlfriend? (comments about the blog please)
	Stories are ok, but they are all wacko!
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