Weirdness Personified

I have been tagged by Anu to blog 6 weird things about me.

Wait a minute! Almost everything about me is weird... wellll.... some of those things would be defined by psychiatrists as borderline psychotic, but anyways, that should probably be in a different post.

So here are six shining examples of my weirdness for you to savor...

1. I have this habit of correcting people when they make mistakes say, like in describing some fact or pronouncing a word wrong. Latest example... see in the comments section of the post where Anu tagged me. Sometimes this gets plain annoying for some people.

2. I chew stapler pins :)
Wait! Wait! Wait... before you start throwing stones at me and calling me a freak... I only chew them but I never eat them. I have no idea how I picked up this habit... My guess is that I picked it from that "Guiness Records" TV show we had in those olden days remember? I was particularly impressed by this cool guy who entered the record books for eating his way through everthing from TVs to Cycles to even Cars. Just trying to emulate his greatness I guess :P

3. I eat a lot. I eat when I am very happy. I eat whenever I am sad. So what's so weird about that, you might ask... I don't know... may be the fact that for most people food is a source of sensation and emotion, to me it acts as the opposite. It numbs me by making my brain go dead.
Oh! and another important source of my food weirdness is that I never put on weight no matter what my food habits. I always weigh around a cool, lean 60 kilos. I know that some may consider this a boon but it ain't so for me.

4. I am erratic. No, No... That's e-r-r-A-t-i-c. I am very erratic in everything I do. Right from the exams I write to the games I play. One day Scipio plays Table Tennis in office like there is no tommorrow, while the very next day I am beaten by every Tom, Dick and Harry in office. Oh, the agony!

5. Man, if there is one snack which I consider without doubt to be the Devil's fruit, it is these guys...

Pringles Chips! They are more addictive that Cocaine, Cigarettes, Caffeine and Chocolates put together. If I could have just saved the money I spend on these wickedly tasty things, I would probably driving to office in a Hyndai Santro today.

Fact: I am eating the Jalapeno flavored one as I write this post.

6. I can almost never complete the last chapter of any book I read. Be it Fiction, Non-Fiction or Techonology books, once I have reached the last chapter of the book, I have to fight the urge to close the book and throw it into oblivion .

7. Since you have been patient enough to reach up to here, you get a bonus weird fact about me. It is a small bit of weirdness. So I think I shall call it a 'weirdlet'.
I AM FREAKIN' SCARED OF HEIGHTS. Full Stop.

I hereby tag Ram, Iday, Sunil, Kart and GreenSatya to carry this noble beacon of weirdness forward into the future.

Don't Worry... Be happy

Is your boss angry with you today?
Have you been fighting with your wife today?
Really feeling the blues today?

In spite of all this, if you are an Englishman, there is no way you could feel depressed today...
After all, today is the happiest day of the year (well, atleast according to the BBC).

Some good books...

Next time you are in a mood to read a good book but can't make up your mind as to which one to read, these lists... the Time Magazine and Modern Library's compilation of the 100 best novels may be of some help.

I am nowhere close to reading even a decent number of books from the list, but the ones that I have indeed read feature among my personal favorites. So I guess that the other novels would be just as enjoyable.

24 X 11 and then... GOALLl!!!

Check out this awesome goal by Argentina (if you haven't done so already).

Reality check...

...that's exactly what today's AIMCATs have been for me. Attended the exam with NIL prep, but ended up answering around 60 Qs. Just as I was getting confident, the lady in charge distributed the keys...

Guess what??

Me got single digit, you read it right the first time, single digit in the DI section. I did not have the heart to look into the other sections. I am sure that my performance in VA would have been decent but QA is definitely not one of my strong points.
I don't want to bore the few readers of my blog with posts about my everyday sufferings. I guess the blog is already boring in its current form. This is hopefully my only rambling about my prep. I may write more about CAT but only unless it adds some value to the readers.

I would love to write more stuff about other things (of which there are quite a few lately), but with the Sword of Damocles viz. my office project hanging above my head right now, I will have to switch off my personal laptop and switch on the office laptop for I have quite a lot of work to do.

Ciao. Hopefully I shall be adding more posts later this week.

Men In Blue win the FIFA World Cup

India winning the FIFA World Cup?
Astounded??!!

So was I initially, but this Mission Impossible 4 is not a hallucination caused by snorting coke alongside Rahul Mahajan. Indeed, this pipe dream can become a reality if only the global order can be tweaked a little bit here and there. Not making too much sense am I? Let me explain...

Day: Wednesday, June 07.
Time: 7.00 AM.
Location: Somewhere in Chennai.

After I got up this morning getting ready another day of lazy drudgery at work, I went about the usual ritual of waking myself up by a bathing in cold water. As I went about scrubbing my unmentionables clean, thinking about football ( which my football illiterate mind had been thinking about the game on and off due to all the coverage of the FIFA World Cup ) , I heard some news article about Mandal II blaring on TV...

Suddenly a million grey cells in my brain (which is probably the entire lot of them thingies) went berserk with activity.
It was "The Matrix" moment.
I could see the entire pattern as clearly as Neo did in that dark corridor in some apartment. I realized with a jolt that the entire world has been working against India in one way or the other during sometime in history. I was dumbfounded at the realisation that it was due to this widespread discrimination that India was never a contender for the top tournament on earth. Hence as per India's holy books which are Mandal I and Mandal II, it is about time that these countries let us win the FIFA World Cup by means of compulsory reservation for the Indians in the tournament.

Think I am out of my mind?
Well, you are right about the out-of-my-mind thing, but it is not with respect this post. Let me go about throwing (or rather kicking) the bare facts at you about the discrimination we haved faced from all those football crazed nations thru the aeons... I could provide a writeup about the discrimination that we have had to face from every other nation but that would make this post the longest one in the blogosphere which is why I am going to restrict myself to only those 7 nations which have won the FIFA World Cup so far. Here goes...

England - For 200 years (or was it more?) we faced endless discrimination from you. So what if you brought democracy to India. It does not matter if you abolished Sati or gave us lovely Victorian Buildings to admire at either. The fact remains that inspite of Bhuvan and his team from Champaner winning against Captain Russell's team, you firangis never allowed them any endorsements which could have helped them improve their game. If you wouldn't let us grow in a not-so-popular game like Cricket, it is plain to see that you would have never allowed us to become great footballers. So there.

France - Bon Jourrrrrrr! You Cheese Eatin' Surrender Monkeys (audio clip here). J'accuse!
Did you discriminate against us in fashion?
Naah... your clothes look tacky anyway.
Food?
No way, spicy Andhra food is the greatest culinary delight in the world.
The crime of discrimintion leveled against you is Pondicherry. That's right, Pondicherry. Well, first you Frenchies committed the blasphemy having constructed a perfectly planned city in India. But Horror of Horrors... you made sure that it ended up being (and still remains) a CLEAN city too. A clean city in India! Oh, the pain that we have had to endure all these ages due to this. This singular reason must have made you hang your heads in shame and hand over the '98 FIFA Cup directly to the Indian Embassy in Paris.

Germany - Ah! The original Aryans supremacists. You guys are the sneaky ones aren't ya? You Germans made sure that you started discrimination against us 2000 years ago by sending your Aryan Brahmins to subjugate us.Now thanks to you we are caught in a never ending spiral of protests due to this. Of course this rift that you created does help many political parties nowadays to consolidate their vote-banks but that is just small change compared to what you gave us. If Germans really are the stiff upper lipped gentlemen you portray yourselves to be, your men oughta score self goals against themselves if you meet us in the finals, in order to expect any forgiveness from us.

Brazil - The Brazilians are the simplest to explain away really. The fact that they simply hog the football limelight wherever they go works against them. As if it were not enough that they have won the cup 5 times, every major football club simply needs to have a Brazilian star. As per Mandal I, all Institutions and offices were filled with upper castes due to the discrimination against the other castes. Analogously, Brazilians form the football elite due to the fact that they discriminate against all of us. I rest my case.

Argentina - Argentina, I really haven't got any really accusations against you, but unfortunately you are geographically close to Brazil, in fact sharing your border with them. Hence you are guilty by association. Sorry... but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Italy - Indians hate Italians. Wanna know why? It is a wide known fact (or atleast the rumour is famous) that Italian men are endowed with huge manhood. Now this pisses off the average sized Indian male so much that we cannot concentrate on our sports no more. This has adversly affected our chances of winning any matches at all during the Cup qualifiers.

Uruguay - Err... Ahh... Let me see... What can I say? Umm... Scratch! Scratch! For starters I don't like the name of your country. Uruguay? Yech... It sounds like the word for "Oh! Its melting" in my native tongue Tamil. And what kind of national capital would have a funny name like Montevideo? More seriously though, of all the nations I accuse you guys (Uruguayans?) the most. It was during your 1950 FIFA World Cup that Indians were disqualified due to our wish to play barefoot, never to set foot in any World Cup Stadium agains. You people may argue that it was FIFA that disqualified us but since you were the hosts I hold you guys responsible for this discrimination. Verdict: Guilty.

End Verdict: As you can see, the list of discrimination is endless. I could go on and on but I wish to stop here with an appeal to our political establishment to ensure with the help of the UN that atleast during the next World Cup our team is given a free ticket to the finals and also the additional advantage that the opposing team needs to play with the legs of pairs of players being tied together as in a three legged race.

PS: I know that some of you guys out there may accuse me of "internalizing" from that omnipresent forwarded email about "Reservations In the Indian Cricket Team". In fact it hit me halfway through this post too, but what I really wanted to present was a tongue-in-cheek way of justifying why Indians are nobodys in the world of football.

Rock Bands and Controversies

I like Rock music.
This would have been evident to those of you who have seen my profile.

I especially love the Heavy Metal and Gothic genres. My love for rock music stems from the fascination as to ...
"Wow! Here are guys who can actually make you listen to noise... and then have you screaming back for more".
So when Lordi, a Finnish Rock Band won the Eurovision song contest this year, it caught my attention. For those of you who don't know what is Eurovision, consider it a kind of musical analogue of Champions League where countries all around Europe send their music artists to battle it out for the top honours. Their win was especially amusing to me because I have never been able to correlate European music with rock (except for German bands). Maybe Robbie Wiiliams, Spice Girls, Boy Bands et al. are to be blamed for this. :)

Ok. Me is diverging from the my root cause for this post, viz...
What is it with rock bands and controversies?

The first argument to support the above question would be that the origin of rock bands can usually be traced back to the rebellious streak of the members, but I am not talking about the truly rebellious ones like Rage Against The Machine, Nirvana and others...

I am talking about those bands which skirt controversies as a gimmick. Take a look at Lordi themselves.

Firstly, I think they are an overrated band. Their music is very mediocre. Second, I am fine with all the monster costumes and stuff. I accept this gimmick coz that's their USP. But take a look at lyrics of the song "Hard Rock Hallelujah" (which won them the Eurovision Contest )...

Not quite an angel,
Or the one that fell

When you actually listen to the song (which incidentally borrows heavily from 70s heavy metal), it sounds more like...

Not quite an angel,
The one that fell.

Clearly these guys are skirting controversy by try to say that they are devils. They tease people with their lyrics but do not accept that they are truly rebellious. That sucks.

This kind of lyrics reminds me of the iconic song "Another brick on the wall" by Pink Floyd. When accused of poisoning kids minds against education with the lines...

We don't need no education.

They wriggled out of it by saying that it meant that, that they were talking against "no education" and not trying to wean the kids away from education. What wimps!!

I have only this to say to such rock bands...
"C'mon kids. If you are truly rebellious take responsibility for it"

Oh! And while digging up information about Lordi, I came across this link by the New York Times. One of the hilarious accusations against Lordi was...

Rumors even circulated that Lordi members were agents sent by President Vladimir
Putin to destabilize Finland before a Russian coup — an explanation for their
refusal to take off their freakish masks in public.

It is amusing to see that India and Pakistan are not the the only ones to suffer from the "foreign hand" syndrome. :)

Anarchy. V is Thy Name

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...

Ever sung the above rhyme in Kindergarten? Unlikely, unless you are from England. This is the famous rhyme about the Gunpowder Plot, which is probably the first terrorist act in history.

The rhyme is sung with this man in mind.

He is Guy Fawkes (who incidentally gave English the common noun "Guy"). This was one mondo cool guy who attempted to blow up the entire English Parliment way back in 1605!!! Surely he must have been one of Osama's inspirations. :) Here is the link to the origin of the rhyme for the interested souls.

I can already here some of you cribbing, "Hey dude! What's with the history lessons?"

It has all got to do with the continuing changes that I have been doing to my blog. This one is about the new image that I have added to my profile. Take a look at the comic book, oops... graphic novel (don't worry, its a safe link :D ) cover below,

I guess now you know the source of my profile image. This is the graphics novel V for Vendetta where the protagonist is a guy who wears a "Guy Fawkes" mask throughout the story. This is a story set in a dystopian future where a tyrannical regime rules over England. Dystopia had been the mood of my readings of late with 1984, Animal Farm and the likes.

Once I had read the synopsis of the novel V for... , I was hooked.
I really, really liked the way this guy (who just goes by the name V) is portrayed.
No. He is not a hero. He is not the all-good-pure-heart saccharine warrior. Here is a guy who has no qualms at killing those who oppose him. Here is a guy hell bent on revenge.

To me he is the ultimate anarchist.

The one redeeming thing about V which got me is that he doesn't care taking on the whole system in order to get his way. I am sure that some of you are snickering about this being done by Kollywood movie heros for ages, but the difference between 'Captain' Vijaykanth and V is that V has no notions of infallibility of his character. He really is not the nicest guy to know.

Don't get me wrong, I ain't no rebel. I usually stick to tried and tested methods, but I have been feeling mutinous of late for no good reason. I don't seem to believe in the inherent goodness or evilness of any system anymore. I have been dissatified with the entire machinery in the recent past. May be this is the reason why I chose this image to represent me in my profile...
But then I may have just wanted to look cool. :)

Anyways the point here is that this is my profile image and you'd better get used to the image of a masked guy with an eternal plastic smile on his face. :)

Moving back to the original Guy Fawkes, here was an original real life rebel if you have ever seen one. It must have taken a hell-a-lot of guts (not to mention hatred and insanity) to try to blow up the entire parliment. Phew!!

Last point before I signoff. I tried buying the novel but it costs a whopping Rs.825. For all my admiration I could never get myself to pay this amount for a 'comic'. Do any of you guys know where I can get this book second-hand at a much cheaper rate in and around Chennai? If you do please do tell me.

The clock is ticking...

"So it begins..."
- Théoden, King of Rohan - Right before Battle of Helm's Deep

As many of you might have noticed, I have added two new sidebars.
1. Countdown 2 CAT.
2. Scipio's Fiction.

The second sidebar is a permalink to the pathetic attempt by moi at short story writing, but that is not what this post is about. This post is mainly about the first one.

For those of you who are only familiar with "CAT" as the commonly used name for the species Felis catus...

Welcome to the world of Indian MBAs.

Ask any MBA aspirant in India what CAT means and pat will be the reply... Common Admission Test. The three magic words which is simultaneously every aspirant's greatest nightmare that can in turn lead to their greatest dream...

In India, CAT is big. CAT is PRETTY big.

Considered one of the most competitive exams in the country, it is the prerequisite test for post graduate studies in the top Management Schools in India (which by the way, to me can only means the IIMs). It is said that only the top 0.5 percentile of those who make it to the next level of selection. Sure, cracking CAT is not the only criterion for admission into these colleges but it definitely is a must for entry into various colleges.

Last year alone around 170,000 competed for around the 1200 seats in the IIMs of which yours' truly was one. My friends say that my performance was not that bad, but hey! It wasn't good enough to get me there.

Alright, enough with the stats already, so let me go back to the sidebar. The clock is a countdown to this year's CAT which falls on November 26th. It is a reminder for me about the upcoming exams.

As you can see, the clock is ticking.

As far as preparations go, do I have a strategy in place?
Nope. Non. Nien. None whatsoever.
At the moment my only strategy is to start preparing start building on the strategy as it happens. OK, I have cribbed enough for the day. Me really has to start preparing now.

PS: The CAT Counter is in JavaScript. Your browser shouldn't have any issues displaying it. If you don't see a countdown timer, do leave a comment.

PS Again: Sorry about the corniness of using the LOTR dailogue on the top of this post. I just love the movie, especially the battle of Helm's Deep :P

The Reunion - A not so short story

"A dry Martini, stirred not shaken".

The bartender noted the order with a "You poor guy!" smile. I returned him an "I know." smile. Yet another weekend. Correction. Yet another weekend alone. You see, yours truly isn't exactly Mr.Hitch, the date doctor. The usual "date" that I go out on is to haunt movie theaters in the neighbourhood with my friend Sundar. This particular weekend, he is busy with some work, so I decided "Hey! Why not try hanging out at some of those "in" places like the Athena bar?". Maybe, just maybe I could meet some girls and who knows what could happen next. So far I hadn't been very successful, I could not see any single girls in the bar.

Here I was lost in my own day dreams and just as my drink arrived, I noticed that the bar stool next to me was occupied by a guy. Clean shaven, looking slick with his hair combed back, a bunny pink shirt and a cool earring, he looked just a touch effeminate. Mr.Pink Shirt smiled at me. Being a guy brought up by parents who force feed you with humility and politeness along with Horlicks, I returned his smile.
"Are you alone?", he asked.

Hmm...

"Yes", I replied cautiously, alarm bells ringing in my brain, as I tried to figure out which ear had the earring. It was the left ear and not the right one alright. I relaxed.
"So, do you hang out here frequently?", he asked oblivious to my thoughts."Not really", I replied. "Me neither... Oh! and by the way... I am Krish", he said extending his hand. I shook his hand introducing myself.
He said, "I couldn't help noticing, that you look quite bored. Me and my college buddies, Jesse and Mo are having a reunion of sorts after a long time. I am waiting for them, would you care to join us?".

Jesse? My hopes soared. May be this evening was not lost after all, I could atleast get to meet one girl. "Sure. I don't have any other appointments either. So tell me more about yourself...", I said. "Who me?", asked Krish, "well I work in India... I am into the dairy farm business. I just love dairy products. Especially butter".

"And what does she do?", I enquired, hoping I didn't sound too eager.

"Who?".

"I meant Jesse". At this, he started laughing, "Jesse is a guy", he clarified, "It's the name we gave him from his initials J.C while back in college".
"Oh!", I grinned sheepishly as I downed my first drink and ordered another.

Just as I was recovering from my mini episode of embarrassment, two men arrived at the table. Krish got up and hugged both of them and introduced me to Jesse and Mo. Jesse was a very calm looking guy. Dressed in a suit, it was clear from is accent that he was living abroad, most probably the US. Mo was a more of a sober looking guy. Tall with tanned skin, he sported a trimmed beard.
"Jesse here works out of the US," said Krish as he introduced them, "while Mo works in the middle east. We guys were inseperable back in college."

"And this here is Mr.Single-on-Friday-Night", he said grinning lightheartedly as he introduced me.

After the formal introductions were over, we all ordered a fresh round of drinks. Interestingly, Mo just ordered some lime soda. Seems like he wasn't much of a drinker.

Once the drinks arrived, Krish was complaining to the two guys, that they were late as usual. Mo spoke first, "I started pretty early Krish, but it was so difficult to get here. I got struck in the traffic due to some heavy protests by some Muslim dudes."

"You mean the Mohammed cartoon protests?", I asked as I finished my drink again and ordered another one.

"Yes the very same.", he said, "It the same issue back home too. I just have one thing to say to these dudes... Come on guys, these are just cartoons. Frankly I don't see any problems with the cartoons. I saw them. I actually like those toons. Some tongue in cheek humour keeps everybody's spirits high. It's not as if they harmed anyone by publishing these cartoons. Other than that of course, they were also protesting against good ol' Prez Bush's policies too..."

"Don't even talk about that guy Mo", interjected Jesse. For the first time in the evening, the natural calmness he wore seemed to fade away. "I really hate that guy man. He is such a loser of a Born-Again Christian yaar...", Jesse continued, "You guys know what he said about the invasion of Iraq? Bush said... God told me, George! Go and stop the injustice in Iraq and by God I did it".
"Yeah Right... Looks like God told Bush to go ahead and kill 200,000 people and free Iraq.", he fumed sarcastically, "Maybe he is freeing Iraq of Iraqis... Many of these Christians make me sick man. They spread violence in the name of spreading love. I really hate their holier-than-thou-attitude. Just take look at Hindus. Now those guys are peace loving people "

"Hindus are such peace loving people!", mocked Krish, mimicking Jesse's voice. "Have you guys been following the news lately? Does Vododara. Gujrat. Violence, ring a bell? We will first bulldoze your very old Dargah. If you protest we will go ahead and burn an innocent guy who has nothing to do with your protests coz he is a Muslim too. You know, one should not burn these criminals in revenge. That would be too easy a punishment. Instead they should be slowly cooked in an open tandoor."

He gulped in his drink for pause and started off again, "Do you wanna know how much more peace loving we are? We are so peace loving that we will opress people from our own religion in the name of caste. We have such a planned and structured form of racism in practice you see."

The atmosphere seemed charged with excitement now. I did not seem to exist as far as these guys were concerned. They were too engrossed in their arguments. This was when I noticed something strange.I could see that these guys were very different. I could not place my finger on it exactly but something in the back of my mind was sending me signals that I couldn't interpret.

Soon enough, a calm subsided over them. Mo the-sober-one interrupted them, "Hey Guys! This is not the reason why we came here. This reunion was supposed to be enjoyed right? Just like back in college."

"Ah College! Now that was a place, it must be ages since we had such fun guys", said Jesse, "College was real heaven man...".
"Can't agree more with you Jesse-boy", said Krish cheerfully, "What say we go check out a discotheque and pick up a few girls just like the old days?"

"Wanna join us man? ", he offered, looking at me. Much as I would have liked to meet some girls, the drinks were taking their toll. The last thing I wanted to do was puke on some girl. So I declined their offer.

Just as they bid farewell left, it hit me as to what I felt strange about them. There seemed to be a kind of distinct glow in them.

As they walked across the bar floor, I noticed something else...
Was it me?
Was it the drinks that I had?
Was it the bar lighting?
I could have sworn that they weren't walking. They seemed to be floating over the floor.

END OF STORY

Cross posted here

Update:
Me has got feedback that there are some problems in understanding the story. Here are the full names of the characters ...
Krish - Lord Krishna
Jesse a.k.a J.C - Jesus Christ
Mo - Prophet Mohammed

Read through the story again. Hopefully it should make more sense now.

What might have been...

An interesting politacal career came to an end yesterday evening at 4.10 pm with the untimely death of Pramod Mahajan. People shall always be left guessing of what might have been if only...

Irrespective of what his (or my) political affiliations or political ideologies may have been one thing I admire about this guy is that he brought professionalism into election campaigning.

Now moving on to the Sports news in today's bulletin...
Greg Chappell sees new hope for Indian team with Young Turks as the one shown in the below pic.


This is what Grag Chapell has to say about the young star M.S.Pradeep ;)
"Talented players like Mr.Pradeep need to be nurtured instead of being made to stare into stupid TFT monitors and waste time writing code (and blogs). Just notice the excellent foot positioning and the perfect follow through of the bat and you will know what I mean. " :D
Rumour has it that the Australian government has decided to provide him with a green card (no questions asked) for the sole purpose of inducting him into the Australian Cricket Team...

Moving on to reality news now... actually I scored just two runs in the match that we played last weekend, this was one of them. :)

The name is Scipio.... Hot Scipio

Bumped into this site which checks your "hot"ness quotient via my friend Iday's Blog.
Here are the results (amidst thunderous applause)...

You Are Super Spicy

You're a little bit crazy, a little bit naughty, and a whole lot of sexy. You go beyond hot - you set people's senses on fire!

Are You Hot?

Yeah... Right... And did I mention that I am loaded with cash too???

Not just Indian... Tamil in particular.

Many of you must have read about Kavya Vishwanathan... An expat Indian of Tamil origins in the US. Considered a very precocious teenager with a flair for writing, she bagged a contract with a US publishing company for USD 500,000 for her debut novel "How Opal Mehta Got kissed, Got wild and Got a life". The book falls into the genre Young Adult (read Mills and Boons type).

My first thought on reading about this was... Man, Indians are really going places!!! Sure Indians are considered great techies (we know the real truth don't we? :-) ) but we don't have much of a place under the literary sun. There was further fodder for my sub-nationalism as this girl was a "Tamil Ponnu".

Reading further about her I came to know that she had made it to Harvard. Now I was really impressed!!! Then came the interesting twist... When questioned whether she would pursue a literary career, pat came the reply, "Nah!! I wanna pursue my Harvard degree...". Immediately the Sherlock Holmes in me smelled something fishy (I can already hear some of you sneering "Dei... Kathai vidathey da...") :). Alright... alright... my first real thoughts were, "Man this girl is crazy. She is walking away from the prospects of making more money" but then I remembered that she was from Harvard. I concluded that Harvard guys must be like our IITs and IIMs, who blaze through courses and end up starting political parties and starting "Idly Kadais".
Well it turns out that the girl had pilfered (an anti-euphemism for plagiarized) from a book written in 2001. I think this was her way to earn her College Tuition fees. Some have their Million Dollar Homepage to pay through college while others have their Red Paper Clip to buy a house, well our girl Kavya takes the "write a plagiarized book" route which I think that may be a reason why she refused to consider writing another book again.

Finally, I have bumped upon a get rich quick scheme too. I have decided to write a book "How Krish Wrote a Short Story(?), Got screwed, Got scared, and tore down the post". The book falls under the genre Totally Adult. Any takers? :)

@&^$ Gandhi... We love Rajkumar... But why?

One simply cannot believe the kind of violence that has been associated with the death of Kannada actor Rajkumar. Here is a first hand report of my friend Karthik affected by the aftermath of the violence which is from a team blog by me and my buddies from college. This post ought to be a comment on his post, but the rest of this post shall be digressing from the event (Rajkumar's death)... Karthik... sorry for stealing your thunder, I acknowledge your contribution to this post.

Alright, now moving on, Kathik's post had me thinking... "Forget the violence. Does any actor deserve such fanaticism?". The Kannadigas don't stand alone on this issue. I accuse the fellow men from my own state (Tamil Nadu) of the same wrong.

So why do people do this?

My first thought was a possible reason in "Madan's Thiraipaarvai" (Madan's Movie Review) on the channel Star Vijay. While reviewing the movie Spiderman, Madan explains that the US has so many fictional comic Superheros due to the fact that they are a (relatively) young nation and woefully short of historical heros. So can we say the same about what is happening here in India i.e. Are we short of any heros that we take movie heros to be real life one? Well, my answer to that question would be Yes and No.

'Yes' is for youngsters from resonably well off families. These are people without a real life cause to fight for and hence short of "contemporary" heros to look up to. They are fed up with the system and there is now a general revulsion towards the word "politics" in India. Hence their other outlet for emotions are movies...

The 'No' is for poverty stricken poor people whose only source of entertainment are movies. When they see their "Hero" on the screen (repeatedly) living out their their dreams of an ideal man, they lose their sense of reality and in the same way as Pavlov's experiment on stimulated response, they start associating their screen God with idealism and become absolutely devoted to him.
In case of the poor, a classic analogy would be the propaganda during the time of Stalin. His cult of personality so totally permeated into the psyche of the public that there was a sense that everything they(general public) knew existed solely due to efforts of Stalin. So much so that there were suicides after Stain's death because they couldn't think of a life that was not controlled by their beloved leader.

It is only fair to say that in some ways this kind of fanaticism would be justified in the '40s and '50s because the people believed that their screen idols actually lived their lives the way they were portrayed in the movies, but why they do so in the current age of media beats me.

What do the actors think about this?

A great example of this kind of adulation can be seen in the movie "Iruvar" by director Mani Rathnam. Mohan Lal who plays the role an '4os movie actor (inspired by MGR) in the movie is totally stunned by the kind of craze he evokes on the crowds. This leads him to ask "Why do I deserve this? I am just an actor...".
I am sure that that is the first reaction of any actor. Soon they start thriving on this kind of fan adulation. It kinda becomes a life source for them. They sustain themselves as well as their market value by feeding this fan craze by constant feuds with other actors as is the case of the well known feud of between actors Ajith and Vijay. This is one of the reasons why many actors suffer depression once they lose their charm and become sidelined by other actors.

One last question before I end this post. Why do we see this only in South India?
I have no knowledge of such kind of fanaticism in North India. Sure there were many concerned fans when Amitabh Bachchan fell sick but I doubt if such riots would have taken place if he had died. This seems to be a South only phenomenon. Ironic that this should be seen only in South India, the self proclaimed torchbearers of Rationalism... but I can say that South India is not alone in this. There are some such cases around the world too, take for instance Joseph Estrada of the Philippines.

Before signing off... my apologies to anybody who was hurt due to the fact that I have associated the name of Gandhi with an expletive.

Two sides of a coin

I don't want this blog to morph into an anti-Pak or anti-Muslim blog. It's just that I have been spending time this weekend trying to get the Pakistani view of things about India and Kashmir... hence the post. This brought me into the focus of how the same news is reported through different prisms in both the countries. The issue of Kashmiri Refugees selling their children due to poverty.
Here are the Pakistani and Indian media reports on the same thing. An interesting point that I have noted about Pakistani reports is that they view India as Hindu (including this report). The Pakistani report fails to mention that there were Hindus too who have been selling their children due to poverty. Also it does not stress on the issue that these people became migrants primarily due to militancy. As for Indian reports... maybe if a Pakistani comes across this post (fat chance of that) (s)he may be be able to comment about what could make the Indian media more neutral.

Fear the Indian Internet Juggernaut...

I have always wanted to know the Pakistani viewpoint on any current Indo-Pak event.

I don't know what I should infer about this article. That Internet penetration in India is better or should I feel elated about the Pakis being pissed off about our work on the internet?
But I do have one message to the Pakis...
Be afraid of our broadband connections. Be very much afraid. muhahahhaha... (sinister music on the background)

I simply had to post this...

“Do not accept what I have said to you because it has been so said in the past; do not accept it because it has been handed down by tradition; do not accept it because it is also in the holy scriptures; do not accept it because it is said by a famous or holy monk; but if you find that it appeals to your sense of discrimination and conscience as being conducive to your benefit and happiness, then accept it and live up to it.”
-- The Buddha

Crash - An American chopsuey

Oscar movies fall into two categories.
One, are the usual pulp movies which are no brainers. You need no intellect whatsoever to enjoy these movies. I am talking about the likes of Titanic and Gladiator.
The other category are movies for those blue blooded self-appointed movie critics who are not content with great special fx and hot chicks... these are people who have no other job than to derive metaphysical meaning from crappy shots like the lead actor peeing in an alley.
But then there is Crash...
I am not able to place this movie in either of these categories. Maybe the Oscar jury had the same dilemma and hence adjudged it the best movie of 2005.
I call Crash an American Chopsuey coz it is not only an all American movie but also a movie about the diverse ethnicity of the US. In a single sweep it moves through the lives of pretty much all the major ethnic groups in the US. There is a White family, a Black Family, a Black-White family, a Persian Family, a Korean Family, a Latino family (sorry no Indians). I have never seen a movie that deals with so many characters but still does not end up screwing the screenplay.
My favorite threads in the story is about the black guys.There is a stereotyped black guy, a black detective who just wants to lead his life and finally a black guy who would probably be accused by fellow blacks of acting white. It is interesting to see how the life of each one progresses through the movie. I would actually be giving away the plot of the movie if I talk any further... Go ahead... Watch the movie. I strongly recommend it.
I am going to rate the movie using two metrics... the theater which this movie is worthy of and the class of seat that this movie is worth paying paying for.
Verdict: Sathyam - First Class

PS: A trivia... this is the Oscar winning movie with most utterances of the f*** word. 90-odd in all. So it is not a family movie for sure.

(Un)Holi...

Being from South India, I have never been too much involved in Holi celebrations here (One of the many festivals considered a "Hindi" festival by many "Protectors of Tamil Culture"), though I have celebrated the "Festival of Colors" a few times with my friends in School.
Holi has become a rather controversial issue in recent years.It is seen by many (and fueled by the MSM) as a license to licentious menfolk who go on a rampage, harassing and molesting women at will. Take this example in a Tamil Daily. If you ask me, from the looks of it, the girl seems to know the guys who are playing holi and pretty much enjoying the festivity herself. Don't get me wrong...I don't say that men are abstinent saints who are being targeted by "New Age Feminists". I am sure that there are a lot of rotten minds who are waiting for opportunities like Holi in order to "Have some fun". It's just that I feel that this particular photo seems to have been a wrong photo at the wrong time.

The Millionth post about...

...about Jessica Lal. I am sure there are a million more post about this issue on the blogosphere, but this is my way of showing solidarity to Jessica's cause.

This is a 100% pure story of 'Indian Justice'.
It is a sickening story of how the son of a Government Minister gets away with murder of a girl in a crowded night club with a hundred eyewitnesses. The whole timeline can be found here.
In spite of this, there are sure signs that India(n) is waking up to the injustice so much prevalent in this society.
1. On the same week, the men accused of the Best Bakery Murder during the Gujrat riots are sentenced to life in prison.
2. There was such a huge public outcry about acquittal of Manu Sharma (Jessica's alleged murderer) that the government has been forced to reopen the case.
That's India for you. So full of contradictions, but that's what makes this country special.