Hang On....to something :P

In Bruges

2009-02-24T11:18:00.002+05:30

I spotted this movie while randomly flipping through msn.uk and instantly liked the premise.
The article quoted it bore similarities to Harold Pinter's Dumb Waiter.
I was curious and the next time I stopped by Velachery Videos, I picked up the DVD, films like these will never release in India.
A dark comedy, with such wonderful dialogues last seen perhaps in Pulp Fiction and you finally realise that Colin Farrel is Irish!
The three leads are super in their roles, but it has to be Ralph Fiennes as the foul mouthed Harry who comes out on top.
There's a smart little scene in the deleted scenes section of the DVD, one in which Harry is traveling by train and a co-passengers tries to initiate a conversation with him.
Lol! And the nod to Nicholas Roeg is definitely there
As for the similarities with Dumb Waiter, yes, but just the key plot, I would say it takes heavy inspiration from another chilling film, Nicholas Roeg's Don't look now, more than Pinter's play. And that's saying enough about the film without giving out spoilers.
A must watch and yes, shot beautifully, in fcuking Bruges :)
P.S: The academy actually noticed this, the blind idiots finally did, and gave it a nomination for best (adapted?) screenplay. But seriously I'd have been all teary eyed if either of it's leads had secured an acting nom.

For the directionally challenged

2009-02-17T11:57:00.001+05:30

The recently released movie, Naan Kadavul, a majorly hyped project, allegedly dealing in isolated and bold themes, brought in many curious viewers. I am surely not one among them. Honestly, I like dark cinema, but not depressing cinema. And that's why I have consciously stayed away from Requiem for a dream, no matter how groun breaking it is supposed to be. But again, it's hard to take Naan Kadavul that seriously too, much because of it's phony filmmaking. It's more like a sham of a film really, that tries too hard to be different that the director keeps going back to his own stereotypes time and again throughout the movie.
It could have been something, but Bala is an amateur and a wannabe and in his hands, what could have been a powerful film goes completely flat largely due to lack of direction. The movie fails to stick to one thing, and tries to cram in one shocking 'reality' after another that it ends up being quite a bitter and hasty concoction.
While it provides a promising start featuring a naïve father and daughter roaming Kasi in search of a long lost son who has in fact turned into an Agori, you know you are in for nothing different from the run of the mill masala, only a bit disguised, when the camera pans and zooms in on the man doing seershasan with a swelling theme to back it. Okay.
And sooner than later, the poor father, daughter and thankfully and annoying mother are shunned and enter a group of crippled and twisted beggars. At this point, you are left wondering, what’s the point…but not so soon! The film takes a complete turn towards the begging Mafia and then soon abandons it to lurk a little bit into human trafficking. Again it goes back midway to the Agori, lest we should forget him in the middle of all this rigmarole, and then finishes with a highly spiritual message of Karma and Mukti. What the? Like a I said before the director is in no urge to stick to one plot element or even a central character, really, the blind girl has more to do that the phony kite-high Sadhu. And he wants to shock you so much that he keeps trying to invent more depressing and gruesome plot points one after another that he forgets what he started out to do in the first place.

As for the acting chops, if someone out there still thinks huffing, puffing and grumpily mouthing hoarse words equals intensity, they be damned, after Vikram, Arya takes this hamming to a repelling new level. The blind girl is plain okay, with a character that makes the performance handicapped as the actress herself is quite adequate, just that the character is poorly fleshed out, being the weakest and most hapless of the lot. The supporting cast of beggars, apart from their physical disabilities are not entirely new to us, we have seen these before. The only freshness lies in the main antagonist, the tall, lean and mean bad guy with a face that would make you think, this guy looks evil, but then not seriously threatening, but he turns out to be much more than that.
As for the director returning to his stereotypes, the scene in which the blind girl coaxes the agori to go back to his family, irksome, straight out of Nanda where Laila confronts Surya about finding him in the mortuary. The irrelevant and out of place song and dance sequence in the police station, the Simran outing in Pithamagan. And the fact that Arya, much like Vikram in ugghhh inducing Pithamagan, claims he is god, an avatar of Shiva. yeah right.
So is this one any good. Nope, movies like these come along every now and then disguised under layers of phony subjects, and are strictly made for awards only. For a jury much like that of the academy awards really, just check a few boxes of melodrama, weirdness, handicapped and they’ll give you the award

Top 10 movies that made you laugh

2009-01-31T13:38:00.008+05:30

There were so many top 10, 20 30 lists by new year time, I thought of composing such lists for Tamil movies too. Normally turn to the imdb top 250 for a pick of a classic for a nice evening, but then, there hardly were any such rankings for Tamil movies. The only critics that were worth mentioning used to be in Vikatan and most of them should be dead or retired by now, making the magazine just as worthless...So here goes nothing, and if you choose to disagree we always have the comment section!

Uploaded on authorSTREAM by sathya_t

1. Michael Madana Kamarajan - True, from the moment Kameshawaran appears on screen, it explodes, he's absolute dynamite.

And the climax itself, no matter how illogical, ridiculous or crazy the setting, was cherry on the cake, one of the best in Tamil Cinema, and this was long before a certain copy cat called Priyadarshan assembled all his cast for a run-amok climax for ALL his films!
Kamal and Crazy Mohan kicked ass and the Thiruttu Paati was pure rock star material.The 2 henchmen, while are wrong men for their job, keep you in splits'
Small funny bits, that you might miss the first time, but notice after repeated viewing, liek the one where Kushboo is drenched following the brake failure during their drive to Bangalore and Kamal says'Aiyya Nanjuteengala' which is quickly 'corrected to 'Aiyyo nanjuteengala'
Priceless! I watched this movie a few years back with a marathi friend of mine, who couldn't speak or understand a word of tamil, at the Kamal-Khushboo duet before climax, she was rolling with laughter.

2. Aan Paavam - It would be a crime to leave this one out. A personal favourite, this movie has still not been topped for the effortless way in which it made you laugh.

Paandiyarajan was never half as good again. V.K.Ramasamy was pure genius and Janakaraj made you laugh with merely close ups of his frustrated face.
And the dialogue so fast and witty. When Pandiarajan complains to his father V.K.Ramasamy for not getting him married, he states that one day he will marry his granny (an adorable Kunnakudi Karupaayee). At which VKR admonishes him, to which he retorts with a 'Nee mattum en ammava kalyanam pannikalaam, naa un ammava kalyanam pannika koodathu'
Yeah, it's that crazy!

3. It's a close call between which of the two should feature on this list, Saroja or Chennai 28, the ending of the latter positively lands the ball in Chennai 28's court. During the last cricket world cup, a brilliant Nike commercial was aired, glorifying the crude and ballsy gully cricket. It was an instant hit with a soundtrack so infectious it had you humming it though you didn't get a darn word of it! Sadly it was taken off air following India's early exit. Perhaps gully cricket is one such thing that rubs on it's energy to anything that brushes it, Chennai 28 is a cult film that would define this generation, just like Agni Nakshatram or Kathalikka Neram Illai did. The bet match on the beach with the school kids has you in splits and the film has one of the best endings ever!

4. The 2 heroes were pretty much sidelined, Balayya and Nagesh truly rocked and stole the show. Kathalikka Neramillai, like it's predecessor in this list is a favourite for the older generation. Shot mostly at the Aaliyar dam, the movie has awesome pieces which will make you laugh out loud. Be it the famous story telling sequence between Nagesh and Balayya or the scene where Nagesh teaches Sachu to act. Sure they didn't have time to fall in love, they were busy laughing their heads off!

5. 23-am Pulikesi - Boy, was it good to hear good old tamil again. Hell, it was great! Yeah it came with a contemporary feel, but who cares when it is this good.

Hurling the Choicest of abuses at his sub-ordinates, the weakling King has you rolling on the aisles.
And he is well supported by his 'manguni amaichar'. Just typing about this movie has me in splits!
The second half dulls a bit with the other Vadivel, but the loony king keeps coming back to keep things going.
It has a number of funny scenes, the pulavar paalapatra onaandi reciting his poem to the irked King, the kollan forgetting to weld the swords, the king pleading to escape from the cellar. But the best has to be the part when an enemy comes knocking on his doors for war.
'Suthi vilayadivatharku ithu tharunam alla' rotfl!

6. Madras to Pondicherry - Long before the hollywood buddy films, long before on the road comedies like Dumb and the Dumber, this mad caper is a timeless classic.
With a crazy conductor and driver (Nagesh and Karunanidhi) and passengers loonier than them, it's an absolute delight. Worth a repeat, the Baggoda Kadar sequence.
It was so good that years later Mahmood copied it bit by bit, the only thing good about that movie, Amitabh singing 'Dekha na hai re socha na'

7. Bale Pandiya - Screwball comedy. 3 Sivaji Ganesans, 2 M.R.Radhas. Nothing can go wrong. Boy, they sure don't make it as good as those oldies now.
A plot that could have driven you bonkers with the identity swapping thing, but it was deftly handled. Highlights for this one, M.R.Radha combing his hair,it's lifted yeah and though all logic is tossed out of window, it's a must watch just to see the badass Radha.

And of course the way he goes beserk in the 'Neeye unakku endrum nigar aanavan' song.

8.Panchathanthiram - Another Kamal and Crazy gem, packed with so many witty dialogues that if you are busy laughing for one joke, you'd probably miss the next. And Ramya, her cool self, honestly padayappa was too far fetched, but this was pure fun!
The movie has more than one of it's moments; the 'munnadi-pinnadi' with the 5some with Nagesh in the car, Kamal artfully weaving a story around Ramya in Sriman's party. 'Enna solrathune therila...(his friends panic)....Illa ethathu solliruven', But my personal favourite is the one where the otherwise teary eyed tragedy queen and dull Devayani does a superb turn as a suicidal dumped girl friend.

9. Rajini, cast as a pervert. Only KB could have done something so ballsy when Rajini had already become 'the super star'. And it's a pity Rajini hasn't played a character with grey shades in a long time now because being bad comes so naturally to him! And this is perhaps his best comic role, even better than thillu mullu, he plays an old incorridgible cassanova with no moral values what so ever, completely dominating his devoted wife. And the kind of rapport he shares with Goundamani is terrific. You almost forgot there were others too in this movie including another Rajini. The old one was such a rock star!

10. Kanni raasi -In spite of a tragic ending, this has to be mentioned just because I can't leave Goundamani from this list. He is kick ass as the quick witted sarcastic guy who reluctantly agrees for his brother in law's stay in his house.
But personally I would pick the All-in-all Alagu Raaja act, but Vaithegi Kaathu irunthaal was to heavy to feature in this list.
But the petromax light and the lunch scene in Kanni Raasi in which Goundamani scrambles his brother in law's plate and finds half a dozen eggs buried in rice and then franctically does the same to the rice in his plate, stuff of legends.

I had to leave out;

Ethir Neechal, the iconic pattu maami, Sowcar Janaki rocked in a role that later became cliched in Tamil cinema, but this is the best talkative, good humoured pakkathaathu maami we have ever seen.

Thillu Mullu, Sure it wasn't original, the movie was a remake of the hillarious Golmal. But this was fun to watch nevertheless.

Rajini is at ease with comedy, and the whole rendevouz with his mooch was just too good not to be there in this list, but had to make way for better fare.

And Sowcar again, the socialite passing off for Rajini's mother, this woman had top class timing for comedy yet she was cast majorly in tearjerkers

Inru Poi Naalai Vaa - Three guys, one girl, a potpourri family. It's a potent mix and is magic! The tactics and the extent to which the guys go to woo the girl are rip roaring. You think of this movie you can't help remembering 'Ek Gaun mein ek kisaan raghu thaatha' which became synonymous with the Tamil speaking population's tussle at trying to speak Hindi!

Sathi Leelavathi - Watch it for 2 things. Kamal Hasan. Kovai Sarala. Peroid.
This unlikely pair rocks the coimmbatore accent and the movie well out of Visu-ish territory and uses the one liners so effectively, the way only Kongu Tamil can.
It's perhaps the one movie to have fully banked on the 'Coimbatore Kusumbu'

Manal Kayiru - You can't like Visu's all-knowing shmuck act all the time. But you won't complain in this one. The rest of the cast is so good, you can sit through it.

Manorama, Kishmu, S.Ve Sekhar and the guy playing the heroine's brother make this otherwise preachy film far beyond worth watching.

The middle class appeal, kittumani's 8 conditions, Kishmu's slightly 'sarka-hua' but crazy about his wife act. and it's a delight to watch S.Ve Sekhar's face everytime he discovers another one of his conditions crumble
The scene in which he finds out his wife is a plus 2 drop out, awesome!

Meendum Kokila; Long before Kopurangal saivathillai and sathi leelavathi, this one has an adorable Sridevi draped in madisar. Though it is laced with drama, this movie never actually gets too serious thanks to the lead pair's comic timing

Shimla Special, laugh riot.

This list forces one to include only full length comic films, which leaves out a lot of gems,
Thangavelu in Arivaali, teaching his wife how to make pooris,
Goundamani-Senthil in Karakattakaran (dreadful movie, brilliant comedy),
Surli Rajan's miser act, Manorama and Balayya's tracks in Thillana Mohanambal,
a brilliant Nagesh as tharumi in thiruvilayadal (this could be the single funniest sequence in Tamil Cinema),
A thumping rummaging Savitri in Mayabajaar,
The karuvaadu interlude in Singaravelan, Sathyaraj Goundamni comedies in numerous films in late 80-s and early 90s,
NSK's numerous movies left out simply because I can't recollect them including one in which the master's turban is set on fire because he angrily dismisses the servant telling him to put the burning paper on his head (en thalaila podu!),
Memory is a cruel thing and it might have failed me again
so if you think I might have missed out some gems which ought to have been there...hit back!

Never Shaken, Never Stirred

2008-11-10T14:10:00.000+05:30

If bond was back to basics in Casino Royale, he hits the ground; rolling in dirt in Quantum of Solace.
Craig looks dirty for most of the parts, or is out there in rugged terrain
I hugely anticipated this movie but was sort of let down because while this proved to be a good action movie, is not 'Bond' enough
Yes, the silhouettes of shapely women in the title cards make a comeback in this one, and an elaborate breakdown of Bond's martini but save that, this guy could have been anyone.
No one liners, not enough wit, no gadgets (thankfully, I thought they took it too far with the later Brosnan flicks making the whole franchise campy!) and bond is not his smooth self save on a few delightful occasions. This bond hardly cracks a smile and is one angry guy whose path you don't dare cross

The opening few minutes of the movie are filmed fantastically and look racy to set the tempo for what is to follow.
But halfway through the movie, the director takes far too long setting the stage and the film starts to drag a wee bit. Proof of it, well my hubby dear was slumped in his seat, asleep. I had to shake him awake, 'For God’s sake, this is a bond film!'....
That is until the 'Goldfinger' (spoiler: this scene has now been named 'Oilfinger') moment which truly shocks and get things back on track
The action is plenty but a few of those scenes are filmed in such a way you don't know what's going on. Especially an aerial chase, you realise might have been fantastic after it is over, because you couldn't make out anything while the scene was unfolding!

Craig is angered, more reckless than ever and charms, may be for just a microsecond, when he seduces Fields. Otherwise it's kick, punch, shoot and swerve all through. I expected more after seeing what he could do in Casino Royale. Overall he makes a great Bond nevertheless, meaner than we have seen him of late. I hope they bring back a bit of that charm though, it didn't have to totally go, coz it's hard to like Bond when he's this angry and messed up!

Amongst those who surround Bond, the bond girl looks almost as rugged as Bond himself, and as usual is stunning. She bears a remarkable resemblance to Sophie Marceau. While she does quite decently well on her own, her back story is bit of a turn off and looks a tad bit out of place for a Bond movie. But then Bond is in revenge mode himself, so I guess we can give her a leeway!
The villain, I love! Mathieu Amalric was impressive in the short screen time he had in Munich (I haven't watched the Diving Bell and the Butterfly yet so can't comment!). He's the clean shaven businessman and lacks any of those unique physical disfigurement, a la bleeding eye or a bullet in the brain or acne ridden face. And perhaps that makes him more identifiable as just any other guy out to do some bad. And he does a cool job of it. He doesn't have the best fighting tactics or a threatening voice (when he charges at Bond, his voice made me go...Oh, you can't be serious, but it felt just as intimidating that this fellow is mad enough to do damage). But really, he could have been given more stuff to do.

The movie is a definite sequel to Casino Royale, so be sure to watch it before you watch this one. But that might be a mistake again, drawing no comparisons with it's predecessor, this is a good film in it's own right. But once you know what Casino Royale was about, this one tends to pale in comparison. It's a good movie, but could have been better, way better.

P.S: Watch it once, in theatres, your TV will only make it worse for you :)
P.P.S: The Bond theme by Alicia Keys and Jack White has come in for quite some criticism, but frankly I think it makes a good bond song. With Jack white's riffs giving the perfect Bond feel, this one goes the rock way, like You know my name from the previous movie did. Common, we once had Madonna do the theme, compared to THAT, this is a revelation!

5 Minutes

2008-09-29T20:21:00.005+05:30

It's an uphill task, but Radhi braced herself for it. She had tried every trick in the book to make it happen, but it wasn't looking up at all. In fact everytime she made an effort, it backfired and the inevitable signal went up, delaying it further. Time was ticking fast, there were deadlines to be met, and she had to get over with this one chore, but then how on earth does she kick start this one? And then something stuck her, she shed the goody goody image, raised her leg, aimed her foot and sent a sharp kick on her daughter's butt, and I was up with a startled scream.

'There, I should have done that long back to get you out of that bed' and my mother rushed out of the room rubbing her hands as though congratulating herself on a deed well done. And I sat dazed, wondering if asking that eternal question 'mom, 5 minutes more please!' again could get me killed?

P.S: No this never happened, my mother actually tortured me to wake up by tickling me. eeeek! But really, my mom oughtta have done this for real. I can see how hard it must have been digesting this one antic, now that I have another lazy bugger to 'kick start' every morning!

Song On: Flashing Lights

Mood: Lazy

Gourmet Updated!

Gourmet

2008-09-19T20:31:00.002+05:30

After having dabbled in almost anything in my blog, ranging from movies to poems (!!!) I decided to branch out and dedicate space to something I love most :DFood of course ;) I know I can see my nutritionist waving that finger menacingly at me, but then this is one temptation that I succumb to, many a times. And this love for food was enhanced ever since I moved base to Chennai, this place has to have the most varied offerings, in terms of both cuisines and pricing...So I intend mostly to talk about the eat outs in Chennai that I love, some signature dishes and a rare recipe too...wooo bonus. Of course that might come with the necessary precautions; 'Do not try at home'/'Statutory Warning: Self-cooking is injurious to health', so you can't possibly hold me responsible for a badly burnt and disfigured wok or a stomach that forces you to blow hot and cold (hehehe...might I add pungent?)

Welcome to Gourmet, and I shall try to help you stay bloated :)

ROCK ON

2008-09-01T16:32:00.003+05:30

I saw the promos of the movie 'Rock on' on TV recently
Somehow it swept me off to those dreamy days post college
I was fresh out of college, not in a hurry to do anything
I knew I was to get though to one of those big wig companies everyone was talking about, yep, that much arrogant I was ;)
So now that my game was set, I spent most of my time idling in my sister's tiny apartment (if you could call that one :P) in Bangalore
The day time was when I slept, ate, pretended to skim through news paper for job ops
But life usually came alive post sunset, roaming about Jayanagar fourth block, munching roast butta, hanging out at planet M, buying nothing but browsing through the catalogs endlessly and listening to radio non stop well past mid night, much to my mother's chagrin!
Bangalore has been quite the place for headbangers...next only to perhaps Kolkata? (but it's all that jazz really)...
Really, Thank god, coz in this place, rock is a little more than Bon Jovi (forget the fact that Bryan Adams keeps returning to haunt the city year after year!)
But I wonder at the same time, how many out there are aware of those rock gems that keep springing up from the north east....Manipur, Nagaland, Shillong...anyone?
Getting back to the point of course, it seems a real long time back, a different time, different life, a different person, almost...
It's as if you think, you have grown out of that kind of life...but then you cant help leaning back and smiling out of the window during that rare moment when an old Creedence track leaks out of your car's stereo.

P.S: BTW, the one thing that did take me back to days of yonder, the movie Rock On, has mediocre music, may be because of that VOICE. Farhan Akhtar....why?! scream man....this isn't deep enough!
P.P.S: I'm gonna catch this movie on wednesday. And that's not only because I've always had a monster crush on Arjun Rampal ;)

If in a mood to touch base with rock....try Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival / Poison by Alice Cooper

Mood: Nostalgic
Song On: Pichle saat dino mein

Conspiracy Theory

2008-08-27T13:12:00.000+05:30

You know those days, when you step out of the house thinking this would be one good day, but it turns out to be entirely otherwise?
You have to go through almost every atrocious and ridiculous situation that your crooked mind can conjure up in it's wildest of day dreams, all your worst fears come to life and taunt you with that question, what if all of it descended on you, once and for all, what could you possibly do.
It could start with picking out the starched white kurta and churidhar, freshly ironed (after return trips to the dhobhi for the crease marks that were still visible under a lab microscope) and feeling undeniably crisp in it's sun dried freshness, paired with the perfect sandals only to step out into a rain that was ready to pour when you were five minutes from your office.
But you brave it with the thought that it's going to be a short dash before you reach the safe confines of your air conditioned office, but you are about to step onto that concrete after having jumped over and meticulously avoided the slush ponds between the unnecessary barricades on the road, and here comes superman on his bike, to save the day, but not your kurta and dips his bikes front wheel slowly into the little puddle beside the office gate just when you are close enough to get the slush splattered on your bright white churidhar and your sandals. He rolls off with an apology and you think what else could he have done, ridden on piles of gravel? He had nowhere to go but for that puddle. My bad luck really!
And then you rush to the office loo hopes of washing and drying your legs off with that dryer that is actually meant for your hand.
But you brave being stared at and after wiping off the dirt with a little water and tissue, lift your leg to the dryer and strike the awkward Ballerina pose, just to have the door of a cubicle open and reveal a startled, confused and amused, all at once, girl exiting, suppressing a giggle over what she just saw. And sigh helplessly, the leg still held up to the not-hot enough rush of air from the drier, while the girl rushes hastily to brag to her colleagues about it, or worse blog it!
You clean up and return to your seat wishing never to see that girl again for as long as you live and find that she sits, horror of horror 2 rows behind your seat.
You say, and all I wanted was a decent day! After much whiling away, scrolling documents you know nothing about up and down, it's lunch time. You grab your lunch and walk to the cafeteria, wave out to your gang of girls, they smile warmly back but the holmes in you just can't stop telling you 'May be they know of the dancing queen debacle?' You brush it aside and mumble a hello before settling down to eat. And one of them promptly points out, Wrong season for a white eh?
Yeah, the word has spread! And the other one whines continuously about the state of her visa application, to which you just have to be comforting. Another calls your most revered films 'dud', 'boring'...but it infuriates you more when they call it slow and worse confusing. And now you can't keep your mouth shut and say hey, that's a cult classic and is actually a most appreciated work. They stare. Oh Dear! And then impassively ask; 'Where?'. You say 'Here and there and around' (hoping they realise that you are quoting one such film), how were you supposed to be prepared to answer that?? 'Yeah right!' They drawl. Oh God! here it comes....'You know I can never get why she likes some movies that she likes'. You force yourself to shut up time and again, but then it does explode on their faces, 'Hey, it's a free country people!'. They laugh. 'hehehahahhohoho'. Ok, you've done enough damage to yourself, now just join in and laugh at yourself, we all know you are the one who runs the entire imdb, but just laugh now , please...will you? 'hehehahahhohoho'. Attagirl!
Then you get back to stalking wikipedias, music stations and again scrolling of documents. Finally, it's 5 and you start getting ready to leave, start saying your ta-ta bye-byes over the im, When your boss whom you wanted to put on the ignore list pings you and informs you that you have a call with some xyz at 6, 'can you take it today?'. You know she knows how jobless you are ad you can't possibly turn down the only little bit that is vaguely related to work, even if it is to arrive the moment you are about to step into the elevator. So you say, of course I would, as if you were born to do this. And stay back, putting your status as invisible on the im, just in case the coterie that you just bade ta tas found out. And finally when everything's done and dusted, it' 7, the house keeping folks want you to leave your cubicle, they want your dustbin that you have inverted and been abusing as a footrest. You see, they change the cover everyday, just in case you decided to miraculously drop some garbage in it. Of course they didn't know enough to collect the garbage from your drawer instead.
And when you finally when you are in the elevator, the workaholic, bespectacled guy enters (yeah one of those whom you said ta ta to over the im about 2 hours back) and smiles you a 'Isn;t that too late for someone as jobless as you? Why don't you get a broadband connection at home instead?'
uggghhh!
Okay, you take a deep breath, tell yourself, 'there's a whole 5 more hours of the day left. No worries!'
Your husband is there to pick you up. Sweet! You gladly sit at the backseat, and speed off, no puddles this time, the sun has been out all day long! You near home, and then there are these few heavy droplets on your hand. Oh Dear! It soon turns into a downpour. Oh God! 'You had to get the bloody bike. Whatever happened to that bloody car??' 'Stop swearing, we're almost there'. Shut up shut up....5 hours, just 5 more hours!
You are at the gate, you dog gleefully puts a paw on your dress, leaving a nice brown print, you scream at him. Hubby is in tow, says 'Open the door, I got him.'
You are finally in the safety of your house. Read the fridge for what could be the quickest dinner that can be made in...let's say 10 minutes?
he he, You ask hubby dear; 'Upma and sugar' 'Will do' God I love this man!
You chop up onions a la greased lightning, light the stove, put the wok and start frying the onions. You have the rava out into the container (it was a bit wet right, what the heck, we'll stir it in minutes anyway, no worries' And just when you thought everything was fine, the last remaining cylinder in the house runs out of gas. Damn!

'If anything can go wrong, it will'. Yeah, but sometimes everything seems to go awry, to an extent that you think the whole world is conspiring against you, wanting to bring you down, having that cruel last laugh. Everything, everyone, the weatherman, the biker, the blower, the girl from the cubicle, your 'friends', your boss, the nerd, your pooch and now good old LPG. It looks like it has been carefully plotted. But you tell yourself, don't be stupid. ha!

Sawan ka Mahina ;)

2008-06-15T20:09:00.003+05:30

This phrase is the most abused in bollywood, mostly an excuse to show the hero and heroine getting all kinky…hehehe But this is no such post. So if you thought that this post is going to be like those B grade movies, shady TV channels play after the normal world goes to sleep, you can put those notions to rest!
Having said that…this is all about Chennai’s most welcome showers. Think the months of March, April, May; it means endless roasting in the searing heat of Chennai’s merciless ‘Agninakshatram’. (The nerves of mister Mani to name a cool movie after this..!). You have to find umpteen number of ways to save your skin, well literally. At first when I saw a ponytailed girl vrooming away in her scooty wearing a white version of those long gloves that Audery Hepburn last wore with her Givenchy gown in Breakfast at Tiffany, I couldn’t help wondering at the girl’s audacity to pair it with a kurti and chudithar. But my husband quickly clarified that it was to protection from the almighty sun! Cool! In fact I carry a long blue umbrella with me be it any day, rain or shine. And the only good thin about Chennai’s summer is mangoes and they bring in more heat anyway. Such is the cursed life of Chennai-ites and then….’Ghanan Ghanan, Ghan Ghanan Ghanan’; in true Lagan fashion there’s a whole colony of clouds in the sky; and the shower with so much glee…Oh is there anything else we can ask for. And then, like I said, in true Lagaan style, all that disappears after a brief drizzle, long enough to wet all the clothes our maid had meticulously hung for drying in our backyard! Uggghhhh! God sure’s a trickster; at least his weather man is. And they both chose this oven of a city to play their tricks on. I shall write again about the true blue sawan ka mahina, complete with pakodas and boats; you ask me what that is. You’ll have to wait my dears J

Music On: Superfreak
Mood: Lazy
P.S: I know I have been absent for an unreasonably long time. Too much Aani :’(
P.P.S: By the way it’s my 100th post ;)

B(r)an(d)ished

2008-04-29T15:17:00.003+05:30

An ode to good old DD….the brands, ads, serials that used to be

An ode to good old brands and ads that are no more to be seen….to those good old days that they allude to :)
Shampoos meant velvette or halo; but we stuck to good old ‘Seeyakkai’ which were the least merciful to our eyes!
Rasna had a rival…trinka! So did Lays in uncle chips
The first TV to have graced our living room was a black and white Solidaire followed by the first colour TV we got; Dyanora
Premier Padmini was what the upper middle class drove and Contessa secured you the seat among elites. Maruti was more like the new kid on the block
Coca cola’s Fanta was not around. Goldspot’s polka dots were
Forhans, Binaca, Cibacca, Babool (much of them are still around but have their days of glory are obviously gone)
Bhool na jaana ECE bulb lana…

Hamdard Ka Sinkara….The tag line ‘Yeh bechara kaam ke bhoj ka maara’ is still very much in use though
The kids going ‘Mummy Maltova please!’
Natraj pencil ads showing the cartoon of kids playing cricket

Radio used to scream out commercials of Nijam Pakku, A1 cleaning powder, Ponvandu soap(my sis actually danced on stage to this one’s commercial…there I said it! She’s going to kill me now!!!), Narasus coffee, Shantha tilting wetgrinder

The special ads telecast by DD from time to time…
Mile sur mera tumhara, the no smoking ads, Ek Chidiya anek chidiya/ek, anek aur ekta…scripted and directed by Vijaya Mulay (boy, was this cute? :) …seriously one look at this video and you are back to your childhood)

Never understood most of what they said; but I thought these folks looked and sounded damn smart. Sumit Tandon, Neethi Ravindran, Minu (though a bit irritating with her Karnatak, Keral, Kannad etc.), Kaveri Mukherji,
Usha Albuquerque. And their regional counterparts, Shobana Ravi, Fatima, Sandhya Rajagopalan

Sunday ke Sunday
Sundays were special. You got up early not to finish your home work or to rush to school; but to catch Rangoli on time
And then hurry through your bath, breakfast to be right on time for he-man and the masters of the Universe at 9. 9:30 was for Ramayana/Mahabharata (it later shifted to 10 and also to weekdays primetime). Then at 11-ish you had ‘potli baba ki’.
There were a few more short lived series like glo friends, stone boy(loved it) etc.
Afternoons were regional language movies; don’t think I would watch an assamese/Bengali/oriya movie ever now.
Somewhere around 3 or 4, just before the Sunday evening movie, came Spidey swinging his way into the drawing room….and we used to dart from just about anywhere to watch that show.

Other bygone, long forgotten TV favourties
Oshin, Malgudi days (directed by late Shankar Nag…a cult to this day!), Wagle ki Duniya (one of the funniest!), Duck tales, Mr. Yogi, Byomkesh Bakshi, Flop Show, Mungeri lal ke haseen sapne, Surbhi, Bharat ek khoj, Street Hawk, Circus (One mister SRK was in this. So was Ashutosh Gowarikar!), Tandoori Nights, Jungle Book, Disney Show, Vikram Aur Vetal, Vishwamitra, Alif Laila, Chanakya, chitrahar, Chitramala, Gul Gulshan Gulfam, Saanjha Chulha, Tehkikaat (feat. The late director Vijay Anand, brother of Dev Anand), The Sword of Tipu Sultan, Hum panchi ek chawl ke……..

Seriously, whatever happened to DD?!

P.S: Its been long time since I posted anything... it is not the writers block... but Nandoo is hopeless in getting an internet connection at home and... my new opees doesnt allow me to blog :(

P.S.S: Nothing just like that! :P

Song: Aint no sunshine....

Mood: Cool

Pre V day blues!

2008-02-13T10:27:00.005+05:30

It's everywhere...like air!….gift your valentine this…gift your valentine that
And to top it all…one very original fellow posted in our internal forum
“ Please suggest the most romantic gift for my valentine…Or at least rank these!” followed by a list that he either thought of or as usual pooled in from numerous ideas floating around!
Eh? And didn’t it strike him that to suggest what his valentine would really like, the rest of the junta (or at least the male ones) are going to have to have a date out with her to know her likes better….very forward if he had indeed considered it.
But point noted, that’s an easy way to impress…going by popular opinion and not stressing your grey cells too much :)
So here you go
Rate these and help me gift my valentine something romantic :D

* Toilet tissue

* Cauliflower (Vivek said soombi pona rose vida ithu better :D)

* Serrruppu! (spelt just that way really)

* One tight slap on the face

* Candle light dinner at Kannamapettai

* Oru mozha kayiru

* 2 tickets for Indiralohathil Na Azhagappan

P.S: Keeping up with the V-day tradition!
P.P.S: Blogger use panni tamil tried...excuse any horrible spellings pls :)

மூட்: லோல்லு

பாட்டு: ஒண்ணுமே புரியல உலகத்தில ...

The Glass ceiling

2008-02-06T08:50:00.001+05:30

I think I am writing this post at the right time with the US elections going on and Hilary Clinton tries to net the ultimate goal. But is the world ready yet to take on a woman as their leader?
And is it really true, that for all the equality and freedom that corporates promise, women still have to battle it to their way to the top and struggle more to stay there?
Do women really make awful managers or are the men plain prejudiced?
If you are a woman reading this…have you ever felt that a certain man has a problem reporting to you but wont mind doing the same to your male peer?
Yes and no…it depends. But the truth is that women would still have to fight off people who think that they are not fit for their job and that they took a position which otherwise could have gone to a more capable man. And the more they answer back to disprove this myth; the more they are labeled to be ruthless or end up becoming targets
Partly because some men are biased in their attitudes towards the gender.
Partly because, of some women getting it all wrong in the family vs career juggle.
The first one is obvious. But how about the second one?...well the fact that most men are prejudiced that women may not carry a task forward with the same efficiency as a man might be a result of the fact that most women lose focus after their personal life becomes more engaging (kids,marriage etc) or they were plain indifferent to start with!

Let me talk within the realms that I am familiar with; which I suppose would be applicable to any office. When I started out as a fresher we were a team of 15…5 of which being women
Now of these 5, 1 was a married woman who was more bothered about the curry she had to cook back at home than completing her task at work. The other, was not interested in impressing anyone, did her job at her own pace, completed it nevertheless, but was not bothered about taking up an initiative or putting something extra into her work; reason being; “I’ll get married one day and coolly fly off with my Husband to US. This job is only to keep me occupied until then!”.

Now the rest of us put in as much efforts as we possibly could, which were in no way less than what the rest of the team (read men) did. But the manager had become biased enough and took it for granted that the rest of the women were also okay…but not brilliant. Yep, how many of you know of a brilliant lady in your office…I am not talking smart but brilliant; the one with the brains, not just the smooth talker. Take your time to think, but I am sure there are; just not acknowledged!

So the half that is not really concerned about their career and opt to work only to supplement the family’s income; please; you are ruining it for a lot others who have greater plans.
And to men who might stop generalizing and actually start seeing that women can also run their own show!

Which brings me to the next question ….can women really run a show?
Do they really make good managers or do they end up shooting themselves on their foot?
Again; yes and no. A woman is organized no doubt, but too by-the-book a boss and is a bit stifling at times. And not to mention they tend to be biased; needless to say they ironically favour someone from the opposite sex. The ones at the top are so bothered of being targets of a system that might want to get them down one way or the other; they tend to be over cautious not to let others have a chance to do so; and this caution kills speed and they end up becoming poor decision makers. But on the contrary if the woman puts her foot down to what she needs done, braving all odds….chances are she might end up being called brash or foolish or even a tyrant! Beats me….what is it that the world wants huh?

P.S: This post is definitely not because of what happened in my office....frankly, i among those who don't give a damn about it;at least for now :)
P.P.S: Okay...I confess; one of the lable is The Dark Knight's tagline :)

Mood: Okay
Song On: Kids

Idhu epdi irukku?!

2008-02-04T12:11:00.000+05:30

A spring time cleaning session in my house as usual brought out a lot of ‘goodies’ from the debris in one of the rooms which included some posters of the movie Shivaji (feat Rajini in his blonde wig). Now I consider that quite a threat coz the mere sight of it might cause Nandoo’s noble steed Cheenu/Ginu to go on a violent fix so we were contemplating on what was to be done with it.
And that’s when I said “That man Shankar is damn right over rated!”
Nandoo; “eh?!”
“Of course; he makes at least one jarring song with pots and pans and other stuff walking around in larger than life sizes and ridiculous picturisation and they call it grand! I mean some times they are so literal!”
“Yeah…so?!”
“So now you look at this pic and you can see all them reflectors and an entire crew in Rajini’s Dior shades! Think that’s savvy?”
“Yeah ….now that you say that…..” And we both were laughing out loud…hayyo hayyo!

And to those who say Shankar’s a genius of a film maker and may be this is one of those glitches; then say, didn’t you think Baleilakka looked stupid, the freeze frames in Ale ale in boys looked ridiculous… “Athu ennudan thenir kondathu”…and we have Rajini and Shriya sipping a cup of chai…ayayooo….!
There’s not one thing sane about the movie Jeans and Kathalan (save the music)
And you would kill the annoying Anniyan with a smile on your face!
I’d say, the man needs to take a break….obviously he has a taste for good cinema looking at what comes out of his production house (and some of his earlier movies). But why dole out crap after crap yourself?

P.S: what’s with making low budget movies of your own and blowing out another production house’s money….

P.P.S: I think that's 2 in a row for Rajini...hahaha

Song on: Poison

Mood: Funny

Cast Away ;)

2008-01-24T11:51:00.000+05:30

Plagiarism is the bread and butter of most film makers, especially in India, especially when their name sounds like Sanjay Gupta, Priyadarshan, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, R.K.Selvamani (this one’s almost extinct now!), Murugadoss etc. etc. Now this quite worried the big wigs from the other side of the globe that all their originality and thought was effortlessly lifted and used in the movies here. The production houses resolved they would completely put an end to this practice by making bilingual/trilingual projects for each of their high profile movies. Now the Indian version of those movies would star the local super stars instead of the Hollywood stars for the benefit of the ‘junta’ and to avoid straight dubbed ones having dialogues that go ‘Odunga…mummy varuthu, mummy varuthu’ (I don’t think that was an allusion to an election campaign by another equally famous mummy down here). As a pilot run for this project, it was decided that some of the most famous and iconic films that came out of Hollywood be remade with the Indian stars to give the audience a taste of what was in store in future (Uggghh!).
Auditions were announced and the casting team waited for the actors to audition for one historic role after another. Here is an account of how it went.

The casting team began hunting for the stars to be cast in one famous role after another…

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

CT: Are you sure Mr. Rama Rajan that you look the part of the ice cool cow boy?
RR: Have no doubts-nga…You go ask anyone down south and they’ll tell you what a cow boy I am! I dress like one, act like one even sing like one. And you don’t have to spend on costumes because all I need is an ara dowser and one thundu. And I don’t even need a horse, I am a cow boy after all, not a horse boy. I’ll ride a cow. What say?
CT: !!!

CT: Pleased to meet you MR. Rajini
RK: Hi hi hi hi!
CT: Would you like to audition for the role of Blondie?
RK: Kanna…I don’t audition for roles already written for me! But I want a few changes to the script. I want this character having as many punch lines as possible, preferably with lots of political ambitions strewn in. Lots of style, the flipping of the cig, tricks with my gun…I want a host of comedians around me who would be my friends. The rest of the characters, pick anyone you wish as those characters will be insignificant anyway. Have K.S.Ravikumar directing the movie, A.R.Rahman for music, he’ll refuse, but threaten him. And yes, this time I definitely want Aishwarya Rai as the heroine.
CT: er…

Kill Bill

CT: Ms. Vijay Shanty, I think you are a bit too old to play the bride!
VS: Old, what old? I can give the bride a whole new look. With my ponytail (a la Vyjayanthi IPS), flying stunts et al. And let’s not make her an assassin, let’s make her an honest lady cop. And she’s fighting with this mafia boss Bill. But Bill’s men plan to kill me and end up making me paralysed. Let’s have a second hero too. I bet the likes of Ramki, Abbas, Suresh would be available. They’ll sing songs and by the end of the song I’ll be ready to kick ass again.
CT: ummm…Interesting Ms.Shanty, but we were already considering one Miss. Priyanka Chopra!
VS: Oh…she’s too young. She can play my younger sister…who gets raped by Bill’s son. Now see…the whole revenge angle is complete!
CT(looking at each other in disbelief): We’ll get back to you Ms.Shanty!

E.T

CT: But Mr. Hrithik Roshan, it’s the role of a 10 year old boy!
HR: Yeah…But I have played it already and I have won tons of awards for it; thanks to papa! And see, I have got Jadoo along with me. Priety Zinta is a bit too old now, so we can sign on Kareena. Dress her up in really skimpy clothes and have her pout in every frame. And we can include a dance sequence for me to do my jig! I’ll have my uncle ready with the songs, he’s already listening to all the world music CDs I bought him yesterday. But one condition, papa is directing this one as well
CT: !!!!....and what about Steven Speilberg?
HR: Eh….he can be executive producer!

Jaws (I,II,III)

CT: Mr. Bachan…we have only one role to audition for in this movie, why bring your whole family along?
AB: eh?...Only one role?
CT: Yes Mr. Bachan. We decided to cut short a bit on the budget as we have 3 sequels to make. And anyway it’s mostly about the Shark anyway! The movie will have one lead role, an extra (who will be killed off before the first reel ends…we’re going to find a superhot bikini clad chic for that) and of course the shark.
AB: Oh, well then that solves the problem. We can have my daughter in law here playing the bikini chic …Beti pranam karo…I’ll play the lead role and my baby here will play the shark. Okay?
AB jr: Daddy!!!!
AB: okay beta, you play the lead role I play the shark. May be for the end credits, we can have all 3 of us doing an item number together like Kara Re.
Aish: Oh….this casting manager has fainted…Abhi thoda paani leke aao!

Titanic

SRK: Rahul…naam to suna hi hoga
CT: eh?!
SRK: I am an NRI in the story. I meet the heroine in the ship. She’s betrothed to another man. I charm her and make her fall in love with me. I strike a pose with her at the deck which you can use for the initial promos. Have a few dream duets picturised in Swtizerland…it’s India, you got to do that! The villain finds out and so does the girl’s family. I convince the family, ask her ‘haath’ from them. They are confused. Villain meanwhile wants to marriage to happen ASAP seeing the confusion. But when it is time to tie the mangal sutra, ship begins to sink. And I am there….standing with the life boat. To save the girl and her family….she runs to me, leaving the villain behind. Book Rani/Kajol/Priety for the heroine. Try booking Abhishek for the villain (gotcha Big B!). This is a story written for me…don’t you see?
CT: You bet Mr.Khan!

The casting team leaves for LA the next day. Never to return. But not before promising SRK to send James Cameroon to produce more movies with him in the lead.

P.S: I know...I took too long a break. But I didn't abscond entirely a la KK :P
P.P.S: Nothing to type here....just plain habitual ;)

Johnny G

2007-10-19T10:50:00.000+05:30

When I first saw the poster in a website, I thought, yet another train heist
Read the cast list; Dharmendra and Vinay Pathak sounded good, but who the hell was this Neil Nitin Mukesh and Rimi Sen….isnt she the one who had to paint her house in ridiculously tiny clothes in Dhoom?
I did not know what to expect; was this another B grader from bollywood or it really had some dum?
But with the Bling bling posters which focused on a jarring blue or yellow or a pair of red tinted glasses and I knew, this flick had to be stylish
And what a flick it was!
I watched the movie recently carefully avoiding all reviews…and I can say….i was entertained!
It works on a lot of levels, that awesome 70s credits (it would look passé in a 70s movie, but here it looks highly stylish!), the soundtrack to which a friend drives his car upside down (thalai kkeezha ottuvan!!!), a calm and restrained Dharmendra (I just hope they use him as an alternative to Big B who has gone from bad to worse of late), a slightly rotund but brilliant Vinay Pathak and Zakir Hussain; is outstanding! (the way he goes “ey beauty parlour, sambal isko!!!...lol!!!)...and who the hell is that guy???...That leading man…Neil Mukesh
Apparently he is the grandson of the legendary Mukesh and thank god he decided not to wield the microphone like his grand dad…We would have been robbed of such gorgeous eye candy. Seriously, it could have been Johnny Gorgeous (if the word wasn’t so girly!). If you thought this was a review (and now the movie has been much reviewed!), you might be disappointed because I took some time and this space out on my blog just to drool over this chap…who just might be the sexiest thing to have hit Bollywood of late (which is after Milind Soman…chiseled!...and that was long long ago) Yeah sure he does look a bit like those chocolate boys, but this one’s dark chocolate…wicked aint it?!
And what with khandani crap that Bollywood keeps dishing out; the likes of Fardeen i-got-too-fat Khan, Zayed can’t-act-to-save-my-life Khan, Ranbir Kapoor (he looks more roman than punju…seriously he is way too chikna!)….even Hrithik Roshan, yeah that man would have been burning hot but for his nostrils!...Yeah Mukesh jr here too has that slight resemblance to Hrithik thanks to his nostrils, but they’re more subtle here and don’t bother you too much ;)
But this god is leaner and meaner…in the first half I thought this guy can’t act…or may be can’t act with another director, but in the second half (*Spoiler* “Aap Shardul ke paas kyun nahi gaye???”) this dark chocolate gets yummier :D
I cant believe I could drool at a guy in a shirt with a large collar and a sleeveless sweater!...or in a red shirt (especially when he thinks most of his shirt buttons are pretty useless…not that am complaining!!!) or a crazy hair do which belongs more to the early 90s era aka the ‘kraapu thalai’...and did I mention that 'kadukan'...sesky!

P.S: Verdict, go watch this movie if you want some class!...BTW that bludy no good channel Zoom that my sis is fond of ruined it for me by almost giving away the ending

P.S.S: I have drooled enough now much to the chagrin of someone and I am going to need all of Chennai’s fire department’s help to put out the fire raging in someone’s tummy :D

Song On: JG

Mood: Good!

BP!

2007-10-16T11:00:00.000+05:30

AKA bandha parties :)
Or I’d rather put it attention seekers or people who know best to market themselves ;)
And when these guys blow their trumpets, they sure do look desperate to tell the world about their capabilities, but a simple minded person (read moron) would only think they are trying to write a simple entry in their blog. No offence meant….this is after all one egotistic world!
And why do that in blogsville, are you kidding me…this whole space is about yourself and how much louder you are than another person!
For instance ‘saying sitting in my living room watching TV’ might make you sound like a depressed Bridget Jones outweighing Usilamani gobbling up buckets of Ben and Jerry’s
But picture this…’sitting in my living room wearing my halter neck brown T with my diet coke with the TV playing some random channel’
That sure sounds like a babe…what more, ‘random channel’ would mean, you are probably not interested in the TV at all…may be you are with someone…may be you are…..okay lets not get to that :P
So you get the idea right?
So next time put in references about your work (only if non IT esp if you head your concern, please do brag about it at every chance…this is the single most important thing!), the car you drive (if a sedan…please specify…saloon…never mind), your sprawling home, your PG degree/course (read MBA) even if it is from the University of Jhumri Talayya, your little doggy (if you named him Mani, at least change it to Max in your blog!...And strictly no poms…German Shepherd and Labs; okay)
References to your friends in a post…please use stylishly shortened names…Jennifer becomes Jen, Subramanian becomes Subra (hehehe), Divya becomes Di…
And the IT chaps; every onsite trip, no matter how ridiculously short, must be preceded by a bye-bye mail (it’s a different story that you would by all means continue blogging when overseas..) and hey don’t forget to update your profile!
Spend some time on your profile, sometimes giving away as little information as possible might be cool and yo…but that might really turn off and drive away new bees
So put in some bits and pieces about yourself
Music; A.R.Rahman is a must…but other than that, make sure you have a lot of firang names. And for guys, please don’t mention boyzone and backstreet boys…it gives a completely different meaning! Ditto for movies
You might think ‘Tiramisu’ is a Jap Lad, but just add it to your list of favorite ice creams….trust me; it works!
And any dish that sounds vaguely continental
So next time you post….remember, there are a hundred eyes that are watching your space, trying to idolize you….and every post is your chance to do just that

P.S: The easiest way might be to betray such secrets, the way I did…. ;)
P.P.S: I am no exception to this rule…no one is :D (the profile rule I mean) But I noticed that some spaces over did it….hehehe….couldn’t resist mate! (the content before the 'profile rule')...Seriously, when will I learn? ;)

Song On: Move Your Body (Johnny Gaddar)
Mood: Wicked!

I do....

2007-10-04T10:19:00.000+05:30

There were days when I used to think the board exams were the toughest thing on earth and once you cleared them, your life was pretty much easy…and then I found out the truth about driving a car

When I thought colleges had devious seniors (who were mostly handsome too!), stupid profs who looked and sounded a lot like ‘Vennira Adai’ Moorthy (and there were also days I thought it was ‘Veneer’ aadai Moorthy, but that was before I heard of the film), girls wearing the trendiest of outfits and a hostel that looked nothing less than a resort (except for the stupid profs part, reality was very much different!)

When I thought office was a place I would have to slog, then I heard about ‘Bench’

When I was younger than every actress, model, VJ on TV and every hunk that gets introduced in a movie was elder than me so that I could comfortably drool ;) (that's just for the hunks...duh!) and then I turned 25

When kids of friend’s aunts and sisters called me Akka and then my sis had a baby and I became aunty overnight! :(

When I saw my sister, friends, cousins…married and living ‘happily’ and was absolutely horrified by the fact that it would be me soon….and then Nandoo happened, I am not sure if I am happy yet :P

When I thought Chennai was the one glorified kuppam…and now I am waiting for my transfer orders to Chennai…boo hoo!!!

P.S: No we DID NOT meet via blogsville…
P.P.S: Not college sweethearts either :P

Oye...updated it...how people misread!

Toddler ke side affects

2007-09-18T20:59:00.000+05:30

Side effects of ahvin a toddler at home:

1. Your room is suddenly full of diaper packets, funny looking squeaky toys, dolls with hair torn apart and did i mention that wierd damp smell...dont even ask!

2. Your deo starts to smell like johnson's baby powder

3. You have to bite your tongue to stop from starting a phone conversation with 'Cheechu kutty' in a voice that sounds you were trying to mimick moonram pirai sridevi

4. Dosai becomes chochai, chicken becomes chia, 1's are called wee wee, 2's are potty, messy 2's are called 'mommyyyy help!'

5. Stray paper lying around is nibbled off with immediate effect. No, credit card statements, electricity bills, train tickets and rental agreements are no exceptions!

6. Everyone suddenly wants to know how a dog barks, a crow 'crows??', a bus honks...that too from a one year old!

7. You fall asleep singing god awful lullabys with the baby sitting wide awake on your lap

8. Left over mashed dal rice, wheat 'kanjee', apple pulp, paalak and daal 'kanjee' find a way into your daily diet

9. Your mobile has random calls going out to bewildered people (thanks to speed dial!), new entries in phone book that go 888, 6, *79 et al

10. You become primary entertainment channel and expected to deliver everytime that it's breakfast, brunch, lunch, snacks, supper dinner time...do baby talk (even if you are 25 years old), run around and use a dumb doll as creatively as possible

11. And if you sleep walk, beware...the little soft mound you are about to step over is not a swell in the pillow or the blanket!

12. Your laptop has a few keys missing

P.S: My one year old niece nishu has been staying at my house of late...and she's trying her best to pull the laptop charger from the socket as i am typing this

P.S.S: i think i am going to have to replace my charger!....btw, the pic above is the kind of company i get when i'm on net

Aag...Bhuj Gayi!

2007-09-03T10:47:00.000+05:30

Pic courtesy: Office BB ;)

There used to be a time when I used to think that remakes are child’s play. You never needed too much effort for remaking AKA stealing someone else’s idea. The reason that I thought the likes of Satish Kaushik, Sanjay Gupta, Vikram Bhat and our very own Vijay and Jayam Ravi made easy money selling an idea what others had whacked their brains over. All that changed overnight. Now I think remakes are no joke. To make a film, no matter how bad (you know the likes of Hum aapke dil mein rehte hain and priyamana thozhi); and to make it appealing to the audience, is a challenging job in itself. Because even if you are going to do an E-adichan copy of the original, chances are, the product could look way too bad compared to the original. Now Zinda, Kante, even Ek Ajnabee sit among great remake classics….All that after watching RGV’s Aag!
If I had to describe Aag in one word, several spring up in my mind…Aiyo tops the list, closely followed by yuck, disastrous, disgraceful, sucks et al.
The movie looks like it has been ghost directed by some B grade movie maker and they just happened to use RGV’s name (like someone suggested!). Looks like a foray by the Ramsay brothers into mainstream cinema, staring the living for a change! The remake of one of my favorite movies of all time does not work on so many levels.

1. Scenes are painfully long, with a background that is simply put dull and too slow. In fact the only thing slower than the score is the movie’s pace (perhaps the result of the score?) and Amitabh’s hacking off of Mohanlal’s fingers! (the only decent and truly chilling moment in the movie. C’mon this doesn’t need a spoiler alert…every one knows Thakur gave Gabbar his ‘haath’!)

2. The life of Sholay lay primarily in 2 characters. One Gabbar. Another Jai. Amitabh tries hard to make a good gabba(e)r, but the character’s scenes are so badly written and unnecessarily stretched, ‘Hindi Cinema’s most scary villain’ ends up being awfully boring. The vulnerability angle of a sibling and a limping leg are unwanted deviations from the oh-so-demonic Gabbar Singh we are familiar with. As for Jai…well there was no Jai in the movie! His ultra cool, smart talking character is replaced by a half baked Raj Ranade sporting a wig inspired by the centershock ad, with no wit (or sense whatsoever) and uses a line like ‘I respect you so much’ for a pick up line! Yawn!

3. My only complaint with Sholay, Basanti’s bak bak could have been mercifully chopped shorter. But Aag’s Ghungroo is even more disastrous, owing to the fact that she tends to at times play the let-me-explain-you-what’s-going on stuff. I’ll clarify what this means in my next point

4. Okay, may be I shouldn’t be comparing both films and review Aag as an RGV movie. But I cant because there’s no RGV anywhere in Aag! The man’s way of story telling is just not to be seen. Certain scenes in Aag have been elaborately explained out to the audience as if we are dumb enough not to get a subtle enactment. Like the way Ghungroo explains Sushmita Sen’s Devi (and thereby the audience) that she is in love with Raj. Isn’t that obvious? Or may be not as there weren’t enough sequences to establish that chemistry as the original did with just 2 shots of AB and Jaya. That was poetry! And again we have Ghungroo (think she played some sort of narrator) explaining the blind man the whole story of how his son got killed. The original has none of that rigmarole and has Dharmendra’s Veero leading Imam Sahib to his son’s body; not a word spoken! And of course, Raj’s worst-pcik-up-line in Indian Cinema, which wants to tell the audience that the hero respects the heroine, the heroine is a lonely widow, the heroine runs a clinic and has a caring tender heart all at one go. *barf*. Even without looking at Sholay, RGV’s previous works as well had many such instances where there was no need for a word or even a visual to show a major turning point in the story. The killing of the Elder Bother (KK (killer) Menon) in Sarkar comes to my mind. Whatever happened?

5. I remember every line spoken by Jai, Thakur and most importantly Gabbar from the original. I’d rather forget every line spoken on screen in Aag

6. Even a film like Nishabd had it’s fair share of well directed scenes, the one where Jia runs out of the room after declaring her love for the old man, with a picture of the man’s wife hanging on the wall right beside the door. Good! But Aag simply has none. It looked like RGV desperately wanted to make a movie that was a masala entertainer and swayed so much away from his own style. Wish he had understood the simple truth. When you remake the film, make it the way you would make it in your style, with your signature. Please get some lessons from Farhan Akhtar.

7. Talking about signature, the only good thing about the film is the Mehbooba song feat. RGV favorite Urmila. The only song that holds good for the remake definition (unwated gyan I know!) I stated above. All other songs fall flat, but hey, so did the original one’s songs too. Finally Aag agrees with Sholay on one point!

8. The factor that worked bigtime for Sholay, the fast pace of the narrative, is simply missing in Aag. What a poor screenplay can do to even the most celebrated of stories

9. I wished Mohanlal spoke Malayalam rather than ‘Hindi’ in the movie. Didn’t sound very different you know!

Bottom line; Aag is how not to remake a movie, let alone a cult classic!
I had to watch ek challis ki last local (dark, funny, cynical, violent, awesome) and Sholay to cure the burns I got after ‘Aag’ :)

P.S: What’s with another Bachan making a special appearance on one Bachan’s movie? Ek lo ek muft? We have Big B in spl appearance in almost all of Junior B’s movies and vice versa. I am afraid there would soon have Ash B (bhi) added to that list. Yuck!

Updated...included a cool toon I came across

Song on: none
Mood: Monday morning blues

Hitchhiker's guide to blogging...

2007-08-20T22:17:00.000+05:30

After contemplating for a long time, I finally hit on a topic which could create some sensation, make people writhe in their chair, a lil bit of controversy and a wee bit of negative publicity. Hmmm....sounds like Emran Hashmi's next film :P

Well, I was thinking that I hadn't been blogging for a long time, and was wondering, even if I post something now, would people know that I am back? :-/ So what would I do to make people know that am back in the circuit? Visit their blogs again. simple. So that's why I visit their blogs huh? May be, may be not! I might want to check how many of them actually missed me...okay that would be pushing it too far :D
Well, that's still not a desperate situation as I just have to go knock a couple of friends' door and tell them 'yellow! i'm still alive!'. But what about those that are new to blogger?Hmmm....what would they do? What did I do? What did you do?Let's see what Kupps....friend of Senor Subbu did
Over to Kupps!
Wait...for those who dont know Kupps...he's just an imaginary character...a new bee...a figment or Subbu's imagination :) Now proceed!

2 weeks...I am running around with this idea for a brilliant, ground breaking, earth shattering post...Boy I need at least 10 comments for that. How do I do that? Well ask that idiot friend of mine who asked me to start blogging in the first place to read what I posted. Then comment.

Then after having hi the refresh key every 2 minutes after posting, I see a comment, easy....don't pounce on it right away. Let it be, we don't want to appear desperate do we? Let there be some time interval of at least 5 minutes. Go get a coffee until then. tick tock tick tock tick tock....Okaaaaay it's 5 minutes!!! :D ....Reply the comment. And wait.Get back to repetitive refresh every now and then. Hey that bugger hasn't posted a reply for the reply that i posted for his comment. Ping that moron again. ask him to reply.

Moron says go visit other people's blog. Appreciate the crap they have posted. They'll drop in if they're a courteous bunch. If they don't, never mind, they are either too mean or committed!

Okay....advice taken. Here I go...What's up first...alright, last updated...1 month back. useless.next one; female, 23, SINGLE...my lucky stars!!!!!!But wait, not much of a writer...in fact she sucks! But what the hell, SINGLE!!!...So here goes a 'first time here...nice post blah blah blah'. Okay now who's on her blog roll...Aarggghh!...not many chics in this one. Okay then lemme check out some dude's blog. That's sure to have a lotta chics blogrolled :D

Well so which one of these dudes got a stylishly short name...aah...right there...Wow...this guy's like that tom cat server full of mp3s in the office....his blogroll's full of chics...Dude...you are my guru. I'd better be good friends with him; you always need a wingman you see. Lemme call him guru/boss/thalaiva right away. That's sure to get a lotta attention. Now ladies....here I come. :)

Day 2 - Wowee powee... got 10 comments already. Now if I reply them, I can make it 20 comments!!!!But don't reply them today. Take 2 days time to do that, else again you risk looking desperate. in the meantime keep checking out these blogs. But 20 comments for a first post...WOW!I sure am doing good :D

Day 3 - Wow....i already got material for my next post...But wait. Keep the interval between 2 posts at least 5 days...you don't want people to know you are jobless, do ya?! And make sure i score my browny points with that guru and not to mention drop by all the chics blog with a mokka comment whether or not there's a new post :)

From then on Kupps has been on a roll....almost unstoppable. He got tagged, twice by 'chics'...he started a blog union; open mostly to 'chics' or if you were a guy that blog rolled more chics :P ....he scored a 100 in comments within the first month...and slowly he extended his conquest to orkut and in some cases to the chics' inbox too...Kupps had arrived ;)

P.S: I won't tell this is fictious, but by large an observation by my super evolved brain. of course, part of this applies to me as well. Kupps can be replaced by Kuppamma too...and chics by hunks! ;) ahem....though hunks is a rather rare breed

P.P.S: All these guides and classroom sessions makin it look like one huge university...yawn...but, what the hell :P

Song on: Chak de phattey; Khosla ka ghosla
Mood: Wicked ;)

Gourmet!

2007-08-16T13:49:00.000+05:30

Okay….I am back….after quite sometime now
Too busy to think of what to write, too lazy to type it out
But something I read this morning had me thinking, Am I like this?
The women being picky eaters thingy, that’s what I am talking about
Susie Derkins autopsies her sandwich and eats the ingredients one by one
Sally from Harry met sally allegedly takes half an hour to order a sandwich
All these had me thinking; Hey, isn’t that normal, isn’t that what most people do?
My friends feel otherwise
Apparently, there aren’t many who

1. Rip a chicken burger apart and remove the faintest trace of onion and leave minimum lettuce behind to chew on

2. Order a fruit salad to the bewildered vendor without pineapple (yummy, but too much heat), Papaya (hate that fruit!), apples (they’re never fresh) and sometimes melons (too many seeds!). That leaves out just a banana. I bet the guy thought why not handover that (A)kela to this lady without bothering to chop it and put it in a bowl!

3. Glass of milk at night. Normal. No sugar please. Not normal (!!!). And real good if milk is not boiled (raw?!). Need professional help!!!!!!

4. Love lemon chicken. But none of that chef’s special lemon sauce on it please! (would you rather gobble up Mac D’s mcnuggets?!)

5. Pizza for lunch, with extra cheese. But strictly coke zero only. Duh!

6. None of that red chutney inside my crispy masala dosa please! I’m a Tam and I eat like one :P

7. Don’t need no ketchup as side dish for my burger, pizza etc.

8. Can’t stand anything coconutty, but can kill for a spicy chutney, that tendor coconut dessert

and the wily intoxicating thenga paal and aappam (do they put coconut in that yummy crab masala?)

9. Rough edged, freshly baked bread sandwiches from upper crust which apparently could give a bleeding mouth to otherwise normal humans (hello!...eat healthy!)

10. Don’t eat no raw onions. Bad Breath has never been in. What? You said garlic flavoured cashews, Onion-tomato-chilly-garlic chutney, Walker’s Cheese onion and Lays American cheese onion stink just as much? How can they? I love them all!

P.S: what? Title doesn’t fit?...the hell it doesn’t! only someone who has tried every flavour knows which needs to be left out and which should never be missed! :P

Song On: Bombay Rockers’ Sajna Ve
Mood: Funny :)

Looney Toons

2007-07-07T11:27:00.000+05:30

Well I haven’t seen many of you blogger folks…and the few I have seen were some very scary pics where people wearing a strange Santa cap peer too close into the camera and a few more who morph into everything from a crawling spider to a mouse….not to forget a dragon! So I tried picturing a face for you folks, and the best way I could do that is to turn to a parallel comic/cartoon character…so let’s find out ;)

Firstly, I do know how you look, but leaving you out would mean a price on my head...would i risk that. So Nandoo, sleepy, sarcastic, glutton that you are...you just couldn't have been anyone else :P And did you notice...Garfield's neck is almost non existent :P

The quintessential bard and voice of blogsville...a voice that is to die for...a singer you'd rather die than listen to......the one ...the only ...KKfonix...I mean Cacofonix

I didn't have to think hard for this one...say Gils and this is the only thing that comes to my mind :D

Ice Age’s Sid comes a close second though :P I am wondering…does Olive Oyl have a brother by any chance?

Brute…always in trouble and I bet the reason is some gal ;) Did I forget to say sweet and brilliant...yeah sometimes one has to lie!

G3; Calvin’s mom! Sure is troubled by the brat but she’s the one who always manages to kick his bottom…hehe and a certain ‘Calvin’ sure is afraid of her :D

It was really tempting putting didi up for G3, but the calvin connection worked and Didi had to go to the other great partner in crime Heidi...evalo santhosama comment sectionla Gilsa damage panna odraanga!

Wyvern...this was very easy…like Gils, no one else would come to my mind! Babe magnet!!! LOL!!!!!

The ever so sincere, no nonsense Vidya :D But mess with her and she'll kick your butt :P

ummm...it's getting a bit long...so to be continued :)
P.S: Aiyya...naanum oru TBC post pottuten!!!
P.P.S: Of late ellarum bloggers vechu pala posts pottu kalatha ottifying...oru vela sarakku theenthu pocho ennemo...me too joined the wagon :D reason...hehe...mela kuripitadhu thaan!

Satyaji!

2007-06-19T10:24:00.000+05:30

Shivaji…What’s all this hype and fuss about?...It’s after all a movie!
Aaalright It’s a Rajnikanth movie…so? Big deal!
Okay….Shankar and Rahman as well…What never heard of a combination like this or what?
What are you all…small town boy lost in a huge city or what?
I can’t believe there’s police patrol outside the multiplexes in Bangalore!
And what for are they pouring all that milk on a paper cut out?...buggers give it to me…kothika vaika venam…appadiye kudichiduven!
And what’s about this mad rush for the tickets…what is this…a rat race???
It’s a movie people…aarrrgghhh! Forget it…some people will never learn!

Ippadi ellam dialogue vitutu…Me watched the movie in Inox the day after it’s release…much to the envy of a lot of people :D
And I swear I could have killed for those tickets…hehehe…And suddenly the tickets were offered to me on a plate!
What?...did I say rat race…er wait…I’ll edit it out :P

P.S: No, post title’s not a typo…chumma stuntu :P
Did you ask how was the movie?...venam...i am trying hard to avoid spoilers here...romba pesina pic-oda potruven...Mind It!
P.P.S: Gils…don’t lose heart…the damage post I was talking about is under production…koodaiya seekram vandrum. Wait maadi!

Song On: Style
Mood: Cool ;)

BRB!

2007-06-06T10:41:00.000+05:30

I am not leaving because it's in vogue these days

I am not trying to make me look busy coz I never am :)

I am not leaving because I've run out of stuff to write about

I am not leaving because everyone whose blogs I visit has taken a break and blogsville is dullsville of late

I am not leaving because a certain XYZ is starting to threaten me with anon comments in my blog

I am simply unwell...will get back once I get back on track

P.S: No get well soons please :P
P.P.S: I might've lied in line no 3 ;)

Update: And my absence shall make someone lose their anonymity ...PTO to comment section for proof...LHS=RHS hence proved ;)

Song On: Nino Rota's Godfather theme
Mood: Better don't ask!

Naanum Kadhai Ezhuduven! - part 2

2007-06-03T00:04:00.000+05:30

நல்லதோர் வீணை செய்தேன்அதை நலம் கெடபுழுதியில் எரிவதுண்டோ....
Sorry..copy paste error….read on for MY story :P

Vazhai Meenukum Vilangu meenukum kalyanam
Antha thenakuni kootamellam oorvolam

‘Doctor …Doctor Ravana is still alive, nelama theriyama…paadi….konja nanjam oosal aadura uyirum eduthudatheenga. Ivan wife vara varaikumadhu Ravana uyiroda irukatum!’
Before Onaan could utter another word he hears a smashing sound, stinging pain in his cheeks, tears began to well up
‘Doctor ennemo nadanthuchu enna aachu?’
‘Mundam naa unna aranjen da…ella ara loosa thiriyiranuga, indha author kooda oru piscothu araiku ithana build up koduthu vechirukku!....Naanum namma KK maari naalu paatu padi blogla pottu periya aala ayidalamna vida matraanga’
On hearing KK’s name, Onaan in a state of shock staggers across the room knowing what to expect next in the doc’s blog…

Meanwhile the doc dials Umma..
‘Ummmma’
‘Ummma to you too dear…eppa veetuku vareenga…gyabagam irukattum inniku malliga badrinath senja maari Chicken bimbili bonda senju tharenu solli irukeenga’
‘Emma…naa un purushan illa, doc pesuren!’
‘Thu…enya en pera ivalo azhuthi sonna??’
‘un perla ethana m-nu count maranthu pochu…adha vidu. Your husband Ravanaku konjam serious. Hospital vaama’
‘Aiyayo! Enna aachu??? Appo bimbili bonda kadayadha? Ippadi thaan pona vaaram Sun TV Sunday samayal paathu microwave-la appalam sudrenu sonnaaru kadasi varaikum seiyave illa…tcha!’
‘Emma naa enna solli kittu irukken???’
‘Sorry, enna thaan aachu avarku?’
‘Koodiya seekiram kandu pidichiruven…nee hospital Umma…chi vaamma’

P.S: I am recommending myself for the Red and White Bravery awards for publishing this...I am braving attempts on my life by doing this ;)
P.P.S: aanalum naa adanga maaten...innum part parta poduvomla...koodiya seekram side barla link poturuvene :D

Song On: None...just the tak taks of my typing (12 manikku paatu potta pakkathu veetu karanga pinniduvaanga)
Mood: Crazy

You dress so bad...

2007-05-31T19:34:00.000+05:30

...I've heard your hangers weep!!!
- Garfield

P.S: Dedicated to Jeans Clad Van Dame [No not Jean Claude Van Damme spelt wrong, but a dame called Vanitha (Van in short) clad in Jeans :P ]

Song On: Faster kill pussycat [Paul Oakenfold]
Mood: Wicked ;)

And then there was light...

2007-05-24T18:20:00.000+05:30

The sun shines over the landscape of Mahabs

Pic taken : 16/05/2007

Song On: Edhedho (punnagai mannan...aint Ilayaraja a God??!)

Mood: Cool...like B'lore's lovely weather

Walk this way...

2007-05-22T15:48:00.000+05:30

Oh Mi Gawd! They're here!!!

All through my teens I listened to Aerosmith much to my pa's irritation. He used to threaten to throw the table cloth over the TV screen when Liv Tyler (she's the lead singer's daughter by the way) pole danced in Crazy. And my mom thought that the man's mouth filled up the entire TV screen (well that was about Steven Tyler!). My sister found Tyler's scream intolerable...well he is known as the Demon of screaming after all! And to quote Nikhil Chinnappa, if Steven Tyler and Mick Jagger were to be featured in a video, what would you see? Two Big mouths...you can't see anything beyond that..hehehe (Did he mention a David Bowie, not sure!)

But what the heck, the guys were drooling 24/7 looking at Alicia Silverstone in their videos...and we girls, well we just loved the fact that Dueces are Wild...and why 'Falling in love is so hard on your knees'. Their music brings back all those good ol' days spent loafing around in Trichy's BHEL township. That incredible video of 'fly away from here'...that awe inspiring 'Dream on' featuring that SCREAM...(recently covered by Eminem)

And there's harldy a die hard romantic who hasn't melted away to 'Don't wanna miss a thing'

I'm trying for the tickets, but apparently, given b'lore's history with rock n roll, there's a mad rush for the tickets...i have practically no hopes :( Anyway it has to be booked online; and our group's looking too small for now :(( [actually it's just 2 of us!..rest thought Aerosmith is someone who makes aeroplanes...a la gold smith!...aiyo!]

Here's the list of gods I've missed seeing perform live here in B'lore:

1. Roger Waters - college final sem exams; I still had plans of running away and returning by the intercity express!

2. Mark Knopfler...Adhaa Dire Straits - Tickets ellam arranged...suddenly had to leave to UK. Sold the tickets and left :(

and I am afraid Aerosmith is soon going to join this league :( (I've not included Iron Maiden, not a metal head anymore!)

*sigh* what wouldn't I do for all that energy and those scarves hanging down the microphone!

Song On: Sunshine

Mood: Dull

Adios...Ah-me-goes!

2007-05-21T14:10:00.000+05:30

I’ve been roasted in the hot sun
I’ve seen the waves toss around
I’ve hogged more than what’s due in a lifetime
And laughed like it were to be the end of time
I’ve spent hours on the road to Mcity
And it’s now time to leave Chennai city ;)

Bye Bye Chennai….Hola B’lore ;)

Honey…I’m Home!

Song On: Alvida
Mood: Blank

Naanum Kadhai Ezhuduven! - part 1

2007-05-17T10:08:00.000+05:30

“Doc…enakku unnume puriyala. Enakku nadakuradhellam munnave nadanthu mudinja maari oru feeling! Ippa paarungalen…ungaluku fees kodukalamnu nenachen…aana adhayum munnave koduthutta maari thonuthu!”
“Dei Ravana (might the author interrupt?...Ram-nu pera vecha IPR violationu oruthar en mela case pottalum pottruvar!) un thollaiku oru alave illiya? Unakku thaan oru mannum illenu pona varame sollitene da! Sari pozhachi po. Unakku paranoia. Artham ennanu mattum ketradha…”
“Thanks doc!”
“Yeah yeah….tholla panradhuku marupadiyum vandha….mandaila urutta kattaiyala adichu appopapa eriyira bulbayum off panniruve!”

With that Ravana escapes from the clinic…
Nera avan girlfriend Umma-va paaka poraan.
“Aama…ennadi ippadi oru peru unakku!”
“Adha enda kekura…numerology panna sadhi”
“Modhalla un pera maathanum…mathavan unna eppadi koopiduvaanu nenacha enakku bakunudhu!”
“Hmm…ella en neram…evan koopitalum eve tease panranone oru feeling!”
“Aama…Onaan vandhana (AIA (Author interrupts again); Anil Semiya Maggie noodlesnellam character pera vaikuradhu pazhaya fashion. So one step mela poi…onaan, moonjoorunu per vechiten!...eppadi?!)??”
“Illa..avanala vara mudiyadhaam…call panni sonaan”

Close up for Ravana…Shocked reaction…loud music….Thodarum :P

(Pinna, naanga mattum part part-a vetti kadha solla venama!...eppo naangalum side bar-la links poduradhu?!)

P.S: I know…I know…I know…I know…I know…I know...I know
P.P.S: Puriyadha Pudhir Raghuvaran maari pesuradhula solla vandhadhaye solla maranthutten…Orutharuku enna kola pannanumnu inneram thonum..Shani Shani…aiyo chi…Shanti Shanti!...thitti comment podurathoda niruthinkinga pls…aduthu pala partuku naa uyiroda irukanum :P

Song On: Akdam Bakdam
Mood: Crazy

15 minutes

2007-05-15T09:18:00.000+05:30

That’s it…15 minutes stood between me and freedom!
The final delivery was done and I was in the process of uploading the last set of documents.
My team mate calls out to me; ‘Hey you don’t plan on staying overnight do you? There’s a train that leaves in 15 minutes …wanna make a dash?’
Of course…who in their right mind would want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere until 10 in the night (which is when help in the form of cabs arrive).
But 15 minutes, Na-ah…tad bit too short a time to make it to the station.
Team mate happens to be a mind reader; says ‘Yeah I know too less time, but there’s another express scheduled to arrive at the normal time today, so this day usually our train’s a good 5 minutes late!’
Now that’s encouraging! So I pass on the buck to another ‘Bakra’ ask him to finish off the last rites….oops formalities and bolt out.
‘Good lord, look at that queue for swiping out!’
‘Never mind…we’ll get an approval for a single swipe. Them buggers won’t debit a leave!’
‘You sure are desperate to catch that train!’
‘Wanna bet?!’

After a lot of running we reach the parking lot…completely out of breath. That took 5 minutes.
As it happens, the last cab to the station had just left. But on our request another cab was arranged and we jumped in…Okie that’s 3 minutes lost.
8 minutes down. The drive takes a good 5 minutes. And I didn’t have a ticket so I’d be needing at least 2 minutes provided the counter was absolutely empty.
Very tight schedule!
We sat in the cab, staring at our watches, wishing it weren’t ticking so fast!
Just when we were about to pull out of the campus a lady drops by with a may-i-intrude-this-party look on her face. I hate such people.
I almost shouted out ‘No this is a private clambake; GET OUT!’
Apparently Miss uninvited guest wanted a drop to the bus stop. Shucks. Another 2 minutes gone. But wait a minute. This lady’s taking for ever to raise her hand to open that bloody door. Make that 4 minutes. Oh brother! We had lost all hopes of catching that train. We didn’t know whom we were mad at. At that stupid lady or at that idiot cabbie!
I was praying to god that the train was indeed 5 minutes late and my team mate for once was right.
In 4 minutes, our uninvited guest’s stop came. As expected she leisurely picked up her handbag, adjusted that extra long duppatta, brushed back her hair and crawled out of the cab slower than a snail. Team mate who was seated next to her turned back and stared at me; ‘You think I should help her with this…you know give her a kick and she’d be out in no time! From where I am, I can really kick her into the moon’s orbit!’
How I really wish that could be possible. But finally the snail rolled out of the cab and we were back on the road. The process took a little less time than expected because team mate thrust the lady’s bag once she was out of the cab and screamed go go go to the cabbie!
But our buffer was already gone. Snail ate up a good 4 minutes. I wonder how come when you’re in such a hurry that you always end up with such sloths!
In a minute we were near the station. Now we had to sprint through a narrow ‘gali’ to get to the station. Which we did. I bet from the look on our faces, the loclaites would have thought this was some shooting of a tamil movie’s climax where 2 girls were being chased by goons in tata sumos.
We got to the station and we could already see our train pulling in. And we had a overhead bridge to cross before we got to that platform!
Team mate looked at me. Oh no…no no no! I am not doing it…But before I could say that out loud she had already jumped down on the tracks. And I followed suit without batting an eyelid…Scrambled on the tracks, slung my bag over the platform, climbed the platform on the other side and hauled team mate up. I am hoping I don’t see any of those folks in that station ever again in my life. I’d die of embarrassment.
We managed to locate the ladies compartment and found ourselves 2 seats. Faces beaming we looked around. No applause. Huh…talk about unsung heroes! The train started pulling out of the station. Just then my team mate jumped…’Sat…Tickets!!!!!’
And I thought the fun was over…!

P.S: Travelled first time w/o ticket. Thanks to Brute, dodged the suspicious TC’s eyes…Why Brute, because the moment I alighted, I pulled out my mobile and called the first number I could see and acted as if nothing was wrong. The idea people, is not to panic ;)
P.P.S: Coming home from work has never been crazier ;)

Song On: Lorna’s Rao Patrao Rao (for Gils’ benefit…that’s from the Nike TV commercial that was aired this WC season :P )
Mood: Crazy

Cherish!

2007-05-14T14:54:00.000+05:30

She sat in the first desk, nervous and conscious of the fact that every pair of eyes in the class room were fixed on her. A thousand thoughts running though her mind, she geared up for her first day in her new school. She didn’t know the language the students there spoke, they definitely did not understand the language she spoke. She was convinced she would for ever be the nervous misfit in this class. She wasn’t sure if the desk she was seated at was already taken by someone else; what if the person who sits here arrives and asks her to move over. Would they all laugh? Where would she sit then?
She felt the back of her neck turning hot. Cold beads of sweat broke out on her forehead, just then a cheerful voice greeted her from beside. ‘Hi! You must be the new girl who was to join today! I’m Aditi. Call me Adi’ and even before she could respond with a nervous hello, Adi sat down beside her and yapped away the rest of the study hour. By the time it was lunch she already knew Aditi’s entire family, her pet dog Dixie, the Chacha Chaudhri and Pinky comics that she was crazy about and how much she was in love with a guy called Salman Khan. By the end of the day the 2 girls were laughing and giggling their way to the bus stop. They were best of friends from that day on.

It was a boring ‘computer’ coaching class that wanna be geeks from all over the neighbourhood attended. ‘Summer holidays are for gali cricket and roaming there out in the open. How did I let mom and dad talk me into this?! ‘; Stan grumbled within. He tried his best not to think of the fish curry awaiting him for lunch back home and winced repeatedly to drive away the last bit of drowsiness that clung on to his eyelids and were trying to pull them shut. The extra attentive jerk in the first bench was stretching the class beyond it’s limit and shooting questions at the class instructor. ‘They do come in all shapes and sizes; don’t they??!’ murmured a voice beside him. He had hardly noticed this chap the whole time. He turned to look at him. He was like any other guy his age, bespectacled, wore a checked red shirt. But it was that impish smirk on his face and those eyes that set him apart and convinced Stan they were one of a kind. ‘I’m Dev! I see that you and I have just the same amount of interest in the proceedings of this class….Zilch!’ Stan smiled back. “I’m Stan and I am bored to a coma’
‘Whoa…I bet you are! Well, fyi I have no intentions of sitting through this torture in the afternoon session. You got a cycle? Or you rely on the public transport?’
‘Got a cycle yeah’
‘Well cool, smack up that lunch back home and get back here. We’ll take off to the WWA’
‘Women’s Welfare Association???!’
‘Yeah….They got ballet classes on there. Now shall I say we have a deal?’ winked Dev
Stan said ‘You bet bro!’
They became inseparable since then, and of course hardly seen anywhere near the geeks abode from that day on

Ayan looked around the hall. No pretty girls, not any so far, hard luck why does he have to land in such places all the time? He slept through the induction program and reached his hostel room, his room mate had not turned up until he had left for college. He could see some bags lying on the other bed. He looked hard at them and said to himself 'So that's whom I am going to spend the next 4 years with. I wonder what's this item piece like!' He turned on his heel on hearing a knock on the door. The new boy and his father stood in the doorway. The boy introduced himself as Raghu, a naive looking boy. After the initial pleasantries, the boy's father got up to leave. When he reached the door, he turned to Ayan and said, take care of my boy please! Ayan smiled, closed the door rolling his eyes. Raghu said 'Nevermind, my dad's not the best person to give me a decent intro!' Ayan smiled. Raghu walked over to Ayan's shelf inspecting his stuff and stopped near his guitar.
'I am guessing that's a guitar in there...of course, if they didnt make back packs in that shape!'
'Why, do you play?' Ayan asked with much interest
'Play?...well if there had to be anyone to kick Jimmy Page's a$$, it's gotta be Ragz baby!'
Ayan didn't even try to wipe that wide grin off his face and sat next to Ragz on the floor.
'Hmmm... definitely no pretty girls man' sighed Ragz
The boys burst out laughing, Ayan knew 4 years were going to be just as fine.

She sat in the flight flipping through magazines, not reading a word and trying to keep the tears that had welled up in her eyes from flowing down her cheeks. She had never been away from her family. The farthest she was away from her parents was in her college which was an hour’s drive from her home. And now she had to fly to a different country leaving them behind for a year on account of higher studies. She tried hard to block out the sight of her parents waving her goodbye at the airport terminal. She looked outside the window to see her city’s glittering lights beneath. ‘I’m going to miss you too’ she muttered. ‘But we’ve not even met…yet!’ said the guy seated next to her. She looked up at him, irked up. He smiled back warmly and asked ‘First time?’
‘Eh?’
‘I mean leaving home’
‘Yeah’
‘Mine too!’
‘You feel sad?’
‘Sad? Sitting next to a pretty girl like you? You gotta be kidding me!’
‘Are you always like this?!’
‘Only when I am trying hard to be cool!’
Before they knew it, they were chatting, bickering, pulling each other’s leg, telling each other about the loved ones back home and their plans in the new place. By the time the flight landed, they were sure of one thing, they had a friend in that city.

There’s no telling when you might stumble on that one person who would bring a smile on your face and would do anything to keep it that way. Love them; Cherish them!

P.S: Onnum illa…maha vettiya ukkandhu irukurapo I was contemplating how and under what circumstances I met some people in my life who changed it for the better or the worse :)
P.P.S: aiyayo….my blog’s starting to sound senti already….i’ll be back with something whacky soon ;)

Song On: In Dino (Life in a metro)
Mood: Cool

Window Seat

2007-05-11T21:52:00.000+05:30

When I board a bus, I have one and only thing on my mind...find a window seat. Now the seat should be such that I have 'more' of the window...and I must be able to open the window...many a times, in spite of struggling endlessly with it, some just refuse to budge! And then of course most importantly it must not be the 'sunny' side of the bus :D
After going through all that pain, I take my seat, switch on my music and prepare my self for the long commute...and in comes the lady/gentleman who for no good reason wants to close that window! Hello! it's open for a reason....in case it didn't occur to you! If you have a genuine problem the dust and pollution outside why not choose a seat where the window is closed? Polluted or not I need this darn air as I have my issues too...and I hate it even more when people oblige immediately to such requests and close the window and there goes the hard earned window seat. So the last time a lady asked me to close the window pointing to her eyes (they seemed to have a problem with the dust on the raod...), I retorted, sorry, I prefer to keep it open; coz I find it difficult when closed!
That was definitely the last thing she expected. But I know that wouldn't have dont her much good as the tiny window won't do half as much harm as the open door she was sitting right next to...duh!

Song on: Keh do tumhe
Mood: Irritated

Phir bhi dil hai hindustani

2007-05-07T09:35:00.000+05:30

Most of us Indians are often traveling abroad these days, some stay back for good
Other enjoy the spoils and return…
But no matter where we go, there still would be certain stubborn truly Indian traits in our blood that we just can't seem to shake off!
Here's my 2 cents!

Stare..Wide eyed. We can't help it, can we. We see an attractive woman/man, stare! We see a couple getting a bit cozy, stare!...we have a dog littering the side walk, stare! Probably is no other race that can use their eyes so efficiently
We're arguably the most well mannered bunch, at least that's what we say! We don’t hold a door open for someone coming right behind us and slam it on their face, if they didn't end up getting their nose bandaged, it's their luck! We do not know Thanks, Sorry exist in the English vocablary. We believe Queues are for morons
Eco friendly! Yeah, you open any Indian household's closet, what do you see? Stacked up with polythene carry bags of the local super market. Tesco, Sainsbury, Somerfield, ASDA (US of A makkal pls substitute), all brands, make your pick! We just can't throw them off for recycling, we believe in re-using them
Mathematical geniuses! Everyone of us is. No matter what the currency is, what the conversion rates are, we can calculate the Rupee equivalent price in a flash second before our spouse/partner heads to the billing counter
Lock it. We lock everything, if we ladies could lock our handbags, we would have! Every single bag has a lock on it. No matter what your mode of transport is, duration of journey is, just lock the goddamn bag! In fact most of us try pushing that apartment door to see if it's still open after banging it shut (Oru kaalathula veetu kadhava pootitu thalpaala pidichi thongi paatha aalunga thaana!)
We like it hot! :) No matter what cuisine it is supposed to be, it has to be doused with generous amount of pepper. And we still can't understand how these vella kaarans can survive on ela thalai!
Eeerie silence in the afternoon train/bus, off peak hours, not many people around, enjoying your own peaceful moment. In comes co-desi, ipod blaring 'nee kattum sela madipula na…' even when dressed in Armani, the music on our 'personal' stereo will still be some kuthu paatu
We’re the ultimate tourists. We want to go to every place we have seen in the photo album of that pakathu veetu karan when he visited Swiss a year back…Only we are busy clicking pics, striking god awful poses, only to be placed in another album and to be shown all around the locality back home much to the neighbours’ envy!
We’re the kings and queens of make over. No matter what the duration of the visit, be it 2 days or 2 years, the normally greasy oily hair is replaced by rebonded mane or a funky spikes for guys. The wardrobe is completely changed, gyming creeps into our everyday routine and even the Pankajams and Janakis want nothing less than a Gucci or a Prada. Hmmmm….
This is strictly for vegetarians, most of them let go of the vegetarianism they’ve followed all their lives, at one point of time or the other. Reason being, they just couldn’t decipher what was on the menu in that posh restaurant, and when they saw scampi, they thought it was some sort of sea weed and didn’t bother asking the waitress for fear of sounding funny….and out went the strictly vegetarian diet. [or may be in a free meal, in a haste to pick the most expensive dish just didn’t see the small word ‘salami’ written right beneath the name!] But guess what, most of them still swear by the fact that Scampi is not sea word, but skinned Aubergine :D
Talk about Aubergine, it’s no longer good old brinjal, it’s aubergine or egg plant. We go absolutely crazy about crispy fried Okras, and keep wondering why they taste so much like Lady’s finger! It’s no longer ‘I’ll pick you up at 6’ it’s ‘I’ll pick you up at 6-ish’. Aiyos and Ada-s are gone and Blimey-s and Holy Moly-s have taken their place.Rasam’s passé, it’s mulligatawny! ;)

P.S: erm….You might wonder how many of these could have applied to me…I am not answering that question :P

Song On: Some song from Sivaji the boss ;)
Mood: Lazy

La Belle Sans Mercy ;)

2007-04-27T12:00:00.000+05:30

Statutory Warning: This is a work of art. However, bloody aftermath feared once read. Extreme caution advised.

Prelude:
There are 2 kinds of people in the world. Those who can write poems, and those who can’t

Dedicated to Jaan Beats, Will-i-am Shiekhs Fear and Mirza Kha-le-ab…

In Memory of Bunty, Goldy, Chintoo, Muntoo, Gonchoo

MGM ‘Dizzy’ World…oops Metro Goldwyn Mayer proudly presents….
In association with Sticks and Stones

A Rotten Tomatoes & Eggs. Production

All right I won’t drag it anymore…finally, here it is…my very first poem!!!

When I first saw your face
I wondered at God’s biggest mistake!
When you opened your mouth to speak
I knew I got stuck with a freak…
Your smile filled my world with light
Do you chew Orbit White?

You like wearing purple and peach
I’d have loved to stroll with you on the beach
You were there for me when I was sad and blue
I can’t think of anything to rhyme with this but glue
You walked into my life straight from my dreams,
In your lose T shirt and ill fitting jeans.
Never ever let go of this bond please,
Can you order for me Macaroni and cheese?
I see you every where when my eyes roll
You're blocking my sight you troll!

From the moment I saw you, I was all yours
But now can you pay the bill I got after talking with you for hours?!
I never believed in angels until I saw you
But, I now know at least devils exist, yes they do!
Every single moment of my life I would miss you
You’d be the greatest fool if you thought this was true
Every little thing about you makes me go crazy
I forgot my glasses, so the screen looks hazy :P
I hear your voice ringing in my ears
That you’ll follow me everywhere, confirming the worst of my fears…

Now I want to run from you,
Which I would, once I find my lost shoe
I know, it’s high time I ended this
And let the bloggers get back to their state of bliss
But wait, there can’t be a love song without the word ‘moon’
So I’d be seeing you all soon ;)

My sincere thanks to Lyte Funky Ones, KK and Gils for your inspiration.

P.S: This work is a result of a serious complex I got after reading poems on almost every blog. So here’s my stab at it! BTW, no points for guessing who the merciless belle in the title is ;)

P.P.S: I have been asked by the likes of Shakira, Wyclef Jean And even our very own Simbu to pen songs for them.

Song On: LFO’s Summer Girls
Mood: Crazy

North East West South

2007-04-24T09:41:00.000+05:30

Reporting live from Abhi and Aish’s Shaadi; the Baratis are ready and waiting, we got everyone from Show Rok Khan to Rithik who has been shaking a leg at the barat waiting to get in. The place is crawling with photo…
Switch…

Breaking news: Raul Gandhi calls senior Congress leaders morons, Sushma Svar Raj accuses Gandhi of stealing her speech ‘parchi’
We have the congress senior leader Mr. XYZ on line with us; Mr. XYZ, Raul Gandhi called you a moron. Do you have a comment Sir? ‘I have utmost respect for the Gandhi parivar. They can ask me to lick their…’
Switch…

We interrupt our regular programme for a breaking news telecast. Jayalolita renders speech in hindi while canvassing in UP. Here’s the direct report from our correspondent in UP.
Switch…

The latest at Abhi Aish wedding is that the horse that Abhi was to ride seems to be shorter than the groom. Reports are suggesting for an elephant to be roped in. Some even suggested a Giraffe given the appearance of the groom. Meanwhile the Bride and the Groom were hidden in the hurricane cellar away from the prying eyes of the media.
Switch…

Top bollywood actress Vani upset at not being invited to Abhi Aish wedding. Vani yet to comment on the iss...
Switch...

Miss India World says she was voted the worst bo….
Switch….

Rakhi Balwant gets a lip job. Our corr….
Swoooshhh….Smasssshhhh…..

Well that was my remote that went flying across the room :)
A lazy me did not bother to step out and pick up the news paper and tried to get a hang of what was happening in the world by surfing news channels. I know, my mistake. The remote got hit for nothing :D

Song On: Karunesh's Punjab
Mood: Cool

Much Ado About Nothing

2007-04-19T12:10:00.000+05:30

Gere sure missed the bus when it came to cross cultural sensitivity; or at least in his effort to display his ‘fondness’ for bollywood ended up striking an awkward pose on the dais with Shilpa. It sure could be one of the most embarrassing moments you’ve watched on Television, a faux paux, but an unforgivable offence..hehe…the sena mafia is making morons out of us Indians. I hope the world’s not listening to all this noise these guys are making.

I’m just thinking what would have happened if Richard Gere had pulled off what Adrian Brody did in the Academy awards a few years back? ;)

P.S: Did anyone see Bipasha trying to run off from him on the stage..the only elements missing were the hysterical cries of ‘Nahi Nahi!!!’… Bet Gere must be wishing the ground opened up and swallowed him after that debacle. Embarrassing for sure…

Song on: Barso Re
Mood: Cheerful

Chapter 3 – Godmother RF

2007-04-13T12:51:00.000+05:30

The vengeful, evil, satirical me is back :)
with the RF post again. I bet everyone would ahve forgotten what I am talking about, so take a peek here and here. As usual the italics are a little spiced up filmy deviation from what actually happened, so don't bother...Now off we go...

The next morning , back in her senses, RF realises that she lost a golden opportunity to gain AM’s confidence and there went the opportunity to control the team. She tries again but by then AM had recovered from his hangover and this time it’s revenge on his mind. He tries all that is within his limits to alienate RF from the team. Besides this he also has a good time driving the SEs into frustration, after all he used to be a good manager once, now he’s a changed man! RF decides it’s time she took over by force. She makes use of the long absences of AM from the office and decides to threaten the team members into submitting to her command. And like every other immature wannabe manager, she starts with getting a status update.

Hencri Mancini’s godfather tune plays in the back ground
‘I’ll make them an offer they cannot refuse’ says RF to herself. Forgetting that she neither had a pistol wielding Luca Brasi at command (or her own brain for that matter) nor the fear/respect of the crowd of SEs and MLs, she marches on beaming with confidence, the only thing missing was the cigar in her hand!

This is how Godmother’s attempts went.
RF: hey
ML1 (barely looking away from the monitor): hi
RF: I need your status report before cob
ML1: eh?...If I tell you, you won’t know if I’m better or worse as you don’t have the slightest idea of what I am doing!
RF: oh!
ML1: anything else?
RF: Nope!

RF: er…hello
ML2: Oh hi!...you’re in office today??!
RF: Yeah…just thought I’d drop in to say hi…see you later!
ML2: bye!

ML1: That was smooth (winks)
ML2: comes naturally!...you’d better warn ML3, else she won’t know what hit her!
ML1: right away…

Discouraged by these results, RF decides to Ping ML3 on the messenger. ML3 is forced to retaliate. The chat transcript:

RF: I need your status report now…I would be giving it over to the client today

ML3: Who said that?

RF: Why, is that a problem?

ML3: No, but we’d need to have a lot of knowledge transfer before that, and my project here is 2 weeks away from implementation. I can save that time you know.

RF: That’s alright…I can spare so much time.

ML3: Well, I am going to be implementing that project…it’s me who doesn’t have the time. Please tell me who’s demanding this?

RF: Erm…the client is

ML3: !!!...they hardly have a say in who does what. That’s strange. Anyway I’ll have a word with Mic. I’m sure he would understand.

RF aka karthika: niruthidu, ellathayum niruthidu
ML3 aka velu naikkar: edha nirutha solra? Unna manushiya madhikama thimira badhil sonnane andha ML1, avana nirutha sol, na niruthuren!
Unna indha office sweeper-a vida kevalama paathane andha ML2 avana nirutha sol na niruthuren

RF: Oh…it’s fine. If it’s too much of a problem, I shall tell Mic so myself. Never mind.

ML3: Okie…cheers!

ML2: How did it go?
ML3: Phew!...you guys had it easy…I had a long chain going until I could finally nail it down!
ML2: So you finally did it?...you stud J
ML3: *flushing* Thank you :)) I am thinking of keeping the transcript…you know like a keep sake?
ML2: Sure you should…they don’t come along so often…

ML1, ML2 high five in their cub.. *Clap!*

P.S: Thanks to Mani Ratnam, who should in turn thank Francis Ford Coppola and so I thank him too for my ‘influences’ from their works.
P.S.S: If you don't get any of this, never mind...it's just office revenge ;)

Song on: Can't hold us down
Mood: Crazy

Drive me crazy

2007-04-09T09:00:00.000+05:30

That's soon going to be my dad's car's bumper sticker, if I continue driving it for a few more days :D

My driving skills are definitely not a secret. My sister says when I am behind the wheel of a car, the whole scene morphs into Yama behind a buffalo's huge curvy horns...
So this weekend, me tried to get rid of this effect. Somehow managed to convince dad that I have to drive his car. The only 2 cars that I've driven till now are the rickety Indica and Maruti 800 from the driving school. And on Saturday the chap from the school ended the lessons and gleefully ran off with the Maruti 800. Glad that he didn't have to carry it like a heap of metal in a bag. Well, he did wonder if I was ever going to make it coz the moment I took the wheel, I stared down and asked him, now which of these 3 fellas is the clutch, I just can't remember! The man looked at me for long and said 'M'am, this is your final class, you shouldn't say such things' Seeing that he was close to tears I said 'Alright alright, that's the only trouble I got. I'll be fine from here.' Sure I was fine. I wonder if that guy or anyone else on the road would have said the same about themselves! But we returned home alive and the car was still in a condition to be driven back to the school. But there goes the only vehicle I can try all my tricks on. What would Sat do now?! :-/
And then, my dad's Wagonr caught my eye. I turned and looked at him with a wry smile. He shot back a don't-even-think-about-it and quickly ran upstairs with the keys. After a lot of struggle and further appeal to high court (read mom), my case finally won and I was granted permission to drive my dad's car; subject to condition, he'll accompany me on the drive, and this will be on a road far from civilisation, haunted by species like me who are yet to learn the ways of the wild traffic. It's a straight road on the way to Coimbatore's Iskon, stone's throw away from my house. And everyone who drives anything here just can't handle it if so much as a feather crosses their path without announcing itself! I was disappointed that I wont get a lot of action, but I decided to make the most of it. My dad drove me to this desolate dingy place, and then said, well, she's all yours now. Boy was I ever glad :)
The moment I took the wheel, my dad swore he could hear that Problem Child theme playing in his mind...and it continued to play in loops everytime I tried to scare that new bee aunty off the road, everytime I ran the car into the muddy path and took a turn, everytime I went a wee bit closer to the tree and braked, everytime I tried to turn the car into the national highway only to be stopped frantically by my dad almost throwing himself on the wheel...(aargghhh...next time i'll do it!). Finally dad decided he had had enough for a day and drove me back home. Suddenly Chief Justice momma wanted to see my driving skills and take pride. So evening we were out there again at dingy place, sans new bee aunty; but new bee girl learning a scooty, and a lot of..yeah lot of people on a walk enjoying a 'calm' evening. Well not anymore ;)
By the time I was done chasing the scooty girl and stopping in front of the evening walkers without a warning and almost running over 2 hapless souls in an attempt to avoid an oncoming lorry, my mom decided that I was at best not to be unleashed on unsuspecting drivers in this part of the world. I am to drive an old Maruti, which I can drive enough to elope already, until I understand the value of human and automobile life. Until then the shiny big wigs of our house are off limits. :-(
Next stop Bangalore, my sister's brrrand new Santro... ;)

Song on: The Fray; How to save a life
Mood: Cool

Se7ens and Ei8hts

2007-04-02T10:28:00.000+05:30

I don’t know if I have ‘selective’ amnesia, I rarely get this doubt …except may be at the time when I forgot that my 7 year old cousin was sitting behind me in my bicycle and I realized a tad bit too late that the cycle was a little bit lighter than it was when I started from home. Too bad coz when I looked back I saw a poofy, furious 7 year old get up from the muddy street and run towards my house screaming on top of her voice how I had tried to run her over…yikes! And may be at the time I completely forgot my brother’s German Shepherd following me around the house and ended up locking him in the garage for a whole night. I bet I thought I was going to die when I opened the door the next morning and saw him staring back at me! Or may be when I forgot the name of a friend whom I met in my office after a long time and an overturned id card not helping me much; and my face being as confused as Mr Bean, the lady took all but a second that as usual I had forgotten her name.
But apart from that and those frequent occasions when I turn the entire room upside down searching for my glasses which were right there on my head, I never really had much trouble remembering most things in life….except numbers!
Aaargghhh, don’t get me started on them coz I might never stop. I have a major problem with numbers. I can’t remember them to save my life! Phone numbers, account numbers, card numbers, birthdays, anniversaries, bus route numbers, door numbers, pin codes, my vehicle’s number and those god awful security numbers …who the hell came up with that idea of having numerical security pass codes?!
I am one of those rare species who wanted to call home and ended up reaching a wrong number. I store my own phone number in my phone, I end up changing my mobile number once in every 2 months and I can’t remember a number after I have been through the pain of memorizing the next. I can’t remember, to be frank, what my Bangalore phone number is!
I have friends who call me on their birthdays to remind me to wish them. Else they would have to go through the terribly embarrassing ordeal a close friend and an ally had to go through; I called her on her birthday; chatted for hours and ended up hanging up without a proper reply for her repeated ‘are you sure the purpose of your call is done?’ Apparently her brother was in splits after that conversation. So my friends usually call me up with a ‘wish me before it’s too late or you’ll come back tomorrow with a bucket full of Sorries’. Well it’s a different story that I got an account of mine locked by keying in my own birth date wrong.
At times, my brain is useful enough to remember all the numbers, only it doesn’t bother about the order of their occurrence. So when I was stuck in MG road without my mobile, I had to try 5 numbers on a Re 1 phone before I could finally reach my brother in law with the last 1 rupee coin I had.
And ATM pins! How can the most important thing in your life be a 4 digit number? Hey what about people like me huh? I never really try in vain to memorize that number. I just go to the ATM and key it from practice. The most important thing here being, I should never be conscious of my action, as in duping my brain to believe that it doesn’t have to hold this number, it’s there in some other secondary storage and so it won’t be burdened. But this one day I made this horrible mistake of pausing and thinking before keying in my pin and lo…my stupid brain throws out the most precious 4 digits. All that happening a day before I had to catch a flight to London and a second before I could withdraw the rent I had to pay my land lord. I stopped short of screaming in the ATM. I rushed back to my cubicle and sat there doing things to make my brain look away from the issue on hand, just like a mother trying to cajole her kid staring at that pointy tip of an injection needle. After 4 hours and 3 visits to the ATM and a call to icici to unlock my account, I had to go out of my way to make my visit to the ATM seem routine and I managed to enter the key right. Phew!

That’s my pathos! Though I am thankful for the few thoughtful souls, like this friend of mine whose phone number’s last 5 digits is his name typed on the mobile’s keypad. Better but not good enough, as I still cant remember the first 5 digits…uh-oh!

Song on: You know my name
Mood: Sleepy

Lost

2007-03-29T12:36:00.000+05:30

Taking off from where I left….
This is one more example to the previous post’s context and more importantly a lesson to be learnt, when you’re not the sharpest knife in the kitchen, better don’t open your mouth and make a fool of yourself :D
And as usual, this incident is straight out of the famed forum in the office!

Guy1: Thank God I wasn’t born in Brazil!
Guy2: You sure you want to thank god for that? Trust me if you were born in Brazil, you won't stop saying ‘Oh God!’ ;)
Guy3: Ahem, too much of ‘Oh God’ in a day is not advisable!
Girl: What? How can you say saying God is not good? What else name do you take? That of a Brazillian Belly Dancer*?
All 3 Guys: !!!!!!

P.S: don’t ask me to explain the joke here….those who got it; happy ROTFL.

* like I said, not the sharpest knife; It’s Samba in Brazil…Belly dancing is farther east! No, That's not the joke here :P

Song On: Ay Hairathe
Mood: Cool

Kiriket

2007-03-21T10:47:00.000+05:30

It’s cricket season, so I decided to throw in a post for the latest WC bug that seems to have bitten everyone :) I am not a superstitious person, in fact I don’t believe in chance, luck. I am a staunch advocate of the fact that if anything can turn things in your favour, it’s your own hard work and perseverance.
But all of this ideology flies out of the window the moment India is playing.
As a true patriot, I too wish that India wins in the end by hook or by crook (though it would take a miracle and a lot of ‘beautiful’ quotes from the likes of Siddhu and Gavaskar to achieve that now). So there you go, I have to make my own set of contributions to help the men in blue, as a matter of fact a lot of us do it.
The craziest of such rituals me and me motley crew strongly believe in and most importantly, they actually work!

1. You badly need a wicket, step out for some fresh air for a few minutes, guys go for a quick smoke, coffee etc. you come back and lo there goes a wicket!...rushing to the rest room even if it is absolutely unnecessary apparently doubles the chances!

2. If you want to repeat a fab performance from an earlier match, all the items on the snack menu on that day would be present today as well. Some take this one step forward and wear the exact same dress, a few though don’t bother washing it though….nasty bunch I say!

3. If it’s a do or die match, make the most nervous member (which somehow is always yours truly) to miss the match, India will win it for sure and mostly it would be a historic one (the most successful one in this category was the 1999 WC match against Sri Lanka in which Gangs and Dravid were so awesome! My ‘friends’ sent me shopping for a few absolutely unnecessary stuff, making me run from one shop window to another looking out for the scores. I missed the entire Indian innings)

4. Pray! Yep, god apparently listens to your prayers mostly on these days, what else can he do when almost 1/4th of the world is crying out for one thing? I remembered we prayed fervently for rain in the 2003 finals, which we did get, but then no use :(

5. And a few bad omens as well, you expect a boundary or a 6 and are not batting an eyelid, and there screams your mobile to tear you away from the tv screen; the batsmen is sure to be dismissed before you end your call. We keep our mobiles switched off for this reason :)

6. We don’t finish out drink until Tendulkar has crossed 40. If one of us empties our glass before that, he’s gone for sure. But this technique has failed miserably lately as god hasn’t played the way he used to for years now :((

7. Power cuts. They are often not bad, only on most occasions, a batsmen is gone by the time the lights are on again :(

So you got any crazy rituals to narrate? :)

Song on: Unakkul Naane
Mood: Okay

Ha Ha Very Funny!

2007-03-15T10:32:00.000+05:30

Girls are sweet, sensitive, caring, adorable…yeah yeah I just cant help bragging about us :P
But there’s one department the fairer sex can hardly hold it’s head above the water…humour!

Somehow, I have noticed that most girls have the funny nerve completely missing!
You crack a decent joke, some get it after you autopsy the joke and explain them what it was all about and then they grin sheepishly back and say yeah…
All you could do is roll your eye balls and look away. Sometimes wit and sarcasm are completely lost on most of us! Nobody’s perfect, not even women ;)

Here are some interesting events I can remember when a girl completely proved the point I am trying to make:

1. A group of girly girls responding to a ‘clever’ quote ‘The key to being happily married is to keep changing husbands’; ‘God Sat! That’s an awful thought. I would always be faithful to my partner!’ Yeah sure, am glad for them :)

2. The short form CCD is used for 2 things in our office, Café Coffee Day and Computer and Communications Dept. Now this chap wanted to know what are the qualifications needed to apply for a position in the CCD (he obviously meant the latter). The wise guy in our forum pulled this gem of a reply to that saying that a Graduate should do for the Sales manager. For the rest 12th pass should suffice! While we were busy rolling on the floor laughing, this one perplexed lady replied wise guy saying ‘hey you got it all wrong, he was asking about the computer communications dept, not café coffee day!’ One of our menacing friends quipped ‘God, she actually figured out it was café coffee day he was talking about!’ Once again we got back to rolling on the floor laughing! [guess the housekeeping folks don’t have to mop our cubicle floors very often!]

3. Conversation with my friend:
M.F: What’s this thing called *panama hat
Me: Yeh kis chidiya ka nam hai? (which bird is that?)
M.F: Oh, it’s a bird huh?
Me: !!!!....well yeah, a small one, with flappy wings, really cute you see
M.F: Oh…doesn’t quite fit in the context!
Me: Halo!...Snap out of it, I was kidding!
M.F: whatever for?!

*forgot the context :P

4. Another one is right here buried in one of my old posts. Go here and check out in the comments section. Sorry, couldn’t resist including it ;)

P.S: I’ve been hooked to this song Grace Kelly by Mika, absolutely catchy, can’t-stop-smiling material, and did I forget to tell you I love the video? It made my day...
P.S.S: No offence, there are umpteen women who have a razor sharp wit….guess it’s a bit of extremes I guess ;)

Song On: Grace Kelly
Mood: Ecstatic!

India to me means...

2007-03-13T12:15:00.000+05:30

There's this portal in my office which features an intern every week. And how do they feel about working here.
They had to put in that inevitable question 'India to me means....'
uh-oh!
Because most of the Caucasian, Mandarin blah blah blah think India is this over crowded place with awful roads and even more awful traffic, with cows running helter skelter...and god knows some might still be thinking about the elephants and the maharajas and the snake charmers!
This is what most interns had to say about India;

A society in which the coexistence of humans and animals is universally accepted and encouraged and the roads are shared by living creatures as well as all varieties of wheeled machines. A potpourri of color - with respect to clothing, food and the landscape. (Thankfully, so far, I have for the most part avoided mixing bright-colored food with light-colored clothing.)

Diversity, cows, colors, dancing, singing, traffic, great food, honking, spices, impressing driving skills, opportunities, rickshaw drivers trying to cheat you, IT, dust, and hard working, ambitious, smiling & friendly people

Cows’ paradise. They are the only ones before whom taxi drivers do not sound the horn.

Well, there's one thing called sarcasm and another called sarcasm :) I bet most of these chaps here think that the cow is this country's national animal! Ask this india-to-me question to any foreigner who comes to this land, and he would say; curry, actually make that hot curry, people, crowd, cows, traffic, honking...diversity (no they don't mean the diversity in language, region yadda yadda yadda, but they mean the diversity in the fact that the sprawling IT campuses are surrounded by those itsy bitsy huts and dirt and dust. The sky scrapers in Mumbai are surrounded by those thatch roofed slums). Say these spicy curry loving folks only happen to dine in those expensive multi cuisine restaurants which we pick only if our company is paying the bill for what we hog. So much for the curry!
I remember having seen a couple of amused tourists shooting a pic/video of a man relieving himself on the river banks while they stood on the bridge and giggled. What can I say!

So here's what I got to say to all those firangs, you come to India, better know what you're walking into! That's the way this place is. Take it the way it is, and please don't even think about reminding us of our 'miseries'. Say did I ever blog about the numerous Indian, Asian, Egyptian artifacts, (not to mention the pride of the Tower of London, 'our very own' Kohinoor) that I saw displayed in museums all over United Kingdom and Europe?! Let's play it fair guys!

And Indians, please do not ask this 'India to me means' question to them. Quite frankly, I know you don't give a damn what they think this country is like. So why even bother?!

Aah, can I forget the disclaimer? Yeah, not all of them are like this, a few actually have really seen this country, gone places other than the great white thing in marble called the TAJ. And haven't been, much to my delight, irked up with the way things are in this part of the (third) world.

P.S: I'm working from chennai now. Yet to explore the place my way though!

Song On: Ipod is unwell :(
Mood: Relaxed

Blogger Unplugged

2007-02-21T01:02:00.000+05:30

They did it! :(
Those inhuman heartless guys did it!!!
They have pulled the plug on Blogger in my office so my visits are going to be really rare for a few weeks now!
But without blogger,I could actually realise that I was neck deep in work ...
So me gets back to work for sometime now.
See you people after I reach Indian soil (though I might be dropping by occasionally before that as well)
And did I tell you, I have been cursed to spend 3 months in Chennai?
Yeah...I am surrounded by such good hearted samaritans
Their idea of sending me 'home' ...Some one tell them not all Tamilians are from Chennai!

Song On: Tujhse Naraz Zindagi
Mood: Sad :(

Very V

2007-02-15T06:02:00.000+05:30

It's the V-day
Everyone's up with a post, why should I be left behind
But I don't have anything to write about :-
And I suck big time writing mushy stuff
So here's my ode to the big V!

Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished.However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honour to meet you and you may call me V.

Idhuvum sontha saraku illa...from the movie V for Vendetta and I don't know what on earth it means!...Love it :)
But somehow talking about proposals, relationship, I can't help remembering these lines:
'Man says he loves me!..Think he'll propose if I win?'
'You win...*I'll* Propose!'
Sweet!...it's not a conversation between 2 lovers, but a smiple exchange between a girl and her father figure. They're completely out of context. That's the point :)
From the movie Million Dollar Baby.Love it!
P.S: I can't remember more vain a post...absolutely Vain!

Song on: Vindicated (dashboard conf)
Mood: 'V'icked!

Chapter 2 – Goodbye TMG, Hello AM!

2007-02-13T10:37:00.000+05:30

Statutory warning: Ini adikkadi narrative-la italics and font changes vandhu ungala bayamuruthum, idhellam en ‘creative license’ (!!!) use panni naana potta masala. Porumaya padikanum, enna? And if you do not get what’s going on in Italics, never mind, it’s mere rambling, you’ll still get what the story is!
Taking off from where we left RF
It so happened, much to RF’s delight that one fine day TMG decided to quit the project and go in search of greener pastures with more lives to be ruined. TMG also announced that once he found such a place, he would soon pull Villain along. It was RF’s one chance to take over the entire team. But it was all thwarted by TMG’s announcement that replacing him at the top level would be that manager guy’s friend, Another Manager (AM). The team was familiar with A.M as he had handled the entire group before TMG and the team quite liked him. But TMG couldn’t let all to be well and fine so he also attached the ‘clause’. The long clause went that AM would be busy at a different location with his own work, so he can’t devote much time to this team. So I leave you all to the mercy of Villain and RF. The SEs breathed a sigh of relief after being terrified that how can something take a turn for the better and upset the normalcy of their cruel life.
TMG decides to throw a party as a departing gesture, the team mates are over joyed as they would get rid of TMG plus they would have free drinks. TMG is busy transferring his ‘gyan’ to Villain and Villain does all that is in his limits to pretend to listen and at the same time keep his eyes off the girl in the next table.

TMG aka Vincent: And you know what they call a... a... a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?
Villain aka Jules: They don't call it a Quarter Pounder with cheese?
TMG: No man, they got the metric system. They wouldn't know what the f@ck a Quarter Pounder is.
Villain: Then what do they call it?
TMG: They call it a Royale with cheese.
Villain: A Royale with cheese. What do they call a Big Mac?
TMG: Well, a Big Mac's a Big Mac, but they call it le Big-Mac.
Villain: Le Big-Mac. Ha ha ha ha. What do they call a Whopper?
TMG: I dunno, I didn't go into Burger King.
Courtesy: Pulp Ficiton, Q Tarantino

Mayya Mayya from the movie Guru playing in the backdrop
RF tries to affirm her position with AM, AM being the blunt person doesn’t give her much hope.
All that when the drinks had not arrived.
Ting Tong! In came the drinks…and this is how it turned out:
TMG busy trying a tongue twister
Villain is not to be seen (sources confirmed he took off with a bottle of champagne. Girl-next-table apparently missing!)
AM is trying to flirt with RF
RF, her drunk self, doesn’t realise that that might have scored her browny points in her own unethical way, and wards off AM
Rest of the team is having fun at their expense, well, for a change!

To be or not to be....

2007-02-09T09:22:00.000+05:30

It's a sultry afternoon, an over crowded bus, and all you know is that the person standing next to you hasn't had a shower for days …
You are seriously considering such people should be awarded capital punishment!
But you'd rather not give up that seat, in all it's stinking glory…Oh no, it's still better than being mauled by the ruthless crowd in the bus…Worse still dancing to the tunes of the bus driver, swinging rocking at every turn…uh!....prefer the 'scent' rather.
The bus stops at the next stop, spewing out people on the way, only to get in twice as many inside. Can't blame them, this is their last resort as the benevolent BMTC do not ply on this route regularly. In comes a lady carrying a toddler.
'Oh boy…she had to choose THIS bus of all!'

This could have been any day, it could happen to anyone.
Any woman can easily be in that lady's place, and any person, man or woman might be in the your place, blissfully seated.
The question is, would you give up the seat for this lady?
Some might think, why is there a question at all?...isn't that obvious?
No, apparently it is not!
It's a welcome change that our generation doesn't accept anything on the face value.
We reason it out, rational thinkers that we are.
And finally pass the judgement of how one should act
It's a healthy sign to see a society think and react than merely following someone's action.
But it's equally disheartening to realise that we have gone one step further to analyse everything merely with our brains and not giving much role to our heart.

The Brain man would think:
I have stood in my bus stop for more than half an hour, turned up early because I wanted to get this seat.
So there you go, I earned it!
I am equally tired after my day's work; the summer's got the same bad effect on me.
I don't fancy standing in this pandemonium either!
On the other hand, the lady might have happily arrived late at the bus stop, did not have to fight to get in. But nevertheless is guaranteed a seat, why because she has a kid with her. How fair is that? In fact, the lady did not have to board such an over crowded bus, she could have arranged for another mode of transport! But she did come on board feeling confident that the crowd does not affect her, you got a kid, hell, you'll get a seat anyway! But how right is it to expect me to give up this 'hard-earned' seat and go through the torture of standing for the rest of my journey? I am an ordinary person, I am no Budha/Gandhi. So I'll be my own selfish self and not give up my seat. I don’t care if someone thinks I am insensitive. But I am staying put! You want a seat, make it to the stop earlier!

What does the Brain plus Heart man have to say?
Let's hear that as well.
I have stood in my bus stop for more than half an hour, turned up early because I wanted to get this seat. I am equally tired after my day's work, the summer's got the same bad effect on me
I don't fancy standing in this pandemonium either….
If it could be so difficult for me, how difficult would it be for the lady carrying a wailing kid and balancing in this rickety bus? Yes, she could have gone in for another option, but I must know that not everyone can afford to pay a fortune to those autowalas. Especially on this route when they demand double the amount! I sure wouldn't have taken a rick myself….
And missing this bus would mean another couple of minutes in the scorching heat…awful, I wouldn't go through that. Might as well get into this bus and get it over with!
I don't blame her, may be she didn't really have much of a choice…none of my business really!
Because it could easily be me in her shoes some day…me/my wife could be carrying my kid and struggling in a bus one day.
And how would I wish that a benevolent soul to step forward to help!
I can go on and get harassed by this crowd, but at least I'll feel better I gave up my seat to someone who needed it much more than me
At least my inner voice won't torment me when I go to bed tonight!...
We don't need someone to tell us that it's a priority seat and needs to be given up for someone in need. We are sound enough to make that judgement by ourselves, aren't we? That demarcation is for the rather heartless robots that have so easily mingled with us humans and cannot really tell that someone might find it more painful to travel standing in a bus like this.

So, it all boils down to one thing, a simple choice.
Either be the person who'd only use his/her brain, reason it out and decide the outcome. That's what the PC I am typing into does, doesn't it?
Or I could be the one who can listen to my heart as well, and then decide what to do. And yeah, my PC doesn't have a heart so I am more human that that by a mile :)

P.S: I typed it out following a discussion whether one has to give up their seat should there be another person who might want it more. I was surprised we even had a discussion there. Only goes on to show we are becoming more and more callous and seeking out one excuse after another to conceal a weak character. I am not stating which of the above 2 are right or wrong, but whatever be the case, I'd definitely not be a fan of the first one!
P.P.S: Hmmm….London has donned white today. It must be the heaviest snowfall the British capital has seen in years. It’s freezing, numbing…it’s beautiful :)

Song On: Nothing but wind
Mood: Blank

Being Ruffled-feathers

2007-02-06T07:47:00.000+05:30

Wait...before you proceed, I am on my most cruel punch bag routine and have taken it all out on my blog this time. If you do not have it in you to handle office politics (which is a yummy pizza with a 'lying' base, 'cheesy' layer, undesirably informative but proactive toppings dabbed with lots of sarcasm and a dash of purely evil fun), please do not proceed any further! I have taken liberty to thrash a few individuals, particularly one....so you're welcome to have fun at their expense! Now read.
no no wait wait....*strong* (a little bit!) language and bloody violence warning. Reader discretion advised! Now read on.

This write up/story is a record on the incidents, events, mishaps, you-name-it related to an individual whom we can safely call ‘ruffled feathers’. This is not a work of fiction, any resemblance to characters living or dead is purely intentional and has nothing to do with coincidence.
Our story shall involve a host of other characters, but with regard to their privacy (and my own personal safety); their names have been changed.
Our story starts in a desolate building in a dingy street.
Now in this rather brooding building sat a small little team of software engineers, who were forced to believe that their one true mission in life was to work and be benevolent; benevolent when you have to give away all the laurels for your work to your boss! Then you had the module leads or MLs, who were SEs who had been SEs long enough and threatened to either quit or cause mortal damage to their bosses. To tame these frustrated and dangerous creatures, the new ‘role’ was introduced recently. They were paid the same as the SEs and got no extra benefits, only a different name and the impression that they no longer belonged to the entry level. And of course there were those who were a little above the poor downtrodden engineers, those were the lower middle management, the ‘Leads’. Now what they did lead (apart from miserable lives) is a totally different story. But their job was to peep into the SE’s monitor and ring the emergency alarm if they found anything like Yahoo, Google or even Blogger open, to intimidate their boss (we’ll get to him later…and by the way, they did not have to bother about Orkut as that was blocked already!). They were code named *a$$* kissers (A.K) for the obvious reasons.

And then the person who sits on top of everyone…actually everyone’s head. The manager guy! (TMG) The most marvellous creation of god and dare I say equipped with the best of all modern instruments! They considered dropping Daniel Craig and signing him for his ease with gadgests and gizmos, but re-considered once they had a look at him. Plan B is to cast him in a remake of E.T in the title role. He knows everything that goes on in the cursed cubicles of the SEs. He has spies all over the office floor. He has a RADAR which covers every nook and cranny of the floor…Nope, hiding in the emergency exit stair case is not going to help, unlike mobile networks, his RADAR is strong. He responds to only 2 people and is answerable to only them. His two bosses, one, the guy he calls boss and another, his actual boss, his wife.

So, you might be wondering where does ruffled feathers (RF) fit in? She (yep, that’s a woman!) was an A.K. But a frustrated one at that because she believed it was time she replaced TMG. Her frustration normally showered on the hapless SEs, particularly a new one (fresh meat Aka FM) who had just joined the team. He put it up with her obviously because he was under the false impression that she actually knew something. Which was later clarified by his experienced team mates. And then there was Villain, her colleague and yet another lead in the same team. Villain was RF’s sworn enemy, but that doesn’t make him good either. Had he been a filmi villain, he would have been Prakash Raj, a bit confused, psyched out and a vicious one. He also happens to be TMG’s top most spy and added to that took great pleasure in usurping the credit for the efforts of the SEs. But he played it so cool with them that not one doubted his noble intentions!

P.S: Will be back with more bitching. Till then, drop your rotten eggs, tomatoes in the comment section. I'd return them without fail, in all my true-scorpio self, one day in your blogs.

Song on: Money (P.Floyd)
Mood: Crazy

Can I place you on hold?

2007-01-31T08:34:00.000+05:30

It's a tricky question, almost a hobson's choice on most occasions, you have to say yes! :)
And at most times, you happen to be on hold for eternity (almost!)
In the meantime that you're on hold, the other end might be genuinely trying to solve your problem or chatting with a colleague, fixing up a drink, laughing at you with other people who have put a lot more people on hold so that they can laugh at you and so on.
Whilst at your end, you normally get to hear a song, some good, some not so good.
And if it's either Hutch or ICICI you're trying to call, then you might end up hating those tunes however good they might otherwise sound….[I must say you'd better be ready to be on hold for at least 30 minutes before you can say hello to their customer care person]
The help desk in my office is nice, they're a good bunch of people almost have answers to every query (duh…they must have one heck of a search engine!)
And they play a very nice song….'She will be Loved' by Maroon 5.
In fact, last time I called I was hoping to be put on hold just to listen to the song again and once the call was over, it was almost heart breaking to disconnect :(
But I had to and then switched to the same song on my ipod…hehehe

P.S: I typed this post when I was on hold trying to call ICICI customer care
P.P.S: Still on hold!

Song On: Hum hai na (ICICI)
Mood: Irritated

Absolutely Everybody...

2007-01-30T07:21:00.000+05:30

….is completing this tag! Me unfortunately, not an exception

1. Were you named after anyone?
Nope!
2. Do you wish on stars?
Nope! :)
3. When did you last cry?
Almost every night; at least every night that I chop onions when I cook :P
4. Do you like your handwriting?
No way!....in fact it turns out to be different everytime I write.
to quote my mom ‘un thala ezhuthu maariye kai ezhuthum’ (!!!!!!!)
5. What is your favourite meat?
Meat?...if it’s meat it has to be chicken….but if you can include sea food it’s gotta be CRAB :D
6. What is your most embarrassing CD on your shelf?
Backstreet boys’ Millenium
7. If you were another person, would YOU be friends with you?
Don’t think so; first thought would have been ‘what a b*tch!’…that’s everyone’s first impression :D Later may be, I might have become great friends
8.Are you a daredevil?
Sometimes yeah…other times I’m plain Devil!! hehehe
9. How do you release anger?
Punching bags. That’s either those who caused the anger or those to whom I can pulambify. Either ways it’s bad :D
10. Where is your second home?
B’lore?
11. Do you trust others easily?
Nope!....hardly a handful I really trust
12. What was your favourite toy as a child?
I used to like those cookery toys, the one you get in Madurai temple….packed in baskets woven out of palm leaves I guess? Love the whole ensemble
13. What class in school/college do you think is totally useless?
I am thinking what WAS actually useful!
14. Do you use sarcasm a lot?
ME?...Sarcastic…no way! ;)
15. Have you ever been in a mosh pit?
No…
16.What do you look for in a guy/(gal)?
Eyes, voice, attitude
17. Would you bungee jump?
May be, but I’ll check the length of the rope first!
18. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
Nope
19.what's your favourite ice cream?
Vanilla with a hint of banana caramel and butter scotch topping...yummmm
20. What are your favourite colours?
Red, black and white
21. What are your least favourite things?
waking up in the morning before 9!
22. How many people do you have a crush on right now?
Right now, none!
23. Who do you miss most right now?
a very tiny person
24. What are you listening to right now?
The sound of my key board and the whirring sound of our antique printer….what do you expect, I am in the office….no beethoven symphony!
25. If you were a crayon, what colour would you be?
Red
26. What is the weather like right now?
Freezing, but there’s a little sun shine
27. Last person you talked to on the phone?
The most irritating, pain in the wrong place team mate in the world
28. The "first" thing you notice about the opposite sex?
Charm/attitude!...or the lack of it :D
29. Do you like the person who sent you this?
Should I give a diplomatic answer?....yeah, fun in blogsville, never met in person though
30. How are you today?
so-so. It’s Monday :(
31. Favourite non alcoholic drink?
Coke Zero
32. Favourite alcoholic drink?
Don’t drink much, but a sucker for Pina Colada(if it qualifies!)
33. Natural hair colour?
Black
34. Eye colour?
Black/Dark brown, never really noticed!
35. Wear contacts?
Nope!
36. Siblings?
Elder Sister
37. Favourite month?
Feb!...short, light and a lovely weather
38.Favourite food?
Juicy fried crabs….yummmm….am drooling
39. Favourite day of the year?
none in particular
40. Have you ever been too shy to ask someone out?
Nevah!!!!....but ppl are scared to go out with me :(
41. Scary movies or happy endings?
Scary movies
42. Summer or winter?
Summer!
43. Holi or Diwali?
Both!...no i am not asking for too much!
44. Do you like your name?
used to it now
45. What book/magazine are you reading?
shifts between Kumudam and Sherlock Holmes stories compilation
46. What's on your mouse pad?
er...mouse?
47. What did you watch on TV last night?
didn’t watch TV last night
48. Favourite Smell?
Fresh brand new currency notes….Show me the money!...a hugo boss deep red comes a close second.
49. Have you ever regretted breaking up with someone?
Let me find someone, see him around, and then break up. I’ll let you know then!
50. Most tiresome thing you’ve ever experienced/done?
Everytime, trying to run on the treadmill for 15 minutes, guess they’re always the most difficult 15 minutes in any day!!!

Phew!...I'm done!
I don’t think there’s anyone I know in blogsville who’s not been through this tortuous tag. So I rest my case :)

P.S: noticed; every blog’s got this one up now….what a common sight!...aaama ithana questions-yum yosicha maha paavi yaaru?

Yippeee -2

2007-01-26T18:26:00.000+05:30

Another Yippeee this time.
My best friend's family's had a new inclusion of a tiny pair of feet :D
She's been blessed with a baby girl.
I still can't believe 'Loosu' has become a mom...

Wild things

2007-01-24T11:58:00.000+05:30

How often do we find a lucky coin on the road which we pick up and keep as a keepsake? For a few lukcy ones it's a whole note. Mine was never more thana a single rupee until one day. I am talking about this incident in my twelfth standard school days when me and a couple of my friends bagged ourselves this absolutely free (!) treat of ice creams! I won't get straight to the topic, I would beat around the bush for a while, so hang on!
Now my twelfth standard wasn't very good (if you're wondering what's it got to do with the topic, give me some time, like I warned you, am getting there!), neither was eleventh, but then I was at least my own brat-tish self. But the twelfth in all it's gory self was tortuous and tuitions and coaching classes took a large chunk of time off our life which we would have otherwise spent fooling around/bunking classes/checking out guys :) Add to that the plight that after a life long stint at a co-ed I was landed up at this god forsaken girl's convent which was run by sisters who quite prided themselves as being second only to Hitler when it came to cruelty.
You get the idea now don't you?

So in comes this school day when we 'Super Seniors' are given the royal treatment before being finally chucked out.We don't have to be in any one of those disgusting awfully boring plays (heck we couldn't act in them, how did the audience watch it!), didn't have to bray shamelessly in those chorus songs, and definitely no MC-ing! We can sit in our abode (which was behind this rope barrier, lest the 'boys' from outside must try and pick up a chat with one of us girls…I tell you, looking at us that day no sane boy would ever try and do that!...obviously that fact was lost on our dear sisters) and watch those juniors make a complete ass of themselves and laugh our heads off.
But that's all that we're supposed to do, sit and laugh…nothing else.
But we girls went a bit over board with all that unseen attention and praises like 'our beloved seniors who'd be leaving us soon' (we ignored the sarcasm), that we actually dared to stand…and not just anywhere, but on the chairs…And scream, and dance, and whistle…and much credit to the front benchers who tore down the barrier completely. I could have bet I even saw one teacher faint and the rest were fanning her…guess it would have been from the worry how the school was ever going to repay the damage being caused to the chairs!
As a direct result, an emergency meeting was convened the following morning and a long lecture of how unruly and un-ladylike our behaviour was the previous evening followed. We slept through it while others tried their best to show the 'guilt' on their faces (er…they were the front benchers ;) ) As a punishment we were asked to clean up the seating area and remove the chairs (their way of saving on labour costs and fixing the chairs I bet!).
And on this mission, I happened to spot a Rs 100 note lying at the bottom of a chair…another girl happened to spot it as well….I pounced on it and the rest of the crowd followed. After a lot of cat fights and some concrete support from my friends, I got to keep it. :D
Pesama poi irukalam…periya paruppu maari avala paathu oru line 'finders keepers, losers :P'
Ava poi sister kitta pottu koduthutta!
Unawares, me and my band of friends took off to the nearest ice cream parlour, Milky Way on Promenade Road*** and had a yummy time :D
A small bottle of Eucalyptus oil solved what lay in store for us back in school…!
Free lunch; There's no such thing as free lunch…ha what do they know?!
We had free desserts if not the whole lunch :P
(well, tricking a fellow human being into this evil ritual called 'treating' and hogging a whole week's food at once and robbing the person blind is not free lunch…it's not free anything…as someone is having to spend :D but we love doing it still don't we?!)
P.S: Now how many got that twisted thought when you saw the title?! ;)....and thanks BSK for bringing back the good old days' memories!
P.P.S: ***I did most of my schooling during my teens in Trichy, between R.S.K in BHEL and that stupid convent that I still hate.

Song On: Goodbye Nanba
Mood: Nostalgic

When's your's? :D

2007-01-22T19:08:00.001+05:30

I hate that question….I hate that look!
Okie, I’ll explain...
Of late it’s been quite some marriage season…at least among my friends.
And you turn up to any wedding, even reply that scanned invitation mail (I still prefer the 'hard copy', makes you realise they took the pains of hunting down your address!),
the one question you have to answer is ‘So when’s yours?’
With that supposedly naughty smirk on the face, emm...smiley of course in a mail.
Nothing gets on my nerve more than that.
I have a strong urge to retort…’What bloody business is it of yours?’
But I am forced to answer with the same smirk…
And then the conversation just goes from being bad to worse and usually ends up with me throwing yet another one of those unbelievable excuses and sprinting out of the room.
It's never a nice feeling you know, when people get away with crimes like that...
And this is the case in most social occasions and for most people in my age group ....sigh...
We have something common now to brood over!
It's almost replaced the usual Hi Hello greeting line...
Friends, relatives, very distant relatives , papa's friends, momma's friends, friends’ friends…
And some people whom I haven’t spoken to in the past god-knows-how-many years!
You meet someone after a longtime at this point of time in life, and all that they have to do is question about your marital status;
and if u're sinlge they have an abnormal interest in knowing when you'll get married!...
I am reminded of an old joke in which an old woman pesters a young man at every wedding by nudging him and whispering ‘You’re next’...
The young man fed up with this habit put up with her out of respect.
But even his patience had it’s own limits…
So at a funeral of a mutual friend, he walked up behind her, nudged her, ‘You’re next!’
Now that would make me feel so good...

Song On: Tum itna jo muskura rahe ho
Mood: Irritated!

Suffer-RING

2007-01-17T11:44:00.000+05:30

No it's not about matrimony or commitment :)
It's about those mobile phones and the irritating ring tones. Of late I've started hating the mobile. Just when you think you are all relaxed and have time for yourself...bam...there you got a call. And it's so irritating that I tend to run through the call hurriedly only to find that the 'moment' is lost :(
Add to that those weird ring tones you keep hearing. You got one hit song this season, god help you coz you're going to hear that almost everywhere thanks to them wicked ring tones. And as if they thought these weren't enough, some really bad bad boy came up with those hello tunes. Uggghhh! You make that call after postponing it at least a hundred times and what do you get to hear?...
Jhalak dhiklaaja...ek baar aaja aaja aaja aaja...
or worse
Aayiye...aapka...intezar tha!
:- or worse still, some cheesy song playing and it so happens these days people either take their own sweet time to pick that call or don't answer it at all (at least the first time)...are they actually proud of these tortuous hello tunes?! And why do all these tunes have to be some sappy love song...the one I heard most was that 'Tere liye' song from the absolutely unbearable Veer Zara.
Alright may be I am over reacting, but guess the whole mobile thing has got to my nerves. These days when I get a call, I simply don't pick it and then switch to silent mode (well people have this irritating habit of calling you continuously at least twice or thrice if you don't pick the call the first time around...as if you're hiding from them somewhere and it's their way of telling that they won't be that easy to get rid of...they kinda get the message though )
These days my mobile stays at home...hehe...kind of beats the purpose I know but what the hell!

P.S: I was reminded of this long-due post by this incident in this crammed fish market near my house; husband and wife come to buy fish...the mobile around husband's neck rings, call's for wife, wife pulls it and talks while mobile still hanging from husbands neck...the fantastic duo block the entire passage...leave the poor man carrying the huge crate of fish stuck behind them, shouting in vain asking them to move!...Man gets fed up puts the basket down...husband turns and starts looking at the fish(!!!) and almost asks the price when he notices that murderous look in the man's eyes...! :D

P.P.S: That's one hell of a long P.S!

Song on: None!
Mood: Sleepy

I'll be watching you!

2007-01-10T10:17:00.000+05:30

Ages back I had this mostly non sense post about winning over your crush...
And it's mostly men who have to don this role of chasing the OOA (you know what it is if you read that crush post!). But of late I met some curious girls who wanted to ‘nail’ down that good looking guy they saw somewhere. The icing on the cake was this recent post on the internal discussion forum in my office where a young lady wanted to know of ways to get in touch with this young man (pls note…he was cute; apparently) that her friend had seen and liked in the food court. Now both the ladies have managed to track this guy down and are waiting to ‘make’ friendship with him *ahem*!
For most of my friends who were quite amused at this discussion, it was more of a relief as the burden of the chase was starting to be shared by the fairer sex…for some however the word ‘cute’ looked rather depressing. What stuck me was the fact that the lady decided to openly admit that her friend (rather non existent friend?...coz in most cases the word ‘friend’ is used to cover up the fact that the ‘friend’ in question is actually the person who’s asking such questions!) fancied this guy she saw for a moment at work place. May be life could have been easier had she been born in the west as all she could have done (if she was not faint hearted and thick skinned enough) was to walk over and strike a conversation. In India though this could have resulted in the guy calling out for help!
Another friend of mine who had a monster crush on one of the managers in an account, ended up dragging me along for a Sudoko contest because her gut instincts told her that he would turn up (thanks to their mutual love for sudoko!). But it was an anti climax coz despite securing a seat exactly behind his, she had to rush out mid way as I had buckled to that rising fear and nervousness thanks to the fact that I had never really attempted to give this game a try and ended up bolting out of the door…apparently she was all set to borrow a pen from him and to this day holds this against me! Much more similar missions were thwarted by the fact that I got paranoid that the guy suspected that my friend was interested in him and that she would end up getting both of us fired. Of course much of that paranoia was ‘fuelled’ by the dislike for his flashy coloured shades and flashier accent; god awful really…love’s really (colour?!) blind! [‘Friend’ quoted here is not a pretext..it really wasn’t me as I would not fall for people in those shades in my worst nightmare]
With women trying all kinds of tricks in trying to get to a means of contacting that mystery man they found attractive. Gone are the days when stalking was majorly attributed to poor guys. Question is, how do the guys feel about this start of a new trend?...flattered?...embarrassed?...relieved?

Interesting:
A few months back a local news paper in London featured this section which had messages from it’s readers to people they saw while commuting in the underground tube and found interesting. The messages varied from the like-to-know-you to the regular commuter on a particular route to compliments for their looks to the occasional sightings underground. Some had even quoted their number and one lady even apologised for apparently scaring a guy she tried to start a conversation with :D Over all, it was cute and definite rom-com material

P.S: Post title inspired from a song by the band Police (which Sting was earlier a part of). Apparently this song was written after the break up of Sting's (first?) marriage. On first look, it might look like a heartfelt love song, but the actually implication is that of a stalker....scary stuff :D
For more details 'Police + every breath you take' udan google-aandavarai anugavum

Song on: Seven nation army
Mood: Cheerful

Appy new year!

2007-01-04T10:42:00.000+05:30

New year eves...for some it's that time of the year when every club on earth reminds them so painfully that they're single and it's definitely not a favoured status that time of the year...

ask my friends, they'd tell you it's almost impossible to get a stag entry in any happening joint :D

And for some it's one of those rare occasions that they can get drunk and they don't have to pay a cent! And for some, it's staying awake beyond the normal 9:30 time at night. For a few more wierdos like me, it hardly makes a difference, just that there's more interesting TV programs to watch, people look insanely pleased, every place is lit up with serial bulbs, and of course the long weekends.

Sometimes people remember to invite you for their party sometimes they 'forget' thanks to that small lil rift that you had 12 weeks back... In fact, i find it odd the first month of the year, it's way too tough getting used to writing the new year in the date, there were times I had signed the date as 2005 well into June'06! It's a whole new problem if that happens to be a leap year..! You have a tough time planning those holidays and looking up the leaves for the year so that you get to take lesser LOPs. And of course one month into the new year it's time for filing IT returns...yawwwn!SO what's so new about these new years?!

And not to mention the resolutions; they're always meant to be broken!A friend of mine took this resolution to give up smoking, saw him puffing away gleefully this morning at the smoking zone :) I, for my part, have one as well...try not to swear. Let me see if I live up to it

P.S: All you bloggers, wish you all a great year ahead...

Song on: Cornflake girl

Mood: Okay

What the...#@!

2006-12-26T16:04:00.000+05:30

The day this post was typed; I stumbled on the imdb comedy chart for confirming the answer for one of the Quiz questions on the internal bulletin board.
Here’s what I found: http://imdb.com/chart/comedy
The imdb charts list the truly great movies of all time, and also genre wise and it’s more or less a correct compilation.
And the movie that heads the comedy charts now is Lage raho munna bhai!!!!!!
What the!!!!
And this is placed right above the all time classics of the like Singin in the rain, Some like it hot and Monty python and the holy grail
I guess the hindi speaking (knowing as well! :D ) population is crawling all over the place and hell bent on spreading it’s mediocrity world over
IMHO, Lage rahoo….was decent…silly movie, good enough for a few laughs, summer hit. That’s all…In fact I liked the first part much better…
It definitely is not in the all time greats league…Someone please drive the bollywood scum off imdb!
And if a hindi movie does have to be up there, I would gladly carry the banner for Jaane bhi do yaaro…may be for position 8…

P.S: the highest rated Indian movie however is Pushpak (pesum padam; kamala hassan and amala) at 9.6/10

Song on: Gnalrs Barkley's Crazy
Mood: Amused

Clean?!

2006-12-22T00:28:00.000+05:30

Lousy title I know ;)
But as much as I enjoy a cup of coffee in between work....especially during those mid day blues...I hate washing that mug.
Actually not really, but who'd want to walk back to the cafeteria just to wash that mug....anyway I'd have to wash it next time I'd want to have a coffee right?!
My friend responded to this with an 'eeeeeeeesssssshhhh!'...mainly because sometimes I drink from that mug once in 2 or 3 days!
I know....under normal circumstances I'd cringe myself, but then 'Nobody's perfect' (Thanks Harish...that's an awesomely handy oneliner!)
Of late I am trying to get back to the wash-mug-immediately habit; it so happened that in my haste to rush for free chocolates in someone's cubicle (ooru perellam kekala!) I happened to fling my earphones on my desk. Now one of that landed straight into this dirrrty mug with remnants of some 2 day old latte...And when I got back I was least bothered to check it and hurriedly put it back on to my ear...Yikes!
Trust me, the only thing that my ears have found worse than that was Himesh 'Nosetradamus' Reshamiya's voice...Nashty...

Song on: Snow Patrol Chasing Cars
Mood: Okay

Satti suttadhada

2006-12-15T23:00:00.000+05:30

Thevaya enakku indha vendatha vedhanai?...despite scores of warnings, I watched Dhoom 2...pls...I know, appadi andha padathula enna thaan irukunu paaka poi maatikitten :(
Plus en janma virodhi(I've put a reward on his head now) said that you just might catch a glimpse of John Abraham...so there!
I think the whole of Yashraj shouldn't be allowed to produce movies. It's turning out to be quite a threat to mankind. Now to the punch bag which i just love doing...I got loads for this movie, let me get to them one at a time:

Hrithik: Flaring ugly nostrils are his idea of gr8 acting. Thank god he doesn't do that in this movie. What he does manage to do is dance; I thought we were going to witness someone like the ice cool Kabir, but what do we have; Michael Jackson meets Mcqueen? Oh boy...this conman can actually spend time trying out those john players outfits, wierd wigs and shaking a leg. I hope Danny Ocean is listening. And did you say acting?...c'mon when did this guy EVER act? Kudos to Hrithik for making a lover boy even out of this character... *barf*!

P.S: Most hillarious sequence I've seen in recent times; Hrithik wearing an old man get up melts a man hole cover
(yawn) and jumps in only to emerge on the other side in that 'fountain' and viola, dressed in that body hugging black whatever. Now I can really picture him ripping his clothes and beard off him as he was running underground; guess the last time someone did that was in one of those scary movies (some dumb blonde!). They should have shown that; it would have given all the comic flicks a run for their money.

Ash-tray: Wow, I just love thrashing this one; that's the only thing it's fit for :) She's lost so much weight (inspiration Bips?) that she looks like one of those famished pale women from the German concentration camp; and of course over aged for the role. Does a couple of unnecessary good dances and lip synchs to that irritating 'crazy kiya re' (how do they come up with lyrics like that?). And her attempt at acting is just as pathetic as ever; really even the dumbest of bimbos learned to act by the time they were her age; I mean look at Raveena in films like Mohra...and then look at what she did 10 years later. Look at our very own Simran in films like Nerukku ner and VIP and then kannathil muthamittal. But ash...wow, she only gets worse with time. And this time she attempts to be the glamourous siren with loads of attitude, something that comes naturally to a lot of other actresses...it's almost enraging! :D
'Are you like checking me out?' I never felt like killing an actress before, but looking at the way this was delivered, I am re-thinking!

Bipasha: I like this actress. Guess she along with Sush are the only ones who have some brains in mainstream bollywood. And both of them spell attitude. She's been completely wasted in this movie. Bips dont sign movies with yashraj; ditto for ur beau. She's in this movie for skimpy clothes and god...they had to create a twin out of her character obviously coz they can't get a police officer to walk (read pose) around Rio clad in an itsy bitsy bikini. Pathetic!

Abhishek Bachan: He's ugly. He's dull. He sucks...big time. Worst line 'tumse milkar bada maza ayega mr A' yeah yeah. Abhishek should stick to RGV and Mani Ratnam only. They're the only ones who can make him look good, and more so make him act. Otherwise he's so trying to be his papa-like that's it's annoying.
P.S: Another funny one here. Did you know that they make submarines that look like water scooters? A.B uses one such thing in this movie, he appears from nowhere from under the water, flies over a boat and shoots down a couple of guys in the meantime before getting back on water. And yeah, there's also a hitch hiking on a parachute.

Chopra guy: He's in this movie because they wanted some jackass on steroids for this movie and since he's completely jobless being the loser that he is and since no one else would sign him and since he's a chopra and probably they dont have to pay him (cost cutting ya see). I've got no more lines to waste on this one.

That's all that this film has to offer?...not really. There's more. Some really 'brilliant' cons like the one at the museum, train.Dhoom 2 would have been a cult hit had it been officially released as a spoof; but then the director thought that it's possible to pass this off as a serious con movie in India and I must say he has succeeded in doing that. It's always house full!...I dont believe the number of morons in our country. After watching a movie called Aankhen I thought this genre can get a following in Indian film industry, but Dhoom series gives that hope a lethal blow. There would be more such plastic films coming our way, may be a ghoom or a jhoom or god forbid a Dhoom 3...but pls...the likes of RGV, Kamal and Mani Ratnam, pls make a world class con movie....puhlease!

P.S: That reminds me...There's a movie called The Italian Job; not the one starring Ed Norton, Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron...but the original Italian Job starring a much younger and handsome Michael Caine. It's one of the best cons I've ever seen. And a world class parody ...try and get a DVD from one of those lending libraries; might be difficult to get, but worth all that trouble. Truly a gem and has one of the best endings.
'You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!'
P.P.S: Guess Yashraj will soon be back in town with another no brainer Kabul Express…the promos feature a John Abraham looking absurdly happy (is that lip gloss he’s wearing?....shudder!) and an Arshad Warsi who seems to have the larger half of the Pizza…But I like circuit so I just might watch this one :)

Song on: I don't feel like dancing
Mood: Okay

Calvin’s Dad

2006-12-13T10:16:00.001+05:30

All those familiar with Calvin couldn’t possibly have missed out his dad…and of course the kind of ‘answers’ he has for Calvin’s questions. The sad thing is there’s a Calvin dad in almost every dad!
I remember my dad not having ever taken the pains of really educating me reg. certain things. The most famous one; at least according to witnesses that day would be ‘The Pelican crossing’

Me: Pa, what’s pelican crossing?
Pa: eh?...where did you see that?
Me: There by the road side…
Pa: Oh…okie, may be someone breeds Pelicans somewhere near by
Me: oh!....hey wait a minute, why would you need a crossing for them?...they’re birds aren’t they…won’t they just fly across?
Pa: Of course they do…they fly yes, don’t they….but you see people need to be warned that their windshields are likely to become dirty!
Me: Oh!

So how many of you have more such pelican crossings to narrate? :D

Song on: Adrenaline
Mood: Blank

Uh-oh!

2006-12-07T00:50:00.000+05:30

Well some ideas just backfire so mercilessly…it leaves you wondering what on earth made you come up with it. Recently as part of some celebrations arranged in an office, it was decided that there would be a 20 plus metres long banner put up which will have messages from the employees. What they did not anticipate was that all the pent up fury would explode on this banner! The employees chose to crib their hearts out on this…from cries of increase in salary to pleas for that long pending transfer to general outcry on how the whole system..er sucks! As expected the banner did not see light after that :D
Moral of the story; don’t push your luck too hard with a frustrated work force!

P.S: Wonder where that banner is right now?!

Song on: Nickelback's Rockstar
Mood: Amused

Hello Hello!

2006-11-26T14:02:00.000+05:30

Voice 1: Oye, call home and tell mom that we’ll take some time here. Ask her to have lunch and not to wait up. Use the landline, I’m on your phone
Voice 2: (lazily, almost cursing) Ok.
Voice 1: Another important thing, that cable guy’s going to come today. Ask her not to pay him. I can hardly make out which channel is what. I need to blast that guy
Voice 2: (sympathizing with the poor guy) OK.
Voice 2’s owner walks over to the phone and dials a number lightning fast.
Voice 2: Engaged.
Voice 1: Duh! Take that automated voice’s advice and redial after sometime
Voice 2: (aaargggh!) OK.
Voice 1: (after a minute) Tried again?
Voice 2: Checking. (Redials) Still engaged, wonder whom she’s talking to!
Voice 1: Must be aunt. But please take this up and get it over with alright. And don’t disturb me another time to tell that the number’s engaged.
Voice 2: (irritated) OK!!!
After 5 minutes….
Voice 2: STILL ENGAGED!
Voice 1: I’m almost done, I’ll make the call….move it!...Your mobile is almost drained of charge…nee mattum kottika!
Voice 2: ….!
Voice 1 disconnects the call on the mobile and redials from the landline. Voice 2’s mobile starts ringing!!!
Voice 1: Get back here you idiot!....oru vela urupadiya blah blah blah $#%#@$%^%#…..

Hardly heard anything after that, I was on the run by then :)
But I really do have a problem remembering numbers...but my own ;)

P.S: In case you’re wondering, Voice 1 was my sister’s…I know; can be quite bossy :(
P.P.S: My fortune cookie said I am to inherit a large sum of money today :D (indha PPS poduradhu oru pazhakamave pochu…..idhula edhayadhu pottu tholayanumnu thaan sambandhame illama…..)

Song on: Robbie Williams’ Rude box
Mood: Crazy

London Calling

2006-11-21T05:20:00.000+05:30

That time of the year again
I am going to London... again!...a short visit and back :D
But anything out of the routine is starting to freak me out lately and thinking that it's not really warm in London this time of year doesn't make things any better.
But then, I'll have to go this time at least for the sake of that huge bag that I forgot to get last time I returned ;)

Shall try to be a regular at the blogs while I'm out there as well...
In the meantime, marupadiyum veedu thedanum :(
Buckingham is full this season apparently!

Song on: California Love
Mood: Bored

The dumb and the dumber

2006-11-15T00:18:00.000+05:30

The Dumb:
Three people sitting crammed in a 3 seater when the rest of the bus is absolutely.....empty!

The Dumber:
The lady next to me still sitting stuck to me despite the fact that the dumb one next to her had alighted....scary!

:D

Song on: Main hoo don (Shankar Ehsaan Loy)
Mood: Amused

To the monkeys that couldn't wait!

2006-11-14T01:23:00.000+05:30

Garuda Mall in B'lore is a cursed place. I hate all malls but this one I hate most. Why?
Well, because it's always crowded (I know that's how a mall's supposed to be, but hear me out!); holidays, working days don't matter at all.
Pity is one has to make a stop there thanks to friends who still consider it a hep joint...Yuck!
Special mention to the food court. If you can call what they serve in such places food!
I happened to be there a few days back with my friends. Thanks to the perfect timing from me and me friends we were stuck in MG road starving at about 3 in the afternoon when every decent restaurant in the city was closing down.
After running down to Tandoor, Copper Chimney and a few more good ones nearby, we had to settle for the awful food court at this mall.
I try my best to avoid eating at these places. They are crowded, they serve pathetic food at exorbitant prices and there's not a decent place to sit!
You have to go around with your plate for at least 30 minutes before you can get your place to sit...
Even before you finish ur 'meal' you got an aunty hovering over your head with her shopping bags...ugghhh!
Worse still, they even sit next to you in an effort to make you leave early.
The best, rather worst part is that you have to wait in the counter for your order, now anywhere in India the waiting part is rather painful thanks to the excellent kind of queue that gets formed at the counter, the queue is simply non existent!
So if you're not the one who can conveniently lean (nearly step) on someone else and thrust your coupon on to the front desk, or have a voice that's loud enough to be heard over all that commotion, then you're going to have to wait for a very long time for your meal.
And even if there IS a queue which is a miracle in itself, you'd better watch out for those Sergei Bubkas who'd gladly jump the queue and conveniently forget the morons who are waiting behind them; seriously, you thought this queue thingy was for real?!
And the stupid clerk/salesman at the desk doesn't bother to make Mr. Bubka wait and serves them right away, after all we don't care how you get here; jumping queues aint our problem!
Now it so happened on this otherwise uneventful day, that I was waiting to place an order for a cup of Pepsi (which tastes like sweet water compared to coke, but then that was the only one available; that too for twice the price and nearly half the quantity if you remove all those unwanted ice cubes!).
Just when I was about to hand over the money to the guy at the counter, this ape materialises in front of me 'Hey give me a Pepsi'
I shoot the ape a look as if trying to check if it looked vaguely human. Ape looks back at me, as if I was the one who was trying to act smart by barging in. I say 'You know the idea is to wait for your turn!'
Ape; 'Would you mind your business?'
Now I am charged up; 'Oh yeah, I can see that it's very much mine coz you're wasting my time and unwantedly delaying my drink. I suggest you wait!'
Ape (to the guy at the desk): 'hey, give me my pepsi first!'
(to me): you really should mind your business
Me: Yeah thanks for that, but I am!
Ape: you're not (raps this at least 10 times)
Me: Are you even educated...no wait, even close to civilised?...(to others around me) What IS this thing?!
Forget it...I think you're just some phoney sh*t
Ape: (starts rapping again) you're not (someone tell him he's supposed to change his line according to my response!)
Guy @ the counter : (to ape) You will have to wait for your pepsi!
(to me) Your drink m'am (Ape's not rapping now!)
Me: Thanks! (to ape); See that freak?!
Now I didn't look back at what ape was upto next but then I was glad that I won my little fight, though it was an animal I was up against :D
But there are many such creatures that just can't wait for their turn, and just have to rush before others. And there are some others who so much don't want to be left behind they're almost a threat when in the queue, I mean if you drift a little bit (may be because you're sick of staying put at that place), they think that the Queue is actually moving forward and end up closing in on your personal space! What is with us these days?...!!! Really, what are you upto once you get through the queue? Off to make a million? Well then you'd might as well remember that other's don't want to be late to give it their shot then. And just how much harm would it do to wait for one's turn? And yeah, it's mostly the 'educated' ones that do this every single time. Even the Ape was well dressed and could have looked decent if it wasn't so under nourished (bet he wore fake lables). Time these poeple act the way they're dressed. Do they become so thick skinned that they do not realise that such actions are not going to make them look very good in another person's point of view? Or they're so self centred that they just don't care two hoots!

Gift

2006-11-10T02:57:00.000+05:30

Ogie…So I am cruising at a much faster speed these days….it’s almost one post per day. What the heck!
There’s this trash can in our office, guess everyone would have one such thing, it’s called the BB (general bulletin board). Very few people have some genuine posts in there, most of them are complete losers who can’t manage to type out a single line in English without grammatical errors but still want to rule the place…they’re the Yo guys ;)
But with the number of vetti people in our office growing exponentially, the one spot that has most activities down here is the BB. You can come across all kinds of posts here…like yesterday this retard who couldn’t figure out why women scream so much!...to think that this thing actually gets paid for this…ugghhh!
Anyway, that’s not the topic anyway. There was this gentleman today who wanted suggestions for a good birthday gift for his wife. Sweet! The responses that I could find;
1. Saree (yawn!)
2. Jewellery (god…do you live in stone age?)
3. Designer bags …of the Prada, Gucci, Vuitton kind (Now you’re talking business!...but hey, whoever said women are that materialistic?!)
4. Fancy date (that actually depends on the person who’s planning it…what if someone like the guy who suggested jewellery plans it…where would he take you…temple?...shudder!)
5. Do it yourself (DIY) stuff (you know there should be a don’t even think about it (DETAI) stuff?...c’mon, if the guy was creative enough, he wouldn’t be asking for suggestions…besides we women esp. the urbanites have no interest whatsoever in metal make up boxes (courtesy: Chetan Bhagat’s five point someone)
6. Ipod (that’s a gift?...moron!)
7. Birthday gift???! (that WAS a response…trust me this one will remain single for the rest of his life!)
8. This one takes the cake; n number of roses, soft toys where n = number of b’days she had before you met her; even feel sorry that you missed them (Wowee powee, this one has a script writer, should’ve been on ekta kapoor or that loser director Kadhir’s team. I bet this chap can expect an appointment with a shrink as a return gift from his wife! Really now, roses are good, but not big enough to qualify as b’day gift; very filmy and unoriginal; easiest way out huh!…and I don’t think you really ought to gift an adult a soft toy.)

Now there were a few nice ones like take a day off…plan a trip…books on hobbies etc. But the point is the majority of the male crowd still feels all things materialistic are still the way into a woman’s heart. Tut tut! Or they fall back on those tried and tested ideas without actually bothering to put in much effort into the whole process; if you ask me might as well not buy a gift than getting something for the heck of it. No matter who the gift is for, please put some thought into it…if it’s your spouse you better do your homework. After all, the gift is what tells that person how much you know them / care about them.

P.S:
That reminds me of an age old post of mine on my office blog about what to gift a guy…hmmm….it’s that time of the year again so I am going to recycle that one in my next post for some free suggestions :D

Rough Draft Part - 3

2006-11-09T01:52:00.000+05:30

God may have created man before woman, but there is always a rough draft before the masterpiece.

P.S: Got this in a forward....found this funny...
P.S.S: er...I lied in P.S, I just wanted to check something ;)...
And in case you're wondering adhu enna part - 3, where's part 1 and 2...adhellam onnum illa...guess the 'part' thingy's in vogue these days. Why should I be left behind? ;)

Boys

2006-11-07T11:29:00.000+05:30

Weekend vandha enna maari aalungalukku enna panradhune theriyadhu
B’lore-la irundha orey naala shopping-ra perla salary fulla gaali panniduventu I take a detour to Hosur. My aunt lives there. I love this place, the cool weather, cleaner air, aunt’s garden, veetu motta maadi, aunt’s yummy cooking, my 7 year old cousin Tulli; jolly-a time pass agum. Much to the irritation of Tulli’s sister who’s preparing for her 12th board :D
Ennaala mudinja help!
Last weekend was no different from all this. I was in the room minding my own business, reading all the kumudhams and ananda vikatans that I had missed in the past 3-4 months. Tulli was playing next to me, edho Jetix-nu pudusa oru torture medium vandhu irukku…adhula edho oru program paathutu edho unnutha vaangi wrist-la kaatikittu penathi kittu irundhan.
Guess one of his stunts landed him on the edge of the cot; satham pottu azhudha, panra korangu seshtaiku odha pinniduvaanga! So palla kadichittu room-a suthi guthichittu irundan. Me amused;
Me: Ennada aachu
Tulli: adi patruchi ka
Me: enga da? (without bothering to lift my eyes from tht kumudham)
Tulli: Idho inga
I looked up now and saw him pointing to the edge of the cot
Me: dei…enga adi pattuchu da?
Tulli: Idho inga thaan akka (still pointing at the cot)
Me: (hiding a smirk; really I was beginning to enjoy this…!) oye…unna naa enna kekure…ENGA DA ADI PATTUCHU? (I could have very well put it in a better way, but I had to see how far this goes!)
Tulli: Aiyo inga ka…o endha edathulanu kekuriya?
Me: appa…adhe thaan loosu
Tulli: idho konjam sharp-a irukula indha edathula
Me: kizhinjudhu (but that was lost in my loud laughter)
Kid had no clue what was so funny….after some explaining he was so red faced that he told me …’please please…en akka korathi (her name’s karthi, chellama korathi) kitta sollidadha’
Next thing he knew Korathi…oops Karthi was laughing her head off…adhu ennamo kutti pasanga kitta vambu valakanumna; it’s almost irresistible for me ;)

Tulli’s famous stunts include rolling off the road into the ditch during a failed attempt to ride his cycle in full speed to impress the girls, falling on the carom board breaking it right at the center (he was a 3 year old then!...poor baby) and my favorite one is when his swing snapped flinging him off it, on to the floor in the middle of his much loved song ‘dhoom machale’ (he was singing it and mind you he can’t speak a word in hindi!)…quite something when the object flung is quite rotund :)

His stunts are only rivaled in my family by his 6 year old cousin, best friend and rival; Bali. Now if they ever made Problem Child in Tamil, I’d strongly recommend they cast this kid in it!

Crazy Days

2006-10-31T17:24:00.000+05:30

This post (at least the title!) is inspired from the fact that I am totally in love with this song I am listening to right now (Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy) and that the following topic was the one discussed over lunch with my friends yesterday….so read on..!

There were these little weird habits that I had when I was a kid…and what I found out from that discussions yesterday was that everyone had their share of these thingies :D
(But apparently I was a tad bit too weird and hence the winner :)

I remember that that when I had to wear flowers on my 5 inch long hair, I was so particular that it should be worn in a particular fashion. The gajra had to be longer that my own hair, and I should be able to see it. (rolling my eyes) So it has to be pinned right in the front hanging down from my head blocking out half my vision! I won’t be caught dead looking like that now. And when it was a rose, it had to be a high pony tail with the flower sticking out of my head like some kind of a lightning conductor. Shudder! Thank god I don’t wear flowers any more

Those were days without cable television. DD was THE entertainer! (it sounds ridiculous now…in fact more of a paradox). The weekly dose of movies were the ones played during the weekend. I never used to miss even the regional language feature films they played on Sunday afternoons. God knows I have watched Bengali, Malyalam, Telugu, Assamese, Oriya (guess even Bhojpuri) movies; without understanding a single word! The worst part was that I used to try and speak like the people in those movies for the entire evening…yikes! Imagine a 10 year old running around the house, trying to pull off a Malayalam/Bengali accent without knowing a bit of that language. I am only grateful that my parents did not fling me out of the second floor window. Phew!

My school used to get over in the afternoon so I was home for lunch. But my friends won’t be back until evening. So until evening it was upto me alone to keep myself occupied. Mind you these were when I was in my fourth and fifth standard. And those were days I worshipped Madonna (guess no different on that now!). So I used to take this old cassette of hers (Extended hits…I still got that one :D ) play it nice and loud…take an empty pearl pet bottle, use that as a mic and dance (read jump) around the house trying to lip synch. My mother did not give it much thought, in fact that kind of took care of the mess until one day when I fell off my stage (er…that was the sofa) and almost hit the center table. After that Madonna paatu ketta pearl pet-alaye vizhum :( Guess that's the reason they shifted me to those schools with the 'normal' timings the following year onwards!

Give me one of those white Natraj erasers…brand new ones preferred. Infact the eraser just had to be nice and white and smell a little bit good. And I’ll bite it off! The eraser doesn’t necessarily have to be mine and that landed me into a lot of trouble for encroaching other’s property. I had this serious ‘problem’ for a long time…in fact well into my higher secondary. Aiyoo shivane!

This one takes the cake and I am red faced everytime I have to admit this. In my early teens I had a monster crush on (gag me!) Salman Khan!!!!....uggggggghhhhh!
I can’t think what levels of insanity I had reached when I was an adoloscnet…listening to boy bands, even had a couple of posters of those girlie guys in my room. But this!!!...Salman Khan. Aaarrrgghhh! What on earth can force one to do such a thing in life?!
Okie that's it from me for now....I can only say so much without wanting to kill myself...Ppl if you have the nerve now...share yours :P

I am back!!!

2006-10-25T18:04:00.000+05:30

Wow…and it feels good to be back :)
Diwali breezed past before I could know
As usual I did not have the time to book my tickets home so had to hitch a ride to and from Coimbatore :)
And it’s been a really long time since I had sat in the front seat on a long drive on the highway
And boy what a drive it was
Looks like the did-not-get-a-ticket folks like me were all over B’lore because when we drove out of the city early Friday morning…we had a fleet of at least 30 to 40 b’lore cars for company…(did I forget to mention a few bikers as well?)
(forget diwali…let’s go take POK!)
First stop; Reliance petrol a few kilometers off Hosur. Caruku petrol, enakku dosai and en akka husband (he was the one who was driving all the way home to show his wife his new car; and I gratefully accepted the free lift!) settled for Pongal.
Now the canteen was no less chaotic than the road; because the entire fleet was hungry for breakfast and decided to ‘dock’ at that exact same place.
In minutes the small A1 canteen was swarming with hungry Bangaloreans who had by now bypassed the supervisor and servers and were grabbing their pongals, idlis and wadas directly from the kitchen counter!...These IT people I say! :D
We pinned our hopes on the hapless supervisor who was still trying to get to his boys in the kitchen for the order. 15 minutes, 20 minutes…
Still no sight of the pongal and dosai…so me asked ‘what happened to our order?’ ‘Madam…no plates!’
Just then we saw the proactive Bangalorean crowd had now began stalking the ‘dish washer’ and were grabbing the freshly cleaned plates as well (!!!)
Finally the poor supervisor managed to bring us our dishes…By far he was the most scared little person in that whole place…even his subordinates were hell bent on ragging him. Anyway, we got our breakfast…chomped it down…no time for coffee…hit the road followed by the entire ‘convoy’.

And then began the ultimate race until we hit Krishnagiri…excellent road, the cars ripped past each other…good loud music….Aaah heaven
And then we reached the place from where the folks to Chennai departed the party and took the absolutely superb highway to Chennai while we poor Coimbatoreans queued up on the beat up single lane ‘highway’.
The race was over…but there was a lot more to come
About half an hour before we hit the ghats there was an accident a few metres ahead…didn’t someone tell them the race was long over?!
What else do you expect; traffic jam…bumper to bumper
Aarrgghhh!...and then someone said ‘Eureka…I found a road!’
Now this was a small road leading into the villages by the highway.
The entire convoy followed the lead of the unidentified driver into the road; much to the amusement of the local villagers…
Hell, it’s not everyday that you see 30 cars flying past that road!
Best part was none of us was sure where this road lead to…it was the correct direction alright; but will we ever be back to the highway?
If you ask me, To hell with the highway, this small adventure was far more beautiful complete with fields, ponds full of lilies and of course the small element of suspense ;)
Some 21 kilometres later we hit the highway…actually there wasn’t any road; only a mound we had to climb to get back on the road…
And it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the long line of trucks wouldn’t let us cross over to the otherside…
But one brave bangalorean ‘uncle’ alighted from his car and stood in front of a truck with his arms outstretched ‘Thou shall not pass!’
Now that was indeed brave considering the fact that the truck driver was game enough to run him over than wait for the entire fleet to pass!!!
But then courage and humanity won and we were allowed to get onto the other side.
An indica in the fleet struggled but with some help from the inmates of the car and the cries of impatience from the truck driver, it made it.
The traffic was better as we had avoided the worst of it, but was still slow moving as we entered the miserable little town of Kaveri pattinam (don’t remember the name but let’s stick to this). Now KP was a cursed little place….
Small town, smaller roads, a rickety bridge…and full of buses who took the liberty of stopping right in the middle of the road to let their passengers alight; which was just about everyone on board! There was a bus station but it was almost empty…hell when you can stop on the road, who wants to go into the bus station?!
So another horrible jam! This time as the vehicles queued up patiently in the slow moving traffic, a fiat uno decided to take a different route.
Bangaloreans!...they’ll never learn :D
This gentleman drove over the muddy slushy mound by the side of the road in an attempt to beat the traffic…and of course he had a couple of followers.
What a shame, because the traffic began to move as soon as he left the convoy and after all that adventure, he had to join from the exact same spot on the queue from where he and his shishyas had left…sad!
Now by this time we had enough of this party, so we took a detour towards Mettur thereby avoiding the Salem and our happy bangaloreans…no surprise, some followed us in there too, but what the heck… I took a small nap …
My brother in law picked a tucsan to race with until we reached bhavani….
And just when my bro-i-l said ‘You know, I guess I’ve started to miss my bangalorean friends’…surprise…there they were on the national highway when we joined them past bhavani!
Another neck –n- neck race till we hit coimbatore only to be met by a huge convoy on the outskirts of the city
(Seriously….we should have gone to POK!)
By the time our vehicle crawled into the premises of our house…it was 9 hours since we left bangalore…and all I could think of was food…sleep!
But when I did enter the house; ‘ goo goo…agoooo…akhooo..bhrruuu…inglaeee’
Awwww….I can’t turn away from that 45 cm of pink bundle of joy, oozing cuteness called my niece now, can I??…
Hope you all had a goo goo…oops gala time this Diwali…now ..back to work!

bye bye... bye bye

2006-09-23T00:59:00.000+05:30

Aiyyyaaaa....naa veetuku poren!!!
Oru vazhiya me returns to india tomorrow
Adichu pidichu luggage pack panniyachu, adhu vera excces aagi paathi ingaye vitutu poren :((
en friend thaan eduthutu varuvan :D
aiyo...ennala wait panna mudilaye...sunday morning eppa varumnu irukku
but once i go back, i'll be on a looooooooong vacation...aparam october 8th thaan office varuve
iduku naduvula blog pannuvena....doubt thaan
so all you folks...en profile-a sathya london uk poi...sathya b'lore india aana piragu meet pannuvom
Till then...you better miss me :P

ugghhh!

2006-09-20T04:49:00.000+05:30

A few posts earlier Gils ranted about how the Butiful ‘New york nagaram’ song has been painfully shot in the movie JOK…Really, when will our guys learn this simple truth?
DO NOT LIP SYNC FOR A SONG THIS BEAUTIFUL!!!
I mean at least not every line?...including the ooo and aaa by the rapper…gawd even the chorus in the end!
Otherwise it is okie…the city is shown in quite a new way.

And wanna-be-cone-head-haystack haired jyothika….stop mimicking my hair do (hahahaha)…the one you wore in the song...it sucks on you!...the idea is not to give it such a height if you have a bloated face like that! Looks like you inverted a bucket on your head and curled up the ends…uuugggghhhh!
some poeple actually thought that was cute???...retards...that lady's cute otherwise, but in that song...ha!
And bhumika....you can't dance to save your life can you?? :D
And Surya...cries like a girrrl hahaahaha

PG Wodehouse says...

2006-09-19T15:25:00.000+05:30

"The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun"

To the moon and back...

2006-09-15T01:44:00.000+05:30

The romantic over promise of a song has been a fav of mine since school days when I first heard it....But then...when the moon looks so gorgeous; I really don't mind :)

P.S: All vetti build up....I once looked out of my window one night and suddenly found the moon so beautiful, I just had to dig out my camera :)

Glassy ;)

2006-09-08T04:08:00.000+05:30

One Tequila...
Two Tequila...
Three Tequila...*Hick*!
Floor Tequila !!!!

:D
Saw this on a guy's T shirt on a Saturday night in the underground train...Seriously...I couldn't hold back my laughter (ipod-la Glassy-nra paatu vera...aaha waat a coincidence!)..Guy looked curious ...Me pointed to his T shirt...guy says...I stopped with 2 (showing a three)...whole carriage (aama...there were hardly 5 poeple in it!) roars....

Implementation done...andha urupudatha code production-la pottachu...It's party time every where...sollava venum

'Yellow boy...you see that tube light there?'
'eh...hick...you mean those tube lights???...No!'
:))

Two down...None to go :D

2006-09-04T00:37:00.000+05:30

Tagged by gils

One book that changed my life:
Err…I don’t believe a book can change my life, I don’t even think that they would disturb me; may be because I am such a lousy ‘reader’!

The book you have read more than once:
Never read a book more than once, own some books, but read even the best just once; I don’t know why, just didn’t feel like going back, no matter how good the book was…

One book you would want on dessert island:
Book???...I’d think on a ‘deserted’ island the last thing I’ll think of would be a book…#%&* where’s my ipod???!

One book that made you laugh:
If comics qualify…asterix..I actually laugh out loud, much to the irritation of the chap seated next to me in the bus who almost jumps up startled hearing a strrrrange hysterical noise (ahem…that’s how pathetic it is when I laugh!)
Apart from that P.G.Wodehouse carry on jeeves

One book that made me cry:
Answered before…books can’t affect me
Well, wait a minute if you mean crying out of despair and brooding on your fate that you had to go through this pain of reading this book; there is one; Chetan Bhagat’s one night in a call centre…Seriously Mr. Bhagat, what happened???!..one book wonder huh?!

One book you wish you had written:
LORT…Seriously, I didn’t have the patience to finish all 3 books…it’s simply too huge! But creativity…my god…Tolkien has written a dream! Middle earth, Gollum, Shire…And the movie, now I don’t know how many times I’ve watched it.
Kane and Able a close second (anyone’s made it into a movie yet??!..how the heck did they miss it..it’s total paisa/award vasool material!)

One book that you wish had never been written:
HP series…yeah witchcraft and wizardry…nice ..interesting; but what’s all the fuss about??!

P.S: I just returned home; My train ended in London King’s cross rly station and they were shooting a scene for the next Harry Potter movie on the foot bridge over the very platform I alighted…Can’t wait to see the look on my HP crazy friend’s face when I tell her this :D

One book you are currently reading:
Technically I haven’t had the time to go beyond the first chapter for the past 2 months…but I found the book okie… Fredrick Forsythe’s fourth protocol

One book you have been meaning to read:
Guns of Navarone…have to watch that movie too…any one got a copy??

Me..Sci fi...you got to be kidding!

2006-08-22T01:47:00.000+05:30

Tagged!....continued from KK

I was thinking fast now…I refused to believe what the guy with the funny mustache was telling me…I began reasoning…I asked him;
‘Wait a minute, don’t get me wrong…but you have a totally different ‘image’ down where I come from…Now you want to save the world?!...I don’t buy that!’
‘Well, my motives were different from the rest of the world…Don’t you know history is written by those who win?? We can never say who can be the judge of what is right and wrong…What benefits you is right and what goes against your motive is wrong…’
‘Wait….I might not be as good with facts, but what you actually did do is quite ‘popular’ and going by that I can say none of that was right…So why the Morpheus?’
‘Hmmmm….(smiles) So you do know of it, don’t you?’
‘What Matrix…of course, any red blooded guy my age would know that!...it was a cult hit!’
‘Well it wasn’t exactly the movie I was talking about, but the existence of the parallel universe, the kind shown in the movie’
‘You mean that was for real??’
‘You could say that…but remember, there’s no spoon!’
‘Aaaah Hitler…cut it!’…I almost bit my tongue at that; you don’t talk to men like that the way I just did!...But he was already on his way out of the room…
Not knowing what else to do, I followed him through the door…
After a brief awkward silence I asked ‘So what do you want me to do for your mission?’
‘Not so soon, you have a lot to learn…you are trained to think in a certain way that would only apply to the world out there…you have been made to believe all those laws, constraints that were laid down by people from THAT world, you see, not all of that is true…You have to unlearn what you spent time learning all your life…here the apple doesn’t fall down to the ground…’
‘You mean they were all wrong? The likes of Einstein, Newton???’
‘They weren’t, but they saw what they believed’
‘I don’t think I completely follow that!’
‘Well in time, you would’
‘Well thank god you said the T word…so ‘time’ still exists…I am not in a void, a vacuum?’
‘It depends on how you would define time! It is not irreversible; it is not marked by the succession of events, in fact events are not marked by their time of occurrence either’
‘You mean these 2 entities are actually independent now?’
‘Almost, they always have been…that gives you the key to reverse what has already happened…’
‘You mean you plan to erase all those anti-social elements, just the way you could reverse a change?’
‘You could say that’
‘How would you do that?’
‘We simply would tune back to the time when something wrong began and control it from there on…You would make the events proceed in the way you want them to’
‘We call that time travel’
‘Well, that’s just one of the methods to this procedure…’
‘So this way you intend to undo every evil?’
‘Yes’
‘That reminds me…you have been quite successful in diverting my attention from the question that I asked,in the world I *was* once from you are one of the most evil things to have happened. Now you want to save the world?!...You haven’t answered me yet!’

Alright…I have no clue what to do with this from here :)
I leave it to Harish, Karthik to take it from here…God speed guys…I know I’ve messed it up enough :)
P.S: My sincere thanks to the Wachowski brothers, Mel Gibson and Gregory David Roberts for helping me through this ordeal...phew!...couldn't have done it without them guys

ZZzzzzzzzzzz

2006-08-19T15:14:00.000+05:30

The woods are lovely, dark and deep...
But I am not going anywhere; I'd rather sleep ;)

P.S: It's saturday and I've never seen the sun before 10 on a weekend...they made me wake up and I miss my sleep angel :(
P.S.S: pic taken English Lake district, Windermere. nov'05

The stupid...

2006-08-15T01:33:00.000+05:30

...you've got to admire their consistency!

Garfield.

Welcome to the Jungle!

2006-08-11T05:48:00.000+05:30

I work in the IT industry…something that’s thronged by people by the scores every quarter.
And so it gives one a good opportunity to meet the ‘S P E C I E S’!
Don’t get me?…ya know them all…they are there in every office.
And no matter how things change for the better or the worse; the world’s never going to run out of them :)
So let’s explore the jungle now…well from the top of the food chain.
The King:
Obviously the lion…the supposedly majestic animal that prowls the cubicle areas with the pride that’s matched only by the lethal speed that it’s roving eyes catch a glimpse of it’s poor little prey; sprinting out to catch the last bus. Makes sure that the poor creature is dragged back to the confines of the cubicle and is made to stay irrespective of whether or not it was actually needed!
But apart from that, just like it’s ‘jungly’ counterparts, the Corpo Lion also is one of those lazy filthy creatures which do nothing but roam around pointlessly all day, having meetings with fellow Lions, coffee and the occasional fag and leave the work to others. And when it’s time to divide the loot (read laurels); they always manage to snatch it all away. And what do they actually know about the work they/their team’s doing is something that’s as mysterious as those strange jargons that they dish out in times of crisis rather than resolving it (You got to admire it; they always manage to get away with it!)

More on the food chain…soon!

Mind it!

2006-08-09T04:22:00.000+05:30

'You're such an A&*# hole!' the woman next to me purred...for a minute I was all ears. Seriously, I sprinted all the way from home to catch the train and when I did manage to wriggle into the already crowded compartment, I found my nose pressed against the glass door. I was trying hard to figure out how I was going to avert the inevitable situation of me being washed off into the plat form in the next stop and then I hear this. Wow...showtime! Yeah I know I could be crassy and mean at times, but then it's not every day an English woman uses such words against a stranger! Apparently the 'gentleman' had thumped her face in his effort to get out and the lady felt the apology he mumbled was not enough or may be no apology would have been enough...I didn't know who was at fault but both parties argued on, with the lady dishing out one 'ponmozhi' after another!
My station arrived and I jumped out and walked to get the next underground train. On my way to the underground station it's become quite a habit of mine to stop to pick one of those free news papers. Awaited my turn, pulled one and when I was about to leave managed to hear another elderly woman standing behind me, say to another girl who in all haste tried to snatch up the paper ahead of her, in a voice that would have broken sheets of glass 'Await your turn!'.
In the underground train, the guy who boarded the train with me had a song humming quite audibly on his mobile and was fishing for something in his bag (ear phones perhaps)...he didn't bother to reduce the volume or switch it off until he settled in his seat at the end of the carriage...'would you mind turning that off??'...this was from a much irritated man...
Whoa...London was sure not at it's well mannered best today :D
Pre match jitters perhaps???

P.S: the events happened on 29th jun, eve of England's qtrfinal encounter in FIFA'06...I just posted this one too late

Hey baby hey baby hey!

2006-08-03T01:11:00.000+05:30

Alright; I might be the millionth parent, sister, aunt, brother, grandma, friend (!) to boast about the latest arrival in the family...there has to be this post/mail/scrap with the kiddie's pic!
Originality...ha!
But then, who am I to make an exception???
So there you go; that's my week old niece...haven't seen her yet
Just heard her coo over the phone...wow...babies don't just look/smell cute, they got amazing phone etiquettes...really, my mother goes 'hey hey it's aunty...' (now that word is scary!)
and this lady cries out in the most irritated tone...but hey...even that sounds cute to me.
And so; gone are the days when I used to be the youngest member in the family...the spotlight has moved now....and I can't wait to see the new star

Welcome to the Taj

2006-07-19T00:02:00.000+05:30

It's beautiful...it's white...it could have easily modelled for Ujala or surf excel...err sorry for ruining it for the romantics;and like they say, the Taj is poetry on marble. Shah Jahan or his architect, perhaps understood this truth I guess; If you want to make a statement; make it in white! :D
I had always heard about the Taj as a kid and thinking that it is one of the few things that put us Indians on the global map added to the excitement. So when we first moved to Delhi when I was in th fourth std., one of the first things I asked my father was that if he'd take me to the Taj. Being the doting dad that he is, he took me not just once but twice. But then.....!
The first time that I went there, it was a real cold winter day, I was yet to adjust to that kind of cold and my mother had promptly wrapped me up in layers of warm clothes leaving just enough space to breathe and watch where I stepped! So much for seeing the Taj. I thought it was too much of a disturbance. God knows I could have easily passed for a sheep if only that fluffy sweater wasn't pink! I didn't feel very special about the much anticipated visit to the Taj; my mind was pre-occupied. I chose to blame it on the cold winter. So my father decided to take me during the summer hols...uh-oh!
Now cut to a hot summer day in Agra...scorching heat and add to it the fact we had driven all the way from Delhi stopping on the way at Mathura...er temple is not the best place to hang out for a kid. I was not one of those kids who'd take well to driving any day either, let alone on a hot summer day. So finally I landed in Agra. When I stepped out of the vehicle I could hardly feel my feet beneath me and had this funny feeling in my stomach. I mistook it for excitement! Yikes!
And began the long tumultuous walk towards the monument. The uneasy feeling grew with every step that I took. We had my aunt's family that was visiting us for the summer. My cousins and sister were all happy and well, but I somehow couldn't join them. We finally reached the Taj. And after visiting the enclosure on the top, we started to move towards the steps that lead downstairs to the graves. Now I started really fretting! The crowd was nothing like I had ever seen in my entire lifetime, and the way it disappeared down the stairs somehow convinced me that it was either a whirlpool down there or some kind of a monster sitting in the dark gobbling up people! Very hesitantly I began to climb down the stairs (in fact, I did not want to go, but I was swept away by the crowd). In minutes I could no longer see my mother and father, they were probably down there already, but I couldn't have thought of that in the state of mind that I was in. Add to it all that congestion that would make Chennai's Renganathan street look like heaven! And the horrible smell of travel wiery souls who did not care for a bath on a hot day...one more step down and I could breathe no more...I knew it; the monster'd got me good!...Run!!!!...I turned and with almost superhuman strength ran against the crowd on to the top of the stairs, the sudden burst of air and that relief trigerred a reaction so unexpected that it even left me gaping at what I had done...I retched! eeeeessssshhhh!...You read it...I retched...puked...threw up...call it whatever you want!
And not just anywhere....in the Taj!
Great balls of fire...Couldn't I pick a better place (the yamuna behind the monument could have been an ideal place!) The crowd didn't seem to bother, they just continued to move on...the man who stood on top with the lathi glowered down on me...'Kiske saath aayi ho'
You don't talk to scared little girls like that man!...But all I could mumble out was a feeble whimpering 'Mummy!'
He said in a voice that could have had me wailing right there had I not been too scared to do it, 'Go get her'.
I nodded and fled from the scene and got outside under the sun to one corner of the corridor; where my uncle caught hold of me 'Where have you been' and noticing my face 'Have you been crying?'
eeek! Wrong statement! And all that pent up emotions exploded right there...'Maaaaaaaammmmyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!....Maaaaa-aaa-aa-aaamyyyyy!!!!!'
My helpless uncle walked the wailing nuisance that I had become straight to my mom and once she managed to calm me down back in the car, she asked me how I got lost. I very innocently narrated the whole account and said 'That lathiwala asked me to get you...come we'll go back'...but that sentence was drowned in the loud roars of laughter from everyone else in the vehicle...'You did WHAT in the Taj?????' I couldn't believe I had become the butt of ridicule...I turned, buried my face in my mother's lap and continued with my wailing...'Maaaaaaa-aaaaa-aaaaaa-mmmmyyyyyyy!!!!!!'
Anyway, thinking of it later in my life only made me laugh uncontrollably!...And half the people I told this incident to didn't believe me!...So much for the monument all Lovers worship! (I am not someone who is very much at ease with the matters of the heart...too tricky, guess that's why I simply didn't fit in that kind of a shrine!)

Edi darling!

2006-07-13T14:30:00.000+05:30

Home away from home...that's what this place became for me for the past one year....Of all cities I have been to I haven't found one grand, dwarfing arresting city like Edinburgh...the architecture is more traditional than modern; you won't find the slick sky scrapers, you'll find those tall strong pillars, the sky line adorned with bronzes set atop buildings, and a fantastic castle sitting pretty on a dormant volcano that dominates the entire city. Fairly good population, comfortable size, lovely summer...laid back life...I couldn't ask for more! If you happen to visit this city, suggest you take a train...the first sight of the city centre when the train pulls into the station is not somehting you'd forget in a hurry...
The city played host to the g8 summit same time last year and the otherwise shopper's paradise Princes Street was the scene of protests and marches...Edi residents all got a piece of that; including myself :D
In set is a tiny pic taken during one such protest marches (Neither me nor the rest of the city ever had seen a crowd this massive!)

Here goes nothing!

2006-07-08T03:53:00.000+05:30

Tagged!
so...here I go!
Desired Celebrity
mmmmm....I like this question :D
Now I am finding it hard to mention one...so the first one that comes to my mind...Val 'Oooooh' Kilmer! Oh Mi Gawd!!!
I saw this Top Gun movie years back; my sister was ga ga on Mr Tom short Cruise...And then I saw this guy in the movie called ice man; what can I say...it was crush at first sight! That attitude, that hair...those eyes...those...ahem...alright I'll cut it. I've drooled over him in Doors, Tombstone, Batman forever (sad movie...just watched for this eye candy!), the saint...aiyo this list won't ever end!
P.S: he is one of my fav. actors of all time...not just a stunner; he's an amazing actor!
P.S.S: he looks this stunner no more...what you can see now would be an aging overweight Kilmer...of late I swoon over Mark Philippousis, Arjun Rampal, Scheva, Heath Ledger

Want to do this some day...

I am a tad bit too passionate about music...and I have forever wanted to go to a live concert...where my kinda music plays...the amazing guitar!!!! (actually I want to learn this one someday!)...I almost came close to fulfilling this wish twice, once when a god called Roger Waters was in B'lore; I had my final sem exams (who cares!) ..but my dad managed to drag me back to college! The next time I almost booked for the Mark Knopfler concert a year back; but then I was sent to UK! sob sob!..One day i'll go to such a concert...may be Santana this time and scream my lungs out!

A place I would want to visit....

Am a history buff... and nothing excites me more than the Egyptian civilization; something that stood the test of time. Any given day if I was granted a boon to grow wings and fly away somewhere I like...I'd land straight on the Giza under the hot sun :) [er...that might hurt...but what the heck!]

P.S: A small guest house on the way to Walparai comes a close second...I love that place!...Maldives, the lower himlayas, Spain, Greece would be next on the queue

Random Favourites

Redder of the last arc!...it doesn't get redder than this...Paint it red baby!!!

I am head over heels in love with this colour...strong, passionate, bold, dangerous, dark and sensuous; I simply can't get enough of this colour :)

I was tagged by...

And the Oscar goes to....ta ra ra rat ta ta...KK!

Alright...now whom do I tag...yaawwwwn...who's on that grudge list???!...Whom do I have to settle scores with???...Yaawwnn...okie, sleepy now; I'll deal with'em later; after all 'Revenge is a dish best served cold' ;)

And who'd know that better than a scorpio???!

One and a half

2006-07-02T10:25:00.000+05:30

Wait...I had written this long back when I was in B'lore and forgotten about it...and today I find this hiding among my drafts :)
Read on now...

Bangaloreans are familiar with this term; one and a half...altaaf!!!
Well this is not about that show on Radio City. This is just one of those funny encounters on a busy morning. Me and my friend, are as usual late for the office. It's a dull monday morning, but that hardly makes any difference for us. We have missed our bus and the next trips start late in the afternoon. We might not exactly move mountains back there in the office, but then turning in half a day late...er...a tad bit too much to digest. We decide to take an auto to out office. It so happens that we have to go all the way to electronics city and no 'normal' autowala would take us there for the 'normal' charge! The rest of the rendezvous....
Me(stopping the auto): Electronics city jaana hai
Autowala(thinks for a while): haa ji
my friend and myselg board the auto
My friend (whispers to me): I am surprised...he did not ask one and a half!
A.W(after 10 minutes in a busy signal): Madam, 20 Rupees extra de do!
m.f (whispers hastily to me): Did he hear me???!
Me (to the A.W): yeh ab bata rahe ho...tabhi batana tha na?
m.f: abhi bhi kuch nahi bigda (almost jumps out of the rick..one hasty soul!)
me: (to my friend)wait, we're late. (to the autowala) tikh hai. jayiye, dekhi jayegi
after this the auto moves on, we are engrossed in our own conversation. sometime later, my friend notices the fare on the auto meter and almost shrieks!
m.f: Yeh kya? itni jaldi 30 rupees, yaha tak aane ke to 20 lagte hain
a.w: madam itna hi lagta hai
me: hum roz jaate hain, hume pata hai (yeah yeah, we travel every day on this route, and like we can afford it, by a rick!...BTW, it was the first time!)
my friend is still mumbling something. I am tired and we start talking again. finally after about half an hour, we reach our office. i ask the autowala to stop outside our gate.
me: By god, it's 130!!!
m.f: See! it takes 70 normally. What did I tell you?
me: Aapka meter to tikh hai
a.w: Yeh all right. one and half do!
m.f: That's it, I've had enough! aapka auto already one and half hi dikha raha hai!!!!
a.w: madam paisa de do. mujhe hindi nahi maaloom!
me: !!!!!!!!!!!!...to abhi tak kaun si bhasha bol rahe the?
a.w: hindi nahi maaloom (hindi suddenly changes to broken format). paisa do
me: Acha. fine. Abhi mudo, Electronics city ke entrance pe traffic police khadi hai. They'll translate for you. Aur woh batayenge tujhe kitne paise dene hain.
m.f: haa, tab tak hum auto se nahi utarne wale (holds adamantly to the iron rod on the side as if she suspected he would drag her out!).
a.w: kya madam? tikh hai 130 de do
me: 70 se zyada ek kaudi nahi!
m.f: haa. tab tak yahi baitenge, hum dono ko aur koi kaam nahi hai. (how true!...but one should not be this honest!) ya to 70 lo, ya phir entrance pe jao, waha police baat karenge
a.w: Subah subah kya madam.
me(handing out a 100 note): Paise lo aur baat khatham.
a.w(understanding that there's no other way he could get rid of us): ha 80 leta hoo, magar change nahi
me: change mein leke deti hoo, go to that shop
a.w: ruko, mere paas 10 hai chelega?
me: 80 loge to baaki 10 ayega?
a.w: kya madam itni badi office aur 10 rupay ke liye
me (gritting my teeth, we know how much they pay us!!!): woh sab rehne do, agar mein 10 kam deti to tum lete?
m.f: ha haa....waise bhi they dont pay us! (lady, one more confession and I can kill myself!)
a.w: tikh hai ruko
fishes out another 10 rupee note and leaves. we are glad that we won a battle and weren't robbed of our money and walk away into our office ... to do, well, nothing, and get paid almost nothing in return!

Rockin'

2006-07-01T04:54:00.000+05:30

'You see I loooove music!...'Western' music only you see'
Hmmm...western music, the one they play in those old Clint Eastwood movies huh...I wondered.
I asked 'So what kind of 'western' music do you like?'
'Oh...rock...you see; metallica, Lincoln Park...'
'You mean Linkin Park...'
'Yeah yeah...same one.And Bryan Adams'
'Oh!...that's lovely, you like Metallica, Linkin Park and then Biryani...oops Bryan Adams?'
'Yessss!'
'And you don't like...what's her name...aah, Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez...?'
'Oh....they're the best!'
I knew I was close to a heart attack, but I wanted to see how far this conversation could go...so..
'What wbout, Ashley simpson?'
'Who?....oh that blonde girl...she's good, got a bright future'
'Um...in 'rock' you mean?'
(hesitantly)'Yeah...'
Alright, I've heard everything now...Why put up a show that you are a 'rock' fan and put up that phoney 'passion' for music?...especially 'rock' music :)
Ask my mother about rock and pat she'd reply...'those rock stars i say...they're either bald (even women!!!!)....or they got hair longer than my daughter!...and they always seem like they've been electrocuted by the guitar they're playing!...or are screaming their lungs out!!!'...
And then there was this friend of mine...you ask him what music he likes...he snaps back...'Beyonce!...just the eye candy...spare me the music' :D
Now that's honesty!

P.S: I've got nothing against 'rock' :D
I like basalt, granite, sandstone among others :)

Of what I watched...

2006-06-29T03:01:00.001+05:30

Recently I have been doing a lot of research on the DVD lending library :D
And actually stumbled on some must see-s. The place where I rent from has an excellent collection; I must say.
After HERO, I took an interest in movies from the east again. The seven samurai did more than it's part in reviving that interest. Now I have 4 oriental flicks lined up in my DVD selections, including Yojimbo and Rashomon. The latest movie I watched was Infernal Affairs, a Hong Kong movie, I had seen half of it more than a year back. It was aired after much hype on star movies and it sure was worth all that hype. Unfortunately I couldn't finish it that day due to a flight I had to take. But I found it this time in the library and Bingo...I get it delivered to my place!
It's a slick gripping thriller and the best cop movie I have seen of late...sure ranks along side the likes of L.A. confidential. Not a dull moment, excellent cast and a smashing ending. The movie catches you off gaurd right from the very beginning; the first scene when Sam is 'recruiting'...It's being made in Hollywood (The Departed slated for release this year) and is directed by none other than Martin Scorcese. Now you know what I'm talking about ;) The hollywood version has Matt Damon and Leonardo di Caprio in the lead(have you noticed; these 2 guys look similar), but though Damon is an excellent actor, it's hard to match what Andy Lau and Tony Leung pulled off in the original. Watch the original before the remake comes out (it's shame, the original is not even credited!...Boo Scorcese!). Class apart, highly recommended.
****Do not go into this movie expecting a marshal arts show down. It's a thriller and is set in very much contemporary times.****
The next set of movies I didn't explore much are the Brit movies, latest of which I saw, The Constant Gardner. Now when this movie released in UK, I had no interest in watching it thanks to the lousy title. But when I did actually see it last week...I kicked myself for having missed it in the theatres. It's so fresh in it's treatment, the location (mostly shot in Africa) and boasts of a heroine so powerful that she dominates the entire movie despite being entirely absent from the frame in the second half. Rachel Weisz took home a well deserved oscar for this one.
Up next on my list are City of God, Cinema Paradiso, Apocalypse now, the French Connection among others...though I've already watched half of them, can harldy wait for these titles to arrive...but not before I watch Infernal Affairs just one more time ;)

The 'H' factor

2006-06-27T04:43:00.000+05:30

Earlier in a blog of mine, I’d cribbed endlessly about my name. This is on similar lines.
My name’s spelt S A T H Y A. But often someone eats up the ‘H’ and it’s amputated to the unaccustomed length of Satya. So I often end up insisting that the H be there.
My northie friends were somehow baffled by the whole account; why does your name have a ‘H’?...you pronounce it Satya; (t as in Tava) and not sattthhhya.
Hey go slow on the ‘ttthhh’!!!!
Now it has become a habit for me to spell out my name, as there's a 100% chance they would leave the poor 'H' out...'Yeah Sathya..Sierra Alpha Tango Hotel Yankee Alpha'....'Yeah...H for Hotel!'
And one day on the corp bulletin board someone wanted to sell their ‘Maruthi’ and a debate followed soon enough on the presence or absence of h.
My friend shruti is often irritated that their southie colleagues fatten her name with the ‘h’ (that they steal from mine?).
One could say if a person is from the north or south merely by looking at how their name’s spelt…or rather mis-spelt :)
But then northies pronounce dosa as ‘Dose-a’ and the souties for their part make Dal sound like ‘doll’.
But then; this is one of those coffee/toffee arguments that go on….and is fun so long as they do :)

Shades of grey....

2006-06-17T15:27:00.000+05:30

A bright sunny day ; standing at the bus stand, waiting for the bus.
I'm busy contemplating that it's been long since I have commuted on a bus...of late which is ever since I started earning, I would call an auto rickshaw hop into one and hop away (things like that don't give you a smooth drive) to my destination...which might be 10 minutes walk from where I am!...my little luxury you see :)
My string of thoughts were interupted by my sister squealing in delight at something; I looked up and half expected to find John Abraham in flesh right there...instead she just said 'You got grey!'
'I got what???'
'Grey you idiot...grey...you got grey hair!'
Now for any normal person, that statement would have been at the most...trivial. But I am no normal person...I am obsessed with my hair!...of all things in the world...at least that's what my friends say, and I live up to it....and my stupid sister knows that.
Not a morning passes without me brushing my hair endlessly with my mother shouting endlessly that I would miss my breakfast in the process of 'setting' my hair!....
A tea break, lunch break, whatever it is, a comb almost immediately materialises in my hand...and well I am one of those people who wouldn't want to be caught dead with a single hair out of place! :D
My friends feel, with what I do with my mane, I would go bald pretty soon!
But now...of late this problem...I didn't know how to react...my sister was so pleased she almost wore that I-knew-this-would-happen-one-day look on her face...that drove me bonkers!
We reached the restaurant; with the whole group waiting; I walked a little ahead and one of my friends quipped 'Hey is that grey...' I turned on time to see that little nudge my sister gave him and the silly grin on their face!...aaarrgggghhh!
For the rest of the day i held it up in a knot.
The moment I reached home, I rushed to my room...complete with two mirrors opposite to each other (well I have seen one such setting only in a Barber shop!)...perhaps my father thought his daughter needed this!
Lights on...I started searching for this one culprit, who seemed to be so noticeable.
There, it didn't take a long time...right there, the lone long shiny silver strand...
Now that I did see it, I very much liked it...the only grey and the long healthy shining look of it almost had me bursting with pride!....it was a divine touch!
And hey, someone said that graying is a symptom of getting wise...these guys are incredible...what they do to one's self esteem!!!...you've got a set of teeth that's protruding a wee too much, hell, it's good luck!...you've got squint eyes...boy, you sure are lucky(guess that lousy actress Rambha proved just that..no talent, no face, but she still was one among the top!!!).
I felt good...IT felt good :)
Ever since, most people have been courteous enough to point out the grey element...but I kind of like the fact that it's such a stand out performance!
No straightening, perming, colouring expeditions, which would pull out most of what you got on your scalp down, could pull this jolly good fella out of his roots...I like this one :)

Stupid Cupid

2006-06-15T02:28:00.000+05:30

There's no telling when this imp would strike. And when he does, you're doomed! The effects are catastrophic. No, this is not about the melting, rather boring, soul draining, sublime form of love, it's about something more lively and full of fun. Crush!
Which is before all that long mobile conversations and the longer mobile bills (seriously, what on earth do they talk???!); the non stop arguments and the meteor showers that follow. It’s when you see this person and you’re nothing if not Mr Drool Face or Miss Ogle n Swoon.
The fearless smooth talker is reduced to a babbling idiot. The otherwise Mr/Miss nerves-of-steel is a wreck of nerves. And your knees go strangely weak. You undergo an entire persona make over when in view of your Object of Adoration (OOA).
Now when was the last time you saw the girl in the bus or the guy you met briefly in a training session? You won't forget the way you felt the first time you saw them (neither would someone who saw you reacting!). Mouth agape, staring shamelessly and conveniently assuming no one has noticed it.
But in most cases they do not even know you exist, and in some you don't know even their name.

Disclaimer: These based on tried and tested fundas, however brickbats are welcome! Also remember that the line between harmless 'sight adichifying' and stalking is very thin!
Most important: Do not attempt these; extreme caution advised. Special thanks to all my friends and consultants for their precious views on this article; right from the theories to formatting!
I’m no expert on this, and if these suggestions might not win you any brownie points but are good enough for a few gags!

Confirm if OOA qualifies before getting ‘involved’. Check marital status. For the fairer sex, it's very obvious (lucky guys) but for men (again lucky guys!) it's way too tough. The best would be to try and spot a ring on the left ring finger; 90% this confirms a married or committed man.
Corollary: Single men, do not wear a ring on your left middle finger, else you run a high risk of staying single forever!
Longer than necessary hushed conversations on the mobile would give it all away for sure.Then the age, you don't want a la Apoorva Raagangal for sure (thoughit's just a crush, but you never know!), so please confirm this fact as muchas possible!Once you're through with this; you're ready to go.
Note: People who have blogged ‘religiously’ on their crushes on their primary school teachers might disagree with me; but there always are exceptions. Besides, this one’s for grown ups :P
Make sure you know the name of your OOA. After all what's it worth running behind the nameless? And what would you tell your spouse in the future…I used to be crazy about…errr….don’t know the name???!
If it's a colleague, the id card could be of great help (ekku thappa maati kittu udha vaangina naa poruppu illa) else listening to his/her conversation with their friends might be beneficial. Someone's going to say his or her name!
Once you fall head over heals and break your nose, make sure you letyour friends know. Discretion runs a high risk of competition among friends.They wouldn't tread your 'territory' once you let them know! And trust me,friends are your greatest allies in such things
Make sure you know some place that your OOA frequents, somewhere youcan catch a glimpse of them. This could be a coffee bar, bus or even violinclass! Your friends could be of maximum use while trying to find out such details. Carrying a news paper (a la Pink Panther…but watch out for the stairs!) might provide certain measure of security. Make sure you haunt those vicinities but be extra careful you're not discovered by your OOA. Additional cover can be found behind bushes and for men especially, spotting a mole or a beard would perfectly disguise you! (hey; it works in the movies!)
Then comes the time you should be noticed, that is gain OOA's attention. Do not break vases, shout or scream and break the sound barrier to achieve this. There are more effective ways of doing this. Like this friend of mine who would cross her OOA's cubicle in front of the pantry daily at 10 and empty an already full bottle of water and refill it. Try such harmless techniques rather than earning a black eye.
It's important now that you make yourself known to your OOA. This does not imply walk over blurt out who you are. Again let your friends do the honours. Have conversations audible enough esp. ones discussing about something good about you (if at all there's something...at least make things up…use your imagination!). If you have a friend who might bear the slightest grudge on you...DO NOT TAKE THEM ALONG!

Note: While discussing this matter with a friend of mine, who could have been awarded a doctorate in this field if there was one, a SME, she came up with a very interesting theory; the Theory of ‘Tries’. Now this is contradictory to what I have mentioned above, but this makes perfect sense and coming directly from a guru, it just has to find it’s way into this article. In her own words:
'Two Tries: If there is an OOA for a person, the steps can be broadly classified into 2; Try noticing the OOA and Try to be noticed by OOA. 2nd is very hard to achieve (Practical experience!!). So best thing to do - if you have the nerves to do it and if u wont be tongue-tied seeing him/ her. Go and introduce yourself to OOA. This is the only way to achieve Step 2. This suggestion is from a person who had failed bitterly in achieving step 2 (and 101% success in Step 1 ). If the approach mentioned here is not followed, OOA will always remain OU (Object Unreachable).'
Give your OOA your undivided attention, you see it's quite flattering if they're noticing! But in case you're a person that believes strongly in multi processing and back ups, never be in a place with more than one OOA. Better flee the scene before the damage's done.
And if your OOA is stupid enough to reciprocate (2 out of 10 times..we all know how to spot THAT don’t we???!), at any cost…do not grin from end to end and flash all 32!!! And worse still, if OOA speaks to you, stop staring, close that tunnel of a mouth and for heaven’s sake say something!!!

If by mistake you do succeed in winning over your Crush; apy flirrrrting :D

And if things get one step ahead and it does (rather accidentally) lead somewhere….what can I say…you went ahead and spoiled all the fun…you spoil sport :P

Don't do an eight!!!

2006-06-13T01:24:00.000+05:30

License vaanga ettu podanumnu solvaanga theriyum (I have no experience of that, only ‘driving’ I can do is to drive people nuts!). But this is a different kind of eight that we Indians, southies in particular have mastered, quite unknowingly.
Anytime I respond to a yes/no question with that fabled ‘eight’ nod (just try and draw a faint horizontal 8 by nodding your head…that’s it…you got it!), the person is confused if that was a yes or a no and it’s always taken for a no! Most of my friends dread it and insist on a spoken yes or no. One used to say ‘Don’t loll your head in all directions; just do a this (moving her head quickly up and down) or this (moving it with almost same speed sideways).
My former Boss used to find this very amusing. And one day he said, ‘hey, I really don’t get it if it’s a yes or no, I take it for a no but your next statement and the look on your face is always contradictory. Can we have a global standard followed here???’ :D
Recently a cab driver in London was a victim of this 8 from me. He had to drive me right across the city and would point at each monument and ask ‘you been there, must see!’ I do a 8 in response and say ‘yeah, really good!’. The poor man was so confused that he couldn’t help asking after the third time, why do you say a no for a yes? Yikes! :D I explained to him that back home from where I come (yaawwwn), this eight is quite a habit with people. And he responded cheerfully with an eight and added ‘Got it!’ But this is one habit I can’t really shake off. And find it equally nice when someone responds to me with the same gesture. May be because it straight away conveys strong agreement, one that most people are rarely in with me :)

Match Point

2006-06-11T04:47:00.000+05:30

You know there are times in life when you walk into something with zero expectations and it turns out to be absolutely stunning? Alright I’ll cut the chase. A rather bored me thought I’d seal this Saturday with a movie. The DVD rental library had dropped in a few for the weekend. I chose this one called Match point. I had heard it was good. So I decided to check it out. I knew the cast and the director and thought; well why not give it a try!
Good that I did it coz this was one movie I should have watched instead of those crazy romantic goofy comedies I had been watching lately. It’s yet another film on adultery; but what’s different about it is the treatment.
Set in London it tells the story of an Irish young man named Chris who finds his way into the wealthy Hewett family and gets himself into way too much trouble. When the movie began, I thought I was going to watch another one of those Wimbledon movies, turns out it’s more about lust and obsession and finally does an unexpected flip. The pieces fall together just fine!
Gripping narrative, excellent performances, interesting characterizations and above all a leading man who is so dark, selfish, brilliant and frighteningly likeable.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers(why does he remind me so much of Joaquin Phoenix?) is so convincing as Chris that you almost hate him by the end of it all. The man sure can use his eyes! Scarlett Johansson is awesome as the sensuous and vulnerable Nola. It’s a shame the academy, just as it does with all good performances, didn’t even notice it. Brian Cox doesn’t have much to do…in fact I almost forgot that he was in the movie! And god is that Emily Mortimer??? After Pink Panther I thought she was born wearing those glasses!
An excellent pick for a weekend. Arguably one of the best movies to have released last year.

BTW, what on earth is Meyers doing in a film like MI:3???!

Blowing hot n cloud!

2006-06-09T04:29:00.001+05:30

No Volcano this one :)
Just one of those bizarre cloud formations...

Notes: Pic taken 30 May 2005, Highlands, Scotland.

Good Read

2006-06-06T22:14:00.000+05:30

I am not an avid reader. Hardly read one or two books in a year.
My appetite for movies and music leaves me no time for books (not that I regret it!)
So I try not to waste all that effort in anything less than a blockbuster :D
Had read 5 point someone last year. Decent.
One of my friends suggested the next book by the author; and I did read it.
Uh-oh…big mistake! Not my kind of book. No dark humour, or crafty writing could save something as weak as that. So, completely ‘blown’ away by this book, I needed something to get me back into the reading habit. Let’s say to get me believing that there’s something good in the literary world that remains(!). So I go to this book shop, gaze around and after almost an hour later I spotted a huge bulky book by the name Shantaram. Read the outline of the plot; interesting!
Picked it up, paid and walked out.
That was almost 3 months back. Excuse me but that’s how fast I read.
I finally completed the 900 pages long book.

I am not quite sure if it fits the good-in-the-literary-world bill, but what the heck, I was bluffing anyway! It may not be the one that would pull you out of the pits in your life, but this tale of strength and will packs such a mixture of all things good and dark that it’s almost unbelievable. The fact that this is true is all the more exciting. Even if you prefer the pot boiler thrillers, this one’s not going to disappoint you.

I personally have been a fan of gangster movies both in hollywood and bollywood (the ones that qualify). But in no movie I have seen the Mumbai underworld in the light as shown in this book. (Sorry, I have to draw my comparisons from movies, as I said, I do not read much!). It’s not the unscrupulous, cruel goons that you come across, but they are depicted just the same way as anyone you might meet in your normal life, men of values, men of wisdom. Just that their perspective of right and wrong and where they draw the line being different (this being one of my all time favourite subjects to debate on!).
But above all, I must admit that what I found most refreshing about the book was the picture of India. No turban wearing poeple, no 'rich' cultural heritage crap, no Indiana Jones temple of doom treatment (Don't get me started on this movie; it's infuriating to even think about it!). And what more, the Indians in this book are (thank god for that) not NRIs! Wowee Powee! It's the India we all know...and the kind of poeple we are familiar with. Oh what a relief. I’ll say no more…spoilers are sinful :)
Heard it would be made into a hollywood movie soon; with Depp in the lead (OMG!!!!). Finally a movie worth waiting for.
Strongly recommended read.

Ha!

2006-06-06T19:12:00.000+05:30

Turned on the comments for the blog from this post on.

Bang Bang!

2006-06-05T20:07:00.000+05:30

Another assignment onsite and again I am out of Bangalore! :(
Much to my alarm I had found on my last trip that I had started awfully missing this crowded little place esp. certain things that I so used to hate about the city! This time it’s no different!First thing you miss; family
Then your friendsThen the rest about the city:
1. The cool weather that’s been prevailing in the city lately…amazing!
2. The mangoes!…ummmmmmmm! Though I’ve eaten more than my share, I just can’t get enough of this fruit :D (I learnt a nice recipe from my brother in law’s home…finely chopped ripe banganaballi/Alfonso mangoes and bananas with a little sugar. Leave it in the fridge and have it when cool. Heaven!)
3. The long and sudden shopping trips to Forum, Globus and Garuda mall (That pretty embroidered skirt I wanted to buy at Soch)
4. Shavarma and frankie rolls
5. Paapdi chat and aloo tikki at the chat place near national market…yummmm!
6. The movie-a-week routine
7. The long hours on hosur road with my ipod (it crashed recently :’( )
8. My blog on my office intranet (sorry that’s the main one…this had been sidelined for the time being)
9. My not-so-courteous Bangalorean self (can’t be that in London; but can’t help it either…I can’t play the calm and sophisticated to save my life!)
10. The radiocity super gurus; uncle Appukuttan Nair (love the way this guy goes …ello ello ellooo!), (one and a half) Altaaf, Babbar sher…apart from these, the radio station is trash!

Hello!!!...Hello!

2006-05-15T14:34:00.000+05:30

Everyone gets those wrong numbers, crank calls. Few of them trouble us for a while like that uncertain soul who still firmly believes that Chinnu, Chintu or Mantu, whoever it was, gave them the right number and calls just once more, much to our irritation, to confirm. We say the same ‘Sorry wrong number’ or mumble out some other variant and hang up. I’ve had a long history of troubles with such calls; few of them were quite interesting. Short account on them :)

This one gentleman would call up, yeah call up, no missed calls no irritating messages. Asks for a girl, interestingly the same voice asks for a different girl every time! Sheetal, Pooja, Neetu, you name it! And once I decided to play it his way ;)
Caller: Hello…may I speak to Shweta?
Me: Shweta here!
Caller (a bit surprised): eh?...Er…shweta, I wanted the EMW notes
Me: Give it to you tomorrow (hung up)
I never got another call asking for another girl after that! :D

Mr. Smarty-pants messages my colleague and troubles him non stop. My colleague is so irritated that he calls this guy up and tells him that it’s a guy’s mobile, not a girl’s. The messages stop with immediate effect!!!! :-

This one was a trouble maker. Would message a good morning in the wee hours of the morning and would send a good night in the middle of the night when I’m fast asleep anyway! And sometimes message and plead to be a friend. Wow…sometimes I really can’t help but laugh. Really who would ever ask for such an ordeal????!
So I tell him, stop calling, this is really a nuisance now! He says, I won’t stop, do what you want! Uh-oh!...Now you messed with the wrong girl!!! (eehahahah! :D).
Next thing I know, every friend I got in Bangalore is giving him crank calls, some use it as a stress buster! The last one, calls him and our hero asks innocently, whom did I call, why are you all troubling me??? My friend says; stop troubling . And I never heard from him after that! (Must admit that stress buster idea is a winner! ;)

And then finally I have this mysterious person messaging me inane SMS non stop. When I try to call up, they hang up. I give up on it, but later it gets a tad bit off limits, so I call this person, and without wasting a second, pounce on the person and start off firing full speed. I hear a girl giggling, and I go ‘you find that funny huh? what kind of a sick person are you????’ the girl shrieks ‘Hey Sathya, stop it, I can’t hold it back anymore!’ It was one of my closest friends…Yikes!

P.S: I am maintaining another blog in my office, and since I cannot write up enough articles for both anymore, I would be reposting the articles from my office blog on here :D
Believe in recycling!

True Blue

2006-04-18T10:28:00.000+05:30

A view of the horizon and the seemingly endless Atlantic Ocean. There's nothing that beats water when it comes to adding that classic touch.