Entropy

Good-Bye Entropy!

2009-11-19T07:49:00.000-08:00

You will be missed...

PS: A successor will be named, as soon as he/she/it is born. Please check back soon.

How beauteous a mankind!

2009-10-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

Well, just us.

(With apologies to Aldous Huxley)

Act 1, Scene 1
Place: Residence of A. N. Srinivasan and Lakkkshmi Srinivasan
Time: 6:00 PM

Enter Lakkkshmi strapped on to her iClone, in the phone mode.

Lakkkshmi: Hello? Can you hear me better now?
Sarojini: Yes its clearer now... what happened.
Lakkkshmi: The signal gets pretty weak sometimes on the balcony, I just came into the drawing room. Oh don't get me started on that! We tried to complaining to the Life-Service-Providers. They keep saying they will fix it, but never do.
Sarojini: Ok, enough with the mokkai di! Don't change the subject... so what happened next? Did you join the game?
Lakkkshmi: Yes of course! Everybody there insisted I do, how could I refuse?
(giggles)
Sarojini: And how was it... did you get to kiss Homi?
Lakkkshmi: Better! The first challenge we had to face was be alone in the bedroom for 10 minutes!
Sarojini: Wow! And did anything interesting happen?
Lakkkshmi: Second base!
Sarojini: (shrieks) I told you it would be fun! Orgy-Porgy parties are always fun. I should know- I have been to each and everyone our project manager has organized since he joined InfoComm last year. So are you going to take things to the next level with Homi?
Lakkkshmi: Yes. They have called me to join them for Homi's group's next team-outing when they finish debugging the new UBS interface next month. Homi is so charming and sophisticated. He also shares my passion for Numerology. Besides, yesterday's groping has left me craving for more!
Sarojini: Ye well, take it from me- there is nobody better at foreplay in the whole of InfoComm than Homi Bose.
Lakkkshmi: True!
Sarojini: Hey by the way, remember that detective assignment you gave last week? Well I did some sniffing around, and finally Indira from the HR told me she swore she saw Srinivasan and Annie in a cinema theater seriously at it.
Lakkkshmi: I knew it! That sneaky bastard! When I confronted him with the videos I recorded of him flirting with her in the coffee room last month, he was in complete denial. And then he went on about how he has been clean since last year's episode and why I need to overcome my insecurities...
Sarojini: The nerve! After what he pulled off...
Lakkkshmi: Right! Anyways, I do not care who he sleeps with... as long as he knows his place in the house. You just need to raise hell once in a while at home to keep the husband in line. Lest he should get any wrong ideas.
Sarojini: That's so true. Its been at least a week since I even spoke to Bhagat. I just keep myself updated about his love life, just so that I can guilt him into doing anything. That reminds me, we are getting the house repainted and bringing in some people to demolish that eye-sore of a kitchen- you know my moron husband bought this God Forsaken old-generation house which had a kitchen in it. And I am going for jewelery shopping tomorrow for Deepavali... you wan't to join?
Lakkkshmi: Damn! Its this Monday??? 3 days back I had to restart my iClone because it hanged. I didn't realize the dates got shifted back one year to 2046. The calendar malfunctioned and my whole schedule got screwed up because of that. I missed all my project meetings, all my reminders! Hell, I even missed my date with Ravindranath that night!
Sarojini: Well isn't that a silver lining! I do not even know why you are still seeing him. He is such a weirdo!
Lakkkshmi: Nah! I still like him... probably it will take me another week to get bored of him.
Sarojini: Bah! I so feel like kicking you right now...
Lakkkshmi: Sssshhh! ... hang on... I think its Srinivasan at the door... I think he has come back for the day. Lets talk tomorrow at the office, I'm not in a mood to look at him now... Hanging up now, bye.

Lakkkshmi exits. Enter Srinivasan, strapped on to his iClone in combined TV-remote sharing and phone mode. Music and images are playing out of the hologram-TV.

"... I am sorry we are completely out of time, we will have to leave it there. Before we end the show, let's have a final look at our high-speed-SMS poll to see what you are saying to the question we are asking today,
'Are Indians the brightest people in the world?' 100% are saying YES and 0% are saying NO.
So thats a very huge majority saying, yes, we are indeed the brightest people on the planet. Thanks very much to our esteemed panel of guests comprising of politicians, film actors and CEOs. To the viewers at home, thanks for watching Face the Nation. This is your host Saavadikira Gosh wishing you a happy and safe Diwali. (cough, cough) Please stay tuned for our nightly news bulletin coming up, right after a small commercial break. Good night. "

(music)

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(music)

Todays top stories! ... Prime Minister Rahul Gandhi says it is a proud moment and truly a milestone in the history of India when he, the great-grand-son of the first Prime Minister of India Pandit Nehru, addresses children on the occasion of Children's day next week, which also happens to be Nehru's birthday, in the 100th year of India's Independence.
Veteran Journalist and News anchor Rajdeep Somaari has been awarded the highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna. Everybody here at Fox-INN joins the nation in congratulating him for this great honor.
Fierce battle is raging on between the government forces and the Onge adivasis in the Andaman islands. Dane-gi Okwa, the tribal representative in the Andaman and Nicobar council of ministers says the indigenous people are fighting for their way of life, language and culture...

Srinivasan switches off the TV-remote sharing mode. Brings the microphone closer to his mouth.

Srinivasan: People like these should be shot at sight, don't you think?
Kamaraj: Ye, I mean what does he think he is saying. If he doesn't like our country, why doesn't he just get out. I would shoot him twice.
Srinivasan: Like what's wrong with the life we have in India. We can get anything we want here. Life is so good. It should be the best anywhere in the world.
Kamaraj: Why can't they get educated, come to the cities and join the mainstream.
Srinivasan: May be they are not capable of doing it. In which case they should at least not create any trouble for us civilized.
Kamaraj: Yes, we must never tolerate any...
Srinivasan and Kamaraj suddenly jump into a trance
Both together: ...attempt to upset the Stability, question the order of Things.
Srinivasan: (Coming out of the trance) Amen. It is up to us cosmopolitan educated urban Indians to clean up the mess. It is up to us to reform the society, lead the way and show how life should be lived to these Savages. Imagine what kind of impression these acts of savagery would create for the outside world about us.
Kamaraj: Yes, as if there are very less misconceptions foreigners have about us already.
Srinivasan: Very true. Only yesterday I was talking to our client representative Mr. Crick Watson in the USA, while we were conducting a load test on the networking application we built for them. It seems he did a minor in Indology and Tamil studies during Bachelors. We were just talking about this and that... and suddenly he was telling me that how although the architecture of Southern India before the Common Era wasn't developed enough to leave any tangible evidence, the literature itself presents a clear picture of the time. I mean, this is the kind of history they are taught!
Kamaraj: Ye, can you believe it? Leave it to the western scholars to tell us what our past is!
Srinivasan: What does he know about our heritage! "architecture was not developed" my ass.
Kamaraj: Precisely! Only yesterday I was reading on historicalvishwakarma.org that not only were Indians the best engineers, doctors, biochemists, quantum physicists and neuroscientists of the ancient world, but also the best mathematicians and architects.
Srinivasan: Oh is it?
Kamaraj: Yes. It also says that the ancient guru Brihaspati went out from India in 7000 B. C. and traveled around the world. He finally went to Egypt where he built a great school, taught the native Savages how to count, how to measure and how to build. It was from that knowledge that the ancient Egyptians were able to build the Pyramids and it was from that school that Pythagoras later graduated and spread the knowledge of geometry.
Srinivasan: What is it that our forefathers haven't accomplished, I ask! And this guy babbles about us not having any architecture!
Kamaraj: Ye, minor in Tamil Studies indeed! God knows what crap they study in their majors to begin with. Can you even compare how much we study and how hard we work here in India in the engineering college to what those dummies do there?
Srinivasan: Free free! They can never understand our genius.
Kamaraj: Hmm... So how was your day at work today?
Srinivasan: Ah! We got a new batch of recruits today. 4 newbies were assigned to me to train. One of them is a chick named Malini. Man, you should have checked out the ass on her. Perfect, like a peach!
Kamaraj: Oh! So the great Ariyakudi Narasimhan Srinivasan has spotted his next conquest!
Srinivasan: Oh please stop flattering her! She seems more easy than making my brain dead wife believe my story about going to Goa on a "business" trip.
Kamaraj: Yeah... that was one great trip! Orgy-Porgy rocks!
Srinivasan: It sure does. Well, I better get going now... its time for my evening prayers.
Kamaraj: Oh ok. Let me go in and see if my kids are back from their school.
Srinivasan: Oh, Parthasarathy was telling me he and Sowmya are both going to stay at a friend's- I think his name is Venkat- place and study tonight.
Kamaraj: Oh, Sowmya didn't mention that to me.
Srinivasan: I must say, Partha has been putting in a lot of effort these days to improve his grades. I have disciplined him enough for him to understand that he must respect his parents' wishes, just like we used to respect our parents.

Act 1, Scene 2: Venkat's place

Parthasarathy and Sowmya lying on the bed. Venkatraman sitting on the floor next to them.

Partha: I think my father is the biggest f**king idiot in the world.
Sowmya: Ditto.
Venkat: Guys, you told me you wanted to come here and study. But all you have done is make out and pot.
Sowmya: Shut up Venkat, don't be such a dork. We came to your place only because we wanted to get as far as possible away from our parents.
Venkat: But guys, what if my parents come to know of this. They are downstairs.
Partha: Relax! This is new stuff, doesn't smell at all.
Sowmya: Yeah, and besides, do you think your parents really care what we do up here. Your dad must be talking crap with his friends and your mom with her friends. They have enough going on already. Happens everywhere.
Venkat: But guys, what about the exam tomorrow.
Partha: Dude, you should learn to take things easy! Here, try some of this.
Venkat: What! No way dude! I don't want to get all dizzy and addicted and stuff.
Partha: Dude, haven't you figured it out yet? We don't smoke pot to get dizzy. We do it because thats the only way we can deal with our parents having their heads up their ass all the time.

Revamping Room 101

2008-09-27T11:39:00.000-07:00

24th April 2084

When I saw this date flashing on the huge plasma screen on the top of the Ministry of Gyaan complex, it sent a chill down my spine. It was like a sudden flashback. I'm pretty sure I saw this date before. I just can't remember when. It must be when I was a kid.... but then, I can't remember when I was a kid. Seems so long ago. Seems before the First-Age war. I don't know how old I am... I don't know how close to death I am. All I have to show for myself is this IDCHIP in my skin. And I know it shows Them some thing and shows me something else. I have seen it. I saw it 2 weeks back at work as I was leaving Angad's office. He switched his security-monitoring screen too soon. I got a glimpse of Narendran's Level-5 Profile. I did not see much... all I could make out was that his birth name was actually Vincent... But what difference does it make? What am I to do even if they told me the truth? Some day I will die of old age, or may be they will catch me sooner than that, and they will take the chip out of me, and erase me out of all memory. Better I don't have a clue when that happens. Better I make the most of what I have. Better I live as long as I do hoping the fool's hope that some day things will change. Some day the world will change. No more promises of eternal happiness... no more incarnations... no more Great Mother...

I hate Great Mother
I hate Great Mother
I hate Great Mother

I will hate her to my grave. I don't care if she is the redeemer the scriptures prophesied. I don't care if she is God. I hate her. She took away from me what is most precious to me. I am nothing. I have nothing. I hate her...

My office was moved today from MinGyaan complex to the new Project Third Eye building next to it. Apparently even MinGyaan doesn't have enough room for all its employees. Or may be the Higher Party officials needed more people and space in the forbidden top floors now that Third Eye is in the fourth phase and nearing completion, and needs more stringent close monitoring. Karma Police agents were supervising when about 70 of us cleared up and moved to our new office space reeking of fresh paint. The PTE building was dwarfed by the imposing MinGyaan next to it. And it did not have the huge dark glass exterior. It looked pretty dull for the profound power it was going to house. When I reached there, I saw my workstation was already in place. The Karma agents printed the new passwords on to our IDCHIPs and we stood at our places waiting for orders. I did not see Angad for a long time. I think he was still briefing other Party members back in MinGyaan about our project status and or may be about yesterday's incident in Govapuri. He finally came and convened the Ground Control, and we could finally sit. A new era started right there.

The new jobs immediately popped up on my screen and as I had expected, the top priority was the meeting with the reporter from GyaanVeda. Sure enough he came to my desk in a few minutes. I have never actually met anyone from there before, although they worked only two stories above my old office. Well, the Lower Party elevators never go up. He told me his name was Parashuram Saraswat. He was tall, lean and looked wasted. His eyes looked tired and cold and had dark circles beneath them. His whole demeanor had nothing that I could associate with anything human. No anger no frustration no joy no sorrow. He spoke like a machine taught to speak. You could almost hear the constant ringing of Great Mother in his head. He was dead from inside. He asked me for the pictures. I knew what exactly I had to tell him. Angad had briefed me last night before I left. But there was no need to talk at all. I knew what happened. Parashuram knew his version of what happened. All that was needed was pictures. Pictures to show the extent of damage done in Govapuri and the rest would be crafted. It was Islamia. They bombed us. And retaliation was required. It is to be shown in MinGyaan screen tomorrow night at the gathering and people will be mobilized to enlist. Although I knew Third Eye misfired... or was it a misfire? I was glad to get rid of those pictures. I could not bear to look at them anyway. Parashuram also said he needed hi-def pictures of the Christian Confederacy annual Redemption celebration in Washington D. C. we took day before... More public demonstrations of the capabilities of the Mother's Third Eye. We had real close-ups of King David IV looking over the fabled ritual of the burning of the old American Constitution. I had heard of it as a kid, never really believed it actually happened.

He took the pictures, chanted the name of Great Mother and coldly walked away. And as he did, I saw in him my future. Or at least one of the only two possible ends I will meet. The state of complete submission. The state of pure love for the Great Mother. To loose one's own sense of identity and being. To become one with everything else, as Great Mother calls it. Personally, I would rather go with the other option- brutal death at the hands of Karma agents.

Vishnu Varadharajan

PS: I know I know... he must be turning in his grave.

The ambiguity of tyranny

2008-08-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

"The First Amendment does not protect a man who falsely shouts 'Fire' in a crowded theater and causes panic"

- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr
Schenck v. United States
March 3, 1919

Caution: The ambiguity is not immediately apparent.

... Concluded.

The ambiguity of freedom

2008-08-05T20:15:00.000-07:00

In short, the American Flag represents this- that I have the right to burn it.

So do I burn it, or protect it?

To be continued...

Tan Tan Tan-Dan-Dan-Dan!

2008-01-31T10:54:00.001-08:00

"... and his work on the Declaration of Independence laid the ideals on which America was built. I hope you enjoyed my report on Thomas Jefferson"
"Ok, very nice Stan. You get a B. Now let's see who is next ... hmmm... who is next..."
"No, God please not me... Oh Jesus son of God, Oh Father in Heaven no..."
"... how about you Eric?"
"Aaw! Godd-ddd-dammit..."
"Eric Cartman"
"...Son-of-a-bbb*tch"
"What did you say!"
"Nothing"
"Don't you have the report on your favorite person from History ready?"
"Yes I have"
"Then why don't you come here and present it?"
"I'm gonna"
"Now Eric!"
"Godd-ddammit!... Good Morning. Today I'm going to talk about my favourite person in History, who is ... umm... eh... yeah I know, Adolf Hitler!"
"What?"
"Adolf Hitler was a great leader... umm... he was totally awesome... umm.. he was the leader of Germany and did many good things for the world... "
"This is full of crap! You can't like Adolf Hitler! He just mass-murdered people and started the World War. He din't do anything good!"
"Yes he did! He identified the Joo problem and solved it by killing them..."
"This is outrageous! This is a hate speech!"
"... Mrs. Garrison I'm really having a difficult time with all these interruptions"
"Kyle, let Eric present his report"
"You call this a report? How can you allow this kinda racist crap?"
"That's enough Kyle! Go on Eric"
"... ummm yeah... and so, Hitler killed the Joos and ... ummm, got the world rid of Hippies and Gingers! That was my report on Adolf Hitler which I prepared after extensive study and research. Thank you!"
"It's obvious you just made all that up right now. You get an F Eric, now go back to your seat"
"Aaw! Godd-dammit!"
"Hmm, now let's see... Kyle you are next"
"My favorite person from history is the Indian spiritual and national leader, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi"
"Mrs. Garrison, I seriously object to Kyle using the word 'Indian', its ignorant and racist. The correct term is 'Native Americans' "
"It's 'Indian' as in 'India', retard"
"Yeah, and besides, look who's talking- you are the one who is a racist assh*le, fat-ass!"
"KYLE BROFLOSKI WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE! ERIC CARTMAN STOP INTERRUPTING THE CLASS! STAN MARSH MIND YOUR MANNERS! KENNY MCKORMICK STOP STARING AT BEBE'S CHEST!... whew... Continue Kyle..."
"M. K. Gandhi was also called 'Mahatma' Gandhi or a great soul in India. He helped India get independence through non-violent and peaceful struggle, not by killing... "
"Fags!"
(Laughs)
"ALRIGHT EVERYONE JUST SHUT-THE-HELL-UP! Jesus-tap-dancing-Christ!"
"He was born in an affluent family in India. His family's good standing in the society enabled him to have good education after which, he moved to England to study law. He went to practice in South Africa, where he campaigned for the rights of Indians and the native people who faced racist discrimination at the hands of the administration run by the minority white population. Later he went back to India and started a mass-movement for freedom against the British administration. He also worked hard to bring dignity to the people of low caste in India, who were historically discriminated. His famous methods of peaceful resistance have been used by many leaders all over the world, including Martin Luther King. Thank you."
"Very Good Kyle, you get an A"
"What! Thats bull-crap!"
"Eric, for the love of God..."
"No seriously, Kyle gives this gay-little speech about some p*ssy-ass Joo and you give him an A, while I get an F!"
"Gandhi wasn't a Jew fat-ass, he was a Hindu"
"Hindoo, Joo they are all the same. And did you see the obvious holes in his report Mrs. Garrison? There were people in his own country who were discriminated and this guy goes about accusing government of being racist in South Africa. How is that discrimination any better than racism?"
"No, that's different"
"Different? People in India identify caste based on their parent's caste right? In other words, its their birth which defines the basis of their discrimination. Well, its the same with racism. Except here, you have an obvious indicator of your birth, which is the color of your skin"
"Eric you get an F and that's final"
"Fine, I don't want to sit in a class with people who live in denial. Screw you guys, I'm going home!"

I had intended to post this on Oct 2, but since I was about half-dead then, I decided to postpone it to Jan 30.

Taare Zameen Par

2008-01-26T10:00:00.000-08:00

Poetry... using Paintbrush!

A Pilgrimage to Enlightenment

2008-01-09T10:26:00.000-08:00

Just finished reading an epoch in popular science books. 'The Ancestor's Tale' by Richard Dawkins. No, this is not a tirade against religion, which by the way is getting a bit stale off late- 'The God Delusion' becomes painfully redundant from the middle through the end, especially if you have read some of his previous books or discourses. No, this is pure Science. And yes, Science in every sense.

The book is a journey in time. We start off from the present and march backward in time through hundreds, thousands and millions of years to the beginning of life on earth. On the way, we meet 'pilgrims'- organisms/group of organisms- who join us at a commonly shared ancestor. At each rendezvous point, selected pilgrims tell a tale of how they came about. The structure is inspired from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. A total of 40 Rendezvous points before we finally reach the Canterbury of life- the primordial replicating machine 4 billion years ago. 614 pages of an epic journey, and not one of them you would want to skip in haste. Dawkins, with his well known wit and clarity, forces the reader to see what he sees. Every distinctive piece of biology and every idea that's worth mentioning is given an thorough analysis that it deserves. And Dawkins does this with a judicious and brilliant use of all the tools of Science available under the sun- from Bio-Chemistry to Anthropology, from Quantum Mechanics to Computer Science. In short, this book is the biology-equivalent of Stephen Hawking's 'A Brief History of Time'. Its a Brief History of Life.

Toward the end of the last chapter, when the pilgrims return back to the present (and even that is not a simple retracing of steps forward in time, but a far more fascinating study of what kind of organisms would statistical reruns of evolution MIGHT produce in 4 billion years time!), Dawkins, in the voice of the host bidding farewell, expresses the exhilaration after having traversed the journey, which every avid reader would share, summarizing the spirit of the book-

If, as returning host, I reflect on the whole pilgrimage of which I have been a grateful part, my overwhelming reaction is one of amazement. Amazement not only at the extravaganza of details that we have seen; amazement, too, at the very fact that there are any such details to be had at all, on any planet. The universe could so easily have remained lifeless and simple- just physics and chemistry, just the scattered dust of the cosmic explosion that gave birth to time and space. The fact that it did not- the fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing- is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice. And even that is not the end of the matter. Not only did evolution happen: it eventually led to beings capable of comprehending the process, and even of comprehending the process by which they comprehend it. The very fact that we have evolved the brain power to understand our evolutionary genesis redoubles the amazement and compounds the satisfaction.

Of artists and mass-hysteria

2007-12-07T15:04:00.000-08:00

"Lord Ram existed"
"Islam is a peaceful religion"
"The world was created in seven days and Jesus is the son of God"

well, why the f*ck would i NEED a Right to Free Speech to say NICE things?

Of conferences and death camps...

2007-11-08T14:51:00.000-08:00

(Oct 24th- Nov 1st)

Aim
In ONE week, do the following:
a. Complete a Transactions Paper
b. Complete the presentation for a Conference Paper
c. Write a Midterm exam
d. Finish a looooong Analog assignment
e. Herd a bunch of retard undergrads through a bloody transformer lab

Issues at hand
a. Flu
b. Sore throat
c. Scurvy
d. A trip plan in shambles

Apparatus
a. Peppered tea
b. Nescafe Richie with extra caffeine
c. Asia Garden take-home chinese
d. SSH remote access tool for working during late-cold-hours from home as the Polar Bears go into hibernation

Procedure
Get f*cked. Don't resist.

Results
Plodded through each task, barely finishing any.

Inference
MARS does lead a dog's life. And now he died a little.

One DIRTY post

2007-09-03T10:38:00.001-07:00

I had the distinct pleasure of watching Team America: World Police, a marionette movie by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. I must admit it out does SouthPark: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. The film, as expected, is a satire take on the U.S. - its powers that be, and especially its Left Wing. Kim Jong-il, the North Korean dictator wants to take over the world with his diabolical schemes, which Team America, a SWAT like commando force, resists. Film Actors Guild (FAG), a strong liberal political voice made of Hollywood stars including the likes of Michael Moore (described as a 'giant socialist weasel') and led by Alec Baldwin, stands in the way of Team America. A part of the climax is how Team America convinces the representatives of various countries of the reality about Kim Jong-il and the FAG, which supports him. Its a speech by Gary, a Team America member- down right simple, unpleasant to hear may be, but fully loaded with political philosophy (mostly of the SPR kind)- vintage TP&MS at work. It was so good that I decided to jot it down. Lets see if you can see what I saw. I must warn you though, what is about to follow might be too shocking to young children. Metaphors can't get any dirtier than this... ;)

"We[Team America] are D*cks. We are reckless, arrogant, stupid D*cks. And the Film Actors Guild... are P*ssies. And Kim Jong-il... is an Assh*le. P*ssies don't like D*cks. Because P*ssies get f*cked by D*cks. But D*cks also f*ck Assh*les. Assh*les who want to sh*t on everything. P*ssies may think they can deal with Assh*les their way. But the only thing that can f*ck an Assh*le is a D*ck... with some balls. The problem with D*cks is that some times they f*ck too much, or f*ck when it isn't appropriate. And it takes a P*ssy to show him that. But some times P*ssies get so full of sh*t that they become Assh*les themselves, because P*ssies are only an inch and a half away from Assh*les. I don't know much in this crazy, crazy world. But I do know, that if you don't let us f*ck this Assh*le[Kim Jong-il], we are gonna have our D*cks and P*ssies, all covered in sh*t. "

'விடை கொடு எங்கள் நாடே'- ஒரு வருடம்

2007-08-24T10:30:00.000-07:00

24th August 2006 - A bemused bloke standing inside Anna International Airport, who was clueless as to what to do with his life.

24th August 2007 - A bemused bloke sitting inside a basement in Ottawa, who is still clueless as to what to do with his life.

One crucial difference...

... he didn't take a bath today.

2007-07-20T13:54:00.000-07:00

First debacle in a long time... sheer bad luck... hail entropy!

'Dhamilnaattu' Police!

2007-07-09T18:22:00.001-07:00

Puratchi Kalaingar has been finally put to shame- by the real thing!

I'm not a bad man

2007-07-02T11:44:00.000-07:00

I'm just dangerously inquisitive.

Hence, I shall add some of my own (may be related to what is already given in the link):

1. With technology doing away with many types of interpersonal dependencies and creating some new kinds, is it possible that most of the present day forms social organization, including marriage, will become obsolete in the not so distant future?

2. Do we all, irrespective of our ethnicity, possess an inherent attraction (however small) toward people of fairer complexion?

3. Is everyone, some what racially prejudiced (both positively and negatively)? And is it some how related to, or gives rise to, skin-color-based sexual preferences?

4. (With respect to the history of modern democracy, including the most progressive of societies) Are women leaders more impulsive and show more unwanted aggressive behaviour than their male counterparts, rendering their reign highly controversial if not unpopular?

5. With the growing awareness and the spread of Gender Equality, as it is currently defined by most proactive agents, will chivalry be lost, as an act of insult to the capabilities of women?

6. Whenever a species becomes very successful, countering forces start to kick in and the exploding population is controlled. Most of these forces have been tamed through non-natural selection means by humans. Given this unchallenged supremacy, the onus is on us to conscioulsy overcome our immediate survival instincts and control our own impact on the environment. So are research and medical procedures dealing with the longevity of human life immoral?

Disclaimer: The above questions do not represent my personal views and are open only for a rational debate.

And I think I have an answer to one of the questions raised by Steven Pinker in this book, about which I'm reasonably confident-

Is morality just a product of the evolution of our brains, with no inherent reality?
Answer: Yes, yes and yes. Otherwise why would it change with times?
(Of course there are one or two unchanging building blocks of morality from which most of our sophisticated moral tenets sprout. But once we isolate them, its very easy to show their irrelevance by not attributing the material benefits incurred as a consequence of practising them)

3 DON'Ts of Libertarian

2007-06-13T17:06:00.000-07:00

DON'T tell me what to do AND how to do it.
Because I DON'T give a sh*t.
And DON'T worry, I won't screw up.

All that was near and dear...

2007-06-03T09:25:00.000-07:00

Life has sure come a full circle. One by one, everything that I have ever held close to my heart since I started to know the world around me has been decisively disabled and disintegrated. All that in a freaking 8 months, of solitude. This was ample time for me to become honest with my self and suspicious of everyone (and everything) else. I believe that's the first step to understand, well, almost anything.

Skepticism and distrust. You want to know who or what you are? Well, you just can't do without them. I have found them both here and for this reason, I shall forever be indebted to Canada even if I change to something else from now.

One of those many (now sort of getting monotonous ;) ) realizations came last week when the discussion on Canadian economy spread from the room to the lab with Dharmendra. And that was it- my days of carrying the red flag are over. I mean, I have accepted the points fired out by my opponents against state intervention in economy in the past for the argument sake. But it took me to come to that very Utopian dream of mine- Canada, a country with a successful industry regulated heavily by the government for the welfare of the people- to comprehend how fallacious that dream really was.

You could say the grass-is-always-greener-on-the-other-side is coming into play here. But that's exactly my point! It IS but natural for us NOT to be satisfied with what we have. And letting us be is what an economy, in order not to be in conflict with the natural order of things, ought to do.

Started off with Dharmendra telling me about a white guy he met on the road who was swearing at the Ottawa civic authorities when his car ran over a puddle in the road. Well, whats the big deal you would ask... we drive over puddles more that on roads in India. Well you need dig a little deeper to answer that puzzle. Meet Dharmendra's neighbours- a Somalian family who came here as refugees- and are doing better than him. The man drives car on hire for a living and he makes sure he DOES NOT earn beyond a certain amount, so that the government considers him eligible for welfare money- and that's a juicy 400-500 dollars per dependant you have in addition to a few other credits- all tax free (now that's a good reason to get frisky all the time!). And that's not all. You get a house for which you don't need to pay anything. You get all the assistance (read for free) from the government for doing any course or joining any class which you think will get you a job. And after you are done, no matter where you apply for a job, the company is obliged to give you a chance because you have NO job history.

How can the government afford all that? Well, that's the reason why some one like Dharmendra from a Hi Tech background drives a smaller and cheaper car than that Somalian lady. Imagine you are a native white guy and both you and your wife work 8-6 everyday at some reputed Telecom firm. You get your son ready for school every morning and then rush to office skipping the breakfast. Your daughter is only 3 and so you send her to a Day Care which takes enough money from you to adopt 100 orphans in Ethiopia. You get a little time to relax in the weekends after you are done taking your kids to the Ice House for their hockey lessons. You pay off the mortgage for your house, the insurance for your car which just happened to increase last month after you were pulled over for over speeding. After all this work at the end of the month the government is at the door- it takes off its hat and says "May I?", and respectfully bites off a huge chuck of your sweat and blood. And where does that go? Oh yeah to things like building roads and highways, paying for schools and hospitals, running the essential services and er... and to pay for the gas for the Toyota Camry the Somalian-lady-next-door- who-does-nothing-except-sitting-all-day-at-home owns. Swearing at the civic authorities fearing the prospect of paying for a change of tyres is the least that white guy could do.

When I was in the 9th grade(that's when we read about the Russian Revolution), if you had asked me if its ok for a guy who has exemplary skills and a guy who is not so blessed with talent enjoy the same kind of life, my answer would probably have been an emphatic 'YES'. Of course hard work can compensate for our weaknesses. But even that doesn't make sense sense here. The only thing which is common to the white family and the Somalian family I described above is that both would think "Why should I work?" Two days back I received a tax rebate of 425 dollars from Revenue Canada. More than the joy to see that money, I made me feel sorry for all those people of this country who were paying me. Who am I to deserve this tax credit? (Of course I could argue, to be fair to myself, against being subject to sales tax I have paid indirectly in the first place)

There are certain other factors which come into play here- like Canada's open handed welcoming of refugees from all parts of the world who immediately become entitled to all sorts of benefits offered by the state- a dead weight on the economy, if you say. Contrast this with the highly competitive Visas to the US, which has ensured over time, to increase the proportion of highly skilled and productive people in the work force there. But I believe this itself is a result of lesser welfare orientation in America, which causes the corporate self-interest to govern the immigration policies as well.

When the state pampers people, there would be no drive to work toward bettering yourself. Because you know you are not going to lead any better life if you do. Stagnation hurts. Sometimes more than misery.

You are a farmer/a miner/a fisherman/over 60/a scientist who wants to work alone on some fundamental problems without pressure from industry? Canada is the place for you. Else, look for greener pastures, presumably the US.

Monologued Tribute

2007-06-02T22:49:00.000-07:00

'Periyar' falls short of expectations that 'Bharathi' created as regards the director, Gnanarajasekaran's capabilities. Though retaining the same autobiographical temperament as its predecessor, its as though the camera wasn't big enough to show more than one person at a time. That one person mostly being Sathyaraj donning the role of his role model- E. V. Ramaswamy, in this TN government-sponsored venture, which seems to be a desperate final attempt at bringing the masses back to romanticizing the glory of the original ideological foundations on which the Tamil political legacy has been built upon.

This movie could have as well been a soliloquy staged at some revolving theatre. No other character was really needed. At different phases of the protagonist's life, new faces just come, read out the dialogues as dictated by the director and leave. So painfully prose-like is its narrative. Yes, Periyar's life was an immensely huge repository of intellectual battles, life changing failures, history defining victories and conflicted relationships to be captured in 2 and a half hours of celluloid. But then, movie makers have time and again demonstrated how this can be done tastefully, while making the point that needs to be made.

The movie has its refreshing moments with vintage Sathyaraj using his well known satire comedy to take on God. Though mostly adult humor, it does well to bring out the skepticism that Periyar encouraged as a means of social reform. But if you ask me, that one dialogue of Prakash Raj in 'Iruvar'-

"Vinyaanaththa paththi ketta tamizhanukku theriyaathu, aana Yamanukku vaaganam yennanu ketta yerumakkeda enbaan"
("If you ask the Tamizhan about science, he wouldn't know, but if you ask him what's the mount of Lord Yama, he will immediately tell you it's the buffalo")

-carried more weight in it than the entire 'Periyar' movie.

Detachment (revisited)

2007-05-16T20:46:00.000-07:00

When you are no longer sad or happy for being no longer sad or happy. period.

When government plays Robin Hood

2007-05-12T16:35:00.000-07:00

One of those days when the routine complaining about how boring and stupid life is leads to some sort of trivial revelation.

I don't quite know much about how US economy works, so I take caution in making a general observation of the West, although I assume that Canadian economy is some where between the EU (extensive) and the US (limited) based on their respective government control over business.

Today, auntie walked down to get some chicken from the freezer in the store room and she rants about how difficult it is for her to make the ends meet.
"Intha naatula oru veettilla moondru peyar earn pannalum athu seri varaathu... inga kaasu save panna yelathu"
Vimal: "That's so true auntie... naan kooda pona summer co op kedaichchathilaa, appo kaasu save paanaumnu nenachchen anaa athukkapparam Car breakdown aayiduchchu, antha garage kaaran, vantha kaasa appadye pudingittaan"
Me: "Puriyala, neraya earn panna, intha oorla nalla irukkalaamnu nenachchen"
Vimal: "No, I mean you can't SAVE. Like about 50% of your whole goddamn income goes into taxes man. Imagine you pay 15% income tax and then 15% on everything that you purchase- thats easily half your income. You try to invest with the money you tried to save and there are taxes on that too. Better enjoy your life rather than saving... athuthaan inga irukkira vellayargal pannuvaargal."
Auntie: "Om... neraya peru rendu veedu vechchirpinam... anaa yenna pirayosanam... innoru veettulirunthu varura rentu income aayidum, athukku marubadiyum tax. So, oru veedu kaanum enraal athu mattumthaan vechchirkanum. Yevvalavu varumaanamo, avvalavu selavu adichcha, atha kaatti taxa kuraikkalaam"
Vimal: "Yeah, the more you spend on say 'official tours', the more tax deductible your income becomes. I know many people who go on a vacation just for that"
Me: "But where does this all end... I mean, every one spends all that he/she gets... this must end some where- infinite regress- who gains in the end."
Vimal: "Government. They all finally pay taxes to government for all that we get and all that we spend isn't it?"
Me: "But doesn't that mean the government should grow exponentially rich? I mean, the population is growing and more people work and hence more people pay taxes..."
Vimal: "They spend money too... see all this snow ploughing and stuff and not to forget the elephant in the room- the unemployed. Once you claim you have no income, government pays for you and your dependants".
Auntie: "Om... sila peru yenna solluvinam, income a RRSP la invest seithuvittal athulla tax kuraiva varum enru solluvinam. Anaa athulla yenna nedakkum enraal loan edukkumbothellam athulla interest pay pannonum. Apparam retire aana piragu RRSP kaasu tharum, appo government athu oru incomenu sollivittu retirement benefits tharaathu. So kadaisila yaaru santhoshama irukkinamnu sonnaal, yevan velaye illama irukkiraano, avanthaan" (laughs)

... made me wonder at the weird kind of equilibrium a free market economy (coupled with a welfare state) reaches. I mean many features that characterize a well-established developed economy are definitely found in Canada- a low inflation rate for example. Yet, I'm sure many people in India have more to spend at a time of need than Canadians (Seriously, who in Canada would be capable and/or willing to pay dowry for his daughter's marriage!). Of course culture definitely matters. I haven't spoken to any Indian family here which has come here to find a better living unlike the Sri Lankans who come as refugees and over time, become woven into the social fabric here. But I guess Indians who come to work here do save a lot, like their counter parts in the US.

Another lesson for the day- economy of a country is not what we read in books or online sources; at a more grass root level, you get to know how exactly a country functions by looking at what the people, preferably those from the subcontinent, do to survive there.

Detachment

2007-05-07T21:58:00.000-07:00

A state when you CAN'T look at ANYTHING from other than a third person's point of view. period.

The Anthropic Principle of the Human Mind

2007-05-07T16:46:00.000-07:00

For every issue, there is always

1. an Alarmist
2. an Advocate
3. a Sceptic
4. an indifferent evader
5. and a Conspiracy Theorist

Corollary: By the time one (or more) of the above is proven right, nobody cares anymore.

Happy Birthday Entropy!

2007-04-30T14:49:00.000-07:00

An year passes by,

the indefatigable monkey continues to type relentlessly and my struggle against the Second Law of Thermodynamics continues...

Yours truly,
Mars

Right Wingers of India

2007-04-30T14:46:00.000-07:00

I'm tired of making fun of you but you don't seem to be tired of making a fool of yourselves.

War of Gab

2007-04-30T14:21:00.000-07:00

Since I moved into the new place, conversations and debates on the ethnic conflict in the island-nation spring up at the slightest provocation.

Once, it started with something as trivial as Raj asking me how I liked 300, which I had happened to watch the previous day. When I replied, "Yeah, a good enough movie... nice time pass", he was dumbfounded. He went on to explain that I feel so indifferent about a terrific war movie like that one because I have not known war from a close proximity. Then followed strategic and ideological comparisons between the Battle of Thermopylae and the struggle led by the Eelam Tigers(basking in the success of the new found Air Wing)!

Then came the usual awkward moment- Rajiv Gandhi... who invariably comes up in the discussions especially when I am around ("Hey! I'm not the Indian Ambassador to Canada!"). Vimal described how his father's shop in Jaffna was burnt by the Indian Army and how they later suffered at the hands of the Tigers as well. And at the end, he made a peculiar comment:
"As long as I was in Jaffna, I could see the war in its naked reality but not the politics involved. Now after I came to Canada, I see and hear the politics of Eelam but not the war therein"

I remember reading in some website not so long ago that
"War is a necessary evil. But politics needn't be".

Sometimes I feel, in reality its just the other way round.

And God said, "Thou shall not have sex"

2007-04-02T17:44:00.000-07:00

For once, the representatives of all the religions in India have joined hands- against the devil called sex.

The latest India 360 chapter in CNN IBN discusses the growing calls for the abolition of sex education (brought in by the new CBSE curriculum) in various states, predominantly from (no prizes for guessing) the Sangh Parivar.

While the Right wingers in India never cease to entertain me, this time around the lime light was stolen by an unexpected candidate- Dr. U. R. Rao, former director of the ISRO. He demonstrates in this news item how bright and logically sound our scientists are. His argument- the illustrations in the text books are too explicit.

Of course, when we are studying female reproductive anatomy, what best suits the purpose is the picture of a woman dressed in five layers of arctic winter clothing and not a naked one, isn't it Mr. Rao?

--
PS:
Percentage of adult population afflicted by AIDS:

Germany- 0.1
India - 0.9

Level of sex education in schools:

Germany - condoms distributed to Grade 8 students
India - "Sex undermines our culture"

Vande Mataram, O soldiers of Hindutva, Vande Mataram!

All Play and No Work...

2007-03-23T19:49:00.000-07:00

Quite contrary to what one would expect a sports-columnist in India to write in a National Daily after India's shameful performance in the WC, Nirmal Shekar had this to say in The Hindu.

The concluding paragraph, I found, was extremely moving...

"Today, seemingly, there is far too much at stake in cricket for it to be viewed as sport. Yet, that is what it is. The truth is, when our cricketers fail, in the larger context, it hardly matters. But when our politicians, public servants and nation builders fail, it does matter. If only we had demanded of these men and women — from the time of Independence — the same level of organisation, unwavering consistency and excellence that we always seem to expect from our cricketers, India would have joined the First World of nations long ago."

... for some reason, I was reminded of that joke in the movie 'Perazhagan', where a beggar uses a public telephone to call up his friend and ask for the score.

Rendezvous ... After Five Years ;-)

2007-03-15T18:31:00.000-07:00

An easy way for those of you living abroad with high speed Internet to catch up with Indian Television (including Live WC 2007).

http://wwitv.com/ - Click India in the left tab and you have list of Indian channels. Doordarshan shows the matches. I thank Krishnan for sending me this link.

Now after making sure DD was working, I browsed through the list of the other channels available and my eyes lit up when I chanced upon CNBC TV18- the Indian chapter of the popular business news channel. With fingers crossed I clicked on the link, held my breath as the video started to stream into my WinAmp player... buffering 90%... 95%... 100%...

...bingo!

Very few in this world (now that I think about it, I guess only Vijay) would understand what exactly I'm talking about... it is the reason why I started watching News on TV with zest ... a story that goes back to my first year in college ... a story that goes back to the days when Headlines Today was still a nascent news channel...

... Now, with a little bit of research, I'm sure many in this world will understand what I'm talking about!

Science Vs Sexism

2007-03-15T18:15:00.000-07:00

This article titled 'Biology Vs Law' by Advocate Mathews J Nedumpara, in CNN IBN blogs, though scientifically inaccurate and incomplete in some parts, brings out in gist, some fundamental flaws in Feminism or at least the way it is being interpreted in contemporary India.

One particular paragraph of the lengthy prose that made me ROTFL was the Supreme Court's definition of sexual harassment (which I was not aware of before):

(a) physical contact and advances,
(b) demand or request for sexual favors and
(c) sexually colored remarks or any other physical/verbal or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature

the implications of the above is that the next time you propose or ask a girl out on date, you are punishable under law!

Cheap Work- Cheap Life!

2007-03-13T22:16:00.000-07:00

One of the typical lazy afternoon conversations with Andrew...

A: You know what? This place sucks. I think I should find some university in some nice tropical place and go there to do my phd... live in a huge house... servants doing all the work... you had servants in India didn't you?

Me: Yes, there was a servant maid who used to clean the house and do the dishes.

A: How much did you pay her?

Me: (sheepish smile)Hmmm... you want me to tell you the figure in rupees or canadian dollars?

A: Dollars

Me: (Murmuring... 200 divided by 40...) about 5 dollars.

A: A day???

Me: No, a month.

A: What the hell are you saying!... thats about 3 cents an hour... How on earth did she survive...

Me: Well, she worked probably for an hour and a half a day at my place, used to go to other places to work after that. I think she worked in about 4 or 5 other places with about the same pay... And then you know this kinda salary suffices a bare life over there...

A: (Laughing) Are you justifying what you paid her?

Me: He he no... but when put into the Indian perspective yes... well, How much do you think an average middle class family makes a month there? The begining pay of an IT professional could be about (Murmuring ... 20000 divided by 40...) 500 dollars a month.

A: Is that enough seriously?... How would you rate your family?

Me: Middle Class

A: And there is a class lower to you which...

Me: ... that's the servant maid whom we pay 5 dollars

A: ... and there's a class above...

Me: ... yeah, those are the guys who pay us 500 dollars.

A: Yeah right, everyone has a Daddy... how much do those guys make?

Me: Hmmm... I don't really know. But I think they make about the same as the Daddys here.

A: Yeah, I have heard there are many firms over there who pay next to nothing...

(Long Pause)

Me: Don't you think that's the reason why people here are losing jobs?

A: Hmmm?

Me: I mean like an average IT professional in india would probably work 4 times more than his counterpart here and would probably cost 4 times less.

A: But I'm sure they have 4 times less brains (laughing). You see I'm guessing the work they do there is just repititive without anything new to think about and so they become the obvious choice for bulk jobs. There are far less number of people in here who work in technology related firms and yet they could be doing something far more productive.

Me: Yeah but you see...
.
.
.

PS: Andrew did not mean any ill and all the conversation was in the lighter vein.

Birth of Enlightenment

2007-02-12T15:33:00.000-08:00

Happy Darwin Day to all!

(Charles Darwin, born February 12, 1809)

---
Height of eccentricity???...

... or just a silly reason to have another cake? ;) !!!!!

2007-02-08T19:39:00.000-08:00

Think you are too happy offlate and need some normalcy back in your life???

Watch 'Pokkiri' and 'Azhwar' back to back!!!

Anything and Everything Works!

2007-02-08T19:23:00.000-08:00

The Cauvery Tribunal's final award after 17 years of trial has reaffirmed my conviction that no matter how inefficient a system, the ultimate purpose seeps through the crevices and does find realisation at some point of time...

Nothingness or Uncertainity?

2007-01-28T13:26:00.000-08:00

The first known self proclaimed atheist, Baron d'Holbach(1723-1789), predates Charles Darwin's publication of his theory of natural selection(1856) by almost 70 years. There exist atheists even today, who do not really know or understand evolution.

The theory of Evolution by natural selection was the first ever scientific approach in search of a possible naturalistic explanation for the world around us and it's workings. And still stands as one of the most dominant such approach.

Then how did atheists come to be without knowing it? What was their basis for rejecting God, if not science?

In other words, how do atheists ignorant of Evolution tackle the question of 'Why we are here'?

Or are majority of the people who claim to be atheists(which includes many Marxists) actually agnostics?

Darwinian Politics!

2007-01-14T21:30:00.000-08:00

KG fired me this strange info last week. Its veracity and applicability doesn't seem to have been universally agreed upon yet. Nevertheless, I was overwhelmed when I deliberated upon the implications of the hypothesis that political orientations could actually be inherited.

For one, Darwinian Natural Selection should be applicable. Let us assume that all the people in the world are subjected to a completely neutral and passive environment to grow up and given a completely factual form of education. The purpose is to annul any external influences. In which case, the political orientations would be governed entirely by the genes (this is kind of self contradictory because the very existence of right and left wingers would mean 'neutral' education does not exist, but we shall make this assumption anyway for the sake of argument). And let us also assume that half the people of the world are conservatives and half the people are liberals to begin with. If things are left as it is, one of the ideologies is bound to perish in the long run, of say a few thousand years. The ideology which would help mankind survive longer would be naturally selected. And finally we are left with a race which is entirely liberal or entirely conservative! The question then is, which one of the two ideologies would survive nature's ultimate Election?

After a brief contemplation I ended up ruling in favour of the liberals (now that's a surprise!). Well, I could very well be biased. So if you feel otherwise (or come to the same conclusion but using a different argument), please comment your views.

Before I present my solution, I'll define the terms involved for the benefit of the readers.

Natural Selection: It is the phenomenon which gives direction to evolution. To put it in simple terms, only those members of a population who are able to survive longer would end up spreading their genes. Hence, the population becomes stronger and stronger with each generation. The species then is said to have 'evolved'.

Conservatives: They are a class of politicians, who believe in upholding what they think are 'traditional' values (depending on the scenario, it could be religion, culture, ethnicity, race etc.). They are usually intolerant toward other traditions, always try to control the personal lives of individuals and are in constant conflict with foreign cultures.

Liberals: They believe in cultural and ethnic accommodation and usually uphold individual freedom.

Clearly, Conservatives lead a life of constant struggle, not only against Liberals, but also against other conservatives. This turns odds of survival against them. Of course, a lot depends on what kind of government is in power. If I was a native German living in Hitler's reign, I would choose to endorse his fanatical ways, and go about killing Jews and waging wars, if I wanted to live. Being a liberal would mean suicide in this case. But we need to look at long term implications here. A Nazi would have made more enemies in his life time than his victims. This would be true even if the Germans had won the war and were controlling the world now. There would be Anti Nazi terrorist groups all over the world (a situation similar to the one Americans find themselves today among Muslims all over the world). Sooner or later, the Nazis were bound to be annihilated. Now it could be unfair to label conservatives as Nazis. But their ideology does seem to be a distorted and milder version of that very fanatical movement. Be it the Sangh Parivar in India, the church-backed Republicans in the US etc.

I agree that the above argument is quite incomplete. The conditions assumed are quite idealistic. The contribution of Sexual Selection has not been taken into account. A lot also depends on the economic policies of the two groups which I haven't considered. Further, bringing in the now-small-but-fast-growing third class of Centrists could drastically change the equations. Comments are welcome.

War and Rationality

2006-12-18T14:15:00.000-08:00

Thaikkanavudan Saavinaiththazhuviya, Santhanappezhaigale... Ingu
Koovidum Yengalin Kural Mozhi Ketkutha?

the opening line of the Maaveerar Paadal, sung by Nathan of 4th year undergrad on the occasion of Maaveerar Thinam or 'Hero's Day' last month here in Carleton. Nathan is the best singer in CUTSA and he does give the songs he sings an emotional twist. As he was singing, the hundred odd people gathered in the Azreili Theatre in Carleton University from various parts of Ottawa climbed up to the stage one by one and paid their respects to the potraits of some famous LTTE men killed in battle.

He was followed by some other singers, few of whom did an ode to V. Prabhakaran. And then was a skit, performed by 4 students, where they played the roles of various deceased LTTE soldiers justifying their actions to Chitragupta in Hell. All along, I could see passions and nationalism running high. After the performances, the Chief Guest of the day (yes! there was one!) came on to give a speech. His name was Ganesh- a middle aged guy, educated in appearance. Ganesh is among the growing number of active Tamil politicians in Canada whose role is increasing in policy-making here. He started off by thanking the students to have called him and soon plunged into a tirade against the incumbent Conservative government. His outrage is understandable- only in 2006 did the Canadian government ban LTTE as a terrorist organization.

He described how the Tamil diaspora in Australia and Europe was actively working- and succeeding- in changing the popular opinions toward LTTE in these countries and urged the students to use their skills to do the same in Canada. The Canadian government is to be acquainted with the idea of how 'virtuous' the Tigers are and how 'cruel' the Sri Lankan state is, he said. He and his co workers are campaigning for the Liberal party in the coming provincial and eventually the parliamentary elections 3 years from now. He also spoke about how, the Tamil students can enter in Canada's industrial work force and work toward 'destroying' Sri Lankan economy, resulting in a lesser defense expenditure by the government there and in turn, giving LTTE an upper hand in the ethnic conflict.

All this while, I was taking some pictures around, and trying to make some sense of his heavy Ceylonese accent. Even the little of what I understood of his speech raised the hair on the back of my neck. And from the reactions of my friends, here, I was baffled that they actually believe each and every word of his. I look back to see many middle aged and even old folk sitting there with sober expressions. Most of those definitely have seen the horrors of '83 riots. No wonder they want some revenge. But what about these students sitting with me? They have grown up knowing very well that LTTE has done equally great damage to the people of Sri Lanka. Then why do they choose to take sides(notwithstanding the fact that LTTE seems to be the only real voice of the Tamils) and give themselves to nationalist irrationality? Why can't they see something which is so obvious to me? Anybody in my shoes would have got the same thought initially. But it starts getting clearer as I go deeper into their childhood and my own.

Development of rationality depends a lot, not only on the kind of teachers and schools we go to, but also on the kind of environment we are subjected to outside classrooms. We learn the most from our friends. Imagine studying in a school not knowing when the building across the road is blasted into pieces. And the violent reactions to those incidents needs no mention. For children of different ethnic groups, in constant conflict, studying in the same school must truly be an uncomfortable experience. Then the only place where they can learn their past and present without any guilty conscious would be their homes, where their parents would feed them with narrowminded nationalism. Lack of peer to peer interaction all but kills individual and competitive thinking. The same can be said about Muslim kids in communally volatile regions in India like Gujarat.

We, on the other hand, had the good fortune of being born in a politically stable nation yearning for economic development. More so is the good fortune of being raised in an intellectually well evolved environment(if not due to the teachers, at least due to peers) of the south- especially Chennai. This 350 year old city- far from the conflicts of the borders- has the legacy of being the forerunner of scientific rationale since the introduction of modern education. Of course, Bengal started the awakening, but it was Madras which has been carrying the torch of enlightenment since then. Chennai is probably the only city in the nation where one can find a bulk of middle class intelligentsia who seek more than mere material pleasures from life and strive for intellectual development. Not Hyderabad, not Bangalore, but Chennai. And all that is quite apparent looking at the unrivalled contribution from her children to science, cinema, music, journalism, economy, politics and what not. By growing up here, well, developing a broadminded world view is but the most likely outcome.

'Oh my Devil!'

2006-12-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

We use the phrase 'God knows' to imply, NO ONE knows.

'God forbid' is used to refer to an unpleasant event which is very UNLIKELY to be prevented.

'God speed' clearly means some kind of speed or swiftness NO ONE can achieve.

The exclamatory remarks, 'Oh my God!', 'Shit!' and 'F***!' can be used interchangeably.

So are we all intrinsically atheists? ;)

Return to the Dark Ages

2006-12-14T14:50:00.000-08:00

It sounds scary. But definitely a sad truth of our day supported by overwhelming evidence.

End of 21st century- May be a return to the times when it was the norm to either wait for the disease to subside or wait for death?

Creationists: What more proof do you want?

My Brain- AWGN!

2006-11-20T18:56:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week, I made a funny observation. I get really pissed off if my pen runs out of ink when I'm writing something important. That's one of the reasons why I lived on other people's stationery for major part of my under grad life (some self consoling justification for my frugal existence !!). In an attempt to turn a new leaf, I decided to do this- I put 3 pens in my bag and every morning, I would pick one at random and use them. I thought all the three pens cannot obviously run out of ink the very same day. On Tuesday during my Linear Systems class, the pen I was using went dry. Then I took another one from my bag to find the same response. Holding my breath, I took the last one out and to my shock, even that ran out of ink!!!

After the class (of course, I borrowed one from my neighbour for the rest of the class as usual!) as I was going back to my office, I was trying to figure out if this was sheer bad luck or if there is an explanation for this. And I found that ideally, according to the way I was using the pens, the probability of all the three pens running out of ink the same day is one !!! To put it in simple terms, lets assume each pen has enough ink to last for 30 days. So no matter how I use them, I cannot use all of them put together for more than 90 days. So, if my selection of pens everyday is completely random (that is every pen has equal chance of being chosen each day), then on the 90th day(assuming 90 is a fairly huge number for statistical purpose), I would have already used each pen for about 30 days. And hence they would ditch me together.
Moral of the story-
1. I'm capable of creating ideal noise in my decisions!
2. Miserliness is a virtue that never fails!

20 Years too late...

2006-11-20T16:59:00.000-08:00

Last week, the Canadian Government set off the public enquiry commission into the Kanishka bombing trial of 1985. There was a half an hour documentary on the national CBC news network. It started off my showing last years 20th anniversary gathering at the coast of Ireland when grieving family and friends came to pay their homage to the 329 lives lost in that ill fated air craft over the Atlantic(this report was interrupted occasionally by the ghastly 1985 videos of Irish seamen picking up frozen bodies of children smeared in aviation fuel from the sea). It was the first time, when the families got the high profile political attention they wanted for so long. The then liberal prime minister Paul Martin said this on the occasion, "Make no mistake. The plane might have been Air India's. It might have crashed off the Irish coast. But in so many ways, this is a Canadian tragedy". He and the then opposition leader (now prime minister) Stefan Harper promised the families that a public commission will soon be set up to enquire into the most notorious and ill-handled criminal prosecution that lasted for 20 long years without any real conviction.

This realization is pretty late. When this disaster(the most devastating terrorist attack involving an air plane, prior to September 11) happened, the Canadian government didn't even consider that this was their problem. This height of ignorance is shown by the fact that the then Canadian prime minister called up Rajiv Gandhi to express his condolences while almost ALL the passengers who were killed were Canadian citizens. May be they just thought that a few brown people in India and a few brown people in Canada were fighting with each other. A businessman from Mumbai named Sanjay Lazar, who lost his entire family in the tragedy told the reporter, "Try telling this to those 329 people out there buried in the seas. They are waiting for answers. So are we". May be they won't get the justice any more. At least they deserve an explanation about what went wrong in the costliest trial in Canadian judicial history.

Only one person named Inderjit Reyat, an electronics engineer, has been found guilty for two counts of man slaughter- the 2 baggage handlers killed in Narita airport in Japan the same day- on the plea that he did in fact help the perpetrators make the time bomb. The prime suspects and also the leader of the Sikh militant group Babar Khalsa, Talwinder Singh Parmar based in Vancouver, were not found guilty on all counts. The reason being the controversial destruction of evidence and killing of witnesses in the name of "policy" by the CSIS. The families, one by one, were allowed to speak in public on the inception of the enquiry commission. They all recounted the horror they faced 21 years back, which is still fresh in their minds. The head of the commission, a former judge was silent for most of the time except when one of the ladies who lost her two daughters in the plane finished talking and thanked the judge as she left when he remarked, "You don't have to thank me for that. You are here by right. You deserve this opportunity to speak."

When I type "Kanishka" in the search engine in the Internet, the website takes me to the great Kushan emperor of the same name who ruled India during the early part of the last millenia. There is a parallel between these two Kanishkas- both have a tormented and bloody history behind them. Now that I try to figure out where it all started, the level of human stupidity involved perplexes me- Sikh nationalists make a place of worship their base and conduct terrorist activities targeting innocent civilians, Indira Gandhi storms the temple and crushes them, a pro-Khalistaan Sikh assassinates her, Congress goons massacre thousands of Sikh families in northern India and finally the Sikh militants in Canada kill 329 people by blowing up an aircraft. So who won? Apparently no one. Most of the time, people who did not have any thing to do with these conflicts got killed. Sons grew up without knowing their mothers, fathers spent the rest of their old age in the memory of their daughters- all because they booked their tickets in the wrong time.

Growing up... growing old!

2006-11-10T09:52:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, I was chatting with priya and suddenly I typed something involuntarily (monkey at work)... which, I found made sense, later when i scrolled back to see it.

mars: i think thats wat is growing up all about... giving up on the world :))

For example, all of us in India were, at some point or the other, taught about Gandhi and his principles in our schools. And depending on how well the teacher teaches them, they inspire everyone of us to various levels. But when we entered college and started dealing with real world problems, we realised how difficult they are in practice. And we give up (or rather, give in, to the world). Of course, me and priya were dicussing something entirely different but I guess this applies to everything in personal and professional life. To most of what we held dearly as a child, we become indifferent ( to put it euphemistically, "stoic") as we grow. We start our lives with zeal and enthusiasm and think we can handle anything and that success is simple. Over time, we learn that it's ok to loose and we let go.

So can we define maturity as, "Learning to give up and still not feel bad about it"... ?

Fall Back!

2006-10-29T16:01:00.000-08:00

Last night I had an extra hour of sleep when the whole North American continent changed its clocks back by an hour at 2 AM. And I really needed that sleep. The previous night out at lab was good but tiring. Watched a couple of movies, did some report and slept for about 2 hours. And the next morning at 6 AM I was off to house only to return back after 4 hours to finish the report. The bread I had in the break fast was spoilt I guess which made me a little sick by the end of the day. So much for grad life.

From today I move from Eastern Daylight-savings Time (EDT) to Eastern Standard Time (EST) or winter time. This system of day light savings was introduced to save electricity. In summers, higher latitudes like Canada and US have sun sets as late at 9 PM. So to make use of this sunlight and reduce dependance on electricity, they switch forward by one hour in Spring. This gives more evening hours and lesser dark working hours. Of course this system doesn't make sense for equitable tropics like India where the difference in Day time between summer and winter is very much. Still India used daylight savings during Indo-Pak and Indo-China wars in '62, '64 and '71. Not to save electricity, but to make people switch of their lights and go to bed early so that hostile war planes do not spot cities.

Today I embraced grad life in its crudest form- went to Gurudwara and packed a whole basket of chapatis(my staple diet now- free food). Made a whole big vessel of sambar to last for the entire week. As the climate gets colder, going home itself is a big pain, leave alone cooking after that. And today I could see the signs of what Canadian winters are capable of. When we went for the usual grocery shopping in the morning, storm like winds almost blew me off my feet as I struggled to carry all the stuff. It feels like -8 degrees though its quite close to zero. For the whole week, Ottawa has storm warnings.

More on environment, the incumbent conservative federal government, released the Clean Air (Air Pure, in french) act last week to reduce green house emissions to 2000 levels by 2050. Canada along with US contribute to almost 70% of all CO2. And green house problem is the biggest prick in Canadian politics. Of course, though each successive government promises to meet the requirements of Kyoto protocol, practically they admit its very very tough to do without any drastic implications on economy (Kyoto requires emissions to reduce to 1993 levels). There is a new method developed by scientists in Univ of Calgary where they pump in CO2 deep into the ground. Petroleum companies are quite interested in this because they can use this injection of pressurized gas into the ground to raise the level of crude oil reserves (oru kallile rendu maanga). But this is still in its testing phase as there are many risks involved, even a tiny leak can cause massive earthquakes.

Now to last weeks frosh party organized by Tamizh Student Association. It was conducted in a rented Hall outside the university. I was invited to sing which I did. They also organized all the usual fun games associated with these parties like musical chairs and eating contests. Technically being a fresher, I was forced into these competitions. When I was standing there on the stage playing those games, for the first time I realised the magnitude of my own age. I was just too old for all this. I have spent 4 years in college having fun and I have been through all these stages. Being forced back into the same old situation was kind of awkward. The creepy feeling of being a mature adult got into me! And yes, adult life is boring. My only solace was that most of the people there in that party, though under grads, were much older than me.

Then came the thing I was there for- food! They served puttu and kaththurikka poriyal ordered all the way from Toronto. After dinner we were sitting there chatting when commotion started. Guys, obviously drunk, stormed into the hall and picked up fight with the board members of the organization. Filthy verbal duels (incidental, all in Tamizh... while most of the compering during the party was in English... mother tongue is sure has a specific place in our conversations!) soon gave way to physical fights. The president of the association- a guy named Satish- showed some maturity and put an end to the mess and dispersed the gathering. To be honest, I was terrified to my guts seeing all the this. Prakash obviously sensed it. Holding my hand he asked, "Yenna Aravinth... bayandhuttingla? Indha maari Chennaila nadakkadha?". I just stared back at him not able to believe he even asked me that question after all this.

"Ithu ellam inga romba sagajam", he continued. "Naanga pudhusa vanthappo innum mosama irundhadhu, ippo konjam paravayillai". He dropped me in his car back home and on the way he was recounting the episodes during the previous frosh parties when some times police had to be called to intervene. All these fights had roots in the association politics. He ended by saying, "Tamizhan yenge irundhaalum anga pirachchanai varum! Yena namakkullaye, ottruma illai".

The next day when I narrated this incident to Gurpreet, he was stupefied, "I thought only we Punjabis drink and fight" !!!

Ghost of Christmas '84

2006-10-29T15:58:00.000-08:00

Gurpreet and Harjot took me to the Gurudwara of Ottawa for Langar (it is the traditional feast organized by the authorities of Gurudwaras everywhere. Volunteers, day and night, cook chappathis and dhal for visitors, travellers and devotees. In India, it is organized everyday. For obvious reasons, it is conducted only on sundays in Ottawa). After the usual 5 min prayer, we went into the dining hall (the reason we were there!). I was eating on the floor right under a huge banner which was screaming in large bold font- "LONG LIVE KHALISTAN OUR HOMELAND".

I look around and see really old folk limping around helping with the serving and cleaning of food. Most of them have been here since the darkest days of their life. After I was done, I went around to see the photos and paintings on the walls there. I could see a couple of life size portraits of Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale- the military and the spiritual leader of the Khalistan Liberation Army way back in the 70's. There were the photos of the other prominent members of the Liberation Army with the same quote inscribed under each one of them - "XXX attained martyrdom at the hands of the Tyrant Indian Army in 1984". At the end of the long row photos was one of a woman shown to be visibly assaulted and a newspaper clipping dating to some time in November 1984. Something was written in Punjabi which I asked Harjot to translate for me- "This woman, XXX was raped and murdered by the Hindu Government Police and her whole family was wiped out. These are but a few of the atrocities committed by the Government of India".

Most of the people who were present in the Hall with me at that time were directly or indirectly the victims of the anti-Sikh pogroms administered by the Nehru-Gandhi family loyalists in Delhi. They had been there, seen it. It sends a chill into my spine to even consider being a a victim of government organized violence- I mean, how on earth could anyone escape the carnage if both the police and the goons are on the same side? And may, for a moment, even make the hatred for "Hindus" among these folk seem justified. But is it?

Canada has done its part well in this world of eternal conflict. Sticking to its policy of multicultural coexistence, it has served home for many a flock of refugees- Sri Lankan Tamils, Palestines and Lebanese, Sikhs and the list goes on. But it has gone too far on its commitment toward tolerance to allow extremist propaganda rule its soil. I'm not saying this because I'm a practising Hindu. I would say the same about most of the Hindu temples in Toronto which serve pamphlets of Prabhakaran's speeches to the visitors. Providing refuge to troubled folk is one thing, harbouring extremism is another. No wonder many banned terrorist groups around the world have built a strong financial base in here. The silver lining is that the incumbent conservative government in the Parliament led by Prime Minister Stefen Harper has cracked down on many active operating terrorist cells and confiscated their resources (okay... for once I agree conservatives are right even if they have more notorious reasons like racism inspiring them to to this!). And not surprisingly, most of my Tamil friends hate this government.

This kind of propaganda, which I'm more or less used to seeing now a days, made me ponder into an even more fundamental question- about relevance of religion itself. Canadians (in general, the westerners) are known to be the most intolerant people. In spite of all the nice greetings and pleasant talk like "Hi"s, "Bye"s, "Good Afternoon"s and "Thank you"s, these people love their cats and dogs more than they love their siblings. Parents even after 80 are on their own. Silly things like one person's stuff getting into another person's desk in an office creates the most ugly arguments. The average time a graduate student spends working on his PhD thesis is TWICE the average life of a marriage (no wonder advisor-compatibility is more crucial than spouse-compatibility here!). How on earth, then, are they able to exist peacefully with so much diversity (in terms of religion, culture, ethnicity, language etc) around them? May be because their intolerance is "well directed". Meaning whenever they get angry, they get angry at individuals and not at the religion that those individuals represent (of course, all that has changed since 9/11).

The situation is quite the opposite in India. People go great distances to save marriages, I wouldn't mind my friends borrowing my stuff even without asking me and we respect people more than animals. Yet, we are being hypocrites when we claim that we have "unity in diversity". No community in India can boast of being clean of blood stain.

Religion was the reason behind 1984. Religion was the reason behind the Gujarat riots. Religion instigated the perpetrators of 9/11. Religion is guilty of 1993 Mumbai blasts and what followed it. Religion is stopping the schools in America from teaching Evolution. Religion is standing in way of life saving stem cell research. Religion tore a nation apart and a Religious fanatic assassinated a great soul in 1948. All this for what? A super human sitting above in the skies whom no one has ever seen or heard? Or are we completely out of our minds? When some one, say a Muslim, assaults my family and, if I'm an average Indian Hindu, I would go looking for ANY other muslim family (preferably women and children as they are the easier targets) to assault them back. In a more saner and rational world, I would have looked for the PERPETRATOR and try to bring him to justice, or in case where law fails, I would probably administer the punishment myself on HIM depending on the level of my maturity. It is amazing to see how easily we associate a whole religion with the actions of an individual. How easily the Gurudwara here associates "Hindu" with all the crimes committed against them.

May be religion made some sense say 10000 years back when it brought the cave man out of the forests and made him profess civil life, in fear some supreme authority above him. But today, religion is driving us toward the same madness it once shunned. It is driving us back into the caves. It is high time when we stopped acting as spoilt children claiming to act according to the directions of a "Holy Father" and started behaving as responsible adults. Its time we kept religion in its place- inside our houses.

Probably instead of teaching our kids how Jesus died for the Jews or how Lord Rama killed Ravana, if we teach them how great men like Issac Newton and Charles Darwin sacrificed their lives to give some meaning to our own existence, this world would have been a much safer and better place to live.

A Refugee's Diary

2006-10-06T13:17:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was quite hectic. Saturday we went to a movie named "Aani Vaer" running in a near by theatre. Almost the whole of Tamil diaspora in Ottawa had come to see this one day show. I had some prior idea that this movie dealt with the ethnic conflict in Srilanka. Nevertheless I was in for a shock- this 2 hours venture was one of the biggest and the most intense propaganda I have ever viewed on large screen.

This is the story of a journalist from Chennai who goes to Jaffna to document the human rights violations. And she happens to meet a doctor named Nanda in an LTTE medical camp. Recorded true incidents of the army atrocities on the Tamil community have been recreated with the protagonists' story in the background. But that's what it is. The other side of the issue hasn't even been discussed. Infact, in the whole movie only once the word "LTTE" is heard. The director, who is an Indian, claims that this movie was conceived to arouse the Indian Tamils to the burning issues in the island nation. But he has gone too far depicting the government as fascist regime and LTTE as an angel. Nevertheless, like most other Srilankan Tamils here, my friends here go by the word of the propaganda.

After we finished the movie, was the Saraswati pooja in a big classroom in the university organised by the Tamil Student Association here. figures of Amman, Saraswati, Lakshmi and Pillayar were placed in front of the black board and we kept our books infront of it on a table. The function started with Saraswati invocation and then pooja rites were performed. Then was dinner time and we had Chakkara Pongal, Vadai and Sundal (all after a very long time!), after which it was cultural programmes.

It was almost 8 PM by the time it all ended and I needed a lift back home. My friends from materials class offered. But they had to finish some assignment before that so I waited in their lab as they were doing their work. Boopalan, one of them, (name changed) and I started talking about the movie we watched the afternoon. He told me that all those gory incidents had in fact taken place while he was in Ceylon, albeit were chronologically inconsistent with reality. He narrated his family's history(all conversation in Tamil), which I'm penning down here in his own words...

"My parents moved to Colombo with my elder sister soon after I was born. But I stayed back in Jaffna with my grand mom. In 1982, my dad got offers to work in Dubai and he left leaving my sister and my mom alone in Colombo. Me and my grand ma used to visit them every year. But after the war broke out in 1983, I stayed back in Jaffna for while and then moved to Colombo to live with my mom in 1986.

My mom used to tell me the stories of what they went through during the riots of 83. There was one day when this Sinhali mob was scanning our area. My mom and my sister lived in an apartment. They took refuge in the opposite flat where a Sinhala family lived. When the mob knocked the door, my mom was hiding under the bed, and the man of the house brushed them off saying there are no Tamils in this locality. I was too young then to understand anything she said.

After I moved to Colombo, I joined this Christian Missionary school there. Within Colombo there is no problem between us and the Sinhaleese. In fact in our school Sinhala:Tamil ratio was about 6 to 2. We coexisted without any problem. But yes, sporadically there would be some suicide bombings in Colombo and the situation would get tense. I remember once, when we were playing cricket in our school ground, the tigers hit the national bank across the road. That was my first bomb blast. Soon after these blasts, there would be frantic phone calls all over the city with everyone enquiring the safety of their friends and family. But after 5 hours or so, every one would be back to business. It has become more or less the norm of the city. We have learnt to live with them.

But we had our share of fun. I remember how we used to mass bunk classes for the annual cricket tournament. Our teacher was a Tamil and the principal a Sinhala priest. We were sort of in good terms with the principal. So whenever our teacher punished us for bunking classes, the principal used to let us go that would start a fight between them and we used to have fun watching it!

We also had a gang of friends at home. We used to play hell lot of cricket in a huge ground near my house during our O-level (12th Std) year. On the other side of the house was the house of a Sinhala girl who was also in my class. Whenever our match got loud and ugly, her father used to come out and complain that his daughter is not able to study. One of my friends was really fluent in Sinhala and he used to throw back, telling him that even we were in O-level and still we come out to play and don't study all day like your book worm daughter. If she wants peace, let her go some where else to study.

There were times when the ball used to land in their house and the old man wouldn't return it.The next day, we used to buy a huge box of balls, place it on his compound wall, take out one ball at a time and stand in front of his house so that he can see them! That guy was always pissed at us. My mom however used to beg me not to fight with neighbours. Probably because she was living without my dad, she wanted to be in peace with everyone around there and not attract problems. The week before the final exams, that old man cursed us, "None of you brats are going to pass this year!". We wrote our exams, and the results came. Most of my friends passed wit ha an 'A' average. Some friends got 'B' grade. We all went to the old man's house with our grade sheets and shoved it to him,
We (in Sinhala): "We got 'A' average, what did your daughter get?"
The Old man: "'C' average".
We: "You know something... if you had let your daughter play cricket, she would have fared better than that"
And we left. He later remarked to my mom, "these are nice chaps you know..."

To be frank my grade wasn't that good. But then I still could have secured admission in Colombo. But I didn't want that. Neither did my dad. There was just too much of harassment in there. Everyone in Srilanka is given a Photo Identity card and a police address proof. We have to carry it where ever we go and still, the police used to stop us and accuse us of being terrorists. They would give lame reasons like 'your photo doesn't resemble your face' etc. When my sister got married, they had to face lot of issues. It was that some of the college mates of my maama had joined the LTTE. And so the police used to knock their doors in odd hours and ask them questions. My maama couldn't take it anymore and he found a job in Toronto and left with my sister. After that, the police started coming to our place and started questioning my dad. I remember vividly, during my O levels, the police came home at 3 in the morning and started shouting at us. This constable came into my room where I was studying and asked me where my sister was. I told him they have moved to Toronto. Then he shook me threatening of dire consequences if I lied.

My father called me one day and told me, "You leave this country. Go to Canada to your sister. I'll join you later". And that was that. I packed my bags and left Colombo for good. Now, it is my duty to join some firm soon after I finish my final year, earn enough money and sponsor my parents to immigrate. That's the least I can do for them."

There is nothing to question the authenticity of the above story. There IS a huge problem there. And yes, Tamils are at the receiving end. But giving that as an excuse for counter-violence is by no means justifiable. Boopalan and all his compatriots here regularly read TamilNet news and consider the LTTE's propaganda as God's own truth. Boopalan told me how one of Prabhakaran's editorial in TamilNet justifies Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, "Rajiv Gandhi wanted to exploit the LTTE's causes so that he can extend India's influence beyond its borders. In fact, the atrocities that we saw today in the movie was also committed by the IPKF's soldiers. LTTE wanted some revenge".

To say that LTTE is the true representative of their grievances is a gross misjudgement. May be they were justified back in 70's when all the peaceful Gandhian agitations organized by the Tamil leaders were met by hostile reaction from the government. May be force was the only thing that brought the government to table and made it even consider that this is an issue. But the tigers lost their relevance there. What can explain suicide bombings in Colombo? What can explain the hypocritical stand of the LTTE in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, where they don't officially accept involvement, but justify it in TamilNet? And god forbid what can explain massacre of the other Tamil groups in 1987 by the LTTE under the banner 'uniting all the Tamils under one roof'?

What ever the answers for the above questions, I learnt one important lesson from Saturday- When people immigrate out of India they give reasons that India is inefficient, poor, illiterate and corrupted... but we still have a choice to go back home. These unfortunate souls don't.

My first Class... as a Teacher!

2006-09-25T13:30:00.000-07:00

Just few minutes back, I finished watching "Jillunu Oru Kaadhal" on Arumika's computer. It was not bad. A. R. Rehman's music as usual is very good. I came to college at about 2 o clock after getting up pretty late. Actually I got some time to sleep peacefully last night after one very tiring week.

Yesterday I conducted the very first quiz for the under grads. Friday is my day to conduct quizzes and unfortunately the very first quiz was on Friday and I was completely inexperienced to begin with. We PA TAs had a meeting on thursday on how to conduct quizzes and that helped a bit. Our supervising TA, a PhD named Mohd. Arsalan from Karachi, Pak, guided me through this uncertain time and was very helpful. Friday morning I had to come a bit early (7:30) to get the photocopies of the question paper done at the Department Office.

At 8:30 I stepped into my first class to find a fairly low turn out (3 as against a roll of 15). But people started walking in as the session proceeded. Welcome to Canadian classroom- everything is pretty informal! Student come in go out, eat, drink and sleep in the classroom as they wish. Students come in all sizes and shapes. Guys come to class in Bermudas, Vests, hair dyed in the craziest colors humanly imaginable, boys wearing earings at every possible place on their bodies except their ears... and the list goes on. We were told at the TA orientation at the begining of the term that all this behaviour "must not be taken as a mark of disrespect". Well, the thought on how the faculty would react if WE had done such things back in Anna University was amusing.

Since this was the first session, no student bothered to do the assignment they were supposed to do (PA sessions are about clearing doubts in asignments and conducting quiz). So I had to work out each problem in tha ssignment for them. But I was surprised at their enthusiasm when I started working on problems. I guess that was partly because of their lack of aptitude. For a college level, I found these students had serioulsy low mathematical skills as compared to those in India. They need help even for elementary Integration and simplification of expressions. But I was happy atleast they had an urge to learn these things. I was not complaining... these students regard us like Professors! First impression is the best impression they say. So I made sure I didn't make any mistake on board. Also, I tried to set the test very simple (Arsalan had asked me to expect all this), yet giving some work for their brain. And I guess I did a good job at it. Over all, my first formal teaching experience was good.

I came back home early because a furnace company guy was coming home to inspect our heater and I had to be at home for that. After he left, I sat down to mark the answer sheets. I was happy to find some 5 of my students getting 10/10. But a couple of guys got only 5/10 and I was pretty much unhappy about that, more so after I had worked so hard that morning to teach them. But I think this is a part of every teachers life.

Today morning, the Weather Network (the 24 X 7 news channel which gives only and ONLY weather news at local, national and internatiional level. We depend on it for all the forecasts and watch it every morning before leaving for college. Their forecasts tell us what kind of clothing we need to take that day. Some times I'm surprised how these news readers maintain their mental stability while narrating the same old things about climate the whole day!) announced that today is the end of Summer and Fall begins. Well, I don't remember experiencing any real summer all these days either. But then we expect the coming weeks to get very very cold. I hope Miss Mary (Mr. Nihal's friend) brings me the blankets soon enough. The thin grey blanket I brought from India is increasingly proving to be insufficient. Every night I get into the bed, I find the whole mattress and the sheet very cold.

The classes are going good. Especially my Materials class. We had been working on Schrodinger's Electron wave equation for the last two weeks and I have started understanding a lot of concepts about Quantum theory I never understood in India. Though we don't do a lot of mathematics in that class (actually no physicist ever does!), we are being taught everything intutively.

I got to meet a guy named Parthiban from Rajapaalayam early this week. He had done his UG here and is continuing with his masters in Systems Engineering. I think Arumika and Parthiban are the only two known Indian Tamils here.

Since last week I have been drinking Black Tea every morning. The reason is more economic than anything else- milk is just too costly here. On cold mornings such as these, hot tea soon after getting up from bed is really refreshing

I came today to finish off what remains of my assignment and also to watch this movie. During weekends no one usually comes ot the lab and we can come here and watch movies, listen to music and do voice chat (Though today Gurpreet is in the lab... listening to Kishore Kumar!). Tomorrow I'll be going to the temple (free food!).

Getting Cold... Getting Used To

2006-09-25T13:28:00.000-07:00

Sun shone today after a week of rain and its really good. Finally. the temperature touched the 20 degree mark.

This week was very very busy.

First I got my TA duties assigned. The instructor for this second year under grad course (Basic Circuits and Signals) is a Prof named Tom Ray. He is a pretty nice guy and I doubt he will exploit me. We are an army of about 10 TAs for some 200+ students. So each will be incharge for some 25 students. We had a meeting earlier this week about sharing of responsibilities. I had a choice of either becoming in charge for lab or taking care of Problem Analysis sessions and organizing weekly quizzes. I took Problem Analysis (PA) because Lab means I have to run around to each student clearing bugs in circuits and stuff. I have to come every Monday and Friday at 8:30 in the morning for this session starting from next Friday. My duties include grading the weekly quiz and making sure all students do their assignments. Yet, I had to supervise the first intoductory lab session yesterday morning which was about teaching the students soldering (because the lab TAs haven't been assigned yet). I had a pretty good first class and I believe I communicated the process to my students well. I had some problem with my Chineese students though. I'm not being racist, but I have observed that Chineese students' english is extremely pathetic in general. They ask me some doubt and I have to ask them again and again the same thing to understand what they mean. And each time, they re-phrase it , making the comprehension worse and worse! But I think I'll soon start to get used to their tongue.

I attended my first Materials audit course on Thursday. The class was terrific. The prof (named Tom Smy) is teaching directly from Feynmans lectures on Quantum Physics and its very very interesting. And there in the class, I met some 4th year undergrads from SriLanka. Finally, some one here spoke to me in Tamil! Of course their dialect is completely different. They introduce me to their friends like this :
"Yivar Peyar Aerevinth... Yivar Yindhiya Lirunthu Vanthirikkiraar" !!
They are really friendly people. One of the guy's name is Prakash, there is one Dileeban and one Satya ( I haven't met any Prabhakaran or Nalini yet !!) . They told me that there are over 200 Srilankan students in Carleton! Few of them came here with their families after the expulsion of 1995, but most of them are here only since 2001. Their plan is to come here to do under grad, get a job, and then sponsor their parents back in Colombo and bring them here as permanent residents. Most of them are native of Jaffna.

Even fall (autumn) hasn't arrived yet and already the temperatures have dropped to 8 and 7 degrees in the night! And whenever it does get above the 15 degree threshold by God's grace and I start breathing easy, people here switch on the AC, because its just too hot for them! The colours of the leaves have started changing and soon next month, the whole city will turn Bright red from green and there will be a riot of colours all over.

Some maintenance company guys came home today to inspect the heaters at home. There is a huge boiler and a furnace in every home in Ottawa which heats the house all through the winter. People usually switch it on at the end of October and turn it off only at the end of April when the winter gets over. It needs cleaning every September before the onset of winter. The guy told Mr. Shahadat that he needs to replace the furnace because there are some cracks. And Shahadat is working on it. Winters get pretty nasty here during February when there is freezing rain - rains drops frozen during their descent. That makes roads and pavements very slippery. And also, since days become extremely short then (4 PM sunset against 8 Pm sunset currently), many people go into depression because of lack of light! The cure for this psychiatric syndrome it seems is exposure to a table lamp!

One of Mr. Nihal's friend today dropped by my place and gave me a huge study table and a lamp. Its really great and has helped clear all the mess in my room (i just used to keep books and bag on floor).

I'm reading The Hindu e paper regularly. Mainly because the local and even the national dailies here are very much like the stupid Tamil magazines in chennai- mostly Page 3 stuff. A

First Week in Grad School

2006-09-25T13:24:00.000-07:00

The week was sort of hectic. I ventured out into to the downtown a couple of times. The canadian war museum is worth mentioning.

We submitted the first assignment to ram achar and he suggested some changes and has asked us to meet him again tomorrow (tuesday). On thursday I had my first class.

The TA orientations were really good esp the general one where we had case studies on how to deal with under grad issues when grading and clearing their doubts. Its a challenge 100 times more than India to deal with UG people. Because in this part of the globe, college education is just a luxury and leisure affair. Most of the people don't even come here for jobs... all they want is to experience University life and socialize. Compare this with the govt colleges of India where only the cream of a state or the country is selected for the UG programs and every one is serious about t heir studies. Most people here don't even go to Grad school.

Most probably I will not teach- TAs here mostly do grading work and clear doubts and take tutorials. Nevertheles, it would be a great experience for a career in academics.

From the Warmest Place on Earth

2006-09-02T10:14:00.000-07:00

This is the true account of my travel to the North-Western Hemisphere and my first impressions of Canada and Ottawa.

23rd August, 9:30 PM

I arrived at the Anna International Terminal only to find I'm the earliest among the 3. MK arrived shortly and after some wait, KG came at 945 (he had, as you might have guessed, promised 915). Reddy anna had come to seeoff KG. My family, my extended family AND my dad's colleagues came for my send off (you know some times popularity is difficult to handle).
The ban on visitors' entry, which came into effect after Mumbai TRAIN blasts, was lifted soon after the London AIR-scare. I wasn't complaining though. My parents, bro, patti and uncle came inside to talk to me till I went inside for immigration. The check-in guy told me the hand item which is usually allowed in addition to the hand luggage is prohibited after the Heathrow episode. I had to put my Intel bag into my travel back pack to convince him and though it weighed 10 kilos after that, he din't mind. MK had to check in one hand bag (which was done for free) becaue he couldn't squeeze one in the other.

After bidding my parents adieu, we went in for immigration and security check. There were 2 loooooooooong queues. We were confused as to which one is ours. A lady in sleeveless looking at our blank faces offered to help and told u any queue is fine. We stood behind her. I needed to take out my passport so showed my sweater at KG and said, "konjam pudichchikonga..."

KG: (with a dirty smile on his face) yedha?

I looked at him, and then the girl ... Hmmm... this is going to be a looooooong journey!

Since KG entered the airport a bit late, we couldn't get consecutive seats. Only me and MK were together. And as luck would have it, it was the very last seat of the plane. Hmmm... this is going to be one looooong bumpy ride! On a brighter side, I got the window seat. I fell asleep immediately and missed the dinner which was served. KG, of course, hogged.

When I got up, the sun was at the horizon and man how bright the rays were from that altitude! MK and KG came around shortly. KG and MK swapped places. I chatted with KG over the breakfast which was good hot pongal. KG was now and then gaping at the german air hostess who, he said, looked like Monica Belouky. The descent at Frankfurt was cool with splendid views down... cities and towns are planned with human settlements separated by vast tracts of green pastures and woods - lands which would otherwise be converted into engineering colleges in India. We landed at Frankfurt at 1000 hrs local time. The climate was pleasant with gushes of cold wind every now and then.

The airport is huge and beautiful. We went to the gate where our Air Canada flight was waiting. After the security check, we boarded te plane. This time, KG and MK got seats next to each other while I was next to a window seat.

I picked up Canada's national daily "Globe and Mail" and was shocked to see the lead story "Four Tamil Students arrested in Ontario while smuggling weapons to LTTE"... Oh... thats a good start in a new country...

They showed Ice Age 2 and X Men on the flight. My neighbour was a middle aged stocky man in shorts. I learnt that Allen was a psychiatrist in Calgary (Oh yeah... soon MK or Suren or La Chappel will see this guy). He graduated from Cambridge and was born and brought up in Johanesburg. He told me about the conditions which arise out of lack of sunlight in winters in Canada. This syndrome, which results in depression, is cured by exposing the patients to a table lamp 20 mins a day! Allen asked me where am I headed for and said , "Ottawa"

Allen: Pardon?

Me: Ottawa.

He was silent for a while and then exclaimed "Oh! You mean 'Auto-wa' !" (the spelling has been altered to accomodate the pronounciation)

Oh... I must remember that one!

KG, meanwhile, was having his own share of fun. Now, our Ma Kanna was having problem cutting his cheese pizza, and guess who did it for him? A 81 year old patti sitting next to him!
We entered the Terminal 1 at Toronto and after a very long wait at the Immigration at Port of Entry, went out to identify our baggaes and re check them. We bought some calling cards and called back home. I My flight to Ottawa wa leaving in an hour and so I left immediately bidding KG and Mk good bye. Of course I remembered to collect the gift KG had for me- a book on science and philosophy... you know, the things we psychos usually discuss.

It was a window seat again for me and a chineese girl was siting next to it. I stood next to her and she looked at me and asked, "Do you want to go inside?"

Me : Yes.

And in a flash, she just crounched and jumped over and stood on her seat and said, "Hop in!"
Stupefied, I went into my seat. A punjabi guy came and sat next to her. He was about my age and was wearing a college t shirt. I had a feeling that he might also headed for Carleton but I didn't mind asking him. I burried my head into my book occasionally looking out of the window. The journey was short- Toronto and Ottawa are like Bangalore and Chennai.

At the Ottawa Terminal, I was welcomed by Mr Nihal- an associate of my uncle back in Chennai. He is a Sinhalee who is now settled in Ottawa. It seems he had served as secretary to Sri Lankan Finance Ministry long time back (good to have a diplomatic welcome into a country!). He drove me to the accomodation I had booked. The land lord of the town house, Mr Shahadat welcomed us in and inspected my room to be. Shahadat told me he is expecting another student to arrive shortly. Nevertheless the bell rang and I was surprised to find the same punjabi guy at my door step!!!

He was Harjot Singh, the guy I had met in orkut TWO MONTHS back and to whom I had passed on Shahadat's contact details on request. But I had no idea he had actually booked the same town house as mine. And I certainly had no idea that we would travel in the same flight, forget about being in the very next seat! We see each other in the flight, he gets a feeling that I'm Arvind but doesn't ask me because I'm busy reading a book, he is then received at the air port by his acquaintance and I, by mine and then we converge at the town house surprised to find each other... Look at the odds to that!

After we came over our funny little episode, Harjot left to return the next day with his stuff. I moved into the room immediately though. Mr. Nihal soon left after he was convinced I was in the right hands. Mr. Shahadat, is from Dhaka and a staff at the business school in Carleton. The town house is really good, neat, furnished and with a well equipped kitchen. There are 3 rooms on the first floor. Me and Harjot took one each. The last one will be taken by Gurpreet Singh who arrives on Sep 8th from Bangalore for PhD under Ram Achar. My room is relatively small but adequate. I was too tired and just slept off.

The jet lag persisted the next day. I got up pretty early and had sandwich breakfast. Harjot arrived in the afternoon and Shahadat took us to the University in his car and showed us around. I had an appointment with Ram Achar at 3 and he took us to the Graduate Office and got some formalities done prior to my registration. He took us to the CAD lab and showed us our offices and introduced us to the students there. After a briefing about our course work, we headed back home. Later in the evening we went to a couple of grocery stores nearby and Shahadat took us on a tour of the beautiful neighbourhood. People in Canada are very friendly, polite and accomodative. People stick to traffic rules, give way, and show a hell lot of courtesy to the pedestrians. All cultures have been accepted here with a very open heart and there is absolutely no racism or crime here- the Stranger in Black inside me finally smiled after 20 years!!! ;)

Shahadat is a really nice and help ful guy and has made us feel home in here right away. He lets u use his stuff and gave me a sweater to use.

Shahadat and Harjot cooked delicious Rajma and Rice for the dinner. Saturday went eventless and we spent the day mostly at home.

It rained today morning which made it really chill down here. Some 16 degrees. At 11, Ram Achar came over to our place and picked me and Harjot up for the Vinayaka Chathurthi function at his place. There was a small Indian community attending the function and we had great South Indian lunch. We were chatting with Ram Achar's freinds over it. They are from diferent domains, from banking to Ottawa Electricity Board, and were really nice to us and gave us some winter tips. Professor's wife packed us some Idlis and Bisi Bella Bath for home!
On my request, Shahadat drove us to the Temple near by. Its a very huge one like the Birla Temple in Hyderabad. Shahadat keeps recounting his experience as a new student in Ottawa and is always praise for the city, "This city is not so fast but is fast enough... no crime, no hassles. People are very welcoming. It is ideal to raise a family"

Half way around the globe, I can feel my mom's stomach turning!

Conservatives Vs Conservatives

2006-08-16T13:25:00.000-07:00

The scourge of Tamil Nadu

One lasting effect of the Second World War on politics of the countries all over the world was to divide political parties into 2 broad classes- conservatives and liberals. The fanatical nationalist movement in European countries especially in Germany created an set of ideals which advocated narrow minded patriotism. These ideals could be put to practice anywhere and could be translated to any culture and hence such groups emerged everywhere forming similar (and hence opposing ) factions. Through the war and the period of cold war that followed, this class was usually opposed to the socialist parties of the respective countries and hence were given the name "Right Wing", as opposed to "Left Wing" (The term "Left" itself does not have any communist basis, it just means "radical". Since the communist movement was some thing of a sea change compared to the existing capitalist hegemony).

Ever since, political groups have almost always identified themselves either as Right or Left at least by principle- Republicans and Democrats in US, Conservative and Labour (or now, Liberal Party) in UK, Christian Democrats and Social Democrats in Germany, Christian and Democrats of Italy, Republicans and Socialists of France and so on- and these groups confront each other in elections based on principles which can be more or less be categorized as "conservative" or "liberal".

India has had a strange history as far as this kind of grouping is concerned. The freedom struggle was led by the Congress Party which heavily borrowed from Marxist ideals especially under the leadership of Nehru and it worked with CPI in the national movement. Soon after Independence, however, as the Communist parties competed with Congress in elections, the nation moved a bit toward the 'right' and the economy was termed to be 'mixed'. And hence, Congress became the largest 'centre' party of the world. In the 70s, the Janata Party movement gained momentum and Hindutva Ideology as we know it today was born which advocated a Hindu nation. This emergence of extreme conservatives led Congress to move back toward 'left' and hence today it can better categorized as 'centre-left'. These neo conservatives in the form of the Sangh Parivar, with their involvement in scores of communal disturbances in the nation since independence and with their 'commercial' advertising of political agendas, have indeed have formed a sort of strong Right Wing in the country. We have redefined Right and Left in our own indegenious way- In India, consevatives are those who preach religion on the political arena and liberals are those who are secular. Regional parties in all states also have come to classify themselves on this basis and ally themselves with parties at centre with similar ideology.

All states but one. Try as much, I have not been able to find any basis of such classification in Tamil Nadu. There just doesn't seem to be any principle or characteristic, based on which one can distinguish between DMK and ADMK. Both parties carry out the same kind of political campaigning and propaganda which depends on arousing the feeling of regional and linguistic fanatism among people, both parties have a common history in the Dravidian movement and both parties, when in power, perform the duties of moral policing. Based on the Indian definition, hence, can we term both the factions as conservatives?

This puts us in a funny situation doesn't it? That these two parties actually have no real ground on which they can contest elections. The high rate of incumbency in the state ascertains this fact. Since there is no real ideology, people in the end have no real inclination toward any party and hence keep electing the opposition everytime hoping for some change. We have a perfect statistical paradise with mathematical precision in this state- every election is like throwing an unbiased coin. And perfect randomness in ensemble means each toss should give alternate results each time for a fairly long period. And it DOES happen here!!! One can easily postulate that if things remain the same for next thousand years, and that the elections results for those thousand years are plotted, they would very closely resemble the output of a pseudo random bit sequence generator they use in CDMA receivers!

It all started in 1912. Indologists discovered that the grammatical and phonetical structures of the languages north and south of the Vindhyas are strikingly different. This led to speculation that people of the south are a different race, Dravidian ("Dravida" = South in Sanskrit), which probably existed before Aryans arrived. The discovery of ruins of a magnificient urban civilization at Mohen-jo-daro gave rise to an even more controversial idea- that it was the Dravidians who started this civilization and that the invading Aryans burnt their houses down and drove them south. Early indologists, Max Muller being the prominent, termed this phenomenon as Aryan Invasion Theory. These ideas inspired the contemporary intelligensia of Tamil Nadu and filled them with pride about their own legacy. The flip side- it divided people.

Periyar started the Dravidian movement with legitimate interests of putting the superstitions and caste based attrocities prevailing in the society to an end. His struggle was indispensable in removing the Brahmin tyranny and creating equal oppurtunities for all in the state. But the very rationalism he advocated was infested with the highly irrational idea that 2 different races existed in the country, that the Brahmins in the state were unwelcome Aryan immigrants and hence should be expelled and that the North Indians were 'barbaric' Aryans who displaced 'civilized' Dravidians. What was supposed to be a completely academic debate was fought on the political arena. While his strive to reform the Tamil alphabet, and get it declared as classical language is commendable, his opposition to teaching of Hindi in schools was unwarranted. In a country like India divided by languages and cultures, the concept of national language is the only thing which can bind it as a nation. The other southern states were relatively untouched by these movements and have assimilated Hindi very well over the time. Periyar's claim for a separate 'Dravida Nadu' and his boycott of Hindi, which was carried on by his followers, has created a vast cultural gap between the state and the rest of the country which exists even today.

Mitochondrial-DNA analysis has today proven beyond doubt that the darkest south indian is no more closely related to his nearest African ancestor than his fairest counterpart. There is no separete race in this country. The dark complexion issue which is usually quoted is but a mere adaptation to life closer to the equator. This should have been obvious even during Periyar's time, even without DNA studies- 5000 years of coexistence cannot leave a trace of separate races in any country. Intermixing is a very rational process. Infact, South Indians have historically been the best preservers of Vedic Traditions while the North had been under the influence of Buddhism and Islam. His conservative campaign created a vast number of people ignorant of the national language and intolerant of other cultures and languages. It created regional fanatics.

DMK which formed on the ruins of Periyars movement took the Dravidian cause further and eventually became popular on the basis of a lie- probably a democratic version of Hitlers Aryan propaganda. After ADMK split from DMK, they ended up as the only dominant parties of the state. Having nothing to say against each other in principle, they swapped alliances and used nothing but populist measures to oust each other. What else can explain the Left and Right wingers at the centre switching loyalties between the two parties almost EVERY single election for about a decade? There seems to be only politics of convenience in TN, no politics of ideology.

When a northie hears the word 'chennai' he hears it as 'culture'. But it also brings to his mind the intolerance of people here. Winston Churchill said, "Even conservatives have to change with times if they want to remain relevant". This mess, though created by fanatic politics, can only be cleaned by a new generation of liberal rationals. Its time to open up.

Stranger In Black

2006-08-06T11:03:00.000-07:00

This post was intended to be my very first when I started blogging, but I guess ideas don't come to us by will. One must learn to identify and grab them as and when they sporadically get ignited in our minds... probably that's the difference between great writers and us.

I had been to Shanka's place for lunch few weeks back. I had to get some passport sized photos done urgently and so gave the negative for print in a digital photoshop near his place and collected the photos while leaving for home.

Me and Shanka went on Seeku's scooter, me driving. While returning home, I stopped at a T-Section leading to his street looking at the signal going red.

Shanka: Dei... yenda niruththune?
Me: signal da...
Shanka: Dei!!!! enna da... ithukkellaam poi niruththure... naa intha signallai eppovome mathichchadhilliye da...
Me: machaan... athukku naanum niruththaama ponuma da?
Shanka: Dei!!! (getting restless over the wait) enna da nee...

...

I remember watching this movie 'Anniyan' about this time last year with some friends at Egmore ( I don't recall who exactly, but I remember Priya and Marun coming with me ). I've always admired Shankar ( don't get any wrong ideas people... I mean the director here... not shanka ) for packaging movies dealing with sensitive social issues, with glitz and glamour making it reachable to a wide Indian audience. This technique of his, which he has mastered over the years of his stay in the Film Industry, makes his movies more acceptable than those of Mani Ratnam's in the B and C centers. Of course, he alternates his masterpieces with boring, often-nauseating ventures, which has only glitz sans any worthwhile storyline or concept ('Kaadhalan', 'Jeans'... yuck!).

So... why am I writing this piece on Anniyan one whole year after its releasing?... No, this is not a movie review as such. This post deals more with what the movie actually represented and how stark the contrast is the ground reality in India, which is kind of a summing up of my observations of people around me over the past one year set against this movie's underlying theory.

Like all other Shankar movies showcasing problems of the country, this one targets a particular group of our society. Only that this time the group is very very large... 'Indian' showed us how administrators ought to be, 'Muthalvan' showed us how legislature ought to be. 'Anniyan' showed us how common people ought be. Like most of the previous ventures ('Gentleman', 'Indian'...), the solution he offers in this movie too is impractical, unethical and illegal.

The protagonist, Ambi, is a good man amidst filth. He represents that one honest person for every thousand 'normal' people of India. Unhappy incidents during childhood, an outcome of a chain reaction of negligence on the part of a wide range of people belonging to all the strata of the society, bring about his sister's premature death and that instills in him zeal to pursue his responsibilities as a citizen with utmost devotion. This obsession-like adherence to rules shapes him into a honest barrister.

Nevertheless, the complacency and selfishness prevalent in our society injures his mindset and the wounds slowly shape into another personality living inside the same body. This new face is not as merciful as Ambi who believes that even legal action must not contain corporeal punishment. Rather, 'Anniyan' proclaims himself to be the Judgment Maker of the souls and invokes the castigations of Hell, as recorded by Garuda Purana of the Vaishnavite school of thought. Hints of inspiration from the Morgan Freeman starrer 'Seven' are visible here. That thriller was a gory narration of an catholic fanatic who executes people for committing the seven deadly sins proscribed by the Bible. Anniyan is more of a national consciousness affair than any religious propaganda, where the significance of adherence to rules for national development is highlighted. The movie has scenes adopted from many other Hollywood movies and books, as it is usually the case with Shankar. But the Indianization of the episodes is impeccable and that's where Shankar shines. And at the end of the day you need to give it to him- accusing people AND IN THE PROCESS getting their acclaim is no small deal. The movie was a blockbuster.

But are the very people who made it a success actually moved by it, leave alone inspired? The movie cries out the fundamental truth of our society, which we have long taken for granted- we have become experts in accusing the system for all our woes and have forgotten to look into our mistakes. We have been committing mistakes and breaking laws for so many generations that today, we do it involuntarily without any sense of guilt. It is in our genes now.

Last monday, when we were waiting the long wait for IDP at the RTO in mount, Moksham asked me, "What do you think da, The government of Independent India could have done better these 50 years?"
Me: I guess theres something wrong on both sides. We have lost our right to blame them. We expect a lot of things from them but never respect the laws they make.
Sham: But our laws don't make sense
Me: Like?... take for example traffic regulations... how many times do you think you ve stopped before the Stop Line? and how many times have you waited for the waiting countdown to actually go to zero and the appearing of the green signal before starting your vehicle? Don't tell me Traffic rules don't make sense, its almost the same followed in every country
Sham: Well, I see no one watching over us there. Yes, if the maama (policeman) is present I mind the line...
Me: So there it is... you have no regard for the rules as such, you think you have a license to break rules wherever the enforcement is weak.

And isn't it so? Our sense of duty, wherever it is seen, is a mere offspring of the fear of stringent enforcement rather than any actual moral responsibility toward the system of things. The same people would follow the traffic rules with obedience if they were in the US. We follow rules not because our conscience tells us to, but because there are grave consequences of not doing the same. And since most of the petty rule breaking in India goes scot-free, our sense of right and wrong goes for a trip to the moon.

Forerunners of civilization predicted this complacency and thus forged Garuda Puraana like philosophies in every culture and religion known to man to instill in people, fear of breaking rules, which can easily go unnoticed. It is this notion- that there is a place called Hell where every instance of crossing the line is being accounted for and that justice will prevail eventually immaterial of how small or big the crime is- which maintains order and sanity and keeps the fabric of the society from disintegrating.

The Tambaram Sanatorium railway gate is notorious for opening for only short intervals with long waiting times in between. And pedestrians and two-wheeler riders alike have been using this as a reason for walking under the gate whenever it is closed for ages. Since it was built about a year ago, I have been probably the only regular user of the Sanatorium Subway(barring the fruit vendors who use it as godown). Most people prefer jumping over the tractions than taking the pain of walking down the subway. About six months back, after some accidents being reported along the railway crossing, red coloured chains were hung beneath the gate to prevent people from crossing over underneath it. With in a few weeks, the chains were broken down by the people beyond recognition and the authorities gave up. What difference does those few extra seconds of walking down the subway or few extra minutes of waiting for the gate to open make when compared to risking life? Somewhere, sometime, somebody gets killed while crossing and that will cause people to become 'extra' careful for a few days and then everything comes back to 'normal' till some one else gets killed again. Sometimes it pains me to ask myself how many deaths are needed to teach the people the simple procedure of using a manned railway crossing?

The above account of a railway crossing was but just one of the zillions of instances of complacency on our part. It still amazes me how trivial it seems for most to cross the gate or for that matter disregard a traffic signal while these things can make or break life. Immaterial of how well the nation scales in IT enabled services and semiconductors, without the basic etiquettes of existence 2020 is just a utopian dream.

Anniyan is not Tamil Cinema's all time greatest movie. It may not even be Shankar's best. Yet, it was a brave statement. It mirrored our society and cried out our inefficacies. It told us that there is an Ambi in every one of us whom we have forgotten. It also told us that there is an Anniyan out there who hasn't forgotten our mistakes.

Sorcerers or ‘Soccer’ers?

2006-07-17T01:25:00.000-07:00

This post kind of summarizes the events of this World Cup. Wait!!! No, this has absolutely NOTHING to do with football. Actually I must make it clear here that I'm pretty much a zero in football (Yes, we used to play it with great zeal in school, but I never cared to watch it on TV). Infact, the last match I watched before this World Cup was the finals of the 2002 WC. I didn't know that a man named Ronaldo existed before that.

Rather, this post relives the legend of how this WC turned few ordinary men into wizzards... how few mortals (read my classmates) discovered the power of divination within them... the power to tell the future! This post attempts to recount the innumerable predictions made by the guys of ECE, 2006 batch... And how NONE of them actually came true!

Sorcercer #1
Now what is a better media than blogging to tell the world your predictions. It all started with Asif's "Everybody is talking about the World Cup" ( http://asiftherock.blogspot.com/ ). And talking they did. Though Asif refrained from making any explicit prediction of the results in his post and was mostly discussing the strengths and weaknesses of various teams, he did hint a support for the world wide 'Brazil will Win' syndrome. He dismissed France in "Why don't they change formations" as having poor strategy and that very team with the same strategy made it to the final!

Sorcercer #2
Then comes, of course, our very own, 'The Dark Lord' alias 'Sirius Black' alias 'Siriusly Silver' alias Dijango Maama. This 'Disgruntled English Fan' ( http://siriuslysilver.blogspot.com/ ) constitutes those in this country who still loyally serve our old colonial masters. His devotion and deep 'love' for ManU players can be no less exemplified than Asif's post on this nerd ( http://asiftherock.blogspot.com/2006/01/so-today-lets-look-at-my-buddy-ilango.html ) hehe! None of the teams in his "Order of Favorites" crossed the quaterfinals, and the "Woeful French...Again" AGAIN came close to claiming the honours. His "Go Three Lions!" soon became "Unconvincing Three Lions". Poor chap had a pathetic World Cup this time around. And as it always happens, his passions are often met with hostility by my classmates. Everyone hated England to begin with ( "They are overrated"- Asif ). I sometimes have a feeling people hate England just because Kilango likes it. Its this obsession with which he worships the sportspersons he likes that puts off most people. Everyone was celebrating the day England was out of the WC campaign. And Jango din't come online for a few days... I was worried if Jango, under a fit of passion, did the unthinkable! No one was complaining though, when I expressed this concern to my friends...

Me: "Dei, its been 3 days since I saw him online... you reckon he committed a suicide or something?"
Everyone else: "We hope he does that!"

Poor Jango almost always ends up as a "Black" Sheep. Then finally he was back with the post "Henry is No Saint!" which was but a mere offspring of his frustation and agitation at the world cup results.

Sorcercer #3
Next in the list of sorcerers is the Eternally-Fickle-Minded-Jerk, Kalyanaraaman. Now Kalyan is not exactly a blogger, but then he doesn't need a blog to let the world know what he thinks... His big loud mouth, which goes an extra mile in ranting, does it for him. During ABK's treat in Hot Chips, he proclaimed, "Dei, Brazil thokkanumna Ronaldovukku bedhi varanum, Ronaldinovukku vaanthi varanum, Adrianovukku jaundice varanum" (For Brazil to loose, Ranaldo must suffer from Diahorrea, Ronaldino from Nausea and Adriano from Jaundice)... apparam?... Kakavukku Kakavalippu varanuma?. Hmmm... I'm sure that after they went back to Brazil after the defeat in the Quaterfinals, the whole team WOULD have infact got Diahorrea watching the videos of their own games.

Sorcercer #4
A step toward sensibility was VAC. His "Heart says England... Mind says Brazil" ( http://thayir-sadham.blogspot.com/ ) gave away his "Go England Go!" mind set while acknowledging the power of the former World Champions. Unfortunately, neither his heart nor his mind gave him company beyond the quaterfinal! Later he acknowledged England's pathetic state in the post mortem "God Din't Save the Queen, Murray Did".

Sorcercer #5
One afternoon in the Lab...
Me: "Don't you think tonight's quaterfinal between Argentina and Germany will be pretty close... I mean both of them are playing great"
Kiran: "Dei, isn't it obvious? Argentina will win da"
And not so obviously, the hosts partied home that night. End of the road for the South Americans.

I must mention here that a respite from all these prophecies came in the form of Vivek's light hearted post "Football, England and a Bet" ( http://viveksniche.blogspot.com/ ) which narrates a funny account of how his ignorance of the game almost lost him a bet to his brother.

What I have understood, from my watching these WC matches, is that soccer is pretty much a random game with almost always, the stakes being 50-50 or something close to that. You can almost everytime draw straws between the teams. With no natural elements aiding or frustating the players (like pitch and weather in cricket), and the very tempo of the game being quite high, the game is left to the mercy of a chance rush of adernaline and a very rare display of genius even among the very great geniuses. And since the game has incurred a very defensive mindset over the years (unlike the flamboyance with which it was played in the 80s and 70s), most of the games this WC ended at 1-0s or 1-1s at full time which demand penalty shoot outs which, in turn, only increase the randomness.

And now... the greatest Sorcerer of all!
And then the night of the Finals came. Everyone was chanting "France, France, France.."... Orkut profiles, messenger statuses... almost everything on the internet was flooded with messages predicting a definite French Cup. Being online before a match is a tough time, especially if its the Finals. People just don't stop asking "Hey who do you think will win da?". I was wise enough by now not to make any statement. But my brother (who was as pathetic as me in football before this WC ) was relentless and kept messaging me asking whom am I supporting. Tired of his pestering, I uttered my ONLY prediction for World Cup 2006 Germany...

" I DONT know who will win... but I think there will be atleast one moment of great passion on ground and atleast one interesting Red Card"

... they say Lord Saneeswarar resides in my tongue. An what a red card it was! That raised hand of the refree pushed an illustrious career into oblivion. A rare moment in the history of football when you get to see a street fight during a match! Zidane fans, please don't be mad at me. Human actions are supposedly controlled by Lord Indra, not Saneeswarar!

And by the way, the French lost the match to Italians, and yes, again a penalty shoot out decided the result.

Now tell me folks... who will make a better Nostradamus... me or the self-proclaimed soccer-sorcerers of my class?

PS: Even Nostradamus got it all wrong! He predicted a Spanish win: "In the sixth year the Spaniards will bring the Holy Grail from the battle fields of Central Europe".

The Land of Divine Nectar

2006-07-15T05:24:00.000-07:00

The Great Kodai Trip, Day 4: Mystic Madurai

Day 4: Tuesday, 23rd May, 7:30 AM, Jilu's House

I opened my eyes to the bright madurai morning. that sleep did good to me. there was no more turning of the stomach or any uneasiness. infact i was hungry. i went into the large front room to find everyone fast asleep. they were obviously partying late into the night.

jilu's mom was happy to see me walking around and speaking more than a sentence! she made me a hot cup of tea after which i went about my routine. i called up home and informed mom about my condition the previous night. she asked me to replenish water and salts at regular intervals as a safety precaution. slowly everyone starting coming around. a plan was made- to visit the Meenaxi temple and then ma kannan's place. we needed to move out as early as 10 o clock to keep schedule.

we took a bus to the Periyar stop near the temple after which it was a 10 mins walk in the hot sun. we were all terribly thirsty by the time we entered the south western corner of the quadrangle surrounding the temple. we relished cool fruit juices at a stall near by.

this is the view encompassing both the south and the west tower.

Madurai, Meenaxi and Tamil

the history of madurai is as old as tamil itself. it was the seat of power of the Pandyas, one of the 3 dynasties which ruled the south from the prehistoric times to the late medieval. they were confined to the southern half of modern tamil nadu for most of the time in history. after about 3 centuries of exile (1000 to 1200 AD) in srilanka, when they were driven out by the rising Chola empire under Raja Raja Chola, they found a new resurgence under Jatavarman Sundara Pandyan and reached their peak in the 13th century when they ruled from the banks of Godavari in the north to central Ceylon in the south. after that, Delhi sultanate, Madurai Nawabs and then the English East India Company came in succession.

legend has it that king kulasekaran, one of the most ancient rulers of the pandiyan dynasty, buit the grand meenaxi temple and a lotus shaped city around it. lord shiva danced on its creation and divine nectar flowed from his locks and poured on the city. thus the name "madhurapuri" which means the Land of Divine Nectar. some times, it is also referred to as 'Then' (south) Madurai, the 'Vada' (north) Madurai being Mathura.Tamil literature found its salvation in the city as recorded by the Sangam history.

Darshanam

I bought some archanai materials before entering the south tower. we were greeted by a spectacular model of the whole temple jus few yards into the entrance.

the temple has 12 gopurams in all- 4 entrances, the 2 golden shrines of meenaxi and sundareshwar, 4 internal gopurams surrounding Shiva's shrine and 2 surrounding meenaxi's. the entrance towers have a whopping 1124 figures engraved into each of them!

the huge man-made lake near the southern tower has a huge golden lotus in the middle. visitors are supposed to wash their legs here before they proceed.

we soon reached the shrine of the main deity and stood behind a long "special" darshan queue. thankfully it moved rather fast. sham, either 'sick of crowd' or being male chauvnist (he he...) prefered to stay out of the shrine and went on to explore the rest of the temple, vivek gave him company. i performed the archanai rites and we sat for a while in the quadrangle surrounding the shrine.

Historical Interpretation of Mythology

scores legends revolve around the meenaxi temple which is dedicated to the wedding between Princess Meenaxi and Lord Shiva. this wedding- of a warrior princess born with three breasts (possible initial demonification of the existent mother goddess worship), who goes to fight Shiva in the Himalayas and in the process becomes human and feminine, and then the ceremony being presided over by the 'dark skinned' brother of meenaxi- can be viewed as a symbolic marriage between the cultures of the patriarch aryans who came from central asia represented by Lord Shiva and that of the pre-vedic mother goddess worshippers.

these pre-existent tribes, who are believed to have migrated from the fertile crescent of Africa about 10000 years back, are the supposed fore runners of the dravidian language which later evolved into modern tamil and telugu with the influx of sanskrit and prakrit. the Fish ensign of the Pandiyas itself is a characteristic of many ancient proto-saharan tribes. even the name 'meenaxi' means "fish-eyed goddess". the worship of the goddess of fertility later spread to the northern india and became as essential part of faith all over the nation. this confluence hastened the evolution of the "sanathana dharma" or the Hindu religion as it is known today.

Sundareshwar

on the way from to Sundareshwar shrine, we found the abode of the Mukkuruni Viayagar. A huge larger than life image of Pillayar, which was believed to have been discovered by some traders travelling to a neighbouring kingdom.

we then proceeded to the Lord's shrine. the idol here, which is believed to have been dug out of the temple lake, is the usual silver clad "Nataraja" but with a difference. while the Lord of Chithambaram lifts his left leg in air while suuporting himself on his right leg on the Arakkan depicting a pose in the Thandava Dance, here its just the opposite. as we stood in the queue, Jillu told us about the legend that talks about a devout Pandiyan king who spoke to Lord Shiva during his prayers,

"You always stand on your right leg. It pains my heart to think that it hurts you. Why don't you change the legs?"

And lo! Shiva indeed changed the pose the other way round! this change of legs is the trademark of this temple among all the religious sites in the state.

after the darshanam, we set out to explore the huge hall in front of the entrance of the Sundareshwar shrine. it was ladden with the finest examples of medieval tamil art. to start with, at the door way, an optical illusion created with 5 torsos and one head of a monkey. looking at each tosro with the head gives u a feeling there are separate monkeys! then, there was this mythical creature called "Yazhi", as told by our guide jillu whose body was made up of many different animals.

then there were two idols of Shiva and Goddess Kali standing in identical dance postures- stretching their legs and placing it flat on their heads. jillu told us the story behind this strange sculpture. once, Lord Shiva and his Consort Parvathy decided to compete against each other in dance. Parvathy was able to do every move that Shiva made. finally, Shiva gave his death punch by bending his leg and placing on his head. stretching legs like this was considered indecent for a woman, hence Parvathy ceased to be a woman and took the form of Bhadra Kali, the goddess of death, and performed this act.

we also saw life size images of 'half-vishnu-half-shiva' and the 'ardhanaareeshwaran'. then there was this famous picture postcard sculpture of the Meenaxi Marriage ceremony. Lord Vishnu placing the hand of Meenaxi over the hand of Lord Sundareshwar. this sculpture captures the legend of the usually gory looking warrior Lord Shiva who turned handsome (and hence the name, 'Sundareshwar') with the arrival of Lord Vishnu. the facial expressions are well depicted here, with Vishnu looking Happy, Meenaxi blushing and Sundareshwar epitomizing man hood.

Vaigai

we left the shrine and headed for the aayiram kaal mandapam, when jillu narrated the story of how the river vaigai came about. for the meenakshi wedding, there were scores of relatives representing meenakshi's family while only Gundotharan came from Shiva's side. people ridiculed Shiva saying that they had prepared meals for 1000 people expecting a large following for him. Enraged, Sundareshwar kindles a fire in Gundotharan's stomach and he is plagued by monstruous hunger. he soon gobbles up the food made for a thousand people and still asks for more. then he devours the raw rice and vegetables and all the water available in the kingdom and still remains hungry. people get scared of his seemingly unsatiable glutton and realising the power of the Lord, ask for his forgiveness and plead him to satisfy Gundotharan.

Shiva consents and turns to Gundotharan and says "Kai Vai" (place your hand) gesturing him to kneel down to drink. as he bows down in front of him stretching his arms, water flows down Shiva's head and falls on his palm. Gundotharan drinks the water and the fire in his stomach is extinguished. the water which trickled down his palm formed a river. the phrase "kai vai" was reversed and was bestowed upon this river as the name "Vaigai". since it flowed down Shiva's locks like the Ganges, Vaigai is also known as Southern Ganga.

as we neared the mandapam, we stumbled upon an Aanjineya figure engraved into a pillar. this image was recently rumored to have grown in size!

Aayiram Kaal Mandapam

Next we proceeded to the famous Meenakshi Temple Museum or the Aayiram Kaal (1000 pillared) Mandapam. this was built much later in the 16th century. in addition to 990 odd pillars, this madapam houses some great sculptures from the same period. we met sham here. and he was not alone... there was a Hungarian Lady Tourist looking at the sculptures with him! our Mr. Know-All seemed to have offered her a free lecture on what he knew about the history of the temple. while he played guide, we set out to explore the place and take some snaps.

The Prophecy

we decided to leave at about 12 in the afternoon and as we headed for the exit, an old lady, an astrologer, stopped us and offered to tell our future! vijay decided to try it just for the fun of it. we all sat down, she looked at his palm and then asked vijay to throw seven sea shells on the floor. this was repeated a couple of times. looking at the pattern, she kept giving general remarks about his past and future. after some "you are intelligent and peaceful " (yawn...) and "you have the signs of travel to foreign lands" (yeah yeah...every body in india go to foriegn these days) ... she made a more specific statement "you are unusually lucky in what ever you strive to do"... (huh?, god knows what was running through vijay's mind when she said that... given that he was fresh from an emotional turmoil back in the college ;) !!!!

The Tale of a Jerk and two Wives

then sham tried to give it a shot. and after the usual crap, she said, "if you were married at 19, you would have had 2 wives (everyone on the floor!), else you will be married to a single lady of a foreign land at the age of 23!!!!!!!!( everyone rolling on the floor)". by the time we left, we were more sure about the former!!! though sham thought otherwise (which means some unfortunate american woman in Rutgers will commit suicide in 2 years).

after she was finished, she looked at me and said "intha kannaadi potta thambikku jotsiyam paakkanum!"
Hell NO! "er.... no thank you..."

we left the temple and were terribly thirsty. on the way to the bustop, we stopped at a cool bar and had 'Jigarthanda' the traditional thirst quencher of madurai. it was mix of milk, curd, ice cream, some javvarisi, some sherbet and just melted in our mouths. i had two of it.

Foot Ball

we reached home at 2:30 and given we were pretty wasted out, we decided to drop the plan to visit kannan's place. jillu brought some cds but no one was interested in watching a movie and soon after the lunch, everyone was snoring. at some 4 o clock in the evening, everyone was up and we decided to play football in the near by ground. jillu's pal since childhood, rakesh arrived with some other friends and we split up into two teams.

i was in jilu's team. most of us had the best exercise in years that day. but not without casualities... seeku tried to take the ball head on with his foot and bent his toe in the process! it was about 6:30 when we decided to stop and headed back home after taking a team photo...

we got ready for the 11 o clock train. it was time to take the final group photos of the trip. director sham timed his camera to cover everyone in the group.

lights... camera....

action!

The Last Voyage

we bid jillu's parents adieu and left for the station. we had plenty of time there and so chatted over a cup of tea about life, acads, where everyone was headed etc...

and then we boarded the train and bid jillu good bye. me, ravi, sham and seeku were soon ensued in an argument over the state of private schools in india which became rather loud (god save the passengers in the next cabin!). late in the night, we decided to sleep. the Great Kodai Trip finally came to an end and 5 tired men made their way back to chennai.

Wednessday, 24th May, 9:00 AM: the train reached Tambaram junction. me, sham and ravi got down. while vijay and seeku stayed back to get down at egmore. we went our separate ways. i reached home at about 9:45 and dropped down to sleep with images of the woods and meenakshi flashing across my mind....

And they lived Happily (?) ever after...

Vivek: joined American Megatrends in Thorappaakkam, Chennai, in June. After a few hitches in the begining, settled well into his new job

Ravi: poor chap's miseries dint end with the trip. some infection in the train gave him Rat Fever (alias Leptospirosis)- a rare condition believed to be existent only in a few districts of Tamil Nadu in India. it weakens one's immune system and that triggers off further complications. in fact, at one point Ravi suffered from malaria, typhoid and rat fever simultaneously! was hospitalised for about three weeks. Rat Fever's only cure is Penicillin. and for those who are allergic to penicillin, things may go pretty bad as they are put in a awful situation wherein, both the disease and its cure are fatal. I couldn't thank god more when i heard from his parents that Ravi was, in fact, NOT allergic to penicillin. all's well that ends well... he recovered gradually and then joined Conexant Systems, Hyderabad in the end of May. he is still weak and on a strict diet. my brother has promised to take care of him as long as he is in Hyderabad.

Seeku: went on to win Intel India Student Research competition along with Kiran. is all set to join ME, Communications at IISc.

Sham: went on another trip, soon after, with school friends to shimla. continues to laze around his dwelling place. will leave india this August to join Rutgers with TA .

Vijay: the lonely lover put his sorry tale behind in chennai and left for Delhi to join Indian Institute of Foreign Trade for an MBA.

Jillu: kept roaming around all over tamil nadu visiting friends. came to chennai recently and visited my place before appearing for US VISA interview. made it. will leave for Ohio State University in September with Fellowship.

Mars: this idiot attended IISc and IITM MS interviews. got selected in both. will join Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada this September with Aid. awaits VISA result.

Shanka: went into hiding for a while. got selected into IIT M. will join ASU this August along with Harish. Last heard, he planned a trip to Goa (!!!) with school friends and... yes you guessed it right, cancelled the trip the night before the journey.

Kodayil Kodai: Ravi's Redemption!

2006-07-07T12:52:00.000-07:00

The Great Kodai Trip: Day 3

about an hour ago (10:05 AM, Wednessday, 28th June 2006... theres a lot of gap between the time i started writing this post and the time it was actually posted... my apologies!), kumbi flied to bangalore to join Montalov. i went with his parents to see him off at the airport. we were pretty early and so had time to sit there and call most of the folk from college and inform them abt the departure. the call for the bangalore passengers came and it was time to enter the boarding gate. as karthik turned back for the last time to say good bye to us, for the very first time i felt a belonging toward chennai. till date i had been thinking that hyderabad is where i have to find life and sooner or later ill end up there. probably it still holds good, but atleast i guess i ve now come to terms with the fact that the memories of the 6 years i ve spent in chennai, though mostly bitter, will be worth cherishing in some distant future as a phase of my life when i became wise... having seen both the abyss and peak of life.

hmmm... enuf of senti talk... lets get back to the story where we left of!

Day 3: Monday, 22nd May, 7:30 AM, Jilu's Cottage

"dei mokka... yendhiri da.."
"huh...uh...yenna?.."
"machi nee dhaane yezhuppa sonne..."
"dei.... innum... innum 5 mins la endhudichhirven....."

5 mins.... "ye ye... ill be up now, before u come back from bath"

10 mins... i had a bath and got ready "ye the sleeps almost over da..."

20 mins... every one was up and were at their chores "dei im not goin to take bath anyway da (now thats a surprise) so wake me up when u are ready to leave da"... (i give up)

after half an hour sham walked out to brush his teeth.

he had asked me the prev night to wake him up at 7:45 in the morn as he wanted to make sure we wont miss any fun and sight seeing to "unnecessary delay". nevertheless, moksham's words are supposed castles in air.

at about 8:35, we were out having a pleasant walk to the hotel for break fast. the flower bed infront of our beautiful cottage looked just like out of a windows desktop background.

we had a nice breakfast after a long wait for seats to get empty.

Coaker's Walk

then we got into the car and headed for Coaker's walk. it was crowded as any other place we had been till now (except the cycle trek to the top near the lake). but there was enough room to walk freely and take snaps all the way. but we desperately wanted to go to a place which was sans people.

we had an mental agreement amongst ourselves not to mention the previous day's incident just in case it upsets ravi. so we were like fresh tourists busy taking photographs and talkin about all the good things.

the views were breath taking

after a long walk, we sat down to rest near the tower which was housing a telescope for tourists to have a view. there was an man-made wall made of rock and trees separating the path way and the private houses built along (lucky people... rising every morning to this great landscape). me and seeku climbed on to this wall and posed as PlayBoy models... sans stripping!...

Upper Lake View Point

we exited the Walk from the rear where our driver had already brought the car. we chked out some road side shops for soft drinks as every one was thristy. we stumbled upon a souvenir shop which was selling eucalyptus oil and stuff. the shop keeper showed us a trick, by wettening a handkerchief with the oil and lighting it up with a match. when the flames died down, the cloth was as good as new with no burn marks on it! i remember reading about it in Resnick... its called Leidenfrost Effect where when a liquid is heated beyond a point called film boiling temperature, it forms a thin film of gaseuos liquid shielding the handkerchief from the flames on the other side. since gas is a poor conductor of heat, the cloth is un harmed. the shopkeeper managed to sell us some six bottles of oil. we couldn't find refrigerated drinks there so went back to the car and headed of to Upper Lake View Point, a tourist attraction on the outskirts which had almost a full lake view.

the journey to Upper Lake View was pleasant with some harpin bends. the area around the view point is completely fragmented into various private estates and so not much room to explore. on reaching the place we found the view point to be excessively jammed and crowded so we never went inside. rather, spent some time taking photos in the beautiful road connecting the view point to the outside world.

this road had lush terrain with gothic steps carved into the mountain on one side and a deep valley leading to the plains of the lake on the other side.

and then jilu's obsession with Alaipaayuthey started which lasted for the rest of the trip...

The Suicide Point

then we went to the famous kodai suicide point. the steep path way to the top was flanked by a busy market resembling Burma Bazaar.

we finally got to the suicide point managed to find an unoccupied place near the guard wall.

in all these posts on the kodai trip i ve written, one character has never found any significant mention- vijay. thats coz he is the type who severly underplays himself and is seldom seen in any lime light. this Eternal Lonely Lover (a name which he has earned both because of his silent ways and the recent 'events' in the college ;) ! ), was staring into the suicide point with god knows what on his mind...

wired guard rails were put over the walls with a "don't cross this wall" board over it... but then when did our countrymen ever follow rules? there was a huge crowd fighting to cross over a thin gap in the guard rails on the left side. moksham couldn't obviously miss this chance to get better snaps.

vivek bought coolers which triggered of a fight for posing for photos with it (as it happens in every single college trip) ...

we got back down via the market place... and since we were terribly thirsty, we went to a cool bar and had some ice creams. me, seeku and vijay also bought a few packets of kodai tea in a near by tea shop...

and then we came down to the road to find a huge traffic jam with the whole road packed with cars of all sizes and shapes moving an inch every 10 mins. even walking thru this road was difficult. we savoured some mozhaga bajjis and makka chola. we sat there hoping our car will turn up. an hour passed and we were still stuck there sitting by the side of the road.

me and jilu decided to go back and look for the car while sham was trying to call up the driver's mobile in vain. me and jilu walked along a gold course where hundreds of cars were jam packed.

we still couldn't find the car. so we decided to follow the traffic (jam) to the Pillar Rock Point which was our next destination hoping the driver will turn up there eventually. on the way there we found another part of the nice golf course along the road..

Pillar Rock Point

we got to the pillar rock which seemed to be the source (rather the end) of the whole gigantic traffic jam. we got some stupendous views (this time of the mountains rather than the valley) at that point. the coolers were still passing around and the cam memory was being over loaded with snaps. my cam was running out of battery so i stopped to save it for the next location.

Entering Ground Zero- The Woods

as hoped, the driver met us there with the car and we started trying to figure where next. Guna cave was the initial plan but we were all sick of the crowd and wanted to go to a place which would be all ours to explore. jillu suggested a place just short of Guna caves which satisfied this criteria.

and wat a place it was... tall tress every where with no one around. cool place to hang out. there was huge trunk of a fallen tree which served jillu's , which soon became everyone's, purpose of doing the maddy act.

there was a slope after a few meters from where we were standing and we climbed up to explore the woods better.

i got bored of sham's obsession with taking photos with different photos and permutations and set off leaving the guys behind.

Ethereal Silence

i just kept walking deeper and deeper into the woods and in no time i realised i couldn't see the guys any longer. i could hear faint laughing sound of ravi though. i saw in front of me dense vegetaion completely blocking sunlight. i tried to call out for ravi and seeku but no one seemed to hear me. it was cold and a bit humid out there. i couldn't see anything moving except me. the mist condensed on my glasses. the earth was soft with atleast a feet of fallen leaves beneath me. i dint feel any tiredness walking up that slope. that silence was overwhelming and i felt like lying down there forever. this is the place to capture inthe camera, i thought but drat! my cam ran out of battery and i managed only one photo...

i kept standing there looking up at the trees. long time passed and i suddenly realised the guys may be looking for me and so started walking back the long way. after i covered half the distance i heard jilu's voice crying out for me! they obviously thought i had got lost... or worse committed suicide! then an idea struck me... to go a longer way making a loop and catching them by surprise from behind. i could see ravi at a great distance already looking for me in the wrong direction!

i ran down the slope trying not to make any sound and hiding behind the trees all along and watching out for the folk a la "Roja" climax! the calls from jilu and vivek got louder and louder. they really sounded a bit desperate. i had crossed them and was about to make move toward them from back when i skidded as i tried to hide behind a tree and jilu heard the sound and looked straight at me even as i tried to fall back. i dont think he was sure he saw me. he called to me at that direction anyway and i gave myself in (so much for the surprise)... jilu then called up the others and they came down running towards me. man they were furious or what...

nevertheless i got the usual treatment ...

after they were done with me, we resumed taking snaps. there was a stump which was climbable and everyone started doing it... and seeku posed as God Himself!

Ravi pays for his sins

and then something got into ravi which he might regret for the rest of his life (believe me, he will). he started throwing sticks at everyone, especially those who were posing for photos. probably he was still mad at the guys for playing that prank on him... one of his sticks almost missed vivek's $%*^# !!!!!!!!!....

everyone was furious but we continued taking snaps as it was getting late and we had to leave. sham whispered into my ear that we will catch ravi by surprise and give him treatment. sham obviously still had last night's episode on his mind and wanted revenge. soon the message was conveyed to everyone (except ravi of course). and then at the the right moment sham grabbed ravi. we joined him as vijay did the job of capturing the show in his camera. we dragged him, kicked him and... well, i think describing whole episode in words will be an injustice to what really happened. so i give u the video...

Video Link (make sure you turn on the speakers!): http://youtube.com/watch?v=8oru_IXFD-U (Duration: 56 seconds)

and just when we thought it was enough, sham yelled " DEI... maattu saani da!" ... yes! by the time ravi's treatment ended, he was actually lying on a heap of cow dung! sham had actually noticed it before but prefered not to diclose it till it was all over ravi's pants! (some people are filthy beyond description... and im not talking about ravi !). well, poor ravi tried to clean his pants with the very stick he was throwing at guys till then!

we took one last group photo...

... and got into the car. ravi was getting into the front seat when vivek said, "dei u stink da... now we literally need BREATHING SPACE!" (laughs) and ravi had to sit alone in the back. he was never the same for the rest of the trip. his 'cool guy' image was broken down into billion pieces by his tormentor- sham and the immortal words of Morgan Freeman "Every man has a breaking point" found its realisation that day in kodaikkanal. poor chap... guess this was his worst trip ever.

The Mound

we still had some time left so we decided to go to the mound me and ravi had discovered yesterday. the place was cool with a beautiful view of the lake. and everyone started doing wat they do best...

lonely lover #1 vijay sat down looking at the ground and lost in thoughts...

lonely lover #2 sham stood alone looking around... probably answering the calls of a cow which was tied up near by and was mooing loudly looking for a mate!

... and me and jilu posed for more photos!

Good Bye Kodai

we finally decided to call it a day and got back to our cottage. we rested for a while. ravi had a much needed bath!

i set out to explore the backyard of the cottage which looked upon a valley and had a splendid view. i collected some Kurunji flowers there. these kurunji flowers, found only in kodaikkanal, bloom once in 12 years and the last time it happened was 1994. our trip was well timed. but this wasn't the full bloom. during the peak season, it seems the whole mountains turn violet with a dense sheet of flowers. what a spectacle that would be!

i brought home some flowers from the trip and proposed!

and this was how ravi reacted the previous day when he saw the flowers... his attempts at looking romantic would put even Goundamani to shame!

we had dinner at a hotel near by and set off to madurai. seeku offered me avamin tablet for nausea. taking that pill was the gravest mistake i had committed. it turned out my body is allergic to that tablet and that, coupled with the freaking speed with which the driver took the car down the hill turned my stomach into a geyser! we had to stop THREE times before i puked out the dinner we just had and still i felt sick. at one of the stops, i actually jumped out of the car in a hurry and my flotter slipped down unnoticed. i realised i had lost one slipper only after we reached madurai. i started puking out even bile juice and it never seemed to end. i was praying for the plains to arrive soon and then i fell asleep.

we reached Jilu's place and his mom was there to welcome us. i was exhausted and still too sick to speak even a few words. i just managed to tell jilu's mom that i don't want anything to eat and i want to sleep asap. as i lied down, i could hear the others talking loudly over the dinner. my eyes felt heavy and i dropped down asleep... a very silent end to a dramatic day!...

Kodayil Kodai: Entering the Summer Paradise with a Bang!

2006-06-17T06:59:00.000-07:00

The Great Kodai Trip: Day 2

Day 2: Sunday, 21st May, 5:30 AM, Vivek's house

far from wat i expected of madurai, cool breeze blew all the night and we slept tight. i got up at abt 530 in the morn and enjoyed the breeze sitting on the terrace for a while. sham and jilu had slept only at 4 or so and naturally we left them alone till they were the only ones left to bathe.

we had nice bath in cold water and had hot coffee waiting for us. i remember me and ravi both wore black turtle necks by chance when we left for hyderabad in jan for the conference. well history repeated itself and we both(by sheer coincidence, trust me)wore the same shirt as we left for kodai (guess we should have a 'black turtle neck day' every year!). eventually jilu sham woke up and we were set.

the qualis we arranged arrived soon and packed our stuff on to it ...

and went back to take some snaps with vivek's family.

we bid viveks parents good bye and hit the road, as usual i fought for the front seat and i got it!

The Journey to the paradise

about half of the 100-odd km jounrney was on flat road. for about an hour we were retracing the steps of Lt. B.S. Ward, surveyor of English East India Company, who in 1821 discovered this beautiful hill station. though some prehistoric and historic settlements(many tribes fled the plains to the foothills to escape the onslaught of Tipu Sultan) are known to have existed in kodaikkanal, it was not before the Europeans came when this place was sculpted to be what it is today.

many american and british missionaries which had come to southern india could not bear the oppressive heat of the plains and wanted some neat and natural surroundings to escape tropical diseases. they were happy at Ward's report and soon visited this place through various routes, built estates, schools and houses.

by the 1870s kodaikkanal was a clad with many churches and missionary schools run by Roman Catholics. Bier Leverage, the then collector of Madurai, moved to kodai after retirement. he was instrumental in the realisation of the man-made kodai lake, the foremost tourist attraction in kodai. in 1872, Lt. Coaker cut a path along the ridge of steep south eastern side which commends a magnificant view of the plains below. the path was named after him as Coaker's Walk.

we were quote hungry by the time we reached the foot hills. we stopped at a road side restaurant 'saapeeti' for breakfast.

and then the mountains came... and my stomach turned! my motion and elevation- sickness followed me all the way to the top. we stopped on the way to take some snaps...

... and resumed the journey... my stomach was giving away with each passing moment and when i was about to ask the driver to stop the car
Seeku: dei vivek stop the car man im about to throw up! (phew! that saved my breath!)

i too jumped out of the car and threw up... but still had a feeling something was left of the pongal i had at 'saapeeti'. nevertheless we had to stop again for me to puke out wat was left.

tired, i dozed off. when i opened my eyes, we were at 'silver cascade'- a huge water fall by the side of the road. from there till the centre of kodai there was a huge traffic jam and all the cars were moving hell slow. finally after abt one and a half hours we came to our cottage.

Enter the Cottage

and wat a cottage it was... straight out of 'raam' movie... we had to share it with some other guests who had occupied the rooms at the back. we were given 2 bedrooms, one in the front and another which seemed more like an out house. we dumped out bags in the room and rested for a while before leaving for the evening snack and the trip around the lake. our cottage was abt 3 mins walking distance from it. jilu does have contacts!

as we walked out of our cottage we got split into 2 groups one on each side of a narrow road leading to the main circle near the lake. seeku jumped from one side of the road to the otherside with his characteristic run-dance way, when a motorcycle with a huge old police constable sitting on the back came ahead straight at him. the constable, thinking seeku to be some nuisance creator, lifted his lathi and swung it , missing seeku's head by a whisker and shouted at him, as the bike went past, "DEI ! ORAMA PODA !". seeku actually flinched his way back watching the bike go! little did i know that that was jus the first of the more dramatic events in store for that day!

since it was sunday evening, all weekend holiday makers were on their way back to the city and so the roads were hell crowded. we had hard time finding a free place at the hotel for seven people. at last they let us in and we ate to fill. drowsy from the dinner, we strolled out toward the lake.

The Lake
the first thing that was on my mind when we came to the lake was cycling. but the guys wanted to boat. i dint want to go anywhere near water to i prefered to stay out and take a walk around the lake before they come back. i planned to do this in one hour only realising later how grossly i had underestimated the expanse of the lake. as i walked and walked, protruding cliffs kept hiding the pathway ahead of the turns tempting me to walk further only to realise i have hell more walking to do. i was not complaining though! each and every spot on the circumference was a spectacle of sorts ... giving me splendid views. here are some of them...

i found a small cottage like house which almost exactly resembled the house we see in 'kakka kakka' but for the missing first floor. had a passerby take snaps for me.

the guys had returned from boating and waiting for me impatiently while i had one fourth of lake ahead of me. they asked to stay at a place while they hired cycles and met came to me from the opposite direction. i too hired a cycle and we headed off toward the hills. the cycling experience was great, it reminded me of the days i spent cycling long distances with my friends back in hyd when we lived in that huge campus atop a hill.

after a couple of vain attempts to find a way to the top through some muddy roads, we finally caught the right one. ravi was moving ahead of everyone and i was closely following him. suddenly he came to a dead stop and stared ahead. an old man was taking his 2 german shepherds for a walk and comin straight toward us. ravi started shouting at him "UNCLE! PLEASE UNCLE! NAAYA KOOTITU PONGA, PLEASE UNCLE YEN KITTA THAAN VARUDHU!" he kept at this for a while even as that man was shouting back that the dogs were harmless and were wagging their tails at him! the gang some how managed to cross them and we finally got to a beautiful lake view point on the top.

then me and ravi raced back down and and saw a nice deserted greenish mound on the road side, pretty close to the lake. unlike other empty grounds around, this one did not seemed to be owned by any one. i had a feeling this small hill was high enough to have a good view of the lake, better than the one we jus had. but many houses separated the road and the mound and so i was trying to figure out a way to it. i called up the other folk who were still at the top to come and see this. they dint respond (strange...). after waiting for a while me and ravi headed toward the mound and met with a dead end. a local helped us find the way and finally we reached the spot. it was already pretty dark and there was a huge trench dug between the foot of the mound and the road and as i was trying to find the way toward the top, i got a call from sham and gave it to ravi. as i was still looking for a better view, i could sense ravi's tone change as he spoke...

The Conspiracy

ravi ended the phone call and kept staring at me. i asked him" what happened?"

ravi: it seems sham and jilu saw 2 girls walking past and started flirting. now they ve invited them to the sterling resort for dinner along with all the guys! (what the...)

we dint speak about it till we went back to the road to meet the others. they seemed to have jus come down. ravi asked them what happened and seeku narrated the story...

it seems 2 girls were walking down the road and seeku prompted sham and jilu to go and starta conversation. they were somehow impressed by sham's throat strangling mokkai (how dumb can a girl get?). it seems everyone in our group was invited to the resort for dinner at 830. i prefered not to say anything though ravi sounded some wat pissed. he basically dint seem to like the idea of socializing with stranger girls like this. a small argument followed as we cycled back to the boating office where our qualis was waiting.

since i had hired my cycle at a different place i went in the other direction to return it and was told to wait till they come and pick me up. as i was waiting in dark (crazy they dont even have decent lighting facilities around such a famous tourist spot) i spotted a cool mirchi bajji and tea stall. i helped myself some hot bajjis in the chill breeze. suddenly i start hearing cries of a woman who seemed to have lost her daughter, who had gone cycling alone and her husband had gone looking for her. her lamenting to those vendors gave me a chill down my spine. since the guys dint seem to come i considered offering her some assistance just when our driver came out of no where caught my hand. it seems he had been to the boat club and dint see any of the guys there so he came to this place and spotted me. i decided to leave with him for the boat club. i could hear that woman's cires fading away as we left... hope she found her daughter safe and sound.

as we reached the boat club we found the other guys already having some snacks at a shop near by and were surprised to see me come in the car. the argument between ravi and sham over those girls was still on... we decided to talk it over once we reach the cottage.

the argument turned more and more bitter... even as sham and jilu seemed to dress for the 'party' as the resort! i was getting pissed off with all this nonsense in a supposedly fun trip. ravi went out for a while i was chkin out the snaps i took sitting on the bed... i asked sham to show me his cam... as i browsed thru his cam, i found snaps taken at the place where they said they had met the girls. i was surprised he had no photo of any of those girls.

"enna da, ponnungala photo edukkaliya?"
sham: ille da... avanga venamnu sonnanga.
(huh? these girls call the guys out for dinner but are shy of camera? thats strange...)

and then ravi came back and it took off again. thats enuf, i thought... i took ravi to a corner and tried to pacify him. both him and sham were relentless. so kind of disturbed, we got into the car, with sham asking the driver to go to the resort and ravi to a near by hotel. sham kept telling ravi abt how this was their only chance to have some fun etc etc... and ravi asking him to drop him at the hotel and then do watever he wanted etc etc... all this while vijay, who was sitting with me near the window was keeping his face outside and something told me he was actually smiling (what the heck's going on?) the car stoped near the resort when ravi actually started sounding harsh threatening sham and saying he will get down the car and walk all the way back etc. sham said, he wont go there even if one of us doesnt wish to go and then asked the driver to head for the hotel... there was some uncomfortable silence for a while and then ravi started crying!

The Revelation

Ravi (sobbing): when i asked u to leave me alone you should have da... there must be some breathing space in friendship!
Sham(sobbing too): dei, i jus meant for all of us to have some fun da.

What on earth!.... sham hell never sobs, i turned back to look at him, it was dark and i couldnt see anything. and then a car passed by and the light it shone over us revealed his face... he was smiling, vivek and seeku too....

hell !!! why dint i realise this when sham gave that god damn lame reason for the god damn missing girl photo!

vivek (finally breaking the bakra show) : dei sham ... nee hollywoodla thaan irukkanum da! and then the whole car burst out laughing except ravi who still was quite shaken up.

it turned out that even the driver was in the plot. but he had over done his part by actually driving the car near the resort while sham had plans to end the drama as soon as we left the cottage. but this blunder actually intensfied the whole show and had ravi nearly begging for sympathy! no girl, no resort nothing... all in a day's work of sham's usual sometimes-funny-but-mostly-pain-in-the-ass idea of mokkai comdey. poor ravi, he actually struggled to laugh it of till we reached the dhaba.

to make things worse, sham and seeku kept reliving the whole episode again and again as we had the dinner interrupted only by moksham's mokkai on other topics.... ravi was boiling up and we all were pretty sure that sham is gonna get a good bedsheet parade that night from him.

Epilogue

we reached home... all flustered and still excited from the whole episode. we decided to wear it off over playing cards. ASS was the game chosen and we played it while seeku played ABK and kept loosing game after game and accumulating a chorus like rummy of A spade, A Hearts, A Claver, A Diamond, King spade, King Hearts....

finally when we got bored tormenting seeku, we decided to call it a day at last....

... but wait, ravi's solem vow still remained un fullfilled, angry as he already was at shams trick on him, he pounced upon him and started beating him black and blue. but given that sham is a giant savage animal to handle he needed assistance and me and vivek offered our services. sham tried to negotiate even this whacking with his pain-in-the-ass mokkai. but ravi was relentless and sham finally ended up with a bent back.

i had to massage his back with an ointment to calm him off!

well that ended one of the most eventful days of my life. whew... kodaikkanal, we are here to rock for another day!

The Great Kodai Trip: Day 1

2006-06-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

this post on our kodaikkalanal has been pending for a very long time now ... i was collecting some info for some time and then i never found time to pen down my thoughts ... my apologies for those many ppl who ve been askin me all this time...

this idea of kodai trip was the conceived by sham, jilu and vivek sometime in the april. one sunny day in the begining of may while i was thinking (read brooding) as usual in the lab seeku came over and told me abt this plan.

seeku: dei, me sham, shanka and others are going to kodiakkanal for a week da
me (hazy): oh ... hmmm... good... can i come too? (it was sort of involuntary)
seeku: hmmm... lets discuss with others and make up a plan

after a week, a detailed plan was charted out in a set of yahoo conference chats. the plan was for 4 days... was supposed to be more than that but Mr.sincere ravi wanted to be back asap and finish the dont-know-when-it-will-end-GPS project "by the end of this month" (now this has been the claim by this group comprising kiran, harish and ravi for some 2 years).

well, so 4 days it is. the travellers- me, seeku, ravi, shanka, sham, vijay from chennai. vivek and jilu would join from madurai. the plan was one night stay in madurai in vivek's place, then 2 days one night in kodaikkanal and then one night stay in jilu's place back in madurai. jilu took care of the arrangements of our stay and sight seeing in kodai.

innumerous phone calls mar the preparations for the travel and all is set for the 6:30 AM train on saturday, 20th of may.
on friday at 10:00 in the night i receive a call...

Me: hello?
Shanka on the other end (how can i miss the distinguished voice): hello sreeram irukkana?
Me: dei mokka... yen veettukku phone panni seekuva kekuriya?
Shanka: Oh sorry da... apparam .... yellam eduththuvechchuttiya da?
Me : almost da
Shanka: hmmm... camera marandhuraadhe
Me (whats with this sudden care?): hmm... ok da... nee?
Shanka: hmm... adhellam yeduththuten da... apparam oru news... naan varele!
Me: yenna!
Shanka: enga amma-appavukku naalaanikku aruvathaam kalyaanam da, ippoththaan therinjadhu (great news... great son!)
Me: ok da... munnadiye sollirkalame... ippo intha ticket waste ayiduchche
Shanka: Dei, kalyan varuvaananu kettupaaruda (shut up and hang the god damn phone idiot!)
Me: seri phona veyi

Shanka repeated this stint with all the other members of the gang that night and needless to say, everyone was pissed. but then thats shanka for u... always with a SURPRISE (yuck!... some one hang him please!)

Day 1: Saturday, 20th May, 6:30 AM, Tambaram Railway Station

and so five disgusted people boarded the train the next morning. me, sham and ravi caught the train in tambaram and were received by seeku and vijay who had boarded in egmore. as the train arrived on the platform, something got into vijay suddenly and he did a maddy stunt... he got down the running train to show off to a girl walking past! god knows wat sort of beauty he found in tambaram!

the journey commenced... i hate day trains and this one was no exception... no room to strech ur legs and the scorching heat to give u company... heck!

a cute little 7 year old named Jannat (meaning 'paradise') was at the next cabin and she gave us good company. Ravi was like taking her snaps all the way

we reached madurai junction at 3:30 PM . and we get down to see that no one has come to receive us. we are stranded inthe platform like refugees waiting in vain for either vivek or jilu to turn up (Huh... nice way the pandiyan land welcomes its guests). after 15 mins when we were convinced that neither of the two blokes ever left their places, vijay calls them up

jilu: oh! train vandhuduchcha?... itho, innum 10 mins la vandhudren (Oh come on!)

jilu arrives at the scene in 10 (read 25) mins. vivek follows shortly.

jilu: sorry da, vivek yenakku train vandhuduchchunu phone panni sollave ille (Oh, so u would
assume we never came if he dint call u till night?? )

we take a bus to vivek's place. unlike my usual trips to bangalore, my cug WAS working now which made me feel good! i informed home abt my arrival. vivek's house is in a place called nagamalai, on the outskirts of madurai. its a quiet place with some engg colleges around (every suburb in every city in india has an engg college for sure!). the surroundings were quite pleasant, resembling my place back in chennai. vivek's house is two storeyed, the first floor has a large room where his mom takes yoga classes. this room was prepared for our stay. the backyard has a small garden and a basket ball post. jilu and vivek's bro were playing some ball there while we were refreshing ourselves.

after a small snack and a chat with his parents we set on for our journey to a near by hill named Samana Malai. it was quite far and fearing climbing in the dark, we took an auto to the place. on reaching there, we realised the hill was more like a very giant rock. with a small temple and a lotus pond at its foot, the hill posed a very impressive structure indeed. steps were carved into it and we hit the path way right on. the trek way up was pleasant but tiring, it had already become dark and we dint venture the very summit though sham and jilu went very far. tired we sat there looking at the evening sky when jilu narrated to us the history behind this hill...

we all know the throught out ages, madurai has been the hunting ground for religion. some one and a half a millenia ago, some thing happened which may sound absurd if seen under the present context- hinduism was on the brink of extinction! yes... people kept deserting the age old vedic traditions and embraced the new growing faiths that were buddhism and jainism.

the rigid casteist practices and the isolation of a vast majority of the population in the name of impure blood left the masses dissatisfied and buddhist and jain monks took the advantage and influenced the whole land with their liberal ideas. soon they had royal patronage and hinduism and its priests were sidelined. buddhist dominated regions grew in size and confrontations with the vedic followers almost always led to conflicts. legend has it that the very land we were standing on was once occupied by these monks and the brahmin priests sent a cow, a horse and an elephant to drive them away and these three animals transformed into 3 hills. we were on one of them. (i shall go into more detail on madurai's traditions and legends in post dealing with our day 4 visit to the meenaxi temple)

tired and hungry, we decided to call it a day. the journey down was more scary than the journey up. we crawled down the steep surface into the darkeness beneath. we couldnt see beyond a few meters. and then we started walking toward the main road. the road was quite deserted and huge banyan tress flanged both sides. at a distance i could make out the silhoutte of the hill we left...

vivek: u know guys, this place is supposed to be haunted

and thats it... it triggered off a catastrophic booing and howling among us folks scaring every passer-by to death! seeku started waving his hands with his tongue sticking out playing ghost which made us all feel for am moment he was possessed!

we got home... had a nice meal prepared by vivek's mom and then sat down to watch the 2nd ODI between India and West Indies. the bowlers were in total command and team india seemed to be on the verge of another convincing win and we got bored and left sham and vivek to watch the rest of the match (ofcourse that match turned to be a thriller and we lost it as sham told us the next morning). tired after the journey and the trek me, seeku, ravi and vijay almost immediately fell asleep. sham and vivek, meanwhile spent most of the night on the open terrace watching the stars. tomorrow its kodaikkanal baby!
(contd.)

I was born intelligent... education ruined me

2006-05-17T12:04:00.000-07:00

"Education and education alone can lead to India's Salvation" - Sir Syed Ahmed Khan

A bright october afternoon...
It was our last micowave lab session, we had a group experiment to do- plotting the radiation pattern of a dipole antenna. automation and development of software tools made this job easy. one transmitting antenna is fixed and the receiving antenna is made to rotate which is wired to a computer which plots the signal strength and all we need to do is take a print. we assembled after finishing it, to do the most sick work we have ben forced to do all the 4 years of college life- observation. enter Mr.Shit (nomenclature explained shortly).

Mr Shit: Whats all this noise!!... go back to your seats and write down ur observations!!!

Me and MARUN were arguing as to wat the plot stands for... the pattern of the transmitting antenna or the receiving antenna. I was telling him transmitting or receiving doesnt matter... its only abt which one is being rotated. Mr Shit was watching the commotion silently. When were leaving, he beckoned me silently and whispered, "err... Arvind, can you explain to me how its receiving antenna pattern?"

Welcome to the world of Mr. Shit (this is the name bestowed upon him by one of my friends... i shall use only this and not his christian name to make this post obvious only to those who will relish reading it!!!)- a living legend who joined the department as faculty for electromagnetics 2 years back. I'm sure none in the class have met a guy like this in all our lives. a teacher so commanding and smart that a kindergarten kid would not think twice before bullying him! fortunately, our class was spared from listening to his state of art lectures (why state of art? coz he reads them out from state of art books!) as he handled antenna theory only for the cd batch.

his supervision of class is outstanding. he spots so minute a mistake such as a missing arrow head in an arrow in a block diagram which we have to show before we can start the experiment. and man he is strict in duty or wat? that missing arrow head would mean the student goes out of the lab, redraws everything and only then can come inside. wat after that? teach them how to do the experiment?... er... never mind all this trivial stuff!

in the 7th sem, almost every day we heard new stories about Mr. Shit's demonstration of sheer intelligence and charm in class from cd batch guys.

Student: Sir, why haven't u given me marks for this derivation... i have got it right
Mr. Shit: What nonsense! you didn't write this sentence as it was in jordan... (how will i know if u got the result at all) ?

Mr. Shit: you know RAVI... I have been thinking about you all this weekend... can you guess why?
Some back bencher: Because you are a homo!

perfectly dedicated to his work... knows all the textbooks word by word (but i doubt if he understands even one word) . and he is the pet of the all senior faculty. and why not?... he turns hunch back when ever he sees them...

I'm yet to find a student who doesn't want to see him die.

all these four years, we have been subjected to similar faculty time and again (ofcourse none of them was as good as Mr. Shit!)- faculty, who leave us to marvel at the way the system has accumulated such huge amount of filth over time. i some times wonder that if such a reputed institution can can drop to such low levels, what about those colleges whose names we've never heard of. I hear similar stories from my friends in private institutions. i hear similar stories from my friends in andhra pradesh, maharashtra, delhi... there must be a Mr. Shit in every college in this country.

and most importantly, it makes me wonder-given our inherent conservative attitude- whether education in india was always like this?... when i look at the country's legacy for an answer, im confronted with an emphatic NO! we have splendid examples in the past as to how educaton's true purpose was reaslised- betterment of mankind. let me take u back in time, some 150 years, when modern education as we know it, was still in its infancy. this is the story of a forgotten hero, a lone crusader who changed the lives of millions in india.

its late 1850s and India is in shambles. the mutiny took its toll on the government and people alike. the reform movements started by the likes of Raja Ram Mohan Roy have received major set backs and goverment turned hostile to any petition reformers made. heaviest penalty is being paid by the Muslims. from the late medieval times, apart from the very small percentage of the community which constituted the nobility, muslims were downtrodden and received almost no education. the british government is making the matters worse by isolating them and pusruing an anti-islam policy. the muslim community itself was closed to external ideas and scienctific education is shunned by the madrasas.

A man named Syed Ahmed Khan enters the scene. he belonged to a family of nobles in Aligarh, UP, and hence had the oppurtunity to study sciences and english. he was fascinated by the prosperity and liberal thinking of the europeans and swore to bring forward all the Muslims in india. the first step he took in this direction was to translate all the contemporary scientific work to Urdu, making it accessible to the common man. he did this while in civil services. he also involved himself in interpreting Koran to suit the modern era, bring the muslims out of the nut shell and put an end to discrimination against women.

he soon realised that working in a room with books won't do any good and if he needed to reach out to the masses, he needed some place to teach them and let them learn themselves. thus the seed was laid, which later was to grow into a huge tree called Mohemmedan Anglo-Oriental College, now known as Aligarh University. but he needed money for building the college. his family reserves had dwindled and so he decided to collect donations.

every morning he would make his usual journey on foot in and around the city to collect donations. he did this for many years. his colleagues and friends were tired of donating. still he persisted. even during his toughest times, he had an aura about him, maintained a delicate sense of humor during arguments with friends which probably kept him alive. on one such occassion, one of his friends argued that his whole idea of university was worthless

Friend: see, people are being taught in mosques that science is against allah, then how will ur university run? who will come to study?
Syed: people will come, university will run
Friend: it wont run
Syed: it will
Friend: it wont
Syed: it will
Friend: lets bet on it for an asharfee (persian word for coin currency)
Syed: ok... u have one asharfee with u?
Friend: yes
Syed: show it to me
His friend keeps the coin on the table. Syed picks it up, looks at it, smiles at his friend and drops the coin in his donation box
Syed: let it be ur donation for the day till u win!

in 1875, his brainchild found realisation. his struggle, though marred by extreme loyalty to british government, helped a whole community find its feet. to this day, many muslims in india owe their lives to him. people like syed brough education to india. and people who followed them, sustained its pristine value. it gave us great thinkers like c v raman. but some where down the line, we lost the value to our selfish lives.

the legend of Sir Syed would put most of the so called educationists of today to shame. private patrons see their schools and colleges only as money vending machines and so press for better results in examinations rather than over all development of the student. corporeal punishments have taken their toll. sporadic suicides serve as indicators. as for the government schools, they are filled with Mr. Shits.

contrast this with the US where 80% of the schools are government run and only people of the very elite business community send their wards to private institutions. the public schools are run with splendid professionalism and are self sufficient. even the americans understand education is too critical a functionality to be out sourced to private bidders.

einstein, who studied in Zurich University said that though his college left much to be desired, the true purpose of education- "which was to train the mind to think"- was well satisfied and hence college education is indispensible. Some one should have asked him to come to india and ask him if he still feels bad about his college!

Being Stereotype...

2006-04-30T05:45:00.000-07:00

doesn't freedom reveal the true random nature of life?
doesnt both- the best of talents and the worst of mundane lives- prosper given complete independence in choosing one's own way of life?
isn't it obvious that bondage not only destroys lives but also entire nations?

simply put, why is US, US; and why is India, India?

questions like these flashed across my mind as i was watching "A Beautiful Mind" with JILU and VIJAY at his place 2 weeks back. the movie is splendidly made and the screen play and the performance by Russel Crowe simply stupefied me. i come back home after a nights stay at thiruvanmiyur, have a bath and sit down in front of the computer to do the routine chking of mails to see if there is any news from the univs i apped. my mom comes and stands next to me, "you jus came home... wat are u doing?"
"chking if i got funding from any university"
"why dont u jus stay here and do MBA like ur friends?"

this is probably the 100000000000000th time she asked me that question. ofcourse, i love my mom more than anyone else on this planet , but then i must admit that even she is a part of the system which sees idealism in monotonicity- a system which i have begun to hate.

given that life is an awgn ( http://gskg.bravejournal.com/entry/15811 ), which we may also interpret as "life is unfair", implies that not everyone is given equal oppurtunity by birth(some ppl are born rich, some ppl are not etc. ) but people strive toward that 'equalness' -the d/dt of life is made positive with effort. that is the nature of life is 'capitalist' but we strive for socialism.

the indian society, over its course of evolution, has found a unique way of realizing this- a very bad way at that. it has started fighting this gaussian nature by creating self centered money making machines out of its own people. the terrible results of this war on nature is right in front of us...

since its commission in 1901, US has been generating about 2-3 Nobel Laureates ( in sciences ) A YEAR, while 2-3 nobels prizes is what india got in all... why?
US tops almost EVERY SINGLE olympic medals tally in the history of the games, while we can count the number of medals india has ever bagged... why?

by being random, life bestows varied skills and capabilities among men and women. and it is upto them to identify the same and pursue their destiny. but our society tries to bring everyone under the roof of a single means of living- one which seems to have market value at that time. unlike common perception, money seems to have bigger say in india than US... we have come out to being better capitalists than them after all!

soon after independence, the middle class in india cultivated a craze for government jobs since they assured security in a nascent and fragile economy. soon after, studying law became the lingua franca. then came B.Com and the jobs in bank. with the IT boom in 90s, the whole educated population got dumped in the consultancy companies. now MBA... the only common opinion which has persisted all through these generations is that anyone who diverges away from this mainstream is considered a fool, an out caste, not only by the society but also his own family.

parents discourage their kids if they want to be some one like a sachin tendulkar, an irfan patan, a kamala malleshwari and yes, even an abdul kalam. the sole reason abdul kalam is popular among masses today is that his name is used by parents to tempt their kids to study while they are in school... ONLY while they are in school. once out of it, they are pushed into the 'best' stream of engineering no matter what college, after four years, they are asked to join 'best' company, and then, if possible shift jobs or do a course on management to get the 'best' salary, do the 'best' job of signing papers all day whether u like it or not, marry, save money for family, have kids, tell them about Abdul Kalam, make them study, then make them take the 'best' stream of engineering...

immaterial of what americans do out of their country, they stick to their consititutional resolution of sustaining absolute freedom inside. each and everyone is allowed to do whatever shit out of their lives as they want. and it is here where we get to see talents shining. me and SEEKU (the math geek of the class) were discussing about the same on msnger the other day and i was saying, "99.9999999% of the people in US seem to be dumb da, it is the remaining 0.0000001% who are unusually successful in life and who dictate terms for the rest of the world".
SEEKU: "thats not the way to look at it da... it is because the very few truly inspired ppl who like to do challenging work like physics etc have the freedom to do wat they want in US, they get so successful"

meaning... if we try to plot the whole population against their level of motivation we would get a gaussian curve with very less spread. that is very highly motivated people with great potential would constitute a very narrow region ... the rest, vast majority (the region near the mean of the curve) would be contend with normal life and get into the main stream . while in US, this curve is atleast maintained so if not flattened by filtering out the gems, it is made sharper in india, by demotivating the motivated and pushing more and more people into the mean. true, there are very few people who are really capable, but that minority seems to be sufficient to build a whole nation like US.

when people love their job, it infuses dignity into the profession as a whole. why is then professionalism so rampant in US whether it is management, business, research or even politics, while its scarce in india? the study of management was born in the classrooms of Harvard with the aim of producing professionals who could create wealth. iim graduates in india on the other hand accumulate wealth rather than creating it. professors in the US keep striving hard to prove themselves time to time (ofcourse that has created problems of plagiarism there but thats a different story ) while those in india wait for the bell to ring so that they can go home.

last week when MOKSHAM, the radical and essentially the mokkai god of the class, came over to my place, our usual mokkai gave way to this discussion and he observed that "only thing the people in US have to fight is themselves, but in india, people have to fight the society in addition". but being a strong supporter of the indian way of life, he said, "the system in US though good for 'good' people is very bad for the others... people there ruin their lives in drugs and sex becoz they are give freedom". true, and that is where the true nature of life is revealed. educating the ill effects of bad habits such as these is what a society can and must do. the rest is up to the individual to accept it or not. are there no drug addicts in india? infact repression fosters more defiance than otherwise. sex... well, we claim to be a very purist society where people never speak about sex in public. but rather, we are obsessed with it 24x7. while a simple "no" stops a man from making any further attempts over a woman in US, eve-teasing is the favorite pass time for many in india.

when given a choice between wats easy and wats right... it is basic human tendency to accept the former... and thats wat most ppl do. the society would do good by encouraging those who venture into choosing the latter. unfortunately india is the land of, by and for stereotypes. John Nash was lucky in that he had only schizophrenia to deal with... had he been born in india, he would have been put in a mental asylum the day he told his parents he gonna study BSc Math after school!

The ten commandments of 'ideal life' in India:

1. Thou shall study that which, given current circumstances, yield maximum income.
2. Thou shall not pursue sports more than just a hobby
3. Thou shall join that company which ensures maximum job security
4. Thou shall not venture into start-ups
5. Thou shall not go into research or any such profession for which the "income/hours-at-work" ratio is poor.
6. Thou shall work with the sole reason of sustaining and keeping your family happy
7. Thou shall not spend more time, than that considered necessary by the authority concerned, at work
8. Thou shall extract maximum money out of minimum work
9. When the situation demands, thou shall bend, and may be even break rules to incur monetary or non monetary benefits for you and your family.
10. Thou shall, to the maximum extent possible, leave problems at work for others to solve

Mani Ratnam Vs Ram Gopal Varma

2006-04-30T05:27:00.000-07:00

This blog was written in 2003 but has changed URLs again and again in search of a decent place in the internet...

this is about 2 of my favourite contemporary movie makers in India- Mani Ratnam and Ram Gopal Varma and some thoughts on the changing Indian Film Industry. Comparing these two great men is too difficult, they have completely different way of thinking and their works are just poles apart. But some things are common. They both hail from the south, both were highly educated (Mani was an MBA graduate while Varma was a Civil Engineer), both never were assistants before making films themselves and then, of course, both make simply great movies.

Well, for those who dont know much about these men, a short intro: Maniratnam had the advantage of having a producer/distributor father and brother. He started making a kannada movie "Pallavi Anu Pallavi" starring Anil Kapoor which was a failure. Then came "Pagal nilavu" (Tamil) and "Unaru" (malayalam), both flops. The movie which gave Mani ratnam his first commercial success was "Mouna Raagam" (tamil). A splendid movie on husband-wife relationship. But the movie which put him on the National dias was "Nayagan" which earned Kamal Hassan, the national award for best actor, though Mani came under criticism for kindling anti-hindi sentiments among the Tamilians through the movie. But then there was no looking back. "Anjali" (Tamil), "Geetanjali" (telugu) came as hits. With "Roja", Ratnam became a house hold name country wide.Then came many more memorable movies like "Bombay"(Tamil), "Dilse.."(Hindi) and more recently "Kannaththil Muththamittal"(tamil). Today, he makes his own movies under the Madras Talkies banner.

Ram Gopal VArma, well, was a regular movie goer like you and me during the college days in Vijayawada (AP). Movie making was his passion since then. Unlike Mani, he started with hits like "Shiva", "kshanakshanam", "Money" and "gaayam"(Telugu). He got the reputation of making voilent but realistic movies in a rather feudal Telugu film industry. But then even he had to face Box office disasters with "Antham", "Govinda Govinda" (Telugu), "Daud" and "Mast" (Hindi)."Rangeela"(hindi) was his first step in Bollywood and soon after that his name has become inseparable from the hindi film industry, with the creation of the company Varma Corp. Movies "satya" and "company" established him as a movie maker with calibre and today he is the most sought after director in Bollywood.

Well, forget all the history. What makes these two men different from others? Well, the kind of picturisation you get to see in their movies, you realise how technically strong these men are. A well thought over script, realistic visualisations, stupendous screenplay is all these men have to offer. Surprisingly (many dont know), these two have worked together- while Ram gopal varma wrote Mani's "Thiruda Thiruda"(tamil) and exe-produced "Dil Se..", Mani wrote Varma's "Gaayam"(telugu), a box-office hit. Both the men were inspired by one another. Mani, Varma and Shekar Kapoor together own a company. While Mani introduced talents such as A.R.Rehman and Madhavan, Varma's finds include the likes of Vivek Oberoi, Antra Mali, Manoj Bajpai, Aftab and ofcourse, the ever gorgeous and immensly talented Urmila Matondkar. While Mani mastered the art of showcasing the life of terrorists on the screen ("Roja", "Dil Se...", "Kannaththil..."), Varma successfully sneaked his camera into the dark corners of the Bombay Underworld ("Satya", "company", "Ab tak Chahppan"). Using violence to make a point seems to be the style of the two.

Ramu pursuited his fancy for Horror in the movies "Raathri" (telugu), "Bhoot" and "Darna Mana Hai" (Hindi). Barring "Bhoot", the others did not make any mark on the charts. Both the directors revolutionised the art of cinematography with unusually realistic camera work,which completelty mix with the story . Manis"Agni Nakshathram" (Tamil) is a good example, So is Ramu's "Road". Mani got Rajiv Gandhi's National Integration Award for "Roja" while Ramu Bagged AP govts Nandi Award for Best director. Movies like "Iruvar", "Bombay", "Indira" "satya" and "company" brought out some very serious problems the country faces today along with sound techniques of modern movie making. Ramu's "Rangeela" and more recently "Main Madhuri Dixit..." depicts the struggles of young girls trying to make their place as heroines in Bollywood. Both these men now have a place of their own in the hall of fame of the legendary directors of India of the likes of Guru Dutt . The very recent flicks of both the directors have bombed at the box-office (Mani-"kannaththil...", "five star", Ramu-"Darna mana hai", "Main madhuri...", "Ek Hasina thi"), which shows that ,the conception that the Indian Film Industry is increasingly becoming close to real life, is a myth. The talk that Cinema is undergoing a revival of the kind of the "golden era" of 70s is just bogus.

Producers still rely on conventional-masala oriented movies for success. Item numbers, uncorrelated comedy, heart kindling sentiments, gravity defying stunts still play a major role in the fate of a movie. The "vertically integrated film industry", as Kamal hasan puts it is still an Utopian dream. India makes 30 times as many movies as Hollywood every year. But the total earnings of Bollywood is hardly 2% of that of Hollywood. Culturally, we have a handicap- Movies in Indian languages cannot reach people world wide. And also, the concepts that Indian cinema deals with are quite local in nature, which the international audience cannot relate with. But upcoming directors like Nagesh Kuknoor and Mira Nair have proved that movie making is beyong cultural barriers and they have put Indian Cinema on the world map. But then, their takers are but a minority in India. Majority still wants light hearted commercial masalas. Strong willed directors like Mani and Ramu fight a seemingly losing battle, falling prey to the latest trend -Flops. Critics obviously dismiss any improvement in the industry for many years to come... But the situation may not be that bad after all. With immense acting talent like Aamir Khan, Kamal Hassan and Urmila Matondkar in the country, directors with determination can still taper the industry well on the lines of Hollywood.

Now, vertical integration DOESNOT mean mimicking the Hollywood but learning the art of "real life" movie making from them- "trying to get the true essence of life which the common masses can relate with". After all movies are supposed to showcase the society. "Dil Chahta Hai" and "Anbe Sivam" were such movies. They put the actors in real life kind of situations and the actors too brought out reality in their performances. Another common perception is that songs are a draw back in Indian movies. This is not true. Supposing there were songs in all the Hollywood movies and there weren't any in Indian cinema, we would say there OUGHT to be songs and dances in cinema!!!! Every country has made some contribution to the world of cinema, and songs, are something unique to India. Songs and dances, in India, have traditionally been the means of expression- of delight, of sorrow, of devotion and of hatred. And this is exactly why they have been incorporated in Cinema. Songs are an attempt to explore greater depths of human emotion, not to exaggerate them. So when Maddy suddenly disappears from Chennai and reappears, jumping and waving his hands outstreched in the gardens of Shimla in "Alaipayuthey", the director is not trying to be funny. Nor is he trying to divert the attention of the audiences. As a matter of fact, he is trying get the audiences under the character's skin and let them actually experience the same emotions. Dance sequences, if shot sensibly with picturisations pertaining to the situation, go a long way in telling the story all by themselves. Ofcourse, directors who dare to make movies without songs must be appreciated. It is also true that when dealing with serious issues, songs are but an irritant. Movies like "Kurudhi Punal"(Tamil) and "Hyderabad Blues"(English) surely didn't need songs. Serious movies, have this responsibility of not compromising with the ground realities. But then, its the directors own discretion to decide whether songs make sense or not. Its a different story. But if you still think these dances in hill stations and holiday resorts are crazy, well, look at the song sequences in movies like "Lagaan" or "Dil Chahta Hai" or "Virumaandi", dont you think they completely blend with the movie and the story would be lifless without them?

Truly, Indian Cinema has come a long way, learning from its own mistakes, and has become more matured. There are 2 kinds of film makers in India- those who realise awesome scripts which bags scores of National and International awards but which just sink in the Box-office. These movies are so ahead of their time that people are not able to accept such a drastic change from the convention. So, they DONOT do any good in reviving the film industry, contrary to the common perception. Then there are those who make masala movies, which topple the charts and draw people to house full theatres, but technically, lack lusture and are far from qualifying as good movies.

This is where men like Mani Ratnam and Ram Gopal Varma come in. They have the ability to make movies of substance and yet give it a "mainstream" flavour drawing peoples' attention. It is they who actually help the smooth transition of the industry from horizontal to vertical integration. Even if their movies flop, they leave a bench mark. They form the missing link in this evolution of Indian Cinema. It all depends, now, on how well their successors inherit and even better the standards set by them. India has a long history of great movie makers and Mani, Ramu are the latest additions to the list. Whether, in future, Indian Cinema really comes to the standards of Hollywood or not, the work of men like these will always be remembered as an attempt break away from convention and make movies which are appealing to the masses not only of this generation but generations to come. In this success hungry industry, they taught us that it is possible to make make commercial movies while not compromising with the script. Mani Ratnam's "Ayutha ezhuththu"(Tamil, "Yuva" in Hindi) is due release in May end. Lets see what this man from Chennai has to offer us this time...