.:Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind:.

It Happens Only In India..

2006-05-27T02:40:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer : This post is not meant to hurt the religious sentiments of people. If I have offended somebody then kindly excuse me.

So after a lot of racket, Da Vinci code is finally releasing. That brings us to the Question “Is India a Country that always overreacts?” I mean there is no reason as to why the screening of this movie became such a big issue. Lets us just look into what the movie says. Probably the only thing that Christians world over are unhappy with is the fact that the movie portrays Jesus as a married man with Mary Magdalene to be his wife. The question over the statement’s authenticity remains. But all the protesting has only helped in building the people’s curiosity and am sure that this is surely going to increase the number of people who hit the theatres. The best way to have handled the issue would have been to have a few silent protests or something similar quite like how it happened in other countries. I mean all this will probably lead people into thinking that some part of what is said in the movie is true and that is why the Christian institutions are desperately trying to see that the movie does not see the light of the day. Not even for a minute am I trying to suggest that whatever has been said in the book and therefore the movie has any truth in it. I believe in Jesus. I believe that he gave his blood to protect humanity. But again like how Dan Brown and numerous other people have portrayed Jesus to be a married man. Does it take anything away from you? Absolutely not. His Marital status is in no way connected to his greatness and the fact that he was God’s son.

Some people have issued statements saying that no matter what is being said their faith hasn’t been shattered which is the way it should be. Then why all the fuss?? They claim that it will definitely give a wrong impression to Non-Christians. My question is “Does it Matter”. Does it really matter what other people think about your religion. As long as you are convinced in your own religion, other’s thoughts and statements do not matter.

Coming back to the main topic. Why such a fuss only in India where the release was delayed? In countries like Poland, U.S.A where 90% of the population are Christians there was very little fuss about the whole thing whereas in India where only 2% of the population are Christians there was so much of Rattle and Hum. I think it is time we started using our heads rather than our hearts to look at issues. And it is high time that the government doesn’t come and support issues like this. You would probably ask me what if some facts were being told about your own religion. Would you react the same way?? I would say yes. According to the constitution India is a country where every individual has the right to “Freedom of Speech, Thought and Expression” so just let people express themselves and their thoughts. Take what you think is right and ignore the others.

The same thing has happenned with the Aamir Khan issue where an innocent statement made by him has led to so much of uproar in Gujarat and his movie Fanaa is not going to screened. This is sheer madness. Doesnt an individual have the right to voice his opinion on an issue??? Then why do we call ourselves a democracy...

I think at the end of the day rationale has to exist. But whether this Metamorphosis will happen in a country like India is a question that remains to be seen.

Laff For a While..

2006-05-08T09:21:00.000-07:00

We always Blog abt Stuff that has affected us... or stuff we feel strongly abt, riducling other ppl and current affairs..I thought why not for a change have a blog which just contains jokes and some one liners... So Here I Go...

Wife Looks in the Mirror and Says to the Husband.. "I look Fat, Horrible and Ugly"..Please say something nice to me dear..

Husband Replies " Your eyesight is perfect"

Sardar Quotes " I will never marry in my life and will advice the same to my children"

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How Do you identify a sardar in class???

It's simple..Check who is erasing the notes when the teacher is cleaning the blackboard

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Kurudan Kaila Torch
Sevidan Kaila Radio
Oomai Kaila Mike
Ganguly Kaila Bat
Un Kaila Bloguu..
ENNA KODUMAI SARAVANAN.....

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Thatuvam : Kasu Iruntha Call Taxi..Kasu Illena Kall Thaan Taxi..

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Most of them say.. "BEHIND EVERY SUCCESSFUL MAN THERE IS A WOMEN" but none know the fact is "WOMEN ONLY GO BEHIND SUCCESSFUL MEN"..

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Kuila Pidichi Koondil Adachi Paada sollugira ulagam
Vijay ah pudichi kaasu koduthu nadikka sollugura ulagam
Adu eppadi padum ayya
Avan eppadi nadippan ayya
Padam eppadi odum ayya.
oh O O Oh Oh...

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Wats the diff between Rajnikanth and Vijayakanth.. Rajini bayangara karuppa irupparu..Vijayakanth Karuppa Bayangarama irupparu..

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Sardar died of thinkin one thing again and again.. "If my sister has two brothers then how come I have only one..."

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Sardar : I saw my wife going with the watchman for a movie

Friend : Really, Did you folow them..

Sardar: No Yaar I have seen that movie already...

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PUBLIC SERVICE MESSAGE: Pls elect Vijayakanth into power otherwise he might return to acting

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Dayanidhimaran's threat to the ppl of tamilnadu " Ellarum mariyadhaya DMK ky vote pottudunga... illena kalanidhi kitta solli SUN TV la Aadhi yum KTV la Sivakasi um poda solliduven"

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Free ya Irudha Padi
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Othukkaran..Nee Free ya Irukken nu Othukkaran..Next meet pannuren...

Anniyan V/S Matrix..

2006-03-14T23:02:00.000-08:00

Was getting ready to leave for office when I noticed the time. I realized that I was pretty early and hence decided to turn on the TV and chill out for sometime. Was swapping channels as usual an in HBO they were showing Matrix reloaded. One of the best movies I have seen so far from an action/sci-fi perspective. When I switched to HBO the scene that was going on was when they meet the frenchman and his allies lanuch an attack on Neo. That fight scene was so beautifully done especially the Time-Freeze scenes. The wachowski brothers are real geniuses. It immediately reminded me of our very own Anniyan where the same technique was supp to have been used to good effect and in fact according to some (Shankhar of course…) even better than the Matrix. But if you ask me I would say it was total bullshit. Of course I commend the director’s attempt at trying to provide tamil audience with something spectacular. I have no issues with that. But I belong to the Old school of thought where people believe whatever is inside the movie should gel with the story and the script. The two most pivotal things of any movie are the story and the script. What the director should understand is that Matrix was a sci-fi movie and hence it was possible for Neo to go out and do all those amazing things whereas Anniyan is an ordinary man(ok a person with MPD but nonetheless a man) and hence it is a bit impractical for him to do all those and that too with Time-Freeze techniques. And what was clearly visible was again the fact that the director had tried to copy the Matrix sequence in exactly the same way without trying to infuse any of his own ideas with the only difference being that Smiths were replaced by Karate students.

And one more thing that really disheartens me is the fact that tamil films havent progressed in the last 10 years or so. I mean story-wise we are still seeing the same movies. Yes it is true that technologically we might have improved a lot. I mean if you consider the recent movies:

Ghajini – A remake of the hollywood film memento. No problem in trying to copy movies from hollywood but atleast be true to the characters. If you see the original the hero is a person with short term memory loss but apart from that he is normal. But if you see Surya he has been portrayed as though he is mad with a mottai and those pshcho looks. And gaain I felt the movie was plain and dull and again uneccesary time freeze techniques used in the climax.

Aadhi – A mindless revenge film with the usual masala crap and trisha just for glamour and to top it all a telugu film remake

Saravana – The same old concept of Guy running away with a girl and the whole village behind them.

And one more thing which ensures that we never progress is these horrible songs where the hero and heroine come on screen and exercise for 5 mins. First the hero will dream about the heroine, then the heroine about the hero, then the heroine’s grandmother will imagine abt how good it will be if the hero and heroine get together. Is all this crap necessary??? Make songs by all means but why cant we adapt the soundtrack system where the songs don’t actually appear on screen or appear only for a couple of mins like in ayutha Ezhuthu or Virumandi. That is a better approach.

And talking about our so called brilliant directors. Mani Ratnam hasn’t given us anything new in the last 10 yrs. Most of his movies deal with terrorism combined with love. With all due respect to Mr.Ratnam I think he better start thinking of some new themes. Even bollywood has started experimenting and started making some better movies like Black, Paheli, Parineeta etc which deal about human relationships etc which we can actually relate to..

What a brilliant performance by Rani in Black?? But whereas if you see tamil movies most of heroines cant even act because they have forgotten how to act. Now all they know is to wear a mini-skirt with a sphagetti top and come and dance. And need you ask when we got experts like Namitha and Mumtaz…

I just feel the situation is pathetic and it needs a lot of young blood just like any other industry does. Hopefully I can wield the camera in the near future and make some sensible movies. And before that I just hope that these guys don’t make movies which are supp to be better than their hollywood counterparts and has amazing graphics.

The Day Before Today!!

2006-03-06T01:26:00.000-08:00

Went to play cricket as usual and was burdened with the additional responsibility of captaining the side apart from being the batting and bowling mainstay of the team. And on top of this I had to keep wickets too. Physically challenging…Oh yes by all means but it aint that big a deal for a person who is in prime fitness like me. (Rakesh Roshan initally approaced me for Krishh after having a look at me..but unfortunately I had to step out as I didn’t want to create a rivalry between the dad and son pair). Anyways coming to the point…I guess you would have all got a fair idea as to how demanding it would have been. I mean keeping wickets, batting, bowling and also captaining a side. And given that every game that we play consists of only three overs and played in a narrow lane you can guess the amount of planning, strategy that was required on my part. The field placings were of vital importance.

And to top it all I got injured in the final over while keeping. The ball bounced nastily and was heading over my head and everybody around thought that it was a four. (Where we play if the ball goes over the keeper’s head then it is a four) . Let me explain the scenario of the game first. We batted first and of course I did all the scoring and we reached 26 at the end of three overs. Pretty respectable wouldn’t you say??? And then I bowled the first over and conceded only four runs and picked up a wicket. Then my team mate bowled the second over and gave away 10 runs.

The last over. The game was a nail biter. The equation stood like this. Six balls and twelve runs to win. I made sure that the field placings were perfect. But then the first ball was straight driven and went for a four. It was followed by a couple of dot balls. Three balls eight runs to win. The next ball was again hit over the bowlers head for a four. After I gave a piece of mind to the bowler, he corrected his line and bowled a perfect yorker and they needed four runs to win off the last ball. The bolwer was steaming in a.k.a shoaib and bowled a short ball. It bounced nastily and was flying over my head. I knew I had to do something. I jumped up full length with perfect timing and with my finger tips managed to stop the ball. Wow..We won.. but in the process I hurt my index finger badly.

I was rushed to the hospital for a scan and we found out that I had a swelling on my index finger and it would take three weeks of complete rest for it to become ok. Sharad pawar called me and had a word. He was really worried. I have been asked to go to South Africa and meet up with the famous Sports doctor Mark Fergusson to speed up my recovery. As it turns out the Indian team were hoping that I could join them for the second test in place of the struggling sehwag. Guitar guru Steeve Vai also called up to find out how I was doing and whether this injury wasn’t going to affect my guitar playing in the least bit. I assured him that it was just a scratch and I should be fine in a couple of weeks time. Am still on road to recovery. I wish the Indian team all the best for Mohali and hope that they do well without me(I know it’s going to be tough).

And one more thing guys..now that I am injured Band Aid thought that this was the right time to rope me in as their brand ambassador and I have just signed a contract for 3 yrs. And of course the Band-Aid is now proudly wrapped around my index finger.

Life as we know it..

2006-02-25T18:42:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I am so amazed at my own ignorance. I complain all the time as to how life hasn’t been fair to me and how I am being denied all the things I want. The list would go typically like this:(And am sure most of you will identify with this..)

1)My salary aint enough. My friend with similar experience is earning 50k at SAP labs while am sitting here with a meager salary

2)I have been playing guitar for the past 4 months and I pretty much still suck

3)All the girls I try make friendship with turn a blind eye towards me (Now this is something which I think is going to take a long time to change… Kidding…)

4)How I don’t have better bike or a car when compared to my other friends

5)How my office takes up most of my time and I don’t have the time for any other activities

6)Even though I have many friends my sudden feeling that I aint got any real close pals and I no one considers me as their close pal.

But then when I sit and think I got to be thankful for all that life has given me. Because even though my salary might be meager compared to my friend's I still got enough money to afford going for guitar class and pay off my monthly bills. I have time to pursue a good hobby like playing the guitar and I aint as bad as I sounded above. The fact that I have an office to go where I can work hard, earn some recognition , meet new people and make a lot of friends. It only takes me a minute for all my pals to show up if they know that I am having a problem.

Well my point is that we are so often caught up in all these trivial issues happening in our own lives and magnify them to seem as if all of life’s problems are upon us that we forget how fortunate we are. There are so many people all over the world who do not know where their next meal is going to come from. I have seen small kids who live in the slums walking barefoot and I mean lil kids who are abt 5 yrs old. Boys and girls of our age work so very hard often doing two or three jobs just to meet their basic necessitates. I am sure we would have seen the same with our housemaids who usually work in two to three houses just for their daily bread. Don’t u think they wud love to have all that we possess???

I saw my watchman’s kid playing with some wooden toys and using the gate as a swing. Don’t u think he would love to have some G.I.Joe’s or He-Man’s like we did when we were his age. Do you think our parents would have allowed us to walk barefoot when we were so small??

Well the point that I am trying to make is that there so may people out there in the world who are not so privileged as us so we better stop complaining and instead start appreciating life for what it has given us and what we already possess. And also be really thankful (No words would do justice) to our parents who have worked so hard to provide us with all the comforts. Sometimes we tend to take them for granted.

And when we do realize how lucky we are we should try and do something to help those people who exactly aren’t living comfortably. And these are a few ways to do it:

1)Am sure everybody will have some change in their wallets at the end of each day. Kindly put the change into a big cover at the end of each day and am sure you will be surprised at the amount of money you have collected at the end of.. say a year. Now you can go ahead and give this money to charity. Wont that make you feel gr8??

2)You can start a small kind of trust thing with your college or school friends and each of you pump in some money when possible and use that money for some good purposes. Our college gang has done this and I am guilty of not having contributed anything till now but am going to start now.

I just hope I will be able to carry on without getting stuck into the “Blame it all on my life” kind of pattern again.

Six Degrees None The Cooler

2006-02-19T17:46:00.000-08:00

Rang De Basanti!! This was one amazing movie. Managed to get tickets after an initial struggle of about two weeks. The tickets costed 110 bucks and the movie was being screened in a new theatre called Six Degrees. The name was cool and someone told me that the seats were quite plush. I got tickets in the 'F' row and was quite happy. After all it is the sixth row and I thought I would be setaed way behind.

I was shocked once I entered the theatre. It was the probably the size of my hall and I thought "You got to be kidding me". The seats were plush and the ambience was pretty good. I was three rows behind the screen. I don’t think it was worth 110 bucks. The interior designer of sathyam is genius. All he needs is a lil bit of space and he will convert that into a theatre. I just hope that he doesn’t try and convert the restroom into a theatre with screens right in front of the person (like how it is in the airlines) but with sathyam you just might never know…He might start selling those tickets for as low as 10 bucks.

I know I started off with Rang De Basanti but went somewhere else. Probably my next blog will be to the point…

And one more thing I forgot to mention.. Sathyam is gonna release a book called “How To Manage Space Efficiently”. So if anyone of you out there is having problems managing space then do get this. Am sure it is going to be a bestseller.

Welcome To Wayanad - 3

2006-02-19T17:36:00.000-08:00

We decided that it was time and had to move on and managed to climb back down and reach our bus safely. We were on our way to Kuruva island. Kuruva island..well it aint exactly an island…but just a piece of land surrounded by water..wait now is that what they call an island. We managed to go boating again..now that’s one thing in kerala which u can afford to do again and again as there is so much of water all over. After seeing the board which read out as “Rafting” I thought cool…Adventure Sports here in kerala…but when we actually reached the place we were amazed to see a few bamboo reeds tied up together and yes ladies and gentleman that was the raft. And the driver or shud I say captain of the raft took us across to the other side by pulling us all using a rope which was fastened across to the other end. Then we took a stroll among the dense forests and managed to wet our legs in a small stream. Nature’s Jacuzzi shud I say…

Bidding farewell to kuruva we started towards tirunelli which is a small temple city amidst mountains. We had to literally rush coz accommodation was pretty difficult to get. If we didn’t manage to get accommodation then we would have probably had to share our bed with the jungle animals. We didn’t mind but were wondering If they could take the torture. We visited the temple and it was so peaceful inside. The architecture of the temple was so unlike any south Indian temple and was more like an ancient kerela house. That night the most amazing thing happened. We were taking a walk down a deserted road at about 11 in the night and we reached a lonely spot and looked up to the sky to notice that it was filled with stars. It was as if someone had shot an arrow through a big star and it got shattered all over the horizon. It was one of the most unbelievable sights ever. We lied flat on the road and were gazing at the stars for nearly an hour. All you guys need to do this at least once in their life. Believe me it’s worth it.

Started the next day morning to Sentinel Falls. After another trek we reached the falls.. The falls splits into two, one which was really inaccessible and the other pretty much approachable. After mustering up all my courage I decided to join my friends to take a bath in the falls. Bcoz I knew that if I let this opportunity slip I would rue abt it for quite along time. After making my journey through all the slippery stones (believe me they were real slippery..and fully covered with moss too) and many tumbles later I managed to reach right under the falls. We had a blast taking bath under the falls. The water was so cold and the experience was unlike anything that I have felt before.

After koothadichifying for more than 2 hours in the water we made our way back and enroute the bus stopped in a small refreshment stall where we had bread omlettes and lime juice

We packed our bags and headed for calicut and since we had some time to kill …headed for beypore port. The port was bustling with activity.

A 30mins boat ride was pretty good and we managed to get some good pictures of a variety of birds.Finally after purchasing Chips(How can u come to kerala and not buy chips) we got into the train with all the wonderful memories of wayanad. We have already started to plan for the next trip. And hopefully it will be real soon.....

Welcome To Wayanad - 2

2006-02-19T17:35:00.000-08:00

MeenMutti Falls: We traveled till one point by our bus and after that we were told that we would have to trek for about 3 kms in order to reach the falls. And we kept chugging along. The trek was really tough on us considering the fact that we had no physical exercise in the last few months. Luckily we wore shoes without which the trek would have been impossible. There were places where we had to shift from one rock to another with nothing between the two rocks and but just a drop of about 200 feet. It was scary indeed but we kept pushing ourselves. Everytime we met a guy on the path he would say that it was 2 kms ahead but we were convinced by then that if we kept going we would reach karanataka border for the trek seemed never ending. And almost an hour after we started came the amazing view of the falls. It was awesome. It was like Nature hitting back at us saying “You may have the spencer’s and the satyam’s but I still got a few tricks up my sleeve”.

The trek was totally worth it. Then we managed to get down right next to the falls and take some amazing pictures. The trek back was totally tiresome. There were so many times during the way when I thought I would just sit there and spend the night over there. I was panting and puffing and it was starting to get dark. But then thanks to my spirited friends who kept pushing me along that we finally made it back. We were completely stoned and just hit the bed.

The next day we were supposed to get up early and head out to our next destination but as it turned out we were late by nearly an hour. The next place on our itinerary was Edukkal caves. The trek was again a lil cumbersome but then thanks to the amazing experience of Meenmutti this wasn’t too much of a strain. After a trek of about an hour (and stopping in between for photos in all kinds of poses known to human kind) we finally reached the entrance of the caves. The cave had obviously been renovated. Small staircases had been installed (forgive my computer terminology…I am a s/w engineer after all) to aid people in climbing up. After managing to climb through all those staircases we reached the interior part of the cave. There was a huge wall on which there were murals which were supposedly thousands of years old…

There was a guide over there who explained the significance of the painting and what the various figures stood for. There was the tribal cheiftan who looked more like Ramadoss without his trademark shirt and veshti… ordinary tribes and of course the dog. And right over here is where two enlightened souls (obviously me and my friend whom we affnly call Koli) postulated a theory which would change the popular belief that outsourcing is a thing of the 90’s. Those murals which I talked about looked pretty similar to paintings and inscriptions during the Inca period. And interestingly the Inca period was roughly when these cavemen were living in kerala. So we came to the conclusion that the Inca people actually outsourced their paintings and inscriptions to these cavemen in kerala as stones were present in abundance over here and of course kerala being a communist stronghold the costs were much less. So there you go outsourcing was present more than 10,000 years ago and it started off in kerala. We’ve been called to do a guest lecture on this topic at the Dept of Anthropology in Massachusetts institute of technology. I shall keep all of you posted on this.

To Be Continued Again..

Welcome To Wayanad - 1

2006-02-19T17:34:00.000-08:00

25th
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The D-Day was upon us. 20 of us from my college were heading to wayanad for a well deserved vacation. 24th evening was fully spent in packing. I quickly took all the dresses from my cupboard and started to stack them inside my suitcase. There were clothes of all possible colors ranging from red to green to yellow. Enough colors to make an Andhra superstar feel ashamed. But then suddenly the wise guy inside told me that I was gonna be away for only 3 days. So managed to stuff about 3 pairs of clothes and wolla I was done with my packing.

25th at office was a drag with me dreaming abt wandering in the wilderness of wayanad. So didn’t manage to get any work done. Well then left office and managed to reach the station on time with a pal of mine. And then history repeated itself…..those guys who had emphasized that everyone should be there by 7:30 never even showed up. Anways after a lot of hullabaloo all of us managed to get into the train on time and were on our way.

The usual session of ragging and teasing started and lasted for quite a long time much to the discomfort of our co-passengers until the bells in our tummies started to ring. A few guys had bought food from home for the entire group so we spent the next half an hour gobbling some delicious home made puliyodharai and thair sadam, a diet which would make any south Indian proud. Now that our belies were full it was time to hit the bed and wake up to the glory of wayanad

26th
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Republic day on the train!!! The patriotism inside me reached new heights that I decided to hoist the flag on top of the train but was stopped by my less adventurous friends. And after a lot of persuasion I agreed. We reached calicut station at around 8 in the morning and had our breakfast in a restaurant just outside the station (and of course I mean the railway station…Luckily we weren’t arrested on charges of nuisance though I guess we were pretty close).

Afetr breakfast we got into the min-van which was gonna be with us for the next 3 days and take us around to all the places. My poor friend who got his iPOD didn’t get a chance to use it and it was firmly plugged in my ears till we reached out hotel.

We were to visit two places en route our hotel. The first place that we went to was “The Chained Tree”. Apparently there is a story behind this one and it goes like this “The British wanted to find a route to mysore via the forests and were helped by a tribal. After the task got finished they killed the tribal guy as they wanted all the credit. And after this incident, stories of the tribal's spirit disturbing the travelers were plenty hence the local people offered a prayer to a deity and chained the spirit of the tribal to the tree.

The next stop was Pookot Lake. This lake was really amazing. Even though there were a lot of people, the place was so calm and ideal for boating. The lake was filled with beautiful water lilies and other kinds of exotic flowers (Well I am saying exotic coz I really do not know the name of those flowers).

We got some pretty good pictures and also did the usual traveler thing of taking a picture almost anywhere and everywhere like right next to the trash can and in the see-saw with multiple poses until the security guard reminded us that the play area was meant for kids only. But aren’t we all kids at heart???

Finally we reached out hotel, cleaned ourselves up, had a good lunch and finished it off with some great coffee. The hotel did serve us some wonderful coffee. We set out for our next destination Meenmutti falls.

To Be Continued...

Bloggin Starts Today...Again..

2006-02-19T17:33:00.000-08:00

Started off by reinventing my blog today. I kinda started blogging a year back but hardly wrote abt 3 or 4 blogs and believe me all of them sucked big time. Why did I start blogging??? I really do not know… it is not as if I had a lot of enlightened thoughts to share with everybody…I guess I just did it coz all my friends had a blog and it was like an e-mail thingy where you were supp to be a disgrace if you didn’t possess a mail Id. So I started my blog but for the wrong reason I guess. What is the right reason to start blogging anyway?? Mebbe that will be a separate blog one day…And coming to the point well here I go again with the bloggin thingy and hopefully this time around it will be much better… so Chow…