i Imagine.i Like. i Scribble.

Welcome 2011

2011-01-01T08:28:00.000-08:00

In the middle of Eu Tong Sen street, dancing around the midnight traffic, snaking through the drunken crowd, glimpsing some spectacular fireworks on tiptoes, wishing I were with the ones I love , I said Hello to 2011. Incredible changes in the past decade, more mind boggling ones to arrive in this one, I am sure. Here's hoping all things good and nice come our way, heath and happiness stuck at the side, Adventure and Excitement add some spice and Peace and contentment reign at the end of the day. Cheers!

Being 21

2010-08-02T09:57:00.000-07:00

The big 20's have arrived to stay and the first thought that pops into my head is that finally, i have been given the official green card to enter into any recreational establishments that had so far been barred to me. Not that I may still be allowed in without solid ID proof judging by looks..but happy news is I got the proof atleast!! Well, now that this longtime major pain has been removed from my life, I find that the privilegde also comes in with another array of nagging responsibilities. and a bit of anxiety as its official that if I screw up from now on, not even parental interference can give me a helpline..

Above all, its quite disconcerting actually. inspite of all the build up given for the magic 21, I hardly feel any change. mentally or physically. SO, in the absence of any such supposed powers I am to gain, I have been kicked out of college and expected to launch myself into a projectile of a career that had better land me in the moon soon, make loads of cash, manage it without getting bankrupt, gain a cool designation title to go along with it, travel the world, gain " experience" ..all within the next decade.Most importantly, I must somehow make myself mature to not only handle but welcome more nagging responsibilites in future.

I wonder why the hell people enjoy being 21 now?!

of dreams and reality.

2010-07-21T11:43:00.000-07:00

Waiting is one of the most difficult tasks in this world. especially when the event you wait for is a certainity. whether it is a few minutes of waiting in the Q at McDonalds or a few weeks for a call letter to arrive..All the carefully constructed plans and ideas for the much awaited and longed for relaxation falls into pieces and gets blown away in the air within a day or two , giving way to impatience and restlessness of the wait. The end result - watching useless crap on tv, over eating, staring at the ceiling watchign lizards mate or simply circling around the room all day.basically you end up wasting all the precious time way in getting bored, agitated and bored again in an infinite loop.

A chance break from the above cycle gave me an opportunity to watch the movie Inception tonight and compelled me to resume blogging here.My friends had seen it twice already on subsequent days (due to the failure of being able to watch back to back shows) and hence made me believe the reviews to some extent.Still, that hadnt prepared me for the sheer magnificence of the experience of watching it.I am not going to go into a review of the film or begin to praise each and every aspect of it here. that would merely be an annoying echo of an orchestra already doing that job currently.So, i am instead going to write about some other vague random thoughts the film has incepted into my head.or Maybe i just want to break the slumber and continue my blog..

The basic concept of what is real and what is illusion has already been covered in a number of movies before. I loved the Matrix series ( atleast the first two of it ) and got clued into this concept. But this particular film has gone a little further and the idea of dream sharing among a no. of participants like a video conference and the course of events being marked by the participants is rather fascinating.This is like saying all our births or incarnations into this world are like dreams that our subconcious or soul is taking every day. In each of these dreams of our souls, some incidents or personalities become too attached to it and remain as permanent memories which may recur in subsequent dreams or births.We may wake up on our death and may be half awake while sleeping.As in a dream, we never know how a dream began or a particular stage is set in our dream and similarly, never trace why we are born in a particular place in a particular setting but merely carry on from there onwards.Maybe there could be a dream architect who designs the setting for every soul ( God?) or its the equations of karma, how we react to in previous dreams? or merely randomness that decides it.All this could be complete bullshit also and where we are now is just plain reality, there are no dreams at all..merely chemicals and electicity over working in our brains when we sleep...

Another interesting parallel I could draw in the film is that the time sequence in the dreams differs from relality, that our brains process data faster and time seems to slow down. In ancient Hindu legends,there is this concept of time difference between the astral worlds and human world. Ofcourse, this is just in the bed time stories that my mom used to tell me and I am not sure of its authnticity in the religious texts, though I think the Gita says some stuff like the life we lead is all an illusion etc. etc.still, if we assume that our souls revolve outside this illusion , then every lifetime on earth may still amount to the dream time for the subconcious( soul).

Our ancestors might have spent their lifetime thinking on all this stuff but as of today ,we are immersed under all the science and technology being created that it sounds so totally exotic and fascinating when people are suddenly reminded of such basic questions of what is true and false through this medium of virtual reality.

travel blabs 3- the thai magic

2009-08-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

The post after the long block - you know that dark phase when you lose the interest to write, give a damn abt communicating to anyone for unselfish reasons, generally angry at nothing and everything..well, what better way to start afresh than one to gloat about one of my rare amazing experience. Prior Warning: THis is going to be a pretty long post, maybe a little irritating too.

Its been around 3 months since I peeped into the Venice of the East, Thailand. A brilliant place to quench your curiosities about the Eastern culture. and why was it even more special? A total fun freak out trip with a few close friends, considerable cash, absolutely no RULES. We embarked on this crazy idea after getting thoroughly bored of my internship in the corporate world, and on that impulse the weekend trip to the most affordable place turned out to be Bangkok. Hotels can be best booked previously online.
Super cool rooms are available at unbelievably low rates at Asiarooms.com. A bit of internet surfing and some decent maps are sufficient fr the first timers to get around the city.

I , accompanied by my 3 good friends had only 3 days to explore the place and make the most of our holiday. We planned a 2 day stay in Bangkok and spend 1 day at Patthaya.Our first surpise at the land of White elephants was the airpost itself. Big and beautiful - the Suvarnabhumi airport was a surprising treat with statues of Ravana and Stone Models of Hindu epic scenes such as the one with churning of the ocean welcoming the awed tourisits.

Thailand was originally a hindu country as from 13th century. since the period of the Autthaya kings, the Thai monarchy has adopted the name "Rama" for each consecutive monarch of the land.Though presently, the major population of Thailand are buddhists , its still very interesting to note the presence of a great many subtle indications of a rich Hindu past hidden among its artistic milieu. The structures at the Round tanas,seemingly artistic at the first glance are infact symbols from hindu epics including Yali, garuda etc..The structure of the wats stewrn across the city is so very similar to cone shaped hindu gopuras, incuding the pragaras surrounding them..One might account it for buddhism closely bordering on Hindu principles.

Yet the presence of a small deity of Garuda with Vishnu on top of the Wat Phra Kaew entrance or the beautiful paintings of Ramayana inscribed inside the walls surrounding the buddist structures is interesting to guess on a previous hindu ancestory to the temple itself.The tiny garuda symbol on the thai currency is another little surprise thrown at the enthusiasts.

So, our first day was spent visiting the numerous Wats(buddhist teples) decorating the city and seriosuly, its astonishing to note the intricate artistic works at some of these places. The temple of dawn is another treat when seen at dusk, whith the light playing magic on the majestic structure on the banks of Chao Phraya river.

Bigger than the pleasures offered by bangkok was our adventure- the thrill we had, planning out our dynamic itenary, bargaining with the tuk-tuk drivers, getting lost looking for a decent indian restaurant in the dirty streets of bangkok.It was really awesome. Landing with a backpack in a completely new country, exploring its culture, its people, its very essence on one's own - its addicting.THough we made a mess of the itenary, even managed to get lost and separated on the ferry terminal, cheated by auto drivers occasionally, it was super fun to group together and take over the situation smartly. on the second day, we deflected to Patthaya, often reffered to as the Sin city of the east.Located at a 2 hr drive from Bangkok, it offeres a great beach and numerous adventure sports apart from cheap booze.There is a must see place here- the sanctuary of truth- a spectacular museum of eastern values depicting a kaleidoscope of ideas- hindu beliefs,Buddist principles, chinese traditions. The whole eastern concept of live, love ,family, goodness in this world. The wooden structures of chief Hindu Gods that rule this artificial fort are mind blowing. It came as a shock to my system when I saw the view of magnificent Brahma,reigning this palace of righteousness.Come here with cash, they grab money at all oppotunities else be a convincing liar .My ingenious friend tried out their bike and besides successfully crashing it and breaking the fendor, was charged a crazy sum for compensation..Only a couragious lie of poverty and convincing act kept us from a visit to the local police.

The other attractions include tiger zoo, and ofcourse the beach. Everyone must try the parasailing here, its AWESOME and cheap. I had the awesomest experience of my mortal life , para sailing for the first time here. Its GOD.

THe rest of the trip should be spent in shopping- the chief attraction of thailand.This is a shoppers' world. Cheap. (if you have currency in dollars or pounds).
The floating market, that we unfortunately missed can be seen only in the mornings with special booking to be made with a travel agency, the weekend market - throwing amazing cheap stuff , the more posh malls of Pratunum ..the whole city caters to shopping for all class of people. Well, as all good stuff come to an end, so did our exciting trip and we came back with great memories to last for a lifetime and to propel you for the next visit to this thrilling city.

Bug Issues

2009-05-27T23:24:00.000-07:00

People say that its good to be focussed. completely focussed on the work that all other things are blind to us. Ever heard the story of Arjuna and his archery lesson with a parrot's eye as his mark , where he ends up as his teacher's pet coz of his "focus"?.. It may be an awesome bed time story but practically, its plain stupid. Let me tell a REAL story where the side effects of work creates utter havoc.

"A" was a great girl , a simply awesome , brilliant person working for a boring semi-con company. She was so efficent that the fates insisted on testing her abilities with purposely throwing out challenges on her way. Though the work was interesting, she ended up having complete losers as her superiors. Perhaps the losers dint know how to make use of her talents; as they habitually lumped a pending bank end project on her hands and simple ignored her thereafter. Yet, She was so engrossed in her work, in battling with her collegues,in travelling to the other end of the city every freaking day in over crowded, people infested MRTs, in foraging edible food from the amphibian canteens, that she hardly had time to do anythign else than crash in her bed after work. So great was the focus and hard work that she dint even feel the ocasional teeth of the insects taking over her bed. After a week of constantly getting bitten by what she thought of as ants, she decided to check out who her bad mates are , one night.For a change, the focus was on the bed.. or on the tiny folds of the bed which were black in color; a black that moved; a black that was the hides of innumerable bed bugs crawling along the matress.
There was an entire colony of freaking bed bugs happily reproducing on her bed. feeling sick, nauseated by the week long abuse, the next 3 nights were spent on the floor. A floor used by an occasional lizard at times. At that moment the realisation stuck. How stupid life is , everything alive is.

After a strong bout of arguments and protests, the office decided to take action and de-infest the bed. An unpaid leave was the price. The pest control guy arrived , armed with buckets of liquid sprays with a smell endangering the olfactory senses, washed the entire room with it.Later, he followed up with a huge fight "You brought in the bed bugs, it must be your clothes" (while eyeing the enormous amount of clothers stewrn around the room) and a hearty lecture on cleanliness and clean habits. Finally, she was left with a brand new bed in a horribly smelling room and thankfully alone. Within 5 minutes however, a motion catches her eye- a motion of a black bug on the brand new matress.

Well, bottomline : LIFE IS A BITCH. Dont believe any stories. Everthing is a F***** up bitch. espeacially bed bugs.

P.S: If you got any wise advice, DONOT comment on my blog. keep it to urself.

Nice exists !

2009-05-08T22:18:00.000-07:00

Its shocking to meet nice people in this world. I mean, genuinely nice people who care about others and try to help them in an unconcious way. I am not talking about rich philanthropists setting up homes for children or donating huge amount of money for noble causes. This is about simple people extending small measures of kindness in such a natural, unexpected way that leaves a great impact on the bewildered beneficiary. A few days ago, I was rendered speechless by one such simple deed. At that moment, I truly understood the significance of an unselfish act of kindness. In a world where one makes more contacts than friends, where the competition to succeed is the wedge that drives people apart, where every piece of opportunity is like a prized bone that is fought for by a group of dogs ,where every visible sign of weekness is exploited without a second thought, words such as kindness, helpfulness, gentleness have been replaced by diplomacy ,bartering etc. . . There is always another thread running in the back of peoples’ minds that calculate the cost-benefit ratio of their acts. There is always a reason , a motive when people offer help and the thread immediately estimates all possible forms of return expected for the exchange. This is human nature. Personally, I used to find people running to help others in every possible occasions amusing, a trifle too naïve and inhumanly saintlike. Yet, on that severely hard day, when one of those naïve ,nice people acted on my welfare even when they didn’t have any need to do so, it suddenly dawned on me how necessary they are to keep up some faith in the goodness of man.They make you more conscious to the feelings of the people around you, make you attempt to spread a smile , do a similar gesture for others. Its kind of sad when I cant remember performing any such generous actions in my life so far.I shall begin my attempts though, hopefully I do something substantial to add in my memoirs later.

random philaasaphys

2009-04-15T09:39:00.000-07:00

This week's been really, absolutely hectic. I am catching up on sleep in bits and pieces of an hour or two..in bus, trains, at work, com hall..cant say I ever imagined life to be this fast and killing. Just thinking abt the long list of to-dos make me want to quit and run away into a forest and become a tribal. no more deadlines, no more hunting of excuses when u miss them, no more waking up to finish them; its as if m being dragged by this fast animal called life and I can be seriously injured and run over if i miss the pace and slack. With exams round the corner and deadlines at work piling up, I dont know how I can survive the squeeze this time. But when its all over and you actually live through the torture and even manage to do ur best, that moment of triumph is worth it all. Feels like you have overcome a momentous challenge and become more of a man after its done with. after which the cycle startes all over again, in the next difficulty level like the Super Mario game. Maybe this is what makes it so addicting to stick on to :) I cant imagine life to be like anything else after all. And at each level, when you take a moment to contemplate on your journey so far and the path ahead, the person you were and what u are now, all the possibilities in the middle where you cud have been some one else, the change that is so staggering and makes you wonder abt the very pattern of life..at the end of the reverie of which you start cursing urself fr wasting so much time ,day dreaming and reluctantly get back to work with a heavy sigh..its kind of nice..aarrggh, All the pressure is turning me to this sentimental sponge, forgive my mokai if u happen to be unfortunate enough to stumble on this post. but serves you rite to be so vetti.

priceless moments..

2009-04-10T09:30:00.000-07:00

There are some moments in your life that you want to cherish throughout; that you think upon at times of all times of absurdity ,laugh out loud and earn crazy stares from the ppl around u. Tonite I made one such awesome memory . College life is the time when you can make a vast collection of such "experieces of your life". How much ever we crib, cry and bitch about the unfairness of our slaved labour, just a night with some special friends make up for it all. I can recollect the times when I have done unimaginably funny antics and just a photo, a phrase or most times a song pulls me right into the time travel and I am lost in some moments of pure magic. As the times get harder and tougher, and the unfriendly future beckons us to an eternal dryland of work, I wonder if I could ever meet such ppl who 'll get me in splits with one short comment, who can understand a joke in just the tone of my voice, who can fight like monsters of the likes of which the world has rarely seen. Its amazing..how these small pockets of time can amount to a treasure so great and priceless that we safely store in our hearts. Just an hour starting with a totally absurd idea and the following drama has urged me to bookmark this particular date with something that I can afford to reveal in public, maybe this vague post is all i can think of; but which i will forever treasure. hope some of the others do too ;)

is it me or the Gen gap

2009-04-07T08:41:00.001-07:00

I read a blog today. It belongs to a woman in late 20s living in the US. She relates her life in the new country from a perspective of a tambrahm. Some entries were good, brought back nostalgic memories of my childhood at home.I smiled. Some were beyond the scope of me. She was married and a mother. free. But at the end of half hour, I was in a serious cultural shock.Here is how our views go:

NRIlady:

Two posts ago, I ranted about how much I missed Deepavali in India. To somewhat offset my self-pity and bitterness at being away in ‘America Naadu’, I decided I would take extra effort to make Deepavali enjoyable. So, I took it upon myself to make available 3 sweets and 3 kaarams - that would definitely bring home the Deepavali spirit. With the help of my experienced MIL who made Thenkuzhal, Ribbon Pakoda and the ‘Veetuku - Veedu’ popular 7-cake, and Badushah bought from a Bangalore Iyengar Samayal Kaarar at $1 a piece, I reached my goal by myself making Manankombu a.k.a Mul Murukku and a fancy sweet called Lavanga Lathika (the name of which many people had a hard time remembering). So, by Deepavali day, we had plenty to eat in the area of Bakshanams.
and on and on..

me:

Here is how my diwali goes.WAke up at 10 am. Take head bath , mostly.Goto temple in little india. Eat amazing lunch in Komalavilas. CAb it back and sleep it off. Attend a worst indian gettogether in evening, get bored, eat food. Sleep. Back home , it was something along these lines, but intersperced between watching TV the whole day. The festivals are one of the few occasions to sit at home and watch tv all day with full rights . I dont bother about the food, the crackers, even the clothes much. A holiday and good TV makes my day. Still, its the same. I dont get the point of cooking sweets too.Infact,I beg my mom sometimes not to make sweets at home. If they are homemade , I 'd be honour bound to finish them off, that is a v.v.difficult task indeed without my dad's help(I suck at eating sweets/ generally any type of special food, however good it is).There is ofcourse, no option of my cooking,though my friends are still alive to live and tell the tale.

The difference in our views on marriages and other social activity is even more humorous.

NRI lady:

It 'd be an injustice if i cut some excepts from the post. read it fully to get the full effect.
http://nrimaami.wordpress.com/?s=marriage&searchbutton=Go!

me:

I hate attending weddings. Its an effective way to bore a person senseless. To sit in a hall with hundreds of others you donno or care about, staring at the heavily decorated bride adn groom on the podium mechanically smiling at the camers and the heavy gossip mill of the guests passing obnoxious comments on the match and worst of all, the grilling on my academics by unknown strangers, their efforts to include me in a senselessly boring convo, being put in charge to mind a gang of kids from running around and tripping anything, asked to fetch God knows what things from other aunties who make a big fuss out of everything from a straw leaf to a coconut.. Its a torture. I finished the Jurassic Park novel in a single day during one of my cousins' wedding. I refuse to attend weddings until my absence would be deemed as a crime against the family.Even then, I am stupefied at whats the whole point of it all. Once I was asked to throw balls of rice around the couple seated in the oonjal. I was questioning my aunt about the meaning of the ceremony and all i got was a grunt and shoo off to some other equally useless task in the other side of the hall. I found out the meaning later and still I dint get the point.

Coming back to the present, I approached my friends if they shared similar feelings and then we could happily rdicule it together.But alas, no. I did find that my younger sister and some of her friends agree with me vehemently on all the above issues. Most of my relatives cant understand me much these days and vice versa, and I find playing with my laptop more interesting than bothering to enlighten them of my opinions.If i am considered inactive, my sister should be positively hostile. SHe just doesnt bother to talk to anyone who doesnt interest her. Is it then the generation gap? the digital divide? recession, climate change, global warming ...?!

Is older==wiser?

2009-03-27T03:42:00.000-07:00

I never get on well with most of the elderly elite. No, that would be wrong, actually I never get on with them at all.Not that I dont like to, never , but I always end up in the wrong side of those convos and bearing the brunt of a scolding.Even a slightly loose comment can result in a lecture long enough to make me sit through a history class. A lot of people in age>50 are super obnoxious and judgemental and opinionated that they love to drown the listeners in their wordly views of wisdom. especially the youngsters. If you are in school, the topic is "college admissions, board exams, future prospects etc etc" and voila, i 'll be given a lenghty talk abt the achievements of their prodigal kids.even worse the advice that follows "you see, CBSE is useless, no marks guaranteed, do not take **** engineering, there is no market.." and so goes on the list of ridiculous statemetns whose knowledge they obtained from their neighours brothers grandchildren or worse,Sun TV news . They never tire until you obey them point blank.One of my aunts was so adamant that I should take up State board in class 11.She was such a pestering nuisance that she managed to block me even when I go to the bathroom and give me another of her carreer talks . Why the hell do these people have to pound us repeatedly with their views if saying them once is enough for all? I understand the concern and caring part but come on, its MY life, my decisions to make.

Surprisingly, its not even the parents in most cases who give such constant headaches but the next relatives circle. Unknown uncles and aunts sprout up from nowhere and literally queue up to talk to u. Opinions are welcome if the source is any worthy of delivering it. Usually grandmothers are easiest to manage. They are happy enough if you oblige them with a prompt attendence and eat a jumbo lunch at their place. I have been winning my grandmom's favour just for banging her door once a day and demanding tea/tiffin. Just hang around fr a while, murmur "ahan".."oho"..at frequent intervals during their monologues of God knows what, and just take off exactly half hour later. Thats it, I am always her favourite grandchild.I become too perfect to have the need of her advice at all.

Even the advice problem can be tolerated, but some impertinent comments cannot. I respect some elders just for their age if not anything else. But my good manners were tested a bit too much by a 70 year old thatha .Due to my mom's ill health last December, I was given the thooku and entrusted with the task of getting food at a godforsaken time of 6.30 am on every morning of my "vacation" from a entrepreneur- maami supplying sambar,rasam etc. to office goers . She had the most annoying father who sits on the pillion every morning and loves to vambu alathufy with the customers. I, unfortunately was his frequent target. With a superior attitude which can be justified for his age, he drills me with a quiet ferocity. Once it went out of hand.
thatha: Which school are you studying in?
me: school illa college.
thatha (raised brows) : oh, is it? which college?
This was a tricky question.I can either tell the truth and hear another tirade of "oh, y Singapore? there are so many good colleges here, why did u leave ur parents? bla bla" or lie. I chose to lie.

me : Cresent Engineering college.
thatha:( seemed satisfied for a moment, but only for a moment) now a days, everyone is doing engineering. its overflowing. no market for IT , u know? ......(on&on&on &on for next 10 min. used to this reply, I almost fell asleep . then suddenly asks) why have you come to buy food? pommanaati ponnu, nee yen samaika matengara? idha kaalathla yarukum samaika therila....

damn it, just when i was congradulating myself of avoiding the college controversy, i landed in this mess. It was in the tip of my tongue to ask him to mind his own bizness. Since the thatha was coughing while speaking, I restrained, not wanting him to argue longer with me. and then the punch question arrives.

thatha : do u have any brothers?
me: no. just a sister.
thatha: paavam un appa amma. payyan irundha kadasi varaikum kaapathuvan, rendum ponna pochu.

That was THE last straw.I was stunned. This old useless guy was judging me, torturing me with advice,insulting me and now pitying my parents.Maybe in ancient years, one can understand that sentiment. But now? Did he even remember that he was living in his daughter's charity and not his son's? I am dismissed as useless just bacause m a girl? I still dont know how I managed to get back home without causing him any harm.But even I couldnt resist "paavam unga kozhanthel" before walking out.They say Old is Gold, but sometimes, its just irritating rusted crumbs.

i am not stereotyping here. My point is that people cannot expect to be worshipped and obeyed just because of the age factor. Though in our culture, anyone elder is to be respected, they should know better than to misuse the treatment.

College pressures

2009-03-11T05:34:00.000-07:00

Recently there were 2 suicide cases in NTU that occured within days apart from each other. Both were from the dept of EE . Obviously, it was a field day for the media. Infact, they got so excited over the item that they fabricated fantastic stories form the scraps of info the university cudnt manage to supress. Nevertheless, the underlying fact that alarmed the people was the killer stress level among the university students today. Though the situation may seem quite exagerrated to warrant suicide, the pressure can seriously cripple the students to some extent. My own college is a champion in supplying such treatment.

One such method of unjustifiable torture today is the threat of accomodation. You see, there are about 33000+ students studying here. OF which over 12000+ are international students. THe hostels in the campus can accomodate around 8000 students only. No one knows why the management doesnt take any measure to construct more hostels or what they do with our exorbitant fee. So, in their typical problem solving way, how do they manage the situation ?its simple. each undergraduate student has to do some CCAs where the are given points. SO, at the year end, all the students bid for the available hostels with these points and the ones having more than the cut off points are kept in , the rest are booted out.
this mock contest nicely places the fault on the students for not securing enouf points to win their hostel instead of the management having to look bad for not having enough accomodation. And so, every year this intense fight to have a roof over our head begins and the students flock to do any stupid activity in the name of cca to scrap the points. THe story of these CCAs are more interesting. Though some of them are quite useful and meaningful, the amount of work extracted from each club through the entire year can rival the study schedule put out by the university.

One can call the situation a healthy one, exposing the students to academics as well as extra curricular giving an overall balence blah blah blah crap. It would have been so,if this game isnt dirty; if the university could resist bullying the students a little more. Last year the so called cut off was increased dramatically without any clue. NOTE 1 : the cut off points are released only after all the cca points are finalised at the year end and so, if u are unfortunate to fall below the mark, its just bad luck.Note 2: some clubs emulate indian politics very well-promise great amt of points, get all the work done,forget abt the deal. note 3: The situation gets worse each year, with the hostel fee hike and the competition evn more maddening.
This mad scramble takes the joy out of the entire scheme of ccas. People are forced to perform the most stupidest,atrocious activities and some arts clubs go far enough to bully the members to buy tickets for their mediocre shows. At the end of the day, it just sucks.

With this added pressure of doing time-consuming work after a tiring day,cope up with academics and when finally booted out without a second thought of one's financial situation by the management into the SG streets,not many poeple 'd be sane enough to avoid the depression black hole . How can the university expect the students to ace the exams when they cannot even guarantee them the basic facilities of life? Well, we are taught one true lesson well form an early age.. "when the going gets tough, the tough get going".

all work and no play..

2009-02-26T07:23:00.000-08:00

I had a breakthrough today. A breakthrough in the life that has been wrapped around me for the past few months. A realisation so ordinary yet stagerring. It happened as I was blundering through the hordes of .coms at my desk , searching for a java feature in the process of writing endless pages of codes. I had just managed to finsh a part of my tool yesterday and it was working like a miracle. SO, rejuvenated and freshly motivated, I was deeply embarked on my misson of creating a stunning application. I was planning on going home early to finish the piling amt of cca work to be done, my assignments due next week, catching atleast a min of 6 hrs sleep atleast on that day, planning next days work..SUddenly out of no where, a thought struck my mind. When was the last time I talked to a random person abt non work issues?A few months? a sem? a year? I couldnt recall. How many times I ve passed by a friend with a cursory "hi, wats up" in an underlying tone of i-dont-wanna-hear-about-it-keep-moving tone..? When was the last time I ate food,not to fill the gnawing hunger but with a feeling of wholesome satisfaction? When was the last time I woke up with a blank mind, absolutely no thoughts in particular.. no nagging chores to be completed, no deadlines to be met, just with a lightness in heart as the mind can happily remain blank for a long time.. Right then it hit me. This is what my life has been reduced to.
grabbing measured food at odd times calculated to keep the hunger at bay-work till u cant do it anymore-sleep as in drop dead unconcious for agian, a calculated couple of hours. A small shell restricted to v.few people, filled with self centered concerns, boring and colourless. If just a couple of months can bring a melodramatic meloncholic effect as deep as this, its absolutely scary to think of the never ending stretch of path ahead. and All this for what?

why the farce?

2009-02-17T22:32:00.001-08:00

They were planning a trip to china. Long forgotten excitement brimming in its entirety, atlast something to look forward to in this sordid boring robot life. Eagely searching through the airlines deals in the lunch hour, 3 friends spent an afternoon happily for the first time since they joined the industrial workmill. Just one hitch- the discount 2 for 1 deal is a valentine offer. tricky, two of them instantly jumped ship to lesbianism. All that is needed now is finding one more person to join along. boy or girl.. the situation was desparate enough to bother with choice. well, the search started. a list of possible aquiantances, long forgotten friends, mokai terrors , anyone far and near was drawn out. after a cpl of hours of careful scrutiny, the dead end beckoned them all. The task of finding good company,even for a mere few days is as rare as finding a gold mine.

This set me to finally write something that has been nagging me for the past few days.I dont know if it is the common case but I personally feel that the older we get, the smaller becomes our circle of truly enjoyable friends. I totally appreciate the honesty of the primary school goers who can vehemently declare for all the world, a long list of their best friends and best enemies. Back then, U either like someone or u dont. U talk frankly with your friends and fight fiercely with your enemies. There is no pretensee , no tendency to please others, without giving a damn if others like you or not. I remember and treasure the times my close friend,Xena has stood up for me and has beaten the pulp out of our enemies. I even respect my neighbour cum bully who intensely hated me and thrived on hitting me with a cricket ball at all posibble occasions . Those were the times of glory, of true frindship, of innocence and adventure ,of fierce battle and fiercer loyalty.
Even High school carries on the tradition to some extent though the terms - loyalty and innocence become more elusive.May be its the growth harmones settin into work, friendships become slightly complicated.yet, the impulsiveness, spontainity are still in galore.There was one more common thing found in people then- the sense of fun.

But life takes us to all unimaginable places and make us into unimaginable characters.It was quite disconcerting to see the same guy who once got nearly thrashed for commenting at a policeman patrolling on the streets,who once stamped on my leg so hard that it sprained when I teased him abt his weight,who bestowed merciless nicknames ranging from "kabali" to "pen pillayar" on pretty girls , is now studying medicine in a prestigious college and is moving in entirely different circles among the Bishops and clergymen in the US.On the other hand, startling surprises of a different nature pop up when those very reckless and carefree 'hooligans'put up supposedly macho photos with wanna-be captions, and scrap you "enna da, enna marandutiya?". I would be so tempted to reply "illa di". How come mixing up genders and calling a "di" as "da" account as being "sweet" or adorable?? Where was this same person who greeted me with the usual glib hilarious barb that somehow expressed genuine friendship ? Why do people take an effort to sound so artificially caring/kind when its totally not necessary?

The next degree of shock comes in the form of your closer friends when they shove the pics of their current affections in ur face and ask "what do you think?"
Its one of the questions of absolute stupidity. why ask the question when both party knows frankness is clearly not appreciated? and why ask it when the answer hardly matters at all? I was so astonished by this idiocy that I couldnt manage any reply at all . Well, that was supposedly the wrong response , I guess.It seems one had to ooh and aah with different frequencies of exclamation and feel "happy" for them even if one wants to say "better luck next time".

Apparantly the meaning of emotional obligation has also been changed in my absence from home. A friend of mine once complained to me of being nagged to death by a friend of hers and poured out the entire collage politics to my wise self. It seems that this problematic "friend" was suffering from a deep hidden inferiority complex and demanding everyone in the class to pay attention to her and hear her out; not withstanding which, she treats everyone to "silent" treatment and hostility. I was touched by the amount of work a few people put into creating a scene and in this case, a whole drama.. It becomes more funny as this person sometimes threatens suicide when her "close" friends ignore her. If only such entertainment were available in my college, I could have de-stressed in an easier way..TO my amusement, these good people were actually worrying about the situation when just a simple remark of "go and die" 'd have sufficed the matter neatly, or getting the rope/ an axar blade 'd be even more efficient.
My suggestion was met with gaping faces and such shockingly distressed expressions.. "hey joke adikaadha, m serious.. we have a moral and emotional obligation to her and how can we let her spoil her own life, we are her classmates!" I could only nod and keep shut to let the topic pass quickly. I dont know how you can call something friendship when you truly find that association a nuisance in the first place.

Well, may be sometimes life's so easy when you pretend to get your way, to impress people, to please others.But its sad when the act becomes real and all that you are is permanently shut behind the imitation, a show for the society..

the culinary crisis

2009-01-27T10:09:00.000-08:00

One of the most irritating type of blog posts according to me, are the culinary corner types, where the writer goes on and on about the sooper dooper dish they have had for the day or they come up with a good for nothing reminiscence about the perfect meal of their lives.(inc. miniscule details of the recipies and pictures in various stage of the preparation) Well, to me it just sucks. you can flaunt your wealth, your relationship, even yourself in pubic but never your food. FOOD is a very very sensitive topic to many. It is indispensable to live and the task of preparation is highly complicated than solving iit problems. The flavour has to be right, the aroma has to be enticing and the sight- delicious.ok, the reason why i m sitting up at 2.30 am, dishing out this seemingly irrelevent adoration for the art of cooking is due to the lesson i learnt for the day :- This seemingly easy task where our pattis put out a meal fr 50 ppl without batting an eyelash is actually a most difficult challenge, sumtimes unbeatable even by the smartest geniuses with extrordinary IQ such as this author.

Well, this is one of the curious cases of those exceptional people fighting their constant battle against the formidable kitchen.Since rice is too less worthy of an opponent to them, many go after the mother of all troubles- vegetable. One of the most common choices of the gang is -Lady's finger. It seemed pretty ok to win over, with its gentle name and can be weakened further with soft tomatoes.but the game changes when you open the little green boxes to find dirty black seeds inside. That signifies the sound of the conk before this battle. In the next 1 hr, the heat rises rapidly when you unsuccessfully try to juggle between boiling the veggies and cooking the pulses , trying your best to prevent the stove/oven from betraying you with a burning smell. Right then, you start wondering if all the mess is worth the kick. wait, did i say kick? it would have deserted you after the first 10 min of the preps. SO,when you wait out the rest of the time, fighting to create a treasure out of a sticky tar, the memories of unsuccessful highschool chemistry experiments come back to plague you(Atleast there were enough partners present to copy the results from). The familiar sense of foreboding arising as the aroma becomes a smell is then quashed out by turning on the ipod to the highest volume. After singing endless songs in a v.bad voice amidst the piling mess, your grumbling stomach finally wins over the debate against the struggling stew. A compromise is then reached to draw the match.

Well, all is well that ends well. but this does not. The freshly prepared dish when set in the table is met with numerous accidents as the clock/coke tin/ even yourself fall into the plate, feedin most of it to the ground. Swear-curse-swear. clean up the mess. Finally, the table is set and feast is about to begin. the first taste is pretty good. you jump in ecstacy, bringing the roof down, call up your parents to share the amazing accomplishment, take pics. THe next spoon is surprisingly not that good..and the third goes down with a frown.." maybe its not boiled properly, maybe less salt.." all sorts of maybes spring up. somehow, the plate gets empty after a long difficult time, with the help of a few episodes from a good sitcom. Now kicks in the jury that decides who the winner is. THe result is mostly likely the same - quesy stomach, nausea , discomfort in the lower belly - you lose, the thrashed up kitchen has the last laugh.

Imagine after undergoing all this torture and while compromising with a humiliating defeat, the first blog you open is filled with junk like "my super sambar" or " my sweet special kichadi mix" , the best punishment possible is to fill their mouths with your recipies and keep them shut once for all.

Travel blabs 02

2009-01-25T01:44:00.000-08:00

Its always harder to begin writing after a prolonged break plagued by procastination and simple laziness.In the rare times when we finaaly get the "mood" to break the ice, the occasional yet everpresent tab of youtube or facebook lures us in and within a few minutes, the precious mood gets lost again in a jumble of vetti videos and sitcoms. And SO, continues the cycle whenever you get the inspiration to blog again, thanks to our monkey minds. Well, I am determined to open the account today and the seemingly easiest shortcut that comes to me is to blog about my wonderful , amazing, New year 09. I know, its a pain in the neck for those suffering frm an extreme static ,mokai period of life to read through fluanting,romanticized,incredible experiences of the momentary fortunate souls and to this, I beg excuse.

My "big" trip of the year was basically a Christmas and NewYear with my family at SG with a short detour in KL. So, from a tourist point of view, SG seemed pretty good. This is actually the best time to visit , given the fact that the entire island city would be shimmering in bright lights and Christmas trees. The setting itself was out-of-a -story-book sort, esp after an interlude of dull indoor hours with muddy cyclones for Chennai folks. My mom and sis were literally stunned , and I should say the worldly yours truly, was also more than a little surprised.

Given the fact that SG can be covered in 3 days max, the decorations of X mas alone would pester you to take unimaginable Giga bytes of pics at every turn of the streets..making the 3 day visit into a week long one. Sentosa, Clark Quay are must see sights. The change of theme for the Musical Fountain show at the artificial island of Sentosa (created for the sole purpose of looting money in a "tourist-site starved" city) , and the sheer amt of people milling its so called beaches( which is actually backwaters) added with the infectious merry spirit of the season makes it a not-to-be missed spot for the first and second timers. The island's night life is a compulsary experience without which the sole purpose of your visit will be utterly lost. Eventhough, a mere walk along the Boat Quay and a ride in the Singapore river can only be counted as "Night life" for family tourists, it still provides a feeling of exclusive freedom and a lightness in the heart to stroll around the skyscrapers of marina bay in all its splendour under the glimmering moonlight.

The KL trip ,however,turned put to be a stick in the mud type, especially after travelling from Singapore. Blame it on the merciless heat, or the poorer economy or the absence of any festive spirit, the place was an eye sore. I personally think its due to the over stuffing of islamic tastes in all the buildings of the city. Its just vast storeys of concrete structures that are tall yet plain, indistinguishable frm each other.Coming to terms with my disappointment was tough, while standing on Sky Bridge connecting the 42nd storeys of the Petronas twin towers,where i had always dreamt of visiting; only that in my dreams, I 'd feel amazed, reckless and thoroughly captivated. THe food is another turn down for vegetarians. I appreciated SG food for the first time then and realised how lucky i was. There is simply nothing excepting the saravana bavan or the sangeetha hidden among the slum streets of Masjid India. The much hyped about Night Market was unberable with its (ranganathan street) ^2 crowds amidst the smells of burning beef and hanging chicken from the umpteen hawker stalls lining up the narrow walkways. Not to frame my opinions on any future visitors, but KL is worth 1 day - for visiting Batu Caves(you get to see monkeys there) and the rest of the day for shopping chocolates and sweets (its cheaper than Singapore).

Before my over-ethusiastic memories compel me to write another Lonely Planet guidebook, I'll just buzz off by declaring that the sights of the great city immersed in the glitters of some mind blowing new Year's eve fireworks above the water front cannot be described in words, so I'm put up the following sample. You get the drift..

Ingrediants of an extracting sem

2008-11-29T10:32:00.000-08:00

"Just 2 more years of hard work till you get a good seat, then life will be totally easy. Come on.." The encouraging words of my aunt 4 years ago, reminds me now of the best ironies in life.I pity every secondary schooler working his ass off due to blind faith in the above statement. Especially, when it so happens that with every year ahead, the going gets tougher. Thanks to my faculty, I cant expect a greater torture in my course after this sem. WHy? EE2001. THe terror of every electrical adn computer engin student of NUS. the subject that is designed with the whole purpose of killing the students by exhaustion, sheer mental and physical exhaustion.

A toolbox, 200$ , a topic( an intelligent health device), 4 months time - recipe for torture.

Its effects:

- being woken up every saturday and SUNDAY morning at 8 am sharp by an over enthusiastic project partner, who unfortunately happened to stay in my hostel.

- 12 hour tete a tete with my tool box every weekend, screwing up wires into dumb processors, writing endless pages of asm codes, grtting ur teeth to make the stupid machine follow a simple algorithm.

- scrounging on the same instant noodles and nescafe mud coffee till my tongue became dead and i lost my ability to taste any food.

- spending every instant of my free time in lab, staring at the dumb machine i am supposed to create, cursing myself for taking up engineering.

- Night outs at engin, com hall, turning myself into a sleep deprived machine, capable of working for 30 hrs straight, napping on chairs, benches on the faculty corridors,mid night talks abt unimaginable things with terrible aquaintances just to keep the eye open..

- Waking up every single day with the worry of the system failures, the problems in codes and circuit designs, desparation to find the solutions atleast on that day.

- Being holed with one of my team mates(whom I happened to like before), for weeks together, till we drove each other crazy.I came to know how dreadful the effects of clash of personalities could be when put in close quarters for a prolonged period.Anyone who claims "opposites attracts" must be deaf and dumb.

- Periodic upheavels of out-of - the -world happiness and ectasy the minute our integration finally worked only to be replaced by ground-hitting-gloom and devastation when it would automatically crash in the next minute.

- afraid to death on THE day, we were supposed to present our "working" machine. Praying till the God himself couldn't have borne it any longer. And the blessed relief., soaking my entire body in bliss, when our half impaired system decided to put up a decent show..

The prize of succes :
A PASS. and A "PHD" - Personal Health Detector,the solution to a perfect home health care.

But Above all, a feeling of winning a huge battle, surpassing a herculean challenge, great relief of never having to repeat this mess, a tolerence and endurance for all sorts of people and Of course, a happy confidence that even I can become a passable engineer.

Puppets in Strings.

2008-11-27T06:07:00.000-08:00

Thursday evening, post gruelling exam bliss, McD burger + coke dinner, engaging the mind in an enjoyable vettiness, I enter the YIH TV room and meet my freinds after 1 week of intense cramming.Amidst the vetti talk, snide comments, xam cribbings,the topic suddenly turned to Mumbai. Caught unawares, my bewildered, ignorant, just out of a cave look was the instantaneous response. "Yea right", i laughed. Stunned looks, a chilling silence followed. THe thrashing began.
Somehow,when i managed to get hold of a comp, the astonishing, out of hollywood, action thriller headlines greeted me. It was like getting sucked into a dream. a ridiculous dream. my ususal type. Half hour later, the news flash still kept coming , more deaths, more tortures. THe dream got more ridiculous, fanatical, evil. A look of a gunman, in black clothes, resembling a hateful aqaintance . the witness statements screeching along..“My brother, Manish, died in the firing at Colaba’s Hamaal Galli.” ..THe shock, the idocy hooked me to the comp for the rest for the night. Worried chats with Anxious friends from Mumbai, unable to contact their families at home...Why, How, Who, What next??. Thousand questions pounding , yet the most terrifying of all, the sick feeling, the frustrating regret "What can I do!" As discussions turned to heated debates,as speculations and predictions were thrown in 'bout the involvement of Govt, as calm voices analysed the issue like a talk during tea time,the paralytic realisation struck - to be hung helpless as puppets on strings of some power, helpless to do nothing but yap about the misery, attacked by rage and guilt. Still in shock, I remembered I still got an exam the next day.

AAAAAAAAAAA

2008-11-17T07:47:00.001-08:00

That felt great. If you are wondering about my crazy, hair- pulling state, I have been studying for the past5 hours about the rise of Malaya and the effects of South east Asian maritime events in Singapore's globalisation. Anyways, I wanted to say a personal good bye to all those who care to read my useless blog before I die. Bye friends, meet you in hell!

best quotes

2008-11-06T08:25:00.000-08:00

Men are haunted by the vastness of eternity. And so we ask ourselves...will our actions echo across the centuries? Will strangers hear our names long after we're gone...and wonder who we were. ...how bravely we fought...how fiercely we loved?
The gods envy us.They envy us because we're mortal.Because any moment might be our last.Everything's more beautiful because we're doomed.We will never be here again.
Men rise and fall like the winter wheat but some names will never die.

If they ever tell my story, let them say..I walked with giants.Let them say I lived
in the time of Hector..tamer of horses.

Let them say...
I lived in the time of Achilles.

A sincere serenade.

2008-10-31T06:43:00.000-07:00

A 2 hour lecture on one of the hot sultry afternoons with an empty stomach, a rising head ache , an irritating German professor and a fellow companion sharing ur poor plight are the best recipes of bad yet entertaining poetry.Thankfully, my good friend LP prevented me from falling into a punishable sleep and in its stead, we created another outlet for our shared misery.THe productive output of the persecuted hour is as follows

THE Ode to KVK, a.k.a Kona Vaai Kelavi :

(singer rt)

She kills me with
her words: each falling down like stone pellets on a steel roof
her mouth: a grand opening to never ending boredom
her voice: competing with tones of a grinding floor machine
her face : the intimidating mass of twisted muscles and forlorn creases

(chorus)
Oh! what have I done to get caughtup
With this demon, the hell has brought up..

(singer lp)
Unknowingly I ve dug my own grave
Alas, the realisation has come too late to save
Having to undergo all thsi torture
Even diminishes my dreams of seeing Munster,
With magnificent Cian, all over my mind,
A bit of concentration for kelavi's words- can't find..

Oh, no! heroine gets caught by the Prof while writing the poetry
(singer lp )
These ten minutes of personal lecture,
For the goat already under the knife of the butcher,
oh! this body, mind and this very soul cnat take it anymore
Just waiting for the blessed clock to strike 5.44

(singer rt)
Ans so the damsel in distress lays in wait
For any White Knight,take or leave the flashing Might
To take her away from the Kelavi's sight
Oh, She'd go anywre to escape this plight

With the wretched clock playing a revenge,
TIme stands still as a poisonous syrenge,
Broken were the lures of foreign lands,
Washed away were her castles in sand.

(chorus)
Oh! what have I done to get caughtup
With this demon, the hell has brought up..

- rt & lp

The Irony of lifelines.

2008-10-18T10:07:00.000-07:00

You never know what you love till you miss it.

Though the word "love" is a bit far fetched in this case, I certainly realised the sentiment well enough this semester. All that with the thing I thought i hated the most.Yea, I am talking about the gruelling torturing tiring university life, chipping away your confidence, happiness, youth, energy slowly and by the time you graduate, you will be ready to kiss the muddy ground after your first step outside the walls of the academic prison or become a hollowed out shell that ceases to have any sort of feelings.Maybe I am exagerrating a little bit here, but I guess one has the right after suffering from exhaustion, sleeplessness, starvation for the past 2 weeks .Thanks to the light schedule of tests and assignments..

Anyways, inspite of my passionate feelings towards my uni life, I have been proved wrong, yet again . A little trick Fate played on me - give an opportunity to spend 3 days in a small piece of heaven on earth, away from books, away from my uni, away from the the city that makes a mockery of time and relaxation. A quick trip to Bintan , an Indonesian island, few miles away from SG would be a God Send to anyone in my position. The pristine beauty of the little town, fresh air, clear skies( I could actually see starts at night!), the beach- such beautiful beaches..the first view of the place was a straight kick in the gut. Isolated, quiet, lovely. my dream. or so did it start with..

The very first day on paradise was enough to drive me crazy, senselessly crazy. When I settled down in our stilt house- bunglow, well fed, relaxed, novel in hand, staring at the similar expressions of contentment in my friends' faces, the question stikes me out of nowhere. WHat to do now?! An hour passed, a couple more trailed after.. It was a slow world- completely different and muddled up one with nothing to do other than watch the day pass by you..THe nightmare began. Hours and hours of isolated idlessness , time was killing us inch by inch. The stunning beauty of the land became a prison detached form the world- no phones,no people, no communication, no COMPUTER!
It was just too horrible to go through.

After managing to occupy ourselves for the next 3 days with everything from snorkeling to Spa massages, we were tired.. tired of conjuring up things to do. Somehow in the beaches of the Malaccan Straits, I faced the truth- I am an incurable city mongrel. The rush , the activity, the killing schedule of the city has somehow become the lifelines of such creatures. The name " entertainment" in my dictionary is unanimously associated with a movie in bed, a movie at the theatre, bowling, great dinner or a walk along Clark Quay. Just as we reached the shores of Singaporean waters, for the first time in my life, I was thoroughly , extremely, devastatingly happy to be back into the millieu of mindless work -a-holics. Maybe living in a concrete jungle of people,pollution and power of communication makes us appreciate the world of Tarzans only in the cine boxes. Considering our dependence on the EM signals of this wired world, a future of X men and Resident Evil alikes arent all that hard to believe in.

For all thats worth, with 2 submissions on the morrow, a CA on the day after, drained of energy, filled with headaches,wanting to curse God for this hell I am in, it just takes a 5 minute browsing through those pleasant Bintan snaps to force me back into my life with a renewed vigour.

past vs present

2008-09-29T10:23:00.000-07:00

I thought I would understand the world better as I grow up. Now after 19 years,I am much more confused than I ever was. We say the 21st century is more broad minded, liberal, free , with less restrictions than the times past. Especially in Indian context, as I recall the life of my grand ma at my present age, burdened into wedlock and forced to support a family, the past statement becomes a gross underestimation. I cant imagine living the life of our previous generation. ever. The decisions to choose your own future,enjoy a great career, form your own ideals: this freedom of choice ,of thought is unique to the present millenia. Food, clothes, habits, lifestyles, every thing has changed. I believed for good.

or is it so? The same grand mom I mentioned before is also a remarkable lady of extrordinary courage. Illiterate, unemployed, she has single handedly raised 5 kids with enough values ingrained in the blood , ensured to be passed on with their genes.At 80+, she now lives on her own, stable and shrewd, proud and valiant. Strong stock, strong blood, a few might say. I believe there is one such grand mom in every family. inspite of the restrictions, social pressure, backward treatment, they were the anchors of their homes, their society , their progeny.

Now,coming back to our forward 21st century filled with smart, forward and powerful women , ready to excel in all the spheres and take their rightful share of equality in this Men's world.
I met up with a cpl of friends back home recently. A few of them happen to be 'well settled', among them was one of my very good friend since childhood. Nothing agianst being happily attached for life, yet I could not help feeling let down when one such person of a very frank and forthright nature, sensible and always sure of herself suddenly turned gooey and talked non stop for 2 hours about her partner till the my ears started bleeding.. Not to mention my surprise when she sends a 100 sms in between our convo to update her boyfriend on her location,health , mood, company, God knows what else.. IT turns even more horrifying when the never ending talks of their "future plans" is dished at you . Put it together with the sympathetic glances thrown at you when you happen to be (un)fortunate enough to be enjoying the same pleasure as them, you wonder if this is all one can hope/wish for in this magical century. The death blow strikes when they stuff your nose with their engagement photos (even before they graduate) and gaze at you expectantly to shower compliments when all you want is to scream at them for voluntarily wasting their entire life ..

A degree for namesake and a lookout for foreign allainces has become the golden dream of a "happily ever after life" today. Covering a donkey with a passable amount of sheep's skin ensures enough success and appreciation in this world of hypocricy. The place is so flooded with imitators such that those who refuse to wear the costumes are either termed as rebels or madmen. Sometimes, I long to travel back to my grandmom's era to look at honest men,proud and courageous enough to be themselves and simple women who go thorugh their life with the strength of a rock and endurance of a mountain. l

annoying gadgets.

2008-09-28T15:10:00.000-07:00

It was a scary night. The huge , fit for nothing black box, cursed to mal function when I most needed it, began its suicide attempt once more. The provocation of a few drops of cofee was enough this time. Thanks to my extensive hardware knowledge and magical trouble shooting skills, i could save it this time around and bring it back to a passable working state. With some major threats of midterms and project submissions,its worst situation to put ur life on the hands of a stupid gadget , that breaks down 90% of the time.. Well, this episode atleast proves some meagre chances of me actually making it as a comp engineer. Now, all i need to do is buy the screws I have lost while tearing down the box.

a good movie after a long long time

2008-09-19T13:34:00.001-07:00

boredom of vettiness usually chases a person out of home and turn to other sources of intelligent interaction. Miraculesly, I found such a refugee in "Saroja".
Just a friendly suggesstion: DONT MISS IT. Funny,punchy, tangy was how I found it.
Venket Prabu shows his brilliance in how to bullshit with class and humour and turn it into a good 2 hr entertainment.After a long time., a tamil movie is here, worth seeing. Hope ppl learn from this effort adn try to make less mokai movies.

BOOM! Here goes the next one in smoke too.

2008-09-15T10:39:00.001-07:00

It was a calm and uneventful evening. I should perhaps add frustrating too. How else can I describe spending nearly 6 hours of a prime Saturday evening at the study room, writing a 1500 word essay about evaluating the authenticity of web resources for a dumb Singapore History module?! Ploughing through my research with an enthusiasm that I usually show in the Culinary department, I must say that I was barely able to survive my homework only due to some God blessed lifelines like Youtube, Facebook etc developed for such dying souls. Anyways, coming to the point, at around 7.15 pm while browsing through some CNN blogs, I was hit by the sudden news flash about the Delhi Blasts. After a few moments of initial shock , the familiar resentment abt our sincerely lazy Goverment, its spoilt,money sucking bureucrats, the whole bloody policital organisations that are slow enough to wake up even if an atom bomb burst on its face and ofcourse the terrorists groups fed by enemy governments, built the same old bitching fire that makes us , Indians, get together to either throw a few punches on opposition parties or other religious grps or huddle together and bitch, complain, yell abt the sodding mess of the system we are stuck with.

It adds more oil to the simmering stew when each organisation points fingers at the other and involve in active blaming while they make up a "ABC" terrorist group to dump the blame on and close the case. The royal sucker punch thrown at the end when we sit glued to the TV, strikes home as they finally tag the dead by hanging a compensation amount on each corpse and leave a lesser sum dangling for the injured if they make it through. With this the curtains on the scene are closed shut and a few announcements reg the inverstigations are thrown in between by some Tom,DiCk and Harry.

oh yes, I forgot to mention the main role played by us. After swearing, protesting, sympathising with the victims and well, going mad ( for those who suffered the loss) , we wait. we wait in fear, for the next incident., the next strike to hit, desparately hoping its not our town , not our family that is affected.seems this whole blast series is termed as operation BAD. wow, I am so amazed at the ingenuity of the person who came up with that..

THis feeling of helplessness experienced by the many thousand billion people that turns into anger and later becoming hopelessness is the worst damage of all to our country. I dont understand why this happens, this sudden mob of destruction caused by men on men, I dont know how to stop it, I dont know how to take it and live with it.I write blogs unable to do anything.

well, if you are still with me and are reading this, then you can better check in these links.
http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/15/stories/2008091559731200.htm
http://www.mid-day.com/news/2008/sep/140908compensation-for-victims.htm

And an asshole has taken the liberty of speech and expression to print this shit in
a blog.
http://islamicterrorism.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/delhi-blast-victims-is-manmohan-singh-having-sleepless-nights/
hell of a read to know if PM sleeps or not! and ha, just when i was wondering why no
prig has dragged in communalistic crap.

After 45 minutes of intense digging and scrounging to collect every additional scrap of info abt it, I became tired. tired to the bone of everyhting around me.ok, enough.Lets all rest, study hard, make lots of money,get married and reproduce in bounty as long as it stays away from our family. IS THERE ANY END AT ALL? IS THERE NOTHING WE CAN DO? Pushin up my sleeves, I unsuccessfully try to clear these thoughts from my head and continue with my essay. After all each living thing is stuck with its own immediate misery to worry about. .

and so goes the cycle till the next one blows up in smoke.

inside the deep hole.

2008-08-25T11:47:00.000-07:00

it was midnight. I lay quietly staring at the florescent light from my digital watch. The alarm went off mildly signaling the completion of 40 years of my life on this planet. I had turned 40. I tossed around to make myself fall asleep unsuccessfully. They kept plaging me. The same doubts, the same questions and in the end, the same feeling of restlessness.I know not the answers, dont know where to find them. I prayed for sleep to wash away this confusions. I tried to remember the scores of assignments filling up my day, the long list of pending ones to complete. I hated it. There was no time. just no time to relax, to enjoy, to remember my dreams.those long forgotton ones that haunt my sleep in the long lonely nights..a hazy picture of a boy running in green fields, the boy flying kites, the same boy lying near the beach, gazing at the star studded skies ..he yearned to know more, learn more, suck up every bit of knowledge about the fascinating world surrounding him . above all, he yearned to fly , be free to explore , rule the skies , far away from the grasp of any control. oh, how wonderful life can be, how sweet it is to uncover each of its little mysteries layer by layer, to marvel at its complex intricacies in the process, to rediscover its forgotten beauties.. with so many places to go, so many things to see, so much more to know.. All of a sudden, a whirlpool arrives to snatch away the freedom. He was tossed around the wind, powerless to stop , helpless to escape.. the world gets torn apart, life changes upside down. Everything is blurry, muddled up. He is trapped in the heavy chains of the nature, the nature of things, the nature of life itelf. The whirlpool sucks him onto its bottonless vortex. Along the void of a mundane hole, he falls deeper and deeper for the rest of his life, for eternity..

Atlast I fell into the same pattern of disturbed sleep in those few patches of time, a mere few hours spent in a bliss , away from everyone, everything. . There i lie, in a land of green fields, orchads, of kites and beaches. I smile in my sleep , something that is becoming extremely rare in the 40 years of my life.

A harmonic evening with Harmonica

2008-08-21T10:48:00.000-07:00

Tired of being vetti, I dragged one of my friends to attend a free concert of HArmonica recital at University cultural centre yesterday. From what i could see from the advertisement pamplet, harmonica is something like a mouth organ. So, planning an emergency escape route in case of extreme mokai, we sat v. close to the exits. TO our astonishment, it turned out to be far more than fantastic.An instrument , totally dependent on numerous tongue techniques, its supposed to be v. helpful to one's social life too. I could only then appreciate the talent of our balloon vendors playing 5 rs mouth organs on the roadsides.. THe second surprise was the soprano song .HAving seen opera as a joke on bollywood films all the time, with fat women screeching our heads off, i was truly stumped when the lead singer started her piece. The voice, the vibrations ,the emotions all bottled up in a sound so pure and magical, it brings out the most exotic and esctatic feeling, carrying us to the realms of strange far off lands. I wish ppl stop portraying wrong images of art forms they know not just to create a joke out of it for commercial entertainment purposes.

One of the advantage of being a layman in music is that we can happily enjoy the art, appreciate it, relish it without having the burden of identifying mistakes or having an inclination to judge and compare it with other musical forms. So was the case in my first experience in witnessing live wierd music.

My wonder visit

2008-08-06T10:57:00.000-07:00

The clear blue skies and the fresh burst of mountain breeze welcomes one and all into this paradise on earth. What else can it be when a picturesique panorama of majestic mountains, rich in its lush green vegetation, plentiful rainfalls, spectacular snowy peaks, energetic rivers, valleys with its tiny villages and absolute beauty- fresh and innocent and unspoiled, greets the dusty, suffocated, straining eyes of city dwellers?! My 3 day stay at Manali or the place of human rebirth, nestled in the valleys of Himalayas, verified the authencity of its title to me. After leading a gruelling and beaten life of hustle- bustle with every waking moment spent as per timed to the minute, I was truly healed by the breath taking serenity of this charming village.
The trip to Rotong pass, though having failed us in our penance to see our first snow , still managed to provide an awesome adventure by trapping us in its maze of thick fog and mist. For the first time, I experienced what a fog blizzaard, a powerful wave of nauseating cold and frigid air , lack of O2 can do to a hale and healthy body. Our trip to Beas kund was successful and we managed to see the origin of the river that rules this part of the mountains, sweeping through the towns of kullu and manikaran.

Other must vist place in Kullu includes the Vasihnavi devi temple. Though still under construction, the temple induces peace and serenity to one and all alike, its setting over the Beas river mystically mersmerising the devotees and the wooden artwork in the tapestries- just fills us with awe. But the most remarkable of the lot are the idols of the Gods housed in its caves. Powerful, imposing, beautiful, a spark is felt by even the most athiest onlookers .

I guess i could write a complete tour book if I dont curtail my enthusiastic thoughts right now. So, I will just close up by asking all my jobless readers not to commute anywhere by Rajdhani express ever. A definite spoiler for any level of satisfying and happy journey, it just SUCKS BIG TIME.

The Last Sight

2008-08-02T12:44:00.000-07:00

Thunderous waves crashing on the rocks,
A dense deep gloom filling the skies,
Torrents of wind ripping at my clothes,
I stand on the cliff, my heart over its edge.

Darkness closing in on all the sides,
Dangers flashing out from the angry tides,
Howls of the storm defeaning my ears,
my breath caught up in its furious gears.

The Black magic began, the heavens broke loose,
Spears of fires striking from the wretched hell,
Screams of fright and pains amidst,
The Dance of the God ruled free in all its might.

A beauty beyond perfection,
A power beyond imagination,
With the grace of an eternal fury,
Energy inconceivable by any mortal soul.

My sight blinded,my body, frigid
A life at the tip of Death's deadly jaws,
As my last second stretched away,
I plunged into the eye of this unknown Power.

-rt

ghosts of a bygone buddy

2008-07-26T12:13:00.000-07:00

12 years ago..
in class 1 C, JAwahar Vidyalaya..

There was pin drop silence in the class of 48 monsters. All eyes were fixed upon 2 figures in the front of the room besides the teachers'vacant desk. THe air was filled with hostility and hatred. Proud and valiant with hair all wild and loose from a long undone plait, a huge black crease of correlium slashed across her small forehead, deeply wrinked and dirty pinoform clinging to her tiny frame, stood a girl facing an opponent twice her size and weight. She was my model of Xena,the warrior princess. The villain, the class bully, Parthiban circled around her watchfully and began the bloodshed with a fist on her face.Her howl was the cry of wild bull ready to kill. In a lightning fast movement, she jumped on her enemy's back, tearing at his hair. The fight has begun.

This is my friend of the past 15 years.Always ready for a fight, she was the terror queen of our class and my best friend. She was also my sole protector,defending my unberably shy and timid self against anyone who dared to taunt me in my trying, difficult childhood. Most of all, she was my role model(a solemn heroine who steals from her enemies, huge crayons n pencils to distribute amogst her allies,the voiceless )We swore to be blood buddies till we die.

Alas, fate couldnt help but challenge the strength of our friendship.Barely managing to pass the 2nd grade and having failed 3rd grade, my friend was moved to a different school. Yet, we kept in touch, true to our promise, even if we were not that blood buddies.

1 day ago:
I walked into my house, dead tired after driving in a monstrous Chennai traffic and drenched wet in the rain. Enters Xena (now clad in a neat salwar, pinned dupatta, long plaited hair, adorned with matching earning,necklace, bangles,rings, a new additional nose ring, and a purse)

me :HI!! HOW ARE YOU?! been such a long time..

xena: HEY Aarthi!ya.m fine.how r u?! well, m not speaking to u, dint even inform me that u came back! u ve changed a lot! A LOT! Look at you..OMG..wat have u done to ur hair? i hate it..(cries in horror)I so hate it.

me: just an unsuccesful experiment, it 'll grow back.chuck it.tell me, hows college?

xena: shut up. u ve changed so much.OMG! y are ur nails so long! wat r u? a tiger? its do dirty..Aunty, look at this..tell her to cut it NOW. wat u wearing! Aunty!send her shopping with me once. u r in college for God's sake. (pulls my ear and scrutinises it.) not wearing a earing! wre r those long lovely ones i got for u last time?
rants about my pitiful appearance, lack of dressing skills, pathetic sense of fashion for the next 15 min. pauses for a breath.
continues..
hey u gotto c this..my new diamond nosering. my mom got fr me for passing all my exams!its beautiful isnt it?! to think that i was last in my class to get my nose pierced!
runs over to my mom in kitchen to flash the tiny blob

after giving me a few blissful moments of privacy and peace,comes back to me.

gosh! its late..gotto head back. come, drop me home! cant travel alone..its already past 8 and the streets r dark..u kno, there is a psycho roaming around Chennai these days..cant go alone at all in nights! come on..

A mild migrane was already forming on my head. I dragged my beaten body to do us both a favour and marched her home. I managed to come back alone yet safe,caught in a daze more frightening than any phychos let loose , marvelling at the ways life can change a body, the ghosts of my friend,philosopher and mentor still haunting my mind.

the traumatic times of festivities

2008-07-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

Its been two years since I spent a proper Diwali with crackers ,pudu dress, ofcourse cable TV movies), a proper Navrathri with our usual 5 storey golu bomma sets, hordes of maamis haunting our house and being forced to visit their houses and put under extreme tortures of singing my off key ,long forgotten carnatic songs. Its been 2 years since I celebrated a proper Krishna Jayanthi with plenty of home cooked sweets (unfortunately I dont happen to like most of the sweets) or a proper Karthikai deepam or ganesh Chaturthi. Yes, for tha past 2 years, I was completely absent form my home and dint have any opportunity to witness any of the trademark Hindu festivals which turned my house upside down when I was growing up there.

This came out as a surprise for me yet when I was thinking about the absence of cultural elements, of joyous festivities in my present life and lamenting the fact that I may never in future get that chance to participate in those again, there came a sense of peace and relief instead of worry and yearning. Being brought up in an orthodox (well, almost orthodox) Tam Brahm family, I was forced into participating all the usual religious rituals and festivals which I did with an air of complete indifference. THis has even started many disputes in my family as I happened to be unfortunate enof to not like things that are liked by all. i hate having guests at home, I am eco concious and forbid to bursting crackers on Diwali and I dont like sweets that I am forced to eat on every function. My mom has indeed taken pains to explain to me their significance yet it has failed to reach me as I could no longer connect them with the modern world we are all living in.

For example, NAvrathri festival which signifies the end of demon mahisaasura by godess Durga is a great ,enormous festival in India. It was also a great torture I had to endure every year. I cant understand why people still dont get the inconvineances of celebrating with golus is (>>> and != ) the intended meaning to inculcate the spirit of worshipping the GOdess Shakti in her differnt forms on the 9 days. It is a foremost chance for girl children to be tortured. I can hardly forget the times when my mom's ardent enthusiasm led her to dress me up in various veshams of Krishna and Rama (yes, with the flute , bow n arrow etc)and send me off to be admired to various houses of neighbourhood maamis, where I was to be owwwed and aawwwed at in my dad's veshti and an unforcomtable kondai complete with peacock feathers,to which I honestly cant accept the justification that Lord Krishna really arrives in our homes to admire the innocence and beauty of these child Krishnas ( I bet the children hated every single minute of the costume party and were cursing the God himself).

No.2, The popularity of distributing sundals, redistributing soap seepu kannadis that was already given by others, discriminating ppl on blouse bit issues might have been acceptable once upon a time as it served as the only source of entertainment , gossip, a fun fare for the brahmin women till mid 20th century.
But now it is merely an absolute waste of time and energy to have these extra pains of saravana stores shopping or calling on neighbours (whom we genrally hate), keeping track of beetal leaves and blouse bits amidst the usual strenuous household chores after a hectic day at work. I bet women now invisibly cry out in pain everytime a visiting maami insists on singing a huge krithi (which are now a days getting uncalled for ) and worse, prompting the hostess to sing an aarathi. The memory of my mom desparately trying to manage the guests, checking on sundal stockage while I am shouting for her help with homework still brings me a smile (ofcourse I am later to be scolded for not helping her out with chasing those maamis sooner by distributing the sundals earlier).

Its just that a lot of such traditions and rituals though meant well in earlier days are becoming completely useless in these changing times of the IT world. People, in the name of conservatism just dont realise the importance of moving forward and adapting to these changes . It is not that our traditions should be forgotten but why not change the rituals more suitable for today yet restoring the essense and spirit of the festivals?

Now, I have atlast found my peace with the dassara days. I do worship each of the significant Godesses on all those days privately, enjoy the beautiful golus at the temple and eat sundal prasadam for 1 day. how much more fun can Dassera get now that am even beginning to like sundal?!

Cab Dramas

2008-07-07T08:13:00.000-07:00

Living in Singapore makes one accostomed to a lot of strange things. One such is the regular mundane convos with cab drivers. Every cab ride here is a different experience in itself. Infact I have had some of the best fun in cabs. There are basically 3 types of cabbies- one who constantly chatter your heads off in irritating Singlish.Usually these are over friendly elderly Chinese uncles with the same old question." what are you doing here la ?" and when the usual answer is computer/electrical engineering, he immediately tops it up with grand icings of advice
"what! computar?? why la? u coming india here doing computer..all computer everywre here, no jobs oredy la!..i tell u, computar no good la! no good".... for the entire ride.

type no 2 is the silent mum types which is a great relief after travelling in type 1's cabs . Yet the problem of the strict silence is that it dusnt give us a chance to decipher his mother tongue and sometimes makes us receive dark looks when passing the usual cabbie coments. Not to mention the common prob of hiring a cab, only later to realise the absence of money in the purse, and the apologetic request of paying by NETS which wont be unfortunately available on the cab , turning the scene even more fantastic. After the string of his vulgur swearing in Chinese when we try unsuccessfully to scrap the few 5 cent coins at the bottom of our wallets with a desparate hope to equate it into the enormous fare, "the get out" spitting out at the end needs no second telling. If looks could kill, i am lucky to have survived till now

type no 3 is the most interesting. I will have to mention a personal experience to describe them.
my frends and myself took a cab last year after dining at an excellent Indian restaurant.Tired to the bone after eating till our stomachs would burst, we got into a cab with a huge relief.The cabbie was a young Malay guy.
Sprawled on the back seat and amidst our sleepy talk about a satisfying meal, we heard a sudden high pitched scream..
"latchumeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"
and again..
"latchumeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"

the blood drained off from my friend's face when we realised it was her name he was screaming in the 6th kattai pitch.

a hysterical laugh followed suit. and agian the screming started.
i couldnt hold back the storm of my laughter anymore. It was the hardest laugh I have had in my life, watching my friend's face during her name chanting.. I laufed till I was about to puke.
Later when we all stabilised, the guy cried out in full enthu, to my friend,
"your name is latchumeeee? my wife also latchumeeeee...i love latchumeeeee"
He supposedly so loved the name as he insisted vehemently on screaming it till we finally paid the fare 20 min later.

Last but not the least,few but not frequent, there are the "Anadha rakshaka" types. Recently, I met one such when we were going for our weekly Friday nite movie. My brilliant friend had booked tix online beforehand and we comfortably arrived at Jurong IMM 1 hr b4 the movie fr dinner. Our so planned scouting to dine at a new resto shattered as we were left to gawk at the mountain high prices on the menu cards. We regretfully accepted our destiny and made way to a Mc D outlet fr the usual junk. As usual we had miscalculated the timing and distance of the "nearby" theatre and had to run fr 800 m at top speed to catch the movie. The horror on our faces when the counter lady sweetly said we had arrived 5 min late at the wrong theatre must have been unmistakable. Alas, the same brilliant friend had muddled up the cinemas as well. We piked up our marathon and praying with all our mite to catch a cab, ran to and fro on the streets. After an agonising wait of 5 min, enter the good hero cabbie on the scene. The rush to Boon Lay theatre passed in a haze of cursings, swearings, shoutings, fightings. Thankfully the cabbie dint talk much but acted swifly using his brains. 20 min later, when we were seated on the correct theatre for the correct film, watching the title "Sex and the City" come up on the screen (due to a delayed movie start coz of too much advertisements) , I realised Gods do exist in this world and thanked the timely anadha rakshaka with all my heart.

of conflitcs..

2008-06-26T10:21:00.000-07:00

what is right and what is wrong? our society dictates the rules of righteousness, our parents preach them, our religions decide them. and we follow. many times, we face a thin border between the dos and donts. maybe its just temptations, impulse or the supposed evil part of our mind that forces us to cross the line..v justify it later on grounds of circumstances in life.. we pacify ourselves and sometimes give a damn about the comments of the society. life's too short, i live the way i want. no one can tell me otherwise types..yet in some rare moments, we wonder, was that wrong? am i really doing the right thing? should i change? can i change? what if not? its always there..this tiny shade of doubt, guilt..burried under thousand other wants and desires..how many of us address it and face it, this jury within ourselves? is this a type of courage too? i know there is not a living soul that has walked this planet with absolutely no blemishes or acts of the wrong. as we age, so does this burden ..keeps gaining weight.The falsities that every man projects to the world yet fearing to face the facts within him..This makes me appreciate how blissful and peaceful infancy is , v can even say its the purest period of ones life..

A nowhere quest

2008-06-15T01:45:00.001-07:00

I came across this article while surfing randomly.
http://is.gd/xHW
Its really a fascinating read..like real version of reel movies. But is this really necessary??
Human curiosity always drives him to lurk into any mystery that catches his fancy. and it does result in outstanding discoveries..But this is a bit far-fetched considering the wastage of time and money involved in the project. I wonder if they have thought what they are to do when they finally produce some erratic version of dinosaur..maybe a real Jurassic Park??
To know that this effort when used in productive causes like finding a cure for AIDS perhaps, may help millions of people and yet waste it to recreate a past that is best to be undisturbed makes us clearly see the flaw in human nature- a senseless creature with a 6th sense .

கருவின் நாள் இன்று

2008-06-14T01:36:00.000-07:00

கலியுகத்துச்சினமாம் இந்தக் கருணாநிதி
கடவுள் மட்டும் இல்லையென்றால் இங்கு என்ன கதி
காத்தாராம் நாட்டையும் மொழியையும் இந்தக் கருணாநிதி
காட்டிக் கொடுத்தலுக்கு இன்னொரு பெயர் காப்படாகுமா கருணாநிதி
கட்டினார் மாமன்னரும் மக்களும் கோவில்கள்
கயவனாய் உள்ளே புகுந்தான் இந்தக் கருணாநிதி
கொஞ்சமும் வெட்கமில்லாத் இன்தக் கருனாநிதி
கொடுன்செயலாய் ராஜிவ் கொலை புரியப் புளிக்குத் துனைபோனான்
கற்றுக்கொன்டீரா தமிழ் மானிடரே என்றது நாடு காத்தல் என்றால்
கவிதை எழுதுவது மொழிப்ப்றா என்றால்
காழ்ப்புணர்ச்சியின் உச்சத்தில் கக்குவது விஷ மொழி என்று
கறுத்தில் கொள் கருனாந்தியே உன் பிறந்த நாள் இன்று
கடவுள் நம்பிக்கை என்பது வோவ்வோருவன் உள்ளத்துநிப்து
கீழ்த்தரமாய் பெசிடவோ கட்டிய ராமசெதுவை உடைப்படுவோ
கிருக்கனான உனக்கு நாள் ஈனமான வரலாறு
கண்ணிருந்தும் குருடனாய் நீ வாழ்வதற்கு வேறு விளக்கம் ஏது .

this is an interesting post i found in itchingtruth.blogspot.com. pls register ur comments if any thr.

Dasavatharam - a Degradation of Divinity

2008-06-13T23:36:00.000-07:00

I am only of those few "lucky" ones in my college to watch the much hyped movie ,Dasavatharam, on the 1st show of its release. Not only was I in for a surprise of a slap across my face for my expectations of a decent movie but also was forced to a face the play of sectarian violence and vulgarism by the bloody politacal parties in Mass Media.

There is absolutely no movie - no story, no plot, no characters .It is made for one sole purpose of degrading Vasinavism. This time Mr.Kamal Hassan has left out his usual subtelity and jumped blatenly to tarnish the religious views of Vasinaviam in his so called witty diagoues, the movie title, his pointless characters etc. His much publisized 10 roles in the history of Indian cinema is a total bull shit as half those roles are completely unimportant ones .

The concept of those meaningless characters were meant to insinuate the 10 avatars of Lord Vishnu - first hit.The plot of the movie is as stupid and childish as the chase of smuggled diamonds stored in a puppet dog and bad guy chases good guy all over the country for it. The only difference here is the dog is God. The use of a Vishnu idol as a puppet for storing some preposterous bomb, and the indecent treatment of the idol all through the story, the nasty , wile dialogues where Mr.Kamal Hassan degrades the Vishnu idol and atlast for the grand climax - He puts a noose over the VIshnu's neck to drag it on his back, cannot be justified in the name of blasted art or story or acting or whatever bull shit it is. The main motive of the story -commercial entertainment by playing an inside joke on Hinduism and its chief God.

THe hand of our Kalaigner sottai thala KArunanidhi can be seen beautifully when in the process of spitting on Vishnu, our producer shows A Dalit character as most noble and patriotic as he defends against violators who try to steal sand from river beds.Seriously, he is really ingenious in making a Vaishnavite take such a story to ultimately insult it and present to the public. I can tolerate the movie if its main focus is atheism instead of killing Hindiusm. The indignation that is felt when having to witness the scene when a noose is pulled over the statue of Vishnu cannot be expressed in mere words.

In a nutshell, A movie produced by big fat players , funded by underworld dons and political leaders, portraying indecent obsenities to satisfy the basic instincts of man and degrading a philosophical religious concept of caring for nature and divinity . Enjoy folks, but posterity will pay for everyones misdemeanor of any kind.

A book beyond imaginations - Eragon series

2008-06-11T01:02:00.000-07:00

It has been a month since I read the book Eragon by chance but I am still under the spell of Christopher Paolini's enchanting magic cast through his 2 books. I can hardly wait for Brisingr to be released now. So, what is it about this book that has made countless like myself mad about it? Firstly,I would say it is the setting- dragons, riders, elves, drawfs, middle earth land types, sorcerers and the list goes on. On the first read one may find it a stereotypical Lord of the Rings copy but it is definitely not so. The Next beautiful aspect of this book is the writing. The words take the readers right into mystical dragon worlds till they would argue its authencity against every logical minded person dismissing the idea as childish and frivolous. For someone who is addicted to the fantasy world where nothing is impossible, I was so immersed in the story that I sat up debating with some of my irritatingly logical and sensible friends on how the concept is real, more real than their idea of real worlds. The characters especially the protagonist has more of flaws which makes it more realistic and interesting. I loved the parts where Eragon struggles with his futile attempts to master sword fighting and the lives of the ant explained by his mentor. We can discover a lot more than fiction if we read carefully through the lines and the language used to describe simple settings like a night sky is just brilliant. Moreover this sort of mythical stories invokes the hidden sense of imagination and absurd in all alike, helps us visualise and appreciate impossible things in a perfectly logical way. We develop the bent of mind to explore the sleeping Neverlands within us and what more than a beautiful story to cheer us in this mundane world of numbers and logic?

ps: please do not see the movie that is made out of this priceless piece of art. It not only rips the life of the book but also successfully shatters the wondrous fascination and destroys the beauty of the characters. It is absolutely a curse on the theme of magic.

A Summer of Work

2008-05-18T02:53:00.000-07:00

This Summer adds itself to my 'list of firsts' as I am spending it productively for the first time in my life. No more whiling away time with all day naps or watching boring programs in a set top box - less cable connection and sinking into the deapths of vettiness all the while desparetely searching for anything that is not boring to do. Well, its been so good so far, with an interesting assignment and a no time for vetti jobs period.Just into week 2 of my stint, I have discoverd a lot more about work life...

1. I am completely physically drained out by each evening even though I couldn't think of any considerable input I had made for the day.
2. The long forgotten pain of waking up at 8 am every morning is an absolute torture.
3.Friday nites ,especially is simply a magic symbolysing the beginning of the short term freedom, a period of absolute bliss
4.My college life is now joined to the list of my happiest days of life.
5. A job with facing comps all day brings about a reformation so great that I have quit fiddeling with my comp in my free time or even watching movies and rediscovered the magic of books.
6. Lying in bed with a book bcomes one of the rare pleasures I treat myself to whenver I can.

No wonder people become staid after they join in the work mill.It feels like travelling on a never ending stretch of a land extending far into space and time until we lose all our strength to go forward anymore. I guess watching my dad come back from work everyday for the past 18 years with the same expression on his face popped this thought into me..Nevertheless, I believe its upto us to turn our own career moor into a colourful scenary with mountains and waterfalls to explore every day. After all, its better to do nothing than to do something you don't love brilliantly well. Hence my new goal : become an undercover tech investigator. Well, what's life, if u don't risk it and relish every moment by living on the edge!

The wall with the view

2008-05-01T04:26:00.000-07:00

"Good Morning" greets the soft streams of yellow,
To the gentle breeze, fresh with mist.
Next begins the song of the tiny blue birds,
Welcoming the dawn with their dainty true words.

As I wake up with my heart full of pleasure,
To the magnificent magic of the morning sounds,
From my usual seat on the high terrece wall, I view,
Enraptured at the sight of the rising red king.

A huge sigh escapes from a longing soul,
The picture snaps shut with the elevator knoll,
Turning back from the CL balcony, burdened with quests,
Of solving innumerable tests..
My heart yearns for the wall with the view,
I console myself with poems of long lost loves in lieu.

The art of mugging

2008-05-01T02:42:00.000-07:00

After spendind 2 yrs at the kingdom of mugging, I have successfully picked up a few tips on how to mug at last min fr the xams.. For those who are not familiar with the term mugging, it is tenting in the library 27/7 before the finals , robotically studying an alien subject with a tiny hope of passing the xam. Its a very challenging and complicated process that is highly taxing but makes one learn that there are some things in life that can only be left freee.. To xplain further, this is how it goes:

1. waste time choosing the " best " place to study which usually means goin around entire campus with a 4 kg back pack before suffereing from a back ache and settling down at a random useless place.

2. place issue over. 1 hr gone.. too tired to delve into studies now..so, open laptop - check mails ---> check orkut , facebook --->look at latest gossips, friends' albums etc.. 2 hrs productively spent. (at the worst case, some with a creative bent even write blogs about mugging then..)

3. BREAK OVER! come the studyings...open lecture notes, books reluctantly, stare stupidly at it for half hour, verify portions, stare stupidly for some more time and realise u ve become a dumb ass .noooooooooooooooooo.

4. open the gtalk (the one place where the entire cohort hangs around) and bitch about the subject, xams, NUS, singapore, life to evry online character.

5. become too much stressed ..u r freaking out..need a break desparately..open youtube, watch any videos- good, bad, ugly..still not satisfied ..move to sitcoms to peak at just one episode, another one, one more.. a season..goes on for 2 hrs b4 u realise u ve wasted 6 hrs altogether..

6. get even more stressed out. open lecture notes with a new vigour . " I gotto fight it..win..pass the subject somehow or the other"... mug, mug, mug..mug like crazy ..

7. look at past year probs to practice..just alien figures. turn all notes upside down to find if the prob is in or out of syllabus..no clue. look at other papers, realise its even worse.

8. accept the inevitable fact that u r doomed. go back to watching sitcoms till u fall asleep on top of the laptop. sleeeeeeeeep. beautiful sleeeeeep

repeat the same the next day till u go for the xam..do it pathetic. run to the nearest temple that weekend n start bribing God.

reality of lost love

2008-04-02T08:34:00.000-07:00

A chance encounter in one of my friend's blog set me thinking about this: What do you do when you discover that you don't mean anything to the person you value the most ? Does "true love" actually exist? I am sure most of us would have experienced the first issue..if not they are indeed lucky! Getting emotionally attached to another person is one of basic human nature. The need for companionship along with the increasin sexual jizz creates an urge to involve in a relationship . But on one fine morning, when we realise that we are worth null to the other person, the sense of betrayal either pushes us to extreme anger towards that jackass which is soon followed by self pity and dejection. But is it that bad to reject life in general? Focussing more on self pity and comtemplation of death just gets us to the noose. I was surprised when some one I know stated the pain caused by love failure is greater than death.

I agree I haven't experienced this amount of dejection in all of my 18 years and I am kind of happy for it. But I think its rather stupid to expect "true love" as described in novels or films in the first place. Everyone one is born into this world without their own choice and so every one tries their best to adapt and survive. More than just survival, we want to gain power, compete with others, have more than other people and "achieve" which means doing somehting different that gives you a recognition over others in the world.In order to solve the problem of loneliness throu the way , most of us get married. I , who is getting the life sucked out from me through total lack of interest in my studies and grinding pressure of my univ to force me into it , lack of motivation and sense of inability to do anything worthwhile attest that people plunge into marriage pool just to escape this hell of skool and even more dreaded work life. With all these monsterous things torturing you in life, you find your sole happiness in marriage and voila, there is love.

Some one asked me what is the meaning in life, if there is no one to return your love.. If we all live till the age of 70, making the best out of what we have, we 'll definitely have someone who loves us before we die. if not, we can die being proud about the vast amt of experience ( even if entirely bitter) we have had and how v managed to live throu all that without quitting. In the meanwhile, why worry about it and waste time when we have so much things to explore in this wild jungle!

singapore speaks ?

2008-03-12T10:15:00.000-07:00

hey! Due to some micracle of God, there is finally some spice in the ever monotonous life in this concrete jungle. The case of an escaped convict! It is extremely hyped about as there are not many convicts who actually manage to escape the iron grip of the Singapore police force and also, because of the extremely scarce info released by the Government on such a rare case. The first question that pops in our mind on hearing of a prison break is "how". But this still remains unanswered even after scrounging through every issue of the state controlled newspapers. I found out from some public blogs that he managed to escape through a toilet in a detention centre. We are forced to conjure up a Shawshank redemption dupe scene for the secret of the shocking escapede as the press sleeps under the thumb of the close mouthed government. The most ridiculous thing is that the press permits the readers comments on such sensitive issues only for a very short period and is published on rare occasions after heavy sensoring . The amount of state domination in press and information sector can be seen clearly through this incident. People are denied basic facts to cover up the mistakes of government and there is absolutely no platform for them to even voice out their opinions in the activities of the State. A clear monopoly in politics is established by raising each MP' s pay to 1 million $ per mnth. The same party rules irrespective of the public vote, the same rules apply no matter what people think. Infact the people here are afraid to form any sort of judgement on political issues. Many of my Singaporean friends just don't bother with the trouble of thinking about certain issues and voicing out their opinins as there is simply no use. I really have to say though admn of Indian Govt is a mess, it is so much more livelier as every one in the country knows whats happening and doesnt hesitate a minute to dish out comments and take part in the gossip mill.

long time musings

2008-02-26T10:01:00.000-08:00

Now, I know for sure that some words like responsibility , resolution etc. have utterly no meaning in my life. My previous blog was my umpteenth try to instill the habit of blogging just for the heck of testing a long time hypothesis which has been proved correct - Habit is not in my genes. I can't remember the web address of the first blog I had written in my life due to the persuation of literally ALL of my friends. My second blog lies stranded in a web site , the password of which is buried amidst the unfathomable depths of junk thoughts inside my brain. My third attempt at it is slightly better off as I sit down to continue with it after a break of 3 months. This time I got the drive to write after suffering from a strong inferiority complex that arose from browsing through the never ending blog of a childhood friend, who honestly, cudn't open his mouth and manage to string 2 sentences together in class. I fear my personal journal is lagging behind by 1 year already.

Well, since I have successfully re opened my account , I plan to fill a huge entry pooling everything I want to say for all this break time . My fourth sem in college started in a surprisingly smooth fashion and I slipped into the way of things seamlessly in my foreign home. I don't think I 'll ever understand the amount of changes I have undergone since I came to singapore. Even for someone who embraces changes, its quite disconcerting to find those changes amidst constant struggles. One of the biggest of which most of the foreign students face here is the struggle to find themselves a real identity. In a land filled with a kaleidoscope of different cultures, languages and people, the greatest puzzle is to figure out where we to fit in, how to feel recognised and how to belong . One of my friends had written a precise article about this issue. I still can't cope up with it most of the times, however hard I try. The weight of being just another of the 33,000 students studying in this campus, the quest for trying to create a true self identity, the disappointments on its failures puts a nice hollow feeling of demoralisation at the end of the day . I never ever imagined all this troubles spewing out in my happy fantasies of travelling and living abroad. Sometimes, I wonder about breaking free from this place and returning to my homeland but will I mesh in there? I feel the difference growing every time I travel back to India during my vacations. The familiar homested becoming strange to adapt to, my long time friends drifitng away, frustration with the way of living...There are a few cross roads in life where you make some decisions that change you forever, those that once made don't offer you an opportunity to turn back. All you can do is to move on and find out what else is in store. With that thought, I too go through one day at a time, relishing the unexpectedness , overcoming the daily challenges , in search of a destiny that stubbornly remains shadowed yet showers the path with doubts and confusions.

note : I am seriously considering to change my major to philosophy since even in my blogs, i can't think of anything happy to write..

The Static in the Change.

2007-11-27T05:33:00.001-08:00

Two years back ago,my pass time was to roam around in the streets of Ashok nagar , brooding about the monotonous school life, feeling prisoned in my own city, waiting to get out ..some where..any where . The need to escape from my supposedly boring life became quite a desparation. But I never imagined the change I desparately craved , to come so early in life. Who would have thought i could actually score marks in my hopeless board exams and find my escape through college!
Anyways, by some miraculous twist of fate, I ended up in NUS. My first few days here were like living in a fantasy. Every thing was different , strange. I loved it. By the end of my first few weeks, the same old feeling if being caged crept back into my heart. The place became too small, too limited, too autocratic to my tastes. But once my classes began, I realised I ahd under estimated my situation. It became a living hell of boredom and monotony. My so called route to my fredom ,a pathway of discovery etc. turned out to be just another trap. Chennai suddenly seemed like a paradise, my childhood - the most wonderful part of my life, my school life - an abode of fun memories . Moreover, I discovered that I was no longer interested in my studies and the classes became a joke , my career seemed like an exagerated wish of my parents . To top it all, I am stuck here for the next 7 years of my life. My "change- loving" spirit suffered a big blow.
Somehow, I managed to get through my first year here.Now, looking back, it all feels like yesterday. Suddenly time seem to have aquired an enormous speed. I vaguely remember of even having fun . Now, its just 2 more years of college left. Somewhere, amidst my excessively vetti thoughts, I woke up to the fact that when luck takes us to places we dream of and fate turns it into a nightmare we were better off without, its the hard struggles , little happiness, funny moments, constant brooding , unexpected adventures we face which gives it a kick . Thus, I lay happily ,dreaming again of those wonderful places in the world to explore , waiting for an escape from the never ending monotony that seem to follow me wherever I go..My mother's phone call brings me back from my deep retrospect. " How is ur preparations for tomoro's exam ?", she asks. Well, some things in the universe never change.