Sanskrit, Davos and Herbal beer!

hey! If u were fooled by the title that all those 3 are inter related, my objective is attained;-)
just thought I shud give a crazy title (ok..i can hear u mumble what with the other regular ones..still) and so this one..about 3 diff issues..

It has been a busy week for me,amidst various domestic schedules, I have been hunting for a sanskrit teacher to teach me personally (so that it can be flexible and at times continuous long hours)..hmm..its tuff to find one..i have a big list of various (mostly service oriented) orgns that conduct sanskrit class but they are all at odd times or once/twice a week or starting next month..so am on hunt still..

Davos - have visited that cute village in swiss many times and IMHO the youth hostel there is one of the best..and with this year's WEF, iam told its so "India everywhere" there..am doubly happy..i read a lot that India has really arrived at the International scene..India has been actively marketed and accepted too, I hear!
and since its at davos, my fav serene alps dorf, am even more happier:-))

Herbal beer - :-))))))u guessed it..thats a real big grin! though last, an even happier news..this one I happened to know thru varnam (one of my reg/fav blog) here! a beer, bio at that, with aloe vera(where dont they have this magic herb?),same alcohol strength but punch is - its supposedly healthy and medicinal hic..hic..no hang over it seems ..and invented by an Indian!! u know my comment here..dont u;-)

so thats it for now..ta..

Happy Republic Day!

Reminded of muttais(those sticky toffees) distributed in schools and the flag we used to pin on to our shirts proudly..plus the happy leave u get;-)
so I traveled down my memory lanes too, today..and so may have something coming up soon..
Each time I see/hear/read of some independence struggle story esp thru some one involved in it directly or thru their descendants, i have been moved and touched immensely. This time I route you to another Bloggers'page where there is a good post on Cellular jail, Andamans. have u been there? I have been there, a must see place. One should not miss the light and sound show they have. Its such a moving experience that ur thoughts wud revolve arnd our freedom struggle for some days..

meanwhile played cricket(hey..the real one, with leather ball, even hurt my typing finger) after a looong time in Chennai maanagar..some 25kms away near selayur/tambaram, but a beauty of a ground! Grass top turf with even ground at a school premises (shankara vidyalaya!)..enjoyed the game..more so the ground..A start up s/w firm of my friends Vs Hutch and we won!!(nothing more to say here..yeah, dont try pulling stats, i fared bad overall except in fielding)
anyway it was fun..'appy R'day again..ciao..

India shining?

Dunno if it’s a good sign or bad..I find a lot of western thinking coming in to our society..the other day met a few of my old friends who generally (ritually from those days) get together and discuss so much as to “improve” India, world, Indian cricket, TN, Madras (not necessarily in that order!)..for hours that too;-)
One such ‘meeting’ happened y’day and after some time these guys, believe me, were discussing dogs..ooph..each one was throwing jargons like lab, dash, rotweiler etc..and jokes on dogs (remember ‘jesus is watching you joke!)..am surprised and find it difficult to accept this new topic in to our ‘improvement’ agenda..and as I come home I see an advt on TV about some dog food - pedigree is the brand! Then I just look around and the basement of my neighboring apts is occupied by a dog/cat food shop..don’t under estimate here..its bigger than my nearest food world!
Then the dressing(!) sense(!!), usage of cell phones, care-a-hoot-for-money attitude, weekend outings, no family values, only TV than people interaction,whimsically throwing/replacing cell fones n other gadgets,what not..as an ad says..naadu engayoo poyutrukku..(transliteration:: Country is going ‘somewhere')

Swiss courtesy??

Was watching Hingis’ game at Aus open..she won the match and just one half pump of the fist and a graceful walk to the umpire..and there she sees the opponent approach and so courteously shows her up to the umpire with that typical swissish polite half bow..hmm..
Compare her reaction after a hard fought (atleast the last point in this case - 4 match points!! And a tie breaker) and that of our cricketers even for a tail ender’s wicket..
Talking of cricket, after our sooper stars failed us today (esp tendul and yuvi) pathan and Dhoni really showed lots of promise, cool and what not!! While tendul & co were in, pak’s tails were up..and Shoaib chukther was really pounding, crowd and fielders egging and in comes Dhoni and in a matter of few overs Paks take the back seat..See what confidence and cool approach can bring..This guy Dhoni reminds me of viv Richards..no not that Dhoni is his class but the nonchalance and arrogance attached to some of the shots and esp under pressure, hey it’s a pleasure..

Update: By the time I wrote this, the next match in aus open was Fedex’s..man!! He is in a diff league..what I find amazing is when he thinks the opp is doing good he gifts easy points, doesnt sweat much on the losing points and squares up with enormous energy for his winning points..as roddick said fedex is there in one level and the rest fight below- winning some and losing some..btw even he, for all his exuberance, does not show much emotions on court!

Driving (me) crazy…

The drivers here from madras can straight away drive in Europe, for sure..they are almost used to driving on the right side of the lanes u see..
Normally they say, across the globe, to walk against the oncoming traffic. Hence u walk on the left in the west and on the right in the common wealth countries..but here in madras (may be to a larger extent in India) u prolly walk on the left as that’s what is the ‘oncoming side'. If u do walk like that, u may notice that the vehicles coming from the side lanes racing to join the main road traffic, just don’t expect u (or anyone) to be walking..they just whizzz past..They are totally oblivious to any traffic meant to come on their ‘right‘ side, forget the “walkers”
oh, man! When will we graduate to a bunch of sensible driving citizens??

I told u...

I told u..did'nt I??
that these guys dunno the spelling of "terrorism" and this B fella is telling lies;-)

aiyoooooooooooo...

Oh! Here is a man who commits the mother of all scams..they are still counting..and the counter when I last followed it was 30,000 crores (yeah!! ITS 3 FOLLOWED BY 4 ZEROES!! No typo this folks! ) and today he gets a 10 years RI and penalty of 50,000Rs…Did that judge not fall off his chair laughing?? Or did this fella telgi fall off?? Grr..grrr..we and our system..

What happened?

1. To (o)ur tax monies and to the roads that were to be..

2. to the river linking project?

3. to the golden quadrilateral?

4. to the desalination plant in chennai?

5. to the metro plans in Blore?

6. to the big talks of the union tourism minister? no pudding to be seen..hmm

7. to the mahajot mamta was planning in West bengal?

8. to the new airport in Blore?

9. ha..haa.. to big talk of shoaib??

10. to the comments in my blog..sigh..sigh...:-(

11. to that oldest joker of Indian politrix, karunakaran in kerala..

12. finally...to the many committees and commissions opened for tehelka,Italian Q,Taj corridor,various (s)exposes, Volker, hmmm..
hey this list loooks like it shall not end..so shut it here..

note: I have many other 'what happeneds' on the world scenario too;-)may be another day when i have nothing to blog that might come up;-))

sooper star Cho and pongol...

Cho is one of the best and the most daring of journalists in India. IMHO he will be an irreplacable media personality..in TN as well as whole of India!
Every year he delivers a speech on various topics (mainly politics) and answers questions from his readers on 14th of Jan.Needless to say he has a very appreciable and intelligent readership (though small)..This is a much awaited speech for many readers of his like me and this year it was on 14th Jan, satday at 10.30am!!
Thats where he proved what an unique media person he is! This meet was in Naradagana sabha and some 1000s had already filled the whole hall even by 9.00am! Goes to prove what a sooper star he is..Amazing!
Asusual he started off with his typical intro of his whole thuglak gang and faced questions from readers. Then gave a speech covering a wide spectrum of affairs incl Indian cricket, ganguly, politix, corruption, current controversies, terrorism, rajini, his op on the coming TN elections, etc - in his inimitable satirical way.
He dug at MK, JJ, Vaiko and many of the TN politicians in his style, took even personal and tough questions withease and sprayed with his typical humor statements. Most of them in the crowd wud definetly have had red and swollen hands due to severe claps so frequently all thru the meet.
The meet slated for 10.30 started exactly on dot (actually it wud have made news if he had not been punctual)and with apologies for holding it on a pongol day morning! He did take a dig at the secretary of Naradagana sabha, his friend for 45 years,in his typical style. Thanks to my friends Krishna and KC, I had the very rare opportunity of sitting on the 1st row (there were some friends who were stranded outside the hall and viewed the prog on TV, happened to see me on the TV bcos of this vantage position..he hee..they r fuming with J!)
As always, his meeting ended with all of us singing the National Anthem in rapt attention! A great atmosphereand fantastic crowd to be a part of, every year!
3 cheers to CHO and his team!

PS: Happy pongol to all u who celeberate pongol..believe me! any harvest related festival across the globe is the best of all festivals and let us also thank the farmers who are instrumental in us getting our food, what ever form it ultimately takes;-)

Update (15th Jan): Forgot to mention- Did u ever know who that "Vinod" who writes review with flowery english quotes, on various TV programs in Thuglak is?? It was a news(atleast for me)!! Its none other than Ra.Ki. Rangarajan!!!

stupid cable connexion and chennai..

The channels like ESPN, Star, Ten, cartoon (hey thats my fav esp tom and jerry),HBO, discovery, etc come for free in Blore (and in most part of India!), where as in chennai u need to buy a set top box and pay for these paid channels..
that means if I need to see the India pak series now, I pay 4k for the STB and additional charges of 150 - 230 depending what all channels u need..
so after shelling out all that grudgingly, all I get to see is the Pak batters sending our guys on a leather hunt! hmm..
stupid chennai cable rules and unimaginative bowling n fielding by Indians ruined my day (week?)

On another issue in Chennai, there were some noises made against the burning of old things (due to Bogi festival) esp tyres and other plastics. This used to cause lot of ill effects, the major one being delay in air traffic on this day! Looks like these noises made worked! esp the various marches organised thru/by many schools should have had an impact. IMHO the students are receptive to moral points if conveyed well. Hope this good trend continues to many other issues as well.

note: Thanks to Thennavan for linking here and enabling more eyeballs to GNI's DVS..gr8 gesture that mukundan!

reality check..

ladies and Gmen!
this may be an year old stuff from GNI*(Good news india).. but worth the read..a long one but tells u in depth about how a 'man Vs might' in todays clima can be..
disastrous! but hats off to D.V. Sridharan for taking it up, patiently running behind our shameful system, documenting it and finally educating us all with "dos and donts tips" in the epilogue!
please do click this link and spend time in reading this story..
http://www.goodnewsindia.com/index.php/Magazine/story/mgm/

People like DVS are not only boon but hopes for people like us in these days and age..hats off again and thanks DVS!!

* If u are not a regular to GNI, please make it a point to read that site regularly. Its an amazingly positive place in my op. Each story there is a gem.

Madras- (specatator) sports capital?

So another international game..and so another blog..
Thanks to Mahesh, I went to the Chennai open tennis(yeah an international ATP tournament!)
saw the doubles and singles semis..another nice court, neat construction, well maintained and finally great crowd. The stadium was very full and a nice sight for sports lovers like me.
As is required in tennis, silence was maintained at the request of the "chair"(its somewhere between the highly disciplined wimbledon and the unruly NYers who require 3-5 'quite please')
The crowd conducted themselves very well and also were very appreciative of good play.
What do u think the IT world has done to such tournaments? During the doubles game of the Indian pair Vs the German pair, there were some youngsters shouting "come on Deutscheland, alles gute" and "gute spiel" etc..so some folks back after a short/long term project in DE and back here shouting german cheers..hmmm..
I stuck to the Indians (bopanna and amirtraj) and they won in a very close match afetr saving 4 match points..

That brings us to the title..doesnt chennai look like the capital of all spectator sports in India..I told you about the hockey tornamnent here some days back and this tennis today..plus the well known crowd for cricket..something to pat ur back ain't chennai??

my travel continues..now coorg!

So my tours continue..went to Coorg with some friends and had a great time!
It’s a place full of fresh oxygen in air..hmmm..
The fertility of the land is amazing..stayed in a fantastic guest house in a friend’s estate..(now I can recommend u a great place to stay in Coorg! No marketing this..but really a great place to stay at affordable place and friendly people to pamper u with all comforts!) They were excellent hosts and at times embarrassed us with their hospitality and great people to spend time. They had a grand estate with exotic planatations including coffee, pepper, vanilla, silver oak and what not!! It was fun to move around with them within their estate with lots of narration about each plant and their features including their fantastic ways of irrigation.
Did u ever know that coffee plants bear fruits like berries and that nothing including the seeds have any smell, forget the tantalizing smell of coffee that has u in binds..It seems only after drying and roasting that u get the smell..who ever thought of roasting and filtering and drinking a coffee and ultimately addicting more than half the world..will u fetch that fella n recommend him for the nobels and oscars please???
No..am not yet finished..the crime rates are so low in coorg..as an old man (ofcourse a coorgite) was telling me, any offender will be shot at or whacked to sh#t with feets of committing any offence that none wud dare to in future..This old man was flowing with pride when he said most houses there have a weapon or two and active users..(infact u hear a gun shot or two once a while that conveys a birth or death in the neighborhood!)
Due to the pure atmosphere and their happy n fun life style, the average age of coorgites is an astonishing 80+..that says it all rit? and around 33% are in defence services!
So much for Coorg now..am back in Blore now breathing sulphides and mono-oxides..

PS: BTW an earlier post wishing u a very happy n prosperous new year went for a toss..ok so there goes my wishes to u all again! (though my view that celeberating a 2000 “old” new year as a new one and to come from people like us who have an even older history of 5000 years+ in our kitty..hmm..that’s a heavy one for another time,eh?)