Lessons are there..

If we decide to keep our eyes and ears open and are ready to pick them, u know..
For me every travel has lots! more interesting ones are got in the suburban trains in madras (the famous electric trains between tambaram and beach!)..
U get to watch so many events, eavesdrop on so many conversations, so many gossips, and u can freely join any of these discussions too, as any one might join yours, if any.
Normally I add some more spice by giving a piece of my mind to some crazily or irritatingly behaving chap..for eg. if some one keeps their shoe/slipper clad leg on the opposite seat he had it..or if someone throws the peels (groundnut or fruits) inside or spits..ok, I cant show them a bin to throw, so what? I cant show them a toilet too..if u don’t shit there, bloody well don’t do the above..mind u, a general ‘ahem’ and any high raised voice instruction is met with a fear and obeyed too..till now I have’nt tried anything more than this..now I digressed so much..back to the lesson!
Last night when I was going in a packed train a guy (only profile visible for me) is in a awkward angle(head tilted and up and the angle of the hands too a bit odd)..as usual my antennae are up..then I spot a small plastic cover, oh the good old water sachet..(grt grt..i hate water distributed in plastic- these days.hmm)..esp these small ones which are thrown all over madras..now my interest level is up to check what he does..he sort of presses from the top edge in a different manner and squeezes till the last drop in..all this in the silhouette/sideview,still..then an action like he is ironing (how u wud press ur cloth)with his hands and folds it in to 2, then 4 and moves his hand, for the plastic is no more visible, along his self..now am getting ready..if he throws that piece and esp on my foot (he has no other place in that packed train), he had it..
And he just shoves that thingy in to his pant pocket in a jiffy and wipes his mouth in a ‘different’ manner and now turns a bit and approaches his bag hanging in his other hand. There I see the folded blind man’s stick and obviously get to see him in full.
Oh, my!! I curse myself for having suspected him and so the marks I gave him when I saw him shove the waste plastic in to his pocket is multiplied n times..
What a lesson for all of us, who indiscriminately throw anything anywhere and esp plastic..and here a man who cannot even see the mess we create around ourselves and to ‘his world’ is casually doing us all so much good..
Lesson worth learning right?
Next time- keep ur eyes and ears open!
- don’t throw plastic indiscriminately

Oh! Hyderabad..

Its a pity it is spreading to south alarmingly..more bcos the govts here are pathetically blind to intelligence and anti-terroristic measures..yeah, talk of vote bank..if a terrorist comes from one religion (mostly) and if that can get u votes, hey, look the other side! Who cares.com
And this time it has been a touristic place..and WHY do they want to really kill innocents- watching some laser shows or simply gazing stars..shameful and cowardice.
So time to look at all those kashmir emporiums selling rugs and other 'warm clothes' in places like chennai, hyderabad, warrangal (all 45degrees+ for 6 months atleast!)??

India day at Michigan!

A regular here venki sends me a mail about India day conducted at Michigan! It was a joint effort by a group of four non-profit organizations namely: Asha for Education (www.ashanet.org), Child Rights & You (CRY) America (www.america.cry.org), Rejuvenate India Movement (www.india-movement.org) , Spread India (www.spreadindia.org).
This was conducted to increase awareness about these organizations and to promote more participation in activities dedicated to India's development. They conducted quiz, raffles etc for the kids and the show attracted a huge crowd am told.

I liked their ‘We need your Time and not your Dime’ slogan:-)
Good luck guys! do more of these and encourage more projects back home. Sincere NGOs are a boon and only hope in a dysfunctional India.

welcome ICL!

The new cricket league pushed forward by the zee group is moving fast, or so I wud guess seeing the number of loud noises one hears and esp BCCI trying to scuttle it!

hey, ICL already has their website running here and BCCI does not have one till date. If ICL were to only maintain this pace and improve on the professional front, they can only go places.
I wish they do. The BCCI which runs (so badly that is) in a very cheap and unprofessional manner needs competition and cricket also needs such wider coverage and better people to take it forward. (ok, my love for cricket apart, i still maintain that cricket is not a great sport to continue for a country like ours and may be we shud promote hockey, football- smaller and sporty ones. but thats for another day..for now lets talk on ICL)

ICL needs to just go ahead like the England football league, where the lack of good players were replaced by foreigners (same was also taken in to county cricket) and so very healthy and competitive matches resulted, and went on to dominate the game, more than the national or intra-national matches.
way to go ICL, just ensure more professionalism is pumped in and also use the B and C centre grounds and the reverse flow can happen.BCCI cant keep u out of the main cities for long!

Cumbum, Theni & around

A close friend hailing from Cumbum built a house (or was it a palace?) and invited us to stay there and offered to take us around. U get a place to stay, place to hog sooper home food and also he takes u around..any body in their senses wud have grabbed this and so did we:-) But am not going to write about their fantastic hospitality or the great food or how big and practical his house was..

He shud be a lucky chap to live in such a green place..filled with oxygen..the tamil month of aadi known for its wind was making a mark there and the whole surrounding was awesome..what more can one ask for when Kumili/thekkadi is just less than half hour journey from one’s home; theni, bodi, suruli also same time..
man! the whole route to all these locations was wonderful..very fertile lands all around Cumbum and the walks on the ‘varappus’ of the fields were a high point of my life..add one more- the fantastic bath we had in the Suruli falls – torrential fall I shud say and u wud feel like a public bash ( rough translation of dharma adi) or gush of violent massage..but an out of the world feeling..even if u do away with my unique experience said in the next para, it’s a must go/visit place..it may not be very tourist friendly but one can stay in the typical small town hotels (if u r not as lucky as me to have a friend there) and go around..worth it!

We walked thru the fields and along the various very well planned irrigation canals, trekked in the hills above the falls, saw lots of inimitable n distinctive innovations to choo away birds from their crops. It was mostly paddy and coconuts all over, but the locals out there seem to be very daring and adventurous. They had variety of plants like cauliflower, cabbage, potato even grapes – absolutely alien to their land! Ofcourse so much of cardamom on the kerala side.We visited a grapes farm and it looked so neat and almost native, where as we were informed its only in the past few years they r growing grapes there. But, its not a cash crop. These farmers are paid Rs3/- (yes, three Rs.. sic) for a KG and we at the cities buy them by paying 10 times more. one more example of the 'middle man' enjoying the whole fruit (pun unintended). On questioned why they still continue inspite of the lack of viability, he said – we don’t know any thing else and we need to do something right? I was too dumbfolded to argue.
What stood out was a very stylish way of using the catapult and sling hand made clay balls to keep away the mainas which will destroy one full vineyard in an hour, though it does not eat the grapes! Perils of growing foreign (non-local)crops,hmmm..We went arnd and met more farmers and learnt some valuable lessons.

Update: I forgot to mention having witnessed the pumping of pesticide on to the grapes in the vineyard. man, it was like schwarzenegger was holding on to one of those big time AK47s and pumping..so much being pumped on those grapes. so for a second time in my life, vouched not have grapes any more. the amount of synthetic chemical they paste on it, hmm..

‘appy I’day

60 years since..do u rate that young or old for a nation? If so on what scale do we really evaluate? I mean if one needs to, else u can join the euphoria and shout happy Independence day or have that small flag on ur pocket and eat that ‘pulippu muttai’. (that sticky candy distributed after flag hoisting)

We got Independence, right? Or did we?? So many things really keep me pondering on that question! Just see a few of these below that are still under the clutches of brits..

1.Why do we still have “collectors” who were primarily ‘collecting’ taxes on behalf of the queen?
2.Why do we still have remains of the stupid west minister style brit democracy like governor, president (exact replacement of their queen/king) etc..
3.Why do we still continue their distorted history? (eg. Aryan invasion)
4.Why do we still have the ties and suits even in places like Madras in 48 degrees, phew..(ok, I too put that act when I had to bark for my salary, sic)
5.Even this all occupying_water_hyacinth was brought as an ornamental plant by the queen during her visit then and we are yet to get out of its clutches even. so many such weeds all over..
6.When will we come out of the loss of pride injected in to our systems by the brits after ‘the minutes’ of macaulay?
7.Why the inefficient bureaucracy of the brit style – filled with sycophancy and corruption to the boot?
8.not to forget the ‘English medicines’ and their specialized diseases..when we had excellent wholistic approaches like ayurveda, siddha etc. Typically this attention to symptom instead of cause attitude spread to all our issues. Eg: we took to DDT instead of taking to tidiness and hygiene!
9.Freedom? But when will we ever get that from the corruption at all levels that spread all over our society during the colony days..
10.No! their influence did not leave even our toilets..the western toilet- an amazing example of totally unfit (physically, climatically,positionally, attitudewise or any wise) product occupying more houses/toilets..che..che..

Theres more, I know u all know too..when time permits and when I have bettered my writing skills lemme cover all those, till then u all ponder as well

aiyoooo

ohmigod..got to run..
I wanted to upload a nice ppt that I had received sometime back..and so went 5 hours from morning today and still I couldnt!
lessons:
1. nothing that says its free is actually free online
2. u learn point 1 after spending a few 'free' hours
3. dont think some googling can get u where ever u want, NO! u cant even upload a ppt on to this blog. so much for on'es confidence.
4. sh*T..if i keep typing my lessons learnt here, i might miss my bus!

oh yeah:-) am leaving for cumbam/Theni for 4 days..have fun and lemme try too..till i come back no posts..and believe me that part shall have greener pastures for sure..

PS: any of u who know to upload a ppt to the blog (after or b4 conversion of ppt to flash, pl send me the details...one temple for u on the roadside of theni-cumbam road)

Time pass..

In the lotsa time that I lazed arnd in Blore recently and in last weeks in mas, I did achieve a few milestones..finished reading some books I had been pushing or reading parallely and saw some movies..The book of mention shall be ‘The story of B’ by Daniel Quinn, the famous author of Ishmael! Fantastic book..mind boggling views thrown in amazing style..conveying a great idea(l) without even mentioning it..the crux of the whole story (the speech by the main character) is infact presented at the end as an addendum! Very novel presentation. Rest were all the non-regular books pending for some time.
Short insight in to the movies:
Cheeni Kum: This was a fantastic movie..not for the storyline or movie making but intelligence packed dialogs. I have never seen an Indian movie with such astute script. Very wisely made..ofcourse Amitabh has freaked out (IMHO he has been freaking out in the recent past when he started selecting roles matching his age and he is really acting only in the last deacde). The old melodious songs of Ilayaraja are fun to hear in hindi with shreya’s lilting voice..the English subtitles at satyam cinemas made my day as it helped me catch a hindi movie in toto! PC Sreeram’s photography adds so much value. All in all a very enjoyable movie..very intelligent one! A debut for the director- Balki, an ad films maker.

Last King of Scotland: That guy Whitaker definitely deserves the Oscar..he freaks out..swinging his moods and showing his mood changes so very well..phenomenal act..a great blend of fiction and real life events with Idi Amin as the main character. Nice knot and well made..not very professional or without holes but keeps us gripping..am happy I saw it, esp for Whitaker’s performance.

The lost city: some of these guys at the Hollywood really amaze me..what all they do..I was astonished by Tom Cruise’s indulgence in The last Samurai! If iam right he infact was incharge of story and script! Here Andy Garcia, that cute guy, is the director and incharge of music for this movie. Yes music!! Though the movie reminds a bit of that old classic Casablanca and a bit of Godfather, it’s a well made neat movie. The music is fantastic. Its about an american family living in Cuba in the hey days and how they pass thru the turmoil days of communist take over – Castro replacing Batista and how Andy Garcia is pushed to move out to US inspite of his reluctance. Very nice movie..worth watching a couple of times..a near classic.oh, forgot to mention! Dustin Hoffman comes as a don, a small role and its really funny to see him like that - bizarre, with no impact! But Garcia has done a neat job as a director, as a music director and as the hero. Hats off!

once again after quite a break..

hey madras weather has been unbelievably cool and enof rains..to the extent we were so happy to see some hide n seek sun so as to dry our clothes:-)

now after that great martyr called haneef its sanjay dutt for our media..ok, he did not go and kill people directly but connived with abusalem and dawood..straight away caught for shielding and hiding some weapons of those known terrorists..i remember reading a transcript of his tele-con with abusalem and ilks planning some ‘eliminations’..he was a ‘family’ rit?Let him as well go thru this deserved punishment..lets not have all that gas of he having become a good n nice person overnight (or last jail term)..then people will come out with ‘there r so many crooks and politicians who have committed more, bla bla’..hey its true, there r more crooks roaming arnd freely, but let one of the rare guilty who has been clearly proved in a court endure the punishment..just think it over: he is being paid so high for his professional acts and still this fella goes and connives with whom? D & co..just for that attitude such guys needs to be given max punishment..somehow Azhar comes to mind, shame that he escaped.

India won at trent bridge! After all against another lowly rated similar failing England..so nothing great about it..both teams (mis)behaved in a silly manner..but what is needed though is really putting some sense in to that sreesanth fella..he neither knows to bowl nor show proper aggression..he thinks being aggressive is to be irritating beyond limits..firstly one needs to perform if he has to back up some nonsensical behaviour. He can neither bowl nor behave properly! this fella does only kirikiri and no dum..sic..
As for the celebrations immly after the win, there was hardly any..man! I thought one shud really celebrate so very well so that just such celebrations shud prompt for more wins, hmm…