Ananthoo's updates

When all trees have been cut down, when all animals have been hunted, when all waters are polluted, when all air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money. - Cree Prophecy

Monday, July 23, 2007

Good bye Mr.President!

Oh, Thanks a ton too..for once some one enhanced the stature of that post..
You were the proudest face we had and to decorate such a decorative post, we are thankful to u, Mr.Kalam! to have added to our dreams, for having met atleast a million students, to have infused some hopes in to many of us and to have continued your blemishless record and for having given us all an opportunity to have a presentable president to the outside world.
We were all happy last 5 years and wished we could be for one more term, that was not to be.
Still you gave us lotsa reasons to be happy and proud many a times. Now you walk away from the Rashtrapathi Bhavan with just 2 suitcases and thats making news! That should have been norm, though, hmm..still you gave us hope and still do..thanks a ton gentleman pres!

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Friday, July 20, 2007

employee of the year!


now dont tell me I didnt give u an idea to impress ur boss;-)

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Do I miss CH?

Friends keep asking me this- if I (don’t) miss swiss(CH)..i used to sternly refute this for long since my return..but recent past esp the arrival of summer there means onset of cricket season..u can take away all, but give me that fun filled swiss cricket..man, that was exciting- prolly the idea of playing cricket in alp locales or the idea of feeling important in a team filled with nearly40s guys (hey,joking there were enof younsters)or just that making use of long swiss summer days or the asian food/beer packed with typical srilankan hospitality during the breaks or the rash pranks of some imprudent fools whose importance to politicking than playing was well known or just about a combo of all that..i sure do miss that..every summer those guys there still try their trick, throwing carrot, posing like inviting me for the ‘season’ or rather daring me to come and prove my youth..be warned, some day I may still do it!
But that’s not all..everytime (thank god I do that so rarely) I flip thru channels and every other song has a captivating swiss scenery and I go- oh! That’s Interlaken or is it davos or bla bla..and they really turn me on..ok ok not literally but push me close enof to miss that CH or atleast those glorious days..
Still no regrets on what iam doing here or rather not doing;-0
These sweet little nothings, small small stones being turned, meeting fantastic folks, involving in unique and meaningful projects and having my own time- lazing around at will and traveling at no will..those shall always help me overcome those small instances when I tend to (read that again, its only tend to) miss CH..gotcha??

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Qwikie

Travel, unwell, nothing worthy to write about – normally its one of these reasons for lack of post here..this time its all of these:-(
thx to all those who visited inspite and those who mailed to check if things were fine..hey pl allow a few days of absence in our contract;-0
Since am here lemme as well scribble something and take a day or 2 off..
Actually nothing really worth the type, hmm..
ok, copa Americana and my plans of waking thru the night to watch it was destroyed by that ubiquitous virus in blore..i did catch up with it the next day..what a mess argentines made of it..here was their chance at long last post-maradonna and that was helped by a half strong Brazil and still they messed it..they played like 11th standard D section.. hopeless display of nerves, che..that reminded me of the hype and chance of an Indian team wud be touted when they get a chance to play a half strong pak team and still goof it..that was a very familiar display of nerves for us Indians..
Talking of Indian cricketers and their nerves- here they are in England and battered by a small club team -england lions, ha haa…I guess dravid shud be preparing heavily to deliver his standard “they did well, boys tried their best,blah blah..we need to improve the fielding, catching, bowling, battings and making use of the lunch breaks well”..may be he will try a coventish accent – the only way he can prolly impress the English spectators..
That’s enof for a qwiki rit? ciao

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

King Roger!

so Fedex conquers once again (5th time,eh) and maketh me happy..that was a good match, reminding of Borg-Mcenroe stuff..worthy finals..above all fedex fully worth equaling Borg's feat..wait, sampras- fedex is coming fast..
as for womens final- sigh..sigh..i pity those who paid and watched the finals..but this lady venus has something special to really (re)surface once in few years to reach the pinnacle and go in to hiding..

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Friday, July 06, 2007

Sivaji - dareview!

Yes, am going to call a spade a spade..a daring attempt..
so my caveats first:
U can abuse me, threaten me or even kill me- but all online only.
I know, most of my friends are rajini fans rather fanatics..but then even they are asked to write here- no personal discussions on this..
Pl donot sermonize on how good a person he is or give me some comparision/equivalent of crap Hollywood pics..then that is crap too and I shall call it too the same..plus what is being said here is what I felt on seeing this much hyped movie (+ some accumulated rajini movie syndromes) ..lets stick to the screen events alone..
Most imp caveat- I love that fella so much as a person (ok, lemme forgive him for not coming to politix which I wanted him to badly- u cud not hav gotten a more honest guy is my op) and his humility..just check some of his interviews after all this hulla for this movie and u wud ask if he is the super star on whom so much is being said..his eyes reflect downright honesty always..but then that’s the real person..in a reel person one (atleast I) expects more of performance and acting than the nourishment the role supplies.

I went to see the movie to avoid the astonished voices of my friends (even on ISD calls) if I watched..some one said ‘don’t dare to tell me u didn’t see it as yet’..so I risked it..and so u hear it from me what I felt:

Some generalizations:
Most Rajini movies (like MGR movies of yester years) confuse between the actor, his role and persona..even if he comes as a gate keeper the co-actors, directors (and the fans, ofcourse) confuse and impart so much hype and respect in to that. So am more used to the owner of the house/company saluting and respecting the ‘gatekeeper’ so much as it cud be nauseating..that continues in this movie too..
His dance(?) wud be the best comical sequence in his movies..forget his walks and some stylish pranks that he wud perform in the midst of his songs to please his fan(atic)s..and his miming is the icing on the cake for me- I always enjoy some funny pieces like : he wud mime one in his fingers indicating one (for onru) where the lyrics wud be togetherness (onrupattu)..I shud collect some 1000s like this from his old movies and release one day..that shud be fun!
He is too bloody decent to show passion or romance or intimacy that he wud keep that much ‘decent distance’ even in ‘close’ scenes. Infact u wud see more emoting from him when he was doing that to vivek than to the heroine!
What ever his role is whole of TN wud ridiculously recognize that reel person, in the movie that is. For eg here- as soon as this NRI comes from US he throws a party and the who is who of TN (reel ones like the biggest industrialist, minister et al) all attend it. More fun is when he lands a bunch of hep girls come to the airport bcos one software guy is returning and they wud promptly disappear the moment he say GO..
In serious scenes too, some one or the other wud deliver some dialog which wud have more relevance to his persona in real life than to the reel role that he is playing then!
So in general in a rajini or mgr movie the non-comedy scenes end being best comical scenes.

Punch dialogs: rotten old they are as a ploy in a movie and have lost their relevance too..vivek says in this movie subtly and so takes the pain of delivering some, him self!. They have been so meaningless but so much followed and worshipped..again confusion factor here – between the role and person. Some years ago so dialogs against JJ wud surface ..and many times absolute crap: for eg here the biggest n talked about is “singam thaniya thaan varum” (trsln: Lion always comes alone!grrrrr unlike the pigs that come in herds) accompanied by so much of ear dashing music and effects (and side effects from fans) and he obviously entered that scene with Vivek!! Hah haa “thaniya thaan varum” and all that special effects for a scene he DID NOT come alone! So much for the punch dialog’s relevance – in movie and outside..If I expand on the outside it wud divert the focus from the movie, so lets ignore that for now.

Story: or the lack of it..ok..nri returns to serve his country/people and sees lotsa hurdles esp by the villain and the hero thwarts all that and comes out winner, ofcourse. But the weakest of all shankar’s movies..shankar is almost absent (remember how much empathy he used to generate – eg. Indian, mudhalvan, anniyan) and prolly banked on the magic of Rajini and ofcourse it has paid. But both Shankar and sujatha (script) are absent ! come to think of the amazing dialogs this duo has brot in previous outings with the glorius exception of Boys.. (“police inspectorku laser disc appanukku paasama?”)they have let Rajini down is my feeling. Infact some ridiculous dialogs like “ippadi irukkara ooru ippadi aagidum” giving crap ideas that tar and huge buildings is what is needed! And BTW why is it only politicos for black money and not any of these cinema guys? Talk of guts.. talking of guts- did u guys notice the effect of ramdoss and co have on sivaji/rajini? No ciggies thia time, its chewing gum;-) and that bounces off his hand, villains head, architectural prototype of his complex and what not? Hmmmmm…

Culture: Oh, Can one forget the tamil culture? As said b4, there r scores of women (scantily dressed) who are ready for our hero every where rit from the moment he lands, but he shoos them all and suggests he needs a true tamil cultured lady..and there she falls right in front fully dripping in culture and what not! Always skimpily dressed (hey, Shankar & co- u cant fudge accounts there on her dress costs)..2 feet above and 1 feet below the naval was always free- (dear govt- take note pl, one acre of free poromboke land there!)..my word am I getting old? Or was it tooooooo obvious?

Spl effects: found rajini's face/head too big than normal..side effect of the special effects?? That whitey stuff was yucky..i mean the thought n execution on screen was fine, but y wud one waste so much time n money for something of no relevance..its their money, ok but it pains me. Shankar has this knack of thinking big and spending so much for any smallest of scene too..if there has to be a shadow then its created with some special software in hongkong or US and so much is talked about it (crisp marketing, but) when it cud have occurred naturally or with minimal camera tricks. Gone are the days of his gorgeous and mindboggling song sequences..its more repetition like rahmans music..tending towards stale..there is this vulgar display of money spent (= wasted) than the role or story demanding such enormity..
Come to think of it, the comedy, sentiments and all other paraphernalia looked like an SPMuthuraman movie..as a co-producer did he have a say? Then good luck guys..

But come to think of the stats they r throwing..what a hit..what a planned marketing hype..add Rajini’s commercial magic to it and u have the perfect concoction..but they have depended too much only on that gas than real stuff..may be it pleased lotsa fans..more so bcos such great commercial noises and achievements..may be they wud be v happy for rajini’s commercial success and wud love to be a part of these stats and so wud run a couple of more times to the theatres, but heart of heart wud accept they expected more and this is not as great as being created..

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Thursday, July 05, 2007

and then it rained..and was harvested too..

Sekar Raghavan a resident of Besant Nagar, Chennai, of the now famous Rain centre is another amazing down-to-earth person with ample sense of humour, . The trigger that sent him down the rain water harvesting path was the rapid decrease in both the quality and level of ground water in his area with increased urbanization.
Urbanites were under the assumption that a) water would always be available no matter how it was splurged b) supplying it was someone else’s responsibility.

Akhash Ganga’s rain centre is a truly inspiring place. Some of the interesting statistics from their walls :
In Chennai all the rain falls in 100 hours and this has to be effectively collected and used over the rest of the 8660 hours.
The source of 98% of fresh water is rain.
More here.

Today water harvesting could be a very popular term but to bring it here was hell of a task..If TN is the foremost state in RWH credit shud go to this gentleman. Though out of humility he claims he was fortunate that things happened around him. Luckily the TN govt. was convinced of the importance and urgency for rain water harvesting then and introduced a new law enforcing it. This would have been the only effective way to make a pretty short sighted bunch of people of a whole state “do” something that did not give them immediate (monetary) benefit.

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Wednesday, July 04, 2007

oh, yet again!

yet again another Indian(muslim) is involved in a terror act..a brit resident at that. yet again..a well read (do we ever call this well educated? binladen university?)! and the media here immediately runs to his house and interviews his sister, mother, thelawala and hire cyclewala and who all have a competition of who defends this character the best..yet again we will never know what this person was up to and was he really a terrorist or just a helper! yet again we are all over fed by such nonsense..oh man..yet again am bored and dont even feel like writing further..

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Sunday, July 01, 2007

ouch..one more time- a very wrong choice!


Iam amazed how things go on in India when real big issues shall be totally ignored by the majority. The number of scandals and the grossity are a big example and a sad story at that. Recently the prez nominee herself being such a gross offender (instrumental in some killing- even if no direct proof, then the normal maratha style of sugar economics- coop and ditch it costing the exchequer really heavy, RBI indiction on the coop bank which was clearly in her name…man that stinks)..ok, what else can one expect from petty politicians who pulled her out of the blue. Oh, talk of their intentions to get a ‘woman’ elected to the high post and conveniently our junta forgets about how all these same politrixians looked the other way when one lady called Laxmi seghal contested last time!Then we had these bunch of jokers - third front! Losers!! They came up with a comic show of trying to woo in Kalam and make a mess of his reputation. Oh man what a man he was, who brought respectability to that post and instead of straightaway giving him an extension we made a mess and our people wud still be spectators! Grand one at that..

but sigh..what we have thrusted up on us now, unfortunately!

I feel like shouting..so joined the band wagon here: