world cup and 25 years!

Will any other country guy understand that India is celebrating, heavily that too, the 25th anniv of the cricket world cup we won looong back in 1983!
Think what should Aussies do in that case..and these guys here esp the media are making such a brouhaha about it and its really embarrassing..
to top it all that whole team that won in 83 went to Lords, England and celebrated and even had a champagne opened. They seriously did that, can u believe it? what the phuck is it..these guys are going gaga over a cup won before most of its viewers today were born! Its the most popular game in India, most played viewed and what not..and thats the only cup we ever won..and still being celebrated! doesnt that convey something? hmmmm...

petition one shud sign! to save our coastal lines

The Government of India wishes to put the CMZ notification into effect anytime after 30 June 2008. This will spell disaster for our coastal environment and tens of millions of coastal fishers and fishworkers. Please read and sign the petition(s). Please also circulate this and ask the your friends/recipients to sign them asap.

http://www.petitiononline.com/d4c3b2a1/
or
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/cmz_objections/

The CMZ notification, in terms of its character and contents, in the nature and course of its preparation and in the way it is being thrust upon us, is the perfect embodiment of callousness, injustice and assault on environment and livelihood.

Indian Quagmire

Swamped with problems we say right..i see that literally these days..
It wud start of like a small simple benign errand/job and then wud complicate at each and every step and blow on ur face..No. am not exaggerating..
Lets take this recent example!
I hit up on a prof from MIT who is also the NSS coordinator there..as we were talking about their camps, program etc am a bit more interested in their next camp..then I probe a bit more and try pushing them to have their camp in my neighbourhood (nanmangalam) village.
Ok, I was a bit selfish here..bcos it wud render my neighbourhood a bit tidy and help planting of more trees and cleaning up of the large lake in our area. (NSS camps achieve more than u can get with just the residents involved). I can also pitch in more areas if its close by. These camps are for 10 days normally. These days such camps are compulsory for the students else they cant appear in the third year exams, am told. Now I need to arrange for acco for these kids (boys n girls). So here it starts.
I talk to the panchayat president of that village. While he is glad to have the students (read free service) he says pl try and accommodate them somehow and definitely carry this out. He doesn’t come out with solution. (actually he can get acco thru school or other building under the panchayat)
So now I run to the govt school of nanamangalam. Iam lucky they have a building. (am told that building was constructed last year after years of persuasion). I speak to the HM and she throws a bomb. ‘ we wud be glad to house kids esp NSS ones, but there is no water in this building. I ask ‘whattttttt? in a school where there are 1000 kids, u don’t have water?’..she says we have requested connection and 3 times we got installed the water pipe line, the very night the tap, underground pipe all are looted by some one. So we never did that any more. We have one connection hidden at the end and so get water from there for all emergencies. So now I have an appointment with the authorities to arrange for water and sanitary facilities for the school – BDO, panchayat, police and so will run there.
Dunno what awaits me there..
And each time this is what I see..each task has 3 new surprises and problems and many a times I lose sight of the task I started off with.

Note: But how do I run still? Its not so gloomy always. People like Nirmal infuse enof optimism many times. Ofcourse there are nice things and people that happen too that keeps me going. For eg here at nanmangalam I was directed to Satya Sai old age home. It’s a neat small old age home run purely out of donation. As I talk to them about housing the MIT kids they are more than glad and then ask me if I could source them some compost fertilizer at a discounted price and when I said I can but wud like them to make their own compost out of their domestic waste, they were more than willing. Such additional tasks are never a burden, u see. Also one thing striking these days is, its NGOs that really perform and give us glimmer of hopes. Governments smack of bad governance, sadly.

Dasavatharam dareview

First things first: if u know anyone with some cancer or such like, just take a gun and shoot right at that anatomy and the chances are the bullet shall take away the cancer with it and the patient shall be ok to live long! Ohmeegawd, how did the civilization miss this for so long? But if u think that’s just one absurd thingy in the movie, sorry u shall be heavily disappointed!

Ok, now lets move to caveats. Regulars here know my admiration for kamal here as expressed at various times. So this is not just any hate blog..I did express my doubts about this movie seeing the amount of hype created while blogging on the audio release..( remember aalavandhan, hey ram)
But heart of hearts I was expecting him to belie that and give me a surprise like his devarmagan or anbesivam or gunaa…but my wishes were only wishes, after all..
Btw folks, go ahead and read..there are NO SPOILERS..no one can do that as there is no story or suspense what so ever.
This prolly is just to massage his ego! A narcist’s delight! He just wanted to showcase his make up skills (ignoring story telling, scrip writing, acting, thinking, all else) and gets carried away to take up any and every role..the only interesting part is, if u go without prior knowledge of the 10 roles, u keep guess which could be kamal..but a few minutes down u guess any role that has some show up time is him! So he ends up doing everything from the villain(fletcher) to old woman to some tall vagueo character to all n sundry..
Its not that there is no positive. Ofcourse the telugu naidu RAW officer role and the Boovaragan – dalit leader roles are exemplary. Body language, accent and the way he carries them is fantastic. But to no avail! There are some very intelligent jokes (like “sir can talk 5 languages, in telugu” “u shall be a new avtar, rather old avtar” etc) and some great hollywoodish movie making. But those are just a few instances.
But again, of the diff roles, Bush etc do not carry the same impressive make up he creates normally. The Tall kalifullah, old woman, villain fletcher etc really show up bad. Make up is really awful and too much and easily shows up. No denial that the Bush’s mannerism and bodylang is fine, ‘but for what’ remains in our minds.
Kamal can take solace in one thing or is it we? Since he prolly realised (or due to lack of time) they have another person sporting the heroine role! That’s Asin and thankfully for kamal she shares the ire for all the time she occupies the screen. Infact when the villain character slaps her in the movie almost all viewers felt delighted and asked for once more!
Iam sure none including the whole crew know why that nambi role, chola kings’ anti-vaishnavism etc are there. Just no relevance. Am sure all those vaishnavite cocks who filed a case are looking silly..they shud be so let down if ever they saw the movie..Somebody please tell me if there is something for that episode to be there in this movie, even at the cost of ridiculing my intelligence/common sense..that was the costliest crap I have seen for sometime (ok, b4 sivaji) now. while u r there also tell me why it took so many years to complete too.
The cost reminds me- oh! This is the most expensive movie from India..man, unless all of the crew was bought some prime property there is no way the cost shud be what they are talking. Or kamal cheated them by saying 10 diff guys acted and took some 10 heroes worth salary.
No story, no pace, no apt screenplay, no music (yeah that really was a bummer! It really fails me why one need himesh of all the people- deva or some Xerox brothers wud have done a gr8 job in comparision), no presentation- no nothing!
A BIG LET DOWN! Inspite of kamal’s execution of some of the roles exemplarily. There is just no relevance or interest.
Sorry kamal, u let me down real bad.
Don’t waste time..it shud come in TV soon.. see it then.

Ryots’ riots

The farmers in Karnataka are protesting, that means obviously burning buses and other public properties oblivious to the fact that we all pay for it indirectly, in turn. Lets forget the aside..the protests-for what? Shortage of fertilisers!!!!!!!!!!yes chemical fertilizers!
The farmers are not getting the quantity of poison they need..so is it not a boon?
A sensible govt wud go organic and hand hold the farmers to a new and better path.
But…

Shame!

On anticipation of price rise of Petrol most bunks didn’t sell yesterday evening (rather from noon!)..what a shame..This was just on anticipation of the imminent price rise..but that has been going on for quite sometime now..that by itself is a shameful act, for the govt to dilly dally for so long..and when it came out with strong rumors (yeah most decisions of our govt is ‘leaked’, tested and then the real announcements follow)
So yesterday most dealers knew govt wudnt pull on further and so shut shops..what a shame..all this to book more profits on their existing stocks..such hiding under the armpit strategy gets them the price rise (Rs. 5 in this case) plus their original margin (some 10%?)..cheapos..how greedy can one get and how cheap can they stoop?
The irony here was the price rise came on the world environment day! A good move to dissuade us all from automobile usage!

Oil price

Remember the oil price per barrel in single digits? Can u guess? run ur memory wild and try guessing when(if ever) crude price per barrel was <10$.
If you thought it shud be decades or ages back, NO!
I remember for sure 9 years back it was in single digits in 1999! inspite of a big war in 1990 (Iraq- Kuwait). But I do remember it surging high in (since) Y2K.This year it has all along been in 3 digits!
A natural resource (ok, available only in few places) that’s being pumped at a frenetic pace still is being priced so high is condemnable. Who eats the max cake there, any idea?
Lets not get in to that, but lets look at why this keeps going up!
Its bcos of you and me..all us who do not care and keep striving that much more and accommodate the gas price along with our essentials. We still do not look at public transport or pooling as an option. We all still see this ‘owning 2 cars’ or more as a statement, owning a gas guzzler as a fad! We all just don’t bother if its still justified to take a car go with AC on full steam bcos we think its affordable. We keep telling ourselves that we have ‘graduated’ to the upper middle class or the neo rich and so we can and shud afford all this. Else its so demeaning and think the neighbourhood is looking down on us.
So we slowly, inadvertently pushed this oil issue in to very personal and silly issue. We coolly pushed it in to a question of affordability than availability.
So there are so many of us out there forgetting about the oil being a natural resource and that it can deplete soon and threw reasoning out of our SUV’s window long back. We keep pumping up the demand and those who keep sucking it out of the earth is getting richer and richer and still doesn’t care if the price has to be in reasonable limits.
But one solace- bio diesel or not- we are reaching there soon. We shall fall in to low or nil supply area soon and we shall all then gaze at stars and think, shud we have done this? Or pooled then?? Or that??
Start getting your excuses right, from now on!

Follow the market

Bottom line first: every body follows the market!
Just check out who all were here recently. Jackie Chan, Jeffery Archer, just about every body whose is somebody is here! Did u wonder why this influx of celebrities? Simple, Market. That’s why the bond was eyeing aiswarya rai then and many Hollywood stars wink here too often these days.
It’s the 1 billion pair of eyes that they all eye! Ok, you shall come back saying some 30% is BPL and do u think that’s a market. You are free to offset even another 40 % . Even then the remaining 30% is biiiiig..when the pager (remember those small bleeping nonsense that was considered a technological revolution a decade and half back?) was introduced in India the penetration in US was >50% and in a year from then India had 1-2% penetration and was way above US in numbers sold!
That’s the market they are all eyeing. So you will see Archers selling books, Chans movies, Channels soaps, FIFA soccer, politicians their countries and while we will be lying and watching all this glory and imagining what a country we have become. Meanwhile China wud have laid roads (literally) and taken the real cake.