Scary times

R loves animals of all kinds. You will find a lot of small figurines spread across our home. Most of them will be discovered after you have either sat or stepped on them. This is not rare. Some of the animals are. Suck it up.

C has planned and created an Elephant costume for 2 year old R. Almost from the minute the costume got ready, R, who has not even seen it yet, wants to be Buzz Lightyear. C is giving me the darkest of looks for introducing Buzz into our lives. The case has been filed under its-all-your-fault folder volume 23.

Taking cue from Inception, I have been diligently planting the idea in R’s head that Buzz loves animals especially elephants. R now agrees to the unreliable fact that Buzz Lightyear’s favorite animal is the elephant. From a total loss, something has been salvaged. There might be a cute little tantrum but the elephant might just prevail. Given this little success in brain washing, it is a little puzzling why R wants to be a leopard as of this morning, the day of his Halloween parade at school. My frantic questions on why he wants to be a leopard have been dismissed with “I wanna be a leopard” retorts of increasing intensity. Will the leopard change its spots for once, in favor of an elephant’s spectacular grey hide?

Details at 10.

The Android Wars

Lurker's delight

Fight! Fight! Fight!

I guess it had to happen at some point. Two opinionated humorists popular among the Indian diaspora of bloggers find a point of confrontation. Interesting view points that titillates the agnostic lurkers among us - Hawkeye takes on KrishAshok. Looks like it will fizzle out but charming (yes, charming) writers nevertheless.

Bummer! No end of world on Dec 21 2012

NASA has thrown water to the theory.

On their website they even offer a rational answer to one of my favorite doubts on the Mayan calendar. The expiry date is on the calendar – not the world!

Thanks Chinthu for forwarding the link

Counterintuitive

I am trying hard to use "Counterintuitive" somewhere in my daily verbiage.

This is the best I could come up with.

Wifey's expectation that I put back the toilet seat as a courtesy is counterintuitive because she never leaves it up. Again, as a courtesy.

Motorola Droid ignites killer talks

Find the best cell phone plans and more graphics at BillShrink.com

My thoughts:

1. Droid seems more of a clone than a killer.

2, Why isn’t Blackberry in the mix?

Honoring the dead

The bushy beard almost masked the holy one’s face

The crowd was spellbound

with as much respect as there was fear

The topic was life after death

holy one was preaching the importance of leading a virtuous life to enjoy after life pleasures

“Our elders died in the confidence that we will protect their legacy”

He was quoting extensively form the Gita

making one think that he authored it.

“Protect all their possessions as your own”

The flow was broken by the constant clicking noise

It was coming from the second row

holy one looses his divine cool

He yells at the audience trying to seek out the source for the noise

A teenager with a plastic box

Fiddling with the lid leading to the unforgivable noise

“Imbecile!” thunders the holy one.

The teenager stands up

Embarrassed beyond anything.

Couple of opportunists from the crowd voice their displeasure as well.

“Is this too boring for you?”

“Did you lose your way here?”

“Did someone force you to be here?”

“Why are you spoiling it for the rest of us?”

He squeaks something.

Somehow finds his voice.

He had come to the discourse trying to clear a doubt

His father had passed away recently

The only legacy he had left behind was this plastic box with firecrackers in it

His father loved firecrackers

“He gave this box of firecrackers to me on his deathbed.”

The boy’s doubt was – how do I best honor my father?

preserve these firecrackers as that’s all I have left of him.

or do I light them and enjoy them the way he did?

I will then have nothing left of him.

How do I honor my dead father?

Polluted Pillaiyaar or Polluting Pillaiyaar

Ganapathi Babba Bay Area

Of slumdogs and slumgods

Is it the story of our times that movies based on poverty are 'in'?

The first half of slumdog millionaire had me vacillating between denial and acceptance. I went in to the cinema hall already aware that there were portions of the non-paying public in India that were claiming that the movie was casting a bad light on India. I was defending the people behind the movie for having the courage to show what the Indian movie makers hadn't. This was even before I saw a single frame of the movie.Then the slum scenes with the public toilets and the impoverished kids came along and made me squirm in my seat. This is exaggeration, I was thinking to myself. Exploitation was another word that came to my mind. The disgusted gasps from fellow audience members did not help my case. This is not India, I was now telling my audience of one. Much to my relief, the movie evolved into some sort of underworld thriller and the storyline moved out of the slums. This gave me time to think - hey, what DO I know about that part of India? Nothing. How do I even know it is exaggeration? When Karan Johar and co. are making movies on NRIs, Danny Boyle is fully justified in making movies on slum dwellers.  The early shock of slum life was now pushed to the background and I was able to pick up the background music. Screenplay and BGM are bound to score big at various award functions this year. All said and done, I don't think I can mention Amitabh Bachcan's name without an unconscious squirm.

Never having fully recovered from slumdog, I walked into 'Naan Kadavul' with the guys. The storyline I had in mind was that Arya, an aghori, comes back to his native town in Tamil Nadu - bashes some bad guys and ends up killing Pooja, his love interest, due to circumstances and goes back to Kasi and back to the life of an ascetic. Bala has slapped me hard for my pedestrian expectations. The movie title is a misnomer as the 'naan kadavul' part doesn't come into real focus until the very end of the movie. Having grown up with some sort of phobia against beggars - this movie is my worst nightmare. There is some bad memory in the recess of my mind, which thankfully did not present itself anymore than just remind me of its presence. I couldn't take my eyes of the 'Pitchai Paathiram' song wondering all the time why I was even watching it in the middle of the night when I could be resting my eyes at home. I couldn't bring myself to concentrate on Madhu Balakrishnan's voice or Ilaiyaraja's lyrics as the picturization took hold of my senses. Another part of India that I can never relate to but I am all the more sad that it exists. Ilaiyaraja could not be suppressed for long though - the climax scenes were enhanced by what seasoned writers will call a tour-de-force performance in the BGM department.

snow storm across europe

Looks like I just missed it or vice versa

My world is safe

A city under siege

Airports closed following bomb blasts

My family wading its way through all this

They are now here - safe and sound

My world is safe

Now I will breathe out

and look at the news with renewed anger

Rajinikanth facts

On the eve of Kuselan's release, an open challenge to Chuck Norris.

Rajinikanth is not Kuselan but you will go to the movie for him

There is no I in team but there are two in Rajini

Rajinikanth can cook Maggi in one minute

Rajinikanth built the Himalayas for his summer retreat

FDA has warned tomatoes to avoid Rajinikanth

Light travels at the speed of Rajinikanth

When Rajinikanth rolls a stone it gathers moss.

Rajinikanth understands chaos theory and hence Dasavatharam

Rajinikanth has offered to acquire Microsoft

The world decides what to do each day after reading about it in Rajini's blog.

If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

In the business world, the unanimous answer seems to be 'yes'. I came across this instance of plagiarism through itwofs.com. This is the bizarre case of blogger inji pennu vs. the portal kerals.com. It starts off as a 'simple' case of publishing unauthorized content and a complaint towards that but takes a nasty turn with a thamizhan against malayali angle thrown in for good measure. I went through most of the long post and was left flabbergasted at the chronology of events. This is truly bizarre.

The original post (albeit a lengthy one) can be found at

http://myinjimanga.blogspot.com/2008/06/stealing-threat-cyber-stalking-abuse.html

Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight

In one of his early movies, Vivek keeps repeating "Enna oru sindhanai!". One such sindhanai is "Accident aanaa Ambulance varum, Ambulance-ukke accident aana? Enna oru sindhanai!" Here, a brain expert suffers from a brain stroke and has an esoteric experience observing the way her brain is shutting off different functions one by one. Having recovered, twelve years hence, Dr. Taylor narrates her now famous stroke of insight.

Remembering Kalpana Chawla

Memoria

• Asteroid 51826 Kalpanachawla, one of seven citations named after the Columbia's crew^[18]
• On February 5 2003, India's Prime Minister announced that the meteorological series of satellites, "METSAT", will be renamed as "KALPANA". The first satellite of the series, "METSAT-1", launched by India on September 12 2002 will be now known as "KALPANA-1". "KALPANA-2" is expected to be launched by 2007.^[19]
• 74th Street in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City has been renamed 74th Street Kalpana Chawla Way in her honor.
• The University of Texas at Arlington (where Chawla obtained a Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering in 1984) opened a dormitory named in her honor, Kalpana Chawla Hall, in 2004.^[20]
• Kalpana Chawla Award award was instituted by the government of Karnataka in 2004 for young women scientists^[21]
• The girls hostel at Punjab Engineering College, is named after Kalpana Chawla. In addition, an award of INR twenty five thousand, a medal, and a certificate is instituted for the best student in Aeronautical engineering department^[22]
• NASA has dedicated a super computer to Kalpana.^[23]
• One of Florida Institute of Technology's student apartment complexes, Columbia Village Suites, has halls named after each of the astronauts, including Chawla.
• NASA Mars Exploration Rover mission has named seven peaks in a chain of hills, named the Columbia Hills, after each of the seven astronauts lost in the Columbia shuttle disaster, including Chawla hill after Kalpana Chawla.
• Steve Morse from the band Deep Purple created a song called "Contact Lost" in memory of the Columbia tragedy along with her interest in the band. The song can be found on the album, "Bananas".^[24]
• Kalpana Chawla has inspired several young Indians aspiring to be astronauts. ^[25]
• Her brother, Sanjay Chawla, remarked "To me, my sister is not dead. She is immortal. Isn't that what a star is? She is a permanent star in the sky. She will always be up there where she belongs."^[26]

 

Source: Answers.com

From Chennai to the land of George Carlin

I have developed a habit of sleeping to digital cacophony - either from the television or from a walkman and more recently an MP3 player. During my first trip to the US, I pretty much used the same ruse to catch a few winks. I browsed through the audio offerings on Singapore Airlines and found a channel that featured stand-up comedians. Bill Cosby being featured in the list and his 'Noah and God' routine was what made me choose the channel. I was introduced to George Carlin this way. It was an eye-opener in more ways than one. The particular piece was an attack on the way English was being abused today especially by the airline industry. 

What does it mean to ‘pre-board’, you get on before you get on?

We would like to pre-board those passengers traveling with small children.” Well, what about those passengers traveling with large children?

They might tell you you’re on a non-stop flight. Well, I don’t think I care for that. No, I insist that my flight stop! Preferably at an airport!

When two planes almost collide, they call it a ‘near miss.’ It’s a near hit! A collision is a near miss!

In the unlikely event of a water landing….” Well what exactly is a ‘water landing?’ Am I mistaken, or does this sound somewhat similar to crashing into the ocean?

they tell you you’ll be landing shortly. That sound to anybody like we’re gonna miss the runway? ‘Final approach’ is not very promising either, is it?

“…enjoy your stay in Chicago, or wherever your final destination might be.” All destinations are final. That’s what it means, destiny, final. If you haven’t gotten where you’re going, you aren’t there yet!

Which brings me to ‘terminal.’ Another unfortunate word to be used in association with air travel. And they use it all over the airport, don’t they?

(The full text is available at http://www.michaelhanscom.com/eclecticism/2005/04/13/george-carlin-airline-announcements/)

There were quite a few beeps to mask the profanity. This only made me seek out the original version within days of landing in the US.

Carlin's passing away has left me in a funny state of mind. Not a happy one for sure but I can recall only the funny lines that made me chuckle like an idiot during that flight.

Oru mottai, Oru meesai, naalu school pasanga - adhukku oru thalaivan - a violent love story

Oru mottai, Oru meesai, naalu school pasanga - adhukku oru thalaivan

Superstar's famous lines came to my mind as I stared at the sleeping ruffians in front of me. They were ten in all. Three more than what Thalaivar had to deal with in Rajathi Raja. I am not a violent person but this was not a situation resolved through dialogues or mediators. Granted, the ten thugs did not provoke me this time but I have been hurt by them in the recent past. Justice had to be delivered hered.

As they lay there, seemingly asleep, I knew that this was the best opportunity to do away with them.

I started with the smallest of them

The tool that I had obtained specially for this task was now put to test. Not exactly a surgeon's tool but one used in the higher echelons of a hygiene-crazy society. I cradled the tool between my fingers as I approached my target. If I fail with this guy then he is certain to wake the rest of them and I would have lost my chance forever. I held him by the top- while positioning the weapon very close to him - separating him from the rest - constantly checking for movements from the others - took a deep breath - snip! I didn't even realize that I had done it until I saw the body part rolling away from its former position. The rest did not even stir

Encouraged by the first success - I became trigger happy in a way. Until guy no.5. Four successful beheadings and I took my eye away from the proceedings for a second. He was a little chubby. Maybe that is why I missed the first time. I had to cut him twice in quick succession. I was amazed and paused the hacking for a bit. Was there an unknown serial killer in the family history? Where from did I get such cold blood? I just beheaded five thugs. I had to remind myself - thugs they were. They had drawn blood from my dear ones in the past. It was now my turn. Vengeance is mine. Divide and rule. Were they awake, the ten of them would have easily struck the sharp edged tool out of my hand and mocked me. Not today, not now. The meek shall rule tonight. If not by brawn, then by deception.

The remaining five - were they brothers of the slain five? Twins, perhaps? There remained a chubby one, a small one, a tall one and two others who looked remarkably average and remarkably similar. All five were done with in half the time that it took me for the first five. Looking back at the carnage, I grinned with pride - not a single trace of blood anywhere.

I then called every one at home to witness my success.

Cutting my three-month old son's finger nails is not an easy task. Nooooooo!

But today, I prevailed.

Thank you thalaivar(s) - Superstar for the inspiration and His Highness for sleeping through it.

In.A.Deep.Trance: Am I getting agnostic?#links

In.A.Deep.Trance: Am I getting agnostic?#links

A follow up question?

Why do people tap their chin with their fingers in front of a diety? I've never understood that and have never done that.

Am I getting agnostic?

Disclaimer - This should give a clarity on my spiritual stance. I've collected information from peer-reviewed sources and peers themselves. I am God fearing and also believe in the duality of nature. My outlook on life is a cognizance of all this part-belief, part-reverence data.
My religion - I am a great fan of Sanathana Dharma. It is my hereditary religion. I fell in love with it once I was able to comprehend the fact that it is an intelligent religion to begin with.It gives ample scope of self-realization. Naturally, it worries me when friends take to the sensationalism and hype rather than the essence of the religion. It does not cater to idol worship. Yet, the hottest topics associated with the religion today center around authenticity of birth-places, recorded Godly activities; so on and so forth. I yearn for company that sees my religion the way I see it.
God(s) - My findings tell me that the oldest known scripture is what we collectively call 'The Vedas'. I've accepted the fact that not everyone can understand the Vedas let alone follow its preaching. (The precise reason why there has only been one Aaadhi Shankaracharya!). The next available texts seem to be the Ramayana and the Mahabharatha. I believe that these were written after the Vedas and were aimed at mass education. The idea was to introduce characters as incarnations of the Supermen being and stories that helped convey the Vedic core. Where the Vedas were elemental, the epics were narrative and gave human form to various theories propounded in the Veda. People were able to identify God once a human form was provided. In "A tiger for Malgudi", R.K.Narayan beautifully symbolizes God to be a ferocious 50 foot tiger with multiple heads and many limbs. Of course, the narrator of the tale was a tiger. The Ramayana is character driven - wholly based on Rama and introduced the concept of idol worship - idols symbolizing moral goals. The Mahabharatha was more ambitious and could have easily been Krishna-centric. There was a lot more to convey and eventually the canvas was too big for one character. The longevity of these epics are amazing. Any story born out of human consciousness will find its origin in the Mahabharatha. The Gita is the moral arm of this multi-layered magnum opus. The Puranas were later derived from these scriptures to justify different needs. I've been able to draw a lot of parallels between tales in the Mahabharatha and tales in the Greek epics by Homer. A good story is always adapted.
Prayer - Choose a clean place devoid of distractions. Strive for inner peace. Resolve to help others. Start your day with a smile. - This is the translation I got for a sloka that I've known all my life.  I never chant this Sloka anymore until I feel that I can justify its message. It has also given me the arrogance to laugh at someone who says he chants this sloka a hundred times every second Friday using a certain flower, facing a certain direction and in general resolving to help himself or herself to the 'loukik' pleasures of life. Nobody does charity anymore. Yet, that is the singular characteristic of the religion.
Hope - Licensing the fore-mentioned arrogance, I hope everyone will stop glorifying the religion - as opposed to learning it and living it.

Being a stranger in one's own home

Another plane. Another movie. This time 'The Bucket List' directed by Rob Reiner and starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. By now, almost everyone seems to agree that Rob Reiner is a spent force. The man who gave us A Few Good Men, Misery, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally and above all Stand By Me has somehow lost that touch. We only get to see such mediocre products like Rumor has it, Alex and Emma and such. I actually had to look up the name for Alex and Emma. The Bucket List comes somewhere in the middle.

If I think about it, it is a pretty soppy story. Two men at their deathbed become asymptomatic for a while although death is near at hand. They use this time to prepare a list of things they want to do before the inevitable happens. Skydiving and mountain climbing on one side - the true journey seems to be in self-discovery. Even then the character of Jack Nicholson is predictable while that of Morgan Freeman is more realistic. As always, I somehow try and identify real life with reel life - a gift and a curse. In this case, I was fascinated by Freeman's character who gives up on his ambitions to raise a family. He drops out of college to earn money as a mechanic. Never gets back to his true ambition. He realizes and narrates that in due course he got sucked into the machinery that is daily life and even his wife becomes a stranger to him. She is still the same woman but he never feels the desire to hold her hand while walking down the street. He becomes a stranger in his own home. While on the world tour, he realizes what he is missing and goes back to his wife. My take is that when somebody starts earning a living and has dreams elsewhere, the family suffers even if they are provided for.

This insight apart, I think this is the first movie of Freeman's where he actually has a female partner. Pic courtesy: movies.sulekha.com