Magnifying Glass On Fine Print

People who work for Verizon's pricing division must be wetting their pants on seeing this letter.

Please provide a description of whether or how a customer seeking to sign up for Verizon Wireless service by first selecting a device or service plan on the Verizon Wireless website would be able to find out about the levels and terms and conditions of the ETF, other than by calling up the formal Customer Agreement accessible in small type at the bottom of the web page.

SixthSense Technology

Controversies, offense, liberals et all

Expanding on the previous post. Disclaimer: For whatever it is worth: I am not offended that nude pictures were drawn, not boiling over in angst or see any religion being thoroughly diminished by this one instance.

1. There seems be an equal an opposite argument to almost every argument one can come up with on this issue. And all arguments including mine seem to be equally flawed. This post probably adds more to the nonsense and is tagged under my new theory 'awareness, though is something, is not everything'. The flaws are exploited by both M.F and shiv sena so that they can do their own thing. Flaws/Loopholes serve to maintain equilibrium in the real world. M.F. had his way and shiv sena theirs.

2. I disagree with people who say that M.F. already has lot of money and so this is not about money. For all his richness, I think M.F. still needs to maintain and increase his money/fame. This is not about art or freedom of speech. Completely not. This is just like so many other 'revealing' autobiographies. The controversy is for marketing purposes. Money. So let us just treat it like that.

3. Most of the controversies surrounding religion, I have seen so far have always been about money. Some publicity is created by mocking some aspect of religion, The characterization of this controversy is someone stupidly picking an aspect of religion completely out of context. They get away by claiming some reference to old literature.

4. The people who "truly" oppose such "blasphemies" because it offends their religious beliefs are not the ram sena, shiv sena goondas. In fact the goondas care less about it than the common man. They overreact to get political mileage. For purposes of telling the common man that 'hey! I am here for you'. And violence during such instances always allow the goondas to finish off past personal vendetta.

5. So in effect the people who create the controversy and people who get offended are 'extremists' and do it for purposes other than adherence to religion.

6. The news carries only the extremist (both M.F Hussain and Shiv Sena in this case)point of view. But not the common man's view. Gives an impression that there can be only two categories - 'liberal' or 'conservative'. Just like marriage matrimonial ads where people ask for 'traditional' or 'broadminded' alliances. There is no space for 'normal' people here. When I see the words 'liberal' and 'broadminded' being used, I wonder what crap do people throw out in their everyday lives that they are desperately begging for me to be 'broadminded'. They think that's their only hope for acceptance. Normal people do not need to tolerate idiotic behavior of other people in the pretext of having the broad mind. The 'normal' mind will allow of toleration of normal behavior. I suspect the extra broadness is allow for 'abnormal' behavior on part of the extremists.

7. When prominent personalities say "hindus are offended" at some controversy. Amit Varma and other liberal types react by saying "hindus are not offended" and also say "xyz person is not representative of hindus". Thereby they commit the same logical flaw of talking on behalf of a larger cross section of people. Let me commit the same logical flaw now. Such liberals, to me, do not represent normal people ('yes' I get to define 'normal' and as mentioned this post is not without its flaws). They follow the logic of 'liberalism' or 'broadmindedness' described in # 7 above. 'Normal' Atheists don't hate god and don't passionately believe that the opposite of god exists. They just don't share the beliefs of religious people and leave it at that. Conversely - when 'normal' religious person believes in God they love God like a family member or in some cases even more. 'Normal' behavior is to get offended when someone makes nude art out of it or puts it in toilet papers. 'Normal' atheists won't get offended at such things but will certainly recognize that it is natural that an average religious person will be. If there are so called 'liberals' who are not offended and expect other to not be offended - then they do not have normal adherence to their atheism or their religion. They throw out crap because they want people to be broadminded and take in that crap. So regular people who don't feel the urge to eat crap need not be expected to tow the line of such liberals.

8. Saying one instance of controversy does not break a great religion is also, according to me, very stupid. "siru thuli peru vellam". Small drops create an ocean. The sum of the parts of all these small controversies is larger than any one instance. It is the growing trend or aggregation that is distinctly and deliberately favoring the anti-religion point of view that concerns any average religious person. Normal people are intelligent enough to know the value of "one instance" they don't need liberals to point it out for them. When someone slaps me in school today. The one instance will not kill me. But if he does it from LKG to 12th standard every other day then it definitely is a big thing. Being asked to not react to it for the sake of being "liberal" and for the logic of "will this one slap kill you" is just plain idiotic. Which is what I find liberals saying today.

9. Lastly, many good things can be destroyed. A 'good thing' cannot be defined by its 'invulnerability' or 'permanence'. In fact it can be the opposite. I would expect good things to be 'vulnerable' and 'hard to hold on to'. People are wrong when they say that "if you beieve hinduism is a great thing then it should not crumble because of a single criticism". Most good things like good habits in profession, academic, science, research are difficult to adopt and are extremely fragile. If you are not disciplined enough it will slip away in notime at all. And most good things need not make 100% sense in today's context. They will have things you don't understand and things that can be taken out of context. Let us assume that in some corner of religious literature available there is a passing reference to 'lakshmi' or 'saraswathi' as nude. It is not wholly representative of the entire religion. The person who did that may or may not have the same intention as Hussain. Picking that out, singling it and saying that is representative of religion because people have done it before makes me suspect that your intention is not about representing religion truly (M.F. Hussain is not so devout a hindu that he felt great sorrow and angst that a part of hinduism was fading away into obscurity. He did not pick out this nude art to fill a gap or some crap like that). To give an analogy - Its beyond posting photos of great leaders going to the toilet or posting photos of them having sex, in their biography books, just to ensure that a 'full picture' of their lives get represented. It is posting such photos in a newspaper without any other context and claiming "why not? leaders do have sex, they do go to the toilet. Why shouldn't I post photos to truly represent them". Yeah right! I know why you do it.

M.F. Hussain

Since, every 10 paisa artist in Italy does nude pictures of females, his claim that people don't understand his 'art' is misplaced. Typically in things surrounding nudist and modern art - there is nothing much to understand. However, people do not want to state the obvious and be regarded as a fool. So they spin their own stories that praise his art. Such praise is based on loose interpretations of fancy crayon work and is doled out by those who want to be regarded as a connoisseur. Add a few 'social activist' sleveless salwar + jeans chics from Metros into this mix and the legend grows on.

In a very logical world this religious fundamentalist would be in jail for deliberately slandering identities of another faith and wilfully disturbing the pretense of communal harmony. But we have idiots in this country who define "tolerance" as the "ability to absorb insults in perpetuity". Since these idiots have labelled themselves as 'liberals', the normal people who oppose their idiocy will get slotted as their opposites - namely 'conservative'. As one listens to their gibberish of why M.F. Hussain's pornography is a great thing for 'democracy', one feels for the lost advantages for monarchy where the right thing can be simply done without pandering to the lowest common denominator of the country's intellectual pool.

Tendulkar Critics

There are two categories of Tendulkar critics. Category 1 are those who say (a) "when Sachin hits we don't win games" (b) "Sachin is overpaid" and (c) "sachin plays for himself and is interested in records". Category 2 are those who indulge in every other type of criticism of Tendulkar.

One can safely say that category 1 people do not have the requisite level of logical skills to follow and appreciate a game. If you are looking to have a good cricket conversation/argument you will quickly find out that they know very little beyond the quotes mentioned above. This inference can be deduced independently based on non-tendulkar conversations as well. Just that this particular conversation a high-confidence indicator.

Kalyanam Notes

1. Nobody watches the wedding videos, except the married couple. The couple who get married watch it maybe once (probably lose interest after 30 minutes or so). But close to 30,000 rupees is spent on it.

2. In the 80s and 90s video and camera were a big thing. So they cameraman was given more respect than the brihaspathi. Now since we have camera fitted into everything from key chains to condoms, the fancy'ness is wearing off.

3. The camera men form a wall between the audience and the to-be-wed couple. The couple (and parents) cannot see who has come. The audience cannot see who is getting married. Given that the audience, the couple's parents and the couple themselves won't ever see the marriage live or recorded in video, we can safely conclude that the only people who witness the marriage are the 4 or 5 video camera crew members. Not Agni Sakshi but Camera Man sakshi.

4. Given all this people complain that the vadhyaar sambaavanai is too much nowadays, when it is still less than the camera man's. Apparently the rising 'velai vaasi' should not apply to vadhyaars. From a religious function with some odd distractions, marriage has morphed into a "see my velli paathram and saaftwear engineer mappillai" showcase ceremony rudely interrupted by unimportant mantrams.

5. There is always someone who cracks the 'azhukku joke' about akshadhai not falling on the couple but the front seat people. Then 2 very very old people suggest some "funny" ways to deposit the akshadhai on the couple. Pretty much the same joke they 'cracked' a few hundred years ago when they were 60.

6. There is someone who accosts you and asks "do you remember who I am". I usually don't. If I did, the blank stare wouldn't be on my face. So asking the question the second time is useless.

7. 50% or more items that are bought for the purposes of wedding is a waste. A wedding budget of 10 lacs can be reduced to 5 lacs with nobody noticing the effect. The sherwani for reception, coat & suit for jaanvaasam, and pattu podavai for every small sub-function are areas where budget can be cut ruthlessly. There is a huge market for "clothes for hire". The camera man can be replaced by hiring a friend's camcorder and having a hapless cousin cover what he feels like covering. Nobody would know its not professional work. The huge ass adhirsams can be retired. The 7 side dishes can be reduced to 2. On second thoughts this gets a separate post.

8. The 'hand wash' area is anything but. People gargle, pour a bucket of water into their mouth and make all sorts of strange and rude noises. If you didn't know better you'd think somebody was getting murdered in there.

9. Just before the Muhurtham, in the 'oonjal' phase the bride joins all her fingers like a flower bud and points the fingers upwards. The brihaspathi then asks the the groom to wrap his hand around the bride's fingers saying that "until the jalaba homam is done after the sapthapathi, the person I am touching will be my life partner with whom I will share happiness.. children... etc etc". "Avar" honored guests have no clue that this was said. All they know is that they have to wait for "mangalyam Thanthunaane", handover the Rs 101 envelope and rush to the dining hall before office time. Like a herd of elephants they run over the brihaspathi thrust their hands out to the groom become his wife, eat and go on to live an adulterous life. 200 years of British rule has killed 2000 years of saying namaskaram.

10. Marriages are serial eat-athons. If you are not a peripheral guest and not the main guy but somewhere in-between - marriages resolves to eating 8 times in 1.5 days and alternating that with sitting and watching the bums of cameramen, listening to akshadhai jokes, and getting asked "who am I" by octogenarians who are living past their sell-by date.

Real Estate

Real Estate prices in W. Mambalam seem to be more expensive than California. Based on random anecdotal evidence, Madras prices seem to have not dropped as steeply as bangalore. People are buying a 1700 Sq Ft house in arbit places in bendhakilathoor because they wouldn't get even a 1000 St Ft house in Mambalam for that budget.

Living The Moment

Improvements in digital storage technology may go on to ruin our lives. Here is a familiar sight: go to any tourist spot, concert, game, show, event, temple functions - essentially any place where stuff happens - you will see 10 morons with cell phone based image/video cameras, recording that stuff. Nobody really knows why they record it. What is evident is the fact that they are not paying attention to the event and instead are focused on operating the recording device.

If you look at their faces you may notice that they have a serious air about them. They give an impression that they are experts in the field of the stuff being recorded. It is a look that misleads us to believe that it is their profession to capture such events for archiving. Probably they want us to assume that they are interested in this stuff more than the average person. That they are recording this event to pore on it it, study it for 300 years and research the heck out of it for several years to come. In reality these morons don't even know what the event is about and probably don't understand any aspect of it. They are just passing tourists who record anything, including them going to the toilet, as a matter of reflex. There is no sight that is more irritating than 10 or 15 morons, blocking your view by raising their hands and recording events that they will never see again.

Even more irritating is the fact that these morons are recording the event purely to post it in facebook.

Leads me to suspect that humans may have already lost the ability to soak in and live the moment. At one point they were capable of going to a (a) place for vacation and truly enjoying the place or (b) concert or a discourse and simply listen. Enjoy. Feel the moment. The intense experience of the moment caused them to remember the moment for years to come. But that was in the past.

I realized this recently during the course of two Jesudas concerts - a carnatic one at Madras during the last music season and a film songs based one in Seattle a few months ago. There was a noticeable theme in both concerts and probably all concerts to do with Jesudas: he prohibits video and audio recording of his concerts. This clause is his contract with the sabha or show organizers. I have to say I love that. I don't really care about his intellectual property rights. I loved the reason he provided for prohibiting this - when yet another moron with a cell phone, right royally went to the front of stage and began to video-record a song.

Jesudas stopped this moron and said: "There was a time where we could recollect a concert from 10 years ago. It is because we didn't have any distractions during the concert. We went there and applied all our concentration and attention on enjoying the concert. As a result our memory held on to the experience for a long time. Nowadays people are more focused on recording the concert. For what reason? How many people play this recording again and listen to it? How many people see these photos that they take now? It simply resides in some corner of their computer unattended"

This is what life has become in the world of Facebook, Twitter and blogs(in the case the blog this is probably known old news). I actually know people who attend events for 5 minutes or just long enough to take a photo of the event, post it in Facebook and leave. Humans have started to do things so that they can TPT about it later. The only purpose of taking photos is to put them on facebook and orkut. They have stopped living the moment and committing anything to memory. Instead they bring surrogate memory along with them and deposit their experiences there. And certainly nobody goes back and listens to audio recordings of a discourse or views videos of an old event. These recordings rot in some corner of their computer. Once they have TPT'ed about it in the Facebook, the event for all purposes is meaningless to them. As a result people miss out on great public events, personal life events (marriage, birth of child, functions) and even interesting events (concerts, meeting a celebrity etc) by focusing on a recording device instead of the moment.

I suspect that people will lose the ability to attach an emotion to a moment because the only emotion they had at that moment was a sense of panic to quickly take the recording device out and click the record button.

Disclaimer: Stating the abovious again: This commentary is more about excesses and less about Internet travelogues and Facebook TPT done in moderation.

The Farex Wars

There is a moment in parenting life when parents try and feed food to the infant. And we are talking about a human being which has lived on this planet only for very few months. It probably does not even know that it has fingers, legs and a mouth. It has no case history or assessment of the reputation of its parents. This infant, at this stage, decides that its parents are wrong. Thats simply it. It turns its face the other way and refuses food. In effect it is telling the parents; "you are wrong. you don't know stuff. I know better and I am saying I don't want this food". This is the beginning of several decades long Farex wars that happens between a parent and a child. This is the first foray and a harbinger of many such things to come.

The parents and child are locked in a tussle on a variety of subjects: school, marks, sports, lunch, breakfast, dinner, tiffin, mid-tiffin, special dinner, going to cinema, not going to cinema, talking to relatives, paying respect to elders, religion, diet, weight, height, color of finger nails, slipper choice, dress choice, boyfriend, girlfriends, friends, marriage, work, spending money, choice of sofa, having children, naming the children, shashti-abhda-poorthi, booking cook for shashti-abdha-poorthi, sadha-abhishekam, booking cook for sadha-abishekam, driving scooter after 80 years, travelling in second class, travelling, not travelling, booking tickets to America, staying in America for 6 months, old age home, will, and finally love.

Here are two germ-sized people standing on a rock of dust hurling through space, locked in a tremendous tussle. A long line of ancestors are standing in line trying to push upwards and downwards. They are standing with arms locked trying to push the other and the other won't budge. Yet there is love. Like a rough and sturdy coconut cover that wraps around its tender kernel, the farex wars wraps itself around the purest love in the world.

Where the mind is lost and knowledge absent

She is very small now, almost the size of her great grand daughter. They have locked her up in a room, where she lays in her bed day and night, oblivious to the smell of her own feces. What is she thinking of? About the time she threw the plate full of food in her daughter-in-law's face because it didn't smell right? The only person who agreed to do this job walks in to clean her: "ennai kulipaata vandhirukkiya" she asks gleefully and is carried into the bathroom almost single-handedly. She goes in singing "maru kelaraa" loudly.

In the other bathroom her great grand daughter is also being bathed. The child was carried in wailing and crying and continues to cry as it is bathed. Meanwhile, she is having fun. She goes into high pitch with "O' raagavaaa..". Both are bathed, powdered, dressed and made to sit in a chair. The grandson is introduced and question is asked "yaar theriyarha sollu" ("do you know who this is "). The baby cries and looks away. When it is her turn, she says "theriyume. ennoda peran". And then asks "amerikkavula irukkiya nee". Upon receiving confirmation, she says "nalla iru". . The boy asks "eppadi irukke paati"? And she gives back a blank stare. She suddenly has no recollection of him. They give up after an hour of trying.

Two people are fed and tucked in their bed during daytime. Both have dodgy memories and won't remember the events of the day. They are waiting. One for life and the other death.

Deepavali in Madras

Sadly, as evidenced this deepavali, the concept of fireworks has reduced considerably in Madras. This is a a great disservice to the magnificent minds at Sivakasi who conjure up so many varieties of firecrackers. There was a time when you could hear crackers at 2 AM. This was a time when I lived in Mylai and deepavali crackers were 50% over at the break of dawn. That was a time when Red Fort 56 Deluxe was a huge thing and you only bought 15 or so of those for the entire day. Red Fort by Standard Fireworks is my favorite cracker. I can burst that variety alone for the entire day. There is something about a 'sara vedi' that is very sexy. There is a thrill associated with lighting it, backing away and watching it zip through. My watchman would shout - as I reached out and wafted the air like a blind man trying to somehow connect the 'killi vitta thiree' and the 'oodhuvathi'. "Pottai pulla madhiri thiriya killittu.. appadiye ethu da..." he would say. 'killi vitta thiree' is now a thing of the past.

Atom Bombs generated a fear that 10,000 walas did not. Sivakasi introduced the hydrogen bomb, the bullet bomb and many other bombs that were designed to scare you before the bomb was lighted. The beauty of the design was that these atom bombs carried a large fuse. It would be coiled around the bomb and when you removed it - it was a good 30 second worth of fuse. The wait was more terrifying than the blast. Rockets are evergreen like 'sara vedis'. They are famous because of their unpredictability. The charm increased because people used innovative methods to launch them. Plastic bottles, used flower pot, holes dug in the mud were the great launch pads. Of course "Colour rockets were for the wusses. Real men fired bomb rockets". Afternoons were mainly for atom bombs, lakshmi vedis and bijilis. As a child these were fascinating things that held enormous opportunity to have fun.

Yesterday, I got used to the latest deepavali trend in Madras. More of aerial shows and less of bombs and lakshmi vedis. This time my purchases had a distinct Kaliswari bias and very less Standard fireworks. As is well known now, Deepavali begins very late these days and it was almost 5 by the time I heard the first sound of something bursting. By 8 AM things were brought to a close and I did not hear another cracker sound until 5PM. Gone are the days were you could continuously hear something from 2AM to 10PM. The fun is getting killed year-by-year. Children prefer to watch TV rather than burst crackers outside. Children today will not know the thrill of lighting up a bijili with a hand and throwing it into the air. The modern world will suck the fun out of life and eventually turn everyone into walking zombies.

Part of that is because fireworks are more expensive than cars. In the 90s my father purchased fireworks for about 4000 - 5000 rupees and those crackers came in 2 big boxes and a plastic bag. On Friday I saw a boy buy crackers for 7000 from Standard fireworks. The entire lot fit into 1 small plastic bag. He wouldn't be able to burst those for more than an hour. Remember the MRP prices that they put on crackers in the 80s. You'd look at them and wonder "The guy who put these prices was smoking something". Well those are the real prices now. 1 Redfort 56 shell Deluxe is 63 Rupees. 1 box of 30 cm Sparklers cost 120 Rs. The trend is moving towards air shows - like the ones we see on July 4th. We bought a few of those and they lit of the sky well but somehow one felt that the thrill was missing. I did the 10,000 wala thing though. I love 10,000 walas. While in Mylai, I had to walk to chokkalingam street to see Crazy Mohan's family burst 10,000 walas like it was nobody's business. People used to discuss what chokkalingam street would burst a few days before deepavali. The whoe street would be covered with paper at the end of the day. Unfortunately, in the case of my 10K wala, one spark from the lit (and bursting) side of 10,000 wala flew all the way to the unlit side of it and the giant 'saram' started bursting from both ends. The show got over quicker than I wanted it to.

There is sadness when deepavali ends. It is a majestic festival. Not many countries in the world celebrate life this way. This I thought was true cavalier Indian style. Full of fun, life and energy. It is an expression of joy that is unique and very demonstrative. Whatever it was, it was certainly not dour. People didn't wear suits, exchange gifts and sat down for dinner. Finally there was a festival that wasn't just about food (and a stupid dance to loud music). Literally a whole country 'bursts' into celebration. It allowed people to let go and vent out the stress of daily life. It was a vacation that allowed people to escape into something that they wouldn't do any other normal day. Such a pressure valve has rarely been designed in the history of civilization. Standing in the terrace and watching the sky getting lit was an amazing sight. Madras night is beautiful on Deepavali.

TPT, Facebook, etc.

1000 years ago people were aware that human beings loved to talk about themselves. People wanted to be heard, considered important, be valued and appreciated. Everything we do involves, to a certain extent, pretense. We pretend to be a certain kind of person or drop hints to make the audience form certain opinions towards us. Favorable opinions. Which is why Shakespeare, apart from saying "no god is equal to sabapathi", also said "the world is a theater". Humans derived pleasure when their deeds, virtues, and struggles were recognized, called out as great by a large group of unknown people. Yes! blogs are a great example of that. But first things first. In that order. For over 2000 years, it was hard for human beings to achieve this easily. You needed to be a great warrior, a king, a poet or a religious leader in order for people to sing praises about you and appreciate you. So essentially, only 1% of the entire population had their cravings satisfied. The rest were starved or simply resorted to singing their own praises to other unlucky listeners. In the early age instances of self-trumpeting (TPT) was rare as there was too much emphasis on humility etc.

After several thousand years of suppressed cravings, humans sprung a leak. In the 80s, some very sad parents vented this suppressed craving by relentlessly, ruthlessly and really tirelessly singing praises about their children. You could never shut those parents at all. They would go on and on about "my son is so awesome. he is class first, will get into IIT etc". Such parents exist today and can't stop yapping about their how great their 6 month old baby looked when it pooped.

Leaving parents aside, there are some luminaries we see everyday who innocently exhibit these cravings publicly. They remind us that this trait is present in all of us but it manifests itself in the luminaries because there is opportunity for them to display it. Take a classic example of 'Koffee with Anu' for instance. For a year she interviewed other people and allowed them to sing their praises and sometimes even sang their praises for them. But really what she was waiting for was a chance to speak about herself. She didn't really have an acting credentials or any other credentials, so voluntary praise wasn't necessarily forthcoming. So she did an anniversary show and got Prakash Raj to interview her, sang praises about her own struggles (which as expected very extremely trivial and told us what we knew already - that she was a moron). One should have expected this TPT from her because her cousin Suhasini, is an expert TPT. She inserts "when I was cameraman.." or "when I was god and knew everything under the sun" in almost every sentence she gets to speak on TV. The only reason why she has agreed to do the 'movie review' show is to tell us how great she is. The reviews are incidental and if she could she'd do without them.

Take Anuradha Sriram, the playback singer, as another example of humans displaying this trait. She reminds me of the time when Joey Tribbiani ( a character in FRIENDS who plays the role of an aspiring actor) gets to make a wedding dinner speech. Once he finds out that a movie casting director is on the table, his whole speech changes. He starts by saying a few words about the newly wedded couple and goes on to display range of emotions - sadness, happiness, shock, fear and ends with "as a person who can emote, fight martial arts and do partial nudity...I wish the couple a happy married life". His speech had nothing to do with the wedding but everything to do with showcasing himself to the casting director. Every time Anuradha Sriram talks on TV, it is about how great she is. Even when she is called upon to praise KJJesudas, she first praises herself, sings a note or two herself, and mentions a few irrelevant things about herself and in the end says "As a person who is so awesome I can say that KJY is sort of cool"

But praising children, getting on TV, talking to others about yourself requires a lot of work. Probably even talent. What about the average idiot who can't get on TV. Us? Where do we get to sing praises about ourselves. Enter facebook, twitter and blogger. Facebook is the subject of focus here. Facebook has removed any and all subtlety that was previously required to do TPT. It allowed Users to forthrightly say 'I am awesome, please know that as a fact'. The common theme among all facebook messages is "look at me, I am so awesome". 99% of status messages has people saying "I am soooo busy" or "Working like a dog" or "I am doing work and if I wasn't there an entire country of people would need to work for300 years to do what I do in 2 days" or "I jog 300 miles in 2 nano seconds" or "I lifted 3000 pound dumbells with my little finger". Some subtle people join the "Become a fan of 4.0 GPA" and others become fans of "high performing employees group".

Then there are these freakin' facebook quizzes that showcases unknown traits of the user. These quizzes are carefully designed to trumpet the User. You see a post that says "Margabandhu took the 'how long is your dick quiz' and the answer is '20000 million miles' " or "Vishwanath took the 'What kind of person are you quiz' and the answer is 'you are sensitive, awesome, great, fantastic, chicks should dig you, chicks should strip and surrender to your love'". "Ganapathi took the 'what kind of car are you' quiz and the answer is 'Ferrari, chicks should dig and dig and totally dig you'". Facebook is to satisfy the cravings of mediocre boneheads, who cannot and will not gain any sort of acclaim in real lives. It makes them feel that others will read their quizes and status updates and go "oh my god! what a fantastic supertastic awesome guy he is, i am a piece of dirt if front of him, i should go lick his feet". The correct quizzes these people should be taking are "Muthappan took the 'what fart smell are you quiz' and the result is ' you smell like fart after person has eaten 8 dhonnai puliyodharais, 8 eggs that have been spoilt and 2 kilos of potatoes'". Unfortunately those quizzes don't exist.

Note1: TPT refers to Thar Perumai Thanigachalam. 'Dabur' from OSU was the first ever TPT the world has known.

Note2: The scope of this post obviously includes blogs, this blog and its author. It is uncool and pointless to restate the obvious that I draw from my own experiences while writing this post.

Mahan Gandhiye Mahan

Whenever this time of the year approaches, I am reminded of a song that has been my favorite song for many many years. 'Naam Iruvar' is a very good movie that was telecast several times in DD. It is such an old movie that most of the actors featuring in the movie might've died by the time I first saw the movie. It depicted good values and in general was a very goody goody type movie. The running time for 'Naam Iruvar' movie was 3+ hours but it felt more like a few years. There was a song every 2 minutes in that movie. As old technology and cheesy as the movie was it was certainly very endearing. My feelings towards Gandhi has changed over time from intense liking to indifference to critical to ' i don't care about having such opinions anymore'. But this song still remains one of my all time favorites

The Reunion

Pleasant Surprise

I could tell you the exact minute it comes. But I'll let you watch it. It comes for 2 secs max. So don't turn away.



Also visit this

Thenkachi Ko Swaminathan

I listened to his "Indru Oru Thagaval" (Message for Today) every day in AIR at about 7 AM'ish every morning. His name and his voice reminded me of van rides to school, and for strange reasons Kerala Saloon and other barber shops where I listened to him. His voice had a deep bassy tone to it. Sometimes a person's voice inherently has a tinge of sarcasm. Even if it is unintended, the sarcasm sort of adds a nice touch to what is being said. Thanjavur folks would have liked him. They would have said "pisuru padaama pesuvaar avar" (he does not stutter or use fillers when he talks).

A year ago I thought of writing a post about him wishing that AIR compile all his short stories and releases it as a CD collection. It would be a priceless collection that we could play for future generations. Unfortunately, I have postponed that post to the point where it became an obit. Thenkachi, for the uninitiated, told short stories in All India Radio and capped it off with a 'moral of the story'. He had a nice way of taking very little of our time and at the same time make us feel that he was telling the story with a relaxed pace. I liked him for doing the R.K. Narayan like thing of taking us back to simple times.

Dreams

Some dreams can be frustrating because it can easily cause you 3-4 hours of needless tension. While this tension is as futile as anything else you get tensed for in the real world the futility of dream triggered anxiety seems more obvious and irritating. And you can do nothing to change the dreams. For the past several years I have a recurring dream that I have to take my 12th standard board exam again. The context is generally - the board has introduced a new subject in the recent years and everybody who has completed 12th must go back and write an exam on this subject. The other contexts are (a) they have changed the XIIstd Chemistry syllabus and so everybody has to take Chemistry board exam again or (b) I have travelled back in time and find myself a few days away from exams. There are some rare occasions where the dream has no courtesy and does not tell me why I am taking the exam and directly throws me into a situation where I know there is an exam and I have to write it. Of course occasions where I am the only one naked is not rare and - sigh - quite frustrating

The dreams have a variety of settings too. Sometimes I write the exam with my college classmates as opposed to my XII std classmates. Sometimes they are office colleagues or grad school buddies. Sometimes the class is in America but the teacher is my XII std teacher. Suddenly, I find myself sitting next to my milkman who is also preparing very hard for the exam (The aluminium milk can is on top of the desk during class hours). Tension begins when I know that there is a lot of syllabus to cover and I can't get myself to read anything. I never get to the point where I open the book and read. My dreams begin and end before the exams. So I never get to know if I did well or not. I never get to prepare at all. The entire 4 hours (or what seems like it) is filled with tension that exams are coming and I am not preparing or doing anything about it. Occasionally there are 3 or 4 chemistry related words dropped in and I become aware that I don't understand any of them. So I get more tensed

Today morning, I had set my alarm for 5AM. It rang, I switched it off planning to get up immediately. But unknowingly I went back to sleep and got transported into yet another exam situation. Woke up sweating and really really afraid. There may be a thousand Freud'ish explanations for these dreams but what use are they? I can't do anything to avoid the tension.

Cricket

In order to align everything with my larger theory that this the stupidest generation to walk on the face of the planet, I made an observation on this blog several years ago that twenty20 cricket - tailor made for the idiot generation - will kill cricket in general and test cricket in specific. Twenty20 is like the twitter of cricket (Interestingly, I also compare Tests to book publishing business). Much like the way twitter allows any twit who can type random 140 characters to be popular, twenty20 will allow 'gaada' suthifying batters to be stars. Recently, I watched Twenty20 after a long time and it was really painful. The world is gravitating towards brainless fast food type sports and reading habits.

A popular blogger wrote a post that Twenty20 will benefit Test cricket rather than kill it. He was right. We have stopped playing test cricket now. Thanks to the country which has the least vision and most idiocy. India. Goes on to show that the "west", especially Britain and Australia were probably better in safeguarding the beauty and charm of cricket than the 'mutta kammanatis' at BCCI. In about 10 years when someone does a CPR to revive cricket, one of the key lessons they will take forward is that India cannot be given any authority/responsibility to determine the future of cricket.

Unnaipol Oruvan

This was an engaging movie with a very simple and straight forward script. Liked it. Kamal Hasan plays an anonymous person (subnote: curiously many reviewers have caught on to the term "common man" that he refers to in a dialog and repeat it like a parrot. They say "Kamal Hasan plays "common man:" like the way they'd say Christian bale played Batman or Christopher Reeve plays Super Man etc - wonder why?) who threatens to bomb selected spots in Chennai if they don't negotiate with him. He tries to make us forget that he is 'kamal hasan' by making his appearance rather modest or ugly to say the least. This is important given the context of the story. Because if we see too much Kamal Hasan it may work against the movie. This effort works to a great extent but there is a little bit of Kamal hasan still sticking on to the character he plays. This sort gives - deliberately or not - many clues as to what the end of the movie would look like. I was not surprised at the ending. At all. I guess many wouldn't be.

Overall - I liked the movie and I am glad I saw it.

After Thought: I did not think that this movie had a lot of scope for major level emoting or in general displaying excellent acting talents. This is in a way very cut and dry movie wit limited focus on character development. So the benefit this movie gets by the presence of Mohan Lal is simply just that. There is not a lot of scope to make Maraar, a better done character. Mohan Lal makes it look smooth. But there is nothing extra-ordinary in either Kamal's role or Mohan Lal's role that makes anyone go "wow! superb acting" unless one is compelled to say so because it is Kamal and Mohan lal. Something needs tobe said of Lakshmi's role though. Pretty Yucky. Needless role. Her dialogs were inane and sometimes senseless. Very poor (over) acting to boot.

Kanye Vs Taylor

I know it has become obligatory for people to diss Kanye for what he did because it is the politically correct thing to do. Since I don't really care about any of the parties involved (except that I believe Beyonce is way more hot than Taylor), I don't feel the need to get angry or offended at what Kanye did. Don't feel the urge to call him names or criticise him. This post discusses a different aspect surrounding such incidents. I believe that if someone is embarrassed very publicly then the crowd is embarrassed as well and actually feels for the person. This is true. The crowd cringes along with the person being insulted. I have often wondered about this particular kind of embarrassment while watching the Oscars. How it would feel if someone jumped on stage and insulted the award winner, grabbed the mike and told the Academy that the award belongs to someone else. What a thrilling moment that would be purely because of the rarity of its occurrence?

The 'cringe moment' in this case was thrilling and hilarious to watch. You have been seeing award functions for such a long time that purely because of the way probabilities and law of averages work, it is about time such a thing happened. And the amazing thing about the human mind is that it processes embarrassment in a disproportionate fashion. Taylor couldn't bring herself to speak at all after Kanye handed her back the mike. Not everyone thinks she is undeserving. Probably Kanye is the only one who thinks so. But her mind wouldn't absorb it that way.