Ice Skate for the heck of it!

Ice skating is one of the things i always wanted to do. And when i had the chance i did not hesitate. 27th August 2008, an adventurous team of three headed by the ex-Nitc EEE Class rep(As always), went on to create a mind-boggling experience that sure will render in their hearts for ever! Yes, Me Hari and Ashish went for ice skating here in singapore yesterday.
The ice skating rink was not an open space but on the third level of Jurong Entertainment center at Jurong East. I had class from 10.30 to 12.30 in the morning. So we decided to go in the afternoon. Since it happened to be a wednesday, we students who had students pass got concession fee for the same. Normally it costs 15$ for 2 hours. We paid 11.80$ for unlimited time (privileges of being a student still...:)). We entered the rink with an air of tension and silence as if entering an exam hall with calculators in our hands.. alas it was not jus that,it was more than a lame exam.It was an experience and we thought we should savour every single moment of it. Nevertheless it was a hobson's choice. We gave ourselves no other option. It was like a pass\fail exam with the difference that you are sure you are going to fail it. Nevertheless we took it up. We were being men i should say! Not just for the fact that many girls were gracefully skating over there, but that we took it up! We put on the ice skating shoes and we could not stand up properly on it even in the normal floor. When we we entered the arena, the music started. :) We could see lots of people falling and skidding everywhere. There were few kids who were amazing, for them it was like playing with their toys. They were so graceful and never cared when they fell down. I think with age comes this ego where you feel uncomfortable falling in front of others. How i wished we were children again? We watched our steps, made sure we did not bump into anyone, unless it was a beautiful chick(..lol.. we dint do that, although vice versa was inevitable). There were few girls who were learning how to skate, and if you happen to be close to them you sure are gonna get pulled down. It happened many a times to all 3 of us. I knew a bit of skating so i started skating properly after some time, nevertheless both hari and ashish were fast learners. They were picking up. I was trying to do different styles, turning and braking and rotating, which all ended up in me getting my bottom frozen! Although it was tiring, we took rest and continued.We started at 2.30 pm and went on till 5 pm. We would have continued if only me and ashish did not have that wireless communication class taken by hari's professor. We had to leave. So at 5.18 pm(singapore time) history was created by us, and we hope that history will repeat itself in a better way!

Madras Bashai

Disclaimer: This post is neither to hurt anybody nor to put down any language in any way.
Caution: Royal Usage (pun intended) of tamil language awaits you. Men who have not got their moustaches intact are forbidden to read further. I would suggest the females not to be too curious.
Few weeks back one of my best friends asked me the meaning of a word which I use very often. He happens to be in chennai only. I felt a bit guilty that after being so long with me he does not know proper Madras Bashai, so I thought I should do a favor to him by posting this....
Gals who did not bother to read the caution and started reading, there is foul language here, so I guess it is not Your cuppa tea...
Ok, to kick off.. My friend asked me the meaning of baadu. Now, every friend of mine knows that I use it very often to rebuke someone when I am pissed off or as a friendly gesture at times. Baadu has many meanings, for the past 3 years we machans at NITC college wereof the consensus that Baadu meant DEAD BODY, until we found out its supposedly true meaning in Wikipedia (Thanks to venky for sending me that link..). I will give you the meaning later in the post, but to start off with the basics...
One of the words that i use very often is Gethu, it means superb, awesome, kickass! it also has a synonym semma, but the former being superlative. And i also use Thaaru-maaru, which literally means zig-zag, but it’s a slang for awesome! When you want to ask someone if they are ready?,you just say, ready-aa? or when you want to ask somebody Is it OK?, You say Ok-vaa?. The meaning of adding this -aa at the end is analogous to asking, is it?. Finished-aa?, meaning have u finished what ever u were doing? Pannada- I use it for swearing but it is not that demeaning. It means a person who takes the bad leaving behind the good, expected to have originated from the word pannadai in tamil which means a layer which filters bad elements from toddy in palm trees. I also use Nadaari, synonymous to pannada. But I do not know the original meaning of it yet. venna a.k.a vendru, literally meaning butter, meaning useless or dumb person. Vetti meaning totally jobless. Tharudala, again useless. Tubelight- not so shrewd person. Udhaaru-Vudrathu- to exaggerate, synonymous to reelu or gapsa. Sappa matteru is one which i use very often. It means a very easy thing to do, also synonymous to Jujubee. Sight Adikkaruthu-Admiring gals usually without their knowledge. Rousu udradhu- To show off.
Porambokku- Unoccupied, usually unusable or fallow land. Derogatively and dismissively, a person without identity, a nobody. Mispronunciation of 'Pembroke', as in Lord Pembroke, who stated that land belonging to no one would belong to the government.
Saavugraaki- Verbal abuse against bad drivers. OB adikkarthu- to waste time, OC- Free at no caost. Bladu,mokkai- meaning a person who puts unbearable PJ's. Kattai- refers to a hot female, we say 'Semma kattai da'. Kalakkarudhu- meaning to rock! Kadalai- meaning verbal flirting! Figaru- attractive gal.
Now the real and royal tamil that many use when their nerves twitch. Baadu- meaning to hold on the torch light when the king and queen have sexual intercourse. Otha- used with baadu as otha baadu. it means the F word. Thevidiya payya- son of a prostitute. Maayiru- literally hair, but used for swearing. I guess this would do now. For people interested in more words in madras tamil can refer to wikipedia.

me@ntu.edu.sg

Someone had said, "In the book of life the answers are not in the back", but i say at least the hints are there in the back. I am here at NTU (Nanyang Technological University), Singapore, and I will be spending the next 5 years of my life at this place. I reached singapore on 17th morning at around 9 am. After nature calls and calls to india me and hari got out of the changi airport at 10 am and took a cab to NTU. We reached the International House, Students service centre, NTU and we were humbly overwhelmed by the hospitality here. The student volunteers took us through everything we needed in the beginning. We had to pay the fees for accommodation and fill up certain forms. We both got separate apartments at Nanyang Heights, and were dropped by a mini excursion bus to the apartment.
My apartment had 5 Single rooms, a kitchen(an oven, a refrigerator, and an electric heater), a dining hall( with a dining table),a hall , a washing place(with a washing machine) and 2 bathrooms( in one there is a jacuzzi). The room allotted to me was SR 1(Single room). It was a capacious room with a writing table and a showcase attached, a cot with mattress and a cupboard which was pretty spacious. I kept my stuff and took a bath.
After taking bath and getting freshened up we had to run to the NTU medical centre where we underwent medical tests like eye test, blood test, urine test and chest x-ray. After that I had nothing to do but explore the place. And me and hari walked a lot that day and got some necessary stuffs. Singapore is so neat and clean. People who litter the roads and spit in india dont even think of doing that here.Its because they will be fined if caught littering, which brings in a fear not to do it. India is one place where anything and everything can happen. This is what people from abroad think. If we want to change it we should learn from these people. I was talking with the Cab driver on the way to NTU, and i just said the roads are so clean and neat here. He replied in his crisp malay accent, "Oh Yes! People pay a huge sum as road tax so people except better roads. Every 6 months its digged up and new roads are laid, And watering the plants and trees on either side of the road is one inportant thing". We too pay Tax( Although some do not), but we dont expect anything from the government. We are submissive to everything. We get easily satisfied and adapted to any situation and condition. If at all we can change the plight in India we should demand. There might be people asking me who are you to say that? You are not even in India,You went out of India and are cribbing about the conditions back home. I have just got one answer to them, Yes I am outside India but that does not mean I am not an Indian. And i have come abroad just now, there is lot of time left. Time will tell those people if I come back or not. I am not telling them sternly i will come back after 5 years for sure, They would retort back saying everybody says this. Anyway coming back to me at singapore..
One more thing i noticed here was consumerism. Although not as much as USA, but still people equate happiness with material possessions. There are lot of entertainment centres and food courts. Tonnes and tonnes of cash and electrical power is being used up. All the transport systems, MRTs(Mass-Rapid Transit)(Metro trains), buses and taxis are air-conditioned. For a country which is smaller than Chennai probably uses up almost thrice as much power. Thats because people demand and want such conditions. Thats why probably developing countries are still developing. Its not like there are no plus points about this place, its jus that everything here is almost perfect. They do not probably realise how much this affects a farmer or a normal person in under developed countries. These people s demands will get satisfied and supply will increase. A typical case of rich get richer and poor get poorer...And being perfect is not my cuppa tea!

S7 ONAM VIDEO

Dasavatharam...

Dasavatharam, the much awaited and hyped up movie, proclaimed to make it to the oscars, turned out to be a decent movie with USP of 10 Kamal's. People who have seen the movie would agree with me to just bury the script in reams of cynicism and accept that Dasavatharam with all its flawless flaws, is a decent spectacle to watch and that kamal has re-affirmed his talent. Although it seems to me as a normal movie with overtones of typical filmi masala, no one can take the credit away from kamal for donning the 10 roles he has done. The story starts of with kamal explaining chaos theory and how that is related to his story and then to the fight between shaivaites and vaishnavites in the 12th century over the idol of Lord Vishnu.An ardent Vishnu devotee loses his life to save the idol of Lord Ranganatha. Kamal plays this devotee Rangaraja Nambi. I would like to add here that for all the hype and anxiety they created they could have given us better graphics, although the camera work was fantastic. The graphics were not upto the international standards but then the hype makes us expect to that level. This has been the problem with movie-watchers like us who watch movies made all around the globe.If we accept the simple fact that this was a movie made for Indians, especially south Indians, we would start seeing the positive aspects in the movie more rather than criticising it. But then again, there is nothing wrong in speaking about the negative aspects too.After the 12th century show, the story revolves around the protagonist Govind Ramasamy(kamal) who is an upright scientist at U.S. From the labs at the firm he is working, a virus vial which was safely guarded, traverses a part of USA before reaching chidambaram in south India. The frantic car and bike chases really stole the show as they were a feast to the eyes and made with pulsating zeal. Christian Fletcher was played with ferocity and without any pity. Although, at times i felt that the chase was way too long and it resembled tom and jerry chases where finally jerry evades tom always. Certain stunts were breath taking and I admired them. Andal played by Asin was like a cantankerous mule. She was very irritating and her screenplay was done with crassitude. She was glutinously holding onto the Idol, whole of the movie and did not feel remorse even after making a huge accident. She showed too much naiveness and there were certain filmi gimmicks too. When she was about to be sexually assaulted she pleads them respectfully to leave her. That was not funny although it was intended to be. The obstinate Iyengar paati krishnaveni, who still beleived that her son was alive created sympathy. Again hats off to kamal for his voice intonation and accent for all his roles, esp to this one. Vincent Poovaraghan who speaks malayalam mixed tamil ( actually that is original tamil) was awesome in dialogue delivery and expressions. The kamal i loved and enjoyed the most was Balram Naidu, the telugu-loving RAW Officer. Kamal did a fantastic job in speaking tamil the way a real telugu guy would have spoken. His spontaneity was cheerful and enjoyable, one of the reasons you should watch this movie. Other characters were the seven foot tall Khalifulla Khan, President George Bush, the japanese sama Shingen Narahasi, and the Daler Mehndi types, Avtaar Singh. One of the commendable efforts was erecting a large set at the Taramani Film City in India which was a Replica of the White House, with Kamal Haasan’s makeup for the role lasting six whole hours to obtain the desired outcome. For the climax scenes of the film, a tsunami effect was created in Mahabalipuram. The scene was shot at a 50,000 sq. ft. area land in which a 100-ft. wall was created near Muttukadu. Six machines, which generated 20 ft. high waves, was imported from the US, for a total cost of 3.5 crore rupees. For the climax, another scene was shot dramatically above the Nehru Stadium with the permission of the chief minister, Karunanidhi. Himesh Reshammiyas music was decent, although i feel Rahman would have done wonders. And I also feel shankar could have directed this venture rather than K S Ravikumar. It suits him better. Now We all know that though the movie had 10 roles of kamal, all the roles were not interconnected properly. It looked like Kamal did those 10 roles just for the record sake and that any body could have done those roles. I personally felt the same until i started reading certain articles and blogs regarding why 10 roles were casted and why it was given the name of Lord Vishnu's dasavatharam. Apparently there were certain similarities in those 10 avatars and these 10 avatars and here it goes... The following analysis was done just to understand certain aspects of characterisation by certain people and is not to hurt any person's feelings regarding Lord Vishnu and his avatars.

1.Krishna avatar - Vincent Poovaraghavan Lord krishna is dark-skinned [shyamalam]. He saved draupadi when she was being violated and he was the actual diplomat in mahabharatham. Lord krishna dies of an arrow striking his lower leg. Now look at how vincent was introduced. He appears when asin is about to be molested and he saves her like draupadi. Vincent is the dalit diplomat, fights for land issue [soil issue to be exact] and dies from the metal rod striking his leg. Oh even five of vincent’s men are drugged at P. Vasu’s Place. Sounds familiar?

2. Balarama avatar - Balarama naidu This is an easy asumption as the name suggests.

3. Mathsya avatar - Ranagaraja nambi Nambi is thrown into water in an act of trying to save lord from being thrown.

4. Varaha avatar - Krishnaveni paatti During the mukunda song, krishnaveni paatti does varaha avatar in the shadow puppetry. Moreover, in varaha avatar lord actually hides earth so as to protect life forms. Here too krishnaveni hides the VIRUS vial inside the statue so as to protect life forms.

5. Vamana avatar - Kalifulla khan In vamana avatar, lord vishnu takes the vishvaroopa, that is the giant form! Hence the giant kalifulla symbolises vamana avatar.

6. Parasurama avatar - Christian Fletcher Parasurama is actually on an angry killing spree and killed 21 generations of the particular kshatriya vamsa.He comes around with the gun [modern upgrade for axe] and kills everyone around.

7. Narasimha avatar - Shingen Narahashi First of all the name itself is a play on the words singam [means lion in tamil] and narasimha [the avatar being symbolised]. Lord Narasimha manifests himelf to kill the bad guy Hiranya-kashyap and he also teaches prahaladha. In the movie, he shows up to kill the killer fletcher! and is also a teacher(sama). Lord Narasimha had to kill the asura with bare hands and hence the martial arts exponent here.

8. Rama avatar - Avatar Singh Lord Rama stands for the one man one woman maxim, kind of symbolizing true love.. Here Avatar portrays that spirit by saying that he loves his woman more than anything and wants to live for her.

9. Kalki avatar - Govindaraj Ramasamy As you know, the hero in kaliyug can be none other than the Kalki avatar!!!

10. Koorma avatar - Bush This is considered to be the most loose adaptation by many movie-lovers. But if you look at the real koorma avatar, the lord is the turtle/tortoise that helps in stirring the ksheera sagara and bringing out the amruth. This essentially creates war among the devas and asuras. Similarly today Bush facilitates war between you know whom..May be Kamal also indicates that this avatar is a bit dumb like the tortoise…not knowing what is Na Cl.

I would like to add on one more view regarding this movie. After all the hurry-burry scenes, it all comes down to the basic question of- Is God there?
Lastly when Asin asks Kamal not to say that God is not there, he replies- " i am not telling god is not there, i am saying it would be good if he (chauvinism not intended) is there". This clearly explains what Kamal was intending. It was a conceited reply and kamal has spoken about God in many a movies now. He has tried to incorporate his ideologies regarding God, being a self confessed rationalist, the way he is. And if u ask me why that 12th century story then i would say 2 reasons
1. Its kamal for you!
2. Maybe u can draw parallels between what happened in 12th century and what happened in dec 2004, both these times they were fighting for a God's Idol but for a different reason, making the so called god omni present even over different era's.
In my perspective Kamal has stopped being an atheist and started beleiving that all is one and one is all! Thats why in the end he shows people thanking their respective gods for saving their lives from the tsunami, if there is God, that is!
On the whole the movie is entertaining and a treat to watch if you go without any expectations.

My travel with the tide-Phase 1-Nagpur

When I wrote my previous post i was sitting on my couch at home, but now i am at a net cafe in the busy streets of bangalore pretty close to the all famous mall The Forum! How I got here? is a question I need to answer to all, but i can't do so in one post because it would become too long and my friends hari and gman do not like long posts by me. I have been wanting to complete this blog post for quite some time now. Not only because I needed to blog (its been quite a while since i did) but also for the simple fact that too many events happened in this one month. I will take you all on a small roller coaster ride as to what I was up to when I went to Nagpur in this post.

May 7th to May 13th- Nagpur trip

I came back from my college on May 5th and went to nagpur on May 7th to help my bro get back to chennai. I went there so that I can help mahen(my bro) and his local guardians who are shifting to chennai permanently.The train reached nagpur in the afternoon at 2.00 PM. The climate over there doing summer makes Chennai look Kodaikanal. The next day morning we both got up late and mahen left me to sleep while he had some unfinished work at the Administrative Block and then went to bring a mechanic to repair his bike. I remember I was lying down when his friend ravi came and informed me that mahen had met with an accident. We both ran to the place of accident. He was dripping blood all over his body, legs, hands and thighs. I was so shocked that it had to happen now. Although he was in pain he did not show it on his face. We went to the nearby dispensary and got his wounds cleaned and medicated. Although it was not a major accident it still got us all depressed. Mahen forced us all to go to a place called choker dhani in spite of being injured, simply because he did not want to spoil my holiday. And so with all my rebuke and accusations we were at this place called choker dhani, 20 km away from his college, which was rich in rajasthani culture. People were dressed in typical rajasthani clothing and called us "sethji". There was a....

Hi folks!I am in chennai now and the date is June 22, 2008.Exactly one week back ,I had written this post and is incomplete for the simple reason- I was so B-U-S-Y that I could not bring myself to blog! B-Bored U-useless S-slothful Y-yearning to be lazier. Before I complete that i will briefly describe what i did this one week- (Sleep, eat, play) *100 , went online at times but otherwise totally 'vetti'(jobless). Guys the date now is 30th june 2008 and i am really pissed off with myself for not completing this post. I have loads to blog on and like hari says
Time time everywhere.... but not a second to spare..
Okay no point crying over spilled milk, I am going to finish this post today.
Choker Dhani was very capacious and had the ambience of a traditional Rajasthani village.In the evenings, a village fair was recreated on the huge sprawling ground where folk dancers and magicians performed. We also enjoyed mouth watering welcome drink and sumptuous snacks and dishes. We had great fun over there despite mahen writhing in pain at times.
After that day we did not have many outings because we had got down to the business of vacating mahens room, and mind you that’s the toughest job ever! But meanwhile we did not compromise on the places that I ought to visit in Nagpur. We went to Fountain Sizzlers, where we got amazing continental food, Ten Downing Street(TDS), which was a pub cum restaurant, and to many such places. We also went shopping and got us both a sherwani each. That is pretty much it from Nagpur. I personally felt that this Nagpur trip was one of the most wonderful trips I have ever had. At last I seemed to have found out the subject that truly arouses my characteristic choler and fills me with zest.
Meeting new people and making friends.
Traveling.
This trip sure was a harbinger of more trips I had during this month and a fun filled one too.

MAHEN'S FRIENDS
AT CHOKER DHANI!

Reached Or Left?

I am back at home now. I guess, by now, everybody (from NITC) will be under their home ceiling. Just sitting on my couch and thinking about all these 4 years creates a medley of emotions in me. It brings about that part in me who is very consciously trying to fight the repercussions of separation. The feeling of getting separated from the ones you love and have lived with leaves a big void in your life, which will take time filling. The moment I left the college I knew it was going to be difficult, nevertheless inevitable. I was wondering why this feeling of total separation doesn’t come if we are getting separated from our parents or relatives? Why alone that friendship be given this treatment? Why can’t we take it as the way it is when we separate our relatives? That is, having a hope that we are going to reunite no matter what. I was trying to be foolishly practical when it came to bidding farewell to my near and dear ones at the college. I kept on reassuring myself that no matter what I am not going to lose touch with these friends of mine. But then another part of me asked, “This is what you told me when you left 10^th and 12^th?, how can you be so sure that you will be in touch with all of them no matter what?”. I just thought for a second and asked one of my other parts, have I been true to my conscience? Have I kept the similar promise I made during my 10^th and 12^th? I got a very prompt answer- NO! I am neither in touch with many of my old friends nor do I feel guilty or sad about it. Of course I am not speaking about my immediate circle of friends I had in my past, I do feel guilty that I cannot keep in touch with them. I am talking about those friends whom I did not spend much time with but still had a significant role in my life back then. Anyway no matter how much I reassure myself it’s a bare naked truth that i can’t keep in touch with everybody. I can only think of being in touch with the close ones who were there through thick and thin. But that also looks bleak, considering the fact that I might end up any where in the globe 5 years from now. It’s very human to adapt to situations. No matter how big a loss, our human brain is programmed to adapt to changes, simply people change. The things that matter to us now will be just a long forgotten dream later. I am desperately fighting against developing that feeling when it comes to my friends at NITC. I want to do my best to remember them and cherish the memories we had. I have started to accept that if I have a feeling I necessarily do not need to act on it. I have a feeling of separation now, if I start telling myself that this is it, it is going to be difficult to meet again, even if we meet again after a long time that bonding won’t be there and our love will diminish, I am doing great injustice to my friends and their feelings. So I decided to be brave and face it. When the Tata Sumo came to pick me up and I had all my friends, (barring a few) who mattered beside me, warrier vvs, britto, joseph, bijoy, sridhar, nithin and hari.I did not want to cry. I did not cry too. I felt depressed at leaving them, but hoping that we will meet soon again ( I am planning to go to ernakulum and meet them on may 15th I really cant wait for that day now). I was going to the city in the car, me lakshmi, hari and nithin were supposed to meet up for probably the last lunch we could have together at mezban calicut. They both were coming in a different car while me and nithin in one car. These people are one of the closest friends I have in my college. On the way to mezban I was profusely apologizing for the mistakes I did to all. We finally ended up in mezban. An air of silence seemed to fill us and we were not speaking to each other the way we used to. For some reason me and nithin did not feel it and were being normal while the other two were showing mixed emotions. I did not want this feeling to encompass me. I did not want to perish under this. I was determined not to show a teary face. I somehow managed for quite a while, actually I knew that there is no point in crying but whenever lakshmi cried, hari used to let her cry. Somehow I couldn’t see the two persons I love the most, my best friends and my best critics, crying. I kept on reassuring myself that time is a better healer (although I never believed that, I believe doing certain things is a better healer). At the entrance of the hotel when we were about to part I couldn’t stand it. I had to leave now. I bid farewell to both and went into the car. The car left and as I saw their faces zooming out I looked at myself into the mirror and saw a small tear rolling out. Then everything came as a flash, all my friends faces when I left the hostel, my NITC campus and every single thing associated with it. I was resisting myself from crying because I hate crying. I hate myself weeping over the inevitable. It was one of those times where your heart rules over your mind. And now I am here on my couch with laptop on my lap, not knowing how to express my feelings to all those I loved. I don’t know if I have left my home or just reached it!