Rock n Roll Life is Love

Babe Ruth vs Tendlya

2011-03-26T18:56:00.000-07:00

Babe Ruth or the Sultan of Swat was an American baseball player in the 1920s who is still regarded as the greatest baseball player ever and often ties with Jordan and Ali on polls regarding America's sporting greats. Before someone gets annoyed with any perceivably projected dudeness on my part, let me clarify. I did not know any of this until yesterday.

It was the last class of the week and I found myself in an environment that I wasn't entirely comfortable with - the insides of a classroom. Our good natured Professor had tried his hand at waking us out of our stupor - he'd even called us 'Land of the Sitting Dead' which did evoke a few chuckles.

He'd just finished his cup of coffee and then tried to shoot his empty cup into the trash can only for it to rebound. He smiled sheepishly and said something about a player he follows, who had shot as bad as him in last night's game. Basketball trivia and friday fatigue - not a great combination and there was awkward silence all round.

But then he said, "Anyway. That wasn't all the sporting action yesterday. India man! Beating Australia!!", sporting the rock-on sign.

"How bummed were you guys, when Sachin Tendulkar didn't get his 100th century?", he continued. Now we were all up!

And then a dude in front asked, "Sachin Who?". To that he said, "Sachin Tendulkar man! Only the greatest cricketer EVER!!"

Just to explain further he also gave a baseball metaphor. No, not that baseball metaphor! He called Sachin - the Babe Ruth of Cricket.

Greatest. Class. Ever.

And then I left class thinking, "Oh! So Babe Ruth was the Sachin of Baseball".

This is madness

2011-03-07T22:06:00.001-08:00

Nope.

This is ~~Sparta~~ Grad School.

Last post about quksace agjke. I promise. My deadline is fast approaching.

Quksace Agjke - It gets personal now!

2011-02-25T10:12:00.000-08:00

STATUTORY WARNING :

Quksace Agjke is not good for your health. People have been known to have adverse side effects after prolonged exposure to quksace agjke. Avoid at all costs.

Do not try and read the content at quksace agjke.

Just trying some things. I just needed to leave some backlinks.

I have to do this for this

Answer any/all of the following

2010-12-20T14:58:00.001-08:00

1. Match the following (5 marks)

Things you should never ask

Where/Whom	What
a. Lady	1. Bill for Jam Bun
b. Grad Student	2. Chillrai
c. Naayar Kadai Bakery	3. Extra Chutney
d. McDonald’s	4. GPA
e. BMTC Conductor	5. Age

Blog title is a tribute to my computer science teacher who gave questions like,

2. Java is a/an (Notice how we give nothing away by being indefinite with our indefinite articles. Classic Tamil Nadu State Board)

a) Programming language

b) Object oriented language

c) Natural language native to Indonesia

d) a & b

e) c or d

f) b implies a

and her obligatory addendum appended at the end of every such multiple choice question

g) all of the above

h) none of the above

i) any of the above

Seriously.

Aunty Trust

2010-10-22T14:48:00.000-07:00

The thing with puns for captions is they can help lure unsuspecting readers. Or at least they can make you think that they are doing that. I just realized, this does not make the cut either way.

So to clear the pun-ridden air, lets just assume you've gotten the idea that we are indeed going to be talking about Microsoft and its very serious relationship with Antitrust issues in the past, and about how its now trying to repay the favour to all its favourite people in the world.

To summarize what happened in the Microsoft vs USA case, Microsoft was sued for trying to include its web browser into its bundle of products that it shipped with its operating system - thereby locking out competition in the web browser market using its foothold in the OS market.

My question - and I'm not sure if someone's already asked it - is this,

If there were no bundled web browser along with your OS, how would you download your open source fix? Wait for the CD in the mail? Somehow I don't see that happening. Again. I'm not sure that Microsoft's plaintiff did not argue this point. He did have a law degree.

I just keep wondering, if Microsoft had not turned so bitter because of this case, would Steve Ballmer and Eric Schmidt be golfing buddies? And would this man still have made 500 million friends?

I am neither Pro nor Anti-Microsoft. In fact I love the current standoff. I think its healthy. Quite similar to the Mexican Standoff, except it feels more like an Indian Standoff.

Its like - Microsoft, Facebook and Google are water starved women in some small sowcarpet street in Madras. Metaphorically speaking that is.

I guess that would makes us the tanker lorry that spills more than it holds onto the narrow rickety road.

PS: I'm considering the idea of getting sued for flouting some immigration law.
I kinda like how pompous such a suit would sound like - Manigandan vs USA.

Long time no flog

2010-10-06T05:21:00.000-07:00

This is what happens when you become a Grad Student.

You start craving every effing thing in life.

Free food.
Funding or maybe not even the ding.
Freedom.

Not necessarily in that order.

Hence the flog.

PS : As already discussed, we don't use the F-word in this family flog.

Insert clever title here

2010-06-19T11:06:00.000-07:00

Lion Dates Super Top 10.

Aayirathil Oruvan
Kadandha vaaram countdownuku veliya irundha aayirathil oruvan inum angeye dhan iruku.
Aayirathil Oruvan - 10 oda 11.

Singam
Idhu varaikum sondhama muyarchi senjukitrundha Surya, dhrishiti kaga Vijay maari oru padam pannirukaru. Irundhalum avaroda orey mana dhairyatha paarati, Singam indha vaaram irandavadhu edam.
Singam - Vijay nadithirundhal Asingam.

Raavanan
Kadandha vaaram thirutu dvd la pudhuvarava irundha raavanan, indha vaaram mudhal edatha pudichuruku. Karthik ku badhila oru korangaye nadika vechurukalamnu pala per sonnalum, vikram kaga padathai parkalam.
Raavanan - adhe ramayana kadhai.

Irony of the day : Boredom is a good motivator.

Next To Useless

2010-06-17T07:30:00.001-07:00

Have you ever been called that?

Fifth grade flashback.

Screeching Banshee aka Our Class Teacher: You are next to useless!

She did it once or twice. Every time she did it, I would look at my sidies.

Head-banging all round. Then she stopped calling me that.

PS : Come to think of it – Has anyone ever seen what’s next to useless. I mean in a dictionary. If I had to guess I’d say the - Universe.

Moral of the Day : Long posts - tedious to write. Random rambling – always fun – at least while writing.

Quitters never whine. Whiners probably never got to quit

2010-06-11T19:56:00.000-07:00

Warning : Incoherent rambling ahead. But wait. You already knew that.

After 2 dozen years of thinking I have come to the conclusion that - there is no One Universal Truth in life. There are several small truths, however.

According to scriptures, upon realization of the Truth one usually sprouts a halo. So the next time you see a man on the road, and feel that he looks resplendent - try to look past his receding hair line as the solution. Maybe it is because he has realized some of life's several smaller truths - and ~~his hair has stopped growing~~ his halo has just started to grow. No I'm serious. My respect to all the wise bald men in the universe.

Some of life's smaller truths I've realized in the past week.

English jowl and Tamil sevul have the same phonetic root. How cool is that? I bet you did not know that.

E.g. Dei domer, sevul avul ayirum - Uncouth beast, your jowl (substitutable with jaw) shall become a warm mashed up pulp of ... (I really dont know how to translate avul)

God puts only one 6 footer in every AC Chair Car. And it is an unwritten rule that he entertain all requests to move luggage to/fro from racks. Benevolent soul that you are, you would have done it anyway. Optional career choice at the very least - you think. God also goes by the name of TT sometimes.

A Royal Bengal Tiger, an Idli, one Mr. Karunanidhi and a Mr Satish Kumar - The Life of Pi will be the best novel that you can ever read that makes a mention of all these things. I know loving books is a subjective thing. But believe you me - it would be impossible to find a book that uses all the words I have mentioned and still pips this book. The intersection is highly improbable. Awesome book - please read.

Warning : Wiki link does not include spoiler alert for ending. Although to be honest, I read the entire article before I read the book. To be even more honest - if I had not read the entire article - I might not have bought the book at all. :) My suggestion - read the entire article. You are too lazy – you might otherwise not buy the book.

Travelling with a cold in cold weather will only make it worse - Bangalore. Travelling with a cold in the sweltering heat will also make it worse - Chennai.

Quitting changes everything. Life is indeed beautiful.

This is a companion piece to my earlier commentary on the universally true axiom - Everybody hates their job.

I do not hate it anymore. Not since I quit, anyway.

PS : I did warn you. And no I’m not losing hair.

TOW Everyone Hates Their Job

2010-04-02T01:08:00.000-07:00

I look back at this blog and realize that I've been complaining a lot. And about a lot of things - torch toting wardens, dogs, buses, drunken guys in buses, loud ladies in buses and various other trivialities.

That is just wrong.

I mean how could I have been complaining for so long and never once mentioned my job. That is just very wrong. Come to think of it, it could have been my innate sense of self preservation (which based on past experiences I'd thought to be extinct) acting up.

I know everyone hates their job. Unless of course, the special talents section in your resume reads like,

Those things can get you jobs that you like.

My special talents section would probably read as,

Can seek to first scene after FRIENDS theme song interlude, blindfolded.
Can juggle 3 balls.

An awesome talent that I might be in those departments I doubt if I can market them well enough to monetize them. Seeing as that is the case, it is understandable if I have come to loathe the job, that I have made despite my disproportionately superb talent in what is clearly a different walk of life. Loathe is probably too gentle a word. I probably have to come up with a whole new word for what I experience. (Probably something like I Lalit-Modi my job or some such crap)

Where was I? Yes. My allegedly extinct sense of self preservation. What led to its rebirth? My job.

Story1 : I've never been one with the big dreams. I have never wanted to be the big shot in a company or anything like that. But ever since I've seen our CEO - well... Come on - who wouldn't like getting a gaggle of people together who are essentially paid to laugh at your non-jokes.

One fine meeting, as is usual with any such meeting, I had drifted off - replaying an entire episode of FRIENDS - all in my head. (Note to self : Include this baby in resume) Seeing as it was this episode - I started appreciating the irony of the situation and very nearly laughed - and considering that our CEO was not recounting one of his non-jokes this could have proved very dangerous. He was drawing charts and graphs and explaining why and how our company was better than Oracle and IBM during the recession. Seriously. Anyway I digress. So to stifle the laugh I kinda yawned - you know the polite acute angle yawn - that is usually not picked up by others. And you know the thing about yawns right? Well they're contagious and how. So this fresher in front of me - picked up where I left of - opened his mouth wide at an angle that even hippos find difficult to attain and let it go.

Nothing like a good strong yawn on an interminable Monday afternoon. Very gratifying - at least in the short term. Because he was fired the next day.

True Story.

May be continued with other such stories.

Title and Other dialogue based referential tributes to :
F.R.I.E.N.D.S - Both the on screen and my off screen ones.

P.S :
And about my talents in the juggling department. Its a scientific fact. And readers are advised to avoid easily derivable innuendos from the statement. Clever ones are another matter altogether! :)

Cervicalgia

2009-11-12T05:44:00.000-08:00

Cervicalgia or Kazhuthu Vali or Gardhan Dhardh or A Pain in the Neck or the process of Apping to universities, whatever you want to call it. Its all the same. It doesn't really matter.

A pain in the neck is a pain in the neck is a pain in the neck. No matter what you call it.

If there was ever a Pursuit of Happynessy narrative to my life, I'd probably call this little part of my life, this one right here - A Royal Cervicalgia.

There's this saying in tamil ,

Thou shall not know of emesis nor of diarrhoea unless unless thou suffers it.

I will not undermine your intelligence by translating that. Anyway that is very true.

A few life lessons for the uninitiated would-be APPers

Never sit next to a pretty girl while giving your TOEFL. Your speaking score is likely to suffer. Especially if your already feeble skills of vocalization have been known to decay exponentially under similar circumstances.

Stop cooking up half-baked plans to woo and marry ebay id : blonde_pyt22 to avail in-state tuition costs. It is probably illegal. And yes, I'm sure the above plan is a no-go because of legal logistics and not due to anything else.

Do not even think of applying to a university just for a girl. OK she is probably not 'just' a girl. Nevertheless don't.

Pray to God, (though you are not sure if he exists,) that all the doomsday prophets are right and life as we know it will cease to exist in a a couple of years. Why you might ask. To forfeit the humongous loan that I will otherwise have to repay.

Here's to hoping that the world will indeed reboot in 2012!

P.S
This post also explains why the speed of my blog-update frequency has dropped from the speeds of a young Inzy(consistently slow) to a Ranatunga(death crawl).

The Ugly Jean

2009-09-13T11:48:00.000-07:00

You know this guy who made a homonym out of an already dull movie title thinking it was a clever play on words but only succeeded in worsening it. Well i thought I’d try it too. And as expected it didn’t work.

Now now. Do not fret. I know that the previous passage, instead of clearing things up, only made it worse. Lets see if this helps. Shankar movie– Jeans (Genes homonym) – Play on words – expect to appeal to mass – but no one got the fund – ended up ignoring the title – enjoying movie anyway. My post – Ugly Gene – similar – not expect to get title – enjoy post anyway. Phew!

So there. The Ugly Gene.

I hope most of you have a working knowledge of how natural selection works. To put it very briefly - You inherit only those characteristics that give you a better chance of survival. So the ugly gene – how does it work?

All babies are helpless at birth. The most they can do is suck and grasp and that’s pretty much it. They need someone helping them constantly – hence my hypothesis - this gene is suppressed at birth for everyone. For the unfortunate ones this gene remains suppressed well into adulthood (this affliction is also called being-good-looking) thus depriving them of the package that comes with the gene – A well developed sense of sarcasm, A well developed sense of the reality of life, A capacity of self-sustenance etc. In essence they are helpless without the gene and their very livelihood depends on their intellectually superior mutant cousins – ordinary looking people.

You think this is far-fetched? Case in point, Blondes – why do you think blonde people are… well… blonde. Man has always been attracted to shiny objects and the blonde hair is in actuality a beacon crying out for help.

The pug -the only canine to have a skill set that would be dwarfed by a slug. On the evolutionary marathon it would probably have tied for last place with the Dodo. Darwin probably turned in his grave looking at the Hutch ads and all the hoopla around the pug. But it gets away with all that just by being little and cute.

How many times have you seen that bank teller respond to all the PYTs in the room before getting to you. I’m not judging him but that is just how man works.

Now that we have established the existence of the gene. I will conclude by saying that I know what I am. Do you? Or if i might borrow a grammatically better suited phrase from one of the Indian Army ads,

Do you have it in you?

P.S : If you’re still having trouble deciding, let me make it easier.

1. Did you get the first paragraph ? – If yes, congrats, you are a part of the genetically superior crop.

2. Did you have to read the dumbed down second paragraph to get it? – Congrats, you lucky dog.

3. You still didn’t get it? Say hello to the dodo for me.

Acknowledgements :

Friends – for pointing out the pointless existence of the pug to me.

Darwin – for giving the world natural selection.

Dodo – may its soul rest in peace.

And then she said…

2009-08-27T00:52:00.000-07:00

Warning : Post contains slightly graphic content. Could very easily be thought of as distasteful by the general populace.

So if u're a prude, Go do something else in the interlude. But hey if u are quite the dude, Then maybe the humour's not quite so lewd.

(See that’s why i don't try to rhyme)</End Warning>

Imagine this. A 75 kg 6ft 3 inch mass of unadulterated enthu equipped with ~~two left feet~~ at-least-half-a-dozen left feet skipping and dancing in pure joy. That, if you haven't guessed it yet, was me, last Saturday.

The reason : She'd come in early. She wasn't supposed to be here until this Tuesday and yet she was here on Saturday. This sort of thing almost never happens. But hey I'm not complaining.

Right. So about her. First things first. She’s hot. You don’t get that feeling right away though. It takes some time, you gotta spend some time with her. Most people say she gets hotter by the minute. (:blush)

She’s the right size too. A couple of inches here or there and all would have been lost. But no. Not her. She’s just right. I have this rule, borne out of my many past predicaments. One of these was self inflicted, due to saturnine saturation on my tongue on one fateful day. But most of them were due to certain Satan-incarnates I call friends.

Anyway the rule is -

Involve yourself romantically in a relationship only when you know you can lift her.

or To put it in a crisp but crass manner -

If you can’t heave it, then you can’t have it.

Not to do this. Nah. Never . Its just good logic, don’t you think.

Anyway back to her. Lifting her was easy peasy. Nowadays I spend most of my spare time with her. And if all the other chairs are occupied I … ahem ahem … let her sit on my lap.

Our courtship was completely online (Yeah go ahead judge me). So I hadn’t really spoken with her in person. So this Saturday, you’ll understand when I say I was a little nervous, when

She said, …

(drawing semicircle on ground with my foot)

She said, … those three words to me.

She said,…

…

Welcome to Vista.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My lady friend is indeed a laptop. Pretty lame, I know. But every blogger is apparently entitled to one lame post with that very guessable (oh-so-you-think-that’s-a-) twist ending.

Author’s note :

To those who guessed it – congratulations on figuring out the obvious.
To the utterly gullible minority that wound up feeling put out – Gotta hand it to you. You have a very vivid imagination. You are an eternal optimist. You’re probably the nutcase who when shown an empty glass, says – It is completely filled with air. Bravo!

----------------
Now playing: Yes - Owner of a Lonely Heart
via FoxyTunes

Oore kai kotti sirichudham

2009-07-18T23:13:00.000-07:00

Takes the oft-repeated cliched caption of this post to a whole new level doesn't it?

From Left-to-Right:
Vaanga boss! Ivanga epovume ipdi than - Strauss
Iniku madhyanam meals oda mysore pak poduvangala - Ponting
Hayyo Hayyo - Flintoff
Kai pulla kanakka etti paakra - Anderson

Omitted characters have too innocuous an expression to feature in the list above.

The Aussie camaraderie has always been the stuff of legends. I'm sure some of you have heard about the Tu Tu Main Main sturggle in the Johnson household.

This picture shows the entire team consoling Mitchell Johnson right after he got an SMS while on field, stating that his mother had knocked his kick-boxing girl friend out cold.

Imaginary dialogues might include :

Johnson : Pch... Oru quarter sarayathukaga oru saaraya kadaye vaanga koodadhu.
Clarke : Panesar wicket kooda edukka mudiyaliye unaku tensionave illaya. Nenju pada padanu achikala
Ponting mumbling to himself: budhan, vyazhan, velli... iniku sure'a vadagari dhan idliku. sabbba.

Acknowledgments:
1. The worst ever australian team put together for the ashes.
2. My new room mates for pointing out the first pic to me.

P.S:

FYI the first potaa was taken during this Ashes when the players were waiting for the third umpires ruling which as you can very clearly see gave Ponting out. In one of the greatest captures of ephemeral emotions, this one was taken right after the english players knew about the decision and 'just' before Ponting has realised this. Like I said, gr8 piece of photography!

WTB

2009-07-05T22:07:00.000-07:00

A very scholarly friend of mine once told me,

"The four letter F-word is not to be bandied about lightly and hence must be substituted with its parliamentary proxy Buck"

Note : He might have been slightly inebriated but I'm not sure.

Hence WTB.

Let me list the three 'What the' moments I've had recently

Me updating my blog twice in two days. Definitely WTB worthy. But actually kinda trivial, since I wouldn't have updated if the other two WTB's hadn't happened.

Federer beating Roddick in ~~five~~ "seven" sets

5-7 7-6 (8-6) 7-6 (7-5) 3-6 16-14.

Lets put that in perspective,

Venus Williams en route to the "other" men's final beat Safina 6-1 6-0. That's a grand total of 13 games. Roddick won 14 games in just the last set.

Talk about unstoppable force and immovable object. I've never liked Roddick that much. But man can that guy give a fight. Were they paying tribute to Nadal's stamina or something, seeing who can outlast the other. The fact that Federer took all of 39 Roddick's service games to break his serve goes to say how well Roddick was serving in the match. Not that Federer was serving badly. 50 aces apparently was just one short of Karlovic's record. It was in Roddick's 40th service game that Federer was finally able to break his serve and with that he won his record breaking 15th Slam. Pretty heartbreaking for the American.

Pregnant Mrs Federer was pretty relieved at the end of the match. And not just because of the result, she might probably have started wondering if she'd have to have her baby delivered right there in the Player's Box. Seriously. Thats how long that last set was.

And the camera guy kept coming up with one celebrity after another. I started wondering if I'd begun seeing things. Ofcourse the tennis giants were there - Sampras, Laver and Bjorg. And there was Sir Alex, Russell Crowe and a guy who looked a lot like Ballack but as I said I'm not sure.

Seeing as how this WTB moment is pretty huge, you'd think that this is the WTBest moment of the week. But no. Not even close.

This July. More accurately on the 11th of this July at 7:00 PM. If you were to tune into Zee tamil you are sure to have a lot of WTB moments.

I present the Worldwide Television Premiere of

Sam Anderson's Yaaruku Yaaro - Steppu Neee.

To all ye un-enlightened souls, let there be light.

P.S 1: To all Nadal fans, yap all you want about how Federer cries too much(thankfully not this time) but ironical seeing as initially they complained that he emotes too little, how his record against Nadal is bad, how he hasn't earned his French victory, how gold plated dresses are a little too much(Er... I agree on this count) etc etc...

The man has 15 slams before his first born sees the world. Beat that.

P.S 2: To all neutrals, I don't not like Nadal. I just hate his fans. ;)

Perips, Pulli and Pup

2009-07-03T23:07:00.000-07:00

There are three distinct species in you average Bangalore bachelor household or any other city for that matter.

Perippa (Perips) - Perippa is well, quite literally, the BIG DADDY of 'em all. He's the dude whose got it all. Crazy Girl, Snazzy bike, Long hair, Longer mobile bill... You know... the works.

Pulliraja (Pulli) - Pulliraja is your more down-to-earth guy as in the one without at least the majority of the things mentioned above. He's your epiphany-having, (very un)wise-cracking, constantly bored guy who always finds himself standing in front of the mirror and asking himself a slightly modified version of the one simple question that this bird here asks millions of people everyday.

WHAT ( THE F* ) ARE YOU DOING?

Pullapudikravan (Pup) - This is your immaculately dressing, EPL following, dangerous side-burn / beard having, angry young Amitabh of the 80's. And the name - well its well deserved. All the new mothers in the neighbourhood definitely owe this guy one w.r.t the complete nourishment of their offsprings.

Common Traits - But all three species share several common habits

Enrol for the Gym at least once.
Start a blog.
Have an extended discussion on whose job sucks more.
Have an even more extended discussion on coming up with new reasons why this is the best 'bad'vertisement in the history of Indian ads.
Rate girls in advertisements according to the Goundamani scale of girls who've got it. (Scale ranges from Rejetted, Unseletted .... to OK and double OK) Very MCP I know but that's what we do.
Write at least one competitive exam every year. GRE, CAT, GATE, Vendhan All Pass tutorial test-1 .... you name it, they are there.

Edit : Video link removed as one of the readers(and a very unlikely one at that) found it slightly inappropriate. I concur (atleast regarding the first few seconds). But then I myself find my entire blog slightly inappropriate at times!

And many more, I'll just wind up with the one defining characteristic shared by all of 'em. They are lazy as sloths. Not your average mammoth friend having sloth. But your 4 generation - sitting - food eating sloth.

The last sentence was ill formed, I agree. Maybe this imaginary conversation will give you a better idea

Pulli - (Has an epiphany as usual) Dood! I'm going out. I'm gonna get a life.

Perips - (Holds hand over phone) Oh you're going out. Good. Can you get me one as well?

Pup - (Neck extends out of room - Nirvana - Rape Me runs in the background) Can't we order in? Don't they deliver? I think I have their number.

Pulli - Oh ok.

To P's.

PS 1 : Some of my worst PJs in a long time. So readers kindly bear with me.

PS 2 : And seriously speaking the distinction is more transitory in the sense that every guy is actually all three P's at the same time. Any reference that a reader finds a little too close for comfort was not intended by the author but nevertheless will be thoroughly enjoyed if pointed out.

Moving out and moving on

2009-06-08T21:48:00.001-07:00

Its been almost an year now. Since I came here, to Bangalore. Since I became yet another imbecile in the IT world. Since I started earning my own living. Since the people at my office assured me that it is of the gravest importance that I keep my seat warm for atleast 10 hours failing which you-know-who might give me the you-know-what. An year since I became an almost-adult. Almost - considering all the things I've done in the past year it should barely have been Barely but then even this happened last year, so ...

Some of these almost-adult activities include very nearly getting into fights with dogs, flooding house, flooding house again during the very next month, successfully getting money back because they couldn't keep up with their 30 minute guarantee while conveniently ignoring the humongous heap of old pizza boxes that helped achieve this, learnt to play the one game that I stayed away from in college and more than made up for last time with regard to number of hours up at night playing the game and so on.

Apart that from all that, nothing much's changed with me. Lots of things have changed around me. But me, I'm mostly the same. I like to think I'm somewhat wiser and hopefully not taller. Although I will definitely not miss the house I most certainly will not forget it. After all the things that have happened there, I'm just a little sad that my last memory of the place had to be such a bad one.

Nevertheless, at some point of time everyone moves on. Whether you are chasing the world that moved on without you or if its the other way around - in the end that will make all the difference.

P.S: I get it. Nostalgia/peelings - not my thing. This will not be the norm. Normal programming will resume shortly.

In memory

2009-05-22T07:18:00.000-07:00

This blog post is dedicated to the memory of our friend, Dharmalingam aka Dharms aka Singam.

Dharms was slated to pass out of BITS, Pilani this year under the dual degree scheme with MSc in Bio Sciences and BE EEE, before his tragic demise, just a month ahead of his graduation.

He hailed from Sivagiri which is near Erode in TamilNadu. He topped the Board exams in his school to gain entrance into BITS Pilani, where he made a lot of friends who dearly miss him now. He is now survived by his father, who is a farmer by profession and his mother, both of whom are now distraught with the loss of their beloved son.

Dharms, we wish you had thought about your family and all of us before you made your decision. Having said that we will always cherish the memories you've given us and were extremely glad to be your friends.

In memory of Dharms...

We will always miss you.

Mayday on May day

2009-05-01T04:07:00.000-07:00

Mayday Mayday Mayday

No I'm not cheering the day that is today, i.e May day. Why would I? When most of the rest of the world is out today enjoying the start of an extended weekend, I'm sitting here at work. And when I did complain about this fact, my father found it an opportune time to talk about how I'm the only person who actually is celebrating International Labour Day the way it should be - by working! Sarcasm runs in the family, I guess.

You'd think after working on Independence Day (Shocking, rite?), Republic Day, Election day (I'm pretty sure that at least one of these will invite criminal prosecution) etc that I'd have gotten used to all this. The empty roads, the closed eateries, the do-u-really-think-we'll-work-at-all-today attitude at office, yada yada. Despite the non existence of any kinda traffic on such a dreary day I managed to reach the office at exactly 12 noon. Courtesy, a couple of movies and a 3 AM shower.

Anyhow that's beside the point, my fast ending morning was already off to a winning start due to the very scarce public commute on a govt holiday. So I ended up waiting at the bus stop for quite some time and then finally got into a bus and sat down in one of those window seats. After giving the conductor the ondhu rupai change he asked for, I got my headset out and was ready to go Tubthumping with Chumbawamba.

Just then the gentleman, standing near the empty seat next to me touched me on the shoulder and said to me, "Seat ugierrshh ukksindhi".

We'll be singing
When were winning
We'll be singing

I went, "Wha ?". And then he did it again. "Seat ushierrggg usskkindddhi". Conveying a lot more urgency this time.

I did a vertical pan. Took the headset out. Looked him straight in the eye, pointed to the empty seat next to me and id, "Kannada Gothila". Geez! What is it with me and buses?

Again the hand on my shoulder. "Seat bwaaah ushhierggg uskkkindhi"

The newly introduced syllable, atleast 'that' should have alerted me.

He could take it no longer. He just dove right past me, put his neck out the window and puked his guts out. And I had the best seat in the whole bus, having what can be very readily described as a graphic visualization of the effects of badly brewed beer and/or a sensitive stomach. Or what the pros would call - a half boil. And then he went mattai in the seat next to me.

START MISIC -

Of apple juice, Godrej and old age

2009-04-25T00:19:00.000-07:00

I really get shirty when my friends get nostalgic all of a sudden, not that I have a wooden heart or something. Its just that I feel that we are too young to be feeling all that shit, just yet. So whenever someone goes "You remember... ", my inner voice screams "Ah! There they go again! Get over it!"

All this until a few days ago.The old adage that "Kids can be cruel" - very true.

Just the other day that 2-feet-tall-wannabe-power-ranger-brat-cousin of mine called me "Godzilla". I believe his exact words were "Gaajilllaaa".

Little Runt! Despite all the practice in the world with this sort of thing, it was still a very sharp barb nonetheless.

So when I was walking along and i saw yet another prototype 8 yr old runt running my way and eying me warily I was ready. Or so I thought!

And just then he smiled.

"Cute kid!" Thinking I'd been too quick to judge him, I smiled back.

He waved and although public displays of affection are never my thing I waved back.

And then he said

"Bye Unggeel!"

WTH.

Not too long ago, I was the 8 year old (maybe not your typical runt, but still) who thought people who lived in the 1950's must have lived in black and white worlds and those in the 70's must have lived in eastman coloured worlds and so on. You get the drift.

Just as he said the dreaded word I remembered the Old Godrej Hair Ad that goes Auntie... Auntie... Auntie... . Damn it! Now I'm doing it. Maybe its time even I started doing this nostalgia thing.

In the words of Vivek,

"Epdi irundha naan ipdi ayiten. Crazy bugger. Dei payya andha apple juice'a konda!"

Of how the thundu guy became just another guy

2009-04-08T00:10:00.000-07:00

Just another dreary Saturday afternoon on a slow moving L70. I'd boarded the bus very near Ambattur (its starting point) and hence was able to secure a seat in the only place with enough leg room - the row at the very end, which is usually the very last place that other non-leg-room-challenged folk would choose because of the innumerable speed bumps.

But me, no, I don't get such luxuries and I've actually kindaa gotten used to it. Although my fellow passengers always have a weird look on their face whenever they see me decline a seat for so trivial a reason such as lack of leg room. Anyway thats beside the point and I will probably talk about it in a future post.

So there I was minding my own business seated at the fag end of the bus when along came the Thundu Guy and sat down right beside me. I wasn't too perturbed because these guys aren't much of a problem after they've attained nirvana ( in their case it is the act of securing a seat). Boy, was I wrong!

On a crowded bus waiting at a traffic junction in the sweltering Chennai heat it can be said with certainty that the likelihood of a good ol' fight is very high. And hence all personnel not trained in the fine art of bus banter and bickering must make way for worthier competitors. We'd just reached Padi and the bus was boarded by Bijli. I have no words to describe her. Suffice to say that even if Narasimha were to touch her then either Captain would be the one electrocuted or the entire Universe would implode. She was Vijay Shanthi + Sornakka + Neelambhari , all rolled into one.

Now the back row in a bus is a topic of fierce debate between the two genders of commuters. Whether its allotted to the fairer sex or if its free for all is still unclear. Me, I don't take any chances. I'm used to standing in buses, so what difference does it make if I were to stand for that extra couple of minutes. Unfortunately I'd just then gotten a call and was pretty busy on the phone when suddenly I realised I was about to be caught in the cross fire between Bijli and the Thundu guy. The initial barbs had already been thrown and bijli was ready to unleash her rage. Having seen a few such scenes in person, I did what every guy on that back row should have done. I fled that area. The fact that bijli's arguments were drowning out my mother on the other end also weighed pretty heavily in my decision to move to quieter surroundings.

By the time I'd disconnected the call I could see that bijli was really at the very top of her game. And the Thundu guy, was not gonna just sit around when he was being dis-nirvana-ted. When cornered, the two options available to any organism is Fight or Flight, and in choosing the former, the thundu guy made the biggest mistake of his life. What followed was a verbal bashing of the 2 generations on either side of the thundu guy's family. The thundu guy just about managed to drop the cliched 'Do you know who i know' line only to be confronted with an astute listing of possible characteristics that he and his 'political' friends possessed.

I am a good fan of a well paced "Podi" like the one in this song, but to use that as your only convincing insult repeatedly after the kindaa barbs that you've been getting. Lets just say that the journey from Padi to CMBT was a lot of things for a lot of people.

Entertaining as hell for everyone but one soul.
Hell for that one soul.
Educative for me.(all those new word-combos I wasn't imaginative enough to think up earlier...)
Life Affirming for bijli.

Much like Padayappa's thundu which falls to the ground at the end of the most amaklamatic scene of Tamil cinema, everyone on that bus saw that metaphorical thundu fall to the ground. And right then... the Thundu guy became just another guy.

Why women are dumb...

2009-04-06T23:50:00.000-07:00

See what happens when you mess up and accidentally miss just a couple of words like anything and but. Quite contrary to what the very misleading title might imply I wanted to argue the very opposite, that women are anything but dumb.

Saying women are dumb is like ... is like saying... ( ran out of an analogy for the very first time in my life, hope that captures the extremity of such an outrageous accusation ) Hence the only thing that is like saying women are dumb is saying women are dumb. (That is one very confused sentence)

I will now explain why women are anything but dumb. First lets begin by analyzing the word 'dumb'. Now Oxford defines it as

1 being unable to speak or lacking the power of speech. - Yeah rite. Like that's ever gonna happen with women. Right from the days when I was short enough to wear shorts upto the days shorts were a form of wearable torture device, if there was one thing that I'd learnt during that time, it was that, women like to talk. Period.

2 temporarily unable or unwilling to speak. - Again. No more questions, You Honour.

3 informal, chiefly N. Amer. stupid. - Aah. Although this has been listed at 3, this is the meaning the feminist inside you jumped to when you first read the title. I will not frown upon your bias as it is fairly common to do so and also because I believe the origin of this particular meaning is closely related to the earlier two. I say so because when someone is struck dumb and rendered speechless it is equated to being not able to give an appropriately intelligent enough response. Hence it has come to be that temporary speech impairment will forever be associated with being deficient in matters of the mind.

Now that we have established that as a fact, I will regale you with the tale of when the Thundu Guy met his match, in the next post.

The Thundu Guy

2009-03-10T06:42:00.000-07:00

What is it with Indians and seats?

Right from the political big wigs battling it out with their coalition partners for that one last assembly seat. The wannabe doctor who shells out my entire decade's salary on 1 medical college seat. Or the much more easily observed species, the thundu guy.

Now the thundu guy is not easily identifiable unless he is in his natural habitat, which is either a railway station or a bus stand. The characteristic home stretch speed and the dexterous throw of the thundu through the window is a sight to behold. Over the years, our thundu guy has evolved into his post modern metrosexual equivalent, the paunch guy. So how do you identify this sub species.

1. Yet another Che t shirt? check.
2. Headphones? check.
3. Swanky laptopbag? check.
4. New fastrack watch? double check.
5. Nike shoes. check. Yup thats him.

Now we don't call him the Paunch guy for a purely numerical reason based on the items listed above.

The Paunch AKA Potbelly AKA (in our more expressive vernacular tongue) the thoppai.

Now how does this guy secure a seat? The power of the primordial belly is put to good use here. Since the laptop is too expensive to be used as a seat securer, it cannot be used as a substitute for the timeless thundu. So what does he do? He uses his belly. I kid you not when I say that on a crowded PTC bus, the power of the belly is too much to take. You will wilt eventually and vacate the standing spot right next to the aisle seat, in obeisance to the belly bearer. This way he gets the seat once the present occupant empties the seat.

Of course there are under developed variants which lack the vital belly but still make a fight for the seat. They use one of several techniques like the Pelvic push or Errant Elbow or the Slighly-risky-not-to-be-tried-at-home Salsa Leg Lock. Anyhow the moment I see one of these guys making a beeline for the seat, I get out of the firing zone.

In fact even if a seat right next to me were to suddenly be empty and even if there's no belly-bugger in a 10m radius I would still not take the seat. Not out of any misplaced sense of benevolence. Its not that I don't want to sit. The fact of the matter is most of the times I can't sit. The travails of the too tall traveler.

A Martian Marriage

2009-03-04T23:47:00.000-08:00

Lets talk Math. Specifically the controversial Drake's Equation,

N = R X FP X NE X FL X FI X FC X L

R is the average rate of star formation in our galaxy.
FP is the fraction of those stars that have planets.
NE is the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets.
FL is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point.
FI is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life.
FC is the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space.
L is the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

Now this N is the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible. Unfortunately none of the values are calculable. But fortunately by very contrived mathematical models I was able to arrive at a strikingly similar equation.

n = r X fp X ne X fl X fi X fc X l

r is the number of eligible girls on earth.
fp is the fraction of those girls that don't already have bfs/gfs and/or husbands.
ne is the average number of those girls whom I even have a remote chance of running into.
fl is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point. (And by life here I mean their existence of which I'm a part of i.e I must have somehow gotten to know them)
fi is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life. (You can add other adjectives like pretty, has a good sense of humour as well but that's only gonna take the numbers lower)
fc is the fraction of such girls that develop a tendency to like me and be liked in return.
l is the length of time such girls release detectable signals into space. (Meaning before they realize what they have gotten into and make a run for their lives)

So there you go, that is the number of girls out there for me. Whats ironic though is the fact that all the corresponding variables in the Drake's equation are arguably* larger than the ones in my equation.

i.e
R >> r
FP >> fp
and so on.

which can imply only one thing,

n <<<< N

Hence the number of girls out there for me is considerably smaller than the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible.

OK. So what do we do now.

Since the odds are obviously better with Drakes equation I decided that the next time a Martian makes contact I'm gonna propose marriage**.

* Don't ask me how, but if you still want to know - the calculation is based on heuristic analysis of existing stochastic simulations on individuals based on random sampling.
** Obviously, its gotta be a she-martian. Assuming they even have a notion of gender differentiation.

P.S this post is not to be construed as evidence of the author's growing desperation in matters of the heart. Rather it should be treated as what it is. An academic treatise on a matter of grave importance or BS spawned by a perennially bored brain.

How I Met Her Hair

2009-02-26T04:08:00.000-08:00

My very-own-very-late Valentines Day story.

Just another friday night at KR Puram Railway Station. The train pulls in. The people try to get in as quickly as possible. I laboriously pick up my luggage and walk in. And we are away.

I dump my bag under the seat. Fasten up the middle berth. Bring the windows down. Plug in to the music and lie down in the lower berth.

And the song goes,

Aval varuvala. En pallamaana ullam vellamaaga aval varuvaala?

And then I was slowly drifting out of consciousness only to be awakened by that.

That thing that caused quite a furor during the Thiruvilayadal times.

That thing whose questionable natural scent was the reason for the debate between Nakeerar and You-Know-Who.

That thing which caused the opening of the proverbial third eye.

That thing which helps priyanka chopra weave out of her kung fu opponent's grasp in that Clinic Plus Ad.

That thing which was my first tamil swear word.

Yes.

I am talking about human hair. In particular about women's hair.

A lot of friends I know have a thing for long hair. I mean girls with long hair. Although I'm not into it as much as those guys, I'm definitely not averse to it. But that was not how I first reacted when that thing first tickled me.

A piece of advice, Just because a long black hairy(obviously!) thing is in your hand it doesn't mean you have to scramble out of your seat as soon as possible. Especially valid in case you are in the very cramped lower berth of a moving train.

I don't know if my waking up let the light in or the banging of my head cleared it but somehow my mind cleared enough to realize what it was. It was the flowing locks of a woman's hair or the more eloquently worded tamil koondhal, which had snaked through the gap alongside the middle berth and fallen into my very scared hands.

So I get up (without hitting my head this time) and look at her.

Well, she was no sameera reddy. But who am I kidding. I did not have the strength of a thousand elephants. She looked refined and pretty cute in her own koondhal-nonchalantly-tossed-aside-to-the-lower-berth way. My request to get her flowing tresses out of my sleeping quarters were worded thus,

You... Hair.... Down(Hand Pointing)....Take....Please(More of an afterthought)

Economic word usage I agree, but not very elegant is it?

She looked startled for a second. Then comprehends. Pulls the offending object(s?) out of the gap. Lets it lie beside her. Smiles a sheepish sorry.

I wave the apology off and get back to my now koondhal-free lower berth. Only after lying down do I realize how I'd missed a simple opportunity to strike up a conversation with her. I thought to myself there's always tomorrow and went to sleep.

Tomorrow did come. And I found my long haired almost-valentine sitting opposite me with her very own valentine from the other middle berth.

And that is the story of How I met Her Hair.

P.S: True Story. Obviously-exaggerated details are the author's entitlement considering his very poor luck.

When Bangalore screamed

2009-02-17T05:21:00.000-08:00

First things first, this is not a review of Iron Maiden's performance at the Palace Grounds. Primarily because I'm smart enough to know that any adjective that I use will only come out jaded and cliched. So I will stick to doling out advice for the newb who is gonna watch his maiden concert.(I know. That was a PJ)

Get yourself a pair of really tough sneakers. Do not dare enter the staging area with just your sandals on. No matter how difficult it is to find footwear for you, get something. There are around a gazillion feet out there jumping, hopping, kicking, moshing, skipping and they all have to land somewhere. And more importantly those feet are not sandal covered like your puny feet but they are all wearing shoes. Apart from all this, there's also gonna be a lot of pushing and shoving going on near the stage. And at some point you will find yourself on the ground and you will soon see a lot more of other peoples sneakers, which should help you choose a good pair for the future, if you make it out alive that is.

Besides, if you're gonna die, you might as well die with your boots on! :)

Do not reach too early. Too early is defined as the scheduled start of events. Any energy you use, out on the sun waiting for the headlining band to come out, is energy wasted. Reach the venue at T+(4 to 5) hrs. Maiden came out at around 19:50. We reached at 12:00. That is Bad. And I say 4-5 and not flat out 7 because the bands just before the main act are usually good.

As was the case with Parikrama, I'm not very musically literate but even I know that the violin leads were brilliant. Apart from that what was commendable was the fact that they knew that the crowd was restless waiting for Maiden, so they used that to their advantage. That brings me to the most important part of the concert apart from the band, the Mob.

The mob is made of people like you and me. But collectively its an entity of its own. When it all begins, there is some gentle ribbing with all the other performers, and some of the taunts are pretty clever too.

Like when Lauren Harris (daughter of Maiden bassist Steve Harris) came out on stage to perform,some one started singing Bring your Daughter to the Slaughter. It was pretty funny. For some time, we all sang Bring Me your Daughter, Fetch Your Daughter...Bring Me your Daughter, Fetch Your Daughter...So the taunts can range from this to the usually used medially located finger approach and other such gestures.

Its not just the crowd that can sink low, one guy (I think he was from Cyanide Serenity. Not sure), said this as soon as he came on to the stage, "How many of you here hate Bush as much as I do". That was a cheap shot. I know its difficult to get the crowd going when all they want to see is Maiden. But this was sinking too low. It was almost as bad as Godwin's Law. But the mob responded to this as well.

This is one of many many other stunts that the bands tried to woo the crowd. One could understand their plight and to be fair, apart from all the Death Metal/Nu Metal/watever-it-is-that-its-called songs that they sung, the remaining were quite OK.

The rest is routine. The rest of the 2 hours you spend waiting, must be over in a haze of over-prized-food, gawking (there are lots of weird things to look at), vaporised nicotine and gentle swaying to the beat of the other bands.

And then there was MAIDEN.

I want to end this right here (and might probably include the rest in another post) by saying this about how I feel about what followed

I lived alone my mind was blank
I needed time to think to get the memories from my mind
What did I see? Could I believe? That what I saw
that night was real and not just fantasy

-The Number of The Beast by Iron Maiden

Calling Honey - 044 26XXXXXX

2009-02-12T02:27:00.000-08:00

As a sequel to the earlier post I thought I'd include something on what you should never call me.

My friends and I, we are, what you would call, secure men, meaning we are pretty confident about our orientation and inclination. Thus when we interlace our conversations with the occasional chellam or bujji or vooochi or kutti it is not a cause for alarm but should be seen as a representation of our very secure manliness. I am well aware of the fact that the usual greetings are machi or maapla or in rare cases sagala, but we are different.

At least that was how it was until a few weeks ago.

One fine Sunday morning, a member of the secure men brotherhood decided to call me up and ask about my plans for that day.

His greeting - 'Hi Honey'.

The person who picked up the phone - my unwitting father.

And since we are so secure about our manhood, we usually don't even wait to make sure its really 'our honey' at the other end. The dolt repeated the offending greeting two - three times. By which time I had realized something was wrong after seeing my father's reaction. Finally my father inquired as to who it was and then 'my honey' on the other side caught on.

He gave it to me, saying that the male caller was repeated asking for someone by the name 'honey' before asking for me. And then he went away still trying to make sure his ears were unclogged and that he'd really heard the word 'honey'. I just hope my family don't jump to any irrational conclusions regarding my inclination. Assuring them about that, is not a job that I want to be doing.

That said, I would like to assure all concerned readers that I'm as straight as a (looking for analogy) ... hmm ... as a (still looking)...

Sachin Tendulkar straight drive off Brett Lee at the SCG.

Now if my better half, if you are out there somewhere, a word of advice

During our future courtship, Never ever ... ever call me honey.

P.S:
1. How I wish this were a work of fiction? But this is too stupid to make up. Yup, its as Hetfield used to sing, Sad but True.
2. And the caller, pretty guessable. If you are part of my circle, that is.

Just call me Money

2009-02-09T02:47:00.000-08:00

Before you begin there are 2 things that you should know about me.

1. I don't like people messing up my name. Come on, how difficult is it to say Manigandan. Pretty basic phonemes if u ask me. Ma as in multiple ni as in nicknames ga as in guy and dan as in well ... just done. Its that simple.

I've never had trouble with people given prefixes though. I've been called K Mani Ko Mani Ku Mani M Mani F Mani P Mani and I'm OK with all that. I know that my name lends itself well to being prefixed. So I don't mind that at all. No really, I don't.

What I don't stand is people calling me Manikandhan, Manikanten etc

2. The second thing is that I'm a pretty big fan of Iron Maiden. So much so that my alarm tone is Hallowed be Thy Name.

Now we are a go. One fine evening, I was bored. I mean really bored not just the look-at-the cricinfo-page-every-5-minutes bored but bang-your-head against-the-wall bored. I decided to skip down to have some snacks.

I was minding my own business, walking to the snack counter in our IT Park, when I saw her.

Maria.

(fruit cherry'a... Nee variya... Emailil luv...) Too much too soon I said to myself. BTW shes a fellow employee from Europe.

And then I just stood there and reasoned a few things out with myself. I've always been telling my friends, albeit with false hope, that I'm gonna marry a girl of European descent as their average height is much higher than that of their Indian cousins. So I that what the hell. I'm gonna do it. Also she was wearing heels which meant more time for me to make a quick getaway in case things didn't work out as I planned.

With this in mind I walked up to her and said, "Hi Maria". I saw the glint of recognition in her eyes. So just as she was trying to read my name out of my ID Card (Man... I ...) I interrupted her and said, "Just call me Mani, u know as in Money" (I make a dollar symbol with my hand).

Oh... OK. Hi Mani.

Good. Now we were on first name basis.

Praying to the almighty to give me the required strength, I blurted out,
Would u like to grab some coffee?

And to my greatest surprise, She said 'Yes. That would be great'

Just as we walked off into The Sunset (no I mean literally there's a coffee shop by that name) someone's cell phone went off singing,

Take me away
Somewhere far away
Beyond the sun

When suddenly it morphed into this,

I was waiting in my cold cell
When the bell begins to chime
Reflecting on my past life
And it doesn't have much time

Oh crap.

P.S:
1. This is purely a work of fiction. None of it ever happened. Ever.
2. The song Take me away is from the Vodafone elevator ad.

Pulliraja goes to Pilani [WYSI-definitely not-WYG]

2008-12-16T21:05:00.000-08:00

Yes. Thats right, What You See Is definitely not What You Get in Pilani.

Have you ever wanted to know how a building would look like if it had jaundice.Then you should come to BITS, Pilani. No, not the Bannariamman Institute of Technology and Sciences the other BITS. One look at the jaundiced, small-as-a-jail-cell, pigeon-poop-filled room that I was alloted and I thought to myself did I really travel 48 hours non-stop to come to this place?

And to top it all of, the haunting inscription on the bureau,

PSYCHO WAS HERE -RM 245.

Huh... should I be scared or was it some cryptic clue that had to be solved? I just made sure that my father never read that message lest he feel uncomfortable about leaving me there!

Back to the pigeon poop, I'm reminded of a particulary funny moment during my second year there.

Principal characters:

The Warden: He was pretty much your run-of-the-mill torch toting warden. The interesting part was he carried the torch with him regardless of the time of the day.

US: Since I don't remember all involved characters in this incident, I'll just call ourselves Unfortunate Souls. All of US were catching a movie on a Monday afternoon as is the custom on most Monday afternoons(or any other afternoon for that matter).

Door knocking...

US[1]: Ji agla baar paisa dhedhenge ji. (US[1] is the primary occupant of the room. Thinks its the Dhobi and tries to get back to the movie)

Incessant knocking...

US[2]: dei kadhava thorandhu dhan paaren da.
US[1]: pch...
US[3]: dei padatha pause pannu... padatha pause pannu... erkanavae onnum purilla
US[1] drags himself to the door and opens it.

To add to the already too-bright-too-suddenly effect in the room, the man switches on his torch at 4 in the afternoon. US[3] to US[6], all of them shade their eyes quickly to prevent permanent damage to their respective retinae.

Warden: What is this? (he says and points the torch at the monitor)

No one wants to state the obvious and everyone stays quiet.

US[1]: Sir, we are watching a movie.

[edited out] Uninteresting parts of the conversation involving bits like "Don't you have any class?" "Isn't there a test series coming up this month?" (to which US[3] replied in an US-only-audible-undertone, "Illa Sir, India adutha maasam dhan Australia voda aadudhu" )

Unable to wheedle anything incriminating from any of US, he is almost out but suddenly points his torch at the floor just outside the door (much to the relief of US[3]....US[6]) and says,

"What is this?"

US[1] was the only one who was standing near the door, and from his facial expression we were pretty sure he was trying real hard to resist laughing right there in his face.

US[1]: Sir, we (stifles laugh) didn't do it.

You would all have realised that this line is a dead giveaway in most insinuating situations but trust me when I tell you that here we really didn't do it.

The Warden: Doesn't matter who does it. Its your room you have to keep it clean.
Make sure it doesn't happen again.

At the last line, US[1] tries his hardest to keep a straight face and says,

Yes Sir. Won't happen again.

Satisfied, the warden pockets his torch with a flourish and leaves.

As soon as he is out of earshot, US[1] bursts laughing. The rest of US walk out to the door and look at what he had been pointing his torch at,

Fresh blessings from our avian friends aka PIGEON POOP.

Acknowledgements:
I guess I was either US[4] or US[5].
So to the rest of US : I know I changed the script a bit. Hope you guys don't mind. And I don't remember who came up with the Bannariamman bit either. So there thats about it.

P.S: It is an entirely different matter that we came to love our jaundiced small-as-a-jail-cell room so much that we very rarely cared to venture out of them unless it was for food.

Pulliraja fights back!

2008-12-09T03:05:00.000-08:00

Note: For any of this nonsense to make any sense, you will need some background knowledge.

As promised I will now detail how my fellow victims and I got around this embarassing situation. As kaakha kaakha's pandya puts it quite eloquently it was 'simple but powerful'. We wore pants over our shorts to school and changed to shorts once we got to our all-boys-only class. Ingenious, rite? To that effect 11 'D' holds the distinction till date for being the only class room in India in which students have ever taken their pants off!

Now that we we had done away with our constricting pants, our school ground was ready to revel in the glory of our unhindered and agile movements on it. Calling it a schoolground would be insulting to all other self respecting schoolgrounds. I'll tell you what it was. It was a basketball court and volleyball court merged into one student assembly area + a bonus cycle parking area. God bless the Mogappair based Civil Engineer who built the place. He did the best with what he had.

That was our first lesson in optimization. We learnt to play five sports within 1basketball court+1volleyball court. Half of the Basketball court would be occupied by srinaths bowling to tendulkars and the rest be covered with Jordan-sque dunkers. Amidst all this commotion some people even managed to play football.Cricket was funny though. An excerpt from the field placement from DAV's Dhoni reads as

Dei nee physics lab la nillu. Nee chemistry lab.
And indha vaati principal room ulla ball vitradha da. Aprom matcha curtail panna vendi dhan.
Avan enga da. Avana toilet veliya dhana nikka sonnen.

Disclaimer: The post suffers from a certain degree of exaggeration. I'm more than entitled to that after the traumatic events of my past. All present and future statistics to be taken with a grain of salt.

P.S Next post Pulliraja goes to Pilani!

if ( me==pulliraja ) { answer=true }

2008-11-24T05:35:00.001-08:00

So all you c-programming-savvy-pullirajas would have by now arrived at the conclusion that I've got AIDS. I don't deny it. Infact I'm proud of it. But just before all of you go gaga over my perceived state of distress I'm sorry to disappoint you by saying that I'm referring to a condition very different from what Pulliraja might/might not have acquired.

I have an Acquired Immunity to Dry Sarcasm and there's a very good reason as to why I call it 'acquired'.

You know people say that when life throws rocks at you, you should build a wall with them. Or was it a bridge? I don't know. Anyway my philosphy in my life was when life throws rocks at you, go hide behind 'em. That worked. Atleast until my 11th Standard. Coz right then life threw a man named Molaga Bajji and a pair of shorts at me.

edit: original name edited out for anonymity, and future occurrences have been not-so-cleverly replaced with Molaga Bajji.

Let me introduce the principal characters in this teenage drama/action/~~romantic~~/comedy

A Pair of Shorts - Shorts coz they are short. They are so very aptly named, aren't they?
Molaga Bajji - his very name sounds villainic doesn't it? Rightly so.
And well, me.

That moron, Bajji , was the Director of Education (or some such high post) in the DAV Group of Schools, Chennai. In a moment of heat-induced-madness coupled with what I suspect was a periodic-bout-of-gayish-tendencies he decided to make all the boys at DAV wear shorts on Saturdays and days with Physical Training Sessions.(or the more colloquial PT if u'd prefer it)

To say I'm tall would be an understatement. To say that if you climbed high enough that you could see me silhouetted against the horizon would be an exaggeration (that my vertically challenged friends would not be very fond of). Lets just say that I'm somewhere between those two. With that and the shorts in mind understand the predicament I was in.

Every day the journey to and from the school was a nightmare. There were several different reactions. Most of it was non verbal to which I'm thankful. But more often than not their expressions said it all. Here are a few of the expressions that I translated,

The busy-office-going-guy's WTF 360 : He's almost passed me by in his hurry but realizes something was amiss with what he saw and does a lightning quick 360 that will have him humored for the rest of the day.

The just-reached-9th-Std : The guys (who have just graduated to pants from shorts) have a very annoying self satisfied smirk on their face, and the girls, they have just started learning the art of group giggling, and are literally LOLing/ROTFLing.

The list is almost endless. The bewildered kindergartener who wants to know why the anna is still wearing shorts to school.

The former school mates who were waiting for just something like this to happen.

And my personal favourite expression,
The bus conductor's Duuude! How many classes did you fail?

My fellow victims and I did finally think of a diabolical plan to be rid of this embarrassment. All that and more details about the atheltic activities during our PT sessions in the next post.

To be continued...

Ever since Chandrakantha, Raja Aur Rancho, Shaktimaan and the like, I've always wanted to do that. :P

P.S: Just to be clear. About the I'm tall line. I never said 'tall handsome and good looking guy' .

:P

P.P.S: People who don't know me that well and/or those who didn't get the P.S comment, I had to try real hard not to spell it out to you. Lets just say theres a very eligible bachelor in orkut.

P³S: Do read Nightraja's take on Chennai Schools and their Chic Summer wear.

Yo Momma

2008-11-19T04:29:00.000-08:00

Before any phonetically challenged reader gets the wrong idea, I'd like to clear the air by saying that this has nothing to with me cheering something/someone/my mother on.

Based on past experiences with readers of this blog I am pretty sure that 90% of all those reading this can understand Tamil. I say 90% coz there was this one random peter guy who made equally random comments, and I think he doesn't speak Tamil. Ya I know saying there were 10 different people reading this blog is stretching it. My blog. My stats. Stuff it.

So when I say that 'Yo Momma' literally translates to 'Ungamma', I hope that the 9/10th of a person within you understands that its not something you throw about lightly without knowing what it means [or what it might mean when completed].

You know how Americans have an attitude when they discuss Indians, with their bad Call Centre jokes.

Speaker 1 : "Ooh I hear that most Indian men don't get any action until 25." [Sad but true :( ]
Speaker 2 : "Aah! That explains why they are so rude on the customer care calls."

I haven't digressed from the topic here, I'm getting there. So if you were peeved hearing all those jokes here's something for you to laugh at. Take a look at this.

Yeah. Thats right. They have a competition where you trash talk your opponent and their mothers for money given away at the end of the show.

Here are a few of the jokes (or as the funky pants who runs the show calls it 'disses') featured on the show,

Yo Momma's so fat, she has her own zip code!

Yo Momma's so fat, when she sat in class she sat next to everyone!

Its got it all , what with the final 'Yo Mamma' round where you gotta exclusively trash talk about the opponents' mother. And just when you thought they couldn't sink any lower, there brought in their mothers to watch this sh&*. And once they even broke a tie by asking their mothers to trash talk.

So all ye M.S doing/ M.S pannalum pannuven if I don't get married by then guys the next time a bad ass American guy comes upto you and goes "Watcha got?" you can proudly say "Mere Paas Maa Hai!"

P.S You know what? I'm dedicating this post to my mother. Not that I'm gonna be showing her this post or anything. I don't think I can get around explaining the call centre joke!

Footwear Fetish (2) - The doGs must be Crazy

2008-10-23T04:00:00.000-07:00

I've already told you about how dogs and friends alike go crazy jealous over my sandals.

As promised I will now explain in horrific detail what happened on the three separate occasions.

Day 1:
Started off just like any other day, you know.
You walk out your door, trying to place your feet inside your sandals and rush out so that you can catch that 8:30 bus.
The only problem was there wasn't a pair of sandalS, there was just one.Sandal.

I did what any sane man would do, roamed around our apartment(that includes stairs, mind you) with just one sandal on.And to my very short lived relief there it was, outside one of our neighbours doors. Upon nearing the 'thing'(it was no longer a sandal), I realised something had gone to town with that sandal.Ditching the one sandal I had on,i begged my friend to wear his not-so-clean shoes so that I might have his oh-so-tight sandals.

2 days later:
After the usual lack of variety to choose from, I picked out a pair that looked 'unique'.I couldn't wait to get out of my friends sandals so I ended up wearing them as we returned home. Little did I know that I was tempting fate by leaving my sandals out.

The next morning:
DEJA VU.It was happening all over again.The same routine.It was the left sandal AGAIN only this time, brand new.

A month later:
I ended up getting my salvaged sandal sewn so that it resembled something of its former self. I wasn't going to tempt fate another time, so everynight I would leave my sandals within the house.One very rainy day, my sandals had gotten really muddy and I didn't want to get all the muck in the house, so I left the sandals on a pretty high window sill.Lets see you reach that you canine b*.

Today:
And yet it did.It is probably having a nice laugh somewhere right now, and discussing further plans to ruin my mornings in a more colourful way.

Footwear Fetish

2008-10-22T22:09:00.000-07:00

I have always had a tough time with regard to footwear.
I have trouble getting one my size,I don't even know what size I'm wearing right now.

Usually I go up to a shop and ask for the LARGEST size that they have available and try to make my peace with what's available at that size, meaning I have to make do with stuff I barely like because its the only thing that fits me.

Another reason why I have a tough time dealing with footwear is the fact that, my friends are,how shall I put this, 'jealous' when it comes to my taste in footwear.They just can't get over the fact that I always end up wearing something 'unique'.

Lately the street dogs near my place have also taken up this fetish.How would you feel when you step out of your door in the morning, to find your sandals in tatters.Torn apart without any mercy whatsoever.

You don't want to be that guy. Yet I was that guy.Not once.Not twice .But thrice.(We'll come to why I let it happen thrice later).And its always just the left sandal , never the right.And its never one of my friends or neighbors , its always me.
I've been asking this question a lot lately in my life, WHY ME ?

en kavidhai? enna idhu valiba vayasu

2008-02-26T00:20:00.000-08:00

"kaling! enga romantic a oru look udunga !" - karthik @ goundamani in mettukudi
this dialogue is followed by the infamous pig snort in bg and resulted in one of the most memorable comedy scenes in tamil cinema.

After seeing this scene I had a serious dbt if i had a romantic bone in my body.
adhan indha dhideer kavidhai muyarchi.

Title: என் கண்ணே!

கவிஞன் தன் காதலியை
கண்ணே என்று அழைக்கக் காரணம்
கண்களின் இன்றியமயாமைக்கு உருவகபடுததான்
என்று கணித்திருந்தேன்
கன்னி உன்னைக் காணும் வரையில்

கண்ட பின்னரே உணர்ந்தேன்
காணுமிடமெங்கும் நீயே தெரிந்தமையால் இனி என்
கண்ணில் எங்கும் நீயே தெரிவாய் என்று .
இவ்வாறு என் கண்ணாகவே நீ மாறியதனால் தானடி
உன்னை அழைக்கிறேன் 'என் கண்ணே' என்று !

adhu pudikalaya idhu...

"sing in the rain,
I am song in the rain,
I want more in the rain,
I want more in the rain.."

P.S serious article ezhudhalamnu dhan ezhudha arambichen.
aana mudiyala, adhan ore oru serious kavidhai!

pipe iruku pump illa

2008-02-20T01:10:00.000-08:00

Note: For those of you who can't read the tamil script.
Download and follow instructions available here. I know I could have written this in Tanglish but that wouldn't have been fair to both me and Jayamohan from whose site I copied all of this stuff. Actually this isn't fair to him either way because this way he does all the writing and I just copy stuff from his site.

எழுதுறதுக்கு முன்னாடி disclaimer போட்டுறது better னு நெனைக்கிறேன். அடுத்துவர quotes லாம் என் படைப்பு இல்ல. ஏற்கனவே எழுத்தாளர் ஜெயமோகன் எழுதியது.புரட்சி தலைவர் m.g.r பத்தி அவர் ezhudhina article la இருந்து excerpts.

"எம்ஜியாரின் பேச்சு வேறு எங்களுக்கு புரிவதில்லை. தீப்பொறி ஆறுமுகம் மேடையில் சொல்லும் நகைச்சுவை ஒன்று உண்டு. ஆசிரியர்கள் போராட்டம் நடந்தபோது அவர்களை பேச்சுவார்த்தைக்கு அழைத்த எம்.ஜி.ஆர் சொன்னாராம் ”உங்களுக்கெல்லாம் பைப்பு இருக்கு பம்பு இல்லை”. ஆசிரியர்கள் திக்பிரமை அடித்துபோய் பேச்சுவார்த்தை முறிந்தே போயிற்று. தலைவர் சொன்னது படிப்பு இருக்கிறது பண்பு இல்லை என்று. குலசேகரத்தில் பல வசனங்களை நாங்கள் கேட்டு அடைந்த கதையும், பெற்ற நெகிழ்ச்சிகளுமே வேறு. ” அம்மா, உங்க மகன் எப்பியாவது பயிச்சு பெய்யவனாய் அந்த பாயிகளை பாய் வாங்குவேன்…”. நம்பியார் ஜமக்காள வியாபாரியாதலினால்தான் பாய்வாங்குவதை தடுக்க முயல்கிறாரா?"

அதேபோல காதல் வசனங்கள். ”கமலா, நீ என்னை தப்பா புழிஞ்சுக்கிட்டே…[அடிப்பாவி] என்னை கயமை அய்க்குது. எங்கம்மாவுக்கு நான் ஒரு சத்தியம் செஞ்சு குதித்திருக்கேன்….” பொன்மொழிகளும் சிக்கலானவை ”தேய்ஞ்சு செஞ்சா தவழு. தேயாம செஞ்சா தப்பு”. தப்புக்கு தவழ வேண்டாம், பெஞ்சுமேல் ஏறினால் போதுமா? உணர்ச்சிகரமான காட்சிகளில் நாங்கள் வெடித்துச் சிரிக்கிறோமென்பதனால் எங்களூருக்கு எம்ஜிஆர் படங்களையே கொடுக்கமாட்டோமென்று சொல்லப்பட்டது.”…அம்மா அப்பி சொல்லாதீங்கம்மா. தை செஞ்சு அப்பி சொல்லாதீங்க…உங்க மகன் ஒருநாளும் அப்பி செய்யமாட்டான்” எங்களூரில் அப்பி என்றால் சின்னப்பிள்ளை கொல்லைக்குபோவது என்றொரு பொருள் உண்டு."

திரும்ப ஒரு வாட்டி அபீட் clause include பண்ணிடறேன் ,
மேலே கூறப்பட்ட கருத்துக்கள் எம்முடயதல்ல !
இணையதளத்தில் தங்களை போல் வெட்டியாக சுற்றிய பொழுது கண்ணில் பட்டது .அதனால என் வீட்டுக்கு ஆட்டோ அனுப்பிறாதிங்க!

article ல இத விட மோசமா லம் நிறைய இருந்துது அதயலாம் censor பண்ணி include பண்ணிருக்கேன்.

Whats in a 'PERU' ?

2008-02-19T22:28:00.000-08:00

இருக்கே நிறைய இருக்கே .Atleast in this blog's name, there are a lot of things.
If the name of the blog does not mean anything to you, நீங்க வாழ்க்கைல ரொம்ப மிஸ் பண்ணிட்டீங்கனு அர்த்தம்.

ரொம்ப பேருக்கு தெரிஞ்சிருக்க வாய்ப்பில்லை தான். ஒத்துகறேன்.
ஒரே படத்து comedy scene'a திருப்பி திருப்பி போட்டு பாத்து தேக்குற gang la ஒருத்தரா இருந்த தெரிஞ்சிருக்கும்.

Rock n' Roll Life is Love.இந்த டயலாக் வர படம் 'தலைநகரம்'.டயலாக் obviously யாரு சொல்லியுருப்பா ? வடிவேல் தான் . பின்ன சுந்தர்.சியா சொல்லுவான் ?

படத்துல வடிவேல எடுத்துட்டா seriousa வேற எதுவுமே கெடயாது.வடிவேல் ரசிகரா இருந்து இந்த டயலாக் கேக்காம இருந்திருந்தா திருப்பி படத்த வாங்கிபாருங்க.

படத்துல மத்த டயலாக் famous ஆனதுனால (ஓய், என்னைய வெச்சு comedy gemedy எதுவும் பண்ணலியே [dramatic music score in bg]), இதையாரும் கவனிச்சிருக்க மாட்டாங்க.

Blog title a பாத்துட்டு ஏதோ காதல், music nulam பேசபோறேனு நினைச்சிருந்தா அப்டிக்கா வேற ஏதாவது blog ku போயிருங்க .நான் சும்மா timepass kaga daily நடக்கிற காமெடி பத்தி தான் எழுதபோறேன்.

nesst meet பண்ணுவோம் !
(இதுவும் made famous by vadivel and to an extent ramcha [<- அந்த படத்த தேக்குற gangல ஒருத்தன்])