Ninaivugal...Thoughts

Finally, we decided to meet up at Washington DC after quite a lot of convincing on Prasad and MAK's part to get me here from Rolla. As usual I was confused and indecisive in coming to a conclusion - whether to go or not! So, at 1:30 in the morning of Monday, I booked the tickets on Southwest Airlines and headed to the St. Louis airport on Monday exactly twelve hours later. People may think that it was a quick decision, but things are not exactly like what they seem. It is easy to travel anywhere within the world, but to get a ride from Rolla to STL is one of the most complicated things in the world. All travel plans are structured based on the availability of ride between these two places. As I got out of the DC airport, I waited for these two great guys to pick me up. One of them was the usual "giving out opinion" type talking about anything and everything with ease. The other was the chess master discussing hazardous moves and with a totally vanishing hairline (O...

It is easy to wax eloquent about those simple things in life that give you complete happiness. As a part of childhood, there are certain things that give you maximum bliss that would have no effect on others. I had this craze for good pens, pencils and rubbers (that's what I call it even though you have a better term in erasers!). That fanciful thought of buying new things came to me as and when I saw a new pen or pencil in the store. This theory worked for books too! The greatest aspect of my growing up can be attributed to buying the latest copies of Tinkle, Amar Chitra Katha, Champak and Chandamama from the local stores, as well as getting them from the library. On a more materialistic note, I used to envy my class mates who used to carry those sleek fountain pens and the so called jazzy pen-pencil (yes, that's what I call them. It was more like a pen, with a push pull projection at the back that could control the amount of lead coming to the fore). I am sure almost ev...

There are certain things in life which will stick on with you for a lifetime. Be it something personal or something not related to you at all but there are some mesmerizing things which cannot be wiped out from the gray matter. The greatest thing in life is to live for something you cherished throughout. Growing up in a cricket crazy nation, learning ball by ball facts of each and every game being played, watching repeat telecasts of some of the greatest matches, glossing over the statistics of even the obscure of players, remembering the titans of the game are some of the things that will remain with me, as I still continue with the growing up process. I was never in an era to witness the Don play out thousands of deliveries in gay abandon. I have never witnessed the charm of Barry Richards or the angry glare of Michael Holding or Joel Garner . They may be some of the best players missed out but luckily I had the opportunity to see the greatest legspinner of all times, Shane Warne ...

I have this habit of checking up periodic updates on RK Narayan on the internet. Last night when I googled RK Narayan after a long time, I stumbled upon an article written by N. Ram , the editor of The Hindu , titled Reluctant centenarian . There was a sentence in the first paragraph that really caught my attention, and as I read that sentence, I went back to this link to verify from where it was taken. I was truly surprised. Just read the first paragraph of both the links and check out the similarity.

As I have always reiterated, meaningful quotes have had a huge impact in my life. When you read a sentence, something strikes you so much in it that you go back to ascertain the hidden nuances in the words. Many a time, you are left wondering at the simplicity of the sentence. The profundity in the meaning is taken to new heights and all this with very simple usage of words. Reading books sure does lend a lot of much needed wisdom and gets you to the point of striking the perfect balance in life. Some of the movies have come up with unbelievable quotes that they just remain embedded in you for life. I was watching The Shawshank Redemption for the nth time and it just keeps getting better with every viewing. Strange are the ways of life that you still anticipate for certain things when you know what to expect(Looks like I just created a quote! Wow). Remember Red, Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things and no good thing ever dies! is certainly one of my all time favourit...

The pronunciation of words seriously has a telling effect on the listener. It is easy to mistake a word for something else, thanks to the sensitivity of the ear. Atleast, I have got caught on many occasions trying to figure out what the other end is trying to convey. Many times I have been at a loss giving a slight nod of the head, so that the other person has no idea that I have no idea of what he is talking about. It also depends on the person whether you can ask him for an explanation or not. Depending on the outcome of the explanation, and placing it in context, you realise how out of place it is with respect to the actual word. That doesn't mean that the listener is always wrong. Maybe the teller is not uttering the word in a right way. My latest tryst with "being in the dark" as far as words are concerned happened as recently as a couple of days back. I was in a restaurant with a friend, and as the bearer came to pick the order asking us what we would like t...

August 2006 was certainly a mystery month for three protagonists in Rolla. Before I get into the details, let me clarify a few points. If somebody comes and asks us how much we spend on an average in Rolla, we will definitely not say that it is about 250$. If somebody comes and asks us whether there is any possibility of saving with a quarter time, we will trample him. If somebody says that Rolla is a small town where you will never spend a penny, send him to us. He desperately needs to talk to us. All these conclusions stem from the fact that Rama made the monthly calculations for the last three months and ended up giving us devastating figures. Now, let me round up on the mystery month. Rama comes up with these huge grins and expressions when he gets excited, and today morning at 3:30 AM was no different. Yadu matte Praveena, do you know how much we spent in the month of August? What the hell do we know? We were obviously clueless, and gave out a loose figure of about 250$, the ...

The theme for the biggest event in Rolla this year - India over the ages . Diwali is celebrated in UMR with pomp and gaiety, with a mammoth effort put forth by the biggest organization on campus - India Association . Every year, it is a revelation to see people take part in large numbers, and it just keeps getting better every year. People hailed this as the best Diwali celebrations ever at UMR. The audience lapped up every programme in glee, and what with a wide variety of cultural extravaganza, it was truly a cultural treat. The programme started with the origin of Diwali, depicting the gest of Ramayana , transcending to the present day celebrations of Diwali. This was followed by various dance programmes, interspersed with short presentations portraying India over the ages, from the Ancient India to India Today . The dances broke the myth of conventional hip movements and shakes with innovative steps choreographed by passionate individuals. The 1950s was a period of classical elan ...

I was walking down the road, That elusive figure invaded me, I thought and thought about her, Carrying me into the realms of restlessness Questions surfaced and resurfaced, Thoughts flashed across my mind, Afloat in the corner of my heart, Struggling to contain an unexplainable bliss An entity I did not possess Mightily I was surprised, How much I thought of her, Life wasn't too straight She just evaded me, Late into the night I lay, It was clouded at the top, Yet, I looked for the stars! At the crack of dawn, Sad to see the light of the day, Countless moments lost in the awakening, Time to put my eyelids to rest, Atlast, she came to me And I plunged into the shadows!

As I sat back on yet another day, figuring out what I have to cook for lunch, the monotony of the routine was killing me. I was filled with the same question once again What do I cook today that is something totally different? Internet and suggestions taken, I would attempt something that beat the normal items. But sometimes, when there is no time to experiment, and you just want to finish up with something, the end product has to be something usual. That was when I thought, how mothers at home can come up with different things every day. Remember, they cook everyday. I still remember the time at home, when I used to grimace and swallow, if an item that was made a couple of days back was made again. Why can't you do something different? Is it the same thing again? I would eat it up as if my mother had committed a grave sin. The best part at home was that it was not the question of a single dish, but a minimum of three dishes was compulsory. Rasam , Sambhar and Curry was...

Sometimes, people benchmark a particular song or music, and elevate it to an unscalable point, that anything seemingly less comparable to the earmarked audio sounds astoundingly trivial. High quality music can always be stretched to eternity surpassing all doubts about its survival in a race against time. Any thoughts of it dying down with time is pulverized as events relayed from the past reflect the strong bonding etched to futuristic events. AR Rahman's Maa Tujhe Salaam or Thai Manne Vanakkam , all under the broad classification of Vande Mataram , falls under this supreme category. Rahman came up with this composition, along with BharatBala Productions in the year when India readied itself to commemorate the fiftieth year of Independence from the British. Both of them readily strike a good vibe when it comes to portraying national footage that exemplifies the class and beauty of India. That was the year when India turned defiant in Pokhran signifying one of the greatest...

Once upon a time, Indian mythological stories used to take centre stage amidst the growing kids. As generations and generations of children grew up, it was not anything out of the way to have the characters of Ramayana and Mahabharata etched in the young minds. Tales of valour and honesty were retold by grandmothers and it was one of the key factors of the growing up process for Indian kids. I had the good fortune and privilege to be associated with several such narrations at various stages of my childhood. My mother retold several hundreds of mythological stories, and my grandmother supplemented with more during the summer vacations. Summer vacations were fantastic, in the sense that all the cousins used to sit together to get the briefing dating back to good old times. Grandmothers are the best companions for young kids, and we were awed and surprised by the turn of events in Indian Mythology. Apart from this, we also had Amar Chitra Katha to look forward to. The Amar Chitra ...

Writing is a favourite pastime, and it is highly variegated for obvious reasons. No two individuals are alike, and it is not a surprise that no two people have the same style of writing. All the same, it fills me with awe to look into different writeups on the same subject, but with very different and contrasting styles. This can be easily observed when in your school days, you look into your friends' essays and wonder How I wish I could have written it that way! But, at that point of time, you don't realise that the feelings are mutual. It is all the more interesting for school teachers to examine hundreds of essays, see the various viewpoints and thoughts originating from such a big group, and observe the subtle and not-so-subtle differences in style. The popular authors of the last century have inculcated within them a style of writing that makes it easy to identify them through their works. A topic can be approached in many different styles - humour, wit, sarcasm, phil...

Diwali , inarguably the biggest festival in India, evokes strong emotions from all parts of the country. Truly a momentous occasion, it sparks off sentiments unmatched by any other Indian festival. The country truly comes to life with a great feeling of goodwill and happiness harboured by one and all. It is a festival that treads past religious barriers, bringing together a feeling of communal harmony and certainly a harbinger of peace. The baton is passed across generations and generations of lineage without any distortion and break up. The spirit has remained the same always, without a trace of boredom. In spite of that, Diwali is not just a routine every year, with every year being a fully filling experience. In India, Diwali is directly related to the economy. Almost everyone is attracted by the magnitude of the festival, and nobody wants to be left behind. Shopping is taken to new heights with attractive offers from every superstore lined up well in advance, and the post D...

I just had this feeling sinking in when in my final year of my Bachelor's programme, and that was way back in 2003. The incoming batch really had me in a complex, what with heavy put on accent and jazzy gadgets accompanying them always. They had a perpetual tilt with their head resting on one of their shoulders. Obviously, it is no easy task to talk all the time on mobile phones, what with terrific mobile plans in the offing. If Airtel and Hutch was trying to popularize something, SPICE used to be one notch above. Having a mobile was no longer a status quo - and we were really thrown into the oblivion. All of us were a bunch of jokers, carrying ourselves with utmost ease without a care in the world. Virtually, all of them had migrated from the good old bike days. There was a constraint of space due to the increasing number of four wheelers. By the way, Maruti was out of vogue. People had jumped to WagonR, Santro and the other new sleazy vehicles. Of course, cars had back...

I remember those days when my parents used to go out on important functions to travel out of Bangalore. It used to fall on a weekend, and generally, my brother and I stayed back home fighting out minor squabbles. I would make it a point to tell my mother not to tell the news of her travel anywhere outside, lest neighbours and relatives invite us for lunch or dinner. Anything appealed to us, except going out to somebody else's house for the sake of food. That has somehow not fascinated me or my brother much. Both of us would rather shell out that extra money on a good hotel outside and fill our stomach. But, going out to somebody's house exclusively for the sake of food is a strict NO NO. OK! If a couple of extra bucks have to be saved, save it on other things. Why cringe to buy good food? In all my years, anywhere, I have never cared to find out what my neighbour is cooking or what is going to be offered by whom. I still remember the times when my brother and I used to...

Ramanujan stood on the terrace of his house observing the gully cricket played out by the small kids in the neighbourhood. He was fascinated by the amount of satisfaction the game generated to the young boys in such a small area. It was hardly a place to park a car, and the kids had created a playground out of the space. The wall adjoining to the landlord's house served as the stumps, with the mark made by a red brick serving as a perfect debatable wicket. As always, the player who wielded the bat missed the ball more often than once, and was caught in a dilemma as to whether the opposition is going to appeal him out or not. He was, as usual, ready to confront an argument with the close in fielders, an argument finding all the unknown words in the local language, and irreproducible. Summer holidays was generally the busiest time for the kids, and for the mothers, an unexplainable agony. The game generally progressed from 9 in the morning to 1 in the afternoon, with about an ...

It is not easy to relinquish your position when you are at the peak of your career. There is always that urge to carry on in life, even though you know that the end is not far off. It is normal for any individual not to give up when in your final phase of what you are doing. The inherent selfishness in an individual rises to the surface on such occasions. One has to realise that all good things must come to an end. But, one also has to know how and when to put a stop on everything. Michael Schumacher , inarguably the word's best F1 driver, is going to step down after this season from Formula 1 . The F1 fans around the globe have become so used to the Ferrari cap adorned by Michael Schumacher, that it is going to be very difficult to imagine F1 without Schumacher, and more importantly, to see someone else wear the red cap for Ferrari in his place. It would never be easy for Ferrari to replace this amazing driver, who single handedly has got Ferrari victories from the jaws ...

He stood waiting for the bus at the Malleswaram Circle bus stop with a sense of restlessness and uneasiness. He was already late for the morning bus, and he just hoped that the bus is late than usual. As such, he was getting used to coming to the bus stop more than ten minutes late, since the bus driver never kept his time. The bus was supposed to reach the bus stop daily at quarter past seven in the morning. The routine late arrival by about ten minutes meant that he never came before twenty five minutes past seven to the bus stop. Now, his normal time had shifted to the new time. He started timing his arrival at the bus stop to this new time, which meant that he was not able to meet the ten minute delay schedule too. Expecting a bus to be more than fifteen minutes late was something that was not extraordinary. Buses were never meant to keep up time. It was not the end of the world if he missed his bus, but that would mean an additional travel time to the main bus stand, and catchi...

In the midst of a hectic schedule, I caught up with a recent movie which received rave reviews from all quarters, and an other one, released in 2005, which took the nation by storm. The two movies I am refering to are Lage Raho Munnabhai (2006) and Black (2005). Both of them are emotional and touchy, with fantastic messages passed across. After watching Parineeta , the simplistic Vidya Balan had hit the right chord with the masses. Her elegant and graceful South Indian looks was enough to bowl out almost any stone hearted individual. The grace and elan she evokes is so different from the other heroines. She plays the lead role in the sequel to Munnabhai MBBS . The other characters had the star cast lifted from the prequel - Bomman Irani, Sanjay Dutt and Arshad Warsi . Arshad Warsi had his career going to great heights after the first part, and to be honest, he deserves all that he is getting and more. He has played a terrific role in this one too, with classy dialogue delive...

A day prior to the career fair, we had to get our bearings right. This was our only exposure to the industry world through the school. So, off we went to JC Penney to buy formal trousers and neckties. I somehow have this fancy for ties. They look so colourful with a tinge of cushion protruding at the end. Myself, Samarsen and Karthik Sadanandam took a cab and we expected to come back in about an hour's time. Samar and I had a tough time selecting our trousers. Trousers that suit our waist size along with perfect length was tough to find. There was not many a choice to make the selection. We roamed around the store for quite sometime trying out various combinations to select the best fit. After a great difficulty, both of us ended up getting the right colours and the right fit. Then, we had to go to the ties. When I saw the ties from a distance, I thought that it shouldn't be all that difficult to get the right tie. But only after I started seeing the ties did I re...

One of the greatest artists of the seventies, Natiya Peroli Padmini was in an altogether different league by herself as far as her dancing skills were concerned. She was undoubtedly one of the best in her era or maybe one of the best ever. Dance is a vital component of mainstream cinema, and Padmini, in the yesteryears, played a decisive part in popularising the art, thanks to her inimitable style. The flair and grace associated with her dance found her many fans amidst a lot of movie goers. Tamil industry will never be the same again without this talented actress. Those were the times - Savitri, Vyjayanthi Mala, Padmini, Devika, Saroja Devi and KR Vijaya had created a niche in Tamil cinema, playing the leading ladies to two of the most popular actors - the late MGR and the late Sivaji Ganesan . Padmini had a lot of films to her credit, and some of them were phenomenal and treasured in the history of Tamil cinema. Chiththi had Padmini playing second wife to M.R. Radha (another versa...

This forms the main ingredient of my sunday once in two weeks. Taking my laundry bag and walking upto a mile to wash my clothes at MOBIL is undoubtedly the most painful experience of the fortnight. Imagine doing this on a wintry afternoon at sub-zero temperatures. The pain would start two days before actually doing the laundry. The most common feeling would be - Oh No! Not again! The next obvious question would prop up almost at the next nano second - How I wish I had a car! Sadly though, student life does not yield handsome income, and we have to make do with what we have. But, this is definitely a much better situation to be in than washing it on your own. That would have been even more frustrating. No wonder I can imagine most of the hostel guys to wear the same old clothes for a long period of time. The colour fades to different shades, the original colour is lost by not washing it at all, and the brown tinge adds a totally new stinking sensation to your clothes. Most of...

KKJMND ! What the hell is that? I think the best way to release your pent up emotions is to blast your way through a short writeup on undoubtedly the worst movie of the season. Last night, my friends and I caught up with a one hour viewing of Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (KANK). I don't know whether it is a Naa or a Na , since you see Karan Johar is pretty superstitious about these silly things. To top it all, the media gets excited when Karan Johar changes the title from some silly name to another equally silly name. Obviously it has to be, since only a single letter gets edited in his new title. Now, let me add some adjectives to this movie: silly, idiotic, stupid, outrageous, maddening, foolish, nerve wrecking, head breaking (not path breaking please as KJ claims), goofed up to the core, foolhardy, reckless, unwise, pathetic, nauseating, wretched, pitiable, dismal, sad, deplorable, useless and above all disgraceful . I wish I had more time to look for worse adjectives in any ...