Ninaivugal...Thoughts

Last week has been a week of happenings for Kaavya Viswanathan , a Harvard undergraduate, who faced a ripping pall of gloom as her work How Opal Mehta got kissed, got wild and got a life was alleged to be plagiarised from Megan McCafferty's books, Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings. The net result was a total contamination of her reputation that had skyrocketted a couple of years back, thanks to the 500,000$ deal she had made with Little Brown and Crown Company , one of the oldest and prestigious American Publishers. She was caught on the wrong foot with over fifteen passages bearing a striking resemblance to the original works. Her explanations to the ongoing saga has been very conclusive from her evading remarks - she did lift the passages from the original works . Before the book received any sort of review, Dreamworks jumped the gun and bought the rights to turn it into a movie. No doubt, her name is the keyword that is getting a lot of hits in google, but I am sure that t...

Ta Ta Maran Seeing the latest reports on rediff, I was in splits. Dayanidhi Maran tyring to find his way through the most respected clan in India. The Tatas have contributed so much to the country that the entire country holds them in awe and wonder. JRD Tata is a legend by himself and the man has been acknowledged by many as a thorough gentleman. Such is the name left behind that even now one talks about the Tatas, it is with a lot of pride. TATA belongs to us is the feeling that one gets when talking about the services they have rendered since the last century. Imagine Dayanidhi Maran, the "Honourable" Minister of Communications and IT threatening Ratan Tata to part with ownership rights and stock options of Tata Indicom to his brother Kalanidhi Maran or else destroy the company completely. Does he think that real life is similar to reel life scenes played on his brother's channel SUN TV? I think it is hight time our ministers think beyond personal gains and...

The hottest topic right now in India is fortunately about education, but unfortunately about reservation in the top technological and management institutions. The IITs and IIMs have bracketed themselves with the elite in the world and it is a student's dream to find a place here. High end ambitions, cherished dreams, endless hours of slogging, physical and mental strength are tested to no limits when a student decides to compete in the entrance exams of these institutions. IIT entrance exam is the toughest exam at that level for a college student to clear and IIM entrance exam is similarly demanding for MBA aspirants. What happens when politics is mixed with education? The net result is nothing but total chaos. India is definitely a place of unequal proportions. There is a large section of the society which is struggling to cope up with the basic needs. Truly, everybody empathises with this situation. There is an overpowering need to improve the below-poverty section of the ...

Yesterday, I was having a conference with my friends (what did you imagine? some business partners!!!). One is in California (Prasad) and the other(Gopal) is in Kansas City. We were talking about everything under the sun and since we have done our undergraduation together, we have a lot of common friends to talk about. The topic was about how a guy comes from India and changes for the worst here. Believe me, we guys haven't changed a bit! So, the talk was obviously about somebody else about whom I am not going to disclose here. We meandered on and on about various other issues for close to half an hour. It was fun rekindling old memories and talking about the whereabouts of our friends. Suddenly, Gopal out of the blue says, Hey guys, I have to go. Today is a saturday. I have to recite Vishnu Sahasranamam with my TamBrahm friends here. It was nothing surprising though considering the amount of passion we develop towards being Indianised and more Indianised. During any co...

I remember the days when we used to sit back and have a discussion on how the current political system can be cleansed. We have so many political parties and each of them have their own ideologies, but how many of them are actually pointing towards the welfare of the system. Every party seems to have a clear idea of how other parties shouldn't be messing up things, but nobody seems to have an idea of how they can improve their party. The general trend is like this - Mess up while in power for four years, come back to normalcy for about two months prior to elections, announce attractive schemes that can lure any voter to vote for them, get involved in active elections campaign, identify areas in the state that can impress even a cartographer, retain leadership or come back to power(if you are in the opposition) and the cycle repeats. If this is what politics is all about, then who in the world would have the interest to join the system and do something good for the society. Ob...

Five states in India are facing Assembly Polls - Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Kerala, Assam and West Bengal. Call it coincidence or anything, if you look at the profile of these states, they have always been dominated by two parties. In TN and Pondicherry, it has always been one of the two regional parties - AIADMK (All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) or DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam), Kerala - CPI(M) (Communist Party of India) or the Congress, West Bengal - CPI (M) all the way and Assam - Congress or the AGP (Asom Gana Parishad). It is strange to see that BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) doesn't fit in the scheme of things in any of the states. Tamil Nadu is one place to be during the election time. The campaign level hits new heights with tall promises and party bashing taken to extreme levels, with each party trying to outbid the other through verbal volleys. TN has always been at the center of excitement with unpredictable pre-poll coalitions. Who would have thought tha...

Last week has been really a disastrous week as far as Karnataka is concerned. We lost the biggest celebrity in the state, Dr. Rajkumar and what should really have been a peaceful procession kicked off a series of events that dent the image of the city in a terrible way. He was the perfect embodiment of Kannada cinema with not a trace of vulgarity and obscenity in his films, which used to be typical family entertainers. I still remember those days when Kannada films used to be played on Doordarshan , the solitary channel of the early eighties and according to me, the golden period of the television world. Initially, the Kannada movies were played on Saturday evenings and would continue after a brief interruption for news(which used to be the dinner break for us!). Later, it was moved on to Sunday evenings. It used to be an assembly of my family members waiting for a good Kannada movie and if it was Annavar u's movie, I could see the relief on my parents' face. Oh! This ...

A writeup on the place where I have spent more than 20 years ( I will be spending more time when I get back) is not easy to start off. Malleswaram is the oldest residential area in Bangalore North, and together with Basavanagudi in Bangalore South, forms what can be hailed as the most conservative part of this cosmopolitan city. Malleswaram is more than just an area, it is a part of the family for a few thousands inhabiting the area. There is an aura about Malleswaram that prevents me from reaching out to the other parts of the city for a living. The perfect combination of conservative outlook tinged with not too modern and sophisticated way of living makes it a perfect place for a typical middle class family to settle here. Malleswaram is characterized by two main roads connecting it to the rest of the city - Margosa Road and Sampige Road . Margosa Road derives its name from the entire stretch of Neem(Margosa) trees lined up on either side of the road. This part of the city follows ...

On a lazy afternoon, as I was getting ready to do something in my research, I got this forward from Deepak Challa . Post your answers in the comments. The question reads thus: You are on a game show. The host tells you, ‘I want you to open one of these three doors. Behind two of the doors is a bale of hay. Behind one of the doors is a million dollars. Choose a door’. You choose door number one. The host, who knows what is behind each door, says, ‘Before I open door number one for you, let me show you what is behind door number two’. He opens door number two, revealing a bale of hay and then says, "Now I can open door number one for you, or if you want, you can switch doors and choose door number three, what do you want to do?" What should you do, and why? Or does it even matter what you do?

For close to ten months now, I was aching to have Pitlai , made from Pavakka/agalkai/karela/bitter gourd . After a long wait, Yadu got agalkai from St. Louis. As today was my cooking turn, I experimented with this dish. Treating agalkai is a pretty tough job since the bitterness from the vegetable has to be removed. So, the vegetable has to be boiled in tamarind water for close to 15-20 minutes and then washed in ordinary water before draining the water completely. The actual preparation of the dish has to be started then. Though there are a number of recipes available on the internet to make pitlai , can it beat the home made recipe. So, I called up back home in India to find out the actual mode of preparation. Lo! My mother was spontaneous with her response. Obviously, she has been cooking for ages, while I am just a starter. But then, I guess even I can tell you how to do this in a jiffy. You see, even I have the experience now in cooking! It took me about an hour and a half to mak...

It was almost ten months since we came to Rolla. The residents of Apt No. 7 had been to many places but none together. So, we decided that we would go for a trip together with just the four of us. The place was the Ozark Lake. As the name suggests there is a lake, but more importantly there is a huge shopping mall with about 150 factory outlets. Yadu had in mind to shop for about 300$, but I guess he was a touch disappointed when he came out as he fell short by two pairs of jeans. Yes, finally it was the four of us early in the morning (atleast that was what was planned originally) at 10 am on a trip to the Ozark Lake. Yadu - The man who speaks less and blushes at what? Rama - That's the way I am? So!!! Venkatesh - Accent oriented shopping freak Me (Praveen) - Idealist!!!(Hahahaha..I can write what I want right! My Blog!!) It was not an early morning rise and it was not a surprise. Off we went, on US 63 state highway in the hired Ford Taurus. AR Rahman engulfed the car with ...