Ninaivugal...Thoughts

Waiting in the dark corridors of uncertainity, And whiling away your time in trinity, A lot of things seemingly unclear, Living with the hope of nothing to fear! Chaos and confusion adorns your mind, Time and work keeps you in bind, But when were things perfectly clear? Always a challenge to come out of the lair! A perfect setting and a future, A dream to stitch; your work a suture, It is time to work your way, Not wait for things to sway A sense of uneasiness as usual, Life trudges along the same lines, Day after day; the trauma remains, Are you still waiting for a change?

As I was browsing for RK Narayan Books in the university library, my thoughts reflected back to the days when I used to read books from the local books circulating library near my old house in Malleswaram, back in Bangalore. For a period of 3-4 years, I was staying in Malleswaram 17th cross, next to MSIL Apartments, which housed 6 families. By the way, MSIL is Mysore Sales International Limited, and a public sector enterprise of the Government of Karnataka. The apartment was meant to be for the officers of this enterprise. The building in which I stayed comprised of four houses. The best part of these two buildings was that there were a lot of children in my age group (I was about 8-9 years old then). We easily formed a group of about 10 kids in the block. We had abundant fun in the form of innumerable cricket matches played in the apartment basement. You can still see the white chalk adorning the apartment wall in the name of wickets! Life was complete with school in the morn...

It is funny to see the Congress party harping on the Aamir Khan issue, saying that freedom of speech and expression has been violated. On the same vein, the Punjab Congress government has not authorised the theatre owners to play The DaVinci Code . Why does Congress always gets involved in double standards? We live in a democratic society and the same yardstick should be used to determine issues that fall on the same side of the argument. But, sadly political parties flounder badly on these issues and end up issuing statements that are hardly in sync with the previously issued ones. Take for instance the Karan Thapar interview of Arjun Singh on the quota issue. One cannot expect worse answers from a person who is supposed to be holding an important post in the cabinet. Any question posed was met with a response: I am just following the instructions of the Parliament. I cannot comment on this now. The Parliament has taken the decision and I, as a member am just following it. ...

It is surprising to see the recent spate of events surrounding Aamir Khan in connection with a series of political events. We all know him to be a popular actor, but he should understand that politics is altogether a different ball game, and it is no way close to reel life stunts. He came out in support of Medha Patkar led Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), opposing the construction of the dam which could provide respite to the millions of people in Gujarat. The whole issue is not about who is right or wrong, but if both the BJP and the Congress are up in arms against the actor, it really means that Aamir has ventured into this without even knowing about its pros and cons. The people of Gujarat are totally enraged by what is happening as increasing the height of the dam is expected to solve the water crisis currently engulfing this part of the country. If this is not enough, he has added fuel to the fire by getting caught in the Vadodara incident controversy by slamming the Modi Governmen...

The outcome of the movie version of the hugely successful book The Da Vinci Code was eagerly awaited. It is not an easy task to generate frames in perfect adaptation to what was conceived in the book. It requires a lot of planning and skill to etch such a movie. Ron Howard must be feeling happy at the end of the day, as he has done full justice to the movie. The critics might argue that it maybe a good adaptation, but not a perfect adaptation. True, but they should know that the movie lasts only for two and a half hours, and it is no easy task to churn out close to a 1000 pages into a movie in the given time frame. The story of the book is no secret as it has made big news in almost all the newspapers around the world a couple of years back. Dan Brown brought out a highly controversial topic, and the pros and cons of the theme are discussed even today with the same fervour. Everybody knows the book is unputdownable, and so the movie had to live upto the expectations of the mi...

Continued from Part I ... Savitri had the penchant for handling difficult situations with ease, and she was a thorough diplomat. If there was a guest whom she did not like, whe would very cleverly abstain from any talks and move away from the scene without creating a fuss. Her religious bent of mind, coupled with her wordly experience she had over the past many decades, enabled her to wiggle out of any situation. She had the poise and composure to face tasks that seemed difficult for others. Iyer, in all these years, did not venture to find out the complications that could arise in the domestic front. Obviously, there was no need either, since Savitri was taking care of these things to perfection. When things are going well, nobody seems to observe it. A slight deviation from normal conditions results in large variations in lifestyle. If life takes its normal course, one feels it is monotonous. But, once it begins to alter, the changes are easily noticeable. This is what hap...

The medical students have really taken the attack to the government. The quota issue has launched a scathing tirade from the student community, particularly from the medical fraternity. They have organized widespread protests in India, expressing their displeasure against the proposed quota system. This begs us to raise this question - What are people from the other sectors doing? Where are the Engineers, arts, science, commerce and economics graduates, literateurs, botanists, researchers, mathematicians, statisticians, socialists, historicans, physicists, chemists and others doing? Why don't we see much from the other sector of the educationists apart from the medicos? It doesn't make much sense for only one group to be fighting it out while the others are relaxing and waiting for things to happen. Things can never happen, and the "waiting" will definitely be extended to eternity. I think Arjun Singh has made a mess of a move by bringing out the reservation p...

There is no doubt that art deserves all recognition in the society. Everyone should have the right to express his feelings because we live in a democratic society. The society is so multivariegated that each person has the ability to communicate in a way that he deems it to be fit. But where do we draw the line? Should we allow sacrilege in the name of art? Why is MF Hussain making a mockery of Hinduism? He has time and again offended the sentiments of Hindus worldwide, with his nude depiction of Hindu goddesses. It has happened in the past and it has happened again. How can the country not be outraged if one has to see such forms of so called "Art". Does he think that people are foolish to accept his explanations? We all saw what happened when the Danish Cartoonist tampered with the Prophet's images, portraying him in not the right mould. Obviously, the Islamic sentiments were disturbed seeing such images. If the same analogy is applied here, how can the Hindu m...

The early morning light fought its way to the ground through the thick branches hanging out from the old banyan tree in front of the house. The sunlight wrapped itself around the branches, and the whole place bore a celestial appearance. Savitri walked upto the portico, opened the gate of the building, and watered the area with nonchalant ease. She had become accustomed to her daily chores, what with having performing the household duties with a dignified poise for the last thiry years. The pookara (flower seller) was punctual in his timings and at five in the morning, was ready to meet Savitri, his first customer of the day, with all the flowers collected from the nearby park. Savitri always made it a point to meet the pookara before he was swamped by the other ladies. That enabled her to get the flowers she wanted for the early morning prayers. She would then go inside to take care of the early morning chores. Senthil, the newspaper boy used to make his presence felt at almost the ...

About a year back, I got an invite for Orkut from a lot of friends, but I repeatedly ignored it. I was working then, and my company did not have internet access. So, these things hardly had any impact on me. About a couple of months back, I got the invite again, and this time, I had no hesitation in joining the social network where people spend hours of their invaluable time probing for contacts, and writing scrapbook entries that is absolutely meaningless and worthless. By the way, scrapbook entries are nothing but writing comments for your friends which can be anything trivial like Hi, how are you or Coming home for lunch . People get hyperactive when the number of comments in the scrapbook entry approaches a "milestone", which can be considered to be worthless again. How does it make a difference when people write 100 entries to you or 110 entries, I don't understand? There are people who also compete to write a milestone entry and feel really happy about it. Sc...

Cricket is a religion in India, but there is no denying that it lacks universal appeal. Remember the South Africa tour of India in the year 2000, where the then most popular and dynamic South African skipper Hansie Cronje couldn't defend the match-fixing charges hurled at him. That opened a can of worms what with a lot of players getting caught in the match-fixing fraca. Herschelle Gibbs and Nicky Boje formed a part of the match fixing committee supporting Cronje in his madness. It was proved beyond doubt that they had a big role in influencing the result of the game, not by the way they played but by the way they weren't going to play. They were literally nailed by the Delhi police and Cronje was stripped off his captaincy as well as dropped out of the team squad. That really dented the image of cricket. Now what is happening? Boje and Gibbs never tour India since the Delhi police have not dropped any charges against them. Why in the world would they do that? Why ca...