Ninaivugal...Thoughts

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 ...

Whistling back to the glorious days of yesteryears, I saw myself standing at the threshold of yore, But, Why? The past just comes to the fore, I wondered, wondered and wondered alone! Standing at the corner of every street, Waiting all along for every other treat, Absolutely no reasons to celebrate, But, we always found one not to retreat! Life is a profound mystery, You were worried, "When can I go out?", Today, questions take a new turn You are worried, "Am I going out?" As your gaze falls on the pixels in front, Thoughts flood and fill you in doubt, The program runs out of memory, Enough to bring old memories back! You were waiting for this, Total recall of the past, Endless events appear and reappear, You wish it just would disappear! You have solved the problem, Your program no longer runs out of memory, Back to star gazing, now a new program, Thoughts churn out again in a flurry, Frantically hoping to clear the memory, The pixels fade, you have turned it off!

After the results of the last Lok Sabha elections, I was sure about one thing. The Indian railways is going to go to dogs. I am sure many of you would have seconded me on this. That, coupled with a possibility of a non-Indian donning the Prime Minister role, was giving almost everyone around a lot of heart aches. All felt that it was one of the darkest periods of Indian history. Nobody had a clear idea of how things would shape up in the future. Laloo Prasad Yadav , the Hon'ble Railway Minister did not sound too good on the Indian resume. We needed people with dynamic skills and definitely Laloo's name did not hit the right chord with the masses. Times have changed now. The wrong judgement passed on Laloo had to be reconsidered. Reconsidered? It was thrown out without ado. What with the Indian Railways having a cushion of Rs. 11000 crore , who can blame Laloo now? He has passed the acid test that was set upon him a couple of years back, and has really taken the bull b...

Google has been one company that started off incognito in the Stanford dorm to emerge as a leading search engine in the 21st century. It has beaten hands down any hint of competition from Altavista, Excite, MSN, Yahoo or in fact any other. Larry Page and Sergey Brinn created history of sorts, when they sat back to decipher, or rather invent the Back Link Algorithm. Imagine downloading the entire web content on your desktop. Well, that was the idea that propped into Page's head before hitting it off with what one can hail as one of the greatest turning points in the internet world with a sleek, usable and simple search engine that caught on easily with the masses. I came to know some time back of The Google Story written by David Vise and Mark Malseed . I was hunting for this book for quite some time in various libraries, and obviously there are a lot of readers who have made a beeline in the waiting list for this book. Thankfully, after a long time did I realise that the ...

The last thing in the world that I thought could generate a controversy was India's National song Vande Mataram that has seen several generations sing this wonderful composition epitomizing the glory of the motherland. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee rendered a brilliant verse that was so easy for the Indian nationalists to identify with. It generated within a sense of patriotic feeling towards the land. The reverence and respect associated with the song was laced with magnificient description of nature. The verse stirs the souls of the countrymen and instills within an unexplainable feeling. The centenary of the national song happens to fall on September 7th, and initially, the Government had made it mandatory to sing the song in educational institutions. But, later the Govt. had to mend its stance, thanks to the secular nature of the country. Obviously, certain sections of the society had to be appeased, who were adding a communal and political string to the national song. A song th...

The time of the year when India forgets its internal squabbles, finds time to get together on a common platform to celebrate the most popular Hindu festival - Ganesha Habba (Festival). The idol of Ganesha exhibits a persona that can lift any person from gloom. It takes him to a new level of happiness and a sense of prosperity creeps in slowly and steadily. People gear up for the festival amidst hectic schedules, but the love and affection for Ganesha never diminishes. This may not be the ideal time for a festival, what with the end of summer and a long work session commencing. But, time and again we observe that the festival takes people to a new plane of unexplainable bliss. In India, the festive parade hits off with a frenzy, what with all the important bazaars, markets, shopping malls, small and large shops alike, packed beyond limits. The shopping extravaganza starts well before the start of the festival, and the spree extends well after the festival has ended. In a way, Gan...