Ninaivugal...Thoughts

It has always been my desire to get into the realms of reporting. Journalism has come across as a daring and wonderful profession.I always tell my friends that I would have been a journalist if I hadn't got into engineering. It is altogether a different matter that I do not have the creative juices flowing when it comes to professional writing. It involves considerable hard work to report the news in a perfect way and it is equally important to catch the reader's attention. The most important aspect of writing is that the language must be grammatically perfect. A few words altered to your whims can completely change the meaning of the sentence. It shouldn't strike a discordant note with the listener when he reads your sentence. A bad sentence is like bad music. It cannot go unnoticed. I realized how difficult it can get to hit the right note when different kinds of people are catching up with the blog. I have to think more than once when I translate my thoughts to words. I ...

Special occasions tend to create special moments and you generally tend to savour that moment for a lifetime. Happiness is a state of mind and you wish to share that with some people who make a difference. Gifts are a way of expressing your "something" for the person. The "something" can be a token of friendship signifying the person's importance. I am never a gifts guy, for I more often than not tend to forget the person's special occasion. The special occasion could be a birthday, wedding anniversary, graduation ceremony or anything else. The thought of gifting someone with something is really not an easy prospect. It is difficult to hit upon an object that would appease the receiver. This can be known only if you know the person well enough to understand what he/she likes. I have always considered books to be the best possible gift for anybody, though I guess I have now lost the moral right to talk about books. I hardly have read anything in the last cou...

The latest court verdict in Karnataka concerns the 2000 odd schools in the state to switch to Kannada as the medium of instruction bypassing English. English is the global medium of communication and it is imperative that we get a good grasp of the language that would aid us in the development process. Here, it is not the question of promoting your local language, but you are effectively terminating the ability of the children to come up in a competitive environment. In India, every state has a language of its own along with the national language, Hindi. Being born and brought up in India, there is no doubt that it is important to learn your local language as well as the national language. But that doesn't mean that you should shun English. India is emerging as a major global power and we are dependent on our western allies to work in close co-ordination and improve the economy. As long as a person has the basic knowledge to speak, read and write in the local language, it should mo...

There has never been so much hype and hoopla surrounding a movie release. All the big guns of Indian cinema are involved in the latest Tamil film, Sivaji . Rajinikanth , the style icon of India got together with the showman of Tamil cinema, Shankar in sync with the best music director of today's times, AR Rahman to generate funds from the oldest production house in Madras, AVM studios to come out with a product that was going to kindle the masses. The end result was something hyped beyond what any normal movie could achieve in hundred years. The sheer magnanimity of the production costs can fill anyone with awe and wonder. The movie was made at a whopping budget of close to 80 crores, no small amount by any means. A Rajini, Shankar, ARR and AVM movie obviously would get all the media attention. How can I miss such a movie. I am sure even if the reviews were bad, I would have gone to watch the movie. When the reviews from all the channels were good, there was no choice but to wat...

It was the year 2005 when I came to the US to do my masters. ARR then had decided to come to Bangalore about two months after I came here. The depression of not seeing the God of Indian music perform live in Palace Grounds, Bangalore had hit me hard. Two years hence, I came to know that he was performing live in Nassau Coliseum , New York City . I was dead sure that I was not missing the show for anything in the world this time. I was in Rolla at the time I came to know of his performance and I was coming to Boston after a month, but I knew that I was making the trip from Boston to NY exclusively for ARR. Almost every friend of mine knows how fanatical I am about ARR. I just had to call Shubhika who is in NJ, Shubhika, Do you know something? ARR is performing live in NY on June 16. She replies, Yeah, Of course. I have already got the tickets for both of us. Do you think I don't know about it? The drive from NJ to Long Island need not be written about at all. The traffic was movi...

Ramu was lazing on the banks of the Cauvery. The local folks were worried that the surging water level may render them homeless. Ramu always thought it to be a little funny, for Cauvery seemed anything but threatening to him. He had literally stayed on the river bank for the last fifteen years. Be it studying for the exam or having fun with or without company, the river offered the kind of solace that could not be provided by any other. The rains had lashed the village in the last month or so. Warning messages soared from every source. Ramu found the whole thing to be a big ado about nothing. Nothing in the world could make him change his opinion about the river. He had even shouted at his mother when she tried to advise him to avoid the river bank. He lay there well into the evening with no inclination to head back home. The aura of this place can be matched by no other place, reflected Ramu. How can people consider this place to be dangerous, he wondered. People who were...

After much contemplation, we (read me and my roommate) decided to watch Choti si baat . The best part about watching this movie is that, the characters are so close to reality that it is easy to step into the character's shoes. Amol Palekar fits the middle class character so perfectly that it is easy to map yourself in his position and feel like a fool or bask in his glory. There were certain scenes where you really feel for the hero, when he is trying to patafy (Indian slang meaning to woo) the heroine. Ok, that's not the point that I am trying to convey here. I wanted to talk about girls in certain movies who set me thinking for an instant. Yes, she is the type of girl I would like to spend my life with. That's happened to me with a couple of movies big time. So, when we were watching Choti si baat , both of us were drooling over Vidya Sinha . The simplicity of the lady just bowled us out. She was the perfect example of a calm and composed face with oodles of beauty. I ...

Life is not all fun to talk about just the interesting things. Relationship is such a strange and complex thing. It is funny to visualize how human beings react differently to the same situation with different people. This phenomenon set me thinking about the underlying essence of a relationship. There is a certain extent beyond which you can't reveal your inner self to everyone. Rather, it is difficult to say more about yourself to another person beyond the limiting point. The limiting threshold can be extended, but certainly not by much. Expectations from a relationship is viewed as highly farcical. We interact with hundreds of people on a day to day basis, getting close with certain tens and finally finding the right set of people whom you can call as real close friends. You can count on these few for most of the things in life, be it the times you require material support or emotional strength. So, we do expect certain things to be done for us by a certa...