Nayi packet mein cheez purani...

You would exclaim the same too after you picked up a copy of the so called 'New improved Femina' magazine.

The Ads of course announce a different story about the mag.I must admit that the ads are something different, they portray 'Women with substance' to quote a cliche.

I have no complaints with the ads, they serve the purpose and make you spend for the magazine to find out whether it really is what its advertisements claim.One look at it and you know that its the same old recycled nonsense about how and why the only occupation for women should be to preen themselves and their cooking skills for men.

All right, they portray a lot of woman in the mag...now where is the substance you ask? Of course its the advertisement brochures which occupies almost 40% of the mag... so if you want glamour with advertisements or your simply bored with the rusty look of the purposeful free ads newspaper booklet pick up a femina mag...

They should consider putting a disclaimer on the mag stating that 'Conformity with the ads shoud not be expected and is not regretted'.

Ponniyin selvan -An experience

I've been meaning to write about this epic from ages. but never really put pen to paper...

The truth is any amount of reviews or words explaining this book would be wasted and it would not even begin to encompass the true beauty of this book.How do u explain an experience?(Ponniyin Selvan to me is an experience , not just another good book).There is always a possibility that my expression might dilute the reality or override your true experience with the book.

Ponniyin Selvan unlike other novels doesn't just string together events, rather it creates a melody of events which presents itself as a perfect background for the mating of the prose of the mind and the poetic characters.

Each character is well rounded and defined.This is a huge task,given the scad amount of characters in PS. Take for example the character of Poonkuzhali's father,Thyagar Vidangar,this character gets almost obscured amongst the main ones ,but Kalki has defined even Thyagar using his other character,Aniruddha Bhramayar.No word or sentence in the book can be termed repetitive .

It is a book which gently ebbs you onto a plane of imagination and from there weaves forth the Chozha country and its denizens for you.

More on PS yet to come... this is just the beginning.

The saga of buckets, cups,spoons and the like...

This is basically an astonishing (not to mention ashamed) revist back to good old english grammar basics.

All these days whenever I had to use the plural form of 'bucketful' or 'cupful' i would actually go ahead and say "bucketsful and cupsful" but apparently it isnt the correct usage ... you would need to use 'bucketfuls' and 'cupfuls' instead...

The word 'bucketful' is actually a compund noun and in all such cases you would have to include an's' at the end of the complete compounded word not in the middle.

And i was under the impression that guessing plurals of singular objects would be childs play
:-(

Dancing in the Rain!!!

No...It isnt about any romantic movie where the couple meet in the rain and dance away till the end... Its just how unique everyone feels when it starts raining.

I have not till date come across any one single person who feels absolutely neutral about rain.The feelings move from pure happiness,wonder etc to absolute disgust regarding whats gonna happen to the wet clothes and the filthy streets etc etc and they never for once stop at the neutral zone...
No sir,not a single inert mind you would find that accompanies rain...thats the magic of rain for you.

But of all the myriad feelings rain evokes , singing and dancing seem to be the most popular ones...ever wondered why? Look at most movies or even advertisements for that matter, if you have rain you either have a song or a dance or both.. and of course if its an indian movie we are talking about more than just dance and song im sure...

For most other people its garam chai and yummy pakodas.... and im surely not complaining about this one :-).

Again some people would love to read a book when it rains.Come on, where is the fun in that! You are just gonna be looking into the book and concentrating more on the book not giving the rain its due respect!

I personally would love to talk a walk in the rain...not sing or dance just a plain good old walk down some road with lots of trees and without other curious human eyes...

There doesnt seem to be any logical explanation for why people feel what they do when it rains.
But who cares anyway...as the saying goes you can either love it or hate it but you definitely cannot ignore rain.

Bitten/Tagged by a fellow travel bug...

I've been tagged to list the new 7 wonders of the world which i've already visited and 3 which i wud like to visit...
Well here's a sad one ...ive not visited any of the new 7 wonders...yep not even Taj Mahal ...

:-(
Now if i had to pick out 3 places in the list which i could visit it would be

1. Machu Pichu in Peru definitely...

There is something about mysterious places and long lost civilisation concepts which pulls me..and of course the fact that it was an Inca civilisation settlement really intrigues me to visit that place.
http://www.sacredsites.com/americas/peru/machu_picchu.html

2.Chichén Itzá,Mexico

Again mystery civisilation -Mayan civilisation this time...Mayan civilisation was considered to be phenomenally ahead of its times... would love to visit this place and have a look at everything these guys used before we even dreamt of it ...No idea how they got extinct...
http://www.mysteriousplaces.com/mayan/TourEntrance.html

3.And of course the Taj Mahal

Simply becuase i have to see it for myself and find out what the fuss is all about....and why its a crime that ive not visited it yet.

Dumb,Dumber,Dumbest

I always thought it would be extremely difficult to find instances of Dumb,Dumber and Dumbest in one single day and in one single person, but well lets just say i got extremely lucky!!!!

Let me recount the lucky incident for the benefit of mankind in general.

A few days back i saw this person trying to cross a 4 lane road with a divider in between.
Im blessed to have witnessed dumbness coz he like a whole bunch of idiots was trying to cross the road where there was no crossing indicated for pedestrians.

Dumber coz it was a blind curve and he was the only dare devil who decided to cross over at that point where every vehicle driver would be possesed by Schumacher's spirit...

And finally the dumbest simply coz he decided to keep watch on the other side of the road (the place where he eventually wanted to go) while crossing instead of looking in the direction where the vehicles were approaching him.....

Unexplained Corelations

Its strange that certain words remind u of something which is in no way related to the actual meaning of the word.

For example whenever i hear the word 'Test' im always reminded of sugar water.... sounds weird i know... and "Russia" reminds me of Mysore pak!!!!!

For some crazy reason the correlation is to food though...

Lamentations of a dormant blogger

One of my dear friends asked me why its been a year since my last post. I couldve answered right away using the mode of communication that i seem to utilise better than any (yaking of course ) But i felt this was a more appropriate medium.



Anyway, i did decide to think over his question and i came up with more questions about my blogging abilities.


For starters its really weird that i have so much to write about but I just cannot get myself to actually write abt it. I guess its the classical problem of trying to put my thoughts on paper.That sounds pretty derogatory so i would rather think that maybe by the time i want to write about the 1st thing i thought up of, I've already thought up of a good 10 other things...Fast thinking girl u c :-P


Now here is the second problem, When I start thinking I'm on a roll and i can write the history of the world down,i get bogged down by the presentation ,u have to worry about all the spellings and grammar and etc etc.It feels like I'm trying to correct an English essay paper :-(


I mean cmon it's a blog do we really need to compose anything in perfect English? ( i must confess though that i actually checked the spellings for this one ;-P)


Of course there is this other major thing of trying to actually log in to blog spot and compose Ur post...I know im sounding like one major lazy bum,. but thts the truth... even the composing part of it seems ok, but logging into ur blog post account is such a pain...


This time though im going to do some justice to my blog, inspite of all the major hurdles that ive already written about.

A Brainy Entangle

Can a brain transplant change the complete character of a person?

Everyone who has studied basic high school science knows that the brain dominates most of our day to day activities.Any stimulus we receive from the external world is analyzed and stored and then utilized at a later date from the brain.We all acknowledge that the brain literally dictates everything from how we perceive the society to how we interact with people.

So all in all we agree that the brain defines us as an individual, it defines our basic character and also the way we react to situations.

Coming back to my original question… can a brain transplant change the way we think, act and perceive the world around us?

If yes then to ensure world peace all we need to do is catch hold of all the terrorists and transplant their brains with that of normal peace loving citizens.
:-)
Is it really that easy?
Or on the flip side can we transplant the brian of a lion with that of a dog and watch a sea change in behaviour?????????

There may be a lot of ethical issues related to such ‘Brain Transplants’.

Is it possible to surgically change a few knots in the brain and make a person behave differently?

Hmmm… lots of questions about the brain and no concrete answers…

Allah ke bandhe

Here are the lyrics of an awesome song....
Wont talk much abt wht listening to this song does to me...U have to close your eyes and listen
to this song...

Its beauty in all its simplicity...

Toota Toota Ek Parinda Aise Toota
Ke Phir Jud Naa Paaya
Loota Loota Kisne Usko Aise Loota
Ke Phir Ud Naa Paaya
O O O O Toota Toota Ek Parinda Aise Toota
Ke Phir Jud Naa Paaya
Loota Loota Kisne Usko Aise Loota
Ke Phir Ud Naa Paaya
Girta Hua Woh Asma Se
Aakar Gira Zameen Par
Khwabon Mein Phir Bhi Badal Hi The
Woh Kehta Raha Magar
Ke Allah Ke Bande Hasde Allah Ke Bande
Allah Ke Bande Hasde Jo Bhi Ho Kal Phir Aayega
Allah Ke Bande Hasde Allah Ke Bande
Allah Ke Bande Hasde Jo Bhi Ho Kal Phir Aayega

Kho Ke Aapne Par Hi To Usne Tha Ud Naa Sikha
Kho Ke Aapne Par Hi To O O O
Kho Ke Aapne Par Hi To Usne Tha Ud Naa Sikha
Gham Ko Aapne Saath Mein Lele Dard Bhi Tere Kaam Aayega
Allah Ke Bande Hasde Allah Ke Bande
Allah Ke Bande Hasde Jo Bhi Ho Kal Phir Aayega
Allah Ke Bande Hasde Allah Ke Bande
Allah Ke Bande Hasde Jo Bhi Ho Kal Phir Aayega

Aa Aa Aaa
Tukde Tuke Ho Gaya Tha Har Sapna Jab Woh Toota
Tukde Tuke Ho Gaya Tha Aa Aaa Aa
Tukde Tuke Ho Gaya Tha Har Sapna Jab Woh Toota
Bhikre Tukdon Mein Allah Ki Marzi Ka Manzar Paayega
Allah Ke Bande Hasde Allah Ke Bande
Allah Ke Bande Hasde Jo Bhi Ho Kal Phir Aayega
Allah Ke Bande Hasde Allah Ke Bande
Allah Ke Bande Hasde Jo Bhi Ho Kal Phir Aayega
Toota Toota Ek Parinda Aise Toota
Ke Phir Jud Naa Paaya
Loota Loota Kisne Usko Aise Loota
Ke Phir Ud Naa Paaya
Girta Hua Woh Asma Se
Aakar Gira Zameen Par
Khwabon Mein Phir Bhi Badal Hi The
Woh Kehta Raha Magar
Ke Allah Ke Bande Hasde Allah Ke Bande
Allah Ke Bande Hasde Jo Bhi Ho Kal Phir Aayega
Allah Ke Bande Hasde Allah Ke Bande
Allah Ke Bande Hasde Jo Bhi Ho Kal Phir Aayega
Allah Ke Bande Hasde Allah Ke Bande
Allah Ke Bande Hasde Jo Bhi Ho Kal Phir Aayega
Allah Ke Bande Hasde Allah Ke Bande
Allah Ke Bande Hasde Jo Bhi Ho Kal Phir Aayega

Feel better?
:-)

Muzikaaalllll Indiyaaaa.......

Have you ever noticed or rather keenly observed the musical scene in India? You tune in to any Indian radio frequency or any TV channel playing out Indian music and it is predominantly music from movies!!!!!! You might find a stray sprinkling of some pakistani group or an euphoria here and there, but not enough.

What is it about music and movies in our country? The whole gamut of musicians ( read that as the whole range of music directors, singers, guys who play instruments etc) are recognized by a complete nation only if they sing/ compose or do something for a movie.. And when I say a movie it cannot just be any movie... it has to be a complete recognizable”Apna Bollywood flick”

We have a great talent pool of music directors ranging from AR Rahman, Illayaraj Shankar Ehsaan Loy etc to the great RD Burman in the past. So what happened? Why have all their best been only for movies?Are our musicians guilty of not looking beyond the confines of a movie? I’m just curious to know in what way movies govern the musical talent of our country. Even if they do end up making individual music albums... they don’t last as long or to be put plainly they just don’t sell enough…

Take the case of someone like Bombay Jayshree, she is a classical singer and has been rendering great songs for ages but it took a ‘Zara Zara’ or a ‘Vaseegara’ for the whole country to sit up and take notice of her.Bismillah Khan is just fine, but ironically he would fade in popularity when compared to an Anu Mallik.

If you observe any other Non Asian country, the scene there is just the contrary... you have a lot of people churning out albums, the dependency on movies to make their music big is just not prevalent.

Now here is the catch, people in India are definitely buying Music albums by Shakira, Guns and roses etc,so again, its not that we do not appreciate music not linked to movies.

So do we appreciate our music makers more when they are in a filmi setting rather than an individualistic setting ?

Or .............
Do we need to relate to Indian music in particular in a more movie like setting?

Or..............
is it something about the visuals that attracts us more to music from movies? Does that explain why a Shakira CD would sell more than an Illayaraj or Rahman CD?

PARITRANA- Is this finally the true long awaited "For the people,by the people and of the people"?

I was a bit shocked when I read the news a group a 5 IITians have floated a political party called Paritrana in Jodhpur. The first thing that came to my mind was “Are these guys out of their minds?” and don’t blame my line of thinking, each one of them has enough credentials to earn a big pay packet and pass the rest of their life like us (complaining about the way the situation in India is but not really bothering to do anything). But if you think deeply enough its just not the comfortable pay packet that they have given up… its much more than that. It’s a life time of pointing fingers at others which they have given up which if u ask me is the most difficult thing to do in our society as it stands.

Paritrana is made up of:

Tanmay Rajpurohit (National President)
B. Tech (Aerospace) IIT Bombay, MS (Aerospace) Georgia Tech. USA, MA (Economics)NewYork, USA.

Ajit Ashwalayan Shukla (National Vice-President)
B. Tech (Mechanical) IIT Bombay, M. Tech. (Mechanical) IIT Bombay.

Amit Beesen (National Vice-President)
B. Tech (Mechanical) IIT Bombay.

Santhanagopalan Vasudev (Chief Advisor)
B.S. (Physics) Kansas, USA, M.A.(Economics) UIUC, USA.

Chandrashekhar (National Treasurer)
B. Tech. (Computer Sc.) IIT Kanpur.

Dheeraj Kumbhat (National General Secretary)

Clearly having an array of degrees after your name does not necessarily make the political party the best but it definitely paves a ray of hope that something different and something concrete could happen here. It sounds,looks and feels like straight out of the movie "Yuva" .

The whole concept is idealistic and a highly audacious move in a country like ours where an IIM graduate was murdered for thinking straight.

It stands a risk of sounding more like a dream, but I hope this is where their motto “May you be as tough as rock” from the Rig Veda comes into the picture. I for one hope that this party succeeds in making a mark on the country unlike the others.

The guys are proposing to tour a few cities in India. Only time will tell whether these rocks can withstand the slow erosion in the nature of our current political set up.

Ms Blue and her kind.....

I had actually thought that my first article (or whatever it is they call these things that you put up on your blog) would not be a crib story. But of course, circumstances decided otherwise...

Anyway here goes the cribby wibby story, I was off to lunch today afternoon like any other decent,self respecting software engineer. I walked all the way down to my canteen which is another block and about 10 minutes walk from my so called IT block…. It was already 2.15 Pm and most of the software engineers supposedly “working”(before anyone takes offense its Friday today… so I don’t think I need to expain the supposedly working part of it) in the IT blocks had finished their lunch…

I reach the Canteen and stand like a Good girl in the small Q to pay for my food and collect my food coupon when all of a sudden breezing through the canteen door a woman entered ( the perfect hindi cinema symbol for Ms goody two shoes.. whom our IT guys would have called the perfect configuration.. she was packaged completely in a nice salwar kameez hair done nice and to add the overall touch a mangalsutra J and a bindi of course), so Ms “Blue”( ill call her blue for various reasons 1. she was wearing a Blue dress and 2. the thing she did made me want to beat her Blue) decides to bypass all the 4 fools who have been standing in the Q and reaches right to the counter .. Mind u there is already a poor innocent (if u can actually use that term on a Software engineer) guy holding out his 20 odd rupees waiting for the coupon guy to give him a coupon…. But our Ms blue does not bother about this guy... after all she is a WOMAN and to hell with unisex rules like (only if thy are physically disabled can thou be given preferential treatment else u can take a hike dude/dudette etc etc ) anyway she holds out her 20 odd rupees and takes her coupon and actually decides to walk away, when one brave woman ( Duh.. its obviously me ) in the Q right behind Mr. Innocent decides to confront Ms blue and asks her “ didn’t u realize there was a Q????”
And…. (I wish I could announce prizes for guessing Ms blues reply… but im still a software engineer and I hate sharing wealth so I might as well give u the ans.. keeps me richer that way J ) Ms Blue whips around to face me … she coolly replies “Oh ... I didn’t realize “and walks away……..

Ahem Ahem Ahem …….

Nice story right?
But here is the irony; this is not a stray occurrence as most of you know... It happens in every walk and platform of life… what is with people and their aversion to Qs .. Nobody ever wants to wait in a Q….

The same incident occurs when you are waiting for your company bus or any other damn transportation with more than 3 people... It is what my Friend describes as a “Flockish” behavior… I Mean gimme a break humans.. What is it with crowding the entrance like nincompoops? U can neither get in yourself coz u are standing in an odd position with your hand holding the handle bar near the bus door and of course your body can be located if we forcibly pried out 2 other similar nincompoops who are in front of you…
It’s become a tradition... Whenever there are more than 2 people and the bus stops we have to run and crowd around it irrespective if we are respectable educated software engineers who have gone onsite umpteen times and wouldn’t be caught dead doing similar things there or if we are uneducated people who just haven’t heard of the word “Queue” or if we are the kind who just run because.. Hey everyone else is running …
We all get so upset with these things but no one complains and no one even bothers to change……

Ready.... Get Set...... Go

The " Ready" and "Get set" part of it was goin on for quite some months now... its only the "Go" part of it (which i finally achieved today) that needs some major clapping and encoring......

Hopin to put up some real Good stuff....