Wishing you all a Merry Christmas…
I’m posting this at the wee hours of Christmas morning after having gift wrapped gifts for my daughters and placing it under the Christmas tree.... playing Santa. We don’t have Chimneys down here, so had to convince my daughter to leave the window open for Santa to sneak in.
Cheers for a safe Christmas. Don’t Drink and drive instead dirnk dna wtire
Thursday, December 25, 2008
A Week of Flip Flops and Shoes…
This has been a rather entertaining week of Flip flops; Shoes and President elect six packs.
Let’s start with the Flip flops, Pakistan seem to be in a holiday mood and slipped on their ‘flip flops’ the entire week. Their statements were as slippery as the slippers or the flip flops. Asif Ali Zardari flipped ‘non state actors are responsible for the Mumbai attacks’ and then flopped by saying that ‘non state actors on their soil were his responsibility’ and almost immediately not to be out done, our gud ol friend Nawaz Sheriff who has spent more time in exile than in Pakistan flipped that he had personally checked out on the lone surviving terrorist’s Pakistani links and confirmed it and then went on to flop saying that India needs to provide evidence that Sir (‘Night’hood here …cos the boy has probably seen his daylights removed in the past days) Kasab was from Pakistan.
The next was the poor Iraqi journo getting the projectile all wrong or was it that Mr. Bush well trained in the last 8 years on the art of avoiding being shoo shooed …All said and done in cricketing parlance the delivery was pretty flat and more ‘pie chucker like’ with not enough flight. The Middle East press gave Bush's Middle East 'footwear farewell' the best possible coverage. One freak did it out of sheer frustration and no more. Bush would have won a lot of brownie points had he actually pardoned the journo. It would definitely have done a world of good on his way out. Not that it’s going to matter anymore.
Finally the President elect Barack Obama was shot on camera by the erstwhile paparazzi literally in a ‘Kulli scene’ as they call it back home. Well as some one said there’s no supply without demand… we the public suck up to all the exclusives with a thirst for fantasy thereby encouraging such ridiculous acts of invasion of privacy.
Let’s start with the Flip flops, Pakistan seem to be in a holiday mood and slipped on their ‘flip flops’ the entire week. Their statements were as slippery as the slippers or the flip flops. Asif Ali Zardari flipped ‘non state actors are responsible for the Mumbai attacks’ and then flopped by saying that ‘non state actors on their soil were his responsibility’ and almost immediately not to be out done, our gud ol friend Nawaz Sheriff who has spent more time in exile than in Pakistan flipped that he had personally checked out on the lone surviving terrorist’s Pakistani links and confirmed it and then went on to flop saying that India needs to provide evidence that Sir (‘Night’hood here …cos the boy has probably seen his daylights removed in the past days) Kasab was from Pakistan.
The next was the poor Iraqi journo getting the projectile all wrong or was it that Mr. Bush well trained in the last 8 years on the art of avoiding being shoo shooed …All said and done in cricketing parlance the delivery was pretty flat and more ‘pie chucker like’ with not enough flight. The Middle East press gave Bush's Middle East 'footwear farewell' the best possible coverage. One freak did it out of sheer frustration and no more. Bush would have won a lot of brownie points had he actually pardoned the journo. It would definitely have done a world of good on his way out. Not that it’s going to matter anymore.
Finally the President elect Barack Obama was shot on camera by the erstwhile paparazzi literally in a ‘Kulli scene’ as they call it back home. Well as some one said there’s no supply without demand… we the public suck up to all the exclusives with a thirst for fantasy thereby encouraging such ridiculous acts of invasion of privacy.
Doha Shots...
A traditional touch to the teller...
A typical Arabic Souq
A typical Arabic Souq (contd..)
Thats the Zig Zag Building ...Contractors were also true to its name...kept on meandering with the work...
The Doha Skyline in the making
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Parvathy Omanakuttan --- What’s in a name after all!!!
Parvathy Omanakuttan just proved me wrong that even with a blatant and loud Mallu sounding name you can still be successful in a field that is dominated by women with names as glamorous as them. I always carried the (wrong) notion that only names like Sushmita, Aishwarya, Diana, Priyanka with surnames of Sens, Rais, Haydens, Chopras could ever make it to the glitzy and glamorous world of beauty pageants and from there to the Hall of Fame of Bollywood.
With a name like Parvathy Omanakuttan one would have thought she is a new face cast in one those Adoor Gopalakrishnan movies or a village lass dancing in ‘Pavadai’ and ‘Davani’ in a Bharathi Raja movie. However you will soon see her gyrating to Himesh Reshmiya’s remixes in a Bollywood flick titled Dhoom 3 or 4 or Don 5 or 6 but I still cannot fathom myself staring at a Bollywood poster that says Starring Parvathy Omanakuttan. It’s kinda similar to hearing something like the ‘Oscar for the Best Actor goes to Srinivas Raghavan Ananthapadmanabhan’ it would fall in place better, if it sounded something like ‘and the Nobel Prize for Physics goes to Srinivas Raghavan Ananthapadmanabhan’, I guess you kinda get the picture now. Though I have nothing against such names you just get the feeling that there are some genres of names that you are conditioned to associate with certain events, professions etc…
The coming days, weeks & months will see the stories on Mumbai Terror, Spirit of Mumbai and Ajmal Amer Kasab being pushed into the insignificant quarters and telecast times on the print and the electronic media, and in particular the Malayalam media will go on an overdrive, and claims of daughter of the soil will start ringing in. They will find the remotest of links to authenticate such claims.
I just hope she retains her name when she makes her forays into Bollywood and sets the trend for future Parvathys, Kamalakshis or Gnanasambandams to make it big in the world of glamour in spite of their names.
For all you know we might hear of one 'Parvy Omna' an anagramic distortion of her name doing the rounds in Bollywood in the days to come.
With a name like Parvathy Omanakuttan one would have thought she is a new face cast in one those Adoor Gopalakrishnan movies or a village lass dancing in ‘Pavadai’ and ‘Davani’ in a Bharathi Raja movie. However you will soon see her gyrating to Himesh Reshmiya’s remixes in a Bollywood flick titled Dhoom 3 or 4 or Don 5 or 6 but I still cannot fathom myself staring at a Bollywood poster that says Starring Parvathy Omanakuttan. It’s kinda similar to hearing something like the ‘Oscar for the Best Actor goes to Srinivas Raghavan Ananthapadmanabhan’ it would fall in place better, if it sounded something like ‘and the Nobel Prize for Physics goes to Srinivas Raghavan Ananthapadmanabhan’, I guess you kinda get the picture now. Though I have nothing against such names you just get the feeling that there are some genres of names that you are conditioned to associate with certain events, professions etc…
The coming days, weeks & months will see the stories on Mumbai Terror, Spirit of Mumbai and Ajmal Amer Kasab being pushed into the insignificant quarters and telecast times on the print and the electronic media, and in particular the Malayalam media will go on an overdrive, and claims of daughter of the soil will start ringing in. They will find the remotest of links to authenticate such claims.
I just hope she retains her name when she makes her forays into Bollywood and sets the trend for future Parvathys, Kamalakshis or Gnanasambandams to make it big in the world of glamour in spite of their names.
For all you know we might hear of one 'Parvy Omna' an anagramic distortion of her name doing the rounds in Bollywood in the days to come.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Koothapiran, Abdul Jabbar, Ramamurthy & Co – Oh How I miss them…
Another Test match is underway at the MAC Stadium in Chepauk, Chennai, 4 weeks a lil too early. Just as the boxer’s day test match is a very traditional affair for the Australian cricketing fraternity so is a Pongal test match significant in the Madras cricketing calendar. Although this time we have an unscheduled test being played at Chepauk.
When I switched on the TV early in the morning and heard the likes of Gavaskar, David Lloyd, Ian Botham and L Shiva holding fort at the commentary box, I was reminded of a few of the legendary Tamil Cricket commentators on All India Radio whom I grew up listening to as a kid.
Warning: This blog will be enjoyed by only a very niche audience, an audience who appreciate Tamil and Cricket with the same fervour.
It was a pleasure to listen to one of the above commentators describe the first ball of a Test match and say, ‘Ithoo wallajah salai muniyilirunthu mudhal pandhu vissuvadharkaka Haryana Singham Kapil Dev kudhirai ottathaipola padi padiyaga vandhu seerana vegam pettru valakai vikettin mel vara pandhai veessugirar’ It just meant ‘Here comes from the Wallajah road end, the King of Haryana, Kapil Dev, running in like a horse cantering and following it up with a gallop to bowl Right arm over the wicket’.
When one was just dependent on the radio commentary and trying to visualise (mind you these were pre Hawk eye days) what was going on in the middle this was the best way to describe the first ball of a test match. We have seen many an acclaimed commentators over the years, including an alumnus of the esteemed IIM in the commentary box but I do doubt their capabilities in doing a better job than Koothapirans, Abdul Jabbars & Co to narrate the visuals to the millions of transistor dependent fans of Cricket.
In fact I’m not sure if All India Radio still does broadcast the Tamil commentary for the Madras matches which I doubt particularly in the present BCCI era when you need to pay even if you walk past Wallajah road for the rights to just hear the crowd applauding a match.
The way Abdul Jabbar describes a G R Vishwanath Square cut or a Sandeep Patil going down on one knee to cover drive the likes of Bob Willis will surely stand out as possibly the best descriptions of a shot by any standards, sometimes even better than the shot itself.
When I switched on the TV early in the morning and heard the likes of Gavaskar, David Lloyd, Ian Botham and L Shiva holding fort at the commentary box, I was reminded of a few of the legendary Tamil Cricket commentators on All India Radio whom I grew up listening to as a kid.
Warning: This blog will be enjoyed by only a very niche audience, an audience who appreciate Tamil and Cricket with the same fervour.
It was a pleasure to listen to one of the above commentators describe the first ball of a Test match and say, ‘Ithoo wallajah salai muniyilirunthu mudhal pandhu vissuvadharkaka Haryana Singham Kapil Dev kudhirai ottathaipola padi padiyaga vandhu seerana vegam pettru valakai vikettin mel vara pandhai veessugirar’ It just meant ‘Here comes from the Wallajah road end, the King of Haryana, Kapil Dev, running in like a horse cantering and following it up with a gallop to bowl Right arm over the wicket’.
When one was just dependent on the radio commentary and trying to visualise (mind you these were pre Hawk eye days) what was going on in the middle this was the best way to describe the first ball of a test match. We have seen many an acclaimed commentators over the years, including an alumnus of the esteemed IIM in the commentary box but I do doubt their capabilities in doing a better job than Koothapirans, Abdul Jabbars & Co to narrate the visuals to the millions of transistor dependent fans of Cricket.
In fact I’m not sure if All India Radio still does broadcast the Tamil commentary for the Madras matches which I doubt particularly in the present BCCI era when you need to pay even if you walk past Wallajah road for the rights to just hear the crowd applauding a match.
The way Abdul Jabbar describes a G R Vishwanath Square cut or a Sandeep Patil going down on one knee to cover drive the likes of Bob Willis will surely stand out as possibly the best descriptions of a shot by any standards, sometimes even better than the shot itself.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
E-Invasion
Our lives have been E-jacked, every thing we do in life these days is prefixed or rather dictated by the ‘E’. E mails, E commerce, E learning, E relationships, The eees are turning out to be pest just like the ‘ees’ in Tamil (‘ees’ in Tamil mean common houseflies). A Brahmin lady of wisdom told me when I was a kid that we are normally invaded by the fly’s ‘(eees) during the Tamil months ending in ‘phonetic ees’ like ‘Avani’, ‘Aadi’ and the likes…Well if u notice its kind of true.. I don’t have any proofs to put forward, but guys following the Tamil months back home please check it out.
The Electronic ‘E’ that Im referring to here is not seasonal but here to stay, an ‘E’ (Never thought I would be using ‘an’ the proposition in this format when I was taught English Grammar as a kid) that has made an irreversible impact in our lives.
It’s Christmas season, and as a child I remember an annual ritual of my dad picking up 50 odd Christmas cards and we as a family sitting around the dining table together to write out Christmas Greetings to all our friends and relatives. This was one ritual followed in all its sincerity irrespective of recession or hard times... The envelope was pasted with a 50 Paise ‘Gandhi’ stamp if it was within its stipulated weight and without any adders, the envelope was unsealed and this was called ‘Book Post’ and one had to write it in Bold on the envelope. I repeat ‘write’ and not ‘type Ctrl B’ on MS Word.
Today my six year comes up to me and tells me that she wants to log on to 123greetings.com and send an E card to a friend.
Recently one of my newly married younger cousin sent me an E mail and asked me for my postal (Snail mail address). Im sure he wanted to send me a Christmas greeting signed by his beau and him. Poor guy, lil does he realise that after a couple of years the only dotted line a wife would wanna sign would be the ones on the right hand bottom corner of a cheque leaf that says ‘Self’ on the top.
Little did I know as a kid that the ever silent and insignificant ‘E’ would shoot to such prominence in the years to come? You are so ‘E’ dependent these days particularly when one’s on the move… so much so that Emotion has also become a kind of ‘E’ in Motion.
The Electronic ‘E’ that Im referring to here is not seasonal but here to stay, an ‘E’ (Never thought I would be using ‘an’ the proposition in this format when I was taught English Grammar as a kid) that has made an irreversible impact in our lives.
It’s Christmas season, and as a child I remember an annual ritual of my dad picking up 50 odd Christmas cards and we as a family sitting around the dining table together to write out Christmas Greetings to all our friends and relatives. This was one ritual followed in all its sincerity irrespective of recession or hard times... The envelope was pasted with a 50 Paise ‘Gandhi’ stamp if it was within its stipulated weight and without any adders, the envelope was unsealed and this was called ‘Book Post’ and one had to write it in Bold on the envelope. I repeat ‘write’ and not ‘type Ctrl B’ on MS Word.
Today my six year comes up to me and tells me that she wants to log on to 123greetings.com and send an E card to a friend.
Recently one of my newly married younger cousin sent me an E mail and asked me for my postal (Snail mail address). Im sure he wanted to send me a Christmas greeting signed by his beau and him. Poor guy, lil does he realise that after a couple of years the only dotted line a wife would wanna sign would be the ones on the right hand bottom corner of a cheque leaf that says ‘Self’ on the top.
Little did I know as a kid that the ever silent and insignificant ‘E’ would shoot to such prominence in the years to come? You are so ‘E’ dependent these days particularly when one’s on the move… so much so that Emotion has also become a kind of ‘E’ in Motion.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Enough of ‘enough is enough rhetoric’
Well, well, Post 26 / 11 we have been pounded with rhetoric’s like enough is enough…. and ‘what’s next ‘questions.
The fourth estate fraternity have thrown open theirs airwaves /columns to forums, discussions, polls, idea collections, opinions and what not in an effort to bring about change and awareness and have roped in the rich and famous and the movers & shakers from Page 3 in their endeavour.
But will this help???
The English speaking population of India makes up only 7.95 % of its total population and only 30 % of its total population is Urbanised, so any awareness that is brought about here is not necessarily going to ring in a change that can effectively put in place constitutional reforms needed to tackle these situations which we find ourselves more too often.
The real change needs to evolve from the most interior of regions in the likes of UP, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Northeast etc… Illiteracy and corruption in these regions need to be rooted out and, in my opinion; change has to start from there and not from the swanky by lanes of Colaba. A placard holding Sharmila Tagore who is wedded into one of the most affluent of the Nawab families of India or a solidarity expressing Preity Zinta carrying a candle and marching down Marine Drive, who is the beau in tow to one of the heirs of the richest families in India who also happens to be the great grandson of the founding father of Pakistan Mohd Ali Jinnah…are not definitely going to make a difference, this will only provide the cosmetic quotient to the real issue.
The rural Indian needs to rise to the occasion and bring about this change. The minority affluent urban Indian views which are in my opinion, biased and city centric cannot do more than just write pieces like this on the blogosphere.
The fourth estate fraternity have thrown open theirs airwaves /columns to forums, discussions, polls, idea collections, opinions and what not in an effort to bring about change and awareness and have roped in the rich and famous and the movers & shakers from Page 3 in their endeavour.
But will this help???
The English speaking population of India makes up only 7.95 % of its total population and only 30 % of its total population is Urbanised, so any awareness that is brought about here is not necessarily going to ring in a change that can effectively put in place constitutional reforms needed to tackle these situations which we find ourselves more too often.
The real change needs to evolve from the most interior of regions in the likes of UP, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Northeast etc… Illiteracy and corruption in these regions need to be rooted out and, in my opinion; change has to start from there and not from the swanky by lanes of Colaba. A placard holding Sharmila Tagore who is wedded into one of the most affluent of the Nawab families of India or a solidarity expressing Preity Zinta carrying a candle and marching down Marine Drive, who is the beau in tow to one of the heirs of the richest families in India who also happens to be the great grandson of the founding father of Pakistan Mohd Ali Jinnah…are not definitely going to make a difference, this will only provide the cosmetic quotient to the real issue.
The rural Indian needs to rise to the occasion and bring about this change. The minority affluent urban Indian views which are in my opinion, biased and city centric cannot do more than just write pieces like this on the blogosphere.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Music heals...
At a time when things back home are not looking too good on the secular front, I just wanted to share the link to 2 songs on Youtube which has had an impact on me... Here you go...
Maha Ganapati by Susheela Raman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy7D_FIkWIY
A is for Allah by Yousuf Islam (Cat Stevens)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L-GOHa5-YQ
Maha Ganapati by Susheela Raman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy7D_FIkWIY
A is for Allah by Yousuf Islam (Cat Stevens)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L-GOHa5-YQ
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