ICE

“ice?..what has that got to do with my car?”…This was my reply when my friend introduced me to this concept. It actually stands for In Car Entertainment and there are actually a lot of forums and websites that discuss and specialize in it, and one only has to drive to GP road in chennai to check out the latest in car entertainment. Apparently its not enough that you have a music sytem that plays MP3s, Audio CDs,DVDs, with a built in USB drive and IPod compatibility in your car, it is a must that you have atleast an LCD screen that you can pull out from the ceiling, with a 1000+ watts woofer in your boot and a lot of wiring to support this. My friend who is a gadget freak was firm with his decision to ramp up my car with these accessories, and at his insistence we decided to visit this place and just look around (we ended up doing a lot more than that though). So we visited a lot of these shops to get a quotation for their audio services and I was quite surprised to see so many different car-gadgets that were on display, making me feel really behind the times when it comes to technology.I was quite surprised to know that so many things could be incorporated in a car and I never quite understood why people would want a movie screen in the car, how does one drive and watch the screen at the same time? that was one scary thought! We ultimately settled on one shop and parked the car in his work area (This is where the looking around ended) and the mechanics (or ‘technicians’ whatever the right word is),who openly disapproved of my taste in music, got to work, and an hour later I had a blaring music system in my car and poorer by 10K Rs. My friend was all smiles when he heard the booms and shock waves that traversed the car,on the other hand I got a head ache listening to such loud music in a confined space.

Serial Killers!

After a looong time i finally decided to have a hair cut yesterday…and being a person who is very frugal when it comes to spending for a hair cut, found one saloon not far away from home and decided to go there. It was a pretty decent one, better than the place that i’ve been frequenting since i was 3 years old, there were already 2 ppl waiting and so took a seat next to them and turned to the tv that was tuned to a tamil channel. As my luck wud have it, it was the daily chain-of-mega-serials time, with nothing better to do, started watching the serial. I was so irritated by the end of it that I had a good mind to leave without the haircut! I find it very difficult to comprehend how people sit and watch this crap day in and day out! I must admit though that it was quite hillarious to watch that particular episode, the basic story was this- girl is hanging out with guy dad does not approve off, comes home to find a very angry dad, gets beaten up along with mom and sis. The complete lack of imagination was apperent throughout the episode, also they have this stupid camera work where every time a character delivers a dialogue it has to move very fast from all 4 directions with “woosh” sounds..I mean what the hell is that? Is this how you elongate a 10 minute footage into a 30 minute one? I really pity the people who watch this and increase the TRPs of these dumb channels!!

Why do people watch these silly serials and provide so much revenue to the cable channels in the form of advertising? Well my theory is this…all these mamiyars and marumagals (daughter/mother in laws) who previously lived in joined families spent al their enerfy in fighting with each other and gossiping about family problems…this however is not possible today with the mamiyar and marumagal living away from each other. Even if they are under the same roof the marumagal is probably off to work the whole day, and hence no opportunity for confrontations. Where does all this pent up fighting energy go? they get channeled into watching mega serials in sympathizing/berating the characters of the serial (how people keep track of the same actors acting in 20 different serials in 30 diffent roles is beyond me!). So ultimately the only good that the serials have society is to keep these mamiyars and marumagals engaged and prevent conflicts that would otherwise arise in the family. So after a haircut amidst several sobs/evil laughter and stupid BGMs i finally got to leave the place, only to find it rainng cats and dogs outside. Choosing the lesser of the two evils I finally reached home getting drenched to the bone.

Watering hole on OMR

All IT guys working on OMR, there is this new place in perungudi thats pretty decent and is a better option compared to the other expensive places along the road to down a few drinks. It called Leisure point (or something like that) Take the left after the SBI atm go down the lane and turn right  and then left again you’ll find this lit-up building, the first floor is the bar. Or you can take the second left after SBI atm and go straight you’ll find the building on your right (you’ll be going across a weighing bridge). Although the music was quite unimpressive the place is quite nice, it has a snooker table, and the ambience is good, a beer costs 130.

If you people know of any other such places on OMR do let me know.

Bloody beggars!!

If you have ever stopped at a signal in chennai (or any other Indian city for that matter), then the chances are that you have also been annoyed/cheated/ridiculed by the swarm of beggers who conduct their business there. These ‘impoverished’ individuals rarely invoke any feelings of compassion but are quite good at inducing irrirtation. Before you brand me as a heart less person who feels no sympathy for the poor, let me tell you these people are not the poverty stricken individuals that form the bulk of our country’s population, but are just lazy good-for-nothing humans who would rather live as parasites off other human beings, than earn a living doing any form of work. They have very beautifully perfected the ‘art’ of begging, and are quite adept at using various methods to get you to part with your hard earned money, the best of it being intimidation to the point where you are ready to pay just so that they would go away.

 

One would imagine these beggars to be  dishevelled dirty people but that is seldom the case, recently when I was waiting near adyar signal for a friend, this decent looking man walked up to me and asked me for 5 rupees. On the first glance he did not look like a beggar, and i mistook him for some parking attendant (which he was not) who was charging me for the parking space. Since I was just about to leave I asked him why? (give him money) and with a silly grin said “ishta patta tharalam” (you may give if you like), now this guy had some nerve, firstly he fixes the amount he wants from me secondly he says this as if he has rendered me some free service. So i said ”enaku suthama ishtam illa, poitu vanga” (i have no desire to give you money, please leave). And he stood around for some time hoping for a change of mind and then left. But I should give him credit for coming straight to the point and expressing his needs instead of going through the entire ordeal of evoking pity before making me part with my money.

A friend of mine who was new to chennai had just got off the local train, and met a group of people (supposed to be a family) who approached him saying that they were robbed and had no means to get home, so this magnanimous friend of mine parted with a 100 rupee note out of sympathy and left the station. A few days later he found the same group of people relating the same story to a different person at the station, and realized he had been cheated.

The biggest crime that these people commit is the usage of infants as a prop in begging. It truly makes ones blood boil, to see these innocent babies being put to such heartless treatment in the hot sun and rain! I’m very sure that these babies do not belong to the beggar women that use it, for any sane mother would rather  put her child in an orphanage or give it up for adoption than put it through such horrible circumstances. So the fact is that these babies were either stolen from somewhere or some heartless parent decided to earn some money with his/her child, who was lying idle at home doing nothing anyways. I don’t understand why the police department or government officials do nothing about this breach of human rights! Of course the cops probably don’t have the time to look at such trivial matters, they are too busy collecting bribes and harassing motorists.

Tsunami Ghost village

After watching Dasavatharam, I actually realized the magnanimity of the tsunami that had hit us, (the graphics, which was quite amateur, had nothing to do with this), if it was really that devastating (with boats flying every which way and waves that high) then I feel really bad that I did not fully grasp its impact on the people who lost their lives or a loved one in the tsunami.

 Recently on a drive to pondy one of my friends was telling us about this tsunami village, that is right now uninhabited as a result of the tsunami and we decided to drop in there and see the place (since we had very few things to do besides booze). This was actually a small area, of about 2-3 streets and a  mud road that ran parallel to the beach. This place looked normal in every aspect except that there were no people living in any of the houses which were all in perfect condition.  It was quite a spooky experience to walk into these houses and see clothes, books etc strewn about the floor, you would even find calendars that display the date date as 25/12/04 (the day before the tsunami)!. On one side of the mud road you’d find houses that have taken the full force of the tsunami and have all caved, whereas the other side looks pretty unaffected and the damage to people was probably caused only by the water seeping into their homes. It was quite hard to believe that no lived there, we walked around for some time and explored the place, we found a lot of beer/whiskey bottles lying inside the houses- a sign that the place is now being put to a different use. It was quite distressing to know that all these people have been so cruelly made to vacate their homes, and that they have still not fully recovered from the calamity is evident from the fact that no one has returned even after 4 years.

If you wish to visit this place its on a turning on ecr past mayajaal (there is a board with the name of the village), its called karikattu kuppam (i think), you will find a barricade around 2-3 kms from mayajaal, you need to take a left just before that, if you’ve reached Palmyra resort or MGM you have gone too far. Take this turn and keep driving till you hit the beach. This place may not be too safe after dark, best time would be to go early morning or noon.

The Ramayana

The Ramayana is an Indian epic that is supposed to have been written more than 2000 years ago, by the sage Valmiki. Although it has existed for so many millennia, it still enthralls millions around the world just as it did during the time of its conception. I am no expert in the Ramayana, the limited knowledge I have about it comes from the Ramayana that was broadcast in doordarshan in 80s, the children’s version written by Rajaji and the Ashok Banker series (this one is really amazing!). The Ramayana is supposed to give every reader a different account about life, to some it is the story of the ‘ideal man’, to some it is a story about overcoming obstacles in life, to some it is the symbolic reunion of the soul with god…it all depends on how you interpret the story and the stories within the story. I have always believed that this epic symbolizes the battle that is waged in our minds, in order to facilitate the reunion of the jivathma (soul) with the paramathma (god). I have found numerous instances in the epic, especially in the sundarakand and yudhkand, which allegorically asserts this. There are numerous books that explain this particular aspect in detail; I just intend to state the same here, with a little addition of my own.

The characters:

Ram: He is the personification of all the good qualities in a human being. His qualities as a good son, a faithful husband, a just king and a true friend are some of his characteristics as the ideal man. Symbolically he represents the paramathma, being the incarnation of lord Vishnu.

Sita: She is again the ideal woman, and possesses the characteristics that are to be expected from a good wife and daughter. Her character may seem a little alien to today’s culture, and emulating her may seem ridiculous to most women but that’s only because there aren’t many Rams these days J. She is mostly dismissed as being too submissive and timid but she must be given credit for the iron will that she possessed to shun every move made by Ravan, to force her into submission, it was in fact Sita who weakened him mentally and spiritually by not succumbing to his power. Symbolically she represents the jivathma, which is yearning to unite with the paramathma (Ram).

Hanuman: My favourite character from the Ramayan, he is the incarnation of lord Shiva, and the son of the wind god, a celibate, and the greatest devotee of lord Ram. He is most instrumental in uniting Ram with Sita, so much so that even today separated couples are asked to read the sundarakand (a part of the Ramayan named after lord Hanuman) to be reunited. He symbolizes the unwavering devotion towards god that a spiritual seeker must possess and is the personification of bhakthi, strength, courage, knowledge and humility.

Ravana: The demon king of lanka, a very great devotee of lord Shiva (it is ironic that his downfall was hastened by an incarnation of Shiva), his rule extended to the three worlds and even managed to bring under his control the navagrahas. He was very well versed in the arts and scriptures, and was a master of the ‘rudra veena’ but his greatest flaw was his ego and was often depicted with ten heads (probably an indicative that he had an ego ten times that of a normal person?). His character symbolizes the ego that entraps the soul, and needs to be destroyed for the soul to be united with god.
Kumbakarna: He is Ravana’s brother and is granted to boon to be able to sleep for 6 months of the year and stay awake the other 6 months to eat (or something to that effect). He symbolizes the lethargy that arises from too much sleep and food, inflaming in us the qualities of rajas and thamas, preventing us from being able to worship god with a clear mind.

Indrajith: His name literally means ‘he who conquered Indra’, Indra is the lord of the devas and by winning the battle against him, Indrajith had lain claim on swargaloka and all its treasures. Indr in Sanskrit also means ‘the senses’ so in effect his name implies that he controls the senses (in a detrimental way of course). He proved to be a very difficult opponent in the war, and even managed to fell a large part of Ram’s army along with Lakshman (who were later revived by the famous sanjivni herb brought by Hanuman). Indrajith symbolizes the Maya that enshrouds us all, and technically the effects of Maya are felt by the senses (hence the name). The whole concept of Maya is created in our minds, by our ego, it leads you to believe that every thing you see, touch, feel, hear, taste is real, which further strengthens the symbolism since Indrajith is the first born son of Ravana.

In addition to this there are numerous other characters whose purpose I have not been able to understand, especially Lakshman Ram’s younger brother and Vibeeshan Ravana’s younger brother. Lakshman is the only character in the epic who sticks by Ram from the beginning to the end. Vibeeshan is the devotee of lord Ram who changes sides from his brother’s to join Ram when his pleas to avoid this war falls on deaf ears, he proves to be very useful in the war since he is aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy. If any of you know what these two symbolize do enlighten me. Getting on with our story….

The Golden Deer
The outraged Soorpanakha, Ravan’s younger sister, rushes to Lanka after her advances towards Ram and Lakshman result in her nose and ears being chopped off. Fully aware of her brothers love for all things beautiful she sings praises of Sita’s beauty, and at once overcome by lust Ravana speeds to the Dandaka forest where he uses the guise of the golden deer to lure Ram away from Sita before abducting her. It is at this point where Sita is separated from Ram and the foundation for the Ramayana war is laid. The three of them until then manage to lead a fairly contented life in the jungle, happy for each others company and things would have gone fine with Ram ascending his throne after the exile, had it not been for the golden deer. The golden deer that symbolizes material wealth and desires, manages to arouse in Sita, long forgotten passions and the need to posses this beautiful creature. Thereupon she pleads Ram to capture it for her, who taken aback by this request from a wife who has never asked him anything, happily complies. The deer like all desires, gives a good chase, and finally struck by Rams arrow morphs into its demonic form. This does remind one of our never ending chase behind not one, but many golden deers, every desire that we nurture and work hard to attain loses its ‘attractiveness’ once attained. This story goes to say that God has always been with us, it is only we who lose him in the race to gain material wealth, and fulfill our inner desires.

Hanuman burns Lanka
After Sita is abducted, the search for her takes Ram and his army to tip of the Indian peninsula, where they are affronted by the mighty ocean, and in order to ascertain if Sita is indeed held captive on its other shore, Hanuman is singled out to cross its waters to find her. Once in Lanka Hanuman is thrilled by the wealth and abundance of the island, but remains unperturbed by its temptations. His search brings him to Mandodari (Ravan’s wife) asleep in Ravan’s bed, and mistaking her for Sita is at once utterly disgusted. But he soon comes to his senses and further on he finds Sita imprisoned in the Ashok vatika. After pacifying Sita who is terribly grief stricken, he proceeds to Ravan’s court where he is bound and his tail is set on fire, and Hanuman leaps from building to building until the entire island is ablaze, much to the dismay of Ravan. This episode termed the sundarkand is one of the most read chapters of the Ramayana, it relates symbolically to the power of bhakthi and perseverance. Had Sita succumbed to Ravana’s threats or to his power, Hanuman would have returned to Ram and the coupled would never have been united. It was Sita’s single-minded devotion towards Ram that encouraged Hanuman to destroy the island, and weaken the will of the demon king.

Bridge Across the Ocean
Having confirmed Sita’s imprisonment Ram prays to Varuna the sea-god to allow them to pass, but Varuna refuses to go against the laws of nature but agrees to hold afloat every rock that has Ram’s name inscribed on it. The bridge is built and the army crosses the ocean to rescue Sita. The ocean represents the sexual energy inherent in us all, the first and most difficult obstacle that needs to be overcome in our spiritual journey. This ocean cannot be removed or be drained at an instant the only way through it, is to convert the sexual energy into spiritual energy. This is symbolized by the rocks, which would sink normally, floating by the power of Ram’s name. Its worthy to note than the entire army had trouble crossing the ocean, but for Hanuman – the celibate, it was only a single leap that was required.

War
The war begins on the shores of Lanka; there are a number of valiant warriors on either sides resulting in a heavy casualties. This war between Ram and Ravan is on a different level the war between the ego and God, just as the ego fully aware of its impermanence and it’s inferiority to God’s power it refuses to vanquish its stubborn hold over the soul, Ravan refuses to let go of Sita, even after he is advised to do so by his own family and subjects.

Kumbakarna
After losing a considerable part of his army, Ravan decides to arouse his brother Kumbakarna to wage war against Ram. Kumbakarna though against this idea, agrees for the sake of his elder brother and fights bravely till his death by the hands of Lakshman. This significant victory for Ram symbolizes the overcoming of lethargy and gluttony that impedes spiritual growth in an individual.

Indrajith
After Kumbakarna Ram and his army are faced with the difficult task of fighting Indrajith -a mayavi and an expert black magician. He manages to overwhelm the army with his magic, and hurts Lakshman with his magical arrows. Following this he beheads Sita in front of Ram’s eyes, and Ram breaks down thinking that all is lost. Vibeeshan later confirms it to be an illusion and Ram fights with added vigor and kills Indrajith. This is the victory over maya, the illusion that entraps every one of us and never allows to unite with God.

Ravana
Ram finally comes face to face with Ravan, although he is aided by the devas and gods in this war, Ram finds it very difficult to kill Ravan. Every time he chops of Ravan’s head a new one springs in its place, this fierce combat his ended when Ram finally takes aim at Ravan’s belly and finally manages to vanquish the demon. The terrible war between Ram and Ravan symbolizes the difficulty in overcoming the ego, and its allies, and once overcome the unison with god becomes undeniable.

Agni Pariksha
The last event in the Ramayana before Ram is crowned king, is the agni pariksha, in which Sita is finally rescued from Lanka, but is asked to enter a pyre to prove her chastity. I really don’t know what this signifies, and is a much-debated topic of the Ramayana. There are even some explanations about Agni replacing the ‘maya’ Sita with the real one, but it sounds really lame, and was probably added only to thwart any attempts to sully Ram’s character for not trusting his wife. So if anyone can throw some light on this please do so.

Sleepless….

It was 2:30 am and I just couldn’t sleep, was thinking of messaging people to find out if anyone was awake. One of my friends messaged me just then (he is a hopeless workaholic), we chatted for some time, and he told me about this thing he does to figure out what’s happening in his life, it was something similar to a SWOT analysis. So after a short groaning session about life’s miseries we hung up and I took up a piece of paper and tried the analysis. It made very little sense to me and couldn’t go further with it, so I discarded the attempt to figure out my life (its too much of a mess anyways) and decided to make a list of things I wanted to do before I die. This was an inspiration from the movie ‘bucket list’ which I happened to discuss with another friend recently (haven’t seen the movie though). So now I have a list with 15 items ranging from the nearly impossible to the very common things in life, of course it is too personal to display here. Lets hope I get to complete all this before I kick the bucket. Now that I have found purpose in life, I’m going to try and sleep, good night!

Broken Bridge

Broken bridge at besant nagar, one of my favourite spots in chennai…a lot has been said about this place in many blogs…i’m just uploading some photos of it

Joie de vivre

Life has given us days of mindless slogging and days when we sit down to wonder why we put up with this drudgery that has come to characterize the pathetic lives we lead.When exactly did life make this ‘u’ turn and land us in this pitiful state? A hearty meal with the family has become a luxury, friends that we all promised to keep in touch with are all so distant, sleep is suddenly a ‘waste of time’ and we need experts to teach us the ‘art’ of living! Every where you turn you see so much pressure, pressure to meet that deadline, pressure to get that promotion, pressure to excel in class – its suddenly as if you have to be the best, else you are a nobody. We’ve all been tuned from a very young age to be within the range of acceptability as dictated by the norms of society, and in the process we forget who we really are, and go through life constantly at war with our inner selves.

The worse affected are children, who right from the beginning are pushed to out-perform their peers until they have no choice but to hate everything about school. If only parents realize the amount of damage they do to their children in the name of education, life would be so much better. The movie “Taare zameen par” portrayed all this very beautifully, especially in the song sequence that contrasts the pressures of adult life with the mirth of childhood. Adults have never been at a loss of finding new and innovative methods to torture children, right from a chain of after-school tuitions that further the attempts to stuff bookish knowledge into the child’s head (mostly by the very same teacher), to a series of ‘extra-curricular’ classes that are supposed to make him talented. In recent times there has been a sudden surge of abacus training classes, that come up with ads like “join so and so classes and your child would be able to multiply 36974537368354 and 125423573687 in 10 seconds”. Why in god’s name would a 10 year old  need to multiply such huge numbers, I have not done any calculations this complicated in my entire engineering course, and I doubt a child in the 4th standard would ever require it! I seriously don’t see the crime in using the pocket calculator; in any case the abacus is nothing but a primitive calculator.

These harassed children, mostly never manage to live up to their parents expectations, and when they become parents, harass their children to be what their parents wanted them to be. They make it even worse by saying “ in our days we never had the luxuries that you enjoy, and yet you don’t seem to be any better”. If you really want to teach children something, teach them to handle failure, teach them to take risks in life, once these two factors are taken care of, I’m sure you’re children would be ready to face the ‘cruel’ world that we all inhabit. Talk to them about sex, cos if you don’t they will learn it from the wrong sources and end up doing something regrettable. Let them experiment with smoking and drinking, (which they will anyways) I’m sure once the ban is removed it wouldn’t be as appealing, for it’s the forbidden fruit that tastes sweeter. Well I’m no expert with children or teenagers, my only experience is having been one, so most of the stuff I’m writing is probably crap, but do let me know if any part of it made sense.It’s of course difficult to change our old ways overnight, and follow your heart (although not impossible).So start doing the things that make you feel alive; it’s the only way to put back the joie in the vivre (please forgive my French ).

Dasavatharam

The much awaited Dasavatharam is finally scheduled to be released today, and I got to see the preview show last night (actually very early today morning). Drove all the way to ambatur from my office, (at thoraippakkam) to catch the night show which got split into an 8pm and 11pm show by the theatre ppl, (to make the best of the preview show collections) and after some more delays got to watch it at 12am. I actually went there half expecting a movie which would not live up to all the media hype that has surrounded it, but the movie was absolutely FANTASTIC!!! In fact I liked it so much that i’m making it the topic of my ‘pullayar sulli’ post

The movie is about this scientist who is trying to protect a  bio weapon that he invents and travels half way across the globe trying to protect mankind from it. There are many other parallel stories that are interwoven into this plot and all of them culminate at the tsunami, with a message that god never forsakes you, minor setbacks/losses exist only for the greater good of mankind. I really liked the movie:

Firstly for kamal’s make up which was brilliant! some of the characters were truly un recognisable and his role as the old woman and the villian were most impressive. That he has worked terribly hard for this shows in the movie.

There were no silly duets, love scenes in the movie, in fact kamal and asin fall in love only towards the end and their intimacy only goes upto holding hands (this is totally not thalaivar style!)

The entire movie is a chase and you dont feel bored at any point, even though the movie is over 3 hrs in length

Malika sherawat is there for the glamour, and is used just for that, I’m happy they did not give her a smart CIA woman role which would have been a little hard to swallow.

There aren’t any seperate comedians in the movie, the comedy is provided by Kamal(s) and Asin. Asin’s shot at comedy was quite good.

I guess i could go on about this, and just be saying kamal, kamal, kamal. On the whole the movie was amazing, but it did have some ‘filmy’ scenes like the hero always finding a lorry/pickup truck/sand pile to jump into from a bridge, stray bullet removing cancer growth,and this entire NaCl business was quite corny, but these are just minor bumps on the road. In fact when we were walking out of the hall there was this ecstatic guy who came up and said “did you notice that that ppl did not make any noise throughout the movie? thats kamal!” Dasavatharam is truly a milestone in tamil indian cinema, and another feather in kamal’s cap. I’m really looking forward to watching the movie at sathyam.