Reflections

I happened to see the much hyped Tamil movie “Vaaranam Aayiram” yesterday. Don’t know what public opinion is and how the movie is faring in theatres but I was totally disappointed with the movie. The first mistake Gautam Menon did was the title. “Vaaranam Aayiram” is the beginning line, of a famous Tamil poem by the renowned Tamil poet Andaal which beautifully illustrates the arrangements for her marriage with Lord Vishnu. "Vaaranam Aayiram" means a thousand elephants. Imagine Lord Vishnu walking in a marriage procession with thousand elephants! And you don’t even get to see Surya walking as his normal self in this movie. The title sets a huge expectation but is not backed up by a good story. “Vaaranam Aayiram” is a haphazard collection of events. A more suitable name would have been “Nigazhvugal Aaayiram” (1000 incidents) because there are too many incidents to digest. Don’t know if I sound extremely critical, but the title that comes to my mind is “ Oru Udhavakkarai P...

I went through a nice romantic and nostalgic weekend. We just completed ten years of married life. That is what started all this. I went back 10 years down memory lane and recapped all the lovely moments over 10 years. I also reminded myself of all those nice Songs which appealed to me in those moments. I have added at least 15 videos to my Orkut profile and there are a lot of songs still left. I have read in one of Stephen Covey’s books that every relationship should be associated with an emotional account something like a savings account. When you do some good things you get a credit and when you do something bad you get a debit. At the end of the day you need to have a positive balance to keep your relationship going. My exercise with recapping songs has made me feel 10 years younger. I somehow feel like Marlon Brando feels in the movie “Don Juan De Marco” after meeting Johnny Depp, who thinks he is Don Juan de marco, the greatest lover in the world. The only difference is I have ...

I was introduced to a Second life by my good friend A.G.B . Now don’t let your imagination run wild. It is not a new habit or a real new world that A.G.B has introduced me to. Second life is a website. http://www.secondlife.com You need to register yourself and download an application and Voila, you are all set to explore a new world. This new world is a 3D virtual world where you can just let your imagination run wild and create things, things that you wanted to but could not do easily in real life! You can choose your own avatar, build houses, conduct events, meet people, build relationships and so on and on an on. The possibilities seem to be endless. In fact you can even convert your real money into virtual money for this world through some websites and conduct business here. You can fix a price for your creations and make other people pay when they use it. Well there is no escaping from money even in a virtual world! If you have watched the Tamil movie Anniyan , it might sound to ...

Following up on my ealrier post, I also came across this poem by Dr.Kalam . Titled "Vision", this is supposedly Dr.Kalam's favourite poem out of the ones written by Dr.Kalam himself. I remember hearing him recite this in the wharton interview which I shared in an earlier post but got hold of the lyrics only today. Dr.Kalam apparently narrated this poem in Parliament. I climbed and climbed where is the peak, my Lord? I ploughed and ploughed, Where is the knowledge treasure, my Lord? I sailed and sailed, Where is the island of peace my Lord? Almighty, bless my nation With vision and sweat resulting into happiness

I was feeling very low today. Not really sure why as it had nothing to do with what happened today. I didn't have such a bad day after all. I had no option but to go back to the magical voice of M.S.Subbulakshmi , particularly the song "Kurai ondrum illai". Thanks to M.S's divine voice and the involvement with which she sings this particular song written by Rajaji , I was brought back to normalcy. You can listen to the song here. It is actually a video which gives you the additional opportunity to glimpse the heavenly face as well. Kurai Ondrum Illai Inspired by the song and its wonderful lyrics, I suddenly felt like reading Bharathiyar's poems but was not sure if I could get hold of one sitting in a foreign land. I started a search on google and was happy to find this site which has all of bharathiyar's works in Tamil. http://www.tamilnation.org/literature/bharathy/kavithaikal/index.htm Particularly liked this one which I had read before but had lost track o...

I came across this interesting piece of news on dabbawalas in mumbai. The news item claimed that Dabbawalas in Mumbai have started including pamphlets containing ads along with the lunch boxes they deliver. I did a subsequent search on dabbawalas in wikipedia and google. I was reassured of the power of google and wikipedia. I wonder what will happen to me if I don't have wikipedia and google and at my service. Google returned the information that dabbawalas have a website of their own. Here is the link http://www.mydabbawala.com/index.htm The site has this introduction which summarises it all 5000 Dabbawalas 200,000 Dabbas Six Sigma certified ISO 2000 certified From the site it looks like advertising and dabbawalas have been going hand in hand for atleast a year. I came to know of this through NDTV only today. It is not at all surprising that someone thought of using these dabbawalas for advertising. They have such a big network! Afterall even in this digital page connecting to pe...

A poem I wrote today. புத்துணர்ச்சியுடன் புறப்பட்டேன் உன்னுடன் பயணிக்க .. நீண்டதொரு இடைவெளிக்குப் பின் பூங்காற்று திரும்பியது ஆனால் நான் எப்படி உன்னுடன்? அந்தக் கடைசிப் பயணம்? மறக்க முடியாத அந்த கடைசிப் பயணம் பரபரப்பான மாலை நேரம் சிக்கி நின்ற போக்குவரத்து அமரர் ஊர்தியின் நிற்காத ஹாரன் சத்தம் மூடாத பின் புறம் வழி முளைத்த பல முகங்கள் மூங்கில் படுக்கையில் நீ அருகில் நானும் தீச்சட்டியும் உன் முகத்தில் தான் எத்தனை அமைதி? மறக்க முடியாத அந்த கடைசி பயணம் .. எத்தனை பிறவிகள் எடுத்தாலும் திரும்பாது உன் தெய்வீக முகம் கடைசி முறை பார்த்து தீயிலிட்டு அன்று திரும்பினேன் நான் எப்படி இன்று உன்னுடன் மறுபடி புறப்பட்டேன்?