May you be blessed

There is nothing like soothing and positive words to uplift one’s spirits. Words are indeed powerful. A word of blessing coming straight from the heart gives a profound positive feeling to the giver as well as the receiver. That is why, many a time a group praying for a common good using well chosen, optimistic words has yielded successful results.

Personally I always find myself rejuvenated if I come across anything or anyone full of positive energy. Of course just being positive does not solve problems but it releases lot of constructive energy that would help one in facing / solving problems in a better way.

Wish to share a link that contains a beautiful short movie overflowing with optimism and blessing. To switch off the surroundings and to tune into this with the headphones, always gives me a wonderful feeling. So, here is the link:

http://www.mayyoubeblessedmovie.com/

Have a good day!

Sambandhi Sandai and Society Sandai!!!

During Marriages, it has been customary for a family member from the groom’s side to suddenly flare up. It could be due to any reason like coffee not served on time, his / her suggestions not considered while making some decision, quality of food not up to the person’s expectations etc.He or she would suddenly claim to have been insulted by the bride’s side.This would initiate what is known as Sambandhi sandai(Sambandhi fight, sandai = fight). Then some peacemaker would emerge from the bride’s side, cajole the person and throughout the marriage extra care would be taken to keep this person happy and satisfied.

Gone are the eras of sambandhi sandai. This is the age of Society Sandais. So, what is a society sandai ?

Whether we live in a building with just some 8 flats or so, or in a township with some 800 flats, one is always likely to witness a duel of some sort happening every week. This fight will take place in that part of the building / society area which is visible from all angles of the building. We can position ourselves in a cosy corner and go on to watch the proceedings which will have enough drama to keep us occupied for a minimum of half an hour.These fights could be for anything. X’s vehicle parked in Y’s area, water shortages, loud music, X’s relatives making too much of a racket and so on. This is basically what I call as Society Sandai.

It generally starts as a quarrel which gets louder and louder by the minute. It will get nastier and families get dragged in.In depth character analysis of the warring parties will start. You will also learn a lot of swear words. The war of words suddenly will turn into some kind of fist fight. Then the spectators from both sides try to separate them. They will look murderously at each other. They will give dire warnings to each other (hearing which an innocent onlooker would feel they must definitely have some “don” blood in their family while you would know for a fact they are incapable of even squatting mosquitoes in their own backyard).

Of course, we have to ensure that children and sensitive souls are not in the vicinity. Then we can go on to enjoy the free entertainment brought to our doorsteps by these untiring kalakaars. It also provides food for enough gossip until another fresh series of society sandai begin. It gets so interesting at times that the police need to be brought in to resolve the issue (believe me, it has happened multiple times in our building). Anyway, that never deters these people. They always start afresh after a few weeks.

So, why did I talk of sambandhi sandai here ?? just like that you know.. since sambandhi sandai and society sandai rhyme well and they have SS and all that.. ok. I’m leaving now. (Yahooooooo...! one more mokkai post done!)

free gyan

This is a mini guide for youngsters nourishing their dream of making it big in Kollywood.

For guys:

Well you don’t have to know acting or you don’t have to concentrate on looks either (Can’t get easier than this right?). You can be jet black or fat or as thin as a chronically ill patient or bald or short or whatever.
All that matters is your capacity to deliver dialogues like, “Six and half crores people are behind me.Let me see what you can do” or “If I bat my eyelid your foundation will shatter to pieces” kind of dialogues with utter conviction.

Please ensure you have a real wealthy father or a slightly retarded director/producer who thinks the world of you and decide you are a boon to the industry and hence would happily gamble by making films with you as the hero.

Age also does not matter(you may have a college going son in reality, but you can easily perform a school goer role in film).You just have to wear a wig and some fancy clothes and with a few innocent on screen pranks, the public will believe that you are just 16. Or you can be just 16 and act as if you are 30.. That is also accepted.

Even before a single soul calls himself or herself your fan, you must ensure to have a song that tells your supernatural abilities to your “would be” fans.

You must know dancing.. Even if you know nothing else, you will be immediately accepted as a great star. But if you can’t dance, then you must be real friends with the cameraman who will shake the camera so much and capture the entire sequence in such a way that it will appear that you are some kind of a dancing sensation.

You must strongly believe that it will look completely believable when you jump from a ten storey building and land deftly on your feet without so much as a scratch. And you must also believe in the reverse, that is climbing a tall building or a wall like spiderman without any support would also look completely logical. In short, the more illogical your films are, more are the chances of them turning out to be blockbusters.

You must always come out with philosophies and one liners for the society. You must also prescribe the right code of conduct for women.

It is a great story and would become hit if hundreds of people get killed or properties worth crores are destroyed when you are out to get your girl or accomplish some single big aim in your life.

Your tamil should always be bad. Never care about ந, ண, ன, ழ, ல, ள, ர, ற.

Please don’t care about lip sync (in both dialogue deliveries and songs).

You have to sing (I mean in your own voice, however horrible it may be) in atleast one of the films.

The older you get, younger your heroines will be. So never worry about ageing.

Keep donating to causes and keep yourself popular. You will win state awards.

From Scene 1 to End credits if you maintain an expressionless face you may go on win the National Award also.

It is very important to think of a title for yourself. You will do well if you have something with a puratchi or a thalapathi or a star or a nayagan in it. Like Superstar, Ultimate Star, Little Superstar, Ilaya Thalapathi, Chinna Thalapathi, Puratchi thalapathi, Puratchi Nayagan, Ulaga Nayagan XYZ. OK va…

For aspiring Heroines:

You must start your career at the age of 16 or 17 and must act in as many films as possible before you are 22. After that you will be tagged as old and you may have to (read as forced to) turn to “chinnathirai” (TV).

You will exist in the film for the sole purpose of songs and a few (sometimes gross) romantic scenes. You may get about 30 minutes of the entire screen time.So, you will do well for yourself by signing up multiple films simultaneously.

You may be asked to play heroine to a 50+ yrs old hero. After that film, heroes in the age range 25 – 30 may refuse to act with you coz your market image would have become mature by then. Better device a good plan to face this situation before taking the plunge.

In almost every film, the hero will fall for you because you wear modern dresses and look all glam but then at some point of the story he would suddenly slap you and question your way of dressing, your nature which is so “un-lady like” etc... but then you are supposed to love him so much that you understand immediately that he speaks nothing but the truth and start living life by his code and his code alone.

You must never ever learn Tamil. You can chew gum or say something random when the shoot is on. Lip sync does not matter at all.

You don’t have to emote much.. a quizzical expression (as to what i am doing in this place ) coupled with a drop or two of tears will suffice.

Even if you deliver a string of flops, ensure that you generate as much gossip as possible.

Sometimes you may have to do certain scenes bordering on vulgarity. You wouldn’t have much of a choice. Practise saying, “It was absolutely essential for the film. That’s why I did it.” It will come handy during interviews.

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That’s all there is to it dear friends.. No no.. it was not a problem at all. I really love guiding people. Anytime. Yedo ennala mudinja kolai.. sorry kalai thondu..

Freedom of expression and the repurcussions

Yesterday, after seeing the news, I was shocked to learn that an article (about Burqas) allegedly written by Taslima Nasreen in a Kannada newspaper got thousands of Muslims agitated who demonstrated their anger by vandalising public property in Shimogha. Three people were killed in the violence and the police firing that followed. It brings us to two things:

Why is Indian Government not having a proper stand on freedom of expression? If certain ways of writings / speech may hurt the religious sentiments of people (whichever religion they belong) then it is best if it is avoided, especially in a highly sensitive society like ours. On one hand the Govt of Karnataka is issuing an apology saying that it will not allow publishing of articles that would hurt the sentiments of Muslims. On the other hand the Indian Govt considers Mr M.F. Husain as a national pride. Mr Husain, who, in the name of art and freedom of expression ended up hurting the religious sentiments of millions of Indians. When Qatar is offering him citizenship, Indian Govt wants him to turn it down. This seems quite biased. It makes more sense to have one of the two – complete freedom of expression or a clear law restricting statements in any form of media that would hurt the religious sentiments of any community. For obvious reasons, I would support the latter.

Secondly, vandalising of public property. Regardless of caste, creed or religion, there is a section of society which seeks to express their unhappiness on certain issues through damaging public properties. It is not a solution. X is angry with Y but Z gets affected. This is what happens in mob violence and subsequent results. This can be dealt with strict actions against those responsible which would serve as a warning for others.An alternative would be to ensure that everyone has some basic education, work or a good standard of living which would actually prevent them creating such issues for fear of disrupting their own comfortable lifestyle. In this case I would prefer former because though latter is the correct solution it would take decades to bring about such a change.

Go India Go !

As the Hockey World Cup is commencing on 28th February in New Delhi, I felt the need to catch up a little bit with our National game. So after poking my head into websites like Wikipedia, www.indianhockey.com and www.indianetzone.com, I was able to put together some interesting facts.

• Our Men’s Hockey Team has won Olympics Gold Medal 8 times and that too 6 times consecutively, from 1928 - 1956.
• We created World Record in 1932 when we won against USA 24-1(the record is still unbeaten). The single goal scored by USA was due to the fact that the Indian goal keeper got a bit lax and was signing autographs behind the goal post!!!
• In 1936 Olympics final, during the last part of the game, Dhyan Chand had to be administered first aid. He came back and played barefoot. India won 8-1.
• A Sports Club in Vienna built a statue of Dhyan Chand with 4 hands and 4 sticks."To the Viennese, no man with two hands and one stick could have played the way Dhyan Chand did."
• In World Cup, India has won only once (1975) whereas Pakistan has won the title 4 times and have finished twice as runners up.
• The Current World Champions are Germany.

In the past 3 decades, Cricket has taken the centre stage in Indian Sports arena and hockey slowly faded away. It is true that the Current Indian Men’s Hockey team may not be the best in the World. But after reading all the mindblowing achievements of our hockey team in the 1930s, 40, and 50s, I do wish that we can once again become that dominating in Hockey. We do not know where the current Indian Men’s Hockey team stands in International ratings. But that is not going to stop us in supporting and cheering for them from all our heart. So here is wishing them all the very best !

N.B : The 1st match of the tournament is going to be India Vs Pakistan. So that is going to make it all the more interesting.

Hats off to the Maestro for the Double Delight

Wow! Sachin’s 200* against South Africa today was one of the best ODI innings I have ever seen.. As the master blaster was in the 180s, just like millions in this nation my heart was in my mouth and I was hoping fervently that he would go on to break Saeed Anwar’s and Coventry’s records.. When he was on 187, there was a power cut and I was devastated and started cursing the EB. But immediately called up a friend and started following the match over the phone and it was in this fashion I heard him reach 195.Like a maniac I was jumping up and down. Power came back in the 49th over when he was on 199 and Dhoni was on strike. I was frustrated that Dhoni was not rotating the strike (but he did a fairly good job of despatching the ball to the boundaries). When the Little Master finally got his double century in the 3rd ball of the 50th over, it was EUPHORIA! I don’t even remember how I reacted that particular moment..It was all hazy then.. Understandably, all the news channels went berserk and for once I loved watching these channels as accolades started pouring in...hmm what a day.. Thank you Sachin for bringing so much of delight to the cricket lovers across the world.

Team India seems to be passing through a glorious phase. For the 1st time in the history of cricket we are the No.1 Test side in the world. We are doing fairly well in the ODIs as well. We have sensationalised Twenty20 through IPL and now it has become a much anticipated event in the world of cricket. Sehwag, Sachin,Dhoni and Gambhir are all in great form. Dhoni is getting better and better as a Captain and as a cricketer. The new players in the team are also blending in well. Ofcourse we continue to be in need of improvement in the departments of bowling and fielding.

Dear Sachin and Dear Team India, we wish you consistency and we all hope that you carry this golden form into the World Cup 2011 and bring us that much desired Cup and the glory! Cheers!

Endangered species

The recent ad about the fact that only 1411 tigers are left in India and as to what could be done to save them, got me thinking.I just did some googling about endangered species and came across an article in Wikipedia that was pretty informative. So I got to know that about 1498 species are currently facing this crisis !!! Right from small inconspicous creatures to majestic and intimidating animals like the Tigers and Blue Whales.

Some of them are dying 'coz their environment is getting polluted and some of them are killed off deliberately for man's insatiable greed.Either way, Man is reponsible.Irrespective of their role in the eco system, these creatures have a right to live in this planet. Earth belongs to them as much as it belongs to us. How would it feel if some much better evolved supreme beings descended upon us and decide to do away with the human race as it does not play a significant role in the ecological balance ?? Get it ???

To be perfectly honest, I can't understand how blogging might help this cause.The particular despicable lot of the human race who are responsible for this are not going to read this blog and say, "Oh My! We have had it! This great blogger will get millions agitated and set them after us. Let's stop it!". But anyway, here I am, doing my bit in the cyber space for this cause.Other than spreading awareness, what we can actually do is, try and find some good organization involved in these campaigns and help them to the best of our abilities. Do let me know your view points and ideas regarding the same !