How I was admiring a girl’s hairstyle and walked into a glass door and couldn’t stop laughing.

In the cold climate of Mysore or “Maasur” as everyone pronounces it, I have started feeling the heat, but that isn’t exactly the reason why I couldn’t post. To answer Kumar’s query, we have restricted net access here, but I have lot to say and you are going to hear it too.

Well we go for Maasur chapter now. In the first few days we had a schedule where we go to a theater and listen to lectures. The only good thing about it and the presentations in it was that they didn’t switch off the lights as they usually do at theaters, so I let my eyes wander, holding my heart little tightly least that it should get lost there. Incidentally it was the hairstyle of a girl that caught my attention, it was shortly cropped hair which was falling all over her face and every time I tried to look through the maze of hair to see how she looks like, I couldn’t actually see. And when I did see something, it was just the eyes and they always seemed to close the moment I was looking in. In a way that was the way I kept occupied during the mundane myriad of presentations. My routine was-come there, look where the hairstyle was and sit at a place where there’s a good view. And one day as I was entering into some building, I saw her or rather her hair. All her hair was pushed to one side. I did manage to see through the hair and see how she looks, what I didn’t look was a glass door which looked like it was open but was closed and tried entering into it . Nothing broke, neither the glass nor anything of me (well it was something like an irresistible force meeting an immovable object), I did break a number of conversations around me though. I was with my friends, they looked concerned but I was literally laughing in spite of the pain, as though it had happened to my enemy (God knows who or what my enemy is). And I can tell you, it hurts and I was bleeding. I still was laughing reassuring myself and everyone around me that I’m fine and slowly looked around to see if she had seen it. Fortunately or unfortunately, her hair must have acted as a sound-proof because of which she couldn’t hear anything and something like because she wasn’t there. And as the age old sms joke goes (it might even be the first joke on a mobile, it’s as old as that), I let out a sigh of relief and said loudly to the people around me

“Nala vela endha figurum paakala”

So long and thanks for all the mokkai

It's time.The man from the chessboard has gotten up and said-"It's time to go" and i am leaving.My suitcase full of dreams is slowly but surely getting ready and i am going in the direction in which the cold wind blows.Don't know if this is going to be a Stairway to Heaven or a Highway to Hell,but i am hoping to come out of this as affair as a Highway Star.

So long Chennai.

Antoinini says "athu dhaan da valkai"

Watch this video and then start reading.

Did you watch it completely?
Did you see that the man with the camera vanishes at the end?
Did you see all those colorful characters,what do they remind you of?
Did you hear sound of ball hitting the racquet?
Finally did the scene make any sense to you?

Well Antoinini lays stress on the thin line between reality and illusion in this scene.Initially he looks at the mime tennis rather amused,but starts believing it as everyone seems to be following the game.The camera follows the imaginary ball moving on the court and slowly as he begins to believe,he seems to hear the sound of ball hitting the racket.And when he puts down his camera to throw the imaginary ball so that they can continue the game,the mime pretty much seems to indicate though we have our own perceptions we act according to what others believe.That's what we do in life.We abandon what we have understood just because a group of people,all colorful punks believe otherwise.And at last frame he vanishes,which suggests if we go on following what others do,we might after all just vanish.Well this is just my perception of the scene.
For all those who got bored seeing the scene,i have the best closure line to
say-"These things always happen,you'll always remain ignorant and athu dhaan da valkai".


athu dhaan da valkai-"that's life" Movie-Blow up

21896- wife's constant,gujili and The Dude

This event occurred 4 years ago.Srinath,yes the Zen dude,unknowingly reminded me of it today.Incidentally it was he who started the whole thing.He would bring a calculator and ask all sort of questions,most of them were like,for example asking something about the hurricanes or the nuclear reactors in japan and would do calculations on his calculator(I guess he had just bought it and was showing off)based on what i answer.Naturally that aroused my interest and i asked him what he was doing?He told he was trying to predict my future spouse's name from my answers and his calculations.I laughed at him but nevertheless was curious as to which name would crop up as i love on an average 2-3 girls a day.After some fairly long calculations that might have distracted the brains working behind decoding the mathematical progressions in Tool's Lateralus album(if u love mathematics and want to see it being used intelligently in music Read here ...),he arrived at an answer which was fairly simple.Just a Mrs. before my name!
I was fooled and naturally i wanted to fool others.So i brought this game to hostel and it was going on as expected until one day when a very suspicious Bondu found out what we were going to do and he tried to spoil our fun.That's when we(by this time my partner in crime at college Karthi has joined me)had an inspiration and found out a new mathematical hypothesis by which we found his life partner's name.We told him the name(which was a of cs girl of our college whose name begins with p) and as fate would have it,he had studied with the girl in school and had a soft room(soft corner is an insult!) for her in his heart.He started pestering us for the formula and very soon we adopted this variation of the game.
We played this game many of them,but the most memorable one was RRK.To add credibility to our supposed formula,we said we got 2 names for him which rhymed like vidya and divya.RRK let out his trademark guva-uaa sound and said he knows both the girls and he started wondering which one of them shall be his spouse and started asking us questions like
"I studied with this girl only till this,do you think it's possible?or i have never talked with her,how can it happen?" As we were calculating for find RRK's spouse name,our Sherlock Bondu Holmes slyly followed our calculations and made a sensational discovery.He in fact has seen it previously when we were playing with others.What he found was we are always using 21896 and smiled rather superciliously.We told him according to our formula that number was wife's constant.
Well,we played the game with many others and finally when Bondu's cousin who was working at some place called us and asked us to find his spouse's name,we found it and even he became interested as to how we found it.That's when we decided to call quits as the game seemed to go out of control.
The spouse predicting formula has so far never has been proved wrong and Bondu kept asking about the formula till as late as 4th semester,but we told him nothing.I and Karthi hold the patent rights for it.Next time you see someone who is impatient and can't wait to know who will be his/her life partner would be,you'd know whom to contact.Maybe at that time we might as well start Spouse predicting game season-2.

Finally got it

It's been almost some one and half year since i last went to a hospital.And today i was made to go not one but about half a dozen of them.All of doctors in them pretty much said the same thing"No sir,it isn't possible.It's a huge risk,i can't do it for you".I was frustrated,but was equally desperate to find a doctor who would finally give what i was asking for. Well finally i found a kind doctor who was ready to give me a medical certificate without forcing me into those injections.Yes, i had to show proof that i have taken hepatitis A,hepatitis B,C,D and so on injections.Also to show that i am protected against chickenpox,muttonfox,anthrax, bird flu,animals,spiderman and others.And all these duty bounded doctors decided they wouldn't give me the certificate unless i took all these injections,yes,of course, in their hospital.At one time it reminded me of my attempt to get the signatures from hod which is pretty much like walking in circles(finally got it today on 4th attempt).

And in one of the hospitals,one of them had already started writing prescriptions.He asked my name and started writing "Ce ",then he looked up rather sheepishly and asked does your name have one "e" or two e's?.I told him it doesn't matter anymore(i had to stop him from murdering my name!) and added i don't have money to put so many injections right now and escaped,i believe,a certain death.And this kind doctor who finally agreed in fact made a deal that i have to put atleast one injection and he'll give it.It wasn't good idea to accept it,but andha deal enaku puidichuirundhuchu(means i liked the deal,that is to be precise,there was no other way).Finally he decided to protect me against jaundice,stating it was one of the worst diseases in the world.

Well,the fact is the medical certificate has to show i have put 4 injections,which cannot be put let's say in a day.There has to be atleast 2 day gap between them or that was what i was led to believe by a distant relative who is a medical practitioner and here out of 6 docs 4 were ready to riddle my arm with pricks almost within few minutes of each other.I only hope these guys do not follow the path of other white color dressed group of people,the traffic mamas and make life more difficult,though it seems hope hopen.

"filthy, little brat!"scene More Polanski

Polanski is tensed.
He believes everyone around him is conspiring.
He believes even the shop owner across is in the gang.
He believes the glasses in ground floor are being mended so that he can jump into it.
His nerves are all heavily strung up.
He believes everyone in the apartment is trying to kill him.
Even the good looking Stella is in the plot.
Everyone's trying to change him into the previous Tenant .
They all want him to die like the previous tenant.
Something still is looking at him from the bathroom across his window.
They are all goddamn murderers or that's what he believes.
In midst of all these he goes and relaxes in a park where the following happens.

I honestly couldn't make up my mind about where this "filthy,little brat"fits in the story(dark humour,huh?),but it's really an amusing scene and i in way enjoyed it when it comes in the movie.

Never ever stay in an apartment!!

That's what i decided after seeing Roman Polanski's apartment trilogy which consists of Repulsion,
Rosemary's Baby and
The Tenant.
Of these i saw Rosemary's baby first.I honestly don't know how i came know about this movie.No,sundar had nothing to do with me coming to know about the movie and he definitely has nothing to do with rosemary's baby,though all his childhood sweetheart stories always begins with a certain rosemary.Somehow i got the movie and watched it.At the very beginning they show it as a Polanski movie.All i knew about Polanski was that he took The Pianist,a war biography or something like that, which gave Brody(remember the useless guy in King Kong) an Oscar which he accepted quite controversially(The wet kiss with Halle berry).Well,i didn't know it was a horror movie so i was very much taken aback when i saw this movie.The movie thrilled me to bone,so it was no wonder i decided to watch all the movies in the apartment trilogy.A couple,Rosemary and her husband come to reside in a new apartment and slowly Rosemary learns that no one is whom they seem to be,not even his husband.They all seem be hell-bent on laying their hands on her baby.The lady Cassavete,the neighbour seems like she has descended directly from hell.Well she is as creepy as that.And it has a least expected climax.My only complaint about the movie being they never show the baby's face after arousing so much interest about it.
Next in line was Repulsion,which,to be honest,initially disappointed me.For the first 40 minutes,the movie moves like a battered and bruised snail,the scenes looked like as they were almost getting repeated.Then the movie picks up speed after it and becomes typically Polanski-dark,scary,creepy and intensely psychological.It's about a lonely,sexually repressed,yet beautiful woman who makes her apartment a hell.

The last in the trilogy and my personal favourite is The Tenant where Polanski directs himself.It has one of the brilliant climaxes i have ever seen.As the movie moves on we pretty much come to know how the movie is going to end,but that is exactly where Polanski shows his class.Even if you don't see any of the trilogy movie,i must strongly recommend you see this one for its film-making at it's best.This one has a very good theme music,i didn't notice if others had or not.

Commiting suicide by jumping out of window,the tenants being disturbed by sounds,the previous tenant die rather suspiciously,dark thoughts,paranoia,madness,strange dark humour are the re-occurent themes that you find in the trilogy.
And finally a warning,if you are a fan of these slasher flicks which have lot of gore and have decapitated heads swimming around,skeletons falling on people and blood coming out of every possible opening ,well this isn't your cup of tea(or is it Tannis root!!!).The word is psychological horror.

Even the trailers are typically Polanski,they tell you nothing about the movie just make you want to watch them.
Well Polanski succeeds in making me scared of apartments,i don't think i can stay in an apartment in future.Finally all i have to say is this horror genre seems to be largely neglected by the Indian film-makers except a few like Ramu,who tried without any grand success.All i hope is films in horror genre should make a comeback in our cinema and yes make life little creepy.

Deadlock-ed

A friend of mine sent me this classic example for explaining what a deadlock is-
Boss to secretary-"we'll go abroad for a week for a meeting,make arrangements".
Secretary calls her husband and says-"I and my boss are going for a meeting abroad for a week,you look after yourself".
Husband calls secret lover and says-"My wife's going abroad for a week,so let's spend the week together".
The secret lover calls the small boy for whom she takes tuition and says-"i have work for a week,so you need no come to class during this week".
Small boy to his dear grandpa-"grandpa,i do not have class this week because the teacher's busy,so let's spend the time together".

The grandpa(who's the boss)calls the secretary and says-"meeting is cancelled.I'm spending the week with my grandson".
The secretary calls her husband says-"trip cancelled.I'm coming back home".
The husband calls his secret lover and says-"you can't come home this week,my wife's trip is cancelled".
The secret lover calls the little boy and says-"this week you have your classes as usual".
The little boy calls his grandpa-"sorry grandpa,my teacher says this week i have to attend classes".
Grandpa(boss) calls his secretary an says-"Don't worry.arrange for the meeting this week,we'll go".

If someone had taught deadlock in this way in college,i guess i would even wake from an irreversible coma to explain it.
And some cricket-
It appears MCC has approved Pietersen's changing from right to left hand batting(without informing the bowler)at the time the ball is delivered as legal arguing that the bowler does not inform the batsman if he's going to bowl a slower ball or an off-cutter to the batsman.
Also now to the cricket news from the other part of the world,though the Aussies did manage to dismiss Chanderpaul(there was no doubt as to who would win the match),it seems they had been shaken by a resurgent West Indian team.The series might have been an indicator showing the decline of hegemony of the Aussies in cricket which coincides with the rise of West Indies,however little the rise might be.

Can the Aussies?

Will the Aussies be able to dismiss chanderpaul today as West Indies chase seemingly impossible total.Chanderpaul has been dismissed only twice in the series,of which one was when he had been injured and was looking for runs.And today the Aussies are having a go at him once more today.A victory for West Indies looks highly unlikely,but a much more impossible event will be dismissing Chanderpaul.The Aussies more likely would concentrate on dismissing the other batsmen and with some luck they might just manage to do the impossible,that is get the Man himself.

Is left right for Pietersen?

Kevin Pietersen's reverse swept to hit 2 sixes off medium pacer Scott Styris.He just didn't reverse sweep it,just as the ball was being delivered he turned to the other side to become a left-hand batsman and hit the ball to towering sixes on both occasions.This type of hitting is already present in baseball and is known as switch hitting.Maybe the fact that Andy Flower,the guy who scored most of his runs against the spinners by playing sweep and reverse sweep,is the assistant coach must have given him the confidence to play this shot.This shot has stirred up a controversy with cricket pundits decrying the shot and advocating that bowlers should also be given such freedom.Pietersen has argued that it was an innovation on his part and batsmen should be given the freedom to score runs in any way,as long as it is legal.

Supposing the changes are brought in,they will be-
1.The bowler will come running in and at the time of delivery will bowl from either of the two hands.
2.The bowler can also run in middle(that is directly behind the umpire)and bowl from any of two-Over the wicket or around the wicket,the decision being taken at the last moment.Though i can't see where the non-striker will be standing if this is allowed,maybe directly opposite to the place where a runner stands for an injured batsman while the crease has to be extended that long.
3.The option 2 causes a problem as any run out at non-striker's end cannot be given by the on-field umpire so it would be better if the non-striker stands in the umpire's position thus effectively removing the umpire at non-striker's end.
4.Now the non-striker obstructs the view of the batsman,so it would be better if the non-striker is also removed.Anyway what's the use of him,all he does is increase the probability of getting out and anyway at a time only one can bat.


Also Kevin Pietersen should be given an OBE for his innovations(that is introducing the baseball shot into international cricket) and bowlers should be wary of his future inventions like the following-


Instead of running after hitting,we can use the unicycle to score a run.

My Birth date

Yesterday was (mama) mano's birthday,had a great time there.Incidentally it wasn't his birthday alone,his sister shares the birthday with him.No,they aren't twins,he is younger to his sister by exactly 4 years.It must have felt great to share a birthday,particularly when they are close to you.I was compelled to try and remember if there was anyone with whom i shared my birthday,i couldn't find anyone.After some research,these are the few people who were born on the same day as me(of course,different years).
Alistair MacLean(April 28, 1922 - February 2, 1987)-I was in fact very surprised and in a way happy to find his name.This author wrote about the seas in a way such that anyone who read it simply couldn't help but falling in love with sea.I simply worshiped him and still do,once even wrote an exam to join navy(though i cleared it,i was discouraged from joining it.Unfortunately he died the year i was born.
Harper Lee (born April 28, 1926)-A one book wonder,though the book is a masterpiece.It's the kind of book that should be made compulsory in schools and colleges.Atticus Finch is the kind of person who should followed as a role model.
Eugene Merle Shoemaker(or Gene Shoemaker) (April 28, 1928 – July 18, 1997)-no,he doesn't mak shoes,he was a scientist.He is the only person to have been buried on moon.A comet was named after him,which crashed into Jupiter in 1994,which was one of the few names i remember from what i learnt when i aspired to become a scientist in school days.Everytime i see Michael Schumacher along with some other person in a connect question with some unidentified person in a quiz,my mind veers off to this guy.
Saddam Hussein(April 28, 1937-December 30, 2006)-you know him,i don't have to explain.The man had guts,but not brains.
Oskar Schindler(28 April 1908 – 9 October 1974)-Schindler's list explains everything.
Lee Falk (April 28, 1911 - March 13, 1999)-Phantom and Mandrake creater.
Ferruccio Lamborghini (April 28, 1916 – February 20, 1993)-The guy's company would still be making tractors if Enzo Ferrari had been careful with his words.I came across Lamborghini cars from the pictures from the car aficionado,a certain RAJENDRAkumar.

Jay Leno(born April 28, 1950)-Aravind's favorite Tv show was of that of Leno's.
A quote of Leno-" Don't forget Mother's Day. Or as they call it in Beverly Hills, Dad's Third Wife Day. "
I'm not a sexist,but couldn't find woman of any significant being born on this day,the two people i found were Penélope Cruz andJessica Alba.

There's another very close person with whom i might have shared my birthday.That's my dad,the difference being just a day.He was born April 29,28 years before my birth date.

Just give me the Reader's Digest Condensed version

John S. Zinsser Jr., 84,died recently of a heart attack.I can see you squinting your eyes trying to remember if you know him.Honestly,i too didn't till today.He was the chief in editor of the Reader's Digest condensed editions during the 1950s.It was under his tenure that the condensing the editions of well-written books and presenting it to the public gained prominence.He was instrumental in distributing books which in spite of having been well-written with good plots would have largely been missed by the public.These editions came as a collection of 3-6 books and after 1997,they were called the select editions. In spite of being condensed which would be scorned by the "serious readers",special efforts were undertaken so as to keep the basic facts and aesthetics from the original books.

I remember couple of years ago when i had finished reading "Mother" by Maxim Gorky and was trying to read other serious stuffs like "The Brothers Karamazmov" by Fyodor Dostoevsky,i got stuck in a terrible Reader's block.I was finding it difficult to lay hands even on to any kind of book.It was then i came across John Case's "The Murder Artist" in one of the Select Editions of Reader's Digest.It certainly wasn't serious stuff, it was the kind of book i would have ignored.However at that time i was desperately trying to get out of this block,so like any other book i tried reading it and guess what,i finished it one go.It was one of the better books in the thriller genre that i have read so far.Though i haven't read the many of the books of the following select editions,i must say i owe a belated thank you to Mr.Zinsser,who made it all possible for me and others.And "Thank You" is just "the Reader's Digest Condensed version" of what we would like to say to you.

The Butterfly Effect

Saw this ludicrously illogical movie today.Still it isn't exactly a big yawn,there is a kind of suspense throughout the whole movie as Ashton Kutcher,the hero repeatedly goes back to his stressful childhood days,the period when he suffers a blackout and doesn't remember what happens at that time, by simply reading his journals(diaries) and tries to alter the future and each and every time his plans go haywire and he ends up worser than what he was previously.So i too decided to to undergo a kind of butterfly effect.I looked upon my diaries,it was more like an yearly analysis,so skipped it and instead took a old copy of India Today and decided i'll open a random page and whatever is in that page will cause the butterfly effect.The page turned out to be about education at IIT's(so rib-tickling,me-IIT,isn't it?) .And this is how the altered future shapes up)-
I accepted my parents decision to try the IIT exam(previously i had a blackout at this time and don't know exactly what happened,all i know is i didn't write the exam at first) and somehow i ticked everything and cleared screening test(those days two exams-screening and main were there).Spurred by this and with lots of luck i cleared the main exam too.Then i joined IIT madras.This is where the dreams turn to nightmare(it has to be like the movie,so),i somehow couldn't withstand the pressure of studying with the best minds in country and i ended flunking every subject.I took up all the wrong habits to bust this stress,the favourite being taking a banana,throwing away the mid-section and baking the banana peels and trying to smoke the bananadine.Smoking bananas that's what the term is called.Naturally that didn't give me any high or relief.Frustrated by this i try to do a felo de se by jumping from the building after smoking my last banana,(now for some drama)unfortunately some friend of mine comes and while trying to save me falls and kills himself for which i was charged.Then i come running down take up my journal which is another India Today and try to open up another page trying to escape into another worser nightmare,something which is known as MIT(oh the chennai one)....

My butterfly effect may not be exceptional,but from what i have heard about its sequel,it must be way better than the butterfly effect2.

The book in which there's no first chapter!!

"The curious incident of dog in the night time" by Mark Haddon, is the book in which there's no first chapter, in fact the chapters are numbered with prime numbers only. I came across this book when i was trying to buy a book for my friend at landmark. The book definitely is an eye-catcher with its uncommon name and naturally i too got attracted. The summary at the back didn't promise much,it was about a little guy who tries to investigate the murder of the neighbor's dog and finds out unpleasant truths and also the murderer. I opened the book to skim through and saw the book begins with chapter 2, and then there is no chapter 4 and so on, there was a irregularity about the numbering of chapters.Somehow this aberration lured me into reading this book.
This is a book about a small autistic child,Christopher Boone,who finds his neighbor's dog killed and decides to investigate along the lines of his favorite hero Sherlock Holmes.He investigates people in the neighborhood and his investigations leads him to the truth behind his mother's death. It's a murder mystery of different kind. It's one of those books where we understand more about the situation than the protagonist.The thing i found fascinating in this book was the characterization of Christopher. He's gifted at Mathematics,provides numerous examples of his abilities throughout the book like counting to 2 to the power of 45 when he gets angry or the time when he explains the Monty Hall problem.He knows every prime number till some 7057.He knows capitals of all countries in the world,has a photographic memory.
Also he doesn't like talking to strangers and doesn't even allow anyone to touch him;at one time he even hits his father when he tries to touch him.He finds it difficult to recognize people's moods from their expressions.He surrounds himself with his own rules-he decides what kind of day it is going to be for him by looking at the color and number of cars on the road.It is his abilities and his limitations that gives a suspense to the plot even though we know more than what he does. And it's not just another children's book,it'll be attractive to grownups too.This book should be in everyone's reading list.And now i am searching for his other less famous book"A spot of bother".

Rambling on science

A few days ago I found out that tea shop conversations can be so enlightening. People discuss the topics you least expect them to and they seem so knowledgeable at it. This occurred when one of my friends took me to a tea shop near tambaram. There were many others who seemed to be drinking tea, while a couple of them, it appeared were there only for reading newspapers. These two looked like they hardly know each other, but somehow they were wiling to share their world-shattering ideas. One of them, a slightly older guy said-“These Martian probes should be stopped, they shouldn’t be allowed anymore” looking at the news about a space probe landing on Mars. He then added “It’s such a complete waste of public money”

The other guy nodded affirmatively and said “Yes and that too when we know all about Mars, we know no life can possibly exist there” Then he added as an afterthought” Though it seems dry ice exists there”
The first guy then said” you know, we people on earth have so much nuclear weapons that we have to live in constant fear. It is said there are so many weapons that world can be destroyed many times over, there isn’t even a safe disposal for them, so what I suggest is we should take all the sleeping weapons on earth and bombard them on Mars and convert all ice into water, maybe that might support life. Even if nothing happens, we’ll be disposed of the dangerous weapons”. He looked around triumphantly as though he had addressed a gathering, though the only guy to whom he had addressed nodded his head rather unconvincingly and changed the topic by saying “These politicians are so foolish and irresponsible, it’s all their fault”. Then the topic veered off to politics and I guessed they discussed nineteen to dozen about politicians from all parts of world. I looked at my friend, he seemed to be in a different world quietly satisfied with the tea which he had just finished drinking and then we moved out of the shop, thinking about the whole preposterous idea.

Beauty ain't so beauty really

This is the snake river somewhere in U.S,i guess,but there was a time when we believed it was the great amazon. We refers to me and my friend-let's call him K. K is a psychologist coupled with a philosopher.He used to dabble a lot in body languages and things like that,until he started drawing too many inferences from each and every posture,sometimes they were so contradictory or unrelated that he left it(that is making predictions using body languages) for his own good.

Now to the Amazon story,i was having this picture as wallpaper in my system,when he saw it and asked me,rather seriously with a supercilious smile that accompanies people who know something that others don't -dei do u think that's beautiful?
yes,of course.why what do you think?i asked knowing that this was going to lead to one of his philosophical thinkings.
He said,with the supercilious smile growing in size-u know these places which look so beautiful from long distances,they aren't so beautiful,these rivers will be filled with so much dirt and industrial wastes that that would make your neighborhood sewage bearable and harmless.These rivers are only harming people and animals that depend on it.They support dangerous species of all almost-useless animals and insects which would lay eggs on your eyeballs if you keep it open for a longer time(i have heard of this line before,i think ..Higgins??).They are actually one of the worst places to be in.(And he says all this in spite of never traveling out of Tamil Nadu).I silently accepted whatever he said,there seemed to be a logic in it.

Then i was relating this to some other friend who doesn't wish to be named,he too listened silently and then drew his own conclusion which was-
Hmm...u know Girls too are like that,when you see deep inside them,they are also like those rivers.He refused to elaborate any further and the topic was left out.He suddenly realized it was ludicrously parochial to call a particular section that way,however true it might seem to be and especially when everyone and everything that's beautiful(or not so beautiful)is deceptive like that and this philosophy was buried until i saw this picture again with a "snake river " name under it.
So much for philosophy...

Iron Man lives again!

I had always been a fan of Iron Man, ever since I came to know about such a thing. Iron Man to me was never the superhero who puts on a Armour of gold-titanium alloy and saves the world by beating the bad guys. Iron Man to me has always been the guy who has some sort of premonition about the approaching perils to the world and time-travels to save the world; he however, gets stuck in a great magnetic field and remains immobile for sometime. During his duration of inaction, people react indifferently to him and he is despised with people forgetting his actual intentions. And so the iron man decides to take revenge on the ungrateful people, that is to put it exactly
“He kills the people he once saved”
I’ve been a fan of the “Iron Man” song by the often wrongly misunderstood band called “Black Sabbath”. So, naturally my curiosity was aroused when I heard about the movie called “Iron man”. I knew it was based on a comic character, but I also knew that the superhero sings this song (Retroactive continuity or retcon). So I was pretty eager how the video for this song will be or in what situation it comes.

And so I saw the movie.

At the very beginning itself, a clattery “Back in Black” screams at you rather unsuspectingly and then the movie moves on without any signs of the song appearing. The movie of course, was great and I was fully engrossed in it (are all superhero movies like this? I guess, I made a mistake in discounting them). But there was a part of me that was sulking for Iron Man song which didn’t materialize.
And then the movie got over, I was baffled why didn't they use this song?. Then as the credits started rolling, the well known tapping of drums comes which is interspersed by a small banging with a robotic voice calling out “Iron Man” twice, which is followed by the famed riff by the 3-fingered genius called Iommi and along with it comes Ozzy’s “deep in the well” howling voice singing
“Has he lost his mind?
Can he see or is he blind,
Can he walk at all?
Or if moves will he fall?

Is he alive or dead
has he thoughts within his head
We'll just pass him there
Why should we even care?”

I was a happy man again, though I still didn’t get to see a video for it.

The panic in the needle park

Saw “The panic in the needle park” today. It’s the movie which coppola supposedly showed to the producers to convince them that Al Pacino could play the Michael Corleone’s role. The panic in the needle park as the name suggests is about the dangers of drug abuse. Al pacino is a small time crook and an addict, living in the Sherman Street (the needle park), he meets Kitty Winn quite accidentally and they both fall in love. At first life’s good and they are happy, but slowly Winn also becomes an addict owing to Pacino’s indifference when he’s fully doped. And then “Panic” arrives --- a situation where drugs become scarce on the streets and their price escalates. Then their lives go spiraling down and their desperation takes them on a path of self-destruction.



A particular mention must be made of the shots where they show the injection of drugs into blood which are almost physically painful. There is no music in the movie and there’s constant street-car noise that accompanies the whole movie.The performances are excellent, pacino proving that he doesn’t need a coppola to make him act. It’s in fact the first movie that I have seen in which Pacino does not wield a gun. The movie pretty much reminds of “Requiem for a dream”, but this isn’t a tear-jerker and there is quite a charm attached to this 1970 movie that makes it a little more appealing to watch, though there should be no doubt that “requiem” is a far more disturbing movie. This still is a strong stuff(was banned in UK for 4 years).All in all, a must-see movie.



This isn't the lengthy injection scene exactly, it's one of the shorter injection scenes and pretty much has the same effect.

So it was a passing cloud after all!

I was in a dilemma yesterday whether to keep up with the ball-by-ball updates of WI chase against the aussies (which they did without much success) or to watch jaysuriya and sachin blast away a bunch of discards and amateurs (which also didn’t materialize).
Watching the 20-20 was more appealing as it was coming on TV while I could only follow the updates of the test match on cricinfo. The test match was interestingly poised with the host requiring 240 odd runs with 9 wickets in hand to give aussies an underdog bite, the West Indians promised more or so it appeared, which somehow lured me into following it. Though the host began boldly, they lost wickets in a heap and Clarke and Lee had the final say in spite of resistance from the tail. The match was anything but interesting after the first half hour and after chanderpaul got dismissed there was only one team that can win. Knowing this, I started seeing the IPL match where a half-hearted Mumbai Indians were blown away in the last over. In spite of being a thriller, there was hardly anything I could feel after the match while the memories of the 3rd and 4th days of the test match were still lingering in my mind (though it came a cropper on the 5th) . Maybe Jeffrey Archer (the prolific author) was after all correct when he said
"Twenty20 is not cricket. It's pure entertainment. VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid batting out a whole day against the Australians - now that is cricket."

P.S- Imagine VVS Laxman and Dravid batting a whole day, this might lead people lining up to go out rather than queuing up to come into the stadium.

An unsung hero

"What scared me was he said he couldn't feel his hands or feet.You don't want to see anyone get hurt. To his credit he got back up there, and batted beautifully after that."

Lee said after play about hitting chanderpaul with a vicious bouncer.

The diminutive batsman that he is, Shivnarine Chanderpaul is well known for his cricketing eccentricities and for his batting style and technique or rather for the lack of it. Eccentricities include wearing stickers just below his eyes, which he later explained as anti-glare stickers and his unusual routine of removing the bail to mark his guard at the batting crease. When he’s batting you can be pretty sure it’s only him, that is, he opens up his stance- his feet point mid-off and he looks as if he’s going to turn around to square leg, like as if he’s going to scoop over short fine leg or swing the bat like golf club.

"You're waiting for him to face up, and he already is," said Glenn McGrath.

Shane Warne once stated that he would like to bowl to him from square leg.

Sometimes he opens his stance too much, no wonder he doesn’t score much in V-region. This open, crablike stance has been criticized by many, yet he has been effective so much that he was hailed as the next best thing to happen to West Indies cricket.

Once asked he responded"I have heard all kinds of comments (about my technique). But my opinion is that if your technique is working for you, you should try and improve upon it." Chanderpaul may not be the most elegant batsman to grace the game - but he averages 46.63 after 104 Tests and 39.00 from 219 ODIs. Nobody acknowledges it because he doesn't look fancy on television, he's not outgoing, he's not flashy, but the purpose of a batsman is to get runs and he has been pretty consistent at it.Chanderpaul supposedly developed the strange stance as a way of protecting his face when his father rallied the entire village to hurl balls at him from point-blank range when he was young.

Shiv’s batting has also been termed dull, dour and full of unattractive edges and nudges, few know he scored the 4^th fastest century against the mighty Aussies. Very recently he also led West Indies to a seemingly impossible win by scoring 10 runs off last 2 deliveries. He’s also well known for batting for long periods of time, in fact holds the record for staying at the crease for more 1000 minutes without being dismissed. He has done it thrice and no one else has done it more than once. Being a middle-order bat, he has the unenviable task of batting with tail and most often he is stranded alone at the crease.

Some of his finest moments were against India against whom he scored 3 centuries in a series just after returning from an injury. It would be unfair not to mention the Eng-WI series where he scored 74, 50, 116 not out, 136 not out and 70, while the next highest score for WI in series was a distant 59. He single handedly took WI to an improbable victory in Edgbaston but unfortunately ran out of partners and as a result lost the match.

Shiv is shy, smiles parsimoniously, very religious. He’s a gutsy player along the lines of senior Waugh. So it was no wonder that shiv decided to continue batting after being felled by a Lee scorcher to reduce WI deficit. He was the last man to be dismissed and the crowd’s applause died only after it was announced that he was no longer at stadium, but has been taken to a hospital for treatment. (Personally it would have been great to be at the stadium) This inspires a young, unheralded bunch of bowlers who have the mighty Aussies reeling at 17/4. Of course, Aussies still have upper hand and the shiv inspired WI fight-back might after all be just a passing cloud. The man who made impossible possible (converting an insipid WI team into a dangerous outfit even if it is only for a short time) deserves atleast a gracious salute and for West Indies to emerge from their slump in the post-Lara era, he must go on doing it.

The crablike stance

I had a dream

This is my dream,
It is my only dream,
I dreamt it,
I dreamt that my hair was kempt,
Then i dreamt my true love unkempt it.

-Ogden Nash

I read this some days ago and had a similar dream few days later.Only similar because there was no true love,instead there was a perfect stranger and she tousled my hair so vigorously that my head looked a little like this




I knew Eraserhead was pretty disturbing, but never thought it would disturb in me in such a fashion. And the first thing i did next morning was get myself a good haircut.

Well,i always thought if i start blogging,my posts would be about music or cricket or maybe books.somehow i wanted to surprise myself and so this.