The Anniversary that coincides with India’s Republic Day

Today, on the 12th Anniversary of a great event in my life, the time has now come for me to officially document it in this blog. Some of you have heard me narrate the story and for the benefit of the few who haven’t, here is that very interesting event.

We first rewind to India’s first Republic Day of the new millennium – 26-Jan-2000. I was well into my 2nd year at work and it was also just more than a month since my family had purchased our first car – a Cyprus Blue coloured Maruti Suzuki 800 DX. I hadn’t gotten my permanent driving license as yet and was still on my learner’s license. Also, my car driving experience by itself was only 2 weeks more than my car owning experience. Given this situation, I used to drive the car at every opportunity, within my neighbourhood, to gain more experience and confidence.

On the date indicated above, two of my friends from school had dropped home. We then decided to go to the beach. Though the beach is barely 300 metres from home, I opted to take the car. And for reasons I just don’t remember or fathom, those two guys decided to take the bike and not come with me by car.

For such a short distance, it is always faster by bike and those two reached the beach first. I tried to get a parking spot near where they were standing, but couldn’t find one. So I had to drive down a little further, take a U-Turn and park on the other side of the road. When I reached the other side, I was driving slowly, looking for a parking spot. Also, I had my windows rolled down, probably because I didn’t want to use the AC for such a short distance.

Even as I was looking for a spot, some 2-3 guys ran across the road into the lane and appeared to be headed towards my car. One of them reached my car faster than his friends and punched my face! I just had no clue what was happening. Then they all asked me to step out of the car. I did and in a completely disoriented and nervous state, was asking them why there were hitting me. One of those guys was holding me by the scruff of my shirt/t-shirt and another one gave me one more slap.

I was barely aware of what was happening, when a crowd gathered around us. The 2-3 guys were hurling abuses at me and primarily accusing me of trying to run over them! I tried reasoning with them, but I think my voice box refused to pass on to the world, the words that my brain was sending to it.

All this while, the crowd around us was just enjoying their free entertainment for the Holiday. Thankfully, mobile phones especially those with cameras weren’t sold for dime a dozen, else, I would by now be on You Tube.

Anyways, out of the blue, two policemen, on a TVS Champ, came towards this gathering. The crowd finally swung into some action and dispersed. The 2-3 guys also ran away. Being the major சமத்து (innocent) guy that I am, I suddenly got worried that the cops would ask me for my license and on seeing my learner’s license, would probably take me into custody. So, I ended up doing a non-innocent act and fled the scene in my car. 

While you may be engrossed in the narration, feeling sorry for me (or more likely be ROFL), your attention should now be directed towards the two friends of mine, who have been absent from the narrative for the past 2000 words. They now make a re-entry.

When I reached home, I stopped a few meters short my gate, primarily to examine the damage to my face. Just then, my two friends came nearby on their bike and asked me what happened. They patiently heard me narrate the incident. With their support, it was now easier for me to enter my home. My parents obviously got the shock of their life seeing their son with a big blue patch around the right eye and a completely reddened face. We went over the story once again and that is where, I found out more about what happened.

Apparently, after I crossed my friends at the beach, they saw some 2-3 guys walking near the road in a very inebriated condition. A blue coloured car had gone past them and they were miffed by the proximity it had with them. These guys had seen the car go further down, couldn’t track where it really went and when they suddenly saw a similar (similar; not same) coloured car (mine) in the opposite direction, the alcohol in their blood stream made them decide that it was me who had almost run them over.

You would still be wondering why my friends didn’t come over to help. Basically, they first saw me go by; then saw this near-accident and then, they were just chatting and looking elsewhere (at someone I suspect). They saw the crowd gathering a few seconds/minutes later and had no clue that I was there in middle. In fact, they seemed to be looking out for me in some other direction. Only when they saw the crowd disperse and spotted my car also speeding away, did they realise that I too had something to do with that gathering!

Needless to say, they were continuously chuckling while narrating their side of the story.
I was then taken to the Doctor, who gave me some medicines and did some basic cleaning of the external wounds. My colleagues at work had a tough time in accepting that someone as innocent as me could get such beatings, though my boss strongly suspected (in front of my colleagues) that I got whacked by a girl’s sandals.

So there it is; Yours Truly has been a victim of a public beating also known as தர்ம அடி. 

The Crow in my car

With the arrival of the Blue Eyed Boy at home, 3 months back, my Baleno has been relegated to the front parking spot at home. This evening, a small crow suddenly fell down between my car and the wall of the house. In our attempts to shoo it away, we only succeeded in making the crow take refuge underneath the car.

The next thing we did was to try and scare it by spraying water from one end of the car, with the hope that it would then totter over from the other side. But the poor thing got scared and somehow, managed to rest on the axle of the rear wheel on the right side.

I then tried kicking the tyre and shaking my car, hoping that the crow would budge, but it didn't I then took a rather long broom, reached in from the back of the car and tried to poke it out. And all that I managed to do was to bring out the best manoeuvre of the crow, which somehow squeezed itself on to the tyre of my car. As seen in the picture below:

I now hoped that since it was technically on the outside of the car, it would jump out. I continued to shake the car, albeit this time it was from the back. Again, no movement. I brought out a torch and checked whether the crow was caught somewhere in the gaps and had probably died. But even the dim ray of light from the torch showed that the crow was alive.

I gathered courage and tried poking the crow using the broom. Somehow, the crow didn't mind all this poking and I started to suspect that it probably liked the poking. Maybe it was getting a crow's equivalent of an acupuncture treatment.

I then called up my friend who is generally quite knowledgeable in all matters under the sun (also in the sun, over the sun and to the sides of the sun). But for some vague reason, he seemed to be more interested in talking to his brother in the US than even trying to find out why I was calling him in the first place. And in a twist of fate, his brother didn't continue the call and so, he called me back to find out the problem. And his solution was to start the car or honk it or both or for good measure, try moving the car slowly. I was quite petrified in doing any or all of it, but as any trusted disciple would do, followed my master.

I started my car and released the parking brake, with the hope that the little movement in the wheels would get the crow going. But no. So, finally my parents and one of their senior citizen friends who was talking to them at our gate, strongly advised me to simply walk away from the car. The reasoning behind that idea was that the crow was bound to get bored and walk away.

I accepted this option and lo behold, the baby crow started cawing in a couple of minutes. This attracted a couple of bigger crows in the vicinity and finally, one of them bigger ones came down to ground. It inspected the source of the caw and from the manner in which it was running around the car, cawing back and forth with the younger one, I am strongly inclined to think that this bigger one was the Mother Crow and right or wrong, I am going to refer to this crow with that title for the remainder of this post. The usage of words like Mother Crow and Baby Crow may make you think that I am reading too many children's book, but rest assured that it is not the case. You can see the Mother Crow's work here:

The cawing continued and the Mother Crow started jumping towards the Baby Crow's perch, to try and pull the Baby Crow out. It didn't really succeed and moreover, the Mother Crow also started getting quite concerned that I was standing in the vicinity.



Initially I was only trying to take a video of the whole rescue operation. But I felt that with the darkness increasing, the crows may probably not be able to execute their rescue plan correctly.

So I took the torch and started shining it towards the wheelbase, though I was at least some 5-6 feet diagonally away from the front-right side of the car (as should be evident from the pictures). But the Mother Crow somehow didn't like me acting like the Nightingale With The Lamp and started approaching me with louder caws.

Communication, as you may have heard in multiple forums, is not just about what you convey in your language, it is quite often about what you convey without saying anything, using your body language. Similarly, in this case, while I didn't understand what the Mother Crow was cawing to me, I sure did understand from its rather aggressive approach towards where I was standing,  that it didn't want me to shine the torch at it or its Baby.

After a couple of more attempts, the Baby Crow finally decided to budge out of its hiding or resting place and actually jumped out of the wheelbase to the cemented ground below. The Mother Crow came close and somehow egged on this Baby Crow to fly up, though the flight was just a high jump of 3 feet, into the branches of a tree nearby. You can see this video here (Apologies for the poor quality video):



All in all, it was a rather interesting evening for me. I found the drama that unfolded in front of me, quite charming actually!

You can see both videos here:

Video 1
Video 2

Tirupati travelogue 9-Feb-08 to 10-Feb-08: Part 3

While leaving the hotel, we had no option but to take the auto to the bus stand. There was a futile bargain attempt to get the auto drivers to drop us off for 15 bucks and we settled for the standard 20.

Once we reached the bus stand, which I must mention is one big cesspool, we went hunting for a bus that would take us to Tirumala. We got one that was going to leave in a few minutes and parked ourselves comfortably in the available seats. Having been influenced to austerity measures in the past few hours, I noticed a board that said that the onward journey up the hill cost 24 bucks and if you buy the return ticket, it was only 45 in toto. I spread the word to the gleeful ears of the listeners around me, but unfortunately, the conductor put a spanner in the works and told use that he would issue only unidirectional tickets.

After a very eventless trip, we reached up the hills and got down near a petrol bunk, as instructed by our contact person. This person works for the IOC and the whole special darshan was being arranged through him (the wife of one person in the group works for IOC and hence the contact).

At the bunk, we were informed that the issue of tickets had been suspended temporarily due to the heavy rush at the temple. Though we couldn’t associate any special value for that day/date, just the fact that it was a Saturday evening could have very well been the reason for the crowd. After waiting for nearly an hour there, we were finally escorted to the temple. We went through a maze of doors meant for the special tickets and joined a line that had quite a few people already waiting.

While we were all eagerly expecting a royal romp right into the main area near the sanctum sanctorum, the big rush that day ensured that we didn’t get to enjoy that privilege. As we were saying to each other, whatever be our plans, Lord Balaji has other ideas.

After being jostled around in the queue for more than an hour, we were finally near the main “praharam” of the temple. Our guide hoarded us near a door, away from the crowd. It was only from now that we realized the power of the special entry. One of the temple authorities came by and opened the rather big lock on the door and when we went inside, we found ourselves very near the ramp that everyone comes by for darshan.

The guide showed us a couple of carvings on the pillars and we found that one of them was of Kubera, the lord of wealth. While the crowd was moving along the ramp, our group was waiting on the sides. We were then taken one after the other closer to the edge of the ramp and allowed to stand in front of Perumaall for almost half-a-minute. It sure felt like much longer, but if I really think back after a week, I think it would have only been 30 seconds. And all things considered, the darshan was really fantastic.

[To be continued in Part 4]

Ho hum

The darned extended holiday season is over. Gotta return to work tomorrow and wait until the Christmas week, before I can get such official breaks.

This Deepavali has been one of the best that I can remember. I got to burst a lot of crackers. I didn't spend too much on them - in other words, I spent a lot of money and got lot of crackers (unlike the previous year). I had a lot of sweets and savories. There was no untoward incidents during the festival - burns etc. Saw quite a bit of TV.

Then on Friday, I went to the branch of my office closer home, along with couple of others from my car pool. I did this 'coz my teams at my regular branch were all on leave since they got my permission to compensate last Friday by working the next Saturday. Many teams in my office were doing it and I found it quite a sensible thing to do. I only hope that the organisation also implements it. I say this because, when I went to the office, I found very few people there. Though the car park did look full, I couldn't see enough people around the campus. And one needs to factor in the fact that many people would have come to this branch like me!

That day, I even left the office around 12.45-1.00 and was home by 1.30. Went out that evening as our dear friend Nilu was giving his birthday treat at The Piano in Hotel Savera. Nice dinner buffet and it really helped that I was
wearing my bigger sized trousers. ;-)

Didn't do much on Saturday, other than going to the Sholinganallur house and having it cleaned by a couple of guys whom we took along. The cleaning was mainly for the exterior of the house - too many shrubs and lots of grass had grown. We've arranged for some helping hands to clean up the interior as well. In the evening, I went out and bought my next TV.

Today, I got to meet my college buddy Karthik after nearly 7 years. I last met him in Los Angeles when he and a couple of his friends had come there during the Christmas holiday weekend. Shankar also came along and we had a good time catching up with things at the Fruit Shop.

This evening, I went to Spencers (where else) with Raghu (who else). We were quite shocked by the crowd there. Rather, the shock was due to the lack of crowd. All shops were open, yet there hardly few people around the place. The eating joints were REALLY empty. The Arun Ice Cream outlet guy said that they were barely doing 50% of their regular business. The place was so damn empty, that we left it within an hour's time.

So anyways, the holiday weekend is coming to an end now. I gotta resume my duties at work from tomorrow. Since 24th Dec falls on a Monday, there wont be too much activity that day, what with most people trying to make it a long weekend. The same holds good for Dec 31st as well. So if I can take a day off some 2 weeks from now, I can pace myself through to the end of 2007!

Sivaji - Review of the movie

Its a very fast paced movie and is without doubt the richest movie I've seen in recent times, in terms of visual content. The sets are mind-blowing. The costumes are simply superb.

Rajni is fantastic in the movie. His presence on screen is awesome. Thanks to the "rope technology", he has performed some of his own stunts and it actually looks good. Needless to say his comedy timing is excellent. Also his attempt at mimicking Sivaji Ganeshan and MGR is good too.

Needless to add, thalaivar's style is marvelous. The cigarette was replaced in Chandramukhi itself, by a bubble gum. This time, the way it pops into his mouth is what makes him special. I am definitely gonna try it. :D

He definitely looks quite young in the movie. Call it excellent make-up and fabulous costumes, but it still comes out good on him. In fact my counter to people's comments that his wig and makeup is visible, is this: If you can accept a guy's makeup to make him look like an old man or someone with issues in his face, then why don't you accept this too?

And Boss' getup in the last segment of the movie is out of the world. The mottai thalai and the single line beard suits him perfectly.

Shreya is GORGEOUS. Move over, Asin. I am now replacing you with Shreya as my Dreamgirl #2. This babe looks beautiful, gorgeous, sexy and I think she can give Shakira a run for her money. Shakira says that her hips don't lie and I will say that Shreya's hips have a similar policy.

Now coming to the story - Forget it, ok. As a one liner, it sounds good. The hero uses the "thorn to be taken out by thorn" principle to weed out black money and corruption from the system. If you analyse the methods employed, you will find that they are often quite childish and even comical at some places.

I think, in fact for this very reason, the movie will not have an extended run. The initial hype is definitely going to get it past the post. But I have my own doubts about it running past 100 days.

In spite of the flaws in the movie, I will still say that I didn't find even one minute boring. That itself is a big plus in the movie.

The combo of Vivek and Rajni is awesome. Talking of Vivek, he has pulled off something that no actor in recent times has done. He has practically shared equal screen space with Rajni. He is there in at least 99% of the scenes featuring thalaivar and is absent only in the songs.

And btw, Nayantara has shed some 20 Kgs I think, She is actually falling under the category of slim, going by the intro song.

All in all, the movie is good purely in terms of time-pass. Nothing else.

But my biggest disappointment was the crowd. I had balcony seats and the crowd here was without any doubt very dignified. The people at the ground floor were shouting and screaming. Not really the case in the balcony. So much so, that I started shouting a little bit in the second half, just to make myself happy!

Mini pilgrimage to Tirumala and neighborhood

I was on a mini pilgrimage to Tirumala and its neighborhood of Tiruchanur and Kalahasthi.

But I am not going to write a travelogue this time, so you can be happy.

My parents and a cousin of mine all went as part of an AP Tourism's package to these places. The trip started on Friday evening around 6.15 PM and we came back to Chennai some 24 hours later.

It was actually quite a hectic tour. And I would not recommend this tour to anyone, because its really tiring. You barely get to sleep for 2-3 hours in the hotel room they give you. Other than that, its left to catching an hour or so on the drive.

And to answer the most obvious question of "Darisanam nanna kedachudha?", all I can say is that its the same amount of darshan that all of us get, subject to the mercy of the volunteer who pulls you first and then pushes you into the hands of the eagerly waiting next volunteer. The process continues till you are quite literally pushed out.

On a very serious note, the treatment meted out to the devotees by these volunteers is extremely disrespectful. They don't treat you as human beings. Next time you pass by a site where a building is being constructed, please observe the way the laborers pass on the "bond" containing the "kalavai of simintu, jelly and manal".

Its the exact same way we devotees are handled by those TTD volunteers. I agree that its a thankless job considering the sheer volume of people who throng the temple. But do they think, even for a minute, how bad their actions are at a human level? Everyone does want to spend a lot of time watching the deity and praying. And to manage the crowd you have to make the devotees move, so that the next one gets the opportunity.

But, if you resort to this relay race approach, I cant even see the deity for a fraction of the second. As a normal human being, I am subjected to react to any untoward forces being applied on my body. I start trying to counter-balance all these pulls and pushes and end up not seeing the deity.

The serious devotee might be free from all such distractions and could have his thought process totally focused on the deity. But normal people like me, actually end up not having the basic darshan that I came for. The darshan for which I stood for more than an hour in long cage like structures.

To be very frank, I don't have a good recollection of having seen Balaji up close. Whatever I was able to see thanks to the slightly sloped ramp they have set up before you enter the main room, thats all I can remember. Up close, I don't think I saw much or even prayed much.

Anyways, since it was a packaged tour, we were then hustled into boarding the bus and were given some time at Tirupathi to have a breakfast. I was quite famished considering the ordeal that I went through in the morning and also the fact that I hadn't eaten anything properly on Friday too.

Afterwards we were taken to Tiruchanur where again there was this big queue for the darshan. It was slightly better organised than the one at her hubby's abode. We were then taken to Kalahasthi where too the treatment was much better.

Then after a lunch stop around 1 o clock at Puttur, we finally reached the starting point at T.Nagar around 4.

All in all it was quite a tiring trip, but the only good thing is that I at least got to see these temples after a year.

Capital Punishment can be replaced with this option

If you belong to the group of people who want to eliminate Capital Punishment (personally, I am in favour of it), I think you have a very good alternative on hand.

While you oppose CP claiming that by killing someone the system is no different from the offender, the system has no other option of educating the people about the pitfalls of committing heinous crimes.

So, to you, I offer a solution. Perhaps you can advertise this during all your protests and you might actually have some takers.

My solution - The offender must be asked to drive a car in T.Nagar, specifically the area of Usman Road, Dhandapani Street and the connecting streets. Of course, the car given to the offender must be like the ones used in driving schools - with control pedals on the passenger side as well, just so that the offender doesn't indulge in any "Carmageddon" activities.

I had quite a tough time in that area this evening. I am 110% sure that I spent at least 2 litres of petrol this evening, while covering a distance of say 2-3 kms. I had to go around the streets and the main road due to lack of parking space. I had to encounter auto rickshaws coming menacingly towards me in a one-way street - and point to be noted, I was travelling in the correct direction. I withstood verbal attacks like "poyiginaay iru", "po po" and "varalaam vaa", not to mention the assortment of glares, stares and apologetic looks and the quintessential showing of palm while crossing the road.

So, it was quite an excruciating evening for me. And if the hole in the ozone has increased today, I am definitely accountable for a small portion of it!

Diwali or Deepavali - call it whatever you want, but the Fireworks sure are Expensive

Ok. Here's the deal.

I suddenly got this urge to kariyaakkufy kaasu. Yeah, I wanted to burst fire crackers ok. So last evening, my dad and I set out in our Suzuki 800. First we went to a local super market that has been advertising like crazy in the newspapers recently. They claim to have super low prices.

So the first branch we went to, told us to go to another branch. That we promptly did. We climbed up the one floor and lo behold, there was this looooooong line of people in front of us. All waiting to buy fireworks. This was a really long line. Some 60 people. Standing in quite a narrow space actually.

I didn't like the look of it. Since there were many bends in the line as well, before you could approach a salesperson, dad and I decided to head to the Kamadhenu / TUCS supermarket back in B'Ngr.

There, there was no line. BUT, usual unorganised crowd. Rude sales-people. And the stock on display was not impressive either. So we rued our fate and headed to the umpteen number of road side shops that stock these things.

Man, the prices were really shocking. We went to 3 shops and in all of them, the prices were quite high. But there were people already buying stuff there. We too finally gave in and bought stuff from 2 shops.

You know what was the cost???? Rs.1250.00. And what did I get? ONLY what you see in the picture. In case you cant see it, here's the breakup
1. Red color matchstick box - for saasthram purpose - 1 individual box
2. Regular Sparklers - long ones - 2 boxes
3. Flower Pot - medium size - 1 box (10 numbers)
4. Thara Chakram - medium size - 1 box (25 numbers)
5. Kuruvi vedi - 5 packs - total of 25 numbers
6. Red Fort medium thickness saram - 56 wala - 10 packets
7. Red Fort 1000 wala - 1 number
8. Fancy dappaas - 1 box - 1 number - the stuff that bursts in the sky with shower of stars
Thats it.

This cost me 1250 ruppees. Few years back, for the same amount, we used to get a whole suitcase of fireworks. And now just this handful.