The week that was

For all those hardcore followers of Sivagiri :
Sivagiri - The Crusader

Three issues have been in news over the last week, which probably have garnered more news bytes, second only to the swine flu. Instant hit has been BJP's "over the top - let me be first type reaction" to Jaswant's book on Jinnah; Then comes the media-savvy and smug "My name is Khan....Shah rukh(ja) khan"; and finally "Kaminey" and "Kandaswamy" ( I am afraid the early reports have called the tamil flick a dud ).



BJP is in a downward spiral, with party idealogy ( we are told they are still are not sure what it is ) being relegated to the background and LK Advani being marginalized even at a dottering age of 82. All the hoopla around mild and moderate ex-BJPer Jaswant Singh, his book and his subsequent explusion smacks of BJP's muddled thinking post Vajpayee era. Their internal mess has took roots post the lok sabha electoral debacle. Every credible political commentator vouches that none from the 20 core party members of BJP might have read the 600 something page book on Jinnah, leave alone reading between the lines. Their reaction is being ridiculed on the basis that it is Congress who indirectly are at the receiving end in the book, owing to Nehru's support for the two nation theory; Sardar Patel has not been shown as the troublemaker as is being played out in BJP circles. Jinnah purportedly has been shown toeing the logical line of seeking a separate nation owing to unfavourable bias towards the minority community. The popular verdict on who is the hero and who is the villain in the book, has not been announced as yet. Will wait for that....until then hope BJP doesnt shoot itself all over, while Congress stands by and waits for its turn to hog the limelight. That would mean lesser expenditure for the next elections - something our politicians wouldnt prefer.



SRK has taken his smugness and confidence to greater heights with his over-the-top reaction to his frisking at the NJ airport. While most of them feel that it is a publicity stunt by King Khan, he defended the same by saying that "My name is Khan" will be done only in 8-9 months; we have to give the man the benefit of doubt. He denies that he didnt feel offended because the authorities deliberately failed to acknowledge who he was, but still believe his ego got to him. But we have to appreciate the man for the kind of media empire he has built since his "Hi Chaps, Fauji" days. Congress MP Ambika Soni did put the Congress on the wrong foot when she called for an ill-advised tit-for-tat policy. She did her bit to get some news bytes, alas no match for BJP's "Quick Gun Murugan" reaction.




Kaminey, for all the negative connotations to the word, has been getting thumbs up, unanimously from all quarters. Shahid, post his "Jab We Met" performance, has managed to shrug off the tag of SRK wannabe. Vishal Bharadwaj, seen as a desi version of Tarantino, doesnt mix too much pop-candy in his serious movies - Omkara was a dark drama loosely based on Othello - and now Kaminey. Cant wait to watch this flick.



On the other hand, "Chiyan" Vikram's superhero caper Kanthaswamy is of a mind numbing length of 3hr 20 mins. The length wouldnt have mattered if it were a Lord of the Rings or a Ben Hur, instead the early reviews have been very disappointing. Shriya probably will walk off with the eye-candy honours while Vikram and Suzi Ganesan will have to get over the disappointment. It still might go onto rake in the moolah, but am sure the lead actor's and director's reputation have taken a hit. Wont watch this one, unless dragged into the theatres by unforeseen fateful forcing by faithful friends.

Landmark Quiz 09 - Chennai

Another Landmark Quiz and another bummer. While I have visited the quiz since my 10th grade, never made the cut: the closest we came was during 3rd year of college when we fell short by 1 point, that too when we were at the peak of our quizzing powers. We registered for the 18th edition of the landmark quiz (which apparently will be telecast) as a corporate team and called ourselves the "Quizzards of the Quizditch". Not sure about the total number of teams who sat for the prelims, but the Music Academy hall was full and additionally few folks were on the waiting list.
Dr.Naveen Jayakumar, who apparently is one of the top 10 eye surgeons, along with his even more quiz wise mom and another associate, set the questions for the show. The crowd, as usual had celebrities (read as the ever popular quizzer Kasturi), grandparents and their grandchildren, serious quiz veterans, and people like me - who just hoped to qualify. The prelims consisted of 40 questions, and we ended up scoring a mediocre 21, while we could have worked out easily another 6 questions, if only we had been quizzing regularly. Well, the cutoffs were way too high with the least being somewhere around 33 and the top score was a cool 37.

There were prizes for best team names from school, college and corporate respectively. Some of the whacky ones included:
H1 Anyone, H1N1 Someone, Pigs fly Swine Flu, Born to Rule-Forced to School, Dhakkan Chargers, Mama Machaan Maapillai, No Enthu Da

Incidentally, the regional winners from respective regions didn’t consist of the native folks, instead was made up of predominantly Chennaites who probably migrated to those regions for few days solely for quizzing. The top two teams from Pune, Bangalore and Mumbai joined ones from Chennai finals, and it promised to be a mouth watering affair. After a 10 minute break, the finals started with the traditional team QED lagging behind in the first few rounds. The quiz format was pretty simple - with 20 Qs split into two rounds, two buzzer rounds and one final round of 5 questions. At the end of all, two teams were tied for the top spot and three were tied for the 2nd runners-up spot. After 3 sudden death Qs, QED were crowned champions (consisting of the ever consistent VV Ramanan) while "No Enthu Da" took the second spot with Jayakanthan's team taking the 3rd spot. The winners got gift vouchers in addition to a trophy and PS2 set. Vijay Amritraj, who was accompanied by his parents, graced the occasion and was impromptu with some wisecracks. All in all a wakeup call for the likes of me, who aspire to do well year after year: dead but not buried yet.

Below are some of the prelim Qs:

1. The background female voice in the National Anthem - D.K. Pattamal
2. What does M stand for in MR Radha and M Vasanthakumar - Madras
3. The two females from India who passed away recently and were voted by Vogue as top 10 beautiful women in the world years back - Gayatri Devi and Leela Naidu
4. The element which was found by french astronomer Pierre Janssen in 1868 to exist outside earth before it was spotted on earth, and had its existence was determined in the tobacco fields in Guntur ( Something to do with liquid ) - Helium
5. The two marks usually found as footnotes in books/articles - Asterix and Obelisk
6. In FedEx word, where can you find the hidden arrow - between E and X
7. What are a bunch of bananas called - A hand of bananas
8. Where would you find the poster: What does it take to find love - a) money b) luck c) smarts d) destiny - Slumdog Millionaire
9. The answer was swine flu, don’t remember the Q
10. A dish traditionally made from Thamiraiparani River water made famous by a marwari family around 300 years ago in their shop Lakshmi Vilas - Thirunelveli Halwa
11. Which animated habitant of the bikini bottom and belonging to the spongiferes species was recently added to the Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum in NY - SpongeBob Squarepants
12. While travelling by train, at which place did Gandhi stop and was inspired to don his famous dhoti after seeing the local peasants? - Madurai
13. Other than Cricket and Tennis, in which other sport Hawk Eye technology is used? - Snooker
14. Which state accounts for 48% of the area of Pakistan and is the largest? - Balochistan
15. Who pioneered the first rath yatra - NT Ramarao
16. These two personalities were at the Systems Research Institute in Pune, while one won the Magsaysay award this year, the other had an equally profound effect on the corporate world. Who were they? - Deep Joshi and Narayanamurthy
17. Maya Kulkarni stepped in to play the tambura to accompany these two musicians in 1969 to perform in front of a couple hundred thousand of fans. Who were the musicians - Pt Ravi Shankar and Ustad Allah Rakha at the Woodstock festival
18. In HG Wells, war of the worlds, what did the Martians die of? - Common Cold
19. Who or what was part of the initial Apple Computer Corp's logo? - Isaac Newton
20. This organization got its name because the members used to meet in the offices of each other in turns - Rotary Club
21. French Open in Europe refers to the Golf Tournament instituted in 1906. By what other name is the famous tennis tournament referred - Roland Garros
22. Who or what inspired the name Yensid Retlaw for the sorcerer in the story Fantasia - Walter Disney
23. In Mahabharata, one character sought the art of warfare from a character, who had given away all his fortunes and hence decided to teach art of warfare instead. Who were the two characters? - Parashuram imparted the knowledge to Dronacharya
24. What term was coined by the Finns to refer to the weapon used by them against the Russians? - Molotov Cocktail
25. Which fictional character's death was announced in the NY times editorial in 1976? - Hercule Poirot
26. Which Kannada's poet's statue is being inaugurated in Chennai? - Saravjna
27. The decline of vulture population is a cause of worry for which community in India? - Parsee, coz they leave the dead bodies to be eaten by vultures, since they don’t bury or burn the bodies
28. Traditionally vessels are named based on the meaning of words. Which vessel gets its name from the Sanskrit version of "leaf" - Pathiram (from Patram)
29. Visual from Angels and Demons. Link with a road in Chennai - Pantheon Road, and the visual showed the Pantheon which is the temple of all gods in Greek mythology
30. Visual of Kat Kaif dressed as whom in a lakme fashion week - As Barbie
31. Visual of a game whose name is after a very popular quiz show - Mastermind
32. Visual of a building (clue a white fence), which famous American writer - Mark Twain (white picket fence in Tow Sawyer)
33. Clip of Nagesh in a movie, what is the title role - Server Sundaram
34. Visual of a personality in three different movies: Spiderman, Hulk and? - Stan Lee
35. Clip of inauguration of a building? - Hotel Atlantis in Al Jumeirah in Dubai. 7 times of Beijing Olympics fireworks used for this inauguration, which was visible from space
36. A soundtrack which was inspired by a original composition in an 1936 English movie by the maker who composed the music as well - Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times
37. Soundtrack of a movie which was to be released today - Vikram in Kanthasamy

iD - Idli Dosa at Sathyam Cinemas

With two hours to kill before the late night movie show, we stopped by the uber-cool "iD" restaurant on the first floor in the Sathyam complex. As is the case with any hotspot in Chennai, we had to wait patiently for our turn. The only thing traditional about this place was its name, rest everything was chic and novel. The waiters were decked in all black and appeared energetic in serving the fare to the eagerly awaiting clientele. After about 10 mins, we got our due table and requested for a menu card. Instead we were given what looked like a bookmark, on the back of which were listed the dishes in a novel way : Simple traditional south indian fare - broadly classified as Idli, Dosa, Vada, Pongal ( Sweet and Salt ), Beverages ( Chai, Coffee, Lassi etc ), Adai and Paeserattu, with most of them having sub classifications. We ordered Keerai vadai ( which was overdone and was hard to bite into ), Masala vadai ( quite alright ) and Medhu vadai ( the best of the lot ). Once we moved past the initial intertia, the orders just kept flowing - adai, rava and masala dosa, appam, idiappam ( accompanied by cocunut milk/khurma/veg stew ). Once we realized that we had actually come for a movie, we stopped, but not before ordering two masala chais ( very dull and too thick for a T ). The plates were of steel and reeked off modernity, so were the porcelain cups for sambar and chutneys ( green, white and red chutneys ). The prices were reasonable and the meal for the 4 of us cost around Rs.430. A nice place, only if you were to club it alongwith a visit to the movies or need to bite into something as late as 11 in the night.

Public Enemies - A short take

We caught up with "Public Enemies" at Serene/Sathyam for the friday night show. Michael Mann's previous best ones have been - Heat, The Insider, Manhunter and The last of the Mohicans - and so the obvious expectations were set for another pot-boiler. With Johnny Depp and Christian Bale thrown into the mix, the movie sure should have been an exhilarating ride.
Loosely based on the real life story of John Dillinger ( Johnny Depp ), who with Baby face Nelson and Alvin Karpis wreaked havoc with bank robberies around the great depression era ( 1929 - 1934 ), the movie sets the tone with a prison breakaway by Dillenger and his cohorts. Agent Melvin Pervis ( Christian Bale ) enters the screen blazing down Pretty Boy Floyd ( Channing Tatum in a cameo ) in the woods. The scene shifts to Edgar Hoover commissioning the FBI and appointing Pervis as the lead detective to hunt down Dillinger and the likes. The rest of the movie is the cat and mouse game played out between the agents and the robbers, with the law gaining the upper hand as the movie progresses. One by one, Dillinger's associates are gunned down and he is finally left to protect his love interest which ultimately brings about his downfall. The movie is interspersed with Dillinger's love interest - Billie Frechette ( Marion Cotillard ) and 3 clear sequences of bank robberies and an additional prison getaway.

Highlights :
The period setting, gun fights and stake outs.
Handy cam style chase sequences
Johnny Depp's simmering ruthlessness and occasional wisecracks

Letdowns :
Underutilized Bale
Slow pace of the movie
A rather weak background score
The dubbing could have been better. Dialogues appeared muffled in an effort to recreate the southern US accent of that period.

The movie overall doesnt live upto what we have come to expect from Michael Mann, but still delivers in patches. Worth one time watch. Rating - 6/10

Its Not About The Bike - ( Lance Armstrong ) - A short take

This is what I would call a page turner. A close friend of mine got this book for me from Landmark and challenged me if I could read this book within 2 days. Sure I won the bet and I am entitled for another book now ;-)

Not many autobiographies are as engrossing as this one was, which mainly has to do with the language and prose of the book. The book is of 294 pages and is worth the Rs.376. At the very outset Lance lets the readers know that this book is not for the squeamish hearted since he chronicles his fight with cancer to a large extent. He comes across as a brash Texan to start with and these are the very qualities which has helped him overcome the cancer and also most of his cycling conquests. Sometimes athletes have that extra bit of aggressiveness ( not all are as passive as tendulkar or dravid, but we also have bhajji and ganguly to balance them ) which helps them conquer hardships, with otherwise might prove to be quite overwhelming. Armstrong is a shining example of one such athlete.

Throughout the book, he pays rich ode to his mom who single handedly brought him up inspite of all the hardships she faced in making ends meet. His wife came into picture much later, but she was equally instrumental in him getting back on the bicycle post his recovery. He talks about his mentors, the neighbourhood cycle shop owner who sponsored his first bicycle, his agent, his coach at the US national team and also the coach of USPS team ( for which he raced and won the Tour de France a record number of times ). He also lets us in on how corporates wrangle to sign stars when they are hot property, but wouldnt mind ditching the very same stars when they are down and out. It is quite moving to know how his perspective changed with regard to life, cancer victims, the sport he so loves so much...post his cancer. His cancer foundation, Livestrong, has since become a big movement. The inlaid pictures from his life help to add value to the words.

One gets to know a lot about competitive cycling - the preparation, the physical attributes required, the tactical strategies, ego clashes, doping and more. Its quite a non-melodramatic work, but has an underlying emotional quotient while conveying the values of faith, self-determination, and having an open mind in general. A must read.

The trip to Wayand Apr 30 - 3rd May - Part III

We had a good night's sleep and looked all set to commence the sight seeting part of the trip. We made coffee using the instant coffee and whitener mix with hot water, and it was quite elevating to have the beverage on the terrace overlooking the typical Kerala greenery. Soon after, we had a rather heavy breakfast, consisting of chicken, a traditional kerala muslim roti/dosa type dish and few more traditional items.
We drove first up to the edukkal caves, parked the vehicle and climbed up on a sloping path leading to the heart of the cave. By the time we reached atop, we were pretty exhausted ( more because of a full tummy than anything else ). We could immediately feel the dampness which one would associate with caves, even if they are open and well lit by the sun. There was an option of climbing to the very top, but we felt that it would totally tire us and probably render the remainder of the trip a rather taxing exercise. On the way down, we stopped by an ice-cream cart and munched on some mango bars and cornetto cones.

Before emabarking for Kuruva Dweep, Harris took us to his wife's place ( it is a custom in malabar muslim family for the husband to move in with his wife ), and served us one of the best black teas I have ever had. He also showed some stunning photographs he had his film photographer friend take of him and his wife, soon after their marriage. It looked exactly like the film promos !! We met his wife's younger brother who had set his sights on an MBA program. Wished him good luck and we were on our way to Kuruva. Harris had gone to this place a long time back and hence wasnt sure about the way, which he clarified by asking the local folks on the way. I felt comfortable that I wasnt the only one lost for directions. The last 3 Kms or so was a drive over hard rubble, and at times we werent sure if we were on the right course. But on seeing another vehicle in the vicinity, we took our chances and coursed through a path that no one would want to take in normal circumstances. But the trip was worth it, for when we reached the actual island, we felt so close to nature. It had no fancy travel centric restaurants, gift shops, or anything of that kind. We were famished and eating the local fare cooked in earthen pots and like, never felt so good. There were only 3 pieces of fish left which someone ahead of us in the pack, took it in a parcel. I had too many papads for the comfort of the lady running the kitchen, and she murmurred something in malayalam with a look that asked "are you nuts ?".

This was the first time, I ever stepped on a what one would call a raft made out of bamboo sticks. I couldnt believe that this thing was going to stay afloat the entire distance until we crossed over to the other side of lake. We somehow did, and it was fun. Once in the island, we took the regular course and ended up among lots of boulders, which had a ravine cutting through the lot. We waded through the water and rocks and rested to take in all the nature's offerring. It felt so good just to get away from the humdrum of the city. The crossed back to the main land and were on our way back to our hotel. We stopped in between for some cake and other snacks for the Chennai IPL match.

We ordered dinner, as always lots of non-veg stuff, and after a heavy meal and the match, hit the bed.

Chennai Salem Yercaud (11thJulyNight->12thJulyNight)

We planned for an extended non-work team outing ( the team's strength lies in non-work related matters ) to Kodagu, sometime last year which had to be indefinitely postponed due to my sudden flight to Kathmandu. I had missed the Periyar trip as well, owing to another reason which I dont remember now. Maapillai Senthil's marriage gave us a platform to showcase our skills in eating, drinking and talk "lollu sabha" lingo. Jaanu, the PM that he is, booked the tickets but was also wise enough to extract the fare upfront, knowing our liking to acknowledge debts over email, phone or in person, but doing nothing after that. Being a working day, we had to come to office in business overalls. I slipped into my sandals while Raghav opted for his ultra cool all purpose Skechers. Basha and Jaanu were laying the bait for Nextel ( by including non-existent tasks in a KT plan ), which had to be submitted by the weekend. Basha, fearing that Jaanu might not be on time, asked Raghav and me to wait at the food court and we duly obliged by snacking on a dahi chat. Basha came and was all excited, which he blatantly displayed by barging into the shared auto to the peril of the two girls who were already seated. Unfortunately the tiny bag he was carrying hindered his lunge towards the space between the two girls. From MadhyaKailash it took us around 45 mins to reach Koyambedu, and we talked about JMX, JBPM, Powerbuilder on the way ( if only you believed that we could have discussed all that.. )

Paddy, the man with the right info for the right occassion, was waiting for us at the rendezvous point. Without much ado we went in and ordered what each of us wanted. The waiter there felt really sorry that he couldnt offer what we wanted, much to our dismay. Jaanu joined us shortly and so did Nanda and Vetri. We finished our dinner and boarded the fully ACed KPN with berths. Raghav and me observed that the birth above us had a slight hammock like bend, and it didnt take us too long to realize that the reason for that was Basha.

We reached Salem and had the usual early morning T, and before long, we had a Chevy Tavera to take us to the lodge. Very rarely does one have the need for hot water to take a shower in Tamilnadu, and the lodge guys were liberal in providing hot water alone in the bathrooms. We braved that, and got ready in a jiffy to go to the wedding hall. Our Maapillai was beaming, and that gave us confidence to go right upto the dining hall for the pre-thaali breakfast. One normally doesnt have to stand right in front of the dining benches expecting the incumbent diners to vacate the bench, but we didnt mind it, since that was the norm. To keep a tab on the swelling waistline, we restricted ourselves to moderate servings, except for Nanda and Paddy. We were in time for what he had originally come for, and we were one of the first to give the "moii" to Maapillai and pose for the customary photograph.

Soon after, we set forth for Yercaud, while Basha was thinking of the best reason for his absence from work. We stopped on the way to get some DVDs to kill time, and we were overjoyed to land our hands on the much treasured "Mariyadhai" starring puratchi thalaivar. "Pasanga" DVD was the second option we had. The usual fare of nicknames, lollu sabha, slapstick comedy was on, but nothing came close to the "handwass" and the cellphone shrug from Gabtun. Jaanu, the spoilsport, ensured that we stayed awake through the movie. We couldnt take it and relied upon Zandu Balm to keep us sane. At At the temple, we bent and proceeded to visit the cave dwelling diety while Basha chose to contemplate on his life by laying on his back on the compound wall with a cool breeze to pat him to sleep. By now Raghav had got into his famous "pajamas", while Paddy daddy got into his cool bermudas.

Basha recommended GRT, and I was happy to alight and use their toilet and also order 7 glasses of water. Even though we liked the view and all that, we decided to check out another hotel. I recommended getting their visiting card, so that we could call and order our lunch, when we were ready. This simple act of goodwill for the sake of my co-travellers, was to be the butt of jokes for this trip :-) Sometimes, people are ungrateful, and this lot sure was. We killed time at the grand palace, harassing the waiters, changing channels, commenting on everyone under the sun, but it was pure fun.

Our return was set for 10:30 PM, so we decided to catch up on a movie at Salem, and we felt overjoyed to know that we had two movies for choice - Mirrors, and Angels and Demons. We stopped in between for some T and bajjis, and we felt liberated to drink T by siting on chairs by the side of the road. When we reached the theatre I was shocked to know that the tamil dub was being screened and I begged the rest to check out some other "real" tamil movie. But knowing this lot, I knew they were looking forward to the comic tamil sentences and not to the actual movie itself. I felt like a goat being dragged to a slaughter house, but felt at peace to realize that its been a while since I have slept in a movie. The gang empathized with me when I asked, if they were going to screen "Kal Kisne Dekha Hai" in tamil. The power went out a few times, the audio was supressed ( local censoring ), the AC wasnt as cold as we would have liked.

Post movie, we settled the dues with the driver which worked out to 2K and proceeded for a light dinner. By our standards, it was really a low key affair at the restaurant. It had started raining and we boarded the same bus which we had taken for the onward journey. Paddy and Nanda got a kick out of scaring one poor soul who wasnt sure if he got onto the right bus and kept asking if it was going to Chennai. The wicked weasels, kept talking about the places enroute to Madurai to make matters worse for that chap. We drifted off to sleep, dreaming about work next day, "engal aasan" ...zzz...zzz