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2008-03-03T22:34:00.000+04:00

2007-10-11T10:25:00.000+04:00

You respect and value the people in your life, but you also make your romantic relationships a top priority. You are not typically the type to try to impress others with fancy romantic gestures. Nor are you someone who obsesses over your appearance. If that special someone is willing to take you as you are, you will happily do the same for them. And if they're not, chances are you should keep on following your heart to a new love for your life — one that might be right around the corner.

Take this test >

A Case of Weekdays!

2007-05-09T10:25:00.000+04:00

Some years ago when Office Space made the phrase "A Case of Mondays" a big hit among executives across America and the rest of world, I couldn't have agreed with it at any stretch. Because I wasn't working at that time. Now I am. I so want to change it in to "A Case of Weekdays". It has been 2 years since I started putting my physical and genial being to work for my existence and future "prosperity". Just 2 years down and I am not even sure where I belong. Look at me right now, Im this totally demotivated, and grounded... morally arrested loser at this minute! And the problem was right there to be seen. This is not what I was born to do and this not what I will die doing.

A deft background: I walk into office with my usual "today is my day" - Tony Robbins Kinda- outlook. I have this crazy idea of making everyday my day thanks to that guy. OK, skip forward. I have to show my presentation to my "reasonable" boss for approval. Well, to give you an idea it's a PPT with findings of a recent survey. Purely subjective consumer reactions papered to look like they are insights that can throw the client out of his chair. Woven from part "personal bias" and part survey "data", this one looked perfect to me. I had no doubt in my mind when I showed this to her. Well, I hate this trippin'. She didn't like it, to be short. She just bombed it, to be realistically cold. I disagreed with her because I never expected her to be blowing away my PPT without even reading it. Of letting her personal mood swing effect, the evaluation of my 2 nights lost sleep. She just can't.

The day never looked so bad to me ever since I joined this totally super "UNBELONGING" place. But guess what I told myself. "Someone please calm me down!!! I need to hang in here and don't get blown off. 'Cause I have a plan!"

I just turned my back against my condescending "boss" and pressed the speed dial button of my cellphone for calling my friend for a pep talk!

Great artistes, great music

2007-04-30T15:25:00.000+04:00

There are very few artistes who can leave a long lasting impression in me. Mostly, they are as good as their latest hit song. Under these artistically dire circumstances it becomes hard to actually admire someone for his / her works forever. It is unimaginable for someone working in market research to write about a world activity without semantics. There are words & meanings, and then there is sematicism. I have tried my best not to use to any puns and disclaimers in the following article about world's best loved music legends till date. It is based on the assumption that everyone has basic thought norms or have archetypes (in Freud's lingo) passed on from generations that determined their liking for a piece of art they know of. These artistes have incredible sense of music and made their music being loved by an entire aesthetic cycle. From late 60s to early 2000, the myriad varieites of cool and taste had formed a complete circle and took a half-way re-run. These are artistes who's long play was ran through about 3 generations again and again. These are artistes who I call the best loved artists of our times. Some of you might disagree with what I have found people say. Also, it is worthwhile to know that music has never had any boundaries. It is loved and listened wherever it went. People loved the tune, the rhythms, the sound, the vocals and the lyrics. The research I have done is purely internet based (blogs, community threads and the like) and, hence must oblige to admit that scientific lacklustre of these arguments. I have also limited it to international music and never went to regional music.

This will be a five part series and will start appearing from late May or early June 2007 in this space. I thank you profoundly for your interest and my friends across the world for responding to my boring questionnaire which never made any sense to them, mostly. I can't thank enough those hundreds of bloggers across the world who wrote extensively about music. Their passion and interest for music must be appreciated and commented. Finally, thanks to Carl Jung and his masterpiece - Man and his Symbols, for being an inspiration to work on this tiny paper that deals with human psychology and love for the music. Read on.

[End of part one]

Truth about one-liners and 12 years olds

2006-08-30T10:27:00.000+04:00

This is the story of a little girl who called for SOS when she found her cat depressed about something. She couldn't find out what went wrong with him so she was upset too. Okay, I am talking about a little girl who thinks she's all grown up to become a 12 year old woman. This is the tiny story about how she thinks and why she thinks about things she thinks. I will tell you later about that 12 year old woman thing. She lives with her parents and her kitten who's also her best friend named as CatMatix (loosely based Obelix's dog's name). Now you must be thinking about what is so special about Lily (Oh by the way, that's her name). There aren't too many, honestly. She's just like any little girl in her neighbourhood except that she has this unusual way of answering to whatever people ask her. She's not sure why others find it "unusual". She often gives answers that spawns some kind of embarrasement on the inquisitor's face and brings him to an aphonic state! Well, in short she gives you terse, one-liners that shuts you up! Now, I woudn't call that usual would I?

The whole thing about cat getting depressed was not very relevant here. Let's talk about little Lily's unusual trait - one-liners! A one-liner is a verbal or written response based on the principle that brevity is the soul of wit. One famous one-liner is "Yo mama's so fat, after she got off the carousel, the horse limped for a week."Wel, that's sort of a joke. but it could also be serious answers like in the case of Lily. One-liners are single minded or situational or just too much of clairvoyance elicited by the respondent. Wikipedia says "Humor derived from one-liners nonetheless has the benefit of alleviating awkward situations in many cases."
Lily seemed to have embrace this funda in her life. She's too erratic when it comes to people asking some serious questions about her school or CatMatix or even her little clay house in the backyard. She just feel ignorant... eerrr... indifferent to people's questions. So someone called her "one-liner-jack" one day and she's got angry. Well, then she found out he didn't actually meant to make her feel sick about it. Instead, he was telling her that "one-liners" is her trait. Since then Lily never got angry at people calling her "one-liner-jack" as she realised she should be proud of it.

Going back to the 12 year old woman thing, Lily has a thing about people treating her like a kid. She thinks that 12 is the age when girls turn into woman not by some spell cast by the witch Dakini but by nature. There's nothing people should feel envy about it. She thinks that everyone knows that she has grown up but refuse to accept it. Hence still treating her like a kid. She was really beleaguered by it anyway. So she thought "ignorance is bliss".

In the end, well in the end I shall thank you for your patience to read through this crap about one liners. Well, really there's not much to write about one-liners you know. Lily's fine... I mean she may be normal as she claims to be. Its just that when somebody wants to see her as not normal as she claims to be but special, it is possible. For a moment, you also thought she's not normal. She's special in her own ways. Judgement and self reference in nine of ten cases are bull***. Lets face it. You are someone who you call "Animators of your own self". You animate and if it stops, you re-animate till it completely dies out. A good description of one's self would be as "a collection of hundreds of unique modules". The number of such modules equals the number of people who you have ever known or had a conversation with (either orally or through any other expression). Also, it is inversely propotional to the number of negatives you attach yourself with. If any two modules seem similar to you, it means the related persons are similar in a unique way and not that your personality is mundane. I conclude here, that there's nothing one can conclude about one's self. If you think otherwise, you may probably want to look at yourself as normal and start thinking of yourself as anomaly.

Disclaimer: The characters mentioned here may be non-fictional and may bear some or no resemblences some people. That's not author's mistake but the reader's. Thanks.

Ignorance is not always bliss!

2006-08-16T10:36:00.000+04:00

Anna University, one of the oldest technical universities in India and certainly not the worst has been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons. The governing body of the University has successfully gained the wrath of the students of all affiliated engineering colleges for its tyrannical enforcement of a new dress code (to girl students!) preceded by another regressive move banning mobile phones in college campuses. Vice-Chancellor D. Viswanathan’s September 1 edict “No wearing jeans or T-shirts/sleeveless/tight-fitting/revealing outfits and only salwar kameezes for women — in 231 engineering colleges across the State” has yet again underscored the need for a revolt against educational authorities regulating student life inside campus.

The reasons given by these conservative bodies are as illogical as “ensuring that students dress decently and modestly, in a way that befits our culture”. This “moral policing” can be termed as nothing but a step backward to unrealistic vision of a society, which is invariably dependent on factors that are nowhere near the imaginative control of these VCs and Chairmen. At the end of the day, they will never achieve what they intend to achieve. They would rather end up attaining the ire of the students or even backtracking these measures like some of its North Indian counterparts.Having been studied in one of “these kind” of colleges in Chennai, I have understood how unrealistic and nitwitted are these so-called “visionaries” in their perspective of the youth and their significance to nation’s future. With the limited power they have, they try to do whatever they can to ultimately gain the tag of the “discipline” which sells like anything among the conservative parents of this part of the country. One of the commonest of these unjust regulations is enforced gender diversification. In simple terms, female students are not allowed to interact with male students boys and are supposed to maintain a strict distance. Lets look at the basic premise on which such an argument is built. According to these authorities, it is to sustain our society’s moral values and discipline. But if one were to look at the degree of change such an assertion brought in, one would discover that it has reached nowhere near, and has instead gone to a different region. These self projected “guardians of the society” never realizes that they will get conked out one day with none of their “proclaimed” objectives being achieved. I am not at all manifesting a doctrine for embracing the western invasions in our culture here. For us to understand the logic of not accepting such draconian rules lets get real. Our society is definitely not in the hands of these men who run colleges and universities. Their role may be a little more than that of a street hawker or a janitor. Many of us disregard the fact that the world inhibited by humans has suffered the death of permanence. Change is not only have become uncontrollable but its marginal propensity to affect all our lives have touched an all time high. Our societies are becoming more transient imputable to a force that none of us can control. What does this mean to us? This means that we cannot control most of the developments in our social fabric. The reason behind a nineteen year old girl in uptown Madras is more assertive, freedom-seeking, self reliant, extrovert, party-going and incredibly matured in her mindset towards her career is not because she or her parents has ascribed a wrong set of values to her but because of the change her physical environment is undergoing. And to think that by slapping rules and regulations, one can make her “culturally disciplined” is absolutely absurd. A typical human inclination to such stimuli is to find other ways to do things or break away. If we connect this analogy to our topic, one would find the discord in the fundamental thinking of these engineering college founders and university authorities. A typical engineering student might keep quite and still break such rules silently or sentence her/himself till their course duration is over. And it is now obvious that we are getting to a region where we never wanted to be. Lets face it. These bloopers of the authorities are nothing but the outcomes of the conservative thinking and old-fashioned conceptions about the society. For someone who understands the realities, these devil’s advocates will look like clowns trying hard to draw rein a society that is long dead and gone. I would fantasise of recommending Alvin Toffler’s Power Shift and Future Shock to these authorities. People who are supposedly more equipped and formally empowered to do good to the society should not do blunders like this. Banning mobile phone or gender-based restrictions or unreasonable dress code are not going to bring the change they intend or proclaim to intend. Anna University would make more sense reviewing the dress code simply because it doesn’t reflect our vision of freedom. If they approve the right of an eighteen year to elect a leader for this country, they might as well validate his / her right to wear their attire. Rather than attracting cheers, already the reputed University has invited enough qualms from its students. One cannot help advising the university to be more sensible and careful from now on to not repeat such blunders.

This has been rated as one of the most critically acclaimed reviews on Anna University at Mouthshut.com

Stats and facts source: The Hindu

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are independent and are purely based on "share the experience" concept. These are not aimed at creating any unrest among any class of people. Nor it is targetted at any particular individual or entity. Any such resemblences are apologized for. Your acknowledgement of Freedom of Expression is highly appreciated.

A linear perspective of the aesthetically taciturn

2006-04-01T11:09:00.000+04:00

John waters is an American filmaker who made crude, truly bad taste experiments like Pink Flamingos and Desperate Living. All of Waters' early movies show disturbing sequences and he expected people to watch them only to be "shocked". In fact, his first three movies (Pink Flamingos, Desperate Living and Female Trouble) are known as Trash Trilogy and depends solely on shock value. How many of us can stand Babs Johnson played by Divine (a drag queen / waters regular) eating dog feces in the climax of his path-breaking work Pink Flamingos which was shot in a 16 mm film? The movie DVD was re-released in the US with NC-17 rating (when it was first released, it was given X rating like most of his films) and went on to become a hit among the movie goers, and a cult movie. It also made Divine, an obese crossdresser (not to be mistaken as a transvestic) an underground superstar. The métier of his films are the curio feel it generates in the viewers. It would be interesting to know how did he manage to get such vibrant and niche fan following for his off-beat flicks. His early works created deep interest to some film goers while caused nausea to some. He popularised the term edgy humor and non sequitur* through his works which mainly dealt with horrid lifestyles in American small town, Baltimore(Waters' hometown. Also, Divine's). He introduced a gimmick called "Odorama" with his movie Polyester (1981) whereby viewers could smell what they saw on screen through a scrach and sniff card. Later on, he went on to make movies like HairSpray, Crybaby and Serial Mom which were resultantly proved his inventiveness in the mainstream sphere too. His recent creative was A Dirty Shame (2004), where again he went back to the Baltimore underground lifestyle with pervasive strong crude sexual content, including fetishes.

India would be just the wrong place for a film maker as blatant, mawkish and kitsch as John Waters. S/he will be drummed out to anyone of the three seas (of her/his choice) sorrounding the vast subcontinent by the advocates of moral absolutism (socially dominant) . Before that, they would chop off her/his artistic sense singling out "the bad taste". Those who appreciate "the bad taste" will be ostrasized. Moral absolutism is so rampant and has so much percieved validity here that people think everything should be scaled in "absolute" terms, at least films. Deepa Mehta's Fire(1996) for instance, was a movie that was highly controversial for limning lesbianism. As they (the moral stalwarts) dissented and argued that it's vulgar and it's against the social norms, they failed to prove such practices are any less in India. They were circuitously arguing that certain realities are better off not exploited by film makers. If they do, they would make it look like film makers are harassing the country's culture! The film was banned after Hindu fundamentalists (sensitive creatures!) attacked cinemas screened it, quite brutally (quite paradoxical!). But some of us in India, did manage to watch the film through VHS/VCDs (uncut versions) or on TV (censored).

Despite the fact that India is a conservative society and the popular percept that camp/kitsch/underground movies are much receptive in advanced societies, India remains one of the world's largest producers of camp⁺ art! (in terms of volumes, at least) This should shock many. India's Bollywood, Tamil, Telugu and other numerous regional films are comfortably fit to the crudest definition of camp. They are true intentional camp that can leave you brainsick and baffled if you truly understand the aesthetic value of cinema. Bollywood, (some people were mistaken it as an offshoot of Hollywood in the East!) makes 100s of bad cinema every year with a very few exceptions. And most of the bang-on super hits belong to the former catagory and the exceptions are mostly least grossers. A stark contrast to Hollywood movies. In Hollywood, such movies are either classified as B-grade or Underground films. However, there's a seemingly corollary to some Bollywood blockbusters in Hollywood. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai(1998), an Indian mainstream film directed by Karan Johar and My Best Friend's Wedding(1997), a chickflick were huge grossers despite being low in artistic value. But I would argufy here, that the differences stated previously do underact similarities quite successfully.

So doesn't this mean Indian viewers do have a sense of aesthetics when it comes to films made in poor taste? The answer would range from a groping yes to a firm no while the thrust remains on the upper limit. Films being an art form are ferociously subjective. When they make films, Indian directors do know that their films exemplify "poor taste", most of the times. They do so because they know an average Indian film goer does have "poor taste" when it comes movies, music or general entertainment(Example: Kajara re by Alisha Chinoy, the smash hit soundtrack from the 2005 flick Bunty aur Babli). It wouldn't be hard to reason out that why he would appreciate such works more than pure art. For the benefit of those who might argue this is commercial cinema, I would like cite the case of Hollywood "commercial" movies with some high artistic value. And Indian films scores less in this spectrum despite having no lack of good talent. The point in focus is the compromise of artistic formulation for the sake of viewers with some poor taste! In terse, Commercial cinema in India is compelled to be low in content quality to be commercially viable in most cases!

Floccinaucinihilipilification** is an art in India (though it's not specifically called so here). An artist seeking creative freedom may probably feel the most intimidated and crucified in the Indian perspective. The only reason why it happens is because our social fabric is one of the most delicate ones in the world. It's like a gimmick that you would have seen a magician trying to perform with a pack of cards. The lasting period of such a gimmick is consummately dependent on the skills of that magician who we also call our constitutional system.

** Floccinaucinihilipilification is the act or habit of esteeming or describing something as worthless, or making something to be worthless by said means.
* A non sequitur is a literary device; in comedy (as opposed to in formal logic) it is a comment which, due to its lack of meaning relative to the comment it follows, is absurd to the point of being humorous. Its use can be deliberate or unintentional.

Mistress of darkness

2006-03-17T13:10:00.000+04:00

She jaunts in a chariot with fourteen wheels that looks like roulette wheels, carried by a thousand black stallions. She wears a black robe made of diabolically dark threads, which deceivingly reminds a Kimono that hovers when she stands in the only open platform on the carriage. Though they look very deceptively innocent, it's difficult to look into those big, fierce eyes. She holds a baton that has curvy edges and shiny, silver ring on both ends. She never uses them but when she's points it at you, you know you are in trouble. She holds a smile on her face all the time but it can turn dark in a nick of time. She's the most powerful in the night especially if the sky is clear and the Aquarius constellation can be seen. She doesn't wear any ornaments except a glazed smooth, necklace. She stands still on the chariot when all the stallions crusade in an unbelievable rhythm and it never appears to be shaken though its passing through rugged plains. She doesn't use her powers for her pleasure but if you fail to please her, she will use them on you. Her stares shouts loud that she's cruel and have no mercy when she's angry. But she's unbelievably kind too. She's the culmination of both extrema. Her over-the-top persona can be analogized by her baton which looks as if it has only one extreme and not opposite ones and creates an optical illusion.

She's a conundrum you will never solve.
She's a wand with only one end(Optical illusion!).
She's not an illusion. She's not a reality also.
She remains mundane yet heavenly.
She's not supernatural but she's powerful to the magnitudes you have never known.
She's the mistress of darkness.

A sultry Song

2006-03-03T20:03:00.000+04:00

She was with me that night under that beam
Until she faded away as if it was a pipe dream
But I was so sure that wasn’t like a stargaze
Nor was it a requiem of a one-night stand
But a sultry song for my soul while it lasted

Standing in the rain on this empty walkway
All my senses searched for those moments
(Will it ever return? Baby, will I be the same again?)
I stood watching those moments in every drop falling
They were so big in that September rain,
And singing a sultry song for my soul while it lasted

It was like all my self was falling down so slow into a fjord
I knew it was the end, I want to spent those ticking time

Reliving my memoirs being your friend

As if I will still be, being a zombie after my fall
But I knew it was still the same
A sultry song for my soul while it lasted.

Confessions of a sidewalker

2006-02-24T08:23:00.000+04:00

All characters in the following work of art may not be fictitious and not only resemble but may have a lot to do with those alive or dead in accidents located specifically in Bangalore city only. © 2006. All rights resereved.

Barnie is exulted so much. He just managed to pull off a well-paid job at a new call center in Paranoid Valley, IT capital of Dinaufornia. In his joy, he first called up his protoceratop-genus girl friend (Different genus than Barney's, but he's confident his parents would agree!) who's working for SilverWoman Sucks, a global giant having BPO operations in Paranoid Valley. She was excited too. Barnie and his girl friend are among thousands of male and female Dinos who find themselves earning more than what they ever dreamed of in the dream valley. Economists say the surplus income among these young dinos has grown exponentially, spurring related ontogenies in thier endevours like shopping and leisuring.

Take the case of Barnie, a Albertosaurus by birth faced a lot of difficulties at his home land before he came to Paranoid Valley where the much hyped about IT boom was happening. Times of Dino, a popular newspaper in the country carries articles about the growth of Paranoid Valley everyday. As a result, it got much publicized across all classes. Jobless Dinos started thronging to the IT capital. Now the city is not anymore what it used to be. It has become crowded. So crowded that it started to have a counter effect on the potential of Paranoid Valley for being a futuristic, HighTech city for investors.

Barnie has been working for six Dino months now. He has plans of buying a new car but the city's troubled traffic system gave him second thoughts. He was tired of walking and travelling in buses where other poor Dinos pulled and pushed his well-ironed shirt and this used to frustrate him a lot.

He hated when arrogant two wheeler riders snapped him from the back when he was peacefully walking on the footpath. When reacted they snarled at him and he was speechless. He decided his life won't go forward peacefully until he buys a Dino Cycle. And he approached a bank, availed a loan and bought it in a week's time. It was as fast as he bought his Dockey underpants the previous week.

Now Barnie doesn't find it that difficult. Although, like hundreds of Dinos in Paranoid Valley, he doesn't know much about traffic rules. He has got driving licence through an agent who bribed the Motor Vehicle Department for Dinausers officials. But Barnie wasn't bothered because his girl friend told him that her friend's love interest Volcano X, another Albertosaurus-genus dino has got it the same way too. "the whole world does it. So why should I not?" Barnie thought. He was dead sure that he shared the same content of cognition with thousands of other ditizens who owned vehicles and not cared about traffic rules at that point of time.

Nowadays, he drives on the footpath during traffic jams without any guilt feelings. His ideology was "I-have-to-reach-office-the-hell-with-the-law-and -the-f***-with-pedestrians*!" Something pretty similar to that of most two wheeler owners in Paranoid Valley. One day, Barnie almost drove into the b*** of an old Maiasauras-genus Dino while he was frantically manoeuvring on his way to workplace. The poor old dino had to be taken to hospital since B*** was a very sensitive part for his kind of dinos. Relentless was Barnie, continued his adventurous drive through the footpath down the busy Mulholland Highway, Paranoid Valley.

Paranoid Valley has become swollen with Dinos like Barnie - Pedestrians* turned dino-cyclers - And noone could do anything about it. Poor dinos -like the old Maiasauras-genus Dino - suffered and tolerated this manace while others adapted Barnie, the super dino's route to relief.

One day the sad news struck, the old Maiasauras-genus Dino that Barnie hit from the back will not walk from now on. Barnie is feeling guilty now. He was depressed about the fact that it wasn't his fault at all. When someone can do certain things freely and when dino cops never found him guilty, doesn't that mean its legal? Poor Barnie, he thought due to popular breach, the law of pedestrianism** was removed from the Law & Order System. Can anyone blame Barnie? But then who's responsible for the poor old Maiasauras-genus Dino's ordeal then? No one knows. Paranoid Valley's rising, covering up its traffic and commuter problems. Its still going strong. And Barnie's still repentent of what he did.

*Pedestrian is a person traveling on foot; a walker.

** Law of Pedestrianism is an implied exclusive right of pedestrians to walk along the provided sidewalk along the road to get to reach his her destination or for any other purpose and NOT for dinocycles to ride on.

Disclaimer: Being a pedestrian ain't easy in Bangalore. In fact, that would be an understatement. Its frustration culminated to be a non-vehicle possessor and have to shuttle across the city. I guess that almost does the job.You either should own a 2-wheeler or stay near your workplace. That's one funda of living peacefully in Bangalore, an otherwise nice and warm city.

Lima beans and Mallu dynamics

2005-12-26T11:11:00.000+04:00

What's so much about lima beans? Well its looks so yuck! but it is in fact are sweet tasting, rich, starchy, have a meaty texture and a creamy, distinctive flavor. Lima beans are nutrient-dense and their richness generates feelings of satiety (they make you feel full).

Have you been just reminded of something you have come across *so* often? Not Lima beans. Most of us may not even heard of these tiny pieces of gem. Not even in my home state, one of the southern most states of India called Kerala *Read with a tag line god's own country ** with god pronounced as gowd** like Nike and Just do it*.

Actually, its not about Lima beans. Its about the ignorance of the
dimunitives that some of ours' heart suffers from. A malayalee in his cryptic self carries with him an embarrassment of his highly rigid egoism and / or self-centeredness to wherever he goes. That is to any friggin' corner of the world. His DNA has deep engravements of skeptisism like.no.other. He's the fastest in the world to conclude on anything. If there was an Olympics for semantics, Keralites will make Indians a super winner in the medal tally. They interpret meanings just the wrong way and convince others that this is the fact.

In the nineties, there was a widespread hype about some simulation called Kerala model in the India economy. Later on, it was rightly interpreted as Kerala Paradox(thanks to people like Jairam Ramesh). Kerala has high literacy rate comparitively, good standard of living and good health index. But low infrastructure & investement, high on crimes, suicides and labor problems. How can that be possible? Well, That's why its called Kerala Paradox.

Lima beans taste bad, look bad but high on nutrition. Malayali psyche looks good, appears adept but tastes so souring. For reasons unknown to many but still there to be seen. I hope you had managed to trace Keralites' wit and lima beans on the graphic of human tolerance.