the grammar uncorrect

the never-lasting beauty
the skeptical truth
the deciphering lie
the painful healing

the ceaseless time
the non-existent chaos
the unspoken images
the diverse monotony
the undying change

the constrained infinity
the unconditional space
the muted love
the endless start
the blessed misery
the flawless entity
the unorganized symmetry

the lifeless death
the deathless birth
the polished blemish
the untainted stain
the shiny darkness
the black-hole light
the dated update
the still ripple

the mirage reality
the blurred clarity
the silent echo
the whispering yell
the colorful odour
the senseless meaning

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Prologue

It's nearing 6pm.
My mobile is still silent.
It has been so, ever since
the start of this new year.
And will remain so.

It's christmas eve - December 24th, 2008,
everyone is looking forward to the night
and drawing plans for the long weekend.
And so am I.

It's nearing 6pm.
My mobile rings.
Instead of the accustomed voice, i hear my brother's.
He speaks fast, gasping for breath.
"Mom's fainted, near Jumbo electronics.
Emergency is here. Come fast."

It's nearing 2pm.
My mobile is still.
I just remember that i haven't spoken
to my mom for the last 48 hours.
Nor has she called me at 6pm or at 2pm after lunch.

Engrossed in work which never ceases.
I decide to speak to her.
I call home. She refuses to speak at first.
Something makes me persist. She then
does - her last words to me.

It's past 12pm.
My mobile lies silent.
It's been months since I heard her.


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Pondy Bazaar & other Bazaars

1. When it comes to arguing with the street side hawkers for a price cut we go all out for a tooth and nail battle. It's as if losing 10 rupees to him would shatter your dreams of building a TAJ. Whereas when it comes to paying a bill in a 5 star restaurant or while purchasing a branded wear we never question the exorbitant prices charged. We just keep our mouth shut and buy it.

Most of the time we proudly brag about how we saved 20 rupees on a product by fighting with the hawker! They become tea time discussions for most.

2. The funny thing about auto drivers is that they ask you quote an amount for the journey and then start arguing with you for quoting so low. Rather they need to be the guys quoting the price first!!

3. The moment you get off from a 4-wheeler on any busy vegetable market in India, the prices of the stuff on display becomes "double"!

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Talk about cutting jobs, i suggest cutting costs first!

Are we in a recession? I don't think so for the following reasons:

1. The CEOs of the 3 giant automobile companies in US, flew by their private jets to ask for a bail out package!

2. Recently, a company had a crisis meeting to tackle the oncoming recession - to discuss about efficiency and cost saving. Guess where they discussed this. In comfort of a beach resort conference hall!!! They would have done justice if this discussion was held in the office conference room with some lunch ordered in.

3. Why don't companies cut their dividends to share holders instead of cutting jobs?
Talk about cutting jobs, i suggest cutting costs first.

Moreover, the current financial meltdown is like the football game. Where 22 people battle it out for one football. Why not give them 22 footballs so all are happy. Similarly, why not print extra currency notes. If you think for a moment the currency itself does not any value unless it is equated with something. You need currency to afford a house, eat food, watch a movie. So the end thing what you do with the currency is more important than the currency itself. So there is no harm in printing those extra notes for all ;)
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Sky is the limit !!!

Having been lucky to travel sky high in some of the finest and economical airlines, no matter the duration of the flight - domestic or international, there was humour to be found always:


EK: Emirates Airlines flight bound to Chennai(MAA) from Dubai(DXB)

Pretty chicks but of no help!
1. Had some of the prettiest looking air hostess who could never help the passengers load the hand lagguages into the cabin lagguage space. Everything had to be done by the passengers including the locking of the lagguage door!

Choose a language!
2. The captain of the flight boasted of having people of different natiaonality serving you, air hostesses who could speak Farsi, spanish, german, polish, arabic, chinese and english. It was a chennai bound flight, expecting an air hostess to speak tamil would be too much of an ask but atleast Hindi would have helped :)

IC905: Indian Airlines flight bound to DXB from MAA
No matter how early you arrive at the Chennai airport with a confirmed ticket, the chances of missing a IC flight bound to DXB is plenty!

HouseFull
1. They are usually overbooked for reasons known to them. I was able to figure it out this time. They had issued two boarding passes with the same seat number "12A". Luckily before i could get into an argument with the other gentleman who had the same seat number, an airhostess stepped in to take both our boarding passes with out even an explanation, vanished into thin air - filmi style!!! After a 5 minute wait, she gets back to escort the other gentleman to seat 17A which was luckily empty! Now that is one reason why the flight seems to get over booked.

Statutory warning
2. The free flow of liquor in the air does not complement the efforts taken by the government at the ground level, urging people to quit drinking! Moreover the wait for the food (which came later around one hour into the journey after 2 rounds of alcohol was served) is frustrating especially if the flight was delayed by two hours and top of it you are a teetotaller!


Gate number, please!
3. There was never a gate number for the IC flight bound to Dubai (a flight leaving the next day had one!!) and it never took off on time (ETD was 20:00hrs but it could take upto 22:30 to leave chennai).

Sweets anyone
4. Utter disregard for the passenger's health could be seen on the menu of the food tray that was been served. We all know that the diabetics is silently taking the world over and India being among the forefront of most reported cases. In all the IC flights there is usually a bowl of sweet, not one burfi/mysore pak but two measuring upto a size of a brick! At this rate we will sure be no.1 for the wrong thing!

Name change
5. Indian Airlines became Indian about a year back and now again it has become Air India! A guy who flew in that one year period is sure to be lost!

Rotation/Replacement policy
6. Would like to applaud the strategy adopted by the IC management. Instead of asking the old air hostesses to retire they just get shifted to the domestic circuit where as the young ones go international! With private airlines giving tough competition maybe the IC management would like to rethink or devise a new strategy!

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Close Encounter of the "Auto" Kind (a.k.a. Auto, Arrow and Armani - Part 2)

(On Muthu's Auto)

Nov.5th, 2008, 19:45 hrs

I land at Chennai airport after a 12 day ordeal with my travel documents status quo. That left me poorer by 12 days out of 25 day vacation plan. Was heading to my friends place for the night and the best mode of transport for a guy traveling single with bare minimal lagguage was auto.

Promptly looked for a guy who didn't seem too marketing savvy (the kind who come upto you asking whether you needed a auto and giving you the liberty intially to quote a price for the destination and then fight with you for it!!) Luckly found a guy who seemed to be a misfit in the trade of auto driving. The price he bargained for dropping me in my destination was reasonable. I was in no mood to argue with fifty percent of my vacation having been blown up for paper work.

Out of habit i engaged in a conversation to find out what was happening in Chennai. A ritual i am accustomed to when ever i come down on a vacation. It seemed a harmless conversation when he suddenly made an appeal to me. He asked me from where i was and if i could or find someone help fund his son's education. He had already jumped two term fees for his son and was on the verge of being served an eviction notice. I initially stayed out of it, just listening to his story as a passive person would do. A few things i came to realise in that 45 minute conversation centric auto journey:

1. Cost of living had gone up. Just bcos the IT faternity are earning a fancy 6 digit figure (rather close to it) didn't mean that the rest of the population was doing so!

2. Education scenario has changed a lot. To afford a decent education for a 5th grade in an averge school you needed to be prepared to shell out close to INR 6000 - 8000 per annum. Per term it was Rs. 1500 (a term was made of 3 months in this case) and to top it up there was a capitation fee of Rs. 2000 that needed to be shelled out intially!! Just dawned on me that it would be difficult for people to afford education at this rate and educate themselves for 12 years was a tough task. I was lucky to have my parents help me out when it came to doubts on any subjects. But imagine the plight of first generation literates, to whom would they turn for help. Hats off to those who have educated themselves.

3. It was tough being a auto driver with no fixed income, security or insurance, or credit cards to fall back upon, with greedy traffic police on your back to fleece money out of you at any given opportunity and the commuter who could never really identify with them. And along with this all included no PF or pension on retirement.

Well, i was a bit hesistant to help him on the first instance. As an educated sophisticated guy, i demanded that he took me to the school, produced bills and the notices he had received from the school. The poor guy brought in all the concerned papers (he had intially proposed to take me to the school and meet the principal to convince me). Having gone through all the papers and finding it satisfactory, i decided to help him. I managed to clear one term fee out of the two outstanding. Will try to work out something for his son.

On deeper involvement, i got to know he was new to the auto trade. Earlier he was working in the hospitality industry as F&B service boy. He made good money at the star hotel and was able to afford education for his first child till college. About 2 years back the hotel shut down to be converted into a hospital as a result of which he lost his job. He migrated into the auto line and is yet to smarten his earning skills. It wont be long before he joins the "typical Auto" tag.

So what do I get to say at the end of this all: Not all Auto guys are what they are known to be?

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Ex IT / EXIT

Came across this sign on the Indian Airlines flight called "back to work" :)

It seemed apt for the economic recession we are living in. It read EXIT (a call for the IT professionals to exit) or Ex IT (one that read I had been there and done that in IT). What was more apt was finding this sign on the flight. The mode of transport most IT pros are used to!!!

Or was this all a bad connect ; l
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The Yardstick for a Good Movie

My dad once told me, the yardstick for a good movie is that you would be discussing/debating about it, even after it is long over. Not the kind of discussion about how the actor or actress looked but rather about the story and the connection it has to our lives and surroundings.

Some of the movies that measure up to the yard stick:



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No listening...

Every year millions are spent on making people quit the habit of smoking and stop new aspirants from joining their ranks through advertising. And recent studies shows that all these years of advertising has paid as it has reduced young aspirants from joining the ranks of smokers.

But, the most sensible thing to do would be to close down the cigarette factories!
This would ensure that by next 3-4 generations the habit of smoking would be forgotten for sure and would save lives, money and a lot more.

Is anyone listening?
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WASTE-YARD

Hiding behind the rocks, the spaceman surveyed the strange crooked beings that walked in front of him. Some seemed two legged while majority had some crude limb formation that aided their movement. Their biological formation seemed to possess no symmetry or design for easiness. Whatever mind produced them must have had an evil intent.

The terrain seemed unfamiliar and it was nothing like any of their planets that was in their galaxy. Indeed this was a new planet they had discovered along with this weird species after years of trying to desperately find some form of life in the Milkyway Galaxy.

It seemed their mission was not in vain except for the fact that their communication was jammed after they had been through the sudden cloud of dust which disrupted their flight pattern briefly. The engineer was working on it, some time soon they would be able to establish contact with earth and beam this discovery.

There seemed to be no sign of flora and fauna. The soil seemed devoid of any life form barring the ones who walked on it. And nothing flew above. The monotonous dead horizon was occasionally interrupted by cylindrical incomplete shapes. They were round and rose high up the ground. They had seen this shape cover most of the planet's surface when they were descending.

The incomplete structure struck a chord of familiarity in the spaceman's mind. He dismissed the thought without any further pondering as he made his way back to where his ship had landed.
The communication system must be up and running now. A sly smile appeared on his face as he could not wait any longer to communicate this discovery.

A piece of metal which jutted out from the terrain, foiled the spaceman's hastened steps as he tripped and fell. The spaceman pulled out the plate which was the cause of his fall and cleaned the surface to view the inscriptions on it. The colour of the inscription had faded with time but the circular sign which was broken into 3 pieces with a smaller circle in the center, bore a similarity to one of the signs he had constantly witnessed on his planet. This made the spaceman's face turn pale and he fell on his knees when he completed reading the message. The shadow of one of the incomplete tower grew longer and fell on him with the fading light. It made perfect sense now.

The message on the sign read: " CAUTION: RADIOACTIVE AREA", Tarapur, India


( Post inspired by the Nuclear Pact that is going to be signed by India)

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Exhibit A

The curator stepped out to answer a ringing phone in his office. This left Little N alone with the metal thing that was being exhibited, as other visitors drifted away into the shadows of the fading light, to look for pieces of work that caught their interest. He had heard stories and seen pin-up posters of this machine and was lucky enough to see some video clips of it in action. Here it was, in front of him, all the raw power waiting to be unleashed. It was a pulsating experience to stand and watch the rustic sheen of the metal as the sunlight bounced off from it and he inhaled the surrounding atmosphere as if to smell the residues of the slumbering being.

The controls seemed juvenile from where he stood. It was just a push of a button and pull of a rod and you could get this beast started and running in no time. Provided you had the golden black liquid they called as fuel.



He sighed as the racy seat called him to take control of the beast and drive around the metro in all those magnificent roads and bridges that were built for it. It all now lay unused except for the occasional food trucks that were necessary for the survival of the human race pulled by horses.

( Post inspired by the Energy crisis that the world is facing)


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LEAD INDIA leads in CANNES but did it answer Satyendra Dubey?

It is a proud moment to know that a campaign from India has won the much sought Cannes Lions Advertising Grand Prix for Direct amidst tough competition and jury members from all across the globe. It was a engaging initiative by TOI and the idea was well translated into a persuasive advertising campaign.

There are a few observations that is inferred from this campaign:

1. Lead India was spearheaded by Amitabh and Shahrukh, igniting and sustaining the campaign and left out scores of real leaders who have spearheaded changes in India at grass root levels. The follow up TV commercials part of the campaign showed pretty clichie situations of a boy moving a felled tree which was causing traffic disruption all by himself, eventually everyone helping him out. Sounds nice and visually well done but it lacked depth. There are real life people at grass root level creating change. People who have sacrificed lucrative overseas offer and opted to stay back to 'Lead India' in the true sense. You can find them in www.goodnewsindia.com

2. The leaders who were chosen mostly represented the metros and second tier cities like Pune etc. And we all know that India lives in the village. It did so about a few years back. And the real change is happening there. And this was not documented in the campaign. And it ran in English when the majority is regional. Did it connect with the masses or just a elite few who would talk about it in college corridors, tea parties, blogs like this and do nothing about it!

3. The campaign though started off with a good idea, did not have the depth and sincerity in it. The advertising agency made a slick looking film that would move your heart but not from your seat. This is what happens when policy makers/decision makers sit in their AC cabins and comforted cushions and talk about grass root level when there is no representation from that side!!!

4. Did Lead India answer Satyendra Dubey? and countless many who really done something about India? The media and the nation salutes the sheen of NRI money but not the actual sons of the soil who toil to make a difference!!

Anyway you are not interested in knowing them, because Shahrukh, Amitabh and pretty faced models and sleek looking commercials are better for your mind than the reality. Will we ever wake up?

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Is TV the IDIOT box or the audience who watch it?

1. Regional TV programs lacks originality

A mass media and one that is highly influential needs to have some responsibility towards society in a third world/developing country. Be it May Day or Gandhi Jayanthi it usually starts of with an interview of an actor/actress and is followed by senseless commercial movie. Very rarely there has been a program that provokes intellectual debate and thought stimulation of where our country is headed(with the exception of interview of Abdul Kalam on Sun TV during the beginning of the year). It is so disheartening to see how the viewers are been made into passive consumers and drugged by filmi and dance stuff, as if there is no other talent worth pursuing. Is this not a wrong message being communicated and a wrong mindset that is being groomed among the future India? Why not have a program of real life achievers who have made it something worthwhile of their life, why does it have to be always film stars?



2. Honoring 75 Years of Tamil Cinema.

A good effort by SunTV and the film association to screen old movies. It has got a instant and good viewership - everyone is talking about it. They could have packaged this program better. They have showed movies randomly jumping from Satya Raj to old classics with no chronological order in mind.

First the film association should have also got actively involved rather than just dancing in Singapore and getting their coffins filled. They should have screened the movies in chronological order and should have taken 10 minutes before the movie started to talk of the technological break through or directive styles that were introduced along with other details. This could have been done by a presenter like K Balachander who was a pioneer in the classic days. This would have made the masses appreciate the craft of movie making rather than just be couch potatoes.



3. Content of Teleserials

Pathetic, someone should bomb the entire small Tv industry :) Kidding. but somebody needs to do something about these contents. Imagination in the story is in all the wrong directions!

If this is going to be the trend of the TV industry in India it is very scary.


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Auto, Arrow & Armani

After reading a series of posts on the attitudes and beahviour of different autowallas in different metros this post sprang up:

Autowallas are known to fleece money, being in Chennai i have witnessed various shades of these guys. Some are hardworking, genuine and sincere while a majority are forced by escalating oil prices, instable cost of living index to plunder from the unsuspecting traveler. I wouldn't blame them for their insensitive attitude. We are the ones to be blamed, the lot who complains.

We rarely bargain for a piece of fashion wear in a mall. We read the tag, pay the price quietly and leave! Or for that matter dinning in a fancy rest. When it comes to people who are trying to meet their daily ends, we get into an aggressive arguments for charging us a penny extra! How sarcastic and insensitive we are, blinded by our consumeristic power.



Try listening to their struggle in life, some of them are really genuine and moving. At the end of the day, if it is not their own auto they have to end up paying the owner Rs.150 as rent and they need to fill petrol for the entire day which would cost them another Rs. 250 with the going rate of petrol from OPEC countries, and then there is the house rent, family feed, school fees, unexpected functions and occasions etc. He doesn't have a blue collar job where he receives a fat pay pack at end of the month. Everyday is a struggle, just try being in his shoes, and u will understand why he fights with everyone : ) Does he have an insurance policy or is there any bank ready to lend him money in case of emergency? Does he have the luxury of owning a Credit Card?

Instead of blowing the money on mindless weekend parties boozing you can try helping a deserving soul now and then.





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God's Gravity

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Atheist, curious infant spiritual mind pose this question: Does God exist? Can u show Him? Is he flesh and blood? Can someone show Him?

Could you tell me:
1. Does gravity exist? They say it is important for gravity to exist otherwise we all be floating in space.

2. Can you show us gravity in a tangible form? For example can you dress it up in Flesh and Blood?

3. How do you know gravity is necessary? Because the scientist say so. Do we ever question them? Then why do we question the genuine spiritual Gurus who can show the path?

Inference: If Gravity can only be experienced and not seen , so is God.