Sampra Thalayan Kupi

Magic words!

This video clip used to play on TV (Doordharsan) when i was a kid. It stuck there, and was lost forever. But never forgotten. I searched for this many years later and was difficult to locate. Apparently it was not necessarily the best of this genius' comedy.

The movie itself is from the 1940s. I think it is a genius of the times.

Swachh Bharat - Amma in Jail, K Company to follow ?

Amma is in jail now. While all the crocodile tears are being shed by her sycophants, its clear that these creatures are probably the most happiest to see her in a confined space. As part of the Swachh Bharat, it would be nice if the cleanup continued and threw the K-Company crew also into jail soon.

Between the two, my sympathies and support are with Jaya. However, that is no excuse to diminish the punishment. If anything at all, it is far delayed, and far too small a deterrence for the people in high places.
I wish the law would know turn its wheels much faster and quickly wrap up the 2G, BSNL & Aircel-Maxis scams. All said and done, we are so quick to turn politicians into demi-gods (like Modi now), and then soon let them fry in boiling oil in hell, but the money-men and industrialists who fund and finance these are never touched and almost always get away scot-free. Why ? The 2G scam reeks from the foul smell of Reliance, Tata and Airtel, all now dissolved and mostly forgotten in the gray matter we call 'broadcast news'. The Nira Radia tapes also show a conspiracy to appoint a Communications Ministers of someone's liking. Nira is in and out of prison, but others who were talking to her; life goes on.
Praying and hoping for a Swachh Bharat !

Gopuram to an Emblem

A few years back, i was traveling from Madurai to Thenkasi. I had caught the early morning flight from Chennai, and hence was enjoying the bright morning drive with my window down. Long drive meant chit chat with the driver. I was also enjoying my first few glimpses of this part of Tamil Nadu.

Srivilliputhur is enroute. The gopuram of this Andal temple was towering above the many small hamlets and buildings surrounding it. It is one of the tallest (second tallest) temple towers in Tamil Nadu. The town is also apparently famous for its paal-kova.

I was straining my neck out of the window to soak in the entire height of the gopuram, when the driver asked if i wanted to stop and visit the temple. I would have loved to, but i passed, for want of time. To be fair and consistent, i also denied his offer to stop and pick up some of the famous paal-kova. Although that was a little bit more difficult choice to make.

It was then that the driver announced, "the gopuram from this temple figures prominently in the Emblem of Tamil Nadu". I was racking my brains to recollect the emblem. I did a double take from the window of the car, trying to comprehend what the driver had said. I must have seen the emblem a million times, specially on the side of PTC buses and also elsewhere, but never really noticed the gopuram in the emblem.

While i quickly forgot the place and location soon, i never forgot this connection. It took me until now, to lookup and locate the name of the town, temple and gopuram again. Unfortunately the government sites do not carry a lot of information about the emblem and its creation. There are references to the emblem in the temple town's website. But that's just a one liner. Most other references are far and few, and difficult to authenticate.

The only real good thing that my search threw up, was on the creator of the emblem. Artist, R. Krishna Rao, asserts to have designed the emblem for the State of Tamil Nadu in 1949. The emblem and its design was in the news recently, because of its overtly religious symbol.

Girls outshine boys

This year too, girls outscored boys in the XII exams in the state of Tamil Nadu. This has been a reoccurring theme every year, for quite sometime. I dont quite recall a time, when boys ever scored more.
When i saw the picture below in The Hindu, i was suddenly filled with a sense of pride and happiness.

Susmitha from Namakkal topped the exams by scoring 1,189 out of 1,200 marks

Small town girls, reveling and partaking in their friends success. If every small town shared similar success and girls from these places truly know their place in society, what a better place this world would be.

Yet, it is disheartening to note that this self-confidence is left by the wayside of life. And we remain forever a male dominated society, reducing women to mere vassals in a larger scheme. I long for this situation to change. Many ills of our society are driven by the male ego, and hence i feel the world would be a better place without that.

Looking forward. Hoping these cheering girls would lead that change. Good luck to Susmitha and all those girls who successfully took on this years class XII exams.

PTC

Three thousand new buses in Tamil Nadu. Excited on seeing this news, i wanted a quick peek at the new buses. Only to find this picture below. Now that leaves me wondering, what is new about these buses !

I would thought new buses would look something like this below:

dead meat

It is difficult not to look at this moment, with nothing other than a sense of happiness and relief. The death of Prabhakaran, much as many would consider a hero of the tamil cause, is a man wanted in India, for the assassination of a Prime Minister. His death, albeit by the Sri Lankan military, is still the desired outcome.

 

My Obituary

With his death, i believe people interested in the cause of the tamil people in Sri Lanka, can truly join together to help their cause.

Another Blog

Well, as is usual, there are a lot of ideas that float around in the head. Most are usually wasted verbosity, but quite a few of them are gems. They tend to last in your head for a few moments, as you ponder your thought and build on it. Idle brain, is not always used by the devil.

In such a weak moment, i came up with the idea of another blog. Not like i have a lot of friends or other blogger friends thirsting for my vomit of knowledge. But its nice place to pour out your thoughts, with the hope that sometime, i can go back and read all of it, or someone else will and will be benefited from the same (talk about bloated egos).

The weak moment, came, i believe as i was on my way back from a restaurant, and wanted to rave about the food. I also found that not too many search results showed me the kind of feedback, i was looking for about good eating places. I focussed on chennai, because Yahoo's Local Reviews made up for lack of info on local eateries in the US.

So, if you are a visitor to this blog, stop over at my other blogspot called, mygoodeats.blogspot.com. I have not been able to add much since i started it, but it has a fledgling list of reviews, 12 to be exact of today. I hope to add more, and am also keen to know if other would like to co-author, or are willing to share their thoughts about the same concept. I havent made much noise about it, and i guess this is a start. I am going to take this one step at a time.