Variety is the spice of life

The one show that I watch with all eagerness would be "Tamizh Paechu engal moochu" on Vijay. For the very simple reason that, I totally and completely adore the concept. Today's topic was pretty interesting. A topic that is taboo even in present day society - Relationship without any name between men and women. It was quite an interesting topic and challenging one for the speakers and they spoke quite eloquently without majorly dabbling on the point for want of time. The society we live in has names for all relations. Father, son, brother, uncle, grandfather, lover, boyfriend, husband and even if there is a loss in the relation there are names for them as well- widower, divorcee, orphan(!!) And equivalent ones for women as well. In between this maze of names blooms in a friendship or two. Man - woman relationship which falls under the last category are often looked upon with suspect. A friend of mine once told me, there can be only 3  kinds...

For a while I used to be a big time fan of Super Singer's and Jodi number One's. The very reason that, I got to hear classics without their awful picturisation and some really amazing talents set the tone for the whole show. But over period of time, they've grown to be awful and more couldn't be more fake with the concept of reality being only on name. Forget the kind of nonsense they churn up in the name of TRP's but the damage they are doing to kids and art in general is becoming irreparable. They've become that virus that've begun to feed on the very essence of art form. Music classes have started advertising coaching for reality shows. Cine dance forms have replaced traditional variants and with hardly any patronage they are at the risk of not surviving into the next decade. I've quite a lot of sabha's near my area. But for December, where people throng to see the famous personalities lining up for a handful of concerts, who otherwise spend the...

Thondrin pugazhodu thondruga..agthilaar Thondralin Thondraaamai nandru The "Thirukkural" mentioned above means - If you are born in this world, be with the qualities conductive to fame. For those who can't, better not be born. Last week was full of farewells of people I am very fond of. First came the news of Phani, my toastmaster mentor of one speech (not sure if his decision to quit the job was due to that), then it was Sachin's retirement news followed by my good friend Mahesh's last day in office. You couldn't pick a more diverse bunch if you ever want to choose one. But they have one common aspect - being famous. The Phani-funny cliché has been too clichéd even for a cliché. Still its not without reason. I often used to wonder how can a person be so dedicated to a cause, in which he gets to be the backstager rather than on stage most of the time. The way he used to show to time out for over eager speakers from the last row even when he wasn't ...

Does cinema mirror the society or is it vice versa. A question for the ages and sages. But off late it does look like the screen has taken over the reign. Take the definition of a movie hero as case in study. 5 decades back, a movie hero should be good looking, should be respectful to parents, dignified before ladies and would almost always be wearing formals. Villains sported horizontal stripe t shirts with kerchiefs on their necks and more often than not, will have an overgrown mole on their face or would be seen wearing three piece suits complete with a bowler hat. Villis where invariably the mom-in-laws or sis-in-laws. It was very easy to make out who was the bad guy and the leading ladies invariably had to choose between two good guys even in a love triangle story. The lead pair would be the epitome of sacrifice and it was always, family first then job then love. Cut to the 70's, the heroes slowly began to grow a shade of grey. They began to have intra marital affair...

No wonder sports in India never takes off. Look at the awards instituted for the stream. The highest award that a coach gets is the Dhrona award and the sportsperson qualifies for a Arjuna. Two of the most controversial figures when it comes to teaching/learning. A guru - who was so partial to his student that he spoiled the life of another, probably more devoted than the former, by getting his thumb chopped off. Maybe the former student prince, paid more fees (!!) and the latter being OC graakki lead to the result? If Ekalavya had paid tuition fees would he still have underwent such a treatment?? or would there have been a change of heart? IMHO, ekalavya scores heads and shoulders above arjuna when it comes to guru bakthi and skill level rivalling the warrior prince, the award should ideally be named after him. May be the concept of naming the award as Arjuna, could be more related to the role that the prince played down the story and no doubt per the story, his dee...

They say when you hear hooves people always think of horses and never zebras. A roundabout quote directing people to think outside the rutty routine. Having been posting about 6 posts a month for close to half a dozen years, I took up the challenge of this a-z post series hoping to finish it in no time. Raanuvathula azhinjavana vida aanavathula azhinjhavan thaana namma oorla adhigam :D Proved true in my case as well. Having never been good at participating on any competition on named event for that matter, this one series, almost killed my writing hobby itself :D All I could think of was a title starting with the next alphabet to post and the mokkais that I could think of posting never could fit into one. And slowly I gave up on writing itself. As I type in this last post of the series, I could feel the rush coming back and with the finish line on sight its such a huge relief. Many a time I wanted to quit writing blogs and blabbing my head off with my verbal diarrhoea of posts. But...

A week ago I uploaded a photo of mine from school days. It wasn't just another click-the-browse-button and upload kind of a photo. No. It wasn't. I had uploaded scores of pics before. But this was one photo that I was shying away from, ever since it was taken. The one pic that made me so conscious of the way I look and the moment the photographer said "smile" I knew it. All that while, I was so dumb that I never ever realised why people were calling me fat. I was under the impression that, calling someone was fat was similar to giving bad names and foul mouthing him and it never ever occurred to me that it could be a mere fact that those kids were calling out. Few days before that pic was taken, it was raining and while I was returning back from school, crossing the vegetable vendor strewn portion of the "maada veethi", I slipped in front of one such, illegal encroachment of a "shop" who had eaten up half the road starting from the pavement it...