Variety is the spice of life

When i first read this book, years back, i felt it was a decent thriller at best and was quite different from the usual science related thriller genre of Crichton, having read Andromeda strain and Terminal man prior. When i re-read it recently, i was amazed at the level of detail he has captured about the japanese culture, mostly the negative aspect or his critical view of their persona and how they deal with business. In fact, till a few years back, most of his caricatuirsh..err..characterisation of Japanese could've been attributed to how US was viewing China. And now with the focu shifting sharply on India, the pattern seems to be consistent, the more a country or its culture is vilified in novels and movies it becomes as much obvious as to the competitive/threat level perceived by the then government. There used to be a punny saying that, whatever Americans invented, Japs sold it better and made money out of it. And automobile industry was one that would've witnessed severa...

If at all there ever was a generation that is more known for being a generation of its own, that would be this zee group i guess!! At times it feels as if they are not our own kith and kin, but as if they landed from an alien planet and needs to be revered!!! Across spectrum of all human kind all over the globe, if there is one group who seems to be on the spotlight for a variety of reasons, its the zee kind! People bend over backwards to accomodate their lingo, their culture, their attitude, their sensibilities and when i say it ranges across all walks of life, it literally is the case. When dyed in lie politicos start noticing and begins to follow them, it can seem like any ambivalent attitude of an opportunist lot. When movies begin to pander to them, it again can be attributed to the gallery playing to the audience. But in the age of mob stream media and goat herd culture, the power of repetition rules roost and when one keep hearing the term gen z, it feels as if we are dealing wi...

Grief can take care of itself. But to get the full value of joy, you need someone to share it with - Mark Twain. For those like me who dwell in negativity and who crave for atleast small victories (self defined), wallowing in the muddy murkiness of sadness is something that we excel and thrive. We often forget that there is other side of the coin called happiness. Even before Mr. Twain, someone simply quoted sadness and happiness as - something which halves on sharing and one which doubles on sharing respectively. I am quite sure, most of us are masters of handling sadness and some even might've doctorates in self pity. We are so awestruck in grieving our sadness that we almost always miss out on the small joys and happiness, which how much ever small or miniscule in size, like a candle in the wind, is quite capable of shooing away densest of darkness. Celebrating happiness is as important if not all the more and is a trait, like greatness, that inherently comes for some wihle some...

Recently junior narrated an incident that happened in his class. A kid was playing pen fight during class hours and the teacher had confiscated them. While she was taking them to her table, the kid had been shouting "you have no right to take my pen"!! Junior and the whole class had apparantly found that rant funny and had been laughing. In fact, the kid might've shouted that in jest possibly too! But the fact of the matter is, was that right behaviour in any sense? it reminded me of an incident during my school days. My tamil teacher used to divide the class into the columns we are seated as A,B,C and D. She will ask spot quiz kind of questions from the subject and any one who answers correctly will earn ten points for their team. She will throw the chalk to the one who answered correct and that person has to write the point on the board. The chalk shouldn't break while catching or during writing. Once, one of the kid, broke the chalk while catching and instead of wa...

Ever since MGR became the CM of this state, every actor with a 3 word initial or name aspires to covet the seat. Make some hit movies with good songs and entertainment, the moment it becomes a repeat or near repeat at the box office, start an organization and slowly branch it out into politics converting it into a political outfit, seems to be the straight forward and somewhat tried and trusted approach when it comes to TN politics, with movie and politics being 2 sides of the same coin. Either the politicians approach movie people for their support or the movie guys themselves start their own bandwagon!! The main issue with this setup being, the very purpose and intent behind such organizations and how blatantly misguided they are and how openly greedy and corrupt they are, right from their moment of formation. Even while being just a fan club, their intention is to promote their hero, boost their salary by boasting/hyping unreal numbers and above all tarnishing other actors and fight...

 It is no longer global warming but global hotting or more precisely global burning like hell!!! If there is one topic which finds place year after year in this space that would be on how hot it is becoming with every passing year and how unbearable it is becoming with every summer that seems to be on an ever increasing trend. During my school days it used to be 4 months of summer from around April till june-july end and then it would relatively become cooler with rainy season starting. Or bare minimal when it used t blaze away during day time, evening will be filled with rain. This year, from March onwards, AC has been running non-stop everynight and we are already in the 9th month with forecast of every day having increased temperature by atleast a couple of centigrades. This year may be exceptional with el nino, la nina and all combinations of those vowels and consonants playing havoc across the globe. But it seems to be increasing severely despite the peak summer being supposed...