Variety is the spice of life

So many elections have come and gone but none have witnessed such a bat-shit crazy set of candidates like the current by-election. The prime contender (avary sollikiraaru) is the sole claimant (alongside three others) of the legacy of the deceased incumbent and his claim to fame is achieving notoriety and lawsuits for illegal land grabbing and disproportionate assets other than being the nephew of the friend of the deceased. And funnily this kettle, calls, the husband of the niece of the deceased who has started his own party, as black. The other contender in fray is the person whose conscience woke up from its Samadhi after his well publicised visit to one. The main opposition has decided to land a candidate whose face can't be recollected despite him standing next to his own poster. This is one election that everyone wants to win but no one is worthy of contesting, that considering the credence of the deceased incumbent is quite something. As wondered several years back, India ...

I don’t remember the last time I read a novel and got angry. Well, there is always a first for everything and “Scion of Ishvaku” by Amish takes the credit. This is the same guy who came up with the “Meluha” trilogy, loosely based on Shiva Puranam and specifically around how Shiva avenges the death of Sati his wife. Though he can claim literary license, he had simply re-written the puranam in local tongue, making Lord Ganesh and Kali look like mutants and Lord Karthikeya as a battle hardened boy. Though it was a rehashed version of the purana there was a sense of respect for the underlying characters as they are all worshipped as gods in real time. That respect is the single biggest victim in this book. The series was touted as upgraded version of Ramayana. The very first chapter of the book demolishes any notions on any similarity it may carry to the “Meluhan” series. The story varies 180 degress from Ramayana at times, probably borrowing heavily from every folk form of the epic avai...

The recent IP issue between IR and SPB, is one of the many flashpoints on social media, which has its own share of “breaking news” aplenty. What it brings to light is the amount of awareness and the lack of it amongst our audience who never shy away from taking sides with not even “nuni-pul” amount of knowledge. Everyone has their own two cents worth of information and want to wage a war against others who go against their word. In one way, its good as the awareness about Intellectual property may show a slight increase and might even be the top trending topic till someone digs up a long post on what is it and what are its loop holes. Generally, these flash points have a quick life and they grow exponential in their reach till the time someone actually takes pain to explain the topic and puts forth a lengthy article on the merits and demerits of the point of contention. Till the time the pro and anti group of the topic, grind each other to dust with all choice of abuses possible and pu...

With any and every news creating uproar these days, it was hardly surprising that the news of Karnataka CM passing law to make Kannada mandatory creating the furore that was almost on expected lines. To me what was intriguing was the very fact that our states have all been linguistically divided and that was done almost more than half a century ago. Yet, if a CM of a state has to pass a bill to make the local language mandatory, it raises serious questions. Agreed that such a law would create chaos for government staff on transfer and especially their kids, who would’ve to pick up  a new language for every transfer of their parents and also serious stress for them to administer their tasks parallel learning a language afresh just for their official purpose. The situation has been brought upon us by our own folks. There was literally no planning or long term thinking and now with hindsight its pretty clear that none of the erstwhile leaders had any clue how the linguistic segregat...

I saw a meme a while back about how villains in comics are always given the raw deal, considering the fact that most of them are academically endowed and would’ve worked hard to rise to their position of power, while most of the superheroes would’ve got their superpowers either by stroke of luck/accident (Spiderman) or owing to them being from another planet (superman) or riding on the inventions of the scientists on their payroll (Batman). While almost none of the villains are super humans almost all of the superheroes are, is one consistent fact across all comics. Just googled Wiki for some familiar villains and this is what their description says - Joker - The Joker possesses no superhuman abilities, instead using his expertise in chemical engineering to develop poisonous or lethal concoctions, and thematic weaponry, including razor-tipped playing cards, deadly joy buzzers, and acid-spraying lapel flowers. Penguin -  bullied as a child for his short stature, weight, and beak...

Of late, tamil cinema has taken to scripts like never before. With newcomers there is always a relish of fresh thoughts and being uncorrupted by Box office constraints, they almost always stick to their originality. It doesn’t always reflect in their successive attempts, having been spoiled by success. But not in the case of Arivazhagan, the director of Kutram 23 movie. He struck gold with his maiden venture “Eeram” which was probably the premier movie that set the trend for horror genre’s haunt at the box office. He followed it up with “Vallinam” a sports themed movie and that too on basketball rivalling cricket, a first for tamil cinema and unlike the previous movies in that genre, this one did stood apart for its simplistic story line. The third one “Aarathu sinam” was a Malayalam remake of the movie “Memories”, which was based on a psycho serial killer. Having made three back to back movies solely backed by strong scripts, there was almost a sense of expectation on his latest movie...

Another interesting story selection by Vijay Anthony and possibly another hit for him as well. This man surely knows what works for him and what doesn’t. To me he is like Ranatunga, the best cricket captain of Srilanka (and possibly ever). Any person, be it a sportsman or not, will dismiss Ranatunga as just another pot bellied beer guzzler and would never in their wildest dreams believe that he had played every single test match for his country right from the first match and had won them their first world cup in an painstakingly physical and agonizingly mental game. When fielding, the scorecard might hardly contain any reference of Ranatunga, as he never bowls and nor was a wicket keeper. Considering his “not-so-athletic” figure and being the captain, his side was always considered to be one fielder short. But this guy had a knack of hiding himself on the open field. He would station himself at such odd places, the batsmen at times might be lulled into thinking who would be fielding at...

“Hi XYZ..we are ABC calling from so-and-so technologies. Are you ready for the telephonic interview. Is it a good time to talk?” “Sure” “Do give us a quick intro about yourself” And so proceeded the interview of my friend. Once the call was over. He was all fuming and frustrated. Apparently it didn’t go well as there was a mismatch of what was the job description shared to him for which he had applied and the expectation of the panelists who conducted the interview. He felt angry that they asked him all kinds of questions most which would’ve been used for screening a junior level candidate and none were about his proficiency. He felt bad that the company had judged his profile so wrongly and decided to give it a skip, even if offered, which he felt was highly unlikely considering how the call went. There were quite a few lessons for me from this incident and possibly few others might benefit as well I felt. First and foremost, the mistake made by my friend and the panelist, which,...