Variety is the spice of life

I recently posted in LinkedIn on what happened to be hashtag world gratitude day. The moment I saw that tag, thought will post about the first person who came to mind in office, for if I think for a moment more, I would end up scrutinizing and will be left with none. I had posted about someone from office, who has been really supportive and always gives a patient listen to my rants. More than the response, the time she gives in listening to the concerns was heartening and at times, while voicing out the problem, some solutions also pop up. She is one person who is truly trusted within the org and the opinion shared by me was unanimously agreed and welcomed. Of all the shares and posts that I’ve made on that SM site, this one had maximum likes and views. Not just from my colleagues, even those who were not part of my connections had posted their endorsement. At the time of writing this post, that story had about 2000 plus like and more than 30-40 likes and other emoji’s!! She was overwh...

Recently I attended the “7 Habits” training session. As many of you might know already, 7 Habits is a famous book/concept/program by Stephen Covey. I’ve expressed my disinterest on self help books multiple times in this space, the reason for which I am not very clear about. They all sound overtly simple and something which is already familiar with most of us, but somehow the relatively known and simple information, when packaged as a process, seems to be a super hit in literary circles. Also, the way the presenters conduct themselves during their seminars, as if they’ve discovered the true meaning of everything and have attained enlightenment, being gracious enough to share their “knowledge” with fellow human beings, was kind of off putting. The presenters themselves keep saying throughout such sessions that the content is nothing new but is something that requires discipline and practice. But the packaging, presents the same as if, all this while we’ve been leading a life of waste (un...

Operation London bridge Possibly the most (in)famous operation that had worldwide coverage this month. The queen is dead long live the king would’ve been the new catch phrase that people world wide would’ve started to adapt. Someone who was in the psyche of 3 generations as queen, whose face was plastered across multiple major world currencies, some one who (as a positional head) was revered across multiple countries, someone whose reign saw the demise of once a major empire, someone whose personal life saw so much of turmoil, that was gobbled up by public as tabloid news unlike any of her predecessors who didn’t have to live through the level of public scrutiny like her, someone who saw major deviations in Royal household be it on the people who made it to her inner circle by way of relations or her own blood relatives who had a fall out. In a nut shell, Queen Elizabeth’s reign and time would’ve been possibly the most drastic and different one ever in the life and times of British Mon...

There was a Malayalam movie that was widely publicized even before it came on Netflix that it was possibly the biggest and most eagerly awaited movie of the year, having set the mollywood BO’s on fire during its theatrical release. Thallumala – meaning chain of fights (ubayam Wiki) was touted as the next big thing to come out of Mollywood, as a spoof or satirical take on present day society. I tried my best to watch the movie and despite forwarding at least a couple of dozen times, couldn’t even cross the first half and by the time the interval came, was wondering why I was watching and what has happened till that point. It was a mind numbing experience and considering Tovino Thomas whose movies are a big time favorite of mine, I was not just deeply disappointed but was almost in a comatose state wondering what in the world had I witnessed. May be the movie was layered and had lot of meta physical and symbolism that was too much for the little grey cells of mine to decipher. Every now ...

Of all the series that I had seen, this one has a bit of a backstory. For a very long time, we never had any cable TV at home. Star World ruled the roost at that time and there were many famous shows across Sony, Star and other channels that had caught everyone’s attention. Boogey Woogey (?) was one show that was hosted by Javed Jaffrey I guess. Not sure if I recollected correctly but it used to run in Sony. Zee had its Saregamapa which churned out so many fantastic singers, some of whom ruled the playback world for a decent bit. Star World was the premier one of the lot with its marquee programs like KBC and many famous English series. Around the time when KBC early seasons were aired, the famous theme music can be heard across every household having a cable across the streets. Amitabh and later SRK ensured the show had its bumper opening in India as well. Some of my friends had found many inventive ways to have a crack at the cable on the loose, for the charges were quite heavy at th...

Sep 5. Teachers day.  Was wondering about the teachers I had in school and college. The only 2 who I remember very vividly are the tamil miss from my secondary school and my tamil sir from college. Rest of them are all a blur and possibly because of my affinity towards the subjects they taught. There are few whom I remember for all the negative reasons, which I would avoid in this post. Coming back to the language teachers, the reason why I remember the secondary school miss being the innovative way in which she taught the language, grammar in her class. She would split the class into three groups, A, B and C. We were seated in 3 columns of desks and each column became a group. She would ask quiz kind of questions basis the lesson being taught that day or at times general questions too. I might not have understood the grammar very well but still remember the way she taught them and it has got ingrained on the conscious. Same goes for the way she taught poetry, where in she will mak...

Off late the hot topic on moviewood across India is, why are the megastars of Bollywood flopping big time, whereas relatively small scale superstars from Tollywood and down under are raking in the moolah. Possibly “Pan Indian” would be the word of the year on movie world, which in turn could arguably be one of the most confusing term as well. What is pan Indian? One which is acceptable to people all over India is the direct meaning right? If a telugu or tamil movie dubbed or made in hindi as bi-lingual, how come hindi movies are never termed so? Is it accepted by default that hindi is defacto pan india language? If that is the case, I fail to understand why all the noise over common language for India by the very same group, who have no problem in accepting their creations being labeled as Pan India, only after they are made in hindi!! “Hindi theriyathu poda” “hindi pesatha tamizhan” nu tee shirt poatukitu pose kudupom aana hindi la release panra padatha thaan pan India padam nu sonna ...