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The "Hero" in Haneef!

After hitting the headlines consistently for almost a month, Bengaluru saw Dr. Mohammed Haneef return to his native city...as nothing less than a "hero". Every page of the newspaper had someone or the other pouring in their sympathies for Haneef and his family. Our good old PM went one step ahead by saying he was in tears after watching Haneef's family suffer.

If only all these politicians realize that there are millions and millions of our own country men suffering right under their eyes. After all, Dr. Haneef is someone who doesn't even want to stay back in India after all the "support" and the "help" that have been offered, which even includes a job from the Karnataka government! However, Dr. Haneef doesn't want that job, and prefers to go "back" to Australia, the country which supposedly disgraced him! So much for "making" Dr. Haneef a hero.

Who's to blame here? The media? The politicians? or us, living in this god-forsaken country?

Even I stand to offer my sympathies towards Dr. Haneef and his family. But this issue doesn't look any different from the flooding and drought faced by the crores of farmers across the nation. Same is the plight of each and every child working to make ends meet at a stage when education should be their only goal. The unemployed youth of India will only be too happy to be offered similar jobs by the government. Their families are suffering too. They lead a horrendous life, not for just 28 days, but every single day!

The real heroes are the ones fighting inhospitable weather in addition to the constant threat from enemies in Kargil, the Siachien Glacier and the like. I don't suppose Dr. Haneef and his family deserve this royal treatment for being branded as a terrorist, and later released! The country needs some serious re-thinking on its policies to take steps towards vision 2020, and not make heroes out of nowhere!

All said and done, my sympathies still stand extended to Dr. Haneef...

Thair Saadam...

It's been 6 years since I graduated from High School. I did all my schooling, right from Kindergarten to Grade 12, in the heart of the heart of the city - Mylapore! And the school was none other than the famous PS Senior - fondly known as the "Thair Saadam" School :)

While kids aged 5 in the US get ready for the "play school", their counterparts in PS invariably get ready for their math test! Day after day, week after week, the tests never seem to end. Poor things! :)

"I've gone through the same when I was young."
But is that reason enough to allow our kids to "suffer"? Shouldn't we think beyond this aggressive way of "learning"? I recently saw a documentary on a popular TV channel on how forcing a kid to over-achieve in sports beyond its capacity might be harmful to its mental growth. But isn't the same true for academic education too?

I feel that there is a mysterious bond between these "thair saadams" and Engineering. Being an engineer my self, I somehow feel I wasn't provided enough opportunities to explore. I vividly remember a career advice forum that was conducted by my school. Men from various backgrounds ranging from the army to journalism were present. Each one gave a flowery speech about why their work was the best.

We students were so childish then that one guy ended up having a hot debate with the army general on why Veerappan remained uncaught!! It would only end on the intervention of our then teacher-terror Mr. Ramaurthy (I miss "outstanding" days ! Chikku and Sriram will know what I mean! :) ) I even got a chance to speak at the session, when I raised this question of monotony. I wanted to know why our school did not have an arts, or psychology or sociology department. My question was shunned by our principal herself, who pointed out to the 6th grade drawing lessons as being "art"!

Going a few more years back...I used to play Table Tennis, and played quite well too, to the extent of being seeded at the State Ranking Competition. It was my first such entry into such a huge tournament. And guess what! PS refused to sign a letter saying I wouldn't affect my academics! I ended not showing up at the venue. That was definitely the turning point of my TT career, when my coach refused to even speak to me. I don't remember regretting it that much (those playful days, you know!). But thinking back, I feel cheated.

PS could've done more than giving holidays for Nombu and Amavaasai! The good memories still remain, thanks only to the golden friends circle I was part of...the thair saadam gumbal :)

Brahminism

Brahmin, derived from "Brahmana", means "belonging to Brahma". A Brahmin of olden times, was considered the possessor of "exclusive" rights to education and matters of social and spiritual importance. Those were the days when the Hindu religion boasted of the four major castes in Kshatriyas (warriors), Vaishyas (merchants and land owners), Shudras (laborers) and the Brahmins.

Focusing on just the Brahmins, one cannot miss to notice the complexity of their society in the past. Westernization (along with ridicule from all corners) has had its share of destroying its traits. The Brahmins of today (including the "real" priests) have so completely transformed so as to blend comfortably into modernity.

Some of the most important characteristic traits of the "original" brams were the vibhudhi (ash markings on the forehead and body), saffron attires and the sacred thread (tied around the body from the left shoulder, going back circularly from underneath the right arm). Some of brams of today can hardly even recognize these - wearing the sacred thread is considered to be a mere formality. But how can it be when it is changed once a year without fail on the day of Aavani Avittam??!!!; the saffron-colored clothes are now part of the wardrobes of the so-called "Human Gods" with the power to do even the scientifically impossible!

However considering today's society of brams as a whole, they form part of the middle and the upper-middle class, with very little hold on the other sections of the society (a trait they had once mastered simply due to their "acquired" reach of knowledge and education). Apologies for not being euphemistic: this practice was plain bad!

Even today you can notice elderly brams asking the maids to enter through the back door, or asking them not to go near the pooja area (I can create a never-ending list, or may be a separate blog post just for the list!). This attitude is very easily assimilated by the younger generation, without questions being raised; the human brain LOVES to rule dudes!

If only the Brams comprised of at least 10% (as opposed to the meagre 2-3% in reality) of the Indian population, they could've kept up with the race to the throne. Now, facing them is a light-less tunnel, with no signs of an approaching train. The political oppostion started with "Thandhai" Periyaar, after Mahatma Gandhi fought for the "Harijans". The power of Periyaar was fabulous, and he got an immediate mass following. Our "No God, No Superstition" Kalaignar has only to add fuel to the fire with announcing "Anybody can become priest".

I can't quite understand what he means by "No God" when he takes so much effort to define what a "priest" is. Nor can I understand the meaning of "superstition", if sticking on to your yellow dhothi even when you can't even stand properly is not considered to be one! The point being, Kalaignar, and the thousands who own a priced political post, probably don't give a damn about how to pen the definitaion of a priest. This issue, by virtue of being Kalaignar's enemy's friend, was his enemy!

Has the brahmin society given a lot more importance to its self-pride than it should have? Is it now feeling the heat from all corners because of that? If not anything, the reservation is going to only surge. The political harted is going to deepen. Brams are slowly but stedily running away from the country to seek greener pastures.

Is this all because of our (Yes! After all that flaying, I'm a Bram too!) ancestors' flawed and self-deceiving livelihood? If only we had given a chance for the others in the soceity too! Is it too late now? Yes, I think so...

The Black & White Days!

Are dreams black and white (B & W)?? No, I do get colour dreams. But some other things are definitely black and white - the olden days! It's a very simple, yet thought-provoking issue.

Think about the days of the Indian freedom struggle - Nehru, Netaji, Gandhiji...everyone appears B&W in front of our eyes! However much I try to imagine my grandparents in their teens, I just cannot envision them in coloured clothing. Forcing colours into their days, seems to make everything phony.

Why does this happen? Is there a scientific explanation to this? Or is this merely the influence of prolonged exposure to B&W photography?!

The first aircraft by Wright brothers...Abraham Lincoln...the World Wars...The Ford Thunderbird...The Russian Revolution...EVERYTHING IN BLACK AND WHITE! Why? Why? Why???

My best F.R.I.E.N.D.S

Easily one of the funniest sitcoms ever to have hit the silver screens, F.R.I.E.N.D.S was first aired on 22 September 2004. There was no looking back after that until 6 May 2004, when the last of the 233 laugh-riot episodes was aired.

Though it is very difficult to rate the friends, I've done my best to rank them from my least favourite to the most:

6. Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston):
She's the millionaire, who turns waitress. She's real cute in the first couple of seasons, and real HOT in the next 5. But come season 8, wrinkles start getting the better of her...and even the best of make-ups dont seem to help much!
Coming to her character, she's this cute and bubbly girl, who's in the look-out for an ideal match right through-out. In the process, she gets on and off with Ross, and even gets married to him once while drunk! However, she is slisha annoying at times, compensated only by her HOTNESS (or however you put it)!

5. Monica Geller (Courtney Cox Arquette):
She's the whatever-I-do-is-correct, everything-should-be-perfect girl, who just HATES to be wrong! Her BEST acting part comes when she does "The Routine" with Ross for the New-Year's show! Simply AWESOME :D
However, too much of squeaking sometime gets on one's nerves :)

4. Ross Geller (David Schwimmer):
The guy who almost always has some sad tale to narrate, cracks everyone up with him amazing facial expressions and dialogue-delivery. With 3 failed marriages, and an unending list of flopped relationships, Ross is the guy who bears the brunt of mockeries. His best comes in the episode where he gets tanned in Season 10!
However, he tends to get monotonous after a while, spoiling the funny guy that he is meant to be.

3. Joey Tribbiani (Matt Le Blanc):
"Hey, How you doin? ;)" is probaby the BEST one line punches EVER to hit the screen. Joey, with his ever-so-late reactions, and his out-of-the-world intellect throws everyone into splits just with his neat acting. But things just go out of control in the later seasons when he's converted into a mere laughing-stock!

2. Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow):
She's probably THE funniest person on the show. Though she doesn't have that much of a story by herself, she does her part to perfection. Almost every single dialogue of hers will render a comical twist to the story! Her numbers with the guitar just cant stop bringing a smile across one's face. Especially, "Smelly Cat" ROCKS! Yay Pheebs!

1. Chandler Bing (Mathew Perry):
Unbelievably awesome! Out of the world! Mind-boggling!.... The list is endless. He is meant to be the "funny-guy" in the show and in the process has carved a niche for himself. It's so impossible to imagine the show without him (or without any one of the others for that matter, but especially w/o Mathew Perry). With a huge cauldron full of sarcasms, Chandler is probably THE BEST thing to have happened to FRIENDS.
The reaction that unfolds on Chandler's face when Joey drills through the wall so close to him, is just out of the world. 3 cheers to Chandler.

My best buds have been listed...Its your turn now guys...

8 stories up!

I don't know how many of you guys have ever been eight stories up in chennai. But trust me, it is one of the most amazing things to have happened to me! My room in my apartment is east-facing, with windows both in the south and east directions for cross ventilation.

Come 4.30 PM, and the sea-breeze fills my room up and it's not until 8.30 at night do I feel the chilly winds recede slowly. And when it rains, the scenario is just orgasmic! OMG!

I was literally forced to write this blog cos of the amazing weather right at this moment in my room. I'm seeing lightning light up the city every other second, with soft drizzles kissing my forearms right throughout.

Do I even have to talk about my terrace...and the water tank thatz over it?? Come here guys, just to get a feel of what naturez all about..and to get to see "Chennai by Night"... S.E.X.Y! Real Sexy! :)

(No kidding, but the picture was snapped from my balcony!) Cheers...