I'll Be There For You......

Continuing from my previous post on a TV Show, this time I would like to talk about some US based shows. It was during my first onsite trip to US(during 2005) , I started watching them . Returning early from Office and absolutely nothing useful to do at my room ,I started to catch up on the old episodes of all time famous "FRIENDS", which they play daily on TBS. Oh! Boy! What a time it was . Started falling in love with each of the characters, their dialogues, timing sense etc. It wasn't long before it turned into addiction and I ended up watching all seasons,all episodes over and over. The writers of FRIENDS were incredibly talented and the actors delivered their role to perfection. My favorite one was Phoebe :-) .

( I was hunting for the above poster for last few years and got it just last month on my US trip , such is my addiction )

Next one that I started watching was "Everybody loves Raymond" . This too is an amazing sitcom, and interestingly it taught me that American Families and the complicated relationships are not much different than our Indian ones. Be it the care free(or should I say irresponsible) Ray who runs away any serious responsibility, or his wife Debra who takes control and keeps him in line or the mother in law Mary who pokes her nose in each and every action of Debra trying to belittle her or that "Who Cares" type cool father in law Frank , all of them bear resemblance to any typical Indian Family.

Turning to serious ones , started watching "Prison Break" a crime thriller . In no time I was completely addicted, sitting late nights watching back to back episodes. The amount of preparation ,the attention to every small detail etc were simply astounding in this one. T-Bag the villain, at times I felt like strangling him myself .Such is the power of characterization in this serial.

After a while started following , Good old Seinfeld, animated comedy series Family Guy , Office ,recently Big Bang Theory etc  and none of them disappointed me.

Again on crime front started watching this serial killer series "Dexter" and was spellbound again. If one could sit through the first couple of episodes , they  are sure to turn addictive. Falling in love with some serial killer(though he kills only the bad ones) character like  Dexter , makes me ponder if we all have animal instincts deep within us. Sometimes I can't help thinking we need someone like Dexter to take out some rotten ones out of our society. The last few seasons of the episode were disappointment but still it would remain as one of the best crime series ever produced...

At this point , am not able to stop myself comparing with our Indian shows again. Be it any genre , comedy, thriller, action , have we even produced any show that is even remotely comparable to the above ones...Can't say lack of budget as reason,can only wonder if we really lack creativity.

Feel Sorry to sound  like jackass again , trying tp pull down our own people, but just have to call spade a spade....
Sigh.....

A Gifted Talent...

Ok. To start with, I am not a big fan of any of the Indian TV Shows . There are hardly any TV shows out there, that are either genuine or interesting. Not even to mention about those repulsive mega serials that haunt every home in India during evenings.  Vijay TV tried to break this culture by trying to bring up some creative(supposedly) and interesting shows. One such show that grabbed my attention few years back was their "Super Singer" , which I started watching regularly as I got to listen from some of the great singing talents.  Not to hide the fact, that even this show is infused with those phony, TRP targeted emotional dramas and some made up touching moments. One can forgive and forget it , given the platform they create for those otherwise unnoticed  young talented singers. We can easily spot the way those singers mature and evolve throughout their journey. Priyanka is one such example , who initially criticized for her emotionless singing, gradually nurtured up into one of the finest talent that the show has ever produced. One cannot stop mesmerizing listening to some of her melody numbers (in T20 round). Other singers whom I have admired(from whatever I have followed) so far are Ravi,Renu,Alka,SathyaPrakash,Pooja,Pragathi etc. Some of those losing in finals ,was simply unjustifiable.

In fact, I started hating and stopped watching  this show after they messed up with the final results not once but regularly(barring a few wins like Alka Ajith) . Results seem to favor who is more popular/entertaining and does more good to their TRP than the real deserving talents. Don't want to take any specific names here but its all wide open.
Last week or so I happened to listen to one of the last season finalists Divakar's performance of "Neeya enakku endru nigaranavan" aka "mama/maapilai"  song and was speechless.(Only Other performance that I could see coming close to this was Alka's "Singara velana..",in previous season Final).  What an effortless ,energetic performance that was and he truly deserved to win the title.(Good God, they din't mess up this time.)
Last night I was watching some of his previous performances, and was simply spell bound. Such a raw talent he is !!.
His passion and perseverance to raise to this level from such a modest and humble family background is simply amazing. (Apparently, his father is a mason and he works part time to support his family. OK Vijay TV started their emotional melodramas at this point ,that's a different story). Nevertheless in a field(singing/music) that is dominated by a particular section/group , its a great feat to raise to this stature without any professional training or musical background .
Kudos to Vijay TV for spotting and nurturing him.

Way to Go Divakar, You will be and inspiration for many more !!!.

Final performance below

you ready to weep!?

As everyone knows, blogging has given us a lot of freedom to express our opinion about anything under the sun…on & above the sun too. Nothing spared. Taking a little more liberty, instead of strictly adhering to any formal topics I wanted to select a topic which seems tooooo trivial….that’s about a quote, I like….

This has some other reasons too…. To breathe a bit of life in to an otherwise dead blog…. And not finding time….and… running dry of ideas, not having a fertile, resourceful repository of thoughts, concepts and ideas…mhmhm…may be …many…but whatever…now into the topic…

There’s this movie vasool raja MBBS, tamil remake of munna bhai. In that there comes a hospital scene in which a youth is treated after unsuccessful suicide attempt. When his mother admonishes him for his desperate act, he retorts back and delivers a dialogue...” who understands my problem?!?!”

Our hero kamal observes this and addresses him through an old love-failure song, capturing the situation of the youth.

And the youth weeps hearing this, revealing it’s a love-failure. Coming to know this, his mother further scolds and tries to hit him too. Kamal stops her.

That young fellow cries more now. And kamal delivers….” Azhu…azhu….unakkaaaha NEE KOODA azhalannaa vEra yaar azhappOraa…?! Adhanaala nallaa azhu…” (Weep and wail to your heart’s content my boy….if EVEN YOU don’t weep for yourself, WHO ELSE is gonna cry for you!? Soo…keep shedding tears…).

Adds further…, “ appadiyae unakkaaha azhudhu azhudhu pazhagittaaa…., OORUKKAAHAVUM konjam azhanumnu thOnum…adhanaala nallaa azhu…” (as you keep weeping  for yourself, as the time progresses…. you will come to have a heart which will be ready to WEEP FOR OTHERS TOO).

How true!?

Everybody faces trouble many times in the entire life time….some crisis are too deep…some shallow and small… every-time we try to come up successfully, sometime alone…some time with the help of family members…sometimes relatives…sometimes friends…some times…unknown strangers….some times….through a good society too….

And we never forget those who stand by us during those distresses, and we ever remain grateful to all those….

Further….we try to help those who are sailing on the same or similar boats…no matter known or unknown….through sympathetic feelings. as we have gone through the same, we know how painful or troublesome a situation is…and naturally we try to extend our helping hand…through some sprit of friendship or fellow feeling….

Sooo….let’s weep for ourselves…and for others too…

have a good time.enjoy.

மனிதம்?!

power of idiocy.

What’s the easiest way to kill Napoléon Bonaparte?!

Arsenic? no…no…

Just give him a battalion of 1000 soldiers. But…….ensure they are all irresponsible, sheeeeeeeeeerrrr idiots. And…certainly, he will commit suicide training them in warfare.

Advantage is… nobody will know that YOU are the murderer of one of the greatest generals the world has ever seen. ;-)

the best way to kill the best performers. ;-) .... machiavellian?! chanakya NEETHI?!... may be.....may be...  :-) 

come on.... not a brilliant idea to be taken seriously ....right?!?!

just kidding machi.... relax and smile at the power of stupidity. my goddddd....my sense of humor is...really pathetic and awful.

and...about angels!!! and demons???

                Every writer looks for material somewhere or everywhere, and many do that in books. Being a wannabe-writer I too go searching for topics which would be interesting and useful as well. And in the hunt for topics, recently I stumbled upon an article which talked about ‘the science behind “why people see angels” (and ghosts, gods, demons and aliens)’.

                First of all, why it caught attention is because it took a truly-scientific perspective in explaining and demystifying these rather intriguing categories. That’s something I would always prefer to admire and appreciate rather than supplanting it with some wrong belief/ fallacy.

                Then, unless we understand things as they are, only we are going to be at loss. So at least for the sake of saving self, if not for science’s sake, we need to grab the reality however stark it may be, even though it seem to protest against superstitious/religious beliefs. For, our motive is, not dismantling those superstitious beliefs, but understanding reality as it is. But to understand the real basis of things, if need be, we should readily castoff those age old, false beliefs- no matter whether those false ideas are pseudo-scientific / mythical / religious. Reality is more important than anything else, to avoid any loss that stems from misconception. Otherwise we would be easily fooled around.

                Now….the gist of that article can be simplified as, we sense, not things that are actually there, rather what our brain senses/tells that are there.

As long as brain functions perfectly, we sense the reality as it is. When things go wrong here in brain, then we sense things in distortion. Brain gives distorted views of reality to us. Whatever it tells, we readily believe.

And…..we can demarcate the functions of brain into 3 major categories…… (1) Sensory perception, (2) cognizance and (3) action.  Sensory perception is the raw sensory data/inputs given to the brain by 5 sense-organs (sensors?!); cognizance is the processing of information, relationship/pattern found based on those raw data; and action is the act of putting those processed info/pattern into effect through various bodily organs(actuators?!).

Here, if any one of these three steps is not normal, then it’s certain the overall output would be faulty. And here is where things get muddy. The processing hardware-brain and neuron cells-should be in perfect condition, to get input, to process that and to forward/pass the output.

As we all know, the processor-brain-is made of biological matter, sustained by oxygen and powered by energy taken to them by blood. That is a highly complicated, seemingly intertwined, tangled bunch of neuron cells and associated parts.

Yet it has various zones/areas that are dedicated to various activities. So when a particular dedicated portion of the brain gets damaged, that particular activity associated with that portion suffers. That damaged portion may fail to receive signals and/or fail to process properly and/or fail to send output signals too. So, it becomes a matter of internal hardware condition here.

Next when the processing of data is not perfectly worked through the right patterns/programs, then those wrong patterns churn out wrong outputs.

Further, when the outputs are sent to various organs to be executed, in total, the efficiency of the effected action depends on the condition of the organ(s). Here it’s a matter of external hardware condition.

We know it’s tooooooo complicated to explain this without irritating the readers. But as we know, so much patience bears fruits too.

Unfortunately, brain does not generate/process its own signals to track its own functions. Now when something is done to the hardware directly, when some VIRTUAL input signal is FORCED on the brain, ……without the real input from external world through sense organs (sensors)…., brain DOES see/feel/sense that signal TO BE REAL (after all none to tell him that he is getting a false signal, not a real one). And we believe that something is real and not virtual.

Since brain is unable to track its own activity, it’s unable to differentiate whether an input is REAL or VIRTUAL, when it receives a signal. And this is also the same reason-not tracking own function- why thought processes, feelings, emotions and senses are attributed to something else, something non-existent….. the soul.

And there are many items that can generate these false/virtual signals and inputs in the brain directly….rather than from external world.

And those are…..

Morphine, atropine, various narcotics, hallucinogenic drugs and alkaloids, ganja, methamphetamine and it’s various compounds,  damages to various portions of the brain, insufficient sleep, loneliness, depression, extremely harsh physical conditions, like heavy thirst, hunger, loss of minerals and fluids from body, extreme darkness, eerie sounds and objects, coma, trauma, heavy dosage of medicinal drugs, dreams, lucid dreams, near-death-experiences, sensory illusions, dopamine, high G-force and many……

And in the list, there are some items which are parts of the brain, but due to wiring nature and long-term-evolutionary practices…..they also tend to generate wrong ideas as much as they generate right ideas. These include, right-left hemispheres of brain, patternicity, agenticity, sleep anomalies…etc.

Fine. Fine… is it not becoming tooooo much patience-testing?! right? Well….let me stop here.

May be…about the various portions/zones/cortex/cortices of brain…..about amygdala, about fusiform area, about cerebellum and memories-working/procedural/episodic/semantic, about hippocampus…. Lets see them all, some other time. Take care. Of your belief system too;-).

And…yeah…finally, it is the courtesy of “popular mechanics”, feb-2014 edition for the wonderful  article and NATGEO’s “brainworks” by Michael Sweeney.

july maadha nilavae....

Recently happen to listen to this song “july madha nilavae” from the movie “oru kanniyum moonu kalavaanikalum”. But could not find it mentioned much anywhere in the net, despite being a very nice song. It has few elements mixed wonderfully.

Throughout the song, slow moving video/ cinematography is one aspect which I liked. Then nearing the end, while hero is being chased by the police and his lover girl, alternatively switching these two scenes continuously, is different and good.

             A naturally beautiful, ONLY-TAMIL-words lyrics by vairamuthu. Mellifluous voice of the singer naresh. Music director has done a really great job, altogether making this song....oh so sweetttt!!.... honey to the ears. :-) and camera man n editor had made this a visual treat tooooo...

And the lyrics, in transliteration only:

July maadha nilave miha dhooramaana uravae

Parandhu parandhu varuvaen

Un parandha idhaiyam thoduvaen

Uliyil vadiththa silaiyae

Dhinam uyarum thanga vilaiyae

Minnal pola varuvaen

Un jannaloram vizhuvaen

……………………………………………

Ini ellaaaaaaam…en isabellaaaaaaaaa….

……………………………………………

Ennai Or kaaval thadukka mudiyumaa mudiyumaa

Anbe sol kaatrai niruththa mudiyumaa mudiyumaa

Thoduvaai…. Nilavae……;  thoduvaen nijamae….

Mega idukkil olindhu olindhu

Mazhai pol varuvaen; madimael vizhuvaen

July maadha nilave miha dhooramaana uravae

Parandhu parandhu varuvaen

Parandha idhaiyam thoduvaen

Uliyil vadiththa silaiyae

Dhinam uyarum thanga vilaiyae

Minnal pola varuvaen

Un jannaloram vizhuvaen

Engae.... un kaalin kolusu olikkumO olikkumO

Angae.... en idhayath thudippu olikkumae olikkumae

Sendhaen…. Nadhiyae…. siru poo… mazhaiyae….

Ulagin kannil mannaith thoovi

Udanae varuvaen unaiyae thoduvaen

…………………………………………………………….

…………………………………………………………….

Ennilaaaaaaa..... en isabellaaaaaaaaa.....

Ennilaaaaaaa..... en isabellaaaaaaaaa.....

Ennilaaaaaaa..... en isabellaaaaaaaaa.....

Ennilaaaaaaa.....

mmmmhmhm... dynamic addressing by youtube may give a little trouble to give a link here. so no vid-links :-) labels to search for the songs are simply.... july madha nilave, oru kanniyum moonu kalavaanikalum mp3 download. come on...i know...i know, i dont have to write these last 2 lines, since any1 who comes across this writing would certainly have more than sufficient knowledge in net about downloading....
         but...my intention is not about telling how to download....rather instigating interest to make people listen to this song, so that it shall be relished as well as be given  a due appreciation. have a great time :-) enjoyyyyyyyy.... and...thanks for the patience and reading. ;-)

sydney carton

I clearly remember those days. Close to the end of the winter season, may be….the middle or the end of that December 1996, morning 10am felt a lot fresh after frequent but irregular drizzles. Rain drops were still rolling and falling down the tips of leaves of neem trees that stood in a single line, parallel to our classrooms-complex building. Few sunrays were still able to reach the tree tops, piercing through the dispersed masses of seasonal greyish clouds. Rain drops dripping from leaf tips scattered those golden sunrays, glistening like shiny stars.

Cool, mild, balmy fresh breeze was passing through the window grills and was giving us the best season of the year for a locale situated in the tropical. From my seat, close to the window on the left side, I turned my head left and glanced through the window gratings silently but aimlessly. I could see the tree trunks and twigs drooping down from the lowest branches. Some mynahs were mimicking something among themselves senselessly from those branches.

Farther the basket ball courts were so silent without any one in the morning hours. Still farther the kho-kho courts and the football filed looked deserted; the red-dusty clay was wet with rainwaters. Arrays of trees demarcated the field boundaries. On the extreme north-eastern edge of the football field, those isolated old cemeteries looked non-existent. All was quiet on the empty fields and my heart felt a bit heavy for the first time in my life. A never-felt-before-feeling.

We were sitting in the classroom of 9^th G-section, in nadar saraswathi higher secondary boys’ school, theni that I attended from aranmanaip pudhur, daily cycling up and down a distance of almost 5 kms oneway. It was the first period of the day, like any day it starts with our class teacher teaching English lessons in Tamil to us-Tamil medium guys. Mr.LND (L.narendra deva) had just completed the lesson-9 he was taking in bits for an entire week.

It drew to a close….but….the class was unusually silent and I could hear some heavy sighs too.  Not because the class was sooooo boring, rather…., the lesson mr.LND completed was so overwhelming and left almost all of us silent and emotionally stunned.

Mr. LND sat on his chair turning the pages of our attendance register, asking whether anyone was absent. No reply. After a few seconds pause, our class leader, natarajan stood up, looked around and replied briefly, “Sir, all present sir”. Mr. LND said, “sari, ukkaaru (ok, sit down)”.

The class room was silent and the air was solemn.

Mr. LND looked at his watch, preparing to leave. Breaking the silence, he announced, “tomorrow, we will take a look at the essay of this lesson, ok?!”

The class was still silent. Understanding the situation, mr.LND left the classroom, suppressing and hiding a doleful smile.

That was the first time ever an English lesson had any real impact on any of us guys.

Like many emotional idiots of tamilnadu I too underwent those feelings of bereavement and helplessness at the end of the lesson.

“Sydney carton’s sacrifice”

That became the first of only a few English stories I came across and liked. Though there are many characters in this piece of that bulky tale of 2 cities, I don’t remember any other name sooooo well. This is the act that makes Sydney carton a significant and more colourful figure in the story than others.

Am I feeling nostalgic?! as my wife and my kid are in chennai, alone at home, lying on my bed, peering through the window gratings, this vizag weather, after last night’s heavy rainfall and the whole day covered in dark clouds and sea breezes, without much sun light, exactly THAT SAME PATTERN….combined with the thought of my college days…..inadvertently brings about those good old memories.

Further….that very story, now in retrospection adds more meaning to what a sacrifice is all about.

Though Sydney carton sincerely loves lucie manette, his wasted life style makes him think he does not deserve her love and makes him declare he cannot demand the same love in return.

So he chooses to sacrifice, with a lot of courage and attitude.

And he readies his neck for the guillotine as he spends the last moments of his life..... contemplating, "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."