Doodles of a crazy man!

No blog posts from quite sometime, no videos recorded in a long long time. How to address both the issues? Record a video and share that on blog! Pretty good idea, no?

I happened to see a poster of some Kannada film called "Uyyale" with the caption "the father feeling", also adding "ತಾಯಿ ಪ್ರೀತಿ ದೊಡ್ಡದು, ತಂದೆ ಪ್ರೀತಿ ಕಾಣದು". I am amazed by the ever increasing dumbness of movie names and (most of the times irrelevant and unnecessary) captions. Instead of getting into a rant, I was amused by imagining what some classic world movies would have turned into, if they had fallen into the hands of these Kannada film industry folks. Goodfellas ಗ್ಯಾಂಗು, ಗನ್ನು, ಗರ್ಲ್ಸ್...ಹಾಗು ಗುಲ್ಡು ನನ್ ಮಕ್ಳು Godfather ಈ ಆಫರ್ ತಕೋ ಇಲ್ಲ ಅಂದ್ರೆ ಕಳಚ್ಕೋ Inception ಡ್ರೀಮ್ ಒಳ್ಗೊಂದ್ ಡ್ರೀಮ್ ಒಳ್ಗೊಂದ್ ಡ್ರೀಮ್ ಒಳ್ಗೊಂದ್ ಡ್ರೀಮ್ ಒಳ್ಗೊಂದ್ ಡ್ರೀಮು Basic Instinct ತೆರೆದಿದೆ ಮನೆ ಓ ಬಾ ಅತಿಥಿ Y Tu Mama Tambien ಏಯ್ ನಿಮ್ಮವ್ವನ್... Pulp Fiction ಮೊದಲ್ನೇ ಸಲ ದೇವ್ರಾಣೆ ಅರ್ಥ ಆಗಲ್ಲ ಮಚ್ಚಾ Schindlers List ಸಾಯ್ಸೋನು ಸಣ್ಣವನು ದಯಾವಂತ ದೊಡ್ಡೋನು 12 Angry Men ಕನ್ವಿನ್ಸ್ ಮಾಡ್ತೀರ ಇಲ್ಲ ಕನ್ವಿನ್ಸ್ ಆಗ್ತೀರ...? Casablanca ಪ್ಯಾರಿಸ್ ಲಿ ಪ್ರೇಮ...ಮೊರೊಕ್ಕೋ ಲಿ ಮಾನವೀಯತೆ... Dial M For Mur...

I always find it amusing to imagine Shankaracharya, Madhvacharya and Ramanujacharya standing forming a triangle inside a circular ground. Ennio Morricone score in the background. Slow long shots of each one, followed by close up of each of their eyes. Then, Ramanujacharya mutters to Madhvacharya - "Seems like you are one entity short" (followed by guffaws from Ramanujacharya's followers in the background) Silence for 30 secs. And Shankaracharya slowly tells Ramanujacharya - "Looks like you got two too many" (followed by eerie silence and then heavy duty music from Morricone) So here it is, the last one in the series...

A colleague of mine used to ask other colleagues whether they are "smart" or "mad". In case you have not guessed, it was her short form for Smartas and Madhvas! Okay, Madhvas need not feel bad. Smartas have a bigger problem. Anyone returning from abroad with a fake accent will ask them "Are you smartas?" and it is an interesting way to stop people from acting oversmart ;) So presenting the next one in the series: Dvaita...

I admit that my knowledge of UML as well as Hindu philosophy is very basic. So any discrepancy in terms of UML or philosophical concepts will not be totally unexpected. I am planning to do this series for different schools, here I am starting off with Advaita first.

Sanathkumara once asked the revered sage Sutha Mahamuni - “Oh knower of all knowledge, oh teller of great stories, can you please explain me in less than 4000 words as to when this ‘Sibling Rivalry’ started”. Sutha Mahamuni cleared his throat, as he usually did before giving lengthy answers, a habit he had acquired by insisting on additional answer sheets during his exams in Gurukul. “Oh Sanathkumar, the man who comes up with more questions than Siddarth Basu, the one who takes listening skills to different levels, listen. This sibling rivalry is existent from time immemorial. When Narada was telling Krishna the story, in which Samba Sadashiva answered a similar query from Nandi, this story was not told. Because I am making this story up for you. So please listen.” Ganapathi and his brother Subrahmanya once had a dispute as to who was the elder of the two. The matter was referred to God Shiva for final decision. Shiva decided that whoever would make a tour of the wh...

I am amazed by the display of naivete by people, their naivete so deeply conditioned that it ceases to be artificial. These people are very well aware of the reality, but when you show them some proof to confirm that, they are aghast and shocked. What the hell am I ranting about? I am talking about "The curious case of N D Tiwari"! To be honest, when I heard about it, I laughed out loud. Not because there was something funny in his achievements, but the way people reacted to it. So I am trying to understand what exactly bothered them? A Governor was doing 'it' ? ('It' upsets more people than lets say, if he was taking a bribe of crores of rupees from those 3 women) A Governor was doing 'it'? (Come on seriously, are we not taught in schools that politicians work for people and poverty is dropping like Walmart prices?) A Governor was caught doing it? (What is revealed is always only the tip of the iceberg. Just imagine the uncaught! Is it the "env...

One of Raja Sen's twitposts reminded me of this gem from a Woody Allen's standup: Years ago, my mother gave me a bullet...a bullet, and I put it in my breast pocket. Two years after that, I was walking down the street, when a berserk evangelist heaved a Gideon bible out a hotel room window, hitting me in the chest. Bible would have gone through my heart if it wasn't for the bullet.

I dont know when I developed this fascination, but it has stayed with me from quite a few months. I keep reading online about Indian mythology. I am seeing the old stories I had heard from my grandmom in new perspectives. To me, the mythology is not a collection of moral stories. My sense of morality is based entirely on my thinking, so to read it just from moralistic perspective would be boring. The good thing about Indian mythological stories is that they dont picture even divine beings as perfect or without weaknesses. Even Gods have anger, jealousy, lust, insecurity - which somehow appeals to me very much. In a strange way, it makes these stories all the more human and relatable. The trick to enjoy is not to fall into the trap of categorizing everything into two big boxes of "good" and "bad". Between black and white, there exists a wide sea of blissful gray. My imagination runs wild when I think of so many possible stories we can make up. Here is one imaginary s...

One of the items I terribly enjoy on radio is "Life In Bengalooru With Rajni Sir" on Radio One. I "simbly" love it, as Rajni says. My guess is that its RJ Prithvi, but I am not too sure. I have been meaning to do my take on it from a long time but it took this long for the idea to become a post. I am personally not too happy with the outcome, but then I had a whale of a time recording and re-recording this stuff. Here it is...wachchaww!!! Please drop a comment if you liked it.

You know the most breaking news and the first headline item in every news channel on the counting day? The "exclusive" predictions from the exit polls of their channel turned out to be true. Every goddamn channel had this news, errr story. Now, are people really interested in other news items? ****** Whats the difference between CPI-CPM before the elections and after the elections? Before they were "Left", now they are left way behind! ****** Even when the trends were coming up, every party was putting up a brave face and telling that these were just trends and things will definitely change when the actual results are out. So confident are all these parties that if some party which had contested in less than 100 seats across the country made a statement that they are sure to form a government on their own, I would have been least surprised. ****** During the half way of counting, Rajdeep Sardesai asked a BJP spokesperson if they are willing to concede defeat at the ...

Read this hilarious news in, where else, but TOI today: "Naomi Campbell looked stunning in Vikram Phadnis' saree" Vikram Phadnis' saree? I am grinning ear to ear whenever I think of that line! ***** Q: "How does a south Indian bomb insult a north Indian bomb?" A: By calling it a "bum" :)

Woody Allen writes in one of his books "Side Effects": Q: How long should a man's legs be? A: Long enough to reach the ground! I had not laughed that hard while reading something in a while. Had planned to write a post on "Annie Hall". Did not have any time off late. Will do soon. Hopefully!

The biggest change in the transition from your mid-twenties to the wrong side of twenties is the exponential increase in the invitations to kids' birthday parties. If you were born during the seventies-eighties like me, I can bet most of you would not have celebrated your birthdays as a kid. Celebration, as it is known today. When I was a kid, mom would make bisi bele bath, curd rice, some sweet and invite a few relatives over to breakfast or dinner. " Mane maTTige " was the mantra then. The old people would bless me with vidya, buddhi, ayassu, arogya, aishwarya - all combined together did not make much difference to my happiness as lets say a Lacto King candy did then. The not-so-old ones would gift a pen set - an ink and a dot pen - with a clearer instruction - "You should study well and get good marks". Go to school, the class teacher would announce that you were the birthday kid. Yes, we could wear "color dress" when mere mortals suffered in their...

Ravi Shastri is a great commentator, or so he thinks. Its not too surprising when someone is in the company of Sanjay Manjrekar, Arun Lal and the likes. And lets not forget, he was the inventor of that historic phrase - " The last thing the team needs at this stage is a run out ". As if there would be some stage when "run out" will move up in the "necessary" list. Well, anyways! Thank heavens, his statements are not as ridiculous as Arun Lal who would say - " Rameez, I reckon when the required run rate keeps shooting up like this, the batsmen have to get the boundaries ". But, Shastri provided ample entertainment last night at the IPL finals presentation ceremony. " Ladies and gentlemen, on stage we have Sharad Pawar, president of Board of Control for Cricket in India, Lalit Modi - Chairman and Commissioner of IPL,......., Sharad Pawar - president of Board of Control for Cricket in India " With so much (repeated)attention sh...

I am too just-married to get tired of writing stuff related to the wedding. Gone are those days when people were anxious to know what gifts they got. Nowadays its all about hoping that the unwanted gifts dont exceed the storage space at your home. There are 3 broad categories when it comes to gifting 'items': Innovative types Only 2% belong to this category. They know your tastes, they know how usable it is to you, they know that the chances of someone else gifting the same item are slim. Ganesha types If I were Lord Shiva or Vishnu, I would have cursed the entire humanity for how I am ignored when it comes to gift items. A typical conversation of a couple goes about like this: Husband: We have to go to that wedding in the evening. Wife: What gift shall we buy? Husband: Some Ganesha gift item of course. Wife: (smiling) Of course! (What else?) 54% of the people fall under this category. Ganesha has got great range, he comes in all forms - from the most ar...

I think only a misandric person could have formulated the customs in a South Indian marriage. How else can you explain the dhaare ceremony where the bride will be in a beautiful saree and the groom in a ridiculously translucent white kachche ? The bride gets her hair beautifully styled and the groom gets a mysore peta to cover his receding hairline. Utmost attention is given to the bride's face for her to look divine, while all that the groom gets is two drishti bottu (to ward off the evil eye) placed with such precision that guarantees maximum possible pathetic looks! Trust me, every man finds his woman absolutely stunning in the wedding saree. But, I am yet to meet a woman who thought her husband looked mind blowing in that white kachche . Not just that, I spent the last week before marriage running from store to store searching for that elusive white underwear (you guessed it right, to go along with the translucent white kachche ) while the...

Pauline Thomason once said "Love is blind, but marriage is an eye-opener". But, even the pre-marriage phase also can open your eyes to so many things. And if you are as general-knowledge-deficient as me, every moment is a new discovery. If you have a sense of humor, each discovery can be complete fun. *** Just before the saree shopping, mom asked about my fiancee - " AvLu work sarees wear maadthaLa? " I understood it as "work 'ge' sarees" and told - "No mom, she generally wears jeans or salwars to work" Mom was least surprised by the all too familiar stupidity of her son and said - "Work sarees do not mean the sarees which you wear to work. It means sarees that involve lot of handiwork like embroidery, mirror work etc." *** Shopping for sarees will introduce you to so many new things - crape silk, tusser silk, raw silk, butta, mango border, peacock border, temple border...

Disclaimer: Good understanding of Hindi , English , Kannada is recommended. And absolute tolerance towards non-sense is mandatory. I was just thinking about how some proverbs have multiple meanings when you interpret it using multiple languages. There is a proverb in Kannada called " Hani hani kooDidare haLLa " (Same meaning as "little drops of water makes a mighty ocean") Hani = Drop; haLLa = Water body Now, " hani " sounds exactly like "honey". "Honey" is a term used to address a very lovable female (or male depending on your gender and orientation!) Now " Honey honey kooDidare " means adding many such lovable females to your list - which means having multiple affairs. " haLLa " can also be interpreted as in " haLLa hidyadu " which means "to be in ruins". So, this proverb also means that multiple affairs are not advisable. Have you noticed that people from different countries have differe...

Most of the people unnecessarily hype up Akbar's religious tolerance. Not that he was not a religiously tolerant man, but what annoys me is that his other great qualities are completely overlooked in this frenzy. Akbar was not only one of the earliest kings who started the trend of inter-religious marriages, but also perhaps the first king to prove that inter-lingual marriages can work. Who was 'that' wife, you might be wondering right? Its the same Jodha, the rajput princess! "What? we saw the movie and both of them seemed to speak Hindi and as far as we remember we did not see any subtitles when either of them spoke. Are you sure?" If these are the questions you are having, step back for a minute and observe what you had overlooked. Jodha spoke 'shuddh hindi' with an overdose of sanskrit, a language that would have become extinct, if not for those uninhabitable suburbs of Barjatya's Sundarnagar. Akbar spoke his hindi with heavy influence...