Doodles of a crazy man!

All men are not created equal. To call this world unfair would be a gross understatement. Why am I privileged enough to have an opportunity to write a blog post, while somebody else is struggling to make ends meet? A person who never exercises might enjoy long lasting good health, while a young person might fall prey to a deadly disease? Well, we don't have answers to all these and these things  are not in our control either. But what about the things in our control? We discriminate against each other on every imaginable aspect. "Oh you belong to this caste?" "Come on, you have not visited Europe? Not even once? Seriously?" "You like Justin Bieber?" (trying to keep a straight face) "Most of the #### language people are generally ####" We judge. We discriminate. Its inherent to us, ingrained in us. The thing we should aspire for,  is to consciously make an effort to think otherwise. There is a pani puri shop in the road corner. Sure...

On the way from office to home... A young Muslim woman wearing red stilettos beneath black burqa, crosses path with a middle aged uncle wearing formal pants and sports shoes. A political party hoarding (with the mandatory faces of 50 supporters) wishing the citizens of a happy St.Mary's Feast and Ganesha Festival. The trees decorated with cheap pamphlets that read "Web site and software development". The same trees that accommodated "Work Part Time/Full Time - SSLC/PUC/Degree - Pass/Fail" and "Lose Weight, Gain Weight in 30 days" not so long ago. Three cobblers working tirelessly, right next to one of the biggest malls in India. A brand new SUV and a rusty "No Parking" sign sharing a quiet moment, escaping the watchful eyes of "Police Maama". Street dogs having a peaceful nap, blissfully oblivious of the chilly weather and the noisy vehicles. A "40 p / 60 p" Xerox shop, sandwiched between an "A/C Multi-...

If you happen to be a Kannadiga, the chances of "Muktha Muktha" being a part of your life somehow is inevitable. Though nowhere near T N Seetharam's previous creations, it is still the best Kannada serial by a long shot - and that explains why it is the opium of my dad's generation; to me, its something you end up watching while having dinner, and more importantly an opportunity to make a video :) This is the first time I have recorded something at a professional setup. The recording was done at Janasri studios, and the entire team was so helpful and encouraging, they could not have made an amateur's first attempt any smoother. Thanks a lot folks!

Been meaning to record this from a long time. Upendra films and Hidden symbolism. This video is in Kannada, due to the nature of the content. Non-Kannadiga peoples, pliss excuse! If you liked this, please send it to 15 people within 20 mins...or else... If you dont like this, the blame should entirely go to my old Canon SD 400 camera.

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...

It is quite funny reading the expert opinions and predictions leading to the World Cup. Scene of the crime: Some sports channel One of the experts starts off: “India are very strong contenders to win the World Cup. And don’t forget, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Australia can also fancy their chances. Pakistan and West Indies, though unpredictable, can topple any team on their day”. The commentator is not too different from all those TV astrologers we love to ridicule. Some ex-cricketer joins the fun: “I agree India are a very strong side. Especially at home. The crowd will get behind the team and act as the 12th man. This encouragement should spur them up” Another one (someone whose qualifications for being on the panel are unknown) disagrees: “Indian team has the expectation of a billion fans. They should make sure they don’t get pressurized. Since this is a long tournament, they should guard themselves against injuries” (I know there are more than a billion Indians, but I am...

We had a great vacation at Rajasthan last week. I will not be writing in detail about the places, since wikitravel does a better job at that. I will just jot down some of my experiences/thoughts during this trip. *** The first thing that strikes you once you are in Rajasthan is the "color". Blood red, dark pink, bright yellow, vibrant hues of blue and green - you feel as though they finished playing holi just before you arrived. It seems the people here, with their dressing sense, art and music, more than compensate for the arid, barren, vast spaces of nothingness. It is one place in the world where you can wear the gaudiest Govinda dress without the fear of a fashion faux pas. *** Color is very important to a Rajasthani. They have different colors for different occasions - the birth of a child, the mourning of a death, the ending of a mourning, for holi, for diwali. Innumerable types of turbans are worn, each distinctly representing the wearer's caste, sub caste, the reg...

Can you remember the first French word you had learnt? I can. Let me take a guess about you, was it "Bonjour", "Monsieur", "Mademoiselle", "Au Revoir"? If you say yes, I can safely assume that you were the novel-reading types and you must have read these in a dozen fiction novels where the protagonist travels all over Europe trying to escape from KGB, MI6, CIA or trying to uncover some deadly conspiracy against all odds. I am equally sure that you would have pronounced them in your mind like how you would pronounce an English word. Only later, you would have known that "Mademoiselle" sounds like "memmozee" or "au revoir" sounds like "avva". If you were not the novel-reading types, in the post-cable-tv-pre-Internet era, there was only one way to get your basic French education - Fashion TV. You had to tolerate horrendously dressed zombies to catch a rare episode of Rio Carnival. I need not say that most of...

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 really surprised why no one has coined the term "Plogging" till now. In case you are wondering what the hell that is, it just means P arent-B logging . I am always surprised that, in my grandparents' generation having a dozen kids was the norm, that too when many had hand-to-mouth existence. My father jokingly tells that its because that was the only form of entertainment in those days. Some experts strongly believe that the late emergence of Plogging is the main reason for population explosion at that time. Imagine if a person had to blog about his half a dozen kids, he surely would not have the bandwidth (not the internet one!) to reach the dozen mark! *** Since blogging itself is around a decade old, the average age of Momma/Pappa blogs would be around 5 years at the most. Many parent bloggers right now will be blogging about their first kid. Will they be as enthusiastic to blog about their second kid? More importantly,will the parents at some point stop writing p...

I saw this at the MG Road - Brigade Road Junction. He is the president of "Karnataka Tamil Bhasha Kannadigara Sangha". Can it get any complicated than this? P.S: For some weird reason, the image is not displayed in blog, but is appearing properly in RSS Reader and Email. Here is the link to the image : Nobody commented that they are not able to see the image.   It means no one is visiting my blog now or everyone has switched to RSS / Email subscription!

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...

Goa is perhaps my most favorite vacation spot in India. Many think that Goa is only for people who booze or love sea food or party animals. But you can enjoy Goa equally if you love flea markets, the churches, museums, the sea, the sand, the sunsets, the pancakes at the beach shacks...! This was our first trip post marriage where we decided not to approach a travel agent. One, obviously the financial constraint and two, we wanted a sense of adventure and unexpected. So I started doing what only eminent scientists and nobel aspirants did a few decades back. R&D! I was at my maniacal best of clicking through links, gathering info and preparing an itinerary. After searching over a hundred options, we decided to stay at Candolim. But no amount of R&D will stop you from getting surprised by gems like these. "Original Fakes" - actually saw the same name in two shops! Tuk Tuk Cab Rickshaw Stand Transport When buses are very infrequent, autos unavailable in most pl...

Believe me when I say this, I had not gone to this movie to nitpick. No! I was expecting a nice little film, if not anything path breaking. I remember reading R.Balki's interview, where he had mentioned this. He had been to Amitabh's office one day and there he saw Abhishek getting all wise and parent-ish while Amitabh was very child like. This made him think how would it be if Abhishek plays Amitabh's dad. This is where my friends, like it happens not too rarely, an interesting one line idea fails to shape into a full length feature film. If role reversal was the only thing, a decade back Balki could have casted Dimple as Twinkle's daughter or Esha Deol as Hemamalini's mom. *** SPOILERS ALERT *** Any film that has Jaya Bachchan acting all Guddi-ish, reading credits with fake sweetness is a huge turn off. But I told myself not to get too influenced by this little gimmick. The next scene where the MP Amol (Abhishek) arrives at a school to judge the Vision of India co...

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.

There are two reasons why this movie might run away with the worst movie of the year - one, obviously its horrendous and two, its terribly long. During all the Hurman - Priyanka interactions, I was initially shocked by the amount of screen time Hurman's face was getting. Soon I realized that its because the camera was always behind Priyanka's almost bare back. I was half expecting Joe Pesci to pop up from somewhere and yell - "Wanna know my raashee? I dont know, you should #&*$ing know. Tell me smart guy, whats your raashee? Whats your #&*$ing raashee? What the #&*$ is your #&*$ing raashee?" or something on those lines. The greatest achievement is this movie proved that Bollywood can come up with 12 different names for a girl - yes, who was that idiot who said there are no names other than Pooja, Sanjana, Tina, Simran and Anjali. 2-5-1-6-3-4 <-- Tarantino         1-11-3-7-4-5-8-6-12-2-9-10 <-- Gowarikar You must be thinkin...

Everyone in the world wants a Google Wave invite. 9 out of 10 have no clue why they want Wave in the first place (I am the eighth one in that ;) ) Its just the hype of limited invites that did the trick I guess - kind of online Macguffin. Half an hour into using Wave, I feel that its like enhanced Google Docs with chat, having iGoogle interface. Not at all sure how its gonna be useful to me. The reason why I actually wrote this is not to "review" Wave, but to share something interesting. Like all beta products from Google, here is a nice error page. I could not find this image anywhere on the net, so I can proclaim like the 24/7 news channels - you saw this first here! :)