A must watch movie. Highly commendable. It is unfortunate that many people who have watched this movie consider it an imperfect remake of Cheran’s epic Thavamaai Thavamirundhu. In my opinion, that is the sort of preconception, borne of an urge to describe new things in the light of those familiar to us that can – and [...]
Terror attacks bring with them the incurable romantics who eulogize the living while mourning the dead. Perhaps with a view to instil confidence and hope, they overdo their part. Journalistic license, if you may. As in the case of Suketu Mehta in today’s Op-Ed page in the New York Times: In other cities, if there’s [...]
The most predictable of all the reactions to the standoff in Mumbai, now into its third, and seemingly final day now is the “Let’s go get those responsible for this” refrain. This is an approach that has neither worked in the past nor has a chance of working in the future. Counter-terrorism studies in the [...]
Cheap might mean inexpensive. It also means mean. I’m convinced it also means Airtel. Here is an ad that appeared in my Gmail Inbox a while ago. (Click on the image to enlarge it.) The ad is (presumably) run by Airtel, but the anchor text reads “Reliance User Call India”. Isn’t it outrageous to advertise one’s [...]
You remember Sagarika Ghose, don’t you? That newscaster who thinks of herself as an authority, especially on matters on which she has no competence whatsoever. She got her comeuppance from Ram Jethmalani this past week. Ms. Ghose, in attempting to push Mr. Jethmalani into a corner for his decision to defend Manu Sharma in the [...]
Continue reading about Ram Jethmalani to Sagarika Ghose: “Bullshit!”
According to a new study, happy people do not spend a lot of time watching TV. This is quite true in India, right? How can you be happy if you spend your time watching tear-jerking soaps all day?
While it is great to know that Mr. Anand Giridharadas finds his life’s calling in the country that his parents left to seek a better life, it would have been much better had he not jotted down his experiences with the kind of snobbishness that makes one wonder if second generation Indian Americans still believe that [...]
I have been dabbling with Facebook Ads for some time for a class project, and I thought about jotting down some of my experiences. Facebook Ads v/s Google AdWords The first question that arises whenever you thrown in a new product into a crowded field with established products is “How does it compare?” In this [...]
While I’m personally opposed to the US Government bailing out the Big Three automakers, I find one line of reasoning ridiculous. It runs something like this Should taxpayers in Alabama be required to bail out automakers whose plants are concentrated in Northern states like Michigan and Ohio? So when Louisiana, a Southern state, is hit [...]
Yuvan Shankar Raja, Ilaiyaraja’s second son, is (probably) the heir to Raja’s throne. Along with A.R. Rahman and Harris Jayaraj, he is one of the top three contemporary music directors in Tamil. His partnerships with the current crop of movie directors – Selvaraghavan (they have fallen out now), Vishnuvardhan, Venkat Prabhu, Ameer and Simbhu – [...]
I just noticed that the three browsers that I use all have two-word names, and the words are of equal length. Google Chrome (both words are 6 letters long) Mozilla Firefox (7) Internet Explorer (8) Not inspired by XKCD: Fixed Width
A couple of months ago, when I first downloaded Google Chrome, I was skeptical about whether I would use it at all. I’m (was) a Firefox junkie, and have a number of addons installed, and I love the Firefox experience. I was of the opinion that with its vibrant developer community, Firefox had the “network [...]
The Hindu reports that Mool Chand Sharma, the Vice-Chairperson of the UGC, speaking at the convocation of the Madurai Kamaraj University, has expressed that globalisation has led to cut-throat competition and lack of morals. I must say this guy is funny. “Speaking on the theme ‘Globalisation, global market-economy and global co-operation: Human Development in 21st [...]
News from Chennai is that L.K. Advani, BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate, met with Rajnikanth at his Poes Garden house yesterday. And speculation is rife that this might signal Rajnikanth’s arasiyal pravesam. My opinion is that Rajni should keep out of politics, even campaigning. And that too, not for the BJP, which has proved during the [...]
You might have heard about Godwin’s Law: “As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. The desi version of it is “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a someone being called a male chauvinist or a communal element approaches one.”
“You can buy presents; you can even buy futures. But you cannot buy pasts!”
There are some songs that are older than you are. And when you listen to them for the first time, you wonder what you were doing all your life. As if your existence would have otherwise been incomplete, or could not be justified. Here is one such song.
I kicked into into my manic movie-watching mode this weekend. I had written about my admiration for Sila Nerangalil Sila Manithargal. So I read about a 2008 movie titled Sila Nerangalil, and it was advertised as a love thriller. And opting to watch it is my biggest mistake this season. Basically, the folks behind this [...]
As the 2008 movie Vellithirai (itself a very good movie) opens, a voice-over laments, “Though Tamil cinema is 75 years old, it is hard for a Tamilian to point out 75 top-class movies made in Tamil.” Well, if anyone ventured to compile such a list, I am certain he / she would place both Sila Nerangalil Sila [...]
In writing about Thirumazhisai Aazhwar’s “கிடந்தவாறு எழுந்திருந்து பேசு வாழி கேசனே” verse, I had stated that this is something that people instantly recall when they think of the SArangapANi / ArAvamudhan temple. But that is not the only verse that is intimately associated with the sacred temple town. In the classic book, “Hindu Dharma” (Tamil original: தெய்வத்தின் [...]
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