Friday, July 30, 2010

Murals in Singara Chennai

Have you yet seen the walls of RajBhavan? They are all getting painted with Murals depicting Tamil culture and places of interest in TamilNadu.Its beautiful. There is just this one oldish guy mixing paints every morning, I cross by that area.
Every morning and evening I look with great eagerness for the progress he has made. The guy is truly talented. Some of his paintings have this 3D effect, that you feel like you can walk into it.
The best part is ofcourse that no one would be sticking posters or painting graffiti over something that beautiful and It helps that they are a pure visual pleasure.

I understand our government got the idea from Bangalore. And it has been implemented all over Chennai.

Speaking of graffiti, there is a whole slew of walls on the Five furlong road, that connects from vellachery bypass to guindy, that contains paintings of a politician. While that painter is no doubt talented too, there is a particular painting of this politician with his mouth open and right beside a painting of a snarling leopard. While I am sure we are supposed to understand that the idiot is like a snarling leopard or whatever, the painting never fails to crack me up.

I wish the Raj Bhavan guy would finish here soon and paint up that wall next.

PS: Hmm!!! I really need to take some photos of those murals.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Insults

These insults are from an era before the English language boiled down to
4-letter words. Got it as a forward. Couldn't resist putting it up here:-)


The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor:
She said, “If you were my husband I’d give you poison.”
He said, “If you were my wife, I’d drink it.”
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A Member of Parliament to Disraeli: “Sir, you will either die on the
gallows or of some unspeakable disease.”
“That depends, Sir,” said Disraeli, “whether I embrace your policies or
your mistress.”
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“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” -
Winston Churchill
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“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great
pleasure.” Clarence Darrow
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“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the
dictionary.” - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).
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“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading
it.” - Moses Hadas
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“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved
of it.” - Mark Twain
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“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” - Oscar
Wilde
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“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a
friend … if you have one.” - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
“Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second … if there is
one.” - Winston Churchill, in response.
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“I feel so miserable without you; it’s almost like having you here.” -
Stephen Bishop
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“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.” - John Bright
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“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.”
- Irvin S. Cobb
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“He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.” -
Samuel Johnson
===
“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.” - Paul Keating
===
“In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.” -
Charles, Count Talleyrand
===
Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?”
- Mark Twain
===
“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.” - Mae West
===
“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.” -
Oscar Wilde
===
“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts … for support rather
than illumination.” - Andrew Lang (1844 – 1912)
===
“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.” - Billy Wilder
===
“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.” - Groucho
Marx
===

Weird news

We humans are such weird creatures

=> This guy's pet tarantula (why would any sane man want to have a pet giant spider is beyond me) threw some hair like mist at his face in a natural defense mechanism and he now has eye problems. The doctors have suggested that all people with pet tarantulas use protective eye gear when they are near it.

=> This person was adviced that his pet python????????????? was getting ready to have him for dinner.

=> This dog was choking and they found human fingers in his throat.

=> This one is really weird. This guy buys a cactus for hundreds of dollars and then pays a few more hundred at the customs, and when he finally gets it home, it starts shivering. There were .. *music* 100s of tarantulas or some such spiders growing inside the cactii getting ready to burst out and kill..


=> This lady sold 2 ghosts and made a mint. She had caught the ghosts of an old man and young girl and stuffed them in two vials. A company actually bought it and are now wondering what to do with it.. hmm!!!! talk about bottled spirits.

=> Beware of cute litle dogs that follow you, when u go to any sea shore during your vacation. This is most probably a huge rat, that you mistook for a dog.


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Thursday, July 01, 2010

Mahabharath meets God Father

I know! I know! I have always maintained never to write about movies or books, coz lets face it I really suck at it.

But I could not resist.
In the last couple of days I saw Rajneeti and Singam (or should I say asingam *smirk*)

Yep. Rajneeti was the Mahabharath meets God Father. I have not liked Ranbir kapoor in any of his romantic avatars so far. He just rubs me wrong. (Am I going to be shot for this blasphemy?)

Anyways as an arrogant, know-it-all, strong, silent, manipulative user he comes across so naturally in this movie. I really liked him.
And once the movie was done, I rushed to get my copy of the God father to read it again. It was such a nostalgic pull to read about Michael Corleone
Katrina's character was kinda vague and slightly spineless. I loved Nana patekar though. So calm and collected and always smiling, whether he is encouraging one nephew to kill another or throwing his sister's baby into the river.

Despite my predisposition to find it boring, Rajneeti was a surprisingly interesting movie.

On the other hand, Singam!!!! what a movie!!!
When I fast forwarded the songs, the fight sequences and the so-called comedy (its sad to see how pathetic Vivek has become), the actual movie lasted about 20 minutes.

Small town police man comes to Chennai to clean the dirty polluted city and kill the bad man, played quite predictably by Prakash Raj.

Now and then I had to stare at Surya just to make sure I was not seeing Vijay.

You could literally see Surya and Prakash Raj yawn through the whole movie. It was such an insult to their talent. Wonder why they agreed to it. Hmm! maybe it as an easy means of making money and not have to work too hard histrionically.

But can we blame them? I have not seen any movies under the Sun Pictures and their cousins’ banners that are worth writing home about. The heroines change and the hero remains or the hero changes and the heroines are constant. But whatever changes or remains, the story line (for the lack of a better word) is always the same. Sigh!!!

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