Sunday, August 28, 2011

Anna Hazare's Triumph.. India's Triumph

Anna Hazare broke his 12 days fast on the 13th day (today) at around 10.30 AM or so after the UPA govt kind of agreed to his draft of the Lok Pal bill with conditions attached (see how many constraints I've to put in a simple sentence when I talk of our government taking any steps)

Anyways Anna's triumph is not that he got the government's consensus but the sheer amount of  unstinting support he got from across the country, nay across the whole world . We are talking about millions and millions of Indians.
Chennai, which is generally not known for coming out in masses to support many things, but we had people fasting right along with Anna right down my road, in a park.

This kind of mass approval was last seen probably before 1947 when we thronged out to fight for our independence against the British. While that was mostly an non-violent crowd too, there were still some leaders who were not against violence to gain the freedom.

But now for 12 whole days the entire country came to fight for their freedom from the UPA .. er.. from corruption in absolute peace. Not even when Anna was arrested was their any unrest.
 Some news channels were saying that there were a great deal of rowdy elements in the the Ram Lila grounds and violence was just waiting to erupt at any minute. But we never saw any evidence of it.
What a sight it was! I could not be more proud to be an Indian. :-)

Even better and better is that for the detractors, (sorry to say, some of whom are my own friends) who were saying nothing will happen and India will never improve and all that Bull Sh*t, this is a pie in the face. I am small enough to feel quite gleeful about it hehehe.


Ratnakaradhautapadam Himalyakirtitinim
Brahmarajarsiratnamdhyam vande Bharatamataram 

Meaning :
I pay my obeisance to mother Bharat, whose feet are being a washed by the ocean, who wears the mighty Himalaya as her crown, and who is exuberantly adorned with the gems of traditions set by Brahmarishis and Rajarishis.
.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Not another call!

Was at an important meeting at work and the whole one hour I was getting call after call from this number and I kept cutting it. Must have been about 7-8 missed calls. Finally the meeting was over and I get the next call from the same number. Worried now, I hurriedly cut my conversation I was having with my boss to attend it.

The caller: Hello! Is this Sanjana?
Me: Yes! yes! What happened?
The caller: Ma'am I am calling from CitiBank. Would you like our credit card?
Me: X-( grrrrr!

My first weird fone call of this morning is actually a set of calls

1st call: Ma'am I am calling from citi Bank. Would you like our credit card?
Me (Politely): No, Thanks I am not interested

Half hour later
2nd call: Ma'am I am calling from citi Bank. Would you like our credit card?
Me (Not so politely): I already said I am not interested. Could you please have my number removed from your database

Hardly 15 minutes later
3rd caller: Ma'am I am calling from citi Bank. Would you like our credit card?
Me (totally annoyed): Would you guys stop annoying me calling every 10 minutes. I am not interested in your credit card, after this morning I will never be interested in your bank. Either remove my number from your database or let me know who I should contact to get it permanently removed.
3rd Caller: Yes Ma'am. I am sorry for the convenience ..(I am getting a little appeased here).. But Ma'am may I know why you would not be interested in our credit card, we have so many features. Can I take a little of your time to explain them.
Me: (Giving up just cut the call)

An hour or so later I get another call. I am thinking if I should not attend the call, but curiosity got the better of me and I did.

Me: Hello
The caller: Is this Sanjana from ABC school
Me: What?
The Caller: Is this Sanjana who studied in ABC school
Me: Who is this?
The caller: First tell me if you are Sanjana
Me: Hello, this is ridiculous, you call me, you wont even tell me who you are and you expect me to answer you?
The caller: I am SR's mother, you both studied in the same school remember?
(Was totally puzzled. I have not had any contact with SR, who was actually my college mate,  in over 8 years and I had seen her mother probably twice all those years ago)
Me: Uh!.. oh! yes Aunty, Hello, How are you?
The caller: I am fine ma, How are you? I didn't call you for any specific reason
Me: Oh! ( As you can see, I get very loquacious when I am clueless)
The caller: I was cleaning my house and found SR's old phone book and found your number. So I thought I will call and see if you still have the same number
Me: Oh?
(Then started a third degree interrogation of my life the last few years, most of which I frantically tried to dodge and a little of boasting about SR's accomplishments which I probably answered smartly with an "Oh!")
After 15 minutes, she told me again that she didnt have any specific reason to call me and hung up.
I am still a little dizzy.
Can people really be this jobless?

Maybe I should change my mobile number. The problem with retaining a number for almost a decade is that too many people have it.

Bedardi Raja

Hey, How many of you saw the movie Delhi Belly? You must have seen and heard this song, then. But check out this video of Bedardi Raja with Sona Mohapatra in it singing (I think they call it the Grind Mix).  The lady looks so cool in her sari and guitar and a very nice voice too.
The first time I heard the song I was not all that impressed. But when I saw this video.. I Like!

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

And Life otherwise...


*Phew* Now that's out. How are you all? whats news?

I have had a very eventful (and expensive) few days

 #  For one I've got a brand new Laptop. I am over the trees about it. Great config and even better price. The only fly in my ointment is that the laptop is sitting in Singapore now and will reach me only by next month :-(


#  Been buying books like they are going out of fashion from Flipkart. Like books were not enough they are selling all kindsa electronics too. I almost bought a camera just because of the great deal, but thankfully stopped before going over board.

# Hazel says that her new Kindle was the best buy she has had in some time. Now I am tempted. Especially for a person like me... sigh! do I or do I not

#  Bought coupla great saris.. cant wait to try them on.

#  Looking forward to my trip to Guruvayoor, maybe I will find time to go to the Athirapalli falls. Saw fotos of the falls... they sure beat the Niagara during its peak season.

hmm! old age or amnesia.. not sure, but I seem to have forgotten half the things I wanted to share.. More when I remember :-)

Principles - BAH!

This is a total Rant

Rant 1
Yesterday I had a call from my head honcho saying I had not completed something. Since I was outside of work and this new head honcho had put the fear of god in all of us, I totally freaked.

So I called a reportee and asked him if could verify if I had completed it, he promptly refused saying it was against company norms and all that blah.. well! while it irritated me and got me into trouble, I could respect him for standing on his principles.
Today I ask him to charge an hour extra since we will be attending a meeting at the end of the week and he again refuses because he would be coming in late. OK, Good!
I tell him to come an hour early and then charge correctly and he is now ok with charging extra without working those hours. hmph!!! I ask you, what happened to Mr. I-am-goody-goody?

Rant 2
This is another self processed rules ramanujam. (only I might have to turn into anniyan to eradicate them :-P)
He always acts like he has never veered from the straight and narrow.
To boot he gave me lip when I asked him to do something just so.
Already being in a sweet mood, I started cross checking his records and what do I find?
Mister rules ramanujam is not walking in the quite so straight and narrow path after all.
And so when I started questioning him on it, he did a disappearing act on me.

Hypocrites! Every one of them! Bah Humbug! (There! I sound just like scrooge)

Friday, August 12, 2011

Lucky me!

Sometimes I think I am lucky to have been born in this particular time, especially when I get to hear songs like the ones below, by artists like Chitra, Sudha Ragunathan, MS and KJY.
When they say music has no boundaries or language they (whoever they were) knew what they were talking about.
But its not just the music or the singing but the composition and its simple but beautiful meaning.

For example in the first song below, Enna Thavam Seithanai, by Papanasam Sivan in Kaapi raga.

 The first charanam (stanza) goes
bhramanum indranum manadil porAmai koLLa
uralil kaTTi vAi pottik-kenjavaittAi kannanai (enna thavam..)

Which translates to something like
"Even as Lord Brahma and Indra look on with jealousy in their hearts
you have got the Lord Krishna tied, gagged and begging [...for his mischief] (oh mother! what penance you must have done)"


Enna Thavam Seithanei Yashoda (What penance you must have done, Yashoda)


Kanda naal muthalai kathal peruguthadi (Since the day I saw [Lord Muruga] my love has been increasing)


Asainthu aadum mayil (When I see a dancing peacock, it seems to be telling me that our Krishna has come)


Kurai Ondrum Illai (I don't have any problems) Sigh! MS! Need I say more


Harivarasanam By KJY (And finishing it off with Mangalam)

Sunday, August 07, 2011

Sunday Evenings!!!

Is there anything more torturous than a slow Sunday evening with nothing on the telly and no new books and only work to look forward too?
I think I hate Sunday evenings more than even Monday mornings.

And there seems to be a telly conspiracy that only the boring-est programs and movies must be telecast on Sunday evenings.

Weather conspiring against us with drizzles

My family and I are going slowly crazy and if we survive, catch you next week.

Oh! and a Very Happy Friendship day!!!

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

Random Movie Thoughts!

=> Never claimed to be a fashion Diva, but I do know what's aesthetically pleasing. I don't know who died and made Sonam Kapoor the fashion expert of Bollywood. The woman's dressing is frightening and weird. The oily skin, dark eye make up, goofy hair.. *shudder*. If I wanted to frighten any kid with "poochandi" I will probably show her photo.

=> Have you noticed that the trend nowadays is that as soon as an actor/actress debuts they are touted as the next best thing to sliced bread and they get all these awards and what not.
A case in point is Sonakshi Sinha. She acted in all of 1 movie.  And she must have had about 10 lines of dialogue and probably 2-3 songs in that movie. But her acting was praised to high heavens and according to wikipedia she got a dozen awards for her role in it and was nominated for whatever was left over. Puhlease! are not people supposed to prove their mettle before they get these awards?
Dharmendra, who is called the he-man of Hindi cinemas, got hardly any awards in all his years in the industry. Are these people claiming that these here-now-and-gone-in-a -second actors are better than him? hmph!

=> Saw Deivathirumagal and only then realized it was remake of Main Aisa hi hoon. I kind of liked the hindi version to the tamil one. But Vikram has done a good job, can probably watch once.

=> I am awed at my high tolerance for pain. Saw Singham..fully. When the movie came in Tamil, I had blogged saying that it was an insult to Suriya and Prakash Raj's acting ability. But the Hindi version is an insult... period.