The Man , a prophecy which came true

Irwing Wallace wrote the engrossing novel "The Man" on 1963. Its the story of the most unexpected man on earth becoming the most powerful man on earth. It is the story of Douglas Dillman, a black and the Senate President (pro tempore - which means temporary) and 4 th in line for the presidency becoming the president of the united states of america because all the previous 3 are incapacitated and the actual senate president post is vacant and is filled by this senator for the time being.

The novel then covers how america is coming to terms to the idea of a black president and his trials and tribulations.

Irwing wallace did not dream about a black president not even in his wildest dreams. Thats why he wrote this fiction to try to imagine how this impossible event would play out when nobody dared to think about that.

After 45 years, one movie and teleserial....
It became true. It took the americans two wars, an imminent collapse of the wall street - the symbol of the market capitalism, 8 years of stupidity, a divided world to shed the notion of color and select the "Messaih of Hope",Barack Hussaien Obama as the 44 th president of the United States and the prophecy came true.

I hope that Mr.President does not have to suffer the same as Douglas Dillman. Lets see what he can do...

The sunset which came in that Indian Autumn ....

Ganguly and Kumble : Chalk and Cheese
They can add this analogy to any English text book. Two different personalities, two different characters but one unflinching goal -> to see India win. These two stalwarts did everything in their capacity to see that happening for the past 13-18 odd years. Some times that included taking your shirt off and mouthing four letter words, bandaging your jaw so that it will not drop off in the middle of the pitch, trying to bring the cricketing spirits which were not there with at most dignity. If some body asks to define these two people in one word , i would say "dignity" to kumble and "passion" for ganguly. One is a trained mechanical engineer by profession and had to work hard for everything and the other did born with a golden spoon. The "God of offside" had everything in life. But what unites these two spirits is their commitment to the game and they served it well. Adieu...
It is kinda sad to see them go but inevitable though. Thanks for everything you have done.
Very few people get the chance to ride into the sunset... We just saw a couple of heroes doing that. This indian autumn is fortunate to have that sunset...

Beautiful turn...

So many things , at the same time. Life suddenly started happening.
Don't know how to explain too. Just basking on the experience fully. But life certainly have taken a beautiful turn. It all started with India winning the second test, Sachin's record breaking stint, Kumble retiring, M.Vijay's debut, Ganguly's hundred and excellent run in the series and then his retirement and to crown that india's series win. Then sabari got married.Abhay's progress with his Ph.D thesis for which he has worked hard for 6 years, Obama win and then
"IT" happened...
All in a fortnight ... So many good things ....

Pandavas ... Explained

In mahabharata, the pandavas were the embodiment of 5 important qualities which helped them to win against the evil. They are

Yudhistrar - Dharma
Bheema - Strength
Arjuna - Unwavering focus
Sahadeva - Knowledge and skill
Nakula - Gentleness and warmth under all circumstances

They had the divine grace with them in the form of Krishna and without which their qualities would not have bore fruits. It is the divine which helped them defeat the evil kauravas.

Keep the Magik alive ... rock on

Life is a magic isn't it ? It throws the most unexpected thing at the unexpected moment. RockOn!! is a movie which symbolizing that fluidity. The band, the dreams, the love , the moments all down the drain in one moment... And then going through the motions of life as zombies with whatever life has thrown on them. Then one fine day , the most unexpected person , the wife who is not part of the past senses something wrong with farhan and digs deep and as life would have it, it throws the friends back together. Then what happens... MagiK

Magic with a K. Are not we all see ourselves in them ?. Some times not doing what we really love to do. Isn't it? Life is just that MagiK Hat , We might not like what we get out if all the times.

Keep the magik alive....
No matter what, as you know, the hat might throw that dream on you again...
Go watch RockOn!! for some cool music and for those reminiscing moments of life which we might have left back ....

Saroja , Movie review

Very different movie altogether. Good comedy. No heroes , that was a big relief. Good comedy and narration. Story is very predictable but handling is good. Slick editing and nice songs. Must Watch. Venkat Prabhu has proved that he is not a one movie wonder. Keep it up.

Have we dropped of our balls ?

So now the operation BAD is completed successfully. What next ? Our Prime minister (Puppet Man) singhji and our internal affairs minister Mr.Shivraj Patil will issue the usual rhetoric of "calm and sensible manners these hard times" (which means do not venture out, stay put in your home,close down the malls,close down the cinema halls etc) while they both would be busy doing household chores of so called "Sonia Antonia Maina" to score brownie points. What kind of a government is this ? Where is the action ? It was conveyed by the Gujarat Police to the government of India, the NSA, the delhi police that NCR would be the next target. What kind of action have been taken on this piece of intelligence?

Is it really run by men? I have only one question to Mr.Shivraj patil. Have you dropped off your balls ? If you can not secure the basic security of the citizens of this country, get the hell out your post. DO NOT GIVE your SECULAR BULLSHIT. ACT on these Islamic terrorists. The patience of the average citizen is running out. If you do not act on this, the people of india would soon. If NSA is ok with it , then why not bring back POTA or some tough acts of law ?. What is being done to improve the intelligence infrastructure ?

When this government is going to stop the illegal immigration from bangladesh? Why dont these muslims stay in their own MUSLIM country? Isn't a paradise on earth? What has this government done to stop that ? It does not do anything because the congress government wants to increase their muslim vote bank. Cheap and yuckkie. Are not they a burden on our economy. If we are not able to provide to our own people , whats the point of taking in these illegal immigrants ? By the look of it , soon Mr.Shivrat patel would be booted out of the office.

Back

Have not blogged for some time. Was plainly lazy at first and then had met an accident and then my broadband died... Now back. Lots of things to update. It is also nice know that i am getting requests to write. Will make it a point to satisfy their reading cravings on a regular basis. Lots of things come to mind when i think about writing.
Some politics, indian history, sprituality, yoga, technology, books, movies ... the unending list. I am also doing some research on the history of india, kashmir issue, nuclear agreement et al. So expect some series of blog articles soon.

I also got an invite from Abhay to do some guest blogging. He wants me to start a series on indian history. Lemme see what i can do about it.


I came to know about the death of Dr.Randy Paush today. I was sad for a moment. He is a great guy. I checked his site about his health on july first week and then had a hunch that this guy would survive and stopped checking it out. He passed away in the last week of july. When i think about this guy, one thirukural comes to my mind.

"Thonrin Pugazodu thonruga Agthilar
Thonralin Thonramai Nanru ! "

Links to Randy Paush videos
The last lecture
Time management
Inspiring Graduates

These videos are also available for free with Itunes Stores. So you can download it to your Apple devices also.

Good Fellas ....

Goodfellas ...
Another Martin Scorsese master piece. What is the funda behind Robert De Niro delivering his high octane performances again and again for Martin ? All of their associations have brought the best in both of them. Martin as usual delivers his best at what he does best, "The gangster movie". This movie is about the real life story of the Italian mafioso. (Why all the famous gangsters are Italian and mainly Sicilian ? Gotta research that ... may be another blog entry. :) )

The funniest moment in the movie
On their wedding day, with the whole new york mafioso present

Karen Hill : "The bag... , the bag with all the money ...
Henry Hill : "Oh! no, nothing would happen to that... " :) (At this point karen does not know about Henry's profession)

Martin has followed the real history and the book "Wise guy" by henry hill mostly in the movie with some creative liberty taken here and there. The only thing he did not even go into in this movie is about the affair between Karen and Tommy which happened in real life when Henry was serving his sentence.

The movie is just brutal otherwise. Great performances by all. Hats off to martin, who was denied one more Oscar for this movie... Atlast he was awarded Oscar with "The departed" for more than to erase the embarrassment of the academy. They did not want to commit the same mistake they did with Hitchcock. It is really an embarrassing detail to note that with 5 Oscar nominations and with all his movies in the top 100 all time horror/supense movies, Alfred Hitchcock never won the coveted award...

Incredible Hulk : Review

Saw "Incredible Hulk" at PVR (free tickets on Wednesdays :) ) . Just another Hollywood assembly line action movie. Nothing great about this but certainly not a waster either. Action was good, logic was very bad. (like the russian army officer aka villain wearing american army uniform) . The graphics is very decent. Edward norton has carried off his role well. Liv Taylor was oscillating between bad and pathetic. Only the hulk was a saving grace. It was nice to see Tony Stark aka iron man coming at the end of the movie...
Does Marvel Comics going to try some superhero mashups ? The Iron man and the incredible hulk saving the world together ?
Some of the best scenes of the movie are coming in the first half and shot in brazil. No one has taken a closer look than this movie other than "Man on fire"


2.5 STARS / 5 STARS

Gambling and movies ....

I recently saw 3 movies related to gambling using blackjack. "Rounders", "21" and "Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels". All the three were highly or decently rated by imdb. The best of the lot is "lock stock and two smoking barrels". The plot of the movie is amazing. Even though the end was expected, the director keeps you glued by making you think how he is going to achieve that.

21 and rounders were more of life tales. Both of them ponders more about the brilliance of the protagonist and their emotions. Matt Damon was simply brilliant in rounders. This is one of his best performances and lies next to his Oscar script "Good Will Hunting" which he won for writing the script rather than acting :( . Its a pity that this guy who emotes very subtly is yet to be on that coveted list.


My brush with gambling started pretty early. I used to play "Lotto" a lot when i was in 5 th standard. I played for some three continuous summers. I started with 25 paise lotto tickets and ended with 5 rupee stakes when i stopped playing. I even ran a lotto company then. Ran even partnerships. If i think about them now, it was an amazing ride. I picked up a lot of business sense, things about honesty etc... Having a big family and lot of family friends really helped. Every family gathering , functions always ended with playing Tambola aka Lotto late into the night...
Golden days :)

The kalam effect... Review

I bought this book at Crosswords, chennai. Took the book to the Brio cafe inside crossword and read the whole book in 1.5 hours. The book is written by Shri. P.M.Nair , who was the secretary to Dr.APJ.Abdul Kalam when he was president. The book gives the insider information about a lot of events happened in those 5 years. It sheds light on the humane side of a great individual, scientist and a patriot to the core.

Some of the incidents are very touching. Like this one...

One small girl from Agra written to the president saying that " Uncle we have only one park in our city and in that park, only one swing and that swing is not working for the past 10 days and nobody cares. Please see to that it is repaired" . A very humble, silly request from just another citizen of this country.

If some one else was there in that position as Dr.Kalam was, this letter would not even have reached the desk and directly to the trash. But because it was Dr.Kalam , it reached his desk , read upon, action taken. The swing was repaired very soon.
The girl replied to him and thanked him.

If only we had more people like Dr.Kalam manning the north and south blocks in delhi.....


The book is very readable and a good one. I would give * * * stars out of five

Chennai Trip

Went to chennai for the weekend after a long break . I usually avoid the summer time to visit chennai for obvious reasons. I thought the weather would be nice at this time of the year. Man , i was wrong. It was very humid,hot even when it is raining. The roads get clogged or muddied all through the city. It was nice time with shankar and family. I started missing Gokul already even with all of his idiosyncrasies. We compensated that with a long 2 hour conference call along with shekar. I was in landmark all the time and speaking to them.

One major difference i found between chennai and bengaluru is "Courtesy". People in bangalore are more courteous than chennai . (Some might dispute that. But having lived in both the places for considerable time, i would stick to my comments). Met esh, it was really nice just being with him. Such a nice chap. Old friends are really gold friends. :)