A close call

Ever dreamt of being hit by a crane?  Neither do I. But, yesterday I escaped from it, in reality, by a half a dozen yards!

Last evening I returned from office a bit early than usual. While crossing the road near my home, I heard a few construction workers raising an alarm. There was a truck-mounted-crane going berserk . The sensible driver was looking for a place to crash his errant beast. At last it was a tree which ’sacrificed’ its existence. Fortunately no one got hurt.

I live!

Movie spree!

Too many movies indeed (in my terms!). In the past week I saw 3 new movies with family. Bharathiraja has always amused me and given an option I would prefer him to Mani Ratnam, all because of the originality. So, Bommalattum came first in my itinerary.

But for various ‘unknown’ reasons Bommalattum was not even running in a single cinema hall in Madurai. And Vaaranam aayiram was running in a lot of theaters [1] [2]. Probably, Bommalattum was a superior competitor. Has anyone got a different reason?

Vaaranam Aayiram , Bommalattum & Abhiyum Nanum. Bommalattum (minus vivek ‘jokes’) was the best among them ; the other two were also good.

At the height of Goondaism

 

I never believed that the RTO has started issuing names to vehicles instead of numbers…. untill I saw this.

who is the 'annan'?

This shot was taken in Madurai. 

Is there anyone in Madurai who has the guts to penalize the owner of this vehicle?

Update: Missed Out

I have no regrets for making the Vulture-Television Journalist comparison… Even The Hindu came up with one such in this week’s Magazine supplement, http://www.hindu.com/mag/2008/12/21/stories/2008122150060100.htm . Surendra’s cartoon was apt.

Missed Out

Diclaimer: This is a perfect rant. Read no further if you value your time*.

This post is not about terrorism, nor its about those killing my country men; sorry, they are just humans. I came to know about the terror incident only the next morning, when my father called me to warn against venturing out. For a second, I imagined myself to be one of the gun trotting terrorist. Never…. I can’t even imagine killing someone even in my dreams. There is one more inhuman gang roaming, they are armed, not with guns and grenades, but with mics and cameras.

Injury Day!

I had a terrible day playing football this wednesday. Hitting, crashing, thrashing, flying.. all happened.. At last I went out of the ground limping in pain with a twisted ankle. It all started when my team-mate, in a hurry to clear the ball blasted it just into my face. I almost fell back. Then Mr.Prashant ended the day’s rituals by driving his right leg deep into my right ankle. It turned awkwardly and I reeled in pain. 

The next morning when I tried to put on my shoes, my right foot didn’t get it.. it was badly swollen.. I am limping now.. No football for one week

Magnificent Madurai

 

Almost 12hrs in journey through bus & train, the rickety bus and my snoring co-passenger who occupies 2/3rd of the seat, sleepless night, all these didn’t dent my excitement. The bus did a Hula dance and jerked me off from my half sleep.

The conductor cried out the name of the place, only then I realize that I have reached Madurai. Looks like the city had a small downpour. I virtually jump out of the bus to land in a ’small island’. After looking around I had a doubt about the time, it was just 4:35am. Someone without a watch would believe if I say the time is 8:00 pm.

Every autorickshaw man comes to ‘welcome’ me. I gracefully flip away from them; only to get caught by the Bakery-walas. I don’t want to disappoint anyone anymore so I get into the waiting night service bus. Another 20mins I get down at my stop, Pykara. Even at this time, there remained almost every eatery shop open.

I ordered a tea and was waiting for the man to complete his exercise. At that moment, an old friend came infront of me. He was half-seated & half-standing. I was shocked and almost asked him, “What business do you have at this time?”. A biscuit made him happy.

This is magnificent - exceptional for its kind, Maduari!

 

Wake up you sleeping baapus…

At one side is blood & gore, on another, kosi made it not-so cozy for those livelihoods it destroyed and on another side is shattering markets, desperate people and sitting on top of all these are those sleeping baapus.

The UPA govt. in my view has failed miserably. It can have as an accomplishment only the indo-us nuclear deal (arguably). The Government has become overly complacent, it lacks proper vision nor is it interested in the country’s welfare, if at all it did it shouldn’t have let people like shibu soren to power.

But for the Supreme Court, the SIMI could have gone free. Reason, the Home ministry didn’t provide sufficient evidence to the high court regarding its activities. It now blames the state govts for the same. Great governance chaps.

The UPA government has a huge stack of pending decisions. The decision on Afzal’s sentence is one among a variety. It has always confused itself with terrorism and islam, unable to see it separately. Acting tough on terrorism doesn’t mean anything to any Indian Muslim. It took the then Congress, the life of Rajiv Gandhi to understand terrorism, I don’t understand what it takes now?

The military buildup post Parliament attack, the money wasted in the showoff, had that been turned to modernizing the intellligence, it could have yielded richer dividends.

I once read through Tony Blair’s speech text on becoming the Prime Minister of Britain. A few lines from it

“”" The size of victory imposes a very special responsibility on us. To be a government of high ideals and hard choices. Not popular for one time but remembered for all time. Not just a better government than the Torries but one of the great, radical, reforming Governments of our history. To modernize Britain as we modernized the Labour Party. To build a Britain not for a few, but for all the people.

And it will require change. Hard choices. I know this country can make them if we show them how and why.”"”

The people in power should once read through and get enlightned. Those giving 1kg rice / Re.1 and free Television sets must understand. I see no difference in them and those who ask for debt ridden people to change beliefs for money. A natural alliance exists between these exploiters, cheats. They are a scum to this society.

Deal is sealed.. what’s next?

After high drama the so-called India’s nuclear isolation is over. Is the deal a deterrent to our nuclear research or not is debatable. 

On today’s newspaper I found two separate news items conveying a hidden message

On one side was “Manmohan hosts NSG ‘victory lunch’” and to its right was “U.S. to sell Harpoon missiles to India”.

GeeXboX

Read about this cool tool, GeeXboX, in the Aug 2008 issue of LFY. This is a standalone media player software. Just burn the ISO (size < 9MB) into a CD, boot it and you can play a lot of media formats. The CD gets ejected once completely booted. You can either insert a media cd/dvd to play or point to files present in the disk.

The requirements are very minimal too.

But, just curious where it will find its users…