Howzzat!

It has been a long time since I posted something.. I know. There was no lack of events, movies or books all this while but I've been feeling a lot less inspired lately. Third year at college is slightly demanding....giving a glimpse of what the IT sector has in store for me after one year. All I can do is hope for the best.                                    So what was I doing all this while...?        Read a little, watched a lot of movies, dabbled in a songwriting course in coursera (one more week to finish it!) and most of the time, sitting on my couch eating Rasam saadam ..thinking absolutely nothing! If I'd only closed my eyes while shutting off my thoughts I'd have done something close to meditation.        My copy of Orhan Pamuk's "My Name is Red" is gathering dust. So is Rolf Dobelli's "The art of thinking clearly" and Nassim Nicholas...

         I do not endorse the method LTTE chief Prabhakaran chose to protest against the crimes against his people. Neither did the Srilankan military. That’s how the 2009 Eelam war came about where several thousands of innocent Tamils were killed. A war, of course, claims lives. But nothing explains the photos released by channel 4. Death by accident is clearly not what killed Balachander. The eyes of the 12 year old sitting in the bunker having a snack, only to be killed in cold blood in less than 2 hours, haunted us more than we could bear (I couldn’t help but cry for 2 hours straight) and have caused this uprising in Tamil Nadu by students and public alike, though three years too late.       The indifference to Srilankan Tamils is what formed the radical group LTTE in the first place. If this issue was sorted earlier, we wouldn’t have lost Rajiv Gandhi. When Salman Khurshid says we can’t act as big brother to any other country...

11 academy award nominations…to a film featuring just an Indian skinny vegetarian boy and a CGI animated royal Bengal tiger, for almost the entire length of the movie. It made it to the screens here with little hype but garnered surprising responses in the long run. What made “Life of Pi” appeal to the local masses..? The Indian connection..?  The 3D factor..? Or was it the way in which a story of survival and hope was visualised amazingly lifelike on screen?? Maybe all the three if I could guess it right ! The story A middle aged Pi Patel (Irfann Khan) narrates his survival story to an on-the-lookout writer (Rafe Spall), hoping to revive the latter’s spirits and restore his faith in God.   In this narrative, Pondicherry-based adolescent Pi (Suraj Sharma) leaves for Canada with his family (and animals from his dad’s zoo) in a Japanese cargo ship. A storm leaves the ship wrecked and his family dies along with the rest ...

Silence beckons me Stillness absolves my every thought Darkness engulfs me like an endless sea, I feel my soul - lifeless and taut. Follow my eyes; they lead nowhere Nothing opaque seems to strike my glance No I’m not stoned, nor sick - I swear I better not ask myself, ‘is this all a trance?’ Thoughts throng my skull like birds caged Wrecking my every nerve and every vein I strive to set them free: but raged For my every attempt ends in vain. My fingers quiver as I write Longing to fold themselves in prayer With all my strength, I mouth ‘at the end of the tunnel there’s light’ I am my very own soothsayer. ‘Breathe!’ my mind bellows beneath I obey; a surge of calmness takes over, The tempest subdued but not done with With effort, I finally ease my soul and let it hover.

Ever wondered what the scrawly comic strips and the “lol” photos that seemed to be on everyone’s  Facebook wall were?  I bet not all of us would have thought that those comical, badly drawn caricatures would really have a name and a strong web community dedicated to it, creating hundreds of them each day!  Memes, derps, lolcats, rage faces…..the list is endless. These simple yet humorous posts have taken social networking by a storm. If you know everything about these terms already, welcome to the immensely populated (internet) cult that practically worships and breathes the tech culture or rather the “geek culture”! Programmers and technocrats were how the “geeks” were called a few years back. Today, not any engineer can be termed a geek even if he /she has a vast command over hard-core technology or coding. To qualify as a technical geek (on non-professional grounds) one has to perceive tech culture as a way of life. Technical bloggers, hacking experts,...

                All superhero movies defy logic.   Batman outdoes them all…but with a difference. A stale looking Bale in an incredibly “batty” outfit...is clearly my most favourite superhero of all time…..thanks to a tight screenplay and an amazing soundtrack. A fitting end to the most believable series ever. We’ve had enough of the movies where the- guy-with-super-awesome-powers-kills-off-the-bad-guy-and-rescues-his-hostage-girlfriend-in-every-damn-movie-making-it-fricking-boring-all-the-time (read spiderman). Pity it’s a trilogy. Can’t they all go the ‘Shrek’ or the ‘Die hard ‘or even the ‘Harry Potter’ way? Three (sigh!) hugely commendable movies..move over James Cameron….Nolan’s intelligence is notable in every scene, every second. “The Dark Knight Rises” and soars high..way too high!    Sorry, I just can’t stop raving about this film. And what a movie it was!   ...

No one can ever come close to who Michael Joe Jackson was. Out of “the King of Pop’s” innumerable duets and singles, it’s hard to choose just few.  Here’s my list of MJ numbers that I like to listen over and over.   “Liberian Girl”   The song starts with the Swahillian lines " Naku Penda pia, Naku Taka pia, Mpenziwe !" (I love you too, I want you too, my love!) sung by Letta m'bulu, a South African singer.  It was the 9 th single from his album “Bad”. With Two Lovers In A Scene And She Says . . . "Do You Love Me" And He Says So Endlessly . . . "I Love You, Liberian Girl"  The video for this song had 12 celebrities in it including John Travolta, Spielberg and many, with MJ secretly filming them (he wasn’t but the video was made that way) A very beautifully rendered song from the legend, it wasn’t one of his greatest hits. It wasn’t performed in any of his tours. But it remains my favourite MJ song. Liberian Girl is dedicated ...