Perspectives !!

Have you ever thought about how each one of us have different perspectives about the same thing?

One such incident.. some more than 10 years ago, Indian currency notes had Mahatma Gandhi only on rupee notes of denominations Rs 500 and more. And one fine day almost all rupee notes right from Rs 5 to all denominations upto Rs 1000 started to have Mahatma Gandhi on them.

In a casual conversation with my friend, I just pointed out that Mahatma Gandhi has now come down to Rs 5 from his Rs 500. But my friend immediately quipped, "Yeah.. but now Mahatma Gandhi is with more people".


What a different perspective? I was surely stumped by it. A much different thought .. and I must add a much more positive one...

Hats off... man !!

Santa jokes

Posting some forwarded Santa Jokes.. Hilarious... :-)

What is Common between : Krishna, Ram, Gandhiji & Jesus..?
Sardarji Replied : All are Born on Government Holidays.
*****

Sardar bought a new mobile. He called everyone from his Phone Book & said
"My Mobile No. has changed .. Earlier it was Nokia 3310 Now it is 6610"
*****

Santa : I am a Proud Sardar, My son is in Medical College
Banta : Really, what is he studing
Santa : No is not studying, they are Studying him.
******

Santa falls in luv with a nurse... After much thinking, he finally writes a

love letter to her: "I luv u sister."

*****


Pappu, while filling up a form: Dad, what should I write against mother
tongue.?
Santa: Very long!
*****

Santa was caught for speeding and went before the judge.
The judge: What'll you take 30 days or Rs 3000.
Santa: I think I'll take the money.


*****

Q: How do you recognize Santa's son, Pappu, in School?
A: He is the one who erases the books when the teacher erases the board.


*****

Santa & Banta got tired of mobile & decide 2 use pigeons.
1day a pigeon reaches Banta without message.
Angry Banta calls Santa!
Santa: Oye, this was a missed call

*****


Q: Why was Santa writing the exam near the door?
A: Because it was an entrance exam.

*****


Santa: My dad was an extremely brave man. He once entered a lion's cage.
Banta: He probably got a lot of applause when he got out.
Santa: I didn't say he got out.

*****

ಮುಂಗಾರು ಮಳೆ

Kannada films are coming of age. Some nice movies coming out and even more nice is the music for some of these films.

"Mungaru Male" (Monsoon Rain) is one such movie. I like this song especially. It is amazing music by Mano Murthy. Sonu Nigam has done an extremely good job in singing a Kannada Song.

Enjoy..

Sou-run Ganguly

Who would have thought Ganguly would be back in the Indian team and that too in the helm of the affairs an year ago? I certainly did not. I did have a thought that he would do a few "try-to-comeback" test matches and then finally hang his boots. But he has proved me wrong. I guess he has proved many of us wrong.

He is back with a bang. At his age and also after all the humiliation and controversies he went through, his comeback that too in such a fashion is really admirable. It is showing the character of the person. He has really applied his will and used all his cricketing skills to be back in the Indian Team. He played quite a few domestic cricket matches and then proved that he still has the mettle.

Let us see his past few matches vis-a-vis his career,

Test Matches
------------         Mat  Runs  HS   BatAv 100  50
                  -----------------------------
Career                91  5435 173   40.86  12  27
ComeBack Matches       3   214  66   42.80   0   2

One Day Internationals
----------------------
                    Mat  Runs  HS   BatAv 100  50
                 -----------------------------
Career              285 10412 183   40.99  22  63
ComeBack Matches      9   380  98   54.29   0   4

Today his batting is back like his olden days when he used to take the bowlers apart. He is generally a good hitter of the ball and it is good to see him back in that mode. He has become one of the more consistent run scorers.

I just have to hand it to his courage. After all what he had gone through, whether he was the cause for it, may be he was, but he has come out of that rut and he is in full flow again.

Every person seems to have bad patches at some point or the other and the true character of the person is shown when he can weather the storm and come out of it stronger than before. And Sou-run Ganguly has done it. Kudos Sourav...


P.S. I found this expreession "Sou-run Ganguly" in one of the placards in the Visakhapatnam match. Apt for this..

Anbe Sivam - Movie Review

I saw this Tamil movie Anbe Sivam (Love is God) starring Kamal Hassan and Madhavan again on TV. This movie is a 2003er directed by Sundar C. The movie is loosely based on Planes, Trains and Automobiles. This must be the 4th or 5th time I have seen this.

This movie is about how two guys Nallasivam (Kamal Hassan) and Anbarasu (Madhavan) who were supposed to come from Bhubaneshwar to Chennai by plane get stuck due at the airport due to a storm and then try other modes of transport. They are unable to take the train and then try taking the bus and then train to reach Chennai. This is where the similarity between Anbe Sivam and Planes, Trains and Automobiles ends.

The movie is more about the clash of the characters of Nallasivam and Anbarasu. Nallasivam is an idealist/communist while Anbarasu is brought up in a capitalist environment and talks about money, credit cards and the like. The movie is more about how these two get along or forced to rather to reach their main goal of reaching Chennai on time.

I dont want to sound like another normal movie review, but I just wanted to talk about a few things which were striking in the movie.


Kamal Hassan's acting. About 80% of the movie he plays a victim of an accident. The accident has left him with one leg shorter than the other, bad looking scars on his face and a continuous twitch on his cheek. All through this part of the movie he has this limping walk and the twitch which he generates once every 30 seconds on his face. It is a stellar performance just to keep this kind of thing going all through the movie. He also has an ugly looking spectacles on him. It makes him look so ugly. I always used to wonder, very few heroes, let themselves be portrayed in such an ugly manner. But Kamal does not care I guess. He lets his acting speak. Surely it has spoken volumes in this movie.


The other thing I want to talk about is the dialogues in the movie. The dialogues all through the movie has both the element of comedy and constant conflict between the two protagonists. The timing of the dialogues is another hallmark. Both Kamal and Madhavan have done very well in this aspect. There many instances which is worthy of quoting. Lot of them makes sense only when it is told in Tamil but then some can be told. One of them is after Madhavan would have tried to save the life of a child by donating blood, but then the child dies.

Madhavan : Not sure whether you beleive in God, but I am sure why God would do this and kill the boy. (Then he realises that he is abusing God). But God is great. BTW, you dont believe in God do you?

Kamal: Yes I do.

Madhavan: Oh Really, who is your God?

Kamal : (Gestures in the direction of Madhavan)

Madhavan: (Preplexed)

Kamal: You. You tried to save the child. I see God in your love. You are a good man.

Madhavan: Hmm.. (smiles) You know, you are a good man too.

Kamal: (immediately) I know (smiles)

Madhavan: (chuckles) Ah, You are amazing. You are last word freak.

This expression of Madhavan is towards the end of the movie as all through the movie he has at the receiving end of the such comments where Kamal always ends with the last word. In a seemingly simple sequence of dialog would have normally ended with what Madhavan would have said or may be a "Thank you" from Kamal but "I Know". The movie is strewn all over with such situations.

The other most striking factor of the movie is the screenplay itself. It is very clean knit movie with no pieces of drags in between where we would think of stepping out. All the actors also have underplayed most of their parts as their characters demanded. This makes for a very entertaining and also a soul searching movie.

Acoustic Levitation

I came across this article in "How Stuff Works". I did not know such a thing existed. This is called "Acoustic Levitation", the act of making something float in air with sound :-) . Nice reading.

It uses the property of standing waves caused by interference due to the reflection of sound waves.

Enjoy..

Divine Intervention ??

Sethusamudram project in the southern coast of India is an ambitious project of the Government of India. It is some what like the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal, but not really that overwhelming.

The small strip of sea between India and Srilanka near Rameshwaram on the southern coast of India is the site for this project. In this straits passes the legendary Rama's bridge or Adam's Bridge. This bridge is chain of islets and limestone shoals connecting the land masses of India and Sri Lanka. According to Hindu mythology, this bridge was built by the Vanara sena of Rama, en route to Sri Lanka to free Sita from Ravana. It was built by the monkey army, under the architectural guidance of Nala and with the help of Hanuman (the most illustrious from the Vanara Sena) too.



Now the Sethu samudram project aims at deepening this strait at certain points to allow the passing of huge ships so that they do not have to go around Sri Lanka to go from west coast to the east coast of India. This means that Rama's bridge has to be dredged to make it deeper.

After lot of legal battles pertaining to environment and monument protection etc. the project started couple of years ago. As part of the dredging, the spud used broke down at one point. A tug crane called Thangam was sent to remove the sunken spud. But the crane Thangam also broke down while trying to rescue the spud.


Now they are calling even bigger crane for rescue ... Guess what the name of the crane is .. Hanuman :-) Some Divine Intervention from the creator of the bridge himself :-)