ExpertDabbler

Click here for Mediocre Media and Tete-e-tete with Chakra

I was going through some of the blogs regarding this invasion of privacy by Dinamalar and there were some comments, which more or less accused the dancing girls and guys in the Park Hotel as loose and crass and against Indian culture. Ah! I’ve been bitten more by this C-word(Culture) in blogs, comments and in chat sessions with by buddies in the last few days than at any point of time in my life I guess.

Apparently, there are some apostles of Indian culture in the blogworld who miss no opportunity to convey their primary responsibility, - safeguarding Indian culture and religious traditions. One of these apostles has questioned what will be the reaction if one finds ones own sister or brother or children among the dancing, smooching crowd photograph?

I cannot comment about others but here goes my answer. As long as my sibling, son, or daughter knows what’s happening and is old enough to accept responsibility for it, I should be fine. Not that such vulgar questions deserve an answer but still some clarity never hurts.

Now, it’s my turn to question those apostles. Since they always project themselves as the guardian of Indian religious traditions and culture, how if their sisters or someone in their family is forced to give dowry, or forced to perform Sati or maybe forced into child marriage? After all these things existed as part of our ancient customs?

We are always a function of some traits we inherit from our upbringing surroundings and some adapted by what we see. Each practice has its time and place.

It is totally ridiculous to assume “Our forefathers followed it so it must be good”. Vulgar simplification this. Just as vulgar as “Everything old in bad”.

Usually, the definition of culture while browsing the net starts with “No standard definition of culture”.

“Different definitions of culture reflects different theories for understanding - or criteria for valuing - human activity.” was another definition i came across in wiki.

Culture is an evolving concept. It cannot be preserved in a refrigerator.
It cannot be pigeon-holed into this or that.
In these times of economic liberalization and globalization, chances of one practice followed in some section influencing the other part of the world is commonplace. If one does not want that, too bad. One has to shut off all external influences and live in caves.

All customs and cultures come with good and undesirable aspects. What is good and what is undesirable is for the individual to decide. If washing ones ass every morning is each person’s responsibility, then the same goes for the ability to think for oneself and decide accordingly.

So what’s more dangerous than cultural degradation is the moral policing that goes on in the garb of protecting culture. This leads to more abuse than the fallouts of influence of foreign culture. Its high time people understood this. It’s imperative to be aware of how the Taliban preserved and propogated Islam.

It might look a bit far-fetched now but the alliance of Paatali Makkal Katchi and Dalit Panthers operate just like the Shiv Sena or the Khalistan groups in Punjab during the terror eighties. We might know their true colors soon but not before paying a heavy price. We are better off ignoring them totally and thereby peacefully.

Media’s mediocrity

http://www.dinamalar.com/2005sep26/impfn.asp

Well how about this? There are some who say the media just reported whatever it saw. And added a wry commentary about equality and all. It may even be argued that its after all an event happened in Tamil Nadu and the vernacular press had every right to report this. Forget the privacy, courtesy, decency part. We dont follow what we dont understand. SO ets leave it at that.
Just as you are forming high hopes about dinamalar and its moral policing and its “freedom of expression”, have a look at this

http://www.dinamalar.com/2005sep28/impfn.asp.

For starters this did not happen in Nungambakkam or Anna Salai. This was not shot in India at all. So,What the f*** has the vernacular newspaper has got to do with this? The reasons are obvious. And we thought that double standards were reserved only for politicians.

Enough has been written about Dinamalar’s penchant for scantily clad women and then about sex surveys being conducted in England, which are available in plenty in their weekly freebie, Vaaramalar. Not to mention their agony aunt columns which talks about anything including incest. Oh, I did not realize that Dinamalar is a family newspaper. No wonder it talks about incest.

Just how celebrities suck up to media just beats me. Last week I chanced upon a Kumudam article. The story was, believe it or not, is a write-up on Mr. Mani Ratnam’s 15 yr old son. No, Nandan, his name by the way, is neither a prodigy nor a state rank holder. Basically he has done absolutely nothing to deserve 3 pages of Kumudam. He is just a normal kid like I was 14 yrs ago. He is in his 10th standard. So what if he has met P Chidambaram? He did not meet him as part of a student delegation to bring about tax reforms in the corporate sector I suppose?

The reason he was featured was this - He is the son of a celebrity couple.

The write-up had a huge photograph of him standing with his mom - just to make the right connection in the readers’ mind and a small photograph of his dad. Now, if you thought this was just a cheap attempt to fill precious magazine pages, you are wrong.

This article on Mani’s son has served as an introduction. Tomorrow, just imagine what great news it would make if he were seen with a girl of his age in an ice-cream parlor? Great scoop for sure, wouldn’t it? Later on these same magazines would go to him with a survey and then ask for his piece of wisdom and then that would set the while ball rolling like it happened with Kushboo.

This is the level of journalism that is happening nowadays in Vikatan and Kumudam who miss no opportunity to say that they are in the business for 60-70 years.
I wonder what magazines like Cinema Express has got to say nowadays?

Monday Afternoon. My Office. Sleeping time err. Sorry, tea time.

A call on my cell.

PK:“Hello”

Male Voice:“Mr Prabu Karthik?”

Pk:“Yes?”

Male Voice:“Sir. indha Karthik Tiffin Center ungaludayatha?”

PK:‘Aahaa arambichutaangayya!’ In a rough tone “Illa”

Male:“Unga Blog padichen ga”

PK:“Blog la potirukena?”

Male:“Enna nga?”

PK:“Blog la eludhirukena Karthik Tiffin Center ennadhunu?”

Male:“Illainga. Seri. Ungalukku Blog padikara pazhakkam Unda?”

PK:“Hmm. Irukku”

Male:” Nalladhunga. En per chakrapani“.

Well, this is almost as verbatim as i could possibly recollect about the way our telephonic conversation started… He did mention that he had more intention to kalaasify me but refrained fearing some powerful sanskrit slokams coming out of my holy mouth:). That telephone conversation went on for about 15 minutes.
I was trying to contact Avuykta but he had some major bug fixes to be done near Satyam Cinemas I guess
Then the next day me and our beloved Avyukta went to meet Chakra in his residence. He introduced his mom, wife and the new prince Anirudh It was interesting to see him tackle two strangers while his son was in his lap crying for his attention:). But we never got the hint and stayed there for more than an hour:).

Earlier, we had to wait 5 minutes before our captain appeared. The fact was captan had an urgent call from Tony Blair. Apparently, Tony is finding it real difficult to manage the affairs of such a huge country without our captain’s guidance.
Talks ranged from how to tackle Al- Qaeda to the general local law and order situation in UK for which he is personally responsible.

So, folks, it is hereby recorded that i am in touch with the Thaanai thalaivar, Varungaala mudhalvar, Putachi Puyal, Pon mana Chemmal Chakra. So please be careful when dealing with me, eh?

Mid 80s. Two kids - close friends till date, would brave a hot summer afternoon in Coimbatore to go to their favourite spot. “Summa indha veyilla suthadhey” by parents has never been listened to. Not then, not now either.
The two kids would cycle all the way to a deserted North Coimbatore station at exactly 1:45 in the afternoon. The timing mattered because that was the time for Chennai bound Kovai express to cross the North station.

The train never stopped in that station but that never mattered for those kids. They would wait, talk about important things like the kite competition in Rathinapuri pallam and the way the neighbouring grandma never parted with the cricket ball when it landed in her territory.

And then there would be a siren far away, catching their attention. The train engine would emerge first. The engine would keep getting bigger and its noise level going up and up. And then it would roar into the platform at a leisurely pace.

The kids would dutifuly count the number of bogies one by one and see if it tallies with the previous day’s count. The train would slow down to negotiate a curve just after the station. That was a magnificent sight. Worthy of a wideangle lens.

The kids would take it all till the train is reduced to a faint dot and then trudge back to their cycle. Only to return the next day.

One of those kids is writing this blog and the other is in Pune as a SAP consultant:)

Trains have always been a fascination for me since time immemorial. I would always make sure I remember the train number, the timings and the routes even though I had never travelled anywhere beyond Tamil Nadu. Those were Pre-IT days and the economics was certainly lower-middle class
In this backdrop it was heartening to come across a site dedicated for train lovers like me. My colleague Gowri Shankar referred me. Folks please visit the Indian Railway Fan Club Association.

Awesome content. By far THE BEST site for anything related to Indian railways.

“Khushboo has tarnished the image of Tamil women, making them hang their heads in shame,”

An effigy of the actress was burnt in Salem with many groups demanding that she should leave the state.
Too much ba. ok lets see whatever she’s told regarding this which some specimens find so insulting.

She told the magazine that pre-marital sex is okay “provided safety measures are followed to prevent pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases.”

She also said, “No educated man today would expect his wife to be a virgin.”

Given the permissive times we are in, whatever she told was just sensible advice one would have thought. But look at the response!

I for some reason believe that this “karpu” business is more of a puritanical british value than an intrinsic Indian value. If all the guys and girls in Tamil Nadu are in fact karpukarasars and karpukarasigal, how come we have so many HIV /AIDS and STD patients?

“By September 2003 Tamil Nadu had reported 24,667 cases of AIDS, the highest number reported to NACO by any state”.

Source: http://www.avert.org/aidsindia.htm.

Even if one does not subscribe to her theory, why the hell should she leave Tamil Nadu. She is as much a tamilian as the millions of tamil-speaking people who live in other states. This is nothing but third rate parochialism.

Actually i wanted to give Thiruvasagam’s post and priya’s tamil villakam centerstage and so had no intention of posting anything new for a day or two. But then i got this while browsing one matrimonial portal. Its pasted here verbatim.

“we are expecting a working gay for over sister….”

Remarkable indeed!
 

“Maayaa” Priya has started a tamil blog Tamilkkalvi and has given an amazing explanation to one Thiruvaasagam Song “Putril Vaal” in the recently released Ilayaraja’s masterpiece.

The album as such was awesome. I bought it sometime back and for sometime was listening to nothing else but that. But somehow i did not feel like writing it because i could not understand the meaning and its essence.

For eg i want to know what “Poovar senni mannan” means…
The booklet that came along with the CD did not give the explanation. That was too optimistic about the Tamil pulamai of an average Ilayaraja fan in my opinion.

There is one Tranliteration by GU pope.
That too i pestered PB for the links and then got the document from Priya again.
I could not understand a thing, though i thanked her profusedly. That a different story. Since then i have been looking for something which will give me the meaning of the songs rather than transliteration.

To understand what it was like, just take a sample. This is taken from the song. “Putril Vaal Aravum Anjen”

Not the sleek snake in anthill coil’d I dread;
nor feigned truth of men of lies,-
As I, in sooth, feel fear at night of those
who have not learnt the Lofty-One
To know; who near the Foot of the Brow-Ey’d,-
our Lord, crown’d with the braided-lock,-
Yet think there’s other God. When these unlearn’d we see,-
AH ME! WE FEEL NO DREAD LIKE THIS! (4)

If you still make sense reading this and listening to the song in the album, then either you are a genius or hopelessly insane. In both the cases only that Lord Shiva can save you:)

Now to appreciate Priya’s effort, just read this…

புற்றிள்வாள் அரவும் அஞ்சேன் பொய்யர்தம் மெய்யும் அஞ்சேன்
கற்றைவார் சடைஎம் அண்ணல் கண்ணுதல் பாதம் நண்ணி
மற்றும்ஓர் தெய்வந் தன்னை உண்டென நினைந்தெம் பெம்மாற்கு
அற்றிலா தவரைக் கண்டால் அம்ம நாம் அஞ்சு மாறே.

பொருள்:
புற்றில் வளைந்து இருக்கும் பாப்பைக் கண்டு அஞ்ச மாட்டேன். பொய் பேசுபவர்களின் உண்மை போன்ற சொற்களைக் கண்டு அஞ்ச மாடேன்.அடர்த்தியான நீண்ட சடையையுடைய பெருமைக்குரிய நெற்றிக்கண்ணைக் கொண்ட எம்பெருமானின் பாதத்தை அடைந்து, வேறொரு தெய்வம் இருப்பதாக எண்ணி எம்பெருமானை போற்றாதவரைப் பார்த்தால், கடவுளே! நாம் பயப்படுவது சொல்ல முடியாத அளவு ஆகும் !!

Phenomenal effort!

I am really looking forward to getting the meaning for all the songs in the album atleast. Maybe we can ask her to compile a PDF and then give it as a free download for starters and then publish a pukka book.

I know there are some tamil speaking tamil illiterates for whom tamil “no no come” for reading and writing. My apologies folks. You are really missing something and this is bigger than NIIT courses i tell you
She has also started a noble initiative called Sahaayaa. Please support her in this endeavour.

Kalakkal Priya. Hats off!

Got to read vatsan’s post on the “temptation of employment“. This made me think about my own teenage ambitions and dreams and what i am doing now.

He is basically saying that the lure of a job now and some quick money would make one move away from pursuing dreams in his case. Blame it on my middle class upbringing or whatever, I honestly don’t think that most of the late 20s, 30s and above folks are doing what they dreamt of doing in their teens.
How does one distinguish temptation and opportunity? It depends on the person. To the society, it depends on the end result.

If he or she is seen successful, society lables it as opportunity. If he or she is seen as a failure, society calls it as falling to the temptation.

My laundry list err… dreams list during my younger days goes like wannabe photographer, cinematographer, director, MBA from a top business school etc. Software does not figure in the list at all. I was never good at even BASIC programming and so i detested computers and the software industry. Today the same computer that i once dreaded has given me identity and respect.

I am not exactly suggesting that I can be called ‘realisitic, practical and other dangerous words but it’s just that I feel whatever we dream should also have a spontaneous flexible streak. Kamal wanted to become a famous director but had to chose acting on Balachander’s insistence. He has done not bad at all in acting I suppose:)

I have always believed that a person has many roles to play. That of a child, parent, lover, professional, employer, friend, sibling etc. We may not be the best in all but at least we should strive to do the best possible in each of the roles to sleep peacefully at night. Its not just about career choices and money. A failure in contributing our best in any of these roles will render us unhappy deep down no matter how many crores we possess.

There are many who believe that a BPO job does not hold great promises in the long-term. This short and long are all relative terms by the way. All I would say is, don’t be so sure. Life has a way of laughing at you when you least expect it.
Nobody would have thought studying in US and Australia would still hold you jobless in those countries but that’s what is happening there.

I know some of my friends who did their Masters in Computers in US and then after struggling sometime there, came down to Bangalore and got jobs in companies like Sun Microsystems. May not be consistent with their dreams but sensible decisions nevertheless in my opinion.

I think life is not just a simple, straight forward case of focusing on something and doing whatever one wants to do no matter what.
At the same time its not like doing whatever is the safe-thing and following the beaten track. There are baffling situations to be handled, conflicting interests to be managed, compromises to be worked out, constraints to be accepted, mistakes to be tolerated and bad luck to be endured. It is all about choices and at the same time there are no correct choice and wrong choice per se in isolation. Thats what makes life so exhilirating and challenging.

To add and paraphrase one famous quote, Its important to plan but please remember that life is what happens while you’re busy making plans.

I was so impressed by this piece that i thought i’d rather type it out for readers’ benefit.

Author : Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi
Book Title : FLOW

Although people generally long to leave their places of work and get home, ready to put their hard-earned free time to good use, all too often they have no idea what to do there.
Ironically jobs are actually easier to enjoy than free time because they have built-in goals, feedback, rules, and challenges which encourage one to become involved in work and lose oneself in it. Free time on the other hand is unstructured and requires much greater effort to be shaped into something that can be enjoyed. Hobbies that demand skill, habits that set goals, personal interests and inner discipline help to take leisure what it is supposed to be – a chance for re-creation.

The leisure industry that has arisen has been designed to help fill free time with enjoyable experiences. Nevertheless instead of using our physical and mental resources actively to experience flow and joy, most of us spend many hours each week watching celebrated athletes playing in huge stadiums. Instead of making music, we listen to platinum records cut by millionaire musicians. Instead of making art,we go to admire paintings that brought on the highest bids in the latest auction. We do not run risks actin on our beliefs, but occupy each day watching actors who pretend to have adventures, engaged in mock-meaningful actions. In short, we are passive.

The vicarious participation is able to mask, at least temporarily the underlying emptiness of wasted time. But it’s a very pale substitution for attention invested in real challenges. The flow experience that resuts in the learning and use of skills leads to growth; passive entertainment leads nowhere. Collectively we are wasting each year the equivalent of millions of years of human consciousness.The energy that could be used to focus on complex goals, to provide for enjoyable growth, is squandered on patterns of stimulation that only mimic reality. Mass leisure and mass culture when only attended to passively and for the purpose of flaunting one’s status are parasites of the mind. They absorb psychic energy without providing substantive strength in return. They leave us more exhausted, more disheartened than we were before.

Many leisure activities especially those involving the passive consumption of mass media are not designed to make us happy and strong. Their purpose is to make money for someone else. If we allow them to, they can suck out the marrow of our lives, leaving only feeble husks. But people who learn to enjoy their work, who do not waste their free time end up feeling that their lives as a whole have become much more worthwhile.

The future will belong not only to the educated man, but to the man who is educated to use his leisure wisely - C.K. Brighbill

Saturday Afternoon at Home

PK in Indira logam with Sherapova and Sania Mirza.

The cell phone erupts to life.

PK(groggily):
“Hello”

Male Voice 1:
Is that Mr. Prabu Karthik ?

PK:
“Yeah”
(Oh! Yet another one, I should tell them I am not interested in job offers any more…)

Male Voice 1:
You are the one who is running Karthik Tiffin Center right?. We want to talk to you.

PK:(Still in half sleep)
“No. I am not. Wrong number”

Male Voice 1:
Oh! I am sorry.

By the time, Sherapova was gone.

After about 5 minutes. The cell was ringing again.

PK:
“Hello”

Male Voice 2:
Is that Mr. Prabu Karthik ?

PK:
“Yeah.”

Male Voice 2:
You are running Karthik Tiffin Center right?.

PK:
“I SAID NO”. Anger replacing grogginess

Male Voice 2:
Oh! We were searching in Google and we got this number.

PK:
“I’ve written about it. That does not mean i own it.”

Male Voice 2:
“Oh! Sorry!”

PK:
“OK…”

(Grr…)By the time Sania too vanished, not to mention my precious sleep.
Maha janangaley!, indha madhiri ethanai peru kelambirkinga?