Of anonymous comments

OMG! Someone just left a comment, "can you change your background from black to something else ? white over black disturbs my eyes." Just for the heck of it! Ha, you still not gone blind after those very punctual 3 dozen visits all the way from WA. Posting anonymous comments does not make an anon 'anamika'. Thanks to the weird web world...

Mr. Bill Gates, watch your guys and gals they seem to be more loyal to Google in using orkut and blogspot!

I watched Slumdog Millionaire - atlast!

Great Movie!

But there are other things that hit my mind when i watched this movie and the accolades its receiving worldwide. A. R. Rehman and the desi-cast, leave alone Dev and Freida who are debutant - i feel the rest of them have given their best in many or most other Bollywood films.

Speaking of A R Rehman definitely Roja is his best till date, the others in the order that i had liked them - Rang de bansanti, Yuva, Bombay, 1947 Earth, Lagaan, Dil Se, Iruvar - i guess this list will have all of his movies so far! Irrfan Khan is almost the same in all of his movies, be it the sick comedy Dil Kabaddi or the crazy fellow who wipes Rakhi Sawant's tattoo in Krrazy 4 or even the Vodafone commercial. Saurabh Shukla - Satya is still his best. Anil Kapoor - Few of his best performances are from 1942 A love story, Taal, the dhak-dhak Madhuri's Beta, he has always been the hero of the remakes of tamil movies. He shot to fame with Tezaab and Ram Lakhan. Seriously, he hardly appears for 15-20 minutes in Slumdog and gets a screen Guild - all because he was part of the cast.

For all of these gentlemen, who have rendered the best of their performances in most of the other bollywood movies only Slumdog has taken to the Golden globes and Screen guild and Oscars, so, their association with Danny Boyle made the difference ! Had an Indian director made this film, it would have only gotten one Oscar nomination under the Foreign Language film but never 10. And that's what happened with Lagaan.

Feels good to see videshis recognising desi music, acting and books. 'Choose your movie makers with care—they have so much influence on your life!' ;-)
Jai Ho!

The President!

We are right now watching the Republic day parade on DD. This is probably the only time in a year we tune to DD National. Dr. A was explaining to little A about all the helicopters and tankers and as Prathiba Patel came in focus, he said,"This paati is our President". Little A just gave him a grin - the look that probably said, "i know better than you" or even "you are teaching me all the wrong things". He just ran across the couch and picked up the TOI of 21st Jan that i had left on the computer table and comes back with, "Inda uncle daan ipo President" (this uncle is now the President) all of his little fingers on Obama's pic! Dr. A tried to elaborate saying, this lady is the president of India and Obama uncle is for ths US... all of this was OHT to the little one and he quickly changed the topic, "hey, look camels and horses"

Looks like Obama is the universal President for now. I don't think any President ever has grabbed a strong place on a 2.5 yr old toddler's mind or may be it is just the effect of 'Obama talk' all around him and who so ever we meet.

Bright and colorful

and as pink as a beet root...

Kalpathy Heritage Village

Clean roads, Agraharam with those unchanged houses, red thinnais, beautiful kolams adorning their entrances, age-old coin phones, orthodox temples where even a baby boy has to enter shirtless and wear only a dhoti into the shrine! The only modern thing i could find was just 1 house in the midst of the other terracota roofs and a Coffee day (not the Cafe!) Fresh n' Ground. The pictures will do the rest of the talking...

Tonight on TV

Its as popular as an Ind Vs Pak one-day international cricket match. A Monaco Grand Prix, a Wimbledon woman's finals or even a NBA final match will lose hands down today! Every kuppan, suppan in the nook and corner of the world is hooked onto the television to watch 'Obama Inauguration'.

I first saw Morgan Freeman as the first ever colored man to be acting as the President of USA in a movie, now its Obama in real-life!

Golden Globes...

Congratulations! and way to ARR & the Slumdog 'Crorepati' team and Bollywood is going places and across the Atlantic... but what was SRK doing there (??) I know there needs to be a Drishti spot...

The Thai Maasam

They say,
"Thai pirandaal, vazhi pirakkum" but this year at our home,
"thai pirandaal, kalyana pathrikai-s parakkum"

So many invites, so much so that i need a separate mail slot to hold them all. School mates, college mates, some juniors, current neighbors, old apartment mates, their siblings, phew! the list goes on...

Precious possessions from our private garden

When the angels decided to smoke cigars,

When the cupids shot, not arrows but paper rockets,

When the love struck birds had a light snack of Britannia biscuits,

When the sky wanted some wood work amongst the clouds,

Blessed was our private garden with all the 'Trash'

Well educated, upper-middle class folks living in luxury and super-luxury apartments, when it comes to civic sense = Zero

As American wind blows in India

The News Channels just gave us a breather after the "War on Mumbai" mega-serial episodes. Yet again, they have some thing chew on - The India's-Enron say the papers! CNBC TV18 folks didn't have a big role to play in the earlier episodes. But now, i see Udayan and Latha Venkatesh are fighting hard to get to and be in the limelight and be the toppers since the scam is in their subject. Am so bored, Satyam, Maytas, Mid-cap, land acquisitions, manipulated balance sheets, bribing of chief ministers, 7k cr lie, and 9k cr of investor wealth blah blah blah. I dont know when this will culminate.

In short these news channels are doing the same old aracha maavu business!

He makes his own dessert!

The protein rich Pottukadalai + Sugar podi :-). This is how you keep a hyperactive toddler occupied for a while. He works hard for that sweet result!

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