Guess Who?

There are different kinds of annoying people. People who say "En experience un vayasu". People who say "My tamil is not all that good but somehow I used to get good marks at school" and you know both parts of the statement aren't true. Celebrities who say "Da Vinci Code naan romba 'like panni' padicchen". But the ones at the top of my list right now are the ones that call you and say "Guess Who?" You might say the ones that take a wrong guess and continue the conversation for the next half hour without knowing the caller's identity are also annoying. But I categorise them under "stupid" category. The sample conversation could be like this when you are actually in a meeting at your workplace.
Your phone rings. By mistake you press the answer button instead of the silence button on your phone.
U - Hello
X - Hi
U - Hi..?
X - Guess Who this is?
You want to be civil in front of your collegues, so you say
U - I don't know.
X - You don't know me? You can't recognize MY voice?!
U - Can I call you back? I am in a meeting. (You really wish you could use the choicest of swear words but you restrain because your collegues are now following your conversation)
X - You are working! Since when? So is the meeting more important than me?
At this point you want to send a bomb through the phone.
U - I am busy, I have to go now. Call me later.
You cut the line only to be called again and this continues. The best way to take revenge is doing this to someone else.;-)
As a caveat I gotta add that I've been a little stupid and also a little annoying myself but not anymore.

A Blooper called ParamaSivan

This is not a movie review. This is the crying of a soul that wanted to watch a normal movie and ended up watching the movie called Paramasivan by P.Vasu. I've never been the one that appreciates a Vasu movie, which generally defies commonsense, logic etc but with so much hype about Ajith's comeback, I nevertheless wanted to try. Vasu lived upto his standards. Will someone please tell him that when he remakes movies that were originally made in Malayalam or hindi, he is not supposed to give himself credit for the story?
Ajith has short hair and then goes to jail and sports a long hair. He is out again with a new identity but the old hairstyle and the entire world believes that he is a different guy. Someow people always recognize me when I cut my hair short or have it long. They recognize me even when I wear sunglasses but lucky Ajith! There is an unwritten rule in Tamil movies in general that a hero has to have a female partner/lover/spouse and hence I think Laila was added in the last minute. Someone forgot to tell her that her character wasn't a mentally challenged one but one that has had education till the 6th standard. She has tried to do a Mundraam Pirai Sridevi and nobody seems to have told her that she needn't have. When your dad asks you not to run towards him you should do that instead of doing just the opposite like a moron, which is what Ajith's sister does and gets killed in the lamest possible fashion and the bad guys assassinate the characetr of a dead woman for some unknown reason and Ajith kills them out of irritation. And what is Jayaram doing in this movie? Prakash Raj is the Amitabh Bacchan of Tamil movies. He stars in every movie that gets released these days. Vivek does a fine job as usual. Well, Ajith has lost weight and some of his acting skills. I think of the Vaali Ajith and wonder whatever happened to that man.

Ganguly dropped

The second test is in progress and Ganguly is not in the playing XI. Who wants to go through the rigmarole again? Effigy-makers must be making a killing in Kolkata. Its sad to note that the state that has produced so many Nobel prize winners is in such a state. Well, what do we expect when its under the left leash! (I had to somehow make a connection;-))
My imagination runs wild about what would happen next. Ganguly talks to Pawar and whines about him not being in the team. Pawar feels sorry and also realizes that Ganguly is good friends with Sachin and hence deserves a better treatment. So he calls the BCCI honchos and asks them to include him in the team in the middle of the ongoing test...maybe in the 2nd innings. Something like a super-sub in tests where a new player could be included. BCCI, being the paisa power that it is decides to implement it and includes him in the team. ICC obviously gets mad but allows BCCI to do that after convening 2 meetings in Switzerland. Ehsan Mani, being a good Pakistani, laments that Indian board and its players have no discipline but acquiesces to the idea and Ganguly is back in the team for the 2nd innings. The pitch deteriorates after 4 days of play and hence ganguly is asked to open the innings. He hits a century and the world hails our dada. Kolkata celebrates its Diwali in Jan and everyone lives happily everafter.

Linguistically challenged

Saloon is a place where they keep booze. At least thats the actual meaning of the word saloon. But try telling this to the barber next door, he'll laugh on your face. Saloon is where people go to cut their hair according to him. The word Salon does't even exist in his dictionary. This is just one example of how someone arbitrarily makes a mistake or coins an entirely different word and a group of people start using it and lo, it becomes the norm.
Statements like "What you are doing?", "He don't know" are slowly gaining acceptance. This scares me. When a group of people start talking bad english for a long period of time, that english becomes the right english. This is true with any language. Its sad. The top 3 statements I hate to hear are
1. I can't able to understand. (Meaning - I can't understand)
2. I am going out. Whether you are coming? (Meaning - I am.....Are you coming?)
3. That movie is bad. Why to go? (Meaning - That...Why do you want to go?)
But soon this would become the right way of talking. So I decided to blog about this. Why to wait?

Land of Sobriquets

The title refers to Chennai. Chennai-ites (or should I say Tamilians?) are very good at giving sobriquets for people, places etc. Someone came up with the brilliant idea of calling A.R.Rehman "Madras Mozart". Captain Vijaykanth just formed a new political party and as expected he has been given a title. Given the fact that MGR is still popular in TamilNadu, its not surprising that some great soul came up with the idea of calling Vijaykanth, "Karuppu MGR" but what takes the cake is what I saw today. Vijaykanth is also called "Thennagatthin Nelson Mandela" (Mandela of the South). Someone please tell me. How are Mandela and Vijaykanth related? And who is the "Mandela of the North" or "Vada Naattu Mandela"?

??!

Weddings are always fun to attend. Its not just the clothes, food, meeting dear people etc but you also get to meet at least a few characters whom you'd remember for a very long time. And almost always you'd bump into a bully who happens to be someone's grandfather asking all single guys what they are doing and how much they earn. You can somehow dodge the questions and escape but what do you do when some old man asks an almost-30-year-old you "Do you remember me? The last time I saw you, you were a 2-year old?" Do they seriously expect someone to say yes to that?