If you are in India now, you probably would be donating stuff for Tsunami hit areas of Tamil Nadu and other countries through your corporate houses or your apartment buildings.

Making Tsunami donations to one common place can do all the good for the simple reason, the controlling body will make sure the money and the other donations recieved are shared across with victims uniformly. Hence, I personally believe that all donations collected by smaller organisations should be diverted to the PM or CM Relief Fund which will act as the controlling body in distribution of relief funds to the victims.

Just in case, you are outside India and wish to donate money to the Tsunami victims, see the PM’s National Relief Fund page for more details.

Rupya, a blog on stocks is accepting donations that originate from USA through Paypal.

Association for India’s Development, Inc. (AID), a US-based voluntary non-profit development organization is also collecting donations for Tsunami victims. Donate

The Hindu is also collecting donations online called The Hindu Relief Fund, which can be paid by credit cards. Donate.

A blog has been setup for the Tsunami relief called The SEA-EAT blog. It’s an effort to consolidate news and information about resources, aid, donations and volunteer efforts. [Via Kribs].

Update [31st Dec 2004] - Some more links to tsunami donation sites are added here.

Indian Red Cross Society. Indian Red Cross Society, National Head Quarters. Tele: 011-23716424 Fax: 011-23717454. Donate

American Red Cross Disaster Relief through Amazon.com. Donate.

Children account for one third of tsunami dead. UNICEF responds to disaster that struck Asia. Donate.

World Food Program. Donate.

[Click the picture for a bigger image]

NY Times Photo-essay on the Tsunami that hit Chennai and the coastal areas of Tamil Nadu. Images of heartrending pain.

Apocalypse visits Chennai. I hate to believe it happened. This one is a consolidated article on all the updates by New Indian Express on the coastal calamity.

A timely editorial on Tsunami from Hindu - Death from the sea.

Chronology : Tsunamis at Guardian.

BBC Reports - South India struck by quake waves.

22,000 and the count keeps increasing. Diaster Toll - Sri Lanka:11,000 dead, Indonesia: 4,500 dead, India: 3,500 dead, Thailand: 839 dead, Malaysia: 44 dead, Maldives: 32 dead, Burma: 30 dead, Bangladesh: 2 dead.

[Sea water flowing in Chennai roads. Pic: hindu.com]

So it happened and it happened just after all the newspapers and weeklies have bragged about the year that was. The most devastating incident happened during the last week of the year making people denounce new year celebration.

At 7:30 am on the Sun TV, it was officially announced that there was an earth quake at Chennai. From then on it was a roller coaster ride. People were seen on the streets talking and talking about the Chennai’s second trembling earthquake. I switched to the sunday channel programs as usual. It was at 9:50 am when I recieved an SMS from my friend who said the sea water was flowing into the city and I thought it was just overstatement. And only when the Flash News started to roll, I believed. The first thing that stuck was the summer flick, The day after tomorrow.

At 10:30 am when I drafted the previous post, I had no clue that there will be such a huge impact. A reporter said Tsunami hits chennai on the NDTV news channel. Tsunami, what?. And Tsunami became the most used word of the year atleast here in Chennai/Tamil Nadu. I initally thought they had just a named the tremor attack like naming tornados in the US. I was completely wrong.

At 3:00 pm when I was at the Besant Nagar beach, there were around 3,000 people standing in the shores and watching the sea. The Earthquake and Tsunami at Chennai had taken thousands of lifes into the sea and it looked as peaceful as ever.

Over the Adayar bridge the water level has doubled, a sight that I have never personally seen before on that bridge. When I pulled my bike over the bridge, I could see a batches of huts that were half submerged in the water flow.

This is probably the most ravaging incident that hit Chennai and Tamil Nadu in the whole in my lifetime and as said in the previous post, this incident would be talked, blogged and narrated a thousand times in the years to come.

Intestingly Writer Sujatha’s short story called Nagar Vallam[City Round-up] talks about a group of people visiting Chennai Triplicane on a boat because part of Chennai city is submerged over by the tidal waves. The come there by a boat to see the places where their fore-fathers lived. The story appeared on the Sci-Fi series written by Sujatha in Kalki weekly.

Here’s is what wiki says about the Killer Tsunami

A tsunami (from Japanese ?? meaning wave in port) is one or a series of ocean surface waves that occur after a large earthquake (having a vertical component of movement), seaquake, volcanic activity, slumps, or meteorite impacts in or near the sea.

In deep water, the energy of a tsunami is constant, a function of its height and speed. Thus, as the wave approaches land, its height increases while its speed decreases. A tsunami has a very long wave length (in the order of 100 km), which makes it act as a shallow-water wave. While in deep water a person at the surface of the water would probably not notice, the wave can increase to a height of 30 m and more as it approaches the coastline.

Tsunami prediction remains an imperfect science. Although the epicenter of a large underwater quake and the probable tsunami arrival times can be quickly calculated, it is almost always impossible to know whether massive underwater ground shifts have occurred, resulting in tsunami waves.

Here is more on 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.

The ground beneath my feet trembled. The place was shaking all over. My comp fell down from the table. The wall clock just slipped down to hit my head straight. It had 6:45 am on it’s hands and it stopped. I just realised it was a earthquake and quickly opened the door and ran faster and faster. It shook and I rolled down the stairs. Down and Down. Rolling.

Well, that was just a an exaggeration. I could possibly have a nightmare of sorts today just like this one. But truly it trembled. Just a little.

One unassuming december sunday morning was going to be an unforgettable one, specially for the ones who lived in Chennai. As I was about to wake up, this morning it was a feeling that someone was just playing with the cot. There was a thin shake and it stayed for a while. Even before I realised it was a earthquake it was over. It lasted just for a minute before it died down taking away so many lives all over Asia alongwith it.

Was in Adyar today and took a stroll after the quake to see if I was the one who was insane to think it was a earthquake. I understood I wasn’t alone. However, I didn’t comprehend the loss until it was announced in the televisions. Had been to the Besant Nagar beach now to see what had happened to the Chennai’s proud asset. The beach memorial where Chennai Blogger meets are held is just so close to the sea. The original shores aren’t too be seen and the beaches(Marina, Besant Nagar, Santhome and Thiruvanmiyur) have become museum pieces. People are coming in hundreds to watch the sea take over the shores.

This title doesn’t hold a connection to the day after tomorrow movie but the day before tomorrow(it’s today…come on) will be remembered down the memory lane. Sometimes Headline News happens just beneath you without you realising it is one.

Watch Kathal.

Watch The Incredibles.

Watch Swades.

Enough of thinking lazy!!. Yun Hi Chalaa Chal has been running in the winamp loop for 12th time. Shutdown the comp and for heaven’s sake, watch Swades first.

[Surya as Michael Vasant]

This year wasn’t a year of performances. We didn’t have an array of classic acts that were tough to choose from. With the little lot that kollywood saw this year it wasn’t like a photo-finish.

This year’s little group of acts included Kamal as the naive Virumandi, Surya as Perzhagan ‘hunch back’ Chinna, Surya as the intellectual Michael Vasanth and Parthiban as a Schizophrenic in Kudaikkul Mazhai.

(more…)

If you think playing Chris Mom/ Chris Child is childish. No way. We played it on a 50 member team and it proved to be lots of fun and the best of team building exercises. Rocks.

2004 Year-End Google Zeitgeist , the time-spirit of globe, has been released. Guess what - Britney, Christina Aguilera and Pamela ‘Bay Watch’ Anderson are topping the popular searches. There is just two male dudes in the top 10 popular seaches. Orlando ‘Troy’ Bloom and Harry Potter. Eminem did made it to the top 2 of Popular Men 2004. One a personal note I am excited that Kurt Cobain and Bob Marley are still in the Top 10 Male Celebrities. Ironically, on a year when music companies came together against music piracy, mp3 is one of the top 10 popular searches.

GMAIL is close to be released public in Jan 2005, I guess. Starting yesterday, GMAIL is giving out 10 more invitations to the subscribers. I know no one needs them anymore. Just in case, leave a comment.

I have blogged about accidents and traffic in Chennai before, this is one more of that category.

Couple of days back, in a suburb of Chennai, while me and my friend were driving back on a two-wheeler, there was crowd in the middle of the road. A man’s body lying there. We searched for the head. No head.

Next day in my office this was the talk-of-the-day. Looks like he was run over by a watertank lorry. We know that watertank lorries are the mobile God-Of-Dead in Chennai. But this one was truly heart crunching. Imagine that doomed man’s thoughts just when he was alive under the wheels of that lorry. One moment and all his hopes, dreams, family and career boomed out.

No Preaching. A suggestion, Drive Slow.

Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door. Not the Bob Dylan stuff but today is Vaikunda Ekaathisi.

Looks like Master Martin Scorsese and Di Caprio combo is going to work again. The Aviator rocks this year’s Golden Globe nominations. Releasing for Christmas in the US and no sign of the movie release in Chennai.

It’s a joke that you can’t watch three continuous songs in Ktv. One of them will be a bad one. Suprisingly it wasn’t today. Starting with Sivakumar and Nathiya singing Kanna Unnai Thedukiren in the Kodaikaanal cold, it went on Kamal Sridevi singing Perai Sollavaa from Guru. Finally it was Rajini and Deepa with a voice-over of Senorita !! I love you from Johnny. All three were SPB goodies, picturised at hillstations and also my fave ones. The joke was broken.