[Pics - Theeranadhi]

How much ever I dislike to talk about the petty issues surrounding the Tamil literature circles, Kutti Revathi’s interview to Kumudam’s Theeranadhi was more meaningful than just throwing duppatas. This interview is a must read if you understand what the paragraph below is trying to convey.

I completely agree with these statements made on the state of tamil literary reviews. Especially the last 4 lines draws a vivid picture. And before you start reading the complete interview, I have to say this, What’s said here is also applicable to Indian Blogosphere.

P.S - Just in case you login to Theeranadhi to read the interview don’t miss, Kamala Pudumaipithan’s re-collection of pudumaipithan days.

4-1. The robot playing with the name of Mahendra Singh Dhoni did the magic. Looking like Anniyan Vikram, this guy is certainly a robot. I haven’t seen such effortless sixers since Robin Singh. Every single minute of the last hour was so exciting.

And Yuvraj is becoming a sort of Michael Bevan, a run machine. Just that he doesn’t come in as 7th down.

P.S - While Dravid would be the most happiest person now, he should think about not throwing his wicket with such bad shots.

I’ve been constantly asking friends to buy tamil literature books that I couldn’t get here in the US and they have been sending them in regular instalments. Now I seem to have books for more than a year’s worth of reading as I’m still waiting for to the next set to arrive.

Last week, some more books from Chennai, arrived. And I was waiting to get my hands all over them. This set includes this year’s most talked about books in The Chennai Book Fair 2006. The most expected was Aathavan’s Shortstory Collection with which I now own all of Aathavan’s works published recently. I know I’ve been rambling about Aathavan for sometime now and that’s because of a simple reason, thamizh kurum nallulagam has missed a great writer and given him to the floods. I have just started to read this one but I’ve to say Kizhakku Pathippagam has done a noble job of compiling the aathavan’s shortstories to feed his hungry fans. Indra Parthasarathy’s foreword where he talks about his student Aathavan, clearly details the sorrow of missing a great writer.

Aathavan had a unique style which I couldn’t compare to anyone before or even after him. I have this feeling that no one, literally no one details the middle class urban life as we see and live it. Sujatha to a large extent came closer to this. However, some of his urban stories moved away from the middle-class life that some(!!) of us lived. They moved away into a fantasy world which makes you earn for a middle-class life like that. Sample, the scene where Arvind Swamy smokes before his mom in Roja. Didn’t most(!!) of us think, what a cool idea it is to have a mom like that ? Whether its morally/physically wrong or right, didn’t we feel that the conversation they had in that scene, however exaggerated it seemed, was so damn cool. That’s Sujatha. Aathavan was a little different. He wrote and wrote about the urban family life and he wrote it just like that. Just like that. The exaggerations were minimal. In this arena, we don’t have a author in Tamil, parallel to Aathavan.

In Chennai Book Fair 2005, when I was in Kizhakku Pathipagam stall, a co-blogger introduced me to a gentleman, Era Murukan. While I knew nothing about him, to my surprise, he knew about Lazy Geek and spoke in length about Tamil writings. He said he worked for a software company and was extremely humble. As a foot note, he also mentioned that he wrote a book which was published by Kizhakku Pathipaggam. Though I believed it, the writers whom I’ve met before was nothing like him. He wasn’t dressed in a Veshti/Jibba and didn’t have a jolna bag like me. I moved on after talking to him. Now when I read his Moondru Viral, I wish I read this book a year back. Amazing details and vivid descriptions. Will complete the book and will certainly put up a post on this book.

Alpha is also one of the books that came along in this set. I am still awaiting to get Sujatha’s Collection Of Plays and Sujatha Kaelvi Pathil Part 1 and 2. Though I’ve read most, infact all, of Sujatha’s plays, this one will be in my collection. Sujatha virtually wrote all his plays only for Poornam Vishwanathan. Though Sujatha’s plays are unknown to the outside world, his play named Dr. Narendiranin Vinotha Vazhakku (The Weird Case Of Dr. Narendran) is a class apart. If only theatres groups like EVAM could play such unique plays, the world outside Chennai would discover a playwright in Sujatha.

A zillion thanks to Ramki for getting these books straight from the publishers.

It takes a year atmost for an unassuming desi to become wary of calories. While some 10-20% of them are already calorie conscious right from India, most of what-the-heck-is-a-calorie desis take atleast 12 months before they are soaking wet in the world of calories, fats, 2 % saturated fat, carbs and so-so. Amidst reading Pudumaipithan and Ashokamithran books, I recently found myself trapped with a book, The Bread for Life Diet : The High-on-Carbs Weight-Loss Plan. Mind you, I’m was the kind of desi who was once throwing a big damn towards all these calories and carbs.

I have to say I’m hugely impressed with this bread for life diet plan. Written by Israeli nutritionist Olga Raz’s this is a innovative diet plan that tries to control your brain from hogging food, rather than controlling the physical YOU. By taking regular courses of light bread which has carbs, it aims to raise Serotonin levels in hypothalamus region of the brain are raised. Brain is often called as the hunger center of the body which initiates and processes the feeling of hunger. Serotonin is a chemical that influences the mood and hunger.

Raz says adopting to a diet fails for most diet-watchers because a crash-course diet usually advices low carb foods and hence serotonin levels decrease, incresing the hunger more and more. With regular carbs intake, through light bread and other vegetables, the Serotonin levels are raised and hence hunger is controlled even in the brain. The diet plan is actually dealt in detail but the crux of the plan is to intake as much as 16 slices of light bread for men and 12 slices for women. While even reading this book makes you think this is a radical idea for diet, the diet plan claims to have reduced the weight of thousands of people already. Following this diet plan, the average weight loss among healthy people is said to 10 to 20 pounds, which ofcourse may vary from individuals.

What ? Am I trying it ? Donno but the book was well written and was certainly high-carbs food for my calorie conscious desi-mind.

India won. After a long time, it was great watching Sachin, Sehwag and Yuvraj bat to their glory.

The above pic has a self-explanatory email sent to me by Sriram.

Before that, my rambling note. I saw. I read. I was thrilled, excited and also sad. I hate to believe rumors that Camel Hassan’s ‘to-be magnum opus’ Marudhanayagam will never get to see the light of the silver screens. I have my own reasons why Marudhanayagam should and should not release. The reasons why it should outplay the others. I expect just like millions of other kollywood fans, Kamal’s dream would reach the screens and entertain us. Though wanting to explain the reasons in detail, holding you back before reading the email isn’t quite right. Here you go.

(more…)

Coming to a browser near you. Tomorrow.

To be precise, read this aloud in the famous SUN TV tone - Akila Ulaga Internetil Mudhal Muraiyaaga…..geek blogil…putham puthiya matter, Camel Hassan !!.

Weekly walk-ins to the bookstore B & N, located right opposite to my residence is turning out to be a virtue. A virtue that would prevent you from information overload[provided you are reading this very blogpost]. If one would have noticed[ofcourse I don't expect someone to notice all this trivial stuff), the posts in this blog are getting lesser by the week there by saving nice people from being information overloaded. The more I get closer with books, the more I think of those days when I finished reading books even before the librarian grasped that I actually rented that book. And the more time I spend in bookstore, I am moving away from the blogosphere. I am getting more and more embarassed of writing and indulging in blogs than doing some quality reading. There is just about so much to read than to write a who's who of tamil cinema or how the seattle sun gets cross-linked to a kollywood potboiler flick which released a decade ago. I am starting to believe in this proverb(!!?). Whatever needs to be written has already been written. All the new stuff being written is just old wine in the new bottle. Yes, every single issue of Ananda Vikatan or New Yorker is full of re-written news and messages and thoughts and experiences.

The bookstore visit today pushed me to yet another extreme of deciding to stop gibberishly talking through blogs. Now that I'm writing this post announces that the obsessive compulsion to stop this digressive blog, hasn't gone beyond extremes, I may be unable to guarantee anymore. Or may be ?

Confused ? Me too. It's this confusion that keeps me coming back to write and read the blogs. Its also this same indeterminacy that keeps me asking the question, Are blogs just protocols of information overload ? And I'm turning psychically averse to the word Information Overload [This link itself is ironically a nice sample of information overload. After all who wants to read an entire page of wikipedia when the word is directly understandable]. With around 200 blogs bookmarked in bloglines and Google Reader, reading them everyday is becoming mundane. Not that the quality of writing has gone to dogs. The Indian blogosphere is getting better by the day but wider by the hour. And its tough to keep track of. Also, if you think I’m a classic case of blog burn-out. I’m not. I am not yet there.

I love the web. Just like anyone normal geek, I am intensely in love with the web[this is also known as tool lust] and how web has become the quintessential part of everyday life. Still, I want to relax with a dose of crosswords/ coffee / books while listening to Joe Satriani or Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits. I know I’m turning to be a too-much dreamer but then when will that day come, when I would wake up and read the daily newspaper without switching on the PC and checking the blog. I dream.

Its been raining in Seattle for the last three months. And everyday, yeah every single day, it would rain during my morning commute. I drive briefly to a park & ride, where I take the bus to Downtown Seattle. That’s when I usually listen to NPR. I wasn’t listening, today.

After a brief peek, last tuesday, the sun god finally came out yesterday. And it was a day when the whole of Seattle chose to lock themselves inside their houses and hope for the victory of hawks. They didn’t. But the sun came out. And it’s joyful news. Coming here from the water-’less’ area like Chennai, I enjoyed the rain. But then just after six months, I started to appreciate the sun.

So today with the sun beaming across my face through the car window, I chose to listen to Rahman’s music. Hello Doctor from Kadhal Desam. It was like gulping a full pack of Full Throttle. Such excitement.

I have a special softcorner for Kadhal Desam. Donno if I had mentioned it here but the reasons are numerous. While KD was being shot, I visited the mahabalipuram sets of Kadhal Desam and hence I could always relate to it. Though sets were just made of savukku kattais with the face of modern architecture, it was a cool attempt in kollywood. Rahman’s songs were a big plus. Infact the biggest. Without Ennai Kaanavillaye or Mustafa Mustafa the movie wouldn’t have hit the box-office, even for the first few weeks. And yeah, we bunked our second day in college to watch Kadhal Desam (for the third time!!) at Devi. It was gang of 20+ kids entering college and bunking the second day to run around the theatre in a train-like fashion, during the songs.

Above all I knew tons of college mates, imagining themselves as Vineeth and Abbas, trying to walk behind the girls just like that Ennai Kanavillaye song. One friend would tell me, Machan, naama onnum abbas mathiri periya persnalty illa da. Athanaala ippdikaa orama olinchu, ennai kaanavillaye paattula vara vinneth mathiri, namma figurea paapom. There is this other lot of guys with the so-called figure madikara personality who usually rode samurais and splendors, who carried a helmet with flashy colors and a question mark sticker on their helmet windshields. They usually said they got the figures. None could confirm that however. There is also the other set of ‘counter-culture’ boys who bunked all the lectures and sat in the cricket ground beneath a puliya maram to start a club called puliya maram priends kilub. These dudes get to the listen to the color color stories of both the other groups and finally be the naataamai. FYI, they only smoked filter kings and the guy coming with an issue should buy a single tea and filter kings for the others. Infact most times he lighted the cigarette to the counter-culture thalai. Sounds like Godfather ? But its true.

Me. I belonged somewhere in-between all of the them, spending time in ground, class, library and ofcourse theatre. If the counter-culture guys needed some time pass, they sent a guy searching for me and they would tell, dei namma paruppa isthukinnu vaa. And they were always happy to have me in the gang briefly for they were so excited about the stories I told. Like a first time director telling his proposed story to a producer, I would tell stories with vivid descriptions and some exaggerated facial expressions. From Aandipatti to Amsterdam, the stories opened and closed all around the world, with turning points in the right places. And I told them that I would shoot this particular story as a magnum opus and the other sci-fiction, which I kathachufied the previous day would be my third film. Kamal to Rajini to Nasser and sometimes even SPB became many characters of my stories and these CC[counter culture] guys believed I would really strike chord with films someday. Huh !!

The reason I say this is because Kadhal Desam reflected the everyday college. Though it had its own set of kollywood exaggerations, it was much closer to my college days. And no movie after Kadhal Desam, not even Thulluvatho Ellamai or Kathal Konden or even Yuva come closer to real college scene. Sightu, Fightu, Figure, NIIT, Internetu, Footboard, Sutta Pazham, Single Chayya, Con-donation pees, British Council Library, Hero Puch, Bachelor and Arrears aka Cupu. Some keywords, lotsa memories. What days!!. I am saying this here again but I wish to click my life backwards. I would wish to re-live my college days again. Again.

Go Seahawks !!