Sequels don't do really well in most cases. Be it books, movies or even kids. And so is Koffee with Anu. I really enjoyed Anu Hassan's interviews with gliteratti of Tamil Nadu and the format of the first season was really interesting.

Last weekend, when I watched the first show of the 2nd season, I thought they spoiled the format and made it much more formal. From the sets, to the props on the seat, everything reminded me of Star TV's Rendezvous with Simi Garewal. Except that the sets weren't painted white.

Anu was as at her usual best but the format of the show lacked the exuberance. Plus, for the first show of their next season, Simran and her husband Deepak were the guests. Though both of them were enthusiastic, given the fact that Tamil was their first language and Anu had to adjust her discussion partly in Tamil and English, made the program seem ordinary.

However, the last section called Koffee Tarot cards, looks like a cool idea and will be successful only if the guests share juicy stories of the personality behind their tarot card picks. When Simran picked up her first tarot card having Jyothika's picture on it, I was expecting something more juicy than the normal goody-goody talk.

Let's see what the coming weeks have in store for us.

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THE UNFORTUNATE DEMISE OF THE TAMIL WRITER SUJATHA – from the news-channel eulogies, though, you’d think the man was merely a screenwriter, giving shape to the visions of Shankar and Mani Ratnam – has occasioned a steady outpouring of how-I-learnt-to-read-Tamil-with-his-books memories, and while I know from experience that that’s true, I feel no one has zeroed in on why this is so. After all, there were so many other Tamil writers – the great modernist god that was the early Vairamuthu, say – who were Sujatha’s contemporaries and who were certainly no slouches when it came to a certain felicity of expression that could make any rank newbie fall in rapturous love with the language. But I think what made Sujatha stand apart and speak to so many of us who grew up in the seventies and the eighties was that his writings were instantly appealing to a generation that could understand Tamil and speak Tamil and read Tamil and perhaps even write Tamil – but thought in English. I’m not just talking about the sci-fi setting of En Iniya Iyandhira and its robo-dog named after the Roman goddess Juno – all far, far removed from the sociopolitical and moralistic scenarios that constituted a lot of the writing in the local magazines of the time – but Sujatha’s Western sensibilities would peek through even his pieces on ancient religious texts.

Baradwaj Rangan wrote those lines in a sort-of-obituary column on Writer Sujatha. While it was nice of him to write about Sujatha for a large audience, two things about it that didn't gel very well.

One. Check out this line -

you’d think the man was merely a screenwriter, giving shape to the visions of Shankar and Mani Ratnam – has occasioned a steady outpouring of how-I-learnt-to-read-Tamil-with-his-books memories, and while I know from experience that that’s true, I feel no one has zeroed in on why this is so.

Sujatha himself has written about this a number of times about writing in Tamil for thinking-in-english generation of Tamil Nadu. So this isn't a very new thought on the horizon.

Baradwaj writes - I feel no one has zeroed in on why this is so. That's probably the easiest way to go beyond all the lengthy texts Sujatha's fans have ever written on his demise. And a subtle path to take-by-force, an established writer status.

To answer him, nobody zeroed in on this because its the first thing that hits you when you even glance Sujatha's writing at the first place. Also, there are quite a few people who wrote about it. Maybe nobody "zeroed-in" on this in English as Baradwaj has done here. Take that credit, BR.

Then, Two.

As an aside, maybe that’s why Mani Ratnam felt the time was ripe for his kind of cinema – because he had in front of him a young audience that wasn’t especially “Indian” when it came to, say, respecting authority figures. Do you think a filmmaker from an earlier era would have given us the scene from Roja where Arvind Swamy’s mother speaks of his smoking habit as if it were a minor annoyance

Just this simple reason that a film reviewer recollects this scene even after 15 years goes onto show that this was even a shocker scene during its release. If such a scene were to be a part of 80s flick it would have still been viewed with the same emotion.

It's just that it wasn't made before doesn't mean the 90s generation was the first non-"indian" generation. And when Baradwaj gets to read Sujatha's first novel Nylon Kairu or Kanavu Thoyirchalai, it would evident that Sujatha created a variety of such westernized characters long before Roja.

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Though the ad was clearly hyped and totally cliched, I still liked it for the lyrics and animation. Especially the tamil version of this named as, திறமைப் போர் was terrific. Any idea which Ad agency made this one? Some commented on the youtube page that it was made by Piyush Pandey of Ogilvy and Mather.

Couldn't find the Tamil version of the ad on Youtube but a pretty timely ad for the cricket-hungry countrymen.

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Why is rediff churning out such junk? Do they even know what they are talking about. Come on, this is the list of contemporary hottest jodis of kollywood and they have cheran-sneha on page 2. Cheran ?? Sneha ???

Looks like pageviews still rule the rediff team. That's probably why they have one photo per page and some vaguely written text surrounded by tons of adblocks. Keep them coming !!

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[thanks- vikatan]

Ananda Vikatan publishes Sujatha's final column named Apollo Dhinangal.

He wrote this column on the 18th day of hospitalization just before slipping away into coma.

Desikan, Sujatha's official biographer and good friend writes about the Sujatha's final moments in a touching column that throws light on a different/unknown side of Sujatha.

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You Tube took the opportunity of the World Economic Forum which happened at Davos from Jan 23-27. They installed the YouTube Room where a question called The Davos Question, was posted and the world leaders could come in, face a camera and answer the question. The answers were later posted to You Tube.

"What one thing do you think that countries, companies or individuals must do to make the world a better place in 2008?"

That was the question. And here are the answers. Some were exciting and some were not so exciting. Nevertheless a must watch to see how different the reactions are from the leaders/CEOs around the world.

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The Pongal special interview with Director Shankar on Vijay TV was classy. Infact, its the best ever Shankar interview on any media. Shankar as usual was down-to-earth, straight and honest in replying to Gopinath's questions. Gopinath known for his well researched questions, did a fine job of bringing Shankar to a comfortable state where the interview just rushed through like well crafted flick.

Though it was rehash of what Shankar had already written his auto-biography, Sankar Muthal Shankar Varai(in Kumudam), it was good to see him elaborate on the films he worked before making his first film, Gentleman.

The interview brought out the best from Shankar, his humor, his approach to films and surprisingly, his (non-existetent) views on Tamil Cinema. Shankar did agree that Sujatha's dialogue(s) added to the success of his films and also gave distinct voices for his characters.

I've enjoyed most of Shankar's films except the recent ones like Sivaji and Anniyan. And I've always seen Shankar as a director who makes films for his audience and not just for himself. They have mostly been pedestrian fantasy flicks but sometimes end as a nonsensical film like Sivaji, where the screenplay went off-track and wasn't in his control.

BTW, if you can get a hand on the video of this interview, its a must watch.

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After a long frustating decade of Tamil on the internet, mainstream magazines are starting to use to Unicode fonts instead of propietary fonts. And that's a great news.

Ananda Vikatan, probably the number 1 magazine of tamil media is now completely on unicode. All you need is a computer with IE/Firefox/Safari installed to read Vikatan. With this change, Vikatan also cleans the clutter of it's site and sports a cleaner design.

The in-direct benefit for bloggers is that they can now quote(note the point, just quote and not completely copy) vikatan articles on their blogs without having to transform the vikatan font to unicode.

Ofcourse, you need to be a paid user to read the content on vikatan.com but if you are a NRT(yeah NR Tamilian), you should think about paying them $14/year as subscription. But if you are one of those lazybums who wouldn't want to read tamil, watch tamil videos on kumudam.com.

P.S - This week's vikatan rumors that Ajit is being approached for Shankar's Robo. One more reason, to buy Vikatan subscription if you can't wait until the new is this week or probably the next.

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Pun intended.

New York Times announced yesterday that they are opening up the entire site and will stop charging for premium content/archives.

What changed, The Times said, was that many more readers started coming to the site from search engines and links on other sites instead of coming directly to NYtimes.com. These indirect readers, unable to gain access to articles behind the pay wall and less likely to pay subscription fees than the more loyal direct users, were seen as opportunities for more page views and increased advertising revenue.

“What wasn’t anticipated was the explosion in how much of our traffic would be generated by Google, by Yahoo and some others,” Ms. Schiller said.

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15/09/2007 Special Programmes

06.30am - 07.00am - Sudha Raghunathan
07.30am - 08.00am - News
08.00am - 08.30am - Interview With Actor Kamalhassan
08.30am - 09.00am - Interview With Maestro Ilayaraja
09.00am - 09.30am - Interview With Director K.Shankar
09.30am - 10.30am - Leoni Pattimandram
10.30am - 01.00pm - Pokkiri Movie 100Th Day Function
01.00pm - 01.30pm - News
01.30pm - 04.30pm - Block Buster Movie "Mozhi"
04.30pm - 05.00pm - Ungal Choice (Dial In) Jeyam Ravi
05.00pm - 05.30pm - Interview With Comedian Vadivel
05.30pm - 07:30pm - Super Hit Movie "Imsai Arasan 23Rd Pulikesi"
07.30pm - 08.00pm - News
08.00pm - 08.30pm - Interview With Actor Surya
08.30pm - 09.00pm - Pudhu Padangal - New Movies Review
09.00pm - 09.30pm - Interview With Actor Vivek
09.30pm - 10.30pm - Mannada Mayilada
10.30pm - 11.00pm - Interview With Director / Actor Cheran
11.00pm - 11.30pm - Magic Show

16/09/2007 Special Programmes

06.30am - 07.00am - Nityashree
07.30am - 08.00am - News
08.00am - 08.30am - Interview With Actress Asin
08.30am - 09.00am - Interview With Actor Vishal
09.00am - 09.30am - Interview With Actress Sneha
09.30am - 10.00am - Interview With Actor Arjun
10.00am - 10.30am - Interview With Actress Sandhya
10.30pm - 11.00pm - Interview With Actor Bharath
11.00am - 11.30am - Logic Illai Magic
11.30pm - Block Buster Movie "Ayudha Ezuthu"
01.00pm - 01.30pm - News
03.00pm - 04.30pm - Chandramuki 100Th Day Function
04.30pm - 07.30pm - Movie "Periyar"
07.30pm - 08.00pm - News
08.00pm - 08.30pm - Mannada Mayilada - Curtain Raiser
08.30pm - 09.30pm - Ellamae Siripputhan
09.30pm - 10.30pm - Comedy Skit By Yuhi Sethu
10.30pm - 11.00pm - Interview With Actor Madhavan.

Keerthi forwardded me this proposed opening schedule of Kalaignar TV. While this is not the finalised schedule for the opening weekend, the who's who of kollywood can be spotted already and I am skeptical if there will be any entertainment left for the coming days/weeks.

By the way(everyone writes BTW these days so this is just for a change), Kalaignar.tv, KalaignarTV.com, KalaignarTV.in and KalaignarTV.co.in are all already booked by cybersquatters. They are the most obvious names for the Kalaignar TV domain and I dont think the management is making attempts to book them.

Also Raj TV has no news about Kalaignar TV on their site. Makes me think if the media houses in Tamil Nadu are just too engrossed in entertaining people that they forget a huge business market exists for them outside of the country.

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Blockbuster killed enough of Netflix's market share by introducing Total Access feature with which one could exchange the movie packet obtained through mail for an in-store movie. This means, technically you can double the number of movies you watch for the same price.

Though being a Netflix fan, I moved to Blockbuster, lured by the double whammy offer. It's been smooth since then. I moved to the 1 dvd at-a-time scheme and was able to watch atleast 15 movies a month. I have to accept that its overwhelming sometimes to watch 15 movies a month.

After pulling enough of marketshare from Netflix through this plan, Blockbuster recently started to grandfather existing subscribers to their unlimited in-store exchange plan while it moved others to a new plan which limited in-store exhanges. Depedning on how heavily you use their Total Access feature, the plan to retain your account under the the old plan was made.

Luckily I have a blockbuster right across the street and was able to use the in-store exchange every time. Hence I think, my account is now retained under the old scheme. And the account page reads this -

BLOCKBUSTER Total Access Premium $9.99 / month (plus taxes). 1 at-a-time, unlimited mailings, unlimited in-store free movie/discounted game exchanges +1 FREE bonus Movie or Game Rental E-Coupon / Month

It's a pity that some of the existing subscribers were moved to the new 'blockbusted' plan. Meanwhile Netflix began offering DVD quality downloads of movies, in addition to the DVD by mail option which seem to interest me.

Atleast a good percentage of 'blockbusted' subscribers will now move to this super lazy Netflix plan. No more store exchanges for them as they can just click on their computers to watch DVD movies. And ofcourse, there is Apple TV to stream movies to your TV, if you hate watching movies on a 19 inch monitor.

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The online version of Katrathum Petrathum says "முற்றும்" at the end. Not sure if it was a typo or if the series has ended for good. This one was the fifth serving that started last July.

Even on the saturday ambalam chat with Writer Sujatha, nobody talked about this. Since I hadn't read this week's serving of Katrathum Petrathum by then, I was also talking about En Iniya Iyanthira and other things.

Can someone verfiy this from the print edition ?

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T.S. Narasimhan, the producer of the hit 80's television version of R K Narayan's Malgudi Days is back with the next installment. Shankar Nag who directed the 80's show, has passed away. The 'new' Malgudi Day will be directed by Kavitha Lankesh. And I first read it on rediff, in an interview with Kavitha Lankesh.

To select 15 stories was quite challenging. I had to select new stories, as tales from Swamy and Friends had been done by Shankar Nag. So, I had to read all the works of Narayan again and took stories like Lawley Road, Snake Song, Salt and Sawdust.

I am getting a positive response. You should know that, when Shankar Nag directed the serial, there were more black and while TV sets and no private channels to compete with Doordarshan. Of course, Nag's efforts were also classy. Things are different now, yet the reactions I have been getting are wonderful. I think my efforts have been widely appreciated.

From the interview, it seems like the broadcast has already begun. I'm sure it will be interesting to watch the post-2K Malgudi Days.

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In this week's Vijay TV Super Singer, the lifeline round brought in 5 contestants who were eliminated or who dropped-off due to personal reasons. It included Harish, Sowmya, Archana Iyer, Nitinraj and Vijay. Vijay seems to be the most luckiest than anyone in this competition. He was eliminated thrice in the prelims but managed to get back into competition because someone else dropped off. Also his singing gets better as the rounds proceed. Couple of weeks back when he sang, Illamai Itho with an intonation of a drunkard, I whistled from the living room.

The lifeline round was judged by the public voting method. So each contestant were given a number, and the viewers dialed-in or sms-ed to register their vote. One out of these five contestant was to be selected and others would get eliminated. Here's what happened -

- Sowmya sang her best song to date, Konjam Nilavu. And she rocked. Personally after Swathi, Anitha and Maya, Sowmya is also one of my favorite among the females. Earlier to this round she was eliminated and was brought-in by voting system of the previous round. Konjam Nilavu is a tough song to sing on stage. I dont know if Anupama also sang it in one shot during the recording. Neverthless its a song that allows you to travel through your pitches. Especially the lines, Enn Pirandhen Endra Kaelvi Vaarathu. Ingu Nee Irundhaal Athu Konjam Meerathu. Vandu Naaaan..., calls for a versatile singer. And I think Sowmya did a fairly good job. The most important thing was that her lyrics were clearer than the original version rendered by Anupama.

- Harish Sivaramkrishnan, who dropped off due to his official work came back with a wildcard entry. He sang the Ennavaley Adi Ennavaley. Ofcourse Unnikrishnan was there judging him. And did a very good job by singing it one pitch lesser than the original. In the original version, Unni Krishnan picks it up at a higher pitch, making the words sound lighter and also resembling a female intonation. But I loved Harish's version. And I'm sure he is going to be tough to compete with if he enters the finals.

- Vijay, who stormed back into the contest with his drunkard version of Illami Itho, took a melodious number this time. He sang Nilaave Vaa from Mouna Raagam. Except for some places where he experimented he sang exactly the SPB version. And he did it perfectly well. Some place I thought they played a back-up tape of the original for him. While he was fine, I think he has strong competition from Sowmya and Harish to reach the finals.

- Archana Iyer, who also dropped-off in the previous rounds due to her exams came back with her favorite, Thoodhu Varuma. And yeah an OK job. Ofcourse, she sang it in her own style which is appreciative but the flavor of the song suffered because of that. Neverthless it was a decent attempt with original style.

- Nitinraj, whom I thought didn't have enough versatality did a super job yesterday with his version of Kanaa Kandenadi from Parthiban Kanavu. And he did it really well that I had to change my opinion on him. He might be a strong contender for the finals.

The finals team has 4 contestants - Anitha, Maya, Nikil and Goutam. One out of these 5 lifeline contestants will join them. And its going to be huge show for the rest of the weeks at Vijay TV's Super Singer.

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Sujatha details his friendship with Balu Mahendra in a recent Ambalam article, Baluvin Kanaakaalam. Very importantly he mentions two things about Balu Mahendra's Kathai Neram serial.

Those who had watched Kathai Neram can vouch that it was one of the best serial ever made for television. Each episode was a seperate shortstory. And as Sujatha says it was a perfect example of adapting a shortstory for the screen. He also goes on to say that Balu Mahendra was able to tell a shortstory in 20 minutes without making it embarassingly loud or terribly boring. And as someone who saw most of those episodes, I have to say that Sujatha's words aren't an exaggeration.

Sa.Kandasaamy's Tholaindhu Ponavargal was my other favorite serial. If I could re-collect it right, it was broadcasted on Thursdays from 10 - 10:30 pm. In Channel 2. Remember, Channel 2 of DD ?

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Two weeks back, the tamil world went bonker bonks with two back-to-back murders. The wifes killed their respective husbands. Not because their husbands didn't buy them chicken briyani or they didn't take their wifes to Azhagai Irukiraai Bhayamai Irukirathu movie. Adultery. One of them was marred for nearly 12 years and had two kids. the second one killed her husband on the third day after marriage, while they were off for a honeymoon. And that was shocking to many.

Passing moral judgements would be the stupidest idea. But atleast someone could actually look through these and discover what really went wrong. Connected to these two incidents, Anuradha Ramanan's column on Vikatan named, Enna Aachu Namma Ponungalukku ?, hits the nail on the head. She explores the mindset of contemporary society and then derives reasoning as to how extra-marital affairs branch out. The concluding part of this column will be on the next issue but this is Anuradha Ramanan in her own style.

Couple of month's back, I was reading Sujatha's Katrathum Petrathum Part 1 where he writes a one page story named Thirai. Thirai starts off as any normal shortstory and within just one page, explores the issue of adultery so subtely that it shocks you just on it's concluding line. One of Sujatha's best shortstories. Infact, the shortest.

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Today, Mumbai is back to business. People suffered a lot on Tuesday evening, but only after 12 to 15 hours they are back to their duties/business without any fear, travelling in the same crowded trains. This is the spirit of Mumbai. Terrorists can explode bombs in trains or even at strategic locations, but they cannot break the Mumbai spirit.

This spirit is sufficient to frustrate the evil design of terror-mongers. They can draw satisfaction from material damage but they are unable to break the moral, courage and spirit of Mumbaikars.

Despite the jamming of all telecommunication and transportation hurdles on Tuesday evening, Mumbaikars rose to the occasion. They helped each other; passed well-being messages through incoming STD calls; provided food, water and shelter to stranded fellow Mumbaikars; donated blood; helped the administration in traffic control and at blast sites.

Seems like RD got it all wrong. I've never been up at Mumbai. I don't know what it feels be a mumbaiite. But when all the media is going ga-ga over it's spirit, I couldn't stop getting amazed. I want to stay at Mumbai for atleast twenty hours.

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Vijay TV's Super Singer was a mess-up this week.

- The show organisers formed three groups, Chennai, Kovai and Madurai. Each had five participants.

- On Friday, one from each group was eliminated except for the Chennai group.

- Harish, one of the best singers in the whole competition, from the Chennai team, walked out of the contest for personal reasons. It's probably the same with Archana Iyer too.

- The groups were askd to perform two songs. One to show their harmony strengths. Two for the creativity.

- Chennai team performed Pachai Niramey and Madapura[Pathiban Kanavu]. Gowtham Bharadhwaj making those romantic twists, in the beginning of Madapura, seemed silly. Gowtham is a fantastic singer except that he is super artificial when he talks. And I think, he believes that he is probably the only good looking guy in the contest.

- Kovai team did a fantastic job of performing Kurukku Chirthavaley and Sorgam Enbathu Namakku. The Sorgam song rocked given the fact that they were dancing and singing it. Swathi of Kovai team is one helluva singer.

- Madurai team also did a good job. They sang Pani Vizhum Iravu and Kaatril Varum Geethamey. Rajini and Anitha are probably the best singers of this team.

- Vani Jayaram, who was chief guest for this week's show, didn't enjoy the dancing and singing of Kovai team. She voted Madurai team as the best group singing team. And I think that wasn't right in my opinion. Kovai was the best. One could see that from the reactions of Anuradha Sriram and Sreenivas.

- After all this, the lousy thing happened. As a part of their elimination strategy, each contestant was asked to vote-out one of their group members. This was only for the Chennai and Kovai as they lost out to Madurai Team. The results are to be announced next week.

If only Chinmayee, who is MCing the show, could shout a little less especially the bramandamaana kural thedal bit, a little bit, it might seem much better. Gayathri Jayaram on the other hand, in hosting the Vijay TV's Grand Master show shouts her soul out. Shouting seems to be an essential quality for becoming a TV host in Tamil media.

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Yet another show on the American Idol format. First it was Indian Idol and now it's Vijay TV's Airtel Super Singer contest. The winner of this super singer contest will get a chance to sing for Harris Jayaraj. The show runs from 8 pm every friday and saturday on Vijay TV.

Believe me this show is good. Just damn good. Not because this show is about music but the tamil touch to this international format is just exciting. And we have some super dooper singers amongst us.

The other day, a participant named Gowtham sang, Rahman / Hariharan's Malargale song. I haven't heard such an amazing control like that from an amateur singer. Nice balance and amazing sangathis. If one was watching this from the first week, they would understand how many singers we have in the country. Though the first round participants included many weirdos, atleast half of the crowd was nice stuff. As of now, the contest is on the fourth round with 20 or 24 contestants. And as it moves forward, its going to be more interesting.

In the initial rounds, the judges included SP Sailaja, Sreenivas, Maalathy and many others. After prelims it's Anuradha Sriram, Sreenivas and Unni Krishnan. While its a nice trio, Anuradha seems to be too bossy and wouldn't allow the other two to do the talking. I'm sure someone would let her know as the show moves on.

Instead of a screwed up film review or a kadi serial, I prefer to spend two hours a week for some nice music contest. Worth the time spent. With such shows, Vijay TV is slowly becoming the best channel for true entertainment. Two years from now, I would expect Vijay TV not to top prime time TRP ratings but to a gather a loyal viewer base.

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I wasn't a big fan of Anderson Cooper, until last week. One would have started to notice him just before Katrina. That's when Aaron Brown's prime time on CNN was taken back and allocated to Anderson's 360 show. His Katrina reporting was talked about. I felt, he made animated movements trying to exaggerate the situation.

Last week, browsing through the cable, I came across Oprah show where Anderson was the guest. Coming from the royal family of Vanderbilt, Anderson Cooper had taken challenging journalist pursuits in Kenya and Myanmar. It was astonishing, given the fact that he was barely out of his teens when did such expeditions.

As he puts it, there is nothing wrong if a reporter feels emotionally about the news. One needs to be objective about the news but one can certainly feel the news that is being reported. That was a fair statement which explains his animated movements and unique intonations while reporting tragic events. What made the show was the quote, Hope is not a plan. Don't hope for something. Plan for it. Makes sense.

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Kamal Hassan's shortstory in Vikatan[28 May 2006] named, Anayaa Neruppu, is a dazzling sample of his story-telling skills. I'm not hinting the story. But it's a class apart. No jokes. Tell me if you weren't amazed.

P.S - I read it for the second and third time. I'm still amazed. Much more than the first time. How could he ever think of this dimension, from a story that's so common. Every single sentence has been crafted after much thought. Brilliant. I'm not going ga-ga because it's Kamal. For a short story, this is one helluva trip.

P.P.S - Just came back after watching the Da Vinci Code. It did strike me that Kamal just explained, in this story, how Dan Brown managed a Da Vinci Code. This story is a sort of mini Da Vinci Code on Hinduism.

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Last week, I was reading a column from Ashokamitran Katuraigal. Asokamitran worked for Swadesamitran, a newspaper of yesteryear Tamil Nadu. He wrote political opinions in a pseudo name, Kinkaran. He describes the doomdays of Swadesamitran as it was struggling to compete with Alai Oosai, another newsdaily. The column was a sensitively written moving account about the death of the newspaper.

Swadesamitran was started by G Subramania Aiyer who was then owning The Hindu. From 1904 to 1906, Subramanya Bharati worked as a sub-editor of this newspaper and was writing radical opinions against the British Raj. He left Swadesamitran to start another newsdaily, India. Later he re-joined Swadesamitran in 1920 and continued to work for them until his death in 1921. Swadesamitran was closed in 70's after losing to the competition of Alai Oosai and Dina Thanthi which brought modern journalistic practices to Tamil journalism.

The news here is this. After reading two columns of Ashokamitran on Swadesamitran's history, I was inquisitive to read more history of this newspaper. While searching on the net, I found this gem written by the historian S Muthiah. In this awe-inspiring article, S Muthiah talks about the rise and fall of Swadesamitran. An extract -

Nevertheless, Bharati in 1914 wrote of him, "unaided he has made Tamil Journalism a fact of the world in spite of his imperfect early training in Tamil. ... They win who dare; Mr. Aiyer dared and he has succeeded in establishing a Tamil daily journal which, with all its faults, is the most useful paper in the Tamil country. His whole political gospel can be summed up in these words: `Peaceful but tireless and unceasing effort.' Let us sweat ourselves into Swaraj, he would seem to say."

Seriously ill in 1915, Subramania Aiyer persuaded A. Rangaswami Iyengar, Kasturi Ranga Iyengar's nephew and right-hand man at The Hindu, to take over the paper and he made the Swadesmitran "a new force, potent and pervasive... (changing) the placid atmosphere of Tamil Journalism". Rangaswami Iyengar brought in his kin C.R. Srinivasan to manage the business end of the paper and Bharati, back from Pondicherry, rejoined the paper in 1920. The three made the Swadesamitran " a literary masterpiece of political analysis."

The next thing, I did was to reach out swadesamitran.com. I figured that the domain wasn't even booked. Wayback Machine doesn't even have a trace of this site which means it wasn't ever booked in the history of internet. That is such a pity. Though the company closed down, I assume that someone would be holding the registered trademark of Swadesamitran. I expected Hindu to have booked the domain in rememberance of this newspaper which once started the newspaper experience to the Tamils. I wanted to buy it and then create a remembrance site of the newspaper. With just three articles on hand, two by Ashokamitran and one by S Muthiah, I booked swadesamitran.com. It's currently in the construction mode.

On the other hand, I'm not sure if someone would come now, after all these days, with a copyright violation. Ofcourse, I'm ready to transfer the site to them without any conditions and even ready to sponsor the domain registration charges. But I have no clue, why those of them who hold Swadesamitran trademark haven't even bothered to book the domain. I'm also clueless if someone really holds the copyright of this newspaper at all. I was also thinking of shooting an email to the Hindu editor, to check if they hold the copyright and are interested to host Swadesamitran.

Neverthless, I will find time to host the site with whatever available information I have. If any of you have any mastheads, paper cuttings or other information on Swadesamitran, please pass it on. Will host it crediting your name like how they paint a sponsor's name 'through-out' the tubelight in temples. That was meant to be a joke for this rather serious blogpost. Konjam Siringappa.

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Did you check out The Odyssey Ad on Vijay TV ? A feel good ad.

For starters Odyssey is an ultra-famous music & book shop at Adayar, just after the Madya Kailash junction and right next to Krishna Sweets. It was one of those hep book stores where chudihaar maamis come to buy dozens of kids books and carnatic music, as you stand there thinking if they really listen to all that. Being next to Krishna sweets, I would always visit Krishna Sweets after Odyssey to eat a suda suda nei poli served on a beetle nut leaf. That was a nostalgic rant.

BTW, the Odyssey ad on Vijay TV talks about the need of literature and music to escape from the mundane routines of life. It goes on to list down writers, musicians and movies for us to imagine a world without them. To quote a part of it, Ippadi Oru Vaazhvai Ninaithu Paarungal. Bhaarathi Illai, Sujatha Illai, Rahman illai and so on. I'm happy for two things here. Its an ad for a bookstore. Its also an interesting ad that might make people think about the importance of literature and music in life. Even if a handful of them visit the store watching this ad, its a success. Good Job.

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Its only now, amidst the heat of elections that I miss watching NDTV and Prannoy Roy's analysis talks. Just after when NDTV was started as a channel, there were all-india elections and one could see how NDTV as a channel changed the face of television media for news and analysis. What was only an election day affair at Doordarshan becamse an everyday thingy at NDTV. At NDTV channel, Prannoy was able to pull in a great team together, probably the best in their own areas like statisticians and political analysts.

Today they say IBN Live is rocking the nation with its deadly reporting team and great leadership. Being biased towards NDTV, I am happy for Rajdeep[has a blog] who grew at NDTV and was able to pull together a good team at IBN, with the financial content backing coming from CNN. Now when NDTV sells its videos for a cost, IBN gives it away for free at its site, atleast for now. And thats good for a consumer. But I wish to see Rajdeep questioning Cho Ramaswamy. Last time, Prannoy tried to buckle him down with aggressive cross-questioning and I have to say Prannoy would regret that incident for a long time to come.

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Just recently I subscribed to Time, offline. I got my first subscription magazine and it was a special issue.The cover story was about the 100 Most Influencial People in the World. For each of them on the list, a related celebrity had written a passage on their ideas and lives.

While the list was very US centric, it had Nandan Nilekani listed in Builders & Titans section. Thomas Friedman, the author of The World is Flat, was the one who had written on the Infosys man. You might recollect, Friedman had nice things to say on Nandan even in the introduction of The World is Flat. I did expect Rahman to be featured in the list of artists but was disappointed not to find him there. Vikram Akula was the other Indian who made it to the list.

Ofcourse it had a lot of tech guys. Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia topped the scientists and thinkers category. Who else other than Chris 'The Long Tail' Anderson could write about him. Great profile that one was. The other guys on tech were, Caterina and Stewart - the founders of Flickr, Chris and Tom - the Myspace dudes, Omid Kordestani - Senior VP of Global Sales at Google and the Skype guys - Zenn and Friis were also included. James Gosling - the Java founder had nice things to say about the Skype guys. Bill and Melinda Gates were featured in the Leaders and revolutionaries category for Gates Foundation.

I'm sure you will atleast get to know ateast 20 people, unknown to many of us, otherwise. A nice read on the bus.

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Quite often, the people whose side you're on, politically, have absolutely no place for a person like you in their social, cultural or religious imagination. That's a knotty problem… politically radical people can come at you with the most breathtakingly conservative social views and make nonsense of the way in which you have ordered your world and your way of thinking about it… and you have to find a way of accommodating these contradictions within your worldview.

People are constantly in search of idols, heroes, villains, sirens - in search of individuals, in search of noise. Anybody in whom they can invest their mediocre aspirations and muddled thinking will do. Anyone who is conventionally and moderately 'successful' becomes a celebrity. It's almost a kind of profession now - we have professional celebrities - maybe colleges should start offering a course.

In this freak show, this celebrity parade, there's no place for loss, or failure. Whereas to me as a writer, failure interests me. Success is so tinny and boring. Everyone is promoting themselves so hard.

I've highlighted only some of the parts that I can relate so much with. Even if you constantly bash Arundhati Roy for her speeches, you've got to read this to agree with it. Via Narain.

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Aaramthinai is now online, requires no subscription. And that's good news.

Gnani's Dheemtharikida is online since last month.

Cho's Thuglak is online since last week. A hefty $20 subscription is needed.

Kumudam get's a make over. Gearing for it's paid subscription service.

Sujatha's Katrathum Petrathum Part 3 has been released. From Vikatan Publications.

Kalachuvadu has a column on Aathmanam, the poet. A great artist, one would agree, reading his works.

Gilli[Puthusu, Dhinusu, Ravusu] has a concise guide on how to read/write weblogs in Tamil.

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NBC's Deal or No Deal is probably the most exciting game show ever. It's a no-brainer. No questions to answer, no images to identify and no flash answers. No buzzers too. Well, not exactly. There is a buzzer, the deal or no deal buzzer.

All you have to do is randomly select one out of the 26 cases and open the others to walk away with million dollars. This game show is driving america crazy. And it truly is. The biggest reason for this craziness is the simple rules-of-the-game, like sudoku[complete a board and you go crazy over it]. And ofcourse, the vivacious host. Howie Mandel. Out television hosts can learn how to host a game show effectively from Howie. A huge plus for the show.

This super famous show has a detailed wikipedia page. This is how they explain the game,

Deal or No Deal is a television game show format owned by Dutch-based production company Endemol, known for creating such shows as Big Brother. The basic format of Deal or No Deal consists of a number of cases (usually 26) each containing a different amount of money. Not knowing the sum of money in each case, the contestant picks one case which potentially contains the contestant's prize. They then open the remaining cases, one by one, revealing the money they contained. At predetermined intervals the contestant receives an offer from the bank (run by "The Banker") to purchase the originally chosen case from the contestant, the offer being based on the potential value of the contestant's case. The contestant must then decide whether to take the deal from the bank, or to continue opening briefcases. If they decide not to take the deal and reveal low values then the next bank offer is likely to be higher (as the contestant's case is proven not to contain these low values). Alternatively they risk revealing higher values, lowering future offers from the bank.

The Indian version, Deal Ya No Deal is up on Sony Entertainment. Good they didn't plagiarize this.

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Looking at the growth of Vikatan.com, 'leading' Tamil weekly Kumudam is also getting a new look. And look whom they hired to do that. Rabi Bernard. Rabi known for his talk show, Naerukku Naerr [the Mudhalvan style] during the yester years of Sun TV, is currently with Jaya TV as a talk show host.

In any case, the deal with Kumudam.com is that, the site will perform like an infotainment site going forward. Instead of being just an online version of Kumudam, the site is expected to have videos, interviews, new clips and so on. And Rabi will be responsible for the packaging the content.

I was always wondering why Kumudam, which was competing with Vikatan offline, never sought to build up it's site to match Vikatan. Now they are planning to overtake Vikatan with this. Competition is fun, for the consumers. Enjoy.

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If you are a blogger, chances of being affected by IOS is one hundred percent. Information Overload Syndrome. I intended to write this as a comical post but didn't want to miss the message(thoda hero!!).

One of the prime reason, to apply brakes to this blog was that I found myself unable to sustain interest in reading a full news article. Inadvertently I was just skimming through the news sources. Astuteness was missing. Usually link bloggers who write several posts linking to various blogs/ news during a single day have written in the past about having time only to skim through news sources. Though this blog isn't a link blog, over the last few years of blogging regularly, I found myself doing this skim stuff.

Bloglines is a necessary devil. The more blogs I subscribed via bloglines, the more time I spent trying to catch up with the un-read stuff. The big pile of unread posts, started to bother me. It's just me. Some of them really have time to read all the blogs. With the assortment of interests that I have, I had to divide time between all of them.

I'm slowing down. Clearing things up. My online reading list has been trimmed to the most important news/blog sources that keep me abreast of happenings. Offline, I've cancelled all the 32 books on queue at the public library. I'm now set out to read the absolutely necessary stuff. And read it with the same interest as before. Currently, I only have April Reader's Digest and a shortstory collection[Story-wallah]. The other things are deferred until I finish these.

Ofcourse this post is highly personal that I needn't have posted it here. I could have saved some information overload on you. Since this addresses one lazy man's struggle of keeping up with information overload, thought someone else might also say, Aamaam paa Aamaam. If you find yourself nodding to that statement, just get the hell out of here and read a rajeshkumar novel.

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I subscribe to Jaya TV via Num TV to watch just three or four programs. Kollywood court is one of the them. Others include Kushboo's Jackpot[despite the boring questions], Thaenkinnam[cable version of Aakashavani's vintage song request show] and the in-frequent kutcheri shows.

Kollywood Court is a gem. It's a talk show with a different format. This is one of the very few shows where we meet the famous-but-not-to-be-seen personalities of kollywood. Check out this list of people who came over as a guest to this show, in the last few weeks. Film News Anandan, Randor Guy, Theodre Bhaskaran, M Prabhu [cinematographer of Mahanadhi] and so on.

This week they had invited Chithiram Pesuthadi director Mysskin. I have to say he made logical arguments and actually made some sense. I'm hoping he would show the same sensibility in his next movies.

P.S - For two consecutive days, Kolangal mega serial made millions of houses, smell like a graveyard. Couldn't stand an inch of it.

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[source]

Just as endearing and intriguing as his films, this Time to Dream AmEx ad[2 mins] was directed and starred by Manoj Night Shyamalan. He talks to WSJ on making of this Ad.

Via Hemanth who is just back after a brief hiatus.

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While writing a very superfluous article that's based on fantasy than any factual information, our favorite movie writer of Sify, MOVIE BUFF, wrote the ending of the movie Pattiyal.

The article, Is Vishnu the new Mani Ratnam?, clearly has a spoiler of the movie Pattiyal that an oblivious reader wouldn't guess from the title. This is why I tend to avoid any news or reviews of any movie that interests me.

On another note, the punniyavaan who released the stills from Shankar's Sivaji, that you will be seeing multiple times on multiple blogs in the coming days, should be tortured to watch prime time megaserials on Sun Tv.

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As Vikatan enters it's 81st year in publishing, its clear that Vikatan has managed to keep up with the interests of Tamil people. What started as a monthly magazine in 1926 turned into a fortnightly and then finally landed up as a weekly magazine from November 1933.

Guess how Vikatan Thatha celebrated his 81st birthday ? Pushed the celebration charges to his readers. Yep. What a dark comedy it is grab an extra 5 bucks from the readers to celebrate his birthday. Not many time such things has happened with vikatan. Vikatan which costs about 10 bucks an issue, costs 15 Rs for this week. During the last week's issue, there was a letter from the editor which said the readers have to support the price hike for just this issue. The letter also read that its readers should consider the price hike as a birthday gift for Vikatan. Where in the world does the birthday boy get to decide how much his guests should pay for a gift. One has to agree there are many special columns for the extra buck charged. Still, even an avid reader would feel that this is a crude way to accommodate the special issue.

Vikatan was subscribed in my family. Right from my thatha days, it's been a member of my family for a long time. There used to be a fight on Wednesday mornings to grab the fresh copy of Vikatan and read it. That's the same thing at least 2-3 generations of people would say. Isn't that enough to apprise the impact of Vikatan on Tamil people's life. Though I have to admit their ultra special Diwali Malar 2005 didn't stand up to it's culture. With a few columns and couple of travelogues which made value, nothing much glittered in that special issue. But I wouldn't admit Vikatan would go invalid in the next 10-15 years. It has been open enough to the changing tastes and has kept abreast of the growth. It has been the pulse of Tamil nation and has managed to deliver something for all ages.

I subscribe to the internet edition of Vikatan and I have to say that I'm impressed. Especially if you are a desi, its just $ 11 for a year's subscription. And that gives the option to read Ananda Vikatan, Junior Vikatan, Aval Vikatan, Shakthi Vikatan, Sutti Viktan and Vikatan Cinema. A kill for the buck. If you aren't a subscriber and you crib that you aren't in touch with the happenings at Tamil Nadu, subscribe to Vikatan, I say.

P.S Don't miss to check-out the mock on Rajini's Sivaji by the acclaimed artists like Ma.Se, Shyam and Haran.

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The Holi(not holy) picture in Tamil Murasu and Hindusthan Times is creating few blogposts in the Indian Blogosphere. I'm annoyed not by the picture but such blog posts.

Given the state of affairs of the Indian Media, I'm positive the photographer or the journalist hasn't taken the permission to publish this picture. Maybe I'm wrong. If only they have taken the permission of the guys on the photograph, what the heck guys, what's wrong with posting those pictures? No one morphed few photographs to make this collage. It seems real, it's happening. Agreed, it's an invasion of privacy and that is a cause of concern but none of these blogposts seem to raise that as an issue. If that's the concern, I take it. Rather if someone is passing moral judgements on what should and what should not appear on newspapers, are they not trying to do the same moral policing which happened in Chennai clubs, few months back.

Remember the issue with Shankar's Boys when the whole Tamilnadu took a holy dip with a rush to save the boys' virginity. This one seems like a similar issue involving excessive amounts of vigorous hypocrisy. Who's having the last laugh now ?

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[source - ananda vikatan]

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[Source - Sujatha's Column in Kumudam ]

The last time he said that was in Vikatan. I had duly noted it on the blog, even then. Here's the blogpost, Aathalinal Kaathal Seithen. Luckily you don't need a UID/Pass to read the old column. FYI, this is a classical Sujatha style column.

Though I couldn't buy his argument from the perspective of a society, his science seems to convince me.

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I'm going nuts over NPR. National Public Radio as its alternatively called, NPR is one of the finest resource of un-biased news, told in the most interesting way. Though I was aware that such a thing exists, its only a couple of months back I discovered the profoundness of news stories in NPR.

One of the programs that I get to listen everyday is The Market Place, produced by the American Public Media. The core team of Market Place team is currently visiting China and for the last couple of weeks they have been reporting on the Chinese market culture. Though I have read at least one book on Chinese Market and its culture, these reports that come-in through Market Place team has provided some fine insight into Chinese market behavior and prevailing situation in their market. It's a treasure. And I loved every inch of it.

If you live somewhere in the USA, NPR is a must-listen. And its probably the only news source thats enough to keep you ahead without causing an information overload. This blog alongwith other numerous blogs and news sites, is adding to the information overload on every single individual reading it.

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Update - Looks like this video is dated more than a year back. It's old stuff. Still, the contents could hold right even today. Watch this if you haven't seen it before. Thanks to Tambram/Vasant.

[Source - Google Video]

Yeah !! Yeah !! It's about making fun on the Indian Call Centers. Nevertheless the guy who goes to one of Hyderbad's call center is comical, especially while he flirts with the girl in the call center. This video was a part of Conan O' Brien talk show on NBC.

Watch out, this video is lengthy. Should be accompanied with speakers and 8 minutes of your time.

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Roger Ebert's Best Movies of 2005. Crash tops the list as Spielberg's Munich is on the third while King Kong sits on number 9.

Bill Gates, Melinda Gates and U2's Bono are Persons of the Year 2005.

Time's Best Photos of the Year 2005.

Reuter's Pictures of the Year 2005.

Google's 2005 Year-end Zeitgeist. Looking at Froogle - Top Searches in 2005, you know how the world goes ga-ga over the whole IPOD thing. Indian version of Google's Zeitegeist isn't out yet. However going by the international zeitgeist itself you could expect Sania Mirza, Bipasha Basu and Mallika Sherawat to top the list.

10 Best Tech Podcasts of 2005. The Web 2.0 Show has been quite interesting.

Sify's Kollywood Box-Office 2005. This essentially does not mean these are the 'good' movies. We know good movies and box-office are inversely propotional. Thalaivar's and Jo's Chandramukhi tops the list. And yeah !! read closely, No Comments for minuses on Chandramukhi.

Best of Indian Blogs ?. We are still in the process of nominating the Best Indian Blogs. If you haven't nominated your favorite Indian blogs, read more on IndiBloggies. If the whole thing sounds a little geeky to you, cool off. Leave a comment here and I will try to nominate them for you with a mention of your name.

NY Time's The 10 Best Books of 2005. Haruki Murakami's Kafka On The Shore tops the list of fiction 2005. Ian McEwan's Saturday is also one of them. They also have 100 Notable Books of the Year which features Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown, Freakonomics, The World is Flat and also the expected Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince.

P.S - Will keep adding few more as they keep coming.

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I had no clue until Dilip Radhakrishnan pointed out that IBN Live was linking here to the review of King Kong. I've been hearing about IBN Live only for the last two days.

IBN Live is apparently a news channel from TV18 and CNN. Rajdeep Sardesai, The Big Fight guy from NDTV is leading this effort. From their site, IBN seems to be a pro-blog channel as they are calling for Citizen Journalists and an exclusive blog microsite from the journalists. Nice to know, the TV media is going the blog way.

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It's a biggest shame on the newspaper which people from Chennai, like to read. Its not shame on the man who wrote it. It's shame on Hindu to publish it without validating it's writer's abilities.

The review of the hollywood movie Alexander appeared on The Hindu dt Friday, Feb 11, 2005. This was written by Gautaman Bhaskaran. The ending note aka last passage of the review reads this -

Stone has always made stories about men for whom ordinary life is impossible by accident or by choice. As a storyteller he has long made a habit out of extreme personalities, a preoccupation that during the 1990s was matched by one of the most playfully expressive styles in American mainstream pictures.

Read this movie review written by Manohla Dargis for The New York Times dated November 24, 2004. Try to locate the passage given above. It's there. In Verbatim. I'm planning to send this note to The Hindu and I hope they invalidate this review. We have seen plagiarism of movie reviews between blogs or even just plagiarism in the Mainstream Media during the recent times. Though it's little late find, I think this is a question on the newspaper's credibility.

This was intially exposed by Nina and here is the URL to that post. She has also written about other plagiarisms of the same author. Brilliant find, Nina. Ofcourse, I caught this via Desi Pundit.

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[Click picture for a bigger image]

Found this Ad on Sulkeha given by a dude. Though seems like a perfect business deal at the first sight, I donno what to say. Isn't this the heights of chauvinism ?

And they are talking about equal rights for a girl and free education for 'single girls' back in India. Indian Education ki Jay !! NRIs ki jay !!

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Sudhish is more of a blogger than a mainstream journo. I love to have him in our camp. His review of Mangal Pandey in today's edition of Hindu is one of the better reviews of recent times, going by Hindu's review standards. You have to read his blog review , The Balls of Mangal Pandey and come back to read his Hindu review, The canvas is not complete. The content of the review hasn't changed much. The words have. If you do a compare and contrast you know the limitations of a mainstream media journalist.

But the way Hindu's reviews reveal half the plot in their review, the rest half is however very predictable by any short term tamil movie audience. I remember S.Ve Shekar's wit in one his stage plays, "Enna Avasaram. Theatre'la Padam pottuta podattum. Tamizh padam thaney... Engendhu Paathaalum puriyum". Though there is no story as such that someone can reveal in a movie like Mangal Pandey, his review today is certainly a good offshoot from the regular 'boring' stuff. Sudhish, Way to go !!

BTW, Sudhish did say that the movie had a four-year wait. Maybe he just doubled the wait time. It was not even 2 years back, Prince was here to kick-start the movie. Thats just for my urge to nitpick.