The past, present and the future of America

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It is cold in Chennai - El Nino?

Chennaiites are not used to the weather being cold. Even when it is a pleasant 20-something (deg C), you can swarms of chennaiites out for their morning walk wearing their monkey caps or their shawls. You can even see people sitting around a fire to keep themselves warm from the cold 20 deg outside!

But, this time, it is really cold in chennai, really cold. Why else would a sane chennaite like me get up in the middle of the night and switch off the fan? Agreed that the electricity board does that often, but no one would do that in the bedroom. It is an open invitation for all the chennai-born mosquitoes to come and have you for dinner! But, i was forced to do so. I was never prepared for this and hence i don't have a quilt or something similar. So, i had to switch off the fan and put up a brave face against the mosquitoes.

As a result of this exceeding cold climate, the sale of monkey caps sky-rocketed and monkey caps manufactured by world renowned brands like rheebok, odidos and nikey started making an appearance on the streets of T.Nagar. Tamil Nadu police had even relaxed the rule in the mornings for two-wheeler drivers (which forced them to wear helmets), as they anyway wore 2 layers of monkey-caps which was equally thick.

While the scientists and other equally bright scholars at IIT Madras were blaming El-Nino for this phenomenon, Jayalalitha made a statement on Jaya TV:

"My dear brothers and sisters of Chennai, don't believe the statements made by the scientists. They are in connivance with the minority DMK government. It is not "E" "l" (pronounced eee-yell) Nino which is responsible for your suffering, but EEE-Yell-ThamizhThanniMagan (Cousin of ThamizhKudiMagan) who is responsible. EEE-Yell-ThamizhThanniMagan is the minister of state for caps and his son has recently started a factory manufacturing monkey-caps. To increase sales, their TV channel started showing lower temperatures in their weather forecasts thus leading people to believe that it is actually cold. It is not! Throw away your monkey caps. Even I have removed my shawl to prove that it is not cold (there was a highly greyed image of Jayalalitha shown without her shawl)"

Whether it is El-Nino or EEE-Yell-ThamizhThanniMagan who is responsible, I don't care! But, it is cold in Chennai!

Technorati Tags: chennai India El Nino Jayalalitha

Karunanidhi adds fuel to the Ram Setu controversy

Everyone is talking about it, every news channel has a debate on it, whole of India is talking about few kilometres of sand somewhere in the middle of Palk Strait between Sri Lanka and India called Ram Setu (or Ram Sethu in some cases). This sand bar is mythologically supposed to be the bridge that Lord Rama built to cross over to Sri Lanka in search of Sita.

What i don't understand is none of the TV channels ever called me to take my opinion. How can they not take the opinion of RajaRam Sethuraman!! My name is in the midst of this entire controversy (or the other way around, whatever!) and no one asks me for my opinion! The next time, you hear Karunanidhi asking which engineering college Ram studied in, just say to him that it was in BITS Pilani and I am sure that he won't say anything more.

Not many know that I am a direct descendant of Lord Rama and that it why I am named so. Unfortunately, there is not enough freedom of speech in India for someone like Dan Brown to write about Ram's bloodline like he wrote about Jesus' bloodline in the Da Vinci Code. But why, you may ask, am i a dravidian now when Lord Rama was an Aryan? Elementary, my friend! It gets damn cold in Ayodhya in the winter months and my ancestors decided to move down south to the much warmer areas. So, in all aspects, I am a dravidian now.

Looking back, i regret ever being an Aryan. They do whatever they can to put down the dravidians. Yes, Rama the king existed (how else would i be here now!) and an evil Sri Lankan had indeed kidnapped his wife. So, Rama had travelled down south to rescue his wife. But, centuries later when Valmiki decided to put this story on paper (or whatever was the equivalent at that time), he wanted to add glamour to the story and in doing so, the true nature of aryans came to the fore. Why else would he write thus "Rama marched south and took the help of the monkeys to cross over to Lanka"! Did only monkeys live in the south? or were rama's forces primitive enough to know only to communicate with monkeys?

This attitude still prevails today. Recently, the Indian Railways decided to remove Idlis and Dosas from the menu on the trains. Yeah, the South Indians have to survive by having Hot Jalebis with milk (yuck!) for breakfast like i had to during my stint at BITS.

But, don't worry, my dear Dravidian friends, the time is ripe for a revolt and who else but Rahul Dravid to captain us on this holy war. Rahul Dravid had timed his resignation to perfection. In a way, he knew about this impending struggle and had to resign because, according to BCCI clauses, you cannot be a part of more than one organisation. Forget about Karunanidhi and his DMK, let us march with RDMK (Rahul Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) led by our beloved Rahul Dravid.

And, anyone who dares to make any further comment on NDTV about Ram Setu, talk to me before you even utter a word ...

Technorati Tags: ram setu ram sethu sethusamudram karunanidhi DMK Rahul dravid Rama Ayodhya

I hate Mayawati

so says Manoj Singh Naruka in his orkut community named "I Hate Mayawati". NDTV and other TV channels having been showing reports that Maywati is pissed off by "fake" profiles on orkut and demeaning comments written by the authors about her. There was also a report which said that Google acknowledged that fake profiles are against the policy of orkut.

Assuming that creating a profile with the name of someone is against the policy of orkut, is having a community which speaks against a person illegal? This community was shown on NDTV and I am assuming that Manoj Singh is already a celebrity for all the wrong reasons. I don't know anything about Mayawati, in fact i don't know and i don't care about Indian politics, so i don't have anything to say for or against her , but does this mean the end of freedom of speech in India ? or some might ask, was there ever such a thing as freedom of speech in India?

In fact, my neighbour has always wanted to start a website http://www.ihatemayawati.com/, the mayawati in question is not the UP Chief Minister, but a lady called Mayawati Rama Devi who lived from 1882-1923. It seems that this Mayawati had slapped his great-grandfather who had accidentally bumped into her on August 10th, 1902 at the local market. Though his great-grandfather had apologised saying that it was an accident, she started shouting and as always in India, a crowd collected and boo'ed him. He was "greatly" insulted by this. This story passed on from him to his son to his son and finally to my neighbour. This was regarded as a family insult and my neighbour had always wanted to take revenge. But, with the current circumstances where uneducated accomplices of politicians go witch-hunting, where constitutional rights take a back-seat, having a website called ihatemayawati.com, though intended for Mayawati Rama Devi is an open invitation for trouble.

Technorati Tags: mayawati orkut profile mayawati orkut Manoj Singh Naruka

No more Idlis and Dosais on Indian Railways

If you are the kind who doesn't like Noodles, vegetable burgers or pakoras, then you may have to go hungry on Indian Railways. The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited is planning to do away with South Indian way and bring an uniformity in their catering services on our rail networks. According to the NDTV report,

As per the plan only 21 approved food items will be served on trains - a move that south Indian rail passengers feel is in bad taste.The IRCTC has decided to remove the south Indian delicacies from the menu, initially on a pilot basis for three months. The order has left a sour taste in several mouths.

There are bloggers who have expressed their "distaste" over this issue. Let the Indian Railways go ahead with scrapping the South Indian items from their menu. Anyway, the food offered on the trains is nothing to crave about. We will always have the same items on the platforms and they taste better too.

I still remember my Pilani Days when we used to make the bi-annual trip on the Tamil Nadu Express from Chennai to Delhi. We used to served a meal which consists of miniature pooris, the sizes of which indicate that they were probably made from the leftover dough of proper sized pooris. These pooris were very fascinating for the Bitsians with the "scientific" bent of mind, for their extraordinary elastic properties (It required the effort of two people to tear a poori in two) and they have even gone to the extent of questioning the on-board cooks for the ingredients in them which gave them this magical ductility.

Back to the issue of Dosais. Many people, particularly the north indians, refer to the dosai as dosa. Ok, a little misspelling might not hurt, but this destroys the essence of this particular food item being named as dosai. Here is a way to make it easier for the northies to remember the name as dosai. When the dough is poured on the hot pan, you are supposed to hear a "saiiiii" sound made by the contact of the room-temperature dough with the hot tawa. If you had been to a bad South Indian restaurant (easy to find in Delhi), you would notice that the dosai is crispy on one side and "doughy" on the other. This is because the chef didn't turn the dosai around on the pan. If he had done this, there would be another "saiiii" sound made by the other side of the dosai. So, there should be two "saiiii" sounds for a good dosai. Two in hindi is "Do". Put them together and you get Dosai! Easy, isn't it ? As scientists say, never mug-up the end result, always remember the logic behind the result and you shall always be successful in getting the solution.

Lets hope that the IRCTC doesn't ban the South Indian food items from the platforms too, for no one is definitely going to touch the burgers or the pakodas when you have hot and fresh idlis and dosais available.

Technorati Tags: Idly Dosa Idli dosai Indian Railways

Split Wide Open

Yes, this might sound like Britney Spears' act or any other celebrity trying to emulate Britney Spears in order to grab the front page, but this is not so. This is the sorry state of Indian Cricket today.

With the Indian Cricket League being announced today by the Essar Group and the BCCI immediately putting it down, a big clash of the titans is in store for Indian Cricket and in all probability, only Indian Cricket will be the loser.

Probably for the first time, Sachin speaks out defending himself against the comments of Greg Chappell. In his interview to Times of India (TOI) he says:

"I have given my heart and my soul for 17 years. No coach had mentioned even in passing that my attitude was not correct. Cricket has been my life for all these years and will always be. Again, it's not that we are defending ourselves. We do realise that we played badly and, as a team, we take full responsibility for that.But what hurt us most is that the coach has questioned our attitude."

This was in response to the coach Greg Chappell's accusations that the senior team members often teamed up against his and Dravid's decisions. Milind Rege, former Ranji Captain says that:

It is completely out of control. Indian Cricket is in a mess right now and unless and until the BCCI come strongly with decisions that are for the players to accept, for the selectors to accept, for those who control cricket to accept, Indian Cricket is going to head for serious trouble.

Definitely not a good direction to head in, for Indian Cricket. Ok, they lost to Bangladesh and were kicked out of the world cup. Lets just forget it as just another match and move on. The way the politicians and the media are hyping this issue, it looks like Indian cricket will take a u-turn and head Zimbabwe's way, into oblivion. Please, let it not happen like that!

Technorati Tags: Indian Cricket team ICC World Cup loss

Indian Cricket League to be formed

Yesterday, Essel group chairman Subhash Chandra announced the formation of a cricket league. This would be called the Indian Cricket League, comprising a total of six teams, with each team consisting of upto four international players. This league also plans to setup cricketing academies throughout India and create a talent pool for India Cricket.
But, how far will this venture be a success is anyone's guess with the BCCI already slamming this idea and pronouncing it an unfruitful venture. Everyone wants a share of the lucrative Indian cricket scene and it is obvious that groups are unwilling to co-operate for cricket's sake!

It is rumoured that some big names in Indian and international cricket have already been signed on for this league. Lets hope that this turns to be like the English county matches and we get more people to watch these matches than the usual entourage of friends and family who are the only ones to turn up at Ranji matches.

Technorati Tags: Subhash Chandra Indian Cricket League BCCI

Pakistan crashes out of the ICC world cup

No, not because their cricket was bad. Not because, Ireland's cricket was good. Not because, the weather in the West Indies were not conducive to their reverse swings. Not because, there were more cameras than usual at this event and the pakistanis could not find a place on the ground, hidden from a camera view, to work on the seams of the cricket balls.

Their early exit from the early cup was a planned, strategically executed move in complete collaboration with their neighbours, India. India and Pakistan had more important matters than the cricket world cup to worry about, like their peace talks. So, even before the teams had left for the world cup, the team managements had been instructed by the respective governments to finish their outing as early as possible and return, so the people of the two countries are not unnecessarily distracted by the cricket and can go about having dozens of rounds of talks.

Pakistan have executed this plan to perfection by losing to West Indies and Ireland. India are on their way after losing to Bangladesh. Fortunately for Pakistan, one of their losses was against West Indies, a good team and hence the innocent public of Pakistan would blame the defeat on the cricket. But, for India, unfortunately, they would have to lose to Bangladesh and Bermuda to go according to plan. This would be difficult to explain for the team management.

So, the team management might "blow the whistle" on the government and reveal the truth behind this plan. Of course, the government at the centre would have learned a trick or two from the former defence minister George Fernandes, and would eventually say that they had only joked when they had asked the Indian team to come back soon from the World cup!

Technorati Tags: cricket world cup India Pakistan George Fernandes joke