Universe

Scene 1 : (Stone Age)

It was going to be a bright day. It was just nearing sunrise.. The men and women woke up from their rock-bed.. After having their breakfast, the men came out of their caves in search of food..

They have used up almost all meat and also have hunted wildly in their territory in last few years, despite their elders warning them of possible food shortage in doing so..

Their territory includes a small area of light forest with a few trees. Covered on two sides were thick dense forest with a lot of wild animals, and through the other two sides, flows a drain. Until now, neither the thick dense wild forest was explored or entered by anyone in their tribe, nor the drain was crossed by them, in the fear they might end up in a huge danger in doing so..

But now arises the need to do so, in search for food for their tribe.. The men in the tribe finally found a way to cross the drain by using small wooden logs. Doing so, they not only successfully found more food, they also found out that there are other tribes similar to them..

At first sight, they fought each other, got intimidated by each other. Finally they realised they have a great deal of benefit if they unite together and help each other. They eventually started to accept each other and unite as a single tribe.

The tribe have always believed that their small territory was the only world that existed, and crossing the territory would mean harm or death to them.. Now they understood, world is bigger than they believed.

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Scene 2 : (Bronze/Iron Age)

It was going to be a bright day. It was just nearing sunrise. The king woke up from his bed, had bath and had his breakfast. When he came out of his palace, there were hundreds of soldiers assembled. Today was a big day for them.

Their kingdom was a huge region surrounded on one side by a huge river, two sides by mountains and one side by a dense forest.. They have been living happily and peacefully for hundreds of years until the curiosity hit the king to find out what lies on the other side of the huge river.

Ever since he was a child, he was always warned that the other side of the huge river lies all dangers and all hell. They believed they were surrounded by these huge barriers on all sides because they were meant by God to not go further. They also believed the river was an endless water body..

The king never believed it and was ever curious to find a way to see what is on the other side of the river.. Ever since his coronation, he encouraged the people to find a way to sail the river without drowning. The wooden logs are useful against the smaller drains, but not of any use against the force of the river.

A few weeks ago, they have successfully invented a sustainable form of boat and trialed it over the river.. They went halfway down the river and confirmed the river does have an end, as the king has always said.

Today, they form a battalion and go in search of glory and what more that could be present on the other side.. Not only will they find a lot of wealth on the other side, they will also find the world is lot bigger than they thought.

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Scene 3 : (Medieval Age)

It was going to be a bright day. It was just nearing sunrise. The emperor woke up from his bed, hardly getting any sleep.. He walked down the aisle of his assembly and to the huge ground where preparations were complete for him to set his first sail across the huge sea surrounding his island.

His forefathers has conquered all the land till they can travel and find sea on all 4 sides. Now his empire constitutes of hundreds of kingdoms.. The emperor's grandfather and father were left with nothing to achieve other than the herculean task to cross the much feared sea and see what is on the other side.

Under their vigilance, several models of ships have been built and tested in the sea to see if it overcome the huge waves and storms inside sea. Several explorers were motivated monetarily to sail across the sea but many did not return at all..

After several years of failure, their first explorer troop has claimed to found land on the other side of the sea.. They have found a new empire and an altogether different culture.

The emperor gave the control of empire to his son, and set sail to find the glory and unimaginable wealth on the other side of the deadly sea that has swallowed hundreds of his explorers.

Not only the emperor will fulfill the dreams of his father and grandfather, and attain huge glory, he has kept the first step in making people understand the world is not flat but is spherical and is a lot lot bigger than they thought, and also to overcome their belief that sea is the end of world.

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Scene 4 : (A few hundred years from now)

It was a bright day. The captain has arrived at his space-shuttle and visited his favorite crew, who is going to accompany him in this famous space travel.

Scientists for several hundred years now believed that space is the final frontier, and a lot of civilizations might exist in a lot of planets far far away from our solar system. Existence of aliens in other planets and whether or not will they be more intelligent than the earth people, have always been a topic of debate and speculation for hundreds of years among people.

They have initiated searches around several solar systems in nearby galaxies using several satellites, But they could never prove the existence of life in other planets, until few decades ago. Ever since existence of life and civilization has been found in a planet few light years away, the aim was to invent space shuttles that could travel as faster or faster than light, so as to enable navigate several light years across planets.

The warp speed shuttle has been a recent invention and the trial run to nearby solar systems have been successful. This is their first attempt to travel to the other planet with life form and civilization.

It was going to be a big mission for the captain, for he did not know if they could successfully reach the planet without having absorbed into a gravitation pull of a binary star or a black hole or warm hole. Even if they reach safe, little does he know how civilized will the people of other civilization be, and whether or not will they be hospitable to them..

But he knows one thing for sure. This mission is going to be marked as a unique one in the history of the universe, for even if they fail, the mega warp speed communication channels will ensure all data reach earth and help them correct their mistakes and reach out for the civilization in other planets again.

The captain also has a proud feeling of having led the crew that opened the doors of Space, the final frontier, and potentially opened possibilities to reach out and find the end of the universe that people always believed to be endless till now.

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The End:

Little did the captain or his immediate successors know, that space was not the final frontier and that once they explore the ends of space, there is going to be another dimension opening up, and make the universe even more big and even more endless and infinite.

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”

― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

End of MSD era in Tests

My favourite MSD test innings among others is 4th Test of IndVsEng series this year, at Manchester - Coming in at 8 for 4, and seeing team at 60 odd for 6, Dhoni showed he doesn't need orthodox technique to handle the impeccable swing bowling by England.

When all the batsmen, whom critics claimed as possible future greats of Test Cricket, were back in hut, it was Dhoni who batted with the tail to avoid further humiliation and to get team score past 150. And the technique he used -
(1) eliminate catch to slip cordon by shuffling to offstump and move forward..
(2) To tackle the short ball from that awkward angle - get hit on chest.
That is a TRUE SOLDIER tackling swords with empty hands, and ready to biting the bullets fired at him.  Don't say Dhoni doesn't have technique. He just had a different technique, that most of you can't understand.

Yes, Dhoni has the worst batting average among Indian batsmen, outside Asia. But how many of them had to ignore the run scoring opportunities and change their batting style to play with tail more often? Did they compare the average of No.7 all over the world? And did any of top 6 batsmen had to keep wickets, or do captaincy?

And regarding the criticism about the team's overseas failure under him and that he brought the team to No 1 position then let it go to gutters (currently No 6 ranking). People just forgot he had been captaining under the worst of times. For half the time after the peak of the team, the FAB 3 (except Dravid - note that it is FAB3 and not FAB 4, as Ganguly already retired) and Sehwag, Gambhir  have been constantly deteriorating in their forms before their exit. And the remaining half - the youngsters were just gaining exposure before they could produce results.  No need to mention the quality of Indian bowlers at his time.

And don't forgot - even Australia and England have a worse away record in the last few years. And Dhoni maintained his fortress (home) impenetrable except for the home series against England. That is definitely a great success.

We will always analyse every person based on results. Little do we care about their participation and the valour with which they fought. MSD might look like a big failure if we analyse MSD's captaincy and MSD's batting in that way. But, to me, he did his best, and he deserves better respect.

Yes, I did have one unfilled expectation from MSD - why didn't he promote him up to No 4 or No.5 and build his batting strength and average and score more centuries in Tests.. But may be that's a lot to ask from a person, who already did a lot. We do keep increasing the expectations whenever a person performs well at his current level.

#MSDRetires #KingDeparts

What a change over Maama - Tamil Cinema's growth over the last decade!

A scene in the 1964 tamil comedy film "Kadhalikka Neramillai".
Many wouldn't be able to forget the scene, in which, our Kalamamani NAGESH cast as an aspiring film director and trying to get some money from his father to produce it (Oho Productions). He tries to say the story to his 2 sisters (the actual heroines of the movie), who have just arrived from college, with a motive to get their support.

But his sisters say - "We don't see Tamil Movies. We see only English movies"..

Nagesh replies back - "Oho.. Idhe ippo ungalukku vazhakkamaa pochu la.. En padam mattum release aagattum.. Irukkara vella kaaaran poora 'we don't watch english movies! we watch only tamil movies' nu solla poraan"  ("This is the trend now right? All you tamil people, say 'we dont watch tamil movies, we watch only english movies'! Let my film get released! All the Englishman will start saying 'we don't watch english movies! we watch only tamil movies'")

Though it was a script intended for pure comedy,  I have this feeling that Tamil cinema today , along with other south-indian cinemas, is really grown up so well to catch up with the English.

While the Hollywood have enough money to use almost all possible technologies, and luxury of spending as much money for the perfection of a single scene in their movie, they still seem to run out of innovation and out-of-the-box scripts, over the last few years.

But over the past 10 years, there has been an excellent growth in the creativity-sector of Tamil Cinema and other south-Indian Cinemas. Though we lack the budget (or rather, luxury) to bring in the on-screen perfection in terms of the graphics or some other aspects, Tamil Cinema is no short of ideas over the last few years.. The low-budget movies are the better box-office-collectors these days.

The way some of these low budget movies gives a pleasant feeling, I don't think even a Shankar movie can give these days. (thanks to the limited expectation b4 starting to watch these movies)

In some of the low-budget movies, last few years have seen some nerve-wracking thrillers including Mishkin's Anjaathey, Yutham Sei, Chennayil Oru Naal, Neram, and  some very good reality comedy-movies like Kadhalil Sodhappuvadhu Yeppadi, Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom, Sudhu kavvum and some love stories, friendship stories (like Kalluri) and many other very good movies in several other genres.

What a transformation from the late 90's to mid 2000's where almost all movies are of same genre, a hero and a villain. The way tamil cinema is now transforming, I love it :) I would really love to spend my money seeing 2 or 3 low-budget movies on their first week, rather than trying to spend it for one big star's movie on its first week, and feeling bad with its failure!

Spot fixing - IPL 6 - What does shock me?

Today, 3 Rajastan Royals players - S. Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankit Chavan were arrested of being involved in spot fixing through various parts of the IPL6 tournament. While the Delhi Police (who have been known this for a long time, almost from the beginning, and following this closely) already got evidence for Sreesanth and Chandila to have involved in this a couple of games before itself, they just held their nerves and waited for the 3rd involved cricketer to commit his crime.

Rightly, after Chavan, the only member of the involved (as per the statement of the Delhi Police) who haven't committed his deed yet and the only one among the three who played yesterday's game,  committed his part of the crime in yesterday night's match, the police arrested all the three players and the bookie today early morning!

While there has been a plenty of fuzz and shock around people in social media and news channels about 'spot-fixing being in IPL', today's spot-fixing scandal was not a shock to me. When huge-huge amounts of money spins in any particular element, corruption is more likely to raise its head there.

But what was shocking for me is that,
(1) 3 "Rajastan-Royals" players were involved in this.
(2) Not a single player but three. That too from a more disciplined and more-spirited RR.
(3) Even more shocked when I think, even with 3 players involved in spot-fixing against the good spirits of winning the game for their team, RR managed to remain in top of the table competing MI and CSK. They would be on the top, had these culprits not played games against their team.

Hmph.. Very hard to believe 3 players lead by a role-model sportsperson like Dravid could be vulnerable to involve in this!! Of course, money can buy vulnerable persons so easily, regardless of how good the characters they are surrounded by..

'Vendaikkai fry-curd' masala dosa - my improvisation.

My mom left me for a couple of weeks day-b4-yest night. Before leaving she made a lot of ladies-finger fry as there was a lot of that in home. Yesterday morning I cooked idly and brinjal sambhar and took curd rice and brinjal sambhar rice for afternoon. I took that ladies-finger-fry as side dish in a big box, as much as i can so that I and my friends can use it.

Even after that, some quantity of the fry remained, as much as I can use for another full meal as side-dish. But yesterday night and today brunch I had went out for my colleague's reception & marriage, and hence dint cook at all.

Now as I came home at night, buying dosa-flour and curd, I was feeling so lazy whether I should cook a chutney (coconut or tomato) for just 1 meal for 1 person. I earlier thought I will cook tomato chutney and use it as side-dish for both today night dosa and tomorrow morning idly. But I was afraid whether it will go bad, courtesy, the heat in Chennai. I dint want to take the dosa with just the idly podi again. ( i have done it twice in past 2 weeks already)

Then came the improvisation out of nowhere :) I heated up the fry. Then mixed it up with curd. Meanwhile I started cooking dosa. And I poured a spoon full of the mixture in the 90% cooked dosa as we do with masala.

And it came excellent! Wow I am turning into an improvising cook! :) :)

I know we are not supposed to mix curd into something that is heater. But who cares when,
(1) when I am so lazy to cook side-dish for 1 meal for 1 person
(2) when it came up really well plus I can eat a healthy dosa-diet (without the redundant idly-podi)
(3) when I am so tired and want to get out of kitchen as early as possible ;)
(4) and I need not take the same old fry tomorrow to office ;)

I feel it is 'Good improvisation' ;) (please bear the self-appreciation) ;)

சொல்லாததும் உண்மை - Immortals of the Meluha

If you are looking for a review about Amish Tripathi's first (and blockbuster) novel "Immortals of the Meluha", no I am not giving that here. There had already been reviews highly rated the novel and I too feel the same, though I am not a huge reader of a variety of books, to rate this one. What I wanted to blog  indeed, is what all I realised about myself and my society when I read the novel, and I want to share the same below.

Really amazing how the author Amish Tripathi, hides deep inside his story, many moral issues in today's society and their possible solutions. The most beautiful thing is he left many such morals open to the interpretations of the readers.

(1) Hara Hara Mahadev - All of us are Mahadevs. It doesn't mean all of us have to be worshipped by some1 else. But it does mean, all of us are responsible for clearing the evil around us aside and bringing in the good within ourselves and to others around us.
It does also mean, we are responsible for fighting for evils that had arouse around us that harm the fundamental rights of us and people around us.

(2) Equality for All - Stabbing caste-ism right on its chest, saying aloud that one should be judged by who he is; and not by what his ancestors did or where he was born. He rather has to be judged by his own karma.

(3) Sati - a woman capable of doing anything and everything a man can possibly be capable of doing, depicting how women should be treated by men as well as women themselves. The impersonation of this character is clearly intended to break the shells of male-chauvinism.

(4) Again Sati - I was shocked in midway of the story, with Sati being already a widow long before Shiva met her. Despite being rendered as a Vikarma (a holder of bad fate due to sins in previous birth) woman by herself after the death of her husband and delivering a stillborn child, both on the same day, she still had not been neglected from her society and stops herself from doing what she likes- dancing, worshipping and fighting. #LifeHasToMoveOn

(5) And again Sati - When the Pandit of Mohan temple at Mohen-Jo-Daro points out to Shiva that, he should not rather try to protect Sati as it will increase her rage, and rather he should 'respect her'. A moral about how every men should be viewing his counterpart.

(6) Sati's remarriage - There was not even a single fuzz going around the society, in the story, about the remarriage of Sati. Some controversial talks were there about marriage, but they were about the marriage of a Vikarma, and as soon as the Vikarma law is abandoned, everyone was okay with that marriage. Through this particular incident, I believe the author carefully wanted to portray that there was no such tradition in our very old ancient civilisation that, a widow should not remarry. Even more interesting point is - the author carefully carved up the reason for Sati being a Vikarma woman, through the conversation between Brahaspathi and Shiva - not because her husband died, but because she gave birth to a stillborn child, and she decides that is a part of her past birth's karma.

Again, these morals are purely left hidden, yet open to the understanding of the readers. These are some important messages i realised would be very crucial to our society, when i read the book. There might be many more, open to you while you read it.

What's more amazing is that, the debut author managed a grand success in his attempt to bring in an interesting and compelling story-line along with his risky try to advocate some important morals. Immortals of the Meluha - Definitely a must read. 

சொல்லாததும் உண்மை - இந்த புத்தகத்தில் நேரடியாக சொல்லப்படாத பல உண்மைகள்.

Anis Birthday

Feb 18... Today Anis had turned 20.. He is not a teen anymore. I too am gonna miss my sweet teen in another 35 days ;)

Deciding the Undecidable:
Today is the release of Gowtham Vasudev Menon's new ('A' certified) movie Nadu Nisi Naaygal. I, Arun and Muthu decided to give him a surprise by taking him to the theater. We booked for the movie evening show (330pm) in Sangam Cinemas couple of days before. We didn't tell him about it. Anis asked us last nite whether shall we go for the movie. We told tickets would have been already booked out so we will go on sunday. Today morning after classes over at 1030 am (due to Techofes 11), Anis told we will go today outside for lunch. Before our ever busy Muthu came and we decided of what hotel to go, time turned 1240. We decided to start in ten minutes to have lunch at Adyar Sangeetha hotel. It became1'o clock when we started and Anis still dint know about  the movie.

Funny without a penny:
Before mentioning about the lunch experience in Sangeetha, i gotta write the funny comedies that had happened today. We walked till CLRI where we decided to catch a bus. The hotel is at the next stop in Gandhi Nagar. A MTC bus came. I thought i will ask the conductor whether the bus will stop at conductor. It was my mistake that i got into the bus without informing the other 3, for what purpose i am getting in. They thought since i got in the bus will stop there and they too got in. When i asked the conductor, and when he is about to reply that it wont stop there the bus had just started. I asked him to whistle to stop but he didn't. Meanwhile Muthu got down from the running bus and i too did. Anis got down third when the bus changed to 3rd gear. It was nearly impossible for Arun to get down then and he didn't. He travelled alone in that bus looking at our faces. But the most funniest part of this is that he had had not even a penny in his wallet. There is some problem with his debit card and so his wallet was empty.  Finally he got down in the next stop when the bus slowed down a little due to some traffic. We walked eventually to the hotel. It would have been better if we had decided that earlier.

The Lunch:
In the hotel, we had a nice lunch. I and Arun decided to take North Indian Thali and Anis too already had decided the same. Muthu (who never knows to make an order of his own) too ordered for the same. We had a nice lunch except for the fear in my mind that clock is ticking and with every tick, the probability that we will be late for the movie got increased.  We already had told Anis that we will go to a church in Egmore. We told him we will go to Sangam Cinemas first and we will book tickets for sunday for the movie and we will go for the church. We unduly had the advantage that Anis will believe whatever whomever says. He is too lazy to think or analyse what we are saying and he is ready to accept it rather than analysing it.  When we had finished our lunch it was 230pm already. We had two options either to take bus route or train route.

The Strike:
Gowtham, my school friend, who then just entered the hotel, suggested me to take 29C bus. It will take only 20 to 25 mins to the theater and we walked till Malar Hospital stop to get that bus. When we boarded into the bus it was 250pm and Muthu told we will be in theater by 315pm. Yeah he was rite on any day except for today which was destined already to make as much fun as possible on us. The bus reached Sterling Road by 305pm. The theater was mere 4 kms away and 3 stops away. So on any other day the bus would have reached there by 315pm. But today, as if it was to be happened for us, there was some college strike near KMC and traffic is blocked. We dint know the reason of the traffic and stayed in bus for next half an hour when the bus just had travelled a mere 100 metres. At 345 we were not too far from Sterling Road.

BUN:
We decided to go by walk and for next half an hour it was just walking and joggin before we reached the theater at 415pm. Once again we unduly had 'Anis Advantage'. He did ask why we are running for just getting a ticket but he asked that only after running 3.5 kms already. We were close to the theater by then. But what is the point in still hiding it from him. After all we got a big BUN(Big Unexpected Nosecut) in our student's language. 10 mins before reaching the theater itself (at 4.05pm) Vicky Vijay called me from theater and told me to get back and not to come to the movie. He told the movie is so far so mokka and so its better if we dont come to theater only.  But we decided to give a go for it.

The Movie:
So we were in the theater at 415 already having missed half of the movie as this is a short movie for around 90 mins. We just heard what had happened in the first half during the interval from other friends in the theater. They said nothing much had happened and we watched the second half. I, Anis and Arun kinda liked the movie but others felt it very worse to sit in the theater. But i was satisfied that Anis finally liked the movie much(but note that we watched only the second half.. Had we watched first half our view would have been different too).  Followed by the movie was Arun's comedy once again when he took us to the railway station from the theater with the help of a photo of google map in his mobile. Actually he took us in the wrong turn but for God sake it turned to be a shortcut. Everyone was praising him for taking in shortcut but only we two knew that it was by a mistake. At 645 we reached Guindy, where it is time for me to make the next fun. I got into the running bus and others dint get in and as Arun travelled alone in the morning, this time its my turn.

But overall, this was a nice day and we loved it this way despite we got big BUNs and everything. In the evening was a concert from 'Thaman' in our college where many singers and actor 'Nakhul' came. Nice enjoying day again. And the swear that i did yesterday that i will study today surely had again gone in vain ;)