Labels: Movie Review, Nadodigal, opening ellam nalla dhan irukku aana finising seri illaye ba, Winner
Labels: billi sooniyam, dishwasher, housewife, Mayavarm, Mayiladuthurai Junction, Mayuranathar, Microfiction, Rin, Robin Liquid, server, tender coconut water, The Hindu, vegetarian light refreshment stall
"Whatever happens will be for the worse. Therefore, it is on our interests that as little as possible happens. " -- A wise drunk man.
Consider the worthwhile activities of a Thamizh (under) graduate before liberalization and the Silicon Valley civilization. He'd register at the employment exchange, write cover letters to highlight pedigree Iyengar ancestry, solicit recommendations from the onnu vitta chithappa's athimber who retired as a stenographer at TVS, go through public service commission exams and/or take the Southern Railways job baton from the retiring/expired father. The highest hope was becoming a Lower Division Clerk. The pay structure and work ambiance successfully eliminated all risks of nurturing ambition.
Now: The open nature of the job market and the knowledge economy has dealt a killer blow to the virtue of slacking by fostering competitiveness and a can-do optimism. The continuous pressure to improvise, learn and grow above one's station while simultaneously being able to boil oneself down to a bunch of bullet points and elevator pitches is the result of a grand capitalist conspiracy to deprive Thamizhan of the pleasures of indolence.
Business school appears to be an exit from the vicious cycle of forced aspirations and software defect reports. But the pain of writing essays along with MBA applications -- the crap about being motivated to excel at excelling and work in teams -- is comparable only to reading feminist rants about menstrual cycles. Worse yet, one cannot honestly write, "I want to do an MBA because I have fucking had enough of null pointer exceptions, I like bullshitting and am a natural at that, and want to be paid obnoxiously high for it so that I can buy that lakefront villa and a BMW." And after two years and a $100K hole in the pocket, one would realize that he has traded a relatively secure coding job for a "move up or move out" style ultra-competitive McKinsey shit.
Pained by the death trap of progression in the postmodern world, the heart deliberates a peaceful livelihood where there is no scope -- hence hope -- for improvement. Say, a waiter at the mess opposite to the Mayavaram bus stand. The only things to look forward in life would be two meals a day, a cutting of Old Monk every night and bit padam on Sunday.
-- Alan Smithee and I
Labels: BMW, cutting, government office, Hindu rate of growth, Iyengar, LDC, Mayavarm, McKinsey, Old Monk, Shakeela, Silicon Valley, Southern Railway, TVS
Labels: freakonomics is fakeonomics, kisi baal, smart people read Greg Mankiw and Keith Hennessey, smarter people drink Hennessey, wikipedia and Ayn Rand do not count as literature on economics
Labels: Barrack Hussein Obama, Blow job, Govinda Govinda, Obama, panna matta mela moothiram pora maari edhavadhu pesa vendiadhu, poota case, War Against Terror
Labels: aliens, etymology, Spelling Bee, Transformers
Sriram has often observed that: "Indian" Thamizhs indulge in despicable North Indian habits like wearing Sherwanis for weddings and watching movies as Dil Chahtha Hai. And North Indians continue to think Indhi is the de facto language of mankind, even if they are thousands of miles athwart where Indhi evolved from rude sounds North Indian women made when being raped by Moslems.
Labels: arrogant North Indian, Battle of York, Dil Chahtha Hai, Indhi ozhippu, Moslems, multiculturalism, United States of Thamizh, War Against Terror, War of 1812
Labels: change we can believe in, diaper station, Feminism, male chauvinism, paternity leave, trying my stand-up comedy routine, washrooms
Labels: Caste, Kaffir, Koran, Microfiction, Mohammedan, PBUH
After gathering their 14.7% downpayment on the mortgage, he entered her and exited a baby. The name. It should sound Sanskrit but should not be out of place in the adopted land: balance of Eastern and Western values, modern, unique and everything else in six English letters. The program that recycled names through two generations is almost gone. They read through Lalitha Sahasranamam and Abirami Andhadhi hoping to stumble upon the right one, accumulating accidental punyam in the process. Anything he came up with, she knew a friend or foe called exactly that.
The right name and then the right stroller. For men driving a Toyota Corolla, the Maclaren brand of stroller is almost irresistible. The child seat in the car, safety this, safety that and looking up zip codes with better school districts. Knocked up.
Ubayam: Alan Smithee
Labels: Abirami Andhadhi, downpayment, Knocked Up, Lalitha Sahasranamam, Maclaren, Microfiction, mortgage, punyam, Toyota Corolla
Uwack.
Labels: 15 paisa, 3G, answering machine, BlackBerry, BlackBerry Messenger, Facebook, LED, mobile, My Space, Orkut, postcard, postmodernism, POTS, SMS, telephony
Revisiting this, I think "I" was right. The usage depends on the construction. Basically, "I" is used as the subject and "Me" as the object.
That depends on where you and your friend are in the sentence. In colloquial speech 'me' is often used where standard grammar requires 'I', especially when someone else is mentioned too. Sometimes people use 'I' instead of 'me', because they know 'me' is sometimes wrong, but have not understood the principle. (Others resort to 'myself', which can sound rather pompous.)
I am the subject of the sentence, but the object of the sentence is me.
If in doubt, take your friend out of the sentence.
Me and my friend went to a party last night. [Wrong]
I and my friend went to a party last night.
My friend and me went to a party last night. [Wrong]
My friend and I went to a party last night.
The mayor has invited me and my husband.
The mayor has invited I and my husband. [Wrong]
The mayor has invited my husband and me.
The mayor has invited my husband and I. [Wrong]
Incidentally, saying 'my friend and I' instead of 'I and my friend' is not better grammar, it's just being polite.[link]
The implication of this is astounding. What if the other posts in this blogs were right too?
Labels: grammar, Wren and Martin
Debbie: [on subject of husbands] You criticize them so much, they get down on themselves, and then they're forced to change!
Pete: Marriage is like a tense, unfunny version of Everybody Loves Raymond, only it doesn't last 22 minutes. It lasts forever.
Labels: aliens, Americans will soon watch Vijayakanth movies, Everybody Loves Raymond, Hollywood, Hollywood is full of communists and homosexuals and anti-Christians, Knocked Up, movie on demand, robot
When the parents come this summer, Sriram hopes for nothing too different from this: Father can't get enough of Lays chips. Mother picks up where she left off on Kolangal. Father likes the recliner chair. Mother goes for a walk, gets lost and finds her way back somehow. The wife tries to get on their good side by coming up with menus to fight diabetes and cholesterol but is usually under-appreciated. Niagara Falls, Empire State, Yosemite, temples and all of that.
After all, the above scenes have been re-enacted in many Thamizh homes in the New World, since the War.
Labels: diabetes, Empire State, Kolangal, Lays chips, Niagara Falls, Sun TV, Sun TV serial, TamBrahm, the war, Yosemite
Kashtam.
Labels: Ayan, kashtam, Movie Review
Labels: a movie a week keeps camping away, Movie Review, State of Play
Labels: balance of eastern and western values, globalization, maanga pachidi, Mangoes, Mexican, Mexico, oorgai
Labels: Miss South India, Sun TV
And so on goes the drivel. After a week of such exercises, an employee will learn to apply the logical and organizational skills obtained, to day-to-day work activities, magically improving productivity and performance. This is what paper-pushers with degrees in sociology and human sciences really think.Objective: Drinking beer.
Problem statement: Choosing and buying the right beer.
Situation Analysis: Weather is good and there is nothing useful to do.
Decisions: What beer to buy? Where is it available?
How to get there? How to pay for it? Who all are going to drink? Any preferences?(Use post-it notes to jot down key factors)
Actions: Decide on a beer. Identify a liquor store. Choose mode of commute based on distance, time and convenience. Make sure the wallet is with you. Make a mental list of drinkers and match it against their preferences. Buy. Do not open any bottle of liquor and/or drink on the way home (Use post-it notes to remind yourself of this or send yourself an email)
Potential Problem Analysis and Prevention:
(Use post-it notes, anyway)
Contingency: (Use post-it notes)
Labels: change bullshit, change we can believe in, new world order, post-it
A man went to a doctor. The doctor was a woman.
Inexplicably, I don't mind watching this movie yet another time.
Labels: Parthiban Kanavu, Sun TV, Sun TV movie
Labels: davara, evarsilver, paathirakaran, Providence, wardrobe, wife
Labels: 40%, Allan Border, Bombay, Indhi ozhippu, karunanidhi, new delhi, ngotha just missed, pass mark, TamBrahm
Kind of okay. The songs are good. Karthik renders Pada Pada nicely.
Labels: Karthik, Movie Review, Pada Pada, Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu
As I step out, I notice that I do not have to brace myself for the cold. The winter coat is starting to feel heavy and the gloves make the hands sweat slightly. Spring. Finally. Spring is when American Idol heats up. (Aside, Anoop Desai is way better than Sanjay Malakar.) This is the time for the annual performance reviews, followed by hasty resolutions to work harder/better and myopic preoccupations with career advancement. But realities set in by Fall, when new TV sitcoms proliferate like bankrupt banks and all of them prove to be annoying within five episodes.
In summer, the parents are coming. Just for the sake of conformism, I should take them to Niagara Falls (U.S. and Canada), New York City, Grand Canyon, Washington D.C and a couple of national parks.
First things first, this season commands a sigh of relief because winter was a miniature ice age. Any other source of joy for the year will be a surprise.
Labels: Fall, Grand Canyon, national parks, New York City, Niagara Falls, seasons, spring, summer, Washington D.C, winter
Labels: economy, Golden Age, government office, Iraq, Kiran Chetri, New world, passport, recession, recycling, Scotch, security
Oh fuck.
Labels: Arjun, Kannada baadu, Kannadiga, Karate therinja periya pudungia, thanneer thara dhrogi
Labels: Airtel Super Singer, Asatha Povadhu Yaaru, Ellame Sirippudhan, Kalaignar TV, Kalakka Povadhu Yaaru, Sun TV, Vijay TV
Labels: Bollywood, Delhi 6, Hindustan, Indhi movie, Islam, Jodha Akbar is a Mughal blowjob, Khilafat Movement, North Indians, North Indians are retards, War Against Terror
Delivering liquor to the door. The best idea since the wheel.
Labels: business that does not need a bailout, Dial a Bottle, great idea, If one feels too lazy or drunk to get up and buy liquor, one simply dials a bottle
Labels: Big Evil Pharma, Buckley's, child-proof, cough syrup, Feminism, force, ladies club, momenum, No Child Left Behind, torque, Tylenol
Labels: Dhool, masala, Movie Review, Sun TV
Labels: Ayurvedham, ginger, jaggery, kashayam, pepper, vellam, whisky
Mudila.
Labels: According to Jim, AIDS, Ambassador Bridge, Buy America, Canada, Detroit Pistons, economic patriotism, free trade, Islam, NAFTA, nationalism, socialism, stimulus package, Toronto Raptors, Windsor
Labels: Abu Ghraib, Bay Street, BPO, Family Day, Feminism, James Madison, jeans, Madison Avenue, margaritas, onnu-vitta chitthappa, outsourcing, President's Day, Sri Ram Sena, stimulus package, Wall Street
Movie Review: Slumdog Millionaire
7 Comments Published by I on Thursday, February 05, 2009 at 2:33 PM.
Labels: communism, Hollywood, Islam, James Madison, Madison Avenue, McCarthyism, Millionaire, Nixon, Obama, Oscar, President, Slumdog Millionaire, Vietnam War
Labels: Garmin, GPS, how to talk, what to drink, what to eat, what to wear, wife
Labels: Ammavasai, calendar kambi, date, gas cylinder, Goldman Sachs, Lehman, Merrill Lynch, mobile, Morgan Stanley, paal card, raasi palan, Rani Muthu, Starbucks, Sundaram Finance
Labels: Hollywood, Indhi movie, Movie Review, ngotha, nuke Taj Mahal
The wife wanted to spend on a couch while I wanted a massage chair. In keeping with the bipartisan theme of our times...
Labels: $3500 in a single weekend, balance of eastern and western values, bipartisan is twice as bad as partisan, couch, massage chair, stimulating the economy with more debt, wife
Labels: Barrack Hussein Obama, China, George Bush, Hudson, infiltrate the United States at the highest level and render it weak against terrorists, Kamaraj aatchi, ponmanachemmal, thulukkan
Labels: 401, Detroit, golti, I75, London, Satyam, Sterling Heights, Troy, Waterloo, Windsor
...files for Chapter 11. While its compatriot had a splendid last quarter.
Labels: BlackBerry, last quarter, Nortel, Research in Motion
Labels: amusement park, beach, beer, budget airliner, Busch Gardens, Disney World, Florida, Fort Lauderdale, She wife, Sheikra, Siesta Keys, southern Florida, St.Augustine, sunshine state, Tampa, whisky
Write when the hipflask is empty.
People of honorable TamBrahm families quickly run out of things to say to each other. The restrictions of distance and time are necessary to sustain conversations between parents and son. The frequency and duration of phone calls should be metronomic: weekly and lasting only as much as a $5 Reliance phone card allows.
For six years, Sriram has done commendably well to avoid the trap of voice-chat sessions which unlike phone cards do not have a timeout and therefore no automatic exit strategy. Only for the wife to undo all the hard work.
Labels: metronomic, phone, Reliance, TamBrahm, voice chat, wife
Labels: Apple, BlackBerry Storm, chips, Documents-to-Go, intuitions, intuitive, iPhone, michar, Prada, revolutions, tags are like writing messages on a money order, touchscreen
Six days into the month of Thai and the Thamizh new year as declared by Karunanidhi, the winner of the most coveted reality TV crown of 2008 -- American President -- will take office. For more than a few months now, the American media has been anticipating this, making constant references to hope and transformation. Seemingly, at the behest of Barack Obama, heaven will outsource its headquarters to the United States.
In his defense, the President-elect has been careful to only say and do things that look nice on TV -- clean energy, more jobs, the dapper gestures and being good. In all, the sense of moral elegance that has been absent since the last President and the next Secretary of State moved out of the White House with their blowfishes and saxophone.
Labels: can't do away with the Clintons fuck no way, Clinton, Hillary, karunanidhi, Obama, President, reality TV, saxophone, Thai, White House
America's Thirupathi.
Labels: annoying kids, BlackBerry, Disney World, eppo veetuku pogaporomo, Thirupathi
The moral lesson of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol is perhaps inappropriate in today's setting. Alas, the U.S. federal government seems to have taken the beloved Christmas tale of all to heart. That's really okay but their goodwill should be extended to the airline industry which has taken to charging extra for checked baggage and treating passengers to free dieting sessions on non-stop 1300-mile/4 hour flights. The age of the fucking (so-called) "budget airliner" and "industry consolidation", associative with uniformly poor service -- seven years and running -- may have outlived its longevity.
Six years ago, the Bush Administration ended up rejecting an aid package the airline industry desperately requested. Back then, the President was riding high on his swift response to 9/11 and economic interventionism was not deemed necessary. But surely, a sandwich on a 4-hour flight is a more urgent need than "energy independence", "protecting our environment" and scores of other misguided ideas the new president-elect with a september-eleventhy name has?
Whatever. It is 82 F in Tampa, a far cry from the Great Lakes area. The governor is Republican, there is no state tax and hot dosais beckon.
Labels: 9/11, A Christmas Carol, budget airliner, Charles Dickens, Christmas, Daylight Savings Time, Florida, George Bush, Great Lakes, industry consolidation, Tampa, Windows Mobile
Labels: can't do away with the Clintons fuck no way, George Bush, Hillary, Iraq, Islam, Kamaraj aatchi, lesbian, Obama, Suha Arafat, thulukkan, War Against Terror
Labels: bore, camping, discount sales, HGTV, Home and Garden TV, home decor, new doormats, New world, on-site, outsourcing, Second Amendment, shower curtains, skiing, stale, stereotypical story, weekends
Labels: Ayeesha, child-molesters, Islam, Michael Jackson, Mohammedan, No Child Left Behind
Labels: dosai, Iraq, kaapi, kaapi podi, Persian Gulf War, Saddam Hussein, thenga patha, World War II
Labels: Barrack Hussein Obama, infiltrate the United States at the highest level and render it weak against terrorists, Mubarak, Obama, Operation Mubarak, President, sleeper agent, terror alert, terrorism
In some places, winter has arrived and with it, the danger of poetic thought -- the color of the maple leaf, the first snow and all that. These thoughts were well-placed when food storage techniques were not advanced, outdoor professions were more common and life was not automated. But they are patently impertinent in a world of centralized air-conditioning, genetically modified food and canned mangoes.
Perhaps, driving is easier in warm weather and whisky is more drinkable in cold but other than that, what spectacular difference does rain, sleet, snow or sun make to the lifestyle of any decent human being? Alas, tens of years of predisposition to be elated about changeless changes has wannabe poets towing the party line of old.
The seasonlessness of Madras can naturally deter such impertinence -- the symbolic relevance of the "Detroit of India" in a postmodern world. The dysfunction of the real Detroit's Big Three and the major population demographic of that city can be imagined to be associative. As Madras's meteorological semi-permanence and the lifestyle of its citizens at large.
Madras.
Labels: Arattai, Big Three, Blouse Piece, blouse piece wars, Detroit, filter kaapi, kindal, kusumbu, Madras, maple leaf, nakkal, nayandi, poetry, postmodernism, Singara Chennai, snow, vambu, whisky
Labels: Dollar Collapse, hippie, home, inflation, Madras, ration card, recession, US Dollar
Labels: Barrack Hussein Obama, election 2008, Indhi ozhippu, Jet Airways, jet of hot air, Northern imperialism, Obama, President
...if it had rained today in Madras. Damn Varunan.
Labels: bussu, dampen, Deepavali, Jet Airways, jet-lagged, Madras, noise control, patasu, season ticket to Madras, sleepless
Corporate obsession with tolerance has yielded to the "Spirituality Room" -- a secular euphemism for a space used only by a people to discharge prayers and share jokes about infidels. In the month of Ramadan, some employees regularly make themselves unavailable from work and head to the Room, rug in hand.
The apple never falls too far away and making room for religion at the workplace is the latest brainwave, making religious accommodation semi-official policy. As a result, mid-level managers may often find it difficult to enforce professional decorum over private Mohammedan sentiments, even when critical timelines are affected.
Such are the dangers of the wrong kind of diversity.
Labels: infidel, Mohammedan, religious accomodation, rug, secularism, spirituality room
Labels: burp, I can also write poem, Pizza, poetry, postmodernism, prose
Labels: dog-shit, eurotrash, France, Italy, olives, Paris, travel package, Venice stinks, vices, wines
Sounds ominously close to like Osama bin Laden, tossed in with a Hussein.
Labels: Barrack Hussein Obama, Biden, Hussein, Obama, Osama bin Laden
Labels: Apocalypse, diet Coke, Global warming, Microsoft, recycling, smoking area
