Singam! Singam! He's Durai Singam!

Happy Birthday da Narayana. :)


May god provide you with all the knowledge in the world,
Make you proficient in all the Android games ever and to-be created,
Bless you with someone you feel who ll "Totally agree" with you,
And prevent you from deleting further program files folders in windows.
Amen.

Review - Paths Of Glory

There always exists a work pattern among people (who work). Some call it style, some call it uniqueness, but I m simply gonna stick with work pattern here. Yes, be it an actor or writer or a movie director (or a teacher even) or some profession which does something, the individual follows up on a pattern, that sticks to all of his/her works. A leitmotif.

Tarantino and his chapter narration,
Manirathnam and his fewer-than-necessary dialogues,
Eastwood and his ad sentimentum,  
Jason Reitmann (directed Up in the air and Thank you for smoking) and his assertion for negative subjects,
Vijay and his punch dialogues/fight sequences, (Now you see why I called it work pattern rather than style.)
A friend of mine and his arguments, (The pattern is 'baseless reasoning' here)
The way a gamer scores his goals in FIFA,
Devi Sri Prasad and drums,
Dan Brown and labyrinths,
Any man on the planet and his 5 most often heard songs,
And any woman on the planet and her 5 most recently bought clothes.


Similarly, Jeffrey Archer has a habit of writing the entire life history of an individual (or two), from moments before his birth and years after his demise. His pattern or in fact the plot of most of his novels can be summed up by his own quote :

"When I was three, I wanted to be four. When I was four, I wanted to be Prime Minister"

More than most, Archer's protagonists are ambitious. Self willed. Either exceptionally talented or crafty. And naturally, it most often is a remarkable journey through one's life rather than a sorry account of one's existence.The only thing that separates Archer's novels from biographies is his works are most often fictional or semi-fictional, which gives him the liberty to strike out the boredom and include some creativity on his part. 

His latest of this genre, 'Paths of Glory' is a semi-factual account of the life of George Mallory, a Cambridge graduate, a World War I survivor and most of all, an ardent mountaineer. Set in the late 19th and early 20th century, the story is pretty simple. Did George Mallory make history or not ? 
(I m not gonna add anything more to the plot, not cos there is not a great deal to it, but simply because you will lose interest in reading as I have heard.)


Well, POG made me realize how good a writer Jeffrey Archer really is. Or rather how good a storyteller he is. And I had to admit, without doubt one of the greatest storytellers ever. His language is simple. Perhaps too simple in POG. But again he makes up for it, with his very own crisp editing and to-the-point narration. Archer must have had one of the most difficult tasks a creator could have - to explain a similar sequence of events twice. Gautham Menon did it in Vinnaithandi Varuvaya. And I cant say Archer too comes up trumps, but he did good. And without Trisha, tats a big thing. :D


The frequent inclusion of George's letters to his wife is nice in the beginning, but turns most irritating towards the end. The description of different mountains is neither too great nor too less. (I never believed I would say this), but Archer should have taken a leaf out of Tolkien, when it comes to mountains. 


And like the Fourth estate or Kane and Abel, there is another individual rivaling the ambitions of the protagonist. Again, an Australian. But Archer seems to have been very careful in handling the rivalry to not remind you of his above works. Still, fails in parts.


Overall, POG turns out to be a good read. I heard Archer wrote the novel in about 3 months time. Although one might choose a better topic to write on in that time, none could have written better. 
I would give it a rating of  8.5/10.


PS. pls dont wiki the fella George Mallory, for it says in exactly 10 scrolls of your mouse, what Archer wrote in 467 pages, albeit the latter is still enjoyable.

I don't wanna wake up

I dont wanna wake up,
for she ain't there to wish me good morning.
I dont wanna brush up,
for she and her tender kisses are gone, me yearning.
I dont wanna take bath,
for it reverts me to the how-do-i-desrcribe-it fragrance she bores.


I dont wanna eat,
for it reminds me of the aw(ful)esome food she shares with me.
I dont wanna talk to anyone, 
for i m afraid i might blurt out her name instead of theirs.
I dont wanna charge my mobile,
for she cant call me anyways.


I dont wanna listen to the beatles, 
for its always about her, they sing about.
I dont wanna see manu play,
for my passion for them reminds me of a similar passion.
I dont wanna see chelsea play, 
for i never watch them play anyways.


I dont wanna go to facebook, 
not cos i was there seconds ago but cos she is not gonna be online.
I dont wanna eat chicken, 
cos.. No wait.. I m still debating it.
I dont wanna see the clock, 
feared, it would prove, nothing in this world moves without her.


I dont wanna even move....
Infact I dont wanna do anything, for in everything,
from minuscule to immaculate,
there she was.


I dont wanna wake up, for she still dances with me in my dreams.


Found this while deleting unwanted files in my documents. 
Amazing! how the human mind can get sad at times. :D

And we thought Ramarajans And Rajkirans were funny!

If you have already heard about the concepts of 'Divide & Conquer', good. Read about it again. Else it goes something like this. Suppose, you are going to have dinner. You have a huge, full grilled chicken in front of you. Now, not that you cant eat it one sitting, but you might end up having a stomach ache. Thus, for better satisfaction you divide it in half, (Now Sai, i m not gonna suggest share it with your friend :P) you have one half now and the other late night (preferably while watching a champions league match). This technique of dividing the chicken for the present and the delicious future for betterment in efficiency of consumption is Divide & Conquer. Now that you know D&C, this has nothing to do with the post. Thought I would let you know I m dividing and conquering right now. Yummmm!


Ok. Now, two things happened in the recent past tat makes me write this. 
One, I saw someone dress stupider than Ramarajan. 
And two, Rajkiran has an untold secret!


Ramarajan and the horizontal half-pants :

<-- this is Ramarajan, known in Tamil nadu for his undaunted courage to wear pink shirts, pink lungis, pink trousers and his kind nature, that marks the willingness to be laughed at uproariously by the entire state, at the slightest behest. No. I m not even gonna start on his acting. His action sequences makes you go OMG! and his romance sequences appeals for the same emotion too. Ironically, he has the record for the longest running tamil movie. Karakattakaran. Now you know why Vijay names his movies ending with "karan". He is said to have got a bit of MGR in him. So he tried placing his foot in politics; became something for a while; then lost his footing; wife divorced him; fell heroically. period. 

Now compare Ramu with this dude --> whom I saw in television while changing channels. Apparently, he is a wrestler and like all wrestlers he over acts. His name is Zack something. And as I watched from my ever-slipping sofa cushions, he did something no other man has ever dared before and I went holy mother of god!
He wears long pants in one leg and briefs in the other leg!!!
(In Tamil - Oru kaal la pant Oru kaal la jatti! ) Holy Mother of God!
The altruist in me sprung to action and believed this social bigotry against Ramarajan should come to an immediate end.
After all, it took the wife 20 years to divorce him. With all due respect, HE IS THE MAN.


Rajkiran and the brand value :


Moving onto our second case study, the other titan of tamil cinema, Rajkiran. 
Now, I was at a Jockey factory sales recently and surrounded by hundreds/thousands of underwear, I might have perhaps unearthed one of the greatest secrets ever. 
After cruising through various sections, I settled at the cotton nightwear section. Little did I know that, thats where the divine intervention was to take place.
~~ 
As the fabric bore a close semblance,
Epiphany, it was that struck me, in silence,
Years of laughing and rianting,
It wasn't after all a cheap outing.
A laugh riot, he had been,
Now, the quiet truth i have seen.


O Society, My Society,
All along, it was the pot calling the kettle black,
Mistaken nature of things! what a pity,
For now, Patta patti is the new black!
A laugh riot, he had been,
Now, the quiet truth i have seen.
~~
If sense hath not thy mind made, see the following two pictures. 
One is the picture of a model, wearing a costly but comfy jockey nightwear, more of a boxer. And the other is Rajkiran wearing the near exact same boxer, but with a lungi! 

And we thought Ramarajans And Rajkirans were funny!!

He-Who-Must-Not-Commentate !!

What do you remember of the recently concluded Indian Premier League?

Yes, the Cheerleaders were great.

Then?

Chennai Super Kings won the IPL. Athough speculations of match-fixing did arise on this particular edition (Finally! I had been saying tat ever since Dravid started hitting sixes for RCB in IPL 2!), be that as it may be, "hey we won it fair and square!"

Anyways, this post isn't about how Raina sweated to his underpants to help Chennai lift the trophy or who Preity Zintha might have been boinking recently, but it is about one man and ONE man only.

And for the love of god, it isn't Lalit Modi.

The man who has been every child and adult's nightmare recently.

He who has mentally scarred me for life, even with the very little cricket i saw and unfortunately heard,

He who makes Sachin Tendular's magnifique batting seem like a great movie with a bad re-recording,

He who would have made Shakespeare and Marlowe, realise English could be made to sound irritating too,

He who makes me hit the wall so hard with my head, that Birla Cements might reconsider their chemical formula,

Yes, I AM talking about LAKSHMAN SIVARAMAKRISHNAN.

He is one of those guys who you would love to have him as your neighbor, so you can go and beat him up as and when you wish. (Now say "Its a DLF Maximum!, you @#$@!^%$ ")

Disclaimer : I don't give a furry rat's tiny ass if you find this offending Mr.L.S.

Technically speaking, its not grammar or pronunciation that Siva lacks. But COMMON SENSE, which he tries to cover it up with stupid jokes. And fails. Miserably. He also has that you-wanna-hit-him-first-thing accent. I can put what Siva does in these words, which I read somewhere, but I m not able to remember :

"He often attacks the context at work with a mixed flair of incredible genius and utter stupidity, its often difficult to separate which is which."

Just a crazy thought for a moment. If L.S had been commentating for the EPL, instead of the IPL ?

1. Siva : "Thats the first goal for MAN U Andy. (Pause) And the first goal for Berbatov as well." Andy Gray : Huh.
2. With Van Der Sar, the ball is always in the air. "That ball traveled in the air for a long time." doesn't augur too well.
3. Barclays Moment of Success sounds stupid and it is too.
4. Now, Liverpool can add to their list of reasons(apart from "1.Lucas") why their season was such a flop.
5. The injured Rooney would remain injured.
6. Its Arjen Robben, not Arjun Robben!
7. Shebby Singh would roll over and act dead.
8. Chelsea will still defend with 9 men.
9. FIFA would crash every time you start a game, before it says "Its Andy Gray and Martin Tyler Lakshman Sivaramakrishnan!"

But hey who knows, Madrid might sign him to be Spain's leading spokesman. (Ok I m not going that crazy here.) :D

However in reality, (he is still commentating) he is often made to sound good, thanks to Ranjit Fernando and Rameez Raja. They just make you wanna pull your hair out. Literally. Ranjit can't have enough of Sangakkkkkkkara and Jayassssuriya, while Rameez is in a class of his own. :D

"Two overs left. That's 12 balls folks!" -Rameez Raja (Wow!)

There is also Arun Lal who seem obsessed with 'pressure' - pressure situation, under pressure shot, pressure this, pressure that. But had you asked me, why my anger/irritation zeroed in on Lakshman Sivaramakrishnan, I wouldn't have an answer. (Must be the specs probably.)

Thats how it is with someone you don't like. You really can't explain why you hate them at times and when I say u can't explain, I dont mean there isn't a reason. There is just too many to choose from. You simply hate them. period.

PS. Ergo, must be the stupidity i guess.