Platform cases

In most cities of India, the roadside platform or pedestrian walk is used for all purposes other than what it is meant for. From petty shops to beggar groups, the pedestrian walk seems to be the first choice for anyone to occupy.

Even Bangalore is not an exception. I have had strange encounters with two wheelers and even autos when I walk. Many places they are used as parking lots for cars. Only Lorries and buses are yet to occupy the space :-)

Its high time that some thing is done for this…And it is laid just for name sake. After a rain, to speak about the condition of such side-walks, the lesser said, the better. And our people are no less culprits. I have seen stones and earth, stacked for laying roads and constructing sidewalks slowly taking shape as “kolam-drawing grounds” outside peoples’ houses. Few things in India cannot be changed even for centuries!!!

An hour in the Traffic Jam

The title may sound like some high school essay, but if you are a regular traveller from Electronic City towards Bangalore in the Hosur Road, then you will really understand how much that one hour means for you...

I waste one hour everyday when I neither do useful office work, nor spend it peacefully at home.The normal situation on a weekday evening is as below. One should remember that my house is hardly 12 kms from office:

Starting time ---------- Time of Travel
(From office) ---------- (approximate)

6:15 PM -------------> 1 hr 30 mins
7:15 PM -------------> 1 hr 15 mins
8:30 PM -------------> 45 mins to 1 hr
9:30 PM -------------> 20 mins to 40 mins

The final conclusion is the earlier you want to reach home, the more you suffer sitting in the vehicle. This is the minimum possible time for normal days. If it is a rainy evening, add 30 minutes to each of the above values. :-)

I am not into analysing the root cause and solutions for this problem. But what I can conclude is that, IT boom has made common man suffer a lot everyday. God save them!!!

Chennaiyil Oru Mazhaikaalam

The whole world knows that Chennai needs rain, but not to the extent of flooding the whole city.....The rains have ruined Chennai like anything and the whole of Tamil Nadu is like a island as I could see from News Channels...

For years together, people were praying for rain and lost all hopes. But it had rained as if all these 50 years, the rains were stored somewhere in the sky and someone has opened it out one fine morning. Too much of anything is good for nothing, isn't it?

Chennai will recover very soon from rains, I know that, but if nature had given this much amount of rainfall equally divided for every year for past 30-40 years, then my city would have been a green heaven by now :-(

The Love Hexagon

I am not a fan of K.Balachander, but watch his movies and teleserials made by him. The reason is that they have a total golmaal of relationships and it always remains a suspense for me till the end as to who will pair with whom...:-)

Recently I was watching his serial "Idhu Oru Kaadhal Kadhai" in Vijay TV for a few days. The story line that I could derive till now, goes as below:

-> Janaki and Shakthi love each other
-> Parimala also loves Shakthi
-> Sudha is a friend of Shakthi
-> Ajay loves Sudha
-> Ananthu is in love with Janaki
-> Due to family circumstances, Janaki leaves Shakthi
-> Ananthu and Janaki are getting ready for marriage
-> Sudha is now in love with Shakthi..He reciprocates
-> Parimala wants to remove Sudha and Janaki from Shakthi's life
-> Selvam loves Parimala

and the story goes on.....

It is a hexagonal love story till now, but we cannot say, it may turn out into a heptagon or even more dimensional. Now what is left for me is to wait till the end :-D

But however it is, I feel its far better than Metti Oli's and Ketti Melam's.....;-)

Simply Messaging Shits (SMS)

"If u want me to stay in this competition, please SMS my name XYZ to 7575 or if u are calling from landline....."

The above message would soon enter into some Book of Records for being the only line to be repeated most number of times in the world. With the number of reality shows increasing everyday, I could hear this message in all channels now.

Earlier, only the likes of "Nathuram ke Pakode" and "Aalukka's jewellers" were occupying the bottom of the screens, that too only in local cable channels. But now, all channels have dedicated 25% of screen space for such stupid "SMS keejiye" requests...

If u turn down south, right from SS music to Sun Music, everyone has started tele messaging. "I love u", "XYZ is the best" "Call me at 9889765436"....All such things keep flashing like top headlines of today...

What remains as a mystery to me is where on the hell are such stupid people to stay idle and keep messaging for all these shits??? If I could find one such fellow doing this useless job, I will call him for sharing my job coz I have lotz of things to do :-D

(Civic) Senseless idiots!!!

I have written lots and lots of essays of high school kind till now and here onwards, it will be just messages :-)

I have a neighbour who thinks that they are the only family in the whole locality. The decibels of sound they give out while speaking, the way their two pet dogs torture us day and night by shouting non-stop, the way they fight and shout in their house, the volume they set in their music system etc make me think at times whether they lack something referred to as "Civic Sense"!!!

However nice they may be as a person, I am really scared to make friendship with such neighbours. God only knows when they start caring about others' feelings!!! :-D

Queen of Kollywood

A post dedicated to my all time favourite actress and one of the best pairs of my favourite actor - Jyothika.

My liking towards Jyothika developed in the same way as it happened for Vijay. Right from the days of "Poovellam Kaetupar" and "Doli Sajaake Rakhna" till "Chandramukhi", Tamizh film industry saw the evolution of a great actress.....She is one of the very few actresses who give life to their roles.

Even my mother likes her and compares her with the likes of Savithri. She has lovely screen presence and gives a lively performance. Her portrayal of Maya in Kaakha Kaakha still stays afresh in my mind.

I wish her a very happy and successful career ahead also and Jyothika, u r simply great!!!!

Chennai - My first Love

One blog post is not enough for expressing my love towards Chennai. Still I will make it short to fit in here :-) These are simply headlines....

I was born and brought up in Chennai. For 21 years the city has seen me change a lot along with it. And I share a very close bonding with the city even today when I am miles away from it. When I set my foot on Chennai soil, I feel like flying high and my heart leaps up in joy...

I have been to Chennai recently. I have become a guest in my own native city now. I met lot of my ppl and had good time roaming around streets of T.Nagar. T.Nagar shares equal amount of love from me as Chennai does. Simply becoz there is life 24x7 in T.Nagar. :-)

I have suffered from water scarcity, carrying tonnes of water in summer for my house. I have paid 20s and 30s for autowallahs for distances of hardly 2 kms. I have been through summer days which have made me sweat in litres. Still, above all these, there was some love deep inside my heart for the city. It has grown leaps and bounds in time...

There is no one reason why life in Chennai can be exciting. The people of Chennai, the Chennai Tamil, excellent food, MTC buses, Electric trains, the cultures and traditions, the tolerance, the life style, the adapt-to-anything nature, etc etc and lots more I have as reasons for my love for Chennai.

Like Tirunelveli Halwaa, Kanchipuram Silk, Hyderabadi Biriyani, Calcutta Rosagulla etc Chennai has no single item to term as Chennai special. And like business and movie driven Mumbai or IT driven Bangalore, there is no particular reason which drives life in Chennai. Neither it has a culture or tradition of its own....

Inspite of this, anything and everything in Chennai is special. Any kind of profession, you name it and Chennai has it. Whichever part of India you are from, you can find cousins of your soil in Chennai. This is what makes it a special place to live in!!!

The first time I felt my love towards Chennai was when I shifted to Bangalore for my job. And when I shifted my residence here this year, my heart wept silently for leaving my city. Even today, I smile artificially with my heart longing for the life in Chennai.

Whatever might be the case, once I feel satisfied of my earning, I want to spend the rest of my life in Chennai and live all my life that I had missed till now :-)

Vijay

I don't have any other title for this blog, because for me he cannot be explained in just one line :-D I had never thought in my life that I could write so much about a film actor in my personal pages, but now I couldn't avoid it!!!

I may sound like a fanatic here and even foolish, but it is very difficult for me to speak less of him...I was like many others and was watching his movies without any interest. He was just another actor to me. Infact I have criticised him very badly even for his best movies. Until that change happened in my life....

Yeah...It was my migration to Bangalore after which my love towards Tamizh movies has increased a lot. God knows when and how I started admiring Vijay. But my hero worship has developed to such an extent that today, I watch his movies only for him.

I am not a blind movie lover to accept any crap as good movie. But today, if Vijay acts in the movie nothing else bothers me. I like movies like Mouna Raagam, Azahgiya Theeye etc where there was no heroism and even the ones like Snegidhiye, where there was no hero at all....At the same time, I simply love movies that project heroism. May be that was one of the reasons why I started liking Vijay.

The first and foremost thing I like about him is that he looks as simple as a guy next door, a good friend of yours or even like one in your family...Yet he makes people accept him as hero. The transition from the soft spoken guy he is, by nature, to the explosive and thunder storm kind of hero he portrays on-screen is just amazing!!!

Next, he has not undergone any major changes as far as appearance is concerned for any of his movies. Be it a romantic lover, college student, action hero or a rowdy, he appears as himself. The difference he makes is in the form of body language and expressions. And it is really difficult to make people accept you in any role with just these.... I hate heroes doing getup changes for movies just like that!!!

To speak more, though he had a very good launch pad to enter into film industry unlike others, whatever he is today is only because of his hardwork and sincerity. Oher actors who struggled to make an entry, had only the problem on establishing them as good actors. But Vijay had to work on everything right from appearance, acting, dance and everything. How he converted his negatives into positives remains the secret of his success.

He is one of the few Tamizh actors who can speak proper Tamizh. Being a native of my own Chennai, the way he speaks Chennai Tamizh is simply superb. No wonder why he is KING OF CHENNAI. And amongst actors who do playback singing, I personally feel that his voice is the best. His screen presence and dressing sense are just amazing.

Finally, after all his successes and the kind of fan following he has today, inspite of being termed next to Superstar Rajini himself by the media, he still remains calm and cool without any change in his nature.

Starting from my childhood, I have been a fan of Kamalhassan, then Rajinikanth (I am still his fan and he is my thalaivar), later Madhavan, but no one has inspired me like Vijay. And it is highly impossible that in future, anyone will replace Vijay from his position in my list of favourites. If he declares that he quits acting in movies tomorrow, even then I will be his fan for whatever work he has done till now.

More than an actor I like him as a person. I have learnt a lot from observing him and I consider him as one of my inspirations or influences. (Remember what I mentioned in my post about "My Influences"?). By influence, I mean that I take some good practices and qualities from his life.

At the same time, I am not a fanatic to worship him and follow him or join in some Rasigar Mandram and all that. I like watching his movies. All his movies and his songs. It gives me a lot of happiness and refreshes me. I like talking and discussing about him any time. And I do collect a lot of articles and photos about him, like a hobby. That's all about my fan following!!!

But all said and done, one more punch is left :P If ever I had an elder brother in my life, I wish that he could have been like Vijay. :-)

Myself, Music and Movies - Part 2

I have spoken enough about music, but really its a shame on me that I have neither attempted singing nor learnt any instrument till now in my life. This, in spite of being born in a family where music was inherited for generations...Leave it apart for the moment... :-)

Back to the next eye, the Movies I love. Again here, I have a mixed taste and many movies have become my favourites for no known reason. Once again, I have lost the patience and mood to watch meaningful movies and these days, I am more inclined towards Masala stuff :-D

My favouites in this category:
Movies:
Tamil: May Maadham, Laysa Laysa, Rhythm, Kushi, Aaril irundhu Arubadhu Varai, Padayapa, Azhagiya Theeye, Kanaa Kanden, Sachien, Kaakha Kaakha, Mudhalvan, Kaadhalukku Mariyaadhai, Chandramukhi, Minnale, Dumm Dumm Dumm, Snegidhiye

Hindi: Aradhana, Abhimaan, Veer Zaara, Dil To Pagal Hai, Anjaam, Humraaz, Hyderabad Blues, Lajja, Hum Tum, Khamoshi, Lagaan, Gupt

Actors:
Tamil: Madhavan, Surya, Prasanna, Prakash Raj

Hindi: Saif Ali Khan, Zayed Khan, Anupam Kher, Paresh Rawal

Actresses:
Tamil: Savithri, Jayalalitha, Revathi, Suhasini, Kushboo, Simran, Shalini, Asin, Gopika, Trisha, Madhubala, Sridevi, Radhika

Hindi: Madhubala, Vyjayanthimala, Sadhana, Hemamalini, Madhuri Dixit, Sushmita Sen, Juhi Chawla, Rani Mukerjee, Priety Zinta

Just wait...Above all these names, there are some all time favourites also...

Tamil Movies: Mouna Raagam, Ghilli
Hindi Movies: DDLJ

Tamil actors: Rajini and Vijay
Hindi actors: Amitabh and Shah Rukh Khan
Tamil actress: Jyothika
Hindi actress: Kajol

All the above names are not in any order..Just typed them in a flow:-)

I have favourites in Music and Movies in other cine fields too...Just did not want to mention too many names here...

Myself, Music and Movies - Part 1

As I had mentioned earlier, Movies and Music are like my two eyes :-D

Not that I am associated with any of these as a profession, but still love them equal to my profession. I have been in solitude for many days and even months and only these were my best friends. Still they are...

Coming to Music, I am not a traditional music lover. I love mostly hip hop numbers, then melodies and some times classical too...

Favourites:
Music Directors:
Tamil: Ilayaraja for 80s, AR Rahman for 90s, Harris Jeyaraj at present. But above all, I like Vidhyasagar for most of his movies. He is just too good in any kind of songs according to me.

Hindi: Jatin-Lalit, Nadeem-Sharvan till end of 90's and Anu Malik in recent past. These days I don't prefer Hindi songs that much. However, I find Pritam and Vishal Shekar's songs good. But still all old numbers of RD Burman, Shankar-Jaikishan, OP Nayyar and many others always linger in my ears.

Singers:
Actually lotz and lotz of them...Still trying to mention few :-)

Among males, SPB, KJY, Mohd. Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Udit Narayan(only Hindi), Sonu Nigam, Kay Kay, Karthik, Shankar Mahadevan, Ranjit Nair, Rahul Nambiar, Naveen Madhav and many more.

Among females, P.Susheela, S. Janaki, P.Leela, Chitra, Sujatha, Sadhana Sargam, Shreya Ghosal, Jency Antony, Alka Yagnik, Mahalakshmi Iyer, Sunitha Sarathy, Anupama, Sunidhi Chauhan, Suchitra, Saindhavi and many more.

From the classical side, I love MSS, MLV, Unni Krishnan, Nithyasree, Soumya and Sudha Raghunathan.

But above everyone, I had grown up listening to the ultimate voice of my dear Athai and nothing fascinates me more than that golden voice which stopped its journey in celluloid in early 50's.

I do listen to western music also at times....My preferences remain again just hip-hop. I have Kylie Minogue, J-Lo, BSB, N-Sync, Aqua in my system to listen :-)

From a lover of melodies, my attention has turned towards "Kuthu" songs these days...May be because of the fact that I get fresh and released from all stress, when I listen to them....

My Influences

Before proceeding further, I would like to mention here about those individuals, who impressed me or rather influenced my life till now.

First and foremost, my Parents, from whom I have inherited all the good characteristics I have. Whatever I am today is because of their blessings, wishes and the sacrifices they have done for me.

I have two ambitions in my life. One is to be happy always and the other is to see people around me happy. The latter aim is influenced by my parents and my Athai while the former one is because of my Chithi and Chithappa.

I learnt to keep myself happy from my Chithi and Chithappa. The little amount of courage I have, to face my life is because of them. My Chithi brought me up for more than two years and she is the one who taught me to walk, to speak and been like a second mother to me. Still she is ny counsellor whenever I break down....

I have to make a special mention my dearest Athai also here, who showered her selfless love and affection on me till she was alive.

My biggest influence was and is my Grandfather, who was a man of principles and most of them I adopted in my life. Really miss him a lot in this moment!!!

Apart from all these, there is one more recent influence in my life, which I will reveal in one of the future blogs. :-)

I,me.myself - Part III

Three M's make my life today. One is as precious as my life while the other two are just drive forces to keep me going.

The first and foremost M is my Mother....The other two are Music and Movies.

I love my mother more than anything in this world and I am the world for her. More than being a mother she is my father ever since my father left this world, my sister, my friend, my well wisher...She is my everything. I am in debt to her for whatever she has done for me till date and the best way I can repay her through my love and affection and by keeping her happy. She is the most precious one in my life and I love her so much....

Okay...I had become so sentimental here. So let me break away from this and tell you about the M's which are like fuels for my journey of life.

Music....My biggest passion. I cannot just stay without music for even a day!!! It was, it is and it will be my biggest driving force. I listen to music when I am happy, sad, tensed, relaxed...In short most of the times. My studies will mostly go on along side with music. Neither board exams, nor university exans have stopped me from listening to music any time.

It is in my genes and I had grown up listening to it everyday in my house. Infact, its a shame for me that I am not into learning music all through my life. The first attempt I did was to learn a violin but that lasted for hardly a week...Still it remains as a dream and if I get a chance I would love to learn it.

And finally, Movies....I look for just entertainment when it comes to movies. I totally stick on to commercial or popularly known "Masala" movies which makes me happy and relieves me from all tensions...But at times I enjoy romantic and action flicks too depending on my mood. However, I strictly stay away from what is called as "Parallel Cinema" and social/patriotic subjects just because I don't want to emote or think for the sake of passing 3 hours :)

My favouite music and movie related stuff is very enormous to accomodate in this post and I will take it up as a seperate post :)

I,me.myself - Part II

My life is in no way different from others...It has seen all sorts of ups and downs. From a mischievous kid to a studious guy, from an introvert nature to a friendly approach and from a innocent boy to a responsible man, anything and everything related to me has changed over time...But I am stabilised today. I was cursing life years back but now I have learnt to enjoy every moment of it...But I am not giving any details of what, how, why etc. here. Coz, I don't want this to be an autobiography :)

My education...Well, I didn't study in the best schools or the top college. But I had an education sufficiently good enough to place me in a comfortable position in this society. At the same time, I should accept the fact that "I was born intelligent, but education ruined me" :D

I started studying for the sake of marks and really missed a lot in the process. But there is no limit for education. I hope to regain the lost ones very soon :)

One profession that always fascinates me is that of a teacher. Unfortunately, most of my teachers were looking for marks from students rather than innovations. I plan to take up teaching as a profession in later part of my life, may be after 15 yrs or so. Ceratinly not now, because I should be fit enough to build up future citizens as a teacher. So I will fine tune myself in this 15+ yrs time frame. I should give my students everything which I missed to get from my teachers.

The biggest assets I have gained in my life till now are my friends who always care for me and the love of my family which has been/is a tonic for me in all situations.

My first love is my hometown, my lovely Chennai city. As I transitioned through different phases of life, the city has seen me in all spirits. I could not explain my love for the city in these two lines and will dedicate a seperate post sometime later for elaborating that :D

I,me.myself - Part I

To start off with, let me provide a short biodata...

Name: Srinivasan Ramanathan
Born on: 14th of October
Fondly called as: Karthik
Education: Bachelor of Engineering(Electronics and Communication)
Job: Software Professional

Hometown: Chennai
Interests: Making friends, Listening to music and watching movies (totally useless fellow)
Loves: My mom
Hates: Show offs
Believes in: Myself and The Almighty
Aim in life: To be happy always

First friends: My cousins
Best friend: My mom
Something I miss in life: Siblings
My role model: My grandpa

Favourites:
* Colour: Blue
* Dress: Formals
* Activity: Sleeping :)
* Place: Hyderabad
* Food: Anything Veggie

Well, that was a short intro about myself...My music and movies related favourites will follow in a later post....

Debut Match

I know its too late for me to start writing a blog, but as always said better late than never :)

I always wanted to speak out my mind, my ideas, my passions but never got a chance or rather time to do it all these days. I will do it all through this medium.

I am a simple guy and I will be speaking only on simple topics in simple words… :)
The first few blogs would reflect my life as a person till now, and later I will make shift to general topics and day-to-day issues… Again I don’t want to write an autobiography so soon. But I dedicate these first few posts to those people who have made me as what I am today…

Before I start, I pray The Almighty to keep everyone happy and also to give me patience to keep this blog alive forever :D

"Vakrathunda Mahaakaaya Suryakodi Samaprabha
Nirvignam Gurumedeva Sarvakaaryeshu Sarvadha"

Coming up:
I,me.myself - Part I
I,me.myself - Part II
I,me.myself - Part III