ஓ பக்கம்

In this week Anatha vikitan's "ஓ பக்கம்" Ganni wrote something about Narendramodi. I actually can't understand whether he is supporting or against Modi/BJP ?. He says "even though thelka and other news paper exposed Modi's involvement in some murder and 2002 riots people elected him. The educated people didn't care about those reports since they are most benefited in his government and voted for him". This clearly tells one thing, Modi did lot of development work on his state which made the ppl to forget all those allegations.

I have some questions for the so called secular parties in India. Don't they see caste/religion when they select a candidate for election. If the secular parties are really secular what stops them from implementing uniform civil code across the country. The communist party of Westbengal which cannot protect Taslima nasrin in kolkatta, should not talk about hindutva. If BJP is appeasing Hindu's then other secular parties are playing with minorites.

The Raise of BJP in TN

Like other Tamilian's, I'm a strong supporter of Dravidain Parties (DMK, AIADMK, MDMK, DMDK). Once again, like a common Tamilian, I might change a my support between these parties(and not outside these parties). Even though BJP don't have a strong presence/leader in TN, I feel the party is slowly gaining its momentum in the state. Thanks to the ruling govt(both state and center) policies. In Tamil Nadu, all the religions live in Harmony (atleast when compared to other states), But now I personally feel there is a big divide between Hindus and other Abrahamic religion . It could be even my personal feeling, but I could see the same among lot of people in my age group. Hindus have the feeling that the govt is caring only for the minorites and the minorities have the feeling that they are being oppressed by Hindus, I don't know which is true or I'm not arguing for a particular side. But I'm worried about the communal hormany of my state. Most of my Hindu friends openly support BJP, which I feel as big gain for BJP. Previously BJP was believed as Bramanical party in TN, but now ppl see it as Hindu party. If this trend continues eventhough BJP might not get in power during next election, but in another 10 to 15 years BJP will be have a decent(or even strong) presence in Tamil Nadu.

Joke

Just a joke, Orgianlly from Idly vadai (He/she wrote it long time back)
"T-20 கிரிக்கெட் பார்த்தையா ? இந்திய இளம் சிட்டுங்க பின்னிபெடலெடுத்துடாங்க. அதுவும் மிஸ்பா கடைசியில பந்தை தட்டிவிட்டு, அத ஸ்ரீசாந்த் சூப்பரா புடிச்சத பாக்க ஆஹா சூப்பர். இதிலேந்து என்ன தெரியுது. உலகில் எல்லா மூலையிலும் மலையாளக்காரங்க இருப்பாங்கன்னு பாவம் மிஸ்பாக்கு தெரியல."

Chennai Book Fair 2008

Chennai Book fair
Date ; 4th Jan 2008 to 17th Jan 2008
Venue ; St.George School, PH road (I'm not sure abt it. I think its the venue)
Starting from 2001, I'm a regular visitor/buyer in this event. When ever I enter the exhibition hall my mind is filled with some sort of Joy. During my college days every month I save some amount of money to buy books (It never crossed 300Rs). In those days I primarily buy books which are use full for my studies and some Tamil Poems( The last Tamil poetry book that I have bought was vanavil poonga by pa.vijay after that I haven't got any Tamil poetry book). When I started to work, my mindset slowely got changed. For the last 2 years I have bought books in various discipline. Last year I got the complete set of Arthamulla Indumatham , Idlyaia Erungal, Some English Fiction (I think its Windmill of God), Understanding the Enterprise SOA (sami sathiyama ethuvarikkum naan SOA/Webservicesla workpanninathu ella), Ajax in Action. Books that I couldn't buy wereBalakumaran's udiayar since it was too costly(I normally buy the entire set, I don't like buying volume by volume) and Kadal pura of sandilyan (Out of stock).
I have big list for this year. But This year I'm in Bangalore, I don't know how I go there. Next weekend we have team outing so i can't. Next Next week, I have to go to my home town for Pongal. Now its the time for me decide, either Team Outing or Chennai Book Fair?

Year End Special

The most important and unforgettable events of my life in this year(2007)

• In my previous company got promoted as Sr.Software Engg.
• Shifted my room/house from Nerkundram to Vadapalani
• End to "29C" bus travel as my office shifted from Beseant nagar to Saidapet
• Quited Maarga and Joined TCS
• Left Chennai and moved to Bangalore
• My Sisters marriage
• My Grandfathers death
• Completed 3 Lotus certification exams in 42 minutes in a single day

The Last Testament

Writer Sam Bourne can take a session on "How to Spoil a good theme with a bad screenplay". He has taken a good ( or Most controversial) subject for this work. Normally I don't comment/write any thing about the English/Tamil fictions that I read. But this book made to write. On seeing the title, I thought it will be like another DaVinci code, taking us to past.
I personally feel the author needs to improve his skills while narrating an town/area or incident (Even I too lack that, I cant bring up the words here to whats actually in my mind). When I was reading Angels and Demon I could cleary get the picture of the particle accelerator of Cren , In Windmills of God, I can image how Romania will look like and how the American embassy will be there. But in this book I couldn't get a image of either Israel/Palestine or the Clay tablet.
After reading the first 2 chapters, I could guess what the will could be. Normally I will not take more than 5-6 hrs to complete a English Fiction, but I took more than 16 hrs to read this book. Not because of its size but interest level.
My Personal opinion is don't get this book even at 90% discount. My lesson from this book is never trust the newspaper reviews that are printed on the book.

Billa

Last Sunday I watched Billa at Innovative Multiplex, Bangalore. For 5+ months in Bangalore, this is the first time I saw such huge crowed for a Tamil movie and even House full board (Trust me I'm not a Ajith fan).

Hero : Ajith
Herione : 9thara, Namitha
Director: Vishnuvardan
Music: Yuvan
Cinemotography : Nrivsha (sorry if misspelled)
Action: Don't remember his name
Story: Already 3 movies with the same story are there.

Hats off to Vishnuvardan for making such a decent(not good, still some holes are there) screen play. Even though most of us know the story, the screen play didn't make us sleepy. Yuvan too did a decent job. My name is Billa song didn't match to its older counterpart. Still it has the flavour of the old song. Vethilaya potendi and seval kodi are good.
character changes in new billa are
1.Manaromma and Thengai srinivasan characters have been removed. Just one adopted
son for velu.
2.A Friend(santhanam) characters has been introduced for velu

Surprise Surprise, Ajith didn't talk Punch dialoge. Ajith really acted well, esp in the Billa character.Even though the director tried to have a serious introduction for 9thara, Introduction of 9thara makes us to laugh. I personally feel 9thara looks good in traditional Indian dresses than Bikini. Prabu and other police guy (I dont remember his name, acted in arindhu ariyamalum and pattiyal as police) have acted well.

2 Characters have not been used well. 1. Rahman - The main villan, 2. Namitha. I feel there is no need for Namitha character.

The director has a good screen sense, for example, Since Prabhu is bit bulk in most of the scene he will be eating chocolates. Niravsha has did an wonder full cinematography

The action is too good. Unlike in recent movies where hero pulls a tractor silencer in one hand or kick a tractor tyre, the action sequence are really good with very fast movements. None of the fight sequence last more than 2 mins( or may be it was too good so that i couldn't guess the time correctly). I would say in recent times i have never seen a Tamil movie with such a good action. Ajith has did some good action scenes, the car chasing and jumping in the bridge (If they are graphics, then the graphics team has did a great job)


Some major holes in the screen play;
1. How prabhu knows about the look alike of Billa and that too in malaysia
2. How prabhu gets access to the malaysian govt database and deletes some record when he is a DSP in Indian police
3.When the entire Billa gang is transferred to prison only 2 guards will accompany them. Where as in some earlier scenes when Billa was transferred to a prison a huge convey of police will come.

I'm repeating the same once again, I'm not ajith fan.

You can watch this movie once for its qulity

For the past few months I restricted myself from writing any thing about political party and politics. But now I'm back in track.
1. Rural Service for MB BS Student.
At the age of 17/18 normally students join in the medical college. Current duration of the course is 5.5 years, so at the age of 23/24 they complete their studies. Nowadays Just MB BS is not enough either MD , MS or some other Master degree is needed, for which another 1 or 2 years required. So at the age of 25/26 only they can earn. If the govt makes 2 years rural service mandatory then only at the age of 27/28 they can start to earn. Govt says they will be providing 8k as a salary for the 2 years. In today's market, a fresh engineering graduate can earn even 25k/month and after 2 years of experience his salary would be more than 50k. For a doctor's it takes years earn 50k/month. The central govt is purely behaving like an American corporate.
They want to all the villages to have hospitals with doctors but not ready to spend money.
Our Honorable Health minister has said, after completing his MB BS he worked in a village for 2 years. I really appreciate you intrest Mr.Anbumani. But look at the fact, not all the MB BS students father runs a political party to make their son an union health minister after completing their rural service. If every MB BS students father owns a political party, then the Rajayashaba should have more that 200000 seat and every year it should be increasing and every year 20,000 new health ministers will be in the union cabinet.
If the govt really wants to improve the health infrastructure across the country then
1. Construct Hospitals/Primary health care centers in all the villages across the country. There are some villages in India which even don't have primary health care center.
2. Fill all the vacancies. If there is vacancies in reserved quto then make it as open
3. Nationalise all the Medical colleges (Engineering colleges also)
4. Control the charges in private hospitals
5. At least one govt hospital in every district should have the MRI facility, ability to do open heart and by pass surgery.
6. Control the drug price
7. Our govt spends lots of money in various studies, i will suggest one such studies which will surely help our medical infrastructure. Send a team to Cuba to study how the medical infrastructure is working there.

If the govt implement all these things (at least half of these points) surely not only rural India, but the entire India's Medical infrastructure will be on of the best in the world

Using caste as a shield to face is problem is a character of Coward. I'm not pointing at any one and saying this. Its just my opinion.

2. Child Labours:
As per Wikipedia the definition for child labour is"Child labor is the employment of children under an age determined by law or custom. This practice is considered exploitative by many countries and international organizations."
In India the minimum age is 14 years. If 14 years is the cut off limit then how the advertisement industry and Motion picture industry can employ children below the age of 14. I don't know the legal aspect behind it, but still if acting is a valid profession then, motion pictures and adflims employing children below the age of 14 should prosecuted under the child labour law. Its just my thought

3. DMK youth conference:
This month DMK is conducting a Huge youth conference in Tirunelveli. Most of the advertisement that i came across for this says,all the youths come to this meeting. Why suddenly DMK started to give attention towards youths?. Some magazine say that Mr.Karunadhi will hand over the power to his son Stalin and after this meeting stalin will be declared as the CM of Tamil Nadu ( India is a not ruled by any king. Its still a domocartic country). But I don't agree with that. Mr.Karunanidhi will be the CM/DMK Chief until he is alive. I think the reason for this Meeting is DMDK ( i believe its Vijayakanth's party). Last september they had the annual meeting at Pudukkottai (My home town). One thing that surprised me was the crowd. More than 70% of the participants are in age group 25-35. I have seen some political party meeting where most of them are middle aged or old village men and women in dothi and sarees. But the DMDK meeting totally surprised me. I could see less number of Middle aged and old peoples. Rest are youth and most of them wore Pant shirt which is not common in a political party meeting. I believe that this DMDK meeting is the reason behind the Current DMK youth meeting. In other words, DMK is worried about the DMDK's growth.

4.உபதேசம் உலகத்திர்கே:
A political leader and head of political party in Tamil Nadu, has always opposed plan by the state government to create SEZ and expansion of airport, saying that farmlands will be acquired for this and agriculture would be affected. He behaved (acted) like he will not allow any farmland to be converted to SEZ or any other industry. Today one of the senior minister from Tamil Nadu have given the proof to the media that the college that the political party leader runs for the past 15 years ( I'm not sure about number of years) is constructed over fertile farmland and encroached land. What does the leader say now.

How to make parotta

Make chapattis in tri-angle and circular shape. Sell the circular ones as Chapatti's and Triangular ones as parotta. If someone asks about it, then say its a north Indian tandoori paratto. Its Weird to read isn't?. But this really happened in my office canteen.
Normally in my office canteen they sell some thing called kerala parotta, which has some appearance similarities with normal parotta. But today in the menu I noticed they have only published as parotta and not kerala parotta. I think i don't want write the rest, you could have guessed what would have happened.

First time

I have been developing lotus notes application for 2.5+ Years.
But today for the first time I saw a Live Lotus notes application being used by an end user. To be more clear i came across an Lotus Notes application being used in my bank (I don't own the bank, I Just have an account). Still they are using R5. The guy who i meet was struggling with the application and the mail client. When I just enquired him about how comfortable he is with that application and mail client, the answer I got was, "To do any action, i need to click too many buttons and i have to search for the buttons. The error message are not understandable".
After hearing that, I'm just confused, does notes is really tough for the end users? or does the user don't have any exposure to notes/computer environment.

Some Truths

The Story of Stuff - Know the facts of the products around you. Must see website for all. (watch it with audio)

Pongal

Yesterday I was bit lucky. At the Hotel Pongal, I got a table immediately. Its a fairly small hotel. This Hotel is one of the most important eat outs for me in Bangalore. I really love the food they serve there. They server authentic Tamil foods here and the service is fairly good.
If you are in Bangalore and if you want to taste tamilnadu Idly(?) you can go there.
Yesterday I had 3 Idlys, 1 podi dosa and 1 parotta for just 38 INR. This is really cheap and the quality was good. Some times back a hotel at Jeevan bheema nagar charged me 50 INR for 1 addai and that to with out avaiyal.
The parotta was too soft. Normally i have eaten such soft parotta's only in nov-veg hotels ( read it as Munniyandi vilas). Podi dosa was also good, but the chef used too much oil to make it crisp. Idly's with tomato chutney was a killing combination.

The problem with this hotel is the Hand wash area is not closed. When we are eating we could see others washing their hands, which makes me uncomfortable to continue. Also the wash area is too small, people have to stand in queue. There is no parking area.

Location ; Outer ring road, Next to innovative Multiplex, Marthahali

Can you ?

Last week we had quarterly team meeting, And as usual I(we) was sitting ideally listing (trying to listen) to the clients.
A strange thought came in my mind. Since I stopped writting in Tamil almost 7 years ago , Why not to write Tamil Alphabets.I have been using transliteration softwares like quillpad etc., to type in Tamil. I Wrote Uir elluthu without any problem. I had good start in mei elluthu also, But after letter 'tha' I was struck. I forget the order. It took almost 15 mins for me to write it completely and correctly. I was totally ashamed of myself.
I thought lets try with others, I asked 5 of my friends to write the same, Out of the 5 only one guy wrote instantly without thinking. When compared to the other 4 I was better.

Appa neega eppadi?
Tamil padathukku Tamil title vacha mattum Tamil valarathu.