Well, for want of a better title I chose this !
Gajabhuja in Sanskrit means the trunk of an elephant !
So, in short, the title means big/huge fundas !! :-)
29 September 2005
culture policing
Perhaps the most cowardice form of imposing restrictions is culture policing. I do agree that we being social animals, need some form of discipline.But shouldn't there be a limit to it ? The damn tamilian newspapers have always had the habit of using sleaze to parade their stuff.That being the case, the recent act by dinamalar { no i am not going to hyperlink.The newspaper does not deserve it } to gatecrash into a private party is absurd and shocking to say the least.And to top it all the cops arrest the managers for allowing such a party it seems. Come on ! It's after all buisness.And to top it the newspaper puts up a shot of a girl drinking beer and ridicules it.Check again Mr.Holier-Than-Thou editor.For all that you know your daughter might be doing that too.Hypocrisy to the core ! As if all of guys over at the newspaper are saints ! K.Shyam
Folks; So this is the first of the series of recollecting my childhood posts ! But before i start on this let me confess this.I admit i do have an elephantine memory.Not in all aspects but in most of them.I do have the tendency to recollect most of the things which i force myself to remember.It's a different matter that i cannot remember much of what i studied ;-) Much of this is due to my mom who painstakingly made sure i attended all kinds of sloka telling classes, the bhagavad gita, and many others.It is indeed a shame that i do not remember much of it due to being out of touch with them for quite sometime but that is a different matter.
So without much ado let's get the memories flooding. Four years of age. The first thing i can remember is of my childhood spent in tanjore my mom's hometown.I remember distinctly playing with the next house kid called balaji ! There was also a construction happening next house, for which they had dug up to lay the foundation.I remember when we went and sat inside those deep pits one day evening and had hot snacks.I dont remember what the snack was though.Into this house moved another kid called amudhan, whose family owns a lot of medical stores in tanjore.Oh ya our house in tanjore did not have compound wall ! I am not able to recollect as to how i went to tanjore, whether by train or by bus. I do recollect a train journey along with my grandmom and younger brother. Right from the time when i was a small kid, my mom drilled into me all sorts of sanskrit slokas.We used to have a teacher opposite to vidyaniketan school in ashok nagar.We used to call her akka.There used to be Bhagavad gita recital competitions held in egmore.Now it so happened that my mom or dad could not accompany me to this year's competition.So my teacher's younger brother offered to take me to it in his scooter.I do remember standing in front of the scooter { i think it was one of those good ol bajaj ones },between the driver seat and the handlebar and going to that competition.Oh ya i think i won the first or second prize in it.I was good at reciting slokas, so they say ! And yes we used to live in LIC quarters { as a matter of fact we still do and would be doing till next year probably ! }.In our quarters there used to be an old teacher of these slokas.I think his name was raghavan sir.
Five years of age The first memory that comes into me is quite intresting actually.Probably that set the tone for me being a very bad guy :-) or far ahead of my times which ever you could say.Ok at home the emphasis was that we should always get the first rank and some how by luck we used to get it.Oh the we here is my elder sister and my younger brother.However once during one of those exams i got the second rank ! Woe betide me that my father refused to sign the report card and man things were really bad then.So i put my father's signature using a pencil and gave it over to the teacher.I still remember.The report card was kind of pinkish in color and we used to have a deadline for handing over the report card.And on the day of handing it over the guy next to me asks me your report card is not signed.So i say that its easy i will put my dad's signature myself and hand it over ! and so i did.Boy little did i imagine what would happen next.Oh well 25+ years down the line i still get my leg pulled over this incident ! I came home and we used to have this habit of getting our bags checked when we come back home.This was because our mom will keep the necessary notebooks in the bag in the morning and take it out in the evening.She noticed that the report card was not there ! and on further questioning, i gave it out saying i put the signature myself with my pencil.Boy what a spanking i got.The i was made to sit in the corner naked and not talk to anyone.Dad came home from work and more scoldings followed.The next day i went to school told my teacher about it, and got bac the report card.Then my dad signed it.Ah if only he had signed it the previous time itself ;-) on a more serious note i think it was good that i had a disciplinarian background ! The second incident is i lost my socks ! Ya i think it was some drama or dance one of those things which i don't remember.But i lost my socks and got spanked roundly at home for that ! My mom used to come and pick me up and boy she was upset about that. Ya i said my mom comes and picks me up right ? On one such day i had this terrible stomach ache.School used to leave at around 3.45pm and suddenly from 3.00pm onwards i had this shooting pain in my stomach or so i thought.I lied down at the last bench in school and i think i cried real bad.Mom comes to pick me up and i cry out to her too and then she asks me to go to the loo and come.The pain was coz my baldder got full from drinking too much water.Ah the peace and relief that followed once i came out out of the loo was so very heavenly !! Me my mom, dad sister and brother were planning to go out somewhere.I hid behind a wall wanting to scare them by shouting at them.Ah but then i hit my head against the wall and got myself a cool little pirate headband for the next few days.I do remember that i had lots of injuries at various points of time.Head banging against the school compund, falling down and scraping the knees and so on !! I think enough memories for today ! Rest memories will follow ;-) K.Shyam
Yah i know there hasn't been any posts over the past week.This is a post to relive those golden days when i was a carefree and good for nothing guy.Oh ok when i was in school.I shall post some general nostalgic stuff over the next few posts about my school life.Stuff i remember from my kindergarden days and things like that.Meanwhile check out this pic and try to identify me ;-)
Spread The word & Keep the System Administrators out
Folks; A long germinating idea comes into fruit.No not exactly mine.For long have i been thinking of a website where all IM's can be used. Head over to This site for a unified website that supports all Im's. And oh make sure your system administrator is not aware of this ! This website is still in alpha stage so if you feel risky about giving away your password well that is your lookout. This is a link to the underlying technique behind it. Cool Aint it ? This is still in alpha stages.Spread the word folks, but keep it out of the system administrator's ears ! Have fun K.Shyam
"Captain" Vijayakanth is all set to launch his political party tomorrow { Sept 14th }.In as much as i and many others would love to, i dont think it is correct to write him off as yet another actor nurturing political ambitions. The reasons are quite many for that.Thespian Shivaji Ganesan already tried his hand in politics and bit the dust.However Tamilnadu and the southern states of india in particular, are not averse to the idea of cinema actors taking politcal centerstage.In fact almost all the leading polticians in tamilnadu are in one way or other, connected with cinema. However vijaykanth, is not someone whom we can write off.For one his fan base particularly in madurai and southern belt is quite big.In fact even rajinikanth's movies dont command such a fan following as vijaykanth's does ! Secondly he has always maintained a do-gooder image both in reel and real life.His movies might stink of patriotic jingoistic crap, but they have always been well received. His recent interview { for a gist of it head to Prabhu's blog } on television smacked of "reaching out to people" kind of statements, which unfortunately is enough to sway the masses. On a personal note, i would be happy if he causes a split in the DMK's votebank.If amma is to regain power this elections and lead the motherland into next five years of upsurged growth, then something is needed to split the UPA coilation.Will vijaykanth be it ? Strangely enough and not surprisingly, the leading dravidian parties are maintaining a stoic silence over his moves.Will "Captain" have the last laugh ? K.Shyam
The recent day newspapers are agog with the so-called IT industry captains cribbing about the lack of infrastructure in bangalore.Are they justified in doing so ? The government for its part is working overtime to make sure things are in proper shape.The government, is for a whole lot of people and not for just a section of buisness community, and most importantly not just for a city or district alone.This being the case are the industry captains really justified in this much of criticism ?
Now to think back perhaps the singular reason for the bloom of software industry in bangalore is not the inverstor friendly atmosphere, not the government backing nothing.It is perhaps the weather and weather alone.That being the case aren't the people who kick started the software industry being a tad too selfish here ? There are 26 and odd states in india and quite a lot of them have progressed substantially on the industrial front.That being the case what made them to set up shop in a place called bangalore, which being on top of a hill is severly limited demographically ? If the early movers made a mistake, then what did the next set of people do ? Did they care to do a survey of the city to see whether it can take up such a huge load of people ? Did they for all the financial muscle they had, bother to look around and check the feasibility of this place to withstand such a huge influx of people ? When the industry captains have failed in so much fronts, is it right to blame the government for the current mess the city finds itself in ? The talk of availability of highly qualified manpower etc is at best bull shit.When a person needs a job, he/she will relocate to any part of india. In fact, i for once concur with the government in agreeing to the fact that, if the city finds itself in a big mess, it is the industry alone which must take blame for it.The industry has been pampered too much. Agreed for reasons best unknown, certain infrastructure projects are overshooting the deadline.But then again the industry guys must know that when in a team of 10 or 15 people, deadline slippages are quite common, what would be the case when the infrastructure team is managing thousands of people ? As the former prime minister deva gowda was once quoted saying, if the industry feels that they want to move out elsewhere, they are free to do so. To top all this the media and particulary the crap Times of India must also take a large portion of blame for hyping up things to the most unimaginable extent possible.
The bottomline is this : if the industry feels that there is better investment climate elsewhere in india, they are free to move out. K.Shyam
Folks; I still remember that day.I was doing my second year of graduation.My bus comes through an area called mambalam, which is dominated heavily by devout and god fearing brahmins.As my bus meandered through i could see a huge traffic jam, totally unheard of in those parts.More so i could also see lots of people carrying small cups with milk in them. And the biggest of them all was that when i reached home, my mother told me that it seems the statue of diety vinayaka was drinking milk ! This is a link to that happening. Isn't it so very surprising ? That within a few moments it spread like wildfire ? Or rather is it along the expected lines that a news like this should spread faster than wildfire ;-) K.Shyam
