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 !! :-)
31 March 2006
Hmm..
Watched the video of the song "My Humps" by the band Black Eyed Peas. Wow ! That's all that i can say ;-) And a totally useless piece of trivia is that this song has replaced Gwen Stefani's { of the band "No Doubt" and that one song wonder called "Dont Speak" } "Hollaback Girl" as the most number of legally downloaded ring tones. Now that *is* indeed something. And anybody know of a kick-ass software to convert divx to dvd's ? The one that i know of is painfully slow. { 7+ hrs to convert 4gb of divx to dvd's :-( } K.Shyam
Folks; This is a text i have been sending to all my fellow Tamilian Brothers and Sisters on why voting for "Amma" makes sense. I request you reader to send it across to all those whom you know. Instead of sending those meaningless forwards about small lung cancer and HIV infected needles in theaters, please forward this mail ! And before i start i would request all readers to make sure they vote on the respective date of election in their states. If they are not in their state and close enough, say in bangalore or hyderabad i would urge you to please go and cast your vote. Nothing will happen if you/we dont participate in this basic process of democracy.
Ok now that the basic issues have been dealt with, here is the letter that i have been sending. UPDATE: There seems to be more of a flame war than trying have a meaningful discussion.so no more comments. if you have anything meaningful to say you will know where to find me.
En Iniya Udan Pirappae; Tamilnadu as you and i know is at a very important crossroad now. The state is going to polls as we all know on the 8th of may. It is a monday and it is a working day for those who are not there in TN. While i request you to please go and cast your precious vote, i would also request you to kindly tarry a second and make a wise choice before you cast that vote of yours.
No i am not going to beg or plead or threaten you to cast your vote for "Amma". I am going to highlight a few things and leave the choice to you educated individual to decide on whom you want to vote for. What we first need most importantly is a Stable Government for the next five years to carry forward the momentum that "Amma" has managed to generate over the past few years.
I can safely assume that a majority of readers of this mail are going to be software people. Now think about this. Every sunday the bangalore mail and other trains from madras to bangalore is full {98% on a very conservative estimate) of software engineers travelling to and forth. If you want this situation to change and get more companies to madras, firstly we need to carry forward the situation of the past year, that is a situation wherein atleast 5 to 6 startups open shop everyday. We need a powerful and authoritative government to foster the industrial climate. Please note that her guts and daring in dismissing 45,000 employees for striking had none less that Supreme Court appreciating her.
What we do not need is a government whose leader balks and making decisions coz it might land him in some soup. What we also do not need is a government whose head might pass away at any time and some nameless sucessor coming up in his place and making mess of the current situation. I think i need not disguise the fact that i am indeed talking about Karunanidhi and DMK's coalition. We all have seen what happened with the congress coalition in bangalore. While bangalore had every advantage (it still might have, but with the government dithering on infrastructure improvement, we all know that the traffic mess by itself might lead to lot of high profile company exits) we all are aware of the kind of problems a spineless government lead to. So please think about this issue before you cast your vote.
Now that the first point has been dealt with, let me now move on to the next ones. Madras as we all know received an unprecedented 30cms of rainfall. Now i request you to travel on the main roads and to a major extent the suburbs to see the kind of repair work that has been undertaken to mitigate the damage done. I speak of just madras as i have not had time to do my south tamilnadu tour which i would have liked to do, but i welcome readers from south tamilnadu and other parts to contribute their experiences. Please do understand that there will be glitches etc but by and large it has been acknowledged that with very little central government help things have been managed pretty well. Now dear reader do you want to know who was behind this ? A proactive government lead by an able leader. Now please do not bring in the point of stampede during the distrubution of welfare. In case you did not know, the rumour was spread by a member of the opposition. Please do note the swiftness with which the police acted to apprehend the criminal.
December 26, 2004 was when the killer waves smashed across the entire southern parts of the state. While i am not going to politicise this as it is a humanity issue and any government would have acted to save the lives, please do note the following. There was little or no central aid, the state government had to act on its own and it did precisely that. I do remember reading in the newspapers about the collectors of those districts commending the state government machinery for the swift manner in which they acted to make sure aid reached all those needy people.
Now if you note the previous two issues by and large i have tried to highlight the ineffective central government. Why ? With 39 MP's in his kitty, Karunanidhi has done little to help the government. Now this is an important issue. When we have a federal sutructure in many issues, it is important that the central and state governments co-operate. For example, when the central government wanted land for the golden quadrlateral, the acquisition process was swift and done smoothly. However when the state government wants to set up a desalination plant for madras, the central government blocks it saying environmental issues, and tries to set it up on its own ! When the state government tries to acquire central government land to provide a six lane IT corridor, the central government blocks it, but constructs flyovers in different parts of the state ! Why this double game ? Think about it dear reader.
While most of us remain enconsed in our air conditioned cabins, there are the lot of the farmers who do toil hard in their fields. Now let us see what happened to them. Firstly we cannot blame "Amma" for the dwindling profit margins of the farmers. "Amma" is at best helping them out by intrest free loans and sometimes intrest waivers and free power supply. Also please note that while there have been rampant suicides in states like Karnataka and Andhra pradesh, it has relatively not been there here in our state. This i think should put "Amma's" efforts in the right perspective.
Now perhaps the most important charge that comes out against "Amma" is the corrpution point. I think she has served her time for that. As noted political observer "Cho" Ramaswamy, Editor of Thuqlaq magazine pointed out, both "Amma" and Karunanidhi are equally corrupt. In fact Karunanidhi is more corrput that "Amma". It is extent to which they display it matters. "Amma" being the more flamboyant and daring showed it off more.
If you dear reader will rewind a bit in time to 1980 and aftermath, when M.G.Ramachandran conceived the Veeranam project of bringing water to madras, the sucessive government lead by Karunanidhi blocked it. Now we all know the great danger that was looming ahead of Madras in terms of sever water shortage during the summer of 2004. With a single minded focus, "Amma" managed to get the project completed which saved Madras the blushes and some terrible times. Now dear reader you do know that water scarcity in madras is a thing of past with piped corporation water supply everyday.
When Madras had 30cms of rainfall, most experts agree that the groundwater levels have been replenished substantially, so much that in some places upto 100% increase. How did this all happen ? A simple rule that unless a complex constructs rain water harvesting facility, its registration will be cancelled. Did not the people do it ? Aren't they thanking themselves and "Amma" for forcing them to do it ?
It is indeed true that is most times "Amma" remains close to a dictator. But then again in hindsight the same people agree that being a dictator helps in many an circumstance !
While i could go on and on comparing and highlighting the various aspects of "Amma's" rule, i think i shall stop with these few points. I would invite you reader, if you have travelled down south and interior parts of TamilNadu, to send across your views and i would gladly collate it.
Note to all those who are going to comment: 1. Please do not put some arbit crap as comment saying there is IIT'ans party etc and i am a fool not to be canvassing for them etc. This is my blog and this is my verbal diarrhea. You dont want it dont read it. If you have anything intresting to say, say so in a proper manner without flaming me and i might listen and discuss/argue.
There are some songs where you feel the situation of the song. For example if it were an early morning song, you will feel amidst that early morning warmth mixed with the laziness of the night's sleep. And who better to put you in that situation other than "God" Illayaraja ? Check out the song "Puttham Pudhu" from here, for some mesmerising flute pieces and amazing violin interludes. I think the flute was being played by Arunmozhi of the song "Naan Yenbahu Nee allavo" from the movie "Soorasamharam". Coz if i remember right, i read somewhere that the flautist in Illayaraja's band was indeed Arunmozhi. K.Shyam
Sometime back google claimed that in a few years from now, people will not have to "buy" software, they can just use it! I firmly think that This is a definite step in that direction. On a more tangential thought, i am still convinced that gmail will integrate voice and video apart from the now prevailing text that they have done. K.Shyam
Imagine this. A hot plate having sundae with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of the sundae. choclate is poured onto this hot plate and this liquid choclate slowly turns into a semi-solid mass. cashew nuts are strewn all over this hot plate and they too soak in the choclate. Now due to the heat of the plate, the vanilla slowly melts and mixes with the choclate and sundae creating a kick-ass combination. Eat this mix slowly and steadily spoon by spoon bite by bite. Being that foodie that i am, i can still kind of recall that taste that this combo gave ! Yes folks this is a choclate sundae grill that is available in a restaurant called "New Yorker" in madras, close to gemini flyover. Oh well and i must appreciate the perseverance and convincing capabilities of my sister who goaded me into tasting it even when my stomach was close to bursting at it's seams ! And if you are anywhere near gemini flyover do not hesitate to barge into this place and taste this awesome piece of food.{ok it is classified as dessert, but the taste is so good that you can have this for main course;-)} K.Shyam
The lokayuktha in bangalore have found out massive case of corruption amongst top police officials. check it out here. Already bangalore has the reputation of being the most corrupt amonst all public departments. Now the point to think about is this. A person pays 1,500 rupees to get a NOC certificate for his/her vehicle while it is actually free. Ask him why and he/she tells you i dont know where that office is, i dont what to waste time, i dont know the language and other lame excuses. I think a little bit of extra effort from the people would go a long way in preventing corruption. After all if they dont want to put effort for their own activities, what is the point in blaming others and saying they are corrput ? I think this is a clear case of have-will. I have money i will spend. Atleast spend it on something useful ! K.Shyam
Sometime back there was a composer for tamil movies called sirpi. He had a unique record in that he composed songs for the movie "Ullathai Alli Thaa" in which all of them were copied ! He seems to have redeemed himself with the song "Ragasiyamana" for this movie ! And speaking of copying we all know that black eyed peas copied some obscure song from the movie raghavendra for their song "The elephunk theme". More importantly, it seems that the newer versions of the CD do not have the song. And no prizes for guessing who scored the original. Raja Illayaraja of course !! To listen to that piece and the unmasking of many more such songs visit this site. K.Shyam
In what is definitely a major setback to the UPA's poll chances in Tamilnadu, MDMK has switched over sides to align with "Amma". However if one follows the developements of the past few months quite closely, this was not all that unexpected. If i remember correctly i do recall telling quite a lot of nay-sayers that a bihar like situation, where coilation partners for the central government will fight against each other at state level will happen. After all, isn't power a basic need for every politician ? That being the case, the abilities of Karunanidhi to hold a 11 party coilation at a state level was always in doubt. Secondly, Stalin the son of Karunanidhi was always being projected as the next leader and in fact the next to take over the DMK mantle. Gopalaswamy(vaiko), the leader of MDMK, had quit DMK over this dynastic issues to form his own party. Now one might question the morality of vaiko's actions because "Amma" had jailed him for close to 20 months in a POTA case. But it was his bitter pill to swallow ! In fact going by Karunanidhi's plans of making sure he has a simple majority of MLA's elected to assembly from his own party, and his refusal to accept a coilation model of government, i will not be surprised if some more parties break away from that alliance. K.Shyam
