This was the picture that I snagged from the Hindu article on Rajnikanth's new movie 'Sivaji'.
What struck me was the aged look of the guy,with his flabby neck.Whats with that highly elongated cheek?That picture seemed to be as if somebody had tried to draw a caricature and finally settled for a morphed photographic version!



So,what is it gonnabe this time?Being Shankar's movie,the storyline should definitely be based on a no-nonsense character,whose only aim in life is to live righteously and serve the people and eradicate all the problems of the society,for which he has no qualms about even killing the villians in the nights,when the whole police force and the entire neighborhood is asleep and has no frigging idea of whats going on!My only hope is that our hero is not again cast as bloody cowardly brahmin guy during the day and as a rowdy during the nights!

But then being a Rajnikanth movie,the storyline should have a character who gets orphaned at childhood,with his father's partner's son wrongfully inheriting all the money,only to possess it for the next 2 hrs,at the end of which it rightfully goes to our hero!In between,Rajni needs to romance with some latest heroine,who can range anywhere from being his grand-daughter to his daughter in terms of her age!So,is it going to be the anniyan Sadhaa or Baby Shaamili?
There has to be a 'thathuva paadal' and this time it should be revolving around the number 9 -as its both shankar and rajni's 9th movie with AVM!
My mind can vividly visualise a wig wearing oldie with a long white beard,walking along the woods,with a haunting background score from A.R.Rahman or a birthday party having an anthakshari situation with something absurd on the lines of....
"Nine..nineu Ninaaah...U r mine mineu Minaaaah"

Now,another main aspect of the movie is that AVM is producing it and has blurted out that the name of the movie to be 'SIVAJI' for no apparent pressing reason that I could think of!I read somewhere that they sought the permission of SivajiGaneshan's sons for naming it this way!Now..what the fcuk?I never knew they held the patent for that name!
So,considering all these factors what is the story finally gonnabe?
A marathi orphan from Bombay,who goes through a lot of hurdles in his life,in between spending some time as a bus conductor,before making it big in the film industry.Oh..that story is a real life story,which wouldn't gel well with the reel world!

Its hightime Vijaykanth/Rajnikanth/KamalHassan start thinking about playing roles suited to their age and sagging cheeks!
-Raapi

Posted by rajesh |

May the best Chip win..!

-Raapi

Posted by rajesh |

The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : Gavaskar to vote in Coimbatore!

Posted by rajesh |

NBC 10 NEWS - News - Col. Penguin Inspects Norwegian Troops

Posted by rajesh |

Everytime you click this you will be bestowed with a random Wiki page!
Found it really interesting .This is mainly for those who are plain bored and don't know what website to type on the address bar..
Now wait,isn't that the case with around 95% of you blog-hoppers here?So,enjoy..keep clicking..keep learning something new!

-Raapi

Posted by rajesh |

If you guessed that that picture represented a typical Gokulaashtami festival,you are thoroughly mistaken!

Its actually the modern day "Raksha Bandhan" !! :)

Got that as a forward and found it hilarious!
Anyways,I take this opportunity to wish all my sisters(yeah..lots n lotsa them down the years) a wonderful Raksha Bandhan day!Wish you all a great year ahead!
-Raapi

Posted by rajesh |

Every year August seems to be the most eventful month of the year for me,since it starts with my birthday on the 2nd and has much more to offer in terms of Independence Day,Raksha Bandhan,Avani avittam,Krishnar Jayanthi and sometimes Vinayagar Chaturthi too!
Just going to jot down some interesting happenings and thoughts on the eventful days of this month!

Aug 2nd - So,there it was..Yet another birthday.The day,for some reason I dreaded the most this year,as it announced my transition from being a 26 yr old youth to a 27 yr oldie :(
Initially I was feeling bad about the way suddenly these million friends made sure they remembered this fine day and wish very well in advance!I was wondering..'adapaaviingala..wer were u guys all along?Suddenly a birthday reminder knocked ur email boxes and you very conveniently pushed off an e-greeting..huh?'

But then,that thought didn't last for long.It did start to feel good that there was goodwill and kind words in so many minds for me and they had taken pains to make sure I undertood it well!It did make sense : What other day than one's birthday entails such a greeting?
Thanks a million,Folks...for all those wishes..!
A special thanks to the 3 close buddies who made sure the cake cutting formality was done,although I had expressed my wish not to have such an event!
Heartfelt gratitude to the sender of the only postal greeting that I received :)!You are the best!

Avani Avittam & RakshaBandhan:
Both of these are gonnabe on the same day I guess..Both of them involve the sporting of threads,but the irony is..
I need 1 of its kind for the former,i.e the poonal and I don't have it;
I don't really need more than 1 of the latter,i.e the Rakhee,but I am sure there would be dozens of them waiting for me,some already travelling thousands of miles and some already embedded in thousands of e-mails! :(

For those who are serious about following the procedures and chanting the prescribed mantras/shlokams during Avani avittam,here is the link to the audio commentary..

Also for folks,who like me,get vivid images of some Sandhya/Vandhana/Gayathri from college days when they hear the phrase 'Sandhya-Vandhanam/Gaayathri',heres a website trying to explain what they mean.

Independence Day...
What used to command some attention and respect from me while in India,due to atleast the holiday factor,has been reduced to mere reading of some patriotic forwards and news articles related to 'riots happening during the parade somewhere in India'!
This might sound stupid,but what the heck..
I tried to think what would have been my state or India's state had it not been bestowed with independence!I couldn't continue too far in that thought process as it seemed really scary!I would have most probably been forced to work in one of the kerala temple devasvom boards where my grandfather worked for very many years during the British rule!

Krishnar Jayanthi and Vinayagar Chaturthi !! :
Wow..2 of my most cherished days all these years!Again,mainly because of the holiday factor and the delicacies in the form of cheedais/kozhakattais that I used to devour upon quite limit/shamelessly.
But then the past 5 years,they have just been mere dreams and visualisations of those unqiue food items that were available in the memorable yester years!

-Raapi

Posted by rajesh |

I came across this wonderful audiblog today by Jo !
Simply a class apart!
I was really happy that Blogs are now being used to showcase one's talent rather than just being a scribble pad(which includes me too)!
The voice of Jo was really mesmerising and matched,rather even outsmarted the original rendering!Wishing him goodluck in his endeavour and hope some Music director chances upon his blog very soon! :)

I have always liked songs being sung by amateur artists without the orchestra/formal musical band accompaniment!Just the pure unadulterated voice of the vocalist in itself has the charm of keeping all listeners engrossed!

Now,coming to the title :)
Badri,my roomie/bestest friend from college was famous for such renditions during college days.All through the 3 years that we spent together in the last bench,he used to entertain us tirelessly with mind-blogging(i swear I dint mean to write blogging here ..but didn't want to correct it to boggling either while checking for the spelling)numbers!Its an irony that he calls himself a tiredmind though :)!
Listening to the songs from the above mentioned blog instantaneously reminded me of Boja Badri and those wonderful years at Shanmugha!
So,this goes out to Badri..Nanbaa...epppdi daaa irka?Always loved your 'Kaadhal Roja' ve(i meant the song and song only :p)?
Anyways U still stand a chance da!!
-Raapi

Posted by rajesh |

Then...no food at home?..Go over to the house of Periappas..
Now....no food at home?..Go over to the house of Chalupas...

Wondering whats a Chalupa? Here it is


Its the food offering from Taco Bell,which is by far the closest to our chapathi/sabji kinds!Though every Desi invariably makes fun of Taco-Bell/Chalupa,the fact to be acknowledged is that its satisfied the hunger of a million Desi's in the U.S all thro the years and shall continue to carry on its tradition for many many more years to come!

Came across this link..Found it so crazy!The height of addiction to Chalupas :)..May be!
Look out for the last line in that link : "Once again, the computer provided an answer: my composition is roughly 80 percent burrito and twenty percent taco."

If that computer were to check me,it would definitely be : Once again, the computer provided an answer: my composition is roughly 80 percent Chalupa and twenty percent instant Paratha.

-Raapi

Posted by rajesh |

This one just popped outa my head right now when I visited Ammani's page after a long time and found one of her blogs intentionally deleted,due to a request she had got from someone!I also noticed many blog-hoppers being dejected that they were not the fortunate few to have a glance at it,before it was killed!

A mere googling for the cached version of the post within quotes instantaneously got me to the 'so-called' deleted post!

I have found similar instances of comments/blogs disappearing after its been published and have been lurking around online for sometime!
The point I got to make with this Blogic - 3 is..
Just like words that have been spoken,its hard to take back words that have been published online!
One can try to cover up with the delete button in Blogger but then in the wired world,theres this GOD named google whos watching every single action you do!

In life,think twice before you speak and in Bloglife,think 4 times before you leak!
-Raapi

Disclaimer : I am not trying to be a jerk with this post!Infact I dint find that so-called controversial post offensive at all!It was sheer reality and a wonderful post,which definitely deserved a place in some blog!

Posted by rajesh |

Looks like my earlier posting stirred enough controversy :).It really was fun though.
But as I mentioned in it,it is just whatever that comes to my mind when I think of today's blogs.I am absolutely not going to chellenge anyone or try to back it up with data!Also,I would like to avoid directly referring to the blogs under discussion.Of course a tinge of an indirect allusion to those blogs would exist definitely,just for the thrill of it!

Now coming to Blogic - 2.Its now the guys' turn to take a beating!!
"Guys n their commenting skills"
Go to any blog that has a decent number of comments/visitors and just take a ratio of male vs female comment writers,the guys win hands down!Now thats nothing to feel proud of,because its so pathetic!

Some of those comments have no relation to the post at all.
"Wonderful yaa..Keep it coming"

What the hell?Now,is the blog writer going to get a kick outa that comment and keep his/her blogs 'coming?' instead of normally uninitiatedly just'posting'?

"First time to your blog.How about checking out a techno geek's blog at ipodmanaban.blogspot.com?"

Thats the most shameless way to advertising one's blog.And this comment doesn't just get featured only in 1 or 2 blogs.The guy makes sure he cut/copy/pastes the piece in almost all 'highly visited' blogs!

Then theres those guys whose sole existence is to bloghop and relentlessly comment.Especially if its a girl's blog,these guys fire multiple comments at hourly intervals,some of which are comments over the earlier comment in the female's comment section.
"Lovely piece of poem yaaa....
Please keep it coming more often and check out my blog at asaduvazhishal.rediffblogs.com"

Then theres those comment writers,who probably work for Google's translating tool development.They go to these female blogs and get a shock upon seeing that there are 36 comments already,just within 15 minutes of the girl publishing the blog!Here comes the creativity of these guys..
"Hi Rammani..
Wonderful pigtales as usual..
Heres my tamil translation of your story..
@#%#!%# ..#$@#@$#$#@ ..@!@#@!##
anbudan,
#@$#@$#@$

Yoav..avanga ungakitta sonaangalaa avangalku tamil theryaadhunu??

Some blogs,especially if it is a female's blog,the content doesnt matter at all..The comments just start pouring in no matter whats being written..
Example..some girl would have posted..
'I woke up and brushed my teeth this morning.'

That might be the start n end of the post..but if u scan the comments..there would be those mahaans who ud have elaborated...
comment 1
'wow..Sonu..U brushed ur teeth?which paste did u use?'
comment 2
'Awesome kilotamma..U brushed ur teeth?I got teeth too...pls check my teeth snap at my flickr fotos n comment'

Comments don't just stop with blogs!Yeah I am serious.Couple of my friends,who used to talk colloquially and quite naturally with me showering the choiciest of expletives along the way of their conversation suddenly have changed..
Their statements/general way of talking is itself sounding like blog comments!!
Now thats a blogic in itself..Shall expand on that in a subsequent blogic post later!

Disclaimer:This was again a funny take on commenting.May be I feel so because I don't go about commenting unless it really is worth commenting and similarly I write very mundane stuff in my blog,which I never feel is worthy of making anybody relate much to that post and comment their views!

-Raapi

Posted by rajesh |