Muranpaadu: July 2005

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Double Treat….

Once in a blue moon both Ilayaraja and A.R.Rahman’s songs come during the same time period. Now the dazzling moon has appeared. I am talking about the songs of Ah Aah and Oru Naal Oru Kanavu (ONOK). Rahman rocks, is an understatement. All songs are excellent. The song - Ah Aah.. Aararai Kodi... tops the list. For sure, this is going to be played all over Tamilnadu for few more weeks. The moment Rahman utters Ah Aah, I go over the moon. I guess Thigu Thigu and Thazhuvudu songs are going to be great numbers on screen!! (You read as hot numbers, right?) It’s shocking that ONOK music has not been discussed as widely as Ah Aah,in blogs . May be Raja’s Thiruvasagam masked this.Overall three songs are really a gem in ONOK.(Katril Varum, Khajiraho Kanavilo, Konjum Thira).I didn’t recognize that Khajiraho song is similar to Rooja Poonthotam from Kannukkul Nilavu, till Arun pointed out. Still the song is awesome to ears. So, listen to Ah Aah when u want the feeling of flying high and listen ONOK when you want to bring your pulse down slowly. Too much of moon phrase asks for a moon picture and thereby Raj exhibits his photographic skills ;-) Here is it….

posted at 5:08 PM by Cipher Permalink

Sunday, July 24, 2005

Last couple of months….

Weekdays

6:00 Alarm goes on, I switch it off and take one more hour to get up from bed.
8:00 Reach office, forget having breakfast. Even before the PC boots up I get my coffee cup filled.
8:10 Start visiting Microsoft outlook, NDTV, Gmail, Rediffmail, yahoo.com’s. No work mails and few fwd’s.
8:30 Check for comments in blog. Check all the new feeds in bloglines.com.
10:00 oops…didn’t check mails for more than an hour. So again Gmail, Rediffmail, yahoo. No mails. Log on to msngr. Shit no one is online. Wondering what all guys are doing.
10:30 ok let me check any updates in NDTV. Nothing new. What nothing new happened in the world for more than two hours? Sigh..
10:45 Vikatan.com
11:15 Again bloglines.com
11:45 Lunch time
12:45 Redo the activities from 8:10 to 11:45.Vikatan.com is replaced with hinduonnet. Coffee at 3:00.
4:00 Shall I blog today? What to blog? Almost all topics are discussed by someone with more wit, its better not to spoil the blogosphere.
4:30 Send/Read fwds. Googling.No not ogling...
5:00 visit all Tamil movie sites...
6:00 it’s getting late. There is always tomorrow. We’ll see the rest later
Sleep for an hour or so and then cook, have dinner, listen SPB.Illayaraja hits, sleep by 12:30 or 1:00

Almost the same schedule is repeated everyday. Who said career in IT is challenging? It’s true that life sucks.

For regular readers of my blog (is there anyone?!) you know what I do on weekends. Movies, movies and movies. Saturday evening to temple. சாமி கும்பிட மட்டும்தான்னு சொன்னா நம்புவீங்களா?

posted at 5:16 PM by Cipher Permalink

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Experiences with diverse cuisines

Read my first part on this topic here...
Malay Satay Hut: A Malaysian cuisine. We had a surprise in the entrance itself. The waiter asked us which part of India are we from. We said south & he started chatting in Tamil. He didn’t look like an Indian. Guess he learnt few things in Tamil. Later found that he also knows Hindi. And it’s ordering time, I opted for curry veggie rice with noodles. After ordering I was wondering what does that mean – veggie rice with noodles, will this work out fine? My friends were playing safe by choosing Roti canai. I boasted that we should try different varieties.
Waitress: Do u like to share or have a single bowl.
Me: Single bowl (Didn’t realize the mistake I made till she served the food).
I was served with a BIG bowl and with lot of Tofu’s. I don’t prefer Tofu’s. Cursed myself for the order I made and somehow made up my mind saying “அரசியல்ல இதெல்லாம் சகஜமப்பா”
Kafé Neo: This is a Greek style food place just a stone throw away from my apartment. They specialize in Gyros. So I opted for Vegetarian Gyro. The food was ok until you touch the curry they give along with that. The combination doesn’t work out well. Till date, I stayed away from the curry and from that place as well.
King Ludwig’s: A German restaurant. This restaurant is in Leavenworth. The interiors were awesome. Just opposite to our table they had a superb painting of a European style house. Everything was artistic. The way they served the beer is a good example for their creative work. The waiter just flipped the bottled and rotated it in a amazing way. I didn’t understand even a single word in the menu. I asked the waiter itself - Which one shall I take?! He suggested - Gasthaus Style Lecs. They informed that it is a Hungarian dish. Their Rice pilaf was similar to our பருப்பு அரிசி சாதம். The curry was almost a tomato sauce with peppers. For sure tantalizing,yummy,delicious…

Quick update on weekend movies:
Tango Charlie(அட Hindi படம் தாங்க!!!),Badri,Winner,Chandramukhi and Rojakoottam.

posted at 6:25 PM by Cipher Permalink

Friday, July 15, 2005

Cru(a)shes

For the past few months I had few nebulous thoughts on this topic. I am still not sure whether revealing these facts are good or not. Who knows few might chew over this – இது யாரா இருக்கும்? It all started when I was in my fourth std! (1989). Due to lack of class rooms the fourth std and fifth std shared a single room. And I had a crush with a fifth std girl. Her name if described in English might mean “snow/dew drops”. It lasted for just few months. Next one is during my eight std. (1993).I saw her during the usual Morning Prayer session and the fire caught up. Now you understood the importance of having prayer session in schools right? Her name means – “beautiful”. You guessed it right I never missed a single prayer session after that. It went on for three years. Even when most of the school strength went after the new arrivals, I sticked with this lass. After tenth std somehow my thought didn’t fancy gals. Then during my post graduate life (2k – 2003), I started to have multiple crushes at the same time. I think the long gap has done the trick. Two crushes shared the same name, meaning – “moon”. One was a school girl and the other one had just completed her degree. While I used to see them on weekdays, for weekends also I chose one rather it happened to be that way. Her name means - “snow/dew drops”. Huh, there is definitely something to do with the names. And next is the workplace crush. Her name means – “delightful to look at”. Before getting involved too much into this I was packed up to US. May be God thought - Get lost, enough of this non sense. One hard fact is that - I have never uttered a word with these crushes. And this explains why I am an RC (Romantically Challenged).The chances are almost zero that my crushes would read this but in case if you read this then stop bashing me. Others remember, you didn’t read anything here.

posted at 3:33 PM by Cipher Permalink

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

For a change

After lots of Tamil movies last week we decided to try out other language films this weekend. It ended up as Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam combo.
The film started displaying the names of all stars. I waited for ten minutes.
Me: Dudes, different thinking. They didn’t display the name of the movie till now
One guy replied: Idiot, they showed it
Me: What?
Other guy: It’s D
Me: Speechless.
I am completely clueless. Is there such a shortage for film names in Bollywood? So what is the reason behind naming the movie as D? Go watch it and find out. Hey wait, do it if you badly need a headache. The name of the protagonist in the movie is Deshu so they named it as D. I don’t see any other valid reason.
உத்தரவின்றி உள்ளே வா: After searching for 20 mins we finally settled for this movie. The movie was a disappointment. Anyway Kanchana didn’t disappoint us with her…. with her… performance I say ;-)
Harikrishnans: A good movie with couple of good songs and three different climaxes depending upon the location they screened it. The climax we saw was Mira choosing Hari .This is my guess. Because the leaf she throws falls in the first box which had fewer jangiri’s(malayalam language guys!!)

I have been blogging too much about movies off late. I swear I’ll change the topic next time. Sariya? Samje? Mansilario? I said to you earlier right, I am easily manipulated by media.

posted at 10:09 AM by Cipher Permalink

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Tooooo much of movies

Got a long weekend to kill days. Promptly opted for a safe couch & few old tamil movies. I have never seen these many movies in a weekend. Covered movies from late 1960's to till date!The list is: Netrikkan, M.Kumaran s/o Mahalakshmi, Raam, Anbe Vaa, Ghilli, Priya, Vivek comedies and SingaraVelan. The DVD rental shop guy looked at us in a strange way. What the heck these guys are doing? Never mind. Went out rented DVD’s, came in occupied the couch. Repeated the same activity twice a day and ended up with seven DVD’s in three days. Oops almost 10 movies in the last 10 days. If I go at this rate I might consume all the DVD’s in the rental shop. Need to take a break soon from tamil movies.

P.S: Nadiya is still ~~charming~~young ;-)

posted at 4:56 PM by Cipher Permalink

Friday, July 01, 2005

Those tense moments….

It was a typical murky Friday. I had fixed my drive test slot for 9:00 AM. Reached the licensing office by 8:50. My pulse was on the rise. I recalled all my earlier faults. My mentor asked me to stay cool & drive as if I have my license already. The instructor arrived at 9:10.Asked me to turn on the engine & switch on the left turn indicator. I switched on the right turn indicator (oh jees). The instructor one again said left turn indicator, realizing my mess I switched on the right one. Luckily got all my hand signals correct. Backed up the car from the parking lot. He marked something immediately (oh no…). Drove to Parallel Parking spot. I realized I was a bit far away to do a parallel park, still went ahead (bull shit). As feared, I hit the curb. Thank god I learnt how to come up after this mess earlier in the day. Even then I struggled for few minutes on which way to turn the wheels. I thought I failed this time too. But unlike last time I didn’t give up. Some how I drove away. The instructor marked something and asked me to continue (thank god). Then drove in few residential areas. Parking around the corner went fine. He asked me to show him “how to park as if you leave the vehicle unattended”. I never knew what that meant?! I just parked my vehicle! [I realized later, that he asked me to park as if in an upper hill] Then we returned to licensing office. He said “You passed the test, congratulations”. Guys you should have seen my smile, the lips got dragged to the ears. I got my evaluation sheet. Few remarks and awarded me: 86/100!!!!!! I thank all guys who prayed for me on this. Stalin - Mundakanni amma yenna kaapithitaangada ;-)

One more news: Amit Varma has included my post - I pity the girl in this week’s blog mela under the section Education.Thanks Amit.

posted at 5:45 PM by Cipher Permalink