The Blogosphere Zoopedia

6 months in the desi blogosphere, and I have had the pleasure of observing at close range, the various species that inhabit it. Clearly, it’s not an exhaustive list because as the saying goes, the universe is infinitely large, and I am not Captain Picard. So I trust that my readers will complete the list.

Random Thoughter

A vast majority of desi bloggers fall under this category. The title of their blogs follows the formula “Random Thoughts” of (adjective/adjectival phrase) (noun).

Howareyoufiner

These guys do not use traditional forms of communication, such as face-to-face meetings, telephones, email and pigeon post to exchange pleasantries. They use the comments section of their friends’ blogs to enquire thus “Hey da. How are you da? Long time no post da? Nice to catch up with you in the blogosphere da” etc.

Addmetoblogroller

“Hi. (positive adjective) blog dude. I’ve added you to my blogroll. (subtitles read – Hey. I scratch your back, you scratch mine)

Industrialmancooler

Uberfans. Will do anything to defend their favourite blog authors. “Hey you (bad word). Go take your losing arguments elsewhere. (blog author) is quite justified in denying the Holocaust.

ps: Chennaiites will be very familiar with “Industrial Man Coolers”, as it refers to those large Almonard fans used at weddings to evaporate millions of litres of human sweat.

Rageramaswamy

These types scour the net for axes to grind. With Lalita Wet Grinders. You (bad word). How dare you say (whatever author says)? Just because the internet gives you the freedom, you think you can get away with anything? Don’t think you are safely anonymous. We can track you down.

Two things to be noted. Rageramaswamies rarely provide their real email addresses. They tend to use monikers such as “(country/caste/group) patriot” or “Jai (country/caste/group)” and for some reason, very rarely use the singular. Note the “We” can track you down. They take refuge in mobs/groups and invent plurals even when there aren’t any.

Dontlikelosingargumenter

Common behaviors include deleting comments that discredit author’s point and sending private emails to explain the noble cause behind the comment deletion.

Ad-dict

Considers blog to be merely a vehicle for Google Adsense units. Top bar, side bar, Nav bar and In-post, hot links and flashing banner ads wrapped around a few words of actual content.

Contentpilferer

Standard operating procedure is – Take domain pan. Add lots of ads. Garnish with stolen content from elsewhere. Publish and serve to unsuspecting public.

Hypercommenter

People who write comments slightly longer than the Epic of Gilgamesh, but don’t have a blog themselves. These are the true heroes of the blogosphere, participating in the conversations instead of burdening us with more blogs to read.

Agendapusher

These commenters generally invoke (JC/Lord Ram/Art of Living/Other) no matter what the subject is.

Tagtagbangbanger

Bloggers who survive by taking up and doling out tags. Five things I like. Ten facts about myself. 20 Gaana songs I wish I could dance to. 100 reasons why this silly infectious tag disease is popular.

Liveblogocaster

The hardcore types who frequent every barcamp, blogcamp and unconference and blog live. 7.30 am. Dude showing powerpoint presentation. 8.30 am. Yet another dude showing powerpoint presentation. 9.30 am. Wow. What a change!. Somebody using Keynote on his Apple MacBook Pro. Etc.

Technoratiauthoritymaniac

Bloggers who check their Technorati authority slightly more frequently than the cricket score.

Sitemeterpsychotics

Bloggers who use 745 stats and analytics plugins to analyze their 500 hits a day in every possible dimension. Top posts, Top posts per tag. Top posts per latitude and longitude degree. Pingbacks. Trackbacks. And so on.

Update: Ah well. As Abi points out, things haven’t changed much in the last 2 years. Turns out there is an excellent lexicon (albeit 2 years old) of blog-related terms authored by Thennavan, here

It’s official. Bollywood Music is the only form of music in the world.

No. Not because they plagiarize from every possible source of audible sound (20 Hz to 20,000 Hz) in the known universe.

It’s because Radiocity says so. They had the fortune of conducting India’s first Corporate (I mean the English adjective, not the Bipasha Basu starrer) Music Quiz, and I had the misfortune to participate in it. And I went all the way to Bangalore to do that yesterday.

Why would I do that? 2 reasons.

1. I consider myself to be fairly musically aware, with a wide ranging taste in multiple genres spanning from Tamil hip-hop to Mississippi Delta blues. So a corporate music quiz sounded like a good idea.

2. Seriously? Reason #1 is total bull. I really went because an ace, megadude, ultra-geek quizzer from my company invited me to join him, and since our man is generally not in the business of losing quizzes, it made sound financial sense (Prize money minus travel cost = Still big money).

But we two Tamil payyans from the glorious city of Chennai ended up learning a very important lesson taught by the corporate folks at Radiocity.

When an event is held at the Taj Residency (and not at the Municipal Grounds),

When the company’s ad jingle (Votha Votha Votha Votha fun) is played 750,000 times so that all numbers in the 90s and 100s with one decimal are erased, and replaced with the one that matters – 91.1,

When 99.95% of the quiz revolves around Sunidhi C, Lata M, Asha B, Alisha Chinai, Shankar Jaikishen, Laxmikant Pyarelal and Kishore Kumar ,

and when 2 provocatively clad jilpaans hand out audience prizes,

It’s official. Bollywood music is the only known form of music in the world. Questions on Indian classical music, Western classical music, Blues, Alternative, World music and Indian folk music are not tolerated.

So while the both of us were prepared for,

Who composed the pathbreaking “Marriage of Figaru”, which goes (in tenor voice) “Feeeee garu, super feeee garu”),and was first performed at the Sydney Oppaari House?

Answer: O-Naikoottam Mosart

Which legendary MC, member of the Yo!Thiruvayyaru 3-nity Company composed and produced the 18th century carnatic-hip-hop classic “She Cant, He Met He”

Answer: Mu-2 D

Which hyperfast expert of the Fender Veenacaster played a seminal version of the Indian national anthem?

Answer: E Gaya3

Who sang the vocal parts in the famous “Piscean Symphony”?

Answer: Gaana “World-Emperor” Ulaganaathan

Which Born-again Muruga devotee sang a Reggae version of the Sashti Kavasam in the 90s?

Answer: Appaachi Ummaachi Indian

Who is the God of Basslines?

Answer: Ilayaraja

And instead, what we got was all Bollywood. And no self-respecting,  Ilayaraja-worshipping, Rahman-loving Chennaiite will consider Bollywood “sounds” circa 1980-2007 to be music. So we stuck around, enjoyed the free booze and free food, and came back to Singaara Chennai.

And oh, we scored 10/20 in the prelims and didn’t qualify. So just in case you were taking this post seriously, let me warn you that I am just being a bad loser.

And Radiocity,

I mean, apart from the free booze and food, i.e.

We are now officially the Kaattadi Kandasaamy Kriket Champions

We won.

Actually, we were winning till about the 17th over. Then the Pakis were winning till 19.3 overs. Then they lost the match to an ambitious shot by an audacious batsman who I am sure has a very bright future.

My father called T20 Kaattadi Kandasaamy Kriket a few days back. But not in a derisive tone. Clearly, all of us enjoyed watching this high energy sport that very importantly does not consume 8 hours of my life. Instead it’s a sweet 3 hours of mostly insane hitting and surprisingly enough, some incredibly deft bowling. Now that India have won the inaugural tournament, I am sure we will see a frenzy for this new format and given India’s clout in the ICC, I wouldn’t be surprised if this slowly eclipses the 50 over format. Frankly speaking, I have always been a fan of test cricket and the best one dayers can never hold a candle to the best tests. The Madras tie, anybody? The entire 2006 Ashes in England, anybody?

Needless to say, Ravi Shastri was on cliche overdrive. This match was going right down to the wire and it was anybody’s game and every once in a while it was Game on. And at the very end, apparently Cricket won.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun. I am sure everybody noticed those 4 tank-top Jilpaans dancing for every boundary. While I am not entirely sure if the spectators in the bottom row really appreciated having their already limited view further restricted by these wannabe Pintheru Pasanga and Minnunukka Poonakkutti

But back home in Chennai today, our Chief Minister completely lost his head. No. Not that way. He decided to essentially station every policeman and policewoman on the streets, one every few nanometres, just so he could feel safe in the face of all these beheading threats from somebody who looks like a man who has vowed to leave all material pleasures, do meditation in the himalayas, grow a beard, wear saffron robes but for inexplicable reasons, retain his Member of Parliament seat and issue Khomeiniesque Fatwas.

Actually, this whole episode is patently ridiculous. So ridiculous that it deserves to be patented. Indians (especially the subspecies Politicus Scumbagus ) can get offended by anything. Like Douglas Adams once said, technically speaking, every word we utter, however harmless, could possibly some alien species for whom that sound is the worst imaginable insult. So this Rama episode could spawn future incidents such as these:

#1 Tomorrow is an insult

Any Indian girl who understands English : Hey. When shall we meet again?

Andhra guy: Rape

Indian girl : Waaaaah. My honour has been besmirched.

Riotous mob from girl’s state: (burn. pillage. kill. plunder)

#2 You want a piece of me?

Tamil bloke : Hey. what seat would you prefer?

Karnataka guy: Near you beku

Tamil bloke : Dei. Who are you calling Beku.

Riotous mob from TN: (burn. pillage. kill. plunder)

#3 Private American Parts

Hefty Jat : Oi , where you are from in Amreeka?

NRI : Maryland

Hefty Jat: Abe teri %$^#$. Kya bol raha hai tu?

Riotous mob from Haryana: (burn. pillage. kill. plunder)

And so on.

Bourne Ultimatum, a.k.a Nil. Gavani. Sudu

The title is borrowed from Vasoo’s brilliant comment here.

Warning: Movie spoilers ahead

Since I belong to the pirate generation and strongly follow the pirate aesthetic, I had already seen the third Jason Bourne movie thanks to a high resolution xvid torrent leaked straight out of Universal Studios. But since I am also an ethical pirate, I decided to watch the movie on the big screen simply because the movie is mindblowing. In fact, it drops a 5 ton fusion bomb in one’s cerebrum.

So what’s different, one might ask. For one, the Bourne movies are intelligent action movies, unlike the Die Hard series, that was designed for an audience that keeps its mind in standby mode while being bombarded with explosions, appa-ponnu sentiment and bombastic dialogue.  Bourne Ultimatum on the other hand keeps one on the edge and yet makes you think all the time. The plot is not exactly laid out like a plate of masala dosa that just screams “eat me”. It’s more like they give you paruppu podi, boiled rice, ghee and vattha kuzhambu and expect you to figure out the optimum combination, and when one gets it, it sure is tasty. Let me give you an example.

There is a scene where Bourne pottu-thallufies (kills) a CIA assassin sent to kill him and tells the heroine “We need to be dead”. Eh, One wonders. But cut to CIA headquarters where a message flashes on the large display – “Bourne and Nicky – confirmed dead”. So they actually sent a message from the assassin’s phone to the CIA headquarters confirming their “deaths” so that they could buy themselves some more time. They don’t spoon feed the plot. They generally hide the food items around and let the audience go on a treasure hunt.

The dialogues are crisp, smart and to the point. In fact, I am told that the original screenplay and dialgues of the movie were written by a desi. But they were censored at the very last moment.

For instance, there is this scene at the start of the movie where Jason meets the brother of the girl who gets killed in Goa (in part 2) and explains his stand. He very briefly tells him that his sister is dead and that he has killed her killer. But the original, uncensored scene was something like this.

And the grieving brother’s response was

Then there is this scene where Bourne points a gun at a Russian cop who has been thoroughly outsmarted. In the movie, he says “Don’t shoot. Im unarmed”. But the original dialogue was

Further along,  Bourne manages to outwit the arch villian, the CIA director, and we are treated to what must surely rank as one of the all-time great movie dialogues. Bourne asks him where he is. The CIA director rep-lies “In my office”. Bourne then quips “I am not so sure. If you were, we’d we having this conversation face to face” and proceeds to use the director’s voice recording to open the safe that contains the Treadstone file. But the original dialogue went something like this

A little further along, Bourne confronts his old nemesis, the cruel trainer guy.

And of course, the brilliant ending. Where Bourne’s new girlfriend watches news on TV for information about Bourne’s alleged death.The movie ends with her sly smile at learning that “no body was found” and we then see Bourne swimming to safety while Moby’s high voltage “Extreme Ways” starts playing and the credits start rolling. What an end to a awesome movie.

“Ramar”, said who?

Disclaimer: The title is nothing more than an obscure pun on Ramar Sethu. It does not intend to express any opinion on the origins of the legendary god king who dumped his wife in the forest. It also does not express any political opinion on the construction company that built Adam’s Bridge.

So some shifting sand shoals in between the Palk Strait and the Gulf of Mannar have paid heavy bribes to the Saffron brigade to whip up irrational fervour in their favour. Oh wait! That does not make sense.

So some issue has finally united the pro-Hindi BJP/VHP/North and the South by actually getting the northies to use a Tamil word other than “Idli”, “Dosa” or “Samburr”, namely Ramar and not Rama. Oh wait! That’s irrelevant.

The ASI is a rabid organization whose only aim is to destroy ancient religious monuments and hurt people’s sentiments. No wait. That does not make sense too. Because it also seems to describe the BJP and VHP circa 1992.

So let’s first state the bleeding obvious in terms of opposing viewpoints and get that out of the way.

#1 The Ramayana is a glorious and wonderful myth that has inspired billons, but must not get in the way of industrial progress by irrationally insisting that ships must waste fuel going all the way around Lanka. A 650 km reduction in a large ship’s travel distance is absolutely worth hurting 800 million people’s sentiments for.

#2 The Ramayana is, Inshallah, Gospel truth and it makes us Sikh to think that Baha’i destroying Adam’s bridge, we will, in Jew time, all reach Naraka/hell. Let us Buddha matter to rest by leaving it alone, shall we?

#3 Amidst all this din, the real social and environmental concerns about the Sethusamudram project are lost. Since any and all forms of industrialization are attempts to destroy the fisherman’s way of life, we must not ignore this.

But since all the above 3 viewpoints are at the vertices of a really large equilateral triangle of uncompromising dogma, let us simply ditch them altogether and come up with something new. Too many people are talking too much sense, which explains why nobody is listening. But what if we synthesized a new form of fuzzy gilma logic from this morass?

I say, let’s simply admit that the bridge was built by an army of muscular simians a few thousand years ago. But because of the uneven nature of the construction materials (what with squirrels offering to bring miniscule pieces etc), the Ramar Sethu is today nothing more than shifting sand shoals. But today’s Ravana is the ten-headed monster of oil-dependence who is holding the Sita of our foreign currency reserves hostage. So metaphorically, the Ram of today must build a water bridge over the shoals of sand and neutralize Ravana by reducing ship fuel consumption. And to completely kill Ravana, we must start to use non-hydrocarbon powered sailing boats and this way, even the environmentalists are kept happy.

No wait. Lets take this to this logical conclusion. This is also the same bridge that Adam crossed with stolen apple in hand (which explains its alternative name). Sita then happened to pluck this very apple from its hiding place and munch while contemplating about her hubby beloved. And this explains why Rama put her through the Agni test. It was, afterall, the fruit of temptation.

So there. When all of you are done shouting at each other about this issue, ponder a little bit about my recommendation. It does not make any sense, and therefore it should be perfectly palatable to all parties involved.

Cross-posted from Mutiny.in

The Creator has passed into the Light

This is a post about a wise, bearded man who passed away yesterday. Most of you may not recognize him. This may not make any sense to those of you who have not read the Wheel of Time series.

He has been with me for the last 11 years, ever since a college friend introduced me to the series. He has spun this intricate fantasy world that has pulled me and a lot of my close friends in and never really let go.

How many times have I dreamt about channeling Saidin?

How many times have I looked at medallions in streetside shops and imagined myself to be Mat Cauthon with the foxhead, immune from the Saidar tricks of the scheming Aes Sedai.

How many times have I held ordinary pieces of trinket jewellery and considered them to be angreal?

Oh how many times did I wish I had a middle name, like the Forsaken and Aes Sedai of the Age of Legends? Like Barid Bel Meddar. Like Elan Morin Tedronai.

The pain I felt when Siuan Sanche was stilled.

The joy I felt when Logain was Healed.

The hours I spent scouring the web for WoT theories.

The hours I spent trying to guess who killed Asmodean.

The times I have referred to the T-1000 in Terminator 2 as the “Gholam”.

The hundreds of times I reread the Rhuidean Age Of Legends sequences in TSR.

The unreal hope that Lord of Chaos would never end.

The creeping frustration of the lack of pace in Crossroads of Twilight.

The aching hope that Memory of Light will be completed and the wheel that started turning in 1990 would come full circle with Tarmon Gaidon.

The Creator has passed into the Light. But the memory of his Light lives on, even if his pathbreaking series remains incomplete. They say that great works of art are often left incomplete, like Michelangelo’s David. Robert Jordan was not as intricate as Tolkien. Not as gripping as GRR Martin and not has funny as Terry Pratchett. But he pulled me into his world like no other author ever did.

And it came to pass in those days, as it had come before and would again, that the Dark lay heavy on the land and weighed down the hearts of men, and the green things failed, and hope died. And men cried out to the Creator, saying, O Light of the Heavens, Light of the World, let the Promised One be born of the mountain, according to the prophecies, as he was in ages past and will be in ages to come. Let the Prince of the Morning sing to the land that green things will grow and the valleys give forth lambs. Let the arm of the Lord of the Dawn shelter us from the Dark, and the great sword of justice defend us. Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.

The Jalsa and Jilpa Map of Chennai

I tried looking up the map of Chennai on Google Maps. And I got this.

It completely confused me. In my mind, the only useful map of Chennai would look like this.

I have no idea why Google is trying to confuse me.

ps: Uppolojees. This post is rather Chennai-centric and may not make sense to Non-Chennaiites.

Elephantine Fourths

A bowlout. Seriously? As Pri points out, a bowlout is the best these guys could think up of? How about

• Underarm ball bowled by machine which batsman has to hit for a boundary, with full field placements
• A complete challenge covering all aspects of the game. Two direct throws from cover-point. Two balls by the bowler to hit the stumps and two hits by the batsman against opposition bowler.
• The “Ravi Shastri cliche” contest where each team member has to come up with a standard Ravi Shastri cliche, such as
  • That ball went like a tracer bullet
  • He is a seasoned campaigner
  • He has given it the kitchen sink
  • It’s anybody game now
  • That ball had 4 written all over it
  • That ball was 4 the moment it left the bat
  • India is in with a chance now
  • He has bisected the field
  • He plays in the V

But that’s not really the topic for today’s post. Today is Ganesh Chathurthi. Indians like two things – chubby babies and elephants. The only possible thing we could like even more is a god that’s partly chubby baby and partly elephant. It’s a winning combination.

Today we offer Kozhakattais (Steamed Wonton with Sugary Coconut filling), Unniappams, Payasams, Idlis, Vadais and other tasty things to him. Well. We just wave it at him a little bit, ding-dong the bell and then leave him alone and hog the food ourselves. The offical Sanskrit term for this cruel deception is Naivedhyam.

Some trivia here. Apparently, Puzhungarisi (Parboiled rice) is not to be used while making Idli today. Ganesh prefers idlis made out of Paccharisi (Plain rice) and as we all know, idlis made out of plain rice don’t quite taste that good, but hey, since we do all the eating, it’s OK I guess.

We will also be honouring Ganesh’ vehicle (the Volkswagen Mooshik) by watching a movie (later in the evening) starring a rat that can apparently cook.

And I happened to run into this hilarious blog – Baby Vaijayanti and Puppy Manohar. Don’t miss this one.

Sundials, Sandclocks and Swatches

It all starts when the Swiss Air flight attendant holds out a bowl of Lindt Chocolate and says “Danke Schoen”. While I would have loved to grab as many of those with both my hands, I had a faint feeling that that might not quite be the right thing to do. So I only took 3.

Update ps: A quick guide to speaking Swiss German (Schweizer Deutsch). I thought I could manage with my 15 year old memories of Max Mueller Bhavan Grundstufe Eins German but I was sadly mistaken. The Swiss accent of German is about as different from Deutschland German (High German) as Chennai Tamil is from Tirunelveli Tamil. For once, Ich (I) is pronounced Eeekkkhhhh (sounds of clearing throat mandatory) and the R’s must be rolled, no, rumbled at Richter scale 8. Further, a few of the vowels must be pronounced like French and the overall tone must sound slightly Italian.

Switzerland, it turns out, didn’t quite evolve like other countries. They figured out that staying out of wars, for instance, was common sense. Keeping their mouths shut, especially about numbered Bank accounts also apparently encourages people around the world to save all their gold and cash in this landlocked country.

Legend has it that the Swiss (called Helveticans in those times) decided that they would get out of the Sundial business because our planet was not quite upto Swiss precision standards. A few minutes/seconds variation in the rotation/revolution period was simply unacceptable. So they shifted to Sandclocks, which were OK as long as the particles of sand did not undergo enough erosion to cause the clocks to go a little faster. That was when the Swiss started making watches.

And I just made that story up.

So what did I see in Zürich?

I saw Bahnhofstrasse, which is kind of like Station road next to Mambalam Railway Station, but slightly less crowded and moderately more clean.

I saw Grossmünster and Fraumünster , 2 of the most famous churches in Zürich because I could then type that in my blog. I like typing words with umlauts (ü).

I ate Indian vegetarian food in a restaurant called Hiltl where the dishes are priced by weight. I had 0.537 kgs of Desi food. And this place is run by the Swiss, and not by The “Pnjaabi All-you-can-eat $9.99 Buffet Association of Yooshtun”.

I found out that Zurich was originally a Roman settlement, dating from 90 AD. Today, the only remnant of that distant past is a milestone whose Latin inscription reads, and I translate, “Please vote for Marcvs Vmlblcvs Cordvs of the Plebian Party”. Apparently, desi political parties were not the first to stick messages and hide useful public signs.

I drank Swiss Hot Chocolate. (extremely satisfied “aaaah” of pleasure)

I visited the place where Albert Einstein is said to have written “I vill not use relativity as an excuse for not doing my homeverk” a 100 times on the classroom blackboard as punishment. The famous ETH Zurich.

I ate authentic Italian Pizza at Ristorante Moline. Not deep dish or Pan or thin crust. Not panneer tikka or Lebanese Chicken. Not Veggie lovers or Veggie Supreme. The real deal.

I saw a St Bernard. It was pulling its owner along. In a direction of its choice. The owner was complying. I am not sure she had a choice.

I realized that Switzerland was designed by professional photographers. They took their best postcards, and then arranged the country to look like them. Which explains why every part of the country is photogenic. Cows, Sheep, Villas, Mountains, lakes and rivers were arranged to maximize airline, hotel and the camera industries’ profits.

I also ate Falafel in Zurich. And I was reminded of my grandmother who once asked me why the Arabs would eat jackfruit. I had said “uh?”. She said “so what is this palaapal that I read about in a Tamil magazine today?”.

I ate 7 different varieties of Cheese. Emmentaler, Gruyere, Tilsiter, Appenzeller, Berner Alpkaese and Vacherin Mont d’Or. I tried very hard to find the elusive Budeeheimusstmusst but I couldn’t.

I also ate, no, experienced, the real Tiramisu. (extremely satisfied “aaaah” of pleasure)

And oh, what did I go there for? Yeah. Some work with a client. We bored them with some “Ab SOA jao bacche” ppt treatment for a full day. All you IT-guys and girls, please explain that reference to the non-IT types.

And I got chocolates for everybody. Not the run of the mill Toblerone or Lindt that is available in Potti kadais in Chennai. Specialty chocolate from a confectionary.

Some photos of my trip available here

Off to Govindaland

There are some who visit Balaji in the 7 hills of Tirupati and say “Govinda Goooovinda”.

There are some who visit the dizzying heights of Mount Kailash and experience the ground where Lord Shiva allegedly dances the Tandava.

And there are some who visit the hallowed spots where Govinda danced with Karishma for most of the 1990s.

I belong to category #3. I will be in Zürich for the next 3 days.

Aside,

Conversation with wife.

KA: Oi. What do you want from Switzerland?

VS: Nothing. Don’t spend money unnecessarily on me. Spend it buying nice things for yourself.

KA: (Mental note to buy her lots of chocolates, perfumes, and a swatch)

Conversation with youngest brother.

KA: Dei, I’m going to Zürich. What do you want from there?

KR: Um. What do you get there?

KA: Toblerone, which one gets in Nilgiris and Spencers. Watches, which cost about half of Belgium’s GDP apiece. Bank Accounts, of the Swiss type.

KR: Ok. Get me a few Bank Accounts.

KA: Ok. Will check and see if they open Zero-balance accounts.