Vote for Me

I realize that it’s been a while since my last blog post. As I sat around airports and hotel rooms over the last couple of weeks wondering when to publish my next post, this happened:

http://www.indibloggies.org/nominations-2008

I put two and two together and decided that it was funny in a darkly ironic way that politicians normally fail to deliver and then come looking for votes during election time. So it logically follows

Yes yes, you might point out that the poster is recycled from an earlier post. The hallmark of a good Indian politician is not only his ability to make one laugh till one cries, but the ability to reuse, recycle and republish posters, manifestos and ideologies, so there.

So people, vote for me. Let freedom ring like a doorbell that plays the Gayathri mantra. Yes we can, I say. This is change we can believe in. I think, therefore I aam aadmi. India is shining with the clicks of a million blog readers and the rofls of millions. Lal Krishna Advani might have failed, but Lolz Krish Ashok will not.

My manifesto

1. I promise to post once every week
2. I promise to respond to every comment, politely
3. I promise to use a combination of Google Calendar, Basecamp, Post it notes, Phone alarms and plain ol’ memory to remember to keep my promises
4. I promise to do item nr 3
5. I will continue to tweet
6. I will tweet my posts
7. I will post my tweets

In addition, I declare that all blog reading citizens will be given posts in full colour. We will also undertake a full fledged agitation at the central level against the imposition of chatspeak as it is against our traditional Wren and Martin culture. Where there are masks, I will expose their temples. If they slap me on one cheek, I will crack jokes so that they say “what cheek!”.

It is our destiny, and destiny has a child. It’s called Beyond Say, and this blog will continue to look beyond and say the unobvious

Jai Hind

Update: I would like to announce some pre-poll alliances. Our Coalition of the Shilling, newly minted PUB (Progressive Union of Bloggers) includes

• Max Da Vinci – For best entertainment blog
• Bikerdude – For best personal blog
• Ramesh Srivats – For best new indiblog
• Rakesh Jhunjhunwala – Best personal indiblog

Please vote for them.

ps: The various city chapters of PUB are called Madras Union of Bloggers (MUB), Bengaluru Educated and Entertaining wRiters (BEER) and Hyderabad Online Pranksters (HOP), Delhi Online Progressive Entertainers (DOPE), Calcutta Association of Multifarious Pranksters Assembling Regularly on Internet (CAMPARI), Cochin Online Gang for Nefarious Activities & Conversations (COGNAC), Trichy Internet Professionals & Sly Yahoos(TIPSY) and finally the Ranipet Ultra-laughter Macchaans (RUM)

More alliances are being worked out as we speak.

UPDATE: The polls are open. Please vote here – http://multivote.sparklit.com/web_poll.spark/21900

Iyer Vs Iyengar

Azhwarkadiyan Nambi and Eesaana Bhattar presumably had descendants. And perhaps they lived in the New Thanjavur Sector of the Pegasus Beta Settlement, and perhaps they went to the same school, and played on the same zero-gravity slide. Perhaps both grew up to be cyberpriests on interstellar spaceships. Perhaps they chilled out at the Galactic Spaceport bar. Wonder what sort of “I am better than you” arguments they had.

EB Jr: Iyers are better

AN Jr: No, Iyengars are better

EB Jr: Iyer sounds like Higher and that’s why we are better

AN Jr: Iyer sounds like Air and that’s exactly what you are full of.

EB Jr: We fly high like Iyerplanes while you still travel using yesterday’s IyenCars

AN Jr: At least we travel in Rolls Royce Iyencars while you suffer from Deep Vein Thrombosis in Economy class Iyerplanes

EB Jr: Iyengar sounds like I-Anger, and that describes you guys pretty well

AN Jr: Iyer sounds like I-Err, and that describes you guys even better

EB Jr: We are also Smartha than you.

AN Jr: Of course you aren’t. How can you be when you follow the Odd Waiter philosophy?

EB Jr: Your naamam looks like a V with an I in between, and reminds me of vi, that useless editor

AN Jr: vi is the best editor in the world, and I can do a s/r/ngar before you can apply your vibhuti

EB Jr: You call yourselves Why Snow White? Ignorance is built into your name

AN Jr: You call yourselves Say White. Painting everything white smacks of a lack of creativity.

EB Jr: Your C-rap (Carnatic Rap) star R.E.A. Goody sucks. His voice should be used as an alternative energy source by carpenters sawing wood.

AN Jr: Your C-rap star MD (Mad Durai) Money sucks even more. He hardly raps words. He keeps pulling out his item girl assistant (Kalpana Swara) to distract the crowd with her gyrations.

And so on.

Shakespeare in Louww

Due Apologies to the non-Tamil crowd. This post may not make sense to you. But you can participate in the contest though.

Final Update: Bikerdude, Farkandfunk and Ramsu win the contest. Please send me an email with your address, and a pathbreaking CD containing groundbreaking music shall be shipped to you.

I saw this on Anantha’s blog and it got me thinking. What if we superimpose Madras Bashai (The holy, exalted, pure and divine tongue of the wise citizens of Chennai) on Shakespeare? Click on the title links to see the original scenes.

King Lear

Hamlet

Julius Caesar

On a serious note, my personal favourite part of this speech is when Antony is overcome by tears in between and he says “Bear with me, my heart is in the coffin there with Caesar and I must pause till it come back to me”. If that isn’t eloquence, tell me what is.

On a frivolous note, here’s the contest. There’s 2 parts.

Part 1. Desi (Hindi, Tamil, Telugu or Malayalam) dialogue (can be both filmy as well as original dialogue) superimposed on famous Shakespearean scene

Part 2. Shakespearean dialogue superimposed on famous desi movie scene.

Upload your entries to your blogs and paste the link in the comments section. If you do not have a blog, email your entry to me. My email address is krishashok [at] gmail [dot] com. Winning entries will get an mp3 CD featuring Bappi Lahiri’s greatest album of all time – Rock Dancer.

And to make this a little more challenging, only entries that do not rely on humour targeting specific individuals, groups or risque references will be considered.

Update: We have responses, and what responses they are! Bikerdude, Ramsu and Farkandfunk have gotten their creative juices flowing like the Yangtze river in spate.

Here are some. Go through the entire comments thread though. If you belong to this select lucky group of Indians who love Shakespeare and desi kitsch equally, you will enjoy this immensely.

Ramsu gives us a few more scenes from R&J, including this Blockbuster Balcony scene featuring Bappi da.

(original: What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d )

Farkandfunk spices up Romeo and Benvolio with someT-Rajendar style rhyming dialogue.

And one of my favourites. The Three Witches meet Macbeth,

Bikerdude brings us some God’s own flavour,

KuttigaLey, pattigaLey,
MaakrigaLey, peerkrigaLey..
Ningakku ichchiriyengilum puththiyunda dei
Pombey chaettane polum arinjoodey?
Ninda montheykku orotta kuththu kuththiyaalundallaa..

You blocks, you stones,
you worse than senseless things!
O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,
Knew you not Pompey? (Julius Ceasar 1.1.39)
Translated to Trivandrum Malayalam circa 2007

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.

Microhistorical Megapistha

I am announcing the results of the Microhistory contest. The final judgement was arrived at using an industry standard jilpa methodology called the scatter map. The nomenclature, I believe, has origins in the nature of the brains that came up with this diagram.

The submissions were categorized into 4 taxonomically robust categories and were plotted. The Tamil challenged populace should refer to The Reference with a Capital R to clarify technical terms used in the map. Click here for a larger version of the scatter map. I used gliffy to draw this.

Once this was done, I had a conference with Chennai’s most discerning citizens – the crows that come to food-test the daily fare at home. And after some lengthy deliberations, they have made their choice.

Rambodoc

When the State withered away….”And at the end there was Google.”

ps: Please email me your address so that Himesh can rawk your life.

Other honorable mentions.

A mammal debating its own existence while undergoing natural selection by Karthik.

We come, we see, we try to live, we die by Priya

Microhistory

Alien from distant (obviously) planet arrives. Speaks in a musical Tirunelveli accent for some strange reasons involving an unholy union of theoretical physics and coconut chutney. Proceeds to blow up all of Jerusalem and says “There you go. Problem solved”. Then aims nucleoplasma guns on the rest of earth and asks a question:

“Summarize the history of your species (Homo Sapiens) in exactly 10 words. “

The best answer wins a pirated DVD of “Aap ka Surroor” along with a full colour printout of the Moviee unofficial comic with bonus pages containing hidden subplots yet unrevealed.

Extra Bonus prize for ultracool responses: Large size poster of Vijaykanth with fake Himesh autograph.