Hide & Seek…

Its been years since I came up with my own game or puzzle. So, this would be it, for this year! Unleash your general knowledge skills and jump in!!! Answers are hidden with a clue in the question itself (An essence of my bold cryptographic interests!)

Rules:
1. You can google only for 4 questions. So, choose which 4 you want to google
2. For attempting a question, you get 1 point
3. If your answer is correct, you get 2 points
4. If your answer is wrong, there is no negative points but still you get 1 point for trying it
5. If you are the highest scorer, you get the rights to suggest me a topic which will be one of my forthcoming blog posts
6. So, leave a topic name at the comments section after your answers…

You never know, You could be the winner of this ‘Hide & Seek’!

1. Water till the neck, you are the private island of Richard Branson
2. You are a new eco friendly vehicle from Nissan who cannot leave emissions at a higher rate
3. Making a debut on the ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ list, with the part of your name from a 2008 Oscar winning director, its your dream to dream a dream
4. Growing pale, affected in the cerebrum, you are this disease
5. A carnage in 3 years…we are already watching you in big screen
6. Jimmy is what they call you in cricket and your last name has an American news reporter revolving in 360 degrees
7. You, who has the legendary freedom fighter with you, created the 3 idiots in paper and in reel
8. You were the one who acted as Gogol; You are the one in Obama’s office of Public Engagement
9. You are one of the top Marketing Gurus, created meatball sundae and you have ‘God in‘ your name
10. You are tagged as ‘Twin tower’ strolling with a petty, thick flammable hydrocarbon in your name

Are you game for it? 1…2…3…Go!!!

Tuesdays with Morrie & thoughts…

I recently completed reading a book called ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ by Mitch Albom, which was introduced to me by a friend. As most of the readers, I commence my reading from the back covers and about the Author and then plunge into the book. This was no different than what I used to do before. The purpose of tagline is to tell you what the book is about, in a line…Here’s what is said in this book’s cover tagline ‘An old man, a young man and life’s greatest lesson’ and it was true indeed which I realised after reading it. In this blog post, I prefer to cover few thoughts that were covered on Tuesdays between Morrie Schwartz, the old professor and Mitch Albom, the young man (Student of Morrie and author of this book) and my take on those thoughts. And I welcome thoughts from all over, after reading this post and that way we can explore much more on life’s lessons I am going to write whatever thoughts that I hold on my mind afresh, from reading this book.

Marriage: Is there some kind of a rule to know if a marriage is going to work? It’s not as simple as that. Still, there are few rules that that are true to love and marriage – If you don’t respect the other person, if you don’t know how to compromise, if you can’t talk openly about what goes on between you, if you don’t have a common set of values in life, if you don’t have the belief on the importance of your marriage, you are going to have a lot of trouble. Marriage is a very important thing to do and you are missing a hell lot of it if you dont try it. Love each other or perish.

- Out of all those if’s above, I feel the first one is really important – Respect. The rest of the if’s comes by itself if the first one is met. And I liked the last ‘if’ too – Belief on the importance of your marriage…Is it not the one that holds this beautiful relationship together? When there is no belief, there is no compromise and there is no interest that can be invested on it.

Aging: Don’t you envy people who are young? All the billboards capture people who are young and beautiful and no such things exist for people over 35. For which Morrie says ‘All this emphasis on youth – I don’t buy it!’ Young People are not wise who don’t know the meaning of life. Who wants to live everyday without knowing what’s going on, in your life? When people are manipulating you to buy a perfume, a pair of jeans that make you look beautiful and you believe that. Young age is such a nonsense Aging is not a decay, it is a growth. We got to embrace growth. We learn as we grow…We understand life than we did before, as we age…

- Meaningful thoughts! We never hear thoughts like ‘I wish I were sixty five’…rather ‘I want to go backwards’ often. Those words come from people who are unsatisfied with what they have or feel a sense of unfulfillment in life. You have to detach from the thought of going backwards and envy people, rather look what’s ‘the feel good factor’ now and go towards it. We all know that we can’t control the past as it is long gone…That’s why the word ‘Present’ has a synonym ‘gift’. I beleive that working towards the future keeping the present enjoyable will be a satisfactory life!

Forgiveness: Forgive yourself before you die and then forgive others. There’s no point in taking vengeance or keeping stubbornness…Pride, vanity…Why do we do such things?

- I have a strong belief on forgiveness. Noone in this world is perfect. I do mistakes, you do and everyone does. If there’s no such word called ‘Forgiveness’ that exist in a lexicon, each one of us would live alone keeping others mistakes in mind and there would be no community in this whole world. There would be only single entities. Taking vengeance or being stubborn on not forgiving the other person can do only one thing to you – Make you feel happy that you made the other person feel awkward…Its not going to change the other person’s mistake unless he/she realises it. Nevertheless, it will take turns and reach you sometime to teach you a lesson. Why to make life so complicated by thinking about someone else’s mistake? Forgive and you are relieved and you can move on…

Family: There is no foundation, secure ground upon which people may stand, if it is not with the family. If you don’t get the love, support and care from the family, you don’t have much at all. In your death bed, if you dont have your family and even if your friends, neighbours visit you often, there’s nothing comparable to the eyes of someone who watches you all time which would be your family. Will the emptiness be bearable?

- Sure, not….That’s why even if we have terms of disagreement, arguments in our own family, we still go back and love them as always.

Reading the thoughts from a person on his death bed is as wonderful as when you hear the first few words emerging from a kid…I am not sure if this anology makes sense, but I felt it so…Had few tears dropping down when I read the last few pages…[Sometimes I am too emotional..Even a book can make me so ]

– End of the post –

Doodles…

From my memory, I could say that writing a diary full of incidents, good & bad things that happened that year, things that I achieved, those that I missed, people who made a difference in my life that year, stuff that I should have done differently or done better, the approaches, strategies that I applied, things that I bought new, good deeds that made others happy, habits that I grabed from people, successes, failures etc… started in the year 2006 since that was the year that I had lots to write about. Various turning points that happened which made me ending up in a whole notebook full of incidents. But I am not sure where I saved all those pages…So, most probably I might have lost it. I lost that habit after 2006, but this year, I feel that I should write like that again. This feeling emerged from heart since one of my friends gave an unused diary that he had.

And this time, I want to preserve the diary pages so that I can read those, in future…It always induces a ‘mixed’ feeling when you look back at the things that happened. Some of those may look sheepish, some of those may make you laugh, some of them may make you cry and that’s what memories are meant for

To me, life in a montonous way kills…Getting up, reading news, sipping coffee, working, watching TV, eating, cooking and other household chores are a routine. That should happen as usual…but there should always be a spice added to life like trying different things…Else, when you look back at life, you end up feeling like ‘What did I do all these years?’ You will never have something to tell your children about…:P

With this, I have added three new things to my list – a) To take part in marathon. What guts do I have to choose this one? I can’t even run continuously for 30mins in a treadmill…Strict diet is a must for this and I am not sure if I would be succesful in this one. After losing touch in sports for two years, this one is going to be really really difficult but I can go back and strike this one whenever I think I can’t. Isn’t it? b) I am very bad at shopping dresses. I just go and pick something at the shops that looks decent to me. Since one of my friends kindled my interest in different dress patterns, and showed me what different things should I consider before I buy, the thought of doing my own costume designing came to my mind. Easy said than done! This is also a toughest job since there are no tailoring shops here in US, no tailors that I know of, dressing styles being different, brands that I need to be aware of…too much efforts need to be invested upon, along with money…c) Hosting a website…Not an easy one though…hosting could be easy but the stuff that goes in, is not…Designing the website and making it look like the one that I wanted…without ideas, implementing this is not going to be a cake walk. List is getting tougher…Hmm…tough job ahead!

The worst part is whenever I make a list like this and blurt it out to people, the list just remains on paper…it never turns out to be successful. So, I want that to be transformed. I would be happy if I could hit atleast one of these targetted things…More, the merrier To make this happen, I need lots of motivation and focus…the two toughest things in life that can’t be easily acquired.

And why the title ‘Doodles’? Decipher it!!!

The latest cartoon…

After a stint, wanted to draw something. Tried my hands on painting a car which looked like a ‘Buick’ when I drew with a pencil and after painting, it looked bad So, switched back to a pencil drawing which I am more comfortable with, and cartoon drawing being my favorite, here is one:

C’est la vie – A sequel…

Now that I have read Chetan Bhagat’s latest novel ‘2 states’, I have been thinking on writing a review that is totally different from what I have written before. I think some lobe on my brain part has become inactive or less active these days. Neither does ideas emerge nor does creativity flourish easily. But, I am going to try this here on not giving a formal review but the incidents in a chronologically reverse order and the way I feel it.

The twins:
Krish and Ananya on the labour ward and after an epidural, Ananya gives birth to twins. Nurse comes and asks – ‘You are from two different states. Isn’t it? What’ll be their state?’ where Krish responds ‘From a state called India’ – A true ‘Indian’ism was shown

After-wedding speech:
Ananya’s father’s speech, especially this line – ‘How much do we hate love marriages? But we forget that this has happened because our child had love to give to someone in the world. Is this such a bad thing? After all, they learnt love from us, first. Of course, the Tamilian in me is disappointed but the human being in me is not’ – What a sensible talk?

On the day of wedding:
Ananya’s father’s venture of tying a veshti around Krish’s and the ‘mickey mouse’ underwear saga – The real fun part of the whole story. The horror of horrors and the everlasting humiliation that Krish would have faced, as he narrated :)
Doing ‘namaskarams’ – This is the only wedding ritual in the world that actually involves a workout. Sure, it does!

Non-sensical thoughts:
Thoughts on a break-up and talking crap about it…The world’s most sensible person and the biggest idiot both stays within us when a break-up happens. You cant even tell who is who, is the worst part – It’s true!!!

Goa:
Operation Beach Passion going futile Word clashes between people of two different communities – Clearly written

The ‘click’:

Minti/Duke’s wedding, the high-end drama between ‘Hyundai’ Santro/Accent and the acceptance of Ananya (Bold & the Beautiful) onto Krish’s family when his mother gives two gold bangles and kisses Ananya’s head. I could feel when Krish says ‘Happiness floated like rose petals in the air and I felt like fist pumping my hands three times’. [It evoked a sense of 'great' feeling in me, even though I was reading only a book. Yeah, sometimes I am over-fantasized like this )]

‘Rain-tree’ moments:
Keeping four red boxes of jewels and when Krish confesses his proposal by kneeling down, [whose heart wouldn't melt from this kind and costly gesture?]

Radha Swaminathan’s first concert:
The surprise and happiness part of Ananya’s family [I felt that this man Krish is a man of great strategies....he knows how to get things done ]

Confessions before Guruji:
Krish’s narration about his father and the incidents surrounding him. Mantra being preached is ‘Forgiveness’…That shows how wise people think

The letter:
My top pick on the whole story would be this for the way it was written shows how much a father has been knocked down by the feelings for a son. The starting and ending lines emphasises the feeling – ‘I am omitting ‘dear’ as I am not sure if I can address you anymore like that’ and ‘Unfortunately, Your father’.

Getting along with Ananya’s family:
From Manju’s IIT coaching to Swami’s PPT for the bank, Krish scored it high on all aspects when compared to the ‘Bay area’ TamBrahm Harish who has been ideally chosen for Ananya as a part of match making process

Chicken, Beer & Lady friend:
Being a Tamilian and a high ethic gal , I myself would have reacted like Mr Punn (the landlord) did…

On ‘Tamil’ & ‘Tamilians’:
OK…there’s a general opinion that Chetan has kevalapaduthified Tamil and Tamilians but I dint feel so. If you land up in a different country or a place, thats how you will feel so. Don’t we say ‘Epdi dhaan indha North Indians chapathiye saapdrangalo? Amerikkans burger/pizza/sandwich-e saapdrangalo? Oru vaati rice saapta dhaan saapta maadhiri’ Its nothing but the cultural and habitual difference. No blame on anyone/anything. But the only thing on the whole book that I did not like is where Chetan uses ‘Something something illai illai’ whenever he had to write the actual Tamil line spoken. I felt that he should have got some help from his wife in filling up those ’something something’ lines to make the readers better understand what was actually spoken. Although it’s a story, your ‘furiousness’ pumps in sometimes, when such a racist comment is made – ‘These Madarasis, the dark complexioned girls always have a way to trap the milky white Punjabi hunks’ [Not true always ]

In IIM Campus:
Now, I know how group studies are done in IIM…Jus kidding! Microeconomics, Prof Chatterjee, the ’short’ shorts, IIT proposers to Ananya, Intro to Ananya’s family pictures – I liked the narration on the latter one:
Ananya’s father – a dhoti clad man who looks like he wont allow to play loud music; Ananya’s mother – a gloomy face makes you feel like what went wrong; Brother – Oily hair, geeky face and spectacles makes him look like an IITian embryo. How such scary looking parents create a cute creature like Ananya?

My take-off:
I have read all the novels by Chetan earlier. Although the style of writing is quite familiar, the interest in reading the incidents, narrations and the funny lines keeps you intact with the story. When I read stories like this, the imaginary visuals come in front of me encompassing the story line. So as was this one, too.

2 States – A story of culture, love and relationship! As a movie ends with the names of cast, an appendix at the end of a book, here is one similar to that:
Krish Malhotra – An IIT, IIMA product, a strategic man, a writer and the hero
Ananya Swaminathan – An IIMA product, Marketing geek, a TamBrahm (is this necessary here? ) and the heroine
Swaminathan – A Banker, strict father who tastes vodka and light drinks when family is not around, a future PPTist
Radha Swaminathan – Mom, bearer of Kanchivaram sarees , an upcoming talented singer
Manjunath – A geek, stuck in his area of Physics, Chemistry and Math books, a future IITian, one among the top ten in Mylapore mock IIT exams
Kavita ji – Stuck between an arrogant husband and an useless son, interested only in money, cars and getting his son married to someone who is wealthy enough

Krish’s father - An ex military man, head of the family, a strict disciplinarian and the (hidden) lovable father who wants to make things right for his son as he wishes
Bala – Krish’s boss in Chennai
Mr Punnu – The Landlord
Mohit(s) – People in the attendance order after Krish
Kanakashree – Same as the former line cutting ‘after’ and introducing ‘before’
Devesh – ‘Citi never sleeps’ HR
Duke/Minti - The couple, latter being the hero’s cousin
Shipra Masi, Rajji Mama, Swaran Aunty, Lappa Mama – Relatives of the hero
Nikki, Tinki, Bittu, Kittu – Cousins of the hero
Ramanujan, Appalingam, Sendhil – Roomies of the hero Krish

Ha ha…That’s the list I could think of, from the brim of my memory!

And now, with this post being published, I guess I could think of two options – Either people will buy the book and read it to see the storyline from my post in its expanded terms or people will skip reading it since the story outline gives them an idea of what the story is about and how it goes in a shorter version:) Which category are you in – The first or the second?

The ‘dancing’ privilege

What am I going to do during 1-5 on Sundays? This was the question that most of us in the dance group asked each other. We hugged and said ‘Good Job!’ to each other after our dance got over. Some of them said in a low tone that they are going to miss the fun we had, during the practise sessions. We have been practising for the classical dance for nearly 4 months until yesterday which was the day of the show. The whole show was a script based on a girl who remembers her previous jenma and a guy who gets dreams of her in this jenma and comes down to Colorado Springs to see her and how it clicks Our dance comes at the end with a drama performed by us after the dance which is basically the chandramukhi’s hindi version of ‘Ra ra’….which is ‘Mere Dholna’ from Bhol Bhulaiya. The song is an amazing number but visualwise, tamil version is better.

On the day of the show (yesterday), I realised that getting ready for a classical dance is not as easy as I thought. It took approximately 3 hours and when I was getting ready, I told my friend ‘It makes me feel that I am getting ready for my wedding day I have never worn so many jewels, dense make-up and the ulta (mehendi like which is placed on the hands)’ and she was laughing. This is the first time I did the make-up by myself which would be evidently seen when the photos come Only 5 mins before the dance on stage, we got ready. My heart always pounds fast until I go to stage but when I am on stage, the josh, expressions and smiles come its way easily for me But this time, since josh was not required and only the grooves and expressions played a major part, I was a bit conscious that I shouldn’t overdo. It went fine as we expected. It was a hit among the crowd and when we entered later in the stage for the ‘Vande Maataram’ and National anthem, people stood up from their chairs and clapped. We all felt so good about it and bowed our heads.

This dance is unique from what I have done in the previous years. #1 being, I have never done a classical dance. #2 being, I have never been corrected by the choreographer to fine tune till it gets perfect with the expressions, mudhras and the steps. Dancewise, those are the 2 things. Otherwise, I have never driven to various places by myself until I got into the practise sessions. Most of the times, I used to get lost beacuse of practises in different places, call people, get lost again, get frustrated and spend few mins in a parking lot, gain my energy back and drive again…which has led me to drive in highways with confidence, drive at night alone, get used to directions without a GPS People were so understanding and guided me without any grills and motivated me to drive more. Few people said, ‘You really need a GPS man…If you are not buying it, we will gift you!’ And I said, ‘That’s a very good idea! ‘ Although that sounded sarcastic, I was like ‘Never mind, it happens!’

People helped me a lot in various ways – Getting costumes, sewing it for me when I was busy with work, borrowing make-up items and jewels for me from the people they knew better than me and much more like this.

And as I always feel that I am blessed with great friends, this practise sessions proved it again. When I went to practise sessions for hours and came back dehydrated and lost energy and did not have interest to cook, friends took the responsibility of cooking for me and kept waiting till I came and ate. Since I was younger than 95% of my dance group people, people spoon-fed me in various ways. I should be thankful to all those people

This has kindled my spirits to dance more and try different styles Lets see how it turns out…Jai Ho!!! :D

The Don’s ton…

Its been years since I watched cricket matches although I follow it live in the web since coming to US. Although the interest quotient is dwindling down with these Twenty 20s up high in the type of matches being played frequently, my instinct told me that the once called ‘Little Master’ is going to blast today with the record of hitting 17000 runs passed easily. My instinct was correct. Today’s match is one such which made refresh the webpage every 10 seconds and kept me in a nailbiting state. I myself was giving a running commentary inside When the scoreboard showed ‘Tendulkar’ is a ‘Ton’dulkar, I felt like kepping my fists tight and say ‘You did it man!’ (Apdi oru veri) and that too against the Kangaroos Scores were scorching high for a while with 6s and 4s being shot in regular intervals. And when the don went off from the field, I kept my heads down for few seconds and turned to tell my friend(he was also following the web like me) that ‘You know what? My hunch is that it’s going to be a bad defeat with 10/15 runs behind since Sachin is gone and I doubt if Raina and Harbhajan can keep the score intact till the end. And most of the times, its been a fa(c)te that whenever Sachin gets high score, India gets into the defeat line. Its bad to get defeated after putting strenous efforts and lose by few runs And he was like ‘Yeah, you are right!” My hunch was correct too. Even though India might have lost the match, the Indian legendary batsman Sachin’s thirst for getting runs is not lost. And as I always say ‘Sachin record-a break panna oruthan porandhu vandha kooda mudiyadhu’…:D

Leader vs. Manager

It’s been off late since I wrote any management/business topics. Although I had few lines to write sometimes about these topics, there was no concise thought coming within. When there is no natural thought flow out of me, either I skip writing or just put some links for people to read/watch. I was reading a futurevision report on Leaders Vs Managers which provoked thoughts on the same topic. This post will reveal my own thoughts, although I may end up quoting few lines from what I read.

The title depicts a clear idea: Leader is one who leads and make people follow it; Manager is one who manages and make people work towards it. This can be easily taken into mind with a real life example of a mother and a father in the ancient India (probably 1-2 centuries ago ) Here father is a leader and a mother is a manager. Father is one who creates vision, plans for the overall growth of the family, makes decisions, faces reality and changes strategies, make his family follow him. And whatever decision or plans a father makes, a mother follows it and manages the whole family. Mother is a manager here. She is not worried about the vision, plan or strategy but all she thinks about how and when to do, the tasks assigned by the father. Mother is an administrator here. Father is an innovator here. He originates ideas/plans and she maintains it. Father always thinks about what to do as mother ponders about how & when? Mother has a short term view to get things done which is pending at that moment whereas father has a long term vision, planning for the future.

As cited in the report, a manager does things right whereas a leader does right things. In my perspective, both are hard and needs an open mind; And getting inspired by a leader is easier than getting inspired by a manager. Because leaders empower people. Statistics show that the first class managers (who glides on honesty, attitude and facts) ought to have lots of leadership abilities.

In my opinion, women tend to be great managers whereas men tend to be great leaders. According to me, Steve Jobs is a leader; Martin Luther King is a leader; Gandhiji is a leader; Barack Obama is a leader – These are people who lead, made people to follow them, empowered them, inspired them. They never copied ideas instead they created ideas and led them by excellence.

Its easy to follow than to lead…Its easy to point out a difference than to make a difference. Leaders do the latter.

Balle balle!!!

One of the very decent hindi movies in the recent times is this. When I saw Sharukh’s poses in the web, I thought it is some comedy movie flick which I may not like. Some of my friends here suggested me to watch it and gave me a HQ DVD print too The flair of acting and emoting is not difficult for Mr.Khan who acts as Suri. It comes to him naturally. Anoushka Sharma looks pretty with her punjabi dresses and she has acted well. Sometimes, Mr.Khan reminded me of the white kurtha Mohan of ‘Mouna Ragam’ fame. A simple, calm and a gentle character. I liked the whole subject/theme of the movie in general and especially the end where Mr.Khan describes the honeymoon part in Japan (Neither a PG-13 rated nor censored ) The only bit that I felt unnecessary was the Sumo wrestling part. When Anoushka thinks of eloping with her co-dancer Raj and later tells him that ‘Mujhko vo rab diktha hai’ and cries, I too became emotional (as I do sometimes ) Another scene where she wipes off the wounds of Suri and says ‘Don’t do anything more for me..you have done so much already ji, please don’t!’ (of course, this was told in Hindi) – I became emotional here too…:( There’s a scene like that in Mouna Raagam where Mohan’s colleagues come to his home for party and Revathi never shows up. I was expecting the same thing but as Suri gets surprised like us, to see Taani (Anoushka) dresses perfectly and comes and greets everyone, it was good to watch And when she says something along these lines, ‘It’s hard for me to bury the old Taani. It will take some time and I will be a good wife’. There, you end up reserving a soft corner for her From the start till the end, this movie passes in a medium pace, but it never slipped off from the story line.

‘There’s an extraordinary story that lies in every ordinary jodi’ – The end tag. I feel that every jodi should watch this ‘Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi’…:):):)

And I am giving a ‘Balle balle’ rating for this movie – 4.5 starts out of 5

C’est la vie…

In most parts of the world: Boy loves girl. Girl loves boy. They get married.
In India: There are few more steps. Boy loves girl. Girl loves boy. Boy’s family has to love the girl. Girl’s family has to love the boy. Boy’s family has to love girl’s family. Girl’s family has to love boy’s family. But still, boy loves girl and girl loves boy. If one step goes wrong, they may not get married.

Love blossoms between a Tamil girl and a Punjabi boy. Will they get married being from different parts of India and from different traditions?

Anxiety creeps in; Curiousity builds in; Surprises mounts in;
What’s the outcome? Grr..rr…..I will know only in few weeks

C’est la vie…That’s life!