tamil

Life through laughter!

For those who haven’t seen or can’t recollect, there is a comedy routine by Goundamani which is about a husband complaining about how he can’t beat his wife anymore, how the few people in the neighborhood (society) find reasons to stop him. He explains how they say initially, it’s wrong to hit a newly wed wife, then that she’s pregnant and how dare he hit a new mom, and later in life how could he hit his wife when his son is old enough to understand the situation. While this post is in no way appreciating the content exhibited in the video (It is very wrong to hit your partner, no matter what they do how much ever you wish to, just don’t. It hurts and your partner is people too, Unless you’re into that kind of stuff, then it’s your personal wish), this is about the way that I’ve related to this video more than a video of a irresponsible arrogant man talking about hitting his wife should.
But..but how would this be any relevant to me nor anyone in their right mind or how could such a low act be extrapolated to other life situations. Well , that’s where the genius of Counter Mani a.k.a Goundamani works.

1. I want sit at home and do absolutely nothing productive when my parents are around.
Class X (Before that one doesn’t stay quite in one place or appreciate the awesomeness of general nothing-to-do-ness) : How can you be doing nothing, study class X properly and you’ll cruise your life after that. [ Helps you get into class XI in some popular school in your locality which in my case was the same and thus, obsolete]

Class XII : This is the most important part of your life, if you study now and get into a good college, your life would be swell.

Under Graduation : Do you know how bad the job market is out there, put in your effort now and get into IT and you’ll be in the US of A within the next two years.

Post Graduation : You can’t study anymore, so unless you want to do a PhD and become a Professor in a B-School, you can’t afford to waste time doing nothing.

At Work – Do you think I pay you for this incompetence?

When you get to a point where you retire, you can’t do anything else so it isn’t fun anymore.

[Cue the video]

2. I want to spend money on some mundane stuff which for some obvious reason is of value only to me and not anyone around me.
Student Life : ARE YOU KIDDING ME? YOUR PARENTS ARE PAYING FOR YOUR FEES AND YOU’RE ASKING FOR THIS? THIS? WHATEVER THIS IS..

Right Before Work : You’re only going to start work and you’re spending on THIS? If I was you, I’d worry about my future than spend lavishly like this. Kids these days and their lifestyle. IT has paid them too much money and they don’t understand the value of it.

At Work : You should be saving money now for your student loans, marriage, kid’s education (well, I’m not married yet) and your retirement plans (DUDE, I just started working).

When you’re old enough to spend without worrying about anything else – Is this the age to buy THIS?

[Cue the same video]

You get the picture? One has to appreciate the underlying tone of the video which speaks about the interference of society in our personal lives, the extent we let other people control our lives and seeking constant approval from people who probably don’t even care. While I’m not implying this is rule written on a stone and is universal, it does exist to a major extent everywhere around us. This only goes to show the genius that is Goundamani who’s more than once portrayed life lessons through unorthodox, crass and sometimes absurd ways, most of which would remain unparalleled by the successors. If I was any less informed, I might have dropped the “Underrated” word in his description but he isn’t. I’m understanding more in those than I did when I watched them as a wee kid. Yeah, it does takes age to appreciate his comedy. And one that should be truly appreciated.

Ps. I don’t recollect the exact movie name and I’m not able to find the video yet. Will add it to the post as soon I find it.

Some stupid Rant!

Mother tongue : This is one of the columns you have to fill in most of the major forms in your life. I’ve never quite been very good at my mother tongue as I grew up in a different state with different language. I’ve never had a problem with it when at home but when I speak to a native speaker, I feel my command on the language or rather the lack of it. One reason I never identify myself with my mother tongue unless necessary. To me, mother tongue is more like the language in which you speak to yourself, the language you think in, the language you translate everything you hear so that you can relate to it and understand better which brings to the burning question inside me these days, WHY ON EARTH AM I SPEAKING TO MYSELF IN ENGLISH? Freaked me out the day I realized this. I looked around and it didn’t feel odd. Freaked me out even more.

There was a time when tamil font looked like home and english looked alien to me, now, thanks to text messaging, tamil font in english looks like home and tamil in tamil looks weird. We live in a generation who can read tamil written in english font faster than tamil written in tamil. The first time I went into my company and expected everyone to speak in english. Now I feel stupid about it. Speak in the language both of you can understand, that should be fine as long as you don’t make a fool of yourself speaking english to the client, in that case you may speak english at work to refine it. The obsession with english has grown into people so much that little kids speak to their parents in english. I mean, I can’t speak to my parents in english without feeling super weird about it and I’m happy that way. I don’t ever want to speak to them in english. English is for my job and it should stay there unless necessary. Your language is the one you are comfortable with and you speak your heart in it and slowly english is taking that spot. I don’t know guys, It doesn’t have that ring to it when it comes to personal things.

Na unna kadhalikaren sounds way cooler than I love you 😛 just saying.
Note to self: Mavane, inime english la yosika kudadhu. (Translation: Bugger, don’t ever think in english from now on) ( I’m too lazy to type it in tamil font but you get the picture right? )

Ps: Maha janangale, nalla english pesuna kuda paravalle, thayavu senju pesanungaradukkaga english ah pesi uyira vaangadeenga. Please.

Translation of the above on request from Sreekar: ( Dear people, I don’t mind if you speak proper english, please don’t speak english for the heck of it )

Things i learnt from Muppoluthum Un Karpanaigal

Warning: Contains spoilers, in this case, life savers to stop you from going to the extent of killing yourself for sitting through the movie.

1. All girls flirt with a guy who is way below their league just because he’s the hero.
2. Songs are very essential and a scantly clad heroine is a must (like you didn’t know this already)
3. Whenever the heroine wears a tight dress or white, it rains in Bangalore (especially in songs)
4. IT companies have talent shows called National Software Competition where a guy and girl are given the same room for more than a month to prepare for the big day.
5. You need names like global infosys and Narayana Keerthi (sounds like the names of cheap chinese equivalents) to emphasise the presence of big names in IT competitions and the director couldn’t think of a better name for a top indian IT guy than “narayana keerthi” sigh..
6. A girl can hug to welcome every stranger she meets. (i sure didn’t know this..it was a revelation)
7. If the hero is a psycho, the heroine calling his name will always sound like a cry for help from a damsel in distress.
8. Mobile phone companies will re-issue a unused number in under 3 months. (i maybe wrong)
9. National software competitions use a huge multi touch screens for their presentation. (now, i need to find out where they have kept it in my office. Oh, how good it would be to play angry birds in that)
10. Drugs are so easily available and they are mixed clearly in front of everyone by the bartender.
11. Tamil cinema is evolving. Usually, when they show an America maapillai ( a NRI groom from the states for those who don’t follow tamil ) character, he is mostly shown as a rude guy or someone with an affair with a girl there, now he can also be a gay/bi. (way to go director)
12. You can use as many flashbacks as you want in a movie. (thankfully no mosquito coils rolling in front of the screen)
13. Girls fall in love for pathetic dumb-ass dialogues which involves words like, world, you, life, love, feelings in a jumbled order.
14. When you ask a hero about the girl he loves, he should sing and dance.
15. A hero can have no friends at all. (breaking from the usual tamil movie formula of three guys around the hero always)
16. You always need a designer knife to kill anyone if you are the hero. (this is mandatory and high priority) Looks cool though.
17. You need to wear face paint and hood with a cape like thing if you are going out at night to kill someone.
18. A police commissioner can close a case of the murdered son of the home minister in few days even after knowing the killer just because his conscience felt it was right. (i mean, where are those traitors from each movie where they give minute by minute update from the commissioner’s office to the minister, they gave it to the minister’s son in this same movie for cryin out loud)
The last (at-least from what i can recollect of the stupidity) is the one that put me off completely and wanted me to pity the stupid director for his peanut sized brain or lack of interest in minute details..
19. You can control mobile phone radiation and save endangered species using a software. ( I’d be glad to pay if they develop an android app for it )

One argument i heard is that its a debut movie for the director and he’s made it look like a big director’s movie with usual mistakes. If he’s young and this is his debut, he should have been more careful with the details. (personal opinion)

A friend of mine, after watching the movie told me, the director might have een inspired from shutter island. If he’d seen atleast one movie of Martin Scorsese fully, he’d know how important it is to give attention to minute details. Looking forward for the magic of “Hugo” to be released in mid march in india.

Semmozhiyam Tamizh!!

This is not something i wanted to write but i couldn’t avoid.. the world ‘classical’ Tamil conference is just around the corner and i think it was the right time to speak bout this.. everything is going online these days including our hard disks in the name of cloud computing..but what is the state of ‘Tamil’ online?? i’m not an avid reader of Tamil literature, i don wanna comment or point out someone for this problem but since i couldn’t do anything bout it, why not tell it to the world where at least someone could do something bout this.. ah, come on! get to the matter!! right?? open Google.com or Google.co.in whichever opens, select the language as tamil in the page..now type the alphabets one by one in normal keyboard and see what google gives as search suggestions!! ( my friend told this to me as a joke, i laughed and thought he was just kidding until i saw that myself..not the sites, just the google page 😉 ) now can u understand what i’m getting to?? if someone outside tamlnadu or someone who is new to tamil see this, what ll be the first thing they’ll think..isn’t there anything other than porn in tamil?? sorry ‘classical’ tamil right?? this is the state of tamil in google search ( doesn’t google show everything in the internet? )  maybe it isn’t anyone’s fault but that doesn’t mean this is right! i came across a site sayin there are millions of sites in tamil but none of them come up in the search suggestion..its time somebody do something bout this except maybe throwing stones at the google headquarters 😉 ..with the tamil world conference coming up, tamil ll be searched by most people..hope they don’t search it in tamil!! mella tamil ini saagama irunda seri!!