H2 CY 2013 - Kollywood wish list

Today is a light day at work so while I wait to get back home and download MARYAN and listen to the songs, I was thinking of 10 things I could do less with in Kollywood this year and then this list quickly flashed through my mind. Wonder how many people will agree with me on this.

1. "Poetu" Dhanush
2. "Singer" Yuvan Shankar Raja
3. "Villain" Prakash Raja
4. "Hero" Cheran
5. "Comedy king" Udhayanidhi
6. "Director" Vikraman/Vasanth
7. "Producer" Action King Arjun
8. Superhit remakes from Malayalam
9. Gaana songs like Ora Kannaale
10. Politics in controversies like Viswaroopam and Kadal

Why on earth do we need FACEBOOK?

This is a rant and will be a long one at that too. If you're an unabashed fan of social networks (and by that I mostly mean you "FACEBOOK" in CAPS, BOLD, TIMES NEW ROMAN, 42 font), then you’re either going to hate me because you just don’t agree with me (or) you’re gonna hate my guts for exactly saying things that you know to be true but wouldn’t dare acknowledge in public. Either way you’re gonna hate me so here we go.

Who am I connected to in Facebook?

Mostly friends & acquaintances from school and college, a few well-wishers & contacts from childhood, some associates & colleagues from work and of course, distant and close relatives.

How did I get connected with them?

Very few people by choice, a few by chance, many others by a harmless mistake of assuming they were the same people that I “knew” from the past, some by emotional blackmail and the remaining by social compulsion.

What do these people typically post?

Across all categories of people – those I have known from the 80s to the people I’ve had the “privilege” of knowing only from last week - the posting behaviors are similar.

40% of the time, these folks post insanely boring, mundane slices of their life - stuff that used to be just random thoughts inside people's minds pre Feb-2004

The ones that "amused" me most

·         Mmm... The molagu rasam I made today smells good. Here is the recipe (36 Likes, 17 comments)

·         Bored at home. Tried my hand at Pulli Kolam & Neli Kolam. See picture below (145 Likes, 104 NRI comments, 3 Resident Indian comments)

·         Found this nice library near home with lots of books on how to solve Level 5 Sudoku puzzles (16 likes and 3 comments)

30% of the time, content revolves around personal stuff that would never have found a way into public domain before Mark Zuckerberg got drunk one night

Here are some best of the worst

·         Rahul enters 3rd round of Squash tournament in school (18 Likes and 35 Congrats comments)

Incidentally, Rahul is 8 yrs old and his 1st rd was a bye and his 2nd rd opponent gave a walk-over due to suspected dysentery. NO KIDDING.

·         Pictures from our daughter's Birthday party - Meira turns 6 (0 Likes and 0 comments)

...where participation was ensured by publicising in advance that return gifts for kids would be an Ipod, all lovingly captured by the photo-crazy but not so popular parents.

·         Honeymoon snaps from Peru posted 16th Feb (255 Likes and 201 drooling comments)

...oh yes, the marriage was on 14th February and ALMOST all snaps have only the newly wed bride in them and she is the one posting on Facebook.

·         Skiing in the Alps with Manas and Robert  (1 like and 1 comment)

Sent to ALL the unfortunate 140 in the 'Friends' list including the 138 who don’t know Manas and/or Robert

·         With Sunny Leone at Mumbai airport (11 Likes and 34 comments)

I suspect most of the comments were requests for phone number

20% of the time, I am assaulted with insightful opinions, thought-provoking views and earth-shattering ideas

The winners are

·         Chris Gayle rocks !! (146 likes, 44 comments)

·         I love my iPhone 5 (14 likes, 6 comments)

·         Sharapova & Dimitrov…Tasty (33 likes, 12 comments including a couple of broken heart emoticons)

·         Just saw Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani trailor - Ranbir is soooooooo cute....(733 likes, 10 comments)

The Likes to Comments ratio says it all

·         Happy Republic Day (52 likes, 21 comments)

It's not like its Mother's Day or Father's Day, it’s Republic Day for God’s sake !!!!!!!!!!!

It’s the remaining 10% of content that I really wish I could filter and read. ALAS.

…and if you don’t agree with any of my above observations, here is my last anecdote which hopefully will open a few eyes on what to post / what not to post and more importantly, who to share with.

I was catching up with an old friend of mine from college days and after a few beers were down, my pal opened up and bared his heart out about all his old conquests and the ones that had spurned him.  Logging quickly to FB through his “high-end mobile”, he showed me a picture of one of our old classmates with her two kids and remarked that the little ones could have been his, instead there he was miles away from her and pressing LIKE to all her photographs.

I rest my case. End of rant.

The Alone Times - 1

….and so its Day 1 of my new found Bachelorhood v 2.0.  So far it’s been incident-free but I am not hopeful that this run will continue long. In fact, I’d be surprised if it lasted till dinner time.  Sigh.

*Flash-backs to arbitrary moments from the past 6 years*

J: Damn, its 645 already. Is the geyser on? Have you picked what I should wear today? Coffee ready-a? Can you drop me at the bus stop? Please helppppppppppppppppp.

J: We WILL NOT watch Gautam Vasudev Menon movies ever again. IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?

(2 weeks later) J:Please dee… shall we watch NEPV? Kenji kekkaraen….

J: Should we paint this yellow or blue?

M: Why not green?

J: But isn’t green so *******?

M: Yeah but it depends on the shade you pick? I say yellow

J: …but blue is soooooooo nice.

M: If you want blue, why don’t you just say so?

J

J: Coffee is too light….Coffee romba strong today….Too much sugar….Missing a little sugar……ayyo, way tooooooooo hot….Cheee, aari pochu !!!....why is there so much norai in my kaapi L

J: Why are my jeans ironed along the imaginary pleat? Is he an idiot? Can you please salvage this?

J: I can’t decide which shirt to buy.  This is really nice but way too expensive. This is okie dokie but fits my budget perfectly.

J: I don’t want anything for my birthday.. Nothing… no seriously nothing… except maybe, can we go to the Arsenal Carling Cup game? Woooooooohooooooooooo

(Tring Tring) J: Why don’t you pick the phone? It’s always your relatives

M: I’m cooking - That ring-tone is your aunt’s. Speak to her and ask her about her health.

J:  You’re my better half. My aunt is now your relative – please speak to her and tell her I’m on an important call. It’s the 84^th minute and Stoke are drawing Tottenham.  We need this to finish 4^th. Please.

 

*end of flasback*

Jupe misses M (already).  Count-down begins.

2 Fantastic songs to listen on continuous loop

Poraane Poraane - Vaagai Sooda Vaa (Ghibran)

Mazhai varum - Veppam (Joshu Sridhar)

Turning the clock back: IPL - A Phenomenon

• I always thought there was a huge market for a product like the IPL in a cricket-mad country like India.
• I was also confident that the format would unearth and engage a new set of people including women and family audiences.
• I all foresaw how it would make us a superpower in the cricketing world stage and how the money would bring every star from across the cricket playing fraternity down on his knees wanting to be a part of the annual circus.
• What I was a little apprehensive about was the reaction & response from the purists and the followers of old school cricket (read: Tests) but even this has surprised me.
• What I completely did not expect to happen was for the frenzy to last 6 full seasons and even relegate our other national obsession, movies, completely to the background for these 6-8 weeks.

Wowwwwwwwww.....Really.... Wowwwwwwwwwwwwww

Today, my 9 year old cousin has her favorite franchise and she looks at me perplexed when I tell her I couldn't care less. Of course, I am expected to root for Chennai Super Kings (and heck, I even have a cheap but original Dhoni jersey) but then I have no choice. If there was a TPL (TamilNadu Premier League), I'd rather die than support Chennai but then....

I have been so on-and-off IPL that I realised only last week that Shadab Jakati was not even figuring for "my" CSK. Whatever happened to him? Looks like our new unsung hero / season's flavour is Mohit Sharma.

The other big news is that my junior & buddy from school days Rajagopalan Sathish is (again) struggling to make a mark for himself. Except for the 27 runs he scored during that memorable 130 run partnership with Miller, he's hardly set the stage on fire. Tsk Tsk.

Virat Kohli has to be the most outrageously talented but utterly obnoxious cricketer I have seen in my life. The less said about his on-field nautanki the better.

Rajasthan Royals, everyone's 2nd favourite team (unless you are from Rajasthan itself), have again been a pleasant surprise. It's magical to see a couple of old senior pros like Dravid, Hodge mix with the likes of Ajinkya Rahane, Sid Trivedi, Sanju Samson/Vishwanadh, Dishant Yagnik and conjure up one amazing truimph after another. Way to go RR !!!

The cheerleaders continue to suck, Sidhu and Jadeja are still boring and listening to Gavasakar spout gyaan on T20 still drives me mad.

Btw, I think Preity looks cuter than Shilpa Shetty. Come sue me.