Blog Marathon post 8: Technically speaking.....

Yeah....I missed one day. But, no I'm not. Technically may be. This time is not yet my end of day. As per my calendar, my day ends only when I sleep. I'm here just to write this post. So, I'm still keeping up with this. Good to go Karthik. I, myself patting on my back. (What to do? There is no one here to do that. Pity me :-( )

As usual, I'm going to ramble something here. Best way is to describe what has happened today so far? In three words... Fantastic but awful.

Most of the day, I felt very happy. The code that I was struggling with is completed successfully. And it is not giving any errors.

I found so many blogs today and I'm happy with it. A few are movie blogs. Read some posts. How the hell these people are writing this good? Putting so much effort and their commitment. I have to learn a lot from them. Carefully reading them. Will try to imitate first, till I get my own style. Should be more careful not to imitate always. I know there is a limit to imitate and I should not cross.(This is note to myself).

Downloading the movie "Disgrace". I read reviews that it is awfully good movie. Can't wait to see it.

Read Leena Manimekalai's - a tamil poet - blog about some of the happenings in the last few weeks. I always admire bold and strong girls. She knows what she is talking about. She is very clear in what she is writing. Admiring her too. (I may not agree with what she is saying or writing. That doesn't mean that I shouldn't like her)
Read a few technical things about movies. The concept of long shot in "Vaarthaigal" blog. This seems really a good blog. Suresh Kannan's recommendation. Cannot be a bad one :-)

Forgot my key in the room itself. So, have to go to friend's office, have to disturb him in the middle of the night to get the key and got back just an hour before... and writing this post. (This is that awful part).

Seriously, I have to work on my absent mindedness and procrastinating habit.

Will see...

That sums up pretty much. See you tomorrow with another post.

The Calvin and Hobbes is for you to enjoy. Not related with this post, in case if you were thinking about it.

Blog marathon post 7: How to write a blog post?

Well, thats what I'm thinking about right now. I got to write a post now and one post each day for next 23 days. Successfully I have completed 6 days.

Ok ok ..hang on...hang on people.... just dont hurry leaving...thats a joke. Since you have belived me that I will give you some tips, it becomes my responsibility to do so. I take my responsibility too seriously. Here goes your tips... if you follow at least one tip, I will consider this as successful post. Ok, lets start...

Tip No:1 This is how you should start a post, when you dont know anything to talk about. Choosing topics of this kind, will help you to ramble anything about it. You dont really have to worry about whether it will make sense or not.

Tip No:2 Dont go and browse points to your topic. If you can find that easily in such short time, anyone can. They dont have to come here. If they still come to your blog, they will eventually know after reading the first line itself that they have wasted their time, but if they still continue reading we should not miss the pleasure of pointing that to them as I did now. :-)

Tip No:3 No one has ever given you this tip. A real good one. Write a post when you are really sleepy. That time you just want to go to sleep after you finish your post. That way you wont think much. You thought process will have such a flow and it will be better than your excuses when somebody wakes you up in the early morning.

Tip No:4 Don't always think about your blog. Some people think their blog/posts when they walk, talk, bath, watch movies, listen to news even when they blurb.(Like how to use this blurb in the post?). Even when their dogs blurb, they will think to write that as a post. That is too dangerous. In such cases, you will have lots of ideas and you will be weighing all the ideas to choose the better one. Thats waste of time. Open your system. Log in to your blog. Click new post. What ever topic comes to your mind and just start writing it. You will get a superb post with your original ideas.

Tip No:5 Best point again. If you want to write a really good post just do the opposite of all the tips given here.

If you follow the first four tips, my post is success. And if you don't follow the first four tips, even though my post is a success. So, this is a successful post.
And I'm happy with that.

Incredible India

Got this as a forward.... It made me think. Thought of sharing with you all...

INCREDIBLE INDIA:

# We live in a nation where Rice is Rs.40/- per kg and Sim Card is free.

# Pizza reaches home faster than Ambulance and Police.

# Car loan @ 5% but education loan @ 12%.

# Students with 45% get in elite institutions thru quota system and those with 90% get out because of merit.


# 2 IPL teams are auctioned at 3300 crores and we are still a poor country where people starve for 2 sqaure meal per day.

# Assembly complex buildings are getting ready within one year while public transport bridges alone takes several years to be completed.

# Where a millionaire can buy a cricket team instead of donating the money to any charity.

# Where every body wants to be famous but no one wants to follow the path to be famous.

# Where people standing at tea stall reading an article about child labour from a newspaper and say "Yaar, bachho se kam karwane wale ko to fansi par chadha dena chahiye" and then they shouts "oye CHHOTU 2 chai la.

Blog Marathon Post 6: My Photography sucks!!!

Damn me!! Damn Lazy me. The stupid and idiot lazy Karthik in me is the biggest enemy of my growth. He is the sole responsibility for all my setbacks. He knows I love photography.

All good things for me started happening only after I joined Ford. I started buying books regularly. I bought an MP3 player for me. Got net connection... and the biggest thing is I bought my own camera. It is not very sophisticated but an ok kind of camera.

It has been an year that damn thing came into my life. I took many photos and I deleted many photos. I'm an damn introvert. Usually don't ask any help. My inter action with other unknown people will be very minimum. Also, there is no known people who knows photography Result: My growing rate is not so damn good.

And I came to know about Flickr and all that photo blogs and sites. Bought even photography books(Should sue them... there is not a single tip for a beginner, but lots and lots of ads and ads and ads....i left them coz this book contains a few superb photos). Explored so many photos. I will be staring at some photos for a very very long time. If there is a photo, I think myself as the photographer and will think how I would have taken that photo. If I don't understand I will be staring at the photo for long long time....eventually I will sleep. I have slept only 99 times out of my hundred visits to such photo sites.

I read somewhere that it is not aperture or shutter speed or DOF or ISO or any other technicalities...it is the mood, the emotion, the theme that gives beauty to the photos. So, I didnt learn any of that. Also tried to take photos, if there is an emotional outburst. I took several deep emotional photos. I'm damn pretty(not preethi or preity) sure about that. Only thing is that no one can find those emotions in those photos. I think people should really have photo sense when they view photos esp my photos. Becoz most of them are blurry. Yeah, since they are blurry you need abstract thinking also.

Later I decided to learn about these technicalities also. Still I dont know how to read f/4 or something like that. Aperture and shutter speed are Greek and Latin to me. Exposure always exhausts me...(Good rhyming na?? )

Nowadays, I put a bed in the balcony, lie down looking at the sky and deeply thinking about what to do next. One thing I'm pretty sure one day I will surely become a photographer i mean good photographer.

PS: Did I tell you how I got interested in Photography? All because of my English master in 12th standard. The way he pronounces photography. He used to give greater stress to the first syllable like PHOTO-gra-fy. I immediately fell in love with Phot - o - graphy.

See you all in the next post.

Blog Marathon Post 5: Women and Freedom

When I first read about the abusing post of one male blogger targeting a woman blogger, and all the hullabaloo around this issue, the first question which came to my mind, What triggers him to write that post? What he was thinking about that time?

This lead me to think about women freedom in India. This is the first time I'm actually looking into some real data and reading serious stuff. Before I share my thoughts, lets have a look at few statistics.

Click the link to get the full report:


Worldwide:

70% of the 1.2 billion people living in poverty are female.

Women do more than
67% of the hours of work done in the world
Earn only 10% of the world's income
And own only 1% of the world's property

Women are paid 30-40% less than men for comparable work on an average

The value of unremunerated work was estimated at about $16 billion,
from which $11 billion represents the invisible contribution of women.

In India:


The child sex ratio has dropped from
945 females per 1000 males in 1991 to
927 females per 1000 males in 2001

The United Nations Children’s Fund, estimated that upto 50 million girls and women are ‘missing’ from India’s population
because of termination of the female foetus or high mortality of the girl child due to lack of proper care


Female share of non-agricultural wage employment is only 17%

Participation of women in the workforce is only
13.9% in the urban sector and
29.9% in the rural sector

Women’s wage rates are, on an average
only 75 % of men’s wage rates and
constitute only 25% of the family income


Can you say women have freedom even after seeing this report?

Ok, forget about this. Lets look around us. Dont just see the women in Metros. Dont just see the women in upper middle class families. (To be contd...)

Blog Marathon Post 4: Sholay

Since I have just started watching Hindi movies I wanted to watch only good Hindi movies. And so did I. Till now I have watched just a few handful of movies. Recent addition to that list is Sholay.

Considering the time it has taken, it is a great movie. It still involves us to its complete duration of running. It has everything to offer you. Heroic moments, demonic villain, nonsensical comedy, sentiments all mixed well together and painted on a 70MM screen.



Some of the scenes I was reminded of "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly". I think we should not compare these two(Of course, you know the reasons). The reasons was In Sholay, in a couple of scenes, like the first scene where the policeman visits Thakur and when Gabbar attacks the village, one or two mins there will be no music or very mild music but what u see is great landscape or aerial view of the place. You can see the same pattern in "TGTBTU" also.

The story is simple. Veeru(Dharmendra) and Jai(Amithab) are two small time culprits. There are wanted by a police office Thakur to catch the bandit Gabbar Singh. Inbetween a flash back about how Thakur lost his hands, romance by Veeru and Basanti, sentiments about Thakurs daughter in law and all that Jazz.

I'm not that into music, I enjoyed two songs. Yeh Dosti and Mehbooba. The reason might be those two are really catchy. I couldnt find any fault with screenplay also. As long as I'm concerned, its not boring. Then it must be a good screenplay :-)

My Verdict: You can watch it anytime. With your friends the better.

Blog Marathon Post 3: Time ruins everything - Irreversible

I'm totally confused with this movie. As per the title of this movie, this is going backwards. The starting of the movie is actually end of the story. The movie ends where the story begins.

The story is simple. Alex(Monica Bellucci) while returning to home after attending a party brutally gets raped. Her husband Marcus wants to revenge it and in that attempt kills someone else and gets arrested.

The first 20 mins is very confusing. The camera is rotating all over the place. You should really be focused and patient to get into the movie. It will be like watching the movie when you are heavily drunk. The dark tone, the gay bar, the background music, rotating camera....its a different experience but it will give you a sick feel.




The BM is awesome. When Alex is shown in the screen for the first time, in the stretcher, with blood all over her face...heart beat is the only BM. With shaking camera and heart beat, it will be like you are there and watching the scene.

And the raping scene in the tunnel....GOD this is the most violent scene I have ever scene in a movie. I couldn't. In that precise moment, I hate to be a man. The anger I get that time, the helplessness - like it is actually happening...I don't know how to express in words... i just want to kill that animal.



The second half is really nice. Since I have seen what is going to happen to them already, I couldn't involve or take part in their joyous moments. The train conversation about sex and orgasms and the intimate scenes between Alex and Marcus - simply superb. I think I have to watch those scenes separately after the effects of those violent scenes fade away in my mind.

Camera work is brilliant. Starting with very dark tone and revolving camera, slowly getting brightness, sepia tone in that intimacy scene, and very bright and beautiful camera work at the end of the movie....in every frame the camera reflects the moods of the story.

It's not an enjoyable movie, will left you in disturbed mood. And there are nude scenes. If you are really really strong hearted and want to see the making... then go and watch it. I'm now thinking whether the director is sane or insane to make a movie like this.

Blog Marathon Post 2: English Books and Me - Part 1

I'm not regularly reading books these days. Thanks to Internet, TV and movies. But I was a voracious reader, only tamil books. Books I have read in English, I can easily count those. Now I'm feeling bad for losing track with reading. So this Post.

This post especially is to remind me how much I'm missing reading books(both in Tamil and English with special regards to English books :-) ). To remind me how I'm wasting my time in unnecessary things which no way going to enrich my knowledge, no way going to make me a better person. To remind me how much I miss those fantastic moments being in solitude with deep thoughts and questions. This post is to help me go back in time (mentally,ofcourse) and revel in time when I enjoy reading. Those magic moments of reading, where waiting for suspense to unfold, overwhelmed by the love, passion and emotions.

When I started reading English books? I never read even a single book till my college. I just memorised in school days. And how I dreaded English exams? Mugging up a single para from morning to evening....and writing the same thing for any questions asked. Thats how my English was in my school days. I was in English medium and moved to Tamil medium after high school. After my schooling I decided to improve my English. How? How? How? The only way I know was reading. (Thats what I'm good at but in Tamil).

I didn't have proper direction or guidance to how to go about it. In my college, I took English novels from library, kept it with me for a long time and will return it without reading. I remember I started reading Kane and Abel, only a few pages. Read some R K Narayan stories. After that I dont remember anything that worth reading. The first book, as far as my memory goes, I read was Naked face by Sidney Sheldon.

That time, I felt that, that was a good read, though I didnt understand completely. After that I started reading Sheldon books. Most of the times, I read only half of the books and will get bored to continue. Started reading Bloodline, Stranger in the mirror, Memories of midnight and Sands of Time. The books I really completed were Tell me your dreams, If tomorrow comes, The sky is falling ... and and... Oh! God! I read only three sheldon books.

The reason I couldnt complete a full book was, I was still struggling with English. I hadnt improved much even when I was doing post graduation. It was very difficult for me to write even one or two sentences in English without any errors. Only after Joining the tutoring company, since I had lots of time in my hand, and with the happy feeling that I was really earning, I started reading with more passion. Previously there was a purpose for my reading English books. There was a compulsion that I had to improve my language skills, but now, not necessary, I have job. I dont have to worry about my language skill for sometime, till I want to go for another job hunt..

The first book, I really enjoyed reading in English was Harry Potter - the first book - and the Philoshoper's stone. The next two years... reading all Harry potter series...
My life was very simple that time... Get up read Harrypotter...squeeze in some time to get ready... read Harry potter...while travelling read harrypotter.... only my physiqe was here... I was living in Howards school, listening to those magic teachers, speaking with Harry, Hermoine and Ron, Fred, George.... Madly in love with Hermoine... with great respect for Dumbledore...

When I finished the Deadly hollows.... once everything is over.... I felt that emptiness... kind of feel a retired man should get... like the marriage hall after the marriage... I used to get this feel whenever I read a huge novel... Becoz I will be living in that world. I will be mentally having relationship with those people....

After Harry potter.... the very important book which I read was "The fountainhead". This is also a good read. A book about objectivism, oppotunism and all isms... How you want to be? All youth should read the book to know why you are doing and what you are doing. What is it to have an aim, a purpose in life? How the world will react if you want to do things in your way? It will not give answers, but it will help you to ask yourself so many questions. Like whom you want to be? Howard Roark, Peter Keatings, Gail Wynand, or Toohey or like Dominique? Everyone wants to be Howard Roark or Wynand... most of the time we are Peter Keatings...(to be contd... in the next post)

Note: I may alter some of the things later.

Blog Marathon Post 1: Reasons I dont want to get married

I know as a guy it is weird to worry about marriage. Most guys I know are comfortable with getting married. (And they suffer later. Thats another story).

I dont know I will be a good partner to anyone. Reasons... a lot.

First, I don't value anything. I dont have money consciousness. I procrastinate everything. And I'm not strong. I mean some villians come and do some mischief, I cant fight them off and protect my girl. :-)

Till now nobody seems to fall in love with me(Well, except one). It means something is fundamentally wrong with me. Till I find it what, I'm afraid I can move further.

I have gone thru some sites searching what a girl really wants. Most of the girls love guys who have great sense of humor. Pity me, my sense of humor sucks. I think I have generations of fight (those who know tamil will understand this parambarai pagai) with presense of mind and sense of humor.

And I have read blogs of girls who are happy with married life. Almost all the husbands are getting up early, preparing tea, preparing food and doing all the household stuff and pampering them. Its a lot of work you know. And I usually dont get up before 8.30 and if it is weekend, not CERTAINLY before 12. I need an alter before getting married to do all these stuffs. (And I'm not sure how my alter will be :-( )

The hardest part is.... girls have greater mood swings. Those who are able to tackle this only can survive in the marriage. Again pity me, I too have mood swings. And I'm wondering if we are in opposite moods what will be the consequence?

Another dreary one... shopping. I'm shuddering just by thinking about lots and lots of bags in my hands, in my head, something in my back and still waiting for my girl to finish her shopping. After all these, getting to know that she is not even remotely satisfied with her shopping and wants to go for another one.....you know I will blissfully remain single... or live in relationship

Thats why I'm telling you guys I'm not SO COMFORTABLE with this marriage stuff. You know anyone for live in relationship?

Blog marathon !!!

Ok, I too want to take part in this blog marathon.

I know for sure that no one is reading my blog. Then why bother taking part in blog marathon and all ?

I know someday, I hope I too even write some good stuff and I will also have a few handful of good readers to my blog. That time, if some curious readers like me, dig into my archives, they should not(I mean you people, you are reading it now right?) get dissappointed.

My first and farmost concern is it should not bore them away. There should be some good stuff around. And I should not write just for the sake of writing.

Second dont pretend or dont write something that you dont belive in and dont write to show off. Be true to yourself. Call a spade a spade.

I know I'm a lazy guy. All time lazy. Super duper lazy. Atleast for this, put some effort. (Dont mind. I'm just begging myself. Ok?)

Ok, thats it. I'm starting today.