Secuirty Threat My Ass

I've always wanted to maintain a certain level of decorum to my posts. Not this time. I am typing things as I feel it. On April 16th 2010, Parvathi Ammal 79 year old mother of Velupillai Prabakaram was not allowed into India. She had a valid Visa to come to India given by Indian embassy officials in Malaysia. The immigration officials cited security reasons for not allowing her into this country. She was stopped in the plane, possibly harassed and sent back to Malaysia in the same plane. Justice in this case was swift. Lets recollect the reason again.

LAW AND ORDER PROBLEM

What in the name of hell do these people think. A 79 year old, sick woman with a valid visa for treatment was not allowed into this great nation because her presence would cause law and order problem. Alright. Lets get some perspective here.

One of India's or should I say, Indian Government's darling is Mahinda Rajapaksa; A.K.A Caligula Lite. Lets take a look at his remarkable achievements here.

Amnesty International, one of the leading defender of human rights is banned in Srilanka. One of the very few nations to ban them

The last stages of the recent ethnic cleansing conducted by Srilankan government ended in millions of ethnic tamils being displaced, killed or even worse. Amensty International urged the United Nations to conduct immediate enquiry into these claims but those efforts were thwarted by Srilanka with allies such as YOUKNOWWHO and YOUKNOWWHOELSE

This "man" gets to go to Thirupathi thirumala on a whim, visit the cream of the ruling party and all.

But not an old lady for medical treatment.

There is a saying in Tamil.

பேய்கள் ஆட்சி செய்ய பிணம் தின்னும் சாத்திரங்கள்

How true it it.

Bullshitting your way to ISO Certification

ISO certification is one of the most sought after and prestigious certifications that is out there. Every organization worth its salt, will covet one. Of late, getting ISO certification seems to be pretty easy. You put in few hundred man hours and you are good to go. I call it bullshitting your way to ISO certification. So, what does these companies do to get their ISO certification ? Here is the gyan for all ISO aspirants. Here is a 5 step process to get easy ISO certification.

Salvage all operations manual (1 day)

This is the first step. Try and salvage every piece of operations guide that can be salvaged. Nothing is non-sense even if they don't make any sense. Get them all. get them now. Get them here.

Juice the managers (4 days)

Over work, over work and over work the managers. There won't be another chance to bully all the nincompoop's at the same time. They are the ones who need to make sense out of these operations manual and create new ones in line with ISO standards. By the end of the deadline, each manager must be ISO ready and ensure his/her team is ISO ready
PS::By ISO ready, we mean that the ISO aligned documents are ready (managers) and the team is informed of the location of these new documents and instructed to open only them during inspection.

Create Panic (2 days)

Spread the word. After two days, the workplace will be a bit short of Kurkshetra, everyone psyched up and throwing up

Leverage Network

Track the external auditors and use your network to get "friendly people on board

D Day

Give paid leave to weak links and if not leave, hide them in store room and restrooms. When the auditors arrive, take them out to a secluded office room and feed them with the documents there(you play your cards well, this will be a cake walk)

Last Word

ISO certification was started with a honourable vision. To improve quality of work. But the process is so abused, that it doesn't make sense anymore. So, don't bullshit your entry level employees with all the processes and protocols. Just get the damn thing done.

Breakthrough by ISRO scientists

It was a momentous day for scientists at ISRO Bangalore. The project they've been working on for 4 years now has come to fruition. Today at 13:23 IST, India became the fourth nation in the world to measure the time taken by Vijay Mallaya to turn full circle. Final results revealed that Mr.Mallaya took 27 hours 53 minutes and 37 seconds. This is a small departure from 23 hours 12 minutes and 13 seconds recorded by USA 2 years before.

Today, India followed USA, Russia and China to successfully measure Mr.Mallaya's rotation. It was pandemonium at ISRO, Bangalore's Vikram Sarabhai Research Centre when the concluding result was published and validated. Mr.Nair, chairman of ISRO called it a "Momentous Occasion, one that we achieved through months of hard work and dedication". Mr.Nair added that the initiative was fraught with risks but the scientists held their own during various challenges.

The entire project was started 4 years ago after USA published the results of its mission, Lexus 23 to measure Vijay Mallaya's circumference and time he takes to revolve 360 degrees. The entire project cost NASA 17$ billion. Soon, China piped India to start its own Mallaya fact finding mission and came up with its results last year. India incurred 321$ million dollars which is a fraction of what USA(17$ billion), Russia (13$ billion) or China (2$ billion) spent on their missions.

Mr.Nair added that the project resulted in some path breaking inventions in Thermo-Nuclear Dynamics and Aqua-Polar-Caustics and promised a manned mission to Andromeda within the next decade.

The scientists spent 3 years preparing for the mission and real breakthrough came during the IPL when Mallaya was spotted at various parts of India and South Africa. ISRO used remote sensing satellites to map his locations and some classified satellites from Israel were borrowed to generate the data across time spans.

The prime minister Mr.Manmohan Singh congratulated the scientists at ISRO wished them for all future endeavors.From BJP's front, Mr.Arun Jaitley started with, "This is an outrageous allegation by the Congress and the opposition will vehemently oppose it in accordance to the UN rulings and the judgment passed by the Supreme Court of India..." when the press personnel interrupted and explained him about the achievement by ISRO scientists, he excused himself for recess and was not seen again.


PS: The style is inspired from Anand Ramachandran. Any credit/dis-credit should go to him.

Where Love is, God Is

27th April 2010

I am not one of those Dairy freaks. But something happened today which I felt like recording.

I took the usual 13:40 bus to my office. In Udhyam bus stop, a family of four (Husband, Wife, Son {about 5years} and daughter {2 years max}) boarded the bus and took the ladies and gents seat appropriately. Within minutes, their daughter started shouting and crying. This is what caught my attention and many others' as well. When the boy asked his mother as to why the child was crying, she replied that the kid wanted to site with her father and smiled.

That's all that happened.

This is just an ordinary incident. In fact, it is not an incident at all. When their conversation ended and the mother smiled, I felt "love" around me. It was for a fraction of a second but I felt it.

May be that is what family is all about.

PS: About the title, I really didn't feel God there. Thought the title will be catchy.

Smashin Tondulkar

“I have seen god, he bats at no. 4 for India.”- Mathew Hayden

“Nothing bad can happen to us if we’re on a plane in India with Sachin Tendulkar on it.” – Hashim Amla, the South African batsman, reassures himself as he boards a flight.

“Sometimes you get so engrossed in watching batsmen like Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar that you lose focus on your job.”- Yaseer Hameed in pakistani newspaper.

“To Sachin, the man we all want to be.”- Andrew Symonds wrote on an Aussie T-shirt he autographed specially for Sachin.

“Beneath the helmet, under that unruly curly hair, inside the cranium, there is something we don’t know, something beyond scientific measure. Something that allows him to soar, to roam a territory of sport that, forget us, even those who are gifted enough to play alongside him cannot even fathom. When he goes out to bat, people switch on their TV sets and switch off their lives.”- BBC on Sachin

“Tujhe pata hai tune kiska catch chhoda hai?”- Wasim Akram to Abdul Razzaq when the latter dropped Sachin’s catch in 2003 WC.

“Sachin is a genius. I’m a mere mortal.”- Brian Charles Lara

“We did not lose to a team called India …we lost to a man called Sachin.”- Mark Taylor, during the test match in Chennai (1997)

“The more I see of him the more confused I’m getting to which is his best knock.”- M. L. Jaisimha

“The joy he brings to the millions of his countrymen, the grace with which he handles all the adulation and the expectations and his innate humility – all make for a one-in-a-billion individual,”- Glen McGrath

“I can be hundred per cent sure that Sachin will not play for a minute longer when he is not enjoying himself. He is still so eager to go out there and play. He will play as long as he feels he can play,”- Anjali Tendulkar


Shah Rukh Khan: “There was a big party where stars from bollywood and cricket wer e invited. Suddenly, there was a big noise, all wanted to see approaching Amitabh Bachhan. Then Sachin entered the hall and Amitabh was leading the queue to get a grab of the GENIUS!”
- Shah Rukh Khan in an interview.

“India me aap PrimeMinister ko ek Baar Katghare me khada kar sakte hain..Par Sachin Tendulkar par Ungli nahi utha Sakte.. “- Navjot Singh Sidhu on TV

“He can play that leg glance with a walking stick also.”- Waqar Younis

“Sachin Tendulkar has often reminded me of a veteran army colonel who has many medals on his chest to show how he has conquered bowlers all over the world. I was bowling to Sachin and he hit me for two fours in a row. One from point and the other in between point and gully. That was the last two balls of the over and the over after that we (SA) took a wicket and during the group meeting I told Jonty (Rhodes) to be alert and I know a way to pin Sachin. I delivered the first ball of my next over and it was a fuller length delevery outside offstump. I shouted ‘catch’. To my astonishment the ball was hit to the cover boundary. Such was the brilliance of Sachin. His reflex time is the best I have ever seen. Its like 1/20th of a sec. To get his wicket better not prepare. Atleast you wont regret if he hits you for boundaries.- Allan Donald

“On a train from Shimla to Delhi , there was a halt in one of the stations. The train stopped by for few minutes as usual. Sachin was nearing century, batting on 98. The passengers, railway officials, everyone on the train waited for Sachin to complete the century. This Genius can stop time in India!”- Peter Roebuck – Aussie journalist

“Sachin cannot cheat. He is to cricket what (Mahatma) Gandhiji was to politics. It’s clear discrimination.”- NKP Salve, former Union Minister when Sachin was accused of ball tempering

“There are 2 kind of batsmen in the world. One Sachin Tendulkar. Two all the others.”- Andy Flower
“Commit all your sins when Sachin is batting. They will go unnoticed because even GOD is watching.”- A hoarding in Sydney

“Even my father’s name is Sachin Tendulkar.”- Tendulkar’s daughter, Sara, tells her class her father’s name after the teacher informs them of a restaurant of the same name in Mumbai.

PS:Entire post is lifted from i3j3cricket.com.
Thanks to them

Common Man's Hero

If an up and coming actor is offered the prospect of acting only in 9 movies in the first ten years of his career, he would be skeptical. However, if I sweeten it up by saying that 3 of the nine movies would hog the theatres for more than a year and one would create record for the longest run that would hold for 60 years, he may be tempted to take it. Add some curve balls like a jail term of 30 months, few flops (considering the previous runs) and eventual sanyasa you have a classic movie in the making.

Welcome to the world of The Star, The Man, The Actor MKT a.k.a Mayavaram Krishnamurthy Thyagaraja Bhagavathar. We celebrate his birth centenary on 1st March 2010 and it could be the right time to have a look at his life and pay our tributes.

Born into a family of goldsmiths, his interest in music drove him away from family business towards stage. At the age of 10, our man made his stage debut in Harischandra. After that, there was no turning back. Some scorching performances, public adoration and hard work landed him his first movie "Pavalakkodi", a remake of his super hit play.

His arrival was a moral booster to the common public because up until then, the movie and carnatic music as a business and practice was dominated by a members of a particular caste. His arrival was a breath of fresh air to the public.

His first movie marathon was "Chintamani " which created box office record running for more than a year. However, his next film, "Ambikapathy" directed by Ellis R. Dungan created quite a stir with some pretty steamy scenes involving the lead pair including a pristine smooch by our man. "Ambikapathy" broke the record set by "Chintamani", catapulting baghavathar to the pinnacle of super stardom.

"Ambikapathy" was followed by "Sathyaseelan" (home production), "Thiruneelakantar" ( the songathon remembered by everyone until this day), "Ashok Kumar" and Sivakavi" in 1943.

In the year 1944, THE movie was released. "Haridas" a unassuming, Indianised Casanova played by Baghavathar was THE super hit movie of all times. Running for more than three years on the trot, the movie saw off 3 deepavalis.

In the same year, Baghavathar was convicted along with NS Krishnan and four others for the murder of journalist Lakshmikanthan. Post an appeal, Baghavathar and NSK were released after 30 months prison term. This ended the career of two of the most versatile and endearing stars Tamil industry could ever have.

After the jail term, film offered reduced and Baghavathar found himself alienated. He produced his own movies. He acted in five more movies before passing on in the year 1959.

His acting exploits should not and cannot overshadow his talent as a carnatic singer par excelence. being a member of Tamizh Isai Movement did not give him enough opportunities in the Bhramin dominated field. He never gave a performance at the annual thayagaraja aaradhanai, a celebration of carnatic music by the "elite".

Enemy at the Gates

The Overture


"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within"


Mel Gibson kick starts one of the most engrossing movies of our time with this line. I have my doubts over the credibility of this statement w.r.t the movie's portrayal of the end of Mayans. However, I believe it can withstand the litmus test when applied to many other past civilizations. My recent experiences and indulgences with literature of the political LEFT left me pondering over the future of DEMOCRATIC societies like ours.

Is the very fabric of our DEMOCRACY under threat ? Are the enemies at the gate now ? Will the rich and proud Indian culture and heritage cease to exist ? I am not sure. The culture/heritage thing is a hyperbole I guess. But if things that happens now goes on unchecked, I firmly believe India could become another USA and that is the greatest insult one can heap on a nation. I've started this post to learn if we are starring at an impending doom. I am not a fan of fiction. Whatever I refer here can be safely assumed as a fact.

As the ENLIGHTENED say there are four pillars to democracy. If democracy is to be sustained, these pillars ought to be strong and alive. They are


*     Legislature

*     Executive

*     Judiciary

*     Press


In a utopian version of Democracy, these pillars must be independent of each other, each doing its duty to the fullest without fear of interference from the other. The legistature (nobel candidates who represent people) enacts laws and regulations for the welfare of the majority, the executive (honest employees of the people) implements them while the judiciary (court of LAW) and the press (resourceful and honest sons of guns) monitor both legislature and executive and criticise/reign in them if they cross the line. Enough of V standard CIVICS lessons.


Lets try and see if these so called pillars are actually independent of each other and perform duties they ought to do.

Await for updates to this post......