Gone are the days........but not the memories

Was clearing up my email inbox when I found this rare gem..
A really wonderful e-mail...Now I know what nostalgia means.And for the record..I studied in PS Senior, Chennai considered to be a thayirsadham school.Let me stop blabbering and allow you to relive the old memories...Here it goes..

Gone are the days
When the school reopened in June,
And we settled in our new desks and benches.

Gone are the days
When we queued up in book depot,
And got our new books and notes.

Gone are the days
When we wanted two Sundays and no Mondays, yet
Managed to line up daily for the morning prayers.

Gone are the days
When we chased one another in the corridors in Intervals,
And returned to the classrooms drenched in sweat.

Gone are the days
When we had lunch in classrooms, corridors,
Playgrounds, under the trees and even in cycle sheds.

Gone are the days
When a single P.T. period in the week's Time Table, Was awaited more
eagerly than the monsoons.

Gone are the days
Of fights but no conspiracies,
Of Competitions but seldom jealousy.

Gone are the days
When we used to watch Live Cricket telecast,
In the opposite house in Intervals and Lunch breaks.

Gone are the days
When few rushed at 5:30 to
"Conquer" window seats in our School bus.

Gone are the days
Of Sports Day, and the annual School Day,
And the one-month long preparations for them.

Gone are the days
Of the stressful Quarterly, Half Yearly and Annual Exams,
And the most enjoyed holidays after them.

Gone are the days
We learnt, we enjoyed, we played, we won, we lost, We laughed, we cried,
we fought, we thought.

Gone are the days
With so much fun in them, so many friends,
So much experience, all this and more.

Gone are the days
But not the memories, which will be
Lingering in our hearts for ever and ever and
Ever and ever and Ever.

Rape laws - Part Two

For those of you who want to imprison the rapist for life..
Here's the link...
http://www.petitiononline.com/norapes1/petition.html

Cheers

Good ol' Mylapore!

Mylapore never ceases to amaze me! I just got back from one of the finest treats Mylapore has to offer....a sumptuous meal at one of the many Kayendhibhavan's that you can find at every nook and corner of Mylapore.
Many thanks to my Amma who decided to accompany my sister on her dance trip, giving my Appa and myself the chance to relive old memories. No insults...amma's cooking is truly wonderful( most of the times, save for the extra uppu/karam in the sambar nights).
My tryst with the kayendhibhavan's ( KB ;) started when I was in my early teens, thanks to another of Mylapore's identities; Kutcheries! I used to accompany my family on their fairly regular visits to the Sabhas....sneak out as soon as the kutcheri starts, jog to the nearest KB and gorge myself on the parathas ( barota if you're at a KB), dosais, idlis, bajjis, bondas and amazing pongal vadais.(Ok I'm no Jughead Jones..one variety a day!).Perfect timing was my forte...always got back for the last applause.
Today, I filled myself with barotas and rava dosais. Was almost tempted to go for thayirsadham oorga combo to top it off...but decided to call it quits while at the maximum elasticity limit of an ever burping tummy.
My personal favourite is Vinayagha mess, so conveniently located equi-distant from Bharati Vidya Bhavan, RR Sabha and Kapali koyil. And for the not so koyil cum kutcheri inclined..its behind the Mylapore Tank!

Mylapore...namma Mylapore dhaan!

Deja vu-Been there done that!

Another deja vu....happening quite frequently over the past few months!
The term deja vu is French and its literal translation is " Already seen". I was pretty worried and did some Googling followed by howstuffworksing ;).
Happened to read that the phenomenon is quite common for 15-25 year olds and almost 70% of the world's population have experienced this feeling sometime or the other. Over the years, people have attributed deja vu to temporal-lobe epilepsy.(Which led to another round of googling and howstuffworsing) More on that
here. Sounds rather scary...so I will leave it to you to form your own conclusions.

However, the phenomenon itself is rather complex and nothing firm has been established.Everyone has his view. Psychoanalysts attribute it to a simple fantasy while the psychiatrists think some goof up in the brain makes us mistake the present for the past. Parapsychologists( Whoa!!toughie...god knows who they are) think it is some past life experience.

Something interesting...food for thought perhaps!

My last dream was about being a billionaire and sailing on a yacht with plenty of hot chicks for company ;) And hey...day dreams do count dont they? :P

Homerisms-A few jewels

Lifted straight out from Reader's Digest. Really nice stuff...couldn't resist :P
Here goes Homer Simpson from the TV cartoon The Simpsons...

"The answer's to life's problems aren't at the bottom of a bottle. They're on TV"

"What's the point of going out? We're just going to end up back here anyway"

"Trying is the first step towards failure"

" You can't keep blaming yourself. Just blame yourself once and move on"

OK...my personal favourite...
" The three little sentences that will get you through life.
No.1: Cover for me
No.2: Oh, good idea, Boss
No.3: It was like that when I got here"

Indian Rape Laws-Skewed or screwed?

A news item in The Hindu that caught my attention. A man accused of rape was given the maximum punishment-life imprisonment, one of the rare occassions such a verdict was delivered. A very good friend of mine who lives in Bangalore, has recently started a campaign to crusade against what she calls mild punishment for a person guilty of rape. She wants life-term imprisonment for all convicted rapists.This made me think...Do the Indian rape laws provide appropriate punishment to rapists?

According to the Indian Penal Code, a man is said to have committed `rape’ when he has had sexual intercourse with a woman under these conditions:
* Against her will
* With her consent when her consent has been obtained by putting her or any person in whom she is interested in, in fear of death or hurt.
* With her consent, when the man knows that he is not her husband and that her consent is given because she believes that he is another man to whom she is or believes herself to be lawfully married.
* With her consent, when at the time of giving such a consent, by reason of unsoundness of mind or intoxication on the administration by him personally or through another of any stupefying or unwholesome substance, she is unable to understand the nature of the consequences of that of which she gives consent.
* With or without her consent, when she is under 16 years of age.

Where rape is proved, the minimum punishment is ten years for custodial rape, gang rape, rape of pregnant women and minor girls under the age of 12 and seven years in other cases.

A woman who has undergone the physical and mental trauma of rape, has to cope up with a lot of things; if not for the rest of her life, for a rather long period of time. More often than not, she is shunned by the society and in certain cases, ultimately ends up taking her own life. On a more positive note, there are some victims who have rebuilt their life from scratch and have come up in the society- something definetely worth being proud of.

Modern laws however are lenient to an extent that they allow a convict to be released( good behaviour also plays a major role) once he/she realises the gravity of his/her actions. Yet again, is the perpetrator of a crime of such magnitude pardonable?

Chandramukhi-Back with a BANG

The success of the recently released Chandramukhi is a real short in the arm not only for all thalaivar fans but also for the Tamil filmdom. On a more personal notewhat makes the sucess even more sweeter is the fact that both Mumbai Express and Sachien are fading away at the box office. ( Thalayoda modhina enna nadakkum nu purinjidha chinna pasangala?). A die-hard thalaivar fan all my life, I was pretty sad that I got to watch the movie only on the first day matinee show at Udhayam. But the sadness was replaced by euphoria once the words SUPERSTAR flashed on the screen. Deva - maybe a plagiarist, but all Rajini fans will never forget him for this awesome music bit which started from Annamalai. The next 3 hours were a roller-coaster ride of thrill,comedy and the occasional super star stunts which set the pulse racing. As thalaivar rightly said, " Na oru yaana illa, na gudhura" ( I am not an elephant, I am a horse. I will bounce back instantly).
We also got to meet Latha Rajinikanth and his daughters, Soundarya and Aishwarya alongwith his son-in-law * tea kada kaaran* Dhanush who had come to watch the movie at Udhayam.
Recently heard somewhere that "Jaggubhai" is going to get the go-ahead finally. And Rajini is himself going to announce it once he is back from Rishikesh. Waiting with bated breath and eager expectation for that!

The Red Devils-The end of an era?

As this Premiership season meanders to an end, this question seems to be troubling the minds of most Manchester United fans. The richest club in the world and the one with the biggest fanbase throughout the world, Manchester United was a dominant force in English football in the 90's. The treble winning season of 1999 ( FA cup, English Premier league, European cup) announced their arrival on the world stage.
However, a third place finish in 2004 and another likely 3rd place finish this season is a bit hard to swallow. For a club which has never finished below second spot save for once in 199, two consecutive third place finishes is difficult to fathom. Our defence is solid, we have midfielders and strikers that any team in the world can only dream of having, and yet the end result is not quite there as expected.
In my personal opinion, the things that pulled us down this season in the same order are:
1. Shoddy goalkeeping for most part of the season.
2. The poorest start ever made to a season.( 6 pts after 5 games)
3. Absence of bench strength as well as a lack of creativity in the midfield.

Whether or not our 2nd or 3rd place finish this season can be attributed to Abrahamovi's millions is another debate. But one thing all fans have to accept is that we played below par this season at times when it mattered the most. As a loyal MUFC fan, I have nothing to do except hope for a few quality signings and a improved show next season.
www.manutd.com

Thats me! 

How to be a world-class CEO?

An interesting article that I happened to chance upon at Rediff. I never knew Rediff had such interesting posts!
http://in.rediff.com/money/2005/apr/28spec.htm

Guess this will be my last post at work for today! Have a meeting at 15:30 which will decide my permanenent image at Real Image.

The Wright void and the BCCI inactivity

Well, my first post is on something I am really passionate about. Indian cricket!
John Wright was the best thing to happen to India cricket post-match fixing allegations. Sadly all good things must come to an end. The void left by John Wright is massive and our bungling board BCCI is yet to take any action. My personal favourite to take over next would be Greg Chappell. But yet again he might be snapped up by Sri Lanka unless the board unless the BCCI wakes up from its slumber and says something concrete.
It brings us to the age old debate - The richest board in the world, a bunch of the world's best cricketing talents and yet no professionalism. Unless the board realises this, Indian cricket is doomed. Perhaps they should hire a coupla guys from IIM or Harvard!