The Quote -

"Nope, I don't really have anything new to say. but then, I always have something amazing to tell about things that you already know!!"

-Muthu

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The naming crisis

The snap-



The post-

I still remember her name. It has been almost 8 or may be 9 years since I met her (I think it was in my 8 th standard summer holidays). It was during one of those summer chess camps which have a string of good and bad memories attached to it. She is a fragment of such a sweet memory a long time ago that I am not able to remember her exact face except for that she was extremely cute and her name was Chudar(meaning a splinter of a flame).


I loved her name. It was short, sweet, interesting and it was in my favorite language – Tamil*.


For people who do not know how kids are named over here in Tamil Nadu – An astrologer is consulted who after examining the birth time of the baby, does some calculations (oh no, not arithmetic – it’s more like based on the nine planets*, they would say – ooh yeah whatever you say dude, whatever you say) and then he selects the starting and ending of the name. Then the parents, having a couple of impossible letters in hand would name the kid which is usually predictable.


If it’s a girl the names Ishwarya, Deepa,Ranjini,Priya are common. If it’s a boy the names Kumar,Arun,Santosh,Muthu are common. And the word Sri is used as an addition for both girl’s names as well as that of the names of the boys (its like – oh you think the name needs a bit more spunk, ok -add Sri before or after the present name ).


It has always been simply a wonder to me – How can parents pay these astrologer guys to pick out names for their kids that are as common as anything. Isn't naming your kid, an absolute joy to yourself? I think every baby finds a unique relationship with their parents even before it’s born. And what amazes me is that the parents think that other people can name the baby better than them.


I think naming a baby defines what that baby means to you. You are inheriting to your kid a very small segment of your culture but of significant value. A name that your son or daughter can relate to and feel a sense of pride in being called and identified by that name. Get creative. You can simply do better than following the crowd in this major event of naming your child. After all your kid is a piece of your own flesh and blood. It’s a private relationship and for Gods sake honor it with the love and ingenuity that it needs.


The real inspiration to write this blog came a few days back when I visited a new born mother and her new born baby boy (apparently a parent is as new born as a kid to see her own flesh and blood smile at her). After spending a while with them, the mother said that she has to name the baby starting with M and she was thinking of Muthu Kumar as a possible nice name. I simply looked at the kid. “Welcome to the clan dude, Welcome to the clan. Hmhm May be we should start collecting royalty money for using our name kid, simply no other go.”

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Can boys Cry???

The Snap-




The Tale-


I am a bit of an avid reader and I believe that any good readable stuff must have more than literary finesse. May be, something originally refreshing. May be, something that challenges our present perspective. That would not only make an interesting read but something to reflect upon. I think I came across such a good piece of anecdote and not wanting to spoil it, I am quoting it in its exact words.


---A world famous bull fighter, the epitome of masculinity in his culture, entertained some guests in his villa one evening. After dinner he disappeared and one of the male guests went in search of him. He found the bull fighter wearing an apron and washing the dishes. The guest was appalled and blurted out, “How can you be doing such a feminine thing?” To which the bull fighter replied looking down his nose at the guest: “Whatever I do is masculine.” ---


Wow, the bull fighter did give a very good reply but I think that, there is more to the story than that. The bull fighter boldly challenges the perspective of not only his friend but the perspective of every single reader.

The guest’s attitude simply shows the acceptance of sex – role stereotypes by almost everyone in general, including you and of course also me.

“So what s wrong in associating the characteristics of being bold and brave (a bit bald too– just kidding) to be masculine and that of coyness and tenderness to the fairer sex?”


One may be absolutely right in asking the above question. But by role specifying the sexes, aren’t we becoming a bit too rigidly dogmatic, that we simply forget to be fare to ourselves?


Well, let me think to put it in better words or lets say, in every day circumstances.


I can be a bit of a cry baby. Good books, good movies, whatever touches me, makes me wet my eyes. Sometimes I get caught by my friends in one of those teary moments; they would give me that “dude you crying??? Look”. And of course my “ooh my god, my hand got stuck in the cookie jar” look never ever helps me and I end up feeling real bad that my friend saw me getting mushy.

Now, what’s so bad in a guy crying? Haven’t you guys been to a single movie that moved you that you had tears at the end of the movie. If not, guys you simply don’t know, what you are missing. Pity you. For gods sake there is more to Hollywood than mind blowing action, graphics and yeah of course hot girls. Even Hollywood action movies can pack some real good punches that move you in the end (like brave heart and the guardian).

Also in a way, as easy as it is to behave violently for a guy, it’s as easy for him to have emotional issues. And dude, you know what’s the worst part - guys can do anything better, I mean it anything better than expressing his own needs and feelings.


And of course what’s so obsessive with girls being sweet and soft. I loved it when Anjolina Jolie busted balls in her latest flick (Unless my balls aren’t the ones getting busted). I think that confident women are a real turn on than the usual “damsel in distress”. I simply hate the way regional movies depict love. Almost every single time the hero saves the day (always just in the nick of time) and the heroine simply goes gaga for him. Silly hindi heroines!!!

Girls let me tell you a secret; we guys simply love it when a girl enters a place head held high, hair thrown back, totally confident of herself and with a bold but elegant walk than the usual girl.


So defining stereotypes is too silly and purposeless. As silly as asking Salman Khan to wear shirts(of course nowadays every single hindi hero bares his body at least in a single song. What does the hindi cinema field has against wearing shirts, God only knows.)


So next time you catch your friend crying. Simply leave him be. (You simply missed the part where he got his chops busted by his girl- just kidding). After all, boys too can cry.

Defining divinity

I was just watching Anjolina Jolie fully pregnant, glowing with all the beauty in the world at the premiere of the movie “the kungfu panda” (in which she voices the tigress) on the channel U TV world movies. Moving across the aisle in all her brilliance and loveliness, the gorgeous evening clouds would have been put to shame seeing her floating by, carried by the graciousness of her self.


Well of course Jolie is the heart throb of nearly all the guys on the planet and I am not talking about that. There was something more than a famous actress in her, when I saw her on the television. She is expecting her child. She is a mother to be.
For the people who are thinking “okay now what’s so special about it”, I want to ask what else can be more special than a girl bearing a child.


I try and fail to imagine the magnitude of sheer happiness a girl can feel when she is carrying her child. (Lack of first hand experience, I presume.) The bliss she feels with every kick of her child, the sensation of all her hopes and dreams growing inside her, the feeling of total connection to the unborn, savoring every single move that the baby makes inside her, I can try to imagine and go on and on. But in fact the real list must be endless.


Motherly love has no boundaries and inhibitions. Not always you can see people in absolute pain that’s tearing apart their nerves and so much in eternal happiness, completely satisfied like a mother who has just given birth to her child and is about to pass out. Total love in every sense is divine. Motherly love is in that aspect I think is more than divine. It is incessant.


Nature must have had a really good reason for picking out women to carry the essence of our generation inside her. Whatever may be the reason, I think that she has decided it well.

Friday, August 22, 2008

The temple teachings:

“Will you do something for me? Don’t say no. I won’t ask you if I had any choice”


These were the exact words my mom said to me and since she never really goes for this approach, I can simply guess that she wants me to do something that I really hate. I was wondering what she might want me to do. That was when she said that she wanted me to go to a temple to attend a specific pooja* and bring back the prasadham*.

Now I hate going to temples. It’s not like I don’t believe in God. I am a theist. I believe in God. But I see him as someone who is not just bound to the temple, as someone who is in the essence of everything living and non living. I hate the customs that people do at temples and people paying to see the deities of the divine. With my mother it’s just the opposite, she is totally into it. She is regular in her prayers. Never misses her poojas*. Is a devoted hindu* to put it in simple terms. What makes peace between us in this aspect is that she never asks me to go to the temple and I never dissuade her from going.

And when she broke her deal when I was least expecting it, (of course she breaks the deal once in a year, on my birthday) I was not going to give in without a fight. And when she said that she will not be able to go temple because she had to be at another temple, it simply left me completely bewildered. But her approach gave me no space to refuse or fight back (Damn…. These women really know how to get things done by a guy). I simply asked the specifications of what I have to do at the temple and left for the same.

On reaching the temple, I gave the priest the specifications of the pooja* and waited for my prasadham*. A lot of women and a few men were there gossiping about as they were also waiting for the aarathi*. I was really feeing like the odd man out. It was so completely dull and boring that I was watching the ants that were laboriously doing whatever they were doing near my feet.

After a while the aarthi* was shown and people crowded up to see the view of the decorated deity. Then the prasadham* was distributed. It was then that I noticed the old man sitting by the side of the temple. He must have been about 65 – 70 years old. It could be easily seen from his torn clothes that he was too poor to even feed himself. But his clothes were washed and neat. After eating half of the prasadham*, he slowly looked around and after satisfying himself that no one was looking, kept the other half in his pocket. He must be saving it for later or may be for some one, I presumed.

I felt really bad for him. But his face showed no such emotion of pain or regret. In fact he started to play with a small kid nearby. I got up and went near him. When he saw me coming to him, he simply smiled and said “Isn’t the child a beauty” and smiled at me. I smiled back assuring myself that I am not going to defeat this man by showing sympathy or charity. He needed neither. He may not be the richest guy around but he was so happy that the happiness seamed to flow out him when he was playing with the child.

After a while, I bade him good bye and reached home. Thinking about it now - What I saw in him, completely over whelms me.

You need not be the richest or the cleverest or whatever superlative terminology you are going to add, to be immensely happy. You simply need to loss your self to something beautiful. It never matters what it is. It may be the playfulness of a small child to the calmness of the early morning dew. Also it never matters in what state you are. You will be happy and find peace within yourself.




Hindu - A religion that is predominant in India.
Pooja - A custom in which the deity is washed in milk and other auspicious things, then garlanded and decorated along with the chanting of the hymns. Each and every single deity has its own special day for pooja and each pooja has its own requirements.
Prasadham - The eatables and other things that are offered to the deity and then are consumed by the devotees as a token of the blessing received from the divine.
Aarathi - It’s the climax of the pooja, where along with ringing of the bells, a burning flame is shown to the deity(the flame is usually on a plate and burns from camphor or from oil lamp).

Let’s get drenched:

The snap-




The Tale-

Yesterday it drizzled. The smell of the wet earth, the sudden lush greenness that jumps out of its hiding, the rhythm of the rain drops, the umbrella flowers and raincoats, the dirty puddles of mud – rain has always been the very essence of life to me. I always wondered why can’t people just for a while get lost in the chaos and get drenched. May be, they are too much forgotten in their own life that they easily miss to see the bliss of beauty around them.


Once one of my friends asked “what’s so special about getting drenched in the rain?”


I was simply not able to find the right words to describe the feeling to her.

What happens to a kid when he is given such a lot of beautiful wrapped gifts that he is not able to decide what to open first? He would be bouncing with all the joy in the world. What happens to a congenitally blind guy (blind from birth) if he is given his sight? He simply wouldn’t have enough eyes to see all the loveliness in the world for the first time.


The same happens to me in the rain.


There cannot be any more poetism than the world in a shower. There cannot be any more a symbol of purity and virginity than the world after the dance of rain. The wet road gleaming inviting to the foot of the dreamer, the fallen flowers and leaves on them, a Picasso or Renault I would say and the blooming flowers in trees still dripping wet, the drenched walls with the water arts of rain on them, the willowy sun slowly blooming out, its rays so slant that it seems like its bowing to the rain’s performance, the air hugging you as it passes so pure in its earnestness like a kid saying to her parents her first learnt rhyme and finally like a girl so spontaneous in love that she blushes on seeing her guy, comes out the rainbow raining again on the spectators a plethora of colors.

Now again I to ask “Are you going to miss all this sitting in the monochromity of your home?”

May be you can enjoy the same rain from the safety of your home.

But hello….wait Am I hearing you right? Are you refusing first row stadium tickets to see your favorite star’s foot ball match to see the same on television? Dude you must be seriously nuts. Come on I am waiting……


“Let’s get drenched”

Are we safe?

The Snap-







The Tale-

It was almost one am of our independence day when this happened. I was returning after 3 days of yoga sessions at the Isha yoga center at Velliangiri hills in Coimbatore. The Udumalpet* bus stop was completely deserted but as I am not new to night travelling (in fact I love to travel in the night), I started to walk towards my home which is at a walk able distance from where the Coimbatore bus dropped me. I saw 3 police men standing opposite to the nearby petrol bunk, checking the crossing motor cyclists for any drunks. As I was passing them, I realized they must be on special Independence Day duty to be on the patrol at this hour.

The night was so serene and peaceful. I searched for the moon and was a bit disappointed to see a cloudy sky. The climate was pleasantly cold. A kind of coldness that brings your hands together to rub, but does not get to your bone. It was like the whole world was deep in a dreamless sleep after a day of rigorous work except the stray dogs that roamed about. I myself was totally exhausted by the past three days of heavy physical exercise at the yoga center and would have loved to go flat on my bed with a warm pillow.

Just then I was disturbed from my thoughts. A passing 2 wheeler was stopping beside me. It had two people on it and the one in the back asked me where was I going and was offering me a lift. Now that these guys were offering a lift unasked at this ungodly hour was another thing totally, but the fact that there were already two on the motor cycle made me uncomfortable. Suddenly I realized that I was all alone. I simply said to them “thanks but no thanks boss, I am almost there. Look my place is near the next right turn” and quickened my pace of walking.

They crossed me and went into the turn that I was about to take. That did it. I was getting a bit nervous. I bent down and took a stone (sounds corny but that’s what I did), like it was going to help me if I was to be ambushed. Well anyways it gave me the confidence that I desperately needed. I simply know for a fact that if these guys are going to jump on me, I am done for. But I really didn’t want to go down before giving those guys a really tough struggle. At least I wanted to break one of their noses if they were going to rob me.

And at the turn, my suspicions were confirmed. One of those guys was taking a leak and the other was sitting on the bike ready to fire up. Then I realized these crooks must be planning to go for my bag which was hanging on my shoulders. I saw them at the corner of my eyes as I crossed them and felt my heart lurch when they did the same. What happened next was really slow and I remember every single second of it. I crossed the road, and kept walking keeping to the right of the road. I brought my bag in front of my stomach and held to it as tightly as I could, hoping to make things as difficult as possible for them.

The motor cycle behind me fired up and It sounded as if they were gaining on me. I was not going to turn back. It would, may be I thought will give away that I know about their intentions. Then it happened. Out of the blue a lorry coming from the opposite direction crossed me and as the dust raised by the lorry slowly died down, I realized that those guys were gone.

I reached home in one piece.

Two days later when I was talking with my aunt, who resides in Tirupur*, She told me how she almost got her chain cut when she was riding her TVS by a guy who was on a motor cycle. And when I said about what happened to me, I was told a lot of more serious stories that made my own experience comparatively really a easy one.

Now thinking about this problem in preventive terms, what can we, the public in respond to such thievery?

The cops cannot be all over the town protecting people at all the right times. Come on they are not are super man or in the least Steven Seagull- “always there to protect and save the innocent” (much like heroes of our own tamil cinema- where they always say that its just their duty to save the damsel in distress who invariably ends up as the heroine). Life isn’t that perfect to always have a savior near you.

We must be more careful I thought. After all you cannot have text book rules to behave in such situations and not all of us are black belts in karate. Yourself living would be much worthier than any valuables you may be having. But I still don’t think that I have answered the question that I raised at the beginning. Are we safe?

Wait may be I have got the question wrong. Yes, that’s it. The question we have to ask ourselves is not “Are we safe?” but


Am I safe? Are the people who are close to me safe?


Only when thinking about the same in the singular perspective we may be able to see the true status of our own safety. This doesn’t mean to ignore the needy at times of distress when they may need your help. I have always been inspired by people who put their own life on line to rescue others. I look up to them. I want to be always one of them. All I want to do is to merely suggest a way to know where you stand. Always remember that you will have to be in safe grounds to rescue others. After all your own life is what you make out of it.

Isn’t it so?

Am I shy??

It has been just a few months since I completed my college but I was missing my junior friends at my college’s hostel. So when I was at the hostel for attending the alumni day, I was having real fun chatting with them. I was just starting to check my mail when my junior Rahul arrived with his friendly hello. And we started to chat about the usual stuff – the college, movies, our friends and of course girls.

It was one of those mails which claimed to say about your personality based on the month of your birth, started the following. After reading about what his personality was as given in the mail a tad bit loudly, it was natural as anything that he did the same to me. But I never expected the prediction to say that I am shy towards the opposite sex and when he asked whether it was true, I was really clueless as to what to say to him.

Instant direct denial in a way I think is an indirect acceptance. So I simply quipped “may be – a bit”. After some thought I added.. “Rahul I have this thing about girls. Let’s say you are walking in a full suit on a crowded platform, if you see a 25 paisa* coin on the aisle – Will you bend for it. Of course not. Okay lets say, you saw a 1000 rupee* note – What will you do? You will go for it. I think it’s the same with girls. When it comes to girls, you will have to bend down. No exceptions. She will make you go on your knees on day or another. (In a way, a guy loves to do that for a girl, but still…)But take care on one single thing – Is she worth that much for you?


Well of course how each of us value girls will change. What’s exquisite to me might not appeal to you. But anyway that difference is what that makes everything interesting. ”


Rahul in a way was satisfied. But I wasn’t. After all the best judge of one is he himself. Isn’t it so? I pondered over the subject for some time– Am I shy? The fact that I did not much talk to the other girls gathered at the function hall added to my distress.

Well, I have not hesitated to talk when in need. I have flirted like anything with a few girls (okay the few here refers to the number 4- it was just four girls but it s always memorable). I have had my ups and downs with girls. And I am from a family where I am always surrounded by girls, be it my aunts or my cousins. So why wasn’t I chatting with the girls there.

Then it hit me. Why should I talk with them? Girls’ standing simply doesn’t provide you with enough reason to talk with them. And how silly of me, I simply forgot about the band of guys around me enjoying my company and yeah, I was also basking in their company.


As much as there is the need to establish your self worth to the opposite sex by chatting with them, it is important to feel self secure that you don’t go talking to every single girl you see, trying to prove her that you are in fact the coolest guy of the universe.


Well what do you say? Don’t you agree with me?

Saturday, August 16, 2008

The art of acceptance:

The Snap-



The Event-

It was one of those really bad hair day for me. Things were just not going well. It was not just that. It was like the day was just simply designed to let me know that after all I cannot always have things easy for me. It all started when I was too sleepy to wake up and go for my driving classes in the early morning. My mom tried her best to pry me out of the bed and got on my nerves as a result. You know sometimes you don’t want to do things just because you don’t want to do them. No specific reasons. May be I was too lazy to get my ass up in the morning. May be I am too stubborn to admit that I am too lazy. But whatever It was, it kick started my day in the best possible manner satirically speaking.

By the end of the day I was near my wits end. Even the novel that I was reading started to suck. The television was not working. Must have been some problem at the cable station. I was not able to get my friends on the phone. Even after a lot of attempts I was not able to complete level 17 in the game devil may cry 3 in the very hard mode. Come on for a guy who has just completed his graduation and waiting for my joining date into the corporate life, it couldn’t have gotten worse. I was so – don’t know what to do with time, even my mom felt sorry for me. And that made me feel even more pathetic.

It was in the evening that things really got a bit out of hand. My mom started to go on a charade of how I was wasting my time doing nothing and so on. And she said that how I have been just sitting around doing nothing for the past month. How I could have made myself useful by doing that and this and she went on and on, that I started fighting with her about how she never accepts me for what I am and always wants me to be the guy she wishes me to be.

She has opinions of everything I do and she makes it a point to let me know what she thinks of every thing I do. Like I hate to dress formally all the time. Love my dirty jeans. Hate to wash it. She always wants to get formal clothes for me. Says I look good in it. Oh she doesn’t even seem to acknowledge what I rarely care for. And when I resist she goes on like “being your mom cant I even advice you on how to put on decent clothes”.


Today evening I decided to confront her. My parents were sitting in the hall chatting. I went to them and simply started to take out my frustration by complaining. I said to them they never wanted to accept me as I am. They always wanted what they wanted out of me. They never gave me enough space. Never thought that may be I looked cool in blue jeans. It’s not just the jeans each and every simple thing from what I want to do with my future to my friends.

I went on for may be a while. My mom was very angry and disturbed. She simply said that she did all those because she loved me and went into the kitchen. I was waiting for a large piece of advice from my father. He usually delivers them like those college professors deliver lectures nonchalantly, never to the point. I readied myself for him.

He looked into my eyes and simply said “yeah you do have a point. I can see that you want others to accept you as you are but ……..…..are you accepting others as they are. Your mom for instance”

I looked at him. I was not able to say anything. Simply got up and got out. The evening was slowly changing into a dreamy night. The wind was cool and reassuring.

After a bit of thought I went inside and said sorry to my father. I really couldn’t think of any other thing that would be fit to say.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Love and marriage – the forgotten bond

The snap-





The post-

It is now the second month in Tamil calendar vaikasi, one of the most auspicious months for marriages for the Tamils*. In fact I am invited to 4 marriages in this month alone. The inviting music of nathasvaram* and miruthangam*, flowing white vaettis*, the smell of ghee and camphor – everything about the marital ceremony is so poetic.

A lot can be said about the beauty of the ceremony but may be I think that it would be more apt to reanalyze “our system of choosing the bride or the bridegroom”. The bridal hunt is usually initiated by the father figure in the family. They search for the right kind of match based on the following list of criteria.

- They look into the caste & family status of the prospective pair
- The matching of jathagam*
- Wealth and the income of the prospective pair
- Character of the pair
- Dowry money*


After the decision is made by the parents, the decision of the bride or the bridegroom is called for. The system is perfect. The best guy is paired up with the best gal. The status quos of both the families are taken into consideration. The caste members are satisfied because the marriage is usually conducted within the same caste. Even the economic securities of the pairs are taken care of.

The system is perfect. Just too perfect.

Like buying a large house, almost all the facts are written down and planned upon. But is this what a marriage is about. Is it another detailed acquisition activity? Isn’t marriage about two people deeply in love bonding together for life? After all “till death do us apart” is not used often other than in marriages.

May be the way in which the couples are paired up is questionable, but the fact that love is not a main criteria in selecting the couple makes the whole idea even more ridiculous. What after all would be the passion in married life if it does not glow in the hues of love? Of course marriage in response to love is a leap of faith when compared to arranged marriage.

But isn’t it a heart warming feeling to take the leap with the love of your life rather than to go along with the society. May be you will be left armor less against the future, but won’t the rose that your love pinned in your chest give you the faith to fight. Doesn’t the thought of your love waiting for you, fuel you enough to burn up the sun.



May be I am a hopeless romantic – the kind that is slowly becoming extinct nowadays. May be arranged marriage is better than love marriage.
May be it has more security not only economically but also socially.
May be love marriage is too much chancy in the view of my parents and the society.

The “may be”s never matter. I want to marry a girl whom I love with all my heart. After all marriages are made in heaven and my heaven has to be beside me holding my hand.

What about you? Are you the one looking for your life partner or is it your parents?
Hopefully it’s your life. Isn’t it?






Disclaimer: The author has written the blog in his own opinion and experience. He does not intend to prove the anything right or wrong but wants to merely question the way in which the thing in question is usually perceived. All he intends in the end is to make the reader realize that there is more to things than what really meets the eye.





Tamils – people belonging to the southern most part of India, Tamil Nadu.
Nathasvaram and miruthangam – musical instruments of the Tamils. Usually used on auspicious occasions like on marriages.
Vaettis – white dhotis that are a cultural symbol for the Tamils.
Jathagam – a book that is assigned to each and every individual based on his star signs and the effect the planets are having on him. In Hindu mythology each planet is considered to be god having their own effect on each and every individual.
Dowry money – the money that is given from the bride’s family to the new couple to start their new life.

The colors of the fairer sex:

It was another sunny day of doing nothing (what else enjoyable way would be there to spend your vacation). My friend Ram and I were just chatting together at his home about everything and nothing. It was then Ram remarked about the childishness of the fairer sex. Well not every one of them but most of the girls, he said were childish to some extent.

Now Ram is in no way a male chauvinist and neither am I. (at least that’s what we think so). So it was odd for him to make that remark without a valid point. And when thought about why he was so sure, we came across these following reasons.

Woman can be quite contradictory with no known reason in the book. Only a girl can say the following and feel that there is a sound logic in it – “I love lying. In fact I lie a lot. But I hate people who lie to me”. These were the exact words my sister once said to me when we were having a chat.

Women can be bothersome in an irritating way. Like for instance when my mom would stand at the door, calling out to me, to stay out of trouble when I am going out somewhere. Makes my face red especially if there is someone of the fairer sex on the road.

They can be sentimental to an extreme level. Like the time when my sister called me at about six in the morning on her birthday eve and asked me to wish her. When asked “why did you call. I was planning on wishing you later in the evening”. She simply said that she wanted me to be the first to wish her.

Always the way in which women cry while seeing soaps used to make me wonder. But to top it all off, the way my class mates (girls) cried when we parted during the end of our college (well, hey come on guys, its not like someone is dead or anything) was just like the reenactment of the classic melodrama “aaru lirinthu arubathu varai”*.

Well, to say the truth the list went on and on and then it hit me in the gut – Maybe we guys are getting too mature. After all, life is too small to do everything too perfect.


How can I forget the way I laughed my guts out hearing my sis comment about lies.
The way I felt special when she made me wish first on her birthday. And every single memory that makes me smile today because women made those moments happen. Be it the time when I had to convince my mom that I am not in love with anyone or when I had to convince my cousin that she was not really fat and she was in fact slim.

Only a woman can give a man these special moments. Only women can make a guy feel real good about himself. After plodding through all these thoughts, “May be” I said to Ram “just because of the fact that women are childish, sentimental, possessive and what not, we guys love them. Makes it a delicious thought to marry them. If they are going to be just like men, then what would be the meaning in chasing after girls?”

Just then I was interrupted by a message from one of my friends who believes that ram told something about her to me. Please don’t ask me. God only knows what he said to me. The message read as--

--“And yeah all that Ram told doesn’t necessarily b true may be I aint that gud or I aint that kiddish either. Thought would set things rite straight away.”

And hopefully I think I am on the verge of creating another sweet memory by another girl in my life.







Disclaimer: The author has written the blog in his own opinion and experience. He does not intend to prove the anything right or wrong but wants to merely question the way in which the thing in question is usually perceived. All he intends in the end is to make the reader realize that there is more to things than what really meets the eye.




aaru lirinthu arubathu varai - a tamil classic film with rajinikanth in it’s lead role. The film was a well acclaimed tear jerker.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Is the title BE really worth it......

Today i have completed my engineering degree.... I look back with several thoughts in my mind at what i have achieved in the past four years. Of course from now on i will be able to announce myself as a graduate to the world.

But what have i achieved in an intellectual sense?
What educational value does the degree i hold have?
Or Is the degree i hold has value as nothing but a degree?

I have majored in electronics and communication field. I have been placed in a software concern. Whats the real use of my gained knowledge in mobile communication and other electronics related stuff now???

I feel kind of empty even after spending 4 years in pursuing BE....

Where have i gone wrong? Why wasn't I able to judge what course in BE I would relate to when i was attending council ling 4 years before.

I can still remember with vivid colors the day i went for BE council ling. The long phone calls my father placed to almost every single graduate he knows to enquire the present trend(and the funny thing is most of his graduate friends completed their BE a decade ago),their diversified opinions which never had an end to them, the blank expressions that my father gave me when the most reputed of the colleges got filled, the way everyone went to a battle for electronics and communication branch, and to see after all these years that i have been just another gladiator in that arena......

I feel like I might have taken a better decision if i am to take now. Yes, Of course every body makes better decisions the second time,but i really wasn't equipped to take my decision at that time. I did not know that the exam system in BE is so full of holes that whatever branch i take i will end up with good marks and with practical knowledge nil.

Well people can argue that if you are interested then you would have studied what you wanted to learn. After all "hunger gets what hunger wants".

Yes, I agree with the notion. But if education is about self interest, what part does the education system play in it. I might have been well of by studying the needed skills via the net along with doing the needed software courses for my aim as a gaming programmer rather than wasting the four years of my life for attaining a degree. So how has the education system really helped me.

The exams that I have faced in my BE have always been of the same pattern with 5 sixteen mark questions. I personally think that this question paper cannot estimate one's understanding of the subject, but again Is BE really about understanding the subject?

The only solution that may answer this problem is diversification of the engineering education system. Students must be given the choice of selecting their subjects with their courses which must be in sync with their future career interests. They must be fed with the pros and cons of what they are doing.

This would not only answer to the call of the students but also give the student an identity in his future and he would not be "just another software engineer" who is graded based on how much his annual income is rather than what his knowledge and skill is all about. This would not only allow us to polish our students for future potential employment but also create employers.

And nowadays when I answer to my junior friends on what college to take and what course to pursue in BE, I stick to " Make your own decisions. BE is not about making the right career choice but making your own choice the right one. After all "hunger gets what hunger wants"