திருவண்ணாமலை

Made my first visit to திருவண்ணாமலை yesterday with my mother. The trip was not a pre-planned one, had thoughts of going with my mother to the temple for some time now , so just executed it. It is about 200kms from my place, started a little late around 11:00 in the morning. With so much traffic and with small bad patchy roads from Tindivanam to Thiruvannamalai (around 70kms) reached the temple by 2:30.

The place is a complete package. It has a Primary god (அருணாச்சலேஸ்வரர் , a form of lord shiva) , surrounded by a lot of semi-gods i.e. you have different forms of shiva linga in the road surrounding the temple along with other small gods, all varieties of god-men to satisfy the varying needs of people of different strata (like rich , poor, learned , wise , uneducated, needy) , a few god-women and a lot of devotees. The temple is the town’s backbone, every job opportunity is very much dependent on the temple and its visitors.

My mother has visited the temple umpteen times and loves to walk around the temple (கிரிவலம் ). As I was with her, we decided to do the கிரிவலம் in an auto. It took around 2hours and 15minutes to visit two ashrams, nine Shiva lingams, an old temple and a Vishnu temple in the whole கிரிவலம் process. Since am the newbie , my mother was guiding me with a lot of explanations about the lingams and ahsrams(thou, she repeats a lot of known stuff , I like to hear it from her) . Saw a lot of foreigners in the ashrams and it seemed to me that they were staying there; they were also of varying age groups. My mother pointed out an ashram and said, it used to be very expensive to stay here, only foreigners used to stay, and nowadays I see a lot of our people also staying in these places. Hearing this, the auto-man said “Previously the accommodation was provided only for people who gave donations and they were mostly foreigners but nowadays there is a lot of donation from our people too”.

There were a lot more temples in the கிரிவலம் which we did not visit, the reason according to my mother and auto-man was “These are new temples only built a few years before and not traditional ones”. May be those temples will join the traditional category in my old age. Another interesting thing is we also visited the old Shiva temple of Thiruvannamalai , my mother informed me that “this is the original temple , but now that temple has the main shrine”. I dislike travelling to crowded place, so liked the old one much more, yes, it had less crowd. Should study the actual history of these temples and also am not sure how my mother came to a conclusion that this is the old temple. The கிரிவலம் was a mix of both congested and pleasant roads; the pleasant ones gave a lot of peace.

The layout of main temple was wide with huge towers (கோபுரம்) and with less crowd/business establishments would have loved that place. It was already dark so did not get to observe the arts of the temple, had a good Darshan(தரிசனம் ) of every god in the temple. Did not get to make a Darshan of main lord Shiva, as there was so much crowd. Both the free/paid Darshan had a lot of people waiting, so my mother insisted on using her special powers to take me in a special route for the Darshan, I somehow denied it. I strongly dislike all this paid / special-permission entries, money/power playing a role to make a Darshan makes me laugh, however a lot of people (including my mother) use all this to make a தரிசனம்.

It was completely dark when we started the drive back to Chennai. With small roads and lot of opposite traffic with powerful head lights on high beam, had to slow down on a lot of occasions. Tried my best to put my head lights on low beam on most occasions to help the opposite person, a dozen cars, a few buses and a lorry responded positively. Had to wait in front of a railway gate in Tindivanam due to traffic for about an hour, finally took an alternate route. Reached NH45 around 11:00 pm, driving at night has its own advantages, like FB you get the information of people following you at your place (i.e. headlight reflection in mirrors). During day time you will have to check (using mirrors) if someone is following you. The drive till my house was amazing, own a fiat and throw her at all corners and for all zigzag movements, she does respond with pleasure (Fiat, please bring in your own service centers and showrooms).

Overall it was a good satisfying trip with a few new learning.

Azhagar Samiyin Kudhirai

Drove to Mayajaal yesterday evening to watch the movie Azhagar Samiyin Kudhirai(அழகர்சாமியின் குதிரை). Was expecting a watchable movie , but the movie was too good. Making a movie out of a Short Story is a challenge , but when done well , it really proves the skill of the Director and the screen play writer. Short Stories always depict the true nature of life and to depict it on screen without much boredom is a great skill. Thanks to the director and the producer(think it was Gautham) who had the guts to invest.

Telling out the story or the plot always spoils the movie watching experience. There is one line which i could not stop Staying "Illayaraja , the master of BGM". There are few poetic/smart moments in the film , which conveys a lot :

• A Small boy takes the free meals served to him (during afternoon) in school to share it with his younger brother. ( A guy sitting near me commented : Still the served food appears similar , have not changed much from his days).
  
• When an atheist stops from entering a temple , his lover doubts his motive for other inequality reasons.
  
• An atheist accepts the Vibuthi for the sake of his love.
• How deeply people tie up every good stuff happening to them to God ( there is not much self confidence or any one else to fall back).
• How easy and tough is job of a Kodangi ( Mantrik ).
  
• How big a Mantrik/personlaity you are outside the house , you are still a silly husband to your wife.
  

Am certain that i could have missed a few. There is a lot more stuffs which depicts the innocence , economy , job opportunity , dependence of those people. The movie has a very few ill logical scenes which we shall ignore.

Not sure if our political/social circumstance will allow us to make a similar film(with the ideologies and philosophies of people about GOD) based on City life with names like "Ramanin Vil" (ராமனின் வில்) / "Vinayagarin Eli" (விநாயகரின் எலி).

Ok , here goes the last punch , i do not see a lot of difference between the ones who believe the words of a Kodangi and the ones who believe the words of news media people.

cheers,
jkyaar

Inferior : Who to Who

It was election time last week here in Tamilnadu . My office colleague traveled to her home land to cast her vote. It was a small village where a majority of people were from the same Caste (will call this Caste A) . Two incidents which happened during election clearly illustrates our social system and its complexities.

1. TN has been ruled by two big dravidian parties for the past 40+ years mostly in alternate tenure. This time a new party contested in a lot of places , vouching it to be the alternate for the major dravidian parties. The person who contested on behalf of the new party in my friend's home town was a member of Caste A. So , the first thing he did after making his decision to contest , is to meet the leaders of the Caste Group and get their support. And Yes , as in every part of TN , he (being one among them , i.e நம்ம ஆள் ) was promised for full support. Because of this , there was festival mood through out the village , and everyone were pushed to vote for their man with the following advice : "Press the fourth button from top" (நாலாவது பட்டன அழுத்து).
   
2. With all this advice , my friend went to the polling booth to cast the vote. There were two queues , my friend was surprised to see one queue being a lot longer than the other one , So , being intelligent (!), took her place in the smaller queue. Only after standing in the queue , she realized that a lot of people she knew were standing in the other queue and were calling(basically shouting at) her. My friend moved to the other queue and came to know the reason for two queues : "The other queue was for people from Lower Caste".

Caste Systems are deeply rooted in our country and form a very important factor in a lot of stuffs( believe , impact is slightly less in Cities) either directly or indirectly. I do not know how to solve these problems , may be as an individual we could remember the following quotes :

"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving." (Albert Einstein)

"If you think some one is inferior to you , remember , there is already some one else thinking in the same way about you and by your thought you are accepting it."

Cheers,
jkyaar

Google protects your computer

Google is not going to release any Anti-virus software.

As usual i started my day searching for some stuff using Google in order to fix a bug. There i encountered this page while clicking on a search link - Malware Warning , Protecting you from visiting a particular site. I did not know there was this interstitial page from Google , thou it has been around for the past two years (courtesy : Google). I have been ignorant(or have i forgotten it) to the fact that Google has also been working to protect me from entering malware sites. I felt pleasant on seeing this page and my attachment to google strengthened further. It gives a pleasant feeling when we are being safe guarded by someone.

For a moment i thought why not ignore these pages in the search result , for which the answer lied in this statement "If you are the owner of this web site, you can request a review of your site using Google's Webmaster Tools. More information about the review process is available in Google's Webmaster Help Center." . With this the Webmaster also gets a chance to rectify his fault , if any.

But think , not all important features gets the due notice from customers or stay in their mind , but their impact always increases the customer's faith. So, whenever you are working harder on a highly irreproducible bug or on a feature that may not be visible to customers or on trying to perfect a feature , remember this , you are saving the time/energy of millions of people and is sharing their pain and bringing them relief.

With google being the Gateway for all other sites in the world , Google Era is the name we have to provide for the world we live in now. Even with their increasing popularity and control over the web , i believe they will not go against their tag line "Do No Evil" to curb the competition.

Cheers,
jkyaar

Its story time...

It was the biggest conference of all times. Culcidae , the head of the Natural Calamities Research Department(NCRD) is about to submit the thesis about Fenthion. Fenthion , as it was recently named , has been the world's biggest natural calamity killing thousands on every occurrence. Culcidae , with a team of 150 , has been doing this research all along his life time. Everyone in there knew the historic importance of the event and felt blessed to have lived in the same generation , which is going to save the future.

The moment came , Culcidae spoke : " Hi everyone , we the team have completed the research. It has been one of the longest in history and am happy with the outcome. However this is just the beginning and we can use this for our future. Fenthion is an area of high pressure characterized by spiraling poisonous gas that moves faster than normal air. High pressure poisonous gas pumps up from the sea of lower trough region , formed due to the dense thrust on the nearer part of the sea."

As in every conference , there were these four senior researchers Aedes , Cules , Culiseta and Anopheles to put up questions and object the result.

Aedes : Lower trough region can create high pressure area and pump up gas , accepted , but why is it poisonous ?
Culcidae : It is poisonous because of the waste materials we deposit in the sea , the H2S we emit into water is one of the main culprit for Poisonous Gas.

Cules : Dense thrust occurring on the sea , how come ?
Culcidae : Due to a small shake of the earth.

Culiseta : Due to high pressure it is faster than normal air , but why does it spiral around ?
Culcidae : The high pressure air collides with normal air , which in turn creates air friction leading the gas to spiral around.

Anopheles : So , what are the constituents of the poisonous gas ?
Culcidae : It contains Pyrethroids , Piperonyl Butoxide , resmethrin & moisture.

Culcidae continued : Fenthion mainly occurs when we live in large groups aiding us to pollute the atmosphere and sea . Am in the process of recommending the government to distribute us into a lot more smaller groups. Don't ask me about the number for a group , we are still figuring it out. Also we are in the process of trying to figure out the exact timing of a Fenthion and am sure we will succeed in it too.

Every mosquito in the conference were happy about the accomplishment and felt satisfied.

The story ends with the previous line , if you feel weird read the last line (i.e the second word) again. OK , let me put the plot straight - Spraying of pesticide gas by humans (for mosquito control measures) is being researched by Mosquitoes. I think , you might(/will) like the story if you read it again after knowing the following details.

Fenthion - A pesticide used to kill mosquito.
Culcidae - Biological family name of mosquito.
Aedes , Cules , Culiseta , Anopheles - Different types of mosquitoes
Pyrethroids , Piperonyl Butoxide , resmethrin - Mosquito Pesticides.

Cheers,
jkyaar

Dora - The Explorer

Heard about the program "Doravin Payanangal" (Chutti TV - A Tamil Channel for Kids) from one of my colleague who has a daughter doing her kindergarten. She is a fan of Dora and tries hard to watch all the episodes. While switching channels i came across this program , saw the whole one (it requires a lot of patience) out of curiosity to know its nature.

The nature of the program is like this - Dora will have to reach a destination to complete a task . She with the help of a monkey , a map (to show the path) , a bag (to carry the required items) and her brother will reach the destination overcoming a lot of hurdles and complete the task successfully. The most important aspect of the program is , you and i (the audience) will also be helping them in their mission. This aspect of the program is the main reason for its success.

The program tries to remain interactive in all possible ways , putting up enough pauses between a question and its answer , repeating each task to be done a lot more times so that kids will remember and repeat it the next time and asking all the kids in the house to cheer for Dora. If Dora wants , say a pen from her bag , a lot of items will be displayed on the screen , selecting each one of them a question will be asked "Is this a pen?" , and finally when the right one is chosen you will hear this "you (audience - the kids) have chosen the right one for Dora and has helped her in her mission". Like wise the program makes sure that the kids remain engaged in helping Dora complete her mission.

I really liked the program ( by visualizing how a kindergarten child would have enjoyed it) . The creators of the program have taken up the idea of interaction from a computer game and has made a television show from it. The idea is simple and already existing (in some other format) , but the way it has been converted and delivered to the audience has made it a hit. So , whenever you are looking for an idea , don't panic , it is already present some where , only thing is you will have to realize it ( I did not know how to end this post , so added some philosophical talk).

Multiplex Cinema

With rising economy , the number of multiplex theaters have been in the increase in recent years in India ( as i know , mainly in Chennai). They have been a lot successful in putting small theaters out of business , thou they make people spend a lot more than the smaller theaters. They have done a lot to enthrall the movie goers and has set high standards. Here goes my wish list on what they could still do to increase(or will it decrease) the standard.

• Decorate the hall : For each movie , decorate the hall with respect to the movies genre and plot. For an Animation film like "The Chronicles of Narnia" , decorate the hall like a jungle. Have statues of lion , white witch and those four kids at the top of the hall along with the cupboard. So , for a romantic movie , shall all corners of the hall have big posters of the lead pair lip locked (or what else).
• Bring in new conditions : Add interesting and acceptable conditions for each movie. For a movie like "Home Alone" , allow only parents who are along with their kids. Have two groups , parents and kids i.e all kids should stay together away from their parents. Allow only hard core fans of the super hero to watch the super hero movie like "Terminator" /"Sivaji" . You still want me to say the conditions for a romantic movie , ok here it goes , allow only couples.
  
• Make the entry special : For a horror movie like "Psycho" , even a pin drop in the hall should be audible and the hall should be emerged in complete darkness. Allow only one person at a time to enter the hall with a small thin light in their hand to find their seat. What about other type of movies , i have chosen the easy one and will let you think about the hard ones .
• Engage the audience : Search for scenes in a movie where the audience can be engaged and their energy levels can be increased. For a movie like "Batman Begins" , fly a batman machine inside the hall for the first scene when batman appears. How will it feel when something in the hall breaks into parts when your favorite super hero thrashes the villain. Nothing ends well without romance , imagine and let others know how do you want yourselves to be engaged for romantic movies.

cheers,
jkyaar