Back on Track

After 14 long years, I was able to come back to some of the religious aspects of my life that I had enjoyed when I was a child. Thanks to my wife, it felt good and promising. Felt hopeful in more ways than one.

During my child hood, thanks to my parents mainly, I have always enjoyed "Vinayaka Chathurthi" - the morning shopping for Lord Ganesh's clay idol, carrying a wooden plank (palagai) with me to carry it back home, the colored paper umbrella for him, the arugampil for the lord, my father driving the idol vendor mad with his bargaining, decorating the idol at home and more than anything, the amazing "ammini" and "uppu" kozhakattai my mom makes. After I left India, it remained just in memories. At my wife's suggestion, we went to the Shiva Vishnu Temple where kids made the idol themselves from a mould (wife did the major part for us), took it back to the temple a week later on the day of chaturthi with a small paper umbrella over him and my kid did all the ganesh homum/pooja along with other kids, offering akshathai etc to their idol, we brought the idol back home, offered him "sweet" and "ammini" kozhakattai my wife made. To top it all, a grand finale, the "Ganesh Visarjan", immersing the idol into the ocean for good, was held by the two San Diego temples combined at La Jolla shores. Some 150+ motivated San Diegan devotees from across India turned up on that hot day, sang bhajans before taking a procession of the idols into the ocean. The usual beach crowd of sun-bathers and surfers were surprised at this new event and some started photographing as well. The usually cold Pacific was surpringly warm and pleasant with the food and buttermilk after the visarjan finishing it all on a high note.

At my wife's behest, this year, I even went to the temple for the Avani Avittam in traditional dothi and vibuthi instead of doing a half-baked-upakarma at home.

Attached is the photo of Lord Ganesh (idol we made) gracing our home. Also shown is the kozhukattai-es in the second rack.

Reverse Idea Drain

I have heard about Brain Drain back in India (when talented educated minds sought greener western pastures) and also now to some extent we hear "reverse brain drain" - some of those drained brains headed back home.

On a related note, back in India, I have often seen movies inspiried by Hollywood hits - GodFather - for eg. The said "inspiration" has ranged from "being reverential" (eg. RGV's "Sarkar" on the footsteps of GodFather) to outright plagiarism (innumerable). If we call this phenomenon "Idea Drain" from a western world point of view, what I stumbled upon recently, interestingly enough, should be called - for lack of a better word - "Reverse Idea Drain". I came across two movies whose plot is exactly the same as that of two Tamil movies of the 1960-70s era. Both these movies are predominantly British, centered in London and were released in 1998-99 time frame. I dont know how much more are there. Here are the two -

• "The Parent Trap" - 1998 - starring Dennis Quaid, Natasha Richardson and Lindsay Lohan . ( I should credit my wife for bringing this movie to my attention when it was being broadcast on TV). This is an exact westernised replica of "Kuzhanthaiyum Deivamum" - 1965 - starring Jai Shankar, Jamna Rani and Kutti Padmini in the lead respectively. Lindsay Lohan is no where near Kutti Padmini in playing the young twin girls role, Dennis Quaid compensates.


• "Notting Hill" - 1999 - starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. The story line is exactly the same as "Sumathi En Sundari" - 1971 - starring the legendary Sivaji Ganesan and Jayalalitha in the lead. I couldnt stand the stoic expression-less Hugh Grant playing Sivaji's role. But Julia more than compensates for that.


• "Something's Gotta Give" - 2003 - starring Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Keanu Reeves and some other girl in the main characters. The story is along the lines of the Balachander's legendary "Apoorva Raagangal" -1975 - starring Major Sunderrajan, Srividhya, KamalHassan and Jayasudha respectively. While the tamil movie, in which RajniKanth debuted in a cameo role, attempts to explore complex human relationship in a decent way, the copycat is falling short of that ideal and seems like a cheap skin flick (distasteful at that too) just capitalizing on the complex human relation aspect of story. The main cast of the original was beaming with acting talent while the copy cat had to contend with quirky Jack Nicholson while the rest just filled the roles name sake. Keanu Reeves seems elegant but fades in front of talented Kamal Hassan. This, if any, is an insult to the original.

Came across the following piece of advise in a mailing list on photography - "Good photographers make good pictures - equipment is secondary. I'd rather listen to a great guitarist on a cheap guitar than a mediocre guitarist on an expensive guitar. " - How true. Today's pic is of a twins I took in Yosemite Glacier point. I hope to capture the shot with their faces not very visible but still giving the idea of twins by their attire. I dont know why I converted it to B&W

Whose Line is it anyway - #3

• Our young man is in the exciting phase of exploring the world of words in both English and his mother tongue, Tamil. True to our Indian roots and to parenting in general, sometimes we couldnt help ourself shouting at our little one when his acts becoming unmanageable. Suddenly he will cut a cute face, come and embrace you. This time, he wanted to say that we should talk to him softly and not harsh. The word harsh hasnt come under his radar yet. Here he goes - "Appa, you should to me softly. You should not talk to me BIGLY".
• Qualcomm is the name of the company I work for. Our young man had noticed the Qualcomm sign board outside my office building when he sometimes accompanies him mom for dropping me off. He wanted to master the spelling. But incidentally the logo of our company has the ending two "m" entwined to resemble an electrical signal. Our guy was able to make it that there is an "m" there. so he goes, "Q-U-A-L-C-O-M-M-M-M-M-M". See here for our company logo as to why it confused our lad on the number of M's in the end.
• We went in a train ride in Yosemite. The train was pulled by a Steam Engine which greatly attracted our kid's attention with its huge black body and steam bellowing nose. Back home, my wife decided to build on the inspiration and was trying hard to find an equivalent item to demonstrate it. She was contemplating all things from pressure cooker to mimic the steaming part. To our surprise, our man came out telling we already have a steam engine at home. Only when he pointed out to the object, we realised how observant he is and how out-of-touch are we with creativity. The object is none other than - our house humidifier - shown in today's pic - shaped as the cartoon character "Thomas" the engine. And the vapor coming out of its nose exactly resembled a steam engine in motion.

Close AND A Cigar !!

The cigar is hot and smoking. Okay. Peace. This is what happened - Over the weekend I got my cell phone upgraded. Unlike my usual upgrades ( to the costliest FREE phone available ), this time around I was excited about the upgrade for a different reason. I was working on a cellphone chip 5yrs ago which is now available in a commerical cell phone product. Not only that, the feature I was working on in particular (Touch Screen) is the main UI on this phone. I was really excited to receive that albeit it cost me a good $50+tax after the discounts. But the wait was worthwhile. Not many times in your life you will come across this - your work/effort seen in reality that too in a tangible fashion and everybody using it and you able to tell them that you did it. Every time I tap the Touch Screen and it gives a "click", I know exactly whats happening inside - every circuit thats processing my tap. The phone, in case if you guys are curious, is LG Versa from Verizon Wireless. Verizon also sells an accessory to this - a full fledged QWERTY keypad - for the technically challenged. But no thanks, for now, I am more than good.