Tamilot

A few weeks ago, Google Current featured a profile on "Tamil". Yes, the word "tamil". One important fact that I learned from this profile was that according to the last US census, Jersey has the largest number of Tamil speakers in the US. Another fact - 30 percent of all searches for the word "tamil" originate from the US.

Assorted other tidbits:

* After approximately half a decade, it could still be possible now for one to download a wall paper of Prabhudeva and Gayathri Jayaram doing the "Walk like a Egyptian" dance while moving to "Manja kaatu maina".

* Vadivelu seems to be having fun in Imsai Arasan - 23 "A.M" Pulikesi! But for the non Tamil readers, "Whoa" is an acceptable reaction as well.

* Ashok (M.S E.E /Santa Clara/Brahmin/Brahmacharanam/Uthradam/Sankrithi), take a bow. You are famous. Or will be, if another 10 or 15 bloggers pick up this and one of them does a funny post. Or if this post is Dp'ed. Or if Nilu does a post that pukes on your profile.

To end, a quick thought that came to my mind when I saw the tag-line for this video. If Tamil Nadu is "Tamilot", then who is King Arthur? The Gaptain, that's who!

(P.S: BG, thanks for the link kiddo!)

Pioneers, Kenwoods, filter kaapi and The Hindu

Two comments from an article on CNN-IBN discussing the decision by the AIIMS students to
cancel parallel Out Patient Departments to counter the Govt's decision to reservations in '07:

A 10 yr formula failing even after 60 yrs comes to show that the assumptions are misconceived. The government’s move is draconian, regressive & development retarding. Merit is compromised for creating privileges for an influential section within the asking hands of the backward castes.
While many of my brotherhood cry & moan to deaf, autocratic ears, it is expected of the government to rethink on its approach. The current policy is divisive & does not achieve the primary purposes.
One is underprivileged not by the caste in which he/she is born but by what he is deprived of. The primer of the policy needs a revisit. The government will do good to:
1. enforce reservations at School levels (fundamental right to education)
2. Scholarship schemes & funds within Higher bodies of education to support underprivileged (Based on economic criteria)
3. Distribution of unutilized land for industry/cultivation
4. Micro finance institutions, NGOs to develop vocational skills, self employment
The meritorious people already pay their share due to progressive taxation.
The brains seek challenge and not decay in mediocrity. Let no one have discussions on talent pool drains in future.
* ( Posted: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 at 14:26 )

Hey * ...a quick question...are you from Chennai ?
( Posted by ****_******* on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 at 16:19 )

(P.S: The title is pure wordplay. Poineer, Kenwood, types of stereos, stereotypes.. get it? *sigh* I always knew I couldn't do an Art Buchwald. Jokes apart, this is pretty much the only reference to reservations that you might find here. I consider myself uneducated when it comes to matters like this and though I really have strong opinions, my reasoning seems to be very flimsy and I refuse to be drawn into any argument where I'd be forced to concede solely because I am ill-informed! Or mebbe not. Let's see!)

Basketball diaries

One yearns to be playing cricket like this. But regardless of disappointments at not being a part of similar groups, one's day brightens even upon reading about things like this.

If you ask me who I'd identify myself with the most among all the Saturday Game ballers, it would have to be the Commish. I am obsessed with playing right whether it is practice or the game or when I am in the sidelines cheering (happened a lot during my undergrad and grad years). I am not a very good player, but I hate to play with people who act goofy or don't give 100 percent when the rest are playing seriously.

So now, I am hunting for the right group to play with. The group is more than important for me to sustain interest, to help me get out of bed in the morning like I used to during the summer holidays in the 80's and the first half of the 90's and run at 6:30 in the morning to the Hensman Road ground. But I know now that playing cricket like that here is almost impossible. And it is in times like this when I wish I was really in and around South Florida where the beautiful weather permits one group that I know who play regularly.

Maybe tennis is the answer, but the combination of factors like the lack of equally (non) talented hitting partners and ankle-biters hogging the pair of tennis courts in the apartment complex every evening has been the dampener these past few weeks.

A loathsome, offensive brute

(Originally uploaded by superstarksa)

.....yet I can't look away....

An Avuncular Epiphany

Some of my friends (old and new) have conspired to bring me to a point where I have had to transcend to an avuncular state, leading to much introspection about life and the various mysteries it still holds. During one particular self analysis phase a couple of months ago, I realized that this phase, which is going to be forever btw, has the potential to rise at least a few embarrassing moments, unless I do something about it.

This phase came to its head sometime last week when the shiny silver motorola started buzzing with the advent of a text message that read "It's a boy!!! Name (***insert random in-vogue sanskrit name***). 7.5 lbs". Then I had an epiphany¹, or to internalize what Frank Maiers once said (via Answers.com), a spiritual flash that would change the way I viewed myself.

So, in a change that should rank right there with Intel's logo change², I am letting go of the nick aNTi. Unlike other changes of this kind, this is not about the subject, i.e. me. It is about you all (Gabby, you, Mr.G and the Maharaja are included too). Because I don't want any kid to go Ok, so, here is uncle. Where is aunty? after being introduced to me and later being scarred for life after hearing the reply - Yes dear, this is aNTi. He is the uncle too.³

Now to choose an alternate nickname. That was a tough task. I was tempted to become Superman, but then that would entail a much bigger change, i.e. my tagline, something that my already overdrawn creative juices cannot withstand right now. Then I remembered that mystery Namibian fast bowler !Kabbo.

If you have seen Gods Must Be Crazy, you must remember the weird clucking noises that Xixo (played by this guy called N!xau) and the other Sho "tribespeople" made while conversing with each other in the native tongue. While the prospect of people making clucking noises (to pronounce the "!" in words and names like N!xau) while referring to me made taking a Sho nick an attractive proposition. I was actually going to post pics showing how to move your shoulders like a chicken's wing while mouthing the nick aloud.

But then the amnesia suddenly disappeared and I remembered the embarrassment in 2003 when someone gently reminded me⁴ that the Cricinfo piece from one year earlier was actually was a joke made on All Fools day. And since the Sho reference is way too obscure, I had to drop the nick with the clucking sound.

Finally I decided to take a cue from that master of name changes, Prince and decided that I could just choose myself a symbol and tell people that the symbol was called TBloFKAa or The Blogger Formerly Known As aNTi. But the presence of the letters F and K one after the other, made be do a rethink and so the symbol and the acronym was dropped in favor of the phraseology.

So there you have it. This blogger as you have known him in the past has ceased to exist.

[1] Yes!!!. Finally got to use the word on a post!

[2] I know..I know. No one noticed the change.

[3] A dig that the likes of Gabby would surely love to indulge in, bah.

[4] Haloscan comments are not available any more, so thankfully, no one can embarrass me about that again!