Saturday, June 23, 2007

A tale of two cities

Since time immemorial there has always been arguments between bangloreans and chennaivasis on which city is better. Well I m kinda torn between these two cities. I live and work in Chennai but the rest of my family resides in Bangalore, so I frequently visit the garden city. But when it comes to arguments I am always up front defending my hot, humid, inferno like Chennai, coz this is where I started my life on my own. When my arrogant* bangloree friends make fun of the Chennai heat, I shoot back that its coz Chennai is the Hawaii of India but I run out of answers when they ask me about the planet’s most beautiful natural resources- yeah… beautiful girls. Its not that Chennai doesn’t have a single one of them…it’s just so hard to find one here (without a boyfirend). When you take a walk in the busy Bangalore streets every other person you brush your shoulders with turns out to be a handsome hunk or a beautiful babe clad in the most fashionable of dress materials.

Seriously... where is everybody? Is it because Chennai is more conservative than Bangalore (one of the reasons I like Chennai more than b’lore)?? Sigh!! And the chances are that whenever you happen to spot one u ll find a hulk of a boyfriend guarding her. Why God why?? Why this discrimination?? Its like gals here prefer bodyguards than boyfriends. What will happen to normal guys like me if every gal starts recruiting boyfriends from gymnasiums?? My best pal who is also my roomy is also the victim of the same disaster. Occasionally we go to the nearby beach to share our grief. While sitting there we see cute chicks zipping past on bikes with their bodyguards...er boyfriends…..who look so ferocious that they could make Mike Tyson pee in his pants just by staring at him. C’mon we are not that bad, we dress well too and own the best bikes in the country and most importantly we look very human rather than characters out of “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe”.My pal even had a weird idea of hiring a hot looking pillion rider for his bike by advertising in free ads !! Well maybe we are a bit of mirror cracking materials ourselves …. I resemble a human drumstick (cute though :D)** and together me and my pal end up looking like the Indian version of “Laurel and Hardy” (I still don’t know whether the fatso is Laurel or is it the other way round).

Well theres one place where you can feast your eyes in Chennai though….the swanky shopping malls of the metro. My favourite being the Chennai City Center….. yeah you Bangalore’s Forum Mall jerkies …..see the pic below and go green with envy muhahaha……



Hmmm so where was I? Yeah if we go to one of such malls on weekends in the evening you can witness the conclave of all hotties in Chennai. Yeah and that’s the reason of the deserted Chennai streets….. I think. From the top floor of the City Center we gaze down at all the sweet looking dudettes …. Realizing that this is not meant for us, at least for a long time to come…. I turn to my pal and say “dude, guess it’s only you and me again…lets go grab a cup of coffee”.

To be continued...

PS: this post is not an argument on which city is better as in some comments that i received. Just sharing my experiences i had, living in both the cities.Watch out this space....more to come soon!!

* sorry my frnds from bangalore, that was just for an effect
** now thats what i call self-confidence B)

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

The Movie

So here i am....with my first post as a blogger. Kinda late though, for a guy to start a blog after working for two years in software industry... but what the heck better late than never!! I am still wondering what to post as i aint much of a writer and words dont flow outta my head effortlessly....coz maybe i think too much!! Well i'll share with you about something that happened last week. Nothing much, its about a movie....

THE STAGE
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A beautiful and sunny but dusty chennai.... as usual we geared up for a long day in office...but surprise surprise.... all our networks came down. In short the entire facility had come to a standstill. But we being enterprising employees had different ideas to pass the time till the networks were up and running...some started playing badminton, some cricket and some simply pranking around. But of the lot, my group of 6-7 teammates had different plans. An insider from the networking dept told us that some major networking switch had blown off and it wont be rectified till at least evening.The very same day the much awaited rajni movie - Sivaji was set to be released. We decided to go for that and the stage was set for the plan.

THE PLAN
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The masterplan hatched up and the first objective was to secure tickets, as getting a ticket for a rajni movie on the first day is far more challenging than....er hmm ISRO putting satellites in the orbit. We had to pay 200 bucks for the usual 40 bucks ticket but neverthless successfully blocked 20 tickets in a nearby miniscule theatre on the ECR. Next was the mode of transportation....getting a MTC bus to the movie was outta question. So we started literally begging for bikes from fellow teammates who were oblivious to our secret masterplan. Finally we got enough bikes and we set off in the blazing chennai sun to see "THE" movie.... not coz we were fans of the "great actor" but just for the heck of it.

THE DRAMA
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We could spot the crowd in front of the theatre from a mile away. Police vehicles were flying in and out of the place as if it were some riot......yeah it was a riot. People from all walks of life doctors, engineers, School kids and college dudes, auto drivers...everyone was wrestling his way to the ticket counter to see their hero. Not everyone had the luxury of corporate bulk booking like we had.

THE MOVIE
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Finally the movie started. Fans of Rajni were scrawling all over the screen with some bags in their hands. We braced ourselves for the worst. Then came the first appearance of the thespian on the screen... then it was a war zone. Flower petals, fire crackers, confetti all started showering on us from all sides. Boy... we forgot to take our body armor. It was total pandemonium, it was like being caught in a crossfire between two heavily armed groups - one the grr8 actor on the screen the other being his die hard fans. Then as the fans ran out of their ammunition they settled back in the seats to enjoy the movie... so did we.



Then we had a realization, a bit too late for a salvation. This movie was not for the intellectual types like us. Hence we decided to forget all the physics, chemistry and maths that we learnt in school and college and watched the movie as complete morons. Then everything started to make sense. The jet engine like sound when rajni flipped his towel, the hurricane like wind which blew when he got angry, the way the chewing gum finds it way to his mouth after reflecting off walls and his palms and of course the heroine falling for the hero who is elder than her father in real life.Well i was soooo very impressed by on of his antics that i wanted to try it at home.In one scene Rajni had to sign a lotta papers. He gets frustrated...we thought he would use a a carbon paper and finish it off in a jiffy ... but NO... he takes two pens in both hands and starts signing off with both his hands. ... so much for being ambidextrous huh ?? My head started spinning unable to keep pace with Rajni's incredible antics. But i dunno why do we clap when Keanu Reeves does similar stuff in Hollywood and howl when our own Rajni does it here in Kollywood. Then the realization dawned that why go for expensive holly movies when we have our own homebred Neo. Finally after three hours of mental torture, the doors opened and i embraced the sunlight while running towards my bike cursing the idiot who blew out the network switch at the first place !!!!


PS: I had to add this postscript after getting a lotta warning comments that i could get my ass kicked for writing like this about the most "loved" actor of the state. Well though my views expressed in the post are true,i didnt intend to hurt the ...hmm sentiments? of Rajni fans.In fact the dude still looks young for his age and his more "realistic" movie Dalapathi is still one of my personal favourites.