Ambimama - India

To be a female is divine and this has been proved in Mahabharata an epic based on Vedas and Upanishads. Draupadi is a symbol of Sakthi, married to five elements. These five elements depend on Sun and she has a son Karna thru’ Sun God.

Even the powerful son of Sun is defeated if he joins Adharma – Like Duryodhana.

The entire epic is about fight over Power, Land, Patience, Dharma and Ultimately, Lord himself joining the fight without any weapon. Just using strategy and motivating Arjuna to fight for Dharma.

Whether the Epic is a story or truth, it requires thousands of Ford Cupolas, S Bergs, Ratnams, Rajas, Selvarags and Gautams to even imagine and create such characters.

And the Epic delivers Gita, the Ultimate Truth in Duty, Peace and Harmony.

So what has this to do with Mona Lisa and Matrix?
Matrix is a program to make human work like a Robot –in other words Arjuna forgets that he is NEO and Krishna reminds that he must perform his part as NEO.

And regarding Mona Lisa – she was the beauty personified. Feminism at the height. Sex is not wrong but beauty, valour and ethics are important. And Da Vinci comes here.

In all the above Mahabaratha is just an illustrated story to explain simple and complex values.

And whats up with Indian woman Indriya as the CEO of Pepsi? Hmm.. Will Gates one day will give way for Muniamma? :)
Just kiddin…

Anand’s review of the movie Vettaiyadu Vilaiyadu here

Movie starts with a 007 style action – Kamal against a local don – dishum dishum – kamal wins and the title song kicks in. Intro graphics are ordinary but the music score was cool. Kamal looks his usual charismatic – only a touch old and little out of shape. One thing, the way he walks, talks and moves with a stiff poture makes us imagine if his clothes were probably over starched or something :)

As we enjoy watching these pretty ladies, boom! We are bombarded with a really lengthy flashback of Mr. and Mrs Raghavan(Kamal and his dead wife Kamalee). Yes, Yes – We’ve seen these flashback way too many times! From the days of “Vetri Vizha” – Dashing brave cop. Falls in love with a cute girl. Gets married. Villains kill the girl and the cop takes revenge.

But God is not so merciless, he at least saves us from Kamal’s “Abirami-Abirami” style crying by asking Harris Jeyaraj to pitch in with some sad back ground music when Kamal mourns the death of Kamalee.

Kamal teams up with a phirangi police officer Anderson to crack down on the murderers in New York. Kamal is gifted with super natural powers called “Raghavan’s instinct” and leads the NY Police to find dead bodies of people who were killed in four different places in the USA. Wow!

What’s even more miraculous is that Kamal cracks the traces of the serial killers with ease and manages to find them in no time. You would notice that Kamal uses a MacBook (Apple laptop) to help him with the investigation. Kamal sir, if only you used a Microsoft Windows XP based laptop you would have solved this mystery even earlier :)

Gautam suddenly realizes that it’s only two hours in to the movie now and he can’t let Kamal catch the villains so soon – he makes the villains escape from NY and hit Mumbai to sing “Neruppe Sikki Mukki Neruppe” with Deepal Shaw dancing in the beaches of Goa.

Positives from the movie
• Kamal , Kamal’s getup, Kamal’s dressing
• Harris Jeyaraj
• Ravi Verma’s camera
• Song sequence of “Paartha Mudal Naale” with Kamal and Kamalniee is cute
• The NYPD detective guy “Anderson”

Negatives
• Loose story line
• Non-impressive dialogues
• Too much similarity with Kaaka Kaaka for characters, dialogues and sequences
• Gautam tries to create an impact by making the corpses look as gory as possible! Ech!
• Too lengthy ! Too many sub-stories within the main plot

Anand signs off in Sun TV thirai vimarsanam style punch dialogue!

Kaaka Kaaka was like adrenaline
Vettaiyadu Velaidya was like Anacin(headache)!

Bismillah Khan passed away. He was 91 and had won many awards. Shehnai is a saxophone like instrument and is played at North Indian marriages. In South the big and (somewhat) loud Nadaswaram is played in marriages and temple festivals.

Bismillah Khan has touched not only my soul, but also millions the world over. He made Shehnai a dignified and honoured instrument. All those in the Music Hindustani, Film, Carnatic or Western have already paid tributes to him. Once he made Lata Mangeshkar wonder when he played for her birthday, which she remembers so fondly.

The Thakurs of Nasik made Shehnai for the Maestro, Khan.

We Hindus believe Goddess Saraswati is giver of knowledge and Music. And Bismillah Khan was devoted to Goddess Saraswati. This goes to prove Music transcends everything – religion, nations and wealth. Bismillah Khan has played at Red Fort, on August 15th 1947, when got Independence.

Ustad Khan did not accept money when he played for funds collection to the school in which I studied at Bombay

Bismillah Khan was among the very few Indians who had the distinction of receiving all the national awards - Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan and the highest civilian honour Bharat Ratna that he got in 2001.

Khan, who carried the honorific of an ‘ustad’ (guru), died an unhappy man as he felt that the government did not honour him sufficiently for his services to the arts.

Umpires or Referees in any field have a tough time. This time the way Hair, the Australian Umpire has treated Pakistan in the 4th test against England very badly and it’s bad for the Cricket.

Hair is a funny name and he has really behaved and treated Pakistan many times before like this. All the Australian Umpires have hatred inside their heart (racism). Especially Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

And Boycott is right in calling the ICC stupid.

Sure in future I wish India and Pakistan join hands and treat this Hair (Mayiru Issue) and teach the Australian Umpires and even their captains and players for sledging.

BBC says:
A row over cheating has given England victory over Pakistan in the fourth test at the Oval.

Test abandoned after row

What is ball tampering?

Doing something to the ball that makes it behave in a way that is different to how a normal ball behaves
In the past tampering has seen players try to change the seam of the ball, scratching the ball or adding something to it to make it move differently
Players ARE allowed to shine the ball, wipe mud off it and dry it, but anything else is against the rules
A row over cheating has given England victory over Pakistan in the fourth test at the Oval.
Pakistan refused to come back on to the pitch after tea on Sunday in protest over being accused of damaging the ball to change the way it moves in the air.

They later changed their minds, but the umpires decided that by staying off the pitch earlier on, they had forfeited the match to England.

Pakistan deny “100%” that they had been messing with the ball.

Anand talks about the great Alliance against Google

Economist here has an article comparing the tussle between Google, Microsoft and Yahoo with the 19th Century Eurpoean battles between Napolean and rest of Eurpean countries.

It’s kind of funny to me as I don’t see Google as how Napolean was seen in the 19th Century - Invincible.

The articles goes on to say,

By forging an alliance among those three top companies to create a “balance of power” against Google. Google’s enemies, he might say, ought now to do the same thing that European countries did to bring down Napaolean.

This means W-O-W. Imagine - Microsoft, Yahoo and eBay together. He heh! That would be one hell of a force to recon with. Not just money power - but between these three there are enough capable thinking heads to turn things around.