Ambimama - India

New Year eve on Zee Telugu saw ‘Devadasu’ not only winning his ladylove but also setting millions of Telugu hearts aflutter with romance.

The screening had the channel ratings soar to a new high on the GRP sheets only to stop after scoring a double century at 213.77, claims the channel. The movie, which was one of the major blockbusters of the year 2006, replicated its success on the small screen when aired as part of channel’s MahaMovie slot as a curtain raiser to an eventful year ahead on the channel.

Having ushered in the New Year with a bang, the channel is set to keep viewers’ tryst with romance on the small screen with similar fare.

Of the top six movies that were declared runaway success at the box office last year, Zee Telugu has already acquired the satellite rights of four: ‘Devdaasu’, ‘Bomamarillu’, ‘Godavari’ and ‘Andala Ramudu’

News - Courtesy Indian Express, Chennai:

India and Portugal, which have cultural ties dating back to the colonial days, have agreed to join hands to conserve their shared heritage and architecture.

As part of wide ranging agreement signed by Portugal’s Culture Minister Isabel Pires De Lima and her Indian counterpart Ambika Soni on Friday, collaboration between museums and libraries of both countries has been emphasised.

De Lima offered her country’s expertise to India in the area of museology. Besides cooperation in archiving and microfilming, the two sides will consider the possibility of sharing expertise in documenting arts, production of cultural resources, cataloguing, indexing and library services.

“Both sides will promote the conservation, study and diffusion of historic artistic heritage in their respective countries and, in particular, Portuguese and Indo-Portuguese heritage,” the agreement said.
————-
My view is that old temples exist in India, which have rich heritage. And there is no necessity to preserve the physical aspects. It is the hidden treasure the philosophy behind, which should be retained. NO science can match the “Karna Culture” (Listening by ears (karna) Vedas and chanting).

And the art of preserving does not need science, which will fail (any form of preservation). The Portuguese want Goa culture to be retained? That is OK. It promotes only tourism. Not the culture of India or the Portuguese.

The work of inviting people directly for marriage, visting their homes is a bad and cruel experience. It takes lot of time and discussion about what are the arrangements being done and whether all purchases are completed?

Even the above is OK. But the serving of coffee, tea and other juices plus snacks bother me more. After so many years of relationship, in one word the host whom we are inviting should understand, that we are on the run and already have had many varieties of Waterloo Drinks.

But It never happens.

So even before marriage I am overloaded with extra calories due to love and affection.

They should understand and treat us. Just a plain glass of water is enough!

So I have to take extra care to say to then politely, that we are stomach full already.

They should understand inviting is a huge time consuming process and leave us as early as possible.

But in practice it is never happens..

I really hate this kind of OVER-LOVE Culture.

There are many other aspects as to not inviting personally and sending invitation by post!!

How can this be solved in the present hectic days, where people are not available while we go to invite. And when we post they take it as an insult.

I remember one of my friends who visited my marriage, though I forgot to invite him. This is the positive and good.

I wish in future there is a solution or an end to this type of inviting and get abused.

Should they not realize the difficulties of how marriage is conducted ritually? It is easy for people who go after registered marriage in India or abroad.

There is no invitation needed of any kind due to inter-national relation by marriage due to any religion, caste or personal purposes, which I agree is totally practical,

In this context I hate arranged marriages. I love LOVE-Marriages. No invitations. Nothing formal.

All is well that ends well, inspite of trouble from relatives, friends and forgotten invitees.

Arranged marriage is the most difficult thing to do. There is a saying in Tamil “Kalyan Panni Paar, Veettai Katti Paar”, meaning building a house and conducting an arranged marriage are the most difficult things.

It is from practical experience I write his, which makes me hate my culture, due to jealousy, fault faith in what they believe (with no respect for Love), and assuming and comparing only monetary value of a person.

I have not see the movie yet - but got my attention when I saw the director Alejandro González Iñárritu win the Best Directory honours in the Golden Globes. That’s no easy achievement.

Iñárritu was the same guy who made “Amores Perros”. The movie which had the original concept of Yuva (Ayutha Ezhuthu). The concept of narrating several stories in parallel times which converge in the end with a common incident. I will waiting for BABEL to be released in theatres in Chennai. If that doesn’t happen any time soon then probably will have to settle with a DVD version.

Reviews and awards makes this one a must see, but we know how some of them turn out to be a total crap. For this one though, let’s wait and watch.

Sadly, on the same day we learnt Rang de Basanti is officially out of OSCAR contention for 2007! Interstingly, Deepa Mehta’s “Water” is still in the race representing Canada as an official entry.

Today is the 2nd day of Pongal celebration, part of Pongal celebration thanks-giving for cattle, which serves (it should be tractors now a days which is used more in recent days).

JALLIKATTU: bull racing Indian style:
In this event well-trained bulls by their pride owners are trained, let loose to be captured and tamed by brave youth. The arena is open and bulls are let loose one by one. It runs lonely through the crowd and several youth try to jump over it. They hold to humps and horns. But the bulls are well trained and fed with special food and sometimes liquor also. To make the bull more aggressive chilly powders are applied. In short Jallikattu is a crude, violent sporting event. This year Government and the High courts have put on restrictions to make the sport, a decent event.

Below is a video of Jallikattu. Compare this with another video which follows, where bulls are tamed in a professional and calm way.

Bull dancing / course landaise
Course Landaise is a humane form of Bull fighting that has major differences to the not so nice Spanish, Portuguese and other French variants.

1. It is a COW not a BULL!
2. The only injuries, maulings, deaths (occasionally) are to Humans
3. The cows are specially trained and all have names
4. The cows are only really one breed (the Landes cow from the South West of France).
5, The cows do about 10 passes then get a rest and a rub down!
6. It tends to take place in very small arenas in small towns in the south west of France.
7. As with everything in that part of the world it is just as much comedy to watch them get on with it as the actual event!
8. No cows were injured in the making of this post!