Jumbo Circus in Town?

Is Jumbo Circus in Town? naaah! Looking at this pic from The Hindu, one would tend to ask this but its School Time and this is the most common scene on Chennai Roads, though this one is a bit too much. 've seem 3 or 4 people commonly on motorbikes, but this one is a class apart. I wonder when the police and other transport officials look into such cases and clamp them down the way the auto fares are beng done at the moment...hmmm the wish list never seems to stop ;-)

brrrrr

its close to two weeks since we moved to the new office place, one of singapore's landmark buildings, in raffles and it certainly feels like sitting in a ice box / fridge. i guess the temperature set must be in negative! LOL its just that we've not had snow but definitely as cold as the snowcity in jurong east. one of my colleagues already calls this place a snow city!

it looks like we are working in colder regions of europe / canada, but i only wish i was really there ;-) outside the office, the place is a big oven!

Big Brother? nah...Big Business!

The "Big Brother" show in the UK had recently sparked off a racist row against Indians / Asians. The reality show had almost doubled its viewership in a couple of days after the controversy sparked off. Some of the sponsorships' pulled out soon but eventually, the show came under spotlight. I'd say its cheap publicity more than ignorance or racism. While it is true that sentiments of a lot of people have been hurt at this juncture, something serious will have to be done in setting up strict censorship boards or other boards to control tv shows rather than try to be reactive, diplomatic, point fingers, blah!

Latest Info as on 29th Jan> Shilpa is the Queen! Won big brother with an overwhelming votes of 63%.

Orkut yet?

I registered myself for orkut, a google service that has been existent for quite sometime now. I did that after my cousin, yegu, had sent me repeated invitations to view / join. I was'nt much impressed or to tell the truth could not understand what it was all about before I said to myself, what the heck, let me give it a try.

First looks, the concept is very interesting and nice. It looks like i was the last to sign up for this given the number of communities and users in it ;-) there's a community for almost everything one could think of be it date of birth, year of birth, schools, colleges, work place, etc etc.

I heard it is addictive, from another source, (thanks senthil) and would endorse that. Maybe orkut needs to advertise so(!!!)...lol coz with just 2 days into it, i am already missing it without any access to it from office, eeeeks!

net net, it is yet another site with a different concept compared to that of the groups that can hook on lot people...via friends network, blah blah!

as expected...

finally, MK had give way to the revision of the earlier announced pricing of tickets for multiplexes in chennai. as per the new GO, the maximum price range for the tickets would be between Rs.95 - Rs120 depending on the theatre, canteen facilities, seating capacity, etc

this move is indeed welcoming as it favours both the exhibitors and the audience. now will MK look into setting a cap for the pricing in the canteens in these multiplexes as the fear of hike in the prices of the food items sold here to make up for what the theatres may lose out on the tickets pricing has already set in ;-)

darn it! its the politics again...

In an era of multiplexes, IMAX theatres, state of art sound systems, seating, etc, it is quite ironical for the government of tamilnadu to fix a maximum price for the cinema tickets. Given the grave differences in the facilities offered by theatres like liberty, devi etc with that of sathyam, sangam, mayajaal and etc the price fixing is unjustified. as a common man, i am happy, but the question here is, will these state of art facilities remain for those who can afford it? I’d say no!
Upcoming cinema halls like pvr and sathyam (expanding) have created a lot of employment opportunities and it would be interesting as to what these halls will offer back to the government. It would be ridiculous to expect sathyam or pvr to price their tickets at 20 / 30 rupees and offer state of art facilities.
While I am with the government, to curb the spiraling prices of the food items sold within these theatres, the fixing of max prices for tickets will definitely have to be based on the facilities offered by these theatres. I’d suggest segmentation of the cinema theatres based on the facilities offered and curb the maximum ticket price. That would be a wiser move compared to what has been done recently.
if the cause was for the common man to go to the theatre and watch a movie and eventually curb video piracy, why then pay loads of money to the film stars, the key for element for high production cost, higher distribution cost and finally the sky rocketing price of the tickets? Ideally the government must control if not curb the salaries and refrain from taking such hasty decisions that might deprive the viewers to experience such state of are facilities. At this rate, we might end up with the "touring talkies" days...sigh
ps: I own no theatres, cinema halls or associated with the film industry except watching it ;-)

welcome back!

phew...it was really relieving to see ganguly hit back at all the critics in his very first test match after a 10 month lay off from the national team. most importantly, ganguly pulled india out (yet again!) from the drain when "star" performers could not pull any strings. its not only been a landmark return for ganguly but it marked india's first test win in south african soil thereby joining the elite club of winning a test in each of the test playing countries. india's win was well crafted by the prince of kolkatta along with another returning star, laxman and the bowlers.
wishing india all the best to keep their heads cool to win the series to make dada's return a memorable one!

the grand finale!

there is this reality show on one of the Indian TV channels that is aired here in Singapore, "jodi number 1" a dance competition (jodi means pair in tamil). the participants in this show are popular artists of various TV programs (especially mega serials!). the show i think started about 2-3 months ago and initially, i wasn't too excited or impressed about the concept. but later on, when i moved into Singapore, and given the scarcity of tamil tv channels, unlike chennai and the repeated telecast of already aired programs, this one caught my all my attention. i liked it for quite a few reasons, the participants had been classified into 2 categories (though all compete with each other) reel and real, telecast of the making of each week's program, interviews, behind the scenes an what not!
currently the show is towards the fag end, with the finals scheduled for the next week. from 4 reel life and 4 real life pairs, the finals is down to 2 real life jodi's and 1 reel life jodi. my bet is on the reel life jodi, prem n pooja while one of the real life jodi's, raghav n preetha are most likely to give my favorite's a run for the race. would the winners eventually turn out to be the other, cute pair of vijay adhiraj n rachana?

watch this space for further updates!

Latest Update >> My favorites, prem and pooja have won the reality event :-)

exciting lah!

the indian stock markets have been really exciting (though they have always been so in the past 2-3 years) towards the end of last week and most importantly the first two days of this week. almost 1000 points fell in 3/4 trading sessions causing panic all around. what was more scary were the intraday falls of 500 to 600 points (eeeks!)on the BSE. however, as i (and a millions of others) expected (prayed infact!) the markets bounced back pretty smartly in the next few days and is on its recovery path. no doubt, millions(?!) of investors money would have eroded in the 3/4 days but i quickly managed to do some value buying at the lower levels and hopeful of handsome short term gains...wish me good luck ;-)

Its been fun...so far!

Its almost a decade since my undergraduation and things have moved in all directions since then. 've made quite a few but very close friends during my undergraduation and postgraduation. Life was at its best during undergraduation with my dad doing the earning part and me balancing it ;-) Its been quite a transformation for each of my close friends from what we were to what we are now. We called ourselves the 'big8' though we are more in number now with the entry of the two malayalathan's and comedy!

The crew goes like this: arvi, lawry, palam, bhai, vijay, ram, arun's, comedy and myself. We have few other as well having made way into the big8, arun b, sowmith and comedy...hail big8!