Every Day has its day

Any management guru proclaims, “Each day is different from the other, start every day afresh!!!” Now there’s a trend to celebrate each day in a year for some reason or the other. I seriously don’t know who ratifies the celebration of each and every day. Earlier, I just knew three important days- republic day, Independence Day, Gandhi Jayanthi. First two days will have Leader’s message on Doordarshan (Hardly anyone watches it), flag hoisting, armed forces parades and closure of TASMAC (still u can bribe and get a quarter).

Then comes all these regional festivals and government, by default, declares holidays for every festival. India has festivals, equal to the total number of gods each religion has. We don’t realize the benefit of being in India, where countries like USA are majorly single religion. With the MNC into the Indian System, it’s always TGIF. Thanks to Bengalorean/South Delhi culture, Friday nights are reserved for Pubs and Discotheques and Saturday mornings for Hangover. By the time, we plan for the weekend, it’s almost over. The worst thing that can demoralize you is when your national holidays come on weekends.

Of late, every day is some special day. New Year, Valentine’s Day, children’s day (10 months after Valentine’s), Earth day, Green Day, Anti tobacco day, AIDS day. At least for these days, we can forgive people for celebrating, for there’s some purpose behind all the celebrations. Next comes the Father’s day, Mother’s day, Sister’s day, uncles’ day, and aunties’ day. Thank God, there’s no Maamiyar(mother in law) and MaatuPonnu(daughter in law) day, for sure there’s gonna be a fight on who comes first in the year.

There’s always a marketing brain to celebrate these days, the pocket of the common man gets plucked. Best wishes to the near and dear ones, hence Greeting Cards sales gets boosted. Telecom operators take away their share of money as SMS and phone calls (special rates for these special days). For Valentine’s Day, sales of roses pick up. There’s always Diwali season, Pongal season, New Year special sales.
The worst of all seasons is the Aadi(Mid June) month discount sales, where substandard products are sold along with quality goods at 50%-60% of the original base price. These shopowners definitely are here to hoodwink the buyers. If Aadi Sales were for clothes, Akshaya Thrithi is for Gold and Jewellery, even more expensive than clothes. Whether Lakshmi will grace your homes on purchasing gold or not, you are definitely helping the jewelers to fill their treasury. At the end of the day, everyone has a marketing strategy and every stakeholder knocks off Aam Aadmi’s purse.

Whatever it is, Live each day like you were born today and die tomorrow, and make it cherishable and memorable.

Nothing changes for me

I had failed to get any calls from IIMs in the CAT exam. But I was not dejected at all like my previous attempts. Already 3 years into her IT career, my professional life was stagnated. I was looking for a change, may be a MBA admit or a change of job (with a heavy remuneration). On the contrary, personal life was just blissful. Being a girl, parents and old retired uncles, aunties start their work of finding alliance for you. My match had already been finalized and engagement was over just a few weeks back. My Fiancé was a typical Mylapore boy peterring in ManHattan, Working for a MNC. First look at his photo, I knew there was an instant connect. Not sure if Bells rang , bulb glow, wind blew to signify this was the man.

One morning I got a Change. Things happen when you don’t expect them to happen. That morning, I was to attend an important team meeting. Everyone including all the senior heads were called for this town hall meeting. As usual I had got up late, skipped gym, got lengthy advices from mom about how a family girl should be. I thought,”What a bad start to the day!!!”. Rushing through the busy roads of Chennai on my bike (moped), “WTF... Every signal turns red”. Suddenly a small school girl had tried to cross and was stranded in the middle of the road. I tried a Zig zag to adjacent lane in order to avoid her. Unfortunately I’d failed to check the rear-view mirror. A MTC bus was traveling in the adjacent lane. Bus kissed moped’s back, I was thrown out of balance. I was lying on the road with my back resting, and the speeding bus had run over my leg already. Driver had manager to stop the bus. I was now under the bus.

My body felt numb, they pain was excruciating. Slowly everything went blank. I laid there unconscious, not knowing anything that happened for the new few days. Later my parents had explained all the events that had unfolded. My lower limb was totally crushed, blood circulation was hampered. Doctors gave an option of amputating my leg; otherwise it could be a serious risk to my life. Life took a new turn in just a matter of days. He had flown back to Chennai on hearing about the accident. I was discombobulated on how my life’s going to be with a single leg. How will my fiancé react to this? How are my in-laws going to react to this? Can I ask him to marry someone else, rather than marrying a crippled. Distressful questions haunted me; Sedatives gave rest to my body, but mind was definitely in a lot of unrest.

Next Morning he was there to see me. The first few words that he spoke, “Marriage date finalized,honeymoon place on ur call“.

I was flabbergasted.”But I’m like… “, even before I could complete my talk, his hands closed my mouth. “Nothing changes for me... You are the same to me.” As firm as a mountain, I felt like I’d not lost anything in life.

30 years ago, I started loving him. They say u can't measure love. Till date, my love has definitely multiplied manifolds. He had got an artificial leg for me, allowed me to pursue my passion, help me setup my dance school. I’m crippled, we are not… :)

(courtesy: Subroto Bagchi )

Death of criticism

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who have opinions and think that they are right. Then there are people who seek other's opinion before to evaluate the right and wrong. Of all junta in the world, our people who always believe that, "The hare that i caught had 3 legs".

Thanks to web 2.0 and news channels, everyone's gotta opinion and they air their opinions on these issues. Even those people who don't even have the slightest knowledge on the subject give their opinion. Its like T.Rajendar or Cab10 Vijaykanth expressing their opinion on six packs and fitness. Every movie that is being watched, and blogs and twitter are filled with each one's ratings on the movie. Even certain reviews are influenced by external factors leading to biased ratings.(Like the Age old Sun TV Top 10 movies.. Which is actually Sun pictures top 10 now).

With High speed internet and broadband, any movie or music can be downloaded free of cost, people are even watching Chinese,french and Italian movies as compared to conventional English movies. Hence even a slightest of plagiarisms are easily noticeable and publicized in blogs and websites. Even JK Rowling was on the similar lines of an inspiration another work. But after its successful stint at the box office, no one talked about it. "Let it be,wats wrong!!" was the attitude of the people.

Being a writer, there are just 8-9 genres where you can base your stories on. So, when you repeat a movie in the same genre, i can be cliched and boring. Just because VTV is a love story similar to a 500 days of summer(with central park bench scene), the plot and characterization have always been different. No writer ever likes to thrive other people's work. There is a lot of difference between a rip-off and an inspiration. Harris Jayaraj, Honey Musical wind Deva or copy cat Pritam have all been people who prefer having a xerox machine and duplicating it exactly. They are Kumbakonam Degree Copy Followers and truly live up to their membership.

Accusing Gautham Menon for ripping off from English movies would be too harsh on GM. Also off beat comments on GM being a Pseudo Mani Rathnam seems to venomous. Mani and Kamal's films are called Inspiration, while GM is being Rip-off. Wat Bullshit. Just because you have seen the original movie via the internet downloaded dvdrip, you can't go on making false comments. You like something new and refreshing, you should also like something on similar lines. Your criticism doesn't seem constructive and leading no where.

PS: Like it or hate it, personal choice. Don't comment(make irrelevant comments) unless you are an expert in that field. Don't try to convince others, that their favorite celebrity is vethu vaettu.

Kavithai:Marriage

This was an instant Kavithai for a team mate, while wishing her a fabulous married life. I wanted something different on the greeting card, hence out of nowhere this came up.

Intha Thirumanam, ungal iru Manamgalin orumanam.

Translation: This marriage(kalyanam) is an unification(Orumanam) of your two hearts(iru Manam)

PS: team was stunned after the on the spot kavithai.. :D