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Welcome 2006
Another year has arrived . This time around I am in sitting in a different country. I have arrived to the land of free ... home of the brave .. whatever you call it . I came to Minneapolis a month back and this extreme cold has confined my outdoor activties to zero .

I shot this photograph from the window of my room , I guess that gives a rough estimate of how cold this place is

Run fast ,the Neo-Talibs are coming .


I am watching with much trepidation, the events that are happening in Anna university. The vice chancellor there has introduced a new set of rules banning the use of cell phones in the campus and requiring the students to conform to a dress
code from Sep 1 2005. And the students dont seem to have carried out any mass protest against it .

The following is the extract from the anna university press release

"Taking its penchant for disciplinarian education a step further, Anna University has banned the use of cell phones and prescribed a dress code for students in all engineering colleges across the State from Thursday."

In light of these events i propose that "Mr. Viswanathan the vice chancellor" be awarded the title "Mullah Omar al Guindy " (Guindy is the place where we have the Anna university ) . Anna(Big Brother) is watching you folks.

Lets listen to what the "makkal(junta)" say :

Mullah Omar al Guindy (vice chancellor ): This is to protect our great culture from the influences of the outside evil forces and also to ensure that professors do not get lost in the curves of women while teaching the curves of a sine wave .

Is this guy is a jehovahs witness ?

Dravidian Parties and their caste counterparts : We really welcome the steps taken by the honourable vice chancellor in protecting the culture of the tamils by ushering this silent revolution which would help us in keeping these women folk down
to the ground . we already are not able to handle one Jayalalitha . Imagine what would happen to us if all the women were self confident and successful.

Thamizh chelvan (Male Student from anna university) : Machan .This is too much . I voted three times in the last election . If I can put three bogus votes in a general election to choose my prime minister,I certainly know what to wear and what to carry with me in campus. I am not peddling dope ,I am carrying only my mobile.

Thamizh chelvi :Female student from anna university : This is the the decision of a male chauvinist pig and only reflects the 'blame the victim' mentality of our society . Jeans is the symbol of young women all over the country.

Parents : This would prevent our daughters from getting eve teased inside the campus and make them a great servile Indian wife when we marry her to her future husband . you know what happened to sita when she crossed the line ,dont you ?? . And it also would prevent our sons from getting arrested for eve teasing . Long live Indian amma appas.

Peculiarities of this great decision which would prevent women from getting raped and eve teased .

Cell phones, the harbingers of technology are banned inside an university which is supposed to give the universities in Vellaikaran(Foreign) countries the run for their money . This is an attempt to drill into the student that modern technology is bad for you character .The students in confucius land are 20 years ahead of us in technology and this guy wants to keep mobile phones out of reach of our bright students.

Going by the same logic the anna university should ban the availability of internet inside the campus as we all know what all purposes the internet and email can be put through.There are too many scams which cannot all be mentioned in this post

And in the news , I heard that airtel and reliance are pumping money to the SFI to carry out a strike ,since this decision has affected their revenues by 50% . ;-). P.C. chidambaram spoke to the VC yesterday as this was not conducive to the FDI. The communist parties have supported Comrade Al-Guindy as he has kept the corrupt capitalists out of the campuses. (Couldnt resist it ;-))


I really do not understand why Jeans and Tshirts are considered to be more sexier than the saree in which you can see the mid rib for free . I am not sure if the vice chancellor gets a hardon watching the women in saree. Going by this rationale Saree is the only true linguistic, cultural, socio ethnic identity of a tamil lady. If she is not wearing a 'pudavai' she is not a tamizhachi .So as the next step the honorable VC Al guindy should ban churidhars from the campuses as they are an influence from the 'Indhikaarans'and are a distraction to professors and vice chancellors . PMK and the DPI have decided to kick churidars(without women inside them) out of the tamil country .

The Vice chancellor must ensure that the guys who wear pants do not have their shirts tucked in .Tight pants would show the anatomies of the human body and would invite unwelcome glares and lewd comments . I plead with the VC to consider this aspect as watches the ass of the women around during his moral policing rounds.

Al-guindy also must ensure that any new facilities from the government or the opposition should be rejected as both these are led by persons with film back ground and we all know what kind of corrupt influence the movies have . And he has
taken right step by banning film related activities on the campus . Following the great Al guindy's logic ,the government shall enact a rule whereby we shall not study any more the "Isai Thamizh and Nadaka Thamizh (Musical and dramatical tamil)
' of the tamil language as they are the predecessors to modern cinema. we should take steps to correct two thousand years of corruption of morality by removing these two divisions of tamil .

Jabs apart,I always believed that being laissez faire is the only true way to preserve a culture .This issuing of edicts purportedly to ensure discpline will only indicates that the particualr cuulture is not strong and is afraid of foreign influences .This would mislead the culture leading to its break down and foment extremism in students which might lead violent clashes . The world knows what a bunch of motivated irate youngsters can do . I suggest that Al-guindy be appointed the vice chancellor of JNU so that the students there can get his expert advice on morality .;-) (Jeepers ,I hope they dont adam tease him there )

And Students , I mean everyone of you,if you can read this you ,GET UP STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS ,DONT GIVE UP THE FIGHT' .You are the future of this society and the ones who will be there when we would all be gone and please do not wriggle under
the false morality that is being imposed on you by the neo-talibs from guindy.Tomorrow ,I want you to live as the citizens of a great country which serves as fountainhead of knowledge for other countries not as a bunch of lost children who need elders to help in wearing undies.

If you dont,you will repent the lost freedom forever and history will never forgive you.

Events that needed a big post but didnt happen
1. JustMe changed from musingsfromchennai to musingsfrommumbai
2. My pleasure trip to karnataka
3. The rains in mumbai
4. My first trip to the Income tax office to file the returns
5. My failed attempts to make the greatest assorted single ROCK mp3 cd .
6. My hypochondriacal fears

Scene: A flood affected area of Vadodara, Gujrat
Cast: Joint Commissioner of Police, K. Kumaraswamy, riding on the shoulders of a Constable to save his feet and trousers from Flood Water!!!

One of the reasons why I hate the babudom in this country .

Rajiv assassination ,Me & Tamil nationalism

Two days back I read with much amusement the news that the LTTE(Tamil Ezha Viduthalai puligal) had procured an aircraft. This had set the cat among the doves with every Tom,Dick & Harry publishing their views on the security threat posed to India by this. These people do not realise that the Tamil Tigers have already established a de-facto state in the island nation and India wasnt able to do anything about that .

The first time I heard the word LTTE was on May 21 1991,I was 9 years old at time. I woke up to the crackling noise on AIR informing that Rajiv gandhi was assassinated at sriperumbudur the previous night by a suicide bomber and the LTTE were suspected to be behind it.My dad and mom had that worried look of what was gonna happen next .Sriperumbundur was after all only a few Kms away from where we stay. The first time I felt any kind of identification with a politician was with Rajiv Gandhi. I was always interested in what was happening around me I guess. I had just a few days back brought a big poster of Rajiv Gandhi from my aunts place. My family has a big congress heritage , . I burnt the poster I had of rajiv and put the ashes in a small box and buried it near our newly laid fence. It was my Mock funeral for the slain leader .I was angry with the LTTE and whatever ideology they stood for . The hunt for the culprits went on for another year until one eyed sivarasan was shot dead in bangalore along with a few more tigers . The list of all accused can be found here .

My attitude towards the LTTE did not change until the late 90s' . I always identified them as the men who killed my prime minister.But gradually I began to change .As i learnt about the training provided by RAW to LTTE and how the IPKF went in there against the wishes of our country men and how Mr.MGR the former CM of Tamil nadu had patronised the LTTE .I concluded that Rajiv gandhi had played with fire by getting into the internecine quarrels of the Tamil groups .


The LTTE supremo Prabhakaran a.k.a chinna thambi , has different faces to different people . He is a demi-god to his supporters and a ruthless tyrant to his opponents. The fact that Prabhakaran is a military genius in the mould of Mao and Che cannot be wished away.He has been there when Indira was there and he is still around. Such has been his intelligence that RAW was not able to penetrate his inner circle . The second in line Mahattya was assassinated over the same issue .Prabhakaran's his only aim is to secure a separate homeland for the Tamils in the North-east of srilanka. He would play all the tricks in the book to achieve it. The end would justify the means for him . Else he would not have dared to kill Rajiv Gandhi.The LTTE keeps the Tamils reminding the sacrifice of their brethren every year on "Heroes day" or "Maveerar Dhinam" ,the day LTTE's first suicide bomb Capt.Miller carried out his operation .On this day Prabhakaran gives a speech to all the cadres and tamils on the path ahead and days gone by . It is his own version of " State of the Union" . It is rumored that when Prabhakaran appears witha moustache it indicates that he is preparing for war and when he doesnt sport one peace is said to be around the corner.

This image of Tamil Tiger Guerrilla carrying his dead comrade draped in Tiger flag is used by the LTTE in all its Heroes' day celebrations .

The idea of suppression of the weak by the strong has been the cause for strife in most cases around the world from Palestine to East Timor . But nowhere else have the rebels single handedly established a de-facto state antagonising every superpower in the neighbhourhood as the tigers have done . If India were do a volte-face on the lankan crisis and recognise the new state of Eelam,everything would change .India is afraid to do this on two counts .First,the central government fears that insurgency may arise in Tamilnadu demanding a seperate Tamil state which would later merge with Eelam and second India's position on Kashmir would be undermined if Eelam was recognised . The borders, if they are rewritten would be written with blood with only innocent people dying . The peace lies in the No-man's land between the LTTE and the Srilankan Army .No body is daring to go and pick it up because whoever picks it up will be shot .

Reading MarQuez again

It is satisfying to wake up at 11 on a monday when the whole world is in a hurry to start its weekly chores. But thats the reward you get if you work on weekends .
I went upto my room to play the guitar,but my fingers numb to do nothing of that sort . Decided to do some reading and picked up one hundred years of solitude. This book was one of those early books which when i finished reading didnt make sense at all . Though I knew that this was Marquez's master piece ,it did not make sense when i read it years back . I had read it again with much difficulty to understand why it was written that way . The title itself was a misnomer ,I thought ,when i finished reading it . But I knew I was definitely wrong since a book acclaimed by many should have something in it .Then I embarked on a journey on the net at the end of which I was lifted to higher level from where i could observe the residents of Macondo with more awareness.If you studied Marquez and did not get it ,this should be a good start http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides/one_hundred_years_of_solit.asp

I completed it again and this time I observed a few things which i wasnt able to do in my last 3 readings .Or is it me and my Illusion ?