Eight morals from the FIFA Wordcup 2010

Right from childhood, my grandma has taught me to look for morals in any story and what great stories we have had from South Africa.

1. News: Maradona and Dunga failed to become the men who could win the world cup both as a player and as a coach.

Moral : It is not only difficult to practice what you preach but equally difficult to preach what you practice.

2. News : Spain vs Netherlands : One of the dullest finals in the history of soccer.

Moral : When you rely more on leg pulling than on your own legs, life tends to get boring!

3. News: Suarez hand defence spoils the party for Ghana and wins the game for Uruguay.

Moral : Throw up your hands! “He” will take care!

4. News : Paul, the octopus is in danger as many Germans are ready to have it cooked for dinner

Moral : It is always better to tell sweet lies than bitter truths. Saves you from getting fried! Working people can spell the last word as ‘fired’ !

5. News : Ghana’s leading scorers Gyan was the reason for its failure as he failed to score off a penalty.

Moral : Anyone who is leading may not actually save you. Applies to elections as well.
Sub moral : Never trust “gyan”.

6. News : Shakira’s waka waka is a big hit in this world cup

Moral : No matter , how fast the legs run, hips matter and hips are always above legs.

7. News : voo voo zilla sold like hot cakes despite the irritating noise!

Moral : Wanna sell something, make noise ; good or bad noise ; either of them helps!

8. News : Paul has done better than the experts of the game in predicting the games . He makes his choice by choosing his food wrapped in a country's flag.

Moral : You dont need any expertise to become famous. Just choose what you like and have a go at it. Rest is history.

A reunion

She was the first to enter. And deservingly so. For no one looked forward to this more than her. As Shahi entered Le Meridien , the grand re-union of old schoolmates of Alpha who came out of school in the year 1991 had truly begun. And then came yours truly. Drove for some five hours just for these three and a half hours with friends. And just as I entered the hall meant for our re-union, pat came the pat on the back. A white sari devil (Shahi) started what she was particularly good at; demonising me :-) with her “Akka” supremacy. And soon Chitra joined us. You take any movie; any language; A lady drives in a macho vehicle like Scorpio , she’s framed a bully. But Chitra was as effeminate as the roses spread on those Le Meridien tables. Sari clad Scorpio driving Softie. And as Chitra and Shahi were evaluating if yours truly had put on weight or not, Amutha entered with her dazzling ku …ku… errr… cute sari :-)Though she calls everyone “vanga ponga”, She will not even mind if you call her “vadi podi” but try spelling her name with a  ‘d’ in it, and then it shall be “poda vada” for you! And some one likes French… Prabhu came in with a French beard and confirmed his penchant for the French wine. (What about the French k…. errr, French culture , Prabhu? :-). The daring Thiruna or the sky jump fame Thiruna arrived ( Thiruna, you insist that everyone calls with this prefix, or else,what is the point in jumping from such a height :-) . And he believes in “seeing is believing”. Cos, he played a video of his skyjump in his laptop and laid down any photo trick speculations :-) ( and raised video trick speculations ???). It was great to see that this old friend’s smile had not lost one inch of its grace despite this many years . LT Sounderrajan entered, smiled; conquered; kept smiling; kept conquering; and came to form a bit late ( only when the desserts arrived) . Wanna learn how to keep smiling without talking and still conquering, ask LT!

Arun , the born organiser that he truly was, enquired his brother if all the facilities were arranged. And boy, sports truly helps you to keep in shape. Want a proof? just look at Arun; “looks the same” phrase is made for him. K as he is popularly called , K.Senthil is an out and out, field man  ( no Arun, its not the outfield that you field in :-)) and K loves to work to make others happy.Indhu came in a white sari ( Any hidden deal with Shahi?) She spoke in measured tones and refused to sing with her nightingale voice but still managed to convince us that she hasn’t changed one bit and she is the same sweet Indhu that we’ve  known her as always; ( My part of the deal kept, Indhu, now your turn to praise me !). If in guys, the “looks the same “ award goes to Arun, Sowmya will bag it for the girls quite easily. And Sowmya believes in “Talk less and eat errr, sorry,  listen more policy ! And Mr & Mrs. Anand arrived in style. It’s always nice to see love triumph. And this love has not only triumphed but has planted its flag abroad. And then came whatever these “Made for each other” had made; Junior Anand ( Sanjay) arrived in a superior style sitting . And last but still the least , Ranjith arrived ( I meant he looked the youngest :-) ) Right from actor Abbas to our very own Ranjith , all these guys grow till 25 and stop there. Wish I could do that!

After trying to pull each other in an inorganised manner, we were given an opportunity to do that in organised fashion by our lion hearted K. The awards ceremony. And boy, what a speech he gave before that! ( Arun, I still suspect you gave him some things out of the common menu to evoke so many philosophical quotes) . Stories on Love, Friendship, ego… ( I propose “Thathuvath Thalaivan” award in next get together for K). For getting that name tagged glass wonder, the award giver had to say a few nice words about the award winner! We all said a “few” nice words and then the pulling was in full frenzy. And Anand is like Dhoni when it comes to parties. Starts slow ; gauges the situation; and once in control, goes full bang at it ! And he had  a go on almost everyone! Right from recalling Shahi’s oil applied “rettai jadai” to K’s thigh piece order at a hotel , he was just too good ! ( And Shuba, you are right, he’s got an elephant memory but never seen any elephant as energetic as Anand was in the party :-). Rajini comes late but he still comes with the latest fashion. And Ranjith came late too. Anand demonstrated Ranjith’s handkerchief fashion to a hall full of laughter. Nothing including Amutha’s earrings  and Sowmya’s thigh patting were spared. K described an incident where 50 men came to hit them when he was with Arun and how Arun escaped leaving K behind. Arun coolly denied the escaping part and said that he had just sprinted the hundred metres faster than K. ( Got a political career in hand , Machi!)  The other story where Arun copied in Tamil exam with the help of Hindi language student  Prabhu, was even more better spiced. We laughed our hearts out . And Shahi’s children  watched us wonderingly “ How childish these grownups are…!” .The dinner was good; dessert was great; And then amidst all the laughter , as we all walked out of the hall, a question hung in the air …Will we get another chance?? If not to relive those wonderful school days, at least, to have such reunions....

Happy Birthday , Maestro!

Today is Maestro Ilayaraja's birthday. Ilayaraja has given us thousands of songs to rant about. If I had to write on them, probably it might end up as a book and not a blog post. So , I've just limited myself to think ten things that would not have happened if Ilayaraja had not been born......

1. We would have never got those great songs which filled our youth..even today, in southern india , most men and women remember their love along with associated Raja's songs of those period. ...that melody filled youth wouldn't have been there. Maybe south indians would have wooed our real life heroines with "sanam theri kasam" or celebrated a party with "Laila oh laila" and would have never had a feeling filled regional touch to their lives. Raja freed us from the Hindi hit addiction that the previous generation had got into.

2. We would have never got great singers like Malaysia Vasudevan, Mano, Swarnalatha, Sujatha and Harish Ragavendar ( all introduced by Raja). May be Chitra would have gone the MG Srikumar way and got tied to just malayalam and would not have become the popular singer that she is  today..Probably the lyricists in poets like Vairamuthu and Mu.Mehta would not have come out if Raja had not been there to launch them.

3. S.Janaki might have finished her career singing classical oriented songs like "Singara velana deva" and we would have never known what a versatile singer she was. Only Raja found that Janaki can coo with passion in "Ponmeni Uruguthey" and make us cry with " Chinna Thayaval". He even made her sing for a male!

4. SP Balasubramaniam is a great singer. Truly great...He was one among that era who would have survived without Raja as he even had a Hindi market. But SPB himself would accept that his career would have never been the same if Raja had not been there.

5. Eminent Lyricist Kannadasan had gone into tamil minds much before Raja arrived. But if Raja had not been there , he would have bid us farewell with some Shankar Ganesh cabaret instead of the ever resonating "Kanne kalaimaaney"

6. Directors of the genre like Maniratnam who relied more on background music than on dialogues would have never ventured out if Raja had not been there to support them with those brilliant re-recordings.

7. Actors of the genre like Ramarajan would have never been cast ( let alone have a market) if Raja had not been there for them to lean back on.

8. One Diwali saw Raja giving music to four movies ..."Thalapathy" " Guna" "Brahma" "Thalaatu Ketkuthamma" four different movies of four different genre but Raja got into each movie and came out with magic. Can you ever imagine any such Diwali now where all the films music were composed by one music director?  Raja matched his quantity with quality. The legend goes that Raja composed the tunes of all songs of Chinna Thambi in half an hour. Now here was a man who was truly gifted. Be it the urban classical "Sindhu bhairavi" or the rural pathos "Mudhal Mariyathai"  Raja instilled a life into those movies with his songs.Versatality, Thy name is Ilayaraja!

9. Those days, only Raja could make a musical casette like "How to name it " sell without any Hero's picture on the label. Today Thiruvasagam sells not for its pious poetry but for the man who weaved magic with it.

10. And for today's teens, if there were no Raja there would have been no Yuvan for you to tap your foot for "Where is the party"...

This day as I just think what all we would have lost if the Isai Gnani had not been born, I solemnly thank June second for giving us a musical blessing! And blessed we were all to be in an era when Raja's music ruled the hearts.

What IPL is all about?

As the murky deals of IPL keep emerging everyday and every news channel flashes interviews of team owners, BCCI barons and the man with the Midas touch, Lalit Modi, the thing that strikes me most is the lovely dimple of Preity Zinta (cant help it man, old habits die hard!). As I try to come out of Preity’s dimples and Shilpa’s charms, and as I maneuver myself avoiding Shah Rukh’s promised nude dance ( Saurav must be really thanked for saving us all from this promised threat! Dada ki Jai!) and Vijay Mallya’s business belligerence ( you can feel free to call it acumen if you like him), suddenly it all becomes clearer to me. Hey, this is not about cricket. And this is not about business either. The IPL rises above this. It has shaken an already shaky government. It has consumed a ministerial birth, which Twitter could not, however best it tried. It is threatening two more ministers and it is threatening the relationship between a key ally and the ruling party. Surely, this is not cricket or business. IPL looks like it has risen to a level called politics. Now, don’t jump into a conclusion and say it is Indian Political league (though the P is very tempting!). No! If it were just politics, by now, our politicians would have mastered it. In IPL, politicians have become scapegoats. They are all licking their wounds and looking at their burnt fingers. If it were a Ram Mandir , they would have played it to the hilt but this is something new. They are yet to get to terms with it. So, IPL is not just politics. It is something more.

Is the IPL all about an individual’s dream enterprise being robbed away of the charismatic leadership of a creative icon? Lalit Modi did to IPL what Kapil Dev could not with ICL (Hey, which business acumen did you see in Kapil to throw at him ICL instead of the ball? I can hear all Kapil fans emphatically saying “Can Modi score 175? Agreed ! ) Lalit Modi brought in Shah Rukh, and Preity and then suddenly the media and the ad world sensed a marriage between Bollywood and cricket and money started pouring in. The expensive tickets, the prized T shirts, the coveted regional identities, the riveted TV viewer ships propelling TRPs , the nail biting finishes with super overs, the non – stop media coverage, the auctioned world class players …. All these took IPL to an altogether different league. BCCI crushed ICL using its muscle power …er , money power with the ICC and suddenly all we had was an invincible IPL sold by a convincing Modi! And if we were to name the most aggressive player of IPL, you can’t name the dashing Dhoni or the smashing Pollard. Its not the charging Bollinger or the charming Tendulkar. No, its certainly not Harbhajan (though Srinath would beg to differ!) . You look searching for aggression and you cant look beyond Lalit Modi. This man took on PC and took IPL to South Africa. He took on Tharoor and opened the flood gates of a Water gate! He chided the media; wooed the crowds; lunched with celebrities; and kept the show on and on! Truly Lalit Modi did play a role (a big role!). But cant the IPL go on without Modi? Will the IPL not flourish further? Come on, you must be kidding … Be it Lalit Modi or Malit Lodi, the IPL is here to stay. Can’t see a bigger circus, man. So, this is not about Modi. So nothing individual here ( and Mr.Modi! nothing personal either!) .

So, what is IPL all about? The IPL is an annual circus filling the cash coffers. Look at it from a deeper socialistic angle. As the cash registers keep ringing, halt for a minute and ask yourself, just as your head spins at the mention of 1500 crores auctions and 300 crore remunerations, and just as owners talk of a fair evaluation in excess of 1000 crores per team, ask yourself who gives these crores? It is once again, the common man who buys a Chennai Super Kings T shirt. It is that Bengali who buys a ticket he could just about afford and cheer his Dada’s failures. It is that typical “Amchi Mumbai” guy who keeps chanting Sachin’s name as he watches the IPL in Mumbai’s multiplex! It is that college guy who starts playing Ungli cricket even after watching Abhishek and his deputy miserably failing to make us laugh! In society, money keeps flowing. It flows from the rich to poor; and from poor to rich; The flow from rich to poor is facilitated by extravagant goods like the Mercedes car and profligate marriages. And these days, elections are also proving to be a nice platform where money flows from the rich to the poor (with due respect to the election commission) And it flows from poor to rich in case of entertainments like cinemas. It flows from poor to rich in case of bribes. And IPL is just another medium, which the rich have invented to ensure that money flows to them from the poorer sections (poorer to them!) So its all about money, honey! As long as the movie is good, why wonder whether the director is paid more or the actor is? As long as IPL continues to charm you, why wonder whether Modi has cheated Powar or Tharoor has cheated Sonia? Why bother? Sit back and enjoy as Yuvaraj sweeps and Preity weeps! After all it is we who have paid for this circus! Let the circus go on!