3D Movie John Carter

I am not a big movie buff myself. At times, I watch them to kill time. However in recent times, I have become a regular to Satyam and Inox . My daughter is a 3D movie buff and we have seen most for most of the 3D movies that were released over the last one year. Gulliver's Travel, Cars, Kungfu Panda are some of the worthy ones to mention. Our last tryst was with John Carter in Satyam, a sci-fi movie that really could not keep our attention intact throughout. An army officer gets transported to the planet Mars, by virtue of possessing a magical talisman. The rest of the story goes on in Mars with battles between martian king(dom)s to reign supremacy in the planet. Its hard core science fiction and a bit difficult to follow the story line, if you haven’t read the plot in the wiki before you go to watch the movie. Nevertheless, the sets of the movie are spectacular with huge fortresses, their vehicles for transport catching the eyes.  The art director definitely needs a mention for his imagination of the people(creatures) that inhabit Mars. There is also a tinge of comedy when the hero is thrown up in the air because of the low gravitational forces, whenever he tries to walk. The movie will be an overall a fun filled outing for kids except for the story line that will be slightly hard to follow.

Vehicle For Communication

In the last couple of weeks, there had been news articles of two engineering students ending their lives. The reason stated is that, the two students were unable to cope up with their curriculum.  What make these incidents even more heart rending is the fact that the students ended their life not because they could not cope up with the demands of the course but they could not follow the content of the lectures and text books as the medium of instruction was in English. As a result, they had accumulated a number of arrears over a period of time. With the boom of the IT/ITes sectors in India, the knowledge of English has become inevitable. One of the top criteria that define employability of engineering graduates in these sectors is fluency of the English language. The job profiles require employees to converse with clients in unknown lands. There is no harm in studying subjects in the mother tongue. In my long stint with the IT sector, i have seen students who have done their entire schooling in Tamil medium and engineering in reputed colleges with subjects taught in English, but have done extremely well in college and at the workplace. There are also people who have picked up the language of English so well over years, though they are from a rural background and have done their schooling in Tamil Medium.
To an extent, it’s soothing to hear that some of the branches of engineering are being offered now in Tamil. A welcome Initiative. China, Japan & Russia are some examples that hoist their flag high in the IT arena in spite of their population not being very conversant in English. The major problem as i understand with our setup is that there are no standards that are used to translate many of the technical terms used in engineering to and equivalent  in the vernacular. Students are left in a lurch using these terms when it comes to examinations.
To make things better for such students, there has to be a dictionary which translates the technical terms into an equivalent in Tamil. This dictionary has to be updated regularly and should be made available for students as a free download. This will weed out any possible confusions in the usage of such technical terms. Coming to the point of gaining fluency in English, all students in school taking up their studies in Tamil medium have to be given coaching in spoken English. This effort can start as early as, when the students are in the seventh or eighth standard. This can be done after regular school hours, for two or three hours a week. This will go a long way in giving them an opportunity to face the employment world with much more confidence. Language is a vehicle for communication. It should not be allowed to become a vehicle that takes the life of students.

Relation less Relationships

In the last couple of weeks, i had got about two or three invitations to my email ID with my name in the blind carbon copy(bcc) list. This made me think a bit. Either, the sender did not want me to know, who were the other people that were invited for the occasion or he did not want others to know that i have been invited (Security reasons? :-)). An invitation should never be a formality. Most of these emails, rather than invitations give me a feeling that the sender wants to be so much dutiful that he does not want anybody to blame him for not inviting all acquaintances for the occasion. I very much suspect if anybody in the bcc list would ever go for the celebration. Very unlikely. Atleast, it makes me feel embarrassed to send an invite that way.

How do you even talk/move with the person once you send an invitation to him, figuring in the bcc. Are relationships not be valued more. There was a colleague of mine whom i knew for the last couple of years. He recently got got married. He did not send me any invite knowing that i would not be able to attend the marriage as i was not in the country. I am sure that he would have given me an invite in person had i been in Chennai. I liked that attitude rather than being sent an invitation with my name figuring in a list of unknowns. I have also had colleagues whom even after years remember me and come in person to invite me for their personal events. I make it a point to attend those. Its better if people take friendships/relationships more seriously or better not have it.

Mexican Taste

The winter weather in the US can sometimes be very deceptive, atleast for people who have travelled from the tropical region. It would be very sunny out there and you go out off guard expecting a Chennai afternoon, you would have to run back home. It was one such Friday afternoon when we decided to taste Mexican food daring the wind chillness and the weather man's warning of minus something. We headed to the Blue Agave, a popular restaurant that specializes in the Mexican cuisine.

It was past one o clock when we checked in and the crowd was meager for the magnitude of the place. The restaurant was dim lit, but had a great ambiance. There were 2 huge inches plasma panels that played dance & music - should be hard core Mexican, i believe. That day, i was lucky enough to have people who had vowed to eat vegetarian alone on that particular day. I had been to Mexican restaurants before and had tasted the popular Mexican burritos and tacos during my earlier visits. I wanted to taste something different this time. I glanced through the menu and settled down for the Vegetarian Fajitas. Its a light combination of Mushrooms, bell peppers, onions & tomatoes served with Mexican rice, fried beans, pico de gallo & 4 flour tortillas. You just had to open the tortilla place some of each of the accompanying items of the vegetables,beans and rice, fold it and eat. The taste was just awesome. We wolfed down 2 tortillas in quick succession followed by a big glass of lemonade refilled time and again. It was a great lunch after having a not so good outing with the previous one. We wanted to go there again but did not as we had to cover other tastes as per our manifesto. We want to take a break and taste Indian next week. Let us see how that works to fulfill our mission to satisfy our taste buds. Ciao then.

Food Festival Continues

My tryst with international cuisine coninues. It was Chinese food last Friday for Lunch. We went to the Sun Flower Chinese restaurant which is about a 15 minutes drive from our office in Polaris parkway. The restaurant is in a corner and could easily be missed. The lunch package has tea, soup and rice, all complimentary along with the main course. The Tea tasted better than what it would be normally. Traditional Chinese Tea!!!. As usual, my choices were restricted to the food items marked green on the menu card. The soup had vegetables served in a colorless liquid, but tasted good. I ordered brown steamed rice with a buddhist delight for my main course, while my friends applied permutations and combinations with number of dishes and how they could share it. I think we ordered more food than what we could eat. The quantity is much more than what was served in the italian restauarant where we soothed our taste buds 2 weeks ago. The buddhist delight had raddish, onion, carrots, brocolli cooked in a mild sauce. It really didnot go well with rice which tasted a bit sweet. I could wolf down only half of the delightful Buddhist delight and so were others. Some of my friends packed the left over for their dinner. The lunch got over with a chinese fortune cookie. Its a desert that has a small piece of paper hidden in between two crispy pieces of biscuits that and has some words of wisdom. It was a a different experience with the taste of food and the ambience of the restaurant. We plan to visit the house of Japan next week. I have been to Japanese restaurants before, but will share my experience with the Japanese taste once i have it.

Soul Stirring Music

Ilayaraja is an all time great. Till now, i have not been able to move away from his tunes of the 80s' to any other form of music. I was getting bored on this Sunday afternoon and was browsing you tube for his evergreen movie Back Ground Music(BGMs). I happened to listen to the BGM of the movie Idayam. I have seen the movie many times. And one more time, it just transported me to a different world. A soul stirring & a divine experience. The movie was released sometime in 1992 when i was in my graduation and i still remember my friend talking about the movie for nearly 2 weeks after he had seen it in the Devi complex. I happened to see it in the Kumaran Theatre in Madipakkam along with 2 of my cousins. This was a movie which embraced me like a breeze. I would say that 90% of this effect was made possible only because of the Maestro's BGM. Added to it is the Spelendid Picturization and a perfect screen play!!!. It remains one of my best movies till now. I dont think i have seen or heard about any tamil movie till now that narrates romance in such an impressive way, between a man and a woman using the language of music. I have seen the movie many times now in the cable channels. Just hear to the BGM on a quiet afternoon. The BGM brings in a state of peace in me. I can feel my nerves calming down. I truly believe that music can cure diseases and am certain that Raja is one of the pioneers in this field of medicine.

Rendezvous with International Cuisines

I am once again in the US, this time in Columbus, Ohio. The work is very interesting and the people are friendly and make me feel at home. I have been lucky enough, all my previous trips to escape the harsh winter. But this time, my stay is a bit long here and is in the peak of the winter season. It has snowed only a couple of times this season and the weather god has been considerate. The temperature in the afternoons lingers around the 5 degree centigrade mark and falls below zero during night. To me, December was very cold, but seems very mild for some of the news papers here. They are now writing about the city entering into the coldest season of the year. Dont really understand what it means. But anyway, the stay has been good till now. Every time when i visit the US, I make it a point to visit all the Indian restaurants in that city. But this time aroud, I have decided to taste a different international cuisine every week. We(myself and my team) started of with the Indian menu a week ago and tasted Italian(Olive Gardens) last week.

The ambience was very pleasant. The food was good though, the names were a bit difficult to pronounce. The dishes were blande and went well with my taste. I started with the Italian bread & salads followed by the Egg plant Parmigiana & the stuffed mushrooms. Choices for Vegetarians is always limited. We have plans to visit the Chipotle Mexican grill this week to taste the burritos and tacos. This will be followed by Thai and the Mongolian Barbeque. I am liking it.