SMS

A 10yo water-sports enthusist was trying some stunts with the waves and lost his footing in the beach today. He went underwater for a few seconds and came out gasping for breath..

While I was expecting a panicked scream, he got me and mumbled something to me-

"I have to say SMS instead of SOS."

"What's that ?!?!"

"Save My Soul!"

Even in such critical situations, some chaps prefer grammatically-correct calls for help! 

OktoKabali

Amaze on!

It was just a random Sunday evening stroll in Express Avenue Mall. We had a few hours to kill but nothing much to shop.

 After a pitstop at an icecream parlour, we just did what 95% of mall visitors do - mill around the mall, indulging in some window-shopping, checking out new brands and products, walking the length and breadth of the mall and moving on to the next floor (aka activity Treadmall) to add some serious steps to the day.

I was accompanied by a very deep thinking kindergartner, who walked around uncomplainingly, soaking in the sights and sounds of the buzzing commercial activity. Then he summed up his observations and asked me -

"Appa, is this Amazon?" 

Postcard Princess

This was in the second year of my college education where I stayed in the hostel. The room was B-328 and was shared by the shy, nerdy, wordy, indoorsy me and my sporty roommate who seemed to be involved in all sorts of activities, music and dance, all except academics. The only common thing was our shared dislike for the ancient ritual of bathing and we took the eco-friendly route of taking a shower only when others could'nt bear it anymore!

This was the time when only ministers and top executives could afford a mobile phone and its subscription, and everybody else lived in a world where communication took it's time.

So to contact my dear childhood friend (also named Arun) the only easily affordable option was the 25paise postcard that allowed one to express all you wanted in 1.5 sides of microscopic text. We had been writing letters to each other for years, when he lived in Bellary and then returned to Chennai for his High school. We had just vowed to stay in touch with those postcards, which had amazing privacy features - Every postman and his dog in the delivery path could read it's contents!

Then the best day of my 2 decade-long life happened, in the middle of assignments, internals exam preparations and washing the dirty clothes in the weekend routine... 

A lovely letter from my old friend Aparna, addressed to me. Written within the privacy afforded by an inland letter, it was everything a young man could ask for in a mail. It had beautiful handwriting (which itself was worthy of framing to me, with a script that required hackers to decrypt). It started off in a friendly manner, enquiring about my college life and events, and describing in colourful details about hers. There was this air of familiarity of really knowing a person inside out and enjoyable humour while describing her events. And then it took an unexpected turn, there was some longing to meet again, enquiring about my next vacation back in Chennai and pleading me to stay in touch and not be lazy with letters.

Just wonderful, but with a minor problem to resolve. I had not stayed in touch with that old apartment mate Aparna, and lost touch after she and family moved to another place. Another minor problem, we probably played freeze-n-melt , lock-n-key kind of games in our childhood but then I abandoned her and all other girls and immersed myself in the world of mottai-maadi cricket - but never had known each other to consider it a close friendship.

My next few weeks and months went with these exchanges in my head -

Firstly, how did she get my address in hostel? 

  Well, my old pal Arun would have given it to her,  perhaps he stayed in touch all these years.

Why is writing to me after all these years?

  Well, I'm probably the kind of person you would miss only after you lose contact. I'd like to think, I'm a likeable nerd.

What's it with all the sudden yearning and longing that I can sense in the letter?

  Well, it must be the hormones!

Wait, this is too good to be true. What if someone is pranking you?

  Well, did you see the beautiful handwriting and the genuine words of affection? I can surely catch my mates trying to con me into a fake affair.

What if it's the evil twin Arun who is the prankster?

  Well, he to too lazy to attempt something this elaborate.

What if it's not for you at all?

  Well, what if it's actually from Aparna to me?

Why don't you get a second opinion from your roommate?

  Well, he will inform everyone in the class and I would get roasted till I graduate from this place.

What are you going to do? Ignore or ?

  Well, I will do the gentlemanly thing and reply and stay in touch if possible. Who in their right mind would leave a letter like this unanswered???

And hence I started to compose a funny, friendly, nerdy, a very Aruny reply to her. It took a while to compose and I wanted to hit the right notes while rekindling an old friendship. 

Weeks into the composition, I would still struggle with the doubts of What-if as above and kept the draft a super secret from my hostel mates. One of them was a floor-mate, final year senior Jay, who was really this pleasant and unintimidating fellow who loved to chat without any air of seniority and was the Photography club president. 

He enjoyed the company of artsy friends and introduced me to more seniors and his roommate who was even cooler dude. That guy was so cool, when I asked him if he can play any musical instruments, he said with a sorry voice "None, it's just me and my voice", so I assumed he one of the many bathrooms singers who sang their hearts out during the shower. That very weekend the college band TekMusik gave us a terrific performance and this dude was actually the lead singer with the voice that seemed to blend SPB and Hariharan into one -needless to say he was very popular wand had a dedicated female following! 

Back in the hostel, I went to congratulate him for the great show, expressing my surprise and we talked about other things. That's when I learn that this senior dude Arun, had lived in B-328 the previous year !!

I quietly walked to my room, retrieved the letter from a secret location, and apologized to him for opening and reading it without realising the mistaken identity.

That night I tore up my draft letter to the friend that never was, and forgot all about it till now - I was added in a newly minted whatsapp group with both Arun and Aparna in it !!!

New Activity Alert

"Phalking"  =  Walking around while continuously looking at a phone.

Unfortunately, its not appropriate to say the word aloud, so it will remain a read-only term!

p.s: somebody beat me to it - https://www.collinsdictionary.com/submission/4187/Phalk

Holywave oven

While his mother was busy prepping for Ganesh Chaturthi in the pooja room, a certain 5yo decided to maximize the benefits of the ongoing religious activities.

He filled a glass of water for himself, walked to the puja room, stepped just inside it, counted down with a matter-of-factly voice "Ten.. nine.. eight.... ...two .. one".

Then he quietly proclaimed with a convincing tone-

"Now it's 'blessed water' " and walked out while gulping it down. 

Badjoketon

Why did the taxi end up parking inside the outdoor badminton court?

Because it was an office shuttle. 

p.c : Selvakumar PS

All that glitters..

Thangalaan felt like our Indian contingent's performance in the recently concluded Olympics 2024 - there were some world-class performers and performances but somehow we ended up in 4th place in a lot of categories. 

Among actors, I'm thankful for the rare portrayal of an Englishman from colonial times in an exploitative situation in an Indian movie- who is not a caricaturish villain with a heart the size of a soybean. Unlike his Indian assistant who just yells at the labourers, Clement has been fleshed out better and the range of emotions he goes through is palpable..but...

The electric stand-out performance by Malavika, whose terrific screen presence as the sorceress Aarathi is commendable and it's enigma stays still the end. She looked absolutely convincing as a deadly warrior who can torment her opponents at both the mind and body level..  but..

The ever dependable Vikram who has certainly given 200% while you are hoping that he just gives 100%. One is reminded of his various performances from the past and all his passion has spilt into the screen, its almost like he did time-travel to observe village characters of mid 18th century..but..

Every actor - small and big seems to have been hydrated with SivajiGanesan-flavoured Redbull and each of them were secretly told by the director that "If you nail this role, a national award for best actor, best supporting actor is waiting for you", and they all believed it. Therefore they only portray extreme emotions, either celebrating important events and life in a joyous rural society OR feeling down in the dumps with frequent cries of desperation and prayers to the almighty to save them all. Never a dull moment in their lives, so much dramatic performances, .. but.

The story had immense potential to be really uplifting, BUT (the biggest 'but' ) looks like Pa Ranjith could not decide at the end if it's a tale of hope or exploitation and this confusion seems to prevail in most parts of the movie and reaches the audience too. The incredible scenes showing multi-generational conflict are visually well produced but they are edited away too fast to remain etched in our memories. I now wish someone like Mari Selvaraj wrote the screenplay and directed the movie while Ranjith was in charge of story, dialogues and production. 

Overall we have a fine movie which aimed for the heroic last ball sixer by our favourite batsman to win the match, but gets caught by a tall fielder just near the boundary! However the crew who might win some awards are the ones you never see on screen - the technicians- for make-up, for art direction, for period costumes, for lighting - some terrific climax scenes and for visual and sound effects especially when Aarathi and the Nagas are around. 

I really wanted to like the movie, but I wished they didn't try this hard to be liked. 

The Mysterious Origin Story of the...

...ubiquitous random WhatsApp status message - forward !

I was checking some friend's whatsapp status message with a semi-cool, somewhat positive, slightly spiritual, generally vague message forwards that keep doing the rounds wishing random strangers really good things.. the kind that makes you happy for about 3.14 seconds or less before you swipe right..

I'm just thinkin....who just comes up to create images like these...Is it their hobby or a job?

Someone sat on a computer or smartphone and conceptualized and created it intentionally.. who are these people?

What was their karma that led them to do this..?

How do they derive job satisfaction if they don't know how much it gets forwarded ? 

How does their boss evaluate their performance..?

Are they paid in cash? Or if the messages have some embedded block-chain properties to track how much they are forwarded or shared and then valued accordingly in bit-coins..?

..Me wonders

Ulle veliye ulle veliye..

Thats Inside Out 2..!

The first movie was everybody's favourite, for the wonderful portrayal of childhood emotions in a relatable storyline for kids to enjoy, and an even more terrific personification of emotions and visualisation of mental processes that would satisfy any adult with a natural interest in psychology. My favourite was the way the movie embraces 'Sadness' as an essential emotion while dealing with the sinusoids of life.

 I now feel nostalgia when I think about the impact it had on me back then. I envy their ability to not rush into the sequel and embarrass it's loyal audience with a half-baked production causing the usual ennui that many superhero movie sequels provide these days. That they took nearly 9 years for the sequel conveys the production team's anxiety to better the story material and it's impact on audiences. 

Our protagonist Riley moves on to the next stage in life after childhood and the drama only increases with a terrific ensemble cast of even more emotions to join the original crew in navigating the rollercoaster of a ride that she goes through. I'm really tempted to reveal some stand-out performances by those new emotions, but then I would just be repeating myself like a dumb sequel! 

Un-nutrition

It was an endearing sight of a mom reading a children's book in the library to her 4-yo, educating him on essential life topics like nutrition.

Mom: Ok, now we read about how Carbohydrates, Proteins, Fats, Minerals and Vitamins are important to us. How was it?

4-yo: Cool, now I know all about them.

Mom: Are you ready to answer this quiz section? 

4-yo: Yesss!

Mom: What gives us energy?

4-yo: hmm...Caubohyduate.

Mom: Which vitamin does orange juice have?

4-yo: Vitamin-C !

Mom: What is the name of those who do not eat fish or meat?

4-yo: Weak..?

His mom who is a strict vegetarian was ready to move on to more age-appropriate story books and fairy tales! 

A dark thingy

What used to be esoteric science a couple of decades ago, ends up as popular science through movies and YouTube shorts. Blackholes fall in that category which went from nerd to pop.

Me: What's your favourite colour?

(Expecting anything from the primary colours or at least vibgyor range, to help me choose a gift)

4yo: Dark Black !

I can still buy an Ordinary-Black gift, but for anything darker, he needs to seek it at the centre of our galaxy.

1 HP

The 4yo was practising his chess moves with his 12yo brother and just made a move of a horse piece jumping over a couple of soldiers and while understanding the L-shaped advance, declaring triumphantly -

"Thats what I call Horsepower!"

Ideas

"No force on earth can stop an idea whose time has come",  they said!

The problem is, they never said when 'that time' will come!

A very violent king and his favourite bin

'Maharaja' had a well executed storyline and superb screen-play. The visual story-telling style of the director was appealing and so was Vijay Sethupathy's screen presence and muted, understated performance punctuated by bursts of slasher violence.

The movie had scenes of great sensitivity, compassion and unexpected shots of dark humour. It was almost like they could have easily produced 2 movies with the same story -a family-friendly version with some vengeance and some humanity at the end. Another -an R-rated movie for graphic violence retaining the satisfaction of seeing the bad guys getting beaten to pulp and the scenes involving dozen or so severed limbs and heads and various forms of impaling and mutilation on display.

There are quite a number of movies that capture the 'anger and frustration of the middle-aged common man' , it appeals to you in a personal way. But the only difference is the on-screen characters get to vent it out violently, while the rest of us just eat lots of pani pooris or demolish half-plate Tandoori chicken and go to sleep!

Chatting about Chatgpt 4o

While the tech world buzzes incessantly about how AI is going to transform our lives for the better or worse, we decided to forego our Friday family movie time and watch some of these videos on GenAI.

Taking a cue from Sal Khan who let his young son dabble with the latest Chatgpt 4o for one of his homework problems, we decided to show the intro video to our children and hear their thoughts.

12yo: Wow! it took few million years for humans to come from cave man to create a machine version of a human being that we can talk to..

10yo: This is cool, now I can ask how many ever questions I want and get answers without anybody getting tired. I want to learn coding..

4yo: (could not get what's the excitement about, but got fascinated by a pocket calculator and didn't want to miss the tech frenzy) Now you can ask me addition questions (like 6+3) and I will give answer first and you check if I'm right in the calculator.

Then we installed Chatgpt in their tablet and let them ask..and ask they did..on which scripting is used for Roblox coding..to checking chatgpts prowess in French language..till we had to peal them away from it, and goto sleep! 

Why Love?

We were in the middle of the daily routine arguments on who gets to sleep near the Mother. The Mother prefers to sleep in the edge of the bed to get some breathing space on alleast one side and graciously allows one of the 3 children to debate and fight it out, to get the chance to sleep beside her.

The 4year-old: Amma, today also I want to sleep near you.

The Mother: Why do you want to sleep beside me?

The 4yo: Because I looovve you, Amma!!

(expecting an even more endearing reply)

The Mother: Why do you looovve me so much?

The 4yo: Because I'm used to you.

Psycho-analysis for Preschoolers

The 4yo: Why do we get dreams in the night, Amma?

Mother: When we are alseep and the brain gets bored, it starts to play some video inside and watch it.

The 4yo: (satisfied with the answer) Ahh! Now it all makes sense.

Quote on Monsoon Days

Our first pre-teen son going through the phase of arbitrary zzz cycles -

"When it is raining outside, we must get under a blanket and try to sleep to our fullest potential."