Asterix & Obelix

Hats off to our library people for having stocked 'Asterix & Obelix' in our office library. Was feeling elated to read thro the comics yet again. Asterix had always been one of my fav. cartoon characters. Just to think Asterix was created in 1959 is astounding, it has an impact even after sooo many years.

I simply luv the character names..oh so..humourous
Asterix - The star
Obelix - Monolith stone - and also the typographical dagger symbol (†) that is often used to denote the second footnote on a page after an asterisk (*) has been used to reference the first. [This meaning is a straight lift from the wikipedia]
VitalStatistix - The village chief
Getafix - The druid
Geriatix - The village old man
Fulliautomatix - Blacksmith
Unhygienix - Fishmonger
Bacteria - Fishmonger's wife
and many more..

My attempt @ drawing Asterix n Obelix

My other fav are

Tintin, Tom & Jerry, Richie Rich, Donald duck..(didnt have a liking to Mickey mouse - thought it was acting too smart)..

I didnt update myself with the later day cartoons..But now, thanks to Aadhu (my SIL's 4yr old son)..I give a curious glance @ Noddy, Pokeman, power puff girls & their likes

Where are the musical hits?

6 months into 2006, I kept adding my favorite songs to a Fav2006 folder in my Laptop. Gosh, there were just 15 songs that made their way to the folder. And 'Thambi' is the only film in which I liked most of the songs.

Where have the hit songs gone? I guess..Tamil Cinema Music industry is at its worst phase. With run of the mill movies being churned out as Assembly line products, where is the scope for good music?

My list

• Unnai Kandane (Haricharan, Shruti) - Parijatham
• Namma Kaatile (Ilayaraja, Roshini) - Pattiyal
• Poi Solla poren (Kaykay, Kanmani) - Thirutu payale
• Thirutu Payale (Mukesh) - Thirutu payale
• Idam porul paarthu (Karthik, Sujatha) - Chitiram Paesuthadi
• Vaazha Meenukum (Gana Ulaghanathan) - Chitiram Paesuthadi
• October Kaatru (Boni, Maathangi) - Idaya Thirudan
• Tajmahal Oviya Kaadhal (Vijay Yesudas, Madhumitha) - Kalvanin Kaadhali
• Eno Kangal (Yuvan, Sadhana Sargam) - Kalvanin Kaadhali
• Dailamo Dailamo (Sangeetha, Vijay Anthony) - Dhisyum
• Nenjan Kootil (Jayadev, Rajalakshmi)- Dhisyum
• Thogai Virithu (Chinmayee) - Kalabha Kaadhalan
• Laelakku Laelakku (Kaykay, Sujatha) - Aathi
• Aththi Aththikaai (SPB, Sadhana Sargam) - Aathi
• Kaadhal Sutrudhe (Naresh, Sadhana Sargam)- Saravana
• All songs of Thambi(Sudum Nilavu, Ennama devi jakamma, summa kidantha, poovanathil maram undu)

The positive trend that can be noticed is that, the songs are distributed among many new comers and it is not the monopoly of few only.

Pushkar in Chennai

Had been to the Pushkar fair in YMCA grounds, Chennai. It was a complete letdown. The fair was organized by the Rajastani folk in chennai. May be I had different expectations from it - the ethnic dress, jewels, crafts etc., Rs.200 for 5 people was the entry ticket. I had pulled in my Grandpa too, thought he would enjoy. At the entrance, there was a village setup with cows, horses, ducks, potter wheel, horse driven gaadis, krishna, arjun painted men (which I thought was cruel, they had to stand still. with people trying all sorts of ricks to make them move).

My grandpa had already started to give me a look of 'why-are-we-looking-at-cows’ for 200/-. Once, inside the vast expanse of YMCA grounds had numerous stalls. We couldn’t go anywhere near the stalls, there was huge crowd milling all around. A quick look at the stalls revealed that there weren’t any ethnic stuff, just the usual beads bag, cotton clothes & jewels (and not to mention the ridiculous price). There was one stall where you can get yourself dressed as a rajasthani boy & take photographs. The entry pass came with a food pass too and we found that free food pass stall was the one that had a serpentine crowd. We managed glasses of Jaljeera.
Oh..I forget, my dad & Grandpa had enough of it & left the fair midway. I had to put a brave face & act as though it was one of the finest things that could happen to chennai. The real saving grace was the cultural show - had some rocking dance shows.
We wanted to cheer ourselves up (the leftover party - mom, me & my friend Uma, so went to the Gangothri stall picked up pani puris & bhel puris. Gobbled it up as we gazed at the pretty sarees, the lovely ladies were wearing. It was actually a very good get together for the North Indian folks ..I guess, the children were enjoying the fair; they seemed to be very happy.

As we were rushing out, gave in to the temptation of mehindi. Man..what a shock, that female didn’t have a clue abt it. Unfortunately, I got to know this fact, after she started her 'training'. She simply squeezed mehindi out of the cone in a rather bizarre design.

Lesson of the day: Do not put mehindi in fairs. You cannot wish it away too ;-(
The rosy side of the fair

Tamil to English?

A 2 minute call from my friend at office left me fuming for quite sometime.
He goes like this "[In Tamil] We say 'Enna bet?'[what is the bet] right..what is the English word for the Tamizh word 'Bet'?"

Tamizh Vaazhga!! Tamizh Velgha!!

One Year Journey

Indeed time flies fast. Exactly a year ago, the first words in my jottings pad were written.
Feels good to have the blogs running for a year. Hope to continue with the same spirit.


And a big Thank You to all of you


A roundup of the most popular blogs.

Velachery Real Estate (Jus, by the sheer number of visits to this blog, I can makeout how hot the real estate business is in chennai)
Gana Ulaganathan adds to the popularity
The CTS & IPod saga
Vijayamangalam - Lost Tamil Jain Heritage

Expect More!!!!

AIWO - Food for life

Last week, terrorized my friend to take us out for a treat. I wanted to try out AIWO, Nungambakkam for quite sometime..So, the gang of four trooped into AIWO at 9.00 p.m.

Very good ambience and the servers were courteous. The much-touted USP of AIWO is Low-Calorie food in a cool conveyor. The price is not very high at 200/- per head for veg buffet


We ordered a veg buffet comprising of 14 items. The starter was a complete downer, we had three miniature glasses that had 'Rasam - kind of pepper soup'(no salt & bland) and 'buttermilk' . We had tomato soup too.


Then started the rally of dishes via the conveyor belt.
Apple & Tomato salad was great & I scooped up three bowls. Then I realized my tummy was half full & there were 13 more items to attack ;-(

Then we had red cabbage cutlet kind of thing. [Excuse the 'kind of thing' language, bcos, I just didnt know what exactly that was], zucchini & celery; peppered cauliflower; assorted vegetable subzi, Green Bottle gourd chutney - half boiled, Mushroom, Hara Bara kebaab(cutlet yaar!), brinjal kootu, Greens, kidney beans with tomoto & onion, Lemon grass & pepper barley (was a filler like rice balls but good, Elachi Sandesh (bad - imagine having a sweet dessert with no sugar/sweetness what so ever.

All the dishes were bland; the only solace was that it was healthy.

Oops.. Forgot the millet, soya small rotis that were served separately. And we ordered pomegranate juice towards the end - man! That was THE JUICE. These folks really know, how a juice should be made.

I would say, you can try it once in a while. I like to explore different genre in food, so combined with the unique experience of conveyor buffets and healthy food, I would give AIWO a pass mark.(But..Why cant healthy food be mouth-watering?)

Warning: Don’t expect, run of the mill food here, for the tongues that swear by idlis & rotis, don’t be disappointed after landing here.

Hindu Review
Chennai Online Review

P.S: Don’t ever talk ill of an occasional 'sodhapal' in your mom/dad/spouse's cooking. You just paid thro your nose to drink a salt less rasam.

Spotted (a) Visitor

These spotted deers visit our house on a daily basis.

Nadal Numbers

Thought of compiling a 'Nadal - the clay court invincible' blog..Roland Garros has already a great writeup on numbers. I will just link it up, have a look at The final in figures
What a game that must have been..(poor me..sitting in chennai n just watching the news highlights.


A commentary on the match -

1963 Advertisements - Part 3

Well, let me present the Great-Grandmother of ADs.
Woodwards Gripe Water

'Enna Aachu? .. Kozhadha Azhudadhu :-(.. Woodwards gripe water kodu..Nee kozhandhai-a irrukaracha edhu than koduthen:-)'

Put this in a 'while loop' & pass mother, grandmother, great grandmother as parameters.

A dream Ad for any Ad professional. It is definitely one of the all time TOM (Top of the Mind) Ads. To my surprise, the 1963 Woodwards Gripe Water print Ad also runs on the same theme.

Content: Woodwards Gripe Water - This is being used by intelligent mothers for over 50 years

Mind Boggling!
(And the Ad series ends here)

1963 Advertisements - Part 2

A good 43 years back, this is how Parle-Gluco, Kissan & Vaseline advertised their products.


Parle - Gluco Biscuits -1963 Advertisement - Eat Parle Gluco Biscuits be active n cheerful
Kissan Squash - 1963 Advertisement- Drink one glass Kissan Squash and relax.... Kissan Squash is the largest selling Squash in India
Vaseline Hair Cream - 1963 Advertisement -
Content: To be cool and glamourous all throughout the day popular film star Sudesh Kumar uses Vaseline Hair Cream. You can also use Vaseline Hair Cream & be like Sudesh Kumar (BTW ..who is this sudesh kumar - a fictional name ..I guess)

Have a look at the Part 1 too.

1963 - Advertisements - Part1

Having failed to keep up my weekend promise to complete the book 'To kill a mocking bird'( I made considerable progress though!), I happened to dig into my parents' library & flicked many a book yesterday. One among them was Bhagyam Ramasamy's classic comedy creation - Appusamiyum Seethapaatiyum. Appusami and Seetha Paati potray a typical elderly brahmin couple, with Seetha paati playing the dominant partner and Appusami a hapless husband.

The best part was, the story came as a series in Ananda Vikatan - a tamil weekly. The book contains the bounded version of the different chapters. So, apart from the story, interesting insights into the society was documented as Advertisements, jokes, tit-bits..

So whats special abt it. Well, the series was written in 1963.


Have a look at the Cadbury's Milk Choclate 1963 print Ad. The content goes like this
"Cadbury's Milk Choclate - Contains the goodness of Milk .. It is not a choclate alone .. It is a food too"

Chennai cant decode the Vinci

What a way to show federal setup! After a hiccup or two, the center allowed the screening of Da Vinci Code. Now TamilNadu Govt & Andhra Govt goes about banning the film to appease certain sections. You have all immoral stuff being shown in mainstream movies, leave alone 'A' rated movies. The recent Pudupettai, takes 2 hour and 55 minutes to show the transformation of a school boy in to local rowdy in to a GangLeader. The 'Hero' then gets into politics and finally becomes an 'educationalist' who runs a few educational institutions.

A 'Kali Amman', 'pottu Amman', 'shri vishnu puranam', 'Jesus Lives' movie hurts my sensibilities, Whom shall I approach to get a ban on these movies?

Bottom Line: U dont like you dont see it. If you are in India, get others also to NOT see the movie.

A small consolation: Chennai is not the only place in India, where DVC is banned Unlike the Draculan CAS which is imposed only in chennai.

Weekend Promise

Hope I complete the the book 'The Kill a Mocking Bird', for I have been reading this for quite some time. Long Live Atticus. BTW, bought Aurther Hailey's - Hotel. Let me try my luck with that too..