Home(town) ‘sweet’ Home(town)

After a very long time, it was decided by my own self, why not do it! No big thing but just to sit and go digital - all family photo prints with some, perhaps, as old as six decades. Indeed, it happened. I brought those from tirunelveli to chennai when I went there during June.

On the process, when I was looking at those, almost a complete flashback of my life, is what I experienced, nevertheless will sound absolutely strange to everyone else.

From the photo with an year old girl baby, my mother, to the engineering student with his classmates, my father. With them are my brother, grandparents, and many-a-relatives in different ages, different costumes and with even more differents, all from sepia to grayscale to RGB.

The ‘chunnambu kaarai suvar’ in our sweet home, The mustang and the sony televisions, the murphy radio, Our thottam with few trees and where we had done our all ‘SPVG club activities’ from play rehearsals to sports meet (Sankaralingam – an ex-neighbour, Ponniah – a cousin, Vennimalai - myself, Ganapathy – brother), Our (myself and annan) recordings in national panasonic with all stainless steel vessels as instruments, My scheduled 19.30 visit for a continuous three years to ‘thiruppani vinayakar koil’, The patients to my homoeopathy doctor thatha, Annual Kandhaari amman koil kodai, Annual Aanitherottam, Our neighbors from maharasi achi to chemba. Markazhi month early morning ‘kalar kolams’ , The sweet pongal karumbu, The sweet halwa, The sweet tamiravaruni water and CitySchool, St. Johns, MDT, SAC & Kautilya …and a lot more.

The list goes on and of course the nostalgia can never be fit even in N blogspaces if you give.

It was in the year 2000 during which I had to move off from my town nellai / tirunelveli all just because I had grown up and had finished my post graduation by then, in turn, the all transparent myself yelled in me about what next.

Yes, moved to the capital city of tamil nadu and my fortune helped me in getting a place to stay with some good hearts, later who were ‘knighted’ CASTLEGUYS. Its half-life time period as per IPC,- seven years, things have changed in me. Now, the hair in my head is countable. The way I look at myself and people around me is much more in detail than what and how I was in all my teen and early twenties.

All these very massively summarized, are just another set of examples for the fact that it is nothing but the time, which is giving, teaching and preceding us always. More than that, beyond the time, is the ultimate power, labeled ‘God’ for the believers.

At 60

60? Let it be 20, 40, 54 or any number < 60, but what is the difference between say 5 and 50 or 10 and 60? Though my experiences not making me eligible to talk about this, but my citizenship steer me to think a little BIT about at least whatever I am aware.

Nuke deal issue, Goa controversy, Fight at MCD, Orissa dead infant bodies……..
And
Sania in finals, Saina in next round, India won test series, Indian heavyweight WWF champion…..

It is Aug 15 2007 and it is the 61st Independence Day and the country celebrates 60 years of Indian Independence. Whatever numeral has been read, it is the people who need to enjoy the independence! Of course no doubt on that!
But what do we people understand from this so called INDEPENDENCE?
Its really frustrating that every year, every day, every minute some or other media is popularizing this shameful and unconscious (?!) behaviours of our superzens (superb citizens!!) among the general public mass and still its yet to be considered, understood and implemented by the 1 billion plus superzens!
Doesn’t this sound pathetic?

Should one more Sepoy mutiny need to be started, to teach our own superzens?
Should one more Karamchand Gandhi need to be created to take a march for Dandi against our superzens’ behaviours?
Should more and more Sardar Patels, Subhash Chandra Boses, Bharathys and others need to be formed again to go for a complete freedom struggle?
Still answers need to Searched and Researched…?!!

On the other hand – “Patriotism - for sale”.
As we can see the number of TV Channels, Radio networks and newspapers what we have, with no doubt, are deep into the patriotic business. From Burman to Rahman, the business has streamlined into music as well.
End result? I do agree that people who look at the television channels and listen to songs are provoked and started loving (?!) the country. But what is the lifetime of that ‘love’ and how healthy it is. It is very obvious that making a group of popular musicians including legends like Hariprasad Chaurasia and SPBalasubramanian to play and sing the National anthem at different locations, plus shooting and editing the video and adding it on to a private t.v. network cost much and more! How will they get it back?-Sponsors for the same t.v. network who will in turn make money from the easy and flexible target, the audience – e.g. “Who is having long hair? ARRahman or LSubramanian? - Send your vote thru sms”

Isn’t now, too late for our superzens to take any initiative? Even it is late still we can start to have large change. Why don’t we think and why don’t we implement… at least from when the superzens are becoming 60+ SENIOR SUPERZENS!

Subservient Citizens!

It was the D-day. It was the day for everybody in India to show their loyalty for their mother land, in a way. But what could have been the total percentage of citizens who fulfilled their responsibility?...And have done their duty?

When we chat, we used to make fun of our own fellow country mates – in terms of laziness, in terms of vengeance, in terms of illegal corruption…In terms of all…and what not? Aren’t we..?

A perception of this kind can easily be falsified if we look at our siblings’ reaction. I happened to visit 121 MG Road, Nungambakkam, Chennai where the Income tax office Tamil Nadu head office functions. It was 31st July and that was the last day to file the Income tax returns for our salaried citizens.

Really unbelievable! The special counters numbered more than thirty looked very meager for the highly anticipating crowd. More than thirty percent of the open space of the campus was filled with vehicles especially an approximate 500 motor cycles and nearly 100 cars. The rest covered with the shamiana which could not afford the floating crowd. With a long help desk distributing the acknowledgement and the ITR forms (new introductions from 2007-2008 assessment year) and periodical announcements of which counter is for whom and what is what. Wow really wonderful!

It was quite interesting and amazing that the 15+ long queues each with heads counted up to 70 on an average were there for all private salaried. The rest for government salaried. More interestingly most of the people waiting there from Software companies, as it sounded like, when the announcer kept on passing special information for them mentioning the counter numbers.

Oopps!
Another surprising monsoon rainy day in Chennai turned the soil at the aayakar bhavan ground into mud which was there in the citizens’ shoes and the vehicles’ tyres that left imprints not only on the road outside but also in the mother india’s heart as signature of good citizens.