Only two?

Why is it always Hindi vs. Tamil, where are the rest of the idiots?

Hey dude, at least people in Bollywood movies dont look like fucking idiots. People in tamil movies where the gayest ass clothes you could posibly think of. Tamil nadu makes india look bad.
...
The only language [Tamil] in india that doesn't sound gay. less gay than i.e. hindi, punjabi, bengali, gujarati and other north indian language which are know to be extremely gay, and those speakers tend to speak like women.
...
It is a beautiful language [Tamil], and does sound delightfully gay in an artistic silk and chiffon way!

karumam da sami! But I'm so proud.

Tamil pride: cherry picking

Download

A lifted loop

I listened to a song from Vallavan (y'ammadi aathadi) yesterday for the first time and felt some familiarity with one of the loops. Listen to it yourself (it's ~4 minutes).

Just say it!

I read a blog-post just now and started typing a comment - "idhu vetti scene velamma pethi'oda post, vera'edhum illa. oorukkulla ekka-chakka per indha mari dhan thiriyuranunga..". After a while, I thought I'd rather save it for a post here. Because, it's quite a common phenomenon, not just in blogs.

It's the good old 'I'm going to praise myself under the cloak of confessing my idiocy/phsychosis/neurotic-obsession/misfortune/wantonness' tactic.

"I'm such a geek that I started using Linux in 98"
"I'm such a loser that I paid $4100 for my latest laptop"
"I'm such a TV freak that I bought a 59" LG plasma"
"I'm so unlucky that I have lost my wallet over 50 times during my flight-trips to London"
"My life sucks so much that I studied during my holidays and topped my class"
"I'm so clumsy I ruined my jacket by spilling caviar on it"
"I'm such a man-whore that I have sex with 19 different women every month"
..
and a long list of "confessions" we hear everyday (probably use it ourselves). All these "confessions" just say one thing - "I'm such a modest wuss that I resort to cheap hackneyed techniques to feed my own ego."

Do/say whatever you want to. Just know that almost everyone knows what you're doing, they are just in a mode themselves - "I'm so nice that I'll pretend like I didn't see through you." So just say it; just say "I'm the shit!"

* - I haven't linked the post to avoid another episode of 'local paaltix' driven squabble (yes, I'm scared). I'll say this much, though: it was about the author's obsession with Harry Potter novels.

Deconstruction: exhaustive and boring

Disclaimer: Another post that is actually a comment(s). I know, I'm shameless.

One of the questions that I often end-up asking myself and my profs is “how far do you deconstruct?” I don’t think there is a perfect answer. You do it as long as you can support it logically. When logic stops you stretch it further with metaphors and anecdotes. But even they stop at some point. That’s when you know you need to stop, but some people continue anyway.
I came across this post earlier today. I don’t know much about the people mentioned in the post or even about the actual topic. But as usual, my problem is only with a few arguments the author has drawn. I’ll give you the exchange below.

My comment:

{{What does that even mean? What dignity? Dignity is a quality that lives and dies with a living being. Once you die, along with your clothes, wealth and silicon implants, you also leave your dignity behind. Whose dignity are we then protecting?}} - Good, now let's legalize necrophilia, stealing organs and feeding dead bodies to starving stray dogs (or humans, if you like). They are dead, I'm sure they'll be happy with their "dignity stripped" dead bodies feeding, literally, the needy.

{{Wouldn't you feel that way, if it were you who were the victim?}} - This is a hypothetical question that has no straight answer; even if it's about you. It's like asking "would you kill yourself if you got raped in the butt and had a gun in the drawer?" You cannot assure the way you are going to react if it happens to you, for it has not happened to you. Even if you have a history--of such an ‘event’ and a reaction as you've claimed you'd exhibit--there is no reason to believe that you're going to replicate it (or otherwise).

About pictures being powerful and all: Here, the question "powerful for who, powerful for what?" needs to be asked. You're suggesting a universality that is both factual and benign. Given that you have a problem with unsupported "facts," I don't see where that suggestion of yours is coming from.

His reply (not surprisingly):

I don't see any problems with necrophilia or feeding a body to the dogs or anything else as long as the person (before dying) or the next of kin has given consent. Just like the consent that was apparently given in this case to photograph the body. How about we stop speaking for the victim eh?

I am an organ donor. What that means is after I am dead they will be slicing me up, harvesting my organs and distributing them to other people. All that will be left of me will be a pile of skin and my liver which will be unusable. So basically, I won't be very dignified after I die and hence yes, fuck post mortem dignity. What next, being buried with a jar of caviar Pharaoh style?

Powerful as a prop for the blog post. To imprint the horror of the massacre into the minds of the blogreaders. I already provided facts. Michael J Fox, banning of the coffin pictures. I could go on google and look for more examples

(Did he say “I don’t have a problem with necrophilia?” Elavu da sami!)

My Comment(2):

{{How about we stop speaking for the victim eh?}} – That’s exactly what you are doing. When you say "I would do this if it happened to me," what you are actually saying is "I would do this if I become a victim." In essence you as a non-victim are talking for you as a victim. To make it even shorter, you are the one who's talking for the victim.

About you being an organ donor: As gory as you make it sound, it's quite commonplace, we all know that. In fact, the Parsis let their dead bodies be consumed by vultures (even today they have those 'places' in Bombay and other major cities). That's not the point. None of these rhetorics apply to victims, because no victim is victimized by consent. Or someone who's "victimized" by consent is not a victim at all (victim of brainwashing or psychosis, may be).

Your "facts" are non-sequitur. First, there's no concrete study that suggests that the said "power" has always invoked expected response. Second, the response that it invokes need not necessarily be "positive" or "negative", or, as I mentioned before, one that was desired by those who initiated the "power". If you "go on google and look for more examples," I'll be happy to return the favour. Only that I'll be pulling out examples that say the exact opposite (ex: propaganda videos).

Images arrest the reality that your mind corresponds to with reality that matches a wider consensus (sometimes both are close). Words on the other hand let your mind make its own image - that could very well be more "powerful" (and disturbing) than the actual image itself. It's the age old book vs. movie debate. The arguments go both ways.

Besides, are bloggers so numb that they cannot "react" for 'rape and murder' but to the image the "captures" it? What kind of "reaction" is that? And all these reactions, supposedly, are directed towards justice (at least in legal parlance within this case's context) and awareness. But, does justice need to immerse itself into this "power" as well? Even if it does, can't it do the same without an image? That is, a judge's ruling based on the police report¹that says "girl was brutally raped, and murdered by slashing her throat" different from one based on an "image depicting" it?
_____________________
¹ I know, the police reports contain everything; photos, forensic evidences and what not.

Update: The exchange continued. You can read it all here.

Old thing, new word - condescension

That's right, it's one of the most common words we come across; just as common as the feeling. It's something that nobody likes to face but is more than happy to deliver. But the word condescension doesn't usually enter our vocabularies till we go to college (when you prepare for GRE that is). Of course, some of you 'Ooty kaanbent'/DAV/Don Bosco educated kids might have started using the word even before. But either way, the word cannot be as old as what it implies, in many of our lives. So, I did a podcast on it. I started off with something and as usual rambled my way through the caste system, schools, children and what have you. There's no guarantee that it's not going to suck. Listen to it at your own risk.

A time line (in minutes) of what's in it, skip and save the pain if you please.
1-5 : Random nonsense
5-9 : Caste based condescension
9-16 : Random nonsense
16-end : School life; children; more school life; end.

Download: 48kps; 96Kbps; Edited version

Disclaimer (brief history): I've been doing podcasts since Feb '05. Not all of them fall in to a particular genre or even into a specific topic. One may not be as interesting or as funny as the other, so place your expectations at the bottom and raise it gradually (if you feel like). Here you can find some of my other podcasts.

Aren’t you supposed to be funny?

I remember watching ‘The most shocking moments of TV’ (or something like that) in VH1. That’s when I first saw this video in which Jon Stewart rips the hosts of the show. Apart from the whole conversation itself, there’s an interesting part in it. One of the hosts, Tucker Carlson, not being able to handle Stewart’s rather “serious allegations”, says, “I thought you were going to be funny.” It’s a cheeky escapist strategy that completely backfired, at least for Carlson¹. But very often it does work however cheeky it is. Though Stewart is very funny, he is quite political. He has strong opinions and way smarter than many mainstream media pundits. But because he’s funny; because he parodies others, he is taken less seriously in mainstream media/politics (or so they pretend).

Obviously, I’m not in anyway comparing myself with JS or what he does; like Cartman would say, “he is thyaan and I’m hyaan, may be a little down hyaan”². The flash video was a very effective retort and it worked just as I had thought. But it’s also a rather easy way to get back at people (provided you have the resources to pull it off). My ‘weapons of choice’, sarcasm and mockery, can easily be turned against me. No, I’m not talking about someone else doing a flash video or some kind of parody on what I did (or going to do in future) – that would actually be great.
I’m talking about a sarcastic and snobbish reply, something like – “I don’t want to mess with you man. You’re so talented that you’ll make a crappy animation and do voice-overs to make fun of me. Jeez I’m so scared”. If someone says that amidst a “serious” discussion, for whatever reason, he/she would practically shut me up. There’s no way ahead. I can not only not-continue the discussion, I cannot make “crappy animation” either.

Given that this blog is now known (at least for the first time visitors) for the notorious video in the previous post, I wanted to do my part to avoid being identified with that and just that -- hence this useless post. Yes, this post is to say, “hey I know you would say this”, in future. I know; the lengths that I go to (to save my ego).

sariyana elavu da sami!
____________________________

¹ Here’s the part of the exchange.

CARLSON: Wait. I thought you were going to be funny. Come on. Be funny.
STEWART: No. No. I'm not going to be your monkey.
² It's one of the best episodes of Southpark. Watch the video at around 1.35 for the dialogue that I've quoted.

Worst flash movie ever

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.