“I thought people liked my theatrics, Sanath. Harmless, attention grabbing? But Bhajji…”

“You still got all the attention you need, fool. Where do you think all the cameras are pointing? At Priety?”

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Some IT people in my college have made this video promoting their Symposium, ‘Authentikos’. They start out nice but drag a bit in the middle and toward the end too. Anyway, it was funny and I had a laugh or two here and there. It could have been done better with some slick editing though.

I have a clear view of the Thiru Vi.Ka Bridge from my roof top. Whenever I needed a quiet evening to myself, I’d hit the roof top and just watching the vehicles plying on that bridge had a soothing effect on you. And the brilliant lights from the hoardings, on either ends of the bridge, glittering on the Adyar river just added the right effect. Now, It looks somewhat dull and lifeless. If you had paying attention to what’s going on in the city for the past few days, you’d know why. I wish I had taken a photograph just to show the contrast then and now. I have nothing against the corporation or the Supreme Court upholding the judgment passed by the High Court, to remove the hoardings. It was unsafe, obstructing sites of historical importance, educational institutions and hospitals. Now, Chennai skylines look like what they used to 8-10 years ago, yes. Some claim accidents might come down, really? I don’t think so. Hoardings light up more than 70% of our main roads and streets (rough estimate, source not so unreliable as our corporation). Besides, it becomes easier for waylayers to attack and you might be hearing several women harassment incidents in the coming days. I can see them in my mind laying out plans to strike at key places, exclaiming how stupid the corporation can get. Pray, it doesn’t come to that and the corporation has enough sense to have the streets properly lit.

My grandma is a real cricket addict. More than you or me. So much so that she scorns her own sons for not playing the sport well enough to become cricketers. Whenever there’s a match on TV, you never can pry the remote from her hands. She never can differentiate a four from a six though. But when a bowler rearranges any batsman’s wicket, she knows he’s out and curses him till he can fall dead. The good player in her books is always Sachin, the most hated player being Shoaib Akhtar. When I told her he was banned, she said she always knew he wouldn’t last long because he wasn’t as placid as Sachin on field. False pride comes before the fall. Old wisdom. Anyway, what got me writing this was those IPL ads on TV. They are quite catchy building on the hype very well. Old and the young fiercely proud of the teams they support, doing things to discredit each other’s favourite teams. This another ad I have put down here below is an ordinary 70’s movie concept spoofed.

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Ha ha!! This is one more strip that will tell you why I love Dilbert comics so much. Remember George? Marc’s claim that he’s got superior upper body strength. This millennium man is so eerily similar to Marc and the reference to upper body strength had me in splits. For those who don’t remember, here’s Marc’s I wanna go rock climbing post. Hail Dogbert!

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And it is that time of the year in colleges where they force you into some Symposium or Technical Conference in the name of ‘Extra Curricular Activity’. They don’t just stop there. They want you to suffer the insufferable, make you attend that two day pathetic event compulsorily, you know, just to fill in the seats in the auditorium and to listen to some inspiring speakers who can put a droning engine to shame. We have a two day national conference on Signal Processing and VLSI. They are amazing topics, but made quite difficult to understand by our dedicated staff. And what happens when you attend that conference? You don’t even want to know. There’s a lot of amusing things that precede such events. People avoiding certain lecturer’s class by requesting OD statuses, people banging their heads off preparing notes for compering sessions or coming up with ridiculously bombastic/flawed/verbose speeches for themselves or prepared for a HOD who pronounces ‘Performance’ as ‘Ferformance’ or ‘Speed’ as ‘Sfeed’. You see, they want to sound sophisticated in front of that gathering. They don’t really admit that they sound pretentious and come off as jackasses.

Apart from boring guest lectures, I can name two things that always irk me. One, singing a Tamil Thai Vazhuthu (a short prayer praising Tamil?) and two, girls asked to look more ridiculous in traditional costumes to wait in the lobby to welcome the dignitaries in. I don’t know why they have to start a technical event with a prayer praising Tamil. It’s all right to be religious but shouldn’t they have a prayer that everyone can understand or one that is less suggestive of linguistic discrimination. Seriously, you’d have to see those non-Tamil students’ faces. Priceless. And is it really necessary for those girls to welcome them dignitaries in the lobby? They just have to stand there and look pretty, waiting impatiently, tugging and smoothing their sarees. And it is a heavily contested job too, I’m told. Isn’t this one of those gender discriminating acts those women groups should consider taking up?

Finally, I finished watching two seasons of Heroes all at one go. It was interesting enough and it’s rumoured the next season won’t kick off until this fall. Apart from calling a South Indian Mohinder Suresh and all that what I didn’t like in the series is bringing defeated/dead characters back to life by regenerative blood transfusion or characters like Noah Bennett joining The Company again after trying to bring it down. I know Sylar is the one villain but it just doesn’t feel right bringing him back. I think season 1 was brilliant and they messed it a bit in the season 2 where the above relapses occur. I hope they get it right in season 3. Catch more about Heroes here. And did I tell you Sylar character looks somewhat like Marc.

Gabrielle ‘Sylar’ Gray

Marc ‘Murc’ Zephyrin