a riddle

Some years back,my rudram mama (one who thought us rudram, chamakam etc which r sanskrit vedic hymns) asked us this tamil riddle.

It goes like this:
One day Deepa was sitting infront of her house with a small kid on her lap. Came in Divya and enquired: " yaar intha kuzhanthai? " (who is this kid?)
Deepa replied: "Intha kuzhanthayudaye thahappanar yaarukku mamanaro, avarudaya thahappanar enakku mamanar" ( The father of the person, to whom this kid's father is the in law, is my in law)

How is that kid related to Deepa?

Though it doesnt sound that complicated to crack now, at that age (12- 13 yrs) it was an unsolvable puzzle for us. Now i feel it was more because of the heavy tamil (given, how much adultrated the tamil i use in kerala) he used rather than the intricacy of the puzzle. Infact,I still feel it will take more than a single attempt for any to crack it!

(I had forgotten this one for sometime now, so jotting it down when remembered)

AVS

a milestone

hey! just now noticed a thing.......its been 1 yr since i started my blogging...........uh! so soon?and also this marks my 50th blog posting (if i dont take into account a couple of drafts i have).ie, just above 4 blogs per month or roughly 1 per week...not bad going at all given how much i hate writing ( it reminds me of the horrendous days in high school where i had to write page after page of essays and my animosity goes back to those days!) and how much little i have tell the world through print media. I am a practitioner of the school of thought that tongue is much powerful than sword and not words!Summerizing, i hv managed to survive whole one yr in the blog world! This gives be enough conviction and courage to keep going!

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state of mind

I am suffering from asyncronism... an internal mismatch......i am in one of those states in which ur mind urges u to work whereas the body refuses to oblige.I hv a whole lot of area to cover in my research work and it is likely to take up my 15x7 devotion if i am to finish off my research in stipulated time (which i must honestly admit seems more of a hypothetical scenario than a reality).So when your body and mind refuses to work in unison,what to do? solution is simple- let out ur feeling. Let that part of u which wants to work to work on something else which doesnt take much of physical movements, which ideally leads to highly stressful yet strainless processes like surfing the net,reading books, watching tv, listening music etc. In short, anything other than my experiments classifies into the abovementioned catogory for thats the only work involving physical labor that I care to do now a days.To add to the misery, comes the best of winter (ironically at the beginning of the spring) with its timing as perfect as the cover drive of sachin tendulkar.It makes even the best insomnia doze off; so one can imagine what it will be with the i-can-sleep-anytime-a day kinda people.I can easily put the blame for all these chaos on the research ,say it is sapping all my energy and ethusiasm etc.But it doesnt hold good here for you should do atleast an iota of work in your research to point it to be the culprit.Again this has not been a good month for me; everything has gone awry so far.I am a believer of destiny and its fowlplays. May be its one of them. Atleast I found someone to put the blame on. I hope no one will have any complaints........its my internal affairs u c!

By now readers would have realised that this posting is published out of vettiness rather than any real purpose. Just another mean to let my mind work while at rest!

AVS

navarasa-1

This is what I am attempting to do - inspired by one of the comments i myself wrote in a friend's blog - write stories based on navarasas.
This is the first one in the series:

KARUNA

He never takes that route.Usually Arun prefers the main road.A road accident abt 6 years back had left a scar in his forehead which never let him forget the perils of dark woods.But that day he had no choice.Inclement weather had uprooted that old mango tree right on to the middle of the road. "Damn it" cursed Arun, "not this one please !". Chousier Woods have a reputation of making the safest of drivers lose the poise. The narrow road with literally no light was any drivers nightmare.Going back 8 kms to take a better exit was out of question for Arun as he was driving at the mercy of reserve petrol tank."Not everyday is a friday", consoled himself as he switched on the right indicator and drove along.

He wasnt driving fast.But a reflex application of sudden brake would jolt a person even at that speed."Oh my........" a sudden chill went right up his spine, for what he saw about 2 feet infront of him,as his head lamp cut thru the pitch black darkness, was appaling.The car skidded to the right , made almost a complete rotation before coming to complete rest hitting the near by tree.Those dreaded moments 6 years back flashed infront of his eyes his mind as he got out of the car and rushed back to the road.There lie infront of him right in the middle of the road all soaked in fresh blood was a woman in her mid 30s struggle for her last few breathes.In the fading light of his car, he could she her clasping tightly on to her chest a wet rugged bundle of cloth with a small 5 month old baby inside it. She tried speaking some words.....but the sounds had already left her body.Arun couldnt make anything out of her shivering lips. She loosened her grip of the bundle as Arun tried to take it from her."Goodness gracious, the baby is alive". Arun told her as she took the child from her."Lemme........" Arun didn't complete when he saw that she had given up the struggle. He couldnt but notice a faint smirk on her face.Her child was alive and safe. That pacified mother had a peaceful death.As he walked backed to the car with that rugged bundle of cloth, the woods were reverberating with the cry of an infant.

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if they can, so can I

.......was the first feeling I had when i read a blog for the first time about an year back. Realised that you dont have to care a damn about anyone or anything in blogging. It gives the same thrill and satisfaction as shouting at the top of ur voice (or singing for the more sofesticated ones) in public. You rule this part opf the web and you call the shots here. A similar feeling came back to me when i read and heard the movie reviews of a recent movie.......everyone had their own take on it . tat same old feeling was back.......if they all can, y not me too.So here I am........

This is my first attempt in movie review in blog.Though I have done it umpteen times about innumerable number of movies released in all the languages i understand,they have all been verbal.This is the first one to be penned down and hence I am keeping it short (I feel mouth is the most powerful weapon and not pen or keyboard)
Atlast saw Rang De Basanti last weekend.It was a well crafted out film though, to be honest to myself,I must confess that I didnt enjoy it as much as thought I would.May be it is yet another case of "much-hyped-much expected-so-dissapointed" film. I felt that the content of the movie was a bit overblown.Seems director wanted to force his message on the public and hence he went into the extreme while scripting. Also the second half of the second half starting from the assasination of the defence minister was not upto the build up it had created.Is it so easy to kill a minister of a nation? That too in a country like India and escape scotfree?? If so, I would love to kill a few! Also the movie was moving in a lethargic pace in the first half. Even after all the lead cast was introduced and their charecters well established, the movie seem to head no were.The 2 aspects of the movie that stood out were the direction and the acting of the lead cast.Rakesh Omprakash Mehra has done a commendable job behind the camera and has managed well to extract the best from those infront it too.The scene which sticks to my mind is when the heroes (i feel all 6 lead actors were the heroes and not aamir alone) decide to murder the minister. The shuffling b/w the present and the past was good example of the command te director has over his craft.Overall, this film was watchable for me for being hatke-both in context and in directionI would have loved it had it shaped out well .....may be it did in the director's perspective!
AVS