Chennai Shopping Guide

The Festival Season has arrived and so have exciting offers from the popular brands.

Now before you loosen your purse strings, beware of bloatware !

Well, bloatware is still a software concept, but not necessarily irrelevant in today's marketplace. A bloatware, simply put, is a brand that gives more than what you want and charge you for it, when all you end up getting is useless features for extra price.

Some promotions to notice in this shopping season:

1. Lifestyle says it will give you assured gift for any purchase over Rs.4000 and the gift is worth Rs.350 (not even 10%. Add to this service charge of 2% if you are paying by card. Do you need this offer?)

2. Globus once told the same thing (assured gift) and I bought for Rs.2000 and I got A COFFEE BITE chocolate!

3. Cookieman - The moment you step into a mall that has cookieman, you can not escape the aura of freshly baked cookies. But taste any cookie, they dont taste as well as they smell. Aroma Branding or False Promise?

4. Cafe Coffee Day - I counted. A glass of frappe had 29 ice cubes in it. The tender said its to keep the frappe cool. Is it experience or cheating? Your glass of frappe without ice is actually only 1/4th of a glass!

5. Pizza Hut - A combo offer costs 75 bucks and the tax is 18 bucks over and above!

6. City center in chennai charges 30 rupees for parking if you are there for more than an hour

7. Murugan idly shop - Your chilly powder costs Rs.4 extra and you come to know of it only after you have it!

While you have every right to be lavish, there is a saying in tamizh - Even if you throw our mony into the river, count it and the put it, so that you know how much you had just lost!

And now if all this making your heart burn, there are still good things happening around you - like this initiative of helping HIV patients (See the second picture)

Its a Christmas Tree with a difference. You can give donations for HIV patients and based on the denomination a card in your name (and denomination note) will be stuck to the leaves and when everyone donates, the tree will look like a snowy white X-mas tree, but just that the snow is actually more than snow...its your contribution towards making yourself a better human being.

Happy Shopping! Happy X-mas! Happy Donating!

Typically...

Knowingly (sometimes vehemently) or unkowingly we leave our signatures in the way we go about things or perhaps dont go about things..

Let me try to see what are those I consider my signatures (Dont expect a Psyhcometric analysis here..this is for tchummah)

• Elumchanga ooruga for sambar rice
• Thalai vagidu from right to left
• Some bracelet in hand always
• Swirling my phone
• Making it stand on its edge in flat surface
• Fanatic Fascination for orange and red colored dresses (including trousers)
• Losing my keys everyday but never searched for it for more than 10 mins
• Love for Sujatha novels

Thookam varuthu...

Will be continued...

Theosophically speaking..

There are roads you walk down through and there are roads that walk you through memories. The place where you first held her hands, the place where you learnt your driving, the place where you broke the news of your marriage plans to her and so on...

I prefer walking anyday to driving. The world's less faster, less chaotic, more still and more forthcoming to reveal when you walk.

The road comes free! And hence walk! I reebok'ed myself for a walk down the theosophical society road...Its a dream I lived. The road is next best thing to heaven. No sidelanes, no pot holes...just trees, avenue trees and more and a divine turn thats as elegant as a girl's hip..

Theosophical society as it turns out is not just about theology. Its a carefully crafted paradise in green. Avenues that never seem to end, take you far inside the woods that all you hear is just chirps, fading sounds of vehicles that resemble distant water falls and some odd sounds by disturbed birds.

The only thing missing was a good company. God had no one to attend to in that time of the morning. Probably his call center was free and my wish was granted instantly. Three girls from "Nizhal" took me through the lanes once more. Just this time the lanes seem to look more beautiful even when though girls spoke about things like Pongamia Glabra, Ficus Arhtecus, Fern and blah. (I have taken the liberty to click off the irritating botany professor, bunch of un-interesting walkers. They dont matter to me, this blog or to you).

But the walk came to an end abruptly when my mom called up to say that she has four horoscopes to process and that was FMI (For My Info.).

I am 26 and am still in the game. Have asked mom for a 15 day truce. After all I am a traveller with no intention to arrive and no intended place to go.

Will keep walking....

Nat!onal Security

I am an Indian Hindu. I am brown. What is the level of inhumane treatment I would get if I am caught in racial profiling? Well, depends on whether I sport a french beard and pajama/Kurta on that day's flight.

Do I pose a security threat if I sport a french beard? I dont know. I dont even know what is security and definitely do not know when does a government call a person a threat to national security!

Can a government provide security to a nation? Laughable! What if tomorrow, a terrorist (Racial Profile: Arab, Brown, bearded, wears Pajama Kurta and speaks Arabic - This is what I am being told, all terrorists are or all men who have this profile are terrorists....even if they are harmless sufis from mumbai) decides to break open a plane''s window and throw a hand grenade that just lands on my apartment terrace? If I die,will they call it threat to national security? Will they anticipate such threats in advance and keep a commando in every apartment top (trained by mahendra singh dhoni on dive catches)? Back to the point, when is a threat called as a national threat? Should there be "x" number of deaths? I dont think so. If numbers are significant then we have a living threat in our parliament with more than 500 people causing national threat for over 50 years and few of them going on a merry-go-round to afganistan on a charter flight in full media glare!

If all our commandos are guarding the apartments who will guard coco-cola dispensers? What if no one is there? Will terrorists replace a coke dispenser with liquid bomb dispensers so that every passenger becomes an involuntary terrorist?

So I suggest, screw security arrangements. You cannot save anyone and everyone, everytime. We invested trillions in missiles, intercontinental bramhos-thras..Instead we can include jet airways, spice jet and Kingfisher in our battalions. They travel all international destinations and can cause better damage.

I suggest we dissolve our army, beef up our aviation strength (thats the new age weapon) and use the extra money to spread eduction, create employment and make our sons and daughters understand religions, tolerance and spend their times in bettering the world!

Thats secure for you, me, our grand children and this planet!

What empty does when its alone!

Araikkul pootiya verumai pola
Enakkul mutith thirumbum

Un Ninaivuhal!

Translates to

Like the emptiness
That roams in a locked room
Your memories wander
In my heart
Looking for the doors!

Date : July 23, 2006
Inspiration : Locked doors of my house that made me think what will happen inside when emptiness is alone!

For Ambi by Another Ambi who is not an Ambi like the other Ambi

Ambi = !

Ambi = ?

Ambi = ?!?

What is or Who is Ambi? If you like TamBrams or you have a love interest who is a TamBram, you should know this word for sure!

Ambi - Noun (Name of a person - Actually Nick Name of a person)

Usage

- Andha Ambi romba thuru thuru nu irukan (That boy is very shrewd. I dont know his name though..So use the genric term for a brahmin boy)

- Nalla ambi maari irukan (Looks very much like a cute and soft tambram guy. Here ambi is a generic name for anyone who is cute and soft tambram)

- Akkavum Ambiyum apdi ena than pesipelo ( Wonder what you bro and sis have to hush-hush about!... Here ambi refers to Bro)

So that's it? Nope! There is another Ambi whom everyone can identify with.

Here is the checklist to see if you qualify to be an "Ambi"

1. You are clean shaven and dont sport mush. You face always has a religious mark.
2. You wear Kadukkan (stud..not the Yo! Man variety...This is authentic tam stud)
3. You wear spects (and not contact lens)
4. Your hair has a wet look always (not due to gel). You wear coconut oil and comb using the long slender "sheikh cheepu".
5. Your hair style and geometry can give a run to a straight line ruler.
6. You are less than 5' 5"
7. You wear Lacoste t-shirt tucked into a tailor-stitched coffee brown pants and reebok shoes
8. You wear a sports watch or a digital watch which competes for your wrist with some religious threads that are black, grey, yellow, red or all at the same time
9. You have a cellphone that is 3310 or earlier version
10. You dont wear a belt
11. Your ponch makes ur pants go down every 5 minutes and you are the best when it comes to adjusting your pants
12. You wear pants slightly below your rib gage and not around your hip bone
13. You ride Honda Activa and not any bike ever
14. You like carnatic music than cinema music
15. You dont watch movies
16. You dont say "cool" or "awesome". You say "cute"
17. You carry a water bottle and napkin to restaurants

So what are you? Ambi? Ambi-in-the-making?

Kak Kak Ka ....Po

This thing called arranged marriage...It all starts with an arranged outing to Pizza corner :-(

You might actually hit off well in those 30 minutes..Absolutely great chemistry

• She may like urlakezhangu too - like him
• He will also like pink color - like her
• He cant believe she also likes NDTV Profit to Kolangal serial
• She is pleasantly surprised that he cooks well

And when they get married.

But then when its too late...

• He figures out she has more mush than him
• She finds that he can snore better than a bear
• He finds she has a clumsy way of walking
• She finds he can't tell between romance and sex. Its all three letters whichever way
• He finds she buys her clothes from pondy bazaar still
• She finds he never uses the flush

Appapa..am petrified at the possibility of these happening.You know how I ward off marriage threats..Amma..am shifting job in 6 months..Pondati varadhukula car vanganum..If I move to a new job I need to stay for 6 months,steady the ship and then get married.Idhu minimum 1 year marriage vacation idea and can postpone indefenitely :-)

Single ho !