2011 - In a nutshell

To keep up with the 2 year tradition, here's my 2011 in a nutshell.

Professionally

• Successfully defended my dissertation and got my PhD. A sentiment speech has to be given no? 'This was my family’s dream (and mine too, okay), and I am glad that blah blah blah...'. (And not too sure how I feel about it still, even after 5+ months.)
• The Teaching Excellence Award finally, after being nominated for the third time. I’d almost resigned my fate to that of Meryl Streep’s.
• A paper in this prestigious journal, something that I should have had 2-3 years ago. Better late than never.

Personally

• Had to say goodbye to my pseudo thai-mann (motherland -  word courtesy @palavertalk) Tempe after 6 years of stay there. Miss the food, some of the people, and the heat!
• Got ATL-ed (word courtesy @krtgrphr), and am not too sure if I like it here, yet!
• Not having stayed in the same city as relatives/family thus far, I learnt staying in such a city is not hard after all (and is surely helpful too!)
• Learnt it the hard way that people aren’t required to survive/keep myself occupied in a new city. It’s only ‘me’ that’s required.
• Surprised myself with a 2 month Twitter break. 
• Also, got back onto Facebook after a 14 month break, and I think I am done with that form of social networking. (I think I should write a post about it soon.)
• Realized the 42-inch TV is my 42, for now. (My dream for a long time, ala Asin’s ambassador car dream in Ghajini.)

PS: I am alive to see my blogs slip into coma and have a near-death experience. Blame it on my over-indulgence in TV shows. And the thought that I lacked thoughts to blog about. I still think so!

PPS: I was to write something in a nutshell. Apologies for making it a coconut shell.

Of Distances...

I am sure everyone has had this moment in life. The ‘so near, yet so far’ one. As the cliched statement goes, ‘life’s uncertainties are indeed baffling, but that’s what life is all about.’ However, something that’s more annoying than the uncertainty is the fact that they are mostly controlled by others, and we let them do that. The only respite in this: I am not alone...

And, that light at the end of the tunnel should come with a caution: ‘Objects in front of you appear closer than they actually are,’ however with the exception of deadlines.




 







(Photo Courtesy: http://www.impactlab.net/2010/11/21/top-10-photos-of-the-week-155/)

Of hearts, the weak ones

Remember those childhood days when all it took to cheer you up was a long drive in Appa's car or a cycle ride along an unexplored path? The weak hearted me had one of those days today. Some aspects of life are definitely worth reliving. :-)

#WhyRaajaIsGod

In the past decade, A.R.Rahman has been my music idol. But nonetheless there is another greater legend who single-handedly changed the face of Tamil music in the late seventies and the eighties and still continues to do so. His works still remain one of the best forms of music from Tamil industry, and there is no denial that his musical arrangements specifically the violins and the percussion are the best in the country. He was the man who put raagam (melody) into the mounam (silence), and vice versa. And this is #WhyRaajaIsGod

Raaja sir, wishing you many many more happy returns of this day. Your discography is a wonderful lesson in music for many of us. Thank you for all the music.

A few of Ilayaraaja's films/songs that will find a place in my list of all-time favorite songs are listed below:

- Mouna Raagam: It is hard to single out a favorite from this soundtrack. I oscillate between Mandram Vantha, Nilave Vaa and Pani Vizhum Iravu.

- Poo Maalaye - Pagal Nilavu

- Chinna Thayaval and Sundari Kannal - Dhalapathy

- Thoongatha Vizhigal and Ninnukori Varnam - Agni Natchatiram

- Naguva Nayana - Pallavi Anu Pallavi

- Anjali - Anjali

- Yedhedho Ennam Valarthen - Punnagai Mannan

- Katril Varum Geethame - Oru Naal Oru Kanavu

- Enakku Piditha - Julie Ganapathy

- Ilangathu Veesudhey - Pithamagan

- Poo Maalai Vaangivandaan - Sindhu Bhairavi

It's no surprise that his association with Mani Ratnam has yielded some of the best soundtracks in the late 80s and early 90s. As much as I like A.R.Rahman's association with Mani Ratnam, I yearn for a Mani Ratnam-Ilayaraaja soundtrack. I wish that happens sometime in the near future! :-)

And I definitely want to attend a live concert of this great legend!


Pic Courtesy: http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article75875.ece

A City’s Love and vice-versa

Not many of us have been a big fan of the IPL this season. Not giving us cricket-buffs even a week’s gap between the World Cup and the IPL was blasphemy, especially after India won the World Cup. Probably, the commercial and the glamorous elements of the IPL eluded the organizers from giving us more time to rejoice, after all this is a multi-crore extravaganza with very little cricket remaining in it.

The lines were drawn. There were 10 teams. Most of us vouched for the team from the city/region we belonged to, or the team that had a star player. #ForSachin was a big key for a majority of us to support the Mumbai Indians. Dhoni’s World Cup triumph was a huge factor for people to support Chennai Super Kings. The recent addition of ‘Dada’ into the Pune team was a reason for a few of us to get back to watching this season of the IPL, and he sure didn’t disappoint.

For me, IPL has always been about the support for The City. Whether the team is playing well or not, whether the Liquor Baron had players from The City in the team or not, or whether the team was disjoint/disorganized or not, didn’t seem to matter to me. At the beginning of this season, I seriously thought if I really had to support this disjoint team, whose whole was lesser than the sum of its parts. My love for The City forbade me from doing so. If you call it lame, please read the PPS below.

It’s amazing what your love for a city can do to you. It turns you back into being a fan of the game once again, after you gave up following the match-fixing drama. And not to mention, my sleep-vaas still continues, but it’s rather a forced one, thanks to the unearthly hours that the matches take place.

And the team strikes back! The team with the Gayle-Kohli effect had found something in itself. Better late than never. And whether the team makes it to the play-offs or the final or wins the IPL this season, or not, is quite immaterial.

And I can’t wait to wear my jersey soon! Go RCB!

PS: If you think that the games are fixed, you have a supporter in me too! But, ‘who cares?!’

PPS: If you think this support is lame, then why you shed tears of happiness when India won the 2011 World Cup semifinal and the finals? Tell no, tell no?

All it took...

It was a Friday afternoon. Teardrops rolled down her cheeks, with the two guys standing by her clueless on how to console her. What made the otherwise-joyous girl have this outburst? Was it a bad day? Probably! Like an undefeated king who is never used to a debacle, this bright student probably never had anyone reprimand her.

Tears continued to roll down her cheeks, as she began to mention the event that led to this. A silly issue, as it might seem, which this perfectionist girl thought was the end of the world, was just a routine issue faced by many, due to circumstances.

All it took to cheer her up, was listening to her sob tale, some cliched consoling words and a tiny piece of chocolate. Well, this was surely an easy task. This girl was easy to cheer up. But then why are women so unpredictable and tough to please?

World Cup and my Sleep-vaas

There have surely many many posts about the Cricket World Cup 2011 in the desi Blogosphere. Capturing the attention of cricket fans nationwide and worldwide for more than a month, the biggest match happened today. India played Pakistan in the semifinal today at Mohali. Being a jinx factor, I chose to sleep all through this match, as with the previous matches that India played (except for the India-Ireland match, which I thought India would surely win, but the bad fielding by our team was exposed then too!). And I surely didn’t want to incur the wrath of a few folks on Twitter.

Here’s some of the Twitter junta’s reaction on this self-imposed/forced sleep-vaas:


And I wake to the news that India won against our (so-called) arch-rivals to meet Srilanka in the World cup final. With the cliched ‘It doesn’t get bigger than this!’ pre-match hype to ‘This was surely fixed’ post-match analysis all over Twitter (and probably Facebook), this match surely caught everyone’s attention. And a cliched answer to this, ‘In the end, cricket is the winner!’

Well, here’s hoping that Dhoni’s men bring home the cup for ‘Him’! Thank you God, I will assure you that I will sleep through the final too!

Update: I might end up watching the final on the big screen. Don't spit on me.
I followed the ritual of my sleep-vaas during the final too. And look what happened! :-) 
 

#StoryOfMyLife

(A personal blog in a long time. And have tried avoiding a Twitter influence on the blog, except the title.)

Never in the wildest of my dreams, I’d have imagined that I would be pursuing my PhD, and more importantly I’d be finishing it up while in my twenties. This was the state of mind, I was in a good 10 years back, with just a thought about joining a good engineering college and then plan for the future while in college. Isn’t that everyone’s (parents’) dream? Having joined the engineering college, I realized it was going to be four long years, and I had a lot of time to plan my future. But I was wrong. Before I realized, I was out of college, and I was on the flight to the US to pursue my graduate studies (Masters).

Not withstanding the pressure in graduate school, there were days in the first semester here, when I wanted to run back home, and just take up the ‘software engineer’ job, I had declined before getting to the US. There was soon a tide of change, and a pleasant phase in graduate school followed, after I got my PhD admit. This meant I was going to be in school without the outer world’s pressures for five more years. And as with anything, these 5 years passed by like a generation change in Ekta Kapoor’s serials, and of course with a change in looks, sans plastic surgery.

And here I am, almost ready to graduate, once I find a ‘suitable’ job, with the least idea of what I want in life next. On a professional front, it is probably an easier decision to make considering the economy and the demand (or lack of it), around. But, on a personal front, I am not too sure where I am headed.

Who on earth brought down the age for marriage for guys to early twenties? Is it the neighbor aunties/maamis or the marriage brokers, who had a loss of eligible single poor souls or business, following the sudden increase in the number of ‘love’ marriages? Or is it the insecurity of the single guys to get hitched earlier for whatever reason? And I’ve not been spared from this torture either. Or rather, my mom has not been spared of this. I pity the thought of her being accosted by maamis in the weddings she attends, with the maamis saying ‘the girl is in New Jersey, give me Viju’s number, let them get to know each other. And we can then see how it goes.’ Never in the wildest of my dreams, I’d want to get hitched this way (a blog on my ideal wedding, which will never take place, coming up soon). And I must truly appreciate the guts and the continued enthusiasm of the maamis in trying to help me settle down in my life. However, my mom uses the vajrasthram (some destructive weapon) ‘Viju is still jobless, has no clue about life and I feel he is too young for marriage. We are waiting for a couple more years.’ I love my mom for that. But, I am sure my mom will be having a secret thought of getting a daughter-in-law soon, and has a strategy planned for something soon after I ‘settle’ down professionally.

However, my reaction at this point of time, ‘Who cares? I need to graduate!!!! Thank you.’