Another attempt...

I started reading Pooniyin Selvan again. Not “n”th time as many do, I should correctly say it as re-trying to read Pooniyin Selvan again. This is my 2nd attempt. Few months before, for some reason, I stopped my first attempt after reading 200+ pages. 

I stopped for no reason, but now I’m planning to complete at least 50 pages a day, one part in 7 – 9 days. This edition has 5 parts, so by 50 days I can finish the entire story. If I get good reading time I can do 100 pages a day too, then I can finish early. I know I’m taking long time to read, as I’m a slow reader.

The reason for blogging about this is to give me a kind of motivation if I slip away from not completing it.

Reading about the fight between Alwarukadiyeen and Veera Saivar. It reminded me of an old joke about the Sivam VsVaisnavam.

A school teacher with newly joined students.

Teacher:- What’s your name ?

Student :- Sivaramalingam

Teacher:- Appadi podu.. Siva’thukum Linga’thukum nadulla Ramana potu noorukuda..

Let me do a post once I complete the Part 1.

Pizza, Beer and Cigarettes ( Argentina, 1998 )

Last Sunday afternoon, just before the FIFA World Cup final I was browsing through the films in my laptop, since the memory was full and had to delete some files (Movies of course). Then I found this catchy title “Pizza, Beer & Cigarettes”, wow.. what a tempting title!!!. I should have got it sometime back, but didn't push to see it because there were no subtitles available. So now, I gave a shot to watch it without subs. Moreover cinema is a visual medium, its not a news documentary. Surprise, I was able to pick the story. I didn't even read the synopsis before. 

El Cordobes and his teenage friends work for Martin a taxi driver. Whenever some wealthy people take the taxi, El Cordobes and his friends will storm into the taxi mid way and rob them. El Cordobes girlfriend Sandra is pregnant, she pleads Cordobes to leave this grey job and get some good decent life. Sandra prepares to leave Argentina. El and his friends make one last attempt to steal a hi-fi bar so that the both can lead a good life. Did the attempt go as planned is the climax. ?

The story is universal and understandable by the visuals itself. So not understanding the dialogues didn't make any impact in following it. There are many such Indian\Tamil movies with the similar plot lines. One such close to the same plotline Tamil movie is Thalainagaram starring Sundar C. This kind of story can happen anywhere in the world as long as poor and underprivileged people are oppressed by the system.

Just because of the title, we don't see much pizzas, beers and cigarettes. Some light moments are there as a dark comedy- Once after beating up Martin the taxi driver, El Cordobes asks the passenger to drive the taxi. The boys seeing the film “Dog Day Afternoon” by Al Pacino and planning how to do a stick-up. Some dark moments- When El Cordobes and his friend steal from an amputated street beggar.

For some reason whenever I see a South American film it ends up to be a film which talks about the exploitation of the poor.

Time to sleep...

Time travels in fast lane now-a-days, maybe I’m getting old!! Let us talk about the age some other time. I’m here to talk about Football, yes about this World Cup. I’m not an expert in football, I watch it as a sport enthusiast. So here we are after a month long 11 Billion USD extravagance.

With the Indian population, it’s not a surprise to know that India had the 2nd greatest Social Media engagement after Brazil during this World Cup. 

Hardcore Vs Newbies

When the World Cup started, all these EPL.. La Liga..Serie A, B, X, Y.. Z fans ridiculed about people who started watching football from this World Cup onwards, but later these newbies outnumbered the hardcore fans. The raise in TV ratings and the Social media engagement is proof. After all, football is not a difficult sport to understand, my 8-year cousin who started watching football a month before disallowed the Higuain goal as off-side as soon as he netted it in in the Finals.

I found some unique set of janthukkal (Some hardcore League Football fans). They started saying, “Hey! The quality of foodball in WorldCup is not so good compared to the major leagues in Europe.” Grrrrrrrr. 

Stamina of Indians

Another set of discussion happened about India not participating in the World Cup. It was as if people were caught in shock!. Every newspaper carried an article about Indian Football. Some even went on to say that Indians doesn’t have stamina and the body nature to play football. These mainstream media writers comfortably forgot about Field Hockey, which needs equal stamina of football. While the football world cup was happening not many knew that men’s Hockey WC was held and India finished 9th!. 

They also forgot about stamina in Test cricket, were you needed to stand 5 days in sun, if you can’t bowl-out Sanath Jayasuriya (Ask Anil Kumble on the 1997 Test) or the heroic stand by Rahul & VVS on Day 4th in 2001 Kolkata match. 

And they also failed to mention the Indian women’s National football team which is 50th in the world ranking (125 teams). So can we conclude Indian men don’t have stamina? As they say in the corporates it’s the “will-issue” not the “skill-issue”. And by the way we don’t want to worry where our Indian football stands. Every country has a passion towards a particular sport. Cricket is for India and as long as we win the ICC World Cup in every two-editions with the blessings of Sreeni Mama, I don’t have any complaints. It'll be cool if he can become the FIFA President :-).

Unforgettable Pularikum Moment- Lionel Messi’ missed free kick at 120+1 ET in the Final against Germany.

FYI- In 2017 FIFA U-17 Men’s World Cup is going to happen in India (Chennai is not listed). As a host India qualifies by default. Good luck.

My Experiments With Food - 1

This is my first experiment, so I thought of giving palgova (not Alva).