War of the Colas - Fire in the hole for Mountain Dew

Who told it is easy to run a Cola company?


Coke and Pepsi are the DMK and ADMK of the Cola business. The war of brands between Pepsi and Coke is as old as the one between Tom and Jerry. Both are posting millions of dollars of profit every year. But, then have you read the first line? What makes it difficult to run a Cola company? Cola is served as the next best drink after water. 95% of Americans are Cola drinkers. Then where lies the risk?


Survival of every product is mainly based on the USP contribution to its consumer. Fact is that there is no basic USP attached with the Cola drinks. People could just go with the soda and breweries. Hence, the existence of a Cola company entirely depends on the brand management and advertising associated with it. Cola sales are directly proportional to the public mindset. They have to make the consumer believe that their drink is unique, which is not in fact! Downfall for the company, otherwise. As an added headache, when the chips are down, health activists will spread the awareness about the excess calories and potential hazards present in Cola. When the TRP rating is down and the people have nothing to chew, media will take the dusted issue of caffeine content present in Colas,  polish it and keep the shows going on. They will sponsor talk shows in which limelight guys will talk about the various side effects of Cola. Audience will end up comparing Cola with bleaching liquid. All such stuffs will be carried out till the commencement of the next important Cricket tour or the next polls and scams. Again, brand-angels like Aamir and MSD will repair the damage done by the media and the mentality of the people will change. Again. Oh wait. Who are these people? What makes them? Whatever offered to them makes them. And such an offer is decided mostly by the businessmen, not the activists.


In addition to the above mentioned foes, it is not so often we see one Cola company taking a dig at the other. Pepsi, the company which is named after the digestive enzyme Pepsin, is the first company to understand the potential risks associated with running a carbonated drinks company. They forayed into the FMCG sector long ago with products like Lays, Aquafina, Lipton and Quaker Oats. Coca Cola on the other hand has a wide portfolio of more than 3500 beverages in its pocket. 

Both are known for their long stand rivalry in advertising their products. One of the famous brand war has happened between Pepsi and Coke. I'll rate the one between Coke's Sprite and Pepsi's Mountain Dew as the second best. Mountain Dew appealed to the little adventurer hiding within every Indian. The brand projected itself as the contender of doing the impossible with no fear. In contrast, Sprite mocked the dare associated with Mountain Dew. It projected itself as the drink of people's clear senses. But, in the long run, it is the adventurer who will take over the Smart-Dude. Coke knew this so well. Hence, it decided to launch another cannon on its rival Mountain Dew. This time, it is not the Cool guy Sprite. But it opted for a rough and tough Thumps Up. Believe it or not, Thumps Up is the largest selling Cola drink in India. 

The difference between the themes of Mountain Dew and Thumps Up are so thin. In Mountain Dew, the adventure staged is projected as a result of their drink. In Thumps Up, the person is projected to go to any limits to possess their drink. Now, the latest move by Coke has diminished this thin difference. Now, Thumps Up joins the line of Mountain Dew, but with a little youth revolutionary flavor peppered all over it. Replacement of Akshay by Mahesh Babu and the drop of 'Taste the Thunder' slogan tells the whole story. Coke has got the strategy right in nailing the Mountain Dew's coffin. I feel, the double barreled pistol of Coke is enough to fire the PepsiCo. But Pepsi is not dumb either.


Health hazards. Media. People Mindset. Scorching rivals. Advertisements with costliest brand ambassadors. Brand dependency. 


Well, Who told it is easy to run a Cola company?

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Post night Post

My Titan is glowing with 4.10a.m. I thank the Curie couple. My body is functioning like an Indian parliament. Dormant. But, My mind is working like an Indian bedroom. Over Time.  I am here, lying down and trying to sleep.. Or is it? What am I trying to do? I dunno for sure. Nights are capable of giving life to the dormant memories fossilized in our heart! Nights are dark. They are quiet. Probably our brain shouts its inherent thoughts when the earth is whispering to the moon! As I write this sentence, I begin to think about the famous creators created by this night. Theoretically, everyone is meant to be created at night.  Big shots inclusive. To hell with my humor. At this moment, most of the people will be wide awake, saying a silent-same-pinch to me. I think of my friend in USA, who is actually in a different time frame and it is daytime for him. So what really is time? Few thousand miles are capable of bringing different calendars to different people. Perhaps the time should be measured by keeping the people as constant. I wonder about the way our life is deciphered.  Philosophy is puked from my mind. I think that the nights extend to life and the days diminish to death. I think this. I think that. I think all.

Nights are dark. Dark is black. Black is capable of absorbing anything and everything which comes to it. Nights are capable of bringing back our memories and sucking our joy or sorrow. Black is a color parasite! Night is an emotion parasite.

Oh, what am I doing? I got stuck in this vicious cycle of thoughts. Again my thoughts come back to time. When I think of it, time is like a feminine brain. It is a constantly changing variable. Time is perceived based on perception geography,  environmental physics and mental chemistry. Time is Einsteined! In time, I wanna embrace the sleep which is seducing me for a while. I wanna forget everything and just sleep all the way. In spite of that feeling, I am not welcoming the sleep to my mental condominium. Such a meta-state between sleep and awake is similar to the limbo oscillating between life and death. Meta-states are highly unstable. My chemistry professor has taught me that electrons acquire motion in such meta states. Electrons radiate from atom. Thoughts radiate from grey matter. Such electric thoughts are known as philosophy. I am asleep. I am awake. Yes I am a philosopher!

Suddenly my conscious pops out of my shirt, just like the way I have seen in the movies and it starts to do self-advising. It says -"If you really do what your heart craves to do, then you are in the real heaven". As I blink, it transfigures itself into my Mathematical teacher. It goes back and writes this formula in thin air.

Happiness Quotient = No. of actions performed / No. of actions desired by our heart.

Omg, the air is not thin anymore! Revelations. And it pops in back inside my Indian Terrain. At some distant, my brain is shouting at me that my present action is more of a blabbering than real thinking.
But, I.Really.Do.Not.Care.As.Long.As.It.Makes.Sense.To.Me! My thinking tank takes pity on me. Tired of philosophies, my body takes control over my mind. My blinking rate becomes directly proportional to our interests in studies. My muscles act as if I'm their college professor. Yet, I am going to be awake...in my dreams. I decide to do what I would like to do. I give up to sleep. To improve my happiness quotient, I am entering heaven. Dot.

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The Fountainhead & Bhagavat Gita - A Compare and Contrast

The Fountainhead is a famous philosophical novel written by Miss.Ayn Rand. It is based on the concept of individualism and epistemology.

An excerpt from Ayn Rand's  Philosophical Pinnacle - The Fountainhead:

Howard Roark: "Before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the people! Your own work, not any possible object of your charity. I'll be glad if men who need it find a better method of living in the house I built, but that's not the motive of my work, nor my reason, nor my reward! My reward, my purpose, my life, is the work itself - my work done my way! Nothing else matters to me!"

What defines a man? How a person is judged? Which scale is used to measure him?

A man is defined by the way he communicates to the nature. The way he responds to the input gained from this universe. And what defines his responses? Responses are based on the array of things he noticed/experienced/learnt/did/influence/influenced from his childhood. In short, a man is defined by what he does. 

 People do things all the while. Action composes the materialistic world. Inaction is also an action performed in the state of hibernation. A man's action is born with his birth and dies with his death. It is the intermediate time between birth and death which injects meaning to a person's inane life. One must do only those things which makes him/her happy. Performing an action under compulsion is the greatest insult you spit on the face of truth. Be yourself. Everyone and everything is unique in this world. Everyone is gifted with some skills to perform their own actions. Chaos emerges when man fails to recognize what he is destined to do and decides to take other person's route. Doing something just because everyone else do the same spoils the real purpose of God's creation.  In our human body, every organ does some unique function. If nose gets envy of the delicious food chewed by its neighbor mouth and decides to refuse oxygen, it chooses its own demise. Even the blood groups are unique. None of the animals copy from others. They learn to do the basic actions like locomotion, reproduction and food-intake from their counterparts. But they never copy when it comes to choosing their destiny. They act only to fulfill their need of the hour. They short sell their actions in the life stock market. But, man, being the zenith of species, must live for a cause. He must be a longterm investor. Otherwise, he will lose his own definition of human being. He must remember that the sole purpose of human being is being human and being human is determined by our actions.

A creator conceives what his mind imagines, thereby opening the doors of our world to a new invention. He is the prime-mover of the world. A second-hander depends upon the creator for his lifeneeds. An action takes the straight route for a creator and it takes a proxy for a second-hander. 

 In Miss. Rand's words -

"The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary."

Such an intermediary is viewed as an act of charity by Bhagavat Gita and it is viewed as an act of killing the action by The Fountainhead. Never forget that the uncharitable Steve Jobs is hailed as the game-changer above the charitable Bill Gates. Steve Jobs criticized Mr.Gates as follows– “Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he's more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology. He just shamelessly ripped off other people's ideas.” Steve Jobs is the closest match for Rand’s Roark. 

Bhagavat Gita is the famous teachings of Lord Krishna to Arjuna in Kurukshetra. When Arjuna feared to do his duties in the battleground, Krishna told him the essence of karma yoga. Here, Man's action is defined as the 'Karma'.  People are here to do the actions to be performed. Both the books talk volume about the integrity associated with performing our actions. They say that the destined action is the greatest yoga ever done on any altar. This is where The Fountainhead and The Bhagavat Gita clasp their hands together. Rand says - ‘Feed the need, not because they depend on you, but because you like the action of public service.  Service is the action itself. Not the resultant of it.’ Krishna says – ‘Action must be performed without the dependence of its resultant'. My reward is the work itself.

In contrast to the above similarities between the two books of our discussion, Upanishads order men to be humble and selfless. But, The Fountainhead states that the man must be the proudest of all the creatures in our world. Because, he knows the purpose of his actions. He knows the effects and impact it can cause to his milieu. He can understand that performing an action is not just a transfer of energy from one form to another. But it is taking the current form of energy to the next level.

 Human mind could be the angel's philosopher stone or it could be the devil's horcrux. In Roark's conclusive speech, Ayn Rand states the following about human mind and its importance to stay aloof.  

"Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. But the mind is an attribute of the individual, there is no such thing as a collective brain. The man who thinks must think and act on his own. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot not be subordinated to the needs, opinions, or wishes of others. It is not an object of sacrifice."   

According to Bhagavat Gita, man must perform him karma in order to attain mukthi. It is the method of associating a humble man with the supreme universe. According to The Fountainhead, man must realize his mukthi in his karma. It is the method of associating the vast universe with the reverence of man’s superiority. 

Howard Roark could have been the Lord Krishna of our century.  But he won't, because there is only one Roark and only one Krishna.

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Mid Night Philosophy #1

Difference between Goal and Destiny is that everyone start chasing the first and end up being chased by the latter!

Truth is like God! It is omnipresent. You will feel the different versions of truth at different intervals of time.

God ceases to exist for those who are either too good or too bad! Even God belongs to the corridor of uncertainty!

The real courageous person in this world is the one who has the guts to chase his dreams, whatever happens!

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Coffin for Corruption?

Lokpal~IAC~Anna Hazare~Baba Ramdev~MMS~Digvijay Singh~Jantarmantar~Ramlila~ Fasting~Tihar~Kalmadi~Kanimozhi~Raja~DMK - As per Google Zeitgeist, this wordlist constitutes the most typed words by an Indian citizen in the past few months. 

All the time, people are busy complaining about rotten politicians, politicians are busy in setting planning(?) commissions, and the fourth estate, media are busy in being the bird watcher, benefiting from disputes between people and politicians. In the mean time, The Sacred House of Parliament has become a warehouse filled with quibblers. 

Only few days ago, we celebrated 64th Independence day. What kind of freedom did we achieved? Freedom to democratic rule they say. But, the protectors of the people, the rulers of our country are celebrating independence behind a bullet-proof window with an army of police protection. Freedom to politcal rule they say. But, politicians take commission from the businesspeople and set commissions to overcome the legal disputes! Freedom to media they say. But, Media adding fuel to the fire, focusing on TRP more than facts. Freedom to vote they say. But, votes are traded in Election time with the vote price plotting a parabola, reaching the max at election time and droping at the midtime. What kind of freedom is this? Freedom to loot? Freedom to evade constitution? Freedom to manipulate? Or freedom to take steps for the public welfare?

At the same time, politicians are not to be the only sector to be blamed. It is we who made them to what they are at present. People bribe the officers and politicians for favours and they in turn get bribed by the politicians for the vote! Who is the most corrupt here? A Government formed by the sold public or the people who were bought by the solid politicians?

Public like to follow trends - whether it is ambition or agitation. If the educational trend is to do Engineering, people will follow that, irrespective of the pupil's talent criterion. If the political trend is to fight against corruption, they will follow that. Not to mention the young men and women who witnessed the freedom struggle only in Social Science books, they like to stand for a cause, probably for the first time in their life. But, irrespective of such petty analyses, after emergency, this is the first time people has united for a single cause.

People's power is like a falling apple obeying gravity. Neither you can stop it nor you can reverse it. As people started realize that the guy represented by him is looting his own pocket, hardtime began to politicians. Now that the whole India is fighting against corruption, an ombudsman is left with two options. Whether he can join the struggle or sit in his house imagining nothing is happening outside. If he chooses to fight, then he must remember that the next time he gets stuck in a lengthy bureaucratic process, he must obey the law and he should not try to evade rules for getting favours in the future. Our country's problem is the population, which is so dense such that there is not a single social/bureacratical process which doesn't involve queuing system. People who are on streets right now should not forget that their struggle doesn't end with the Lokpal bill; but it just starts there. Now, we say that it is corruption which destroyed our lives and charge the Government for not passing a strong Lokpal. But the truth is that by fighting corruption, we are fighting against the corrupt mentality which is ruling our ordinary people and businessmen. All those public-turned-reformist must digest the simple fact - 'Corruption is a two way street. Both the giver and taker are equally reprehensible'.

By getting Independence, we have amputated the infectious British arm, only to get a more proliferating cancer called corruption. We sacrificed so much to defeat one East India company, only to get multiple East India companies in the name of political parties, business tycoons, underworld dhadhas and so on. With this year, just like our politicians, even our Independence reached its retirement age of 64yrs! Now is not too late than never.

It all comes down to this - As usual, the requiem to corruption is not inside some bill, but it is in our minds. It is our duty to uproot the corruption and sow honest seeds to our future generations in order to reap the real independence. Let the knot which came down last Monday be the demonic craziness and the flag which went up be the democracy!

The adage goes - "Where there is a will, there is a way!". But, I say, "Where there is evil, there is unity and definitely there is a way!". Vande Maataram :-)

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Plastic pricing

Plastic covers are priced at all the FMCG and garment shops from past month. Though there are quite a number of customers feel oppressive and sulty against such a move, my personal conviction is that this is a very good move. As the economy of the Metropolitans changed in the past few decades, it brought many corresponding changes in the lifestyle of city dwellers. People started using disposable temporary items more than the long-life products. Their preference shifted largely towards the temporal things. Consumption of ephemeral goods increased rapidly which brought the social environmental welfare under scanner.

Plastic is one of those goods which are accounted for more than 40% of the land pollution. Regular use of plastic can cause stemcell cancer, In addition to that, thousands of cattles die every other day due to the unknown intake of plastic. Even the biodegradable plastics are not 100% recyclable.

Most of the people moved from wired bags to plastic covers mainly because of the fact that the latter is given for free. There are several steps taken by the Government in the past and present in order to curb the plastic usage. In addition, there are a few NGOs who actively participate in campaigns to remind people about the ill-effects caused from the usage of plastics. Since, Money is the primary stopcock for controlling our people's activities, such reduction control steps became a waste of space. Hence I hope that this plastic pricing will bear fruit to environment gradually.

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Buried Potential of The Rajnikanth

A thread of common sense distinguishes the ordinary leaders from the greatest leaders of this world. .  Some leaders are made for the people. Some leaders are made by the people. Nehru and Roosevelt fall in the first category whereas Gandhi and MG Ramachandran fall in the latter. Leaders made by people have always found a unique place in our history. 

A sequence from Maniratnam’s Iruvar made me to write about my all-time favorite actor – Superstar Rajnikanth. In this movie, Karunanidhi questions MGR about his people power as follows - “This is the power which is so rare in this world. This is the power blessed to only few of the people like Lenin, Stalin, and Churchill etc. This is the most powerful boon you will ever get. What are you gonna do in return to them?” 

When I watched this scene, I couldn’t help but compare MGR with our Superstar. But, if MGR were alive today, he would have proudly answered that question with a ‘Yes, I did improve the lifestyle of my fellow Tamizhan who stood by me with his blood and bone”. But, can Thalaivar Rajnikanth answer this question? Fact is that he didn’t make use of this boon given to him by our people. 

Rajni in MGR getup

There is a childhood story that I remember. A young man went to a theatre; he lost his purse there. He came to house, switched on the lights and started searching for his lost purse. When his neighbors questioned him, he replied that the theatre was dim and dark and hence he couldn’t search there properly. So, he is searching in his house where he got enough visibility. It may sound foolish to many of us. But this is exactly what Our Rajnikanth is trying to do. In almost all the epics, it is pointed out clearly that ‘Service to people is the real service to God’. Ironically, Thalaivar lost the Lord among his fellow men and traveling to Kailash in his quest to an unattainable spirituality. 

Some silences are long enough to be termed as ‘buried silences’. There was a time in Tamil Nadu history where every party was waiting for his words. But, Thalaivar kept his mouth shut with one of such buried silences. It is not just his silence which is buried, but it is the potential, public power which went to the drain. Rajnikanth is the one and only person to gain support among a vast sector of people in our contemporary world. When I talk about ‘using’ the power, it means to use it in a good way for the welfare of the people. Don’t forget that he rooted his career in a state where people are looking for an ideal candidate to replace the rotten Dravidian politics for almost two decades. Rajni will probably reply that he is not interested in politics. Okay fine. Point made.  But, still his opening songs in the movies will have lyrics which will suggest his entry to politics. Why? Just for getting his fans ticket money? In fact, you don’t have to enter the politics to do good to the people. Being a Thalaivar fan, I feel ashamed to compare him with people like Actor Surya, Vijay, Vijayakanth and Raghava Lawrence who stretch their limits for the people. Here, Rajni should have been the role model for them. He should have taken the initiative to show the path of public service to the upcoming generations of celebrities. 

Rajni film reception at Shanthi theatre

It is we, the people who are the sole responsibility for whatever mentioned. It is the mistake of our people to idolize a ordinary stage actor into some celestial God form. But, similar to falling in love, some things happen without any supportive reasons. Rajnikanth is one among such exceptions. He has been idolized. It cannot be reversed now. Love and affection of mass public is a definite form of positive energy. It is what a man does with such positive energy define him. Rajnikanth has already wasted his golden opportunities to do well like his predecessors NTR and MGR. 

Can Rajni make a surprise entry to our politics? Or can he start doing public service without indulging in politics? Can he pulverize the fan-heart-crunching allegations made by some half-baked writers like me? Yes he can! If it didn’t happen in 1996, then it may well happen in 2016!  But, I feel that the train is gone by a long way already!

“Don’t wait for the Last Judgment. It happens every day.”  - Albert Camus.

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Express Avenue – A name meant for human life!

Express Avenue is the largest shopping mall in Chennai Metropolitan, built by the subsidiary of The Indian Express newspaper group. Though I went to EA for umpteen numbers of times, the last visit kindled my thoughts about shopping malls and hence this article incepted. Lets us analyze the association between the history of shopping malls and the history of human mindset.

Flow chart for the origination of shopping centers is given below:

Town Centres->Markets->Shopping arcades->Shopping Malls/Centers->Online Shopping

Transformations in the shopping centre structure do have some close associations with the transformations within the human mind. In the ancient Europe, every village or town will have a main building called ‘Town Centre’. This is where the people traded their produced goods.  After the initial days spent in caves and river banks, man found freedom in house-oriented civilization, which is the main reason behind the formation of town centres. But after the advent of modernization in trade, such trade buildings started to diminish. Next step in the transformation cycle led man to categorize or segmentize his environment based on his specific needs.  Hence the inception of markets began and it almost continued till the end of 20^th century. 

With the ingress of Information technology, human mind is blessed with a faster medium of communication which led to the next step in the transformation process. Researches show that the amount of information gained by an average person of 21^st century is much more than the total amount of information gained by an average man from the beginning of this world to 1920 A.D. This shows the rapid age at which we live. Due to such a pace of life, categorization of environment based on specific purposes is dissolved. Now, man wants everything at his touching distance.  Thus, the malls or shopping centers are invented.  A mall is nothing but a coagulated series of shops providing all sorts of A to Z products. The parade of shopping malls has started with the first mall being built in the City of Damascus in Syria.

One of the realities about men is that they will lose their precious things right in front of their eyes, then search for it everywhere, then embed an exact hoax of that precious thing, from which they will try to ‘extract’ satisfaction.  Man lost his real happiness within his own family, then searched for it everywhere else, then embedded it in his surrounding environment in the form of ‘entertainment factors’. Malls are also included in this search of enjoyment. Hence, the theatres and other sorts of entertainment factors are being bumped into shopping malls and destroyed the functional categorization of environment. In this continued transformation cycle, online shopping malls are readily waiting to replace the real shopping malls. There might arrive several good and bad results due to such civilization transformations. And the best way to understand such changes is by wait and watch.

All the definitions are defined by ‘time’.  In the past, the term ‘shopping’ is synonymous with ‘trading’. Man shopped for his needs; he did things with specificity as the core; he ate dishes he liked; he went to places for specific purpose.  In short he lived a unified life in which everything is a part. There, Society is defined by what the man stood for. So men made markets.

In the present, the terms ‘shopping’ and ‘trading’ became anonymous with each other. Shopping became the second nature of man’s social status; he is doing things with no specificity; he orders buffet, not sure what he likes and eats what his par people eats; he goes to places for collective purposes. In short, he is living a diversified life in which he is a part of everything. Here, Man is defined by what the society stands for. So malls are made for men.

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Raavana - A ‘Human’ King lurked in shadow!

Lankan King, Raavana is portrayed as a ten-headed monster, a demon king, a womanizer, a knavish fox by our epics. I wished to comprehend his character map from my viewpoint, which will be contentious in most of the cases and the resultant product is this short article. 

Raavana is known to be the greatest ruler of Lanka in the ancient times. His regime is roughly calculated around 1000 B.C to 600 B.C. He is depicted in epics as a ten headed monster. But in reality, his ten heads are symbolic representations of ten indriyas or chakras present in our body. Most of us know that Raavana is the main antagonist in Ramayana. But, many don’t know the fact that there are several versions of Ramayana in Jainism, Buddhism etc. In such epics, Raavana is depicted as a man of mind. In Jainism, Raavana is known to be the first King who abolished animal sacrifices. He is widely acclaimed as a sincere Shiva devotee. He is known to be a veteran Veena player and a great musician. He is a great astrologer and claimed to have written an astro-book in the name of ‘Ravana Samhitha’. In fact, this so-called womanizer king (as depicted by Valmiki Ramayana) is a person who took oath that he will never touch another man’s wife without consent. He is known to be the greatest art-lover ever ruled our continent. Under his aristocratic and diplomatic measures, Lanka cherished with all the affluence.

Raavana is an orthodox Tamizh ruler who placed his pride before everything else. So, when his sister is defamed by Lakshmana, he played the situation and decided to avenge against the defamer. He acted upon his sister’s version of the tale. When he confronted love in front of Sita, with his artistic nature, he fell in love with her. As per Ramayana, he captured her with his foxing techniques. But as per the Veda Upanishads, Raavana acted according to the rules of dharma. Those rules state that if you win a woman with your eloquence, it is not considered as a beguiling act. Sita defied the rules set by her brother-in-law and fell for Raavana. She doubted the capabilities of Rama, crossed the borders and paid the price for her arrogance. Raavana, on the other hand never snubbed his oath. He never touched Sita and never kept his presence when she liked no longer.

Unlike Rama, Raavana never indulged in Guerilla warfare (e.g. cunning assassination of Vaali). He always defeated his foes face to face. Unlike Rama, he never used his friendship as an exchange rate in the market of favors. Unlike Rama, he never sent his spies to the enemy territory. Unlike Rama, he placed his love for Sita in front of his Kingdom. (Later, Rama sacrificed Sita for the people of Ayodhya! Whatta husband? After all the hardships??? Shame on you Rama!!!)

Raavana always believed for what he is. An action is christened as guilt only if there is a bearer for it. In that purview, Raavana never bore any guilt for his actions. In the final battle, he marched his troops even after his precognition of his demise. He merely played his part in his life drama and achieved a brave death. It is this same reason for which Greatest Greek emperors of our generations are hailed for. In Iliad, it is known as the greatest virtue of a true martyr; in Bhagavad Gita, it is praised as the definition of Karma; but it is depicted by us as the characteristic of a demon. One should never forget that history is man’s refracted version of truth!

Alchemist, the bestselling book of our generation taught me the following things:

1. Chase your love.

2. Chase your dreams.

3. Never give up, how impossible your goals might be.

4. Always stand by your word.

5. Always support your relations.

If these are the characteristics we need to make our soul an elite one and if these are the same things which act as a differentiator for a man from other species, then I’m overwhelmingly proud that I came from the same Tamizh clan as that of Raavaneswaran - The Human King of ancient times buried by our darned epics!

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Reason for The Capitulation of DMK - Jayalalitha's Temerity or Karunanidhi's Nepotism?

Selvi J Jayalalitha (Name by birth - Komalavalli) has sworn in as the new Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for the 3^rd time.  Let us delve a little bit into her past. An actor turned politician, she is the only actress in Tamil Cinema industry with more than 90% box office success rate.  She rendered her voice to ten songs in various films, singing along with pros like SPB, TMS and so on. After being known as the political heir of M.G. Ramachandran, she was thrown off to the back seat in 1989 elections by her party members.   But with her audacious attitude towards life, she rose to peak and captured the Fort in 1991 (with some assistance gained from Rajiv Gandhi's assassination). Jayalalitha is the first woman to become the Leader of Opposition in Democratic India. Infact, she is the youngest person to become Chief Minister of a state.

As it is common for any ordinary human being, once she smelled the dope of power, her audacity is transformed into ruthless temerity. Just like any other politician, she used her first tenure of Chief Minister for the welfare of her kith and kin. As a result, double digit number of cases were filed against her name with charges for corruption, asset misappropriation etc.  by her successor, M Karunanidhi, whose tenure is full of vacillations.

Whenever the People of Tamil Nadu needed a change, they will choose one among these two options - DMK or AIADMK, Greater evil or Lesser evil, family looters or solitary looter.  As per the political sine wave, Karunanidhi became the Chief Minister in 2006. But the notable change in DMK line-up during this particular tenure is the expiry of Murasoli Maran who was claimed to be the judge of Karunanidhi’s moral actions. After Maran's death, Karunanidhi sowed seeds for some of the irrefutable mistakes in his career. He lent the party principles for the welfare of his family. His attitude towards the Central government for getting Cabinet ministership for Azhagiri and Kanimozhi is widely condemned. Despite his strong media image as an icon of Tamil people, Indian media compared him to the image of a third-rate haggler. 

A scholar like Karunanidhi should have been more careful in this regard. He miscalculated the power of people and played a blind game. He thought that the insolence displayed by his son Azhagiri will go unnoticed. He misunderstood the people of Tamil Nadu to be complacent with their political approach. He thought that the three salary hikes and loads of freebies offered by his government will blind fold the people from seeing his mistakes. His arrogance reached the peak when he threatened the ruling UPA Government for letting political novices like Kanimozhi and Dayanidhi Maran to get Cabinet seat. His unforgivable sin is that he supported A. Raja (now known as Spectrum Raja), when the whole world is accustomed with his multimillion dollar scam. It is at this time, people realized the double standards of their Chief Minister. Such incidents favored Jayalalitha in a huge way.

Most intriguing question of the moment will be this - What made the humongous DMK to fell like a deck of cards? What made the DMK to diminish as the third party in Legislative Assembly next to DMDK?

Karunanidhi chose his pack of cards with utmost scrutiny. But he built them on a corruptible base which made their own collapse. It is not the Jayalalitha's action which brought down DMK; it is her inaction which brought DMK to this ultimate demise. Infact, Jayalalitha did nothing in these 5 years to preach DMK a lesson. She spent most of these days in Koda nadu, a summer vacation spot. Even she never issued a statement against the perennial power cuts seen by our state. By keeping silent, she gave Karunanidhi the very rights to do anything he wishes. His heirs started three film production houses which monopolized the Tamil Cinema industry. His media arms tried to overshadow such atrocities and they portrayed Tamil Nadu as a heaven of all wonders. Frankly, Karunanidhi is the most powerful politician in Indian History. He can determine what the people should know, what they should not know. He got the largest Television channel network in South India; he got the largest newspaper network; his family forayed in diverse sectors of business with huge money power. But, the people know their demagogue’s naked face. The Power of People will dethrone any other sort of power. In history, they always knew. Not a single ruler who tried to ‘use’ his own men has ever survived! History repeated itself and Karunanidhi's actions dig his own grave. DMK, once renowned as the first Non-Congress party in India to rule a state has been made to renounce the Government and reduced to ashes. This will be the first time in the past 40 years, a third party (DMDK) will lead the opposition party in Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly.

The rise of Tamil People against corruption, nepotism and monopoly will have tremendous effect on Jayalalitha. She will understand that these people are not as boorish as the politicians think. She will realise that if she fails to give these people the life they deserved, then they will send her to the same place as that of her predecessor. The greatest victory gained by our people is that they made the politicians to 'think'. If 78 out of 100 people caused such a huge paradigm shift, then 100 out of 100 people can bring more. Our politicians think themselves as our rulers, not as our representatives. This election will poke their grey matter to remind themselves of their duty. It is time for these politicians to resume their jobs as our representatives.

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Vaanam - Up above the world so high!

Vaanam is the most used metaphor for high moral virtues and rectitude in our vocabulary. 
In Vaanam, sky is used as the common denominator for the fate of five different lives. Krish has come up with a story which drafts the lives of a slum-dweller, a desolate prostitute, a rock band musician, a socially minority person and an ordinary weaver. The story starts with these five different threads woven together into an ostentatious raiment. Films like Crash, Amores Perros, Babel, Ayudha Ezhuthu, Sarvam and Saroja are some of the movies which will come under the same umbrella. 
Unlike my previous movie reviews, this post is not going to tell how the film should have been. But it is going to tell how the people should have been.

The moral I took from this film is this:
If we take the sky as our roof, 
Then all the people in our planet will become neighbours, part of a single family!
Then nobody will wage war against another family member!
Then the riches won't hesitate to share their wealth to those in need!
Then the poor won't see the riches as leeches of poor people's blood!  
Then the gap between rich and rags will be decimated!
Then people will be branded based on love, not based on geographical or lingual origins!
Then we will sow seeds for the real human race!

There are a lot of 'then's. But the need of the hour is not a bunch of 'then's, only a fist full of 'now's! :)

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Duncan Fletcher :: Our Scapegoat or Mascot?

Dear Mr. Fletcher,

      We, the Indian Cricket fans are highly obsessed with our team’s glory. Gary Kirsten has left a huge hole to be replaced in our cricket team.  It is a big void, which can never be filled by anyone else. I hope that you know your responsibilities to fulfill the legacy.

     In order to be an efficient coach, you must understand the sentiments and emotional quotients of our players. When compared with other teams in international cricket, you can list a million differences for Team India. In this team, you have been given a bunch of players who may not speak the same language, may not celebrate the same festival, may not eat the same food, and may not wear the same wardrobes. But, they are bunch of guys who will overcome all these diversities for making our nation a proud one. Not all the bowlers will bowl like Zaheer, not all the fielders will field with gymnastic techniques like Raina, not all the batsmen will bat like the great Sachin. But, we don’t really have to. Because, we have got Zaheer, Raina and Sachin! They know the limitations and specialties of each other, which makes them invincible.

     Being a coach of England is about managing 14 people, who are part of a single ethnic race. On the other hand, being a coach of India is a whole different scenario. It is about managing 14 people who came from the ultimate mixture of more than 2000 ethnic races; it is about managing 35,595 newspapers circulating all over India; it is about managing 515 television channels who broadcast to every nook and corner of the nation and last but not the least, it is about managing 1.21 billion people who never want to experience a Indian defeat!

     Till you come to Indian soil, you might wonder the part played by cricket on other sectors of life. Cricket might be responsible for both the happiness and sadness of our nation. Here, cricket will be given prominence over a visit from US President. Cricket will be the topic of talk from village tea shops to business conferences at presidential suites.

     A defeat in a single match can cause a middle-class husband to fight with her wife, a television channel to broadcast a counter attack talk show, twitter to become #overloaded, a Duncan to attract scathing criticism and so on. Unlike Zimbabwe or England, you will be forced to lead a ‘digital life’ in India. Either 1 or 0. Either mountainous accolades or self sacrificial altar. Either coach or no coach.

     Being an Indian coach means, you have to read the runes always and you must be able to chase the rainbows almost every time. Under your training, if the team continues its winning streak, then the above mentioned media and people will appoint you as the mascot of Indian Cricket. On the contrary, if the team loses, then you will be the first and foremost scapegoat we will sacrifice!

     Whenever you confront an achievement or failure, tattoo the following bunch of words in your memory cells.

      In India, it goes like this. Air, water, food, shelter, cricket!

Best Wishes From,

A die-hard fan(atic) of Indian Cricket.

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Multiple Lifetimes in a Single Life Span - Concept of Impermanence

Have you recently heard the phrase - 'Man is living his life fastly'?
Life span is defined as the expected number of years of life remaining at a given age, whereas a lifetime is defined as the period during which something is functional (as between birth and death). Lifetime is a functional derivative of the number of situations came across by a man. In short, it is the experiences gathered by him during a particular interval of time. When we consider our past generations, they took some days to communicate with their distant friends and some months to travel from one geographic location to another. But, people of our generation do all these activities in a matter of seconds. Man of this decade acquires the same amount of experience, for which our ancestors have taken few lifetimes. 

As the old adage goes, 'Change is the only thing which doesn't change'. 

But, man of our contemporary world has learnt to use that 'Change' as his vehicle to travel from one situation to another. Hence, he becomes an integral part of the change which governs the lifetime in our planet. Because of such drastic changes in the human lifestyle, impermanence becomes the core concept of our lives.

Proverb says that, 'Necessity is the mother of invention'. But in our century, almost all the inventions are driven by 'Impermanence'. Impermanence has taken control over the Necessity. We can see the reflection of impermanence everywhere. Impermanence is the most omnipresent thing in this world next to God (at least we have evidence for the existence of Impermanence :P). For example, our tendency to use the ink-filled Fountain pens has been overridden by the use-and-throw ball-point pens. Everything right from the electronic gadgets to human relationships to human organs have become a replaceable item.

What are the impacts of such changes? A business model which has quality and permanence as its core idea becomes an invalid entity in this world. People opt for things which suffice themselves with temporary satisfaction. The concept of long-term becomes an extinct vision.

What we need to do about this? Nothing. Just have the awareness that the situations we are facing is a by-product of this Impermanence. It will avoid confusion, lessen the mental stress, give a clear insight about our life. 

So, when some elder people criticize us for being running with all our legs, don't conclude that they are alien entities of anachronism. It is us who are the real entities of anachronism!

It is time for us to coin the adage of our times - 'Impermanence is the only permanent entity'.

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Banana Republic

Recently, the fervid parents of murdered teen, Aarushi has described our Indian nation with an interesting eponym - 'Banana Republic'. They are right! We are an integral part of a nation where a Grade Ranked Officer uses his hand-kerchief to wipe off a politician's shoe dirt. We are an integral part of a nation where a spectrum allocation revenue could wipe away the entire fiscal deficit. We are an integral part of a nation where the cost of 1L water bottle equals the cost of 1L milk. We are an integral part of a nation where the burglary race is always won by The Ruling party with The Opposition Party finishes second.

Remember that, it is the only country in the world to defeat the mighty British empire with peace and Satyagraha.

It is the only country which contained the most diversified ethnic race, which is more in number than the entire ethnicities prevailed all over the world. It is the only country which got all sorts of climatic changes and all sorts of environmental treasures.

But all these distinct prides have confined themselves to appear only in the History text books. Whichever is distinct for us has already became extinct!

In fact, our prides also taken the same path as that of our national animal!

Even if the entire Indian population stands nude, collects their garments and wipes off the dirt caused by these iniquitous politicians, still the dirt will survive!

Yes.. It is the same country. But I don't think whether it is a sane country anymore.

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My First Post

I am glad that finally i started a blog to pour out those thoughts and ideas which were incepted in my day-to-day thought processes.. Let me give an reincarnated life to those ephemeral thoughts before they eventually diminish their presence in my grey matter.. :) 

Happy Blogging Ko!!!

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