காஃபி ஃபில்டர்

இப்போது எழுதிய முன்குறிப்பு:

டிசிஎஸ் பெங்களூரில் 2003 திசம்பரில் இணைந்தாலும், குடும்பத்தை அழைத்து வருவதற்கு ஏபரல் 2004 ஆகிவிட்டது.  அதற்கு முன்பே பெங்களூரில் வீடு பார்த்ததால், சென்னை வீடு காலியாக்கப்பட்டு, சாமான்கள் எல்லாம் பெங்களூருக்கு வந்துவிட்டன.  சென்னையில் சிவா பரீக்ஷை முடியும் வரை, என் மாமா வீட்டில் குடும்பம் இருந்தது.  இனி படியுங்கள்.

ஜயநகர் வீட்டில் சாமான்கள் இறக்கப்பட்டவுடன் எனது முதல் கவலை.  எனக்கிருக்கும் நேர நெருக்கடியில் இதையெல்லாம் ஒழுங்காய் எடுத்து வைத்து, மாமி/மம்மி முன்னால் ‘எப்படி வாழ்ந்து காட்டுவது?!’

Oh no! Another talented Ms K!

Karunanidhi kin inflict skills on meet - G.C. SHEKHAR

Coimbatore, June 25: Tamil, the great classical language, is literally chanting “Karuna, Karuna, Karuna…”.

Not wholly in praise of the political patriarch but for mercy from his culture clan that has unleashed its combined creative muscle on a conference to celebrate the language.

Two granddaughters of M. Karunanidhi, the self-appointed guardian of all matters Dravidian who also happens to be the Tamil Nadu chief minister, have already treated the World Classical Tamil Conference to their “talents”.
One tried her hand at the veena, the elegant musical instrument, while the other bestowed her attention on poetry, that hapless victim of grandiose illusions from time immemorial.

With the two “exponents” blessed by a whole assortment of filial permutations and combinations in power — granddad as chief minister, uncle as deputy chief minister, father of one a Union minister, aunt a member of Parliament — the audience and an array of DMK ministers had little option but to grin and bear it.

As the sitting-duck audience suffered in silence, Ezhilarasi Jothimani, daughter of Karunanidhi’s daughter Selvi, played the veena for nearly two hours on Thursday at the conference venue. Ezhilarasi translates into “beautiful queen” but she could not conquer the veena, the queen of Carnatic music.

Ezhilarasi’s lack of affinity to the instrument was quite plain, not surprising since she has apparently been practising for just over three months. “She would not be featured even in a school’s annual day programme,” quipped a veena teacher from Chennai who watched the show live on Kaliagnar TV (no prizes for guessing it is owned by the Karunanidhi family.)

If Thursday set the tone, Friday dawned the promise of a pounding by poetic prowess. This morning, Kayalvizhi Venkatesh, daughter of Karunanidhi’s son and Union Minister M.K. Alagiri, took part in a poetry event.

Originally titled “March on Tamils, lion-like”, it descended into a roar in praise of Karunanidhi. Kayalvizhi’s poem titled “Let equality win” was wholly unintelligible.

Other poets drew constant applause whenever they came up with a catchy phrase (of course in praise of Karunanidhi), but the “captured” audience sat through mute during Kayalvizhi’s recitation, unable to make head or tail out of her poem.
“Both in construction and content, her poem hardly made any sense. From the way she was reciting it from memory, it was obvious that even she did not understand what she was speaking,” said a Tamil lecturer.

A little poetic politics now: Kayalvizhi has been promoted recently by the Alagiri family as a rival to Karunanidhi’s poetess daughter Kanimozhi, who cut her poetry teeth in the 1990s.

Truth be told, Kayalvizhi did make considerable progress today compared with a recent literary catastrophe on stage.

A ghost-written speech she had delivered in Tamil recently had “STOP” written in English to mark the spots where she had to pause. While firing off the speech, Kayalvizhi also read out the “STOPS” which sent the audience into spasms.
Curtains did not fall on the creative comedy there. The speech was published verbatim — full with the STOP — in the DMK organ Murasoli the next day. The jury is still out whether an “enterprising” sub-editor let it pass deliberately or it was a genuine bloomer born out of unalloyed adulation.

Not that Kanimozhi had any reason to complain. While the two granddaughters had their public outing, Kanimozhi was being featured in a different manner at the academic sessions of the conference. At least three papers on Kanimozhi’s poetry were presented, unmindful of a little detail that her compendium of poems consists of three thin volumes.

Since the family circle is not complete without the fount, the academic sessions will also include 21 papers on various facets of Karunanidhi’s works, such as film scripts, letters to the cadres and plays.

“We expected the Tamil conference to be a party meet but now it has been downgraded to a family meet,” said Thuglak editor Cho Ramaswamy.

Karunanidhi had never hosted a “world Tamil conference” during his previous four tenures as chief minister whereas his rivals MGR and Jayalalithaa have. The current conference is also aimed at correcting this “anomaly”.

Courtesy: JK

Nothing wrong with Indian men!

India is backing their men. After the authors of super freakonomics belittled the Indian male in a chapter about condoms, experts have said that he can still hold his own in the world.

The authors, US Economist Steven D Levitt and Journalist Stephen J dubner, had inferred from an Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) study that indian men are less endowed than men in other parts of the world.

They said 60% of Indian men have penises too small for the condoms manufactured to fit who specs. But now, ICMR Deputy Director General RS Sharma says the authors had not factored the entire research findings before jumping to the conclusion. Instead, they had referred only to a small data sample collected from Maharashtra.

"The claim can't be considered as an average data of an indian man," says Sharma. The 2001 research was done to help the government understand why most Indian men say no to condoms. one of the notions was that the condoms could be oversized. To test it, the researchers had decided to line up men from all states, and measure them from base to tip in their viagra mood.

Since the number of experts needed for the "sensitive job" could not be found, the test was conducted only on 1,377 healthy men. The study found that the sizes varied from state to state, and hence, deriving a standard average length from the data was not possible. Though the study did indicate that the average size of an erect penis in the sampled states is smaller than the international size, the specification could not be stretched to include the entire country.

-DNA Edition, Bengaluru

வெட்கக் கேடு!

The first thing that the Indian team of swimmers with disabilities headed for an international swimming tournament in Germany will have to do is to start hunting for swimming costumes as soon as they reach Berlin on Tuesday. The tournament starts on Thursday, leaving them with just over a day to hunt for their costumes.

None of the swimmers who are to compete in the International German Swimming Open for disabled athletes in Berlin from June 17-20 have the appropriate swimsuits approved by the international swimming federation without which they will not be allowed to even enter the pool.

The Fidiration Internationale de Natation or FINA, which sets standards in international aquatic sports, had made it mandatory for all competitors to wear FINA approved costumes from January this year. Over five months later, the Paralympic Swimming Federation of India has still not been able to procure the required costumes for the swimmers.

"We had given a proposal to the government for buying the costumes in April. The sports ministry took so long over it that the costumes could not be bought. But that is not a problem, because now the ministry has asked us to buy it in Berlin.There are two big swimming stores", said Dr VK Dabas, secretary of the Paralympic Swimming Federation of India.

Even the money for the trip was made available to the team only on Monday, the day they left for the swimming meet. While the ministry, the federation and the Paralympics Committee of India (PCI) are busy passing the buck for this fiasco, the athletes are tense as they are not even sure they will be able to procure the costume before the competition starts.

"Though the Indian swimming team comprises just six members, the federation plans to buy costumes which are not too expensive, about Rs 3,000-5,000, which the federation believes should be good enough. The best costumes cost about Rs 23,000 each or over Rs 1.3 lakh for the entire team. Considering that the Commonwealth Games and the Para Asian Games too are coming up soon, why cant they plan for the future and buy the best?" asked a swimmer.

The Berlin event starts on Thursday, leaving the disabled swimmers with just over a day to hunt for their costumes.

-Rema Nagarajan TIMES INSIGHT GROUP, TOI, Bangalore Edition