The MosQUITo Menance

Who has not seen mosquitoes?Creatures which have existed ever since the beginning of life on earth. Whenever that was?And they have been buzzzing and biting and sucking for a living.
 
The wars (of course they are wars, would you miss an oppurtunity to swat a mosquito or does the mosquito ever not want to suck your blood.) have been going on for ever. They don’t work as a group though, just imagine what would happen if a bunch of warrior mosquitoes plan and attack strategic locations of the human anatomy to inflict maximum pain or the sports mosquitoes which would have human lifting competitions or the bloodoholic( constantly drinking blood ) mosquitoes which would get so bloody drunk that they would totter, fall and lie sprawled on the walls.
 
Recently I followed some mosquitoes around
 
At the Bzzzzzz Pubbbbbb
Mosquito Girl(MG) (Extremely drunk) – Hey can I have one for the road?
Mosquito Barman(MB) – What Road? There ain’t no roads here.
MG – Oh! Come on, jus get me one will ya…
MB – Will do if you pay your bloody debts. Just Buzz off…Till then
MG – arrrrgh!!! Alright!!! (Goes away in search of Bloody People)
 
As she is buzzing around she meets Mosquito Man. They fall in Love and the MG is asking the male to make love to her under the “Copulate to Populate” scheme(Female Mosquitoes take multiple partners, Most male mosquitoes die after they lose their virginity.I can just imagine if humans had the same kind of life cycle. Funny…Funny…)
 
MG – I want girls, they can destroy this earth by attempting to kill all other living forms
MM – But I will die if I copulate with you.
MG – Don’t worry,your progeny shall populate this earth and we will eventually gain world control. You men have to sacrifice for the future of our race.
 
Saying so MG pins down MM to the ground and hurriedly mates with him and then flies off to find food for the young ones in her. She needs blood…and she is going to get it off the next blood hoarding creature.
 
It is in their nature to drink blood for the survival of their eggs. And we go about murdering these creatures who probably don’t even see how you are bringing death upon them because of their bad eye sight.
 
We with our so called infinite knowledge have tried several forms to control them and kill them. Chemical warfare seems to top the list.But mosquitoes don’t seem to quit, even though QUIT is their middle name. They simply develop resistance to the various human made chemicals. The latest(Atleast in India) is the mini badminton bats with small electrical charges passing through them. You have probably seen people frantically waving these bats in front of them like they are playing badminton. Now with all that equipment looks like mosquitoes still have the upper hand. Yeah…just like in the movies. They mutate. Soon they will be resistant to everything even to our badminton swatting.
 
The worst part about mosquitos is that they attack you on home territory. Probably they were trained by Che Guevara in guerilla warfare, O!Sama rubbish Bin is Laden in terrorism and by Herr Fuhrer in the “The Aryan way of life.”(Fast Attacks of terror by mosquitoes with infinite levels of over-confidence.) Generally human beings can bear these attacks with just a little itchy bitchy. But sometimes these non quitters decide to bombard us with their Weapons of Mass Destruction, or a Bio Terrorist Attack.
 
It is these attacks which lead to death if left uncared for.Mosquitoes are the reason for most number of human deaths due to an animal/insect in the world. Well is that shocking? Then please follow this blog. This is a two part series to educate people about “The Mosquito Menance.” Especially in one of the most unreachable rural corners of India. JHARKHAND.

Announcements… Read on Please…


Announcements Announcements… This is what I have made out of this blog space. This has become like the poor walls of Chennai where different political party and cinema posters are posted.Posters which shout out to the poor denizens of this city to go watch movies or to attend a party meeting. Some posters which never escape your eye are the ones which advertise for Moolam(Piles) and this particular poster has a list of other male genital related diseases which can be cured.

Well I am really a blah blah writer who lacks focus and makes spelling and grammatical mistakes. (Hey Why am I going off tangents…) Habit I suppose.

So The Indiblogger’s meet is happening this Sunday.(Finally) the meet which has been proposed by Lemonade, sponsored by Microsoft, and organized by the Indiblogger Team is supposed to bring bloggers together so that they can interact exchange notes, have lots of fun and ofcourse make friends.

I was questioned a few days back by a septic…oops sceptic about the relevance of blogs and why do people need to blog. Is it not a waste of time and energy which
could probably be used for more useful activities. Should not the younger generation be going out and interacting and meeting people instead of blogging. I just had this to tell him,

Me – Why do people need education?

Him - To gain knowledge, to make money later.

Me – Those, are very interesting answers if and only if
you are talking to someone who is painfully stupid.

Him – What do you Mean?

Me – Because of the simple fact that you need none of those to have a life. And it makes me sad that you would be so ignorant.

Him – Explain please…

Me – If you think knowledge is got through education then it is a big NO. Experience is Knowledge and life is a sum of your experiences Going through life everyday, falling down, jumping with joy, being sad, loving someone dearly, hating someone fiercely. All these will add up to a life. So that when you have to leave this world, you will be a fulfilled man.

Him – So how is education related to blogging?

Me – It is related and you have to experience it. But you being an professor can’t explain why people get educated.And it is your bread and butter and jam and cheese. Why do I have to explain about the relevance of blogs and why people need to blog. Some things simply can’t be explained for example If I tell someone that doing a 180kmph in my car is an exhilarating experience, how would he/she know what I wanna convey unless he/she has had a similar experience. So If you don’t understand something please don’t question it’s relevance and why the younger generation needs to do it. Try to Experience it. And you will simply be overwhelmed Life is very simple and things like generation gap which causes you to ask irrelevant questions is because you are scared of change. You want your children to do the same things you did. Because you think life is some kind of formula…

The person was actually stunned and did not know what to say. I was stunned and all I could say was “Excuse me, could you put these posters up please.” And all he did was nodded his head and gave me a big smile. I hope the posters did not end up in the trash can. Because it was the Indiblogger Posters announcing the meet. WIll update once I go there and check it out.

Also the 8th Chennai Photowalk has been announced by Selective Amnesia. It is an interesting route, it’s happening in the evening starting 1700hrs and it is happening on two Sundays the 15th and the 22nd of June. So come loaded with your cameras and the one with the oldest digital camera will get a special gift from me. If you are interested in taking part please leave a comment.

The Indiblogger.in logo has been grabbed from the Indiblogger Website.

FIRE AND FORGET – An Evening of Jazz

Pre Concert : Varun and I were one of the first guys at the hall.(I believe in punctuality.)The show started an hour late, we guys shot some pictures while the group was testing their equipment.
THE CONCERT : Lets jazz it all up. Yes I am sitting in the Ball Room at the Taj Coramandel listening to some awesome soul stirring jazz music by Julien Lourau. Am enjoying the evening.
Julien is a musician who knows his audience. Really amazing music.And the snippets he tells us in between his music is truly captivating. The show is called “Fire and Forget” it’s organised by Taj Coramandel in association with Alliance Francaise of Madras.

Post Concert :
Fire and Forget is about how the British Fire missiles and then forget about them. Really awesome music for these war filled times. It is a known fact that the French are not really fond of the British. He even has a song which is titled “Messieurs les anglais, tirez les premiers” (Hey english men, you fire first) This is what Napoleon had to say while fighting the numerous wars with the British.

In the End :
He did what every true artist does “Left the audience wanting for more.”
P.S.: The Band Members
Julien Lourau – Saxaphone
Eric Lohrer – Guitar
Sylvain Daniel – Double Bass
Garcia Bruno – Drums
Bojan Z – Keyboard

The BIG Sunday Walk

Walking by itself is something I sincerely hate, but given good company or a camera or good music I can walk for hours together.

With nothing great to do on Sunday morning (I woke up at 0500hrs) I decided to take a walk, a walk which would cover Napier’s Bridge, Chepauk Palace, Madras University, Parthasarathy Temple, Presidency College, Kannagi Statue, The War Memorial, Fort St. George and finally St. Mary’s Church.

I know I overdid the walk. But what’s life without some whims and fancies. I now have about 200 photos from the walk. Which I enjoyed a lot.

P.S.: Wondering if I should buy a bicycle and then call these sessions “Photocycling.” Or if I should get my Zenit E SLR fixed.

Afterall I am a man of limited means.

“Customer (S)Care” The Funny “Nano Short” Play

For some reason I have been made to believe that I can write in English. Well that’s blasphemy by itself. Now I also believe that I can Write and Act in a French Play.

About 3 Weeks back my A2 Level Teacher Mme Gisele at Alliance Francaise de Madras
told that we as a class have to do something for the Fete de l’ete (The Summer Festival) at the AFM. So the class decided to do a play and I for reasons beyond my control and understanding wrote a rough play in English. (It was so rough that I actually scraped my elbow while writing it. Read Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 and Page 4 of the play – English Version ) Anyways… We managed to translate that to French with the help of Mme Gisele of course and went on to decide who would play which part.

This was what we decided.

Customer 1 Siddarth
Customer 2 Catherine
The Security Guard The Pseudonym,(Yeah that’s me people)
The Manager InbaShekhar
The Service Representative Gomati Shankar

We had tonnes of fun practising for the play. Though after 3 days of getting our lines, the intonation and placement right we figured out that the play just lasted for 2mins and 15 seconds. So while I asked people to slow their dialogue delivery Siddarth came up with “French is a Fast Language” though I was bursting to tell “Well but we ain’t French, are we?” I did not because Siddarth is the kid of the class and damn near brilliant.(He did get on my nerves once though by going yippity yippity yap.) So we added some lines and worked some more till we were quite satisfied with the end result. We were going to take centre stage for exactly 3 minutes on The D – Day.

Now I have to introduce two very important characters who helped us during the play. Latha was going to be the Narrator and Divya was going to prepare the Boards and Signs that we needed.( Though there was no news from Divya and no Sign from Heaven that she was going to turn up 30 minutes after the actual play with the boards, So Siddarth and Inbashekhar were given the responsibility of making the Boards and the Signs.)

So we enacted the play at around 1815 hrs on Friday the 16th at the Alliance Francaise Open Air Theater, to the background score of Chennai Traffic on College Road and with failed microphones. It lasted somewhere in the vicinity of 3 minutes. And we got some of Catherine’s friends to hold the Title board for us. Thanks Kiddos. As usual I forgot to get their names…

Well I should say we were indeed lucky. We breezed in and out of centre stage, our audience was primarily kids, and I don’t think anyone understood us. We were all happy that we were not treated to rotten eggs and tomatoes. Though no one clapped for us either.

One more thing during our so called practice sessions we ate and drank a lot of stuff from Yusuf’s “La Cantine” at the Alliance Francaise. His Cakes are simply amazing. Check them out if you are a foodie. Try Saturdays. Other days you can hardly reach beyond the canteen doors.

Click Here to watch a voiceless us chatting away to glory.

The Seventh Chennai Photowalk The Photos

Went for the Seventh Chennai Photowalk on Sunday. It was loads of fun because
1. We started early. 0600 hrs on Sunday was quite nice.
2. There were people around us and it feels nice when there is so much activity.The kind of people I saw was so varied.(Like the Maami wearing Saree and shoes and taking her routine morning walk)
3. This time my cousins Ajay and Aishwarya joined me.
4. Took some nice pictures.( Click Here for The Photos)
5. I really like the thatha(oldman with intense stare, lighting a cigarette),the one where Santhome Basilica has a Halo .(Oh!!!it is just the Sun), and the Photo of MTC’s 12B Bus Service.(I almost got runover taking that photo) and of course the homeless old lady, really touched a nerve.
But the most interesting part was that we were joined by two really wonderful people. PriyaBabu and her friend. They are actually Aravanis (Transexuals). It is such a tough life for them. But they live it with a smile. And we had a wonderful conversation. Was so engrossed in the conversation I forgot to capture them with the oldest digital camera in the photowalk.
If anyone wants to help them in any form do leave a comment and I will pass on their contact information.

Dilip has some really good Pictures of them.

Am Still figuring out Flickr Options!!!

Another Sunday well spent.

Group Picture Courtesy Kunal Daswani
Thanks to Bitter Scotch for pointing out “The lack of courtesy”

The Seventh Chennai Photowalk

The next Chennai Photowalk is happening on May 11th 2008 and the news is it starts at 0600hrs. The Route is from Mylapore’s Kapaleshwarar Temple to The Basilica of National Shrine of St. Thomas(Santhome Church!!!).

The Original Invitation from the guy with Selective Amnesia can be accessed here.

The walk is tonnes of fun. So wanna join, just be there. No joining fees, no club membership needed, no cameras needed(though if you bring a digital camera thats older than my Olympus I will buy you breakfast at Saravana Bhavan) just turn up at 0600Hrs on Sunday Morning.

For the Previous Photowalk Photos Click Here

Conditions Apply for the Oldest Digital Camera Contest. Just Leave a Comment if you’d like to participate.

Is It really Bye Bye Hoardings?

Hoardings have been part of the Chennai Skyline With some really good advertisements on them. Some of these hoardings have created hell for some people.(Like Me) Everyday on my way home and to office I encounter this ad for Moksha, whose tagline is “For Beautiful People…”
 
So the clever fellow that I am, decided to visit Moksha because it was like a guarantee that I was gonna meet beautiful people. But I guess people who shop there THINK they are beautiful, afterall beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. Since my arms did not wanna behold any of them I decided they ain’t beautiful. Moreover I am kind of half blind so I give a rats ass about beautiful women.
 
When a group of people decided that Ms. Rai Bachan and Ms.Sen should represent India at the Ms. World and Ms. Universe (What’s the difference????) contests, I was wondering if I could sponsor the flower seller lady who delivered flowers everyday and the Maami’s daughter living next door. After all we live in a country where everyman’s ideal women should be a looker like Ms.Rai but with brains of a hen. But it is a fact that Most Indian women are dark and that’s what is beautiful about them.
 
Why do men want Slim, Fair, Beautiful, Convent educated girls and why do women ask for NRI/Foreign settled, Handsome,Tall men. Most… Hmmmmmm yeah, this post was supposed to be about hoardings. I really got carried away. Lack of focus I should say.
 
So a lot of these hoardings have been removed and now I live in a new city. A city I’ve never seen sans hoardings.I was shocked to know that people were dying because of these hoardings being bought down. People who have little, tend to be wanting for money and this has led to their end of days while scavenging for steel/iron from these “bought down to their knees” hoardings. So now what happens to the people who fixed these hoardings. They will be looking for alternate ways to earn their money. Cleaning the buildings which were hidden behind these hoardings could be part of the solution. Apparently these hidden buildings seem to have forgotten to paint their walls. Music Academy and Church Park School can actually be seen from outside their walls now.
 
Wonder when we will have clean walls, free from posters about political parties and their thanni parties. Wonder when marriages will stop putting up larger than life images of the couple. Now, why are we advertising marriages? Well it is probably an open invitation for people to partake in the marriage feast.
 
Someone started this entire advertising on hoardings and it has been religiously followed by the monkeys.
 
Wonder what life would be like if we had monkeys in Chennai? Would they miss the hoardings???

The 6th Chennai Photowalk – The Photos

 

Wow!!! I just got back from the Sixth Chennai Photowalk(The Photos I clicked are Here). It was amazing not just because of the photos you take or the people you meet. It is an awesome experience because of the amount of fun you have and you do it at your own pace. (Did you know that Adam Sandler has sung a song “At a Medium Pace”? Only for the open Minded though). Everything was so cool the walk, the hassle by the cops, the people I met and of course the photo taking part itself. The weather was the only uncool factor actually.
Anyways the chennai photowalk has gained a lot of momentum and It feels good to just have fun in the sun. It reminded me of summer holidays during school when I would aimlessly roam the streets of Chennai in the hot sun. In fact I even met up with one of my old neighbours from Egmore, Aravind. Small World as he put it. There were Chandrachoodan, Jai, Aadisht, Vikram, Varun, Anand, Gayathri and lots and lots of people. By the time we were through with the walking and talking and photo taking we were so freakingly tired we had to take the MRTS (Mass Rapid Transport System) from Thiruvanmiyur to Kasturba Nagar. ( I was relieved to see my rickety old car still in place and not molested by any crooks)
Most people decided to head back home. But there were 6 famished people and we decided to eat at Anokhi’s on Chamiers Road. So Fun and Food is such a deadly combo I am just gonna hit the bed nooooooowwwwwww…………Click Here for the Photos
Click Here for the News Article in Deccan Chronicle


Coming Up : What!!!! I can’t take pictures of my City?

 

6th Chennai Photowalk _ Starting on OMR

I kept reading about Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan from so many blogs and I have been reading his posts for about 3 Weeks now.And I do indeed find them very interesting. So when he called this month to take up our cameras and then go crazy on Old Mahabalipuram Road Starting at Madhya Kailash, I decided I gotta be doing this.

So I will be walking the walk and clicking the clicks. A Sunday that’s gonna be spent well…

It is on April 13th 2008 starts at 0800hrs as of now. I will be there on time. What about you?

To Read Chandroo ‘s post announcing the Photowalk Click Here

Meet You All there…