5 high-paying jobs you would die for!

I was browsing the web and came across articles on high-paying jobs and low-paying degrees etc.. Having seen some of the Tamil movies of late, I thought of putting my own list. This is based on the expected money/work ratio.

1. Be a story writer for Vijay movies: He is one of the top-heroes in the Tamil industry, so you will get a good remuneration and big time exposure. But the sweet deal is you actually don't have to write a story!
2. Dialogue writer for Maniratnam movies: Every one knows why!
3. Light-boy for P.C. Sreeram: I heard that he hates lights so much that he never had electricity at home!
4. Fitness trainer for actress Namitha: Another no brainer!
   
5. Special effects director for Vijayakanth/N.T.Balakrishna movies: This is not as easy as the other jobs mentioned above, but the sheer impact these scenes have on the audience takes this job to the top!

Cheers

Obsession with English

I got some funny interaction today which made me write this blog. During the course of the conversation I pronounced the word "Career" in the same way I pronounce "Ca" in "Carrier". My friends started making fun of my pronunciation. At that moment I asked how does he pronounce "Tier" and he confidently called it like a "Tyre" as most of the Indians do instead of "Tear" which is the correct pronunciation. I also called him out with "Quesidillas" (Casidias) and "Quilin" (Chilin). I was happy that I got my share of making fun of someone else. But I just realized that how stupid I was. How could anyone make fun of some one's language skills. Language is just a form of communication. As long as the listener is able to understand me, I should not worry about the way I pronounced them. I am not saying people calling "Tier" as "Tyre" is correct as it conveys different meaning. But what difference would calling "Career" as "Carrier" make? Is it not similar to using "Know" and "no" Would the listener be blinded just by pronunciation.But in my opinion such obsession is very much prevalent with many Indians. I am surrounded by many Americans and I have very different way of pronunciation with words like "Environment etc. But I was never once been asked to correct my pronunciation as they very well know English is not my native language and I am speaking in a way I was taught. All my friends would do is listen to me and call out the correct pronunciation for themselves. I learnt so many words in that way. I have a chance to listen to Dr.Kalam when he came to Houston. For any of you who have heard him talk, you would realize he is not the smooth orator especially in English. I was there with my close friend who is an American. I started worrying about what my friend would think about Dr.Kalam, as I have praised Dr.Kalam whole hearted before the speech. After the talk I was trying my level best to avoid asking my friends opinion but ended up talking about the speech. Apparently my friend not even bothered about the way Dr. kalam spoke and he was all praise for the content.But today's episode made me realize how obsessed are we with English.You take any of the Indian movies (I am taking liberties here I watch only Tamil and Malayalam movies, sometimes Hindi and Telugu movies as well) the way to show someone as cool person is to make them speak in English. How stupid is this? What does the language has to do with being jovial or smart? Even my cousin sister talks phrases like "Whats your problem man?" "Hey Dude" which I dislike to the core,but my whole family is in awe of her language skills. I am not complaining here, but my point was we give too much importance to language skills. You do need language in work place to convey your idea, but would that be sin to not to fuss about aesthetics if the content is conveyed good enough?

Parody called Politics

Couple of days ago, I read about Dr. Subramanyam Swamy, chief of Janata party in India attacked in Chennai High Court. He was there for his views on "Sedhu Canal Project" (now put on hold after stubborn resistance from public). The attack on him has got nothing related to the project, but he was attacked for his views on a terrorist organization called LTTE. As most of the Indians (at least south Indians) know Dr.Swamy along with Cho. Ramasamy and Jayalalitha (Former Cheif minister of Tamilnadu) are some of the few sane people to oppose the the terrorist organization.
I am having troble comprehending why some people associate LTTE with the plight of Tamil Ealam. The organization might have started with a noble intention, but it certainly does not have any such image now. We clearly know that LTTE leadership has killed more pacifist Srilankan Tamil leaders than the so called Sinhalese government has. We could clearly see that they are power corrupt and their intention is not about getting peace but about keeping their wealth.

Leave all of these points. Why are these people insist on India stopping the war in Srilanka? Are they really worried for the safety of common man? If yes, why are they not staging such protests for the ongoing war in Iraq? or they did not even rise a flag for the war on Georgia by Russia a few months ago? May be the presence of Tamil speaking people might be the reason for their involvement ! How concerned they are? Can language alone be the reason for concern? If yes, what kind of people we are letting to lead us. If India heeds to these people's request and set a seperate country for Srilankan Tamils, how can we be sure that these people would not ask for separate country for all the Tamils in India? I am sure they will, because most of these protesters didn't even bother about many of the ongoing problem with in our country of India.

We keep seeing that Law and Order situation is getting worse in Tamilnadu. How could they not be? one of the worst violence I ever witnessed recently took place in Ambedkar Law College in Chennai. It has reached to a point that if you want to study law in Tamilnadu, you need to be at least good in two arts 1) Attacking with deadly weapons 2) Belong to a political party. Look at the latest images of the Lawyers Vs Police confrontation and you will how many goons are there in the name of Lawyer.

Irritating Interference

I do understand that people are like pebbles and it is tough see them the same way. Your success is how you cope up with them without actually getting frustrated. But I think it is very challenging to keep the face straight when dealing people with the annoying habit of talking themselves up too much. I do remember one such person I met. Someone I admire for their wisdom, ended up believing the one talking himself up little too much, when it was very apparent that the conversation has too many jargon to make any real sense. I was trying to understand the reason. One plausible reason is that the talking too much person is very articulate and he was very careful about using jargon that are exclusively outside the horizon of the one who is listening. You won't be bothered too much as long as his gibberish does not hit you in the face. When it does, I think it is normal for sane people to be furious.

I am still wondering why I started writing this blog at the first place? May be because I was reading about constructive criticism and I realize that the person criticizing you actually heeds to these annoying people. Though not intended, the criticism might look scathing as you know the source for such comments is absolutely rubbish. So I was wondering how do any one manage such situation with out showing obvious irritation?

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I found this quote suitable for the situation described above

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe"

-Albert Einstein

who else could have said this :-)

Why do they do?

This is not the start I was expecting. Some times things become harder to understand in your own perspective, especially when the reason for it sounds very childish. It is even harder to take it easy when some one doubts your honesty. I may have used some strong words which are uncalled for the topic. The heart of the matter is we were expecting to get some information . The information can be obtained only from one source (at least for now). As we know them very well (I now doubt that), we talked to them about getting the information on a later date. Everything went well till the actual day came. The replies are standard " oops! we cannot do it at the moment. We are not happy with the progress we make, give us some more time" I would have preferred a straighter no!. At least it could have saved some anxiety. The reason I feel bad about is that I know the real reason behind the refusal. It has to do with we getting the information out in the real world. It sounds like a good reason to refuse. But really what hurts more is that we literally promised about the retaining the information. In actuality, we would have helped them had we got the information.
But the best part is now I am confident that I am striking the right chord. May be the information we want is merely a confirmation of what we already know. I am sure they will come to us in the future for the same and I am sure I would be more than happy to share.

P.S: The blog might be really abstract for most of you. But I cannot go any deeper at this time.

Not the time!

I was reading a letter from a person in Chennai (I am not mentioning the name as I am not sure whether he actually wrote it, nor do I know whether he is a writer as my literary expertise is novice to say the best) I am writing my opinion on the content of the mail related to the media coverage of the recent Mumbai terrorist atrocities. From the words of the mail, I feel that he is a left wing person. The whole purpose of the mail was to lambaste almost all the T.V. Channels about their coverage of the incident. He sounded more interested in refusing to acknowledge Taj Hotel as the Icon of India (I don't do it either) rather than the actual nature of this abominable act. I saw a couple of curious points he made

1) The channels should have given more importance to CST terminal and should have identified all those dead people.

Do you really expect them show the gory images of dead people on the street and pay attention to all those dead rather than looking to save the rest. I think it is better to show the places where the morons called terrorists are still unleashing their ignorance and make the people aware of their surroundings than focusing on a place where it is already done and dusted.

Identifying the victims on these magnitudes of attack is not an easy job and it would have been stupid if the T.V channels started showing the faces of brutally assaulted victims.

Most importantly, the writer of the mail hails from Chennai so he might be following it on television as I did and we have no clue whether any one were permitted to enter CST immediately after the attack?

2) The media was not focusing on the common people and were very concerned about the rich people

I do feel sometimes that screen personalities take up more coverage than real achievers. But it stops only with their personal achievement. Whenever we generalize the term "rich" we conveniently forget about their value to the society. Not all of them are just rich in material things. We need to realize that lot of the common people do need them for their livelihood. Just because they stayed in a posh hotel which we don't like or their principles, we cannot treat them that badly. We need to understand that if any of our industrialists die in situation like these, the loss for the society is more than a personal loss. The whole blog is not about socialism or Communism or which is better. I just want to point out that, don't hasten your decision in times like this.

There are plenty more in the mail I didn't like. I am not going to write about them all. People tend to get emotional very easily so these kind of mails are not to be taken seriously.

I was checking a video forward sent by my friend in some Pakistani channel. There was this buffoon claimed as an expert analyst. His point was the whole attack was organized by Indian Military (He even said that the Americans organized the 9/11 attack) and his evidence was the terrorists were wearing a saffron wrist band and Muslims don't wear them. Wow,What a point? Okay let me go and get a skull cap and become a Imam (I really didn't mean any offense to the sentiments). I don't know about the channel or the name of the buffoon but I am sure I don't need to.

To finish off in a lighter tone

I watched the Hindi movie "Yuvraaj" last night. Being a Tamil only speaking south Indian, my push for watching this Hindi movie was the music by none other A.R.Rahman. I am not sure whether the movie was intended to be funny or very unintentional comedy. Looking at the posh sets I think the later. I was laughing my heart out, when Salman was crying about how his heartless father chased him out of the house. All those instances told by Salman made it very clear that father did what he should have done. I hope Subash Ghai will be wary of these kind of sentimental scenes in future.

Moved

I happened to see the most talked about video of the latest times " The plight of Tamil speaking people in Srilanka" It was one of the most disturbing videos I have ever seen in my life. Something needs to be done for the people over there. It is not possible for anyone to live in such atrocious conditions. However, as proclaimed by many of the Tamil fraternity, mostly "screen personalities", supporting Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTEs). In fact, they are half responsible for all the problems there. These kind of events reiterates the need of Gandhi's principle of non-violence. I sincerely believe that had the Tamils in Srilanka had a Gandhi like figure or a firm believer of non-violence, they might be enjoying a very peaceful life they are entitled to. Because of the belief in violence and the unquenched quest for power of the so called "Leaders or Liberators" who are few in number, a large section of innocent community is being vandalised and in fact killed.