The Big Leap....

So Guys... As might be expected, I am sick of poor Google ratings and people with poorer frequency and content butchering me on the track. Moreover I wish to stick to my principle of yearly migration. Only this time, I leave the confines of the blogdom I started with.

Like the arctic terns move to the south and back, as the salmons move from seas up, as Mallus move from Mallu-land to Dhubai, so too have I moved to Wordpress.

Be nice and bookMARK http://markalive.wordpress.com

Im giving you 30 seconds as of now, before I redirect you to my new site...
Ok thats just an arbitary figure, but I really am redirecting you...


PS: If this doesn't work out I'll soon be back here, but don't you worry... I'll probably put up a redirect at my wordpress....

PPS: Stop reading my disclaimers at least now

PPPS: If you are still reading, click here

How to Ask Her Out

…And not come out looking stupid!

If you love a woman, tell her that she’s really wanted…

If you love a woman, tell her that she’s the one…

She needs somebody to tell her that its gonna last forever…

Tell me if you ever really, really really ever loved a woman…

Actually don’t tell me. But then again…

I was watching this show on Channel V the other day called ‘Webcam Goddess’. Well, it really sounded like some porn flick so I didn’t risk surfing off.
Anyway, it turns out to be a show where you send in queries regarding your love life and the hostess gives you ingenious solutions to it. I puked only thrice!

My favorite was this guy from someplace up north.

‘Dear Goddess,

I am really close to this girl and of late have started really liking her. I know she likes me too, from the way she sees me with the corner of her eye and the way she touches her hair. But I’m really scared to ask her out. What can I do?

Northie-not-killed-in-mumbai’

For which the apparent love doc hostess says he should send her ‘beautiful’ bouquets for like a week, and then write down an anonymous letter telling her how much he loves her. And she would definitely reply if she had those feelings too. Definitely. If she does send in a reply to an anonymous letter, she sure is dumb enough to love!

Not that I’m the God of these matters or so, but I seem to know as much to understand that not only is the trick not going to work, but the girl is going to think he’s gay, which means all her friends, associates and acquaintances are struck off the list as well!

So I just thought I should do my little to the ignorant world of never-been-non-singular men, and i-think-i-found-love women by throwing in a bit of experiential advice.

First thing, if you are in the same boat as the northie guy, make sure the girl isn’t looking through the corner of her eye because of some opthal issues. Love and squint eyes can have fairly misleading symptoms. Second, there’s this strange corner-eye 'wtf' reaction that could be interpreted in a million ways, so just run a quick self check: odor, zipper, flipper, rips, color combos and the likes…

Next, if she’s brushing her hair a lot, she’s probably got an itch. Which is probably contagious. So if you don’t imagine a lovely honey moon where you pick the lies of each other’s scalps, move to the next.

Now if it finally comes down to asking her out, don’t expose her to flowers, money or the likes. If it doesn’t work out, it’s a useless investment. If it does, she’s going to expect more everytime!

And now, finally, the advice! Coming out without IDIOT written all over the face can be quite risky. And the tricks are never fail-proof. So you need good basic-psychology knowledge. Women are at a totally different plane when it comes to sense of humor. Ideally, if you can’t find the niche, move over to more serious stuff. It doesn’t have to be good or even true. Just say it.

One of the biggest, surest and probably the oldest tricks in the book is the ‘bad-guy’ game. Drill into her the knowledge that you are an evil, twisted bad, bad, bad guy. I tried the villain laugh as well, but it didn’t work for me. Maybe it would, for you. Now when she’s convinced you are the Satan himself, be yourself and do the stuff you normally would. Now despite being the cheap, conceited, uninterested guy that you are, you put yourself on the highest pedestal of nice on the relative scale. Thank you, Mr. Einstein.

When people were not really interested in buying a luxury car made by a cheap manufacturer, Lexus came out with the test drive initiative. And that has proven to be one of the best marketing pitches ever. Joke about being in a relationship. Put it into her head. Make her think of the life ahead. Demo boy-friend ver1.0… Or even better- try for a beta release (alpha-beta 'beta' you use in software, not the hindi one!)

Given your stature of having to read through a blog for love advice, I wouldn’t believe these techniques would work for you. But in case there be some misinterpretation and you do eventually lose your singularity, may all hell break lose. Live a lie!

Claimer:
The stunts mentioned above have been tried by experts. Don’t try this at home. Markiv and his Kootaalingal do not take any responsibility from loss to life, property or marital status arising from the above.

If you are a girl reading through this, I have neither knowledge nor experience in these games and they have been written by a totally different person purely for entertainment purposes.

The Weakest Amoeba

Let me cut directly to the point here. I wrote this in a heightened state of awareness so most of whats here doesn’t make sense even to my otherwise sober self. Apparently the higher level of certain chemicals in my blood throws my purpose to propose break through scientific theories into high gear. Even if they are not really break through. And even if they have already been proposed.

OK. Before I even start, there are at least of a couple of assumptions that you would have to consider.

Primarily I consider Natural selection and Random Mutation to be correct. There are of course others like Intelligent Creation, which has not yet been fully accepted by the scientific community or Genesis, which has not been accepted by anyone except the pope.

I also assume the philosophy that change is not a choice of comfort but rather a forced adaption. Therefore you would really not be motivated to launder that pair of jeans until that ketchup stain has started decomposing and sending off methane and stuff.

Right from the start, when sperm cells were actual living organisms (the amoeba- paramecium era), there must have been a few guys who weren’t as adept as the others in making a good living. By random mutations, these guys would have been the weaker guys in the group unable to live happy amongst the stronger amoebae. Obviously the first few days would have seen a lot of weaker deader amoebas lying on the floor. But eventually these guys would have formed a kind of socialism between their kind to ensure a fairer competition. The first multi-cellular organisms, my friends, and the beginning of communism!

As we go on, these team-worked multi-cellular communist guys would have gained a greater power than the fascist singles at some point, and become the de facto mechanism. The progression of some of these guys into the first plants makes sense as well. Of course there could have been some that could neither get its food the sun-light way, not use the previous techniques. I assume this would have led to a primitive cannibalism where the stronger group of a few multi-cellular guys could have had to eat their step cousins for a living. I bring to you, Animals… and Basic Capitalism 1.0!

Further on, lets take the jump to the great grandfather of you and the chimpanzee. Some of these guys would have been great jumpers and loved to be that way. But the other not-so-good jumper guys would be driven to live in smaller groups on the ground simply because they have to, what with all those lions, tigers, Raj Thakreys and other predators running around. Groups would need administration. Even amongst these groups, there would be those incapable of physical strains and toils. For their survival they would need to subjugate and utilize the physical labor of their neighbors. Slavery and humanoids have always been famous in Africa. With eventual run-aways and revolts of the now ‘weaker’ slaves, a few would have ventured out of their natural habitat by force. And this probably predates Moses, but who are we to question the texts of Gods. In unknown territory, these guys would have invented primitive tools such as crude rocks to frighten and kill.... Usually other animals… Except Fridays in ancient China…

Purely because of the incapacity of the inventors to take the ‘normal’ path, this could have progressed into other cheaper primitive technology, such as shaped stones, bronze and iron, the wheel, Woodworks’ Grate Water and Mahindra Renault Logan. Not necessarily in that order.

Even in later history, it was the inability of the Spanish to live in their own land’s resources that sent them to conquer the world. Inability, my friends. That’s what causes evolution. It is not the strongest amoeba that went on to evolve and work with Intel duo core processors today, but rather the not-so-able Ramdoss. Simply because of his advantage of being a not-so-good amoeba. [Edit: Here we quote Ramdoss as the icon of tamil-ness, and further his technical prowess as well]

I present to you, and perhaps forward it to the Nature and Evolution Journals. It is not the strongest individual that goes up the evolution ladder, but rather the weaker group. In short, I theorize that evolution is a result of the desire for groups of weaker guys to survive and therefore serendipitously invent an easier way of living.

In the aspect of history and economics, I bring to light that but for Karl Marx, Communism and probably CPI(M) we would all have had to resort to binary fission during first-night scenes.

I also wish to reinstate that you are now reading this blog simply because you once sucked as an amoeba, a fungus, a proto-plant, an ant, a goat, a tiger, a chimpanzee and a South African, in that order.

PS: I am super drunk now and I’m writing this to see how hilarious I sound when I drink alone.

PPS: This theory probably exists and therefore my Nobel prize snatched away, but you know I did not know that the theory, which if it exists, I do not as of this moment know of.

PPPS: Stop reading my disclaimers and read the stuff above.

PPPPS: OK. That wasn’t all that random. Infact it even makes sense! I must start watching more KTV!

The Tamil Disease

I grew up on tamil movies. I really did, like for the longest time. I mean, tell me what you will, but any average tamil movie beats any other media (TV Shows, Radio, Books, Cartoons, Newspapers….) in entertainment value. Except maybe the Araittaiarangam that TR runs now…

But that’s not what we are here for. Tamil-dom stands for a number of achievements. In fact if Ramdoss and likes are to be taken at word value, the initial tamils came up with concepts of building, advanced astronomy, nuclear physics, quantum mechanics and sending guys up the moon. Tamilness has always been the synonym for scientific achievement. And I was just wondering at the minimal use of science in tamil cinema (except for miracles such as Vijayakanth flying, Sathyaraj being noble and Simbu acting) when I realized the role of media in spreading medical awareness.

Let me kick start this from the early 80s. That was when I was but a toddler and my only memories of TV are a hindi serial (some Mazoomdurr or something) where a guy rapes the same girl every week. But growing up without sufficient movies, I dug into a bit of the old and therefore have at least experienced the tides starting with the 80s and up until present.

Up until and even into the early 80s, the disease to get was Tuberculosis. TB. I mean, if you were a heroine and you could pump some glycerine, there you were. Spewing goo all over the place. But this wasn’t the kind of disease you really connected with. Imagine your hero. He is the invincible guy, an ideal Captain, Don, or at least the paettai good-deed-guy. Now you don’t picture him coughing up blood-shot crap all over the roads inbetween fighting the villains do you? It was probably all OK in the medival days when women chewing veththalai and spitting hot-red shit from their stained lips was sexy. But the coming of sophisticated actors like Malayoormamuttiyaan fame Thyagarajan (Prashanth’s dad) turned the tides, and pretty soon TB lost its stronghold.

The later 80s gave birth to one of the longest lived diseases in Tamil-dom. The ‘Heart Attack’! Now here was a novel non-disgusting disease that doubled up as the finality of lost love. Needless to say, the times saw the rise of non-fighting, non-macho, non-good-looking freckled stars. Mohan and Murali were quick to rise to the occasion. Up until the early 90s, heart attacks and weak hearts were the industry standards. The mother/ father always ended up with weak hearts. Occasionally the hero/ heroine would end up with a heart attack condition where their heart cannot handle even a small ‘adirchi’ (shock?). Therefore the non-heart-attacked would run around for most of the remaining movie singing solo songs about how they cannot confess the love they did not have up until the interval (when doctor removes his glasses).

Of course, tamil-dom eventually woke up to the ‘Gay’ demons. Actors could no longer be weak wuzzes. Murali tried a few semi action roles but it was more laughable, and since we had comedians like Vadivelu and Prashanth coming up the black man heart-attack game line just got extinct. Mohan tried a few shots here and there, with a few more movies of ‘Sing in the rain’, but with Rahman fast coming in, the freckles just did not cooperate.

The interim period that followed was a jumble of trial and error. Amnesia came in close to becoming the next big thing, but Bhagyaraj started making movies about it that people just forgot it existed (wow I got a pun!!).

With amnesia came the idea of taking stuff upto the brain. Neuro science hadn’t taken roots that far yet and so the doctors could crap just about anything and make it seem possible. This was the advent of weird brain diseases. Although a weed of this line still exists in today’s tamil-cinema-dom, the wave did peak at a point. Marked by ‘It is a medical miracle’, ‘Idhukku mela ellam andha aandavan vita vazhi’ and ‘24hrs aprom daan eduvum solla mudiyum’, there was a time when mental disorders became so clichéd that you knew there was a Maari-Amman song that would run parallel to that climax operation.

A little variation in this trend was the internal injuries. Probably the villain pushed the knife a few inches in, or the hero hit his head on a stone, or a lorry accident. There was always a need for blood, which the side hero would get on his motorcycle. Fight. Break the bottles. And Maari-Ammaa song.

The trend would have probably continued if only there was a variation in the doctors and their intonations. But it always had to be Naazar, the psycho-looking psychiatrist, Visu, the doctor who can’t shut up even in the OR, or Janakaraaj, the doctor who always does good to everybody but kills the universe with bad comedy. To make matters worse, Raghuvaran enters with a half doped, half villain sly and gives in his explanation of medical science… In that ‘I Know’ dialect of his!

To get a bit more specific, the period also saw the rise of Cancer. Now cancer is clean- no spewing, no throwing up, and no ghastly lesions. And up until the last breath you lead a normal happy life, albeit those flashes and headaches. Well, at least that’s the tamil Cancer. Just to prove a point, blood cancer was the disease of choice so the hero/ heroine could have a little streak of blood off their nose or voluntarily thrown up. The high point of blood cancer saw the turn of the millennium. Stars like Kamal who could never contract TB or heart attack could safely sport a dribble of blood down their nose.

As with all other diseases, the concept of Cancer had its period. However with the passage of time and falling levels of ignorance the doctors could no longer say ‘It’s a Medical Miracle’. Show me the cure dammit!

The cool wave then got to coma. People get in and out of it all the bloody time. Need some sympathy votes for the hero? Drop him into a coma for a couple of scenes and get him back when he probably has someone calling his name after a very long time. The directorial touch is the affected party (heroine) cries and the tears land onto the hero’s fingers. And they just shake a bit. Next thing you know, they are making out like crazy and the beep-beep machine in the emergency room goes off.

These days tamil-dom seems to be a little low on diseases. I can only remember one movie where anybody at all gets AIDS (obviously the villain). That makes sense too- after all, AIDS is a bad disease and only the Bad guys in tamil-land can get it. Blood-transfusions? Organ transplants? They just don’t exist in tamil-land.

I know I left out kidney failure too. These take a very minor role in tamil-dom that they aren’t worth too much of a mention. Except that kidneys are bad organs (only meant for peeing) and therefore kidney failure doesn’t happen too often in tamil-land either. Especially to fit and fine heroes who can only contract Cancer or Coma.

Disclaimer:

I know only TB is an actual disease in the list above, but tamil-dom science and medicine have risen to such levels that ANYTHING, even children, would now be disease. It is a medical miracle!

Nice Guy at 50

I get this a lot. Random people calling me mean, those around constantly advicing me to be nice et al.

Not fair, I say. Im a very nice guy if you will... And what better opportunity to remind the world of my niceties, than the Silver Jubilee of my blog!

Speaking of which, I bring you the glorious 50^th post in this little archipelago of creativity, genius, emotions and a few other words from Karunanidhi’s speech last month.

And before you ask, here are the top ten reasons why I am a really really nice guy, and why you should get to know me better if you are a girl and just click on the ad banners and be away if you are a guy-

#10 The Group Thing: Whenever I make life hell for someone in the group I make sure that everyone else there enjoys it. Goes on to show my everlasting care for greater happiness.

#9 Tip of the Iceberg: Despite the fact that the tip amount you enter on the debit card recipt cannot be debited without a swipe, I always leave a handsome tip, just to make the waiter happy.

#8 Anger Management: I never kill, hurt, insult or in any other way harm any living being. Especially humans. Ever. Unless provoked.

#7 Man of the Masses: If I have to be depressed and take a suicidal drive down the road, I try to sqeeze in as many people as I can into the car and share the adrenalin rush. Most often I tend to bring back the love of life in them.

#6 Monosyllabic Caller: If there is something uninteresting in the other side of the conversation I pull it out to the top and bring it to their notice before they proceed to make a greater fool of themselves.

#5 Psychiatrist Adviser: With the occasional few people who do come to me for advice, I make sure that they don’t go back disappointed and give an understanding nod and the best course of action then on. Even if I don’t understand a shit of what they are talking.

#4 Alcoholics Anonymous: Talking to people when I’m drunk and they are not gives me the satisfaction of them assuming that all I say is the truth and nothing but the truth and thus ultimately feeling happy about it. If you are hearing what you want to hear or even what you like, Im just not drunk enough.

#3 Rubbing Salt: Everytime I meet someone who has done something to ever feel guit or shame that I know of, I carefully remind them about it and give them a pleasant cruise of nostalgia.

#2 The Path Finder: I take it a sense of responsibility in giving clear directions to the directionless many that stop by me on the roads. In fact I take this so far as to give them a clear description even when I don’t have a clue.

#1 Call back: Not a lot of people would really be this nice, but I always make it a point to give the girl a call after some intimacy. Or at least a message. Most often after. Usually. Sometimes…

That must do it. At least 10 awesome reasons to prove I’m probably one of the few nice guys left on this planet.

Oh, and now for a vote of thanks.

At this time of the glorious 50, I take a moment to thank all those who have made this possible. I thank the jobless IT guys who despite recessions and downsizing continue to rummage around blogs and drop inconsequential comments.

I would also like to thank my critics for… umm… Actually no. I wouldn’t like to thank you. The comments continue to get moderated, I read all your comments and I don’t care if you have cracks on your butt and therefore find my posts offensive.

I would further like to thank all those who like smokes and chai. Not much direct correlation, but thank them nevertheless.

Last but not the least, I would like to thank the millions of fellow humans who I do not know and therefore don’t have to care about not thanking.

Thank you all. As a “50” treat you could click on any of the many ad banners around my site. Please. I’m very poor and the recession got to me!

My Gran caused all these Rapes

A quick run around- the Mumbai molestation… The Kerala gilmaans… The Chennai silmishamms…

Why are women being subject to so many more tortures than they had to endure even a few years earlier? I read a news cast that says that the women are to blame for wearing such revealing clothes and inviting trouble upon themselves. So much so, a rape victim is actually the instigator and therefore the cause of the incident.

Kudos there. That actually solves a major law and order problem. All cases now can be directly attributed to the flaw of the victim. That dude there snatched your chain because you were showing it out and therefore instigated him to it. The cheat manipulated you only because you were stupid enough. The assassin shot Benazir only because she poked her head out of the sunroof. Arrest the victims!

But lets take an honest ride and see where this stems from. A little over four decades back in the generation of my gran, and continuing up until less than ten years ago, the most massive extermination of women in known history took birth in our country. Genocide starting with kalli-paal-kelavis and peaking with scientific innovation of ultrasound and abortions, at least before the government woke up to it. The result? A major tip in the male-female ratio…

Now, that means there no longer exists one woman for every man. So much for divine love and soul mates. It also means that most of you male readers hawking this post right now would live up to a ripe old age in undisputed singularity. A few could become content Buddhas, delving into the greater pleasures of philosophy, science and alcohol. Some could turn the availability scenarios in sexual preference and look for similarities in partners. But most of the dejected masculine harboring jealously, pride and beer would wreak havoc to the few that do hold their prize damsels. And that, my readers, is exactly what has been filling our papers the past few months.

Without much ado, lets get into the subject of wider interest and personal expertise… Given that the few remaining women are getting more adept and competitive, and based on the logic that the greater mass still believes that the man should be higher up the social/economic/education ladder than the woman, that makes more men who fall through on the competition to go single.

Moreover given the fact that the little ray of hope for the lower rungs are still awed by the 'mora-mama' syndrome, that makes more relative-less men die relative -less!

As a final straw, based on the psyche that modern women would rather find themselves in association with an already wedded/ widowed/ divorced/ available man who matches their subjective criteria despite his abjectly not-so-single status pushes the free radical even lower.

If bad did not get to worse already, post modern women sentiments (read feminist) leads to a greater number of happy spinsters and like-like bonds in the woman fraternity, which creates a bigger hole on the deficit.

Pretty soon the demand -supply gap is going to catch on... With more single men, the future generation would either have to do with a drastic reduction in the number of women or have a system of polyandry.

Assuming that the demand side pressure wins the battle (a gal-guy many-to-one relationship), a case of polyandry would ensure multiple men wedded to a single woman. Emotions apart, this would rock the stability of the human species since the gene pool of 'n' men would require minimally 'n' gestation periods.

If the supply side wins the battle (a gal-guy one-on-one… not that you pervert), and women have their say, we could expect a gradual weeding out of the genes of men who do not fall on the minimal social ladder of women. Given the current encouragement for more women to rise up the steep, that is saying something. Two generations down we would then only find the upper middle class and the BPL peoples (since they still inbreed and so don't get wiped out).

Either way we can hope to see women holding a powerful position on the future of the species and men shadowed to a point where they need to fight to pass on their genes...

And all this because a half century back my Gran chose to have a son!

A happening year if you will...

New Years have never been especially nice to me. My early childhood new years consisted of almost night long celebration at the only club my dad assumed worthy enough. That translated to a fun filled seven to eleven evening with hundreds of middle aged men and women carrying either toddlers or septuagenarians on their backs, playing lotto for stakes that included electic pressure cookers and non-stick cookware, and dancing to MAASHILAA UNMAIKAADALEEE…

Starting my high school years, I carefully avoided these trips (they are now extinct altogether) by planning alternatives with friends. In lieu of further length addition to the post, let me just put in quick pointers as to the yearly celebration patterns since.

2000-2001: Had a tough time deciding where to go. Finally settled at Qwicky’s G.N.Chetty Road until we were kicked out at 11. Had a new year countdown on my watch right outside Bhuvi’s house.

2001-2002: Again got confused with the many alternatives we had and singled it to spending the night at the beach. Got caught by the cops near Ashok Nagar for not having a license and ended up spending the midnight wagering the cop to let us out for the only fifty we had.

2002-2003: Got drunk at some galeej wine shop.

2003-2004: Class Tour at Kodai. Invested in a huge cake that was truly rock solid. So much so one of the guys ended up with a bleeding forehead…

2004-2005: Got drunk at the same galeej wine shop. Only it was now TASMAC.

2005-2006: Again indecisiveness ruled us to roam the streets of Chennai. Celebrated midnight at a petrol bunk in Nungambakkam.

2006-2007: Now that we were rich and all, we decided to get a taste of aristocracy, no matter how expensive and went to Courtyard Marriot. Two grand a night was a tad bit too much and we went to a cheaper place and had some good wine (WINE! The ends we go to for aristocracy!)

Back to the story now.

This year, we decided that we had waited far too long. After all, we were all well payed, old enough and terribly short of opportunities to throw our hard earned money on a dead end task. We looked around, singled on a moderately expensive disc and got our feet together. Clothes laid out, shoes, groomed hair, enough fuel in the car, and a sober friend tagging along so he could drive my car back home.

We go in at ten. My friend comes to hear that the booze goes on till 4 am. That is good enough to keep my juice flowing. We take it slow, walk around, observe the guys trying to manage their chicks who got high on round one. We take our drinks, get the grab… The music sucks but at least it isn’t just the FM playing in my car!

Its 11.20 pm. Im waiting for the first real count down, with real people… Im looking at the apparently hep and the obviously galeej and trying to match the responses when all the lights go off…

I guess you must have read the papers. The dance floor gave way at Savera. From my stance just a few meters away from the broken wood and splinters, I realized the horror the moment carried. The booze would now get closed down.

In a moment of despair, the faculty that sees prejudice, malice and reason breaks down. I, along with most others there pulled as many as we could to safety. I along with many others then promptly rushed to the beverage counter to get a couple more drinks before the inevitable happened.

At the strike of midnight, at least four people had been loaded into ambulances. At the strike of midnight at least five bottles were forced out from the holdings by the boisterous revelers. At the stike of midnight my friends and I sang an ancient poem we had been taught in pre KG and mourned the accident.

I learnt a couple of interesting things standing in the thick of the accident incident. For one, I realized the inherent flaws in communism and group tendency when the cycle-gap squadron of the mob decided to break the pots outside the hotel to express their anguish. I also witnessed the greater truth of human sentiments when the same group that had earlier reprimanded me for my insensitive nature in witnessing the scene later walked out with a bottle in hand under the auspices of the chaos.

Overall, it was a pretty passable new year merely in terms of experience and excitement. I heard one of the guys died that night. I’m really sorry about the anticlimax. Let his soul rest in peace.

As an epilogue, my car tire blew up on the way back. Thankfully I did not realize this until I had reached home.

Happy 2008 everybody. At least try not to kill yourselves.

PS: We got the money back! Free booze for what its worth!