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!