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Somewhere on the Web I found these tips on Writing, that I thought I would capture on my site for my own handy reminder and reference. Glad if it helps you.

1) Improve your writing, but it will require work and time. Even a small effort toward improvement can have positive results. It’s up to you!

2) Care about your writing. Take it seriously. Good writing is important.

3) Most writing can stand some improvement.

4) Read. Anything. Daily. The more familiar you are with a language, the more comfortable you are with it. Distinguishing between proper and improper word choice, grammar, and so on will become easier.

5) Improve your vocabulary. Learn a few new words every week, month, or year. A wide vocabulary gives you a better command of a language; bigger word menu provides you with more selection, more possibilities of expression when conveying ideas to others

6) Practice writing. Write letters. Write in a journal. Write whenever you can. Write about anything. You’ll become more comfortable with the act of writing.

7) Buy books about writing style, and read them. Even a few pages every month can be helpful.

8) Revise your writing. Revise. Revise. Why Revise?

A. Simplicity

B. Clarity

C. Readability

9) Make friends with a dictionary and a thesaurus, If you encounter an unfamiliar word, LOOK IT UP! If you use the same word repeatedly, FIND A NEW ONE! Take control of your language; don’t let it control you.

10) Read your writing out loud. Your ears can tell you a lot about your writing. For example, are you out of breath or confused at the end of a sentence that you’ve just read aloud? Does every sentence sound the same?

11) Simplify your writing. Eliminate the unnecessaries.

12) Think clearly when you are writing. Don’t let fuzzy thoughts become fuzzy words. And if thinking fuzzily helps you get started, return to that initially fuzzy first draft, and revise it for clarity! Don’t let rough draft fuzziness become final draft fuzziness.

I used to hate Saif Ali Khan so much. That ended with Dil Chahtha Hai. His +ses : Sense of humour and the body language on comic scenes; the way he delivers the dialogues; perhaps everyone’s favourite so far, his blushing. I liked him in Kal Ho Na Ho too. He was so funny with that damn-everything-and-everybody attitude. Saif’s role in Hum-Tum is not so much different from KHNH. Again he tries to run away from his hearthrob but falling in more love the farther he runs! The Mars-Venus conflicts only adds to it another dimension of fun and love. I love the scenes when he begs everyone to believe his Tom Cruise ‘looks’ haircut. Its a movie you would love watch with your wife or girl friend. However, It is not a $8 or Rs.150 (theater) movie for sure, but definitely worth a Video movie if not a DVD.

Of course, we do. How can anyone from India not remember it? Either we have one? Or its the only car a majority of the billion can claim to have had a ride in? It was and in purity is still the exclusive Indian Car. A symbol of Indian Automobile legacy.

Can you imagine Ambassador in the midst of BMWs, Benzs, Porches and Lambarginis? Yes, We can. Tobias Moss, a born-again hippy imported some ambassodors from India(wonder how much it would have cost?) and rechristened them as ‘Exotic, old-fashioned, Luxurious and bejewelled Ride’ around London. And the name of the service – ‘Karma Kars’ 🙂

Tobias Moss’s Karma Kars

And someone has captured an informal interview with Tobias as well. I wouldnt be surprised if this already happens or comes soon to Las Vegas or New York City?

Btw, Views Unplugged is a nice little amateur literary e-zine with majority Indian writers.

One of the greatest virtues of American Society is Innovation. The wheel of innovation has grown so humungous and furious that I dont think it can be controlled anymore. The developments in stem cell research is an example, its virtually impossible to stop from moving into the next level : Human Clones.

What is critical is the basic resources like money, knowledge library, technical know-how, technolgy labs, encouragement from parents & teachers, peer support and oppurtunities for growth are all more easily available than in the east.

Such factors are slowly emerging in India. Even more critical is to impart creative thinking, innovation and risk taking at the young ages, when fear of failure is least. The internet has only made this transformation for India much easier and more possible. Websites like this Innovation, creativity and brainstorming resources from InnovationTools are not open and freely available to everyone around the world. Creative entusiasts like Charles Cave and Creativity Web are collecting simple stuff that will be of immense help to people across the globe, where access to free information is still not close enough to reach the masses.

The National Game is all set to revive its pride. After all, India is still the best performing hockey team in the Olympics having won the Gold more than half a dozen times. We have to admit India won it before 1980 when the game’s standards were largely same across the globe, east and west. But in the past two decades, west has taken over at lightening speed with astro turfs and high-tech training. But Indian Hockey players still command the respect of being one among worlds best quality players with unparalleled technique.

I remember those days back when I played for the school team in sub-urban high school in coimbatore. I was a RightX (Shorter version for Right Extreme spot in the team play arrangement) and used to run less faster than others and was always the one to be blamed for those lost scoring oppurtunities.

Large percentage of Hockey teams in India still play the game in hard grounds (the most unprepared and unsafe version of the ground for any sport). When you get hurt on your knees and elbows and lips on these grounds, it gets really nasty. Only at the level of state teams, a player can expect to play in prepared grass turfs. And not until you play for the national teams ( there is National A, B and other divisions at All-India level ) you get a chance to feel the astro turf (The last I heard there were less than 5 astro grounds in the entire country). Of course, our country is not rich enough to have such grounds for every school, but unfortunately to our bad luck, almost every internation tourney is played in astro turf these days. In fact, our team should be appreciated for their world-class performances inspite of our infrastructure constraints.

The game itself is a joy to watch. It has only become more pleasure to watch in astro and with the teams like Australia, Germany playing such wonderful coordinated plays. Unfortunately this form of game is not so popular in US so we dont get to watch tournaments lately. (Btw, the term ‘Hockey’ refers to Ice Hockey in US and our regular Hockey is called ‘Field Hockey’!).

Lastly, I was reading about the Indian Hockey team’s training in Arizona for the Olympics. Indian hockey team in the Arizona, US. I was so excited to see the IHF(Indian Hockey Federation that governs the game and its players in India) has given them such a wonderful oppurtunity. We can also see that the enthusiasm and spirit of the players is high and they are working with nutriionists, sports phycologists, strength trainers and german coaches to take the spirit further up. With Dhanraj Pillay, one of the best hockey players in the recent past, back in the team, the team is roaring with confidence. Perhaps another Gold medal in the making.

With such a great team and history behind us, we have all the reason to dream for a Gold. Go for Gold, Indian Hockey.

I own an account at Mybookmarks.com, where I could store all my bookmarks online in one place and access it from anywhere. Nothing great right? But I dont use it everyday. I still use my browser favourites to store my likes. But once every year, I update my online account and clean up my local favourites list(I have it, its just keeps growing, besides the online version has search within my favourites which I cannot do in IE).

That background story aside, I was scavenging thru my online bookmarks to see if there is any interesting site that I havent visited in a long time.

I found Cool Site. It is indeed cool because it introduces and reviews a one new, interesting and cool art/design related web site everyday. Besides, it is non-commercial meaning it will be amateur work. Enjoy.

A distinguished science professor writes this observations on if God ever existed? Is it provable? Did God really design the universe? Is darwins theory still true?

Is There Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God? How the Recent Discoveries Support a Designed Universe

Long ago I read the book ‘A Brief History of Time’ by Stephen Hawking. I could only read half of what he had to say (it was so exhaustive and dry!) but that was enough to say how brilliant he was. Let aside his brilliance, the interesting aspect of the book is its hero. And you want to know who it is? Its God. Origins.org has another interesting article on this book, on stpehen and of course on God.

FYI: Stephen is only building up on what Einstien has already left back for us. Just imagine, how brilliant Einstien would have been? Stephen safely and righteously argues that no one can really understand the space time relationship as Einstien did. Start from here if you want to try : There is no concept of time, Time is just an illusion, there is no such thing as 1 second, 1 minute or 1 hour….we wont go too far in that path :). Today, Stephen is the Professor of Maths at Cambridge, a honour once held by none other than the Sir Isaac Newton. Such is Stephen’s greatness and brilliance never undermined by his physical handicap – He has been confined to a wheelchair all his life due to a neurological disorder.

Most of us must have seen Matrix (First Part) in theaters. Just another normal perplexed soul I am, I didnt understand anything, except something is happening in the movie that is just outside the scope of my boundaries of comprehension.

After that ‘I have no idea what that movie was about, but it was Good’ experience, I have now researched that movie half a dozen times both with a DVD and online. The DVD version is so cool, because it has an option where I coudl watch the movies scene by scene with the directors commentary on the background about every scene and about whats going on in that scene. Unlikely I would have understood that in a dozen shows of the movie!

The story line just strikes a big blow to our mind and questions our beliefs on life, existence and if there is any real power out there that is creating and controlling. The movie did that in the best possible science fiction cinematic way. The movie also slightly touches the aspects of spirituality and it takes some references from Bagavad Gita and Vedic Transcripts. I was awestuck as I read more insider stories about the movie and its story.

The movie made me think. The movie also made me wonder how could these guys possibly conceive a out of the world story-line like this? Not just me, the movie revolutionized cult thinking on the internet. Tons and Tons literature rolled out of Magazies, Books and Blogs. It caused a real disturbance in the thoughts of many lives, whether we liked it or know it or otherwise.

As I (and most others) expected the sequels were not as brilliant as the first one. But thankfully, it made the first one even more original and classic work of fiction and movie making. Essentially, they stretched out thoughts and imagination with the first one so far that they couldn’t pull it any further with the sequels.

Some litreature from my achives:

Philosophy and the Matrix

Moving into the Matrix

Even today, when I come across this movie during the channel browsing sagas, I stop by to relive those emotions when I went thru then. One of those movies that really touched my senses. No wonder it sweeped the Oscars that year.

Almost a year ago, during a lunch break from work, Roy and I were walking across 3rd ave to a musical shop. As we passed by a book store, I noticed a bunch of people standing in line trying to get into the store. I also soon realized they were all holding a book, of the same color cover and design, so I guessed they must be all in line to buy the same book? How Stupid? In line holding the book to buy the same book? I asked Roy and he blimped saying he had no idea. We stepped across the street to ask a guy in the line and he said they were waiting to get the book signed by Micheal Moore. The book was Dude, Where’s my Country?. Huh, just another author signing his overrate books, I thought. We were almost past 4 or 5 more blocks from the bookstore and the lines was still going with us!

Months later, I came across him, under a movie tag this time : Bowling for Columbine. A movie that opened and kindled a lot of debate on gun control, usage and why it has gotten so worse in America. Later that year, when receiving the oscar for the same movie in independent movie category, Moore made raving nasty comments about Bush and his war on Iraq, comments on stage infront of the world wide telecast. It was pretty embarassing to even watch, imagine how worse could have been to bush and his proponents and the academy. I said to myself…”Man! This guy is making a lot of noise and brave too!”.

And now he comes again. Continuing from where he left us on that gala oscar night, Fahrenheit 9/11 is his latest documentary movie that is making everyone in washington puke. His tag line for the movie is “Controversy? What Controversy?” I guess he is saying, he knows all the truth, nothing but the truth is in the movie. The movie is already verbally banned by Bush administration, while some distribution agencies like Disney denied to carry them in theaters. But moore presisted and is coming back with a vengence that might as well cost another term for Bush. The movie is finally making it into the mainstream theaters on June 25th and is certain to create havoc for this ruling goverment.
Will write more if I get a chance to see it and afterwards have the guts to talk about it.

For anyone who is going through the Indian secondary school system or who has gone through it in the past few decades know how much gruelling it has become for children to live up to the standards.

How can you blame a kid who has scored 84% and still could not get into a good college or career? Is 84% a bad score? Ridiculous and unfair. It just scares the shit out of me. What will be the state of children in 10 years from now? Will we set the expectation at 99.7% to get into a medical school because more than 2000 people score above 99.7%? What will be state of the mind of a young? Who is to blame for this? Should we be proud of such a system? Can we do something about it?

It is likely that a boy or girl will be devastated, drained and brutally murdered within his mind, when he or she passes out of 12th Std. It is not surprising that many students give up, in some cases their lives, trying to compete. It is not a question of talent or desire or ambition anymore. However, there is some hope if parents, students and the policy makers stop and think about it. And changes have to come in from all directions and unfortunately they have to be in sync with each other (impossible isnt it?).

The educational institutions and the corporate world should work more closely. Every college curriculam must have defined career path into the corporate/industry. Outside of the engg, medicine, law and CA most other students of BA/BCom/Bsc/Diploma etc have no clue about what kind of job they would be doing after college, let alone knowing a clear career path. With no choice, most of them somehow pursue a PG in their respective curriculam. And after that, for most of them, teaching and for some research is the savior. Again, not by choice. Perhaps, there should be a portofolio for education ministry that is responsible in researching and defining a career path for every curiculam. Even better, every department in every college should have a person responsible for doing this. I want to emphasize, finding a job is not important, but finding the right job is important. People are still making a career out of any job they get, but whats the point in studying BE Chemical or BA English (especially those studying out of their own will and interest?) when you know you wont land in a job related to that?.

Parents should nurture their children’s natural talents and should REFRAIN from forcing them into any specific career or curriculam. Of course, this pattern has been changing in the recent past, but a majority of the parents still think and act with a mentality of their kids being a doctor or engineer and the likes. Right from the age of 10 or so and around when they are 6th Std, children should talk freely about what their interests and likes are. Here I emphasize chosing a career should NOT be taught. Our duty is to give them the information they need, let them decide based on what they already know. That doest mean every kid can decide on her own, but assistance should not be forced into rather should be taken by them when required.

Sports, Music, Art and other such so called ‘Extra Curricular’ activities should be encouraged as main stream career options right from childhood. Of course, making it big in sports or music isnt any easier. But keeping few more doors open for children from the beginning will loosen them a little bit instead of pushing them hard into science and math. Only a few motivated and risk taking middle class parents encourage their talented children into these activities. Most middle class parents still insist their children to concentrate more academics and less on sports or arts or other creative activities. But the fact is it takes no less effort to build a career in sports or arts and so they also deserve attention and dedication from the beginning. Otherwise, we will only end up finding charted accountants playing club tennis matches and diploma holders singing in kovil orchestras.

Awareness should increase. Confinement to few narrow beliefs, ideas or goals is self-defeating. Children should be exposed to as many things as possible when they are young enough to learn them faster. They should be taken to libraries, movies, parks, towns, cities, art shows, exhibitions, clubs, swimming pools, foriegn countries, tv shows and anything or anywhere that will provoke them to question and think. Be patient with their curiousity and answer them. Wth every answer they learn. Of course, with every oppurtunity we miss to show or expose them to, we might be robbing a great career for them. We should cultivate the art of reading and writing as early as you can. They should be helped with selecting the right movies to watch, right books to read, right cable broadcasts to watch, right comics to read. We should also encourage them to learn more than one language. Lets not confine them to a boys school or girls school or religious school or boarding school etc, let them see the world. Of course, we have remain optimistic that they dont go in the wrong direction, but let them take a wrong step. Failure teaches faster than anything else. Just a trusted and dependable soul around will keep them from giving up.

Creativity is the key. It should be nurtured irrespective of the language or sex or aptitude or economic status. Creativity comes by just doing one thing: Encouraging. Its a character that we all have got naturally. When we talk we are creative. When we write a sentence we are creative. When we drive a bicycle we are creative. Being the person we are and doing the things we like the way like and trying to improve on them is all nothing but creativity in its purest sense. Taking it to the next level is the key.

All this is not easy and wont happen in a day or month or even in a few years, but it is all still a matter of attitude and perspective of general public that just needs one tipping point.

The debate still continues as i read and think more…

Truly an encouraging news. We came short of just one vote to winning this fun effort.

Hey Ruth Results

Congrats! Roy.

Funny, becoz the two pieces of mine that roy had used were recorded by me years go with my windows sound recorder. I was just doing it for just the sake of it. I am sure I could so better than that. And months ago, I showed this to roy and he had incidentally used them in his last weeks piece.

The two pieces were totally unrelated to each other and also to the title ‘Hey Ruth’, but roy had no clue whatsoever. I guess he just wanted to try something. He also changed the tempo to fit his first part. Ganesh, my friend called me to say he listened to it and that the second piece of mine was ‘sakikkalai’ (SUCKS!). Well, it was just for fun. Two random pieces could make a good single! we have promised each other to work on a real project soon. I am looking forward to it.

Since most of the listeners for songfight were hardcore american indie musicians, they liked this one just for it being unorthodox, wierd and different. It was thrilling to read some reviews. At the end of it, what kind of emotions does a music create in you? Thats all is important.

My next wish is to hook up roy with Srikanth to produce a cross-over.

We had a great time. There were a few movies I really liked and some I wasnt too happy about. In all it was a worthy effort by the organizers. Around 70+ turned out for the day and I was totally surprised to see such small audience in NJ, the home of largest tamil population outside San Jose!

Oruthi, a full length feature film, that won the national award last year(i think), was the gem of the day. Of course, this is the only feature film of the day and was just shown as a artistic entertainer. It had a great story about a low-cast woman in 1800s in rural tamilnadu. Braving against the principles of upper caste system, she wins the heart of everyone in the village by her wit. Yet, the upper caste panchayat people fail to accept her love for an upper caste boy when they ask her to run away with that guy instead of getting her married infront evey one. She fails to leave back her loved ones and mother land and sacrifices her love infavour of knowledge and education! An awesome story indeed with a great movie making style and gripping script.

There were two movies that voiced the attrocities against dalits in Tamilnadu. In addition to being extremely graphical, the movie Untouchable Country showed just one side of the scenario. The organizers intelligently affixed a disclaimer before the telecast by saying they dont want to offend anyone by that movie. To me, some of the messages were unacceptable, but I agree, dalits voice must be heard. The movie is more targeted at UN and International audience to whom it might give the worst picture of problem.

Jallikkatu had a fantastic narration and picturization and it aso showed both sides of the issue. It questioned if the jallikkattu is really an art of bravery or is it a dangerous sport worth only shame on us for promoting it? A local lad gave a great explaination for why they have been doing jallikkattu for centuries…Muniandi, the God of bravery, needs Human blood that is legally given via jallikkattu victims, which otherwise would have been act of crime!. This is an ideal short film/documentary.

Vasthu Marabu was very informative and philosophical. One of the greatest sculptors in tamilnadu opens up his heart to speak about that art and tradition of indian sculpture. He goes beyond anyones imagination in describing the art and its intricacies. A wonderful eye opener, a must see for youngsters and kids.

Cycle, Oru Naal, APPA fall in my OK category. A good theme with not-so-good filming style. Cycle is shot in srilanka and touches everything from kanni vedi accidents to philosophy. I couldnt understand the dialogues sometimes, as they were in Ilangai Tamil. Oru Naal questions should coolie’s children become a coolie as well? I do agree with the theme of the movie and its severity, but the film itself had no effect on me. Appa is nothing more than another Sun TV soap, except it asked a reasonable question: Is Rowdism becoming so popular and lucrative that its a proud and previlaged honor?

By now, we had already gotten hit too much with sympathy waves, we broke away for a coffee right on time for Thappu Katta, another dalit humilation showcase film. Nothing more I could say except that the left over sympathy in everyone must have been totally washed away.

Chennai Pattnam was too good. The story line is very simple, a guy comes from a rural tuticorin village in search of a promising future to chennai. All he knows is padmanaban, a buddy of his from the same village, who had settled down reasonably well as a car driver in chennai. Our hero, understandably naive enough, loses the address of padmanaban and is taken for a ‘REAL’ ride by ever-eager auto drivers. Some kind-hearted chennaites do help him in his search, but every help is followed by twice as much cowards. He gets pickpocketed and unable to bear both the physical pain and mental agony, eventually passes out in front of a building. Dramatically enough, the address slip(an extremely small piece paper with padmanaban’s address distorted from i believe sweat or rain) sneaks out from one of the dozen torn pockets of his handmade nylon bag. THe address reads ’17, Iswarya Flats’…the camera rolls over him to a sign board on the wall behind him that reads ’17, Iswarya Flats’. It was totally entertaining and emotional.

Thedal was equally good, but lacks emotional appeal. The message is for parents to not get lost in the daily chores only to leave the children longing for parents love and affection. Not so great filming I would say.

Br(a)illiant, was undoubtedly crowd’s favourite entertainer, not because it told a great story, but it was the most funny and light film of the day. It had no social theme or message. It was outright comedy with good screen play and direction. A thief sneaks into an apartment. Unfortunately a blind man, supposedly the occupant of the apartment, comes in surprising the theif. The rest of the 5 min movie is all about hilarious action sequences going on between the thief and the blind man and how the theif tries to avoid being identified or even sensed by the blind man. After trying hard, the theif runs away. But thats not the end of it, there is more…go & watch the film I say!. Its free at TriggerStreet.com. Register and look for the movie name. The film reminded of Charlie Chaplin movies. A good one indeed, everyone enjoyed it thoroughly.

In the end, It was worth the hour long drive and $30 admissions fee. We enjoyed it. The organizers could have mixed and matched the film sequence to keep the audience more engaged and excited. The entire morning session was a sympathy wave and rest of the afternoon bit relaxing. Perhaps that was an intended strategy. Two tamilians, athropologists at columbia, talked a lot during the open forum at the end of the day. It seemed like there was already two groups of people among the audience with different opinions about dalits etc. Not my cup of tea!

I also had the previlage of meeting an upcoming music director, Srikath. He was a nice gentleman and we spent quite a bit of time discussing some interesting stuff. He also owns a state-of-the-art music studio in Marylad(DC area) that I hope to visit sometime. You can visit his site to listen to all his recent creations and to know more about his recording studio.

We also met Ganesh who runs Tamil Oviam.com/. Apparently, Arun, my friend who directed Br(a)illiant and Ganesh co-founded Tamilovium.

It was late last night when we returned from the festival. The site of the festival being closer to Bridgewater Temple, we decided to make a long due visit to Swami. Not a best day/time to visit one of the popular temples in US, there were atleast 500 people inside that not so big praharam. To congest the place further, there was some utsavam going on with urvalams and special poojas to every idol. After an hour we went down to do what we really were thinking before our decision to visit temple, Food. It was already 8.50 and we managed to grab the last chunks of food as they were closing the canteen at 9. We reached home around 10.30 and went to sleep like a pig at 10.40!

Until Next.

Harini’s recent “Fitness Daisy” – Closeup

Harini’s recent fabric painting – “Fitness Daisy” on a T-Shirt.

Who would have guessed that blog mania would spread worse than wildest of wild fires…welcome to IndiBlog Awards 2003 ( rhymes with other zillion awards out there?)

And its so popular that we cant do anything but be overwhelmed. Check the 2003 winners.

http://indibloggies.blogspot.com/

btw, Pradeep Ragunathan, a good friend of mine from coimbatore, who is now in chennai, is already becoming making roaring noises in photo blogs. He just rocks, some shots are too good to be true. I am proud of you man. I will proclaim your excellence wherever I go.

Pradeep Ragunathan’s Photo Blog

Exciting news from Harini, she has started yesterday on her Illustration classes at SVA. She is getting busy doing her home works on collages, fabric paintings. After all, no other word excites her more than…’Colors’.
Did you check out her recent creation? It is soooo funny, you should see it in real. Jerry is literally buried underneath tennis gear, while Tom walks blindfolded expressing his arrogance.

We are going to Tamil Short Film Festival tomorrow. Yes, a new found friend Arun has invited us and I am expecting to have good time watching a different genre of movies, besides meeting some like minded folks. I will try to write something on this after we are back.

Until Then.

Songfight.org is an online community where amateur musicians compose songs every week for some titles given on the site. Each week vistors vote for the best song, making a winner. Its only for fun and nobody makes or gets anything out of it. A friend of mine from bearingpoint, Roy is a small time music composer making his own songs from home. He and I have been discussing about doing something together, as I had interests in singing too, although I am no more than beginner. I had my debut this week with a small piece on the song titled ‘Hey Ruth’…composed by Roy. Check out the song with label “Roymond feat. Sudharshan” at the bottom of the list on the blue tab under the ‘Hey Ruth’ title.

http://www.songfight.org/blue/

Listen to all the other songs and if you think Roy’s is good, vote for it. And vote just once, Its only for fun and encouragement.

yeah, we spent about 19 hours in all on road during this weekend. Its not surprising as memorial day weekend being the most travelled one. Though we spent just a day at Ganesh’s place, we had a very good time. We have known each other since school days so there was always something to talk about and laugh at. Ganesh’s baby, Sruthi, is very tiny and sweet. check out his blog at http://vplganesh.blogspot.com

On saturday night, we played Risk, a interesting war (board) game. We enjoyed it totally, with all of us joining hands to root out Ganesh and the huge army had had built out. It was real entertaining and engaging that Susi wanted to buy that game immediately.

Driving back yesterday we were accompanied all the way by God Varuna.(Rain and Thunder Storm). Another 7-5 drive passing by a few crashes.