Chepauk - Resurrecting Test Cricket

Chennai's Chepauk stadium has invented a brilliant way to keep Test Cricket from being engulfed by the IPL. In fact, this invention will resurrect Test Cricket and make it more interesting than any T20 league in the world. Most of you who visited Chepauk might be familiar with this blue screen surrounded by Zuari Cement in the picture. It is called the 'message board' or the 'interactive board', which asks you to send your messages to 56006666 so that the knowledgeable Chennai crowd can see your wonderful thoughts on the screen and think about agreeing to disagree with your comments. And here is the highlight: all the thrill and exciting experience at a meager cost of Rs.3 per message.

Apologies for the quality of the photo. It doesn't reflect upon the quality of messages on the board.

Do not underestimate the power of this blue screen. It plays Jedi mind tricks on everyone, including the players. During the second day's third session, when Sachin Tendulkar was at his best, a message in big bold white letters from a relatively unknown person called Shiva [name changed on request] flashed on the screen. "Who wants to see Sachin bat tomorrow, pls raise ur hands," it read. Australian captain Michael Clarke, who desperately wanted Sachin out, momentarily lost control of his own actions and raised his hand, thus receiving a huge round of applause from the crowd. While few knowledgeable uncles argued that Clarke raised his hands to itch his armpit, most of them were convinced that Michael Clarke was more than pleased with Sachin batting continuously for the rest of the match. The chain of actions and alleged assumptions were triggered by a simple combination of ASCII characters with absolute disregard for spelling or punctuation on the blue screen of infinite power, which will, believe it or not, revolutionize Test Cricket.

You might argue that this conclusion might be far-fetched but here is another incident that might change your stance, unless you are Ravindra Jadeja. A 44 year old uncle from the convoluted streets of Mylapore had accompanied his son to watch the match. He made his son walk several times from the top of the D-Upper Tier stand to get him snacks and cool drinks. This is however irrelevant to the point I am trying to convey. He was reading out every message from the blue board aloud to his son and often clarified what the message was demanding us to do. He obliged to the infinite number of pointless Mexican waves, whistled when the message asked us to whistle for Dhoni and shouted when it read, "Dhoni in Viswaroopam idhu from Kamal fanzz." In fact he was so engrossed with what an occult group called 'Powerstar fan club' said to us that he missed Ravindra Jadeja posing for the cameras after magnanimously leaving the ball to hit the stumps. Like all Chennai people, he made a generic comment about how Jadeja's shot selection was poor and he went back to reading messages from 'Ilayathalapathy rocksss.' The blue screen had worked its way through the psyche of an intelligent Indian cricket supporter from Chennai, which is not easy by any means. 

During Ravichandran Ashwin's brief innings, he was asked to raise his bat for the whistles. Of course he obliged. There was a message war of sorts during the lunch break, in which fans of various Kollywood actors were pitted against each other by the 'message board'. Ilayathalapathy fans were countered by Thala fans while Rajni fans got unanimous cheers, thus inspiring Kamal fans to raise to the occasion. The stadium was loud and enthusiastic despite having no men in white clothes playing with a red ball in the middle. And there were so many other countless incidents where the 'message board' was the center of attention. This was not about Test Cricket any more. 

The blue board is here to stay for a long time. If Test Cricket wants to stay alive, it has no choice but play along with the blue board. The voice of a single individual holds the entire stadium in a trance, briefly. By the time you search for the individual responsible for this heinous act, another individual with an even more complicated agenda voices out his opinion. It is an army of individuals working separately but united by the most accomplished tool in the world - The Blue Board. I will paraphrase a line from George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four to fathom the effect The Blue Board has on everyone:

"Always the white words watching you and the imaginary voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, shouting or whistling, in the bathroom or in the chairs -- no escape. Nothing is your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull." 

The Blue Board is the future of cricket, at least in this part of the world. 

Art of Making Noncontroversial Cinema

Mylapore Maami Sues Hershey's

After being inspired by the latest Apple-Samsung lawsuit, Pattu Maami from Mylapore has taken an apple leaf out of Tim Cook's book to file a lawsuit on the famous chocolate manufacturer, The Hershey Company. She claims that the design of Hershey's Kisses, one of the famous products of the company, is blatantly copied from the design of Kozhakattai - a dish made on Vinayaga Chathurthi for Lord Ganesh but mercilessly eaten by human beings in the lord's name. On close observation, one can note the similarities between the two designs and it is surprising that none of the yesteryear maamis observed this conspicuous  similarity in the design. Hershey's kisses have been in production from 1907 and the company has made a profit of at least $100 trillion dollars from the product. "I expect a compensation of $100 trillion dollars," she said, in a vehement manner, and added "I have been kind enough to ignore the effect of inflation in the calculation." 

If the case is successful, this will become one of the biggest lawsuit in the history of pointless lawsuits, thus putting the Apple-Samsung case to shame. Pattu Maami's case is strong but it has opposition from several maamis across the neighborhood, who claim that the Kozhakattai's design belongs to their own ancestors. To resolve this issue, a Kozhakattai making competition is expected to take place tomorrow to determine the design that closely resembles the Hershey's kisses. However, Venu Shaastrigal [name changed on request] of Kapaleeshwarar Temple is unhappy with the trivial pursuit of trillion dollars by the Mylapore Maamis. "None of us can claim the Kozhakattai's design for ourselves. It belongs to Lord Vinayaga himself. While I am not totally against the lawsuit, I feel that the money should come to the Kapaleeshwarar temple as a token of appreciation for Lord Siva for giving birth to Lord Vinayaga," he said thoughtfully while slyly asking for donation for the temple. He also said, "I believe the money will be sent in twenty trucks containing several thousand coins. The temple's Hundial can handle such volumes easily."

Recent developments have indicated that the Hershey Company will not to give up without a fight. The company's lawyers have come up with a bizarre defense, which is inspired by Samsung's defense, in which Samsung claimed the tablet was invented by Stanley Kubric in 2001: A Space Odyssey. "Both Kozhakattai and Hershey's kisses have been copied from the design of an onion," the lawyers said triumphantly and then corrected, "rather a miniature version of the onion." This defense has opened an opportunity for people to lay claim for the design of the onion, which has been in existence from the Neolithic era. This is just the beginning of a saga that might shock everyone in this world. 

A bizarre defense from Hershey's

Understanding TOI's Ad Campaign

What TOI's front page was on 4th September, 2012.

What TOI's front page actually meant

The CAT Boom-Bust Cycle

Django Unchained Unraveled

These movie critics get really excited whenever a new movie releases. It is a chance for their reviews to attain rave reviews. These critiques are also reviewed by other movie critiques and some bloggers who are desperate to strike a conversation with the movie critics on Twitter. However, this post is not one of those reviews about reviews about movie reviews. This article belongs to the burgeoning trend of dissecting trailers or "hey, look, I can fucking think like the director and I can direct better than him if I get a chance and I can make better trailers too" by aspiring movie critics, who are self-proclaimed 'reading into the director's mind' experts. 

Let us go into the minds of these people, who go into the minds of the directors, and dissect the latest trailer of Django Unchained directed by Quentin Tarantino. I am sure the movie had your curiosity, but now it will have your attention. Watch the trailer before you start reading the dissection.

1. The first scene of the trailer starts with some profound words, which might or might not have been left by Quentin Tarantino. However, similar messages have been shown at the beginning of his previous films such as <list Tarantino's movies>. It is odd that Tarantino sticks to this message despite the different genres of movies he directs. Oh wait, this message looks like it is from the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. Never mind. Let us move on to the next screenshot.

The trailer opens with these strange lines in a green background surprising the audience

2. The back side of black person is shown up close. There are a lot of scars, which might depict some cryptic message. On a close second look, it seems to say "Sorry, you are fucking wasting your time here."

What are the scars saying?

3. Due to the poor lighting, we are unable to decipher what exactly is going on in the screen. Many apologies. Thanks and Regards.  


Too dark to make a clever intrepretation

4. If you are thinking Edwin Porter is the main antagonist of this movie and has a very important role to play in the movie, then you are as wrong as <insert terrible shame inducing metaphor>. This is an homage to Edwin Porter, an American film pioneer, who directed one of the earliest Western Movies called The Great Train Robbery. Or the Edwin Porter might be a close accomplice of Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), who might be killed half way through the movie as a cost cutting measure. You never know it until you actually watch the movie.

Train Robbery? Isn't the movie about slaves?

5. Wonderful silhouette ain't it? Picture doesn't say much except that it shows the trailer is half complete and the other half of this terrific dissection is coming right at you.

6. We can confidently say that movie will release this Christmas. Although if you had watched the trailer closely, it seems like an answer to Django's (Jamie Foxx) question. Looks like the movie takes place in the month of December or maybe not.


Yes, Christmas is in 6 months and 18 days.

 7. Gentlemen, you had the curiosity about this dissection but we are sure you lost the attention.

DiCaprio surely has my attention

8. What's a Quentin Tarantino movie without some bloodshed? Worried whether the blood group is O+ or AB-? No one really cares.


Red blood on white flowers. Excellent contrast. Or some shit movie critics say

9.  From the trailer, we can safely assert that Leonoardo DeCaprio owned Jamie Foxx. Yes, this movie is racist and hence, 'owned' doesn't necessarily have to be the slang word,



Word of the day: Rambunctious



10. The trailer ends with an usual note of "For more exclusive and exciting promotions, go to our Facebook page." We have nothing more to add to that and we sincerely advise movie critics to patiently wait for the movie instead of coming up with their own versions of the movie.

                              

To conclude, Boromir has something to say.

 

 

Game of Indian Politics: A Comparative Study

George R.R Martin's Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire) and Indian Politics have too many striking similarities that we can't ignore. To start with, both have too many characters who are greedy, immoral, lustful, ostentatious and what not (add suitable adjectives of your liking).  Like the land of Westeros, India can be divided into the 7 major areas: Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Pune, Rajasthan, Delhi, Kolkata and Punjab. Oh wait. These are the IPL teams and I conveniently forgot Deccan Chargers. Never mind. Although there is one major difference between the two. The Wall in Westeros is present in The North while The Wall (Yes, Rahul Dravid) in India is present in the south.

The similarities don't end with the overall picture given above. Each character in the Game of Thrones bares an uncanny resemblance to someone in Indian Politics. Let us see few of those striking similarities now.

That is all I could think of, but I am sure there are more. If you can think of any other similarities, kindly spread the gyan.