Rajnikanth the Phenomenon

Once again here is unique personality by name Shivaji Rao Gaekwad famously known as Rajnikanth - The Badshah of Movie World.

How else can one explain the reason behind enormity of the success of his latest movie Sivaji - The Boss as well as his previous film Chandramukhi's successful 804 day run (everyone understands how it ran - not all days would have been full house)?

This man who started a simpleton who was not educated enough and roamed around in and around Bangalore and finally managed to become a Bus Conductor in BTS (the bangalore metro transportation system). During all this there was a fire burning inside this individual who had some unique blessed and cultivated tricks and style of his own with which he used to entertain his friends and co-workers.

We all know how he managed to join the Film Institute in Madras now Chennai with his friends' support and encouragement and how he was spotted by the legendary tamil movie director K Balachander from the now famous Adyar Film Institute.

It is indeed credit to that single individual how he has successfully cultivated a humungous fan following cutting across the wide spectrum of the society, from a highly educated professional to a simple housewife, to flower vendor, to daily wage laborer, to auto drivers, to transportation employees etc. It was there for the whole world (literally across the world) to see when his latest movie opened.

Though the movie was panned across the board for lack of any cohesive logic and only style and gloss, one thing was accepted by every single reviewer universally that this movie is worth watchable only for a single individual called RAJNIKANTH and his now famous style. It was also acknowledged that age has caught up with him and his reflexes, speed and famous baritone has subsided quite a lot but still no other person worth his salt could have carried off this movie on their shoulders and made it a such a huge unbelievable world wide hit.

Yet this person remains completely down to earth, humble and simple. With every success he has found a new way to find a philosophical answer to his success. Despite any lack of education he has cultivated an ability to study the scriptures and philosphy which has transformed him as an individual which is there for the whole world to see. People can really see what I mean (significant change) if they check out his career and what all he had gone through from being termed as a jinxed freak, to a finger wonder, to a crazy mad soul, to a womanizer, to a drug addict and boozer etc.

Success does change people completely but sometimes it takes them to the path of self destruction when the same success goes to their head. On the other hand if a person manages to be untouched by the money, power, fame that the success bring with it and remains completely down to earth, it does wonders. In Rajnikanth's case he still remains the same Shivaji for his BTS driver and conductor colleagues. He still enjoys every small thing he used to every year for a certain period of time with all of them, like having food at their favorite joints in bangalore, watching movies though Rajni goes around incognito with them, sleeping on the floor etc.

He is a recipe to follow to become successful, powerful and still remain simple and humble.

Cheers to the Superstar
Venkat

Politics making a joke of presidential election

What a sorry state of affairs we are witnessing in our country's (India) presidential elections scheduled for next month.

I cannot fathom the fact that the so called elected representatives in our polity are playing bitter partisan politics when they can use this opportunity to chart a new course.

Almost every party member worth its salt who is involved in this process knows very well that Dr APJ Abdul Kalam (our current president) is one of the best candidates to be given a second term. Even if their argument were that they want someone new so that everyone gets a chance, then there are a host of intellectuals and capable souls who can perform the Presidential duties (though it is very limited in India) with clear conscience without any political agenda.

It is a sad state of affairs that in every spectrum of life be it, education, sports, business, personal life of some people, in India we are witnessing corrupt politcal maneuvers. On one hand we are moving forward as an economy and country yet time and again we have these corrupt poltical games played to the detriment of our development as a nation which should be a powerful nation purely on its own heritage, culture and ability of its individuals.

My 2 cents
Venkat

Establishing a Counter in hope that people will start paying a visit to my blog

Zune

I had attended a Microsoft ArcReady Event on May 22nd 2007. It was a interesting to see Microsoft concentrating on Design and trying to make it into big Paradigm thing. Yet there were a few cool products in the EXPRESSION series from Microsoft which were interesting.

The big thing about this event for me was that in the lunch session held in the afternoon which was a Microsoft Arc Council discussion. After this discussion there were some giveaways like it is usual in similar Microsoft Events. I had the luck of winning a 30GB Chocolate Brown Zune Player.

It took almost 24 hours for this Zune to be charged the first time. It was kind of frustrating until I did some search on the Internet before I finally understood that. Once it was charged, I had all the songs and pictures from my collection transferred into the Zune. It is cool and sound quality is excellent.

My next thing that I am looking for is how to play music from Zune in a wireless mode through my Car/Van sound system.

I will update that adventure once I am finished till then have a nice life ahead.

Zune

I had attended a Microsoft ArcReady Event on May 22nd 2007. It was a interesting to see MS concentrating on Design and trying to make it into big Paradigm thing.

Frappr Post

Vedika's First Birthday

We celebrated Vedika Ayushhomam on 18th April 2007 wednesday since it was her first Nakshatra Birthday on that day.

I picked up Ramaswamy Bhattar Sastrigal Mama from the temple and Chithra from her house and brought him home and we performed it in our Great Room.

We did the Vinayakar Pooja, Navagraha Pooja, Mruthunjaya Pooja followed by Ganapathy Homam, Navagraha Homam, Ayush Homam, Mruthunjaya Homam, Nakshathra Homam for Vedika, Appa and Ramesh.

Chithra helped Vidya to prepare the Sakkara Pongal Prasadam and then became the official cinematographer and photographer for the function.

We had bought a new Sony W90 digital camera in which the pictures were snapped. I have put the pictures in a web album at http://picasaweb.google.com/vidyavenkats.

You all can enjoy the pictures and send in your comments.

Cheers

Vedika in Appa's lap happy