Frozen Moment for every Indian : ella puhazhum iraivanukke

"A small step for man but a giant leap for mankind" why i am quoting Neil Amstrong here. i don't know. I just felt like quoting him. It is always nice to start with a quote.

A.R.Rahman(ARR) winning 2 Oscars and his acceptance speech will be a frozen moment for every Indian who appreciates good music and craves for the world to recognize the "new India".

It was really Oh! my God moment for Indians like me, who have been watching Oscars feverishly dating back to 1996. I had never ever dreamt that my fellow Indian, Tamilian will one day walk up the red carpet inside the Kodak theatre and bring back the Golden man. 

Man!!!! Is it really a case of 'rest of the world rediscovering India or India opening up to the rest of the world'. Whatever it is, today i have decided to give my rational thinking a paid vacation and i am emotionally enjoying and savouring these wonderful moments.   

Today was not just only about A.R.Rahman, there other two Indians who got the Oscar today. For the uninitiated 

BEST DOCUMENTARY : SMILE PINKI

SOUND MIXING : RESUL POOKUTTY

ARR acceptance Speech's transcript:

Before coming, I was excited and terrified. The last time I felt like that was during my marriage. There's a dialogue from a Hindi film called "Mere paas ma hai," which means "I have nothing but I have a mother," so mother's here, her blessings are there with me. I am grateful for her to have come all the way. And I want to thank the Academy for being so kind, all the jury members. I want to thank Sam Schwartz, I/D PR, all the crew of Slumdog, Mr. Gulzar, Raqueeb Alam, Blaaze, my musicians in Chennai and Mumbai. And I want to tell something in Tamil, which says, which I normally say after every award which is ella puhazhum iraivanukke: "God is great." Thank you.

P.S: If you had read my yesterday's  blog  you might think i am nuts? @#%$(

And the Oscar goes to....

With few hours away from the 81st Annual Academy awards is there chance for any movie to sweep the Oscars. Only two movies have a real chance to sweep the Oscars this year, (I) Curious case of Benjamin Button and (II) Slum dog millionaire.

I jumping the gun here and proclaiming that "Slum dog Millionaire"(SM) will sweep the 81st Academy awards. The reasons are mainly  twofold. 

1) There is no real competition from "The Curious case of Benjamin Button" since its a story of a human whose physical characteristics are unusually in the reverse order of life. He is born with physical characteristics of an old man, sagging skin, hardly he can hear and talk and dies a small baby. And there is a wonderful love story around Benjamin, which is beautifully narrated.

2) SM is the very symbol or child of the confluence of West and the East. It showcases the coming together of two different cultures. It also happens to come at a time when Hollywood cinema is finding it more difficult to attract the American audience to the theatre because of the American economic meltdown. The Hollywood industry needs a market to thrive and grow upon. Look no further than Indian cinema industry with an estimated revenue of 1.5 - 2 billion dollars. Is there any other enterprising market readily available for taking?

 

An outsider's suggestion to solve the Global economic crisis

For more than 80 weeks the general public have had the chance to enrich their economic vocabulary with words like Sub Prime, Global Economic meltdown, Toxic Assets or Non Performing Assets(NPA’s), Bankruptcy etc.



What the hell is going on and why so much of noise from the people who are entrusted with the job of guiding and navigating the economy. Can’t they fix this damm problem or, where are world famous, Nobel award winning economist, financier and other learned people who are supposed to be masters of economics. Aren’t they supposed to create a picture of confidence even before the common man had a chance to hear or read the above mentioned dreaded words in their local dailies.



Unfortunately the real world issues can’t be captured accurately in the “so called” economic models which are widely used inside the Global financial institutions. We still haven’t learned to predict accurately the human behavior. That’s why still we can send a probe to land in distant planet Mars or orbit around Saturn but cant eradicate poverty, mal nourishment etc. Ever since human being came out of the jungle a lot of rapid development and progress has been made on the Hardware side ( technology, material comfort etc) but the software (human mind) hasn’t been updated with latest upgrades or patches.



So here I am throwing my hat inside the ring, suggestions to solve the Global Economic Crisis.



1. Creation of new Banks, promoted by the government under strict banking regulation laws. The Western world can very well base their laws on Indian Banking laws. These banks should have at least 900 billion – 1 trillion dollar of cash. The employers working in these banks should understand the quality of the product being sold.


2. Distribute money to the common man for e.g. let’s say 1000$ each, instead of giving bailouts to the banks which is like pouring liquid in a bottomless pit. This will increase either of these consumer spending or repayment of debt or consumer saving.

3. Nationalize the “toxic assets”, meaning let the Government own up the NPA until their valuation comes up. In this way the tax payers money is not squandered in the longer run.

4. Create ambient conditions to instigate the banks to seek out quality clients and sell quality products thereby increase the “Trust quotient” among banks and public.

5. For another couple of years convert all the banks to provide only Micro Credit Loans, where the cost of failure is very marginal but the upside is pretty rosy.

Worthy Australian Open -09 Champion

Rafael Nadal a.k.a nemesis for Roger Federer, the man widely acknowledged to be the greatest player of all times. But how can he be beaten by the same man in three consecutive grand slam finals, French Open, Wimbledon and now the Australian Open.
Does this mean the Swiz Fed express has come to a screeching halt and the Swiz cow has been famously beaten 3 times by the spanish matador. Can Roger go on equal and then overtake Pete Sampras record of 14 grand slam final. We cant say anything for sure now. As a tennis fan i think we can wait till Wimbledon-09 to give us which way this rivalry is going to end.

This defeat has really hurted Roger at his heart. It was indeed a sorrow sight to see the great man cry for loosing yet again to this 22 year old matador from spain. But he lost to worth opponent, who had spent more than 10 hours on the court.

Rafael Nadal's extraordinary physique and stamina bears testimonial for this achievement in the past 8-10 months. He has won the French Open, Wimbledon, Olympic gold and now the Australian Open. He is not just a ruthless champion but a human too.
As he walked towards the podium to collect his Australian Open cup, he had shared some consoling words to the crying Federer.

As an tennis fan, i hope Federer is able to strength his mental resolve and find some chinks in the Spanish Armada and come back to pose a different set of questions to Rafael in Wimbledon - 09.

Australian Open 2009 Ceremony The commentary is not in English.