Fyi

I have just noted down some information, which are interesting to me, gathered from internet(mostly from wikipedia), related mostly to kannada film industry...

Anil kapoor's first film as an actor in leading role is a kannada film 'Pallavi Anu Pallavi'!

Juhi Chawla's first film as an main actress is a kannada film 'Premaloka'. The film was remade in Tamil as Paruva Ragam.

Rekha made her debut as heroine in the successful Kannada film Goadalli CID 999 with Dr. Rajkumar in 1969.

Rajanikanth's debut movie as actor in major role is Kathaa Sangama directed by Puttanna Kanagaal.

Mani Ratnam made his directorial debut with the film 'Pallavi Anu Pallavi'!!!

Atul Kulkarni's debut movie, not a major role, is Bhoomi Geete.
Ilayaraaja(i have profound respect for him) wroked as a musical assistant to Kannada film composer G. K. Venkatesh, he worked on 200 film projects, mostly in the Kannada language. When Venkatesh was left with no films and after his failure as a film producer, Ilaiyaraaja took him into his fold!!!

Balu Mahendra's (Benjamin "Balu" Mahendra)first film as a director was Kokila, a Kannada film, which earned him a National Film Award. He is also the cinematographer for 'Pallavi Anu Pallavi'.

Mohan or better known as 'Kokila' Mohan, actual name is Mohan Rao, hails from Udupi district of Karnataka. He debuted in kannada movie 'Kokila', also starring Kamal Hassan.

Murali, a tamil actor, hails from karnataka.

Prakash Rai (ಪ್ರಕಾಶ್ ರೈ), also known as Prakash Raj, started as a film actor in Kannada. Later he moved to Tamil/Telugu film industry.

Arjun Sarja started his first venture as a film actor in Kannada. He then moved to Tamil and Telugu and concentrated there.

Prabhu Deva was born in Kannadiga family in Mysore, Karnataka on April 3, 1973 and grew up in Alwarpet, Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

Kannada actors Ravichandran and Ramesh are tamil speaking. N. Veeraswamy, Ravichandran's father, the man who produced most of Rajkumar's films, was a Tamilian.

B. Sarojadevi, a kannadiga, has portrayed an amazing variety of roles in Kannada, Tamil and Telugu films. She become a favourite leading lady of three major Tamil heroes of the day - Sivaji Ganesan, MGR and Gemini Ganesh.

C. Krishna Rao Gundu Rao, a kannadiga, (better known by his screen name Nagesh in tamil movies) is regarded as one of the most prolific comedians in Tamil cinema.

Jayalalithaa Jayaram's(general secretary of AIADMK) first film was Chinnada Gombe in kannada.

Shanker Nag is the first actor to get best actor at the international arena for his role in 'Ondanondu Kaladalli'.

The cinema of karnataka has some films to its credit which have substantial dialogues of other languages even commercially. H2O has Kannada Tamil, Satya in Love has Kannada Telugu, My Autograph has Kannada Malayalam, A.K. 47 has Kannada Hindi and the Kanglish "SMS 6260" was Kannda - English with also Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Konkani, Tulu language blend in it.

Periyar Erode Venkata Ramasamy, a kannadiga, was a Dravidian social activist, who founded the Self-Respect Movement and Dravidar Kazhagam.

Maasti Venkatesh Iyengar, a popular writer in Kannada language, was born in 1891, at Hossahalli in Kolar district of Karnataka in a Tamil speaking Sri Vaishnavaite family.

T. P. Kailasam, was a playwright and prominent writer of Kannada literature, was born in a Tamil family in southern Karnataka, India, and educated in England.

Purohita Tirunarayana Narasimhachar (commonly known as PuTiNa) is a playwright and poet of the Kannada language. He was born into an orthodox Brahmin family in Melkote. He spoke tamil at home.

Dattatreya Ramachandra Bendre(ದ ರಾ ಬೇಂದ್ರೆ) was amongst the most famous of Kannada poets of the Navodaya Period and important contributor to the field of Marathi literature. He spoke marathi at home.

PS:- (http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mp/2002/10/31/stories/2002103100050100.htm
http://www.hindu.com/fr/2005/04/29/stories/2005042903140100.htm).

Surely languague/mother tounge was not at all a barrier for these great people to do what they like to do. Language fanaticism is only with cheap people. Art doesnt know any boundary.

Indian Women Were Topless Before The British Came!

While walking in the internet I stumbled upon a article in 'Bangalore Mirror' by K. R. Sreenivas titled 'INDIAN WOMEN WERE TOPLESS BEFORE THE BRITISH CAME', this was his view w.r.t to the recent attack on women in Mangalore Pub(After this incident there are only two kind of people in India, one who condemn and one who support. I blamed myself why i voted for BJP). We were really liberal w.r.t sex, nudity in olden days. If you visit any of our temples you can see our goddesses in skimpy clad clothes, most of them indeed topless. And if you visit Khajuraho temple(i have never been there though, have seen on tv) its as if visiting some porn site. So how come we Indians became so irresistant to all these.
Recently I watched a documentary about Indian temples(esp South Indian) made by BBC 2. It was mentioned that the British couldnt digest the fact that these temples showed nudity and Indians worshipped nude gods and godesses. It will shock anybody to see phallus being worshiped as a main god.(most south Indian temples worship Shiva as main god.For us worshipping Shiva is a sacred thing and not disgusting). So the britishers didnt give much importance to these temples and they made sure a visit to India by foriegners was mainly to the North Indian part(esp Taj Mahal, because no nudity there). Many foreigners recognise India by a photo of Taj Mahal. British might have liked the Taj Mahal than our temples depecting nudity. Even today only 2 out of 10 foreigners visit the South Indian temples. In my opinion even the moghul rule might have made us to be more conservative w.r.t women. Ours was a land where women and men had equal rights, and even Kama is one of the 4 main aims of Human life in Hinduism. I wonder is there any women Mogul warrior like our Kittur Rani Chennamma in the history of Moguls. Hinduism surely knows how to treat women equally.
A little cocktail of Mogul and British rule has changed our culture. And these so called, no where officially registered, groups like Bhajrang Dal and Shri Ram Sene(monkeys indeed) are just acting against our own old culture and trying to bring in Mogul/British rule once again.

What if i got time machine...

What if i got a time machine... :) ... many movies have come on time machine, and recently i watched 'Heroes' where Hiro Nakamura can travel through time. Usually the main aim of the people is to save somebody, alter the future, find their true parents blah blah. Grow up story tellers, if i can teleport, i will just go back in time and invest in stocks. ;)

geographical psychology

I always wondered how people belonging to different location think and act differently. I am speaking in a generic manner.
The geographic distance might not be 1000 miles or different continents, but we can find differences in two different cities as close as 100km or so. I wonder weather its really have to do with geographical conditions prevailing in that location or has to
to with like minded people getting settled at one place.

We can say cultural/caste differences make people think in similar manner. But there are people who follow same culture, belong to same caste, speak same language, but live in different locations and their thinking differs( people of Davangere, Shimoga or Dharwad think differently ). So can we say geography plays a major role in grooming people in a good or bad way.

Still thinking.......

Second Trek to Tadiandamol/Tadiyandamol April 2008

"Please Ignore the Date on the photos"
Except first photo, all others were taken by Nidhi...

First trek was a one day or i should say one night adventure.
We left king's cottage at somewhere around 6PM, reached there by 8:30PM - 9PM and stayed their for abt 40-45 min and came down by 11PM. It was pretty cold and windy. We had a guide with us.

I am not a good writer of travelogue... all i can say is we went, ate, slept, came back......

Date:- 26-27 April 2008

Team: - Apart from me, poonach, sandeep, seeni, basanna, we had gouda, satish, nidhi joining us this time.

Reason: - Gouda was here from singapore and we were planning for a get together and a nice place for boozing ;), i was the only non-boozer in the team

Items carried :- 2 4-man tents( each weighing 4kgs), 10 2lts(approx 2kgs each) drinking water, Johhny walker BL, Alize Bleu, chapathis, one sickle medical kit, etc etc...








We all met at king's cottage on 26th before noon. Weather was cool as it rained slightly after noon. After lunch and small nap we started our trek at exactly 5PM. At 5.30, after covering a distance of 1-2km satish backed off citing tireness, so 7 of us continued.

We had encounters with leeches on the way as it had rained that week.















The good part of the trek is the 10min passthrough in shola forest. Its pretty dark and scary in this part.






We reached the peak at 8PM, not bad considering we were carrying heavy luggages. By 8.45 the tents were ready, thanks to nidhi for his prior experience.
Surprisingly there was calm at the top of mountain and it wasnt much cold either. We expected it to be pretty chilled and windy but luckily the weather was calm for as long as we were there. one jacket was more than enough to keep us warm.
For sandeep one shorts and Johnny walker was enough to keep him warm.

Our effor to put camp fire went in vain as the ground was wet and we couldnt find dry wood. Even johnny walker couldnt help us to lit the fire. So we had a candle lit booze/dinner inside tent. We slept at around 12AM after having a good time in the breeze. The mountain was fully covered with clouds and visibility was less.


Me and nidhi got up at 5AM and were eager to see the sunrise. I should say it was awesome weather with breeze and clouds around. Visibility was good because of moonlight.

But our eagerness to see sunrise was dampened by coulds and we could see a distant pink hue only by 6.30. The morning view of clouds was spectacular and will stay in our minds for ever.
Nidhi and pooni managed to lit morning camp fire thanks to johnny walker and paper plates.


We packed everthing and unwillingly left the place at 7AM. Only while getting down we realised how steep the climb is. We were back in cottage by 8.45AM.


Thank God for the safe trip and calm weather.

Courier Delivery when nobody at home...

All have experienced this... Expecting a courier... it comes at a time when you aren't at home... 'House locked, courier not delivered'... sometimes the courier company indicates and sometimes not...

Can we have a system where 1) we can upfront tell the courier company we are expecting something and provide them all the necessary identity proof OR 2) we can send SMS to them as 'identification proof' OR 3) Is there any system already implemented? OR 4) Anybody has better ideas?

How to have two party system in India

BJP and Congress should tie with each other in the coming election, win the election, and bring a mandate to have 2 Party system in India( like Party A or Party B, no more BJP, congress etc etc). Unless this happens, in the current scenario, no single party will come to majority and there will alliance party(NDA/UPA... blah blah) running this country.
These alliances have become 'katputaliya' in the hands of small parties. Small parties think about their own instead of thinking big and are bane to country's growth...