Loopholes (aka) Cycle gap la Auto !!

   Normally I try to provide facts and express my opinion on a particular topic but this blog is going to be a different experience for me since I just want to highlight on a particular topic and leave up to the reader to reflect on it. I was prompted to come up with this topic based on my shopping experience since I realized loopholes is there anywhere and everywhere.

Fish and its math:

     People prefer Fish fry vs Fish kulambu and this creates imbalance as far as how rate is calculated. Let’s assume one kg of fish with head is 500 INR and without Head is 600 INR (Demand is more); Now a trader who is influential and cash savvy may place wholesale order for 100 kilos of fish without head and end up getting fancy price of 400 rs/kg due to its volume of business. This guy visits different market and sells fish without head still for 500/kg thereby crashing local market. Well there is nothing wrong since the guy is being smart, but the problem is trade does not happen in a fair manner and creates internal conflicts amongst vendors and therefore Unions are formed where rules are formulated. Now comes the bigger problem – Union creates politics and rules are exploited in the name of Loopholes.

Unemployment Calculation in US

    Unemployment rate is a key economic indicator and a closely followed one in USA as it helps to understand health of the economy for one of the biggest democracies in the world. But the way it is calculated leaves everyone puzzled. In simple terms unemployment rate is nothing but dividing the number of unemployed persons by the number of persons in the labor force and multiplying that figure by 100; Problem comes in how we define “Unemployed” and “Labor force” – good percentage of people who are part of Employment discrimination are not part of labor force (termed as ‘Discouraged’ workers) and also people who have been searching for employment in the last 12 months but not in the last 4 weeks are not part of the labor force (termed as ‘Marginally attached workers’); Excluding these two sections from the labor force gives an underestimated Unemployment rate. By this way they keep the panic down amongst public , save money on providing unemployment benefits etc., But you may think this is more of a flaw and not Loophole ? Read the final paragraph

 

Business entertainment tax in Canada

  Basically business entertainment tax in Canada allows businesses to deduct upto 50% on the costs of entertainment. Some of the examples that fall under this category are Costs of ticket for theatre/concert/athletic event, costs of private boxes at sports facilities, cost of cruises, cost of admission to fashion shows, costs of entertaining guests at clubs and the most difficult part is how do we police such activities hence it is one of the most abused tax loopholes in the country.

Tax exemption for Agricultural Income in India

  This seems to be a great initiative to promote agricultural sector but then why do we see many farmers getting into suicide every year and pretty much every region in India. It clearly shows farmers are not the beneficiary of this tax loophole but it is the wealthy politicians who make maximum use of this one. So this is how it works – Politicians fixes a Benami person, buys a huge land under Benami’s name, thereby converts black into white, all the black money from unknown sources is shown as income from agriculture and hence gets tax exempted. Do you think this is more of a flaw and not loophole ? Read next paragraph

   Now that I have given few examples I think these are not flaws but ‘Loopholes’ that exists in the system deliberately by that way people can take advantage. Both ruling party and opposition party take advantage of these provisions and these are not kept in the dark instead it is thrown wide open to public to make use of these loopholes thereby allowing people to exploit the rules to their advantage. Loopholes exists in every region across the globe and pretty much every aspect of living like Healthcare, Insurance, Income tax, Agriculture, Immigration, Free trade agreements etc.,

 

Ration saga in Tamil Nadu

      Fair Price Shops aka Ration shops is the topic I have chosen and am going to walk you through the world of Ration shop operations in Tamil Nadu. Before that let us quickly go through the organization, its objectives, some statistics etc., Civil supplies and Consumer protection department has an Organizational structure headed by Minister of Food department followed by many hierarchies of subordinates. They have a system called as Public Distribution system (PDS) in Tamil Nadu to facilitate the operation part and policy comes from Food and consumer protection department of Tamil Nadu. PDS comprises of several stakeholders to carry out its day to day operations. Some of PDS objectives is to ensure affordable prices of essential commodities, ensure availability of essential commodities etc., PDS has been implemented in 38 districts, 310 taluks, 34773 fair price shops and there are 2+crore family cards, 6.7 crores + beneficiaries etc., I think coming up with statistics may be due to watching excessive Vijayakanth movies during my childhood. If you think Ration cards are those old card types with worn down looks then I am sorry you got it wrong. Now they call it as ‘Smart cards’ and they appear just like your credit card and very handy to keep it in your wallet. They have a workflow in place and when people show the card, system sends an OTP and once OTP is verified you get what you want and everything you got comes as a SMS to your mobile and gets updated in the system too. Pretty cool stuff since they even have an App to track everything. Overall, they both have a system and process in place to carry out the operations. So far so good …..


      Population of Tamil nadu is roughly seven crores so it is almost 100% true that 90-100% of the people get benefitted from Fair price shops since if you look at beneficiaries it is 6.7+ crores; Our people have a habit that even if they had Oothappam for breakfast they behave as if they had Cheese Ravioli. People often feel embarrassed and shy to go to Ration shops hence they either have their staff or maid go to their behalf. For this service people usually tip 20 INR since the person takes the effort to go, stand in the queue and carry the stuff and does all this by merely showing the smart card. Officer is not supposed to hand over stuff by merely seeing the card since the cardholder has to appear in person but there is a ‘Deal’ worked out between officer and our staff which makes things possible --------Point no.1; Now Ration officers are more than eligible to work as antagonist for Tamil Heroes since they always have Ponnanbalam sort of looks even for Purnam viswanathan sort of individuals visiting the shop. They have this bad policy of forcing people to buy something on top of the commodities they give. This could be Match box, Salt, Wheat flour etc., and this tactic is to make up for the free flow of revenue and staff usually gets stuff worth 20 or 30 every trip ------------------Point no.2; Human Psychology works in such a way that when we get some stuff for a good deal we don’t tend to check it thoroughly and that is what happens since we don’t weigh whether we got 1kg of sugar or 750 grams (no prize for guessing what happened to the missing 250 grams of sugar) ------------------Point no.3; Now that we got the monthly stuff from fair price shops people are happy but not every time we get good stuff from these shops since sometimes we tend to get average stuff too and on those occasions we pass the stuff to needy or to the person who helped us. This could have been a deliberate attempt by the person himself since they know by bringing in inferior stuff from the shop they may sense there is a good chance that stuff would be directed to them eventually --------------Point no.4; Now if you sum up all points it outweighs the advantages you inherit by going to the Ration shops3.


    Hence, I decided to take the plunge myself and realized 2 to 3pm is a time where Sun shows no mercy and it is considered to be Non peak time. But seldom did I realize if God gave me brains it is the same God that must have given Brains to my friends too ..One fine afternoon when I went I spotted one of my friend and both of us had Bhagyaraj sort of smiles ..Thanks to Corona ..due to Mask we were wearing we couldn’t see each other smiles evidently …I just want you to watch the following scene in Mouvna Raagam before I can express what each of us thought


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_FKNjX0lZxg


(Listen from 15:50 onwards ….)


Imagine myself as Revathi and my friend as Mohan ….Now mind voice starts ….


Myself: Aaha ipo naan enna panradhu

Naan inga vanthutaenu yaar kitayum sollada please

Sollamatenu sathiyama sollu naan indha jenmathuku un friend a vae irupaen …



My friend: Neeyum sollamaetunu sathiyama sollu naanum indha jenmathuku un friend a vae irupaen3


Myself: Evlo periya Industrialist a irunthutu nee inga varuvanu naan nenachu kuda paakala


My friend: Nee US return irundum nee Fair rice shops ku varuvanu naan nenachu kuda paakala


Mind voice ends ….



   Now that I have walked through the Ration scenario I want to highlight something too. As you can see the Trust factor in the case of the staff for a mere 100-200 rupees transaction; Imagine businesses worth lakhs and crores on what is happening on day to day operations; Proprietors try to be on top of things until they are 60 or to put it in better words until their Health cooperates. But once their health deteriorates with kids settled either abroad or in IT industry the staff has the final say in the Business. Worst part is owners are aware of everything that is going on but with no major financial commitments and not much help from the next generation they are forced to run the business at the cost of staff’s misbehavior. If the staff is young, has good hold of Business operations then with the help of bank and his in laws funding he starts something on his own thereby bringing the downfall of the company he worked. Bitter truth is some of the Businesses which were having glorious run in 80’s and 90’s are not able to stand up to the current Business culture prevailing in the state. Though GST and Corona are having major impact on the Business I believe these are seasonal and can be ironed out but the black sheep in the form of disloyal staff is a major problem every Business has to handle.

Arulmigu Thayumana Swamy Temple

    Being my 100^th blog I wanted the topic related to Religious aspects and hence chose to write one on Sri Thayumanavar Swamy temple, Trichy. World is going through lot of turmoil – Corona has been devastating so far, Locust attacks on agricultural land, Floyd’s death in USA, Pregnant elephant death in Kerala, Cyclone in west Bengal etc., There could be ‘n’ number of discussions going around for the root cause of these events but the underlying truth is Humans have become more and more greedy. I got one forward recently saying what did Athi varadhar do for Corona, I think the message was not right. Whole world is blaming China for the sort of devastating effects Corona has created across the globe but my point is there is something beyond to that fact and Mother nature is punishing Human beings in a very hard way. Humans want to destroy flora and Fauna and wanted to enjoy nature as much as possible but the point is Nature belongs to all of us and all of us have to coexist in this world.


    Since I cannot voice for whole of India let me brief about Corona situation in Tamil nadu – Tamil nadu has been doing some very good testing, recovery rate is decent and fatality rate is low. But media highlights only the growing number of cases but concern is in the last few days lockdown measures have been relaxed and people started to move around freely. Though there are lots of room for improvement on Testing and treating patients I would like to appreciate the government for the work they have done so far. I cannot imagine the situation in Tamil nadu in case if Corona would have taken over the state since we lack in Infrastructure, Healthcare system is poor, Health and hygiene is treated no big deal etc., On top of Indian drugs and Immunity factor there is a big advantage Tamil Nadu holds – it is Punniya Boomi for many different reasons. Look at how many glorious temples state possess, number of Yaga salai, Kumbaabhishekams, Abhishekam, Alangaram, Chariot festivals, Paal kudam, Kavadi, Padha yatra, Thiruvizha, Sami purapaadu, Homams, Kootu prarthanais, Archanais, Poojas etc., that is happening across the state. State roughly has around 16000 villages and Temple activities is part and parcel of our living. Though I have no clue what is in store in the coming months with Corona, I am positive that divine intervention will happen and not just save Tamil Nadu or India but whole world to come out of this crisis. Only way world can be a better place to live is to show love, empathy towards fellow human beings and towards Flora and Fauna. One such tool to do so is turning into Religious activities – if you host a party there is a good chance some people may envy your growth but when you host a Bhajan/Pooja there is positive vibration and almost leaves no room for negative thoughts amongst the public.


  There are so many beautiful temples in Trichy and one such temple is Sri Thayumanavar temple. I would like to go over the sthala varalaru about this temple. Rockfort is not just Trichy’s identity but also pride of the city. Lord Manicka Vinayagar graces from the foot hill temple and Uchi Pillayar at top of the temple. Arulmigu Thayumanavar temple is situated on the Rock fort enroute to the Uchi Pillayar temple on the hill top (roughly climbing around 200 steps from foot hill of the Malaikottai). At set timings we can see Othuvar group come and sing before the lord and trust me just to listen to those tamil verses is a fantastic experience. Now let me go over the story about this temple. According to the legend there was a woman who was living on other side of the Cauvery river who is a pious devotee of Lord shiva of this temple. She is a regular visitor of the temple and that continued even during her pregnancy. One day after her darshan she found the river was flooded and she cannot pass through the river. As she waited for river’s flow to subside, she developed severe labor pain. Since she was in Labor people around her stopped her trying to cross the river. But the woman was desperate to go back home since she felt her mother would be the ideal person to help her out during labor. Lord Shiva came to her, disguised as her mother, and helped her deliver the baby safely and then disappeared. Later when her actual mother came asking for her, woman realized it was lord shiva who came to her rescue in disguise. As Lord Shiva himself served her devotee as a mother here the main deity is called ‘Thayumanavar’ (God who is also the Mother). This incident is celebrated as a special event called “Chettipenn Maruthuvam” on the fifth day of the Chithirai festival. Name of the Ambal is ‘Mattuvarkuzhali’.


   Those who had lost their Mothers pray here for his grace hoping that he would guide them throughout their life. Pregnant woman and their husband pray to lord Thayumanavar for a safe delivery of the child. Delivery is blissful experience but what goes into the making is something Lord must bless the whole process. Practice that is followed is after successful delivery of the baby, people offer Plantains to the God. One can see people carrying ‘Vazhaithaar’ all the way upto the temple and after offering to Thayumanavar people distribute it among other devotees in the temple and take some back home.



Visit below URL for the slogam that has to be recited for safe delivery:

http://singaporechettinadrecipes.blogspot.com/2016/10/slokam-for-normal-delivery-for-pregnant.html



    Now coming to my role in this Venduthal. Many of you may want to do thanksgiving but for some reason you may not be able to do so for various practical reasons. Ideal thing would be for you to come in person and offer thanksgiving but in the event you are not able to do so I can offer you help in doing this thanksgiving task. Apart from the fact that I wanted to help people there is also another reason and that is I intend to visit this temple more and that is not happening now and your request may be a commitment for me. So there could be your wife, daughter, sister, In laws, Friend, Neighbor or anyone for that matter and you can offer your prayers for a safe delivery of the child. Once baby has been delivered successfully if you would like me to offer thanksgiving on your behalf reach out to me personally (sundarbuddy@gmail.com; PH: Seven-five-four-zero zero Five nine zero nine four). Since this is for religious matters you can pay me once I am done with Thanksgiving task. Roughly we are talking about 600 – 800 INR (300 to 500 for Vazhaithaar based on its size, 50-100 for the guy carrying it to top of the temple, believe 50 Rs ticket to temple for the service, 5 Rs archanai ticket, other misc minor expense etc.,) I can send my NEFT information and you can deposit electronically once I am done with the offering. Also when you message me I will get the archanai details.

 

   For people who want to come to this beautiful temple here are some tips. N.S.B road in Trichy is equivalent to Renganathar street in Chennai so be mindful of the traffic. You need to park your car at Singarathope and then walk down to the temple else ask your driver to drop you at the temple and then park the car. Manicka Vinayagar is at the foot hills and you have have a quick darshan. Before that you may need to order Vazhaithaar at the bottom and pay the guy the money for the vazhaithaar and to lift it to the temple. Kindly get his phone number since he may wait for more folks to join since he can lift everything at one go. You may also want to buy ticket for the service as well as archanai ticket. Also note temple close bit early in the night around 8 pm so kindly check the timings before your trip. Once you reach the temple priest will do the Archanai, offering to lord with curtains closed and then give back the vazhaithaar to you. You need to bring knife, some newspapers and tissue with you to distribute the bananas. In matter of few minutes you might have distributed all the bananas and then you can take some with you. You can also plan to go top of the temple and visit Uchi Pillayar.


யான் பெற்ற இன்பம் பெறுக இவ்வையகம்

Geographical Indication (GI) Tag !!

    Authenticity is something all of us look forward in whatever we buy. Biggest gift for one’s work happens when they are given the due recognition. I would like to go over the “Geographical Indications” topic in this blog. Basically products which carry GI tag are nothing but products originating in a region or a locality in that territory where its quality, reputation or characteristic is essentially attributable to its geographic origin. This is a great initiative from Government of India in partnering with WTO and other affiliated organizations. With the recognition it gives huge boost to Exports of these products, promotes Tourism, protects goods from fake competition, livelihood of people involved improves due to recognition from World market.


I wanted to share couple of my experiences in recent past where couple of terms – “Chettinad” and “Montessori” were overused and in fact misused in Tamil Nadu.


Misuse of the term Chettinad:  I love trying different restaurants and one such category is ‘Mess food’ since I enjoy the taste. This was a newly opened mess in Trichy and went for Dinner and ordered Ceylon parotta and Fish chettinadu kulambu. In few minutes I got both the items and was shocked to see the Fish kulambu. Basically fish pieces were deep fried like Chicken-65 and then dipped into curry which was creamy and rich in taste and had heavy dose of ginger,garlic,onions and Tomatoes. In short words it was more suited for Rohit Sharma and Harbhajan singh and not for Ravichandran Ashwin. I asked the server to look into my face and see that my face has Chettinad written all over it in Times new roman font size 72; I had no problems if the dish was mentioned as North Indian curry since taste was good but using the term ‘Chettinad’ whose characteristics are primarily being extra spicy laced with roasted spices was completely missing. Every damn restaurant, mess, hotel use this term but unfortunately do not adhere to the cooking methods adopted in Chettinad.


Overuse of the term ‘Montessori’:  Hunting for schools is not a joke in India since this is one area where competition is much more fierce than Thalapathy and Thala fans.  When hunting for schools for Skandan I visited one such school which was taken over by some big weights in the city. My goal was to focus on curriculum and not on the infrastructure and I asked a simple question “Does the school adopt Montessori education for kindergarten” and the mam goes on explaining they have fully air conditioned classrooms, swimming pool construction to begin, artificial grass lawn, huge playground, blah blah …..appreciating her response I once again asked the same question for which she said she has to have a kindergarten teacher come and answer the question. Teacher came and said they are awaiting paperwork and should most probably get the approval soon to adopt Montessori education and I was shocked not looking at the school but the parents who have signed up like crazy for admitting their kid into their school. Once again the term ‘Montessori’ lost its credibility since every damn school either use ‘Montessori’ or ‘International’ as the tagline.


   Therefore I feel there must be a system where we need to safeguard our strength (produce, skillset) by stamping our authority in World Market. Examples of some of the GI tags that has been given to Tamilnadu are Salem fabric, Madurai Sungudi, Coimbatore wet grinder, Kancheepuram Silk, Tanjore paintings, Madurai Malli, Tanjore veena, Erode Manjal, Chettinad kottan, Dindigul locks, Swamimalai Bronze icons, Arani Silk, Kovai Kora cotton saree, Tanjore Doll, Srivilliputtur Palkova, Pazhani Panchamirtham, Kandangi saree, Kovilpatty kadalaimittai etc., Now let us go through couple of these in detail.


[1] Srivilliputtur Palkova: So what makes this dish special which is made by simmering milk?  Basically it is the Milk that makes the difference since Milk has more fat content and rich in nutrients; They also use tamarind wood and traditional clay made stoves for the fire to fuel the making process. Looks like they on every pan only 3 kgs of palkova is made since making more than that will spoil the traditional taste.


[2] Dindigul Locks: These locks are known for their superior quality and durability. Once again raw material is iron and that is available in abundance for the growth of the industry. These locks are made up of iron and brass and are completely handmade; The way these locks are designed will surprise many with different lever pattern and the city manufactures quite a number of models based on the needs of the public. One such variety is ‘Partner locks’ where in a Business if there are two partners and if they want the lock to be opened then both the keys has to be simultaneously used; Other variety is ‘Grand master’ locks which is used in family business where head of the family holds the master key and sons have the subordinate keys and if Father locks then all the keys son hold becomes dummy like a heroine in Kollywood masala movies. Since they are handmade the locks lasts many years unlike machine made locks and these locks cannot be duplicated since they are handmade.


  So I welcome the GI tag concept and happy for all the workers in those respective regions, money can fetch the requirements but beyond that if a weaver in Kanchipuram, painter in Tanjore, cook in Kovilpatty realizes that their products made out of them has got International attention and recognition then that is much bigger gift than Money which is a mere legal paper.

Dada ..Thala ..Cho

    If all of us look into our lives there would be few people who may influence us. The type of environment we live from childhood, our teachers, friends, neighbors, social circle, Colleagues etc., all of us play a role in building our personality that we finally end up being. Sometimes it happens without our consciousness too. This is on top of the genes we inherit from our parents, grand parents and great grand parents etc., If a person comes from a Doctor background where his/her parents, grandparents all are into Medicine profession but this person wants to switch gears and want to get into Lawyer profession then that decision wouldn’t have happened in one day as it is just a culmination of various incidents, people around him that have made up his mind to take up a profession completely new to his family.


   Now when it comes to nature of people in terms of their general behavior, the way they talk, react/respond to opinions I would like to classify people into three categories


[1] Diplomatic studs: Around 60% of the people belong to this category; This is a safe bet as they can be in good books with everyone. They will never reveal the true story and will just politely be in acceptance with everything. When two people of opposite sides reach out to this category they may please each side saying they are correct and other side is wrong.


[2] Cousins of Kamal haasan: This category of people are like rather than saying ‘1+1=2’ they may sound ‘1+1=only even prime number’; It is difficult to follow their speech since we may need to hire CISCO engineer to decode their speech. They make things complicated not just for them but even for people who are listening and around 20% of the people may belong to this category.


[3] Speak your heart out: Around 20% belong to this category and this category does not care about anything since they just speak out in a frank and honest manner. But the key thing is one should not sound so just for the sake of it since credibility of the person is based on how truthful he is. People can easily make out whether the person is being truthful or drawing some attraction through negative publicity.


Now that I have gone through the different types of people I want to go over three people who does have a influence in my life and these people are from three different paths – Sports, Cinema and Politics. Actually there is one more person but he deserves one full blog which I will come up later. Consciously or unconsciously I like Sourav Ganguly, Thala Ajiith and Cho very much and I think one common thing between all three of them is ‘Being Truthful’.


Sourav Ganguly: I love Sachin, Kohli but when it comes to favorites then it must be Ganguly on top of Dhoni. There is no doubt that he was one of the best captains India has ever produced, on top of talent and guts the thing that I personally admired was his Truthfulness. He is one person who would not mince words. It was Ganguly who broke regional bias of bringing players mainly from Mumbai to Indian Cricket team since he brought players like Yuvraj, Harbhajan, Zaheer, Pathan, Kaif, Dhoni from Tier 2 cities. Sourav brought credibility back to Indian Cricket since Indian cricket was going through a low phase with all the match fixing scandals. Ganguly was also one captain who would not allow players to be picked and dropped at whim and fancy and to do this one has to have a strong conviction and belief on your players. It all boils down to being truthful in what you do since it is not easy to get on top of Indian selectors with the amount of politics that goes inside.  


Thala Ajith: Let me accept the fact that I may not be fan of his movies but just adore the man himself as a person. He has given more flops than hit films. Once again, I am not going to talk about talent since that is not that draws people like me towards him. He is one person who has such huge “Loyal” fans – he does not appear in Award shows, no mega Audio release for his movies, does not give T.V interviews, avoids filmy functions, no media bytes, no press release,  etc., but you say the word ‘Thala’ in any function and just listen to the uproar from his Fans. I think he is just being straightforward – perfect taxpayer, dissolved fan clubs, actor to fight against politic pressure, does charity but never advertises, so on and so forth. If a person does not want to be in limelight but still when his fans celebrate him like the way they are then it must be his Truthful nature of practice before you preach. It is more than just a coincidence that fans who like Ajith may also like Ganguly and vice versa.


Cho Ramaswamy: I just love him so much especially his satirical talk, his self destructive way of talk especially his bald head, his intellectual take on current political scenario, his predictions etc., This man had an uncanny habit of bringing the house down through his humorous talks. Every time Thuglak anniversary function was held in Chennai it would go sold out. Thuglak magazine is one of the most reputed magazine amongst the reading community and the magazine does not fall prey to kollywood commercials. No wonder Cho appointed Gurumurthy as his successor; If you have seen the movie Guru then do you remember the daredevil journalist played by Madhavan which is none other than Gurumurthy himself. Cho left movies long time, he was not into active politics but still he drew attention of all big weights in Indian Political circle only because of his political acumen and Truthful analysis of political developments across the state and country. It is to be noted Ajith and Cho had a good bonding.


Now let us do a simple exercise, which category do you belong to and who are some of the people that you believe may have influenced you?

Indian Maids - All India Radio (A.I.R)

  In these Challenging times all of us need to be optimistic and that is the only way to keep us going amidst all the problems we face. I wanted to write a blog on Corona but then somehow felt tired and exhausted hearing the word umpteen number of times. I wanted to come up with a blog on Indian maids – their role in an Indian household and their role as a “Broadcaster”. We should acknowledge the fact that ‘Gossip’ is part and parcel of Indian culture and it just exists in our system. Not just the person who is speaking gossip even the one who is listening is responsible to penetrate the gossips reach more and more people. I had to cautiously add some fictional aspects but the core of the blog is taken from real life incidents.


 Now let me go over some background about these maids – they run a typical 1980 story such as Drunkard and irresponsible hubby, two kids to take care, not in good terms with Mother in law and whole lot of responsibility lying on the shoulders; They typically have to work in 4-5 houses and on an average earn anywhere between 2000 to 4000 per month by that way they end up earning 15000 on an average; The need for a maid is inevitable in a Indian household for three reasons – Dirt, Heat and number of meals in a calendar day; Even a CID officer may not be able to identify how dirt accumulates inside the house and constant cleaning is a must. Tamilnadu is one place in Earth where Summer lasts for 9-10 months, as a couple we have cooked food for 30 in 5 hours but in India all I have made is just omelette as it gets exhausted standing inside a kitchen for some period of time. There is a thumb rule in India – Men should not do household chores and if they then boy’s mom face will be longer than great wall of china. This makes the equation tougher for housewives and all they can do is take care of cooking and outsource the rest to maids.I think with these three reasons put together it is a mandate that one employs maid for Household chores like sweeping, mopping, cleaning vessels and washing clothes.


Just imagine following five households and assume all houses are geographically closer

Home 1: Husband, wife, 2 kids and In laws

Home 2: Husband, wife and 2 kids

Home 3: New married Husband and wife

Home 4: Husband, wife, one kid

Home 5: Elderly Husband and wife with kids settled abroad

Makeup and Ladies: The Lady in Home 2 has a habit of spending quite a lot of time on makeups – just to name a few like applying Milk clothing , green gram powder, multani mitti, coconut milk combined with honey in face, ….But the lady always sounds modest and humble saying everything is natural and she doesn’t believe in make ups. She doesn’t realize she has A.I.R (All India radio) in the form of her maid who updates her day to day activity to females in Home 1 and 4 who all hang out together. This gives huge scope for female leads in 1 and 4 to make fun of 2.

Spending pattern:  Couple at Home 5 is very popular amongst social circle since they are members of some of the elite clubs in the city; Also since kids have settled abroad they have even more time to spend time on parties. People who are super rich always have a common characteristic like that of being miserly for petty things and elderly couple in this case is no exception. Maid has requested for Sabena dishwasher powder for over a week now and still her request is not fulfilled and this is good enough for maid to do her A.I.R service that of spreading gossips to Homes 1,2 and 4. She might say couple spend thousands of rupees in gifts, drinks but end up calculating for small things such as sabena dishwasher powder.

In laws Grinding: People boasts Daughter in law is like their own daughter but everytime I hear this someone say I just laugh inside. If daughter sleeps till 8 am then that is okay but if Daughter in law sleeps till 8 am then that is bad; Mother in laws have habit of grinding Maids to know details regarding their daughter in law and maids who are A.I.R does their job effortlessly just to be in good books and the same maids play a double game by reciprocating everything to daughter in law too thereby adding oil to the already burning Thiruvannamalai deepam

Men cooks: Some men portray themselves like Actor Raghuvaran by their manly features, there is CNN Inside story to that. These men are excellent chefs and they cook very well. This can be a well guarded secret to the whole world but the so called A.I.R in the form of Maid is good enough to spread the information much faster than travel of light. This gives so much fodder for the ever hungry females in neighborhood.

  As you can see from above examples that Maids play a role of news broadcasting much better than CNN/NDTV and they spread news much quicker than corona virus. People take legal actions against social media platforms like Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, Instagram, Zoom citing privacy concerns in their software but just hire an Indian maid and the word Privacy is up for a toss. Having a maid, driver etc., all add comforts but at the same time you can be assured privacy is compromised. But on a serious note these women possess enormous amount of will power and they are physically and mentally tough. Even the food that is offered to them they take it to their kids and they sail through all the challenges in upbringing their kids.

Proverbs ..Beliefs ..My Thoughts

   I would like to go over some of the super common Tamil proverbs which we use very often amongst the tamil fraternity. The reason I am bringing these proverbs is though we end up using these very often still we don’t know the correct meaning. In this world if eight out of ten say lies loudly and two out of ten say truth softly then world seem to believe the majority. Let me go over those four Tamil proverbs:

Proverb 1: சட்டியில் இருந்தால் தான் அகப்பையில் வரும்

Common belief: The vessel needs to contain something for the spoon to fetch it

Actual proverb: Shashti yil erunthal akapaiyil varum

Actual meaning: Observe fasting during shasthi period to conceive child

Proverb 2: நாயைக் கண்டால் கல்லைக் காணோம்; கல்லைக் கண்டால் நாயைக் காணோம்

Common belief: We use this proverb jovially whenever we couldn’t find one of the parties in question

Actual meaning: In ancient times there are wonderful stone sculptures across different parts of Tamil nadu and if the sculptor has made a dog as one of the sculptures then it just looks too good for us to make out a dog since we see a stone and if we see the dog it is difficult to make out the stone.

Proverb 3: கழுதைக்கு தெரியுமா கற்பூர வாசனை ?

Common belief: Donkey cannot appreciate smell of camphor because it does not understand its goodness

Actual proverb: Kazhu Thaikka theriyumaam karpoora vaasanai

Actual meaning: Those days they used to make mats made up of Kazhu (a grass) that had smell of camphor. They used these mats for children since the smell kept off the ants and insects from children

 Proverb 4:  முருங்கையை நட்டவன் வெறுங்கையோடு போவான்!

Common belief: People get scared to keep muringai in their house hearing this proverb since they feel they may be empty handed if they plant this tree

Actual meaning: Muringai is a fantastic plant that provides so much nutrients to the body and if one has drumstick leaves regularly they can remain young and may not need stick in their old age. When they say empty handed this is what they intended to say

As you can see these are very common proverbs but we just have a different meaning to it. Now let me move onto couple of beliefs. 

Chithirai month: There is a proverb that says “சித்திரைக்கு அப்பன் தெருவில் நிற்பான்” which once again wrongly interpreted by people. I am not Saint to talk on beliefs as myself am a religious person and will not challenge old beliefs that showcases our tradition and culture. But something which is wrongly understood by people and even more wrongly spread by people is what makes me feel bad. We must spread positivity as much as we can and even if we cannot spread positivity we shouldn’t indulge in spreading negativity. Now coming to the belief of the proverb – if people conceive in Aadi then child is born in Chithirai and this is the reason spouses are separated in month of Aadi since they believe Chithirai is all time hot climate and in olden years with not much transportation facilities and no artificial ways to coolen yourself people tried not to give birth in Chithirai as it would be tough on them to manage the heat. Now in this 21st century transportation, medical facilities, A/C, Coolers all have made Chithirai no different than any other month. We live in a world where Milk man has car and maids carry smart phones. So interpretation according to the context is the key.

“Theetu”:  Actually I like the concept of “Theetu” – when child is born in one household then all the members in the household are asked not to visit public places like temples for 11 days or 16 days as they don’t want the members to catch hold of a disease and spread it to the newborn as the newborn is yet to gain resistance power. But in this generation newborn is born in US, grandparents in India, aunts/uncles in Europe, cousins meet in Whatsapp, emotions are transferred through facetime, so where is all this Joint family concept ? But still I may miss out on something which I would like to know myself …If you know more about ‘Theetu’ please ping me. Once again I am not here to challenge the belief system as each and every custom had a rationale behind it but my only question is some things may no longer hold true for current generation.

But there is one evergreen proverb in Tamil – “எல்லாம் நன்மைக்கே” ..Thank god this was found by people who did not patent the usage; If someone in today’s world would have found he would have asked subscription charges every time we use. There is no wrong interpretation for this one and this one is applicable to anybody and for everything. Truly immortal proverb ….

Success Matters !!

   Success is something everyone cherishes and the whole world celebrates. It has got a tendency to make people proud and happy once they succeed in their endeavors. Society celebrates successful people and celebration is directly proportional to the amount of success achieved by the respective person. Unfortunately people who have failed become unnoticed since they are lost amidst the celebration. World cares only for people who are successful except very few who still are compassionate towards fellow human beings. This topic is better explained through real world examples and some practical situations hence I have listed following six examples.


Example 1: Let us assume person ABC is an Entrepreneur who has multiple businesses and makes lot of money. Since he makes lots of money he also spends quite a bit on celebrations and makes quite a lot of donations for charity to get rid of his black money. Society celebrates person ABC and he is given red carpet wherever he goes. Let us assume person XYZ who makes decent amount of money and nothing compared to ABC. Since XYZ makes little he makes small donations for charity and seldom spends on other things. Now the world categorizes ‘XYZ’ as miserly person …Now should XYZ be upset ? Obviously not since self-satisfaction is much more important than what society says but practically the problem is  XYZ has to coexist in the same society ABC lives and hence success does matter to XYZ.


Example 2: Yuvan Shankar Raja who is a music director in Kollywood has given super duper albums in 2000’s and not just that he has been the Debut director’s Darling; Dheena directed by ARM has music by Yuvan, Thulluvadho ilamai, Kadhal kondaen went to public initially only through his music, Through Nanda we had Suriya establish himself as a performer and once again music by Yuvan, Ameer’s debut Mounam periyadhae had his music, Vishnuvardhan gave Arinthum Ariyamalum which had great music by Yuvan, Venkat Prabhu gave Chennai-28 which had great music by Yuvan and I can keep on going on how many films Yuvan’s music was the selling factor. A phase came where G.V Prakash, Santhosh Narayanan and Anirudh took away his place and he also had setbacks in his personal life like divorce and losing his mom. Now again he is back with a bang with a string of hits especially with Rowdy baby ….When I saw him in Herndon I felt happy for him since he was back doing movies. World does not care when setbacks happen ..but same world celebrates you when you succeed so basically success matters.


Example 3: Now let us assume between two individuals working in an IT company where one is very truthful, straightforward whereas other is dishonest. Whom do you think would be affected ? Obviously person who is truthful is often mislead and eventually laid off. Would the world care what went into the making ? The first thing they say is people should learn to adjust to situations to live in this world and once again proves the fact that once you are successful you have an upper hand.


Example 4: Now how about actors like Bharath, Prashanth ? Both had hits in their career but they could not sustain because they were not able to succeed consistently. If opportunity and good roles would have come their way they would have made it very BIG in kollywood as I like both the actors as they have given some nice movies in the past. When we think of Actor Rahman first thing that comes to our mind is he is relative of AR Rahman and once again our mind subconsciously associates with a successful person. In Pudhu Pudhu arthangal he was so natural and even in recent Dhruvangal Pathinaaru he was brilliant as an actor. Take Arun Vijay for example who was lying low in his career but his recent few films have been hits and once again proves success matters.


Example 5: Let us assume one is very talented and he/she wants to stand in an election of a Non profit organization since there are more than one people standing for the post. No matter how talented you are, you got to win to prove yourself before you can even start doing what you intended to do. Once again success matters.


 As you can see from my examples and practical real world situations Success does matter. People may feel inner harmony, self-satisfaction are more important which is all true but end of the day success plays a crucial role in one’s life and if you want to make your presence felt in the society you have to be successful. In recently movie Kaana there is a dialogue which summarizes my blog in one sentence “Indha Ulagam Jayirchiruvaenu sonna kaekaadhu, aana jeyichavan sonna kekum”

Kannaana Kanney

    Kannana Kanney is one song that can be called as ‘Chartbuster’. We see so many melody songs in a calendar year but this song was a monstrous hit amongst public which was unanimously liked by people from all walks of life. Be it a Cultural show, Music competition, College reunion, Temple festivals everywhere this song was played or sung by singers live in front of the public. There was a ‘Jeevan’ in the song and there were many factors why this song was a huge hit amongst public.


   Lyricist Thamarai: I am not sure how many female lyricist we have in the industry, big thanks to Gowtham Vasudev menon for extracting her potential in all his movies. Being a female she is able to express the emotions through wordings from a female point of view ….When she wrote “Anbae…iravai ketkalaam…Vidiyal thaandiyum…Iravae neelumaa” in Kaaka Kaaka it just expressed love from girl’s point of view with so much dignity. In ‘Oru maalai’ song from Gajini her simple lines “Thoongum Azhaginai Paarthu Rasithida..Iravellam Kanvizhiththu Kidapene...” expresses a man’s love in a poetical way. One other song from Kanda Naal mudhal called ‘Pani Thuli’ her lines “Aduthathu Aduthathu Epavunnu  Maamiyaru Kaekkum Munnae Ara Dozen Pethu Kodunga “ is a wonderful sarcastic take expressed in a musical way. There are so many songs where I like her lyrics a lot since I always believe she brings a different angle to the emotions portrayed in the song. In this song she has used poetry to express the bonding between a father and a child – “Alai kadalil naduve  Alainthidava thaniye Padaganave unaiye parthen kanne”, [in centre of a wavy ocean father feels he saw child as the boat to save him]“Puthai manalil veezhunthu  Puthainthadave irunthen Koorunagayai yerinthe  Meettaai ennai” [when about to be buried after falling on a quick stand a small smile from the child saved me]. So Thamarai is one of the main reason for the song to be such a sensation.


   Imman Composer: Music director Imman is doing a good job in Music industry, he not just delivers hit albums but also finds new talents and encouraging lot of youngsters. I think he is also very good at heart which is translating into success. I always believe some things can happen only through blessings – just imagine Actor Vadivelu who was not acting in films, not active in politics, not giving any interviews but still every single Tamizhan across the globe cannot pass a single day without his memes. How in the world “Pray for Nesamani” became viral and talk of the town when Actor Vadivelu was nowhere in the scene? Some things happen just like that …Music drector Imman focuses on melodies and if you see his films there would be more melody songs and he has given number of melodies in the recent past and his music complemented the beautiful lyrics Thamarai wrote for this song.


Sid Sriram: He can be termed as new kid in the block …infact new NRI kid in the block …There was his concert in Trichy which I couldn’t go and was taken by surprise seeing the reception he got from youth. Sometimes all we need to make things work is to inject some freshness into our efforts and I believe that is what Music director Imman has done – he has roped Sid Sriram and felt he would be perfect match for Ajith who is the one singing the song in the film. That conviction of choosing a singer envisioning something in your mind must be applauded. Now that song is a sensation everyone may feel Sid Sriram was ideal for the song but only Music director would sense something beforehand. Especially the piece when he sings “Aaraariraaroo  Raaroo raaroo aaraariraaroo” is too good and Sid play a big role for the song to be hit.


Other factors: I loved the way song was picturized – father allowing child to play in rain, father enjoying kid performing in school, father buying ice cream are all so naturally taken. Song was able to reach masses due to Thala factor, sentimental values in the movie, Box office success of the movie all played a minor role in how the song turned out to be. In many parties where old albums are reminisced they have this song in the background since the song just compliments so well and the song is a testimony for Human bonding towards one another.

Thinking out of the Box !!

All of us want to think out of the box but unfortunately only few succeed. It is natural phenomenon for people to think their actions are unique but hardly they realize they are influenced by society. By the way is it a must to think out of the box? Absolutely not unless you wanted to. Right from the dress we wear, movies we watch, food we cook if things are bit different then that attracts attention. In my language if I wanted to give an silly example, let’s assume we have made Veg Kurma and we find that it’s bit salty then regular person would pour water into it but one who thinks out of the box will add potato to it to absorb the excessive salt ..as simple as that. Let me take you through three classic examples where people thought out of the box and won many hearts

Cinema: I would call A.R Murugadoss as one who thinks out of the box for the movie ‘Ramana’ he made way back in 2002. Vijayakanth was known for action sequences, lengthy dialogues and family sentiments but director broke all of that and made Vijayakanth almost go ‘Mute’ in this movie. It is easily said than done but it needs conviction to make a movie like Ramana where you bring in a hero to do something others have not yet attempted and to bring a sad ending it needed guts. When Murugadoss penned script for the movie several names would have come to his mind but picking Vijayakanth was thinking out of the box.

Politics: People talk about Women empowerment everywhere but unfortunately it is seldom followed. Movies like Bigil talked about women empowerment but am afraid these movies will hardly have any impact on society since these are coming from larger than life heroes whose primary intent is Box office collections. But if you ask me I would say our PM Narendra Modi as one who thinks out of the box and who is really showing what women empowerment is to the whole nation. He gave Mrs.Nirmala Seetharaman three coveted posts – Commerce ministry, Defence and now Finance; She may be deserving candidate but to give such posts to the biggest democratic country in the world speaks volumes about our PM. Not just that he also gave Smiti Irani to contest in Amethi which is strictly considered Congress’s fort and to kick Rahul Gandhi out and win in Amethi speaks about her hard work and confidence PM had on her. Now Tamil Nadu’s BJP General Secretary is Mrs.Vanathi Srinivasan and I don’t have an iota of doubt that she is going to make it big in Politics. In a world where every household is seeing ego clashes between husband and wife here is a man who is thinking out of the box and empowering women along the way.

Food: How does having both Mutton and Brinjal at the same time sound ? You may think that is crazy but for the person who invented Dalcha (Saalna) he did not think the same way. For people who have done Bachelor’s in Biriyani eating they may be contented with Raita/Gravy but one who have done Master’s will definitely expect Dalcha along with Raita/Gravy; Mango which is added along with brinjal and Tamarind just elevates the biriyani taste altogether. So whoever invented Dalcha is someone who thought out of the box.

Seeing something that others have not yet thought and proceeding with full conviction is what makes few people special.