Monday, November 22, 2010

10 Things I'd do when I get rich.

Here's another random post from the god of nonsensical tat

"I always knew I was going to be rich. I don't think I ever doubted it for a minute. " - Warren Buffet.

Well, platitudes about confidence and spirit aside, he's Warren Buffet and I'm a graduate student with an eating disorder. Without further ramblings on, here're ten things I'd totally do when I get rich...and i'm not talking of pedestrian things like buy a house, buy expensive clothing or fly business class...this is something beyond that....This pertains to the very fabric of reality... the very nature of good and evil... The very reason why.... well... you get the general idea..

10. Donate quarters to that stuffed-toy machine until i get lucky

That Kung-fu panda plushie would look really good on the back seat of my car.


09. Add a few zeroes to a tip just to watch the expression on the waitress's face

Especially when she's extra pretty, extra nice and gives me extra bbq sauce.


08. Start a blog and pay people for every comment they make.

Whats the point of being rich if you cant buy yourself some fans


07. Get one of those fancily shaped scars on my forehead.

Not a lightning one shaped one though..Thats old...probably will do something new.. like the batman symbol.. Why dont you just go into the kitchen, pick up a knife and get busy you say...? No good.i'd probably get blood all over the counter. I'll leave this one to the professionals.


06. Produce a Multi-billion dollar movie with T Rajendar in the lead.

All things said and done. The man is a FREAKING GENIUS! He directs, scripts, composes the music, handles the camera, writes his own lyrics, sings his own songs, does his own editing, performs his own stunts and manages to break even with every film he's ever made. The only catch is that in my movie, all that T rajendar will do is act...this movie will be directed by shankar, composed by Ar Rahman, star aishwarya rai as his heroine...you get the general idea.


05. When i drive...everyone will be paid to stay off the road

Please contact the following two people to know why. Phone numbers available on request

Anchita Monga - Phd Student, Li ion nanotechnology expert, Chef extraordinaire
Dhayalan Elangovan - MS Student, Carl Sagan evangelist, Polymer Science Guru


04. Go to space

I really really want to know how astronauts actually sit still inside those spinning toilets that simulate gravity and a library book just doesn't do enough justice to this.


03. Have dinner with the greatest human being of the last three thousand years - Stan Lee

This was originally going to be dinner with Isaac Asimov.. but realized that Asimov died a few years back. Within a span of ten years, Stan lee conceived and created The Fantastic Four, Iron Man, The Mighty Thor, The Incredible Hulk, The X-men, Daredevil, Dr Strange and of course..Spiderman



02. Pay A R Rahman to let me sit with him as he composes music for his next film.

Last I read on the interblag, he has an army of slave composers hidden underneath his basement :D.



01. Publish my book under the pen name JK Rowling and pay JK Rowling to keep shut

Would you actually read a political thriller set in a domed planet full of sophisticated weaponry (Read: Enough cliches to make you puke) if it had the name 'Raghav Prashant Sundar' on it?


( Thanks for reading. Comment away! Feel free to share your top ten lists as well! )

Friday, November 12, 2010

Siblings in popular culture

My sister is finally 19. Seems only yesterday that I watched her eating Round Sandwiches with sugar and salt, learning to smash open potato chip bags before her first words (true to the family tradition) and enjoying her first day of school believing that my mom was waiting at the gate for her all day. Happy Birthday Poorvaja and may god always give you a lot more than you actually want.

Now that we're done with the obligatory mush, lets get to this post from me, the god of nonsensical tat.

Ever since the first mom-pop duo said .."Honey, i dont like the look of this one..lets just make another" siblings were born.. Just like this duo here...



And since then, siblings have done everything - from save the universe to throw joint tantrums. Here's an indifferent look at 10 sibling sets in popular culture... from the mythical to the eerily contemporary.

Unlike my usual posts, this list is in no particular order

14. The annoying sisters from Metti Oli



Dont even get me started on this... the one who's husband was a drunk-beater was pretty cute though...

13. The Pevensies from the Chronicles of Narnia

12. T Rajendhar and his Thangachi in every movie he's ever made


Watch this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bur8CZ_t1gY&playnext=1&list=PL7402B1888CC8612F&index=1


11. The Bennets from Pride and Prejudice

Yeah. Something about two sisters and one guy.. i didnt have the patience to read up the rest of the wikipedia article. I googled and uploaded the above picture instead.

10. Mario & Luigi



Two Plumbers. One wears red, one wears green. They 'shroom' their way to a pink princess. The rivalry angle wasn't really played out in the humble NES version that we all used as kids...but in later games Luigi could jump higher and was much thinner.

9. Dexter and Deedee


If you grew up during the 90's and you haven't heard of this duo, you should probably do two things.. A) smash your head in with a frying pan B) Spend the rest of your life inventing a time machine to take you back just so you could see the series on Cartoon Network.
Jokes apart, Dexter's Laboratory was one of CN's first successful original productions, winning numerous awards and kick-starting the Cartoon-Cartoon era.

8. Karna and Arjuna (Mahabharat)


Kid gets separated from his mom when he's just a baby.. grows up among the bad guys.. is forced to fight his own brothers in an epic battle... This is the story of Karna and Arjuna... this is also the story of every second Indian movie between 1980 and 1995.

Mani Ratnam's take off on this epic worked but his take on that other big one didnt....and I find that HILARIOUS! :D

7. Latha Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle


They probably had to build a mansion along marine drive just to keep their award trophies in...

6. Serena and Venus Williams


They're both former world number ones. They've both won every major grand slam around, They're both on maxim's booty-licious babe list 2010 (link available on request).

5. Mukesh and Anil Ambani

When there's two guys who're each worth over 15 billion, you probably think they'd sit around and have fun... but no.... Sheeesh !

4. Maggie and Jake Gyllenhall

This is probably the ONLY Hollywood celebrity sibling duo in which both members have enjoyed the same level of success. Well, Jake did get famous playing a not-so-sad cowboy...but i guess we can excuse that for the time being considering all those stunts he pulled in that recent movie.

3. Hansel and Gretel


You probably heard the story of two minors defeating a flesh-eating witch before you could say the names of your own siblings.. so yeah...

2. Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa


Yoda: Told you I did. Reckless is he. Now, matters are worse.
Obi-Wan: That boy is our last hope.
Yoda: No. There is another.
- Empire Strikes Back (1980)

But didn't they like, make out or something in one of those movies?

1. The Weasleys


There's one bloke who studies dragons, one bloke who works for the ministry, one pair of blokes who setup a joke shop and another bloke who's the series's secondary protagonist. There's also this girl who finally gets to marry harry (it rhymes :| ).

Without that freckled, red-headed bunch, the HP universe would've never been the same !

(Thanks for reading. Comment Away!)

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Of Komics, Kartoons and Kollywood - Namma ooru Justice League

Greetings unwashed masses ! It is time for another unintentionally hilarious post from the master of 'Kollywood What-if's'.

A quick primer for those uninitiated souls...The 'Justice League' is a collection of comic book superheroes who do three things. Soak this in thoroughly....

1. Fight Crime (Everything from petty crime lords to giant cockroaches)


2. Wear ridiculously homo-erotic costumes


3. Cause a lot of property damage


A few years ago I wouldn't have thought it possible, but with Endhiran and the forthcoming Ezhaam Arivu roping in Stan Winston Studios for SFX, I believe we're at a stage where a multi-starrer superhero movie is possible, even probable...

I set about dreaming up a list of namma ooru makkal who would feature in a Tamil version of the Justice League...Here goes.

Ilaya Thalapathi Vijay as Arpudhan (a) Superman


Superstrength - Check; Superspeed - Check; Ability to star in movie after movie despite being extremely boring - Check.

Vijay would essentially be the Superman of our group. And yes...most would agree that he wouldn't be doing anything that he isn't already doing in any of his movies. He would fit very well as the incessantly boring mono-dimensional, do-gooder character that Superman essentially is.

AjithKumar as Kazhugu (a) Batman


The dark and brooding Ajithkumar was the best I could come up with for the Dark Knight Detective. Batman is one of my most favorite fictional characters of all times, but he can be very annoying at times. For instance, he sometimes decides to stop fighting crime altogether...just like our friend decided to spend sometime on the race track (we all know how that turned out). Ajith rarely appears in public or gives interviews...leading to the common perception that he is a brooding intellectual. He makes his big come-back with a movie called Asal and we shant go into any more details. Batman frequently abuses himself...physically, just like our friend tried the Anorexic look for a while when the Obese look failed.

R Madhavan as Pachai Shakthi (a) The Green Lantern


Here's a quick Green Lantern primer for those of you who've never heard of him. He has a magic ring that can pretty much do anything, but for 24 hours only. With Madhavan. A hit here... a string of flops and a hit again. Add to that the unpredictability of his script signings (guru en aalu? really?) and you have a green lantern, ring and all.

Arya as Kalaabhan (a) Martian Manhunter


The good: Super Strength, telepathy, ability to pass through all objects.
The Bad: Ability to look the same in all scenes, ability to drone incessantly, dead eyes and green skin.

Jeeva as Sfeed Party (a) The Flash


In the cartoons and the comics, The Flash is the fastest man alive and his super duper speed leaves everything else in slow motion.

For my tamil version I needed a thin young man who tries to act funny in all his movies while receiving groan after groan from an exasperated audience... Jeeva fit the bill perfectly... along with several others (STR, Dhanush, Bharath etc)


Anushka as Worundhateee (a) Wonder Woman

Bada-Bing, Bada-Bang, Bada-Boom! Nuff said!

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And yeah...there're a few zillion side characters that Justice League comics traditionally contain and those would be filled in by those actors/actresses you see in every single tamil movie. People like Vaiyapuri, Karunaas, Santhanam, Vennilaadai murthy and so on....

(As always, thanks for reading...comment away! Up next will be an analysis of all of them comic book super villains)