Lajjavathy

Gyaan: 'Lajjavathiyae' was a hit number from the malayalam movie '4 the people'. 'Lajjavathiyae' means 'Hey shy girl'. Music direction was done by Jassie Gift who was then a new comer. The song was totally a new experience, actually a rebel of an entry to the otherwise orthodox malayalam music industry. The song started with english rap and then some catchy malayalm lyrics, all in the brand new voice of the composer Jassie Gift himself.

Many of the elders proclaimed it as blasphemy. Some said he sounded like a drunkard. But the catchy beats of the song just became a big hit among the youngsters.

The movie was such hit mainly because of the song. The opening day of the movie saw many youngsters dressed up as the hero in the song, at the theatres. There were instances when the 'play on request channels' played the song almost 500 times back to back. The movie was later dubbed to Tamil as '4 students' and to telegu 'yuvasena- 4 the people'. In Kannada the song was included in the movie 'hudugaata' starring Ganesh of 'Mungaaru male' fame.

Jassie Gift became successful because he was ready to travel the untrodden path.

Chinnamma Chilakamma

Gyaan: 'Chilaka' in telegu means Parrot. The lines "Chinnamma Chilakamma" is from the soundtrack of the tamil movie Sakkarakkatti.

In the picture pinky is dressed as a parrot and pappu is singing the lines.

iniya pongal nalvaazthukkal

Iniya - sweet
Nalvaazthukkal- good wishes

So wishing everyone a sweet pongal. May the festival be as sweet as the sugarcane that pappu and pinky are chewing.

Request : While trying to make this card I had difficulty in typing the tamil text. If anyone knows of a good tamil editor please do tell me.

Happy Pongal

Happy pongal to every one. I know it is a little early to wish but next week I will be out of station and wont be able to post. Feel free to send this image as greeting card to your friends.

Gyaan: Pongal is a festival celebrated mainly in the southern states of India especially Tamilnadu. Pongal in Tamil means "boiling over or spill over." The act of boiling over of milk in the clay pot is considered to denote future prosperity for the family.

Pappu and his guitar

Gyaan: The lines "Pappu guitar bajaata hai" comes in the song "Pappu can't dance saala". The song is from the movie "Jaane tu ya jaane na".

When I was young I really craved to learn the guitar. But unfortunately for me, or fortunately for people around me, nobody ever bought me one. Whenever anyone close to our family would ask me what I want as a gift, the only thing i would ask is a guitar.

Finally in the year 2008, I was able to purchase one. I still dont know how to play it. People ask me then why I bought a guitar? Well my answer is that I love the sound of guitar, no matter who plays it. So next time any of my friends who know to play the guitar visits me, i will sure give him my guitar and make him play a few songs for me , giving him no chance to say "Oh, I did'nt bring my guitar along".

Lines from the hindi movie 'Jaane tu ya jaane na'.

Ghajini

Gyaan: Ghajini is an Aamir khan starrer hindi movie, which is a remake of a tamil movie of the same name starring Surya, which is again inspired by the film Memento.(phew...)

Wayward philosophy: Everybody has different priorities in life. For some people their career is on top of their priority list. For some it is love, for some it is food, for some it is family. Rather than horroscope it is the priority list that must match when you look for a good partner. For two people to go together well, their priority lists need not be exactly the same but it is enough if they can understand and respect each others list.
The amount of justice you do to your own priority list will decide how much successful you are in life.

Mumbai terrrorist attack

This cartoon was based on the comment by minister R.R.Patil about the terror strike in Mumbai. The comment means "Such small issues happen daily in big cities". This really spurred the public and made them protest. This was really a silly comment to make.

But at that time almost all the ministers were caught in controversies. The media was on a defamation spree, trying to catch fish in troubled waters, bending facts and trying to misinterpret what the politicians say. Many of the wiser politicians chose to remain silent and get blamed for being irresponsible rather than open their mouth and lose their name forever.

One case during that time was that involving kerala chief minister V.S.Achuthanandan making a statement including 'dog '. The media twisted his statements and made people believe that he had insulted a dead soldier(killed in the line of duty during terror attack) by calling him a dog. The people just blindly believed this news and condemned him. There were posters held condemning him during the vigil held a few days after the blast. Senior members of the party apologised but Mr.V.S stood his ground and said firmly that he had not said this. Days after when the whole clip was shown in TV, viewers understood the truth. Minister had made the comment on some other context. The soldiers father also apologised to the minister for the misunderstanding.

So was the media really acting responsibly? When it was so enthusiastic to Flash the news and show the clips 24/7 ,why did'nt it show the news that the previous one was false. Why dint the channel apologise to the whole nation for making them fools? What about the senior ministers who just apologised to the channels on behalf of Mr.V.S instead of really standing by him and waiting to hear the truth?

Here are just 2 lines from the poem 'If' by Rudyard Kipling.

"If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, "

Pappu can't dance

The lines from the song "Pappu cant dance saala" from the hindi movie "Jaane tu ya Jaane na". The movie starred Imran Khan and Genelia.

Imagine

The power of imagination is so vast. Your possibilities are only limited by how much you can imagine. Imagination gives you the power to dream. It gives you wings to fly. It gives you new ideas, and only new ideas can bring changes, and only changes can make the world better.

As children we might have imagined a lot, but as we grow older most of us just lose that skill. Many adults just become mechanical. A simple exercise to build your imagination could be to ask 'what if?', 'why cant it be like?', 'How can I?', etc. One day one of those answers could change your life!!

Pappu and Pinky : The first raw sketch

When I was younger I used to draw cartoon figures of little kids for few of my friends who used to snail mail this to their friends. Most of the pics would that of some little kids crying or hugging teddy bears or in some childish poses. But an idea to really start a series of cartoons just clicked in my mind by the end of 2008.

I sketched the picture above on my notepad for a reason. Actually one of my friends was becoming too bossy and dominating. I did not have the guts to tell it straight on her face. I did'nt want to hurt her too. So I chose to draw this cartoon which was for the moment titled as 'The female terror" and sent it to her. And of course she got my point and had a good laugh at the picture too. She asked me if I could draw more of these as she liked them. This was in the beginning of 2007. The question kept echoing in my mind until mid of 2008 when I thought why not add color to the sketch. I posted these cartoons on Orkut and got good response from my friends. And by 2008 end I was inspired enough to start a series of these cartoons.

Pappu and Pinky : How it started

This is the first drawing of pappu and pinky i made. I had actually done a small pen sketch on my workbook. Then i captured it with my mobile and then colored it in Adobe photoshop.