The Bucket List

Here's an interesting compendium of things one must do before they kick the bucket!

All hail the Emperor!

I am a converted Rajini fan, but, now, I am an ardent Rajini fan. For a long time, mass appeal of Rajini movies did not appeal to me. I found them too silly or, maybe, I took myself too seriously. Both are true to some extent. I always thought that Rajini movies were good comic relief, which one could watch if they didn’t have anything else to do in life. Now, nothing has changed in his movies. He still delivers the same style with similar dialogues. But only now, have I understood why he is well and truly the real superstar.

The change in my perception is not because I saw new facets in acting. It is not because of the grand scale of his movies. It is not even because of his off-screen humility. It is because Rajini has found something that most people, in the excitement of their own day-to-day life, forget to look for. Unlike many others, over time, Rajini has developed a deep understanding of himself and has the mental strength to not get carried away by the din that the millions of fans and fan clubs create. He , perhaps, remembers that he is Shivaji Rao Gaekwad and, perhaps, remembers it all too clearly! Simply put, his brilliance lies in his extraordinary self-awareness. Rajini also possesses an excellent practical awareness of the environment he operates under. But his true greatness lies in the fact he has completely internalized this knowledge and lives his life under the aegis of this knowledge.

He may not be the most talented actor, but he has specialized in one aspect of acting that is unique to him – style. He has time and time again delivered on that style. People laugh, sometimes at him. People mock him, mimic him and imitate him. But he steadfastly has carried that mantra for several years without distractions and without the need for experimentation. All his movies and all his characters merely improvise on it. In some ways, his movies can be stitched together to create one mega movie with multiple forms of the indomitable Rajini style! Many others imitated but failed. Maybe they weren’t good enough, maybe they weren't committed enough.

But Rajini also knows style alone won’t get eyeballs. And, therefore, it is not coincidence that his movies have excellent music, best directors, top co-actors and, most importantly, some of the biggest promotional campaigns. In some cases, Rajini, himself, even provides tacit, or even explicit, downside insurance against the failure of his movies.

It is this collective effort of some very talented people that revolves around the style maestro allows him to completely synchronize the delivery of his movie content to exactly what the audience expects. He delivers -- every single time!

Essentially, Rajini identified a brand and built on that single brand repeatedly with the support of an extremely competent team. These make him a brilliant strategist. Add to this his humble and genial off-screen personality, we have the only real superstar in Indian cinema. Rajini is indeed the Southwest Airlines of the movie stars in India.

And here is a funny/nice account of Rajini from Slate.com

Better way to eat bananas! Why not?!

Here's a very nice lecture by Barry Nalebuff, the author of the book "Why Not? How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small."

Among other things, he teaches you how to eat a banana! :)

And here's a whole bunch of brilliant lectures in the Academic Earth website

Whistle Podu!

The Chennai SuperKings wins the Champions Trophy! Yay!

Here's the Cricinfo report and here's the report from the Chennai based newspaper, The Hindu. It tells you the significant higher quality of Cricinfo reporting!

And, here's how The Sydney Morning Herald chooses to report it. Well.!

Cricinfo -- India all time XI

Here's the Cricinfo India all-time XI. I have been following this series for a while and, as always, Cricinfo has done a great job