The Ad Hatter

For an Ad-making competition :)

The New-age Se7en Deadly Sins

Groan, we did when Amitabh was reduced to a mere angry puppet in the Sholay remake. Sigh, we did when Rajni's yesteryear blockbuster Maapillai was remade and released to empty seats. Timeless classics have been put to shame by their new-age versions. But with utmost respect to David Fincher's serial killer-thriller Se7en, I present to you, my list of Se7en victims :D

7. GLUTTONY

Popeye, for all the spinach he gulped down in the name of winning over a lame languished skinny chick, Olive Oyl. In the 1930s, during the economic depression, the children of America looked up to Popeye as a hero and consumed a lot of spinach causing chocolate and ice cream vendors to look for alternative jobs. Maybe Al Capone was one of them! Ok Popeye can be pardoned on this account, as without Al Capone, we wouldn't have been fortunate to see Godfather and in turn a Nayagan. Ok, so what is it about Olive that Popeye was so smitten? Or was his one eyed vision leading to a 2-D view? We'll never know. But for misleading children towards skinny looks and spinach lust, Popeye will be punished.

Kareena would be shocked to know the origins of Size-Zero!

6. GREED

The DMK, for looting more than they could hide! Looting 400-500 crores for the sake of election bribery expenses is pardonable. But 176,000 crores :O What can the party possibly do with somuch money. Endhiran was a smart move, but it cost only 150 crores, which amounts to less than 0.1 % ! This target is tricky though. The party's leader, the mastermind of all the scandals in this part of the country is rumored to be dead :P . He shies away from almost all public gatherings n interviews. Maybe for political leverage, they are moving him around in a wheel chair even though he is dead !

While the party's leader is famous for Black-Money looting, a similar guy - Stephen Hawking - is popular for Black-Hole mooting.

5. SLOTH

Samaraweera, the much celebrated Srilankan middle-order batsman is my favorite bunny for insulting. With a healthy test average of 55 and a dozen centuries to his name, why him ? His batting average in Lankan, Bangladeshi and Pakistani roads (read pitch) stands at a towering 65, 90 and 55. Nothing wrong yet right ? In Indian, Australian, South African and English grounds, it is less than 25 each! This coupled with a strike rate just above 45. And the ICC executive committee is racking its brain wondering why Test cricket is not sought after much these days. Forget the Pink ball D/N Test cricket implementation. Just give Samaraweera the pink slip!

Thanks to Samaraweera, Golf seems interesting !

4. LUST

Charlie Sheen/ Charlie Harper, best known for Two and a Half Men and Wall Street. We've seen and heard of bad ass casanovas and philanderers on screen and in real life. But no one has ever ended up hospitalized after a night of debauchery with booze and two lassies ! To be a drunken womanizer is one thing. But getting hospitalized is like getting into a depression as a result of merry laughing! Phew. He defeats his contenders, hands down ( no pun intended! ) .

Well, some might argue that he should figure in the ENVIED list. Sigh. No, I mean, dammit. He deserves only this!

3. PRIDE

Mr. Arun Lal, the TV host / commentator who claims to have played for India centuries ago. His famous cricketing insights like "the key to win the match is to excel in 3 depts : bat, bowl n field" are popular among satirists. Unlike him, I hate to rave on incessantly to make an obvious point. In short, nobody likes him.

Mandira Bedi - Another TV host with the same cricketing acumen but

then, nobody complains :D

2. ENVY

The hapless villains of Indian Cinema will have to be punished for their excessive envy of the movie heroes. How many times have we watched a Villain scream and swear in fury (though he has the hero at gunpoint) and hence giving the hero enough time to wriggle out of the situation? How many times have we seen the villain gang members take on the besieged hero one by one and getting drop-kicked n punched though they could've taken him down together ? How many times have we seen the villain terrorists misfiring an entire round of bullets at the hero in close range but getting fatally head-shot by the hero's first attempt?

1. WRATH

The Roulette wheel at Anna University's paper correction center.

CROLLYWOOD

Lalit Modi, the wedding priest : Do you, IPL, take H(B)ollywood, to be your lawfully wedded partner?

Yes. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for more PR, for more money, to love and to cherish 'till match-fixing do us part.

CRicket + hOLLYWOOD = CROLLYWOOD

DHARAMSALA, THE L.A of CROLLYWOOD

RCB’s PIRATE OF THE CARIBBEAN

Chris Gayle landed the lead role of this franchise, as the cool Captain Kingfisher who is an unrelenting scoundrel showing absolutely no mercy on enemies and also gulps down bottles of Whyte n Mackay's rum frequently. Deepika Padukone and Siddarth Mallya as Elizabeth and Will Turner keep making out for no reason after every victory over a pirate ship, which was achieved single-handedly by Captain Kingfisher. Despite faring well at the box-office, this movie lost out to 12 Hungry Men, starring Dhoni in the race for FairPLAY and the Best Picture Oscar. Ironically, the FairPLAY Oscar award was sponsored by Vijay Mallya which made the season's results a bitter pill to swallow :D

P.S : They also proved Ghilli’s Vijay right by losing in the semis and still making it to the finals :D

KTK’s PAC-Man

Despite being warned, KTK went ahead and shot the second most costly movie of the year, PAC-man. As most of the Comic Book superheros like Batman, Superman, Spider Man, X-Men etc. have been turned into billion dollar movie franchises, KTK had to choose a new popular hero. And they zeroed in on PAC-Man, without realizing what it actually was. The movie bombed at the box-office. Period.

AT LEAST THIS SUPERHERO HAS 3 LIVES !

DD’s American AUSTRALIAN BEAUTY

Despite having a lot of fair skinned second grade Australian actors, Sehwag was miffed about not getting the FAIRplay Oscar.

If there is ever a FAIRplay award, we know who deserves it best! Oh and ya, the gay award too.

RR's WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS… happens here too

The title says it all. Warne drinks, plays poker and argues bitterly with bouncer dude Dixit.

MI’s PSYCHO

In this thriller, the world’s favorite Sachin Tendulkar plays the protagonist who suffers from multiple personality disorder (MPD). After an excellent first half, where he essays his role to the T, he makes fatal mistakes when it comes to making decisions. This, later on, is revealed to be due to chronic MPD. Symonds, ageing and weak, plays the role of his mother. Suman and Satish are unnecessary characters absolutely irrelevant to the script. Pollard, who plays the detective in the movie, crazily sledges, sneers and gives threatening looks to guys who actually beat HIM up! Ask Watson. Due to this uncharacteristic behavior, Psycho came nowhere near to lifting the FairPLAY Oscar.

The locks, the age and the face shape - Andrew Symonds!

Photo Credits : Harbhajan :D

KXIP’s ROCKY

Part one, strictly.

KKR’s S(H)TUTTER ISLAND

The movie initially shows how KKR reaches the knockout stage of IPL. The rest of the movie is a figment of Gautam Di Captaino’s hallucination, where he imagines his team winning the IPL trophy thanks to a fiery match-winning last over by a yellow clad bowler Jabail. Gautam’s vision blurs while celebrating the victory and he collapses to the ground. Upon waking up, doctors reveal to him that his team has been knocked out of the tournament. He searches frantically for Jabail, his champion bowler. TO his shock, he realizes that Jabail is actually an anagram for Balaji and his team jersey’s color was blue and gold. Not yellow. He is then taken to a place for rehab, which explains his absence in the squad to the next tour to West Indies.

CSK’s 12 Angry Hungry Men

Having won the Best Picture Oscar last year, CSK Productions was written off by the critics as never once in history has the ‘same production house/same director/same hero’ combination won the Best Picture Oscar twice in a row. People’s poll agreed with the critics. Everything seemed to be against them, but for the jury consisting of 12** Hungry men; hungry for one more title and also the popular South Indian Saravana bhavan sambhar vada. When the 10 members of the cast were crestfallen at the seemingly right verdict of both critics n people, MS Dhoni ( Juror #8) makes the cast believe in themselves, brings the best out of even average actors like Jakati and finally turns the tide in favor of them. 12 Hungry Men astonishingly won both the Best Picture Award and the FairPLAY award J

**Juror #12 is N. Srinivasan. Why him ? His posts of responsibility says it all.

BCCI(owns IPL) secretary and CSK owner :D

Fakebook

Tamil Nadu's ammas have traditionally relied heavily on a white lie : Poochandi to get their small kids to eat. Much like their American counterparts using Boogeyman; African counterparts using Adebayor; North Indian moms threatening to make their kids watch Akshay Kumar's movies all day. No matter how they look, most of these guys have never actually harmed kids in fact or fiction. But there's one guy, who even after mercilessly leading scores of children to oblivion remains a popular hero.

Well, I've created this fake wall using this link : myfakewall.

Craptoons

I still remember those art classes in junior school where we were instructed to draw the usual sun-mountain-sky-lake-crows picture. I've always sucked at drawing, even drawing stick figures is a complex task to me. The only sensation I ever created during those long afternoon drawing sessions was the day when we had to draw a theater or a park. I drew a theater neatly, wrote some Vijay movie's name on the building's facade and impishly drew a few crows circling the empty queue line. The guy near me, an ardent Vijay fan borrowed the idea for his theater's Ajith movie. This small joke snowballed into one heated argument, which progressed into a fist-fight and my art 'miss' had to intervene :D

Since then, I've grown taller, studied zoology (drawing frog's excretory system wasn't really exciting) and passed the engineering graphics subject. But still I can't draw a human who looks at least half-human.

I came across this cartoon making website website: Toondo . This is a collection of cartoons I created using the website.

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WHINE & DINE

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FREEK

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SLEEP WEEP

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OUTDOOR

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Save IPL, Mr. Obama!

To

Mr. Obama**,

White House, Amerikka.

I have drafted a proposition to the IPL Executive Committee. But most of them are either in exile or imprisoned. You see Mr. Obama, I am another one of those Indian middle class men having a nine-to-five job. (with traffic, seven-to-seven). After a hard day’s work, I return home expecting cricket or a sensational report about a scam. And for the last 3 years, Mr. Lalit Modi has provided more than just smatterings of both. But ever since he was ousted from the IPL proceedings, new innovations like advertising DLF 6s, Maxx mobile time outs & ads between deliveries have dried up. It has to be rejuvenated with radical changes. Henceforth, I’m writing this.

I hear you were nominated as the T.I.M.E person of the year, months before you were sworn in as the president. Hope is an over-rated word in USA (which explains Shawshank Redemption at the top of IMDB top 250 and your campaign success). Big appataker, I hear, you are. You were quite a sensation even in India during Presidential elections. Some among us even wanted to vote for you and staged a protest demanding the rights for the same. You seem to be coming often to India to dance in schools like this. After you are done with the dancing, put in a word through Dr. Manmohan Singh or directly:P to Sonia Gandhi to consider this letter and make the changes.

1. With the average match total gradually decreasing over the years, 6s & 4s are also suffering the same decline. And the cheerleaders get to rest their muscles for most part of the game. Mallya hates to see young talent going to waste. So, the cheerleaders will dance for every single taken and every dot ball. Boundaries and 6s will anyway be cheered by the crowd and DLF advertisers(read commentators).

2. The ‘kicha’ option can be availed if a star batsman gets out early. Who would not love to see Sachin being handed a second life(that too with Pakistanis not around!) at the expense of Satish?

3. The first ball of the match can be recklessly belted to any part of the ground, treating it as a free hit. If the batsman is dismissed, he can call it ‘trials’ with a grin. (Sehwag will like this license)

4. Sharad Pawar, Srinivasan, Chiefministers, Srikkanth, again Sharad Pawar, Chirayu, Sunil Shetty, previously Modi, that Sachin fan with a sangu.. All these guys are shown several times over the course of the game, which in the interest of the general public, should be stopped. Mallya is an exception, as Deepika/Katrina are in the same frame as him :D . The cameramen should be instructed to instead hunt down hot females in the stadium.

5. Players with a poor history and reputation of sitting sixes and trying to bat out the entire the innings without risks will have to face a harsh rule : one pitch catch! Direct catches are ruled out for them. For the other big hitters, the rules are the same. Kallis, ipo enna pannuva :P ?

6. If Deccan Chargers are playing at home (win% zero!), then the winner will automatically be the team whose captain wins the toss. Come on DC, 50-50 is better than 0-100!

7. If a player hits a DLF (previously called a SIX) , then it will be treated like a modified home run. The batsmen can keep running between the wickets until a spectator throws the ball back into the field. Home advantage it is, with the crowd actually being the 12th member of the team. Unless the visiting team occupies the midwicket part of the stadium, Dhoni will be running a fragmented marathon at leisure :D

8. L. Sivaramakrishnan and Arun Lal will be officially ousted from everything concerning cricket: Commentary box, Field, Extraaa Innings, Newspapers, Advertisements & Radios. We don’t want “Sehwag scores his first boundary and interestingly it is the first boundary for the Indians!” or “To win this match, Indians need to do well in just three departments : batting, bowling and fielding”.

9. Duckworth-Lewis method will be dropped. Instead, baseball like super over will be played under rain. Seriously, a better choice than the one those two English gentlemen came up with. You don’t trust me? Ask Southafrica.

10. Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty will not be interviewed at any cost. We don't want a "Lalit Modi is the brainchild of IPL" from Shilpa or the puzzled look on Preity Zinta's face when a batsman gives a catch to a fielder during a free hit and doesn't walk to the pavilion.

11. Reservation policy is not being followed in the IPL. All IIMs and IITs are wise enough to let in people from various societal strata and compromise on quality. Why can’t IPL follow suit? Equality is more important than quality. Bring in SC, ST, MBC, BC, AD etc. To add to the chaos, bring in women reservation bill and let everyone have a ball, literally.

Yours sincerely,

Johnakiraman Doerasamy

** - why hasn’t Amerikka given you an honorary Dr. title yet? Come to India, we’ll give you 2 :)

Indian Superhero, where art thou?

When Dhoni hit an off-side six in the WC final, we were reassured of a seamless (note the wordplay:D) Indian victory. Mitchell, Malinga, Anderson and Steyn are all terrific bowlers in every other part of the cricketing world. But not the sub-continent. The fiery pace, frightening run-up, magical swing and breakneck bounce are reduced to ordinary predictable deliveries. The fearsome bowlers just can't adapt to the conditions in India.

Another group, far distanced from cricket, which suffers the same fate as the fast bowlers is the Superheroes regiment. No matter how many lives they save comfortably in the US, the idea of superheroes in India is just not feasible and cool ( no, zoo zoos don't count:) ).. Here's why :)

Invisibility is an interesting prospect with many perverted advantages, but since we Indians crave for attention and popularity, our superhero cannot strike an invisible pose to all the shutterbugs (after all, we live in a country where Sreeshanth posed with the Worldcup trophy)! Neither will the people be interested in a newspaper article reading Invisible Man Saves our Town, with a blank space where the superhero's grinning face should’ve been. Imagine Chennai Times’ plight without pictures!

Any ordinary guy needs to be extremely careful and agile while crossing the roads as drivers in our country are rash and selectively blind to signals. To add to the misery, invisibility! One wrong step and our hero would be 'pulp' fiction.

Super strength… With a pumped up body of steel, handling delicate stuff might get difficult. True that super power attracts women but with such bestial powers, holding hands with any girl will only make her writhe in pain and a tight hug is enough to squash her from an amorous to an amorphous state!

Time Travel… Who will not love to go back in time and kill Raja Ram Mohan Roy, not for eradicating child marriage, but for illegalizing polygamy. Anyone who has read his 10th grade history book right will know about his social reforms. But digging deep, what the history books fail to tell us is the fact that Mr. Raja Ram Mohan Roy, “the greatest Indian social reformer” who abolished polygamy and child marriage, had three wives. It is like Sreeshanth asking Zaheer not to bowl loose deliveries! But with the increasing male to female ratio, he cannot be deemed as pure evil.

Mind Reading… For all the eavesdropping Toms, mind reading ability might be irresistible. For the cops, to understand the evil schemes of suspects and to understand the thought process of terrorists while interrogating. But imagine walking into T.Nagar with mind reading capability. Within seconds, our superhero's mind will be flooded with all the crabbing, complaining and cursing gibberish- from the out of bounds super hot next door woman to the hike in gasoline price!

Spidey! Jumping buildings with web slinging & sticky fingers and fighting the thugs in sewers is what this super power is all about. With open man-holes and littered roads/pavements to be taken care of, the Corporation won't like the idea of a supposed superhero leaving behind sticky spider webs all over the city. After clobbering the villain's henchmen and Arjun-movie's-terrorists, he can have trysts with his ladylove in dark alleys or in roads (street lights don't work anyway) but will the stench of the sewer and sweat that he is likely to carry not turn her off?

Outfit... Wearing figure-hugging outfits in the tropical region during summer is not a great idea unless soaking in sweat can be handled. And flashy costumes like what Superman or Flash wear will be sneered at in this country, no matter who you are. Remember, the curious case of a certain Mr.Ramarajan ? (who, I hear, has the superpower of humming 'Shenbagame' to obtain dairy products)

Also, the gadgets that superheroes possess require materials of the highest quality. To maintain their secret identities, those can be bought only at black markets like Burma Bazaar. And we all know how China products work :D

Here's a snapshot of how the Indian superhero will look like, adapted to the Indian conditions. Credits to MS Paint

The Al Gore Theory of Madurai

With a sudden spate of rustic gory movies based on characters & incidents in Madurai hitting the screens more often than the American Pie series, there are a few misconceptions about Madurai that have to be refuted.

Though kollywood tinsel town may portray us as wearing gross dubai-la-poda-vendiyatha-inga-yen-podra clothes, we were pioneers in fashion. In fact, we introduced pattapattis which were later remodeled and circulated as boxers all over the world !

Motorcades of Tata Sumos, with ruffians brandishing their aruvaals and clinging on to the vehicles, is a myth. We have progressed to snipers for avoiding a need to travel a long distance in cars for slaying people. Hence, reducing fuel consumption and global warming. We've interpreted 'All Gore' from an entirely different perspective :D

We may lack a KFC eatery, but an average person laps up more chicken than Col. Sanders himself. And I personally know a guy responsible for the unusually high consumption rate.

Contrary to what the world will love to believe in, we don't carry aruvaals on us all the time. And media reports that we use aruvaals even for sharpening pencils. That is a ridiculous allegation. Beheading people, amputating limbs, sacrificing lambs - these are the holy motives behind our aruvaal usage. Not trivial matters like pencils and coconuts. Sheesh.

The societal set up in Madurai allows its people to develop and prosper in their respective fields. Bank clerks go on to become managers. Yettaiyas (constables) go on to become inspectors. Kabbadi players go on to win the tournament despite losing the semifinal. And goondahs rightfully go on to become Lok Sabha MPs :P

No, Vijay is not from Madurai. He might be associated with Madurai in Ghilli, Sivakasi and Madurai, but the truth : he is from Coimbatore. You dare not continue suggesting he is from Madurai.

Sadly though, Captain Vijaykanth is from Madurai :( but then, he was treated appropriately like shit here before he left to Chennai and made it big :P

We have a lot of youngistans amongst us. These hippies are called minors. They don't drink from pepsi mycans which are absurdly priced and awkwardly held; they don't need the axe effect to woo girls; they are not accustomed to the tiring process of dating. Instead, they tipple kalla liquor and with malliga poo wound around their wrists for deodorization, they are almost always on a promiscuous raping spree.

Who am I kidding! Unlike a big city, all friends are just 15 mins away. With temples, rivers, theme parks, go-karting, parotta eateries and multiplexes, it is easily the most peaceful city with negligible pollution and moving traffic. Which is why, taking cue from Kollywood, I proudly announce

" Naanum Madurakaaran da" :D

One for the Road :)

The much hyped carefree, lecture-free, exams-free, guitar wielding, class la dancing and mass bunking college life, which mom promised me before 12th board exams, is drawing to a close in a week's time. So here goes a list of what I've liked and hated in the 4 years which saw my mush germinate (when u look closer) and interest in studies terminate...

Lines in italics under each point shows what i hate about the same

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0. The ECE B Spamming gumbal.

FB chat doesn't work here :(

1. High speed Wi-Fi enabled campus

Ridiculous system administrator. However crude it may sound, CHarles Dickens is not bad!

2. Zatacka

"Thanks for asking"

3.Egg Biryani, canteen

Subsequent gabbu. Polo the hero

4. Ashok Nagar

The distance from home.

5. Sachin's resurrection, post 2007

Sharath's anti-sachin comments

6. Slapping people during night mode, Mafia game

Playing the Sappa Civilian role. Esp when handed a chit which bluntly reads 'Sappa'

7. Karthik, Shankar Mahadevan concerts

Hariharan's. The paciest song he could come up with was "Aathorathile Aala Maram" from Kaasi

8. Chaai Gang

Sumanth's "1 more km to go" bluff.

9. 1st year canteen drama orchestrated by Sharath & Viney.

"Changing my number" snub.

10. GRE

Concepts and M.S

11. Pah!

Hearing it the 114th time on the same day!

12. Sowcarpet :D

The 2 hour detour to Moore market with Motta.

13. Thomsam. FIFA. Sakthi

When at the receiving end :|

14. PEH

Only during weekends :(

15. Rani - Superstar Jalra

Nanbaaaaaa's standard 'thoooooooooo' comments for the jalra

16. Shweta's home-made cakes

Guinea pigged me for the first attempt.

17. Ford Fiesta

21 H.

18. Suraj's Maid water bottle

Drumming in sync with Suraj during interval breaks.

18. SMS commentary during IPL and every Sachin's innings.

Sowmya, the traitor, supported CSK in 2010 IPL final though she pledged her loyalty to Mumbai Indians.

19. Semester practicals

Plotting graphs and writing records.

20. Yamanuri's own language!

Sumanth's top score in FB word builder game & having to play truck rush over and over again to be on top.

21. Star Wars - Lord of the Rings fight

PK's funny attempt to bring Harry Potter into the fray. :P

22. Brainy project mates -> only editing work assigned to me

Playing Battle Painters alone when every soul around me is busy with project work.

23. Sai's first year mimicry comedy-keemady

Iron Shakthi joke :'(

24. Sleepovers at Sharath's place

Amma thaaye ( still in denial ! )

25. Besi beach for treats and retreats

Not having gone to Mahabs even once!

26. Editorial board

Coaxing people to contribute

27. Late to class, day after day. Year after year.

%attendance over the years : 85, 80, 75 and currently a little around dravid's Test strike rate

28. Egg puffs & Lassi @ stores

Chaat @ canteen

29. Lawn ;)

Professors passing by

30. Tickling PK and watching him go berserk

When done back to me

31. PS3 @ Blur

Lightened wallet

32. Abusing the Australian cricket team during Ashes

Viney's loyal support towards the Australian cricket team

33. Chicken at KFC, Wangs & Tasty Jones

Sandy's and Domino's

34. CAT

IIM - K

35. First ODI in a stadium. INDvNZ 2011

It ended faster than a 20-20 game!

36. Endhiran first day first show at the expense of first review

Car parking charge at EA

37. Saarang

Hindi video that I had to report on

38. Maiden short film. Three robbers and a funeral

The twist goes unnoticed

39. Nithin's snooker show

No more foosball at Grounded:(

40. B'day surpises

Good cakes wasted by smearing

41. Waking up at 8

Missed eventful bus journeys

42. Sakthi's room

Ranga's entry !!!

43. Singapore IEEE 'conference'

Water sports fiasco

44. EDC 50 biz associates (Suraj, Shwe & Viney)

Lost tupperware and Apple earphones. Net profit= -800!

45. Mayajaal

Stinky seats and overpriced Pepsi

46. Fooling Pavithra while playing cards

Having her in my team and she turns me in!

47. Right from first year, had Nanbaaa's company for lunch @ canteen.

Watching canteen food quality decline over the years :|

48. Everyone knows WHO

EVERYONE knows who

49. Sole school mate in college. Krishna.

Can't go around claiming I was the SPL, rowdy, casanova in school

50. Varuvaayngala?

Varela?

All good things come to an end.