Poondu Kozhambu: Chettiar Gift to Mankind

Back in the ol’ days, the Chettiars of Tamil Nadu had a not-so-nice reputation as usurious moneylenders. The popular perception was that members of this caste were modern-day Shylocks. Maybe. Maybe not. But we’ll forgive the Chettiars any and all vices for the gift of their sui generis Chettinad cuisine to humankind. Among the many […]

Sun’s Shares Crash 23%; Dark Days Ahead

Shares of Sun Microsystems fell nearly 23% to $6.56 today on the Nasdaq after its acquisition by IBM fell through. The share price decline is said to be the biggest drop since July 2002. We’ve said this several times – Sun Microsystems has no future, the company ought to be shut down, the schmucks kicked out and […]

Watching Ben Kingsley’s Elegy

We’ve been great fans of Krishna Bhanji a.k.a. Ben Kingsley since we watched Gandhi at a drive-in theater many summers ago in the company of an army of mosquitoes (the movie went on to win eight Oscars). So, it was with no hesitation that we picked up the Elegy DVD at RedBox a short while ago […]

Jillu Jillu, Gullu Gullu….Who is Surya’s Dance Master?

We were wondering where Sori-Padam Surya picked up his dancing skills. And then we stumbled upon this below video on YouTube. Mon dieu, we were struck numb with horror upon watching the monstrosity. Sivakumar Senior (Surya’s father) is a hopeless dancer and a plain awful actor. Of all the hopeless actors in Tamil films, Sivakumar […]

Great Kamal Haasan Songs

With a film career spanning over four decades, Kamal Haasan is a Kollywood legend and ‘Ulaga Nayagan’ to millions of his fans in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Songs from even decades-old Kamal Haasan movies are still popular not merely in Tamil Nadu but with the diaspora in the U.S. and elsewhere as […]