Ratha Charithram

Ratha Charitharam or Rakta Charitra... My first movie in bangalore...
I wanted to make a messy sketch (inspired by some other blog i read recently) of this messy movie to save the future potential film-goers..

Hope the picture speaks 1000 words (Apart from the one i typed)..

                RATHA CHARITHRAM TIMELINE

Add a noisy background score and a uncomfortably chill AC... The best movie watching experience ever... 

You can still watch it in theatre if you are the 'its-half-full-not-half-empty' kinda person...

You are in bangalore if.....

You are in bangalore if……

-

 -         You see 1000s of guys with a backpack and an ID card wherever you go

-         You see lakhs of girls with their hair let loose and a sporting strange attitude.

-         Guys carry the backpacks even on weekends; when they are not carrying their laptops to work.

-         People wear ill-fitting clothes and are in constant denial of the fact that they are gaining kilograms.

-         Every Reddy, Kumar and Patil works for a software company.

-         The supposedly ‘expensive’ Volvo buses are crowded but the ‘normal’ buses are empty.

-         The auto drivers earn more than anybody else in the city.

-         The house-owners give stiff competition to the auto-drivers in becoming the richest traders in the city.

-         You have to sign a six page document to rent out a house but sign a two page document to buy one.

-         The rules of notice periods are stringent if you want to leave the house, but relaxed if you want to leave your company.

-         Every bus and billboard will be written in Kannada even if 75% of the people here don’t know the language.

-         You will be always spoken to in Kannada, if you reply back in the broken Kannada that you know, you will get your next reply in your mother tongue. (Bangalore locals have a strange talent of identifying your mother tongue by the way you speak kannada)

-         You are allowed to bargain for 30% of the quoted price and still not let the conscience prick you.

-         Everything seems costly and everyone seem to be cheating you in some way.

-         Sentences like ‘Its very close… about 10kms… it will take just 45 mins for you to reach there’ do not have any hint of sarcasm.

-         You need to plan your travel to the railway station more than you plan your travel to your destination.

-         Talks about .Net, JAVA, hikes and openings are so prevalent that it makes you go sick of being a software engineer.

-         All the places are either _____Halli or ______Palaya or some fancy English name given by the British (Brigade, Richmond etc).

-         Cost of parking and the cost of a movie ticket are more or less the same.

-         It makes you wonder if people just go to the malls to eat why do they have the food court on the top floor.

-         You get McD burgers, KFC chicken, Dominos Pizzas everywhere but do not get a decent dosa anywhere. All the dosas available here are the awful sugary cousins of the real ones back in tamilnadu.

-         You get the combo dishes and wonder what is combined with what?

-         The SUVs rarely have party flags on its bonnet and also rarely carry more than one person.

-         There will be a huge line of traffic caused by a person who is struggling to make a U-turn coz he bought a car before he could learn to drive as his company pays him crazy.

[Written just for fun.. Bangalore has a lot of positives.. great weather.. nice restaurants.. and lot more... ;-)]

JUDO is back

Drew a comic strip after a long time.. Excuse for the quality of the humor..
Hoping i improve as the time goes by..

my other sketches

http://messy-sketchy.blogspot.com/2010/08/judo-life-my-first-comic-strip.html

Shooting BLANKS

Back to blog-o-world after a long time, guess I ve crossed the blogger’s lull.

This post is for guys to read(not strictly..), We guys just love to text or msg or SMS right, its fun, its easy, we get that precious time to think before replying which we don’t get in an actual conversation. Im talking about real msging (read long SMS based conversation to a person of the opposite sex), not the SMS that we send that reads “Good Morning. Have a nice day J” or “I reached.. where the hell are you dude..”.

While texting had its own shares of advantages (which im planning to cover in another post), I wanted to cover the important aspect of this not-so-well-mastered art or msging. It is called blanks. Blanks are not messages that guys send to gals when they want to start a conversation, ‘damn these touch fones, I must ve sent that by mstke,..,. so wat u dng??’. Blanks are the deadly messages with minimal characters sent by gals to guys; which forces them into submission, and makes them do the unthinkable, ‘to end the conversation’.

Blanks are just one word replies which the guys try very very hard to understand. The one word is usuall followed by a series of dots, the more the number of dots, the more powerful the blank, coz it shows the degree of frustration they had. Here I list the top 5 deadliest blanks used in the history of messaging.

5. Ya..

This may sound like the nod of approval but it is not even close. It actually says ‘Ya u r a jerk y don u stop botherin me..’ If it actually an approval of something it should be followed by a lengthy acceptance like ‘Ya.. Rohit is totally into Pooja’, if its just Ya.. its nothing but a lengthy “YAaa……wwwn” to your msgs.

4. K..

This is another blank in the guise of a positive acknowledgement (short for for okay) but it became so common that it is rarely misunderstood. It jus expands to ‘K…ill me for msgn you’ or the other person jus feels like ‘K….ickin ur b***’

3. Oh..

This blank makes us feel like the other person is sympathetic or even empathetic, but that’s not the case friends, it means they are not listening, they din even read your previous message. There is a good chance that they sent that message before they received yours.

2. Then..

The ‘Then…’ is like a slow poison, it forces us to come up with new topics to discuss which we will eventually run out of and later forces us into submission. It never works for the first time as we will be full of energy and we dodge it, but a barrage of such blanks will be too much for any master.

The coveted first place goes to…..

…….

…

..

.

.

1. Hmmm..

What the hell?? This is not even a word, this is just a sound. This is the deadliest of all blanks. No they are not singing, they are jus giving out a sigh, not a sigh of relief (that will come after we end the conversation), it’s a sigh of disgust, the one we give to annoying beggars. It’s the knock-out of all blanks. The only reply a guy could give here is ‘Oh.. guess u r bsy.. cya l8r’.

Then there are those ‘combi-blanks’ which are even more dangerous:

Hmmm… Ya…

K.. Then..

Oh.,.. Ya..

Hmmm.. K..

Oh.. K..

So guys,, suit up its time to dodge those blanks.

Movies.. Murder.. Madurai..

For the past three years I ve been living in a wonderful city called 'Madurai'. It is the city where almost all Tamil 'mass' movies are based. A city which has inspired a new genre of movies, 'the 3M' (Murder, Mayhem, Madurai) movies.

Now, there are so many 3M movies coming up that the creators are running out of movie titles. So they ve started naming their movies based on well known places in Madurai Subramaniyapuram, Goripalayam are examples. Madurai is full of such localities that would inspire any film-maker to name their movies after. Here are some possible titles for future 3M movies. 

Simmakkal:

This area is situated in the heart of the city, famous for hard-core non vegetarian hotels like Konar Kadai etc., So the movie based on this area should have the hero working or hanging out in Konar kadai. He may fall in love with the owner’s (read local goon with big mustache) daughter and kill a lot of people before winning her love.

Andalpuram: (I live here… J J)

This area is situated close to Subramaniyapuram. The name of this area has a religious ring to it so the movie should be religion based. The classic God vs Evil story. A young girl, who is highly devoted to Goddess Andal should be tortured by her stepmom/mother in law. With the help of the Goddess herself, the girl should defeat all her detractors.

JaiHindpuram:

Im not kidding, there is really an area in Madurai called ‘Jai Hind’puram. Obviously, the movie based on this area should be a patriotic one. Ideally vijayakanth should be cast. The movie should have dialogues like ‘Dei.. na jaihindpurathu aalu da.. desa bakthi na poranthula irunthey enakulla oori pochu da’

Alagappan Nagar/Vasantha Nagar:

This is a highly residential area, so the movie based on this should be a family subject. As with all Madurai movies, violence may follow suit, but it should start as a family movie. An entire family, who once lived happily, is killed by a bad guy. A young boy survives who later grows up and kills the bad guy.

Mattuthavani:

This is the major Madurai bus-stand. So, the story should be based on the power-struggle between two Madurai goons and an innocent bus-driver who gets caught. He soon loses his innocence and kills the two others. There will be a police officer who does not arrest him because the guy he killed were ‘poisons to the society’.

PonMeni:

This area is a very small area in Madurai. It literally means ‘skin of gold’, so the movie based on this should be a skin flick or as local would call it, a ‘gilugilupaana padam’.

Other areas in Madurai which has huge potentials to be movie titles:

Tallakulam

Arapalayam

Therkuvasal

‘Harvey’patti

Palanganatham

Pasumalai

By the looks of it, I think there are lots of 3M movies coming our way.

Writing exams... :( :(

EXAMS.....
Everybody has seen it and i'm sure everybody hates it.. but it  is the only thing common to all students… It has no partiality among the students. Irrespective of race, creed, caste, sex, color etc., etc., exams treat you the same, but the exam is not treated the same by all students; each has his style of taking exams which fall into some broad categories.

The Perfect

            This guy is so perfect in taking the exams that the word perfect itself seems flawed. He carries loads of pens in all colors, rulers of different sizes, pencil, ink blotter and all that stuff. He plans his exams well in advance [30 min for short answers, 1 hr for brief answers and 1.5 hrs for detailed answers] and tries to stick by it. He stops studying 1 hr before the exams and is usually the first person to enter into the hall. The bad thing is, he doesn’t have a plan B and mostly end up not finishing their exams coz they spent too much time planning and too few time actually writing the exam.

The Mess

            For this guy, writing an exam is like wrestling with a pig; he becomes a total mess by the end of it. His hair becomes a mess, his shirt becomes untidy, even his shoe laces untie themselves. He burns the same amount of calories Lance Armstrong burned during his last Tour de France. It is still a mystery how this guy makes a ball pen to leak ink all over his hands and even the answer paper. He has to be dragged into the exam hall as he will be studying till the last minute. This guy may finish the exam but will have to do lot of cleaning up later.

The Cool

            For this guy exam day is just another day, he is so cool about it. The reason for all the coolness is either has everything or nothing prepared. He just brings one pen to the exam hall and does not bring his books. He competes with ‘the perfect’ guy on ‘who-enters-the-exam-hall-first’ game but wins the ‘who-finishes-the-exam-first’ game hands down. He hardly breaks a sweat during the exams, if one can listen closely, he could hear him whistling during the exam.

The Closed

            This guy has only 3 things in his mind during the exams, the pen, the paper, the subject. He doesn’t even let the hall superintend to sign his papers. It is very very tough to borrow a pen or a pencil from him. He will seem much tensed during the exams and one could see his talking to himself. He motivates himself a lot. It is common to see this guy pumping his fist and saying “YES!!!” if the question paper has a question that he knows well, at the same time will go to the extent of crying if the question paper is tough.

The Devout

      This guy shifts all the burden of exam writing to God. One could confuse this guy with Nityananda on the exam day. The temples run out of vibuthi, santhanam and kungumam when he writes the exam. The first thing he does after receiving the question paper is look up the sky and pray. Some pray with their eyes closed. The time he spends on praying in the exam hall will be inversely proportional to the time he spent studying the previous day. He might even bring some pictures of his lucky God to the exam hall, but it is always a rarity to see him pray after the exam.

       I know into which category i fall.. I'm not gonna disclose... ;) :)

JUDO life - My first comic strip

Hi Everyone... After years of doodling, i ve decided to go to next level - Cartoon strips. Take a look. :):)

For full size pictures.. visit my album http://picasaweb.google.co.in/ashwingr8/JudoLife#

My Name is Karthik (MNIK)

Hello everybody, my name is Karthik. I am the preferred character to portray the romantic protagonist in most Tamil movies. The slow paced mushy movies preferably directed by Mani Ratnam, Gautam Menon etc.

I was played by a variety of actors; the most notable of them are Mohan, Karthik, Madhavan and Surya. In all movies I am 23 to 27 years old but may be portrayed by an older actor. I don’t work as mostly I have a rich dad. Even if my dad is poor I don’t go for work. I usually spend time smoking, ogling, boozing with friends. My dad hates me and always says that he couldn’t believe how he could have a son like me. 

I have a brother who is just like my dad, successful and boring. My mom loves me a lot and gives me all my pocket-money. I may have a young sister sometimes, who is very supportive. My brother's wife is like a mother to me. All my nephew/nieces love me a lot.

I am very cute and definitely not manly. I represent the metro sexual. I don’t like to have a mustache but I don’t shave clean either. With great effort I maintain the 4-days-since-shaved look.  I always wear contemporary clothing. I own a bike, which  I treat like a friend. It helps me a lot in love. All the girls would just fall for me, but I will fall for only one girl even if she is uglier than many of her friends.

I have a few close friends (Charlie, Vivek, Santhanam) who help me out in all troubles. They are more scared of m dad than I am. In spite of that, they help me out in my love endeavors. I fall in love at first sight mostly with a girl whose family status is not up to my father’s expectations. Almost every time, the girl initially hates me then falls for me head over heels in spite of the fact that i'm jobless.


The biggest challenge in my life is to convince the parents and marry the girl i love. This is more challenging than getting a job and settling down, but somehow the parents get convinced if I get a job. 

I dance to only romantic numbers in foreign locations. The dabbanguthu, ghana never suits me. I rarely fight with bad guys, may be once or twice in the movie, mostly to either impress or protect the girl i love. The girl gets impressed even if i lose the fight, provided my mouth bleeds and she has a duppata to wipe it off.

Whatever i do i win in love and get a job and hug the heroine in the climax.

What if Superman was a software engineer??????

I don know why I can’t stop writing about superman. I was thinking ( I dunno why…)  how super man would look like if he was working in a software company. Later, I even started thinking about what advantages he gets being a superman. Lot of things, silly and good came up to my mind immediately. I was pretty much sure that he would suffer the same fate all of us suffers.. No one can escape the things software does to us.. Here are some..

Looks:

• Superman will lose all his sleek looks and will develop a paunch.
• He will have no time to shave or sometimes even to take a shower.
• He will develop dark circles after countless sleepless nights he spent time on….. not fighting crime but fixing bugs.
• He will look like he badly needs a workout.
• He will have a sleepy look in his eyes
• He may even have signs of premature balding.

Costume:

• He wears a shirt coz he gotta obey his organization’s dress code.
• He always wears his ID-Card coz it is more powerful than all his super-powers.;-)
• He carries a laptop to attend support calls when he is out saving the world.
• His costume is now highly elastic to accommodate his daily developing belly.

Others:

• He can avoid all the early morning traffic as he can just fly to office.
• His salary structure does not have any conveyance allowance as his mode of transport does not need any allowance.
• His performance report will say, ‘Too much time spent on saving the world and not commitment to organizational goals’.
• He cannot go up the organizational ladder as he always stands by the truth.
• Once he comes into the office, he removes his cape and hangs it on his chair.. (I’ve seen lot of people do this.. jacket instead of cape)
• All the female employees and some male employees fear his x-ray vision. :-P
• He can’t give his office crush a ride home coz he doesn’t own a ride.

Guess i pretty much covered everything.. The sketch was done in a hurry so did some post-processing to make it look better(???!!), hope i din go overboard. 

Thanks for sitting through another of my posts. 

---

I love the game which involves 22 people and a (smaller) ball.

   The FFIA world cup is underway. The teams are ready for the title clash. Euro champions Spain against a very impressive Dutch. This promises to be one of the most memorable finals, but what am I doing??? I’m following a little known T20 series against Pakistan and Australia in which Australia got royally humiliated 2-0. [No… It’s not 2 goals against none.. Pakistan won 2 matches and Aussies none.]. This is how much I love the stupid cricket game.

   I’m proud to be a cricket fan, an Indian and a cricket fan. Many people may deny but the truth is, ‘Cricket is in our blood’. It is game each and every one of us can connect with. Im sure cricket would be the first game anyone would ve stated following. No one would ve even remotely heard about ‘La Liga’, when they started cheering for every run Sachin scored. ‘World cup’ always means the ‘ICC world cup’ to us. Though the tag ‘premier league’ belongs to football, for most of us the first ‘league’ that comes into our mind is the 3 year old Indian Premier League (IPL).

   The reason for all this is, this is the only sport our countrymen play with consistent respectability. I don’t mean they play well but only with consistent respectability. It is always intuitive to support ‘Dhoni’s and ‘Sehwag’s rather than the irrelevant ‘Messi’s and ‘Rooney’s. It makes more sense to support RCB or CSK rather the alien MU or Chelsea.

  

   The sport itself is no shy of entertainment and excitement, the T20 just made it better. I enjoy every aspect of it. The way Dravid leans into his late-cut, the authority Pieterson shows during his ‘switch-hit’, the way Akthar made the whole stadium look at the bowler rather the batsman are few of the game’s x-factor. Add Sachin’s genius, Kallis’s all-round ability, Dhoni’s tactical nous, you get a game which serves the masala-film loving Indian public very well.

   Still there are few people who live in denial. They say cricket sucks as it is slow and boring. They are just people who don’t see the amount of work put into the game. Just watch the 2007 T20 World cup final between India and Pakistan, you will understand. 

 Be a cricket fan, and be proud of it. If you like foot ball better, no problem just don's say cricket is a boring game.

**.ID-Card Power.**

   There are different types of ID-Cards; there is the amazingly useless Voter’s ID card, the driver’s license, the ID card few of us had in school and college and the most amazing of them all, the corporate ID-Card – The one given to us by our employers.

   Till the end of college, none of us liked the ID card, people forced us to wear it. The HOD and teachers used to drive us crazy if we fail to wear it. It was like dog-collar for all of us; but things radically changed after we finished college and entered the corporate jungle.

   The dog-collar soon became a privilege, now we have to be forced to remove it. People wear it with pride and happiness wherever they go. In a city like Chennai or Bangalore, it is very common to see people wearing their shiny ID card with colorful tags in shopping malls, restaurants, multiplexes, road-side eateries, buses, autos and even in public rest rooms. They associate such a degree of pride to it that they are very reluctant to part with it even for a single moment. They wear it while traveling, shopping, eating, drinking and god knows when else.

   It is not entirely their mistake, people wearing ID-Cards or so called professionals are always treated in a ‘special’ manner. The ‘special’ here includes high auto fares, impeccably high prices in grocery shops and zero chance for bargaining. They don’t mind these as these things come with ‘real’ privileges like being addressed as ‘sir’ by everyone, no more ‘what-is-he-doing-here’ look in theatres or malls. They even get away from TTR if they travel without a ticket. Coz, 'people wearing ID-Cards never do a mistake on purpose'.

   Everybody who is wearing the ID-Card does not enjoy the privilege. This is only limited to people living in big cities and people working in big companies(not necessarily IT). The Id-Card alone does not have any power, it must be combined with an attitude to make it work. The ID-Card + attitude + branded clothing gives anyone the privilege of being fooled by auto people while falsely being treated with great respect.

   Enjoy ID-Card Power, to read about a privilege i enjoyed recently, read my previous blog - Test-Drove the chevy to the levy.

Test-Drove the chevy to the levy

Driving has never been my passion, i never lived to drive, driving never set my nerves on fire. All these coz of a simple reason; "I do not know how to drive a car"'

A brief intro about my driving experience so far...

1) Drove my uncle's maruti 800 once and almost killed a cow

2) Failed in my LLR test ( LLR not Driving License, i was one of the elite few to have failed that)

3) Started learning the ABC, rather C-B-A of driving in a stupid driving school vechicle

4) Drove my friend's alto and almost hit a wall, My friend(Sai) saved the day by pulling the hand brake on time.

Now, I would like to share my fifth experience of driving....

The day was pretty normal, it was hot outside.. There was one difference, a shiny new blue Chevrolet Beat was parked outside our office. A friendly looking marketing executive was outside offering pamphlets. One thing i like about these marketing executives is, they are always smiling&friendly. He was trying to sell the car or at least make some people drive it.

My colleague showed interest and started talking to him. With the heavy automotive experience(reading autocar, t-bhp) i had, i threw in words like 'ABS','60:40 split seats','1.2 litre 4 cylinder etc., The executive seemed impressed. That impression along with the default impression we software engineers give (ID-Card Power) prompted him to offer me a test-drive.

Poor guy, He did not know my history. I could not refuse, I talked way too much to escape with an excuse. I had just one option - 'Drive the damn car'. I took the key, hopped in and did the thing that I do best when it comes to driving - turned the ignition on. I remembered the exact words of our driving school instructor , "C->B->A , Clutch->Brake->Accelerator, Clutch a nalla midhichu first gear podu". I did it. Now, "Clutch la irunthu meduva kaala edu", I did this too. But the car did not go forward....

The executive came in, "Sir.. Hand Brake". The jeep in the driving school just moved forward when i take my foot off the clutch, the CBA of driving did not have an 'H'. The smiling executive released the hand brake and i repeated the entire procedure. This time, magically the car moved forward. A small step for drivers, but a giant leap for me..

The car started moving, I pressed the clutch down again, instinctively i started searching for the little picture on the dash that explains the gear layout. Oops, this is a normal car and normal cars do not have that picture. I relied on my instinct and slot in the next gear. PERFECT, the car was still on and running. Now i faced the biggest challenge... I had to make a right turn..

I choose the easiest way out. I slammed the brakes, the car stopped before i realized that i did not follow my instructors improtant advice, "Clutch a than speed a amukanum, Brake a meduva than pidikanum". Too late for realizations. The smiling guy was not smiling anymore. His next words confirmed that his realization did not take time like mine.

"Sir.. I will drive back..."

Anyway, it was a big step for me, I did not run over a dog, hit a wall or kill an old lady. Guess i am on the right path to become a great driver. :) :) :) :)

My messy cartoon character

Developing a cartoon character was one of my many- many unachieved dreams. But I never had the right amount of talent/creativity to do it. Above all I lacked the inspiration to create one. Throughout my school life, all I drew was the muscle man; but there was nothing new about him. He wouldn’t qualify as a cartoon character; there was nothing funny about him. College came and went with no source of inspiration whatsoever.

Corporate life is a great source of inspiration. We get to see lot of things that could be easily made into a cartoon. For the people who find everything funny, office is the best place to be. Finally I got an inspiration to develop my own cartoon character. Thanks to Dilbert et all.

I would like to introduce Mr. Nothinleft. He is a guy who dedicated his life for programming. He started out to be a normal guy in a software company. His dedication to his job threw him overboard. He cares about nothing else. The only relationship he has is with his computer. All he wants to do is achieve in his work. What would he do after achieving them?? Even he doesn’t know the answer. His dedication to work was so huge that, he surgically removed all his body part that he considered to be redundant. His body now just has the parts that are needed for software programming – Eyes, Hands and brain (he removed the part of the brain that is needed for socializing).

After losing all that is necessary, now he regrets. He craves for a normal life. He wants a life other than work. So, if I draw any more storyboards based on him; it would be based on his misadventures when he tries to get his life back.

Ya He is Dilbert meets Robocop. Mail me if you have a better name for him, or have any funny incident you could imagine with him in it. 

Will try to develop some storyboards with him soon... 

SuperHero cliché

 I have always loved superheroes ever since I saw the first one of them. The supermen, spidermen, batmen and the ballmen never ceased to amaze me. Everything about them was cool. Their super-powers, their one-liners, their gadgets made me wonder why they should be confined to comic books, TV and movies.

Guess all these years of being a super-hero fan has taken its toll. I have found lot of glaring similarities across all heroes. All super heroes are nothing but the result of some formula by substituting different values in its variables. 

1)      Every super hero is good looking (only in their masked form). They are the object of masculinity with square jaws, well toned bodies, cool hairstyle etc. The females instantly fall for the super-hero, even though they reject the same person in real life. The female heroes (wonder woman etc.,) are always very curvy and beautiful. They always have pretty eyes and long hair. 

2)      In their unmasked form the super hero is always a nerd/loser. He sucks at everything else in life except being a super-hero. Few of them don’t conceal their identities (Fantastic4, Iron Man etc), even then they are only good at saving the world and nothing else. 

3)      Most of them fly or have some work-around to enable them to fly. Superman, Wonder-woman, Captain America all can fly. Batman cannot fly but has all those gadgets that make him fly. Flash is so fast that he can walk on air, which is close to flying. Fantastic Four has their super cool airplane. 

4)      The lead female is always caught in a love triangle between the superhero and his real life identity. Peter Parker-Mary Jane-Spiderman is the best example. 

5)      The bad guy assumes the state of ‘arch-enemy-in-chief’ only if has the knowledge of the super hero’s one and only weakness, like Kryptonite.  

Let us come to their costumes. My messy-sketch above would have explained half of it. Is it their uniform?? The costumes seem to follow some universal rule.

Mask – All heroes who want to conceal their identity wear a mask. Some are able to conceal even without it (SuperMan).

Symbol – All heroes need to have a symbol. You can find the symbol predominantly on his upper torso. Other places where you can find it are belt, forehead, gadgets. The symbol is the hero’s signature.  

Utility Belt & gloves – Heroes with amazing natural powers like superman have no use for this thing, but heroes with limited powers like batmen heavily rely on the gadgets placed around their utility belts & gloves.

Cape – This is the main thing that makes the super-heroes so appealing. It is chiefly worn by heroes who have the ability to fly (Batman is a glorious exception). It is still not clear whether the cape enable them to fly or they wear it just to look cool while flying. Some capes are also used as shields to protect from laser beams etc.

Boots – they run a lot and have some pretty tough landing a long flight. The huge boots they wear protect them from everything.

Underwear – This is the funniest part of a super hero. They always wear their underwear outside; this does not serve any practical purpose. The Boots, cape and the underwear are mostly of the same color.

Body – The superhero costume is always made in such a way that it reveals their toned body well. No superhero wears loose clothes; they wear tights/spandex and flaunt their bodies. 

      So people, don't be fooled by them, superheores are nothing but a huge cliché.

The Bus, Us and thousand others...

   

I always loved travelling.. All kinda travelling.. But after what happened to me recently, i might have to change my opinion about travelling. I was trying to get to madurai (I ve never had a good opinion about madurai.. that doesnt help things either). Hera is a messy sketch that will give u an idea of what happened....

    The journey from my home to Singanallur(bus-terminal) was very comfortable. The low floor air buses (தாழ்தள சொகுசு பேருந்து ) with running LED displays makes ur travel very easy within the city. right after i got down at singanallur the adventure started. 
   
   Where are the empty buses that ply to madurai..??
   Where are the empty seats that makes me feel pity on my friends in other(bigger) cities..??
   
  I did not find any of the things that might make me feel remotely happy. All I found was heads, legs, arms and luggages of thousands of people. What the heck?? Suddenly why does everybody want to go to MADURAI???


  The reality slowly started to sink in and it was not nice. We were four people, me, bulb, Satheesh Viswanathan and some guy i just met. Not even the fantastic four can get a bus there, you could imagine. 


  We were waiting for a bus like tigers waiting to pounce on a prey, except for the fact that there were 1000 tigers but just one prey. In came a bus bearing the golden words "Madurai(மதுரை )" . We need to run, push off others and grab a seat. We are software engineers, our bodies are not tuned for active sports like this; but still we had no other options. The bus came inside, slowed down and took a turn..... Whow.. the bus was already full... What?? How is this possible.. Are people doing round trips from madurai to coimbatore to madurai just for the heck of it... The realization came late.. There was a crowd outside the terminus who are jumping into the bus on its way in... 


   We cant do that.. We are softies.. Those people who were doing that are Hardcore madurai guys.(paruthiveeran anyone??). The competition was stiff and we were the definite underdogs. Satheesh suggested that we need to go outside too. We did.. Adventure begins. In came the next bus, it was dark, it was cold and we were sleepy, Satheesh ran, he jumped and hurray he got into a bus.. Victory... Victory... We can go to madurai.. The happiness was very short-lived and it was followed by an irritating feeling of stupidity. That was was not going to madurai. It is going to tiruchy. I felt like dying or was i just too sleepy. The silver lining - we got some practice. The dark cloud - we missed two madurai buses in the meantime. 


  I saw two buses and I think I saw "மதுரை " on them.. What do I do??? do i let Satheesh do it again.. Or Do i try?? What if i get into the wrong bus?? What if i fall down and break my teeth?? What if i dont fall down and my tooth are safe but a guy in the bus whom i just pushed off for a seat breaks it for me?? What if i get crushed to death?? questions were plenty. bt the answer was just one... GO FOR IT.


  I saw the bus, I leaped... I jumped and my feet were magically on the steps.. Teeth..Check.. Guy who can break my teeth.. Check.. I looked around and i found a seat.. It gave me the same feeling when i rode my bicycle for the longest stretch without falling off.. I sat on the seat.. and held on to three more for my fellow tigers.. That is the toughest part.


 There were three mean looking ruffians, who would easily qualify as next vijay movie villians. One with the long hair came up to me.. 
"தம்பி..  seat யாருக்கு ,,, ???".. 
"அண்ணா ஆளு வருது"..
"என்ன டா ஆளு வருது... _________ வருது??" [fill the blank with the word that rhymes]


I knew what will happen next.. He is gonna beat me up.. i cant fight him.. Im not a mass movie star.. Soon i heard a voice that saved me.. No.. Not a hero who comes to rescue me.. It was just Mr.Long hair's friend who found another seat for them. 
"டேய் மாப்ள.. இங்க seat இருக்கு டா.."


The sense of relief was immeasurable.. I held of to the seat warding off innocent looking ladies and few kids.. Finally came my tigers.. 


All this to get a seat in one of the most uncomfortable buses in the entire TN.... 

What qualifies as a messy sketch

Hey guys....  Time for my second post...
this time i would like people to know what qualifies as a messy sketch.. The rules are not big bad-ass ones.. just simple ones.. Here we go

1.   A messy sketch will always be drawn using a black/blue ball pen (Reynolds) on a plain or ruled paper.
2.   Those 'green' guys can draw them on a white board using a marker and take a picture of it.
3.   Need not be funny/informative/anything.
4.   Need not or rather should not be neat..
5.   No colors/Colours... They make them neat..
6.   It can represent anything just for the heck of it.

Most of my sketches obey the rules above.. Rather i designed the rules in such a way that all my sketches fit in..
Happy sketching guys...

History of Messy Sketchy

Hey guys...

My umpteenth attempt at blogging..

I ve spent a very good part of my life sketching.. When i say sketching i dont mean the highly aesthetic ones.. i do messy sketches that serve no purpose..( Im trying to invent a purpose for my sketches through this blog. )

I would like to give a big credit to Mr.DAVID SHANTAKUMAR, who has been a huge inspiration for my sketches. Without him i would ve been a normal person who doesn do any sketches or a normal person whose drawings are pretty. He was my history teacher when i was in school, his lectures were so boring that, i had no other option but turn to alternate modes of keeping my self engaged. I had nothing other than a pen and a history book with pictures of great kings/leaders/warriors. What started as a simple vandalism has now become a true art form(its my blog.. i can write anything i want).

One of my first messy-sketches was that of a wrestler, i used to call him 'Muscle Man'. i drew muscle man almost daily and almost anywhere. I ve posted the messy-sketch of muscle man here.. Most of my school/college friends would easily identify this iconic figure.

My favorite messy-sketch is a caricature of a Cruiser bike. Again an iconic messy sketch. Most of my college friends would identify this. I always choose the cruiser bike over other bikes because, it represents a true art.. all right i'll cut the crap.. its jus coz its easy.

One of my best works is this.. thanks to all girls in school/college who had a nice pony-tail and was unfortunate to be seated in front of me.  You girls were a huge inspiration . I call this messy-sketch as Please turn Back. A tribute to all those unfortunate girls...

Thanks for reading through my blog.... 
More sketches coming up....