**.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....