Several Things

Last night we saw a ghastly but watchable movie (i.e., with no violence, and stupid enough to make fun of) on TV – Jab Pyar Kisi Se Hota Hai. Salman Khan is a notorious playboy. He falls for Twinkle Capadia, who can’t act at all.

He goes to Ooty. There he sees Twinkle as she is entering an expensive shoe store, with an elaborate, modern frosted glass door. I had to wonder, remembering Ooty’s tiny commercial area: okay, most people who see this film may not have been to Ooty, but what hill station will have such expensive and glitzy shops? Don’t they care at all? (Well, of course not – silly me. Everything about the movie was cobbled together, anyway. Why not the locations as well? And why get annoyed about that, when there were so many other annoyances to choose from?)


Via Teakada:
Strange ritual designed to 'please the gods'

A thousand devotees cracked open coconuts on their heads on Tuesday as part of an unusual southern Indian festival called Aadi Perukku.

The ritual, which is more than 30 years old, is meant to please the goddess of wealth. The devotees - men, women and children - travelled from all over southern India to the Mahalakshmi temple in Karur, Tamil Nadu state, the UNI news agency reported.

Not all of the participants were brave. Only those willing to have the priest smash a coconut on their heads were allowed into the central area of the temple.

Police said a few devotees were injured and bleeding from the head.


Today's The Hindu has an article, Tamil heritage on cyber space about the website Tamil Heritage Foundation. If you page down to the archive section, you will find section on the evolution of the Tamil script, a gallery of ancient artefacts, video clips on aspects of Tamil culture, and so on. It appears to be in the beginning stages, but it has a lot of interesting material.

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