Almost all tamilians out there would have seen this wonderful movie “Jillendru Oru Kaadhal“

The story starts so well with Surya and Jyothika as wonderful family with their 6 yr old daughter Aishu.

The movie takes a dramatic turn when Jyothika learns about the past marriage which Surya had and how it broke. The story also narrates the nature of Surya when he was in college.

Being at-least 15% Surya during my college, I have personally lived a wonderful life during college no doubt. However, my wife has her own doubts about my college life…

When the movie “Jillendru Oru Kaadhal” was released in Dubai we watched in Galleria 2. The very day my wife confirmed (seeing me react during the movie and after the movie) that I would have had some kind of a similar incident in college.

In the movie, the whole plot changes when Jyothika finds the insect box (for Aishu’s school project).

From then, every time we visit India, my wife doesn’t miss a chance to fiddle around all my college stuff searching for an insect box. I have all my college stuff including my notes packed in some 8 huge card board boxes (a box can hold a 29 inch regular TV). I think she has searched some 2 over the past 3 years.

Well, I just have 3 things to say…

1. The name Aishu of Surya’s daugther in the movie refers to Surya’s ex-love Bhumika. However, my daughter’s name was my wife’s choice.

2. The insect box was found in the movie when Surya & Jyothika’s daughter was 6 years old. Our daughter is just 4 months old.

3. Jillendru Oru Kaadhal is the movie name. Oru Kaadhal means one(ly) love. Jillu actually refers to Jyothika’s pet name in the movie. Yes… Surya calls Jyothika in the movie “Jillu”. Hence Jillnu Oru Kaadhal!

Well… its you guys turn now… is there an insect box in your house?

I went on a 5 day trip to Chennai. Since the trip was adhoc, I did not have any booking done for the travel.

So, I decided to do the college way. When I was in college, if I decided to go home, I would go to the bus-stand and take a bus to the next nearest town. I used to travel from Ramanathapuram Trichy (my home until 2003, until we decided to move back to Chennai). From Ramathapuram, I would go to Paramakudi, then to Sivagangai, then to Thirupathur, then to Pudhukotai and then finally Trichy.

Likewise, I took a flight from Dubai to Bahrain. Bahrain to Mumbai. So, I got out of the International Terminal, went straight to Joe’s house and freshed myself up. Then Joe dropped me off at the domestic terminal. Now, Mumbai airport is prettly confusingly designed. There were 3 domestic terminals. Each terminal had 3 or 4 airlines. I went to the first terminal and asked Kingfisher airlines.

“Do you have a ticket to Chennai?”. “Sorry Sir, No.” came the reply.

Now, Terminal 1 had Kingfisher Airlines, Spice Jet Airline & JetLite Air. Terminal 2 had Indian Airlines, Jet Air & Sahara Air. Terminal 3 had Air Deccan, Indigo Air, GoIn Air (!!).

Each Terminal were like 200m apart. I literally had to walk each counter and each terminal until I made it to Terminal 3 to Indigo Air when they said, that they had a flight at 1 PM and would reach Chennai by 4 PM and it was via Bangalore. I took it, since all the other airlines flew Chennai only after 7 PM. I wonder why they can’t have a counter like Railways. “Any Train, Any Class”.

When I landed in Bangalore at around 3 PM, I had to change flight. I got out of the plane exploring the “ALL NEW AIRPORT - BIAL”. I had some intermediate work in Bangalore at my development office. I was planning to go there some time after my work in Chennai was complete. Now that I was in Bangalore, I thought I might as well cancel the trip to Chennai and get into Bangalore and finish the work and go home.

I went to the Indigo Air counter and asked the lady how much the refund would be if I cancelled the trip to Chennai. It was 900 Rs.

However, I did not want to take a chance with the new airport. So, with out canceling the ticket, I went out of the airport and called a taxi.

I asked taxi driver “Koramangala, how much?”

Taxi driver “Please take pre-paid voucher”.

I went to the pre-paid “Koramangala.”

Counter Clerk “from here it is 1000 Rs (accent car). And sir, you have to wait. Traffic inside the city. The cars are yet to come. It might take an hour for us to get you a taxi.”

“What….?”

I told the counter clerk “from here, Chennai is 900 Rs. and takes 40 minutes.”

I took the flight to Chennai. Whatelse!

With the pressure mounting on the Congress led UPA on the CIVIL Nuclear deal, from a lay man point of view why should India become a Nuclear Civil State.

Lets take the primary sources of power generation in the country

- Power generation by Coal (57%)
- Power generation by Hydro (27%)
- Power generation by Wind (5%)
- Power generation by Thermal (5%)
- Power generation by Gas (1%)
- Power generation by Nuclear (5%)

The today’s installed capacity of power generation in India is around 83288 MW. Out of which the Nuclear capacity is 4100 MW (not even 10%).

As you see coal is the major source of power generation in India. Now, apart from this, our government policy is that “All Villages are to be electrified before 2010).

As of 1991, we had around 5 million villages which needed to be electrified. As on date, we have completed around 1 million only.

Census say that our power consumption would triple by 2015 and where is the country’s capacity to generate power and complete the balance electrification of the villages.

The only solution available is to buy a technology which is proven for power generation and that is Nuclear. I am not sure if the deal would become another Enron, but I am sure that the leaders at this point in time are more worried about meeting the demand than pocketting few Rupees.