Thevan Kathaigal

Today I was reminded of the novels by Devan. I have read four of his

1. CID Chandru (part 1 and 2)
2. Kalyani
3. Komathiyin Kathalan
4. Thuppariyum Sambhu

I found a website that has a listing of all major works of 20th Century Tamil Authors and Their Works . Back home in Vellore we have copies of Mister Vedantham, CID Chandru and Komathiyin Kathalan. Next time when I go home I should bring back Mister Vendatham.

Thevan died very young.

I wish somebody could digitize all the literary works in Tamil. May be Badri Seshadri might be able to find somebody.

Sachin Tendulkar's humble admission

One thing that I have always admired about Sachin Tendulakar, apart from his cricket, his mature handling of his career and stardom. I grew up watching him grow. The first time I heard his name was when he hit a century on his debut in Ranji Trophy. Those were the days I followed, along with my brother, every cricket match irrespective of who played, national or international.

Yesterday after scoring the 35th century, he had this to say

"Heroes will always be heroes. Mr. Gavaskar was my hero, and he will always be my hero. Message to him is thanks for all the support he has given me. He himself has set such a benchmark that only a disciplined lifestyle can help cross it."

Check the article here.

There is an old interview of Rahul Dravid in cricinfo that is moving tribute to Sachin.

There is no stopping you Sachin. Go for 50/50.

Entrance into big city by a boy living in small town

I grew up in Vellore which is a small town. The only experience of a big city used to happen whenever we visited Madras. I had this habit of checking the milestones along the way and never slept during the entire course of approximately two and half hours of journey. After putting all of us in the bus Appa used to go out to get some fruits and the driver will be making sounds "drrr drrr drrr" with his engine and I remember how restless I used to be for the bus might leave without appa. The very same thing is experienced by my nephew Ajju. The stop along Sunguvarchathiram during these journeys were the only time we ever got drink 'cool drinks' as the regular soft drink was called by us. Amma used to call it crush.

Over the past 25 years I have seen so many things changing on this road between Vellore and Madras. One thing that has not changed, atleast to me, is the sudden entry of the bus/car into the Kathipara junction from the narrow lanes of St. Thomas Mount. In spite of Madras starting before in Porur/Poonthamalee, for me the bigness of the city and its feel always happened when the vehicle entered the Kathipara junction with that famous statue of Nehru (the opening of which was MGR's last public function). With all those huge bill boards it typified the city feel for me. The SPIC building that looked so big when I was a kid, doesn't look that big anymore to me. Then probably it was one of the few tall building in Madras.

Recently when I entered San Francisco from the south side (from San Jose) I was reminded of all these things and the milestones that I used to watch so religiously. I thought I should have a picture of this signboard and hence here it is.