இளைஞர் இலக்கியம்

By Pavendar Bharathidasan

ஊரில் தமிழன் மார்பை தட்டி
பாரில் தமிழன் நானே என்னும்
சீரை தந்த தமிழே வாழ்க !
ஓரா உலகின் ஒளியே வாழ்க !

(prolly would have studied this in school. But then, i was just studying for marks. So didnt really understand any real stuff. Can you blame me?)

This book is a classic. My Tamil teacher used to quote this book all the time. These days i am really starting to like my mother tongue. This book is another step closer to understanding the glory of our past.

தொல் உலகுக்குள் அல்லல் அருப்பதென்
தோள் தோள் தோள் !
வல்லவன் என்னை வெல்ல நினைப்பவன்
தூள் தூள் தூள் !

Pavendar's book has both the classic and also revolutionary lines like the ones above. see the below one. This is my favorite in the entire book.

தமிழ்ப் பெண்ணே தமிழ்ப் பெண்ணே
தமிழை ஏன் படித்தாய் ?
தமிழ் "படித்தேன்" அதை உண்ணத்தான்
தமிழ் படித்தேன் நான்.

If you cant understand the above verse, please don't call yourself a Tamil. To me, English is just the language of communication. It can never ever replace your mother tongue. I certainly do want to learn English. But that is just another language. It cant replace Tamil. Be proud to be a Tamilian.

oil price - 113.79$ per barrel !!

This is today's(16 th April 2008) price. Comparing the price in the past 5 decades, this is the highest price. Even during the Gulf war, the price was not this high. The bad news, as said by my colleagues in WP, is "This is just the beginning." (It actually sounds like a tag line of some scary Hollywood flick).

There is a famous saying in our industry, "For every barrel of oil found, the demand increases by two". This is 100% true. If you ask me, it is quite less. From my end, it seems like the demand increases by three.

The oil price in the international market is based on basic Supply-Demand principles. The Kyoto protocol didn't create any kind of effect in US and the number of cars continue increasing. President Bush completely ignored the protocol but the US keep on stressing India and China to "decrease obsession" towards cars. (To me, it is totally unfair. But that is a whole different issue.) The point is, the consumption of Oil is increasing rapidly. Never before in history, oil wells have been exploited this much. As the demand increases, price gotta go high. That is the rule.

But this is not the only reason. There are many reasons, like tension in Arab countries, plummeting US dollar and Stock Markets. One other main reason is, during the previous down-cycle of the industry, no one took the initiative for the next up-cycle. So the oil companies are not able to tackle the demand.

What does this mean? It means that, the problem is a lot bigger than what we know. It means, the oil price will keep on increasing for years to come and there is nothing we can do about it. We just have to live with it, until the dependence on oil is reduced considerably. Tough times ahead of us for sure. There is one good thing though, Engineers in our sector, will have high demand for the next 30 years at least. (ya, i know i am being totally selfish here)

Recession in US ('?' or '.', am not sure..lets wait until june)

Recession is a tough concept to define. But one pretty simple way to identify the recession is negative GDP growth for two consecutive quarters. Most people, even the Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke, think Recession is on the way...


Well, this is really a bad news. but i cant understand one thing, how come people in America, all the Wall Street analysts, who are supposedly smart, missed to foresee the housing bubble? So this goes to say, nothing is completely foolproof.

A little background on Subprime crisis. In US, banks lend people money based on a very complex algorithm, that calculates every citizens "credit score". It takes into account, the number of previous defaults, your credit card transactions, house you live in, the car you drive, etc,etc and finally give a "Credit Score". Above 700, then you are in the Prime Market. You wont have any problem gettin a loan. But the tricky part is when you are below 700. That is the Sub-prime market. Basically a market with many defaulters, people who dont repay the loan properly. You might think, why in the world, do the banks lend money to people who they know are not going to repay the loan. That is where the Wall Street Analysts come in.

(Of course, we dont have any such complex system in India. SEBI and Satyam computers keep track of all the defaulters. The simpler the better, dont you think? )

When you lend money to someone, who you know is not going to repay properly and when the person also knows that and he is desperate for money, the banks have a leverage. They can charge him high interests. Really HIGH interest rate. In these kind of loans, the risk is high, but the returns are also high. Basic Risk analysis principle. Well, that is clear enough, why the banks lost billions and billions of money in this crisis. But how come Investment banks lost money?

The banks and mortgage companies issued "Mortgage backed Securities", as a measure to "distribute" the risk and eventually reduce the risk in their part. So basically all the companies which had invested in these securities lost all the money. Bear Sterns is a company that specialized in such securities. That is why the company went bankrupt. The crisis is not over. We are not even half-way thru it. The worst is yet to come.

Most banks are writing down their profits, which affects the Stock Market heavily. This it not the big problem. The biggest problem is that, people loose confidence. When they loose confidence in the system, they stop spending. When people stop spending money, the retailers stop stocking the products, the manufacturers stop producing the products. Can you see the negative cycle here ? This will lead to economic depression, which usually follows a recession.

This is seriously going to affect everything. There is a famous saying, "When America sneezes, we catch a cold". I am telling you, this is so true. When America sneezed, even pudukkottai (my hometown, soon going to be erased from the map of Tamilnadu, on the grounds of "practically non-existent" principles) caught a cold.

We cannot hope to avoid the crisis. We can only hope to get past this crisis atleast by 2009.

Movies this summer !!

I am really looking forward to this summer for the release of lots of interesting movies.
My ranking for the movies, based on how interesting and promising they sound to me

1. Dark Knight - Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale. And of course the Joker, one of the scariest villains of all times.
2. Mummy 3 - Mummy 1 and 2 were one of my favorite movies back then.
3. Wall - E - Just see the three trailers in "Apple Trailers" page and you will know why this is an interesting movie.
4. Hancock - I like Will Smith acting. And the trailer seems really cool. Looks like a pretty different plot.
5. Indiana Jones - Stephen Spielberg. This magic name is the reason.

Book Review: Imperial Life in the Emerald city

"Imperial Life in the Emerald city" by Rajiv Chandrasekaran


This book is the Newyork times best seller for two consecutive years. Also selected as one of the ten best books in the year of publishing. Needless to say more. And one more interesting fact, (which I learnt only after completing the book) is, this book is going to be a movie by name "Green Zone" with Matt Damon as hero and Paul Green Grass as director. Basically Bourne Legacy team. Then imagine the impact of the book.

Perfect screenplay for a movie. This books perfectly tells you, how the Americans were singing and dancing in the "pubs" created by Halliburton in the Green zone, while Baghdad was looted and torn apart. It perfectly paints the picture as to, how pathetically American Foreign Policy failed in Iraq. After reading the book, I agree that this is the worst failure for America with respect to Foreign policy, next comes Vietnam and then comes Cuba.

This tells the plight of the Iraq people and also, the carelessness of American Diplomats. When Timothy M.Carney, the then Minister of Industry in Iraq, under Paul Bremer, requested for information about the ministry that he was supposed to rebuilt, Washington sent him, a 3 page report, typed by an intern in White House. Remember, Ministry of industry in Iraq has 23 different sectors under its command. There were companies ranging from leather factories to battery manufacturing units. While Iraq was prosperous and when Saddam was "good", (which is basically the time before Iran war and Kuwait war, which btw put Iraq into a huge debt), Iraq actually exported its Vegetable Oil and Soap to India. Apparently these soaps were of number one quality and it was very famous in North India. During this Golden Period, Iraq's health care and Education systems was on par with Western World. Tap water was drinkable. You got Prada and Gucci in departmental store for damn cheap prices. Well, wat can you say ?

Now, Baghdad is torn apart by Al-Sadr Militia Group and many other such groups. There are 240,000 American troops in Iraq and the current government has already started withdrawing troops from Iraq, without full-filling any of their promises. The new Presidential hopefuls are all well prepared to withdraw troops immediately after they rise to power. Which means, Iraq will be looted more, more people will be killed and that kind of crime wouldn't have happened even if Saddam was alive. When Saddam was in power, even though he is a murderer and a culprit, one gallon of petrol was less than a nickel; School ran safely; there were no terrorist groups; army was very powerful; (this army will eventually be dismantled by Paul Bremer and will convert into the now Militia Groups, protesting against America. Greatest mistake he ever committed in his term as Iraq' Viceroy); people had drinking water and Electricity; People obeyed the laws; Police and Intelligence were efficient. But now, look at Iraq. Not many of us follow the news and killings in Iraq, because it is just like another Sri-Lanka. Everyday, someone dies. It is sad, but eventually we all get used to this. "Hmm, 20 ppl died in Iraq, ok then. What else is new today?" is our attitude. This is not our fault.

Another Huge Failure for American Foreign Policy... !! Who cares, In this modern world, with so much information and technology available, America will invade one other country in the near future. That will also be a huge debacle. Then they will ruin the country and make the lives of people even harder than it already is and no one will ask any questions !!

My next target, "Assassins Gate", a book about Saddam and post-war Iraq. Where assassins gate refers to the gate to the Saddam's Republic palace. Title is pretty good isnt it?