Today's Tamil word - 3rd May 2020 - மெய்

Truth - நிஜம் (from Sanskrit)

Original Tamil Word - மெய் / உண்மை

மெய் quite literally means, that which we find about by going close to it. It is the root word for உண்மை - உள் (ண்) + மெய் : inside + knowing by going close -- so உண்மை literally means something we find by going inside.

மெய் has another derived meaning out of this: it also means Skin/Body - that which we only know when we get close, touch and find out (sense).

Since we are on this word, it is appropriate that I quote:

எப்பொருள் யார்யார்வாய்க் கேட்பினும் அப்பொருள்
மெய்ப்பொருள் காண்பது அறிவு (குறள் - 423)

where Valluvar stresses the need to find the true meaning (மெய்ப்பொருள்) of what we see/read/know. Only that is knowledge. If you take what others say on face value, you might be easily fooled.This Kural is as relevant in today's social media context as ever before.

அண. நாகப்பன்

Today's Tamil word - 2nd May 2020 - கோ

King - ராஜா

Original Tamil word - கோ / அரசன்

கோ is a single alphabet. Tamil is an unique language in which a single letter/alphabet conveys a meaning on its own.

Interestingly the word கோவில் (கோ + இல்) comes from the root word கோ. இல் means home (இல்லம்). So according to Tamil, கோவில் actually is a place where the King lives/resides. But in today's context, it refers to the place of God. It just goes to show, Tamils' idea of worship was originally that of elders/leaders/rulers back in those days which is evident from how the meaning of that very word has changed with time to refer to God.

அண. நாகப்பன் 

Today's Tamil word - 1st May 2020 - சுழி

Zero - பூஜ்யம் (comes from Sanskrit). Wherever the letters ஜ or ஷ or ஹ comes, you can be sure that those words are not originally Tamil words. Tamil doesn't have the 'ha' sounds (or any other airy sound) in its vocabulary.

The correct Tamil word is சுழியம். When you read a number in Tamil, zero should be read as சுழி.

More ancient Tamil words to denote zero in texts are பாழ் and அன்று, which means no/nothing.

அண. நாகப்பன் 

Today's Tamil word Series - 30th April 2020 - நல்லூழ்

Starting with this blogpost, I am compiling my Facebook series of posts titled "Today's Tamil word: இன்று ஒரு தமிழ்ச் சொல்" for easy later reference.

Today's Tamil word - April 30th 2020

Over the years we have had many words come into the common vocabulary of Tamil from other languages. It would be interesting to learn the original Tamil words for those usages and perhaps start using them in our everyday lives: here is one to get started
Good Luck - அதிர்ஷ்டம்/ யோகம் (both from Sanskrit)
Correct Tamil word for Good luck is நல்லூழ் (நல்ல + ஊழ்)
ஊழ் means uncontrollable things, which is mis-translated as FATE (விதி) in many Thirukkural Guides. ஊழ் is one of the 133 Chapters in Thirukkural.
அண. நாகப்பன் 

10 Years of IPL

The year was 2007. India had made an early exit from the 50 over world cup. The angst had given birth to a rebel league called the Indian Cricket League (ICL) led by Kapil Dev and a few others, after a quarrel with the BCCI for its totalitarian methods of running cricket in India. Cricket in India was in the middle of a crisis. The members of the ICL were expelled from being part of any official cricketing activities conducted by the BCCI. BCCI wouldn't in any way give room for a parallel power centre in the sport. BCCI hadn't permitted them to use any of its grounds, had barred the players participating in the league to play any competitive cricket in India's cricketing circuit. The ICL had to contend with a few senior players who were on the cusp of retirement who wanted to make some quick money. The ICL was always a sinking ship. But the ICL was the first sign of frustration from an anti-establishment's perspective about the lack of results from its national team. 

BCCI had to come up with something to keep the fans interested and stay invested in cricket. 2007 was also the year, when the T20 format was first being tried and tested in an international tournament. India hadn't seen the merit of the format yet. They hardly believed it would be successful and popular, so much so that the BCCI held back its senior players for the tournament after a long tour to England. BCCI wasn't going to spend its most popular and senior resources for a start-up tournament which had hardly gathered the public's eye. 

BCCI  had selected and sent a national side whose average age was in the mid 20s for the inaugural world cup in South Africa. A rookie captain had the responsibility to help make the Indian public forget the nightmare that the 50 over world cup was a few months ago. The Indian team, as a reflection of their age and experience, played carefree cricket, which as a blessing in disguise happened to be what the format needed. They ended up landing a trophy in their hands for their exuberance at the end of it all. Another team which was knocked out of the 50 over world cup in the first round, had come within just a hit away from the trophy. These two countries happened to contribute to over 50% of the cricketing fan base of the world. The popularity of T20 rocketed with the success of the two of biggest countries playing the sport. T20 cricket wasn't going anywhere for a while. It was here to stay; even at times coming close to eliminating one of the other two formats.       

T20 was quick; a 3-4 hour game-time format which had all the emotions, the highs, the lows happening in a rush; a perfect recipe for this impatient generation. With T20 format, the cricket administrators had an equivalent and alternate product to offer to woo back the younger audience from the fast paced football/soccer games.  The stage was set to commercialise and juice out this money-spinning format. 

The BCCI, after the ICL debacle, couldn't stay blind-folded to this format anymore. It just had to use the ICL idea and do a better packaging of what the ICL had done. The time was right;  Getting richer, using the gaining popularity of the format and the recent success its players had with it, was a no-brainer.

The IPL was born. BCCI had the money with the investors and the fan base to go big. 8 teams were auctioned out for a few billion dollars each for a period of 10 years. The franchises had to comply with the IPL governing council and its rules. The franchises had to pay a franchise fee, auction for players with a purse cap. 14 games each for a team in a season with 7 home and 7 away games. They would keep 50% of the revenues from the tickets sales in the home ground, use their recruited players to make big sponsorship deals and also get a huge prize money even by making it just to the play offs. Even with all this, an average franchise team had to wait for a good five to six seasons to break even and then go on to become profitable; such was the high bid they had to make to get an IPL team. Popular film and business personalities would buy teams and add to the star value of the league. Teams brought in the who's-who of the movie industry to grab eye-balls during each match. Cricket had never been more commercialised before. IPL had created the perfect match between two of India's most popular industries - Cricket and Bollywood.

The players were a happy bunch. What somebody would have got by playing a test match for 5 days together was made to seem like peanuts as compared to their paycheques in the IPL. Statistics say that the salary for a few high priced players ended up working to be a few crores for each run they scores or each wicket they took. Add to these remunerative perks, the players were given an environment to hob-nob with the best players for the foreign countries, learning and practising with them. The learning the newcomers got out of the playing experience in front of packed houses was immense. 

Indian Cricket, with IPL, was talking numbers and salaries in terms of millions already. An odd word or two spread in the air comparing the league's salaries to the lucrative leagues in America with Baseball and England with Football. It soon became among the top 10 followed sporting events in a calendar year in the world.

Every minute of the league was turned into bucks. Into the second season, two strategic timeouts of two and half minutes each was introduced during each innings more to squeeze in advertising revenue more than for the teams to discuss strategy. The advertising space was hot-selling; as early as the 4th season, every 10 seconds of ad-time in TV was sold for four hundred thousand Indian Rupees. The TV rights of the matches were tendered out to media houses for huge sums of money across satellite all across the world and internet. IPL made cricket, first a business and then a sport.

A player would play for his nation team the previous night and fly out the same day, travel 24 hours from the caribbean to India to reach in time for his IPL team's match the following day. The IPL team owner could afford all this cost of transporting a player up and down just for the player to play that crucial IPL match for his team and still make up for it in terms of revenue.  IPL had definitely by then changed cricket forever. IPL made India and cricket to dream bigger and bigger. 

By the time IPL entered into its 5th season, almost all the other test-cricket playing nations had a IPL-like T20 league tournament of their own. There was a need to not be left behind in this rapid metamorphosis of cricket. This has now made it possible for players to make more than just a living by playing for different clubs from different nations across the calendar year and be fully engaged, thus, bringing up the country versus club debate. 

From a purely sporting point of view, these leagues have nevertheless contributed to the advancements in the quality of cricket played and the skill-level of the players. 

With increased popularity and money every year, there grew the possibility of corruption and money laundering in the league. IPL has seen it all in this spectrum too. From betting, to spot-fixing, to arrests to conflict of interests, there has been a dampener every now and then. Where there is money and fame to be had, there sure is trouble as well. The average cricket fan who loves the sport has to be promised more transparency and accountability than there is now in the IPL to keep him interested in the brand. That is the only way that the brand image can continue to prosper and not go down-hill.

As we come to end of the 10 seasons of IPL, not all team owners have made money and prospered, yet I reckon they have all achieved their purpose. A few owners have sold out with good valuations to new-owners; some others understand the long gestation time it takes for the invested money to reap its benefits and continue to run on losses. However, all are happy to promote their corporate company/group's brand and leverage it in their company/group's sales/services while at it. The BCCI, is the one, who is just milking the money; making them the most powerful sport body in the cricketing world. Cricket only wishes BCCI shouldn't use its might to bully but to grow the sport. 

All things said and done,  fan's perspective/outlook to the IPL is the most important of all. The team owners drive a sense of pride about the team to that city's citizens. They do it through their star players with team anthems, flags and merchandise products. Some other fans, don't necessarily fall for city loyalties; they choose their favourite player's team to follow. As a fan myself, I cherish IPL and the other leagues for one primary reason: Cricket, unlike football, is not a global sport; it is hardly played by 10 teams on the international scene on a regular competitive basis. There seems to be a huge gap in competitiveness between the top 8 teams and the world that follows them. As a fan, it is inevitable to get used to only 8 teams playing against each other all the time and start feeling the want of a different culture to the game; a spell of fresh air amongst the style of cricket that is on offer. Cricket still has China and France only as Chinaman and French-cuts in the game.  With IPL, we get new teams with a mixed culture of players coming up with different intrinsic spirit and attitude to the way the game is played which is scintillating.  

The IPL will be popular for a long time, if it can manage to keep its issues out of the playing arena and be transparent at it. All that the cricket lover wants is a sport which he/she can trust is being played in the right spirit. Having ensured that, if the players can take the field to showcase their best effort, the millions of cricket fans are waiting for a 100 more years of the IPL. 

 Vignesh Nagappan Annamalai

(A write-up for the cricket website - www.cricingif.com)

When a girl takes over your life!

                 
       It is quite different ever since you get married.  It really is.

Every morning you wake up to someone who puts her arm around you and asks you to go brush before you kiss.

That someone would want her cheesy line for the day, before she gives you your compliment.

She would pick your clothes for the day; while all you need to do is just carry it well on you.

Your breakfast table will have the food you like, the way you like it or will it?

She would look for you in a gathering, just to make sure your dress and hair are perfectly the way they should be.

You know she would be the first person to like what you post on Facebook, and so you should be.

She would ask, "How do I look?" a hundred times every day; You know what the answer is and should be; you just have to make sure you sound convincing enough.  

She'd play poker and count on the chips you have if she loses.

You better let her choose the restaurant we should go to, because she definitely knows more on this than you ever would.

Make sure she calls for your order, or you would end up eating the usual Veg Soft Noodles with Cauliflower Manchurian.

She would be the one to make you Pasta, because that is the only thing she knows to.

Always remember her coffee making skills are getting better slowly but surely.

Take her to the movie she wants, or she would go anyways.

You would start liking to shop, because shopping is fun with her around and at least, you wouldn't look like a 80's-movie hero with bell-bottom pants and long-collared shirts anymore.

You shouldn't pack your bag if you plan to travel, or she would repack it with all that you missed.

You would wait for her to hug you to finish a fight, but hey that hug isn't coming anytime soon.

You should remember she likes you flirting with her, even when she is 80.

And boy, tough luck if you choose to gossip without her, because she loves gossiping with you.

She'd be the first to see a problem that surfaces; and talk you to go about cracking it.

She'd argue her lungs out that she is right; you just need to see it that she indeed is.

Of course, you would have your way; unless she melts you down with her eyes.

        Always remember being a husband is always easy, because she always loves you. 

At the end of the day, you know you are in a happy marriage, when you long to finish work and get home; and when you are motivated to work harder the next morning! 

To Alamu,

I thought this would be nice way to bottle up the memories of the honeymoon phase in our marriage. 

Cheers,

Viggy!   

Meena finds me!!!

July 2015:

We have all gathered for a community conference of 600 delegates to talk about the current business scenario among our nagarathar people. Hardly did I know I would find my Meena there, after all these years of wandering. After all, everybody who wanders in the dark isn’t lost; some get lucky like I did that day...and there she was!

Little did I know then, someone who I noticed randomly in the middle of a crowd would end up being Meena.

August 2015:

The proposal comes; we start enquiring here, there, everywhere, trying to know about them as much as we could. I surf the internet; try to find out every little detail there is to know about Meena. A mental image of Meena slowly takes shape. I am convinced she is more beautiful than the Meena I had imagined for so many years. I say yes...I say “a 100 times yes”.

An uneasy week to ten days goes by being made to wait for our horoscopes to match. I knew, as per our family process, that is the final step; if that is through, Meena would be mine. So the anxiety for THE call to arrive builds on, on and on. 

September 2015

September, the 11^th: 5 pm

My sister makes appa and me coffee. The aroma of the coffee fills the room. They both had started to get anxious about the call too by then. We sit chatting wondering when the call would come...

5.30 pm:

Appa’s phone rang and I was beaming like never before. The news came and the wait, not just for the call but for my perfect girl, was finally over.  Meena had well and truly arrived, into our lives to change it once and forever.

September, the 17^th: 3 pm

For those unfamiliar with Tamil culture – this is called ‘the ponnu paakura event’ (meeting the bride event). I am supposed to meet her and her extended family with mine and get introduced to each other formally.

Of course for me though that day was all about meeting her. It was scheduled for 4.30 pm at a temple near Karaikudi called Koviloor! Oh yes, that day was Ganesh Chathurthi day too...

I finish lunch, dress up to the best possible and am all ready by 3.30 pm. It takes one hour from my native village of pudupatti to there. I sit in the car all anxious, a little nervous and very restless.

Pon.Pudupatti – Nerkuppai – Thirupattur – Pillayarpatti – Kunnakudi – and huh...finally Koviloor comes...those 40 kms and 55 mins were the hardest ever.

4.30 pm:

We are greeted by my in-laws to-be into the temple. They all seem to be simple and nice people on first impression. They give us juice and her younger brother and cousin get talking to me. Sorry, I don’t remember what I was talking to them about...it is all a blur now.

So somewhere in the middle of my conversation with them, I catch Meena, in the corner of my eye, coming in from nowhere to talk to my sister sitting opposite to us by about 40 feet.

I ended up being too shy to see and take note of her then. Too many people around, doesn’t help. And that is when her mama comes and takes me to have a word with her...I am not sure if I managed to hide a blush in that moment. Maybe I didn’t.

So Meena and I are taken by mama to a corner in the temple. Hmm, true...slowly after showing “eeee” for a bit, yes, we get chatting...with a lot of pauses and silences in between...all adding to the beauty of the moment and her.

We are made to finish our conversation even just as we started it...only to leave us wanting for more and more...these elders know how to play the love game well, don’t they?

So everything is good and we who came as two families go as one to offer prayers and archanas. Boy, don’t I love these kutti kutti procedures which add so much meaning and value to the beauty of the whole scene.

We finish and we move to the madapam outside the temple. We exchange pleasantries, coffee and much more.

Suddenly as I began to eat the snack offered to me, my mami signalled me not to start yet, sitting right across in the ladies side. The gesture meant I had to put on the bracelet on Meena that we got for her!

I knew this was on the agenda...but was thrilled that it was finally time for that! Amma brought Meena and the bracelet to me. We were standing in the centre with 40 odd people around watching us with glee! I had never felt more embarrassed before...haha!

So I did then put on the bracelet on Meena’s right hand...I whispered, “amma and appa got this for you; hope you like it”, as I wore it.  I hope she heard that because I was too shy and feeble understandably. That moment could never be described well enough.  So I'll quietly pass on to the next...

Both families, my new and native, were then discussing on a suitable marriage date and I had to be content with talking to her mamas, periappa, brother and cousins. We finished and it was 6 o cl. We had to take the discussions to another time and bid bye to their family and started home.

Back in the car on the road back, I was more relaxed, felt the need to be more responsible and blah and blah...Soon we reached back home and went for a treat at my grandmother’s. There, they wouldn’t stop telling me how lucky I am. The day couldn’t have ended anymore perfectly than to know everybody in my family liked Meena and her people.

September, the 19^th:

I was back in Chennai by that morning. Even in the morning, I got edgy and wanted to start texting her. I feebly sent her a ‘Hi’ on FB. And from then on, I can’t tell you people much. Sorry!

To dear Alamu with

lots of love,

Viggy!

Post Script:

This blog is something I wanted to write to help us treasure this amazingly beautiful feeling and not let time erode it. I hope I have said enough to serve that purpose!  I wish you all for such beautiful moments with your girl/man. Believe me, love is a very fine feeling and it is only going to be a matter of time before all this happens to you (even if it already hasn’t); and the wait, I promise, will truly be worth it!!!