At the recent world debating championship event, Saito Murato, a 29-year-old philosophy student from Tokyo, wanted to know where one would get original DVDs of Rajinikanth movies.
“I have seen at least four of his movies but all dubbed in Japanese. I want the Tamil ones.” Saito remembers having seen ‘Chandramukhi’ and ‘Muthu’ when he was young, and says he was fascinated by the star. “I love the way he dresses and talks. With bad people he is really bad, but with family, especially his mother, he is very respectful.”
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New Year’s Day postponed
E.S.L. Narasimhan, governor of Andhra Pradesh, had the audience in splits while addressing a function in the city on Thursday, a day after New Year.
“New Year’s should be celebrated on January 2. On the evening of December 31, people are partying until late in the night and the next morning, many of them are still unconscious. They will be bright and brisk only on the morning of January 2 and ideally, that should be celebrated as New Year’s Day,” the former police officer remarked, amid peals of laughter.
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Complaints aplenty, no co-operation
Recently a local official of Tangedco in north Chennai called this reporter and shared his ‘grievance’. The issue was about an article appearing in a vernacular paper about low voltage problems.
When officials wanted to install a transformer in the affected locality, the residents were against installing it in front of their homes, putting the officials in a spot.
The official said though residents complain of low voltage, they do not cooperate when the department is ready to provide a solution. He concluded that the department had to use to innovative methods to complete a job.
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Empty seats at concerts
Singing to empty chairs is something that many artistes have had to bear with this music season.
At one morning concert, the artiste had just four people in the audience, which included two of her family members.
When organisers at another Sabha were asked if they could allow people in the back rows to move forward, they refused saying the front seats were reserved for members.
Another Sabha secretary said that most of his members just paid the requisite amount but rarely turned up for the programmes.
(By Vasudha Venugopal, K. Manikandan, R. Srikanth and Deepa H. Ramakrishnan)
