After so much pressure from various sources, I decided to apply for Aadhaar Card. I get the first shock, you can’t register for Aadhaar card if you are residing in Tamil Nadu?!!

Bit dissapointed I Google again to find how to go about getting the card if you are in Chennai and I see this

The first result is a site named aadharcardstatus.net.in, check the spelling, one A is missing. But I am thrilled to see a site that has all the details when it comes to Aadhaar in Chennai. I go to the site,

Life is so simple and beautiful, I check for enrollment centers in Chennai and there are two

I have heard Karvy before, no clue about the first center. Phone number is  also give so I call them. I call them. Morning 10, afternoon, evening, 11:30am, 3:00pm. The number is ever engaged! It seems whole of Chennai wants to register for Aadhaar card. With no luck to get through phone, I decided to visit the place. I reach there and check with the receptionist.

He says ” we used to do Aadhaar registration TWO YEARS back“,

But then I ask “Your name and address is still there on website???

No idea about that, he says.

Then what to do?

Please check with your municipal councilor

Upset i come back and search for Municipal councilor of Adyar and see the result.

I quit!!!!!!

Imagine 200 bloggers meeting under one roof and what online chaos can happen. That’s what happened at Ambi Pur IndiBlogger Meet at Chennai. I tried to capture the online euphoria about the meetup through Tweets. So here we go,

Meetup started with people winning gift coupons

                                              Then there were more games and contests. Basically the idea of any blogger meetup is to

So next was a tweet based contest where everybody was supposed to tweet about their favourite  road journey / trip. There were so many funny tweets, best part of any tweetups

Then came the skit time, chance to win more gifts!!!!! we were clubbed based on the names of Ambi Pur car freshener’s  fragrance we got (another freebie)

Then the most interesting contest of the day, blindfolded we were asked to sit inside a car and feel/smell, obviously the smell was good, we felt fresh and happy but then when we removed the towel ( see better use of towel, sree, are you reading this ) we were shocked!! So much filth were inside, left over food, socks, shoes but then we didn’t get any foul smell, thanks to Ambi Pur.

As usual there were so many funny and interesting tweets

And  at the end of the day, made lots of new friends, met some old friends. I was HAPPY and still FRESH, thanks to Ambi Pur and Indiblogger

NERAM Tamil film print ads

On the left is Nasser’s one of interesting dialogue and on the right is by ‘Saravanarrr’, portrayed by Thambi Ramaiah

To be continued…

Love it or hate it but you can’t ignore it, that’s Indian Premier League (IPL), the domestic professional Twenty20 cricket competition inIndia. Since its inception in 2008, initiated by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), IPL has come a long way and has emerged as one of the top sports brands in the world. IPL was the fifth largest brand in the world of sports in two years of operation, just below FIFA and higher than Wimbledon and F1. The IPL has actually become the number one cricketing property in the world.

All said and done, as the fifth edition of IPL is round the corner, its worth to check where IPL as a brand is heading. According to a valuation by Brand Finance, the brand value of IPL has fallen to $2.92 billion (Rs 16,163 crore) from a peak of $4.13 billion (Rs 19,675 crore) in 2010. A Business Standard report noted that even television ratings have fallen consistently from 4.81 in the first year (2008) to 3.27 in 2012 edition. Even ad revenues have slumped 30 percent this season from a year ago.  So will the Sixth season of IPL be better and bigger? let’s wait and watch.

‘Pistah’ the run anthem from the soon to be released movie NERAM has become the latest YouTube sensation and is going viral big-time in various social networking sites. NERAM (Time) is an upcoming Tamil/Malayalam Bilingual film which is the directorial debut of Alphonse Putharen under the banner of Winner bulls films starring Nivin Pauly, Nazriya Nazim, Simhaa,Nasser, Manoj K Jayan, Thambi Ramaiah, Lalu Alex, John Vijay, Shammi Thilakan, Charlie…

Back to Pistah, the run anthem.  The song went online on March 10 morning and by end of the day the video was viewed by close to 80,000 times! over 5000 people have shared it on various social networking channels. This song comes at a very crucial time in the movie. Originally penned by Legendary Malayalam movie actor  Jagathy Sreekumar for the movie Kinnaram, released way back in 1983. Additional lyrics were added and sung by Shabareesh Varma, my younger brother

Here is the team behind the song.

A Winner Bulls Films production & Koral Group Viswanathan
Film – NERAM (Tamil & Malayalam)
Song – Pistah the run anthem
Music – Rajesh Murugesan
Singer – Shabareesh Varma
Lyricist – Jagathy Sreekumar (Kinnaram 1983)
Additional lyrics – Shabareesh Varma
Cinematography – Anend C Chandran
Editing & Direction – Alphonse Putharen
Typography – Alphonse Putharen
Sound Design – Vishnu Govind & Sree Sankar ( Sound Factor )
Final mix – Raja Krishnan (Four Frames)
Music label – Think Music.

Now time for Pistah!!! enjoy the song!!!!

Okay now you’ve become one

Started the day 1 from Chennai to Pondicherry, via ECR road

On way to Pondicherry!

In Pondy

Day 2: Morning: Pondicherry to Tiruvannamalai

It was a great experience driving through village roads

Day 2: Afternoon: Tiruvannamalai to Thengannur

Then back to Chennai, covered close to 400 kms!

So now its my turn. Well I came to Chennai in 2001, in search of job and in the last 12 years or so, Chennai has gone through so many changes. As most of the bloggers mentioned earlier, there are lots of things that I like in Chennai.  Some being Marina Beach, The Schmidt Memorial on Elliots Beach, The Central Railway Station, Ranganathan Street, T.Nagar ,Wonderful temples in the city , Fort St. George and the latest and my fav Anna centenary Library in Kotturpuram.

But then what surprised me the most in Chennai is the emergence of so many interesting and wonderful events in the recent years. Being an event blogger this excites me the most. Chennai hosts of all kinds of events, you name it. Tech events, events in arts, music and drama, on entrepreneurship, startup events, events like TEDx, BIL, PKN and SAM. These events are not only entertaining but informative also and a great place to network and meet interesting people.

I wish Chennai host more and more such wonderful events. Now the tablog must continue, introducing the next blogger Vid Dev, a Chennaiite who blogs at ‘The Pensieve’. http://viddev.wordpress.com

To start with, some cars

Some more

Now the real heroes! Photographers! Everywhere you can see them, with different gadgets

They hunt in groups

Oh, that’s me

Then, everyone wants to take photos with the car

All together, it was a great fulfilled Sunday morning!

BlogAdda has come up with an exclusive product review in association with Tata Motors  for its latest offering – The Vista D90 exclusively for Indian Bloggers.  30 Bloggers from Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad will be sharing their experience of driving Tata’s Vista D90.  I am happy to be selected for this novel & an exciting programme. So the programme is you will be given the Vista D90 car for three days. During these 3 days, each blogger is required to share their moments of driving the car in the form of tweets, images/posts on facebook & a post on the blog as well.

So wait for more updates and live tweeting, hey roads of South India, here I come

“Not much else in my mind for the rest of the day.” Walter Crocker, on Jawaharlal Nehru’s death in 1964

Same was my state after hearing about Nirbhaya’s death news.