Domain Maximus

(Note: Youtube video has now been obtained.)

Sunil Sethi and I recently chatted about Dork and a bunch of other things on NDTV’s Just Books show.

The outcomes of this were threefold:

1. I appeared on TV. This has made many people on both sides of the family very happy indeed. Kapoors and Vadukuts from Agra to Alleppey were overjoyed. The in-laws are finally beginning to reconcile with my career decisions.

2. I got to meet Sunil Sethi. And listen to him talk about growing up in Delhi as a lover of books. We recorded for maybe 12 minutes. And then stood around chatting for around a couple of hours.

3. I had no idea there was an Olive restaurant near the Qutub. Two thumbs up.

And this is the video.

Youtube:

NDTV: (full show including Aishwarya Rai and Karan Bajaj sequences)

I know I know. I laugh too much. Sigh.

A coworker said I looked “eerily unfamiliar” in the video. Do I?

P.S. Just noticed. It says “Author ‘Dork’”. Ugh.

I am asked very often why this blog’s URL is Whatay.com. And indeed, why I use the term so copiously. And, doubly indeed, how this term went from being inside joke to becoming part of local lingo at that business school I once went to. (Though I have no idea if people still use it.)

Today I wish to show you that scene from Padayappa, the Rajnikanth super hit, which first got a bunch of us southie folk saying “Whatay” all the time.

Only the first 14 seconds will play on first click, for your efficient viewing pleasure. But you can click play again and see the rest of the exciting 21st part of Youtube Padayappa.

P.s. Whatay can be used as verb, noun, adjective, preposition and gerund.
P.s.s Please note the tremendous head trauma scene at the 10 second mark. Enjoy audio accompaniment without fail.

If you are going to screw around with your blog template at all, then Sunday is the best time to do it. Weekend traffic is the worst!

So after many people told us that the old, warm orange Domain Maximus was boring and oh-so-Web1.0, we decided to clean up things a little and get a shiny new, busier template. The idea was to get something that would not only be easy to tweak and upload but also a design that would give a little more flexibility. Now we can not only highlight the latest post, but also pick a popular “featured” post, clearly list out the last five and also occasionally type out an Aside. Basically shorter posts in a para or two, mostly with links to something.

A lot of the randomness in the sidebar is gone. Navigation through categories is better and search has been improved. We are also trying to connect the blog to other columns and articles in a more meaningful way. (I am testing out a nice, visually pleasing embedding method.) It might all seem a little too comprehensive for a blog that is hardly ever updated. But the idea is to both clean it up and also use Whatay as a more useful tool in the months to come when a few newer projects will be announced. Wink nudge.

The blog has been on the back-burner ever since I started work on the book. But now that we have crossed that bridge, let’s hope things get busier here. With the new design done, pardon us while we go and work on a few new blogposts.

Published on 23 May 2009. Fun little thing to do. Especially speaking to a bunch of people including Srinivas Bhogle, Aakash Chopra and Greatbong.

Click top right to expand, read and so on.

P.S. Prepared before the semi-finals. So some stars might be conspicuously absent.

Frequent readers of this blog will be aware of how we are big fans of Dwarka sub-city here. Largely because we live there and no one else we know does. Or will. Sigh. For instance we were excited a few weeks ago when we discovered that Dwarka houses one of the more popular film related brotherhoods in the country: the Kumar Sanu fans’ club.

But earlier this week we discovered the reason behind that electric feeling one gets as soon as one steps out of a metro train and touches down upon the hallow soil of the sub-city. Doubting? See this picture:

Volt-ay Phase

Of the two pillars the left one tells you in which direction you can find some of the major stations on the blue line. By which I mean the major stations of Dwarka, Dwarka Mor, Dwarka Sectors 14, 13, 12 and so on. And to a lesser extent Rajiv Chowk. The right one helps you find:

Electr-city

So if you are in need of 25,000 volts for some emergency purpose you know how to get it. It is somewhere in Dwarka on the blue line. Mind the gap and stand behind the yellow line.

Meanwhile this is a book that was spotted at the in-laws’ place two weekends ago. They tell us it is a masterpiece:

Da Vinci Code

How can you possibly not read a book where some of the letters in the title have dots underneath them? All Sanskrit fiends feel free to leave comments-aha.

Continuing in that cultural and historic vein we were impressed by this well-preserved sculpture at the National Museum last weekend:

Lunch break

While such sandstone pieces are are quite commonplace, it is exceedingly rare to find one with a tiffin box in such pristine condition. Thankfully our curiosity was whetted by the information on the plaque you can see in the picture. Close-up below:

Knowledge is power cut