Blog Quake Day
Desipundit sends out a call to help victims of the October 8 earthquake that ripped apart Northern India and pakistan. There are plans to deem 26 October, 2005 as Blog Quake Day and to direct help and relief to places that need them most.
Firstly, there are two blogs that do fantastic work is dispersing information and relief. Check them out
There’s a Wiki too, for quick updates and news – Pakistan Earthquake Wiki
And as always, there’s technorati tag for the current issue – Blog Quake Day
The Prime Minister’s (Indian) National Relief Fund is a good place to start, they also have an appeal going out to all of us on the net.
As Ash says at Desipundit, let’s all use the power of Blogs to do good.
The Diwali Chennai Bloggers meet
So, Prabhu has this novel idea of celebrating Diwali and our recently found unity (over the IIPM issue) in Chennai. he wants all bloggers and commentors and on-lookers to get together, meet, and probably set off some fireworks.
What we’re planning is to celebrate Diwali, Blogging, the coming together of bloggers in the IIPM issue and Chennai in one event. He also informs me this is a finger-up for them moral police in Chennai.
Anybody game?
Epistolary fiction
In my post asking you folks what to write, both aNTi and Lazygeek mentioned love life as a theme. Well, I promised myself I wouldn’t get that personal on this blog, but then, I did say I will write whatever you folks ask me to.
Also, the Shakespeare and Company network on Ryze’s theme for writing this week is Epistolary fiction – a story told in the form of letters to and from the characters.
So here’s a little doctored recounting of certain events that might have happened 
, thereby killing two birds in one stone. 
Oh a small disclaimer before we proceed: All characters and names mentioned here are purely a figment of the imagination of a demented mind called Chandru. Any resemblance to living or living-dead people is entirely co-incidental. If you sue me, I will sew you to your sheath
(Note on the name: Not the Divya we in Blogosphere know)—-
Dearest Divya,
I write this mail with the greatest hesitation and yet a great sense of pleasure and liberation. I accept I am taking too many liberties in writing this letter to you and that you’ll be justified in throwing this in the trash can. But I have to take this step if I need to move forward or completely stop. I also realise that I don’t know anything at all about you; neither do you about me. But I do know one thing. I am hopelessly in love with you.
There! It’s out in the open. I am dazzled by you. I am completely and utterly in love with you.
I am not sure how to proceed from here, so I shall stop.
Yours always
Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan
—-
chandru,
Wow!! I dnt hv to tell u that ur mail surprised me…I didn’t expect this frm you?!? As to what u tell me…I am honored but I really dont fell that way abt u…you hv always been a gud frnd and thats all…im sorry
divya
—-
My dear Divya, my only Divya
I fully realise that my mail to you would have been a complete surprise. But I beg you, plead to you, please do reconsider your decision. Can you honestly tell me you feel nothing for me? Won’t you accept that there probably is a small thing in your heart for me?
Please!
Forever yours
Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan
—-
CHANDRU!
This is getting serious…stop mailing me…I made myself clear…this is the last time I will tell you…I dont feel tht way abt you…now dont mail me anymore
—-
Dear Dr. Shankar
Doctor, it’s with great pain and anguish I write this letter to you.
I am afraid my son has suffered a relapse. Yesterday…yesterday I found him in his room, in…in a pool of his own blood, clutching letters from somebody. He kept screaming the name Divya and something about true love. My husband found that all the letters have been written in his own hand and and haven’t been posted at all.
If you would be so kind as to visit him at the hospital and arrange to have him shifted to your clinic… I really can’t bring myself to see my dear son in this state
Sincerely
Cutting Edge Advertising – Jim Aitchison
Chenthil gets the post he wants. Here’s a review of the book I am currently re-reading.
Jim Aitchison’s Cutting Edge Advertising. To be honest, this is possibly the fifth time I am reading this book, and so this can’t technically be called a review. But still.
Ever wish for somebody who’s made it big in your field of work to come home one day, give you some tips and pointers to you over a cup of hot coffee? Ever wish to get into the brains of the top pros and see what gets them kicked? Well, with this book you can.
That’s so not a cutting edge beginning for a review. Let’s see if I can better it. Here goes.
Throw out every damn thing you hold dear! Throw out everything you’ve ever learnt. Throw it to the ground, stamp on it and grind it into dust. This, and this is the only way will you be really creative. Learn things anew. See things from a different perspective. Learn to love what you do. Learn to love words and what they are capable of.
That, folks, has been my takeout from by far the best book on Advertising. Or as David Abbott says, by far the best book on print Advertising.
Every page filled with heavyweights in the industry, from Indra Sinha and Neil French to David Abbot and Bob Barrie. So much so, turning a page is a real pain. So much to learn, so few pages. A little tip here. A big idea there. A fantastic way of looking at things everywhere else. Combined with neat little examples and you have a book that will practically sell itself. And it has. Incredibly well, too. They even came out with a second (Cutting Edge Commercials) and third (Cutting Edge Radio) and a revised edition of the first. In short. A brilliant book.
Nah! This still isn’t a good enough review to call cutting edge. Let’s see. Get out! Get out and buy this book if you want to be in advertising!
Well, almost.
(cross posted in The Chicken Rules)
Pompeii
A corn-roaster at work in Elliots Beach, Besant Nagar. A fresh, just beginning to ripen ear of corn is roasted over hot coals and flavoured with salt and lime-juice. A fantastic snack. Fuck! I miss Besant Nagar and the beach and the heat of Chennai.
Semantics and God
Semantic Overload did a brilliant job of confusing the heaven out of people and preachers. Now he follows it up with a great post that puts into words a lot of my own ideas
f I were god (as most of the organized religions define god), then I’d make the world as a perfect place simply because its easier to manage and wonderful place to be, for your kids (i.e. humans) to live and die. Unless, of course, I want to raise the bar, I want a challenge. Since I am god, the all-powerful, nothing could be challenging, so I wouldnt really gain anything by creating an imperfect world and then getting a high out of managing it. Which means that I actually created a perfect world, but imprefection crept into it, thanks to the devil (garden of eden and the serpent). If I am god, and I created eveything, then I must have created devil as well… so devil should be perfect as well, and completely controllable by god, but obviously the devil isnt.. so there is some disconnect there. Even if it wasnt the devil, imperfection still crept in, like entropy and the second law of thermodynamics. But god should be able to set all that right.. after all he is god! At this point logic fails.
This reminds me of a talk I had with a “born-again christian” colleague of mine. We were discussing a client and I don’t know when it happened, but we jumped tracks and started discussing god and the bible. I asked him the same question Semantic asks – That if God is all powerful, and has the power over happiness and joy, and is all compassionate, why doesn’t he deem that all his creation on earth be perpetually happy? And more on similar lines. All I got in reply was a few garbled words about testing faith and stuff.
My one question to friends, relatives and stray people who talk of god and creation is this – If you believe God created you, why would he allow for so much imperfection and defective goods? If he is really omni-potent and omni-scient, what prevents him from coming up with the perfect world and perfect people?
You have no problem suing a manufacturer who supplies you defective or damaged goods. Why don’t you sue god too, for wilful negligence and inferior products?
My experience with my own family members is not very different. My father and cousins and uncles and sundry relatives question me endlessly on my beliefs and egg me on to find god. And I have a real hard time speaking my mind about god.
Oh well, nobody listens to my rants anyway
About
Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan is a copywriter, photographer and goofball from Chennai. He is also an archaeologist, historian and a city lover. He is currently a documentary film-maker and desk-monkey for a film production house.
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