Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro,means River of January. It will be hosting both the Football World Cup 2014 and Summer Olympics 2016. The place is famous for legendary golden beaches and Rio carnival, every February. There is a giant statue of Christ Redeemer, the symbol of the city and one of the new seven wonders of the World. Sugar Loaf cable car is 97 years old and is the third oldest of the world.

Annadaata

Nobel peace prize winner Norman Ernest Borlaug, the American agricultural scientist and humanitarian died of cancer in Dallas on 13th September,2009. He was a great friend of India and regarded as India's " Annadaata" as he was the father of modern agriculture and the father of green revolution, which ended India's food scarcity of decades.
May his soul rest in peace.

Giant water Lily

At the Rotterdam Zoo in the Netherlands, the leaves of a giant water lily can grow up to 3 m in diameter and easily carry 15 kgs. So parents put their child on the lily and take photographs.

Hravesting Festival in Japan

" Namahage" a ritual for cleansing souls, is an annual rice harvesting festival in Japan. This is part of a promotional event of a local prefecture's tourism in downtown,Tokyo.

Buddha pears

Buddha shaped pears are seen in an orchard in Weixian country, Hebei province. A local former spent six years to perfect the process of growing the pears inside moulds. The pears cost around 50 yuan each.

Crane Pakku

After lunch, at our work place, we used to take betel nuts. At that time a brand "Crane" was famous for betelnut. One day, a friend asked me," Do you have Crane Pakku?" (Betelnut is called Pakku in Tamil). Immediately I replied ,"Pakka rane" in tamil-meaning let me see. Since pakka rane almost sounded like the reverse of crane pakku, everybody enjoyed the humour.

TRIVIA

The Safire Theatre in Chennai (now demolished) has experienced strange coincidences. While the film Towering Inferno was being screened, a small fire broke out in the theatre. On another occasion,when the S.S.Poseidon was being shown sinking in the movie The Poseidon Adventure,cyclonic rains flooded the ground floor of the theatre.

Muthu kulikka varigala

This happened at the time when K.Balachander's(a famous director) movie "Anubhavi Raja Anubhavi"(A tamil movie) was released. Two songs of the movie " Madras nalla Madras" and "Muthu kulikka varigala" became big hits. We had a Taxation Manager,called Mr.Muthukrishnan in Ashok Leyland. We used to ask him," Hey, muthu! How will your wife call you for taking bath?" and he used to sing promptly and jokingly, " Muthu, kulikka varigala!" Even after 30 years, we remember this funny incident and cherish.

First Reality Show

The idea for the world's first reality T V Show, Candid Camera, aired in 1948, was inspired by missives (letter intended to be sent) of US armymen for their families, secretly recorded by a fellow soldier, Allen Funt.

Remembering .......

When we were working in Ashok Leyland Ltd , we visited one of our colleague Mr.Viswanathan. On that day his family was having the naming ceremony for the new born boy baby. Mr.Viswanathan was proud to announce the name of the baby as "Ashok". On hearing this, I told Viswanathan that eventhough, out of patriotism, he has named his son as "Ashok", his son is going to say "TATA" only,whenever he goes out. (TATA was the chief competitor for Ashok Leyland Ltd.) Everybody had a hearty laugh and this joke was remembered by my another colleague during his speech on my retirement function.
Unfortunately Mr.Viswanathan passed away about 10 years back. I always remember him and connect him to the above incident.