Food for thought

"I should totally blog today."

you can succeed only if you try

After 21 days of fruitless inaction , I thought it was my mind playing mirage-like tricks with me again. Then I realized it was my lack of determination and fear of writing bad posts, that has caused this drought .  Remembering  what Hrithik Roshan said after his disastrous 'kites' in Kofee with karan  - it was something like ," You have to do something in the first place for it to be right or wrong. Worrying about an exam before writing it won't get you anywhere" Thank god he did write his exam - and we got zindagi na milegi dobara :')
So I should totally blog today. But I'm not guaranteeing you any quality.


 Ironically QUALITY has become my biggest problem right now. I don't even know what I mean when I use that word. But , I read all the blogs out there - enormous amounts of talent and potential :O and the sheer amount of posts in a month stun me. However there tends to be more misses than hits when you generate 50 posts a month ( or so I think ). When I was young, I used to cry to my mom about how my friends always wrote more pages than me during an exam and she calmly reassured me that ' quality is more important than quantity'. So I try to give my best every post and pray that at least half of what I hoped to convey reaches you.

I do promise you one thing ( i hardly promise anything in my blog - as I almost never keep it up :P) I will concentrate on writing more in this forum for at least my sake, if not yours.

 Sorry for the writer's rant :P I am sure fellow bloggers will understand. I needed to let it out of my system to progress . In this post I hope to 'rebuild my empire '  and give you tidbits of insights that have struck me this summer.

1)  Food for thought - I watched master chef USA 3 as it aired on t.v . I was never a huge fan of  the USA version in comparison to Australia as the former relied more on drama and antics, than anything remotely related to food. However ,since becoming the admin of 'Gordon Ramsay memes' ( see how I subtly put it? :P ) I felt an overwhelming sense of duty to watch the show . And surprise! this season was more about the food than about hate speech towards one other! :O And the most surprising of all - the winner of a cookery contest was blind. I heard tales of 'fixing' permeate the room but the truth is always far more inspiring :)
The finale was between the industrious josh and artistic christina. It reminded me one thing about food which we tend to forget somewhere in the over complicated world of reality shows - taste always triumphs . Josh produced stunning looking dishes with complex techniques but Christine simply made food full of flavor and yumminess . At the end of the day ,we do not care if the food is sauteed or grilled as long it tastes heavenly :)

2)That moment- After reading Agatha Christie's innumerable mysteries , I was very keen to get an idea

The eye in your mind paints things differently

about what went through her head and picked up her autobiography. Surprise! She led a very normal Victorian life , befitting the era. She puts us at such consummate ease, that her writing tips made sense to amateurs like me :') Among other things , she was a world traveller at a time it was enormously difficult to global trot for women . She didn't want to re visit countries she had already been to - she didn't think she could re capture the magic of the first venture. And somehow I totally emphasize with her . If she is scared of revisiting her favorite spots on earth , I am afraid of re reading my favorite books for the same reason. Every book has some poignant memory associated with it , and it is tough to breach the same ground without the feeling that it won't be as good as the first time. Sounds like blasphemy - but I haven't read even Harry potter more than once! :O

*Wow this post has drained me already :/ *

3)  The end? - The greyest book I have read in recent times is Dan Brown's Inferno . Among other things the book's plot is about the threat of overpopulation and that it will lead to extinction. Ironically living in India , I haven't really thought about that angle much. The 'antagonist' wants to wipe off 1/3rd of world's population , so that mankind can survive from extinction for a longer time . Is man made disaster the answer?  Should humans take this matter into their hands? Genetic engineering looks appealing from the outset , however its potential for danger makes it scarier than nuclear bombs. Should we interfere with evolution just because we assume we are 'superior' races? but what is the alternative - waiting for the inevitable? That doesn't sound very homo sapien -y :P I am asking instead of answering because I'm very confused about this topic and I don't want to make an uninformed statement or create an opinion too fast. If the book was true , you'll forget what you just read and deny that overpopulation maybe the end.
The book does conveniently ignore the enormous amount of resources trapped with the very rich - which has already resulted in general squalor in the 'bottom' rungs.

"The darkest places of hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality during times of moral crisis "

cheer up till then
semi :P

Haters Haters Everywhere !!

story of my life :P

First of all , a big thank you to all those who kept nudging me to write a post .
 a) It makes me feel special :P
b) Gives me the incentive to move my lazy glutus maximus :) .If exams suck all the energy out , holidays suck all the purpose .

Epitome of hate xD 

So today i am going to blog about HATE. Hate is an emotion of mass destruction , if ever there is one. It gets formed in a twisted way. When we love our own status quo too much , it results in an irrational negative feeling towards the opposing change. Most of the time ( generalizing , yes. )  it is formed before inspecting a scenario factually and the consequent 'evidence' is tinkered  the way our brain wants it to be seen. So we basically fool ourselves into hating things most of the time.

Hatred  also manifests when our favorite goals are jeopardized by the object of our ire . Simply putting csk hates kkr for 'taking away' their final and rcb hates csk because they 'cheated' them of the last ball.

 As we all know and have probably felt ourselves , sports invokes intense passion and emotions which can turn ugly very quickly (if uncontrolled). Cricket has always been known as the 'gentleman's game' and legends like Rahul dravid and Tendulkar prove to be those gentlemen. However , the recent cricketainment of t20 has not gone down well with traditional viewers. There has been lot of criticism from their quarters .
However , the hate I was surprised by in this edition of ipl (6) has been the one from the fans - towards opponent team members , who for the rest of the year they so steadfastly support. Lets analyse.

The Indian premier league has been around for 6 years now , and from the infant everyone pampers it is growing to become a toddler who adults are wary of . Deficits will be naturally noticed , rebuked and innovations struck down.  Also , team solidarity and familiarity has led to a humongous fan base for even unsuccessful teams like Pune warriors. Every team starts seeing themselves as the 'virtuous'  , the champions and the opponents are demonized.

So when a team wins the fans simply use these excuses :-
Chennai Super kings - They have BCCI support , all matches are fixed to help their cause .
Mumbai Indians - Ambani owns them . So duh , fixing.
Rajastan Royals - Luck / spot fixing / they won't come far in the tournament
RCB - Mallya fixed it / Gayle is an one man army.
SRH - Sun tv is close to BCCI (!) / it is a chennai team
Delhi Daredevils - They'll choke in the playoffs
KKR - Sharukh khan is evil / gambhir character assassination / srk fixed it
Punjab - Only Miller saved them , they'll never make it to play offs.
Pune warriors - Nobody cares :P

Why can't fans just accept that their teams lost! And the team won it fair and square . Even if spot fixing allegations prove to be true , a bad ball still has to be hot for a six and a catch for a wicket to happen -_- Grow up guys.
Csk vs Rcb , RR vs DD , Csk vs kkr  ,csk vs mi ( I am obviously a csk fan) , srh vs rcb are contest followed with interest due to the intense rivalry.

Competition is not bad . If it was no trophy would be awarded . But hatred is , support your own teams alright but stop hating the rival ones and for god sake stop spreading it online! There is this page called troll cricket - a popular cricket meme page .  And sadly every alternate post ends with Pakistanis and Indians fighting pettily and both calling each other terrorists. I mean like , where does this stem from really? Pathological prejudice and hatred dude to lack of adequate knowledge about the other side. And cricket is just one of the many outlets through which these ugly emotions erupt.

The angry young men - 
If pak - ind verbal wars are atleast seen as inevitable , the kohli - gambhir ones are not. We have for a long time had legends with impeccable manners in our team . eg. Sachin , dravid , laxman , kumble etc. Even Ganguly wasn't offensive with his aggression . Dhoni , Raina and some others are cool heads who can't be faulted. So when people like yuvraj , kohli and Gambhir express themselves on field it is misinterpreted as arrogance and 'bad behaviour' . People like sreesanth and Harbajan do go overboard but most of the time it is simply the fanatic supporters of the opposing side over reacting to emotion on field.

you call it arrogance , we call it passion :)

That too on Virat kohli . He is one of the most gifted players around and is quite clearly the future of India. When he gets angry and shows aggression against national teams it is seen as passion but when he replicates it for his franchise - well , he is arrogant and has the 'wrong' attitude towards the game. Being aggressive is one of the values Australians and West Indians cherish and one of the prime reasons that they won and dominated for a prolonged period.
It was deeply saddening to see him be booed by the Mumbai crowd for simply running out a player. Here is a man who gives his complete effort and dedication when he plays , why can't you enjoy that? When he hit that classy 99 , we all enjoyed it and can't blame him for feeling disappointed for not reaching his century o.O
If you can feel so emotional sitting at home , imagine this twenty year old playing the very game in front of a million fans/haters. Sympathize at least. Don't expect every player to be calm headed. Everybody cannot be the same.

The great dada vs dhoni  

Under every post congratulating Dhoni , there are a million 'who is the better captain?' debate. It doesn't seem to affect the fans that the players themselves mutually respect each other , leadership is not quantifiable and both the players served the same national team! Dada is one of my favorite players ever , seeing him hit through the off side was one of the first memories of cricket I have and strangely I was his strongest supporter when people wanted him to resign . However more than 'dada fans ' it is the 'dhoni haters' who concern me.
They seem to hold an unreasonable grudge towards this man who captained them to the greatest heights , questioning his motives all the way through . It is disappointing when respect is not given where it is deserved.
 I think I am ending this post quickly because generally I hate bringing up negativity in any of my blogs . However , the nonsensical mob with their saddening opinions left me with no choice. And another issue I want to bring up here is that of Justin Bieber . I don't really like his music but that doesn't give me a reason to personally abuse him or hate him . Also calling him a 'woman' or 'gay' is offending at so many levels. What is wrong with being a woman/gay person in the first place? Truly sick of such posts.

Yours wearily yet hopefully
Semi 

The family

Second post in the same month! Don't die of heart attack already xD There are many csk matches for inducing that . In another two days 'SS&S' [semi's stories and sharing's needs a nickname too :P ]

will turn three years old. This year has been a silent one to say the least :- 18 posts in 12 months = blasphemy . I saw this blog with 26 posts in one month! While even Dravid accepts that he can never be a gayle , he still has to perform in his own style to retain his place in the team. Similarly , I need to post more regularly to call myself a blogger :| Okay inconsistency rant over. 
And strangely enough 'sss' has crossed a milestone quietly even when there were no posts to fuel her :P sss has crossed 50,000 views *Fake applause* and it seems only like yesterday I was mulling over 10,000 views. 

...Aand this is also my 91st post!! Why does 91 warrant a mention?
a) My second favorite home ( cousin's place) is called that
b) 9*9 = 81 ( my favorite square no. :P ) + 10 ( god's no. = Happy b'day Sachin Ramesh TENdulkar <3) = 91 LOL.
c) I forgot to celebrate  the 90th post :|







Today I am going to write about ze topic ' family' . Partly because it is the 91st post and because I never usually write about them. Also because I read Mario Puzo's 'Family' __/\__

For the review of the book , click -->  here

Disclaimer - A personal post with a lot of I and me's :P 

So yeah lets talk about family. I live with my parents , brother and grandparents. Two characters who stand out distinctly and complete my life in unique ways are my grandmom who I call 'pattimma' and my newly found love <3 = my dog Laika!

Pattimma
She is simply amazing. I can write a book about her ( maybe i will) and it will sell a  million copies. She is a sociologist's delight. Orthodox in the expected ways and progressive in alarming ways. My incessant and annoying amount of talking can be attributed to here genes :P She can talk about tamil serials one minute and switch to complaining about the scarcity of helps in the next. Above all she loves yelling at me and brother with the most hilarious abuses ( from our viewpoint atleast) and we love ignoring it and provoking her to yell even more ^_^

What does the word 'pattimma' mean? It is an unique connotation developed by me after I began to speak. It combines the normal 'patti' ( meaning: granny) with the all important 'amma' ( mother) . For many years I thought I was the only person to use it. However sadly , my dreams were shattered when i saw many old movies where this term was used widely. Whatever. At least my family acted as if I invented it <3  and I bet i'm the only one to use 'thathappa' .
When she was young , she used to walk plenty of kilometers and catch a train and walk plenty more to reach her school. Yet , she is adamant about me cycling to my school which is only 10 minutes away from home. She actually got double promotion from second grade to fourth as she got 100 in all subjects :O if only she had completed her schooling , she would be ruling the world by now.
I am not kidding . she has photographic memory and can remember dates and events alarmingly well . She once amazed the neighbors by correcting the year THEY settled in chennai and the year THEIR DAUGHTER got married :P She remembers the color of sari she wore to every marriage ( and let me tell you , the list is 'quite' long) and can easily detect the lies we say , when they don't coincide with the previous ones :/ And i can't even remember her b'day. Y u no transmit me your good genes? :P
Her managerial skills are amazing as well. Only a taskmaster can make me work - and well , she is one. She gently cajoles the first time , and annoyingly persists with the request. And if i'm still acting dumb , she lets her high pitched voice and past memories of hardships and present bad health do the trick . Ah , grandmothers.
'Saniane' , 'panni' , 'abhistoo' , 'motachi' and other censor-able words  flow from her mouth :P and I love her the most <3 :')

She has the most hilarious contingency plans for disasters. Remember last year when everyone was convinced world was going to end and there was a small tremor in chennai?  The news channels were harping about how the tsunami was going to swallow us all and we live quote close to the beach. So what does pattimma do? Goes quickly to the safe and starts wearing all the golden ornaments! Convinced that she had finally lost it I asked her what she she was doing. And she solemnly explains that if the tsunami 'carries' us away , we'll at least survive with the gold wherever we land xP

Laika
I am not much of a dog person or an animal lover. I don't run away when i see them nor do I go hug and go gaga over them . Pretty much neutral ( semi xP )  towards them .However , when this dog landed up in our backyard , I wasn't very happy to have it around. This can be attributed to my suspicions that my brother must have smuggled it there. However , gradually in her own doggy way 'Laika' has spread her charm over our lives. She hates dogs , thinks she can challenge dobermans and alsations o.O ( very distorted self concept) , wants to fly like the crows - insanely jealous of them and hence chases them  and is scared of cats.

She is rowdy rathore no. 1 :P one cool ragamuffin . Kills you with affection when you are pre occupied and makes you feel guilty for your insolence and indolence towards her. However , when you try to go hug and be nice to her - she acts all cool and begins sleeping :P  She sleeps when she is bored , happy ,tired , angry. In different positions . Very funny ones :)
She has become my best friend in this last one year and I cannot imagine a life without her . This is for you laika  :* :* <3

Pattima + laika = I never thought the combination will work. But it does :O Tired of taking care of human babies all her life , pattimma is now deeply in love with this doggy baby xD She had gone for some marriage and was not home for 2 days. She calls  ME with GREAT concern and inquired if l LAIKA had eaten. There arouse my human envy. If I was any younger , I would have plotted her murder - like i planned my brother's :P

Ore the comedy pah! :P

First of all , it feels GREAT to write in this draftboard again ^_^
........and there was a mini break of 6 hours due to 2 ipl matches. This has been the story of my poor blog for a few months now. Board preparations , board itself (40 days *yawns*)  and now ipl , clat preparations ( soon to be started :P ) and the overwhelming urges to read a book , go party or  watch a movie.
.....and there again. I got distracted by facebook and its insane amount of memes. 

Second of all, I would really thank all the readers who were patient for these few months and for increasing my page views even when there were no new posts :P I love you guys :* I shall dedicate my upcoming 50,000 views to you all. 
And now time to pen up. Forgive me if i'm a bit scratchy for this is my first post in months. 

Board examinations are always a pain , that too especially if they extend over 40 days for 5 exams. So on April ninth, two thousand and thirteen when the cursed exams did get over , I felt that the world was my cricket ball ( because football is too mainstream) and decided to goto this 'comedy film' called settai. The thing which quirked me was the synopsis - The remake of the 'A' certified Delhi Belly which has been made into a 'clean' family entertainer and has managed to get a 'U' certificate. The director was also quiet proud when he said it. So BELIEVING him I took my whole family plus two people to the movie.

Two puked pop corns and countless crass jokes later I had to face my annoyed family sheepishly . Although my brother did love it! ( well , he starts laughing if you say S**t)  My problem with the movie wasn't that it had innumerable unfunny yet disgusting 'jokes' or that it didn't have even a wafer thin plot  but that it got an U certificate. What were the makers thinking when they thought they could remake this into a family friendly affair?

Oh god . In the pursuit of writing something , I am just becoming one of innumerable  rant-about-my-life bloggers. So no more negative energy. Instead, I am going tell you about movies which are funny and have some story and 'acting' ( the only person who acted in this movie was the comedy super star) in it.
Why this move towards indigenous regional movies you might ask. Well the answer is :
a) I love them
b) If review raja is proud of my culture , it is time that I am .
c) Tamil cinema does have a flourishing heritage of comedy actors and films.


So here is my second 'trendistan' list. Tamil comedy movies which you shouldn't miss ( which are at least better investments of your time and money than settai)

3. Boss (a) Baskaran - Almost the exact cast as settai but 100000000 times  funnier. For a change , Arya acted and Santhanam was at his epicest . The story is about Baskar aka boss , a good for nothing wastrel who still hasn't even passed his twelfth examinations and falls in love with his sister in law's sister - who is an english teacher! Boss is insulted by his whole family when he expresses his wish to marry her and is out there to prove a point. Watch him run a tutorial successfully and sort out the messes which occur after that. The movie was hilarious for only one reason: santhanam! He comes as Arya's barber friend who signs the collateral for the hero's loan. The movie has made some phrases like 'nanbenda' ( friend dude :P )  and 'vida muyarchi  vishwaroopa vetri' (persistent hard work , monumental victory) popular. Don't miss one of the funniest films to have come out of the tamil industry in recent times.

2.Michael Madana kamarajan - Everyone knows kamal as an experimental actor who keeps pushing boundaries. Another thing everyone knows about him is that there is always some humor element in his films. So much so that , people have criticized his magnum opus 'dasavatharam' (where he plays 10 roles) for treating such heavy content too lightly. While  his recent movies like 'Panchatantiram' 'pammal k sambandham' 'vasool raja MBBS' are more popular for being funny , his most hilarious film (according to me ) is mmkr. Released at a time when double action itself was difficult , he pulled off 4 roles with elan.
The story is about quadruplets who get separated at birth. One is raised by his father himself as an adopted son and is a stylish multimillionaire with a giant like bodyguard (bheem boy) and the catch phrase ' catch my point' He is Madan. Michael is brought up by a thief and is hired to kill madan. Next is Raju , who is our hilarious 'low class' firefighter who romances khushboo and becomes Madan's best friend. Finally we have our tam brahm - Kamu who is a cook , who marries 'thiruputasundari' and is roped in to impersonate madhan. The climax on the wooden house up the mountain is one of the best endings I've watched in my life/

Don't miss this one!

1.Thillu Mullu - What can top a Kamal comedy film? A Rajini one of course! xD ( that too with a kamal cameo in the end!) This film directed by the great  Balachander makes you laugh every time you watch it. It has been remade in hindi by the name 'Bol Bachchan' which has crossed 100 crores. Still people rightly argue that the original was 5486431 times better. Rajini plays the role of 'ayyampettai arivudainambi kaliyaperumal chandran' who is a rebel by nature but acts all innocent to woo his very conservative and patriotic boss ( acted stunningly be thengai srinivasan) Now what happens when chandran falls in love with his boss's daughter?  He loses his mustache and becomes his twin brother Indran of course ;)  Don't you miss this marathon of comic escapades , lies and situations .

Special mention :

Vadivelu in winner - ever heard of the word one man army? Vadivelu's role basically uplifted a common masala film into a super hit entertainer . 
Now there we go , I've written a post. Hope I shell out more int the future and I promise you better quality next time around. Till then keep yourselves entertained with these movies xD

Know what else is hilarious?
Gordon Ramsay memes ------> Here.


ROTFLMAO
Semi :)

Trendistan: Ze gods!!

Lets take a moment off and acknowledge the fact that there is going to be a post. I have been mentally planning and constructing this post for soo long ( since NOVEMBER 2012! :O ) I never thought it would see the daylight. Ladies and Gents , here it is ze 'trendistan' . Semi's version of 'my fives / my lists' :P The lists are random as they get..

Soo what is it going to be this time?! Religion , god ......... INDIAN MYTHOLOGY. Well this trend has been in vogue for the past....3000 years .But in the past few years , it has been trending a lot thanks to Amish tripati's Shiva trilogy and Ashwin sanghvi's - Krishna key , chanakya's chant... ( This is what we get when we stop writing romance...BRILLIANCE) and an all new serial of 'Mahabharata' has started in sun tv on a magnum opus budget. All these egs show us that Indian mythology is definitely trending and I am going to analyse the lesser know characters of Mahabharata .
Before going into the topic , i want to dive into one more seemingly tangential issue - the ever growing zest to curb Right to freedom of expression , in favor of  religious fundamentalism and bigotism. Bal thackeray - facebook issue , my name is khan, vishwaroopam (which was nothing but a dumb action film) ,Salman Rushdie's and Taslima Nasreen's continuous saga with Calcutta and countless other instances has shown us at least one thing. There is a need to understand religion and the true meaning of secularism . Through this post I want to tell you how authors humanized godly figures - and how we seem to cling onto the belief that the opposite is true. Every god went through a hurdle to show that everybody has faults. We should always keep this in mind.
ok chup.

My fascination with Indian mythology was an early one - grandmother telling stories of ramayana during power cuts ( so obviously quite a lot :P )  , dad buying me colorful books of Mahabharata to read - I was this strange kid who loved to spend her sundays watching the tamil dubbed version of mahab on sun tv.

To all those who have been frowning quizzically at the word 'Mahabharata' - It is nothing but an enormous Indian epic about two sets of warring cousins - kauravas and Pandavas of the kuru ruling lineage , who fought for power in a HUGE war of kurukshetra for over 20 days. And duh the good guys, the pandavas won - Yudhishtra , Bheema , Arjuna , Nakula and Sahadeva ; Arjuna's uncle lord krishna xD ; their polyandric wife - Draupadi. The kauravas composed of 100 brothers of whom we get to know much , only about duryodana the eldest and dusadana. We also have Karna the generous who was duryodhana's best friend and also the secret brother of the pandavas.
And I haven't even scratched the surface yet! It is an enticing tale of love , power , greed , jealousy , vengeance and WAR. I personally prefer it over Ramayana because a) the characters are closer to human b) More divine weapons / astras  and awesome description of war and the futility of it all in the end.

Characters from Mahabharata who needed to be known/understood better.

#Respect#

1. Bhishma - Not to be confused with Bheema , he is the grand uncle of the cousins. Mahabharatha starts with him when he decides to adopt celibacy in order to get his father (shantanu) married to his step mother - Satyavati , a fishing woman. It is the descendants of this couple who give birth to Dhirithirastra and Pandu , who in turn give birth to kauravas and pandavas ( quite elaborate eh? :> ) Coming back to Bhishma , the great son of goddess Ganga - He was so upright that the gods decided to give him the choice to decide his death! So live long he did , but never once desired for the throne which he gave away to his brothers , nephews and grand nephews happily! Yet it was his shrewd mind that kept the kingdom up and running through the unstable periods of times. If everyone had been like him - there would've been no need for Mahabharata. When he decided to die during the great war - both sides paid homage to him and even adjourned  the war for him and his death anniversary is worshipped as Bhismar shanthi , where everybody has to do the funerary rights for him as he left behind no children . 
Even though bhismar was undoubtedly the greatest administrator and warrior , the epic teaches us that he couldn't control the greed of his grand nephews and couldn't side with the 'right' people in the war.

Remains anonymous

2. Yuyutsu , yes you hear me right! I am not referring to any chinese epic here but our very own Mahabharata  He is one of the least known characters of the epic - partly because he is mentioned in maybe 2 verses of the 100,000 versed anthology.   Still he stands testimony to the fact that stereotyping is always innacurate and there is always good in bad and bad in good (yin yan xP ) He is one of the 100 kauravas - yes the evil , greedy , malicious ones. He is the 100th brother or some say 101th kaurava (they didn't have calculators back then) and he was a good man. During the evil game of dice , where the pandavas were lured into gambling away all their wealth xP , freedom and were exiled to the forests , he was the only one who stood up and said what was happening was not fair. We don't know what happens to him after all that - he only has a line. A pretty poignant one if you ask me.  And he also switched sides during the war and joined the pandavas :O I readthatjustnowinWIKI. What a man link-----------> here 

credits - some awesome website-> here

3.Mahabharatha is a very male dominated story . There are few women who can be called brave in the story and among them AMBA stands tall. Hers is a fascinating story which i am going to share . Our great Bhishma was an unmatched warrior and hardly did any mistakes during his lifetime. However , when he decided to find wives for his step brother vichitravirya - he went to the swaymvar ( brides pick their husbands) of Amba . Ambika and Ambalika. Their people misperceived that he himself had come to marry them and ridiculed him - calling him old. This enraged him and he defeated every kshatriya there and abducted the princesses . Sadly Amba was attached to king Shalva and refused to be forced into marrying vichitravirya. Guts. Bhishma sent her back to Shalva , who refused to marry her as he had been publicly defeated by bhishma. Obviously honor > love. Now vichitravirya already had two wives and didn't want another one - who had someone else in her mind (irony of it) and even the old Bhishma had to refuse as he had his vow to uphold. Sick of being played volleyball with , Amba turned her hatred toward Bhishma , as she felt that he was the root cause of her suffering. As no man could beat him , she did a long penance to lord shiva who said she can defeat him in her next birth. She was born a girl in her next life - daughter of king drupada. Annoyed that she was born a girl ( girls can't fight)  , she further penanced and became a man - Shikandi and got her/his moment of glory when she defeated bhishma ( with the help of arjuna) during the war.

This is the closest we get to a courageous women story and must applaud her determination and penance.

p.s - Wow all my spellings are underlined in red o.O


Someone who missed the list by an inch - Veera Abhimanyu :') _:'(

Hope the #trend stays