Muttom Beach

During our last trip to India, we visited Muttom Beach. This beach is located between Kanyakumari and Nagarcoil. I wrote the following comments in one of Neha’s posts:

"We have been to many beaches all over the world and had a great time (Santa Cruz California, Miami Florida, Marina Beach in Chennai, Lankavi and Penang in Malaysia, Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, Venice Italy). Enjoyed all of them. The best so far? During our last trip to India, we visited Muttom Beach in Tamilnadu. Virgin Beach. No publicity yet. No crowd. Were there alone. Had a great time."

Beautiful landscape and high rocks slope downwards into the sea.
.

Everyone says sunset is beautiful in Kanyakumari. Sunset watching is more beautiful in Muttom. Kanyakumari is crowded. In Muttom you can watch the sunset alone and leisurely.

Century old Light House

Enjoy the sunset

Leisurely relax in these benches

The rocks

Serene beach

Beautiful sand

The entire Tamil movie, Kadalora Kavidhaigal, was shot here.

One word of caution. Please avoid climbing on the rocks. They are slippery.

New Avenues for Security Check

The whole world now knows that a heavily armed lone gunman in Aurora, Colorado, went to the opening show of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. And, as soon as the movie started, he opened fire in the dark at the audience. In just a few minutes, he shot more than 70 people. 12 killed and 59 wounded (many of them critically). The newspaper reports say he was a PhD student. Huh!

Within minutes, after a 911 call, 200 police officers surrounded the area and he was captured alive. They are interrogating him. President Obama has ordered the U.S. Flags to fly half mast for 5 days throughout the world, as a mark of respect for the victims.

My question is where security checks would crop up again.

Before 9/11, we can go up to the gate in the airport to see off our relatives/friends. I even remember going inside a plane to talk to my wife for a minute when she was going on vacation to India. Can we go near the departure gate now? No way. So many kinds of security checks. Remove your belt. Remove your gold. Separately place your laptop. Remove your shoes. In some cases, remove your underwear (after the underwear bomber).

We recently visited India. We took train from New Delhi to Chennai. There was a security check at the New Delhi Railway Station. We had to hassle to get our baggage to board our train.

After this movie incident, should we create a thorough security check for the following places? Thorough means like airport or military style and personnel from anti terrorist squad doing their job.

Movie Theaters?

Offices? Government and Private?

Temples? Popular and not so popular.

Schools?

Colleges?

Restaurants?

Bus?

And, Finally

Your own home? Noooo. Not there.

These are only a passive thinking. We will forget this in a day or two. Because this tragedy did not happen in our home.

Anyone want to see this movie, The Dark Knight Rises? Come on down. The ticket is on me. Let us enjoy the movie and dinner after that.

Cute vs Handsome

Recently a blogger friend wrote a fictional story. In that fictional story, a few college girls were going gaga over a guy and thought he was cute. After reading that, I started to think about it.

As for as I know, you call a girl “cute”. And, call a guy “handsome”. Is it OK to call a guy “cute”? It is a social norm that men are handsome and women are beautiful and pretty and cute.

Let us take the easier one first. We should never call a woman handsome. Agreed?

I asked my friends and relatives about this. A little unscientific survey. Here are some of their answers:

Cute if you (man) have a childish look or if you are small in height.

Depends. Some cute can mean real hot.

A girl will call a guy cute when he is really cute; I mean a girl will find someone/something cute when she can play with it. No romantic intention.

If a guy is not that handsome, you say cute so that you don’t hurt his feeling.

Cute means she finds you hot and attractive.

Cute means someone who has child like looks. Like Lionel Messi is cute, Tom Cruise is cute. It doesn't mean hot or not so good looking.

Cute means you are attractive but not her type.

If I say a guy is cute, I mean he’s good looking and I find him attractive. Handsome is an old word to describe an old man. I would say my grandfather is handsome.

If an old lady calls a young man cute, it is motherly affection.

When a guy is cute, it's like he's more sensitive and sweet, and attractive in the way that he has this way of making you smile and saying romantic things.

Puppies are cute and babies in diapers are cute. They are small and attractive and fun to be with and you want one. So a guy can be cute to a girl.

The result: Split decision. Looks like “cute” is an acceptable word to describe an attractive hot guy.

My apologies to Revathi for trying to correct her.

What y'all think?