The World Famous Lungi

This is one funny article...

The Legendary Lungi

Just as the national bird of Kerala is Mosquito, the national dress is 'Lungi'. Pronounced 'Lu' as in loo and 'ngi ' as in 'mongey', a lungi can be identified by its floral or window-curtain pattern. 'Mundu' is the white variation of lungi and is worn on special occasions like hartal or bandh days, also at weddings and Onam.

Lungi is simple and 'down to earth' like the mallu wearing it. Lungi is the beginning and the end of evolution in its category. Wearing something on the top half of your body is optional when you are wearing a lungi. Lungi is a strategic dress. It's like a one-size- fits-all bottoms for Keralites.

The technique of wearing a lungi/mundu is passed on from generation to generation through word of mouth like the British Constitution. If you think it is an easy task wearing it, just try it once! It requires techniques like breath control and yoga that is a notch higher than sudarshan kriya of AOL.

A lungi/mundu when perfectly worn won't come off even in a quake of 8 on the richter scale. A lungi is not attached to the waist using duct tape, staple, rope or velcro. It's a bit of mallu magic whose formula is a closely guarded secret like the Coca Cola receipe.

A lungi can be worn 'Full Mast' or 'Half Mast' like a national flag. A 'Full Mast' lungi is when you are showing respect to an elderly or the dead. Wearing it at full mast has lots of disadvantages. A major disadvantage is when a dog runs after you. When you are wearing a lungi/mundu at full mast, the advantage is mainly for the female onlookers who are spared the ordeal of swooning at the sight of hairy legs.

Wearing a lungi 'Half Mast' is when you wear it exposing yourself like those C grade movie starlets. A mallu can play cricket, football or simbly run when the lungi is worn at half mast. A mallu can even climb a coconut tree wearing lungi in half mast. "It's not good manners, especially for ladies from decent families, to look up at a mallu climbing a coconut tree"- Confucius (or is it Conspicious?)

Most mallus do the traditional dance kudiyattam. Kudi means drinking alcohol and yattam, pronounced aattam, means random movement of the male body. Note that 'y' is silent. When you are drinking, you drink, there is no 'y'. Any alcohol related "festival" can be enjoyed to the maximum when you are topless with lungi and a towel tied around the head. "Half mast lungi makes it easy to dance and shake legs" says Candelaria Amaranto, a Salsa teacher from Spain after watching 'kudiyaattam' .

The 'Lungi Wearing Mallu Union' [LUWMU, pronounced LOVE MU], an NGO which works towards the 'upliftment' of the lungi, strongly disapprove of the GenNext tendency of wearing Bermudas under the lungi. Bermudas under the lungi is a conspiracy of the CIA. It's a disgrace to see a person wearing burmudas with corporate logos under his lungi. What they don't know is how much these corporates are limiting their freedom of movement and expression.

A mallu wears lungi round the year, all weather, all season. A mallu celebrates winter by wearing a colourful lungi with a floral pattern. Lungi provides good ventilation and brings down the heat between legs. A mallu is
scared of global warming more than anyone else in the world. A lungi can be worn any time of the day/night. It doubles as blanket at night. It also doubles up as a swing, swimwear, sleeping bag, parachute, facemask while entering/exiting toddy shops, shopping basket and water filter while fishing in ponds and rivers. It also has recreational uses like in 'Lungi pulling', a pastime in households having more than one male member.

Lungi pulling competitions are held outside toddyshops all over Kerala during Onam and Vishu. When these lungis are decommissioned from service, they become table cloths. Thus the humble lungi is a cradle to grave apparel..

(An anonymous piece) Not the Lungi - the essay.

Gamesa India Expansion Plans in Chennai

Gamesa's New Turbine Models

Gamesa, a world leader in the manufacture and maintenance of wind turbines, will again attend one of the wind energy industry’s premier annual events, the Husum WindEnergy Trade Fair (Germany), scheduled for 21-25 September at which Gamesa will showcase its new Gamesa G9X-2.0 MW platform.

 

The company will participate in the industry exhibition under the theme, Gamesa Innovates: Evolution of a Technology, detailing the history and development of a broad range of platforms and wind turbines, from the Gamesa G5X-850 kW to its last technological innovations, the Gamesa G9X-2.0 MW and the Gamesa G10X-4.5 MW.

 

The combination of a 2.0 MW unit wind turbine with a range of four different rotor size options (diameters of 80, 87, 90 and 97 metres) makes the Gamesa G9X-2.0 MW platform the most versatile in the market, offering maximum output for any location.

 

The launch of the new platform is getting underway with the G97-2.0 MW Class IIIA model, specially designed for low wind sites, a segment from which Gamesa expects over half of the demand for the 2 MW category to come. The Gamesa G97 has a swept area 16% higher than the existing G90, coupled with an increase in energy output of almost 14%.

 

Gamesa G97-2 MW wind turbine features a new aerodynamic blade tip design and the Gamesa NRS® control system to ensure to maximum output yet minimum noise. Also, other prominent characteristics of the wind turbine are:

• A 97m long next-generation rotor for low wind sites
• Cutting-edge blade technology: manufacture of lightweight blades using fibreglass, carbon fibre and prepregs
• Pitch and variable speed technology to maximize energy output
• Gamesa active yaw system to ensure optimal adaptation to complex terrains
• Gamesa WindNet® system: remote web-enabled monitoring and control system
• Gamesa SMP: Proprietary predictive maintenance system
• High-tech solutions to guarantee compliance with the main requirements for international grid connection.

Gamesa also plans to showcase its G10X-4.5 MW platform and the G128-4.5 MW wind turbine, the company’s most ambitious project ever and the land-based wind energy industry's most powerful product to date, at the trade fair. Gamesa, which has already begun to market the new turbine and to develop the manufacturing process, plans to go into pre-production in 2011 and to start up assembly line production in 2012. 

The energy generated by each Gamesa G10X-4.5 MW turbine helps to produce an environmentally-benign energy supply by preventing harmful atmospheric emissions. Each turbine is capable of generating enough electricity to power 3,169 households for a year, replace nearly 1,000 tonnes of petroleum equivalent (TPE) annually and avoid 6,750 tonnes of atmospheric CO2 emissions per year.