Let me Scribble

The Holy Grail of naming your child

2011-07-19T17:24:00.002-05:00

Shouldn't naming your child be a simple task that wouldn't warrant a blog post. I learnt that it isn't. It usually is a multi-day task that hinges on a number of key factors. I was curious why I was named what people call me and I am sure most of you were / are. If you are still unaware, now is a good time to learn it. There is a pretty good chance that your kid is going to want to know anyway. He is stuck with it for life (for no fault of his) and you better have a good reason for it. (not really but com'on the odds of that are very low)

Unique - Perhaps one of the most sought after attribute in names. It is, in my opinion, impossible to have a unique name. At the time of writing, the probability of your name being unique is less than 1 in 7 billion (source: http://www.worldometers.info/). Its actually much much less than that considering you would want this to be unique across names of past and future births. So, the moderate expectation of each parent is at least the name is among the least used. Unless there's divine intervention (see video below), its tough to get a name that's uniquely unique

Seeking Punya - Wouldn't it be easier to increase your (and other's) punya count just by naming your kid as one of the Gods names. Whenever you call them, you invoke God. Easy, isn't it? The names of the God and Goddess are very rich in their meaning and are powerful words phonetically. They are believed to result in good effect to anyone even when uttered without contemplating on its meaning.

Pronunciation - Not too hard to pronounce. This criteria is hard to satisfy because its never in your hands (well almost). Would any of you reading this believe my name is hard to hear and reproduce (or pronounce for that matter). Make up your mind first before reading along. My name has been butchered in ways that I could have never imagined - Gidy, Gary, Jiri, Geeri, Jiree, Gairi are just some examples. I know of people butchering their own names as "Alagu..." instead of "Azhagu..." completely decimating the intent of the name

Not too long - Probably, there was a time when long names were a fashion but it doesn't seem to be anymore. My name has 3 syllables but almost always the last one is dropped. The downside sometimes is the total distortion of meaning thereby nullifying 2 and 3 above. For instance, "Gajanan" means "Lord Ganesh". He is more likely to be called as "Gaja" meaning elephant.

Misunderstood - Something that I believe is unavoidable. Mainly because, people are from different backgrounds, have different knowledge, exposure, understanding and the same sounds mean different things in different languages. Or simply, they lack the proper understanding of the language resulting in inappropriate usage. For instance, a name as beautiful as "Agoram" is assumed incorrectly to mean 'ugly' and is used colloquially to mean so. While it actually means the exact opposite, "Beautiful". 'A' (negation) + 'Goram' (ugly). "Naatram" in tamil means smell. It doesn't mean its a pungent smell but invariably tends to be used to mean that. 'Dur' (bad) + 'Naatram' (smell) means bad smell.

Preferences and Relatedness - Some people have a preference over the letter with which the name begins either as per numerology or just because their own names begin with that letter. Some others like to name based on a reasoning (born in a certain period, certain star, certain day, favorite icons or stars, or simply related to their parents / sibling names in some way.

Instincts - Finally, it all boils down to gut instinct of how a particular name appeals to the parents. Most parents look for at least one among several listed here.

As far as to, what we finally named our kid, well, let me just say that it could jeopardize rule #1. So, let that remain a secret.

Related links:
This link explains one important aspect of naming
http://www.shaivam.org/snmchild.htm

Bought on the wrong foot

2011-03-17T08:23:00.002-05:00

4th Mar 2011

Walked into one of the very famous textile shops in T.Nagar, Chennai - Nalli Silks, right opposite Pothys at Usman road. Anu wanted to return one of her sarees bought a few weeks back that her mom had purchased. We (she) spent the next hour checking out a slew of silk sarees at the first floor. Not satisfied with any of those within our budget, we decided to check out the readymade garments section at the fourth floor. That expectedly didn't take much time. Anu discarded all but one maroon color sherwani shown to her. Truth be said - her clothing choices have always been better than mine. But I must concede that the kids in sherwani in the fitting room posters looked much better.

The defective Saree &
the Sherwani

The saree (that we wanted to exchange) was worth Rs. 3000 whereas the Sherwani cost around Rs. 1500. Knowing well that the balance amount wouldn't be returned, we shopped for some other saree worth a little more than the balance amount. We took all the 3 garments to the billing counter and requested an exchange. The guy at the billing counter told me that they cannot split the exchange across 2 sections, Ready-made and sarees. He further explained that I either need to buy over Rs. 3000 worth of sarees Or over Rs. 3000 worth of ready made garments.

Perplexed, I tried to reason with him but he simply pointed me to another counter at the first floor. Another counter but events remained the same. He repeated the same thing in no different words. When I further insisted, I was referred to their manager. He seemed like a man in his 40s and expected him to be reasonable. Soon I realized that I was misled by his appearance.

The manager spoke as if he doesn't care. He was adamant and always took the excuse of "Our system doesn't allow that". Once he mentioned that Sarees (non-taxable) cannot be exchanged with Ready-made garments (taxable) {or the other way}. When I reminded him about his earlier statement of exchange being possible if everything is in one or the other, he shifted his stance back to "Our system doesn't allow that". In my mind, Nalli is a single store irrespective of where they decide to bill their different clothing lines. When I stated this, he bluntly said, may be a small shop would do that but not us.

No amount of argument bore any fruit. He failed to resonate with my comment that we are the "Customers". I wasn't being proud but simply stated the fundamentals on which most business are built. He stood his ground unrelenting. Faced with no other choice, we had to exchange an higher priced saree way above our budget. We left the store fuming and I vowed to myself never to shop again in Nalli. Well, "HE" had other plans.

The new saree had hardly been worn once. Even before the first wash, individual threads started coming out. So, back to the ugly Nallis. This time, I was stopped by the security guard at the gate. All I did was to step out of Nallis to check out some stuff at a shop, 10 shops away. It seems I would be guilty of leaving my bike parked at Nallis even if I where to step out to the shop on the other side of the road. Arguments ensued - I tried to reason with him and then his manager (no...not the same guy as last time, but same outcome) that my family is still here and I will return in 5 minutes. Nope!!! I have to take my bike out, park it on the other side and I can park back when I return. Left with no choice, waited for 45 mins for them to exchange the saree (surprisingly, no questions asked on the exchange) and then proceeded with my work.

May be I am a spoilt brat but I have always read, heard that Customer is king. I realized that isn't true always. May be one of you could tell me if I was on the wrong side. Was the manager right in saying so? Was the security manager right in asking me to take my bike? For now, I have vowed (yet again) not to step foot in any of Nalli's stores but again we don't get to decide everything. Do we? Nalli is Ugly.

Instant Inaccuracy

2010-10-11T09:20:00.003-05:00

Wicked Vikram (WV) was walking back on the streets of downtown Chicago. It was 5:00 in the evening and two blocks from the Metra station. The time at which the average walking speeds and the number of jaywalkings explode. As he walked and continued people watching, one desi girl caught his attention. The days work had still left her smile intact. She wore a suit and had a hair nicely let down.

She must be in her early 20s, looks very sweet. Must have done her masters here - seems professional, has a face of a North Indian. His boyfriend is one lucky chap. Why wouldn't he be...

Scene Change

WV walked by him again this afternoon. He's tall and must admit has a good command over the language. Though the way he handles the meetings shows his experience with such projects, has absolutely no teaming skills. What does he think of himself...too smart huh!!! Why pretend as if he's being nice when I know he's looking for every possible opportunity to put me down. Always shows off as if he's the boss in spite of being no way senior to me. He must be one nut case.

Scene Change

While on a call with one of his distant cousins & flipping through the pics of his recent trip, WV thought to himself - Man!!! He's tall. Fair, well built and handsome, he for sure has made big bucks as a free-lance technology consultant. Must be easily earning six digit dollar figures. He should live a comfortable life now.

Scene Change

Was flipping through the recent pictures from her picasa photo album. Ha ha ha... must be the rule of Madurai rather than Chidambaram*. She looks real bossy and arrogant. I really pity her husband. He seems like a mouse in front of her. Does he ever have his way in any of the decisions? I really doubt it. I am sure she makes him look after their kids while she does all the shopping. I can imagine how their day-to-day evening conversations would go.

Scene	How does he know	Time taken to judge	Actual fact
Girl on the street	People watching	5 secs	Unknown
Colleague at office	Work	3 weeks	To a fair extent, accurate
Distant cousin	Pictures, hear say	2 months	Very actively involved in donations to NGOs & charities
Friend’s sister	Web photo album	5 mins	Working women balancing work and family

What does all of the above scenarios have in common. Simply one thing - being judgmental. How quickly one forms opinions and judge a person is simply amazing. Do you relate to WV from someone you know or even yourself. Is this common? Do you feel you do it too? Let me know in the comments section

*Madurai and Chidambaram, in colloquial Tamil, represent the Veto power holder (wife / husband) in a family respectively as a reference to the principal deity in these locations (Goddess Meenakshi & Lord Shiva).

Lets be the Change, Lets learn to Salute

2010-09-26T12:21:00.002-05:00

A visit to one of the theme parks in the United States could be more than just an entertaining experience. This was not the first time I was visiting the Sea World in San Diego. Had been twice before over the period of last 4 years. The whole atmosphere would resemble a big political party meeting in India. Other than the sport stadiums, nowhere else have I seen such huge crowds. It was close to noon when we reached and the first Shamu show was right around the corner. Shamu, though the name sounds asian is actually a Blue Whale. The entire half an hour is about its antics and displays.

Huge crowd had gathered for the show, that day being an holiday. Even before the show began, something important happened. The organizers of the show requested all the officers and their families who had served their nation in any form - Navy, Marine or Air force to stand up and accept their salutation. The entire crowd cheered, applauded and expressed their support and appreciation. I did too and I have done it all the 3 times that I have been at this place. I could see the pride in the faces of all those who were standing.

Two things to note -
1) Appreciation of those who serve their country
2) Appreciation of their families - for without their support, these men & women wouldn't have joined/ continued to serve their nation.

Image Source : http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/Indian_Army_T-72_image_2.jpg/800px-Indian_Army_T-72_image_2.jpg

Heros of 1971 war with pakistan, the freedom fighters or even the most recent Kargil war heroes - the list of people whom we have forgotten is endless. How many of us remember Major Unnikrishnan who lost his life fighting the 26/11 terrorists hardly 2 years back. Our memories are so shortlived that we must be ashamed of ourselves. Have you ever wondered how much an uniformed officer braving the scorching heat in the sands of rajasthan or sub-zero temperatures at Siachen or the deep waters of Arabian sea, gets paid*. My best guess is no... we are more interested in the IPL controversy, CWG fiasco and the innumerable other scams that are unearthed everyday. We definitely need a database to keep track of these.

What else can express this feeling more than a song sung by the great Lata Mangeshkar - Aye Mere Watan Ke Logon

One of my wife's friends recently married an army officer and quit her high-paying job to spend time with him. Why? because, her husband is slated to be posted at the Border very soon. How many such parents and spouses have sacrificed their personal lives for the sake of this country. It is certainly fitting and imperative that we honor these people and their family at every occassion possible.

What can we do??

In my opinion, the single biggest thing that we could do is to respect these men and women whenever presented with an opportunity. As I mentioned at the beginning, it could be a theme park show, a company event, a school function, even a cricket match. It could be even as simple as an function in your apartment complex or your locality. If anyone deserves true salutation, then it is undoubtedly these men and women in uniform. It certainly would go a long way in improving the morale of the armed forces. We are just the beneficiaries of the hard work of these brave soldiers.

All it needs is a little start. A little push by everyone. Jai Hind!!!

*Not sure about the validity of data
http://www.ehow.com/about_4692713_pay-scale-indian-army.html
http://career.webindia123.com/career/options/defence_government/indian_army/army_officer/benefit.htm

Unit of "itch"!!!

2010-09-21T18:54:00.000-05:00

Aruna has a strange nose or so she tells me. Hers is a sensitive one. It tends to react to any minor change in conditions. Most times, its the seasonal change but sometimes it could be as simple as nothing. Naturally, when it starts to itch, she starts to rub her nose violently for a few seconds. I have noticed her doing this multiples times a day. As much as it irritates me, I also am afraid that she might damage her nasal passage somehow. Its actually not as funny as it sounds and I have developed a particular dislike for this act of hers. We have pondered hard and tried to analyze if it has to do with some allergies. But more often than not, this discussion has been unpleasant and results in some air-borne things that were not meant to fly.

So, when this itch was followed by a few air borne things yesterday, I decided to put a little more thought into it. And most often when I do that, people with large brains tend to rank me lower on sanity index. Yet that has not discouraged me from "thinking" :). So, I wondered if the itch is more in her minds than on her nose or even if this could be an obsessive compulsive disorder (after referring wiki, it turns out its not). So, what could it be? What if... it's something like sighting an UFO or a ghost. While the people who saw certainly believe, without an iota of doubt, what they saw, there are always enough sceptics doubting their claims. So, how do we conclude scientifically that there indeed was an itch? (A million itch question!!!)

I had just finished reading "The Lost Symbol", by Dan Brown and that seems to have certainly had its influence. An idea blossommed. What if there was a way we could measure itch? Obviously, I myself have felt itching with various intensity. So, if our body is able to differentiate and identify and grade the sense of itch, developing an instrument to measure itch cannot be impossible. So, all we need to do is to find a way to transmit the signals in the underlying nerve cells and measure them. Isn't it? Imagine, I would then hold an "Itchometer" with electrodes connected to my nose indicating a low itch level of 5. I could then measure Aruna's and cross check to really see if the Itchometer shows any higher reading.

I shared this wonderful idea to Aruna and even suggested that she take it up as a research project. For, if she did succeed, we could have a new unit for itch named after the founder (akin to "ohms"). Very soon, you would have physicians and dermatologists all over the world noting in their reports - "Keshav has an itch of 40 Arunas"
On a serious note, it turns out that there already has been some effort in this direction. Apparently, I am not the only enlightened soul ;)
http://adv.medicaljournals.se/files/pdf/89/3/3007.pdf and
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bsc/bjd/2010/00000162/00000003/art00019

Another interesting read - http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2009/04/the_art_of_itch.php

Image Copyright : http://www.topnews.in/health/files/itch.jpg

Wish

2010-07-10T13:24:00.003-05:00

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 12; the twelfth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

'W' stands for world peace only when you are a finalist in the Miss world pageant. At all other times, it mostly stands for a question - "Who, Why, Which, What, When, Where". When its not any of those, it stands for a "Wish". There are very few things that are more permanent than having a Wish. Accepted that it changes over a period, with people, with Gender. But its something that's a common possession of people around the world.

When you are a college-goer, you wish to be the centre of all eyes. You want the girls to ogle at you and go head-over-heels talking to you. What was my wish.. not too different. I liked being independent. I liked the responsibility that came along with the freedom of the hostel life. I used to involve myself in arranging industrial visits. I liked being liked. In simple words, I wished attention and was jealous of anyone who garnered it. I remember one of my seniors, Ashwin. He was an amazing singer and part of our music group, Tech Music. Oh boy, he had an amazing voice. Yes, I remember the "Seemas", and "Kavithas" but they never made me jealous. They cornered equal attention but this man was the most popular among girls. All I managed to do was irritate fellow bathroom users. I wished I had a voice like him and could sing that well.

Joined the photography club in my second year. I hadn't failed to notice some of my senior in the front rows of college cultural functions with sophisticated cameras hanging around their necks. Though off stage, they still garnered enough attention. May be, that pulled me towards photography. Nevertheless, to this day, I must admit joining the club was one of my better decisions. Learnt a few techniques, understood a few concepts...but never quite mastered it. A couple of years later, due to some unexpected events, I led the team to photography competition at Saarang, IIT Madras. I tried my creative best to come out with an original photo but I was never close. Finally, I did manage to win the prize of a collage photo but I knew the idea wasn't mine. I definitely shot the photo but the idea of the photo originated from my friend, shiv who had done a similar one a year ago. One another senior, Arun... took a double exposure photo of a person standing in front of a photo copying shop and captioned it "We Xerox everything". I wished I was a Arun or a Shiv.

Very much part of the college cricket team, I rose through the ranks. All through my first year, stood outside nets, brought water and snacks during matches and carried the cricket kit. I was the wicket keeper who could also bat. Remember Ashwin, the singer above... well he was our captain and a flamboyant opener. He danced down the tracks to pacemen and used to drive effortlessly to boundaries. A middle order bat, Diwakar, was the Ricky Ponting of our team. He pulled anything short to midwicket and a Jhonty Rhodes that I could meet and shake hands with. I envied both of them equally for their cricketing abilities. I did manage to claim the prized wicket keeper position in my 3rd year and went on to lead a few matches in my final year. Yet always knew that I was more a Dinesh Karthik than a Dhoni. I wished I was a Diwakar or an Ashwin.

Its been 10 years. I haven't changed much. I still wish to be a Rahul Dravid while playing cricket, croon on seeing the picturization of PC Shriram, was left spell bound at A R Rehman concert and would like to have the creativity of Steve Jobs. I wish that I wrote a lot better than what I have in this blog :) . I wish, wish and wish. Some day, I wish to be the person someone wishes to be.

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Why did She???

2010-06-23T22:47:00.002-05:00

Over the years, I had developed a strong liking for her. She lives in our neighborhood and we met quite often. Annual Summer school vacations provided ample opportunities for us to play and I must say we made full use of them. A few years passed, I had to leave to coimbatore to pursue my undergrad in engineering. I missed her a lot. We did meet whenever I went home but my Amma never liked it. So, like any other teenager, I sometimes had to lie to keep my date. What started as a childish infatuation blossomed into something very beautiful. But the question remained whether it will be reciprocated.

It was Christmas time and I was back home again after a gap of 6 months. I desperately wanted to meet her. So, set out at 6 pm in the evening. The sun was retiring when I finally met her. I arranged a few friends to pick me up to ensure that Amma doesn't smell any rat. Nice friends as they are, left us alone soon after. I joined her lying down on her back and staring at the moonlight. What else could be more romantic. A gentle breeze swept across my face and as her feet touched mine, I felt a chill run down my spine. Other than the occasional feet play, no words were exchanged but a sense of deep bonding prevailed. She has always been different from the rest of us. Thats probably what drew me towards her. Unusally today, she remained calm all through our conversation. Little did I realize that it was the lull before the storm. Very soon, it was time to bid adieu. As always is the case every single time, she silently slipped something into my trouser pockets but I hardly noticed. Walked a few paces, turned back to look at her one last time before she disappeared.

It was 6:00 am in the morning, the next day. Woke up to Amma's censure - Nothing skips her eyes. With blazing eyes, a washing liquid in one hand and my trouser in the other, she obviated any explanations. Managed to silently slip out of bed. Very soon, I was in front of the TV, surfing across channels. Amma was busy in the kitchen and Appa was pouring into "The Hindu". Next minute, thanks to my scream, both of them stood next to me looking at her pictures flashed across all TV channels. I watched those scenes with my mouth still wide open. A sense of shock engulfed all of us. Why would she leave all of us behind? Why would she walk away so far??? I couldn't sit in the couch anymore. Should I dash to her place before Amma stops me??? Will I get to see her with so many policemen around. Amma's advice fell in deaf ears as I sprinted out.

Hundreds of people had already gathered. Not many policemen had arrived by then. I managed to muscle through the crowd to get a peek of her. There she lay with the same calmness that I saw the previous night, but not at her usual place, not anywhere close to me. Ran towards her like a child towards its lost toy. A few tried to stop me while others simply followed. Thats when I last ran, last cried with joy, the last I saw her in the material world. I didn't live to tell the tale of what happened over the next few minutes. She took a Viswa Roopam with her feet about 30 metres above earth surface and stared back at all of us for a few seconds. Before we knew another thing, she came back and swallowed all of us with a splash of one humongous wave after another.

Until that moment, neither have I seen her in that form nor have I heard of the word "Tsunami". Why did She???

What's New(s)??

2010-06-17T09:44:00.007-05:00

I sat down to write something today, not because its been long but I had nothing to do today in the train. Evening rides to home in the Metra are usually time to complete left over work. Today, I had come to a logical conclusion in my work. But what to write??? - over the last few days, I desperately wanted to pour my thoughts on so many things but now, my mind is blank. Lets see where I am when I am done with this one.

I am a self-proclaimed news addict. I am so addicted to reading the news that its my caffeine equivalent whenever I feel sleepy. I want to know the latest in well...everything - politics, gadgets, sports, my home city, finance, stock markets, technology, economics and of course, the gossips.
Wish that I had pursued a career in journalism. Deep back in the depths of my mind, there is a thought of being a journalist some day. Not for the publicity, but to be the person providing (more importantly, knowing) the most happening news. If not full time, may be as a part time / a free lancer. I am sure that I am not one of a kind; there definitely are others who are equally, if not more obsessed with news. One of my friends, Vasant (who by the way spoilt me even more when we were roommates) used to wake up in the middle of the night and listen to IBNLive. So, how did I end up being one?

My best memory takes me back to my school days. A lot of credit should go to my father for sowing the seeds of interest in me. I and Sridhar, my brother, always had a healthy fight going on everyday - who gets the first right to use the bathroom. Whats so uncommon about brothers fighting- even the Ambanis do (did). Well, untrue as it might sound, this fight to "Right of First Use" extended to laying hands on the newspaper. Neither of us liked to share and read the individual pages - we wanted it allllllll at once. Not just that... we both liked to read the paper when its crispy and unwrinkled. "Ooru rendu patta, koothaadi ku kondattam" - Very aptly, our mom took full advantage of this to teach us some good habits. So with immediate effect, came a legislation (overdose of news can do this to your vocabulary) that "Whoever gets out of the bed first gets to read "The Hindu" first. That might seem like an insignificant rule until you get to know the time the newspaper arrives - 4:45 am. Our fights led to waking up as early as 5 am.

I must also mention one of the good practices that was followed in our school. "The Hindu" carried an "Know your English" column every Tuesday. One of us need to take one part of it, read it out in the class every week. No marks for guessing - who was among the contenders for most appearances.

So what do I read everyday. I start off with the days news in politics slowly moving on to the local news section. What happens in and around Chennai is of utmost interest to me. The recent developments of Metro train and airport modernization keep me busy. Though primarily interested in the infrastructure development in the Greater Chennai area, I find other related news equally interesting to read. Even traffic diversions, power cuts and Cooum Restoration project (in spite of repeated corruption resulting in vanishing money and increasing project estimates) interest me. Once completed, I slowly move on to the sports section. Of late, the front page gets as much attention as the City news does. I hardly read gossips and the abhor Tamil newspapers for creating hypes out of nonsense. Once all this done, I move on to the Science & technology section.

So, where do I read all these news from?.. In those days (somehow using those words, I feel like an oldy). Since am nowhere near that...let me rephrase. When I was less younger, it was fun reading the newspapers early in the morning. These days, more resigned to digital versions of the news sites rather than hard copies. A plethora of websites feed me with every day. So, here is my usual short list.
a) www.ibnlive.com
b) www.beta.thehindu.com
c) www.news.google.com (Chennai news and Sci tech) - These two sections in turn lead to a multitude of other websites
d) www.economictimes.com
e) http://www.skyscrapercity.com/

I constantly crave for knowing the absolute latest - from breaking news, opinions, to gadgets, developer conferences. So much so that I have absolutely become obsessed with it. Don't know when will this change but until now, I will savor all these sites everyday.
p.s: Noticed that I have used around 30 I's (reduced it from 45) in this entire blog that I almost feel like a narcissist.

Dicephaly of Indian Politics

2010-05-15T09:12:00.008-05:00

To be honest, I never was interested in politics until some 4-5 years back. My interest was limited to Science & Tech, sports and local happenings. But of late, I am very very interested. I watched the last lok sabha election as keenly as a limited overs international keeping tab of the score every 5 mins. There are a couple of moments that also changed my interest towards politics. One among them being the decisive moment when Sonia Gandhi refused to be the Prime Minister and instead, made one politician/ person, whom I rever the most, to be the PM of this country.
Other incidents include Lalu Prasads turnaround of the Railways. From then on, I almost know the names of the ministers who hold key positions / portfolios. There are enough controversies each day that to let your attention drift away seems impossible. The twists and turns that take place with every sunrise should put every bollywood movie makers to shame - for it as, all the drama - action (parliament being the war ground), rhetoric and one-liners (when have we ever been short of these), Maligning, switching sides, under table transactions, spy cameras, tapped microphones.. ufff!! The only thing missing are the songs but they still succeed in making people dance to their tunes

This interest has only intensified during the recent days with the Right To Information(RTI) making more and more departments accountable. I sincerely wish that this act not be reduced to a travesty in the name of modifications. If that happens, it would be a giant leap backwards. More recently, the Right to Education (RTE) brought out by Kapil Sibal seems revolutionary. This particular act, in my opinion, when implemented correctly would certainly change the way Indian children receive/perceive education. I remember my school days being fully focused on being among the first few ranks in the class. With the introduction of grades and doing away with the strenuous board exams until the XIIth, I believe education would soon stop being a burden. The bags that the young children carry seem to act as a testimonial to this fact. A few might argue against that the differentiation between the crème de la crème from the top performers or a mediocre from an above average student would be lost. I think that is the whole point - inclusive education, to make more people get basic education. The cream would find its own way to glory. To quote a statistic from Mr. Sibal himself, less than 12% of those that complete their 8th grade go on to pursue a college degree. That is the number we most certainly need to increase.

One of my other recent interests include the "Aadhar", more commonly known as the UID (Unique Identification). I am a big fan of this project ever since its inception, may be because its a sangamam of two areas of my interest - latest technology and developments in India. Why I sincerely wish that it succeed - because I truly believe it has the potential to impact the lives of significant number of people in India. Why am I positive - foremost, because its not being run by a politician rather by one of my Ex-CEOs, Nandan Nilekani. Its been headed by the person who envisaged it in his book Imagining India. I know I keep saying this about others too but I am a big fan of him right from the beginning of my career. Other than that, I am also impressed with a few other things. You must take a look at their website (www.UIDAI.gov.in). Its one of the better maintained government websites. It has all the recent updates and seems to be a transparent organization (so far) with everything put out on the website. They even provide opportunities for Volunteering, Internship and sabbatical programs. Never have I known of any such government initiative.

There are a few others in the Union Cabinet whom I liked and hence followed closely. for instance, Shashi Tharoor, the Minister of State for external affairs. He is a well educated person and his experience in the United Nations would have been a big plus. That is precisely, the reason why our PM picked him. Unfortunately, he got stuck in a controversy. While I don't know the complete story - To me, what he did does not amount to misuse of his ministerial powers. Also, I liked that he was a different politician. He did not hide behind silly caste excuses. He didn't cry that he was being targeted because he's from a minority group. He came out in the open and fought in what he believed. He was more tech-savvy and reached out to millions of his followers via Twitter. In his own words, he got an audience of million people (via twitter) without taking to any stage - what else would a politician want. He did commit a few blunders by discussing internal policy issues out in the open without prior discussion with his fellow colleagues in the government. But he did accept that he was naive on that occasion. He ultimately had to bow down to the pressure and resign.

Compare the above scenario with one man I would love to see lose his ministerial position - A Raja, our telecom minister. I am totally perplexed as to how a person charged with such massive corruption (siphoning off 1000's of crores of rupees) still manages to hold on to his chair. Even more inexplicable is the reasoning behind retaining a 7 year old price for the Bandwidth, the single most sought after commodity by the big telecom companies. Inspite of repeated demands for his resignation, allegations after allegations, new proofs unearthed every week, this man refuses to budge from his seat. Well, you know, its not that hard. All you need to do is invoke a convenient excuse - "Targeted because of being a Dalit". Every time I hear about this minister, my BP level shoots up manifold times.

I know of one another person who never fails to invoke the convenient excuse as many times as she could. Isn't it such an easy excuse - If not, how could one get away with spending crores and crores on building their own statues, and on adorning currency garlands. But when it comes to spending money on people, like the Right To Education Act or even worse, paying compensation to accident victims, she would throw her hands up in the air and claim there's no money. Are such people even deserve to be classified as Humans, leave alone occupy esteemed positions of governance?

One of the irritating behaviors of any opposition party (irrespective of party lines) is the cry for a ministers resignation at the drop of a hat. The present opposition, whose prior leader, Atal Behari Vajpayee, was one person whom I had great respect for. But their current leaders themselves are charged with no less crimes than abetting and instigating communal violence with provocative speeches. Same could be said of the current ruling party, though this time, the number of such tainted ministers seems to be on the lower side. Would it never prick them that they are demanding someone else's resignation when their own hands are downright dirty. In my opinion, their very demand lacks credibility and with such a tarnished image, demands of resignation are at best a joke. Add to it, that the opposition walks out of the assembly on almost every issue. One cannot deny the importance of an opposition party in a democracy but there needs to be a discussion and tabling of issues rather than walk-outs and protests.

An article on Indian politics can never be complete without mentioning the Thackerays. I can write an entire blog on how I hate that specs and kurta clad charlatan. That very surname causes my blood pressure to go up. But I will save that for some other blog some other day. As you may have noticed, there are a few good people who are genuinely interested in development and making an impact. Its good to see people from non-political background become ministers and sincerely trying to bring a change to the system. They need to be welcomed and supported and encouraged. But for now, these people are outnumbered by the thackerays and Mayawatis - bent upon taking personal mileage by dividing and misleading people. I wanted to say a write a lot about my own state politics. But, may be I should save the Ammas and the Aiyas for another day. Jai Hind!

Incredible India - pun???

2010-04-25T10:51:00.015-05:00

Chicago's weather was warming up and this Friday was different than a few others. I was taking time off from the office to visit the Indian Consulate. First, went to the office and took a few photocopies - wondering when we will ever get rid of this photocopying process. I had decided against the use of public transport as it took the same time as walking. Weather being nicer, started walking along the river and reached the Consulate after a 25 minutes walk.

The Consulate is in the City front plaza building. With directions from the building security officer, reached the 8th floor and saw something which would make every Indian happy and proud, the tricolour Indian Flag. What I found in the next few minutes was appalling to say the least. Well at least, it was contrary to my experiences of another country's consulate and depiction of our own Consulate in the final season of the TV Series, Prison Break. No security cameras or armed guards welcomed me. What I instead saw was an old lady in glasses in the reception, almost a symbol of Indian government offices. Conspicuous in its absence was the x-ray scanning machine(s) to screen bags that I am so accustomed to these days.

After the customary sign-in at the register outside, I was asked to march on to the next room. Portrait of Mahatma Gandhi flanked by Manmohan Singh and Pratibha Patil adorned one side of the wall. I have always been proud of such an educated person being our Prime Minister; more importantly, an untainted politician. Back about the Consulate room- this room was a huge, yet not a single sign of any security feature. No black circular domes anywhere, not even the old revolving security cameras and not even a single security guard that would deter any miscreants. Instead, this had a long row of chairs along its length. I even found a few that were of the metal type that you will find in old marriage halls although they still had the paint intact. Along the other side of the wall, were a couple of leather couches and a few plants, with a nice river view. But these had been cordoned off, probably were meant only for the babus.

Lets turn our attention to the actual area that needs focus. There were three counter windows but you guessed it right, yup, just one was open. My guess is that those are special darshan counters. For in spite of the heavy crowd, there were close to 25-30 people when I walked in and it took an hour before I met the Consular officer. There was a display that did show the token numbers but no auditory symbols that would alert you. You are just expected to keep your eyes focused on that counter. Last I remember, even the Indian bank in Nanganallur has had a counter with auditory announcements since 2005.

Let us compare the above scenario with 2 different offices -

a) U.S. Consulate, Chennai b) A Client office building in New York

The U.S Consulate:- The building itself has a 15 feet wall with armed guards and dedicated security posts at each end of the bordering roads - on the Anna Salai side and on the Cathedral Road side. This is just on the outside. Move in to the building, you could see a few more security guards. The entry in itself is so secure that they wouldn't let you take your mobile phones inside. As far as security cameras, the question is always "where not" and never an "If".

If you think that comparison is a tad unfair, read along. Couple of months back, I had been to one of my client's offices in NY. My laptop bag was screened every day for the whole of 2 weeks that I was there. Not sure if its just for the visitors or even the employees. Nevertheless, they had security cameras in all directions and no visitor can get into the building without smiling to a web cam.

Lets move on to other things. Take a look at the application for passport renewal. The declaration part of the application was so full of spelling mistakes that I can never be held guilty of misrepresenting facts. Why? because I am aware that providing false information is an "affence". I am certainly right in expecting a much better quality document while trying to obtain THE ONLY identification document that would be recognized world wide. One of the easiest things to do is to run an automated spell check before uploading the document. I do that before posting any of my blogs.

Its not as if everything about my experience in the Indian Consulate was bad. The receptionist, surprisingly welcomed my feedback and promised to review not just the Declaration section but the entire application form. The Consular officer after reminding me that I had photocopied only one side of my marriage certificate, offered to make a copy from my original. (Again, it may not look like a big deal but for about 5 seconds, I dreaded the thought of having to come back and wait at the Consulate yet another day.

The walls within the Consulate bore some "Incredible India" posters. "Incredible", yes, its an amazing country and I am very very proud to be a citizen of one such country. But I wonder, that word was probably used as a pun to indicate how such an office of high esteem can be unbelievably (in-credibly) callous in matters concerning security and efficiency. I am one of those who can't bear someone speaking ill of my country but as I said earlier, I am simply appalled.

This day, that hour

2010-03-27T23:23:00.004-05:00

Today, I along with a few million others celebrated the Earth hour. One hour of darkness, peace and tranquility across the world. Its been always my wish to do my bit towards this planet that we, as humans, keep finding innovative ways to destroy. Be it going solar, or using public transport or just plain simple "Unplug the charger" policy.

How did I celebrate...here we go. I switched off and unplugged all electrical appliances that I could reach. I couldn't move the refrigerator and so that continued to run. I shutdown my laptop, unplugged the television, the router and even the modem. Aruna and I have always loved candle lit dinners and this day provided a nice opportunity. Took out all the candles that we had bought for Karthigai last year and lit up a few of them. Kept a few in the kitchen and the rest over the dining table. We planned ahead and finished our cooking earlier to avoid breaking stuff in the dark. So, all things were set until Aruna took out some leftover food from the refrigerator.

This was something that had skipped my mind. After an early lunch, I was already hungry and didn't have the patience to wait for an hour. Yet at the same time, wanted to resist the temptation to use the microwave. The idea to reheat over the stove was also shot down as that too was electric. Not that I didn't know of these things before, but the dependency on electricity for almost everything did strike me hard. Determined to stick to the cause, decided to try some tricks from Birbal's kitty. I took 4/5 candles and placed them close together and held the cold containers over the candles. "Nowhere close to being effective", she dismissed and gave me some physics lessons on how the heat generated by the candles isn't sufficient.

My mistress took over the reins and quickly came up with two quick hit solutions. (If you have been in IT, you must have heard of this "quick hit" phrase at least once.. he he he). One - Though the cooking was over 15-20 mins back, the stove still remained hot enough to reheat. Two-the pressure cooker had been switched off a while back but never opened. So, the hot vessel with some left over steam proved very handy. Voila, hardly 5 mins later, we were all set...this time for real. I promptly removed those candles and settled over the dinner table.

Its been a while since we have had a quite lunch - with neither television nor my companion for most hours a day, my laptop switched on. Three surprising things happened - One, we discussed things outside of movies or any news that I had read. Two, we realized that switching off appliances not only makes the room dark but also quite. I must say that I loved the difference of having a quite dinner with no songs jarring from the laptop. Three, she finished her dinner quicker than ever before :).

We spent the rest of the hour on general chit-chat. One among that was how to spend the hour the next time we switch off lights. Some of the ideas that we thought of were board games like scrabble or a chess. Nothing big, nothing dramatic but an hour spent well, an hour spent on saving mother nature. It may not have had too many visible/apparent changes to this world but when I switched on my laptop again at 9:30, I was certainly filled with a sense of satisfaction.

Weapons of Scribbles

2010-01-16T22:48:00.026-06:00

Most email forwards are pure spams/phishing scams/ those that had completed their "world tour" ever since you first saw them when you signed up for your 6MB of yahoo, usa.net or lycos account. But there are a few that create those black and white spirals bringing back pleasant memories from the most remotest corner of your brains. I got one such forward yesterday.

It had a few things that most of you would have used at some point in your life. Lets start with the one I began scribbling with, a Nataraj Pencil. I remember this ad so very well and I used to feel so happy when that batsman hits the ball for a six. The red and black striped pencil (the stumps) is the most common one. If you had a Camlin Flora pencil, you were considered to be among the privileged. If you had an rubber attached to the rear, nothing like it.

Lets move on to the next level, the Brill Ink. More often than not, the Brill Ink drew Mehndi in my hands, smeared my "classwork" notebooks and added design to my white uniforms than fill up "ink pens". I was so thrilled when my parents got me a filler, it made the whole process of filling up ink so much easier.

While I am in this topic, how can I miss the "Ink Pens" themselves. They came in all shapes, models. Some even had a transparent stomach and let us see how much more we had left when we tilted them upside down.

Talking of which, the art of "ink donation" (in lines of blood donation) was in itself so unique. The donor follows either of the below processes

a) The donor pen is shaken violently until a few droplets fell on the wooden bench which then gets magically sucked in by the acceptor pen.

b) The other process is slightly complicated and needs some synchronization. The donor pen is held upside down and directly above the acceptor pen. The base of the donor pen is slightly loosened and is wound in clockwise direction which causes the ink to flow through the nib of the donor pen (optionally through the nib section of the acceptor) to the acceptor's stomach.

I knew these pens as "Ink Pens" until this day when my wife corrected to "Fountain pens".

The king among these fountain pens was the "Hero Pen" ( I didn't know of the Parker pen until my college days). This pen was reserved for the sole use of the examinations and record notebooks alone and was never lent to anyone :) ; strictly for personal use only!!!

The art of maintenance of the fountain pens does deserve a special mention. The pen caps were usually washed until all the dry ink dissolved and then a piece of paper was inserted to remove any remaining stains or moisture. I always cleaned the nib using a Topaz ( or 7'O clock) blade. But I hear there were other procedures involving disassembling and soaking the pen in water for extended hours.

The promotion to ball point pens or reynolds pen never happen until you reach your college for they spoilt your handwriting. Not that mine was any better when I wrote with a fountain pen. But it seems the ball point pens made them completely illegible.

Let us move away from pens for a while. How about the Big Fun collections? I am sure, if you were from my generation of school students, you could have never missed out on collecting Big Fun stickers or the "Boom Boom Boomer!!" ads. Unfortunately, I almost always ended up with Ravi Shastri and one run :(.

This post has already gone beyond its readable length. So, let me wind it up with the short messaging service of the 90's - the postcard. I have very vivid memories of the post card and it was always a nice feeling of being remembered by someone else. Every inch and cm of available space in the postcard would be utilized with text in all orientations and fonts to convey as much information as possible. These letters had a standard format of date and place at the top right and it began with a "நலம். நலமறிய ஆவல்" on most occasions (albeit there were exceptions). The date and place were important even in personal letters as most of these postcards never had a "From" address and reached us a good 5-7 days after it was posted. So, the date set the context of the message.

Every generation has something to feel nostalgic about when they grow out of that era. Our parents had and I am sure our children would too. But its a pleasant feeling to reminisce them once in a while.

p.s:

1) Scribble includes inputs from my wife

2) I do not own the copyrights of any of these images. Image courtesy: Email forward

Nice experience in MTC Bus Chennai

2009-12-29T13:28:00.010-06:00

Too many times, too many articles have focussed on the negative side of consumer experience in India. When I came across a post that was on the contrary, didn't want to pass along the opportunity to spread the good word.

Recently, MTC Chennai published a set of numbers (9445030516, 9383337639) for consumers to call and file complaints of improper service. Read along the experience of a MTC commuter in his own words.

Source: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=49190419&postcount=1137

Anyone tried these numbers ???
-----------------------------------------------------------
response ...call 9445030516, 9383337639

Posted in: generic by Prabakaran, Vinoth @ 4:17 pm

Sometime back I was working in MEPZ facility, Chennai. I usually travel by Metropolitan Transport Corporation(MTC) bus, from my home to office. The stopping near MEPZ facility is called Sanatorium or MEPZ bus stop. MTC bus coming from Broadway/Parrys (or thro Mount road) mostly wont stop in MEPZ stop in early days. So I usually get down in the Chrompet stop(stop before MEPZ) and again catch another bus to MEPZ. After some time they have started stopping in MEPZ stop also.

One day I got up a bus(E18) in Teynampet stop and asked the conductor to give a ticket for MEPZ stop. He said, the bus wont stop there. I was arguging with him that I am going daily with the same bus and get down in the MEPZ stop. But he was keep on saying the same thing.. and then he said, I can request the driver to stop the bus. I dont wanted to do, irritated with conductor response. Suddenly I remembered a complaint phone no.(9445030516) I read in one bus sometime back. I called that no. and said about the incident that conductor is not stopping in the usual stop.

The MTC representative (person at the other end) asked me to give the phone to the conductor. The conductor was not interested to talking with his official. The MTC rep. asked me the bus registration no. and MTC registration no. He enquired where is the bus at that time and I said it is in Saidapet. The MTC rep. said he will come in the line and talk to them. I was curious how he will come and catch the bus.

After few mins. the wireless transmeter(to track the bus), near the driver in the bus started shouting… Driver stop the bus. Driver stop the bus in the left side of the road. Driver was not sure what is happening may be his first experience, for others(including me) it is the real first experience. The driver stopped the bus and started listening to the transmeter. The MTC rep. enquired why the bus is not stopping in MEPZ stop. The driver said he stops in MEPZ stop and in the previous trip also he has done. The rep. asked him then why the conductor is saying like that. He asked the conductor what is the issue. The conductor was speechless. The driver somehow managed the situation and supported the conductor by saying that the conductor was new to this route. The driver asked excuse for the incident and said he will stop in the MEPZ stop.

The MTC rep. said he wanted to talk the passenger who called him. I went near the transmeter and spoke to the MTC rep. He said sorry for the incident happened and asked sorry on behalf of MTC. Everyone in the bus were surprised of things happening. I came back to my seat. The person next to me asked what is the no. and whom I called. He also took the no. The bus stopped in MEPZ stop then. After getting down I called the MTC rep. and said the bus stopped in the stopping.

It was a nice experience for me and others who travelled in the bus, including driver and conductor. Yes, nowadays good things are happening in goverment sector also and technology is used properly.

Complaint Phone no. for MTC bus: 9445030516, 9383337639

Visit www.mtcbus.org for enquiry, information and complaints

--------------------------------------------------

Nice to see such experiences in a government undertaking. While its too early to feel elated, it does give a sense of hope of brighter things to come.

Prize of Perseverance

2009-12-21T23:08:00.006-06:00

A week after I returned from St. louis, I had nowhere to go. The state of the second phase of my project hung in a balance and so was my apartment plans. When I found a good deal for an apartment in the near by city of Edina, decided to move-in the very next weekend. I didn't have a lot of stuff to move, but few years of living in a city had clogged up my closets.

Prakash drove me to the UHaul centre. For the uninitiated, UHaul rents out semi, mid and large-sized trucks that people use to move their house-hold stuff. There are a few vendors in this space but UHaul is to truck rentals what Xerox is to photocopying. I rented a small sized truck for 20$. Might sound cheap, but when you add up the insurance (28$) plus a per mile charge of (0.19$) state taxes and the innumerable line items that appear in the bill that one never comprehends, the amount is usually staggering. Thanks to the abysmal mileage of trucks (12-15 miles / gallon approx), the re-fueling charges add up to the total bill making it almost impossible to rent a truck for less than 100$.

Few of my friends helped me load the semi-truck without any trouble. Got on to the driver seat and drove a "semi" for the first time. Driving the semi-truck was a different experience. It had no rear view mirrors to see who is directly behind you on the road. One has to rely on the 2 side view mirrors. The trucks obviously designed for pulling loads did not have any pick-up. I also had to be extra cautious while changing lanes in the highway and when taking wider slower turns. The momentum of the truck meant that I had to brake early to bring the vehicle to a complete stop.

Soon, the exploration gave way to actual task. We reached our new home, unloaded the stuff from the truck in no time. Noting that I still had enough time to return the truck the same day, drove back to the UHaul centre. We stopped at a gas station to fill up the tank. Filled up a gallon of fuel and ensured that the fuel gauge read 'F'. Being a Saturday evening, the centre was crowded. Both the inspection of returned vehicles and renting out new ones took considerable time for each customer. As we neared the store closing hours, the person at the counter suggested those who were returning to leave the keys and our email ids with him. They would inspect the vehicle for fuel, damages and charge our credit cards accordingly. Tired of waiting and making my friends wait as well, decided to take that option. Dropped the keys and returned home happily.

Four days would have passed when I received the email with the receipt from uHaul. I was in for a shock when I opened the receipt, I had been charged 100$ while my own calculations had hinted roughly 65$. On further scrutiny, I found the fuel to be marked less than Full and fuel charges added for not returning the UHaul to its pre-rental fuel level. Perplexed and frantic, I called up the UHaul customer care. I explained to them that I did bring it full and I have been charged incorrectly. I also pointed out that I had driven only 20 miles and 36.86$ is way high considering a gallon of fuel cost 2.7$. After checking the receipt with her, the agent reminded me that I had "agreed" to the terms and conditions after "I have thoroughly read and understood" the 5 pages of arial 6 font wherein lies a clause regarding the "service charges" that apply if the fuel gauge reads any less than what it does when you rent it out. Further arguments yielded no result as she told me that the I needed to take the actual receipt to the uHaul centre and they alone can reverse the charges.

I was in a fix for more than one reason.
a) I normally do not retain fuel receipts for rental cars (/trucks). That alone was not the problem.
b) The mileage of a truck is usually around 12 miles for a gallon and I had filled up exactly a gallon even though I had driven 20 miles (8 miles more)
c) I do not own a car and reaching the UHaul center by public transport is not easy.
Tried the call center at different times hoping to hear a different answer but alas no luck. Considering all the above, I almost resigned to loosing that money for ever. Its at these times, the dollar rupee exchange rates hurt you even more. It was hard for me to digest that my carelessness and impatience had cost me Rs 1750 and I rued myself for that.

I would have resigned to inaction had I not managed to find the receipt from my trouser in the laundry bag. Determined to give my best shot, called up the UHaul center and I heard the same answer - "Meet the manager in person at the UHaul center with the actual fuel receipt". So, the same evening went to the uHaul center after hopping buses. Walked to the center and found the person I talked to over phone. He was kind but said politely, "Sir, I did tell you that our Manager is available at the center only in the mornings". Disheartened, I asked him if he can at least take a photocopy of my receipt and retain it at the center and I could converse with their manager over phone the next day. No luck, they did not have a copier.(I seriously missed our photocopying shops in Chennai). Frustrated, asked him if they at least had a fax machine to which I could fax to. Nope, they don't have them either. I was absolutely amazed. Thoroughly disheartened, left for home after a mile long walk to my bus stop.

I called the UHaul center next day hoping to talk to the manager but she had gone on a vacation and wouldn't be back until next Monday. Resolved to try out all means possible, I scanned and emailed the UHAul manager my receipt with a little explanation of why I believed they are robbing me. Three days later, I still had no reply. I followed up with another email; yet no reply. Called up the Uhaul center one more time and this time, finally the manager was available in the store but she was on a different call. The guy who picked up the phone asked if I would want to hold on or call later, I told him, I will hang on. Few minutes went, nothing happened, the same guy came back and said that his manager is busy and if he could take care of the problem. At this point, I was close to giving him a piece of my mind. I told him the problem and how I had visited their store on more than one occasion and how I have tried to reach his manager multiple times over the last 2 weeks through email and phone. Desperate, I shouted at him that I wanted to talk to only his manager and none else. I don't know what transpired after that; he came back after a brief hiatus and told me that his manager has approved the refund and I should see the amount get credited to my card in 2-3 days.

May be she checked her email and found the receipt but never scrutinized the receipt for the 8 mile difference. I was filled with a sense of fulfillment, a sense of relief, of conquering / achieving something. The pleasure of winning anything after sheer hard work and persistence is truly rewarding. Hope I carry this "Never say die" attitude in everything I do. What better way to learn a lesson - Lose some money!!!!

என் இனிய தமிழ் மக்களே...

2009-11-29T22:02:00.028-06:00

தமிழ் மொழியில் ஒரு வலைபதிவு இயற்ற வேண்டும் என்பது என் பல நாள் ஆசை என்று பொய் சொல்ல விரும்பவில்லை. ஆனால் தமிழ் மொழி மீது சமீப காலாமாக எனக்கு இருக்கும் பற்று சற்றே அதிகரித்து இருக்கிறது என்று தான் கூற வேண்டும். என்னால் இயன்றவரையில் தமிழில் பேச நான் முற்பட்டாலும், அதனை ஆதரிப்போர் சிலரே. பெரும்பாலானோர், என்னை சற்று வித்தியாசமாக தான் பார்கிறார்கள்.

நடைமுறையில், வெளிநாட்டில் இருப்பதனால் தமிழில் உரையாட மிக குறைவான வாய்ப்புகளே அமைகின்றது. ஆதலால், எனக்கு கிடைக்கும் வாய்ப்புகள் அதிகமாக எனது மனைவியிடம் பேசுவதும், இணையதளத்தில் பரிமாற்றம் செய்யப்படும் அரட்டைகளும் தான். முதலில் கடிந்து கொண்டாலும் இப்போது அவளுக்கு பழகி விட்டது. ஆனால் நான் இணைய அரட்டையில் எப்போது தூய தமிழில் பேசினாலும் "டேய், என்னடா ஆச்சு உனக்கு" என்ற ஏளன பேச்சுகள் தான் நிறைய கேட்க நேரிடுகிறது.

இப்படி நான் தமிழில் பேசி (அல்லது அரட்டையில் தட்டச்சிட்டும்) வரவேற்றவர்கள் சிலர் இருந்தாலும் இன்று மட்டுமே எனக்கு அரட்டையில் கிடைத்த பதில்கள் வியக்கவும் சிந்திக்கவும் வைத்தன. அவற்றை சற்றே பகிர்ந்து கொள்ள விரும்புகிறேன். முதலில் காலையில் பேசியது எனது தோழியிடம், நான் எவ்வளவு தான் தமிழில் உரையாடினாலும், அவள் ஆங்கிலத்தில் மட்டுமே உரையாடினாள். அவளை சொல்லி குற்றமில்லை, அவளுக்கு தமிழ் சற்று தடுமாறும் தான்.

அதன் பிறகு, சென்னையில் "விடியர் காலை" 7 மணி அளவில் தூக்கம் களைந்து இருக்கும் எனது பெரியப்பா மகனிடம் உரையாடினேன். ஒரு நான்கு வரி வரை பொறுத்திருந்தான். எனது தமிழ் கேள்விகளுக்கு அவன் ஆங்கிலத்திலேயே பதிலளித்தான். ஆனால் அதற்கு மேல் முடியவில்லை. "Giri plz stop the tamil i am not able to comprehend" என்றான். சரி, போகட்டும் என விட்டு விட்டேன். இதற்கு நடுவில், விஜய் டிவியில் "தமிழ் பேச்சு எங்கள் மூச்சு" என்ற நிகழ்ச்சியை பார்த்தேன். சமீப காலத்தில், எனக்கு பிடித்தமான ஒரு நிகழ்ச்சி. சென்ற வாரமும், இந்த வாரமும் சில சிறுவர்கள் பேசினார்கள். என்ன அருமையான பேச்சுகள், மனதை நெகிழ வைத்தன. தமிழ் மொழியை அந்த சிறுவர்கள் பேசிக் கேட்கையில் மிகவும் இனிமையாக இருந்தது.

இன்று இரவே எனது பள்ளி தோழியிடம் அரட்டை அடித்து கொண்டிருந்தேன். பல வருடங்களுக்குப் பிறகு பேசும் அவளையும் விட வில்லை. "வணக்கம்" என்று நான் ஆரம்பித்ததிலேயே அவள் "tamil la pozhira" என்றாள். நான் விடவில்லை, தொடர்ந்து தமிழில் உரையாடினேன். எனது மனைவி "இப்படி மொக்கை போட்டா, இனிமே உங்கக் கூட அவங்க chat e பண்ண மாட்டாங்க" என சொன்ன போதும் விட வில்லை. நான் "எனக்கும் நிறைய பயணம் மேற்கொள்ள வேண்டும்" என்று சொன்ன மறு கணமே "giridhar thaangala" என்றாள். அதற்கு மேல் அவளின் பொறுமையை சோதிக்க விரும்பாத நான், ஆங்கிலத்திற்கு மாறினேன்.

இப்படியாக, நான் யாரிடம் தூய தமிழில் உரையாடினாலும், அவர்கள் அதை ஏளனமாகவும் அவதூறாகவும் எண்ணுகிறார்கள். திடீர் என தூய தமிழில் உரையாடினால், எவருக்குமே விசித்திரமாக தான் இருக்கும் என்பதை நானும் ஒப்புக்கொள்கிறேன். அதனால் மேலே அதிர்ச்சி அடைந்தவர்களை தவறாக பேசுவது தவறே. நான் ஒன்றும் ஒழுங்கில்லை. நானும் சில நாட்களுக்கு முன்புவரை இவர்களை போல் ஆங்கிலத்தில் உரையாடியவனே. இருப்பினும், பல வருடங்களாக தமிழ்நாட்டில் இருந்தும், வளர்ந்தும், பேசி இருந்தும், தமிழ் புரியவில்லை என சிலர் கூறி கேட்கும் பொழுது தமிழிற்கு இருக்கும் அவல நிலையை கண்டு வேதனையாகத் தான் இருக்கிறது.

பள்ளியிலே, எனது இரண்டாம் மொழியாக ஹிந்தியை தேர்வு செய்தேன். பிற மாநிலங்களில் வேலை வாய்ப்பு கிடைக்க உதவியாக இருக்கும் என என் தந்தை சொன்னது சரியாக பட்டது அப்போது. இப்போதும் அந்த முடிவிற்காக எனது தந்தைக்கு நன்றி சொல்ல கடமை பட்டிருக்கிறேன். ஆனால், தமிழ் மொழியின் இலக்கியங்கள் எவ்வளவு அருமையானவை. அவற்றை படிக்காமல் போய் விட்டோமே என்ற வருத்தம் உள்ளூர இருக்கின்றது. என்னால் முடிந்த வரை, தமிழில் உரையாடி வருகிறேன். ஆங்கிலம் கலக்காமலே பேச முடியாவிட்டாலும் ஆங்கில சொற்களை குறைவாக உபயோகித்தால் அதுவே பெரிய வெற்றி தான். தொலைபேசியிலும், கைபேசியிலும், வீட்டாரிடமும் மற்ற தமிழர்களிடமும் "Hello" என்பதற்கு பதிலாக "வணக்கம்" என சொல்லி பழகிக் கொண்டிருக்கிறேன்.

இந்த காலத்து பிள்ளைகளுக்கே தமிழ் தெரிவது அரிதென்றால் பின் வரும் சந்ததியருக்கு தமிழ் வாசமே இல்லாமல் பொய் விடுமோ என்ற அச்சம் இருக்கிறது. உங்கள் பிள்ளைகளை தமிழ் வழிக் கல்வியில் படிக்க வைக்கச் சொல்ல வில்லை. ஆனால் தமிழ் மொழியை கற்பிக்கத் தவறி விடாதீர்கள் என்பதே என் விண்ணப்பம். பெரும்பாலும் இருக்கும் ஒரு தவறான கருத்தைக் கூறி இந்த பதிப்பை முடிக்க விரும்புகிறேன். தமிழில் பேசுங்கள் என்று நான் கூறினாலே, சங்கக்கால தமிழில் பேச ஆரம்பித்து விடுகிறார்கள். இந்தத் தவறை நானும் செய்கிறேன் என்பதும் உண்மையே :). முடிந்த வரை, ஆங்கிலச் சொற்களை பேச்சு வழக்கில் இருந்து தவிர்க்க முற்படுவோம்.

தமிழில் மட்டும் பேசவேண்டாம்...தமிழிலும் பேசுவோம்!!! நன்றி!

Ctrl+C(atastrophy)

2009-08-06T22:51:00.022-05:00

How many times have you done a Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V of a sensitive information like your credit card number from a document on to a website instead of typing the whole number. If you were like me, chances are that you would have done on more than one occasion. Little did I know that its an awful mistake that could potentially leak personally identifying information. A simple script can be used to retrieve that information from your clipboard and the hacker could make merry. I recently ran into an economic times article which was a real eye-opener.

If you still doubt my claim, see for yourself
a) Copy any text
b) Click on the button below
c) Click "Allow Access" if prompted

Browser Test Results
IE: Works
Firefox: Yet to test
Chrome: Doesn't work

Source Code Courtesy: http://sourcecodesworld.com/special/clipboard-code.asp
Economic Times article: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Internet-/Pressing-CtrlC-Now-think-twice/articleshow/4828090.cms

Yellowmelons

2009-07-19T23:29:00.012-05:00

This is definitely a first for me. My room mate usually buys watermelons and weekends are the only time where we have the leisure time to cut and eat it. Yesterday when he cut open the melon, we really thought we had bought a pumpkin instead. I have eaten watermelons all my life but I have never seen one that's in yellow color. I had to search wikipedia to ensure that we indeed have a melon at hand.

God loves Me!!

2009-07-19T22:41:00.002-05:00

It was an unusually cool morning - cool even for a Minnesota summer morning. I was on my usual walk to office across the many blocks in downtown with my hands inside my trouser pockets. On the way to office, I usually see a line of homeless people sitting in the pavements. They hold placards or precisely, text written in cardboard reading different things but almost all seeking alms. I always jokingly think that the main difference between beggars here vs back home is that the ones here wear trousers, t-shirts and speak in English. But that's how low my attitude has been towards them.

Most only have a cardboard but sometimes these people do say something. I almost never pay heed to any of what they say as I choose to simply avoid eye contact and walk away. But today, I just didn't hear but listened to what one of them said. He said "God loves you". That was such a beautiful statement. It's not a great quote from a renowned speaker but for some reason, those three words kind of struck a chord with me.

Not often, do we stop and think how lucky and blessed are we. To be born in a family that could afford me a roof overhead, feed me more than adequately :) and more importantly, provide me high-quality education. To have a loving family, wonderful friends and so many people to fall back on and a lovely home to go back to, I feel really lucky. That and that alone is an immense blessing. But for the education and the support from friends and family, I would be one among those sitting in the pavements.

That man was absolutely right. God indeed loves me.

The Idiot's box

2009-07-18T21:55:00.003-05:00

Whats with the TV. Should it really be called the Idiot box. Wrong!!!! I think my uncle once corrected me saying "Its not an Idiot box but its an Idiot's box". I couldn't agree with him more. Its not the television box but the person in front of it who is an idiot. Its one of the least interactive things that have been invented by Man in the recent past. You just stare at it all the time doing nothing. It neither enriches your knowledge nor makes you think and is an ideal recipe for killing your creativity. Of late, I seriously miss reading books during childhood. All my images of God Rama and Krishna are more often that of Arun Govil and Nitish Bharadwaj. My image of Harry potter has never been anything apart from Daniel Radcliffe. I am sure if I had stuck just to reading books, my creativity would have been enriched much much more.

Without sounding too idealistic, I do like to watch television. I have my favorite shows that I absolutely love. I have laughed my heart out watching some episodes of Friends; Prison Break has had my attention much much more than what my electrical lecturers would have liked me to. But sometimes like now, I experience the ill effects of over doze of television.

These days, the mere sight of the television running irks me so much that I never knew that I would / could derive so much pleasure just by the press of a single button - the orange colored Power button. One of the side effects of a 5 member 2-bedroom apartment is that you might end up with 5 different individuals with very little mutual interests. As a result, there is always something to see for someone. The interests among my roomies are so varied - one of them likes to watch Disney channel and any cop shows like JAIL, street watch. Another likes to watch old classic movies in Turner Classic Movies (TCM). All other times, its almost always the comedy channel,TBS. If there's nothing, even then my roomies somehow find something or the other. So, bottom line, theres never a time when there's nothing in the TV. Not even if MIB is been showed for almost the millionth time. The number of re-runs that 'Monster-in-Law' and 'Shrek' have had would put the longest running Saas bahu serials of Indian Television to shame. But yet, TBS wouldn't have to worry. For there is atleast one soul, from our own apartment, who is watching.

A typical TV schedule in our home on a weekday looks like this. It technically starts at lunch between 12:15 and 12:45 pm - Tim, the Toolman Taylor. Thats just 30 mins. But the real beginning is at 5:30 pm with Friends, followed by an hour of Seinfeld. From 7:00-9:00 pm, some crap from any channel is enough to keep the TV running. The only exception being Thursdays, when there's 2 hours of friends (he he...I am a little hypocritical here). This will be followed by a string of programs - two and a half men, every body loves raymond, Friends again at 10:00. and all crap channels beyond 11:00 pm. Almost 6 hrs of non-stop television just gets on my nerves. Sometimes, I try to move away and do something useful - my efforts in trying to not be an idiot.

If only earth revolves sooner...

2009-05-15T21:43:00.010-05:00

I stopped at the sight of the Red signal. A long line of vehicles flew past me in the perpendicular direction. Wondering what day it is, the date stuck a note in my mind. 15th May 2009. I realized that, technically, from tomorrow, I would be considered one year less younger than I am today. Interesting that a difference of 24 hrs could actually knock off one year in peoples mind. That actually set off a string of thoughts about why that particular day is considered special, why that day is celebrated in a special way. Its not even about the day but more precisely the time. People feel bad if their birthday is forgotten. An advance birthday wish a day earlier or a belated wish a day later is never considered the same as the wish that is received on that particular day and that too, preferably during the earlier part of the day. Now, why is that so? A birthday wish is a genuine thought expressed that he / she should live longer and with good health. Isn't that what is meant by "Many more happy returns of this day" ?

So, why such a big deal about being wished the next day after your birthday. A wish of "Many more happy returns" would still imply that you live long enough to see many more such occurrences (of the day after birthday). It still implies that you are being wished by your dear and near ones for your wellness.

The signal turned Green and I continued walking across the blocks. My thought process began to wander into why...why this special status to this particular day. Numerically and scientifically speaking, a birthday marks the completion of another instance of a "defined period",(a year) since one's birth. This period(year) is an artificial amount of time defined by humans for his own ease of calculations. Had the human race chosen a different scale of defined period(say 100 days), our births would have been celebrated thrice over a period of 10 months. I don't see anything wrong with it as you would still be celebrating the completion of another instance of a defined period (100 days). So, why is this considered significant and why such a big deal about being wished on your birthday.

There's nothing in nature that attributes a greater significance to a year or perhaps, there is. The only thing that appeared significant to me about a year is that - on that day, the relative position between you and the Sun(source of all Life on Earth) would be the same as it was about a year(defined period) back. This wouldn't be true if we were to celebrate it every 100 days. To that point, I agree that is indeed a special moment to celebrate.

However, there are still 3 things why its perhaps may not be THAT significant

a) The earth is at precisely the same position from the sun every 365.2564 solar days and not 365 days. So, technically, the defined period is 365.2564 days and hence your birthday should begin 6 hrs later than what it did the previous non-leap year. Or simply, change the defined period to 4 years.

b) Secondly, you were born at a specific time over the period of that day. Obviously, not all of us were born at the stroke of midnight. So, why celebrate it at midnight? We all should instead be celebrating at that time of the day ( + multiples of 6 hrs in all non-leap years) when we were born.

c) Finally, if birthdays were all about being on the same relative position with respect to the sun, then one must celebrate at the time mentioned in point b) only if you are on the exact GPS co-ordinates or at least in the same city where you were born. Any other city, your celebration needs to factor the time differences of the new place for you to be at the precise position with respect to the sun.

If you have still not closed the browser window, you must be one hell of a warehouse of patience. I truly admire you and your inquisitiveness. Back to the topic - one might disregard my last 3 points as too small an error (at worse 6 hrs) to be considered significant. After all, infinity + delta X is still infinity. But if 6 hrs is insignificant, so are 24 hrs and 48 hrs. Hence, its technically okay to wish a person belatedly on the next few days after his birthday. Don't you think so?

Interestingly, I was explaining all this to my friend Shiv, who is celebrating his birthday today. I live 2 timezones away from him and that kind of protected me from any physical injuries. But given the fact that we were born just 12 hours apart, his thoughts were only more likely to match mine. His views definitely gave a different perspective to this whole discussion - Gregorian Calendar vs Tamil Calendar. The tamil calendar like the Gregorian one recognizes a year but lays more stress on a 60 year period. The tamil calendar is based on the position of the stars (not just the Sun) and believes that the position of all the stars with respect to the earth remains the same every 60 years. The 60-year cycle is also very ancient and is observed by most traditional calendars of India and China, and is related to 5 revolutions of Jupiter according to popular belief, or to 60-year orbit of Nakshatras (stars) as mentioned in Surya Siddhanta. This is also the reason why Sashtiyapta poorthi (Sashti - 60 yrs Poorthi - completion) is celebrated and is considered a very significant event.

As always, I started with one topic and ended up being here. While writing this blog took me more than an hour, the entire thought process (except of course, the previous paragraph) took hardly 10 mins - the time it took me to cross 5 blocks to my office after stopping for red signals. So, bottom line - the most important part of a birthday is to be wished good will. As long as I get enough of them irrespective of whether that comes on a single day or not, I would feel blessed.

p.s: I am notorious for explaining simple things in a complex way. My blogs are perfect examples of that.

Sources: Shiv Kumar, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_calendar, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar

என்ன தவம் செய்தேன் - அம்மா என்றழைக்க

2009-05-11T23:34:00.007-05:00

I stared to write this three days back and this is definitely not something that I could cover in a single post. I am sure, given this topic, almost all of us would talk at length about how much each one of us have to thank our mom for who we are today. I ha vent had a chance to write about my mom earlier. hmm.. actually i should correct myself there. I have had many chances earlier too but never felt like writing before. Where do I begin - its a difficult task to write about your mom as there is always too much to write about and thank for and you never feel you have done justice to what she has done.

My close friends would be more than willing to speak about my forgetfulness. That's not new information but I don't remember anything from my childhood. But I have heard people say stories about how I used to be. I was a very troublesome kid in the context of falling ill too often. I have a long history of stomach problems dating back to when I was less than 2 yrs old. To support a family of four, my father used to work so hard that he used to leave to work at Ennore much before 5:00 am and not return until he has worked extra hours at the factory Over Time. That left just my mom to deal with 2 of her kids and their stomach problems. It started then and I have continued to bother her till this date and she has just been immensely patient.

By now, I had grown enough to write on my own but not grown enough to hold a pen. I remember few vague images of this period. There used to be this school aaya at the entrance who always recognized me and Sridhar as he used to imitate our Headmasters walking style flawlessly. Amma still used to get up early in the morning, cook for my father, pack his lunch and help my father get ready to office before 7:00 am. She then had to turn her attention immediately towards me and Sridhar. She used to help us tuck-in our shirts, tie our shoe laces and walk us to the school. We couldn't afford domestic help then. So, Amma used to do the dishes, wash all the clothes, clean the entire house during the afternoons. She used to come and pick us up in the evenings when the school got over. This was during the initial years. Soon after, Sridhar had grown big enough to handle the responsibility of handling his younger brother, yours truly.

Few more years went by. Me and Sridhar had switched to another school. I had grown enough to deserve a cycle of my own, a red color Captain. Sridhar wasn't too happy as he had got his first cycle only in his sixth standard, 1 school year later than I had. As protective as ever, he didn't want me to ride the cycle alone in those dangerous main roads and always accompanied me to school and back. Not a day has gone by without us having one tiffen or the other to eat when we got back from school. I don't know how else to say this but to have a mom to come home to is an amazing feeling. I was too small to appreciate all these then; all I worried was about being late to the play ground and missing the first cricket match. Amma never let us play without having our evening tiffen. On days of cricket match, she used to have the TV on and note the scores so that she could tell me even while I was still parking my cycle. Wonderful days that stay fresh in my memories - inked white shirts, soiled pants, torn shorts and shoes with sludge - all were welcomed with stern warnings and lasting red impressions on my thighs and cheeks. But for that strict disciplines, I wouldn't be half of what I am today.

I was in my late teens. Old enough to have your ideas listened to but still very much considered as a kid. Amma had ensured that we learned to be self-reliant. We had to wash our own clothes and by now, I and Sridhar had learned enough house hold chores to make amma not feel the absence of a girl child in our home. I prepared for my high school exams and like most moms, she always woke up earlier than me to wake me up for my exams. When it wasn't me, she had to wake up Sridhar, help him fight mosquitoes while she prepared the breakfast - yes, at those unearthly hours, with the Sun still in deep sleep. She always kept a leash on us and never let us deviate from our studies. She was very strict and never let us play cricket during my final years at school. Thanks to my mom, our neighbours experienced peace and non-shattered windows while I enjoyed good marks in my XII and entrance exams. Amma was a perfect mom - she knew when to be strict and when not to. She taught me the importance of Prayer, inculcated (actually tried to and succeeded a little bit) some good qualities and ensured that I always stood on my own legs.I learnt to be patient, to be kind, to be pious, to persist, to believe in myself.

Though I felt I had grown up, I still liked to sleep with my arms around her at night. In my early days of childhood, I always used to be threatened by appa and amma that if I do not study well I would be put in a hostel . Ironically, I chose to study in PSG Tech, Coimbatore and ended up living in a hostel. I still remember the day I and Appa left to Coimbatore to join the college. Amma stood near the gate to send me off. She said "bathirama poitu vaa" and turned her face away trying to hide her tears. I couldn't bear that sight and that sight has been etched in my memory till this day. The next few years and a part of Appa's wealth were splurged on STD calls post 21:00 hrs as the rate used to 1/2 the day-time charges.

Innumerable number of special dishes, less than a quarter of that many train journeys to Coimbatore and four years later, got to spend some time with amma and appa before joining Infosys. Amma remained the same sweet female she has always been. Three and a half months in Hyderabad and back. Remodelled house with a bigger kitchen but still the same amma. Next two years, I was at home and was bliss. Got a chance to talk to her more often amidst the many night outs. By now, the years of toiling had taken some toll on her health. Appa has always been calm and composed and his support kept her going. She has never let her health problems get in the way of her duties or things that she considered are her duties. Sinus headaches, back aches, an angiogram, join paints and cracks at her foot were ample proofs of her ageing but they never managed to prevent her from serving us food even at unearthly hours. Sons in their early twenties spell trouble and that amma had to deal with 2 of them gave her enough blood pressure. Kids grown-up enough to question and oppose each decision, amma found it really challenging but she adapted to the changing world and stood by what she thought was right for us.

I saw a repeat act of my departure to college scene two years later. I got my onsite opportunity and that meant I wouldn't be seeing her for at least an year. At the Chennai airport, as I crossed those steel barricades, turned around to wave a final bye. No words exchanged as wet eyes met more wet eyes. I turned back quickly as I felt ashamed to break down in front of so many people. Reached Minneapolis - new place, new people and a different timezone kept my thoughts away from home for a few days. Soon the mirage disappeared and the reality of loneliness struck. With improved technology of web cams and mobile phones, ammas voice and face were never too far away but her hugs and touches were never to be. Six months later, thanks to a forced work related visit to Chennai, Grey hair and a smiling face welcomed me when I got back home. It was a short stay but well worth it. Returned back to Minneapolis 3 months later.

The next visit didn't happen for another 2 years. Reached Chennai again, this time for Sridhar's marriage. Two weeks leading to marriage was hectic but the ones followed were peaceful time spent at home. Amma made delicious food and ensured that I got to eat every dish that I had missed out over the last two years. Times roll, and soon I was getting ready to change my tax-filing status. Barely three months post Sridhar's marriage, I got engaged and six months later, I was back in Chennai for my marriage. When I sit and look back over the past 25 years, I see my Amma in almost every frame of it. And in 3/4th of those frames, I see that I have troubled her, hurt her, questioned her judgement and what not.

She is very adamant, dead against anything black and would love to visit any temple at worst of her health. She believes in vaasthu sastra and almost would like to do everything at an auspicious time. She never takes tablets and a doctor would be one of the last person to get her darshan. She studies Sanskrit and has completed her 1st round of exams. She goes for bhagavatham classes and recently went on a trip to Haridwar in spite of being unable to climb stairs comfortably. She is pious to the core and does so many poojas that I simply cannot find any other plausible reason for me to feel so blessed. But for her prayers, I would perhaps still be a very ordinary person. Her wonderful hands have cooked almost every South Indian snack that I would ever want to eat. She learned computers for the sole reason that she could chat with me. Undoubtedly, one of the best Ammas one can ever have. What have I done in return....nothing absolutely nothing. Not in my wildest of imaginations, do I believe that I can repay even 1% of what she has done to me. "Behind every successful man, there is a woman" may be a cliched statement but until now, I have no second thoughts about who that is. I am what I am because of this wonderful being who has shaped me. This wonderful song couldn't have been written any better. Sung by Yesudas, this is a masterpiece and as the lyrics goes, I only wish that I am gifted enough to be her son again.

Straight Drive

2009-04-27T23:55:00.006-05:00

After a long time, I have been playing cricket for the past few days. It all started last weekend when Sun started to show its presence in a more prominent way than just shining light through our windows. Been here for 4 years, I am now very familiar with this clear case of deception. While the temperature would be well below 10F, the light outside would trick you into believing that you are in the hot grounds of Chennai.

Two games of cricket provided a lot of entertainment. Cricket, unlike shuttle or even tennis, is not a very active game where you are on your toes all through a match but its the one I relish the most. First day, we began playing with runs only on the offside. But the last 2 days, we have had a dozen people and we sure made heads turn in Loring park, Minneapolis. Lots of local people reached out to us and enquired about how the game is played and a few onlookers tried to relate to the game by comparing to baseball. I even had a lady come up to me and suggest that we have actual sticks as wickets instead of tree trunks. "Do you know how it feels when the ball dislodges the bails, its a special feeling". I was amazed both at the ladies interest and knowledge of the game in this part of the world where sports means any 1 of Baseball, Basketball, Football or Ice hockey and nothing else.

Wanted to talk about my first game today. Got to spend a good time at the crease while batting and I seemed to be timing the ball well. Most people like me are experiencing the joy of cricket after a few years and so, the ball invariably found gaps between their hands. And for the same reason, the ball found gaps between their bat and pad(leg) as well. That's when I realized how useful the games that we played in gully cricket were. They have helped me a lot in becoming a better batsman.

I am a big fan of Sunny Gavaskar's fundamental advice - to play in the 'V' region. He always opined that you should play the ball with such a straight bat that the bowler should be able to read the label on the bat at all times. We used to play with the pitch diagonally across our street. The bowling end used to be near our house entrance and the batting end near Ramesh's. With houses lined up all along our street and with strict rules regarding getting out by hitting into one of those houses, the only way to survive and score runs is to play in the 'V' area.

I get more excited by watching a Sachin straight drive or a Dravid defense or a Ricky Ponting pull than a Sehwag Six or a Dhoni clout. Technique, Temperament and Class are of paramount importance than being flashy and fancy. Got a few chance to exhibit those straight but lusty hits this evening and that prompted me to express myself in this blog. Earlier, about couple of days back, I bowled one of my dream overs. One run was required of the last over with 2 wickets to spare when I came into bowl. Not only did I get a wicket but bowled a maiden over resulting in an exciting draw. To some, it could be just another game of Cricket but I never cease to enjoy this game. To me, it brings so much joy and happiness.

A bird's eye view??

2009-03-22T14:17:00.009-05:00

Our car took a right beneath the flyover and entered the Chennai International Airport. I made an entry into the airport lounge with a sea of people all around me with big suitcases. I was not walking yet was moving at a pace faster than I could walk. Most people wouldn't call it a wheel chair. It had wheels, a handle for people to hold and it carried me around and for this purpose alone, I would refer this to as a wheel chair. I could see that there were lengthy zig zag lines in front of most terminals. From where I stood I could see most peoples back with effortless ease as they lined up pretty much at my eyesight level. It was a cool night according to Chennai standards as I didn't perspire not that I have before but I have seen people around me do.

What seemed like a simple ticketing process apparently wasn't to be as I didn't follow the usual route most people did. Only the person ahead of me seemed to be walking towards where I did. For now, lets refer to him as Mr. X. We traversed the entire airport lounge and took a 'U' turn behind the airline counters and proceeded towards the room where Lufthansa had its office. Mr. X left me behind as I patiently waited outside the room. Inside the room, there was this beautiful women, Shalini. She looked god damn gorgeous and her smiles did full justice to her beauty. Mr. X was fortunate to have a proximate discussion with her. Though I would have loved to date one such girl, she was not of my kind. Soon those lovely curves in her face straightened for she seemed a little agitated and seemed to be making pointed references to me. In a way, I was loving the attention but wasn't liking the way she was looking at me. Soon, things seemed to have got resolved. Mr. X paid his payment and was on his way. I followed him on my wheel chair after my sojourn outside the counter.

I went through the immigration counter and was let in without any questions. I was appalled at the apparent lack of security. Soon, I cleared the security checks and entered the lobby where there were other passengers waiting to board the Lufthansa flight. Mr.X seemed to be taking the same flight as he took a seat near me in the lounge.Very soon, the flight departures were announced. It was well past midnight and the newspapers had arrived by then. He grabbed a newspaper as he entered the flight and stopped a seat ahead of me at #31A. I was helped in to my seat and very soon, flight announcements followed and then there was complete darkness as the flight took off. Though I was at an elevated position, I lost sight of Mr X moments before the flight took off. From then on, I was in my own world for the next 9 hrs. No announcements reached my ears and no food arrivals or beverages reached my mouth :).

I was woken up only by a ray of light that filled the plane. There was a smile in Mr.X's face as he helped me out of my seat. I smiled back thankfully but he didn't seem to care. He was on his way out as usual, leading me again. We had reached the Frankfurt airport. Not until then, I had walked across the name tag on my wheel chair. It had Giridhar Agoram and a lengthy address written across. Mr. X reached out and lifted me slowly and brought me closer to his eyes. After an initial curious look, smiled gently and lowered me back on to the red suitcase that he was carrying. I continued my journey towards Chicago in the same red wheel chair that had brought me to Frankfurt.

- As told to the author by a red Ant atop the Red suitcase at the Frankfurt airport

Deadlocks in bathrooms

2009-03-22T09:49:00.007-05:00

Most of the concepts in modern day technology have had their origins/ inspirations from real life incidents. So, If you need to understand the concept behind a particular technology, look no further than your bathroom. This blog would make best sense if you have lived some part of your life in a shared accommodation - be it a hostel, shared apartments, working bachelors or just a large family. How often have you experienced the irresistible wait to gain entry into a bathroom and I bet you would have beat Ben Johnson in the dash to the bathroom only to be cut short by a locked door.

Think of the database with multiple database objects as a shared apartment with multiple rooms. Each database object(room) does a specific function and different applications(humans) try to gain access to the different database resources(rooms). Each thing that you did in a room can be considered as a transaction being performed on the database. Consider the case of a shared bathroom, there are a few functions which require exclusive access like bathing and performing morning duties. There are other things that do not necessarily require you to have exclusive access. For instance, while one person is washing his face in the wash basin, another could wash his legs in the bath tub and a 3rd person could comb his hair looking into the mirror. Now, on a similar note, there are certain operations that require Exclusive access to a table like UPDATE / DELETE operations. There are other operations like SELECT which do not necessarily require exclusive access to the tables.

Stretching this to other areas, the locking of the bathroom door is equivalent of 'Acquiring an exclusive lock' and the opening of the door could be considered as a 'COMMIT' operation in a database. That is when you (the current application) release the lock(exclusive access) on the bathroom (acquired resource-e.g. table) and let other humans(applications) access that resource.

Continuing on the same note, any DBA would tell you that one of the most critical things while dealing with databases is to keep your transaction boundary to the minimum. What this means is to limit the number of operations that you do per transaction before issuing a COMMIT. In other words, keep the number of things that you do in the bathroom to the minimum every time you close the door. And open the bathroom door as often as possible so that other waiting resources could gain access to the bathroom and invoke its functionality.

A discussion about databases isn't complete without talking about Deadlocks. Imagine a situation when a guy,Mr.XYZ,being tested on his ability to control his senses, is waiting his turn outside a common bathroom. At the same time, Mr ABC is waiting inside the bathroom for XYZ to hand him over his towel(an I/O operation involving external resource) to issue his commit(opening the door). This represents a classic case of a deadlock. One application is waiting its turn to get access to the database resource while the one that has already acquired a lock over the resource is waiting for the first event before it could issue an commit.

So, the next time you find yourself spending a lot of time waiting outside a shared bathroom, you may want to 'REORG' the bathroom or reduce the transaction boundary of your roommates.

Giridhar weds Aruna

2009-01-23T00:45:00.000-06:00

Reception: 6:30 pm, Saturday, 7th February 2009
Muhurtham: 7:30 am to 8:30 am, Sunday, 8th February 2009
Venue: Andal Kalyana Mandapam, 108, LB Road, Adayar, Chennai - 600 020

That's me and That's why - My Icebreaker speech at Toastmasters

2008-11-06T00:09:00.000-06:00

I joined Toastmasters a couple of months ago and I gave my ice breaker speech a few days back. I was a lot tensed before I gave that but definitely felt better after giving it. About the speech itself, I would say it was a decent speech. Most of the audience being americans found it difficult to follow my accent as it was fast paced. Here is the speech I prepared. I stuck to it for most parts but did miss a few sentences while speaking and the last section on my other interests
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Mr. Toastmaster, fellow toastmasters and guests,

Thats why and Thats me

Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci and I have one thing in common. We are all Polymaths. If you were wondering what that is, its just a fancy word I came across yesterday and it sounded lot better than "Jack of all trades".

Today, I will tell you all about 2 things - Who am I and Why did I join toastmastes.

I am Giridhar Agoram and I am a Senior Consultant in the Regulatory and Capital markets function of AERS. I was born and brought up in Chennai, a city in Southern India and temperatures very much comparable to Minneapolis, In fact, theres just an one alphabet difference - When its 35F here, you could expect 35 C in chennai. So, if you ever wonder why people advise you against heating refrigerated food immediately, pay a visit to chennai during the months of April and May, after being in minneapolis for the whole of winter.

About me, as I said, I am pretty much a jack of all trades. Its interesting to note that I have always had fleeting interests. Lets look at my education for instance.

I was one of those kids who used to stare endlessly at the night sky, dreamt about being whisked away by weird looking aliens and longed to see a meteor shower. Back then, I wanted to become an Astro Physist. All that was until I joined my under-grad school. Very soon, I became interested in the world of electrons, of volts, watts and amperes, of transistors and transmitters. I did my engineering and specialized in the field of Electrical and Electronics. That lasted till my final year when I realized that Windows and Gates were not necessarily related to mortar and bricks. No, I am not done yet. Four years into software, when the housing sub-prime crisis began to show its ugly head, I wanted to shift my career towards capital markets and here I am in front of all you people. If only I had the gift of clairvoyance, I would know what I would be in another 5 years time.

Thats about who I am. Moving on to the Why part, the year was 1999. It was the last year of the previous millenium but my first year at school. English was one of the subjects and naturally, we all had to give a speech on a topic of our choice. The mere thought of going up on stage and standing in front of 50 new classmates sent shivers down my spine. Like most of my friends, I kept delaying and delaying my speech until I ran out of excuses. Choosing a topic to speak was the biggest impediment. That was until I went up on stage to give my first speech aptly titled, "Worries". I gave my entire speech in about 5 minutes and waited for the feedback. My English teacher gave me the most apt feedback that I remember till this day. This is what she said "Giridhar, Your speech was about how not to get worried but let me tell you, you were the most worried person in the entire class". This ice breaker speech is my attempt not to repeat that experience and thats why I am here today.

(I wrote down the next few sentences when I prepared my speech but failed to bring it up when I gave the speech for 2 reasons -
a) I didn't take short notes, so simply missed this
b) The Timer brought out the Green card indicating end of 4 minutes and that somehow distracted me and made me conclude my speech )

Let me talk about a little bit of Sports. I was an avid cricketer and I played for the local league. I also play tennis, table tennis. My knowledge of american sports is very limited. Though i always wonder why its called "Football" when there is very little foot in play. My other hobbies include photography, and blogging. Again, none of which I could claim to be a master but I certainly know something about all of these. Very recently, I also decided to try my hands at Public Relations. In case you are looking for that guy who is spamming your inboxes with toastmaster newsletters, the culprit is right in front of you. I have also read some books by Jeffrey Archer and Dan Brown and I do blog.

Alone in Apartment 403

2008-09-29T01:36:00.000-05:00

There are times when I have been lying on the bed with my eyes closed for a long time but still conscious of things happening around me. This was one such night. My roommate had left to California and with none else in my apartment, I had chosen to sleep in the living room. Somehow, I felt much comfortable sleeping in the bigger living room than the bedroom. Seeing "Raaz" the earlier weekend had not helped matters. The thought of ghosts and those ghastly images brought up by the incorrigible brain only managed to keep me awake a little longer.

As I lay static in my 4th floor apartment, a few of the light packets from the street lights barely managed to find my walls. Suddenly, I heard the lock of my main door open and a low creeking sound. Scared to death, my first reaction was to shut my eyes tightly. The curiosity to see who it is, was overcome by my fear. Slowly, the conversation with Mathi & Giri earlier this evening came to my mind. They were talking about recent events in the neighborhood which have been extremely bizarre - People have either found themselves dead or have their bathrooms cleaned to a sparkle overnight. Crazy as it may sound, rumour has it that, while intelligent people have been killed, dumb people have found their bathrooms cleaned. A neat freak that I am, challenged only by Monica Geller of "Friends", was only too happy to be a dumb person tonight. But this wasn't the time for such reasoning, I was already feeling a pair of hands on my heads - probably trying to figure out if I am intelligent. I knew that it doesn't sound rational at all but at this moment, I am more than willing to be irrational & alive rather than be rational & dead.

I never even knew when I fell asleep the previous night; probably, the fear made me unconscious/ asleep. Got up the next morning and I was left wondering whether the last nights events were a nightmare. Not knowing what to do, decided to pursue my favourite hobby, cleaning the kitchen. Just then, Mathis voice about clean bathrooms echoed in my ears. Startled, ran back to check my bathroom - It was indeed sparkle clean. My face turned pale and a chill feeling ran down my spine. I came back to my senses with a knock on the door. Only this time, it was morning and it was Giri. I couldn't resist telling him what has been happening for the past 12 hours. Just then, Mathi pinged on Google Talk asking what I was doing. When I told him that I was talking to Giri, he tried his usual prank - countering that Giri is sitting right before his eyes.

I have been on the receiving end of many a Mathi's pranks but I was sure he was not going to pull this one off. Determined, I dragged Giri to Mathi's apartment #404. On hearing the usual "Yes, Come In", we entered their apartment. I opened my mouth to argue, only to remain gaping. There, in front of my very eyes, sat Giridhar in the very same costume that he was in standing next to me. I looked left, looked straight, looked left again to see 2 exact 3D images that I knew for over a year now. Dumbfounded, I asked Saravana (I have never trusted Mathi) does he see what I am seeing. His response said it all - He looked at me as if there was an urgent need to pack me off to a mental hospital. Except me, none could see the other Giri standing to my left. Befuddled, frightened, discombobulated, I ran back to my apartment which is right next to theirs, #403 - Giri (or the image to my left) followed me to my apartment, still talking. I ran as fast as I could and tried to shut the door behind me. I was almost successful before a hand grabbed mine and called "Prash". This time, it was Deepa or so I thought.

I tried to force my hands out of her grip and ran for my door.....I tried to force out Deepa's grip over my bedsheet. "Hey Prash! Its already 10:00 am. Get up" - Deepas voice worked better than the alarm for it couldnt be snoozed. Got up and went to brush my teeth. This time, the bathroom was still dirty. Relieved and happy, I decided to clean the bathroom as well.

- My version of Prashanthi's real-life nightmare

Mirage of Colours

2008-08-24T21:41:00.001-05:00

Walking back from office, I called Prakash to check if we needed something from the Farmers market. He was only more than willing to give me a list. It wasn't a bad idea to go for a walk after a late lunch. Went to the nearest ATM and picked up some cash. Ever since I got used to the plastic money, the use of cash has been few and far in this part of the world. Walked from stall to stall, across street junctions and bought few fruits and even fewer vegetables. Came back home to find Prakash already staring at both of his laptops. Work related discussion followed as we sent a few grapes through their final journey through our oesophaguses.

As I went back to store the contents of the bags in the refrigerator, I noticed the Kiwi fruit that i had got from the market. Being the first time I bought this fruit, decided to give my taste buds a new experiment. As I made the first dent on the fruit, the taste buds were not too happy with my recent try out and immediately sent a signal of sourness to the brain and the data got recorded. While I kept peering at the cut fruit, a few signals were sent from my skin cells to the brain indicating that the fruit perhaps could be over-ripe. Being an expert that he is, I showed the cut fruit to Prakash and enquired if the fruit is too ripe. So much was my doubt that I even asked him if that's the color, green, the flesh of the fruit is supposed to be.

He just smiled and asked "Which part is green? All I could see is a fruit with a dark brown skin and a brown flesh". I, for a moment, suspected my own eyes. He continued that he may not be the right person to comment as he is partially color blind. My brain cells immediately got into action and tried to analyze the millions of Terabytes of data stored in its memory cells to relate this new knowledge that it has gained to any of the prior events in my life. The knowledge that things could appear differently when viewed from someone else's eyes. The knowledge that the disability or rather the ability could alter the way one looks at things. The knowledge that the way I see things may have been influenced by my ability / disability.

The analysis stopped when it finally found one event which probably could be related to color blindness. I have not been and I am still not very good at recognizing/differentiating the various shades of blue - purple, indigo, Navy blue. Intrigued and concerned, I immediately landed on the first search result from Google on color blindness tests. After completing the tests from couple of different sites came to the safe conclusion that the problem is very much my ignorance rather than a disability. I confirmed the same by searching for those respective colors by names and ensuring that they indeed appeared different to my eyes.

It is not often that one comes across some events that throws up interesting questions and triggers the thought process. The brief period of uncertainty did scare me but the relief of knowing that my body parts are functioning correctly is matchless. It also reminds me of Avvaiyar's song

அறிது அறிது மானிடராதல் அறிது...
மானிடராயினும் கூன் குருடு செவிடு பேடு நீங்கிப் பிறத்தல் அறிது

[It is extremely rare and precious to be born a human being. More so without any disabilities.]

A small step towards a giant leap

2008-07-30T15:06:00.000-05:00

One of the advantages of being project-less is that you tend to read a lot of news. So, recent news have actually stirred up something that i have long been wanting to do - to do something for a greener earth. It could be anything like switching off the vehicles while idling or simply pulling out the mobile chargers off the electric sockets when not being charged

Let me for now concentrate more on the energy part. If you even happen to surf across any of the news channels, you could not have missed the recent news abt oil prices, dependence on fuels, and nuclear power etc, etc. Something that stuck me is why not I do something about this and the simplest thing that I (and we all) could do is install solar panels. I know a kid, my friend's earlier renter's son, had installed solar panels in his home and used it to power his electric geysers. I was not only fascinated but felt belittled. A kid younger than me has put it in practice what he had read while I am still doing nothing more than writing about it.

To cut the long story short, I have always wanted to do at least couple of things about this.
#1) Install a solar panel in all of our homes. If each of us do it in our respective homes, its not just that many installations but a lot more people will get curious on seeing what a few people in various parts of India have done and probably encourage (indirectly) them to "try out".

#2) is again part of my long time dream buried deep under - Entrepreneurship. Why not see this as a business opportunity and start something on these lines. It may not be effective / profitable immediately. But sooner / later, this has a big potential to catch up. In Chennai, we have close to 11 months of summer - a source of raw material that you can rely on for the next 50 yrs for sure. This need not be our prime job. We can do this along with our existing job. May be, one day, I will realize my distant dream!!!

Related link: http://www.thehindu.com/pp/2005/01/22/stories/2005012200420100.htm

Dasavatharam

2008-06-17T00:48:00.000-05:00

Dasavatharam - a movie that is class apart. A movie which is so different from typical tamil movies. As a blog in sulekha rightly pointed out, most of the tamil films can be easily fitted into one or the other of the stereotypes - Rags to riches, Hero takes a revenge either because the villain had killed his parents / villain raped his sister, romantic love stories. A few movies that stand apart and those that deal with offbeat stories like Anbe Sivam, Tamil M. A, Hey Ram never make it big and are branded as boring - condusive environment for all directors to not think outside of proven boundaries that I have listed earlier.

Coming back to Dasavatharam, those who feel that the movie didnt have a storyline either missed the first 5-10 mins of movie when the narration happens or simply failed to understand the underlying concept so beautifully explained. The movie is based on the Chaos Theory which is best explained by the butterfly effect. The entire story is an adaptation of this theory. All the events that are seemingly unrelated are connected in one way or another. If only Govind had not met one of his friends or If only George Bush had asked the plane to return to USA, the vial would have never reached India and it just doesnt stop there. Such Ifs continue throughout the story (stretching it a bit too far to allude) that the act by the chola king of dropping the statue in the sea in the 12th century causes the Tsunami.

The Dus Avatars
Kamal comes in 10 different avatars - No other contemporary actor could even dream of trying anything like this.

Rangarajan, a staunch vaishnavite
Balram Naidu, the Telugu RAW chief,
Fletcher, ex-CIA agent
George Bush,
Govind, a bio-scientist
Poovarahan, a Dalit activist
Krishnaveni Paati, an old woman,
Khalif, the tall guy
Avatar, Punjabi singer
a Chinese martial arts teacher.

Of all the roles, the one who impressed me most is the RAW chief - the timing and the dialogue delivery are impeccable. Also notable are the accent and mannerisms of Bush and Rangaraja nambi. A lot of effort has gone into differentiating each of the 10 characters - not just their face and voice, but also their height, walking style, their tamil / english accent, their body build and their mannerisms. One of the common complaint that I heard from my friends is that too many characters have been wasted and they have just been introduced to make up the magic number 10. I agree partly to this that too much of kamal becomes kind of an overkill. But it is also impossible to give weightage to 10 different characters, yet have a good story line and still finish the movie in under 3 hrs. Also, the arguments that the characters are inconsequential are baseless as simple acts of each of these characters decided the way the events happened - be it the way Khalif helped Govind or the old woman dumping the vial into the statue.

Special Effects
Needless to say the special effects were of very high standards compared to other tamil movies but may be because it was given to 10 different companies, at times, the special effects stand out as being artifical but the Tsunami scenes, the 12th century scenes and the scenes involving 2-3 kamals have been really handled well. The only other thing that stands out or in fact is glaring is Kamals make up. While some of the characters like Rangarajan, Bush and balram are really good, the other make-ups like the Old woman, Fletcher and the marshal arts teacher - all look ugly and as if a mask has been worn.

The Asin Effect
Too many people have been bothered by the constant nagging by the lead lady, Asin. She never seemed to be worried about anything else thats happening around her except for her own perumal. In my opinion, she has played her role to perfection. A Tam-brahm from an orthodox vaishnavite family in chidambaram has been potrayed very realistically. My own friend is a staunch Tam-brahm and I could have sworn that he would have done most, if not all what Asin did. Of course, I must admit that it has been exaggerated in the movie.

A few minuses

1) Clearly, an overdose of kamal - The movie would have been a lot better with just 2-3 kamals instead of 10

2) Lack of Humour - But for the RAW chief, all the other characters lacked humour - so kind of becomes monotonous

3) Make-up - overdose.

4) Himesh - Mukunda Mukunda and Oh Oh sanam are good. Was shocked to see that "Kallai Kandal" is a lift from vikrams mallu movie. Though I loved the lyrics of that song.

(Thanks to the explanation in the FAQ link, I understood the only missing piece that eluded me - How is the story that happens in the 12th cetury related to the rest of the movie)

Some other sources:
1) FAQs on Dasavatharam (http://sify.com/movies/fullstory.php?id=14695489)

2) Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory)

3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect

4) Similar reviews on Sulekha

Taare Zameen Par

2008-02-15T00:34:00.000-06:00

I lay motionless on this closed space wih my eyes closed. The new york weather and the travel on the last 4 days gave me enough excuses to sleep hard.. I switched sides with my coat still acting as my blanket. With a sweater over my t-shirt, I Was still feeling cold. I looked over the window to see glitering lights .. in the far off land, not as attractive as those in New york but good enough to keep my eyes focussed for a couple of minutes. I was able to peep out even though i was not close to the window. All these could not stop my eyelids from being together for more than a few seconds.

Earlier, as i walked into my seat, a warm smile welcomed me. She looked like she was doing her high-school or probably her masters. Next to her was an old lady, who wasnt interested in any of what we were doing. She was all too glued to her book, adjusting her specs now and then. With the magazines before me not interesting me, I decided to bid her good night and decided to enter my own world where I could be anything from a king to a devil.

With Angelina Jolie and Matt Daemon kissing passionately, I wasn't sure if it was my dream or an actual video in the small screen towards my left. Very soon, I switched sides and let some characters from another screen steal my retina space. With more orders from my brain, the nerves along my pupil constricted and that what I saw made me sit up and take note. It was all too familiar - something that i have loved all my life.

Now, with my eyes very much open, I peeped into the laptop next to me. At first glance, it seemed as if she was studying but later realized that probably she was preparing a question paper. I continued to stare at her computer. It was all too familiar - something that I have loved doing all my life - Those magic figures and equations came up from the screen and danced in front of me like they did for the kid in Tare Zameen par. Right Triangles, hypotenuse, a2 + b2 = c2, the Pythagoras theorem - so many thoughts jammed my head. Various thoughts, mostly pleasant, some grateful and some for me to ponder.

A few years rolled backwards and I saw myself sitting in "Jayalakshmi" teachers house. The times I have enjoyed the most. The times I have earned the wrath of my fellow classmates simply by taking away their free periods in schools. I used to run to the chemistry lab where she shared the desk with her friends; ask her to mark me some problems so that I could take to the class and dictate those problems. Then I was in a CBSE school and Maths was my all time favorite. It was what I then considered a challenge, to be able to solve those puzzles. Everytime I hurried to solve those problems, complete them quickly and correcly. That and that alone gave me a sense of pride, a sense of having achieved. Those days, wonderul days.. days of aweful handwriting, petty fights, desk top table tennis and innumerable book cricket games. I loved maths as much as i loved cricket.

I was always eager to find out new ways of or simpler ways of doing the problems. Like the pascals triangle for finding the (a+b)^n or simple maths like multiplying by (10-1) instead of multiplying by 9.

For a brief period, my mind shifted towards my other interests - Kannan sir tuition centers. Those early mornings, unwilling to get up, yet forced to, those 1-2 hrs of physics, chemistry. Be it the Millikans oil drop experiment or the Bohrs atom model...they are ever fresh in my memories 9 years later. "An ode to a Grecian Urn".. was a poem that I learnt in my 11th std.. I dont remember the poem because I liked it nor because it was thought well but simply because it was taught by a kind woman, Mrs. Mini Nair. A teacher who treated us much more than as mere students. One reason, I started developing a liking for the english language. So, as I pondered, I realized that its because of these wonderful teachers that I am really what I am right now.

What I am and where I am right now.. is all due to some wonderful teachers.. teachers who were good at what they taught.. Teachers who made you get interested in those subjects.. Teachers who crafted your future.. So seeminly minuscule but actually, the true architects of our futures. If not for a Jayalakshmi teacher, I wouldnt be so good at maths, If not for Adal Arasan Sir, I wouldn't have got a centum in my 12th. Its not about getting a centum but its about training your mind to solve problems - The problem solving skills which is so essential in the real life world. What they did is trained our mind to think...If not for them, I would just be a dumbass.

As I began to ponder, it became very clear. I was fortunate to have such good teachers at the right age; the right age when you begin to love the things that interest you and dtetest those than don't. Fortunately for me, I began to love the subjects of Maths, Physcis and Computers. But the most favorite among them always remained Maths. At the same time, the other thought that occurred to me is that.. who takes to the teaching profession these days. In 95% of the cases or so I believe, its the people who didnt get a job at any other place or to be precise, those ppl who were left out by the software companies. For some reason, they decided or rather "ended up" being a teacher - not because they loved it but because they didn't get a better job or because they didnt have a choice. Not really to blame them, for I haven't been any different from whom I have been writing about. I got really good teachers, learnt the subjects well, went on to do engineering, graduated and moved towards "lucrative careers" - lucrative because it gives / promises me a luxurious life atleast if not luxuious, definitely a better standard of living. So, why would I choose a teaching profession in a school over a Computer geek job which would pay me almost 5 times to begin with and almost 7-8 times in a matter of two years ???

Suddenly a thought occurred to me that I should take up a teaching profession. While its not so easy as it sounds, its not totally impractical. I certainly believe that I would make a good teacher. So, once I go back to India, why don't I start a tuition center for Maths. Now, a tuition center because I still dont want to leave my lucrative job that I am working on; Yet I want to play a smmall part. A little pay back to the society which gave me such amazing teachers who have shaped what I am today. If I manage to inculcate the interest in maths to even 5 other students, that I would call as an achievement. For that, I believe I want to start a coaching class which should be free of cost. Just 2 hours on Saturdays and Sundays and I dont want to teach higher standards. All I want to do is teach simple mathematics to young kids. because I believe, if you create an interest in those kids by being a good teacher, they would automatically see maths as a subject "to learn" instead of a subject "to pass". Again, at this point, I am unsure whether I would do it or even if someone would come forward with their kids to one such tuition center. But this is my iidea at this time. With respect to fees, I also have an idea that I would keep a small jar where in parents can drop in the money what they wish to and they can drop the money if and only if they feel that thier kid has improved by coming to the tuition. The money could be as little as even Rs.10. All I want to do with that money is buy something to encourage those students who do well.

Just a small thought that came across when i was seeing those a2 + b2 = c2 pythagoras theorems when I was flying over those small cities. The girl next to me opened my eyes in all sense. She reminded me of those good old days when I was in school - periods of right triangles, rhombus and squares, of sectors, diagonals and chords; of problems to calculate the area of shaded regions; times of Parabolas, Hyperbolas, Cylinders and Spheres; Of Pi R^2 and 1/2 base * height. Oh God!!! so many things, so fresh in my memories. I just wish I get back to those good old school days.

This blog is a small tribute to all those wonderful teachers who have made me what I am today.

Veg vs Non-Veg: The argument continues!!

2007-02-04T19:01:00.000-06:00

Its been a while since I have written something. I get this feeling everytime I sit to write. I guess this is because of the long gaps between my blogs. Not sure if this deserved to be called as Writers blog considering that I am not that great a writer.

Vegetarian aka Vegan - This term in itself brings in controversy. The mere definition of this word, according to WordWeb is "Eater of fruits and grains and nuts; someone who eats no meat or fish or (often) any animal products". But I know many versions of Vegetarains - Some who eat Fish, some who eat Eggs. (Eggetarains, they even have a new sect too ;-) ). Again, there is a subsect here too - some who claim they eat only Fertilized eggs and so technically, they are not killing a life and hence are vegetarians. The other sect is neither bothered about the history nor the future of those eggs.

Lets see the reason why people are vegetarians. In my opinion, its more like a religion, you follow it because you were born into it. There were no initial personal choices however, the number of people who convert are higher in case of Food-habits. Driven primarily by taste, these conversions are more one-sided towards the non-vegetarianism. A few follow vegetarianism as a principle, a few as a religious obligation / belief and a very few because of choice. Some of the common reasons why vegetarians defend not being a Non-Veggie...

1) You kill life - but may be they forgot that plants do have life and

2) If eating egg, which could potentially become a chicken, a life form, is against vegetarianism, how about eating the fruits which has the seeds, which could potentially become a Tree, a life form. (May be I am exaggerating this a little too far, but to me, its still a life). Just because plants are immobile, how does it make them an inferior life form than an animal.

The only point, in my opinion, that could stand an argument could be that the vegetarians 'mostly' eat the plant products than the plant itself - like fruits, vegetables and for the very same reason, milk is considered vegetarian. Since the products themselves do not really result in the death of the animal / plant, this could be treated as a fair argument. However, vegetarianism is not only about the plant products - Somtimes, the entire plants are also eaten.

I fit into the first and second category. I follow vegetarianism because I was born into one such family and two, I believe in the principles of my religion. Its not the choice that I am concerned about but its the excuse. Everyone has the right to live in their own way. I would be happy if someone says "thats how I want to be" instead of hiding behind excuses.

Check-In at Chicago

2007-02-04T17:27:00.000-06:00

With blessings of Lord Venkateswara at Aurora temple, I hurriedly got into the car. The freezing cold outside only hastened my pace towards the car. With the warmer running and the clock ticking, I got onto the car and stepped up the gas. In another 45 minutes, I was there at the Rental Car return. Completed the formalities and got in to the shuttle to the airport. Reached the airport at around 9:15 pm. I have been trying to do a Web Check-In but there were some technical difficulties which made me reach the airport much earlier than I normally would for a 10:15 flight.

Went straight to the airline counter to check-in and this wasn't without problems either. The airline personnel did her best and still could not check me in even though I had a perfectly valid ticket. It was not until she called her supervisor was she able to check me in. I was also informed that the flight had been delayed by another 1.5 hours...and is scheduled to leave only at 11:47 pm.

Having got the boarding pass, I moved to the first floor to grab some food and opened my laptop to watch some movie. Spent the next 1 hour trying to keep myself occupied. At around 10:30, I decided to go through the security. So, went to the second floor - only to find white shutters staring at me. A lonely lady, while putting on her coat, enquired and informed me that the airport closes at 10:00 pm and I would require a security pass to get in. So, went to the first floor to get the security pass from the continental airline representatives. The next one hour was one of the longest in my life.

There were just 6 people in front of me in the queue and there were 2 representatives "servicing" the customers. One of them liked his customer, an old couple, so well that he didn't want to part with them for the next 1 hour. So, all of us in the queue were left with only the other female. She, I guess, was a trainee as she went inside her office for clarifications for almost every customer. She was not as "fast" as our other friend but she manged some good pace servicing 2 customers in 30 minutes.

Over an hour of standing in the queue and with my flight scheduled to leave at 11:47, I was still 3 people away from even meeting the representatives. Finally, after lot of hardships, we managed to get to the counter. After checking my credentials, he gave me a security pass but not before telling me that I would not be able to take this flight and offered me a seat in the next days flight. I fought for the ticket and hurried back to the second floor for the security check.....Not realizing that this is the beginning of a long hassle.

Hurried to the second floor to see only empty dark aisles giving a deserted look. One officer informed that I need to take a tram to Terminal 2 and go through the security there and come back to Terminal 1 for taking the flight. So, much for taking a flight!!!! - Ran to the nearby terminal and waited for the tram. What a time to get a practical lesson of Einsteins Relativity Theory - the wait seemed to never end even though it was hardly for 4-5 mins. Fortunately, since Mr.Murphy was busy with other people, Terminal 2 was the immediate next terminal.So, got out and was anxiously looking for some security gates to be open only to see scaffoldings all around - It was renovation time at terminal 2 and I could see Mr. Murphy smiling victoriously in every wooden plank and saying "Not this time!!! ha ha ha"

With all those above things running in my mind, managed to catch a glimpse of the departure timings - took a moment to thank my stars for having delayed the flight by another 10 mins - "Boarding - Departure at 11:57 pm". Managed to get hold of couple of security guards who were chit-chatting and explained the entire scenarios. Those 2 good-hearted souls hurriedly took me through a narrow passage to a hidden security check but not before they "encouraged" me by saying that I would never be able to make it but I still continued my efforts. I quickly removed my leather coat and the laptop and went through the security check. Got to know the way to the gates from the security check point from them.

There started the sprint towards the gate B12 - Murphy smiling again - that was the last of the gates in the 'B' concourse. With a carry on bag on one shoulder, the laptop bag on the other and the leather coat on my hands, I started scampering towards the flight 297. Naturally, I was the cynosure of all eyes in the airport. "Bham!!!" slammed the door as I saw the airlines official close the door that takes your foot off from the airport to the plane. At the same time, the lady at the counter shut down her monitor since it was the last flight to leave the airport.

This night seemed to be an night of interrogation. I explained, with a gasping breath, for the Nth time how I was delayed by their own customer representative. She immediately opened her computer terminal at the same time, picked up the phone to inform the cabin crew that the person who had been missing since check-In (thats me!!!!!) has arrived. With my boarding pass and security pass verified, the monitor stood upright, the doors opened and I was let inside through the corridor to the plane. The airplane doors closed ride behind me. As I sat in my seat and fastened the seat-belts, I could feel the plane moving backwards, while I was still trying to slow down my breathing.

00:00 hrs - the flight took off and I slept with an important lesson - Stretch your limits (departure times :-) ) and never give up.

Love at Onsite - Effects of Liberalisation

2007-01-28T20:52:00.000-06:00

This is about a crazy incident that happened in my friends engineering college. I lost my nerves when I heard it for the first time. Six years later, I am yet to come to terms with how could there be such 'brilliant' people who are at the helm of affairs of a popular college in India.

The story is no means funny to start with. Ms. Kavya was one of my friends's juniors and she was living in the girls hostel. She had a good friend in Dinesh, one of the day-scholar guys in her class. On one of the special occasions, she borrowed the guys vehicle during college hours and went to shop some greeting cards. Unfortunately, she met with an accident resulting in her immediate death. What followed is a series of events that I would remember for the rest of my life.

The Girls parents came to the college and they accused the hostel authorities of being highly irresponsible. I could empathize with the mother's reaction but there was hardly anything the college could do - OR so we thought!!!!! An enquiry commission was set up to 'investigate' the cause for murder and the committee came up with a brilliant root cause and steps to prevent further such incidents. So, lets hear the root cause - "Dinesh!!!!!" The reasoning is simple - Had he denied giving her his vehicle, she would not have met with an accident. I honestly feel, these people should be part of the CBI. What more - thats just the tip of the iceberg.

Dinesh was suspended and when he finally appeared for the exams, he failed in all the subjects of that semester - In case, you are confused, the college was an autonomous institution. Hope this clarifies. No!!! the brilliant committee did not stop with that - They expanded their thoughts, stretched their brains and came out with wonderful ideas to prevent such incidents in future. Actually, its more like a root cause of the root-cause. .

Lets go through the chain of events that caused this - from the eyes of the committee - Kavya had one of the guys as a friend. In that college, the girls have to pass via the mens hostel to reach the college. So, there is a common pathway for about 100-150 metres. So, essentially, the guys and gals can interact (without a proper parental like supervision) and they could potentially become friends. Hence, the ultimate root cause of that incident is the common path for both guys and girls from their respective hostels. Holy crap!!!! - I could not resist my anger when I heard this story from my friend

Thankfully, some sensible guy within the committee decided that these measures were far extreme!!! and dropped the idea of dividing the common road into two sections - Guys lane and a Gals lane - How does that sound for a resolution???

So, going by the above logic, in case any of your friends falls in love with a girl, when he is abroad.... Dont look any further for the root cause - Its our own current Prime Minister.. Dr.Manmohan Singh. Had he not brought in liberalisation of economy in the early 90s, your friend wouldn't have even gone abroad in the first place - leave alone falling in love with a girl there. There are such intelligent people too amongst us. Keep looking for such "level-headed" people - They are perfectly capable of screwing your entire career - just as they destroyed poor Dinesh's career for no fault of his - lending his vehicle to his friend.

Why didn't you tell me this before!!!!

2007-01-28T15:28:00.000-06:00

One of the statements that irks me right away is ..."Why didn't you tell me this before" Or in fact, I am more used to the tamil version of the above "Itha aen en kitta munnadiye sollala". It just drives me nuts. Let me put a situation to this question - may be it will help you understand my fury better.

Its a simple case. I was talking to one of my best friends after, may be, 3 days!!! and I was telling him about an email conversation that I had had with another friend, about a week before. The first question that came to his mind, rather, that was asked of me... is Why didn't you tell me this before? I was like "What the heck!!!" There are 2 parts to this -

1) Its been hardly a week and I just missed telling you the previous time

2) But then, looking at it in a different way - I might not have even felt like sharing this the previous time I spoke to you.

The problem is - some people confuse friendship with being able to know each and every event (significant or not) that happened in your life and not just that, they need to know that immediately. Sometimes, it may not be even related to you. May be, I am being a little harsh here...I agree that there is nothing wrong in being curious to know what happened in your friends life but you also got to acknowledge the fact that there is only so much that could be shared when you are physically separated by distance. And at those times, certain insignificant events really do not matter.

Its harder to digest, when this very same friend of mine was so busy for the past 6 months that whenever I called him, he could not talk to me. He simply used to hang the phone down promising me to call back later, only to get drowned in a heap of official work. I used to be so uninformed about the happenings in his life but those things never really bothered him then. Suddenly, now that he is out of those busy times, he has started inquiring about why he is not aware of certain things, blissfully ignorant of the fact that he was the one who was occupied, all the while.

Though I do understand that you get carried away sometimes - its important that you really understand and acknowledge the fact that
1) Its Perfectly okay to miss telling you something. I don't think you would prefer me to have it all written down and read it out for you.

2) Any conversation needs to be a flow of thought and not a self-forced narration of list of the things that happened.

3) Though I agree that the human mind is capable of remembering a whole lot more than I do, I still forget to tell some things that happened since our last conversation because that's how I am!!!!

4) There could be a few more things that even though I remember, I may chose not to reveal either because I don't feel like talking about them then OR its just not worth sharing. It could be even about some other person for whom I am a confidant, in which I case, I will never share it.

....And this is why I didn't tell you this before!!!!!

Angry Young Man!!!

2007-01-27T02:23:00.000-06:00

One of the colleagues in my previous project used to comment this about me - that I always look like an "angry young man". This photo of mine seems to vindicate that :-). Just got reminded of this comment about me, a year and a half later, on seeing this photo!!!

Why I am not a HeartThrob!!!

2006-12-06T21:30:00.000-06:00

I have always wondered...why have never been an HeartThrob... A Hrithik, or a John Abraham or a Surya.. - A litle introspection revealed the thruth..

Routine never stops.. .Close to a year since I have been here. Different interests - One has tried hard to make me work out but I have never budged. Not that I am lazy but I jus that I have heard innumerable number of people becoming fat ever since they stopped going to the GYM. I am a lean guy and I have been mocked at many times for the same reason. But none of these had actually made me feel like wanting to go to the GYM. I would rather be like this than with a big bulge stopping me from looking down my feet.

I started to go for swimming and I was pretty regular until a certain time and then it was summer. So, the outdoor Tennis kept me busy - the mere enthu to do some physical work kept me going until the winter dawned. Very soon, I was getting an increasing feeling that I would soon be chosen to compete against the "best" tamilnadu policemen - most of them, by now, have forgotten how to catch a lathi, leave alone the thieves.

Time went by - colors changed, trees lost their identity and it was white all over the place. All my daily physical activity was reduced to just physical stretches that we used to do during our Cricket Net Practices in the college. Even this stopped, when I sprained my shoulder trying to lift a big rice bag !!! Think I was destined NOT to do any physical activity this winter :(

I was also wondering why do I get head aches - These were far and few when I was in school and made its presence felt once in a while when I was in college. But, now that I started working, it seemed to like my company and ensures that it spends at least 2-3 days with me in a month. After every visit, it goes into a state of hybernation until I give it a wakeup call by going hungry / sleepless.

My sole aim of writing this article is to get out of the shackle of the writers block - Not that I am a big writer to have a block - Anyways, this particular blog ended up being a collection of my rants / excuses as to why I am not a heart throb yet!!! :P

Why do people stay late?

2006-08-13T00:03:00.000-05:00

Welcome...that you are here tells me that you are someway related to the IT industry and you are at one of those small cubes in any of the many STPs. aka Software Technology Parks. The statement above is something that would have invariably come from you or any of your close friends. If you havent heard them for a while, then its time to go back to Offshore, your motherland.

So, why do people stay late at Offshore? or if you are on the other side of the globe, why do you stay up until midnight? Often asked questions. Where does the issue lie and where is the root cause? Let me attempt answering some of these. All of the below points are common to both Offshore as well as Onsite.

Exceed Expectations

Invariably, every resource in every IT company is EXPECTED to meet some stated qualifications in order to get a good rating. Your rating, your promotion and hence your money is invariably tied to being how well you Exceed expectations.Just meeting expectations would take you no where, let me rephrase, will fetch you no money. (Most of us try to achieve this bar, completely unaware of the fact that a Managers expectation is a Mirage - It deceives you into believing, but you will always find yourself nowhere near the expectation, let alone exceed it). So, you are always expected to perform more..(who doesnt want more money?). So, starts your quest for excellence!!!! - you end up burning your midnight oil.

The "Differentiating" factor

Another oft repeated question. What differentiates you from the rest. (I want to say, my finger prints :-( ). So, when everyone does the same work, how do you differentiate? So whats the answer - work more. After all, the differentiating factor is never measured by how well you do the given task but how much more tasks you do than the other. So, you end up doing more work - you end up staying late

The Initiatives

If you havent heard of this or not part of atleast one, then please wake up. Actually, this is (regarded as) a part of section #1) and #2). Well, if you are a Manager, then you must be the champ or owner of at least one initiative. The dictionary defines Initiative as "The first of a series of actions". True to its definition, the managers start by giving a catchy title so that it can be included in the powerpoint presentations and you will always see the FIRST, only the first of series of actions. The chance of getting into this is more if you are at Offshore, not that its nonexistent at Onsite but you will see less of them. So again, we let "The Initiatives" prevent us from making any other productive initiative of our interest.

"The Industry is like that"

One of the most easiest excuse for any manager - blame the industry. Agreed, that its an inherent "feature" in the Onsite-Offshore model to spend considerable time on onshore / offshore calls and it is perfectly acceptable to wake you up in the middle of the night even if you are dancing in the rain with aishwarya (you are expected to be professional - serving your client - any time, any day ...err.. any night ) and the justification is the best part - "Even, I have been through such slogging".. ."In my previous project...I have been at office for days together" - Well, some one please put your hands together for the great work. Absolutely ludicrous - Are we slaves? Yes, we are paid more than people in other industry but then, none of the companies in other industries reach a revenue of Billion rupees (leave alone $$$$s). So, the managers justify the act of (and the need for) staying late.

Promotions

The dictionary definition goes like this - "Encouragement of the progress or growth". In my opinion, promotion is given to an employee in the belief, (based on facts), as an encouragement, that he is capable of doing a higher role. But of late, this definition has been redefined - you must PROVE yourself that you are capable of doing that. Fair enough given the present day competitive environment. But here is the catch - you must prove yourself irrespective of the tasks that you are assigned to and irrespective of what is expected from you in your current assignment.
Put simply, its like this - For your appraisal, you will be rated on what all you do (Refer Section #1 and Section #2 ) but your promotions are always based on how well you do stuff over and above what all you do :-) )

So, the next time you ask yourself the same question, What the #$@! is he doing at On(Off)site, be aware that he / she is trying to do one or more of the many things apart from his regular work.

Onsite Hungamas

2006-07-11T20:18:00.000-05:00

The social sense of many an Indians living in the United States is not well carried into their homes. A typical single bedroom apartment of a typical Indian (read Software Engineer a.k.a Tech Leads) in the United States would be shared by 3 people. I live with 2 other people from my own project who have spent about 6 months more than I myself have. These two are like any other Indian, who has found a new abode - well-mannered, health conscious fitness freaks. All these adjectives accurately describe them until the moment they are outside the apartment. You must really be living with them to be aware of the total lack of civic sense.

A picture of my home, room by room would be a better way to explain the mess here. Enter the hall, there are at least 3 laptop bags - one on the sofa, the other on the chair and the other near the table. The table is the home to an innumerable number of things - ipods, gym gloves, wet towels, junk credit card offers, the last months bank statement, room keys. On this very table, we need to iron our clothes every morning. So, each time, some one has to do that, he helps a few things lose their potential energy. All, this on the beginning of one side of the Hall. Lets move slightly ahead to the sofa. The sofa is synonymous to the girls in the topless bars - No clothing to cover the top and the clothing at the bottom unevenly crawling at the floor with a few ornaments - a leather belt, the data cable of a digital camera, the ipod's headphones on her hip.

A little further, we have couple of routers - one connecting to the internet wires entangled and the other a router more of the electrical kind which feeds the audio system cum DVD player cum chat machine also sometimes used as a computer, the laptop. The rest of the available space is occupied by my room mates' bed rolled up SO WELL that it occupies half the space as it would when expanded.

Having felt the need for a store room more than a bedroom and since 1 BHK apartments do not have dedicated store rooms, we decided to better utilize the bedroom. The bed occupies 1/2 of the room and clothes are just all over the bed - simply, results of trying to implement Arjun Singh's reservation policy. The rest of the space contains suitcases which contain more clothes over them than within them.

I got so immensed with explaining our room, that I lost the main context. Amidst all this chaos, there are half-full energy drinks, left over mountain dews...used paper napkins, innumerable bills of purchases in superstores, scribbled papers and print outs from office - None of these ever make it to the dustbin. Havent any of these people been taught the basics - to live in a hygienic environment. Whats the use of going to a gym when your own environs are not kept clean. Whats the use of being well-mannered to others when you fail to realize the basic courtesies while sharing an apartment. Its just so amazing that the same people who take pains to find a dustbin to dump their napkins continue to litter right in the middle of a living room.

If you are one who will very soon be seeing the $$$$ salaries, don't get carried away by the very clean pictures that you see...be prepared to face the reality. The apartments that you would reside would be much more worse than our hostel rooms back during the undergrad days - thanks to some nice health-conscious room mates!!!!!

Romantic movies from the hidden chambers

2006-05-14T02:41:00.000-05:00

On a mid may Saturday night, seeing the white ball pass across so many clouds from a downtown apartment kindled my thoughts. I wished I could go to the terrace to see more of that and I did attempt only to find a latch that wouldn't budge. Came back disappointed and sat near the window. Thoughts wandered and I was taken aback to the period where I used to have the time and company to enjoy the beauty of a full moon. Cool breeze on a full moon night on the terrace of a multi-storied apartment with the girl whom you love by your side could leave long lasting scars on your mind.

Thousands of miles across, I cross the oceans and mountains with ease traveling on the mind vehicle and I am able to see myself in one of those cold full moon nights. At the same time, thousands of miles on the other side of this continent,I am able to see my girlfriend canoeing away on a boat. Strange is the ability of the mind to see things that you long for, things that happened in the past, things that will never happen, things that cannot be seen through naked eyes even with those powerful telescopes. As my thoughts meander, I envy the person who sits along with her at this time enjoying the full moon night by the side of a river. With the water gleaming and silence of the night broken only by the splashing due to the oars, oh.. How I wish I could be with her...I can hear my mind screaming....It should be ME who should be with her on this romantic night alas....screams of mind are not loud enough to break the hearts of women. I couldn't help think that hearts were designed by HIM to be much stronger so that they don't get broken by screams..one too many. But why...why at all?

Why does the full moon look so beautiful. Or is it that..I started liking the full moon after those late night meetings? Why does the moon have scars. Did it too go through similar emotions as I do? Why would I have to meet her. Why would I have to like her. Why would she have to go away? Why would she have to go so far, physically and otherwise. Why should the full moon be so romantic. Why should the sight of full moon kindle so many thoughts that haunt me. So many thoughts, so many questions wander across in my mind like the black clouds across the white ball.

As I speak...err sorry..as I write, the white ball moved beyond the right edge of my window, out of my sight to disturb some one else. I am trying to emulate the moon in moving on but sometimes, I find myself staring back through the same window....watching many a movie - romantic movies - movies that were never captured anywhere else except in the dark hidden chambers of my heart.

My Alter ego

2006-04-18T19:59:00.000-05:00

Finally managed to get a slightly decent photo on to this blog site.

Krazy Klimaxes

2006-04-16T02:17:00.000-05:00

Internet is one of the few boons to this world for people like me. I am not able to imagine a world without that. Quite a few times, I myself have pondered how the hell did people spend time before the advent of Internet. So, to vindicate that thought, I spent the entire weekend watching two Tamil movies which had almost similar story line. Interestingly, both the movies can be given the same acronym KK => Kalaba Kaadhalan, Kalvanin Kaadhali - Krazy Klimaxes.

Lets take one at a time - Kalaba Kaadhalan. I was actually impressed with the way the movie was handled. One of the very few movies that has depicted men in good light and not just animals with weak minds looking for an opportunity to have illicit affairs. The characters Akhilan and Kanmani, played by Arya and Akshaya respectively, has been brought out really well. Now about the goof up in the climax. Akhilan does the right thing. Be it rebuking kanmani's actions or getting her married to a guy who loves her deeply. But he is shown to be feeling guilty for what he did. This, in a way, seems to justify whatever kanmani had been doing all that long and the ultimate stupidity of committing suicide. Add to the imbecility, the director culminates with a note that, "Nalla Kaadhal, Kalla Kaadhal - Kaadhalil edhu" meaning there is nothing called as Illicit love or pure love - absolutely ridiculous thought!!!.

Now to the next one - Kalvanin Kaadhali. Personally, if there's one person whom I hate to see as a hero, it is S J Surya. Irritating mannerisms, artificial acting, poor dialogue delivery and pathetic dancing - and all characteristics that could possibly worsen a movie's chances of being a hit. On the other hand, Nayanthara, as Haritha looks pleasing. To give a brief about the story - Sathya (Surya) is a philanderer. He tries to lure Haritha as well but Haritha falls in love with him without realizing that he is a womanizer. Finally, when she understands the truth, she parts with him. Now to the Krazy part of the climax - Sathya acts in a way as if he has not done any misdeeds at all and haritha was at fault in parting ways with him. The justification given is that she trusted him when he was an urchin, but now when he has changed, she is not trusting him. What irks you more is the way it has been depicted - Haritha feels sorry for what she did while our own hero maintains an air of pride and acts as if he had done a very sacred thing all these years - holy crap!!!

Bottom line with both the KK's - I detest the way the directors try to justify the incorrect acts of the lead roles. If it is incorrect, it is incorrect no matter what. I just sincerely wish that there are less of these Krazy Klimaxes in future. The only good thing because of such crap endings has been an addition to my blog lists ;-)

Girls never change

2006-02-16T03:36:00.000-06:00

It was late in the night when I came home. Yet another hectic day at the office. I was all alone in my house and I was feeling bored. So, called up one of my friends Anuradha and was speaking to her. Jus then, she got another call in her mobile. So came the question, "Do you mind If I call you back in another 10 mins"? I knew right away that it was her boyfriend. I also knew that its not going to end in 10 mins. In spite of knowing her for 6 years, I waited patiently only to doze off soon with the thought that "Girls never change"

Woke up the next day and started to my office. Mirchi suchi reminded me that it was the 14th of Feb, the day most important to many wonderful people in the world. But to me, valentines day, is a reminder to pause a little and let my beloved ones know how much they mean to me. I called a few friends of mine including anu. She let me know that I was the second person to wish her that day. (what an important statisitics!!!) Though, it is needless to say who called her first, I am sure she would have definitely wished that the first person to wish her on Valentines day should be him. Girls never change...

Reached office late only to find a plethora of tasks piled up. Once I reach office, I get engrossed in the work that I completely forget anything & everything that happened / should happen outside those 4 walls (infact, outside my cabin). But today managed to send a common Valentines day wishes to all my friends who live in different timezones within the same country on the other side of the globe. Finally, left the office around 9:30 pm.

The return journey from office is always a lonely drive for 30 mins. The desolate roads encourage increased speeds only to be restricted by the depth of the pits & chilness of cold winds. But these 30 mins provide me the time let my thoughts wander in random and this is when I realised that not a single soul had called to wish me. Neither did I receive an email from anyone wishing me. I was particularly furious with Anu for not having sent a reply to my wishes.

Back home, my father received me and as soon as I entered, handed me an envelope. Looking at the hand writing, I immediately recognised that it was anu's. It was a valentine day greeting card. Reading the title of the card, "For a Friend who's always there" made me lose all my temper. In fact, I felt so bad on having thought so wrong about her. I wanted to to tell her, How good I felt and thank her for her card. So, waited no more and called her up immediately. Not two minutes into the call...she excused herself only to come back and ask, "Giridhar, Do you mind If I call you back in 10 mins"

Girls never change......

Will you marry me? or I love you?

2005-12-18T12:11:00.000-06:00

Will you marry me != I love you
I was talking to one of my friends and this is what she had to say, "Giridhar, you can never fall in love as you are more a rational person than an emotional person". Before even going to verify the veracity of the claim, I had another doubt. If you say "I love you" to some one, does it also have an implied question, "Will you marry me?". Now, hold your thought for a second before branding me a person who forgot his culture, tradition & blah blah,, I am not one of those who plans to flirt around with no intention of getting into a "bondage" (as it is popularly called these days) of marriage.
Lets take a step back and try to view these questions in separate context. When I say I am in love with someone, I really mean that I like the other person a lot and I would like to shower as much affection as possible on that person and I really want her / him to be my wife / /husband. Now, this is the emotional part of the discussion... Lets look at the other part, the marriage. In my opinion, love is an emotion wheres marriage is a relation. Love, as the famous saying goes, is 1 soul and 2 bodies whereas a marriage is N people with N-1 souls. Being a lover is easy when compared to being a wife, simply because of the number of roles you have to play. When you are a lover, you are just a lover but when you get married, you play one or more of the following roles...wife, aunt, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law to quote a few of the many roles. Here is the difficult part and hence results in chaos & unhappiness, when you don't fit well into most of these roles.
This is why, feeling of love is an emotional one whereas the question of marriage is a practical one. Given the mindset of the people and the importance that our own parents attach to the social stigma, marriage is definitely not a meeting of just 2 minds.Coming back to the original question of verifying the claim, well, in my opinion, I am as much an emotional person as a rational one. While the emotional part of me, wants to marry my sweetheart, the rational part has its own reasons to reject the budding thought.
I am not sure If I managed to answer the title of the blog...So, the point is..When you feel, you love some one, and you intend to propose to her...Think and say(/ask) either of these...
"I love you" or "Will you marry me?"..I don't think they mean the same..

Stat counter

2005-07-31T19:00:00.000-05:00

This is the Stat counter for my web site...

The Bus trip to Edina

2005-07-22T23:39:00.000-05:00

As we stood waiting for the bus 6E to arrive, I was still telling myself how I should be buying tickets. So what’s the big deal in buying bus tickets, I would have bought bus tickets a thousand times before this. But this one was different; here I was standing with six $1 bills waiting to take the bus tickets.

The 18D moved to give way to the 6E bus and the doors swung open and I boarded the bus. I placed all the six dollar notes on the machine but somehow it didn’t go. Then, my friend stepped in from behind and took the dollar notes and fed them one by one to the machine which the machine consumed with effortless ease. I didn’t have to say where I wanted to go… when I was looking at it puzzled…shot came a question..

Bus Driver: “Transfers?”
Friend: “Yup”

The driver pressed some buttons and out came the receipt also called the Ticket, 4 times. Well, the idea is this…at least at in this city of the United States. Each ticket irrespective of the place you get in and the place you want to get out costs $1.5. But this ticket is valid for 2.5 hours irrespective of the number of times you travel within this 2.5 hrs. In case, you want to take another bus / return after your work is done, well, no issues, they have another machine…a little smaller though. You just put in your ticket, It checks for the validity.

Well, so what are Transfers? Well, this printed ticket is called Transfers…In case, you are sure that you would not need to use it again. You may opt to not get a transfer in which case, you put the dollar, and you can take your seat but you don’t get a printed ticket.

A few more things regarding the ticket… The same ticket can be used to travel in a bus / a train; basically any metropolitan transport. There is one disadvantage though… The machine would never return you any change. In case, you want just one ticket and you place a $10 bill in the machine, it would still consume it happily and yet not return you the balance $8.5. You cannot argue with the driver either as he wont be able to help you in anyway. Finally, in case you want a return (not exactly a return) ticket, you can still get it. This would be less than twice the cost of the ticket but is valid for 8 hours.

Well, that was about the tickets. Let’s move on to the bus as a whole. Every bus has a Digital (LED) display indicating the destination and the route. The doors are opened and closed by the driver, of course, just by the push of a button. Every bus has seats earmarked for handicapped people (here, they follow it religiously) and also ramps so that people in wheel chairs can easily get into the bus. Such seats will have provisions to dock the wheel chairs on folding.

There may or may not be a door in the middle of the bus. In case, you want to get down in the next stop, you may indicate your interest to the driver by pulling a rope which runs along the length of the bus. Just as here, the driver may choose not to stop at a bus stop if there is no one in the bus stop and none in the bus had indicated their desire to get down. You might have guessed by now…needless to say, there are no conductors. The buses are air conditioned (cooled / heated) as the need be.

Well, if all the above things didn’t impress you, take a look at this…In case, you want to take your cycle with you, Get your cycle to the bus stop. There is a provision in the front of the bus where some 2-3 cycles can be parked. So, essentially, the cycles would travel along with you. You can take the same where you alight and start pedaling. Now, isn’t that cool.

While I was trying to assimilate all these things, Edina came and we all had to get down. FYI, Edina is a small uptown near my place.

The Longest day ever

2005-07-16T22:49:00.000-05:00

After I had a warm send off from my teammates… only after they burned my wallet for Rs 3K the earlier day. :)... Started from office around 1:45 and reached home with still a lot of things scattered around… was feeling very sleepy as I had not slept well the previous days. So, first, caught up with some sleep as I knew this night is going to be long. Then woke up and immediately started packing things. Finally visited the temple nearby and bid adieu to my favorite Ganesh… went back home and the next 3 hours flew by …by that time, my friends had come home and were making their presence felt :). So, started at around 11:15 pm and reached the airport in another 20 mins. I spent the last few remaining minutes of that day with my parents and beloved friends as I would be flying to the MN, USA on an official request.

A few minutes later…Went inside the airport and directly to the boarding area where a very long queue awaited me and couple of them just ahead of me had more than 2 check- in luggage delaying things a bit. Finally got the boarding pass and straight away headed for the immigration check.

I reached the security area where I waited for almost an hour from 2:45. Mine was an Air India flight which was scheduled to leave at 3:25. But we were asked to board the flight ass early as!!!! 3:45… It soon left the shores of….err…airspace of Chennai at 4:00 am in the morning…we were treated with apple juice after which I dozed and got up jus before chatrapathi shivaji airport at Mumbai.

Got into the Mumbai airport and stood in another of those now familiar serpentine queues …security check again. There as a big crowd waiting to get their feet off the Indian soil but the airport authorities did try to put in some sort of orderliness and were quite successful in that. They asked us to get in the order of our seat numbers. I was just praying that I get an aisle seat.

Finally when I did board my first ever International airplane, air India had by then had lived up to their name yet again. We again started 30 mins behind schedule. Well, God seemed to have had too many applications for those aisle seats and he probably thought that it would be better if mine wasn’t answered this time. I managed to get the corner seat in the middle column. Each seat had a small TV in front of it and even smaller leg space that I could hardly stretch my legs leave alone sleep comfortably. Probably, God was a little angry with me during this trip, as luck would have it, the TV in front of me alone did not work. Perfect conditions for a journey of 18 hrs :) :)

Around 12:15 pm local time (3:45 pm IST), I reached Frankfurt, Germany. We were asked to get down for security reasons. So again, the routine continued, checking of Passport and then we waited there for 2 hrs. At the end of it, we all boarded the same flight at 2:15 pm local time (5:45 pm IST) for another 7.5 hrs of flight…some more juices, food, and more sleep.

We were given the I94 forms an hour before we touched the soils of the United States of America and soon we touched the runway of the Chicago airport. It took another 20 minutes for the airplane to come to a halt after it first came in contact with the ground. It took a lot of U turns most of which the pilot maneuvered in a way that would put most of our regular mountain cab drivers to shame. That’s how I landed up in the US of A and that was my longest day ever (It was a day all throughout from 3:45 am on a Saturday till 6:30 am on a Sunday).

Early Morning Encounters

2005-06-15T00:30:00.000-05:00

The displays boards rolled and came to a halt and the top most read “IC747 Indian Airlines Boarding” and a green light glowed next to it. With that, I left the Chennai International Airport after seeing off yet another school friend of mine to the world of dreams, the United States.

Looked at the watch and it was quarter to 3:00. My bike came live and off I went until I was stopped by the guy at the Parking. Thrust the receipt in his hands and joined the other vehicles on the GST Road. Even at that unearthly hour, there were many Tea-shops doing brisk business. Not to mention the slew of vehicles trying to illuminate the already brightly lit lanes. Having not slept the entire night, my eyes were heavy with sleep and the cool breeze just helped my eyes see complete darkness. The bright lights from other vehicles only served as an excuse for me to shut down my eyes.

Shook myself off from dozing while driving, steadied myself. Soon, I had to part with my fellow motorists as I had to take a right towards Nanganallur. Five minutes into the partially tarred roads of Nanganallur, I reached the Indian Overseas Bank at Ullagaram, hardly 400m from my house. I had been expecting myself to bump into the night patrol police. (The cops are good guys... unlike the girls, they never disappoint us). Expect to be caught and you will be. There were a couple of them with a stick (Lathi?) in their hands..

Pol : “Niruthu…Engerndhu vara” ( Stop, where are you coming from)
Me : “Airport lerndhu sir” (from the Airport sir)

(I have seen too many films and I know I better give these guys respect otherwise… my state would be unknown L to anyone).

Pol : “ithanai manikku enna flight” ( which flight at this hour?)
Me : “Friend US poran sir, adhaan send off pannitu vandhen“ (My friend is leaving for U.S, and hence I had gone to send him off, sir)

Pol : “Yaaru bike idhu?” (Whose bike is this?)
Me : “Endhu dhaan sir” (Its mine, sir)

Actually, this bike was my friends. I was a little lazy & drowsy and I blurted out quite instantly…just hoping (praying!!) that he doesn’t ask for my RC book…

He let me off with a warning that the Inspector is on rounds and I better have my documents pucca. Happy to have been let off, proceeded hardly 200m when I was stopped again. Ya, you guessed it right. This time it was the inspector(s).

I was asked the same question on the above lines and more specific questions…They even asked my bikes number and my friend’s father’s name. (This time, thankfully, I didn’t lie and told them that its my friends vehicle and hence the question on his father :) ). Thanked God that I was driving my friend’s vehicle and not my fathers. I have been driving this vehicle for the past 1 year that I hardly remember my father’s bike’s registration number. The interrogation continued for another 10 minutes with they having a close look at my photo in my License and affirming themselves that it was indeed me who had taken that test some 4 yrs back.

After this 20 min ordeal, I was let off with another warning…this time though, a little different…”Rathirila ithana manikku velila pogadha thambi...Illena oru rathiri ulla iruka vendi irukkum” (Put simply, that means “Don’t go out in those unearthly hours buddy, you are fancying your chances of spending a night in the police station”).

Finally, thanking gods once again for not providing me such wonderful night stays, proceeded to my house barely 150 m away. I had dreamt myself spending beautiful candle lit nights in the Mauritius Islands with my girl by my side but never have I imagined myself locked behind those rusted bars with urchins by my side :( .

Am I her friend? – Part I

2005-05-29T05:21:00.000-05:00

I know her for close to two years now. I share every other event and incident in my life with her and I consider her as one of my best friends. She is very lively and I like her very much.
I have always believed…Friends are people whom we can share anything and everything. And I believe none of you would disagree with that statement. I also believe that friends should allow the other person to be their normal self. But what if in some case, my first and second beliefs contradict each other. Well, that’s exactly the case here…She does not believe in the first statement at all. She believes in the policy of “Selective dissemination of information”.
While I certainly agree that there can be some things that are extremely personal (and / or totally irrelevant to me) and need not be necessarily shared with even your best of friends. But I am perplexed even when little things about her are intentionally hidden from me. Shouldn’t one know at least something about his friend if not everything? While I want to allow her to be her natural self with me…it sometimes does hurt to know that you are not the person with whom she wants to share her feelings.
I have read somewhere that when you don’t want to tell someone something, jus smile and ask, “Why do you want to know?” I think even she would have read this. I invariably get this smiling question, “Giridhar, why do you want to know?” or a pleasing statement with a winkle “That’s a secret.” Agreed, that you should be doing that, but not to your friends. Do you? Moreover, I hardly poke my nose into someone else’s personal issues but something relating to my friend, I guess I should know it. How else would one get to understand the other? If I ask the same question to her, back comes the question again…“Giridhar, why do you want to understand me?”
I don’t hide anything, literally anything from her as I consider her as one of my best friends but I really doubt if I CAN be called her friend as I hardly know anything about her or if I can put it, she hardly wants me to know anything about her. Just like a magician, who makes you see only what he wants you to…she lets me know only whatever she wants me to.
Can I be called her friend? Am I really her friend, I honestly don’t know.

Who decides the Future Engineers

2005-05-14T05:36:00.000-05:00

Six years back, I was one of those eager birds awaiting my Engineering entrance exam results to be announced. Out came the results on the net and my father wasted no time in letting me know the same. 37.4 in Mathematics and 42.5 in Physical Science. I sat down dejected. All my dreams for 2 years of making to the premier Engineering colleges in my state stood ruined.The bedroom wall offered support but that wasnt enough.

Though still a week before I will know my exact cut off that will perfectly seal my chances and my dreams, I stood shattered. Two hours later at the University, I felt much better after knowing that the paper had been equally tough for other folks. A quick rough estimate landed me with a figure of about 1000 ppl ahead of me. So, left the University in a better frame of mind. Relieved and happy to know that I would definitely get a seat of my choice in the college of my choice, which i thoroughly deserve. Moreover, I wouldnt have to shell out lakhs for my Engineering education and Thanks to the Single window system, I dont have to apply to the individual colleges separately.

For all you folks, who are wondering what i was talking about... Engineering education in my state had a simple and very effective system where in, you write a single entrance exam, the marks of which added to your higher secondary examination would determine your cut off and naturally, people were ranked and students with higher cut off get to choose a course / college of their choice. As your ranks go down, so does your choice of course / college. Seems like a perfect merit based system? Well, thats exactly what some politicians and money minded bald-headed people in my state didnt like.

May 2004

All the newspaper carry headlines and every other channel has this has the top story. "Private engineering colleges to have a separate Entrance examination". I got fed up. These guys were making a mockery of the Entrance examinations and the amazing Single Window System. Now, you will have two entrances, rather you would have to try and unlock two doors. Chances are that you may not have the key / money to open either of the doors and more importantly, in spite of all that, some wealthy lot might still be able to get into the premier institues. Any number of cases and PIL at the High court yields no result... I see M. K. Gandhi smiling on many small bundles everywhere...

May 10, 2005

"All 'Deemed Universities' to have separate Engineering entrance examinations". and a casual count would give at least a dozen deemed universities. Imagine the plight of the young students. Fresh or I should say, exhausted after their higher secondary examinations, they are expected to write at least 5 different entrance examinations in equal number of "Deemed" universities. Yet remain unsure whether u will get a seat in any of those universities. Please note that these do not include the IIT-JEE and the AICTEE entrance exam. To add salt to the wound, BITS, pilani will also have an Entrance exam this year.

They decide to conduct their own examinations so that they get more zeros on a smaller colorful paper than intelligent students with more numbers on a white A4 sheet. Well, the idea here is to sell Education. Agreed, that the colleges are indeed there on a profit motive than out of social responsibility to dedicate their life and money for the welfare of the uneducated. But why play with the lives and dreams of so many talented students. I am more surprised when the judges dont see any reason why these should be stopped. They too seemed to be perfectly happy to make these young children write innumerable eye-wash examinations in the name of Entrance examinations.

Will there ever be an end to this atrocity? I really doubt.

I sincerly hope and pray for all those talented young kids that they get what they truly deserve.

Love at First Sight - you must be kidding

2005-04-26T09:32:00.000-05:00

I am somehow not convinced of this “Love at first sight” concept. True lovers, kindly excuse me…but I almost never believed in love at first sight and also I believe most of you would agree that “Pure love cannot arise out of nowhere”.
Most of the love starts with a basic feeling of lust. Please note, I have said, most of them not all. In case you disagree, lets take a simple example... that little twin plaited girl in your school that you wished you would marry someday...was she one of the best looking females or unattractive females?

Let’s move to the college, the first girl you approached to talk or at least wished you would get an intro…was she good looking or did she look like one comedian. She may not be the best dame but what matters is, she would have looked good to you. Quite truly, “Beauty does lie in the eyes of the beholder”. But the bottom line is, in both the cases, the underlying feeling was lust.

Now, I am not saying, Love is just “kaama” but Lust is definitely the initiator, you may get to know each other better but the first move is definitely because of a physical attraction. Here is where I strongly feel, “Love cannot be at first sight”. Probably you had a feeling of lust at the first sight, you got to know the person better which later blossomed to a feeling of love.

Love, as I understand, happens when both the guy and the girl feel they will make a better match and by getting into wedlock, both their lives would be happier. Now, how on earth would you know that you would be happy with a person whom you are meeting, rather seeing for the first time? So, to me, Love at First sight is nothing but crap.

Fine. Then, let’s analyze, who will make good lovers, meaning, who will make better pairs. Now, I have been trying to find answers for this question and I must admit that I am yet to get a convincing answer. While, we do hear that people with common interests end up as better life partners, I personally have seen many couples with conflicting interests living lives happily. They claim, that way, life’s interesting. Well, I am not too sure.

But before going into thought of people with same / conflicting interests, let’s see, how you get to know what the other person’s interests are. Well, the most widespread practice or way seems to be Dating. While, there are people who are true to themselves and to their dates, these are always exceptions. In any date, the first and prime motive is to impress the other person, which indirectly boils down to being untrue. Or at least, some of the truth is intentionally hidden so that you score high on others scorecard.

I do know a few guys who have 2 lovers or should I say parallel lovers, can you believe me? The one is the serious kind, the other …just to freak out. Worse, the girl with whom he freaks out, practices the same. But they proposed to each other after just 2 months. Doesn’t it sound silly? Now, these are the people who actually make me write this blog.

So what is the way out? There is one other way through which you get to know the other person, know them as they are. Many of you might not agree with me, but again it’s my view, in case you are interested, it will be in my next blog ,
“But..but I never thought of you in that way"

Friendship - The Incomprehensible kid

2005-04-26T09:30:00.000-05:00

Friendship is the child born to a couple. The couple may be of the same sex or of different sex but let me restrict my discussion to the latter case just for the sake of this article. The birth of this child like any other child is not entirely in our hands. The best we could do is to make our attempts and wait for the rest to happen ;-) . Lets try to understand this child a little more in detail.
A jus born kid grows fast physically and is very eager to learn new things. This curiosity to learn more keeps the child involved always. You can never see a child complain about boredom. Well, exactly in the same way, a new friendship (or any relationship for that matter) is interesting and grows very fast. There are more physical meetings and mutual exchange of views, ideas, events, happenings, sorrows, misdeeds, betrayal and what not. The new relation never seems to know what boredom is.

Typical to how a child needs to be nurtured well by its parents. Same is the case with friendship; there must be a conscious effort from the parents to nurture this child so that it doesn’t become one spoilt brat. The catch here is … it is the responsibility of both the father and the mother in bringing up the young kid.

Also, it is important to note that any small misunderstanding or a dispute between the parents is going to affect the child as much as it is going to affect them. While these misunderstandings and disputes are necessary for the parents as well as the kid to understand life better, the message got by the kid should be properly taken care of. In the same way, any dispute between friends is inevitable and in fact plays a major role in understanding each other. At the same time, it is equally important that the kid, friendship is not affected.

As days progress, the kid becomes a bit matured and realises that its parents cannot be physically present always to guide him but it does require the comforting hand of his mother and father. On a similar note, as days progress, the physical meetings between friends lessens and sometimes becomes nil. While the underlying friendship can never be questioned, it still needs the occasional meeting to rejuvenate itself.

As some more years progress, there will be a new kid in the block, the kids brother and the focus shifts onto the younger kid. While I accept that the first kid is equally important, many parents tend to be an extra affectionate towards the new kid because it is yet to be exposed to this world. Exactly similar to this, a few years may pass by and this friendship might have a brother / a sister (though not from the same parents in this case). So, as a new kid, he gets lot of attention from the father / mother. This is quite natural and can be a little hurting to the other kid who by now is matured enough to understand that his position is at stake. So, it is the responsibility of the parents again to make sure that the first kid doesn’t feel left out.

Even though the second kid might not share both a common father and mother with the first kid but its still not an illegitimate child. It is legal in its own way…Its as much legal as the first kid and it has come into existence in the very same way as that of the first kid.

Every being in this universe has to abide by the laws of the nature and this kid is no exception. This kid now a grown up also faces the ultimate reality, the death. Some kids die early, some others die midway but very few are lucky to survive. The death may occur due to a number of reasons, could be a road accident (due to no fault of his) ending the life prematurely or a genocide by the parents themselves to satiate their selfish interests.

All these threats exist in real life as well but the onus is on us to make the best possible efforts to let the kid survive. Well, exactly similar to this, the onus of growing, nurturing and making the kid, the friendship, survive lies in hands of both the parents.

”But …but I never thought of you in that sense”

2005-04-26T08:28:00.000-05:00

“I am not looking for a perfect girl, but I am looking for a perfect match.” Who will make a better partner has been a long asked question and frankly, I like so many others have been in pursuit of answer to this question, quite unsuccessfully. In my previous blog on “Love at First Sight”, I had put my views on why not to get misled ending up choosing a wrong partner
Let me attempt at a solution. Friends are the best people to really understand you in and out. They get to spend more time with us and hence they obviously get to know more things about us. And that’s exactly what friends are for, to share your sorrow and grief. Having been a part of all your emotions, they know the best and worst about you. Looking at it in a different angle, the person who knows your likes and dislikes the best is your friend. Sometimes, the parents do double up their role as friends because that’s the best way to reach up to us.
So, how does it answer my question? Lets see, I am not sure how many of you have actually come across this situation where in you really liked a girl a lot, you started moving with her as a friend and of course, you really were a true friend but some time down the line, you find yourself feeling that it might not be a bad idea to have the same friend as your life partner. This rises to two questions.
First, you aren’t sure how the other girl is going to react to this, shud I say proposal? Whatever it is…You can mostly expect this answer...
”But …but I never thought of you in that sense”. Now come on, even you didn’t think of her in that way all this long. Did you? So I am right away decrying this reaction as inappropriate. The question posed rather the proposal is whether you believe we both would make better partners? And this blah blah definitely does not answer the question.
(The conversation in the entire article is purely imaginary and not intended to hurt the feelings of any particular gender. I don’t want all the girls asking me “How could you say this?”)
Second, the question that arises is of morality and ethical behavior...
Surprisingly, if the girl does have a similar feeling, she might come up with a new excuse, “But… this would mean we have been deceiving ourselves and our parents that we both were friends”. Now, this is up to the individual to decide. In my view, there can be nothing like a “Love at first sight” so in case you got along with the girl with sole intention of winning her heart rather than a unblemished feeling of friendship, then this will definitely prick you and it should quite rightly so…
“It is easier to cheat others than ourselves. “
but in case, the initial feeling of friendship was real than this should never bother… in the sense, you had those feelings then and it was a true one and now you feel you both should get into a wedlock, that’s again from the bottom of the heart. So, there’s no question of feeling guilty.
Now, why on earth should two friends not marry? I am waiting for answers. The above blog is a result of the views of many of my friends which as you have seen definitely differs from mine.
p.s : I am not intending to say “All true friends should get married.”. All my views have been expressed based on an imaginary situation where in both the friends are not against getting into wedlock but somehow refrain to...citing false reasons.

Just me and her on a dark little night

2005-04-26T08:25:00.000-05:00

My tryst with her began at Hyderabad, where we had our training. She is so beautiful yet so calm. Not surprisingly, there were many more people who admired her beauty. I was fortunate in a way as she used to give me company after the office hours in our terrace. I did talk to her a few times but we didn’t interact much.
My training got over and I was posted to Chennai. A week later, I met her in Chennai though it wasn’t very surprising. I expected her to be here too. These days, I usually get to see her when I return from my office. I invariably meet her either at the long winding roads immediately after I take the left to Medavakkam from OMR or when I take a right from Medavakkam towards Ullagaram. She is mostly dressed in her black top and white pants. But to me, she looks her cheerful best when she is clad in her full white churidhar. However, she doesn’t seem to like this particular dress as she wears it almost once a month.
I always longed to see and meet her at a dark place unpolluted by the glaring street lights and undisturbed by her other friends. But I very rarely get such opportunity as she almost always roams around with her friends who cloud her beauty. But today, it seemed it was my day. She looked superb in her white churidhar. Even the guys at the Electricity Board seemed to have empathized with my desire for they had switched off the street lights. There she stood gleaming brightly amidst all the darkness. This time, she was alone, without her friends. So, it was just me and her on this dark little night. I kept admiring her beauty for long before I realized there was some one else. She was alone all this long, except, except for her distant cousin who stays a little far, about 2 planets away.
This time, the moon was alone, without the stars. So, it was just me and the moon except for her distant cousin, Jupiter.
(Wrote on 26th March when Jupiter came near the moon)