Professionally challenged

The Anniversary that coincides with India’s Republic Day

2012-01-26T23:17:00.000+05:30

Today, on the 12th Anniversary of a great event in my life, the time has now come for me to officially document it in this blog. Some of you have heard me narrate the story and for the benefit of the few who haven’t, here is that very interesting event.

We first rewind to India’s first Republic Day of the new millennium – 26-Jan-2000. I was well into my 2nd year at work and it was also just more than a month since my family had purchased our first car – a Cyprus Blue coloured Maruti Suzuki 800 DX. I hadn’t gotten my permanent driving license as yet and was still on my learner’s license. Also, my car driving experience by itself was only 2 weeks more than my car owning experience. Given this situation, I used to drive the car at every opportunity, within my neighbourhood, to gain more experience and confidence.

On the date indicated above, two of my friends from school had dropped home. We then decided to go to the beach. Though the beach is barely 300 metres from home, I opted to take the car. And for reasons I just don’t remember or fathom, those two guys decided to take the bike and not come with me by car.

For such a short distance, it is always faster by bike and those two reached the beach first. I tried to get a parking spot near where they were standing, but couldn’t find one. So I had to drive down a little further, take a U-Turn and park on the other side of the road. When I reached the other side, I was driving slowly, looking for a parking spot. Also, I had my windows rolled down, probably because I didn’t want to use the AC for such a short distance.

Even as I was looking for a spot, some 2-3 guys ran across the road into the lane and appeared to be headed towards my car. One of them reached my car faster than his friends and punched my face! I just had no clue what was happening. Then they all asked me to step out of the car. I did and in a completely disoriented and nervous state, was asking them why there were hitting me. One of those guys was holding me by the scruff of my shirt/t-shirt and another one gave me one more slap.

I was barely aware of what was happening, when a crowd gathered around us. The 2-3 guys were hurling abuses at me and primarily accusing me of trying to run over them! I tried reasoning with them, but I think my voice box refused to pass on to the world, the words that my brain was sending to it.

All this while, the crowd around us was just enjoying their free entertainment for the Holiday. Thankfully, mobile phones especially those with cameras weren’t sold for dime a dozen, else, I would by now be on You Tube.

Anyways, out of the blue, two policemen, on a TVS Champ, came towards this gathering. The crowd finally swung into some action and dispersed. The 2-3 guys also ran away. Being the major சமத்து (innocent) guy that I am, I suddenly got worried that the cops would ask me for my license and on seeing my learner’s license, would probably take me into custody. So, I ended up doing a non-innocent act and fled the scene in my car.

While you may be engrossed in the narration, feeling sorry for me (or more likely be ROFL), your attention should now be directed towards the two friends of mine, who have been absent from the narrative for the past 2000 words. They now make a re-entry.

When I reached home, I stopped a few meters short my gate, primarily to examine the damage to my face. Just then, my two friends came nearby on their bike and asked me what happened. They patiently heard me narrate the incident. With their support, it was now easier for me to enter my home. My parents obviously got the shock of their life seeing their son with a big blue patch around the right eye and a completely reddened face. We went over the story once again and that is where, I found out more about what happened.

Apparently, after I crossed my friends at the beach, they saw some 2-3 guys walking near the road in a very inebriated condition. A blue coloured car had gone past them and they were miffed by the proximity it had with them. These guys had seen the car go further down, couldn’t track where it really went and when they suddenly saw a similar (similar; not same) coloured car (mine) in the opposite direction, the alcohol in their blood stream made them decide that it was me who had almost run them over.

You would still be wondering why my friends didn’t come over to help. Basically, they first saw me go by; then saw this near-accident and then, they were just chatting and looking elsewhere (at someone I suspect). They saw the crowd gathering a few seconds/minutes later and had no clue that I was there in middle. In fact, they seemed to be looking out for me in some other direction. Only when they saw the crowd disperse and spotted my car also speeding away, did they realise that I too had something to do with that gathering!

Needless to say, they were continuously chuckling while narrating their side of the story.
I was then taken to the Doctor, who gave me some medicines and did some basic cleaning of the external wounds. My colleagues at work had a tough time in accepting that someone as innocent as me could get such beatings, though my boss strongly suspected (in front of my colleagues) that I got whacked by a girl’s sandals.

So there it is; Yours Truly has been a victim of a public beating also known as தர்ம அடி.

Indian TV ads reviewed - #007 - Airtel Friends

2012-01-17T22:04:00.001+05:30

This is a review long due.

Airtel started launching a set of ads late last year, with the target audience being the youth who want to stay in touch with every friend of theirs.
While the series has quite a few variants on this theme, what was probably the best was the one about the kid giving a missed call to the Police. The ad can be seen here:

As a series, the ads were good. Conveyed the message clearly, though they couldnt really come up with too many types of friends in individual ads. The jingle was catchy and so was the original "हर एक friend ज़रूरी है" tagline (though the one in Tamizh sounded quite odd).

Who or what is an MBA?

2012-01-08T23:16:00.000+05:30

For quite a long time in my life, I had this aspiration of wanting to hold an MBA degree. I really don’t know why I wanted to do an MBA course, but during my College days, I thought it was the best way for me to move out of the “technical” space. Also, I was generally interested in solving arithmetic and logic problems and felt that the MBA entrance exam would be one place where I could excel. As history has pointed out repeatedly, I don’t do well in exams. And despite my near Ghajini-like attempts at joining some MBA course or the other, I haven’t progressed anywhere.

But this post is not going to chronicle the numerous unsuccessful trysts with MBA that I have had over the years (ranging from entrance exams to joining long-distance courses). Rather, it is going to address something more important – why I don’t want one anymore.

The reason for this change can largely be attributed to my experiences in interviewing a bunch of MBA students who would be passing out this academic year. In few earlier posts, I have shared some interesting experiences I’ve had in interviewing fresh graduates and sometimes, even lateral employees. When I went into this MBA campus recruitment last week, I certainly didn’t expect anything interesting. I was a little off-target.

I asked a few candidates, what courses they studied as part of their electives. There were 2-3 who actually couldn’t list the 5 or 6 major topics that they study. At least 2 guys in Marketing said that Sales was a part of Marketing and 2 others felt otherwise.

There was one other girl who felt that she was quite old; the profile listed her at 26 years of age.

To one candidate, whose profile said that he was majoring in Operations Management, I posed a simple question.
Me: “Assume you have opened a petrol bunk. Can you tell me what all would you do to reduce the operating costs?”
MBA: “I will hire cheap labour”
Me (mind voice): “Maybe he is talking about salary costs. Ok, let me see if he says it directly.”
MBA: “You see, I am from Kerala. And in Kerala, if we employ the local Kerala people, they ask for higher salary. So, I will hire people from other states.”
Me (mind voice): “Whoa whoa whoa”
Me: “What else would you do?”
MBA: “I will install CFL bulbs everywhere.”
Me (mind voice): “Have I come across the joke where they ask how many MBAs are needed to change a light bulb?”
Me: “Ok, moving on…”
As a fresh MBA he was only expected to state where the costs are generally high and that he would focus on the high cost items to see what can be reduced. This guy directly went ahead into the solution and even there, came up with the option of hiring people from other states and switching to CFL bulbs!

Then there was a strikingly good-looking girl who came up to our panel. Her major was in Human Resources. I asked her why she joined an MBA course. Her response was: “Sir, my father works in (Govt. Company) and so we live in that colony. If you see, in my colony, everyone does only B.E/B.Tech. I wanted to be different and so, I decided to do B.Com and then took up this MBA course”.

We gave a simple puzzle to almost all the candidates. It was the standard “How would you get exactly 5L if you use a 3L and 4L jar?” I was actually surprised that the first 2 candidates couldn’t even think beyond “I will cut the jar in half” or “I will look and estimate”. But what surprised me even more was the fact that despite this question being “leaked” out, only the 7th/8th candidate could actually come up with a convoluted answer to the query.

While these responses may pale in comparison to some of the gems I have http://jawaman.blogspot.com/search/label/interview experienced earlier, they clearly showed me that an MBA degree is certainly not of any use, unless you apply your mind. Otherwise, it is just a set of alphabets that one adds at the end of their name. My parents have been asked by quite a few prospective in-laws “The groom doesn’t have even an MBA degree?” and I now understand what that “even” stands for!

Year 2011 retrospective

2011-12-31T19:22:00.000+05:30

A quick summary of how/what 2011was for me:

The good:

1. First Android phone and also a new laptop

2. Inverter installed at home

3. Cleared out a long pending due (Rakhi gift not given for few years)

4. Trip to Bangalore with parents; that too by 1st AC

5. Visited Thanjavur for a team member’s wedding and enjoyed the temple and museum

6. Drastic reduction in the number of purposeless mall visits

The bad:

1. Still single

2. Had to buy new laptop because the old one crashed

3. Clocked some 12K Kms on self-drive to office

4. Didn’t make proper use of the gym

5. Mother affected by some infection or the other

6. A very promising team member died in an accident

The ugly:

1. Still in the same office

2. Anchored a client visit that pretty showed me what my boss and my Company stands for

3. Watched movies like Ra.One, Deivya Tirumagal and Mankatha

4. Met a potential bride who had no qualms in eating non-veg since it helped her career

5. Had bouts of indigestion and general infections

6. I am yet to start writing a book

How the names of my kittens impacts politicians

2011-12-25T23:02:00.000+05:30

There is a white female cat that goes around my house and the adjoining ones. We never really supported it, but there were sufficient places around my house where it could hide peacefully. Last year, around this time we found out why it had suddenly taken a liking to an open attic like area at the back of my house – it had used that space to deliver a litter of 4 kittens.

It takes immense self-control to ignore new born kittens and within a couple of days of spotting these, my mother and I were inclined to feed them milk. My father provided the lone voice of sanity, but he was out-numbered by the members of his family.

The next logical step was to name these kittens. I didn’t want to go with the traditional names like whitey or kitty or whatever and inspired by Raghu, I decided to give them Indian or to be more specific, Tamil names. Now, what Tamil names do you give to 4 boisterous kittens, all of whom had silently taken over our house?

Like I mentioned before, this was circa December 2010 – January 2011 and the DMK was very much a potent force. I got my next fit of inspiration and decided to call these kittens – Azhagiri, Stalin, Kani and Maran. Just like that, I clearly hit the jackpot. The names were well received at home (that is my mother) and we went about matching the names to each kitten. There was clearly the rowdiest of the lot and that was assigned Azhagiri. There was one always sticking with the mother and that was assigned Kani. The one that was a little independent was assigned Stalin and the last one, which was also a loner and a white one, was assigned Maran.

By the time January 2011 ended, the kittens had grown up some more and the air in the state was also slowly inching towards the impending elections. I thought I would start chronicling the activities of Azhagiri, Stalin, Kani and Maran and then map them to their namesakes in the Tamil Nadu political circles. Believe it or not, by the time March came around the kittens all disappeared. And it happened one-by-one. Though I don’t remember the order in which they vanished, the fact of the matter is that, they all vanished in a couple of days. You can’t simple say that they grew up and went their separate ways. Because, they did make the odd visits now and then, but by the time summer came about, they were all gone and haven’t been seen since.

And as most readers would be aware, the DMK stalwarts also started seeing a similar impact and within 3 months of losing power in the state elections, all of them have vanished. Or at least, they are not as visible as they were. Pretty much like the kittens.

Now, you are inclined to think that this was nothing more than a coincidence and it was also natural that the DMK leaders would all fade away slowly from the public eye. I would have agreed too, had it not been for history repeating itself.

You see, the mother cat, gave birth to two kittens in November this year (at the same open attic space and prompting me to term that place as “கோஷா ஆஸ்பத்திரி”). Both kittens were as pure white as their mother and it was difficult to tell them apart. Now, seeing this all white brigade, I opted to name the mother cat as peengaan (porcelain in local Tamil parlance) and so the kittens became Cup and Saucer. But I had to make them more Tamil sounding, so I stretched Cup to Kapali and changed Saucer to Sasi.

You know where I am going with this story. Yes, it deals with Sasi’s fate. You see, two weeks back, I woke up in the middle of the night to some strange noises inside my compound. I opened my windows and found two stray dogs (presumably entered from the next house, where the gates are seldom closed) crouching around a bush. I shooed them away and one of them ran in one direction. The other one stooped down, picked up something white and I immediately understood that it was one of the kittens. It then ran away with that kitten in its mouth! It was around 2 AM in the night and at that point, I wasn’t too sure if I really witnessed something real or if I’d dreamt the whole thing.

But the morning clearly proved that it wasn’t a dream, because we found one of the kittens to be missing. The one that was missing was Sasi. And lo, barely 10 days later, Sasikala the udan piravaa sagodhari of Jayalalitha was expelled from the primary membership of the AIADMK party.

Now we have two clear case histories where my naming of kittens has impacted their counterparts in the political world. When the mother cat has her next litter (which my mother says is barely 2 months away), I am now going to stretch my experiment and try the names of some national level politician; maybe Sonia can be the first one!

Movie review of The Dirty Picture – what is Dirty?

2011-12-11T22:01:00.001+05:30

The Dirty Picture is a biopic on Silk Smitha, though the makers of the movie prefer to say that it is just a movie about an item girl in South Indian Film Industry circa 1980. And yet, they have the guts to name the title character, “Silk”, supposedly a take-off on her original name of Reshma.

Since it is a movie about a vamp, there is absolutely no dearth in the skin show from Vidya Balan. And boy has she given us a feast. And for someone who has generally shown more of histrionics on screen, she has been able to carry off this show quite well. But truth be told, her physique is better off not shown.

We don’t have to get much into the story details because it is quite straight-forward. Young girl comes to big city in search of movie chance, ends up becoming an item girl whose in-your-face sexuality becomes a rage, then realises that there is nobody to care for her and finally commits suicide. This is pretty much the story of the original Silk and in fact, many a starlet in the movie industry.

Coming to the good portions of the movie, the best part is easily the dialogues. The first half was filled with lines that packed quite a punch. There are enough double innuendos to keep everyone happy and there are even some straight lines that really hit you. One sample: When a reporter comes to report on Silk’s house, she welcomes him to her one-room shack while taking a bath in her bath-tub right in the middle of the room. She then asks the reporter, “Don’t you want to know about my house?” and he says “When the Devi is giving darshan, why should I write about the temple?” In another instance, she is told to act like she is making love and the Director asks her “Were you thinking about Suryakanth?” She replies, “Why should think of something when I have it!” These may not sound great and you can blame my translation for that. But when you hear it in Hindi and in the context of the movie, you will realise how superb those lines were.

The other good thing about the movie was definitely Vidya Balan’s acting. It is perfectly normal to say that all she did was flaunt a lot of skin, but the sheer brashness with which she carried herself will leave you impressed. And like I mentioned before, she is not one who has ever appeared as a sexy person and so this was clearly out of her zone in terms of the role she essayed. So, definitely, she needs to be given a lot of credit.

The other big names in the movie have also done a pretty good job. There was certainly no hamming on anyone’s part and the overall casting also appeared to be quite good.

I now come to my favourite part of a movie review, the bad stuff. While the screenplay was not as horrendous, like say in Ra.One, there were quite a lot of loose ends that should have been addressed. Let us start with a simple one – the lead character is named Reshma. Now, it may very well be a good name and quite common too, but can you tell me how many Reshmas you know, who come from a village in Tamil Nadu? And that too someone who was born in the 70s?

Moving on to more serious issues, the whole movie is quite vague in terms of timeline. There are vague references to it being the 80s, but a rags-to-riches-to-trenches story cannot simply be narrated without even a cursory title cue that says “a few years later”. At least, if the characters had all aged, I can assume that the Director expected the audience to be intelligent enough to understand that a few years have passed by. But not even one person is shown to have aged – the cinema hero not appearing old can be thought of as a part of his “image”, but what about the producer who discovers Silk? Can’t he at least get a bit of white hair?

I also couldn’t find any concrete evidence on why the lead character suddenly opted to become an item girl. We get to see her try out for a movie chance only once. Then she is offered money to spend some time with an old man in a movie hall. This spurs her on to approach the casting agent and immediately agrees to do an item song. It was not like she came to the big city to become a vamp and so, in the absence of clear ground-work that established her struggles to break into regular roles, her decision to take up dancing sounded quite hollow.

After her first official item song, which is incidentally with the biggest star of the times – Suryakanth – she is shown as having arrived. She goes to a movie hall to watch her movie and the theatre is empty at first. The usher in fact tells her that there would be a crowd soon. Then, just before her song appears, a whole lot of people enter the hall, enjoy the song and then leave the hall when the song is over. If this Suryakanth was indeed a big star, it is shocking to see the movie hall to be so empty at release time. And if the word had already spread about Silk, then interestingly, the “fans” who storm the movie hall somehow don’t realise that their fantasy-girl is sitting right there with them.

In the very next scene, she is seen gloating about her success to the big hero, who for some strange reason is happy that she’s become successful while his movie is clearly not. He even goes to the extent of recommending her to the Director who comes up to discuss his next movie with him. The Director claims to be not interested in sleaze and walks out of the room. Silk is waiting right outside and confronts him – confront in a flirtatious way and not an aggressive manner. Right there she makes a statement that movies sell only because of “entertainment, entertainment and entertainment” and that she, is entertainment! As a punch dialogue it is great, but in the context of her relative inexperience in the movie industry – it is ridiculous. Nobody in the industry, except perhaps those who have strong lineage in it, ever makes such egoistic statements after their first movie.

Another minor fact that has been overlooked is the fact that Stardust has always been only a Hindi movie magazine, whereas it is constantly shown in this movie for reference. Didn’t the movie makers know about Paesum Padam or Bommai? Then there is this character called “Rathna amma”, who appears to be her guardian in the city, but goes missing all of a sudden.

Silk’s relationship with Ramakanth, the brother of Suryakanth, is not clearly defined as well. Did she go after him as retaliation against Suryakanth? Or did she genuinely like him? Or in true movie fashion, did the latter happen as part of the former?

Things move quite slowly in the second half of the movie and slower in the second half of the second half. They could have definitely done away with the song featuring Himesh, especially because it featured him singing a true love song and in contradicting that mood, it had Silk gyrating sexily as ever!

There is also abundance of the Tamil stereotype that an average North Indian sees – every guy in the movie, especially those watching movies or those who are attendants or light boys, are all sporting viboothi! I mean, lot of us do wear it, but not all of us do. There was also this minor irritant in the form of the whole Kanth family appearing in Mallu traditional wear (white silk saree for crying out loud), while they were supposed to be Tamilians.

Yet, I liked the movie and haven’t been able to find that many fundamental glitches. Was it because of the very powerful first half? Or was it because I was able to sympathize with the lead character? Or is it a case of my social sensibilities trying to prove to the world, that this movie has something more than sleaze?

The Silk character says at one point in the movie, that everyone enjoys the dirty pleasure, never accepts it in public and yet, she is the one deemed dirty. Makes me wonder, if I really like the movie or if I am trying to over-compensate that statement?

Paari, Mullai, Thaer, Maruti

2011-11-23T22:25:00.001+05:30

Legend has it that one of the Tamizh Kings - Paari Vaendhan - "donated" his chariot (thaer - தேர் ) to help the Mullai (முல்லை ) creeper (could be a variety of jasmine) grow.

I found a similar spectacle in Adyar a couple of days back. But in the modern day, the thaer has been replaced with a Maruti Suzuki 800. And the creeper too, may not necessarily be a mullai.

Indian TV ads reviewed - #006 - Times of India Chennai Edition

2011-11-20T22:33:00.001+05:30

This ad is simply superb.

The ad shows clips of different events that happen around us - typically what you would see in a newspaper. You see a guy holding a newspaper and yet, he is fast asleep.

The ad conveys the message that the reporting in the leading newspaper in Chennai (It is still The Hindu) is quite boring. [It is very much the general perception, though it is also a habit that nobody wants to give up.]

The video clipping has been shot well. And the music - it really puts the listener to sleep.

Awesome ad, though I don't necessarily subscribe to the message being conveyed.

Indian TV ads reviewed - #005 - Hero Moto Corp

2011-11-06T22:44:00.002+05:30

This is the new ad for the "new" company - Hero Moto Corp.

The purpose of the ad is not really to showcase the vehicles made by this company. This ad is more an exercise in re-branding.

The lyrics and voice-over talk about there being a hero within every Hindustani and that the new name for the heartbeat of the nation is Hero Moto Corp.

I am not qualified enough to say if the ad really delivers on the re-branding effort and that is mainly because, the ad didn't showcase the vehicles made by the company. The ad features so many different plots and barring a couple of them, they don't showcase the vehicles made by the company.

They do show some random set of two-wheelers going around, towards the end of the ad, but I am not impressed.

The other big complaint I have is with the jingle. I am a HUGE fan of ARR, but I felt that his music wasn't anything great. Especially the part where he drags "Ham mein haim Herooooo o ooo" - yikes.

All in all, the ad didn't work for me!

Ra.One Review – makes me want a “Raw” One

2011-10-28T20:39:00.000+05:30

As most of you know, I usually don’t watch Hindi movies inthe theaters. And even more, I had made it a point not to watch a Shah RukhKhan movie. But with Ra.One, I decided to make an exception, for the onlyreason that Thalaivar Rajnikanth appears in it for one scene. I will get tothat scene somewhere later in the review.

In my humble opinion, Ra.One is
basically shit. Sorry forthe coarse language, but nothing else describes it better. Oh wait, there is abetter word for it – Bull Shit. Like my friend Raghu said, this movie is notonly an insult to science-fiction aficionados, it is also an insult to the collectiveintelligence (not in any order) of Chartered accountants, softwareprofessionals, RTO agents, rapists and if I may add, even to A.Raja andK.Kanimozhi!

The loopholes in the story – not the plot, butthe story – are so gaping, that our entire Solar system and the Milky Way canpass through it. And when you go into the screenplay, you can create your own Blackhole along with a Supernova. If my previous sentence made sense, well, you mustbe Shah Rukh Khan or anyone of the other names listed in IMDB.

There is this thing called poetic liberty that great writersand poets have used to create awesome works of literature. It involves bendingof the grammar of the language, just to accentuate the impact they want tocreate. On the other hand, you cannot do such things with science, because itis just plain simple straight-forward logic. Yet, writers of science fictionmovies in Hollywood have been known to bend these rules.

But the writers in Ra.One, have gone one step ahead – theyhave broken them, formulated their own and have broken that as well. Maybe I amtoo dumb to understand it, but I prefer remaining that way! I will simplyassume that the virtual-reality-enters-real-world nonsense that they depicted,as being 100% perfect and focus my review on the other parts of the movie.

Shekar (Shah Rukh Khan) is a Tamil guy married to a Punjabigirl, living in London, has a son with a gender-questionable hair style andworks in a Gaming company. His son thinks that his dad isn’t cool and based ona dinner discussion, he goes ahead and creates a game where the villain(Ra.One) has infinite powers. Obviously, he also creates a hero (G.One,incidentally a look-alike of this father) who can conquer him, but has only0.01% (a number quoted quite frequently in the movie) to defeat the villain.

This Ra.One develops Artificial Intelligence (by virtue of thecomputer being positioned under a board that said Artificial Intelligence),comes out of the computer and takes form in the real world, kills Shekar andgoes in search of his son. And that because, the son started playing the gameand left it incomplete and Ra.One needs him to continue the game so that he canwin the game!

Ra.One then manages to kill anyone who is not Lucifer (thenickname with which the son plays the game) and that includes the game-creatingfather. The son is able to deduce that it was Ra.One who killed his father,goes back to his father’s office to investigate and ends up bringing Ra.Onethere. He manages to escape from there, along with his mother and while theyare on the way to the airport (returning to India), they are attacked byRa.One. And soon, we get to see G.One make his appearance, finish off Ra.One (temporarilyof course) and help the mother-son duo return to India.

Ra.One manages to come back to life (!) and reaches India aswell. There is the mandatory fight sequence after which, G.One kills Ra.One anddestroys itself. The mother-son then return to London and lo behold, the sonnow manages to resurrect G.One. But more importantly and thankfully, the movie endedat that point.

Let us now look into the glitches:

Shah Rukh Khan, as Shekar, has portrayed the most unconvincing cross-culture depiction ever. I thought that Kamal as a Punjabi and American in Dasavatharam was ridiculous, but SRK has now taken it a level below.
He has just not been able to convince anyone that he is a Tamilian. The hideous curly-hair wig didn’t help his cause. Neither does his laboured rendition of 3 Tamil phrases. Even those 3 Tamil phrases have been delivered with the strongest Hindi accent possible.
This is one Tamil guy who speaks perfect Hindi, has North Indian accented English and yet struggles to say 3 simple phrases in Tamil. And do you know what those phrases are? “Ingae Vaa” which in his rendition sounds “Engae Vaa”, “Vaaya moodu” which sounds anything otherwise and something else, which I assumed was Tamil since it didn’t sound like English and Hindi.
The only correct thing he did as a Tamilian was eating his noodles with curd. But you can argue that only a TamBrahm is curd crazy, but at least, it is Tamil.
Abba. The kid constantly keeps saying Abba and not Appa. Even other characters refer to the kid’s father as Abba and not Appa. Couldn’t they get that right in dubbing at least?
Ra.One crushes the game creator on the road. He then launches some massive blast to the car and has it thrown into the river. Net-net, you expect a totally decomposed body.
But, they show him in a casket, dressed in a suit and having a very blissful look! I agree they were in London and so, the dead body may have been delivered in a casket. But why did they dress him up in a suit and place him in a casket?
Don’t Hindus send away their dead in a different manner? Also, why was everyone wearing black? North Indians are always dressed in White for funerals and there is no such dress code for South Indians. So did the family suddenly become Christians?
Everyone in Shekar’s office constantly talks in Hindi. They are all Indians, except for the token Chinese guy. I am okay with everyone speaking Hindi, because I am willing to assume that they wanted to avoid sub-titles for dialogues of non-Hindi speaking characters. But then in one other scene, Shekar talks to the Chinese guy in Hindi, apologises and then talks in English! Inconsistent.
When Ra.One comes to “life”, it destroys the lab where the gaming folk created it. After Shekar’s death, when the son visits the lab to check his theory that Ra.One killed Shekar, we are shown the lab to be in that same state of destruction.
The point to be noted is that after Shekar’s death, we have the mandatory sad song, where different montages of the grieving mother and son are shown over many days! Also in the lab, only after the son speaks to Shekar’s Chinese friend (actually Ra.One in disguise), does the dead body of the Chinese guy fall out in front of the son and Shekar’s colleague.
So, basically, nobody went up to the lab for a few days and nobody looked for this Chinese guy. The awesome part of it is that the colleague is this Chinese guy’s fiancé. Ever heard of a girlfriend who doesn't keep a tab on where her boyfriend is for more than 3 hours?
Why do they have to bring in Karva Chauth even in this movie? This Karva Chauth sentiment in Hindi movies is getting worse than the Thaali sentiment in Tamil movies.
Talking of Karva Chauth, they actually show it as coming ahead of Vijayadashami! A basic google search will tell you that the sequence is different.
The Chamak Chalo song is apparently part of the Birthday party for the kid! If this is how kids’ birthday parties are being celebrated, these days, I want to be invited to such parties. The skin show in that song is really too high, especially considering the fact that the person (Kareena) showing the skin is depicted as one who covers her son’s ears when the word condom is mentioned!
The train that is running away without control – couldn’t the Railway authorities simply shut-down the power lines to ensure that the train stops? Also, at the final stage, G.One is able to bring down the speed of the engine to almost zero (they show the RPM meter falling rapidly) and yet, this single engine (of an EMU) jumps its track, runs through the CST station and only after a great effort from G.One, does it stop in the main road. WTF?
The family has an amazing house in London and moves down to Mumbai. Into an existing house which is perfectly maintained, though nobody lives there. Impressive!
The son is able to revive G.One at the end of the movie? I guess being an expert in playing games gives you that ability.
Now the Rajni scene. Thalaiva, why the hell do you agree to do this scene? They didn’t show you as yourself. They even mocked you a little. And you didn’t even show us your eyes. Have you still not recovered? Thalaiva, you have let us down – not to the levels of Baba, but quite close.
In that entire scene (before and after Thalaivars arrival), the acting of Kareena was really out of place. She is first shown as being tough on G.One, since she is in an understandable state of confusion – natural for someone who has lost a loved one to have mixed emotions when faced with something that is created by her husband, that looks exactly like him (probably better) and keeps saying that it is going to protect her.
But just 2-3 dialogues into the scene, she starts reacting in slapstick fashion to everything that transpires around her. This is of course not her fault – it is just bad direction.
When Rajni appears as Chitti, G.One’s console shows some text that says “Chitti. Identified.”
But when Ra.One takes up Kareena’s form and takes away the son, G.One couldn’t identify it.

I don’t want to recollect more such glitches,since I am afraid that they may reside in my memory forever. The only redemptionfactor was that I watched the movie in 3D and so Kareena looked hotter thanusual. But again, despite being a 3D movie, there was nothing in terms ofspecial 3D effects.

Before I wind up, I suggest that you watch “I, Robot” andall the “Terminator” movies (esp. Part 2). Then watch Ra.One to understand howIndian movie makers are influenced by movies made 10-20 years back and yet endup making something unpalatable.

P.S.: While coming to the parking lot, I was airing my viewsto my friend that this movie has made Enthiran appear to be a better movie.Some 3 guys who were walking 30 feet ahead of us, stopped, turned towards usand one of them asked me “What do you feel about this movie?” I replied,“Horrible”. He gave a very satisfied smile and said “Habbabda. We all felt thesame way.”

Indian TV ads reviewed - #004 - Flipkart.com

2011-10-26T22:59:00.002+05:30

These set of ads for Flipkart.com are good.
Ad 1
Ad 2
Ad 3
Ad 4

Fundamentally, these ads serve the main purpose of what is being marketed - benefits of online shopping with Flipkart,com. The best part is that the message is conveyed directly and yet, the ads are funny. Not the ROTFL funny type, but ones that will surely bring about chuckles.
The ads feature kids, who are thankfully, not made to appear as the super smart ones we see in most ads or Indian movies.
On the flip side, there is ample scope for the women to say that the ads are "cute" and "sweet".

I like the ad because it is a series, it conveys its message directly and is a little funny.

Indian TV ads reviewed - #003 - Tanishq Diamond Jewellery

2011-10-17T07:00:00.000+05:30

These ads from Tanishq featuring Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan are really cool.

Since there is only so much you can do when it comes to jewellery ads, most of the ads cater only to the emotional aspect - either mushy with young couples or sentimental with family angle.
So, it was quite refreshing to see this first ad and then this follow-up.
It catered to the romantic angle without getting mushy, was funny overall thanks to both AB and JB, talked about the technicalities of the product, indicated that their sales personnel are aware of what they sell and of course, it still stuck to the stereotypes (women always like diamonds and want more of it).

A really good series of ads.

Steve Jobs, Apple and India

2011-10-16T16:40:00.000+05:30

Let me clarify up front that this post has been written purely based on whatever limited knowledge I have about Steve Jobs and Apple. And believe me, that knowledge is indeed limited.
There wont be any statistical references anywhere, so if you see some numbers, it is basically a gut feel that I have.
This post is driven more by assumptions than by facts.
But the good news is that, I am willing to publish all comments that help me correct my views, if they are proven to be wrong.
*****************************

Unless you are KumbhaKarna or Rip Van Winkle or any other such character, you should know by now that Steve Jobs, may his soul rest in peace, is no longer alive. If you are indeed KK or RVW or aosc, you now know that SJ is no longer alive.

There have been enough and more eulogies written about him. Lots more people are still writing one in his honor. I don't believe, this post would ever be classified as one.

Since it is not considered good etiquette to question some of the actions of the dead, I am now redirecting my questions to all the fans of Steve Jobs and his legacy.

What prompted me to write this post is this: Most of my contacts on Facebook, posted RIP messages on the day Steve Jobs died. The irony was that most of them didn't own an Apple product, except perhaps the iPod which they bought 10 years after its first launch. And that was because, the iPod has probably become affordable only now.

And therein lies my first complaint against Apple. Why are their products so damn expensive, at least in India? Why do they launch all sorts of new products in markets across the world and yet, they launch the same product in India, around the time the next version of it is being released elsewhere. And even then, the price for which it is available, is exorbitant.

For every new product, or the latest version of an existing product, that they release, I definitely feel discriminated against, simply because I am in India. I cannot buy their original product in India and have to resort to importing one. And even if I manage to get one into India legally, Apple just doesn't provide any service support for the device.

This pattern can be observed starting from their iP* devices to all their *Mac* machines. Every other competitor of Apple is tapping into the Indian consumer's purchasing power, but Apple chooses not to. The balance sheet of Apple would clearly show that they are not at all impacted by this approach. But as an Indian residing in India, I feel that I am being treated as someone who is worthy enough of only the old models and yet, as someone who still has to get these old ones by paying a premium.

Next, I read somewhere that Apple doesn't have any hardware or software production centres in India. There was one sometime back and even that was closed. Again, one has to wonder why Apple would adopt such a stand, when all Silicon Valley companies have shops in India. Yet, as mentioned before, their financial scorecard shows that this decision has not impacted them in any which way.

And despite this, so many Indians felt the need to express their anguish about SJ's death. Could that be because these people are all currently NRIs or even ex-Indians? Are these the ones who own Apple devices by virtue of not being in India? Then what about those in India who were upset?

Finally, there is also one thing that really troubles me. I still don't see SJ as an inventor. He created devices that were not way ahead of its time; he created products that were perhaps 3-4 years ahead of its time. Was the iPod "invented" when Gramophone Records were used or even when Cassettes were used? That would have meant "ahead of time". And sorry, I also don't buy the statement that these devices are life changing. These are at best, lifestyle changing.

You could be perfectly right when saying that I have written this piece purely with the "grapes are sour" attitude, but the fact is that I still want to own an Apple product. But at no point in time, am I going to feel the urge to eulogise Steve Jobs or Apple.

Indian TV ads reviewed - #002 - Tata Docomo

2011-10-11T22:01:00.000+05:30

Tata Docomo's latest set of ads with the tag line of "The network that always connects. Everywhere" appear to be good. You can see them all here.

It is not a single ad and is a series featuring some very different situations where one doesn't want to be connected and yet, gets a call.

You can argue that the "Everywhere" situations shown in the ad are not all places where it is difficult to get calls. And you are right. This series doesn't show people getting calls while inside an elevator. Or inside a tunnel. But then, even in the heart of the city, sometimes the signal is poor, so we can excuse that aspect.

However, there are a couple of ads in the series, which seem to be a little offensive. The Tamil guy stopping his wedding ritual to attend a call, didn't look good. Similarly, showing the maid-servant stealing a phone was not in good taste. And the rocking car one, could have been avoided.

In terms of fun/humor this series of ads are spot on. And it scores even in conveying the main message. A welcome relief from the earlier sets featuring Ranbir Kapoor's stand-up comedy.

Indian TV ads reviewed - #001 - Bisleri

2011-10-08T22:02:00.000+05:30

I am referring to this ad

The ad attempts a twist on the the tag-line/catch-phrase of staying protected with Bisleri.
The thought of doing the twist is good, otherwise the ad would have been quite plain.
But I didn't like the execution.
I wasn't sure if the setting was Arabic (the men looked like ancient Mughals) or Chinese (the dragon was clearly Mongoloid and the paintings shown at the start of the ad looked Chinese).

I didn't like the ad, but didn't hate it either.

P.S.: Yes, I have started reviewing ads.

Lemon Squash recipe

2011-10-06T19:43:00.001+05:30

Soak lemon (4 numbers) in water for 12 hours.
Remove lemon and drain the water.
Place one lemon...
in front of each wheel of your car.
Start your car.
Set the car in first gear.
Release the hand-brake if engaged.
Take your foot slowly off the clutch.
Move the car over the lemon.
Stop the car.
Now engage the car in reverse gear and move the car back over the lemons.
And as seen in the picture, you get Lemon Squash.
Well, this is how we prepare it every year for Vijayadashami.

Treefic Jam

2011-09-18T19:42:00.002+05:30

Last Monday, the 12th of September 2011, I was out of the gates of my office by around 5:45 PM. As has been the case for the past couple of weeks, the skies had started to turn a bit cloudy and I hoped that I would reach home before a thunder-squall came up. But my hopes were dashed.
We (there were two friends in my car) encountered rain almost 10 minutes into our trip and it only got heavier. It was also accompanied by its special effects crew of a good gust of wind, thunder and lightning. It took us almost an hour to reach Irumbuliyur bridge, a 20-22 Km drive that usually takes 40 minutes at the most. In a way, it was a harbinger of the more eventful time ahead of us.

This Irumbuliyur bridge, including its rather elaborate ramp, is probably a stretch of 1 Km. The longest it has taken me to cover this stretch was say 3 minutes. But on that fateful day, it took me 30 times longer - if you don't want to do the math, it is 90 minutes. There were stretches when the traffic was at a real standstill. Not even the proverbial "inch-இன்ச்சா நகந்துது".

At first, the vehicles started dimming their headlights and moved on to just the parking light. After some time, it was the turn of the engines to be switched off. And after some more time, people even switched off the parking lights. So, that stretch of the highway, actually became darker and adding to the already spreading gloom. Thankfully, the rain had subsided and that enabled the general public, who were in the buses, to get down and start walking on the road! Yes, it was clear to all concerned that there was no way this traffic jam was going to ease out soon.

We had switched on the local FM station and thankfully, the RJ was giving the traffic updates. He said that a huge tree had fallen down near the Irumbuliyur bridge and that had caused quite a nasty jam. He further mentioned that the traffic at Chrompet was also at a standstill due to severe water logging. Apparently, the same news was also flashed on Sun News and ta-da, my mother called me to check where I was.

Calls were made from the occupants of the car to family and friends. Calls were made from family and friends to those in the car. Exchanges were taking place with colleagues. And I was also updating Facebook! Considering the sheer number of vehicles stuck on the road, I am sure the telephone companies made a killing that day.

After 1.5 hours, we were finally out of Irumbuliyur bridge and the traffic flow was surprisingly good; surprising, considering the volume and the rather narrow stretch where the tree had fallen. When we reached Tambaram, one of the folks in the car got down and opted to catch the suburban train to reach his home in T.Nagar. The remaining two of us, had no such option and continued on.

However, we did have an option of taking the new flyover at Tambaram and reach Besant Nagar via Velachery. But, I guess we were destined to proceed further on GST, hoping that the current normal flow of traffic would continue. We were in for a big shock at Chrompet, where, we spent the next one hour. The reason, like mentioned earlier, was water logging in that area.

One hour later, we were out of that jam and thankfully, we didn't encounter any more that night. I reached home at 10:15 PM, which meant that I covered a distance of 52Kms in 4.5 hours. Only.

I had a lunch-meeting with a client, earlier that afternoon, and since I had to be on my best behaviour, I opted to barely tasting the rather sumptuous buffet spread. I had a couple of Milk Bikis biscuits before starting the return trip and so, you can understand how hungry I must have been by around 7 PM. But, being stuck in the jam with no options other than enduring it, the hunger pangs started receding by around 8 PM and when I reached home, I was actually almost not hungry.

There were only two good things for me in that jam - the first was the presence of two other humans beings with whom I could have a live conversation and the second, was that I had emptied my bladder completely before starting the trip and so, I was devoid of that pressure.

One interesting note before I wrap up: During the time I was stuck in the Irumbuliyur bridge, my mother called me a couple of times. On one of those occasions, she had a verbal typo when she asked me "எப்படி டா இருக்க?" ("How are you?") instead of "எங்க டா இருக்க?" ("Where are you?"). But in the larger context of the time spent in that jam, I am not sure if it was indeed a typo.

You can read more about the jam here.

Wheelchair for cats and dogs?

2011-09-10T12:16:00.001+05:30

I really don't know why there is a cat and dog in this ad.

Movie review of Mankatha – Ngo…

2011-09-04T22:31:00.001+05:30

*************Spoiler Alert*****************

Watched the movie Mankatha with Raghu and his wife, on Saturdayevening at Sathyam. Coming as it did barely 24 hours after watching DeivaThirumagal, I was really hoping to see something good. To know if I did,read on.

This movie is Ajith’s (or should I say Thala’s) 50^thmovie and is directed by Venkat Prabhu. Considering the latter’s penchant to breakthe formula and make urban movies, the former’s status as a crowd-puller andthe DMK-family producing and distributing the movie, there was the obvious buzzaround it.

The movie opens with the shot of a really open space –almost desert like – with one guy kneeling on the ground and a bunch of Policeofficers discussing about killing him. They even have some thugs to help themfinish off the task in order to escape official scrutiny. The goons are giventhe go-ahead to shoot and they take aim at the guy, who incidentally is around20 feet away. Let me now request you to read the first few words of thisparagraph again. Please; do it.

So, when the goons are about to take aim, there comes a
Pajero (or was it a Bolero) flying into that space between the goon and thevictim. Basically, none of the people in the situation could spot the arrival ofan SUV, DESPITE the total emptiness of space around them for almost a square kilometre.That scene, pretty much sums up one thing – however much of a “different”film-maker you may be, there are few things that are mandatory in Tamil movies(probably Indian movies).

There is then the mandatory fight where we get to see Ajithas a Policeman (Inspector or something I presume), save the guy who was aboutto be shot and even shoot down one of the Policemen. One thing I learnt fromthat opening fight sequence was that I am almost like Ajith! Yes, I am already intothe salt & pepper hair, I just need to get some liposuction done to reduce onepant size, of course a nose job and voila – I am Ajith. If you still don’t getwhat I am trying to say, Ajith is fat.

Anyways, the movie then moves on to establish him as asuspended cop, living in quite a posh flat in Mumbai, who despite having a girlfriend(Trisha in a blink-and-you-miss role) sleeps with a random woman (Lakshmi Raiin a blink-and-she-still-fills-out-the-entire-screen role) and as someone whosmokes and drinks incessantly. If I think about it, the only time he isn’t drinking,is when he has a cigarette in his mouth!

We then get to see Ajith establish a good rapport with hisgirlfriend’s father, who too is pretty much a shady character. This shadycharacter has a loyal …istant and also has the local SI on his payroll. Thelocal SI in turn is friends with a bar-owner and the bar-owner brings in hisIIT topper friend to Mumbai promising him a job. The job is to rob the shadycharacter, of just 500 Crores in cash – the funds being given to this shadycharacter for safekeeping by the bookies of Mumbai. The bookies are betting onthe IPL and one more point is that the cash is in USD.

So, these four guys go around plotting the whole theft, butAjith somehow sniffs out the plan and asks to be included in the share,providing his bit of expertise as well. Meanwhile, we are also shown Arjun as aSpecial Branch Officer investigating into the whole IPL betting ring. So, Arjun’steam are on the trail of the cash coming into the shady character’s custody andthe gang of five is also trying to swindle it.

Now, you would expect this swindling to be done in a veryappreciable manner. But what you see instead is akin to the performance of theIndian test team in England last month – a huge let down. The whole episode ofstealing the money truck was nothing short of juvenile. I can go on for 2 pagesin detailing out all the flaws in the scheme, but I prefer that you watch itand find them yourself. Believe me, you will find them easily.

Anyways, the money is now stashed in a safe place with atechnological lock ensuring that none of the five can double-cross the other. Weare then shown a laboured scene where Ajith thinks out loud about how he plansto remove the other 4 from the equation and take all the money himself. But surprisingly,when he visits the safe place with the SI and the loyal …istant, he finds outthat the bar-owner and the techie have actually run away with the money.

Some more laborious stunts later, we find that Arjun now hasthe loyal …istant in his hold and is trying to get Ajith into the correct sideof the law. After another protracted scene later, the loyal …istant is showdown by one of Arjun’s men. We are then shown the bar-owner and the techiehaving the time of their life in what can be safely assumed to be Goa and guesswhat, it turns out that the random woman who slept with Ajith is actually thebrains behind the bar-owner and the techie doing this double-cross. Now thebar-owner plots to finish off the techie, but the random woman does one moredouble-cross and kills off the bar-owner and runs away with the techie. And themoney of course.

Meanwhile, Ajith and the SI have somehow found out thatthese folks are in Goa and so both of them drive towards Goa. For some verystrange, inexplicable, mysterious and illogical reason, the random woman andthe techie are headed towards Mumbai! Ajith spots them driving on the oppositeside of the highway, does a quick U-turn and chases them. The chase then ends ina motel where the random woman tries to lure Ajith into believing that shestole the money for him!!! He kills her, the SI runs behind the techie and lobehold, Arjun enters the motel with his team. I forgot to add that Trisha’sfather’s goons are also in the fray.

Then everyone starts shooting at everyone else and somewherein the middle, the techie is shot dead. Then Ajith and Arjun square off withguns, fists, legs and finally, Arjun shoots down Ajith. Then there is a majorexplosion in the kitchen and the remaining good guys walk off. After somebackground voice over that explains about the death of Ajith and that thePolice are on the trail of the SI, we are taken to Bangkok where one of the guysfrom Arjun’s team is following a suspect who he thinks is the SI.

The suspect steps out of the car and amidst maniacalwhistles from the audience, Ajith steps out of the car. The cop then cornershim and calls up Arjun, who then asks for the phone to be handed over to Ajith.Ajith takes up the phone and then starts laughing. We are then shown Arjun alsolaughing. Then we see some B&W scenes where it is established that Ajithand Arjun are actually friends from the Police Academy and this entire heistwas originally their plan. Also, they have managed to take the money safelyduring the explosion.

So, there you have it – the entire movie laid out to you,almost scene-by-scene. This is definitely a new type of movie in Tamil, thoughit is not a new idea or concept. The movie is clearly inspired by many heistmovies made in Hollywood and probably even a little from remakes in Bollywood. Whilethe overall plot and the final twist are good, there are a lot of wrinkles thatneed to be ironed out like:

length of the movie
characters/definitions – I actually didn’t see thepurpose of a techie in the whole heist. His real contribution was in hackingthe traffic signal system (which could have easily been done by deploying some faketraffic constables) and creating the secure lock system (again could have beenachieved by simply using off the shelf-products). Trisha is a big star and didn’treally have any role. Andrea could have been better utilized, probably in placeof Lakshmi Rai, who by the way has become too fat and like most Indian women isunable to pull an off-shoulder gown.
Horrible stunts – I have never seen so many bullets beingfired and so few hitting the mark
Songs – were bad and really slowed down the movie.
Way too much drinking and smoking
The fourth wall was broken too often – both in visualsand in dialogues, thereby establishing that this is the movie of the stars andnot of the Director
Most of what I have detailed in this post are basicallythings that have not been done well

There were good things too.

Different storyline
Plot twist – though you start getting some inclinationabout the twist, it is kind of decently hidden
Not trying to make Robin Hoods out of either Ajith or Arjun
Premji was quite impressive with his comic interludes

So, did I like the movie? I find it difficult to say yes,because in movies with this kind of plot, what really makes you like it is the “how”and in that aspect the movie is a let-down. But any day, I would rather watchthis than Deiva Thirumagal.

P.S.: In a couple of places in this post(including the title), I have done some censor of the words. However, it wouldbe evident to the reader as to what I was not saying. This is an indirecttribute to how the swear words have been tuned out in the movie, though the lipsynch clearly shows you what was being said.

Deiva Thirumagal – Movie Review

2011-09-03T14:08:00.000+05:30

This movie, Deiva Thirumagal, was released a couple of months back. The Tamil press has been going gaga over the movie and its actors, which finally impressed my mother to want to watch the movie. I couldn’t wriggle out of this one and thankfully, though only momentarily, I was unable to get tickets a couple of weeks back. But with the movie having run its course and with the next mega movie Mankatha being release a couple of days back, tickets for DT were easily available.

Coming to the movie, I just don’t know where to start my rant. I will take up the biggest one first viz., Vikram’s acting. There has been enough promotional material going around the Internet and I was well aware of what the movie was about. I then saw Vikram in the first set of trailers that were released and instantly realised that all the written stuff about his acting was just baloney. My opinion was confirmed after I saw some of the comedy scenes that were telecast on TV. And it got solidified after watching the movie.

He is portrayed as a man whose body has grown
faster than his brain. He is referred to as someone presumably in his late-20s-mid-30s, but with the brain of a 5 year old. And this person gets his wife, who is estranged from her family, pregnant. The wife dies during the birth of their girl and he somehow manages to take care of the child. After the child joins a school, her maternal aunt and grand-father manage to separate the father and child. How the father and the daughter unite, forms the rest of the story.

I am no expert in the field of medicine and hence I have a doubt about the possibility of someone with a five-year old’s level of brain functioning, actually being able to get someone pregnant! If someone can show actual case histories of such instances, then it greatly helps me to accept the basic premise on which the movie’s story has been formed.

Ok, let’s forget that issue and get back to the acting of Vikram. Sir, I know you had to portray a 5-year old, but did that mean that you had to twist your tongue so much? And did you really have to stutter and stammer so much? Agreed that all kids don’t speak very fluently at that age, but what we normally see is a lack of cohesiveness in thought and not necessarily in speech. If you think a kid can’t speak normally, how come you sing so perfectly? And do all 5-year olds run like with their hands stiffly by their sides? And do they actually hop and skip? And the irony of the whole portrayal – the child in the movie is also five, but just didn’t exhibit any of the mannerisms of Vikram!

There is something called acting – the key being a lot of underplay, then there is overacting – most of Sivaji Ganesan’s movies made in the late 70s and early 80s are outstanding examples – and finally there is bad acting – Vijay. Unfortunately, we Indians still feel the need for overacting and simply get carried away by roles that are labelled “different”. And if that comes from a big star, then it is guaranteed to get some awards for sure. The pundits are saying that Vikram’s acting was the best and in my opinion, these pundits are about as mentally stable as the kid that Vikram tried to portray on screen.

Continuing on the acting front, my next disappointment was Amala Paul. In her case too, the print media has been heaping lavish praise on her histrionic abilities that go well with her beauty. I have no complaint about the latter, but with respect to the former, I think she has to do more – more than just widen her big eyes. The only people who have actually acted well in the movie are Anushka, Santhanam, Nasser and the kid, Sara. And the kid certainly scored heavily in the court scene.

Coming to the issues I have with the screenplay, here is the list:

Like in the field of medicine, I am no expert in the field of law; but, while a case is being heard in court, can the plaintiff and the defendant stand to the right of the judge one day and to his left on the other? Isn’t there some kind of rule that one of these two parties, has to stand on only one side of the judge?
Continuing on the legal aspect, at the beginning of the case hearing, it is proven that Vikram’s character has a good IQ. However, all subsequent arguments seem to be concentrated only on disproving this fact. I thought that once one aspect was well established, the lawyers move on to other topics by which they can corner their opponent.
Why aren’t Anushka and Y.Gee.Mahendra (her dad) on normal speaking terms? As far as I can recollect, there was no mention on why they seem to be indifferent to the each other.
Why did the maternal grand-father leave Vikram some 30 Kms from Chennai? He was driving down at night from Ooty and he found a place only 30 Kms from Chennai to ditch Vikram?
Does Anushka start getting “feelings” for Vikram? Was that why there was a solo song for her? Or was it because, the Director came to know that he had some film reels that the producer was ready to finance, dates from Anushka that were going waste and a song in excess composed by the music director? I am stumped.
Vikram is old in real life, has a muscular physique and so, he obviously had to tone down for this role. But couldn’t the make-up guy use some magic and hide some of those unnecessary wrinkles? Anushka’s look is also not consistent. She looks quite old in some shots and too young in some others. The “namam” or “sree-churanam” that Nasser sports – I haven’t seen one in that shade of saffron on an Iyengar’s forehead; ever.
Nasser is supposed to be this big-shot lawyer, but somehow, he does not come across as a strong one. Why would such a big-shot take up a simple case and actually argue it himself? And why would he do it with such low levels of preparation?
The entire episode with the 4 friends of Vikram, who too are similar to Vikram in terms of mismatch in physical and mental growth – I really don’t understand the significance of these characters.
In the closing arguments in court, one line from Nasser influences Vikram so much, that despite legally winning his child’s custody he hands her over to his wife’s family. If he can process so much logic, is he really only 5-years old?
Also, during that closing stages, the maternal grand-father himself appears to have a change of heart and doesn’t object to his lawyer’s change in stance. So, when Vikram hands over the child to his younger daughter, couldn’t he have actually taken Vikram also into his charge? Wouldn’t that have been a simple solution?
There was no real motive for Anushka to actually take up this case. If she was herself a big lawyer with some score to settle with the rich maternal grand-father, I can understand. Or if she is sure of getting some monetary compensation from the opponent, that makes sense too. Or if there was major media attention, that would help her career to get started. Else, if she were always fighting for the downtrodden, then this is a fit case. But none of them hold good here.

Yes, there are a few positives too – Santhanam gives a good performance simply by not bellowing, Anushka comes across as someone capable of acting, the supporting cast didn’t resort to over-acting, the comic interludes were neat and well-woven into the script, no song with lungis and yellow saris (no kuthu paattu), no fight sequence etc.

All in all, this movie was quite bad, filled with clichéd scenes, dialogues written purely to stimulate the tear glands of the weak-hearted and acted incorrectly by the main character.

I may not have road rage anymore

2011-08-27T22:59:00.000+05:30

Last evening, I was returning back from the office, along with a couple of friends. After passing the Pallavaram bus stand on GST road, a maroon Wagon-R cut into my lane, quite sharply. He moved in from my left and literally bulldozed his way in front of me.

Those of you who have travelled with me, may have experienced my reaction in such situations. I blare my car horn like crazy or keep flashing the headlights for a few seconds. Depending on the intensity of anger, the few seconds can be up to 5 or 6. Five seconds may appear to be very less in the larger context of life, but try honking and flashing the headlights for 5 continuous seconds and you will realise that it is indeed a long time!

In addition to the visible displays of displeasure, I let lose
some of the good words I know,if there are no women-folk in my car. Unfortunately, there was a lady in my car and so I couldn't satiate my anger audibly. So, I had to resort to a slightly intense honking and headlight flashing. I think I crossed the 5 second limit and actually did both the actions for that period. The driver who cut into my lane seemed to have gotten the message and moved a little to his left.

He extended his hand out and gave me the signal to pass him. But there was no real space for me to pass by and I realised that he was only mocking me. So, I didnt make any attempt to pass him. We were nearing a signal and the guy moved to the left lane, after again clearly indicating to me to pass him on the right. I pulled up to his right and stopped at the signal.

For those of you who have not been in such situations, let me explain that the next step in such a drama, is usually the stare. The drivers of both cars stare at each other and quite often resort to mouthing obscenities at each other. I usually never stay away from a staring context and given the fact that I have rather big eyes, even my normal look sometimes appears to be a stare. Somehow, after pulling up near that car, I didnt stare at the driver.

I thought I had won that contest and opted to take the moral high road by not starting at him. Also, due to the signal, he had stopped a few feet behind me in the left lane and so a direct line of sight could not be established. When the green light came up, the traffic started moving slowly and he inched up to the same position as mine. I finally felt the need to provide him the obligatory stare and turned towards him.

The guy was quite well built and had a tough look about him. And he did glare quite menacingly, but I continued to hold his stare. I then noticed a slight movement of his left hand on the steering wheel and looked that side, without really letting go of the "eye-lock".

The left hand was discretely holding a steel instrument and it clearly had a handle and a blade. The guy was holding a knife! I was slightly alarmed at this point, since there was no way I could hold myself against a goon holding a knife. I tried to maintain my composure and continued my stare. I was only hoping that whatever fearful thoughts were running in my head, were not overflowing through my eyes.

Luckily, the traffic moved some more and the guy once again moved into my lane, in front of me. I had the sense and of course traffic space, to move to the left. The guy continued in the right lane and I noticed that he was getting to the next signal to take a right. I wondered if it was a strategy on his part to let me go by and then follow me! So, the remaining part of my drive was spent more in watching the rear-view mirror, than the road in front of me.

One thing that continues to surprise me is the profile of that driver. You think of a Wagon-R, a maroon colored one and one that bears a white number plate and you think that the guy who is driving it is a guy in his 30s, having a desk job, with a wife and 1-2 kids. In fact, minus the wife and kids, that is exactly who I am and I drive a Wagon-R! But here is a knife-wielding guy, driving a Wagon-R, a petrol car and one with a white number plate. The guy would have been a perfect fit in a Tata Sumo!

So, from now on, I am going to mellow down a lot more and keep my road rage under control as much as possible.

My worth at work

2011-07-17T22:42:00.000+05:30

Something happened at work, last Thursday, that gave a whole new outlook to my worth at work.

In the office closer to my place, I am, in theory, only a visitor. So, I don't get to choose a desk for myself and my department folks have been kind enough to give me an independent cubicle. But this cubicle, is a corner one and unfortunately, one of the wings of the corner is the main aisle in that area.

The picture here shows you the cubicle and the pillar you see on the left is the only thing that ensures that people don't simply walk into my cubicle. Or so I thought, till Thursday afternoon.

I was in my post-lunch near meditative state
, when I suddenly felt some movement on my left side. I glanced in that direction and found that a lady had walked into my cubicle. In fact, she was almost at the end of the cubicle and that's when I realized that she was dropping something in the red dustbin you see in the picture!

And she simply walked out. While I am happy that she didn't disturb me for this activity, I still feel offended that she just walked in to where I was sitting, to just dump garbage. I don't know if it was the senior management sending me some kind of subtle message.

P.S.: In case you wonder if her cubicle didn't have a bin, you must be happy to know that she has turned it upside down and uses it as a footrest.

Angry Birds make a Happy Jawaman

2011-05-09T22:55:00.000+05:30

I purchased my first Android Phone – HTC Incredible S – on 22nd April 2011. This is not a review of the phone, because (a) I don’t know enough to write a review (b) There are way too many reviews available anyway and (c) The only person who would probably read this has given sufficient details about it and my review would, at best, only paraphrase what was told to me.

Amongst all the features that are packed in that device, what has caught my attention till date is the Mobile App that was listed as the most downloaded in 2010 – Angry Birds. It was practically the first or second app that I downloaded into my new phone. And in the last 15 days, I have been playing it at every available opportunity – while watching TV, while waiting for friends at the lunch/tea table, in audio conferences (and once, during a video conference too).

In fact, if it weren’t for my car pool
members’ self-preservation instincts, I would be playing it during the numerous traffic jams I encounter daily. And I would also be playing it at the dining table at home, if only my parents didn’t object so much to a mobile phone being brought to the table in the first place.

If you belong to the handful of people who hasn’t played the game yet, please be advised that this is perhaps the best game to be created. One that caters to every demographic that a human being can be classified under. Yes, you do have all the modern multi-player strategy games with amazing visual representations and some which cater to the animal instincts in you. However, it requires a lot of patience and absolute cold-blooded behavior. While most of us show it in the way we work or manage teams or even conduct ourselves in a group, the minute we see such games, we put on a Gandhi cap!

You don’t need to do any of that with Angry Birds. There is killing, but no blood. There is planning, but no undue breaking of head. There is physics, but you don’t need to be Einstein. And best of all, you play it alone. And even better, you can actually play it with just your left hand.

There are birds of different kinds – small ones that are without special powers. Smaller ones which can split into 3 at the tap of a finger. Ones that are ticking time bombs. Ones that can drop a bomb and zip into space. One that can cut through obstacles. Ones that are simply huge and bring a lot of momentum. And one that acts as a boomerang!!!

I have completed all levels available in the game right now. And from yesterday, I have started revisiting all the levels where I didn’t score 3 stars! I will complete that and move on to the other variants that Angry Birds offers to keep its clientele hooked on to the game.

P.S.: I feel that I could have played a few more levels again, instead of writing this review. You are entitled to a similar view as well.

Potato Potahto

2011-03-28T22:44:00.000+05:30

I was at the gym on Saturday evening - yes, I have renewed my Gym membership in order to allow them to make some profits and create more employment opportunities, but I digress as usual.

While I was doing my stretches, I spotted one of the trainers
come towards me. This guy is probably one of the only guys who always says a word or two beyond the Hello and Welcome that most of the trainers say.

And with my infrequent visits to the gym, I had obviously not seen him for a long time. When he came over to where I was, we exchanged the usual "Hello, How are you?" routine. I then stumped him with my next question.

I told him "பார்த்து ரொம்ப நாள் ஆச்சு.." - meaning, "I havent seen you in a while..". He was slightly taken aback and responded, "சார், நாங்க எல்லாம் இங்கயே தான் இருக்கோம். நீங்க தான் இங்க ரெகுலரா வரர்து இல்ல" - meaning, "Sir, we are all still here. Only you havent been coming here regularly".

I grinned and told him that I meant the same thing, in a different perspective. Like Potato and Potahto.

I don't think I'd survive in Marketing and Sales

2011-03-22T15:40:00.000+05:30

Last week, my Department conducted a road-show type of event across the Organization. The purpose of the event was to create an awareness amongst the employees, that Software Testing offered an attractive career in the IT industry. This purpose, was however, the official version. The real reason was mainly to entice those working in other Departments to move to ours.

Since this event was conducted under the auspices of the Organization's senior management, we were allowed to send mailers to everyone, hold some online competitions, create stalls etc. The Stalls were setup with volunteers - comprising of senior managers of the Department - who could be approached to clarify any doubts about Software Testing.

Of course, since my Department was the solely focused on doing only Software Testing, we were allowed to showcase a lot of cool stuff that we do - like creating tools to automate some testing work etc. So, we even had pamphlets printed out and these were to be handed out to the visitors. There was even a small corner at the stalls where we asked the visitors to just fill out a questionnaire and participate in a lucky draw. They all got some candies while filling out the questions too. If this whole setup reeks of what you see in a real estate property fair, truth be told, it was no different.

I too was one of the volunteers
and while standing at the stall - behind the counter - I felt a little bored. So, I thought of coming out to the other side and catch hold of anyone who just browses through the stall, but starts to walk away feeling bored. I know, the whole setup is now exactly like the aforementioned property fair, but honestly, that’s the same respect I gave for this initiative!

So, I was waiting on the other side and successfully managed to corner one guy. After a little small talk, all I could manage was to get him to answer the quiz. I decided to up the ante with the next customer. And after a couple of minutes, I seemed to be rewarded with two.

There were these two guys who were standing about the stalls, with a very hesitant look on their face. I stepped in for what I assumed would be an easy kill, I introduced myself and asked if I could help them. One of them responded that he was interested to know what this event was all about.

With the same glee that the 2009 Tirumangalam by-election provided to its constituents, I started my engine and rattled off stuff around testing, my Department etc and was quickly into the third gear. And I pressed the clutch pedal to shift to the fourth gear and asked them which Department they belonged to, so that I could then rattle off a little on the domain knowledge that we provide.

One of the guys told me that he was from my Department and the second guy said the same. The clutch pedal that I had depressed stayed there and I was freewheeling for a few seconds. Then, I recovered back to 3rd gear and asked him directly, as to what he was looking for in this whole career fair that was being organized.

He said that though he belonged to the unit within my Department that worked on creating small tools and applications, he was currently working in a business domain that he didn’t like and wanted to move to a different domain that he preferred! I was almost speechless at this point and asked him if he had spoken to his managers about this and he responded in the affirmative. So, I had nothing else to do other than advise him to keep checking with that manager or that manager's manager about his change and wished him luck.

This is what happens when you start talking without knowing what your audience is expecting to hear. Something that is very essential in Marketing and Sales.

What level of the Seven-Year Itch do I have?

2011-03-10T21:55:00.000+05:30

Many of you may feel bored while reading my blog and I am finally able to empathize with you. But, my boredom is not really from reading my writing and is more due to my work or rather, the lack of it.

I am keeping this post simple
– just a reminder to myself about how bored I am feeling at work. I am way too deep in the state of physically-present-mentally-absent in the office.

Am I having the proverbial seven-year itch with my current employer or is the itch really for my very profession? Only time will tell.

Cell phone for elders

2011-02-26T12:11:00.000+05:30

My parents have been using a cell phone for the past few years. While it has mostly been hand-me-downs when I change to a newer model, there has at least been no change in the last year or more. But probably due to their old age and an inherent fear about handling something “costly” so late in their life, they continue to make some “rookie” mistakes while using the phone.

For instance, they don’t use the phone that regularly and one fine day, when they try to make a call – which typically is a call to me – they find that the battery has drained off totally. Now comes the interesting part. They then put it on charge, have the basic presence of mind to check that the “charging” message appears and then let things be. After a couple of hours, they unplug the charger from the phone and leave things as is. So, when I try to call them, I get the phone switched off message. Or if they decide to call me, they find the phone to be blank and assume that the phone didn’t charge properly and they complain to me.

This is just one example. There are scores of other such mistakes
they make routinely, but none can beat what happened on Tuesday. I am trying my best to capture the incident here, but this is something that is better experienced when I narrate it verbally in person.

On Tuesday – the 22^nd of February – my parents left to Trichy to attend the religious conversion of my cousin's son (Upanayanam in other words). Due to some scheduling conflicts, I couldn’t drop them off at the railway station and I stayed back at home. Once the train started, my mother called me on my land-line to inform me about it.

The conversation ended after we said our byes to each other, but the phone call didn’t. She forgot to cut the call from her end and since, she had dialed a land-line, the unhooking of the phone from my side, didn’t cut the call. She was oblivious to the whole thing and had tucked away her phone inside her handbag.

Thankfully, I remembered that my father too had taken his cell phone. So I called him, hoping to pass on the message to my mother about cutting the call. He picked up the phone on my second attempt to reach him. I told him to tell my mother to cut off the call from her mobile. He said he would and I said bye to him. Luckily I waited to see if he cut this call and found that he put me on hold!!!!

Well well well. So, I now checked the land-line to ensure that my mother had cut that call. Then I called her from that line and asked her to tell my father to cut his call and not put it on hold. And thus ended a rather frustrating and entertaining 5 minutes of a morning.

Clearly, the need of the hour is for a simple cell phone which has big text on the buttons that say things like “start”, “end” and of course big keys and a bigger display. In other words, a cordless phone!

The elevator that traps my family

2011-02-06T23:05:00.000+05:30

Last Saturday – the 29^th of January – my mother had a rather severe bout of food poisoning. I took her to the nearby clinic for treatment and the Doctors advised that she be admitted for observation immediately. The primary reason was a fall in the BP level and also because of the severe dehydration, they wanted to administer fluids (and medicines) by IV means.

An hour or so after the IV administration started, the staff said that I should get her something bland to eat. I called up my father and asked him to prepare some curd rice. Since the clinic was barely 3 minutes from home, I gave some time for my father to get things ready and I then started from the room where my mother was admitted.

The room was in the third floor and the clinic was having some kind of renovation work going on. So, I opted to take the elevator/lift in lieu of walking through debris. It was an old elevator and had the collapsing diamond iron gate and not the closed door type. I got inside the elevator, closed both the gates
and pressed the “G” button to let the elevator take me to the ground floor.

The elevator barely traveled one foot, when it stopped with a mild jerk. I tried pressing the buttons from G to 3, but the elevator was as unresponsive as Manmohan Singh is vis-a-vis the various corruptions his Government is involved in. I even tried sliding the door/gate closer to me, but it was locked. I then saw a button that had the symbol of a bell and decided to press it.

And a bell rang just in front of the elevator. It was not a loud bell and that was probably because you don’t need blaring bells inside a clinic where there are patients admitted for various ailments. Some 5 minutes after my incessant bell ringing, clubbed with equally mild toned “Hello”, someone did show up.

He asked me to press the button G or 3, but the elevator continued to ignore these commands. He then said that he'd get help and told me not to worry. That's when I remembered that someone trapped in an elevator is expected to worry, but since I was just one foot below the floor level and since the elevator doors were of the open type, I just had no cause to worry.

A couple of more folks came over and asked me to press the same set of buttons. More people saying the same thing doesn’t really fix a problem, but somehow all of us human beings tend to do it. And so do Managers in the IT industry, but I digress.

The more experienced of the lot then brought a steel rod, inserted it somewhere in the wall near the elevator and after a few seconds, he was able to open the door/gate on the outside. He then proceeded to open the door closer to my side and asked me to step out with any fear.

Luckily it was just one step and I could literally step out of the elevator. And I did. Then the guy with the steel rod stepped into the elevator and closed the gates. And lo behold, the elevator was working again. So much so, that I rode it alone after they brought it back to floor level on the third floor.

While the guy was checking things in the elevator, I just clarified with a couple of the clinic's staff, who had assembled there, as to whether this elevator was indeed the old one they had. They confirmed that it was and that's when I told them that this elevator doesn’t like my family. They gave me a bewildered look wondering whether the 5 minutes I was trapped inside the elevator had caused any circuitry problems in my neural network. But I assuaged their doubts by briefly narrating the story that my mother was similarly trapped in that very same elevator, some 21 years back.

Yes, my mother had an almost identical experience and it was in that very same elevator. This was circa 1989 and a cousin of mine was admitted in that clinic for a quick surgical procedure to correct something in her toe nail. My mother went to visit her and while returning, the elevator stopped between two floors. And that stoppage that time, was much worse. The lift had only around a foot left to become invisible in one floor. I remember her telling us at home that the staff actually had to do some pulling of the lift to get it to the nearest floor and set it in its correct position before opening the gates and letting her out.

So clearly, this elevator has some issues with my family. So much so, that when my father came to visit my mother later in the day, he opted to climb up 3 floors than use that elevator alone!

P.S.: My mother is fine.

Siruthai Movie review – Sorry.

2011-01-17T15:03:00.000+05:30

In my continuing tradition of watching Tamannah's movie in theatres, I watched Siruthai yesterday evening at Sathyam. The movie was released over the Pongal weekend and stars Karthi as the male lead with Tamannanh cast as his love interest.

Basically, the move is a remake of the Telugu movie Vikramarkudu, starring Ravi Teja and Anushka. I have seen bits and pieces of this Telugu movie during the hours of mindless TV surfing I indulge in during the weekends. There was something interesting about the Telugu movie
and that was not simply because of Anushka's presence.

The Tamil version, Siruthai, comes out as a frame-by-frame remake of the original. The other interesting part is that, even most of the characters have been brought over from the Telugu master copy. And this includes even their costumes, mannerisms and even the location and sets.

The first half of this movie is really entertaining with Santhanam and Karthi to some extent, making the audience guffaw quite often. But once the flashback sets in, the narration gets quite slow and hampers the proceedings. I think, the Director could have tried to have both stories going in parallel and that may have kept the tempo intact.

Again, having seen the original, I felt Ravi Teja had done a far better job than Karthi. I feel Karthi's repertoire of emotions includes a smirk and a plain face. His dancing skills are still not up to the mark. And usually, all movie heroes look really smart when they appear as Policemen and in my opinion, Karthi is the first one to break this trend. His face doesn't have the necessary maturity for the முடிக்கி விட்ட மீசை look of a Police officer.

Tammu rocked as usual. She's getting gorgeous by the day. The critics and reviewers would define her role as a “blink-and-you-will-miss-role”, but when she's on screen, I just don't blink, so it doesn't matter to me.

But all-in-all, yet another bad movie!

Judge Jawaman

2010-12-22T22:58:00.000+05:30

I have obviously not become a judge in a Court of Law nor am I suggesting that I have aspirations to become one. I only wanted to share with you my experiences as a Judge in a Talent competition along the lines of American Idol and its numerous clones across the world.

The business unit I belong to in my office, recently held celebrations for reaching an employee strength of 10000. As part of these celebrations, the aforementioned Talent competition was also held. But when the event was about to start, the organizers realized that they fell short by 2 judges in a panel of 3. They were able to rope in one and this person (my ex-boss) goaded me into filling out the remaining vacancy.

I resisted the option of becoming a Judge and that too in a talent competition, but then I quickly realized that the chances of me ever donning that role again were lower than that of Raul Vinci
ever saying that LeT was a bigger threat to India than “Hindu Terrorism”.

So, I trudged along to the venue where the competition was being held. There, the organizers gave me a sheet with some 11 names listed along with the talent that they were going to exhibit. As is a norm in all these talent shows, most of them were going to sing. There was one person who was going to whistle, one who would dance, one person who listed his talent as boom box and one other person, who was going to do mimicry.

But I started getting the jitters more than the participants. Music and me are probably as far away as Karunanidhi and Integrity. So how was I going to judge from a group of people whose primary talent is singing? Then I told myself that if I could actually do the performance appraisal of those who work under me, without knowing the details of how they worked, this evaluation in a talent show should be easy.

Thankfully, the organizers had given 3 main sections against which the judges could mark the ratings and then arrive at a total. I don't even remember the categories now, but I went on and added few more of my own! I can assure that “good looking” was not one of them, because the only good looking girl in the fray didn't win anything.

Before I proceed further, I must also admit that I am not a big fan of these competitions. I somehow find them to be extremely boring and feel that the singers quite often only ape the original singer of the song. Moreover, some people have talent and desire, but the output is not in a refined state to be exhibited in public. So, I generally avoid watching these shows on TV and honestly feel that they are a waste of time. If I want to enjoy a song, I would rather hear;view the original.

Anyways, the event started and performer after performer came up to the stage to do their routine. When all of us judges compared the scores we had come up with, I found that all of us were pretty much on the same rating – not in the exact points awarded, but in the relative ranking of the individuals. I wont say that the other judges were as bad as me, because I know for sure that the judge who dragged me into this event was quite knowledgeable in such things, though I don't know much about the other judge.

Coming to the talents on display – the top two singers were really way above the rest. And there was no dearth for comedy elements in the event – though it was like a Vijayakanth movie where the makers are quite serious in their presentation, but the whole thing is a big joke to the audience. Topping this list of talents was the guy who said “boom box”. I thought that he was going to to play some instrument, but the guy came on stage and started mouthing some “beats” in famous songs, similar to what Vijaya T.Rajendar does with so much passion, like in this video. The guy who said he was going to do some mimicry then came up to us and said that he wanted to sing! And when he sang, he gave such long pauses between stanzas that I actually wanted to go out and get fresh set of cotton wads to plug my ears. To top it, he sang 2 songs!

I also noticed that most singers seemed to close their eyes while singing and quite often, they even squeeze this closed eye while trying to sing some difficult portion. I wonder, every time, that their eyeballs may actually pop into their skull.

That, in brief, is my experience as a Judge in a Talent competition.

Joodles - My attempt at Doodles

2010-11-10T22:11:00.000+05:30

Of late, whenever I feel more bored than usual, I have started doodling.

The first one here, was done this morning. There was a meeting scheduled at 11:30 AM and I went to the meeting room. I made the mistake of not taking my laptop and was waiting in the room. All alone. After waiting for 5 minutes, I just started doodling on my mobile phone, waiting for the 2 others who were supposed to join the call. I expected them to come in with their laptops and keep working on it while the call was on. I am giving you all this background for 2 reasons:

1. The call was apparently canceled and the 2 people who were supposed to join, assumed that I got wind of that email, whereas I missed it due to the aforementioned laptop being some 30 feet away from me.
2. Since it is my first attempt at a doodle, I thought I might as well explain what I was trying to depict.

This meeting then took place later in the afternoon, at which point in time, I made some snide remark to my friends in the room. One of them said that I had too much Kozhuppu. That made me come up with this second doodle!

All this while, I have been torturing my readers with my text. Clearly, I have gone to the next level of torture with doodles. All the best!

Sherwa(r)ni

2010-10-24T23:40:00.000+05:30

Last Friday, the 22nd of October, we were requested by our Unit HR at work, to come dressed in "Ethnic Wear" to the office. Such requests do happen once a month or once in two months and this one was pretty much the first one by our Unit folks in a long time.

I usually don't take part in these events, because I don't have that many options of "Ethnic Wear" at my disposal. I have one Sherwani that I last wore for such an event in Jan 2007 and it is lying inside my cupboard ever since. The only other option is to wear a vaeshti (dhoti), but I am always under a constant fear that when I wear it, the Fall season would start because (a) I would trip and fall or worse, (b) The vaeshti would fall off.

When this "Ethnic Wear" request came up this time, I decided to let the Sherwani see the light of the day, since it has been lying inside my cupboard, wrapped in the very bag that the Dry Cleaners had returned it to me, in Jan 2007. However, I was afraid if I would fit into it and so checked it the previous night. Thankfully, I did fit into it. But I anticipated issues in me being able to stay in it for the whole day at work, because the material was not 100% cotton. So, I packed a spare set of regular clothing in the form of my Jeans and a T-Shirt.

On Friday, I went to the office in the Sherwani, and I must admit that when I went to the Food Court for breakfast, I did get more than my usual share of stares from the members of the opposite sex. At one point I even heard some cat calls, but I quickly realized that it was the ring tone in someone's mobile.

When I went towards my cubicle, a couple of my team members who were standing elsewhere, actually came up to me to see if it really was me! And I got quite a few compliments that it looked good. Some of them were slightly smarter enough to say that I looked very good in it. Someone else first almost guffawed, but quickly recovered himself and said that I looked some 5 years younger! So, he basically complimented me once and ridiculed me twice in a span of 5 seconds (If you are keeping count, the compliment was that I looked younger and the ridicule was the near-guffaw and the fact that he thinks that I am actually old!). My boss even said that I looked like a Groom and I told him that I am treating this as my dress-rehearsal.

But all these compliments aside, there are somethings absolutely uncomfortable in a Sherwani. First of all, the dupatta/Stole or whatever it is called. While it certainly adds some color to the costume, maintaining it one the body is quite difficult. You have to ensure that it is hanging equally on both sides of your shoulder. Or, it should be properly wrapped once around your neck without strangling you. And in any case, irrespective of how you place it, once you sit down, one of its ends somehow manages to find its way into the casters of the chair and you would likely be strangled when you turn around or when you move the chair.

You can overcome the problem with the casters, by placing it on the table while sitting. But, the sitting itself is the next problem. You see, the way the Sherwani is designed, the leg portion of it is rather tight to avoid making it look like a pyjama. And yet, the upper portion of it is pretty much at the same shape and patter as the regular pyjama. This design, my friends, makes it extremely difficult to sit. Because, the tighter portion of the costume, actually starts around the knees. And due to the "tightness", there is way too much pressure on the slightly looser upper segment of the same piece of clothing. This means that you cannot simply plonk yourself onto a chair and have to gracefully ease yourself into that piece of furniture. If you sit down in any other fashion, those around you may hear a Big Rip!

BUT, the real big problem with the Sherwani, is the sheer inconvenience it brings to the wearer, when the wearer has to make use of a restroom. Irrespective of whether you are inside for minor reasons or major, the sheer number of pieces of garments that need to be aligned properly, makes it imperative that you reach the venue slightly earlier than your regular routine. In fact, you need to strategise what you eat and how much of liquid you drink, so that the trips to the restroom can be well regulated and planned out as well.

So, in my opinion, this costume must be worn when you know for sure that it would not be on you for more than say 2 hours and also, when you don't have to sit that much. Its purpose is to make you look good and it sure does. So, my suggestion would be to go with a friend to a shop that sells costly Sherwanis. Try out one of them and get your friend to take pictures when you come out of the changing room. Then tell the shop guys that you didn't like it!

I dont have a kid, but even if I did, I wouldnt consider this school

2010-10-16T22:24:00.000+05:30

This could have been on the Ingilipiece blog, but the issue here is only around logic and not around the language.

And incidentally, this is my 500th post!

Do you know why traffic signal lights have an Amber/Yellow light?

2010-10-09T23:22:00.000+05:30

Well, that was a question I was asked by a Traffic Policeman on 30th September 2010. The location was near Thoraippakkam on OMR and was roundabouts of here. The reason why that Traffic Policeman asked me that question was because, he "caught" me skipping a signal in that area.

This is what happened. I was returning home with my friend a little early that day. That day also happened to be the date when the verdict of the Ayodha Case (pertaining to ownership of land) was supposed to be announced and my office had asked all employees to leave by 3 PM. I usually return home by ECR whenever I go to the office closer home. But to avoid few sensitive pockets there, I opted to take the OMR.

When I was nearing the aforementioned signal on OMR, the green changed to amber/yellow. I was slightly distracted by a car readying to take U-turn from the opposite side and opted to not stop my car. I increased the speed and when I crossed the Stop Line, the signal turned Red. I could obviously not stop at that stage and drove on, only to be stopped by a Traffic Policeman.

Unlike my previous experience being stopped by a Traffic Policeman, this guy didn't come around waving any stick. The road was empty and I was also at a relatively slower speed of 50-55 KmPH. So, he basically just wandered into my lane and directed me to pull over.

After I stopped my vehicle, he came over and asked me the question "Signal-la yellow light yaen pottirukku theriyuma? Slow down pannarthukku. Fast-a varathukku illa. Vaanga, vandhu fine kattitu poanga". I responded that I couldn't slow down since I was at 40 and that was why I crossed it. The guy didn't buy it and said that they have timed the Amber/Yellow such that everyone can stop peacefully after seeing it!

I got down from my car and went up to the Police jeep, where to my satisfaction, I saw 5 others talking with the Policemen there. I saw the Police fill out challans to 2 of them and collecting Rs.300/- each. These both were car drivers. There were 3 others who were trying to argue with the Policeman who stopped me, but he was clear that people had violated the signal. And he was not willing to accept any deals and simply asked them all to pay up the Rs.300/- and collect the challan.

Meanwhile, the challan preparing Policeman and his partner, asked me for my license and started writing down details. I asked the partner Policeman if this was a spot fine and he responded in the affirmative. I then told him to see if there was an option whereby he could just write me a challan or ticket and we could settle this in court.

The guy, who till then didn't even make eye-contact with me, finally looked up and asked why I wanted to do it. I told him that I wanted to contest this booking and so, wanted only a court summons and not a spot fine. He asked me why I wanted to go to the court and what would be my plea? Would I argue that I hadn't skipped the signal?

I told him that I wasn't going to refute the fact that I skipped the signal. However, I was going to explain to the court that since I was at the upper limit of the permitted speed on that road, I didn't have enough time to stop when I saw the amber. That, if I had still halted, I would have done so with a major screech and could very well have made the vehicle following me, bump into me. And furthermore, I would have definitely crossed the Stop Line and would have stopped in the middle of the road and become an obstruction to traffic. Also, the same Policemen would have then fined me for stopping after the Stop Line.

All of this, I told him in a very firm yet non-argumentative tone. I was also surprisingly not nervous about the whole deal (probably because it was my second interaction with the Highway Patrol folks in 12 months) and so, had a very confident looking body language as well. I definitely think that all those soft-skill training sessions I took in my formative years in the Corporate World, finally paid their due.

The Policeman then took a very advisory tone and told me that I may very well be a very big Officer in my company, but that I had to respect the Traffic Rules. I told him that I always do and just that, due to reasons given earlier, I couldn't stop after seeing the Amber/Yellow. He then took a pause and told the challan-writer to make the fine for only Rs.100/- since I was giving out so many valid points! He turned to me and said that, that was all he could do.

I thanked him and returned to my car. After I came home, I handed over the ticket to my father. Since my mother was quite engrossed with the media coverage of the verdict, we didn't tell her about it. I then had a quick look at the back-side of the challan and found that the rates for all Spot Fines were listed there.

And for skipping signals, the fine amount was only Rs.50, whereas I had paid Rs.100 after I'd argued myself from a Rs.300 demand. So my advice to all of you folks who are pulled up to pay Spot Fines, is to (1) talk to them in a firm tone without sounding aggressive or offensive and (2) indicate that you wont mind going to court and (3) tell them that Spot Fines are always only Rs.50.

And finally, if you still don't know why traffic signal lights change from green to amber/yellow, it is to apparently to caution the drivers to slow down!

Enthiran Movie Review

2010-10-04T22:59:00.000+05:30

I watched the most anticipated movie of 2010 - Enthiran - at one of the local theatres at Chennai. It was "Rakesh Theatre" an annexe of "Vetri Theatre", Chrompet and the show was at 8 AM! I watched the movie with a couple of my friends from work.

In a nutshell, this movie mainly deals with the conflicts that arise in an Android robot created by a scientist, when he programs the robot to start experiencing human emotions.

That one-liner by itself is something that the Tamil movie industry has not dealt with ever. For that matter, I really cannot think of a Tamil movie that has actually brought science to the forefront, except for the classic variations of mental illnesses like amnesia, schizophrenia etc. The best attempt in dealing with science was perhaps Dasavatharam and that was a movie made only to deal with megalomaniacal needs of one actor, not necessarily to talk about the impact of biological warfare.

Enthiran, on the other hand, deals with Robotics and features Rajni as a scientist who creates an Android (that looks exactly like him), with the aim of introducing such Androids into the Indian Army and save valuable human life. And before he approaches the agency that can certify that the robot is fit enough to be presented to the Armed Forces, he decides to loan it to Aish, his girlfriend, to see how he reacts to the World. And after a few funny sequences and some stupid stunt sequences (they looked better on You Tube), the scientist makes the necessary tweaks and presents it to the agency.

The Board in-charge of granting this permission is headed by Rajni's old professor, Danny Dengzongpa, who is at some level jealous of Rajni and so, ensures that Rajni's robot (named Chitti) does not get the necessary approvals for mass production. The official reasoning given is that, the robot would only follow orders and would not evaluate the emotional aspect of its actions.

So Rajni, starts programming robot to start understanding emotions and lo behold, even the robot realises that Aishwarya Rai (scientist Rajni's girl-friend) is quite attractive. And starts developing feelings of love and affection towards her. That is really where the story starts.

Scientist Rajni again presents the robot to few Army Generals, but the robot starts reciting verses of love. An enraged Rajni then destroys the robot, but the evil Danny goes in search of it in the city's dump yard and restores "life" back to it. Additionally, he gives the robot some negative shades and sets him lose.

Since the robot is now strongly attracted to Aish and has also been given negative traits by Danny, he goes on a mission to abduct Aish and marry her. Along the way, he also manages to create multiple robots like himself and also kills Danny. After kidnapping Aish, there is a rather elaborate sequence where scores of Policemen get killed by the bad robot.

The robot then houses Aish somewhere and tries to convince her to marry him. Scientist Rajni then joins the legions of the robots and tries to sabotage the main bad robot's plans. After a lot of gun-fights, good triumphs over evil and all is settled. The bad robot becomes good again, but the Judiciary orders that it be dismantled. After a poignant speech by the robot, it is laid to rest.

Parts of the story may evoke strong similarities to many Hollywood movies, primarily to Bicentennial Man (which incidentally was released 10 years ago and that is the same 10 years ago that Director Shankar claims to have conceived this movie)!

Now that story narration is done, here are my observations about the movie, covering both the good and the bad, in no specific order:

- Fundamentally, this is not your typical Rajni movie. If you want a Sivaji or a Padaiyappa or even a Chandramukhi type of movie - don't watch Enthiran.
- While it is not a Rajni movie, it is not a proper science fiction either. There are way too many loose ends with the Android and I cannot accept that the robot can be simply programmed to learn emotions in just a couple of weeks.
- The special effects in the movie are good. Then again, it is not at current Hollywood levels for sure. I think the blame for it should not go to technology, but more to the ideation process.
- Rajni the villain is just amazing. We badly need to see him again in a strong negative role. The "black sheep" scene was just awesome.
- Rajni has also completely under-played himself in the role of the scientist. Absolutely no mannerisms, catch-phrases etc.
- Aishwarya Rai looks stunning. And she dances really well, especially in the "Boom Boom Robot da" song.
- The music was quite good and the songs were well picturised. The "Kaadhal Anukkall" song has been shot in an amazing location - some desert that has a stream of water in the middle. Rajni and Aish are the only ones on screen and they are wearing clothes that blend with the location. On the contrary, in the "Kilimanjaro" song, there are way too many group dancers and the costumes are also quite loud. The song has been shot in Machu Picchu, Peru. I felt that the whole loudness of the song and costumes, did not allow the viewer to enjoy the beauty of Machu Picchu.
- The robot is supposed to get charged by using just 2 units of power (1 unit = 1000 Watts per hour). But when the bad robots are all near empty on energy, they simply plug into the batteries of various cars and get full power before you can say WTF. Similarly, in an earlier sequence, the robot charges itself by connecting to a high-tension current from a transformer box.
- The scene that has been setup to prove that while a robot can do amazing things (like rescuing people caught in fire), it cannot react to the emotional needs of people (one of the people caught in the fire is a girl who was having her bath and is hence nude and shouldn't have been brought in public in the same nude state).
- The scene with the robot talking to a mosquito - idiotic.
- Most of the songs have been squeezed into the second-half and sadly, the drag was felt.
- The epilogue of the movie was quite interesting, with a couple of good dialogues. There was an earlier instance too - when the main characters talk about why it is impossible for a machine and human to be married. This scene did not carry the necessary bite and fell flat, primarily due to very bland dialogues.
- The robot's initial interaction with the real world was quite good. Quite a lot of humor was thrown in and they did evoke quite a few guffaws.

In the overall level, I would only give it a 2.5/5. Yes, from now on, my movie reviews are going to get rated.

P.S.: A quick note on the theatre, since I have a feeling that it may have affected my perception of the movie. It was 25 rows long and just wide enough to seat 14 people with a narrow aisle in the middle. The screen was from wall to wall, so you can imagine what a telescopic vision I had of the screen. The fans on the side were actually blocking the end of the screen!
When the first "romantic" scene between Rajni and Aish came up, someone in the audience shouted "Thalaiva, Khabardar", in reference to the speech that Rajni made during the audio launch.
At the very end of the movie, a bunch of school children are shown walking around a museum where the dismantled robot is kept and one of the girls (featured in too many ads and has acted in the movie Sillunu Oru Kaadhal) talks to the robot. The same voice in the audience now yelled "Thalaivaroda adutha pada heroine ready"!

Cataract # 2 on the right eye

2010-10-02T22:52:00.000+05:30

I am at least 10 days late in posting this, but the fact of the matter is that the last 10 days have been quite hectic both at home and at work. Ten days back, on 22nd September to be precise, my mother had her second cataract surgery. Second as in, she had one 2 years back on her left eye and this time, it was on her right eye.

The surgery went well and she has been recovering quite well. I was out of action at work last week and returned only this week. And I have been having quite a busy week because of some personnel issues in my team at the customer's location.

Coming back to the surgery, it was done at the same place she had it done last time - Rajan Eye Care Clinic. At many levels, the whole procedure was pretty much a replay of what happened 2 years back, though there were of course subtle differences. Like for instance, the "Live Relay" of the surgery. Last time around, we were asked to be seated in a common waiting room kind of place where there was one TV showing the surgery. This time around, there was a TV in the waiting room allotted to us and so, I was able to capture the surgery from the TV on to my phone!

The other big difference, was of course in the way I settled the fees for the procedure. I actually don't remember how I did it last time, but it sure wasn't cash. This time around, it was cash. And it was cash, because of reasons beyond my control.

In a long story short narration, here is what happened:
- the clinic did not accept credit card
- they accepted debit cards albeit with a 1.35% service charge!
- but there is a limit on how much can be swiped on a debit card
- the nearest Canara Bank did not seem particularly inclined to cater to my bank's card
- the same attitude was extended to my father's card
- the nearest bank of my branch had closed the ATM to refill the cash
- the bank employees asked me to check the nearest SBI ATM to get cash
- SBI ATM was friendly to the request from my father's card
- SBI ATM preferred to hold a different view with my card
- my bank employees, after my "demanding pleas" accepted to process a special cheq book request
- by then their ATM was up and running
- this ATM had no qualms in dispensing cash for a card of its own family

I have left out many points around my driving to different ATMs, the challenges in parking, the actual interactions with my bank employees and the overall tension I was under, for almost an hour.

It is still a pity that most businesses (Such Clinics are as business oriented as a regular Corporate or a Retail Store) still have some reservations in accepting credit cards. Some of them demand an additional 2% charge (in case you didn't know, the credit card banks pay only around 98% of the transaction amount to the merchant), but in some places like this Clinic, they just don't want to give their customers, such options.

Anyways, coming back to my mother, she's been taking rest for the last 10 days. She is under strict orders not to cook, walk, lift heavy objects etc. and keep wearing dark glasses while awake. While she is allowed to watch TV and even read, the dark glasses don't really compensate the eye power and hence she gets too bored quickly. She is an active person and is getting restless by the day. And that is one feeling that I am never going to experience - being restless because of taking too much rest. Added to this, is the fact that this clinic prescribes some eye drops to be administered every 2 hours!

She had her second review today and the cute Ophthalmologist who checked her, informed us that her eyes are getting better and they would work on her power test in 2 weeks' time. The frequency of administering the eye drops have also reduced, though we still have to continue it for another 4 weeks. My mother now doesn't have to wear the dark glasses and she can even take small walks around the house. And promptly this evening, she went to the kitchen and made some rasam and cabbage kari, during a 30 minute window when my father had stepped out of the house and I was busy in my room upstairs!

Anyways, I know what my next two posts are going to be. One, is about the traffic violation ticket I got on 30th September and the other is on Endhiran movie, that I am going to watch on the 3rd at 8 AM at Vetri theatre, Chrompet.

Dont be silly, it was just a visit to Nalli

2010-09-20T00:20:00.001+05:30

Last Friday (10th Sep.), my parents dragged me along to a place created solely for the purpose of punishing mankind. And by mankind, I am not talking about the human race per se. I am referring strictly to the "man"kind. If you are still not clear what I mean, I can bet that you are either a woman or you are a man still reeling under the impact of a recent visit to Nalli.

And just in case the owners of Nalli happen to chance upon this blog and find it offensive, let me clarify that by saying Nalli, I refer to all these textile shops, a.k.a "javulli kadai" in local parlance. You can clearly see that, thanks to my visit to Nalli, my cognitive abilities have been compromised and now, instead of being sued by one shop, the whole of T. Nagar is going to be up in arms against me.

I was made to visit this shop because (a) we wanted to kill some time before heading out to a matrimonial registration office and (b) my mother had to buy some sarees. For those of you who have not visited Nalli during the off-season, please be advised that it is ridiculous to think that the shop is crowded only during on-season. The difference between off-season and on-season is simple - during the latter, there are 4 ladies trying to get hold of the same saree whereas during the former, only 3 are competing for the same item. The other main contributor to this is that the off-season lasts for probably 5 hours during the month of Purattaasi.

As we entered the great Nalli shop opposite Panagal Park, we were first presented with the "Parking Full" signboard at the gate. Like most normal people, I assumed that the parking lot was indeed full and more than the assumption, it was a valid excuse for me to swing away from the shop. However, I didn't realize that there was a Nalli specialist inside the car - my mother.

She just told me to proceed through the gate and drop them off there. Her reasoning was that they always put up that board too drive away someone who is trying to simply use their parking space. I proceeded to follow her instructions and stopped the car after entering the gates. While my parents were getting down, I was slightly distracted by a girl in a Pink salwar and had become deaf to whatever the Security guard was telling me.

After a couple of "Saar....Saar" sounds that initially appeared to come from a distant planet, I realized that someone was actually addressing me. It was the Security guard who simply asked me to try my luck in their parking lot that was at the back of their shop. I moved my car reluctantly, though in hindsight, am not sure if the reluctance was because I was moving away from what looked to be a promising sight or if it was because there seemed to be no escaping the Nalli visit.

I was then guided by some parking attendants, dressed as security guards though, to a vacant spot somewhere in the extremities of the shop. I walked back to the shop to find my parents waiting at the entrance and we proceeded to make a verb of that noun.

Once inside the shop, we were greeted with the quintessential montage of Nalli - light brown lighting interspersed with bright yellow focus lights, people of all shapes in groups of varied sizes, awesome Air-conditioning and sad men. But not all men were sad. While a significant number of men in the shop were sad, quite a few of the lucky ones were rushing to pay their obeisance to the shop so that they could get out and the rest were in a state as being somewhere between unconsciousness and deep sleep.

And then of course, were the male employees who, in the eyes of a raging teenager, may have the world's best job, but who in those same eyes some 5 years later, become an extremely pitiable species.

My mother actually made some real quick selection of sarees, once she reached her desired "section" - the section being "Bengal Cotton". I did my best to not participate in the whole selection process, but she insisted that I pick something. And I quite literally picked up the one at the top of the pile on display. She liked the color and the design and I thought I could now escape further participation by virtue of having selected one. However, she was so impressed with my selection, that she asked to select the next one too.

Grudgingly, I did pick one more and declared clearly that I wouldn't be selecting any more. Then came the whole "blouse matching" episode. This activity is precisely what the learned folks once said, "You cant fix a square hole in a round peg" or something to that effect. That is because, the whole effort is now to match the colors made using completely different set of pigments, using completely different set of procedures and finally ending up on a completely different material.

But the deed had to be done and it was done. However, I stayed away from doing actual work and tried to take some much rest by sitting on the mini cane chairs placed in the middle of the floor. I must add that the placement was quite strategic in that while you are seated, you get the impression that you are actually resting, but it is still close enough for the person doing the matching work to be able to constantly bombard you with questions around how good the match is.

Anyways, my mother was done with most of her selection and my father then goaded her into buying one more saree. She now decided to go to some other section and I was then given the enviable task of carrying the already selected items and placing them near one of the billing counters. Turns out, that shops like Nalli, actually have a dedicated "Credit Card Counter" and so, I went to place the items on that table. But I was a bit skeptical that someone else may actually bill those items and take them along. Even as I was standing there contemplating this possibility, a helpful Nalli representative approached me. He would have seen similar facial expressions on the numerous children who I am sure, get lost routinely at that shop. When I told him about my confusion, he asked me as to why would someone pay for someone else's purchase.

I thought that maybe there's a shopper's code of integrity or some such thing, whereby once items reach the billing counter, others would not try to poach on them. I then proceeded to join my mother and once again, I helped her in picking up another saree. Then the whole "matching" process started and this time, we were directed to some other section of the shop which was at the third floor of their annexe building which had an entry from the main store itself.

After winding through some stairs and floors, we finally completed the task at this new section and started our return trip to the aforementioned "Credit Card Counter". En route, I saw the same pink salwar girl I mentioned earlier in this narrative. I then recognized her as the Vijay TV compere, Ramya. This Ramya, from whatever little I have seen on TV, was quite plump, but in person, was not so. I tried pointing her to my mother, but by the time she understood what I was trying to say, the celebrity had gone off somewhere in the maze.

We went on to the billing process, where there was the usual "might is right" pushing and shoving by everyone to get their billing done first. I finally got mine done after signing the credit transaction slips and also the merchant copy of the invoice! I was afraid that the guy manning the counter may ask me to sign some ledger, but thankfully, he didn't

Our goods were then packed in the traditional Nalli method of first putting them in a brown bag and sealing it with a paper tape. That method to tape the brown bag, used to amaze me as a kid and was probably the only good memory I have of that shop. I think you know what I am talking about - a small roller which holds the paper tape with "Nalli" printed on it at regular intervals. The tape is then rolled out and some part of it is made to go through a small wet roller and is then cut to a small strip size. This strip is then pasted on the brown bag as a seal. Simple stuff, but very impressive for a child!

Like they say, "All good things must come to an end" and I would further extend it and say that "All bad things also come to an end". Once we collected our bags and headed out through the blast of cold air that Nalli provides at its main entrance, I heaved a huge sigh of relief. Never before (and never again I hope) had the hot and humid weather of Chennai and the madness called Panagal Park and T. Nagar, felt more appealing, than at that moment.

For a more awesome report on a visit to Nalli, please read this.

Why Roger, why?

2010-09-12T22:28:00.000+05:30

I think Roger has lost it. Maybe the robot that was inside him has been used in the Endhiran movie, but the bottom-line is that he has now become mortal.

We have all witnessed a Champion annihilate the mortals in the last 5+ years. We are also seeing the Champion become that mortal in the last 2 years. Now, will this mortal become the Champion again?

That, in my opinion, would forever eliminate any doubts on the fact that Roger Federer is the greatest tennis player of all time.

I need counseling

2010-09-07T22:29:00.000+05:30

As I may have chronicled in this blog, I have the option of working out of any one of the two locations where my office has opened shop. The option is not really official, but more of an agreement with my bosses, who have been kind enough to permit this luxury.

But of late, I have been using the slightest of opportunities to work out of the office closer home. With every passing day, it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to commute to the office farthest from home. The commute is taking up 3-4 hours daily and I am simply not able to take it mentally and physically.

However, I am also feeling guilty that I am abusing an option that has been given to me. My bosses can simply tell me to limit the number of times I visit the office closer home or worse, simply revoke the privilege. Would I end up killing the goose that has been laying the golden egg?

What scares me more is the fact that at a sub-conscious level, I seem to be tuning myself away from the main location of work. Just look at this: Last Friday, my alarm woke me up at 5:30 as usual. But in what is a first for me, I simply reset the alarm to an hour later, with the plan to go to the office closer home and resumed my sleep. And yesterday (Monday), I again got up at 5:30 and even made it to the bus stop. But, I was 5 minutes late and had missed the bus. On previous occasions that I've missed the bus, I usually take my car and go to office. But this time, I took the car and simply went to the office closer home. And to top all of this, this morning (Tuesday), I again got up at 5:30. I've been feeling a little queasy due to a slight bout of acidity and I actually used that as an excuse and didn't even go to office today.

So basically, the very fact that I need to travel that far has made me tune myself out. But is it just the commute that is causing me to behave like this or is there something else deeper to look into? I need counseling.

The Crow in my car

2010-08-29T22:47:00.000+05:30

With the arrival of the Blue Eyed Boy at home, 3 months back, my Baleno has been relegated to the front parking spot at home. This evening, a small crow suddenly fell down between my car and the wall of the house. In our attempts to shoo it away, we only succeeded in making the crow take refuge underneath the car.

The next thing we did was to try and scare it by spraying water from one end of the car, with the hope that it would then totter over from the other side. But the poor thing got scared and somehow, managed to rest on the axle of the rear wheel on the right side.

I then tried kicking the tyre and shaking my car, hoping that the crow would budge, but it didn't I then took a rather long broom, reached in from the back of the car and tried to poke it out. And all that I managed to do was to bring out the best manoeuvre of the crow, which somehow squeezed itself on to the tyre of my car. As seen in the picture below:

I now hoped that since it was technically on the outside of the car, it would jump out. I continued to shake the car, albeit this time it was from the back. Again, no movement. I brought out a torch and checked whether the crow was caught somewhere in the gaps and had probably died. But even the dim ray of light from the torch showed that the crow was alive.

I gathered courage and tried poking the crow using the broom. Somehow, the crow didn't mind all this poking and I started to suspect that it probably liked the poking. Maybe it was getting a crow's equivalent of an acupuncture treatment.

I then called up my friend who is generally quite knowledgeable in all matters under the sun (also in the sun, over the sun and to the sides of the sun). But for some vague reason, he seemed to be more interested in talking to his brother in the US than even trying to find out why I was calling him in the first place. And in a twist of fate, his brother didn't continue the call and so, he called me back to find out the problem. And his solution was to start the car or honk it or both or for good measure, try moving the car slowly. I was quite petrified in doing any or all of it, but as any trusted disciple would do, followed my master.

I started my car and released the parking brake, with the hope that the little movement in the wheels would get the crow going. But no. So, finally my parents and one of their senior citizen friends who was talking to them at our gate, strongly advised me to simply walk away from the car. The reasoning behind that idea was that the crow was bound to get bored and walk away.

I accepted this option and lo behold, the baby crow started cawing in a couple of minutes. This attracted a couple of bigger crows in the vicinity and finally, one of them bigger ones came down to ground. It inspected the source of the caw and from the manner in which it was running around the car, cawing back and forth with the younger one, I am strongly inclined to think that this bigger one was the Mother Crow and right or wrong, I am going to refer to this crow with that title for the remainder of this post. The usage of words like Mother Crow and Baby Crow may make you think that I am reading too many children's book, but rest assured that it is not the case. You can see the Mother Crow's work here:

The cawing continued and the Mother Crow started jumping towards the Baby Crow's perch, to try and pull the Baby Crow out. It didn't really succeed and moreover, the Mother Crow also started getting quite concerned that I was standing in the vicinity.

Initially I was only trying to take a video of the whole rescue operation. But I felt that with the darkness increasing, the crows may probably not be able to execute their rescue plan correctly.

So I took the torch and started shining it towards the wheelbase, though I was at least some 5-6 feet diagonally away from the front-right side of the car (as should be evident from the pictures). But the Mother Crow somehow didn't like me acting like the Nightingale With The Lamp and started approaching me with louder caws.

Communication, as you may have heard in multiple forums, is not just about what you convey in your language, it is quite often about what you convey without saying anything, using your body language. Similarly, in this case, while I didn't understand what the Mother Crow was cawing to me, I sure did understand from its rather aggressive approach towards where I was standing, that it didn't want me to shine the torch at it or its Baby.

After a couple of more attempts, the Baby Crow finally decided to budge out of its hiding or resting place and actually jumped out of the wheelbase to the cemented ground below. The Mother Crow came close and somehow egged on this Baby Crow to fly up, though the flight was just a high jump of 3 feet, into the branches of a tree nearby. You can see this video here (Apologies for the poor quality video):

All in all, it was a rather interesting evening for me. I found the drama that unfolded in front of me, quite charming actually!

You can see both videos here:

Video 1
Video 2

The summer of '88 - part 3

2010-08-23T21:00:00.001+05:30

Continued from this post...

The opponents came out to bat and their batsmen had a jolly good time for the next 30 overs, which was where the innings typically concluded in these matches. And when I say jolly good time, I mean it in a very polite manner.

To be honest, we were hammered around the park. Remember India batting against Bermuda in 2007 World Cup? This was pretty much the same thing. I don't remember my bowling figures nor the number of runs they scored in total, but all I know is that the former was quite bad and the latter was alarmingly bad for us.

When our turn came to bat, we were able to prove to them that our batting skills were as bad as our bowling skills. We must have been bundled out in 15-20 overs I think. And I didn't do well with the bat either - I was a lower middle-order batsman - and till date, I feel that I got a bad decision.

Just on that day, my regular bat was being used by the non-striker and I had to take some other bat, which was much lighter than the one I was used to. And for some reason, the non-striker refused to part with my bat even when my turn came - he said he was scoring well with it!

Anyways, I had gone on the back-foot to work an off-spinner to the square-leg for a quick run. But by virtue of having a lighter bat, I seemed to have completed my stroke much earlier than the ball arrived. And when it arrived, it hit me on the thigh pad of my left leg. I thought that the ball was going down the leg side and that it was also high.

But the umpire preferred to hold a different opinion and ruled me LBW. That day, I felt cheated and that is also the reason why I am able to remember so many justifications as to why I got into the position wherein I could be given out and also why I should still have not been given out.

The only good thing about the whole match was that all of us sucked. Really sucked. But then, our affluent team-mate took us inside MAC. By inside, I mean into the actual playing field. We were taken close to the pitch and were allowed to generally wander around the outfield. He then took us to the pavilion area and showed us around the gym. He took us to a restaurant there and all of us had some sandwich and juice. All on his tab - his father's tab rather.

We came back to school and all the eager followers wanted to know what happened. And all that we could narrate was our trip into the MAC grounds and not really about the thrashing that we got in the match.

And that I think was the last match I played for my school. The following year, when I was in class IX, I somehow didn't participate much in cricket or basically have no proper memory. And once class X came up, my parents realized that my cricketing skills weren't good enough to compensate for my average academic performance.

So, that's how my cricketing life came to an end at school. I never played any formal cricket until I joined work some 10 years later. Those were interesting times too and I can also never forget the real competitive cricket I played in the USA. I am saving those stories for some other rainy day.

The summer of '88 - Part 2

2010-08-22T21:30:00.000+05:30

Contd. from this post...

The shock was that the entire ground was flooded with water. It was one huge pond there and not a cricket ground. The flooding was because of the rains I had mentioned in my previous post.

So, we just waited there for the umpires and opponents to show up. The umpires did show up, but the opponents did not. After waiting for some mandatory period, the umpires informed us that by virtue of being physically present at the venue and in the absence of the opponent team, we were given a "walk-over" to the next round.

We all returned happily to school, though the happiness was mainly around the travel in the luxury car and the fact that we could brag to people around us about our entry to the second round.

Our next match was scheduled in a couple of days' time and in the meanwhile, we came to know that all the other U-15 teams of our school had been eliminated in the first round itself! That came as quite a bit of shock to us, primarily because our school has always had a pretty good reputation in the cricketing circles. On top of that, the A team that was formed was indeed quite strong and hence all of us were in real shock.

Anyways, our next match-day came up and this time around the match was scheduled in the "nearby" ground of TI Cycles, Ambattur. Once again, we all set out in that great car and were once again presented with a ground in a rather bad state thanks to the rains in the interim period. Lady luck favored us again and this time too, it was only the umpires who showed up and not our opponents. We were through to the next round, once again due to "walk-over".

When the news spread to the less knowledgeable circles in the school that the U-15 D team was through to Round 3, there was a general admiration at this achievement. Those who had a more inquisitive mindset wanted to know the scores of the match and that was usually where we got busted. But, we didn't care and simply moved on.

Believe it or not, the third match was at the same venue after a couple of days and the story simply repeated itself. We were now through to the 4th round without even having to call heads-or-tails in the preceding three rounds.

At this point, we started becoming the laughing stock. We could no longer take refuge under this slew of walk-overs and wanted to play an actual match. I think we prayed at the wrong time, because the next match was against one of the best, if not the best, cricketing schools in Chennai. And adding to our woes, the rains started disappearing too.

Our 4th round match was scheduled at MAC 'B' ground. This ground is on the same compound as the M.A.Chidambaram Stadium at Chepauk, Chennai. We were now extremely proud that we got a match in THE cricket stadium of Chennai.

We reached the venue on time. And for the first time in 4 matches, we were greeted by an opponent team. The umpires also came around and we were all set for the match to start. I was always penned down for the final playing XI and that was the case this time as well. And I used to open the bowling for my team too, though I was always the one to bowl the second over.

The toss was won by our opponents and they opted to bat first. Or in local parlance, they wanted the first gaajee.

To be continued...

The summer of '88

2010-08-20T22:25:00.000+05:30

As should be evident to those who experience the current weather in Chennai or follow the same through other sources of information, this August has been quite vague. For that matter, most of the formal summer season (April-August is the formal summer. All other months are the informal summer.) this year has been like this.

There are the usual hot and humid days of course, but there have also been a lot of rains in this period. Typically, we only get a short spell of two of rains during these months and even that is most often due to some cyclonic storm forming in the Bay of Bengal.

But this year, the weather in Chennai seems to be moving from Tropical to Equatorial. Every hot day or a couple of hot days, is invariably followed by a heavy spell of rain. And this spell has sometimes lasted for 2-3 days.

While the doomsday believers may attribute this to the end of the world and the more informed ones may blame Global Warming for this, the only thoughts I have are of a similar weather pattern that Chennai experienced in the year 1988.

Want to know why I remember that year more than any other? Long story.....

In the years 1987-1988, I was an active cricketer in my school. I was a constant part of the Under-12 and Under-13 cricket teams. Not that I was someone extraordinary on the field, but was more like the Manoj Prabhakar or Ravindra Jadeja type of player – players who basically seem to be able to do many things, but in reality are not really good at anything!

In 1988, I was in Class XIII and therefore, was eligible to play for the Under-15 team. While many had to undergo selections, those of us in the U-12 and U-13 teams were automatically moved into the U-15 teams. I say U-15 teams because there were usually 2-3 teams every year.

When the final list for the U-15 teams of that year were announced (pasted on the notice board to be precise), I saw that there were 4 teams – A, B, C and D. The teams seemed to have been formed based on the principle that the A team was the best and the D team was the worst. And guess which team I was on?

If you said D because you think that's where I should belong based on the details I shared earlier about my skills, well you are right. Except that you are wrong. My name was not in the D team list. So, do you think there is an anti-climax here and thought I was on the A team? Wrong again, because I was not. So, do you think I was the average dude and hence got placed in either the B or the C teams?

Ha ha ha... Wrong again. To cut another potentially long paragraph short, my name was not listed at all. All my fellow U-12 and U-13 players were in the A or B teams, while my name was not listed anywhere. I hurriedly checked with the PT master who directed me to our trusted marker, Ravi. Ravi realized the mistake and was wondering where to slot me.

His thinking process was along these lines:
Team A is quite strong and this guy probably didn't belong there. Team B and C seem to be okay too, so let me not disturb that. Team D seems to be doomed anyway and maybe I will simply add his name to the list.

And so he did.

Quite soon, the TNCA Under-15 tournament started and we got our first match scheduled at the YMCA grounds Nandanam. I don't remember the date of the match, but I do remember traveling in the Standard 2000 car of one of the guys in my team, to the venue. This guy was my classmate and a really rich guy. Most of us in school came from normal middle-class backgrounds and traveling by a car was a luxury suited for the rich kids. And we sure as hell were in awe whenever this guy used to come to school in a Standard 2000 car, which is an iconic car that was far ahead of its time in India.

Anyways, we all reached the venue and were in for some shock.

To be continued.....

80K to 2K in 7 years

2010-08-04T23:01:00.000+05:30

More than 7 years ago, I returned to India after spending the previous 3 years in the City of Angels a.k.a Los Angeles.

As part of the settling back process in India, I wanted to go in for a big screen television set. A 29" TV, at that time, was considered to be a slightly up-market item and since I was the typical "US-returned" guy, I sure wanted to own one.

So, I dragged my folks along to the Sony World showroom in R.A.Puram and looked around for big screen TVs. They had one 29" TV with Picture-In-Picture and I decided to go for it.

The problem, as my parents saw it, was the TV cost almost Rs.80,000.00. Yes, Rupees Eighty Thousand only. But in my thought process I was, like, "Haey, that's just $2,000.00". And much to the chagrin of my parents, I was very firm on buying it. And I did.

Please note that it was a regular picture-tube based TV and not any of those LED/LCD/Projector TVs that had started making their appearance in the market. But all that I saw in those initial days of returning from the US, was having lot of money and some freedom to spend it!

We have had that TV till today. It was very much in working condition till about a couple of years back, when a small patch of green started appearing in the left bottom corner of the screen. It wouldn't really be visible, unless the program being watched had an image in white color in that area. The Sony service folks couldn't do anything about it and so we just let it be.

Around that time, I decided to have a second TV and got me a Panasonic. This one too was a 29", but cost me only Rs.17,000.00. So, the Sony was left in the first floor of my house for the occasional viewing. That too, was done mainly by my mother, who after the "thief incident", stopped going upstairs except to sleep.

So, the TV was lying idle for more than a year and a couple of months back, we found that it even refused to switch on. The Sony service guy checked it and said that it was time to scrap it. And that, at best, we could get around Rs.2,000.00.

We checked with some of the guys who buy used TVs and the best offer we got was Rs.2,000.00. So, finally, the great Sony 29" 80K INR TV was sold off for a whopping amount of 2K INR.

I have learnt my lesson very well. There is no point in spending that much money for any of these electronic equipment because there is absolutely no return for the investment. And worse, the cost of the product drops sharply every month and even worse, they drop sharper the minute I buy something.

I have pretty much stuck to that resolution and would of course be breaking it when the Apple iPhone 4 gets officially launched in India soon.

Thillalangadi Movie Review - The-ill-all-and-kadi movie

2010-07-31T22:44:00.000+05:30

This movie is really bad. Easily one of the worst I have seen in recent times. Horrible direction. Pathetic editing. Absolutely hideous music. And totally over-the-board acting by everyone. I haven't seen much of Jayam Ravi's movies, but I can say for sure that he is not at all suited for comedy.
The only saving grace of course, for infatuated souls like mine, is watching Tamannah on the big screen.

Vaazhga Tamizh - வாழ்க தமிழ்

2010-06-24T22:13:00.000+05:30

வணக்கம்.

தற்சமயம் தமிழக அரசு, தமிழ் செம்மொழி மாநாடு ஒன்றினை கோவை நகரத்தில் நடத்தி வருகிறது.

இந்த தருன்ணத்தில், தங்கள்ளுடன் நான் எனது தமிழ் புலமையை வெளிக்காட்ட விரும்புகிறேன்.

நான் பகிர்ந்து கொள்ள விரும்பும் இச்சம்பவம், எனது 2வது அல்லது 3வது வகுப்பில் நடந்ததாகும். எங்களது தமிழ் பாடத்தில், பெருந்தலைவர் காமராஜரை பற்றி ஒரு பகுதி இருந்தது.

ஒருமுறை, ஏதோ ஒரு பரிட்சையில் இப்பாடதிலிருந்து கேள்ளவி கேட்கப்பட்டது. வினாத்தாளில் "காமராஜர் கள்ளுக் கடை மறியலை முன்னின்று நடத்தினார்" என்று எழுத வேண்டும். ஆனால் நானோ, "காமராஜர் கள்ளுக் கடையை முன்னின்று நடத்தினார்" என்று எழுதி விட்டேன்.

இதனை படித்த எனது தமிழ் வாத்தியார், எனது பெற்றோரிடம் அதை காட்ட, அனைவரும் வெகு விமரிசையாக எள்ளி நகையாடினார்கள்.

இன்று வரை, எங்கள் வீட்டில், நான் எப்பொழுது எனது தமிழ் புலமையை வெளிக்கொணர முயல்வேனோ, அப்பொழுது எல்லாம், எனது பெற்றோர், மேலே விவரித்த சம்பவத்தை நினைவு கூர்ந்து, என்னை வெகுவாக கிண்டல் செய்வார்கள்.

வாழ்க தமிழ்.

I have progressed

2010-06-20T15:14:00.000+05:30

Two Thursdays back, a few days short of completing the first month of my fifth year with my current employer, I received, for the first time, a letter that indicated that I have been moved to the next role. And to make things clearer, the movement is to the next higher role and not in the other direction.

While the reader may think that this is something great and worthy of some kind of celebration, truth be told, this is the first time in my career that upon receiving such a communication, I had a level of composure that even a Zen practitioner would have envied, if a Zen practitioner could indeed envy.

In theory, I could have gotten this change in 2007, but at the time of consideration of role change, it was just my first year in the organization. When the time came in 2008, I felt that I wasn’t given the change as a penalty for everything that transpired in the middle of 2007 – I have chronicled the sufferings in these posts between June and October of 2007. And in 2009, I was deemed to have improved drastically, but since I hadn’t passed a set of internal certifications, I wasn’t eligible to get this change.

But this time around, I was eligible on all parameters and more importantly, was still deemed to be good enough to get the change. And with the support of my current bosses, I did get it this time.

In my opinion, I work the same way that I worked 3 years back. The real big difference from then on has been the internal customers for my project, who have been a thoroughly professional lot and have been extremely co-operative. There have been instances where I have slipped up, but instead of focusing their energy in just blaming me, they have gone around and helped me get back on track. That was not the case 3 years ago, when a similar group was only intent on associating the project’s risk squarely on me.

And I have also been very fortunate to get a pretty cooperative team and more importantly, I had a couple of outstanding folks working at my client’s office. Were it not for these guys, I don't think I would have progressed this time either.

So what have I become now? To quote a comment I made in Facebook, I have now become a Senior Vetti Officer from being a regular Vetti Officer. And Vetti Officer = Project Manager.

Based on the current organizational structure in my company, I won’t be eligible to be promoted for another 3 years at the minimum. This structure was revamped late last year and hence, quite a few people who were in higher levels are now at the same level that I am in. So, I will have a pretty tough competition 3 years later, when the already senior crowd would obviously be more favored to move on. Let’s wait and see what happens in the future!

The classical weekend

2010-06-08T21:41:00.000+05:30

This last weekend can be called a classical one for me, primarily because I attended a Bharatanatyam Arangaetram on Sunday (6th June). The venue of the event was the mini hall at Music Academy. And the girl who gave the Arangaetram (along with her friend) is the daughter of my boss.

My parents too were invited to the event and that would probably explain why I was there at the venue at the exact indicated time. We found a very comfortable spot in the row of seats, away from the blow of the AC vents – the outside temperature was lower than normal due to an unforeseen spell of rain the previous night. Couple of my friends had also come, along with their spouse and kids wherever applicable, and they occupied seats around mine.

The event started pretty much on time, with the usual lighting of the kuthu villakku, invocation to Pillayar etc. The girls then started their dance recital and I must admit that I didn’t understand what was happening.

If you know me, you will also know that I am slightly cut away from all traditional art forms like Carnatic music, Bharatanatyam or even fine arts like paintings, sculptures etc. Not that I am very proud of it, but that doesn’t alter the truth. Earlier, I used to not even listen to classical stuff or watch it. But my years in LA have enabled me to at least develop a great level of tolerance. And the tolerance didn’t develop because I listened to lot of classical music there, but it was mainly because I was made to listen to lots and lots and really lots of Illayaraja music. Again, if you know me, you will also know how much I abhor that brand of music, though there continue to be a lot of fan(atic)s for his music.

Anyways, I reckoned that when I could listen to Illayaraja music, simply because I had quite a bit of a symbiotic relationship with many of the folks there, then I might as well give some space to Carnatic music. And believe it or not, when my parents had come there, I even attended a vocal concert by Unni Krishnan. Furthermore, I even attended a flute concert by Shashank, though I had some other agenda behind attending that programme. ;)

Coming back to this dance recital, the two girls went about their routine and I was really having no clue about what was happening. I didn’t know if they were dancing good or bad. All I noticed was that my boss’ daughter was dancing slower than the other girl on the stage – she seemed to be a step slower.

Now, if it is any of the free-form dances, all you need to see is if the dancers are in sync with the music. So, I decided to apply that same logic here. I could then see that the girl I deemed to be slower, was actually more in sync with the beats/rhythm of the song and the other girl seemed to be rushing through the motions. And that seemed to be the opinion of my parents and I found out today, that a couple of my friends also felt the same way.

Even as the dance was going on, my friend made her 4-5 year old son sit on the seat next to mine. I tried to engage him in some conversation sans words. I was simply moving my head in many directions and he also mimicked my moves. I raised my eyebrows and he made sincere attempts to do the same. I again returned to the head movement and I guess that irked him. He simply pointed a finger at me and then at the stage and repeated that one more time, just to ensure that I didn’t lose the message! This was the second public snub that I got in a span of 10 days – the first one being at the hands of the priest at the temple when I went for the poojai of my new car.

I had spotted couple of other friends standing at the entrance of the hall and I then decided to join them. We all went out to just have a break from culture and after 10 minutes or so, returned to the hall. I went back to my seat to watch the remaining part of the show.

After a total of around 90 minutes, the event came to an end. The chief guests then came on stage and were asked to speak a few words. The first one was actress Devayani – of Kolangal fame. All that she could manage to say in her best saettu Tamizh, was best wishes to the kids, their parents and the dance teacher. Next, was the wife of cinema director K.S.Ravikumar, who too repeated the script, but in a Tamizh accent soaked more in Tamil Nadu. The main chief guest (!) was Dance master Raghuram. This guy is the brother of the dance master mentioned earlier and also happens to be related to the famous Bharatanatyam exponent Padma Subramaniam. (Digressing as usual, she was the one who gave away my Bachelor’s degree during the convocation held for my batch in my college).

This dude basically came up to the mike and said the usual stuff for around two minutes. Then he said that the parents had asked him to point out any mistakes or areas of improvement as well. He then said that everyone had gathered here only to bless the kids and not really to find faults. Then, he rambled on a lot about how great his sister was and how great he was and how divine his sister was and how he was still rooted to the classical arts though he was in the cinema industry. There was a subtle message that he and his sister were equal, if not better, than their aunt Padma Subramaniam.

He suddenly referred to a conversation he had with a legend of Bharatanatyam – Dhananjayan – who’d apparently asked him why the dance movements in movies had become so crass. His response was that none of the dances he choreographs are vulgar. That none of the dances his disciples (also relatives) like “Kala Master” or “Brinda Master” were bad either. He proudly said that his retort to D was whether he thought the Bharatanatyam form practiced today was of the same standards as it was 30 years ago. It seems he also asked D to take care that this form remained pure forever.

Then came the “coup de grâce” to the kids, after he started his speech saying that he wasn’t going to point out faults. He claimed that these two danced without involvement. He questioned them that when they had such supporting parents and such a divine teacher, why were they not showing involvement? He went on to equate that to a situation where their parents brought curd rice made of thick curd out of cow’s milk and served it to them on a golden plate and yet, these kids refused to eat? Didn’t they eat because they weren’t hungry or didn’t they eat because they didn’t want to?

I guess, he at realized that he may have gone a bit far, because, he immediately said that they were dancing very well. They seemed to have good movements, seemed to have good samudrika lakshanam for dance and just that they didn’t show involvement. And that too, they showed 90% involvement and they only need to bring that additional 10% on board to ensure that they scale greater heights. It was a line of speech that we managers frequently use during performance appraisals!

Anyways, the event finally wound up and my parents were quite famished by then. There were some last minute gifts being distributed to the orchestra folks and since there was quite a lot of crowd, we decided to leave the hall without formally saying bye to my boss.

And yes, I think I am interested in watching some Bharatanatyam performance in the near future!

The Blue Eyed Boy has come home – my new Wagon-R

2010-05-31T23:27:00.000+05:30

Last Thursday, the 27th of May 2010, I drove home my new Wagon-R. This is Suzuki's revamped Wagon-R model, which is seeing changes in the interiors, the exteriors and also the mechanicals. Yet, it still retains enough identity to be recognized as a Wagon-R, thanks to its height, which is supposedly the tallest in its class.

Maruti Suzuki has launched this car in April 2010 with the tag line "The Blue Eyed Boy" and have gone ahead and placed a small blue colored glass above the new and bold headlamps, giving the image of an eyebrow above the eye. I bought the top-end VXi model and it has left me lighter in the bank balance by around INR 4.28 Lakhs. For other details on the car, you can visit Maruti Suzuki's website.

While we were waiting for the car to be registered and in fact, for the car to reach the dealer, we went through the usual routine of identifying an auspicious day. We requested the salesperson to ensure that the car was registered only on the day we indicated. However, due to some issues in the shipment, there was a delay by 2 days and we were left with a situation of having to postpone the registration by almost a week. That would have also meant an additional cost of 8K INR, because the TN government had passed a bill to hike the registration cost of new vehicles by 2% effective 1st June.

So, after much breaking of head, we finally decided to take delivery of the car on Thursday, the 27th of May and then get it registered the next day. But luckily, the dealer was able to get even the registration done on the 27th itself. So, that evening, I went to pick up the car, along with my father.

As part of handing over the car, the guys at the dealer actually do a poojai first and then hand over the keys to you. They put a garland, apply sandal-kungumam spots at various strategic locations on the glass and do a full-fledged karpooram lighting. We are then asked to drive out by squeezing out lemons placed in front of each wheel.

But, this above poojai was by the dealer. The car owners also have to do a poojai at the temple of their choice. Ours, was the Varasiddhi Vinayagar temple. I went and parked the car there and one of the priests who was right at the entrance, came forward. We told him that we wanted to do the car poojai and he said in the most nonchalant manner possible, "pannalaamae".

He then asked me to pop the hood. I went back and started feeling the usual place where the hood release is available. But I just couldn't locate it. A frantic search, accompanied by attempts to throw some light from my mobile phone in the area, was launched, but to no avail. The priest seeing my predicament, asked me to step aside. And in a matter of barely 1.63 seconds, he located the lever to release the trunk. The worst part after this was the "smirky" look he gave me. I don't think I have felt so much shame in the recent past.

He then went about his duty doing all the archanais at the various sannidhis and also came up and did the karpoora aaradhanai in and around the car. I finally came home by 8 PM in the new car.

I haven't driven much in the last 5 days that it has come here. I went out with my parents to the local temples on Saturday and I met up with few friends on Sunday evening. But I find the car to be quite good in the 40 odd Kms that I have driven so far.

2 months after we bought our first car, I went off to the US for 3 years. Barely 2 weeks after the second car was bought, I was shuttled out to Zurich for 2 weeks and in the following year, I was packed off to Bangalore and Melbourne for almost 6 months. Let's wait and see if that "luck" would continue with this one as well.

A skill that most people tend to ignore

2010-05-24T22:49:00.000+05:30

A couple of months back, there was a recruitment drive in my company and I was on the interview panel, along with some 20 others.

I must have interviewed at least 10 to 12 candidates that day and I think I selected some 6 or 7 for further discussions with HR.

Just last week, I saw one of the guys I'd selected, in the same floor where I am seated. I didn't recognize him at first, though I felt that his face was quite familiar. He too looked keenly at me and his body language displayed some amount of discomfiture. I somehow recollected that I had interviewed him and so checked with him about it. He confirmed my statement, I wished him luck and went my way.

This morning, a lady (calling her a lady since she's married) walked into my cubicle and again, it was familiar face. I remembered that she too was one of the candidates I had interviewed. She said she joined last week and after seeing me on the floor, wanted to inform me about joining here. The best part, was that she said she even saw me at the Ampa SkyWalk mall (must have been on the day I watched Paiyya).

When someone you select in an interview joins the company, it does give you a great sense of satisfaction. But, between these two folks, I am obviously happier with what this lady did. She remembered who interviewed her, remembered their name and more importantly, when she saw that guy on the same floor, had the decency to walk up to that person's cubicle and inform that she had joined the company.

The other guy, either didn't remember me or didn't know if he had to meet me after joining or felt that wherever he was it was because he deserved it or somehow felt that there was no need for any such kind of socialising in an office. These are not things that one is taught anywhere and at some level, these are the small things that probably differentiate, or rather elevate, professionals who would otherwise be equals in technology, process, reasoning skills etc. I hope he learns that tip and uses it effectively in his career here.

It was not just the tree that killed Pavit Singh

2010-05-09T18:17:00.001+05:30

On the evening/night of 2nd May 2010, an accident took place at 3rd Avenue Besant Nagar. The stretch of the road is also referred to as the Besant Avenue. The accident spot is just off the curve around the Besant Scout Camp, when you travelling from Adyar towards Besant Nagar.

The accident was quite gruesome and involved a car crashing into a tree. The driver of the car, Pavit Singh, 21 years old, died on the spot. I express my heart-felt condolences to his near and dear.

I am not writing this post as a eulogy to the dead man, because, I just don't know who he is. I am writing this because, I am not happy with the outcome of this tragic event.

What was the outcome? Well, the Police and much of the public have arrived at the conclusion that the accident took place because of the tree that was in the middle of the road and the fatality ensued because the driver wasn’t wearing a seat belt. And the Police have gone ahead and cut down the trees. But, I beg to differ. The reason in my firm opinion is rash driving.

I have been travelling on that road for practically my entire life. I have been driving quite regularly too on that road. And if you drive with discipline, it is one of the most pleasurable drives you can get in the city, what with the smooth surface and dense foliage in the form of old trees. Even in the day time during peak summers, one can find a distinct difference in the temperature there.

However, the youth have been known to drive very indiscriminately on that stretch. The bikers are especially the worst of the lot. With the improving economy in the last few years, more cars have also joined the list.

The other fact is that, a lot of these drivers and riders are new to the stretch. They generally see a pretty wide stretch of good road with not much of traffic. That somehow triggers them to show off their speeding capabilities. And they naturally miss out the continuous warning signs placed on the road. The warning signs basically ask the motorists not to speed and also warn them about the presence of trees.

But once you are into speeding, you don't care about the signs. How can you care when you don't read them right? And adding to the thrill is the presence of a pretty good curve on the road near the Scout Camp. And the issue comes up right there.

Once you round the curve, the experienced (those who use that road regularly) motorists tend to keep to the middle of the road, because there are 2 big trees that are away from the “platform” and pretty much on the road. One of them in fact has a 2 feet gap between the platform and its trunk.

I have often seen the inexperienced drivers try to overtake other vehicles on the curve, from the left. They invariably head straight into the tree and then swerve right, into the regular lane to avoid it. This obviously causes trouble to the vehicle that is already there to the right.

Now coming back to this case, Pavit Singh is reported to have been driving a car with at least 4 others in his car. Some reports in fact suggest that there were 6. I heard from my friend that he was driving a new Maruti Ritz (he saw the damaged car near the Besant Nagar Police Station). And most of the passengers in the car were girls. And the average age of everyone in the car was 21 or 22. The accident took place late on Sunday night, because the reports appeared only on Tuesday in the local newspapers.

To me, that clearly says that the driver wouldn’t have been driving in a disciplined state, because, as a long term resident of the area (his house was in Indra Nagar and did his schooling in Adyar), he would be well aware of the tree. I am not alluding that he was under the influence of alcohol, but going by the other data available, I am willing to conclude that he was just showing off his driving skills to his buddies.

The tree just didn’t spring up when he took the curve. So don't blame the tree as being the cause of the accident. He wasn’t wearing a seat-belt and yes, that would have ensured the fatality. But, why wasn’t he wearing one? Do you know that Seat-belts are mandatory for the front occupants of the car and this is a rule ratified by the Supreme Court more than 10 years ago? So, why weren’t the Police booking people for not wearing their seat-belt?

And now everyone’s launching a campaign for educating people about wearing seat-belt. Why educate I ask? Just enforce the law!

I said earlier that this is not a eulogy for Pavit Singh. But after reading this rant, you may well think that this is a tirade against him. No, that is not my intent either. I have used this case of Pavit Singh, though it can very well be applied in toto to countless Amits, Rajendrans, Bashas and Daniels who drive badly.

My target audience for the rant is the Police who acted swiftly in ensuring that the trees in contention were cut off. If at all they were so concerned all these years, why did they not cut the tree earlier? If there were cases stopping them from cutting it, have they acted in contempt of court now? If there were protests to protect the trees, why didn’t they increase the patrolling on that stretch? Why didn’t they ensure that there was no speeding on that road? Why didn’t they put up speed-breakers on either side of the curve on both lanes? And why didn’t they put additional speed-breakers in the middle of that curve? Did they simply decide that the trees had to go and were waiting for a fatal accident to happen?

I will tell you this. Now that the trees are not there, more moronic motorists are going to be speeding up faster on that stretch. Mark my words, the next fatal accident is only around the corner – pun unintended.

P.S: You can read about the accident and the follow-up actions in these websites.

http://www.hindu.com/2010/05/04/stories/2010050460460300.htm

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Dont-miss-the-tree-for-the-road/articleshow/5887902.cms

http://lite.epaper.timesofindia.com/getpage.aspx?pageid=2&pagesize=&edid=&edlabel=TOICH&mydateHid=04-05-2010&pubname=&edname=&publabel=TOI

http://lite.epaper.timesofindia.com/getpage.aspx?pageid=2&pagesize=&edid=&edlabel=TOICH&mydateHid=05-05-2010&pubname=&edname=&publabel=TOI

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Victims-kin-plan-road-safety-drive/articleshow/5904939.cms

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pavit-Singh-SeatBelt-Campaign/119780684713527

The luncheon equilibrium

2010-05-03T02:00:00.001+05:30

My lunch group at work consists of many of my peers and a couple of seniors. The group has been steadily growing in numbers in the last 4 years and as a result, there are at least 8 of us at the table on an average day.

Though there may be seniors, till recently, not many of us had any direct reporting to anyone else (barring 1 or 2 here and there) and so, there was no underlying tension. However, in the past few months, there has been a significant change in the equation at the table.

What happened you wonder? Due to the sudden spike in the demand for people in one of the accounts, a lot of my friends have all been moved to fill in the gap. As a result, almost 80% of my lunch group now belongs to a single account. Moreover, they all now have a direct reporting into a couple of the seniors in the group as well. I am thankfully not part of that crowd and am still one of independent members in the group.

Previously, the conversations used to be around anything under the sun. We of course did have some shop talk and that would be inevitable in a group formed in the shop! But what I liked a lot was that since all of us very pretty much disconnected from each other in terms of the project we were working on, the managers we worked for etc., even when one person talked about the mundane irritants at work, there was always another person who could talk on the same topic, but with a slightly different flavour.

We got our chances to voice things about the processes or our managers without much restraint. And like I said before, even when we didn't have to talk about work, we always had so many other topics to discuss. In many ways, this was a good opportunity to de-stress yourself.

Not any more. These days, the conversation is invariably just around the account that most of my group currently works for. The issues they are facing. The support that they are not getting from others. How important they are. How big they are. How envious others are of them. What is the level of influence they have in the "system".

As ever, I try my best to steer the conversation to general topics. And I can clearly see that somehow everyone wants to return back to discussions surrounding the account. What used to friendly banter earlier, is fast turning into accusations and counter-justifications.

So, what has changed in this group? These are the same individuals, but with a closer peer equation and a clear line of reporting. Clearly, the friendship on display at the table, was clearly just that - a display. A display that always had an underlying current and the movement into a single umbrella has regulated this current to throw some light!

These days, I am almost keen on not joining them for lunch. Or for a caffeine break. Thankfully, I am spending a lot more time in the other office these days and that is certainly helping me a lot. I dunno how many days that can happen, because my visits to the other office has already started raising many an eyebrow.

Looks like it is time I find a different group for lunch and caffeine. And only time can tell me if it is going to be in this same company!

Just for the record

2010-05-02T22:44:00.000+05:30

Start record:

Last month - 3rd April to be precise - I climbed up the Tirumala mountains along with some of my colleagues. It was a near 3.5 hour walk. The darshan took only 6+ hours though!
And the previous night, I had an amazing darshan at Tiruchanur.
Had ill-effects of the 6 hour wait in the form of a strained back for a couple of days after returning.
This was my 3rd climb up the hill, the first one being in 1997 along with my buddies, with the precise prayer to Venky asking him to make me pass my Final Semester in Engineering.
The second one was in Feb 2006 as part of attending the wedding of my roommate in Los Angeles. I climbed up with a couple of my friends from my previous company.

End record.

The mini pilgrimage in March 2010 – Summary

2010-04-19T10:36:00.001+05:30

I have obviously not kept up my word of trying to blog more frequently. So, before time runs out, let me chronicle the remaining facets of the trip and move on to other topics soon.

From the previous post on this trip, you would have come to know that my mother just found out that her purse along with cash was missing.

After frantic searches of the various bags and even the car, we finally concluded that it was indeed lost. And the venue was most likely the temple in Tirumanacheri.

We reached the hotel and then called up the bank to get her ATM card blocked, since that was also there in the purse. We got the confirmation after multiple calls to them, that the card had indeed been blocked and also that no transactions had been done using that card. The monetary loss though was around 6K INR.

The rest of the evening was spent in taking rest, meeting up with a cousin and aunt who dropped by to the hotel. We then visited one of the local temples and called it a night.

The next day, we went to Kumbakonam. The main purpose was to visit Swami Malai where we hadnt been to in a long long time. And since we were going that far, we also had quick halts at Tirunageshwaram and Uppili Appan Kovil. These two temples are basically 2 gears on a car apart.

Swami Malai temple is quite different. It is on a small hillock kind of area, though it could very well be that the King who built it, basically just built it at an elevated level. After we climbed the two steeps sets of stairs, we bought special darshan tickets and waited in line. It was a perfect time to be there since the abhishekam was in progress. Afterwards, they did a complete alangaaram to Lord Subramanyam and believe you me, it was awesome. The one really different piece of decoration that I noticed was the headgear. It was not a crown nor was it the usual Indian style turban or mundaasu. The headgear looked exactly like what we have seen in pictures of George Washington or Robert Clive!

Anyways, we left the temple and had a 10 second drive-thru around the MahaMaham lake and then returned to the hotel. In the evening, we dropped in to my "mother's house" though due its very dilapitated state, we couldnt enter inside.

We left for Chennai that very night - the night of March 5th by Rathi Meena again. The guys once again, drove down to Chennai in a matter of 4.5 hours and I was able to continue my sleep on Saturday morning for some more time. I had to then go to Mylapore and pick up my car from Raghu before heading out to my project party, which incidentally also gave my first experience with paint ball. Paint ball is a game that looks quite easy to play, but like all games, is very difficult when you actually play it!

Anyways, it was a quite a hectic weekend for me and also for my parents. But one that we hope would yield the desired result soon.

Review of Paiyya movie - It is just P aiyya!

2010-04-18T22:35:00.000+05:30

Saw this horrible movie last Sunday - the 11th of April.

This is touted to be a one of its kind movie in Tamil, primarily because it is a "road-movie". Agreed, the basic premise is exactly that. But that "difference" alone, doesnt make it a good movie.

There is the usual callous hero who falls in love with the heroine the second he sees her. And then fate brings her right to him and he happily helps her go on a road-trip from Bangalore to Mumbai. Her agenda being an escape from her cruel father who under the influence of his second wife, wants to get his daughter wedded off to some rowdy.

Along the way, an assortment of goons despatched by the angered step-mother try to bring her back. They magically travel by the same road that the hero and heroine travel and are ably assisted by petrol bunks which in a cruel twist of fate, actually maintain invoices and what more, they even store the number of the car in those bills. Now, I know why the bunks in Chennai dont do all that - they dont want the bad guys to trace the beautiful heoine who is trying to escape.

Meanwhile, it turns out that the jobless hero also has had his fair share of run-in with some local mafia goon in Mumbai. So, while he is driving the girl to Mumbai, they magically spot him and start chasing him.

After a couple of fights, some absolutely idiotic escapes at a toll gate and few deviations from the main road into unchartered territory to hide and sing songs, the lead pair reaches Mumbai. At the same time, the two villain groups unite and decide that they would take the guy and the girl respectively.

The heroine manages to find her ultra-rich grandma who initially smothers her like anything. But there is some other uncle dude in the family who resents her presence, coz her mother had ditched the family. So heroine runs away from new heaven and comes to the road, whereupon fate ensures that the hero meets her.

At that precise moment, the dada groups converge and start beating the crap out of the hero. However, their best efforts only result in 5 drops of blood coming out of hero's mouth, though they hit him heavily with GI pipes on the head, face and various other parts we have read about in human anatomy classes.

And in a scene never seen before in Tamizh cinema (sic), the hero thrashes off all the baddies numbering some 20 and weighing a total of 3 tons.

He finally takes the heroine back to Bangalore, when suddenly his friends show up on the route. They start blabbering to the heroine about how much he loves her, though he hasnt told her that already. And she, who until that point in time, hasnt shown any kind of indication that she is falling for him, suddenly falls for him. And the movie ends there!

So what is the difference here? One, the entire story is spanned over a 3 day period or so, which in Tamizh cinema tradition is shown in the first stanza of a song. Two, there is no separate comedy track. Three, well, nothing more really.

About the acting. Karthi, who has been receiving rave reviews for his earlier performances, is certainly not impressive here. From whatever little I have seen of him in Paruthiveeran, I can only say that he is playing the same role here as well, with the only difference being that he is dressed in urban clothes. And the dude dances as bad as his brother did when he started acting.

Tammannah Bhatia is of course gorgeous. She just cant be anything else. And she finally gets her full rain song, though it is not of the sexy type.

And then there is Milind Soman. For someone who was a top model in the country, it is indeed sad to see him having to appear in such movies for 7 minutes and simply get beaten up by the hero. I actually felt that the other fat dada who was chasing Tammu, had a better role in terms of number of words uttered and number of hits received.

And someone please tell that Yuvan Shankar Raja to stop singing. Else, I may be forced to release my karaoke album.

The only good thing about the movie was that it was our first visit to the PVR Cinemas. The theater is good. But again, their restrooms are too cramped and their exit routes are quite complicated.

All in all, like I tweeted and have also mentioned in the heading here, if you ask me how the movie was, I can only tell you that the first letter in the title of Paiyya sums it up.

The mini pilgrimage in March 2010 – Day 1 Part 1

2010-03-20T19:46:00.000+05:30

contd. from previous post

We reached our Hotel - Hotel Dayalan - by 5:10 AM by walking from the bus stop. After we checked in, all 3 of us caught up with some pending sleep till about 6 AM. Afterwards, we started getting ready to visit the main temple on the agenda - Thirumananchery.

With the help of the Hotel guys, we hired a taxi and set out by 9ish AM. The main thing to note is that, for the first time in my life, on a day other than Aavani Avittam, I ventured out in public in a vaeshti. I had planned this even while packing my stuff for the trip.

We reached the temple by 9:40 or so. I may have mentioned this earlier, but doesnt hurt to repeat it. The temple at Tirumananchery is reknowned for having special powers that cater to the needs of the people who are having trouble getting married. Like me! And the popularity of this temple has apparently increased manifold in the last 50-60 years only.

The rituals to be followed in the temple are quite simple actually. You just need to buy a flower garland and get an archanai performed to the uthsava moorthies of the deities Sundareshwarar and Kokilambaall. During the course of this archanai, the priests first place the aforementioend garland near the deity and then they give it to you for wearing for a short while before the ritual comes to an end.

Once the prayers are all done, the head priest gave directions on what needed to be done with the prasadams. The prasadams are essentially a garland (referenced recently), viboothi, kungumam, manjal and a lemon. The viboothi and kungumam have to applied daily. The lemon is supposed to be extracted into a concentrate and that has to be consumed first thing in the morning of the day we return home. The manjal is to be used by women. And the garland has to be kept at home and the belief is that by the time it decomposes, a wedding would be fixed. And after the wedding is done, the couple is expected to visit the temple and then throw off the garland (or whatever is left of it) into a pond adjoining the temple.

Anyways, after completing the prayers, lighting of lamps at a couple of places and taking few mandatory pictures, we were out of the temple. Our next stop was Vaitheeshwaran Kovil. There was no big agenda at the temple and so it was a very business-like visit there. Once we were done with the prayers at the sannidhis of Vaitheeshwaran and Thaiyalnaayagi, we headed out for a much needed lunch.

Lunch was at a place called Hotel Sadabhishekam and we had a pretty good meal. We resumed our trip back to the Hotel and just as we left the Hotel, the driver said he was going to fill up fuel at the station next door. He asked us for 50% of the agreed amount and during the process of handing over the cash to him, my mother found out that she was missing a "loaded" purse that she had brought along from Chennai.

To be continued....

The mini pilgrimage in March 2010 – Day 0

2010-03-10T00:01:00.001+05:30

After a lot of pleading, hinting, cajoling, guiding, recommending, suggesting, nudging etc., I finally relented and agreed to make the long pending visit to Thirumanachery. To those of you who are not aware about the significance of this town, please be advised that a visit to the Shivan kovil in this town and doing the special poojai there, will help in ending the “single” marital status of an indvidual.

I had been asked to go to this place by countless people and now that I think about it, I don't think any of them actually got married after going through the routine that they advise me. But, I finally decided to take their suggestion in good faith and a trip was finally planned. We were to visit that temple of the 4th of March and return by the morning of March 6th, since I had a project party to partake in.

The tour almost didnt happen, because of the health of my parents. My father was having another bout of amoebiasis and my mother had a small kitchen accident which caused a 3" diameter burn mark near her right elbow. But both of them were quite particular that this trip not be delayed, because they didn't want to bow down to any obstacle to a trip being planned with the main purpose of removing obstacles!

So there we were opposite the Thiruvanmiyur bus stand at 10:40 PM on the 3rd of March, waiting for the Rathimeena bus scheduled to arrive at 11:05 PM. My dear friend Raghu had dropped us at the bus stand. Thankfully, we didnt make him wait, because the bus finally showed up a few minutes before midnight.

This was the first time I was travelling on this bus and I must admit that it was good. I had opted for a semi-sleeper AC bus for this trip, though my lack of knowledge in this area meant that I didnt book their full-sleeper bus. The seats were quite comfortable, the AC was in full swing, we were given fresh blankets and there was also a supply of packaged water.

The bus left the Thiruvanmiyur area a few minutes after midnight. Despite the relatively comfortable environment, I did have trouble falling asleep. It was primarily because I am not that used to sleeping in a bus unless I am really really tired. I was having a broken sleep and when the bus started slowing down at a place which I found out to be a petrol bunk in Pondichery, we took the usual toilet break. The time by then was 2 AM.

The journey resumed in around 15 minutes and after more rounds of broken sleep, I finally heard some announce that the bus was in Mayavaram. When I checked the clock it was 5:00 AM. So the entire elapsed time was around 5 hours, with an actual travel time of just 4 hours 45 minutes. That, by Indian standards was quite fast!

Day 1 updates in the next post.

Back from a break

2010-03-07T22:05:00.000+05:30

Dear readers - my apologies for not being active in this blog for the last 5 weeks.
The reason is primarily due to the change in my routine over the weekend, when I usually blog. With the gym visit being thrown in on the weekend, I usually end up finishing my lunch only around 2 PM. And after that, I am rarely in the mood to blog.
Moreover, I don't think anything blog-worthy has happened in my life. I do agree that most of my posts have been ramblings of the most mundane events in my day. But, of late, the interest in logging them has also come down drastically. That could also be due to the absolute lack of comments to most of my posts. You can argue that I didn't write anything that warranted a comment and my counter is still going to be that the absence of comments - good or bad - made me lose interest in writing!
Anyways, I hope to get out of the shell soon and the first thing I am going to do is to publish my latest travelogue - of my 2 day trip to the neighborhood of Mayavaram on the 4th and 5th of March. And I request you to comment on the posts.

My gym experience till now

2010-01-31T22:21:00.000+05:30

It is now 3 weeks since I started going to the gym. I have not gone there every day, but in these 3 weeks, I have gone there 11 times so far. That is less than 3 per week and is also less than my plans of going there 4 times a week. And even in these 11 visits, only two have been on a working day and the rest have all been on weekends and on Pongal.

The reason why I couldn't drag myself to the gym on working days is simple - I feel quite drained when I reach home. Even on the days that I go to the office closer home, my new diet has kept me slightly famished in the late evenings and that clearly is not motivating me to leave the comfort of home.

But I have subsequently made small changes to the diet plan that was prescribed. The dietitian prescribed only things like சுண்டல் for evening snack. I do not always get it at work and so, in the last couple of days, I have started to have any one whole fruit. And the definition of a whole fruit according to the dietitian is an apple or an orange or a pear.

But, the one thing I really miss in my new diet is the great Curd Rice - தயிர் சாதம். It has practically vanished from my plate. Unfortunately, my genome is hard-coded to consume it and so, I just have plain curd, watered down to some extent.

Now to the exercising part of the deal. I have been asked to spend 50 minutes on Cardio machines every time I come to the gym. Even here, it is supposed to be Tread Mill and Rowing on one day and Cycling and Elliptical Trainer on the other day. Time to be spent on each machine has also been provided along with a target for the number of calories to be burnt. There are also floor exercises prescribed for one of the days and some moderate weight training on the other day.

I always exceed the target on the Cycle and Row, but for some reason, the Treadmill and Elliptical machines have been a real challenge. More so on the Treadmill really. That could probably be because I am only walking and not running on the T'mill.

One would think that using the Elliptical trainer burns up calories quite easily, but that is not the case. The minute you start “pedaling” faster, the handrails also start moving faster. And believe me, you are certainly not ready for it when you use that machine for the first time. Or, when you use it, being in the near atrophic state that I am in. So, when you automatically tend to slow down the pace by holding on more firmly to the handrail. Needless to say, this slows down the pace and hence you don't burn too many calories. The manufacturers have thought about this and have provided an alternate grip, for this very situation. But, when you use that grip and start pedaling fast, the handrails also move fast and appear to be headed towards your face. It is quite a discerning feeling to have, especially when you are doing something that you don't normally do – exercising!

The cycle has its own challenge, though I do burn up a lot of calories. The challenge is, needless to say, the saddle. Starting from my unbranded tricycle to the BSA Champ and moving on to the BSA SLR, the saddles on my bicycles have been quite generous. And on my SLR and even on my father's bigger bicycle, we had extra seat cover/cushion. So, you can imagine the difficulty I face while seated on this saddle, which to me is simply the manufacturer's nice gesture of not making the user sit directly on a sharp piece of metal!

I don't have any such issue with the T'mill or even the Rowing machine. And for that matter, when I do the circuit training, I don't face too many problems. BUT, I cant say the same about the floor exercises they put me through. These set of 11 exercises are probably the most innocuous looking movements on earth. And they consume around 20-30 minutes of your life. The best part is that, at the end of it, you are left gasping for breath. In fact, not at the end, the gasping in my case starts in the 4th minute itself.

The issue with the circuit training is more mental than physical. There are quite a lot of “gym-body” guys who come there. They are obviously into heavy training and usually the weight sets are in the 3 digit area. And I go there very proudly and move the switches on the weights back to my capacity range in the mid 40s and 50s!

And I have also picked up my first gym related injury – a slight pain in the right ankle, closer to the calf muscle region. The physio advised me to use ice pack and also to avoid the treadmill for a couple of more days.

I checked my weight yesterday and can confidently say that I have lost at least 1 Kg from the time I signed up in this gym. I wont say much about the reduction in weight, because I am going to measure the true impact of the visits to the gym, based only on how my trousers fit me!

The celebrity who comes to my gym

2010-01-18T22:52:00.000+05:30

It is none other than the Tamizh movie star Vikram. Popularly known as Cheeyaan Vikram.

I saw him at the gym on Pongal day. And then today (Monday evening).

The guy looks quite lean - not thin, but lean. Is shorter than me too.

Today, I had the opportunity to be on an Elliptical trainer next to him. He was already on his 16th lap when I started mine. He must have spent close to 5 minutes after I started my workout and then got down. Not sure if my usage was bothering him or the fact that I completely ignored him, made him get down. But the truth could also be that he was simply done with that machine.

He then went off to do his Abs exercises. I too was scheduled to do it. But I was running out of time and so decided to skip that session.

Maybe, one of these days, if I so feel like it, I may greet him!

Annular Solar Eclipse 15th January 2010 at Chennai

2010-01-18T00:01:00.002+05:30

When the annular eclipse came up on the 15th of January this year, I was in office. I tried capturing it using the video facility on my Nokia 5800 Xpress music mobile phone.
While there seemed to be some cloud interference, one cannot see the eclipse directly.
However, if you observe closely, there is a pink colored dot that keeps floating around and in that, you can see the eclipse.
I dont know the technical term for that pink colored dot, so please adjust.

You can see the video here.

And to the best of my knowledge, I havent become blind now. But apparently there are some ramifications for watching an eclipse through a normal camera lens and so I dont know if I am only going to experience some long term impact!

Impact of this year's edition of Chennai Sathamam, I mean, Chennai Sangamam

2010-01-17T19:59:00.000+05:30

In this year's edition of Chennai Sathamam a.k.a Chennai Sangamam (my view of the previous edition is available here), Rock music and Sufi music - two of the most unique contributions that Tamil culture has given to human society - were included in their lineup. And since Elliots Beach still retains its urban appeal, the Rock music shows all seemed to be set only there. Needless to say, we have had a very quiet time in the last one week.

And this time around, the organisers advertised that the grand finale was also going to be held at the same beach. What this meant was absolute chaos in Besant Nagar. The traffic was way more than what this small neighborhood could handle. My street became a parking lot. One moronic SOB also parked his car right in front of my gate, thereby ensuring that the gate became a wall. I waited patiently for that scumbag to return and vented out mildly; mildly because he had a youngster with him, who was taller and in much better shape than I was.

And then the fireworks started. This resulted in the cat that is roaming around my house to take refuge under my new sofa!

I really pray to God that something happens to this goddamn event and it gets canceled!

Smog in Chennai on 13th Jan 2010

2010-01-17T19:40:00.000+05:30

Pictures taken at the Kathipara Grade Separator and sections of GST near the airport.

While this doesn't look too bad on camera, the impact was much more when seen live! But in any case, it was not as bad as in 2008.

Thuglaq annual function

2010-01-17T17:22:00.000+05:30

On 14th Jan., I attended the 40th Annual Function of the Tamizh weekly magazine Thuglaq. I have been wanting to attend this for the past couple of years, but have stayed away primarily due to the seating problems that are reported everytime.

This time around, my friend Raj was able to procure special tickets (reserved ones that were 2 rows from the stage), through his contacts. Yet, we had to be in our seats some 2 hours before the program started!

This year around, there were no special invitees, but one could still see lot of famous faces in the auditorium. I saw BJP leaders L.Ganeshan and Pon.Radhakrishnan. Ramagopalan of Hindu Munnani was also present. Then there were writers of Thuglaq like Paza.Karuppaiah, Indian Express Gurumurthy, I.A.S (retd.) Murugan and Advocate Vijayan. Singer Aruna Sairam was present too. So was cinema director K.Balachander.

The event started off with Cho addressing the gathering in his inimitable style. The whole evening witnessed speaker after speaker launch into tirades about how callous the entire system - administration, judiciary, economy and of course politics - had become. Many of this has been written in many editions of the magazine itself and hearing it in person from these illustrious people was an amazing experience.

Probably because this year is not an election year, there was no new rhetoric, but I am waiting to attend the event next year.

O2 - Me too

2010-01-09T19:17:00.001+05:30

I hereby formally announce that I have joined a gym - 02. I paid the money on Wednesday - 6th Jan. Yesterday - 8th Jan - was my first day at the gym, but it was spent evaluating my present fitness levels and collating all necessary data to prepare my workout schedule.

As part of this evaluation, they first measured my height and weight. Between these two measurements, they asked me to sit on the floor with my legs stretched out against some equipment. They asked me to raise my hands up and then bend down. There was a scale on that equipment and I was asked to touch it. Apparently, the farther you touch the scale, the fitter you are. No guesses on where i was marked on this scale.

Then, they put me on the treadmill test. Started it walking at 5.6 Kms/hr (3.5 miles/hr) for 2 minutes on zero degree inclination. Then next 2 minutes were @ 6.4 Kmph. From the fifth minute the inclination was increased gradually. I failed to notice how much it went to, but the whole thing stopped after the 8th minute.

They allowed me to take some water after this and the therapist took me to another trainer. He then asked him to spot me do some push ups. I managed less than a handful and he then asked me to do a variation of the same, by resting on my knees. I barely managed a handful even then. I was no expert in push ups earlier, but ever since I developed the carpal tunnel problem, I have been very afraid to try it at home. So I was not surprised with my inability to do a decent number of push ups.

I was then asked to do some basic sit ups and managed more than 15. I guess I wasnt doing it rightly, coz the trainer said that I was stressing my neck a lot. And my neck couldnt agree more to what he said.

After this was done, the physiotherapist gave me an instrument that looked like this, basically to find my BMI and my body fat percentage. It was to held with both hands and the thumbs had to press some sensor at the top of the grip.

The physiotherapist said that, according to my BMI score, I was only a few 100 grams away from being labeled Obese. And that I could achieve it with that night's dinner. After hearing this scientific confirmation of a visible fact, I felt very proud of my growth, especially in the last 2-2.5 years.

He then checked how often I could come to the gym. Taking into consideration my daily travel to work, I decided that 4 days in a week would be the best I could do and that too mainly because of the weekend. And he asked what my goal was going to be. I clearly told him that it was tummy reduction and overall fitness. I also told him about my carpal issues and he said he'd suggest some exercises for that as well.

He then asked me to have a 20 minute walk on the treadmill in the 5.6-6.4 Kmph range. Once that was done, he asked me to spend another 20 minutes on an elliptical trainer. I did that as well.

The guy then told me that he'd be preparing my chart when I come the next day. I will be heading to the gym after publishing this post and hopefully the chart is really ready by then. Also, there is a meeting pending with the dietitian.

I have signed up for an annual package at this gym and I hope that this latest fitness endeavor of mine lasts forever!

No air travel in 2009

2010-01-02T23:41:00.000+05:30

Just realized that I haven't set foot inside an airplane in 2009.
This is the first calendar year where this has happened (or not happened), ever since I started flying in 2000.

Happy 2010

2010-01-01T14:19:00.000+05:30

Here's wishing all regular viewers, the lone follower and any accidental visitor, a very Happy 2010.

I am on leave today simply because I was on leave on the same date last year. Last year was pretty good professionally and since I didn't really change my style of working, I think only such superstitions can see me through every year. Touch wood.

Review of Kandaen Kodumai-yai... I mean Kandaen Kadhalai

2009-12-13T23:04:00.001+05:30

As part of my resolution to watch all Tammu movies on the big screen, I watched Kandaen Kadhalai today. And I watched it some 5 or 6 weeks after its release. Better late than never one may think. But that one person is wrong.

This movie is really awful. As bad as, I am sorry, worse than Aanandha Thaandavam. And unlike that movie, this one is difficult for even a die-hard fan of hers like yours truly.

I don't want to hurt my hands by typing a detailed review, so here are a few brief comments:
1. The people who made the movie seem to have forgotten one aspect called screenplay
2. The same folks also forgot to put an alert message that there was one song sung in a totally new language called Bhojmil. And it was sung by an exponent of that language, Udit Narayan.
3. The hero used an unbelievably bad US accent when he said words in English
4. His speech to his board members or some such motley crowd was horrible. The scene ended with members of the crowd clapping their hands. I think they did that to either muffle the swear words they were muttering under their breath or to ensure that he didn't speak anymore.
5. Jab We Met is clearly the inspiration for this movie. But did they really have to do so many scene-by-scene adaptations? Including the dialogues? Most of it felt out of place in a Tamil movie.
6. Funny man Santhanam's comedy track wasn't as great as critics and reviewers had made it out to be.

I will stop with this now. In case you have still not seen the movie, please make it a point to continue that status.

The only good part of the day was that I watched a movie with Dr.Bulb after eons. But I do feel sorry that I had to drag him to watch this ~!@#$%^&*.

Will India be the next USSR?

2009-12-12T15:03:00.004+05:30

So many states want to break away from their parent state on grounds ranging from the type of language they speak to administrative inefficiency. Some of these demands may exist for many decades, but still, these are demands of creating a new identity within the nation.

Then there are so many political parties that are making their presence felt, primarily due to their son-of-the-soil policies.

There are few factions that want portions carved out from multiple states to form a new entity.

Some people even want states to be formed on the basis of the caste of the population!

And of course, we have the perennial problem in few states that want to break away from the nation itself.

The Government of India, in the last decade and more, has been formed by regional political parties. These parties have all come into existence pursuing any one of the items listed above.

If this trend of a coalition Government continues (I don't see anything else happening) for another decade, it would, at some point in time, be forced to accede to most of these requests.

I feel we would end up in a situation like in USSR where multiple Republics came under a single banner called USSR. And as recorded in history, USSR crumbled under its internal strife and economic issues to become multiple independent nations.

God forbid I live to experience the ignominy of having to take a visa to go from Chennai to Bangalore!

Buckle of my belt buckled under pressure

2009-12-10T08:00:00.006+05:30

Something happened last week that gave me a whole new perspective about the phrase "buckle under pressure".

Of late, I have been using a belt that is black on one side and brown on the other. So all one needs to do is to switch the buckle and you get to wear the color of your choice.

These belts come with two methods by which the switching of sides happens. In the most common method, the buckle clamps on to one end of the belt strip. To switch sides, you push a small "lever" and un-clamp it from the belt strip. You then clamp it back to the same end of the belt strip, but you would have first changed the sides.

In the second method, the buckle itself comes with a small bearing and is tightly nailed on to the belt strip. So to switch sides, one simply has to rotate the buckle along this bearing and you are done. It is quite simple.

The belt that I have, belongs to the first type. So, after the excess usage over the last 2 years, the portion of the belt strip where the buckle clamped itself, started to get thin.

It was not just the age factor that caused this erosion, but also the sheer pressure that was being exerted on the belt whenever it was on my waist. Clearly, the buckle could not handle this extra pressure and it started clawing away the portion of the belt with its clamp made of metal teeth.

And one fine day last week, when I stepped out to work, I noticed that the buckle had detached itself from one end and was hanging in front of me, still holding on to the other end. The 3 images below would convey the situation clearly.

I quickly corrected the situation and went to office.

Things seemed fine till I reached work. After having my breakfast, I went to wash my hands and found that the belt was back to the unwanted state that it attained earlier in the day.

To avoid any further embarrassment, I took out the belt and went belt-less the whole day. I came home and cut off the portion of the belt that was losing its thickness. Now, the buckle was back, clamping itself on to a fresh portion of the strip. And to be on the safer side, I let the buckle remain as is and went without a belt for another day.

I felt really odd on both the days without the belt. Wearing formal shirts tucked into formal trousers somehow felt incomplete without a belt. There was also the perennial problem of the trouser not being held at the waist - or the neighborhood on my body that may have been classified as a waist when I was born.

Anyways, I am now back to normal with my belt in place. But I need to plan for a backup and get 2 new belts. I think I am pretty much done with the two-sided belts, unless of course, I get one with the buckle of the aforementioned second type.

Too many ants make me antsy

2009-12-08T21:25:00.005+05:30

The word on the street is that I am a very sweet guy. But I think the ants have taken it quite literally!

In the last month, I see a sharp rise in the number of ants around the house. Even if one attributes it to the changing weather, I have certainly not seen so many.

My room, especially, is under heavy attack. There is a big procession along one wall. There is one on the telephone wire. There is one in the bathroom. And the worst part, some 2 weeks back, there was a huge assembly of them on my bed.

The ants in my bed is actually an interesting story. I went to sleep one night and after lying down, I felt something unusual to my left hand side - close to my elbow area. My first impression was that some mud had somehow transferred onto my bed. And being the lazy bum that I am, I simply pushed the "mud" out of my bed.

And in a matter of 15 seconds or so, I again felt some more "mud" in that area. Now, I got up to take a closer look and guess what I saw? Of course you can guess it - the title of my blog refers to ants. The paragraphs before this one also refer to ants. And even this particular story talks about ants in my bed.

So yes, you guessed it right. There was a big procession of ants on my bed. I was quite shocked and retreated to the living room and used the spare mattress to sleep. Later on, my bed was cleaned, a fort of ant-powder was put around the base and streaks of anti-ant chalk powder were also drawn all over the cot.

I have now been using my bed for the last 2 weeks with no issues - touch wood. But the ants are still going about their business in the other areas that I listed earlier.

What a coincidence

2009-12-06T20:56:00.004+05:30

Last weekend was probably one that registered the highest level of coincidence in my life.

2 of my childhood buddies came to Chennai. One of them lives in the US and the other in Bangalore. I had met them separately in 2005-6, but the last time that all three of us were in the same coordinates, was in the previous millennium!

The friend from US - Dr.Bulb, Ph.d and 2 post graduate degrees - landed in Chennai last Friday night (27th Nov). The guy from Bangalore - Papsu, an M.S from I.I.Sc - came to Chennai that same morning. And we all met up at Dr.Bulb's house.

And as part of the catching-up routine, this is what we did!

Papsu had earlier come home with his mother, wife and son (baby). His sister, BIL and nephew joined a little later. He left that same evening back to Bangalore. Bulb is still here in town till end of this year.

We are coming back... baby....

2009-12-01T21:38:00.002+05:30

It’s been quite a long time since I blogged about interviews. The reason is simple. My company had put a freeze on hiring for the past 15 months or so.

Now that the economy has supposedly improved, the freeze has been thawed (sic) and the formal recruitment process has started off. I salivated at the prospect of being on the panel for the simple reason that they give some fodder for my blog.

I didn’t get to interview many people and had to be satisfied with just 3. And out of these 3, only 2 interviews were even worthy enough to be blogged. And even they made the cut only because
(a) I haven’t blogged much about interviews recently due to the reasons mentioned earlier
(b) I haven’t blogged much about anything in the recent past

The first candidate was no good for this blog. But the second guy was. I will however start with the last guy. The last candidate I interviewed was unfortunately slotted around lunch time. And as it happens in all such interviews, there was a delay in starting the discussion on time and we actually started only around 12:30 PM. It was a fairly reasonable interview, with the guy meeting most of our expectations. Towards the end, I asked him the usual “Do you have any questions for us?” question. Usually people respond with some real simple question like “Do you have automation projects?” or “Do you have banking domain projects?” or a very terse “Nothing right now”. But this guy went one step ahead with the last option. He said “Nothing, I am hungry” with a big grin!

Now, to the second guy. He has around 4-5 years of experience out of which, 2 years have been in the realm of product testing in the mobile telephony arena. I asked him to talk about that project. He told me that he was primarily involved in testing the security feature in few high-end phones, whereby one can login to an application over the web and issue commands to lock the handset. So I asked him to tell me potential error points that can happen in this end-to-end workflow. The guy responded with issues that were related to application settings on the handset alone!

Then, I asked him to tell me how this communication from the web server to the mobile phone happens. His response – “Through WAP”. I then asked him to tell me how a web server that is connected to a hard-wired network (I even pointed to a computer in the interview room) communicates to the mobile phone. All I wanted to hear from him was about transmissions and receptions from servers to satellites or mobile towers, but he seemed to be on a different wavelength.

He said – “That’s through WAP technology” with a tone soaked in pride. He went on to say that it was only through “WAP technology” that SMS from one phone reached the other. Not wanting to hear anymore such gyaan, I went to another area altogether.

He said that he’d reviewed test cases written by his team. I asked him how he did that. First he gave me some of the standard answers like he’d check the layout, do a spell check etc. and would then look to see if all requirements have been covered. I asked him how he managed to review the work of some 5-6 of his team members from offshore while he was at onsite. His answer was that he had 2 reliable people in his team at offshore who would ensure all of that and he would simply collate the artifacts and submit to customer!

Slightly exasperated, I asked him as to what he’d do if he joins my company and his “reliable” team members don't. His response was that he’d first go through requirements and then check the test cases to see if they are all fine. And he then said that after a month or two, he’d identify a reliable person who would do all this for him! My friends felt that he was being too truthful and I don't disagree. But an interview is basically a forum where one’s ability to lie and ability to articulate theoretical concepts such that they sound practical, are the only things that help in selecting a candidate. So on that count (and also because he didn’t clear questions asked by another panelist on the technical front), I had no choice but to reject him.

Eagerly waiting for the next lot!

An outing with my teams

2009-11-22T14:14:00.004+05:30

With the economic crisis supposedly changing directions, my company has resumed the provisioning of our quarterly project party budgets. I decided to utilise the same before they change their mind and so, yesterday, my teams had our project party.

This was in fact the first party for quite a few of my team members and also the first one for all us in this account.

We pooled in sponsors for the event in the form of funding from our team members at onsite, one person who was leaving and also treats from select few who had their birthdays in the recent past.

We first went Karting at a center along the ECR. After a really good time on the track (I drove twice, with the second round witnessing me bump out two karts who didn't allow me to pass), we went to a resort near the Mahabalipuram Shore Temple.

We had a good lunch, but must admit that we've had better ones. The dessert in the form of Gulab Jamun and Strawberry Ice Cream, was however, quite good. I must have had 3 helpings I think.

After lunch, we spent the afternoon playing the usual silly party games and when the patience of the crowd was reaching testing levels, we headed outdoors. The guys started playing cricket as usual and also as usual, the girls moved a little far away to play Antakshari! If this is not a fundamental genetic difference, I don't know what else is.

We rounded off the day with bajjis and tea and left the venue by 6 PM.

The effect of spending 10 minutes on the ridiculous contraption called the Kart and the one hour I spent playing cricket in the hot sun, has left me a little exhausted. Also, feeling a little pain in some regions of the body that I cant see! Hopefully, a good sleep should help me "recover"!

A brief history of the events in my life in the last 3-4 weeks

2009-11-09T22:42:00.004+05:30

* Picked up a neck sprain in the first week of October. Self-medication with pain relieving gels and ointments didn't work. An Ortho' prescribed tablets, but to no avail. Registered 5 days of leave in October alone. Second opinion took me to a scan centre for an MRI. After the wallet became thinner by Rs.5,500 an obvious fact was documented - I am fat! Doing some basic stretch exercise which have definitely alleviated the pain. I am better.
Root cause - posture while operating the computer and while traveling.

* MRI scan is a 15 minute torture on the ears. The noise that the machine makes is very loud and quite irritating. And while I was inside the chute, I somehow felt nervous.

* Have been going more often to the office closer home to avoid the long distance commute.

* Had a rather quiet birthday. Some friends and team-members did organise a cake-cutting event in the evening and I had a tough time convincing them to stick to my principles of not wasting cake by smearing it on the face.

* Celebrated a very quiet Deepavali, though the officials seemed to hold a different opinion. Either I became deaf or my town has been moved out of Chennai!

* Seeing many resignations in the company at all levels. 2 in my team have quite in Sep-Oct. I have a feeling that a couple of more are due.

* I cleared all the exams mandated at work for a promotion and have been given strong indications that there are no slots for my band of employees! If it is available, I am not eligible. If I am eligible, it is not available!

* Learnt that murungaikkai is used in an oorugaai.

* Attended an awesome spectacle called Annaabhishekham at the Ratnagirishwarar temple near home. Refer pictures here.

* The rainy season finally started in Chennai last week. Pretty heavy rain. Saturday was non-stop. Memories of last year, when we witnessed a similar incessant downpour, came up.

* Nothing else of any significance. Hope to resume blogging with earlier frequency at the earliest. Have been staying away just to avoid spending long hours in front of the computer.

Quiet a Deepavali this time

2009-10-18T10:47:00.005+05:30

I know that Raghu feels otherwise, and quite strongly at that, but I am very sure that this Deepavali yesterday, was easily one of the quietest (Raghu - I got the spelling right) I have experienced in recent times.

I may not have mentioned in these annals before, but the bursting of fire-crackers in my street is very much on the lower end of the scale. And this time around, with me taking a total back-seat due to my neck strain, there was hardly anything done in my street. If only the Neel Metal Fanalca folks come to sweep the roads, they are likely to think that my street was imported from some other country!

And even in the neighborhood, there is usually a lot of fanfare and celebrations. There are many vedis - sarams and bombs and single vedis - that are burst and usually it all starts by 5:30 AM for sure. Not this time.

Only on Saturday night did I see an increase in the festivities. Even then, it was not like usual. Usually, when I watch TV on D-Day, I'd have to increase the volume frequently to compensate for the noise outside. Not this time.

I dont think that an entire neighborhood suddenly woke up to the idea of pollution, global warming etc. I like to think that people are clearly thrown away by the exorbitant price tag associated with fireworks. And in these difficult economic times - I still don't think we have come out of the slump - the priorities of people has clearly changed and the consumption of fireworks has reduced. The age-old adage of "Kaasa Kari Aakkaadha" has been adhered to.

From my side, I didn't partake much in bursting of fireworks for 2 reasons. One, I have not recovered from my neck strain and didn't want to risk playing with fire-crackers. And two - sheer boredom.

Instead, I spent the whole day in front of the TV. There were 2 Tammu movies telecast and there was also an interview of hers at 10 PM. So I was there on my sofa from the afternoon till night, with frequent breaks for munching, bathroom visits and one solid break of 30 minutes when the channel itself had a break for News. That period was used mainly to watch my parents burst the left-over crackers of last year and then me taking a much needed shower.

When I finally called it a day, I am sure that my sofa and TV heaved a collective sigh of relief!

I survived Nalli

2009-10-04T16:58:00.006+05:30

Actually, I want to make it clear up front that I have nothing against Nalli, other than the fact that it is located in T.Nagar. This post and the title would have resulted even if I'd visited any Saree selling shop. And if I'd probably visited Pothy's or some such enterprise, nothing would be left of me to post anything ever again.

It all started because I sold my Maruti 800 last month. This meant that for the 2009 Deepavali shopping in my family, I had to do the driver duty. And the day selected to formally initiate the shopping was today.

When the weather forecast indicated that I was to drive to T.Nagar, I made a deal with my parents that we should go in the morning itself to avoid the rush. Things went according to plan and we were there at Nalli by 10 AM. Surprisingly, I got a parking space within the premises of the shop itself.

A point to be noted here is that I haven't gone to Nalli for many years now. I wont be surprised if it is a decade in fact. I am, of course, referring to the Nalli at Panagal Park.

But the minute I entered, I realised that this place hadn't changed much. I was proven wrong once we entered the upper levels of this shop. First of all, I have only vague memories of going upstairs. And the vague became vaguer once we were pointed to some side entrances and additional floor space. It was like a Universe within a Universe.

The floor layout of the shop may have changed. But its customers don't seem to have changed much. There were clearly, more women than men and I can classify them thus:

Women:
1. Excited young girls getting their first Saree
2. Youngsters trying to get a Saree to wear on very special family functions
3. Office-going young-to-middle-ageing women buying Saree to wear on special office functions
4. Middle-aged aunties in jeans and t-shirt (with eyeglasses above the forehead) trying to buy something to prove that they are still Indians
5. Middle-aged women going through the ritual of buying stuff for festivals
6. Older women doing the same

Men:
1. Bored husbands
2. Bored sons
3. Bored brothers
4. Bored drivers
5. Bored cousins
6. You can repeat the above set by replacing "Bored" with "Exhausted", "Confused", "Frustrated" and "Scared".

Seriously, the only happy men inside the shop would be the owners. No one else.

And the women! My goodness. The Saree shop seems to be a level-playing field for all types of women because they all want do the same thing - nudging each other to catch a good spot near a pile of Sarees; Playing small mind games on each other by passing bad remarks on some Saree; Asking for something and then saying that they asked for something else altogether; Using complicated technical analysis on the Saree material; Asking their male accomplices for an opinion that they are anyway going to ignore; Yet, making the male accomplice feel as if he had a say in the whole decision!!!

Yikes! If there is one thing that is really great about being a grown-up single man, it is the fact that one doesn't have to frequent Saree shops that often. Once a year and you are all set.

I am sure that most men have experienced such exasperating moments in their lives. But at least you have to go through this pain a few times a year. Spare a thought for the salesperson at the shop who has to do this for literally every day of his adult life! And the people at Nalli seem to be hardened professionals. Some of them actually indulged in banter with the customers! God save them!

I request the reader to also go through this post from Raghu.

I was warned by a Security guard in a mall

2009-09-28T21:33:00.004+05:30

First of all, hope you all had a good Vijayadashami.

Second of all, if you thought that I was warned for leering at women or moving around in a suspicious manner or whatever, well you have to wait till I fill out the historical events leading to the said warning.

Today marked the opening of a new mall in Chennai which claims to be one of the biggest in Chennai in some category or the other! It is the Ampa Skywalk mall.

There was an article in The Hindu a few days back about the planned inauguration on Vijayadashami, which is today. Raghu and I christened this mall as pu.pu.ka - Putham Pudhu Kadamai. For those of you who dont remember, pa.ka is Pazhaya Kadamai and represents Spencers and pu.ka is Pudhu Kadamai and stands for City Center.

Anyways, we went to the mall and found that the place was very much under construction. That is to say, the infrastructure was ready, but the shops weren't. Kinda like the cliched phrase "Operation success; Patient dead".

The whole place was basically getting ready with a dais and arranged chairs - a clear indication that some kinda formal inauguration meeting was going to be held. My boss' husband is an architect and worked on this mall. After reaching the mall, I checked with her to find out if any celebrity was expected for this function. She said that Maddy could show up. I asked if Tamanna was expected and she couldn't quite confirm that.

Since there then was no point in staying there, we left the place and decided to head to Ispahani Center for a change. While we were there, Raghu and his wife went to one of the fancy-high-priced-up-market leather goods shop to look out for something. I stepped in to the shop and felt totally out of place. So I came out and decided to wait for them.

While waiting outside, I was leaning on the rail that they have put up to avoid people falling into the atrium. And I was leaning by resting my body against the rail and also had my right leg up on one of the lower rails.

A security guard was walking around and he came towards me. It was clear that he was going to say something and I knew he that he was going to say something objectionable. And he came near me and said "Railings-ல கால் வெக்க கூடாது Sir" (Don't keep your foot on the railings Sir). I asked him why? He only smirked and said "வெக்க கூடாதுன்னு சொல்லிருக்காங்க Sir" (They have said that one should not keep foot on the railings Sir) and then moved away.

I was in a relatively good mood and took my foot away. Luckily Raghu also came out by then and we headed out.

And, that was the warning I got from a Security guard in a mall.

Once again, wish all of you had a good Vijayadashami today!

Random Observation # 050

2009-09-26T13:53:00.002+05:30

Of late on all Tamizh TV channels, a statutory warning message appears on the screen, whenever they show movies or "serials" where the characters are either smoking or drinking or doing both.

While I appreciate the initiative of these channels, I also want them to put similar warning messages at appropriate times to promote the following two traffic safety norms:
1. Riding bikes without helmet
2. Driving cars without using seat belt

You are welcome to suggest more such instances for which warning messages can be shown.

A belated recording of a historical event

2009-09-22T21:39:00.003+05:30

Just realised that I didn't record, in these annals, the purchase of my first genuine Touch phone. I used the word genuine because I did have a touch based phone some 3-4 years back, but that was more like a PDA than a phone.

Anyways, on the 16th of August 2009, I bought the Nokia Xpress Music 5800 phone.

It is a pretty cool phone and am liking it so far. But after being used to a Sony Ericsson interface for almost 3 years, I do find a whole lot of things better in a Sony than in a Nokia. I know there are few people who are strong advocates of Nokia and even vehemently abhor Sony, but my take is that Sony is far better when it comes to the SMS module.

Clearly the Nokia I now own, has its own plus points - mainly things related to touch screen. I have been subjected to some of its inherent mood swings, but all-in-all, I am happy with this phone.

The reason why I went in for a new phone was simply to give my Sony Ericsson K810i to my mother. I had to give it to my mother because her phone was stolen at home! We suspect a gardener who had come to do some odd jobs around the house, but we cant say for sure.

Going off on a tangent, I see that I haven't been posting quite regularly in the last couple of months. Hope to set things right soon.

This is a brief review of Quick Gun Murugan, I say. Mind it!

2009-09-06T22:08:00.004+05:30

If you remember the character Quick Gun Murugan from the mid-90s, then you can relate very easily to this movie. If not, don't worry. As long as you can accept a few stereotypes (racial, lingual and movie formulae) and further accept that these stereos can be typed some more, then you will easily accept the movie.

This movie is about how Quick Gun Murugan takes on the might of Rice Plate Reddy, who is pushing his agenda of making the entire world eat non-veg. There are an assortment of characters who appear in the movie and the following really stand out in my opinion:
1. QGM of course. Played by Dr.Rajendra Prasad.
2. Rice Plate Reddy. Played by Nasser.
3. MBA Rowdy. Played by Raju Sundaram.
4. QGM's anna and anni.
5. To a limited extent, Mango Dolly played by Rambha was also good.
6. Gunpowder. Played by Shanmugasundaram.

The movie has many funny moments. But the best scene for me was when QGM and MBA Rowdy face off. Other scenes I liked include the one at the end, where QGM does manage to get few minor bleeding cuts and Mango Dolly starts shredding off pieces of her clothes to bandage the wound. Then there is the "duet song" between QGM and his Locket Lover. Or the way the henchman Gunpowder spells Bullet as "Bew-yell-yell-aiy-tea". And how can I forget the scene at the "Institute of Coconut Tree Climbing"!!!

The one big stereotype that this movie didn't have was a 2 hour plus running time.

Please go ahead and watch this movie. You will certainly not regret it.

P.S.: There is one thing I fear though. All the stunts done by QGM are clearly meant to be funny. Unfortunately, the leading men in Tamizh and Telugu movies are going to use them as part of their routine fair. And even more unfortunately, the masses will lap it up.

Sold our Maruti 800 today

2009-09-02T19:36:00.003+05:30

The first car we bought, in December 1999, was a Cyprus Blue coloured Maruti 800 DX. After clocking a fabulous 36K Kms over the last 9 years and 9 months, this car was finally sold today.

I have actually been trying to sell off this car for almost 2 years. I came quite close to closing out the sale with a dealer, when I was desperately hunting for a new Swift in late 2008. But something came up then and I had to back out of the deal.

I wanted to sell the car only because of the erosion that it was undergoing due to being exposed to the air in Besant Nagar. The car started picking up rust at amazing speeds and I didn't want it to turn into a pile of dust one fine day.

Also, the rust had started creeping into the engine bay as well and clearly, a big expense would be lining up in a year or two.

My parents also finally accepted the fact that the time had certainly come for the car to be sold. However, they came to the decision because, our part-time driver himself started seconding my opinion. Until that point in time, my views were being dismissed as being frivolous, high-handed and as being an opinion of a person who has no brains or even heart!

Though this guy did help my agenda, the sad part is that I would still not be ready to hand over my Baleno to him! And one of the main reasons I didn't buy a new Swift is also because of the fact that I might have to hand over the reins (so to say) to him.

Don't get me wrong. He is not a rash driver or a bad one or anything like that. Just that I somehow don't like the idea of giving him a big car or a new one to him. Some kind of prejudice I guess, like the many that people claim I have!

Anyway, long-story-short, this driver helped bring a buyer who is a mechanic and also deals in buying and selling of used cars. We have given it off to him for 65K which is about par on the market rate. Now that I have mentioned the amount, I have to prepare myself to hear word like "oh that is too less" or "if only u told me that u were going to sell it, I'd have gotten more" etc etc. Whatever be the case, the deal is done and there is no looking back!

My mother told me that she gave a personal farewell to her குழந்தை in the morning before we all got up. That sentimental value cannot be replaced by any number of cars that I buy henceforth. And it is the same sentimental value that Mr. Raghu is trying to play on right now, by saying that I could have spent some extra money and made it look as good as new!

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

2009-08-28T19:49:00.004+05:30

I don't know about Jack, but as someone who shares the first two letters of Jack's first name, I think all work and no play is making me dull. And sick too.

I see a clear increase in the quantum of work that has started coming my way, in the office. This is especially because my boss was out sick for the last two weeks and was out on personal reasons a couple of weeks earlier.

I have been working slightly extended hours anyways and the peak really started from the 18th. On the weekdays between the 18th and 24th, I have clocked around 12 hours on an average. I have also had two night-outs - Friday and Monday - till dawn of the next morning.

All this has taken a toll on my health. I haven't gone to office from Tuesday to the rest of the week. At first, it was the RSI related pain in my right wrist. I took a day off to rest the hand. But I have been carrying a cold for quite some time and that too flared up.

At the outset, it does look like I am taking 4 days of leave just because I "worked" for a week. But I think the last week was probably just the proverbial last straw that broke the camel's back.

I clearly have to work better or smarter and more importantly, take better care of my health. Hiding away from exercise under the excuse of mental exhaustion does get many a nod of approval, but I have to stop using that excuse. It is really time for me to wake up!

Shah.. Rukh... Koun ho tum?

2009-08-16T13:14:00.010+05:30

I am sure you have by now read/heard/watched the "shocking news" that Shah Rukh Khan was detained by US Immigration authorities when he landed in New Jersey last week.

Everyone's so damned upset about it. Everyone is wondering how this could happen to SRK?

This event gets instant media coverage. Politicians are jumping to his defence. So are Bollywood glitterati.

I just wonder where the @#ck were these nitwits when a former President was put through security check in the capital of THEIR COUNTRY.

That news itself came out so many months later and even then, it didn't come through Dr.Kalam and nor did it come out through the Government. It was an issue raised in Parliament by the Opposition; and if they hadn't, then the whole country would have not been aware of the humiliation.

But one good-for-nothing-over-hamming "actor" gets detained in an US airport and everyone is now concerned? What the @#ck? Is this the first time such a detention has taken place? If the USA can literally strip search an ex-President of India (on Indian soil that too), can strip search an active Defence Minister of India, when they can detain thousands and thousands of people landing/leaving their country, then they have all the bloody right to detain Mr.Khan.

If you think this was racial profiling, are you supporting every Indian/East-Asian who gets profiled thus? If this was religious profiling, then where were you when Kalam and Mammooty went through such checks - are they any lesser Muslims than this Khan?

I can even understand the reaction from the numskulls and bimbos of Bollywood responding with profound statements like:
1. Juhi - feels that the detention was "as absurd as Brad Pitt coming to India, being strip-searched, investigated and interrogated"
2. Farah Khan - "he can be discriminated (on the basis of religion), who else is left."
3. Mahesh Bhatt - "is shocking that Shahrukh Khan, who is by every definition a global icon, should be subjected to something like that".
4. Priyanka Chopra - "Shocking, disturbing and downright disgraceful. Its such behaviour that fuels hatred and racism. SRK's a world figure for Gods sake. GET REAL!!,"

Oh my God! He is a global icon? A world figure? Goodness gracious. Billions of blue blistering barnacles. Outside of North India and wannabe North Indians everywhere else, who knows SRK?

Like I said, I can understand these boneheads making such statements. But read what our Central Minister for Information and Broadcasting has to say: "I am of the opinion that the way we are frisked, for example I too was frisked, we should also do the same to them".

What the hell is happening?

I have a very simple request to all these geniuses and the million others who have said "that's right" to any of the statements above - why don't you try Satyagraha? Boycott anything and everything that is American. Don't watch Hollywood movies. Don't copy Hollywood movies. Don't buy American products. Don't stand in line at the US Embassy asking for visa to visit your child. Don't let your child stand in line at the US Embassy asking for visa to study in some college there. Do this to your friends and relatives as well. Stand in front of the US Embassy daily and ask them to leave your country. Don't sign the nuclear treaty with US. Cut off all ties with them.

People, please. Do wake up to the ground reality that whatever is done is only for (y)our safety. And you know what - my name itself has its roots in Farsi. And there is a big declared terrorist whose name is just a variation of my name in terms of spelling and pronunciation. So if this makes any Immigration officer pull me out of the Immigration line and check me - I don't mind.

All that Shah Rukh Khan is achieving is getting mileage for his next movie. He's well known to create such publicity stunts and this one is no exception (I am not saying that detention didn't happen; I am only saying that the stunt started when he advertised this to the media).

Wake up you moronic sycophants!

What happens when candle light passes through a glass of water?

2009-08-08T15:22:00.004+05:30

A smiley is formed on the table!

This was observed during the great dinner I had at Residency Towers' Crown Restaurant.

Crowning Glory

2009-07-28T21:59:00.004+05:30

On Sunday, Raghu and I decided to go out for dinner since it has been a while since we did that. It was kind of my turn to foot the bill and so Raghu generously opted for dining at Residency Towers.

I agreed and asked him to book the table. Just before I was about to start, I got a confirmation message from him that said that the table was booked, but that they don't have any seats on the outside.

Since I was under the impression that we were going to the buffet restaurant called Main Street, I was quite perplexed reading that message. So I called him to clarify and that's when I found out that the great one had booked a table in the Crown Restaurant in Residency Towers.

For those of you who haven't gone there, please be advised that it is probably one of those fancy dining spots in the city. Really up-market setup, mostly up-market crowd and hence very EXPENSIVE.

Raghu's defence was that since it was my treat he was not bothered about the expenses and simply opted for this. And of course, he blamed me for not being clear about the venue.

Anyways, we decided to go ahead with the plan. After quite a lot of "Take Diversion" boards on the route from his house to the restaurant, we reached the venue on time. The maître d' showed us to our table and when we went through the menu card, we were reminded yet again about how up-market this place was!

We had a very light dinner and yet, the bill amount was a whopping Rs.1700. For 3 people! Though we had agreed to go dutch, this was still quite high. I realised that the amount was high enough to warrant an exclusion from the credit card statement (since that is very much in the purview of my accountant a.k.a my father) and so, I opted to pay cash.

While the ambiance at the restaurant is excellent, I was not too happy with the food and service. Don't get me wrong, the food was good. Just that, it wasn't worth the price tag it came with. And the service - again no complaints that they didn't treat us badly or anything like that. Just that the policy seemed to encourage a very laid-back atmosphere, but it was bordering the realm of "kitchen closed"!

Anyways, the crowning glory for Sunday evening was a query from my mother on Monday morning. She asked "What made you guys go there? Did you get engaged or did he win a Rs.2 Crore business deal?". THE END!!!

Right person but Wrong number

2009-07-20T21:06:00.004+05:30

Tring.... Tring.... Tring.... Tring....

"Hello"
"[lot of noise for 2 seconds] alo" (pronunciation note: in "alo" the "a" is pronounced like the "u" in "ultimate" and the "lo" is pronounced like the "lou" in "loud")
"Hello"
"யாரு பேசறது?"
"Hello, எந்த number வேண்ணும்
"யாரு பேசறது?"
"எந்த number வேண்ணுங்க
"யாரு பேசறது? நானு Jayaram பேசறேன்"
"wrong number-ங்க "
"யாருங்க?"
"wrong number"

Click.

The above conversation took place 10 minutes back and kinda spurred me into writing this post.

I am sure many, if not all, of you have a similar experience in attending calls that were meant for the wrong number, but somehow ended up in your telephone - mobile or fixed.

What I am complaining about, is primarily the caller's attitude in such situations. A vast majority of the callers seem to think that it is impossible for them to get a wrong number. They are supremely confident that they have dialled the desired number perfectly. And they are even more assured that their telephone service provider has an impeccable track record in giving the perfect connection every time.

Furthermore, the callers also seem to think that the person they meant to reach out, is actually having nothing else to do in his life other than being available at the other end of the phone line when this person makes a call!

Which is why, when their call gets through, they invariably proceed beyond the formal "Hello" and start delving deep on to the topic they want to discuss. When they are interrupted by what they feel is an incredulous "Who are you" or "Whom do you want", they lose the plot and very often respond with a not-so-humble "it's me" response. Very few, go beyond that and disclose their name and fewer still, share the name of the person they intended to call. But it is only in the rarest of circumstances that people actually check with the other person about the number they wanted to reach.

So what begets this attitude on the caller's part?

Time to call my house a zoo?

2009-07-19T09:50:00.005+05:30

First I live here.
Then lot of crows come in.
Not to mention the squirrels that frequently build their homes inside mine.
Also add the cats that roam around.
The occasional parrots that fly by.
A hawk or two have visited us too.
We even had an owl come inside our house long back.
And the latest one is this Kingfisher. I saw it 2 days back, but before I could get my camera, it flew away. Today, I managed to capture it, but from quite a distance. I went some 15 feet near it to get a closer look, but probably this was one camera-shy bird and it just escaped to the neighboring house.

Cat on the wall

2009-07-17T19:13:00.003+05:30

Spotted this cat on my compound wall.

Bowling in the office

2009-07-11T14:31:00.003+05:30

A Bowling Alley has been opened in my office. It was opened a few months back, then was closed for a short while for some maintenance work and has been back in full swing for the past 2 months. The cost is very much in the affordable region since we have to pay only Rs.45 per person.

Couple of us at work have taken to bowling. We have decided to make it a weekly ritual and have so far been doing it for the last 4-5 weeks.

My form has been in the 100+ points range, though I scored one of my career highs of 133 last evening. Hopefully with more regular practice, I should touch the 150 mark soon.

Not that there is anything wrong with that - Seinfeld and Delhi High Court

2009-07-05T16:44:00.006+05:30

This hilarious episode in Seinfeld will now make so much more sense in India.

Whatever the law makers and enforcers and interpreters have to say, I am somehow unable to accept homosexuality. I don't fully understand what science or even history says about it, but in any case I am still not able to accept it.

I guess I have got to be politically correct henceforth when broaching this subject in public, but I am not changing my perception. Not that there is anything wrong with that!

Terminator Salvation - where is mine?

2009-06-30T21:32:00.003+05:30

Watched Terminator Salvation on Saturday evening at Satyam Cinemas.

This is the 4th installment of the immensely popular Terminator Movie franchise. And this is the first one that doesn't feature the man who was created by God to play the role of the Terminator - Arnold Schwarzenegger. Any number of Marlon Brandos and Al Pacinos and Christopher Reeves and Denzel Washingtons may come and go, but none of them can ever be a Terminator.

The role of the Terminator suite Arnold perfectly because of his absolute inability to act or deliver dialogues with emotions. Unfortunately, the plot of the latest installment of the Terminator series - Terminator Salvation - required the Cyborg to emote. Not something that the Governor of California can do.

The other big change in Terminator Salvation is the lack of Time Travel. In all 3 earlier editions, the T machines came to the present from the future. But in this movie, there is no such travel across the time quantum.

And that kind of threw me a little off-balance. The story takes place in the "current" year of 2018. But John Connor is actually older than his father Kyle Reese. In the absence of a time travel, I am unable to understand how this could happen. Maybe I am now doubting the very basis of Terminator movies, but still, I hope some Sci-Fi aficionado would be able to explain things to me.

Special effects were quite good, but nothing to rave about. The plot was not convincing and presented a lot of "why didn't he do that?" and "why are the machines not doing this?" type of questions. But on the whole the movie was not great.

That at the least the opinion i have and am sticking to it.

Kobe wins an NBA championship without my help

2009-06-18T22:40:00.006+05:30

Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers won the 2009 NBA Championship last Sunday night.

It was the 15th title for the Lakers and the 4th for Kobe. But it was also his first one without my help. Shaquille O'Neal may have made that statement, but what you read in the title of this post is being made by me.

Taking a break from your ROTFL activity on reading that statement, please consider the statistics that I am churning out here.

Kobe won his first championship in June 2000. That time I was in Los Angeles and it was my 3rd month living in that city. And the Lakers won a championship after 12 years. Kobe got his 2nd ring in June 2001 and guess who was still in LA - me. He then had his three-peat in June 2002. And I was still there.

I came back to India in early-2003 and guess what happened to LAL and KB? They lost in the Conference Semi Finals to the San Antonio Spurs. They did improve with their own version of a mini-Dream Team in 2004 and reached the NBA finals. However, they lost again.

Meanwhile, Shaq was moved out of the Lakers franchise and ended up in Miami. There, he won the championship in 2006. But Kobe was left in the wilderness.

And finally last week, Kobe did win the NBA championship in June 2009.

So clearly, my presence in the City of Angels, helped them to end a 12 year title-drought and my absence has taken them 6 years to overcome. Finally, the Lakers seemed to have moved on.

And outside of the cold statistics presented above, what you must know is that I used to follow every Laker game on TV while I lived there. I have gone through some excruciating playoff series when they took on the Sacramento Kings during their title run.

If I was seated with my arms and legs in one particular position and found that helping the Laker cause, I used to stick to that position except during breaks between quarters and probably during full time-outs.

I've bought Laker T-Shirts. I still have a Lakers mug in my house. I have bought foam fingers, but felt bad that I couldn't bring it back to India. I still preserve the tickets I bought to watch 2 Laker games at Staples Center - they are in fact my only purchase in eBay ever.

But ever since I returned to India, my viewing of the games has been limited to whatever little that ESPN shows on Saturday mornings (IST) during the regular season and early playoff time. But because it is at unearthly hours, I haven't been able to watch full games and so, have not provided the same kind of support like before.

So history has to record the efforts I have put in to ensure that the Lakers won. And to stress the point, Kobe has not just his first championship without Shaq, more importantly, he has won it without my help.

Random Observation # 049 - Men and Women

2009-06-16T21:41:00.007+05:30

It struck me all of a sudden (why else is this a Random Observation?) that when the scale of operation of a work/task/job changes, the gender of the people who do that job changes.

Examples:
1. Tailor.
The tailor to whom we individually give clothes is a man. Whereas, the Tailor who stitches our ready made garments is invariably a woman.
2. Cook.
The cooks who work in individual homes are invariably (if not exclusively) women. But the cooks who work n restaurants and those in the catering business are invariably (if not exclusively) women.
3. Those who serve food.
At home, it is either a mother or a wife. In restaurants and parties, it is invariably men.
4. Sweeper/Domestic help etc.
The ones who come home are all women. The ones who do the same job in an office of public are invariably men (except in ladies' rest rooms of course).
5. Story Telling.
To kids at home, grandmothers and aunts were the ones who spin yarns. But when it comes to the celluloid medium, the men are the ones doing it.

Anything else to add?

Note from author: 18-June-2009:
Corrected the mistake in point number 3; what you see now is the updated version. Thanks Ram.

Random Observation # 048

2009-06-14T21:57:00.003+05:30

For some reason, I suddenly had an add-on query on the main question asked by some பாண்டிய மன்னன் in the திருவிளையாடல் movie. The king's question in the movie was, whether the hair of women smelled by default or was it because of the treatment they gave to their hair, including attaching flowers to their hair.

My add-on query is basically, why do women keep flowers in their hair? This practice seems to be more prevalent with the tropical regions that anywhere else.

The question came up from a different angle too. During summer, I really want to have the shortest haircut possible, irrespective of whether it suits me or not. Women have always had more hair on the head than guys and so, I wonder how they are able to put up with all the associated irritations.

That's when I thought that maybe, the flowers that they keep on their hair, has some power to keep the head cool and free them from all associated issues. Do you know the reason why?

How did you handle this situation?

2009-06-03T22:46:00.003+05:30

There is a person in my team, who is currently on the last leg of a special performance assessment. The special performance assessment was necessitated because the annual performance evaluation cycle, found him to be in the bottom of the pile.

He is, unfortunately, not a good performer and has trouble completing some of his basic tasks. His previous managers have experienced some issues in his attitude as well – he apparently feels that he should not be working with “ordinary” science graduates when he has a PG degree.

The main issue I face with him is his attitude of a different kind – lethargy. Here is someone who has been informed that his performance is not of a satisfactory level; that he needs to improve drastically; that he is being put on a separate path where his work would be evaluated more closely.

Yet, his approach hasn’t really changed. He is still working the same way as before. In normal circumstance, I had an easy way out – simply release the guy from my team and hope that some other manager, who is in a dire need of heads more than skills, would take this individual. At least that’s how this guy ended up in my team in the first place.

But now, I do not have that luxury. If I have to fill out his assessment report now, I may not have very kind things to say. I would have to admit the lethargy that he brings to work. I would have to note down the fact that he is still approaching work in a reactive mode and not in a pro-active mode. I would have to mention that his quality of work still needs to improve. All this is only going to make the senior management decide to let this guy go. And by letting this guy go, I mean out of the company.

Here comes my dilemma. If I fill in an objective report, he is going to be asked to leave. The only way I can avoid this is by saying that he is good. But when he gets back to the annual evaluation exercise, the truth would come out. And at that point in time, my assessment is going to be questioned and probably, I might even be asked to leave.

So the obvious thing for me to do is to do the former – file an objective report. But it is the aftermath that worries me. I can’t really recollect providing feedback that has lead to the severance of the relationship between an employee and his/her employer. And in this case, the employee is actually an old guy who is at least some 3-4 years behind schedule on his career track and I believe this also has impacted his personal life. And how is someone going to fare in this current market situation when there barely any new job vacancies in the Software sector?

You can give me all the clichéd advices – that I should steel myself; that I should eliminate the “personal” angle; that I should remember that I am only doing my job; that I should remember that my job is itself at stake if I don't do this; that this is a perform or perish time; that this guy was given a chance but he didn’t take it up etc. etc..

But I want to know if you have actually been in that situation ever in your life? Did you face a similar predicament? If so, how did you handle the events after the decision was made? Or were you one of those gifted people who see everything as black and white and hence able to arrive at clear and bold decisions? Or have you been on the other side of the coin and if so, how did you handle things?

My first blood donation

2009-05-27T21:07:00.002+05:30

Actually it is my second. But that first time (not this first time) was for the father of a colleague of mine, who was having a surgery and required blood. This happened in circa 1998.

This first time happened yesterday (26th May 2009). There was a camp organised at work on Monday and Tuesday. There have been quite a few camps that have taken place on campus and every time, I would think of donating. But I would end up not doing so, under some pretext or the other.

Yesterday, a friend of mine came to my desk and asked if we could go. I guess that was the real push I needed and so I agreed. We went there in the afternoon, but the organisers informed us that they were overbooked for the day. They made an appointment at 2:30 PM on Tuesday.

We went there today on time, but there was still a pretty long line of people. We filled out a form (my father calls such forms as "laedhu form", but that is a different story that I hope to narrate some other time) and waited our turn.

The technician on duty first performed the Specific Gravity test (a.k.a Copper Sulphate test) to determine whether my haemoglobin count was at an acceptable level. You can refer this link from one of WHO's websites for details.

I passed that test and then the Doctor checked my BP. This was also in the standard acceptable range and so I was permitted to donate blood. My turn came up in a few minutes after the Doctor's clearance.

I was asked to lie down on one of the "beds" and then the other technicians got down to business. They gave me a soft rubber ball and asked me to keep squeezing it. Blood was collected from my left hand. After 5 minutes or so, the collection was stopped and they asked me to lie down for a couple of minutes.

Then one person came along and asked me to sit down. After confirming that I was in a steady state, he took me to the recuperation table. I was given a Frooti, asked to help myself to few biscuits and also have a banana. My friend had completed his donation a minute before I did. So, after the official recuperation, we went to the juice shop on campus and helped ourselves to a Dates Milk Shake. Dates was selected since it is considered to be rich in Iron and hence good for blood.

To cut a long (and yet another needless) story short, I did my bit for the society by contributing blood. I have also done enough self-publicity with this post too! And I request you to do what I did - I meant the donation part, not the publicity part.

There are many sites that would give you the necessary information regarding blood donation. The bank to which I donated is this one.

P.S.: In my eagerness to publish this post yesterday, I inadvertently posted it on the InGiliPiece post. My apologies to my fellow-authors of that blog.

Breaking News: Will DMK join the UPA Government?

2009-05-23T14:58:00.007+05:30

Read the breaking news here:

News 01
News 02
News 03
News 04
News 05
News 06
News 07
News 08
News 09
News 10
News 11
News 12
News 13
News 14

If you read these articles thoroughly, you will realise that these were news reports from May 2004. Clearly, history is repeating itself!

If you are lucky, these links might also give you some breaking news!

News 15
News 16
News 17
News 18
News 19
News 20
News 21
News 22
News 23
News 24
News 25

The 2009 Indian election results

2009-05-17T15:39:00.004+05:30

Disappointment.
Dismay.
Disgust.
Demoralising.
Distressing.
Deplorable.
Disgraceful.
Disturbing.
Dreadful.
Despair.
Dejected.
Disquieted.

Feeling all of the above because the results are basically
D A N G E R O U S for India.